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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10116 ***
+
+
+
+
+ALL SAINTS' DAY AND OTHER SERMONS
+
+
+
+
+      "Inheriting the zeal
+And from the sanctity of elder times
+Not deviating;--a priest, the like of whom
+If multiplied, and in their stations set,
+Would o'er the bosom of a joyful land
+Spread true religion, and her genuine fruits."
+The excursion--Book vi.
+
+
+
+PREFATORY NOTE {1}
+
+
+
+The following Sermons could not be arranged according to any proper
+sequence.  Those, however, which refer to doctrine and the Church Seasons
+will mostly be found at the beginning of the volume, whilst those which
+deal with practical subjects are placed at the close.
+
+A few of the Sermons have already appeared in "Good Words;" but by far
+the greater number were never prepared by their author for the press.
+They were written out very roughly--sometimes at an hour's notice, as
+occasion demanded--and were only intended for delivery from the pulpit.
+
+The original MSS. have been adhered to as closely as possible.
+
+It is thought that many to whom the late Rector of Eversley was dear will
+welcome the publication of these earnest words, and find them helpful in
+the Christian life.
+
+"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth:  Yea, saith
+the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do
+follow them."
+
+
+
+SERMON I.  ALL SAINTS' DAY
+
+
+
+Westminster Abbey.  November 1, 1874.
+
+Revelation vii. 9-12.  "After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude,
+which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and
+tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white
+robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying,
+Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.
+And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and
+the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and
+worshipped God, saying, Amen:  Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and
+thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever
+and ever.  Amen."
+
+To-day is All Saints' Day.  On this day we commemorate--and, as far as
+our dull minds will let us, contemplate--the saints; the holy ones of
+God; the pure and the triumphant--be they who they may, or whence they
+may, or where they may.  We are not bidden to define and limit their
+number.  We are expressly told that they are a great multitude, which no
+man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues;
+and most blessed news that is for all who love God and man.  We are not
+told, again--and I beg you all to mark this well--that this great
+multitude consists merely of those who, according to the popular notion,
+have "gone to heaven," as it is called, simply because they have not gone
+to hell.  Not so, not so!  The great multitude whom we commemorate on All
+Saints' Day, are SAINTS.  They are the holy ones, the heroes and heroines
+of mankind, the elect, the aristocracy of grace.  These are they who have
+kept themselves unspotted from the world.  They are the pure who have
+washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, which
+is the spirit of self-sacrifice.  They are those who carry the palm-
+branch of triumph, who have come out of great tribulation, who have
+dared, and fought, and suffered for God, and truth, and right.  Nay,
+there are those among them, and many, thank God--weak women, too, among
+them--who have resisted unto blood, striving against sin.
+
+And who are easy-going folk like you and me, that we should arrogate to
+ourselves a place in that grand company?  Not so!  What we should do on
+All Saints' Day is to place ourselves, with all humility, if but for an
+hour, where we can look afar off upon our betters, and see what they are
+like, and what they do.
+
+And what are they like, those blessed beings of whom the text speaks?
+The Gospel for this day describes them to us; and we may look on that
+description as complete, for He who gives it is none other than our Lord
+Himself.  "Blessed are the poor in spirit; for their's is the kingdom of
+heaven.  Blessed are they that mourn:  for they shall be comforted.
+Blessed are the meek:  for they shall inherit the earth.  Blessed are
+they who hunger and thirst after righteousness:  for they shall be
+filled.  Blessed are the merciful:  for they shall obtain mercy.  Blessed
+are the pure in heart:  for they shall see God.  Blessed are the peace-
+makers:  for they shall be called the children of God.  Blessed are they
+which are persecuted for righteousness' sake:  for their's is the kingdom
+of heaven.  Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you,
+and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
+Rejoice, and be exceeding glad:  for great is your reward in heaven."
+
+This is what they are like; and what we, I fear, too many of us, are not
+like.  But in proportion as we grow like them, by the grace of God, just
+so far shall we enter into the communion of saints, and understand the
+bliss of that everlasting All Saints' Day which St John saw in heaven.
+
+And what do they do, those blessed beings?  Whatever else they do, or do
+not do, this we are told they do--they worship.  They satisfy, it would
+seem, in perfection, that mysterious instinct of devotion--that inborn
+craving to look upward and adore, which, let false philosophy say what it
+will, proves the most benighted idolater to be a man, and not a brute--a
+spirit, and not a merely natural thing.
+
+They have worshipped, and so are blest.  They have hungered and thirsted
+after righteousness, and now they are filled.  They have longed for,
+toiled for, it may be died for, the true, the beautiful, and the good;
+and now they can gaze upward at the perfect reality of that which they
+saw on earth, only as in a glass darkly, dimly, and afar; and can
+contemplate the utterly free, the utterly beautiful, and the utterly good
+in the character of God and the face of Jesus Christ.  They entered while
+on earth into the mystery and the glory of self-sacrifice; and now they
+find their bliss in gazing on the one perfect and eternal sacrifice, and
+rejoicing in the thought that it is the cause and ground of the whole
+universe, even the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.
+
+I say not that all things are clear to them.  How can they be to any
+finite and created being?  They, and indeed angels and archangels, must
+walk for ever by faith, and not by sight.  But if there be mysteries in
+the universe still hidden from them, they know who has opened the sealed
+book of God's secret counsels, even the Lamb who is the Lion, and the
+Lion who is the Lamb; and therefore, if all things are not clear to them,
+all things at least are bright, for they can trust that Lamb and His
+self-sacrifice.  In Him, and through Him, light will conquer darkness,
+justice injustice, truth ignorance, order disorder, love hate, till God
+be all in all, and pain and sorrow and evil shall have been exterminated
+out of a world for which Christ stooped to die.  Therefore they worship;
+and the very act of worship--understand it well--is that great reward in
+heaven which our Lord promised them.  Adoration is their very bliss and
+life.  It must be so.  For what keener, what nobler enjoyment for
+rational and moral beings, than satisfaction with, and admiration of, a
+Being better than themselves?  Therefore they worship; and their worship
+finds a natural vent in words most fit though few, but all expressing
+utter trust and utter satisfaction in the worthiness of God.  Therefore
+they worship; and by worship enter into communion and harmony not only
+with each other, not only with angels and archangels, but with all the
+powers of nature, the four beings which are around the throne, and with
+every creature which is in heaven and in earth, and under the earth, and
+in the sea.  For them, likewise, St John heard saying, "Blessing and
+glory, and honour, and power, be unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and
+to the Lamb for ever and ever."
+
+And why?  I think, with all humility, that the key to all these hymns--
+whether of angels or of men, or of mere natural things--is the first hymn
+of all; the hymn which shows that, however grateful to God for what He
+has done for them those are whom the Lamb has redeemed by His blood to
+God, out of every kindred, and nation, and tongue; yet, nevertheless, the
+hymn of hymns is that which speaks not of gratitude, but of absolute
+moral admiration--the hymn which glorifies God, not for that which He is
+to man, not for that which He is to the universe, but for that which He
+is absolutely and in Himself--that which He was before all worlds, and
+would be still, though the whole universe, all created things, and time,
+and space, and matter, and every created spirit likewise, should be
+annihilated for ever.  And what is that?
+
+"Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come."
+
+Ah! what a Gospel lies within those words!  A Gospel?  Ay, if you will
+receive it, the root of all other possible Gospels, and good news for all
+created beings.  What a Gospel! and what an everlasting fount of comfort!
+Surely of those words it is true, "blessed are they who, going through
+the vale of misery, find therein a well, and the pools are filled with
+water."  Know you not what I mean?  Happier, perhaps, are you--the young
+at least among you--if you do not know.  But some of you must know too
+well.  It is to them I speak.  Were you never not merely puzzled--all
+thinking men are that--but crushed and sickened at moments by the mystery
+of evil?  Sickened by the follies, the failures, the ferocities, the
+foulnesses of mankind, for ages upon ages past?  Sickened by the sins of
+the unholy many--sickened, alas! by the imperfections even of the holiest
+few?  And have you never cried in your hearts with longing, almost with
+impatience, Surely, surely, there is an ideal Holy One somewhere, or else
+how could have arisen in my mind the conception, however faint, of an
+ideal holiness?  But where, oh where?  Not in the world around, strewed
+with unholiness.  Not in myself--unholy too, without and within--seeming
+to myself sometimes the very worst company of all the bad company I meet,
+because it is the only bad company from which I cannot escape.  Oh, is
+there a Holy One, whom I may contemplate with utter delight? and if so,
+where is He?  Oh, that I might behold, if but for a moment, His perfect
+beauty, even though, as in the fable of Semele of old, the lightning of
+His glance were death.  Nay, more, has it not happened to some here--to
+clergyman, lawyer, physician, perhaps, alas! to some pure-minded, noble-
+hearted woman--to be brought in contact perforce with that which truly
+sickens them--with some case of human folly, baseness, foulness--which,
+however much their soul revolts from it, they must handle, they must toil
+over many weeks and months, in hope that that which is crooked may be
+made somewhat straight, till their whole soul was distempered, all but
+degraded, by the continual sight of sin, till their eyes seemed full of
+nothing but the dance of death, and their ears of the gibbering of
+madmen, and their nostrils with the odours of the charnel house, and they
+longed for one breath of pure air, one gleam of pure light, one strain of
+pure music, to wash their spirits clean from those foul elements into
+which their duty had thrust them down perforce?
+
+And then, oh then, has there not come to such an one--I know that it has
+come--that for which his spirit was athirst, the very breath of pure air,
+the very gleam of pure light, the very strain of pure music, for it is
+the very music of the spheres, in those same words, "Holy, holy, holy,
+Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come;" and he has
+answered, with a flush of keenest joy, Yes.  Whatever else is unholy,
+there is an Holy One, spotless and undefiled, serene and self-contained.
+Whatever else I cannot trust, there is One whom I can trust utterly.
+Whatever else I am dissatisfied with, there is One whom I can contemplate
+with utter satisfaction, and bathe my stained soul in that eternal fount
+of purity.  And who is He?  Who save the Cause and Maker, and Ruler of
+all things, past, present, and to come?  Ah, Gospel of all gospels, that
+God Himself, the Almighty God, is the eternal and unchangeable
+realisation of all that I and all mankind, in our purest and our noblest
+moments, have ever dreamed concerning the true, the beautiful, and the
+good.  Even though He slay me, the unholy, yet will I trust in Him.  For
+He is Holy, Holy, Holy, and can do nothing to me, or any creature, save
+what He OUGHT.  For He has created all things, and for His pleasure they
+are and were created.
+
+Whosoever has entered, though but for a moment, however faintly,
+partially, stupidly, into that thought of thoughts, has entered in so far
+into the communion of the elect; and has had his share in the everlasting
+All Saints' Day which is in heaven.  He has been, though but for a
+moment, in harmony with the polity of the Living God, the heavenly
+Jerusalem; and with an innumerable company of angels, and the church of
+the first-born who are written in heaven; and with the spirits of just
+men made perfect, and with all past, present, and to come, in this and in
+all other worlds, of whom it is written, "Blessed are the poor in spirit:
+for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are they who hunger and
+thirst after righteousness:  for they shall be filled.  Blessed are the
+pure in heart:  for they shall see God.  Blessed are they who are
+persecuted for righteousness' sake:  for their's is the kingdom of
+heaven."  Great indeed is their reward, for it is no less than the very
+beatific vision to contemplate and adore.  That supreme moral beauty, of
+which all earthly beauty, all nature, all art, all poetry, all music, are
+but phantoms and parables, hints and hopes, dim reflected rays of the
+clear light of that everlasting day, of which it is written--that "the
+city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it:  for
+the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof."
+
+
+
+SERMON II.  PREPARATION FOR ADVENT
+
+
+
+Westminster Abbey.  November 15, 1874.
+
+Amos iv. 12.  "Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel."
+
+We read to-day, for the first lesson, parts of the prophecy of Amos.
+They are somewhat difficult, here and there, to understand; but
+nevertheless Amos is perhaps the grandest of the Hebrew prophets, next to
+Isaiah.  Rough and homely as his words are, there is a strength, a
+majesty, and a terrible earnestness in them, which it is good to listen
+to; and specially good now that Advent draws near, and we have to think
+of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and what His coming means.
+"Prepare to meet thy God," says Amos in the text.  Perhaps he will tell
+us how to meet our God.
+
+Amos is specially the poor man's prophet, for he was a poor man himself;
+not a courtier like Isaiah, or a priest like Jeremiah, or a sage like
+Daniel; but a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit in Tekoa, near
+Bethlehem, where Amos was born.  Yet to this poor man, looking after
+sheep and cattle on the downs, and pondering on the wrongs and misery
+around, the word of the Lord came, and he knew that God had spoken to
+him, and that he must go and speak to men, at the risk of his life, what
+God had bidden, against all the nations round and their kings, and
+against the king and nobles and priests of Israel, and the king and
+nobles and priests of Judah, and tell them that the day of the Lord is at
+hand, and that they must prepare to meet their God.  And he said what he
+felt he must say with a noble freedom, with a true independence such as
+the grace of God alone can give.  Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, who was
+worshipping (absurd as it may seem to us) God and the golden calf at the
+same time in King Jeroboam's court, complained loudly, it would seem, of
+Amos's plain speaking.  How uncourteous to prophesy that Jeroboam should
+die by the sword, and Israel be carried captive out of their own land!
+Let him go home into his own land of Judah, and prophesy there; but not
+prophesy at Bethel, for it was the king's chapel and the king's court.
+Amos went, I presume, in fear of his life.  But he left noble words
+behind him.  "I was no prophet," he said to Amaziah, "nor a prophet's
+son, but a herdsman, and a gatherer of wild figs.  And the Lord took me
+as I followed the flock, and said, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel."
+And then he turned on that smooth court-priest Amaziah, and pronounced
+against him, in the name of the Lord, a curse too terrible to be repeated
+here.
+
+Now what was the secret of this inspired herdsman's strength?  What
+helped him to face priests, nobles, and kings?  What did he believe?
+What did he preach?  He believed and preached the kingdom of God and His
+righteousness; the simple but infinite difference between right and
+wrong; and the certain doom of wrong, if wrong was persisted in.  He
+believed in the kingdom of God.  He told the kings and the people of all
+the nations round, that they had committed cruel and outrageous sins, not
+against the Jews merely, but against each other.  In the case of Moab,
+the culminating crime was an insult to the dead.  He had burned the bones
+of the king of Edom into lime.  In the case of Ammon, it was brutal
+cruelty to captive women; but in the cases of Gaza, of Tyre, and of Edom,
+it was slave-making and slave-trading invasions of Palestine.  "Thus
+saith the Lord:  For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will
+not turn away the punishment thereof; because they carried away captive
+the whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom.  But I will send a fire
+upon the wall of Gaza, which shall devour the palaces thereof."
+
+Yes.  Slave-hunting and slave-trading wars--that was and is an iniquity
+which the just and merciful Ruler of the earth would not, and will not,
+pardon.  And honour to those who, as in Africa of late, put down those
+foul deeds, wheresoever they are done; who, at the risk of their own
+lives, dare free the captives from their chains; and who, if interfered
+with in their pious work, dare execute on armed murderers and manstealers
+the vengeance of a righteous God.  For the Lord God was their King, and
+their Judge, whether they knew it or not.  And for three transgressions
+of theirs, and for four, the Lord would not turn away their punishment,
+but would send fire and sword among them, and they should be carried away
+captive, as they had carried others away.  But to go back.  Amos next
+turns to his own countrymen--to Judah and Israel, who were then two
+separate nations.  For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, the
+Lord would not turn away their punishment, because they had despised the
+law of the Lord, and had not walked in His commandments.  Therefore He
+would send a fire on Judah, and it should devour the palaces of
+Jerusalem.  But Amos is most bitter against Israel, against the court of
+King Jeroboam at Samaria, and against the rich men of Israel, the bulls
+of Bashan, as he calls them.  For three transgressions, and for four, the
+Lord would not turn away their punishment.  And why?
+
+Now see what I meant when I said that Amos believed not only in the
+kingdom of God, but in the righteousness of God.  It was not merely that
+they were worshipping idols--golden calves at Dan, and Bethel, and
+Samaria, at the same time that they worshipped the true God.  That was
+bad, but there was more behind.  These men were bad, proud, luxurious,
+cruel; they were selling their countrymen for slaves--selling, he says so
+twice, as if it was some notorious and special case, an honest man for
+silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes.  They were lying down on
+clothes taken on pledge by every altar.  They were breaking the seventh
+commandment in an abominable way.  They were falsifying weights and
+measures, and selling the refuse of the wheat.  They stored up the fruits
+of violence and robbery in their palaces.  They hated him who rebuked
+them, and abhorred him that spoke uprightly.  They trod upon the poor and
+crushed the needy, and then said to their stewards, "Bring wine, and let
+us drink."  Therefore though they had built houses of hewn stone, they
+should not live in them.  They had planted pleasant vineyards, but should
+not drink of them.  And all the while these superstitious and wicked rich
+men were talking of the day of the Lord, and hoping that the day of the
+Lord would appear.
+
+You, if you have read your Bibles carefully and reverently, must surely
+be aware that the day of the Lord, either in the Old Testament or in the
+New, does not mean merely the final day of judgment, but any striking
+event, any great crisis in the world's history, which throws a divine
+light upon that history, and shows to men--at least to those who have
+eyes wherewith to see--that verily there is a God who judges the earth in
+righteousness, and ministers true judgment among the people;--a God whom
+men, and all their institutions, should always be prepared to meet, lest
+coming suddenly, He find them sleeping.  If you are not aware of this,
+the real meaning of a day of the Lord, a day of the Son of Man, let me
+entreat you to go and search the Scriptures for yourselves; for in them
+ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of the
+Lord, of that Eternal Son of whom the second Psalm speaks, in words which
+mobs and tyrants, the atheist and the superstitious, are alike willing to
+forget.
+
+In the time of Amos, the rich tyrants of Israel seem to have meant by the
+day of the Lord some vague hope that, in those dark and threatening
+times, God would interfere to save them, if they were attacked by foreign
+armies.  But woe to you that desire the day of the Lord, says Amos the
+herdsman.  What do you want with it?  You will find it very different
+from what you expect.  There is a day of the Lord coming, he says,
+therefore prepare to meet your God.  But you are unprepared, and you will
+find the day of the Lord very different from what you expect.  It will be
+a day in which you will learn the righteousness of God.  Because He is
+righteous He will not suffer your unrighteousness.  Because He is good,
+He will not permit you to be bad.  The day of the Lord to you will be
+darkness and not light, not as you dream deliverance from the invaders,
+but ruin by the invaders, from which will be no escape.  "As if a man did
+flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house and leaned
+his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him."  There will be no escape
+for those wicked men.  Though they dug into hell, God's hand would take
+them; though they climbed up into heaven, God would fetch them down;
+though they hid in the bottom of the sea, God would command the serpent,
+and it should bite them.  He would sift the house of Israel among all
+nations like corn in a sieve, and not a grain should fall to the earth.
+And all the sinners among God's people should die by the sword, who say,
+"The evil shall not overtake us."
+
+This was Amos's notion of the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
+These Israelites would not obey the laws of God's kingdom, and be
+righteous and good.  But Amos told them, they could not get rid of God's
+kingdom.  The Lord was King, in spite of them, and they would find it out
+to their sorrow.  If they would not seek His kingdom and His government,
+His government would seek them and find them, and find their evil-doings
+out.  If they would not seek God's righteousness, His righteousness would
+seek them, and execute righteous judgment on them.  No wonder that the
+Israelites thought Amos a most troublesome and insolent person.  No
+wonder that the smooth priest Amaziah begged him to begone and talk in
+that way somewhere else.  He saw plainly enough that either Amos must
+leave Samaria, or he must leave it.  The two could no more work together
+than fire and water.  Amos wanted to make men repent of their sins, while
+Amaziah wanted only to make them easy in their minds; and no man can do
+both at once.
+
+So it was then, my friends, and so it will be till the end of this wicked
+world.  The way to please men, and be popular, always was, and always
+will be, Amaziah's way; to tell men that they may worship God and the
+golden calf at the same time, that they may worship God and money,
+worship God and follow the ways of this wicked world which suit their
+fancy and their interest; to tell them the kingdom of God is not over you
+now, Christ is not ruling the world now; that the kingdom of God will
+only come, when Christ comes at the last day, and meanwhile, if people
+will only believe what they are told, and live tolerably respectable
+lives, they may behave in all things else as if there was no God, and no
+judgments of God.  Seeking the righteousness of God, say these preachers
+of Amaziah's school, only means, that if Christ's righteousness is
+imputed to you need not be righteous yourselves, but will go to heaven
+without having been good men here on earth.  That is the comfortable
+message which the world delights to hear, and for which the world will
+pay a high price to its flatterers.
+
+But if any man dares to tell his fellow-men what Amos told them, and say,
+The kingdom of God is among you, and within you, and over you, whether
+you like or not, and you are in it; the Lord is King, be the people never
+so unquiet; and all power is given to Him in heaven and earth already;
+and at the last great day, when He comes in glory, He will show that He
+has been governing the world and the inhabitants thereof all along,
+whether they cared to obey Him or not:--if he tell men, that the
+righteousness of God means this--to pray for the Spirit of God and of
+Christ, that they may be perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect,
+and holy as Christ is holy, for without holiness no man shall see the
+Lord:  if he tell men, that the wrath of God was revealed from heaven at
+the fall of man, and has been revealed continuously ever since, against
+all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, that indignation and wrath,
+tribulation and anguish will fall upon every soul of man that doeth evil;
+and glory, honour, and peace to every man that worketh good:--when a man
+dares to preach that, he is no more likely to be popular with the wicked
+world (for it is a wicked world) than Amos was popular, or St Paul was
+popular, or our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave both to Amos and to St Paul
+their messages, was popular.  False preachers will dislike that man,
+because he wishes to make sinners uneasy, while they wish to make them
+easy.  Philosophers, falsely so-called, will dislike that man, because he
+talks of the kingdom of God, the providence of God, and they are busy--at
+least, just now--in telling men that there is no providence and no God--
+at least, no living God.  The covetous and worldly will dislike that man,
+for they believe that the world is governed, not by God, but by money.
+Politicians will dislike that man, because they think that not God, but
+they, govern the world, by those very politics and knavish tricks, which
+we pray God to confound, whenever we sing "God save the Queen."  And the
+common people--the masses--who ought to hear such a man gladly, for his
+words are to them, if they would understand them, a gospel, and good news
+of divine hope and deliverance from sin and ignorance, oppression and
+misery--the masses, I say, will dislike that man, because he tells them
+that God's will is law, and must be obeyed at all risks:  and the poor
+fools have got into their heads just now that not God's will, but the
+will of the people, is law, and that not the eternal likeness of God, but
+whatever they happen to decide by the majority of the moment, is right.
+
+And so such a preacher will not be popular with the many.  They will
+dismiss him, at best, as they might a public singer or lecturer, with
+compliments and thanks, and so excuse themselves from doing what he tells
+them.  And he must look for his sincere hearers in the hearts of those--
+and there are such, I verily believe, in this congregation--who have a
+true love and a true fear of Christ, their incarnate God--who believe,
+indeed, that Christ is their King, and the King of all the earth; who
+think that to please Him is the most blessed, as well as the most
+profitable, thing which man can do; to displease Him the most horrible,
+as well as the most dangerous, thing which man can do; and who,
+therefore, try to please Him by becoming like Him, by really renouncing
+the world and all its mean and false and selfish ways, and putting on His
+new pattern of man, which is created after God's likeness in
+righteousness and true holiness.  Blessed are they, for of them it is
+written, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
+righteousness, for they shall be filled."  Even Christ Himself shall fill
+them.  Blessed are they, and all that they take in hand, for of them it
+is written, "Blessed are all they that fear the Lord, and walk in His
+ways.  For thou shalt eat the labours of thine hands."  "The Lord is
+righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works.  The Lord is nigh
+unto all them that call upon Him, yea, all such as call upon Him
+faithfully.  He will fulfil the desire of them that fear Him.  He also
+will hear their cry"--ay, "and will help them."
+
+Happy, ay, blest will such souls be, let the day of the Lord appear when
+it will, or how it will.  It may appear--the day of the Lord, as it has
+appeared again and again in history--in the thunder of some mighty war.
+It may appear after some irresistible, though often silent revolution,
+whether religious or intellectual, social or political.  It will appear
+at last, as that great day of days, which will conclude, so we believe,
+the drama of human history, and all men shall give account for their own
+works.  But, however and whenever it shall appear, they at least will
+watch its dawning, neither with the selfish assurance of modern
+Pharisaism, nor with the abject terror of mediaeval superstition; but
+with that manful faith with which he who sang the 98th Psalm saw the day
+of the Lord dawn once in the far east, more than two thousand years ago,
+and cried with solemn joy, in the glorious words which you have just
+heard sung--words which the Church of England has embodied in her daily
+evening service, in order, I presume, to show her true children how they
+ought to look at days of judgment; and so prepare to meet their God:--
+
+"Show yourselves joyful unto the Lord, all ye lands:  sing, rejoice, and
+give thanks.
+
+"Let the sea make a noise, and all that therein is:  the round world, and
+they that dwell therein.
+
+"Let the floods clap their hands, and let the hills be joyful together
+before the Lord:  for He cometh to judge the earth.
+
+"With righteousness shall He judge the world:  and the people with
+equity.
+
+"Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
+
+"As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.
+Amen."
+
+
+
+SERMON III.  THE PURIFYING HOPE
+
+
+
+Eversley, 1869.  Windsor Castle, 1869.
+
+1 John iii. 2.  "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet
+appear what we shall be:  but we know that, when he shall appear, we
+shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.  And every man that
+hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure."
+
+Let us consider this noble text, and see something, at least, of what it
+has to tell us.  It is, like all God's messages, all God's laws, ay, like
+God's world in which we live and breathe, at once beautiful and awful;
+full of life-giving hope; but full, too, of chastening fear.  Hope for
+the glorious future which it opens to poor human beings like us; fear,
+lest so great a promise being left us, we should fall short of it by our
+own fault.  Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us,
+that we should be called the sons of God.
+
+There is the root and beginning of all Christianity,--of all true
+religion.  We are the sons of God, and the infinite, absolute, eternal
+Being who made this world, and all worlds, is our Father.  We are the
+children of God.  It is not for us to say who are not God's children.
+That is God's concern, not ours.  All that we have to do with, is the
+awful and blessed fact that we are.  We were baptised into God's kingdom,
+in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Let us
+believe the Gospel and good news which baptism brings us, and say each of
+us;--Not for our own goodness and deserving; not for our own faith or
+assurance; not for anything which we have thought, felt, or done, but
+simply out of the free grace and love of God, seeking out us unconscious
+infants, we are children of God.  "Beloved now are we the sons of God,
+and it doth not yet appear what we shall be."  It doth not yet appear
+what the next life will be like, or what we shall be like in it.  That
+there will be a next life,--that death does not end all for us, the New
+Testament tells us.  Yea, our own hearts and reasons tell us.  That
+sentiment of immortality, that instinct that the death of our body will
+not, cannot destroy our souls, or ourselves--all men have had that,
+except a few; and it is a question whether they had it not once, and have
+only lost it by giving way to their brute animal nature.  But be that as
+it may, it concerns us, I think, very little.  For we at least believe
+that we shall live again.  That we shall live again in some state or
+other, is as certain to our minds as it was to the minds of our
+forefathers, even while they were heathens; as certain to us as it is
+that we are alive now.  But in that future state, what we shall be like,
+we know not.  St. John says that he did not know; and we certainly have
+no more means of knowing than St. John.
+
+Therefore let us not feed our fancies with pictures of what the next
+world will be like,--pictures, I say, which are but waking dreams of men,
+intruding into those things which they have not seen, vainly puffed up in
+their fleshly minds--that is in their animal and mortal brain.  Let us be
+content with what St. John tells us, which is a matter not for our
+brains, but for our hearts; not for our imaginations, but for our
+conscience, which is indeed our highest reason.  Whatever we do not know
+about the next world, this, he says, we do know,--that when God in Christ
+shall appear, we shall be like Him.  Like God.  No more:  No:  but no
+less.  To be like God, it appears, is the very end and aim of our being.
+That we might be like God, God our Father sent us forth from His eternal
+bosom, which is the ground of all life, in heaven and in earth.  That we
+might be like God, He clothed us in mortal flesh, and sent us into this
+world of sense.  That we might be like God, He called us, from our
+infancy, into His Church.  That we might be like God, He gave us the
+divine sense of right and wrong; and more, by the inspiration of His holy
+spirit, that inward witness, that Light of God, which lightens every man
+that cometh into the world, He taught us to love the right and hate the
+wrong.  That we might be like God, God is educating us from our cradle to
+our grave, by every event, even the smallest, which happens to us.  That
+we might be like God, it is in God that we live, and move, and have our
+being; that as the raindrop which falls from heaven, rises again surely,
+soon or late, to heaven again; so each soul of man, coming forth from God
+at first, should return again to God, as many of them as have eternal
+life, having become like to God from whom it came at first.  And how
+shall we become like God? or rather like Christ who is both God and man?
+To become like God the Father,--that is impossible for finite and created
+beings as we are.  But to become somewhat, at least, like God the Son,
+like Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the brightness of His Father's glory,
+and the express image of His person, that is not impossible.  For He has
+revealed Himself as a man, in the soul and body of a man, that our sinful
+souls might be made like His pure soul; our sinful bodies like His
+glorious body; and that so He might be the first born among many
+brethren.  And how?  "We know that when He appears, we shall be like Him,
+for we shall see Him as He is."
+
+For we shall see Him as He is.  Herein is a great mystery, and one which
+I do not pretend to fathom.  Only this I can try to do--to shew how it
+may seem possible and reasonable, from what is called analogy, that is by
+judging of an unknown thing from a known thing, which is, at least,
+something like it.  Now do we not all know how apt we are to become like
+those whom we see, with whom we spend our hours--and, above all, like
+those whom we admire and honour?  For good and for evil, alas!  For evil-
+-for those who associate with evil or frivolous persons are too apt to
+catch not only their low tone, but their very manner, their very
+expression of face, speaking, and thinking, and acting.  Not only do they
+become scornful, if they live with scorners; false, if they live with
+liars; mean, if they live with covetous men; but they will actually catch
+the very look of their faces.  The companions of affected, frivolous
+people, men or women, grow to look affected frivolous.  Indulging in the
+same passions, they mould their own countenances and their very walk,
+also the very tones of their voice, as well as their dress, into the
+likeness of those with whom they associate, nay, of those whose fashions
+(as they are called) they know merely by books and pictures.  But thank
+God, who has put into the hearts of Christian people the tendency towards
+God--just in the same way does good company tend to make men good; high-
+minded company to make them high-minded; kindly company to make them
+kindly; modest company to make them modest; honourable company to make
+them honourable; and pure company to make them pure.  If the young man or
+woman live with such, look up to such as their ideal, that is, the
+pattern which they ought to emulate--then, as a fact, the Spirit of God
+working in them does mould them into something of the likeness of those
+whom they admire and love.  I have lived long enough to see more than one
+man of real genius stamp his own character, thought, even his very manner
+of speaking, for good or for evil, on a whole school or party of his
+disciples.  It has been said, and truly, I believe, that children cannot
+be brought up among beautiful pictures,--I believe, even among any
+beautiful sights and sounds,--without the very expression of their faces
+becoming more beautiful, purer, gentler, nobler; so that in them are
+fulfilled the words of the great and holy Poet concerning the maiden
+brought up according to God, and the laws of God--
+
+
+   "And she shall bend her ear
+   In many a secret place,
+Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
+And beauty, born of murmuring sound,
+   Shall pass into her face."
+
+
+But if mere human beings can have this "personal influence," as it is
+called, over each others' characters, if even inanimate things, if they
+be beautiful, can have it--what must be the personal influence of our
+Lord Jesus Christ?  Of Him, who is the Man of all men, the Son of Man,
+the perfect and ideal Man--and more, who is very God of very God; the
+Author of all life, power, wisdom, genius, in every human being, whether
+they use to good, or abuse to ill, His divine gifts; the Author, too, of
+all natural beauty, from the sun over our heads to the flower beneath our
+feet?  Think of that steadily, accurately, rationally.  Think of who
+Christ is, and what Christ is--and then think what His personal influence
+must be--quite infinite, boundless, miraculous.  So that the very
+blessedness of heaven will not be merely the sight of our Lord; it will
+be the being made holy, and kept holy, by that sight.  If only we be fit
+for it.  For let us ask ourselves the question,--If St John's words come
+true of us, if we should see Him as He is, would the sight of His all-
+glorious countenance warm us into such life, love, longing for virtue and
+usefulness, as we never felt before?  Or would it crush us into the very
+earth with utter shame and humiliation, full and awful knowledge of how
+weak and foolish, sinful and unworthy we were?--as it does to Gerontius
+in the poem, when he dreams that, after death, he demanded, rashly and
+ambitiously, to see our Lord, and had his wish.
+
+That is the question which every one must try to answer for himself in
+fear and trembling, for, he that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself,
+even as He is pure.  The common sense of men--which is often their
+conscience and highest reason--has taught them this, more or less
+clearly, in all countries and all ages.  There are very few religions
+which have not made purifying of some kind a part of their duty.  The
+very savage, when he enters (as he fancies) the presence of his god, will
+wash and adorn himself that he may be fit, poor creature, for meeting the
+paltry god which he has invented out of his own brain; and he is right as
+far as he goes.  The Englishman, when he dresses himself in his best to
+go to church, obeys the same reasonable instinct.  And, indeed, is not
+holy baptism a sign that this instinct is a true one?--that if God be
+pure, he who enters the presence of God must purify himself, even as God
+is pure?  Else why, when each person, whether infant or adult, is
+received into Christ's Church, is washing with water, whether by
+sprinkling, as now, or, as of old, by immersion, the very sign and
+sacrament of his being received into God's kingdom?  The instinct, I say,
+is reasonable, and has its root in the very heart of man.  Whatsoever we
+respect and admire we shall also try to copy, if it be only for a time.
+If we are going into the presence of a wiser man than ourselves, we shall
+surely recollect and summon up what little wisdom or knowledge we may
+have; if into the presence of a holier person, we shall try to call up in
+ourselves those better and more serious thoughts which we so often
+forget, that we may be, even for a few minutes, fit for that good
+company.  And if we go into the presence of a purer person than
+ourselves, we shall surely (unless we be base and brutal) call up our
+purest and noblest thoughts, and try to purify ourselves, even as they
+are pure.  It is true what poets have said again and again, that there
+are women whose mere presence, whose mere look, drives all bad thoughts
+away--women before whom men dare no more speak, or act, nay, even think,
+basely, than they would dare before the angels of God.
+
+But if it be so--and so it is--what must we be, to be fit to appear
+before Him who is Purity itself?--before that spotless Christ in whom is
+no sin and who knows what is in man; who is quick and piercing as a two-
+edged sword, even to the dividing asunder of the joints and marrow, so
+that all things are naked and open in the sight of Him with whom we have
+to do?  What purity can we bring into His presence which will not seem
+impure to Him?  What wisdom which will not seem folly?  What humility
+which will not seem self-conceit?  What justice which will not seem
+unjust?  What love which will not seem hardness of heart, in the sight of
+Him who charges His angels with folly, and the very heavens are not clean
+in His sight?  Who loved Him better, and whom did He love better, than St
+John?  Yet, what befel St John when, in the spirit, he saw Him even
+somewhat as He is?--"And I fell at His feet as dead."  If St John himself
+was struck down with awe, what shall we feel, even the best and purest
+among us?  All we can do is to cast ourselves, now and for ever, in life,
+in death, and in the day of judgment, on His boundless mercy and love--
+who stooped from heaven to die for us and cry, God be merciful to me a
+sinner.
+
+Therefore, I have many fears for some who are ready enough to talk of
+their fulness of hope and their assurance of salvation, and to join in
+hymns which express weariness of this life and longings for the joys of
+heaven, and prayers that they may depart and be with Christ.  If they are
+not in earnest in such words they mock God; but if they are in earnest,
+some of them, I fear much, tempt God.  What if He took them at their
+word?  What if He gave them their wish?  What if they departed and
+entered the presence of Christ, only to meet with a worse fate than that
+of Gerontius?  Only to be overwhelmed with shame and terror, because,
+though they have been talking of being with Christ, they have not been
+trying to be like Christ; because they have not sought after holiness,
+without which no man shall see the Lord; because they have not tried to
+purify themselves, even as He is pure; and have, poor, heedless souls,
+gone out of the world, with all their sins upon their head, to enter a
+place for which they will find themselves utterly unfit, because it is a
+place into which nothing can enter which defileth, or committeth
+abomination, or maketh a lie, and from which the covetous are specially
+excluded; and in which will be fulfilled the parable of the man who came
+to the feast, not having on a wedding garment,--Take him, bind him hand
+and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness.  There shall be wailing
+and gnashing of teeth.
+
+Assurance, my friends, may be reasonable enough when it is founded on
+repentance and hatred of evil, and love and practice of what is good.
+But, again, assurance may be as unreasonable as it is offensive.  We
+blame a man who has too much assurance about earthly things.  Let us
+beware that we have not too much assurance about heavenly things.  For
+our assurance will surely be too great, unreasonable, built upon the
+sand, if it be built on mere self-conceit of our own orthodoxy, and our
+own privileges, or our own special connection with God.
+
+Meanwhile it has been my comfort to meet with some--would God they were
+more numerous--who, instead of talking of their assurance of salvation,
+lived in a state of noble self-discontent and holy humility; who could
+see nothing but their own faults and failings; who, though they were
+holier than others, considered themselves as unholy; though they were
+doing more good than others, thought themselves useless; whose standard
+of duty was so lofty, that they could think of nothing, but how far they
+had failed in reaching it; who measured themselves, not by other men, but
+by Christ Himself; and, doing that, had nought to say, save, "God be
+merciful to me a sinner."  And for such people I have had full assurance,
+just because they had no assurance themselves.  And I have said in my
+heart, These are worthy, just because they think themselves unworthy.
+These are fit to appear in the presence of God, just because they believe
+themselves unfit.  These are they who will cry at the day of judgment, in
+wondering humility,--Lord, when saw we Thee hungry, or thirsty, or naked,
+or in prison, and visited Thee?  And will receive for answer,--"Inasmuch
+as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have
+done it unto Me."  "Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will
+make thee ruler over many things.  Enter into the joy of thy Lord."
+
+To which end may God of His mercy bring us, and all we love.  Amen.
+
+
+
+SERMON IV.  THE LORD COMING TO HIS TEMPLE
+
+
+
+Westminster Abbey.  November, 1874.
+
+Malachi iii. 1, 2.  "The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His
+temple. . . .  But who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall
+stand when He appeareth? for He is like a refiner's fire, and like
+fuller's sope."
+
+We believe that this prophecy was fulfilled at the first coming of our
+Lord Jesus Christ.  We believe that it will be fulfilled again, in that
+great day when He shall judge the quick and the dead.  But it is of
+neither of these events I wish to speak to you just now.  I wish to speak
+of an event which has not (as far as we know) happened; which will
+probably never happen; but which is still perfectly possible; and one,
+too, which it is good for us to face now and then, and ask ourselves, If
+this thing came to pass, what should I think, and what should I do?
+
+I shall touch the question with all reverence and caution.  I shall try
+to tread lightly, as one who is indeed on hallowed ground.  For the
+question which I have dared to ask you and myself is none other than
+this--If the Lord suddenly came to this temple, or any other in this
+land; if He appeared among us, as He did in Judea eighteen hundred years
+ago, what should we think of Him?  Should we recognise, or should we
+reject, our Saviour and our Lord?  It is an awful thought, the more we
+look at it.  But for that very reason it may be the more fit to be asked,
+once and for all.
+
+Now, to put this question safely and honestly, we must keep within those
+words which I just said--as He appeared in Judea eighteen hundred years
+ago.  We must limit our fancy to the historic Christ, to the sayings,
+doings, character which are handed down to us in the four Gospels; and
+ask ourselves nothing but--What should I think if such a personage were
+to meet me now?  To imagine Him--as has been too often done--as doing
+deeds, speaking words, and even worse, entertaining motives, which are
+not written in the four Gospels, is as unfair morally, as it is illogical
+critically.  It creates a phantom, a fictitious character, and calls that
+Christ.  It makes each writer, each thinker--or rather dreamer--however
+shallow his heart and stupid his brain--and all our hearts are but too
+shallow, and all our brains too stupid--the measure of a personage so
+vast and so unique, that all Christendom for eighteen hundred years has
+seen in Him, and we of course hold seen truly, the Incarnate God.  No; we
+must think of nothing save what is set down in Holy Writ.
+
+And yet, alas! we cannot use in our days, that which eighteen hundred
+years ago was the most simple and obvious test of our Lord's
+truthfulness, namely His miraculous powers.  The folly and sin of man
+have robbed us of what is, as it were, one of the natural rights of
+reasoning, man.  Lying prodigies and juggleries, forged and pretended
+miracles, even--oh, shame!--imitations of His most sacred wounds, have,
+up to our own time, made all rational men more and more afraid of aught
+which seems to savour of the miraculous; till most of us, I think, would
+have to ask forgiveness--as I myself should have to ask,--if, tantalized
+and insulted again and again by counterfeit miracles, we failed to
+recognise real miracles, and Him who performed them.  Therefore, for good
+or evil, we should be driven back upon that test alone, which, after all,
+perhaps, is the most sure as well as the most convincing--the moral test-
+-the test of character.  What manner of personage would He be did He
+condescend to appear among us?  Of that, thank God, the Gospels ought to
+leave us in no doubt.  What acts He might condescend to perform, what
+words He might condescend to speak, it is not for such beings as we to
+guess.  But how He would demean Himself we know; for Holy Writ has told
+us how He demeaned Himself in Judea eighteen hundred years ago; and He is
+the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and can be only like Himself.
+But should we know Him merely by His bearing and character?  Should we
+see in Him an utterly ideal personage--The Son of Man, and therefore, ere
+we lost sight of Him once more, the Son of God?  Let us think.  First,
+therefore, we must believe that--as in Judea of old--Christ would meet
+men with all consideration and courtesy.  He would not break the bruised
+reed, nor quench the smoking flax.  He would not strive, nor cry, nor let
+His voice be heard in the streets.  He would not cause any of God's
+little ones to offend, to stumble.  In plain words, He would not shock
+and repel them by any conduct of His.  Therefore, as in Judea of old, He
+would be careful of, even indulgent to, the usages of society, as long as
+they were innocent.  He would never outrage the code of manners, however
+imperfect, however conventional, which this or any other civilised nation
+may have agreed on, to express and keep up respect, self-restraint,
+delicacy, of man toward man, of man toward woman, of the young ward the
+old, of the living toward the dead.  No.
+
+As I said just now, He would never cause, by any act or word of His, one
+of God's little ones to stumble and fall away.
+
+I used just now that word MANNERS.  Let me beg your very serious
+attention to it.  I use it, remember, in its true, its ancient--that is,
+in its moral and spiritual sense.  I use it as the old Greeks, the old
+Romans, used their corresponding words; as our wise forefathers used it,
+when they said well, that "Manners maketh man;" that manners are at once
+the efficient cause of a man's success, and the proof of his deserving to
+succeed:  the outward and visible sign of whatsoever inward and spiritual
+grace, or disgrace, there may be in him.  I mean by the word what our
+Lord meant when He reproved the pushing and vulgar arrogance of the
+Scribes and Pharisees, and laid down the golden rule of all good manners,
+"Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and
+whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant."
+
+Next, I beg you to remember that all, or almost all, good manners which
+we have among us--courtesies, refinements, self-restraint, and mutual
+respect--all which raises us, socially and morally, above our forefathers
+of fifteen hundred years ago--deep-hearted men, valiant and noble, but
+coarse, and arrogant, and quarrelsome--all that, or almost all, we owe to
+Christ, to the influence of His example, and to that Bible which
+testifies of Him.  Yes, the Bible has been for Christendom, in the
+cottage as much as in the palace, the school of manners; and the saying
+that he who becomes a true Christian becomes a true gentleman, is no
+rhetorical boast, but a solid historic fact.
+
+Now imagine Christ to reappear on earth, with that perfect outward beauty
+of character--with what Greeks and Romans, and our own ancestors, would
+have called those perfect manners--which, if we are to believe the
+Gospels, He shewed in Judea of old, which won then so many hearts,
+especially of the common people, sounder judges often of true nobility
+than many who fancy themselves their betters.  Conceive--but which of us
+can conceive?--His perfect tenderness, patience, sympathy, graciousness,
+and grace, combined with perfect strength, stateliness, even awfulness,
+when awe was needed.  Remember that, if, again, the Gospels are to be
+believed.  He alone, of all personages of whom history tells us, solved
+in His own words and deeds the most difficult paradox of human character-
+-to be at once utterly conscious, and yet utterly unconscious, of self;
+to combine with perfect self-sacrifice a perfect self-assertion.  Whether
+or not His being able to do that proved Him to have been that which He
+was, the Son of God, it proves Him at least to have been the Son of Man--
+the unique and unapproachable ideal of humanity, utterly inspired by the
+Holy Spirit of God.
+
+But again:  He condescended, in His teaching of old, to the level of
+Jewish, knowledge at that time.  We may, therefore, believe that He would
+condescend to the level of our modern knowledge; and what would that
+involve?  It would leave Him, however less than Himself, at least master
+of all that the human race has thought or discovered in the last eighteen
+hundred years.  Think of that.  And think again, that if He condescended,
+as in Judea of old, to employ that knowledge in teaching men--He who knew
+what was in man, and needed not that any should bear witness to Him of
+man--He would manifest a knowledge of human nature to which that of a
+Shakspeare would be purblind and dull; a knowledge of which the Scripture
+nobly says that "The Word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than
+any two-edged sword, even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and
+of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents
+of the heart;" so that all "things are naked and opened unto the eyes of
+Him with whom we have to do."  And consider that, in the light of that
+knowledge, He might adapt himself as perfectly to us of this great city,
+as He did to the villagers of Galilee, or to the townsmen of Jerusalem.
+
+Consider, again, that He who spoke as never man yet spake in Jerusalem,
+might speak as man never yet spoke on English soil; that He who was
+listened to gladly once, because He spake with authority, and not as the
+scribes, at second hand, and by rule and precedent, might be listened to
+gladly here once more.  For He might speak here, not as we poor scribes
+can speak at best, but with an authority, originality, earnestness, as
+well as an eloquence, which might exercise a fascination, which would be,
+to all with whom He came in contact, what Malachi calls it, "a refiner's
+fire"--most purifying, though often most painful to the very best; a
+fascination which might be to every one who came under its spell a
+veritable Judgment and Day of the Lord, shewing each man with fearful
+clearness to which side he really inclined at heart in the struggle
+between truth and falsehood, good and evil; a fascination, therefore,
+equally attractive to those who wished to do right, and intolerable to
+those who wished to do wrong.
+
+Consider that last thought.  And consider, too, that those to whom the
+fascination of such a personage might be so intolerable, that it might
+turn to utter hate, would probably be those whose moral sense was so
+perverted, that they thought they were doing right when they were doing
+wrong, and speaking truth when they were telling lies.  It is an awful
+thought.  But we know that there were such men, and too many, among the
+scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem.  And human nature is the same in
+every age.  Be that as it may--however retired His life, He could not
+long be hid.  He would shortly exercise, almost without attempting it, an
+enormous public influence.
+
+But yet, as in Judea of old, would He not be only too successful?  Would
+He not be at once too liberal for some, and too exacting for others?
+Would He not, as in Judea of old, encounter not merely the active envy of
+the vain and the ambitious, which would follow one who spoke as never man
+spoke; not merely the active malignity of those who wish their fellow-
+creatures to be bad and not good; not merely the bigotry of every sect
+and party; but that mere restless love of new excitements, and that dull
+fear and suspicion of new truths, and even of old truths in new words,
+which beset the uneducated of every rank and class, and in no age more
+than in our own?  And therefore I must ask, in sober sadness, how long
+would His influence last?  It lasted, we know, in Judea of old, for some
+three years.  And then--.  But I am not going to say that any such
+tragedy is possible now.  It would be an insult to Him; an insult to the
+gracious influences of His Spirit, the gracious teaching of His Church,
+to say that of our generation, however unworthy we may be of our high
+calling in Christ.  And yet, if He had appeared in any country of
+Christendom only four hundred years ago, might He not have endured an
+even more dreadful death than that of the cross?
+
+But doubtless, no personal harm would happen to Him here.  Only there
+might come a day, in which, as in Judea of old, "after He had said these
+things, many were offended, and walked no more with Him:" when his
+hearers and admirers would grow fewer and more few, some through bigotry,
+some through envy, some through fickleness, some through cowardice, till
+He was left alone with a little knot of earnest disciples; who might
+diminish, alas, but too rapidly, when they found at He, as in Judea of
+old, did not intend to become the head of a new sect, and to gratify
+their ambition and vanity by making them His delegates.  And so the
+world, the religious world as well as the rest, might let Him go His way,
+and vanish from the eyes and minds of men, leaving behind little more
+than a regret that one so gifted and so fascinating should have proved--I
+hardly like to say the words, and yet they must be said--so unsafe and so
+unsound a teacher.
+
+I shall not give now the reasons which have led me, and not in haste, to
+this melancholy conclusion.  I shall only say that I have come to it,
+with pain, and shame, and fear.  With shame and fear.  For when I ask you
+the solemn question, Would you know Christ if He came among you? do I not
+ask myself a question which I dare not answer?  How can I tell whether I
+should recognise, after all, my Saviour and my Lord?  How do I know that
+if He said (as He but too certainly might), something which clashed
+seriously with my preconceived notions of what He ought to say, I should
+not be offended, and walk no more with Him?  How do I know that if He
+said, as in Judea of old, "Will ye too go away?" I should answer with St
+Peter, "Lord, to whom shall we go?  Thou hast the words of eternal life,
+and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the
+living God?"  I dare not ask that question of myself.  How then dare I
+ask it of you?  I know not.  I can only say, "Lord, I believe:  help thou
+mine unbelief."  I know not.  But this I know--that in this or any other
+world, if you or I did recognise Him, it would be with utter shame and
+terror, unless we had studied and had striven to copy either Himself, or
+whatsoever seems to us most like Him.  Yes; to study the good, the
+beautiful, and the true in Him, and wheresoever else we find it--for all
+that is good, beautiful, and true throughout the universe are nought but
+rays from Him, the central sun--to obey St. Paul of old, and "whatsoever
+things are true, venerable, just, pure, lovely, and of good report--if
+there be any virtue and if there be any praise, to think on these
+things,"--on these scattered fragmentary sacraments of Him whose number
+is not two, nor seven, "but seventy-times seven;" that is the way--I
+think, the only way--to be ready to recognise our Saviour, and to prepare
+to meet our God; that He may be to us, too, as a refiner's fire, and
+refine us--our thoughts, our deeds, our characters throughout.
+
+And I think, too, that this is the way, perhaps the only way, to rid
+ourselves of the fancy that we can be accounted righteous before God for
+any works or deservings of our own.  Those in whom that fancy lingers
+must have but a paltry standard of what righteousness is, a mean
+conception of moral--that is, spiritual--perfection.  But those who look
+not inwards, but upwards; not at themselves, but at Christ and all
+spiritual perfection--they become more and more painfully aware of their
+own imperfections.  The beauty of Christ's character shows them the
+ugliness of their own.  His purity shows them their own foulness.  His
+love their own hardness.  His wisdom their own folly.  His strength their
+own weakness.  The higher their standard rises, the lower falls their
+estimate of themselves; till, in utter humiliation and self-distrust,
+they seek comfort ere alone it can be found--in FAITH--in utter faith and
+trust in that very moral perfection of Christ which shames and dazzles
+them, and yet is their only hope.  To trust in Him for themselves and all
+they love.  To trust that, just because Christ is so magnificent, He will
+pity, and not despise, our meanness.  Just because He is so pure, and
+righteous, and true, and lovely, He will appreciate, and not abhor, our
+struggles after purity, righteousness, truth, love, however imperfect,
+however soiled with failure--and with worse.  Just because He is so
+unlike us, He will smile graciously upon out feeblest attempts to be like
+Him.  Just because He has borne the sins and carried the sorrows of
+mankind, therefore those who come to Him He will in no wise cast out.
+Amen.
+
+
+
+SERMON V.  ADVENT LESSONS
+
+
+
+Westminster Abbey, First Sunday in Advent, 1873.
+
+Romans vii. 22-25.  "I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
+but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind,
+and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
+O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this
+death?  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."
+
+This is the first Sunday in Advent.  To-day we have prayed that God would
+give us grace to put away the works of darkness, and put on us the armour
+of light.  Next Sunday we shall pray that, by true understanding of the
+Scriptures, we may embrace and hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting
+life.  The Sunday after that the ministers and stewards of God's
+mysteries may prepare His way by turning the hearts of the disobedient to
+the wisdom of the just--the next, that His grace and mercy may speedily
+help and deliver us from the sins which hinder us in running the race set
+before us.  But I do not think that we shall understand those collects,
+or indeed the meaning of Advent itself, or the reason why we keep the
+season of Advent year by year, unless we first understand the prayer
+which we offered up last Sunday, "Stir up, O Lord, the wills of Thy
+faithful people,"--and we shall understand that prayer just in proportion
+as we have in us the Spirit of God, or the spirit of the world, which is
+the spirit of unbelief.
+
+Worldly people say--and say openly, just now--that this prayer is all a
+dream.  They say God will not stir up men's wills to do good any more
+than to do harm.  He leaves men to themselves to get through life as they
+can.  This Heavenly Father of whom you speak will not give His holy
+spirit to those who ask Him.  He does not, as one of your Collects says,
+put into men's minds good desires--they come to a man entirely from
+outside a man, from his early teaching, his youthful impressions, as they
+are called now-a-days.  He does not either give men grace and power to
+put these desires into practice.  That depends entirely on the natural
+strength of a man's character; and that, again, depends principally on
+the state of his brain.  So, says the world, if you wish your own
+character to improve, you must improve it yourself, for God will not
+improve it for you.  But, after all, why should you try to improve? why
+not be content to be just what you are? you did not make yourself, and
+you are not responsible for being merely what God has chosen to make you.
+
+This is what worldly men say, or at least what they believe and act on;
+and this is the reason why there is so little improvement in the world,
+because men do not ask God to improve their hearts and stir up their
+wills.  I say, very little improvement.  Men talk loudly of the
+enlightenment of the age, and the progress of the species, and the spread
+of civilisation, and so forth:  but when I read old books, and compare
+old times with these, I confess I do not see so much of it as all this
+hopeful talk would lead me to expect.  Men in general have grown more
+prudent, more cunning, from long experience.  They have found out that
+certain sins do not pay--that is, they interfere with people's comfort
+and their power of making money, and therefore they prudently avoid them
+themselves, and put them down by law in other men's cases.  Men have
+certainly grown more good-natured, in some countries, in that they
+dislike more than their ancestors did, to inflict bodily torture on human
+beings; but they are just as ready, or even more ready, to inflict on
+those whom they dislike that moral and mental torture which to noble
+souls is worse than any bodily pain.  As for any real improvement in
+human nature--where is it?  There is just as much falsehood, cheating,
+and covetousness, I believe, in the world as ever there was; just as much
+cant and hypocrisy, and perhaps more; just as much envy, hatred, malice
+and all uncharitableness.  Is not the condition of the masses in many
+great cities as degraded and as sad as ever was that of the serfs in the
+middle ages?  Do not the poor still die by tens of thousands of fevers,
+choleras, and other diseases, which we know perfectly how to prevent, and
+yet have not the will to prevent?  Is not the adulteration of food just
+now as scandalous as it is unchecked?  The sins and follies of human
+nature have been repressed in one direction only to break out another.
+And as for open and coarse sin, people complain even now, and I fear with
+justice, that there is more drunkenness in England at this moment than
+there ever was.  So much for our boasted improvement.
+
+Look again at the wars of the world.  Five-and-twenty years ago, one used
+to be told that the human race was grown too wise to go to war any more,
+and that we were to have an advent of universal peace and plenty, and
+since then we have seen some seven great wars, the last the most terrible
+of all,--and ever since, all the nations of Europe have been watching
+each other in distrust and dread, increasing their armaments, working
+often night and day at forging improved engines of destruction, wherewith
+to kill their fellow-men.  Not that I blame that.  It is necessary.  Yes!
+but the hideous thing is, that it should be necessary.  Does that state
+of things look much like progress of the human race?  Can we say that
+mankind is much improved, either in wisdom or in love, while all the
+nations of Europe are spending millions merely to be ready to fight they
+know not whom, they know not why?
+
+No, my good friends, obey the wise man, and clear your minds of cant--
+man's pretensions, man's boastfulness, man's power of blinding his own
+eyes to plain facts--above all, to the plain fact that he does not
+succeed, even in this world of which he fancies himself the master,
+because he lives without God in the world.  All this saddens, I had
+almost said, sickens, a thoughtful man, till he turns away from this
+noisy sham improvement of mankind--the wages of sin, which are death, to
+St John's account of the true improvement of mankind, the true progress
+of the species,--the gift of God which is eternal life.  "And I saw a new
+heaven and a new earth:  for the first heaven and the first earth were
+passed away.  And I saw the Holy City--New Jerusalem, coming down from
+God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I
+heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold the tabernacle of God
+is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people,
+and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God.  And God shall wipe
+away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither
+sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain:  for the former
+things are passed away."
+
+Does that sound much like a general increase of armaments? or like bills
+for the prevention of pestilence, or of drunkenness,--which, even if they
+pass, will both probably fail to do the good which they propose?  No.
+And if this wicked world is to be mended, then God must stir up the wills
+of His faithful people, and we must pray without ceasing for ourselves,
+and for all for whom we are bound to pray, that He would stir them up.
+For what we want is not knowledge; we have enough of that, and too much.
+Too much; for knowing so much and doing so little, what an account will
+be required of us at the last day!
+
+No.  It is the will which we want, in a hundred cases.  Take that of
+pestilential dwelling-houses in our great towns.  Every one knows that
+they ought to be made healthy; every one knows that they can be made
+healthy.  But the will to make them healthy is not here, and they are
+left to breed disease and death.  And so, as in a hundred instances,
+shallow philosophers are proved, by facts, to be mistaken, when they tell
+us that man will act up to the best of his knowledge without God's help.
+For that is exactly what man does not.  What is wrong with the world in
+general, is wrong likewise more or less with you and me, and with all
+human beings; for after all, the world is made up of human beings; and
+the sin of the world is nothing save the sins of each and all human
+beings put together; and the world will be renewed and come right again,
+just as far and no farther, as each human being is renewed and comes
+right.  The only sure method, therefore, of setting the world right, is
+to begin by setting our own little part of the world right--in a word,
+setting ourselves right.
+
+But if we begin to try, that, we find, is just what we cannot do.  When a
+man begins to hunger and thirst after righteousness, and, discontented
+with himself, attempts to improve himself, he soon begins to find a
+painful truth in many a word of the Bible and the Prayer Book to which he
+gave little heed, as long as he was contented with himself, and with
+doing just what pleased him, right or wrong.  He soon finds out that he
+has no power of himself to help himself, that he is tied and bound with
+the burden of his sins, and that he cannot, by reason of his frailty,
+stand upright--that he actually is sore let and hindered by his own sins,
+from running the race set before him, and doing his duty where God has
+put him.  All these sayings come home to him as actual facts, most
+painful facts, but facts which he cannot deny.  He soon finds out the
+meaning and the truth of that terrible struggle between the good in him
+and the evil in him, of which St Paul speaks so bitterly in the text.
+How, when he tries to do good, evil is present with him.  How he delights
+in the law of God with his inward mind, and yet finds another law in his
+body, warring against the law of God, and bringing him into captivity to
+the law of sin.  How he is crippled by old bad habits, weakened by
+cowardice, by laziness, by vanity, by general inability of will, till he
+is ready,--disgusted at himself and his own weakness,--to cry, Who shall
+deliver me from the body of this death?
+
+Let him but utter that cry honestly.  Let him once find out that he wants
+something outside himself to help him, to deliver him, to strengthen him,
+to stir up his weak will, to give him grace and power to do what he knows
+instead of merely admiring it, and leaving it undone.  Let a man only
+find out that.  Let him see that he needs a helper, a deliverer, a
+strengthener--in one word, a Saviour--and he will find one.  I verily
+believe that, sooner or later, the Lord Jesus Christ will reveal to that
+man what He revealed to St Paul; that He Himself will deliver him; and
+that, like St Paul, after crying "O wretched man that I am, who shall
+deliver me from the body of this death?" he will be able to answer
+himself, I thank God--God will, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Christ
+will deliver me from the bonds of my sins, Christ will stir up this weak
+will of mine, Christ will give me strength and power, faithfully to
+fulfil all my good desires, because He Himself has put them into my heart
+not to mock me, not to disappoint me--not to make me wretched with the
+sight of noble graces and virtues to which I cannot attain, but to fulfil
+His work in me.  What He has begun in me He will carry on in me.  He has
+sown the seed in me, and He will make it bear fruit, if only I pray to
+Him, day by day, for strength to do what I know I ought to do, and cry
+morning and night to Him, the fount of life, Stir up my will, O Lord,
+that I may bring forth the fruit of good works, for then by Thee I shall
+be plentifully rewarded.
+
+So the man gains hope and heart for himself, and so, if he will but think
+rationally and humbly, he may gain hope and heart for this poor sinful
+world.  For what has come true for him may come true for any man.  Who is
+he that God should care more for him than for others?  Who is he that God
+should help him when he prays, more than He will help His whole church if
+it will but pray?  He says to himself, all this knowledge of what is
+right; all these good desires, all these longings after a juster, purer,
+nobler, happier state of things; there they are up and down the world
+already, though, alas! they have borne little enough fruit as yet.  Be it
+so.  But God put them into my heart.  And who save God has put them into
+the world's heart?  It was God who sowed the seed in me; surely it is God
+who has sowed it in other men?  And if God has made it bear even the
+poorest fruit in me, why should He not make it bear fruit in other men
+and in all the world?  All they need is that God should stir up their
+wills, that they may do the good they know, and attain the blessedness
+after which they long.
+
+And then, if the man have a truly human, truly reasonable heart in him--
+he feels that he can pray for others as well as for himself.  He feels
+that he must pray for them, and cry,--Thou alone canst make men strong to
+do the right thing, and Thou wilt make them.  Stir up their wills, O
+Lord!  Thou canst not mean that all the good seed which is sown about the
+world should die and wither, and bring no fruit to perfection.  Surely
+Thy word will not return to Thee void, but be like the rain which comes
+down from heaven, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater.
+Oh, strengthen such as stand, and comfort and help the weak-hearted, and
+raise up them that fall, and, finally, beat down Satan and all the powers
+of evil under our feet, and pour out thy spirit on all flesh, that so
+their Father's name may be hallowed, His kingdom come, His will be done
+on earth as it is in heaven.  And so will come the one and only true
+progress of the human race--which is, that all men should become faithful
+and obedient citizens of the holy city, the kingdom of God, which is the
+Church of Christ.  To which may God in His mercy bring us all, and our
+children after us.  Amen.
+
+This, then, is the lesson why we are met together this Advent day.  We
+are met to pray that God would so help us by His grace and mercy that we
+may bring forth the fruit of good works, and that when our Lord Jesus
+Christ shall come in His glorious majesty to judge the quick and the
+dead, we, and our descendants after us, may be found an acceptable people
+in His sight.
+
+We are met to pray, in a National Church, for the whole nation of
+England, that all orders and degrees therein may, each in his place and
+station, help forward the hallowing of God's name, the coming of His
+kingdom, the doing of His will on earth.  We are met to pray for the
+Queen and all that are in authority, that these Advent collects may be
+fulfilled in them, and by them, for the good of the whole people; for the
+ministers and stewards of Christ's mysteries, that the same collects may
+be fulfilled by them and in them, till they turn the hearts of the
+disobedient to the wisdom of the just; for the Commons of this nation,
+that each man may he delivered, by God's grace and mercy, from the
+special sin which besets him in this faithless and worldly generation and
+hinders him from running the race of duty which is set before him, and
+get strength from God so to live that in that dread day he may meet his
+Judge and King, not in tenor and in shame, but in loyalty and in humble
+hope.
