TIE 
RELIGION OF THE PRESENT
AND OF THE FUTURE.








THE
RELIGION OF THE PRESENT
THE FUTURE.
SERMONS PREACHED CHIEFLY AT YALE COLLEGE,
THEODORE D' WOOLSEY.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER AND COMPANY.
1871.




Entered according to act of Congress, in the year I8l1, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER & COMPANY
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
JAS. B. RODGERS CO.
ELECTROTYPERS,
52 & 54 North Sixth Street, Philad'a.




TO THOSE
WHO HA VE NO W AND THEN HEARD MY VOICE
IN THE PULPIT OF YALE COLLEGE,
AND ESPECIALLY
TO THE GRADUATES WHO HAVE GONE FORTH FROM THESE HALLS,
LEAVING ME HERE UNTIL NO Y,
WHEN MY TIME OF GRADUATION IS NEARLY COME,
I AFFECTIONATEL Y
INSCRIBE THESE DISCOURSES,
AS AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE RESPECT AND LOVE
WHICH THEY HAVE SHOWN ME.








PREFACE.
SOON after making known, in December, 1870, my
intention to resign the Presidency of Yale College, it
was suggested to me by the eminent publishing house,
whose name is on the title-page, that I should put into
their hands for publication a selection of Sermons
preached by me in the College Chapel. A request to
the same effect came some time before from members
of one of the classes just before their graduation, and I
have been encouraged to do this by persons on whose
judgment I rely.
It is proper to say, for the information of some who
may meet with this book, that my ministrations were
confined to special occasions and to intervals when
there was no regular preacher.
I may be permitted to add that two of the Discourses, the nineteenth and twentieth, were delivered
elsewhere, and not in the College pulpit.
In regard to the Sermons selected I desire to say,
that some of them are devoted to subjects of especial
v




Preface.
importance at the present time; others consider aspects
of religious life which need, as it seems to me, to be
brought before the public in this country, and above
all, before students; while others still are taken up
with  the  prospects of Christianity in  the future.
Hence the title-The Religion of the Present and the
Future —appeared to be not altogether inappropriate.
YALE COLLEGE, May, 1871.




CONTENTS.
I.
PAGE
THE EARLY YEARS OF CHRIST...         9
II.
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST IN THE WILDERNESS.  24
III.
CHRIST CHARGED WITH BEING BESIDE HIMSELF.  42
IV.
NEUTRALITY IN REGARD TO CHRIST IMPOSSIBLE. 57
V.
THE SELF-PROPAGATING POWER OF SIN      o.       71
VI.
SIN UNNATURAL......  87
VII.
SIN NOT SELF-REFORMATORY.. 102
VIII.
SIN MEASURED BY THE DISPOSITION, NOT BY THE ACT  115
IX.
THE BLINDNESS OF MAN, AND THE NEARNESS OF
THE SPIRITUAL WORLD.                 129
X.
UNION OF JUSTICE AND GRACE IN GOD...  143
XI.
EARTHLY THINGS MUST BE BELIEVED BEFORE
HEAVENLY CAN BE......160
vil




viii               Contents.
XII.
PAGE
THE PLACE OF FEAR AS A MOTIVE IN RELIGION. 173
XIII.
PETER HELPED BY HIS FALL TO STRENGTHEN HIS
BRETHREN..   186
FORGETTING THE THINGS THAT ARE BEHIND.. 197
XV.
SOBRIETY OF MIND URGED ON YOUNG MEN   e. 210
XVI.
REVERENCE, AND ITS USES IN WORSHIP,.    230
XVII.
THE VIRTUES WHICH HAVE TRUTHFULNESS FOR
THEIR BASIS.... 245
XVIII.
THE DEBT OWED BY EVERY GENERATION TO THE
PAST.....260
XIX.
THE NEED OF THE MEDITATIVE SPIRIT IN MODERN
CHRISTIANITY....... 275
XX.
THE HELP DRAWN BY THE MINISTER FROM HIS
EXPERIENCE...298
XXI.
THE BENEFITS OF IGNORANCE OF THE FUTURE. 314
XXII.
THE STABILITY OF GOD'S THRONE..        329
XXIII.
THE STABILITY OF THE CHURCH.. 343
XXIV.
LONGINGS FOR THE IEAVENLY CITY.    353
XXV.
THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE ".... 372




SERMON I.
THE EARLY YEARS OF CHRIST.
LUKE ii. 51, 52. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth,
and was subject unto them; but His mother kept all these sayings in
her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, (tcKiq, age) and
in favor with God and Man.
FROM  the  time when Jesus at the age  of twelve
visited Jerusalem with His parents, there is an interval of
eighteen years until the date of His baptism, during which
we know next to nothing of His life.  Our text informs us
that He returned to Nazareth from  theholy city, and
was subject to His parents; from another place, where
He is called "the carpenter," we learn that He followed
that  employment; from  another still, we  learn  that
His manner was on the Sabbath day to read the Scriptures in the synagogue.  These are all the particulars
left on record for us belonging to this period of a life more
glorious, more eventful, than any other since the world
began.  Now it is painful to be thus kept in ignorance
concerning one who is dear to us.  A  gap in a great
life is like an unfinished place in a picture, or a hiatus in
an important manuscript.  We lose the sense of a continued existence, and the imagination flutters about in the
effort to construct the unknown portions of the great
whole after the model of those with which we are ac9




10            The Early Years of Christ.
quainted. As the child loves to hear from his father what
he did when he was a little boy; as, when he grows older,
he wants to take a view of that parent's life in its separate
parts, in their connections, in the development of the
finished man; so would we all naturally love to know
more of Jesus, how He grew up from childhood into youth,
how He acted in the family and in the town, how He
matured into the Messiah with a perfect idea of His office,
such as we behold Him immediately after His Baptism.
But this is not the severe method of Scripture. All it
tells is for our use and nothing is for our curiosity. It
awakens our minds to higher spiritual knowledge, but
refuses to answer a thousand questions that we ask. It gives
glimpses, but holds up no broad light reaching from the
beginning to the end. It crosses gulfs and leaves the path
unknown. It discloses the scattered facts of theology, but
gives us no system. It neither aims nor cares to gratify 
our speculative power, content if it can sway our practical.'When it has done with us, more unsolved and insoluble
problems arise than before, for as it leads us up from
nature to God it shows to us outlines of great mysteries
which baffle our reason. So then, when it hides the Lord
Jesus from us for a large part of His life in this world,
it is consistent with itself and unlike the works of man.
But some one has observed that the reserve, the sacred
silence of the Word is richer, fuller of meaning, more
teaching than the narratives of ordinary history.* In the
spirit of that remark I propose to inquire, as far as can be
modestly done, what was the use of the early life of our
Lord, and how it bore upon the later periods of His public
ministry?  Can we not make it strongly probable that a
divine wisdom presided over this silent interval, laid up in
it treasures of thought and character for His future years,
and fitted Him in the stillness and lowliness of the Galilean village for the highest office that man ever filled?
Trench in his Hulsean Lectures.




The Early Years of Christ            11
And here, before we go further, we need to say a word
to those to whom such a subject can be of no benefit,
because they do not believe in the normal human development of the Lord Jesus. To such persons He is a
simple miracle of existence; one who knew, when a child,
whatever He knew when a man; one in whom there was
no growth nor advance; always and equally full of God;
and by consequence hiding His knowledge from the first,
until the occasion came for making use of it. But this is
a very false and unscriptural view. It is inconsistent with
our text, which tells us that Jesus increased in wisdom and
in favor with God. It would, in fact, make the man
Jesus a mere appearance, a vehicle for concealing omniscience. It thus presents Him to us, no longer as growing
and rising according to the law of incorrupt manhood, but
as a prodigy, having nothing in common with man in the
movements of His intellect, and therefore incapable of exercising the feelings of a human finite soul. That thus in
fact the human in Christ must be destroyed is apparent.
Such a view of Him gets no support from the Gospel, nor
from ancient faith.
Conceiving of Him then, as in a transition from childhood to manhood, as in a process of training for the
highest of works, we ask what lessons are to be gathered
from His silent years? And
First, we shall conclude that God qualified His Son,
born of a woman, made under the law, for His future office,
by the training of the family state. "And was subject to
his parents."
The family state, we cannot doubt, was most happily
devised, according to the original plan  of incorrupt
human nature, not only for the preservation and physical
welfare of the child, but also for the development of all
the higher qualities of man. It is the beginning and the
condition of society. He who passes out of its healthy
training into the larger circle of fellow-citizens or fellow



12            The Early Years of Christ.
men, has a foundation already laid for all social sympathies, for the conception of human brotherhood, for the
exercise of good will in every form. It is also the condition of, and the preparation for, all law. The dependent
being, trained up in it to listen to higher authority and
wisdom, to give up self-will and practice self-control,
becomes fitted for the loyal life of the citizen, and for
obedience to God. Thus it was meant, according to the
primeval plan, that the infant mind should be disciplined
in the family for a life of law and of love-law, which
should lead the soul up to the great central Lawgiver of
the universe, and love, which should embrace the brotherhood of souls, and God, the Father of all. Such was the
idea and type of the family which, through the fall of the
race, has not been fully realized. But if there should be
anywhere a sinless child, brought up by pious, even if
imperfect parents, must we not suppose that a large share
of the blessings properly belonging to family life would
fail to his portion? Where else could there be found
such a happy introduction into life, into its responsibilities,
its sympathies, its powers of acting in and upon mankind?
Here the holy child would grow, not into something
angelic, but into a holy man, into a brother in the human
family, possessed of recollections and modes of thinking
which would give Him superior power in this world to an
angel, unless an angel could put off his own nature and
his own laws of thought. In short; whatever need there
was that the Saviour of men should take humanity upon
Him, there was the same need that He should be an entire
man, that He should pass through the stages of our nature,
learn by experience its relations, grow into perfect manhood under its laws. Thus only could He be a Saviour
for man at all, thus only could He become like unto His
brethren.  It thus became natural for Him to conceive of
God as His Father, and natural when He founded a church,
to unite its members by the tie of brotherhood. His soul




The Early Years of Christ.           13
was fitted for its work by entering into the great relations
of humanity. 
II. Jesus passed through the discipline of a life of
humble industry.  " Is not this the'carpenter?"  IHere we
have two things to notice, the discipline of a life of industry upon the Son of Man, and the influence of thelowly position which He thus assumed among His brethren
of mankind.
The spirit of the ancient world, owing chiefly to the
institution of slavery, undervalued and even despised a
life of mechanical or agricultural labor. The same is
true of countries in modern times, where an order of
nobles, an aristocracy of birth owning the land for the
most part, and having the power of society in its hands,
keeps the people from rising above a certain level. Now,
admitting, as we may, that there is a natural distinction of
classes among men, derived from the intellectual requirements of their callings, we must condemn this contempt
of labor as vicious and hurtful to society. Why should
those callings, which the mass of a race, made in God's
image, must fill, be of course degrading?  Ai-d if a man
could unite skill, in manual labor, with highly cultivated
thought, would he not be, every way, more of a man for
such skill-more of a man than he who is dependent on
the labor of slaves, and more of a man than he who is a
mere thinker?  Would not a pure, incorrupt man, as he
worked under God's sun and clouds, or subdued matter
into new forms by the tools of skill, be all the while more
open to heavenly thought than he who was engrossed by
speculation, or occupied among the perplexities of professional study and employment?
We must conceive, then, that during these years of
labor as a carpenter, the Son of Man had time, even amid
His work, for noble and holy thoughts. His attention was
not so strained, nor His powers of mind so absorbed, that
thought could not go and come continually to and from,




