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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Water of Life and Other Sermons
+by Charles Kingsley
+(#13 in our series by Charles Kingsley)
+
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+Title: The Water of Life and Other Sermons
+
+Author: Charles Kingsley
+
+Release Date: May, 2004  [EBook #5687]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 7, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE WATER OF LIFE ETC. ***
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1890 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price,
+email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+THE WATER OF LIFE AND OTHER SERMONS BY CHARLES KINGSLEY.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON I.  THE WATER OF LIFE
+(Preached at Westminster Abbey)
+
+
+
+REVELATION xxii. 17.
+
+And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come.  And let him that heareth
+say, Come.  And let him that is athirst come.  And whosoever will,
+let him take the water of life freely.
+
+
+This text is its own witness.  It needs no man to testify to its
+origin.  Its own words show it to be inspired and divine.
+
+But not from its mere poetic beauty, great as that is:  greater than
+we, in this wet and cold climate, can see at the first glance.  We
+must go to the far East and the far South to understand the images
+which were called up in the mind of an old Jew at the very name of
+wells and water-springs; and why the Scriptures speak of them as
+special gifts of God, life-giving and divine.  We must have seen the
+treeless waste, the blazing sun, the sickening glare, the choking
+dust, the parched rocks, the distant mountains quivering as in the
+vapour of a furnace; we must have felt the lassitude of heat, the
+torment of thirst, ere we can welcome, as did those old Easterns, the
+well dug long ago by pious hands, whither the maidens come with their
+jars at eventide, when the stone is rolled away, to water the thirsty
+flocks; or the living fountain, under the shadow of a great rock in a
+weary land, with its grove of trees, where all the birds for many a
+mile flock in, and shake the copses with their song; its lawn of
+green, on which the long-dazzled eye rests with refreshment and
+delight; its brook, wandering away--perhaps to be lost soon in
+burning sand, but giving, as far as it flows, Life; a Water of Life
+to plant, to animal, and to man.
+
+All these images, which we have to call up in our minds one by one,
+presented themselves to the mind of an Eastern, whether Jew or
+heathen, at once, as a well-known and daily scene; and made him feel,
+at the very mention of a water-spring, that the speaker was telling
+him of the good and beautiful gift of a beneficent Being.
+
+And yet--so do extremes meet--like thoughts, though not like images,
+may be called up in our minds, here in the heart of London, in murky
+alleys and foul courts, where there is too often, as in the poet's
+rotting sea -
+
+
+'Water, water, everywhere,
+Yet not a drop to drink.'
+
+
+And we may bless God--as the Easterns bless Him for the ancestors who
+digged their wells--for every pious soul who now erects a drinking-
+fountain; for he fulfils the letter as well as the spirit of
+Scripture, by offering to the bodies as well as the souls of men the
+Water of Life freely.
+
+But the text speaks not of earthly water.  No doubt the words 'Water
+of Life' have a spiritual and mystic meaning.  Yet that alone does
+not prove the inspiration of the text.  They had a spiritual and
+mystic meaning already among the heathens of the East--Greeks and
+barbarians alike.
+
+The East--and indeed the West likewise--was haunted by dreams of a
+Water of Life, a Fount of Perpetual Youth, a Cup of Immortality:
+dreams at which only the shallow and the ignorant will smile; for
+what are they but tokens of man's right to Immortality,--of his
+instinct that he is not as the beasts,--that there is somewhat in him
+which ought not to die, which need not die, and yet which may die,
+and which perhaps deserves to die?  How could it be kept alive? how
+strengthened and refreshed into perpetual youth?
+
+And water--with its life-giving and refreshing powers, often with
+medicinal properties seemingly miraculous--what better symbol could
+be found for that which would keep off death?  Perhaps there was some
+reality which answered the symbol, some actual Cup of Immortality,
+some actual Fount of Youth.  But who could attain to them?  Surely
+the gods hid their own special treasure from the grasp of man.
+Surely that Water of Life was to be sought for far away, amid
+trackless mountain-peaks, guarded by dragons and demons.  That Fount
+of Youth must be hidden in the rich glades of some tropic forest.
+That Cup of Immortality must be earned by years, by ages, of
+superhuman penance and self torture.  Certain of the old Jews, it is
+true, had had deeper and truer thoughts.  Here and there a psalmist
+had said, 'With God is the well of Life;' or a prophet had cried,
+'Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and buy without
+money and without price!'  But the Jews had utterly forgotten (if the
+mass of them ever understood) the meaning of the old revelations;
+and, above all, the Pharisees, the most religious among them.  To
+their minds, it was only by a proud asceticism,--by being not as
+other men were; only by doing some good thing--by performing some
+extraordinary religious feat,--that man could earn eternal life.  And
+bitter and deadly was their selfish wrath when they heard that the
+Water of Life was within all men's reach, then and for ever; that The
+Eternal Life was in that Christ who spoke to them; that He gave it
+freely to whomsoever He would;--bitter their wrath when they heard
+His disciples declare that God had given to men Eternal Life; that
+the Spirit and the Bride said.  Come.
+
+They had, indeed, a graceful ceremony, handed down to them from
+better times, as a sign that those words of the old psalmists and
+prophets had once meant something.  At the Feast of Tabernacles--the
+harvest feast--at which God was especially to be thanked as the giver
+of fertility and Life, their priests drew water with great pomp from
+the pool of Siloam; connecting it with the words of the prophet:
+'With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.'  But
+the ceremony had lost its meaning.  It had become mechanical and
+empty.  They had forgotten that God was a giver.  They would have
+confessed, of course, that He was the Lord of Life:  but they
+expected Him to prove that, not by giving Life, but by taking it
+away:  not by saving the many, but by destroying all except a
+favoured few.  But bitter and deadly was their wrath when they were
+told that their ceremony had still a living meaning, and a meaning
+not only for them, but for all men; for that mob of common people
+whom they looked on as accursed, because they knew not the law.
+Bitter and deadly was their selfish wrath, when they heard One who
+ate and drank with publicans and sinners stand up in the very midst
+of that grand ceremony, and cry; 'If any man thirst, let him come to
+Me and drink.  He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said,
+Out of him shall flow rivers of living water.'  A God who said to all
+'Come,' was not the God they desired to rule over them.  And thus the
+very words which prove the text to be divine and inspired, were
+marked out as such by those bigots of the old world, who in them saw
+and hated both Christ and His Father.
+
+The Spirit and the Bride say, Come.  Come, and drink freely.
+
+Those words prove the text, and other texts like it in Holy
+Scripture, to be an utterly new Gospel and good news; an utterly new
+revelation and unveiling of God, and of the relations of God to man.
+
+For the old legends and dreams, in whatsoever they differed, agreed
+at least in this, that the Water of Life was far away; infinitely
+difficult to reach; the prize only of some extraordinary favourite of
+fortune, or of some being of superhuman energy and endurance.  The
+gods grudged life to mortals, as they grudged them joy and all good
+things.  That God should say Come; that the Water of Life could be a
+gift, a grace, a boon of free generosity and perfect condescension,
+never entered into their minds.  That the gods should keep their
+immortality to themselves seemed reasonable enough.  That they should
+bestow it on a few heroes; and, far away above the stars, give them
+to eat of their ambrosia, and drink of their nectar, and so live for
+ever; that seemed reasonable enough likewise.
+
+But that the God of gods, the Maker of the universe should say,
+'Come, and drink freely;' that He should stoop from heaven to bring
+life and immortality to light,--to tell men what the Water of Life
+was, and where it was, and how to attain it; much more, that that God
+should stoop to become incarnate, and suffer and die on the cross,
+that He might purchase the Water of Life, not for a favoured few, but
+for all mankind; that He should offer it to all, without condition,
+stint, or drawback;--this, this, never entered into their wildest
+dreams.
+
+And yet, when the strange news was told, it looked so probable,
+although so strange, to thousands who had seemed mere profligates or
+outcasts; it agreed so fully with the deepest voices of their own
+hearts,--with their thirst for a nobler, purer, more enduring Life,--
+with their highest idea of what a perfect God should be, if He meant
+to show His perfect goodness; it seemed at once so human and humane,
+and yet so superhuman and divine;--that they accepted it
+unhesitatingly, as a voice from God Himself, a revelation of the
+Eternal Author of the universe; as, God grant you may accept it this
+day.
+
+And what is Life?  And what is the Water of Life?
+
+What are they indeed, my friends?  You will find many answers to that
+question, in this, as in all ages:  but the one which Scripture gives
+is this.  Life is none other, according to the Scripture, than God
+Himself, Jesus Christ our Lord, who bestows on man His own Spirit, to
+form in him His own character, which is the character of God.
+
+He is The one Eternal Life; and it has been manifested in human form,
+that human beings might copy it; and behold, it was full of grace and
+truth.
+
+The Life of grace and truth; that is the Life of Christ, and,
+therefore, the Life of God.
+
+The Life of grace--of graciousness, love, pity, generosity,
+usefulness, self-sacrifice; the Life of truth--of faithfulness,
+fairness, justice, the desire to impart knowledge and to guide men
+into all truth.  The Life, in one word, of charity, which is both
+grace and truth, both love and justice, in one Eternal essence.  That
+is the life which God lives for ever in heaven.  That is The one
+Eternal Life, which must be also the Life of God.  For, as there is
+but one Eternal, even God, so is there but one Eternal Life, which is
+the life of God and of His Christ.  And the Spirit by which it is
+inspired into the hearts of men is the Spirit of God, who proceedeth
+alike from the Father and from the Son.
+
+Have you not seen men and women in whom these words have been
+literally and palpably fulfilled?  Have you not seen those who,
+though old in years, were so young in heart, that they seem to have
+drunk of the Fountain of perpetual Youth,--in whom, though the
+outward body decayed, the soul was renewed day by day; who kept fresh
+and pure the noblest and holiest instincts of their childhood, and
+went on adding to them the experience, the calm, the charity of age?
+Persons whose eye was still so bright, whose smile was still so
+tender, that it seemed that they could never die?  And when they
+died, or seemed to die, you felt that THEY were not dead, but only
+their husk and shell; that they themselves, the character which you
+had loved and reverenced, must endure on, beyond the grave, beyond
+the worlds, in a literally Everlasting Life, independent of nature,
+and of all the changes of the material universe.
+
+Surely you have seen such.  And surely what you loved in them was the
+Spirit of God Himself,--that love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
+gentleness, goodness, which the natural savage man has not.  Has not,
+I say, look at him where you will, from the tropics to the pole,
+because it is a gift above man; the gift of the Spirit of God; the
+Eternal Life of goodness, which natural birth cannot give to man, nor
+natural death take away.
+
+You have surely seen such persons--if you have not, _I_ have, thank
+God, full many a time;--but if you have seen them, did you not see
+this?--That it was not riches which gave them this Life, if they were
+rich; or intellect, if they were clever; or science, if they were
+learned; or rank, if they were cultivated; or bodily organization, if
+they were beautiful and strong:  that this noble and gentle life of
+theirs was independent of their body, of their mind, of their
+circumstances?  Nay, have you not seen this,--_I_ have, thank God,
+full many a time,--That not many rich, not many mighty, not many
+noble are called:  but that God's strength is rather made perfect in
+man's weakness,--that in foul garrets, in lonely sick-beds, in dark
+places of the earth, you find ignorant people, sickly people, ugly
+people, stupid people, in spite of, in defiance of, every opposing
+circumstance, leading heroic lives,--a blessing, a comfort, an
+example, a very Fount of Life to all around them; and dying heroic
+deaths, because they know they have Eternal Life?
+
+And what was that which had made them different from the mean, the
+savage, the drunken, the profligate beings around them?  This at
+least.  That they were of those of whom it is written, 'Let him that
+is athirst come.'  They had been athirst for Life.  They had had
+instincts and longings; very simple and humble, but very pure and
+noble.  At times, it may be, they had been unfaithful to those
+instincts.  At times, it may be, they had fallen.  They had said 'Why
+should I not do like the rest, and be a savage?  Let me eat and
+drink, for to-morrow I die;' and they had cast themselves down into
+sin, for very weariness and heaviness, and were for a while as the
+beasts which have no law.
+
+But the thirst after The noble Life was too deep to be quenched in
+that foul puddle.  It endured, and it conquered; and they became more
+and more true to it, till it was satisfied at last, though never
+quenched, that thirst of theirs, in Him who alone can satisfy it--the
+God who gave it; for in them were fulfilled the Lord's own words:
+'Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for
+they shall be filled.'
+
+There are those, I fear, in this church--there are too many in all
+churches--who have not felt, as yet, this divine thirst after a
+higher Life; who wish not for an Eternal, but for a merely endless
+life, and who would not care greatly what sort of life that endless
+life might be, if only it was not too unlike the life which they live
+now; who would be glad enough to continue as they are, in their
+selfish pleasure, selfish gain, selfish content, for ever; who look
+on death as an unpleasant necessity, the end of all which they really
+prize; and who have taken up religion chiefly as a means for escaping
+still more unpleasant necessities after death.  To them, as to all,
+it is said, 'Come, and drink of the water of life freely.'  But The
+Life of goodness which Christ offers, is not the life they want.
+Wherefore they will not come to Him, that they may have life.
+Meanwhile, they have no right to sneer at the Fountain of Youth, or
+the Cup of Immortality.  Well were it for them if those dreams were
+true; in their heart of hearts they know it.  Would they not go to
+the ends of the earth to bathe in the Fountain of Youth?  Would they
+not give all their gold for a draught of the Cup of Immortality, and
+so save themselves, once and for all, the trouble of becoming good?
+
+But there are those here, I doubt not, who have in them, by grace of
+God, that same divine thirst for the Higher Life; who are
+discontented with themselves, ashamed of themselves; who are
+tormented by longings which they cannot satisfy, instincts which they
+cannot analyse, powers which they cannot employ, duties which they
+cannot perform, doctrinal confusions which they cannot unravel; who
+would welcome any change, even the most tremendous, which would make
+them nobler, purer, juster, more loving, more useful, more clear-
+headed and sound-minded; and when they think of death say with the
+poet, -
+
+
+''Tis life, not death for which I pant,
+'Tis life, whereof my nerves are scant,
+More life, and fuller, that I want.'
+
+
+To them I say--for God has said it long ago,--Be of good cheer.  The
+calling and gifts of God are without repentance.  If you have the
+divine thirst, it will be surely satisfied.  If you long to be better
+men and women, better men and women you will surely be.  Only be true
+to those higher instincts; only do not learn to despise and quench
+that divine thirst; only struggle on, in spite of mistakes, of
+failures, even of sins--for every one of which last your heavenly
+Father will chastise you, even while He forgives; in spite of all
+falls, struggle on.  Blessed are you that hunger and thirst after
+righteousness, for you shall be filled.  To you--and not in vain--
+'The Spirit and the Bride say, Come.  And let him that heareth say,
+Come.  And let him that is athirst come.  And whosoever will, let him
+drink of the water of life freely.'
+
+
+
+SERMON II.  THE PHYSICIAN'S CALLING
+(Preached at Whitehall for St. George's Hospital.)
+
+
+
+ST. MATTHEW ix. 35.
+
+And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their
+synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing
+every sickness and every disease among the people.
+
+
+The Gospels speak of disease and death in a very simple and human
+tone.  They regard them in theory, as all are forced to regard them
+in fact, as sore and sad evils.
+
+The Gospels never speak of disease or death as necessities; never as
+the will of God.  It is Satan, not God, who binds the woman with a
+spirit of infirmity.  It is not the will of our Father in heaven that
+one little one should perish.  Indeed, we do not sufficiently
+appreciate the abhorrence with which the whole of Scripture speaks of
+disease and death:  because we are in the habit of interpreting many
+texts which speak of the disease and death of the body in this life
+as if they referred to the punishment and death of the soul in the
+world to come.  We have a perfect right to do that; for Scripture
+tells us that there is a mysterious analogy and likeness between the
+life of the body and that of the soul, and therefore between the
+death of the body and that of the soul:  but we must not forget, in
+the secondary and higher spiritual interpretation of such texts,
+their primary and physical meaning, which is this--that disease and
+death are uniformly throughout Scripture held up to the abhorrence of
+man.
+
+Moreover--and this is noteworthy--the Gospels, and indeed all
+Scripture, very seldom palliate the misery of disease, by drawing
+from it those moral lessons which we ourselves do.  I say very
+seldom.  The Bible does so here and there, to tell us that we may do
+so likewise.  And we may thank God heartily that the Bible does so.
+It would be a miserable world, if all that the clergyman or the
+friend might say by the sick-bed were, 'This is an inevitable evil,
+like hail and thunder.  You must bear it if you can:  and if not,
+then not.'  A miserable world, if he could not say with full belief;
+'"My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when
+thou art rebuked of Him.  For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and
+scourgeth every son whom He receiveth."  Thou knowest not now why
+thou art afflicted; perhaps thou wilt never know in this life.  But a
+day will come when thou wilt know:  when thou wilt find that this
+sickness came to thee at the exact right time, in the exact right
+way; when thou wilt find that God has been keeping thee in the secret
+place of His presence from the provoking of men, and hiding thee
+privately in His tabernacle from the spite of tongues; when thou wilt
+discover that thou hast been learning precious lessons for thy
+immortal spirit, while thou didst seem to thyself merely tossing with
+clouded intellect on a bed of useless pain; when thou wilt find that
+God was nearest to thee, at the very moment when He seemed to have
+left thee most utterly.'
+
+Thank God, we can say that, and more; and we will say it.  But we
+must bear in mind, that the Gospels, which are the very parts of
+Scripture which speak most concerning disease, omit almost entirely
+that cheering and comforting view of it.
+
+And why?  Only to force upon our attention, I believe, a view even
+more cheering and comforting:  a view deeper and wider, because
+supplied not merely to the pious sufferer, but to all sufferers; not
+merely to the Christian, but to all mankind.  And that is, I believe,
+none other than this:  that God does not only bring spiritual good
+out of physical evil, but that He hates physical evil itself:  that
+He desires not only the salvation of our souls, but the health of our
+bodies; and that when He sent His only begotten Son into the world to
+do His will, part of that will was, that He should attack and conquer
+the physical evil of disease--as it were instinctively, as his
+natural enemy, and directly, for the sake of the body of the
+sufferer.
+
+Many excellent men, seeing how the healing of disease was an integral
+part of our Lord's mission, and of the mission of His apostles, have
+wished that it should likewise form an integral part of the mission
+of the Church:  that the clergy should as much as possible be
+physicians; the physician, as much as possible, a clergyman.  The
+plan may be useful in exceptional cases--in that, for instance, of
+the missionary among the heathen.
+
+But experience has decided, that in a civilized and Christian country
+it had better be otherwise:  that the great principle of the division
+of labour should be carried out:  that there should be in the land a
+body of men whose whole mind and time should be devoted to one part
+only of our Lord's work--the battle with disease and death.  And the
+effect has been not to lower but to raise the medical profession.  It
+has saved the doctor from one great danger--that of abusing, for the
+purposes of religious proselytizing, the unlimited confidence reposed
+in him.  It has freed him from many a superstition which enfeebled
+and confused the physicians of the Middle Ages.  It has enabled him
+to devote his whole intellect to physical science, till he has set
+his art on a sound and truly scientific foundation.  It has enabled
+him to attack physical evil with a single-hearted energy and devotion
+which ought to command the respect and admiration of his fellow-
+countrymen.  If all classes did their work half as simply, as
+bravely, as determinedly, as unselfishly, as the medical men of Great
+Britain--and, I doubt not, of other countries in Europe--this world
+would be a far fairer place than it is likely to be for many a year
+to come.  It is good to do one thing and to do it well.  It is good
+to follow Christ in one thing, and to follow Him utterly in that.
+And the medical man has set his mind to do one thing,--to hate
+calmly, but with an internecine hatred, disease and death, and to
+fight against them to the end.
+
+The medical man is complained of at times as being too materialistic-
+-as caring more for the bodies of his patients than for their souls.
+Do not blame him too hastily.  In his exclusive care for the body, he
+may be witnessing unconsciously, yet mightily, for the soul, for God,
+for the Bible, for immortality.
+
+Is he not witnessing for God, when he shows by his acts that he
+believes God to be a God of Life, not of death; of health, not of
+disease; of order, not of disorder; of joy and strength, not of
+misery and weakness?
+
+Is he not witnessing for Christ when, like Christ, he heals all
+manner of sickness and disease among the people, and attacks physical
+evil as the natural foe of man and of the Creator of man?
+
+Is he not witnessing for the immortality of the soul when he fights
+against death as an evil to be postponed at all hazards and by all
+means, even when its advent is certain?  Surely it is so.  How often
+have we seen the doctor by the dying bed, trying to preserve life,
+when he knew well that life could not be preserved.  We have been
+tempted to say to him, 'Let the sufferer alone.  He is senseless.  He
+is going.  We can do nothing more for his soul; you can do nothing
+more for his body.  Why torment him needlessly for the sake of a few
+more moments of respiration?  Let him alone to die in peace.'  How
+have we been tempted to say that?  We have not dared to say it; for
+we saw that the doctor, and not we, was in the right; that in all
+those little efforts, so wise, so anxious, so tender, so truly
+chivalrous, to keep the failing breath for a few moments more in the
+body of one who had no earthly claim upon his care, that doctor was
+bearing a testimony, unconscious yet most weighty, to that human
+instinct of which the Bible approves throughout, that death in a
+human being is an evil, an anomaly, a curse; against which, though he
+could not rescue the man from the clutch of his foe, he was bound, in
+duty and honour, to fight until the last, simply because it was
+death, and death was the enemy of man.
+
+But if the medical man bears witness for God and spiritual things
+when he seems exclusively occupied with the body, so does the
+hospital.  Look at those noble buildings which the generosity of our
+fellow-countrymen have erected in all our great cities.  You may find
+in them, truly, sermons in stones; sermons for rich alike and poor.
+They preach to the rich, these hospitals, that the sick-bed levels
+all alike; that they are the equals and brothers of the poor in the
+terrible liability to suffer!  They preach to the poor that they are,
+through Christianity, the equals of the rich in their means and
+opportunities of cure.  I say through Christianity.  Whether the
+founders so intended or not (and those who founded most of them, St.
+George's among the rest, did so intend), these hospitals bear direct
+witness for Christ.  They do this, and would do it, even if--which
+God forbid--the name of Christ were never mentioned within their
+walls.  That may seem a paradox; but it is none.  For it is a
+historic fact, that hospitals are a creation of Christian times, and
+of Christian men.  The heathen knew them not.  In that great city of
+ancient Rome, as far as I have ever been able to discover, there was
+not a single hospital,--not even, I fear, a single charitable
+institution.  Fearful thought--a city of a million and a half
+inhabitants, the centre of human civilization:  and not a hospital
+there!  The Roman Dives paid his physician; the Roman Lazarus
+literally lay at his gate full of sores, till he died the death of
+the street dogs which licked those sores, and was carried forth to be
+thrust under ground awhile, till the same dogs came to quarrel over
+his bones.  The misery and helplessness of the lower classes in the
+great cities of the Roman empire, till the Church of Christ arose,
+literally with healing in its wings, cannot, I believe, be
+exaggerated.
+
+Eastern piety, meanwhile, especially among the Hindoos, had founded
+hospitals, in the old meaning of that word--namely, almshouses for
+the infirm and aged:  but I believe there is no record of hospitals,
+like our modern ones, for the cure of disease, till Christianity
+spread over the Western world.
+
+And why?  Because then first men began to feel the mighty truth
+contained in the text.  If Christ were a healer, His servants must be
+healers likewise.  If Christ regarded physical evil as a direct evil,
+so must they.  If Christ fought against it with all His power, so
+must they, with such power as He revealed to them.  And so arose
+exclusively in the Christian mind, a feeling not only of the
+nobleness of the healing art, but of the religious duty of exercising
+that art on every human being who needed it; and hospitals are to be
+counted, as a historic fact, among the many triumphs of the Gospel.
+
+If there be any one--especially a working man--in this church this
+day who is inclined to undervalue the Bible and Christianity, let him
+know that, but for the Bible and Christianity, he has not the
+slightest reason to believe that there would have been at this moment
+a hospital in London to receive him and his in the hour of sickness
+or disabling accident, and to lavish on him there, unpaid as the
+light and air of God outside, every resource of science, care,
+generosity, and tenderness, simply because he is a human being.  Yes;
+truly catholic are these hospitals,--catholic as the bounty of our
+heavenly Father,--without respect of persons, giving to all liberally
+and upbraiding not, like Him in whom all live, and move, and have
+their being; witnesses better than all our sermons for the universal
+bounty and tolerance of that heavenly Father who causes the sun to
+shine on the evil and the good, and his rain to fall upon the just
+and on the unjust, and is perfect in this, that He is good to the
+unthankful and the evil.
+
+And, therefore, the preacher can urge his countrymen, let their
+opinions, creed, tastes, be what they may, to support hospitals with
+especial freedom, earnestness, and confidence.  Heaven forbid that I
+should undervalue any charitable institution whatever.  May God's
+blessing be on them all.  But this I have a right to say,--that
+whatever objections, suspicions, prejudices there may be concerning
+any other form of charity, concerning hospitals there can be none.
+Every farthing bestowed on them must go toward the direct doing of
+good.  There is no fear in them of waste, of misapplication of funds,
+of private jobbery, of ulterior and unavowed objects.  Palpable and
+unmistakeable good is all they do and all they can do.  And he who
+gives to a hospital has the comfort of knowing that he is bestowing a
+direct blessing on the bodies of his fellow-men; and it may be on
+their souls likewise.
+
+For I have said that these hospitals witness silently for God and for
+Christ; and I must believe that that silent witness is not lost on
+the minds of thousands who enter them.  It sinks in,--all the more
+readily because it is not thrust upon them,--and softens and breaks
+up their hearts to receive the precious seed of the word of God.
+Many a man, too ready from bitter experience to believe that his
+fellow-men cared not for him, has entered the wards of a hospital to
+be happily undeceived.  He finds that he is cared for; that he is not
+forgotten either by God or man; that there is a place for him, too,
+at God's table, in his hour of utmost need; and angels of God, in
+human form, ready to minister to his necessities; and, softened by
+that discovery, he has listened humbly, perhaps for the first time in
+his life, to the exhortations of a clergyman; and has taken in, in
+the hour of dependence and weakness, the lessons which he was too
+proud or too sullen to hear in the day of independence and sturdy
+health.  And so do these hospitals, it seems to me, follow the
+example and practice of our Lord Himself; who, by ministering to the
+animal wants and animal sufferings of the people, by showing them
+that He sympathised with those lower sorrows of which they were most
+immediately conscious, made them follow Him gladly, and listen to Him
+with faith, when He proclaimed to them in words of wisdom, that
+Father in heaven whom He had already proclaimed to them in acts of
+mercy.
+
+And now, I have to appeal to you for the excellent and honourable
+foundation of St. George's Hospital.  I might speak to you, and
+speak, too, with a personal reverence and affection of many years'
+standing, of the claims of that noble institution; of the illustrious
+men of science who have taught within its walls; of the number of
+able and honourable young men who go forth out of it, year by year,
+to carry their blessed and truly divine art, not only over Great
+Britain, but to the islands of the farthest seas.  But to say that
+would be merely to say what is true, thank God, of every hospital in
+London.
+
+One fact only, therefore, I shall urge, which gives St. George's
+Hospital special claims on the attention of the rich.
+
+Situated, as it is, in the very centre of the west end of London, it
+is the special refuge of those who are most especially of service to
+the dwellers in the Westend.  Those who are used up--fairly or
+unfairly--in ministering to the luxuries of the high-born and
+wealthy:  the groom thrown in the park; the housemaid crippled by
+lofty stairs; the workman fallen from the scaffolding of the great
+man's palace; the footman or coachman who has contracted disease from
+long hours of nightly exposure, while his master and mistress have
+been warm and gay at rout and ball; and those, too, whose number, I
+fear, are very great, who contract disease, themselves, their wives,
+and children, from actual want, when they are thrown suddenly out of
+employ at the end of the season, and London is said to be empty--of
+all but two million of living souls: --the great majority of these
+crowd into St. George's Hospital to find there relief and comfort,
+which those to whom they minister are solemnly bound to supply by
+their contributions.  The rich and well-born of this land are very
+generous.  They are doing their duty, on the whole, nobly and well.
+Let them do their duty--the duty which literally lies nearest them--
+by St. George's Hospital, and they will wipe off a stain, not on the
+hospital, but on the rich people in its neighbourhood--the stain of
+that hospital's debts.
+
+The deficiency in the funds of the hospital for the year 1862-3--
+caused, be it remembered, by no extravagance or sudden change, but
+simply by the necessity for succouring those who would otherwise have
+been destitute of succour--the deficiency, I say, on an expenditure
+of 15,000l. amounts to more than 3,200l. which has had to be met by
+selling out funded property, and so diminishing the capital of the
+institution.  Ought this to be? I ask.  Ought this to be, while more
+wealth is collected within half a mile of that hospital than in any
+spot of like extent in the globe?
+
+My friends, this is the time of Lent; the time whereof it is
+written,--'Is not this the fast which I have chosen, to deal thy
+bread to the hungry, and bring the poor that is cast out to thine
+house? when thou seest the naked that thou cover him, and that thou
+hide not thyself from thine own flesh?  If thou let thy soul go forth
+to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall thy light
+rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday.  And the Lord
+shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul, and make fat thy
+bones, and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and as a spring that
+doth not fail.'
+
+Let us obey that command literally, and see whether the promise is
+not literally fulfilled to us in return.
+
+
+
+SERMON III.  THE VICTORY OF LIFE
+(Preached at the Chapel Royal.)
+
+
+
+ISAIAH xxxviii. 18, 19.
+
+The grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee:  they that
+go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.  The living, the
+living, he shall praise thee.
+
+
+I may seem to have taken a strange text on which to speak,--a
+mournful, a seemingly hopeless text.  Why I have chosen it, I trust
+that you will see presently; certainly not that I may make you
+hopeless about death.  Meanwhile, let us consider it; for it is in
+the Bible, and, like all words in the Bible, was written for our
+instruction.
+
+Now it is plain, I think, that the man who said these words--good
+king Hezekiah--knew nothing of what we call heaven; of a blessed life
+with God after death.  He looks on death as his end.  If he dies, he
+says, he will not see the Lord in the land of the living, any more
+than he will see man with the inhabitants of the world.  God's
+mercies, he thinks, will end with his death.  God can only show His
+mercy and truth by saving him from death.  For the grave cannot
+praise God, death cannot celebrate Him; those who go down into the
+pit cannot hope for His truth.  The living, the living, shall praise
+God; as Hezekiah praises Him that day, because God has cured him of
+his sickness, and added fifteen years to his life.
+
+No language can be plainer than this.  A man who had believed that he
+would go to heaven when he died could not have used it.
+
+In many of the Psalms, likewise, you will find words of exactly the
+same kind, which show that the men who wrote them had no clear
+conception, if any conception at all, of a life after death.
+
+Solomon's words about death are utterly awful from their sadness.
+With him, 'that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; as
+one dieth, so dieth the other.  Yea, they have all one breath, so
+that a man hath no pre-eminence over a beast, and all is vanity.  All
+go to one place, all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.
+Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of
+the beast that goeth downward to the earth?'
+
+He knows nothing about it.  All he knows is, that the spirit shall
+return to God who gave it,--and that a man will surely find, in this
+life, a recompence for all his deeds, whether good or evil.
+
+'Remember therefore thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the
+evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I
+have no pleasure in them.  Fear God, and keep His commandments; for
+this is the whole duty of man.  For God shall bring every work into
+judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it
+be evil.'
+
+This is the doctrine of the Old Testament; that God judges and
+rewards and punishes men in this life:  but as for death, it is a
+great black cloud into which all men must enter, and see and be seen
+no more.  Only twice or thrice, perhaps, a gleam of light from beyond
+breaks through the dark.  David, the noblest and wisest of all the
+Jews, can say once that God will not leave his soul in hell, neither
+suffer His holy one to see corruption; Job says that, though after
+his skin worms destroy his body, yet in his flesh he shall see God;
+and Isaiah, again, when he sees his countrymen slaughtered, and his
+nation all but destroyed, can say, 'Thy dead men shall live, together
+with my dead body shall they arise.  Awake and sing, ye that dwell in
+dust:  for thy dew is as the dew of the morning, which brings the
+parched herbs to life and freshness again.'--Great and glorious
+sayings, all of them:  but we cannot tell how far either David, or
+Job, or Isaiah, were thinking of a life after death.  We can think of
+a life after death when we use them; for we know how they have been
+fulfilled in Jesus Christ our Lord; and we can see in them more than
+the Jews of old could do; for, like all inspired words, they mean
+more than the men who wrote them thought of; but we have no right to
+impute our Christianity to them.