+
+But more--we are here to worship God in Christ, both God and man.  To
+confess that without Him we can do nothing, that unless He enlighten our
+understandings we are dark, unless He stir up our wills we are powerless
+for good.  To confess that though we have forgotten Him, yet He has not
+forgotten us.   That He is the same gracious and generous Giver and
+Saviour.  That though we deny Him He cannot deny Himself.  That He is the
+same yesterday, to-day, and for ever as when He came to visit this earth
+in great humility.  That the Lord is King, though the earth be moved.  He
+sitteth upon His throne, be the nations never so unquiet.  We are here to
+declare to ourselves and all men, and the whole universe, that we at
+least believe that the heavens and earth are full of His glory.  We are
+here to declare that, whether or not the kings of the earth are wise
+enough, or the judges of it learned enough, to acknowledge Christ for
+their king, we at least will worship the Son lest He be angry, and so we
+perish from the right way; for if His wrath be kindled, yea but a little,
+then blessed are they, and they only, who put their trust in Him.  We are
+here to join our songs with angels round the throne, and with those pure
+and mighty beings who, in some central sanctuary of the universe, cry for
+ever, "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power:
+for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were
+created."
+
+We do so in ancient words, ancient music, ancient ceremonies, for a token
+that Christ's rule and glory is an ancient rule and an eternal glory;
+that it is no new discovery of our own, and depends not on our own
+passing notions and feelings about it, but is like Christ, the same now
+as in the days of our forefathers, the same as it was fifteen hundred
+years ago, the same as it has been since the day that He stooped to be
+born of the Virgin Mary, the same that it will be till He shall come in
+His glory to judge the quick and the dead.  Therefore we delight in the
+ancient ceremonial, as like as we can make it, to that of the earlier and
+purer ages of the Church, when Christianity was still, as it were, fresh
+from the hand of its Creator, ere yet it had been debased and defiled by
+the idolatrous innovations of the Church of Rome.  For so we confess
+ourselves bound by links of gratitude to the Apostles, and the successors
+of the Apostles, and to all which has been best, purest, and truest in
+the ages since.  So we confess that we worship the same God-man of whom
+Apostles preached, of whom fathers philosophised, and for whom martyrs
+died.  That we believe, like them, that He alone is King of kings and
+Lord of lords; that there is no progress, civilization, or salvation in
+this life or the life to come, but through His undeserved mercy and His
+strengthening grace; that He has reigned from the creation of the world,
+reigns now, and will reign unto that last dread day, when He shall have
+put all enemies under His feet, and delivered up the kingdom to God, even
+the Father, that God may be all in all.  Unto which day may He in His
+mercy bring us all through faith and good works:  Amen.
+
+
+
+SERMON VI.  CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
+
+
+
+Eversley.  Quinquagesima Sunday, 1872.
+
+Genesis ix. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6.  "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said
+unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. . . .
+Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you . . .  But flesh
+with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.  And
+surely your blood of your lives will I require:  at the hand of every
+beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every
+man's brother will I require the life of man.  Whoso sheddeth man's
+blood, by man shall his blood be shed:  for in the image of God made he
+man."
+
+This is God's blessing on mankind.  This is our charter from God, who
+made and rules this earth.  This is the end and duty of our mortal life:-
+-to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it.  But
+is that all?  Is there no hint in this blessing of God of something more
+than our mortal life--something beyond our mortal life?  Surely there is.
+Those words--"in the image of God made He man," must mean, if they mean
+anything, that man can, if he will but be a true man, share the eternal
+life of God.  But I will not speak of that to-day, but rather of a
+question about his mortal life in this world, which is this:--What is the
+reason why man has a right over the lives of animals? why he may use them
+for his food? and at the same time, what is the reason why he has not the
+same right over the lives of his fellow-men? why he may not use them for
+food?
+
+It is this--that "in the image of God made He man."  Man is made in the
+image and likeness of God, therefore he is a sacred creature; a creature,
+not merely an animal, and the highest of all animals, only cunninger than
+all animals, more highly organised, more delicately formed than all
+animals; but something beyond an animal.  He is in the likeness of God,
+therefore he is consecrated to God.  He is the one creature on earth whom
+God, so far as we know, is trying to make like Himself.  Therefore,
+whosoever kills a man, sins not only against that man, nor against
+society:  he sins against God.  And God will require that man's blood at
+the hand of him who slays him.  But how?  At the hand of every beast will
+He require it, and at the hand of every man.
+
+What that first part of the law means I cannot tell.  How God will
+require from the lion, or the crocodile, or the shark, who eats a human
+being, the blood of their victims, is more than I can say.  But this I
+can say--that the feeling, not only of horror and pity, but of real rage
+and indignation, with which men see (what God grant you never may see) a
+wild beast kill a man, is a witness in man's conscience that the text is
+true somehow, though how we know not.  I received a letter a few weeks
+since from an officer, a very remarkable person, in which he described
+his horror and indignation at seeing a friend of his struck down and
+eaten by a tiger, and how, when next day he stood over what had been but
+the day before a human being, he looked up to heaven, and kept repeating
+the words of the text, "in the image of God made He man," in rage and
+shame, and almost accusing God for allowing His image to be eaten by a
+brute beast.  It shook, for the moment, his faith in God's justice and
+goodness.  That man was young then, and has grown calmer and wiser now,
+and has regained a deeper and sounder faith in God.  But the shock, he
+said, was dreadful to him.  He felt that the matter was not merely
+painful and pitiable, but that it was a wrong and a crime; and on the
+faith of this very text, a wrong and a crime I believe it to be, and one
+which God knows how to avenge and to correct when man cannot.  Somehow--
+for He has ways of which we poor mortals do not dream--at the hand of
+every beast will He require the blood of man.
+
+But more; at the hand of every man will He require it.  And how?  The
+text tells us, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be
+shed:  for in the image of God made He man."  Now, I do not doubt but
+that the all-seeing God, looking back on what had most probably happened
+on this earth already, and looking forward to what would happen, and
+happens, alas! too often now, meant to warn men against the awful crime
+of cannibalism, of eating their fellow-men as they would eat an animal.
+By so doing, they not only treated their fellow-men as beasts, but they
+behaved like beasts themselves.  They denied that their victim was made
+in the likeness of God; they denied that they were made in the likeness
+of God; they willingly and deliberately put on the likeness of beasts,
+and as beasts they were to perish.  Now, this is certain, that savages
+who eat men--and alas! there are thousands even now who do so--usually
+know in their hearts that they are doing wrong.  As soon as their
+consciences are the least awakened, they are ashamed of their
+cannibalism; they lie about it, try to conceal it; and as soon as God's
+grace begins to work on them, it is the very first sin that they give up.
+And next, this is certain, that there is a curse upon it.  No cannibal
+people, so far as I can find, have ever risen or prospered in the world;
+and the cannibal peoples now-a-days, and for the last three hundred
+years, have been dying out.  By their own vices, diseases, and wars, they
+perish off the face of the earth, in the midst of comfort and plenty;
+and, in spite of all the efforts of missionaries, even their children and
+grand-children, after giving up the horrid crime, and becoming
+Christians, seem to have no power of living and increasing, but dwindle
+away, and perish off the earth.  Yes, God's laws work in strange and
+subtle ways; so darkly, so slowly, that the ungodly and sinners often
+believe that there are no laws of God, and say--"Tush, how should God
+perceive it?  Is there knowledge in the Most High?"  But the laws work,
+nevertheless, whether men are aware of them or not.  "The mills of God
+grind slowly," but sooner or later they grind the sinner to powder.
+
+And now I will leave this hateful subject and go on to another, on which
+I am moved to speak once and for all, because it is much in men's minds
+just now--I mean what is vulgarly called "capital punishment," the
+punishing of murder by death.  Now the text, which is the ancient
+covenant of God with man, speaks very clearly on this point.  "Whosoever
+sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed."  Man is made in
+the likeness of God.  That is the ground of our law about murder, as it
+is the ground of all just and merciful law; that gives man his right to
+slay the murderer; that makes it his duty to slay the murderer.  He has
+to be jealous of God's likeness, and to slay, in the name of God, the man
+who, by murder, outrages the likeness of God in himself and in his
+victim.
+
+You all know that there is now-a-days a strong feeling among some persons
+about capital punishment; that there are those who will move heaven and
+earth to interfere with the course of justice, and beg off the worst of
+murderers, on any grounds, however unreasonable, fanciful, even unfair;
+simply because they have a dislike to human beings being hanged.  I
+believe, from long consideration, that these persons' strange dislike
+proceeds from their not believing sufficiently that man is made in the
+image of God.  And, alas! it proceeds, I fear, in some of them, from not
+believing in a God at all--believing, perhaps, in some mere maker of the
+world, but not in the living God which Scripture sets forth.  For how
+else can they say, as I have known some say, that capital punishment is
+wrong, because "we have no right to usher a man into the presence of his
+Maker."
+
+Into the presence of his Maker!  Why, where else is every man, you and I,
+heathen and Christian, bad and good, save in the presence of his Maker
+already?  Do we not live and move and have our being in God?  Whither can
+we go from His spirit, or whither can we flee from His presence?  If we
+ascend into heaven, He is there.  If we go down to hell He is there also.
+And if the law puts a man to death, it does not usher him into the
+presence of his Maker, for he is there already.  It simply says to him,
+"God has judged you on earth, not we.  God will judge you in the next
+world, not we.  All we know is, that you are not fit to live in this
+world.  All our duty is to send you out of it.  Where you will go in the
+other world is God's matter, not ours, and the Lord have mercy on your
+soul."
+
+And this want of faith in a living God lies at the bottom of another
+objection.  We are to keep murderers alive in order to convert and
+instruct and amend them.  The answer is, We shall be most happy to amend
+anybody of any fault, however great:  but the experience of ages is that
+murderers are past mending; that the fact of a man's murdering another is
+a plain proof that he has no moral sense, and has become simply a brute
+animal Our duty is to punish not to amend, and to say to the murderer,
+"If you can be amended; God will amend you, and so have mercy on your
+soul.  God must amend you, if you are to be amended.  If God cannot amend
+you, we cannot.  If God will not amend you, certainly we cannot force Him
+to do so, if we kept you alive for a thousand years."  That would seem
+reasonable, as well as reverent and faithful to God.  But men now-a-days
+fancy that they love their fellow creatures far better than God loves
+them, and can deal far more wisely and lovingly with them than God is
+willing to deal.  Of these objections I take little heed.  I look on them
+as merely loose cant, which does not quite understand the meaning of its
+own words, and I trust to sound, hard, English common sense to put them
+aside.
+
+But there is another objection to capital punishment, which we must deal
+with much more respectfully and tenderly; for it is made by certain good
+people, people whom we must honour, though we differ from them, for no
+set of people have done more (according to their numbers) for education,
+for active charity, and for benevolence, and for peace and good will
+among the nations of the earth.  And they say, you must not take the life
+of a murderer, just because he is made in God's image.  Well, I should
+have thought that God Himself was the best judge of that.  That, if God
+truly said that man was made in His image, and said, moreover, as it were
+at the same moment, that, therefore, whoso sheds man's blood, by man
+shall his blood be shed--our duty was to trust God, to obey God, and to
+do our duty against the murderer, however painful to our feelings it
+might be.  But I believe these good people make their mistake from
+forgetting this; that if the murderer be made in God's image and
+likeness, so is the man whom he murders; and so also is the jury who
+convict him, the judge who condemns him, and the nation (the society of
+men) for whom they act.
+
+And this, my dear friends, brings us to the very root of the meaning of
+law.  Man has sense to make laws (which animals cannot do), just because
+he is made in the likeness of God, and has the sense of right and wrong.
+Man has the right to enforce laws, to see right done and wrong punished,
+just because he is made in the likeness of God.  The laws of a country,
+as far as they are just and righteous, are the copy of what the men of
+that country have found out about right and wrong, and about how much
+right they can get done, and how much wrong punished.  So, just as the
+men of a country are (in spite of all their sins) made in the likeness of
+God, so the laws of a country (in spite of all their defects) are a copy
+of God's will, as to what men should or should not do.  And that, and no
+other, is the true reason why the judge or magistrate has authority over
+either property, liberty, or life.  He is God's servant, the servant of
+Christ, who is King of this land and of all lands, and of all
+governments, and all kings and rulers of the earth.  He sits there in
+God's name, to see God's will done, as far as poor fallible human beings
+can get it done.  And, because he is, not merely as a man, but, by his
+special authority, in the likeness of God, who has power over life and
+death, therefore he also, as far as his authority goes, has power over
+life and death.  That is my opinion, and that was the opinion of St.
+Paul.  For what does he say--and say not (remember always) of Christian
+magistrates in a Christian country, but actually of heathen Roman
+magistrates?  "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers.  For
+there is no power but of God:  the powers that be are ordained of God.
+Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God:
+and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation."  Thus spoke
+out the tenderest-hearted, most Christ-like human being, perhaps, who
+ever trod this earth, who, in his intense longing to save sinners,
+endured a life of misery and danger, and finished it by martyrdom.  But
+there was no sentimentality, no soft indulgence in him.  He knew right
+from wrong; common sense from cant; duty from public opinion; and divine
+charity from the mere cowardly dislike of witnessing pain, not so much
+because it pains the person punished, as because it pains the spectator.
+He knew that Christ was King of kings, and what Christ's kingdom was
+like.  He had discovered the divine and wonderful order of men and
+angels.  He saw that one part of that order was--"the soul that sinneth,
+it shall die."
+
+But some say that capital punishment is inconsistent with the mild
+religion of Christ--the religion of mercy and love.  "The mild religion
+of Christ!"  Do these men know of Whom they talk?  Do they know that, if
+the Bible be true, the God who said, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man
+shall his blood be shed," is the very same Being, the very same God, who
+was born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate--the very
+same Christ who took little children up in His arms and blessed them, the
+very same Word of God, too, of whom it is written, that out of His mouth
+goeth a two-edged sword, that He may smite the nations, and He shall rule
+them with a rod of iron, and He treadeth the wine press of the fierceness
+and wrath of Almighty God?  These are awful words, but, my dear friends,
+I can only ask you if you think them too awful to be true?  Do you
+believe the Christian religion?  Do you believe the Creeds?  Do you
+believe the Bible?  For if you do, then you believe that the Lord Christ,
+who was born of the Virgin Mary, and crucified under Pontius Pilate, is
+the Maker, the Master, the Ruler of this world, and of all worlds.  By
+what laws He rules other worlds we know not, save that they are, because
+they must be--just and merciful laws.  But of the laws by which He rules
+this world we do know, by experience, that His laws are of most terrible
+and unbending severity, as I have warned you again and again, and shall
+warn you, as long as there is a liar or an idler, a drunkard or an
+adulteress in this parish.
+
+And if this be so--if Christ be a God of severity as well as a God of
+love, a God who punishes sinners as well as a God who forgives penitents-
+-what then?  We are, He tells us, made in His likeness.  Then, according
+to His likeness we must behave.  We must copy His love, by helping the
+poor and afflicted, the weak and the oppressed.  But we must copy His
+severity, by punishing whenever we have the power, without cowardice or
+indulgence, all wilful offenders; and, above all, the man who destroys
+God's image in himself, by murdering and destroying the mortal life of a
+man made in the image of God.  And more; if we be made in the likeness of
+God and of Christ, we must remember, morning and night, and all day long,
+that most awful and most blessed fact.  We must say to ourselves, again
+and again, "I am not a mere animal, and like a mere animal I must not
+behave; I dare not behave like a mere animal, for I was made in the
+likeness of God; and when I was baptised the Spirit of God took
+possession of me to restore me to God's likeness, and to call out and
+perfect God's likeness in me all my life long.  Therefore, I am no mere
+animal; and never was intended to be.  I am the temple of God; my body
+and soul belong to God, and not to my own fancies and passions and lusts,
+and whosoever defiles the temple of God, him will God destroy."
+
+Therefore, this is our duty, this is our only hope or safety--to do our
+best to keep alive and strong the likeness of God in ourselves; to try to
+grow, not more and more mean, and brutal, and carnal, but more and more
+noble, and human, and spiritual; to crush down our base passions, our
+selfish inclinations, by the help of the Spirit of God, and to think of
+and to pray for, whatsoever is like Christ and like God; to pray for a
+noble love of what is good and noble, for a noble hate of what is bad;
+and whatsoever things are pure and lovely and of good report to think of
+these things.  And to pray, too, for forgiveness from Christ, and for the
+sake of Christ, whenever we have yielded to our low passions, and defiled
+the likeness of God in us, and grieved His Spirit, lest at the last day
+it be said to us, if not in words yet in acts, which there will be no
+mistaking, no escaping,--"I made thee in My likeness in the beginning of
+the creation, I redeemed thee into My likeness on the cross, I baptised
+thee into My likeness by my Holy Spirit; and what hast thou hast done
+with My likeness?  Thou hast cast it away, thou hast let it die out in
+thee, thou hast lived after the flesh and not after the spirit, and hast
+put on the likeness of the carnal man, the likeness of the brute.  Thou
+hast copied the vanity of the peacock, the silliness of the ape, the
+cunning of the fox, the rapacity of the tiger, the sensuality of the
+swine; but thou hast not copied God, thy God, who died that thou mightest
+live, and be a man.  Then, thou hast destroyed God's likeness, for thou
+hast destroyed it in thyself.  Thou hast slain a man, for thou hast slain
+thy own manhood, and art thine own murderer, and thine own blood shall be
+required at thy hand.  That which thou hast done to God's likeness in
+thee, shall be done to that which remains of thee in a second death."
+
+And from that may Christ in His mercy deliver us all.  Amen.
+
+
+
+SERMON VII.  TEMPTATION
+
+
+
+Eversley, 1872.  Chester Cathedral, 1872.
+
+St Matt. iv. 3.  "And when the tempter came to Him, he said, If Thou be
+the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread."
+
+Let me say a few words to-day about a solemn subject, namely, Temptation.
+I do not mean the temptations of the flesh--the temptations which all men
+have to yield to the low animal nature in them, and behave like brutes.
+I mean those deeper and more terrible temptations, which our Lord
+conquered in that great struggle with evil which is commonly called His
+temptation in the wilderness.  These were temptations of an evil spirit--
+the temptations which entice some men, at least, to behave like devils.
+
+Now these temptations specially beset religious men--men who are, or
+fancy themselves, superior to their fellow-men, more favoured by God, and
+with nobler powers, and grander work to do, than the common average of
+mankind.  But specially, I say, they beset those who are, or fancy
+themselves, the children of God.  And, therefore, I humbly suppose our
+Lord had to endure and to conquer these very temptations because He was
+not merely a child of God, but the Son of God--the perfect Man, made in
+the perfect likeness of His Father.  He had to endure these temptations,
+and to conquer them, that He might be able to succour us when we are
+tempted, seeing that He was tempted in like manner as we are, yet without
+sin.
+
+Now it has been said, and, I think, well said, that what proves our
+Lord's three temptations to have been very subtle and dangerous and
+terrible, is this--that we cannot see at first sight that they were
+temptations at all.  The first two do not look to us to be wrong.  If our
+Lord could make stones into bread to satisfy His hunger, why should He
+not do so?  If He could prove to the Jews that He was the Son of God,
+their divine King and Saviour, by casting Himself down from the pinnacle
+of the temple, and being miraculously supported in the air by angels--if
+He could do that, why should He not do it?  And lastly, the third
+temptation looks at first sight so preposterous that it seems silly of
+the evil spirit to have hinted at it.  To ask any man of piety, much less
+the Son of God Himself, to fall down and worship the devil, seems
+perfectly absurd--a request not to be listened to for a moment, but put
+aside with contempt.
+
+Well, my friends, and the very danger of these spiritual temptations is--
+that they do not look like temptations.  They do not look ugly, absurd,
+wrong, they look pleasant, reasonable, right.
+
+The devil, says the apostle, transforms himself at times into an angel of
+light.  If so, then he is certainly far more dangerous than if he came as
+an angel of darkness and horror.  If you met some venomous snake, with
+loathsome spots upon his scales, his eyes full of rage and cunning, his
+head raised to strike at you, hissing and showing his fangs, there would
+be no temptation to have to do with him.  You would know that you had to
+deal with an evil beast, and must either kill him or escape from him at
+once.  But if, again, you met, as you may meet in the tropics, a lovely
+little coral snake, braided with red and white, its mouth so small that
+it seems impossible that it can bite, and so gentle that children may
+take it up and play with it, then you might be tempted, as many a poor
+child has been ere now, to admire it, fondle it, wreathe it round the
+neck for a necklace, or round the arm for a bracelet, till the play goes
+one step too far, the snake loses its temper, gives one tiny scratch upon
+the lip or finger, and that scratch is certain death.  That would be a
+temptation indeed; one all the more dangerous because there is, I am
+told, another sort of coral snake perfectly harmless, which is so exactly
+like the deadly one, that no child, and few grown people, can know them
+apart.
+
+Even so it is with our worst temptations.  They look sometimes so exactly
+like what is good and noble and useful and religious, that we mistake the
+evil for the good, and play with it till it stings us, and we find out
+too late that the wages of sin are death.  Thus religious people, just
+because they are religious, are apt to be specially tempted to mistake
+evil for good, to do something specially wrong, when they think they are
+doing something specially right, and so give occasion to the enemies of
+the Lord to blaspheme; till, as a hard and experienced man of the world
+once said:  "Whenever I hear a man talking of his conscience, I know that
+he is going to do something particularly foolish; whenever I hear of a
+man talking of his duty, I know that he is going to do something
+particularly cruel."
+
+Do I say this to frighten you away from being religious?  God forbid.
+Better to be religious and to fear and love God, though you were tempted
+by all the devils out of the pit, than to be irreligious and a mere
+animal, and be tempted only by your own carnal nature, as the animals
+are.  Better to be tempted, like the hermits of old, and even to fall and
+rise again, singing, "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy, when I fall I
+shall arise;" than to live the life of the flesh, "like a beast with
+lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains."  It is the price a man
+must pay for hungering and thirsting after righteousness, for longing to
+be a child of God in spirit and in truth.  "The devil," says a wise man
+of old, "does not tempt bad men, because he has got them already; he
+tempts good men, because he has NOT got them, and wants to get them."
+
+But how shall we know these temptations?  God knows, my friends, better
+than I; and I trust that He will teach you to know, according to what
+each of you needs to know.  But as far as my small experience goes, the
+root of them all is pride and self-conceit.  Whatsoever thoughts or
+feelings tempt us to pride and self-conceit are of the devil, not of God.
+The devil is specially the spirit of pride; and, therefore, whatever
+tempts you to fancy yourself something different from your fellow-men,
+superior to your fellow men, safer than them, more favoured by God than
+them, that is a temptation of the spirit of pride.  Whatever tempts you
+to think that you can do without God's help and God's providence;
+whatever tempts you to do anything extraordinary, and show yourself off,
+that you may make a figure in the world; and above all, whatever tempts
+you to antinomianism, that is, to fancy that God will overlook sins in
+you which He will not overlook in other men--all these are temptations
+from the spirit of pride.  They are temptations like our Lord's
+temptations.  These temptations came on our Lord more terribly than they
+ever can on you and me, just because He was the Son of Man, the perfect
+Man, and, therefore, had more real reason for being proud (if such a
+thing could be) than any man, or than all men put together.  But He
+conquered the temptations because He was perfect Man, led by the Spirit
+of God; and, therefore, He knew that the only way to be a perfect man was
+not to be proud, however powerful, wise, and glorious He might be; but to
+submit Himself humbly and utterly, as every man should do, to the will of
+His Father in Heaven, from whom alone His greatness came.
+
+Now the spirit of pride cannot understand the beauty of humility, and the
+spirit of self-will cannot understand the beauty of obedience; and,
+therefore, it is reasonable to suppose the devil could not understand our
+Lord.  If He be the Son of God, so might Satan argue, He has all the more
+reason to be proud; and, therefore, it is all the more easy to tempt Him
+into shewing His pride, into proving Himself a conceited, self-willed,
+rebellious being--in one word, an evil spirit.
+
+And therefore (as you will see at first sight) the first two temptations
+were clearly meant to tempt our Lord to pride; for would they not tempt
+you and me to pride?  If we could feed ourselves by making bread of
+stones, would not that make us proud enough?  So proud, I fear, that we
+should soon fancy that we could do without God and His providence, and
+were masters of nature and all her secrets.  If you and I could make the
+whole city worship and obey us, by casting ourselves off this cathedral
+unhurt, would not that make us proud enough?  So proud, I fear, that we
+should end in committing some great folly, or great crime in our conceit
+and vainglory.
+
+Now, whether our Lord could or could not have done these wonderful deeds,
+one thing is plain--that He would not do them; and, therefore, we may
+presume that He ought not to have done them.  It seems as if He did not
+wish to be a wonderful man:  but only a perfectly good man, and He would
+do nothing to help Himself but what any other man could do.  He answered
+the evil spirit simply out of Scripture, as any other pious man might
+have done.  When He was bidden to make the stones into bread, He answers
+not as the Eternal Son of God, but simply as a man.  "It is written:"--it
+is the belief of Moses and the old prophets of my people that man doth
+not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the
+mouth of God:--as much as to say, If I am to be delivered out of this
+need, God will deliver me by some means or other, just as He delivers
+other men out of their needs.  When He was bidden cast Himself from the
+temple, and so save Himself, probably from sorrow, poverty, persecution,
+and the death on the cross, He answers out of Scripture as any other Jew
+would have done.  "It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy
+God."  He says nothing--this is most important--of His being the eternal
+Son of God.  He keeps that in the background.  There the fact was; but He
+veiled the glory of His godhead, that He might assert the rights of His
+manhood, and shew that mere man, by the help of the Spirit of God, could
+obey God, and keep His commandments.
+
+I say these last words with all diffidence and humility, and trusting
+that the Lord will pardon any mistake which I may make about His Divine
+Words.  I only say them because wiser men than I have often taken the
+same view already.  Of course there is more, far more, in this wonderful
+saying than we can understand, or ever will understand.  But this I think
+is plain--that our Lord determined to behave as any and every other man
+ought to have done in His place; in order to shew all God's children the
+example of perfect humility and perfect obedience to God.
+
+But again, the devil asked our Lord to fall down and worship him.  Now
+how could that be a temptation to pride?  Surely that was asking our Lord
+to do anything but a proud action, rather the most humiliating and most
+base of all actions.  My friends, it seems to me that if our Lord had
+fallen down and worshipped the evil spirit, He would have given way to
+the spirit of pride utterly and boundlessly; and I will tell you why.
+
+The devil wanted our Lord to do evil that good might come.  It would have
+been a blessing, that all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of man
+should be our Lord's,--the very blessing for this poor earth which He
+came to buy, and which He bought with His own precious blood.  And here
+the devil offered Him the very prize for which He came down on earth,
+without struggle or difficulty, if He would but do, for one moment, one
+wrong thing.  What temptation that would be to our Lord as God, I dare
+not say.  But that to our Lord as Man, it must have been the most
+terrible of all temptations, I can well believe:  because history shews
+us, and, alas! our own experience in modern times shews us, persons
+yielding to that temptation perpetually; pious people, benevolent people,
+people who long to spread the Bible, to convert sinners, to found
+charities, to amend laws, to set the world right in some way or other,
+and who fancy that therefore, in carrying out their fine projects, they
+have a right to do evil that good may come.
+
+This is a very painful subject; all the more painful just now, because I
+sometimes think it is the special sin of this country and this
+generation, and that God will bring on us some heavy punishment for it.
+But all who know the world in its various phases, and especially what are
+called the religious world, and the philanthropic world, and the
+political world, know too well that men, not otherwise bad men, will do
+things and say things, to carry out some favourite project or movement,
+or to support some party, religious or other, which they would (I hope)
+be ashamed to say and do for their own private gain.  Now what is this,
+but worshipping the evil spirit, in order to get power over this world,
+that they may (as they fancy) amend it?  And what is this but self-
+conceit--ruinous, I had almost said, blasphemous?  These people think
+themselves so certainly in the right, and their plans so absolutely
+necessary to the good of the world, that God has given them a special
+licence to do what they like in carrying them out; that He will excuse in
+them falsehoods and meannesses, even tyranny and violences which He will
+excuse in no one else.
+
+Now, is not this self-conceit?  What would you think of a servant who
+disobeyed you, cheated you, and yet said to himself--No matter, my master
+dare not turn me off:  I am so useful that he cannot do without me.  Even
+so in all ages, and now as much as, or more than ever, have men said, We
+are so necessary to God and God's cause, that He cannot do without us;
+and therefore though He hates sin in everyone else, He will excuse sin in
+us, as long as we are about His business.
+
+Therefore, my dear friends, whenever we are tempted to do or say anything
+rash, or vain, or mean, because we are the children of God; whenever we
+are inclined to be puffed up with spiritual pride, and to fancy that we
+may take liberties which other men must not take, because we are the
+children of God; let us remember the words of the text, and answer the
+tempter, when he says, If thou be the Son of God, do this and that, as
+our Lord answered him--"If I be the Child of God, what then?  This--that
+I must behave as if God were my Father.  I must trust my God utterly, and
+I must obey Him utterly.  I must do no rash or vain thing to tempt God,
+even though it looks as if I should have a great success, and do much
+good thereby.  I must do no mean or base thing, nor give way for a moment
+to the wicked ways of this wicked world, even though again it looks as if
+I should have a great success, and do much good thereby.  In one word, I
+must worship my Father in heaven, and Him only must I serve.  If He wants
+me, He will use me.  If He does not want me, He will use some one else.
+Who am I, that God cannot govern the world without my help?  My business
+is to refrain my soul, and keep it low, even as a weaned child, and not
+to meddle with matters too high for me.  My business is to do the little,
+simple, everyday duties which lie nearest me, and be faithful in a few
+things; and then, if Christ will, He may make me some day ruler over many
+things, and I shall enter into the joy of my Lord, which is the joy of
+doing good to my fellow men.  But I shall never enter into that by
+thrusting myself into Christ's way, with grand schemes and hasty
+projects, as if I knew better than He how to make His kingdom come.  If I
+do, my pride will have a fall.  Because I would not be faithful over a
+few things, I shall be tempted to be unfaithful over many things; and
+instead of entering into the joy of my Lord, I shall be in danger of the
+awful judgment pronounced on those who do evil that good may come, who
+shall say in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?
+and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful
+works?  And then will He protest unto them--I never knew you.  Depart
+from me, ye that work iniquity."
+
+Oh, my friends, in all your projects for good, as in all other matters
+which come before you in your mortal life, keep innocence and take heed
+to the thing that is right.  For that, and that alone, shall bring a man
+peace at the last.
+
+To which, may God in His mercy bring us all.  Amen.
+
+
+
+SERMON VIII.  MOTHER'S LOVE
+
+
+
+Eversley, Second Sunday in Lent, 1872.
+
+St Matthew xv. 22-28.  "And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the
+same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou
+son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.  But he
+answered her not a word.  And his disciples came and besought him,
+saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.  But he answered and
+said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  Then
+came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.  But he answered and
+said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to
+dogs.  And she said, Truth, Lord:  yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which
+fall from their master's table.  Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O
+woman, great is thy faith:  be it unto thee even as thou wilt.  And her
+daughter was made whole from that very hour."
+
+If you want a proof from Scripture that there are two sides to our
+blessed Lord's character--that He is a Judge and an Avenger as well as a
+Saviour and a Pardoner--that He is infinitely severe as well as
+infinitely merciful--that, while we may come boldly to His throne of
+grace to find help and mercy in time of need, we must, at the same time,
+tremble before His throne of justice--if you want a proof of all this, I
+say, then look at the Epistle and the Gospel for this day.  Put them side
+by side, and compare them, and you will see how perfectly they shew, one
+after the other, the two sides.
+
+The Epistle for the day tells men and women that they must lead moral,
+pure, and modest lives.  It does not advise them to do so.  It does not
+say, It will be better to do so, more proper and conducive to the good of
+society, more likely to bring you to heaven at last.  It says, You must,
+for it is the commandment of the Lord Jesus, and the will of God.  Let no
+man encroach on or defraud his brother in the matter, says St Paul; by
+which he means, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife.  And why?
+"Because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have
+forewarned you and testified."
+
+My friends, people talk loosely of the Thunder of Sinai and the rigour of
+Moses' law, and set them against what they call the gentle voice of the
+Gospel, and the mild religion of Christ.  Why, here are the Thunders of
+Sinai uttered as loud as ever, from the very foot of the Cross of Christ;
+and the terrible, "Thou shalt not," of Moses' law, with the curse of God
+for a penalty on the sinner, uttered by the Apostle of Faith, and
+Freedom, in the name of Christ and of God.  St Paul is not afraid to call
+Christ an Avenger.  How could he be?  He believed that it was Christ who
+spoke to Moses on Sinai--the very same Christ who prayed for His
+murderers, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."  And
+he knew that Christ was the eternal Son of God, the same yesterday, to-
+day, and for ever; that He had not changed since Moses' time, and could
+never change; that what He forbade in Moses' time, hated in Moses' time,
+and avenged in Moses' time, He would forbid, and hate, and avenge for
+ever.  And that, therefore, he who despises the warnings of the Law
+despises not man merely, but God, who has also given to us His Holy
+Spirit to know what is unchangeable, the everlastingly right, from what
+is everlastingly wrong.  So much for that side of our Lord's character;
+so much for sinners who, after their hardness and impenitent hearts,
+treasure up for themselves wrath against the day of wrath and revelation
+of the righteous judgment of God, in the day when God shall judge the
+secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to St Paul's Gospel.
+
+But, when we turn to the Gospel for the day, we see the other side of our
+Lord's character, boundless condescension and boundless charity.  We see
+Him there still a Judge, as He always is and always will be, judging the
+secrets of a poor woman's heart, and that woman a heathen.  He judges her
+openly, in public, before His disciples.  But He is a Judge who judges
+righteous judgment, and not according to appearances; who is no respecter
+of persons; who is perfectly fair, even though the woman be a heathen:
+and, instead of condemning her and driving her away, He acquits her, He
+grants her prayer, He heals her daughter, even though that daughter was
+also a heathen, and one who knew Him not.  I say our Lord judged the
+woman after He had tried her, as gold is tried in the fire.  Why He did
+so, we cannot tell.  Perhaps He wanted, by the trial, to make her a
+better woman, to bring out something noble which lay in her heart unknown
+to her, though not to Him who knew what was in man.  Perhaps He wished to
+shew his disciples, who looked down on her as a heathen dog, that a
+heathen, too, could have faith, humility, nobleness, and grace of heart.
+Be that as it may, when the poor woman came crying to Him, He answered
+her not a word.  His disciples besought Him to send her away--and I am
+inclined to think that they wished Him to grant her what she asked,
+simply to be rid of her.  "Send her away," they said, "for she crieth
+after us."  Our Lord, we learn from St Mark, did not wish to be known in
+that place just then.  The poor woman, with her crying, was drawing
+attention to them, and, perhaps, gathering a crowd.  Somewhat noisy and
+troublesome, perhaps she was, in her motherly eagerness.  But our Lord
+was still seemingly stern.  He would not listen, it seemed, to His
+disciples any more than to the heathen woman.  "I am not sent but unto
+the lost sheep of the house of Israel."  So our Lord said, and (what is
+worth remembering) if He said so, what He said was true.  He was the King
+of the people of Israel, the Royal Prince of David's line; and, as a man,
+His duty was only to His own people.  And this woman was a Greek, a Syro-
+phenician by nation--of a mixed race of people, notoriously low and
+profligate, and old enemies of the Jews.
+
+Then, it seems, He went into a house, and would have no man know it.
+But, says St Mark, "He could not be hid."  The mother's wit found our
+Lord out, and the mother's heart urged her on, and, in spite of all His
+rebuffs, she seems to have got into the house and worshipped Him.  She
+"fell at His feet," says St Mark--doubtless bowing her forehead to the
+ground, in the fashion of those lands--an honour which was paid, I
+believe, only to persons who were royal or divine.  So she confessed that
+He was a king--perhaps a God come down on earth--and again she cried to
+Him.  "Lord, help me."  And what was our Lord's answer--seemingly more
+stern than ever?  "Let the children first be filled:  for it is not meet
+to take the children's bread and cast it unto the dogs."  Hard words.
+Yes:  but all depends on how they were spoken.  All depends on our Lord's
+look as He spoke them, and, even more, on the tone of His voice.  We all
+know that two men may use the very same words to us;--and the one shall
+speak sneeringly, brutally, and raise in us indignation or despair;
+another shall use the same words, but solemnly, tenderly, and raise in us
+confidence and hope.  And so it may have been--so, I fancy, it must have
+been--with the tone of our Lord's voice, with the expression of His face.
+Did He speak with a frown, or with something like a smile?  There must
+have been some tenderness, meaningness, pity in His voice which the quick
+woman's wit caught instantly, and the quick mother's heart interpreted as
+a sign of hope.
+
+Let Him call her a dog if He would.  What matter to a mother to be called
+a dog, if she could thereby save her child from a devil?  Perhaps she was
+little better than a dog.  They were a bad people these Syrians, quick-
+witted, highly civilised, but vicious, and teaching vice to other
+nations, till some of the wisest Romans cursed the day when the Syrians
+first spread into Rome, and debauched the sturdy Romans with their new-
+fangled, foreign sins.  They were a bad people, and, perhaps, she had
+been as bad as the rest.  But if she were a dog, at least she felt that
+the dog had found its Master, and must fawn on Him, if it were but for
+the hope of getting something from Him.
+
+And so, in the poor heathen mother's heart, there rose up a whole heaven
+of perfect humility, faith, adoration.  If she were base and mean, yet
+our Lord was great, and wise, and good; and that was all the more reason
+why He should be magnanimous, generous, condescending, like a true King,
+to the basest and meanest of His subjects.  She asked not for money, or
+honour, or this world's fine things:  but simply for her child's health,
+her child's deliverance from some mysterious and degrading illness.
+Surely there was no harm in asking for that.  It was simply a mother's
+prayer, a simply human prayer, which our Lord must grant, if He were
+indeed a man of woman born, if He had a mother, and could feel for a
+mother, if He had human tenderness, human pity in Him.  And so, with her
+quick Syrian wit, she answers our Lord with those wonderful words--
+perhaps the most pathetic words in the whole Bible--so full of humility,
+of reverence, and yet with a certain archness, almost playfulness, in
+them, as it were, turning our Lord's words against Him; and, by that very
+thing, shewing how utterly she trusted Him,--"Truth, Lord:  yet the dogs
+eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."
+
+Those were the beautiful words--more beautiful to me than whole volumes
+of poetry--which our Lord had as it were crushed out of the woman's
+heart.  Doubtless, He knew all the while that they were in her heart,
+though not as yet shaped into words.  Doubtless, He was trying her, to
+shew His disciples--and all Christians who should ever read the Bible--
+what was in her heart, what she was capable of saying when it came to the
+point.  So He tried her, and judged her, and acquitted her.  Out of the
+abundance of her heart her mouth had spoken.  By her words she was
+justified.  By those few words she proved her utter faith in our Lord's
+power and goodness--perhaps her faith in His godhead.  By those words she
+proved the gentleness and humility, the graciousness and gracefulness of
+her own character.  By those words she proved, too,--and oh, you that are
+mothers, is that nothing?--the perfect disinterestedness of her mother's
+love.  And so she conquered--as the blessed Lord loves to be conquered--
+as all noble souls who are like their blessed Lord, love to be conquered-
+-by the prayer of faith, of humility, of confidence, of earnestness, and
+she had her reward.  "O woman," said He, the Maker of all heaven and
+earth, "great is thy faith.  For this saying go thy way.  Be it unto thee
+even as thou wilt.  The devil is gone out of thy daughter."  She went,
+full of faith; and when she was come to her house, she found the devil
+gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed.
+
+One word more, and I have done.  I do not think that any one who really
+took in the full meaning of this beautiful story, would ever care to pray
+to Saints, or to the Blessed Virgin, for help; fancying that they, and
+specially the Blessed Virgin, being a woman, are more humane than our
+Lord, and can feel more quickly, if not more keenly, for poor creatures
+in distress.  We are not here to judge these people, or any people.  To
+their own master they stand or fall.  But for the honour of our Lord, we
+may say, Does not this story shew that the Lord is humane enough, tender
+enough, to satisfy all mankind?  Does not this story shew that even if He
+seem silent at first, and does not grant our prayers, yet still He may be
+keeping us waiting, as He kept this heathen woman, only that He may be
+gracious to us at last?  Does not this story shew us especially that our
+Lord can feel for mothers and with mothers; that He actually allowed
+Himself to be won over--if I may use such a word in all reverence--by the
+wit and grace of a mother pleading for her child?  Was it not so?  "O
+woman, great is thy faith.  For this saying go thy way.  Be it unto thee
+even as thou wilt."  Ah! are not those gracious words a comfort to every
+mother, bidding her, in the Lord's own name, to come boldly where
+mothers--of all human beings--have oftenest need to come, to the throne
+of Christ's grace, to find mercy, and grace to help in time of need?
+
+Yes, my friends, such is our Lord, and such is our God.  Infinite in
+severity to the scornful, the proud, the disobedient:  infinite in
+tenderness to the earnest, the humble, the obedient.  Let us come to Him,
+earnest, humble, obedient, and we shall find Him, indeed, a refuge of the
+soul and body in spirit and in truth.
+
+
+Thou, O Lord, art all I want.
+All and more in thee I find.  Amen.
+
+
+
+SERMON IX.  GOOD FRIDAY
+
+
+
+Eversley, 1856.
+
+St. Luke xxiv. 5, 6.  "Why seek ye the living among the dead?  He is not
+here, but is risen."
+
+This is a very solemn day; for on this day the Lord Jesus Christ was
+crucified.  The question for us is, how ought we to keep it? that is,
+what sort of thoughts ought to be in our minds upon this day?  Now, many
+most excellent and pious persons, and most pious books, seem to think
+that we ought to-day to think as much as possible of the sufferings of
+our Blessed Lord; and because we cannot, of course, understand or imagine
+the sufferings of His Spirit, to think of what we can, that is, His
+bodily sufferings.  They, therefore, seem to wish to fill our minds with
+the most painful pictures of agony, and shame, and death, and sorrow; and
+not only with our Lord's sorrows, but with those of His Blessed Mother,
+and of the disciples, and the holy women who stood by His cross; they
+wish to stir us up to pity and horror, and to bring before us the saddest
+parts of Holy Scripture, such as the Lamentations of Jeremiah; as well as
+dwell at great length upon very painful details, which may be all quite
+true, but of which Scripture says nothing; as so to make this day a day
+of darkness, and sorrow, and horror, just such as it would have been to
+us if we had stood by Christ's cross, like these holy women, without
+expecting Him to rise again, and believing that all was over--that all
+hope of Israel's being redeemed was gone, and that the wicked Jews had
+really conquered that perfectly good, and admirable Saviour, and put Him
+out of the world for ever.
+
+Now, I judge no man; to his own master he standeth or falleth; yea, and
+he shall stand, for God is able to make him stand.  But it does seem to
+me that these good people are seeking the living among the dead, and
+forgetting that Christ is neither on the cross nor in the tomb, but that
+He is risen; and it seems to me better to bid you follow to-day the Bible
+and the Church Service, and to think of what they tell you to think of.
+
+Now the Bible, it is most remarkable, never enlarges anywhere upon even
+the bodily sufferings of our dear and blessed Lord.  The evangelists keep
+a silence on that point which is most lofty, dignified, and delicate.
+What sad and dreadful things might not St. John, the beloved apostle as
+he was, have said, if he had chosen, about what he saw and what he felt,
+as he stood by that cross on Calvary--words which would have stirred to
+pity the most cruel, and drawn tears from a heart of stone?  And yet all
+he says is, "They crucified Him, and two other with him, on either side
+one, and Jesus in the midst."  He passes it over, as it were, as a thing
+which he ought not to dwell on; and why should we put words into St.
+John's mouth which he did not think fit to put into his own?  He wrote by
+the Spirit of God; and therefore he knew best what to say, and what not
+to say.  Why should we try and say anything more for him?  Scripture is
+perfect.  Let us be content with it.  The apostles, too, in their
+Epistles, never dwell on Christ's sufferings.  I entreat you to remark
+this.  They never mention His death except in words of cheerfulness and
+triumph.  They seem so full of the glorious fruits of His death, that
+they have, as it were, no time to speak of the death itself.  "Who, for
+the joy which was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame,
+and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."  That is the
+apostles' key-note.  For God's sake let it be ours too, unless we fancy
+that we can improve on Scripture, or that we can feel more for our Lord
+than St. Paul did.  In the Lessons, the Psalms, the Epistle, and Gospel
+for this day, you find just the same spirit.  All except one Psalm are
+songs of hope, joy, deliverance, triumph.  The Collects for this day,
+which are particularly remarkable, being three in number, and evidently
+meant to teach us the key-note of Good Friday, make no mention of our
+Lord's sufferings, save to say that He was CONTENTED, "contented to be
+betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death
+upon the cross," but are full of prayers that the glorious fruits of His
+death may be fulfilled, not only in us and all Christians, but in the
+very heathen who have not known Him; drawing us away, as it were, from
+looking too closely upon the cross itself, lest we should forget what the
+cross meant, what the cross conquered, what the cross gained, for us and
+mankind.
+
+Surely, this was not done without a reason.  And I cannot but think the
+reason was to keep us from seeking the living among the dead; to keep us
+from knowing Christ any longer after the flesh, and spending tears and
+emotions over His bodily sufferings; to keep us from thinking and
+sorrowing too much over the dead Christ, lest we should forget, as some
+do, that He is alive for evermore; and while they weep over the dead
+Christ or the crucifix, go to the blessed Virgin and the saints to do for
+them all that the living Christ is longing to do for them, if they would
+but go straight to Him to whom all power is given in heaven and earth;
+whom St John saw, no longer hanging on the accursed tree, but with His
+hair as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire, and His voice
+like the sound of many waters, and His countenance as the sun when he
+shineth in his strength, saying unto him, "Fear not, I am the first and
+the last; I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for
+evermore."  This is what Christ is now.  In this shape He is looking at
+us now.  In this shape He is hearing me speak.  In this shape He is
+watching every feeling of your hearts, discerning your most secret
+intents, seeing through and through the thoughts which you would confess
+to no human being, hardly even to yourselves.  This is He, a living
+Christ, an almighty Christ, an all-seeing Christ, and yet a most patient
+and loving Christ.  He needs not our pity; but our gratitude, our
+obedience, our worship.  Why seek Him among the dead?  He is not there,
+He is risen!  He is not there, He is here!  Bow yourselves before Him
+now; for He is in the midst of you; and those eyes of His, more piercing
+than the mid-day sunbeams, are upon you, and your hearts, and your
+thoughts, and upon mine also.  God have mercy upon me a sinner.
+
+Yes, my friends, why seek the living among the dead?  He is not there,
+but here.  We may try to put ourselves in the place of the disciples and
+the Virgin Mary, as they stood by Jesus' cross; but we cannot do it, for
+they saw Him on the cross, and thought that He was lost to them for ever;
+they saw Him die, and gave up all hope of His rising again.  And we know
+that Christ is not lost to us for ever.  We know Christ is not on the
+cross, but at the right hand of God in bliss and glory unspeakable.  We
+may be told to watch with the three Maries at the tomb of Christ:  but we
+cannot do as they did, for they thought that all was over, and brought
+sweet spices to embalm His body, which they thought was in the tomb; and
+we know that all was not over, that His body is not in the tomb, that the
+grave could not hold Him, that His body is ascended into heaven; that
+instead of His body needing spices to embalm it, it is His body which
+embalms all heaven and earth, and is the very life of the world, and food
+which preserves our souls and bodies to everlasting life.  We are not in
+the place of those blessed women; God has not put us in their place, and
+we cannot put ourselves into their place; and if we could and did, by any
+imaginations of our own, we should only tell ourselves a lie.  Good
+Friday was to them indeed a day of darkness, horror, disappointment, all
+but despair; because Easter Day had not yet come, and Christ had not yet
+risen.  But Good Friday cannot be a day of darkness to us, because Christ
+has risen, and we know it, and cannot forget it; we cannot forget that
+Easter dawn, when the Sun of Righteousness arose, never to set again.
+Has not the light of that Resurrection morning filled with glory the
+cross and the grave, yea the very agony in the Garden, and hell itself,
+which Christ harrowed for us?  Has it not risen a light to lighten the
+Gentiles, a joy to angels and archangels, and saints, and all the elect
+of God; ay, to the whole universe of God, so that the very stars in their
+courses, the trees as they bud each spring, yea, the very birds upon the
+bough, are singing for ever, in the ears of those who have ears to hear,
+"Christ is risen?"  And shall we, under pretence of honouring Christ and
+of bestowing on Him a pity which He needs least of all, try to spend Good
+Friday and Passion Week in forgetting Easter Day; try to think of
+Christ's death as we should if He had not risen, and try to make out
+ourselves and the world infinitely worse off than we really know that we
+are?  Christ has died, but He has risen again; and we must not think of
+one without the other.  Heavenly things are too important, too true, too
+real--Christ is too near us, and too loving to us, too earnest about our
+salvation, for us to spend our thoughts on any such attempts (however
+reverently meant) at imaginative play-acting in our own minds about His
+hanging on His cross, while we know that He is not on His cross; and
+about watching by His tomb, when we know that He is not in His tomb.  Let
+us thank Him, bless Him, serve Him, die for Him, if need be, in return
+for all He endured for us:  but let us keep our sorrow and our pity, and
+our tears, for our own daily sins--we have enough of them to employ all
+our sorrow, and more;--and not in voluntary humility and will-worship,
+against which St Paul warns us, lose sight of our real Christ, of Him who
+was dead and is alive for evermore, and dwells in us by faith; now and
+for ever, amen; and hath the keys of death and hell, and has opened them
+for us, and for our fathers before us, and for our children after us, and
+for nations yet unborn.
+
+True, this is a solemn day, for on it the Son of God fought such a fight,
+that He could only win it at the price of His own life's blood; and a
+humiliating day, for our sins helped to nail Him on the cross--and
+therefore a day of humiliation and of humility.  Proud, self-willed
+thoughts are surely out of place to-day (and what day are they in place?)
+On this day God agonised for man:  but it is a day of triumph and
+deliverance; and we must go home as men who have stood by and seen a
+fearful fight--a fight which makes the blood of him who watches it run
+cold; but we have seen, too, a glorious victory--such a victory as never
+was won on earth before or since; and we therefore must think cheerfully
+of the battle, for the sake of the victory that was won; and remember
+that on this day death was indeed swallowed up in victory--because death
+was the victory itself.
+
+The question on which the fate of the whole world depended was, whether
+Christ dare die; and He dared die.  Whether Christ would endure to the
+end; and He did endure.  Whether He would utterly drink the cup which His
+Father had given Him; and He drank it to the dregs; and so by His very
+agony He showed Himself noble, beautiful, glorious, adorable, beyond all
+that words can express.  And so the cross was His throne of glory; the
+prints of the nails in His hands and feet were the very tokens of His
+triumph; His very sorrows were His bliss; and those last words, "It is
+finished," were no cry of despair, but a trumpet-call of triumph, which
+rang from the highest heaven to the lowest hell, proclaiming to all
+created things, that the very fountain of life, by dying, had conquered
+death, that good had conquered evil, love had conquered selfishness, God
+had conquered man, and all the enemies of man; and that He who died was
+the first begotten from the dead, and the King of all the princes of the
+earth, who was going to fulfil, more and more, as the years and the ages
+rolled on, the glorious prayer which we have prayed this day, graciously
+to behold that family for whom He had been contented to die; and wisely
+and orderly to call each man to a vocation and a ministry, in which he
+might duly serve God and be a blessing to all around him, by the
+inspiration of Christ's Holy Spirit; and to have mercy, in His own good
+time, upon all Jews, Turks, heathens, and infidels, and bring them home
+to His flock, that they may be saved, and made one fold under one
+Shepherd--Him who was dead and is alive for evermore.
+
+Therefore, my dear friends, if we wish to keep Good Friday in spirit and
+in truth, we cannot do so better than by trying to carry out the very end
+for which Christ died on this day; and doing our part, small though it
+be, toward bringing those poor heathens home into Christ's fold, and
+teaching them the gospel and good news that for them, too, Christ died,
+and over them, too, Christ reigns alive for evermore; and bringing them
+home into His flock, that they, too, may find a place in His great
+family, and have their calling and ministry appointed to them among the
+nations of those who are saved and walk in the light of God and of the
+Lamb.
+
+I have refrained till now from speaking to you much about missionaries,
+and the duty which lies on us all of helping missions.  It seemed to me
+that I must first teach you to understand these first and second collects
+before I went on. to the third; that I must first teach you that you
+belonged to Christ's family, and that He had called each of you, and
+appointed each of you to some order and degree in His Holy Church.  But
+now, if indeed you have learnt that--if my preaching here for fourteen
+years has had any effect to teach you who and what you are, and what your
+duty is, let me entreat you to go on, and take the lesson of that third
+collect, and think of those poor Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics, who
+still--many a million of them--sit, or rather wander, and fall, and lie,
+miserably wallowing in darkness and the shadow of death, and think
+whether you cannot do something toward helping them.  What you can do,
+and how it is to be done, I will tell you hereafter; and, by God's grace,
+I hope to see men of God in this pulpit, who having been missionaries
+themselves, can tell you better than I, what remains to be done, and how
+you can help to do it.  But take home this one thought with you, this
+Good Friday,--Christ, who liveth and was dead, and behold He is alive for
+evermore, if He be indeed precious to you, if you indeed feel for His
+sufferings, if you indeed believe that what He bought by those sufferings
+was a right to all the souls on earth, then do what you can toward
+repaying Him for His sufferings, by seeing of the travail of His soul,
+and being satisfied.  All the reward He asks, or ever asked, is the
+hearts of sinners, that He may convert them; the souls of sinners, that
+He may save them; and they belong to Him already, for He bought them this
+day with His own most precious blood.  Do something, then, toward helping
+Christ to His own.
+
+
+
+SERMON X.  THE IMAGE OF THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY
+
+
+
+Eversley, Easter Day, 1871.
+
+1 Cor. xv. 49.  "As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also
+bear the image of the heavenly."
+
+This season of Easter is the most joyful of all the year.  It is the most
+comfortable time, in the true old sense of that word; for it is the
+season which ought to comfort us most--that is, it gives us strength;
+strength to live like men, and strength to die like men, when our time
+comes.  Strength to live like men.  Strength to fight against the
+temptation which Solomon felt when he said:  "I have seen all the works
+which are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity and vexation of
+spirit.  For what has a man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his
+heart, wherein he has laboured under the sun?  For all his days are
+sorrow, and his travail grief.  Yea, his heart taketh not rest in the
+night.  This also is vanity.  For that which befalleth the sons of men
+befalleth beasts:  as the one dieth, so dieth the other:  yea, they have
+all one breath:  so that a man has no pre-eminence over a beast; for all
+is vanity.  All go to one place:  all are of the dust, and all turn to
+dust again.  Who knoweth the spirit of man that it goeth upward, and the
+spirit of the beast that it goeth downward to the earth?"  So thought
+Solomon in his temptation, and made up his mind that there was nothing
+better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and make his soul
+enjoy good in his labour.
+
+So thought Solomon, in spite of all his wisdom, because he had not heard
+the good news of Easter day.  And so think many now, who are called wise
+men and philosophers; because they, alas! for them, will not believe the
+good news of Easter day.
+
+But what says Easter day?  Easter day says, Man has pre-eminence over a
+beast.  The man is redeemed from the death of the beasts by Christ, who
+rose on Easter day.  Easter day says, Wherever the spirit of the beast
+goes, wherever the spirit of the brutal and the wicked man goes, the
+spirit of the true Christian goes upward, to Christ, who bought it with
+His precious blood.  Easter day says, The body may turn to the dust from
+which it was taken, but the spirit lives for ever before God, who shall
+give it another body, as it shall please Him, as He gives to every seed
+its own body.  And, therefore, Easter day says, There is something better
+for a man than to eat and drink and enjoy himself, for to-morrow he may
+die, and all be over; and that something is, to labour not merely for the
+meat which perishes with the perishing body, but to labour after the
+fruits of the spirit--love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
+goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.  These the life of the body does
+not give us; and these the death of the body not take away from us; for
+they are spiritual and heavenly, eternal and divine; and he who has them
+cannot die for ever.  And therefore, we may comfort ourselves in all our
+labour, if only we labour at the one useful work on earth, to be good,
+and to do good, and to make others good likewise.
+
+True it is, as St. Paul says, that if in this life only we have hope in
+Christ we are of all men most miserable.  For we do not care to be of the
+earth, earthy:  we long to be of the heaven, heavenly.  We do not care to
+spend our time in eating and drinking, mean covetousness, ambition, and
+the base pleasures of the flesh:  we long after high and noble things,
+which we cannot get on earth, or at best only in fragments, and at rare
+moments; after the holiness and the blessedness of ourselves and our
+fellow-creatures.  But we have hope in Christ for the next life as well
+as for this.  Hope that in the next life He will give us power to
+succeed, where we failed here; that He will enable us to be good and to
+do good, and, if not to make others good (for there, we trust, all will
+be good together), to enjoy the fulness of that pleasure for which we
+have been longing on earth--the pleasure of seeing others good, as Christ
+is good and perfect, as their Father in heaven is perfect.
+
+To be good ourselves, and to live for ever in good company--ah my
+friends, that is true bliss.  If we cannot reach that after death, it
+were better for us that death should make an end of us, and that when our
+body decays in the grave we should be annihilated, and become nothing for
+ever.
+
+But Easter day says to us, If you labour to create good company in this
+life, by trying to make other people round you good, you shall enjoy for
+ever in the next world the good company which you have helped to make.
+If you labour to make yourself good in this life, you shall enjoy the
+fruit of your labour in the next life by being good, and, therefore,
+blessed for ever.  Easter day says, Your labour is not vanity and
+vexation of spirit.  It is solid work, which shall receive solid pay from
+God hereafter.  Easter day is a pledge--I may say a sacrament--from God
+to us, that He will righteously reward all righteous work; and that,
+therefore, it is worth any man's while to labour, to suffer, if need be
+even to die, in trying to be good, noble, useful, self-sacrificing, as
+Christ toiled and suffered and died and sacrificed Himself to do good.
+For then he will share Christ's reward, as he has shared Christ's labour,
+and be rewarded, as Christ was, by resurrection to eternal life.
+
+And so Easter day should give us strength to live like men--the only
+truly manly, truly human life; the life of being good and doing good.
+
+And strength to die.  Men are afraid of dying, principally, I believe,
+because they fear the unknown.  It is not that they are afraid of the
+pain of dying.  It is not that they are afraid of going to hell; for in
+all my experience, at least, I have met with but one person who thought
+that he was going to hell.  Neither is it that they are afraid of not
+going to heaven.  Their expectation almost always is, that they are going
+thither.  But they do not care much to go to heaven.  They are willing
+enough to go there, because they know that they must go somewhere.  But
+their notions of what heaven will be like are by no means clear.  They
+have sung rapturous hymns in church or chapel about the heavenly
+Jerusalem, and passing Jordan safe to Canaan's shore, with no very clear
+notion of what the words meant--and small blame to them.
+
+But when they think of actually dying, they feel as if to go into the
+next world was to be turned out into the dark night, into an unknown
+land, away from house and home, and all they have known, and all they
+have loved; and they are ready to say with the good old heathen emperor,
+when he lay a-dying--
+
+
+"Little soul of mine, wandering, kindly,
+Companion and guest of my body;
+Into what place art thou now departing,
+Shivering, naked, and pale?"
+
+
+And so they shrink from death.  They must shrink from death, unless they
+will believe with their whole hearts the good news of Easter day.  The
+more thoughtful and clever they are, the more they will shrink from
+death, and dread the thought of losing their bodies.  They have always
+had bodies here on earth.  They only know themselves as souls embodied,
+living in bodies; and they cannot think of themselves in the next world
+with any comfort, if they may not think of themselves as having bodies.
+
+And the more loving and affectionate they are, the more they will shrink
+from death, unless they believe with their whole hearts the good news of
+Easter day.  For those whom they have loved on earth have bodies.
+Through their bodies--through their voices, their looks, their actions,
+they have known them, and thus they have loved them; and if their beloved
+ones are to have no bodies in the world to come, how shall they see them?
+how shall they know them? how shall they converse with them?  It seems to
+them in that case neither they, nor those they love, would be the same
+persons in the world to come they are here; and that thought is lonely
+and dreadful, till they accept the good news of Easter day, the thrice
+blessed words of St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, which they
+hear at the burial of those whom they love and lose.  Oh, blessed news
+for us, and for those we love; those without whose company the world to
+come would be lonely and cheerless to us.  For now we can say, Tell me
+not that as the beast dies, so dies the man.  Tell me not that as Adam
+died because of sin, so must I die, and all I love.  Tell me not that it
+is the universal law of nature that all things born in time must die in
+time; and that every human being, animal, and plant carries in itself
+from its beginning to its end a law of death, the seed of its own
+destruction.  I know all that; but I care little for it, because I know
+more than that.  I know that the man's body dies as the beast's body
+dies; but I know that the body is not the man, but only the husk, the
+shell of the man; that the true man, the true woman, lives on after the
+loss of his mortal body; and that there is an eternal law of life, which
+conquers the law of death; and by that law a fresh body will grow up
+round the true man, the immortal spirit, and will be as fit--ay, far
+fitter--to do his work, than this poor mortal body which has turned to
+death on earth.  Tell me not that because I am descended from a mortal
+and sinful old Adam, of whom it is written that he was of the earth,
+earthly, therefore my soul is a part of my body, and dies when my body
+dies.  I belong not to the old Adam, but to the new Adam--the new Head of
+men, who is the Lord from heaven, the author of eternal life to all who
+obey Him.  Do not tell me that I have nothing in me but the likeness of
+the old Adam, for that seems to me and to St. Paul nothing but the
+likeness of the fallen savage and the brute in human form.  I know I have
+more in me--infinitely more--than that.  What may be in store for the
+savage, the brutal, the wicked, is God's concern, not mine.  But what is
+in store for me I know--that as I have borne the image of the earthly, so
+shall I bear the image of the heavenly, if only the Spirit of Christ, the
+new Adam, be in me.  For if Christ be in us, "the body is dead because of
+sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness."  And if the Spirit
+of Him which raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in us, He that raised up
+Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies by His Spirit
+that dwelleth in us.  How He will do it I know not; neither do I care to
+know.  When He will do it I know not; but it will be when it ought to be;
+and that is enough for me.  That He can do it I know, for He is the Maker
+of the universe, and to Him all power is given in heaven and earth; and
+as for its being strange, wonderful, past understanding, that matters
+little to me.  That will be but one wonder more in a world where all is
+wonderful--one more mystery in an utterly mysterious universe.
+
+And so, as Easter day has given us strength to live, let Easter day, too,
+give us strength to die.
+
+
+
+SERMON XI.  EASTER DAY
+
+
+
+Chester Cathedral. 1870.
+
+St John xii. 24, 25.  "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of
+wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone:  but if it die, it
+bringeth forth much fruit.  He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he
+that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal."
+
+This is our Lord's own parable.  In it He tells us that His death, His
+resurrection, His ascension, is a mystery which we may believe, not only
+because the Bible tells us of it, but because it is reasonable, and
+according to the laws of His universe; a fulfilment, rather say the
+highest fulfilment, of one of those laws which runs through the world of
+nature, and through the spiritual and heavenly world likewise.  "Except a
+corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone;"--barren,
+useless, and truly dead to the rest of the world around it, because it is
+shut up in itself, and its hidden life, with all its wondrous powers of
+growth and fertility, remains undeveloped, and will remain so, till it
+decays away, a worthless thing, into worthless dust.  But if it be buried
+in the earth a while, then the rich life which lay hid in it is called
+out by that seeming death, and it sprouts, tillers, and flowers, and
+ripens its grain--forty-fold, sixty-fold, an hundred-fold; and so it
+shows God's mind and will concerning it.  It shows what is really in it,
+and develops the full capabilities of its being.  Even so, says our Lord,
+would His death, His resurrection, His ascension be.
+
+He speaks of His own resurrection and ascension; yes, but He speaks first
+of His own death.  Before the corn can bring forth fruit, and show what
+is in it, fulfilling the law of its being, it must fall into the ground
+and die.  Before our Lord could fulfil the prophecy, "Thou wilt not leave
+my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see
+corruption," He must fulfil the darker prophecy of that awful 88th Psalm,
+the only one of all the psalms which ends in sorrow, in all but despair,
+"My soul is full of trouble, and my life draweth nigh unto hell.  I am
+counted as one of them that go down into the pit:  and I have been even
+as a man that hath no strength.  Free among the dead, like unto them that
+are wounded and lie in the grave, who are out of remembrance, and are cut
+away from thy hand."  So it was to be.  So, we may believe, it needed to
+be.  Christ must suffer before He entered into His glory.  He must die,
+before He could rise.  He must descend into hell, before He ascended into
+heaven.  For this is the law of God's kingdom.  Without a Good Friday,
+there can be no Easter Day.  Without self-sacrifice, there can be no
+blessedness, neither in earth nor in heaven.  He that loveth his life
+will lose it.  He that hateth his life in this paltry, selfish,
+luxurious, hypocritical world, shall keep it to life eternal.  Our Lord
+Jesus Christ fulfilled that law; because it is the law, the law not of
+Moses, but of the kingdom of heaven, and must be fulfilled by him who
+would fulfil all righteousness, and be perfect, even as his Father in
+heaven is perfect.
