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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Westminster Sermons, by Charles Kingsley
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Westminster Sermons
+       with a Preface
+
+
+Author: Charles Kingsley
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 10, 2006  [eBook #18369]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WESTMINSTER SERMONS***
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1881 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price,
+ccx074@pglaf.org
+
+
+
+
+
+WESTMINSTER SERMONS.
+
+
+WITH A PREFACE.
+
+BY
+CHARLES KINGSLEY.
+
+London:
+MACMILLAN AND CO.
+1881.
+
+_The Right of Translation is Reserved_.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+I venture to preface these Sermons--which were preached either at
+Westminster Abbey, or at one of the Chapels Royal--by a Paper read at
+Sion College, in 1871; and for this reason.  Even when they deal with
+what is usually, and rightly, called "vital" and "experimental" religion,
+they are comments on, and developments of, the idea which pervades that
+paper; namely--That facts, whether of physical nature, or of the human
+heart and reason, do not contradict, but coincide with, the doctrines and
+formulas of the Church of England, as by law established.
+
+* * * * *
+
+Natural Theology, I said, is a subject which seems to me more and more
+important; and one which is just now somewhat forgotten.  I therefore
+desire to say a few words on it.  I do not pretend to teach: but only to
+suggest; to point out certain problems of natural Theology, the further
+solution of which ought, I think, to be soon attempted.
+
+I wish to speak, be it remembered, not on natural religion, but on
+natural Theology.  By the first, I understand what can be learned from
+the physical universe of man's duty to God and to his neighbour; by the
+latter, I understand what can be learned concerning God Himself.  Of
+natural religion I shall say nothing.  I do not even affirm that a
+natural religion is possible: but I do very earnestly believe that a
+natural Theology is possible; and I earnestly believe also that it is
+most important that natural Theology should, in every age, keep pace with
+doctrinal or ecclesiastical Theology.
+
+Bishop Butler certainly held this belief.  His _Analogy of Religion_,
+_Natural and Revealed_, _to the Constitution and Course of Nature_--a
+book for which I entertain the most profound respect--is based on a
+belief that the God of nature and the God of grace are one; and that
+therefore, the God who satisfies our conscience ought more or less to
+satisfy our reason also.  To teach that was Butler's mission; and he
+fulfilled it well.  But it is a mission which has to be re-fulfilled
+again and again, as human thought changes, and human science develops;
+for if, in any age or country, the God who seems to be revealed by nature
+seems also different from the God who is revealed by the then popular
+religion: then that God, and the religion which tells of that God, will
+gradually cease to be believed in.
+
+For the demands of Reason--as none knew better than good Bishop
+Butler--must be and ought to be satisfied.  And therefore; when a popular
+war arises between the reason of any generation and its Theology: then it
+behoves the ministers of religion to inquire, with all humility and godly
+fear, on which side lies the fault; whether the Theology which they
+expound is all that it should be, or whether the reason of those who
+impugn it is all that it should be.
+
+For me, as--I trust--an orthodox priest of the Church of England, I
+believe the Theology of the National Church of England, as by law
+established, to be eminently rational as well as scriptural.  It is not,
+therefore, surprising to me that the clergy of the Church of England,
+since the foundation of the Royal Society in the seventeenth century,
+have done more for sound physical science than the clergy of any other
+denomination; or that the three greatest natural theologians with which
+I, at least, am acquainted--Berkeley, Butler, and Paley--should have
+belonged to our Church.  I am not unaware of what the Germans of the
+eighteenth century have done.  I consider Goethe's claims to have
+advanced natural Theology very much over-rated: but I do recommend to
+young clergymen Herder's _Outlines of the Philosophy of the History of
+Man_ as a book--in spite of certain defects--full of sound and precious
+wisdom.  Meanwhile it seems to me that English natural Theology in the
+eighteenth century stood more secure than that of any other nation, on
+the foundation which Berkeley, Butler, and Paley had laid; and that if
+our orthodox thinkers for the last hundred years had followed steadily in
+their steps, we should not be deploring now a wide, and as some think
+increasing, divorce between Science and Christianity.
+
+But it was not so to be.  The impulse given by Wesley and Whitfield
+turned--and not before it was needed--the earnest minds of England almost
+exclusively to questions of personal religion; and that impulse, under
+many unexpected forms, has continued ever since.  I only state the fact:
+I do not deplore it; God forbid.  Wisdom is justified of all her
+children; and as, according to the wise American, "it takes all sorts to
+make a world," so it takes all sorts to make a living Church.  But that
+the religious temper of England for the last two or three generations has
+been unfavourable to a sound and scientific development of natural
+Theology, there can be no doubt.
+
+We have only, if we need proof, to look at the hymns--many of them very
+pure, pious, and beautiful--which are used at this day in churches and
+chapels by persons of every shade of opinion.  How often is the tone in
+which they speak of the natural world one of dissatisfaction, distrust,
+almost contempt.  "Change and decay in all around I see," is their key-
+note, rather than "O all ye works of the Lord, bless Him, praise Him, and
+magnify Him for ever."  There lingers about them a savour of the old
+monastic theory, that this earth is the devil's planet, fallen, accursed,
+goblin-haunted, needing to be exorcised at every turn before it is useful
+or even safe for man.  An age which has adopted as its most popular hymn
+a paraphrase of the mediaeval monk's "Hic breve vivitur," and in which
+stalwart public-school boys are bidden in their chapel-worship to tell
+the Almighty God of Truth that they lie awake weeping at night for joy at
+the thought that they will die and see "Jerusalem the Golden," is
+doubtless a pious and devout age: but not--at least as yet--an age in
+which natural Theology is likely to attain a high, a healthy, or a
+scriptural development.
+
+Not a scriptural development.  Let me press on you, my clerical brethren,
+most earnestly this one point.  It is time that we should make up our
+minds what tone Scripture does take toward nature, natural science,
+natural Theology.  Most of you, I doubt not, have made up your minds
+already; and in consequence have no fear of natural science, no fear for
+natural Theology.  But I cannot deny that I find still lingering here and
+there certain of the old views of nature of which I used to hear but too
+much some five-and-thirty years ago--and that from better men than I
+shall ever hope to be--who used to consider natural Theology as useless,
+fallacious, impossible; on the ground that this Earth did not reveal the
+will and character of God, because it was cursed and fallen; and that its
+facts, in consequence, were not to be respected or relied on.  This, I
+was told, was the doctrine of Scripture, and was therefore true.  But
+when, longing to reconcile my conscience and my reason on a question so
+awful to a young student of natural science, I went to my Bible, what did
+I find?  No word of all this.  Much--thank God, I may say one continuous
+undercurrent--of the very opposite of all this.  I pray you bear with me,
+even though I may seem impertinent.  But what do we find in the Bible,
+with the exception of that first curse?  That, remember, cannot mean any
+alteration in the laws of nature by which man's labour should only
+produce for him henceforth thorns and thistles.  For, in the first place,
+any such curse is formally abrogated in the eighth chapter and 21st verse
+of the very same document--"I will not again curse the earth any more for
+man's sake.  While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, cold and
+heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease."  And next: the
+fact is not so; for if you root up the thorns and thistles, and keep your
+land clean, then assuredly you will grow fruit-trees and not thorns,
+wheat and not thistles, according to those laws of nature which are the
+voice of God expressed in facts.
+
+And yet the words are true.  There is a curse upon the earth: though not
+one which, by altering the laws of nature, has made natural facts
+untrustworthy.  There is a curse on the earth; such a curse as is
+expressed, I believe, in the old Hebrew text, where the word
+"_admah_"--correctly translated in our version "the ground"--signifies,
+as I am told, not this planet, but simply the soil from whence we get our
+food; such a curse as certainly is expressed by the Septuagint and the
+Vulgate versions: "Cursed is the earth"--[Greek text]; "in opere tuo,"
+"in thy works."  Man's work is too often the curse of the very planet
+which he misuses.  None should know that better than the botanist, who
+sees whole regions desolate, and given up to sterility and literal thorns
+and thistles, on account of man's sin and folly, ignorance and greedy
+waste.  Well said that veteran botanist, the venerable Elias Fries, of
+Lund:--
+
+"A broad band of waste land follows gradually in the steps of
+cultivation.  If it expands, its centre and its cradle dies, and on the
+outer borders only do we find green shoots.  But it is not impossible,
+only difficult, for man, without renouncing the advantage of culture
+itself, one day to make reparation for the injury which he has inflicted:
+he is appointed lord of creation.  True it is that thorns and thistles,
+ill-favoured and poisonous plants, well named by botanists rubbish
+plants, mark the track which man has proudly traversed through the earth.
+Before him lay original nature in her wild but sublime beauty.  Behind
+him he leaves a desert, a deformed and ruined land; for childish desire
+of destruction, or thoughtless squandering of vegetable treasures, has
+destroyed the character of nature; and, terrified, man himself flies from
+the arena of his actions, leaving the impoverished earth to barbarous
+races or to animals, so long as yet another spot in virgin beauty smiles
+before him.  Here again, in selfish pursuit of profit, and consciously or
+unconsciously following the abominable principle of the great moral
+vileness which one man has expressed--'Apres nous le Deluge,'--he begins
+anew the work of destruction.  Thus did cultivation, driven out, leave
+the East, and perhaps the deserts long ago robbed of their coverings;
+like the wild hordes of old over beautiful Greece, thus rolls this
+conquest with fearful rapidity from East to West through America; and the
+planter now often leaves the already exhausted land, and the eastern
+climate, become infertile through the demolition of the forests, to
+introduce a similar revolution into the Far West."
+
+As we proceed, we find nothing in the general tone of Scripture which can
+hinder our natural Theology being at once scriptural and scientific.
+
+If it is to be scientific, it must begin by approaching Nature at once
+with a cheerful and reverent spirit, as a noble, healthy, and trustworthy
+thing; and what is that, save the spirit of those who wrote the 104th,
+147th, and 148th Psalms; the spirit, too, of him who wrote that Song of
+the Three Children, which is, as it were, the flower and crown of the Old
+Testament, the summing up of all that is most true and eternal in the old
+Jewish faith; and which, as long as it is sung in our churches, is the
+charter and title-deed of all Christian students of those works of the
+Lord, which it calls on to bless Him, praise Him, and magnify Him for
+ever?
+
+What next will be demanded of us by physical science?  Belief, certainly,
+just now, in the permanence of natural laws.  That is taken for granted,
+I hold, throughout the Bible.  I cannot see how our Lord's parables,
+drawn from the birds and the flowers, the seasons and the weather, have
+any logical weight, or can be considered as aught but capricious and
+fanciful "illustrations"--which God forbid--unless we look at them as
+instances of laws of the natural world, which find their analogues in the
+laws of the spiritual world, the kingdom of God.  I cannot conceive a
+man's writing that 104th Psalm who had not the most deep, the most
+earnest sense of the permanence of natural law.  But more: the fact is
+expressly asserted again and again.  "They continue this day according to
+Thine ordinance, for all things serve Thee."  "Thou hast made them fast
+for ever and ever.  Thou hast given them a law which shall not be
+broken--"
+
+Let us pass on.  There is no more to be said about this matter.
+
+But next: it will be demanded of us that natural Theology shall set forth
+a God whose character is consistent with all the facts of nature, and not
+only with those which are pleasant and beautiful.  That challenge was
+accepted, and I think victoriously, by Bishop Butler, as far as the
+Christian religion is concerned.  As far as the Scripture is concerned,
+we may answer thus--
+
+It is said to us--I know that it is said--You tell us of a God of love, a
+God of flowers and sunshine, of singing birds and little children.  But
+there are more facts in nature than these.  There is premature death,
+pestilence, famine.  And if you answer--Man has control over these; they
+are caused by man's ignorance and sin, and by his breaking of natural
+laws:--What will you make of those destructive powers over which he has
+no control; of the hurricane and the earthquake; of poisons, vegetable
+and mineral; of those parasitic Entozoa whose awful abundance, and awful
+destructiveness, in man and beast, science is just revealing--a new page
+of danger and loathsomeness?  How does that suit your conception of a God
+of love?
+
+We can answer--Whether or not it suits our conception of a God of love,
+it suits Scripture's conception of Him.  For nothing is more clear--nay,
+is it not urged again and again, as a blot on Scripture?--that it reveals
+a God not merely of love, but of sternness; a God in whose eyes physical
+pain is not the worst of evils, nor animal life--too often miscalled
+human life--the most precious of objects; a God who destroys, when it
+seems fit to Him, and that wholesale, and seemingly without either pity
+or discrimination, man, woman, and child, visiting the sins of the
+fathers on the children, making the land empty and bare, and destroying
+from off it man and beast?  This is the God of the Old Testament.  And if
+any say--as is too often rashly said--This is not the God of the New: I
+answer, But have you read your New Testament?  Have you read the latter
+chapters of St Matthew?  Have you read the opening of the Epistle to the
+Romans?  Have you read the Book of Revelation?  If so, will you say that
+the God of the New Testament is, compared with the God of the Old, less
+awful, less destructive, and therefore less like the Being--granting
+always that there is such a Being--who presides over nature and her
+destructive powers?  It is an awful problem.  But the writers of the
+Bible have faced it valiantly.  Physical science is facing it valiantly
+now.  Therefore natural Theology may face it likewise.  Remember
+Carlyle's great words about poor Francesca in the Inferno: "Infinite
+pity: yet also infinite rigour of law.  It is so Nature is made.  It is
+so Dante discerned that she was made."
+
+There are two other points on which I must beg leave to say a few words.
+Physical science will demand of our natural theologians that they should
+be aware of their importance, and let--as Mr Matthew Arnold would
+say--their thoughts play freely round them.  I mean questions of
+Embryology, and questions of Race.
+
+On the first there may be much to be said, which is, for the present,
+best left unsaid, even here.  I only ask you to recollect how often in
+Scripture those two plain old words--beget and bring forth--occur; and in
+what important passages.  And I ask you to remember that marvellous essay
+on Natural Theology--if I may so call it in all reverence--namely, the
+119th Psalm; and judge for yourself whether he who wrote that did not
+consider the study of Embryology as important, as significant, as worthy
+of his deepest attention, as an Owen, a Huxley, or a Darwin.  Nay, I will
+go further still, and say, that in those great words--"Thine eyes did see
+my substance, yet being imperfect; and in Thy book all my members were
+written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none
+of them,"--in those words, I say, the Psalmist has anticipated that
+realistic view of embryological questions to which our most modern
+philosophers are, it seems to me, slowly, half unconsciously, but still
+inevitably, returning.
+
+Next, as to Race.  Some persons now have a nervous fear of that word, and
+of allowing any importance to difference of races.  Some dislike it,
+because they think that it endangers the modern notions of democratic
+equality.  Others because they fear that it may be proved that the Negro
+is not a man and a brother.  I think the fears of both parties
+groundless.
+
+As for the Negro, I not only believe him to be of the same race as
+myself, but that--if Mr Darwin's theories are true--science has proved
+that he must be such.  I should have thought, as a humble student of such
+questions, that the one fact of the unique distribution of the hair in
+all races of human beings, was full moral proof that they had all had one
+common ancestor.  But this is not matter of natural Theology.  What is
+matter thereof, is this.
+
+Physical science is proving more and more the immense importance of Race;
+the importance of hereditary powers, hereditary organs, hereditary
+habits, in all organized beings, from the lowest plant to the highest
+animal.  She is proving more and more the omnipresent action of the
+differences between races: how the more "favoured" race--she cannot avoid
+using the epithet--exterminates the less favoured; or at least expels it,
+and forces it, under penalty of death, to adapt itself to new
+circumstances; and, in a word, that competition between every race and
+every individual of that race, and reward according to deserts, is, as
+far as we can see, an universal law of living things.  And she says--for
+the facts of History prove it--that as it is among the races of plants
+and animals, so it has been unto this day among the races of men.
+
+The natural Theology of the future must take count of these tremendous
+and even painful facts.  She may take count of them.  For Scripture has
+taken count of them already.  It talks continually--it has been blamed
+for talking so much--of races; of families; of their wars, their
+struggles, their exterminations; of races favoured, of races rejected; of
+remnants being saved, to continue the race; of hereditary tendencies,
+hereditary excellencies, hereditary guilt.  Its sense of the reality and
+importance of descent is so intense, that it speaks of a whole tribe or a
+whole family by the name of its common ancestor; and the whole nation of
+the Jews is Israel, to the end.  And if I be told this is true of the Old
+Testament, but not of the New: I must answer,--What?  Does not St Paul
+hold the identity of the whole Jewish race with Israel their forefather,
+as strongly as any prophet of the Old Testament?  And what is the central
+historic fact, save One, of the New Testament, but the conquest of
+Jerusalem; the dispersion, all but destruction of a race, not by miracle,
+but by invasion, because found wanting when weighed in the stern balances
+of natural and social law?
+
+Think over this.  I only suggest the thought: but I do not suggest it in
+haste.  Think over it, by the light which our Lord's parables, His
+analogies between the physical and social constitution of the world,
+afford; and consider whether those awful words--fulfilled then, and
+fulfilled so often since--"The kingdom of God shall be taken from you,
+and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof," may not be the
+supreme instance, the most complex development, of a law which runs
+through all created things, down to the moss which struggles for
+existence on the rock.
+
+Do I say that this is all?  That man is merely a part of nature, the
+puppet of circumstances and hereditary tendencies?  That brute
+competition is the one law of his life?  That he is doomed for ever to be
+the slave of his own needs, enforced by an internecine struggle for
+existence?  God forbid.  I believe not only in nature, but in Grace.  I
+believe that this is man's fate only as long as he sows to the flesh, and
+of the flesh reaps corruption.  I believe that if he will
+
+   Strive upward, working out the beast,
+   And let the ape and tiger die;
+
+if he will be even as wise as the social animals; as the ant and the bee,
+who have risen, if not to the virtue of all-embracing charity, at least
+to the virtues of self-sacrifice and patriotism: then he will rise
+towards a higher sphere; towards that kingdom of God of which it is
+written--"He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him."
+
+Whether that be matter of natural Theology, I cannot tell as yet.  But as
+for all the former questions; and all that St Paul means when he talks of
+the law, and how the works of the flesh bring men under the law, stern
+and terrible and destructive, though holy and just and good,--they are
+matter of natural Theology; and I believe that here, as elsewhere,
+Scripture and Science will be ultimately found to coincide.
+
+But here we have to face an objection which you will often hear now from
+scientific men, and still oftener from non-scientific men; who will
+say--It matters not to us whether Scripture contradicts or does not
+contradict a scientific natural Theology; for we hold such a science to
+be impossible and naught.  The old Jews put a God into nature; and
+therefore of course they could see, as you see, what they had already put
+there.  But we see no God in nature.  We do not deny the existence of a
+God.  We merely say that scientific research does not reveal Him to us.
+We see no marks of design in physical phenomena.  What used to be
+considered as marks of design can be better explained by considering them
+as the results of evolution according to necessary laws; and you and
+Scripture make a mere assumption when you ascribe them to the operation
+of a mind like the human mind.
+
+Now on this point I believe we may answer fearlessly--If you cannot see
+it, we cannot help you.  If the heavens do not declare to you the glory
+of God, nor the firmament show you His handy-work, then our poor
+arguments will not show them.  "The eye can only see that which it brings
+with it the power of seeing."  We can only reassert that we see design
+everywhere; and that the vast majority of the human race in every age and
+clime has seen it.  Analogy from experience, sound induction--as we
+hold--from the works not only of men but of animals, has made it an all
+but self-evident truth to us, that wherever there is arrangement, there
+must be an arranger; wherever there is adaptation of means to an end,
+there must be an adapter; wherever an organization, there must be an
+organizer.  The existence of a designing God is no more demonstrable from
+nature than the existence of other human beings independent of ourselves;
+or, indeed, than the existence of our own bodies.  But, like the belief
+in them, the belief in Him has become an article of our common sense.  And
+that this designing mind is, in some respects, similar to the human mind,
+is proved to us--as Sir John Herschel well puts it--by the mere fact that
+we can discover and comprehend the processes of nature.
+
+But here again, if we be contradicted, we can only reassert.  If the old
+words, "He that made the eye, shall he not see? he that planted the ear,
+shall he not hear?" do not at once commend themselves to the intellect of
+any person, we shall never convince that person by any arguments drawn
+from the absurdity of conceiving the invention of optics by a blind man,
+or of music by a deaf one.
+
+So we will assert our own old-fashioned notion boldly: and more; we will
+say, in spite of ridicule--That if such a God exists, final causes must
+exist also.  That the whole universe must be one chain of final causes.
+That if there be a Supreme Reason, he must have reason, and that a good
+reason, for every physical phenomenon.
+
+We will tell the modern scientific man--You are nervously afraid of the
+mention of final causes.  You quote against them Bacon's saying, that
+they are barren virgins; that no physical fact was ever discovered or
+explained by them.  You are right: as far as regards yourselves.  You
+have no business with final causes; because final causes are moral
+causes: and you are physical students only.  We, the natural Theologians,
+have business with them.  Your duty is to find out the How of things:
+ours, to find out the Why.  If you rejoin that we shall never find out
+the Why, unless we first learn something of the How, we shall not deny
+that.  It may be most useful, I had almost said necessary, that the
+clergy should have some scientific training.  It may be most useful--I
+sometimes dream of a day when it will be considered necessary--that every
+candidate for Ordination should be required to have passed creditably in
+at least one branch of physical science, if it be only to teach him the
+method of sound scientific thought.  But our having learnt the How, will
+not make it needless, much less impossible, for us to study the Why.  It
+will merely make more clear to us the things of which we have to study
+the Why; and enable us to keep the How and the Why more religiously apart
+from each other.
+
+But if it be said--After all, there is no Why.  The doctrine of
+evolution, by doing away with the theory of creation, does away with that
+of final causes,--Let us answer boldly,--Not in the least.  We might
+accept all that Mr Darwin, all that Professor Huxley, all that other most
+able men, have so learnedly and so acutely written on physical science,
+and yet preserve our natural Theology on exactly the same basis as that
+on which Butler and Paley left it.  That we should have to develop it, I
+do not deny.  That we should have to relinquish it, I do.
+
+Let me press this thought earnestly on you.  I know that many wiser and
+better men than I have fears on this point.  I cannot share in them.
+
+All, it seems to me, that the new doctrines of evolution demand is
+this:--We all agree--for the fact is patent--that our own bodies, and
+indeed the body of every living creature, are evolved from a seemingly
+simple germ by natural laws, without visible action of any designing will
+or mind, into the full organization of a human or other creature.  Yet we
+do not say on that account--God did not create me: I only grew.  We hold
+in this case to our old idea, and say--If there be evolution, there must
+be an evolver.  Now the new physical theories only ask us, it seems to
+me, to extend this conception to the whole universe; to believe that not
+individuals merely, but whole varieties and races; the total organized
+life on this planet; and, it may be, the total organization of the
+universe, have been evolved just as our bodies are, by natural laws
+acting through circumstance.  This may be true, or may be false.  But all
+its truth can do to the natural Theologian will be to make him believe
+that the Creator bears the same relation to the whole universe, as that
+Creator undeniably bears to every individual human body.
+
+I entreat you to weigh these words, which have not been written in haste;
+and I entreat you also, if you wish to see how little the new theory,
+that species may have been gradually created by variation, natural
+selection, and so forth, interferes with the old theory of design,
+contrivance, and adaptation, nay, with the fullest admission of
+benevolent final causes--I entreat you, I say, to study Darwin's
+"Fertilization of Orchids"--a book which, whether his main theory be true
+or not, will still remain a most valuable addition to natural Theology.
+
+For suppose that all the species of Orchids, and not only they, but their
+congeners--the Gingers, the Arrowroots, the Bananas--are all the
+descendants of one original form, which was most probably nearly allied
+to the Snowdrop and the Iris.  What then?  Would that be one whit more
+wonderful, more unworthy of the wisdom and power of God, than if they
+were, as most believe, created each and all at once, with their minute
+and often imaginary shades of difference?  What would the natural
+Theologian have to say, were the first theory true, save that God's works
+are even more wonderful that he always believed them to be?  As for the
+theory being impossible: we must leave the discussion of that to physical
+students.  It is not for us clergymen to limit the power of God.  "Is
+anything too hard for the Lord?" asked the prophet of old; and we have a
+right to ask it as long as time shall last.  If it be said that natural
+selection is too simple a cause to produce such fantastic variety: that,
+again, is a question to be settled exclusively by physical students.  All
+we have to say on the matter is--That we always knew that God works by
+very simple, or seemingly simple, means; that the whole universe, as far
+as we could discern it, was one concatenation of the most simple means;
+that it was wonderful, yea, miraculous, in our eyes, that a child should
+resemble its parents, that the raindrops should make the grass grow, that
+the grass should become flesh, and the flesh sustenance for the thinking
+brain of man.  Ought God to seem less or more august in our eyes, when we
+are told that His means are even more simple than we supposed?  We held
+him to be Almighty and All-wise.  Are we to reverence Him less or more,
+if we hear that His might is greater, His wisdom deeper, than we ever
+dreamed?  We believed that His care was over all His works; that His
+Providence watched perpetually over the whole universe.  We were
+taught--some of us at least--by Holy Scripture, to believe that the whole
+history of the universe was made up of special Providences.  If, then,
+that should be true which Mr Darwin eloquently writes--"It may be
+metaphorically said that natural selection is daily and hourly
+scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest;
+rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up that which is good,
+silently and incessantly working whenever and wherever opportunity offers
+at the improvement of every organic being,"--if that, I say, were proven
+to be true: ought God's care and God's providence to seem less or more
+magnificent in our eyes?  Of old it was said by Him without whom nothing
+is made, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."  Shall we quarrel with
+Science, if she should show how those words are true?  What, in one word,
+should we have to say but this?--We knew of old that God was so wise that
+He could make all things: but, behold, He is so much wiser than even
+that, that He can make all things make themselves.
+
+But it may be said--These notions are contrary to Scripture.  I must beg
+very humbly, but very firmly, to demur to that opinion.  Scripture says
+that God created.  But it nowhere defines that term.  The means, the How,
+of Creation is nowhere specified.  Scripture, again, says that organized
+beings were produced, each according to their kind.  But it nowhere
+defines that term.  What a kind includes; whether it includes or not the
+capacity of varying--which is just the question in point--is nowhere
+specified.  And I think it a most important rule in Scriptural exegesis,
+to be most cautious as to limiting the meaning of any term which
+Scripture itself has not limited, lest we find ourselves putting into the
+teaching of Scripture our own human theories or prejudices.  And
+consider--Is not man a kind?  And has not mankind varied, physically,
+intellectually, spiritually?  Is not the Bible, from beginning to end, a
+history of the variations of mankind, for worse or for better, from their
+original type?  Let us rather look with calmness, and even with hope and
+goodwill, on these new theories; for, correct or incorrect, they surely
+mark a tendency towards a more, not a less, Scriptural view of Nature.
+Are they not attempts, whether successful or unsuccessful, to escape from
+that shallow mechanical notion of the universe and its Creator which was
+too much in vogue in the eighteenth century among divines as well as
+philosophers; the theory which Goethe, to do him justice--and after him
+Mr Thomas Carlyle--have treated with such noble scorn; the theory, I
+mean, that God has wound up the universe like a clock, and left it to
+tick by itself till it runs down, never troubling Himself with it; save
+possibly--for even that was only half believed--by rare miraculous
+interferences with the laws which He Himself had made?  Out of that
+chilling dream of a dead universe ungoverned by an absent God, the human
+mind, in Germany especially, tried during the early part of this century
+to escape by strange roads; roads by which there was no escape, because
+they were not laid down on the firm ground of scientific facts.  Then, in
+despair, men turned to the facts which they had neglected; and said--We
+are weary of philosophy: we will study you, and you alone.  As for God,
+who can find Him?  And they have worked at the facts like gallant and
+honest men; and their work, like all good work, has produced, in the last
+fifty years, results more enormous than they even dreamed.  But what are
+they finding, more and more, below their facts, below all phenomena which
+the scalpel and the microscope can show?  A something nameless,
+invisible, imponderable, yet seemingly omnipresent and omnipotent,
+retreating before them deeper and deeper, the deeper they delve: namely,
+the life which shapes and makes; that which the old schoolmen called
+"forma formativa," which they call vital force and what not--metaphors
+all, or rather counters to mark an unknown quantity, as if they should
+call it _x_ or _y_.  One says--It is all vibrations: but his reason,
+unsatisfied, asks--And what makes the vibrations vibrate?  Another--It is
+all physiological units: but his reason asks--What is the "physis," the
+nature and innate tendency of the units?  A third--It may be all caused
+by infinitely numerous "gemmules:" but his reason asks him--What puts
+infinite order into these gemmules, instead of infinite anarchy?  I
+mention these theories not to laugh at them.  I have all due respect for
+those who have put them forth.  Nor would it interfere with my
+theological creed, if any or all of them were proven to be true
+to-morrow.  I mention them only to show that beneath all these theories,
+true or false, still lies that unknown _x_.  Scientific men are becoming
+more and more aware of it; I had almost said, ready to worship it.  More
+and more the noblest-minded of them are engrossed by the mystery of that
+unknown and truly miraculous element in Nature, which is always escaping
+them, though they cannot escape it.  How should they escape it?  Was it
+not written of old--"Whither shall I go from Thy presence, or whither
+shall I flee from Thy Spirit?"
+
+Ah that we clergymen would summon up courage to tell them that!  Courage
+to tell them, what need not hamper for a moment the freedom of their
+investigations, what will add to them a sanction--I may say a
+sanctity--that the unknown _x_ which lies below all phenomena, which is
+for ever at work on all phenomena, on the whole and on every part of the
+whole, down to the colouring of every leaf and the curdling of every cell
+of protoplasm, is none other than that which the old Hebrews called--by a
+metaphor, no doubt: for how can man speak of the unseen, save in
+metaphors drawn from the seen?--but by the only metaphor adequate to
+express the perpetual and omnipresent miracle; The Breath of God; The
+Spirit who is The Lord, and The Giver of Life.
+
+In the rest, let us too think, and let us too observe.  For if we are
+ignorant, not merely of the results of experimental science, but of the
+methods thereof: then we and the men of science shall have no common
+ground whereon to stretch out kindly hands to each other.
+
+But let us have patience and faith; and not suppose in haste, that when
+those hands are stretched out it will be needful for us to leave our
+standing-ground, or to cast ourselves down from the pinnacle of the
+temple to earn popularity; above all, from earnest students who are too
+high-minded to care for popularity themselves.
+
+True, if we have an intelligent belief in those Creeds and those
+Scriptures which are committed to our keeping, then our philosophy cannot
+be that which is just now in vogue.  But all we have to do, I believe, is
+to wait.  Nominalism, and that "Sensationalism" which has sprung from
+Nominalism, are running fast to seed; Comtism seems to me its supreme
+effort: after which the whirligig of Time may bring round its revenges:
+and Realism, and we who hold the Realist creeds, may have our turn.  Only
+wait.  When a grave, able, and authoritative philosopher explains a
+mother's love of her newborn babe, as Professor Bain has done, in a
+really eloquent passage of his book on the _Emotions and the Will_, {0a}
+then the end of that philosophy is very near; and an older, simpler, more
+human, and, as I hold, more philosophic explanation of that natural
+phenomenon, and of all others, may get a hearing.
+
+Only wait: and fret not yourselves; else shall you be moved to do evil.
+Remember the saying of the wise man--"Go not after the world.  She turns
+on her axis; and if thou stand still long enough, she will turn round to
+thee."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON I.  THE MYSTERY OF THE CROSS.  A GOOD FRIDAY SERMON.
+
+
+PHILIPPIANS II. 5-8.
+
+   Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in
+   the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made
+   Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a slave, and
+   was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man,
+   He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of
+   the Cross.
+
+The second Lesson for this morning's service, and the chapter which
+follows it, describe the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, both God and
+Man.  They give us the facts, in language most awful from its perfect
+calmness, most pathetic from its perfect simplicity.  But the passage of
+St Paul which I have chosen for my text gives us an explanation of those
+facts which is utterly amazing.  That He who stooped to die upon the
+Cross is Very God of Very God, the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe,
+is a thought so overwhelming, whenever we try to comprehend even a part
+of it in our small imaginations, that it is no wonder if, in all ages,
+many a pious soul, as it contemplated the Cross of Christ, has been rapt
+itself into a passion of gratitude, an ecstasy of wonder and of love,
+which is beautiful, honourable, just, and in the deepest sense most
+rational, whenever it is spontaneous and natural.
+
+But there have been thousands, as there may be many here to-day, of
+colder temperament; who would distrust in themselves, even while they
+respected in others, any violence of religious emotion: yet they too have
+found, and you too may find, in contemplating the Passion of Christ, a
+satisfaction deeper than that of any emotion; a satisfaction not to the
+heart, still less to the brain, but to that far deeper and diviner
+faculty within us all--our moral sense; that God-given instinct which
+makes us discern and sympathise with all that is beautiful and true and
+good.
+
+And so it has befallen, for eighteen hundred years, that thousands who
+have thought earnestly and carefully on God and on the character of God,
+on man and on the universe, and on their relation to Him who made them
+both, have found in the Incarnation and the Passion of the Son of God the
+perfect satisfaction of their moral wants; the surest key to the facts of
+the spiritual world; the complete assurance that, in spite of all seeming
+difficulties and contradictions, the Maker of the world was a Righteous
+Being, who had founded the world in righteousness; that the Father of
+Spirits was a perfect Father, who in His only-begotten Son had shewn
+forth His perfectness, in such a shape and by such acts that men might
+not only adore it, but sympathise with it; not only thank Him for it, but
+copy it; and become, though at an infinite distance, perfect as their
+Father in heaven is perfect, and full of grace and truth, like that Son
+who is the brightness of His Father's glory, and the express image of His
+person.  Such a satisfaction have they found in looking upon the
+triumphal entry into Jerusalem of Him who knew that it would be followed
+by the revolt of the fickle mob, and the desertion of His disciples, and
+the Cross of Calvary, and all the hideous circumstances of a Roman
+malefactor's death.
+
+But there have been those, and there are still, who have found no such
+satisfaction in the story which the Gospel tells, and still less in the
+explanation which the Epistle gives; who have, as St Paul says, stumbled
+at the stumblingblock of the Cross.
+
+It would be easy to ignore such persons, were they scoffers or
+profligates: but when they number among their ranks men of virtuous
+lives, of earnest and most benevolent purposes, of careful and learned
+thought, and of a real reverence for God, or for those theories of the
+universe which some of them are inclined to substitute for God, they must
+at least be listened to patiently, and answered charitably, as men who,
+however faulty their opinions may be, prove, by their virtue and their
+desire to do good, that if they have lost sight of Christ, Christ has not
+lost sight of them.
+
+To such men the idea of the Incarnation, and still more, that of the
+Passion, is derogatory to the very notion of a God.  That a God should
+suffer, and that a God should die, is shocking--and, to do them justice,
+I believe they speak sincerely--to their notions of the absolute majesty,
+the undisturbed serenity, of the Author of the universe; of Him in whom
+all things live and move and have their being; who dwells in the light to
+which none may approach.  And therefore they have, in every age, tried
+various expedients to escape from a doctrine which seemed repugnant to
+that most precious part of them, their moral sense.  In the earlier
+centuries of the Church they tried to shew that St John and St Paul
+spoke, not of one who was Very God of Very God, but of some highest and
+most primeval of all creatures, Emanation, AEon, or what not.  In these
+later times, when the belief in such beings, and even their very names,
+have become dim and dead, men have tried to shew that the words of
+Scripture apply to a mere man.  They have seen in Christ--and they have
+reverenced and loved Him for what they have seen in Him--the noblest and
+purest, the wisest and the most loving of all human beings; and have
+attributed such language as that in the text, which--translate it as you
+will--ascribes absolute divinity, and nothing less, to our Lord Jesus
+Christ--they have attributed it, I say, to some fondness for Oriental
+hyperbole, and mystic Theosophy, in the minds of the Apostles.  Others,
+again, have gone further, and been, I think, more logically honest.  They
+have perceived that our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, as His words are
+reported, attributed divinity to Himself, just as much as did His
+Apostles.  Such a saying as that one, "Before Abraham was, I am," and
+others beside it, could be escaped from only by one of two methods.  To
+the first of them I shall not allude in this sacred place, popular as a
+late work has made it in its native France, and I fear in England
+likewise.  The other alternative, more reverent indeed, but, as I
+believe, just as mistaken, is to suppose that the words were never
+uttered at all; that Christ--it is not I who say it--possibly never
+existed at all; that His whole story was gradually built up, like certain
+fabulous legends of Romish saints, out of the moral consciousness of
+various devout persons during the first three centuries; each of whom
+added to the portrait, as it grew more and more lovely under the hands of
+succeeding generations, some new touch of beauty, some fresh trait, half
+invented, half traditional, of purity, love, nobleness, majesty; till men
+at last became fascinated with the ideal to which they themselves had
+contributed; and fell down and worshipped their own humanity; and
+christened that The Son of God.
+
+If I believed that theory, or either of the others, I need not say that I
+should not be preaching here.  I will go further, and say, that if I
+believed either of those theories, or any save that which stands out in
+the text, sharp-cut and colossal like some old Egyptian Memnon, and like
+that statue, with a smile of sweetness on its lips which tempers the
+royal majesty of its looks,--if I did not believe that, I say--I should
+be inclined to confess with Homer of old, that man is the most miserable
+of all the beasts of the field.
+
+For consider but this one argument.  It is no new one; it has lain, I
+believe, unspoken and instinctive, yet most potent and inspiring, in many
+a mind, in many an age.  If there be a God, must He not be the best of
+all beings?  But if He who suffered on Calvary were not God, but a mere
+creature; then--as I hold--there must have been a creature in the
+universe better than God Himself.  Or if He who suffered on Calvary had
+not the character which is attributed to Him,--if Christ's love,
+condescension, self-sacrifice, be a mere imagination, built up by the
+fancy of man; then has Christendom for 1800 years been fancying for
+itself a better God than Him who really exists.
+
+Thousands of the best men and women in the world through all the ages of
+Christendom have agreed with this argument, under some shape or other.
+Thousands there have been, and I trust there will be thousands hereafter,
+who have felt, as they looked upon the Cross of the Son of God, not that
+it was derogatory to Christ to believe that He had suffered, but
+derogatory to Him to believe that He had not suffered: for only by
+suffering, as far as we can conceive, could He perfectly manifest His
+glory and His Father's glory; and shew that it was full of grace.
+
+Full of grace.  Think, I beg you, over that one word.
+
+We all agree that God is good; all at least do so, who worship Him in
+spirit and in truth.  We adore His majesty, because it is the moral and
+spiritual majesty of perfect goodness.  We give thanks to Him for His
+great glory, because it is the glory, not merely of perfect power,
+wisdom, order, justice; but of perfect love, of perfect magnanimity,
+beneficence, activity, condescension, pity--in one word, of perfect
+grace.
+
+But how much must that last word comprehend, as long as there is misery
+and evil in this world, or in any other corner of the whole universe?
+Grace, to be perfect, must shew itself by graciously forgiving penitents.
+Pity, to be perfect, must shew itself by helping the miserable.
+Beneficence, to be perfect, must shew itself by delivering the oppressed.
+
+The old prophets and psalmists saw as much as this; and preached that
+this too was part of the essence and character of God.
+
+They saw that the Lord was gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of
+great kindness, and repented Him of the evil.  They saw that the Lord
+helped them to right who suffered wrong, and fed the hungry; that the
+Lord loosed men out of prison, the Lord gave sight to the blind; that the
+Lord helped the fallen, and defended the fatherless and widow.  They saw
+too a further truth, and a more awful one.  They saw that the Lord was
+actually and practically King of kings and Lord of lords: that as such He
+could come, and did come at times, rewarding the loyal, putting down the
+rebellious, and holding high assize from place to place, that He might
+execute judgment and justice; beholding all the wrong that was done on
+earth, and coming, as it were, out of His place, at each historic crisis,
+each revolution in the fortunes of mankind, to make inquisition for
+blood, to trample His enemies beneath His feet, and to inaugurate some
+progress toward that new heaven and new earth, wherein dwelleth
+righteousness, and righteousness alone.  That vision, in whatsoever
+metaphors it may be wrapped up, is real and true, and will be so as long
+as evil exists within this universe.  Were it not true, there would be
+something wanting to the perfect justice and the perfect benevolence of
+God.
+
+But is this all?  If this be all, what have we Christians learnt from the
+New Testament which is not already taught us in the Old?  Where is that
+new, deeper, higher revelation of the goodness of God, which Jesus of
+Nazareth preached, and which John and Paul and all the apostles believed
+that they had found in Jesus Himself?  They believed, and all those who
+accepted their gospel believed, that they had found for that word
+"grace," a deeper meaning than had ever been revealed to the prophets of
+old time; that grace and goodness, if they were perfect, involved self-
+sacrifice.
+
+And does not our own highest reason tell us that they were right?  Does
+not our own highest reason, which is our moral sense, tell us that
+perfect goodness requires, not merely that we should pity our
+fellow-creatures, not merely that we should help them, not merely that we
+should right them magisterially and royally, without danger or injury to
+ourselves: but that we should toil for them, suffer for them, and if need
+be, as the highest act of goodness, die for them at last?  Is not this
+the very element of goodness which we all confess to be most noble,
+beautiful, pure, heroical, divine?  Divine even in sinful and fallen man,
+who must forgive because he needs to be forgiven; who must help others
+because he needs help himself; who, if he suffers for others, deserves to
+suffer, and probably will suffer, in himself.  But how much more
+heroical, and how much more divine in a Being who needs neither
+forgiveness nor help, and who is as far from deserving as He is from
+needing to suffer!  And shall this noblest form of goodness be possible
+to sinful man, and yet impossible to a perfectly good God?  Shall we say
+that the martyr at the stake, the patriot dying for his country, the
+missionary spending his life for the good of heathens; ay more, shall we
+say that those women, martyrs by the pang without the palm, who in secret
+chambers, in lowly cottages, have sacrificed and do still sacrifice self
+and all the joys of life for the sake of simple duties, little charities,
+kindness unnoticed and unknown by all, save God--shall we say that all
+who have from the beginning of the world shewn forth the beauty of self-
+sacrifice have had no divine prototype in heaven?--That they have been
+exercising a higher grace, a nobler form of holiness, than He who made
+them, and who, as they believe, and we ought to believe, inspired them
+with that spirit of unselfishness, which if it be not the Spirit of God,
+whose spirit can it be?  Shall we say this, and so suppose them holier
+than their own Maker?  Shall we say this, and suppose that they, when
+they attributed self-sacrifice to God, made indeed a God in their own
+image, but a God of greater love, greater pity, greater graciousness
+because of greater unselfishness, than Him who really exists?
+
+Shall we say this, the very words whereof confute themselves and shock
+alike our reason and our conscience?  Or shall we say with St John and
+with St Paul, that if men can be so good, God must be infinitely better;
+that if man can love so much, God must love more; if man, by shaking off
+the selfishness which is his bane, can do such deeds, then God, in whom
+is no selfishness at all, may at least have done a deed as far above
+theirs as the heavens are above the earth?  Shall we not confess that
+man's self-sacrifice is but a poor and dim reflection of the
+self-sacrifice of God, and say with St John, "Herein is love, not that we
+loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation
+for our sins;" and with St Paul, "Scarcely for a righteous man would one
+die, but God commendeth His love to us in this, that while we were yet
+sinners, Christ died for us"?  Shall we not say this: and find, as
+thousands have found ere now, in the Cross of Calvary the perfect
+satisfaction of our highest moral instincts, the realization in act and
+fact of the highest idea which we can form of perfect condescension,
+namely, self-sacrifice exercised by a Being of whom perfect
+condescension, love and self-sacrifice were not required by aught in
+heaven or earth, save by the necessity of His own perfect and
+inconceivable goodness?
+
+We reverence, and rightly, the majesty of God.  How can that infinite
+majesty be proved more perfectly than by condescension equally infinite?
+We adore, and justly, the serenity of God, who has neither parts nor
+passions.  How can that serenity be proved more perfectly, than by
+passing, still serene, through all the storm and crowd of circumstance
+which disturb the weak serenity of man; by passing through poverty,
+helplessness, temptation, desertion, shame, torture, death; and passing
+through them all victorious and magnificent; with a moral calm as
+undisturbed, a moral purity as unspotted, as it had been from all
+eternity, as it will be to all eternity, in that abysmal source of being,
+which we call the Bosom of the Father?  It is the moral majesty of God,
+as shewn on Calvary, which I uphold.  Shew that Calvary was not
+inconsistent with that; shew that Calvary was not inconsistent with the
+goodness of God, but rather the perfection of that goodness shewn forth
+in time and space: then all other arguments connected with God's majesty
+may go for nought, provided that God's moral majesty be safe.  Provided
+God be proved to be morally infinite--that is, in plain English,
+infinitely good; provided God be proved to be morally absolute--that is,
+absolutely unable to have His goodness affected by any circumstance
+outside Him, even by the death upon the Cross: then let the rest go.  All
+words about absoluteness and infinity and majesty, beyond that, are
+physical--metaphors drawn from matter, which have nothing to do with God
+who is a Spirit.
+
+But God's infinite power too often means, in the minds of men, only some
+abstract notion of boundless bodily strength.  God's omniscience too
+often means, only some physical fancy of innumerable telescopic or
+microscopic eyes.  God's infinite wisdom too often means, only some
+abstract notion of boundless acuteness of brain.  And lastly--I am sorry
+to have to say it, but it must be said,--God's infinite majesty too often
+means, in the minds of some superstitious people, mere pride, and
+obstinacy, and cruelty, as of the blind will of some enormous animal
+which does what it chooses, whether right or wrong.
+
+If the mystery of the Cross contradict any of these carnal or material
+notions, so much the more glory to the mystery of the Cross.  One
+spiritual infinite, one spiritual absolute, it does not contradict: and
+that is the infinite and absolute goodness of God.
+
+Let all the rest remain a mystery, so long as the mystery of the Cross
+gives us faith for all the rest.
+
+Faith, I say.  The mystery of evil, of sorrow, of death, the Gospel does
+not pretend to solve: but it tells us that the mystery is proved to be
+soluble.  For God Himself has taken on Himself the task of solving it;
+and has proved by His own act, that if there be evil in the world, it is
+none of His; for He hates it, and fights against it, and has fought
+against it to the death.
+
+It simply says--Have faith in God.  Ask no more of Him--Why hast Thou
+made me thus?  Ask no more--Why do the wicked prosper on the earth?  Ask
+no more--Whence pain and death, war and famine, earthquake and tempest,
+and all the ills to which flesh is heir?
+
+All fruitless questionings, all peevish repinings, are precluded
+henceforth by the passion and death of Christ.
+
+Dost thou suffer?  Thou canst not suffer more than the Son of God.  Dost
+thou sympathize with thy fellow-men?  Thou canst not sympathize more than
+the Son of God.  Dost thou long to right them, to deliver them, even at
+the price of thine own blood?  Thou canst not long more ardently than the
+Son of God, who carried His longing into act, and died for them and thee.
+What if the end be not yet?  What if evil still endure?  What if the
+medicine have not yet conquered the disease?  Have patience, have faith,
+have hope, as thou standest at the foot of Christ's Cross, and holdest
+fast to it, the anchor of the soul and reason, as well as of the heart.
+For however ill the world may go, or seem to go, the Cross is the
+everlasting token that God so loved the world, that He spared not His
+only-begotten Son, but freely gave Him for it.  Whatsoever else is
+doubtful, this at least is sure,--that good must conquer, because God is
+good; that evil must perish, because God hates evil, even to the death.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON II.  THE PERFECT LOVE.
+
+
+1 JOHN IV. 10.
+
+   Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent
+   His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
+
+This is Passion-week; the week in which, according to ancient and most
+wholesome rule, we are bidden to think of the Passion of Jesus Christ our
+Lord.  To think of that, however happy and comfortable, however busy and
+eager, however covetous and ambitious, however giddy and frivolous,
+however free, or at least desirous to be free, from suffering of any
+kind, we are ourselves.  To think of the sufferings of Christ, and learn
+how grand it is to suffer for the Right.
+
+And why?
+
+Passion-week gives but one answer: but that answer is the one best worth
+listening to.
+
+It is grand and good to suffer for the Right, because God, in Christ, has
+suffered for the Right.
+
+Let us consider this awhile.
+
+It is a first axiom in sound theology, that there is nothing good in man,
+which was not first in God.
+
+Now we all, I trust, hold God to be supremely good.  We ascribe to Him,
+in perfection, every kind of goodness of which we can conceive in man.  We
+say God is just; God is truthful; God is pure; God is bountiful; God is
+merciful; and, in one word, God is Love.
+
+God is Love.  But if we say that, do we not say that God is good with a
+fresh form of goodness, which is not justice, nor truthfulness, nor
+purity, bounty, nor mercy, though without them--never forget that--it
+cannot exist?  And is not that fresh goodness, which we have not defined
+yet, the very kind of goodness which we prize most in human beings?  The
+very kind of goodness which makes us prize and admire love, because
+without it there is no true love, no love worth calling by that sacred
+and heavenly name?  And what is that?
+
+What--save self-sacrifice?  For what is the love worth which does not
+shew itself in action; and more, which does not shew itself in Passion,
+in the true sense of that word, which this week teaches us: namely, in
+suffering?  Not merely in acting for, but in daring, in struggling, in
+grieving, in agonizing, and, if need be, in dying for, the object of its
+love?
+
+Every mother in this church will give but one answer to that question;
+for mothers give it among the very animals; and the deer who fights for
+her fawn, the bird who toils for her nestlings, the spider who will
+rather die than drop her bag of eggs, know at least that love is not
+worth calling love, unless it can dare and suffer for the thing it loves.
+The most gracious of all virtues, therefore, is self-sacrifice; and is
+there no like grace in God, the fount of grace?  Has God, whose name is
+Love, never dared, never suffered, even to the death, in the mightiness
+of a perfect Love?
+
+We Christians say that He has.  We say so, because it has been revealed
+to us, not by flesh and blood, not by brain or nerves, not by logic or
+emotions, but by the Spirit of God, to whom our inmost spirits and
+highest reasons have made answer--A God who has suffered for man?  That
+is so beautiful, that it must be true.
+
+For otherwise we should be left--as I have argued at length elsewhere--in
+this strange paradox:--that man has fancied to himself for 1800 years a
+more beautiful God, a nobler God, a better God than the God who actually
+exists.  It must be so, if God is not capable of that highest virtue of
+self-sacrifice, while man has been believing that He is, and that upon
+the first Good Friday He sacrificed Himself for man, out of the intensity
+of a boundless Love.  A better God imagined by man, than the actual God
+who made man?  We have only to state that absurdity, I trust, to laugh it
+to scorn.
+
+Let us confess, then, that the Passion of Christ, and the mystery of Good
+Friday, is as reasonable a belief to the truly wise, as it is comfortable
+to the weary and the suffering; let us agree that one of the wisest of
+Englishmen, of late gone to his rest, spoke well when he said, "As long
+as women and sorrow exist on earth, so long will the gospel of
+Christianity find an echo in the human heart."  Let it find an echo in
+yours.  But it will only find one, in as far as you can enter into the
+mystery of Passion-week; in as far as you can learn from Passion-week the
+truest and highest theology; and see what God is like, and therefore what
+you must try to be like likewise.
+
+Let us think, then, awhile of the mystery of Passion-week; the mystery of
+the Cross of Christ.  Christ Himself was looking on the coming Cross,
+during this Passion-week; ay, and for many a week before.  Nay rather,
+had He not looked on it from all eternity?  For is He not the Lamb slain
+from the foundation of the world?  Therefore we may well look on it with
+Him.  It may seem, at first, a painful bight.  But shall it cast over our
+minds only gloom and darkness?  Or shall we not see on the Cross the full
+revelation of Light; of the Light which lightens every man that comes
+into the world: and find that painful, not because of its darkness, but
+as the blaze of full sunshine is painful, from unbearable intensity of
+warmth and light?  Let us see.