14            The Early Years of Christ.
God. How much better this than to be trained in the
little subtleties and formalities of Pharisaic schools; how
much truer to nature, and nearer to truth, and nearer to
God, such a discipline!
Nor ought we to lay out of account the patience which
sedulous manual labor would bring along with it. The
patience of our Lord gained strength from yet another
source, as we shall soon see; but His daily tasks must
have cultivated this quality, so important to His future
work. For in the mechanical employments there is a
certain amount of work which can be done well each day,
the quality of which hurry will mar. The spirit of daily
industry, then, is a spirit of patience, and the true workman, he who is neither slack from indolence, nor impatient from  a desire to get through or to do too much,
must be regular, moderate, even in his efforts, disposed to
work as long, and to wait for the end as long as sound
judgment requires.
I may add, that the helpfulness of our Lord in His
calling tended to strengthen the principle of helpfulness
to mankind, or of unwearied benevolence.
The scattered efforts to do good, to which we give ourselves, once a week, or every now and then, are useful,
but then, we fall back from them, how often, into a life of
indolence or selfishness, collecting our forces as it were,
for returning fits of benevolence, because we are not
strong enough to do good all the while. Thus, we do but
little and grow but little.; for our intervals of ease, perhaps of self-indulgence, undermine or obstruct the nobler
habit. But the patient helpfulness of Jesus, as He did His
work well in and for the family, inured His holy mind to
the hard toils of that glorious life of love, in which we
learn, on one occasion, that He had not time so much as
to eat bread, and gave Himself up to works of mercy
so earnestly that His friends  thought  Him  mad.
WVhat other training could have equally encouraged His
unwearied devotion to the hard, slow work of doing good?




The Early Years of Christ.          15
But the obscurity of the sphere in which Jesus moved,
aided the graces of His character, such as meekness and
lowliness, and also enlarged His power of usefulness.
Here we notice only the last particular, leaving the others
for future remark. It is often thought to add to a man's
power among men, if he is born in a high place, and commands the respect of mankind as well by his ancestry
and station, as by what he is. But the power to act upon
men, so far as it depends on feeling with them, and being
felt with by them, is generally abridged by position above
the major part of mankind: at least, however high a man
rises above his fellows, there should be a chord of common
feeling, never forgotten and never extinguished sympathies between him and them, which early life on their
level had kindled or strengthened.  Hence it is, that
those monarchs who have risen from the people can know
them better, and come closer to their admiration and
their hearts, than such as have inherited the throne.
Hence, too, those Reformers are likely to be most successful, who add to other advantages that of a lively interest
in and comprehension of the great mass of men, which
their birth and early education has encouraged. The son
of the miner, at Eisleben, with his homely, earnest peasant-soul, and his manly courage, was fitter to attract and
mingle with his countrymen, was better able, when his
mind had become enlarged by study, to spread the Protestant Reformation, than if he had been the son of an
Emperor of Germany, or one of the princes of the Empire. Such a personage, if he could have understood
and preached the Gospel, would have found that a gulf
was fixed between him and his people. He would have
been to them " a separate star" that "dwelt apart." If he
had converted his court, still religion would have been
shut up as by a high wall, from'the eyes and sympathies
of the nation. So, too, it is probable, that the comparatively humble birth of Socrates, contributed not a little




16            The Early Years of Christ.
toward forming his philosophy. It was human, for it
descended from the lofty speculations of earlier philosophers to man himself. It was homely and simple, seeking its illustrations, and drawing its truths from everyday trades and pursuits.  An Athenian of the highest
birth would have found it much more difficult to commence that reform in philosophy which was the highest
achievement of the Grecian mind.
These considerations show, I think, the wisdom of God
in selecting such a birth, birth-place, and pursuit for His
divine Son. If He was to become one with man in the
highest sense, to become able to preach to the poor, and
heal the broken-hearted, and mingle with all men, down
to publicans and sinners, if, in short, His condition in life
was to have any effect on His work, and on His power in
it, where else could He have been brought up with more
advanrtage?
III. The silent years at Nazareth enabled Him to
meditate long and deeply on the Scriptures.  A striking
characteristic of our Lord, from the first moment of His
public ministry onward, is His reverence for and familiarity with the Scriptures. In the wilderness the tempter
is rebuked by sentences from the divine word. At the last
supper, the words which institute the rite, take their
coloring from  certain most important passages in the
prophets; His words of agony on the cross are in the
language of the 22d Psalm; and when the risen Lord
appeared'to His disciples "He opened their understandings that they might understand the Scriptures." And if
we go back beyond the commencement of His public ministry, we find the only habit of life recorded of Him to be
that "He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day
and stood up for to read." Here, then, in this sequestered village, away from  the emptiness of Pharisaical
learning, and from Sadducean skepticism, He was reared
on the divine word in its simplicity, was fortified by it




The.Early Years of Christ.         17
against temptation, studied its promises of a coming
Messiah, and became ready to apply it to the varying
circumstances of practical life.
The wisdom of God in subjecting His Son in the form
of a servant to this discipline can easily be made manifest.
Why was Jesus born a Jew, of the seed of David according to the flesh, but that He might partake of and hand
down the old religion, so far as it was permanent truth
and not local, transitory legislation? He might in some
other land, by a series of supernatural influences from
childhood upwards, have acquired the same truths,
without the help of Scripture or. any external revelation:
but such was not the plan of God. He trained mankind
through the Jews; He made His Son a Jew that He
might build up on the old foundation the new truths of a
religion for the world; and in order that Jesus Himself
might be trained up for this work He chose this simple
method of placing Him alone with the ancient Scriptures,
away from human teachers and comments, that the pure
truth of God might fill His mind.
IV. The life of retirement which Jesus led at Nazareth
was fitted to nourish some of those meek and unpretending graces of character which shone beyond comparison in
Him.
I name first patience, or willingness to wait until the
right time was come. In order to understand fully how
in the divine plan, the circumstances of His life trained
Him in the exercise of this virtue, we must bear in mind
that He had long had glimpses, if nothing more, of some
unique relation to the Father, and some work marked out
for Him by the Father. "Wist ye not," said He at the
age of twelve to His parents, "that I must be about my
Father's business?"-or, as it may well be rendered, "in
my Father's house."  Now it is idle to speculate and impossible to know how much of His great career was opened
to Him  before His baptism, or by what means it was




18           The Early Years of Christ.
opened. This, however, we know, that He increased in
wisdom, and therefore that His comprehension of the
Messiah's work must have been far broader and truer at
thirty than at twelve. But the great fact for us here is
that He knew of a work before Him, whether the outlines
were clear or obscure; and that through these eighteen
years He waited until the Father should call Him to the
field He was to fill. Think how He waited, day after day,
year after year, in contentment and peace, while life
seemed to be moving no nearer to its goal. Think how
this patience was built on simple obedience to the will of
God, and prepared Him for the like obedience in the years
of trial and suffering which awaited Him, so that His character was summed up in those words of the Psalm, "I
delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within
my heart."  Think too how trying it is, as measured by a
human standard, when one is conscious of being able and
called to do something great, to be obliged to live in obscurity and inaction; how human self-will chafes when
its way forward is hedged up; and how sometimes great
minds have made a wreck of themselves, and blasphemed
God, because their active powers and their feelings could
find no suitable theatre. Think how zeal for God itself,
and the desire to be doing good to man, would concur in
His case with that love of activity which is a principle of
the nature He assumed, to spur Him forward and push Him
into a more public life. But He dwelt in the lowly village for long years as quietly and contentedly as if He
had no outlook on a greater world of sins and wants, and
no aspirations for any other sphere; as if His life was to
end in the humble employments and lowly condition in
which it began. And this patient contentment was not a
natural product, the fruit of a perfect temperament, but
it was the fruit of piety. It grew out of a union of His
will to God, and grew up to its completeness by a long
training of His will to obedience in this school of waiting




The Early Years of Christ            19
and of trust. When it was complete the time came for
Him to appear as the Messiah before the world.
I cannot help stopping here to show  the glory of
Christ's character, thus ripened, by contrasting it with the
principles on which even the best of us are prone to act,
when we enter into life. He waited until thirty, and in
a little over three years founded a kingdom that shall be
universal and eternal.  We think no good is done until
the work of life is taken hold of.  If our work is the
ministry, where maturity of judgment, of reason, and of
piety should unite, still we often rush forward as if time
were our enemy and were robbing  us of usefulness.
Without treasure of thoughts, without solid convictions,
without a feeling of strength, with nothing but feverish
haste and that poorest of gifts, the gift of words flattening and belittling borrowed thoughts, some leap into the
pulpit, as if it were heroic rather than fool-hardy to take
responsibilities to which they were not equal, as if a call
consisted of bold desire. How unlike the divine Master!
Then too, we seem not to believe in preparation; we seem
to be unwilling to get ripe, as if long experience were
needed to ripen the apprentice in a handicraft, but in the
liberal professions, especially in the sacred one, every one
could begin on the stock of small study, and practice
would bring up what was wanting. And thus the moral
training, so far beyond the intellectual in importance, our
years of calm  prayerfulness in sight of our fields, our
communings with God initiating us into the place He has
laid up for us-all this is abridged, or is lost sight of in
our fever to begin the race, or postponed until life with its
cares shall give our feeble principles no room to grow.
When we enter into our callings, too, we are aspiring for
some higher sphere;-discontented where we are, we undervalue our usefulness, while perhaps overvaluing our
powers; we lose our peace, our motives and our resignation, and wonder what God has in store for us; whereas




20            The Early Years of Christ.
the quietest nook in His service, if we were led by Him,
would be so fraught with spiritual blessings that it would
be a haven of joy to us; and if divorced from it at His
call, we should thank Him  forever afterwards that He
called us to such a sanctuary at the beginning. Oh! my
brethren, this self-confident, this hurrying, unripe, aspiring
character which makes nothing of meditation, this boldness without strength and ardor without depth-let us
bring it to the touchstone of our perfect Lord, and see
how His character rebukes it.
The same discipline which perfected the patience, perfected also the calmness of Jesus. In fact the two graces
can scarcely dwell far apart. The calmness of our Lord
was not a negative virtue of temperament,-the inability
to be strongly moved by anything great, nor was it simply
the self-control of a being of large reason, allaying the excitements of the present by a look into the future; but it
was, like His patience, a fruit of piety. And as He waited
on God, and rested in God, the things of time, as they
swept before Him, were not disturbing nor agitating, for
God and peace were in His soul; and the more perfect
His obedience grew, through His years of waiting, the
deeper and heavenlier became His calmness.
This discipline of His still years gave strength also to
His retiring spirit, or modesty. This may seem a wrong
term to apply to our Saviour, who never shrank from duty
on the open field of public life, nor feared the face of man,
nor fell, through diffidence, below the responsibilities of
the situation.  But by whatever name we call it, there
was in Him a quality most opposite to ostentation and love
of notoriety, which led Him to prefer, in itself considered,
being unknown before public fame, and retirement before
crowds of followers. In Him was fulfilled that passage of
Isaiah: " He shall not strive, nor cry, nor cause His voice
to be heard in the streets."  His was the preference of an
humble, quiet, lowly life, such as He had led since His