+
+Bear this in mind, I pray you, and whenever you think of our Lord's
+resurrection and ascension, remember always that the background to His
+triumph is--a tomb.  Remember that it is the triumph over suffering; a
+triumph of One who still bears the prints of the nails in His hands and
+in His feet, and the wound of the spear in His side; like many a poor
+soul who has followed Him triumphant at last, and yet scarred, and only
+not maimed in the hard battle of life.  Remember for ever the adorable
+wounds of Christ.  Remember for ever that St John saw in the midst of the
+throne of God the likeness of a lamb, as it had been slain.  For so alone
+you will learn what our Lord's resurrection and ascension are to all who
+have to suffer and to toil on earth.  For if our Lord's triumph had had
+no suffering before it,--if He had conquered as the Hindoos represent
+their gods as conquering their enemies, without effort, without pain,
+destroying them, with careless ease, by lightnings, hurled by a hundred
+hands and aided by innumerable armies of spirits,--what would such a
+triumph have been to us?  What comfort, what example to us here
+struggling, often sinning, in this piecemeal world?  We want--and blessed
+be God, we have--a Captain of our salvation, who has been made perfect by
+sufferings.  We want--and blessed be God, we have--an High Priest who can
+be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, because He has been
+tempted in all things like as we are, yet without sin.  We want--and
+blessed be God, we have--a King who was glorified by suffering, that, if
+we are ever called on to sacrifice ourselves, we may hope, by suffering,
+to share His glory.  And when we have remembered this, and fixed it in
+our minds, we may go on safely to think of His glory, and see that (as I
+said at first) His resurrection and ascension satisfy our consciences,--
+satisfy that highest reason and moral sense within us, which is none
+other than the voice of the Holy Spirit of God.
+
+For see.  Our Lord proved Himself to be the perfectly righteous Being, by
+His very passion.  He proved it by being righteous utterly against His
+own interest; by enduring shame, torment, death, for righteousness' sake.
+But we feel that our Lord's history could not, must not, end there.  Our
+conscience, which is our highest reason, shrinks from that thought.  If
+our Lord had died and never risen, then would His history be full of
+nothing but despair to all who long to copy Him and do right at all
+costs.  Our consciences demand that God should be just.  We say with
+Abraham, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"  Shall not He,
+who suffered without hope of reward, have His reward nevertheless?  Shall
+not He who cried, "My God! my God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?" be
+justified by having it proved to all the world that God had not forsaken
+Him?  But we surely cannot be more just than God.  If we expect God to do
+right, we shall surely "find that He has done right, and more right than
+we could expect or dream.  Therefore we may believe--I say that we must
+believe, if we be truly reasonable beings--what the Bible tells us; that
+Christ, who suffered more than all, was rewarded more than all; that
+Christ, who humbled Himself more than all, was exalted more than all; and
+that His resurrection and ascension, as St Paul tells us again and again,
+was meant to show men this,--to show them that God the Father has been
+infinitely just to the infinite merits of God the Son, Jesus Christ our
+Lord,--to justify our Lord to all mankind by His triumph over death and
+hell, and in justifying Him to justify His Father and our Father, his God
+and our God.
+
+And what is true of Christ must be true of us, the members of Christ.  He
+is entered into His rest, and you desire to enter into it likewise.  You
+have a right to desire it, for it is written, "There remaineth a rest for
+the people of God."  Remember, then, that true rest can only be attained
+as He attained it, through labour.  You desire to be glorified with
+Christ.  Remember that true glory can only be attained in earth or heaven
+through self-sacrifice.  Whosoever will save his life shall lose it;
+whosoever will lose his life shall save it.  If that eternal moral law
+held good enough for the sinless Christ, who, though He were a son, yet
+learned obedience by the things which He suffered, how much more must it
+hold good of you and me and all moral and rational beings,--yea, for the
+very angels in heaven.  They have not sinned.  That we know; and we do
+not know; and I presume cannot know, that they have ever suffered.  But
+this at least we know, that they have submitted.  They have obeyed and
+have given up their own wills to be the ministers of God's will.  In them
+is neither self-will nor selfishness; and therefore by faith, that is, by
+trust and loyalty, they stand.  And so, by consenting to lose their
+individual life of selfishness, they have saved their eternal life in
+God, the life of blessedness and holiness; just as all evil spirits have
+lost their eternal life by trying to save their selfish life, and be
+something in themselves and of themselves without respect to God.
+
+This is a great mystery; indeed, it is the mystery of the eternal,
+divine, and blessed life, to which God of His mercy bring us all.  And
+therefore Good Friday, Easter Day, Ascension Day, are set as great lights
+in the firmament of the spiritual year,--to remind us that we are not
+animals, born to do what we like, and fulfil the sinful lusts of the
+flesh, the ways whereof are death; but that we are moral and rational
+beings, members of Christ, children of God, inheritors of the kingdom of
+heaven; and that, therefore, I say it again, like Christ our Lord, we
+must die in order to live, stoop in order to conquer.  They remind us
+that honour must grow out of humility; that freedom must grow out of
+discipline; that sure conquest must be born of heavy struggles; righteous
+joy out of righteous sorrow; pure laughter out of pure tears; true
+strength out of the true knowledge of our own weakness; sound peace of
+mind out of sound contrition; and that the heart which has a right to
+cry, "The Lord is on my side, I will not fear what man doeth unto me,"
+must be born out of the heart which has cried, "God be merciful to me a
+sinner!" They remind us that in all things, as says our Lord, there
+cannot be joy, because a man is born into the world, unless there first
+be sorrow, because the hour of birth is come; and that he who would be
+planted into the likeness of Christ's resurrection, must, like the corn
+of wheat, be first planted into the likeness of His death, and die to sin
+and self, that he may live to righteousness and to God; and, like the
+corn of wheat, become truly living, truly strong, truly rich, truly
+useful, and develop the hidden capabilities of his being, fulfilling the
+mind and will of God concerning him.  Again, I say, this is a great
+mystery.  But again, I say, this is the law, not Moses' law, but the
+Gospel law;--the law of liberty, by which a man becomes truly free,
+because he has trampled under foot the passions of his own selfish flesh,
+till his immortal spirit can ascend free into the light of God, and into
+the love of God, and into the beneficence of God.  My dear friends,
+remember these words, for they are true.  Remember that St Paul always
+couples with the resurrection and ascension of our bodies in the next
+life the resurrection and ascension of our souls in this life; for
+without that, the resurrection of our bodies would be but a resurrection
+to fresh sin, and therefore to fresh misery and ruin.  Remember his great
+words about that moral resurrection and ascension of our wills, our
+hearts, our characters, our actions.  "God," he says, "who is rich in
+mercy, for His great love, wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead
+in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace are ye saved;)
+and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly
+places in Christ Jesus."
+
+And what are those heavenly places?  And what is our duty in them?  Let
+St Paul himself answer.  "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those
+things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God."
+
+And what are they?  Let St Paul answer once more; who should know better
+than he, save Christ alone?  "Whatsoever things are true, honest, just,
+pure, lovely, of good report.  If there be any virtue, and if there be
+any praise, think on these things."
+
+Yes, think of these things,--and, thinking of them, ask the Holy Spirit
+of God to inspire you, and make a Whitsuntide in your hearts, even as He
+has made, I trust, a Good Friday and an Eastertide and an Ascension Day;
+that so, knowing these things, you may be blessed in doing them; that so-
+-and so only--may be fulfilled in you and me or any rational being, those
+blessed promises which were fulfilled in Christ our Lord.  "They that sow
+in tears shall reap in joy."  "He that now goeth on his way weeping, and
+beareth forth good seed, shall doubtless come again with joy, and bring
+his sheaves with him."  "Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee, in
+whose heart are Thy ways; who going through the vale of misery, use it
+for a well, and the pools are filled with water.  They will go from
+strength to strength:  and unto the God of gods appeareth every one of
+them in Sion."  To which may God in His great mercy bring us all.  Amen.
+
+
+
+SERMON XII.  PRESENCE IN ABSENCE
+
+
+
+Eversley, third Sunday after Easter. 1862.
+
+St John xvi. 16.  "A little while, and ye shall not see me:  and again, a
+little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father."
+
+Divines differ, and, perhaps, have always differed, about the meaning of
+these words.  Some think that our Lord speaks in them of His death and
+resurrection.  Others that He speaks of His ascension and coming again in
+glory.  I cannot decide which is right.  I dare not decide.  It is a very
+solemn thing--too solemn for me--to say of any words of our Lord's they
+mean exactly this or that, and no more.  For if wise men's words have (as
+they often have) more meanings than one, and yet all true, then surely
+the words of Jesus, the Son of God, who spake as never man spake--His
+words, I say, may have many meanings; yea, meanings without end, meanings
+which we shall never fully understand, perhaps even in heaven, and yet
+all alike true.
+
+But I think it is certain that most of the early Christians understood
+these words of our Lord's ascension and coming again in glory.  They
+believed that He was coming again in a very little while during their own
+life-time, in a few months or years, to make an end of the world and to
+judge the quick and the dead.  And as they waited for His coming, one
+generation after another, and yet He did not come, a sadness fell upon
+them.  Christ seemed to have left the world.  The little while that He
+had promised to be away seemed to have become a very long while.
+Hundreds of years passed, and yet Christ did not come in glory.  And, as
+I said, a sadness fell on all the Church.  Surely, they said, this is the
+time of which Christ said we were to weep and lament till we saw Him
+again--this is the time of which He said that the bridegroom should be
+taken from us, and we should fast in those days.  And they did fast, and
+weep, and lament; and their religion became a very sad and melancholy
+one--most sad in those who were most holy, and loved their Lord best, and
+longed most for His coming in glory.
+
+What happened after that again I could tell you, but we have nothing to
+do with it to-day.  We will rather go back, and see what the Lord's
+disciples thought He meant when He said,--"A little while, and ye shall
+not see me; and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go
+to the Father."  One would think, surely, that they must have taken those
+words to mean His death and resurrection.  They heard Him speak them on
+the very night that He was betrayed.  They saw Him taken from them that
+very night.  In horror and agony they saw Him mocked and scourged,
+crucified, dead, and buried, as they thought for ever, and the world
+around rejoicing over His death.  Surely they wept and lamented then.
+Surely they thought that He had gone away and left them then.
+
+And the third day, beyond all hope or expectation, they beheld Him alive
+again, unchanged, perfect, and glorious--as near them and as faithful to
+them as ever.  Surely that was seeing Him again after a little while.
+Surely then their sorrow was turned to joy.  Surely then a man, the man
+of all men, was born into the world a second time, and in them was
+fulfilled our Lord's most exquisite parable--most human and yet most
+divine--of the mother remembering no more her anguish for joy that a man
+is born into the world.
+
+I think, too, that we may see, by the disciples' conduct, that they took
+these words of the text to speak of Christ's death and resurrection.  For
+when He ascended to heaven out of their sight, did they consider that was
+seeing Him no more?  Did they think that He had gone away and left them?
+Did they, therefore, as would have been natural, weep and lament?  On the
+contrary, we are told expressly by St Luke that they "returned to
+Jerusalem with great joy; and were continually in the temple," not
+weeping and lamenting, but praising and blessing God.  Plainly they did
+not consider that Christ was parted from them when He ascended into
+heaven.  He had been training them during the forty days between Easter
+Day and Ascension Day to think of Him as continually near them, whether
+they saw Him or not.  Suddenly He came and went again.  Mysteriously He
+appeared and disappeared.  He showed them that though they saw not Him,
+He saw them, heard their words, knew the thoughts and intents of their
+hearts.  He was always near them they felt; with them to the end of the
+world, whether in sight or out of sight.  And when they saw Him ascend
+into heaven, it seemed to them no separation, no calamity, no change in
+His relation to them.  He was gone to heaven.  Surely He had been in
+heaven during those forty days, whenever they had not seen Him.  He had
+gone to the Father.  Might He not have been with the Father during those
+forty days, whenever they had not seen Him?  Nay; was He not always in
+heaven?  Was not heaven very near them?  Did not Christ bring heaven with
+Him whithersoever He went?  Was He not always with the Father, the Father
+who fills all things, in whom all created things live, and move, and have
+their being?  How could they have thought otherwise about our Lord, when
+almost His last words to them were not, Lo, I leave you alone, but, "Lo,
+I am with you alway, even to the end of the world."
+
+My friends, these may seem deep words to some--doubtless they are, for
+they are the words of the Bible--so deep that plain, unlearned people can
+make no use of them, and draw no lesson from them.  I do not think so.  I
+think it is of endless use and endless importance to you how you think
+about Christ; and, therefore, how you think about these forty days
+between our Lord's resurrection and ascension.  You may think of our Lord
+in two ways.  You may think of Him as having gone very far away, millions
+of millions of miles into the sky, and not to return till the last day,--
+and then, I do not say that you will weep and lament.  There are not many
+who have that notion about our Lord, and yet love Him enough to weep and
+lament at the thought of His having gone away.  But your religion, when
+it wakes up in you, will be a melancholy and terrifying one.  I say, when
+it wakes up in you--for you will be tempted continually to let it go to
+sleep.  There will come over you the feeling--God forgive us, does it not
+come over us all but too often?--Christ is far away.  Does He see me?
+Does He hear me?  Will He find me out?  Does it matter very much what I
+say and do now, provided I make my peace with Him before I die?  And so
+will come over you not merely a carelessness about religious duties,
+about prayer, reading, church-going, but worse still, a carelessness
+about right and wrong.  You will be in danger of caring little about
+controlling your passions, about speaking the truth, about being just and
+merciful to your fellow-men.  And then, when your conscience wakes you up
+at times, and cries, Prepare to meet thy God! you will be terrified and
+anxious at the thought of judgment, and shrink from the thought of
+Christ's seeing you.  My friends, that is a fearful state, though a very
+common one.  What is it but a foretaste of that dreadful terror in which
+those who would not see in Christ their Lord and Saviour will call on the
+mountains to fall on them, and the hills to cover them, from Him that
+sitteth on the throne, and from the anger of the Lamb?
+
+But, again:  you may think of Christ as His truest servants, though they
+might have been long in darkness, in all ages and countries have thought
+of Him, sooner or later.  And they thought of Him, as the disciples did;
+as of One who was about their path and about their bed, and spying out
+all their ways; as One who was in heaven, but who, for that very reason,
+was bringing heaven down to earth continually in the gracious
+inspirations of His Holy Spirit; as One who brought heaven down to them
+as often as He visited their hearts and comforted them with sweet
+assurance of His love, His faithfulness, His power--as God grant that He
+may comfort those of you who need comfort.  And that thought, that Christ
+was always with them, even to the end of the world, sobered and steadied
+them, and yet refreshed and comforted them.  It sobered them.  What else
+could it do?  Does it not sober us to see even a picture of Christ
+crucified?  How must it have sobered them to carry, as good St Ignatius
+used to say of himself, Christ crucified in his heart.  A man to whom
+Christ, as it were, showed perpetually His most blessed wounds, and said,
+Behold what I have endured--how dare he give way to his passion?  How
+dare he be covetous, ambitious, revengeful, false?  And yet it cheered
+and comforted them.  How could it do otherwise, to know all day long that
+He who was wounded for their iniquities, and by whose stripes they were
+healed, was near them day and night, watching over them as a father over
+his child, saying to them,--"Fear not, I am He that was dead, and am
+alive for evermore, and I hold the keys of death and hell.  Though thou
+walkest through the fires, I will be with thee.  I will never leave thee
+nor forsake thee."  Yes, my friends, if you wish your life--and therefore
+your religion, which ought to be the very life of your life--to be at
+once sober and cheerful, full of earnestness and full of hope, believe
+our Lord's words which He spoke during these very forty days,--"Lo, I am
+with you alway, even to the end of the world."  Believe that heaven has
+not taken Him away from you, but brought Him nearer to you; and that He
+has ascended up on high, not that He, in whom alone is life, might empty
+this earth of His presence, but that He might fill all things, not this
+earth only, but all worlds, past, present, and to come.  Believe that
+wherever two or three are gathered together in Christ's name, there He is
+in the midst of them; that the holy communion is the sign of His
+perpetual presence; and that when you kneel to receive the bread and
+wine, Christ is as near you--spiritually, indeed, and invisibly, but
+really and truly--as near you as those who are kneeling by your side.
+
+And if it be so with Christ, then it is so with those who are Christ's,
+with those whom we love.  It is the Christ in them which we love; and
+that Christ in them is their hope of glory; and that glory is the glory
+of Christ.  They are partakers of His death, therefore they are partakers
+of His resurrection.  Let us believe that blessed news in all its
+fulness, and be at peace.  A little while and we see them; and again a
+little while and we do not see them.  But why?  Because they are gone to
+the Father, to the source and fount of all life and power, all light and
+love, that they may gain life from His life, power from His power, light
+from His light, love from His love--and surely not for nought?
+
+Surely not for nought, my friends.  For if they were like Christ on
+earth, and did not use their powers for themselves alone, if they are to
+be like Christ when they shall see Him as He is, then, more surely, will
+they not use their powers for themselves, but, as Christ uses His, for
+those they love.
+
+Surely, like Christ, they may come and go, even now, unseen.  Like
+Christ, they may breathe upon our restless hearts and say, Peace be unto
+you--and not in vain.  For what they did for us when they were on earth
+they can more fully do now that they are in heaven.  They may seem to
+have left us, and we, like the disciples, may weep and lament.  But the
+day will come when the veil shall be taken from our eyes, and we shall
+see them as they are, with Christ, and in Christ for ever; and remember
+no more our anguish for joy that a man is born into the world, that
+another human being has entered that one true, real, and eternal world,
+wherein is neither disease, disorder, change, decay, nor death, for it is
+none other than the Bosom of the Father.
+
+
+
+SERMON XIII.  ASCENSION DAY
+
+
+
+Eversley.  Chester Cathedral. 1872.
+
+St John viii. 58.  "Before Abraham was, I am."
+
+Let us consider these words awhile.  They are most fit for our thoughts
+on this glorious day, on which the Lord Jesus ascended to His Father, and
+to our Father, to His God, and to our God, that He might be glorified
+with the glory which He had with the Father before the making of the
+world.  For it is clear that we shall better understand Ascension Day,
+just as we shall better understand Christmas or Eastertide, the better we
+understand Who it was who was born at Christmas, suffered and rose at
+Eastertide, and, as on this day, ascended into heaven.  Who, then, was He
+whose ascent we celebrate?  What was that glory which, as far as we can
+judge of divine things, He resumed as on this day?
+
+Let us think a few minutes, with all humility, not rashly intruding
+ourselves into the things we have not seen, or meddling with divine
+matters which are too hard for us, but taking our Lord's words simply as
+they stand, and where we do not understand them, believing them
+nevertheless.
+
+Now it is clear that the book of Exodus and our Lord's words speak of the
+same person.  The Old Testament tells of a personage who appeared to
+Moses in the wilderness, and who called Himself "the Lord God of Abraham,
+Isaac and Jacob."  But this personage also calls Himself "I AM."  "I AM
+THAT I AM:" "and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of
+Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."
+
+In the New Testament we read of a personage who calls Himself the Son of
+God, is continually called the Lord, and who tells His disciples to call
+Him by that name without reproving them, though they and He knew well
+what it meant--that it meant no less than this, that He, Jesus of
+Nazareth, poor mortal man as He seemed, was still the Lord, the God of
+Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  I do not say that the disciples saw that at
+first, clearly or fully, till after our Lord's resurrection.  But there
+was one moment shortly before His death, when they could have had no
+doubt who He assumed Himself to be.  For the unbelieving Jews had no
+doubt, and considered Him a blasphemer; and these were His awful and
+wonderful words,--I do not pretend to understand them--I take them simply
+as I find them, and believe and adore.  "Your father Abraham rejoiced to
+see my day, and he saw it, and was glad.  Then said the Jews unto Him,
+Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham?"  One
+cannot blame them for asking that question, for Abraham had been dead
+then nearly two thousand years.  But what is our Lord's solemn answer?
+"Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am."
+
+"I Am."  The same name by which our Lord God had revealed Himself to
+Moses in the wilderness, some sixteen hundred years before.  If these
+words were true,--and the Lord prefaces them with Verily, verily, Amen,
+Amen, which was as solemn an asseveration as any oath could be--then the
+Lord Jesus Christ is none other than the God of Abraham, the God of
+Moses, the God of the Jews, the God of the whole universe, past, present,
+and to come.
+
+Let us think awhile over this wonder of all wonders.  The more we think
+over it, we shall find it not only the wonder of all wonders, but the
+good news of all good news.
+
+The deepest and soundest philosophers will tell us that there must be an
+"I Am."  That is, as they would say, a self-existent Being; neither made
+nor created, but who has made and created all things; who is without
+parts and passions, and is incomprehensible, that is cannot be
+comprehended, limited, made smaller or weaker, or acted on in any way by
+any of the things that He has made.  So that this self-existing Being
+whom we call God, would be exactly what He is now, if the whole universe,
+sun, moon, and stars, were destroyed this moment; and would be exactly
+what He is now, if there had never been any universe at all, or any thing
+or being except His own perfect and self-existent Self.  For He lives and
+moves and has His being in nothing.  But all things live and move and
+have their being in Him.  He was before all things, and by Him all things
+consist.  And this is the Catholic Faith; and not only that, this is
+according to sound and right reason.  But more:  the soundest
+philosophers will tell you that God must be not merely a self-existent
+Being, but the "I Am:" that if God is a Spirit, and not merely a name for
+some powers and laws of brute nature and matter, He must be able to say
+to Himself, "I Am:" that He must know Himself, that He must be conscious
+of Himself, of who and what He is, as you and I are conscious of
+ourselves, and more or less of who and what we are.  And this, also, I
+believe to be true, and rational, and necessary to the Catholic Faith.
+
+But they will tell you again--and this, too, is surely true--that I Am
+must be the very name of God, because God alone can say perfectly, "I
+Am," and no more.  You and I dare not, if we think accurately, say of
+ourselves, "I am."  We may say, I am this or that; I am a man; I am an
+Englishman; but we must not say, "I am;" that is, "I exist of myself."
+We must say--not I am; but I become, or have become; I was made; I was
+created; I am growing, changing; I depend for my very existence on God
+and God's will, and if He willed, I should be nothing and nowhere in a
+moment.  God alone can say, I Am, and there is none beside Me, and never
+has, nor can be.  I exist, absolutely, and simply; because I choose to
+exist, and get life from nothing; for I Am the Life, and give life to all
+things.  But you may say, What is all this to us?  It is very difficult
+to understand, and dreary, and even awful.  Why should we care for it,
+even if it be true?  Yes, my friends; philosophy may be true, and yet be
+dreary, and awful, and have no gospel and good news in it at all.  I
+believe it never can have; that only in Revelation, and in the Revelation
+of our Lord Jesus Christ, can poor human beings find any gospel and good
+news at all.  And sure I am, that that is an awful thought, a dreary
+thought, a crushing thought, which makes a man feel as small, and
+worthless, and helpless, and hopeless, as a grain of dust, or a mote in
+the sunbeam--that thought of God for ever contained in Himself, and
+saying for ever to Himself, "I Am, and there is none beside Me."
+
+But the Gospel, the good news of the Old Testament, the Gospel, the good
+news of the New Testament, is the Revelation of God and God's ways, which
+began on Christmas Day, and finished on Ascension Day:  and what is that?
+What but this?  That God does not merely say to Himself in Majesty, "I
+Am;" but that He goes out of Himself in Love, and says to men, "I Am."
+That He is a God who has spoken to poor human beings, and told them who
+He was; and that He, the I Am, the self-existent One, the Cause of life,
+of all things, even the Maker and Ruler of the Universe, can stoop to
+man--and not merely to perfect men, righteous men, holy men, wise men,
+but to the enslaved, the sinful, the brutish--that He may deliver them,
+and teach them, and raise them from the death of sin, to His own life of
+righteousness.
+
+Do you not see the difference, the infinite difference, and the good news
+in that?  Do you not see a whole heaven of new hope and new duty is
+opened to mankind in that one fact--God has spoken to man.  He, the I Am,
+the Self-Existent, who needs no one, and no thing, has turned aside, as
+it were, and stooped from the throne of heaven, again and again, during
+thousands of years, to say to you, and me, and millions of mankind, I Am
+your God.  How do you prosper?--what do you need?--what are you doing?--
+for if you are doing justice to yourself and your fellow-men, then fear
+not that I shall be just to you.
+
+And more.  When that I Am, the self-existent God, could not set sinful
+men right by saying this, then did He stoop once more from the throne of
+the heavens to do that infinite deed of love, of which it is written,
+that He who called Himself "I Am," the God of Abraham, was conceived of
+the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate,
+rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven,--that He might send
+down the Spirit of the "I Am," the Holy Spirit who proceedeth from the
+Father and the Son, upon all who ask Him; that they may be holy as God is
+holy, and perfect as God is perfect.  Yes, my dear friends, remember
+that, and live in the light of that; the gospel of good news of the
+Incarnation of Jesus Christ, very God of very God begotten.  Know that
+God has spoken to you as He spoke to Abraham, and said,--I am the
+Almighty God, walk before Me, and be thou perfect.  Know that He has
+spoken to you as He spoke to Moses, saying,--I am the Lord thy God, who
+have brought you, and your fathers before you, out of the spiritual Egypt
+of heathendom, and ignorance, sin, and wickedness, into the knowledge of
+the one, true, and righteous God.  But know more, that He has spoken to
+you by the mouth of Jesus Christ, saying,--I am He that died in the form
+of mortal man upon the cross for you.  And, behold, I am alive for
+evermore; and to me all power is given in heaven and earth.
+
+Yes, my friends, let us lay to heart, even upon this joyful day, the
+awful warnings of the Epistle to the Hebrews,--God, the I Am, has spoken
+to us; God, the I Am, is speaking to us now.  See that you refuse not Him
+that speaketh; for if they escaped not who refused Moses that spake on
+earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from Him that
+speaketh from heaven; wherefore follow peace with all men, and holiness,
+without which no man shall see the Lord, and have grace, whereby we may
+serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear.  For our God is a
+consuming fire.  To those who disobey Him, eternal wrath; to those who
+love Him, eternal love.
+
+Yes, my friends.  Let us believe that, and live in the light of that,
+with reverence and godly fear, all the year round.  But let us specially
+to-day, as far as our dull feelings and poor imaginations will allow us;
+let us, I say, adore the ascended Saviour, who rules for ever, a Man in
+the midst of the throne of the universe, and that Man--oh, wonder of
+wonders!--slain for us; and let us say with St Paul of old, with all our
+hearts and minds and souls:--Now to the King of the Ages, immortal,
+invisible, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be honour and glory, for
+ever and ever.  Amen!
+
+
+
+SERMON XIV.  THE COMFORTER
+
+
+
+Eversley.  Sunday after Ascension Day. 1868.
+
+St John xv. 26.  "When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you
+from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the
+Father, he shall testify of me."
+
+Some writers, especially when they are writing hymns, have fallen now-a-
+days into a habit of writing of the Holy Spirit of God, in a tone of
+which I dare not say that it is wrong or untrue; but of which I must say,
+that it is one-sided.  And if there are two sides to a matter, it must do
+us harm to look at only one of them.  And I think that it does people
+harm to hear the Holy Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter,
+spoken of in terms, not of reverence, but of endearment.  For consider:
+He is the
+
+
+   "Creator-Spirit, by whose aid
+The world's foundations first were laid,"
+
+
+the life-giving Spirit of whom it is written, Thou sendest forth Thy
+Spirit, and things live, and Thou renewest the face of the earth.
+
+But He is the destroying Spirit too; who can, when He will, produce not
+merely life, but death; who can, and does send earthquakes, storm, and
+pestilence; of whom Isaiah writes--"All flesh is as grass, and all the
+goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field.  The grass withereth,
+the flower fadeth; because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it."  I
+think it does people harm to hear this awful and almighty being, I say,
+spoken of merely as the "sweet Spirit," and "gentle dove"--words which
+are true, but only true, if we remember other truths, equally true of
+Him, concerning whom they are spoken.  The Spirit of God, it seems to me,
+is too majestic a being to be talked of hastily as "sweet."  Words may be
+true, and yet it may not be always quite reverent to use them.  An
+earthly sovereign may be full of all human sweetness and tenderness, yet
+we should not dare to address him as "sweet."
+
+But, indeed, some of this talk about the Holy Spirit is not warranted by
+Scripture at all.  In one of the hymns, for instance, in our hymn-book--
+an excellent hymn in other respects, there is a line which speaks of the
+Holy Spirit as possessing "The brooding of the gentle dove."
+
+Now, this line is really little but pretty sentiment, made up of false
+uses of Scripture.  The Scripture speaks once of the Holy Spirit of God
+brooding like a bird over its nest.  But where?  In one of the most
+mysterious, awful, and important of all texts.  "And the earth was
+without form and void.  And the Spirit of God moved (brooded) over the
+face of the deep."  What has this--the magnificent picture of the Life-
+giving Spirit brooding over the dead world, to bring it into life again,
+and create from it sea and land, heat and fire, and cattle and creeping
+things after their kind, and at last man himself, the flower and crown of
+things;--what has that to do with the brooding of a gentle dove?
+
+But the Holy Spirit is spoken of in Scripture under the likeness of a
+dove?  True, and here is another confusion.  The Dove is not the emblem
+of gentleness in the Bible:  but the Lamb.  The dove is the emblem of
+something else, pure and holy, but not of gentleness; and therefore the
+Holy Spirit is not spoken of in Scripture as brooding as a gentle dove;
+but very differently, as it seems to me.  St Matthew and St John say,
+that at our Lord's baptism the Holy Spirit was seen, not brooding, but
+descending from heaven as a dove.  To any one who knows anything of
+doves, who will merely go out into the field or the farm-yard and look at
+them, and who will use his own eyes, that figure is striking enough, and
+grand enough.  It is the swiftness of the dove, and not its fancied
+gentleness that is spoken of.  The dove appearing, as you may see it
+again and again, like a speck in the far off sky, rushing down with a
+swiftness which outstrips the very eagle; returning surely to the very
+spot from which it set forth, though it may have flown over hundreds of
+miles of land, and through the very clouds of heaven.  It is the sky-
+cleaving force and swiftness, the unerring instinct of the dove, and not
+a sentimental gentleness to which Scripture likens that Holy Spirit,
+which like the rushing mighty wind bloweth whither it listeth, and thou
+hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or
+whither it goeth;--that Holy Spirit who, when He fell on the apostles,
+fell in tongues of fire, and shook all the house where they were sitting;
+that Holy Spirit of whom one of the wisest Christians who ever lived, who
+knew well enough the work of the Spirit, arguing just as I am now against
+the fancy of associating the Holy Spirit merely with pretty thoughts of
+our own, and pleasant feelings of our own, and sentimental raptures of
+our own, said, "Wouldst thou know the manner of spiritual converse?  Of
+the way in which the Spirit of God works in man?  Then it is this:  He
+hath taken me up and dashed me down.  Like a lion, I look, that He will
+break all my bones.  From morning till evening, Thou wilt make an end of
+me."
+
+But people are apt to forget this.  And therefore they fall into two
+mistakes.  They think of the Holy Spirit as only a gentle, and what they
+call a dove-like being; and they forget what a powerful, awful, literally
+formidable being He is.  They lose respect for the Holy Spirit.  They
+trifle with Him; and while they sing hymns about His gentleness and
+sweetness, they do things which grieve and shock Him; forgetting the
+awful warning which He, at the very outset of the Christian Church, gave
+against such taking of liberties with God the Holy Ghost:--how Ananias
+and Sapphira thought that the Holy Spirit was One whom they might honour
+with their lips, and more, with their outward actions, but who did not
+require truth in the inward parts, and did not care for their telling a
+slight falsehood that they might appear more generous than they really
+were in the eyes of men; and how the answer of the Holy Spirit of God was
+that He struck them both dead there and then for a warning to all such
+triflers, till the end of time.
+
+Another mistake which really pious and good people commit, is, that they
+think the Holy Spirit of God to be merely, or little beside, certain
+pleasant frames, and feelings, and comfortable assurances, in their own
+minds.  They do not know that these pleasant frames and feelings really
+depend principally on their own health:  and, then, when they get out of
+health, or when their brain is overworked, and the pleasant feelings go,
+they are terrified and disheartened, and complain of spiritual dryness,
+and cry out that God's Spirit has deserted them, and are afraid that God
+is angry with them, or even that they have committed the unpardonable
+sin:  not knowing that God is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of
+man that He should repent; that God is as near them in the darkness as in
+the light; that whatever their own health, or their own feelings may be,
+yet still in God they live, and move, and have their being; that to God's
+Spirit they owe all which raises them above the dumb animals; that
+nothing can separate them from the love of Him who promised that He would
+not leave us comfortless, but send to us His Holy Ghost to comfort us,
+and exalt us to the same place whither He has gone before.
+
+Now, why do I say all this?  To take away comfort from you?  To make you
+fear and dread the Spirit of God?  God forbid!  Who am I, to take away
+comfort from any human being!  I say it to give yon true comfort, to make
+you trust and love the Holy Spirit utterly, to know Him--His strength and
+His wisdom as well as His tenderness and gentleness.
+
+You know that afflictions do come--terrible bereavements, sorrows sad and
+strange.  My sermon does not make them come.  There they are, God help us
+all, and too many of them, in this world.  But from whom do they come?
+Who is Lord of life and death?  Who is Lord of joy and sorrow?  Is not
+that the question of all questions?  And is not the answer the most
+essential of all answers?  It is the Holy Spirit of God; the Spirit who
+proceedeth from the Father and the Son; the Spirit of the Father who so
+loved the world that He spared not His only begotten Son; the Spirit of
+the Son who so loved the world, that He stooped to die for it upon the
+Cross; the Spirit who is promised to lead you into all truth, that you
+may know God, and in the knowledge of Him find everlasting life; the
+Spirit who is the Comforter, and says, I have seen thy ways and will heal
+thee, I will lead thee also, and restore comforts to thee and to thy
+mourners.  I speak peace to him that is near, and to him that is far off,
+saith the Lord; and I will heal him.  Is it not the most blessed news,
+that He who takes away, is the very same as He who gives?  That He who
+afflicts is the very same as He who comforts?  That He of whom it is
+written that, "as a lion, so will He break all my bones; from day even to
+night wilt Thou make an end of me;" is the same as He of whom it is
+written, "He shall gather the lambs in His arms, and carry them, and
+shall gently lead those that are with young;" and, again, "as a beast
+goeth down into the valley, so the Spirit of the Lord caused him to
+rest?"  That He of whom it is written, "Our God is a consuming fire," is
+the same as He who has said, "When thou walkest through the fire, thou
+shalt not be burned?"  That He who brings us into "the valley of the
+shadow of death," is the same as He of whom it is said, "Thy rod and Thy
+staff they comfort me?"  Is not that blessed news?  Is it not the news of
+the Gospel; and the only good news which people will really care for,
+when they are tormented, not with superstitious fears and doctrines of
+devils which man's diseased conscience has originated, but tormented with
+the real sorrows, the rational fears of this stormy human life.
+
+We all like comfort.  But what kind of comfort do we not merely like but
+need?  Merely to be comfortable?--To be free from pain, anxiety, sorrow?-
+-To have only pleasant faces round us, and pleasant things said to us?
+If we want that comfort, we shall very seldom have it.  It will be very
+seldom good for us to have it.  The comfort which poor human beings want
+in such a world as this, is not the comfort of ease, but the comfort of
+strength.  The comforter whom we need is not one who will merely say kind
+things, but give help--help to the weary and heavy laden heart which has
+no time to rest.  We need not the sunny and smiling face, but the strong
+and helping arm.  For we may be in that state that smiles are shocking to
+us, and mere kindness,--though we may be grateful for it--of no more
+comfort to us than sweet music to a drowning man.  We may be miserable,
+and unable to help being miserable, and unwilling to help it too.  We do
+not wish to flee from our sorrow, we do not wish to forget our sorrow.
+We dare not; it is so awful, so heartrending, so plain spoken, that God,
+the master and tutor of our hearts must wish us to face it and endure it.
+Our Father has given us the cup--shall we not drink it?  But who will
+help us to drink the bitter cup?  Who will be the comforter, and give us
+not mere kind words, but strength?  Who will give us the faith to say
+with Job, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him?"  Who will give us
+the firm reason to look steadily at our grief, and learn the lesson it
+was meant to teach?  Who will give us the temperate will, to keep sober
+and calm amid the shocks and changes of mortal life?  Above all, I may
+say--Who will lead us into all truth?  How much is our sorrow increased--
+how much of it is caused by simple ignorance!  Why has our anxiety come?
+How are we to look at it?  What are we to do?  Oh, that we had a
+comforter who would lead us into all truth:--not make us infallible, or
+all knowing, but lead us into truth; at least put us in the way of truth,
+put things in their true light to us, and give us sound and rational
+views of life and duty.  Oh, for a comforter who would give us the spirit
+of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and ghostly strength,
+the spirit of knowledge and true godliness, and fill us with that spirit
+of God's holy fear, which would make us not superstitious, not slavish,
+not anxious, but simply obedient, loyal and resigned.
+
+If we had such a Comforter as that, could we not take evil from his
+hands, as well as good?  We have had fathers of our flesh who corrected
+us, and we gave them reverence.  They chastised us, but we loved and
+trusted them, because we knew that they loved and trusted us--chastised
+us to make us better--chastised us because they trusted us to become
+better.  But if we can find a Father of our spirits, of our souls, shall
+we not rather be in subjection to Him and live?  If He sent us a
+Comforter, to comfort and guide, and inspire, and strengthen us, shall we
+not say of that Comforter--"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him."
+
+If we had such a Comforter as that, we should not care, if He seemed at
+times stern, as well as kind; we could endure rebuke and chastisement
+from Him, if we could only get from Him wisdom to understand the rebuke,
+and courage to bear the chastisement.  Where is that Comforter?  God
+answers:--That Comforter am I, the God of heaven and earth.  There are
+comforters on earth who can help thee with wise words and noble counsel,
+can be strong as man, and tender as woman.  Then God can be more strong
+than man, and more tender than woman likewise.  And when the strong arm
+of man supports thee no longer, yet under thee are the everlasting arms
+of God.
+
+Oh, blessed news, that God Himself is the Comforter.  Blessed news, that
+He who strikes will also heal:  that He who gives the cup of sorrow, will
+also give the strength to drink it.  Blessed news, that chastisement is
+not punishment, but the education of a Father.  Blessed news, that our
+whole duty is the duty of a child--of the Son who said in His own agony,
+"Father, not my will, but thine be done."  Blessed news, that our
+Comforter is the Spirit who comforted Christ the Son Himself; who
+proceeds both from the Father and from the Son; and who will therefore
+testify to us both of the Father and the Son, and tell us that in Christ
+we are indeed, really and literally, the children of God who may cry to
+Him, "Father," with full understanding of all that that royal word
+contains.  Blessed, too, to find that in the power of the Divine Majesty,
+we can acknowledge the unity, and know and feel that the Father, Son and
+Holy Ghost are all one in love to the creatures whom they have made--
+their glory equal, for the glory of each and all is perfect charity, and
+their majesty co-eternal, because it is a perfect majesty; whose justice
+is mercy, whose power is goodness, its very sternness love, love which
+gives hope and counsel, and help and strength, and the true life which
+this world's death cannot destroy.
+
+
+
+SERMON XV.  THOU ART WORTHY
+
+
+Eversley, 1869.  Chester Cathedral, 1870.  Trinity Sunday.
+
+Revelation iv. 11.  "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour
+and power:  for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they
+are and were created."
+
+I am going to speak to you on a deep matter, the deepest and most
+important of all matters, and yet I hope to speak simply.  I shall say
+nothing which you cannot understand, if you will attend.  I shall say
+nothing, indeed, which you could not find out for yourselves, if you will
+think, and use your own common sense.  I wish to speak to you of
+Theology--of God Himself.  For this Trinity Sunday of all the Sundays of
+the year, is set apart for thinking of God Himself--not merely of our own
+souls, though we must never forget them, nor of what God has done for our
+souls, though we must never forget that--but of what God is Himself, what
+He would be if we had no souls--if there were, and had been from the
+beginning, no human beings at all upon the earth.
+
+Now, if we look at any living thing--an animal, say, or a flower, and
+consider how curiously it is contrived, our common sense will tell us at
+once that some one has made it; and if any one answers--Oh! the flower
+was not made, it grew--our common sense would tell us that that was only
+a still more wonderful contrivance, and that there must be some one who
+gave it the power of growing, and who makes it grow.  And so our common
+sense would tell us, as it told the heathens of old, that there must be
+GODS--beings whom we cannot see, who made the world.  But if we watch
+things more closely, we should find out that all things are made more or
+less upon the same plan; that (and I tell you that this is true, strange
+as it may seem) all animals, however different they may seem to our eyes,
+are made upon the same plan; all plants and flowers, however different
+they may seem, are made upon the same plan; all stones, and minerals, and
+earths, however different they may seem, are made upon the same plan.
+Then common sense would surely tell us, one God made all the animals, one
+God made all the plants, one God made all the earths and stones.  But if
+we watch more closely still, we should find that the plants could not
+live without the animals, nor the animals without the plants, nor either
+of them without the soil beneath our feet, and the air and rain above our
+heads.  That everything in the world worked together on one plan, and
+each thing depended on everything else.  Then common sense would tell us,
+one God must have made the whole world.  But if we watched more closely
+again, or rather, if we asked the astronomers, who study the stars and
+heavens, they would tell us that all the worlds over our heads, all the
+stars that spangle the sky at night, were made upon the same plan as our
+earth--that sun and moon, and all the host of heaven, move according to
+the same laws by which our earth moves, and as far as we can find out,
+have been made in the same way as our earth has been made, and that these
+same laws must have been going on, making worlds after worlds, for
+hundreds of thousands of years, and ages beyond counting, and will, in
+all probability, go on for countless ages more.  Then common sense will
+tell us, the same God has made all worlds, past, present, and to come.
+There is but one God, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
+
+So we should learn something of how all things were made; and then would
+come a second question, why all things were made?  Why did God make the
+worlds?
+
+Let us begin with a very simple example.  Simple things will often teach
+us most.  You see a flower growing, not in a garden, but wild in a field
+or wood.  You admire its beautiful colours, or if it is fragrant, its
+sweet scent.  Now, why was that flower put there?  You may answer, "to
+please me."  My dear friends, I should be the last person to deny that.
+I can never see a child picking a nosegay, much less a little London
+child, born and bred and shut up among bricks and mortar, when it gets
+for the first time into a green field, and throws itself instinctively
+upon the buttercups and daisies, as if they were precious jewels and
+gold;--I never can see that sight, I say, without feeling that there are
+such things as final causes--I mean that the great Father in heaven put
+those flowers into that field on purpose to give pleasure to His human
+children.  But then comes the question, Of all the flowers in a single
+field, is one in ten thousand ever looked at by child or by men?  And yet
+they are just as beautiful as the rest; and God has, so to speak, taken
+just as much pains with the many beautiful things which men will never
+see, as with the few, very few, which men may see.  And when one thinks
+further about this--when one thinks of the vast forests in other lands
+which the foot of man has seldom or never trod, and which, when they are
+entered, are found to be full of trees, flowers, birds, butterflies, so
+beautiful and glorious, that anything which we see in these islands is
+poor and plain in comparison with them; and when we remember that these
+beautiful creatures have been going on generation after generation, age
+after age, unseen and unenjoyed by any human eyes, one must ask, Why has
+God been creating all that beauty? simply to let it all, as it were, run
+to waste, till after thousands of years one traveller comes, and has a
+hasty glimpse of it?  Impossible.  Or again--and this is an example still
+more strange, and yet it is true.  We used to think till within a very
+few years past, that at the bottom of the deep sea there were no living
+things--that miles below the surface of the ocean, in total darkness, and
+under such a weight of water as would crush us to a jelly, there could be
+nothing, except stones, and sand, and mud.  But now it is found out that
+the bottom of the deepest seas, and the utter darkness into which no ray
+of light can ever pierce, are alive and swarming with millions of
+creatures as cunningly and exquisitely formed, and in many cases as
+brilliantly coloured, as those which live in the sunlight along the
+shallow shores.
+
+Now, my dear friends,--surely beautiful things were made to be seen by
+some one, else why were they made beautiful?  Common sense tells us that.
+But who has seen those countless tribes, which have been living down, in
+utter darkness, since the making of the world?  Common sense, I think,
+can give but one answer--GOD.  He, and He only, to whom the night is as
+clear as the day, to whom the darkness and the light are both alike.  But
+more--God has not only made things beautiful; He has made things happy;
+whatever misery there may be in the world, there is no denying that.
+However sorrow may have come into the world, there is a great deal more
+happiness than misery in it.  Misery is the exception; happiness is the
+rule.  No rational man ever heard a bird sing, without feeling that that
+bird was happy; and, if so, his common sense ought to tell him that if
+God made that bird, He made it to be happy; He intended it to be happy,
+and He takes pleasure in its happiness, though no human ear should ever
+hear its song, no human heart should ever share in its joy.  Yes, the
+world was not made for man; but man, like all the world, was made for
+God.  Not for man's pleasure merely, not for man's use, but for God's
+pleasure all things are, and for God's pleasure they were created.
+
+And now, surely, common sense will tell us why God made all things.  For
+His own pleasure.  God is pleased to make them, and pleased with what He
+has made, because what He has made is worth being pleased with.  He has
+seen all things that He has made, and, behold, they are very good, and
+right, and wise, and beautiful, and happy, each after its kind.  So that,
+as the Psalmist says, "The Lord shall rejoice in His works."  And
+Scripture tells that it must be so, if we only recollect and believe one
+word of St. John's that "God is Love"--for it is the very essence of
+love, that it cannot be content to love itself.  It must have something
+which is not itself to love that it may go out of itself, and forget
+itself, and spend itself in the good and in the happiness of what it
+loves.  All true love of husband and wife, mother and child, sister and
+brother, friend and friend, man to his country,--what does it mean but
+this?  Forgetting one's selfish happiness in doing good to others, and
+finding a deeper, higher happiness in that.  The man who only loves
+himself knows not what Love means.  In truth, he does not even love
+himself.  He is his own worst enemy:  his selfishness torments him with
+discontent, disgust, pride, fear, and all evil passions and lusts; and in
+him is fulfilled our Lord's saying, that he that will save his life shall
+lose it.  But the man who is full of love, as God is full of love, who
+forgets himself in making others happy, who lives the eternal life of
+God, which is alone worth living, he is the only truly happy man; and in
+him is fulfilled that other saying of our Lord, that he who loseth his
+life shall save it.
+
+And the loving, unselfish man too is the only sound theologian, for he
+who dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.  He alone will
+understand the mystery of who God is, and why He made all things.  The
+loving man alone, I say, will understand the mystery--how because God is
+love He could not live alone in the abyss, but must create all things,
+all worlds and heavens, yea, and the heaven of heavens, that He might
+have something beside Himself, whereon to spend His boundless love.  And
+why?  Because love can only love what is somewhat like itself, He made
+all things according to the idea of His own eternal mind.  Because He is
+unchangeable, and a God of order and of law, He made all things according
+to one order, and gave them a law which cannot be broken, that they might
+continue this day as they were at the beginning, serving Him and
+fulfilling His word.  Because He is a God of justice, He made all things
+just, depending on each other, helping each other, and compelled to
+sacrifice themselves for each other, and minister to each other whether
+they will or not.  Because He is a God of beauty, He made all things
+beautiful, of a variety and a richness unspeakable, that He might rejoice
+in all His works, and find a divine delight in every moss which grows
+upon the moor, and every gnat which dances in the sun.  Because He is a
+God of love, He gave to every creature a power of happiness according to
+its kind, that He might rejoice in the happiness of His creatures.  And
+lastly, because God is a spirit--a moral and a rational Being--therefore
+He created rational beings to be more like Him than any other creatures,
+and constituted the services of men and angels in a most wonderful order,
+that they might reverence law as He does, and justice as He does--that
+they might love to be loving as He loves, and to be useful as He is
+useful--that they might rejoice in the beauty of His works as He rejoices
+in them Himself; and, catching from time to time fuller and fuller
+glimpses of that Divine and wonderful order according to which He has
+made all things and all worlds, may see more and more clearly, as the
+years roll on, that all things are just, and beautiful, and good; and
+join more and more heartily in the hymn which goes up for ever from every
+sun, and star, and world, and from the tiniest creature in these worlds:
+"Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power; for Thou
+hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created."
+
+Now, to God the Father, who, out of His boundless love, ordains the
+making of all things; and to God the Son, who, out of His boundless love,
+performs the making of all things; and to God the Holy Spirit, who, out
+of His boundless love, breathes law and kind, life and growth into all
+things, three Persons in one, ever-blessed Trinity, be all glory, and
+honour, and praise, for ever and ever.  Amen.
+
+
+
+SERMON XVI.  THE GLORY OF THE TRINITY
+
+
+
+Eversley, 1868.  St Mary's Chester, 1871.  Trinity Sunday.
+
+Psalm civ. 31, 33.  "The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever:  The
+Lord shall rejoice in his works.  I will sing unto the Lord as long as I
+live:  I will sing praise to my God while I have my being."
+
+This is Trinity Sunday, on which we think especially of the name of God.
+A day which, to a wise man, may well be one of the most solemn, and the
+most humiliating days of the whole year.  For is it not humiliating to
+look stedfastly, even for a moment, at God's greatness, and then at our
+own littleness; at God's strength and at our own weakness; at God's
+wisdom, and at our own ignorance; and, most of all, at God's
+righteousness, and at our own sins?
+
+I do not say that it should not be so.  Rather, I say, it should be so.
+For what is more wholesome for you and me, and any man, than to be
+humiliated--humbled--and brought to our own level--that all may see who,
+what, and where we are?  What more wholesome than to be made holy and
+humble men of heart?  What more wholesome for us, who are each of us
+tempted to behave as if we were the centre of the universe, to judge
+ourselves the most important personages in the world, and to judge of
+everything according as it is pleasant or unpleasant to us, each in our
+own family, our own sect, our own neighbourhood; what more wholesome than
+to be brought now and then face to face with God Himself, and see what
+poor, little, contemptible atoms we are at best, compared with Him who
+made heaven and earth?--to see how well God and God's world have gone on
+for thousands of years without our help;--how well they will go on after
+we are dead and gone?
+
+Face to face with God!  And how far shall we have to go to find ourselves
+face to face with God?  Not very far, according to St Paul.  God, he
+says, is "not far from every one of us; for in Him we live, and move, and
+have our being."
+
+In God, in the ever blessed Trinity--Father, Son, and Holy Ghost--we, and
+not we only, but every living thing--each flower, each insect--lives, and
+moves, and has its being.  So it is--strange as it may seem, and we
+cannot make it otherwise.  You fancy God far off--somewhere in the skies,
+beyond suns and stars.  Know that the heavens, and the heaven of heavens,
+cannot contain Him.  Rather, in the very deepest sense, He contains them.
+In God, suns and stars, and all the host of heaven, live, and move, and
+have their being; and if God destroyed them all at this very moment, and
+the whole universe became nothing once more, as it was nothing at first,
+still God would remain, neither greater nor less, neither stronger nor
+weaker, neither richer nor poorer, than He was before.  For He is the
+self-existent I Am; who needs nought save Himself, and who needs nought
+save to assert Himself in His Word, Jesus Christ our Lord, and say "I
+Am," in order to create all things and beings, save Himself.  He is the
+infinite; whom nothing, however huge, and vast, or strong, can
+comprehend--that is, take in and limit.  He takes in and limits all
+things; giving to each thing, form according to its own kind, and life
+and growth according to its own law; appointing to all (as says St Paul)
+their times, and the bounds of their habitation; that if they be rational
+creatures, as we are, they may feel after the Lord and find Him; and if
+they be irrational creatures, like the animals and the plants, mountains
+and streams, clouds and tempests, sun and stars, they may serve God's
+gracious purposes in the economy of His world.
+
+Therefore, everything which you see, is, as it were, a thought of God's,
+an action of God's; a message to you from God.  Therefore you can look at
+nothing in the earth without seeing God Himself at work thereon.  As our
+Lord said, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."  You can look
+neither at the sun in the sky, nor at the grass beneath your feet,
+without being brought face to face with God, the ever blessed Trinity.
+The tiniest gnat which dances in the sun, was conceived by God the
+Father, in whose eternal bosom are the ideas and patterns of all things,
+past, present, and to come; it was created by God the Son, by whom the
+Father made all things, and without whom nothing is made:  and it is kept
+alive by God the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, of whom it is
+written, "Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; and thou
+renewest the face of the earth."
+
+Oh that we could all remember this.  That when we walk across the field,
+or look out into the garden, we could have the wisdom to remember,
+Whither, O God, can I go from Thy presence?  For Thou art looking down on
+the opening of every bud and flower, and without Thee not a sparrow falls
+to the ground.  Whither can I flee from Thy Spirit?  For Thy Spirit is
+giving life perpetually, alike to me and to the insect at my feet;
+without Thy Spirit my lungs could not breathe one breath, my heart could
+not beat one pulse.  In Thee, I and all things live, move, and have our
+being.  And shall I forget Thee, disobey Thee, neglect to praise, and
+honour, and worship Thee, and thank Thee day and night, for Thy great
+glory?
+
+If we could but remember that, there would be no fear of our being
+ungodly, irreligious, undevout.  We look too often, day after day, month
+after month, on the world around us just as the dumb beasts do, as a
+place out of which we can get something to eat, and forget that it is
+also a place out of which we can get, daily and hourly, something to
+admire, to adore, to worship, even the thought of God's wisdom, God's
+power, God's goodness, God's glory.  Oh blind and heedless that we are.
+Truly said the wise man--"An undevout astronomer is mad."  And truly said
+another wise man, an Englishman--the saintly philosopher Faraday, now
+with God,--"How could he be otherwise than religious; when at every step
+he found himself brought more closely face to face with the signs of a
+mind constructed like his own, with an aim and a purpose which he could
+understand, employing ways and means, and tending clearly to an end, and
+methodically following out a system which he could both perceive and
+grasp."  Such a man's whole life is one act of reverence to that God in
+whose inner presence he finds himself illuminated and strengthened; and
+if there be revelation of divine things on earth, it is when the hidden
+secrets of nature are disclosed to the sincere and self-denying seeker
+after truth.
+
+Yes, that is true.  The more you look into the world around you, and
+consider every flower, and bird, and stone, the more you will see that a
+Mind planned them, even the mind of God; a Mind like yours and mine; but
+how infinitely different, how much deeper, wiser, vaster.  Before that
+thought we shrink into the nothingness from whence He called us out at
+first.  The difference between our minds and the Mind of God is--to what
+shall I liken it?  Say, to the difference between a flake of soot and a
+mountain of pure diamond.  That soot and that diamond are actually the
+same substance; of that there is no doubt whatsoever; but as the light,
+dirty, almost useless soot is to the pure, and clear, hard diamond, ay,
+to a mountain, a world, a whole universe made of pure diamond--if such a
+thing were possible--so is the mind of man compared with that Mind of the
+ever blessed Trinity, which made the worlds, and sustains them in life
+and order to this day.
+
+My friends, it is not in great things only, but in the very smallest,
+that the greatest glory of the ever blessed Trinity is seen.  Ay, most,
+perhaps, in the smallest, when one considers the utterly inconceivable
+wisdom, which can make the smallest animal--so made as to be almost
+invisible under the strongest microscope--as perfect in all its organs as
+the hugest elephant.  Ay, more, which can not only make these tiny living
+things, but, more wonderful still, make them make themselves?  For what
+is growth, but a thing making itself?  What is the seed growing into a
+plant, the plant into a flower, the flower to a seed again, but that
+thing making itself, transforming itself, by an inward law of life which
+God's Spirit gives it.  I tell you the more earnestly and carefully you
+examine into the creation, birth, growth of any living thing, even of the
+daisy on the grass outside; the more you inquire what it really is, how
+it came to be like what it is, how it got where it is, and so forth; you
+will be led away into questions which may well make you dizzy with
+thinking, so strange, so vast, so truly miraculous is the history of
+every organised creature upon earth.  And when you recollect (as you are
+bound to do on this day), that each of these things is the work of the
+ever blessed Trinity; that upon every flower and every insect, generation
+after generation of them, since the world was made, the ever blessed
+Trinity has been at work, God the Father thinking and conceiving each
+thing, in His eternal Mind, God the Son creating it and putting it into
+the world, each thing according to the law of its life, God the Holy
+Ghost inspiring it with life and law, that it may grow and thrive after
+its kind--when such thoughts as these crowd upon you, and they ought to
+crowd upon you, this day of all the year, at sight of the meanest insect
+under your feet; then what can a rational man do, but bow his head and
+worship in awful silence, adoring humbly Him who sits upon the throne of
+the universe, and who says to us in all His works, even as He said to Job
+of old, "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?  When
+the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
+Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou seen the
+doors of the shadow of death?  Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?
+Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may
+cover thee?  Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto
+thee, Here we are?  Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? or fill the
+appetite of the young lions?  Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the
+peacocks? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich?  Hast thou given the
+horse strength? hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?  Doth the hawk
+fly by thy wisdom? doth the eagle mount up at thy command?"
+
+When God speaks thus to us--and He does thus speak to us, by every cloud
+and shower, and by every lightning flash and ray of sunshine, and by
+every living thing which flies in air, or swims in water, or creeps upon
+the earth--what can we say, save what Job said--"Behold, I am vile; what
+shall I answer thee?  I will lay mine hand upon my mouth."
+
+But if God be so awful in the material world, of which our five senses
+tell us, how much more awful is He in that spiritual and moral world, of
+which our senses tell us nought?  That unseen world of justice and
+truthfulness, of honour and duty, of reverence and loyalty, of love and
+charity, of purity and self-sacrifice; that spiritual world, I say, which
+can be only seen by the spiritual eye of the soul, and felt by the
+spiritual heart of the soul?  How awful is God in that eternal world of
+right and wrong; wherein cherubim, seraphim, angel and archangel cry to
+Him for ever, not merely Mighty, mighty, mighty, but "Holy, holy, holy."
+How awful to poor creatures like us.  For then comes in the question--not
+merely is God good? but, am not I bad?  Is God sinless? but, am not I a
+sinner?  Is God pure? but am not I impure?  Is God wise? then am not I a
+fool?  And when once that thought has crossed our minds, must we not
+tremble, must we not say with Isaiah of old, "Woe is me! for I am undone;
+because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people
+of unclean lips:  for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."
+
+Yes; awful as is the thought of God's perfection in the material world
+about us, more awful still is the thought of His perfection in the
+spiritual world.  So awful, that we might well be overwhelmed with dread
+and horror at the sight of God's righteousness and our sinfulness; were
+it not for the gracious message of revelation that tells us, that God,
+the Father of heaven, is OUR Father likewise, who so loved us that He
+gave for us His only begotten, God the Son; that for His sake our sins
+might be freely forgiven us; that God the Son is our Atonement, our
+Redeemer, our King, our Intercessor, our Example, our Saviour in life and
+death; and God the Holy Ghost, our Comforter, our Guide, our Inspirer,
+who will give to our souls the eternal life which will never perish, even
+as He gives to our bodies the mortal life which must perish.
+
+On the mercy and the love of the ever blessed Trinity, shown forth in
+Christ upon His cross, we can cast ourselves with all our sins; we can
+cry to Him, and not in vain, for forgiveness and for sanctification; for
+a clean heart and a right spirit; and that we may become holy and humble
+men of heart.  We can join our feeble praises to that hymn of praise
+which goes up for ever to God from suns and stars, clouds and showers,
+beasts and birds, and every living thing, giving Him thanks for ever for
+His great glory.  O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise
+Him and magnify Him for ever.  O ye holy and humble Men of heart, bless
+ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for ever.
+
+
+
+SERMON XVII.  LOVE OF GOD AND MAN
+
+
+
+FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
+
+Eversley.  Chester Cathedral, 1872.
+
+1 John iv. 16, 21.  "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth
+in God, and God in him. . . .  And this commandment have we from Him,
+That he who loveth God love his brother also."
+
+This is the first Sunday after Trinity.  On it the Church begins to teach
+us morals,--that is, how to live a good life; and therefore she begins by
+teaching us the foundation of all morals,--which is love,--love to God
+and love to man.
+
+But which is to come first,--love to God, or love to man?
+
+On this point men in different ages have differed, and will differ to the
+end.  One party has said, You must love God first, and let love to man
+come after as it can; and others have contradicted that and said, You
+must love all mankind, and let love to God take its chance.  But St John
+says, neither of the two is before or after the other; you cannot truly
+love God without loving man, or love man without loving God.  St John
+says so, being full of the Spirit of God:  but alas! men, who are not
+full of the Spirit of God, but only let themselves be taught by Him now
+and then and here and there, have found it very difficult to understand
+St John, and still more difficult to obey him; and therefore there always
+have been in God's Church these two parties; one saying, You must love
+God first, and the other, You must love your neighbour first,--and each,
+of course, quoting Scripture to prove that they are in the right.
+
+The great leader of the first party--perhaps the founder of it, as far as
+I am aware--was the famous St Augustine.  He first taught Christians that
+they ought to love God with the same passionate affection with which they
+love husband or wife, mother or child; and to use towards God the same
+words of affection which those who love really utter one to each other.
+I will not say much of that; still less will I mention any of the words
+which good men and women who are of that way of thinking use towards God.
+I should be sorry to hold up such language to blame, even if I do not
+agree with it; and still more sorry to hold it up to ridicule from
+vulgar-minded persons if there be any in this Church.  All I say is, that
+all which has been written since about this passionate and rapturous love
+toward God by the old monks and nuns, and by the Protestant Pietists,
+both English and foreign, is all in St Augustine better said than it ever
+has been since.  Some of the Pietist hymns, as we know, are very
+beautiful; but there are things in them which one wishes left out; which
+seem, or ought to seem, irreverent when used toward God; which hurt, or
+ought to hurt, our plain, cool, honest English common-sense.  A true
+Englishman does not like to say more than he feels; and the more he
+feels, the more he likes to keep it to himself, instead of parading it
+and talking of it before men.  Still waters run deep, he holds; and he is
+right for himself; only he must not judge others, or think that because
+he cannot speak to God in such passionate language as St Augustine, who
+was an African, a southern man, with much stronger feelings than we
+Englishmen usually have, that therefore St Augustine, or those who copy
+him now, do not really feel what they say.  But, nevertheless, plain
+common-sense people, such as most Englishmen are, are afraid of this
+enthusiastical religion.  They say, We do not pretend to feel this
+rapturous love to God, how much-soever we may reverence Him, and wish to
+keep His commandments; and we do not desire to feel it.  For we see that
+people who have talked in this way about God have been almost always
+monks and nuns; or brain-sick, disappointed persons, who have no natural
+and wholesome bent for their affections.  And even though this kind of
+religion may be very well for them, it is not the religion for a plain
+honest man who has a wife and family and his bread to earn in the world,
+and has children to provide for, and his duty to do in the State as well
+as in the Church.  And more, they say, these enthusiastic, rapturous
+feelings do not seem to make people better, and more charitable, and more
+loving.  Some really good and charitable people say that they have these
+feelings, but for all that we can see they would be just as good and
+charitable without the feelings, while most persons who take up with this
+sort of religion are not the better for it.  They do not control their
+tempers; they can be full,--as they say,--of love and devotion to God one
+minute, but why are they the next minute peevish, proud, self-willed,
+harsh and cruel to those who differ from them?  Their religion does not
+make them love their neighbours.  In old times (when persecution was
+allowed), it made them, or at least allowed them, to persecute, torment,
+and kill their neighbours, and fancy that by such conduct they did God
+service; and now it tempts them to despise their neighbours--to look on
+every one who has not these strange, intense feelings which they say they
+have, as unconverted, and lost, and doomed to everlasting destruction.
+Not, says the plain man, that we are more satisfied with the mere
+philanthropist of modern times,--the man who professes to love the whole
+human race without loving God, or indeed often believing that there is a
+God to love.  To us he seems as unloving a person as the mere fanatic.