+
+On the Cross of Calvary, then, God the Father shewed His own character
+and the character of His co-equal and co-eternal Son, and of The Spirit
+which proceeds from both.  For there He spared not His only-begotten Son,
+but freely gave Him for us.  On the Cross of Calvary, not by the will of
+man, but by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, was offered
+before God the one and only full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice,
+oblation, and satisfaction for the sin of the whole world.  God Himself
+did this.  It was not done by any other being to alter His will; it was
+done to fulfil His will.  It was not done to satisfy God's anger; it was
+done to satisfy God's love.  Therefore Good Friday was well and wisely
+called by our forefathers Good Friday; because it shews, as no other day
+can do, that God is good; that God's will to men, in spite of all their
+sins, is a good will; that so boundless, so utterly unselfish and
+condescending, is the eternal love of God, that when an insignificant
+race in a small and remote planet fell, and went wrong, and was in danger
+of ruin, there was nothing that God would not dare, God would not suffer,
+for the sake of even such as us, vile earth and miserable sinners.
+
+Yes, this is the good news of Passion-week; a gospel which men are too
+apt to forget, even to try to forget, as long as they are comfortable and
+prosperous, lazy and selfish.  The comfortable prosperous man shrinks
+from the thought of Christ on His Cross.  It tells him that better men
+than he have had to suffer; that The Son of God Himself had to suffer.
+And he does not like suffering; he prefers comfort.  The lazy, selfish
+man shrinks from the sight of Christ on His Cross; for it rebukes his
+laziness and selfishness.  Christ's Cross says to him--Thou art ignoble
+and base, as long as thou art lazy and selfish.  Rise up, do something,
+dare something, suffer something, if need be, for the sake of thy fellow-
+creatures.  Be of use.  Take trouble.  Face discomfort, contradiction,
+loss of worldly advantage, if it must be, for the sake of speaking truth
+and doing right.  If thou wilt not do as much as that, then the simplest
+soldier who goes to die in battle for his duty, is a better man than
+thou, a nobler man than thou, more like Christ and more like God.  That
+is what Christ's Cross preaches to the lazy, selfish man; and he feels in
+his heart that the sermon is true: but he does not like it.  He turns
+from it, and says in his heart--Oh! Christ's Cross is a painful subject,
+and Passion-week and Good Friday a painful time.  I will think of
+something more genial, more peaceful, more agreeable than sorrow, and
+shame, and agony, and death; Good Friday is too sad a day for me.
+
+Yes, so a man says too often, as long as the fine weather lasts, and all
+is smooth and bright.  But when the tempest comes; when poverty comes,
+affliction, anxiety, shame, sickness, bereavement, and still more, when
+persecution comes on a man; when he tries to speak truth and do right;
+and finds, as he will too often find, that people, instead of loving him
+and praising him for speaking truth and doing right, hate him and
+persecute him for it: then, then indeed Passion-week begins to mean
+something to a man; and just because it is the saddest of all times, it
+looks to him the brightest of all times.  For in his misery and confusion
+he looks up to heaven and asks--Is there any one in heaven who
+understands all this?  Does God understand my trouble?  Does God feel for
+my trouble?  Does God care for my trouble?  Does God know what trouble
+means?  Or must I fight the battle of life alone, without sympathy or
+help from God who made me, and has put me here?  Then, then does the
+Cross of Christ bring a message to that man such as no other thing or
+being on earth can bring.  For it says to him--God does understand thee
+utterly.  For Christ understands thee.  Christ feels for thee.  Christ
+feels with thee.  Christ has suffered for thee, and suffered with thee.
+Thou canst go through nothing which Christ has not gone through.  He, the
+Son of God, endured poverty, fear, shame, agony, death for thee, that He
+might be touched with the feeling of thine infirmity, and help thee to
+endure, and bring thee safe through all to victory and peace.
+
+But again, Passion-week, and above all Good Friday, is a good time,
+because it teaches us, above all days, what it is to be good, and what
+goodness means.  Therefore remember this, all of you, and take it home
+with you for the year to come.  He who has learnt the lesson of Passion-
+week, and practises it; he and he only is a good man.
+
+Nay more, Passion-week tells us, I believe, what is the law according to
+which the whole world of man and of things, yea, the whole universe, sun,
+moon, and stars, is made: and that is, the law of self-sacrifice; that
+nothing lives merely for itself; that each thing is ordained by God to
+help the things around it, even at its own expense.  That is a hard
+saying: and yet it must be true.  The soundest Theology and the highest
+Reason tell us that it must be so.  For there cannot be two Holy Spirits.
+Now the Spirit by which the Lord Jesus Christ sacrificed himself upon the
+Cross is The Holy Spirit.  And the Spirit by which the Lord Jesus Christ
+made all worlds is The Holy Spirit.  But the spirit by which He
+sacrificed Himself on the Cross is the spirit of self-sacrifice.  And
+therefore the spirit by which He made the world is the spirit of self-
+sacrifice likewise; and self-sacrifice is the law and rule on which the
+universe is founded.  At least, that is the true Catholic faith, as far
+as my poor intellect can conceive it; and in that faith I will live and
+die.
+
+There are those who, now-a-days, will laugh at such a notion, and
+say--Self-sacrifice?  It is not self-sacrifice which keeps the world
+going among men, or animals, or even the plants under our feet: but
+selfishness.  Competition, they say, is the law of the universe.
+Everything has to take care of itself, fight for itself, compete freely
+and pitilessly with everything round it, till the weak are killed off,
+and only the strong survive; and so, out of the free play of the self-
+interest of each, you get the greatest possible happiness of the greatest
+possible number.
+
+Do we indeed?  I should have thought that unbridled selfishness, and the
+internecine struggle of opposing interests, had already reduced many
+nations, and seemed likely to reduce all mankind, if it went on, to that
+state of the greatest possible misery of the greatest number, from which
+our blessed Lord, as in this very week, died to deliver us.  At all
+events, if that is to be the condition of man, and of society, then man
+is not made in the likeness of God, and has no need to be led by the
+Spirit of God.  For what the likeness of God and the Spirit of God are,
+Passion-week tells us--namely, Love which knows no self-interest; Love
+which cares not for itself; Love which throws its own life away, that it
+may save those who have hated it, rebelled against it, put it to a
+felon's death.
+
+My good friends, instead of believing the carnal and selfish philosophy
+which cries, Every man for himself--I will not finish the proverb in this
+Holy place, awfully and literally true as the latter half of it
+is--instead of believing that, believe the message of Passion-week, which
+speaks rather thus: telling us that not selfishness, but unselfishness,
+mutual help and usefulness, is the law and will of God; and that
+therefore the whole universe, and all that God has made, is very good.
+And what does Passion-week say to men?
+
+   "Could we but crush that ever-craving lust
+   For bliss, which kills all bliss; and lose our life,
+   Our barren unit life, to find again
+   A thousand lives in those for whom we die:
+   So were we men and women, and should hold
+   Our rightful place in God's great universe,
+   Wherein, in heaven and earth, by will or nature,
+   Nought lives for self.  All, all, from crown to footstool.
+   The Lamb, before the world's foundation slain;
+   The angels, ministers to God's elect;
+   The sun, who only shines to light a world;
+   The clouds, whose glory is to die in showers;
+   The fleeting streams, who in their ocean graves
+   Flee the decay of stagnant self-content;
+   The oak, ennobled by the shipwright's axe;
+   The soil, which yields its marrow to the flower;
+   The flower which breeds a thousand velvet worms,
+   Born only to be prey to every bird--
+   All spend themselves on others; and shall man,
+   Whose twofold being is the mystic knot
+   Which couples earth and heaven--doubly bound,
+   As being both worm and angel, to that service
+   By which both worms and angels hold their lives--
+   Shall he, whose very breath is debt on debt,
+   Refuse, forsooth, to see what God has made him?
+   No, let him shew himself the creatures' lord
+   By freewill gift of that self-sacrifice
+   Which they, perforce, by nature's law must suffer;
+   Take up his cross, and follow Christ the Lord."
+
+And thus Passion-week tells all men in what true goodness lies.  In self-
+sacrifice.  In it Christ on His Cross shewed men what was the likeness of
+God, the goodness of God, the glory of God--to suffer for sinful man.
+
+On this day Christ said--ay, and His Cross says still, and will say to
+all eternity--Wouldest thou be good?  Wouldest thou be like God?  Then
+work, and dare, and, if need be, suffer, for thy fellow-men.  On this day
+Christ consecrated, and, as it were, offered up to the Father in His own
+body on the Cross, all loving actions, unselfish actions, merciful
+actions, generous actions, heroic actions, which man has done, or ever
+will do.  From Him, from His Spirit, their strength came; and therefore
+He is not ashamed to call them brethren.  He is the King of the noble
+army of martyrs; of all who suffer for love, and truth, and justice'
+sake; and to all such he says--Thou hast put on my likeness, and followed
+my footsteps; thou hast suffered for my sake, and I too have suffered for
+thy sake, and enabled thee to suffer in like wise; and in Me thou too art
+a son of God, in whom the Father is well pleased.
+
+Oh, let us contemplate this week Christ on His Cross, sacrificing Himself
+for us and all mankind; and may that sight help to cast out of us all
+laziness and selfishness, and make us vow obedience to the spirit of self-
+sacrifice, the Spirit of Christ and of God, which was given to us at our
+baptism.  And let us give, as we are most bound, in all humility and
+contrition of heart, thanks, praise, and adoration, to that immortal
+Lamb, who abideth for ever in the midst of the throne of God, the Lamb
+slain before the foundation of the world, by Whom all things consist; and
+Who in this week died on the Cross in mortal flesh and blood, that He
+might make this a good week to all mankind, and teach selfish man that
+only by being unselfish can he too be good; and only by self-sacrifice
+become perfect, even as The Father in heaven is perfect.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON III.  THE SPIRIT OF WHITSUNTIDE.
+
+
+ISAIAH XI. 2.
+
+   The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him; the spirit of wisdom and
+   understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of
+   knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
+
+This is Isaiah's description of the Spirit of Whitsuntide; the royal
+Spirit which was to descend, and did descend without measure, on the
+ideal and perfect King, even on Jesus Christ our Lord, the only-begotten
+Son of God.
+
+That Spirit is the Spirit of God; and therefore the Spirit of Christ.
+
+Let us consider a while what that Spirit is.
+
+He is the Spirit of love.  For God is love; and He is the Spirit of God.
+Of that there can be no doubt.
+
+He is the Spirit of boundless love and charity, which is the Spirit of
+the Father, and the Spirit of the Son likewise.  For when by that Spirit
+of love the Father sent the Son into the world that the world through Him
+might be saved, then the Son, by the same Spirit of love, came into the
+world, and humbled Himself, and took on Him the form of a slave, and was
+obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross.
+
+The Spirit of God, then, is the Spirit of love.
+
+But the text describes this Spirit in different words.  According to
+Isaiah, the Spirit of the Lord is the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
+the spirit of Counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear
+of the Lord--in one word, that I may put it as simply as I can--the
+spirit of wisdom.
+
+Now, is the spirit of wisdom the same as the spirit of love?
+
+Sound theology, which is the highest reason, tells us that it must be so.
+For consider:
+
+If the spirit of love is the Spirit of God, and the spirit of wisdom is
+the Spirit of God, then they must be the same spirit.  For if they be two
+different spirits, then there must be two Holy Spirits; for any and every
+Spirit of God must be holy,--what else can He be?  Unholy?  I leave you
+to answer that.
+
+But two Holy Spirits there cannot be; for holiness, which is wisdom,
+justice, and love, is one and indivisible; and as the Athanasian Creed
+tells us, and as our highest reason ought to tell us, there is but one
+Holy Spirit, who must be at once a spirit of wisdom and a spirit of love.
+
+To suppose anything else; to suppose that God's wisdom and God's love, or
+that God's justice and God's love, are different from each other, or
+limit each other, or oppose each other, or are anything but one and the
+same eternally, is to divide God's substance; to deny that God is One:
+which is forbidden us, rightly, and according to the highest reason, by
+the Athanasian Creed.
+
+But more; experience will shew us that the spirit of love is the same as
+the spirit of wisdom; that if any man wishes to be truly wise and
+prudent, his best way--I may say his only way--is to be loving and
+charitable.
+
+The experience of the apostles proves it.  They were, I presume, the most
+perfectly loving and charitable of men; they sacrificed all for the sake
+of doing good; they counted not their own lives dear to them; they
+endured--what did they not endure?--for the one object of doing good to
+men; and--what is harder, still harder, for any human being, because it
+requires not merely enthusiasm, but charity, they made themselves (St
+Paul at least) all things to all men, if by any means they might save
+some.
+
+But were they wise in so doing?  We may judge of a man's wisdom, my
+friends, by his success.  We English are very apt to do so.  We like
+practical men.  We say--I will tell you what a man is, by what he can do.
+
+Now, judged by that rule, surely the apostles' method of winning men by
+love proved itself a wise method.  What did the apostles do?  They had
+the most enormous practical success that men ever had.  They, twelve poor
+men, set out to convert mankind by loving them: and they succeeded.
+
+Remember, moreover, that the text speaks of this Spirit of the Lord being
+given to One who was to be a King, a Ruler, a Guide, and a Judge of men;
+who was to exercise influence over men for their good.  This prophecy was
+fulfilled first in the King of kings, our Lord Jesus Christ: but it was
+fulfilled also in His apostles, who were, in their own way and measure,
+kings of men, exercising a vast influence over them.  And how?  By the
+royal Spirit of love.  In the apostles the Spirit of love and charity
+proved Himself to be also the Spirit of wisdom and understanding.  He
+gave them such a converting, subduing, alluring power over men's hearts,
+as no men have had, before or since.  And He will prove Himself to have
+the same power in us.  Our own experience will be the same as the
+apostles' experience.
+
+I say this deliberately.  The older we grow, the more we understand our
+own lives and histories, the more we shall see that the spirit of wisdom
+is the spirit of love; that the true way to gain influence over our
+fellow-men, is to have charity towards them.
+
+That is a hard lesson to learn; and those who learn it at all, generally
+learn it late; almost--God forgive us--too late.
+
+Our reason, if we would let the Spirit of God enlighten it, would teach
+us this beforehand.  But we do not usually listen to our reason, or to
+God's Spirit speaking to it.  And therefore we have to learn the lesson
+by experience, often by very sad and shameful experience.  And even that
+very experience we cannot understand, unless the Spirit of God interpret
+it to us: and blessed are they who, having been chastised, hearken to His
+interpretation.
+
+Our reason, I say, should teach us that the spirit of wisdom is none
+other than the spirit of love.  For consider--how does the text describe
+this Spirit?
+
+As the spirit of wisdom and understanding; that is, as the knowledge of
+human nature, the understanding of men and their ways.  If we do not
+understand our fellow-creatures, we shall never love them.
+
+But it is equally true that if we do not love them, we shall never
+understand them.  Want of charity, want of sympathy, want of good-feeling
+and fellow-feeling--what does it, what can it breed, but endless mistakes
+and ignorances, both of men's characters and men's circumstances?
+
+Be sure that no one knows so little of his fellow-men, as the cynical,
+misanthropic man, who walks in darkness, because he hates his brother.  Be
+sure that the truly wise and understanding man is he who by sympathy puts
+himself in his neighbours' place; feels with them and for them; sees with
+their eyes, hears with their ears; and therefore understands them, makes
+allowances for them, and is merciful to them, even as his Father in
+heaven is merciful.
+
+And next; this royal Spirit is described as "the spirit of counsel and
+might," that is, the spirit of prudence and practical power; the spirit
+which sees how to deal with human beings, and has the practical power of
+making them obey.
+
+Now that power, again, can only be got by loving human beings.  There is
+nothing so blind as hardness, nothing so weak as violence.  I, of course,
+can only speak from my own experience; and my experience is this: that
+whensoever in my past life I have been angry and scornful, I have said or
+done an unwise thing; I have more or less injured my own cause; weakened
+my own influence on my fellow-men; repelled them instead of attracting
+them; made them rebel against me, rather than obey me.  By patience,
+courtesy, and gentleness, we not only make ourselves stronger; we not
+only attract our fellow-men, and make them help us and follow us
+willingly and joyfully: but we make ourselves wiser; we give ourselves
+time and light to see what we ought to do, and how to do it.
+
+And next; this Spirit is also "the spirit of knowledge, and of the fear
+of the Lord."  Ay, they, indeed, both begin in love, and end in love.  If
+you wish for knowledge, you must begin by loving knowledge for its own
+sake.  And the more knowledge you gain, the more you will long to know,
+and more, and yet more for ever.  You cannot succeed in a study, unless
+you love that study.  Men of science must begin with an interest in, a
+love for, an enthusiasm, in the very deepest sense of the word, for the
+phaenomena which they study.  But the more they learn of them, the more
+their love increases; as they see more and more of their wonder, of their
+beauty, of the unspeakable wisdom and power of God, shewn forth in every
+blade of grass which grows in the sunshine and the rain.
+
+And if this be true of things earthly and temporary, how much more of
+things heavenly and eternal?  We must begin by loving whatsoever things
+are true, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, honest,
+and of good report.  We must begin, I say, by loving them with a sort of
+child's love, without understanding them; by that simple instinct and
+longing after what is good and beautiful and true, which is indeed the
+inspiration of the Spirit of God.  But as we go on, as St Paul bids us,
+to meditate on them; and "if there be any virtue and if there be any
+praise, to think on such things," and feed our minds daily with
+purifying, elevating, sobering, humanizing, enlightening thoughts: then
+we shall get to love goodness with a reasonable and manly love; to see
+the beauty of holiness; the strength of self-sacrifice; the glory of
+justice; the divineness of love; and in a word--To love God for His own
+sake, and to give Him thanks for His great glory, which is: That He is a
+good God.
+
+This thought--remember it, I pray--brings me to the last point.  This
+Spirit is also the spirit of the fear of the Lord.  And that too, my
+friends, must be a spirit of love not only to God, but to our
+fellow-creatures.  For if we but consider that God the Father loves all;
+that His mercy is over all His works; and that He hateth nothing that He
+has made: then how dare we hate anything that He has made, as long as we
+have any rational fear of Him, awe and respect for Him, true faith in His
+infinite majesty and power?  If we but consider that God the Son actually
+came down on earth to die, and to die too on the cross, for all mankind:
+then how dare we hate a human being for whom He died: at least if we have
+true honour, gratitude, loyalty, reverence, and godly fear in our hearts
+toward Him, our risen Lord?
+
+Oh let us open our eyes this Whitsuntide to the experience of our past
+lives.  Let us see now--what we shall certainly see at the day of
+judgment--that whenever we have failed to be loving, we have also failed
+to be wise; that whenever we have been blind to our neighbours'
+interests, we have also been blind to our own; whenever we have hurt
+others, we have hurt ourselves still more.  Let us, at this blessed
+Whitsuntide, ask forgiveness of God for all acts of malice and
+uncharitableness, blindness and hardness of heart; and pray for the
+spirit of true charity, which alone is true wisdom.  And let us come to
+Holy Communion in charity with each other and with all; determined
+henceforth to feel for each other and with each other; to put ourselves
+in our neighbours' places; to see with their eyes, and feel with their
+hearts, as far as God shall give us that great grace; determined to make
+allowances for their mistakes and failings; to give and forgive, live and
+let live, even as God gives and forgives, lives and lets live for ever:
+that so we may be indeed the children of our Father in heaven, whose name
+is Love.  Then we shall indeed discern the Lord's body--that it is a body
+of union, sympathy, mutual trust, help, affection.  Then we shall, with
+all contrition and humility, but still in spirit and in truth, claim and
+obtain our share in the body and the blood, in the spirit and in the
+mind, of Him Who sacrificed Himself for a rebellious world.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON IV.  PRAYER.
+
+
+PSALM LXV. 2.
+
+   Thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come.
+
+Next Friday, the 20th of December, 1871, will be marked in most churches
+of this province of Canterbury by a special ceremony.  Prayers will be
+offered to God for the increase of missionary labourers in the Church of
+England.  To many persons--I hope I may say, to all in this
+congregation--this ceremony will seem eminently rational.  We shall not
+ask God to suspend the laws of nature, nor alter the courses of the
+seasons, for any wants, real or fancied, of our own.  We shall ask Him to
+make us and our countrymen wiser and better, in order that we may make
+other human beings wiser and better: and an eminently rational request I
+assert that to be.
+
+For no one will deny that it is good for heathens and savages, even if
+there were no life after death, to be wiser and better than they are.  It
+is good, I presume, that they should give up cannibalism, slave-trading,
+witchcraft, child-murder, and a host of other abominations; and that they
+should be made to give them up not from mere fear of European cannon, but
+of their own wills and consciences, seeing that such habits are wrong and
+ruinous, and loathing them accordingly; in a word, that instead of living
+as they do, and finding in a hundred ways that the wages of sin are
+death, they should be converted--that is, change their ways--and live.
+
+Now that this is the will of God--assuming that there is a God, and a
+good God--is plain at least to our reason, and to our common sense; and
+it is equally plain to our reason and to our common sense that, as God
+has not taught these poor wretches to improve themselves, or sent
+superior beings to improve them from some other world, He therefore means
+their improvement to be brought about, as moral improvements are usually
+brought about, by the influence of their fellow-men, and specially by us
+who have put ourselves in contact with them in our world-wide search for
+wealth; and who are certain, as we know by sad experience, to make the
+heathen worse, if we do not make them better.  And as we find from
+experience that our missionaries, wherever they are brought in contact
+with these savages, do make them wiser and happier, we ask God to inspire
+more persons with the desire of improving the heathen, and to teach them
+how to improve them.  I say, how to improve them.  All sneers, whether at
+the failure of missionary labours, or at the small results in return for
+the vast sums spent on missions--all such sneers, I say, instead of
+deterring us from praying to God on this matter, ought to make us pray
+the more earnestly in proportion as they are deserved.  For they ought to
+remind us that we possibly may not have gone to work as yet altogether in
+the right way; that there may be mistakes and deficiencies in our method
+of dealing with the heathen.  And if so, it seems all the more reason for
+asking God to set us and others right, in case we should be wrong; and to
+make us and others strong, in case we should be weak.
+
+We thus commit the matter to God.  We do not ask God to raise up such
+missionary labourers as we think fit: but such as He thinks fit.  We do
+not pray Him to alter His will concerning the heathen: but to enable us
+to do what we know already to be His will.  And this course seems to me
+eminently rational; provided always, of course, that it is rational to
+believe that there is a God who answers prayer; and that if we ask
+anything according to His will, He hears us.
+
+Now the older I grow, and the more I see of the chances and changes of
+this mortal life, and of the needs and longings of the human heart, the
+more important seems this question, and all words concerning it, whether
+in the Bible or out of the Bible--
+
+Is there anywhere in the universe any being who can hear our prayers?  Is
+prayer a superfluous folly, or the highest prudence?
+
+I say--Is there a being who can even hear our prayers?  I do not say, a
+being who will always answer them, and give us all we ask: but one who
+will at least hear, who will listen; consider whether what we ask is fit
+to be granted or not; and grant or refuse accordingly.
+
+You say--What is the need of asking such a question?  Of course we
+believe that.  Of course we pray, else why are we in church to-day?
+
+Well, my friends, God grant that you may all believe it in spirit and in
+truth.  But you must remember that if so, you are in the minority; that
+the majority of civilized men, like the majority of mere savages, do not
+pray, whatever the women may do; and that prayer among thinking and
+civilized white men has been becoming, for the last 100 years at least,
+more and more unfashionable; and is likely, to judge from the signs of
+the times, to become more unfashionable still: after which reign of
+degrading ungodliness, I presume--from the experience of all history--that
+our children or grandchildren will see a revulsion to some degrading
+superstition, and the latter end be worse than the beginning.  But it is
+notorious that men are doubting more and more of the efficacy of prayer;
+that philosophers so-called, for true philosophers they are not--even
+though they may be true, able, and worthy students of merely physical
+science--are getting a hearing more and more readily, when they tell men
+they need not pray.
+
+They say; and here they say rightly--The world is ruled by laws.  But
+some say further; and there they say wrongly;--For that reason prayer is
+of no use; the laws will not be altered to please you.  You yourself are
+but tiny parts of a great machine, which will grind on in spite of you,
+though it grind you to powder; and there is no use in asking the machine
+to stop.  So, they say, prayer is an impertinence.  I would that they
+stopped there.  For then we who deny that the world is a machine, or
+anything like a machine, might argue fairly with them on the common
+ground of a common belief in God.
+
+But some go further still, and say--A God?  We do not deny that there may
+be a God: but we do not deny that there may not be one.  This we say--If
+He exists, we know nothing of Him: and what is more, you know nothing of
+Him.  No man can know aught of Him.  No man can know whether there be a
+God or not.  A living God, an acting God, a God of providence, a God who
+hears prayer, a God such as your Bible tells you of, is an inconceivable
+Being; and what you cannot conceive, that you must not believe: and
+therefore prayer is not merely an impertinence, it is a mistake; for it
+is speaking to a Being who only exists in your own imagination.  I need
+not say, my friends, that all this, to my mind, is only a train of
+sophistry and false reasoning, which--so I at least hold--has been
+answered and refuted again and again.  And I trust in God and in Christ
+sufficiently to believe that He will raise up sound divines and true
+philosophers in His Church, who will refute it once more.  But meanwhile
+I can only appeal to your common sense; to the true and higher reason,
+which lies in men's hearts, not in their heads; and ask--And is it come
+to this?  Is this the last outcome of civilization, the last discovery of
+the human intellect, the last good news for man?  That the soundest
+thinkers--they who have the truest and clearest notion of the universe
+are the savage who knows nothing but what his five senses teach him, and
+the ungodly who makes boast of his own desire, and speaks good of the
+covetous whom God abhorreth, while he says, "Tush, God hath forgotten.  He
+hideth away his face, and God will never see it"?
+
+True: these so-called philosophers would say that the savage makes a
+mistake in his sensuality, and the worldling in his covetousness and his
+tyranny; that from an imperfect conception of their own true
+self-interest, they carry their philosophy to conclusions which the
+philosopher in his study must regret.  But as to their philosophy being
+correct: there can be no question that if providence, and prayer, and the
+living God, be phantoms of man's imagination, then the cynical worldling
+at one end of the social scale, and the brutal savage at the other, are
+wiser than apostles and prophets, and sages and divines.
+
+These men talk of facts, the facts of human nature.  Why do they ask us
+to ignore the most striking fact of human nature, that man, even if he
+were a mere animal, is alone of all animals--a praying animal?  Is that
+strange instinct of worship, which rises in the heart of man as soon as
+he begins to think, to become a civilized being and not a savage, to be
+disregarded as a childish dream when he rises to a higher civilization
+still?  Is the experience of men, heathen as well as Christian, for all
+these ages to go for nought?  Has it mattered nought whether men cried to
+Baal or to God; for with both alike there has been neither sound nor
+voice, nor any that answered?  Has every utterance that has ever gone up
+from suffering and doubting humanity, gone up in vain?  Have the prayers
+of saints, the hymns of psalmists, the agonies of martyrs, the
+aspirations of poets, the thoughts of sages, the cries of the oppressed,
+the pleadings of the mother for her child, the maiden praying in her
+chamber for her lover upon the distant battle-field, the soldier
+answering her prayer from afar off with, "Sleep quiet, I am in God's
+hands"--those very utterances of humanity which seemed to us most noble,
+most pure, most beautiful, most divine, been all in vain?--impertinences;
+the babblings of fair dreams, poured forth into nowhere, to no thing, and
+in vain?  Has every suffering, searching soul which ever gazed up into
+the darkness of the unknown, in hopes of catching even a glimpse of a
+divine eye, beholding all, and ordering all, and pitying all, gazed up in
+vain?  For at the ground of the universe is "_not a divine eye_, _but
+only a blank bottomless eye-socket_;" {39} and man has no Father in
+heaven; and Christ revealed Him not, because He was not there to reveal;
+and there was no hope, no remedy, no deliverance, for the miserable among
+the sons of men?
+
+Oh, my friends, those who believe, or fancy that they believe such
+things, must be able to do so only through some peculiar conformation
+either of brain or heart.  Only want of imagination to conceive the
+consequences of such doctrines can enable them, if they have any love and
+pity for their fellow-men, to preach those doctrines without pity and
+horror.  They know not, they know not, of what they rob a mankind already
+but too miserable by its own folly and its own sin; a mankind which, if
+it have not hope in God and in Christ, is truly--as Homer said of
+old--more miserable than the beasts of the field.  If their unconscious
+conceit did not make them unintentionally cruel, they would surely be
+silent for pity's sake; they would let men go on in the pleasant delusion
+that there is a living God, and a Word of God who has revealed Him to
+men; and would hide from their fellow-creatures the dreadful secret which
+they think they have discovered--That there is none that heareth prayer,
+and therefore to Him need no flesh come.
+
+Men take up with such notions, I believe, most generally in days of
+comfort, ease, safety.  They find the world so well ordered outwardly,
+that it seems able enough to go on its way without a God.  They have
+themselves so few sorrows, struggles, doubts, that they never feel that
+sense of helplessness, of danger, of ignorance, which has made the hearts
+of men, in every age, yearn for an unseen helper, an unseen deliverer, an
+unseen teacher.
+
+And so it is--and shameful it is that so it should be--that the more God
+gives to men, the less they thank Him, the less they fancy that they need
+Him: but take His bounties, as they take the air they breathe,
+unconsciously, and as a matter of course.
+
+And therefore adversity is wholesome, danger is wholesome; so wholesome,
+that in all ages, as far as I can find, the godliest, the most moral, the
+most manful, and therefore the really happiest and most successful
+nations or communities of men, have been those who were in perpetual
+danger, difficulty, struggle; and who have thereby had their faith in God
+called out; who have learned in the depth, to cry out of the depth to
+God; to lift up their eyes unto the Lord, and know that their help comes
+from Him.
+
+I know a village down in the far West, where the 121st Psalm which I just
+quoted, was a favourite, and more than a favourite.  Whenever it was
+given out in church--and the congregation used often to ask for it--all
+joined in singing it, young and old, men and maidens, with an
+earnestness, a fervour, a passion, such as I never heard elsewhere; such
+as shewed how intensely they felt that the psalm was true, and true for
+them.  Of all congregational singing I ever heard, never have I heard any
+so touching as those voices, when they joined in the old words they loved
+so well.
+
+   Sheltered beneath the Almighty wings
+   Thou shall securely rest,
+   Where neither sun nor moon shall thee
+   By day or night molest.
+   At home, abroad, in peace, in war,
+   Thy God shall thee defend;
+   Conduct thee through life's pilgrimage
+   Safe to thy journey's end.
+
+Do you fancy these people were specially comfortable, prosperous folk,
+who had no sorrows, and lived safe from all danger, and therefore knew
+that God protected them from all ill?
+
+Nothing less, my friends, nothing less.  There was hardly a man who
+joined in that psalm, but knew that he carried his life in his hand from
+year to year, that any day might see him a corpse--drowned at sea.  Hardly
+a woman who sang that psalm but had lost a husband, a father, a brother,
+a kinsman--drowned at sea.  And yet they believed that God preserved
+them.  They were fishers and sailors, earning an uncertain livelihood, on
+a wild and rocky coast.  A sudden shift of wind might make, as I knew it
+once to make, 60 widows and orphans in a single night.  The fishery for
+the year might fail, and all the expense of boats and nets be thrown
+away.  Or in default of work at home, the young men would go out on
+voyages to foreign parts: and often never came back again, dying far from
+home, of fever, of wreck, of some of the hundred accidents which befal
+seafaring men.  And yet they believed that God preserved them.  Surely
+their faith was tried, if ever faith was tried.  But as surely their
+faith failed not, for--if I may so say--they dared not let it fail.  If
+they ceased to trust God, what had they to trust in?  Not in their own
+skill in seamanship, though it was great: they knew how weak it was, on
+which to lean.  Not in the so-called laws of nature; the treacherous sea,
+the wild wind, the uncertain shoals of fish, the chances and changes of a
+long foreign voyage.  Without trust in God, their lives must have been
+lives of doubt and of terror, for ever anxious about the morrow: or else
+of blind recklessness, saying, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
+die."  Because they kept their faith in God, their lives were for the
+most part lives of hardy and hopeful enterprise; cheerful always, in bad
+luck as in good; thankful when their labours were blest with success; and
+when calamity and failure came, saying with noble resignation--"I have
+received good from the hand of the Lord, and shall I not receive evil?
+Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him."
+
+It is a life like theirs, mixed with danger and uncertainty, which most
+calls out faith in God.  It is the life of safety and comfort, in which
+our wants are all supplied ready to our hand, which calls it out least.
+And therefore it is that life in cities, just because it is most safe and
+most comfortable, is so often, alas, most ungodly, at least among the
+men.  Less common, thank God, is this ungodliness among the women.  The
+nursing of the sick; the cares of a family, often too sorrows, manifold
+and bitter, put them continually in mind of human weakness, and of their
+own weakness likewise.  Yes.  It is sorrow, my friends, sorrow and
+failure, which forces men to believe that there is One who heareth
+prayer, forces them to lift up their eyes to One from whom cometh their
+help.  Before the terrible realities of danger, death, bereavement,
+disappointment, shame, ruin--and most of all before deserved shame,
+deserved ruin--all the arguments of the conceited sophist melt away like
+the maxims of the comfortable worldling; and the man or woman who was but
+too ready a day before to say, "Tush, God will never see, and will never
+hear," begins to hope passionately that God does see, that God does hear.
+In the hour of darkness; when there is no comfort in man nor help in man,
+when he has no place to flee unto, and no man careth for his soul: then
+the most awful, the most blessed of all questions is: But is there no one
+higher than man to whom I can flee?  No one higher than man who cares for
+my soul and for the souls of those who are dearer to me than my own soul?
+No friend?  No helper?  No deliverer?  No counsellor?  Even no judge?  No
+punisher?  No God, even though He be a consuming fire?  Am I and my
+misery alone together in the universe?  Is my misery without any meaning,
+and I without hope?  If there be no God: then all that is left for me is
+despair and death.  But if there be, then I can hope that there is a
+meaning in my misery; that it comes to me not without cause, even though
+that cause be my own fault.  I can plead with God like poor Job of old,
+even though in wild words like Job; and ask--What is the meaning of this
+sorrow?  What have I done?  What should I do?  "I will say unto God, Do
+not condemn me; shew me wherefore thou contendest with me.  Surely I
+would speak unto the Almighty, and desire to reason with God."
+
+"I would speak unto the Almighty, and desire to reason with God."  Oh my
+friends, a man, I believe, can gain courage and wisdom to say that, only
+by the inspiration of the Spirit of God.
+
+But when once he has said that from his heart, he begins to be justified
+by faith.  For he has had faith in God; he has trusted God enough to
+speak to God who made him; and so he has put himself, so far at least,
+into his just and right place, as a spiritual and rational being, made in
+the image of God.
+
+But more, he has justified God.  He has confessed that God is not a mere
+force or law of nature; nor a mere tyrant and tormentor: but a reasonable
+being, who will hear reason, and a just being, who will do justice by the
+creatures whom He has made.
+
+And so the very act of prayer justifies God, and honours God, and gives
+glory to God; for it confesses that God is what He is, a good God, to
+whom the humblest and the most fallen of His creatures dare speak out the
+depths of their abasement, and acknowledge that His glory is this--That
+in spite of all His majesty, He is one who heareth prayer; a being as
+magnificent in His justice, as He is magnificent in His majesty and His
+might.
+
+All this is argued out, as it never has been argued out before or since,
+in the book of Job: and for seeing so much as this, was Job approved by
+God.  But there is a further question, to which the book of Job gives no
+answer; and to which indeed all the Old Testament gives but a partial
+answer.  And that is this--This just and magnificent God, has He also
+human pity, tenderness, charity, condescension, love?  In one word, have
+we not only a God in heaven, but a Father in heaven?
+
+That question could only be answered by the coming of our Lord Jesus
+Christ.  Truly He said--No one cometh to the Father, but by me.  No man
+hath seen God at any time: but the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom
+of the Father, He hath revealed Him.  He revealed Him in part to Abraham,
+in part to Moses, to Job, to David, to the prophets.  But He revealed Him
+perfectly when He said--I and the Father are one.  He that hath seen me
+hath seen the Father.  Yes.  Now we can find boundless comfort in the
+words, "Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy
+Ghost"--Love and condescension without bounds.  Now we know that there is
+A Man in the midst of the throne of God, who is the brightness of God's
+glory and the express image of His character; a high priest who can be
+touched with the feeling of our infirmities, seeing that He was tempted
+in all things like as we are, yet without sin.
+
+To Him we can cry, with human passion and in human words; because we know
+that His human heart will respond to our human hearts, and that His human
+heart again will respond to His divine Spirit, and that His divine Spirit
+is the same as the divine Spirit of His Father; for their wills and minds
+are one; and their will and their mind is--boundless love to sinful man.
+
+Yes, we can look up by faith into the sacred face of Christ, and take
+refuge by faith within His sacred heart, saying--If it be good for me, He
+will give what I ask: and if He gives it not, it is because that too is
+good for me, and for others beside me.  In all the chances and changes of
+this mortal life we can say to Him, as He said in that supreme hour--"If
+it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not my will, but
+thine, be done," sure that He will present that prayer to His Father, and
+to our Father, and to His God and to our God; and that whatsoever be the
+answer vouchsafed by Him whose ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts
+as our thoughts, the prayer will not have gone up to Christ in vain.
+
+And in such a case as this of missions to the heathen--If we believe that
+Christ died for these poor heathen; if we believe that Christ loves these
+poor heathen infinitely more than we, or than the most devoted missionary
+who ever lived or died for them: shall we say--Then we may leave them in
+Christ's hands to follow their own nature.  If He is satisfied with their
+degradation, so may we be?  Shall we not rather say--Their misery and
+degradation must pain His sacred heart, far more than our sinful hearts;
+and if He does not come down again on earth to help them Himself, it must
+be because He means to help them through us, His disciples?  Let us ask
+Him to teach us and others how to help them; to enable us and others to
+help them.  Let us pray to Him the one prayer which, unless prayer be a
+dream, is certain to be answered, because it is certainly according to
+God's will; the prayer to be taught and helped to do our duty by our
+fellow-men.  And for the rest: let us pray in the words of that most
+noble of all collects, to pray which is to take refuge from our own
+ignorance in the boundless wisdom of God's love--"Thou who knowest our
+necessities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion
+on our infirmities, and those things which for our unworthiness we dare
+not, and for our blindness we cannot ask, condescend to give us, for the
+worthiness of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON V.  THE DEAF AND DUMB.
+
+
+ST MARK VII. 32-37.
+
+   And they bring unto Jesus one that was deaf, and had an impediment in
+   his speech; and they beseech Him to put His hand upon him.  And He
+   took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers into his ears,
+   and He spit, and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, He
+   sighed, and said, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.  And straightway his
+   ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he
+   spake plain. . . . And they were beyond measure astonished, saying, He
+   hath done all things well: He maketh both the deaf to hear, and the
+   dumb to speak.
+
+Our greatest living philologer has said, and said truly--"If wonder
+arises from ignorance, it is from that conscious ignorance which, if we
+look back at the history of most of our sciences, has been the mother of
+all human knowledge.  Till men began to wonder at the stratification of
+rocks, and the fossilization of shells, there was no science of Geology.
+Till they began to wonder at the words which were perpetually in their
+mouths, there was no science of Language."
+
+He might have added, that till men began to wonder at the organization of
+their own bodies, there was no science of healing; that in proportion as
+the common fact of health became mysterious and marvellous in their eyes,
+just in that proportion did they become able to explain and to conquer
+disease.  For there is a deep difference between the wonder of the
+uneducated or half-educated man, and the wonder of the educated man.
+
+The ignorant in all ages have wondered at the exception; the wise, in
+proportion as they have become wise, have wondered at the rule.
+Pestilences, prodigies, portents, the results of seeming accidents,
+excite the vulgar mind.  Only the abnormal or casual is worthy of their
+attention.  The man of science finds a deeper and more awful charm in
+contemplating the results of law; in watching, not what seem to be
+occasional failures in nature: but what is a perpetual and calm success.
+
+The savage knows not, I am told, what wonder means, save from some
+prodigy.  Seeing no marvel in the daily glory of the sunlight, he is
+startled out of his usual stupidity and carelessness by the occurrence of
+an eclipse, an earthquake, a thunderbolt.  The uneducated, whatever their
+rank may be, are apt to be more interested by the sight of deformities,
+and defects or excesses in nature, than by that of the most perfect
+normal and natural beauty.
+
+Those, in the same way, who in the infancy of European science, thought
+it worth while to register natural phenomena, registered exclusively the
+exceptions.  Eclipses, meteors, auroras, earthquakes, storms, and
+especially monstrosities, animal or vegetable, exercised their barbaric
+wonder.  The mystery and miracle which underlies the unfolding of every
+bud, the development of every embryo, the growth of every atom of tissue,
+in any organism, animal or vegetable--to all this their intellectual eye
+was blind.  How different from such a state of mind, that calm and
+constant wonder, humbling and yet inspiring, with which the modern man of
+science searches into the "open mystery" of the universe; and sees that
+the true marvel lies, not in the infringement of law, but in its
+permanence; not in the imperfect, but in the perfect; not in disease, but
+in health; not in deformity, but in beauty.
+
+These words are true of all nature; and specially true, it seems to me,
+of our outward senses and faculties; true of sight, hearing, speech.  The
+wonder, I think, with the wise man will be, not that there are deaf and
+dumb persons to be found here and there among us: but that the average,
+nay, the majority of mankind, are not deaf and dumb.  Paradoxical as this
+assertion may seem at first, a little thought I believe will prove it to
+be reasonable.
+
+Whatever view you take of the origin of sight, hearing, voice, the wonder
+to a thoughtful mind is just the same; how, under the storm of
+circumstances, and through the lapse of ages, those faculties have not
+been lost again and again, by countless individuals, nay, by the whole
+species.  For we must confess that those faculties are gradually
+developed in each individual; that every animal and every human being
+which is born into the world, has built up, unconsciously, involuntarily,
+and as it were out of nothing, those delicate and complex organs, by
+which he afterwards learns to see, hear, and utter sounds.  Is not the
+wonder, that he should, in the majority of cases, succeed without any
+effort of his own?
+
+And if I am answered, that the success is owing to hereditary tendencies,
+and to the laws by which the offspring resembles the parents, I answer:
+Is not that a greater wonder still?  A wonder which all the discoveries
+of the scalpel and the microscope have been as yet unable, and will be, I
+believe, to the last unable, to unravel, even to touch?  A wonder which
+can be explained by no theories of vibratory atoms, vital forces, plastic
+powers of nature, or other such phrases, which are but metaphysical
+abstractions, having no counterpart in fact, and only hiding from us our
+ignorance of the vast and venerable unknown.  The physiologist, when he
+considers the manifold combination of innumerable microscopic
+circumstances which are required to bring any one creature into the world
+with a perfectly hearing ear, ought to confess that the chances--if the
+world were governed by chance--are infinitely greater in favour of a
+child's being born with an imperfect ear rather than with a perfect one.
+And if he should evade the difficulty; and try to explain the usual
+success by saying that nature is governed by law: I answer--What is
+nature?  What is law?  You never saw nature nor law either under the
+microscope.  They too are metaphysical abstractions, necessary notions
+and conceptions of your own brain.  You have seen nothing but the fact
+and the custom; and all you can do, if you be strictly rational, is with
+a certain modern school to say, with a despairing humility, which I
+deplore while I respect--deploring it because it is needless despair, and
+yet respecting it because it is humility, which is the path out of
+despair and darkness into hope and light--to say with them, "Man can know
+nothing of causes, he can only register positive facts."  This, I say, is
+one path--one which I trust none here will tread.  The only other path, I
+believe, is, to go back to the lessons which we ought to have learnt in
+our childhood, for those to whom the human race owes most learnt them
+thousands of years ago; and to ascribe the ever successful miracles of
+nature to a Will, to a Mind, to a Providence so like that which each of
+us exercises in his own petty sphere, that we are not only able to
+understand in part the works of God, but to know from the very fact of
+being able to understand them--as one of our greatest astronomers has so
+well said lately--that we are made in the image of God.  To say with the
+old Psalmist, that the universe is governed by "a law which cannot be
+broken:" but why?  Because God has given it that law.  To say "All things
+continue as they were at the beginning:" but why?  Because all things
+serve Him in whom we live and move and have our being.  To confess the
+mystery and miracle of our mortal bodies, and say with David, "I am
+fearfully and wonderfully made; such knowledge is too wonderful and
+excellent for me, I cannot attain unto it:" but to add the one only
+rational explanation of the mystery which, thank God, common sense has
+taught, though it may be often in confused and defective forms, to the
+vast majority of the human race in all times and all lands--that He who
+grasps the mystery and works the miracle is God; that "His eye sees our
+substances yet being imperfect; and in His book are all our members
+written, which day by day were fashioned, when as yet there were none of
+them."
+
+And then to go forward with the Psalmist, and with the common sense of
+humanity; to conclude that if there be a Creator, there must also be a
+Providence; that that life-giving Spirit which presided over the creation
+of each organism presides also over its growth, its circumstances, its
+fortunes; and to say with David, "Whither shall I go then from Thy
+Spirit, or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?  If I climb up to
+heaven, Thou art there.  If I go down to hell, Thou art there also.  If I
+take the wings of the morning, and remain in the uttermost parts of the
+sea; even there Thy hand shall lead me; Thy right hand shall hold me
+still."
+
+Yes.  To this--to faith and adoration--ought right and reason to lead the
+physical philosopher.  And to what ought it to lead us, who are most of
+us, I presume, not physical philosophers?  To gratitude, surely, not
+unmixed with fear and trembling; till we say to ourselves--Who am I, to
+boast?  Who am I, to pride myself on possessing a single faculty which
+one of my neighbours may want?  What have I, that I did not receive?
+Considering the endless chances of failure, if the world were left to
+chance; and I may say, the absolute certainty of failures, if the world
+were left to the blind competition of merely physical laws, is it not
+only of the Lord's mercies that we are not failures too? that we have not
+been born crippled, blind, deaf, dumb--what not?--by the effect of
+circumstances over which we have had no control; which have been working,
+it may be, for generations past, in the organizations of our ancestors?
+
+But what shall we say of those who have not received what we have
+received?  What shall we say of those who, like the deaf and dumb, are,
+in some respects at least, failures--instances in which the laws which
+regulate our organization have not succeeded in effecting a full
+development?
+
+We can say this, at least, without entangling and dazzling ourselves in
+speculations about final causes; without attempting to pry into the
+mystery of evil.
+
+We can say this: That if there be a God--as there is a God--these
+failures are not according to His will.  The highest reason should teach
+us that; for it must tell us that in the work of the Divine Artist, as in
+the work of the human, imperfection, impotence, disorder of any kind,
+must be contrary to the mind and will of the Creator.  The highest
+reason, I say, teaches us this.  And Scripture teaches it like wise.  For
+if we believe our Lord to have been as He was--the express image of the
+Almighty Father; if we believe that He came--as He did come--to reveal to
+men His Father's will, His Father's mind, His Father's character: then we
+must believe that He acted according to that will and according to that
+character, when He made the healing of disease, and the curing of
+imperfections of this very kind, an important and an integral part of His
+work on earth.
+
+"And they brought unto Jesus one that was deaf, and had an impediment in
+his speech, and besought Him to put His hand upon him.  And Jesus took
+him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers into his ears; and He
+spit, and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, He sighed, and
+said unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened.  And straightway his ears
+were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain
+. . . And they were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all
+things well: He maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak."
+
+Consider this story awhile.  He healed the man miraculously, by means at
+which we cannot guess, which we cannot even conceive.  But the healing
+signified at least two things--that the man could be healed, and that the
+man ought to be healed; that his bodily defect--the retribution of no sin
+of his own--was contrary to the will of that Father in Heaven, who
+willeth not that one little one should perish.
+
+But Jesus sighed likewise.  There was in Him a sorrow, a compassion, most
+human and most divine.
+
+It may have been--may He forgive me if I dare rashly to impute motives or
+thoughts to Him--that there was something too of a divine weariness--I
+dare not say impatience, seeing how patient He was then and how patient
+He has been since for more than 1800 years--of the folly and ignorance of
+man, who brings on himself and on his descendants these and a hundred
+other preventible miseries, simply because he will not study and obey the
+physical laws of the universe; simply because he will not see that those
+laws which concern the welfare of his body, are as surely the will of God
+as those which concern the welfare of his soul; and that therefore it is
+not merely his interest but his solemn duty to study and to obey them,
+lest he bear the punishment of his own neglect and disobedience.
+
+It is not for man even to guess what thoughts may have passed through the
+mind of Christ when He sighed over the very defect which He was healing.
+But it is surely not irreverent in us to say that our Lord had cause
+enough to sigh, if He foresaw the follies of mankind during an age which
+was too soon to come.--How men, instead of taking the spirit of His
+miracles and acting on it, would counterfeit the mere outward signs of
+them, to feed the vanity or the superstition of a few devotees.  How,
+instead of looking on His miracles as rebukes to their own ignorance and
+imbecility; instead of perceiving that their bodily afflictions were
+contrary to the will of God, and therefore curable; instead of setting
+themselves to work manfully, in the light of God, and by the help of God,
+to discover and correct the errors which produced them, mankind would
+idle away precious centuries in barbaric wonder at seeming prodigies and
+seeming miracles, and would neglect utterly the study of those far more
+wondrous laws of nature which Christ had proved to be under His
+government and His guidance, and had therefore proved to be working for
+the good of those for whom He came to die.  Christ had indeed sown good
+seed in His field.  He had taught men by His miracles, as He had taught
+them by His parables, to Whom nature belonged, and Whose laws nature
+obeyed.  And the cessation of miracles after the time of Christ and His
+Apostles had taught, or ought to have taught, mankind a further lesson;
+the lesson that henceforth they were to carry on for themselves, by the
+faculties which God had given them, that work of healing and deliverance
+which He had begun.  Miracles, like prophecies, like tongues, like
+supernatural knowledge, were to cease and vanish away: but charity,
+charity which devotes itself for the welfare of the human race, was to
+abide for ever.
+
+Christ, as I said, had sown good seed: but an enemy--we know not whence
+or when--certainly within the three first centuries of the Church--came
+and sowed tares among that wheat.  Then began men to believe that devils,
+and not their Father in Heaven, were, to all practical intents, the lords
+of nature.  Then began they to believe that man's body was the property
+of Satan, and his soul only the property of God.  Then began they to
+fancy that man was to be delivered from his manifold earthly miseries,
+not by purity and virtue, reason and knowledge, but by magic, masked
+under the sacred name of religion.  No wonder if, in such a temper of
+mind, the physical amelioration of the human race stood still.  How could
+it be otherwise, while men refused to see in facts the acted will of God;
+and sought not in God's universe, but in the dreams of their own brains,
+for glimpses of that divine and wonderful order by which The eternal
+Father and The eternal Son are working together for ever through The
+eternal Spirit for the welfare of the universe?
+
+We boast, my friends, at times, of the rapid triumphs of modern science.
+Were we but aware of the vast amount of preventible misery around us, and
+of the vast possibility of removing it, which lies in the little science
+which we know already, we should rather bewail the slow departure of
+modern barbarism.