+
+The only undoubted picture, perhaps, of the next life to be found in
+the Old Testament, is that grand one in Isaiah xiv., where he paints
+to us the tyrant king of Babylon going down into hell:-
+
+'Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming; it
+stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth;
+it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.
+All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as
+we? art thou become like unto us?  Thy pomp is brought down to the
+grave, and the noise of thy viols:  the worm is spread under thee,
+and the worms cover thee.  How art thou fallen from heaven, O
+Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground,
+which didst weaken the nations!'--Awful and grand enough:  but quite
+different, you will observe, from the notions of hell which are
+common now-a-days; and much more like those which we read in the old
+Greek poets, and especially, in the Necyomanteia of the Odyssey.
+
+When it was that the Jews gained any fuller notions about the next
+life, it is very difficult to say.  Certainly not before they were
+carried away captive to Babylon.  After that they began to mix much
+with the great nations of the East:  with Greeks, Persians, and
+Indians; and from them, most probably, they learned to believe in a
+heaven after death to which good men would go, and a fiery hell to
+which bad men would go.  At least, the heathen nations round them,
+and our forefathers likewise, believed in some sort of heaven and
+hell, hundreds of years before the coming of our blessed Lord.
+
+The Jews had learned, also--at least the Pharisees--to believe in the
+resurrection of the dead.  Martha speaks of it; and St. Paul, when he
+tells the Pharisees that, having been brought up a Pharisee, he was
+on their side against the Sadducees.--'I am a Pharisee,' he says,
+'the son of a Pharisee; for the hope of the resurrection of the dead
+I am called in question.'
+
+But if it be so,--if St. Paul and the Apostles believed in heaven and
+hell, and the resurrection of the dead, before they became
+Christians, what more did they learn about the next life, when they
+became Christians?  Something they did learn, most certainly--and
+that most important.  St. Paul speaks of what our Lord and our Lord's
+resurrection had taught him, as something quite infinitely grander,
+and more blessed, than what he had known before.  He talks of our
+Lord as having abolished death, and brought life and immortality to
+light; of His having conquered death, and of His destroying death at
+last.  He speaks at moments as if he did not expect to die at all;
+and when he does speak of the death of the Christian, it is merely as
+a falling asleep.  When he speaks of his own death, it is merely as a
+change of place.  He longs to depart, and to be with Christ.  Death
+had looked terrible to him once, when he was a Jew.  Death had had a
+sting, and the grave a victory, which seemed ready to conquer him:
+but now he cries, 'O Death, where is thy sting?  O Grave, where is
+thy victory?' and then he declares that the terrors of death and the
+grave are taken away, not by anything which he knew when he was a
+Pharisee, but through our Lord Jesus Christ.
+
+All his old Jewish notions of the resurrection, though they were true
+as far as they went, seemed poor and paltry beside what Christ had
+taught him.  He was not going to wait till the end of the world--
+perhaps for thousands of years--in darkness and the shadow of death,
+he knew not where or how.  His soul was to pass at once into life,--
+into joy, and peace, and bliss, in the presence of his Saviour, till
+it should have a new body given to it, in the resurrection of life at
+the last day.
+
+This, I think, is what St. Paul learned, and what the Jews had not
+learned till our blessed Lord came.  They were still afraid of death.
+It looked to them a dark and ugly blank; and no wonder.  For would it
+not be dark and ugly enough to have to wait, we know not where, it
+may be a thousand, it may be tens of thousands of years, till the
+resurrection in the last day, before we entered into joy, peace,
+activity or anything worthy of the name of life?  Would not death
+have a sting indeed, the grave a victory indeed, if we had to be as
+good as dead for ten thousands of years?
+
+What then?  Remember this, that death is an enemy, an evil thing, an
+enemy to man, and therefore an enemy to Christ, the King and Head and
+Saviour of man.  Men ought not to die, and they feel it.  It is no
+use to tell them, 'Everything that is born must die, and why not you?
+All other animals died.  They died, just as they die now, hundreds of
+thousands of years before man came upon this earth; and why should
+man expect to have a different lot?  Why should you not take your
+death patiently, as you take any other evil which you cannot escape?'
+The heart of man, as soon as he begins to be a man, and not a mere
+savage; as soon as he begins to think reasonably, and feel deeply;
+the heart of man answers:  'No, I am not a mere animal.  I have
+something in me which ought not to die, which perhaps cannot die.  I
+have a living soul in me, which ought to be able to keep my body
+alive likewise, but cannot; and therefore death is my enemy.  I hate
+him, and I believe that I was meant to hate him.  Something must be
+wrong with me, or I should not die; something must be wrong with all
+mankind, or I should not see those I love dying round me.
+
+Yes, my friends, death is an enemy,--a hideous, hateful thing.  The
+longer one looks at it, the more one hates it.  The more often one
+sees it, the less one grows accustomed to it.  Its very commonness
+makes it all the more shocking.  We may not be so much shocked at
+seeing the old die.  We say, 'They have done their work, why should
+they not go?'  That is not true.  They have not done their work.
+There is more work in plenty for them to do, if they could but live;
+and it seems shocking and sad, at least to him who loves his country
+and his kind, that, just as men have grown old enough to be of use,
+when they have learnt to conquer their passions, when their
+characters are formed, when they have gained sound experience of this
+world, and what man ought and can do in it,--just as, in fact, they
+have become most able to teach and help their fellow-men,--that then
+they are to grow old, and decrepit, and helpless, and fade away, and
+die just when they are most fit to live, and the world needs them
+most.
+
+Sad, I say, and strange is that.  But sadder, and more strange, and
+more utterly shocking, to see the young die; to see parents leaving
+infant children, children vanishing early out of the world where they
+might have done good work for God and man.
+
+What arguments will make us believe that that ought to be?  That that
+is God's will?  That that is anything but an evil, an anomaly, a
+disease?
+
+Not the Bible, certainly.  The Bible never tells us that such
+tragedies as are too often seen are the will of God.  The Bible says
+that it is not the will of our Father that one of these little ones
+should perish.  The Bible tells us that Jesus, when on earth, went
+about fighting and conquering disease and death, even raising from
+the dead those who had died before their time.  To fight against
+death, and to give life wheresoever He went--that was His work; by
+that He proclaimed the will of God, His Father, that none should
+perish, who sent His Son that men might have life, and have it more
+abundantly.  By that He declared that death was an evil and a
+disorder among men, which He would some day crush and destroy
+utterly, that mortality should be swallowed up of life.
+
+And yet we die, and shall die.  Yes.  The body is dead, because of
+sin.  Mankind is a diseased race; and it must pay the penalty of its
+sins for many an age to come, and die, and suffer, and sorrow.  But
+not for ever.  For what mean such words as these--for something they
+must mean? -
+
+'If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.'
+
+And again, 'He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall
+he live; and he that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.'
+
+Do such words as these mean only that we shall rise again in the
+resurrection at the last day?  Surely not.  Our Lord spoke them in
+answer to that very notion.
+
+'Martha said to Him, I know that my brother shall rise again, in the
+resurrection at the last day.  Jesus said unto her, I AM the
+resurrection and the life;' and then showed what He meant by bringing
+back Lazarus to life, unchanged, and as he had been before he died.
+
+Surely, if that miracle meant anything, if these words meant
+anything, it meant this:  that those who die in the fear of God, and
+in the faith of Christ, do not really taste death; that to them there
+is no death, but only a change of place, a change of state; that they
+pass at once, and instantly, into some new life, with all their
+powers, all their feelings, unchanged,--purified doubtless from
+earthly stains, but still the same living, thinking, active beings
+which they were here on earth.  I say, active.  The Bible says
+nothing about their sleeping till the Day of Judgment, as some have
+fancied.  Rest they may; rest they will, if they need rest.  But what
+is the true rest?  Not idleness, but peace of mind.  To rest from
+sin, from sorrow, from fear, from doubt, from care,--this is the true
+rest.  Above all, to rest from the worst weariness of all--knowing
+one's duty, and yet not being able to do it.  That is true rest; the
+rest of God, who works for ever, and yet is at rest for ever; as the
+stars over our heads move for ever, thousands of miles each day, and
+yet are at perfect rest, because they move orderly, harmoniously,
+fulfilling the law which God has given them.  Perfect rest, in
+perfect work; that surely is the rest of blessed spirits, till the
+final consummation of all things, when Christ shall have made up the
+number of His elect.
+
+I hope that this is so.  I trust that this is so.  I think our Lord's
+great words can mean nothing less than this.  And if it be so, what
+comfort for us who must die?  What comfort for us who have seen
+others die, if death be but a new birth into some higher life; if all
+that it changes in us is our body--the mere shell and husk of us--
+such a change as comes over the snake, when he casts his old skin,
+and comes out fresh and gay, or even the crawling caterpillar, which
+breaks its prison, and spreads its wings to the sun as a fair
+butterfly.  Where is the sting of death, then, if death can sting,
+and poison, and corrupt nothing of us for which our friends have
+loved us; nothing of us with which we could do service to men or God?
+Where is the victory of the grave, if, so far from the grave holding
+us down, it frees us from the very thing which holds us down,--the
+mortal body?
+
+Death is not death, then, if it kills no part of us, save that which
+hindered us from perfect life.  Death is not death, if it raises us
+in a moment from darkness into light, from weakness into strength,
+from sinfulness into holiness.  Death is not death, if it brings us
+nearer to Christ, who is the fount of life.  Death is not death, if
+it perfects our faith by sight, and lets us behold Him in whom we
+have believed.  Death is not death, if it gives us to those whom we
+have loved and lost, for whom we have lived, for whom we long to live
+again.  Death is not death, if it joins the child to the mother who
+is gone before.  Death is not death, if it takes away from that
+mother for ever all a mother's anxieties, a mother's fears, and lets
+her see, in the gracious countenance of her Saviour, a sure and
+certain pledge that those whom she has left behind are safe, safe
+with Christ and in Christ, through all the chances and dangers of his
+mortal life.  Death is not death, if it rids us of doubt and fear, of
+chance and change, of space and time, and all which space and time
+bring forth, and then destroy.  Death is not death; for Christ has
+conquered death, for Himself, and for those who trust in Him.  And to
+those who say, 'You were born in time, and in time you must die, as
+all other creatures do; Time is your king and lord, as he has been of
+all the old worlds before this, and of all the races of beasts, whose
+bones and shells lie fossil in the rocks of a thousand generations;'
+then we can answer them, in the words of the wise man, and in the
+name of Christ who conquered death:-
+
+
+'Fly, envious time, till thou run out thy race,
+And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,
+Which is no more than what is false and vain
+And merely mortal dross.
+So little is our loss, so little is thy gain.
+For when as each bad thing thou hast entombed,
+And, last of all, thy greedy self consumed,
+Then long eternity shall greet our bliss
+With an individual kiss,
+And joy shall overtake us as a flood,
+When everything that is sincerely good
+And perfectly divine,
+And truth, and peace, and love shall ever shine
+About the supreme throne
+Of Him, unto whose happy-making sight alone
+When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb,
+Then all this earthly grossness quit,
+Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit
+Triumphant over death, and chance, and thee, O Time!'
+
+
+
+SERMON IV.  THE WAGES OF SIN
+(Chapel Royal June, 1864)
+
+
+
+ROM. vi. 21-23.
+
+What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed?
+for the end of those things is death.  But now being made free from
+sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness,
+and the end everlasting life.  For the wages of sin is death; but the
+gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
+
+
+This is a glorious text, if we will only believe it simply, and take
+it as it stands.
+
+But if in place of St. Paul's words we put quite different words of
+our own, and say--By 'the wages of sin is death,' St. Paul means that
+the punishment of sin is eternal life in torture, then we say
+something which may be true, but which is not what St. Paul is
+speaking of here.  For wages are not punishment, and death is not
+eternal life in torture, any more than in happiness.
+
+That, one would think, was clear.  It is our duty to take St. Paul's
+words, if we really believe them to be inspired, simply as they
+stand; and if we do not quite understand them, to explain them by St.
+Paul's own words about these matters in other parts of his writings.
+
+St. Paul was an inspired Apostle.  Let him speak for himself.  Surely
+he knew best what he wished to say, and how to say it.
+
+Now St. Paul's opinions about death and eternal life are very clear;
+for he speaks of them often, and at great length.
+
+He considered that the great enemy of God and man, the last enemy
+Christ would destroy, was death; and that, after death was destroyed,
+the end would come, when God would be all in all.  Then came the
+question, which has puzzled men in all ages--How death came into the
+world.  St. Paul answers, By sin.  He says, as the author of the
+third chapter of Genesis says, that Adam became subject to death by
+his fall.  By one man, he says, sin entered into the world, and death
+by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
+And thus, he says, death reigned even over those who had not sinned
+after the likeness of Adam's transgression.
+
+That he is speaking of bodily death is clear, because he is always
+putting it in contrast to the resurrection to life,--not merely to a
+spiritual resurrection from the death of sin to the life of
+righteousness; but to the resurrection of the body,--to our Lord's
+being raised from the dead, that He might die no more.
+
+Then he speaks of eternal life.  He always speaks of it as an actual
+life, in a spiritual body, into which our mortal bodies are to be
+changed.  Nothing can be clearer from what he says in 1 Cor. xv.,
+that he means an actual rising again of our bodies from bodily death;
+an actual change in them; an actual life in them for ever.
+
+But he says, again and again,--As sin caused the death of the body,
+so righteousness is to cause its life.
+
+'When ye were the servants of sin,' he says to the Romans, 'what
+fruit had ye in those things whereof ye are now ashamed?  For the end
+of those things is death.  But now being made free from sin, and
+become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end
+everlasting life.  For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God
+is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.'
+
+This is St. Paul's opinion.  And we shall do well to believe it, and
+to learn from it, this day, and all days.
+
+The wages of sin and the end of sin is death.  Not the punishment of
+sin; but something much worse.  The wages of sin, and the end of sin.
+
+And how is that worse news?  My friends, every sinner knows so well
+in his heart that it is worse news, more terrible news, for him, that
+he tries to persuade himself that death is only the arbitrary
+punishment of his sin; or, quite as often, that the punishment of his
+sin is not even death, but eternal torment in the next life.
+
+And why?  Because, as long as he can believe that death, or hell, are
+only punishments arbitrarily fixed by God against his sins, he can
+hope that God will let him off the punishment.  Die, he knows he
+must, because all men die; and so he makes up his mind to that:  but
+being sent to hell after he dies, is so very terrible a punishment,
+that he cannot believe that God will be so hard on him as that.  No;
+he will get off, and be forgiven at last somehow, for surely God will
+not condemn him to hell.  And so he finds it very convenient and
+comfortable to believe in hell, just because he does not believe that
+he is going there, whoever else may be.
+
+But, it is a very terrible, heartrending thought, for a man to find
+out that what he will receive is not punishment, but wages; not
+punishment but the end of the very road which he is travelling on.
+That the wages of sin, and the end of sin, to which it must lead, are
+death; that every time he sins he is earning those wages, deserving
+them, meriting them, and therefore receiving them by the just laws of
+the world of God.  That does torment him, that does terrify him, if
+he will look steadfastly at the broad plain fact--You need not dream
+of being let off, respited, reprieved, pardoned in any way.  The
+thing cannot be done.  It is contrary to the laws of God and of God's
+universe.  It is as impossible as that fire should not burn, or water
+run up hill.  It is not a question of arbitrary punishment, which may
+be arbitrarily remitted; but of wages, which you needs must take,
+weekly, daily, and hourly; and those wages are death:  a question of
+travelling on a certain road, whereon, if you travel it long enough,
+you must come to the end of it; and the end is death.  Your sins are
+killing you by inches; all day long they are sowing in you the seeds
+of disease and death.  Every sin which you commit with your body
+shortens your bodily life.  Every sin you commit with your mind,
+every act of stupidity, folly, wilful ignorance, helps to destroy
+your mind, and leave you dull, silly, devoid of right reason.  Every
+sin you commit with your spirit, each sin of passion and temper, envy
+and malice, pride and vanity, injustice and cruelty, extravagance and
+self-indulgence, helps to destroy your spiritual life, and leave you
+bad, more and more unable to do the right and avoid the wrong, more
+and more unable to discern right from wrong; and that last is
+spiritual death, the eternal death of your moral being.  There are
+three parts in you--body, mind, and spirit; and every sin you commit
+helps to kill one of these three, and, in many cases, to kill all
+three together.
+
+So, sinner, dream not of escaping punishment at the last.  You are
+being punished now, for you are punishing yourself; and you will
+continue to be punished for ever, for you will be punishing yourself
+for ever, as long as you go on doing wrong, and breaking the laws
+which God has appointed for body, mind and spirit.  You can see that
+a drunkard is killing himself, body and mind, by drink.  You see that
+he knows that, poor wretch, as well as you.  He knows that every time
+he gets drunk he is cutting so much off his life; and yet he cannot
+help it.  He knows that drink is poison, and yet he goes back to his
+poison.
+
+Then know, habitual sinner, that you are like that drunkard.  That
+every bad habit in which you indulge is shortening the life of some
+of your faculties, and that God Himself cannot save you from the doom
+which you are earning, deserving, and working out for yourself every
+day and every hour.
+
+Oh how men hate that message!--the message that the true wrath of
+God, necessary, inevitable, is revealed from heaven against all
+unrighteousness of men.  How they writhe under it!  How they shut
+their ears to it, and cry to their preachers, 'No!  Tell us of any
+wrath of God but that!  Tell us rather of the torments of the damned,
+of a frowning God, of absolute decrees to destruction, of the
+reprobation of millions before they are born; any doctrine, however
+fearful and horrible:  because we don't quite believe it, but only
+think that we ought to believe it.  Yes, tell us anything rather than
+that news, which cuts at the root of all our pride, of all our
+comfort, and all our superstition--the news that we cannot escape the
+consequences of our own actions; that there are no back stairs up
+which we may be smuggled into heaven; that as we sow, so we shall
+reap; that we are filled with the fruits of our own devices; every
+man his own poisoner, every man his own executioner, every man his
+own suicide; that hell begins in this life, and death begins before
+we die: --do not say that:  because we cannot help believing it; for
+our own consciousness and our own experience tell us it is true.'  No
+wonder that the preacher who tells men that is hated, is called a
+Rationalist, a Pantheist, a heretic, and what not, just because he
+does set forth such a living God, such a justice of God, such a wrath
+of God as would make the sinner tremble, if he believed in it, not
+merely once in a way, when he hears a stirring sermon about the
+endless torments:  but all day long, going out and coming in, lying
+on his bed and walking by the way, always haunted by the shadow of
+himself, knowing that he is bearing about in him the perpetually
+growing death of sin.
+
+And still more painful would this message be to the sinner, if he had
+any kindly feeling for others; and, thank God, there are few who have
+not that.  For St. Paul's message to him is, that the wages of his
+sin is death, not merely to himself, but to others--to his family and
+children above all.  So St. Paul declares in what he says of his
+doctrine of original or birth sin, by which, as the Article says,
+every man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his
+own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth against the
+spirit.
+
+St. Paul's doctrine is simple and explicit.  Death, he says, reigned
+over Adam's children, even over those who had not sinned after the
+likeness of Adam's transgression; agreeing with Moses, who declares
+God to be one who visits the sins of the fathers on the children, to
+the third and fourth generation of those who hate Him.  But how the
+sinner will shrink from this message--and shrink the more, the more
+feeling he is, the less he is wrapped up in selfishness.  Yes, that
+message gives us such a view of the sinfulness of sin as none other
+can.  It tells us why God hates sin with so unextinguishable a
+hatred, just because He is a God of Love.  It is not that man's sin
+injures God, insults God, as the heathen fancy.  Who is God, that man
+can stir Him up to pride, or wound or disturb His everlasting calm,
+His self-sufficient perfectness?  'God is tempted of no man,' says
+St. James.  No.  God hates sin.  He loves all, and sin harms all; and
+the sinner may be a torment and a curse, not only to himself, not
+only to those around him, but to children yet unborn.
+
+This is bad news; and yet sinners must hear it.  They must hear it
+not only put into words by Moses, or by St. Paul, or by any other
+inspired writer; but they must hear it, likewise, in that perpetual
+voice of God which we call facts.
+
+Let the sinner who wishes to know what original sin means, and how
+actual sin in one man breeds original sin in his descendants, look at
+the world around him, and see.  Let him see how St. Paul's doctrine
+and the doctrine of the Ten Commandments are proved true by
+experience and by fact:  how the past, and how the present likewise,
+show us whole families, whole tribes, whole aristocracies, whole
+nations, dwindling down to imbecility, misery, and destruction,
+because the sins of the fathers are visited on the children.
+
+Physicians, who see children born diseased; born stupid, or even
+idiotic; born thwart-natured, or passionate, or false, or dishonest,
+or brutal,--they know well what original sin means, though they call
+it by their own name of hereditary tendencies.  And they know, too,
+how the sins of a parent, or of a grand parent, or even a great-
+grandparent, are visited on the children to the third and fourth
+generation; and they say 'It is a law of nature:' and so it is.  But
+the laws of nature are the laws of God who made her:  and His law is
+the same law by which death reigns even over those who have not
+sinned after the likeness of Adam; the law by which (even though if
+Christ be in us, the spirit is life, because of righteousness) the
+body, nevertheless, is dead, because of sin.
+
+Parents, parents, who hear my words, beware--if not for your own
+sakes, at least for the sake of your children, and your children's
+children--lest the wages of your sin should be their death.
+
+And by this time, surely, some of you will be asking, 'What has he
+said?  That there is no escape; that there is no forgiveness?'
+
+None whatsoever, my friends, though you were to cry to heaven for
+ever and ever, save the one old escape of which you hear in the
+church every Sunday morning:  'When the wicked man turneth away from
+his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful
+and right, he shall save his soul alive.'
+
+What, does not the blood of Christ cleanse us from all sin?
+
+Yes, from all sin.  But not, necessarily, from the wages of all sin.
+
+Judge for yourselves, my friends, again.  Listen to the voice of God
+revealed in facts.  If you, being a drunkard, have injured your
+constitution by drink, and then are converted, and repent, and turn
+to God with your whole soul, and become, as you may, if you will, a
+truly penitent, good, and therefore sober man,--will that cure the
+disease of your body?  It will certainly palliate and ease it:
+because, instead of being drunken, you will have become sober:  but
+still you will have shortened your days by your past sins; and, in so
+far, even though the Lord has put away your sin its wages still
+remain, as death.
+
+So it is, my friends, if you will only believe it, or rather see it
+with your own eyes, with every sin, and every sort of sin.
+
+You will see, if you look, that the Article speaks exact truth when
+it says, that the infection of nature doth remain, even in those that
+are regenerate.  It says that of original sin:  but it is equally
+true of actual sin.
+
+Would to God that all men would but believe this, and give up the too
+common and too dangerous notion, that it is no matter if they go on
+wrong for a while, provided they come right at last!
+
+No matter?  I ask for facts again.  Is there a man or woman in this
+church twenty years old who does not know that it matters?  Who does
+not know that, if they have done wrong in youth, their own wrong
+deeds haunt them and torment them?--That they are, perhaps the
+poorer, perhaps the sicklier, perhaps the more ignorant, perhaps the
+sillier, perhaps the more sorrowful this day, for things which they
+did twenty, thirty years ago?  Is there any one in this church who
+ever did a wrong thing without smarting for it?  If there is (which I
+question), let him be sure that it is only because his time is not
+come.  Do not fancy that because you are forgiven, you may not be
+actually less good men all your lives by having sinned when young.
+
+I know it is sometimes said, 'The greater the sinner, the greater the
+saint.'  I do not believe that:  because I do not see it.  I see, and
+I thank God for it, that men who have been very wrong at one time,
+come very right afterwards; that, having found out in earnest that
+the wages of sin are death, they do repent in earnest, and receive
+the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ.  But I see, too, that
+the bad habits, bad passions, bad methods of thought, which they have
+indulged in youth, remain more or less, and make them worse men,
+sillier men, less useful men, less happy men, sometimes to their
+lives' end:  and they, if they be true Christians, know it, and
+repent of their early sins, not once for all only, but all their
+lives long; because they feel that they have weakened and worsened
+themselves thereby.
+
+It stands to reason, my friends, that it should be so.  If a man
+loses his way, and finds it again, he is so much the less forward on
+his way, surely, by all the time he has spent in getting back into
+the road.  If a child has a violent illness, it stops growing,
+because the life and nourishment which ought to have gone towards its
+growth, are spent in curing its disease.  And so, if a man has
+indulged in bad habits in his youth, he is but too likely (let him do
+what he will) to be a less good man for it to his life's end, because
+the Spirit of God, which ought to have been making him grow in grace,
+freely and healthily, to the stature of a perfect man, to the fulness
+of the measure of Christ, is striving to conquer old bad habits, and
+cure old diseases of character; and the man, even though he does
+enter into life, enters into it halt and maimed; and the wages of his
+sin have been, as they always will be, death to some powers, some
+faculties of his soul.
+
+Think over these things, my friends; and believe that the wages of
+sin are death, and that there is no escaping from God's just and
+everlasting laws.  But meanwhile, let us judge no man.  This is a
+great and a solemn reason for observing, with fear and trembling, our
+Lord's command, for it is nothing less, 'Judge not, and ye shall not
+be judged; condemn not and ye shall not be condemned.'
+
+For we never can know how much of any man's misconduct is to be set
+down to original, and how much to actual, sin;--how much disease of
+mind and heart he has inherited from his parents, how much he has
+brought upon himself
+
+Therefore judge no man, but yourselves.  Search your own hearts, to
+see what manner of men you really wish to be; judge yourselves, lest
+God should judge you.
+
+Do you wish to go on as you like here on earth, right or wrong, in
+the hope that, somehow or other, the punishment of your sins will be
+forgiven you at the last day?
+
+Then know that that is impossible.  As a man sows, so shall he reap;
+and if you sow to the flesh, of the flesh you will reap--corruption.
+The wages of sin are death.  Those wages will be paid you, and you
+must take them whether you like or not.
+
+But do you wish to be Good?  Do you see (I trust in God that many of
+you do) that goodness is the only wise, safe, prudent life for you
+because it is the only path the end of which is not death?
+
+Do you see that goodness is the only right and honourable life for
+you, because it is the only path by which you can do your duty to man
+or to God; the only method by which you can show your gratitude to
+God for all His goodness to you, and can please Him, in return for
+all that He has done by His grace and free love to bless you?
+
+Do you, in a word, repent you truly of your former sins, and purpose
+to lead a new life?  Then know, that all beyond is the free grace,
+the free gift of God.  You have to earn nothing, to buy nothing.  The
+will is all God asks.  Eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus
+Christ.
+
+Freely He forgives you all your past sins, for the sake of that
+precious blood which was shed on the cross for the sins of the whole
+world.  Freely He takes you back, as His child, to your Father's
+house.  Freely, He gives you His Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Goodness,
+the Spirit of Life, to put into your mind good desires, and enable
+you to bring those desires to good effect, that you may live the
+eternal life of grace and goodness for ever, whether in earth or
+heaven.
+
+Yes, it is the Gift of God, which raises you from the death of sin to
+the life of righteousness; and if you have that gift, you will not
+murmur, surely, though you have to bear, more or less, the just and
+natural consequences of your former sins; though you be, through your
+own guilt, a sadder man to your dying day.  Be content.  You are
+forgiven.  You are cleansed from your sin; is not that mercy enough?
+Why are you to demand of God, that He should over and above cleanse
+you from the consequences of your sin?  He may leave them there to
+trouble and sadden you, just because He loves you, and desires to
+chasten you, and keep you in mind of what you were, and what you
+would be again, at any moment, if His Spirit left you to yourself.
+You may have to enter into life halt and maimed:  yet, be content;
+you have a thousand times more than you deserve, for at least you
+enter into Life.
+
+
+
+SERMON V.  NIGHT AND DAY
+(Preached at the Chapel Royal)
+
+
+
+ROMANS xiii. 12.
+
+The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off
+the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
+
+
+Certain commentators would tell us, that St. Paul wrote these words
+in the expectation that the end of the world, and the second coming
+of Christ, were very near.  The night was far spent, and the day of
+the Lord at hand.  Salvation--deliverance from the destruction
+impending on the world, was nearer than when his converts first
+believed.  Shortly the Lord would appear in glory, and St. Paul and
+his converts would be caught up to meet Him in the air.
+
+No doubt St. Paul's words will bear this meaning.  No doubt there are
+many passages in his writings which seem to imply that he thought the
+end of the world was near; and that Christ would reappear in glory,
+while he, Paul, was yet alive on the earth.  And there are passages;
+too, which seem to imply that he afterwards altered that opinion,
+and, no longer expecting to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air,
+desired to depart himself, and be with Christ, in the consciousness
+that 'He was ready to be offered up, and the time of his departure
+was at hand.'
+
+I say that there are passages which seem to imply such a change in
+St. Paul's opinions.  I do not say that they actually imply it.  If I
+had a positive opinion on the matter, I should not be hasty to give
+it.  These questions of 'criticism,' as they are now called, are far
+less important than men fancy just now.  A generation or two hence,
+it is to be hoped, men will see how very unimportant they are, and
+will find that they have detracted very little from the authority of
+Scripture as a whole; and that they have not detracted in the least
+from the Gospel and good news which Scripture proclaims to men--the
+news of a perfect God, who will have men to become perfect even as
+He, their Father in heaven, is perfect; who sent His only begotten
+Son into the world, that the world through Him might be saved.
+
+In this case, I verily believe, it matters little to us whether St.
+Paul, when he wrote these words, wrote them under the belief that
+Christ's second coming was at hand.  We must apply to his words the
+great rule, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private
+interpretation--that is, does not apply exclusively to any one fact
+or event:  but fulfils itself again and again, in a hundred
+unexpected ways, because he who wrote it was moved by the Holy
+Spirit, who revealed to him the eternal and ever-working laws of the
+Kingdom of God.  Therefore, I say, the words are true for us at this
+moment.  To us, though we have, as far as I can see, not the least
+reasonable cause for supposing the end of the world to be more
+imminent than it was a thousand years ago--to us, nevertheless, and
+to every generation of men, the night is always far spent, and the
+day is always at hand.
+
+And this, surely, was in the mind of those who appointed this text to
+be read as the Epistle for the first Sunday in Advent.
+
+Year after year, though Christ has not returned to judgment; though
+scoffers have been saying, 'Where is the promise of His coming? for
+all things continue as they were at the beginning'--Year after year,
+I say, are the clergy bidden to tell the people that the night is far
+spent, that the day is at hand; and to tell them so, because it is
+true.  Whatsoever St. Paul meant, or did not mean, by the words, a
+few years after our Lord's ascension into heaven, they are there, for
+ever, written by one who was moved by the Holy Ghost; and hence they
+have an eternal moral and spiritual significance to mankind in every
+age.
+
+Whatever these words may, or may not have meant to St. Paul when he
+wrote them first, in the prime of life, we may never know, and we
+need not know.  But we can guess surely enough what they must have
+meant to him in after years, when he could say--as would to God we
+all might be able to say--'I have fought a good fight, I have
+finished my course, I have kept the faith:  henceforth there is laid
+up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
+Judge, shall give me at that day:  and not to me only, but unto all
+them that love His appearing.'
+
+To him, then, the night would surely mean this mortal life on earth.
+The day would mean the immortal life to come.
+
+For is not this mortal life, compared with that life to come, as
+night compared with day?  I do not mean to speak evil of it.  God
+forbid that we should do anything but thank God for this life.  God
+forbid that we should say impiously to Him, Why hast thou made me
+thus?  No.  God made this mortal life, and therefore, like all things
+which He has made, it is very good.  But there are good nights, and
+there are bad nights; and there are happy lives, and unhappy ones.
+But what are they at best?  What is the life of the happiest man
+without the Holy Spirit of God?  A night full of pleasant dreams.
+What is the life of the wisest man?  A night of darkness, through
+which he gropes his way by lanthorn-light, slowly, and with many
+mistakes and stumbles.  When we compare man's vast capabilities with
+his small deeds; when we think how much he might know,--how little he
+does know in this mortal life,--can we wonder that the highest
+spirits in every age have looked on death as a deliverance out of
+darkness and a dungeon?  And if this is life at the best, what is
+life at the worst?  To how many is life a night, not of peace and
+rest, but of tossing and weariness, pain and sickness, anxiety and
+misery, till they are ready to cry, When will it be over?  When will
+kind Death come and give me rest?  When will the night of this life
+be spent, and the day of God arise?  'Out of the depths have I cried
+unto thee, O Lord.  Lord, hear my voice.  My soul doth wait for the
+Lord, more than the sick man who watches for the morning.'