The Early Years of Christ.            21
infancy, to a life of publicity and renown. It is plain,
that such a spirit was as unlike to that which false opinion
attributed to the coming of Christ, as it was honorable and
glorious to Him  who came in the form  of a servant.
With this spirit He resisted the tempter's suggestions to
throw Himself down from the temple, and to receive at
his hands the authority of a worldly Messiah. Now, a
spirit like this, would be cultivated by the lowliness of His
condition at Nazareth, and would be a preparation for
meekly wearing the honor and carrying the consciousness
of the Messianic office. And they follow Him who are
sought by honor and repute rather than seek them, who
delight to live in quiet communion with God, who are lost.
in their work when they enter upon it without wasting
thought on themselves or the impression they make, who
are not quick to attract attention, and need some discerning person to seek them out and discover them. Such
persons, I say, are like Jesus-most like Him, if their
character rests on the rock of godliness, and more capable
than others of becoming like Him, if it has only a natural
foundation.
I only add, that the retirement of Nazareth was fitted
to nourish simplicity of feeling and character.  It has been
made a definition of a wise and pure life to live according
to nature. Such a mode of living is almost impossible in
the most refined states of society, unless that society is
equally advanced in Christian culture. The etiquettes,
the formalities, the spirit of caste and clique, the tyranny
of opinion make it hard for a man to be true to nature
and to himself.  The soul becomes artificial without
knowing it, ceases to think its own thoughts, and forsakes
truth for the voice of the governing crowd. How dificult is honesty now, when politeness is a rule committed to
memory and not a prompting of nature, when an external
standard seizes a man, unless he is made of iron, and
moulds him into something unlike his true self, into a




22           The Early Years of Christ.
thing of shows and artifices,-perhaps of falsehoods. Simplicity and honesty are the gold of character-how hard
are they to keep, how rare to find; and when they are
kept through the temptations of a conventional life, they
exhibit a certain kind of worn and stern aspect-the effect
of long and tough resistance to opposing powers.
The simplicity and honesty of the man Christ Jesus were,
no doubt, nourished and perfected in a simple, godly
family, in a simple village, away from much of the gloss
and falsehood which abounded in Judea. We might conceive of divine wisdom taking just the opposite method of
calling it forth, that of placing Jesus in close neighborhood to formal and false Pharisees, so that His education
should consist in loathing the characters which He should
see around Him. That strength would come from such a
discipline we cannot doubt; and yet the other plan, which
was in fact chosen, seems the best for a harmonious perfection of the whole character, and especially for the predominance of the gentler virtues.
I have selected the subject which we have considered,
for a reason already hinted at,-because it seemed to me
that many excellent persons have very false, or at least,
obscure views of the excellence of the man Christ-views
which strip Him of a part of the glory of His condescension
and rob His example of a great part of its power. They
seem to assume that His union with God took Him out of
the category of men; He was, so to speak, free no longer,
and a man no longer; but absorbed in, and moved by a
divine nature which superseded the ordinary laws of humanity. Nothing could be more untrue than such a conception. He was as truly and properly man as He was
God. As man, He was subject to the laws of human development and progress; He grew in wisdom, grew in strength
of character, grew in consciousness of His exalted relation
to the Father. As man, He was subject to the limitations
of our nature, except so far as He was specially endowed




The Early Years of Christ.           23
with a divine power corresponding with His divine office.
As man, He had specific traits of character, the assemblage
of which in harmony, resting on a foundation of spotless
godliness, constituted His perfection. These traits of character were cultivated under the guiding hand of Providence, and the control of godliness; until they reached
their highest beauty and excellence. Hence the beauty of
His example, hence His nearness to our hearts, and the soft
attractiveness of His love.
It has been our endeavor to point out, as far as we
could do, how the circumstances of His early life contributed, or at least, to show how they could contribute to
this result. This is a far modester undertaking than to
seek to show how His attributes, as a divine being and a
human, could co-exist: into that subject of profound mystery, where Scripture holds up no torch, ever so faint, before our eyes, we venture not to intrude. Enough for us,
that His Godhead did not prevent His being a suffering
man just like ourselves-made in all things like unto His
brethren, save without sin. He who cannot believe this,
cannot receive Him, in the fulness of His office, as the
Mediator between sinful men and God.




SERMON II.
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST IN THE WILDERNESS.
MATTHEW iv. I, 11, (The narrative of the temptation.)
As the first Adam, acting on behalf of his race, was exposed to a trial of his obedience, so it became the second
Adam, when He began His mediatorial work, to have His
character pass through the fires of temptation. In His
private and quiet life before His baptism He must have
encountered and overcome temptation, for He could not.
well have lived in this world to the age of thirty without
having excitements of wrong desire present before His
mind, and without making His choice between obedience
and disobedience. But now, when He. had received a
solemn inauguration by baptism from the forerunner, and
a most remarkable testimony from God by a voice from
heaven,-now, when publicly and formally He took the
place of representative for mankind in the system of grace,
and when interests weightier than man had sustained
before hung on His conduct,-now, I say, there was a
momentous crisis; and the parties most aware of what He
might accomplish as the Son of God might well be most
active in putting His character to the test. Accordingly
the sacred historian tells us that God and Satan, the
kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness, were alike
concerned in His temptation. " Then was Jesus," says St.
Matthew, "led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be
tempted of the devil."
The first thing that strikes us here is that Jesus was not
master of His own movements. An unerring voice, which
He knew to be from Heaven, sent Him into the lonely wilderness-the place where no society or communion could
24




The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness.   25
disturb the law of development of His character-in order
to be tempted in that solitude. He could not have gone
thither Himself, aware of the trial before Him, without
tempting God; neither the Son of God in the form of a
servant, nor any of His followers, would have a right to go
uncalled into temptation; but when thus called He could
not refuse to go without disobeying the Father, without,
in fact, abandoning the office of a Saviour.
The next thing which arrests our attention and, at first,
our wonder, is that he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. What a fearful and
solemn glimpse is here given to us of the moral agencies
of the universe.  Good and evil, infinite good and absolute evil, good and evil in personal substance, with that
intense antipathy to one another that souls of the largest
grasp and depth must feel, are in restless action around
a human soul. The infinitely good has power not only
to baffle His foe, but to destroy and annihilate him; and
yet, seeing in the existence and activity of evil some great
good for the universe, He allows it free movement, so that
its wild waves dash against the: very throne of heaven.
The absolute evil, on the other hand, knows in its very
soul, that no art, force or obstinacy can gain any advantage over God; yea, that its strugglings will enhance His
glory; and yet, such is the strength of desperate purpose,
so hopeless is the derangement of reason produced by sin,
that it must go on its journey through shame and hate,
fnding its only semblance of happiness in the restless activity of an immortal nature.
And if such parties were concerned in the temptation
something of importance must have depended on the result. It cannot have been a mere show presented to the
3yes of the universe, a bare form of initiation through
which the Son of God, incapable of sinning, had to pass.
There are persons who seem  to think, because Christ
actually did no sin, and because in His nature God and
2



26    The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness.
man were joined, that there was no possibility of His sin.
ning, that His innocence was secure by even more than
divine help,-by the possession of a divine nature. But
such an opinion though it may seem at first to exalt the
glory of Christ is a mere inference of the reason and involves disbelief in the simple record of the gospel. Why
was He tempted by a sagacious tempter if He could not by
any possibility be led into evil? And if He Himself knew
that He could not sin, what could the transaction have
been to Him but a mere formality? How could He learn
obedience by the things which He suffered if they could
have no action on the strength of His obedience? Or how
is He an example for us if His temptation is an unreality?
No! they dishonor Christ's work who think thus. When
He took on Him the form of a servant He became by His
own will subject to everything which can affect human
nature-to desires, wants, pains, sorrows, the hiding of
God's face, the fear of a cruel death, and death itself-all
of which must have been so many motives and trials of
character. Faith receives the temptation, as it receives
the ascription of divine and human attributes to Christ, on
the testimony of revelation: it is not faith, but the want of
it, which leads some to question the reality of the temptation, because Christ stood thus alone in His nature.
The next point to which I invite you is the person of
the tempter.  "Jesus was led into the wilderness to be
tempted of the devil."  It was not God who tried Him by
suffering of body or mind, as He:often tries His faithful
servants; but God left Him in the hands of an enemy,
whose aim and hope it was to lead Him into sin. Nor
could His own sinless soul present inducements to evil to
itself, which it must have done had there been concerned
in the transaction no personal tempter. For He was not
merely innocent, but h,ly and perfectly h ly, with the
confirmed character and habits of nearly thirty years,how then could His own trains of thought, which contained




The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness.    27
no admixture of sin, originate suggestions to sin. There
was then present in this scene a person who united malignant desires with knowledge of man and powers of persuasion, who tempted Adam, and would with the more
reason be ready to tempt Christ.
But in what form, it may be asked, did this tempter
place himself in the way of Jesus? Did he keep to his
spiritual incorporeal nature, or take a body, and become
visible to eyes of flesh? Was the temptation transacted
before the mind of Christ, or was its sphere more outward,
concerned with bodily phenomena and human language?
The first impressions which a reader would draw from the
narrative undoubtedly favor its being understood in a
literal sense, that Jesus was literally carried through the
air to the pinnacle of the temple, and to an exceeding
high mountain. In this light, no doubt, has the transaction been commonly regarded. Nevertheless, such a way
of understanding the narrative involves us in serious perplexities. For, in the first place, the agency of Satan
elsewhere, in the New Testament, is that of a spiritual
being, and, so far as I am aware, corporeal form is never
ascribed to him. In the second place, suppose the Saviour
to be carried to an exceeding high mountain, yet the
spherical form of the earth would allow the eye to take
in but a very minute portion of the kingdoms of the
world and of their glory. We must, then, either dilute
the narrative, as many do, by understanding these expressions in a hyperbolical sense of the little tract of country
around Palestine, or must resort to a second miracle, in
order to conceive of the broad earth spread outward and
upward before our Lord's eye. What need, then, of the
high mountain, and why might not the same sight be
obtained without leaving the wilderness? In the third
place, it is noteworthy that the narrative makes no mention of the return of Jesus from the temple and from the
mountain, just as if, in some sense, He had gone there