+
+There has been no period of the world for centuries back, I believe, in
+which man might not have been infinitely healthier, happier, more
+prosperous, more long-lived than he has been, if he had only believed
+that disease, misery, and premature death were not the will of God and of
+Christ; and that God had endowed him with an intellect which could
+understand the laws of the universe, in order that he might use those
+laws for his own health, wealth, and life.  Very late is society in
+commencing that rational course on which it ought to have entered
+centuries ago; and therefore very culpable.  And it is not too much to
+say, that to the average of persons suffering under preventible disease
+or defect, even though it be hereditary, society owes a sacred debt,
+which it is bound to pay by making those innocent sufferers from other's
+sins as happy as possible; where it has not yet learnt--as it will learn,
+please God, some day--to cure them.
+
+There is, thank God, a healthier feeling than of old abroad of late upon
+this point.  Men are learning more and more to regard such sufferers not
+as the victims of God's wrath, but of human ignorance, vice, or folly.
+And it was with deep satisfaction that I read in the last Report of the
+Schools for the Deaf and Dumb a statement of what were considered the
+most probable physical causes of deafness and dumbness, and a hope that
+it would be possible, hereafter, to prevent as well as cure those
+diseases.
+
+Whether the causes assigned in that Report are the true ones, is a point
+of inferior importance for the moment.  The really important point is,
+that the principle should be allowed, the question raised, by a society,
+composed of religious men, and teaching to those poor deaf and dumb as
+almost their primary work that true religion which they are just as
+capable of receiving as we.  The right path has been entered--the path
+which is certain in due time to lead to success.  And meanwhile our duty
+is, while we confess that it is the fault of society and not of God, that
+these afflicted ones exist among us--it is our duty, I say, to cultivate
+and to develop to the highest every faculty, instinct, and power, in them
+which God's order has preserved from the effects of man's disorder; to
+feed the eye with fair and noble sights, though the ear be shut to
+soothing and inspiring sounds; to cultivate the intellect to such a pitch
+that it may be able to perform practical work, and if possible to earn a
+sufficient livelihood, even though the want of speech makes it impossible
+for them, deaf and dumb, to compete on equal terms with their fellow-men;
+to awaken in them, by religious training, teaching and worship, those
+purer and more unselfish emotions by which their hearts may become a
+field ready and prepared for God's grace.  To do this; and to regard
+them, whenever we come in contact with them; not merely with pity, while
+we remember how much their intellects lose, in losing the whole world of
+sound; but with hope, when we see that through the one sense which is
+left they take in fully not only the meaning of the voluble hands which
+teach them, but more, the meaning of that meaning--the spiritual truths
+and feelings which signs express; with wonder, not at the defect, but at
+the innate health which almost compensates for the want of hearing by
+concentrating its powers upon the sight; and lastly, with admiration for
+that humanity which, as it were imprisoned, fettered, maimed, yet can, by
+the God-given force of the immortal spirit, so burst its prison-bars, and
+rise, through hindrances which seem to us impassable, to the tenderest,
+the noblest, the purest, and most devout emotions.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON VI.  THE FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT.
+
+
+ST JOHN III. 8,
+
+   The wind bloweth whither it listeth, and thou hearest the sound
+   thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth: so
+   is every one that is born of the Spirit.
+
+It is often asked--men have a right to ask--what would the world have
+been by now without Christianity? without the Christian religion? without
+the Church?
+
+But before these questions can be answered, we must define, it is
+discovered, what we mean by Christianity, the Christian religion, the
+Church.
+
+And it is found--or I at least believe it will be found--more safe and
+wise to ask a deeper and yet a simpler question still: What would the
+world have been without that influence on which Christianity, and
+religion, and the Church depend?  What would the world have been without
+the Holy Spirit of God?
+
+But some will say: This is a more abstruse question still.  How can you
+define, how can you analyse, the Spirit of God?  Nay, more, how can you
+prove its existence?--Such questioners have been, as it were, baptized
+unto John's baptism.  They are very glad to see people do right, and not
+do wrong, from any well-calculated motives, or wholesome and pleasant
+emotions.  But they have not as yet heard whether there be any Holy
+Spirit.
+
+We can only answer, Just so.  This Holy Spirit in Whom we believe defies
+all analysis, all definition whatsoever.  His nature can be brought under
+no terms derived from human emotions or motives.  He is literally
+invisible; as invisible to the conception of the brain as He is to the
+bodily eye.  His presence is proved only by its effects.  The Spirit
+bloweth whither it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but thou
+canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth.
+
+Such words must sound as dreams to those analytical philosophers who
+allow nothing in man below the sphere of consciousness, actual or
+possible; who have dissected the human mind till they find in it no
+personal will, no indestructible and spiritual self, but a character
+which is only the net result of innumerable states of consciousness; who
+hold that man's outward actions, and also his inmost instincts, are all
+the result either of calculations about profit and loss, pleasure and
+pain, or of emotions, whether hereditary or acquired.  Ignoring the deep
+and ancient distinction, which no one ever brought out so clearly as St
+Paul, between the flesh and the spirit, they hold that man is flesh, and
+can be nothing more; that each person is not really a person, but is the
+consequence of his brain and nerves; and having thus, by logical
+analysis, got rid of the spirit of man, their reason and their conscience
+quite honestly and consistently see no need for, or possibility of, a
+Spirit of God, to ennoble and enable the human spirit.  Why need there
+be, if the difference between an animal and a man be one of degree alone,
+and not of kind?
+
+We answer: That there is a flesh in man, brain and nerves, emotions and
+passions, identical with that of animals, we do not deny.  We should be
+fools if we did deny it; for the fact is hideously and shamefully patent.
+None knew that better than St Paul, who gave a list of the works of the
+flesh, the things which a man does who is the slave of his own brain and
+nerves--and a very ugly list it is--beginning with adultery and ending
+with drunkenness, after passing through all the seven deadly sins.  And
+neither St Paul nor we deny, that in this fleshly, carnal and animal
+state the vast majority of the human race has lived, and lives still, to
+its own infinite misery and confusion; and that it has a perpetual
+tendency, whenever lifted out of that state, to fall back into it again,
+and perish.
+
+But St Paul says, and we say: That crushed under this animal nature there
+is in man a spirit.  We say: That below all his consciousness lies a
+nobler element; a divine spark, or at least a divine fuel, which must be
+kindled into life by the divine Spirit, the Spirit of God.  And we say
+that in proportion as that Spirit of God kindles the spirit of man, he
+begins to act after a fashion for which he can give no logical reason;
+that by instinct, and without calculation of profit or loss, pleasure or
+pain, he begins to act on what he calls duty, honour, love,
+self-sacrifice.  But what these are he cannot analyse.  Mere words cannot
+define them.  He can only obey that which prompts him, he knows not what
+nor whence; and say with Luther of old: "I can do no otherwise.  God help
+me."
+
+And we say that such men and women are the salt of the earth, who keep
+society from rotting; that by such men and women, and by their example
+and influence, direct and indirect, has Christendom been raised up out of
+the accursed slough into which Europe and, indeed, the whole known world,
+had fallen during the early Roman Empire; and that to this influence, and
+therefore to the Holy Spirit of God alone, and not to any prudential
+calculations, combined experiences, or so-called philosophies of men, is
+owing all which keeps Europe from being a hell on earth.  And we say,
+moreover, that those who deny this, and dream of a morality and a
+civilization without The Spirit of God, are unconsciously throwing down
+the ladder by which they themselves have climbed, and sawing off the very
+bough to which they cling.
+
+Duty, honour, love, self-sacrifice--these are the fruits of The Spirit;
+unknown to, and unobeyed by, the savage, or by the civilized man who--as
+has too often happened--as is happening now in too many lands, on both
+sides of the Atlantic, is sinking back into inward savagery, amid an
+outward and material civilization.
+
+Moreover--and this appears to us a fair experimental proof that our old-
+fashioned belief in A Spirit of God, which acts upon the spirit of man,
+is a true belief--moreover, I say: It is a patent fact, that wherever and
+whenever there has been a revival of the Christian religion; whenever,
+that is, amid whatsoever confusions and errors, men have begun to feel
+the need of the Holy Spirit of God, and to pray for that Spirit, a moral
+revival has accompanied the religious one.  Men and women have not only
+become better themselves; and that often suddenly and in very truth
+miraculously better: but the yearning has awoke in them to make others
+better likewise.  The grace of God, as they have called it, has made them
+gracious to their fellow-creatures; and duty, honour, love,
+self-sacrifice, call it by what name we will, has said to them, with a
+still small voice more potent than all the thunders of the law: Go, and
+seek and save that which is lost.
+
+In no case has this instinctive tendency to practical benevolence been
+more striking, than in the case of that great religious revival
+throughout England at the beginning of this century, which issued in the
+rise of the Evangelical school: a school rightly so called, because its
+members did try to obey the precepts of the Gospel, according to their
+understanding of them, in spirit and in truth.
+
+The doctrines which they held are a matter not for us, but for God and
+their own souls.  The deeds which they did are matter for us, and for all
+England; for they have left their mark on the length and breadth of the
+land.  They were inspired--cultivated, highborn, and wealthy folk many of
+them--with a strange new instinct that God had bidden them to feed the
+hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit the prisoner and the sick, to bind
+up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to preach
+good tidings to the meek.  A strange new instinct: and from what cause,
+save from the same cause as that which Isaiah assigned to his own like
+deeds?--Because "The Spirit of the Lord was upon him."
+
+Yes, if those gracious men, those gracious women, did not shew forth the
+Spirit and grace of God with power, then there is either no Spirit of
+God, no grace of God; or those who deny to them the name of saints forget
+the words of Him Who said: By their fruits ye shall know them; of Him Who
+said, too: That the unpardonable sin, the sin which shewed complete moral
+perversion, the sin against the Holy Spirit of God, was to attribute good
+deeds to bad motives, and say: He casteth out devils by Beelzebub, the
+prince of the devils.
+
+Yes, that old Evangelical School may now have passed its prime.  It may
+now be verging toward old age; and other schools, younger and stronger,
+with broader and clearer knowledge of dogma, of history, civil and
+ecclesiastical, of the value of ceremonial, of the needs of the human
+intellect and emotions, may have passed it in a noble rivalry, and
+snatched, as it were, from the hands of the old Evangelical School the
+lamp of truth, to bear it further forward in the race.  But God forbid
+that the spiritual children should be ungrateful to their spiritual
+parents, though God may have taught them things which their parents did
+not know.
+
+And they were our spiritual parents, those old Evangelicals.  No just and
+well-informed man who has passed middle age, but must confess, that to
+them we owe whatsoever vital religion exists at this moment in any school
+or party of the Church of England; that to them we owe the germs at
+least, and in many cases the full organization and the final success, of
+a hundred schemes of practical benevolence and practical justice, without
+which this country, in its haste to grow rich at all risks and by all
+means, might have plunged itself ere now into anarchy and revolution.  And
+he must confess, too, if he is one who has seen much of his
+fellow-creatures and their characters, that that school numbered among
+its disciples--and, thank God, they are not all yet gone home to their
+rest--some of the loveliest human souls, whose converse has chastened and
+ennobled his own soul.  Ah, well--
+
+   The old order changeth, giving place to the new;
+   And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
+   Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
+
+And new methods and new institutions have arisen, and will yet arise, for
+seeking and saving that which is lost.  God's blessing on them all, to
+whatsoever party, church, or sect they may belong!  Whosoever cast out
+devils in Christ's name, Christ has forbidden us to forbid them, whether
+they follow us or not.  But yet shall we not still honour and love the
+old Evangelical School, and many an Institution which it has left behind,
+as heirlooms to some of us, at least, from our mothers, or from women to
+whom we owed, in long past years, our earliest influences for good, our
+earliest examples of a practical Christian life, our earliest proofs that
+there was indeed a Spirit of God, a gracious Spirit, Who gave grace to
+the hearts, the deeds, the very looks and voices of those in whom He
+dwelt; Institutions, which are too likely some of them to die, simply
+from the loss of old friends?
+
+The loss of old friends.  Yes, so it is always in this world.  The old
+earnest hearts go home one by one to their rest; and the young earnest
+hearts--and who shall blame them?--go elsewhere; and try new fashions of
+doing good, which are more graceful and more agreeable to them.  For the
+religious world, like all other forms of the world, has its fashions; and
+of them too stands true the saying of the apostle: That this world and
+the fashion thereof pass away.  Many a good work, which once was somewhat
+fashionable in its way, has become somewhat unfashionable, and something
+else is fashionable in its place; and five-and-twenty years hence
+something else will have become fashionable; and our children will look
+back on our ways of doing good with pity, if not with contempt, as narrow
+and unenlightened, just as we are too apt to look back on our fathers'
+ways.  And all the while, what can they teach worth teaching, what can we
+teach worth teaching, save what our fathers and mothers taught, what the
+Spirit of God taught them, and has taught to all who would listen since
+the foundation of the world, "shewing man what was good:" and what was
+that--"What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love
+mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"
+
+Ah! why do we, even in religious and moral matters, even in the doing
+good to the souls and bodies of our fellow-creatures, allow ourselves to
+be the puppets of fashions?  Of fashions which even when harmless, even
+beautiful, are but the garments, or rather stage-properties, in which we
+dress up the high instincts which God's Spirit bestows on us, in order to
+make them agreeable enough for our own prejudices, or pretty enough for
+our own tastes.  How little do we perceive our own danger--so little that
+we yield to it every day--the danger of mistaking our fashion of doing
+good for the good done; aye, for the very Spirit of God Who inspires that
+good; mistaking the garment for the person who wears it, the outward and
+visible sign for the inward and spiritual grace; and so in our hearts
+falling actually into that very error of transubstantiation, of which we
+repudiate the name!
+
+Why, ah why, will we not take refuge from fashions in Him in Whom are no
+fashions--even in the Holy Spirit of God, Who is unchangeable and eternal
+as the Father and the Son from Whom He proceeds; Who has spoken words in
+sundry and divers manners to all the elect of God; Who has inspired every
+good thought and feeling which was ever thought or felt in earth or
+heaven; but Whose message of inspiration has been, and will be, for ever
+the same--"Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with thy God"?
+
+Could we but utterly trust Him, and utterly believe in His presence: then
+we should welcome all truth, under whatever outward forms of the mere
+intellect it was uttered; then we should bless every good deed, by
+whomsoever and howsoever it was done; then we should rise above all party
+strifes, party cries, party fashions and shibboleths, to the
+contemplation of the One supreme good Spirit--the Spirit of Jesus Christ,
+the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and hold to the One Fashion of
+Almighty God, which never changes, for it is eternal by the necessity of
+His own eternal character; namely,--To be perfect, even as our Father in
+Heaven is perfect; because He causes His sun to shine on the evil and on
+the good, and His rain to fall on the just and on the unjust.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON VII.  CONFUSION.
+
+
+PSALM CXIX. 31.
+
+   I have stuck unto thy testimonies: O Lord, confound me not.
+
+What is the meaning of this text?  What is this which the Psalmist and
+prophets call being confounded; being put to shame and confusion of face?
+What is it?  It is something which they dread more than death; which they
+dread as much as hell.  Nay, it seems in the mind of some of them to be
+part and parcel of hell itself; one of the very worst things which could
+happen to them after death: for what is written in the Book of the
+Prophet Daniel?--"Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall
+awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting
+contempt."
+
+And we Christians are excusable if we dread it likewise.  How often does
+St Paul speak of shame as an evil to be dreaded; just as he speaks, even
+more often, of glory and honour as a thing to be longed for and striven
+after.  That one word, "ashamed," occurs twelve times and more in the New
+Testament, beside St John's warning, which alone is enough to prove what
+I allege, "that we have not to be ashamed before Christ at his coming."
+
+And how does the Te Deum--the noblest hymn written by man since St John
+finished his Book of Revelations--how does that end, but with the same
+old cry as that of the Psalmist in the 119th Psalm--
+
+"O Lord, in thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded"?
+
+Now it is difficult to tell men what being confounded means; difficult
+and almost needless; for there are those who know what it means without
+being told; and those who do not know what it means without being told,
+are not likely to know by my telling, or any man's telling.  No, not if
+an angel from heaven came and told them what being confounded meant would
+they understand him, at least till they were confounded themselves; and
+then they would know by bitter experience--perhaps when it was too late.
+
+And who are they?  What sort of people are they?
+
+First, silly persons; whom Solomon calls fools--though they often think
+themselves refined and clever enough--luxurious and "fashionable" people,
+who do not care to learn, who think nothing worth learning save how to
+enjoy themselves; who call it "bad form" to be earnest, and turn off all
+serious questions with a jest.  These are they of whom Wisdom says--"How
+long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity, and the scorners delight
+in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?  I also will laugh at your
+calamity, and mock when your fear cometh."
+
+Next, mean and truly vulgar persons; who are shameless; who do not care
+if they are caught out in a lie or in a trick.  These are they of whom it
+is written that outside of God's kingdom, in the outer darkness wherein
+are weeping and gnashing of teeth, are dogs, and whosoever loveth and
+maketh a lie.
+
+And next, and worst of all, self-conceited people.  These are they of
+whom Solomon says, "Seest thou a man who is wise in his own conceit?
+There is more hope of a fool than of him."  They are the people who will
+not see when they are going wrong; who will not hear reason, nor take
+advice, no, nor even take scorn and contempt; who will not see that they
+are making fools of themselves, but, while all the world is laughing at
+them, walk on serenely self-satisfied, certain that they, and they only,
+know what the world is made of, and how to manage the world.  These are
+they of whom it is written--"He that being often reproved, hardeneth his
+neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."  Then they
+will learn, and with a vengeance, what being confounded means by being
+confounded themselves, and finding themselves utterly wrong, where they
+thought themselves utterly right.  Yet no.  I do not think that even that
+would cure some people.  There are those, I verily believe, who would not
+confess that they were in the wrong even in the bottomless pit, but, like
+Satan and his fallen angels in Milton's poem, would have excellent
+arguments to prove that they were injured and ill-used, deceived and
+betrayed, and lay the blame of their misery on God, on man, on anything
+but their own infallible selves.
+
+Who, then, are the people who know what being confounded means; who are
+afraid, and terribly afraid, of being brought to shame and confusion
+efface?
+
+I should say, all human beings in proportion as they are truly human
+beings, are not brutal; in proportion, that is, as they are good or have
+the capacity of goodness in them; that is, in proportion as the Spirit of
+God is working in them, giving them the tender heart, the quick feelings,
+the earnestness, the modesty, the conscientiousness, the reverence for
+the good opinion of their fellow-men, which is the beginning of eternal
+life.  Do you not see it in the young?  Modesty, bashfulness,
+shame-facedness--as the good old English word was--that is the very
+beginning of all goodness in boys and girls.  It is the very material out
+of which all other goodness is made; and those who laugh at, or torment,
+young people for being modest and bashful, are doing the devil's work,
+and putting themselves under the curse which God, by the mouth of Solomon
+the wise, pronounced against the scorners who love scorning, and the
+fools who hate knowledge.
+
+This is the rule with dumb animals likewise.  The more intelligent, the
+more high-bred they are, the more they are capable of feeling shame; and
+the more they are liable to be confounded, to lose their heads, and
+become frantic with doubt and fear.  Who that has watched dogs does not
+know that the cleverer they are, the more they are capable of being
+actually ashamed of themselves, as human beings are, or ought to be?  Who
+that has trained horses does not know that the stupid horse is never
+vicious, never takes fright?  The failing which high-bred horses have of
+becoming utterly unmanageable, not so much from bodily fear, as from
+being confounded, not knowing what people want them to do--that is the
+very sign, the very effect, of their superior organization: and more
+shame to those who ill-use such horses.  If God, my friends, dealt with
+us as cruelly and as clumsily as too many men deal with their horses, He
+would not be long in driving us mad with terror and shame and confusion.
+But He remembers our frame; He knoweth whereof we are made, and
+remembereth that we are but dust: else the spirit would fail before Him,
+and the souls which He hath made.  And to Him we can cry, even when we
+know that we have made fools of ourselves--Father who made me, Christ who
+died for me, Holy Spirit who teachest me, have patience with my stupidity
+and my ignorance.  Lord, in thee have I trusted, let me never be
+confounded.
+
+But some will tell us--It is a sign of weakness to feel shame.  Why
+should you care for the opinion of your fellow-men?  If you are doing
+right, what matter what they say of you?
+
+Yes, my friends, if you are doing right.  But if you are not doing
+right--What then?
+
+If you have only been fancying that you are doing right, and suspect
+suddenly that you have been very likely doing wrong--What then?
+
+When a man tells me that he does not care what people think of him; that
+they cannot shame him: in the first place, I do not quite believe that he
+is speaking truth; and in the next place, I hope he is _not_ speaking
+truth.  I hope--for his own sake--that he does care what people think of
+him: or else I must suspect him of being very dull or very conceited.
+
+And if he tells me that the old prophets, and holy, and just, and heroic
+men in all ages, never cared for people's laughing at them and despising
+them, provided they were doing right according to their own conscience: I
+answer--That he knows nothing about the matter; that he has not honestly
+read the writings of these men.  I say that the Psalmist who wrote Ps.
+119, was a man, on his own shewing, intensely open to the feeling of
+shame, and felt intensely what men said of him; felt intensely slander
+and insult.  We talk of independent and true patriots now-a-days.  I will
+tell you of four of the noblest patriots the world ever saw, who were men
+of that stamp.  I say that Isaiah was such a man; that Jeremiah was such
+a man; that Ezekiel was such a man; that their writings shew that they
+felt intensely the rebukes and the contempt which they had to endure from
+those whom they tried to warn and save.  I say again that St Paul, as may
+be seen from his own epistles, was such a man; a man who was intensely
+sensitive of what men thought and said of him; yearning after the love
+and approbation of his fellow-men, and above all of his
+fellow-countrymen, his own flesh and blood; and that that feeling in him,
+which may have been hurtful to him before he was converted, was of the
+greatest use to him after his conversion; that it enabled him to win all
+hearts, because he felt with men and for men; and gained him over the
+hearts of men such a power as no mere human being ever had before or
+since.
+
+And I say that of all men the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, had that
+feeling; that longing for the love and appreciation of men--and above
+all, for the love and appreciation of His countrymen according to the
+flesh, the Jews, He had--strange as it may seem, yet there it is in the
+Gospels, written for ever and undeniable--that capacity of shame which is
+the mark of true nobleness of soul.
+
+He endured the cross, despising the shame.  Yes: but there are too many
+on earth who endure shame with brazen faces, just because they do not
+feel it.  If He had not felt the shame, what merit in despising it?  It
+was His glory that He felt the shame; and yet conquered the shame, and
+crushed it down by the might of His love for fallen man.
+
+Do you fancy that in His agony in the garden, when His sweat was as great
+drops of blood, that it was only bodily fear of pain and death which
+crushed Him for the moment?  He felt that, I doubt not; as He had to
+taste death for every man, and feel all human weakness, yet without sin.
+But it was a deeper, more painful, and yet more noble feeling than mere
+fear which then convulsed His sacred heart; even the feeling of shame--the
+mockery of the crowd--the--But I dare not enlarge on anything so awful;
+at least I will say this--That he had to cry as none ever cried before or
+since, "O God, in thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded;" for
+he had, it seems, actually, at one supreme moment, to feel confounded;
+and to say, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"  That was the
+highest and most precious jewel of all his self-sacrifice.  Of it let us
+only say--
+
+Our Lord and Saviour stooped to be confounded for a moment, that we might
+not be confounded to all eternity.
+
+And therefore our blessed Lord is to us an example.  As he did, so must
+we try to do.  He entered into glory, by suffering shame, and yet
+despising it.  He submitted to be confounded before men, that He might
+not be confounded in the sight of God His Father.  And so must we,
+sometimes, at least.  Every man who makes up his mind to do right and to
+be good, must expect ridicule now and then.  Rich or poor, boy or man, if
+you try to keep your hands clean, and your path straight, the world will
+think you a fool, and will be ready enough to tell you so; for it is
+cruel and insolent enough.  And the more tender your heart; the more you
+wish for the love and approbation of your fellow-men; the more of noble
+and modest self-distrust there is in you, the more painful will that be
+to you; the more you will be tempted to obey man, and not God, and to
+follow after the multitude to do evil, merely to keep the peace, and live
+a quiet life, and not be laughed at and tormented.  And thus the fear of
+man brings a snare; and naught can deliver you out of that snare, save
+the opposite fear--the fear of God, which is the same as trust in God.
+
+Joseph of old feared God when he was tempted; and said, "How can I do
+this great wickedness, and sin against God?"  But I doubt not there were
+plenty in Egypt who would have called him a fool for his pains.  There
+are hundreds of gay youths in any great city--there may be a few in this
+Abbey now for aught I know--who would have laughed loudly enough at
+Joseph for throwing away the opportunity of what certain foolish French
+have learnt to call, as its proper name, a "bonne fortune"--a piece of
+good luck.--As if breaking the 7th Commandment could be aught but bad
+fortune, and the cause of endless miseries in this life and the life to
+come.
+
+And it may be, as Joseph was all but confounded and brought to shame, at
+least from man, when he found that all that he gained by fearing God
+was--a false accusation, the very shame and contempt from which he most
+shrank, danger of death, imprisonment in a dungeon.
+
+But he was true to God, and God was true to him.  He trusted in God; and
+therefore he feared God: for he trusted that God's laws were just and
+good, and worth obeying; and therefore he was afraid to break them.  He
+trusted in God; and therefore he hoped in God; for he trusted that God
+was strong enough and good enough to deliver him out of prison, and make
+his righteousness as clear as the light and his just dealing as the
+noonday.  He cried out of his prison, doubt it not, many a time and
+oft--"O God, in thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded."
+
+And he was not confounded.  He came into Egypt a slave.  He was cast into
+prison on a shameful accusation: but he came out of prison to be a ruler
+and a prince, honoured and obeyed by the greatest nation of the old
+world.  He trusted in God, and he was not confounded for ever; even as
+the Lord Christ trusted in God and was not confounded for ever; even as
+we, if we do not wish to be confounded for ever, must trust in God; and
+instead of being scornful, careless, conceited, must fear Him, and say,
+"My flesh trembleth because of Thy righteous judgments."  And then the
+laughter of fools will end, where it began, in harmless noise, like (says
+Solomon) the crackling of thorns under a pot.  Then, whosoever may scorn
+you on earth, the great God in heaven will not scorn you.  You may be
+confounded for a moment here on earth.  Worldly people may take advantage
+of your misfortunes, and cry over you--There, there, so would we have it.
+Take him and persecute him, for there is none to deliver him; where is
+now his God?  So it may be with you; for as surely as you fall, many a
+cur will spring up and bark at you, who dared not open his mouth at you
+while you stood safe.  Or--worse by far than that--the world may take
+hold of your really weak points, of your inconsistencies, of your faults
+and failings; and cry--Fie on thee, fie on thee.  We saw it with our
+eyes.  For all his high professions, for all his talk of truth and
+justice, he is no better than the rest of the world.  And that scoff does
+go very near to confound a man; because he feels that it is half true,
+half deserved, and is afraid that it may be quite true and quite
+deserved: and then confounded indeed he would be, by his own conscience
+and by God, as well as by man.  All he can do is, to cry to God, like him
+who wrote the 119th Psalm,--I have stuck unto thy testimonies: O Lord,
+confound me not.  I know I am weak, ignorant, unsuccessful; full of
+faults too, and failings, which make me ashamed of myself every day of my
+life.  I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost.  But seek thy
+servant, O Lord, for I do not forget thy commandments.  I am trying to
+learn my duty.  I am trying to do my duty.  I have stuck unto thy
+testimonies: O Lord, confound me not.  Man may confound me.  But do not
+thou, of thy mercy and pity, O Lord.  Do not let me find, when I die, or
+before I die, that all my labour has been in vain; that I am not a better
+man, not a wiser man, not a more useful man after all.  Do not let my
+grey hairs go down with sorrow to the grave.  Do not let me die with the
+miserable thought that, in spite of all my struggles to do my duty, my
+life has been a failure, and I a fool.  Do not let me wake in the next
+life, like Dives in the torment, to be utterly confounded; to find that I
+was all wrong, and have nothing left but everlasting disappointment and
+confusion of face.  O Lord, who didst endure all shame for me, save me
+from that most utter shame.  O God, in thee have I trusted; let me never
+be confounded.
+
+Wake in the next life to find oneself confounded?  Alas! alas!  Many a
+man wakes in this life to find himself that; and really sometimes by no
+fault, seemingly, of his own: so that all he can do is to be dumb, and
+not to open his mouth, for it is God's doing.  For a man's worst miseries
+and sorrows are, too often, caused not by himself, but by those whom he
+loves.
+
+Consider the one case of vice, or even of mere ingratitude, in those
+nearest and dearest to a man's heart; and of being so confounded through
+them, and by them, in spite of all love, care, strictness, tenderness,
+teaching, prayers--what not--and all in vain.
+
+No wonder that, under that bitterest blow, valiant and virtuous men, ere
+now, have never lifted up their heads again, but turned their faces to
+the wall, and died: and may the Lord have mercy on them.  Confounded they
+have been in this world; confounded they will not be, we must trust, in
+the world to come.  The Lord of all pity will pity them, and pour His oil
+and wine into their aching wounds, and bring them to His own inn, and to
+His secret dwelling-place, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the
+weary are at rest.
+
+One word more, and I have done.  Do you wish to pray, with hope that you
+may be heard,--O Lord, confound me not, and bring me not to shame?  Then
+hold to one commandment of Christ's.  Do to others as you would they
+should do to you.  For with what measure you measure to your fellow-men,
+it shall be measured to you again.  Have charity, have patience, have
+mercy.  Never bring a human being, however silly, ignorant, or weak,
+above all any little child, to shame and confusion of face.  Never, by
+cruelty, by petulance, by suspicion, by ridicule, even by selfish and
+silly haste; never, above all, by indulging in the devilish pleasure of a
+sneer, crush what is finest, and rouse up what is coarsest in the heart
+of any fellow-creature.  Never confound any human soul in the hour of its
+weakness.  For then, it may be, in the hour of thy weakness, Christ will
+not confound thee.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON VIII.  THE SHAKING OF THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH.
+
+
+HEBREWS XII. 26-29.
+
+   Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.  And this
+   word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are
+   shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be
+   shaken may remain.  Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be
+   moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with
+   reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire.
+
+This is one of the Royal texts of Scripture.  It is inexhaustible, like
+the God who inspired it.  It has fulfilled itself again and again, at
+different epochs.  It fulfilled itself specially and notoriously in the
+first century.  But it fulfilled itself again in the fifth century; and
+again at the Crusades; and again at the Reformation in the sixteenth
+century.  And it may be that it is fulfilling itself at this very day;
+that in this century, both in the time of our fathers and in our own, the
+Lord has been shaking the heavens and the earth, that those things which
+can be shaken may be removed, as things that are made, while those things
+which cannot be shaken may remain.
+
+All confess this to be true, each in his own words.  They talk of this
+age as one of change; of rapid progress, for good or evil; of unexpected
+discoveries; of revolutions, intellectual, moral, social, as well as
+political.  Our notions of the physical universe are rapidly altering,
+with the new discoveries of science; and our notions of ethics and
+theology are altering as rapidly.  The era assumes a different aspect to
+different minds, just as did the first century after Christ, according as
+men look forward to the future with hope, or back to the past with
+regret.  Some glory in the nineteenth century as one of rapid progress
+for good; as the commencement of a new era for humanity; as the
+inauguration of a Reformation as grand as that of the sixteenth century.
+Others bewail it as an age of rapid decay; in which the old landmarks are
+being removed, the old paths lost; in which we are rushing headlong into
+scepticism and atheism; in which the world and the Church are both in
+danger; and the last day is at hand.
+
+Both parties may be right; and yet both may be wrong.  Men have always
+talked thus, at great crises in the world's life.  They talked thus in
+the first century; and in the fifth, and in the eleventh; and again in
+the sixteenth; and then both parties were partially right and partially
+wrong; and so they may be now.  What they meant to say, what they wanted
+to say, what we mean and want to say, has been said already for us in far
+deeper, wider, and more accurate words, by him who wrote this wonderful
+Epistle to the Hebrews, when he told the Jews of his time that the Lord
+was shaking the heavens and the earth, that those things which were
+shaken might be removed, as things that are made--cosmogonies, systems,
+theories, prejudices, fashions, of man's invention: while those things
+which could not be shaken might remain, because they were according to
+the mind and will of God, eternal as that source from whence they came
+forth, even the bosom of God the Father.
+
+"Yet once more I shake, not the earth only, but also heaven."
+
+How has the earth been shaken in our days; and the heaven likewise.  How
+rapidly have our conceptions of both altered.  How easy, simple, certain,
+it all looked to our forefathers in the middle age.  How difficult,
+complex, uncertain, it all looks to us.  With increased knowledge has
+come--not increased doubt: that I deny utterly.  I deny, once and for
+all, that this age is an irreverent age.  I say that an irreverent age is
+one like the age of the Schoolmen; when men defined and explained all
+heaven and earth by a priori theories, and cosmogonies invented in the
+cloister; and dared, poor, simple, ignorant mortals, to fancy that they
+could comprehend and gauge the ways of Him Whom the heaven and the heaven
+of heavens could not contain.  This, this is irreverence: but it is
+neither irreverence nor want of faith, if a man, awed by the mystery
+which encompasses him from the cradle to the grave, shall lay his hand
+upon his mouth, with Job, and obey the voice which cries to him from
+earth and heaven--"Be still, and know that as the heavens are higher than
+the earth, so are my ways higher than thy ways, and my thoughts higher
+than thine."
+
+But it was all easy, and simple, and certain enough to our forefathers.
+The earth, according to the popular notion, was a flat plane; or, if it
+were, as the wiser held, a sphere, yet antipodes were an unscriptural
+heresy.  Above it were the heavens, in which the stars were fixed, or
+wandered; and above them heaven after heaven, each tenanted by its own
+orders of beings, up to that heaven of heavens in which Deity--and by
+Him, be it always remembered, the mother of Deity--was enthroned.
+
+And if above the earth was the kingdom of light, and purity, and
+holiness, what could be more plain, than that below it was the kingdom of
+darkness, and impurity, and sin?  That was no theory to our forefathers:
+it was a physical fact.  Had not even the heathens believed as much, and
+said so, by the mouth of the poet Virgil?  He had declared that the mouth
+of Tartarus lay in Italy, hard by the volcanic lake Avernus; and after
+the unexpected eruption of Vesuvius in the first century, nothing seemed
+more clear than that Virgil was right; and that men were justified in
+talking of Tartarus, Styx, and Phlegethon as indisputable Christian
+entities.  Etna, Stromboli, Hecla, were (according to this cosmogony) in
+like wise mouths of hell; and there were not wanting holy hermits, who
+had heard, from within those craters, shrieks, and clanking chains, and
+the howls of demons tormenting the souls of the endlessly lost.
+
+Our forefathers were not aware that, centuries before the Incarnation of
+our Lord, the Buddhist priests had held exactly the same theory of moral
+retribution; and that, painted on the walls of Buddhist temples, might be
+seen horrors identical with those which adorned the walls of many a
+Christian Church, in the days when men believed in this Tartarology as
+firmly as they now believe in the results of chemistry or of astronomy.
+
+And now--How is the earth shaken, and the heavens likewise, in that very
+sense in which the expression is used by him who wrote to the Hebrews?
+Our conceptions of them are shaken.  How much of that mediaeval cosmogony
+do educated men believe, in the sense in which they believe that the
+three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, or that if they
+steal their neighbour's goods they commit a sin?
+
+The earth has been shaken for us, more and more violently, as the years
+have rolled on.  It was shaken when Astronomy told us that the earth was
+not the centre of the universe, but a tiny planet revolving round a sun
+in a remote region thereof.
+
+It was shaken when Geology told us that the earth had endured for
+countless ages, during which continents had become oceans, and oceans
+continents, again and again.  And even now, it is being shaken by
+researches into the antiquity of man, into the origin and permanence of
+species, which--let the result be what it will--must in the meanwhile
+shake for us theories and dogmas which have been undisputed for 1500
+years.
+
+And with the rest of our cosmogony, that conception of a physical
+Tartarus below the earth has been shaken likewise, till good men have
+been fain to find a fresh place for it in the sun, or in a comet; or to
+patronize the probable, but as yet unproved theory of a central fire
+within the earth; not on any scientific grounds, but simply if by any
+means they can assign a region in space, wherein material torment can be
+inflicted on the spirits of the lost.
+
+And meanwhile the heavens, the spiritual world, is being shaken no less.
+More and more frequently, more and more loudly, men are asking--not
+sceptics merely, but pious men, men who wish to be, and who believe
+themselves to be, orthodox Christians--more and more loudly are such men
+asking questions which demand an answer, with a learning and an
+eloquence, as well as with a devoutness and a reverence for Scripture,
+which--whether rightly or wrongly employed--is certain to command
+attention.
+
+Rightly or wrongly, these men are asking, whether the actual and literal
+words of Scripture really involve the mediaeval theory of an endless
+Tartarus.
+
+They are saying, "It is not we who deny, but you who assert, endless
+torments, who are playing fast and loose with the letter of Scripture.
+You are reading into it conceptions borrowed from Virgil, Dante, Milton,
+when you translate into the formula 'endless torment' such phrases as
+'the outer darkness,' 'the fire of Gehenna,' 'the worm that dieth not;'
+which, according to all just laws of interpretation, refer not to the
+next life, but to this life, and specially to the approaching catastrophe
+of the Jewish nation; or when you say that eternal death really means
+eternal life--only life in torture."
+
+Rightly or wrongly, they are saying this; and then they add, "We do not
+yield to you in love and esteem for Scripture.  We demand not a looser,
+but a stricter; not a more metaphoric, but a more literal; not a more
+contemptuous, but a more reverent interpretation thereof."
+
+So these men speak, rightly or wrongly.  And for good or for evil, they
+will be heard.
+
+And with these questions others have arisen, not new at all--say these
+men--but to be found, amid many contradictions, in the writings of all
+the best divines, when they have given up for a moment systems and
+theories, and listened to the voice of their own hearts; questions
+natural enough to an age which abhors cruelty, has abolished torture,
+labours for the reformation of criminals, and debates--rightly or
+wrongly--about abolishing capital punishment.  Men are asking questions
+about the heaven--the spiritual world--and saying--"The spiritual world?
+Is it only another material world which happens to be invisible now, but
+which may become visible hereafter: or is it not rather the moral
+world--the world of right and wrong?  Heaven?  Is not the true and real
+heaven the kingdom of love, justice, purity, beneficence?  Is not that
+the eternal heaven wherein God abides for ever, and with Him those who
+are like God?  And hell?  Is it not rather the anarchy of hate,
+injustice, impurity, uselessness; wherein abides all that is opposed to
+God?"
+
+And with those thoughts come others about moral retribution--"What is its
+purpose?  Can it--can any punishment have any right purpose save the
+correction, or the annihilation, of the criminal?  Can God, in this
+respect, be at once less merciful and less powerful than man?  Is He so
+controlled by necessity that He is forced to bring into the world beings
+whom He knows to be incorrigible, and doomed to endless misery?  And if
+not so controlled, is not the alternative as to His character even more
+fearful?  He bids us copy His justice, His love.  Is that His justice,
+that His love, which if we copied, we should call each other, and
+deservedly, utterly unjust and unloving?  Can there be one morality for
+God, and another for man, made in the image of God?  Are these dark
+dogmas worthy of a Father who hateth nothing that He hath made, and is
+perfect in this--that He makes His sun shine on the evil and on the good,
+and His rain fall on the just and on the unjust, and is good to the
+unthankful and to the evil?  Are they worthy of a Son who, in the fire of
+His divine charity, stooped from heaven to earth, to toil, to suffer, to
+die on the Cross, that the world by Him might be saved?  Are they worthy
+of that Spirit which proceeds from the Father and the Son, even that
+Spirit of boundless charity, and fervent love, by which the Son offered
+Himself to the Father, a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world--and
+surely not in vain?"
+
+So men are asking--rightly or wrongly; and they are guarding themselves,
+at the same time, from the imputation of disbelief in moral retribution;
+of fancying God to be a careless, epicurean deity, cruelly indulgent to
+sin, and therefore, in so far, immoral.
+
+They say--"We believe firmly enough in moral retribution.  How can we
+help believing in it, while we see it working around us, in many a
+fearful shape, here, now, in this life?  And we believe that it may work
+on, in still more fearful shapes, in the life to come.  We believe that
+as long as a sinner is impenitent, he must be miserable; that if he goes
+on impenitent for ever, he must go on making himself miserable--ay, it
+may be more and more miserable for ever.  Only do not tell us that he
+must go on.  That his impenitence, and therefore his punishment, is
+irremediable, necessary, endless; and thereby destroy the whole purpose,
+and we should say, the whole morality, of his punishment.  If that
+punishment be corrective, our moral sense is not shocked by any severity,
+by any duration: but if it is irremediable, it cannot be corrective; and
+then, what it is, or why it is, we cannot--or rather dare not--say.  We,
+too, believe in an eternal fire.  But because we believe also the
+Athanasian Creed, which tells us that there is but One Eternal, we
+believe that that fire must be the fire of God, and therefore, like all
+that is in God and of God, good and not evil, a blessing and not a curse.
+We believe that that fire is for ever burning, though men are for ever
+trying to quench it all day long; and that it has been and will be in
+every age burning up all the chaff and stubble of man's inventions; the
+folly, the falsehood, the ignorance, the vice of this sinful world; and
+we praise God for it; and give thanks to Him for His great glory, that He
+is the everlasting and triumphant foe of evil and misery, of whom it is
+written, that our God is a consuming fire."  Such words are being spoken,
+right or wrong.
+
+Such words will bear their fruit, for good or evil.  I do not pronounce
+how much of them is true or false.  It is not my place to dogmatize and
+define, where the Church of England, as by law established, has declined
+to do so.  Neither is it for you to settle these questions.  It is rather
+a matter for your children.  A generation more, it may be, of earnest
+thought will be required, ere the true answer has been found.  But it is
+your duty, if you be educated and thoughtful persons, to face these
+questions; to consider seriously what these men would have you
+consider--whether you are believing the exact words of the Bible, and the
+conclusions of your own reason and moral sense; or whether you are merely
+believing that cosmogony elaborated in the cloister, that theory of moral
+retribution pardonable in the middle age, which Dante and Milton sang.
+
+But this I do not hesitate to say--That if we of the clergy can find no
+other answers to these doubts than those which were reasonable and
+popular in an age when men racked women, burned heretics, and believed
+that every Mussulman killed in a crusade went straight to Tartarus--then
+very serious times are at hand, both for the Christian clergy and for
+Christianity itself.
+
+What, then, are we to believe and do?  Shall we degenerate into a lazy
+scepticism, which believes that everything is a little true, and
+everything a little false--in plain words, believes nothing at all?  Or
+shall we degenerate into faithless fears, and unmanly wailings that the
+flood of infidelity is irresistible, and that Christ has left His Church?
+
+We shall do neither, if we believe the text.  That tells us of a firm
+standing-ground amid the wreck of fashions and opinions.  Of a kingdom
+which cannot be moved, though the heavens pass away like a scroll, and
+the earth be burnt up with fervent heat.
+
+And it tells us that the King of that kingdom is He, who is called Jesus
+Christ--the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
+
+An eternal and changeless kingdom, and an eternal and changeless King.
+These the Epistle to the Hebrews preaches to all generations.
+
+It does not say that we have an unchangeable cosmogony, an unchangeable
+eschatology, an unchangeable theory of moral retribution, an unchangeable
+dogmatic system: not to these does it point the Jews, while their own
+nation and worship were in their very death-agony, and the world was
+rocking and reeling round them, decay and birth going on side by side, in
+a chaos such as man had never seen before.  Not to these does the Epistle
+point the Hebrews: but to the changeless kingdom and to the changeless
+King.
+
+My friends, do you really believe in that kingdom, and in that King?  Do
+you believe that you are now actually in a kingdom of heaven, which
+cannot be moved; and that the living, acting, guiding, practical, real
+King thereof is Christ who died on the Cross?
+
+These are days in which a preacher is bound to ask his congregation--and
+still more to ask himself--whether he really believes in that kingdom,
+and in that King; and to bid himself and them, if they have not believed
+earnestly enough therein, to repent, in this time of Lent, of that at
+least; to repent of having neglected that most cardinal doctrine of
+Scripture and of the Christian faith.
+
+But if we really believe in that changeless kingdom and in that
+changeless King, shall we not--considering who Christ is, the co-equal
+and co-eternal Son of God--believe also, that if the heavens and the
+earth are being shaken, then Christ Himself may be shaking them?  That if
+opinions be changing, then Christ Himself may be changing them?  That if
+new truths are being discovered, Christ Himself may be revealing them?
+That if some of those truths seem to contradict those which He has
+revealed already, they do not really contradict them?  That, as in the
+sixteenth century, Christ is burning up the wood and stubble with which
+men have built on His foundation, that the pure gold of His truth may
+alone be left?  It is at least possible; it is probable, if we believe
+that Christ is a living, acting King, to whom all power is given in
+heaven and earth, and who is actually exercising that power; and
+educating Christendom, and through Christendom the whole human race, to a
+knowledge of Himself, and through Himself of God their Father in heaven.
+
+Should we not say--We know that Christ has been so doing, for centuries
+and for ages?  Through Abraham, through Moses, through the prophets,
+through the Greeks, through the Romans, and at last through Himself, He
+gave men juster and wider views of themselves, of the universe, and of
+God.  And even then He did not stop.  How could He, who said of Himself,
+"My Father worketh hitherto, and I work"?  How could He, if He be the
+same yesterday, to-day, and for ever?  Through the Apostles, and
+specially through St Paul, He enlarged, while He confirmed, His own
+teaching.  And did He not do the same in the sixteenth century?  Did He
+not then sweep from the minds and hearts of half Christendom beliefs
+which had been held sacred and indubitable for a thousand years?  Why
+should He not be doing so now?  If it be answered, that the Reformation
+of the sixteenth century was only a return to simpler and purer Apostolic
+truth--why, again, should it not be so now?  Why should He not be
+perfecting His work one step more, and sweeping away more of man's
+inventions, which are not integral and necessary elements of the one
+Catholic faith, but have been left behind, in pardonable human weakness,
+by our great Reformers?  Great they were, and good: giants on the earth,
+while we are but as dwarfs beside them.  But, as the hackneyed proverb
+says, the dwarf on the giant's shoulders may see further than the giant
+himself: and so may we.
+
+Oh! that men would approach new truth in something of that spirit; in the
+spirit of reverence and Godly fear, which springs from a living belief in
+Christ the living King, which is--as the text tells us--the spirit in
+which we can serve God acceptably.  Oh! that they would serve God;
+waiting reverently and anxiously, as servants standing in the presence of
+their Lord, for the slightest sign or hint of His will.  Then they would
+have grace; by which they would receive new thought with grace;
+gracefully, courteously, fairly, charitably, reverently; believing that,
+however strange or startling, it may come from Him whose ways are not as
+our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts; and that he who fights
+against it, may haply be fighting against God.
+
+True, they would receive all new thought with caution, that conservative
+spirit, which is the duty of every Christian; which is the peculiar
+strength of the Englishman, because it enables him calmly and slowly to
+take in the new, without losing the old which his forefathers have
+already won for him.  So they would be cautious, even anxious, lest in
+grasping too greedily at seeming improvements, they let go some precious
+knowledge which they had already attained: but they would be on the look
+out for improvements; because they would consider themselves, and their
+generation, as under a divine education.  They would prove all things
+fairly and boldly, and hold fast that which is good; all that which is
+beautiful, noble, improving and elevating to human souls, minds, or
+bodies; all that increases the amount of justice, mercy, knowledge,
+refinement; all that lessens the amount of vice, cruelty, ignorance,
+barbarism.  That at least must come from Christ.  That at least must be
+the inspiration of the Spirit of God: unless the Pharisees were right
+after all when they said, that evil spirits could be cast out by the
+prince of the devils.
+
+Be these things as they may, one comfort it will give us, to believe
+firmly and actively in the changeless kingdom, and in the changeless
+King.  It will give us calm, patience, faith and hope, though the heavens
+and the earth be shaken around us.  For then we shall see that the
+Kingdom, of which we are citizens, is a kingdom of light, and not of
+darkness; of truth, and not of falsehood; of freedom, and not of slavery;
+of bounty and mercy, and not of wrath and fear; that we live and move and
+have our being not in a "Deus quidam deceptor" who grudges his children
+wisdom, but in a Father of Light, from whom comes every good and perfect
+gift; who willeth that all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge
+of the truth.  In His kingdom we are; and in the King whom He has set
+over it we can have the most perfect trust.  For us that King stooped
+from heaven to earth; for us He was born, for us He toiled, for us He
+suffered, for us He died, for us He rose, for us He sits for ever at
+God's right hand.  And can we not trust Him?  Let Him do what He will.
+Let Him lead us whither He will.  Wheresoever He leads must be the way of
+truth and life.  Whatsoever He does, must be in harmony with that
+infinite love which He displayed for us upon the Cross.  Whatsoever He
+does, must be in harmony with that eternal purpose by which He reveals to
+men God their Father.  Therefore, though the heaven and the earth be
+shaken around us, we will trust in Him.  For we know that He is the same
+yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and that His will and promise is, to
+lead those who trust in Him into all truth.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON IX.  THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
+
+
+LUKE XXI. 29-33.
+
+   And Jesus spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the
+   trees; when they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves
+   that summer is now nigh at hand.  So likewise ye, when ye see these
+   things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.
+   Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all
+   be fulfilled.  Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall
+   not pass away.
+
+The question which naturally suggests itself when we hear these words,
+is--When were these things to take place?
+
+If we heard one whom we regarded as at least a person of perfect virtue,
+truthfulness, and earnestness, foretell that the city in which we now
+stand should be destroyed.  If he told us, that when we saw it
+encompassed with armies, we were to know that its desolation was at hand.
+If he told us that then those who were in the surrounding country were to
+flee to the mountains, and those in the city to come out of it.  If he
+pronounced woe in that day on mothers and weak women who could not
+escape.  If he told us, nevertheless, that when these things came to pass
+we were to rejoice and lift up our heads, for our redemption was drawing
+nigh.  If he told us to look at the trees in spring; for, as surely as
+their budding was a sign that summer was nigh, so was the coming to pass
+of these terrible woes a sign that something was nigh, which he called
+the Kingdom of God.  If he told us, with a solemn asseveration, that this
+generation should not pass away till all had happened.  If he went on to
+warn us against profligacy, frivolity, worldliness, lest that day should
+come upon us unaware.  If he bade us keep awake always, that we might be
+found worthy to escape all that was coming, and to stand before Him, The
+Son of Man.  If he used throughout his address the second person,
+speaking to us, but never mentioning our descendants; giving the signs,
+the warnings, the counsels to us only, should we not, even if he had not
+solemnly told us that the present generation should not pass away till
+all was fulfilled--should we not, I say, suppose naturally that he spoke
+of events which in his opinion our own eyes would see; which would, in
+his opinion, occur during our lifetime?
+
+Whether he were right in his expectation, or wrong, still it would be
+clear that such was his expectation; that he considered the danger as
+imminent, the warning as addressed personally to us who heard him speak.
+
+We should leave his presence with that impression, in fear and anxiety.
+But if we afterwards discovered that our fear and anxiety were
+superfluous; that the events of which he spoke--the most awful and
+wonderful of them at least--were not to occur for many centuries to come;
+that, even if some calamity were imminent, the immediate future and the
+very distant future were so intermingled in his discourse, that it would
+require the labours of commentator after commentator, for many hundred
+years, to disentangle them, and that their labours would be in vain; that
+the coming of the Son of Man, and of the Kingdom of God, of which he had
+spoken, were to be referred to a time thousands of years hence; though we
+were told in the same breath to look to the fig-tree and all the trees as
+a sign that it was coming immediately, and that our own generation would
+not pass away before all had taken place:--would not such a discovery
+raise in us thoughts and feelings neither wholesome for us nor honourable
+to the prophet?