+
+Yes, think,--for it is good at times, however happy one may be
+oneself, to think--of all the misery and sorrow that there is on
+earth, and how many there are who would be glad to hear that it was
+nearly over; glad to hear that the night was far spent, and the day
+was at hand.
+
+And even the happiest ought to 'know the time.'  To know that the
+night is far spent, and the day at hand.  To know, too, that the
+night at best was not given us, to sleep it all through, from sunset
+to sunrise.  No industrious man does that.  Either he works after
+sunset, and often on through the long hours, and into the short
+hours, before he goes to rest:  or else he rises before daybreak, and
+gets ready for the labours of the coming day.  The latter no man can
+do in this life.  For we all sleep away, more or less, the beginning
+of our life, in the time of childhood.  There is no sin in that--God
+seems to have ordained that so it should be.  But, to sleep away our
+manhood likewise,--is there no sin in that?  As we grow older, must
+we not awake out of sleep, and set to work, to be ready for the day
+of God which will dawn on us when we pass out of this mortal life
+into the world to come?
+
+As we grow older, and as we get our share of the cares, troubles,
+experiences of life, it is high time to wake out of sleep, and ask
+Christ to give us light--light enough to see our way through the
+night of this life, till the everlasting day shall dawn.
+
+'Knowing the time;'--the time of this our mortal life.  How soon it
+will be over, at the longest!  How short the time seems since we were
+young!  How quickly it has gone!  How every year, as we grow older
+seems to go more and more quickly, and there is less time to do what
+we want, to think seriously, to improve ourselves.  So soon, and it
+will be over, and we shall have no time at all, for we shall be in
+eternity.  And what then?  What then?  That depends on what now.  On
+what we are doing now.  Are we letting our short span of life slip
+away in sleep; fancying ourselves all the while wide awake, as we do
+in dreams--till we wake really; and find that it is daylight, and
+that all our best dreams were nothing but useless fancy?  How many
+dream away their lives!  Some upon gain, some upon pleasure, some
+upon petty self-interest, petty quarrels, petty ambitions, petty
+squabbles and jealousies about this person and that, which are no
+more worthy to take up a reasonable human being's time and thoughts
+than so many dreams would be.  Some, too, dream away their lives in
+sin, in works of darkness which they are forced for shame and safety
+to hide, lest they should come to the light and be exposed.  So
+people dream their lives away, and go about their daily business as
+men who walk in their sleep, wandering about with their eyes open,
+and yet seeing nothing of what is really around them.  Seeing
+nothing:  though they think that they see, and know their own
+interest, and are shrewd enough to find their way about this world.
+But they know nothing--nothing of the very world with which they
+pride themselves they are so thoroughly acquainted.  None know less
+of the world than those who pride themselves on being men of the
+world.  For the true light, which shines all round them, they do not
+see, and therefore they do not see the truth of things by that light.
+If they did, then they would see that of which now they do not even
+dream.
+
+They would see that God was around them, about their path and about
+their bed, and spying out all their ways; and in the light of His
+presence, they dare not be frivolous, dare not be ignorant, dare not
+be mean, dare not be spiteful, dare not be unclean.
+
+They would see that Christ was around them, knocking at the door of
+their hearts, that He may enter in, and dwell there, and give them
+peace; crying to their restless, fretful, confused, unhappy souls,
+'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will
+give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me; for I am meek
+and lowly in heart:  and ye shall find rest unto your souls.'
+
+They would see that Duty was around them.  Duty--the only thing
+really worth living for.  The only thing which will really pay a man,
+either for this life or the next.  The only thing which will give a
+man rest and peace, manly and quiet thoughts, a good conscience and a
+stout heart, in the midst of hard labour, anxiety, sorrow and
+disappointment:  because he feels at least that he is doing his duty;
+that he is obeying God and Christ, that he is working with them, and
+for them, and that, therefore, they are working with him, and for
+him.  God, Christ, and Duty--these, and more, will a man see if he
+will awake out of sleep, and consider where he is, by the light of
+God's Holy Spirit.
+
+Then will that man feel that he must cast away the works of darkness;
+whether of the darkness of foul and base sins; or the darkness of
+envy, spite, and revenge; or the mere darkness of ignorance and
+silliness, thoughtlessness and frivolity.  He must cast them away, he
+will see.  They will not succeed--they are not safe--in such a
+serious world as this.  The term of this mortal life is too short,
+and too awfully important, to be spent in such dreams as these.  The
+man is too awfully near to God, and to Christ, to dare to play the
+fool in their Divine presence.  This earth looks to him, now that he
+sees it in the true light, one great temple of God, in which he dare
+not, for very shame, misbehave himself.  He must cast away the works
+of darkness, and put on the armour of light, now in the time of this
+mortal life; lest, when Christ comes in His glory to judge the quick
+and the dead, he be found asleep, dreaming, useless, unfit for the
+eternal world to come.
+
+Then let him awake, and cry to Christ for light:  and Christ will
+give him light--enough, at least, to see his way through the darkness
+of this life, to that eternal life of which it is written, 'They need
+no candle there, nor light of the sun:  for the Lord God and the Lamb
+are the light thereof.'  And he will find that the armour of light is
+an armour indeed.  A defence against all enemies, a helmet for his
+head, and breastplate for his heart, against all that can really harm
+his mind our soul.
+
+If a man, in the struggle of life, sees God, and Christ, and Duty,
+all around him, that thought will be a helmet for his head.  It will
+keep his brain and mind clear, quiet, prudent to perceive and know
+what things he ought to do.  It will give him that Divine wisdom, of
+which Solomon says, in his Proverbs, that the beginning of wisdom is
+the fear of the Lord.
+
+The light will give him, I say, judgment and wisdom to perceive what
+he ought to do; and it will give him, too, grace and power faithfully
+to fulfil the same.  For it will be a breastplate to his heart.  It
+will keep his heart sound, as well as his head.  It will save him
+from breaking his good resolutions, and from deserting his duty out
+of cowardice, or out of passion.  The light of Christ will keep his
+heart pure, unselfish, forgiving; ready to hope all things, believe
+all things, endure all things, by that Divine charity which God will
+pour into his soul.
+
+For when he looks at things in the light of Christ, what does he see?
+Christ hanging on the cross, praying for His murderers, dying for the
+sins of the whole world.  And what does the light which streams from
+that cross show him of Christ?  That the likeness of Christ is summed
+up in one word--self-sacrificing love.  What does the light which
+streams from that cross show him of the world and mankind, in spite
+of all their sins?  That they belong to Him who died for them, and
+bought them with His own most precious blood.
+
+'Beloved, herein is love indeed.  Not that we loved God, but that He
+loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation of our sins.'
+
+'Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.'
+
+After that sight a man cannot hate; cannot revenge.  He must forgive;
+he must love.  From hence he is in the light, and sees his duty and
+his path through life.  'For he that hateth his brother walketh in
+darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth:  because darkness has
+blinded his eyes.  But he that loveth his brother abideth in the
+light, and there is no occasion of stumbling in him.  For he who
+dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.'
+
+Therefore cast away the works of darkness, and put you on the armour
+of light, and be good men and true.
+
+For of this the Holy Ghost prophesies by the mouth of St. Paul, and
+of all apostles and prophets.  Not of times and seasons, which God
+the Father has kept in His own hand:  not of that day and hour of
+which no man knows; no, not the Angels in heaven, neither the Son;
+but the Father only:  not of these does the Holy Ghost testify to
+men.  Not of chronology, past or future:  but of holiness; because he
+is a Holy Spirit.
+
+For this purpose God, the Holy Father, sent His Son into the world.
+For this God, the Holy Son, died upon the cross.  For this God, the
+Holy Ghost--proceeding from both the Father and the Son--inspired
+prophets and apostles; that they might teach men to cast away the
+works of darkness, and put on the armour of light; and become holy,
+as God is holy; pure, as God is pure; true, as God is true; and good,
+as God is good.
+
+
+
+SERMON VI.  THE SHAKING OF THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH
+(Preached at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall.)
+
+
+
+HEBREWS XII. 26-29.
+
+But now he hath promised, saying, 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 the New Testament.  It declares one
+of those great laws of the kingdom of God, which may fulfil itself,
+once and again, at many eras, and by many methods; which fulfilled
+itself especially and most gloriously in the first century after
+Christ; which fulfilled itself again in the fifth century; and again
+at the time of the Crusades; and again at the great Reformation in
+the sixteenth century; and is fulfilling itself again at this very
+day.
+
+Now, in our fathers' time, and in our own unto this day, is the Lord
+Christ shaking the heavens and the earth, that those things which are
+made may be removed, and that those things which cannot be shaken may
+remain.  We all confess this fact, in different phrases.  We say that
+we live in an age of change, of transition, of scientific and social
+revolution.  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 looks differently to different minds, just as the first
+century after Christ looked differently, according as men looked with
+faith towards the future, or with regret towards the past.  Some
+rejoice in the present era as one of progress.  Others lament over it
+as one of decay.  Some say that we are on the eve of a Reformation,
+as great and splendid as that of the sixteenth century.  Others say
+that we are rushing headlong into scepticism and atheism.  Some say
+that a new era is dawning on humanity; others that the world and the
+Church are coming to an end, and the last day is at hand.  Both
+parties may be right, and both may be wrong.  Men have always talked
+thus at great crises.  They talked thus in the first century, in the
+fifth, in the eleventh, in the sixteenth.  And then both parties were
+right, and yet both wrong.  And why not now?  What they meant to say,
+and what they mean to say now, is what he who wrote the Epistle to
+the Hebrews said for them long ago in far deeper, wider, more
+accurate words--that the Lord Christ was shaking the heavens and the
+earth, that those things which can be shaken may be removed, as
+things which are made--cosmogonies, systems, theories, fashions,
+prejudices, of man's invention:  while those things which cannot be
+shaken may remain, because they are eternal, the creation not of man,
+but of God.
+
+'Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.'  Not
+merely the physical world, and man's conceptions thereof; but the
+spiritual world, and man's conceptions of that likewise.
+
+How have our conceptions of the physical world been shaken of late,
+with ever-increasing violence!  How simple, and easy, and certain, it
+all looked to our forefathers!  How complex, how uncertain, it looks
+to us!  With increased knowledge has come--not increased doubt--that
+I deny; but increased reverence; increased fear of rash assertions,
+increased awe of facts, as the acted words and thoughts of God.  Once
+for all, I deny that this age is an irreverent one.  I say that an
+irreverent age is an age like the Middle Age, in which men dared to
+fancy that they could and did know all about earth and heaven; and
+set up their petty cosmogonies, their petty systems of doctrine, as
+measures of the ways of that God whom the heaven and the heaven of
+heavens, cannot contain.
+
+It was simple enough, their theory of the universe.  The earth was a
+flat plain; for did not the earth look flat?  Or if some believed the
+earth to be a globe, yet the existence of antipodes was an
+unscriptural heresy.  Above were the heavens:  first the lower
+heavens in which the stars were fixed and moved; and above them
+heaven after heaven, each peopled of higher orders, up to that heaven
+of heavens in which Deity--and by Him, the Mother of Deity--were
+enthroned.
+
+And below--What could be more clear, more certain, than this--that as
+above the earth was the kingdom of light, and joy, and holiness, so
+below the earth was the kingdom of darkness, and torment, and sin?
+What could be more certain?  Had not even the heathens said so, by
+the mouth of the poet Virgil?  What could be more simple, rational,
+orthodox, than to adopt (as they actually did) Virgil's own words,
+and talk of Tartarus, Styx, and Phlegethon, as indisputable Christian
+entities.  They were not aware that the Buddhists of the far East had
+held much the same theory of endless retribution several centuries
+before; and that Dante, with his various bolge, tenanted each by its
+various species of sinners, was merely re-echoing the horrors which
+are to be seen painted on the walls of any Buddhist temple, as they
+were on the walls of so many European churches during the Middle
+Ages, when men really believed in that same Tartarology, with the
+same intensity with which they now believe in the conclusions of
+astronomy or of chemistry.
+
+To them, indeed, it was all an indisputable or physical fact, as any
+astronomic or chemical fact would have been; for they saw it with
+their own eyes.
+
+Virgil had said that the mouth of Tartarus was there in Italy, by the
+volcanic lake of Avernus; and after the first eruption of Vesuvius in
+the first century, nothing seemed more probable.  Etna, Stromboli,
+Hecla, must be, likewise, all mouths of hell; and there were not
+wanting holy hermits who had heard within those craters, shrieks and
+clanking chains, and the shouts of demons tormenting endlessly the
+souls of the lost.  And now, how has all this been shaken?  How much
+of all this does any educated man, though he be pious, though he
+desire with all his heart to be orthodox--and is orthodox in fact--
+how much of all this does he believe, as he believes that the earth
+is round, or, that if he steals his neighbour's goods he commits a
+crime?
+
+For, since these days, the earth has been shaken, and with it the
+heavens likewise, in that very sense in which the expression is used
+in the text.  Our conceptions of them have been shaken.  The
+Copernican system shook them, when it told men that the earth was but
+a tiny globular planet revolving round the sun.  Geology shook them,
+when it told men that the earth has endured for countless ages,
+during which whole continents have been submerged, whole seas become
+dry land, again and again.  Even now the heavens and the earth are
+being shaken by researches into the antiquity of the human race, and
+into the origin and the mutability of species, which, issue in what
+results they may, will shake for us, meanwhile, theories which are
+venerable with the authority of nearly eighteen hundred years, and of
+almost every great Doctor since St. Augustine.
+
+And as our conception of the physical universe has been shaken, the
+old theory of a Tartarus beneath the earth has been shaken also, till
+good men have been glad to place Tartarus in a comet, or in the sun,
+or to welcome the possible, but unproved hypothesis, of a central
+fire in the earth's core, not on any scientific grounds, but if by
+any means a spot may be found in space corresponding to that of which
+Virgil, Dante, and Milton sang.
+
+And meanwhile--as was to be expected from a generation which abhors
+torture, labours for the reformation of criminals, and even doubts
+whether it should not abolish capital punishment--a shaking of the
+heavens is abroad, of which we shall hear more and more, as the years
+roll on--a general inclination to ask whether Holy Scripture really
+endorses the Middle-age notions of future punishment in endless
+torment?  Men are writing and speaking on this matter, not merely
+with ability and learning, but with a piety, and reverence for
+Scripture which (rightly or wrongly employed) must, and will, command
+attention.  They are saying that it is not those who deny these
+notions who disregard the letter of Scripture, but those who assert
+them; that they are distorting the plain literal text, in order to
+make Scripture fit the writings of Dante and Milton, when they
+translate into 'endless torments after death,' such phrases as the
+outer darkness, the undying worm, the Gehenna of fire--which
+manifestly (say these men), if judged by fair rules of
+interpretation, refer to this life, and specially to the fate of the
+Jewish nation:  or when they tell us that eternal death means really
+eternal life, only in torments.  We demand, they say, not a looser,
+but a stricter; not a more metaphoric, but a more literal; not a more
+careless, but a more reverent interpretation of Scripture; and
+whether this demand be right or wrong, it will not pass unheard.
+
+And even more severely shaken, meanwhile, is that mediaeval
+conception of heaven and hell, by the question which educated men are
+asking more and more:- 'Heaven and hell--the spiritual world--Are
+they merely invisible places in space, which may become visible
+hereafter? or are they not rather the moral world--the world of right
+and wrong?  Love and righteousness--is not that the heaven itself
+wherein God dwells?  Hatred and sin--is not that hell itself, wherein
+dwells all that is opposed to God?'
+
+And out of that thought, right or wrong, other thoughts have sprung--
+of ethics, of moral retribution--not new at all (say these men), but
+to be found in Scripture, and in the writings of all great Christian
+divines, when they have listened, not to systems, but to the voice of
+their own hearts.
+
+'We do not deny' (they say) 'that the wages of sin are death.  We do
+not deny the necessity of punishment--the certainty of punishment.
+We see it working awfully enough around us in this life; we believe
+that it may work in still more awful forms in the life to come.  Only
+tell us not that it must be endless, and thereby destroy its whole
+purpose, and (as we think) its whole morality.  We, too, believe in
+an eternal fire; but we believe its existence to be, not a curse, but
+a Gospel and a blessing, seeing that that fire is God Himself, who
+taketh away the sins of the world, and of whom it is therefore
+written, Our God is a consuming fire.'
+
+Questions, too, have arisen, of--'What IS moral retribution?  Should
+punishment have any end but the good of the offender?  Is God so
+controlled that He must needs send into the world beings whom He
+knows to be incorrigible, and doomed to endless misery?  And if not
+so controlled, then is not the other alternative as to His character
+more fearful still?  Does He not bid us copy Him, His justice, His
+love?  Then is that His justice, is that His love, which if we copied
+we should be unjust and unloving utterly?  Are there two moralities,
+one for God, and quite another for man, made in the image of God?
+Can these dark dogmas be true of a Father who bids us be perfect as
+He is, in that He sends His sun to shine on the evil and the good,
+and His rain on the just and unjust?  Or of a Son who so loved the
+world that He died to save the world and surely not in vain?'
+
+These questions--be they right or wrong--educated men and women of
+all classes and denominations--orthodox, be it remembered, as well as
+unorthodox--are asking, and will ask more and more, till they receive
+an answer.  And if we of the clergy cannot give them an answer which
+accords with their conscience and their reason; if we tell them that
+the words of Scripture, and the integral doctrines of Christianity,
+demand the same notions of moral retribution as were current in the
+days when men racked criminals, burned heretics alive, and believed
+that every Mussulman whom they slaughtered in a crusade went straight
+to endless torments,--then evil times will come, both for the clergy
+and the Christian religion, for many a yeas henceforth.
+
+What then are we to believe?  What are we to do, amid this shaking of
+the earth and heaven?  Are we to degenerate into a lazy and heartless
+scepticism, which, under pretence of liberality and charity, believes
+that everything is a little true, everything is a little false--in
+one word, believes nothing at all?  Or are we to degenerate into
+unmanly and faithless wailings, crying out that the flood of
+infidelity is irresistible, that the last days are come, and that
+Christ has deserted His Church?
+
+Not if we will believe the text.  The text tells us of something
+which cannot be moved, though all around it reel and crumble--of a
+firm standing-ground, which would endure, though the heavens should
+pass away as a scroll, and the earth should be removed, and cast into
+the midst of the sea.
+
+We have a kingdom, the Scripture says, which cannot be moved, even
+the kingdom of Him whom it calls shortly after 'Jesus Christ, the
+same yesterday, to-day and for ever.'  An eternal and unchangeable
+kingdom, ruled by an eternal and unchangeable King.  That is what
+cannot be moved.
+
+Scripture does not say that we have an unchangeable cosmogony, an
+unchangeable theory of moral retribution, an unchangeable system of
+dogmatic propositions.  Whether we have, or have not, it is not of
+them that Scripture reminds the Jews, when the heavens and the earth
+were shaken; when their own nation and worship were in their death-
+agony, and all the beliefs and practices of men were in a whirl of
+doubt and confusion, of decay and birth side by side, such as the
+world had never seen before.  Not of them does it remind the Jews,
+but of the changeless kingdom, and the changeless King.
+
+My friends, lay it seriously to heart, once and for all.  Do you
+believe that you are subjects of that kingdom, and that Christ is the
+living, ruling, guiding King thereof?  Whatsoever Scripture does not
+say, Scripture speaks of that, again and again, in the plainest
+terms.  But do you believe it?  These are days in which the preacher
+ought to ask every man whether he believes it, and bid him, of
+whatever else he repents of, to repent, at least, of not having
+believed this primary doctrine (I may almost say) of Scripture and of
+Christianity.
+
+But if you do believe it, will it seem strange to you to believe this
+also,--That, considering who Christ is, the co-eternal and co-equal
+Son of God, He may be actually governing His kingdom; and if so, that
+He may know better how to govern it than such poor worms as we?  That
+if the heavens and the earth be shaken, Christ Himself may be shaking
+them? if opinions be changing, Christ Himself may be changing them?
+If new truths and facts are being discovered, Christ Himself may be
+revealing them?  That if those truths seem to contradict the truths
+which He has already taught us, they do not really contradict them,
+any more than those reasserted in the sixteenth century?  That if our
+God be a consuming fire, He is now burning up (to use St. Paul's
+parable) the chaff and stubble which men have built on the one
+foundation of Christ, that, at last, nought but the pure gold may
+remain?  Is it not possible?  Is it not most probable, if we only
+believe that Christ is a real, living King, an active, practical
+King,--who, with boundless wisdom and skill, love and patience, is
+educating and guiding Christendom, and through Christendom the whole
+human race?
+
+If men would but believe that, how different would be their attitude
+toward new facts, toward new opinions!  They would receive them with
+grace; gracefully, courteously, fairly, charitably, and with that
+reverence and godly fear which the text tells us is the way to serve
+God acceptably.  They would say:  'Christ (so the Scripture tells us)
+has been educating man through Abraham, through Moses, through David,
+through the Jewish prophets, through the Greeks, through the Romans;
+then through Himself, as man as well as God; and after His ascension,
+through His Apostles, especially through St. Paul, to an ever-
+increasing understanding of God, and the universe, and themselves.
+And even after their time He did not cease His education.  Why should
+He?  How could He, who said of Himself, "All power is given to me in
+heaven and earth;" "Lo, I am with you alway to the end of the world;"
+and again, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work?"
+
+'At the Reformation in the sixteenth century He called on our
+forefathers to repent--that is, to change their minds--concerning
+opinions which had been undoubted for more than a thousand years.
+Why should He not be calling on us at this time likewise?  And if any
+answer, that the Reformation was only a return to the primitive faith
+of the Apostles--Why should not this shaking of the hearts and minds
+of men issue in a still further return, in a further correction of
+errors, a further sweeping away of additions, which are not integral
+to the Christian creeds, but which were left behind, through natural
+and necessary human frailty, by our great Reformers?  Wise they
+were,--good and great,--as giants on the earth, while we are but as
+dwarfs; but, as the hackneyed proverb tells us, the dwarf on the
+giant's shoulders may see further than the giant himself.'
+
+Ah! that men would approach new truth in that spirit; in the spirit
+of godly fear, which is inspired by the thought that we are in the
+kingdom of God, and that the King thereof is Christ, both God and
+man, once crucified for us, now living for us for ever!  Ah! that
+they would thus serve God, waiting, as servants before a lord, for
+the slightest sign which might intimate his will!  Then they would
+look at new truths with caution; in that truly conservative spirit
+which is the duty of all Christians, and the especial strength of the
+Englishman.  With caution,--lest in grasping eagerly after what is
+new, we throw away truth which we have already:  but with awe and
+reverence; for Christ may have sent the new truth; and he who fights
+against it, may haply be found fighting against God.  And so would
+they indeed obey the Apostolic injunction--Prove all things, hold
+fast that which is good,--that which is pure, fair, noble, tending to
+the elevation of men; to the improvement of knowledge, justice,
+mercy, well-being; to the extermination of ignorance, cruelty, and
+vice.  That, at least, must come from Christ, unless the Pharisees
+were right when they said that evil spirits could be cast out by
+Beelzebub, prince of the devils.
+
+How much more Christian, reverent, faithful, as well as more prudent,
+rational, and philosophical, would such a temper be than that which
+condemns all changes a priori, at the first hearing, or rather, too
+often, without any hearing at all, in rage and terror, like that of
+the animal who at the same moment barks at, and runs away from, every
+unknown object.
+
+At least that temper of mind will give us calm; faith, patience,
+hope, charity, though the heavens and the earth are shaken around us.
+For we have received a kingdom which cannot be moved, and in the King
+thereof we have the most perfect trust:  for us He stooped to earth,
+was born, and died on the cross; and can we not trust Him?  Let Him
+do what He will; let Him teach us what He will; let Him lead us
+whither He will.  Wherever He leads, we shall find pasture.  Wherever
+He leads, must be the way of truth, and we will follow, and say, as
+Socrates of old used to say, Let us follow the Logos boldly,
+whithersoever it leadeth.  If Socrates had courage to say it, how
+much more should we, who know what he, good man, knew not, that the
+Logos is not a mere argument, train of thought, necessity of logic,
+but a Person--perfect God and perfect man, even Jesus Christ, 'the
+same yesterday, to-day, and for ever,' who promised of old, and
+therefore promises to us, and our children after us, to lead those
+who trust Him into all truth.
+
+
+
+SERMON VII.  THE BATTLE OF LIFE
+
+
+
+GALATIANS v. 16, 17.
+
+I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of
+the flesh.  For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit
+against the flesh:  so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
+
+
+A great poet speaks of 'Happiness, our being's end and aim;' and he
+has been reproved for so doing.  Men have said, and wisely, the end
+and aim of our being is not happiness, but goodness.  If goodness
+comes first, then happiness may come after.  But if not, something
+better than happiness may come, even blessedness.
+
+This it is, I believe, which our Lord may have meant when He said,
+'He that saveth his life, or soul' (for the two words in Scripture
+mean exactly the same thing), 'shall lose it.  And he that loseth his
+life, shall save it.  For what is a man profited if he gain the whole
+world, and lose his own life?'
+
+How is this?  It is a hard saying.  Difficult to believe, on account
+of the natural selfishness which lies deep in all of us.  Difficult
+even to understand in these days, when religion itself is selfish,
+and men learn more and more to think that the end and aim of religion
+is not to make them good while they live, but merely to save their
+souls after they die.
+
+But whether it be hard to understand or not, we must understand it,
+if we would be good men.  And how to understand it, the Epistle for
+this day will teach us.
+
+'Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.'
+The Spirit, which is the Spirit of God within our hearts and
+conscience, says--Be good.  The flesh, the animal, savage nature,
+which we all have in common with the dumb animals, says--Be happy.
+Please yourself.  Do what you like.  Eat and drink, for to-morrow you
+die.
+
+But, happily for us, the Spirit lusts against the flesh.  It draws us
+the opposite way.  It lifts us up, instead of dragging us down.  It
+has nobler aims, higher longings.  It, as St. Paul puts it, will not
+let us do the things that we would.  It will not let us do just what
+we like, and please ourselves.  It often makes us unhappy just when
+we try to be happy.  It shames us, and cries in our hearts--You were
+not meant merely to please yourselves, and be as the beasts which
+perish.
+
+But how few listen to that voice of God's Spirit within their hearts,
+though it be just the noblest thing of which they will ever be aware
+on earth!
+
+How few listen to it, till the lusts of the flesh are worn out, and
+have worn them out likewise, and made them reap the fruit which they
+have sowed--sowing to the selfish flesh, and of the selfish flesh
+reaping corruption.
+
+The young man says--I will be happy and do what I like; and runs
+after what he calls pleasure.  The middle-aged man, grown more
+prudent, says--I will be happy yet, and runs after money, comfort,
+fame and power.  But what do they gain?  'The works of the flesh,'
+the fruit of this selfish lusting after mere earthly happiness, 'are
+manifest, which are these:'--not merely that open vice and immorality
+into which the young man falls when he craves after mere animal
+pleasure, but 'hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife,
+seditions, heresies'--i.e., factions in Church or State--'envyings,
+murders, and such like.'
+
+Thus men put themselves under the law.  Not under Moses' law, of
+course, but under some law or other.
+
+For why has law been invented?  Why is it needed, with all its
+expense?  Law is meant to prevent, if possible, men harming each
+other by their own selfishness, by those lusts of the flesh which
+tempt every man to seek his own happiness, careless of his
+neighbour's happiness, interest, morals; by all the passions which
+make men their own tormentors, and which make the history of every
+nation too often a history of crime, and folly, and faction, and war,
+sad and shameful to read; all those passions of which St. Paul says
+once and for ever, that those who do such things 'shall not inherit
+the kingdom of God.'
+
+These are the sad consequences of giving way to the flesh, the
+selfish animal nature within us:  and most miserable would man be if
+that were all he had to look to.  Miserable, were there not a kingdom
+of God, into which he could enter all day long, and be at peace; and
+a Spirit of God, who would raise him up to the spiritual life of
+love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
+meekness, temperance; and a Son of God, the King of that kingdom, the
+Giver of that Spirit, who cries for ever to every one of us--'Come
+unto Me, ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
+Take My yoke on you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of
+heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls.'
+
+Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
+meekness, temperance; these are the fruits of the Spirit:  the spirit
+of unselfishness; the spirit of charity; the spirit of justice; the
+spirit of purity; the Spirit of God.  Against them there is no law.
+He who is guided by this Spirit, and he only, may do what he would;
+for he will wish to do nought but what is right.  He is not under the
+law, but under grace; and full of grace will he be in all his words
+and works.  He has entered into the kingdom of God, and is living
+therein as God's subject, obeying the royal law of liberty--'Thou
+shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.'
+
+'The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the
+flesh, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would,' says St. Paul.
+
+My friends, this is the battle of life.
+
+In every one of us, more or less, this battle is going on; a battle
+between the flesh and the Spirit, between the animal nature and the
+divine grace.  In every one of us, I say, who is not like the
+heathen, dead in trespasses and sins; in every one of us who has a
+conscience, excusing or else accusing us.  There are those--a very
+few, I hope--who are sunk below that state; who have lost their sense
+of right and wrong; who only care to fulfil the lusts of the flesh in
+pleasure, ease, and vanity.  There are those in whom the voice of
+conscience is lead for a while, silenced by self-conceit; who say in
+their prosperity, like the foolish Laodiceans, 'I am rich, and
+increased with goods, and have need of nothing,' and know not that in
+fact and reality, and in the sight of God, they are 'wretched, and
+miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.'
+
+Happy, happy for any and all of us,--if ever we fall into that dream
+of pride and false security,--to be awakened again, however painful
+the awakening may be!  Happy for every man that the battle between
+the Spirit and the flesh should begin in him again and again, as long
+as his flesh is not subdued to his spirit.  If he be wrong, the
+greatest blessing which can happen to him is, that he should find
+himself in the wrong.  If he have been deceiving himself, the
+greatest blessing is, that God should anoint his eyes that he may
+see--see himself as he is; see his own inbred corruption; see the sin
+which doth so easily beset him, whatever it may be.  Whatever anguish
+of mind it may cost him, it is a light price to pay for the
+inestimable treasure which true repentance and amendment brings; the
+fine gold of solid self-knowledge, tried in the fire of bitter
+experience; the white raiment of a pure and simple heart; the eye-
+salve of honest self-condemnation and noble shame.  If he have but
+these--and these God will give him, in answer to prayer, the prayer
+of a broken and a contrite heart--then he will be able to carry on
+the battle against the corrupt flesh, with its affections and lusts,
+in hope.  In the assured hope of final victory.  'For greater is He
+that is with us, than he that is against us?  He that is against us
+is our self, our selfish self; our animal nature; and He that is with
+us is God; God and none other:  and who can pluck us out of His hand?
+
+My friends, the bread and the wine on that table are God's own sign
+to us that He will not leave us to be, like the savage, the slaves of
+our own animal natures; that He will feed not merely our bodies with
+animal, but our souls with spiritual food; giving us strength to rise
+above our selfish selves; and so subdue the flesh to the Spirit, that
+at last, however long and weary the fight, however sore wounded and
+often worsted we may be, we shall conquer in the battle of life.
+
+
+
+SERMON VIII.  FREE GRACE
+(Preached before the Queen at Windsor, March 12, 1865.)
+
+
+
+ISAIAH iv.  1.
+
+Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath
+no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without
+money and without price.
+
+
+Every one who knows his Bible as he should, knows well this noble
+chapter.  It seems to be one of the separate poems or hymns of which
+the Book of Isaiah is composed.  It is certainly one of the most
+beautiful of them, and also one of the deepest.  So beautiful is it,
+that the good men of old who translated the Bible into English, could
+not help catching the spirit of the words as they went on with their
+work, and making the chapter almost a hymn in English, as it is a
+hymn in Hebrew.  Even the very sound of the words, as we listen to
+them, is a song in itself; and there is perhaps no more perfect piece
+of writing in the English language, than the greater part of this
+chapter.
+
+This may not seem a very important matter; and yet those good men of
+old must have felt that there was something in this chapter which
+went home especially to their hearts, and would go home to the hearts
+of us for whose sake they translated it.
+
+And those good men judged rightly.  The care which they bestowed on
+Isaiah's words has not been in vain.  The noble sound of the text has
+caught many a man's ears, in order that the noble meaning of the text
+might touch his heart, and bring him back again to God, to seek Him
+while He may be found, and call on Him while He is near; that so the
+wicked might forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts,
+and return to God, for He will have compassion, and to our God, for
+He will abundantly pardon; and that he might find that God's thoughts
+are not as man's thoughts, nor His ways as man's ways, saith the
+Lord; for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways
+and thoughts higher than ours.