28    The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness,
while he remained in the desert in another. And, in the
fourth place, if the temptation was addressed to the bodily
senses of the Lord, it loses its insidious character, and
becomes easier to be resisted. I am  constrained, therefore, to believe that the transaction was a spiritual one,
a conflict between light and darkness in the region of the
mind, in which a real tempter assailed Christ, not through
His eyes and ears, but directly through His feelings and
imagination. The scenes passed before His soul in vision,
as we commonly call it, that is, in such an excited state
of the conceptive faculty as gives the impression of
reality to objects of thought. After the same manner,
the prophets of the Old Testament passed through events
in vision, of which they speak as we should speak of
realities. Thus Jeremiah must have been in prophetic
vision when he took the linen girdle to Euphrates. to hide
it there and went again in quest of it, as also when he
took the cup of wrath from God's hand and gave it to the
nations to drink. So too Ezekiel was transported from
Chaldea to Jerusalem in that remarkable vision, the narrative of which occupies the chapters of his prophecies
from the eighth to the eleventh. Hosea, again, it is commonly believed, narrates only a symbolical vision, where
he speaks of himself as marrying an adulteress at the
command of God. The martyr Stephen, also full of the
Holy Ghost, saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God,
not in bodily shape, but in a form presented to the mind's
eye, and yet expressive of a great reality. And so too the
Apostle Paul may have been in vision, as he himself
allows us to suppose, when he was caught up to the third
heaven. It is not unlikely that the first readers of the
Gospel, who were familiar with the prophetic state and
language, put no wrong interpretation on the narrative in
cases like these.
If, now, the Scriptures allow us to interpret the events
of the temptation in this way, we can see that greater




The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness.   29
strength is thereby given to the suggestions of Satan than
if they had been addressed to the bodily organs. The
power over the mind of a highly endowed being through
the imagination, may indefinitely exceed that which is exerted through the sight. Multitudes have been seduced
by that faculty, which paints absent or distant objects in
colors of its own, whom no beauty or pleasantness lying in
objects of sight could have led into sin. The world of
imagination is more fascinating to their elevated mind
than this outward world with all its shows and riches.
The phantom, which has something heavenly in it, cheats
and betrays them, while they turn aside from the obvious
snares of visible things. If then, before the mind of Christ
the tempter laid a map of the outstretched world, more
gorgeously beautiful, more charming to the imagination,
than the sights of luxury and pomp of power in the
Roman empire, we may suppose that the temptation was
thus greatly enhanced, and became more difficult to be
contended with.
But we pass on from this point, to a more important
and indeed to an essential remark, that the temptations
were intended not for Jesus in His nature as a man, but for
Jesus in lis official station as the Messiah. God was not
putting it to the test, whether a certain good man or good
prophet would yield to evil or conquer it, but whether
Jesus was qualified for His office-whether that man whom
he had severed from the rest of mankind by a wondrous
birth and a union with the divine nature, and who yet
stood forth in perfect freedom  as a man-whether He
would remain true to the spiritual idea of the Messiah, or
would fall below it under temptation.  Nor was the
tempter in this case anxious simply to lead a good man
into sin, but he was striking at the root of salvation; his
aim was to undermine the principles of the kingdom of
heaven, to lead the Christ, if possible, by some subtle way
into conduct inconsistent with the office to which He had




30    The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness.
been chosen, and which He had freely accepted. This
thought is the key to the story of the temptation. It explains why the temptation occurred when it did, at the
commencement of Christ's public work, and shows the
greatness of the crisis. The question whether Jesus would
be made to adopt the worldly idea of the Messiah's kingdom was one of life and death for mankind. It may be
added that the tempter's formula of address, "If thou be
the Son of God," shows that the stress of the suggestion
bore upon His consciousness of sustaining that relation to
God, and not upon His character as a man. The problem
to be solved was how He would sustain the Messianic
office. Let us bear this in mind while we look at the
three several temptations.
Of the first St. Matthew thus speaks (iv. 2-4): "And
when he had fasted forty days and forty nights he was
afterward an hungered. And when the tempter came
to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that
these stones be made bread.  But he answered, Man
shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
It is plain that these suggestions contain an appeal to
the innocent desire for food, which now, by long fasting,
had become extreme. But the strength of them lay in the
ease with which Jesus, as the Son of God, conscious of
power over nature, could work a miracle in His own behalf.
Perhaps, too, the words contain something of a challenge
to put forth that power, and convey a lurking doubt
whether it really existed. "Can it be," the tempter might
say, "that thou art endowed with such power and authority,
whilst yet thou art suffering the severest hunger? Is it the
will of thy Father, the bountiful Lord over nature, that
His own Son should lack the gifts which are spread before
the lowest and the poorest? Has not power over nature
been given thee, if thou hast it, in order to relieve
the distresses of mankind? Why not, then, relieve thine




The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness.   31
own? What merit is there in continuing hungry when
thou mayest, without harming any man, satisfy thy wants?
Is not the starving man bound to use the innocent powers
which God has given him to keep off death?  Or if he
accepts the morsel offered by compassion, why shouldst
thou not regard it as the compassion of God that thou
shouldst use thy miraculous power for thine own deliverance."
The answer to the tempter contains a refusal to break
the fetters of dependence upon God's ordinary providence.
God had sent Jesus into this condition of distress, as He
sent the Jews into the wilderness, and could sustain Him
as He did them, by extraordinary means of his own. Jesus
was content to put Himself in the hands of God and await
the issue.
Here the mind naturally asks-and shows the subtlety
of the temptation by the question-Why our Lord felt
Himself bound to endure the pangs of violent hunger
when the relief lay within His reach. Why should He
feed the five thousand by miracle, we ask, and not provide
food for Himself? Did not Elijah partake of the widow's
cruse and of the meal which- He multiplied?  Suppose
that one of us could save himself from starvation by a
miracle, is there any reason why he should not do it?
The solution of the difficulty lies mainly in the fact, that
Christ was tempted as the Messiah. An ordinary man, or
a mere prophet, invested with a special, supernatural
power, might, for aught we can see, save himself from distress by such agency. But it became the Christ, the
founder of a spiritual kingdom, to whom  supernatural
power was natural, not to place Himself or His followers
beyond the reach of pain or sorrow. Had He procured
food for Himself by miracle, He would have introduced a
principle tending  to destroy His kingdom, or wholly to
change its nature-just that which the tempter wanted.
For if extreme hunger might be relieved, so might that




32    The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness.
which was not extreme: so might thirst, and cold, and all
the ills of poverty: so might affliction be prevented and
reproach avoided. And if this might happen in His case,
it might in the case of all His followers. Thus His rule and
example would have founded a kingdom of earthly ease
and comfort, in lieu of one where the hard blows of trial
must be met in the spirit of trust and resignation.
And again, had Christ followed the suggestions of the
tempter, He could not have takenon Him the work of our
salvation. The form of a servant, which He freely assumed, involved subjection to all the physical laws which
control our race, and the endurance of all sufferings which
the Father should lay upon Him. But if, by His inherent
power, He had-now relieved His own hunger, He would
have escaped from the form of a servant, and even from
subjection to the divine will; and, on the same principle,
He never could have been obedient to death-even the
death of the cross.
We pass on to the second temptation, as it stands in the
order of St. Matthew's narrative, or the third in St.
Luke's, and of which the former Evangelist speaks as follows (iv. 5, 7): "Then the devil taketh Him up into the
holy city, and setteth Him on a pinnacle of the temple,
and saith unto Him, If thou be the Son of God cast thyself down; for it is written He shall give His angels charge
concerniing thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee
up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Jesus saith unto him, It is written thou shalt not tempt
the Lord thy God."
Here we make a remark in passing on the disagreement
upon the order of events between the two gospels. Neither
Evangelist in his narrative follows a strict chronological
order, so that differences of this kind, which are not of unfrequent occurrence, ought not to surprise us. But the
narrative of St. Matthew, as it is fresher and more artless




The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness.   33
than St. Luke's, so also justifies its superior accuracy in
respect to the sequence of the temptations by a psychological probability. It was natural that a real tempter,
upon discovering the great strength of trust which Jesus
felt, should now endeavor to succeed in his plans by seeking to pervert that trust, by forcing it out of its proper
channel into that of presumption. The first two temptations therefore, as given by St. Matthew, have an inward
connection, one with the other. The trust of Jesus in His
Father naturally suggested to the evil power that He
might be successfully tempted to unauthorized confidence.
Might not He who would put forth no supernatural
power even to relieve His own extreme hunger, be led to
think that God would suspend the course of nature at His
desire and for His sake, when engaged in the divine service? The argument, intended to produce such causeless
trust, is drawn from the ninetieth Psalm, and may be thus
expressed. The true servants of God enjoy His peculiar
protection, and He guards those who trust in Him from all
evil. More than all others mayst thou, as His Son, calculate on the special interpositions of His providence.
Throw thyself down, in token of being the Messiah, from
the pinnacle of the temple, and make trial of what He will
do for thee.
The reason why the temple was selected as the scene of
this temptation lay in its being the spot of greatest resort,
where through the day crowds of Jews would be witnesses of whatever might be remarkable and attractive.
To see a man throw himself unharmed from a lofty place
of the sacred building, and then claim to be the Messiah,
could not fail to draw around him many adherents from
among those who were expecting the Lord, the Messenger
of the Covenant, to come suddenly to His temple. What
could gain greater credence for the Messiah than such an
attestation from  God, at the thronged and hallowed
2*




34    The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness.
centre of His religion. How conspicuous the proof from
such a transaction, how quick the admission of it, saving
the necessity of long years of contention in comparative
obscurity against prejudice and malice!
But to the sophistry of the tempter Christ had a ready
reply. "It is written thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy
God," that is, " I may not, because entitled to His protection, appeal to it against the laws of His providence, to
rescue me from dangers into which I have entered unbidden."  As thus viewed, our Lord's reply is given in the
same spirit with His former one during the first temptation.
He subjected Himself freely to physical law, and His Messiahship depended on His self-chosen humiliation.  He
could therefore, in consistency with His great object here
below, no more supersede physical law or seek to have it
superseded in order to secure advantages to Himself than
He could escape from moral control. When He took upon
Him  the form of a servant He entered into this relation
to divine providence, that He should be treated as other
men are treated, should have'no mark of favor shown Him
inconsistent with His station; nay, that if God willed, He
might frown upon and desert Him. After this it would
not be confidence, but presumption, to look for miraculous
interpositions on His behalf. If He might not work a miracle for Himself to ward off the force of the natural order of
things, so too IHe might not presume upon the help of God
on His behalf against the laws of His providence. Otherwise a general rule would be established by which His life
would cease to be one of humiliation.
And if we admit that Christ resisted the suggestion of
the tempter, because it would lead Him to an ostentatious
and superficial way of making good His claim to be the
Messiah, we have fresh proof of His wisdom and of the
justness of His conception of His office. It might seem a
rapid and certain method of proving that He was the Son