+
+I cannot think otherwise.  We may be aware of the difficulties which
+beset this, and any other, interpretation of our Lord's prophecies in
+Matthew, Mark, and Luke: we may have the deepest respect for those
+learned and pious divines who from time to time have tried to part the
+prophecies relating to the fall of Jerusalem from those relating to the
+end of the world and the day of Judgment.  Yet, in the face of such a
+passage as the text, especially when we cannot agree with those who would
+make this "generation" mean this "race" or "nation," we may--we have a
+right to--decline to separate the two sets of passages.  We have a right
+to say,--He who spake as man never spake, and therefore knew the force of
+words; He who knew what was in man--and therefore what effect His words
+would produce on His hearers--did deliver a discourse--indeed, many
+discourses--which asserted, as far as plain words could be understood by
+plain men, that the Kingdom of God was at hand; and that the coming of
+the Son of Man would take place before that generation passed away.
+
+And that all His disciples, and St Paul as much as any, put that meaning
+upon His words, is a matter of fact and of history, to be seen plainly in
+Holy Scripture.
+
+But, while the text compels us to believe that the destruction of
+Jerusalem by the Romans was a coming of the Son of Man--a manifestation
+of the Kingdom of God--a day of Judgment, in the strictest and most awful
+sense; yet we are not compelled to limit the meaning of the text to the
+destruction of Jerusalem.
+
+No prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation.  Prophets,
+apostles--how much more our Lord Himself--do not merely indulge in
+presages; they lay down laws--laws moral, spiritual, eternal--which have
+been fulfilling themselves from the beginning; which are fulfilling
+themselves now; which will go on fulfilling themselves to the end of
+time.
+
+So said our Lord Jesus of His own prophecies concerning the destruction
+of Jerusalem.  It was but one example--a most awful one--of the laws of
+His kingdom.  Not in Judaea only, but wherever the carcase was, there
+would the eagles be gathered together.  In the moral, as in the physical
+word, there were beasts of prey--the scavengers of God--ready to devour
+out of His kingdom nations, institutions, opinions, which had become
+dead, and decayed, and ready to infect the air.  Many a time since the
+Roman eagles flocked to Jerusalem has that prophecy been fulfilled; and
+many a time will it be fulfilled once more, and yet once more.
+
+And what else, if we look at them carefully and reverently, is the
+meaning of the words in this my text, "Heaven and earth shall pass away,
+but My words shall not pass away"?
+
+Shall we translate this,--Heaven and earth shall not come true: but My
+words shall come true?  By so doing we may put some little meaning into
+the latter half of the verse; but none into the former.  Surely there is
+a deeper meaning in the words than that of merely coming true.  Surely
+they mean that His words are eternal, perpetual; for ever present,
+possible, imminent; for ever coming true.  So, indeed, they would not
+pass away.  So they would be like the heavens and the earth, and the laws
+thereof; like heat, gravitation, electricity, what not--always here,
+always working, always asserting themselves--with this difference, that
+when the physical laws of the heavens and the earth, which began in time,
+in time have perished, the spiritual laws of God's kingdom, of Christ's
+moral government of moral beings, shall endure for ever and for ever,
+eternal as that God whose essence they reflect.
+
+Therefore I mean nothing less than that the great and final day of
+Judgment is past; or that we are not to look for that second coming of
+our Lord Jesus Christ which, as our forefathers taught us to hope, shall
+set right all the wrong of this diseased world.
+
+God forbid!  For most miserable were the world, most miserable were
+mankind, if all that our Lord prophesied had happened, once and for all,
+at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies.  But most miserable,
+also, would this world be, and most miserable would be mankind, if these
+words were not to be fulfilled till some future Last Day, and day of
+Judgment, for which the Church has now been waiting for more than
+eighteen centuries--and, as far as we can judge, may wait for as many
+centuries more.  Most miserable, if the Son of Man has never come since
+He ascended into heaven from Olivet.  Most miserable, if the kingdom of
+God has never been at hand, since He gave that one short gleam of hope to
+men in Judaea long ago.  Most miserable, if there be no kingdom of God
+among us even now: in one word, if God and Christ be not our King; but
+the devil, as some fancy; or Man himself, as others fancy, be the only
+king of this world and of its destinies; if there be no order in this mad
+world, save what man invents; no justice, save what he executes; no law,
+save what he finds convenient to lay upon himself for the protection of
+his person and property.  Most miserable, if the human race have no
+guide, save its own instincts and tendencies; no history, save that of
+its own greed, ignorance and crime, varied only by fruitless struggles
+after a happiness to which it never attains.  Most miserable world, and
+miserable man, if that be true after all which to the old Hebrew prophet
+seemed incredible and horrible--if God does look on while men deal
+treacherously, and does hold His peace when the wicked devours the man
+who is more righteous than he; and has made men as the fishes of the sea,
+as the creeping things that have no ruler over them.
+
+I said--Most miserable, in that case, was the world and man.  I did not
+say that they would consider themselves miserable.  I did not say that
+they would think it a Gospel, and good news, that Christ was their King,
+and that His Kingdom was always at hand.  They never thought that good
+news.  When the prophets told them of it, they stoned them.  When the
+Lord Himself told them, they crucified Him.  Worldly men dislike the
+message now, probably, as much as they ever did.  But they escape from
+it, either by treating it as a self-evident commonplace which no
+Christian denies, and therefore no Christian need think of; or by smiling
+at it as an exploded superstition, at least as a "Semitic" form of
+thought, with which we have nothing to do.  They confound it, often I
+fear purposely, with those fancied miraculous interpositions, those
+paltry special providences, which fanatics in all ages have believed to
+be worked for their own special behoof.  Altogether they dislike, and
+express very openly their dislike, of the least allusion to a Divine
+Providence "interfering," as they strangely term it, with them and their
+affairs.
+
+And they are wise, doubtless, in their generation.  The news that Christ
+is the King of men and of the world must be unpleasant, even offensive,
+to too many, both of those who fancy that they are managing this world,
+and of those who fancy that they could manage the world still better, if
+they only had their rights.  It must be unpleasant to be told that they
+are not managing the world, and cannot manage it: that it is being
+managed and ruled by an unseen King, whose ways are far above their ways,
+and His thoughts above their thoughts.
+
+For then: Prudence might demand of them, that they should find out what
+are that King's ways, thoughts and laws, and obey them--an enquiry so
+troublesome, that many very highly educated persons consider it, now-a-
+days, quite impossible; and tell us that, for practical purposes, God's
+laws can neither be discovered, nor obeyed.
+
+Moreover, their scheme of this world is one which would work--so they
+fancy--just as well if there was no God.  Unpleasant therefore it must be
+for them to hear, not merely that there is a God, but that He has His own
+scheme of the world; and that it is working, whether they like or not;
+that God, and not they, is making history; God, and not they, appointing
+the bounds and the times of nations; God, and not they, or any man or
+men, distributing good and evil among mankind.
+
+They do not object, of course, to the existence of a God.  They only
+object to His being what the Hebrew prophets called Him--a living God; a
+God who executes justice and judgment by His Son Jesus Christ, to whom He
+has committed all power both in heaven and earth.  They are ready
+sometimes to allow even that, provided they may relegate it into the
+past, or into the future.  They are ready to allow that God and Christ
+exerted power over men at the first Advent 1800 years ago, and that they
+will exert power over men at the second Advent--none knows how long
+hence.  But that God and Christ are exerting power now--in an
+ever-present and perpetual Advent--in this nineteenth century just as
+much as in any century before or since--that they had rather not believe.
+Their creed is, that though heaven and earth have not passed away; though
+the laws of nature are working for ever as at the beginning: yet Christ's
+words have passed away, and fallen into abeyance for many centuries past,
+to remain in abeyance for many centuries to come.
+
+In one word--while they believe more or less in a past God, and a future
+God, yet as to the existence of a present God, in any practical and real
+sense--they believe--how little, I dare not say.
+
+Whether this generation will awaken out of that sleep of practical
+Atheism, which is creeping on them more and more, who can tell?  That
+they are uneasy in the sleep, there are many signs.  For in their sleep
+dreams come of another world, of which their five senses tell them
+nought.  Then do some fly to mediaeval superstitions, which give them at
+least elaborate and agreeable substitutes for a living God.  Some fly to
+impostors, who pretend by juggling tricks to put them in communication
+with that unseen world which they have so long denied.  Some, again, play
+with unfulfilled prophecy; and fancy that it is for them, though it was
+not for the apostles, to know the times and seasons which the Father has
+put in His own power, and the day and hour of which no man knoweth, no
+not the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.
+
+Better that, than that they should believe that there is nothing, and
+never will be anything, in the world, beyond what their five senses can
+apprehend.
+
+But whether they awake or not out of their sleep, their blindness does
+not alter the eternal fact, whether men believe it or not.  That is true
+what the Psalmist said of old: "The Lord is King, be the people never so
+impatient.  He sitteth upon His throne, though the earth be never so
+unquiet."
+
+The utterances of the old Psalmists and prophets concerning the
+ever-present kingdom of God are facts, not dreams.  Whether men believe
+it or not, it is true that the power, glory, and righteousness of His
+kingdom may be known unto men; that His kingdom is an everlasting
+kingdom, and His dominion endureth throughout all ages; that The Lord
+upholds all such as fall, and lifts up those that are down; that the eyes
+of all wait on Him, that He may give them their meat in due season; that
+He opens His hand, and filleth all things living with plenteousness; that
+the Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works; that He
+is nigh to them that call upon Him, yea to all who call upon Him
+faithfully.  He that planted the ear, shall He not hear?  He that made
+the eye, shall He not see?  He that chastiseth the nations; it is He that
+teacheth man knowledge: shall He not punish?
+
+Whether men believe it or not, that is true which the Psalmist
+said--Whither shall I flee from His Spirit, or whither shall I go from
+His presence?  If I climb up to heaven, He is there; if I go down to
+hell, He is there also.  If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in
+the uttermost part of the sea, even there shall His hand lead me, His
+right hand hold me still.
+
+Whether men believe it or not, that is true which Christ spake on
+earth--That the Father hath committed all judgment to Him, because He is
+the Son of man; that to Him is given all power in heaven and earth; and
+that He is with us, even to the end of the world.
+
+Whether men believe it or not, that is true which S. Paul spake on Mars'
+hill, saying that the Lord is not far from any one of us, for in Him we
+live and move and have our being; and that He hath appointed a day in
+which He will judge the world in righteousness, by that Man whom He hath
+ordained, and raised from the dead.
+
+Whether men believe it or not, that is true which Christ spake--Heaven
+and earth shall pass away; but My words shall not pass away; at least
+till He has put down all rule and all authority and power, and delivered
+up the kingdom to God, even the Father, that God may be all in all.
+
+"That one far-off divine event, toward which the whole creation moves,"
+will be, not the resumption, but the triumph, of Christ's rule; of a rule
+which began before the world, which has endured through all the ages,
+which endures now, punishing or rewarding each and every one of us, and
+of our children's children, as long as there shall be a man upon the
+earth.  For by Christ's will alone the world of man consists; in Christ's
+laws alone is true life, health, wealth, possible for any man, family or
+nation; out of His kingdom He casts, sooner or later, all things which
+offend, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.  He said of
+Himself--Whosoever falleth on this rock shall be broken; but on
+whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON X.  THE LAW OF THE LORD.
+
+
+PSALM I. 1,2.
+
+   Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly,
+   nor stood in the path of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful.
+   But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law will he
+   exercise himself day and night.
+
+The first and second Psalms, taken together, are the key to all the
+Psalms; I may almost say to the whole Bible.  I will say a few words on
+them this morning, especially to those who are coming to the Holy
+Communion, to shew their allegiance to that Lord, in whose law alone is
+life, and who sits on the throne of the universe, King of kings, and Lord
+of lords: but I say it to the whole congregation likewise; nay, if there
+were an infidel or a heathen in the Church, I should say it to them.  For
+in this case what is true of one man is true of every man, whether he
+knows it or not.
+
+We all should like to be blessed.  We all should like to be, as the Psalm
+says, like trees planted by the waterside, whose leaves never wither, and
+who bring forth their fruit in due season.  We should all wish to have it
+said of us--Whatsoever he doeth it shall prosper.  Then here is the way
+to inherit that blessing--"_Blessed is the man whose delight is in the
+law of the Lord_, _and who exercises himself in His law day and night_."
+The Psalmist is not speaking of Moses' Law, nor of any other law of forms
+and ceremonies.  He says expressly "The law of the Lord"--that is, the
+law according to which the Lord has made him and all the world; and
+according to which the Lord rules him and all the world.  The Psalms--you
+must remember--say very little about Moses' law; and when they do, speak
+of it almost slightingly, as if to draw men's minds away from it to a
+deeper, nobler, more eternal law.  In one Psalm God asks, "Thinkest thou
+that I will eat bulls' flesh, and drink the blood of goats?"  And in
+another Psalm some one answers, "Sacrifice and burnt-offering thou
+wouldest not.  Then said I, Lo I come, to do thy will, O God.  Thy law is
+within my heart."  This is that true and eternal law of which Solomon
+speaks in his proverbs, as the Wisdom by which God made the heavens, and
+laid the foundation of the earth; and tells us that that Wisdom is a tree
+of life to all who can lay hold of her; that in her right hand is length
+of days, and in her left hand riches and honour; that her ways are ways
+of pleasantness; and all her paths are peace.
+
+This is that law, of which the Prophet says--that God will put it into
+men's hearts, and write it in their minds; and they shall be His people,
+and He will be their God.  This is that law, which the inspired
+Philosopher--for a philosopher he was indeed--who wrote the 119th Psalm,
+continually prayed and strove to learn, intreating the Lord to teach him
+His law, and make him remember His everlasting judgments.  This is that
+law, which our Lord Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled, because the law was
+His Father's law, and therefore His own law, and therefore he perfectly
+comprehended the law, and perfectly loved the law; and said with His
+whole heart--I delight to do Thy will, O God.
+
+The will of God.  For in one word, this Law, which we have to learn, and
+by keeping which we shall be blessed, is nothing else than God's Will.
+God's Will about us.  What God has willed and chosen we should be.  What
+God has willed and chosen we should do.  The greatest philosopher of the
+18th century said that every rational being had to answer four
+questions--Where am I?  What can I know?  What must I do?  Whither am I
+going?  And he knew well that--as the Bible tells us throughout--the only
+way to get any answer to those four tremendous questions is--To delight
+in the law of the Lord; to struggle, think, pray, till we get some
+understanding of God's will; of God's will about ourselves and about the
+world; and so be blessed indeed.
+
+But to do that, it is plain that we must heed the warning which the first
+verse of the Psalm gives us--"Blessed is the man that hath not walked in
+the counsel of the ungodly."  For it is plain that a man will never learn
+God's will if he takes counsel from ungodly men who care nothing for
+God's will, and do not believe that God's will governs the world.  Neither
+must he, as the Psalm says, 'stand in the way of sinners'--of profligate
+and dishonest men who break God's law.  For if he follows their ways, and
+breaks God's law himself, it is plain that he will learn little or
+nothing about God's law, save in the way of bitter punishment.  For let
+him but break God's law a little too long, and then--as the 2nd Psalm
+says--'God will rule him with a rod of iron, and break him in pieces like
+a potter's vessel.'  But there is even more hope for him--for he may
+repent and amend--than if he sits in the seat of the scorners.  The
+scorners; the sneering, the frivolous, the unearnest, the unbelieving,
+the envious, who laugh down what they call enthusiasm and romance; who
+delight in finding fault, and in blackening those who seem purer or
+nobler than themselves.  These are the men who cannot by any possibility
+learn anything of the law of God; for they will not even look for it.
+They have cast away the likeness of rational men, and have taken upon
+themselves the likeness of the sneering accusing Satan, who asks in the
+book of Job--"Doth Job serve God for nought?"  When the greatest poet of
+our days tried to picture his idea of a fiend tempting a man to his ruin,
+he gave his fiend just such a character as this; a very clever,
+courteous, agreeable man of the world, and yet a being who could not love
+any one, could not believe in any one; who mocked not only at man but at
+God and tempted and ruined man, not out of hatred to him, hardly out of
+envy; but in mere sport, as a cruel child may torment an insect;--in one
+word, a scorner.  And so true was his conception felt to be, that men of
+that character are now often called by the very name which he gave to his
+Satan--Mephistopheles.  Beware therefore of the scornful spirit, as well
+as of the openly sinful or of the ungodly.  If you wish to learn the law
+of the Lord, keep your souls pious, pure, reverent, and earnest; for it
+is only the pure in heart who shall see God; and only those who do God's
+will as far as they know it, who will know concerning any doctrine
+whether it be true or false; in one word, whether it be of God.
+
+And now bear in mind secondly, that this law is the law of the Lord.  You
+cannot have a law without a lawgiver who makes the law, and also without
+a judge who enforces the law; and the lawgiver and the judge of the law
+of the Lord is the Lord Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ.
+
+Remembering Him, and that He is King, we can understand the fervour of
+indignation and pity, with which the writer of the 2nd Psalm bursts
+out--"Why do the heathen rage, and why do the people imagine a vain
+thing?  The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel
+together, against the Lord, and against His Anointed--
+
+"Let us break their bonds asunder and cast away their cords from us."
+
+For the great majority of mankind, in every age and country, will not
+believe that there is a Law of the Lord, to which they must conform
+themselves.  Kings, and governments, and peoples, are too often all alike
+in that.  They must needs have their own way.  Their will is to be law.
+Their voice is to be the voice of God.  They are they who ought to speak;
+who is Lord over them?  And because the Lord is patient and
+long-suffering, and does not punish their presumption on the spot by
+lightning or earthquake, they fancy that He takes no notice of them, and
+of their crimes and follies; and say--"Tush, shall God perceive it?  Is
+there knowledge in the most High?"  But sooner or later, either by sudden
+and terrible catastrophes, or by slow decay, brought on sometimes by
+their own blind presumption, sometimes by their own luxury, they find out
+their mistake when it is too late.  And then--
+
+"He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn.  The Lord shall
+have them in derision.  For He has set His King upon the throne" of all
+the universe.
+
+Yes, Christ the Lord rules, and knows that He rules; whether we know it
+or not.  Christ's law still hangs over our head, ready to lead us to
+light and life and peace and wealth, or ready to fall on us and grind us
+to powder, whether we choose to look up and see it or not.  The Lord
+liveth; though we may be too dead to feel Him.  The Lord sees us; though
+we may be too blind to see Him.  Man can abolish many things; and does
+both--wisely and unwisely--in these restless days of change.  But let him
+try as long as he will--for he has often tried, and will try again--he
+cannot abolish Christ the Lord.
+
+For Christ is set upon the throne of the universe.  The Father of all--if
+we may dare to hint even in Scriptural words at mysteries which are in
+themselves unspeakable--is eternally saying to Him--Thou art my Son, this
+day have I begotten Thee.  And Christ answers eternally--I come to do Thy
+will, O God.  The nations are Christ's inheritance; and the utmost parts
+of the earth are His possession, now, already; whether we or they think
+so or not.
+
+And there are times--there are times, my friends--when the awful words
+which follow come true likewise--"Thou shalt bruise them with a rod of
+iron, and break them in pieces like a potter's vessel."
+
+For as to this world in which we live, so to the God who created that
+world, there is a terrible aspect.  There is calm: but there is storm
+also.  There is fertilizing sunshine: but there is also the destroying
+thunderbolt.  There is the solid and fruitful earth, where man can till
+and build; but there is the earthquake and the flood likewise, which
+destroy in a moment the works of man.  So there is in God boundless love,
+and boundless mercy: but there is, too, a wrath of God, and a fire of God
+which burns eternally against all evil and falsehood.  And woe to those
+who fall under that wrath; who are even scorched for a moment by that
+fire.
+
+"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God."
+
+We are all ready enough to forget this; ready enough to think only of
+God's goodness, and never of His severity.  Ready enough to talk of
+Christ as gentle and suffering; because we flatter ourselves that if He
+is gentle, He may be also indulgent; if He be suffering, He may be also
+weak.  We like to forget that He is, and was, and ever will be--Lord of
+heaven and earth; and to think of Him only in His humiliation in Judaea
+1800 years ago, forgetting that during that very humiliation, while He
+was shewing love, and mercy, and miracles of healing, and sympathy and
+compassion for every form of human sorrow and weakness, He did not shrink
+from shewing to men the awful side of His character; did not shrink from
+saying, "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.  Ye serpents,
+ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"--did
+not shrink from declaring that He was coming again, even before that very
+generation had passed away, to destroy, unless it repented, the wicked
+city of Jerusalem, with an utter and horrible destruction.
+
+Think of these things, my friends: for true they are, and true they will
+remain, whether you think of them or not.  And take the warning of the
+second Psalm, which is needed now as much as it was ever needed--"Be wise
+now therefore, O ye kings, be learned, ye that are judges of the earth.
+Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice unto Him with reverence.  Worship
+the Son, lest He be angry, and so ye perish from the right way.  If His
+wrath be kindled, yea, but a little, blessed are all they that put their
+trust in Him."
+
+But you are no kings, you are no judges.  Is it so?  And yet you boast
+yourselves to be free men, in a free country.  Not so.  Every man who is
+a free man is a king or a judge, whether he knows it or not.  Every one
+who has a duty, is a king over his duty.  Every one who has a work to do,
+is a judge whether he does his work well or not.  He who farms, is a king
+and a judge over his land.  He who keeps a shop, a king and a judge over
+his business.  He who has a family, a king and a judge over his
+household.  Let each be wise, and serve the Lord in fear; knowing that
+according as he obeys the law of the Lord, he will receive for the deeds
+done in the body, whether good or evil.
+
+Not kings? not judges?  Is not each and every human being who is not a
+madman, a king over his own actions, a judge over his own heart and
+conscience?  Let him govern himself, govern his own thoughts and words,
+his own life and actions, according to the law of the Lord who created
+him; and he will be able to say with the poet,
+
+   My mind to me a kingdom is;
+   Such perfect joy therein I find
+   As far exceeds all earthly bliss.
+
+But if he governs himself according to his own fancy, which is no law,
+but lawlessness: then he will find himself rebelling against himself,
+weakened by passions, torn by vain desires, and miserable by reason of
+the lusts which war in his members; and so will taste, here in this life,
+of that anger of the Lord of which it is written; "If His wrath be
+kindled, yea, but a little, ye shall perish from the right way."
+
+Therefore let each and all of us, high and low, take the warning of the
+last verse, and worship the Son of God.  Bow low before Him--for that is
+the true meaning of the words--as subjects before an absolute monarch,
+who can dispose of us, body and soul, according to His will: but who can
+be trusted to dispose of us well: because His will is a good will, and
+the only reason why He is angry when we break His laws, is, that His laws
+are the Eternal Laws of God, wherein alone is life for all rational
+beings; and to break them is to injure our fellow-creatures, and to ruin
+ourselves, and perish from that right way, to bring us back to which He
+condescended, of His boundless love, to die on the Cross for all mankind.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XI.  GOD THE TEACHER.
+
+
+PSALM CXIX. 33, 34.
+
+   Teach me, O Lord, the way of Thy statutes, and I shall keep it unto
+   the end.  Give me understanding, and I shall keep Thy Law; yea, I
+   shall observe it with my whole heart.
+
+This 119th Psalm has been valued for many centuries, by the wisest and
+most devout Christians, as one of the most instructive in the Bible; as
+the experimental psalm.  And it is that, and more.  It is specially a
+psalm about education.  That is on the face of the text.  Teach me, O
+Lord, Thy statutes, and I shall keep them to the end.  These are the
+words of a man who wishes to be taught, and therefore to learn; and to
+learn not mere book-learning and instruction, but to acquire a practical
+education, which he can keep to the end, and carry out in his whole life.
+
+But it is more.  It is, to my mind, as much a theological psalm as it is
+an experimental psalm; and it is just as valuable for what it tells us
+concerning the changeless and serene essence of God, as for what it tells
+us concerning the changing and struggling soul of man.
+
+Let us think a little this morning--and, please God, hereafter also--of
+the Psalm, and what it says.  For it is just as true now as ever it was,
+and just as precious to those who long to educate themselves with the
+true education, which makes a man perfect, even as his Father in heaven
+is perfect.
+
+The Psalm is a prayer, or collection of short prayers, written by some
+one who had two thoughts in his mind, and who was so full of those two
+thoughts that he repeated them over and over again, in many different
+forms, like one who, having an air of music in his head, repeats it in
+different keys, with variation after variation; yet keeps true always to
+the original air, and returns to it always at the last.
+
+Now what two thoughts were in the Psalmist's mind?
+
+First: that there was something in the world which he must learn, and
+would learn; for everything in this life and the next depended on his
+learning it.  And this thing which he wants to learn he calls God's
+statutes, God's law, God's testimonies, God's commandments, God's
+everlasting judgments.  That is what he feels he must learn, or else come
+to utter grief, both body and soul.
+
+Secondly: that if he is to learn them, God Himself must teach them to
+him.  I beg you not to overlook this side of the Psalm.  That is what
+makes it not only a psalm, but a prayer also.  The man wants to know
+something.  But beside that, he prays God to teach it to him.
+
+He was not like too many now-a-days, who look on prayer, and on
+inspiration, as old-fashioned superstitions; who believe that a man can
+find out all he needs to know by his own unassisted intellect, and then
+do it by his own unassisted will.  Where they get their proofs of that
+theory, I know not; certainly not from the history of mankind, and
+certainly not from their own experience, unless it be very different from
+mine.  Be that as it may, this old Psalmist would not have agreed with
+them; for he held an utterly opposite belief.  He held that a man could
+see nothing, unless God shewed it to him.  He held that a man could learn
+nothing unless God taught him; and taught him, moreover, in two ways.
+First taught him what he ought to do, and then taught him how to do it.
+
+Surely this man was, at least, a reasonable and prudent man, and shewed
+his common-sense.  I say--common-sense.
+
+For suppose that you were set adrift in a ship at sea, to shift for
+yourself, would it not be mere common-sense to try and learn how to
+manage that ship, that you might keep her afloat and get her safe to
+land?  You would try to learn the statutes, laws, and commandments, and
+testimonies, and judgments concerning the ship, lest by your own
+ignorance you should sink her, and be drowned.  You would try to learn
+the laws about the ship; namely the laws of floatation, by fulfilling
+which vessels swim, and by breaking which vessels sink.
+
+You would try to learn the commandments about her.  They would be any
+books which you could find of rules of navigation, and instruction in
+seamanship.
+
+You would try to learn the testimonies about the ship.  And what would
+they be?  The witness, of course, which the ship bore to herself.  The
+experience which you or others got, from seeing how she behaved--as they
+say--at sea.
+
+And from whom would you try to learn all this? from yourself?  Out of
+your own brain and fancy?  Would you invent theories of navigation and
+shipbuilding for yourself, without practice or experience?  I trust not.
+You would go to the shipbuilder and the shipmaster for your information.
+Just as--if you be a reasonable man--you will go for your information
+about this world to the builder and maker of the world--God himself.
+
+And lastly; you would try to learn the judgments about the ship: and what
+would they be?  The results of good or bad seamanship; what happens to
+ships, when they are well-managed or ill-managed.
+
+It would be too hard to have to learn that by experience; for the price
+which you would have to pay would be, probably, that you would be wrecked
+and drowned.  But if you saw other ships wrecked near you, you would form
+judgments from their fate of what you ought to do.  If you could find
+accounts of shipwrecks, you would study them with the most intense
+interest; lest you too should be wrecked, and so judgment overtake you
+for your bad seamanship.
+
+For God's judgment of any matter is not, as superstitious people fancy,
+that God grows suddenly angry, and goes out of His way to punish those
+who do wrong, as by a miracle.  God judges all things in heaven and earth
+without anger--ay, with boundless pity: but with no indulgence.  The soul
+that sinneth, it shall die.  The ship that cannot swim, it must sink.
+That is the law of the judgments of God.  But He is merciful in this;
+that He rewardeth every man according to his work.  His judgment may be
+favourable, as well as unfavourable.  He may acquit, or He may condemn.
+But whether He acquits or condemns, we can only know by the event; by the
+result.  If a ship sinks, for want of good sailing or other defect, that
+is a judgment of God about the ship.  He has condemned her.  She is not
+seaworthy.  But if the ship arrives safe in port, that too is God's
+judgment.  He has tried her and acquitted her.  She is seaworthy; and she
+has her reward.
+
+How simple this is.  And yet men will not believe it, will not understand
+it, and therefore they wreck so often each man his own ship--his own life
+and immortal soul, and sink and perish, for lack of knowledge.
+
+For each one of us is at sea, each in his own ship; and each must sail
+her and steer her, as best he can, or sink and drown for ever.
+
+For the sea which each of us is sailing over is this world, and the ship
+in which each of us sails, is our own nature and character; what St Paul,
+like a truly scientific man, calls our flesh; and what modern scientific
+men, and rightly, call our organisation.  And the land to which we are
+sailing is eternal Life.  Shall we make a prosperous voyage?  Shall we
+fail, or shall we succeed?  Shall we founder and drown at sea, and sink
+to eternal death?  Or shall we, as the clergyman prayed for us when we
+were baptized, so pass through the waves of this troublesome world, that
+finally we may come to the land of everlasting life?  Which shall it be,
+my friends?  Shall we sink, or shall we swim?  Certain is one thing--that
+we shall sink, and not swim, if we do not learn and keep the law, and
+commandments, and testimonies, and judgments of God, concerning this our
+mortal life.  If we do not, then we shall go through life, without
+knowing how to go through life, ignorantly and blindly; and the end of
+that will be failure, and ruin, and death to our souls.  If we do not
+know and keep the Laws of God, the Laws of God will keep themselves, in
+spite of us, and grind us to powder.  Do not fancy that you may do wrong
+without being punished; and break God's Law, because you are not under
+the law, but under grace.  You are only under grace, as long as you keep
+clear of God's Law.  The moment you do wrong you put yourself under the
+Law, and the Law will punish you.  Suppose that you went into a mill; and
+that the owner of that mill was your best friend, even your father.  Would
+that prevent your being crushed by the machinery, if you got entangled in
+it through ignorance or heedlessness?  I think not.  Even so, though God
+be your best of friends, ay, your Father in heaven, that will not prevent
+your being injured, it may be ruined, not only by wilful sins, but by
+mere folly and ignorance.  Therefore your only chance for safety in this
+life and for ever, is to learn God's laws and statutes about your life,
+that you may pass through it justly, honourably, virtuously,
+successfully.  And the man who wrote the 119th Psalm knew that, and said,
+"Oh that my ways were made so direct, that I might keep thy statutes."
+
+But moreover, you must learn God's commandments.  He has laid down
+certain commands, certain positive rules which must be kept if you do not
+intend to die the eternal death.  So says our Lord.  "If thou wilt enter
+into life, keep the commandments."  "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
+with all thy heart and soul, and thy neighbour as thyself."  There the
+ten commandments are, and kept they must be; and if you break one of
+them, it will punish you, and you cannot escape.  And the man who wrote
+the 119th Psalm knew that, and said, "With my whole heart have I sought
+thee: oh let me not go wrong out of Thy commandments."
+
+Moreover, you must learn God's testimonies: what He has witnessed and
+declared about Himself, and His own character, His power and His
+goodness, His severity and His love.  And where will you learn that, as
+in the Bible?  The Bible is full of testimonies of God in Christ about
+Himself; who He is, what He does, what He requires; and of testimonies of
+holy men of old, concerning God and concerning duty; concerning God's
+dealings with their souls, and with other men, and with all the nations
+of the old world, and with all nations likewise to the end of time.  And
+if people will not read and study their Bibles, they cannot expect to
+know the way to eternal life.  That too the man who wrote the 119th Psalm
+knew, and said, "I have had as great delight in Thy testimonies, as in
+all manner of riches."
+
+Moreover, you must learn God's judgments; the way in which He rewards and
+punishes men.  And those too you will learn in the Bible, which is full
+of accounts of the just and merciful judgments of God.  And you may learn
+them too from your own experience in life; from seeing what actually
+happens to those whom you know, when they do right things; and what
+happens again, when they do wrong things.  If any man will open his eyes
+to what is going on around him in a single city, or in the mere private
+circle of his own kinsfolk and acquaintance; if he will but use his
+common sense, and look how righteousness is rewarded, and sin is
+punished, all day long, then he might learn enough and to spare about
+God's judgments: but men will not.  A man will see his neighbour do
+wrong, and suffer for it: and then go and do exactly the same thing
+himself; as if there were no living God; no judgments of God; as if all
+was accident and chance; as if he was to escape scot-free, while his
+neighbour next door has brought shame and misery on himself by doing the
+same thing.  For it was well written of old, "The fool hath said in his
+heart--though he is afraid to say it with his lips--There is no God."  And
+the man who wrote the 119th Psalm knew that, and said, "I remembered
+Thine everlasting judgments, O Lord, and received comfort; for I was
+horribly afraid for the ungodly who forsake Thy law."
+
+I say again: that the only way to attain eternal life is to know, and
+keep, and profit by God's laws, God's commandments, God's testimonies,
+God's judgments; and therefore it is that the Psalmists say so often,
+that these laws and commandments are Life.  Not merely the way to eternal
+life; but the Life itself, as it is written in the Prayer-Book, "O God,
+whom truly to know is everlasting life."
+
+But some will say, How shall I learn?  I am very stupid, and I confess
+that freely.  And when I have learnt, how shall I act up to my lesson?
+For I am very weak; and that I confess freely likewise.
+
+How indeed, my friends?  Stupid we are, the cleverest of us; and weak we
+are, the strongest of us.  And if God left us to find out for ourselves,
+and to take care of ourselves, we should not sail far on the voyage of
+life without being wrecked; and going down body and soul to hell.
+
+But, blessed be God, He has not left us to ourselves.  He has not only
+commanded us to learn: He has promised to teach.  And--as I said in the
+beginning of my Sermon--he who wrote the 119th Psalm knew that well.  He
+knew that God would teach him and strengthen him; enlightening his dull
+understanding, and quickening his dull will; and therefore his Psalm, as
+I said, is a prayer, a prayer for teaching, and a prayer for light; and
+he cries to God--My soul cleaveth to the dust.  I am low-minded, stupid,
+and earthly at the best.  Oh quicken Thou me; that is--Oh give me
+life--more life--according to Thy word.
+
+Thy Word.  The Word of God, of whom the Psalmist says--O Lord, Thy Word
+endureth for ever in heaven.  Even the Word of God, Jesus Christ our
+Lord, the Son of Man who is in heaven; and who, because He is in heaven,
+both God and man, can and will give us light and life, now and for ever.
+
+And now take home with you this one thought.  There is one education
+which we must all get; one thing which we must all learn, and learn to
+obey, or come to utter shame and ruin, either in this world or the world
+to come; and that is the laws, and commandments, and testimonies of
+God,--God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; for only by
+keeping them can we enter into eternal life.  And if we wish to know
+them, God himself will teach us them.  And if we wish, to keep them, God
+himself will give us strength to keep them.  Amen.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XII.  THE REASONABLE PRAYER.
+
+
+PSALM CXIX. 33, 94.
+
+   O Lord, teach me Thy statutes, and I shall keep them to the end.  I am
+   Thine, O save me; for I have kept Thy commandments.
+
+Some who heard me last Sunday, both morning and afternoon, may have
+remarked an apparent contradiction between my two sermons.  I hope they
+have done so.  For then I shall hope that they are facing one of the most
+difficult, and yet most necessary, of all problems; namely the difference
+between the Law and the Gospel.  In my morning sermon I spoke of the
+eternal law of God--how it was unchangeable even as God its author,
+rigid, awful, inevitable by every soul of man, and certain, if he kept
+it, to lead him into all good, for body, soul, and spirit: but certain,
+too, if he broke it, to grind him to powder.
+
+And in the afternoon, I spoke of the Gospel and Free Grace of God--how
+that too was unchangeable, even as God its author; full of compassion and
+tender mercy, and forgiveness of sins; willing not the death of a sinner;
+but rather that he should be converted, and live.
+
+But how are these two statements, both scriptural; both--as I hold from
+practical experience, true to the uttermost, and not to be compromised or
+explained away--how are they to be reconciled, I say?  By these two
+texts.  By taking them both together, and never one without the other;
+and by taking them, also, in the order in which you find them, and
+never--as too many do--the second before the first.  At least this was
+the opinion of the Psalmist.  He first seeks God's commandments and
+statutes, and prays--Give me understanding and I shall keep Thy law, yea,
+I shall keep it with my whole heart.  Make me to go in the path of Thy
+commandments; for therein is my desire.  And then, only then, finding
+himself in trouble, anxiety, even in danger of death, he feels he has a
+sort of right to cry to God to help him out of his trouble, and prays--I
+am Thine, oh save me!
+
+And why?  What reason can he give why God should save him?  Because, he
+says, I have sought Thy commandments.
+
+Now let all rational persons lay this to heart; and consider it well.
+There are very few, heathens and savages, as well as Christians, who will
+not cry, when they find themselves in trouble--Oh save me.  The instinct
+of every man is, to cry to some unseen persons or powers to help him.  If
+he does not cry to the true and good God, he will cry to some false or
+bad God; or to some idol, material or intellectual, of his own invention.
+But that is no reason why his prayers should be heard.  We read of old
+heathens at Rome, who prayed to Mercury, the god of money-making--"Da
+mihi fallere,"--Help me to cheat my neighbours: while the philosophers,
+heathen though they were, laughed, with just contempt, at such men and
+their prayers, and asked--Do you suppose that any God, if he be worth
+calling a God, will answer such a request as that?  Nay, in our own
+times, have not the brigands of Naples been in the habit of carrying a
+leaden image of St Januarius in their hats, and praying to it to protect
+them in their trade of robbery and murder?  I leave you to guess what
+answer good St Januarius, and much more He who made St Januarius, and all
+heaven and earth, was likely to give to such a prayer as that.
+
+So it is not all prayers for help that are heard, or deserve to be heard.
+And indeed--I do not wish to be hard, but the truth must be spoken--there
+are too many people in the world who pray to God to help them, when they
+are in difficulties or in danger, or in fear of death and of hell, but
+never pray at any other time, or for any other thing.  They pray to be
+helped out of what is disagreeable.  But they never pray to be made good.
+They are not good, and they do not care to become good.  All they care
+for, is to escape death, or pain, or poverty, or shame, when they see it
+staring them in the face: and God knows I do not blame them.  We are all
+children, and, like children, we cry out when we are hurt; and that is no
+sin to us.  But that is no part of godliness, not even of mere religion.
+
+But worse--it is still more sad to have to say it, but it is true--most
+people's notions of the next world, and of salvation, as they call it,
+are just as childish, material, selfish as their notions of this world.
+
+They all wish and pray to be "saved."  What do they mean?  To be saved
+from bodily pain in the next life, and to have bodily pleasure instead.
+Pain and pleasure are the only gods which they really worship.  They call
+the former--hell.  They call the latter--heaven.  But they know as little
+of one as of the other; and their notions of both are equally worthy
+of--Shall I say it?  Must I say it?--equally worthy of the savage in the
+forest.  They believe that they must either go to heaven or to hell.  They
+have, of course, no wish to go to the latter place; for whatever else
+there is likely to be there--some of which might not be quite unpleasant
+or new to them, such as evil-speaking, lying, and slandering, envy,
+hatred, malice and all uncharitableness, bigotry included--there will be
+certainly there--they have reason to believe--bodily pain; the thing
+which they, being mostly comfortable people, dread most, and avoid most:
+contrary, you will remember, to the opinion of the blessed martyrs, who
+dreaded bodily pain least, and avoided it least, of all the ills which
+could befal them.  Wherefore they are, in the sight of God, and of all
+true men unto this day--the blessed martyrs.
+
+But these people--and there are too many of them by hundreds of
+thousands--do not want to be blessed.  They only want to be comfortable
+in this world, and in the next.  As for blessedness, they do not even
+know what it means; and our Lord's seven beatitudes, which begin--"Blessed
+are the poor in spirit"--are not at all to their mind; even, alas! alas!
+to the mind of many who call themselves religious and orthodox; at least
+till they are so explained away, that they shall mean anything, or
+nothing, save--I trust I am poor in spirit: and nevertheless I am right,
+and everyone who differs from me is wrong.
+
+The plain truth is--when all fine words, whether said in prayers or sung
+in hymns, are stript off--that they do not wish to go to hell and pain;
+and therefore prefer, very naturally, though not very spiritually, to go
+to heaven and pleasure; and so sing of "crossing over Jordan to Canaan's
+shore," or of "Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest," and so
+forth, without any clear notion of what they mean thereby, save selfish
+comfort without end; they really know not what; they really care not
+where.  And that they may arrive there or at a far better place; and have
+their wish, and more than their wish: I for one heartily desire.  But
+whether they arrive there, or not; and indeed, whether they arrive at
+some place infinitely better or infinitely worse, depends on whether they
+will give up selfish calculations of loss and gain, selfish choosing
+between mere pain and pleasure: and choose this; choose, whatever it may
+cost them, between being good and being bad, or even being only half
+good; as little good as they can afford to be without the pains of hell
+into the bargain.
+
+My friends--What if Christ should answer such people--I do not say that
+He does always answer them so, for He is very pitiful, and of tender
+mercy;--but what if He were to answer them, Save you?  Help you?  O
+presumptuous mortal, what have you done that Christ should save or help
+you?  You are afraid of being ruined.  Why should you not be ruined?  What
+good will it be to your fellow-men if you keep your money, instead of
+losing it?  You are making nothing but a bad use of your money.  Why
+should Christ help you to keep it, and misuse it still more?
+
+You are afraid of death.  You do not wish to die.  But why should you not
+die?  Why should Christ save you from death?  Of what use is your life to
+Christ, or to any human being?  If you are living a bad life, your life
+is a bad thing, and does harm not only to yourself, but to your
+neighbours.  Why should Christ keep you alive to hurt and corrupt your
+neighbours, and to set a bad example to your children?  If you are not
+doing your duty where Christ has put you, you are of no use, a cumberer
+of the ground.  What reason can you shew why He should not take you away,
+and put some one in your place who _will_ do his duty?  You are afraid of
+being lost--why should you _not_ be lost?  You are offensive, and an
+injury to the universe.  You are an actual nuisance on Christ's earth and
+in Christ's Kingdom.  Why should He not--as He has sworn--cast out of His
+Kingdom all things which offend, and you among the rest?  Why should He
+not get rid of you, as you get rid of vermin, as you get rid of weeds;
+and cast you into the fire, to be burned up with all evil things?  Answer
+that: before you ask Christ to save you, and deliver you from danger, and
+from death, and from the hell which you so much--and perhaps so
+justly--fear.
+
+And how that question is to be answered, I cannot see.
+
+Certainly the selfish man cannot answer it.  The idle man cannot answer
+it.  The profligate man cannot answer it.  They are doing nothing for
+Christ; or for their neighbours, or for the human race; and they cannot
+expect Christ to do anything for them.
+
+The only men who can answer it; the only men, it seems to me, who can
+have any hope of their prayers being heard, are those who, like the
+Psalmist, are trying to do something for Christ, and their neighbours,
+and the human race; who are, in a word, trying to be good.  Those, I
+mean, who have already prayed, earnestly and often, the first prayer,
+"Teach me, O Lord, Thy statutes, and I shall keep them to the end."  They
+have--not a right: no one has a right against Christ, no, not the angels
+and archangels in heaven--not a right, but a hope, through Christ's most
+precious and undeserved promises, that their prayers will be heard; and
+that Christ will save them from destruction, because they are, at least,
+likely to become worth saving; because they are likely to be of use in
+Christ's world, and to do some little work in Christ's kingdom.
+
+They are God's: they are soldiers in Christ's army.  They are labourers
+in Christ's garden.  They are on God's side in the battle of life, which
+is the battle of Christ and of all good men, against evil, against sin
+and ignorance, and the numberless miseries which sin and ignorance
+produce.  They are not the profligate; they are not the selfish, the
+idle; they are not the frivolous, the insolent; they are not the wilfully
+ignorant who do not care to learn, and do not even--so brutish are
+they--think that there is anything worth learning in the world, save how
+to turn sixpence into a shilling, and then spend it on themselves.  Not
+such are those who may hope to have their prayers heard, because they are
+worth hearing, and worth helping.  But they are the people who say to
+themselves, not once in their lives, not once a week on Sundays, but
+every day and all day long--I must be good; I will be good.  I must be of
+use; I must be doing some work for God; and therefore I must learn.  I
+must learn God's laws, and statutes, and commandments, about my station,
+and calling, and business in life.  Else how can I do it aright?  I dare
+no more be ignorant, than I dare be idle.  I must learn.  But how shall I
+learn?  Stupid I am, and ignorant, and the more I try to learn, the more
+I discover how stupid I am.  The more I do actually learn, the more I
+discover how ignorant I am.  There is so much to be learned; and how to
+learn it passes my understanding.  Who will teach me?  How shall I get
+understanding?  How shall I get knowledge?  And if I get them, how shall
+I be sure that they are true understanding, and true knowledge?  Mad
+people have understanding enough; and so have some who are not mad, but
+merely fools.  Wit enough they have, active and rapid brains: but their
+understanding is of no use, for it is only misunderstanding; and
+therefore the more clever they are, the more foolish they are, and the
+more dangerous to themselves and their fellow-creatures.  Knowledge,
+too--how shall I be sure that my knowledge, if I get it, is true
+knowledge, and not false knowledge, knowledge which is not really
+according to facts?  I see too many who have knowledge for which I care
+little enough.  Some know a thousand things which are of no use to them,
+or to any human being.  Others know a thousand things: but know them in a
+shallow, inaccurate fashion; and so cannot make use of them for any
+practical purpose.  Others know a thousand things: but know them all in a
+prejudiced and one-sided fashion; till they see things not as things are,
+but as they are not, and as they never will be; and therefore their
+knowledge, instead of leading them, misleads them, and they misjudge
+facts, misjudge men, and earth, and heaven, just as much as the man who
+should misjudge the sunlight of heaven and fancy it to be green or blue,
+because he looked at it through a green or blue glass.  How then shall I
+get true knowledge?  Knowledge which will be really useful, really worth
+knowing?  Knowledge which I shall know accurately, and practically too,
+so that I can use it in daily life, for myself and my fellow-men?
+Knowledge, too, which shall be clear knowledge, not warped or coloured by
+my own fancies, passions, prejudices, but pure, and calm, and sound;
+Siccum Lumen, "Dry Light," as the greatest of English Philosophers called
+it of old?
+
+To all such, who long for light, that by the light they may see to live
+the life, God answers, through His only-begotten Son, The Word who
+endureth for ever in heaven:--
+
+"Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall
+be opened to you.  For if ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to
+your children, much more will your heavenly Father give His Holy Spirit
+to those who ask Him."
+
+Yes, ask for that Holy Spirit of God, that He may lead you into all
+truth; into all truth, that is, which is necessary for you to know, in
+order to see your way through the world, and through your duty in the
+world.  Ask for that Holy Spirit; that He may give you eyes to see things
+as they are, and courage to feel things as they are, and to do your work
+in them, and by them, whether they be pleasant or unpleasant, prosperous
+or adverse.  Ask Him; and He will give you true knowledge to know what a
+serious position you are in, what a serious thing life is, death is,
+judgment is, eternity is; that you may be no trifler nor idler, nor mere
+scraper together of gain which you must leave behind you when you die:
+but a truly serious man, seriously intent on your duty; seriously intent
+on working God's work in the place and station to which He has called
+you, before the night comes in which no man can work.
+
+If a man is doing that; if he is earnestly trying to learn what is true,
+in order that he may do what is right; then he has--I do not say a
+right--but at least a reason, or a shadow of reason, when he cries to God
+in his trouble--
+
+"I am Thine, oh save me, for I have sought thy commandments."
+
+"I am Thine."  Not merely God's creature: the very birds, and bees, and
+flowers are that; and do their duty far better than I--God forgive me--do
+mine.
+
+"I am Thine."  Not merely God's child: the sinners and the thoughtless
+are that, though--God help them--they care not for Him, nor for His laws,
+nor for themselves and their glorious inheritance as children of God.
+
+And I too am God's child: but I trust that I am more.  I am God's school-
+child.  O Lord Jesus Christ, I claim Thy help as my schoolmaster, as well
+as my Lord and Saviour.  I am the least of Thy school-children; and it
+may be the most ignorant and most stupid.  I do not pretend to be a
+scholar, a divine, a philosopher, a saint.  I am a very weak, foolish,
+insufficient personage; sitting on the lowest form in Thy great school-
+house, which is the whole world; and trying to spell out the mere letters
+of Thy alphabet, in hope that hereafter I may be able to make out whole
+words, and whole sentences, of Thy commandments, and having learnt them,
+do them.  For if Thou wilt but teach me Thy statutes, O Lord, then I will
+try to keep them to the end.  For I long to be on Thy side, and about Thy
+work.  I long to help--if it be ever so little--in making myself better,
+and my neighbours better.  I long to be useful, and not useless; a
+benefit, and not a nuisance; a fruit-bearing tree, and not a noxious
+weed, in Thy garden; and therefore I hope that Thou wilt not cut me down,
+nor root me up, nor let foul creatures trample me under foot.  Have mercy
+on me, O Lord, in my trouble, for the sake of the truth which I long to
+learn, and for the good which I long to do.  Poor little weak plant
+though I may be, I am still a plant of Thy planting, which is doing its
+best to grow, and flower, and bear fruit to eternal life; and Thou wilt
+not despise the work of Thine own hands, O Lord, who died that I might
+live?  Thou wilt not let me perish?  I have stuck unto Thy testimonies: O
+Lord, confound me not.
+
+Therefore remember this.  If you wish to have reasonable hope when you
+have to pray--"Lord, save me:" pray first, and pray continually--"Teach
+me, O Lord, Thy statutes, and I will keep them to the end."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XIII.  THE ONE ESCAPE.
+
+
+PSALM CXIX. 67.
+
+   Before I was troubled, I went wrong: but now have I kept Thy Word.
+
+Let me speak this afternoon once more about the 119th Psalm, and the man
+who wrote it.
+
+And first: he was certainly of a different opinion from nine persons out
+of ten, I fear from ninety-nine out of a hundred, of every country, every
+age, and every religion.
+
+For, he says--Before I was troubled, I went wrong: but now have I kept
+Thy Word.  Whereas nine people out of ten would say to God, if they
+dared--Before I was troubled, I kept Thy Word.  But now that I am
+troubled; of course I cannot help going wrong.
+
+He makes his troubles a reason for doing right.  They make their troubles
+an excuse for doing wrong.
+
+Is it not so?  Do we not hear people saying, whenever they are blamed for
+doing what they know to be wrong--I could not help it?  I was forced into
+it.  What would you have a man do?  One must live; and so forth.  One
+finds himself in danger, and tries to lie himself out of it.  Another
+finds himself in difficulties, and begins playing ugly tricks in money
+matters.  Another finds himself in want, and steals.  The general opinion
+of the world is, that right-doing, justice, truth, and honesty, are very
+graceful luxuries for those who can afford them; very good things when a
+man is easy, prosperous, and well off, and without much serious business
+on hand: but not for the real hard work of life; not for times of
+ambition and struggle, any more than of distress and anxiety, or of
+danger and difficulty.  In such times, if a man may not lie a little,
+cheat a little, do a questionable stroke of business now and then; how is
+he to live?  So it is in the world, so it always was; and so it always
+will be.  From statesmen ruling nations, and men of business "conducting
+great financial operations," as the saying is now, down to the beggar-
+woman who comes to ask charity, the rule of the world is, that honesty is
+_not_ the best policy; that falsehood and cunning are not only
+profitable, but necessary; that in proportion as a man is in trouble, in
+that proportion he has a right to go wrong.