+
+Yes--I believe that the beauty of this chapter has made many a man
+listen to it, who had perhaps never cared to listen to any good
+before; and learn a precious lesson from it, which he could learn
+nowhere save in the Bible.
+
+For this text is one of those which have been called the Evangelical
+Prophecies, in which the prophet rises far above Moses' old law, and
+the letter of it, which, as St. Paul says, is a letter which killeth;
+and the spirit of it, which is a spirit which, as St. Paul says,
+gendereth to bondage and slavish dread of God:  an utterance in which
+the prophet sees by faith the Lord Jesus Christ and His free grace
+revealed--dimly, of course, and in a figure--but still revealed by
+the Spirit of God, who spake by the prophets.  As St. Paul says,
+Moses' law made nothing perfect, and therefore had to be disannulled
+for its unprofitableness and weakness, and a better hope brought in,
+by which we draw near to God.  And here, in this text, we see the
+better hope coming in, and as it were dawning upon men--the dawn of
+the Sun of Righteousness, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was to rise
+afterwards, to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of
+His people Israel.
+
+And what was this better hope?  One, St. Paul says, by which we could
+draw nigh to God; come near to Him; as to a Father, a Saviour, a
+Comforter, a liege lord--not a tyrant who holds us against our will
+as his slaves, but a liege lord who holds us with our will as His
+tenants, His vassals, His liege men, as the good old English words
+were; one who will take His vassals into His counsel, and inform them
+with His Spirit, and teach them His mind, that they may do His will
+and copy His example, and be treated by Him as His friends--in spite
+of the infinite difference of rank between them and Him, which they
+must never forget.
+
+But though the difference of rank be infinite and boundless--for it
+is the difference between sinful man and God perfect for ever--yet
+still man can now draw near to God.  He is not commanded to stand
+afar off in fear and trembling, as the old Jews were at Sinai.  We
+have not come, says St. Paul, to a mount which burned with fire, and
+blackness, and darkness, and storm, and the sound of a trumpet, and
+the voice of words, which those who heard entreated that they should
+not be spoken to them any more:  for they could not endure that which
+was commanded:  but we are come to the city of the living God, the
+heavenly Jerusalem, and to the Church of the first-born which are
+written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of
+just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant,
+and to the blood of sprinkling.
+
+We are come to God, the Judge of all, and to Christ--not bidden to
+stand afar off from them.  That is the point to which I wish you to
+attend.  For this agrees with the words of the text, 'Ho, every one
+that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.'
+
+This message it is, which made this chapter precious in the eyes of
+the good men of old.  This message it is, which has made it precious,
+in all times, to thousands of troubled, hard-worked, weary, afflicted
+hearts.  This is what has made it precious to thousands who were
+wearied with the burden of their sins, and longed to be made
+righteous and good; and knew bitterly well that they could not make
+themselves good, but that God alone could do that; and so longed to
+come to God, that they might be made good:  but did not know whether
+they might come or not; or whether, if they came, God would receive
+them, and help them, and convert them.  This message it is, which has
+made the text an evangelical prophecy, to be fulfilled only in
+Christ--a message which tells men of a God who says, Come.  Of a God
+whom Moses' law, saying merely, 'Thou shalt not,' did not reveal to
+us, divine and admirable as it was, and is, and ever will be.  Of a
+God whom natural religion, such as even the heathen, St. Paul says,
+may gain from studying God's works in this wonderful world around us-
+-of a God, I say, whom natural religion does not reveal to us, divine
+and admirable as it is.  But of a God who was revealed, step by step,
+to the Psalmists and the Prophets, more and more clearly as the years
+went on; of a God who was fully and utterly revealed, not merely by,
+but in Jesus Christ our Lord, who was Himself that God, very God of
+very God begotten, being the brightness of His Father's glory, and
+the express image of His person; whose message and call, from the
+first day of His ministry to His glorious ascension, was, Come.
+
+Come unto me, ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will refresh
+you.
+
+Come unto Me, and take My yoke on you:  for My yoke is easy, and My
+burden is light.
+
+I am the bread of life.  He that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and
+he that believeth in Me shall never thirst.
+
+All that the Father hath given Me shall come unto Me.  And he that
+cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.
+
+Nay, the very words of this prophecy Christ took to Himself again and
+again, speaking of Himself as the fountain of life, health and light;
+when He stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come to
+Me, and drink.
+
+Come unto Me, that ye may have life, is the message of Jesus Christ,
+both God and man.  Come, that you may have forgiveness of your sins;
+come, that you may have the Holy Spirit, by which you may sin no
+more, but live the life of the Spirit, the everlasting life of
+goodness, by which the spirits of just men, and angels, and
+archangels, live for ever before God.
+
+And what says St. Paul?  See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh.
+For if they escaped not, who refused Him that spake on earth, much
+more shall not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaketh from
+heaven.
+
+Yes.  The goodness of God, the condescension of God, instead of
+making it more easy for sinners to escape, makes it, if possible,
+more difficult.  There are those who fancy that because God is
+merciful--because it is written in this very chapter, Let a man
+return to the Lord, and He will have mercy; and to our God, for He
+will abundantly pardon,--that, therefore, God is indulgent, and will
+overlook their sins; forgetting that in the verse before it is said,
+Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his
+thoughts, and then--but not till then--let him return to God, to be
+received with compassion and forgiveness.
+
+Too many know not, as St. Paul says, that the goodness of God leads
+men, not to sin freely and carelessly without fear of punishment, but
+leads them to repentance.  And yet do not our own hearts and
+consciences tell us that it is so?  That it is more base, and more
+presumptuous likewise, to turn away from one who speaks with love,
+than one who speaks with sternness; from one who calls us to come to
+him, with boundless condescension, than from one who bids us stand
+afar off and tremble?
+
+Those Jews of old, when they refused to hear God speaking in the
+thunders of Sinai, committed folly.  We, if we refuse to hear God
+speaking in the tender words of Jesus crucified for us, commit an
+equal folly:  but we commit baseness and ingratitude likewise.  They
+rebelled against a Master:  we rebel against a Father.
+
+But, though we deny Him, He cannot deny Himself.  We may be false to
+Him, false to our better selves, false to our baptismal vows:  but He
+cannot be false.  He cannot change.  He is the same yesterday, to-
+day, and for ever.  What He said on earth, that He says eternally in
+heaven:  If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink.
+
+Eternally, and for ever, in heaven, says St. John, Christ says, and
+is, and does, what Isaiah prophesied that He would say, and be, and
+do,--I am the root and offspring of David, and the bright and morning
+star.  And the Spirit and the Bride (His Spirit and His Church) say,
+Come.  And let him that is athirst, Come:  and whosoever will, let
+him take of the water of life freely.  For ever He calls to every
+anxious soul, every afflicted soul, every weary soul, every
+discontented soul, to every man who is ashamed of himself, and angry
+with himself, and longs to live a soberer, gentler, nobler, purer,
+truer, more useful life--Come.  Let him who hungers and thirsts after
+righteousness, come to the waters; and he that hath no silver--
+nothing to give to God in return for all His bounty--let him buy
+without silver, and eat; and live for ever that eternal life of
+righteousness, holiness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, which
+is the one true and only salvation bought for us by the precious
+blood of Christ, our Lord.
+
+
+
+SERMON IX.  EZEKIEL'S VISION
+(Preached before the Queen at Windsor, June 16, 1864.)
+
+
+
+EZEKIEL i. 1, 26.
+
+Now it came to pass, as I was among the captives by the river of
+Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.  And
+upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of
+a man.
+
+
+Ezekiel's Vision may seem to some a strange and unprofitable subject
+on which to preach.  It ought not to be so in fact.  All Scripture is
+given by Inspiration of God, and is profitable for teaching, for
+correction, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness.  And so
+will this Vision be to us, if we try to understand it aright.  We
+shall find in it fresh knowledge of God, a clearer and fuller
+revelation, made to Ezekiel, than had been, up to his time, made to
+any man.
+
+I am well aware that there are some very difficult verses in the
+text.  It is difficult, if not impossible, to understand exactly what
+presented itself to Ezekiel's mind.
+
+Ezekiel saw a whirlwind come out of the north; a whirling globe of
+fire; four living creatures coming out of the midst thereof.  So far
+the imagery is simple enough, and grand enough.  But when he begins
+to speak of the living creatures, the cherubim, his description is
+very obscure.  All that we discover is, a vision of huge creatures
+with the feet, and (as some think) the body of an ox, with four
+wings, and four faces,--those of a man, an ox, a lion, and an eagle.
+Ezekiel seems to discover afterwards that these are the cherubim, the
+same which overshadowed the ark in Moses' tabernacle and Solomon's
+temple--only of a more complex form; for Moses' and Solomon's
+cherubim are believed to have had but one face each, while Ezekiel's
+had four.
+
+Now, concerning the cherubim, and what they meant, we know very
+little.  The Jews, at the time of the fall of Jerusalem, had
+forgotten their meaning.  Josephus, indeed, says they had forgotten
+their very shape.
+
+Some light has been thrown, lately, on the figures of these
+creatures, by the sculptures of those very Assyrian cities to which
+Ezekiel was a captive,--those huge winged oxen and lions with human
+heads; and those huge human figures with four wings each, let down
+and folded round them just as Ezekiel describes, and with heads,
+sometimes of the lion, and sometimes of the eagle.  None, however,
+have been found as yet, I believe, with four faces, like those of
+Ezekiel's Vision; they are all of the simpler form of Solomon's
+cherubim.  But there is little doubt that these sculptures were
+standing there perfect in Ezekiel's time, and that he and the Jews
+who were captive with him may have seen them often.  And there is
+little doubt also what these figures meant:  that they were symbolic
+of royal spirits--those thrones, dominations, princedoms, powers, of
+which Milton speaks,--the powers of the earth and heaven, the royal
+archangels who, as the Chaldaeans believed, governed the world, and
+gave it and all things life; symbolized by them under the types of
+the four royal creatures of the world, according to the Eastern
+nations; the ox signifying labour, the lion power, the eagle
+foresight, and the man reason.
+
+So with the wheels which Ezekiel sees.  We find them in the Assyrian
+sculptures--wheels with a living spirit sitting in each, a human
+figure with outspread wings; and these seem to have been the genii,
+or guardian angels, who watched over their kings, and gave them
+fortune and victory.
+
+For these Chaldaeans were specially worshippers of angels and
+spirits; and they taught the Jews many notions about angels and
+spirits, which they brought home with them into Judaea after the
+captivity.
+
+Of them, of course, we read little or nothing in Holy Scripture; but
+there is much, and too much, about them in the writings of the old
+Rabbis, the Scribes and Pharisees of the New Testament.
+
+Now Ezekiel, inspired by the Spirit of God, rises far above the old
+Chaldaeans and their dreams.  Perhaps the captive Jews were tempted
+to worship these cherubim and genii, as the Chaldaeans did; and it
+may be that Ezekiel was commissioned by God to set them right, and by
+his vision to give a type, pattern, or picture of God's spiritual
+laws, by which He rules the world.
+
+Be that as it may.  In the first place, Ezekiel's cherubim are far
+more wonderful and complicated than those which he would see on the
+walls of the Assyrian buildings.  And rightly so; for this world is
+far more wonderful, more complicated, more cunningly made and ruled,
+than any of man's fancies about it; as it is written in the Book of
+Job,--'Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?
+declare, if thou hast understanding.  Whereupon are the foundations
+thereof fastened? or who laid the corner-stone thereof; when the
+morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for
+joy?'
+
+Next (and this is most important), these different cherubim were not
+independent of each other, each going his own way, and doing his own
+will.  Not so.  Ezekiel had found in them a divine and wonderful
+order, by which the services of angels as well as of men are
+constituted.  Orderly and harmoniously they worked together.  Out of
+the same fiery globe, from the same throne of God, they came forth
+all alike.  They turned not when they went; whithersoever the Spirit
+was to go, they went, and ran and returned like a flash of lightning.
+Nay, in one place he speaks as if all the four creatures were but one
+creature:  'This is the living creature which I saw by the river of
+Chebar.'
+
+And so it is, we may be sure, in the world of God, whether in the
+earthly or in the heavenly world.  All things work together, praising
+God and doing His will.  Angels and the heavenly host; sun and moon;
+stars and light; fire and hail; snow and vapour; wind and storm:  all
+fulfil His word.  'He hath made them fast for ever and ever:  He hath
+given them a law which shall not be broken.'  For before all things,
+under all things, and through all things, is a divine unity and
+order; all things working towards one end, because all things spring
+from one beginning, which is the bosom of God the Father.
+
+And so with the wheels; the wheels of fortune and victory, and the
+fate of nations and of kings.  'They were so high,' Ezekiel said,
+'that they were dreadful.'  But he saw no human genius sitting, one
+in each wheel of fortune, each protecting his favourite king and
+nation.  These, too, did not go their own way and of their own will.
+They were parts of God's divine and wonderful order, and obeyed the
+same laws as the cherubim.  'And when the living creatures went, the
+wheels went with them; for the spirit of the living creature was in
+the wheels.'  Everywhere was the same divine unity and order; the
+same providence, the same laws of God, presided over the natural
+world and over the fortunes of nations and of kings.  Victory and
+prosperity was not given arbitrarily by separate genii, each genius
+protecting his favourite king, each genius striving against the other
+on behalf of his favourite.  Fortune came from the providence of One
+Being; of Him of whom it is written, 'God standeth in the
+congregation of princes:  He is the judge among gods.'  And again,
+'The Lord is King, be the people never so impatient:  He sitteth
+between the cherubim, be the earth never so unquiet.'
+
+And is this all?  God forbid.  This is more than the Chaldaeans saw,
+who worshipped angels and not God--the creature instead of the
+Creator.  But where the Chaldaean vision ended, Ezekiel's only began.
+His prophecy rises far above the imaginations of the heathen.
+
+He hears the sound of the wings of the cherubim, like the tramp of an
+army, like the noise of great waters, like the roll of thunder, the
+voice of Almighty God:  but above their wings he sees a firmament,
+which the heathen cannot see, clear as the flashing crystal, and on
+that firmament a sapphire throne, and round that throne a rainbow,
+the type of forgiveness and faithfulness, and on that throne A Man.
+
+And the cherubim stand, and let down their wings in submission,
+waiting for the voice of One mightier than they.  And Ezekiel falls
+upon his face, and hears from off the throne a human voice, which
+calls to him as human likewise, 'Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and
+I will speak to thee.'
+
+This, this is Ezekiel's vision:  not the fiery globe merely, nor the
+cherubim, nor the wheels, nor the powers of nature, nor the angelic
+host--dominions and principalities, and powers--but The Man enthroned
+above them all, the Lord and Guide and Ruler of the universe; He who
+makes the winds His angels, and the flames of fire His ministers; and
+that Lord speaking to him, not through cherubim, not through angels,
+not through nature, not through mediators, angelic or human, but
+speaking direct to him himself, as man speaks to man.
+
+As man speaks to man.  This is the very pith and marrow of the Old
+Testament and of the New; which gradually unfolds itself, from the
+very first chapter of Genesis to the last of Revelation,--that man is
+made in the likeness of God; and that therefore God can speak to him,
+and he can understand God's words and inspirations.
+
+Man is like God; and therefore God, in some inconceivable way, is
+like man.  That is the great truth set forth in the first chapter of
+Genesis, which goes on unfolding itself more clearly throughout the
+Old Testament, till here, in Ezekiel's vision, it comes to, perhaps,
+its clearest stage save one.
+
+That human appearance speaks to Ezekiel, the hapless prisoner of war,
+far away from his native land.  And He speaks to him with human
+voice, and claims kindred with him as a human being, saying, 'Son of
+man.'  That is very deep and wonderful.  The Lord upon His throne
+does not wish Ezekiel to think how different He is to him, but how
+like He is to him.  He says not to Ezekiel,--'Creature infinitely
+below Me!  Dust and ashes, unworthy to appear in My presence!  Worm
+of the earth, as far below Me and unlike Me as the worm under thy
+feet is to thee!' but, 'Son of man; creature made in My image and
+likeness, be not afraid!  Stand on thy feet, and be a man; and speak
+to others what I speak to thee.'
+
+After that great revelation of God there seems but one step more to
+make it perfect; and that step was made in God's good time, in the
+Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
+
+Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also--
+He whom Ezekiel saw in human form enthroned on high--He took part of
+flesh and blood likewise, and was not ashamed, yea, rather rejoiced,
+to call Himself, what He called Ezekiel, the Son of Man.
+
+'And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld His
+glory.'  And why?
+
+For many reasons; but certainly for this one.  To make men feel more
+utterly and fully what Ezekiel was made to feel.  That God could
+thoroughly feel for man; and that man could thoroughly trust God.
+
+That God could thoroughly feel for man.  For we have a High Priest
+who has been made perfect by sufferings, tempted in all points like
+as we are; and we can
+
+
+'Look to Him who, not in vain,
+Experienced every human pain;
+He sees our wants, allays our fears,
+And counts and treasures up our tears.'
+
+
+Again,--That man could utterly trust God.  For when St. John and his
+companions (simple fishermen) beheld the glory of Jesus, the
+Incarnate Word, what was it like?  It was 'full of grace and truth;'
+the perfection of human graciousness, of human truthfulness, which
+could win and melt the hearts of simple folk, and make them see in
+Him, who was called the carpenter's son, the beauty of the glory of
+the Godhead.
+
+'He is the Judge of all the earth.'  And why?  Let Him Himself tell
+us.  He says that the Father has given the Son authority to execute
+judgment.  And why, once more?  Because He is the Son of God?  Our
+Lord says more,--'Because,' He says, 'He is the Son of Man;' who
+knows what is in man; who can feel, understand, discriminate, pity,
+make allowances, judge fair, and righteous, and merciful judgment,
+among creatures whose weakness He has experienced, whose temptations
+He has felt, whose pains and sorrows He has borne in mortal flesh and
+blood.
+
+Oh, Gospel and good news for the weak, the sorrowful, the oppressed;
+for those who are wearied with the burden of their sins, or wearied
+also by the burden of heavy responsibilities, and awful public
+duties!  When all mortal counsellors fail them, when all mortal help
+is too weak, let them but throw themselves on the mercy of Him who
+sits upon the throne, and remember that He, though immortal and
+eternal, is still the Son of Man, who knows what is in man.
+
+There are times in which we are all tempted to worship other things
+than God.  Not, perhaps, to worship cherubim and genii, angels and
+spirits, like the old Chaldees, but to worship the laws of political
+economy, the laws of statesmanship, the powers of nature, the laws of
+physical science, those lower messengers of God's providence, of
+which St. Paul says, 'He maketh the winds His angels, and flames of
+fire His ministers.'
+
+In such times we have need to remember Ezekiel's lesson, that above
+them all, ruling and guiding, sits He whose form is as the Son of
+Man.
+
+We are not to say that any powers of nature are evil, or the laws of
+any science false.  Heaven forbid!  Ezekiel did not say that the
+cherubim were evil, or meaningless; or that the belief in angels
+ministering to man was false.  He said the very opposite.  But he
+said, All these obey one whose form is that of a man.  He rules them,
+and they do His will.  They are but ministering spirits before Him.
+
+Therefore we are not to disbelieve science, nor disregard the laws of
+nature, or we shall lose by our folly.  But we are to believe that
+nature and science are not our gods.  They do not rule us; our
+fortunes are not in their hands.  Above nature and above science sits
+the Lord of nature and the Lord of science.  Above all the counsels
+of princes, and the struggles of nations, and the chances and changes
+of this world of man, sits the Judge of princes and of peoples, the
+Lord of all the nations upon earth, He by whom all things were made,
+and who upholdeth all things by the word of His power; and He is man,
+of the substance of His mother; most human and yet most divine; full
+of justice and truth, full of care and watchfulness, full of love and
+pity, full of tenderness and understanding; a Friend, a Guide, a
+Counsellor, a Comforter, a Saviour to all who trust in Him.  He is
+nearer to us than nature and science:  and He should be dearer to us;
+for they speak only to our understanding; but He speaks to our human
+hearts, to our inmost spirits.  Nature and science cannot take away
+our sins, give peace to our hearts, right judgment to our minds,
+strength to our wills, or everlasting life to our souls and bodies.
+But there sits One upon the throne who can.  And if nature were to
+vanish away, and science were to be proved (however correct as far as
+it went) a mere child's guess about this wonderful world, which none
+can understand save He who made it--if all the counsels of princes
+and of peoples, however just and wise, were to be confounded and come
+to nought, still, after all, and beyond all, and above all, Christ
+would abide for ever, with human tenderness yearning over human
+hearts; with human wisdom teaching human ignorance; with human
+sympathy sorrowing with human mourners; for ever saying, 'Come unto
+me, ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'
+
+Cherubim and seraphim, angels and archangels, dominions and powers,
+whether of nature or of grace--these all serve Him and do His work.
+He has constituted their services in a wonderful order:  but He has
+not taken their nature on Him.  Our nature He has taken on Him, that
+we might be bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh; able to say to
+Him for ever, in all the chances and changes of this mortal life -
+
+
+'Thou, O Christ, art all I want,
+   More than all in thee I find;
+Raise me, fallen; cheer me, faint;
+   Heal me, sick; and lead me, blind.
+Thou of life the fountain art,
+   Freely let me drink of Thee;
+Spring Thou up within my heart,
+   Rise to all eternity.'
+
+
+
+SERMON X.  RUTH
+
+
+
+RUTH ii. 4.
+
+And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The
+Lord be with you.  And they answered him, The Lord bless thee.
+
+
+Most of you know the story of Ruth, from which my text is taken, and
+you have thought it, no doubt, a pretty story.  But did you ever
+think why it was in the Bible?
+
+Every book in the Bible is meant to teach us, as the Article of our
+Church says, something necessary to salvation.  But what is there
+necessary to our salvation in the Book of Ruth?
+
+No doubt we learn from it that Ruth was the ancestress of King David;
+and that she was, therefore, an ancestress of our blessed Lord Jesus
+Christ:  but curious and interesting as that is, we can hardly call
+that something necessary to salvation.  There must be something more
+in the book.  Let us take it simply as it stands, and see if we can
+find it out.
+
+It begins by telling us how a man of Bethlehem has been driven out of
+his own country by a famine, he and his wife Naomi and his two sons,
+and has gone over the border into Moab, among the heathen; how his
+two sons have married heathen women, and the name of the one was
+Ruth, and the name of the other Orpah.  Then how he dies, and his two
+sons; and how Naomi, his widow, hears that the Lord had visited His
+people, in giving them bread; how the people of Judah were prosperous
+again, and she is there all alone among the heathen; so she sets out
+to go back to her own people, and her daughters-in-law go with her.
+
+But she persuades them not to go.  Why do they not stay in their own
+land?  And they weep over each other; and Orpah kisses her mother-in-
+law, and goes back; but Ruth cleaves unto her.
+
+Then follows that famous speech of Ruth's, which, for its simple
+beauty and poetry, has become a proverb, and even a song, among us to
+this day.
+
+And Ruth said, 'Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from
+following after thee:  for whither thou goest, I will go; and where
+thou lodgest, I will lodge:  thy people shall be my people, and thy
+God my God:
+
+'Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried:  the Lord
+do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.'
+
+So when she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go to her, she
+left speaking to her.
+
+And they come to Bethlehem, and all the town was moved about them;
+and they said, Is this Naomi?
+
+'And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara:  for the
+Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.  I went out full, and the
+Lord hath brought me home again empty:  why then call ye me Naomi,
+seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath
+afflicted me?'
+
+And they came to Bethlehem about the passover tide, at the beginning
+of barley harvest, and Ruth went out into the fields to glean, and
+she lighted on a part of the field which belonged to Boaz, who was of
+her husband's kindred.
+
+And Boaz was a mighty man of wealth, according to the simple fashions
+of that old land and old time.  Not like one of our great modern
+noblemen, or merchants, but rather like one of our wealthy yeomen:  a
+man who would not disdain to work in his field with his own slaves,
+after the wholesome fashion of those old times, when a royal prince
+and mighty warrior would sow the corn with his own hands, while his
+man opened the furrow with the plough before him.  There Boaz dwelt,
+with other yeomen, up among the limestone hills, in the little walled
+village of Bethlehem, which was afterwards to become so famous and so
+holy; and had, we may suppose, his vineyard and his olive-garden on
+the rocky slopes, and his corn-fields in the vale below, and his
+flock of sheep and goats feeding on the downs; while all his wealth
+besides lay, probably, after the Eastern fashion, in one great chest-
+-full of rich dresses, and gold and silver ornaments, and coins, all
+foreign, got in exchange for his corn, and wine, and oil, from
+Assyrian, or Egyptian, or Phoenician traders; for the Jews then had
+no money, and very little manufacture, of their own.
+
+And he would have had hired servants, too, and slaves, in his house;
+treated kindly enough, as members of the family, eating and drinking
+at his table, and faring nearly as well as he fared himself.
+
+A stately, God-fearing man he plainly was; respectable, courteous,
+and upright, and altogether worthy of his wealth; and he went out
+into the field, looking after his reapers in the barley harvest--
+about our Easter-tide.
+
+And he said to his reapers, The Lord be with you.  And they answered,
+The Lord bless thee.
+
+Then he saw Ruth, who had happened to light upon his field, gleaning
+after the reapers, and found out who she was, and bid her glean
+without fear, and abide by his maidens, for he had charged the young
+men that they shall not touch her.
+
+'And Boaz said unto her, At meal-time come thou hither, and eat of
+the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar.  And she sat beside the
+reapers:  and he reached her parched corn, and she did eat, and was
+sufficed, and left.
+
+'And when she was risen up to glean, Boaz commanded his young men,
+saying, Let her glean even among the sheaves, and reproach her not:
+and let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for her, and leave
+them, that she may glean them, and rebuke her not.
+
+'So she gleaned in the field until even, and beat out that she had
+gleaned:  and it was about an ephah of barley.'
+
+Then follows the simple story, after the simple fashion of those
+days.  How Naomi bids Ruth wash and anoint herself, and put on her
+best garments, and go down to Boaz' floor (his barn as we should call
+it now) where he is going to eat, and drink, and sleep, and there
+claim his protection as a near kinsman.
+
+And how Ruth comes in softly and lies down at his feet, and how he
+treats her honourably and courteously, and promises to protect her.
+But there is a nearer kinsman than he, and he must be asked first if
+he will do the kinsman's part, and buy his cousin's plot of land, and
+marry his cousin's widow with it.
+
+And how Boaz goes to the town-gate next day, and sits down in the
+gate (for the porch of the gate was a sort of town-hall or vestry-
+room in the East, wherein all sorts of business was done), and there
+he challenges the kinsman,--Will he buy the ground and marry Ruth?
+And he will not:  he cannot afford it.  Then Boaz calls all the town
+to witness that day, that he has bought all that was Elimelech's, and
+Ruth the Moabitess to be his wife.
+
+'And all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said, We
+are witnesses.  The Lord make the woman that is come into thine house
+like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel:
+and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Bethlehem.'
+
+And in due time Ruth had a son.  'And the women said unto Naomi,
+Blessed be the Lord, which hath not left thee this day without a
+kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel.
+
+'And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, and a nourisher of
+thine old age:  for thy daughter-in-law, which loveth thee, which is
+better to thee than seven sons, hath born him.
+
+'And Naomi took the child, and laid it in her bosom, and became nurse
+unto it.
+
+'And the women her neighbours gave it a name, saying, There is a son
+born to Naomi; and they called his name Obed:  he is the father of
+Jesse, the father of David.'
+
+And so ends the Book of Ruth.
+
+Now, my friends, can you not answer for yourselves the question which
+I asked at first,--Why is the story of Ruth in the Bible, and what
+may we learn from it which is necessary for our salvation?
+
+I think, at least, that you will be able to answer it--if not in
+words, still in your hearts--if you will read the book for
+yourselves.
+
+For does it not consecrate to God that simple country life which we
+lead here?  Does it not tell us that it is blessed in the sight of
+Him who makes the grass to grow, and the corn to ripen in its season?
+
+Does it not tell us, that not only on the city and the palace, on the
+cathedral and the college, on the assemblies of statesmen, on the
+studies of scholars, but upon the meadow and the corn-field, the
+farm-house and the cottage, is written, by the everlasting finger of
+God--Holiness unto the Lord?  That it is all blessed in His sight;
+that the simple dwellers in villages, the simple tillers of the
+ground, can be as godly and as pious, as virtuous and as high-minded,
+as those who have nought to do but to serve God in the offices of
+religion?  Is it not an honour and a comfort, to such as us, to find
+one whole book of the Holy Bible occupied by the simplest story of
+the fortunes of a yeoman's family, in a lonely village among the
+hills of Judah?  True, the yeoman's widow became the ancestress of
+David, and of his mighty line of kings--nay, the ancestress of our
+Lord Jesus Christ Himself.  But the Book of Ruth was not written
+mainly to tell us that fact.  It mentions it at the end, and as it
+were by accident.  The book itself is taken up with the most simple
+and careful details of country life, country customs, country folk--
+as if that was what we were to think of, as we read of Ruth.  And
+that is what we do think of--not of the ancestress of kings, but of
+the fair young heathen gleaning among the corn, with the pious,
+courteous, high-minded yeoman bidding her abide fast by his maidens,
+and when she was athirst drink of the wine which the young men have
+drawn, for it has been fully showed him all she has done for her
+mother-in-law; and the Lord will recompense her work, and a full
+reward be given her of the Lord God of Israel, under the shadow of
+whose wings she is to come to trust.  That is the scene which
+painters naturally draw; that is what we naturally think of; because
+God, who gave us the Bible, meant us to think thereof; and to know,
+that working in the quiet village, or in the distant field, women may
+be as pure and modest, men as high-minded and well-bred, and both as
+full of the fear of God, and the thought that God's eye is upon them,
+as if they were in a place, or a station, where they had nothing to
+do but to watch over the salvation of their own souls; that the
+meadow and the harvest-field need not be, as they too often are,
+places for temptation and for defilement; where the old too often
+teach the young, not to fear God and keep themselves pure, but to
+copy their coarse jests and foul language, and listen to stories
+which had better be buried for ever in the dirt out of which they
+spring.  You know what I mean.  You know what field-work too often
+is.  Read the Book of Ruth, and see what field-work may be, and ought
+to be.
+
+Yes, my dear friends.  Pure you may be, and gentle, upright, and
+godly, about your daily work, if the Spirit of God be within you.
+
+Country life has its temptations:  and so has town life, and every
+life.  But there has no temptation taken you save such as is common
+to man.  Boaz, the rich yeoman; Naomi, the broken-hearted and ruined;
+Ruth, the fair young widow--all had the very same temptations as are
+common to you now, here; but they conquered them, because they feared
+God and kept His commandments; and to know that, is necessary for
+your salvation.
+
+And, looked at in this light, the Book of Ruth is indeed a prophecy;
+a forecast and a shadow of the teaching of the Lord Jesus Himself,
+who spake to country folk as never man spake before, and bade them
+look upon the simple, every-day matters which were around them in
+field and wood, and open their eyes to the Divine lessons of God's
+providence, which also were all around them; who, born Himself in
+that little village of Bethlehem, and brought up in the little
+village of Nazareth, among the lonely lanes and downs, spoke of
+country things to country folk, and bade them read in the great green
+book which God has laid open before them all day long.  Who bade them
+to consider the lilies of the field, how they grew, and the ravens,
+how God fed them; to look on the fields, white for harvest, and pray
+God to send labourers into his spiritual harvest-field; to look on
+the tares which grew among the wheat, and know we must not try to
+part them ourselves, but leave that to God at the last day; to look
+on the fishers, who were casting their net into the Lake of Galilee,
+and sorting the fish upon the shore, and be sure that a day was
+coming, when God would separate the good from the bad, and judge
+every man according to his work and worth; and to learn from the
+common things of country life the rule of the living God, and the
+laws of the kingdom of heaven.
+
+One word more, and I have done.
+
+The story of Ruth is also the consecration of woman's love.  I do not
+mean of the love of wife to husband, divine and blessed as that is.
+I mean that depth and strength of devotion, tenderness, and self-
+sacrifice, which God has put in the heart of all true women; and
+which they spend so strangely, and so nobly often, on persons who
+have no claim on them, from whom they can receive no earthly reward;-
+-the affection which made women minister of their substance to our
+Lord Jesus Christ; which brought Mary Magdalene to the foot of the
+Cross, and to the door of the tomb, that she might at least see the
+last of Him whom she thought lost to her for ever; the affection
+which has made a wise man say, that as long as women and sorrow are
+left in the world, so long will the Gospel of our Lord Jesus live and
+conquer therein; the affection which makes women round us every day
+ministering angels, wherever help or comfort are needed; which makes
+many a woman do deeds of unselfish goodness known only to God; not
+known even to herself; for she does them by instinct, by the
+inspiration of God's Spirit, without self-consciousness or pride,
+without knowing what noble things she is doing, without spoiling the
+beauty of her good work by even admitting to herself, 'What a good
+work it is!  How right she is in doing it!  How much it will advance
+the salvation of her own soul!'--but thinking herself, perhaps, a
+very useless and paltry person; while the angels of God are claiming
+her as their sister and their peer.