The Temptation of Christ inr the WVilderness. 35
of God if He were to make a demonstration of Himself to
the public eye, if He should secure notoriety by some great
deed. So thought His brethren: If thou do these things
show thyself to the world. So have false Christs and
false prophets and fanatics very generally thought-that
some great spectacle before the face of the world ought
to inaugurate their mission. But our Lord's moral instinct and His true idea of the Messiah's office brought
Him into complete harmony with that law of the divine
government, by which truth comes before men in an unpretending shape, and evidence is never given in such
amount as to force assent, but always leaves the prejudiced
and the corrupt free to deny its force. If we look through
the Gospels, we shall find the same consistent principle
running through all the miracles of Christ.. He wrought
not many mighty works in his own country because of
their unbelief.  He would give no sign to a wicked
and adulterous generation, save the sign of Jonas.
He rather shunned observation than coveted it. But
when he saw that a feeble, incipient faith could be
strengthened by miracles, or when humanity called on
Him  to put forth extraordinary powers, then, however
obscure the scene or the person to be aided, was His time
to interpose.
Of the third and last temptation, St. Matthew gives us
the following account: "Again the devil taketh Him up
into an exceedingly high mountain, and showeth Him all
the kingdoms of -the world and the glory of them; and
saith unto Him, All these things will I give thee if thou
wilt fall down and worship me. Then Jesus saith unto
him, Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, thou shalt
worship the Lord thy God and Him  only shalt thou
serve."
The general purpose of this temptation, is obvious. It
was an endeavor to divert Jesus from the aim of setting
up a spiritual kingdom, and to induce Him to establish




36    The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness.
such a one as most of His countrymen were wishing for
and expecting. It sought also to lead Him to the use of
questionable and unauthorized means of building up His
kingdom, by which He would secure the co-operation of
worldly powers and avoid most of the obstacles which
interfered with His success.
Such was the plan of the temptation, which was
thwarted by our Lord's just idea of the kingdom  of
heaven, and by His fixed decision to be loyal to God in
the attempt to set up such a kingdom. There are, however, several difficulties in explaining this temptation,
which demand our notice. First, why should this temptation come last, when at first blush it seems the easiest of
all to be resisted? And again, the boldness and almost
impudence of the suggestion to pay homage to Satan,
seem unsuited to the character of a sagacious tempter.
We may take off somewhat from the edge of these difficulties, by observing first that it could not. have been the
love of power in Jesus, to which the tempter looked for his
support. If the love of power is a universal principle of
our nature, we may say that it was potentially in Him who
was like his brethren. And yet I cannot conceive of it
as having any strength whatever in His breast. His habits
of holy consecration and submission must long before
have made it impotent. It would have been folly in the
tempter to appeal to it, as a principle of any strength.
What was it then, of which the temptation was expected
to lay hold?  It was the natural and instinctive desire to
take an easy road to the kingdom  by the means of
worldly power, to avoid the humiliation, hardships and
agonizing death that lay in the distance before Him if He
formed no connection with influences which control the
earth. It was to conquer without hard fighting, to reign
in glory without conquering, to realize at once the prophetic visions of a world-wide dominion, without fulfilling




I'he Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness.   37
the twenty-second Psalm  and the fifty-third chapter of
Isaiah.
The question was not whether the kingdom to be secured
would be one of righteousness,-that was a settled point;
but whether the means of securing it might not properly
pass round the opposition and the suffering which Christ
saw in thought before Him. In an exalted worldly position, gained by a single formality of homage, what a
power might be wielded by Him for the good of man!
what a new order of ages might begin under His sway I
what reforms might proceed from His wisdom and illustrious example! His choice of means, however, for securing His kingdom would in the end amount to a choice
between itwo kingdoms, the one, severely spiritual, introduced by moral and religious forces only, the other becoming worldly by its alliance with the world of outward
influence and temporal glory. The instinctive shrinking
from harm and difficulty, which belongs to,us all, would
lead Him to choose the worldly way of doing good, would
prejudice His mind. in favor of the easier and quicker
method. But He held on to His spiritual conception of His
office, kept His obedience, and triumphed. Thus the dread
of pain and of difficulty as well as the prospect of success
in another direction gave strength to a temptation where
the mere love of power was powerless.
We only add in regard to the proposition that He should
worship the tempter, that it must be regarded as an act
not of religious worship, but of respect and homage. Yet
Jesus saw that if the formality of homage were paid, it
would involve subservience to the powers of evil, and become disobedience to God. Thereupon He says, "Thou
shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou
serve."
The narrative of the temptation presents the tempter
to us as sagacious and crafty, but yet as not having fully
penetrated into the nature and character of Christ.




88    The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness,
He approached Christ in the belief that he was capable
of taking false views of his office, through which he might
be led into sin. He does not solicit him with those vulgar
traits, by which sensuous, sinful imaginations and wills
are drawn like the temptations offered in vision to St.
Jerome, but makes suggestions of a kind such as to lead
Jesus into conduct which, on a certain theory of the Messianic office, would be right enough, but on a certain
other theory would show him to have wholly swerved from
the idea. The question to be settled by trial was, whether
our Lord's view of his office would be modified by an
impression of the difficulties that he would of necessity
encounter, or, in other words, whether temptation would
blind him, and so lead him astray in regard to the course
of life which God's Messiah must take.  The tempter
then, understood Christ, end did not understand him.
He must have supposed th t there was a possibility of his
sinning, or the temptation was idle; and this supposition
was true. He must have wisely regarded the beginning
of Christ's public ministry to be the best time for presenting blind influences to his mind and soul. And yet, it
would seem, he could not have had a complete view of
the grandeur of the Messiah as a redeeming world wide
Saviour; otherwise he would have seen the almightiness
of God to be pledged to such a work, and all resistance
to be of no effect. He knew more of Christ than the
Jews did, but-less than revelation has disclosed to us.
Just so much knowledge accords with what the Scriptures
say of the angels, that until Christ ascended on high they
did not fully comprehend the plan of redemption. Nor
can we doubt, if there be a personal tempter, that many
of the followers of Christ actually foil him, in which
cases, as in the temptation of the Master, he is ignorant
of the result, and, perhaps, like other bad beings, blinded
against the probabilities of things by his own deceptive
hopes.




The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness.   39
Another remark which we desire to make is, that the
narrative, as interpreted, shows the subtlety and insinuating character of the temptation. The acts to which
Christ was solicited were not sins, so much as misjudgments in regard to the means to be used for gaining the
highest and noblest ends.  And  these  misjudgments
would consist, not in the use of means plainly and boldly
sinful, but of such as involved a departure from the'true
idea of the Messiah's earthly mission. To-remain hungry
was no virtue, and to relieve one's own hunger by miracle
was not necessarily a sin.. To give proof of Me.siahship
by the miracle of falling from a lofty part of the temple
was not, as a matter of course, an act of self-display, nor
in itself more a sin than Elijah's proceedings at Carmel,
when he put God to the test whetier he would show, by
the fire consuming the water around the altar, that he
was God in Israel.  So, too, to make an alliance with
earthly powers for the advantage of the kingdom of God
may well seem  no compromise of principle, if the mind
of the friend of God remains true to its work. No selfish
feeling need be involved in such conduct, except that
which consists in taking an easier instead of a harder
road. The sin in these cases is not apparent, and it needs
a healthy conscience, an unwarped judgment, a soul sincere in all its parts, to be equal to crises like these.
How many followers of Christ, great in name, have
failed on just such occasions.. Who among the sons of
men is fit to be trusted with miraculous powers without
measure, which he can use when and as He will? Therefore we will forever praise our Lord, that he stood amid
these insidious suggestions, when we fall before bold and
obvious temptations, leading us even to acts of obvious sin..
And we will pray Him to keep His people from leaving His
path; so that as Hewas in this world, they may have the
quickest moral perception, the absence of all worldly
policy, the principle to use gifts and powers not for them.




40    The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness.
selves, not in shortening or smoothing processes of duty,
but according to his divine pattern.
The narrative of the temptation, finally, as thus explained, shows itself to have been no myth, or invention of
the early Church. The mythical theory draws its general
force from an unscientific assumption that there can be no
such things as miracle and revelation. In the case before
us, its special arguments might be, that Jesus was tempted
like Adam, that He was forty days in the wilderness as
Moses was forty days on Sinai, and Elijah the same time
on his journey to the same mountain chain.; and that a
part of the narrative, His transportation through the air,
was ghostly and marvellous, rather than in accordance
with the sobriety of ordinary miracles. The last argument
has been already met by a different interpretation. As
for the others, which have little intrinsic strength, it is
enough to say, that if Christ was the Messiah, there are
good reasons why He should be subject to trial at the
outset of His work. The temptation is, indeed, no independent proof that He was what He claimed to be, but like
His miraculous conception, it is in harmony with His nature and His office.
But it is more important to remark, that the narrative
is too refined and too full of a somewhat hidden, but consummate wisdom, to grow out of the imaginings of the
early Church. It is no rude picture of assaults which
might befall a holy man in solitude, but an intellectual and
moral struggle, which put it to the proof whether Christ
would be true to the spiritual idea of the Messiah. It involves a conception of the Messiah's kingdom which the
early Church did not entertain until some time after the
death of our Lord; how then could it be elaborated by
crude Galilean disciples of Christ, whose views were full
of that earthly mixture which the narrative condemns?
It contains, too, we are forced to think, a subtlety of moral
discrimination which was far beyond that age, and beyondl




The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness.   41
any age, until it had become enlightened by the Light of
the Word. I should sooner say, that Christ Himself invented it, and gave it to some disciple as embodying in an
allegorical form the results of His experience. But if He
was the Messiah, the temptation is a true narrative. If
He was not, He could not have devised a narrative like
this, because He could not have understood what pertained
to the work of a spiritual Redeemer.
And now to all the tempted, to all who are inclined to
gain power by questionable means, to all who can profit
for the moment by a departure from the line of principle,
toall Christians who are tainted with a spirit of worldly
policy, and desert the Master while they profess to be
doing service for Him, I commend this story of the temptation. Let us all use it as a means of keeping ourselves in
the path of unswerving Christian integrity, that by the
help of the Master's trials, we may overcome, and be partakers of His purity and of His glory.