+
+A right to go wrong.  A right to make bad worse.  A right to break God's
+laws, because we are too stupid or too hasty to find out what God's laws
+are.  A right, as the wise man puts it, to draw bills on nature which she
+will _not_ honour; but return them on a man's hands with "No effects"
+written across them, leaving the man to pay after all, in misery and
+shame.  Truly said Solomon of old--The foolishness of fools is folly.
+
+But the Psalmist, because he was inspired by the Spirit of God, was of
+quite the opposite opinion.  So far from thinking that his trouble gave
+him a right to go wrong, he thought that his trouble laid on him a duty
+to go right, more right than he had ever gone before; and that going
+right was the only possible way of getting out of his troubles.
+
+"Take from me," he cries, "the way of lying, and cause Thou me to make
+much of Thy law.
+
+"I have chosen the way of truth, and Thy judgments have I laid before me.
+
+"Incline mine heart unto Thy testimonies, and not unto covetousness.
+
+"Oh turn away mine eyes, lest they behold vanity, and quicken Thou me in
+Thy way.
+
+"Thy word is my comfort in my trouble; for Thy word hath quickened me.
+
+"The proud have had me exceedingly in derision, yet have I not shrunk
+from Thy law.
+
+"For I remembered Thine everlasting judgments, O God, and received
+comfort.
+
+"Thy statutes have been my songs, in the house of my pilgrimage.
+
+"I have thought upon Thy name, O Lord, in the night-season, and have kept
+Thy law."
+
+This was the Psalmist's plan for delivering himself out of trouble.  A
+very singular plan, which very few persons try, either now, or in any
+age.  And therefore it is, that so many persons are not delivered out of
+their troubles, but sink deeper and deeper into them, heaping new
+troubles on old ones, till they are crushed beneath the weight of their
+own sins.
+
+What the special trouble was, in which the Psalmist found himself, we are
+not told.  But it is plain from his words, that it was just that very
+sort of trouble, in which the world is most ready to excuse a man for
+lying, cringing, plotting, and acting on the old devil's maxim that
+"Cunning is the natural weapon of the weak."  For the Psalmist was weak,
+oppressed and persecuted by the great and powerful.  But his method of
+defending himself against them was certainly not the way of the world.
+
+Princes, he says, sat and spoke against him.  But; instead of fawning on
+them, excusing himself, entreating their mercy: he was occupied in God's
+statutes.
+
+The proud had him exceedingly in derision--as I am afraid too many
+worldly men, poor as well as rich, working men as well as idlers, would
+do now--seeing him occupied in God's statutes, when he might have been
+occupied in winning money, and place, and renown for himself.
+
+But he did not shrink from God's law.  If it was true, he could afford to
+be laughed at for obeying it.
+
+The congregation of the ungodly robbed him.  But he did not forget God's
+law.  If they did wrong, that was no reason why he should do wrong
+likewise.
+
+The proud imagined a lie against him.  But he would keep God's
+commandments with his whole heart, instead of breaking God's
+commandments, and justifying their slander, and making their lie true.
+
+Still, it went very hard with him.  His honour and his faith were sorely
+tried.  He was dried up like a bottle in the smoke.  It seems to have
+been with him at times a question of life and death; till he had hardly
+any hope left.  He had to ask, almost in despair--How many are the days
+of Thy servant?  When wilt Thou be avenged of them that persecute me?  The
+proud dug pits for him, contrary to the law of God; contrary to honour
+and justice; and almost made an end of him upon earth.  The ungodly laid
+wait to destroy him.
+
+But against them all he had but one weapon, and one defence.  However
+much afraid he might be of his enemies, he was still more afraid of doing
+wrong.  His flesh, he said, trembled for fear of God; and he was afraid
+of God's judgments.  Therefore his only safety was, in pleasing God, and
+not men.  I deal, he says, with the thing that is lawful and right.  Oh
+give me not over to my oppressors.  Make Thy servant to delight in what
+is good, that the proud do me no wrong.  If he could but keep right, he
+would be safe at last.
+
+I will consider Thy testimonies, O Lord.  I see that all things come to
+an end.  Bad times, and bad chances, and still more bad men, and bad ways
+for escaping out of trouble--they all come to an end.  But Thy
+commandment is exceeding broad.  Exceeding broad.  There are depths below
+depths of meaning in that true saying; depths which you will find true,
+if you will but read your Bibles, and obey your Bibles.  For in them, I
+tell you openly, you will find rules to guide you in every chance and
+change of this mortal life.  Truly said the good man that there were in
+the Bible "shallows where a lamb may drink, and deeps wherein an elephant
+may swim."
+
+There are no possible circumstances, good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant,
+in which you can find yourselves, be you rich or poor, young or old,
+without finding in the Bible sound advice, and a clear rule, as to how
+God would have you behave under those circumstances.  For God's
+commandments are exceeding broad, and take in all cases of conscience,
+all details of duty; saying to each and every one of us, at every
+turn--"This is the way, walk ye in it."
+
+At least this is the teaching, this is the testimony, this is the life-
+experience, of a true hero, namely, the man who wrote the 119th Psalm; a
+hero according to God, but not according to the world, and the pomp and
+glory of the world.
+
+No great statesman was he, nor conqueror, nor merchant, nor financier
+passing millions of money through his hands yearly; and all fancying that
+they, and not God, govern the nations upon earth, and decide the fate of
+empires.
+
+He was a man who made no noise in the world: though the world, it seems,
+made a little noise at him in his time, as it does often bark and yell at
+those who will not go its way; as it barked at poor Christian, when he
+went through Vanity Fair, and would not buy its wares, or join in its
+frivolities.  Such a man was this Psalmist; for whom the world had
+nothing but scorn first, and then forgetfulness.  We do not know his
+name, or where he lived.  We do not even know, within a few hundred
+years, when he lived.  I picture him to myself always as a poor,
+shrivelled, stooping, mean-looking old man; his visage marred more than
+any man, and his figure more than the sons of men; no form nor comeliness
+in him, nor beauty that men should desire him; despised and rejected of
+men: a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, even as his Master was
+after him.
+
+And all that he has left behind him--as far as we can tell--is this one
+psalm which he wrote, as may be guessed from its arrangement, slowly, and
+with exceeding care, as the very pith and marrow of an experience spread
+over many painful years of struggle and of humiliation.
+
+I say of humiliation.  For there is not a taint of self-conceit, not even
+of self-satisfaction, in him.  He only sees his own weakness, and want of
+life, of spirit, of manfulness, of power.  His soul cleaveth to the dust.
+He is tempted, of course, again and again, to give way; to become low-
+minded, cowardly, time-serving, covetous, worldly.  But he dares not.  He
+feels that his only chance is to keep his honour unspotted; and he
+cries--Whatever happens,--I must do right.  I must learn to do right.
+Teach me to do right.  Teach me, O Lord, teach me; and strengthen me, O
+Lord, strengthen me, and then all must come right at last.  That was his
+cry.  And, be you sure, he did not cry in vain.
+
+For this man had one precious possession; which he determined not to
+lose, not though he died in trying to hold it fast; namely, the Eternal
+Spirit of God; the Spirit of Righteousness, and Truth, and Justice, which
+leads men into all truth.  By that Spirit he saw into the Eternal Laws of
+God.  By that Spirit he saw who made and who administers those Eternal
+Laws, even the Eternal Word of God, who endureth for ever in heaven.  By
+that Spirit he saw that his only hope was to keep those eternal laws.  By
+that Spirit he vowed to keep them.  By that Spirit he had strength to
+keep them.  By that Spirit, when he failed he tried again; when he fell
+he rose and fought on once more, to keep the commandments of the Lord.
+
+And where is he now?  Where is he now?  Where those will never come--let
+false preachers and false priests flatter them as they may--who fancy
+that they can get to heaven without being good and doing good.  Where
+those will never come, likewise, who, when they find themselves in
+trouble, try to help themselves out of it by false and mean methods; and
+so begin worshipping the devil, just when they have most need to worship
+God.  He is where the fearful and unbelievers and all liars can never
+come.  He is with the Word of the Lord, who endureth for ever in heaven.
+
+With the Word of the Lord, who endured awhile on earth, even as he the
+Psalmist endured.  Who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession,
+and endured the cross, despising the shame, because He cared neither for
+riches, nor for pleasure, for power, nor for glory; but simply for His
+Father's will, and His Father's law, that He might do to the uttermost
+the will of His Father who sent Him, and keep to the uttermost that Law
+of which His Father says to Him for ever--"Thou art my Son, to-day have I
+begotten Thee."
+
+Into His presence may we all come at last!  But we shall never come
+thither, unless we keep our honour bright, our courage unbroken, and
+ourselves unspotted from the world.  For so only will be fulfilled in us
+the sixth Beatitude--Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
+God.  Unto which may God of His free mercy bring us all.  Amen.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XIV.  THE WORD OF GOD.
+
+
+PSALM CXIX. 89-96.
+
+   O Lord, Thy word endureth for ever in heaven.  Thy truth also
+   remaineth from one generation to another: Thou hast laid the
+   foundation of the earth, and it abideth.  They continue this day
+   according to Thine ordinance: for all things serve Thee.  If my
+   delight had not been in Thy law, I should have perished in my trouble.
+   I will never forget Thy commandments: for with them Thou hast
+   quickened me.  I am Thine, oh save me: for I have sought Thy
+   commandments.  The ungodly laid wait for me to destroy me: but I will
+   consider Thy testimonies.  I see that all things come to an end: but
+   Thy commandment is exceeding broad.
+
+This text is of infinite importance, to you, and me, and all mankind.  For
+if the text is not true; if there is not a Word of God, who endures and
+is settled for ever in heaven: then this world is a miserable and a mad
+place; and the best thing, it seems to me, that we poor ignorant human
+beings can do, is to eat and drink, for to morrow we die.
+
+But that is not the best thing we can do; but the very worst thing.  The
+best thing that we can do, and the only thing worth doing is, to be good,
+and do good, at all risks and all costs, trusting to the Word of God, who
+endures for ever in heaven.
+
+But who is this Word of God?  I say who, not what.  We often call the
+Bible the Word of God: and so it is in one sense, because it tells us,
+from beginning to end, about this other Word of God.  It is, so to speak,
+God's word or message about this Word.  But it is plain that the Psalmist
+is not speaking here of the Bible; for he says--
+
+"Thy Word endureth for ever in Heaven:" and the Bible is not in heaven,
+but on earth.
+
+But in the Bible, usually, this Word of the Lord means not only the
+message which God sends, but Him by whom God sends it.  The Word of God,
+Word of the Lord, is spoken of again and again, not as a thing, but as a
+person, a living rational being, who comes to men, and speaks to them,
+and teaches them; sometimes, seemingly, by actual word of mouth;
+sometimes again, by putting thoughts into their minds, and words into
+their mouths.
+
+Recollect Samuel: how when he was young the Word of the Lord was
+precious--that is, uncommon, and almost unknown in those days; and how
+the Lord came and called Samuel, Samuel; and put a word into his mouth
+against Eli.  And so the Lord appeared again in Shiloh; for the Lord
+revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh by The Word of the Lord.  In
+Samuel's case, there was, it seems, an actual voice, which fell on
+Samuel's ears.  In the case of the later prophets, we do not read that
+they usually heard any actual voice, or saw any actual appearance.  It
+seems that the Word of the Lord who came to them inspired their minds
+with true thoughts, and inspired their lips to speak those thoughts in
+noble words, often in regular poetry.  But He was The Word of the Lord,
+nevertheless.  Again and again, we read in those grand old prophets, "The
+Word of the Lord came unto me, saying,"--or again, "The Word which came
+to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying."  It is not the Bible which is meant
+by such words as these--I am sorry to have to remind a nineteenth century
+congregation of this fact--but a living being, putting thoughts into the
+prophets' minds, and words into their mouths, and a divine passion too,
+into their hearts, which they could not resist; like poor Jeremiah of
+old, when he was reproached and derided about The Word of the Lord, and
+said, "I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His name.
+But He was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was
+weary with forbearing, and I could not hold my peace."
+
+But now, what words are these which we read of this same Word of the
+Lord, in the first chapter of St John's Gospel?  "In the beginning was
+The Word: and The Word was with God, and The Word was God.  By Him all
+things were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
+And in Him was life, and the life was the light of men."
+
+Thus--as always--the Old Testament and the New, the Psalmist and St John,
+agree together.
+
+This is the gospel and good news, which the Psalmist saw in part, but
+which St John saw fully and perfectly.  But because the Psalmist saw it
+even in part, he saw that The Word of the Lord endured for ever in
+heaven; and that therefore his only hope of safety was to listen eagerly
+and reverently for what that Word might choose to say to him.
+
+But why does the Psalmist seemingly go out of his way, as it were, to
+say, "Thou hast laid the foundation of the earth, and it abideth.  They
+continue this day according to Thine ordinance, for all things serve
+Thee"?
+
+For the very same reason that St John goes, seemingly, out of his way to
+say, "All things were made by The Word, and without Him was not anything
+made that was made."
+
+Why is this?
+
+Look at it thus: What an important question it is, whether This Word of
+God is a being of order; a regular being; a law-abiding being; a being on
+whose actions men can count; who can be trusted, and depended on, not to
+alter His own ways, not to deceive us poor mortal men.
+
+The Psalmist wants to know his way through this world, and his duty in
+this mortal life.  Therefore he must learn the laws and rules of this
+world.  And he has the sense to see, that no one can teach him the rules
+of the world, but the Ruler of the world, and the Maker of the world.
+
+Then comes the terrible question--too many, alas! have not got it
+answered rightly yet--
+
+But are there any rules at all in the world?  Does The Lord manage the
+world by rules and laws?  Or does He let things go by chance and
+accident, and take no care about them?  Is there such a thing as God's
+Providence: or is there not?  To that the Psalmist answers firmly,
+because he is inspired by the Spirit of God--
+
+O Lord, Thy Word endureth--is settled--for ever in heaven.  In Thee is no
+carelessness, neglect, slothfulness, nor caprice.  Thou hast no
+variableness, neither shadow of turning.  Thou hast laid the foundation
+of the earth, and it abideth.  They continue this day according to Thine
+ordinance; for all things serve Thee.  The world is full of settled and
+enduring rules and laws; and God keeps to them.  The Psalmist looks at
+the sun, moon and stars over his head, each keeping its settled course,
+and its settled season: and he sees them all obeying law.  He looks at
+summer and winter, seedtime and harvest: and he sees them obeying law.  He
+looks at birth and growth, at decay and death; and sees them too, obeying
+law.  He looks at the very flowers beneath his feet, and the buds in the
+woodland, and all the crowd of living things about him, animal, vegetable
+and mineral: and they too obey law; each after their kind.  The world, he
+says, is full of law.  It is a settled world, an orderly world, made and
+governed by a Lord of order, who makes laws and enforces laws; a Lord
+whose Word endures for ever in heaven.  Therefore--he feels--I can trust
+that Lord.  If He has laws for the beasts and birds, He must have, much
+more, laws for men.  If He has laws for men's bodies, much more has He
+laws for their souls.  What I have to do, is to ask Him to teach me those
+laws, that I may live.
+
+But then comes another, and even a more awful question--If I ask Him,
+will He teach me?  Alas! alas! too many have not found the answer yet;
+too many of those who know most about the Laws of Nature, and reverence
+those laws most: and all honour to them for so doing; for, even though
+they know it not, they are preparing the way of the Lord, and making His
+paths straight.  But they have not found the right answer to that
+question yet.  Still there the question is; and you and I, and every soul
+of man, must get some reasonable answer or other to it, if we wish to be
+men indeed, men in spirit and in truth; and it is this--
+
+If I ask this Word of God to teach me His Laws--Will He teach me?  Will
+He hear me?  Can He hear: or is He Himself a mere brute force, a law of
+nature and necessity?  And even if not, will He hear?  Or is He, too,
+like those Epicurean gods, of whom our great poet sings--a sad and
+hopeless song:--
+
+   They lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurled
+   Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curled
+   Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world,
+   Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
+   Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery
+   sands,
+   Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, _and praying
+   hands_.
+
+_And praying hands_.  Oh, my friends, is not the question of all
+questions for such poor mortal souls as you and me, beset by ignorance
+and weakness, and passions which are our own worst enemies, and chances
+and catastrophes which we cannot avert--Is not the question of all
+questions for such as us--Will this same Word of God--will any unseen
+being out of the infinite void which surrounds our little speck of a
+planet, take any notice of our praying hands?  Will He hear us, teach us,
+when we cry?  Or is God, and The Word of God, like those old heathen
+gods?  Is He a God who hides Himself, and leaves us to despair and
+chance: or is He a God who hears, and gives us even a single ray of hope?
+Is He a gracious God, who will hear every man's tale, however clumsily
+told, and judge it according to its merits: or even--for that is better
+than dead silence and carelessness--according to its demerits?  Is He a
+just God?  Or has He likes and dislikes, favourites and victims; as human
+rulers and statesmen, and human parties too, and mobs, are wont to have?
+May He not, even, like those Epicurean gods, despise men? find a proud
+satisfaction in deceiving them; or at least letting them deceive
+themselves?--in playing with their ignorance, and leaving them to reap
+the fruits of their own childishness?
+
+To that the Psalmist answers--and I know not how he learnt to answer so,
+save by the inspiration of the Spirit of God; for I know well that
+neither flesh and blood, the experience of his own brain, thoughts, and
+emotions, nor the world around him, either of nature or of man, would
+ever have revealed that to him--to that he answers confidently, in spite
+of all appearances--
+
+Thy truth, O Lord, abideth from one generation to another.  Thou art a
+truthful God, a faithful God, whose word can be taken.  A God in whom is
+no variableness, neither shadow of turning; who keepeth His promise for
+ever; true, as man can be true; and truer than the truest man.  And I
+know it, says he, by experience.  God has actually taught me His law: for
+if my delight had not been in it, I should have perished in my trouble.  I
+will never forget His commandments; for by them He has given me life; has
+taught me what to do, and enabled me to do it, to prevent the death and
+ruin of my body, and soul, and spirit.
+
+Now for the very same reason it is, that St John is so careful, first to
+tell us that The Word of God made all things; and then to tell us that He
+is full of grace and truth.
+
+He tells us that The Word made all things, that we may be sure that He is
+a God of order, because all things which He has made are full of order; a
+God who acts by rules and laws which we may trust.  He tells us that The
+Word made all things, that we may be sure that all things, being His
+handy-work, will bear witness of Him and teach us about Him, and shew
+forth His glory.
+
+But he tells us moreover--Oh gospel, and good news for blind and weak
+humanity!--that The Word's glory is full of grace; gracious; ready to
+condescend; ready to teach us, and give us light to see our way through
+this world which He has made.
+
+He tells us that The Word's glory is full of truth; that He is truthful,
+accurate, and to be depended on; and will tell us nothing but what is
+true.  That He is a true Word of God, and when He speaks to us of His
+Father and of our Father, He tells the truth.
+
+And so do St John and the Psalmist agree in the same gospel, and good
+news, of the mystery of Christ The Word.
+
+There is an eternal Being in heaven, who is called The Word of God;
+because He speaks of, and reveals--that is, unveils and shews--to men,
+and angels, and archangels, and all created beings, that God whom no man
+hath seen, or can see; a Word who dwells for ever in the bosom of The
+Father, in the light which no man can approach unto: but who for ever
+comes forth from thence to proclaim to all created beings--There is a
+God, and The Word is His likeness; the brightness of His glory, and the
+express image of His person.  None hath seen the Father at any time: but
+the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath
+declared Him.  None cometh to the Father, but through Him.  But he who
+hath seen Him, hath seen the Father; and He is none other than Jesus
+Christ our Lord.
+
+He is The Word of God, who speaks to men God's words, because He speaks
+not His own words but His Father's, and does not His own will but His
+Father's who sends Him.
+
+He speaks to us and to all men, in many ways; and to each according to
+his needs.  To all men, Christ speaks through their consciences, shewing
+them what is good, and warning them of what is evil; for He is the Light
+that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.  To Christians Christ
+speaks in many ways--to which, alas, too few give heed--through the
+Bible, through the sacraments, through sermons, through the thoughts and
+words of all wise and holy men.  To the good He speaks with gracious
+encouragement; to the wicked with awful severity.  To the hypocrites He
+says at times, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape
+the damnation of hell?"  To the self-satisfied and bigoted He says, "If
+ye had been blind, ye had had no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore
+your sin remaineth."  To the careless and worldly He says, "I know thy
+works, that thou art neither cold nor hot.  Thou sayest, I am rich and
+increased with goods, I have need of nothing: and knowest not that thou
+art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."
+
+To those who are ruining themselves by their own folly He says, "Why will
+ye die?  I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the
+Lord: but rather that he should be converted, and live."  To those who
+are tormented by their own passions He says, "Take My yoke upon you and
+learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest
+unto your souls."  To those who are wearied with the burden of their own
+sins He says, "Come unto Me, all ye that are weary, and heavy laden, and
+I will give you rest."
+
+To those who are struggling, however weakly, to do what is right He says,
+"I know thy works.  Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and none
+can shut it; for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept My word, and
+hast not denied My name.  Because thou hast kept the word of My patience,
+I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation."
+
+And to those who mourn for those whom they have loved and lost He says,
+"Fear not, I am the first and the last, I am He that liveth, and was
+dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of
+hell and of death.  He that believeth in Me, though he die, yet shall he
+live; and he that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die."
+
+For every one of us, according to his character and his needs, Christ
+speaks a fitting word from God, because He is The Word of God; and every
+word which He speaks to us is true, and sure, and eternal, according to
+the laws of God His Father.  For He is The Word who endures for ever in
+heaven; and though heaven and earth may pass away, His words cannot pass
+away.
+
+Yes; Christ The Word speaks to all: but most of all to children: to the
+children, of whom He said--"Suffer the little children to come to me, and
+forbid them not;"--of whom He said to grown-up people, not--Except these
+children be converted and become as you--He left that message for the
+Pharisees of His own time, and of every age and creed: but--Except you
+grown people be converted and become as little children, you, and not
+they, shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.
+
+Let us tell children that--that Christ Himself is speaking to them.  That
+The Word of God is educating them.  That the Light who lightens every man
+who comes into the world is labouring to enlighten them, their intellect
+and memory, their emotions and their consciences.  Let that be the ground
+of all our education of children.  Then it will matter little to us who
+teaches them what is miscalled secular knowledge.  For we shall tell our
+children--In it, too, Christ is teaching you.  The understanding by which
+you understand the world about you is Christ's gift.  The world which you
+are to understand is Christ's world; for He laid the foundation of the
+earth, and it abideth.  The physical laws of the universe are Christ's
+laws; for all things serve Him, and continue this day according to His
+ordinance.  Every natural object is a result of Christ's will, and its
+organization a product of Christ's mind; for without Him was not anything
+made that was made.  The whole course of events, great and small, is
+Christ's providence; for to Him all power is given in heaven and earth.
+So far, therefore, from being afraid to teach our children Natural
+Science, we shall hold it a sacred duty to teach it; for it is the will
+and mind of Christ, The Word of God.
+
+And as for morality--we shall be ready to teach that, as far as the
+prudential and paying virtues are concerned, as boldly and on the very
+same grounds as the merest Utilitarian.  For we shall teach honesty,
+courtesy, decency, self-restraint, patience, foresight, on the warrant of
+the Bible; which is, that Christ has made the world so well, that sooner
+or later every wise and just act rewards itself, every foolish and unjust
+act punishes itself, by the very constitution of nature and society,
+which again are laid down by Christ.  But what of the nobler, the non-
+prudential, and non-paying virtues?--call them rather graces.--Them we
+shall teach our children--as I believe we can only teach them rationally
+and logically, either to children or to grown-up people--by pointing them
+to Christ upon His cross, and saying to them, "Behold your God!"
+
+For so we shall be able to train them in the orthodox doctrine of morals,
+which is--
+
+That there is nothing good in man which is not first in God.
+
+We shall be able to make them comprehend what we mean when we tell them
+that they are members of Christ, and must live the Life of Christ; that
+they are children of God, and as such must imitate their Father, and
+become perfect, even as their Father in heaven is perfect.
+
+For we shall say--The pure and perfect graces, the disinterested virtues,
+the unselfish virtues--obedience, mercy, chivalry, beneficence,
+magnanimity, heroism,--in one word, self-sacrifice--beautiful these are:
+but are they necessary? are they mere ornaments? or are they sacred
+duties?  The duty which dares and suffers for the thing it ought to do;
+the love which dares and suffers for the thing it loves; the unselfish
+spirit which looks for no reward:--why should these dwell in man?  To
+that we shall answer--Because they dwell for ever in God.  If we are
+asked--Why are they beautiful in man? we shall answer--Because they are
+the very beauty and glory of God; the glory which the Incarnate Word of
+God manifested to men, when He hung on the cross of Calvary; and was more
+utterly then, if possible, than ever, The Word of God: because He then
+declared most utterly to men the character and essence of God.  Love
+which is not content--as what true love is?--to be a passive sentiment, a
+self-contained possibility, but which must go out of itself, pitying,
+yearning, agonizing, to seek, to struggle, to suffer, and, if need be, to
+die for the creature which it loves, even if that creature love it not
+again.
+
+We need not say this to children.  We need only point them to Christ upon
+His cross, and trust Christ to say it to them, in their heart of hearts,
+through instincts too deep for words.  All we need say to our children
+is--"Behold your God!  He it is who inspires you with every dutiful,
+generous, and unselfish impulse you have ever felt; for they are the
+fruits of His Spirit.  By that Spirit He was once unselfish even to the
+death.  By that Spirit He will enable you to carry out in action, as He
+did, the unselfish instincts which He has given you; and to live the
+noble life, the heroic life, the life of self-sacrifice; the life of God;
+the life of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; and
+therefore the only life fit for those who are baptized into that Holy
+Name."
+
+This is the ground and method on which we should educate our children;
+for it is the ground and method on which The Word of God is educating us.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XV.  I.
+
+
+PSALM CXIX. 94.
+
+   I am Thine, oh save me.
+
+Let us think seriously this afternoon of one word; the word which is the
+key-note of this psalm.  A very short word; for in our language there is
+but one letter in it.  A very common word; for we are using it all day
+long when we are awake, and even at night in our dreams; and yet a very
+wonderful word, for though we know well whom it means, yet what it means
+we do not know, and cannot understand, no, nor can the wisest philosopher
+who ever lived; and a most important word too; for we cannot get rid of
+it, we cannot help thinking of it, cannot help saying it all our life
+long from childhood to the grave.  After death, too, we shall probably be
+saying that word to ourselves, each of us, for ever and ever.  If the
+whole universe, sun, moon, and stars, and all that we ever thought of, or
+can think of, were destroyed and became nothing, that word would probably
+be left; and we should be left alone with it; and on what we meant by
+that little word would depend our everlasting happiness or misery.  And
+what is this wonderful little word?  What but the word I?  Each one of us
+says I--I think, I know, I feel, I ought, I ought not, I did that, and
+cannot undo it: and why?  Because we are not things, nor mere animals,
+but persons, living souls, though our bodies are like the bodies of
+animals, only more perfect, that they may be fit dwelling-places for more
+perfect souls.  The animals, as far as we know, do not think of
+themselves each as I.  Little children do not at first.  They call
+themselves by names by which they hear others call them: not in the first
+but in the third person.  After a while there grows up in them the
+wonderful thought that they are persons, different from any other person
+round them, and they begin to say--I want this, I like that.  I trust
+that I shall not seem to you as one who dreams when I say that I believe
+that is a revelation from God to each child, and just what makes the
+difference between him and an animal; that God teaches each child to say
+I; to know that it is not a mere thing, but a person, a living soul, with
+a will of its own, and a duty of its own; responsible for itself; which
+ought to do some things, and ought not to do other things.  And what a
+solemn and awful revelation that is, we shall see more clearly, the more
+we think of it.
+
+It may be a very dreadful and tormenting thought.  It does not torment
+the mere savage, who has no sense of right and wrong; who follows his own
+appetites and passions, and has never learnt to say, "I ought," and "I
+ought not."  But it does torment the heathen when they begin to be
+civilized, and to think; it has tormented them in all ages.  It tormented
+the old Greeks and Romans; it torments some Eastern peoples still--that
+terrible thought--I am I myself, and cannot be any one else.  I am
+answerable for all that I ever did, or shall do; and no one can be
+answerable for me.  All the bad deeds I ever did, the bad thoughts I ever
+thought, are mine, parts of me, and will be for ever.  I can no more
+escape from them than I can spring off my own shadow.  But men have been
+always trying to escape; to escape from the burden of their own self, and
+the dread of an evil conscience; and have invented religion after
+religion, often fantastic enough, often pathetic enough likewise, in
+hopes of hiding from themselves the secret thought--I am I, and must be
+myself for ever.  But I am not what I ought to be, and therefore I may be
+wrong, and miserable for ever.  And how many people, in this Christian
+land, are saying at this very moment to themselves, "Oh that I could get
+rid of this I myself in me, which is so discontented and unhappy!  Oh
+that I had no conscience!  Oh that I could forget myself!"  And they try
+to forget themselves by dissipation, by gaming, by drinking, by taking
+narcotic drugs, even sometimes by suicide, as a last desperate attempt to
+escape from themselves, they know not and care not whither.  It is all in
+vain.  There is no escape from self.  As the pious poet whose bust stands
+beneath yonder tower has said:
+
+   Each in his separate sphere of joy and woe
+   Our hermit spirits dwell, and range apart.
+
+I must be I, thou must be thou, he must be he, she must be she, and no
+one else, throughout our mortal lives, and, for aught we can tell, for
+ever; alone, each of us, with our own souls, our own thoughts, our own
+actions, our own hopes, our own fears, our own deservings.  Stay
+alone:--with all these?  Yes, and alone with one more.  Each of us is
+alone with God.  Face to face with God, seen by Him through and through,
+and directly answerable to Him at every moment of our lives, for every
+deed, and word, and thought.  And is that not a more terrible thought
+than any?  Ah! my friends, it may be.  But it may be also the most
+comforting of all thoughts, the only really comforting thought, if we
+will but look at the question as the Psalmist looks at it, and cry with
+him to God, "I am Thine, oh save the me whom Thou hast made."
+
+There are those, and those who deserve a respectful hearing, who will
+differ from all that I have been saying, and indeed from the beliefs of
+999 out of 1000 of the human race in every age.  They will say--This
+fancy that you are an I, a self, individual and indivisible, is but a
+fancy; one of the many idols which man creates for himself, by bestowing
+reality and personality on mere abstractions like this I and self.  Each
+man is not one indivisible, much less indestructible, thing or being.  He
+is really many things.  He is the net result of all the organic cells of
+his body, and of all the forces which act through them within, and of all
+the circumstances which influence them from without, ay, and of all the
+forces and circumstances which have influenced his ancestors ever since
+man appeared on the earth.  But because he remembers many states of
+consciousness, many moments in which he was aware of sensations within
+him, and of circumstances without him, therefore he strings all these
+together, and talks of them as one thing which he calls I; and speaks of
+them as his remembrances of himself, when really the many things are but
+links of a chain which is perpetually growing at one end and dropping off
+at the other.  To say, therefore, that he is the same person as he was
+when a child, or as he would be when an old man,--is, when we know that
+every atom of his physical frame has changed again and again during the
+course of years, a popular delusion, or at least a misnomer used for
+convenience' sake; as when we say that the sun rises and sets, when we
+know that the earth moves, and not the sun.  A man, therefore, according
+to this school, is really no more a person, one and indivisible, than is
+the coral with its million polypes, the tree with its million buds, or
+even the thunderstorm with its million vesicles of attracting and
+repelling vapour.
+
+Now that a truth underlies such a theory as this, I am the last to deny.
+How much of the character of each man is inherited, how much of it
+depends on his actual bodily organization; how much of it, alas! on the
+circumstances of his youth; how much of it changes with the mere physical
+change from youth to old age--who does not know all this, who has ever
+needed to fight for himself the battle of life?  Only, I say, this is but
+half the truth; and these philosophers cannot state their half-truth,
+without employing the very words which they repudiate; without using the
+very personal pronouns, the I and me, the thou and thee, the he and him,
+to which they deny any real existence.  Beside, I ask--Is the experience
+and the conclusion of the vast majority of all mankind to go for nothing?
+For if there be one point on which human beings have been, and are still,
+agreed, it is this--that each of them is, to his joy or his sorrow, an I;
+a separate person.  And, I should have said, this conviction becomes
+stronger and stronger in each of them, the more human they become,
+civilized, and worthy of the respect and affection of their fellow-men.
+
+For what rises in them, or seems to rise, more and more painfully and
+fiercely?  What but that protest, that battle, between the everlasting I
+within them, and their own passions, and motives, and circumstances;
+which St Paul of old called the battle between the spirit on one side,
+and the flesh and the world on the other.  The nobler, surely, and
+healthier, even for a moment, the manhood of any man is, the more intense
+is that inward struggle, which man alone of all the animals endures.  Is
+it in moments of brave endeavour, whether to improve our own character,
+or to benefit our fellow-men: or is it in moments of depression,
+disappointment, bodily sickness, that we are tempted to say?--I will
+fight no more.  I cannot mend myself, or the world.  I am what nature has
+made me; and what I am, I must remain.  I, and all I know, and all I
+love, are things, not persons; parts of nature, even as the birds upon
+the bough, only more miserable, because tormented by a hope which never
+will be fulfilled; an empty pageant of mere phenomena, blown onward
+toward decay, like dying autumn leaves, before the "everlasting storm
+which no one guides."  Is this the inward voice of health and strength?
+or rather, for evil or for good, that voice which bids the man, the
+woman, in the mysterious might of the free I within, trample on their own
+passions, defy their own circumstances, even to the death; fall back, in
+utter need, on the absolute instinct of self; and even though all seem
+lost, say with Medea in the tragedy--
+
+   Che resta?  Io!
+
+Medea?--Some one will ask, and have a right to ask--Is that the model
+which you set before us?  The imperious sorceress, who from the first has
+known no law but self, her own passions, her own intellect; who, at last,
+maddened by a grievous wrong, asserts that self by the murder of her own
+babes?  You might as well set before us as a model Milton's Satan.
+
+Just so.  Remember first, nevertheless, the old maxim, that the best,
+when corrupted, is the worst; that the higher the nature, when used
+aright in its right place, the baser it becomes when used wrongly, in its
+wrong place.  When Satan fell from his right place, said the old Jews, he
+became, remember, not a mere brute: but worse, a fiend.  There is a deep
+and true philosophy in that.  As long as he was what he was meant to
+be--the servant of God--he was an archangel and more; the fairest of all
+the sons of the morning.  When he rebelled; when in pride and self-will
+he tore himself--his person--away from that God in whom he lived and
+moved and had his being: the personality remained; he could still, like
+Medea, fall back, even when he knew that he had rebelled against his
+Creator, on his indomitable self, and reign a self-sufficing king, even
+in the depths of hell.
+
+But the very strength and richness of that personality made him, like
+Medea, only the more capable of evil.  He stood, that is, his moral
+health endured, only by loyalty to God.  When he lost that, he fell; to
+moral disease: disease the vaster, the vaster were his own capacities.
+
+And so it is with you, and me, and every soul of man.  Only by loyalty to
+God can this undying I, this self, this person, which each of us has--or
+rather which each of us is--be anything but a torment and a curse; the
+more terrible to us, and those around us, the stronger and the richer are
+the nature and faculties through which it works.
+
+Wouldest thou not be a curse unto thy self?  Then cry with him who wrote
+the 119th Psalm--I am Thine.  Oh save the me, whom Thou, O God, hast
+made.
+
+For he who wrote that psalm had an intense conviction of his own
+personality.  I, and me, are words for ever in his mouth: but not in self-
+satisfied conceit; nor in self-tormenting superstition, crying
+perpetually, Shall I be saved? shall I be lost?  No.  Faith in God
+delivers him from either of these follies.  He is forced to think of
+self.  Sad, persecuted, seemingly friendless, he is alone with self: yet
+not alone.  For at every moment he is referring himself to his true place
+in the universe; to God; God's law, God's help.  The burden of self--of
+mingled responsibility and weakness--is to him past bearing.  It would be
+utterly past bearing, if he could not cast it down, at least at moments,
+at the foot of the throne of God, and cry, I am Thine.  Oh save me.
+
+And if any should ask--as has been asked ere now--But is there not in
+this tone of mind something undignified, something even abject? thus to
+cry for help, instead of helping oneself? thus to depend on another
+being, instead of bearing stoically with manly independence?  I
+answer--The Psalmist does bear stoically, just because he cries for help.
+For the old Stoics cried for help; the earlier and truer-hearted of them,
+at least.  Some here, surely, have read Epictetus, the heathen whose
+thought most exactly coincides with that of the Psalmist.  If so, do they
+not see what enabled him, the slave of Nero's minion, to assert himself,
+and his own unconquerable personality; to defy circumstance; and to
+preserve his own calm, his own honour, his own purity, amid a degradation
+which might well have driven a good man to suicide?  And was it not
+this--The intensity of his faith in God?  In God the helper, God the
+guide?
+
+If any man here have learnt, to his own loss, to undervalue the
+experience of prophets, psalmists, apostles: then let him turn to
+Epictetus the heathen; and learn from that heroic slave, that the true
+dignity of man lies in true faith in God.
+
+Nay more.  It is a serious question, whether ungodliness--by which I
+mean, as the Psalmist means, the assertion of self, independent of
+God--whether ungodliness, I say, is ever dignified; whether, as has been
+often said, Milton's still dignified Satan is not an impossible
+character; whether Goethe's utterly undignified Mephistopheles is not the
+true ideal of an utterly evil spirit.  Ungodliness, as we see it
+manifested in human beings, may be repulsive, as in the mere ruffian,
+whose mouth is filled with cursing, and his feet swift to shed blood.  It
+may, again, be pitiable, as in those human butterflies, who live only to
+enjoy, or to minister to, what they call luxury and fashion.  And it may
+be again--when it calmly and deliberately asserts itself to be a
+philosophy, and an explanation of man and of the universe, and gives
+itself magisterial airs, however courteously and kindly--it may be then,
+I dare to think, a little ludicrous.
+
+But as for its dignity, I leave to you to say which of the two beings is
+the more dignified, which the more abject--a little organism of flesh and
+blood, at most not more than six feet high, liable to be destroyed by a
+tile off the roof, or a blast of foul gas, or a hundred other accidents;
+standing self-poised and self-complacent in the centre of such an
+universe as this, and asserting that it acknowledges no superior, and
+needs no guide--or the same being, awakened to the mystery of his own
+actual weakness, his possible strength; his own actual ignorance, his
+possible wisdom; his own actual sinfulness, his possible holiness: and
+then; by a humility which is the highest daring; by a self-distrust which
+is the truest self-assertion, vindicating the divine element within, by
+taking personal and voluntary service under no less a personage than Him
+who made him; and crying directly to the Creator of sun and stars and all
+the universe--I am Thine.  Oh save the me which Thou hast made?
+
+Make up your own minds, make up your minds, which of the two figures is
+the more abject, which the more dignified.  For me, I have had too good
+cause, long since, to make up mine.
+
+And if you wish to judge further for yourselves, whether the teaching of
+the Psalmist is more likely to produce an abject or a dignified
+character, I advise you to ponder carefully a certain singular--I had
+almost said unique--educational document, written by men who had
+thoroughly imbibed the teaching of this psalm; a document which, the
+oftener I peruse it, arouses in me more and more admiration; not only for
+its theology, but for its knowledge of human nature; and not only for
+what it does, but for what it does not, say.  I mean the Catechism of the
+Church of England.
+
+You will remark at first sight, that it does not affect to teach the
+child; with one remarkable exception to be hereafter noticed.  It does
+not tell the child--You should do this, you should not do that.
+
+It is strictly an Educational Catechism.  It tries to educe--that is,
+draw out--what is in the child already; its own native instincts and
+native conscience.  Therefore it makes the child speak for itself.  It
+makes each child feel that he or she is an I; a person, a responsible
+soul.  It begins--What is your name?  It makes the child confess that it
+has a name, as a sign that it is a person, a self, a soul, different from
+all other persons in earth or heaven; and that its name was given it at
+baptism, for a sign that God made it a person, and wishes it to know that
+it is a person, and will teach it how to be a true person, and a good
+person.  It teaches the child to say--I, and me, not in fear and dread,
+like those heathen of whom I spoke just now, but with manly confidence,
+and self-respect, and gratitude to God who has made it a person, and an
+immortal soul.
+
+To say--I am a person; and in order that I might be a right kind of
+person, and not a wrong kind, I was made a member of Christ, a child of
+God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.
+
+To say--I am a person; and that I may be a right kind of person, I must
+know and believe certain things concerning God Himself, Father, Son, and
+Holy Ghost.  I am a person; and that I may be a right kind of person, I
+must keep certain commandments and do certain duties toward God, and my
+parents, and my Queen, and my country, and my neighbour, and all toward
+whom I am responsible for right behaviour.
+
+And then, and only then, after it has made the child say all this for
+itself and about itself, the Catechism does begin to teach; and in a few
+very short words, tell the child about that which is not itself--
+
+"My good child, know this, that thou art not able to do these things of
+thyself, nor to walk in the Commandments of God, and to serve Him,
+without His special grace; which thou must learn at all times to call for
+by diligent prayer."
+
+Now consider these words.  There is comfort and strength in them; comfort
+for the child; comfort for you, and me, and every human being who has
+awakened to the sense of his own personal responsibility, and finds it
+too often a burden heavier than he--and, alas, often, she--can bear.
+
+The Catechism tells the child that it must not merely know doctrines
+about God, or do duties to God; but more: that it is alone with God
+Himself, face to face with God Himself day and night.  But that therefore
+it is to dread God, and look up to God as a taskmaster and tyrant, and
+try to hide from God's awful eye, and forget God, and forget itself--if
+it can?--God forbid; God forbid.  The Catechism leaves such teaching for
+those Pharisees who tell little children that unless they are converted,
+and become as them, they shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of
+heaven.  The Catechism says, My good child--not, My bad child--know this.
+Know that thou art weak: but know that God is strong; and look up to Him
+as the Father of all fathers, the Teacher of all teachers, the Helper of
+all helpers, the Friend of all friends, who has I called thee unto His
+kingdom of grace, that He might shew thee graciousness; and make thee
+gracious and graceful in all thy thoughts, and works, and ways: and,
+therefore, far from trying to hide from Him, call on Him with diligent
+prayer.  For the Father of all fathers is the Father of thy soul, the Son
+of all sons died for thee upon the Cross, the Holy Spirit of all holy
+spirits will make thee a holy spirit and person, even as He is a Holy
+Spirit and Person Himself.
+
+Believing those words, no one will dare to forget to say his prayers.  For
+when he prays, he is indeed a person.  He is himself; and not ashamed,
+however sinful, to be himself; and to tell God about himself.  Oh, think
+of that.  You, each of you, have a right, as God's children, to speak to
+the God who made the universe.  Therefore be sure, that when you dislike
+to say your prayers, it is because you do not like to be what you are, a
+person; and prefer--ah foolish soul--to be a thing, and an animal.
+
+Believing those words, no man need long to forget himself, to escape from
+himself.  He can lift up himself to God who made him, with reverence, and
+fear, and yet with gratitude and trust, and say--
+
+I, Lord, am I; and what I am--a very poor, pitiful, sinful person.  But
+Thou, Lord, art Thou; and what Thou art--happily for me, and for the
+whole universe--Perfect.  Thou art what Thou oughtest to be--Goodness
+itself.  And therefore Thou canst, and Thou wilt, make me what I ought to
+be at last, a good person.  To thee, O Lord, I can bring the burden of
+this undying I, which I carry with me, too often in shame and sadness,
+and ask Thee to help me to bear it; saying--"Thou knowest, Lord, the
+secrets of our hearts.  Shut not Thy merciful ears to our prayers: but
+spare us, O Lord most Holy, O God most Mighty, Thou worthy Judge Eternal,
+and suffer us not, for any temptation of the world, the flesh or the
+devil, to fall from Thee."  Guide me, teach me, strengthen me, till I
+become such a person as Thou wouldst have me be; pure and gentle,
+truthful and high-minded, brave and able, courteous and generous, dutiful
+and useful, like Thy Son Jesus Christ when He increased not only in
+stature, but in favour with God and man.
+
+To which may God in His mercy bring us all!  Amen.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XVI.  THE CEDARS OF LEBANON.
+
+
+PSALM CIV. 16.
+
+   The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which He
+   hath planted.
+
+Let me say a few words this afternoon about the noble 104th Psalm, which
+was read this afternoon, as it is now in many churches, and most wisely
+and rightly, as the Harvest Psalm.  It is a fit psalm for a service in
+which we thank God for such harvest as He has thought best to send us,
+whether it be above or below the average.  But it is also a fit psalm to
+be thought earnestly over just now, considering the turn which men's
+minds are taking more and more in these times in which it has pleased God
+that we should live.  For we have lost, all of us, unlearned as well as
+learned, the old superstitious notions about this world around us which
+our forefathers held for many hundred years.  No rational person now
+believes that witches can blight crops or cattle, or that evil spirits
+cause storms.  No one now believes that nymphs and fairies live in
+fountains or in trees; or that the spirits of the planets rule the fates
+of men.  That old belief is gone, for good and for evil, and it was good
+that it should go; for it was false: and falsehoods can do no good, but
+only harm, to any man, in body and in soul alike.  It has died out
+quickly and strangely.  Some say that modern science has destroyed it.  I
+can hardly agree to that: for it has died out--and that almost since my
+own recollection and under my own eyes--in the minds of country people,
+who know nothing of science.  I had rather say--as I presume the man who
+wrote the 104th Psalm would have said--The Lord has taken the belief out
+of men's hearts and minds.  And I cannot but hope that He has taken it
+away, and allows us to believe no more in demons and fairies ruling the
+world around us, in order that we may believe in Him, and nothing but
+Him, the true Ruler of the world; in Him of whom it is written, "Him
+shalt thou worship, and Him only shalt thou serve;" even God the Father,
+of whom are all things, and God the Son, by whom are all things, and God
+the Holy Spirit, who is the Lord and Giver of life, alike to sun and
+stars over our heads, and to the meanest weed and insect under our feet;
+the Lord and Giver of life alike to matter and spirit, soul and body,
+worm and man, and angel and archangel before the throne of God.  I hope
+it is so.  I trust it is so.  For we never had more need than now to
+believe with all our hearts in the living God; to take into all our
+hearts the teaching of the 104th Psalm.  For now that we have given up
+believing in superstitions, we are in danger of going to the other
+extreme, and believing in nothing at all which we cannot see with our
+eyes, and handle with our hands.  Now that we have given up believing in
+the fabled supernatural; in ghosts, fairies, demons, witches, and such-
+like: we are in danger of giving up believing in the true and eternal
+supernatural, which is the Holy Spirit of God, by whom the whole creation
+is kept alive and sound.  We are in danger of falling into a low, stupid,
+brutish view of this wonderful world of God in which we live; in danger
+of thinking of nature--that is, of the things which we can see and
+handle--only as something of which we can make use--till we fall as low
+as that poor ruffian, of whom the poet says:
+
+   A primrose on the river's brim
+   A yellow primrose was to him,
+      And it was nothing more.
+
+Lower, that is, than even our own children, whom God has at least taught
+to admire and love the primroses for their beauty--as something precious
+and divine, quite independent of their own emotions about them.  Men in
+these days are but too likely to fall into the humour of those poor
+savages, of whom one who knows them well said to me once--bitterly but
+truly--that when a savage sees anything new, however wonderful or
+beautiful, he has but two thoughts about it; first--Will it hurt me? and
+next--Can I eat it?  And from that truly brutish view of God's world, we
+shall be delivered, I believe, only by taking in with our whole hearts
+the teaching of the 104th Psalm; which is indeed the teaching of all Holy
+Scripture throughout.
+
+The Psalmist, in the passage which I have chosen, is talking of the
+circulation of water on the earth; how wisely and well it is ordered; how
+the vapours rise off the sea, till the waters stand above the mountain-
+tops, to be brought down in thunder-storms--for in his country, as in
+many hot ones, thunder was generally needed, at the end of the dry
+season, to bring down the rain; how it forms springs in the highland, and
+flows down from thence in brooks and rivers, making the whole lowland
+green and fertile.  Well--all very true, you may say.  But that is simply
+a matter of science, or indeed of common observation and common sense.  It
+is not a subject for a psalm or for a sermon.
+
+True: in the words in which I have purposely put it.  But not in the
+words in which the Psalmist puts it; and which I purposely left out, to
+shew you just the difference between even the soundest science, and
+faith.  He brings in another element, which is the true cause of the
+circulation of water; and that is, none other but Almighty God.
+
+This is the way in which the inspired Psalmist puts it; and this is the
+truth of it all; this is the very kernel and marrow and life and soul of
+it all: while the facts which I told you just now are the mere shell and
+dead skeleton of it--"_Thou_ sendest the springs into the rivers."
+
+Thou art the Lord of the lightning and of the clouds, the Lord of the
+highlands and of the lowlands, and the Lord of the rainfall and of the
+drought, the Lord of good seasons and of bad, of rich harvests and of
+scanty.  They, like all things, obey Thine everlasting laws; and of them,
+whatever may befal, poor purblind man can say in faith and hope--"It is
+the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good."
+
+Yes.  He was not of course a man of science, in the modern sense of the
+word, this old Psalmist.  But this I know, that he was a man of science
+in the soundest and deepest sense; an inspired philosopher, as well as an
+inspired poet; and had the highest of all sciences, which is the science
+and knowledge of the living God.  For he saw God in everything and
+everything in God.
+
+But--he says--the trees of the Lord are full of sap; even the cedars of
+Lebanon which He hath planted.  Why should he say that specially of the
+cedars?  Did not God make all trees?  Does He not plant all wild trees,
+and every flower and seed?  My dear friends, happy are you if you believe
+that in spirit and in truth.  But let me tell you that I think you would
+not have believed that, unless the Psalmist, and others who wrote the
+Holy Scriptures, had told you about trees of God, and rivers of God, and
+winds of God, and had taught you that the earth is the Lord's and the
+fulness thereof.  You do not know--none of us can know--how much we owe
+to the Bible for just and rational, as well as orthodox and Christian,
+notions of the world around us.  We, and--thank God--our forefathers for
+hundreds of years, have drunk in Bible thoughts, as it were, with our
+mother's milk; till much that we have really learnt from the Bible we
+take as a matter of course, as self-evident truths which we have found
+out for ourselves by common sense.
+
+And yet, so far from that being the case, if it had not been for the
+Bible, we might be believing at this moment, that one god made one tree,
+and another another; that one tree was sacred to one god, and another
+flower to another goddess, as the old Greeks believed; and that the wheat
+and barley were the gift, and therefore the property, of some special
+deity; and be crying now in fear and trembling to the sun-god, or the
+rain-god, or some other deified power of nature, because we fancied that
+they were angry with us, and had therefore sent us too much rain and a
+short harvest.
+
+It is difficult, now-a-days, to make even cultivated people understand
+the follies of those who, like the heathen round the Jews, worshipped
+many gods: and all the more because our modern folly runs in a different
+channel; because we are tempted, not to believe in many gods, but in no
+God at all; to believe not that one god made one thing and another
+another, but that all things have made themselves.
+
+When Hiram, king of Tyre, sent down timber cut from the cedars of
+Lebanon, to build the temple of God for Solomon; his heathen workmen,
+probably, were angry and terrified at what they were doing.  They said
+among themselves--"These cedars belong to Baal, or to Melkart, the gods
+of Tyre.  Our king has no right to send them to build the temple of
+Jehovah, the God of the Jews.  It is a robbery, and a sacrilege; and Baal
+will be angry with us; and curse us with drought and blight."