+Meanwhile, plain people say, we will have nothing to do with either
+fanaticism or philanthropy,--we will try to do our duty where God has put
+us, and to behave justly and charitably by our neighbours; but beyond
+that we cannot go.  We will not pretend to what we do not feel.
+
+My friends, there is, as usual, truth on both sides,--both are partly
+right, and both are partly wrong.  And both may go on arguing against
+each other, and quoting texts of Scripture against each other till the
+last day; if they will not listen to St John's message in the text.  One
+party will say, It is written, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
+thy heart, and soul, and strength, and mind; and if thou doest that, and
+thy soul is filled with love for the Creator, thou canst have no love
+left for the creature; or if thy heart is filled with love for the
+creature, there is no room left for love to God.  And then thou wilt find
+that God is a jealous God, and will take from thee what thou lovest,
+because He will not have His honour given to another.
+
+And to that the other party will answer, Has not God said, "Thou shalt
+love thy neighbour as thyself?"  Has He not commanded us to love our
+wives, our children?  And even if He had not, would not common sense tell
+us that He intended us to do so?  Do you think that God is a tempter and
+a deceiver?  He has given us feelings and powers.  Has He not meant us to
+use them?  He has given us wife and child.  Did He mean us not to love
+them, after He has made us love them, we know not how or why?  You say
+that God is a jealous God.  Yes, jealous He may be of our worshipping
+false gods, and idols, saints, or anything or person save Himself,--
+jealous of our doing wrong, and ruining ourselves, and wandering out of
+the path of His commandments, in which alone is life; but jealous of our
+loving our fellow creature as well as Himself, never.  That sort of
+jealousy is a base and wicked passion in man, and dare we attribute it to
+God?  What a thing to say of the loving God, that He takes away people's
+children, husbands, and friends, because they love them too much!
+
+Then the first party will say, But is it not written, "Love not the
+world, neither the things that are in the world.  If any man love the
+world, the love of the Father is not in him?"  And to that, the second
+party will answer, And do you say that we are not to love this fair and
+wonderful earth which God has made for our use, and put us into it?  Why
+did He make it lovely?  Why did He put us into it, if He did not mean us
+to enjoy it?  That is contrary to common sense, and contrary to the whole
+teaching of the Old Testament.  But if by the world you mean the world of
+man, the society in which we live--dare you compare a Christian and
+civilized country like England with that detestable Roman world, sunk in
+all abominable vices, against which St John and St Paul prophesied?  Are
+not such thoughts unjust and uncharitable to your neighbours, to your
+country, to all mankind?  Then the first party will say, But you do away
+with all devoutness; and the second party will answer, And you do away
+with all morality, for you tell people that the only way to please God is
+to feel about Him in a way which not one person in a thousand can feel;
+and therefore what will come, and does come, of your binding heavy
+burdens and grievous to be borne and laying them on men's shoulders is
+this,--that the generality of people will care nothing about being good
+or doing right, because you teach them that it will not please God, and
+will leave all religion to a few who have these peculiar fancies and
+feelings.
+
+And so they may argue on for ever, unless they will take honestly the
+plain words of St John, and see that to love their neighbour is to love
+God, and to love God is to love their neighbour.  So says St John clearly
+enough twice over.  "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth
+in God, and God in him."  The two things are one, and the one cannot be
+without the other.
+
+Does this seem strange to you?  Oh, my friends, it need not seem strange,
+if you will but consider who God is, and who man is.  Thou lovest God?
+Then, if thou lovest Him, thou must needs love all that He has made.  And
+what has He made?  All things, except sin; and what sin is He has told
+thee.  He has given thee ten commandments, and let no man give thee an
+eleventh commandment out of his own conceit and will worship; calling
+unclean what God hath made clean, and cursing what God hath blessed.
+Thou lovest God?  Then thou lovest all that is good; for God is good, and
+from Him all good things come.  But what is good?  All is good except
+sin; for it is written, "God saw every thing that He had made, and,
+behold, it was very good."  Therefore, if thou lovest God, thou must love
+all things, for all things are of Him, and by Him, and through Him; and
+in Him all live and move and have their being.  Then thou wilt truly love
+God.  Thou wilt be content with God; and so thy love will cast out fear.
+Thou wilt trust God; thou wilt have the mind of God; thou wilt be
+satisfied with God's working, from the rise and fall of great nations to
+the life and death of the smallest gnat which dances in the sun; thou
+wilt say for ever, and concerning all things, I know in whom I have
+believed.  It is the good Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good.
+
+Again.  Thou lovest thy neighbour; thou lovest wife and child; thou
+lovest thy friends; thou lovest or wishest to love all men, and to do
+them good.  Then thou lovest God.  For what is it that thou lovest in thy
+neighbour?  Not that which is bad in him?  No, but that which is good.
+Thou lovest him for his kindliness, his honesty, his helpfulness,--for
+some good quality in him.  But from whom does that good come, save from
+Christ and from the Spirit of Christ, from whom alone come all good
+gifts?  Yes, if you will receive it;--when we love our neighbours, it is
+God in them, Christ in them, whom we love,--Christ in them, the hope of
+glory.
+
+What, some one will ask, when a man loves a fair face, does he love
+Christ then?  Ah! my friends, that is not true love, as all know well
+enough if they will let their own hearts tell them truth.  True love is
+when two people love each other for the goodness which is in them.  True
+love is the love which endures after beauty has faded, and youth, and
+health, and all that seems to make life worth having is gone.  Have we
+not seen ere now two old people, worn, crippled, diseased, yet living on
+together, helping each other, nursing each other, tottering on hand in
+hand to the grave, dying, perhaps, almost together,--because neither
+cared to live when the other is gone before, and loving all the while as
+truly and tenderly as in the days of youth?  They know not why.  No; but
+God knows why.  It is Christ in each other whom they love;--Christ, the
+hope of glory.  Yes, we have seen that, surely; and seen in it one of the
+most beautiful, the most divine sights upon earth,--one which should
+teach us, if we will look at it aright, that when we love our neighbour
+truly, it is the divine part in him, the spark of eternal goodness in
+him,--what St Paul says is Christ in him,--which we admire, and cling to,
+and love.
+
+But by that rule we cannot love every one, for every one is not good.  Be
+not too sure of that.  All are not good, alas! but in all there is some
+good.  It may be a very little,--a hope of glory in them, even though
+that hope be very faint.  It may be dying out; it may die altogether, and
+their souls may become utterly base and evil, and be lost for ever.
+Still, while there is life there is hope, even for the worst; and just as
+far as our hearts are full of the Spirit of God, we shall see the Spirit
+of God striving with the souls even of the worst men, and love them for
+that.  Just as far as we have the likeness of Christ in us, we shall be
+quick to catch the least gleam of His likeness in our neighbours, and
+love them for that.  Just as far as our hearts are full of love we shall
+see something worth loving in every human being we meet, and love them
+for that.  I know it is difficult.  It is not gotten in a day, that wide
+and deep spirit of love to all mankind which St Paul had; which made him
+weep with those who wept and rejoice with those who rejoiced, and become
+all things to all men, if by any means he might save some.  Before our
+eyes are cleansed and purged to see some trace of good in every man, our
+hearts must be cleansed and purged from all selfishness, and bigotry, and
+pride, and fancifulness, and anger, so that they may be filled with the
+loving Spirit of God.  As long as a taint of selfishness or pride remains
+in us, we shall be in continual danger of hating those whom God does not
+hate, despising those whom God does not despise, and condemning those
+whom God does not condemn.  But if self is cast out of us, and the Spirit
+of God and of Christ enthroned in our hearts, then we shall love our
+brother, and in loving him love God, who made him; and so, dwelling in
+love, we shall dwell in God, and God in us:--to which true and only
+everlasting life may He of His mercy bring us, either in this world or in
+the world to come.  Amen.
+
+
+
+SERMON XVIII.  COURAGE
+
+
+
+Chester Cathedral, 1871.
+
+Acts iv. 13, 18-20.  "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John,
+and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled;
+and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. . . .
+And they called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in
+the name of Jesus.  But Peter and John answered and said unto them,
+Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than
+unto God, judge ye.  For we cannot but speak the things which we have
+seen and heard."
+
+Last Thursday was St Peter's Day.  The congregation on that day was, as
+far as I could perceive, no larger than usual; and this is not a matter
+of surprise.  Since we gave up at the Reformation the superstitious
+practice of praying to the saints, saints' days have sunk--and indeed
+sunk too much--into neglect.  For most men's religion has a touch of
+self-interest in it; and therefore when people discovered that they could
+get nothing out of St Peter or St John by praying to them, they began to
+forget the very memory, many of them, of St Peter, St John, and other
+saints and apostles.  They forget, too often, still, that though praying
+to any saint, or angel, or other created being, is contrary both to
+reason and to Scripture; yet it is according to reason and to Scripture
+to commemorate them.  That is to remember them, to study their
+characters, and to thank God for them--both for the virtues which He
+bestowed on them, and the example which He has given us in them.
+
+For these old saints lived and died for our example.  They are, next of
+course to the Lord Himself, the ideals, the patterns, of Christian life--
+the primeval heroes of our holy faith.  They shew to us of what stuff the
+early Christians were made; what sort of stone--to use St Paul's own
+figure,--the Lord chose wherewith to build up His Church.  They are our
+spiritual ancestors, for they spread the Gospel into all lands; and they
+spread it, remember always, not only by preaching what they knew, but by
+being what they were.  Their characters, their personal histories, are as
+important to us as their writings; nay, in the case of St Peter, even
+more important.  For if these two epistles of his had been lost, and
+never handed down to us, St Peter himself would have remained, as he is
+drawn in the Gospels and the Acts, a grand and colossal human figure,
+every line and feature of which is full of meaning and full of teaching
+to us.
+
+Now I think that the quality--the grace of God--which St Peter's
+character and story specially force on our notice, is, the true courage
+which comes by faith.  I say, the courage which comes by faith.  There is
+a courage which does not come by faith.  There is brute courage, which
+comes from hardness of heart, from stupidity, obstinacy, or anger, which
+does not see danger, or does not feel pain.  That is the courage of the
+brute.  One does not blame it, or call it wrong.  It is good in its
+place, as all natural things are, which God has made.  It is good enough
+for the brutes, but it is not good enough for man.  You cannot trust it
+in man.  And the more a man is what a man should be, the less he can
+trust it.  The more mind and understanding a man has, so as to be able to
+foresee danger, and measure it, the more chance there is of his brute
+courage giving way.  The more feeling a man has, the more keenly he feels
+pain of body, or pain of mind, such as shame, loneliness, the dislike,
+ridicule, and contempt of his fellow men; in a word, the more of a man he
+is, and the less of a mere brute, the more chance there is of his brute
+courage breaking down, just when he wants it most to keep him up, by
+leaving him to play the coward and come to shame.  Yes.  To go through
+with a difficult and dangerous undertaking, a man wants more than brute
+courage.  He wants spiritual courage--the courage which comes by faith.
+He needs to have faith in what he is doing; to be certain that he is
+doing his duty, to be certain that he is in the right.  Certain that
+right will conquer, certain that God will make it conquer, by him or by
+some one else; certain that he will either conquer honourably, or fail
+honourably, for God is with him.  In a word, to have true courage, man
+needs faith in God.
+
+To give one example.  Look at the class of men who, in all England,
+undergo the most fearful dangers; who know not at what hour of any night
+they may not be called up to the most serious labour and responsibility,
+with the chance of a horrible and torturing death.  I mean the firemen of
+our great cities, than whom there are no steadier, braver, nobler-hearted
+men.  Not a week passes without one or more of these firemen, in trying
+to save life and property, doing things which are altogether heroic.
+What do you fancy keeps them up to their work?  High pay?  The amusement
+and excitement of fires?  The vanity of being praised for their courage?
+My friends, those would be but paltry weak motives, which would not keep
+a man's heart calm and his head clear under such responsibility and
+danger as theirs.  No.  It is the sense of duty,--the knowledge that they
+are doing a good and a noble work in saving the lives of human beings and
+the wealth of the nation,--the knowledge that they are in God's hands,
+and that no real evil can happen to him who is doing right,--that to him
+even death at his post is not a loss, but a gain.  In short, faith in
+God, more or less clear, is what gives those men their strong and quiet
+courage.  God grant that you and I, if ever we have dangerous work to do,
+may get true courage from the same fountain of ghostly strength.
+
+Now, St Peter's history is, I think, a special example of this.  He was
+naturally, it seems, a daring man,--a man of great brute courage.  So far
+so good; but he had to be taught, by severe lessons, that his brute
+courage was not enough,--that he wanted spiritual courage, the courage
+which came by faith, and that if that failed him, the brute courage would
+fail too.
+
+He throws himself into the lake, to walk upon the water to Christ; and as
+soon as he is afraid he begins to sink.  The Lord saves him, and tells
+him why he had sank.  Because he had doubted, his faith had failed him.
+So he found out the weakness of courage without faith.  Then, again, he
+tells our Lord, "Though all men shall be offended of Thee, yet will I
+never be offended.  I am ready to go with Thee both into prison, and to
+death."  And shortly after, his mere animal courage breaks out again, and
+does what little it can do, and little enough.  He draws sword, single-
+handed, on the soldiers in the garden, and cuts down a servant of the
+high priest's, and perhaps would have flung his life away, desperately
+and uselessly, had not our Lord restrained him.  But when the fit of
+excitement is past, his animal courage deserts him, and his moral courage
+too, and he denies his Lord.  So he found out that he was like too many,-
+-full of bodily courage, perhaps, but morally weak.  He had to undergo a
+great change.  He had to be converted by the Holy Spirit of God, and
+strengthened by that Spirit, to have a boldness which no worldly courage
+can give.  Then, when he was strong himself, he was able to strengthen
+his brethren.  Then he was able, ignorant and unlearned man as he was, to
+stand up before the high priests and rulers of his nation, and to say,
+simply and firmly, without boasting, without defiance, "Whether it be
+right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge
+ye.  For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard."
+Yes, my friends, it is the courage which comes by faith which makes truly
+brave men,--men like St Peter and St John.  He who can say, I am right,
+can say likewise, God is on my side, and I will not fear what man can do
+to me.
+
+"We will not fear," said the Psalmist, "though the earth be removed, and
+though the hills be carried into the midst of the sea."  "The just man,
+who holds firm to his purpose," says a wise old heathen, "he will not be
+shaken from his solid mind by the rage of the mob bidding him do base
+things or the frowns of the tyrant who persecutes him.  Though the world
+were to crumble to pieces round him, its ruins would strike him without
+making him tremble."  "Whether it be right," said Peter and John to the
+great men and judges of the Jews, "to hearken to God more than to you,
+judge ye.  We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard."
+We cannot but speak what we know to be true.
+
+It was that courage which enabled our forefathers,--and not the great men
+among them, not the rich, not even the learned, save a few valiant
+bishops and clergy, but for the most part poor, unlearned, labouring men
+and women,--to throw off the yoke of Popery, and say, "Reason and
+Scripture tell us that it is absurd and wrong to worship images and pray
+to saints,--tell us that your doctrines are not true.  And we will say so
+in spite of the Pope and all his power,--in spite of torture and a fiery
+death.  We cannot palter; we cannot dissemble; we cannot shelter
+ourselves under half-truths, and make a covenant with lies. 'Whether it
+be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than to God, judge
+ye.  We cannot but speak the things which we know to be true.'"
+
+So it has been in all ages, and so it will be for ever.  Faith, the
+certainty that a man is right, will give him a courage which will enable
+him to resist, if need be, the rich ones, the strong ones, the learned
+ones of the earth.  It has made poor unlearned men heroes and deliverers
+of their countrymen from slavery and ignorance.  It has made weak women
+martyrs and saints.  It has enabled men who made great discoveries to
+face unbelief, ridicule, neglect, poverty; knowing that their worth would
+be acknowledged at last, their names honoured at last as benefactors by
+the very men who laughed at them and reviled them.  It has made men, shut
+up in prison for long weary years for doing what was right and saying
+what was true, endure manfully for the sake of some good cause, and say,-
+-
+
+
+   "Stone walls do not a prison make,
+   Nor iron bars a cage;
+Minds innocent and quiet take
+   That for an hermitage.
+If I have freedom in my thought,
+   And in my love am free,
+Angels alone, that soar above,
+   Enjoy such liberty."
+
+
+Yes; settle it in your hearts, all of you.  There is but one thing which
+you have to fear in earth or heaven,--being untrue to your better selves,
+and therefore untrue to God.  If you will not do the thing you know to be
+right, and say the thing you know to be true, then indeed you are weak.
+You are a coward, and sin against God, and suffer the penalty of your
+cowardice.  You desert God, and therefore you cannot expect Him to stand
+by you.
+
+But if you will do the thing you know to be right, and say the thing you
+know to be true, then what can harm you?  Who will harm you, asks St
+Peter himself, "if you be followers of that which is good?  For the eyes
+of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are open to their
+prayers.  But if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye; and be
+not afraid of those who try to terrify you, neither be troubled, but
+sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.  Remember that He is just and holy,
+and a rewarder of all who diligently seek Him.  Worship Him in your
+hearts, and all will be well.  For says David again, "Lord, who shall
+dwell in Thy tabernacle, or who shall rest upon Thy holy hill?  Even he
+that leadeth an uncorrupt life, and doeth the thing which is right, and
+speaketh the truth from his heart.  Whoso doeth these things shall never
+fall."
+
+Yes, my friends; there is a tabernacle of God in which, even in this
+life, He will hide us from the strife of tongues.  There is a hill of God
+on which, even in the midst of labour and anxiety, we may rest both day
+and night.  Even Jesus Christ, the Rock of Ages,--He who is the
+Righteousness itself, the Truth itself; and whosoever does righteousness
+and speaks truth dwells in Christ in this life, as well as in the life to
+come; and Christ will strengthen him by His Holy Spirit to stand in the
+evil day, if it shall come, and having done all, to stand.  My dear
+friends, if any of you are minded to be good men and women, pray for the
+Holy Spirit of God.  First for the spirit of love to give you good
+desires; then the spirit of faith, to make you believe deeply in the
+living God, who rewards every man according to his work; and then for the
+spirit of strength, to enable you to bring these desires to good effect.
+
+Pray for that spirit, I say; for we all need help.  There are too many
+people in the world--too many, perhaps, among us here--who are not what
+they ought to be, and what they really wish to be, because they are weak.
+They see what is right, and admire it; but they have not courage or
+determination to do it.  Most sad and pitiable it is to see how much
+weakness of heart there is in the world--how little true moral courage.
+I suppose that the reason is, that there is so little faith; that people
+do not believe heartily and deeply enough in the absolute necessity of
+doing right and being honest.  They do not believe heartily and deeply
+enough in God to trust Him to defend and reward them, if they will but be
+true to Him, and to themselves.  And therefore they have no moral
+courage.  They are weak.  They are kind, perhaps, and easy; easily led
+right; but, alas! just as easily led wrong.  Their good resolutions are
+not carried out; their right doctrines not acted up to; and they live
+pitiful, confused, useless, inconsistent lives; talking about religion,
+and yet denying the power of religion in their daily lives; playing with
+holy and noble thoughts and feelings, without giving themselves up to
+them in earnest, to be led by the Spirit of God, to do all the good works
+which God has prepared for them to walk in.  Pray all of you, then, for
+the spirit of faith, to believe really in God; and for the spirit of
+ghostly strength, to obey God honestly.  No man ever asked earnestly for
+that spirit but what he gained it at last.  And no man ever gained it but
+what he found the truth of St Peter's own words, "Who will harm you if ye
+be followers of that which is good?"
+
+
+
+SERMON XIX.  GOOD DAYS
+
+
+
+Eversley, 1867.  Westminster, Sept. 27, 1872.
+
+1 Peter iii. 8-12.  "Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of
+another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous:  Not rendering evil
+for evil, or railing for railing:  but contrariwise blessing; knowing
+that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.  For he
+that will love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from
+evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:  Let him eschew evil, and do
+good; let him seek peace, and ensue it.  For the eyes of the Lord are
+over the righteous, and His ears are open unto their prayers:  but the
+face of the Lord is against them that do evil."
+
+This is one of the texts which is apt to puzzle people who do not read
+their Bibles carefully enough.  They cannot see what the latter part of
+it has to do with the former.
+
+St. Peter says that we Christians are called that we should inherit a
+blessing.  That means, of course, they say, the blessing of salvation,
+everlasting life in heaven.  But then St. Peter quotes from the 34th
+Psalm.  "For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain
+his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile."  Now that
+Psalm, they say, speaks of blessing and happiness in this life.  Then why
+does St. Peter give it as a reason for expecting blessing and happiness
+in the life to come?  And then, they say, to make it fit in, it must be
+understood spiritually; and what they mean by that, I do not clearly
+know.
+
+Their notion is, that the promises of the Old Testament are more or less
+carnal, because they speak of God's rewarding men in this life; and that
+the promises of the New Testament are spiritual, because they speak of
+God's rewarding men in the next life; and what they mean by that, again,
+I do not clearly know.
+
+For is not the Old Testament spiritual as well as the New?  I trust so,
+my friends.  Is not the Old Testament inspired, and that by the Spirit of
+God? and if it be inspired by the Spirit, what can it be but spiritual?
+Therefore, if we want to find the spiritual meaning of Old Testament
+promises, we need not to alter them to suit any fancies of our own; like
+those monks of the fourth and succeeding centuries, who saw no sanctity
+in family or national life; no sanctity in the natural world, and,
+therefore, were forced to travesty the Hebrew historians, psalmists, and
+prophets, with all their simple, healthy objective humanity, and
+politics, and poetry, into metaphorical and subjective, or, as they
+miscalled them, spiritual meanings, to make the Old Testament mean
+anything at all.  No; if we have any real reverence for the Holy
+Scriptures, we must take them word for word in their plain meaning, and
+find the message of God's Spirit in that plain meaning, instead of trying
+to put it in for ourselves.  Therefore it is that the VII. Article bids
+us beware of playing with Scripture in this way.  It says the Old
+Testament is not contrary to the New, for both in the Old and New
+Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ.  Wherefore
+they are not to be heard who feign that the old fathers did look only for
+transitory promises, that is temporary promises, promises which would be
+fulfilled only in this life, and end and pass away when they died.
+
+But some one will say, how can that be, when so many of the old Hebrews
+seem to have known nothing about the next life?  Moses, for instance,
+always promises the Children of Israel that if they do right, and obey
+God, they shall be rewarded in this life, with peace and prosperity,
+fruitfulness and wealth; but of their being rewarded in the next life he
+never says one word--which last statement is undeniably true.
+
+Is not then the Old Testament contrary to the New, if the Old Testament
+teaches men to look for their reward in this life, and the New Testament
+in the next?  No, it is not, my friends.  And I think we shall see that
+it is not, and why it is not, if we will look honestly at this very
+important text.  If we do that we shall see that what St. Peter meant--
+what the VII.  Article means is the only meaning which will make sense of
+either one or the other; is simply this--that what causes a man to enjoy
+this life, is the same that will cause him to enjoy the life to come.
+That what will bring a blessing on him in this life, will bring a
+blessing on him in the life to come.  That what blessed the old Jews,
+will bless us Christians.  That if we refrain our tongue from evil, and
+our lips from speaking deceit; it we avoid evil and do good; if we seek
+peace and follow earnestly after it; then shall we enjoy life, and see
+good days, and inherit a blessing; whether in this life or in the life to
+come.
+
+And why?  Because then we shall be living the one and only everlasting
+life of goodness, which alone brings blessings; alone gives good days;
+and is the only life worth living, whether in earth or heaven.
+
+My dear friends, lay this seriously to heart, in these days especially,
+when people and preachers alike have taken to part earth and heaven, in a
+fashion which we never find in Holy Scripture.  Lay it to heart, I say,
+and believe that what is right, and therefore good, for the next life, is
+right, and therefore good, for this.  That the next life is not contrary
+to this life.  That the same moral laws hold good in heaven, as on earth.
+Mark this well; for it must be so, if morality, that is right and
+goodness, is of the eternal and immutable essence of God.  And therefore,
+mark this well again, there is but one true, real, and right life for
+rational beings, one only life worth living, and worth living in this
+world or in any other life, past, present, or to come.  And that is the
+eternal life which was before all worlds, and will be after all are
+passed away--and that is neither more nor less than a good life; a life
+of good feelings, good thoughts, good words, good deeds, the life of
+Christ and of God.
+
+It is needful, I say, to bear this in mind just now.  People are, as I
+told you, too apt to say that the Old Testament saints got their rewards
+in this life, while we shall get them in the next.  Do they find that in
+Scripture?  If they will read their Bible they will find that the Old
+Testament saints were men whom God was training and educating, as He does
+us, by experience and by suffering.  That David, so far from having his
+reward at once in this life, had his bitter sorrows and trials; that
+Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Job, all, indeed, of the old prophets, had to be
+made perfect by suffering, and (as St. Paul says) died in faith NOT
+having received the promises.  So that if they had their reward in this
+life, it must have been a spiritual reward, the reward of a good
+conscience, and of the favour of Almighty God.  And that is no transitory
+or passing reward, but enduring as immortality itself.  But people do not
+usually care for that spiritual reward.  Their notion of reward and
+happiness is that they are to have all sorts of pleasures, they know not
+what, and know not really why.  And because they cannot get pleasant
+things enough to satisfy them in this life, they look forward greedily to
+getting them in the next life; and meanwhile are discontented with God's
+Providence, and talk of God's good world as if some fiend and not the
+Lord Jesus Christ was the maker and ruler thereof.  Do not misunderstand
+me.  I am no optimist.  I know well that things happen in this world
+which must, which ought to make us sad--so sad that at moments we envy
+the dead, who are gone home to their rest; real tragedies, real griefs,
+divine and Christlike griefs, which only loving hearts know--the
+suffering of those we love, the loss of those we love, and, last and
+worst, the sin of those we love.  Ah! if any of those swords have pierced
+the heart of any soul here, shall I blame that man, that woman, if they
+cry at times, "Father, take me home, this earth is no place for me."
+Shall I bid them do aught but cling to the feet of Christ and cry, "If it
+be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but
+as Thou wilt."  Oh, not of such do I speak; not of such sharers of
+Christ's unselfish suffering here, that they may be sharers of His
+unselfish joy hereafter.  Not of them do I speak; but of those who only
+wish to make up for selfish discomforts and disappointments in this life
+by selfish comforts and satisfaction in the next; and who therefore take
+up (let me use the honest English word) some maundering form of religion,
+which, to judge from their own conduct, they usually only half believe;
+those who seem, on six days of the week, as fond of finery and frivolity
+as any other gay worldlings, and on the seventh join eagerly in hymns in
+which (in one case at least) they inform the Almighty God of truth, who
+will not be mocked, that they lie awake at night, weeping because they
+cannot die and see "Jerusalem the golden," and so forth.  Or those,
+again, who for six days in the week are absorbed in making money--
+honestly if they can, no doubt, but still making money, and living
+luxuriously on their profits--and on the seventh listen with satisfaction
+to preachers and hymns which tell them that this world is all a howling
+wilderness, full of snares and pitfalls; and that in this wretched place
+the Christian can expect nothing but tribulation and persecution till he
+"crosses Jordan, and is landed safe on Canaan's store," and so forth.
+
+My friends, my friends, as long as a man talks so, blaspheming God's
+world--which, when He made it, behold it was all very good--and laying
+the blame of their own ignorance and peevishness on God who made them,
+they must expect nothing but tribulation and sorrow.  But the tribulation
+and the sorrow will be their own fault, and not God's.  If religious
+professors will not take St. Peter's advice and the Psalmist's advice; if
+they will go on coveting and scheming about money, and how they may get
+money; if they will go on being neither pitiful, courteous, nor
+forgiving, and hating and maligning whether it be those who differ from
+them in doctrine, or those who they fancy have injured them, or those who
+merely are their rivals in the race of life; then they are but too likely
+to find this world a thorny place, because they themselves raise the
+thorns; and a disorderly place, because their own tempers and desires are
+disorderly; and a wilderness, because they themselves have run wild,
+barbarians at heart, however civilised in dress and outward manners.  St.
+James tells them that of old.  "From whence," he says, "come wars and
+quarrels among you?  Come they not hence, even of the lusts which war in
+your members?  You long, and have not.  You fight and war, yet you have
+not, because you ask not.  You ask, and have not.  You pray for this and
+that, and God does not give it you.  Because you ask amiss, selfishly to
+consume it on your lusts."  And then you say, This world is an evil
+place, full of temptations.  What says St. James to that?  "Let no man
+say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God:  for God cannot be tempted
+with evil, neither tempteth He any man.  But every man is tempted, when
+he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed."
+
+So it was in the Old Testament times, and so it is in these Christian
+times.  God is good, and God's world is good; and the evil is not in the
+world around us, but in our own foolish hearts.  If we follow our own
+foolish hearts, we shall find this world a bad place, as the old Jews
+found it--whenever they went wrong and sinned against God--because we are
+breaking its laws, and they will punish us.  If we follow the
+commandments of God, we shall find this world a good place, as the old
+Jews found it--whenever they went right, and obeyed God--because we shall
+be obeying its laws, and they will reward us.  This is God's promise
+alike to the old Jewish fathers and to us Christian men.  And this is no
+transitory or passing promise, but is founded on the eternal and
+everlasting law of right, by which God has made all worlds, and which He
+Himself cannot alter, for it springs out of His own essence and His own
+eternal being.  Hear, then, the conclusion of the whole matter:  God hath
+called you that you might inherit a blessing.
+
+He hath made you of a blessed race, created in His own likeness, to whom
+He hath put all things in subjection, making man a little lower than the
+angels, that He might crown him with glory and worship:  a race so
+precious in God's eyes--we know not why--that when mankind had fallen,
+and seemed ready to perish from their own sin and ignorance, God spared
+not His only begotten Son, but freely gave Him for us, that the world by
+Him might be saved.  And God hath put you in a blessed place, even His
+wondrous and fruitful world, which praises God day and night, fulfilling
+His word; for it continues this day as in the beginning, and He has given
+it a law which cannot be broken.  He has made you citizens of a blessed
+kingdom, even the kingdom of heaven, into which you were baptised; and
+has given you the Holy Bible, that you might learn the laws of the
+kingdom, and live for ever, blessing and blest.
+
+And the Head of this blessed race, the Maker of this blessed world, the
+King of this blessed kingdom, is the most blessed of all beings, Jesus
+Christ, the only-begotten Son, both God and man.  He has washed you
+freely from your sins in His own blood; He has poured out on you freely
+His renewing Spirit.  And He asks you to enter into your inheritance;
+that you may love your life, and see good days, by living the blessed
+life, which is the life of self-sacrifice.  But not such self-sacrifices
+as too many have fancied who did not believe that mankind was a blessed
+race, and this earth a blessed place.  He does not ask you to give up
+wife, child, property, or any of the good things of this life.  He only
+asks you to give up that selfishness which will prevent you enjoying
+wife, child, or property, or anything else in earth, or in heaven either.
+He asks you not to give up anything which is AROUND you, for that which
+cometh from without defileth not a man; but to give up something which is
+within you, for that which cometh from within, that defileth a man.
+
+He asks you to give up selfishness and all the evil tempers which that
+selfishness breeds.  To give up the tongue which speaks evil of your
+fellow-men; and the lips which utter deceit; and the brain which imagines
+cunning; and the heart which quarrels with your neighbour.  To give these
+up and to seek peace, and pursue it by all means reasonable or
+honourable; peace with all around you, which comes by having first peace
+with God; next, peace with your own conscience.  This is the peace which
+passeth understanding; for if you have it, men will not be able to
+understand why you have it.  They will see you at peace when men admire
+you and praise you, and at peace also when they insult you and injure
+you; at peace when you are prosperous and thriving, and at peace also
+when you are poor and desolate.  And that inward peace of yours will pass
+their understanding as it will pass your own understanding also.  You
+will know that God sends you the peace, and sends it you the more the
+more you pray for it:  but how He sends it you will not understand; for
+it springs out of those inner depths of your being which are beyond the
+narrow range of consciousness, and is spiritual and a mystery, and comes
+by the inspiration of the holy Spirit of God.
+
+But remember that all your prayers will not get that peace if your heart
+be tainted with malice and selfishness and covetousness, falsehood and
+pride and vanity.  You must ask God first to root those foul seeds out of
+your heart, or the seed of His Spirit will not spring up and bear fruit
+in you to the everlasting life of love and peace and joy in the holy
+Spirit.  But if your heart be purged and cleansed of self, then indeed
+will the holy Spirit enter in and dwell there; and you will abide in
+peace, through all the chances and changes of this mortal life, for you
+will abide in God, who is for ever at peace.  And you will inherit a
+blessing; for you will inherit Christ, your light and your life, who is
+blessed for ever.  And you will love life; for life will be full to you
+of hope, of work, of duty, of interest, of lessons without number.  And
+you will see good days; for all days will seem good to you, even those
+which seem to the world bad days of affliction and distress.  And so the
+peace of God will keep you in Jesus Christ, in this life, and in the life
+to come.  Amen.
+
+
+
+SERMON XX.  GRACE
+
+
+
+Eversley. 1856.
+
+St. John i. 16, 17.  "Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for
+grace.  For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus
+Christ."
+
+I wish you to mind particularly this word GRACE.  You meet it very often
+in the Bible.  You hear often said, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be
+with you all.  Now, what does this word grace mean?  It is really worth
+your while to know; for if a man or a woman has not grace, they will be
+very unhappy people, and very disagreeable people also; a torment to
+themselves, and a torment to their neighbours also; and if they live
+without grace, they will live but a poor life; if they die without grace,
+they will come to a very bad end indeed.  What, then, does this word
+mean?  Some of you will answer that grace means God's Holy Spirit, or
+that it means what God gives to our souls by His Spirit.  But what does
+that mean?  What does God's Spirit give us?  What is the grace of Jesus
+Christ like, and how is it the same as the grace of God's Spirit?
+
+Now, to know what grace means, we must know what St John and St Paul
+meant by it, and what the word meant in their time, and what the
+Ephesians, and Corinthians, and Romans, to whom they wrote, would have
+understood by this word grace.
+
+Now these heathens, to whom the apostles preached, before they heard the
+gospel, knew that word grace very well indeed, often used it; and saw it
+written up in their heathen temples all about them.  And they meant by it
+just what we mean, when we talk of a graceful person, or a graceful tree
+or flower; and what we mean, too, when we say that any one is gracious;
+that they do things gracefully, and have a great deal of grace in their
+way of speaking and behaving.  We mean by that that they are handsome,
+agreeable, amiable, pleasant to look at, and talk to, and deal with.  And
+so these heathens meant, before they were Christians.  The Romans used to
+talk about some one called a Grace.  The Greeks called her CHARIS; which
+is exactly the word which St John and St Paul use, and from it come our
+words charity and charitable.  But more; they used to talk of three
+Graces:  they fancied that they were goddesses--spirits of some kind in
+the shape of beautiful, and amiable, and innocent maidens, who took
+delight in going about the world and making people happy and amiable like
+themselves; and they used to make images of these graces, and pray to
+them to make them lovely, and happy, and agreeable.  And painters and
+statuaries, too, used to pray to these graces, and ask them to put
+beautiful fancies into their minds, that they might be able to paint
+beautiful pictures, and carve beautiful statues.  So when St Paul or St
+John talked to these heathens about grace, or Charis (as the Testament
+calls it), they knew quite well what the apostles meant.
+
+Did the apostles, then, believe in these three goddesses?  Heaven forbid.
+They came to teach these heathens to turn from those very vanities, and
+worship the living-God.  And so they told them,--You are quite right in
+thinking that grace comes from heaven, and is God's gift; that it is God
+who makes people amiable, cheerful, lovely, and honourable; that it is
+God who gives happiness and all the joys of life:  but which god?  Not
+those three maidens; they are but a dream and fancy.  All that is lovely
+and pleasant in men and women--and our life here, and our everlasting
+life after death, in this world and in all worlds to come--all comes from
+Jesus Christ and from Him alone.  God has gathered together all things in
+Him, whether things in heaven or things on earth; and He bestows
+blessings and graces on all who will ask Him, to each as much as is good
+for him.  He is full of grace--more full of it than all the human beings
+in the world put together.  All the goodness and sweetness, and all the
+graciousness which you ever saw in all the men and women whom you ever
+met; all the goodness and sweetness which you ever fancied for
+yourselves, all put together is not to be compared to Him.  For He is the
+perfect brightness of God's glory, and the express image of God's person;
+and in Him is gathered together all grace, all goodness, all which makes
+men or angels good, and lovely, and loving.  All is in Him, and He gives
+it freely to all, said the apostles; we know that He speaks truth, we
+have seen Him; our eyes saw Him, our hands touched Him, and there was a
+glory about Him such as there never could be about any other person.  A
+glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.  A
+person whom we could not help loving; could not help admiring; could not
+help trusting; could not help giving ourselves up to--to live for Him,
+and if need be, die for Him.
+
+And, said the apostles, there was a grace of truth in another of your
+heathen fancies.  You thought that these goddesses, because they were
+amiable and innocent themselves, liked to make every one amiable,
+innocent, and happy also.  Your conscience, your reason were right there.
+That is the very nature of grace, not to keep itself to itself, but to
+spend itself on every one round it, and try to make every one like
+itself.  If a man be good, he will long to make others good; if tender,
+he will long to make others tender; if gentle, he will long to make
+others gentle; if cheerful, he will long to make others cheerful; if
+forgiving, he will long to make others forgiving; if happy, he will long
+to make others happy.  Then said the apostles, only believe that the Lord
+Jesus Christ, just because He is full of grace, wishes to fill you with
+grace, ten thousand times better grace than you ever fancied those false
+goddesses could give you--of His fulness you may all receive, and grace
+for grace.  All the grace of this world comes from Him--health, and
+youth, and happiness, and all the innocent pleasures of life, and He
+delights in giving you them.  But, over and above that, comes a deeper
+and nobler grace--spiritual grace, the grace of the immortal soul, which
+will last on, and make you loving and loveable, pure and true, gracious
+and generous, honourable and worthy of respect, when the grace of the
+body is gone, and the eye is grown dim, and the hair is grey, and the
+limbs, feeble; a grace which will make you gracious in old age, gracious
+in death, gracious for ever and ever, after the body has crumbled again
+to its dust.  Whatsoever things are honourable, lovely, and of good
+report; whatsoever tempers of mind make you a comfort to yourselves and
+all around you; Christ has them all, and He can give you them all, one
+after the other, till Christ be formed in you, till you come to be
+perfect men and women, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of
+Christ.  Come, then, boldly to His throne of grace, to find mercy, and
+grace to help you in the time of need.
+
+This was what the apostles taught the heathen, and their words were true.
+You may see them come true round you every day.  For, my friends, just as
+far as people pray for Christ's grace, and give themselves up to be led
+by God's Spirit, they become full of grace themselves, courteous and
+civil, loving and amiable, true and honourable--a pleasure to themselves
+and to all round them.  While, on the other hand; all rudeness, all ill-
+temper, all selfishness, all greediness are just so many sins against the
+grace of Christ, which grieve the Spirit of God, at the same time that
+they grieve our neighbours for whom Christ died, and cut us off, as long
+as we give way to them, from the communion of saints.
+
+Well would it be for married people, if they would but remember this.
+Well for them, for their own sake and for their children's.  "Heirs
+together," St Peter says they are, "of the grace of life."  Think of
+those words; for in them lies the true secret of happiness.  Not in the
+mere grace of youth, which pleases the fancy at first; that must soon
+fade; and then comes, too often, coldness between man and wife; neglect,
+rudeness, ill-temper, because the grace of life is not there--the grace
+of the inner life, of the immortal soul, which alone makes life pleasant,
+even tolerable, to two people who are bound together for better or for
+worse.  But yet, unless St Peter be mistaken, the fault in such sad case
+is on the man's side.  Yes, we must face that truth, we men; and face it
+like men.  If we are unhappy in our marriage it is our own fault.  It is
+the woman who is the weaker, says St Peter, and selfish men are apt to
+say, "Then it is the woman's fault, if we are not happy."  St Peter says
+exactly the opposite.  He says,--Because she is the weaker you are the
+stronger; and therefore it is your fault if she is not what she should
+be; for you are able to help her, and lead her; you took her to your
+heart for that very purpose, you swore to cherish her.  Because she is
+the weaker, you can teach her, help her, improve her character, if you
+will.  You have more knowledge of life and the world than she has.  Dwell
+with her according to knowledge, says St Peter; use your experience to
+set her right if she be wrong; and use your experience and your strength,
+too, to keep down your own temper and your own selfishness toward her, to
+bear and forbear, to give and forgive, live and let live.  Remember that
+you are heirs TOGETHER of the grace of life; and if the grace of life is
+not in you, you cannot expect it to be in her.  And what is the grace of
+life?  It must be the grace of Christ.  St John says that Christ IS the
+Life.  And what is the grace of Christ?  Christ's grace, Christ's
+gracefulness, Christ's beautiful and noble and loving character--the
+grace of Christ is Christ's likeness.  Do you ask what will Christ give
+me?  He will give you Himself.  He will make you like Himself, partaker
+of His grace; and what is that?  It is this--to be loving, gentle,
+temperate, courteous, condescending, self-sacrificing.  Giving honour to
+those who are weaker than yourself, just because they are weaker; ready
+and willing, ay, and counting it an honour to take trouble for other
+people, to be of use to other people, to give way to other people; and,
+above all, to the woman who has given herself to you, body and soul.
+That is the grace of Christ; that is the grace of life; that is what
+makes life worth having:  ay, makes it a foretaste of heaven upon earth;
+when man and wife are heirs together of the grace of life, of all those
+tempers which make life graceful and pleasant, giving way to each other
+in everything which is not wrong; studying each other's comfort, taking
+each other's advice, shutting their eyes to each other's little failings,
+and correcting each other's great failings, not by harsh words, but
+silently and kindly, by example.  And if the man will do that, there is
+little fear but that the woman will do it also.  And so, their prayers
+are not hindered.
+
+Married people cannot pray, they have no heart to pray, while they are
+discontented with each other.  They feel themselves wrong, and because
+they are parted from each other, they feel parted from God too; and their
+selfishness or anger rises as a black wall, not merely between them, but
+between each of them and God.  And so the grace of life is indeed gone
+away from them, and the whole world looks dark and ugly to them, because
+it is not bright and cheerful in the light of Christ's grace, which makes
+all the world full of sunshine and joy.  But it need not be so, friends.
+It would not be so, if married people would take the advice which the
+Prayer Book gives them, and come to Holy communion.  Would to God, my
+friends, that all married people would understand what that Holy
+communion says to them; and come together Sunday after Sunday to that
+throne of grace, there to receive of Christ's fulness, and grace upon
+grace.  For that Table says to you:  You are heirs together of the grace
+of life; you are not meant merely to feed together for a few short years,
+at the same table, on the bread which perishes, but to feed for ever
+together on the bread which comes down from heaven, even on Christ
+Himself, the life of the world; to receive life from His life, that you
+may live together such a life as He lived, and lives still; to receive
+grace from the fulness of His grace, that you may be full of grace as He
+is.  That Table tells you that because you both must live by the same
+life of Christ, you must live the same life as each other, and grow more
+and more like each other year by year; that as you both receive the same
+grace of Christ, you will become more and more gracious to each other
+year by year, and both grow together, nearer and dearer to each other,
+more worthy of each other's respect, more worthy of each other's trust,
+more worthy of each other's love.  And then "till death us do part" may
+mean what it will.  Let death part what of them he can part, the
+perishing mortal body; he has no power over the soul, or over the body
+which shall rise to life eternal.  Let death do his worst.  They belong
+to Christ who conquered death, and they live by His everlasting life, and
+their life is hid with Christ in God, where death cannot reach it or find
+it; and therefore their life and their love, and the grace of it, will
+last as long as Christ's life and Christ's love, and Christ's grace last-
+-and that will be for ever and ever.
+
+
+
+SERMON XXI.  FATHER AND CHILD
+
+
+
+Eversley. 1861.
+
+1 Cor. i. 4, 5, 7.  "I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace
+of God which is given you by Jesus Christ.  That in every thing ye are
+enriched by Him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge . . .  So that ye
+come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
+Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the
+day of our Lord Jesus Christ."
+
+This text is a very important one.  It ought to teach me how I should
+treat you.  It ought to teach you how you should treat your children.  It
+ought to teach you how God, your heavenly Father, treats you.  You see at
+the first glance how cheerful and hopeful St Paul is about these
+Corinthians.  He is always thanking God, he says, about them, for the
+grace of God which was given them by Jesus Christ, that in everything
+they were enriched by Him, in all utterance and in all knowledge.  And he
+has good hope for them.  Nay, he seems to be certain about them, that
+they will persevere, and conquer, and be saved; for Christ Himself will
+confirm them (that is strengthen them) to the end, that they may be
+blameless in the way of our Lord Jesus Christ.
+
+If we knew no more of these Corinthians than what these words tell us, we
+should suppose that they were very great saints, leading holy and
+irreproachable lives before God and man.  But we know that it was not so.
+That they were going on very ill.  That this is the beginning of an
+epistle in which St Paul is going to rebuke them very severely; and to
+tell them, that unless they mend, they will surely become reprobates, and
+be lost after all.  He is going to rebuke them for having heresies among
+them, that is religious parties and religious quarrels--very much as we
+have now; for being puffed up with spiritual self-conceit; for despising
+and disparaging him; for loose lives, allowing (in one case) such a crime
+among them as even the heathen did not allow; for profaning the Lord's
+Supper, to such an extent that some seem even to have got drunk at it;
+for want of charity to each other; for indulging in fanatical excitement;
+for denying, some of them, the resurrection of the dead; on the whole,
+for being in so unwholesome a state of mind that he has to warn them
+solemnly of the fearful example of the old Israelites, who perished in
+the wilderness for their sins--as they will perish, he hints, unless they
+mend.
+
+And yet he begins by thanking God for them, by speaking of them, and to
+them, in this cheerful and hopeful tone.
+
+Does that seem strange?  Why should it seem strange, my friends, to us,
+if we are in the habit of training our children, and rebuking our
+children, as we ought?  If we have to rebuke our children for doing
+wrong, do we begin by trying to break their hearts? by raking up old
+offences, by reproaching them with all the wrong they ever did in their
+lives, and giving them to understand that they are thoroughly bad, and
+have altogether lost our love, so that we will have nothing more to do
+with them unless they mend?  Or do we begin by making them feel that
+however grieved we are with them, we love them still; that however wrong
+they have been, there is right feeling left in them still; and by giving
+them credit for whatever good there is in them--by appealing to that;
+calling on them to act up to that; to be true to themselves, and to their
+better nature; saying, You can do right in one thing--then do right in
+another--and do right in all?  If we do not do this we do wrong; we
+destroy our children's self-respect, we make them despair of improving,
+we make them fancy themselves bad children:  that is the very surest plan
+we can take to make them bad children, by making them reckless.
+
+But if we be wise parents--such parents to our children as St Paul was to
+his spiritual children, the Corinthians--we shall do by them just what St
+Paul did by these Corinthians.  Before he says one harsh word to them, he
+will awaken in them faith and love.  He will make them trust him and love
+him, all the more because he knows that through false teaching they do
+not trust and love him as they used to do.  But till they do, he knows
+that there is no use in rebuking them.  Till they trust him and love him,
+they will not listen to him.  And how does he try to bring them round to
+him?  By praising them:--by telling them that he trusts them and loves
+them, because in spite of all their faults there is something in them
+worthy to be loved and trusted.  He begins by giving them credit for
+whatever good there is in them.  They are rich in all utterance and all
+knowledge; that is, they are very brilliant and eloquent talkers about
+spiritual things, and also very deep and subtle thinkers about spiritual
+things.  So far so good.  These are great gifts--gifts of Christ, too,--
+tokens that God's spirit is with them, and that all they need is to be
+true to His gracious inspirations.  Then, when he has told them that, or
+rather made them understand that he knows that, and is delighted at it,
+then he can go on safely and boldly to tell them of their sins also in
+the plainest and sternest and yet the most tender and fatherly language.
+
+This is very important, my friends.  I cannot tell you fully how
+important I think it, in more ways than one.  I am sure that if we took
+St Paul's method with our children we should succeed with them far better
+than we do.  And I think, I have thought long, that if we could see that
+St Paul's method with those Corinthians was actually the same as God's
+method with us, we should have far truer notions of God, and God's
+dealings with us; and should reverence and value far more that Holy
+Catholic Church into which we have been, by God's infinite mercy,
+baptized, and wherein we have been educated.
+
+For, and now I entreat you to listen to me carefully, you who have sound
+heads and earnest hearts, ready and willing to know the truth about God
+and yourselves, if St Paul looked at the Corinthians in this light, may
+not God have looked at them in the same light?  If St Paul accepted them
+for the sake of the good which was in them, in spite of all their faults,
+may not God have accepted them for the sake of the good which was in
+them, in spite of all their faults? and may not He accept us likewise?  I
+think it must be so.  For was not St Paul an inspired apostle? and are
+not these words of his inspired by the Holy Spirit of God?  But if so,
+then the Spirit of God must have looked at these Corinthians in the same
+light as St Paul, and therefore God must do likewise, because the Holy
+Spirit is God.  Must it not be so?  Can we suppose that God would take
+one view of these Corinthians, and then inspire St Paul to take another
+view?  What does being inspired mean at all, save having the mind of
+Christ and of God,--being taught to see men and things as God sees them,
+to feel for them and think of them as God does?  If inspiration does not
+mean that, what does it mean?  Therefore, I think, we have a right to
+believe that St Paul's words express the mind of God concerning these
+Corinthians; that God was pleased with their utterance and their
+knowledge, and accepted them for that; and that in the same way God is
+pleased with whatsoever He sees good in us, and accepts us for that.
+But, remember, not for our own works or deservings any more than these
+Corinthians.  They were, and we are accepted in Christ, and for the
+merits of Christ.  And any good points in us, or in these Corinthians, as
+St Paul says expressly (here and elsewhere), are not our own, but come
+from Christ, by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit.
+
+I know many people do not think thus.  They think of God as looking only
+at our faults; as extreme to mark what is done amiss; as never content
+with us; as always crying to men, Yes, you have done this and that well,
+and yet not quite well, for even in what you have done there are blots
+and mistakes; but this and that you have not done, and therefore you are
+still guilty, still under infinite displeasure.  And they think that they
+exalt God's holiness by such thoughts, and magnify His hatred of sin
+thereby.  And they invent arguments to prove themselves right, such as
+this:  That because God is an infinite being, every sin committed against
+Him is infinite; and therefore deserves an infinite punishment; which is
+a juggle of words of which any educated man ought to be ashamed.
+
+I do not know where, in the Bible, they find all this.  Certainly not in
+the writings of St Paul.  They seem to me to find it, not in the Bible at
+all, but in their own hearts, judging that God must be as hard upon His
+children as they are apt to be upon their own.  I know that God is never
+content with us, or with any man.  How can He be?  But in what sense is
+He not content?  In the sense in which a hard task-master is not content
+with his slave, when he flogs him cruelly for the slightest fault?  Or in
+the sense in which a loving father is not content with his child,
+grieving over him, counselling him, as long as he sees him, even in the
+slightest matter, doing less well than he might do?  Think of that, and
+when you have thought of it, believe that in this grand text St Paul
+speaks really by the Spirit of God, and according to the mind of God, and
+teaches not these old Corinthians merely, but you and your children after
+you, what is the mind of God concerning you, what is the light in which
+God looks upon you.  For, if you will but think over your own lives, and
+over the Catechism which you learned in your youth, has not God's way of
+dealing with you been just the same as St Paul's with those Corinthians,
+teaching you to love and trust Him almost before He taught you the
+difference between right and wrong?  I know that some think otherwise.
+Many who do not belong to the Church, and many, alas! who profess to
+belong to the Church, will tell you that God's method is, first to
+terrify men by the threats of the law and the sight of their sins and the
+fear of damnation, and afterwards to reveal to them the gospel and His
+mercy and salvation in Christ.  Now I can only answer that it is not so.
+Not so in fact.  These preachers themselves may do it; but that is no
+proof that God does it.  What God's plan is can only be known from facts,
+from experience, from what actually happens; first in God's kingdom of
+nature, and next in God's kingdom of grace, which is the Church.  And in
+the kingdom of nature how does God begin with mankind?  What are a
+child's first impressions of this life?  Does he hear voices from heaven
+telling little children that they are lost sinners?  Does he see
+lightning come from heaven to strike sinners dead, or earthquakes rise
+and swallow them up?  Nothing of the kind.  A child's first impressions
+of this life, what are they but pleasure?  His mother's breast, warmth,
+light, food, play, flowers, and all pleasant things,--by these God
+educates the child, even of the heathen and the savage:--and why?  If
+haply he may feel after God and find Him, and find that He is a God of
+love and mercy, a giver of good things, who knows men's necessities
+before they ask,--a good and loving God, and not a being such as I will
+not, I dare not speak of.
+
+I say with the very heathen God deals thus.  We have plain Scripture for
+that.  For we have, and thanks be to God that we have, in such times as
+these, a missionary sermon preached by St Paul to the heathen at Lystra.
+And in that is not one word concerning these terrors of the law.  He
+says, I preach to you God, whom you ought to have known of yourselves,
+because He has not left Himself without witness.  And what is this
+witness of which the apostle speaks?  Wrath and terror and destruction?
+Not so, says St Paul.  This is His witness, that He has sent you rain and
+fruitful seasons, filling your heart with food and gladness.  His
+goodness, His bounty,--it is the witness of God and of the character of
+God.  There is wrath and terror enough, says St Paul elsewhere, awaiting
+those who go on in sin.  But then what does he say is their sin?
+Despising the goodness of God, by which He has been trying to win mankind
+to love and trust Him, before He threatens and before He punishes at all.
+So much for the terrors of the law coming before the good news of the
+gospel in God's kingdom of nature.
+
+And still less do the terrors of the law come first in God's kingdom of
+grace, which is the Church.  They did not come first to you or to me, or
+to any one in His Church who has been taught, as churchmen should be,
+their Catechism.  If any have been, unhappily for them, brought up to
+learn Catechisms and hymns which do not belong to the Church, and which
+terrify little children with horrible notions of God's wrath, and the
+torments prepared not merely for wicked men, but for unconverted
+children, and then teach them to say,--
+
+
+"Can such a wretch as I
+Escape this dreadful end?"
+
+
+so much the worse for them.  We, who are Church people, are bound to
+believe that God speaks to us through the Church books, and that it was
+His will that we should have been brought up to believe the Catechism.
+And in that Catechism we heard not one word of these terrors of the law
+or of God's wrath hanging over us.  We were taught that before we even
+knew right from wrong, God adopted us freely as His children, freely
+forgave us our original sin for the sake of Christ's blood, freely
+renewed us by His Holy Spirit, freely placed us in His Church;--that we
+might love Him, because He first loved us; trust Him because He has done
+all that even God could do to win our trust; and obey Him, because we are
+boundlessly in debt to Him for boundless mercies.  This is God's method
+with us in His Church, and what is it but St Paul's method with these
+Corinthians?
+
+Believe this, then, you who wish to be Churchmen in spirit and in truth.
+Believe that St Paul's conduct is to you a type and pattern of what God
+does, and what you ought to do.  That God's method of winning you to do
+right is to make you love Him and trust Him; and that your method of
+winning your children to do right is to make them love and trust you.
+Let us remember that if our children are not perfect, they at least
+inherited their imperfections from us; and if our Father in heaven, from
+whom we inherit no sin, but only good, have patience with us, shall we
+not have patience with our children, who owe to us their fallen nature?
+
+Ah! cast thy bread upon the waters,--the bread which even the poorest can
+give to their children abundantly and without stint,--the bread of
+charity,--human tenderness, forbearance, hopefulness,--cast that bread
+upon the waters, and thou shalt find it after many days.
+
+
+
+SERMON XXII.  GOD IS OUR REFUGE
+
+
+
+Westminster Abbey, 1873.
+
+Psalm xlvi. 1.  "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in
+trouble."
+
+This is a noble psalm, full of hope and comfort; and it will be more and
+more full of hope and comfort, the more faithfully we believe in the
+incarnation, the passion, the resurrection, and the ascension of our Lord
+Jesus Christ.  For if we are to give credit to His express words, and to
+those of every book of the New Testament, and to the opinion of that
+Church into which we are baptised, then Jesus Christ is none other than
+the same Jehovah, Lord, and God who brought the Jews out of Egypt, who
+guided them and governed them through all their history--teaching,
+judging, rewarding, punishing them and all the nations of the earth.
+This psalm, therefore, is concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom all
+power is given in heaven and earth, and who ascended up on high; that He
+might be as He had been from the beginning, King of kings and Lord of
+lords, the Master of this world and all the nations in it.  This psalm,
+therefore, is a hymn concerning the kingdom of Christ and of God.  It
+tells us something of the government which Christ has been exercising
+over the world ever since the beginning of it, and which He is exercising
+over this world now.  It bids us be still, and know that He is God--that
+He will be exalted among the nations, and will be exalted in the earth,
+whether men like it or not; but that they ought to like it and rejoice in
+it, and find comfort in the thought that Christ Jesus is their refuge and
+their strength--a very present help in trouble--as the old Jew who wrote
+this psalm found comfort.
+
+When this psalm was written, or what particular events it speaks of, I
+cannot tell, for I do not think we have any means of finding out.  It may
+have been written in the time of David, or of Solomon, or of Hezekiah.
+It may possibly have been written much later.  It seems to mo probably to
+refer--but I speak with extreme diffidence--to that Assyrian invasion,
+and that preservation of Jerusalem, of which we heard in the magnificent
+first lesson for this morning and this afternoon; when, at the same time
+that the Assyrians were crushing, one by one, every nation in the East,
+there was, as the elder Isaiah and Micah tell us plainly, a great
+volcanic outbreak in the Holy Land.  But all this matters very little to
+us; because events analogous to those of which it speaks have happened
+not once only, but many times, and will happen often again.  And this
+psalm lays down a rule for judging of such startling and terrible events
+whenever they happen, and for saying of them, "God is our refuge and
+strength, a very present help in trouble."  It seems from the beginning
+of the psalm that there had been earthquakes or hurricanes in Judea--more
+probably earthquakes, which were and are now frequent there.  It seems as
+if the land had been shaken, and cliffs thrown into the sea, which had
+rolled back in a mighty wave, such as only too often accompanies an
+earthquake.  But the Psalmist knew that that was God's doing; and
+therefore he would not fear, though the earth was moved, and though the
+hills were earned into the very midst of the sea.  It seems, moreover,
+that Jerusalem itself had, as in Hezekiah's time, not been shaken, or at
+least seriously injured, by the earthquake.  But why?  "God is in the
+midst of her, therefore shall she not be removed."  It seems, also, as if
+the earthquake or hurricane had been actually a benefit to Jerusalem--
+which was often then, and has been often since, in want of water--that
+either fresh springs had broken out, or abundant rain had fallen, as
+occurs at times in such convulsions of nature.  But that, too, was God's
+doing on behalf of His chosen city.  "The rivers of the flood" had made
+"glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacle of the most
+highest."
+
+Moreover, there seem to have been great disturbances and wars among the
+nations round.  The heathen had made much ado, and the kingdoms had been
+moved.  But whatever their plans were, it was God who had brought them to
+naught.  God had shewed His voice, and the earth melted away; and (we
+know not how) discomfiture had fallen upon them, and a general peace had
+followed.  "O come hither," says the Psalmist, "and behold the works of
+the Lord, what desolations He has made in the earth."  Not a desolation
+of cruelty and tyranny:  but a desolation of mercy and justice; putting
+down the proud, the aggressive, the ruthless, and helping the meek, the
+simple, the industrious, and the innocent.  It is He, says the Psalmist,
+who has made wars to cease in all the world, who has broken the bow and
+snapped the spear in sunder, and burned the chariots in the fire; and so,
+by the voice of fact, said to these kings and to their armies, if they
+would but understand it, "Be still, and know that I am God"--that I, not
+you, will be exalted among the nations--that I, not you, will be exalted
+in the earth.
+
+Such is the 46th Psalm, one of the noblest utterances of the whole Old
+Testament.  And is it not as true for us now, ay, for all nations and all
+mankind now, as it was when it was uttered?  Is not Jesus Christ the same
+yesterday, to-day, and for ever?  Have His words passed away?  Did He say
+in vain, "All power is given unto me in heaven and earth?"  Did He say in
+vain, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world?"  I trust
+not.  I trust and I hope that you, or at least some here, believe that
+Christ is ruling and guiding the world, the church, and every individual
+soul who trusts in Him toward--
+
+
+"One far off divine event,
+To which the whole creation moves."
+
+
+I hope you do have that trust, for your own sakes, for the sake of your
+own happiness, your own sound peace of mind; for then, and then only, you
+can afford to be hopeful concerning yourselves, your families, your
+country, and the whole human race.  It must be so.  If you believe that
+He who hung upon the cross for all mankind is your refuge and strength,
+and the refuge and strength of all mankind, then, amid all the changes
+and chances of this mortal life, you can afford to be still calm in
+sudden calamity, patient in long afflictions; for you know that He is
+God, He is the Lord, He is the Redeemer, He is the King.  He knows best.
+He must be right, whosoever else is wrong.  Let Him do what seemeth Him
+good.
+
+Now I cannot but feel (what wiser and better men than I am feel more
+deeply), that this old-fashioned faith in the living Christ is dying out
+among us.  That men do not believe as they used to do in the living Lord
+and in His government, in that perpetual divine providence which the
+Scriptures call "the kingdom of God."  They have lost faith in Christ's
+immediate and personal government of the world and its nations; and,
+therefore, they are tempted more and more, either to try to misgovern the
+world themselves, or to fancy that Christ has entrusted His government,
+as to a substitute and vicar, to an aged priest at Rome.  They have lost
+faith, likewise, in Christ's immediate government of themselves; their
+own fortunes, their own characters, and inmost souls; and, therefore,
+they are tempted either to follow no rule or guidance save their own
+instincts, passions, fancies; or else, in despair at their own inward
+anarchy, to commit the keeping of their souls to directors and
+confessors, instead of to Christ Himself, the Lord of the spirits of all
+flesh.
+
+Yes, the faith which keeps a man ever face to face with God and with
+Christ, in the least as well as in the greatest events of life; which
+says in prosperity and in adversity, in plenty and scarcity, in joy and
+sorrow, in peace and war,--It is the Lord's doing, it is the Lord's
+sending, and therefore we can trust in the Lord--that faith is growing, I
+fear, very rare.  That faith was more common, I think, a generation or
+two back, in old-fashioned church people than in any other.  It could not
+help being so; for the good old Prayer-Book upon which they were brought
+up is more full of that simple and living faith in the Lord, from
+beginning to end, than any other book on earth except the Bible.  It was
+more common, too, and I suppose always will be, among the poor than among
+the rich; for the poor soon find out how little they have to depend upon
+except the Lord and His good providence; while the rich are tempted, and
+always will be, to depend upon their own wealth and their own power, to
+trust in uncertain riches, and say, "Soul, take thine ease, thou hast
+much goods laid up for many years."  It was more common, too, and I
+suppose always will be, among the old than among the young; for the young
+are tempted to trust not in the Lord, but in their own health, strength,
+wit, courage, and to put their hopes, not on God's Providence, but on the
+unknown chapter of accidents in the future, most of which will never come
+to pass; while the old have learned by experience and disappointment the
+vanity of human riches, the helplessness of human endeavour, the
+blindness of human foresight, and are content to go where God leads them,
+and say, "I will go forth in the strength of the Lord God, and will make
+mention of Thy righteousness only.  Thou, O God, hast taught me from my
+youth up until now:  therefore will I tell of Thy wondrous works.
+Forsake me not, O God, in mine old age, when I am grey-headed; until I
+have showed Thy strength unto this generation, and Thy power to all them
+which are yet for to come."
+
+But, for some reason or other, this generation does not seem to care to
+see God's strength; and those that are yet for to come seem likely to
+believe less and less in God's power--believe less and less that they are
+in Christ's kingdom, and that Christ is ruling over them and all the
+world.  They have not faith in the Living Lord.  But they must get back
+that faith, if they wish to keep that wealth and prosperity after which
+every one scrambles so greedily now-a-days; for those who forget God are
+treading, they and their children after them, not, as they fancy, the
+road to riches--they are treading the road to ruin.  So it always was, so
+it always will be.  Yet the majority of mankind will not see it, and the
+preacher must not expect to be believed when he says it.  Nevertheless it
+is true.  Those who forget that they are in Christ's kingdom, Christ does
+not go out of His way to punish them.  They simply punish themselves.