+
+Yes, if there is a woman in this congregation--and there is one, I
+will warrant, in every congregation in England--who is devoting
+herself for the good of others; giving up the joys of life to take
+care of orphans who have no legal claim on her; or to nurse a
+relation, who perhaps repays her with little but exacting
+peevishness; or who has spent all her savings, in bringing up her
+brothers, or in supporting her parents in their old age,--then let
+her read the story of Ruth, and be sure that, like Ruth, she will be
+repaid by the Lord.  Her reward may not be the same as Ruth's:  but
+it will be that which is best for her, and she shall in no wise lose
+her reward.  If she has given up all for Christ, it shall be repaid
+her ten-fold in this life, and in the world to come life everlasting.
+If, with Ruth, she is true to the inspirations of God's Spirit, then,
+with Ruth, God will be true to her.  Let her endure, for in due time
+she shall reap, if she faint not;--and to know that, is necessary for
+her salvation.
+
+
+
+SERMON XI.  SOLOMON
+
+
+
+ECCLESIASTES i. 12-14.
+
+I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.  And I gave my
+heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are
+done under heaven:  this sore travail hath God given to the sons of
+man to be exercised therewith.  I have seen all the works that are
+done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of
+spirit.
+
+
+All have heard of Solomon the Wise.  His name has become a proverb
+among men.  It was still more a proverb among the old Rabbis, the
+lawyers and scribes of the Gospels.
+
+Their hero, the man of whom they delighted to talk and dream, was not
+David, the Psalmist, and the shepherd-boy, the man of many
+wanderings, and many sorrows:  but his son Solomon, with all his
+wealth, and pomp and magic wisdom.  Ever since our Lord's time, if
+not before it, Solomon has been the national hero of the Jews; while
+David, as the truer type and pattern of the Lord Jesus Christ, has
+been the hero of Christians.
+
+The Rabbis, with their Eastern fancy--childishly fond, to this day,
+of gold, and jewels, and outward pomp and show--would talk and dream
+of the lost glories of Solomon's court; of his gilded and jewelled
+temple, with its pillars of sandal-wood from Ophir, and its sea of
+molten brass; of his ivory lion-throne, and his three hundred golden
+shields; of his fleets which went away into the far Indian sea, and
+came back after three years with foreign riches and curious beasts.
+And as if that had not been enough, they delighted to add to the
+truth fable upon fable.  The Jews, after the time of the Babylonish
+captivity, seem to have more and more identified Wisdom with mere
+Magic; and therefore Solomon was, in their eyes, the master of all
+magicians.  He knew the secrets of the stars, and of the elements,
+the secrets of all charms and spells.  By virtue of his magic seal he
+had power over all those evil spirits, with which the Jews believed
+the earth and sky to be filled.  He could command all spirits, force
+them to appear to him and bow before him, and send them to the ends
+of the earth to do his bidding.  Nothing so fantastic, nothing so
+impossible, but those old Scribes and Pharisees imputed it to their
+idol, Solomon the Wise.
+
+The Bible, of course, has no such fancies in it, and gives us a sober
+and rational account of Solomon's wisdom, and of Solomon's greatness.
+
+It tells us how, when he was yet young, God appeared to him in a
+dream, and said, Ask what I shall give thee.  And Solomon made answer
+-
+
+' . . . O Lord my God, Thou hast made Thy servant king instead of
+David my father; and I am but a little child:  I know not how to go
+out or come in.
+
+'Give therefore Thy servant an understanding heart to judge Thy
+people, that I may discern between good and bad:  for who is able to
+judge this Thy so great a people?
+
+'And the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing.
+
+'And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast
+not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for
+thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies; but hast asked for
+thyself understanding to discern judgment;
+
+'Behold, I have done according to thy words:  lo, I have given thee a
+wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee
+before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.
+
+'And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both
+riches and honour:  so that there shall not be any among the kings
+like unto thee all thy days.'
+
+And the promise, says Solomon himself, was fulfilled.
+
+In his days Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the
+sea-shore, for multitude, eating and drinking and making merry; and
+Solomon reigned over all kings, from the river to the land of the
+Philistines and the border of Egypt; and they brought presents, and
+served Solomon all the days of his life.  And he had peace on all
+sides round about him.  And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man
+under his own vine and his own fig-tree, all the days of Solomon.
+
+'I was great,' he says, 'and increased more than all that were before
+me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom remained with me.  And whatsoever
+mine eyes desired I kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from
+any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour . . .
+
+'Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the
+labour that I had laboured to do:  and, behold, all was vanity and
+vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.
+
+'And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly:  for
+what can the man do that cometh after the king? even that which hath
+been already done.'
+
+Yes, my dear friends, we are too apt to think of exceeding riches, or
+wisdom, or power, or glory, as unalloyed blessings from God.  How
+many are there who would say,--if it were not happily impossible for
+them,--Oh that I were like Solomon!  Happy man that he was, to be
+able to say of himself, 'I was great, and increased more than all
+that were before me in Jerusalem.  And whatsoever mine eyes desired,
+I kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from any joy, for my
+heart rejoiced in all my labour.'
+
+To have everything that he wanted, to be able to do anything that he
+liked--was he not a happy man?  Is not such a life a Paradise on
+earth?
+
+Yes, my friends, it is.  But it is the Paradise of fools.
+
+Yet, Solomon was not a fool.  He says expressly that his wisdom
+remained with him through all his labour.  Through all his pleasure
+he kept alive the longing after knowledge.  He even tried, as he
+says, wine, and mirth, and folly, yet acquainting himself with
+wisdom.  He would try that, as well as statesmanship, and the rule of
+a great kingdom, and the building of temples and palaces, and the
+planting of parks and gardens, and his three thousand Proverbs, and
+his Songs a thousand and five; and his speech of beasts and of birds
+and of all plants, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop which
+groweth on the wall.  He would know everything, and try everything.
+If he was luxurious and proud, he would be no idler, no useless gay
+liver.  He would work, and discern, and know,--and at last he found
+it all out, and this was the sum thereof--'Vanity of vanities, saith
+the Preacher; all is vanity.'
+
+He found no rest in pleasure, riches, power, glory, wisdom itself; he
+had learnt nothing more after all than he might have known, and
+doubtless did know, when he was a child of seven years old.  And that
+was, simply to fear God and keep His commandments; for that was the
+whole duty of man.
+
+But though he knew it, he had lost the power of doing it; and he
+ended darkly and shamefully, a dotard worshipping idols of wood and
+stone, among his heathen queens.  And thus, as in David the height of
+chivalry fell to the deepest baseness; so in Solomon the height of
+wisdom fell to the deepest folly.
+
+My friends, the truth is, that exceeding gifts from God like
+Solomon's are not blessings, they are duties; and very solemn and
+heavy duties.  They do not increase a man's happiness; they only
+increase his responsibility--the awful account which he must give at
+last of the talents committed to his charge.  They increase, too, his
+danger.  They increase the chance of his having his head turned to
+pride and pleasure, and falling shamefully, and coming to a miserable
+end.  As with David, so with Solomon.  Man is nothing, and God is all
+in all.
+
+And as with David and Solomon, so with many a king and many a great
+man.  Consider those who have been great and glorious in their day.
+And in how many cases they have ended sadly!  The burden of glory has
+been too heavy for them to bear; they have broken down under it.
+
+The great Charles the Fifth, Emperor of Germany and King of Spain and
+all the Indies:  our own great Queen Elizabeth, who found England all
+but ruined, and left her strong and rich, glorious and terrible:
+Lord Bacon, the wisest of all mortal men since the time of Solomon:
+and, in our own fathers' time, Napoleon Buonaparte, the poor young
+officer, who rose to be the conqueror of half Europe, and literally
+the king of kings,--how have they all ended?  In sadness and
+darkness, vanity and vexation of spirit.
+
+Oh, my friends! if ever proud and ambitious thoughts arise in any of
+our hearts, let us crush them down till we can say with David:
+'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.'
+
+And if ever idle and luxurious thoughts arise in our hearts, and we
+are tempted to say, 'Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many
+years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry;' let us hear the
+word of the Lord crying against us:  'Thou fool!  This night shall
+thy soul be required of thee.  Then whose shall those things be which
+thou hast provided?'
+
+Let us pray, my friends, for that great--I had almost said, that
+crowning grace and virtue of moderation, what St. Paul calls sobriety
+and a sound mind.  Let us pray for moderate appetites, moderate
+passions, moderate honours, moderate gains, moderate joys; and, if
+sorrows be needed to chasten us, moderate sorrows.  Let us long
+violently after nothing, or wish too eagerly to rise in life; and be
+sure that what the Apostle says of those who long to be rich is
+equally true of those who long to be famous, or powerful, or in any
+way to rise over the heads of their fellow-men.  They all fall, as
+the Apostle says, into foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in
+destruction and perdition, and so pierce themselves through with many
+sorrows.
+
+And let us thank God heartily if He has put us into circumstances
+which do not tempt us to wild and vain hopes of becoming rich, or
+great or admired by men.
+
+Especially let us thank Him for this quiet country life which we lead
+here, free from ambition, and rash speculation, and the hope of great
+and sudden gains.  All know, who have watched the world, how
+unwholesome for a man's soul any trade or occupation is which offers
+the chance of making a rapid fortune.  It has hurt the souls of too
+many merchants and manufacturers ere now.  Good and sober-minded men
+there are among them, thank God, who can resist the temptation, and
+are content to go along the plain path of quiet and patient honesty;
+but to those who have not the sober spirit, who have not the fear of
+God before their eyes, the temptation is too terrible to withstand;
+and it is not withstood; and therefore the columns of our newspapers
+are so often filled with sad cases of bankruptcy, forgery,
+extravagant and desperate trading, bubble fortunes spent in a few
+years of vain show and luxury, and ending in poverty and shame.
+
+Happy, on the other hand, are those who till the ground; who never
+can rise high enough, or suddenly enough, to turn their heads; whose
+gains are never great and quick enough to tempt them to wild
+speculation:  but who can, if they will only do their duty patiently
+and well, go on year after year in quiet prosperity, and be content
+to offer up, week by week, Agur's wise prayer:  'Give me neither
+poverty nor riches, but feed me with food sufficient for me.'
+
+They need never complain that they have no time to think of their own
+souls; that the hurry and bustle of business must needs drive
+religion out of their minds.  Their life passes in a quiet round of
+labours.  Day after day, week after week, season after season, they
+know beforehand what they have to do, and can arrange their affairs
+for this world, so as to give them full time to think of the world to
+come.  Every week brings small gains, for which they can thank the
+God of all plenty; and every week brings, too, small anxieties, for
+which they can trust the same God who has given them His only-
+begotten Son, and will with Him freely give them all things needful
+for them; who has, in mercy to their souls and bodies, put them in
+the healthiest and usefullest of all pursuits, the one which ought to
+lead their minds most to God, and the one in which (if they be
+thoughtful men) they have the deep satisfaction of feeling that they
+are not working for themselves only, but for their fellow-men; that
+every sheaf of corn they grow is a blessing, not merely to
+themselves, but to the whole nation.
+
+My friends, think of these things, especially at this rich and
+blessed harvest-time; and while you thank your God and your Saviour
+for His unexampled bounty in this year's good harvest, do not forget
+to thank Him for having given the sowing and the reaping of those
+crops to you; and for having called you to that business in life in
+which, I verily believe, you will find it most easy to serve and obey
+Him, and be least tempted to ambition and speculation, and the lust
+of riches, and the pride which goes before a fall.
+
+Think of these things; and think of the exceeding mercies which God
+heaps on you as Englishmen,--peace and safety, freedom and just laws,
+the knowledge of His Bible, the teaching of His Church, and all that
+man needs for body and soul.  Let those who have thanked God already,
+thank Him still more earnestly, and show their thankfulness not only
+in their lips, but in their lives; and let those who have not thanked
+Him, awake, and learn, as St. Paul bids them, from God's own witness
+of Himself, in that He has sent them fruitful seasons, filling their
+hearts with food and gladness: --let them learn, I say, from that,
+that they have a Father in heaven who has given them His only-
+begotten Son, and will with Him freely give them all things needful:
+only asking in return that they should obey His laws--to obey which
+is everlasting life.
+
+
+
+SERMON XII.  PROGRESS
+(Preached before the Queen at Clifden, June 3, 1866.)
+
+
+
+ECCLESIASTES vii. 10,
+
+Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than
+these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this.
+
+
+This text occurs in the Book of Ecclesiastes, which has been for many
+centuries generally attributed to Solomon the son of David.  I say
+generally, because, not only among later critics, but even among the
+ancient Jewish Rabbis, there have been those who doubted or denied
+that Solomon was its author.
+
+I cannot presume to decide on such a question:  but it seems to me
+most probable, that the old tradition is right, even though the book
+may have suffered alterations, both in form and in language:  but any
+later author, personating Solomon, would surely have put into his
+month very different words from those of Ecclesiastes.  Solomon was
+the ideal hero-king of the later Jews.  Stories of his superhuman
+wealth, of magical power, of a fabulous extent of dominion, grew up
+about his name.  He who was said to control, by means of his wondrous
+seal, the genii of earth and air, would scarcely have been
+represented as a disappointed and broken-hearted sage, who pronounced
+all human labour to be vanity and vexation of spirit; who saw but one
+event for the righteous and the wicked, and the wise man and the
+fool; and questioned bitterly whether there was any future state, any
+pre-eminence in man over the brute.
+
+These, and other startling utterances, made certain of the early
+Rabbis doubt the authenticity and inspiration of the Book of
+Ecclesiastes, as containing things contrary to the Law, and to desire
+its suppression, till they discovered in it--as we may, if we be
+wise--a weighty and world-wide meaning.
+
+Be that as it may, it would certainly be a loss to Scripture, and to
+our knowledge of humanity, if it was proved that this book, in its
+original shape, was not written by a great king, and most probably by
+Solomon himself.  The book gains by that fact, not only in its
+reality and truthfulness, but in its value and importance as a lesson
+of human life.  Especially does this text gain; for it has a natural
+and deep connection with Solomon and his times.
+
+The former days were better than his days:  he could not help seeing
+that they were.  He must have feared lest the generation which was
+springing up should inquire into the reason thereof, in a tone which
+would breed--which actually did breed--discontent and revolution.
+
+But the fact seemed at first sight patent.  The old heroic days of
+Samuel and David were past.  The Jewish race no longer produced such
+men as Saul and Jonathan, as Joab and Abner.  A generation of great
+men, whose names are immortal, had died out, and a generation of
+inferior men, of whom hardly one name has come down to us, had
+succeeded them.  The nation had lost its primaeval freedom, and the
+courage and loyalty which freedom gives.  It had become rich, and
+enervated by luxury and ease.  Solomon had civilised the Jewish
+kingdom, till it had become one of the greatest nations of the East;
+but it had become also, like the other nations of the East, a vast
+and gaudy despotism, hollow and rotten to the core; ready to fall to
+pieces at Solomon's death, by selfishness, disloyalty, and civil war.
+Therefore it was that Solomon hated all his labour that he had
+wrought under the sun; for all was vanity and vexation of spirit.
+
+Such were the facts.  And yet it was not wise to look at them too
+closely; not wise to inquire why the former times were better than
+those.  So it was.  Let it alone.  Pry not too curiously into the
+past, or into the future:  but do the duty which lies nearest to
+thee.  Fear God and keep His commandments.  For that is the whole
+duty of man.
+
+Thus does Solomon lament over the certain decay of the Jewish Empire.
+And his words, however sad, are indeed eternal and inspired.  For
+they have proved true, and will prove true to the end, of every
+despotism of the East, or empire formed on Eastern principles; of the
+old Persian Empire, of the Roman, of the Byzantine, of those of
+Hairoun Alraschid and of Aurungzebe, of those Turkish and Chinese-
+Tartar empires whose dominion is decaying before our very eyes.  Of
+all these the wise man's words are true.  They are vanity and
+vexation of spirit.  That which is crooked cannot be made straight,
+and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.  The thing which has
+been is that which shall be, and there is no new thing under the sun.
+Incapacity of progress; the same outward civilization repeating
+itself again and again; the same intrinsic certainty of decay and
+death;--these are the marks of all empire, which is not founded on
+that foundation which is laid, even Jesus Christ.
+
+But of Christian nations these words are not true.  They pronounce
+the doom of the old world:  but the new world has no part in them,
+unless it copies the sins and follies of the old.
+
+It is not true of Christian nations that the thing which has been is
+that which shall be; and that there is no new thing under the sun.
+For over them is the kingdom of Christ, the Saviour of all men,
+specially of them which believe, the King of all the princes of the
+earth, who has always asserted, and will for ever assert, His own
+overruling dominion.  And in them is the Spirit of God, which is the
+spirit of truth and righteousness; of improvement, discovery,
+progress from darkness to light, from folly to wisdom, from barbarism
+to justice, and mercy, and the true civilization of the heart and
+spirit.
+
+And, therefore, for us it is not only an act of prudence, but a duty;
+a duty of faith in God; a duty of loyalty to Jesus Christ our Lord,
+not to ask, Why the former times were better than these?  For they
+were not better than these.  Every age has had its own special
+nobleness, its own special use:  but every age has been better than
+the age which went before it; for the Spirit of God is leading the
+ages on, toward that whereof it is written, 'Eye hath not seen nor
+ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, the
+things which God hath prepared for those that love Him.'
+
+Very unfaithful are we to the teaching of God's Spirit; many and
+heavy are our sins against light and knowledge, and means, and
+opportunities of grace.  But let us not add to those sins the sin
+(for such it is) of inquiring why the former times were better than
+these.
+
+For, first, the inquiry shows disbelief in our Lord's own words, that
+all dominion is given to Him in heaven and earth, and that He is with
+us always, even to the end of the world.  And next, it is a vain
+inquiry, based on a mistake.  When we look back longingly to any past
+age, we look not at the reality, but at a sentimental and untrue
+picture of our own imagination.  When we look back longingly to the
+so-called ages of faith, to the personal loyalty of the old
+Cavaliers; when we regret that there are no more among us such giants
+in statesmanship and power as those who brought Europe through the
+French Revolution; when we long that our lot was cast in any age
+beside our own, we know not what we ask.  The ages which seem so
+beautiful afar off, would look to us, were we in them, uglier than
+our own.  If we long to be back in those so-called devout ages of
+faith, we long for an age in which witches and heretics were burned
+alive; if we long after the chivalrous loyalty of the old Cavaliers,
+we long for an age in which stage-plays were represented, even before
+a virtuous monarch like Charles I., which the lowest of our playgoers
+would not now tolerate.  When we long for anything that is past, we
+long, it may be, for a little good which we seem to have lost; but we
+long also for real and fearful evil, which, thanks be to God, we have
+lost likewise.  We are not, indeed, to fancy this age perfect, and
+boast, like some, of the glorious nineteenth century.  We are to keep
+our eyes open to all its sins and defects, that we may amend them.
+And we are to remember, in fear and trembling, that to us much is
+given, and of us much is required.  But we are to thank God that our
+lot is cast in an age which, on the whole, is better than any age
+whatsoever that has gone before it, and to do our best that the age
+which is coming may be better even than this.
+
+We are neither to regret the past, nor rest satisfied in the present;
+but, like St. Paul, forgetting those things that are behind us, and
+reaching onward to those things that are before us, press forward,
+each and all, to the prize of our high calling in Jesus Christ.
+
+And as with nations and empires, so with our own private lives.  It
+is not wise to ask why the former times were better than these.  It
+is natural, pardonable:  but not wise; because we are so apt to
+mistake the subject about which we ask, and when we say, 'Why were
+the old times better?' merely to mean, 'Why were the old times
+happier?'  That is not the question.  There is something higher than
+happiness, says a wise man.  There is blessedness; the blessedness of
+being good and doing good, of being right and doing right.  That
+blessedness we may have at all times; we may be blest even in anxiety
+and in sadness; we may be blest, even as the martyrs of old were
+blest--in agony and death.  The times are to us whatsoever our
+character makes them.  And if we are better men than we were in
+former times, then is the present better than the past, even though
+it be less happy.  And why should it not be better?  Surely the
+Spirit of God, the spirit of progress and improvement, is working in
+us, the children of God, as well as in the great world around.
+Surely the years ought to have made us better, more useful, more
+worthy.  We may have been disappointed in our lofty ideas of what
+ought to be done.  But we may have gained more clear and practical
+notions of what can be done.  We may have lost in enthusiasm, and yet
+gained in earnestness.  We may have lost in sensibility, yet gained
+in charity, activity, and power.  We may be able to do far less, and
+yet what we do may be far better done.
+
+And our very griefs and disappointments--Have they been useless to
+us?  Surely not.  We shall have gained, instead of lost, by them, if
+the Spirit of God be working in us.  Our sorrows will have wrought in
+us patience, our patience experience of God's sustaining grace, who
+promises that as our day our strength shall be; and of God's tender
+providence, which tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and lays on
+none a burden beyond what they are able to bear.  And that experience
+will have worked in us hope:  hope that He who has led us thus far
+will lead us farther still; that He who brought us through the trials
+of youth, will bring us through the trials of age; that He who taught
+us in former days precious lessons, not only by sore temptations, but
+most sacred joys, will teach us in the days to come fresh lessons by
+temptations which we shall be more able to endure; and by joys which,
+though unlike those of old times, are no less sacred, no less sent as
+lessons to our souls, by Him from whom all good gifts come.
+
+We will believe this.  And instead of inquiring why the former days
+were better than these, we will trust that the coming days shall be
+better than these, and those which are coming after them better still
+again, because God is our Father, Christ our Saviour, the Holy Ghost
+our Comforter and Guide.  We will toil onward:  because we know we
+are toiling upward.  We will live in hope, not in regret; because
+hope is the only state of mind fit for a race for whom God has
+condescended to stoop, and suffer, and die, and rise again.  We will
+believe that we, and all we love, whether in earth or heaven, are
+destined--if we be only true to God's Spirit--to rise, improve,
+progress for ever:  and so we will claim our share, and keep our
+place, in that vast ascending and improving scale of being, which, as
+some dream--and surely not in vain--goes onward and upward for ever
+throughout the universe of Him who wills that none should perish.
+
+
+
+SERMON XIII.  FAITH
+(Preached before the Queen at Windsor, December 5, 1865)
+
+
+
+HABAKKUK ii. 4.
+
+The just shall live by his faith.
+
+
+We shall always find it most safe, as well as most reverent, to
+inquire first the literal and exact meaning of a text; to see under
+what circumstances it was written; what meaning it must have conveyed
+to those who heard it; and so to judge what it must have meant in the
+mind of him who spoke it.  If we do so, we shall find that the
+simplest interpretation of Scripture is generally the deepest; and
+the most literal interpretation is also the most spiritual.
+
+Let us examine the circumstances under which the prophet spake these
+words.
+
+It was on the eve of a Chaldean invasion.  The heathen were coming
+into Judea, as we see them still in the Assyrian sculptures--
+civilizing, after their barbarous fashion, the nations round them--
+conquering, massacring, transporting whole populations, building
+cities and temples by their forced labour; and resistance or escape
+was impossible.
+
+The prophet's faith fails him a moment.  What is this but a triumph
+of evil?  Is there a Divine Providence?  Is there a just Ruler of the
+world?  And he breaks out into pathetic expostulation with God
+Himself:  'Wherefore lookest Thou upon them that deal treacherously,
+and holdest Thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more
+righteous than he?  And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the
+creeping things, which have no ruler over them?  They take up all of
+them with the line, they gather them with the net.  Therefore they
+sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense to their line; for by it
+their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous.  Shall they therefore
+empty their net, and not spare to slay continually the nations?'
+
+Then the Lord answers his doubts:  'Behold, his soul which is lifted
+up is not upright in him:  but the just shall live by his faith.'
+
+By his faith, plainly, in a just Ruler of the world,--in a God who
+avenges wrong, and makes inquisition for innocent blood.  He who will
+keep his faith in that just God, will remain just himself.  The sense
+of Justice will be kept alive in him; and the just will live by his
+Faith.
+
+The prophet believes that message; and a mighty change passes over
+his spirit.  In a burst of magnificent poetry, he proclaims woe to
+the unjust Chaldean conqueror.  All his greatness is a bubble which
+will burst; a suicidal mistake, which will work out its own
+punishment, and make him a taunt and a mockery to all nations round.
+'Woe to him who increaseth that which is not his, and ladeth himself
+with thick clay!  Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to
+his house, that he may set his nest on high, and be delivered from
+the power of evil!  Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and
+stablisheth a city with iniquity!  Behold, is it not of the Lord of
+hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people
+shall weary themselves for very vanity?'  There is a true
+civilization for man; but not according to the unjust and cruel
+method of those Chaldeans.  The Law of the true Civilization, the
+prophet says, is this:  'The earth shall be full of the knowledge of
+the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.'
+
+But what is this to us?  Are we like the Chaldeans?  God forbid.  But
+are we not tried by the same temptations to which they blindly
+yielded?  A nation, strong, rich, luxurious, prosperous in industry
+at home, and aggressive (if not in theory, certainly in practice) to
+less civilized races abroad--are we not tempted daily to that habit
+of mind which the prophet calls--with that tremendous irony in which
+the Hebrew prophets surpass all writers--looking on men as the fishes
+of the sea, as the creeping things which have no ruler over them,
+born to devour each other, and be caught and devoured in their turn,
+by a race more cunning than themselves?  There are those among us in
+thousands, thank God, who nobly resist that temptation; and they are
+the very salt of the land, who keep it from decay.  But for the many-
+-for the public--do not too many of them believe that the law of
+human society is, after all, only that internecine conflict of
+interests, that brute struggle for existence, which naturalists tell
+us (and truly) is the law of life for mere plants and animals?  Are
+they not tempted to forget that men are not mere animals and things,
+but persons; that they have a Ruler over them, even God, who desires
+to educate them, to sanctify them, to develop their every faculty,
+that they may be His children, and not merely our tools; and do God's
+work in the world, and not merely their employer's work?  Are they
+not--are we not all--tempted too often to forget this?
+
+And, then, are we not tempted, all of us, to fall down like the
+Chaldeans and worship our own net, because by it our portion is fat,
+and our meat plenteous?  Are we not tempted to say within ourselves,
+'This present system of things, with all its anomalies and its
+defects, still is the right system, and the only system.  It is the
+path pointed out by Providence for man.  It is of the Lord; for we
+are comfortable under it.  We grow rich under it; we keep rank and
+power under it:  it suits us, pays us.  What better proof that it is
+the perfect system of things, which cannot be amended?'
+
+Meanwhile, we are sorry (for the English are a kindhearted people)
+for the victims of our luxury and our neglect.  Sorry for the
+thousands whom we let die every year by preventible diseases, because
+we are either too busy or too comfortable to save their lives.  Sorry
+for the savages whom we exterminate, by no deliberate evil intent,
+but by the mere weight of our heavy footstep.  Sorry for the
+thousands who are used-up yearly in certain trades, in ministering to
+our comfort, even to our very luxuries and frivolities.  Sorry for
+the Sheffield grinders, who go to work as to certain death; who count
+how many years they have left, and say, 'A short life and a merry
+one.  Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'  Sorry for the
+people whose lower jaws decay away in lucifer-match factories.  Sorry
+for all the miseries and wrongs which this Children's Employment
+Commission has revealed.  Sorry for the diseases of artificial
+flower-makers.  Sorry for the boys working in glass-houses whole days
+and nights on end without rest, 'labouring in the very fire, and
+wearying themselves with very vanity.'--Vanity, indeed, if after an
+amount of gallant toil which nothing but the indomitable courage of
+an Englishman could endure, they grow up animals and heathens.  We
+are sorry for them all--as the giant is for the worm on which he
+treads.  Alas! poor worm.  But the giant must walk on.  He is
+necessary to the universe, and the worm is not.  So we are sorry--for
+half an hour; and glad too (for we are a kind-hearted people) to hear
+that charitable persons or the government are going to do something
+towards alleviating these miseries.  And then we return, too many of
+us, each to his own ambition, or to his own luxury, comforting
+ourselves with the thought, that we did not make the world, and we
+are not responsible for it.
+
+How shall we conquer this temptation to laziness, selfishness,
+heartlessness?  By faith in God, such as the prophet had.  By faith
+in God as the eternal enemy of evil, the eternal helper of those who
+try to overcome evil with good; the eternal avenger of all the wrong
+which is done on earth.  By faith in God, as not only our Father, our
+Saviour, our Redeemer, our Protector:  but the Father, Saviour,
+Redeemer, Protector, and if need be, Avenger, of every human being.
+By faith in God, which believes that His infinite heart yearns over
+every human soul, even the basest and the worst; that He wills that
+not one little one should perish, but that all should be saved, and
+come to the knowledge of the truth.
+
+We must believe that, if we wish that it should be true of us, that
+the just shall live by his faith.  If we wish our faith to keep us
+just men, leading just lives, we must believe that God is just, and
+that He shows His justice by the only possible method--by doing
+justice, sooner or later, for all who are unjustly used.
+
+If we lose that faith, we shall be in danger--in more than danger--of
+becoming unjust ourselves.  As we fancy God to be, so shall we become
+ourselves.  If we believe that God cares little for mankind, we shall
+care less and less for them ourselves.  If we believe that God
+neglects them, we shall neglect them likewise.
+
+And then the sense of justice--justice for its own sake, justice as
+the likeness and will of God--will die out in us, and our souls will
+surely not live, but die.
+
+For there will die out in our hearts, just the most noble and God-
+like feelings which God has put into them.  The instinct of chivalry;
+horror of cruelty and injustice; pity for the weak and ill-used; the
+longing to set right whatever is wrong; and, what is even more
+important, the Spirit of godly fear, of wholesome terror of God's
+wrath, which makes us say, when we hear of any great and general sin
+among us, 'If we do not do our best to set this right, then God, who
+does not make men like creeping things, will take the matter into His
+own hands, and punish us easy, luxurious people, for allowing such
+things to be done.'
+
+And when a man loses that spirit of chivalry, he loses his own soul.
+For that spirit of chivalry, let worldlings say what they will, is
+the very spirit of our spirit, the salt which keeps our characters
+from utter decay--the very instinct which raises us above the
+selfishness of the brute.  Yea, it is the Spirit of God Himself.  For
+what is the feeling of horror at wrong, of pity for the wronged, of
+burning desire to set wrong right, save the Spirit of the Father and
+the Son, the Spirit which brought down the Lord Jesus out of the
+highest heaven, to stoop, to serve, to suffer and to die, that He
+might seek and save that which was lost?
+
+Some say that the age of chivalry is past:  that the spirit of
+romance is dead.  The age of chivalry is never past, as long as there
+is a wrong left unredressed on earth, and a man or woman left to say,
+'I will redress that wrong, or spend my life in the attempt.'
+
+The age of chivalry is never past, as long as men have faith enough
+in God to say, 'God will help me to redress that wrong; or if not me,
+surely he will help those that come after me.  For His eternal will
+is, to overcome evil with good.'
+
+The spirit of romance will never die, as long as there is a man left
+to see that the world might and can be better, happier, wiser, fairer
+in all things, than it is now.  The spirit of romance will never die,
+as long as a man has faith in God to believe that the world will
+actually be better and fairer than it is now; as long as men have
+faith, however weak, to believe in the romance of all romances; in
+the wonder of all wonders; in that, of which all poets' dreams have
+been but childish hints, and dumb forefeelings--even
+
+
+'That one far-off divine event
+Towards which the whole creation moves;'
+
+
+that wonder of which prophets and apostles have told, each according
+to his light; that wonder which Habakkuk saw afar off, and foretold
+how that the earth should be filled with the knowledge of the Lord,
+as the waters cover the sea; that wonder which Isaiah saw afar off,
+and sang how the Lord should judge among the nations, and rebuke
+among many people; and they should beat their swords into plough-
+shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation should not rise
+against nation, neither should they learn war any more; that wonder
+of which St Paul prophesied, and said that Christ should reign till
+He had put all His enemies under His feet; that wonder of which St.
+John prophesied; and said, 'I saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem,
+coming down from God out of heaven.  And the nations of them that are
+saved shall walk in the light of it, and the kings of the earth bring
+their glory and their honour unto it;' that wonder, finally, which
+our Lord Himself bade us pray for, as for our daily bread, and say,
+'Father, thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth, as it is in
+heaven.