+
+But now-a-days men say--"The cedars of Lebanon are not God's trees, nor
+are any other trees.  They belong to nature."  Now I believe in nature no
+more than I do in Baal.  Nature is merely things--a great many things it
+is true, but only things--and when I add them all up together, and call
+them nature, as if they were one thing, I make an abstraction of them.
+There is no harm in that: but if I treat that abstraction as if it really
+existed, and did anything, then I make of it an idol, the which I have no
+mind to do.  I believe, I say, in nature no more than I do in Baal.  Both
+words were at first symbols; and both have become in due course of time
+mere idols.  But those who worship nature and not God, say now--God did
+not make trees; they were made by the laws of nature and nothing else.
+Well: I believe that the so-called philosophers who say that, will be
+proved at last to be no more right, and no more rational, than those
+heathen workmen of Tyre.  But meanwhile, what the Psalmist says, and what
+the Bible says, is--Those trees belong to God.  He made them, He made all
+things; the sap--the mysterious life in them, by which each grows and
+seeds according to its kind--is His gift.  Their growth is ordered by
+Him; and so are all things in earth and heaven.
+
+Then why speak of them especially as trees of God?  Because, my friends,
+we can only find out that something is true of many things, by finding
+out that it is true of one thing; and that we usually find out by some
+striking instance; some case about which there can be no mistake.  And
+these cedars of Lebanon were, and are still, such a striking instance,
+which there was no mistaking.  Upon the slopes of the great snow-mountain
+of Lebanon stood those gigantic cedar-trees--whole forests of them
+then--now only one or two small groups, but awful, travellers tell us,
+even in their decay.  Whence did they come?  There are no trees like them
+for hundreds, I had almost said for thousands, of miles.  There are but
+two other patches of them left now on the whole earth, one in the Atlas,
+one in the Himalaya.  The Jews certainly knew of no trees like them; and
+no trees either of their size.  There were trees among them then,
+probably, two and three hundred feet in height; trees whose tops were as
+those minster towers; whose shafts were like yonder pillars; and their
+branches like yonder vaults.  No king, however mighty, could have planted
+them up there upon the lofty mountain slopes.  The Jew, when he entered
+beneath the awful darkness of these cedars; the cedars with a shadowy
+shroud--as the Scripture says--the cedars high and lifted up, whose tops
+were among the thick boughs, and their height exalted above all the trees
+of the field; fair in their greatness; their boughs multiplied, and their
+branches long--for it is in such words of awe and admiration that the
+Bible talks always of the cedars--then the Jew said, "God has planted
+these, and God alone."  And when he thought, not merely of their grandeur
+and their beauty, but of their use; of their fragrant and incorruptible
+timber, fit to build the palaces of kings, and the temples of gods; he
+said--and what could he say better?--"These are trees of God;" wonderful
+and glorious works of a wonderful and a glorious Creator.  If he had not,
+he would have had less reason in him, and less knowledge of God, than the
+Hindoos of old; who when they saw the other variety of the cedar growing,
+in like grandeur, on the slopes of the Himalaya, called them the
+Deodara--which means, in the old Sanscrit tongue, neither more nor less
+than "the timber of God," "the lance of God"--and what better could they
+have said?
+
+My friends, I speak on this matter from the fulness of my heart.  It has
+happened to me--through the bounty of God, for which I shall be ever
+grateful--to have spent days in primeval forests, as grand, and far
+stranger and far richer than that of Lebanon and its cedars; amid trees
+beside which the hugest tree in Britain would be but as a sapling;
+gorgeous too with flowers, rich with fruits, timbers, precious gums, and
+all the yet unknown wealth of a tropic wilderness.  And as I looked up,
+awestruck and bewildered, at those minsters not made by hands, I found
+the words of Scripture rising again and again unawares to my lips, and
+said--Yes: the Bible words are the best words, the only words for such a
+sight as this.  These too are trees of God which are full of sap.  These,
+too, are trees, which God, not man, has planted.  Mind, I do not say that
+I should have said so, if I had not learnt to say so from the Bible.
+Without the Bible I should have been, I presume, either an idolater or an
+atheist.  And mind, also, that I do not say that the Psalmist learnt to
+call the cedars trees of God by his own unassisted reason.  I believe the
+very opposite.  I believe that no man can see the truth of a thing unless
+God shews it him; that no man can find out God, in earth or heaven,
+unless God condescends to reveal Himself to that man.  But I believe that
+God did reveal Himself to the Psalmist; did enlighten his reason by the
+inspiration of His Holy Spirit; did teach him, as we teach a child, what
+to call those cedars; and, as it were, whispered to him, though with no
+audible voice: "Thou wishest to know what name is most worthy whereby to
+call those mighty trees: then call them trees of God.  Know that there is
+but one God, of whom are all things; and that they are His trees; and
+that He planted them, to shew forth His wisdom, His power, and His good
+will to man."
+
+And do you fancy that because the Jew called the great cedars trees of
+God, that therefore he thought that the lentiscs and oleanders, by the
+brook outside, were not God's shrubs; or the lilies and anemones upon the
+down below were not God's flowers?  Some folk have fancied so.--It seems
+to me most unreasonably.  I should have thought that here the rule stood
+true; that that which is greater contains the less; that if the Psalmist
+knew God to be mighty enough to make and plant the cedars, he would think
+Him also mighty enough to make and plant the smallest flower at his feet.
+I think so.  For I know it was so with me.  My feeling that those
+enormous trees over my head were God's trees, did not take away in the
+least from my feeling of God's wisdom and power in the tiniest herb at
+their feet.  Nay rather, it increased my feeling that God was filling all
+things with life and beauty; till the whole forest,--if I may so speak in
+all humility, but in all honesty--from the highest to the lowest, from
+the hugest to the smallest, and every leaf and bud therein, seemed full
+of the glory of God.  And if I could feel that,--being the thing I am--how
+much more must the inspired Psalmist have felt it?  You see by this very
+psalm that he did feel it.  The grass for the use of cattle, and the
+green herb for men, and the corn and the wine and the oil, he says, are
+just as much God's making, and God's gift.  The earth is "filled," he
+says, "with the fruit of God's works."  Filled: not dotted over here and
+there with a few grand and wonderful things which God cares for, while He
+cares for nothing else: but filled.  Let us take the words of Scripture
+honestly in their whole strength; and believe that if the Psalmist saw
+God's work in the great cedars, he saw it everywhere else likewise.
+
+Nay, more: I will say this.  That I believe it was such teaching as that
+of this very 104th Psalm--teaching which runs, my friends, throughout the
+Old Testament, especially through the Psalmists and the Prophets--which
+enabled the Jews to understand our Lord's homely parables about the
+flowers of the field and the birds of the air.  Those of them at least
+who were Israelites indeed; those who did understand, and had treasured
+up in their hearts, the old revelation of Moses, and the Psalmists, and
+the Prophets; those who did still believe that the cedars were the trees
+of God, and that God brought forth grass for the cattle, and green herb
+for the service of men; and who could see God's hand, God's laws, God's
+love, working in them--those men and women, be sure, were the very ones
+who understood our Lord, when He said, "Consider the lilies of the field,
+how they grow.  They toil not, neither do they spin.  And yet I say unto
+you, that Solomon in all his glory was not compared unto one of these."
+
+And why should it not be so with you, townsfolk though you are?  Every
+Londoner has now, in the public parks and gardens, the privilege of
+looking on plants and flowers, more rich, more curious, more varied than
+meet the eye of any average countryman.  Then when you next avail
+yourselves of that real boon of our modern civilization, let me beg you
+not to forget the lesson which I have been trying to teach you.
+
+You may feel--you ought to feel--that those strange and stately
+semitropic forms are indeed plants of God; the work of a creative Spirit
+who delights to employ His Almighty power in producing ever fresh shapes
+of beauty--seemingly unnecessary, seemingly superfluous, seemingly
+created for the sake of their beauty alone--in order that the Lord may
+delight Himself in His works.  Let that sight make you admire and
+reverence more, not less, the meanest weed beneath your feet.  Remember
+that the very weeds in your own garden are actually more highly
+organized; have cost--if I may so say, with all reverence, but I can only
+speak of the infinite in clumsy terms of the finite--the Creator more
+thought, more pains, than the giant cedars of Lebanon, and the giant
+cypresses of California.  Remember that the smallest moss or lichen which
+clings upon the wall, is full of wonders and beauties, as inexplicable as
+unexpected; and that of every flower on your own window-sill the words of
+Christ stand literally true--that Solomon in all his glory was not
+arrayed as one of these: and bow your hearts and souls before the
+magnificent prodigality, the exquisite perfection of His work, who can
+be, as often as He will, greatest in that which is least, because to His
+infinity nothing is great, and nothing small; who hath created all
+things, and for His pleasure they are, and were created; who rejoices for
+ever in His own works, because He beholds for ever all that He makes, and
+it is very good.
+
+And then refresh your hearts as well as your brains--tired it may be, too
+often, with the drudgery of some mechanical, or merely calculating,
+occupation--refresh your hearts, I say, by lifting them up unto the Lord,
+in truly spiritual, truly heavenly thoughts; which bring nobleness, and
+trust, and peace, to the humblest and the most hardworked man.
+
+For you can say in your hearts--All the things which I see, are God's
+things.  They are thoughts of God.  God gives them law, and life, and
+use.  My heavenly Father made them.  My Saviour redeemed them with His
+most precious blood, and rules and orders them for ever.  The Holy Spirit
+of God, which was given me at my baptism, gives them life and power to
+grow and breed after their kinds.  The divine, miraculous, and
+supernatural power of God Himself is working on them, and for them,
+perpetually: and how much more on me, and for me, and all my children,
+and fellow-creatures for whom Christ died.  Without my Father in heaven
+not a sparrow falls to the ground: and am I not of more value than many
+sparrows?  God feeds the birds: and will He not feed me?  God clothes the
+lilies of the field: and will He not clothe me?  Ah, me of little faith,
+who forget daily that in God I live, and move, and have my being, and am,
+in spite of all my sins, the child of God.  Him I can trust in prosperous
+times, and in disastrous times; in good harvests and in bad harvests; in
+life and in death, in time and in eternity.  For He has given all things
+a law which cannot be broken.  And they continue this day as at the
+beginning, serving Him.  And if I serve Him likewise, then shall I be in
+harmony with God, and with God's laws, and with God's creatures, great
+and small.  The whole powers of nature as well as of spirit will be
+arrayed on my side in the struggle for existence; and all things will
+work together for good to those who love God.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XVII.  LIFE.
+
+
+PSALM CIV. 24, 28-30.
+
+   O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all:
+   the earth is full of Thy riches.
+
+   That Thou givest them they gather.  Thou openest Thine hand, they are
+   filled with good.  Thou hidest Thy face, they are troubled.  Thou
+   takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.  Thou
+   sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created: and Thou renewest the face
+   of the earth.
+
+What is the most important thing to you, and me, and every man?
+
+I suppose that most, if they answered honestly, would say--Life.  I will
+give anything I have for my life.
+
+And if some among you answered--as I doubt not some would--No: not life:
+but honour and duty.  There is many a thing which I would rather die than
+do--then you would answer like valiant and righteous folk; and may God
+give you grace to keep in the same mind, and to hold your good resolution
+to the last.  But you, too, will agree that, except doing your duty, life
+is the most important thing you have.  The mother, when she sacrifices
+her life to save her child, shews thereby how valuable she holds the
+child's life to be; so valuable that she will give up even her own to
+save it.
+
+But did you never consider, again--and a very solemn and awful thought it
+is--that this so important thing called life is the thing, above all
+other earthly things, of which we know least--ay, of which we know
+nothing?
+
+We do not know what death is.  We send a shot through a bird, and it
+falls dead--that is, lies still, and after a while decays again into the
+dust of the earth, and the gases of the air.  But what has happened to
+it?  How does it die?  How does it decay?  What is this life which is
+gone out of it?  No man knows.  Men of science, by dissecting and making
+experiments, which they do with a skill and patience which deserve not
+only our belief, but our admiration, will describe to us the phenomena,
+or outward appearances, which accompany death, and follow death.  But
+death itself--for want of what the animal has died--what has gone out of
+it--they cannot tell.  No man can tell; for that is invisible, and not to
+be discovered by the senses.  They are therefore forced to explain death
+by theories, which may be true, or false: but which are after all not
+death itself, but their own thoughts about death put into their own
+words.  Death no man can see: but only the phenomena and effects of
+death; and still more, life no man can see: but only the phenomena and
+effects of life.
+
+For if we cannot tell what death is, still more we cannot tell what life
+is.  How life begins; how it organizes each living thing according to its
+kind; and makes it grow; how it gives it the power of feeding on other
+things, and keeping up its own body thereby: of this all experiments tell
+us as yet nothing.  Experiment gives us, here again, the phenomena--the
+visible effects.  But the causes it sees not, and cannot see.
+
+This is not a matter to be discussed here.  But this I say, that
+scientific men, in the last generation or two, have learnt, to their
+great honour, and to the great good of mankind--everything, or almost
+everything, about it--except the thing itself; and that, below all facts,
+below all experiments, below all that the eye or brain of man can
+discover, lies always a something nameless, invisible, imponderable, yet
+seemingly omnipresent and omnipotent; retreating before the man of
+science deeper and deeper, the deeper he delves: namely, the life, which
+shapes and makes all phenomena, and all facts.  Scientific men are
+becoming more and more aware of this unknown force, I had almost said,
+ready to worship it.  More and more the noblest minded of them are
+becoming engrossed with that truly miraculous element in nature which is
+always escaping them, though they cannot escape it.  How should they
+escape it?  Was it not written of old--Whither shall I go from Thy
+presence? and whither shall I flee from Thy Spirit?
+
+What then can we know of this same life, which is so precious in most
+men's eyes?
+
+My friends, it was once said--That man's instinct was in all unknown
+matters to take refuge in God.  The words were meant as a sneer.  I, as a
+Christian, glory in them; and ask, Where else should man take refuge,
+save in God?  When man sees anything--as he must see hundreds of
+things--which he cannot account for; things mysterious, and seemingly
+beyond the power of his mind to explain: what safer, what wiser word can
+he say than--This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?
+God understands it: though I do not.  Be it what it may, it is a work of
+God.  From God it comes: by God it is ruled and ordered.  That at least I
+know: and let that be enough for me.  And so we may say of life.  When we
+are awed, and all but terrified, by the unfathomable mystery of life, we
+can at least take refuge in God.  And if we be wise, we shall take refuge
+in God.  Whatever we can or cannot know about it, this we know; that it
+is the gift of God.  So thought the old Jewish Prophets and Psalmists;
+and spoke of a breath of God, a vapour, a Spirit of God, which breathed
+life into all things.  It was but a figure of speech, of course: but if a
+better one has yet been found, let the words in which it has been written
+or spoken be shewn to me.  For to me, at least, they are yet unknown.  I
+have read, as yet, no wiser words about the matter than those of the old
+Jewish sages, who told how, at the making of the world, the Spirit, or
+breath, of God moved on the face of the waters, quickening all things to
+life; or how God breathed into man's nostrils the breath or spirit of
+life, and man became a living soul.
+
+And in the same temper does that true philosopher and truly inspired
+Psalmist, who wrote the 139th Psalm, speak of the Spirit or breath of
+God.  He considers his own body: how fearfully and wonderfully it is
+made; how God did see his substance, yet being imperfect; and in God's
+book were all his members written, which day by day were fashioned, while
+as yet there was none of them.  "Thou," he says, "O God, hast fashioned
+me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me.  Such knowledge is too
+wonderful and excellent for me; I cannot attain to it."  "But," he says
+to himself, "there is One Who has attained to it; Who does know; for He
+has done it all, and is doing it still: and that is God and the Spirit of
+God.  Whither"--he asks--"shall I go then from God's Spirit?  Whither
+shall I flee from God's presence?"  And so he sees by faith--and by the
+highest reason likewise--The Spirit of God, as a living, thinking, acting
+being, who quickens and shapes, and orders, not his mortal body merely,
+but all things; giving life, law, and form to all created things, from
+the heights of heaven to the depths of hell; and ready to lead him and
+hold him, if he took the wings of the morning and fled into the uttermost
+parts of the sea.
+
+And so speaks again he who wrote the 104th Psalm, and the text which I
+have chosen.  To him, too, the mystery of death, and still more the
+mystery of life, could be explained only by faith in God, and in the
+Spirit of God.  If things died, it was because God took away their
+breath, and therefore they returned to their dust.  And if things lived,
+it was because the Spirit of God, breathed forth, and proceeding, from
+God, gave them life.  He pictured to himself, I dare to fancy, what we
+may picture to ourselves--for such places have often been, and are now,
+in this world--some new and barren land, even as the very gravel on which
+we stand was once, just risen from the icy sea, all waste and lifeless,
+without a growing weed, an insect, even a moss.  Then, gradually, seeds
+float thither across the sea, or are wafted by the winds, and grow; and
+after them come insects; then birds; then trees grow up; and larger
+animals arrive to feed beneath their shade; till the once barren land has
+become fertile and rich with life, and the face of the earth is renewed.
+But by what?  "God," says the Psalmist, "has renewed the face of the
+earth."  True, the seeds, the animals came by natural causes: but who was
+the Cause of those causes?  Who sent the things thither, save God?  And
+who gave them life?  Who kept the life in floating seeds, in flying
+spores?  Who made that life, when they reached the barren shore, grow and
+thrive in each after their kind?  Who, but the Spirit of God, the Lord
+and Giver of life?  God let His Spirit proceed and go forth from Himself
+upon them; and they were made; and so He renewed the face of the earth.
+
+That, my good friends, is not only according to Scripture, but according
+to true philosophy.  Men are slow to believe it now: and no wonder.  They
+have been always slow to believe in the living God; and have made
+themselves instead dead gods--if not of wood and stone, still out of
+their own thoughts and imaginations; and talk of laws of nature, and long
+abstractions ending in ation and ality, like that "Evolution" with which
+so many are in love just now; and worship them as gods; mere words, the
+work of their own brains, though not of their own hands--even though they
+be--as many of them are--Evolution, I hold, among the rest--true and fair
+approximations to actual laws of God.  But before them, and behind them,
+and above them and below them, lives the Author of Evolution, and of
+everything else.  For God lives, and reigns, and works for ever.  The
+Spirit of God proceedeth from the Father and the Son, giving, evolving,
+and ruling the life of all created things; and what we call nature, and
+this world, and the whole universe, is an unfathomable mystery, and a
+perpetual miracle, The one Author and Ruler of which is the ever-blessed
+Trinity, of whom it is written--"The glorious majesty of the Lord shall
+endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in His works."
+
+I believe, therefore, that the Psalmist in the text is speaking, not
+merely sound doctrine but sound philosophy.  I believe that the simplest
+and the most rational account of the mystery of life is that which is
+given by the Christian faith; and that the Nicene Creed speaks truth and
+fact, when it bids us call the Holy Spirit of God the Lord and Giver of
+life.
+
+That this is according to the orthodox Catholic Faith there is no doubt.
+Many mistakes were made on this matter, in the early times of the Church,
+even by most learned and holy divines; as was to be expected, considering
+the mysteriousness of the subject.  They were inclined, often, to what is
+called Pantheism--that is, to fancy that all living things are parts of
+God; that God's Spirit is in them, as our soul is in our body, or as heat
+is in a heated matter; and to speak of God's Spirit as the soul and life
+of the world.
+
+But this is exactly what the Nicene Creed does not do.  It does not say
+that the Holy Spirit is life: but that He is the Lord and Giver of life--a
+seemingly small difference in words: but a most vast and important
+difference in meaning and in truth.
+
+The true doctrine, it seems to me, is laid down most clearly by the
+famous bishop, Cyril of Alexandria; who, whatever personal faults he
+had--and they were many--had doubtless dialectic intellect enough for
+this, and even deeper questions.  And he says--"The Holy Spirit moves all
+things that are moved; and holds together, and animates, and makes alive,
+the whole universe.  Nor is He another Nature different from the Father
+and the Son: but as He is in us; of the same nature and the same essence
+as they."  And so says another divine, Eneas of Gaza--"The Father, with
+the Son, sends forth the Holy Spirit; and inspiring with this Spirit all
+things, beyond sense and of sense--invisible and visible--fills them with
+power, and holds them together, and draws them to Himself."  And he prays
+thus to the Holy Spirit a prayer which is to my mind as noble as it is
+true--"O Holy Spirit, by whom God inspires, and holds together, and
+preserves all things, and leads them to perfection."  I quote such words
+to shew you that I am not giving you new fancies of my own: but simply
+what I believe to be the ancient, orthodox and honest meaning of that
+same Nicene Creed, which you just new heard; where it says that the Holy
+Spirit is the Lord and Giver of life; and the meaning of the 104th Psalm
+also, where it says--"Thou lettest Thy breath--Thy Spirit--go forth, and
+they shall be made, and Thou shall renew the face of the earth."
+
+And now--if anyone shall say--This may be all very true.  But what is it
+to me?  You are talking about nature; about animals and plants, and lands
+and seas.  What I come to church to hear of, is about my own soul--
+
+I should answer such a man--My good friend, you come to church to hear
+about God as well as about what you call your soul.  And any sound
+knowledge which you can learn about God, must be--believe me--of use to
+your immortal soul.  For if you have wrong notions concerning God: how
+can you avoid having wrong notions concerning your soul, which lives and
+moves and has its being in God?
+
+But look at it thus.  At least I have been speaking of the works of God.
+And are not you, too, a work of God?  The Lord shall rejoice in His
+works, even to the tiniest gnat that dances in the sun.  Is the Lord
+rejoicing in you?  I have said--Whither shall a man go from God's
+presence?  Are you forgetting or remembering God's presence?  And--Whither
+shall a man flee from God's Spirit?  Are you, O man, fleeing from God's
+Spirit, and forgetting His gracious inspirations; all pure and holy, and
+noble, and just and lovely and truly human, thoughts, in the whirl of
+pleasure, or covetousness, or ambition, or actual sin?  If so, look at
+the tiniest gnat which dances in the air, the meanest flower beneath your
+feet; and be ashamed, and fear, and tremble before the Living God, and
+before His Spirit.  For the gnat and the flower are doing their duty, and
+pleasing the Holy Spirit of God; and you are not doing your duty, and are
+grieving the Holy Spirit of God.  For simply: because that Spirit is the
+Spirit of God, He is a Holy Spirit, who tries to make you--O man and not
+animal--holy; a moral, and spiritual, and good being.  Because you are a
+moral and spiritual being, God's Spirit exercises over you a moral power
+which He does not exercise over the plants and animals.  He works not
+merely on your body and your brain: but on your heart and immortal soul.
+But if you choose to be immoral, when He is trying to keep you moral; if
+you choose to be carnal like the brutes, while He is trying to make you
+spiritual, like Jesus Christ, from whom He proceeds: then, oh then,
+tremble, and beware, and be ashamed before the very flowers which grow in
+your own garden-bed; for they fulfil the law which God has given them.
+They are what they ought to be, each after its kind.  But you are not
+what you ought to be, after your kind; which is a good man, or a good
+woman, or a good child.
+
+Oh beware lest the Lord should fulfil in you the awful words of this
+Psalm; lest He should hide His face from you, and you be troubled; and
+lest when He takes away your breath you should die, and turn again to
+your dust; and find, too late, that the wages of sin are death--death not
+merely of the body, but of the soul.  Rather repent, and amend, and
+remember that most blessed, and yet most awful fact--that God's Spirit is
+with you from your baptism until now, putting into your heart good
+desires, and ready to enable you--if you will--to bring those good
+desires to good effect: instead of leaving them only as good intentions,
+with which, says the too true proverb, hell is paved.
+
+So will be fulfilled in you the blessed words of the next verse--When
+Thou lettest Thy Spirit go forth, they shall be made; and Thou shalt
+renew the face of the earth--words which St Augustine of old applied to
+the work of God's Spirit on the souls of men.
+
+For well it is with us--as St Augustine says--when God takes away from us
+our own spirit, the spirit of pride and self-will and self-righteousness;
+and we see that we are but dust and ashes; worse than the animals, in
+that we have sinned, and they have not.  Confess--he says--thy weakness
+and thy dust: and then listen to what follows:--Thou shalt take away from
+them their own spirit; but Thou shalt send forth Thy Spirit on them, and
+they shall be made and created anew.  As the Apostle says, "We are God's
+own workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works."  And so--he
+says--God will indeed renew the face of the earth with converted and
+renewed men, who confess that they are not righteous in themselves, but
+made righteous by the grace of the Spirit of God; and so the Lord shall
+rejoice in His works; you will be indeed His work, and He will rejoice in
+you.
+
+Yes.  God will indeed rejoice in us, if we obey the godly inspirations of
+His Spirit.  But again, we shall rejoice in God; if we be but led by His
+Spirit into all truth, and thence into all righteousness.  Then we shall
+be in harmony with God, and with the whole universe of God.  We shall
+have our share in that perpetual worship which is celebrated throughout
+the universe by all creatures, rational and irrational, who are obeying
+the laws of their being; the laws of the Spirit of God, the Lord and
+Giver of life.  We shall take our part in that perpetual Hymn which calls
+on all the works of the Lord, from angels and powers, sun and stars,
+winds and seasons, seas and floods, trees and flowers, beasts and cattle,
+to the children of men, and the servants of the Lord, and the spirits and
+souls of the righteous, and the holy and humble men of heart--"O all ye
+works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for
+ever."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XVIII.  DEATH.
+
+
+PSALM CIV. 20, 21.
+
+   Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the
+   forest do creep forth.  The lions roar after their prey, and seek
+   their meat from God.
+
+Let me say a few words on this text.  It is one which has been a comfort
+to me again and again.  It is one which, if rightly understood, ought to
+give comfort to pitiful and tender-hearted persons.
+
+Have you never been touched by, never been even shocked by, the mystery
+of pain and death?  I do not speak now of pain and death among human
+beings: but only of that pain and death among the dumb and irrational
+creatures, which from one point of view is more pitiful than pain and
+death among human beings.
+
+For pain, suffering, and death, we know, may be of use to human beings.
+It may make them happier and better in this life, or in the life to come;
+if they are the Christians which they ought to be.  But of what use can
+suffering and death be to dumb animals?  How can it make them better in
+this life, and happier in the life to come?  It seems, in the case of
+animals, to be only so much superfluous misery thrown away.  Would to God
+that people would remember that, when they unnecessarily torment dumb
+creatures, and then excuse themselves by saying--Oh, they are not human
+beings; they are not Christians; and therefore it does not matter so
+much.  I should have thought that therefore it mattered all the more: and
+that just because dumb animals have, as far as we know, only this mortal
+life, therefore we should allow them the fuller enjoyment of their brief
+mortality.
+
+And yet, how much suffering, how much violent death, there is among
+animals.  How much?  The world is full of it, and has been full of it for
+ages.  I dare to say, that of the millions on millions of living
+creatures in the earth, the air, the sea, full one-half live by eating
+each other.  In the sea, indeed, almost every kind of creature feeds on
+some other creature: and what an amount of pain, of terror, of violent
+death that means, or seems to mean!
+
+We here, in a cultivated country, are slow to take in this thought.  We
+have not here, as in India, Africa, America, lion and tiger, bear and
+wolf, jaguar and puma, perpetually prowling round the farms, and taking
+their tithe of our sheep and cattle.  We have never heard, as the
+Psalmist had, the roar of the lion round the village at night, or seen
+all the animals, down to the very dogs, crowding together in terror,
+knowing but too well what that roar meant.  If we had; and had been like
+the Psalmist, thoughtful men: then it would have been a very solemn
+question to us--From whom the lion was asking for his nightly meal;
+whether from God, or from some devil as cruel as himself?
+
+But even here the same slaughter of animals by animals goes on.  The hawk
+feeds on the small birds, the small birds on the insects, the insects,
+many of them, on each other.  Even our most delicate and seemingly
+harmless songsters, like the nightingale, feed entirely on living
+creatures--each one of which, however small, has cost God as much
+pains--if I may so speak in all reverence--to make as the nightingale
+itself; and thus, from the top to the bottom of creation, is one chain of
+destruction, and pain, and death.
+
+What is the meaning of it all?  Ought it to be so, or ought it not?  Is
+it God's will and law, or is it not?  That is a solemn question; and one
+which has tried many a thoughtful, and tender, and virtuous soul ere now,
+both Christian and heathen; and has driven them to find strange answers
+to it, which have been, often enough, not according to Scripture, or to
+the Catholic Faith.
+
+Some used to say, in old times; and they may say again--This world, so
+full of pain and death, is a very ill-made world.  We will not believe
+that it was made by the good God.  It must have been made by some evil
+being, or at least by some stupid and clumsy being--the Demiurgus, they
+called him--or the world-maker--some inferior God, whom the good God
+would conquer and depose, and so do away with pain, and misery, and
+death.  A pardonable mistake: but, as we are bound to believe, a mistake
+nevertheless.
+
+Others, again, good Christians and good men likewise, have invented
+another answer to the mystery--like that which Milton gives in his
+'Paradise Lost.'  They have said--Before Adam fell there was no pain or
+death in the world.  It was only after Adam's fall that the animals began
+to destroy and devour each other.  Ever since then there has been a curse
+on the earth, and this is one of the fruits thereof.
+
+Now I say distinctly, as I have said elsewhere, that we are not bound to
+believe this or anything like it.  The book of Genesis does not say that
+the animals began to devour each other at Adam's fall.  It does not even
+say that the ground is cursed for man's sake now, much less the animals.
+For we read in Genesis ix. 21--"And the Lord said, I will not any more
+curse the ground for man's sake."  Neither do the Psalmists and Prophets
+give the least hint of any such doctrine.  Surely, if we found it
+anywhere, we should find it in this very 104th Psalm, and somewhere near
+the very verse which I have taken for my text.  But this Psalm gives no
+hint of it.  So far from saying that God has cursed His own works, or
+looks on them as cursed: it says--"The Lord shall rejoice in His works."
+
+Others will tell us that St Paul has said so, where he says that "by one
+man sin entered into the world, and death by sin."  But I must very
+humbly, but very firmly, demur to that.  St Paul shews that when he
+speaks of the world he means the world of men; for he goes on to say,
+"And so death passed upon all men, in that all have sinned."  By
+mentioning men, he excludes the animals; he excludes all who have not
+sinned: according to a sound rule of logic which lawyers know well.  What
+St Paul meant, I believe, is most probably this: that Adam, by sinning,
+lost his heavenly birthright; and put on the carnal and fleshly likeness
+of the animals, instead of the likeness of God in which he was created;
+and therefore, sowing to the flesh, of the flesh reaped corruption; and
+became subject to death even as the dumb beasts are.
+
+Be that as it may, we know--as certainly as we can know anything from the
+use of our own eyes and common sense--that long ages before Adam, long
+ages before men existed on this earth, the animals destroyed and ate each
+other, even as they are doing now.  We know that ages ago, in old worlds,
+long before this present world in which we live, the seas swarmed with
+sharks and other monsters, who not only died as animals do now, but who
+did devour--for there is actual proof of it--other living creatures; and
+that the same process went on on the land likewise.  The rocks and soils,
+for miles beneath our feet, are one vast graveyard, full of the skeletons
+of creatures, almost all unlike any living now, who, long before the days
+of Adam, and still more before the days of Noah, lived and died,
+generation after generation; and sought their meat--from whom--if not
+from God?
+
+Yes, that last is the answer--the only answer which can give a thoughtful
+and tender-hearted soul comfort, at the sight of so much pain and death
+on earth--In every unknown question, to take refuge in God.  And that is
+the answer which the inspired Psalmist gives, in the 104th Psalm--"The
+lions roaring after their prey do seek their meat from God."  And if they
+seek it from God, all must be right: we know not how; but He who made
+them knows.
+
+Consider, with respect and admiration, the manful, cheerful view of pain
+and death, and indeed of the whole creation, which the Psalmist has,
+because he has faith.  There is in him no sentimentalism, no complaining
+of God, no impious, or at least weak and peevish, cry of "Why hast Thou
+made things thus?"  He sees the mystery of pain and death.  He does not
+attempt to explain it: but he faces it; faces it cheerfully and manfully,
+in the strength of his faith, saying--This too, mysterious, painful,
+terrible as it may seem, is as it should be; for it is of the law and
+will of God, from whom come all good things; of The God in whom is light,
+and in Him is no darkness at all.  Therefore to the Psalmist the earth is
+a noble sight; filled, to his eyes, with the fruit of God's works.  And
+so is the great and wide sea likewise.  He looks upon it; "full of things
+creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts," for ever dying, for
+ever devouring each other.  And yet it does not seem to him a dreadful
+and a shocking place.  What impresses his mind is just what would impress
+the mind of a modern poet, a modern man of science; namely, the wonderful
+variety, richness, and strangeness of its living things.  Their natures
+and their names he knows not.  It was not given to his race to know.  It
+is enough for him that known unto God are all His works from the
+foundation of the world.  But one thing more important than their natures
+and their names he does know; for he perceives it with the instinct of a
+true poet and a true philosopher--"These all wait upon thee, O God, that
+Thou mayest give them meat in due season."
+
+But more.--"There go the ships;" things specially wonderful and
+significant to him, the landsman of the Judaean hills, as they were
+afterward to Muhammed, the landsman of the Arabian deserts.  And he has
+talked with sailors from those ships; from Tarshish and the far Atlantic,
+or from Ezion-geber and the Indian seas.  And he has heard from them of
+mightier monsters than his own Mediterranean breeds; of the Leviathan,
+the whale, larger than the largest ship which he has ever seen, rolling
+and spouting among the ocean billows, far out of sight of land, and
+swallowing, at every gape of its huge jaws, hundreds of living creatures
+for its food.  But he does not talk of it as a cruel and devouring
+monster, formed by a cruel and destroying deity, such as the old
+Canaanites imagined, when--so the legend ran--they offered up Andromeda
+to the sea-monster, upon that very rock at Joppa, which the Psalmist,
+doubtless, knew full well.  No.  This psalm is an inspired philosopher's
+rebuke to that very superstition; it is the justification of the noble
+old Greek tale, which delivers Andromeda by the help of a hero, taught by
+the Gods who love to teach Mankind.
+
+For what strikes the Psalmist is, again, exactly what would strike a
+modern poet, or a modern man of science: the strength and ease of the
+vast beast; its enjoyment of its own life and power.  It is to him the
+Leviathan, whom "God has made to play in the sea;" "to take his pastime
+therein."
+
+Truly this was a healthy-minded man; as all will be, and only they, who
+have full faith in the one good God, of whom are all things, both in
+earth and heaven.
+
+Then he goes further still.  He has looked into the face of life
+innumerable.  Now he looks into the face of innumerable death; and sees
+there too the Spirit and the work of God.
+
+   Thou givest to them; they gather:
+   Thou openest thy hand; they are filled with good:
+   Thou hidest thy face; they are troubled:
+   Thou takest away their breath; they die, and are turned again to their
+   dust.
+
+Poetry?  Yes: but, like all highest poetry, highest philosophy; and
+soundest truth likewise.  Nay, he goes further still--further, it may be,
+than most of us would dare to go, had he not gone before us in the
+courage of his faith.  He dares to say, of such a world as this--"The
+glory of the Lord shall endure for ever.  The Lord shall rejoice in His
+works."
+
+The glory of the Lord, then, is shewn forth, and endures for ever, in
+these animals of whom the Psalmist has been speaking, though they devour
+each other day and night.  The Lord rejoices in His works, even though
+His works live by each other's death.  The Lord shall rejoice in His
+works--says this great poet and philosopher.
+
+But what Lord, and what God?  Ah, my friends, all depends on the answer
+to that question.  "There be," says St Paul, "lords many, and gods many:"
+and since his time, men have made fresh lords and gods for themselves,
+and believed in them, and worshipped them, while they fancied that they
+were believing in the one true God, in the same God in whom the man
+believed who wrote the 104th Psalm.
+
+Do we truly believe in that one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
+
+Let me beg you to consider that question earnestly.  The Psalmist, when
+he talked of the Lord, did not mean merely what some people call the
+Deity, or the Supreme Being, or the Creator.  You will remark that I
+said--What.  I do not care to say, Whom, of such a notion; that is, of a
+God who made the world, and set it going once for all, but has never
+meddled with it; never, so to speak, looked at it since: so that the
+world would go on just the same, and just as well, if God thenceforth had
+ceased to be.  No: that is a dead God; an absentee God--as one said
+bitterly once.  But the Psalmist believed in the living God, and a
+present God, in whom we live and move and have our being; in a God who
+does not leave the world alone for a moment, nor in the smallest matter,
+but is always interested in it, attending to it, enforcing His own laws,
+working--if I may so speak in all reverence--and using the most pitifully
+insufficient analogy--working--I say--His own machinery; making all
+things work together for good, at least to those who love God; a God
+without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground, and in whose sight all
+the hairs of our heads are numbered.
+
+In one word, he believed in a living God.  If anyone had said to the
+Psalmist, as I have heard men say now-a-days--Of course we believe, with
+you, in a general Providence of God over the whole universe.  But you do
+not surely believe in special Providences?  That would be superstition.
+God governs the world by law, and not by special Providences.  Then I
+believe that the Psalmist would have answered--Laws?  I believe in them
+as much as you, and perhaps more than you.  But as for special
+Providences, I believe in them so much, that I believe that the whole
+universe, and all that has ever happened in it from the beginning, has
+happened by special Providences; that not an organic being has assumed
+its present form, after long ages and generations, save by a continuous
+series of special Providences; that not a weed grows in a particular
+spot, without a special Providence of God that it should grow there, and
+nowhere else; then, and nowhen else.  I believe that every step I take,
+every person I meet, every thought which comes into my mind--which is not
+sinful--comes and happens by the perpetual special Providence of God,
+watching for ever with Fatherly care over me, and each separate thing
+that He has made.
+
+And if a modern philosopher--or one so called--had said to him,--'This is
+unthinkable and inconceivable, and therefore cannot be.  I cannot "think
+of"--I cannot conceive a mind--or as I call it--"a series of states of
+consciousness," as antecedent to the infinity of processes simultaneously
+going on in all the plants that cover the globe, from scattered polar
+lichens to crowded tropical palms, and in all the millions of animals
+which roam among them, and the millions of millions of insects which buzz
+among them:'--Then the Psalmist would have answered him, I believe,--'If
+you cannot, my friend, I can.  And you must not make your power of
+thought and conception the measure of the universe, or even of other
+men's intellects; or say--"Because I cannot conceive a thing, therefore
+no man can conceive it, and therefore it does not exist."  But pray, O
+philosopher, if you cannot think and conceive of the omnipresence and
+omnipotence of God, what can you think and conceive?'
+
+Then if that philosopher had answered him--as some would now-a-days--'I
+can conceive that the properties of very different elements,--and
+therefore the infinite variety and richness of nature which I cannot
+conceive as caused by a God--that the properties--I say--of different
+elements result from differences of arrangement arising by the
+compounding and recompounding of ultimate homogeneous units'--Then, I
+think, the Psalmist would have replied, as soon as he had--like Socrates
+of old in a like case--recovered from the 'dizziness' caused by an
+eloquence so unlike his own--'Why, this proposition is far more
+"unthinkable" to me, and will be to 999 of 1000 of the human race, than
+mine about a God and a Providence.  Alas! for the vagaries of the mind of
+man.  When it wants to prove a pet theory of its own, it will strain at
+any gnat, and swallow any camel.'
+
+But again--if a philosopher of more reasonable mood had said to him--as
+he very likely would say--'This is a grand conception of God: but what
+proof have you of it?  How do you know that God does interfere, by
+special Providences, in the world around us; not only, as you say,
+perpetually: but even now and then, and at all?'
+
+Then the Psalmist, like all true Jews, would have gone back to a certain
+old story which is to me the most precious story, save one, that ever was
+written on earth; and have taken his stand on that.  He would have gone
+back--as the Scripture always goes back--to the story of Moses and the
+Israelites in Egypt, and have said--'Whatever I know or do not know about
+the Laws of nature, this I know--That God can use them as He chooses, to
+punish the wicked, and to help the miserable.  For He did so by my
+forefathers.  When we Jews were a poor, small, despised tribe of slaves
+in Egypt, The God who made heaven and earth shewed Himself at once the
+God of nature, and the God of grace.  For He took the powers of nature;
+and fought with them against proud Pharaoh and all his hosts; and shewed
+that they belonged to Him; and that He could handle them all to do His
+work.  He shewed that He was Lord, not only of the powers of nature which
+give life and health, but of those which give death and disease.  Nothing
+was too grand, nor too mean, for Him to use.  He took the lightning and
+the hail, and the pestilence, and the darkness, and the East wind, and
+the springtides of the Red sea; and He took also the locust-swarms, and
+the frogs, and the lice, and the loathsome skin-diseases of Egypt, and
+the microscopic atomies which turn whole rivers into blood, and kill the
+fish; and with them He fought against Pharaoh the man-God, the tyrant
+ruling at his own will in the name of his father the sun-God and of the
+powers of nature; till Egypt was destroyed, and Pharaoh's host drowned in
+the sea; And He brought out my forefathers with a mighty hand and an
+outstretched arm, because He had heard their cry in Egypt, and saw their
+oppression under cruel taskmasters, and pitied them, and had mercy on
+them in their slavery and degradation.'  That is my God--the old Psalmist
+would have said.  Not merely a strong God, or a wise God; but a good God,
+and a gracious God, and a just God likewise; a God who not only made
+heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein is, but who keepeth His
+promise for ever; who helpeth them to right who suffer wrong, and feedeth
+the hungry.
+
+Yes, my friends, it is this magnificent conception of God's living and
+actual goodness and justice, which the Psalmist had, which made him trust
+God about all the strange and painful things which he saw in the
+world--about, for instance, the suffering and death of animals; and
+say--'If the lion roaring after his prey seeks his meat, he seeks his
+meat from God: and therefore he ought to seek it, and he will find it.  It
+is all well: I know not why: but well it is, for it is the law and will
+of the good and righteous and gracious God, who brought His people out of
+the land of Egypt.  And that is enough for me.'
+
+Enough for him? and should it not be enough for us, and more than
+enough?--We know what the Psalmist knew not.  We know God to be more
+good, more righteous, more gracious than any Prophet or Psalmist could
+know.  We know that God so loved the world, that He spared not His only-
+begotten Son, but freely gave Him for us.  We know that the only-begotten
+Son Jesus Christ so loved the world that He stooped to be born and suffer
+as mortal man, and to die on the cross, even while He was telling men
+that not a sparrow fell to the ground without the knowledge of their
+heavenly Father, and bidding them see how God fed the birds and clothed
+the lilies of the field.  Ah, my friends, in this case, as in all cases,
+rest and comfort for our doubts and fears is to be found in one and the
+same place--at the foot of the Cross of Christ.  If we believe that He
+who hung upon that Cross is--as He is--the maker and ruler of the
+universe, the same from day to day and for ever: then we can trust Him in
+darkness as well as in light; in doubt as well as in certainty; in the
+face of pain, disease, and death, as well as in the face of joy, health,
+and life; and say--Lord, we know not, but Thou knowest.  Lord, we
+believe, help Thou our unbelief.  Make us sure that Thou, Lord, shalt
+save both man and beast.  For great are Thy mercies, O Lord; and the
+children of men shall put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings.
+
+Yes, my friends, this is, after all, a strange world, a solemn world, a
+world full of sad mysteries, past our understanding.  As was said once by
+the holiest of modern Englishmen, now gone home to his rest--whose bust
+stands worthily in yonder chapel--This is a world in which men must be
+sometimes sad who love God, and care for their fellow-men.
+
+But it is not over the dumb animals that we must mourn.  For they fulfil
+the laws of their being; and whatever meat they seek, they seek their
+meat from God.
+
+Rather must we mourn over those human beings who, being made in the
+likeness of God, and redeemed again into that likeness by our Lord Jesus
+Christ, and baptized into that likeness by the Holy Spirit, put on again
+of their own will the likeness of the beasts which perish; and find too
+often, alas! too late, that the wages of sin are death.
+
+Rather must we mourn for those human beings who do not fulfil the laws of
+their being: but break those laws by sin; till they are ground by them to
+powder.
+
+Rather must we mourn for those who seek their meat, not from God, but
+from the world and the flesh; and neglect the bread which cometh down
+from heaven, and the meat which endureth to eternal life, whereof the
+Lord who gives it said--Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His
+righteousness, and all other things shall be added unto you.
+
+Rather must we pray for ourselves, and for all we love, that God's Spirit
+of eternal life would raise us up, more and more day by day, out of the
+likeness of the old Adam, who was of the earth, earthy; of whom it is
+written that--like the animals--dust he was, and unto dust he must
+return; and would mould us into the likeness of the new Adam, who is the
+Lord from heaven, into the likeness of which it is written, that it is
+created after God's image, in righteousness and true holiness; the end of
+which is not death, but everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
+
+And so will be fulfilled in us the saying of the Psalmist; and the Lord
+shall rejoice in His works: for we too, not only body and soul, but
+spirit also, shall be the work of God; and God will rejoice in us, and we
+in God.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XIX.  SIGNS AND WONDERS.
+
+
+JOHN IV. 48-50.
+
+   Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not
+   believe.  The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child
+   die.  Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth.
+
+These words of our Lord are found in the Gospel for this day.  They are a
+rebuke, though a gentle one.  He reproved the nobleman, seemingly, for
+his want of faith: but He worked the miracle, and saved the life of the
+child.
+
+We do not know enough of the circumstances of this case, to know exactly
+why our Lord reproved the nobleman; and what want of faith He saw in him.
+Some think that the man's fault was his mean notion of our Lord's power;
+his wish that He should come down the hills to Capernaum, and see the boy
+Himself, in order to cure him; whereas he ought to have known that our
+Lord could cure him--as He did--at a distance, and by a mere wish, which
+was no less than a command to nature, and to that universe which He had
+made.
+
+I cannot tell how this may be: but of one thing I think we may be
+sure--That this saying of our Lord's is very deep, and very wide; and
+applies to many people, in many times--perhaps to us in these modern
+times.
+
+We must recollect one thing--That our Lord did not put forward the mere
+power of His miracles as the chief sign of His being the Son of God.  Not
+so: He declared His almighty power most chiefly by shewing mercy and
+pity.  Twice He refused to give the Scribes and Pharisees a sign from
+heaven.  "An evil and adulterous generation," He said, "seeketh after a
+sign: but there shall be no sign given them, but the sign of the prophet
+Jonas."  And what was that,--but a warning to repent, and mend their
+ways, ere it was too late?
+
+Now the slightest use of our common sense must tell us, that our Lord
+could have given a sign of His almighty power if He had chosen; and such
+a sign as no man, even the dullest, could have mistaken.  What prodigy
+could He not have performed, before Scribes and Pharisees, Herod, and
+Pontius Pilate?  "Thinkest thou," He said Himself, "that I cannot now
+pray to My Father, and He will send Me presently more than twelve legions
+of angels?"  Yet how did our Lord use that miraculous and almighty power
+of His?  Sparingly, and secretly.  Sparingly; for He used it almost
+entirely in curing the diseases of poor people; and secretly; for He used
+it almost entirely in remote places.  Jerusalem itself, recollect, was at
+best a remote city compared with any of the great cities of the Roman
+empire.  And even there He refused to cast Himself down from a pinnacle
+of the temple, for a sign and wonder to the Jews.  If He, the Lord of the
+world, had meant to convert the world by prodigious miracles, He would
+surely have gone to Rome itself, the very heart and centre of the
+civilized world, and have shewn such signs and wonders therein, as would
+have made the Caesar himself come down from his throne, and worship Him,
+the Lord of all.
+
+But no.  Our Lord wished for the obedience, not of men's lips, but of
+their hearts.  It was their hearts which He wished to win, that they
+might love Him--and be loyal to Him--for the sake of His goodness; and
+not fear and tremble before Him for the sake of His power.  And therefore
+He kept, so to speak, His power in the background, and put His goodness
+foremost; only shewing His power in miracles of healing and mercy; that
+so poor neglected, oppressed, hardworked souls might understand that
+whoever did not care for them, Christ their Lord did; and that their
+disease and misery were not His will; nor the will of His Father and
+their Father in heaven.
+
+But because, also, Christ was Lord of heaven and earth; therefore--if I
+may make so bold as to guess at the reason for anything which He did--He
+seems to have interfered as little as possible with those regular rules
+and customs of this world about us, which we now call the Laws of Nature.
+He did not offer--as the magicians of His time did offer--and as too many
+have pretended since to do--to change the courses of the elements, to
+bring down tempests or thunderbolts, to shew prodigies in the heaven
+above, and in the earth beneath.  Why should He?  Heaven and earth, moon
+and stars, fire and tempest, and all the physical forces in the universe,
+were fulfilling His will already; doing their work right well according
+to the law which He had given them from the beginning.  He had no need to
+disturb them, no need to disturb the growth of a single flower at His
+feet.
+
+Rather He loved to tell men to look at them, and see how they went well,
+because His Father in heaven cared for them.  To tell people to look, not
+at prodigies, comets, earthquakes, and the seeming exceptions of God's
+rule: but at the common, regular, simple, peaceful work of God, which is
+going on around us all day long in every blade of grass, and flower, and
+singing bird, and sunbeam, and shower.  To consider the lilies of the
+field how they grow: which toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say
+unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of
+these.--And the birds of the air: They sow not, neither reap, nor gather
+into barns; and yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.  How much more
+will He feed you, who can sow, and reap, and gather into barns?--O ye of
+little faith, who fancy always that besides sowing and reaping honestly,
+you must covet, and cheat, and lie, and break God's laws instead of
+obeying them; or else, forsooth, you cannot earn your living?  To see
+that the signs of God's Kingdom are not astonishing convulsions, terrible
+catastrophes and disorders: but order, and peace, and usefulness, in
+creatures which are happy, because they live according to the law which
+God has given them, and do their duty--that duty, of which the great poet
+of the English Church has sung--
+
+         Stern Lawgiver!  Thou yet dost wear
+            The Godhead's most benignant grace
+         Nor know we anything so fair
+            As is the smile upon thy face.
+         Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
+         And fragrance in thy footing treads;
+      Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,
+   And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.
+
+But men would not believe that in our Lord's time; neither would they
+believe it after His time.  Will they believe it even now?  They craved
+after signs and wonders; they saw God's hand, not in the common sights of
+this beautiful world; not in seed-time and harvest, summer and winter;
+not in the blossoming of flowers, and the song of birds: but only in
+strange portents, absurd and lying miracles, which they pretended had
+happened, because they fancied that they ought to have happened: and so
+built up a whole literature of _un_reason, which remains to this day, a
+doleful monument of human folly and superstition.
+
+But is not this too true of some at least of us in this very day?  Must
+not people now see signs and wonders before they believe in God?
+
+Do they not consider whatever is strange and inexplicable, as coming
+immediately from God?  While whatever they are accustomed to, or fancy
+that they can explain, they consider comes in what they call the course
+of nature, without God's having anything to do with it?
+
+If a man drops down dead, they say he died "by the hand of God," or "by
+the visitation of God:" as if any created thing or being could die, or
+live either, save by the will and presence of God: as if a sparrow could
+fall to the ground without our Father's knowledge.  But so it is; because
+men's hearts are far from God.
+
+If an earthquake swallowed up half London this very day, how many would
+be ready to cry, "Here is a visitation of God.  Here is the immediate
+hand of God.  Perhaps Christ is coming, and the end of the world at
+hand."  And yet they will not see the true visitation, the immediate hand
+of God, in every drop of rain which comes down from heaven; and returneth
+not again void, but gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater.  But
+so it always has been.  Men used to see God and His power and glory
+almost exclusively in comets, auroras, earthquakes.  It was not so very
+long ago, that the birth of monstrous or misshapen animals, and all other
+prodigies, as they were called, were carefully noted down, and talked of
+far and wide, as signs of God's anger, presages of some coming
+calamity.--Atheists while they are in safety, superstitious when they are
+in danger--Requiring signs and wonders to make them believe--Interested
+only in what is uncommon and seems to break God's laws--Careless about
+what is common, and far more wonderful, because it fulfils God's
+laws--Such have most men been for ages, and will be, perhaps, to the end;
+shewing themselves, in that respect, carnal and no wiser than dumb
+animals.