+They earn their own ruin by the very laws of human nature.  They must
+find hope in something and strength in something; and if they will not
+see that God is their hope, they will hope to get rich as fast as
+possible, and make themselves safe so.  If they will not see that God is
+their strength, they will find strength in cunning, in intrigue, in
+flattery of the strong and tyranny over the weak, and in making
+themselves strong so.  They want a present help in trouble; and if they
+will not believe that God is a present help in trouble, they will try to
+help themselves out of their trouble by begging, lying, swindling,
+forging, and all those meannesses which fill our newspapers with shameful
+stories day by day, and which all arise simply out of want of faith in
+God.
+
+Moreover, it is written, "Be still, and know that I am God."  And if men
+will not be still, they will not know that He is God.  And if they do not
+know that the gracious Christ is God, they will not be still; and
+therefore they will grow more and more restless, discontented, envious,
+violent, irreverent, full of passions which injure their own souls, and
+sap the very foundations of order and society and civilised life.  And
+what can come out of all these selfish passions, when they are let loose,
+but that in which selfishness must always end, but that same mistrust and
+anarchy, ending in that same poverty and wretchedness, under which so
+many countries of the world now lie, as it were, weltering in the mire.
+Alas! say rather weltering in their own life-blood--and all because they
+have forgotten the living God?
+
+Oh, my dear friends, take these words solemnly to heart--for yourselves,
+and for your children after you.  If you wish to prosper on the earth,
+let God be in all your thoughts.  Remember that the Lord is on your right
+hand; and then, and then alone, will you not be moved, either to terror
+or to sin, by any of the chances and changes of this mortal life.  "Fret
+not thyself," says the Psalmist, "else shalt thou be moved to do evil."
+And the only way not to fret yourselves is to remember that God is your
+refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  "He that
+believeth," saith the Prophet, "shall not make haste"--not hurry himself
+into folly and disappointment and shame.  Why should you hurry, if you
+remember that you are in the kingdom of Christ and of God?  You cannot
+hurry God's Providence, if you would; you ought not, if you could.  God
+MUST know best; God's Laws MUST work at the right pace, and fulfil His
+Will in the right way and at the right time.  As for what that Will is,
+we can know from the angels' song on Christmas Eve, which told us how
+God's Will was a good will towards men.
+
+For who is our Lord?  Who is our King?  Who is our Governor?  Who is our
+Lawgiver?  Who is our Guide?  Christ, who died for us on Calvary; who
+rose again for us; who ascended into heaven for us; who sits at God's
+right hand for us; who sent down His Holy Spirit at the first
+Whitsuntide; and sends Him down for ever to us; that by His gracious
+inspiration we may both perceive and know what we ought to do, and also
+may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same.  With such a King
+over us, how can the world but go right?  With such a King over us, what
+refuge or strength or help in trouble do we need but Him Himself?--His
+Providence, which is Love, and His Laws, which are Life.
+
+
+
+SERMON XXIII.  PRIDE AND HUMILITY
+
+
+
+Eversley, 1869.  Chester Cathedral, 1870.
+
+1st. Peter v. 5.  "God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the
+humble."
+
+Let me, this evening, say a few words to you on theology, that is, on the
+being and character of God.  You need not be afraid that I shall use long
+or difficult words.  Sound theology is simple enough, and I hope that my
+words about it will be simple enough for the worst scholar here to
+understand.
+
+"God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble."  Now, this
+saying is an old one.  It had been said, in different words, centuries
+before St Peter said it.  The old prophets and psalmists say it again and
+again.  The idea of it runs through the whole of the Old Testament, as
+anyone must know who has read his Bible with common care.  But why should
+it be true?  What reason is there for it?  What is there in the character
+of God which makes it reasonable, probable, likely to be true?  That God
+would give grace to the humble, and reward men for bowing down before His
+Majesty, seems not so difficult to understand.  But why should God resist
+the proud?  How does a man's being proud injure God, who is "I AM THAT I
+AM;" perfectly self-sufficient, having neither parts nor passions, who
+tempteth no man, neither is tempted of any?  "Why should God go out of
+His way, as it were, to care for such a paltry folly as the pride of an
+ignorant, weak, short-sighted creature like man?
+
+Now, let us take care that we do not give a wrong answer to this
+question--an answer which too many have given, in their hearts and minds,
+though not perhaps in words, and so have fallen into abject and cruel
+superstitions, from which may God keep us, and our children after us.
+They have said to themselves, God is proud, and has a right to be proud:
+and therefore He chooses no one to be proud but Himself.  Pride in man
+calls out His pride, and makes Him angry.  They have thought of God as
+some despotic Sultan of the Indies, who is surrounded, not by free men,
+but by slaves; who will have those slaves at his beck and nod.  In one
+word, they have thought of God as a tyrant.  They have thought of God,
+and, may God forgive them, have talked of God as if He were like
+Nebuchadnezzar of old, who, when the three young men refused to obey him,
+was filled with rage and fury, and cast them into a burning fiery
+furnace.  That is some men's God--a God who must be propitiated by
+crouching and flattery, lest he should destroy them--a God who holds all
+men as his slaves, and therefore hates pride in them.  For what has a
+slave to do with pride?
+
+But that is not the God of the Bible, my friends, nor the God of Nature
+either, the God who made the world and man.  For He is not a tyrant, but
+a Father.  He wishes men not to be His slaves, but His children.  And if
+He resists the proud, it is because children have no right to be proud.
+If He resists the proud, it is in fatherly love, because it is bad for
+them to be proud.  Not because the proud are injuring God, but because
+they are injuring themselves, does God resist them, and bring them low,
+and show them what they are, and where they are, that they may repent,
+and be converted, and turned back into the right way.
+
+Remember always that God is your Father.  This question, like all
+questions between God and man, is a question between a father and a
+child; and if you see it in any other light, and judge it by any other
+rule, you see it and judge it wrongly, and learn nothing about it, or
+worse than nothing.  If God were really angry with, really hated, the
+proud man, or any other man, would He need only to resist him? would He
+have to wait till the next life to punish him?  My dear friends, if God
+really hated you or me, do you not suppose that He would simply destroy
+us--get rid of us--abolish us and annihilate us off the face of the
+earth, just as we crush a gnat when it bites us?
+
+That God can do; and more--He does it now and then.  He will endure with
+much long suffering vessels of wrath, fitted to destruction:  but a
+moment sometimes comes when He will endure them no longer, and He
+destroys them with the destruction for which they have fitted themselves.
+In them is fulfilled the parable of the rich man, who said to himself,
+"Soul, thou hast much good laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat,
+drink, and be merry.  But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy
+soul shall be required of thee."
+
+But for the most part, thanks to the mercy of our Heavenly Father, we are
+not destroyed by our pride and for our pride.  We are only chastened, as
+a father chastens his child.  And that we are chastised for pride, who
+does not know?  What proverb more common, what proverb more true, than
+that after pride comes a fall?  Do we not know (if we do not, we shall
+know sooner or later) that the surest way to fail in any undertaking is
+to set about it in self-will and self-conceit; that the surest way to do
+a foolish thing, is to fancy that we are going to do a very wise one;
+that the surest way to make ourselves ridiculous in the eyes of our
+fellow-men, is to assume airs, and boast, shew ourselves off, and end by
+shewing off only our own folly?
+
+Why is it so?  Why has God so ordered the world and human nature, that
+pride punishes itself?  Because, I presume, pride is begotten and born of
+a lie, and God hates a lie, because all lies lead to ruin, and this lie
+of pride above all.  It is as it were the root lie of all lies.  The very
+lie by which, as old tales tell, Satan fell from heaven, and when he
+tried to become a god in his own right, found himself, to his surprise
+and disappointment, only a devil.  For pride and self-conceit contradict
+the original constitution of man and the universe, which is this--that of
+God are all things, and in God are all things, and for God are all
+things.  Man depends on God.  Self tells him that he depends on himself.
+Man has nothing but what he receives from God.  Self tells him that what
+he has is his own, and that he has a right to do with it what he likes.
+Man knows nothing but what God teaches him.  Self tells him that he has
+found out everything for himself, and can say what he thinks fit without
+fear of God or man.  Therefore the proud, self-willed, self-conceited man
+must come to harm, like Malvolio in the famous play, merely because he is
+in the blackest night of ignorance.  He has mistaken who he is, what he
+is, where he is.  He is fancying himself, as many mad men do, the centre
+of the universe; while God is the centre of the universe.  He is just as
+certain to come to harm as a man would be on board a ship, who should
+fancy that he himself, and not the ship, was keeping him afloat, and step
+overboard to walk upon the sea.  We all know what would happen to that
+man.  Let us thank God our Father that He not only knows what would
+happen to such men:  but desires to save them from the consequences of
+their own folly, by letting them feel the consequences of their own
+folly.
+
+Oh my friends, let us search our hearts, and pray to our Father in Heaven
+to take out of them, by whatever painful means, the poisonous root of
+pride, self-conceit, self-will.  So only shall we be truly strong--truly
+wise.  So only shall we see what and where we are.
+
+Do we pride ourselves on being something?  Shall we pride ourselves on
+health and strength?  A tile falling off the roof, a little powder and
+lead in the hands of a careless child, can blast us out of this world in
+a moment--whither, who can tell?  What is our cleverness--our strength of
+mind?  A tiny blood vessel bursting on the brain, will make us in one
+moment paralytic, helpless, babblers, and idiots.  What is our knowledge
+of the world?  That of a man, who is forcing his way alone through a
+thick and pathless wood, where he has never been before, to a place which
+he has never seen.  What is our wisdom--What does a wise man say of his?
+
+
+"So runs my dream; but what am I?
+An infant crying in the night;
+An infant crying for the light;
+And with no language but a cry."
+
+
+Yes.  Our true knowledge is to know our own ignorance.  Our true strength
+is to know our own weakness.  Our true dignity is to confess that we have
+no dignity, and are nobody, and nothing in ourselves, and to cast
+ourselves down before the Dignity of God, under the shadow of whose
+wings, and in the smile of whose countenance, alone, is any created being
+safe.  Let us cling to our Father in Heaven, as a child, walking in the
+night, clings to his father's hand.  Let us take refuge on the lowest
+step of the throne of Christ our Lord, and humble ourselves under His
+mighty hand; and, instead of exalting ourselves in undue time, leave Him
+to exalt us again in due time, when the chastisement has told on us, and
+patience had her perfect work; casting all our care on Him, who surely
+cares for us still, if He cared for us once, enough to die for us on the
+cross; caring for God's opinion and not for the opinion of the world.
+And then we shall be among the truly humble, to whom God gives grace--
+first grace in their own hearts, that they may live gracious lives,
+modest and contented, dignified and independent, trusting in God and not
+in man; and then, grace in the eyes of their fellow-men, for what is more
+graceful, what is more gracious, pleasant to see, pleasant to deal with,
+than the humble man, the modest man?  I do not mean the cringing man, the
+flattering man, the man who apes humility for his own ends, because he
+wants to climb high, by pretending to be lowly.  He is neither graceful
+or gracious.  He is only contemptible, and he punishes himself.  He
+spoils his own game.  He defeats his own purpose.  For men despise him,
+and use him, and throw him away when they have done with him, as they
+throw away a dirty worn-out tool.
+
+Not him do I mean by the humble man, the modest man.  I mean the man who,
+like a good soldier, knows his place and keeps it, knows his duty, and
+does it; who expects to be treated as a man should be, with fairness,
+consideration, respect, kindness--and God will always treat him so,
+whether man does or not:  but who, beyond that, does not trouble his mind
+with whether he be private or sergeant, lieutenant or colonel, but with
+whether he can do his duty as private, his duty as sergeant, his duty as
+lieutenant, his duty as colonel; who has learnt the golden lesson, which
+so few learn in these struggling, envious, covetous, ambitious days,
+namely, to abide in the calling to which he is called, and in whatsoever
+state he is, therewith to be content.  To be sure that in God's world,
+the only safe way to become ruler over many things is to be a good ruler
+over a few things; that if he is fit for better work than he is doing
+now, God will find that out, sooner and more surely than he, or any man
+will, and will set him about it; and that, meanwhile, God has set him
+about work which he can do, and that the true wisdom is to do that and do
+it well, and so approve himself alike to man and God, humbling himself
+under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt him in good time, by
+giving him grace and strength to do great things, as He has given him
+grace and strength to do small things.
+
+Am I speaking almost to deaf ears?  I fear that few here will take my
+advice.  I fear that many here will have excellent excuses and plain
+reasons, why they should not take it.  Be it so.  They cannot alter
+eternal fact.  In one word, they cannot alter Theology.  They cannot
+alter the laws of God.  They cannot alter the character of God.  And
+sooner or later, in this world or in the next, they will find out that
+Theology is right:  and St Peter is right:  that God DOES resist the
+proud, that God DOES give grace to the humble.
+
+
+
+SERMON XXIV.  WORSHIP
+
+
+
+Eversley, September 4, 1870.
+
+Revelation xi. 16, 17.  "And the four and twenty elders, which sat before
+God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, saying, We
+give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to
+come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned."
+
+My dear friends,--I wish to speak a few plain words to you this morning,
+on a matter which has been on my mind ever since I returned from Chester,
+namely,--The duty of the congregation to make the responses in Church.
+
+Now I am not going to scold--even to blame.  To do so would be not only
+unjust, but ungrateful in me, to a congregation which is as attentive and
+as reverent as you are.  Indeed, I am the only person to blame, for I
+ought to have spoken on the subject long ago.
+
+As it is, coming fresh from Chester, and accustomed to hear
+congregations, in that city and in the country round, reading the
+responses aloud throughout the service with earnestness, and reverence, I
+was painfully struck by the silence in this church.  I had before grown
+so accustomed to it that I did not perceive it, just as one grows
+accustomed to a great many things which ought not to be, till one forgets
+that, however usual they may be, wrong they are, and ought to be amended.
+
+Now, it is always best to begin at the root of a matter.  So to begin at
+the root of this.  Why do we come to church at all?
+
+Some will say, to hear the sermon.  That is often too true.  Some folks
+do come to church to hear a man get up and preach, just as they go to a
+concert to hear a man get up and sing, to amuse and interest them for
+half-an-hour.  Some go to hear sermons, doubtless, in order that they may
+learn from them.  But are there not, especially in these days of cheap
+printing, books of devotion, tracts, sermons, printed, which contain
+better preaching than any which they are likely to hear in church?  If
+TEACHING is all that they come to church for, they can get that in plenty
+at home.  Moreover, nine people out of ten who come to church need no
+teaching at all.  They know already, just as well as the preacher, what
+is right and what is wrong; they know their duty; they know how to do it.
+And if they do not intend to do it, all the talking in the world (as far
+as I have seen) will not make them do it.  Moreover, if the teaching in
+the sermon be what we come to church for, why have we prayer-books full
+of prayers, thanksgivings, psalms, and so forth, which are not sermons at
+all?  What is the use of the service, as we call it, if the sermon is the
+only or even the principal object for which we come?  I trust there are
+many of you here who agree with me so fully, that you would come
+regularly to church, as I should, even if there were no sermon, knowing
+that God preaches to every man, in the depths of his own heart and
+conscience, far more solemn and startling sermons than any mortal man can
+utter.
+
+Others will answer that they come to church to say their prayers.  Well:
+that is a wiser answer than the last.  But if that be all, why can they
+not say their prayers at home?  God is everywhere.  God is all-seeing,
+all-hearing, about our path and about our bed, and spying out all our
+ways.  Is He not as ready to hear in the field, and in the workshop and
+in the bed-chamber, as in the church?  "When thou prayest," says our
+Lord, "enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to
+thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall
+reward thee openly."  Those are not my words, they are the words of our
+Lord Jesus Christ Himself; and none can gainsay them.  None dare take
+from them or add to them; and our coming to church, therefore, must be
+for more reasons than for the mere saying of our prayers.
+
+Others will answer--very many, indeed, will answer--we come to church
+because--because, we hardly know why, but because we ought to come to
+church.
+
+Some may call that a silly answer, only fit for children:  but I do not
+think so.  It seems to me a very rational answer:  perhaps a very
+reverent and godly answer.  A man comes to church for reasons which he
+cannot explain to himself:  just so--and many of the deepest and best
+feelings of our hearts, are just those that we cannot explain to
+ourselves, though we believe in them, would fight for them, die for them.
+The man who frankly confesses that he does not quite know why he comes to
+church is most likely to know at last why he does come; most likely to
+understand the answer which Scripture gives to the question why we come
+to church.  And what answer is that?  Strange to say, one which people
+now-a-days, with their Bibles in their hands, have almost forgotten.  We
+come to church, according to the Bible, to worship God.
+
+To worship.  Think awhile what that ancient and deep and noble word
+signifies.  So ancient is it, that man learnt to worship even before he
+learnt to till the ground.  So deep, that even to this day no man
+altogether understands what worshipping means.  So noble, that the
+noblest souls on earth delight most in worshipping; that the angels, and
+archangels, and the spirits of just men made perfect, find no nobler
+occupation, no higher enjoyment, in the heavenly world than worshipping
+for ever Him whose glory fills all earth and heaven.  To worship.  That
+power of worship, that longing to worship, that instinct that it is his
+duty to worship something, is--if you will receive it--the true
+distinction between men and brutes.  Philosophers have tried to define
+man as this sort of animal and that sort of animal.  The only sound
+definition is this:  man is THE one animal who worships; and he worships,
+just because he is NOT merely an animal, but a man, with an immortal soul
+within him.  Just in as far as man sinks down again to the level of the
+brute--whether in some savage island of the South Seas, or in some
+equally savage alley of our own great cities--God forgive us that such
+human brutes should exist here in Christian England--just so far he feels
+no need to worship.  He thinks of no unseen God or powers above him.  He
+cares for nothing but what his five senses tell him of; he feels no need
+to go to church and worship.  Just in as far as a man rises to the true
+standard of a man; just in as far as his heart and his mind are truly
+cultivated, truly developed, just so far does he become more and more
+aware of an unseen world about him; more and more aware that in God he
+lives and moves and has his being--and so much the more he feels the
+longing and the duty to worship that unseen God on whom he and the whole
+universe depend.
+
+I know what seeming exceptions there are to this rule, especially in
+these days.  But I say that they are only seeming exceptions.  I never
+knew yet (and I have known many of them) a virtuous and high-minded
+unbeliever:  but what there was in him the instinct of worshipping--the
+longing to worship--he knew not what, the spirit of reverence, which
+confesses its own ignorance and weakness, and is ready to set up, like
+the Athenians of old, an altar--in the heart at least--to the unknown
+God.
+
+But how to worship Him?  The word itself, if we consider what it means,
+will tell us that.  Worship, without doubt, is the same word as worth-
+ship.  It signifies the worth of Him whom we worship, that He is worthy,-
+-a worthy God, not merely because of what He has done, but because of
+what He is worth in Himself.  Good, excellent, and perfect in Himself,
+and therefore to be admired, praised, reverenced, adored, worshipped--
+even if He had never done a kindness to you or to any human being.
+Remember this last truth.  For true it is; and we remember it too little.
+Of course we know that God is good; first and mainly by His goodness to
+us.  Because He is good enough to give us life and breath and all things,
+we conclude that He is a good being.  Because He is good enough to have
+not spared His only begotten Son, but freely given Him for us, when we
+were still sinners and rebels, we conclude Him to be the best of all
+beings, a being of boundless goodness.  But it is because God is so
+perfectly and gloriously good in Himself, and not merely because He has
+done US kindnesses, yea, heaped us with undeserved benefits, that we are
+to worship Him.  For His kindnesses we owe Him gratitude, and gratitude
+without end.  But for His excellent and glorious goodness, we owe Him
+worship, and worship without end.
+
+There are some hearts, surely, among you here who know what I mean:  some
+here who have felt reverence and admiration for some great and good human
+being, and who have felt, too, that that reverence and admiration is one
+of the most elevating and unselfish of all feelings, and quite distinct
+from any gratitude, however just, for favours done; who can say, in their
+hearts, of some noble human being:  "If he never did me a kindness, never
+spoke to me, never knew of my existence, I should honour him and love him
+just the same, for the noble and good personage that he is, irrespective
+of little me, and my paltry wants."  Then, even such ought to be our
+feeling toward God, our worship of God.  Even so should we adore Him who
+alone is worthy of glory, and honour, and praise, and thanksgiving,
+because He is good, and beautiful, and wise Himself, and the cause and
+source of all goodness, and beauty, and wisdom, in all created beings,
+and in the whole universe, past, present, and to come.  Consider, I
+beseech you, those glimpses of the Eternal Worship in heaven which St
+John gives us in the Book of Revelation--How he saw the elders fall down
+before Him who sat upon the throne, and worship Him that liveth for ever,
+and cast their crowns before the throne, saying:  "Thou art worthy, O
+Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power; for Thou hast created all
+things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created."
+
+Consider that--Those blessed spirits of just men made perfect, confessing
+that they are nothing, but that Christ is all; that they have nothing,
+but that they owe all to Christ; and declaring Him worthy--not merely for
+any special mercies and kindnesses to themselves, not even for that
+crowning mercy of His incarnation, His death, His redemption; even that
+seems to have vanished from their minds at the sight of Him as He is.
+They glorify Him and worship Him simply for what He is in Himself, for
+what He would have been even if--which God forbid--He had never stooped
+from heaven to live and die on earth--for what He is and was and will be
+through eternity, the Creator and the Ruler, who has made all things, and
+for whose pleasure they are and were created.  Consider that one text.
+The more I consider it, the more awful and yet most blessed depths of
+teaching do I find therein:  and consider this text also, another glimpse
+of the worship which is in heaven.
+
+"I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, singing Alleluia;
+salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God; for
+true and righteous are His judgments."  What the special judgment was,
+for which these blessed souls worshipped God, I shall not argue here.  It
+is enough for us that they worshipped God, as we should worship Him,
+because His judgments were righteous and true, were like Himself, proved
+Him to be what He was, worthy in Himself, because He is righteous and
+true.  And consider then, again--the text.  Before Him, the righteous and
+true Being who has created all things for His pleasure, and therefore has
+made them wisely and well; before Him who reigns, and will reign till He
+has put all His enemies under His foot; before Him, I say, bow down
+yourselves, and find true nobleness in confessing your own paltriness,
+true strength in confessing your own weakness, true wisdom in confessing
+your own ignorance, true holiness in confessing your own sins.
+
+And not alone merely, each in your own chamber, or in your own heart.
+That is the place for private confessions of sin, for private prayers for
+help; for all the secrets which we dare not, and need not tell to any
+human being.  They indeed are not out of place here in church.  Those who
+composed our Prayer Book felt that, and have filled our services, the
+Litany especially, with prayers in which each of us can offer up his own
+troubles to God, if he but remember that he is offering up to God his
+neighbour's troubles also, and the troubles of all mankind.  For this is
+the reason why we pray together in church; why all men, in all ages,
+heathen as well as Christian, have had the instinct of assembling
+together for public worship.  They may have fancied often that their
+deity dwelt in one special spot, and that they must go thither to find
+him.  They may have fancied that he or she dwelt in some particular
+image, and that they must visit, and pray to that particular image, if
+they wished their prayers to be heard.  All this, however, have men done
+in their foolishness; but beneath that foolishness there have been always
+more rational ideas, sounder notions.  They felt that it was God who had
+made them into families, and therefore whole families met together to
+worship in common Him of whom every family in heaven and earth is named.
+That God had formed them into societies whether into tribes, as of old,
+or into parishes, as here now; and therefore whole parishes came together
+to worship God, whose laws they were bound to obey in their parochial
+society.  They felt that it was God who had made them into Nations (as
+the psalm says which we repeat every Sunday morning), and not they
+themselves; and therefore they conceived the grand idea of National
+churches, in which the whole nation should, if possible, worship Sunday
+after Sunday, at the same time, and in the same words, that God to whom
+they owed their order, their freedom, their strength, their safety, their
+National unity and life.  And not in silence merely.  These blessed souls
+in heaven are not silent.  They in heaven follow out the human instinct
+which they had on earth, which all men (when they recollect themselves,
+will have), when they feel a thing deeply, when they believe a thing
+strongly, to speak it--to speak it aloud.  They do not fancy in heaven,
+as the priests of Baal did on earth, that they must cry aloud, or God
+could not hear them.  They do not fancy, as the heathen do, that they
+must make vain repetitions, and say the same words over and over again by
+rote, because they will be heard for their much speaking; neither need
+you and I.  But yet they spoke aloud, because out of the fulness of the
+heart the mouth speaketh; and so should you and I.
+
+And this brings me to the special object of my sermon.  I have told you
+what (as it seems to me) Worship means; why we worship; why we worship
+together; and why we ought to worship aloud.  Believe me, this last is
+your duty just as much as mine.  The services of the Church of England
+are so constructed that the whole congregation may take part in them,
+that they may answer aloud in the responses, that they may say Amen at
+the end of each prayer, just as they read or chant aloud the alternate
+verses of the Psalms.  The minister does not say prayers for them, but
+with them.  He is only their leader, their guide.  And if they are not to
+join in with their voices, there is really no reason why he should use
+his voice, why he should not say the prayers in silence and to himself,
+if the congregation are to say Amen in silence and to themselves.  Each
+person in the congregation ought to join aloud, first for the sake of his
+neighbours, and then for his own sake.
+
+For the sake of his neighbours:  for to hear each other's voices stirs up
+earnestness, stirs up attention, keeps off laziness, inattention, and by
+a wholesome infection, makes all the congregation of one mind, as they
+are of one speech, in glorifying God.  And for his own sake, too.  For,
+believe me, when a man utters the responses aloud, he awakens his own
+thoughts and his own feelings, too.  He speaks to himself, and he hears
+himself remind himself of God, and of his duty to God, and acknowledge
+himself openly (as in confirmation) bound to believe and do what he, by
+his own confession, has assented unto.
+
+Believe me, my dear friends, this is no mere theory.  It is to me a
+matter of fact and experience.  I cannot, I have long found, keep my
+attention steady during a service, if I do not make the responses aloud;-
+-if I do not join in with my voice, I find my thoughts wandering; and I
+am bound to suppose that the case is the same with you.  Do not,
+therefore, think me impertinent or interfering, if I ask you all to take
+your due share in worshipping God in this church with your voices, as
+well as with your hearts.  Let these services be more lively, more
+earnest, more useful to us all than they have been, by making them more a
+worship of the whole congregation, and not of the minister alone.  I have
+read of a great church in the East, in days long, long ago, in which the
+responses of the vast congregation were so unanimous, so loud, that they
+sounded (says the old writer) like a clap of thunder.  That is too much
+to expect in our little country church:  but at least, I beg you, take
+such an open part in the responses, that you shall all feel that you are
+really worshipping together the same God and Christ, with the same heart
+and mind; and that if a stranger shall come in, he may say in his heart:
+Here are people who are in earnest, who know what they are about, and are
+not ashamed of trying to do it; people who evidently mean what they say,
+and therefore say what they mean.
+
+
+
+SERMON XXV.  THE PEACE OF GOD
+
+
+
+Baltimore, U.S., 1874.  Westminster Abbey.  November 8, 1874.
+
+Colossians. iii 15.  "Let the peace of God rule in your hearts."
+
+The peace of God.  That is what the priest will invoke for you all, when
+you leave this abbey.  Do you know what it is?  Whether you do or not,
+let me tell you in a few words, what I seem to myself to have learned
+concerning that peace.  What it is? how we can obtain it? and why so many
+do not obtain it, and are, therefore, not at peace?
+
+It is worth while to do so.  For these are not peaceful times.  The peace
+of God is rare among us.  Some say that it is rarer than it was.  I know
+not how that may be; but I see all manner of causes at work around us
+which should make it rare.  We live faster than our forefathers.  We
+hurry, we bustle, we travel, we are eager for daily, almost for hourly
+news from every quarter, as if the world could not get on without us, or
+we without knowing a hundred facts which merely satisfy the curiosity of
+the moment; and as if the great God could not take excellent care of us
+all meanwhile.  We are eager, too, to get money, and get more money
+still--piercing ourselves through too often, as the Apostle warned us--
+with many sorrows, and falling into foolish and hurtful lusts, which
+drown men in destruction and perdition.  We are luxurious--more and more
+fond of show; more apt to live up to our incomes, and probably a little
+beyond; more and more craving for this or that gew-gaw, especially in
+dress and ornament, which if our neighbour has, we must have too, or we
+shall be mortified, envious.  Nay, so strong is this temper of rivalry,
+of allowing no superiors, grown in us, that we have made now-a-days a god
+of what used to be considered the basest of all vices--the vice of envy--
+and dignify it with the names of equality and independence.  Men in this
+temper of mind cannot be at peace.  They are not content; they cannot be
+content.
+
+But with what are they not content?  That is a question worth asking.
+For there is a discontent (as I have told you ere now) which is noble,
+manful, heroic, and divine.  Just as there is a discontent which is base,
+mean, unmanly, earthly--sometimes devilish.  There is a discontent which
+is certain, sooner or later, to bring with it the peace of God.  There is
+a discontent which drives the peace of God away, for ever and a day.  And
+the noble and peace-bringing discontent is to be discontented with
+ourselves, as very few are.  And the mean peace-destroying discontent is
+to be discontented with things around us, as too many are.  Now, my
+friends, I cannot see into your hearts; and I ought not to see.  For if I
+saw, I should be tempted to judge; and if I judged, I should most
+certainly judge rashly, shallowly, and altogether wrong.  Therefore
+examine yourselves, and judge yourselves in this matter.  Ask yourselves
+each, Am I at peace?  And if not, then apply to yourselves the rule of
+old Epictetus, the heroic slave, who, heathen though he was, sought God,
+and the peace of God, and found them, doubt it not, long, long ago.  Ask
+yourselves with Epictetus, Am I discontented with things which are in my
+own power, or with things which are not in my own power?--that is,
+discontented with myself, or with things which are not myself?  Am I
+discontented with myself, or with things about me, and outside of me?
+Consider this last question well, if you wish to be true Christians, true
+philosophers, and, indeed, true men and women.
+
+But what is it that troubles you?  What is it you want altered?  On what
+have you set your heart and affections?  Is it something outside you?--
+something which is NOT you yourself?  If so, there is no use in
+tormenting your soul about it; for it is not in your own power, and you
+will never alter it to your liking; and more, you need not alter it, for
+you are not responsible for it.  God sends it as it is, for better, for
+worse, and you must make up your mind to what God sends.  Do I mean that
+we are to submit slavishly to circumstances, like dumb animals?  Heaven
+forbid.  We are not, like Epictetus, slaves, but free men.  And we are
+made in God's image, and have each our spark, however dim, of that
+creative genius, that power of creating or of altering circumstances, by
+which God made all worlds; and to use that, is of our very birthright, or
+what would all education, progress, civilisation be, save rebellion
+against God?  But when we have done our utmost, how little shall we have
+done!  Canst thou,--asks our Lord, looking with loving sadness on the
+hurry and the struggle of the human anthill--canst thou by taking thought
+add one cubit to thy stature?  Why, is there a wise man or woman in this
+abbey, past fifty years of age, who does not know that, in spite of all
+their toil and struggle, they have gone not whither they willed, but
+whither God willed?  Have they not found out that for one circumstance of
+their lives which they could alter, there have been twenty which they
+could not, some born with them, some forced on them by an overruling
+Providence, irresistible indeed--but, as I hold, most loving and most
+fatherly, though often severe--even to agony--but irresistible still--
+till what they have really gained by fighting circumstance, however
+valiantly, has been the MORAL gain, the gain in character?--the power to
+live the heroic life, which
+
+
+   "Is not as idle ore,
+But heated hot with burning fears,
+And bathed in baths of hissing tears,
+And batter'd, with the shocks of doom,
+To shape and use."
+
+
+Ah! if a man be learning that lesson, which is the primer of eternal
+life, then I hardly pity him, though I see him from youth to age tearing
+with weak hands at the gates of brass, and beating his soul's wings to
+pieces against the bars of the iron cage.  But, alas! the majority of
+mankind tear at the gates of brass, and beat against the iron cage, with
+no such good purpose, and therefore with no such good result.  They fight
+with circumstances, not that they may become better themselves, not that
+they may right the wrongs or elevate the souls of their fellow-men, not
+even that they may fulfil the sacred duty of maintaining, and educating,
+and providing for the children whom they have brought into the world, and
+for whom they are responsible alike to God and to man; but simply because
+circumstances are disagreeable to them; because the things around them do
+not satisfy their covetousness, their luxury, their ambition, their
+vanity.  And therefore the majority of mankind want to be, and to do, and
+to have a hundred things which are not in their own power, and of which
+they have no proof that God intends to give them; no proof either that if
+they had them, they would make right use of them, and certainly no proof
+at all that if they had them they would find peace.  They war and fight,
+and have not, because they ask not.  They ask, and have not, because they
+ask amiss, to consume it on their lusts; and so they spend their lives
+without peace, longing, struggling for things outside them, the greater
+part of which they do not get, because the getting them is not in their
+own power, and which if they got they could not keep, for they can carry
+nothing away with them when they die, neither can their pomp follow them.
+And therefore does man walk in a vain shadow, and disquiet himself in
+vain, looking for peace where it is not to be found--in everything and
+anything save in his own heart, in duty, and in God.
+
+But happy are they who are discontented with the divine discontent,
+discontented with themselves.  Happy are they who hunger and thirst after
+righteousness, that they may become righteous and good men.  Happy are
+they who have set their hearts on the one thing which is in their own
+power--being better than they are, and doing better than they do.  Happy
+are they who long and labour after the true riches, which neither mobs
+nor tyrants, man nor devil, prosperity nor adversity, or any chance or
+change of mortal life, can take from them--the true and eternal wealth,
+which is the Spirit of God.  The man, I say, who has set his heart on
+being good, has set his heart on the one thing which is in his own power;
+the one thing which depends wholly and solely on his own will; the one
+thing which he can have if he chooses, for it is written, "If ye then
+being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more
+shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?"
+Moreover, he has set his heart on the one thing which cannot be taken
+from him.  God will not take it from him; and man, and fortune, and
+misfortune, cannot take it from him.  Poverty, misery, disease, death
+itself, cannot make him a worse man, cannot make him less just, less
+true, less pure, less charitable, less high-minded, less like Christ, and
+less like God.
+
+Therefore he is at peace, for he is, as it were, intrenched in an
+impregnable fortress, against all men and all evil influences.  And that
+castle is his own soul.  And the keeper of that castle is none other than
+Almighty God, Jesus Christ our Lord, to whose keeping he has committed
+his soul, as unto a faithful and merciful Saviour, able to keep to the
+uttermost that which is committed to Him in faith and holiness.
+
+Therefore that man is at peace with himself, for his conscience tells him
+that he is, if not doing his best, yet trying to do his best, better and
+better day by day.  He is at peace with all the world; for most men are
+longing and quarrelling for pleasant things outside them, for which he
+does not greatly care, while he is longing and striving for good things
+inside him in his own heart and soul; and so the world goes one way, and
+he another, and their desires do not interfere with each other.
+
+But, more, that man is at peace with God.  He is at peace with God the
+Father; for he is behaving as the Father wishes His children to behave.
+He is at peace with God the Son; for he is trying to do that which God
+the Son did when He came not to do His own will, but His Father's; not to
+grasp at anything for himself, but simply to sacrifice himself for duty,
+for the good of man.  And he is at peace with God the Holy Spirit; for he
+is obeying the gracious inspirations of that Spirit, and growing a better
+man day by day.  And so the peace of God keeps that man's heart free from
+vain desires and angry passions, and his mind from those false and
+foolish judgments which make the world think things important which are
+quite unimportant; and, again, fancy things unimportant which are more
+important to them than the riches of the whole world.
+
+My dear friends, take my words home with you, and if you wish for the
+only true and sound peace, which is the peace of God, do your duty.  Try
+to be as good as you can, each in his station in life.  So help you God.
+
+Take an example from the soldier on the march; and if you do that, you
+will all understand what I mean.  The bad soldier has no peace, just
+because he troubles himself about things outside himself, and not in his
+own power.  "Will the officers lead us right?" That is not in his power.
+Let him go where the officers lead him, and do his own duty.  "Will he
+get food enough, water enough, care enough, if he is wounded?"  I hope
+and trust in God he will; but that is not in his own power.  Let him take
+that, too, as it comes, and do his duty.  "Will he be praised, rewarded,
+mentioned in the newspapers, if he fights well?"  That, too, is not in
+his own power.  Let him take that, too, as it comes, and do his duty; and
+so of everything else.  If the soldier on the march torments himself with
+these matters which are not in his own power, he is the man who will be
+troublesome and mutinous in time of peace, and in time of war will be the
+first to run away.  He will tell you, "A man must have justice done him;
+a man must see fair play for himself; a man must think of himself."  Poor
+fool!  He is not thinking of himself all the while, but of a number of
+things which are outside him, circumstances which stand round him, and
+outside him, and are not himself at all.  Because he thinks of them--the
+things outside him--he is a coward or a mutineer, while he fancies he is
+taking care of himself--as it is written, "Whosoever shall seek to save
+his life shall lose it."
+
+But if the man will really think of himself, of that which is inside him,
+of his own character, his own honour, his own duty--then he will say,
+Well fed or ill fed, well led or ill led, praised and covered with
+medals, or neglected and forgotten, and dying in a ditch, I, by myself I,
+am the same man, and I have the same work to do.  I have to be--myself,
+and I have to do--my duty.  So help me God.  And therefore, so help me
+God, I will be discontented with no person or thing, save only with
+myself; and I will be discontented with myself, not when I have left
+undone something extraordinary, which I know I could not have done, but
+only when I have left undone something ordinary, some plain duty which I
+know I could have done, had I asked God to help me to do it.  Then in
+that soldier would be fulfilled--has been fulfilled, thank God, a
+thousand times, by men who lie in this abbey, and by men, too, of whom we
+never heard, "whose graves are scattered far and wide, by mount, by
+stream, by sea,"--in him would be fulfilled, I say, the words, "He that
+will lose his life shall save it."  Then would he have in his heart, and
+in his mind likewise, a peace which victory and safety cannot give, and
+which defeat, and wounds, ay, death itself, can never take away.
+
+And are not you, too, soldiers--soldiers of Jesus Christ?  Then even as
+that good soldier, you may be at peace, through all the battles,
+victories, defeats of mortal life, if you will be discontented with
+nothing save yourselves, and vow, in spirit and in truth, the one oath
+which is no blasphemy, but an act of faith, and an act of prayer, and a
+confession of the true theology--So help me God.  For then God will help
+you.  Neither you nor I know how; and I am sure neither you nor I know
+why--save that God is utterly good.  God, I say, will help you, by His
+Holy Spirit the Comforter, to do your duty, and to be at peace.  And then
+the peace of God will rule in your hearts and make you kings to God.  For
+He will enable YOU each to rule, serene, though weary, over a kingdom--
+or, alas! rather a mob, the most unruly, the most unreasonable, the most
+unstable, and often the most fierce, which you are like to meet on earth.
+To rule, I say, over a mob, of which you each must needs be king or
+slave, according as you choose.  And what is that mob?  What but your own
+faculties, your own emotions, your own passions--in one word, your own
+selves?  Yes, with the peace of God ruling in your hearts, you will be
+able to become what without it you will never be--and that is--masters of
+yourselves.
+
+
+
+SERMON XXVI.  SINS OF PARENTS VISITED
+
+
+
+Eversley. 19th Sunday after Trinity, 1868.
+
+Ezekiel xviii. 1-4.  "The word of the Lord came unto me again, saying,
+What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel,
+saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are
+set on edge?  As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion
+any more to use this proverb in Israel.  Behold, all souls are mine; as
+the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine:  the soul
+that sinneth, it shall die."
+
+This is a precious chapter, and a comfortable chapter likewise, for it
+helps us to clear up a puzzle which has tormented the minds of men in all
+ages whenever they have thought of God, and of whether God meant them
+well, or meant them ill.
+
+For all men have been tempted.  We are tempted at times to say,--The
+fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.
+That is, we are punished not for what we have done wrong, but for what
+our fathers did wrong.  One man says,--My forefathers squandered their
+money, and I am punished by being poor.  Or, my forefathers ruined their
+constitutions, and, therefore, I am weakly and sickly.  My forefathers
+were ignorant and reckless, and, therefore, I was brought up ignorant,
+and in all sorts of temptation.  And so men complain of their ill-luck
+and bad chance, as they call it, till they complain of God, and say, as
+the Jews said in Ezekiel's time, God's ways are unequal--partial--unfair.
+He is a respecter of persons.  He has not the same rule for all men.  He
+starts men unequally in the race of life--some heavily weighted with
+their father's sins and misfortunes, some helped in every way by their
+father's virtue and good fortune--and then He expects them all to run
+alike.  God is not just and equal.  And then some go on,--men who think
+themselves philosophers, but are none--to say things concerning God of
+which I shall say nothing here, lest I put into your minds foolish
+thoughts, which had best be kept out of them.
+
+But, some of you may say, Is it not so after all?  Is it not true?  Is
+not God harder on some than on others?  Does not God punish men every day
+for their father's sins?  Does He not say in the Second Commandment that
+He will do so, and visit the sins of the fathers upon the children to the
+third and fourth generation; and how can you make that agree with what
+Ezekiel says,--"The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father."  My
+dear friends, I know that this is a puzzle, and always has been one.
+Like the old puzzle of God's foreknowledge and our free will, which seem
+to contradict each other.  Like the puzzle that we must help ourselves,
+and yet that God must help us, which seem to contradict each other.  So
+with this.  I believe of it, as of the two others I just mentioned, that
+there is no real contradiction between the two cases; and that some-when,
+somehow, somewhere, in the world to come, we shall see them clearly
+reconciled; and justify God in all His dealings, and glorify Him in all
+His ways.  But surely already, here, now, we may see our way somewhat
+into the depths of this mystery.  For Christ has come to give us light,
+and in His light we may see light, even into this dark matter.
+
+For see:  God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the
+third and fourth generation--but of whom?--of them that hate Him.  Now,
+by those who hate God is meant, those who break His commandments, and are
+bad men.  If so, then, I say that God is not only just but merciful, in
+visiting the sins of the fathers on the children.
+
+For, consider two cases.  Suppose these bad men, from father to son, and
+from son to grandson, go on in the same evil ways, and are incorrigible.
+Then is not God merciful to the world in punishing them, even in
+destroying them out of the world, where they only do harm?  The world
+does not want fools, it wants wise men.  The world does not want bad men,
+it wants good men; and we ought to thank God, if, by His eternal laws, He
+gets rid of bad men for us; and, as the saying is, civilizes them off the
+face of the earth in the third or fourth generation.  And God does so.
+If a family, or a class, or a whole nation becomes incorrigibly
+profligate, foolish, base, in three or four generations they will either
+die out or vanish.  They will sink to the bottom of society, and become
+miserably poor, weak, and of no influence, and so unable to do harm to
+any but themselves.  Whole families will sink thus, I have seen it; you
+may have seen it.  Whole nations will sink thus; as the Jews sank in
+Ezekiel's time, and again in our Lord's time; and be conquered, trampled
+on, counted for nothing, because they were worth nothing.
+
+But now suppose, again, that the children, when their father's sins are
+visited on them, are NOT incorrigible.  Suppose they are like the wise
+son of whom Ezekiel speaks, in the 14th verse, who seeth all his father's
+sins, and considereth, and doeth not such like--then has not God been
+merciful and kind to him in visiting his father's sins on him?  He has.
+God is justified therein.  His eternal laws of natural retribution,
+severe as they are, have worked in love and in mercy, if they have taught
+the young man the ruinousness, the deadliness of sin.  Have the father's
+sins made the son poor?  Then he learns not to make his children poor by
+his sin.  Have his father's sins made him unhealthy?  Then he learns not
+to injure his children's health.  Have his father's sins kept him
+ignorant, or in anywise hindered his rise in life?  Then he learns the
+value of a good education, and, perhaps, stints himself to give his
+children advantages which he had not himself--and, as sure as he does so,
+the family begins to rise again after its fall.  This is no fancy, it is
+fact.  You may see it.  I have seen it, thank God.  How some of the
+purest and noblest women, some of the ablest and most right-minded men,
+will spring from families, will be reared in households, where everything
+was against them--where there was everything to make them profligate,
+false, reckless, in a word--bad--except the grace of God, which was
+trying to make them good, and succeeded in making them good; and how,
+though they have felt the punishment of their parents' sins upon them in
+many ways during their whole life, yet that has been to them not a mere
+punishment, but a chastisement, a purifying medicine, a cross to be
+borne, which only stirred them up to greater watchfulness against sin, to
+greater earnestness in educating their children, to greater activity and
+energy in doing right, and giving their children the advantages which
+they had not themselves.  And so were fulfilled in them two laws of God.
+The one which Ezekiel lays down--that the bad man's son who executes
+God's judgments and walks in God's statutes shall not die for the
+iniquity of his father, but surely live; and the other law which Moses
+lays down--that God shews mercy unto thousands of generations, as I
+believe it means--that is, to son after father, and son after father
+again, without end--as long as they love Him and keep His commandments.
+
+I do not, therefore, see that there is any real contradiction between
+what Moses says in the second commandment and what Ezekiel says in this
+chapter.  They are but two different sides of the same truth; and Moses
+is shewing the Jews one side, because they needed most to be taught that
+in his time, and Ezekiel showing them the other, because that was the
+teaching which they needed most then.  For they were fancying themselves,
+in their calamities, the victims of some blind and cruel fate, and had
+forgotten that, when God said that He visited the sins of the fathers on
+the children, He qualified it by saying, "of them that hate Me."
+
+Therefore, be hopeful about yourselves, and hopeful about your children
+after you.  If any one here feels--I am fallen very low in the world--
+here all has been so much against me--my parents were the ruin of me--Let
+him remember this one word of Ezekiel.  "Have I any pleasure at all that
+the wicked should die? saith the Lord God:  and not that he should return
+from his ways, and live?"  Let him turn from his father's evil ways, and
+do that which is lawful and right, and then he can say with the Prophet,
+in answer to all the strokes of fortune and the miseries of circumstance,
+"Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy:  when I fall I shall arise."
+Provided he will remember that God requires of all men something, which
+is, to be as good as they can be; then he may remember also that our Lord
+Himself says, "Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be
+required;" implying that to whom little is given, of him will little be
+required.  God's ways are not unequal.  He has one equal, fair, and just
+rule for every human being; and that is perfect understanding, perfect
+sympathy, perfect good will, and therefore perfect justice and perfect
+love.
+
+And if any one of you answers in his heart--these are good words, and all
+very well:  but they come too late.  I am too far gone.  I ate the sour
+grapes in my youth, and my teeth must be on edge for ever and ever.  I
+have been a bad man, or I have been a foolish woman too many years to
+mend now.  I am down, and down I must be.  I have made my bed, and I must
+lie on it, and die on it too.  Oh my dear brother or sister in Christ,
+whoever you are who says that, unsay it again for it is not true.
+Ezekiel tells you that it is not true, and one greater than Ezekiel,
+Jesus Christ, your Saviour, your Lord, your God, tells you it is not
+true.
+
+For what happens, by God's eternal and unchangeable laws of retribution,
+to a whole nation, or a whole family, may happen to you--to each
+individual man.  They fall by sin; they rise again by repentance and
+amendment.  They may rise punished by their sins, and punished for a long
+time, heavily weighted by the consequences of their own folly, and
+heavily weighted for a long time.  But they rise--they enter into their
+new life weak and wounded, from their own fault.  But they enter in.  And
+from that day things begin to mend--the weather begins to clear, the soil
+begins to yield again--punishment gradually ceases when it has done its
+work, the weight lightens, the wounds heal, the weakness strengthens, and
+by God's grace within them, and by God's providence outside them, they
+are made men of again, and saved.  So you will surely find it in the
+experience of life.
+
+No doubt in general, in most cases,
+
+
+The child is father of the man
+
+
+for good and evil.  A pious and virtuous youth helps, by sure laws of
+God, towards a pious and virtuous old age.  And on the other hand, an
+ungodly and profligate youth leads, by the same laws, toward an ungodly
+and profligate old age.  That is the law.  But there is another law which
+may stop that law--just as the stone falls to the ground by the natural
+law of weight, and yet you may stop that law by using the law of bodily
+strength, and holding it up in your hand.  And what is the gracious law
+which will save you from the terrible law which will make you go on from
+worse to worse?
+
+It is this,--"when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that
+he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall
+save his soul alive."  It is not said that his soul shall come in a
+moment to perfect health and strength.  No.  There are old bad habits to
+be got rid of, old ties to be broken, old debts (often worse debts than
+any money debts) to be paid.  But he shall save his soul alive.  His soul
+shall not die of its disease.  It shall be saved.  It shall come to life,
+and gradually mend and be cured, and grow from strength to strength, as a
+sick man mends day by day after a deadly illness, slowly it may be, but
+surely:--for how can you fail of being cured if your physician is none
+other than Jesus Christ your Lord and your God?
+
+Oh, recollect that last word.  If you will but recollect that, you will
+never despair.  How dare any man say--Bad I am, and bad I must remain--
+while the God who made heaven and earth offers to make you good?  Who
+dare say,--I cannot amend--when God Himself offers to amend you?  Who
+dare say,--I have no strength to amend--when God offers to give you
+strength, strength of His strength, and life of His life, even His Holy
+Spirit?  Who dare say,--God has given me up; He has a grudge against me
+which He will not lay by, an anger against me which cannot be appeased, a
+score against me which will never be wiped out of His book?  Oh foolish
+and faint-hearted soul.  Look, look at Christ hanging on His cross, and
+see there what God's grudge, God's anger, God's score of your sins is
+like.  Like love unspeakable, and nothing else.  To wash out your sins,
+He spared not His only begotten Son, but freely gave Him for you, to shew
+you that God, so far from hating you, has loved you; that so far from
+being your enemy, He was your father; that so far from willing the death
+of a sinner, He willed that you and every sinner should turn from his
+wickedness and live.  For that, Jesus the only begotten Son of God, came
+down and preached, and sorrowed, and suffered, and died upon the cross.
+He died that you may live; He suffered that you may be saved; He paid the
+debt, because you could never pay it; He bore your sins upon the cross,
+that you might not have to bear them for ever and for ever in eternal
+death.  Now, even if you suffer somewhat in this life for your sins, that
+suffering is not punishment, but wholesome chastisement, as when a father
+chastens the son in whom he delighteth.  All He asks of you is to long
+and try to give up your sins, for He will help you to give them up.  All
+He asks of you is to long and try to lead a new life, for He will give
+you power to lead a new life.  Oh, say not--I cannot--when Christ who
+died for you says you can.  Say not--I dare not--when Christ bids you
+dare come boldly to His throne of grace.  Say not--I must be as I am--
+when Christ died that you should NOT be as you are.  Say not--there is no
+hope--when Christ died and rose again, and reigns for ever, to give hope
+to you and all mankind, that when the wicked man turns away from his
+wickedness that he has committed, and doeth that which is lawful and
+right, he shall save his soul alive, and all his transgressions shall not
+be mentioned unto him, but in his righteousness that he hath done shall
+he live.
+
+
+
+SERMON XXVII.  AGREE WITH THINE ADVERSARY
+
+
+
+Eversley, 1861.  Windsor Castle, 1867.
+
+St. Matthew v. 25, 26.  "Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou
+art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to
+the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast
+into prison.  Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out
+thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing."
+
+This parable our Lord seems to have spoken at least twice, as He did
+several others.  For we find it also in the 12th chapter of St. Luke.
+But it is there part of quite a different discourse.  I think that by
+seeing what it means there, we shall see more clearly what it means here.
+
+Our Lord there is speaking of the sins of the whole Jewish nation.  Here
+He is speaking rather of each man's private sins.  But He applies the
+same parable to both.  He gives the same warning to both.  Not to go too
+far on the wrong road, lest they come to a point where they cannot turn
+back, but must go on to just punishment, if not to utter destruction.
+
+That is what He warned the Jews all through the latter part of the 12th
+chapter of Luke.  He will come again, He says, at an hour they do not
+think of, and then if their elders, the Scribes and Pharisees, are going
+on as they are now, beating the man-servants and maid-servants, and
+eating and drinking with the drunken, oppressing the people, and living
+in luxury and profligacy, He will cut them asunder, and appoint them
+their portion with the unbelievers.
+
+In this, and in many other parables, He had been warning them that their
+ruin was near; and, at last, turning to the whole crowd, He appeals to
+them, to their common sense.  "When ye see a cloud rise out of the west,
+straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and so it is.  And when ye see
+the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass.
+Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but
+how is it that ye do not discern this time?"  If God can give you common
+sense about one thing, why not about another?  Why can you not open your
+eyes and of yourselves judge what is right?  "Agree with thine adversary
+quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the
+adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the
+officer, and thou be cast into prison.  Verily I say unto thee, Thou
+shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost
+farthing."
+
+So He spoke; and they did not fully understand what He meant.  They
+thought that by their adversary He meant the Roman governor.  For they
+immediately began to talk to Him about some Galileans whose blood Pilate,
+the Roman governor, had mingled with their sacrifices (I suppose in some
+of those wars which were continually breaking out in Judea).  I think He
+meant more than that.  "Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners
+above all the Galilaeans?  Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise
+perish."  As much as to say, though ye did not rebel against the Romans
+like these Galilaeans, you have your sins, which will ruin YOU.  As long
+as you are hypocrites, with your mouths full of the cant of religion, and
+your hearts full of all mean and spiteful passions; as long as you cannot
+of yourselves discern what is right, and have lost conscience, and the
+everlasting distinction between right and wrong, so long are you walking
+blindfold to ruin.  There is an adversary against you, who will surely
+deliver you to the judge some day, and then it will be too late to cry
+for mercy.  And who was that adversary?  Who but the everlasting law of
+God, which says, Thou shalt do justly?--and you Jews are utterly unjust,
+false, covetous, and unrighteous.  Thou shalt love all men; and you are
+cruel and spiteful, hating each other, and making all mankind hate you.
+Thou shalt walk humbly with thy God; and you Jews are walking proudly
+with God; fancying that God belongs only to you; that because you are His
+chosen people, He will let you commit every sin you choose, as long as
+you keep His name on your lips, and keep up an empty worship of Him in
+the temple.  That is your adversary, the everlasting moral law of God.
+And who is the Judge but God Himself, who is set on His throne judging
+right, while you are doing wrong?  And who is the officer, to whom that
+judge will deliver you?  There indeed the Jews were right.  It was the
+Romans whom God appointed to punish them for their sins.  All which our
+Lord had foretold, as all the world knows, came true forty years after in
+that horrible siege of Jerusalem, which the Jews brought on themselves
+entirely by their own folly, and pride, and wicked lawlessness.  In that
+siege, by famine and pestilence, by the Romans' swords, by crucifixion,
+and by each other's hands (for the different factions were murdering each
+other wholesale up to the very day Jerusalem was taken), thousands of
+Jews perished horribly, and the rest were sold as slaves over the face of
+the whole earth, and led away into a captivity from which they could not
+escape till they had paid the uttermost farthing.
+
+Now let us look at this same parable in the 5th chapter of St Matthew.
+Remember first that it is part of the sermon on the Mount, which is all
+about not doctrine, but morality, the law of right and wrong, the law of
+justice and mercy.  You will see then that our Lord is preaching against
+the same sins as in the 12th chapter of St. Luke.  Against a hypocritical
+religion, joined with a cruel and unjust heart.  Those of old time, the
+Scribes and Pharisees, said merely, Thou shalt not kill.  And as long as
+thou dost not kill thy brother, thou mayest hate him in thy heart and
+speak evil of him with thy lips.  But our Lord says, Not so.  Whosoever
+is angry with his brother without a cause is in danger of the judgment.
+Whosoever shall say to him Raca, or worthless fellow, shall speak
+insolently, brutally, cruelly, scornfully to him, is in danger of the
+council.  But whosoever shall say unto him, Thou fool, is in danger of
+hell fire.  For using that word to the Jews, so says the Talmudic
+tradition, Moses and Aaron were shut out of the land of promise, for it
+means an infidel, an atheist, a godless man, or rebel against God, as it
+is written, "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God."  Whosoever
+shall curse his brother, who is trying to be a good Christian man to the
+best of his light and power, because he does not happen to agree with him
+in all things, and call him a heretic, and an infidel, and an atheist,
+and an enemy of God--he is in danger of hell fire.  Let him agree with
+his adversary quickly, whiles he is in the way with him, lest he be
+delivered to God the judge, and to the just punishment of him who has not
+done justly, not loved mercy, not walked humbly with his God.
+
+But who is the adversary of that man, and who is the judge, and who is
+the officer?  Our adversary in every case, whenever we do wrong,
+knowingly or unknowingly, is the Law of God, the everlasting laws, by
+which God has ordered every thing in heaven and earth; and as often as we
+break one of these laws, let us agree with it again as quickly as we can,
+lest it hale us before God, the judge of all, and He deliver us over to
+His officer--to those powers of nature and powers of spirit, which He has
+appointed as ministers of His vengeance, and they cast us into some
+prison of necessary and unavoidable misery, from which we shall never
+escape till we have paid the uttermost farthing.
+
+Do you not understand me?  Then I will give you an example.  Suppose the
+case of a man hurting his health by self-indulgence of any kind.  Then
+his adversaries are the laws of health.  Let him agree with them quickly,
+while he has the power of conquering his bad habits, by recovering his
+health, lest the time come when his own sins deliver him up to God his
+judge; and God to His terrible officers of punishment, the laws of
+Disease; and they cast him into a prison of shame and misery from which
+there is no escape--shame and misery, most common perhaps among the lower
+classes:  but not altogether confined to them--the weakened body, the
+bleared eye, the stupified brain, the premature death, the children
+unhealthy from their parents' sins, despising their parents, and perhaps
+copying their vices at the same time.  Many a man have I seen in that
+prison, fast bound with misery though not with iron, and how he was to
+pay his debt and escape out of it I know not, though I hope that God does
+know.
+
+Are any of you, again, in the habit of cheating your neighbours, or
+dealing unfairly by them?  Your adversary is the everlasting law of
+justice, which says, Do as you would be done by, for with what measure
+you mete to others, it shall be measured to you again.
+
+This may show you how a bodily sin, like self-indulgence punishes itself
+by bringing a man into bondage of bodily misery, from which he cannot
+escape; and in the same way a spiritual sin, like want of charity, will
+bring a man into spiritual bondage from which he cannot escape.  And
+this, as in bodily sins, it will do by virtue of that mysterious and
+terrible officer of God, which we call Habit.  Habit, by which, we cannot
+tell how, our having done a thing once becomes a reason for our doing it
+again, and again after that, till, if the habit be once formed, we cannot
+help doing that thing, and become enslaved to it, and fast bound by it,
+in a prison from which there is no escape.  Look for instance at the case
+of the untruthful man.  Let him beware in time.  Who is his adversary?
+Facts are his adversary.  He says one thing, and Fact says another, and a
+very stubborn and terrible adversary Fact is.  The day will come, most
+probably in this life, when Facts will bring that untruthful man before
+God and before men likewise--and cry,--Judge between us which of us is
+right; and there will come to that false man exposure and shame, and a
+worse punishment still, perhaps, if he have let the habit grow too strong
+on him, and have not agreed with his adversary in time.
+
+For have you not seen (alas, you have too surely seen) men who had
+contracted such a habit of falsehood that they could not shake it off--
+who had played with their sense of truth so long that they had almost
+forgotten what truth meant; men who could not speak without mystery,
+concealment, prevarication, half-statements; who were afraid of the plain
+truth, not because there was any present prospect of its hurting them,
+but simply because it was the plain truth--children of darkness, who,
+from long habit, hated the light--and who, though they had been found out
+and exposed, could not amend--could not become simple, honest, and
+truthful--could not escape from the prison of their own bad habits, and
+the net of lies which they had spread round their own path, till they had
+paid the uttermost penalty for their deceit?
+
+Look, again, at the case of the uncharitable man, in the habit of forming
+harsh and cruel judgments of his neighbours.  Then his adversary is the
+everlasting law of Love, which will surely at last punish him, by the
+most terrible of all punishments--loss of love to man, and therefore to
+God.  Are we not (I am, I know, may God forgive me for it) apt to be
+angry with our brethren without a cause, out of mere peevishness?  Let us
+beware in time.  Are we not apt to say to them "Raca"--to speak cruelly,
+contemptuously, fiercely of them, if they thwart us?  Let us beware in
+time still more.  Are we not worst of all, tempted (as I too often am) to
+say to them "Thou fool;" to call better men, more useful men more pure
+men, more pious men than ourselves, hard and cruel names, names from
+which they would shrink with horror because they cannot see Christian
+truth in just exactly the same light that we do?  Oh! let us beware then.
+Beware lest the everlasting laws of justice and fairness between man and
+man, of love and charity between man and man, which we have broken,
+should some day deliver us up, as they delivered those bigoted Jews of
+old to God our Judge, and He deliver our souls to His most terrible
+officers, who are called envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness;
+and they thrust us into that blackest of all prisons, on the gate of
+which is written, Hardness of heart, and Contempt of God's Word and
+commandments, and within which is the outer darkness into which if a man
+falls, he cannot see the difference between right and wrong:  but calls
+evil good, and good evil, like his companions in the outer darkness--
+namely, the devil and his angels.  Oh! let us who are coming to lay our
+gift upon God's altar at this approaching Christmas tide, consider
+whether our brother hath aught against us in any of these matters, and,
+if so, let us leave our gift upon the altar, and be first reconciled to
+our brother, in heart at least, and with inward shame, and confession,
+and contrition, and resolution to amend.  But we can only do that by
+recollecting what gift we are to leave on Christ's altar,--that it is the
+gift of SELF, the sacrifice of ourselves, with all our selfishness,
+pride, conceit, spite, cruelty.  Ourselves, with all our sins, we are to
+lay upon Christ's altar, that our sins may be nailed to His cross, and
+washed clean in His blood, everlastingly consumed in the fire of His
+Spirit, the pure spirit of love, which is the Charity of God, that so,
+self being purged out of us, we may become holy and lively sacrifices to
+God, parts and parcels of that perfect sacrifice which Christ offered up
+for the sins of the whole world--even the sacrifice of Himself.
+
+
+
+SERMON XXVIII.  ST JOHN THE BAPTIST
+
+
+
+Chester Cathedral. 1872.
+
+St Luke iii. 2, 3, 7, 9-14.  "The Word of God came unto John the son of
+Zacharias in the wilderness.  And he came into all the country about
+Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. .
+. . Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him,
+O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to
+come?  Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance. . . .  And now
+also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees:  every tree therefore
+that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.
+And the people asked him saying, What shall we do then?  He answereth and
+saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath
+none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.  Then came also
+publicans to be baptized unto them, and said unto him, Master, what shall
+we do?  And he said, Exact no more than that which is appointed you.  And
+the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do?  And
+he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and
+be content with your wages."
+
+This is St John Baptist's day.  Let me say a very few words--where many
+might be said--about one of the noblest personages who ever has appeared
+on this earth.
+
+Our blessed Lord said, "Among them that are born of women there hath not
+risen a greater than John the Baptist, notwithstanding, he that is least
+in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."  These are serious words;
+for which of us dare to say that we are greater than John the Baptist?
+
+But let us at least think a while what John the Baptist was like.  So we
+shall gain at least the sight of an ideal man.  It is not the highest
+ideal.  Our Lord tells us that plainly; and we, as Christians, should
+know that it is not.  The ideal man is our Lord Christ Himself, and none
+other.  Still, he that has not mounted the lower step of the heavenly
+stair, has certainly not mounted the higher; and therefore, if we have
+not attained to the likeness of John the Baptist, still more, we have not
+attained to the likeness of Christ.  What, then, was John the Baptist
+like?  What picture of him and his character can we form to ourselves in
+our own imaginations? for that is all we have to picture him by--helped--
+always remember that--by the Holy Spirit of God, who helps the
+imagination, the poetic and dramatic faculty of men; just as much as He
+helps the logical and argumentative faculty to see things and men as they
+really are, by the spirit of love, which also is the spirit of true
+understanding.
+
+How, then, shall we picture John the Baptist to ourselves?  Great
+painters, greater than the world seems likely to see again, have
+exercised their fancy upon his face, his figure, his actions.  We must
+put out of our minds, I fear, at once, many of the loveliest of them all:
+those in which Raffaelle and others have depicted the child John, in his
+camel's hair raiment, with a child's cross in his hand, worshipping the
+infant Christ.  There is also one exquisite picture, by Annibale Caracci,
+if I recollect rightly, in which the blessed babe is lying asleep, and
+the blessed Virgin signs to St John, pressing forward to adore him, not
+to awaken his sleeping Lord and God.  But such imaginations, beautiful as
+they are, and true in a heavenly and spiritual sense, which therefore is
+true eternally for you, and me, and all mankind, are not historic fact.