+
+'Thy will be done on earth.'  He who bade us ask that boon for
+generations yet unborn, was very God of very God.  Do you think that
+He would have bidden us ask a blessing, which He knew would never
+come?
+
+
+
+SERMON XIV.  THE GREAT COMMANDMENT
+
+
+
+MATT. xxii. 37, 32.
+
+Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
+soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great
+commandment.
+
+
+Some say, when they hear this,--It is a hard saying.  Who can bear
+it?  Who can expect us to do as much as that?  If we are asked to be
+respectable and sober, to live and let live, not to harm our
+neighbours wilfully or spitefully, and to come to church tolerably
+regularly--we understand being asked to do that--it is fair.  But to
+love the Lord our God with all our hearts.  That must be meant only
+for very great saints; for a few exceedingly devout people here and
+there.  And devout people have been too apt to say,--You are right.
+It is we who are to love God with all our hearts and souls, and give
+up the world, and marriage, and all the joys of life, and turn
+priests, monks, and nuns, while you need only be tolerably
+respectable, and attend to your religious duties from time to time,
+while we will pray for you.  But, my friends, if we read our Bibles,
+we cannot allow that.  'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,' was spoken
+not to monks and nuns (for there were none in those days), not to
+great saints only (for we read of none just then), not even to
+priests and clergymen only.  It was said to all the Jews, high and
+low, free and slave, soldier and labourer, alike--'Thou, a man living
+in the world, and doing work in the world, with wife and family, farm
+and cattle, horse to ride, and weapon to wear--thou shalt love the
+Lord thy God.'
+
+And therefore these words are said to you and me.  We English are
+neither monks nor nuns, nor likely (thank God) to become so.  We are
+in the world, with our own family ties and duties, our own worldly
+business.  And to us, to you and me, as to those old Jews, the first
+and great commandment is, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.'
+
+What, then, does it mean?  Does it mean that we are to have the same
+love toward God as we have toward a wife or a husband?
+
+Certainly not.  But it means at least this--the love which we should
+bear toward a Father.  All, my friends, turns on this.  Do you look
+on God as your Father, or do you not?  God is your Father, remember,
+already.  You cannot (as some people seem to think) make Him your
+Father by believing that He is one; and you need not, thanks to His
+mercy.  Neither can you make Him not your Father by forgetting Him.
+Be you wise or foolish, right or wrong, God is your Father in heaven;
+and you ought to feel towards Him as towards a father, not with any
+sentimental, fanciful, fanatical affection; but with a reverent,
+solemn, and rational affection; such as that which the good old
+Catechism bids us have, when it tells us our duty toward God.
+
+'My duty towards God is to believe in Him, to fear Him, and to love
+Him with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and with
+all my strength; to worship Him, to give Him thanks, to put my whole
+trust in Him, to call upon Him, to honour His holy Name and His Word,
+and to serve Him truly all the days of my life.'
+
+Now, I ask you--and what I ask you I ask myself,--Do we love the Lord
+our God thus?  And if not, why not?
+
+I do not ask you to tell me.  I am not going to tell you what is in
+my heart; and I do not ask you to tell me what is in yours.  We are
+free Englishmen, who keep ourselves to ourselves, and think for
+ourselves, each man in the depths of his own heart; and who are the
+stronger and the wiser for not talking about our feelings to any man,
+priest or layman.
+
+But ask yourselves, each of you,--Do I love God?  And if not, why
+not?
+
+There are two reasons, I believe, which are, alas! very common.  For
+one of them there are great excuses; for the other, there is no
+excuse whatsoever.
+
+In the first place, too many find it difficult to love God, because
+they have not been taught that God is loveable, and worthy of their
+love.  They have been taught dark and hard doctrines, which have made
+them afraid of God.
+
+They have been taught--too many are taught still--not merely that God
+will punish the wicked, but that God will punish nine-tenths, or
+ninety-nine-hundredths of the human race.  That He will send to
+endless torments not merely sinners who have rebelled against what
+they knew was right, and His command; who have stained themselves
+with crimes; who wilfully injured their fellow-creatures:  but that
+He will do the same by little children, by innocent young girls, by
+honourable, respectable, moral men and women, because they are not
+what is called sensibly converted, or else what is called orthodox.
+They have been taught to look on God, not as a loving and merciful
+Father, but as a tyrant and a task-master, who watches to set down
+against them the slightest mishap or neglect; who is extreme to mark
+what is done amiss; who wills the death of a sinner.  Often--
+strangest notion of all--they have been told that, though God intends
+to punish them, they must still love Him, or they will be punished--
+as if such a notion, so far from drawing them to God, could do
+anything but drive them from Him.  And it is no wonder if persons who
+have been taught in their youth such notions concerning God, find it
+difficult to love Him.  Who can be frightened or threatened into
+loving any being?  How can we love any being who does not seem to us
+kind, merciful, amiable, loving?  Our love must be called out by
+God's love.  If we are to love God, it must be because He has first
+loved us.
+
+But He has first loved us, my friends.  The dark and cruel notions
+about God--which are too common, and have been too common in all
+ages--are not what the world about us teaches, nor what Scripture
+teaches us either.
+
+Look out on the world around you.  What witness does it bear
+concerning the God who made it?  Who made the sunshine, and the
+flowers, and singing birds, and little children, and all that causes
+the joy of this life?  Let Christ Himself speak, and His apostles.
+No one can say that their words are not true; that they were mistaken
+in their view of this earth, or of God who gave it to us that it
+might bear witness of Him.  What said our Lord to the poor folk of
+Galilee, of whom the Scribes and the Pharisees, in their pride, said,
+'This people, who knoweth not the law, is accursed.'--What said our
+Lord, very God of very God?  He told them to look on the world
+around, and learn from it that they had in heaven not a tyrant, not a
+destroyer, but a Father; a Father in heaven who is perfect in this,
+that He causeth His sun to shine upon them, and is good to the
+unthankful and the evil.
+
+What of Him did St. Paul say?--and that not to Christians, but to
+heathens--That God had not left Himself without a witness even to the
+heathen who knew Him not--and what sort of witness?  The witness of
+His bounty and goodness.  The simple, but perpetual witness of the
+yearly harvest--'In that He sends men rain and fruitful seasons,
+filling their hearts with food and gladness.'
+
+This is St. Paul's witness.  And what is St. James's?  He tells men
+of a Father of lights, from whom comes down every good and perfect
+gift; who gives to all liberally, and upbraideth not, grudges not,
+stints not, but gives, and delights in giving,--the same God, in a
+word, of whom the old psalmists and prophets spoke, and said, 'Thou
+openest Thine hand, and fillest all things with good.'
+
+And if natural religion tells us thus much, and bears witness of a
+Father who delights in the happiness of His creatures, what does
+revealed religion and the Gospel of Jesus Christ tell us?
+
+Oh, my friends, dull indeed must be our hearts if we can feel no love
+for the God of whom the Gospel speaks!  And perverse, indeed, must be
+our minds if we can twist the good news of Christ's salvation into
+the bad news of condemnation!  What says St. Paul,--That God is
+against us?  No.  But--'If God be for us, who can be against us?
+
+'Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect?  It is God
+that justifieth.  Who is he that condemneth?  It is Christ that died,
+yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of
+God, who also maketh intercession for as.
+
+'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or
+distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or
+sword?
+
+'As it is written, For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we
+are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
+
+'Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him
+that loved us.
+
+'For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
+principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
+nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to
+separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'
+
+What says St. John?  Does he say that God the Father desires to
+punish or slay us; and that our Lord Jesus Christ, or the Virgin
+Mary, or the saints, or any other being, loves us better than God,
+and will deliver us out of the hands of God?  God forbid!  'We have
+known and believed,' he says, 'the love that God hath to us.  God is
+love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.'
+
+My friends, if we could believe those blessed words--I do not say in
+all their fulness--we shall never do that, I believe, in this mortal
+life--but if we could only believe them a little, and know and
+believe even a little of the love that God has to us, then love to
+Him would spring up in our hearts, and we should feel for Him all
+that child ever felt for father.  If we really believed that God who
+made heaven and earth was even now calling to each and every one of
+us, and beseeching us, by the sacrifice of His well-beloved Son,
+crucified for us, 'My son, give Me thy heart,' we could not help
+giving up our hearts to Him.
+
+Provided--and there is that second reason why people do not love God,
+for which I said there was no excuse--provided only that we wish to
+be good, and to obey God.  If we do not wish to do what God commands,
+we shall never love God.  It must be so.  There can be no real love
+of God which is not based upon a love of virtue and goodness, upon
+what our Lord calls a hunger and thirst after righteousness.  'If ye
+love Me, keep My commandments,' is our Lord's own rule and test.  And
+it is the only one possible.  If we habitually disobey any person, we
+shall cease to love that person.  If a child is in the habit of
+disobeying its parents, dark and angry feelings towards those parents
+are sure to arise in its heart.  The child tries to forget its
+parents, to keep out of their way.  It tries to justify itself, to
+excuse itself by fancying that its parents are hard upon it, unjust,
+grudge it pleasure, or what not.  If its parents' commandments are
+grievous to a child, it will try to make out that those commandments
+are unfair and unkind.  And so shall we do by God's commandments.  If
+God's commandments seem too grievous for us to obey, then we shall
+begin to fancy them unjust and unkind.  And then, farewell to any
+real love to God.  If we do not openly rebel against God, we shall
+still try to forget Him.  The thought of God will seem dark,
+unpleasant, and forbidding to us; and we shall try, in our short-
+sighted folly, to live as far as we can without God in the world,
+and, like Adam after his fall, hide ourselves from the loving God,
+just because we know we have disobeyed Him.
+
+But if, in spite of many bad habits, we desire to get rid of our bad
+habits; if, in spite of many faults, we still desire to be faultless
+and perfect; if, in spite of many weaknesses, we still desire to be
+strong; if, in one word, we still hunger and thirst after
+righteousness, and long to be good men; then, in due time, the love
+of God will be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
+
+For that will happen to us which happens to all those who have the
+pure, true, and heroical love.  If we really love a person, we shall
+first desire to please them, and therefore the thought of disobeying
+and paining them will seem more and more grievous unto us.
+
+But more.  We shall soon rise a step higher.  The more we love them,
+and the more we see in them, in their characters, things worthy to be
+loved, the more we shall desire to be like them, to copy those parts
+of their characters which most delight us; and we shall copy them:
+though insensibly, perhaps, and unawares.
+
+For no one can look up for any length of time with love and respect
+towards a person better, wiser, greater than themselves, without
+becoming more or less like that person in character and in habit of
+thought and feeling; and so it will be with us towards God.
+
+If we really long to be good, it will grow more and more easy to us
+to love God.  The more pure our hearts are, the more pleasant the
+thought of God will be to us; even as it is said, 'Blessed are the
+pure in heart, for they shall see God,'--in this life as well as in
+the life to come.  We shall not shrink from God, because we shall
+know that we are not wilfully offending Him.
+
+But more.  The more we think of God, the more we shall long to be
+like Him.  How admirable in our eyes will seem His goodness, how
+admirable His purity, His justice, and His bounty, His long-
+suffering, His magnanimity and greatness of heart.  For how great
+must be that heart of God, of which it is written, that 'He hateth
+nothing that He hath made, but His mercy is over all His works;'
+'that He willeth that none should perish, but that all should be
+saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth.'  Although He be
+infinitely high and far off and we cannot attain to Him, yet we shall
+feel it our duty and our joy to copy Him, however faintly, and
+however humbly; and our highest hope will be that we may behold, as
+in a glass, the glory of the Lord, and be changed into His image from
+glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord; that so, whether
+in this world or in the world to come, we may at last be perfect,
+even as our Father in heaven is perfect, and, like Him, cause the
+sunlight of our love to slime upon the evil and on the good; the
+kindly showers of our good deeds to fall upon the just and on the
+unjust; and--like Him who sent His only begotten Son to save the
+world--be good to the unthankful and to the evil.
+
+
+
+SERMON XV.  THE EARTHQUAKE
+(Preached October 11, 1863.)
+
+
+
+PSALM xlvi. 1, 2.
+
+God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
+Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though
+the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.
+
+
+No one, my friends, wishes less than I, to frighten you, or to take a
+dark and gloomy view of this world, or of God's dealings with men.
+But when God Himself speaks, men are bound to take heed, even though
+the message be an awful one.  And last week's earthquake was an awful
+message, reminding all reasonable souls how frail man is, how frail
+his strongest works, how frail this seemingly solid earth on which we
+stand; what a thin crust there is between us and the nether fires,
+how utterly it depends on God's mercy that we do not, like Korah,
+Dathan, and Abiram of old, go down alive into the pit.
+
+What do we know of earthquakes?  We know that they are connected with
+burning mountains; that the eruption of a burning mountain is
+generally preceded by, and accompanied with, violent earthquakes.
+Indeed, the burning mountains seem to be outlets, by which the
+earthquake force is carried off.  We know that these burning
+mountains give out immense volumes of steam.  We know that the
+expanding power of steam is by far the strongest force in the world;
+and, therefore, it is supposed reasonably, that earthquakes are
+caused by steam underground.
+
+We know concerning earthquakes two things:  first, that they are
+quite uncertain in their effects; secondly, quite uncertain in their
+occurrence.
+
+No one can tell what harm an earthquake will, or will not, do.  There
+are three kinds.  One which raises the ground up perpendicularly, and
+sets it down again--which is the least hurtful; one which sets it
+rolling in waves, like the waves of the sea--which is more hurtful;
+and one, the most terrible of all, which gives the ground a spinning
+motion, so that things thrown down by it fall twisted from right to
+left, or left to right.  But what kind of earthquake will take place,
+no one can tell.
+
+Moreover, a very slight earthquake may do fearful damage.  People who
+only read of them, fancy that an earthquake, to destroy man and his
+works, must literally turn the earth upside down; that the ground
+must open, swallowing up houses, vomiting fire and water; that rocks
+must be cast into the sea, and hills rise where valleys were before.
+Such awful things have happened, and will happen again:  but it does
+not need them to lay a land utterly waste.  A very slight shock--a
+shock only a little stronger than was felt last Wednesday morning,
+might have--one hardly dare think of what it might have done in a
+country like this, where houses are thinly built because we have no
+fear of earthquakes.  Every manufactory and mill throughout the iron
+districts (where the shock was felt most) might have toppled to the
+earth in a moment.  Whole rows of houses, hastily and thinly built,
+might have crumbled down like packs of cards; and hundreds of
+thousands of sleeping human beings might have been buried in the
+ruins, without time for a prayer or a cry.
+
+A little more--a very little more--and all that or more might have
+happened; millions' worth of property might have been destroyed in a
+few seconds, and the prosperity and civilization of England have been
+thrown back for a whole generation.  There is absolutely no reason
+whatever, I tell you, save the mercy of God, why that, or worse,
+should not have happened; and it is only of the Lord's mercies that
+we were not consumed.
+
+Next, earthquakes are utterly uncertain as to time.  No one knows
+when they are coming.  They give no warning.  Even in those unhappy
+countries in which they are most common there may not be a shock for
+months or years; and then a sudden shock may hurl down whole towns.
+Or there may be many, thirty or forty a-day for weeks, as there
+happened in a part of South America a few years ago, when day after
+day, week after week, terrible shocks went on with a perpetual
+underground roar, as if brass and iron were crashing and clanging
+under the feet, till the people were half mad with the continual
+noise and continual anxiety, expecting every moment one shock,
+stronger than the rest, to swallow them up.  It is impossible, I say,
+to calculate when they will come.  They are altogether in the hand of
+God,--His messengers, whose time and place He alone knows, and He
+alone directs.
+
+Our having had one last week is no reason for our not having another
+this week, or any day this week; and no reason, happily, against our
+having no more for one hundred years.  It is in God's hands, and in
+God's hands we must leave it.
+
+All we can say is, that when one comes, it is likely to be least
+severe in this part of England, and most severe (like this last) in
+the coal and iron districts of the west and north-west, where it is
+easy to see that earthquakes were once common, by the cracks, twists
+and settlements in the rocks, and the lava streams, poured out from
+fiery vents (probably under water) which pierce the rocks in many
+places.  Beyond that we know nothing, and can only say,--It is of the
+Lord's mercies that we are not consumed.
+
+Why do I say these things?  To frighten you?  No, but to warn you.
+When you say to yourselves,--Earthquakes are so uncommon and so
+harmless in England that there is no need to think of them, you say
+on the whole what is true.  It has been, as yet, God's will that
+earthquakes should be uncommon and slight in England; and therefore
+we have a reasonable ground of belief that such will be His will for
+the future.  Certainly He does not wish us to fold our hands, and
+say, there is no use in building or improving the country, if an
+earthquake may come and destroy it at any moment.  If there be an
+evil which man can neither prevent or foresee, then, if he be a wise
+man, he will go on as if that evil would never happen.  We ever must
+work on in hope and in faith in God's goodness, without tormenting
+and weakening ourselves by fears about what may happen.
+
+But when God gives to a whole country a distinct and solemn warning,
+especially after giving that country an enormous bounty in an
+abundant harvest, He surely means that country to take the warning.
+And, if I dare so judge, He means us perhaps to think of the
+earthquake, and somewhat in this way.
+
+There is hardly any country in the world in which man's labour has
+been so successful as in England.  Owing to our having no
+earthquakes, no really destructive storms,--and, thank God, no
+foreign invading armies,--the wealth of England has gone on
+increasing steadily and surely for centuries past, to a degree
+unexampled.  We have never had to rebuild whole towns after an
+earthquake.  We have never seen (except in small patches) whole
+districts of fertile land ruined by the sea or by floods.  We have
+never seen every mill and house in a country blown down by a
+hurricane, and the crops mown off the ground by the mere force of the
+wind, as has happened again and again in our West India Islands.
+Most blessed of all, we have never seen a foreign army burning our
+villages, sacking our towns, carrying off our corn and cattle, and
+driving us into the woods to starve.  From all these horrors, which
+have, one or other of them, fallen on almost every nation upon earth,
+God has of His great mercy preserved us.  Ours is not the common lot
+of humanity.  We English do not know the sorrows which average men
+and women go through, and have been going through, alas! ever since
+Adam fell.  We have been an exception, a favoured and peculiar
+people, allowed to thrive and fatten quietly and safely for hundreds
+of years.
+
+But what if that very security tempts us to forget God?  Is it not
+so?  Are we not--I am sure I am--too apt to take God's blessings for
+granted, without thanking Him for them, or remembering really that He
+gave them, and that He can take them away?  Do we not take good
+fortune for granted?  Do we not take for granted that if we build a
+house it will endure for ever; that if we buy a piece of land it will
+be called by our name long years hence; that if we amass wealth we
+shall hand it down safely to our children?  Of course we think we
+shall prosper.  We say to ourselves, To-morrow shall be as to-day,
+and yet more abundant.
+
+Nothing can happen to England, is, I fear, the feeling of Englishmen.
+Carnal security is the national sin to which we are tempted, because
+we have not now for forty years felt anything like national distress;
+and Britain says, like Babylon of old, the lady of kingdoms to whom
+foreigners so often compare her,--'I shall be a lady for ever; I am,
+there is none beside me.  I shall never sit as a widow, nor know the
+loss of children.'
+
+What, too, if that same security and prosperity tempts us--as
+foreigners justly complain of us--to set our hearts on material
+wealth; to believe that our life, and the life of Britain, depends on
+the abundance of the things which she possesses?  To say--Corn and
+cattle, coal and iron, house and land, shipping and rail-roads, these
+make up Great Britain.  While she has these she will endure for ever.
+
+Ah, my friends--to people in such a temptation, is it wonderful that
+a good God should send a warning unmistakeable, though only a
+warning; most terrible, though mercifully harmless; a warning which
+says, in a voice which the dullest can hear--Endure for ever?  The
+solid ground on which you stand cannot do that.  Safe?  Nothing on
+earth is safe for a moment, save in the long-suffering and tender
+mercy of Him of whom are all things, and by whom are all things,
+without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground.  Is the wealth of
+Britain, then, what she can see and handle?  The towns she builds,
+the roads she makes, the manufactures and goods she produces?  One
+touch of the finger of God, and that might be all rolled into a heap
+of ruins, and the labour of years scattered in the dust.  You trust
+in the sure solid earth?  You shall feel it, if but for once, reel
+and quiver under your feet, and learn that it is not solid at all, or
+sure at all; that there is nothing solid, sure, or to be depended on,
+but the mercy of the living God; and that your solid-seeming earth on
+which you build is nothing less than a mine, which may bubble, and
+heave, and burst beneath your feet, charged for ever with an
+explosive force, as much more terrible than that gunpowder which you
+have invented to kill each other withal, as the works of God are
+greater than the works of man.  Safe, truly!  It is of God's mercy
+from day to day and hour to hour that we are not consumed.
+
+This, surely, or something like this, is what the earthquake says to
+us.  It speaks to us most gently, and yet most awfully, of a day in
+which the heavens may pass away with a great noise, and the elements
+may melt with fervent heat, and the earth and the works which are
+therein may be burnt up.  It tells us that this is no impossible
+fancy:  that the fires imprisoned below our feet can, and may, burst
+up and destroy mankind and the works of man in one great catastrophe,
+to which the earthquake of Lisbon in 1755--when 60,000 persons were
+killed, crushed, drowned, or swallowed up in a few minutes--would be
+a merely paltry accident.
+
+And it bids us think, as St. Peter bids us:  'When therefore all
+these things are dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in
+holy conversation and godliness?'
+
+What manner of persons?
+
+Remember, that if an earthquake destroyed all England, or the whole
+world; if this earth on which we live crumbled to dust, and were
+blotted out of the number of the stars, there is one thing which
+earthquake, and fire, and all the forces of nature cannot destroy,
+and that is--the human race.
+
+We should still be.  We should still endure.  Not, indeed, in flesh
+and blood:  but in some state or other; each of us the same as now,
+our characters, our feelings, our goodness or our badness; our
+immortal spirits and very selves, unchanged, ready to receive, and
+certain to receive, the reward of the deeds done in the body, whether
+they be good or evil.  Yes, we should still endure, and God and
+Christ would still endure.  But as our Saviour, or as our Judge?
+That is a very awful thought.
+
+One day or other, sooner or later, each of us shall stand before the
+judgment-seat of Christ, stripped of all we ever had, ever saw, ever
+touched, ever even imagined to ourselves, alone with our own
+consciences, alone with our own deserts.  What shall we be saying to
+ourselves then?
+
+Shall we be saying--I have lost all:  The world is gone--the world,
+in which were set all my hopes, all my wishes; the world in which
+were all my pleasures, all my treasures; the world, which was the
+only thing I cared for, though it warned me not to trust in it, as it
+trembled beneath my feet?  But the world is gone, and now I have
+nothing left!
+
+Or, shall we be saying,--The world is gone?  Then let it go.  It was
+not a home.  I took its good things as thankfully as I could.  I took
+its sorrows and troubles as patiently as I could.  But I have not set
+my heart on the world.  My treasure, my riches, were not of the
+world.  My peace was a peace which the world did not give, and could
+not take away.  And now the world is gone, I keep my peace, I keep my
+treasure still.  My peace is where it was, in my own heart.  My peace
+is what it was:  my faith in God,--faith that my sins are forgiven me
+for Christ's sake:  my faith that God my Father loves me, and cares
+for me; and that nothing,--height or depth, or time or space, or life
+or death, can part me from His love:  my faith that I have not been
+quite useless in the world; that I have tried to do my duty in my
+place; and that the good which I have done, little as it has been,
+will not go forgotten by that merciful God, by whose help it was
+done, who rewards all men according to the works which He gives them
+heart to perform.  And my treasure is where it was--in my heart; and
+what it was,--the Holy Spirit of God, the spirit of goodness, of
+faith and truth, of mercy and justice, of love to God and love to
+man, which is everlasting life itself.  That I have.  That time
+cannot abate, nor death abolish, nor the world, nor the destruction
+of the world, nor of all worlds, can take away.
+
+Choose, my friends, which of these two frames of mind would you
+rather be in when the great day of the Lord comes, foretold by that
+earthquake, and by all earthquakes that ever were.
+
+Will you be then like those whom St. John saw calling on the
+mountains to fall on them, and the hills to hide them from the wrath
+of Him that sat on the throne, and from the anger of the Lamb?
+
+Or will you be like him who saith--God is my hope and strength, my
+present help in trouble.  Therefore will I not fear, though the earth
+be shaken, and though the mountains be carried into the depth of the
+sea?
+
+
+
+SERMON XVI.  THE METEOR SHOWER
+(Preached at the Chapel Royal, St. James's, Nov. 26, 1866.)
+
+
+
+ST. MATTHEW x. 29, 30.
+
+Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not
+fall on the ground without your Father.  But the very hairs of your
+head are all numbered.
+
+
+It will be well for us to recollect, once for all, who spoke these
+words; even Jesus Christ, who declared that He was one with God the
+Father; Jesus Christ, whom His apostles declared to be the Creator of
+the universe.  If we believe this, as Christian men, it will be well
+for us to take our Lord's account of a universe which He Himself
+created; and to believe that in the most minute occurrence of nature,
+there is a special providence, by which not a sparrow falls to the
+ground without our Father.
+
+I confess that it is difficult to believe this heartily.  It was
+never anything but difficult.  In the earliest ages, those who first
+thought about the universe found it so difficult that they took
+refuge in the fancy of special providence which was administered by
+the planets above their heads, and believed that the affairs of men,
+and of the world on which they lived, were ruled by the aspects of
+the sun and moon, and the host of heaven.
+
+Men found it so difficult in the Middle Age, that they took refuge in
+the fancy of a special providence administered by certain demi-gods
+whom they called 'The Saints;' and believed that each special
+disease, or accident, was warded off from mankind, from their cattle,
+or from their crops, by a special saint who overlooked their welfare.
+
+Men find it so difficult now-a-days, that the great majority of
+civilized people believe in no special providence at all, and take
+refuge in the belief that the universe is ruled by something which
+they call law.
+
+Therein, doubtless, they have hold of a great truth; but one which
+will be only half-true, and therefore injurious, unless it be
+combined with other truths; unless questions are answered which too
+many do not care to answer:  as, for instance,--Can there be a law
+without a law-giver?  Can a law work without one who administers the
+law?  Are not the popular phrases of 'laws impressed on matter,'
+'laws inherent in matter,' mere metaphors, dangerous, because
+inaccurate; confirmed as little by experience and reason, as by
+Scripture?
+
+Does not all law imply a will?  Does not an Almighty Will imply a
+special providence?
+
+But these are questions for which most persons have neither time nor
+inclination.  Indeed, the whole matter is unimportant to them.  They
+have no special need of a special providence.  Their lives and
+properties are very safe in this civilized country; and their secret
+belief is that, whatever influence God may have on the next world, He
+has little or no influence on this world; neither on the facts of
+nature, nor on the events of history, nor on the course of their own
+lives; and that a special providence seems to them--if they dare
+confess as much--an unnecessary superstition.
+
+Only poor folk in cottages and garrets--and a few more who are,
+happily, poor in spirit, though not in purse--grinding amid the iron
+facts of life, and learning there by little sound science, it may be,
+but much sound theology--still believe that they have a Father in
+heaven, before whom the very hairs of their head are all numbered;
+and that if they had not, then this would not only be a bad world,
+but a mad world likewise; and that it were better for them that they
+had never been born.
+
+Nevertheless, it is difficult to believe in the special providence of
+our Father in heaven.  Difficult:  though necessary.  Just as it is
+difficult to believe that the earth moves round the sun.  Contrary,
+like that fact, to a great deal of our seeming experience.
+
+It is easy enough, of course, to believe that our Father sends what
+is plainly good.  Not so easy to believe that He sends what at least
+seems evil.
+
+Easy enough, when we see spring-time and harvest, sunshine and
+flowers, to say--Here are 'acts of God's providence.'  Not so easy,
+when we see blight and pestilence, storm and earthquake, to say,--
+Here are 'acts of God's providence' likewise.
+
+For this innumerable multitude of things, of which we now-a-days talk
+as if it were one thing, and had an organic unity of its own, or even
+as if it were one person, and had a will of its own, and call it
+Nature--a word which will one day be forgotten by philosophers, with
+the 'four elements,' and the 'animal spirits;'--this multitude of
+things, I say, which we miscall Nature, has its dark and ugly, as
+well as its bright and fair side.  Nature, says some one, is like the
+spotted panther--most playful, and yet most treacherous; most
+beautiful, and yet most cruel.  It acts at times after a fashion most
+terrible, undistinguishing, wholesale, seemingly pitiless.  It seems
+to go on its own way, as in a storm or an earthquake, careless of
+what it crushes.  Terrible enough Nature looks to the savage, who
+thinks it crushes him from mere caprice.  More terrible still does
+Science make Nature look, when she tells us that it crushes, not by
+caprice, but by brute necessity; not by ill-will, but by inevitable
+law.  Science frees us in many ways (and all thanks to her) from the
+bodily terror which the savage feels.  But she replaces that, in the
+minds of many, by a moral terror which is far more overwhelming.  Am
+I--a man is driven to ask--am I, and all I love, the victims of an
+organised tyranny, from which there can be no escape--for there is
+not even a tyrant from whom I may perhaps beg mercy?  Are we only
+helpless particles, at best separate parts of the wheels of a vast
+machine, which will use us till it has worn us away, and ground us to
+powder?  Are our bodies--and if so, why not our souls?--the puppets,
+yea, the creatures of necessary circumstances, and all our strivings
+and sorrows only vain beatings against the wires of our cage, cries
+of 'Why hast thou made me, then?' which are addressed to nothing?
+Tell us not that the world is governed by universal law; the news is
+not comfortable, but simply horrible, unless you can tell us, or
+allow others to tell us, that there is a loving giver, and a just
+administrator of that law.
+
+Horrible, I say, and increasingly horrible, not merely to the
+sentimentalist, but to the man of sound reason and of sound
+conscience, must the scientific aspect of nature become, if a mere
+abstraction called law is to be the sole ruler of the universe; if--
+to quote the famous words of the German sage--'If, instead of the
+Divine Eye, there must glare on us an empty, black, bottomless eye-
+socket;' and the stars and galaxies of heaven, in spite of all their
+present seeming regularity, are but an 'everlasting storm which no
+man guides.'
+
+It was but a few days ago that we, and this little planet on which we
+live, caught a strange and startling glimpse of that everlasting
+storm which--shall I say it?--no one guides.
+
+We were swept helpless, astronomers tell us, through a cloud of fiery
+stones, to which all the cunning bolts which man invents to slay his
+fellow-man, are but slow and weak engines of destruction.
+
+We were free from the superstitious terror with which that meteor-
+shower would have been regarded in old times.  We could comfort
+ourselves, too, with the fact that heaven's artillery was not known
+as yet to have killed any one; and with the scientific explanation of
+that fact, namely, that most of the bolts were small enough to be
+melted and dissipated by their rush through our atmosphere.
+
+But did the thought occur to none of us, how morally ghastly, in
+spite of all its physical beauty, was that grand sight, unless we
+were sure that behind it all, there was a living God?  Unless we
+believed that not one of those bolts fell, or did not fall to the
+ground without our Father?  That He had appointed the path, and the
+time, and the destiny, and the use of every atom of that matter, of
+which science could only tell us that it was rushing without a
+purpose, for ever through the homeless void?
+
+We may believe that, mind, without denying scientific laws, or their
+permanence in any way.  It is not a question, this, of a living God,
+whether He interferes with His own laws now and then, but whether
+interference is not the law of all laws itself.  It is not a question
+of special providences here and there, in favour of this person or
+that; but whether the whole universe and its history is not one
+perpetual and innumerable series of special providences.  Whether the
+God who ordained the laws is not so administering them, so making
+them interfere with, balance, and modify each other, as to cause them
+to work together perpetually for good; so that every minutest event
+(excepting always the sin and folly of rational beings) happens in
+the place, time, and manner, where it is specially needed.  In one
+word, the question is not whether there be a God, but whether there
+be a living God, who is in any true and practical sense Master of the
+universe over which He presides; a King who is actually ruling His
+kingdom, or an Epicurean deity who lets his kingdom rule itself.
+
+Is there a living God in the universe, or is there none?  That is the
+greatest of all questions.  Has our Lord Jesus Christ answered it, or
+has He not?  Easy, well-to-do people, who find this world pleasant,
+and whose chief concern is to live till they die, care little about
+that question.  This world suits them well enough, whether there be a
+living God or not; and as for the next world, they will be sure to
+find some preacher or confessor who will set their minds easy about
+it.