+
+For it is carnal, animal and brutish, and a sign of want of true
+civilization, as well as of true faith, only to be interested and
+surprised by what is strange; like dumb beasts, who, if they see anything
+new, are attracted by it and frightened by it, at the same time: but who,
+when once they are accustomed to it, and have found out that it will do
+them no harm, are too stupid to feel any curiosity or interest about it,
+though it were the most beautiful or the most wonderful object on earth.
+
+But I will tell you of a man after God's own heart, who was not like the
+dumb animals, nor like the ungodly and superstitious; because he was
+taught by the Spirit of God, and spoke by the Spirit of God.  One who saw
+no signs and wonders, and yet believed in God--namely, the man who wrote
+the 139th Psalm.  He needed no prodigies to make him believe.  The
+thought of his own body, how fearfully and wonderfully it was made, was
+enough to make him do that.  He looked on the perfect order and law which
+ruled over the development of his own organization, and said--"I will
+praise Thee.  For I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Marvellous are
+Thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well.  Thine eyes did see my
+substance, yet being imperfect; and in Thy Book were all my members
+written, which day by day were fashioned, when as yet there was none of
+them.  How dear are Thy counsels unto me, O God! how great is the sum of
+them!"
+
+And I will tell you of another man who needed no signs and wonders to
+make him believe--the man, namely, who wrote the 19th Psalm.  He looked
+upon the perfect order and law of the heavens over his head, and the mere
+sight of the sun and moon and stars was enough for him; and he said--"The
+heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament sheweth His handy-work.
+One day telleth another, and one night certifieth another.  There is
+neither speech nor language, where their voice is not heard among them."
+
+And I will tell you of yet another man who needed no signs and wonders to
+make him believe--namely, the man who wrote the 104th Psalm.  He looked
+on the perfect order and law of the world about his feet; and said,--"O
+Lord, how manifold are Thy works.  In wisdom hast Thou made them all: the
+earth is full of Thy riches.  So is the great and wide sea also, wherein
+are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.  These all
+wait upon Thee, that Thou mayest give them their meat in due season.  Thou
+givest to them; they gather.  Thou openest Thy hand; they are filled with
+good.  Thou hidest Thy face; they are troubled.  Thou takest away their
+breath, they die, and return to their dust.  Thou sendest forth Thy
+breath, they are created; and Thou renewest the face of the earth.  The
+glory of the Lord shall endure for ever.  The Lord shall rejoice in His
+works."
+
+My friends, let us all pray to God and to Christ, that They will put into
+our hearts the Spirit by which those psalms were written: that They will
+take from us the evil heart of unbelief, which must needs have signs and
+wonders, and forgets that in God we live and move and have our being.  For
+are we not all--even the very best of us--apt to tempt our Lord in this
+very matter?
+
+When all things go on in a common-place way with us--that is, in this
+well-made world, comfortably, easily, prosperously--how apt we all
+are--God forgive us--to forget God.  How we forget that on Him we depend
+for every breath we draw; that Christ is guarding us daily from a hundred
+dangers, a hundred sorrows, it may be from a hundred disgraces, of which
+we, in our own self-satisfied blindness, never dream.  How dull our
+prayers become, and how short.  We almost think, at times, that there is
+no use in praying, for we get all we want without asking for it, in what
+we choose to call the course of circumstances and nature.--God forgive
+us, indeed.
+
+But when sorrow comes, anxiety, danger, how changed we are all of a
+sudden.  How gracious we are when pangs come upon us--like the wicked
+queen-mother in Jerusalem of old, when the invaders drove her out of her
+cedar palace.  How we cry to the Lord then, and get us to our God right
+humbly.  Then, indeed, we feel the need of prayer.  Then we try to
+wrestle with God, and cry to Him--and what else can we do?--like children
+lost in the dark; entreat Him, if there be mercy in Him--as there is, in
+spite of all our folly--to grant some special providence, to give us some
+answer to our bitter entreaties.  If He will but do for us this one
+thing, then we will believe indeed.  Then we will trust Him, obey Him,
+serve Him, as we never did before.
+
+Ah, if there were in Christ any touch of pride or malice!  Ah, if there
+were in Christ aught but a magnanimity and a generosity altogether
+boundless!  Ah, if He were to deal with us as we have dealt with Him!  Ah,
+if He were to deal with us after our sins, and reward us according to our
+iniquities!
+
+If He refused to hear us; if He said to us,--You forgot me in your
+prosperity, why should I not forget you in your adversity?--What could we
+answer?  Would that answer not be just?  Would it not be deserved,
+however terrible?  But our hope and trust is, that He will not answer us
+so; because He is not our God only, but our Saviour; that He will deal
+with us as one who seeks and saves that which is lost, whether it knows
+that it is lost or not.
+
+Our hope is, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy; that
+because He is man, as well as God, He can be touched with the feeling of
+our infirmities; that He knoweth our frame, He remembereth of what we are
+made: else the spirit would fail before Him, and the souls which He has
+made.  So we can have hope, that, though Christ rebuke us, He will yet
+hear us, if our prayers are reasonable, and therefore according to His
+will.  And surely, surely, surely, if our prayers are for the improvement
+of any human being; if we are praying that we, or any human being, may be
+made better men and truer Christians at last, and saved from the
+temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil--oh then, then shall
+we not be heard?  The Lord may keep us long waiting, as He kept St Monica
+of old, when she wept over St Augustine's youthful sins and follies.  But
+He may answer us, as He answered her by the good bishop--"Be of good
+cheer.  It is impossible that the son of so many prayers should perish."
+And so, though He may shame us, in our inmost heart, by the
+rebuke--"Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe"--He will
+in the same breath grant our prayer, undeserved though His condescension
+be, and say--"Go in peace, thy son liveth."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XX.  THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD.
+
+
+LUKE XIII. 1-5.
+
+   There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans,
+   whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.  And Jesus
+   answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were
+   sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things?  I
+   tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.  Or
+   those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them,
+   think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?
+   I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
+
+This story is often used, it seems to me, for a purpose exactly opposite
+to that for which it is told.  It is said that because these Galilaeans,
+whom Pilate slew, and these eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell,
+were no worse than the people round them, that therefore similar
+calamities must not be considered judgments and punishments of God; that
+it is an offence against Christian charity to say that such sufferers are
+the objects of God's anger; that it is an offence against good manners to
+introduce the name of God, or the theory of a Divine Providence, in
+speaking of historical events.  They must be ascribed to certain brute
+forces of nature; to certain inevitable laws of history; to the passions
+of men, to chance, to fate, to anything and everything: rather than to
+the will of God.
+
+No man disagrees more utterly than I do with the latter part of this
+language.  But I cannot be astonished at its popularity.  It cannot be
+denied that the theory of a Divine Providence has been much misstated;
+that the doctrine of final causes has been much abused; that, in plain
+English, God's name has been too often taken in vain, about calamities,
+private and public.  Rational men of the world, therefore, may be excused
+for begging at times not to hear any more of Divine Providence; excused
+for doubting the existence of final causes; excused for shrinking,
+whenever they hear a preacher begin to interpret the will of God about
+this event or that.  They dread a repetition of the mistake--to call it
+by the very gentlest term--which priests, in all ages, have been but too
+ready to commit.  For all priesthoods--whether heathen or Christian,
+whether calling themselves priests, or merely ministers and
+preachers--have been in all ages tempted to talk as if Divine Providence
+was exercised solely on their behalf; in favour of their class, their
+needs, their health and comfort; as if the thunders of Jove never fell
+save when the priesthood needed, I had almost said commanded, them.  Thus
+they have too often arrogated to themselves a right to define who was
+cursed by God, which has too soon, again and again, degenerated into a
+right to curse men in God's name; while they have too often taught men to
+believe only in a Providence who interfered now and then on behalf of
+certain favoured persons, instead of a Providence who rules, always and
+everywhere, over all mankind.  But men have again and again reversed
+their judgments.  They have had to say--The facts are against you.  You
+prophesied destruction to such and such persons; and behold: they have
+not been destroyed, but live and thrive.  You said that such and such
+persons' calamities were a proof of God's anger for their sins.  We find
+them, on the contrary, to have been innocent and virtuous persons; often
+martyrs for truth, for humanity, for God.  The facts, we say, are against
+you.  If there be a Providence, it is not such as you describe.  If there
+be judgments of God, you have not found out the laws by which He judges:
+and rather than believe in your theory of Providence, your theory of
+judgments, we will believe in none.
+
+Thus, in age after age, in land after land, has fanaticism and bigotry
+brought forth, by a natural revulsion, its usual fruit of unbelief.
+
+But--let men believe or disbelieve as they choose--the warning of the
+Psalmist still stands true--"Be wise.  Take heed, ye unwise among the
+people.  He that nurtureth the heathen; it is He that teacheth man
+knowledge, shall He not punish?"  For as surely as there is a God, so
+surely does that God judge the earth; and every individual, family,
+institution, and nation on the face thereof; and judge them all in
+righteousness by His Son Jesus Christ, whom He hath appointed heir of all
+things, and given Him all power in heaven and earth; who reigns and will
+reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet.
+
+This is the good news of Advent.  And therefore it is well that in
+Advent, if we believe that Christ is ruling us, we should look somewhat
+into the laws of His kingdom, as far as He has revealed them to us; and
+among others, into the law which--as I think--He laid down in the text.
+
+Now I beg you to remark that the text, taken fully and fairly, means the
+very opposite to that popular notion of which I spoke in the beginning of
+my sermon.
+
+Our Lord does not say--Those Galilaeans were not sinners at all.  Their
+sins had nothing to do with their death.  Those on whom the tower fell
+were innocent men.  He rather implies the very opposite.
+
+We know nothing of the circumstances of either calamity: but this we
+know--That our Lord warned the rest of the Jews, that unless they
+repented--that is, changed their mind, and therefore their conduct, they
+would all perish in the same way.  And we know that that warning was
+fulfilled, within forty years, so hideously, and so awfully, that the
+destruction of Jerusalem remains, as one of the most terrible cases of
+wholesale ruin and horror recorded in history; and--as I believe--a key
+to many a calamity before and since.  Like the taking of Babylon, the
+fall of Rome, and the French Revolution, it stands out in lurid
+splendour, as of the nether pit itself, forcing all who believe to say in
+fear and trembling--Verily there is a God that judgeth the earth--and a
+warning to every man, class, institution, and nation on earth, to set
+their houses in order betimes, and bear fruit meet for repentance, lest
+the day come when they too shall be weighed in the balance of God's
+eternal justice, and found wanting.
+
+But another lesson we may learn from the text, which I wish to impress
+earnestly on your minds.  These Galilaeans, it seems, were no worse than
+the other Galilaeans: yet they were singled out as examples: as warnings
+to the rest.
+
+Believing--as I do--that our Lord was always teaching the universal
+through the particular, and in each parable, nay in each comment on
+passing events, laying down world-wide laws of His own kingdom, enduring
+through all time--I presume that this also is one of the laws of the
+kingdom of God.  And I think that facts--to which after all is the only
+safe appeal--prove that it is so; that we see the same law at work around
+us every day.  I think that pestilences, conflagrations, accidents of any
+kind which destroy life wholesale, even earthquakes and storms, are
+instances of this law; warnings from God; judgments of God, in the very
+strictest sense; by which He tells men, in a voice awful enough to the
+few, but merciful and beneficent to the many, to be prudent and wise; to
+learn henceforth either not to interfere with the physical laws of His
+universe, or to master and to wield them by reason and by science.
+
+I would gladly say more on this point, did time allow: but I had rather
+now ask you to consider, whether this same law does not reveal itself
+throughout history; in many great national changes, or even calamities;
+and in the fall of many an ancient and time-honoured institution.  I
+believe that the law does reveal itself; and in forms which, rightly
+studied, may at once teach us Christian charity, and give us faith and
+comfort, as we see that God, however severe, is still just.
+
+I mean this--The more we read, in history, of the fall of great
+dynasties, or of the ruin of whole classes, or whole nations, the more we
+feel--however much we may acquiesce with the judgment as a whole--sympathy
+with the fallen.  It is not the worst, but often the best, specimens of a
+class or of a system, who are swallowed up by the moral earthquake, which
+has been accumulating its forces, perhaps for centuries.  Innocent and
+estimable on the whole, as persons, they are involved in the ruin which
+falls on the system to which they belong.  So far from being sinners
+above all around them, they are often better people than those around
+them.  It is as if they were punished, not for being who they were, but
+for being what they were.
+
+History is full of such instances; instances of which we say and cannot
+help saying--What have they done above all others, that on them above all
+others the thunderbolt should fall?
+
+Was Charles the First, for example, the worst, or the best, of the
+Stuarts; and Louis the Sixteenth, of the Bourbons?  Look, again, at the
+fate of Sir Thomas More, Bishop Fisher, and the hapless monks of the
+Charterhouse.  Were they sinners above all who upheld the Romish system
+in England?  Were they not rather among the righteous men who ought to
+have saved it, if it could have been saved?  And yet on them--the purest
+and the holiest of their party--and not on hypocrites and profligates,
+fell the thunderbolt.
+
+What is the meaning of these things?--for a meaning there must be; and
+we, I dare to believe, must be meant to discover it; for we are the
+children of God, into whose hearts, because we are human beings and not
+mere animals, He has implanted the inextinguishable longing to ascertain
+final causes; to seek not merely the means of things, but the reason of
+things; to ask not merely How? but Why?
+
+May not the reason be--I speak with all timidity and reverence, as one
+who shrinks from pretending to thrust himself into the counsels of the
+Almighty--But may not the reason be that God has wished thereby to
+condemn not the persons, but the systems?  That He has punished them, not
+for their private, but for their public faults?  It is not the men who
+are judged, it is the state of things which they represent; and for that
+very reason may not God have made an example, a warning, not of the
+worst, but of the very best, specimens of a doomed class or system, which
+has been weighed in His balance, and found wanting?
+
+Therefore we need not suppose that these sufferers themselves were the
+objects of God's wrath.  We may believe that of them, too, stands true
+the great Law, "Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and scourgeth every
+son whom He receiveth."  We may believe that of them, too, stands true St
+Paul's great parable in 1 Cor. xii., which, though a parable, is the
+expression of a perpetually active law.  They have built, it may be, on
+the true foundation: but they have built on it wood, hay, stubble,
+instead of gold and precious stone.  And the fire of God, which burns for
+ever against the falsehoods and follies of the world, has tried their
+work, and it is burned and lost.  But they themselves are saved; yet as
+through fire.
+
+Looking at history in this light, we may justify God for many a heavy
+blow, and fearful judgment, which seems to the unbeliever a wanton
+cruelty of chance or fate; while at the same time we may feel deep
+sympathy with--often deep admiration for--many a noble spirit, who has
+been defeated, and justly defeated, by those irreversible laws of God's
+kingdom, of which it is written--"On whomsoever that stone shall fall, it
+will grind him to powder."  We may look with reverence, as well as pity,
+on many figures in history, such as Sir Thomas More's; on persons who,
+placed by no fault of their own in some unnatural and unrighteous
+position; involved in some decaying and unworkable system; conscious more
+or less of their false position; conscious, too, of coming danger, have
+done their best, according to their light, to work like men, before the
+night came in which no man could work; to do what of their duty seemed
+still plain and possible; and to set right that which would never come
+right more: forgetting that, alas, the crooked cannot be made straight,
+and that which is wanting cannot be numbered; till the flood came and
+swept them away, standing bravely to the last at a post long since
+untenable, but still--all honour to them--standing at their post.
+
+When we consider such sad figures on the page of history, we may have, I
+say, all respect for their private virtues.  We may accept every excuse
+for their public mistakes.  And yet we may feel a solemn satisfaction at
+their downfall, when we see it to have been necessary for the progress of
+mankind, and according to those laws and that will of God and of Christ,
+by which alone the human race is ruled.  We may look back on old orders
+of things with admiration; even with a touch of pardonable, though
+sentimental, regret.  But we shall not forget that the old order changes,
+giving place to the new;
+
+   And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
+   Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
+
+And we shall believe, too, if we be wise, that all these things were
+written for our example, that we may see, and fear, and be turned to the
+Lord, each asking himself solemnly, What is the system on which I am
+governing my actions?  Is it according to the laws and will of God, as
+revealed in facts?  Let me discover that in time: lest, when it becomes
+bankrupt in God's books, I be involved--I cannot guess how far--in the
+common ruin of my compeers.
+
+What is my duty?  Let me go and work at it, lest a night come, in which I
+cannot work.  What fruit am I expected to bring forth?  Let me train and
+cultivate my mind, heart, whole humanity to bring it forth, lest the
+great Husbandman come seeking fruit on me, and find none.  And if I see a
+man who falls in the battle of life, let me not count him a worse sinner
+than myself; but let me judge myself in fear and trembling; lest God
+judge me, and I perish in like wise.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XXI.  THE WAR IN HEAVEN.
+
+
+REV. XIX. 11-16.
+
+   And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat
+   upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth
+   judge and make war.  His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head
+   were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he
+   himself.  And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his
+   name is called The Word of God.  And the armies which were in heaven
+   followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and
+   clean.  And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he
+   should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron:
+   and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty
+   God.  And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING
+   OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
+
+Let me ask you to consider seriously this noble passage.  It was never
+more worth men's while to consider it than now, when various selfish and
+sentimental religions--call them rather superstitions--have made men
+altogether forget the awful reality of Christ's kingdom; the awful fact
+that Christ reigns, and will reign, till He has put all enemies under His
+feet.
+
+Who, then, is He of whom the text speaks?  Who is this personage, who
+appears eternally in heaven as a warrior, with His garments stained with
+blood, the leader of armies, smiting the nations, and ruling them with a
+rod of iron?
+
+St John tells us that He had one name which none knew save Himself.  But
+he tells us that He was called Faithful and True; and he tells us, too,
+that He had another name which St John did know; and that is, "The Word
+of God."
+
+Now who the Word of God is, all are bound to know who call themselves
+Christians; even Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary,
+crucified under Pontius Pilate, rose again the third day, ascended into
+heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God.
+
+He it is who makes everlasting war as King of kings and Lord of lords.
+But against what does He make war?  His name tells us that.  For it
+is--Faithful and True; and therefore He makes war against all things and
+beings who are unfaithful and false.  He Himself is full of chivalry,
+full of fidelity; and therefore all that is unchivalrous and treacherous
+is hateful in His eyes; and that which He hates, He is both able and
+willing to destroy.
+
+Moreover, He makes war in righteousness.  And therefore all men and
+things which are unrighteous and unjust are on the opposite side to Him;
+His enemies, which He will trample under His feet.  The only hope for
+them, and indeed for all mankind, is that He does make war in
+righteousness, and that He Himself is faithful and true, whoever else is
+not; that He is always just, always fair, always honourable and
+courteous; that He always keeps His word; and governs according to fixed
+and certain laws, which men may observe and calculate upon, and shape
+their conduct accordingly, sure that Christ's laws will not change for
+any soul on earth or in heaven.  But, within those honourable and
+courteous conditions, He will, as often as He sees fit, smite the
+nations, and rule them with a rod of iron; and tread the winepress of the
+fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
+
+And if any say--as too many in these luxurious unbelieving days will
+say--What words are these?  Threatening, terrible, cruel?  My answer
+is,--The words are not mine.  I did not put them into the Bible.  I find
+them there, and thousands like them, in the New Testament as well as in
+the Old, in the Gospels and Epistles as well as in the Revelation of St
+John.  If you do not like them, your quarrel must be, not with me, but
+with the whole Bible, and especially with St John the Apostle, who
+said--"Little children, love one another;" and who therefore was likely
+to have as much love and pity in his heart as any philanthropic, or
+sentimental, or superstitious, or bigoted, personage of modern days.
+
+And if any one say,--But you must mistake the meaning of the text.  It
+must be understood spiritually.  The meek and gentle Jesus, who is
+nothing but love and mercy, cannot be such an awful and destroying being
+as you would make Him out to be.  Then I must answer--That our Lord was
+meek and gentle when on earth, and therefore is meek and gentle for ever
+and ever, there can be no doubt.  "I am meek and lowly of heart," He said
+of Himself.  But with that meekness and lowliness, and not in
+contradiction to it, there was, when He was upon earth, and therefore
+there is now and for ever, a burning indignation against all wrong and
+falsehood; and especially against that worst form of falsehood--hypocrisy;
+and that worst form of hypocrisy--covetousness which shelters itself
+under religion.
+
+When our Lord saw men buying and selling in the temple, He made a scourge
+of cords, and drove them out, and overthrew the tables of the
+money-changers, and said,--"It is written, my Father's house is a house
+of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves."
+
+When He faced the Pharisees, who were covetous, He had no meek and gentle
+words for them: but, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye
+escape the damnation of hell?"
+
+And because His character is perfect and eternal: because He is the same
+yesterday, to-day, and for ever, we are bound by the Christian faith to
+believe that He has now, and will have for ever, the same Divine
+indignation against wrong, the same determination to put it down: and to
+cast out of His kingdom, which is simply the whole universe, all that
+offends, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.
+
+And if any say, as some say now-a-days--"Ah, but you cannot suppose that
+our Lord would propagate His Gospel by the sword, or wish Christians to
+do so."  My friends, this chapter and this sermon has nothing to do with
+the propagation of the Gospel, in the popular sense; nothing to do with
+converting heathens or others to Christianity.  It has to do with that
+awful government of the world, of which the Bible preaches from beginning
+to end; that moral and providential kingdom of God, which rules over the
+destiny of every kingdom, every nation, every tribe, every family, nay,
+over the destiny of each human being; ay, of each horde of Tartars on the
+furthest Siberian steppe, and each group of savages in the furthest
+island of the Pacific; rendering to each man according to his works,
+rewarding the good, punishing the bad, and exterminating evildoers, even
+wholesale and seemingly without discrimination, when the measure of their
+iniquity is full.  Christ's herald in this noble chapter calls men, not
+to repentance, but to inevitable doom.  His angel--His messenger--stands
+in the sun, the source of light and life; above this petty planet, its
+fashions, its politics, its sentimentalities, its notions of how the
+universe ought to have been made and managed; and calls to whom?--to all
+the fowl that fly in the firmament of heaven--"Come and gather yourselves
+together, to the feast of the great God, that ye may eat the flesh of
+kings, and of captains, and of mighty men; and the flesh of horses and of
+them that sit on them; and the flesh of all men, both free and slave,
+both small and great."
+
+What those awful words may mean I cannot say.  But this I say, that the
+Apostle would never have used such words, conveying so plain and so
+terrible a meaning to anyone who has ever seen or heard of a
+battle-field, if he had really meant by them nothing like a battle-field
+at all.
+
+It may be that these words have fulfilled themselves many times--at the
+fall of Jerusalem--at the wars which convulsed the Roman empire during
+the first century after Christ--at the final fall of the Roman empire
+before the lances of our German ancestors--in many another great war, and
+national calamity, in many a land since then.  It may be, too, that, as
+learned divines have thought, they will have their complete fulfilment in
+some war of all wars, some battle of all battles; in which all the powers
+of evil, and all those who love a lie, shall be arrayed against all the
+powers of good, and all those who fear God and keep His commandments: to
+fight it out, if the controversy can be settled by no reason, no
+persuasion; a battle in which the whole world shall discover that, even
+in an appeal to brute force, the good are stronger than the bad; because
+they have moral force also on their side; because God and the laws of His
+whole universe are fighting for them, against those who transgress law,
+and outrage reason.
+
+The wisest of living Britons has said,--"Infinite Pity, yet infinite
+rigour of Law.  It is so that the world is made."  I should add, It is so
+the world must be made, because it is made by Jesus Christ our Lord, and
+its laws are the likeness of His character; pitiful, because Christ is
+pitiful; and rigorous, because He is rigorous.  So pitiful is Christ,
+that He did not hesitate to be slain for men, that mankind through Him
+might be saved.  But so rigorous is Christ, that He does not hesitate to
+slay men, if needful, that mankind thereby may be saved.  War and
+bloodshed, pestilence and famine, earthquake and tempest--all of them, as
+sure as there is a God, are the servants of God, doing His awful but
+necessary work, for the final benefit of the whole human race.
+
+It may be difficult to believe this: at least to believe it with the same
+intense faith with which prophets and apostles of old believed it, and
+cried--"When Thy judgments, O Lord, are abroad in the earth, then shall
+the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness."  But we must believe
+it: or we shall be driven to believe in no God at all; and that will be
+worse for us than all the evil that has happened to us from our youth up
+until now.
+
+But most people find it very difficult to believe in such a God as the
+Scripture sets forth--a God of boundless tenderness; and yet a God of
+boundless indignation.
+
+The covetous and luxurious find it very difficult to understand such a
+being.  Their usual notion of tenderness is a selfish dislike of seeing
+any one else uncomfortable, because it makes them uncomfortable likewise.
+Their usual notion of indignation is a selfish desire of revenge against
+anyone who interferes with their comfort.  And therefore they have no
+wholesome indignation against wrong and wrong-doers, and a great deal of
+unwholesome tenderness for them.  They are afraid of any one's being
+punished; probably from a fellow-feeling; a suspicion that they deserve
+to be punished themselves.  They hate and dread honest severity, and
+stern exercise of lawful power.  They are indulgent to the bad, severe
+upon the good; till, as has been bitterly but too truly said,--"Public
+opinion will allow a man to do anything, except his duty."
+
+Now this is a humour which cannot last.  It breeds weakness, anarchy, and
+at last ruin to society.  And then the effeminate and luxurious,
+terrified for their money and their comfort, fly from an unwholesome
+tenderness to an unwholesome indignation; break out into a panic of
+selfish rage; and become, as cowards are apt to do, blindly and wantonly
+cruel; and those who fancied God too indulgent to punish His enemies,
+will be the very first to punish their own.
+
+But there are those left, I thank God, in this land, who have a clear
+understanding of what they ought to be, and an honest desire to be it;
+who know that a manful indignation against wrong-doing, a hearty hatred
+of falsehood and meanness, a rigorous determination to do their duty at
+all risks, and to repress evil with all severity, may dwell in the same
+heart with gentleness, forgiveness, tenderness to women and children;
+active pity to the weak, the sick, the homeless; and courtesy to all
+mankind, even to their enemies.
+
+God grant that that spirit may remain alive among us.  For without it we
+shall not long be a strong nation; not indeed long a nation at all.  And
+it is alive among us.  Not that we, any of us, have enough of it--God
+forgive us for all our shortcomings.  And God grant it may remain alive
+among us; for it is, as far as it goes, the likeness of Christ, the Maker
+and Ruler of the world.
+
+"Christian," said a great genius and a great divine,
+
+   "If thou wouldst learn to love,
+   Thou first must learn to hate."
+
+And if any one answer--"Hate?  Even God hateth nothing that He has made."
+The rejoinder is,--And for that very reason God hates evil; because He
+has not made it, and it is ruinous to all that He has made.
+
+Go you and do likewise.  Hate what is wrong with all your heart, and
+mind, and soul, and strength.  For so, and so only, you will shew that
+you love God with all your heart, and mind, and soul, and strength,
+likewise.
+
+Oh pray--and that not once for all merely, but day by day, ay, almost
+hour by hour--Strengthen me, O Lord, to hate what Thou hatest, and love
+what Thou lovest; and therefore, whenever I see an opportunity, to put
+down what Thou hatest, and to help what Thou lovest--That so, at the last
+dread day, when every man shall be rewarded according to his works, you
+may have some answer to give to the awful question--On whose side wert
+thou in the battle of life?  On the side of good men and of God, or on
+the side of bad men and the devil?  Lest you find yourselves forced to
+reply--as too many will be forced--with surprise, and something like
+shame and confusion of face--I really do not know.  I never thought about
+the matter at all.  I never knew that there was any battle of life.
+
+Never knew that there was any battle of life?  And yet you were
+christened, and signed with the sign of the Cross, in token that you
+should fight manfully under Christ's banner against sin, the world, and
+the devil, and continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant to your
+life's end.  Did it never occur to you that those words might possibly
+mean something?  And you used to sing hymns, too, on earth, about
+"Soldiers of Christ, arise, And put your armour on."  What prophets, and
+apostles, and martyrs, and confessors meant by those words, you should
+know well enough.  Did it never occur to you that they might possibly
+mean something to you?  That as long as the world was no better than it
+is, there was still a battle of life; and that you too were sworn to
+fight in it?  How many will answer--Yes--Yes--But I thought that these
+words only meant having my soul saved, and going to heaven when I died.
+And how did you expect to do that?  By believing certain doctrines which
+you were told were true; and leading a tolerably respectable life,
+without which you would not have been received into society?  Was that
+all which was needed to go to heaven?  And was that all that was meant by
+fighting manfully under Christ's banner against sin, the world, and the
+devil?  Why, Cyrus and his old Persians, 2,400 years ago, were nearer to
+the kingdom of God than that.  They had a clearer notion of what the
+battle of life meant than that, when they said that not only the man who
+did a merciful or just deed, but the man who drained a swamp, tilled a
+field, made any little corner of the earth somewhat better than he found
+it, was fighting against Ahriman the evil spirit of darkness, on the side
+of Ormuzd the good god of light; and that as he had taken his part in
+Ormuzd's battle, he should share in Ormuzd's triumph.
+
+Oh be at least able to say in that day,--Lord, I am no hero.  I have been
+careless, cowardly, sometimes all but mutinous.  Punishment I have
+deserved, I deny it not.  But a traitor I have never been; a deserter I
+have never been.  I have tried to fight on Thy side in Thy battle against
+evil.  I have tried to do the duty which lay nearest me; and to leave
+whatever Thou didst commit to my charge a little better than I found it.
+I have not been good: but I have at least tried to be good.  I have not
+done good, it may be, either: but I have at least tried to do good.  Take
+the will for the deed, good Lord.  Accept the partial self-sacrifice
+which Thou didst inspire, for the sake of the one perfect self-sacrifice
+which Thou didst fulfil upon the Cross.  Pardon my faults, out of Thine
+own boundless pity for human weakness.  Strike not my unworthy name off
+the roll-call of the noble and victorious army, which is the blessed
+company of all faithful people; and let me, too, be found written in the
+Book of Life: even though I stand the lowest and last upon its list.
+Amen.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XXII.  NOBLE COMPANY.
+
+
+HEBREWS XII. 22, 23.
+
+   Ye are come to the city of the living God, and to the spirits of just
+   men made perfect.
+
+I have quoted only part of the passage of Scripture in which these words
+occur.  If you want a good employment for All Saints' Day, read the whole
+passage, the whole chapter; and no less, the 11th chapter, which comes
+before it: so will you understand better the meaning of All Saints' Day.
+But sufficient for the day is the good thereof, as well as the evil; and
+the good which I have to say this morning is--You are come to the spirits
+of just men made perfect; for this is All Saints' Day.
+
+Into the presence of this noble company we have come: even nobler
+company, remember, than that which was spoken of in the text.  For more
+than 1800 years have passed since the Epistle to the Hebrews was written:
+and how many thousands of just men and women, pure, noble, tender, wise,
+beneficent, have graced the earth since then, and left their mark upon
+mankind, and helped forward the hallowing of our heavenly Father's name,
+the coming of His kingdom, the doing of His will on earth as it is done
+in heaven; and helped therefore to abolish the superstition, the misrule,
+the vice, and therefore the misery of this struggling, moaning world.  How
+many such has Christ sent on this earth during the last 1800 years.  How
+many before that; before His own coming, for many a century and age.  We
+know not, and we need not know.  The records of Holy Scripture and of
+history strike with light an isolated mountain peak, or group of peaks,
+here and here through the ages; but between and beyond all is dark to us
+now.  But it may not have been dark always.  Scripture and history
+likewise hint to us of great hills far away, once brilliant in the one
+true sunshine which comes from God, now shrouded in the mist of ages, or
+literally turned away beyond our horizon by the revolution of our planet:
+and of lesser hills, too, once bright and green and fair, giving pasture
+to lonely flocks, sending down fertilizing streams into now forgotten
+valleys; themselves all but forgotten now, save by the God who made and
+blessed them.
+
+Yes: many a holy soul, many a useful soul, many a saint who is now at
+God's right hand, has lived and worked, and been a blessing, himself
+blest, of whom the world, and even the Church, has never heard, who will
+never be seen or known again, till the day in which the Lord counteth up
+His jewels.
+
+Let us rejoice in that thought on this day, above all days in the year.
+On this day we give special thanks to God for all His servants departed
+this life in His faith and fear.  Let us rejoice in the thought that we
+know not how many they are; only that they are an innumerable company,
+out of all tongues and nations, whom no man can number.  Let us rejoice
+that Christ's grace is richer, and not poorer, than our weak imaginations
+can conceive, or our narrow systems account for.  Let us rejoice that the
+goodly company in whose presence we stand, can be limited and defined by
+no mortal man, or school of men: but only by Him from whom, with the
+Father, proceeds for ever the Holy Spirit, the inspirer of all good; and
+who said of that Spirit--"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou
+hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and
+whither it goeth.  So is every one who is born of the Spirit"--and who
+said again, "John came neither eating nor drinking, and ye said, He hath
+a devil.  The Son of man came eating and drinking, and ye say, Behold a
+man gluttonous and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.  But
+I say unto you, Verily wisdom is justified of all her children"--and who
+said again--when John said to Him, "Master, we saw one casting out devils
+in Thy name, and he followeth not us"--"Forbid him not.  For I say to
+you, that he that doeth a miracle in My name will not lightly speak evil
+of Me"--and who said, lastly--and most awfully--that the unpardonable
+sin, either in this life or the life to come, was to attribute beneficent
+deeds to a bad origin, because they were performed by one who differed
+from us in opinion; and to say, "He casteth out devils by Beelzebub,
+prince of the devils."
+
+These are words of our Lord, which we are specially bound to keep in our
+minds, with reverence and godly fear, on All Saints' Day, lest by
+arranging our calendar of saints according to our own notions of who
+ought to be a saint, and who ought not--that is, who agrees with our
+notions of perfection, and who does not--we exclude ourselves, by
+fastidiousness, from much unquestionably good company; and possibly mix
+ourselves up with not a little which is, to say the least, questionable.
+
+Men in all ages, Churchmen or others, have fallen into this mistake.  They
+have been but too ready to limit their calendar of saints; to narrow the
+thanksgivings which they offer to God on All Saints' Day.
+
+The Romish Church has been especially faulty on this point.  It has
+assumed, as necessary preliminaries for saintship--at least after the
+Christian era--the practice of, or at least the longing after, celibacy;
+and after the separation of the Eastern and Western Churches,
+unconditional submission to the Church of Rome.  But how has this
+injured, if not spoiled, their exclusive calendar of saints.  Amid
+apostles, martyrs, divines, who must be always looked on as among the
+very heroes and heroines of humanity, we find more than one fanatic
+persecutor; more than two or three clearly insane personages; and too
+many who all but justify the terrible sneer--that the Romish Calendar is
+the "Pantheon of Hysteria."
+
+And Protestants, too--How have they narrowed the number of the spirits of
+just men made perfect; and confined the Paean which should go up from the
+human race on All Saints' Day, till a "saint" has too often meant with
+them only a person who has gone through certain emotional experiences,
+and assented to certain subjective formulas, neither of which, according
+to the opinion of some of the soundest divines, both of the Romish,
+Greek, and Anglican communions, are to be found in the letter of
+Scripture as necessary to salvation; and who have, moreover, finished
+their course--doubtless often a holy, beneficent, and beautiful course--by
+a rapturous death-bed scene, which is more rare in the actual experience
+of clergymen, and, indeed, in the conscience and experience of human
+beings in general, than in the imaginations of the writers of religious
+romances.
+
+But we of the Church of England, as by law established--and I recognize
+and obey, and shall hereafter recognize and obey, no other--have no need
+so to narrow our All Saints' Day; our joy in all that is noble and good
+which man has said or done in any age or clime.  We have no need to
+define where formularies have not defined; to shut where they have
+opened; to curse where they either bless, or are humbly, charitably, and
+therefore divinely, silent.  With a magnificent faith in the justice of
+the Father, and in the grace of Christ, and in the inspiration of the
+Holy Spirit, our Church bids us--Judge not the dead, lest ye be judged.
+Condemn not the dead, lest ye be condemned.  For she bids us commit to
+the earth the corpses of all who die not "unbaptized," "excommunicate,"
+or wilful suicides, and who are willing to lie in our consecrated ground;
+giving thanks to God that our dear brother has been delivered from the
+miseries of this sinful world, and in sure and certain hope of the
+resurrection to eternal life.
+
+At least: we of the Abbey of Westminster have a right to hold this; for
+we, thank God, act on it, and have acted on it for many a year.  We have
+a right to our wide, free, charitable, and truly catholic conception of
+All Saints' Day.  Ay, if we did not use our right, these walls would use
+it for us; and in us would our Lord's words be fulfilled--If we were
+silent, the very stones beneath our feet would cry out.
+
+For hither we gather, as far as is permitted us, and hither we gather
+proudly, the mortal dust of every noble soul who has done good work for
+the British nation; accepting each and all of them as gifts from the
+Father of lights, from whom proceedeth every good and perfect gift, as
+sent to this nation by that Lord Jesus Christ who is the King of all the
+nations upon earth; and acknowledging--for fear of falling into that
+Pelagian heresy, which is too near the heart of every living man--that
+all wise words which they have spoken, all noble deeds which they have
+done, have come, must have come, from The One eternal source of wisdom,
+of nobleness, of every form of good; even from the Holy Spirit of God.
+
+We make no severe or minute inquiries here.  We leave them, if they must
+be made, to God the Judge of all things, and Christ who knows the secrets
+of the hearts; to Him who is merciful in this: that He rewardeth every
+man according to his works.
+
+All we ask is--and all we dare ask--of divine or statesman, poet or
+warrior, musician or engineer--of Dryden or of Handel--of Isaac Watts or
+of Charles Dickens--but why go on with the splendid diversities of the
+splendid catalogue?--What was your work?  Did we admire you for it?  Did
+we love you for it?  And why?  Because you made us in some way or other
+better men.  Because you helped us somewhat toward whatsoever things are
+pure, true, just, honourable, of good report.  Because, if there was any
+virtue--that is, true valour and manhood; if there was any praise--that
+is, just honour in the sight of men, and therefore surely in the sight of
+the Son of man, who died for men; you helped us to think on such things.
+You, in one word, helped to make us better men.
+
+Welcome then, friends unknown--and, alas! friends known, and loved, and
+lost--welcome into England's Pantheon, not of superstitious and selfish
+hysteria, but of beneficent and healthy manhood.
+
+Your words and your achievements have gone out into all lands, and your
+sound unto the ends of the world; and let them go, and prosper in that
+for which the Lord of man has sent them.  Our duty is, to guard your
+sacred dust.  Our duty is, to point out your busts, your monuments around
+these ancient walls, to all who come, of every race and creed; as proofs
+that the ancient spirit is not dead; that Christ has not deserted the
+nation of England, while He sends into it such men as you; that Christ
+has not deserted the Church of England, while He gives her grace to
+recognize and honour such men as you, and to pray Christ that He would
+keep up the sacred succession of virtue, talent, beneficence, patriotism;
+and make us, most unworthy, at last worthy, one at least here and there,
+of the noble dead, above whose dust we now serve God.
+
+Yes, so ought we in Westminster to keep our All Saints' Day; in giving
+thanks to God for the spirits of just men made perfect.  Not only for
+those just men and women innumerable, who--as I said at first--have
+graced this earth during the long ages of the past: but specially for
+those who lie around us here; with whom we can enter, and have entered
+already, often, into spiritual communion closer than that, almost, of
+child with parent; whose writings we can read, whose deeds we can admire,
+whose virtues we can copy, and to whom we owe a debt of gratitude, we and
+our children after us, which never can be repaid.
+
+And if ever the thought comes over us--But these men had their faults,
+mistakes--Oh, what of that?
+
+   Nothing is left of them
+   Now, but pure manly.
+
+Let us think of them: not as they were, compassed round with
+infirmities--as who is not?--knowing in part, and seeing in part, as St
+Paul himself, in the zenith of his inspiration, said that he knew; and
+saw, as through a glass, darkly.
+
+Let us think of them not as they were, the spirits of just men imperfect:
+but as the spirits of just men made, or to be made hereafter, perfect;
+when, as St Paul says, "that which is in part is done away, and that
+which is perfect is come."  And let us trust Christ for them, as we would
+trust Him for ourselves; sure "that the path of the just is as a shining
+light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day."
+
+Ah, how many lie in this Abbey, to meet whom in the world to come, would
+be an honour most undeserved!
+
+How many more worthy, and therefore more likely, than any of us here, to
+behold that endless All Saints' Day, to which may God in His mercy, in
+spite of all our shortcomings, bring us all.  Amen.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XXIII.  DE PROFUNDIS.
+
+
+PSALM CXXX.
+
+   Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice.
+   O let Thine ears consider well the voice of my complaint.  If Thou,
+   Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may
+   abide it?  For there is mercy with Thee, therefore shall Thou be
+   feared.  I look for the Lord; my soul doth wait for Him: in His word
+   is my trust.  My soul fleeth unto the Lord before the morning watch: I
+   say, before the morning watch.  O Israel, trust in the Lord: for with
+   the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption.  And He
+   shall redeem Israel from all his sins.
+
+Let us consider this psalm awhile, for it is a precious heirloom to
+mankind.  It has been a guide and a comfort to thousands and tens of
+thousands.  Rich and poor, old and young, Jews and Christians, Romans,
+Greeks, and Protestants, have been taught by it the character of God; and
+taught to love Him, and trust in Him, in whom is mercy, therefore He
+shall be feared.
+
+The Psalmist cries out of the deep; out of the deep of sorrow, perhaps,
+and bereavement, and loneliness; or out of the deep of poverty; or out of
+the deep of persecution and ill-usage; or out of the deep of sin, and
+shame, and weakness which he hates yet cannot conquer; or out of the deep
+of doubt, and anxiety--and ah! how common is that deep; and how many
+there are in it that swim hard for their lives: may God help them and
+bring them safe to land;--or out of the deep of overwork, so common now-a-
+days, when duty lies sore on aching shoulders, a burden too heavy to be
+borne.
+
+Out of some one of the many deeps into which poor souls fall at times,
+and find themselves in deep water where no ground is, and in the mire
+wherein they are ready to sink, the Psalmist cries.  But out of the deep
+he cries--to God.  To God, and to none else.
+
+He goes to the fountain-head, to the fount of deliverance, and of
+forgiveness.  For he feels that he needs, not only deliverance, but
+forgiveness likewise.  His sorrow may not be altogether his own fault.
+What we call in our folly "accident" and "chance," and "fortune,"--but
+which is really the wise providence and loving will of God--may have
+brought him low into the deep.  Or the injustice, cruelty, and oppression
+of men may have brought him low; or many another evil hap.  But be that
+as it may, he dares not justify himself.  He cannot lift up altogether
+clean hands.  He cannot say that his sorrow is none of his own fault, and
+his mishap altogether undeserved.  If Thou, Lord, wert extreme to mark
+what is done amiss, O Lord, who could abide it?  "Not I," says the
+Psalmist.  "Not I," says every human being who knows himself; and knows
+too well that--"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the
+truth is not in us."
+
+But the Psalmist says likewise, "There is forgiveness with Thee,
+therefore shall Thou be feared."
+
+My friends, consider this; the key of the whole psalm; the gospel and
+good news, for the sake of which the psalm has been preserved in Holy
+Scripture, and handed down to us.
+
+God is to be feared, because He is merciful.  It is worth while to fear
+Him, because He is merciful, and of great kindness, and hateth nothing
+that He hath made; and willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that
+he should turn from his wickedness and live.
+
+Superstitious people, in all ages, heathens always, and sometimes, I am
+sorry to say, Christians likewise, have had a very different reason, an
+opposite reason, for fearing God.
+
+They have said: Not--there is mercy: but there is anger with God:
+therefore shall He be feared.  They have said--We must fear God, because
+He is wrathful, and terrible, and ready to punish; and is extreme to mark
+what is done amiss, and willeth the death of a sinner: and therefore they
+have not believed, when Holy Scripture told them, that God was love, and
+that God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, and sent
+Him to visit the world in great humility, that the world through Him
+might be saved.
+
+God has seemed to them only a proud, stern, and formidable being; a
+condemning judge, and not a merciful Father; and therefore, when they
+have found themselves in the deep of misery, they have cried out of it to
+saints, angels, the Virgin Mary; or even to sun, moon, and stars, and all
+the powers of nature; or even, again--what is more foolish still,--to
+astrologers, wizards, mediums, and quacks of every shape and hue; to any
+one and any thing, rather than to God.
+
+But do not you do so, my friends.  Fix it in your hearts and minds; and
+fix it now, before you fall into the deep, as most are apt to do before
+they die; lest, when the dark day comes, you have no time to learn in
+adversity the lesson which you should have learnt in prosperity.  Fix in
+your hearts and minds the blessed Gospel and good news--"There is mercy
+with Thee, O God; therefore shall Thou be feared."  There is mercy with
+Him, pity, tenderness, sympathy; a heart which can be touched with the
+feeling of our infirmities; which knoweth what is in man; which despiseth
+not the work of His own hands; which remembereth our weak frame, and
+knoweth that we are but dust: else the spirit would fail before Him, and
+the souls which He has made.  Think of God as that which He is--a
+compassionate God, a long-suffering God, a generous God, a magnanimous
+God, a truly royal God; in one word, a Perfect God; who causeth His sun
+to shine on the evil and on the good, and sendeth His rain on the just
+and on the unjust; a God who cannot despise, cannot neglect, cannot lose
+His patience with any poor soul of man; who sets Himself against none but
+the insolent, the proud, the malicious, the mean, the wilfully stupid and
+ignorant and frivolous.  Against those who exalt themselves, whether as
+terrible tyrants or merely contemptible boasters, He exalts Himself; and
+will shew them, sooner or later, whether He or they be the stronger;
+whether He or they be the wiser.  But for the poor soul who is abased,
+who is down, and in the depth; who feels his own weakness, folly,
+ignorance, sinfulness, and out of that deep cries to God as a lost child
+crying after its father--even a lost lamb bleating after the ewe--of that
+poor soul, be his prayers never so confused, stupid and ill-expressed--of
+him it is written: "The Lord helpeth them that fall, and lifteth up all
+those that are down.  He is nigh to all that call on Him, yea, to all
+that call upon Him faithfully.  He will fulfil the desire of those that
+fear Him, He also will hear their cry and will help them."
+
+Yes.  To all such does God the Father, God who made heaven and earth,
+hold up, as it were, His only-begotten Son, Christ, hanging on the Cross
+for us; and say: Behold thy God.  Behold the brightness of God's glory,
+and the express image of God's person.  Behold what God gave for thee,
+even His only-begotten Son.  Behold that in which God the Father was well
+pleased: in His Son; not condemning you, not destroying you, but humbling
+Himself, dying Himself awhile, that you may live for ever.  Look; and by
+seeing the Son, see the Father also--your Father, and the Father of the
+spirits of all flesh; and know that His essence and His name is--Love.
+
+Therefore, when you are in the deep of sorrow, whatever that depth may
+be, cry to God.  To God Himself; and to none but God.  If you can go to
+the pure fountain-head, why drink of the stream, which must have gathered
+something of defilement as it flows?  If you can get light from the sun
+itself, why take lamp or candle in place of his clear rays?  If you can
+go to God Himself, why go to any of God's creatures, however holy pure,
+and loving?  Go to God, who is light of light, and life of life; the
+source of all light, the source of all life, all love, all goodness, all
+mercy.  From Him all goodness flows.  All goodness which ever has been,
+shall be, or can be, is His alone, the fruit of His Spirit.  Go then to
+Him Himself.  Out of the depth, however deep, cry unto God and God
+Himself.  If David, the Jew of old, could do so, much more can we, who
+are baptized into Christ; much more can we, who have access by one Spirit
+to the Father; much more can we, who--if we know who we are and where we
+are--should come boldly to the throne of grace, to find mercy and grace
+to help us in the time of need.
+
+Boldness.  That is a bold word: but it is St Paul's, not mine.  And by
+shewing that boldness, we shall shew that we indeed fear God.  We shall
+shew that we reverence God.  We shall shew that we trust God.  For so,
+and so only, we shall obey God.  If a sovereign or a sage should bid you
+come to him, would you shew reverence by staying away?  Would you shew
+reverence by refusing his condescension?  You may shew that you are
+afraid of him; that you do not trust him: but that is not to shew
+reverence, but irreverence.
+
+If God calls, you are bound by reverence to come, however unworthy.  If
+He bids you, you must obey, however much afraid.  You must trust Him; you
+must take Him at His word; you must confide in His goodness, in His
+justice, in His wisdom: and since He bids you, go boldly to His throne,
+and find Him what He is, a gracious Lord.
+
+My friends, to you, every one of you--however weak, however ignorant, ay,
+however sinful, if you desire to be delivered from those sins--this grace
+is given; liberty to cry out of the depth to God Himself, who made sun
+and stars, all heaven and earth; liberty to stand face to face with the
+Father of the spirits of all flesh, and cling to the one Being who can
+never fail nor change; even to the one immortal eternal God, of whom it
+is written, "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the
+earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands.  They shall perish, but
+Thou shalt endure.  They all shall wax old, like a garment, and as a
+vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed.  But Thou art
+the same, and Thy years shall not fail."
+
+But it is written again, "My soul waits for the Lord."  Yes, if you can
+trust in the God who cannot change, you can afford to wait; you need not
+be impatient; as it is written--"Fret not thyself, lest thou be moved to
+do evil;" and again--"He that believeth shall not make haste."  For God,
+in whom you trust, is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man that
+He should repent.  Hath He promised, and shall He not do it?  His word is
+like the rain and dew, which fall from heaven, and return not to it again
+useless, but give seed to the sower and bread to the eater.  So is every
+man that trusteth in Him.  His kingdom, says the Lord, is as if a man
+should put seed into the ground, and sleep and wake, and the seed should
+grow up, he knoweth not how.  So the seed which we sow--the seed of
+repentance, the seed of humility, the seed of sorrowful prayers for
+help--it too shall take root, and grow, and bring forth fruit, we know
+not how, in the good time of God, who cannot change.  We may be sad; we
+may be weary; our eyes may wait and watch for the Lord as the Psalmist
+says; more than they that watch for the morning: but it must be as those
+who watch for the morning, for the morning which must and will come, for
+the sun which will surely rise, and the day which will surely dawn, and
+the Saviour who will surely deliver, and the God who is merciful in
+this--that He rewardeth every man according to his work.
+
+"Oh trust in the Lord.  For with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is
+plenteous redemption; and He shall deliver His people from all their
+sins."
+
+From their sins.  Not merely from the punishment of their sins; not
+always from the punishment of their sins in this life: but, what is
+better far, from the sins themselves; from the sins which bring them into
+fresh and needless troubles; and which make the old troubles, which
+cannot now be escaped, intolerable.
+
+From all their sins.  Not only from the great sins, which, if persisted
+in, will surely destroy both body and soul in hell: but from the little
+sins which do so easily beset us; from little bad habits, tempers,
+lazinesses, weaknesses, ignorances, which hamper and hinder us all every
+day when we try to do our duty.  From all these will the Lord deliver us,
+by the blood of Christ, and by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit, that
+we may be able at last to say to children and friends, and all whom we
+love and leave behind us--
+
+"Oh taste and see that the Lord is gracious.  Blessed is the man that
+trusteth in Him."