+For St John the Baptist said himself, "and I knew him not."
+
+He may have been, we must almost say, he must have been, brought up with
+or near our Lord.  He may have seen in Him such a child (we must believe
+that), as he never saw before.  He knew Him at least to be a princely
+child, of David's royal line.  But he was not conscious of who and what
+He was, till the mysterious inner voice, of whom he gives only the
+darkest hints, said to him, "Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit
+descending, and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizeth with the
+Holy Ghost.  And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God."  But
+what manner of man was St John the Baptist in the meantime?  Painters
+have tried their hands at drawing him, and we thank them.  Pictures, says
+St Augustine, are the books of the unlearned.  And, my friends, when
+great painters paint, they are the books of the too-learned likewise.
+They bring us back, bring us home, by one glance at a human face, a human
+figure, a human scene of action, out of our philosophies, and criticisms,
+and doctrines, which narrow our hearts, without widening our heads, to
+the deeper facts of humanity, and therefore to the deeper facts of
+theology likewise.  But what picture of St John the Baptist shall we
+choose whereby to represent him to ourselves, as the forerunner of the
+incarnate God?
+
+The best which I can recollect is the great picture by Guido--ah, that he
+had painted always as wisely and as well--of the magnificent lad sitting
+on the rock, half clad in his camel's hair robe, his stalwart hand lifted
+up to denounce he hardly knows what, save that things are going all
+wrong, utterly wrong to him; his beautiful mouth open to preach, he
+hardly knows what, save that he has a message from God, of which he is
+half-conscious as yet--that he is a forerunner, a prophet, a foreteller
+of something and some one which is to come, and which yet is very near at
+hand.  The wild rocks are round him, the clear sky is over him, and
+nothing more.  He, the gentleman born, the clergyman born--for you must
+recollect who and what St John the Baptist was, and that he was neither
+democrat nor vulgar demagogue, nor flatterer of ignorant mobs, but a man
+of an ancestry as ancient and illustrious as it was civilised, and bound
+by long ties of duty, of patriotism, of religion, and of the temple
+worship of God:--he, the noble and the priest, has thrown off--not in
+discontent and desperation, but in hope and awe--all his family
+privileges, all that seems to make life worth having; and there aloft and
+in the mountains, alone with nature and with God, feeding on locusts and
+wild honey and whatsoever God shall send, and clothed in skins, he, like
+Elijah of old, renews not merely the habits, but the spirit and power of
+Elijah, and preaches to a generation sunk in covetousness and
+superstition, party spirit, and the rest of the seven devils which
+brought on the fall of his native land, and which will bring on the fall
+of every land on earth, preaches to them, I say--What?
+
+The most common, let me say boldly, the most vulgar--in the good old
+sense of the word--the most vulgar morality.  He tells them that an awful
+ruin was coming unless they repented and mended.  How fearfully true his
+words were, the next fifty years proved.  The axe, he said, was laid to
+the root of the tree; and the axe was the heathen Roman, even then master
+of the land.  But God, not the Roman Caesar merely, was laying the axe.
+And He was a good God, who only wanted goodness, which He would preserve;
+not badness, which He would destroy.  Therefore men must not merely
+repent and do penance, they must bring forth fruits meet for penance; do
+right instead of doing wrong, lest they be found barren trees, and be cut
+down, and cast into that everlasting fire of God, which, thanks be to His
+Holy name, burns for ever--unquenchable by all men's politics, and
+systems, and political or other economies, to destroy out of God's
+Kingdom all that offendeth and whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie--
+oppressors, quacks, cheats, hypocrites, and the rest.
+
+The people--the farming class--came to him with "What shall we do?"  The
+young priest and nobleman, in his garment of camel's hair, has nothing
+but plain morality for them.  "He that hath two coats, let him impart to
+him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise."  The
+publicans, the renegades, who were farming the taxes of the Roman
+conquerors, and making their base profit out of their countrymen's
+slavery, came to him,--"Master, what shall we do?"  He does not tell them
+not to be publicans.  He does not tell his countrymen to rebel, though he
+must have been sorely tempted to do it.  All he says is, Make the bad and
+base arrangement as good as you can; exact no more than that which is
+appointed you.  The soldiers, poor fellows, come to him.  Whether they
+were Herod's mercenaries, or real gallant Roman soldiers, we are not
+told.  Either had unlimited power under a military despotism, in an
+anarchic and half-enslaved country; but whichever they were, he has the
+same answer to them of common morality.  You are what you are; you are
+where you are.  Do it as well as you can.  Do no violence to any man,
+neither accuse any man falsely, and be content with your wages.
+
+Ah, wise politician, ah, clear and rational spirit, who knows and tells
+others to do the duty which lies nearest them; who sees (as old Greek
+Hesiod says), how much bigger the half is than the whole; who, in the
+hour of his country's deepest degradation, had divine courage to say, our
+deliverance lies, not in rebellion, but in doing right.  But he has
+sterner words.  Pharisees, the separatists, the religious men, who think
+themselves holier than any one else; and Sadducees, materialist men of
+the world, who sneer at the unseen, the unknown, the heroic, come to him.
+And for Pharisee and Sadducee--for the man who prides himself on
+believing more than his neighbours, and for the man who prides himself on
+believing less--he has the same answer.  Both are exclusives, inhuman,
+while they are pretending to be more than human.  He knew them well, for
+he was born and bred among them, and he forestalls our Lord's words to
+them, "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath
+to come?"
+
+At last his preaching of common morality is put to the highest test.  The
+king--the tyrant as we should call him--the Herod of the day, an usurper,
+neither a son of David, nor a king chosen by the people, tries to
+patronize him.  The old spirit of his forefather Aaron, of his forefather
+Phineas, the spirit of Levi, which (rightly understood), is the Spirit of
+God, flashes up in the young priestly prophet, in the old form of common
+morality.  "It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife."  We
+know the rest; how, at the request of Herodias' daughter, Herod sent and
+beheaded John in prison, and how she took his head in a charger and
+brought it to her mother.  Great painters have shown us again and again
+the last act--outwardly hideous, but really beautiful--of St John's
+heroic drama, in a picture of the lovely dancing girl with the prophet's
+head in a charger--a dreadful picture; and yet one which needed to be
+painted, for it was a terrible fact, and is still, and will be till this
+wicked world's end, a matter for pity and tears rather than for
+indignation.  The most perfect representations, certainly the most
+tragical I know of it, are those which are remarkable, not for their
+expression, but for their want of expression--the young girl in brocade
+and jewels, with the gory head in her hands, thinking of nothing out of
+those wide vacant foolish eyes, save the triumph of self-satisfied
+vanity; for the spite and revenge is not in her, but in her wicked
+mother.  She is just the very creature, who, if she had been better
+trained, and taught what John the Baptist really was, might have
+reverenced him, worshipped him, and ministered unto him.  Alas! alas! how
+do the follies of poor humanity repeat themselves in every age.  The
+butterfly has killed the lion, without after all meaning much harm.  Ah,
+that such human butterflies would take warning by the fate of Herodias'
+daughter, and see how mere vanity will lead, if indulged too long and too
+freely, to awful crime.
+
+One knows the old stories,--how Herod, and Herodias, and the vain foolish
+girl fell into disgrace with the Emperor, and were banished into
+Provence, and died in want and misery.  One knows too the old legends,
+how Herodias' daughter reappears in South Europe--even in old German
+legends--as the witch-goddess, fair and ruinous, sweeping for ever
+through wood and wold at night with her troop of fiends, tempting the
+traveller to dance with them till he dies; a name for ever accursed
+through its own vanity rather than its own deliberate sin, from which may
+God preserve us all, men as well as women.  So two women, one wicked and
+one vain, did all they could to destroy one of the noblest human beings
+who ever walked this earth.  And what did they do?  They did not prevent
+his being the forerunner and prophet of the incarnate Son of God.  They
+did not prevent his being the master and teacher of the blessed Apostle
+St John, who was his spiritual son and heir.  They did not prevent his
+teaching all men and women, to whom God gives grace to understand him,
+that the true repentance, the true conversion, the true deliverance from
+the wrath to come, the true entrance into the kingdom of heaven, the true
+way to Christ and to God, is common morality.
+
+And now let us bless God's holy name for all His servants departed in His
+faith and fear, and especially for His servant St John the Baptist,
+beseeching Him to give us grace, so to follow his doctrine and holy life,
+that we may truly repent after his preaching and after his example.  May
+the Lord forgive our exceeding cowardice, and help us constantly to speak
+the truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for the truth's sake;
+through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.
+
+
+
+SERMON XXIX.  THE PRESENT RECOMPENSE
+
+
+
+Chester Cathedral, Nave Service, Evening.  May 1872.
+
+Proverbs xi. 31.  "Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the
+earth:  much more the wicked and the sinner."
+
+This is the key-note of the Book of Proverbs--that men are punished or
+rewarded according to their deeds in this life; nay, it is the key-note
+of the whole Old Testament.  "The eyes of the Lord are over the
+righteous, and His ears are open unto their prayers; the countenance of
+the Lord is against them that do evil, to root out the remembrance of
+them from the earth."
+
+But here, at the beginning of my sermon, I can fancy some one ready to
+cry--Stay! you have spoken too strongly.  That is not the key-note of the
+whole Old Testament.  There are words in it of quite a different note--
+words which complain to God that the good are not rewarded, and the
+wicked are not punished:  as for instance, when the Psalmist says how the
+ungodly men of this evil world are filled with God's hid treasure, and
+how they have children at their desire, and leave the rest of their
+substance for their babes.  And again, "I was envious at the foolish,
+when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.  For there are no bands in their
+death; but their strength is firm.  They are not in trouble as other men;
+neither are they plagued like other men. . . .  They set their mouth
+against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth.
+Therefore his people return hither; and waters of a full cup are wrung
+out to them.  And they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in
+the most High?"  And though the Psalmist says that such persons will come
+to a sudden and fearful end, yet he confesses that so long as they live
+they have prospered, while he had been punished all day long, and
+chastened every morning.  And do we not know that so it is?  Is it not
+obvious now, and has it not been notorious in every country, and in all
+times, that so it is?  Do not good men often lead lives of poverty and
+affliction?  Do not men make large fortunes, or rise to fame and power,
+by base and wicked means? and do not those same men often enough die in
+their beds, and leave children behind them, and found families, who
+prosper for generations after they are dead?  How were they recompensed
+in the earth?  Now this is one of the puzzles of life, which tries a
+man's faith in God, as it tried the psalmists and prophets in old time.
+But that the text speaks truth I do not doubt.  I believe that the
+prosperous bad man is recompensed in the earth--is punished in this life-
+-often with the most terrible of all punishments--Impunity; the not being
+punished at all; which is the worst thing in this life which can happen
+to a sinner.  But I am not going to speak of that, but rather of the
+first part of the text, "The righteous shall be recompensed in the
+earth."
+
+Now is not the answer to the puzzle this:  That God is impartial; that He
+is no respecter of persons, but causing His sun to shine on the evil and
+on the good, and His rain to fall on the just and on the unjust; and so
+rewarding every man according to his work, paying him for all work done,
+of whatever kind it may be?  Some work for this world, which we do see,
+and God gives them what they earn in this life; some work for the world
+above, which we cannot see, and God gives them what they earn in this
+life, for ever and ever likewise.  If a man wishes for treasure on earth,
+he can have it if he will, and enjoy it as long as it lasts.  If a man
+wishes for treasure in heaven, he can have it if he will, and enjoy it as
+long as it lasts.  God deals fairly with both, and pays both what they
+have earned.
+
+Some set their hearts on this world; some want money, some want power,
+some want fame and admiration from their fellow-men, some want merely to
+amuse themselves.  Then they will have what they want if they will take
+the right way to get it.  If a man wishes to make a large fortune, and
+die rich, he will very probably succeed, if he will only follow
+diligently the laws and rules by which God has appointed that money
+should be made.  If a man longs for power and glory, and must needs be
+admired and obeyed by his fellow-men, he can have his wish, if he will go
+the right way to get what he longs for; especially in a free country like
+this, he will get most probably just as much of them as he deserves--that
+is, as much as he has talent and knowledge enough to earn.  So did the
+Pharisees in our Lord's time.  They wanted power, fame, and money as
+religious leaders, and they knew how to get them as well as any men who
+ever lived; and they got them.  Our Lord did not deny that.  They had
+their reward, He said.  They succeeded--those old Pharisees--in being
+looked up to as the masters of the Jewish mob, and in crucifying our Lord
+Himself.  They had their reward; and so may you and I.  If we want any
+earthly thing, and have knowledge of the way to get it, and have ability
+and perseverance enough, then we shall very probably get it, and much
+good it will do us when we have got it after all.  We shall have had our
+treasure upon earth and our hearts likewise; and when we come to die we
+shall leave both our treasure and our hearts behind us, and the Lord have
+mercy on our souls.
+
+But again, there are those, thank God, who have, or are at least trying
+to get, treasure in heaven, which they may carry away with them when they
+die, and keep for ever.  And who are they?  Those who are longing and
+trying to be true and to be good; who have seen how beautiful it is to be
+true and to be good; to know God and the will of God; to love God and the
+will of God; and therefore to copy His likeness and to do His will.
+Those who long for sanctification, and who desire to be holy, even as
+their Father in heaven is holy, and perfect, even as their Father in
+heaven is perfect; and who therefore think, as St Paul bade them, of
+whatsoever things are just, true, pure, lovely, and of good report, if
+there be any true manhood, and if there be any just praise--in three
+words--who seek after whatsoever is true, beautiful, and good.  These are
+they that have treasure in heaven.  For what is really true, really
+beautiful, really good, is also really heavenly.  God alone is perfect,
+good, beautiful, and true; and heaven is heaven because it is filled with
+the glory of His goodness, His beauty, and His truth.  But wherever there
+is a soul on earth led by the Spirit of God, and filled by the Spirit of
+God with good and beautiful and true graces and inspirations, there is a
+soul which, as St Paul says, is sitting in heavenly places with Christ
+Jesus--a soul which is already in heaven though still on earth.  We
+confess it by our own words.  We speak of a heavenly character; we speak
+even of a heavenly countenance; and we speak right.  We see that that
+character, though it be still imperfect, and marred by human weaknesses,
+is already good with the goodness which comes down from heaven; and that
+that countenance, though it may be mean and plain, is already beautiful
+with the beauty which comes down from heaven.
+
+But how are such souls recompensed in the earth?  Oh! my friends, is not
+a man recompensed in the earth whenever he can lift up his heart above
+the earth?--whenever he can lift up his heart unto the Lord, and behold
+His glory above all the earth?  Does not this earth look brighter to him
+then?  The world of man looks brighter to him, in spite of all its sins
+and sorrows, for he sees the Lord ruling it, the Lord forgiving it, the
+Lord saving it.  He sees, by the eye of faith, the Lord fulfilling His
+own promise--"where two or three are gathered together in my name, there
+am I in the midst of them"; and he takes heart and hope for the poor
+earth, and says, The earth is not deserted; mankind is not without a
+Father, a Saviour, a Teacher, a King.  Bad men and bad spirits are not
+the masters of the world; and men are not as creeping things, as the
+fishes of the sea, which have no ruler over them.  For Christ has not
+left His church.  He reigns, and will reign, till He has put all enemies
+under His feet, and cast out of His kingdom all that offend, and
+whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie; and then the heavenly treasure will
+be the only treasure; for whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things
+are true, pure, lovely, and of good report, if there be any valour, and
+if there be any praise, those things, and they alone, will be left in the
+kingdom of Christ and of God.  Is not that man recompensed in the earth?
+Must he not rise each morning to go about his daily work with a more
+cheerful heart, saying, with Jeremiah, in like case, "Upon this I awaked,
+and beheld, and my sleep was sweet to me?"
+
+Yes, I see in experience that the righteous man is recompensed in the
+earth, every day, and all day long.  In proportion as a man's mind is
+heavenly, just so much will he enjoy this beautiful earth, and all that
+is therein.  I believe that if a man walks with God, then he can walk
+nowhither without seeing and hearing what the ungodly and bad man will
+never see and hear, because his eyes are blinded, and his heart hardened
+from thinking of himself, his own selfish wants, his own selfish sins.
+Which, for instance, was the happier man--which the man who was the more
+recompensed in the earth this very day--the poor man who went for his
+Sunday walk into the country, thinking of little but the sins and the
+follies of the week past, and probably of the sins and the follies of the
+week to come; or the man who went with a clear conscience, and had the
+heart to thank God for the green grass, and the shining river, and the
+misty mountains sleeping far away, and notice the song of the birds, and
+the scent of the flowers, as a little child might do, and know that his
+Father in heaven had made all these?
+
+Yes, my friends, Christ is very near us, though our eyes are holden by
+our own sins, and therefore we see Him not.  But just in proportion as a
+man walks with God, just in proportion as the eyes of his soul are opened
+by the Spirit of God, he recovers, I believe, the privilege which Adam
+lost when he fell.  He hears the Word of the Lord walking among the trees
+of the garden in the cool of the day; and instead of trying, like guilty
+Adam, to hide himself from his Maker, answers, with reverence and yet
+with joy, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.
+
+Nay, I would go further still, and say, Is not the righteous man
+recompensed on the earth every time he hears a strain of noble music?  To
+him who has his treasure in heaven, music speaks about that treasure
+things far too deep for words.  Music speaks to him of whatsoever is
+just, true, pure, lovely, and of good report, of whatsoever is manful and
+ennobling, of whatsoever is worthy of praise and honour.  Music, to that
+man, speaks of a divine order and a divine proportion; of a divine
+harmony, through all the discords and confusions of men; of a divine
+melody, through all the cries and groans of sin and sorrow.  What says a
+wiser and a better man than I shall ever be, and that not of noble music,
+but of such as we may hear any day in any street?  "Even that vulgar
+music," he says, "which makes one man merry, another mad, strikes in me a
+deep fit of devotion, and a profound contemplation of God, the first
+composer.  There is something more of divinity in it than the ear
+discovers.  It is an hieroglyphical and shadowed lesson of the whole
+world, and of the creatures of God.  Such a melody to the ear as the
+whole world, well understood, would afford to the understanding."  That
+man, I insist, was indeed recompensed on the earth, when music, which is
+to the ungodly and unrighteous the most earthly of all arts, which to the
+heathens and the savages, to frivolous and profligate persons, only
+tempts to silly excitement or to brutal passion, was to him as the speech
+of angels, a remembrancer to him of that eternal and ever-present heaven,
+from which all beauty, truth, and goodness are shed forth over the
+universe, from the glory of the ever-blessed Trinity--Father, Son, and
+Holy Spirit.
+
+Does any one say--These things are too high for me; I cannot understand
+them?  My dear friends, are they not too high for me likewise?  Do you
+fancy that I understand them, though my reason, as well as Holy
+Scripture, tells me that they are true?  I understand them no more than I
+understand how I draw a single breath, or think a single thought.  But it
+is good for you, and for me, and for every man, now and then, to hear
+things which we do NOT understand; that so we may learn our own
+ignorance, and be lifted up above ourselves, and renounce our fancied
+worldly wisdom, and think within ourselves:--Would it not be wiser to
+confess ourselves fools, and take our Lord's advice, and be converted,
+and become as little children?  For otherwise, our Lord says, we shall in
+nowise enter into this very kingdom of heaven of which I have been
+telling you.  For this is one of the things which God hides from the wise
+and prudent, and yet revealeth unto babes.  Yes, that is the way to
+understand all things, however deep--to become as little children.  A
+little child proves that all I say is true, and that it knows that all I
+say is true.  Though it cannot put its feelings into words, it acts on
+them by a mere instinct, which is the gift of God.  Why does a little
+child pick flowers?  Why does a little child dance when it hears a strain
+of music?  And deeper still, why does a little child know when it has
+done wrong?  Why does it love to hear of things beautiful and noble, and
+shrink from things foul and mean, if what I say is not true?  The child
+does so, because it is nearer heaven, not further off, than we grown
+folk.
+
+Ah! that we would all lay to heart what one said of old, who walked with
+God:--
+
+
+"Dear soul, could'st thou become a child,
+Once more on earth, meek, undefiled,
+Then Paradise were round thee here,
+And God Himself for ever near."
+
+
+
+SERMON XXX.  THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
+
+
+
+Chapel Royal, St James'. 1873.
+
+St. Matt. xxii. 2-7.  "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king,
+which made a marriage for his son, and sent forth his servants to call
+them that were bidden to the wedding:  and they would not come.  Again,
+he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold,
+I have prepared my dinner:  my oxen and fatlings are killed, and all
+things are ready:  come unto the marriage.  But they made light of it,
+and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise:  And
+the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew
+them.  But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth:  and he sent forth
+his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city."
+
+This parable, if we understand it aright, will help to teach us theology-
+-that is, the knowledge of God, and of the character of God.  For it is a
+parable concerning the kingdom of heaven, and the laws and customs of the
+kingdom of heaven--that is, the spiritual and eternal laws by which God
+governs men.
+
+Now, what any kingdom or government is like must needs depend on what the
+king or governor of it is like; at least if that king is all-powerful,
+and can do what he likes.  His laws will be like his character.  If he be
+good, he will make good laws.  If he be bad, he will make bad laws.  If
+he be harsh and cruel--if he be careless and indulgent--so will his laws
+be.  If he be loving and generous, delighting in seeing his subjects
+happy, then his laws will be so shaped that his subjects will be happy,
+if they obey those laws.  But also--and this is a very serious matter,
+and one to which foolish people in all ages have tried to shut their
+eyes, and false preachers in all ages have tried to blind men's eyes--
+also, I say, if his laws be good, and bountiful, and sure to make men
+happy, then the good king will have those laws obeyed.  He will not be an
+indulgent king, for in his case to be indulgent will be cruelty, and
+nothing less.  The good king will not say,--I have given you laws by
+which you may live happy; but I do not care whether you obey them or not.
+I have, as it were, set you up, in life, and given you advantages by
+which you may prosper if you use them; but I do not care whether you use
+them or not.  For to say that would be as much as to say that I do not
+care if you make yourselves miserable, and make others miserable
+likewise.  The good king will say,--You shall obey my laws, for they are
+for your good.  You shall use my gifts, for they are for your good.  And
+if you do not, I will punish you.  You shall respect my authority.  And
+if you do not--if you go too far, if you become wanton and cruel, and
+destroy your fellow-subjects unjustly off the face of the earth; then I
+will destroy you off the face of he earth, and burn up your city.  I will
+destroy any government or system of society which you set up in
+opposition to my good and just laws.  And if you merely despise the
+gifts, and refuse to use them--then I will cast you out of my kingdom,
+inside which is freedom and happiness, and light and knowledge, into the
+darkness outside, bound hand and foot, into the ignorance and brutal
+slavery which you have chosen, where you may reconsider yourself, weeping
+and gnashing your teeth as you discover what a fool you have been.
+
+Our Lord's parable has fulfilled itself again and again in history, and
+will fulfil itself as long as foolish and rebellious persons exist on
+earth.  This is one of the laws of the kingdom of heaven.  It must be so,
+for it arises by necessity out of the character of Christ, the king of
+heaven.--Infinite bounty and generosity; but if that bounty be despised
+and insulted, or still more, if it be outraged by wanton tyranny or
+cruelty, then--for the benefit of the rest of mankind--awful severity.
+So it is, and so it must be; simply because God is good.
+
+At least, this is the kind of king which the parable shows to us.  The
+king in it begins, not by asking his subjects to pay him taxes, or even
+to do him service, but to come to a great feast--a high court ceremonial-
+-the marriage of his son.  Whatsoever else that may mean, it certainly
+means this--that the king intended to treat these men, not as his slaves,
+but as his guests and friends.  They will not come.  They are too busy;
+one over his farm, another over his merchandise.  They owe, remember,
+safe possession of their farm, and safe transit for their merchandise, to
+the king, who governs and guards the land.  But they forget that, and
+refuse his invitation.  Some of them, seemingly out of mere insolence,
+and the spirit of rebellion against authority, just because it is
+authority, go a step too far.  To show that they are their own masters,
+and intend to do what they like, they take the king's messengers, and
+treat them spitefully, and kill them.
+
+Then there arises in that king a noble indignation.  We do not read that
+the king sentimentalised over these rebels, and said,--"After all, their
+evil, like all evil, is only a lower form of good.  They had a fine
+instinct of freedom and independence latent in them, only it was in this
+case somewhat perverted.  They are really only to be pitied for knowing
+no better; but I trust, by careful education, to bring them to a clearer
+sense of their own interests.  I shall therefore send them to a
+reformatory, where, in consideration of the depressing circumstances of
+their imprisonment, they will be better looked after, and have lighter
+work, than the average of my honest and peaceable subjects."  If the king
+had spoken thus, he would have won high applause in these days; at least
+till the farms and the merchandise, the property and the profits of the
+rest of his subjects, were endangered by these favoured objects of his
+philanthropy; who, having found that rebellion and even murder was
+pardonable in one case, would naturally try whether it was not pardonable
+in other cases likewise.  But what we read of the king--and we must
+really remember, in fear and trembling, who spoke this parable, even our
+Lord Himself,--is this--He sent forth his armies, soldiers, men
+disciplined to do their duty at all risks, and sworn to carry out the
+law, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.
+
+Yes, the king was very angry, as he had a right to be.  Yes, let us lay
+that to heart, and tremble, from the very worst of us all to the very
+best of us all.  There is an anger in God.  There is indignation in God.
+Our highest reason ought to tell us that there must be anger in God, as
+long as sin and wrong exist in any corner of the universe.  For all that
+is good in man is of the likeness of God.  And is it not a good feeling,
+a noble feeling, in man, to be indignant, or to cry for vengeance on the
+offender, whenever we hear of cruelty, injustice, or violence?  Is that
+not noble?  I say it is.  I say that the man whose heart does not burn
+within him at the sight of tyranny and cruelty, of baseness and deceit,
+who is not ready to say, Take him, and do to him as he has done to
+others; that man's heart is not right with God, or with man either.  His
+moral sense is stunted.  He is on the way to become, first, if he can, a
+tyrant, and then a slave.
+
+And shall there be no noble indignation in God when He beholds all the
+wrong which is done on earth?  Shall the just and holy God look on
+carelessly and satisfied at injustice and unholiness which vexes even
+poor sinful man?  God forbid!  To think that, would, to my mind, be to
+fancy God less just, less merciful, than man.  And if any one says, Anger
+is a passion, a suffering from something outside oneself, and God can
+have no passions; God cannot be moved by the sins and follies of such
+paltry atoms as we human beings are:  the answer is, Man's anger--even
+just anger--is, too often, a passion; weak-minded persons, ill-educated
+persons, especially when they get together in mobs, and excite each
+other, are carried away when they hear even a false report of cruelty or
+injustice, by their really wholesome indignation, and say and do foolish,
+and cruel, and unjust things, the victims of their own passion.  But even
+among men, the wiser a man is, the purer, the stronger-minded, so much
+the more can he control his indignation, and not let it rise into
+passion, but punish the offender calmly, though sternly, according to
+law.  Even so, our reason bids us believe, does God, who does all things
+by law.  His eternal laws punish of themselves, just as they reward of
+themselves.  The same law of God may be the messenger of His anger to the
+bad, while it is the messenger of His love to the good.  For God has not
+only no passions, but no parts; and therefore His anger and His love are
+not different, but the same.  And His love is His anger, and His anger is
+His love.
+
+An awful thought and yet a blessed thought.  Think of it, my friends--
+think of it day and night.  Under God's anger, or under God's love, we
+must be, whether we will or not.  We cannot flee from His presence.  We
+cannot go from His spirit.  If we are loving, and so rise up to heaven,
+God is there--in love.  If we are cruel, and wrathful, and so go down to
+hell, God is there also--in wrath:  with the clean He will be clean, with
+the froward man He will be froward.  In God we live and move, and have
+our being.  On us, and on us alone, it depends, what sort of a life we
+shall live, and whether our being shall be happy or miserable.  On us,
+and on us alone, it depends, whether we shall live under God's anger, or
+live under God's love.  On us, and on us alone, it depends whether the
+eternal and unchangeable God shall be to us a consuming fire, or light,
+and life, and bliss for evermore.
+
+We never had more need to think of this than now; for there has spread
+over the greater part of the civilised world a strong spirit of disbelief
+in the living God.  Men do not believe that God punishes sin and wrong-
+doing, either in this world or in the world to come.  And it is not
+confined to those who are called infidels, who disbelieve in the
+incarnation and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Would to God it were
+so!  Everywhere we find Christians of all creeds and denominations alike,
+holding the very same ruinous notion, and saying to themselves, God does
+not govern this present world.  God does not punish or reward in this
+present life.  This world is all wrong, and the devil's world, and
+therefore I cannot prosper in the world unless I am a little wrong
+likewise, and do a little of the devil's work.  So one lies, another
+cheats, another oppresses, another neglects his plainest social duties,
+another defiles himself with base political or religious intrigues,
+another breaks the seventh commandment, or, indeed, any and every one of
+the commandments which he finds troublesome.  And when one asks in
+astonishment--You call yourselves Christians?  You believe in God, and
+the Bible, and Christianity?  Do you not think that God will punish YOU
+for all this?  Do you not hear from the psalmists, and prophets, and
+apostles, of a God who judges and punishes such generations as this?  Of
+a wrath of God which is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness
+of men, who, like you, hold down the truth in unrighteousness, knowing
+what is right and yet doing what is wrong?  Then they answer, at least in
+their hearts, Oh dear no!  God does not govern men now, or judge men now.
+He only did so, our preachers tell us, under the old Jewish dispensation;
+and such words as you quote from our Lord, or St Paul, have only to do
+with the day of judgment, and the next life, and we have made it all
+right for the next life.  I, says one, regularly perform my religious
+duties; and I, says another, build churches and chapels, and give large
+sums in charity; and I, says another, am converted, and a member of a
+church; and I, says another, am elect, and predestined to everlasting
+life--and so forth, and so forth.  Each man turning the grace of God into
+a cloak for licentiousness, and deluding himself into the notion that he
+may break the eternal laws of God, and yet go to heaven, as he calls it,
+when he dies:  not knowing, poor foolish man, that as the noble
+commination service well says, the dreadful judgments of God are not
+waiting for certain people at the last day, thousands of years hence, but
+hanging over all our heads already, and always ready to fall on us.  Not
+knowing that it is as true now as it was two thousand years ago, that
+"God is a righteous judge, strong and patient."  "If a man will not turn,
+He will whet His sword; He hath bent His bow, and made it ready," against
+those who travail with mischief, who conceive sorrow, and bring forth
+ungodliness.  They dig up pits for their neighbours, and fall themselves
+into the destruction which they have made for others; not knowing that it
+is as true now as it was two thousand years ago, that God is for ever
+saying to the ungodly, "Why dost thou preach my laws, and takest my
+covenant in thy mouth; whereas thou hatest to be reformed, and hast cast
+my words behind thee?  Thou hast let thy mouth speak wickedness, and with
+thy tongue thou hast set forth deceit.  These things hast thou done, and
+I held my tongue, and thou thoughtest, wickedly, that I am even such a
+one as thyself.  But I will reprove thee, and set before thee the things
+which thou hast done.  O consider this, ye that forget God:  lest I pluck
+you away, and there be none to deliver you."
+
+Let us lay this to heart, and say, there can be no doubt--I at least have
+none--that there is growing up among us a serious divorce between faith
+and practice; a serious disbelief that the kingdom of heaven is about us,
+and that Christ is ruling us, as He told us plainly enough in His
+parables, by the laws of the kingdom of heaven; and that He does, and
+will punish and reward each man according to those laws, and according to
+nothing else.
+
+We pride ourselves on our superior light, and our improved civilisation,
+and look down on the old Roman Catholic missionaries, who converted our
+forefathers from heathendom in the Middle Ages.  Now, I am a Protestant,
+if ever there was one, and I know well that these men had their
+superstitions and false doctrines.  They made mistakes, and often worse
+than mistakes, for they were but men.  But this I tell you, that if they
+had not had a deep and sound belief that they were in the kingdom of God,
+the kingdom of heaven; and that they and all men must obey the laws of
+the kingdom of heaven; and that the first law of it was, that wrongdoing
+would be punished, and rightdoing rewarded, in this life, every day, and
+all day long, as sure as Christ the living Lord reigned in righteousness
+over all the earth; if they had not believed that, I say, and acted on
+it, we should probably have been heathen at this day.  As it is, unless
+we Protestants get back the old belief, that God is a living God, and
+that His judgments are abroad in the earth, and that only in keeping His
+commandments can we get life, and not perish, we shall be seriously in
+danger of sinking at last into that hopeless state of popular feeling,
+into which more than one nation in our own time has fallen,--that, as the
+prophet of old says, a wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the
+land; the prophets--that is, the preachers and teachers--prophesy
+falsely; and the priests--the ministers of religion--bear rule by their
+means; and my people love to have it so--love to have their consciences
+drugged by the news that they may live bad lives, and yet die good
+deaths.
+
+"And what will ye do in the end thereof?" asks Jeremiah.  What indeed!
+What the Jews did in the end thereof you may read in the book of the
+prophet Jeremiah.  They did nothing, and could do nothing--with their
+morality their manhood was gone.  Sin had borne its certain fruit of
+anarchy and decrepitude.  The wrath of God revealed itself as usual, by
+no miracle, but through inscrutable social laws.  They had to submit,
+cowardly and broken-hearted, to an invasion, a siege, and an utter ruin.
+I do not say, God forbid, that we shall ever sink so low, and have to
+endure so terrible a chastisement:  but this I say, that the only way in
+which any nation of which I ever read in history, can escape, sooner or
+later, from such a fate, is to remember every day, and all day long, that
+the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ill-doing of men,
+who hold the truth in unrighteousness, knowing what is true and what is
+right, yet telling lies, and doing wrong.
+
+Let us lay this to heart, with seriousness and godly fear.  For so we
+shall look up with reverence, and yet with hope, to Christ the ascended
+king, to whom all power is given in heaven and earth; for ever asking Him
+for His Holy Spirit, to put into our minds good desires, and to enable us
+to bring these desires to good effect.  And so we shall live for ever
+under our great taskmaster's eye, and find out that that eye is not
+merely the eye of a just judge, not merely the eye of a bountiful king,
+but more the eye of a loving and merciful Saviour, in whose presence is
+life even here on earth; and at whose right hand, even in this sinful
+world, are pleasures for evermore.
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXI.  THE UNCHANGEABLE CHRIST
+
+
+
+Eversley. 1845.
+
+Hebrews xiii. 8.  "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for
+ever."
+
+Let me first briefly remind you, as the truth upon which my whole
+explanation of this text is built, that man is not meant either for
+solitude or independence.  He is meant to live WITH his fellow-men, to
+live BY them, and to live FOR them.  He is healthy and godly, only when
+he knows all men for his brothers; and himself, in some way or other, as
+the servant of all, and bound in ties of love and duty to every one
+around him.
+
+It is not, however, my intention to dwell upon this truth, deep and
+necessary as it is, but to turn your attention to one of its
+consequences; I mean to the disappointment and regret of which so many
+complain, who try, more or less healthily, to keep that truth before
+them, and shew it forth in their daily life.
+
+It has been, and is now, a common complaint with many who interest
+themselves about their fellow-creatures, and the welfare of the human
+race, that nothing in this world is sure,--nothing is permanent; a
+continual ebb and flow seems to be the only law of human life.  Men
+change, they say; their friendships are fickle; their minds, like their
+bodies, alter from day to day.  The heart whom you trust to-day, to-
+morrow may deceive; the friend for whom you have sacrificed so much, will
+not in his turn endure the trial of his friendship.  The child on whom
+you may have reposed your whole affection for years, grows up and goes
+forth into the world, and forms new ties, and you are left alone.  Why
+then love man?  Why care for any born of woman, if the happiness which
+depends on them is exposed to a thousand chances--a thousand changes?
+Again; we hear the complaint that not only men, but circumstances change.
+Why knit myself, people will ask, to one who to-morrow may be whirled
+away from me by some eddy of circumstances, and so go on his way, while I
+see him no more?  Why relieve distress which fresh accidents may bring
+back again to-morrow, with all its miseries?  Why attach ourselves to a
+home which we may leave to-morrow,--to pursuits which fortune may force
+us to relinquish,--to bright hopes which the rolling clouds may shut out
+from us,--to opinions which the next generation may find to have been
+utterly mistaken,--to a circle of acquaintances who must in a few years
+be lying silent and solitary, each in his grave?  Why, in short, set our
+affections on anything in this earth, or struggle to improve or settle
+aught in a world where all seems so temporary, changeful, and uncertain,
+that "nought doth endure but mutability?"
+
+Such is and has been the complaint, mixed up of truth and falsehood,
+poured out for ages by thousands who have loved (as the world would say)
+"too well"--who have tried to build up for themselves homes in this
+world; forgetting that they were strangers and pilgrims in it; and so,
+when the floods came, and swept away that small fool's paradise of
+theirs, repined, and were astonished, as though some strange thing had
+happened to them.
+
+The time would fail me did I try fully to lay before you how this dread
+and terror of change, and this unsatisfied craving after an eternal home
+and an unchanging friendship embittered the minds of all the more
+thoughtful heathens before the coming of Christ, who, as the apostle
+says, all their lives were in bondage to the fear of death.  How all
+their schemes and conceptions of the course of this world, resolved
+themselves into one dark picture of the terrible river of time, restless,
+pitiless, devouring all life and beauty as fast as it arose, ready to
+overwhelm the speakers themselves also with the coming wave, as it had
+done all they loved before them, and then roll onward for ever, none knew
+whither!  The time would fail me, too, did I try to explain how after He
+had appeared, Who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, men have
+still found the same disappointment in all the paths of life.  Many, not
+seeing that the manifestation of an incarnate God was the answer to all
+such doubts, the healer of all such wounds, have sickened at this same
+change and uncertainty, and attempted self-deliverance by all kinds of
+uncouth and most useless methods.  Some have shielded themselves, or
+tried to shield themselves, in an armour of stoical indifference--of
+utter selfishness, being sure that at all events there was one friendship
+in the world which could neither change nor fade--Self-love.
+
+Others, again, have withdrawn themselves in disgust, not indeed from
+their God and Saviour, but from their fellow-men, and buried themselves
+in deserts, hoping thereby to escape what they despaired of conquering,
+the chances and changes of this mortal life.  Thus they, alas, threw away
+the gold of human affections among the dross of this world's comfort and
+honour.  Wiser they were, indeed, than those last mentioned; but yet shew
+I you a more excellent way.
+
+It is strange, and mournful, too, that this complaint, of unsatisfied
+hopes and longings should still be often heard from Christian lips!
+Strange, indeed, when the object and founder of our religion, the king
+and head of all our race, the God whom we are bound to worship, the
+eldest brother whom we are bound to love, the Saviour who died upon the
+cross for us, is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever!"
+Strange, indeed, when we remember that God was manifest in the flesh,
+that He might save humanity and its hopes from perpetual change and final
+destruction, and satisfy all those cravings after an immutable object of
+man's loyalty and man's love.
+
+Yes, He has given us, in Himself, a king who can never misgovern, a
+teacher who can never mislead, a priest whose sacrifice can never be
+unaccepted, a protector who can never grow weary, a friend who can never
+betray.  And all that this earth has in it really worth loving,--the ties
+of family, of country, of universal brotherhood--the beauties and wonders
+of God's mysterious universe--all true love, all useful labour, all
+innocent enjoyment--the marriage bed, and the fireside circle--the
+bounties of harvest, and the smiles of spring, and all that makes life
+bright and this earth dear--all these things He has restored to man,
+spiritual and holy, deep with new meaning, bright with purer enjoyment,
+rich with usefulness, not merely for time, but for eternity, after they
+had become, through the accumulated sin and folly of ages, foul, dead,
+and well nigh forgotten.  He has united these common duties and pleasures
+of man's life to Himself, by taking them on Himself on earth; by giving
+us His spirit to understand and fulfil those duties; by making it a duty
+to Him to cultivate them to the uttermost.  He has sanctified them for
+ever, by shewing us that they are types and patterns of still higher
+relations to Himself, and to His Father and our Father, from whom they
+came.
+
+Christ our Lord and Saviour is a witness to us of the enduring, the
+everlasting nature of all that human life contains of beauty and
+holiness, and real value.  He is a witness to us that Wisdom is eternal;
+that that all-embracing sight, that all-guiding counsel, which the Lord
+"possessed in the beginning of His way, before His works of old," He who
+"was set up from everlasting," who was with Him when He made the world,
+still exists, and ever shall exist, unchanged.  The word of the Lord
+standeth sure!  That Word which was "in the beginning," and "was with
+God," and "was God!"  Glorious truth! that, amid all the inventions which
+man has sought out, while every new philosopher has been starting some
+new method of happiness, some new theory of human life and its destinies,
+God has still been working onward, unchecked, unaltered, "the same
+yesterday, and to-day, and for ever."  O, sons of men! perplexed by all
+the apparent contradictions and cross purposes and opposing powers and
+principles of this strange, dark, noisy time, remember to your comfort
+that your King, a man like you, yet very God, now sits above, seeing
+through all which you cannot see through; unravelling surely all this
+tangled web of time, while under His guiding eye all things are moving
+silently onward, like the stars in their courses above you, toward their
+appointed end, "when He shall have put down all rule and all authority,
+and power, for He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His
+feet."  And then, at last, this cloudy sky shall be all clear and bright,
+for He, the Lamb, shall be the light thereof.
+
+Christ is the witness to us also of the eternity of Love,--Of God's love-
+-the love of the Father who wills, of Himself who has purchased, of the
+Holy Ghost who works in us our salvation; and of the eternity of all
+love; that true love is not of the flesh, but of the spirit, and
+therefore hath its root in the spiritual world, above all change and
+accidents of time or circumstance.  Think, think, my friends.  For what
+is life that we should make such ado about it, and hug it so closely, and
+look to it to fill our hearts?  What is all earthly life with all its bad
+and good luck, its riches and its poverty, but a vapour that passes
+away?--noise and smoke overclouding the enduring light of heaven.  A man
+may be very happy and blest in this life; yet he may feel that, however
+pleasant it is, at root it is no reality, but only a shadow of realities
+which are eternal and infinite in the bosom of God, a piecemeal pattern,
+of the Light Kingdom--the city not made with hands--eternal in the
+heavens.  For all this time-world, as a wise man says, is but like an
+image, beautifully and fearfully emblematic, but still only an emblem,
+like an air image, which plays and flickers in the grand, still mirror of
+eternity.  Out of nothing, into time and space we all came into noisy
+day; and out of time and space into the silent night shall we all return
+into the spirit world--the everlasting twofold mystery--into the light-
+world of God's love, or the fire-world of His anger--every like unto its
+like, and every man to his own place.
+
+
+"Choose well, your choice is
+Brief but yet endless;
+From Heaven, eyes behold you
+In eternity's stillness.
+There all is fullness,
+Ye brave to reward you;
+Work and despair not."
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXII.  REFORMATION LESSONS
+
+
+
+Eversley. 1861.
+
+2 Kings xxiii. 3, 4, 25, 26.  "And the king stood by a pillar, and made a
+covenant before the Lord, to "walk after the Lord, and to keep his
+commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart
+and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were
+written in this book.  And all the people stood to the covenant.  And the
+king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second
+order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of
+the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and
+for all the host of heaven:  and he burned them without Jerusalem in the
+fields of Kidron, and carried the ashes of them unto Beth-el. . . .  And
+like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with
+all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according
+to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him.
+Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great
+wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the
+provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal."
+
+You heard this chapter read as the first lesson for this afternoon's
+service; and a lesson it is indeed--a lesson for you and for me, as it
+was a lesson for our forefathers.  If you had been worshipping in this
+church three hundred years ago, you would have understood, without my
+telling you, why the good and wise men who shaped our prayer-book chose
+this chapter to be read in church.  You would have applied the words of
+it to the times in which you were living.  You would have felt that the
+chapter spoke to you at once of joy and hope, and of sorrow and fear.
+
+There is no doubt at all what our forefathers would have thought of, and
+did think of, when they read this chapter.  The glorious reformation
+which young King Josiah made was to them the pattern of the equally
+glorious Reformation which was made in England somewhat more than three
+hundred years ago.  Young King Josiah, swearing to govern according to
+the law of the Lord, was to them the pattern of young King Edward VI.
+determining to govern according to the laws of the Bible.  The finding of
+the law of the Lord in Josiah's time, after it had been long lost, was to
+them the pattern of the sudden spread among them of the Bible, which had
+been practically hidden from them for hundreds of years, and was then
+translated into English and printed, and put freely into the hands of
+every man, rich and poor, who was able to read it.  King Josiah's
+destruction of the idols, and the temples of the false gods, and driving
+out the wizards and workers with familiar spirits, were to them a pattern
+of the destruction of the monasteries and miraculous images and popish
+superstitions of every kind, the turning the monks out of their convents,
+and forcing them to set to honest work--which had just taken place
+throughout England.  And the hearts of all true Englishmen were stirred
+up in those days to copy Josiah and the people of Jerusalem, and turn to
+the Lord with all their heart, and with all their soul, and with all
+their might, according to God's law and gospel, in the two Testaments,
+both Old and New.
+
+One would have thought that at such a time the hearts of our forefathers
+would be full of nothing but hope and joy, content and thankfulness.  And
+yet it was not so.  One cannot help seeing that in the prayer-book, which
+was put together in those days, there is a great deal of fear and
+sadness.  You see it especially in the Litany, which was to be said not
+only on Sundays, but on Wednesdays and Fridays also.  Some people think
+the Litany painfully sad--too sad.  It was not too sad for the time in
+which it was written.  Our forefathers, three hundred years ago, meant
+what they said when they cried to God to have mercy upon them, miserable
+sinners, and not to remember their offences nor the offences of their
+forefathers, &c.  They meant, and had good reason to mean, what they
+said, when they cried to God that those evils which the craft and
+subtilty of the devil and men were working against them might be brought
+to nought, and by the providence of His goodness be dispersed--to arise
+and help and deliver them for His name's sake and for His honour; and to
+turn from them, for the glory of His name, all those evils which they
+righteously had deserved.  They were in danger and in terror, our
+forefathers, three hundred years ago.  And when they heard this lesson
+read in church, it was not likely to make their terror less.
+
+For what says the 26th verse of this chapter?  "Notwithstanding," in
+spite of all this reformation, and putting away of idols and determining
+to walk according to the law of the Lord, "the Lord turned not from the
+fierceness of His great wrath, wherewith His anger was kindled against
+Judah."  And what followed?  Josiah was killed in battle--by his own
+fault too--by Pharaoh Nechoh, King of Egypt.  And then followed nothing
+but disaster and misery.  The Jews were conquered first by the King of
+Egypt, and taxed to pay to him an enormous tribute; and then, in the wars
+between Egypt and Babylon, conquered a second time by the King of
+Babylon, the famous Nebuchadnezzar, in that dreadful siege in which it is
+said mothers ate their own children through extremity of famine.  And
+then after seventy years, after every one of that idolatrous and corrupt
+generation had died in captivity, the poor Jews were allowed to go back
+to their native land, chastened and purged in the fire of affliction, and
+having learnt a lesson which, to do them justice, they never forgot
+again, and have not forgotten to this day; that to worship a graven
+image, as well as to work unrighteousness, is abomination to the Lord--
+that God, and God alone, is to be worshipped, and worshipped in holiness
+and purity, in mercy and in justice.
+
+And it was some such fate as this, some terrible ruin like that of the
+Jews of old, that our forefathers feared three hundred years ago.  Their
+hearts were not yet altogether right with God.  They had not shaken off
+the bad habits of mind, or the bad morals either, which they had learnt
+in the old Romish times--too many of them were using their liberty as a
+cloak of licentiousness; and, under pretence of religion, plundering not
+only God's Church, but God's poor.  And many other evils were rife in
+England then, as there are sure to be great evils side by side with great
+good in any country in times of change and revolution.  And so our
+forefathers needed chastisement, and they had it.  King Edward, upon whom
+the Protestants had set their hopes, died young; and then came times
+which tried them literally as by fire.  First came the terrible
+persecutions in Queen Mary's time, when hundreds of good men and women
+were burnt alive for their religion.  And even after her death, for
+thirty years, came times, such as Hezekiah speaks of--times of trouble
+and rebuke and blasphemy, plots, rebellions, civil war, at home and
+abroad; dangers that grew ever more and more terrible, till it seemed at
+last certain that England would be conquered, in the Pope's name, by the
+King of Spain:  and if that had come to pass (and it all but came to pass
+in the famous year 1588), the King of Spain would have become King of
+England; the best blood of England would have been shed upon the
+scaffold; the best estates parted among Spaniards and traitors; England
+enslaved to the most cruel nation of those times; and the Inquisition set
+up to persecute, torture, and burn all who believed in what they called,
+and what is, the gospel of Jesus Christ.  That was to have happened, and
+it was only, as our forefathers confessed, by the infinite mercy of God
+that it did not happen.  They were delivered strangely and suddenly, as
+the Jews were.  For forty years they had been, chastised, and purged and
+humbled for their sins; and then, and not till then, came times of safety
+and prosperity, honour and glory, which have lasted, thanks be to God,
+ever since.
+
+
+And now, my dear friends, what has this to do with us?  If this chapter
+was a lesson to our forefathers, how is it to be a lesson to us likewise?
+
+I have always told you (as those who have really understood their Bibles
+in all ages have told men) that the Bible sets forth the eternal laws of
+God's kingdom--the laws by which God, that is, our Lord Jesus Christ,
+governs nations and kingdoms--and not only nations and kingdoms, but you
+and me, and every individual Christian man; "all these things," says St
+Paul, are "written for our admonition."  The history of the Jews is, or
+may be, your history or mine, for good or for evil; as God dealt with
+them, so is He dealing with you and me.  By their experience we must
+learn.  By their chastisements we must be warned.  So says St Paul.  So
+have all preachers said who have understood St Paul--and so say I to you.
+And the lesson that we may learn from this chapter is, that we may repent
+and yet be punished.
+
+I know people do not like to believe that; I know that it is much more
+convenient to fancy that when a man repents, and, as he says, turns over
+a new leaf, he need trouble himself no more about his past sins.  But it
+is a mistake; not only is the letter and spirit of Scripture against him,
+but facts are against him.  He may not choose to trouble himself about
+his past sins; but he will find that his past sins trouble him, whether
+he chooses or not,--and that often in a very terrible way, as they
+troubled those poor Jews in their day, and our forefathers after the
+Reformation.
+
+"What?" some will say, "is it not expressly written in Scripture that
+'when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath
+committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his
+soul alive?' and 'all his transgressions that he hath committed they
+shall not be mentioned unto him,' but that 'in his righteousness which he
+hath done he shall live?'"
+
+No doubt it is so written, my friends.  And no doubt it is perfectly and
+literally true:  but answer me this, when does the wicked man do that
+which is lawful and right?  The minute after he has repented? or the day
+after? or even seven years after?--the minute after he is forgiven, and
+received freely back again as God's child, as he will be, for the sake of
+that precious blood which Christ poured out upon the cross?  Would to God
+it were so, my friends.  Would to God it were so easy to do right, after
+having been accustomed to do wrong.  Would to God it were so easy to get
+a clean heart and a right spirit.  Would to God it were so easy to break
+through all the old bad habits--perhaps the habits of a whole life-time.
+But it is in vain to expect this sudden change of character.  As well may
+we expect a man, who has been laid low with fever, to get up and go about
+to his work the moment his disease takes a favourable turn.
+
+No.  After the forgiveness of sin must come the cure of sin.  And that
+cure, like most cures, is a long and a painful process.  The sin may have
+been some animal sin, like drunkenness; and we all know how difficult it
+is to cure that.  Or it may have been a spiritual sin--pride, vanity,
+covetousness.  Can any man put off these bad habits in a moment, as he
+puts off his coat?  Those who so fancy, can know very little of human
+nature, and have observed their own hearts and their fellow creatures
+very carelessly.  If you will look at facts, what you will find is this:-
+-that all sins and bad habits fill the soul with evil humours, just as a
+fever or any other severe disease fills the body; and that, as in the
+case of a fever, those evil humours remain after the acute disease is
+past, and are but too apt to break out again, to cause relapses, to
+torment the poor patient, perhaps to leave his character crippled and
+disfigured all his life--certainly to require long and often severe
+treatment by the heavenly physician, Christ, the purifier as well as the
+redeemer of our sin-sick souls.  Heavy, therefore, and bitter and
+shameful is the burden which many a man has to bear after he has turned
+from self to God, from sin to holiness.  He is haunted, as it were, by
+the ghosts of his old follies.  He finds out the bitter truth of St
+Paul's words, that there is another law in his body warring against the
+law of his mind, of his conscience, and his reason; so that when he would
+do good, evil is present with him.  The good that he would do he does not
+do; and the evil that he would not do he does.  Till he cries with St
+Paul, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of
+this death?" and feels that none can deliver him, save Jesus Christ our
+Lord.
+
+Yes.  But there is our comfort, there is our hope--Christ, the great
+healer, the great physician, can deliver us, and will deliver us from the
+remains of our old sins, the consequences of our own follies.  Not,
+indeed, at once, or by miracle; but by slow education in new and nobler
+motives, in purer and more unselfish habits.  And better for us, perhaps,
+that He should not cure us at once, lest we should fancy that sin was a
+light thing, which we could throw off whenever we chose; and not what it
+is, an inward disease, corroding and corrupting, the wages whereof are
+death.  Therefore it is, that because Christ loves us He hates our sins,
+and cannot abide or endure them, will punish them, and is merciful and
+loving in punishing them, as long as a tincture or remnant of sin is left
+in us.
+
+Let us then, if our consciences condemn us of living evil lives, turn and
+repent before it be too late; before our consciences are hardened; before
+the purer and nobler feelings which we learnt at our mothers' knees are
+stifled by the ways of the world; before we are hardened into bad habits,
+and grown frivolous, sensual, selfish and worldly.  Let us repent.  Let
+us put ourselves into the hands of Christ, the great physician, and ask
+Him to heal our wounded souls, and purge our corrupted souls; and leave
+to Him the choice of how He will do it.  Let us be content to be punished
+and chastised.  If we deserve punishment, let us bear it, and bear it
+like men; as we should bear the surgeon's knife, knowing that it is for
+our good, and that the hand which inflicts pain is the hand of one who so
+loves us, that He stooped to die for us on the cross.  Let Him deal with
+us, if He see fit, as He dealt with David of old, when He forgave his
+sin, and yet punished it by the death of his child.  Let Him do what He
+will by us, provided He does--what He will do--make us good men.
+
+That is what we need to be--just, merciful, pure, faithful, loyal,
+useful, honourable with true honour, in the sight of God and man.  That
+is what we need to be.  That is what we shall be at last, if we put
+ourselves into Christ's hand, and ask Him for the clean heart and the
+right spirit, which is His own spirit, the spirit of all goodness.  And
+provided we attain, at last, to that--provided we attain, at last, to the
+truly heroic and divine life, which is the life of virtue, it will matter
+little to us by what wild and weary ways, or through what painful and
+humiliating processes, we have arrived thither.  If God has loved us, if
+God will receive us, then let us submit loyally and humbly to His law.
+
+"Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He
+receiveth."
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXIII.  HUMAN SOOT
+
+
+
+Preached for the Kirkdale Ragged Schools, Liverpool, 1870.
+
+St Matt, xviii. 14.  "It is not the will of your Father which is in
+heaven, that one of these little ones should perish."
+
+I am here to plead for the Kirkdale Industrial Ragged School, and Free
+School-room Church.  The great majority of children who attend this
+school belong to the class of "street arabs," as they are now called; and
+either already belong to, or are likely to sink into, the dangerous
+classes--professional law-breakers, profligates, and barbarians.  How
+these children have been fed, civilized, christianized, taught trades and
+domestic employments, and saved from ruin of body and soul, I leave to
+you to read in the report.  Let us take hold of these little ones at
+once.  They are now soft, plastic, mouldable; a tone will stir their
+young souls to the very depths, a look will affect them for ever.  But a
+hardening process has commenced within them, and if they are not seized
+at once, they will become harder than adamant; and then scalding tears,
+and the most earnest trials, will be all but useless.
+
+This report contains full and pleasant proof of the success of the
+schools; but it contains also full proof of a fact which is anything but
+pleasant--of the existence in Liverpool of a need for such an
+institution.  How is it that when a ragged school like this is opened, it
+is filled at once:  that it is enlarged year after year, and yet is
+filled and filled again?  Whence comes this large population of children
+who are needy, if not destitute; and who are, or are in a fair way to
+become, dangerous?  And whence comes the population of parents whom these
+children represent?  How is it that in Liverpool, if I am rightly
+informed, more than four hundred and fifty children were committed by the
+magistrates last year for various offences; almost every one of whom, of
+course, represents several more, brothers, sisters, companions, corrupted
+by him, or corrupting him.  You have your reformatories, your training
+ships, like your Akbar, which I visited with deep satisfaction yesterday-
+-institutions which are an honour to the town of Liverpool, at least to
+many of its citizens.  But how is it that they are ever needed?  How is
+it--and this, if correct, or only half correct, is a fact altogether
+horrible--that there are now between ten and twelve thousand children in
+Liverpool who attend no school--twelve thousand children in ignorance of
+their duty to God and man, in training for that dangerous class, which
+you have, it seems, contrived to create in this once small and quiet port
+during a century of wonderful prosperity.  And consider this, I beseech
+you--how is it that the experiment of giving these children a fair
+chance, when it is tried (as it has been in these schools) has succeeded?
+I do not wonder, of course, that it has succeeded, for I know Who made
+these children, and Who redeemed them, and Who cares for them more than
+you or I, or their best friends, can care for them.  But do you not see
+that the very fact of their having improved, when they had a fair chance,
+is proof positive that they had not had a fair chance before?  How is
+that, my friends?
+
+And this leads me to ask you plainly--what do you consider to be your
+duty toward those children; what is your duty toward those dangerous and
+degraded classes, from which too many of them spring?  You all know the
+parable of the Good Samaritan.  You all know how he found the poor
+wounded Jew by the wayside; and for the mere sake of their common
+humanity, simply because he was a man, though he would have scornfully
+disclaimed the name of brother, bound up his wounds, set him on his own
+beast, led him to an inn, and took care of him.
+
+Is yours the duty which the good Samaritan felt?--the duty of mere
+humanity?  How is it your duty to deal, then, with these poor children?
+That, and I think a little more.  Let me say boldly, I think these
+children have a deeper and a nearer claim on you; and that you must not
+pride yourselves, here in Liverpool, on acting the good Samaritan, when
+you help a ragged school.  We do not read that the good Samaritan was a
+merchant, on his march, at the head of his own caravan.  We do not read
+that the wounded man was one of his own servants, or a child of one of
+his servants, who had been left behind, unable from weakness or weariness
+to keep pace with the rest, and had dropped by the wayside, till the
+vultures and the jackals should pick his bones.  Neither do we read that
+he was a general, at the head of an advancing army, and that the poor
+sufferer was one of his own rank and file, crippled by wounds or by
+disease, watching, as many a poor soldier does, his comrades march past
+to victory, while he is left alone to die.  Still less do we hear that
+the sufferer was the child of some poor soldier's wife, or even of some
+drunken camp-follower, who had lost her place on the baggage-waggon, and
+trudged on with the child at her back, through dust and mire, till, in
+despair, she dropped her little one, and left it to the mercies of the
+God who gave it her.
+
+In either case, that good Samaritan would have known what his duty was.
+I trust that you will know, in like case, what your duty is.  For is not
+this, and none other, your relation to these children in your streets,
+ragged, dirty, profligate, sinking and perishing, of whom our Lord has
+said--"It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven that one of
+these little ones should perish?"  It is not His will.  I am sure that it
+is not your will either.  I believe that, with all my heart.  I do not
+blame you, or the people of Liverpool, nor the people of any city on
+earth, in our present imperfect state of civilisation, for the existence
+among them of brutal, ignorant, degraded, helpless people.  It is no
+one's fault, just because it is every one's fault--the fault of the
+system.  But it is not the will of God; and therefore the existence of
+such an evil is proof patent and sufficient that we have not yet
+discovered the whole will of God about this matter; that we have not yet
+mastered the laws of true political economy, which (like all other
+natural laws) are that will of God revealed in facts.  Our processes are
+hasty, imperfect, barbaric--and their result is vast and rapid
+production:  but also waste, refuse, in the shape of a dangerous class.
+We know well how, in some manufactures, a certain amount of waste is
+profitable--that it pays better to let certain substances run to refuse,
+than to use every product of the manufacture; as in a steam mill, where
+it pays better not to consume the whole fuel, to let the soot escape,
+though every atom of soot is so much wasted fuel.  So it is in our
+present social system.  It pays better, capital is accumulated more
+rapidly, by wasting a certain amount of human life, human health, human
+intellect, human morals, by producing and throwing away a regular
+percentage of human soot--of that thinking, acting dirt, which lies
+about, and, alas! breeds and perpetuates itself in foul alleys and low
+public houses, and all dens and dark places of the earth.
+
+But, as in the case of the manufactures, the Nemesis comes, swift and
+sure.  As the foul vapours of the mine and the manufactory destroy
+vegetation and injure health, so does the Nemesis fall on the world of
+man; so does that human soot, these human poison gases, infect the whole
+society which has allowed them to fester under its feet.
+
+Sad, but not hopeless!  Dark, but not without a gleam of light on the
+horizon!  For I can conceive a time when, by improved chemical science,
+every foul vapour which now escapes from the chimney of a manufactory,
+polluting the air, destroying the vegetation, shall be seized, utilised,
+converted into some profitable substance; till the black country shall be
+black no longer, the streams once more crystal clear, the trees once more
+luxuriant, and the desert which man has created in his haste and greed
+shall, in literal fact, once more blossom as the rose.  And just so can I
+conceive a time when, by a higher civilisation, formed on a political
+economy more truly scientific, because more truly according to the will
+of God, our human refuse shall be utilised, like our material refuse,
+when man, as man, even down to the weakest and most ignorant, shall be
+found to be (as he really is) so valuable, that it will be worth while to
+preserve his health, to develop his capabilities, to save him alive,
+body, intellect, and character, at any cost; because men will see that a
+man is, after all, the most precious and useful thing on the earth, and
+that no cost spent on the development of human beings can possibly be
+thrown away.
+
+I appeal, then, to you, the commercial men of Liverpool, if there are any
+such in this congregation.  If not, I appeal to their wives and
+daughters, who are kept in wealth, luxury, refinement, by the honourable
+labours of their husbands, fathers, brothers, on behalf of this human
+soot.  Merchants are (and I believe that they deserve to be) the leaders
+of the great caravan, which goes forth to replenish the earth and subdue
+it.  They are among the generals of the great army which wages war
+against the brute powers of nature all over the world, to ward off
+poverty and starvation from the ever-teeming millions of mankind.  Have
+they no time--I take for granted that they have the heart--to pick up the
+footsore and weary, who have fallen out of the march, that they may
+rejoin the caravan, and be of use once more?  Have they no time--I am
+sure they have the heart--to tend the wounded and the fever-stricken,
+that they may rise and fight once more?  If not, then must not the pace
+of their march be somewhat too rapid, the plan of their campaign somewhat
+precipitate and ill-directed, their ambulance train and their medical
+arrangements somewhat defective?  We are all ready enough to complain of
+waste of human bodies, brought about by such defects in the British army.
+Shall we pass over the waste, the hereditary waste of human souls,
+brought about by similar defects in every great city in the world?
+
+Waste of human souls, human intellects, human characters--waste, saddest
+of all, of the image of God in little children.  That cannot be
+necessary.  There must be a fault somewhere.  It cannot be the will of
+God that one little one should perish by commerce, or by manufacture, any
+more than by slavery, or by war.
+
+As surely as I believe that there is a God, so surely do I believe that
+commerce is the ordinance of God; that the great army of producers and
+distributors is God's army.  But for that very reason I must believe that
+the production of human refuse, the waste of human character, is not part
+of God's plan; not according to His ideal of what our social state should
+be; and therefore what our social state can be.  For God asks no
+impossibilities of any human being.
+
+But as things are, one has only to go into the streets of this, or any
+great city, to see how we, with all our boasted civilisation, are, as
+yet, but one step removed from barbarism.  Is that a hard word?  Why,
+there are the barbarians around us at every street corner!  Grown
+barbarians--it may be now all but past saving--but bringing into the
+world young barbarians, whom we may yet save, for God wishes us to save
+them.  It is not the will of their Father which is in heaven that one of
+them should perish.  And for that very reason He has given them
+capabilities, powers, instincts, by virtue of which they need not perish.