+
+Fanatics and bigots, of all denominations, care little about that
+question.  For they say in their hearts--'God is our Father,
+whosesoever Father He is not.  We are His people, and God performs
+acts of providence for us.  But as for the people outside, who know
+not the law, nor the Gospel, either, they are accursed.  It is not
+our concern to discuss whether God performs acts of providence for
+them.'
+
+But here and there, among rich and poor, there are those whose heart
+and flesh--whose conscience and whose intellect--cry out for the
+living God, and will know no peace till they have found Him.
+
+A living God; a true God; a real God; a God worthy of the name; a God
+who is working for ever, everywhere, and in all; who hates nothing
+that He has made, forgets nothing, neglects nothing; a God who
+satisfies not only their heads, but their hearts; not only their
+logical intellects, but their higher reason--that pure reason, which
+is one with the conscience and moral sense.  For Him they cry out;
+Him they seek:  and if they cannot find Him they know no rest.  For
+then they can find no explanation of the three great human questions-
+-Where am I?  Whither am I going?  What must I do?
+
+Men come to them and say, 'Of course there is a God.--He created the
+world long ago, and set it spinning ever since by unchangeable laws.'
+But they answer, 'That may be true; but I want more.  I want the
+living God.'
+
+Other men come to them and say, 'Of course there is a God; and when
+the universe is destroyed, He will save a certain number of the
+elect, or orthodox.  Do you take care that you are among that number,
+and leave the rest to Him.'  But they answer, 'That may be true; but
+I want more.  I want the living God.'
+
+They will say so very confusedly.  They will often not be able to
+make men understand their meaning.  Nay, they will say and do--driven
+by despair--very unwise things.  They will even fall down and worship
+the Holy Bread in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and say, 'The
+living God is in that.  You have forbidden us, with your theories, to
+find the living God either in heaven or earth.  But somewhere He must
+be.  And in despair, we will fall back upon the old belief that He is
+in the wafer on the altar, and find there Him whom our souls must
+find, or be for ever without a home.'  Strange and sad, that that
+should be the last outcome of the century of mechanical philosophy.
+But before we blame the doctrine as materialistic,--which, I fear, it
+too truly is,--we should remember that, for the last fifty years, the
+young have been taught more and more to be materialists; that they
+have been taught more and more to believe in a God who rules over
+Sundays, but not over week-day business; over the next world, but not
+over this; a God, in short, in whom men do not live, and move, and
+have their being.  They have been brought up, I say, unconsciously,
+but surely, as practical materialists, who make their senses the
+ground of all their knowledge; and therefore, when a revulsion
+happens to them, they are awakened to look for the living God--they
+look for him instinctively in visible matter.
+
+But for the living God thoughtful men will look more and more.
+Physical science is forcing on them the question, Do we live, and
+move, and have our being in God?  Is there a real and perpetual
+communication between the visible and the invisible world, or is
+there not?  Are all the beliefs of man, from the earliest ages, that
+such there was, dreams and nothing more?  Is any religion whatsoever
+to be impossible henceforth?  And to find an answer, men will go,
+either backward to superstition, or forward into pantheism; for in
+atheism, whether practical or theoretical, they cannot abide.
+
+The Bible says that those old beliefs, however partial or childish,
+were no dreams, but instincts of an eternal truth; that there is such
+a communication between the universe and the living God.  Prophets,
+Psalmists, Apostles, speak--like our Nicene Creed--of a Spirit of
+God, the Lord and Giver of Life, in words which are not pantheism,
+but are the very deliverance from pantheism, because they tell us
+that that Spirit proceeds, not merely from a Deity, not merely from a
+Creator, but from a Father in heaven, and from a Son who is His
+likeness and His Word.
+
+And from this ground Natural Theology must start, if it is ever to
+revive again, instead of remaining, as now, an extinct science.  It
+must begin from the keyword of the text, 'Your Father.'  As long as
+Natural Theology begins from nature, and not from God Himself, it
+will inevitably drift into pantheism, as Pope drifted, in spite of
+himself, when he tried to look from nature up to nature's God.  As
+long as men speculate on the dealings of a Deity or of a Creator,
+they will find out nothing, because they are searching under the
+wrong name, and therefore, as logicians will tell you, for the wrong
+thing.
+
+But when they begin to seek under the right name--the name which our
+Lord revealed to the debased multitudes of Judaea, when He told them
+that not a sparrow fell to the ground without--not the Deity, not the
+Creator, but their Father; then, in God's good time, all may come
+clear once more.
+
+This at least will come clear,--a doubt which often presents itself
+to the mind of scientific men.
+
+This earth--we know now that it is not the centre, not the chief
+body, of the universe, but a tiny planet, a speck, an atom among
+millions of bodies far vaster than itself.
+
+It was credible enough in old times, when the earth was held to be
+all but the whole universe, that God should descend on earth, and
+take on Him human nature, to save human beings.  Is it credible now?
+This little corner of the systems and the galaxies?  This paltry race
+which we call man?  Are they worthy of the interposition, of the
+death, of Incarnate God--of the Maker of such a universe as Science
+has discovered?
+
+Yes.  If we will keep in mind that one word 'Father.'  Then we dare
+say Yes, in full assurance of Faith.  For then we have taken the
+question off the mere material ground of size and of power; to put it
+once and for ever on that spiritual ground of justice and love, which
+is implied in the one word--'Father.'
+
+If God be a perfect Father, then there must be a perpetual
+intercourse of some kind between Him and His children; between Him
+and that planet, however small, on which He has set His children,
+that they may be educated into His likeness.  If God be perfect
+justice, the wrong, and consequent misery of the universe, how ever
+small, must be intolerable to Him.  If God be perfect love, there is
+no sacrifice--remember that great word--which He may not condescend
+to make, in order to right that wrong, and alleviate that misery.  If
+God be the Father of our spirits, the spiritual welfare of His
+children may be more important to Him than the fate of the whole
+brute matter of the universe.  Think not to frighten us with the
+idols of size and height.  God is a Spirit, before whom all material
+things are equally great, and equally small.  Let us think of Him as
+such, and not merely as a Being of physical power and inventive
+craft.  Let us believe in our Father in heaven.  For then that higher
+intellect,--that pure reason, which dwells not in the heads, but in
+the hearts of men, will tell them that if they have a Father in
+heaven, He must be exercising a special providence over the minutest
+affairs of their lives, by which He is striving to educate them into
+His likeness; a special providence over the fate of every atom in the
+universe, by which His laws shall work together for the moral
+improvement of every creature capable thereof; that not a sparrow can
+fall to the ground without his knowledge; and that not a hair of
+their head can be touched, unless suffering is needed for the
+education of their souls.
+
+
+
+SERMON XVII.  CHOLERA, 1866
+
+
+
+LUKE vii. 16.
+
+There came a fear on all:  and they glorified God, saying, That a
+great prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited his
+people.
+
+
+You recollect to what the text refers?  How the Lord visited His
+people?  By raising to life a widow's son at Nain.  That was the
+result of our Lord's visit to the little town of Nain.  It is worth
+our while to think of that text, and of that word, 'visit,' just now.
+For we are praying to God to remove the cholera from this land.  We
+are calling it a visitation of God; and saying that God is visiting
+our sins on us thereby.  And we are saying the exact truth.  We are
+using the right and scriptural word.
+
+We know that this cholera comes by no miracle, but by natural causes.
+We can more or less foretell where it will break out.  We know how to
+prevent its breaking out at all, save in a scattered case here and
+there.  Of this there is no doubt whatsoever in the mind of any well-
+informed person.
+
+But that does not prevent its being a visitation of God; yea, in most
+awful and literal earnest, a house-to-house visitation.  God uses the
+powers of nature to do His work:  of Him it is written, 'He maketh
+the winds His angels, and flames of fire His ministers.'  And so this
+minute and invisible cholera-seed is the minister of God, by which He
+is visiting from house to house, searching out and punishing certain
+persons who have been guilty, knowingly or not, of the offence of
+dirt; of filthy and careless habits of living; and especially, as has
+long been known by well-informed men, of drinking poisoned water.
+Their sickness, their deaths, are God's judgment on that act of
+theirs, whereby God says to men,--You shall not drink water unfit for
+even dumb animals; and if you do, you shall die.
+
+To this view there are two objections.  First, the poor people
+themselves are not in fault, but those who supply poisoned water, and
+foul dwellings.
+
+True:  but only half true.  If people demanded good water and good
+houses, there would soon be a supply of them.  But there is not a
+sufficient supply; because too many of the labouring classes in
+towns, though they are earning very high wages, are contented to live
+in a condition unfit for civilized men; and of course, if they are
+contented so to do, there will be plenty of covetous or careless
+landlords who will supply the bad article with which they are
+satisfied; and they will be punished by disease for not having taken
+care of themselves.
+
+But as for the owners of filthy houses, and the suppliers of poisoned
+water, be sure that, in His own way and His own time, God will visit
+them; that when He maketh inquisition for blood, He will assuredly
+requite upon the guilty persons, whoever they are, the blood of those
+five or six thousand of her Majesty's subjects who have been foully
+done to death by cholera in the last two months, as He requited the
+blood of Naboth, or of any other innocent victim of whom we read in
+Holy Writ.  This outbreak of cholera in London, considering what we
+now know about it, and have known for twenty years past, is a
+national shame, scandal, and sin, which, if man cannot and will not
+punish, God can and will.
+
+But there is another objection, which is far more important and
+difficult to answer.  This cholera has not slain merely fathers and
+mothers of families, who were more or less responsible for the bad
+state of their dwellings; but little children, aged widows, and many
+other persons who cannot be blamed in the least.
+
+True.  And we must therefore believe that to them--indeed to all--
+this has been a visitation not of anger but of love.  We must believe
+that they are taken away from some evil to come; that God permits the
+destruction of their bodies, to the saving of their souls.  His laws
+are inexorable; and yet He hateth nothing that He hath made.
+
+And we must believe that this cholera is an instance of the great
+law, which fulfils itself again and again, and will to the end of the
+world,--'It is expedient that one die for the people, and that the
+whole nation perish not.'
+
+For the same dirt which produces cholera now and then, is producing
+always, and all day long, stunted and diseased bodies, drunkenness,
+recklessness, misery, and sin of all kinds; and the cholera will be a
+blessing, a cheap price to have paid, for the abolition of the evil
+spirit of dirt.
+
+And thus much for this very painful subject--of which some of you may
+say--'What is it to us?  We cannot prevent cholera; and, blessed as
+we are with abundance of the purest water, there is little or no fear
+of cholera ever coming into our parish.'
+
+That last is true, my friends, and you may thank God for it.
+Meanwhile, take this lesson at least home with you, and teach it your
+children day by day--that filthy, careless, and unwholesome habits of
+living are in the sight of Almighty God so terrible an offence, that
+He sometimes finds it necessary to visit them with a severity with
+which He visits hardly any sin; namely, by inflicting capital
+punishment on thousands of His beloved creatures.
+
+But though we have not had the cholera among us, has God therefore
+not visited us?  That would surely be evil news for us, according to
+Holy Scripture.  For if God do not visit us, then He must be far from
+us.  But the Psalmist cries, 'Go not far from me, O Lord.'  His fear
+is, again and again, not that God should visit him, but that God
+should desert him.  And more, the word which is translated 'to
+visit,' in Scripture has the sense of seeing to a man, overseeing
+him, being his bishop.  If God do not see to, oversee us, and be our
+bishop, then He must turn His face from us, which is what the
+Psalmist beseeches Him again and again not to do; praying, 'Hide not
+Thy face from me, O Lord,' and crying out of the depths of anxiety
+and trouble, 'Put thy trust in God, for I shall yet give Him thanks
+for the light of His countenance;' and again, 'In Thy presence is'--
+not death, but--'life; at Thy right hand is fulness of days for
+evermore.'  And again, the Psalmist prays to God to visit him, and
+visit his thoughts,--'Search me, O Lord, and try the ground of my
+heart.  Search me, and examine my thoughts.  Look well if there be
+any wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.'  Shall we
+pray that prayer, my friends?  Shall we, with the Psalmist, pray God
+to visit, and, if need be, chasten and correct what He sees wrong in
+us?  Or shall we, with the superstitious, pray to God not to visit
+us? to keep away from us? to leave its alone? to forget us?  If He
+did answer that foolish prayer, there would be an end of us and all
+created things; for in God they live and move and have their being--
+as it is written, 'When Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; when
+Thou takest away their breath, they die, and are turned again to
+their dust.'  But, happily for us, God will not answer that foolish
+prayer.  For it is written, 'If I go up to heaven, Thou art there; if
+I go down to hell, Thou art there also.'  Nowhither can we go from
+God's presence:  nowhither can we flee from His Spirit.
+
+This is the Scripture language.  Is ours like it?  Have we not got to
+think of a visitation of God as a simple calamity?  If a man die
+suddenly and strangely, he has died by the visitation of God.  But if
+he be saved from death strangely and suddenly, it does not occur to
+us to call that a visitation, and to say with Scripture, 'The Lord
+has visited the man with His salvation.'  If the cholera comes, or
+the crops fail, we say,--God is visiting us.  If we have an
+especially healthy year, or a glorious harvest, we never say with
+Scripture, 'The Lord has visited His people in giving them bread.'
+Yet Scripture, if it says, 'I will visit their transgressions,' says
+also that the Lord visited the children of Israel to deliver them out
+of Egypt.  If it talks of death as the visitation of all men, it
+speaks of God visiting Sarah and Hannah to give them children.  If it
+says, 'I will visit the blood shed in Jezreel,' it says also, 'Thy
+visitation hath preserved my spirit.'  If it says, 'At the time they
+are visited they shall be cast down,' it says also, 'The Lord shall
+visit them, and turn away their captivity.'
+
+If we look through Scripture, we find that the words 'visit' and
+'visitation' are used about ninety times:  that in about fifty of
+them the meaning of the words is chastisement of some kind or other:
+in about forty it is mercy and blessing:  and that in the New
+Testament the words never mean anything but mercy and blessing,
+though we have begun of late years to use them only in the sense of
+punishment and a curse.
+
+Now, how is this, my friends?  How is it that we, who are not under
+the terrors of the Law, but under the Gospel of grace, have quite
+lost the Gospel meaning of this word 'visitation,' and take a darker
+view of it than did even the old Jews under the Law?  Have we, whom
+God hath visited, indeed, in the person of His only-begotten Son
+Jesus Christ, any right or reason to think worse of a visitation of
+God than had the Jews of old?  God forbid.  And yet we do so, I fear;
+and show daily that we do so by our use of the word:  for out of the
+abundance of the heart man's mouth speaketh.  By his words he is
+justified, and by his words he is condemned; and there is no surer
+sign of what a man's real belief is, than the sense in which lie
+naturally, as it were by instinct, uses certain words.
+
+And what is the cause?
+
+Shall I say it?  If I do, I blame not you more than I blame myself,
+more than I blame this generation.  But it seems to me that there is
+a little--or not a little--atheism among us now-a-days; that we are
+growing to be 'without God in the world.'  We are ready enough to
+believe that God has to do with the next world:  but we are not ready
+to believe that He has to do with this world.  We, in this
+generation, do not believe that in God we live, and move, and have
+our being.  Nay, some object to capital punishment, because (so they
+say) 'it hurries men into the presence of their Maker;' as if a human
+being could be in any better or safer place than the presence of his
+Maker; and as if his being there depended on us, or on any man, and
+not on God Almighty alone, who is surely not so much less powerful
+than an earthly monarch, that He cannot keep out of His presence or
+in it whomsoever He chooses.  When we talk of being 'ushered into the
+presence of God,' we mean dying; as if we were not all in the
+presence of God at this moment, and all day long.  When we say,
+'Prepare to meet thy God,' we mean 'Prepare to die;' as if we did not
+meet our God every time we had the choice between doing a right thing
+and doing a wrong one--between yielding to our own lusts and tempers,
+and yielding to the Holy Spirit of God.  For if the Holy Spirit of
+God be, as the Christian faith tells us, God indeed, do we not meet
+God every time a right, and true, and gracious thought arises in our
+hearts?  But we have all forgotten this, and much more connected with
+this; and our notion of this world is not that of Holy Scripture--of
+that grand 104th Psalm, for instance, which sets forth the Spirit of
+God as the Lord and Giver of life to all creation:  but our notion is
+this--that this world is a machine, which would go on very well by
+itself, if God would but leave it alone; that if the course of
+nature, as we atheistically call it, is not interfered with, then
+suns shine, crops grow, trade flourishes, and all is well, because
+God does not visit the earth.  Ah! blind that we are; blind to the
+power and glory of God which is around us, giving life and breath to
+all things,--God, without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground,--
+God, who visiteth the earth, and maketh it very plenteous,--God, who
+giveth to all liberally, and upbraideth not,--God, whose ever-
+creating and ever-sustaining Spirit is the source, not only of all
+goodness, virtue, knowledge, but of all life, health, order,
+fertility.  We see not God's witness in His sending rain and fruitful
+seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.  And then comes
+the punishment.  Because we will not keep up a wholesome and trustful
+belief in God in prosperity, we are awakened out of our dream of
+unbelief, to an unwholesome and mistrustful belief in Him in
+adversity.  Because we will not believe in a God of love and order,
+we grow to believe in a God of anger and disorder.  Because we will
+not fear a God who sends fruitful seasons, we are grown to dread a
+God who sends famine and pestilence.  Because we will not believe in
+the Father in heaven, we grow to believe in a destroyer who visits
+from heaven.  But we believe in Him only as the destroyer.  We have
+forgotten that He is the Giver, the Creator, the Redeemer.  We look
+on His visitations as something dark and ugly, instead of rejoicing
+in the thought of God's presence, as we should, if we had remembered
+that He was about our path and about our bed, and spying out all our
+ways, whether for joy or for sorrow.  We shrink at the thought of His
+presence.  We look on His visitations as things not to be understood;
+not to be searched out in childlike humility--and yet in childlike
+confidence--that we may understand why they are sent, and what useful
+lesson our Father means us to learn from them:  but we look on them
+as things to be merely prayed against, if by any means God will, as
+soon as possible, cease to visit us, and leave us to ourselves, for
+we can earn our own bread comfortably enough, if it were not for His
+interference and visitations.  We are too like the Gadarenes of old,
+to whom it mattered little that the Lord had restored the madman to
+health and reason, if He caused their swine to perish in the lake.
+They were uneasy and terrified at such visitations of God incarnate.
+He seemed to them a terrible and dangerous Being, and they besought
+Him to depart out of their coasts.
+
+It would have been wiser, surely, in those Gadarenes, and better for
+them, had they cried--'Lord, what wilt Thou have us to do?  We see
+that Thou art a Being of infinite power, for mercy, and for
+punishment likewise.  And Thou art the very Being whom we want, to
+teach us our duty, and to make us do it.  Tell us what we ought to
+do, and help us, and, if need be, compel us to do it, and so to
+prosper indeed.'  And so should we pray in the case of this cholera.
+We may ask God to take it away:  but we are bound to ask God also,
+why He has sent it.  Till then we have no reason to suppose that He
+will take it away; we have no reason to suppose that it will be
+merciful in Him to take it away, till He has taught us why it was
+sent.  This question of cholera has come now to a crisis, in which we
+must either learn why cholera comes, or incur, I hold, lasting
+disgrace and guilt.  And--if I may dare to hint at the counsels of
+God--it seems as if the Almighty Lord had no mind to relieve us of
+that disgrace and guilt.
+
+For months past we have been praying that this cholera should not
+enter England, and our prayers have not been heard.  In spite of them
+the cholera has come; and has slain thousands, and seems likely to
+slay thousands more.  What plainer proof can there be to those who
+believe in the providence of God, and the rule of Jesus Christ our
+Lord, than that we are meant to learn some wholesome lesson from it,
+which we have not learnt yet?  It cannot be that God means us to
+learn the physical cause of cholera, for that we have known these
+twenty years.  Foul lodging, foul food, and, above all, natural and
+physical, foul water; there is no doubt of the cause.  But why cannot
+we save English people from the curse and destruction which all this
+foulness brings?  That is the question.  That is our national
+scandal, shame, and sin at this moment.  Perhaps the Lord wills that
+we should learn that; learn what is the moral and spiritual cause of
+our own miserable weakness, negligence, hardness of heart, which,
+sinning against light and knowledge, has caused the death of
+thousands of innocent souls.  God grant that we may learn that
+lesson.  God grant that He may put into the hearts and minds of some
+man or men, the wisdom and courage to deliver us from such scandals
+for the future.
+
+But I have little hope that that will happen, till we get rid of our
+secret atheism; till we give up the notion that God only visits now
+and then, to disorder and destroy His own handiwork, and take back
+the old scriptural notion, that God is visiting all day long for
+ever, to give order and life to His own work, to set it right
+whenever it goes wrong, and re-create it whenever it decays.  Till
+then we can expect only explanations of cholera and of God's other
+visitations of affliction, which are so superstitious, so irrational,
+so little connected with the matter in hand, that they would be
+ridiculous, were they not somewhat blasphemous.  But when men arise
+in this land who believe truly in an ever-present God of order,
+revealed in His Son Jesus Christ; when men shall arise in this land,
+who will believe that faith with their whole hearts, and will live
+and die for it and by it; acting as if they really believed that in
+God we live, and move, and have our being; as if they really believed
+that they were in the kingdom and rule of Christ,--a rule of awful
+severity, and yet of perfect love,--a rule, meanwhile, which men can
+understand, and are meant to understand, that they may not only obey
+the laws of God, but know the mind of God, and copy the dealings of
+God, and do the will of God; and when men arise in this land, who
+have that holy faith in their hearts, and courage to act upon it,
+then cholera will vanish away, and the physical and moral causes of a
+hundred other evils which torment poor human beings through no anger
+of God, but simply through their own folly, and greediness, and
+ignorance.
+
+All these shall vanish away, in the day when the knowledge of the
+Lord shall cover the land, and men shall say, in spirit and in truth,
+as Christ their Lord has said before,--'Sacrifice and burnt-offering
+thou wouldest not.  Then said I, Lo, I come.  In the volume of the
+book it is written of Me, that I should do the will of God.'  And in
+those days shall be fulfilled once more, the text which says,--'That
+the people glorified God, saying, A great Prophet, even Christ the
+Lord Himself, hath risen up among us, and God hath visited His
+people.'
+
+
+
+SERMON XVIII.  THE WICKED SERVANT
+
+
+
+ST. MATTHEW xviii. 23.
+
+The kingdom of heaven is likened to a certain king, which would take
+account of his servants.
+
+
+This parable, which you heard in the Gospel for this day, you all
+know.  And I doubt not that all you who know it, understand it well
+enough.  It is so human and so humane; it is told with such
+simplicity, and yet with such force and brilliancy that--if one dare
+praise our Lord's words as we praise the words of men--all must see
+its meaning at once, though it speaks of a state of society different
+from anything which we have ever seen, or, thank God, ever shall see.
+
+The Eastern despotic king who has no law but his own will; who puts
+his servant--literally his slave--into a post of such trust and
+honour, that the slave can misappropriate and make away with the
+enormous sum of ten thousand talents; who commands, not only him, but
+his wife and children to be sold to pay the debt; who then forgives
+him all out of a sudden burst of pity, and again, when the wretched
+man has shown himself base and cruel, unworthy of that pity, revokes
+his pardon, and delivers him to the tormentors till he shall pay all-
+-all this is a state of things impossible in a free country, though
+it is possible enough still in many countries of the East, which are
+governed in this very despotic fashion; and justice, and very often
+injustice likewise, is done in this rough, uncertain way, by the will
+of the king alone.
+
+But, however different the circumstances, yet there is a lesson in
+this story which is universal and eternal, true for all men, and true
+for ever.  The same human nature, for good and for evil, is in us, as
+was in that Eastern king and his slave.  The same kingdom of heaven
+is over us as was over them, its laws punishing sinners by their own
+sins; the same Spirit of God which strove with their hearts is
+striving with ours.  If it was not so, the parable would mean nothing
+to us.  It would be a story of men who belonged to another moral
+world, and were under another moral law, not to be judged by our
+rules of right and wrong; and therefore a story of men whom we need
+not copy.
+
+But it is not so.  If the parable be--as I take for granted it is--a
+true story; then it was Christ, the Light who lights every man who
+cometh into the world, who put into that king's heart the divine
+feeling of mercy, and inspired him to forgive, freely and utterly,
+the wretched slave who worshipped him, kneeling with his forehead to
+the ground, and promising, in his terror, what he probably knew he
+could not perform--'Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee
+all.'
+
+And it was Christ, the Light of men, who inspired that king with the
+feeling, not of mere revenge, but of just retribution; who taught him
+that, when the slave was unworthy of his mercy, he had a right, in a
+noble and divine indignation, to withdraw his mercy; and not to waste
+his favours on a bad man, who would only turn them to fresh bad
+account, but to keep them for those who had justice and honour enough
+in their hearts to forgive others, when their Lord had forgiven them.
+
+We must bear in mind, that the king must have been right, and acting
+(whether he knew it or not) by the Spirit of God; else his conduct
+would never have been likened to the kingdom of heaven:  that is, to
+the laws by which God governs both this world and the world to come.
+
+The kingdom of heaven.  The kingdom of God--Would that men would
+believe in them a little more!  It seems, at times, as if all belief
+in them was dying out; as if men, throughout all civilized and
+Christian countries, had made up their minds to say--There is no
+kingdom of God or of heaven.  There will be one hereafter, in the
+next world.  This world is the kingdom of men, and of what they can
+do for themselves without God's help, and without God's laws.
+
+My friends, the Jewish rulers of old said so, and cried, 'We have no
+king but Caesar.'  And they remain an example to all time, of what
+happens to those who deny the kingdom of God.  Christ came to tell
+them that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, and the kingdom of God
+was among them.  But they would have none of it.  And what said our
+Lord of them and their notion?  'The prince of this world,' said He,
+'cometh, and hath nothing in me.  This is your hour and the power of
+darkness.'  Yes; the hour in which men had determined to manage the
+world in their way, and not in Christ's, was also the hour of the
+power of darkness.  That was what they had gained by having their own
+way; by saying--The kingdom is ours, and not God's.  They had fallen
+under the power of darkness, not of light.  The very light within
+them was darkness.  They utterly mistook their road on earth.  At the
+very moment that they were trying to make peace with the Roman
+governor, by denying that Christ was their King, and demanding that
+He should be crucified,--at that very moment the things which
+belonged to their peace were hid from their eyes.  Never men made so
+fatal a mistake, when they thought themselves most politic and
+prudent.  They said among themselves--'Unless we put down this man,
+the Romans will come and take away our place,' i.e. our privileges,
+and power, and our nation.  And what followed?  That the Romans did
+come and take away their place and nation, with horrible massacre and
+ruin:  and so they lost both the kingdom of this world, and the
+kingdom of God likewise.  Never, I say, did men make a more fatal
+mistake in the things of this world than those Jews to whom the
+kingdom of God came, and they rejected it.
+
+And so shall we, my friends, if we forget that, whether we like it or
+not, the kingdom of God is within us, and we within it likewise.
+
+1.  The kingdom of God is within us.  Every gracious motive, every
+noble, just, and merciful instinct within us, is a sign to us that
+the kingdom of God is come to us; that we are not as the brutes which
+perish; not as the heathen who are too often past feeling, being
+alienated from the life of God by reason of the ignorance which is in
+them:  but, that we are God's children, inheritors of the kingdom of
+heaven; and that God's Spirit is teaching us the laws of that
+kingdom; so that in every child who is baptized, educated, and
+civilized, is fulfilled the promise, 'I will write my laws upon their
+hearts, and I will be to them a Father.'
+
+God's Spirit is teaching our hearts as He taught the heart of that
+old Eastern king.  It may be, it ought to be, that He is teaching us
+far deeper lessons than He ever taught that king.
+
+2.  We are in the kingdom of God.  It is worth our while to remember
+that steadfastly just now.  Many people are ready to agree that the
+kingdom of God is within them.  They will readily confess that
+religion is a spiritual matter, and a matter of the heart:  but their
+fancy is that therefore religion, and all just and noble and
+beautiful instincts and aspirations, are very good things for those
+who have them:  but that, if any one has them not, it does not much
+matter.
+
+They do not see that there are not only such things as feelings about
+God; but that there are also such things as laws of God; and that God
+can enforce those laws, and does enforce them, sometimes in a very
+terrible manner.  They do not believe enough in a living God, an
+acting God, a God who will not merely write His laws in our hearts,
+if we will let Him, but may also destroy us off the face of the
+earth, if we would not let Him.  They fancy that God either cannot,
+or will not, enforce His own laws, but leaves a man free to accept
+them, or reject as he will.  There is no greater mistake.  Be not
+deceived; God is not mocked.  As a man sows, so shall he reap.  God
+says to us, to all men,--Copy Me.  Do as I do, and be My children,
+and be blest.  But if we will not; if, after all God's care and love,
+the tree brings forth no fruit, then, soon or late, the sentence goes
+forth against it in God's kingdom, 'Cut it down; why cumbereth it the
+ground?'
+
+There is a saying now-a-days, that nations and tribes who will not
+live reasonable lives, and behave as men should to their fellow-men,
+must be civilized off the face of the earth.  The words are false, if
+they mean that we, or any other men, have a right to exterminate
+their fellow-creatures.  But they are true, and more true than the
+people who use them fancy, if they are spoken not of man, but of God.
+For if men will not obey the laws of God's kingdom, God does actually
+civilize them off the face of the earth.  Great nations, learned
+churches, powerful aristocracies, ancient institutions, has God
+civilized off the face of the earth before now.  Because they would
+not acknowledge God for their King, and obey the laws of His kingdom,
+in which alone are life, and wealth, and health, God has taken His
+kingdom away from them, and given it to others who would bring forth
+the fruits thereof.  The Jews are the most awful and famous example
+of that terrible judgment of God, but they are not the only ones.  It
+has happened again and again.  It may happen to you or me, as well as
+to this whole nation of England, if we forget that we are in God's
+kingdom, and that only by living according to God's laws can we keep
+our place therein.
+
+And this is what the parable teaches us.  The king tries to teach the
+servant one of the laws of his kingdom--that he rules according to
+boundless mercy and generosity.  God wishes to teach us the same.
+The king does so, not by word, but by deed, by actually forgiving the
+man his debt.  So does God forgive us freely in Jesus Christ our
+Lord.
+
+But more than this, he wishes the servant to understand that he is to
+copy his king; that if his king has behaved to him like a father to
+his child, he must behave as a brother to his fellow-servants.  So
+does God wish to teach us.
+
+But he does not tell the man so, in so many words.  He does not say
+to him, I command thee to forgive thy debtors as I have forgiven
+thee.  He leaves the man to his own sense of honour and good feeling.
+It is a question not of the law, but of the heart.  So does God with
+us.  He educates us, not as children or slaves, but as free men, as
+moral agents.  He leaves us to our own reason and conscience, to reap
+the fruit which we ourselves have sown.  Therefore, about a thousand
+matters in life He lays on us no special command.  He leaves us to
+act according to our good feeling, to our own sense of honour.  It is
+a matter, I say, of the heart.  If God's law be written in our
+hearts, our hearts will lead us to do the right thing.  If God's law
+be not in our hearts, then mere outward commands will not make us do
+right, for what we do will not be really right and good, because it
+will not be done heartily and of our own will.
+
+But the servant does not follow his lord's example.
+
+Fresh from his lord's presence, he takes his fellow-servant by the
+throat, saying--Pay me that thou owest.  His heart has not been
+touched.  His lord's example has not softened him.  He does not see
+how beautiful, how noble, how divine, generosity and mercy are.  He
+is a hard-hearted, worldly man.  The heavenly kingdom, which is
+justice and love, is not within him.  Then, if the kingdom of heaven
+is not in him, he shall find out that he is in it; and that in a very
+terrible way:- 'Thou wicked servant, unworthy of my pity, because
+there is no goodness in thine own heart.  Thou wilt not take into thy
+heart my law, which tells thee, Be merciful as I am merciful.  Then
+thou shalt feel another and an equally universal law of mine.  As
+thou doest so shalt thou be done by.  If thou art merciful, thou
+shalt find mercy.  If thou wilt have nothing but retribution, then
+nothing but retribution thou shalt have.  If thou must needs do
+justice thyself, I will do justice likewise.  Because I am merciful,
+dost thou think me careless?  Because I sit still, that I am patient?
+Dost thou think me such a one as thyself?'  And his lord delivered
+him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due unto him.
+
+My dear friends, this is an awful story.  Let us lay it to heart.
+And to do that, let us pray God to lay it to our hearts; to write His
+laws in our hearts, that we may not only fear them, but love them;
+not only see their profitableness, but their fitness; that we may
+obey them, not grudgingly or of necessity, but obey them because they
+look to us just, and true, and beautiful, and as they are--Godlike.