SERMON  III.
CHRIST CHARGED WITH BEING BESIDE HIMSELF.
MARK iii. 21. And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay
hold on him; for they said he is beside himself.
IT appears from the narrative, of which this verse is a
part, that Jesus had already excited the malignity of the
Pharisees on account of a cure performed on the Sabbath,
and that they had combined with their enemies, the Herodians, to compass His destruction. Upon this He withdrew
to a more secluded place, but could not be hid, for His
fame as a teacher and a healer of diseases had already
reached beyond Galilee in every direction. After performing many cures among the multitude who pursued Him
into His retirement, He withdrew again to a mountainous
district, and took care that only certain persons, His
disciples in the proper sense who were drawn to Him as
their spiritual teacher, should know whither He had betaken Himself. The night, it would appear, was spent in
prayer to God. The ensuing morning He organized His
church by appointing the twelve apostles, and perhaps
delivered the Sermon on the Mount during the same day.
Descending again from the hill-country He entered, it is
said, into a house, that is, He took up His abode for the
time in the city of Capernaum. The people again throng
around. Him, some to be cured or have their friends cured
of outward maladies, some to hear the healing words with
which He accompanied His works of love.
It was at this time when the court of the house, with the
hall of entrance, was filled full with eager listeners and
with people ill of every disease, that His friends went out to
lay hold on Him, for they said, " He is beside Himself."
42




Christ charged with being beside Himself.    43
They went out, perhaps, from Nazareth, where their home
was, to the neighboring city of Capernaum, for the purpose
of seizing and securing Him, on the ground that, according
to their judgment or their fears, He was not in His right
mind. As we learn from  the end of the chapter they
could not on account of the crowd enter the door; they
send a messenger therefore to call Him out, that thus they
may attain their object. Our Saviour knew intuitively
what their design was, and reproved it as well as conveyed
instruction to the bystanders by the words, "Who is my
mother and my brethren? —Behold my mother and my
brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the
same is my brother, and my sister and mother."
The question now may fairly be asked what led His relatives to the belief or suspicion, that our Lord was disordered in mind, and to the marvellous resolution to
attempt to lay hold on Him and keep Him in confinement.
The brevity of the record does not enable us to answer
this question with confidence, and yet it supplies us with
several answers, one or all of which may render this conduct less remarkable.
First, we may suppose that our Lord's relatives regarded
His conduct as very strange and unaccountable; that He
worked, or was reputed to work, miracles which drew
crowds around Him, and declared that He was introducing
the kingdom of heaven, while He yet shrank away from
publicity and avoided the necessary consequences of being
regarded as the Messiah. There may have been here to
their minds, as yet involved in unbelief, an inconsistency
in His conduct, which they could account for only on the
theory that He was not what He claimed to be, but was
laboring under a delusion of mind. Such are their feelings towards Christ, as represented to us in the seventh
chapter of John's Gospel. "His brethren said unto him,"
on the approach of the feast of tabernacles, " depart hence,
and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may see the




44      Christ charged with being beside Himself.
works that thou doest. For there is no man that doeth
any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known
openly.  If thou do these things, show thyself to the
world. For," adds the apostle, "neither did his brethren
believe on him."  They could not reconcile His policy
with their idea of the Messiah, and of the pomp and splendor with which that office should be ushered in, and therefore explained His conduct, which they knew Him too well
to impute to ambition or intentional deception, by the
workings'of a diseased mind.
Or, again, we may more rationally suppose that they
thought Him beside Himself because He seemed to them to
be throwing away His life. The Pharisees, they may have
learnt as we know it, were already laying plots for His destruction. He was moreover giving Himself up to the
good of the crowds which followed Him with an assiduity
and a self-sacrifice which were likely to put His life in jeopardy. He appeared to them unaware of His danger and
madly regardless of health and safety.
Or, to make one supposition more, the opinion which
the Pharisees sought to diffuse, that He worked miracles
by demoniac agency, may have influenced them, coming
as it did from the teachers of the people. He could not
be the Messiah, and yet He worked miracles. He could
not be the Messiah, for how could an obscure Galilean,
one of their own humble relatives, found the glorious
kingdom of heaven, or take such ways to found it as
Jesus was taking?  He must therefore derive His superhuman power of casting out demons from Beelzebub. He
must, as the Jews at Jerusalem afterwards said, have a
devil and be mad.
Thus we see that unbelief lay at the bottom of this
conduct of Christ's relatives. And it is worthy of notice
that in striving to explain His conduct in their state of
unbelief, they impute it to no sinful or selfish motive, but
to derangement of mind. They show herein a persua



Christ charged with being beside Himself.   45'sion, founded on acquaintance with His character, that no
such motive could be discovered in the Saviour's life.
It is very remarkable, it is even startling, that among
these relatives of Christ, who came to lay hands on Him
as being insane, His mother is found. How shall we explain this conduct on the part of one who knew His miraculous conception, who had seen His perfect humanity in
childhood and maturer years, who without question believed in Him and hoped in Him?
The extreme brevity of the narrative leaves us here
again to conjecture. We may suppose that what is imputed to the kinsmen or family of Christ is spoken of
them as a body from which Mary is to be excepted. She
may have accompanied her unbelieving friends without
participating in their feelings, rather to act as a mediator
between them and Jesus than to carry out in any degree
their views.
But I am quite willing to concede that a cloud of unbelief flitted over her mind; that as John the Baptist, in
a moment of disheartening doubt, sent his disciples, to the
Lord with the inquiry, "Art thou he that should come or
do we look for another," an inquiry which shows at
once his confidence and his want of confidence-so she,
when she saw her Son taking a course unlike what she
had attributed to the Messiah, may have been, for a time,
overcome by her perplexities, and have not known what
to think of Him. Are such doubts stray guests at times,
even by. the side of confirmed faith? He will not say so
who knows what conflicts are going on in many serious
minds, nay, what conflicts may arise in many Christian
minds, until faith has won a permanent victory. How
many minds have hesitated before the amazing doctrine
of the Incarnation, as if such an interposition and
presence in our world were incredible; how many have
modified, or rather mutilated the Bible, so as to save the
supernatural, and yet reject the divine in Christ; how




46     Christ charged with being beside Himself.
many have stumbled and fallen over Christ manifest in
the flesh; how many have swum  to a settled landingplace across the billowing waves of doubt which threatened to engulf them! Was it strange that some kindred
struggles should agitate the soul of Mary, if she were at
once honest and in a degree unenlightened?
I will only add on this point, that however we explain
Mary's participation in the design of her kinsmen, she is
included in what is a virtual censure on the part of our
Lord. He neither goes out to meet her and her com-'panions, nor admits them into His presence. He exclaims,
that His nearest of kin are the children of God, and asks,
*'Who is my mother and my brethren?"  It is thus
remarkable, that in the only two instances, until the crucifixion, where Mary figures in the Gospel-the marriage at
Cana, and the passage before us-she appears, in order to
be reproved by the Saviour, and to be placed, as far as
the mere maternal relation is concerned, below obedient
servants of God. These passages must be regarded as
protests laid up in store against the heathenish eminence
which the Roman church assigns to Mary, and especially
against that newly established dogma of her being without
sin from her birth, which they so signally contradict.
But while Christ was thus charged with losing the
guidance of right reason, what had He been doing? Assuming that Mark follows the order of time, and confining
ourselves to the events of the few hours before, we notice,
first, that He had passed the whole night, before His return
to Capernaum, in prayer to God. Being about, on the
next day, to set on foot great measures, He separated Himself from the crowd which His fame had gathered, and
even from His own peculiar followers, in order to commune
with Infinite Reason and Infinite Love. On the lonely
mountain, with only the stars for witnesses, He strengthened
the powers of His soul, and found a refreshment better
than that of sleep, in long and close intercourse with His




Christ charged with being beside LHimnself.    47
Father.  Of this, indeed, His friend could have known
nothing, but it was a natural expression of the piety which
shone through His whole life. Was there implied in this
any, loss of reason? Who would not reasonably go to the
ends of the earth, if thus He might experience one hour's
communion, such as Christ had in blessedness and purity,
with the Father?
Next we notice, that when it was day He set apart the
twelve apostles. No step was taken by him, during His
ministry, more important than this in its bearings on the
future progress of His kingdom.  In fact, if we except the
two sacraments, this was the only institution which he
ever adopted. Its wisdom was demonstrated by the result.
The Apostles remained, after His death, as the authority
in the Church. They preached the doctrine of Christ. They
testified as eye-witnesses to His resurrection. They arranged
the order of the gatherings of believers. They transmitted
the history of their Lord to coming ages.  The consummate wisdom which appeared in this institution, at once so
simple and so efficacious, showed the reach of mind, the
foreseeing reason of its founder.
And if, in the third place, as Luke seems to declare, the
Sermon on the Mount-whether a part or the whole of
what Matthew gives us-was delivered the same day, we
have in this, too, a proof of the highest exercise of reason.
This man, whom His kinsmen pronounced beside Himself,
had just been destroying the imperfect system of morals
which Jewish wisdom had erected, and had built up a new
code, which has reigned through all the ages since; He had
announced principles which philosophers, whether believers
in Him or not, have united in admiring; and which, if we
look at their influence on opinions or on practice, entitle
Him to the name of a moral legislator for mankind.
And if, finally, we take into view His deeds of love
when He came down from the mountain, how He gave
Himself up to works and words of healing, how He bore




48      Christ charged with being beside Himself
with patience the importunity of the throng, how He endured fatigue and hunger for their sakes-not having
room even to eat bread-we have another trait of a life
in which reason and goodness dwell together.
Having thus considered the imputation cast on our
Saviour by his relatives that He was out of His right mind,
and shown how absurdly false it was by His conduct at
the time, we proceed, in the third place, to derive some
lessons from this part of the Gospel history.
I. And, first, we learn, from the fact that neither the
Pharisees nor Christ's near relatives understood His character, how difficult bad men, and oftentimes imperfect good
men must find it to comprehend the aims and plans of a
person of uncommon goodness.
A person whose mind is not darkened by sin to a degree rarely occurring under the light of the Gospel,will
readily admit, in the abstract, the leading obligations of
practical religion and morality. He will confess that men
ought to devote themselves to the service of God in the
spirit of supreme, self-sacrificing love, and to the welfare
of mankind, without looking at their own ease, comfort,
or reputation. He will even approve or condemn persons
living in a past age by such a standard.
But when men come to judge of measures and of principles, as they appear in the life of men, they will be apt
to fall into one of the two following faults:
First, if they are low-minded and selfish themselves,
they will impute the best conduct of the best men to motives as base as their own. This is, in part, a simple
application of the rules derived from experience to a new
case. The man is conscious of nothing noble or exalted:
he sees in himself no impulse, no capacity to act under
the sway of the better class of motives, such as zeal for
God and love to man. All his friends, with whom fellowfeeling unites him, have the same low standard, and must
take the same view of the conduct of others. The opinion