+Do not deceive yourselves about the little dirty, offensive children in
+the street.  If they be offensive to you, they are not to Him who made
+them.  "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say
+unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my
+Father which is in heaven."  Is there not in every one of them, as in
+you, the Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world?  And
+know you not Who that Light is, and what He said of little children?
+Then, take heed, I say, lest you despise one of these little ones.
+Listen not to the Pharisee when he says, Except the little child be
+converted, and become as I am, he shall in nowise enter into the kingdom
+of heaven.  But listen to the voice of Him who knew what was in man, when
+He said, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall
+not enter into the kingdom of heaven."  Their souls are like their
+bodies, not perfect, but beautiful enough, and fresh enough, to shame any
+one who shall dare to look down on them.  Their souls are like their
+bodies, hidden by the rags, foul with the dirt of what we miscall
+civilisation.  But take them to the pure stream, strip off the ugly,
+shapeless rags, wash the young limbs again, and you shall find them, body
+and soul, fresh and lithe, graceful and capable--capable of how much, God
+alone who made them knows.  Well said of such, the great Christian poet
+of your northern hills--
+
+
+"Not in entire forgetfulness,
+And not in utter nakedness,
+But trailing clouds of glory do we come
+From God, who is our home."
+
+
+Truly, and too truly, alas! he goes on to say--
+
+
+"Shades of the prison-house begin to close
+Upon the growing boy."
+
+
+Will you let the shades of that prison-house of mortality be peopled with
+little save obscene phantoms?  Truly, and too truly, he goes on--
+
+
+"The youth, who daily further from the east
+Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
+And by the vision splendid,
+Is on his way attended."
+
+
+Will you leave the youth to know nature only in the sense in which an ape
+or a swine knows it; and to conceive of no more splendid vision than that
+which he may behold at a penny theatre?  Truly again, and too truly, he
+goes on--
+
+
+"At length the man perceives it die away,
+And fade into the light of common day."
+
+
+Yes, to weak, mortal man the prosaic age of manhood must needs come, for
+good as well as for evil.  But will you let that age be--to any of your
+fellow citizens--not even an age of rational prose, but an age of brutal
+recklessness; while the light of common day, for him, has sunk into the
+darkness of a common sewer?
+
+And all the while it was not the will of their Father in heaven that one
+of these little ones should perish.  Is it your will, my friends; or is
+it not?  If it be not, the means of saving them, or at least the great
+majority of them, is easier than you think.  Circumstances drag downward
+from childhood, poor, weak, fallen, human nature.  Circumstances must
+help it upward again once more.  Do your best to surround the wild
+children of Liverpool with such circumstances as you put round your own
+children.  Deal with them as you wish God to deal with your beloved.
+Remember that, as the wise man says, the human plant, like the vegetable,
+thrives best in light; and you will discover, by the irresistible logic
+of facts, by the success of your own endeavours, by seeing these young
+souls grow, and not wither, live, and not die--that it is not the will of
+your Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should
+perish.
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXIV.  NATIONAL SORROWS AND NATIONAL LESSONS
+
+
+
+On the illness or the Prince of Wales.
+
+Chapel Royal, St James's, December 17th, 1871.
+
+2 Sam. xix. 14.  "He bowed the heart of all the men of Judah, even as the
+heart of one man."
+
+No circumstances can be more different, thank God, than those under which
+the heart of the men of Judah was bowed when their king commander
+appealed to them, and those which have, in the last few days, bowed the
+heart of this nation as the heart of one man.  But the feeling called out
+in each case was the same--Loyalty, spontaneous, contagious, some would
+say unreasoning:  but it may be all the deeper and nobler, because for
+once it did not wait to reason, but was content to be human, and to feel.
+
+If those men who have been so heartily loyal of late--respectable,
+business-like, manful persons, of a race in nowise given to sentimental
+excitement--had been asked the cause of the intense feeling which they
+have shown during the last few days, they would probably, most of them,
+find some difficulty in giving it.  Many would talk frankly of their
+dread lest business should be interfered with; and no shame to them, if
+they live by business.  Others would speak of possible political
+complications; and certainly no blame to them for dreading such.  But
+they would most of them speak, as frankly, of a deeper and less selfish
+emotion.  They would speak, not eloquently it may be, but earnestly, of
+sympathy with a mother and a wife; of sympathy with youth and health
+fighting untimely with disease and death--they would plead their common
+humanity, and not be ashamed to have yielded to that touch of nature,
+which makes the whole world kin.  And that would be altogether to their
+honour.  Honourably and gracefully has that sympathy showed itself in
+these realms of late.  It has proved that in spite of all our
+covetousness, all our luxury, all our frivolity, we are not cynics yet,
+nor likely, thanks be to Almighty God, to become cynics; that however
+encrusted and cankered with the cares and riches of this world, and
+bringing, alas, very little fruit to perfection, the old British oak is
+sound at the root--still human, still humane.
+
+But there is, I believe, another and an almost deeper reason for the
+strong emotion which has possessed these men; one most intimately bound
+up with our national life, national unity, national history; one which
+they can hardly express to themselves; one which some of them are half
+ashamed to express, because they cannot render a reason for it; but which
+is still there, deeply rooted in their souls; one of those old hereditary
+instincts by which the histories of whole nations, whole races, are
+guided, often half-unconsciously, and almost in spite of themselves; and
+that is Loyalty, pure and simple Loyalty--the attachment to some royal
+race, whom they conceived to be set over them by God.  An attachment,
+mark it well, founded not on their own will, but on grounds very complex,
+and quite independent of them; an attachment which they did not make, but
+found; an attachment which their forefathers had transmitted to them, and
+which they must transmit to their children as a national inheritance,--at
+once a symbol of and a support to the national unity of the whole people,
+running back to the time when, in dim and mythic ages, it emerged into
+the light of history as a wandering tribe.  This instinct, as a historic
+fact, has been strong in all the progressive European nations; especially
+strong in the Teutonic; in none more than in the English and the Scotch.
+It has helped to put them in the forefront of the nations.  It has been a
+rallying point for all their highest national instincts.  Their Sovereign
+was to them the divinely appointed symbol of the unity of their country.
+In defending him, they defended it.  It did not interfere, that instinct
+of loyalty, with their mature manhood, freedom, independence.  They knew
+that if royalty were indeed God's ordinance, it had its duties as well as
+its rights.  And when their kings broke the law, they changed their
+kings.  But a king they must have, for their own sakes; not merely for
+the sake of the nation's security and peace, but for the sake of their
+own self-respect.  They felt, those old forefathers of ours, that loyalty
+was not a degrading, but an ennobling influence; that a free man can give
+up his independence without losing it; that--as the example of that
+mighty German army has just shown an astounded world--independence is
+never more called out than by subordination; and that a free man never
+feels himself so free as when obeying those whom the laws of his country
+have set over him; an able man never feels himself so able as when he is
+following the lead of an abler man than himself.  And what if, as needs
+must happen at whiles, the sovereign were not a man, but a woman or a
+child?  Then was added to loyalty in the hearts of our forefathers, and
+of many another nation in Europe, an instinct even deeper, and tenderer,
+and more unselfish--the instinct of chivalry; and the widowed queen, or
+the prince, became to them a precious jewel committed to their charge by
+the will of their forefathers and the providence of God; an heirloom for
+which they were responsible to God, and to their forefathers, and to
+their children after them, lest their names should be stained to all
+future generations by the crime of baseness toward the weak.
+
+This was the instinct of the old Teutonic races.  They were often
+unfaithful to it--as all men are to their higher instincts; and fulfilled
+it very imperfectly--as all men fulfil their duties.  But it was there--
+in their heart of hearts.  It helped to make them; and, therefore, it
+helped to make us.  It ennobled them; it called out in them the sense of
+unity, order, discipline, and a lofty and unselfish affection.  And I
+thank God, as an Englishman, for any event, however exquisitely painful,
+which may call out those true graces in us, their descendants.  And,
+therefore, my good friends, if any cynic shall sneer, as he may, after
+the present danger is past, at this sudden outburst of loyalty, and speak
+of it as unreasoning and childish, answer not him.  "Give not that which
+is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest
+they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you."  But
+answer yourselves, and answer too your children, when they ask you what
+has moved you thus--answer, I say, not childishly, but childlike:  "We
+have gone back, for a moment at least, to England's childhood--to the
+mood of England when she was still young.  And we are showing thereby
+that we are not yet decayed into old age.  That if we be men, and not
+still children, yet the child is father to the man; and the child's heart
+still beats underneath all the sins and all the cares and all the greeds
+of our manhood."
+
+More than one foreign nation is looking on in wonder and in envy at that
+sight.  God grant that they may understand all that it means.  God grant
+that they may understand of how wide and deep an application is the great
+law, "Except ye be converted," changed, and turned round utterly, "and
+become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of
+heaven."  God grant that they may recover the childlike heart, and
+replace with it that childish heart which pulls to pieces at its own
+irreverent fancy the most ancient and sacred institutions, to build up
+ever fresh baby-houses out of the fragments, as a child does with its
+broken toys.
+
+Therefore, my friends, be not ashamed to have felt acutely.  Be not
+ashamed to feel acutely still, till all danger is past, or even long
+after all danger is past; when you look back on what might have been, and
+what it might have brought, ay, must have brought, if not to you, still
+to your children after you.  For so you will show yourselves worthy
+descendants of your forefathers:  so you will show yourselves worthy
+citizens of this British empire.  So you will show yourselves, as I
+believe, worthy Christian men and women.  For Christ, the King of kings
+and subjects, sends all sorrow, to make us feel acutely.  We do not, the
+great majority of us, feel enough.  Our hearts are dull and hard and
+light, God forgive us; and we forget continually what an earnest, awful
+world we live in--a whole eternity waiting for us to be born, and a whole
+eternity waiting to see what we shall do now we are born.  Yes; our
+hearts are dull and hard and light; and, therefore, Christ sends
+suffering on us to teach us what we always gladly forget in comfort and
+prosperity--what an awful capacity of suffering we have; and more, what
+an awful capacity of suffering our fellow-creatures have likewise.  We
+sit at ease too often in a fool's paradise, till God awakens us and
+tortures us into pity for the torture of others.  And so, if we will not
+acknowledge our brotherhood by any other teaching, He knits us together
+by the brotherhood of common suffering.
+
+But if God thus sends sorrow to ennoble us, to call out in us pity,
+sympathy, unselfishness, most surely does He send for that end such a
+sorrow as this, which touches in all alike every source of pity, of
+sympathy, of unselfishness at once.  Surely He meant to bow our hearts as
+the heart of one man; and He has, I trust and hope, done that which He
+meant to do.  God grant that the effect may be permanent.  God grant that
+it may call out in us all an abiding loyalty.  God grant that it may fill
+us with some of that charity which bears all things, hopes all things,
+believes all things, which rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the
+truth; and make us thrust aside henceforth, in dignified disgust, the
+cynic and the slanderer, the ribald and the rebel.
+
+But more.  God grant that the very sight of the calamity with which we
+have stood face to face, may call out in us some valiant practical
+resolve, which may benefit this whole nation, and bow all hearts as the
+heart of one man, to do some one right thing.  And what right thing?
+What but the thing which is pointed to by plain and terrible fact, as the
+lesson which God must mean us to learn, if He means us to learn any, from
+what has so nearly befallen?  Let our hearts be bowed as the heart of one
+man, to say--that so far as we have power, so help us God, no man, woman,
+or child in Britain, be he prince or be he beggar, shall die henceforth
+of preventable disease.  Let us repent of and amend that scandalous
+neglect of the now well-known laws of health and cleanliness which
+destroys thousands of lives yearly in this kingdom, without need and
+reason; in defiance alike of science, of humanity, and of our Christian
+profession.  Two hundred thousand persons, I am told, have died of
+preventable fever since the Prince Consort's death ten years ago.  Is
+that not a sin to bow our hearts as the heart of one man?  Ah, if this
+foul and needless disease, by striking once at the very highest, shall
+bring home to us the often told, seldom heeded fact that it is striking
+perpetually at hundreds among the very lowest, whom we leave to sicken
+and die in dens unfit for men--unfit for dogs; if this tragedy shall
+awaken all loyal citizens to demand and to enforce, as a duty to their
+sovereign, their country, and their God, a sanatory reform in town and
+country, immediate, wholesale, imperative; if it shall awaken the
+ministers of religion to preach about that, and hardly aught but that--
+till there is not a fever ally or a malarious ditch left in any British
+city;--then indeed this fair and precious life will not have been
+imperilled in vain, and generations yet unborn will bless the memory of a
+prince who sickened as poor men sicken, and all but died, as poor men
+die, that his example--and, it may be hereafter, his exertions--might
+deliver the poor from dirt, disease, and death.
+
+For him himself I have no fear.  We have committed him to God.  It may be
+that he has committed himself to God.  It may be that he has already
+learned lessons which God alone can teach.  It may be that those lessons
+will bring forth hereafter royal fruit right worthy of a royal root.  At
+least we can trust him in God's hands, and believe that if this great woe
+was meant to ennoble us it was meant to ennoble him; that if it was meant
+to educate us it was meant to educate him; that God is teaching him; and
+that in God's school-house he is safe.  For think, my friends, if we, who
+know him partly, love him much; then God, who knows him wholly, loves him
+more.  And so God be with him, and with you, and with your prayers for
+him.  Amen.
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXV.  GRACE AND GLORY
+
+
+
+Chapel Royal, Whitehall. 1865.  For the consumptive hospital.
+
+St John ii. 11.  "This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of
+Galilee, and manifested forth his glory."
+
+This word glory, whether in its Greek or its Roman shape, had a very
+definite meaning in the days of the Apostles.  It meant the admiration of
+men.  The Greek word, as every scholar knows, is derived from a root
+signifying to seem, and expresses that which a man seems, and appears to
+his fellow men.  The Latin word glory is expressly defined by Cicero to
+mean the love, trust, and admiration of the multitude; and a consequent
+opinion that the man is worthy of honour.  Glory, in fact, is a relative
+word, and can be only used of any being in relation to other rational
+beings, and their opinion of him.
+
+The glory of God, therefore, in Scripture, must needs mean that
+admiration which men feel, or ought to feel for God.  There is a deeper,
+an altogether abysmal meaning for that word:  "And now, O Father, glorify
+thou me with thy own self, with the glory which I had with thee before
+the world was."  But on that text, speaking of the majesty of the ever-
+blessed Trinity, I dare not attempt to comment; though, could I explain
+it, I should.  When St. John says that Christ manifested forth His glory,
+and His disciples believed on Him, it is plain that He means by His glory
+that which produced admiration and satisfaction, not alone in the mind of
+God the Father, but in the minds of men.
+
+Now, what the Romans thought glorious in their days is notorious enough.
+No one can look upon the picture of a Roman triumph without seeing that
+their idea of glory was force, power, brute force, self-willed dominion,
+selfish aggrandizement.  But this was not the glory which St. John saw in
+Christ, for His glory was full of grace, which is incompatible with self-
+will and selfishness.
+
+The Greek's meaning of glory is equally notorious.  He called it wisdom.
+We call it craft--the glory of the sophist, who could prove or disprove
+anything for gain or display; the glory of the successful adventurer,
+whose shrewdness made its market out of the stupidity and vice of the
+barbarian.  But this is not the glory of Christ, for St. John saw that it
+was full of truth.
+
+Therefore, neither strength nor craft are the glory of Christ; and,
+therefore, they are not the glory of God.  For the glory of Christ is the
+glory of God, and none other, because He is very God, of very God
+begotten.  In Christ, man sees the unseen, and absolute, and eternal God
+as He is, was, and ever will be.  "No man hath seen God at any time; the
+only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared
+Him:"--and that perfectly and utterly; for in Him dwells all the fulness
+of the Godhead bodily, so that He Himself could say, "He that hath seen
+me hath seen the Father."  This is the Catholic Faith.  God grant that I
+may believe it with my whole heart.  God grant that you may believe it
+with your whole hearts likewise, and not merely with your intellects and
+brains.
+
+But, it may be said, though God be not glorious and admirable for selfish
+force, which it were blasphemous to attribute to Him, He is still
+admirable for His power.  Though He be not glorious for craft, He is
+still glorious for His wisdom.  I deny both.  I deny that power is any
+object of admiration, unless it be used well for good ends.  To admire
+power for its own sake is one of those errors, which has been well called
+Titanolatry, the worship of giants.  Neither is wisdom an object of
+admiration, unless it be used for good ends.  To worship it for its own
+sake is a common error enough--the idolatry of Intellect.  But it is none
+the less an error, and a grievous one.  God's power and wisdom are
+glorious only in as far as they are used (as they are utterly) for good
+ends; only, in plain words, as far as God is (as He is perfectly) good.
+And the true glory of God is that God is good.  So says the Scripture;
+and so I bid you all remember, for it is a truth which you and I and all
+mankind are perpetually ready to forget.
+
+Let me but ask you one question as a test whether or not I am right.  If
+the Supreme Being used His power, as the Roman Caesar used his; if He
+used His wisdom as the Greek sophist used his, would He be glorious then
+and worthy of admiration?  The old heathen AEschylus answered that
+question for mankind long ago on the Athenian stage.  I should be ashamed
+to answer it again in a Christian pulpit.  And when I say GOOD, I mean
+good, even as man can be, and ought to be, and is, more or less, good.
+The theory that because God's morality is absolute, it may, therefore, be
+different from man's morality, in KIND as well as in DEGREE, is equally
+contrary to the letter and to the spirit of Scripture.  Man, according to
+Scripture, is made in God's moral image and likeness, and however fallen
+and degraded that image may be, still the ultimate standard of right and
+wrong is the same in God and in man.  How else dare Abraham ask of God,
+"Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"  How else has God's
+command to the old Jews any meaning, "Be ye holy, for I am holy?"  How
+else have all the passages in the Psalms, Prophets, Evangelists,
+Apostles, which speak of God's justice, mercy, faithfulness, any honest
+or practical meaning to human beings?  How else can they be aught but a
+mockery, a delusion, and a snare to the tens of thousands who have found
+in them hope and trust, that God would deliver them and the world from
+evil?  What means the command to be perfect as our Father in heaven is
+perfect?  What mean the words that we partake of a divine nature?  How
+else is the command to love God anything but an arbitrary and impossible
+demand,--demanding love, which every writer of fiction tells you, and
+tells you truly, cannot be compelled--can only go forth toward a being
+who shows himself worthy of our love, by possessing those qualities which
+we admire in our fellow men?  No.  Against such a theory I must quote, as
+embodying all that I would say, and corroborating, on entirely
+independent ground, the Scriptural account of human morality--against
+such a theory, I say I must quote the words of our greatest living
+logician.  "Language has no meaning for the words Just, Merciful,
+Benevolent" (he might have added truthful likewise) "save that in which
+we predicate them of our fellow creatures; and unless that is what we
+intend to express by them, we have no business to employ the words.  If
+in affirming them of God we do not mean to affirm these very qualities,
+differing only as greater in degree, we are neither philosophically nor
+morally entitled to affirm them at all . . .  What belongs to" God's
+goodness "as Infinite (or more properly Absolute) I do not pretend to
+know; but I know that infinite goodness must be goodness, and that what
+is not consistent with goodness is not consistent with infinite goodness.
+. . . Besides," he says--and to this sound reductio ad absurdum I call
+the attention of all who believe their Bibles--"unless I believe God to
+possess the same moral attributes which I find, in however inferior a
+degree, in a good man, what ground of assurance have I of God's veracity?
+All trust in a Revelation presupposes a conviction that God's attributes
+are the same, in all but degree, with the best human attributes.  If,
+instead of the 'glad tidings' that there exists a Being in whom all the
+excellences which the highest human mind can conceive, exist in a degree
+inconceivable to us, I am informed that the world is ruled by a being
+whose attributes are infinite, but what they are we cannot learn, nor
+what are the principles of his government, except that 'the highest human
+morality which we are capable of conceiving' does not sanction them;
+convince me of it and I will bear my fate as I may.  But when I am told
+that I must believe this, and at the same time call this being by the
+names which express and affirm the highest human morality, I say in plain
+terms that I will not.  Whatever power such a being may have over me,
+there is one thing which he shall not do:  he shall not compel me to
+worship him.  I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I
+apply that epithet to my fellow creatures."
+
+That St. John would have assented to these bold and honest words, that
+such is St. John's conception of human and divine morality, the story in
+the text shows, to my mind, especially.  It is, so to speak, a crucial
+experiment, by which the truth of the Scripture theory is verified.  The
+difficulty in all ages about a standard of morality has been--How can we
+fix it?  Even if we agree that man's goodness ought to be the counterpart
+of God's goodness, we know that in practice it is not, as mankind has
+differed in all ages and countries about what is right and wrong.  The
+Hindoo thinks it right to burn widows, wrong to eat animal food; and
+between such extremes there are numberless minor differences.  Hardly any
+act is conceivable which has not been thought by some man, somewhere,
+somehow, morally right or morally wrong.  If all that we can do is, to
+choose out those instances of morality which seem to us most right, and
+impute them to God, shall we not have an ever-shifting, probably a merely
+conventional standard of right and wrong?  And worse--shall we not be
+always in danger of deifying our own superstitions--perhaps our own
+vices:  of making a God in our own image, because we cannot know that God
+in whose image we are made?  Most true, unless "we believe rightly the
+incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ," "perfect God and perfect man."  In
+Him, says the Bible, the perfect human morality is manifested, and shown
+by His life and conduct to be identical with the divine.  He bids us be
+perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect; and He only has a right-
+-in the sense of a sound and fair reason--for so doing; because He can
+say, and has said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father."
+
+At least, such is the doctrine of St. John.  He tells us that the Word,
+who was God, was made flesh, and dwelt in his land and neighbourhood; and
+that he and his fellows beheld His glory; and saw that it was the glory
+of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.  And then,
+in the next chapter, he goes on to tell us how that glory was first
+manifested forth--by turning water into wine at a marriage feast.  On the
+truth of the story, I say simply, in passing, that I believe it fully and
+literally; as I do also St. John's assertions about our Lord's Divinity.
+But I only wish to point out to you why I called this miracle the crucial
+experiment, which proved God's goodness to be identical with that which
+we call (and rightly) goodness in man.  It is by the seeming
+insignificance thereof, by the seeming non-necessity, by the seeming
+humbleness of its circumstances, by the seeming smallness of its results,
+issuing merely (as far as Scripture tells us, and therefore as far as we
+need know, or have a right to imagine) in the giving of a transitory and
+unnecessary physical pleasure.  In short, by the very absence of that
+Dignus deo vindice nodus, that knot which only a God could untie, which
+heathens demanded ere a god was allowed to interfere in the plot of a
+tragedy; which too many who call themselves Christians demand before the
+living God is allowed to interfere in that world in which without Him not
+a sparrow falls to the ground.  In a moral case of this kind, if you will
+consider, that which seems least is often the greatest.  That which seems
+the lowest, because the simplest and meanest manifestation of a moral
+law, may be--probably is--the deepest, the highest, the most universal.
+
+Life is made up of little things, say the practically wise, and they say
+true, for our Lord says so likewise.  "He that is faithful in that which
+is least is faithful also in much."  If you look on morality, virtue,
+goodness, holiness, sanctification--call it what you will--as merely the
+obligation of an EXTERNAL law, you will be tempted to say, "Let me be
+faithful to it in its greater and more important cases, and that is
+enough.  The pettier ones must take care of themselves, I have not time
+enough to attend to them, and God will not, it may be, require them of
+me."  But if the morality, goodness, holiness be in you what it was in
+Christ, without measure--a SPIRIT, even the spirit of God--a spirit
+within you, possessing you, and working on you, and in you--then that
+which seems most petty and unimportant will often be most important, the
+test of the soundness of your heart, of the reality of your feelings.
+
+We all know--every writer of fiction, at least, should know--how true
+this is in the case of love between man and woman, between parent and
+child:  how the little kindnesses, the half-unconscious gestures, the
+petty labours of love, of which their object will never be aware, the
+scrupulousness which is able "to greatly find quarrel in a straw, when
+honour is at stake,"--how these are the very things which show that the
+affection is neither the offspring of dry and legal duty, nor of selfish
+enjoyment, but lies far down in the unconscious abysses of the heart and
+being itself:--as Christ--to compare (for He Himself permits, nay
+commands, us to do so in His parables) our littleness with His immensity-
+-as Christ, I say, showed, when He chose first to manifest His glory--the
+glory of His grace and truth--by increasing for a short hour the
+pleasures of a village feast.
+
+I might say much more on the point; how He showed these by His truth; how
+He proved that He, and therefore His Father and your Father, was not that
+Deus quidam deceptor, whom some suppose Him, mocking the intellect of His
+creatures by the FACTS of nature which He has created, tempting the souls
+of His creatures by the very faculties and desires which He Himself has
+given them.
+
+But I wish now to draw your minds rather to that one word GRACE--Grace,
+what it means, and how it is a manifestation of glory.  Few Scriptural
+expressions have suffered more that this word Grace from the storms of
+theological controversy.  Springing flesh in the minds of Apostles, as
+did many other noble words in that heaven-enriched soil, the only
+adequate expressions of an idea which till then had never fully possessed
+the mind of man, it meant more than we can now imagine; perhaps more that
+we shall ever imagine again.  We, alas! only know the word with its
+fragrance battered out, its hues rubbed off, its very life anatomized out
+of it by the battles of rival divines, till its mere skeleton is left,
+and all that grace means to most of us is simply and dryly a certain
+spiritual gift of God.  Doubtless it means that; but if it meant nothing
+more at first, why was not the plain word Gift enough for the Apostles?
+Why did they use Grace?  Why did they use, too, in the sense of giving
+and gifts, nouns and verbs derived from that root-word, CHARIS, grace,
+which plainly signified so much to them?  A word, the root-meaning of
+which was neither more nor less than a certain heathen goddess, or
+goddesses--the inspirer of beauty in art, the impersonation of all that
+is pure, charming, winning, bountiful--in one word, of all that is
+graceful and gracious in the human character.  The fact is strange, but
+the fact is there; and being there, we must face it and explain it.  Of
+course, the Apostles use the word grace in a far deeper and loftier
+meaning; raise it, mathematically speaking, to a far higher power.  There
+is no need to remind you of that.  But why did they choose and use the
+word at all--a word whose old meaning every heathen knew--unless for some
+innate fitness in it to express something in the character of God?  To
+tell men that there was in God a graciousness, as of the most gracious of
+all human beings, which gave to His character a moral beauty, a charm, a
+winningness, which, as even the old Jewish prophet, before the
+Incarnation, could perceive and boldly declare, drew them with the cords
+of a man and with the bands of love, attracting them by the very human
+character of its graciousness.
+
+"The glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace."
+Meditate on those words.  "Full of grace,"--of that spirit which we, like
+the old heathens, consider rather a feminine than a masculine excellence;
+the spirit, which, as St. James says of God the Father, gives simply and
+upbraideth not; gives gracefully, as we ourselves say--in the right and
+happy use of the adverb; does not spoil its gifts by throwing them in the
+teeth of the giver, but gives for mere giving's sake; pleases where it
+can be done, without sin or harm, for mere pleasing's sake; most human
+and humane when it is most divine; the spirit by which Christ turned the
+water into wine at the marriage feast, and so manifested forth His
+absolute and eternal glory.  And how?  How?
+
+Thus, if you will receive it; if you will believe a truth which is too
+often hidden from the wise and prudent, and yet revealed unto babes;
+which will never be understood by the proud Pharisee, the sour fanatic,
+the ascetic who dreads and distrusts his Father in heaven; but which is
+clear and simple enough to many a clear and simple heart, honest and
+single-eyed, sunny itself, and bringing sunshine wherever it comes,
+because it is inspired by the gracious spirit of God, and delights to
+show kindness for kindness' sake, and to make happy for happiness' sake,
+taking no merit to itself for doing that, which is as instinctive as its
+very breath.
+
+This,--that the graciousness which Christ showed at that marriage feast
+is neither more nor less than the boundless love of God, who could not
+live alone in the abyss, but must needs, out of His own Divine Charity,
+create the universe, that He might have somewhat beside Himself whereon
+to pour out the ocean of His love, which finds its own happiness in
+giving happiness to all created things, from the loftiest of rational
+beings down to the gnat which dances in the sun, and for aught we know,
+to the very lichen which nestles in the Alpine rock.
+
+This is the character of God, unless Scripture be a dream of man's
+imagination.  Thus far you may know God; thus far you may see God as He
+is; and know and see that He is just with the justice of a man, only more
+just; merciful with the mercy of a man, only more merciful; truthful with
+the truthfulness of a man, only more truthful; gracious with the
+graciousness of a man, only more gracious; and loving?  That we dare not
+say:  for if we say so much, the Scripture commands us to say more.  The
+Scripture tells us that the whole absolute morality of God is summed up--
+as our own human morality ought to be--in His Love.  That love is the
+fulfilment of the Moral Law in Him as in us; that it is the root and
+cause and spirit of His justice, mercy, truth, and graciousness; that it
+belongs not to His attributes, as they may be said to be, but to His
+essence and His spirit; that we must not, if we be careful of our words,
+say, God is loving, because we are bidden to say, "God is Love."
+
+Thus, the commands, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God--and thy neighbour
+as thyself, are shown to be not arbitrary and impossible demands,
+miscalled moral obligations, while they are merely legal and external
+ones; but true moral obligations, in the moral sense, to which heart and
+spirit can answer, "I rejoice to do thy will, O God; Thy law is within my
+heart."  You ought to love God, because He is supremely loveable and
+worthy of your love.  You can love God, because you can appreciate and
+know God; for you are His child, made in His moral likeness, and capable
+of seeing Him as He is morally, and of seeing in Him the full perfection
+of all that attracts your moral sense, when it is manifested in any human
+being.  And you can love your neighbour as yourselves, because, and in as
+far as you have in you the Spirit of God, the spirit of universal love,
+which proceedeth out for ever both from the Father and the Son to all
+beings and things which They have made.
+
+And of one thing I am sure, that in proportion as you are led and
+inspired by that Spirit of God which showed in our Lord, in the very
+deepest and truest sense, as the spirit of humanity, just so you will
+feel a genial and hearty pleasure in lessening all human suffering,
+however slight; in increasing all harmless human pleasure, however
+transitory; and in copying Him who, at the marriage feast, gracefully and
+graciously turned the water into wine.  I do not, of course, mean that
+you are to do no more than that; to prefer sentiment to duty, to amuse
+and glorify yourselves by paying tithe of mint, anise, and cummin, and
+neglect the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith.
+But I do mean that you are not to distrust your own sentiments, not to
+crush your own instinctive sympathies.  The very lowest of them--that
+which makes you shrink at the sight of pain, and rejoice in the sight of
+pleasure, is not natural, and common to you with the animals; it is
+supernatural and divine.  It is a schoolmaster to bring you to Christ, to
+that higher inspiration of His, which tells your heart to alleviate the
+unseen woes which will never come into painful contact with your
+sensibilities, to bestow pleasures in which you yourself have no
+immediate share.  It will tell your hearts especially in the case of this
+very Hospital for Consumption not to be slack in giving, because so much
+of what you will give--it is painful to recollect how much--will be
+spent, not in prevention, not even in cure, but in mere alleviation, mere
+increased bodily ease, mere savoury food, even mere passing amusements
+for wearied minds.  Be it so.  If (which God forbid) we could do nothing
+SAVE alleviate; if (which God forbid) permanent cure, even lengthening of
+life, were impossible, I should say just as much, Give.  Give money to
+alleviate; give, even though what you give were, in the strictly economic
+sense, WASTED.  We are ready enough, most of us, to waste upon ourselves.
+It is well for us to taste once in a way the luxury of wasting on others;
+though I have yet to learn that anything can be called wasted which
+lessens, even for a moment, the amount of human suffering.  A plan, for
+instance, is on foot for sending twenty of the patients to Madeira for
+the winter.  The British Consul, to his honour, guarantees their
+maintenance, if the Hospital will pay their passage out and home.  Some
+may say--An unnecessary expense--a problematical benefit.  Be it so.  I
+believe that it will not be such; that it may save many lives--they may
+revive:  but were it not so, I would still say Give.  Let them go, even
+if every soul in that ship were doomed.  Let them go.  Let them drink the
+fresh sea breeze before they die; let them see the green tropic world;
+let them forget their sorrow for a while; let them feel springing up
+afresh in them the celestial fount of hope.  We let the guilty criminal
+eat and drink well the morn ere he is led forth to die--shall we not do
+as much by those who are innocent?
+
+But especially would I say, try to lessen such suffering as that for
+which I plead to-day, because it is undeserved in the true sense of that
+word--not earned by any act of their own.  These poor souls suffer for no
+sins of their own; they have done nothing to bring on themselves a
+disease which attacks too often the fairest, the seemingly strongest and
+healthiest, the most temperate and most pure.  They suffer, some it may
+be for the sins of their forefathers, some from causes of disease which
+science cannot as yet control, cannot even discover.  They are objects of
+unmixed pity and sympathy:  they should be so to us; for they are so to
+Him who made them.  On this disease God does bestow a special
+alleviation--a special mark of His pity, of His tenderness, in a word of
+His grace.  That unclouded intellect, that unruffled temper, that
+cheerful resignation, that brave and yet calm facing of the inevitable
+future, that ever-fresh hope, which is no delusion but a token that God
+Himself has taken away the sting of death and the victory of the grave,
+till the very thought of death has vanished, or is looked on merely as
+the gate to a life of health, and strength, and peace, and joy:--all
+these symptoms, so common, so normal, all but universal--this Euthanasia
+which God has provided for those who, humanly speaking, are innocent, yet
+must, for the general good of humanity, leave this world for another;--
+what are they but the voice of God to us, telling that He loves, that He
+pities, that He alleviates; and bidding us go and do likewise?  God has
+alleviated where we cannot.  He has bidden us thereby, if His likeness
+and spirit be indeed in us, to alleviate where we can; and believe that
+by every additional comfort, however petty, which we provide, we are
+copying the Ideal Man, who, because He was very God of very God, could
+condescend, at the marriage feast, to turn the water into wine.
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXVI.  USELESS SACRIFICE
+
+
+
+Preached at Southsea for the Mission of the Good Shepherd.  October 1871.
+
+Isaiah i. 11-17.  "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices
+unto me? saith the Lord:  . . .  When ye come to appear before me, who
+hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?  Bring no more vain
+oblations; incense is an abomination to me; the new moons and sabbaths,
+the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the
+solemn meeting.  Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth:
+they are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them.  And when ye spread
+forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you:  yea, when ye make many
+prayers, I will not hear:  your hands are full of blood.  Wash you, make
+you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease
+to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgement, relieve the oppressed,
+judge the fatherless, plead for the widow."
+
+I have been asked to plead to-day for the mission of the Good Shepherd in
+Portsea.
+
+I am informed that Portsea contains some thirteen thousand souls, divided
+between two parishes.  That they, as I feared, include some of the most
+ignorant and vicious of both sexes which can be found in the kingdom;
+that there are few or no rich people in the place; that the rich who have
+an interest in the labour of these masses live away from the place, and
+from the dwellings of those whom they employ--a social evil new to
+England; but growing, alas! fearfully common in it; and that vice, and
+unthrift, uncertain wages, and unhealthy dwellings produce there, as
+elsewhere, misery and savagery most deplorable.  I am told, too, that
+this mission has been working, nobly and self-denyingly, among these
+unhappy people for some years past.  That it can, and ought to largely
+extend its operations; that it is in want of fresh funds; that it is
+proposed to build a new church, which, it is hoped, will be a centre of
+civilization and organization, as well as of religion and morality, for
+the district; and I am bidden to invite you, as close neighbours of
+Portsea, to help in the good work.  I, of course, know too little of
+local facts, or of the temper of the people of Southsea.  But I am bound
+to believe it to be the same as I have found it elsewhere.  And I
+therefore shall confine myself to general questions, and shall treat this
+case of Portsea, as what it is, alas! one among a hundred similar ones,
+and say to you simply what I have said for twenty-five years, wherever
+and whenever I can get a hearing.  And therefore if I seem here and there
+to speak sharply and sternly, recollect that I pay you a compliment in so
+doing--first, that I speak not to you, but to all English men and women;
+and next, that I speak as to those who have noble instincts, if they will
+be only true to them:--as to English people, who are not afraid of being
+told the truth; to English people who do wrong rather from forgetfulness
+and luxury, than from meanness and cruelty aforethought; who, as far as I
+have seen, need, for the most part, only to be reminded that they are
+doing wrong, to reawaken them to their better selves, and set them trying
+honestly and bravely to do right.
+
+Let me then begin this sermon with a parable.  Alas! that the parable
+should represent a common and notorious fact.  Suppose yourselves in some
+stately palace, amid marbles and bronzes, statues and pictures, and all
+that cunning brain and cunning hand, when wedded to the high instinct of
+beauty, can produce.  The furniture is of the very richest, and kept with
+the most fastidious cleanliness.  The floors of precious wood are
+polished like mirrors.  The rooms have every appliance for the ease of
+the luxurious inmates.  Everywhere you see, not mere brute wealth, but
+taste, purity, and comfort.  There is no lack of intellect either:--wise
+and learned books fill the library shelves; maps and scientific
+instruments crowd the tables.  Nor of religion either;--for the house
+contains a private chapel, fitted up in the richest style of mediaeval
+ecclesiastical art.  And as you walk along from polished floor to
+polished floor, you seem to pass in review every object which the body,
+or the mind, or the spirit, of the most civilized human being can need
+for its satisfaction.
+
+But, next to the chapel itself, a scent of carrion makes you start.  You
+look, against the will of your smart and ostentatious guide, through a
+half-open door, and see another sight--a room, dark and foul, mildewed
+and ruinous; and, swept carelessly into a corner, a heap of dirt, rags,
+bones, waifs and strays of every kind, decaying all together.
+
+You ask, with astonishment and disgust, how comes that there? and are
+told, to your fresh astonishment and disgust, that that is only where the
+servants sweep the litter.  But crouching behind the litter, in the
+darkest corner, something moves.  You go up to it, in spite of the
+entreaties of your guide, and find an aged idiot gibbering in her rags.
+
+Who is she?  Oh, an old servant--or a child, or possibly a grand-child,
+of some old servant--your guide does not remember which.  She is better
+out of the way there in the corner.  At all events she can find plenty to
+eat among the dirt-heap; and as for her soul, if she has one, the
+clergyman is said to come and see her now and then, so probably it will
+be saved.
+
+Would you not turn away from that palace with the contemptuous thought--
+Civilized?  Refined?  These people's civilization is but skin-deep.
+Their refinement is but an outside show.  Look into the first back room,
+and you find that they are foul barbarians still.
+
+And yet such, literally such and no better, is the refinement of modern
+England; such, and no better, is the civilization of our great towns.
+Such I fear from what I am told, is the civilization of Southsea, beside
+the barbarism to be found in Portsea close at hand.  Dirt and squalor,
+brutality and ignorance close beside such luxury as the world has not
+seen, it may be, since the bad days of Heathen Rome.
+
+But more, if you turned away, you would say to yourselves, if you were
+thoughtful persons--not only what barbarism, but what folly.  The owner
+and his household are in daily danger.  The idiot in discontent, or even
+in mere folly, may seize a lighted candle, burn petroleum, as she did in
+Paris of late, and set the whole palace on fire.  And more, the very dirt
+is in itself inflammable, and capable, as it festers, of spontaneous
+combustion.  How many a stately house has been burnt down ere now, simply
+by the heating of greasy rags, thrust away in some neglected closet.  Let
+the owner of the house beware.  He is living, voluntarily, over a volcano
+of his own making.
+
+But more--what if you were told that the fault lay not so much in the
+negligence of servants as in that of the owner himself, that the master
+of that palace had over him a King, to whom all that was foul,
+neglectful, cruel, was inexpressibly hateful, so hateful that He once had
+actually stepped off the throne of the universe to die for such creatures
+as that poor idiot and her forgotten parents?  Would you not question
+whether the prayers offered up in that chapel would have any answer from
+Him, save that awful answer He once gave?  "When ye spread forth your
+hands, I will hide mine eyes:  yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not
+hear; your hands are full of blood."
+
+Oh, my friends, you who understand my parable, has the awful thought
+never struck you that such may be God's answer to the prayers of a nation
+which leaves in its midst such barbarism, such heathenism, as exists in
+every great town of this realm?  And what if you were told next that the
+laws of His kingdom were eternal and inexorable, and that one of His
+cardinal laws is--that as a man sows, so shall he reap; that every sin
+punishes itself, even though the sinner does not know that he has sinned;
+that he who knew not his master's will, and did it not, shall be beaten
+with few stripes; that the innocent babe does not escape unburnt, because
+it knew not that fire burns; that the good man who lives in a malarious
+alley does not escape fever and cholera, because he does not know that
+dirt breeds pestilence; that, in a word, he who knew not his master's
+will, and did it not, shall be beaten with few stripes; but that he who
+knew his master's will, and did it not, shall be beaten with many
+stripes?  Then of how many and how heavy stripes, think you, will the
+inhabitant of that palace be counted worthy, who has been taught by
+Christianity for the last fifteen hundred years, and by physical science
+and political economy for the last fifty years, and yet persists, in
+defiance of his own knowledge, in leaving his used-up servants, and their
+children and grand-children after them, to rot, body, mind, and soul, in
+the very precincts of the palace, having no other excuse to offer for
+this than that it is too much trouble to treat them better, and that, on
+the whole, he can make money more rapidly by thus throwing away that
+human dirt, and leaving it to decay where it can, regardless what it
+pollutes and poisons; just as the manufacturer can make money more
+rapidly by not consuming his own smoke, but letting it stream out of the
+chimney to poison with blackness and desolation the green fields where
+God meant little children to gather flowers?
+
+Ladies, to you I appeal, not merely as women, but as Ladies, if (as I am
+assured by those who know you), ladies you are, in the grand old meaning
+of that grand old word.
+
+If so--you know then, what it is to be a lady and what not.  You know
+that it is not to go, like the daughters of Zion in Isaiah's time, with
+mincing gait, and borrowed head-gear, and tasteless finery, the head
+well-nigh empty, the heart full of little save vanity and vexation of
+spirit, busy all the week over cheap novels and expensive dresses, and on
+Sunday over a little dilettante devotion.  You know, I take for granted,
+that whatever the world may think or say, that to be that, is not to be a
+lady.
+
+For you know, I take for granted, what that word lady meant at first.
+That it meant she who gave out the loaves, the housewife who provided
+food and clothes; the stewardess of her household and dependants; the
+spinner among her maidens; the almsgiver to the poor; the worshipper in
+the chapel, praying for wild men away in battle.  The being from whom
+flowed forth all gracious influences of thought and order, of bounty and
+compassion, of purity and piety, civilizing and Christianizing a whole
+family, a whole domain.  This it was to be a lady, in the old days when
+too many men had little care save to make war.  And this it is to be a
+lady still, in the new days in which too many men have little care save
+to make money.  Show then that you can be ladies still.  That the spirit
+is the spirit of your ancestresses, though the form in which it must show
+itself is changed with the change of society.
+
+To you I appeal; to as many in this church as are ladies, not in name
+only, but in spirit and in truth.  Say to your fathers, husbands,
+brothers, sons, and say too, and that boldly, to the tradesmen with whom
+you deal--Do you hear this?  Do you hear that there are savages and
+heathens, generations of them, within a rifle-shot of the house?  And you
+cannot exterminate them; cannot drive them out, much less kill them.  You
+must convert them, improve them, make them civilized and Christian, if
+not for their own sakes, at least for our sakes, and for our children.
+
+And if they should answer:  My dears, it is too true.  But we did not
+make them or put them there, and they are not in our parish.  They are no
+concern of ours, and besides they will not hurt us.
+
+Answer them:  Not made by our fault!  True, our hands are more or less
+clean:  but what of that?  There they are.  If you had a tribe of Red
+Indians on the frontier of your settlement, would you take the less guard
+against them, because you did not put them there?  Not in our parish, and
+what of that?  They are in our county; they are in England.  Has man the
+right, has man the power in the sight of God to draw any imaginary line
+of demarcation between Englishman and Englishman, especially when that
+line is drawn between rich and poor?  England knows no line of
+demarcation, save the shore of the great sea; and even that her
+generosity is overleaping at this moment at the call of mere humanity, in
+bounty to sufferers by the West Indian hurricane, and by the Chicago
+fire.  Will you send your help across the Atlantic; and deny it to the
+sufferers at your own doors?  At least, if the rich be confined by an
+imaginary line across, the poor on the other side will not--they will
+cross it freely enough; and what they will bring with them will be
+concern enough of ours.  Would it not be our concern if there was small-
+pox, scarlet fever, cholera among them?  Should we not fear lest that
+might hurt us?  Would you not bestir yourselves then?  And do you not
+know that it is among such people as these that pestilence is always
+bred?  And if not, is not the pestilence of the soul more subtle and more
+contagious than any pestilence of the body?  What is the spreading power
+of fever to the spreading power of vice, which springs from tongue to
+tongue, from eye to eye, from heart to heart?  What matter whether they
+be one mile off or five?  Will not they corrupt our servants; and those
+servants again our children?
+
+And say to them, if you be prudent and thrifty housewives, Do not tell us
+that their condition costs you nothing.  Even in pocket you are suffering
+now--as all England is suffering--from the existence of heathens and
+savages, reckless, profligate, pauperized.  For if you pay no poor-rates
+for their support, the shop-keepers with whom you deal pay poor-rates;
+and must and do repay themselves, out of your pockets, in the form of
+increased prices for their goods.
+
+And when you have said all this, ladies, and more,--for more will suggest
+itself to your woman's wit,--say to them with St Paul--"And yet show we
+unto you a more excellent way,"--a nobler argument--and that is Charity.
+
+Not almsgiving.  I had almost said, anything but that; making bad worse,
+the improvident more improvident, the liar more ready to lie, the idler
+more ready to idle.  But the Charity which is Humanity, which is the
+spirit of pure pity, the Spirit of Christ and of God.
+
+Say then, Even if these poor creatures did us no harm, as they must and
+will do--civilize and christianize them for their own sakes, simply
+because they must be so very miserable--miserable too often with acute
+and conscious misery; too often with a worse misery, dull and
+unconscious, which knows not, stupified by ignorance and vice, that it is
+miserable, and ought to be more miserable still.  For who is so worthy of
+our pity, as he who knows not that he is pitiable?--who takes ignorance,
+dirt, vice, passion, and the wretchedness which vice and passion bring,
+as all in the day's work, as he takes the rain and hail, the frost and
+snow,--as unavoidable necessities of mortal life, for which the only
+temporary alleviation is--drink?
+
+If the refined and pure-minded lady does not pity such beings as that, I
+know not of what her refinement is made.  If the religious lady will not
+bestir herself, and make sacrifices to teach such people that that is not
+what God meant them to be--to stir up in them a noble self-discontent, a
+noble self-abhorrence, which may be the beginning of repentance and
+amendment of life--I know not of what her religion is made.
+
+One word more--I know that such thoughts as I have put before you to-day
+are painful.  I know that we all--I as much as anyone in this church--are
+tempted to put them by, and say, I will think of things beautiful, not of
+things ugly; of art, poetry, science--all that is orderly, graceful,
+ennobling; and not of dirt, ignorance, vice, misery, all that is
+disorderly, degrading.  Nay, even the most pious at times are tempted to
+say, I will think of heaven and not of earth.  I will lift up my heart,
+and try to behold the glory and the goodness of God, and not the disgrace
+and sin of man.
+
+But only for a time may they thus think and speak.  Happy if they can, at
+moments, lift up their hearts unto the Lord, and catch one glimpse of Him
+enthroned in perfect serenity and perfect order, governing the worlds
+with that all-embracing justice, which is at the same time all-embracing
+love, and so, giving Him thanks for His great glory, gain heart and hope
+to--what?  To descend again, even were it from the beatific vision
+itself, to this disordered earth, to work a little--and, alas how little-
+-at lessening the sum of human ignorance, human vice, human misery--even
+as their Lord and Saviour stooped from the throne of the universe, and
+from the bosom of the Father, to toil and die for such as curse about the
+streets outside.
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXVII.  THE SURPRISE OF THE RIGHTEOUS
+
+
+
+Preached at Southsea for the Mission of the Good Shepherd.  October 1871.
+
+St Matt. xxv. 34-37.  "Then shall the King say unto them on his right
+hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you
+from the foundation of the world:  For I was an hungred, and ye gave me
+meat:  I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink:  I was a stranger, and ye
+took me in:  naked, and ye clothed me:  I was sick, and ye visited me:  I
+was in prison, and ye came unto me.  Then shall the righteous answer him,
+saying, Lord, when saw we Thee an hungred, and fed Thee? or thirsty, and
+gave Thee drink?"
+
+Let us consider awhile this magnificent parable, and consider it
+carefully, lest we mistake its meaning.  And let us specially consider
+one point about it, which is at first sight puzzling, and which has
+caused, ere now, many to miss (as I believe, with some of the best
+commentators, ) the meaning of the whole--which is this:  that the
+righteous in the parable did not know that when they did good to their
+fellow-creatures, they did it to Christ the Lord.
+
+Now there are two kinds of people who do know that, because they have
+been taught it by Holy Scripture, who would make two very different
+answers to the Lord, when He spoke in such words to them.  At least so we
+may suppose, for they are ready to make such answers here on earth; and
+therefore, we may suppose that if they dared, they would answer so at the
+day of judgment.  One party would--or at least might say, "Yes, Lord, I
+knew that whatever I did to the poor, I did to Thee; and therefore I did
+all I could for the poor.  I started charitable institutions, I spoke at
+missionary meetings, I put my name down for large sums in every
+subscription list, I built churches and chapels, schools and hospitals; I
+gained the reputation among men of being a leading philanthropist,
+foremost in every good work."
+
+What answer the man who said that would receive from the Lord, I know
+not; for who am I that I should put words into the mouth of my Creator
+and my God?  But I think that the awful majesty of the Lord's very
+countenance might strike such a man dumb, ere he had time to say those
+vain proud words, and strike his conscience through with the thought,
+Yes, I have been charitable:  but have I been humane?  I have been a
+philanthropist:  but have I really loved my fellow-men?  Have I not made
+my interest in the heathen whom I have not seen, an excuse for despising
+and hating my countrymen whom I have seen, if they dared to differ from
+me in religion or in politics?  I have given large sums in charity:  but
+have I ever sacrificed anything for my fellow-men?  I have given Christ
+back a pound in every hundred--perhaps even out of every ten which He has
+given me:  but what did I do with the other nine pounds save spend them
+on myself?  Is there a luxury in which a respectable man could safely
+indulge, which I have denied myself?  What have I been after all, with
+all my philanthropy and charity, but a selfish, luxurious, pompous
+personage? an actor doing my alms to be seen of men?  I did my good works
+as unto Christ?--No; I did them as unto myself--to get honour from men
+while I lived, and to save my selfish soul when I died.  God be merciful
+to me a sinner!  That such thoughts ought to pass through too many
+persons' hearts in this generation, I fear is too certain.  God grant
+that they may do so before it is too late.  But it is plain, at least,
+that these are not the sheep of whom Christ speaks.
+
+Again, there are another, and a very different kind of persons, who we
+have a right to fancy, would answer the Lord somewhat thus:  "Oh Lord,
+speak not of it.  It may be I have tried to do a little good to a poor
+suffering creature here and there; to feed a few hungry, clothe a few
+naked, visit a few sick and prisoners.  But Lord, how could I do less?
+after all that Thou hast done and suffered for me; and after Thy own
+gracious saying, that inasmuch as I did anything to the least of Thy
+brethren, I did it to Thee.  What less could I do, Lord?--and after all,
+what a pitifully small amount I have done!  Thou did'st hunger for me--
+for whom have I ever hungered?  Thou did'st suffer for me--for whom have
+I ever suffered?  Thou did'st die for me--for whom have I ever died?  And
+I did not--I fear in the depth of my heart--do what I did really for
+Thee; but for the very pleasure of doing it.  I began to do good from a
+sense of duty to Thee; but after a while I did good, I fear, only because
+it was so pleasant--so pleasant to see human faces looking up into mine
+with gratitude; so pleasant to have little children, even though they
+were none of my own, clinging to me in trust; so pleasant when I went
+home at night to feel that I had made one human being a little happier, a
+little better, even only a little more comfortable; so pleasant to give
+up my own pleasure, in order to give pleasure to others, that I fear I
+forgot Thee in my own enjoyment.  If I sinned in that, Lord forgive.  But
+at least, I have had my reward.  My work among Thy poor was its own
+reward, a reward of inward happiness beyond all that earth can give--and
+now Thou speakest of rewarding me over and above, with I know not what of
+undeserved bliss.  Thou art too good, O Lord, as is Thy wont from all
+eternity.  Let me go and hide myself--a more than unprofitable servant,
+who has not done the hundredth part of that which it was my duty to do."
+
+What answer the Lord would make to the modest misgivings of that sweet
+soul, I cannot say; for again, who am I, that I should put words into the
+mouth of my Creator and my God?  But this I know, that I had rather be--
+what I am not, and never shall be--such a soul as that in the last day,
+than own all the kingdoms of the world and the glory thereof.  Still, it
+is plain that such persons, however holy, however loving, are not those
+of whom our Lord speaks in this parable.  For they, too, know, and must
+know, that inasmuch as they showed mercy unto one of the least of the
+Lord's brethren, they showed it unto Him.  But the special peculiarity of
+the persons of whom our Lord speaks, is that they did not know, that they
+had no suspicion, that in showing kindness to men, they were showing
+kindness to Christ.  "Lord," they answer, "when saw we Thee?"
+
+It is a revelation to them, in the strictest and deepest sense of the
+word.  A revelation, that is an unveiling, a drawing away of a veil which
+was before their eyes and hiding from them a divine and most blessed
+fact, of which they had been unaware.  But who are they?  I think we must
+agree with some of the best commentators, among others with that
+excellent divine and excellent man, now lost to the Church on earth, the
+late Dean of Canterbury, that they are persons who, till the day of
+judgment, have never heard of Christ; but who then, for the first time,
+as Dean Alford says, "are overwhelmed with the sight of the grace which
+has been working in and for them, and the glory which is now their
+blessed portion."  Such persons, perhaps, as those two poor negresses--to
+remind you of a story which was famous in our fathers' time--those two
+poor negresses, I say, who found the African traveller, Mungo Park, dying
+of fever and starvation, and saved his life, simply from human love--as
+they sung to themselves by his bedside--
+
+
+"Let us pity the poor white man;
+He has no mother to make his bed,
+No wife to grind his corn."
+
+
+Perhaps it is such as those, who have succoured human beings they knew
+not why, simply from a divine instinct, from the voice of Christ within
+their hearts, which they felt they must obey, though they knew not whose
+voice it was.  Perhaps, I say, it is such as those, that Christ will
+astonish at the last day by the words, "Come ye blessed of my Father,
+inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."
+
+If this be the true meaning of our Lord's words, what comfort and hope
+they may give us, when we think, as we are bound to think, if we have a
+true humanity in us, of the hundreds of millions of heathen now alive,
+and of the thousands of millions of heathen who have lived and died.
+Sinful they are as a whole.  Sinning, it may be, without law, but
+perishing without law.  For the wages of sin are death, and can be
+nothing else.  But may not Christ have His elect among them?  May not His
+Spirit be working in some of them?  May He not have His sheep among them,
+who hear His voice though they know not that it is His voice?  They hear
+a voice within their hearts whispering to them, "Be loving, be merciful,
+be humane, in one word be just, and do to others as you would they should
+do to you."  And whose voice can that be but the voice of Christ, and the
+Spirit of God?  Those loving instincts come not from the fleshly fallen
+nature, or natural man.  That says to us, "Be selfish; do not be loving.
+Do to others not what you would they should do to you, but do to others
+whatever is pleasant and profitable to yourselves."  And alas! the
+heathen, and too many who call themselves Christians, listen to that
+carnal voice, and live the life of selfishness and pleasure, of anger and
+revenge, of tyranny and cruelty--the end of which is death.
+
+But if any among those heathen--hearing within their hearts the other
+voice, the gracious voice which says, "Do unto others as you would they
+should do unto you,"--feel that that voice is a good voice and a right
+command, which must be obeyed, and which it is beautiful and delightful
+to obey, and so obey it; may we not hope then, that Christ, who has
+called them, will perfect His own work; and in His own good way, and His
+own good time, deliver them from their sin and ignorance, and vouchsafe
+to them at last that knowledge of the true and holy God, Father, Son, and
+Holy Spirit, whom truly to know is everlasting life?  They are Christ's
+lost sheep:  but they are still His sheep who hear His voice.  May He not
+fulfil His own words to them, and go forth and seek such souls, and lay
+them on His shoulder, and bring them home; saying to His Church on earth,
+and to His Church in heaven, "Rejoice with Me:  for I have found my sheep
+which was lost?"
+
+Now if we can thus have hope for some among the heathen abroad, shall we
+not have hope, too, for some among the heathen at home? for some among
+that mass of human corruption which welters around the walls of so many
+of our cities?  I am not going to make vain excuses for them; and say
+they are but the victims of circumstance.  The great majority of them are
+the victims of their own low instincts.  They have chosen the broad and
+easy road of animalism, which leads to destruction.  They have sown to
+the flesh, and they will of the flesh reap corruption.  For the laws of
+God are inexorable; and the curse of the law is sure, namely, "The wages
+of sin are death."  Neither dare I encourage too vast hopes and say, If
+we had money enough, if we had machinery enough, if we had zeal enough,
+we might convert them all, and save them all.  I dare not believe it.
+The many, I fear, will always go the broad road; the few the narrow one.
+And all we dare say is, if we have faith enough, we can convert some.  We
+can at least fulfil our ordination vow.  We can seek out Christ's sheep
+scattered abroad about this naughty world, and tell them of His fold, and
+try to bring them home.
+
+But how shall we know Christ's sheep when we see them?  How, but by the
+very test which Christ has laid down, it seems to me, in this very
+parable?  Is there in one of them the high instincts--even the desire to
+do a merciful act?  Let us watch for that:  and when in the most brutal
+man, and--alas that I should have to use the words--in the most brutal
+woman, we see any touch of nobleness, justice, benevolence, pity,
+tenderness--in one word, any touch, however momentary, of unselfishness,-
+-let us spring at that, knowing that there is the soul we seek; there is
+a lost sheep of Christ; there is Christ Himself, working unknown upon a
+human soul; there is a soul ready for the gospel, and not far from the
+kingdom of God.  But what shall we say to that lost sheep?  Shall we
+terrify it by threats of hell?  Shall we even allure it by promises of
+heaven?  Not so--not so at least at first--for that would be to appeal to
+bodily fear and bodily pleasure, to the very selfishness from which
+Christ is trying to deliver it; and to neglect the very prevenient grace,
+the very hold on the soul which Christ Himself offers us.  Let us
+determine with St. Paul to know nothing among our fellow-men but Christ
+crucified.  Let us appeal just to that in the soul which is unselfish;
+not to the instincts of loss and gain, but to those nobler instincts of
+justice and mercy; just because they are not the man's or the woman's
+instincts; but Christ's within them, the light of Christ and the Spirit
+of Christ, the spirit of love and justice saying, "Do unto others as you
+would they should do unto you."  Do you doubt that?  I trust not.  For to
+doubt that is to doubt whether God be truly the Giver of all good things.
+To doubt that is to begin to disbelieve St. Paul's great saying, "In me,
+that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing."  To doubt that is to lay
+our hearts and minds open to the insidious poison of that Pelagian heresy
+which, received under new shapes and names, is becoming the cardinal
+heresy of modern disbelief.  No; we will have faith in Christ, faith in
+our creeds, faith in catholic doctrine; and will say to that man or that
+woman, even as they wallow still in the darkness and the mire, "Behold
+your God!  That cup of cold water which you gave, you knew not why,--
+Christ told you to give it, and to Him you gave.  That night watch beside
+the bed of a woman as fallen as yourself,--Christ bade you watch, and you
+watched by Him.  For that drunken ruffian, whom you, a drunken ruffian
+yourself, leaped into the sea to save, Christ bade you leap, and like St.
+Christopher of old, you bore, though you knew it not, your Saviour and
+your God to land."  And if they shall make answer, "And who is He that I
+did not know Him? who is He that I should know Him now?"  Let us point
+them--and whither else should we point them in heaven or earth?--to
+Christ upon the cross, and say, "Behold your God!  This He did, this He
+condescended, this He dared, this He suffered for you, and such as you.
+This is what He, the Maker of the universe, is like.  This is what He has
+been trying to make you like, in your small degree, every time a noble, a
+generous, a pitiful, a merciful emotion crossed your heart; every time
+you forgot yourself, even for a moment, and thought of the welfare of a
+fellow-man."
+
+If that tale, if that sight, if that revelation and unveiling of Christ
+to the poor sinful soul does not work in it an abhorrence of past sin, a
+craving after future holiness, an admiration and a reverence for Christ
+Himself, which is, ipso facto, saving faith; if that soul does not reply-
+-it may not be in words, but in feelings too deep for words,--"Yes; this
+is indeed noble, indeed Godlike, worthy of a God, and worthy therefore to
+be at once imitated and adored:" then, indeed, the Cross of Christ must
+have lost that miraculous power which it has possessed, for more than
+eighteen hundred years, as the highest "moral ideal" which ever was seen,
+or ever can be seen, by the reason and the heart of man.
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXVIII.  THE LORD'S PRAYER
+
+
+
+Windsor Castle, 1867.  Chester Cathedral, 1870.
+
+Matthew vi. 9, 10.  "After this manner, therefore, pray ye, Our Father
+which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be
+done, on earth as it is in heaven."
+
+Let us think for a while on these great words.  Let us remember that some
+day or other they will certainly be fulfilled.  Let us remember that
+Christ would not have bidden us use them, unless He intended that they
+should be fulfilled.  And let us remember, likewise, that we must help to
+fulfil them.  We need to be reminded of this from time to time, for we
+are all inclined to forget it.  We are inclined to forget that mankind
+has a Father in heaven, who is ruling, and guiding, and educating us, His
+human children, to
+
+
+   "One far off divine event,
+Toward which the whole creation moves."
+
+
+We are apt to fancy that the world will always go on very much as it goes
+on now; that it will be guided, not by the will of God, but by the will
+of man; by man's craft; by man's ambition; by man's self-interest; by
+man's cravings after the luxuries, and even after the mere necessities of
+this life.  In a word, we are apt to fancy that man, not God, is the
+master of this earth on which we live, and that men have no king over
+them in heaven.
+
+The Lord's Prayer tells us that men HAVE a king over them in heaven, and
+that that king is a Father likewise--a Father whose name will one day be
+hallowed above all names.  That the world will not always go on as it
+goes on now, but that the Father's kingdom will come.  That above the
+will of man, there is a will of God, which must be done, and therefore
+will be done some day.  In a word, the Lord's Prayer tells us that this
+world is under a Divine government; that the Lord, even Jesus Christ our
+Saviour, is King, be the people never so impatient.  That He sitteth
+between the cherubim, master of all the powers of nature, be the earth
+never so unquiet.  That His power loves justice.  That He has prepared
+equity.  That He has executed, and therefore will execute to the end,
+judgment and righteousness in the earth.  That Christ reigns in justice
+and in love.  That He has for those who disobey His laws the most
+terrible penalties; for those who obey them blessings such as eye hath
+not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to
+conceive.  That He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet
+and delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father.  That on that great
+day He will prove His royalty, and His Father's royalty, in the sight of
+all heaven and earth, and make every soul of man aware, in a fashion
+which none shall mistake, that He is Lord and King.  This is the message
+which the Lord's Prayer brings--a message of mingled fear and joy.
+
+But a message of more joy than fear.  Else why does our Lord bid us pray
+for it that it may come to pass?--pray daily, before we even pray for our
+daily bread, or the forgiveness of our sins--that His Father's name may
+be hallowed, His Father's kingdom come, His Father's will be done?
+
+He bids us pray for that because it will bring blessings.  Blessings to
+every soul of man who desires to be good and true.  Because it will
+satisfy every aspiration which has ever risen up from the heart of man
+after what is noble, what is generous, what is just, what is useful, what
+is pure.  Surely it is so.  Consider but these short words of my text,
+and think what the world would be like if they were fulfilled; what the
+next world will actually be like when they are fulfilled.
+
+"Hallowed be thy name."  But what name?  The name of Father.  If that
+name were hallowed by men, there would be an end of all superstitions.