+Let us pray, I say, that God would make us love what He commands,
+lest we should neglect and despise what He commands, and find it some
+day unexpectedly alive and terrible after all.  Let us pray to God to
+keep alive His kingdom of grace within us, lest His kingdom of
+retribution outside us should fall upon us, and grind us to powder.
+
+
+
+SERMON XIX.  CIVILIZED BARBARISM
+(Preached for the Bishop of London's Fund, at St. John's Church,
+Notting Hill, June 1866.)
+
+
+
+ST. MATTHEW ix. 12.
+
+They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.
+
+
+I have been honoured by an invitation to preach on behalf of the
+Bishop of London's Fund for providing for the spiritual wants of this
+metropolis.  By the bishop, and a large number of landowners,
+employers of labour, and others who were aware of the increasing
+heathendom of the richest and happiest city of the world, it was
+agreed that, if possible, a million sterling should be raised during
+the next ten years, to do what money could do in wiping out this
+national disgrace.  It is a noble plan; and it has been as yet--and I
+doubt not will be to the end--nobly responded to by the rich laity of
+this metropolis.
+
+More than 100,000l. was contributed during the first six months;
+nearly 60,000l. in the ensuing year; beside subscriptions which are
+promised for the whole, or part of the ten years.  The money,
+therefore, does not flow in as rapidly as was desired:  but there is
+as yet no falling off.  And I believe that there will be, on the
+contrary, a gradual increase in the subscriptions as the objects of
+this fund are better understood, and as its benefits are practically
+felt.
+
+Now, it is unnecessary--it would be almost an impertinence--to
+enlarge on a spiritual destitution of which you are already well
+aware.  There are, we shall all agree, many thousands in London who
+are palpably sick of spiritual disease, and need the physician.  But
+I have special reasons for not pressing this point.  If I attempted
+to draw subscriptions from you by painting tragical and revolting
+pictures of the vice, heathendom, and misery of this metropolis, I
+might make you fancy that it was an altogether vicious, heathen, and
+miserable spot:  than which there can be no greater mistake.  These
+evils are not the rule, but the exceptions.  Were they not the
+exceptions, then not merely the society of London, and the industry
+of London, and the wealth of London, but the very buildings of
+London, the brick and the mortar, would crumble to the ground by
+natural and inevitable decay.  The unprecedentedly rapid increase of
+London is, I firmly believe, a sure sign that things in it are done
+on the whole not ill, but well; that God's blessing is on the place;
+that, because it is on the whole obeying the eternal laws of God,
+therefore it is increasing, and multiplying, and replenishing the
+earth, and subduing it.  And I do not hesitate to say, that I have
+read of no spot of like size upon this earth, on which there have
+ever been congregated so many human beings, who are getting their
+bread so peaceably, happily, loyally, and virtuously; and doing their
+duty--ill enough, no doubt, as we all do it--but still doing it more
+or less, by man and God.
+
+I am well aware that many will differ from me; that many men and many
+women--holy, devoted, spending their lives in noble and unselfish
+labours--persons whose shoes' latchet I am not worthy to unloose--
+take a far darker view of the state of this metropolis.  But the fact
+is, that they are naturally brought in contact chiefly with its
+darker side.  Their first duty is to seek out cases of misery:  and
+even if they do not, the miserable will, of their own accord, come to
+them.  It is their first duty too--if they be clergymen--to rebuke,
+and if possible, to cure, open vice, open heathendom, as well as to
+relieve present want and wretchedness:  and may God's blessing be on
+all who do that work.  But in doing it they are dealing daily--and
+ought to deal, and must deal--with the exceptional, and not with the
+normal; with cases of palpable and shocking disease, and not with
+cases of at least seeming health.  They see that, into London, as
+into a vast sewer, gravitates yearly all manner of vice, ignorance,
+weakness, poverty:  but they are apt to forget, at times--and God
+knows I do not blame them for it in the least--that there gravitates
+into London, not as into a sewer, but as into a wholesome and
+fruitful garden, a far greater amount of health, strength, intellect,
+honesty, industry, virtue, which makes London; which composes, I
+verily believe, four-fifths of the population of London.  For if it
+did not, as I have said already, London would decay and die, and not
+grow and live.
+
+Am I denying the spiritual destitution of this metropolis?  Am I
+arguing against the necessity of the Bishop of London's Fund?  Am I
+trying to cool your generosity towards it?  Am I raising against it
+the text--'They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are
+sick?'  Am I trying to prove that the sick are fewer than was
+fancied, the healthy more numerous; and, therefore, the physician
+less needed?  Would to heaven that I dare so do.  Would to heaven
+that I could prove this fund unnecessary and superfluous.  But
+instead thereof, I fear that I must say--that the average of that
+health, strength, intellect, honesty, industry, virtue, which makes
+London--that the average of all that, I verily believe, is to be
+counted (though it knows it not) among the sick, and not among the
+sound.  It is sick, over and above those personal sins which are
+common to all classes; it is sick of a great social disease; of a
+disease which is very dangerous for the nation to which we belong;
+which will increase more and more, and become more and more
+dangerous, unless it is stopped wholesale, by some such wholesale
+measure as this.  That disease is (paradoxical as it may seem) Want
+of Civilization; Barbarism, which is the child of ungodliness.  And
+that can, I verily believe again, be cured only (as far as we in the
+nineteenth century have discovered) by an extension of the parochial
+system.
+
+And yet--let us beware of that expression--Parochial System.  It
+seems to imply that the parish is a mere system; an artificial
+arrangement of man's invention.  Now that is just what the parish is
+not.  It is founded on local ties; and they are not a system, but a
+fact.  You do not assemble men into parishes:  you find them already
+assembled by fact, which is the will of God.  You take your stand
+upon the merest physical ground of their living next door to each
+other; their being likely to witness each other's sayings and doings;
+to help each other and like each other, or to debauch each other and
+hate each other; upon the fact that their children play in the same
+street, and teach each other harm or good, thereby influencing
+generations yet unborn; upon the fact that if one takes cholera or
+fever, the man who lives next door is liable to take it too--in
+short, on the broad fact that they are members of each other, for
+good or evil.  You take your stand on this physical ground of mere
+neighbourhood; and say--This bond of neighbourhood is, after all, one
+of the most human--yea, of the most Divine--of all bonds.  Every man
+you meet is your brother, and must be, for good or evil:  you cannot
+live without him; you must help, or you must injure, each other.
+And, therefore, you must choose whether you will be a horde of
+isolated barbarians--your living in brick and mortar, instead of huts
+and tents, being a mere accident--barbarians, I say, at continual war
+with each other:  or whether you will go on to become civilized men;
+that is, fellow-citizens, members of the same body, confessing and
+exercising duties to each other which are not self-chosen, not self-
+invented, but real; which encompass you whether you know them or not;
+laid on you by Almighty God, by the mere fact of your being men and
+women living in contact with each other.
+
+Out of this great and true law arises the idea of a parish, a local
+self-government for many civil purposes, as well as ecclesiastical
+ones, under a priest who--if he is to be considered as a little
+constitutional monarch--has his powers limited carefully both by the
+supreme law, by his assessors the church-wardens, and by the
+democratic constitution of the parish--influences which he is bound,
+both by law and by Christianity, to obey.
+
+Arising, in the first place, from the fact that our forefathers
+colonized England in small separate families, each with its own
+jurisdiction and worship; our country parish churches being, to this
+day, often the sites of old heathen tribe-temples, and this very
+place, Notting-hill, being possibly a little colony of the Nottingas-
+-the same tribe which gave their name to the great city of
+Nottingham; arising from this fact, and from the very ancient
+institution of frank-pledge between local neighbours, this parochial
+system, above all other English institutions, has helped to teach us
+how to govern, and therefore how to civilize, ourselves.  It was
+overlaid, all but extinguished, by the monastic system, during the
+latter part of the Middle Ages.  It re-asserted itself, in fuller
+vigour than ever, at the Reformation.  But with its benefits, its
+defects were restored likewise.  The tendency of the mediaeval Church
+had been to become merely a church for paupers.  The tendency of the
+Church of England during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
+centuries, was to become merely a church for burghers.  It has been,
+of late, to become merely a church for paupers again.  The causes of
+this reaction are simple enough.  Population increased so rapidly
+that the old parish bounds were broken up; the old parish staff
+became too small for working purposes.  The Church had (and, alas!
+has still) to be again a missionary church, as she became in the
+twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when feudal violence had destroyed
+the self-government of the parishes--often the parishes themselves--
+and filled the land with pauperism and barbarism.  But that is but a
+transitional state.  Her duty is now becoming more and more (and
+those who wish her well must help her to fulfil her duty) to
+reorganize the ancient parochial system on a deeper and sounder
+footing than ever; on a footing which will ensure her being a church,
+not merely for pauper, nor merely for burgher, but for pauper and for
+burgher equally and alike.
+
+But some will say that parochial civilization is only a peculiar form
+of civilization, because its centre is a church.  Peculiar?  That is
+the last word which any one would apply to such a civilization, if he
+knows history.  Will any one mention any civilization, past or
+present, whose centre has not been (as long as it has been living and
+progressive) a church?  All past civilizations--whether heathen or
+Mussulman, Jew or Christian--have each and every one of them, as a
+fact, held that the common and local worship of a God was a sign to
+them of their common and local unity; a sign to them of their
+religion, that is, the duties which bound them to each other, whether
+they liked or not.  To all races and nations, as yet, their sacred
+grove, church, temple, or other place of worship, has been a sign to
+them that their unity and duties were not invented by themselves, but
+were the will and command of an unseen Being, who would reward or
+punish them according as they did those duties or left them undone.
+So it has been in the civilizations of the past.  So it will be in
+the civilization of the future.  If the Christian religion were swept
+away--as it never will be, for it is eternal--and a civilization
+founded on what is called Nature put in its place, then we should see
+a worship of something called Nature, and a temple thereof, set up as
+the symbol of that Natural civilization.  So the Jacobins of France--
+when they tried to civilize France on the mere ground of what they
+called Reason--had, whether they liked it or not, to instal a worship
+of Reason, and a goddess of Reason, for as long as they could
+contrive to last.
+
+To the world's end, a church of some kind or other will be the centre
+and symbol of every civilization which is worthy of the name; of
+every civilization which signifies, not merely that men live in
+somewhat better houses, travel rather faster by railway, and read a
+few more books (which is the popular meaning of civilization), but
+which means--as it meant among the Greeks, the Romans, the Jews, the
+Christians, among those who discovered the idea and the very words
+which express it--that each and every truly civilized man is a civis,
+a citizen, the conscious and obedient member of a corporate body
+which he did not make, but which (in as far as he is not a savage)
+has made him.
+
+How far from this idea are the great masses of our really wealthy and
+well-to-do Londoners?  How much is it needed, that wise men should
+try to re-awaken in them the sense of corporate life, and literally
+civilize them once more!
+
+Consider the case, not of the average wretched, but of the average
+comfortable man.  The small shopkeeper, the workman, skilled or
+unskilled--how small a consciousness has he of citizenship.  What few
+incentives to regard civism as a solemn duty.  For consider, of what
+is he a member?
+
+He is a member of a family; and, in general, he fulfils his family
+duties well.
+
+Yes, thank God, the family life of Englishmen is sound.  The hearts
+of the children do not need to be turned to their fathers, or the
+hearts of the fathers to the children, as they did in Judea of old.
+Family life, which is the foundation of all national life--nay, of
+all Christian and church life--is, on the whole, sound.  And having
+that foundation we can build on it safely and well, if we be wise.
+
+But of what else is the average Londoner a member?  Of a benefit-
+club, of a trades' union, of a volunteer corps.  Each will be a
+valuable element of education, for it will teach him that self-
+government, which is the school of all freedom, of all loyalty, of
+all true civilization.
+
+Or he may be a member of some Nonconformist sect.  That, too, will be
+a valuable element, for it will teach him the solemn fact of his own
+personality; his direct responsibility to God for his own soul.
+
+And I cannot pass this point of my sermon without expressing my sense
+of the great work which the Dissenting sects have done, and are
+doing, for this land (with which the Bishop of London's plan will in
+no wise interfere), in teaching this one thing, which the Church of
+England, while trying to carry out her far deeper and higher
+conception of organization, has often forgotten; that, after all, and
+before all, and throughout all, each man stands alone, face to face
+with Almighty God.  This idea has helped to give the middle classes
+of England an independence, a strong, vigorous, sharp-cut
+personality, which is an invaluable wealth to the nation.  God forbid
+that we should try to weaken it, even for reasons which may seem to
+some devout and orthodox.
+
+But all these memberships, after all, are only voluntary ones, not
+involuntary.  They are assumed by man himself--the worldly
+associations on the ground of mutual interest; the spiritual
+associations on that of identity of opinions.  They are not
+instituted by God, and nature, and fact, whether the man knows of
+them or not, likes them or not.  They are of the nature of clubs, not
+of citizenship.  They are not founded on that human ground which is,
+by virtue of the Incarnation, the most divine ground of all.  And for
+the many they do not exist.  The majority of small shopkeepers, and
+the majority of labourers too, are members, as far as they are aware,
+of nothing, unless it be a club at some neighbouring public-house.
+The old feudal and burgher bonds of the Middle Age, for good or for
+evil, have perished by natural and necessary decay; and nothing has
+taken their place.  Each man is growing up more and more isolated;
+tempted to selfishness, to brutal independence; tempted to regard his
+fellow-men as rivals in the struggle for existence; tempted, in
+short, to incivism, to a loss of the very soul and marrow of
+civilization, while the outward results of it remain; and therefore
+tempted to a loss of patriotism, of the belief that he possesses here
+something far more precious than his private fortune, or even his
+family; even a country for which he must sacrifice, if need be,
+himself.  And if that grow to be the general temper of England, or of
+London, in some great day of the Lord, some crisis of perplexity,
+want, or danger,--then may the Lord have mercy upon this land; for it
+will have no mercy on itself:  but divided, suspicious, heartless,
+cynical, unpatriotic, each class, even each family, even each
+individual man, will run each his own way, minding his own interest
+or safety; content, like the debased Jews, if he can find the life of
+his hand; and:-
+
+
+'Too happy if, in that dread day,
+His life he given him for a prey.'
+
+
+Our fathers saw that happen throughout half Europe, at a crisis when,
+while the outward crust of civilization was still kept up, the life
+of it, all patriotism, corporate feeling, duty to a common God, and
+faith in a common Saviour, had rotted out unperceived.  At one blow
+the gay idol fell, and broke; and behold, inside was not a soul, but
+dust.  God grant that we may never see here the same catastrophe, the
+same disgrace.
+
+Now, one remedy--I do not say the only remedy--there are no such
+things as panaceas; all spiritual and social diseases are
+complicated, and their remedies must be complicated likewise--but one
+remedy, palpable, easy, and useful, whenever and wherever it has been
+tried, is this--to go to these great masses of brave, honest,
+industrious, but isolated and uncivilized men, after the method of
+the Bishop of this diocese, and his fund; and to say to them,--'Of
+whatever body you are, or are not members, you are members of that
+human family for which our Lord Jesus Christ was contented to be
+betrayed, and to suffer death upon the Cross; over which He now
+liveth and reigneth, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God,
+world without end.  You are children of God the Father of spirits,
+who wills that all should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the
+truth.  You are inheritors--that is, members not by your own will, or
+the will of any man, but by the will of God who has chosen you to be
+born in a Christian land of Christian parents--inheritors, I say, of
+the kingdom of heaven, from your cradles to your graves, and after
+that, if you will, for ever and ever.  Behave as such.  Claim your
+rights; for they are yours already:  and not only claim your rights,
+but confess your duties.  Remember that every man, woman, and child
+in your street is, prima facie, just as much a member of Christ as
+you are.  Treat them as such; associate yourselves with them as such.
+Accept the simple physical fact that they live next door to you, as
+God's will toward you both, and as God's sign to you that you and
+they are members of the same human and divine family.  Enter with
+them, in that plain form, into the free corporate self-government of
+a Christian parish.  Fear no priestly tyranny; from that danger you
+are guaranteed by the fact, that the great majority of the promoters
+of this fund are laymen, of all shades of opinion.  You are
+guaranteed, still further, by the fact, that in the parochial system
+there can be no tyranny.  It is one of the very institutions by which
+Englishmen have learnt those habits of self-government, which are the
+admiration of Europe.
+
+'Do, then, the duty which lies nearest you; your duty to the man who
+lives next door, and to the man who lives in the next street.  Do
+your duty to your parish; that you may learn to do your duty by your
+country and to all mankind, and prove yourselves thereby civilized
+men.
+
+'And confess your sins in this matter, if not to us, at least to God.
+Confess that while you, in your sturdy, comfortable independence,
+have been fancying yourselves whole and sound, you have been very
+sick, and need the physician to cure you of the deadly and growing
+disease of selfish barbarism.  Confess that, while you have been
+priding yourselves on English self-help and independence, you have
+not deigned to use them for those purposes of common organization,
+common worship, for which the very savages and heathens have, for
+ages past, used such freedom as they have had.  Confess that, while
+you have been talking loudly about the rights of humanity, you have
+neglected too often its duties, and lived as if the people in the
+same street had no more to do with you than the beasts which perish.
+
+'Confess your sins.  We monied men confess ours.  We ought to have
+foreseen the rapid growth of this city.  We ought to have planned and
+laboured more earnestly for its better organization.  And we freely
+offer our money, as a sign of our repentance, to build and establish
+for you institutions which you cannot afford to establish for
+yourselves.  We excuse you, moreover, in very great part.  You have
+been gathered together so suddenly into these vast new districts, or
+rather chaos of houses, and you have meanwhile shifted your dwellings
+so rapidly, and under the pressure of such continual labour, that you
+have not had time enough to organize yourselves.  But we, too, have
+our excuse.  We have actually been trying, at vast expense and labour
+to ourselves, for the last forty years, to meet your new needs.  But
+you have outgrown all our efforts.  Your increase has taken us by
+surprise.  Your prosperity has outrun our goodwill.  It shall do so
+no more.  We are ready to do our part in the good work of repentance.
+We ask you to do yours.  You are more able to do it than you ever
+were:  richer, better educated, more acquainted with the blessings of
+association.  We do not come to you as to paupers, merely to help
+you.  We come to you as to free and independent citizens, to teach
+you to help yourselves, and show yourselves citizens indeed.'
+
+I hope, ay, I believe, that such an appeal as this, made in an honest
+and liberal spirit, which proves its honesty and liberality by great
+and generous gifts out of such private wealth as no nation ever had
+before, will be met by the masses of London, in the same spirit as
+that in which it has been made.
+
+I am certain of it, if only the ecclesiastical staff employed by this
+Fund will keep steadfastly in mind what they have to do.  True it is,
+and happily true, that they can do nothing but good.  If they confine
+themselves to the celebration of public worship, to teaching
+children, to giving the consolations of religion to those with whom
+want and wretchedness bring them in contact--all that will be gain,
+clear gain, vast gain.  But that, valuable, necessary as it is, will
+not be sufficient to evoke a full response from the people of London.
+
+But if they will, not leaving the other undone, do yet more; if they
+will attempt the more difficult, but the equally necessary and more
+permanent labour--that of attacking the disease of barbarism, not
+merely in its symptoms, but in its very roots and its causes; if they
+will recognise the fact, that with the disease there coexists a great
+deal of sturdy and useful health; if they will have courage and
+address to face, not merely the non-working, non-earning, and
+generally non-thinking hundreds, but the working, earning, thinking
+thousands of each parish; in fact, the men and women who make London
+what it is; if they will approach them with charity, confidence, and
+respect; if they will remember that they are justly jealous of that
+personal independence, that civil and religious liberty, which is
+theirs by law and right; if they will conduct themselves, not as
+lords over God's heritage, but as examples to the flock; if they will
+treat that flock, not as their subjects, but as their friends, their
+fellow-workers, their fellow-counsellors--often their advisers; if
+they will remember that 'Give and take, live and let live,' are no
+mere worldly maxims, but necessary, though difficult Christian
+duties; then, I believe, they will after awhile receive an answer to
+their call such as they dare not as yet expect; such an answer as our
+forefathers gave to the clergy of the early Middle Age, when they
+showed them that the kingdom of God was the messenger of
+civilization, of humanity, of justice and peace, of strength and
+well-being in this world, as well as in the next.  The clergy would
+find in the men and women of London not merely disciples, but
+helpers.  They would meet, not with fanatical excitement, not even
+with enthusiasm, not even with much outward devotion; but with co-
+operation, hearty and practical though slow and quiet--co-operation
+all the more valuable, in every possible sense, because it will be
+free and voluntary; and the Bishop of London's Fund would receive
+more and more assistance, not merely of heads and hands, but of money
+when money was needed, from the inhabitants of the very poorest and
+most heathen districts, as they began to feel that they were giving
+their money towards a common blessing, and became proud to pay their
+share towards an organization which would belong to them, and to
+their children after them.
+
+So runs my dream.  This may be done:  God grant that it may!  For
+now, it may be, is our best chance of doing it.  Now is the accepted
+time; now is the day of salvation.  If these masses increase in
+numbers and in power for another generation, in their present state
+of anarchy, they may be lost for ever to Christianity, to order, to
+civilization.  But if we can civilize, in that sense which is both
+classical and Christian, the masses of London, and of England, by
+that parochial method which has been (according to history) the only
+method yet discovered, then we shall have helped, not only to save
+innumerable souls from sin, and from that misery which is the
+inevitable and everlasting consequence of sin, but we shall have
+helped to save them from a specious and tawdry barbarism, such as
+corrupted and enervated the seemingly civilized masses of the later
+Roman empire; and to save our country, within the next century, from
+some such catastrophe as overtook the Jewish monarchy in spite of all
+its outward religiosity; the catastrophe which has overtaken every
+nation which has fancied itself sound and whole, while it was really
+broken, sick, weak, ripe for ruin.  For such, every nation or empire
+becomes, though the minority above be never so well organized,
+civilized, powerful, educated, even virtuous, if the majority below
+are not a people of citizens, but masses of incoherent atoms, ready
+to fall to pieces before every storm.
+
+From that, and from all adversities, may God deliver us, and our
+children after us, by graciously beholding this His Family, for which
+our Lord Jesus Christ was content to suffer death upon the Cross; and
+by pouring out His Spirit upon all estates of men in His holy Church,
+that every member of the same, in his calling and ministry, may
+freely and godly serve Him; till we have no longer the shame and
+sorrow of praying for English men and women, as we do for Jews,
+Turks, infidels, and heretics, that God would take from them all
+ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of His Word, and fetch
+them home to that flock of His, to which they all belong!
+
+
+
+SERMON XX.  THE GOD OF NATURE
+(Preached during a wet harvest.)
+
+
+
+PSALM cxlvii. 7-9.
+
+Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto
+our God:  who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for
+the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains.  He giveth to
+the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry.
+
+
+There is no reason why those who wrote this Psalm, and the one which
+follows it, should have looked more cheerfully on the world about
+them than we have a right to do.  The country and climate of Judea is
+not much superior to ours.  If we suffer at times from excess of rain
+and wind, Judea suffers from excess of drought and sunshine.  It
+suffers, too, at times, from that most terrible of earthly
+calamities, from which we are free--namely, from earthquakes.  The
+sea, moreover, instead of being loved, as it is by us, as the highway
+of our commerce, and the producer of vast stores of food--the sea, I
+say, was almost feared by the old Jews, who were no sailors.  They
+looked on it as a dangerous waste; and were thankful to God that,
+though the waves roared, He had set them a bound which they could not
+pass.
+
+So that there is no reason why the old Jews should think and speak
+more cheerfully about the world than we here in England ought.  They
+had, too, the same human afflictions, sicknesses, dangers,
+disappointments, losses and chastisements as we have.  They had their
+full share of all the ills to which flesh is heir.  Yet look, I beg
+you, at the cheerfulness of these two Psalms, the 147th and 148th.
+In truth, it is more than cheerfulness; it is joy, rejoicing which
+can only express itself in a song.
+
+These Psalms are songs, to be sung to music, and even in our
+translation they are songs still, sounding like poetry, and not like
+prose.
+
+And why is this?  Because the men who wrote these Psalms had faith in
+God.
+
+They trusted God.  They saw that He was worthy of their trust.  They
+saw that He was to be honoured, not merely for His boundless wisdom
+and His boundless power:  for a being might have them, and yet make a
+bad use of them.  But He was to be trusted, because He was a good
+God.  He was to be honoured, not for anything which men might get out
+of Him (as the heathen fancied) by flattering Him, and begging of
+Him:  but He was to be honoured for His own sake, for what He was in
+Himself--a just, merciful, kind, generous, magnanimous, and utterly
+noble and perfect, moral Being, worthy of all admiration, praise,
+honour, and glory.
+
+The Psalmist saw that God was good, and worthy to be praised.  But he
+saw, too, that he and his forefathers would never have found out that
+for themselves.  It was too great a discovery for man to make.  God
+must have showed it to them.  God had showed His word to Jacob, His
+statutes and ordinances to Israel.
+
+He had not done so to any other nation, neither had the heathen
+knowledge of His laws.  And, therefore, they did not trust God; they
+did not consider Him a good God, and so they worshipped Baalim, the
+sun and moon and stars, with silly and foul ceremonies, to procure
+from them good harvests; and burnt their children in the fire to
+Moloch, the fire-king, to keep off the earthquakes and the floods.
+God had not taught them what He had taught Israel--to trust in Him,
+and in His word which ran very swiftly, and in His laws, which could
+not be broken:  a faith which, my friends, we must do our best to
+keep up in ourselves, and in our children after us.  For it is very
+easy to lose it, this faith in God.  We are tempted to lose it, all
+our lives long.
+
+Our forefathers, in the days of Popery, lost it; and because they did
+not trust in God as a good God, who took good care of the world which
+He had made, they fell to believing that the devil, and witches, the
+servants of the devil, could raise storms, blight crops, strike
+cattle and human beings with disease.  And they began, too, to pray,
+not to God, but to certain saints in heaven, to protect them against
+bodily ills.
+
+One saint could cure one disease, and one another; one saint
+protected the cattle, another kept off thunder, and so forth--I will
+not tell you more, lest I should tempt you to smile in this holy
+place; and tempt you, too, to look down on your forefathers, who
+(though they made these mistakes) were just as honest and virtuous
+men as we.
+
+And even lately, up to this very time, there are those who have not
+full faith in God; though they be good and pious persons, and good
+Protestants too, who would shrink with horror from worshipping
+saints, or any being save God alone.  But they are apt to shut their
+eyes to the beauty and order of God's world, and to the glory of God
+set forth therein, and to excuse themselves by quoting unfairly texts
+of Scripture.  They say that this world is all out of joint; corrupt,
+and cursed for Adam's sin:  yet, where it is out of joint, and where
+it is corrupt, they cannot show.  And, as for its being cursed for
+Adam's sin, that is a dream which is contradicted by Holy Scripture
+itself.  For see.  We read in Genesis iii. 17, 'Cursed is the ground
+for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy
+life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.'
+
+Now, that the ground does not now bring forth thorns and thistles to
+us, we know.  For it brings forth whatsoever fair flower, or useful
+herb, we plant therein, according to the laws of nature, which are
+the laws of God.  Neither do men eat thereof in sorrow; but, as
+Solomon says, 'eat their bread in joyfulness of heart.'  And so did
+they in the Psalmist's days; who never speak of the tillage of the
+land without some expression of faith and confidence, and
+thankfulness to that God who crowns the year with His goodness, and
+His clouds drop fatness; while the hills rejoice on every side, and
+the valleys stand so thick with corn, that they laugh and sing--of
+faith, I say, and gratitude toward that God who brings forth the
+grass for the cattle, and green herb for the service of men; who
+brings food out of the earth, and wine to make glad the heart of man,
+and oil to give him a cheerful countenance, and bread to strengthen
+man's heart.  Those well-known words are in the 104th Psalm; and I
+ask any reasonable person to read that Psalm through--the Psalm which
+contains the Jewish natural theology, the Jew's view of this world,
+and of God's will and dealings with it--and then say, could a man
+have written it who thought that there was any curse upon this earth
+on account of man's sin?
+
+But more.  The Book of Genesis says that there is none; for, after it
+has said in the third chapter, 'Cursed is the ground for thy sake,'
+it says again, in the eighth chapter, verse 21, 'And the Lord said in
+His heart, I will not again curse the ground for man's sake.  While
+the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and
+winter, shall not cease.'
+
+Can any words be plainer?  Whatever the curse in Adam's days may have
+been, does not the Book of Genesis represent it as being formally
+abrogated and taken away in the days of Noah, that the regular course
+of nature, fruitful and beneficent, might endure thenceforth?
+
+Accordingly, we hear no more in the Bible anywhere of this same
+curse.  We hear instead the very opposite; for one says, in the 119th
+Psalm, speaking indeed of God, '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.'  And so in the 148th Psalm, another speaks by the Spirit of
+God; 'Let all things praise the name of the Lord:  for He commanded,
+and they were created.  He hath also established them for ever and
+ever:  He hath given them a law which shall not be broken.'
+
+Yes, my friends, God's law shall not be broken, and it is not broken.
+And that faith, that the laws which govern the whole material
+universe, cannot be broken, will be to us faith full of hope, and
+joy, and confidence, if we will remember, with the Psalmist, that
+they are the laws of the living God, and of the good God.
+
+They are the laws of the living God:  not the laws of nature, or
+fate, or necessity--all three words which mean little or nothing--but
+of a living God in whom we live, and move, and have our being; whose
+word--the creating, organizing, inspiring word--runneth very swiftly,
+making all things to obey God, and not themselves.
+
+And they are the laws of a good God; of a moral God; of a generous,
+loving, just, and merciful God, who, as the Psalmist reminds us (and
+that is the reason of his confidence and his joy), while He telleth
+the number of the stars, and calleth them all by their names,
+condescends at the same time to heal those who are broken in heart;
+of a God who, while He giveth fodder to the cattle, and feedeth the
+young ravens who call on Him, at the same time careth for those who
+fear Him, and put their trust in His mercy; of a God who, while His
+power is great and His wisdom infinite, at the same time sets up the
+meek, and brings the ungodly down to the ground; of a Father in
+heaven who is perfect in this--that He sends His sun and rain alike
+on the just and the unjust, and is good to the unthankful and the
+evil; of a Father, lastly, who so loved the world, that He spared not
+His only-begotten Son, but freely gave Him for us, and has committed
+to that Son all power in heaven and earth;--all power over the
+material world, which we call nature, as well as over the moral
+world, which is the hearts and spirits of men--to that Word of God
+who runneth very swiftly, who is sharper than a two-edged sword, and
+yet more tender than the love of woman; even Jesus Christ the
+Saviour, the Word of God, who was in the beginning with God, and was
+God; by whom all things were made; who is the true Light, which
+lighteth every man that cometh into the world, if by any means he
+will receive the light of God, and see thereby the true and wise laws
+of Nature and of Spirit.
+
+This is our God.  This is He who sends food and wealth, rain and
+sunshine.  Shall we not trust Him?  If we thank Him for plenty, and
+fine weather, which we see to be blessings without doubt, shall we
+not trust Him for scarcity and bad weather, which do not seem to us
+to be blessings, and yet may be blessings nevertheless?  Shall we not
+believe that His very chastisements are mercies?  Shall we not accept
+them in faith, as the child takes from its parent's hand bitter
+medicine, the use of which it cannot see; but takes it in faith that
+its parent knows best, and that its parent's purpose is only love and
+benevolence?  Shall we not say with Job--Though He slay me, yet will
+I trust in Him?  He cannot mean my harm; He must mean my good, and
+the good of all mankind.  He must--even by such seeming calamities as
+great rains, or failure of crops--even by them He must be benefiting
+mankind.  Recollect, as a single instance, that the great rains of
+1860, which terrified so many, are proved now to have saved some
+thousands of lives in England from fever and similar diseases.  Take
+courage; and have, as the old Psalmist had, faith in God.  Believe
+that nothing goes wrong in this world, save through the sin, and
+folly, and ignorance of man; that God is always right, always wise,
+always benevolent:  and be sure that you, each and all, are -
+
+
+'Safe in the hand of one disposing Power,
+Or in the natal, or the mortal hour,
+All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
+All chance, discretion which thou can it not see.
+All discord, harmony not understood;
+All partial evil, universal good;
+And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
+One truth is clear--whatever is, is right.'
+
+
+And pray to God that He may fill you with His Spirit, the spirit of
+wisdom and understanding, of knowledge and grace of the Lord, and
+show to you, as He showed to the Jews of old, His laws and judgments,
+and so teach you how to see that the only thing on earth which is not
+right, is--the sin of man.
+
+
+
+
+
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