Christ charged with being beside Himself.    49
in the whole society will be, that all men have the same
governing principles at bottom; that benevolent concern
for the welfare of men is either a pretense or the weakness
of a character peculiarly constituted; that the semblance
of religious zeal is hypocrisy. Within the experience of
the whole society no character has risen above the vulgar
level of selfishness. Within their observation, no conduct
has occurred which cannot somehow be accounted for on
the meanest principles.  Thus we see that the selfish cannot comprehend disinterested goodness, that the impure
cannot believe in purity and chastity, that low-minded
politicians believe that all men can be bought, that unscrupulous merchants hold that every man will violate the
law of usury or the laws for the revenue, if sure of impunity.  Our judgments find it hard to rise above the
level of our character.  We bring men down to our own
principles, if we cannot raise ourselves, in our conceit and
imagination, up to theirs.
This philosophy of experience, if so it may be called,
commends and insinuates itself into the mind by the comfort it imparts. If there is no more exalted standard of
character than that low one which such persons adopt,
there is no occasion for self-condemnation; they can walk
with the head erect, and look on the noblest souls as their
equals; they need feel no impulse to reform, and painful
aspirations for something beyond their reach are repressed.
Such self-complacent comfort can stand the attacks of
abstract moral or religious convictions with  tolerable
security. But when a life shines before it, constructed on
other principles, a life that commands respect, and tells
"how awful goodness is," then this poor pride of character
quails and feels its beggarliness, and gives place to selfreproach and self-contempt. To avoid the beginning of
such a change of feeling, the life of the good must be
interpreted amiss, and reduced below its real standard.
Was it then to be wondered at that goodness like that
3




bO     Christ charged with being beside fHimself
of Jesus was misunderstood and maligned by Pharisees?
Was it strange that they who knew of nothing within
their own experience but selfishness and hypocrisy, who
would have been condemned at heart by the light of
divine excellence like Christ's, should seek a solution of
His wonder-working power in Satanic agency,-should
call "the master of the house Beelzebub?"
But again, persons like the relatives of Christ, who
have no especial prejudice to warp their judgment, nay,
even good men, are liable to misunderstand an exalted
character. The explanation here is in part the same as
in the former case. Their own deficient standard, the
opinion which controls the society in which they move,
supplies them with the rule of estimating the conduct of
others; and they would be painfully reproved if they
traced that conduct back to the highest principles of action. But their judgments are by no means so unjust as
those of the prejudiced and the unprincipled. They do
not put the worst interpretation on the best actions; they
are not apt to malign motives; nor does their own consciousness carry them to the baser part of human nature,
as explaining the lives of all men alike. But it is possible for men, they find, to be one-sided, and to overlook
considerations drawn from expediency or prudence. It is
possible to seek to accomplish too much all at once
without committing the seeds of effort to future time. It
is possible in attempting to gain one good to throw away
another, to- sacrifice quiet unduly to truth, to undertake
some ref:rm without taking into account the opposition it
may excite or even strengthen. Multitudes of mistakes,
of failures, of abortive enterprises which delay the cause
of humanity and virtue for a generation, do actually arise
from sources like these. All admit this when they criticise other men's measures, and weigh other men's hopes.
Now is it not quite possible, when a person of exalted
self-sacrifice, of godlike love, of earnest zeal, appears




-Christ charged with being beside Hlimself.    51
within the horizon of minds not in entire sympathy
with him  or unable to comprehend him, that they will
apply these rules of judgment in his case? Does even true
zeal for God of necessity exempt men from miscalculations? May not such a man aim  at that which is unattainable? May he not waste his powers with a self-consuming zeal? May he not entertain hopes which are chimerical,-or in short by some excess or defect may he not
depart from the line of right reason?
Thus even good men may misunderstand and misinterpret exalted virtue.  But to this it should be added that
our judgments concerning what is practicable-which
must always influence our opinion of men-are in part of
a subjective character; they vary with our desires, with
our feeling of the importance of the object, with our
moral characteristics, as much as with our intellectual.
It cannot fail then, that measures which an earnest, self3acrificing, godly man regards as practicable, must appear
Lo a person of an opposite nature to be just the reverse,
and to indicate a want of sound judgment or even of
sound reason.
Thus a man needs to be thoroughly good himself, if he
would comprehend and do justice to those who are truly
Rood. It is not enough that a man has fine powers of
mind and great practical discernment.  His powers of
mind will but quicken-his ingenuity in finding causes for
conduct which are not the true ones; his discernment will
discern impassable obstacles in the noblest effort, if he is
not in sympathy with goodness.
An illustration of what we have said may be found in
the names of reproach which pass current among the unthinking, and are applied oftentimes to the best of men.
Christ, as we have seen, was no exception to this. The
honored name of Christian was at first, it is probable, a
term  of contempt.  Paul was a man that turned  the
world upside down. Puritan and Methodist were origi



52     Christ charged with being beside Himself.
nated as words of scorn. All new enterprises of benevolence are exposed to the charge of enthusiasm or of fanaticism. Whenever, in an ungodly community, some one
breaks away from the bondage of reigning sin, the slaves
of it call him mad. The friends of evangelical light in a
part of Switzerland are now called momiers or hypocrites.
The friends of oppressed men are among us stigmatized as
fanatics.
In a world where light and darkness are contending,
we cannot do good prudently without having such missiles
cast at us by the unthinking or the malevolent; we cannot, as we are apt to do, pass the line of prudence, without
furnishing them with a pretext for so treating us; we
cannot mingle resentment with our zeal without justifying
them in their opprobrium  not only of ourselves, but of
our cause.
But if we would be like Christ and do good service in
the world, these names which are bugbears to many of
the weak and lukewarm need not disturb us. A name of
reproach is a rod of terror in the eyes of him who has
no opinion on  great questions, or no sympathy and
power of generous emotion, or no courage and self-reliance. But if a man can rise to a higher level, reproach
will only quicken him; he will feel that to be hated by
the weak and wicked is one proof that he is right. A
man, whose soul was on the side of freedom in our struggle for independence, was not much frightened by being
called a rebel; a man who is on the side of Christ will
only feel the more deeply the need the world has of
being made over, when he is called a fanatic.
If we are misunderstood and depreciated let us remember what happened to Christ. " Therefore the world knoweth us not," said the disciple of love, "because it knew
Him not."  If we are misunderstood because we are like
Him, the better for us and the worse for them who wrongly
judge us.




Christ charged with being beside Himself.    53
II. Christ by His life on earth has done much to show
that true enthusiasm in the cause of God is truly reasonable.
We have said that men, even good men, often fail to
comprehend the noblest purposes and characters. But
Christ by His glorious life on earth has enlightened mankind in this respect.  It is more difficult than it once was
to deny the reality and the reasonableness of Christian
virtue. A higher standard of judging and of acting has
been set up in the mind of the world.
Our Lord has not only purified man's abstract conceptions of virtue, but He has taught us what to admire and
approve in life and action. He has lived a life, the principles of which are an everlasting protest against the misjudgments of men arising from their low standards. He
has shown us the highest human excellence misunderstood,
the highest reason pronounced a derangement of reason,
and thus has put us on our guard against similar mistakes.
He has shown us that men with far-reaching plans without noise or show are too deep for worldly minds to
fathom; so that it is not safe for us to rely with confidence
on the practical judgments of the world. He has shown
us a plan, which in its weakness was imputed to a person
beside Himself, in its maturity crowned with more than
human glory. In Him we see the true measure of what is
right, and what is practical in conduct, of what in the end
must commend itself to the rectified judgment of the
world.
Let us think of this, my friends, more than we do when
we lay plans and pass judgments concerning life. It was
an inconceivably mighty undertaking to set up the kingdom of God, and yet an obscure, unpatronized man undertook it and did it. That is practical and that is practicable
which commends itself to a sound soul, to a calm, trustful,
courageous soul in unison with Christ, which commends
itself to a faith that overcomes the world, to a love that is




54     Christ charged with being beside Himself.
capable of self-sacrifice. Undertakings will, not suffer
shipwreck, however maligned or scorned, into which men
who have His spirit enter.
III. It is a little matter if we are misunderstood as long
as God understands us. Christ too was misunderstood, but
God understood Him.
For a while, the bad and the foolish in their use of
names have it all their own way. The man of earnest
Christian effort cannot pay them back in their own coin
if he would, and he has too much to do to revile. Quietly
working under God's smile he trusts to Him who is in
sympathy with what worldlings hate, and despises what
they highly esteem, who knows the essence and the results
of things. God's own plan, which embraces those of His
servants, includes immeasurable ages, and works itself out
by resistless laws. What can a generation do-what can
names of reproach, invented by a generation, do against
God and His counsels?  YWhat can they do against those
whom He favors?
Mioreover time is God's minister, and this minister of
God is constantly sitting in judgment on human opinions
to approve or condemn. What enormous mistakes, often
condensed in terms of censure, cannot Time tell of! There
was a man to whom a crazed reason, to whom Satanic
agency was imputed, and He now has a name above every
name.  There were men called Christians in contempt,
and now it is the highest honor to be called a Christian.
There was a party sneered at for uncourtly faults, disliked for rigorous precision, against whom  every quill
was dipped in gall, who were called Puritans by the impure, and now they are a landmark of history, one primary source of civil and religious freedom  among men.
" They are the people," said the politic Pepys in his diary,' that at last will be found wisest." *  There was a sect,
Pepys' Diary under Sept. 4, 1668.




Christ charged with being beside Himself.    55
or rather company of ministers who preached a. warmer,
truer gospel to a loose generation. They were laughed at
by the witlings, were pelted with stones by. the profane,
were eschewed by the decorously cold; the name Methodist was a name of opprobrium. Andy what have they
done?' They have revived the religious life of England,
kept piety from going out among the poor, and are now
one of the strongest bodies of Christians in two great
lands.
Thus good men often outlive their bad names. They
conquer by God's help a place of honor for themselves in
the judgment of coming times. Posterity garnishes the
sepulchres of those who were reproached by the fathers.
Honor is done, late indeed but long, to God's standard of
principles and measures. The enthusiasts of one age may
be found in the next to have first hit upon some great
secrets; and instead of idly dreaming, as they were charged
with doing, to have uttered prophetic voices. The fanatics,
at whom men interested in vile traffics and wrong institutions gnash their teeth, may turn out at last to be friends of
mankind.  As the heathen of the first age who called
Christians the enemies of the human race were grievously
in an error, so it has been since; the world's supposed
enemies have been its true friends, and are owned as such,
when the tongues that maligned them have been silenced
by death, and the reputations that were built on their disparagement are blasted.
Thus time, God's minister, corrects mistakes. But still
all unjust reproaches, all depreciations are not corrected.
There are especially multitudes of private persons, who die
forgotten with no defender in the future against the reproaches of the past.  Now for such as these there is still
another court open. The last account will put each character in its right place, and keep it there forever. Forgotten goodness will be called into notice again, misunderstood character be commended; men called mad, but not




56     Christ charged with being beside Himself.
such, will be shown to have drunk at the well of infinite
reason; each will be restored to the rights which he had
in the sight of truth and of God. It will be then no loss
to have played a small part well. "Whosoever shall give
to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water
only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he
shall in no wise lose his reward."
Let us, my friends, in the great conflicts of opinion in
which we cannot but partake, and while virulent epithets
are freely applied to us, remember this great, this last reversal of former wrong judgments. Let us live with it
before our eye, and in a manner appeal to it from the sentence of mankind. Let it inspire us with courage, so that
mockery and imputations of unworthy motives will not be
able to warp us. Let it fill us with cheerful hope,-for if,
at the end of a reproached, calumniated life, the judge
shall write upon us the name of God, and His own new
name, will it not be an ample reward?