+The root of all superstitions, fanaticisms, and false religions is this--
+that they do not hallow the name of Father.  They do not see that it is a
+Holy name, a beautiful and tender as well as an awful and venerable name.
+They think of fathers, like too many among themselves, proud, and
+arbitrary, selfish and cruel.  They say in their hearts, even such
+fathers as we are, such is God.  Therefore, they shrink from God, and
+turn from Him to idols, to the Virgin Mary, or Saints, or any other
+beings who can deliver them (as they fancy) out of the hands of their
+Father in heaven.  If men once learnt to hallow the name of Father, to
+think of a father as one who not only possessed power but felt love, who
+not only had rights which he would enforce, and issued commands which
+must be obeyed, but who felt yearning sympathy for his children's
+weakness, an active interest in their education, and was ready to labour
+for, to sacrifice himself for, his family--That would be truly to hallow
+the name of Father, and look on it as a holy thing, whether in heaven
+above or in earth beneath.
+
+To hallow the Father's name would abolish all the superstition of the
+world.  And so the coming of the Father's kingdom would abolish all the
+misrule and anarchy of the world.  For the kingdom of God the Father is a
+kingdom of perfect order, perfect justice, perfect usefulness.  Surely
+the first consequences of that kingdom's coming would be, that every one
+would be exactly in his right place, and that every one would get his
+exact deserts.  That would indeed be the kingdom of God on earth.  The
+prospect of such a kingdom would be painful enough to those who were in
+their wrong place, to those who were undeserving.  All who were useless,
+taking wages either from man or from God, without doing any work in
+return, all these would have but too good reason to dread the coming of
+the kingdom of God.
+
+But those who were trying earnestly to do their work, though amid many
+mistakes and failures, why should they dread the coming of the kingdom of
+God?  Why should they shrink from remembering that, though God's kingdom
+is not come in perfection and fulness, it is here already, and they are
+in it?  Why should they shrink from that thought?  They will find it full
+of comfort, of strength, and hope, if they will but hallow their Father's
+name, and remember the fact of all facts--that they have a Father in
+heaven.  There are thousands on earth, from the highest to the lowest,
+who can say honestly--to take the commonest instance--every parent can
+say it--"I have a heavy work to do, a heavy responsibility to fulfil.
+God knows I did not seek it, thrust myself into it; it was thrust upon
+me.  It came to me in the course of nature or of society, and
+circumstances over which I had no control.  In one word it was MY DUTY.
+But now that I have my duty to do, behold I cannot do it.  I try my best,
+but I fail.  I come short daily of my own low standard of duty.  How much
+more of God's perfect standard of it!  And the burden of responsibility,
+the regret for failure, is more than I can bear.
+
+To such we may answer, hallow your Father's name, and be of good cheer.
+YOUR FATHER has given you your work.  Because He is a Father, He is
+surely educating you for your work.  Because He is a Father, He will
+surely set you no task which you are unable to fulfil.  Because He is a
+Father, He will help you to fulfil your task.  Your station and calling
+is His will; and because it is a Father's will it is a good will.
+
+And the Judge of your work--He is no stern taskmaster, no unfeeling
+tyrant, but Jesus Christ, your Lord, who died for you on the Cross.  He
+knows what is in man.  He remembereth that we are but dust.  Else the
+spirit would fail before Him and the souls which He has made.  He can be
+touched with the feeling of our infirmities, seeing that He was tempted
+in all things like as we are, yet without sin.  He can sympathise
+utterly; He can make all just allowances; He will judge not by outward
+results, but by the inward will and desire.  He will judge not by the
+hearing of the ear, nor the seeing of the eye, as the shallow cruel world
+judges, but He will judge righteous judgment.  Trust your cause to Him,
+and trust yourself to Him.  Believe that if He can sympathise, He can
+also help; for from Him, as well as from His Father, proceeds the Holy
+Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, the spirit of wisdom and
+understanding, the spirit of power and might, the spirit of knowledge and
+the fear of the Lord, and He will inspire you to see your duty, and do
+your duty, and rejoice in your duty, in spite of weariness and failure,
+and all the burdens of the flesh and of the spirit.
+
+"Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."  If that were done, it
+would abolish all the vice of the world, and therefore the misery which
+springs from vice.  Ah, that God's will were but done on earth as it is
+in the material heaven overhead, in perfect order and obedience, as the
+stars roll in their courses, without rest, yet without haste; as all
+created things, even the most awful, fire and hail, snow and vapour, wind
+and storm, fulfil God's word, who hath made them sure for ever and ever,
+and given them a law which shall not be broken.  But above them; above
+the divine and wonderful order of the material universe, and the winds
+which are God's angels, and the flames of fire which are His messengers;
+above all, the prophets and apostles have caught sight of another divine
+and wonderful order of RATIONAL beings, of races, loftier and purer than
+man--angels and archangels, thrones and dominions, principalities and
+powers, fulfilling God's will in heaven as it is not alas! fulfilled on
+earth.
+
+And beside them, beside the innumerable company of angels, are there not
+the spirits of just men made perfect, freed from the fetters of the gross
+animal body, and now somewhere in that boundless universe in which this
+earth is but a tiny speck, doing God's will, as they longed to do it on
+earth, with clearer light, fuller faith, deeper love, mightier powers of
+usefulness?  Ah, that we were like to them!  Ah, that we could perform
+the least part of our day's work on earth as it is performed by saints
+and angels for ever in heaven!  When we think of what this poor confused
+world is, and then what it might be, were God's will done therein as it
+is done in heaven; what it might be if even the little of God's will
+which we already know, the little of God's laws which are proved already
+to be certain, were carried out with any earnestness by the majority of
+mankind, or even of one civilized nation--when we think--to take the very
+lowest ground--of the health and wealth, the peace and happiness, which
+would cover this earth did men only do the will of God; then, if we have
+human hearts within us--if we care at all for the welfare of our fellow-
+men--ought not this to be the prayer of all our prayers, and ought we not
+to welcome any event, however awful, which would bring mankind to reason
+and to virtue, and to God, and abolish the sin and misery of this unhappy
+world?
+
+To abolish the superstition, the misrule, the vice, the misery of this
+world.  That is what Christ will do in the day when He has put all
+enemies under His feet.  That is what Christ has been doing, step by
+step, ever since that day when first He came to do His Father's will on
+earth in great humility.  Therefore, that is what we must do, each in our
+place and station, if we be indeed His subjects, fellow-workers with Him
+in the improvement of the human race, fellow-soldiers with Him in the
+battle against evil.
+
+But what we wish to do for our fellow-creatures, we must do first for
+ourselves.  We can give them nothing save what God has already given us.
+We must become good before we can make them good, and wise before we can
+make them wise.  Let us pray, then, the Lord's Prayer in spirit and in
+truth.  Let us pray that we may hallow the name of God, our Father.  Let
+us pray that His kingdom may come in our own hearts.  Let us pray that we
+may do His will on earth as those whom we love and honour do it in
+heaven.  Let us keep that before us, day and night, as the aim and
+purpose of our lives.  Let us pray for forgiveness of our failures in
+that; for help to do that better as our years run on.  So we shall be
+ready for the day in which Christ shall have accomplished the number of
+His elect, and hastened His kingdom.  So we shall be found in that dread
+day, not on the side of evil, but of God; not on the side of darkness,
+anarchy, and vice, but on the side of light, of justice, and of virtue,
+which is the side of Christ and of God.  And so we, with all those that
+are departed in the faith of His holy name, shall have our perfect
+consummation and bliss in His eternal and everlasting glory, to which may
+He, of His great mercy, bring us all.  Amen.
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXIX.  THE DISTRACTED MIND
+
+
+
+Eversley. 1871.
+
+Matthew vi. 34.  "Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall
+take thought for the things of itself.  Sufficient unto the day is the
+evil thereof."
+
+Scholars will tell you that the words "take no thought" do not exactly
+express our Lord's meaning in this text.  That they should rather stand,
+"Be not anxious about to-morrow."  And doubtless they are right on the
+whole.  But the truth is, that we have no word in English which exactly
+expresses the Greek word which St Matthew uses in his gospel, and which
+we are bound to believe exactly expresses our Lord's meaning, in whatever
+language He spoke.  The nearest English word, I believe, is--distracted.
+Be ye not distracted about to-morrow.  I do not mean the vulgar sense of
+the word--which is losing one's senses.  But the old and true sense,
+which is still used by those who speak good English.
+
+To distract, means literally to pull a thing two different ways--even to
+pull it asunder.  We speak of distracting a man's attention, when we call
+him off from looking at one thing to make him look at something else, and
+we call anything which interrupts us in our business, or puts a thought
+suddenly out of our heads, a distraction.  Now the Greek word which St
+Matthew uses, means very nearly this--Be not divided in your thoughts--do
+not think of two things at once--do not distract your attention from to-
+day's work, by fearing and hoping about to-morrow.  Sufficient for the
+day is the evil thereof; and you will have quite trouble enough to get
+through to-day honestly and well, without troubling yourself with to-
+morrow--which may turn out very unlike anything which you can dream.
+This, I think, is the true meaning of the text; and with it, I think,
+agrees another word of our Lord's which St Luke gives--And be ye not of
+doubtful mind.  Literally, Do not be up in the air--blown helpless hither
+and thither, by every gust of wind, instead of keeping on the firm
+ground, and walking straight on about your business, stoutly and
+patiently, step after step.  Have no vain fears or vain hopes about the
+future; but do your duty here and now.  That is our Lord's command, and
+in it lies the secret of success in life.
+
+For do we not find, do we not find, my friends, in practice, that our
+Lord's words are true?  Who are the people who get through most work in
+their lives, with the least wear and tear, not merely to their bodily
+health, but to their tempers and their characters?  Are they the anxious
+people?  Those who imagine to themselves possible misfortunes, and ask
+continually--What if this happened--or that?  What would become of me
+then?  How should I be able to pull through such a trouble?  Where shall
+I find friends?  How shall I make myself safe against the chances and
+changes of life?  Do we not know that those people are the very ones who
+do little work, and often less than none, by thus distracting their
+attention and their strength from their daily duty, daily business?  That
+while they are looking anxiously for future opportunities, they are
+neglecting the opportunities which they have already.  While they are
+making interest with others to help them, they forget to help themselves.
+That in proportion as they lose faith in God and His goodness, they lose
+courage and lose cheerfulness; and have too often to find a false courage
+and a false cheerfulness, by drowning their cares in drink, or in mean
+cunning and plotting and planning, which usually ends in failure and in
+shame?
+
+Are those who do most work, either the plotting or intriguing people?  I
+do not mean base false people.  Of them I do not speak here.  But really
+good and kind people, honest at heart, who yet are full of distractions
+of another sort; who are of double mind--look two ways at once, and are
+afraid to be quite open, quite straightforward--who like to COMPASS their
+ends, as the old saying is, that is to go round about, towards what they
+want, instead of going boldly up to it; who like to try two or more ways
+of getting the same thing done; and, as the proverb has it, have many
+irons in the fire; who love little schemes, and plots, and mysteries,
+even when there is no need for them.  Do such people get most work done?
+Far, far from it.  They take more trouble about getting a little matter
+done, than simpler and braver men take about getting great matters done.
+They fret themselves, they weary themselves, they waste their brains and
+hearts--and sometimes their honesty besides--and if they fail, as in the
+chances and changes of this mortal life they must too often fail, have
+nothing for all their schemings save vanity and vexation of spirit.
+
+But the man who will get most work done, and done with the least trouble,
+whether for himself, for his family, or in the calling and duty to which
+God has called him, will be the man who takes our Lord's advice.  Who
+takes no thought for the morrow, and leaves the morrow to take thought
+for itself.  That man will believe that this world is a well-ordered
+world, as it needs must be, seeing that God made it, God redeemed it, God
+governs it; and that God is merciful in this--that He rewardeth every man
+according to his works.  That man will take thought for to-day, earnestly
+and diligently, even at times anxiously and in fear and trembling; but he
+will not distract, and divide, and weaken his mind by taking thought for
+to-morrow also.  Each day he will set about the duty which lies nearest
+him, with a whole heart and with a single eye, giving himself to it for
+the time, as if there was nothing else to be done in the world.  As for
+what he is to do next, he will think little of that.  Little, even, will
+he think of whether his work will succeed or not.  That must be as God
+shall will.  All that he is bound to do is to do his best; and his best
+he can only do by throwing his whole soul into his work.  As his day, he
+trusts his strength will be; and he must not waste the strength which God
+has given him for to-day on vain fears or vain dreams about to-morrow.
+To-day is quite full enough of anxiety, of care, of toil, of ignorance.
+Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.  Yes; and sufficient for the
+day is the good thereof likewise.  To-day, and to-morrow, too, may end
+very differently from what he hoped.  Yes; but they may end, too, very
+differently from what he feared.  Let him throw his whole soul into the
+thing which he is about, and leave the rest to God.
+
+For so only will he come to the day's end in that wholesome and manful
+temper, contented if not cheerful, satisfied with the work he has had to
+do, if not satisfied with the way in which he has done it, which will
+leave his mind free to remember all his comforts, all his blessings, even
+to those commonest of all blessings, which we are all too apt to forget,
+just because they are as necessary as the air we breathe; which will show
+him how much light there is, even on the darkest day.
+
+He has not got this or that fine thing, it may be, for which he longed:
+but he has at least his life, at least his reason, at least his
+conscience, at least his God.  Are not they enough to possess?  Are not
+they enough wherewith to lie down at night in peace, and rise to-morrow
+to take what comes to-morrow, even as he took what came to-day?  And will
+he not be most fit to take what comes to-morrow like a Christian man,
+whether it be good or evil, with his spirit braced and yet chastened, by
+honest and patient labour, instead of being weakened and irritated by
+idling over to-day, while he dreamed and fretted about to-morrow?
+
+Ah!  I fancy that I hear some one say--perhaps a woman--"So easy to
+preach, but so difficult to practise.  So difficult to think of one thing
+at a time.  So difficult not to plot, not to fret, with a whole family of
+children dependent on you!  What does the preacher know of a woman's
+troubles?  How many things she has to think of, day by day, not one of
+which she dares forget--and yet can seldom or never, for all her
+recollecting, contrive to get them all done?  How can she help being
+distracted by the thought of to-morrow?  Can he feel for frail me?  Does
+he know what I go through?"  Yes.  I do know; and I wonder, and admire.
+To me the sight of any poor woman managing her family respectably and
+thriftily, is one of the most surprising sights on earth, as it is one of
+the most beautiful sights on earth.  How she finds time for it, wit for
+it, patience for it, courage for it, I cannot conceive.  I have wondered
+often why many a woman does not lie down and die, for sheer weariness of
+body and soul.  I have fancied often that God must give some special
+grace to all good mothers, to enable them to do all that they do, and
+bear all they bear.  But still, the women who do most, who bring up their
+families best, are surely those who obey their Lord's command, who give
+their whole souls to each day's work, and think as little as they can of
+to-morrow.  With them, surely, the true wisdom is, not to fret, not to
+plot, to do the duty which lies nearest them, and leave the rest to God;
+to get each week's bill paid, trusting to God to send money for the week
+to come; to get their children every day to school; to correct in them
+each fault as it shews itself, without looking forward too much to how
+the child will turn out at last.  For them, and for parents of all ranks,
+the wisest plan, I believe, is to make no far-fetched plans for their
+children's future, certainly no ambitious intrigues for their marriage:
+but simply to educate them--that is, to bring out in them, day by day,
+all that is purest and best, wisest and ablest, and leave the rest to
+God; sure that if they are worth anything, their Father in heaven will
+find them work to do, and a place at His table, in this life and in the
+life to come.
+
+Yes, my dear friends, this is the true philosophy, the philosophy which
+Christ preaches to us all--to old and young, rich and poor, ploughman and
+scholar, maid, wife, and widow, all alike.
+
+Fret not.  Plot not.  Look not too far ahead.
+
+Fret not--lest you lose temper, and be moved to do evil.  Plot not--lest
+you lose faith in God, and be moved to be dishonest.  Look not too far
+ahead--So far only, as to keep yourselves out of open and certain danger-
+-lest you see what is coming before you are ready for the sight.  If we
+foresaw the troubles which may be coming, perhaps it would break our
+hearts; and if we foresaw the happiness which is coming, perhaps it would
+turn our heads.  Let us not meddle with the future, and matters which are
+too high for us, but refrain our souls, and keep them low, like little
+children, content with the day's food, and the day's schooling, and the
+day's play-hours, sure that the Divine Master knows that all is right,
+and how to train us, and whither to lead us, though we know not, and need
+not know, save this--that the path by which He is leading each of us--if
+we will but obey and follow, step by step--leads up to Everlasting Life.
+
+
+
+SERMON XL.  THE LESSON OF LIFE
+
+
+
+Fifth Sunday in Lent.
+
+Chester Training College, 1870.  Windsor Castle, 1871.
+
+Hebrews v. 7, 8.  "Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up
+prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was
+able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared; though He
+were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered."
+
+This is the lesson of life.  This is God's way of educating us, of making
+us men and women worthy of the name of men and women, worthy of the name
+of children of God.  As Christ learnt, so must we.  If it was necessary
+for Him who know no sin, how much more for us who have sins enough and to
+spare.  Though He was the eternal Son of God, yet He learnt obedience by
+the things which He suffered.  Though we are God's adopted children, we
+must learn obedience by what we suffer.  He had to offer up prayer with
+strong crying.  So shall we have to do again and again before we die.  He
+was heard in that He feared God, and said, "Father not my will, but Thine
+be done."  And so shall we.  He was perfected by sufferings.  God grant
+that we may be so likewise.  He had to do like us.  God grant that we may
+do like Him.
+
+God grant it.  That is all I can say.  I cannot be sure of it, for myself
+or for any of you.  I can only hope, and trust in God.  Life is hard
+work--any life at least which is worth being called life, which is not
+the life of a swine, who thinks of nothing but feeding himself, or of a
+butterfly which thinks of nothing but enjoying itself.  Those are easy
+lives enough:  but the end thereof is death.  The swine goes to the
+slaughter.  The butterfly dies of the frost--and there is an end of them.
+But the manly life, the life of good deeds and noble thoughts, and
+usefulness, and purity, the life which is discontented with itself, and
+which the better it is, longs the more to be better still; the life which
+will endure through this world into the world to come, and on and upward
+for ever and for ever.--That life is not an easy life to live; it is very
+often not a pleasant life; very often a sad life--so sad that that is
+true of it which the great poet says--
+
+
+"Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,
+Who never in the midnight hours
+Sat weeping on his lonely bed,
+He knows you not, you Heavenly Powers."
+
+
+You may say this is bad news.  I do not believe it is.  I believe it is
+good news, and the very best of news:  but if it is bad news, I cannot
+help it.  I did not make it so.  God made it so.  And God must know best.
+God is love.  And we are His children, and He loves us.  And therefore
+His ways with us must be good and loving ways, and any news about them
+must be good news, and a gospel, though we cannot see it so at first.
+
+In any case, if it is so, it is better to remember that it is so.  And
+Lent, and Passion Week, and Good Friday are meant to put us in mind of it
+year by year, because we are all of us only too ready to forget it, and
+shut our eyes to it.  Lent and Passion Week, I say, are meant to put us
+in mind.  And the preacher is bound to put you in mind of it now and
+then.  He is bound, not too often perhaps, lest he should discourage
+young hearts, but now and then, to put you in mind of the old Greek
+proverb, the very words of which St. Paul uses in the text, that ta
+pa??æata æa??æata--sorrows are lessons; and that the most truly pitiable
+people often are those who have no sorrows, and ask for no man's pity.
+
+For so it is.  The very worst calamity, I should say, which could befall
+any human being would be this--To have his own way from his cradle to his
+grave; to have everything he liked for the asking, or even for the
+buying; never to be forced to say, "I should like that:  but I cannot
+afford it.  I should like this:  but I must not do it"--Never to deny
+himself, never to exert himself, never to work, and never to want.  That
+man's soul would be in as great danger as if he were committing great
+crimes.  Indeed, he would very probably before he died commit great
+crimes--like certain negroes whom I have seen abroad, who live a life of
+such lazy comfort and safety, and superabundance of food, that they are
+beginning more and more to live the life of animals rather than men.
+They are like those of whom the Psalmist says, "Their eyes swell out with
+fatness, and they do even what they lust."  So do they, and indulge in
+gross vices, which, if not checked in some way, will end in destroying
+them off the face of the earth in a few generations more.  I had rather,
+for the sake of my character, my manhood, my immortal soul, I had rather,
+I say, a hundred times over, be an English labourer, struggling on on
+twelve shillings a week, and learning obedience, self-denial, self-
+respect, and trust in God, by the things suffered in that hard life here
+at home, than be a Negro in Tropic islands, fattening himself in sloth
+under that perpetual sunshine, and thinking nought of God, because, poor
+fool, he can get all he wants without God's help.
+
+No, my dear young friends, this is good for a man.  It is necessary for a
+man, if he is to be a man and a child of God, and not a mere animal, to
+have to work hard whether he likes or not.  It is good for a man to bear
+the yoke in his youth, as Jeremiah told the Jews, when, because they
+would not bear God's light yoke in their youth, but ran riot into luxury
+and wantonness, and superstition and idolatry which come thereof, they
+had to bear the heavy yoke of the Babylonish captivity in their old age.
+It is good for a man to be checked, crossed, disappointed, made to feel
+his own ignorance, weakness, folly; made to feel his need of God; to feel
+that, in spite of all his cunning and self-confidence, he is no better
+off in this world than a lost child in a dark forest, unless he has a
+Father in Heaven, who loves him with an eternal love, and a Holy Spirit
+in Heaven, who will give him a right judgment in all things; who will put
+into his mind good desires, and enable him to bring those desires to good
+effect; and a Saviour in Heaven who can be touched with the feeling of
+his infirmities, because He too was made perfect by sufferings; He too
+was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.
+
+And, therefore, my dear friends, those words which we read in the
+Visitation of the Sick about this matter are not mere kind words, meant
+to give comfort for the moment.  They are truth and fact and sound
+philosophy.  They are as true for the young lad in health and spirits as
+for the old folk crawling towards their graves.  It is true, and you will
+find it true, that sickness and all sorts of troubles, are sent to
+correct and amend in us whatever doth offend the eyes of our Heavenly
+Father.  It is true, and you will find it true, that whom the Lord loveth
+He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.  It is true,
+and you will find it true (though God knows it is a difficult lesson
+enough to learn), that there should be no greater comfort to Christian
+persons, than to be made like Christ, by suffering patiently not only the
+hard work of every-day life, but adversities, troubles, and sicknesses,
+and our Heavenly Father's correction, whensoever, by any manner of
+adversity, it shall please His gracious goodness to visit them.  For
+Christ Himself went not up to joy, but first He suffered pain; He entered
+not into His glory, before He was crucified.
+
+So truly our way to eternal joy is to labour and to suffer here with
+Christ.  It is true, and you will find it true, when years hence you look
+back, as I trust you all will, calmly and intelligently, on the events of
+your own lives--you will find, I say, that the very events in your lives
+which seemed at the time most trying, most vexing, most disastrous, have
+been those which wore most necessary for you, to call out what was good
+in you, and to purge out what was bad; that by those very troubles your
+Lord, who knows the value of suffering, because He has suffered Himself,
+was making true men, true women of you; hardening your heads, while He
+softened your hearts; teaching you to obey Him, while He taught you not
+to obey your own fancies and your own passions; refining and tempering
+your characters in the furnace of trial, as the smith refines soft iron
+into trusty steel; teaching you, as the great poet says--
+
+
+   "That life is not as idle ore,
+But heated hot with burning fears,
+And bathed in baths of hissing tears,
+   And battered with the strokes of doom,
+   To shape and use."
+
+
+Yes, you will learn that, and more than that, and say in peace--"Before I
+was troubled I went wrong, but now have I kept thy commandments."  And to
+such an old age may our Lord Jesus Christ bring you and me and all we
+love.  Amen.
+
+
+
+SERMON XLI.  SACRIFICE TO CAESAR OR TO GOD
+
+
+
+Eversley, 1869.  Chester Cathedral, 1872.
+
+Matthew xxii. 21.  "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are
+Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's."
+
+Many a sermon has been preached, and many a pamphlet written, on this
+text, and (as too often has happened to Holy Scripture), it has been made
+to mean the most opposite doctrines, and twisted in every direction, to
+suit men's opinions and superstitions.  Some have found in it a command
+to obey tyrants, invaders, any and every government, just or unjust.
+Others have found in it rules for drawing a line between the authority of
+the State and of the Church, i.e., between what the Government have a
+right to command, and what the Clergy have a right to demand; and many
+more matters have they fancied that they discovered in the text which I
+do not believe are in it at all.
+
+For to understand the original question--Is it lawful to pay tribute to
+Caesar or no? we must imagine to ourselves a state of things in Judea
+utterly different, thank God, from anything which has been in these
+realms for now eight hundred years.  The Caesar, or Emperor of Rome, had
+obtained by conquest an authority over the Jews very like that which we
+have over the Hindoos in India.  And what was working in the mind of the
+Jews was very like that which was working in the minds of the Hindoos in
+the Sepoy Rebellion--whether it was not a sacred and religious duty to
+rise against their conquerors and drive them out.  We know from the New
+Testament that both our Lord and His apostles again and again warned them
+not to rebel, warned them that they would not succeed:  but ruin
+themselves thereby; for that those who took the sword would perish by the
+sword.  And we know, too, that the Jews would not take our Lord's advice,
+nor the apostles', but did rise again and again, both in Judea and
+elsewhere, gallantly and desperately enough, poor creatures, in mad
+useless rebellion, till the Romans all but destroyed them off the face of
+the earth.  But what has that to do with us, free self-governed
+Englishmen, in this peaceful and prosperous land?  In the early middle
+age, when the clergy represented and defended Roman pure Christianity and
+civilization against the half-heathen and half-barbaric Teutons who had
+conquered the Roman Empire, then doubtless the text became once more full
+of meaning, and the clergy had again and again to defend the things which
+belonged to God against the rapacity or the wilfulness of many a barbaric
+Caesar.  But what has that, again, to do with us?  Those who apply the
+text to any questions which can at present arise between the Church and
+the State, mistake alike, it seems to me, the nature and functions of an
+Established Church, and the nature and functions of a free Government.
+
+Do I mean, then, that the text has nothing to do with us?  God forbid!  I
+believe that every word of our Lord's has to do with us, and with every
+human being, for their meaning is infinite, eternal, and inexhaustible.
+And what the latter half of the text has to do with us, I will try to
+show you, while I tell you openly, that the first half of it, about
+rendering to Caesar the things which are Caesar's, has nothing to do with
+us, and never need, save through our own cowardice and effeminacy, or
+folly.
+
+We have no Caesar over us in free England, and shall not have, while
+Queen Victoria, and her children after her reign; but if ever one, or
+many (which God forbid!), should arise and try to set themselves up as
+despots over us, I trust we shall know how to render them their due, be
+they native or foreigner, in the same coin in which our forefathers have
+always paid tyrants and invaders.  No.  The only Caesar which we have to
+fear--and he is a tyrant who seems ready, nowadays, to oppose and exalt
+himself above all that is called God, or is worshipped,--patronizing, of
+course, Religion, as a harmless sanction for order and respectability,
+but dictating morality, while telling us all day long, with a thousand
+voices and a thousand pens--"Right is not the eternal law of God.
+Whatever profits me, whatever I like, whatever I vote--that and that
+alone is right, and you must do it at your peril."  Do you know who that
+Caesar is, my friends?  He is called Public Opinion--the huge anonymous
+idol which we ourselves help to make, and then tremble before the
+creation of our own cowardice; whereas, if we will but face him, in the
+fear of God and the faith of Christ, determined to say the thing which is
+true, and do the thing which is right, we shall find the modern Caesar
+but a phantom of our own imagination; a tyrant, indeed, as long as he is
+feared, but a coward as soon as he is defied.
+
+To that Caesar let us never bow the knee.  Render to him all that he
+deserves--the homage of common courtesy, common respectability, common
+charity--not in reverence for his wisdom and strength, but in pity for
+his ignorance and weakness.  But render always to God the things which
+are God's.  That duty, my good friends, lies on us, as on all mankind
+still, from our cradle to our grave, and after that through all eternity.
+Let us go back, or rather, let us go home to the eternal laws of God,
+which were, ages before we were born, and will be, ages after we are
+dead--to the everlasting Rock on which we all stand, which is the will
+and mind of our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, to whom all power is
+given (as He said Himself) in heaven and on earth.  And we have need to
+do so, for in such times of change as these are, there will always be too
+many who fancy that changes in society and government change their duty
+about religion, and are, some of them, sorely puzzled as to their duty to
+God:  and others ready to take advantage of the change to throw off their
+duty to God, and run into licence and schism and fanaticism.
+
+Now let all people clearly understand, and settle it in their hearts,
+that no change in Church or in State can change in the least their duty
+to God and to man.  If the world were turned upside down, God would still
+be where He is, and we where we are--in His presence.  Right would still
+be right, my friends, and wrong wrong, though all the loud voices in the
+world shouted that wrong is right and right wrong.  No change of time,
+place, society, government, circumstance of any kind, can alter our duty
+to God, and our power of doing that duty.  Whatever the Caesar of the
+hour may require us to render to him, what we are bound to render to God
+remains the same.  The two things are different IN KIND, so different,
+that they never need interfere with each other.
+
+Even if, which God forbid, the connection between Church and State were
+dissolved; even if, which God forbid, the Church of England were
+destroyed for a while--if all Churches were destroyed--yea, if not a
+place of worship were left for a while in this or any other land; yet
+even then, I say, we could still render to God the things which are
+God's, and offer to Him spiritual sacrifices, more pleasing to Him than
+the most gorgeous ceremonies which the devotion, and art, and wealth of
+man ever devised--sacrifices, by virtue of which the Church would arise
+out of her ruins, like the Jewish Church after the captivity, more pure,
+more glorious, and more triumphant than ever.
+
+What do I mean?  I mean this--that there are three sacrifices which every
+man, woman, and child can offer, and should offer, however lowly, however
+uneducated in what the world calls education nowadays.  Those they can
+offer to God, and with them they can worship God, and render to God the
+things which are God's, wherever they are, whatever they are doing,
+whatever be the laws of their country, or the state of society round
+them.  For of these sacrifices our Lord Himself said, The true
+worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth:  for the
+Father seeketh such to worship Him.
+
+Now what are these spiritual sacrifices?
+
+First and foremost, surely, the sacrifice of repentance, of which it is
+written, "The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit.  A broken and a
+contrite heart, oh God, Thou wilt not despise."  Surely when we--even the
+best of us--look back on our past lives; when we recollect, if not great
+and positive sins and crimes, yet the opportunities which we have
+neglected; the time, and often the money which we have wasted; the
+meannesses, the tempers, the spite, the vanity, the selfishness, which we
+have too often indulged--When we think of what we have been, and what we
+might have been, what we are, and what we might be; when we measure
+ourselves, not by the paltry, low, and often impure standard of the world
+around us, but by the pure, lofty, truly heroical standard of our Lord
+Jesus Christ--what can we say, but that we are miserable--that is,
+pitiful and pitiable sinners, who have left undone what we ought to have
+done, and done that which we ought not to have done, till there is no
+health in us?
+
+And if you ask me, How is it a sacrifice to God to confess to Him that we
+are sinners? the answer is simple.  It is a sacrifice to God, and a
+sacrifice well-pleasing to Him, simply because it is The Truth.  God
+wants nothing from us; we can give Him nothing.  The wild beasts of the
+forest are His, and so are the cattle on a thousand hills.  If He be
+hungry He will not tell us for the whole world is His and all that is
+therein.  But what He asks is, that for our own sakes we should see the
+truth about ourselves, see what we really are, and sacrifice that self-
+conceit which prevents our seeing ourselves as God our Father sees us.
+And why does that please God?  Simply because it puts us in our right
+state, and in our right place, where we can begin to become better men,
+let us be as bad as we may.  If a man be a fool, the best possible thing
+for him is that he should find out that he is a fool, and confess that he
+is a fool, as the first, and the absolutely necessary first step to
+becoming wise.  Therefore repentance, contrition, humility, is the very
+foundation-stone of all goodness, virtue, holiness, usefulness; and God
+desires to see us contrite, simply because He desires to see us good men
+and good women.
+
+Next, the sacrifice of thankfulness, of which it is written, "I will
+offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name
+of the Lord."  And again--By Christ let us offer the sacrifice of praise
+continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks unto His name.
+Ah! my friends, if we offered that sacrifice oftener, we should have more
+seldom need to offer the first sacrifice of repentance.  I am astonished
+when I look at my own heart, by which alone I can judge the hearts of
+others, to see how unthankful one is.  How one takes as a matter of
+course, without one aspiration of gratitude to our Father in heaven--how
+one takes, as a matter of course, I say, life, health, reason, freedom,
+education, comfort, safety, and all the blessings of humanity, and of
+this favoured land.  How we never really feel that these are all God's
+undeserved and unearned mercies; and then, how, if we set our hearts on
+anything which we have not got, forget all that we have already, and
+begin entreating God to give us something which, if we had, we know not
+whether it would be good for us; like children crying peevishly for
+sweets, after their parents have given them all the wholesome food they
+need.  Ah! that we would offer to God more frankly the sacrifice of
+thanksgiving!  So we should do God justice, by confessing all we owe to
+Him; and so, we must believe, we should please God; for if God be indeed
+our Father in heaven, as surely as a parent is pleased with the affection
+and gratitude of his child, so will our Father in heaven be pleased when
+He sees us love Him, who first loved us.
+
+Next--the sacrifice of righteousness, of which it is written, "Present
+your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your
+reasonable service."  To be good and to do good, even to long to be good
+and to long to do good, to hunger and thirst after righteousness, is the
+best and highest sacrifice which any human being can offer to his Father
+in heaven.  For so he honours his father most truly; for he longs and
+strives to be like that Father; to be good as God is good, holy as God is
+holy, beneficent and useful even as God is infinitely beneficent and
+useful; being, in one word, perfect, as his Father in heaven is perfect.
+This is the best and highest act of worship, the truest devotion.  For
+pure worship (says St James), and undefiled before God and the Father, is
+this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep
+ourselves unspotted from the world.
+
+Yes--every time we perform an act of kindness to any human being, aye,
+even to a dumb animal; every time we conquer our own worldliness, love of
+pleasure, ease, praise, ambition, money, for the sake of doing what our
+conscience tells us to be our duty, we are indeed worshipping God the
+Father in spirit and in truth, and offering him a sacrifice which He will
+surely accept, for the sake of His beloved Son, by whose spirit all good
+deeds and thoughts are inspired.
+
+Think of these things, my friends, always, but, above all, think of them
+as often as you come--as would to God all would come--to the altar of the
+Lord, and the Holy Communion of His body and blood.  For there, indeed,
+you render to God that which is God's--namely, yourselves; there you
+offer to God the true sacrifice, which is the sacrifice of yourselves--
+the sacrifice of repentance, the sacrifice of thanksgiving, the sacrifice
+of righteousness, or at least of hunger and thirst after righteousness;
+and there you receive in return your share of God's sacrifice, the
+sacrifice which you did not make for Him, but which He made for you, when
+He spared not His only-begotten Son but freely gave Him for us.
+
+That is the sacrifice of all sacrifices, the wonder of all wonders, the
+mystery of all mysteries; and it is also the righteousness of all
+righteousness, the generosity of all generosity, the nobleness of all
+nobleness, the beauty of all beauty, the love of all love.  Thinking of
+that, beholding in that bread and wine the tokens of the boundless love
+of God, then surely, surely, our repentance for past follies, our
+thankfulness for present blessings, our longing to be good, pure, useful,
+humane, generous, high-minded--in one word, to be holy--ought to rise up
+in us, into a passion, as it were, of noble shame at our own selfishness,
+and admiration of God's unselfishness, a longing to follow His divine
+example, and to live, not for ourselves, but for our fellow-men.  If we
+could but once understand the full meaning of those awful yet glorious
+words, "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,
+how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" then, indeed,
+we should understand that the one overpowering reason for being unselfish
+and doing good is this--that we are God's children, and that God our
+Father is utterly unselfish, and utterly does good, even at the sacrifice
+of Himself; and that therefore when we are unselfish, and do good, even
+at the sacrifice of ourselves, we do indeed, in spirit and in truth,
+"render unto God the things that are God's."
+
+
+
+SERMON XLII.  THE UNJUST STEWARD
+
+
+
+Eversley, 1866.  NINTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
+
+Luke xvi. 8.  "And the Lord commended the unjust steward, because he had
+done wisely."
+
+None of our Lord's parables has been as difficult to explain as this one.
+Learned and pious men have confessed freely, in all ages, that there is
+much in the parable which they cannot understand; and I am bound to
+confess the same.  The puzzle is, plainly, why our Lord should SEEM to
+bid us to copy the conduct of a bad man and a cheat.  For this is the
+usual interpretation.  The steward has been cheating his master already.
+When he is found out and about to be dismissed, he cheats his master
+still further, by telling his debtors to cheat, and so wins favour with
+them.
+
+But does our Lord bid us copy a cheat?  I cannot believe that; and the
+text I should have said ought to give us a very different notion.  We
+read that the lord--that is, the steward's master--commended the unjust
+steward.  What?  Commended him for cheating him a second time, and
+teaching his debtors to cheat him?  He must have been a man of a strange
+character--very unlike any man whom we know, or, at all events, any man
+whom we should wish to know--to have done that.  But it is said--he
+commended him for having acted wisely.  Now that word "wisely" may merely
+mean prudently, sensibly, and with common sense.  But if the master
+thought that to cheat, or to teach others to cheat, was acting either
+wisely or prudently, then he was a very foolish and short-sighted man,
+and altogether mistaken.  For be sure and certain, and settle it in your
+minds, that neither falsehood or dishonesty is ever either wise or
+prudent, but short-sighted, foolish, certain to punish itself.  Such
+teaching is totally contrary to our Lord's own teaching.  Agree with
+thine adversary quickly, He says, while thou art in the way with him,
+lest he deliver thee to the Judge.  If thou hast done wrong, right it
+again as soon as possible; for your sin will surely find you out, and
+avenge itself.  Give the devil his due, says the good old proverb.  Pay
+him at once and be done with him:  but never think to escape out of his
+clutches, as too many wretched and foolish sinners do, by running up a
+fresh score with him, and trying to hide old sins by new ones.  Be sure
+that if the steward cheated his master a second time, the master was
+foolish and mistaken, and as it were a partner in the steward's sin by
+commending him.  But if so; why does our Lord mention it?  What had our
+Lord to do, what have we to do, with the opinion of so foolish a man?
+
+It seems to me that the only reason for our Lord's using the words of the
+text, must be, that the master was right, not wrong, in commending the
+steward.  But it seems to me, also, that the master could be right only,
+if the steward was right also--if the steward had done the right and just
+thing at last, and, instead of cheating his master a second time, had
+done his best to make restitution for his own sins.
+
+But how could that be?  We know nothing of what these debtors were.  All
+we know is that one believed that he owed the Lord a hundred measures of
+oil; and another believed that he owed him a hundred measures of wheat;
+and that the steward told one to put down in his bill eighty, and the
+other fifty.  Now suppose that the steward had been cheating and
+oppressing these men, as was common enough in those days with stewards,
+and has been common enough since; suppose that he had been charging them
+more than they really owed, and, it may be, putting the surplus into his
+own pocket, and so wasting his master's goods--that the one really owed
+only eighty measures of oil, and the other really owed only fifty of
+wheat; what could be more simple, or more truly wise either, when he was
+found out, than to do this--to go round to the debtors and confess:  I
+have been overcharging you; you do not owe what I have demanded of you;
+take your bill and write four-score, for that is what you really owe?
+
+This is but a guess on my part.  But all other explanations are only
+guesses likewise, because we do not know how business was transacted in
+those days and in that country.  We do not know whether these debtors
+were tenants, paying rent in kind, or traders to whom goods had been
+advanced, or what they were.  We do not know whether the steward was
+agent of the estate, or house steward, or what he was.  But this we do
+know--that to mend one act of villainy by committing a fresh one, is not
+wisdom, but foolishness; and we may be sure that our Lord would never
+have held up the unjust steward as an example to us, or quoted his
+master's opinion of him, if all he did was to commit fraud on fraud, and
+make bad worse, thereby risking his own more utter ruin.  And this view
+of the parable surely agrees with our Lord's own lesson, which He draws
+from it.  "And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon
+of righteousness."  But what does that mean?  Wise men have been puzzled
+by that text as much as by the parable; but surely our Lord Himself
+explains it in the verses which follow:  "He that is faithful in that
+which is least, is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in that
+which is least, is unjust also in much."  He that is FAITHFUL.  The
+unjust steward was commended for acting wisely.  Now, it seems the way to
+act wisely is to act faithfully--that is honestly.  Our Lord bids us copy
+the unjust steward, and make ourselves friends of the mammon of
+unrighteousness.  Now, it seems, He tells us that the way to make friends
+of men by money transactions is to deal faithfully and honestly by them.
+This then was perhaps why the Lord commended the unjust steward, because
+he had been converted in time, and seen his true interest; and for once
+at least in his life become just.  He had found out that after all,
+honesty is the best policy; as God grant all of us may find out if any of
+us have not found it out already.  Honesty is the best policy.
+Faithfulness, as our Lord calls it, is the true wisdom.  And in that, as
+our Lord says, the children of this world are wiser in their generation
+than the children of light.  The children of this world, the plain
+worldly men of business, find that to conduct their business they must be
+faithful, diligent, punctual, accurate, cautious, business-like.  They
+must have practical common sense, which is itself a kind of honesty.
+They must be men of their word, just and true in their dealings, or
+sooner or later, they will fail.  Their schemes, their money, their
+credit, their character, will fail them, and they will be overwhelmed by
+ruin.
+
+And that is just what too often the children of light forget.  The
+children of light have a higher light, a deeper teaching from God, than
+the children of the world.  They have a great insight into what ought to
+be; they see that mankind might be far wiser, happier, better, holier
+than they are; they have noble and lofty hopes for the future; they
+desire the welfare and the holiness of mankind.  But they are too apt to
+want practical common sense.  And so they are laughed at (and deservedly)
+as dreamers, as fanatics, as foolish unpractical people, who are wasting
+their talents on impossible fancies.  Often while their minds are full of
+really useful and noble schemes, they neglect their business, their
+families, their common duties, till they cause misery to those around
+them, and shame to themselves.  Often, too, they are tempted to be
+actually dishonest, to fancy that the means sanctify the end; that it is
+lawful to do evil that good may come; and so, in order to carry out some
+fine scheme of theirs, to say false things, or do mean or cruel things,
+not for their own interest, but, as they fancy, for the cause of God:  as
+if God, and God's cause, could ever be helped by the devil and his works.
+And so they cast a scandal on religion, and give the enemies of the Lord
+reason to blaspheme.  So it was, it seems, in our Lord's time--so it has
+been too often since.  The children of light--those who ought to be of
+most use to their own generation--are sometimes of least use to it,
+through their own weaknesses and follies.  They will not remember that he
+that is not faithful in that which is least, in the every-day concerns of
+life, is not likely to be faithful in that which is greatest; that if
+they will not be faithful in the unrighteous mammon--that is, if they
+cannot resist the temptations to meanness and unfairness which come with
+all money transactions, God will not commit to them the true riches--the
+power of making their fellow creatures wiser, happier, better.  If they
+will not be faithful in that which is another man's--in plain English, if
+they will not pay their debts honestly, who will give them that which is
+their own--the inspiration of God's indwelling Spirit?  Would to God all
+high religious professors would recollect that, and be just and honest,
+before they pretend to higher graces and counsels of perfection.
+
+This lesson, then, I think our Lord means to teach us.  I do not say it
+is the only lesson in the parable; God forbid.  But I think that our
+Lord's own words show us that this IS one lesson.  That, however pious we
+are, however enlightened we are, however useful we wish to be; in one
+word, however much we are, or fancy ourselves to be, children of light,
+our first duty as Christian men is the duty which lies nearest us--that
+of which it is written:  "If a man know not how to rule his own house,
+how shall he take care of the Church of God?"  And again, "If any provide
+not for his own and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied
+the faith, and is worse than an infidel."  Our first duty, I say, as
+Christian men, is to be just and honest in money matters and every-day
+business; and over and above that, to be generous and liberal therein.
+Not merely to pay--which the very publicans in our Lord's time did--but
+to give, generously, liberally; lending, if we can afford it, as our Lord
+bids us, hoping for nothing again; and remembering that he who giveth to
+the poor lendeth to the Lord, and whatsoever he layeth out, it shall be
+repaid him again.
+
+Yes, my friends, we must all needs take our Lord's advice--make to
+yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail,
+they may receive you into everlasting habitations.  WHEN YE FAIL--
+literally, when you are eclipsed, as the sun is eclipsed.  That must
+happen to all of us, to the best, the wisest, the most famous.  Each must
+be eclipsed, and passed in the race of life, and forgotten for some
+younger man.  Each in turn must fail.  One may fail in money--the mammon
+for which he toiled may take to itself wings and fly away; or he may fail
+in his plans, noble plans, and useful though they seemed; and he may
+find, as he grows old, that the world has not gone HIS way, but quite
+another one; or he may fail in health, and be cut down and crippled, and
+laid by in the midst of his work.  And even if he escapes all these
+disasters, he must needs fail at last, by mere old age, when the days
+come "when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;" when the sun and
+the light are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain, when the
+strong men bow themselves, and those who look out of the windows are
+dark; and he shall rise up at the voice of a bird, and fears shall be in
+the way, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail:
+because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the
+streets.  Think for yourselves.  What would you wish your end to be--
+lonely, unhappy, without the love, the respect, the care of your fellow-
+men; or surrounded by friends who comfort your failing body and soul on
+earth, and receive you at last into everlasting habitations?
+
+Make friends, make friends against that day, whether or not you make them
+out of the mammon of unrighteousness.  If you have been unrighteous,
+bring friends back to you, as the steward did, by being just and fair, by
+confessing your faults freely, by doing your best to atone for them.  And
+if you have no share in the mammon of unrighteousness, still make
+friends.  Make them by truth and justice, make them by generosity and
+usefulness.  To ease every burden, and let the oppressed go free, to feed
+the hungry, clothe the naked, and what the very poorest can do--comfort
+the mourner; to nurse the sick, to visit the fatherless and widows in
+their affliction, and so keep ourselves unspotted from the selfishness of
+the world--This is that true Religion, acceptable in the sight of God the
+Father--and happy he who has so served God.  Happy for him, when he
+begins to fail, to see round him attached hearts, and grateful faces,
+hands ready to tend him, as he has tended others.  And happier still to
+remember that on the other side of the dark river of death are other
+grateful faces, other loving hearts, ready to welcome him into
+everlasting habitations--and among them, and above them all, one whose
+form is as the Son of Man, full of all humanity Himself, and loving and
+rewarding all humanity in His creatures, saying, "Inasmuch as ye did it
+to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me."
+
+
+
+SERMON XLIII.  THE RICH AND THE POOR
+
+
+
+Chapel Royal, Whitehall, 1871.
+
+Proverbs xxii. 2.  "The rich and poor meet together:  the Lord is the
+maker of them all."
+
+I have been asked to preach here this afternoon on behalf of the
+Parochial Mission Women's Fund.  I may best describe the object for which
+I plead, as an attempt to civilise and Christianise the women of the
+lower classes in the poorer districts of London and other great towns, by
+means of women of their own class--women, who have gone through the same
+struggles as they have, and who will be trusted by them to understand and
+to sympathize with their needs and difficulties.  These mission women are
+in communication with lady-superintendents in each ecclesiastical
+district.  These are, I understand, usually the wives of small tradesmen,
+or of clerks.  They, again, are in communication with ladies at the West
+End of London, who are willing to give personal help and money for
+certain objects, but not indiscriminate alms.  And thus a series of links
+is established between the most prosperous and the least prosperous
+classes, by means of which the rich and the poor may meet together, and
+learn--to the infinite benefit of both--that the Lord is the maker of
+them all.  Considering this excellent scheme, I could not help seeing as
+a background to it, a very different and a far darker scene.  I could not
+help remembering that during these very days, the poorer classes of
+another great city had taken up an attitude full of awful lessons to us,
+and to every civilized country upon earth.  We have been reading of a
+hundred thousand armed men encamped in the suburbs of Belleville and
+Montmartre, with cannon and mitrailleuses, uttering through their organs,
+threats which leave no doubt that the meaning of this movement is--as
+some of them boldly phrase it,--a war of the poor against the rich.
+There is no mistaking what that means.  This madness has been stopped for
+the time, we are told, principally (as was to be expected), by the
+superior common sense of their wives.  But only, I fear, for a time.
+Such men will go far, if not this time, then some other time.  For they
+believe what they say, and know what they want.  They have done with
+phrases, done with illusions.  They are no longer deceived and hampered
+by party cries against this and that grievance, real or imaginary, the
+abolition of which the working classes demand so eagerly from time to
+time, in the vain belief that if it were only got rid of the millennium
+would be at hand.  They have done long ago with remedial half-measures.
+Landed aristocracy, Established Church, military classes, privileged
+classes, restricted suffrage, and all the rest, have been abolished in
+their country for two generations and more:  but behold, the poor man
+finds himself (or fancies himself, which is just as dangerous) no richer,
+safer, happier after all, and begins to see a far simpler remedy for all
+his ills.  He has too little of this world's goods, while others have too
+much.  What more fair, more simple, than that he should take some of the
+rich man's goods, and if he resists, kill him, crying, "Thou sayest, let
+me eat and drink, for to-morrow I die.  Then I too will eat and drink,
+for to-morrow _I_ die?"  And so will the rich and poor meet together with
+a vengeance, simply because neither of them has learnt that the Lord is
+the maker of them all.
+
+This is a hideous conclusion.  But it is one towards which the poor will
+tend in every country in which the rich are merely rich, spending their
+wealth in self-enjoyment, atoned for by a modicum of alms.
+
+I said a modicum of alms.  I ought to have said, any amount of alms, any
+amount of charity.  Throughout the great cities of Europe--in London as
+much as anywhere--hundreds of thousands are saying, "We want no alms.  We
+intend to reconstitute society, even at the expense of blood, so that no
+man, woman, or child, shall need the rich man's alms.  We do not choose,
+for it is not just, that he should take credit to himself for giving us a
+shilling when he owes us a pound, ten, a hundred pounds--owes us, in
+fact, all by which he and his class are richer than us and our class.
+And we will make him pay his debt."
+
+I do not say that such words are wise.  I believe them to be foolish--
+suicidal.  I believe that it is those who patiently wait on the Lord, and
+not the discontented who fret themselves till they do evil, who will
+inherit the land, and be refreshed in peace.  I believe that all those
+who take the sword will perish by the sword; that those who appeal to
+brute force will always find it--just because it is brute force--always
+strongest on the side of the rich, who can hire it for evil, as for good.
+
+I only say, that so hundreds of thousands think; so they speak, and will
+speak more and more loudly, as long as the present tone of society
+endures,--good-natured and well meaning, but luxurious, covetous,
+ignoble, frivolous, ignorant; believing--all classes alike, not only that
+money makes the man, but worse far--that money makes the woman also; and
+all the while half-ashamed of itself, half-distrustful of itself, and
+trying to buy off man by alms, and God by superstition.
+
+So long as the great mass of the poor of any city know nothing of the
+great mass of the rich of that city, save as folk who roll past them in
+their carriages, seemingly easy while they are struggling, seemingly
+happy while they are wretched, so long will the rich of that city be
+supposed, however falsely, to be what the French workmen used to call
+mangeurs d'hommes--exploiteurs d'hommes--to get their wealth by means of
+the poverty, their comfort by means of the misery of their fellow-men;
+and so long will they be exposed to that mere envy and hatred which
+pursues always the more prosperous, till, in some national crisis, when
+the rich and poor meet together, both parties will be but too apt to
+behave, through mutual fear and hate, as if not God, but the devil, was
+the maker of them all.
+
+These words are strong.  How can they be too strong, in face of what is
+now passing in a neighbouring land?  Not too strong, either, in view of
+the actual state of vast masses of the poor in London itself, and indeed
+of any one of our great cities.
+
+That matter has been reported on, preached on, spoken on, till all other
+civilized countries reproach Britain with the unique contrast between the
+exceeding wealth of some classes and the exceeding poverty of others;
+till we, instead of being startled by the reproach, take the present
+state of things as a matter of course, a physical necessity, a law of
+nature and society, that there should be, in the back streets of every
+great city, hordes of, must I say, savages? neither decently civilized
+nor decently Christianized, uncertain, most of them, of regular
+livelihood, and therefore shiftless and reckless, extravagant in
+prosperity, and in adversity falling at once into want and pauperism.
+You may ask any clergyman, any minister of religion of any denomination,
+whether the thing is not so.  Or if you want to read the latest news
+about the degradation of your fellow-subjects, read a little book called
+"East and West," and judge for yourselves, whether such a population,
+numbered by hundreds of thousands, are in a state pleasing to God, or
+safe for those classes of whom they only know that they pay them wages,
+and that these wages are as small as they can be forced to take.  Read
+that book; and then ask yourselves, is it wonderful that, in one
+district, before the mission of the society for which I plead was
+established, the poor used seriously to believe that it was the wish and
+endeavour of the rich to grind them down, and keep them poor.  We, of
+course, know that the poor folk were mistaken but do we not know, too--
+some of us--that there are political economists in the world, who, though
+they would not willingly make the poor poorer than they are, are still of
+opinion that it is good for the nation, on the whole, that the present
+state of things should continue; that there should be always a reserve of
+labour, in plain English, a vast multitude who have not quite work enough
+to live on, ready to be called on in any emergency of business, and used,
+to beat down, by their competition, the wages of their fellow-workmen?
+Is this theory altogether novel and unheard of?  Or this theory also,
+that for this very reason, Emigration, which looks the very simplest
+remedy for most of this want,--while nine-tenths of the bounteous earth
+is waiting to be subdued and replenished by the poor wretches who cannot
+get at it--that Emigration, I say, is an unnecessary movement--that the
+people are all wanted at home--to be such as the parson and the mission
+women find them?
+
+And it may be that the poor folk have heard--for a bird of the air may
+carry the matter in these days of a free press--that some rich folk, at
+least, hold this opinion, and translate it freely out of the delicate
+language of political economy, into the more vigorous dialect used in the
+fever alleys and smallpox courts in which the poor are left to wait for
+work.  But if there be any rich persons in this congregation who hold
+these peculiar economic doctrines, let me recommend to them, more than to
+any other persons present, that they would support a society which
+alleviates the hard pressure of their system; which helps to make it
+tolerable and prudent by teaching the poor to save; by teaching them, in
+London alone,--how to save œ54,000 in the last eleven years.  Let them
+help this society heartily.
+
+The children of this world are--in their generation--wiser than the
+children of light.  But how long their generation will last, depends
+mainly (we are told) on how far they make themselves friends out of the
+mammon of unrighteousness.
+
+But if, again, there be rich people in this congregation, as I trust
+there are many and many, who start, indignant, at such an imputation, and
+utterly deny its truth--then,--if it be false, why in the name of God,
+and of humanity, and of common prudence, why do they not go to these
+people and tell them so?  Why do they not prove that it is not so, by
+showing a little more human sympathy, not merely for them behind their
+backs, but sympathy with them face to face?  If they wish to know how
+much can be done by only a little active kindness, they have only to read
+the pages of that painful, and yet pleasant, book--"East and West,"--
+which I have just quoted; and to read, also, an appendix to it--a Paper
+originally read at the Church Congress, Manchester, by the present Lord
+Chancellor--a document which it would be an impertinence in me to
+recommend or praise.
+
+Bring yourselves then boldly into contact with these classes, and
+especially into contact with the women--with the wives and mothers.  For
+it is through the women, through them mainly, if not altogether, that
+civilization and religion can be introduced among any degraded class.  It
+was so in the Middle Age.  The legends which tell us how woman was then
+the civilizer, the softener, the purifier, the perpetual witness to
+fierce and coarse men, that there were nobler aims in life than pleasure,
+and power, and the gratification of revenge; that not self-assertion, but
+self-sacrifice was the Divine ideal, toward which all must aspire.  These
+old legends are immortal; for they speak of facts and laws which will
+endure as long as there are women upon earth.  Through the woman, the
+civilizer and the Christianizer must reach the man.  Through the wife, he
+must reach the husband.  Through the mother, he must reach the children.
+I say he must.  It is easy to complain that the clergy in every age and
+country have tried to obtain influence over women.  They have been forced
+to do so, because otherwise they could obtain no influence at all.  And
+if a priesthood should arise hereafter, whose calling was to teach not
+religion but irreligion, not the good news that there is a good God, and
+that we can know Him; but the bad news that there is no God, or, if there
+is, we cannot know Him; then would that priesthood find it necessary to
+appeal like all other priesthoods, to the women, and to teach them how to
+teach their children.
+
+But more.  It is not religion only which must be taught through the wives
+and mothers, but sound science also, and sound economy.  If you intend
+(as I trust some here intend) to teach the labouring classes those laws
+of health and life, on which depend the comfort, the wholesomeness, often
+the decency and the morality of the poor man's home, then you must teach
+those laws first to the house-mother, who brings the children into the
+world, and brings them up, who puts them to bed at night, and prepares
+their food by day.  If you wish to teach habits of thrift, and sound
+notions of economy to the labouring classes, you must teach them first to
+the housewife, who has to make the weekly earnings cover, if possible,
+the week's expenses.  If you wish to soften and to purify the man, you
+must first soften and purify the woman, or at least encourage her not to
+lose what womanliness she has left, amid sights, and sounds, and habits
+which tend continually to destroy her womanhood.  You must encourage her,
+I say, to remember always that she is a woman still, and let her teach--
+as none can teach like her--true manfulness to her husband and her sons.
+
+And how can you best do that?  Not by giving her shillings, not by
+preaching at her, not by scolding her:  but by behaving to her as what
+she is--a woman and a sister--and cheering her heavy heart by simple
+human kindliness.  What she wants amid all her poverty and toil, her
+child-bearing and child-rearing, what she wants, I say, to keep her brave
+and strong, is to know by actual sight and speech that she is still not
+an outcast; not alone; that she is still a member of the human family,
+that her fellow-woman has not forgotten her; and that, therefore, it may
+be, He that was born of woman has not forgotten her either.  That she
+has, after all, a God in heaven, who can be touched with the feeling of
+her infirmities, and can help her and those she loves, to struggle
+through all their temptations, seeing that He too was tempted in all
+things like them, yet without sin.
+
+It is only personal intercourse with them--only the meeting of the rich
+and poor together, in the belief that God is the maker of them all, that
+will do that.  But it will do it.
+
+Only personal intercourse will reconcile these people to their condition,
+in as far as they OUGHT to be reconciled to it.  But personal intercourse
+will reconcile them to it, as far as it ought, but no further.  And I
+think that the system of personal intercourse attempted by this Society
+is, on the whole, the best yet devised.  It is imperfect, as all attempts
+to make that straight which is crooked, and to number that which is
+wanting--to patch, in a word, a radically vicious system of society,--
+must be imperfect; but it is the best plan which I have yet seen.  I find
+no fault with other plans, God forbid!  Wisdom is justified of all her
+children; and the amount of evil is so great, and (as I believe, so
+dangerous), that I must bid God-speed to any persons who will do
+anything, always saving and excepting indiscriminate almsgiving.
+
+But it seems to me that the soothing and civilizing, and in due time
+Christianising, effect of personal intercourse cannot begin better than
+through a woman, herself of the working class, who has struggled as these
+poor souls have struggled, and conquered, more or less, where they are
+failing.  That through her they should be brought in contact with women
+of the more comfortable and cultivated class, who are their immediate
+employers, if not their immediate neighbours; and through them, again,
+brought in contact with women of that class, of whom I shall only say,
+that if they were not meant for some such noble work as this--and not for
+mere pleasure and mere display, then for what purpose, in heaven or
+earth, were they made? and why has Providence taken the trouble (as it
+were) to elaborate, by long ages of civilization, that most exquisite of
+all products of nature and of art--A Lady?
+
+Ah! what the ladies of England might do, and that without interfering in
+the least with their duties as wives and mothers, if they would work
+together, as a class!  If they would work as well and humanly while they
+are in towns, as most of them do work while they are in the country; as
+some of them do, to their honour, in the towns already!  But how many?
+what proportion do those who do good bear to those who do nothing?  What
+a small amount of humanizing and civilizing intercourse with some women
+of the labouring class is there in the case of the wives of rich men who
+come up to town, merely for the season, and forget that it is their
+temporary and uncertain stay in London which causes much of the temporary
+and uncertain employment of the London poor, and their consequent
+temptation to unthrift and recklessness!  How little humanizing and
+civilizing intercourse with the poor is carried on by the wives of those
+employers of labour who surely, surely owe something more to their
+husband's work people, than to be aware (by hearsay) that they are duly
+paid every Saturday night?
+
+But I shall be told:  We need not fear--we can justify ourselves before
+God and man.  I shall be reminded of all that has been done, and done
+well too, for the poor during the last generation, and bidden not to
+calumniate my countrymen.  True, much has been done; and done well.  And
+true also it is that no effort to make the rich and poor meet together,
+to bring the different classes of society into contact with each other,
+but has succeeded--has sown good seed--which I trust may bring forth good
+fruit in the day when every tree shall be judged by its fruit.  The
+events of 1830, startling and warning, and those of 1848, more pregnant,
+if possible, with warning than the former, awakened a spirit of humanity
+in England, which was also a spirit of prudence and of common sense.
+
+But I cannot conceal from myself, or you, that the earnestness which was
+awakened in those days is dying out in these.  The richer classes of
+every country are tempted from time to time to fits of laziness--fits of
+frivolity and luxury, surfeits, in which men say, with a shrug and a
+yawn--"Why be very much in earnest?  Why take so much trouble?  Somebody
+must always be rich, why should not I?  Somebody must enjoy the money,
+why should not I?  At all events, things will last my time."  And that
+such a surfeit has fallen upon the rich of this land, is a fact; for that
+this is the tone of to-day, and that the tone increases, none can deny
+who knows that which calls itself the WORLD, and calls itself so only too
+truly; the world of which it is written, that all that is in the world--
+the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life--
+is not of the Father, but of the world.  And the world passeth away, and
+the lust thereof.  But he who doeth the will of God, he alone abideth for
+ever.
+
+God grant that we, who have just seen the most cunningly organized and
+daintily bedizened specimen of a world, which ever flaunted on the earth
+since men began to build their towers of Babel, collapse and crumble at a
+single blow, may take God's hint, that the fashion of this world passeth
+away.  Let the idle, the frivolous, the sensual, and those who, like
+Figaro's Marquis, have earned all earthly happiness by only taking the
+trouble to be born--let them look back on this last awful Christmas-tide,
+and hear, speaking in fact unmistakeable, the voice of the Lord.  Think
+ye that they whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices were
+sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?  I
+tell you, "Nay:  but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."
+
+There are those who will hear such words with a smile, even with a sneer,
+and say, Such wholesale judgments of God, even granting that there are
+such things, are, after all, very rare:  it is very seldom that a whole
+class, a whole system of society, is punished in mass--and why then need
+we trouble ourselves about so remote a probability?
+
+Then know this--that as surely as God sometimes punishes wholesale, so
+surely is He always punishing in detail.  By that infinite concatenation
+of moral causes and effects, which makes the whole world one mass of
+special Providences, every sin of ours will punish itself, and probably
+punish itself in kind.  Are we selfish?  We shall call out selfishness in
+others.  Do we neglect our duty?  Then others will neglect their duty to
+us.  Do we indulge our passions?  Then others, who depend on us, will
+indulge theirs, to our detriment and misery.  Do we squander our money?
+Then our children and our servants will squander our money for us.
+
+Do we?--but what use to go on reminding men of truths which no one
+believes, because they are too painful and searching to be believed in
+comfort?  What use to tell men what they never will confess to be true--
+that by every crime, folly, even neglect of theirs, they drive a thorn
+into their own flesh, which will trouble them for years to come, it may
+be to their dying day?  And yet so it is.
+
+
+Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;
+Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.
+
+
+As those who neglect their fellow-creatures will discover, by the most
+patent undeniable proofs, in that last great day, when the rich and poor
+shall meet together, and then, at least, discover that the Lord is the
+maker of them all.
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+{1}  These sermons by the Rev. Charles Kingsley M.A., late rector of
+Eversley and Canon of Westminster, were edited by the Rev. W. Harrison,
+M.A., rector of Brington.--DP.
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10116 ***