+
+Yes.  This at least we may do--Trust in our God, and thank God that we
+may do it; for if men may not do that, then is that true of them which
+Homer said of old--that man is more miserable than all the beasts of the
+field.  For the animals look neither forward nor back.  They live but for
+the present moment; and pain and grief, being but for the moment, fall
+lightly upon them.  But we--we who have the fearful power of looking
+back, and looking forward--we who can feel regret and remorse for the
+past, anxiety and terror for the future--to us at times life would be
+scarce worth having, if we had not a right to cry with all our hearts--
+
+"O God, in Thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XXIV.  THE BLESSING AND THE CURSE.
+
+
+Preached on Whit-Sunday.
+
+DEUT. XXX. 19, 20.
+
+   I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have
+   set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose
+   life, that both thou and thy seed may live: that thou mayest love the
+   Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou
+   mayest cleave unto Him: for He is thy life, and the length of thy
+   days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy
+   fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.
+
+These words, the book of Deuteronomy says, were spoken by Moses to all
+the Israelites shortly before his death.  He had led them out of Egypt,
+and through the wilderness.  They were in sight of the rich land of
+Canaan, where they were to settle and to dwell for many hundred years.
+Moses, the book says, went over again with them all the Law, the
+admirable and divine Law, which they were to obey, and by which they were
+to govern and order themselves in the land of Canaan.  He had told them
+that they owed all to God Himself; that God had delivered them out of
+slavery in Egypt; God had led them to the land of Canaan; God had given
+them just laws and right statutes, which if they kept, they would live
+long in their new home, and become a great and mighty nation.  Then he
+calls heaven and earth to witness that he had set before them life and
+death, blessing and cursing.  If they trusted in the one true God, and
+served Him, and lived as men should, who believed that a just and loving
+God cared for them, then they would live; then a blessing would come on
+them, and their children, on their flocks and herds, on their land and
+all in it.  But if they forgot God, and began to worship the sun, and the
+moon, and the stars, the earth and the weather, like the nations round
+them, then they would die; they would grow superstitious, cowardly, lazy,
+and profligate, and therefore weak and miserable, like the wretched
+Canaanites whom they were going to drive out; and then they would die.
+Their souls would die in them, and they would become less than men, and
+at last--as the Canaanites had become--worse than brutes, till their
+numbers would diminish, and they would be left, Moses says, few in number
+and at last perish out of the good land which God had given them.
+
+So, he says, you know how to live, and you know how to die.  Choose
+between them this day.
+
+They knew the road to wealth, health, prosperity and order, peace and
+happiness, and life: and they knew the road to ruin, poverty, weakness,
+disease, shame and death.
+
+They knew both roads; for God had set them before them.
+
+And you know both roads; for God has set them before you.
+
+Then he says--I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day,
+that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing.
+
+He called heaven and earth to witness.  That was no empty figure of
+speech.  If you will recollect the story of the Israelites, you will see
+plainly enough what Moses meant.
+
+The heaven would witness against them.  The same stars which would look
+down on their freedom and prosperity in Canaan, had looked down on all
+their slavery and misery in Egypt, hundreds of years before.  Those same
+stars had looked down on their simple forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and
+Jacob, wandering with their flocks and herds out of the mountains of the
+far north.  That heaven had seen God's mercies and care of them, for now
+five hundred years.  Everything had changed round them: but those stars,
+that sun, that moon, were the same still, and would be the same for ever.
+They were witnesses to them of the unchangeable God, those heavens above.
+They would seem to say--Just as the heavens above you are the same,
+wherever you go, and whatever you are like, so is the God who dwells
+above the heaven; unchangeable, everlasting, faithful, and true, full of
+light and love; from whom comes down every good and perfect gift, in whom
+is neither variableness nor shadow of turning.  Do you turn to Him
+continually, and as often as you turn away from Him: and you shall find
+Him still the same; governing you by unchangeable law, keeping His
+promise for ever.
+
+And the earth would witness against them.  That fair land of Canaan
+whither they were going, with its streams and wells spreading freshness
+and health around; its rich corn valleys, its uplands covered with vines,
+its sweet mountain pastures, a very garden of the Lord, cut off and
+defended from all the countries round by sandy deserts and dreary
+wildernesses; that land would be a witness to them, at their daily work,
+of God's love and mercy to their forefathers.  The ruins of the old
+Canaanite cities would be a witness to them, and say--Because of their
+sins the Lord drove out these old heathens from before you.  Copy their
+sins, and you will share their ruin.  Do as they did, and you will surely
+die like them.  God has given you life, here in this fair land of Canaan;
+beware how you choose death, as the Canaanites chose it.  They died the
+death which comes by sin; and God has given you life, the life which is
+by righteousness.  Be righteous men, and just, and God-fearing, if you
+wish to keep this land, you, and your children after you.
+
+And now, my dear friends, if Moses could call heaven and earth to witness
+against those old Jews, that he had set before them life and death, a
+blessing and a curse, may we not do the same?  Does not the heaven above
+our heads, and the earth beneath our feet, witness against us here?  Do
+they not say to us--God has given you life and blessing.  If you throw
+that away, and choose instead death and a curse; it is your own fault,
+not God's?
+
+Look at the heaven above us.  Does not that witness against us?  Has it
+not seen, for now fifteen hundred years and more, God's goodness to us,
+and to our forefathers?  All things have changed; language, manners,
+customs, religion.  We have changed our place, as the Israelites did; and
+dwell in a different land from our forefathers: but that sky abides for
+ever.  That same sun, that moon, those stars shone down upon our heathen
+forefathers, when the Lord chose them, and brought them out of the German
+forests into this good land of England, that they might learn to worship
+no more the sun, and the moon, and the storm, and the thunder-cloud, but
+to worship Him, the living God who made all heaven and earth.  That sky
+looked down upon our forefathers, when the first missionaries baptized
+them into the Church of Christ, and England became a Christian land, and
+made a covenant with God and Christ for ever to walk in His laws which He
+has set before us.  From that heaven, ever since, hath God been sending
+rain and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness, for
+a witness of His love and fostering care; prospering us, whensoever we
+have kept His laws, above all other nations upon earth.  Shall not that
+heaven witness against us?  Into that heaven ascended Christ the Lord,
+that He might fill all things with His power and His rule, and might send
+from thence on us His Holy Spirit, the Spirit whom we worship this day,
+the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might,
+the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.  By that same Spirit,
+and by none other, have been thought all the noble thoughts which
+Englishmen ever thought.  By that Spirit have been spoken all the noble
+words which Englishmen ever spoke.  By that Spirit have been done all the
+noble deeds which Englishmen have ever done.  To that Spirit we owe all
+that is truly noble, truly strong, truly stable, in our English life.  It
+is He that has given us power to get wealth, to keep wealth, to use
+wealth.  And if we begin to deny that, as we are inclined to do now-a-
+days; if we lay our grand success and prosperity to the account of our
+own cleverness, our own ability; if we say, as Moses warned the
+Israelites they would say, in the days of their success and prosperity,
+not--"It is God who has given us power to get wealth," but--"Mine arm,
+and the might of my hand, has gotten me this wealth;"--in plain words--If
+we begin to do what we are all too apt to do just now, to worship our own
+brains instead of God: then the heaven above us will witness against us,
+this Whitsuntide above all seasons in the year; and say--Into heaven the
+Lord ascended who died for you on the Cross.  From heaven He sent down
+gifts for you, and your forefathers, even while you were His enemies,
+that the Lord God might dwell among you.  And behold, instead of thanking
+God, fearing God, and confessing that you are nothing, and God is all,
+you talk as if you were the arbiters of your own futures, the makers of
+your own gifts.  Instead of giving God the glory, you take the glory to
+yourselves.  Instead of declaring the glory of God, like the heavens, and
+shewing his handiwork, like the stars, you shew forth your own glory and
+boast of your own handiwork.  Beware, and fear; as your forefathers
+feared, and lived, because they gave the glory to God.
+
+And shall not the earth witness against us?  Look round, when you go out
+of church, upon this noble English land.  Why is it not, as many a land
+far richer in soil and climate is now, a desolate wilderness; the land
+lying waste, and few men left in it, and those who are left robbing and
+murdering each other, every man's hand against his fellow, till the wild
+beasts of the field increase upon them?  In that miserable state now is
+many a noble land, once the very gardens of the world--Judaea, and almost
+all the East, which was once the very garden of the Lord, as thick with
+living men as a hive is with bees, and vast sheets both of North Africa,
+and of South and of North America.  Why is not England thus?  Why, but
+because the Lord set before our forefathers life and death, blessing and
+cursing; and our forefathers chose life, and lived; and it was well with
+them in the land which God gave to them, because they chose blessing, and
+God blessed them accordingly?  In spite of many mistakes and
+shortcomings--for they were sinful mortal men, as we are--they chose life
+and a blessing; and clave unto the Lord their God, and kept His covenant;
+and they left behind, for us their children, these churches, these
+cathedrals, for an everlasting sign that the Lord was with us, as He had
+been with them, and would be with our children after us.
+
+Ah, my friends, while we look round us over the face of this good land,
+and see everywhere the churches pointing up to heaven, each amid towns
+and villages which have never seen war or famine for now long centuries,
+all thriving and improving year by year, and which never for 800 years
+have been trodden by the foot of an invading enemy, one ought to feel, if
+one has a thoughtful and God-fearing heart--Verily God has set before us
+life and blessing, and prospered us above all nations upon earth; and if
+we do not cleave to Him, we shall shew ourselves fools above all nations
+upon earth.
+
+And then when one reads the history of England; when one thinks over the
+history of any one city, even one country parish; above all, when one
+looks into the history of one's own foolish heart: one sees how often,
+though God has given us freely life and blessing, we have been on the
+point of choosing death and the curse instead; of saying--We will go our
+own way and not God's way.  The land is ours, not God's; the houses are
+our own, not God's; our souls are our own, not God's.  We are masters,
+and who is master over us?  That is the way to choose death, and the
+curse, shame and poverty and ruin, my friends; and how often we have been
+on the point of choosing it.  What has saved us?  What has kept us from
+it?  Certainly not our own righteousness, nor our own wisdom, nor our own
+faith.  After reading the history of England; or after recollecting our
+own lives--the less we say of them the better.
+
+What has kept us from ruin so long?  We are all day long forgetting the
+noble things which God did for our forefathers.  Why does not God in
+return remember our sins, and the sins of our forefathers?  Why is He not
+angry with us for ever?  Why, in spite of all our shortcomings and
+backslidings, are we prospering here this day?
+
+I know not, my friends, unless it be for this one reason, That into that
+heaven which witnesses against us, the merciful and loving Christ is
+ascended; that He is ever making intercession for us, a High-priest who
+can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; and that He has
+received gifts for men, even for His enemies--as we have too often
+been--that the Lord God might dwell among us.  Yes.  He ascended on high
+that He might send down His Holy Spirit; and that Spirit is among us,
+working patiently and lovingly in many hearts--would that I could say in
+all--giving men right judgments; putting good desires into their hearts;
+and enabling them to put them into good practice.
+
+The Holy Spirit is the life of England, and of the Church of England, and
+of every man, whether he belongs to the Church or not, who loves the
+good, and desires to do it, and to see it done.  And those in whom the
+Holy Spirit dwells, are the salt of England, which keeps it from decay.
+They are those who have chosen life and blessing, and found them.  Oh may
+God increase their number more and more; till all know Him from the least
+unto the greatest; and the land be filled with the knowledge of the Lord,
+as the waters cover the sea.
+
+And then shall all days be Whit-Sundays; and the Name of the Father be
+hallowed indeed, and His kingdom come, and His will be done on earth, as
+it is in heaven.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XXV.  THE SILENCE OF FAITH.
+
+
+PSALM CXXXI.
+
+   Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I
+   exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.  Surely
+   I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his
+   mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.  Let Israel hope in the
+   Lord from henceforth and for ever.
+
+We know not at what period of David's life this psalm was written.  We
+know not what matters they were which were too high for him to meddle
+with; matters about which he had to refrain his soul; to quiet his
+feelings; to suspend his judgment; to check his curiosity, and say about
+them simply--Trust in the Lord.
+
+We do not know, I say, what these great matters, these mysteries were.
+But that concerns us little.  Human life, human fortune, human history,
+human agony--nay, the whole universe, the more we know of it, is full of
+such mysteries.  Only the shallow and the conceited are unaware of their
+presence.  Only the shallow and the conceited pretend to explain them,
+and have a Why ready for every How.  David was not like them.  His was
+too great a mind to be high-minded; too deep a heart to have proud looks,
+and to pretend, to himself or to others, that he knew the whole counsel
+of God.
+
+Solomon his son had the same experience.  For him, too, in spite of all
+his wisdom, the mystery of Providence was too dark.  Though a man
+laboured to seek it, yet should he not find it out.  All things seemed,
+at least, to come alike to all.  There was one event to the righteous and
+to the wicked; to the clean and to the unclean.  Vanity of vanity; all
+was vanity.  Of making books there was no end, and much study was a
+weariness to the flesh.  And the conclusion of the whole matter was--Fear
+God, and keep His commandments.  That--and not to pry into the
+unfathomable will of God--was the whole duty of man.
+
+Job, too: what is the moral of the whole book of Job, save that God's
+ways are unsearchable, and His paths past finding out?  The Lord, be it
+remembered, in the closing scene of the book, vouchsafes to Job no
+explanation whatsoever of his affliction.  Instead of telling him why he
+has been so sorely smitten; instead of bidding him even look up and
+trust, He silences Job by the mere plea of His own power.  Where wast
+thou when I laid the foundation of the earth?  Declare, if thou hast
+understanding.  When the morning stars sang together; and all the sons of
+God shouted for joy.  Shall he that contendeth with The Almighty instruct
+Him?  He that reproveth God, let him answer.
+
+But, it may be said, these are Old Testament sayings.  The Patriarchs and
+Prophets had not that full light of knowledge of the mind of God which
+the Evangelists and Apostles had.  What do the latter, the writers of the
+New Testament, say, with that fuller knowledge of God, which they gained
+through Jesus Christ our Lord?
+
+My friends--This is not, I trust, by God's great goodness, the last time
+that I am to preach in this Abbey.  What the Evangelists and Apostles
+taught, which the Prophets and Psalmists did not teach, I hope to tell
+you, as far as I know, hereafter.
+
+But this I am bound to tell you beforehand--That there are no truer words
+in the Articles of the Church of England than those in the VIIth
+Article--that 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, the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and man.
+
+Yes.  That the Old Testament is not contrary to the New, I believe with
+my whole heart and soul.  And therefore to those who say that the
+Apostles had solved the whole mystery of human life, its sins, its
+sorrows, its destinies, I must reply that such is not the case, at least
+with the most gifted of all the writers of the New Testament.  We may
+think fit to claim omniscience for St Paul: but he certainly does not
+claim it for himself.
+
+When he is vouchsafed a glimpse of the high counsels of God, he exclaims,
+as one dazzled--"Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and
+knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past
+finding out!  For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been
+His counsellor?"--While of himself he speaks in a very different
+tone--"Even though he have been," as he says, "caught up into the third
+heaven, and heard words unspeakable, which it is not lawful for a man to
+utter," yet "he knows," he says, "in part; he prophesies in part; but
+when that which is perfect comes, that which is partial shall be done
+away."  He is as the child to the full-grown man, into which he hopes to
+develop in the future life.  He "sees as in a glass darkly, but then face
+to face."  He "knows now in part."  Then--but not till then--will he
+"know even as he is known."  Nay, more.  In the ninth chapter of his
+Epistle to the Romans, he does not hesitate to push to the utmost that
+plea of God's absolute sovereignty which we found in the book of Job.
+
+"He has mercy on whom He will have mercy; and whom He will He hardeneth."
+And if any say, "Why doth He then find fault?  For who hath resisted His
+will?"  "Who art thou that repliest against God?  Shall the thing formed
+say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?  Hath not the
+potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel to
+honour, and another to dishonour?"
+
+What those words may mean, or may not mean, I do not intend to argue now.
+I only quote them to shew you that St Paul, just as much as any Old
+Testament thinker, believed that there were often mysteries, ay,
+tragedies, in the lives, not only of individuals, nor of families, but of
+whole races, to which we shortsighted mortals could assign no rational or
+moral final cause, but must simply do that which Spinoza forbade us to
+do, namely--"In every unknown case, flee unto God;" and say--"It is the
+Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good;"--certain of this, which the
+Cross and Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ shewed forth as nothing else
+in heaven or earth could shew--that the will of God toward man is an
+utterly good will; and that therefore what seemeth good to Him, will be
+good in act and fact.
+
+It is this faith, and I believe this faith alone, which can enable truly
+feeling spirits to keep anything like equanimity, if they dwell long and
+earnestly on the miseries of mankind; on sorrow, pain, bereavement; on
+the fate of many a widow and orphan; on sudden, premature, and often
+agonizing death--but why pain you with a catalogue of ills, which all,
+save--thank God--the youngest, know too well?
+
+And it is that want of faith in the will and character of a living God,
+which makes, and will always make, infidelity a sad state of mind--a
+theory of man and the universe, which contains no gospel or good news for
+man.
+
+I do not speak now of atheism, dogmatic, self-satisfied, insolent cynic.
+I speak especially to-night of a form of unbelief far more attractive,
+which is spreading, I believe, among people often of high intellect,
+often of virtuous life, often of great attainments in art, science, or
+literature.  Such repudiate, and justly, the name of theists: but they
+decline, and justly, the name of atheists.  They would--the finest and
+purest spirits among them--accept only too heartily the whole of the
+Psalm which I have chosen for my text, save its ascription and the last
+verse.  We too--they would say--do not wish to be high-minded, and
+dogmatize, and assert, and condemn.  We too do not wish to meddle with
+matters too high for us, or for any human intellect.  We too wish to
+refrain ourselves from asserting what--however pleasant--we cannot prove;
+and to wean ourselves--however really painful the process--from the milk,
+the mere child's food, on which Mother Church has brought up the nations
+of Europe for the last 1500 years.  But for that very reason, as for
+asking us to trust in The Lord, either for this life, or an eternal life
+to come, do not ask that of us.
+
+We do not say that there is no God; no Providence of God; no life beyond
+the grave: only we say, that we cannot find them.  They may exist: or
+they may not.  But to us; and as we believe to all mankind if they used
+their reason aright, they are unthinkable, and therefore unknowable.  God
+we see not: but this we see--Man, tortured by a thousand ills; and then,
+alas, perishing just as the dumb beasts perish.  We see death, decay,
+pain, sorrow, bereavement, weakness; and these produced, not merely by
+laws of nature, in which, however terrible, we could stoically acquiesce;
+but worse still, by accident--the sports of seeming chances--and those
+often so slight and mean.  Man in his fullest power, woman in her highest
+usefulness, the victim not merely of the tempest or the thunderstroke,
+but of a fallen match, a stumbling horse.
+
+Therefore the sight of so much human woe, without a purpose, and without
+a cause, is too much for them: as, without faith in God, it ought to be
+too much for us.
+
+And therefore in their poetry and in their prose--and they are masters,
+some of them, both of poetry and of prose--there is a weary sadness, a
+tender despair, which one must not praise: yet which one cannot watch
+without sympathy and affection.  For the mystery of human vanity and
+vexation of spirit; the mystery which weighed down the soul of David, and
+of Solomon, and of him who sang the song of Job, and of St Paul, and of
+St Augustine, and all the great Theologians of old time, is to them
+nought but utter darkness.  For they see not yet, as our great modern
+poet says,
+
+            Hands
+   Athwart the darkness, shaping man.
+
+They see not yet athwart the darkness a face, most human yet divine, of
+utter sympathy and love; and hear not yet--oh let me say once more not
+yet of such fine souls--the only words which can bring true comfort to
+one who feels for his fellow-men, amid the terrible chances and changes
+of this mortal life--
+
+"Let not your heart be troubled.  Believe in God, and believe also in
+Me."
+
+"All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth."  "Lo I am with you
+even to the end of the world."  Oh let us, to whom God has given that
+most undeserved grace, by the confession of a true faith to acknowledge
+the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty
+to worship the Unity--Let us, I say, beseech God that He would give to
+them, as well as to us, that comfortable and wholesome faith; and
+evermore defend them and us--if it seem good in His gracious sight--from
+all adversity.
+
+And surely we need that faith--those of us at least who know what we have
+lost--in the face of such a catastrophe as was announced in this Abbey on
+this day week; which thrilled this congregation with the awful news--That
+one of the most gifted men in Europe; the most eloquent of all our
+preachers--the most energetic of all our prelates; the delight of so many
+of the most refined and cultivated; the comforter of so many pious souls,
+not only by his sermons, not only by his secret counsels, but by those
+exquisite Confirmation addresses, to have lost which is a spiritual loss
+incalculable--those Confirmation addresses which touched and ennobled the
+hearts alike of children and of parents, and made so many spirits, young
+and old, indebted to him from thenceforth for ever--That this man, with
+his enormous capacity and will for doing his duty like a valiant man, and
+doing each duty better than any of us his clergy had ever seen it done
+before--with his genius too, now so rare, and yet so needed, for
+governing his fellow-men--That he, in the fulness of his power, his
+health, his practical example, his practical success, should vanish in a
+moment: and that immense natural vitality, that organism of forces so
+various and so delicate, just as it was developing to perfection under
+long and careful self-education, should be lost for ever to this earth:
+leaving England, and her colonies, and indeed all Christendom, so much
+the poorer, so much the more weak; and inflicting--forget not that--a
+bitter pang on hundreds of loving hearts: and all by reason of the
+stumbling of a horse.
+
+And why?  Our reason, our conscience, our moral sense; that, by virtue of
+which we are not brutes, but men, forces us to ask that question: even if
+no answer be found to it in earth or heaven.  What was the important
+_why_ which lay hid behind that little how?--The means were so paltry:
+the effect was so vast--There must have been a final cause, a purpose,
+for that death: or the fact would be altogether hideous--a scribble
+without a meaning--a skeleton without a soul.  Why did he die?
+
+"I became dumb and opened not my mouth; for it was Thy doing."
+
+So says the Burial psalm.  So let us say likewise.
+
+"I became dumb:" not with rage, not with despair; but because it was Thy
+doing; and therefore it was done well.  It was the deed, not of chance,
+not of necessity: for had it been, then those who loved him might have
+been excused had they cursed chance, cursed necessity, cursed the day in
+which they entered a universe so cruel, so capricious.  Not so.  For it
+was the deed of The Father, without whom a sparrow falls not to the
+ground; of The Son, who died upon the Cross in the utterness of His
+desire to save; of The Holy Ghost, who is the Lord and Giver of life to
+all created things.
+
+It was the deed of One who delights in life and not in death; in bliss
+and not in woe; in light and not in darkness; in order and not in
+anarchy; in good and not in evil.  It had a final cause, a meaning, a
+purpose: and that purpose is very good.  What it is, we know not: and we
+need not know.  To guess at it would be indeed to meddle with matters too
+high for us.  So let us be dumb: but dumb not from despair, but from
+faith; dumb not like a wretch weary with calling for help which does not
+come, but dumb like a child sitting at its mother's feet; and looking up
+into her face, and watching her doings; understanding none of them as
+yet, but certain that they all are done in Love.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XXVI.  GOD AND MAMMON.
+
+
+MATTHEW VI. 24.
+
+   Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.
+
+This is part of the Gospel for this Sunday; and a specially fit text for
+this day, which happens to be St Matthew's Day.
+
+On this day we commemorate one who made up his mind, once and for all,
+that whoever could serve God and money at once, he could not: and who
+therefore threw up all his prospects in life--which were those of a
+peculiarly lucrative profession, that of a farmer of Roman taxes--in
+order to become the wandering disciple of a reputed carpenter's son.  He
+became, it is true, in due time, an Apostle, an Evangelist, and a Martyr;
+and if posthumous fame be worth the ambition of any man, Matthew the
+publican--Saint Matthew as we call him--has his share thereof, because he
+discovered, like a wise man, that he could not serve God and money; and
+therefore, when Jesus saw him sitting at the receipt of custom, and bade
+him "Follow Me," he rose up, and left his money-bags, and followed Him,
+whom he afterwards discovered to be no less than God made man.  "Ye
+cannot serve God and Mammon."  It is very difficult to make men believe
+these words.  So difficult, that our Lord Himself could not make the Jews
+believe them, especially the rich and comfortable religious people among
+them.  When He told them that they could not serve two masters; that they
+could not worship God and money at the same time, the Pharisees, who were
+covetous, derided Him.  They laughed to scorn the notion that they could
+not be very religious, and respectable, and so forth, and yet set their
+hearts on making money all the while.  They thought that they could have
+their treasure on earth and in heaven also; and they went their way, in
+spite of our Lord's warnings; and made money, honestly no doubt, if they
+could, but if not, why then dishonestly; for money must be made, at all
+risks.
+
+St Paul warned them, by his disciple Timothy, of their danger.  He told
+them that the love of money is the root of all evil; and that those who
+will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and
+hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
+
+St James warned them even more sternly; and told the rich men among the
+Jews of his day to weep and howl for the miseries which were coming on
+them.  They had heaped up treasure for the last days, when it would be of
+no use to them.  They were fattening their hearts--he told them--against
+a day of slaughter.
+
+But they listened to St Paul and St James no more than they did to our
+Lord.  After the fall of Jerusalem, even more than before, they became
+the money-makers and the money-lenders of the whole world.  And what
+befel them?  Their wealth stirred up the envy and the suspicion of the
+Gentiles.  They were persecuted, robbed, slaughtered, again and again for
+the sake of their money.  And yet they would not give up their ruinous
+passion.  Throughout all the middle ages, here in England, just as much
+as on the Continent, they lent money at exorbitant interest; and then
+their debtors, to escape payment, turned on them for not being
+Christians; accused them of poisoning the wells, and what not; massacred
+them, burnt them alive, and committed the most horrible atrocities;
+fulfilling the warnings of our Lord and His Apostles, only too terribly
+and brutally, again and again.
+
+Do I say this to make any man dislike or despise the Jews?  God forbid.
+The Jews have noble qualities in them, by which they have prospered, and
+for the sake of which--as I believe--God's blessing rests on them to this
+day.  They have prospered: not by their love of money, not even by their
+extraordinary courage, persistence, and intellectual power; but by their
+keeping two at least of the commandments, as no other people on earth has
+kept them.  They have kept the second commandment; and hated idolatry,
+and any approach to it, with a stern and noble hatred, which would God
+that all who call themselves Christians would imitate.  They have kept,
+likewise, the fifth commandment; and have honoured their parents, as no
+other people on earth have done, except it may be the Chinese, who
+prosper still, in spite of many sins.  Their family affections are so
+intense, their family life is so pure and sound, that they put to shame
+too many Christians; and where the family life is sound, the heart of a
+people is sure to be sound likewise; and all will come right with them at
+last: and meanwhile the days of the Jews will be long in whatsoever land
+the Lord their God shall give them, till the day of which St Paul
+prophesied, when the veil shall be taken off their hearts, and they shall
+acknowledge that Christ, whom their forefathers crucified in their
+blindness, for their King, and Lord, and God; and so all Israel shall be
+saved.  Amen.  Amen.
+
+And meanwhile, who are we that we should complain of the Jews now, or the
+Jews of our Lord's time, for being too fond of money?  Is anything more
+certain, than that we English are becoming given up, more and more, to
+the passion for making money at all risks, and by all means fair or foul?
+Our covetousness is--alas! that it should be so--become a by-word among
+foreign nations; while our old English commercial honesty--which was once
+our strength, and protected us from, and all but atoned for, our
+covetousness--is going fast; and leaving us, feared indeed for our power;
+but suspected for our chicanery; and odious for our arrogance.
+
+And it is most sad, but most certain, that we are like those Pharisees of
+old in this also, that we too have made up our mind that we can serve God
+and Mammon at once; that the very classes among us who are most utterly
+given up to money-making, are the very classes which, in all
+denominations, make the loudest religious profession; that our churches
+and chapels are crowded on Sundays by people whose souls are set, the
+whole week through, upon gain and nothing but gain; who pretend to
+reverence Scripture, while they despise the warning of Scripture, that
+the love of money is the root of all evil.
+
+Have we not seen in our own days persons of the highest religious
+profession, whose names were the foremost on every charitable
+subscription list, so devoured by this mad love for money for its own
+sake, that though they had already more money than they could spend, or
+enjoy in any way soever, save by saying to themselves--I have got it, I
+have got it--they must needs, in the mere lust for becoming richer still,
+ruin themselves and others by frantic speculations?  Have we not seen--but
+why should I defile myself, and you, and this holy place by telling you
+what I have seen; and what I hope, and hope alas! in vain, that I shall
+never see again, among those who must needs serve God and Mammon?  Has
+not the love of money become such a chronic disease among us, that we can
+actually calculate, now, when the disease will come to a head; and
+relieve itself for a while: though alas! only for a while?
+
+About every eleven years, I am informed, we are to expect a commercial
+crisis; panics, bankruptcies, and misery and ruin to hundreds; a sort of
+terrible but beneficent thunderstorm, which clears the foul atmosphere of
+our commercial system at the expense, alas! not merely of the guilty, but
+of the innocent; involving the widow and the orphan, the poor and the
+simple, in the same fate as the rich and powerful whom they have trusted
+to their own ruin.  And yet we boast of our civilization and of our
+Christianity; and hardly one, here and there, lays the lesson to heart,
+but each man, like a moth about a candle, unwarned by the fate of his
+fellows, fancies that he at least can flutter round the flames and not be
+burned; that whoever else cannot serve God and Mammon, he can do it; and
+holds, by virtue of his superior prudence, a special dispensation from
+the plain warnings of Holy Scripture.
+
+But every reasonable man knows what advantages money, and nothing but
+money, will obtain, not only for a man himself but for his children; and
+answers me--If I wish to rise in life, if I wish my children to rise in
+life, how can I do it, without making money?
+
+God forbid that I should check an honourable ambition, and a desire to
+rise in life.  We all ought to rise in life, and to rise far higher than
+most of us are likely to rise.  But I ask you to consider very seriously
+what you mean by rising in life.
+
+Do you mean by rising in life, merely becoming a richer man; living in a
+larger house, eating, drinking, clothing, better; having more servants,
+carriages, plate?  Is that to be the highest triumph of all your labours?
+Is that your notion of rising in life?  If it is, you are not singular in
+your notion.  There are thousands who call themselves civilized and
+Christians, and yet have no higher notion of what man's highest good may
+be.  But do you mean by rising in life, simply becoming a nobler, because
+a better man?  For if you mean that latter, I seriously advise you to
+hearken to what the Creator and Governor of all heaven and earth, Jesus
+Christ our Lord, has told you on that matter, when He said--"Seek ye
+first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things
+shall be added unto you."
+
+Seek ye first the kingdom of God.  Alas! this money-making generation
+talks a great deal about religion and saving their souls, being quite
+indifferent to the serious question--whether their souls are worth saving
+or not: but as for the kingdom of God, of which our Lord and His Apostles
+speak so often, they have forgotten altogether what it is.  They talk
+too, a great deal, about the righteousness of Christ: but they have
+forgotten also what the righteousness of Christ, which is also the
+righteousness of God, is like.
+
+The kingdom of God; the government of God; the laws and rules by which
+Christ, King of kings, and King, too, of every nation and man on earth,
+whether they know it or not, governs mankind, that is what you have to
+seek, because it is there already.  You are in Christ's kingdom.  If you
+wish to prosper in it, find out what its laws are.  That will be true
+wisdom.  For in keeping the commandments of God, and in obeying His laws;
+in that alone is life; life for body and soul; life for time and for
+eternity.
+
+And the righteousness of God, which is the righteousness of Christ;--find
+out what that is, and pray to Christ to give it to you; for so alone will
+you be what a man should be, created after God in righteousness and true
+holiness, and renewed into the image and likeness of God.  You will find
+plenty of persons now, as in all times, who will tell you that you need
+not do that; that all you need, for this world or the world to come, is
+some righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees; calling that--oh shame
+that such a glorious and eternal truth should be so caricatured and
+degraded by man--justification by faith: while all they mean is,
+justification not by faith, but by mere assent; assenting to certain
+doctrines; keeping certain religious watch-words in your mouth, and, over
+and above, leading a tolerably respectable life.  But what says our Lord?
+"Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and
+Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven."  Not
+merely--not dwell in it for ever, but not even enter it, not even get
+through the very gate, and cross the very threshold, of it.  The merely
+assenting, merely respectable, even the so-called religious and orthodox
+life will not let you into the kingdom of heaven, either in this life or
+the life to come.  No.  That requires the noble life, the pure life, the
+just life, the gentle life, the generous life, the heroic life, the
+Godlike life, which is perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect,
+because He lets His sun shine on the evil and on the good, and His rain
+fall on the just and on the unjust.  But how will this help you to rise
+in life?  Our Lord Himself answers--and our Lord should surely know--"Seek
+ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things
+shall be added to you."  Have faith in God, and in His promise; and your
+faith in God shall be rewarded.  You shall find that your heavenly Father
+knows that you have need of all these things; and has arranged His
+kingdom, and the whole universe, accordingly.  The very good things of
+this world--wealth, honour, power, and the rest, for the sake of which
+worldly men quarrel, and envy, and slander, and bully, and cringe, and
+commit all basenesses and crimes--all these shall come to you of their
+own accord by the providence of your Father in heaven and by His
+everlasting Laws, if you will but learn and do God's will, and lead the
+Christlike and the Godlike life.  Honour and power, wealth and
+prosperity, as much of them as is justly good for you, and as much of
+them as you deserve--that is, earn and merit by your own ability and self-
+control--shall come to you by the very laws of the universe and by the
+very providence of God.  You shall find that godliness hath the promise
+of this life, as well as of the life which is to come.  You shall find
+that God's kingdom is a well-made and well-ordered kingdom; and that His
+laws are life, and are far more worth trusting in than the maxims of that
+ill-made and ill-ordered world of man, which you all renounced at your
+baptism.  You shall find that the promises of Scripture are no dreams,
+but actual practical living truths, which come true, and fulfil
+themselves, in the lives and histories of men.
+
+Choose, young men; choose now; and make up your minds which way you will
+rise in life; by merely getting money; or by getting wisdom and honour
+and virtue.  The Psalmists of old, yea our Lord Himself, tell you what
+will happen in each case.  If you want only to be rich, why then be rich;
+if you are clever enough.  The Lord may give you what you want, in this
+evil world.  He may give you your portion in this life, and fill you with
+His hid treasure.  He may let you heap up money which you do not know how
+to spend, and be a laughing-stock to others while you live; and after you
+die, your children will probably squander what you have hoarded; while
+you will carry away nothing when you die, neither will your pomp follow
+you: and take care lest you wake, after all, like Dives in the torment,
+to hear the fearful but most reasonable words--"Son, thou in thy lifetime
+receivedst thy good things, and therefore thou art tormented."  Those
+words too, I fear, will come true, in this very generation, of many a
+wretched soul who while he lived counted himself a happy man; and had all
+men speaking well of him, because he did well unto himself.  On whose
+souls may God have mercy.
+
+Choose, young men: choose; now in the golden days of youth, and strength,
+and honour, ere you have laid a yoke on your own shoulders--even the yoke
+of money-worship;--not light and easy, like the yoke of Christ, but
+heavier and heavier as the years roll on, while you, with fading
+intellect, fading hopes, and it may be fading credit, and certainly
+fading power of any rational enjoyment, have still, like the doomed souls
+in Dante's Inferno, to roll up hill the money-bags which are perpetually
+slipping back.  I have seen that, and more than once or twice; and it is,
+I think, the saddest sight on earth--save one.  Choose, I say again,
+then, young men, before you have spread a net round your own feet, which,
+as in disturbed dreams, grows and tangles more and more each time you
+move--even the net of greed and craft, which men set for their
+neighbours; and are but too apt, ere all is done, to be taken in
+themselves; the net of truly bad society, of the society of men who have
+set their hearts on making money, somehow or other; and with whom, if you
+cast in your lot, you may descend--O God, I know full well what I am
+saying--to depths from which your young spirits now would shrink; till
+your higher nature be subdued to the element in which it works; and the
+poet's curse on all who bind themselves to natures lower than their own
+come true of you--
+
+   Thou shall lower to their level, day by day,
+   All that once was fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with
+   clay.
+
+Or you may choose--God grant that you may choose--the other path; the
+path of the law of Christ, and of the Spirit of Christ; the kingdom of
+God and His righteousness.  And then shall come true of you, as far as
+God shall see good for your immortal soul, those other promises--
+
+"Come, ye children, and hearken unto me, and I will teach you the fear of
+the Lord.  What man is he that loves life, and would fain see good days?
+Let him keep his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no
+deceit.  Let him eschew evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue
+it.  For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are
+open to their prayers. . . For the Lord ordereth a good man's going, and
+maketh his way acceptable to Himself.  Though he fall he shall not be
+cast away, for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand . . . I have been
+young, and now am old, and yet never saw I the righteous forsaken, nor
+his seed begging their bread.  Flee from evil, and do the thing that is
+good, and dwell for evermore.  For the Lord loveth the thing that is
+righteous.  He forsaketh not His that be godly, but they are preserved
+for ever."
+
+Choose that; the better part which shall not be taken from you; for it is
+according to the true laws of political and social economy, which are the
+laws of the Maker of the Universe, and of the Redeemer of Mankind.  And
+then, whether or not you leave your children wealth, you will, at all
+events, leave them an example by which they, and their children's
+children, must prosper to the world's end.  And your prayer will be, more
+and more, as you grow old and weary with the hard work of life--
+
+"I will go forth in the strength of the Lord God, and make mention of His
+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
+Lord, in my old age, when I am grey-headed, till I have shewn Thy
+strength unto this generation; and Thy power unto those that are yet to
+come."
+
+To which end may Christ bring us all, of His infinite mercy.  Amen.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XXVII.  THE BEATIFIC VISION.
+
+
+PSALM LVII.
+
+   _A Psalm of David when he fled from Saul in the cave_.
+
+   Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me, for my soul trusteth
+   in Thee, and under the shadow of Thy wings shall be my refuge, until
+   this tyranny be over-past.  I will call unto the most high God, even
+   unto the God that shall perform the cause which I have in hand.  He
+   shall send from heaven, and save me from the reproof of him that would
+   eat me up.  God shall send forth His mercy and truth: my soul is among
+   lions.  And I lie even among the children of men, that are set on
+   fire, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp
+   sword.  Set up Thyself, O God, above the heavens, and Thy glory above
+   all the earth.  They have laid a net for my feet, and pressed down my
+   soul: they have digged a pit before me, and are fallen into the midst
+   of it themselves.  My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will
+   sing, and give praise.  Awake up, my glory; awake, lute and harp: I
+   myself will awake right early.  I will give thanks unto Thee, O Lord,
+   among the people, and I will sing unto Thee among the nations.  For
+   the greatness of Thy mercy reacheth unto the heavens, and Thy truth
+   unto the clouds.  Set up Thyself, O God, above the heavens, and Thy
+   glory above all the earth.
+
+Some people now-a-days would call this poetry; and so it is.  But what
+poetry!  They would call it a Hebrew song, a Hebrew lyric; and so it is.
+But what a song!  There is something in us, if we be truly delicate and
+high-minded people, which will surely make us feel a deep difference
+between it and common poetry, or common songs; which made our forefathers
+read or chant it in church, and use it, as many a pious soul has ere now,
+in private devotion.
+
+David did not compose it in church or in temple.  He never meant it,
+perhaps, to be sung in public worship.  He little dreamed that we, and
+millions more, in lands of which he had never heard, should be repeating
+his words in a foreign tongue in our most sacred acts of worship.  He was
+thinking, when he composed it, mainly of himself and his own sorrows and
+dangers.  He intends, he says, to awake early, and sing it to lute and
+harp.  Perhaps he had composed it in the night, as he lay either in the
+cave of Adullam or Engedi, hiding from Saul among the cliffs of the wild
+goats; and meant to go forth to the cave's mouth, and there, before the
+sun rose over the downs, he would, to translate his words exactly, "awake
+the dawning" with his song in the free air and the clear sky, singing to
+his little band of men.
+
+And to some one more than man, my friends.  For his poetry was poetry
+concerning God.  His song was a song to God.  He does not sing of his own
+sorrows to himself, as too many poets have done ere now.  He does not
+sing to his men; though he no doubt wished them to hear him, and learn
+from him, and gain faith and comfort and courage from his song.  He sings
+of his sorrows to God Himself; to the God who made heaven and earth; the
+God who is above the heavens, and His glory above all the earth.
+
+This is the secret, the virtue, the charm of the song; that it sings to
+God.  This is why it has passed into many lands, into many languages,
+through hundreds and hundreds of years, and is as fresh, and mighty, and
+full of meaning and of power, now, here, to us in England, as it was to
+David, when he was a poor outlaw, wandering in the hills of the little
+country of Judaea, more than 2000 years ago.
+
+The poet says,
+
+   A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,
+
+and this psalm is most beautiful, and a joy for ever to delicate and
+noble intellects.  But more, a thing of truth is a help for ever.  And
+this psalm is most true, and a help for ever to all sorrowing and weary
+hearts.  For the Spirit of truth it was, who put this psalm into David's
+heart and brain; and taught him to know and say what was true for him,
+and true for all men; what was true then, and will be true for ever.
+
+And what in it is true for ever?  The very figures, the metaphors of the
+psalm are true for ever.  "Under the shadow of Thy wings shall be my
+refuge"--that is a noble figure; can we not feel its beauty?  And more.
+Do none of us know that it is true?  David did not believe any more than
+we do, that God had actual wings.  But David knew--and it may be some of
+us know too--that God does at times strangely and lovingly hide us; keep
+us out of temptation; keep us out of harm's way; as it is written, "Thou
+shall hide them privately in Thy presence from the provoking of all men.
+Thou shall keep them in Thy tabernacle from the strife of tongues."  Ah,
+my dear friends, in such a time as this, when the strife of tongues is
+only too loud, have you never had reason to thank God for being, by some
+seemingly mere accident, kept out of the strife of tongues and out of
+your chance of striving too, and of making a fool of yourself like too
+many others?  The image of the mother bird, hiding her brood under her
+wings, seemed to David just to express that act of God's fatherly love,
+in words which will be true for ever, as long as a brooding bird is left
+on the earth, to remind us of David's song; and of One greater than
+David, too, who said--"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have
+gathered thy children, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,
+and thou wouldest not."  God grant that we all may do, when our time
+comes, that which those violent conceited Jews would not do; and
+therefore paid the awful penalty of their folly.
+
+And the darker and more painful figures of the psalm: are they not true
+still?  Is not a man's soul, even in this just and peaceful land, and far
+oftener in lands which are still neither just nor peaceful--Is not a
+man's soul, I say, sometimes among lions?--among greedy, violent,
+tyrannous persons, who are ready to entangle him in a quarrel, shout him
+down, ay, or shoot him down; literally ready to eat him up?  Are not the
+children of men still too often set on fire; on fire with wild party
+cries, with superstitions which they do not half understand, with brute
+excitements which pander to their basest passions, running like fire from
+head to head, and heart to heart, till whole classes, whole nations
+sometimes, are on fire, ready like fire to consume and destroy all they
+touch; and like fire, to consume and destroy themselves likewise?
+
+Are there none now, too, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their
+tongue a sharp sword?  Such use the pen now, rather than the tongue: but
+they know, as well as those whom David met, how to handle the spears and
+arrows of slander, and the sharp sword of insult.  Are there none left,
+who set nets for their neighbours' feet, by gambling, swindling, puffing,
+by tricks of trade and tricks of party?--none who, like the Scribes of
+old, try to entangle men in their talk, and make them offenders for a
+word; and who, like David's enemies, fall now and then into the very pit
+which they have digged, and ruin themselves in trying to ruin others?
+
+My friends, such men will be, as long as there is sin upon the earth.
+Their weapons are very different now from what they were in David's time:
+but their hearts are the same as they were then.  "The works of the flesh
+they do, which are manifest;" and a very ugly list they make; as all who
+read St Paul's Epistles know full well.
+
+But such men have their wages.  God is merciful in this; that He rewards
+every man according to his work.  And He is merciful to the whole human
+race, in rewarding such men according to their work.  To the flesh they
+sow, and of the flesh they shall reap corruption.  Of old it was
+written--"The wages of sin are death;" and that, like all God's words, is
+a Gospel and good news to poor human beings.  For if the wages of sin
+were not death, what end could there be to sin, and therefore to misery?
+
+But while such men exist, how shall a man escape them?  How shall he
+defend himself from them?  Not by craft and falsehood, not by angry
+replies, not by fighting them with their own weapons.  The honest man is
+no match for them with those.  The man who has a conscience is no match
+for the man who has none.  The man who has no conscience does what he
+wills; everything is fair to him in war; and there--in his
+unscrupulousness--lies his evil strength.  The man who has a conscience
+dares not do what he likes.  His scruples--in plain words, his fear of
+God--hamper him, and put him at a disadvantage, which will always defeat
+him, as often as he borrows the devil's tools to do God's work withal.
+
+He must give up those weapons, as David threw off Saul's armour, when he
+went to fight the giant.  It was strong enough, doubt not: but he could
+not go in it, he said; he was not accustomed to it.  He would take
+simpler weapons, to which he was accustomed; and fight his battle with
+them, trusting not in armour, but in the name of the living God.
+
+In the name of the living God.  That is the only sure weapon, and the
+only sure defence.  In that David trusted, when he went to fight the
+giant.  In that he trusted, when he was hid in the cave.  And because he
+trusted in God, he prayed to God.  He spoke to God.  Remember that, and
+understand how much it means.  David, the simple yeoman's son, the
+outlaw, the wanderer, despised and rejected by men, one who was no
+scholar either, who very probably could neither read nor write, and knew
+neither sciences nor arts, save how to play, in some simple way, upon his
+harp--this man found out that, however oppressed, miserable, ignorant he
+was in many respects, he had a right to speak face to face with the
+Almighty and Infinite God, who had made heaven and earth.  He found out
+that that great God cared for him, protected him, and would be true to
+him, if only he would be true to God and to himself.  What a discovery
+was that!  Worth all the wealth and power, ay, worth all the learning and
+science in the world.--To have found the pearl of great price, the secret
+of all secrets; I, David, may speak to God.
+
+Ah, my friends, consider the meaning of that.  Consider it, I say.  For
+when that great thought has once flashed across a man's mind, he is a new
+creature thenceforth.  He need speak to no father-confessor or director;
+to no saints or angels; to no sages or philosophers.  For he can speak to
+God Himself, and he need speak to no one else.  Nay, at times he dare
+speak to no one else.  If he can tell his story to God, why tell it to
+any of God's creatures?
+
+He is in the presence of God Himself, God his Father, God his Saviour,
+God his Comforter; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  God is listening to him.
+To God he can tell all his sorrows, all his wrongs, all his doubts, all
+his sins, all his weaknesses, as David told his; and God will hear him;
+and instead of striking him dead for his presumption or for his
+sinfulness, will comfort him; comfort him with a feeling of peace, of
+freedom, of being right, and of being safe, such as he never had before;
+till all the troubles and dangers of this life shall seem light to him.
+Let the world rage.  Let the foolish people deal foolishly, and the
+treacherous ones treacherously.  For if God be with a man, who can be
+against him?  He has no fears left now.  He has nothing to do, save to
+thank God for his boundless condescension; and to trust on.  To trust on.
+If he has set his heart on the Lord, he need not fear what man will do to
+him.  If his heart is fixed; if he is sure that God cares for him, he
+will, as it were by instinct, sing and give praise to God, as the bird
+sings when the rain is past, and the sun shines out once more.
+
+But I think that when a man has reached that state of mind, as David
+reached it, he will rise, as David rose, to a higher state of mind still.
+He will rise, as David rises in this psalm, from thoughts about his own
+soul, to thoughts about God.  In one word, he will rise from religion to
+that which is above even religion, namely theology.
+
+His first cry to God was somewhat selfish.  He went to God about himself;
+about his own sorrows and troubles.  That is natural and harmless.  The
+child in pain and terror cries to its mother selfishly to be helped out
+of its own little woes.  But when it is helped, and comforted, and safe
+in its mother's bosom, and its sobbing is over, then it forgets itself,
+and looks up into its mother's face, and thinks of her, and her alone.
+
+And so it should be with the man whom God has comforted.  When the
+deliverance has come; when the peace of mind has come; then surely, if he
+be worthy of the name of man, he will forget himself, and his own petty
+sorrows; and look up to God, to God Himself, and say within his
+heart--This great awful Being, eternal, infinite, omnipotent, who yet
+condescends to take care of a tiny creature like me, who am, in
+comparison with Him, less than the worm which crawls upon the ground,
+less than the fly which lives but for an hour--This God, so mighty and
+yet so merciful: who is He?  What is He like?  He is good to me.  Is He
+not good to all?  He is merciful to me.  Is not His mercy over all His
+works?  Nay, is he not good in Himself?  The One Good?  Must not God be
+The One Good, who is the cause and the fountain of all other goodness in
+man, in angels, in all heaven and earth?  But if so--what a glorious
+Being He must be.  Not merely a powerful, not merely a wise, but a
+glorious, because perfect, God.  Then will he cry, as David cries in this
+very psalm--"Oh that men could see that.  Oh that men could understand
+that.  Oh that they would do God justice; and confess His glorious Name.
+Oh that He would teach them His Name, and shew them His glory, that they
+might be dazzled by the beauty of it, awed by the splendour of it.  Oh
+that He would gladden their souls by the beatific vision of Himself, till
+they loved Him, worshipped Him, obeyed Him, for His own sake; not for
+anything which they might obtain from Him, but solely because He is The
+perfectly Good.  Oh that God would set up Himself above the heavens, and
+His glory above all the earth; and that men would lift up their eyes
+above the earth, and above the heavens likewise, to God who made heaven
+and earth; and would cry--Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and
+honour and power; for Thou hast made all things, and for Thy pleasure
+they are and were created; and Thy pleasure is, Peace on Earth, and
+Goodwill toward men.  Thou art the High and Holy One, who inhabitest
+eternity.  Yet Thou dwellest with him that is of a contrite spirit, to
+revive the heart of the feeble, and to comfort the heart of the contrite.
+We adore the glory of Thy power; we adore the glory of Thy wisdom: but
+most of all we adore the glory of Thy justice, the glory of Thy
+condescension, the glory of Thy love."
+
+And now, friends--almost all friends unknown--and alas! never to be known
+by me--you who are to me as people floating down a river; while I the
+preacher stand upon the bank, and call, in hope that some of you may
+catch some word of mine, ere the great stream shall bear you out of
+sight--oh catch, at least, catch this one word--the last which I shall
+speak here for many months, and which sums up all which I have been
+trying to say to you of late.
+
+Fix in your minds--or rather, ask God to fix in your minds--this one idea
+of an absolutely good God; good with all forms of goodness which you
+respect and love in man; good as you, and I, and every honest man,
+understand the plain word good.  Slowly you will acquire that grand and
+all-illuminating idea; slowly, and most imperfectly at best: for who is
+mortal man that he should conceive and comprehend the goodness of the
+infinitely good God?  But see then whether, in the light of that one
+idea, all the old-fashioned Christian ideas about the relations of God to
+man; whether a Providence, Prayer, Inspiration, Revelation; the
+Incarnation, the Passion, and the final triumph, of the Son of
+God--whether all these, I say, do not begin to seem to you, not merely
+beautiful, not merely probable; but rational, and logical, and necessary,
+moral consequences from the one idea of An Absolute and Eternal Goodness,
+the Living Parent of the Universe.
+
+And so I leave you to the Grace of God.
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+
+{0a}  Second edition, pp. 78, 79.
+
+{39}  J. P. Richter.
+
+CAMBRIDGE.  PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
+
+
+
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