SERMON IV.
NEUTTRALITY IN REGARD TO CHRIST IMPOSSIBLE,
MATTHEW xii 30. He that is not with me is against me.
THE man who uttered these words wandered up and
down in Judea and Galilee, without a place where to lay
His head, poor in this world's goods, indebted to the charity
of His friends for a subsistence. He had no advantages of
family or education; He never sought to become known,
nor courted notoriety; He came from an obscure place of
a despised part of Palestine. He preached chiefly to the
poor, died three years, or a little more, after He began His
preachings, and made a few hundred disciples. His life,
-from an earthly point of view, would be called a failure.
Such was the man who said, He that is not with me is
against me, as if He were something, and taught something
about which men could not help taking sides; as if in spite
of His lowness and insignificance in the eyes of men, they
would have to form an opinion against Him or in His favor;
as if He would force Himself upon their notice and compel
them, all unpretending and lonely as He was, not to be indifferent to Him and to His message.
Suppose one of the great thinkers of antiquity had used
these words. Let Plato or Aristotle have said, " He that
is not with me is against me;" the reply of derision might
have been, "There are thousands, in all generations, who
will never hear of you; there are other thousands who will
be supremely indifferent to what you write, and by and by
you will become a name, awakening some respect perhaps
in a few minds, but lost gradually in the forgetfulness
which hides past ages from the view of man."
3*                                   57




58     Neutrality in regard to Christ Impossible.
And yet this strange man, who never wrote a book,
never taught a scheme of philosophy, and was only half
understood, while He lived,, by His disciples-this strange
man, I say, used no words of assumption or arrogance,
when He said, "He that is not with me is against me 1"
Nothing is more apparent through the world's history,
than that He has been pushed, if I may not already say
has been pushing Himself, upon men's notice, in wider and
wider circles, ever uttering through the generations the
same language, so that what once was marvellous to be
heard, seems to us neither strange nor unaccountable-and
that now the question of questions for the world, turns on
Christ, and men everywhere more and more are summoned
to take His side, or to be against Him.,
These words of Christ were dictated by vast assumption,
or by truthful consciousness. You might say that He was
a deranged man, who, like many in their insanity, thought
Himself God, or God's inspired messenger; but His wisdom,
His consistency, the impression He made on His disciples,
the absence of all evidence of derangement show the contrary with such force, that very few have been willing to
resort to this hypothesis. You might say that He imposed
on men consciously by His assumptions, but when you find
it to be psychologically certain, that false claims would'
have demoralized Him, and can discover no flaw in His
life, you have to abandon this position. You are compelled to admit that He told what was true, when He
said: "For judgment came I into this world, that they
which see not might see, and that they which see might remain blind!"  And so you have to admit, also, that He
understood Himself, and the world, and His relation to the
world better than all men besides did; that He looked
down the ages with an eye of foresight which none else had.
And for this, you must account as you can.
But my object is not now to show that the claim of
Christ implied in our text, is true, but that what He said




Neutrality in regard to Christ Impossible.    59
turned out, during his life-time, and has been turning out
ever since, to be an historical fact. Men then, men now,
are forced to consider his claims, to accept or to oppose
them.
The Apostle John, in a tragic sentence, says: " lIe came
unto His own, and His own received Him not." The record
in His life-time was chiefly of those who sided against Him,
If numbers, dignity of station, loud voices of dislike and
contempt, ought to weigh in such a matter, His memory
ought scarcely to have survived His life-time. Still there
were a few who received and loved Him. Let us look at
those who were for Him, and then at the opposite and larger
party.
In general,, you find those who were for Him, and whom
He, by His attractive power, forced to declare themselves
His disciples, to have belonged to the least esteemed, the
obscurest and humblest classes of society. But among His
adherents from these classes, He sought to excite no partizan or class-feeling in His favor. He dreaded making
friends by appeals to any popular feeling. He preferred
not to present His claims, rather than to win proselytes by
political and worldly hopes. When He had reason to believe, that those in whose behalf He multiplied the loaves
of bread, would come by force and make HIim a king, HIe
hid Himself from their view. Andc when a part of the
same throng met Him afterward in Capernaum, He gave
them  such instruction in regard to His person and work,
that they deserted Him in great crowds, so as to leave only
a few friends at His side. He forced multitudes thus into
opposition by what a political man would have called the
most maladroit of all methods. Instead of winning them
and pledging them to His person by His great miracle, after
which, as one might think, He could have schooled and
purified them, He taught them such hard truth as to come
into conflict with the prejudices of thousands. Thus, as
might be expected, nearly all forsook Him.




60      Neutrality in regard to Christ Impossible.
There was a noticeable quality in His preaching, which
ought here to be taken into account. In the midst of His
pity and kindness, He asked for no man's good opinion or
adhesion to His cause, who did not give it out of love to
Himself; or on some purely spiritual ground. He wanted
no disciple, humble or lofty, who had any by-ends, any
expectations of preferment, any hopes which were fastened on this world. Hence, very many, even of the common people, were displeased and rejected Him. And just
such treatment He expected; He was prepared for it and
was not disappointed when it came.
Of those who were for Him, there were two classes, both
made friends of by some peculiar attraction toward Him,
both comparatively ignorant, yet differing widely in their
earlier life and habits.
One of these classes was composed of simple Galilean
peasants, unlettered, but by no means wholly ignorant;
full of the national prejudices and false opinions of their
countrymen, yet moral and religious. This class, the best
part of the Jewish people and the most hopeful, evidently
excited the strongest interest of Christ.  Around them
the war between Him and His enemies was the most active,
for whoever gained them gained the nation. He lodged
in this class, wherever He preached, such impressions of
His power and goodness, and of His prophetic mission,
that if He had gone further even a single step, if He had
humored in the least their crude earthly notions of the
Messiah, He might have gained large masses from this class
and moved at the head of an army to Jerusalem. But He
would not. He purposely ran entirely athwart their prejudices; He forced them  to be against Him. And thus
there was left a small body of disciples drawn to Him by
love rather than by intelligence, yet so loyal, with such
rudiments in their souls of a life after His pattern and His
wishes, that few as they were, they were the fit germ for
the coming kingdom of God.




Neutrality in regard to Christ Impossible.    61
There was another class from which, in a very remarkable way, Christ drew friends and followers, although
beyond doubt, many who belonged to it, shut-as would
be natural for them-their hearts to His message. They
were publicans and sinners, those who had lost their
character by their unpatriotic acceptance of office as taxgatherers under Roman farmers of the revenue, and those
of either sex, especially of the female, who lived on the
vices of society and were the most abandoned among the
people. A philosopher passes by this sort of persons in
contempt or in hopelessness. The laws of States only
brand them  with infamy and harden them.  Society
abhors and dreads them, regarding even to be seen in
their company as a disgrace. Yet with this class Christ
mingled so openly, that Pharisees reproached Him for it,
and on this low level He called for contrite and loving
hearts. He made publicans and harlots choose whether
they would be for Him or against Him. I will not stop to
inquire why He did what seemed so out of the common
rule to the Pharisees, nor to show that this wonderful
approach of the purest and noblest of beings to the lowest and vilest was an attestation to His sincerity and His
strength of character: it is what resulted from His mingling with them that interests us now. They heard Him
gladly. They were, or at least, some of them were filled
with wonder and awe, as He told them of a better life.
They forsook their sins and loved Him. A woman that
was a sinner, as she stood weeping and washing His feet
with ointment, received as high an approval from Him as
He ever gave to any mortal. He said to the uncivil, hard
Pharisee, whose table He honored, she has had much
forgiven, and therefore she loveth much. He brought to
such persons the transformation of their souls by a new
love and new hopes, and into this character personal attachment to Himself led the way.




G2     Neutrality in regard to Christ Impossible.
One of this class of persons affords us a remarkable
illustration of the way in which Christ sometimes forced
-imnself upon men's attention, as if He were determined to
make them  decide whether they would be for or against
Hhn. He sees a man, of wealth indeed, but of bad reputation, one of those publicans, who was supposed to have got
his money by extortion, watching Him from a tree, as He
passed in a crowd through the streets of Jericho. At
once He invited Himself to be his guest. He was taken
home, and the next day the man made his profession of
repentance, and Christ testified that salvation had come
to this house of the sinner. And this He did amid censures and evil speakings, preferring to make the acquaintance of the publican rather than to lodge with the most
immaculate Pharisee.
But most of those who sought Him, or whom He sought,
especially if they belonged to the more intelligent classes,
were not thus affected by their interviews with Him.
Whether they came indifferent, out of bare curiosity, or
came with a favorable bias, it generally happened that in
the end they were repelled from Him.  Let us now look at
the kinds of men and the particular instances of men with
whom He fell into contact, and we shall find that they
could not go away from Him as they came. If they came
indifferent, they went away generally displeased or hostile;
if they came hostile, they were apt to go away more hostile; if they came favorably impressed, very often what He
said altered their temper, and they passed over to the
ranks of avowed enemies.
The Pharisees, as a class, rejected Him, and finally procured His death. Their hostile attitude is shown all along
through the narratives, and He, on His part, took no pains
to propitiate them, either by lowering the tone of His
claims, or by looking with a venial eye on their faults, or by
abating their fears of political evil from the regards of the
people toward Him. At the same time He gave such evi



Neutrality in regard to Christ Impossi6le.
dence of extraordinary power that they had to account for
His works of healing on principles which both proved and
increased their malignity. It is plain that they narrowly
watched Him; they sent spies to entangle Him in His talk,
and members of the great council, belonging to this party,
seem to have gone as far as Galilee to examine and report
on His life and conduct. "Whil e  He would doubtless have
gladly gained them  as converts on His own terms, it is
strange to see how superior He stood to their patronage,
and how He tried to plant truth in their minds, which
made them reject Him with animosity. It is striking, too,
to perceive how meanly He thought of this class of men.
In His eyes they were hypocrites, covetous, blind, of hurtful influence on the common people, and He took pains
to show by His own different views of the Sabbath and of
the law how unlike His doctrine was to theirs. He thus
offended the whole sect, saving, some few better souls who'
saw greatness in His lowliness, and wisdom in His words,
but who yet rather mourned for Him when He was crucified than confessed Him while He lived. Nicodemus, the
seeker with eyes half opened, Joseph of Arimathsea, the
wealthy friend who even dared to raise a. point of justice
on His behalf in the council, will show that in this sifting
and winnowing process of Christ's some few of those whowere most receptive of faith in Him did yet regard Him
with kindly eyes, although not courageous enough to be
enrolled among His disciples.
The Sadducees drew the notice of Christ to. themselves
less than the Pharisees, for they formed a sect which had
less control over the people. But even they could not remain indifferent to Him. Pleased as they might have
been with the rebukes which He poured out against their
rivals, they heard Him overthrow their own dogmas, they.
must have consented to His death, and they appear afterwards as the leaders of the party against the apostles.
But let us leave these classes of persons and look at




64      Neutrality in regard to Christ Impossible.
single persons whom Christ forced to take sides for or
against Him. Here the young ruler, who asked Him the
great question how he might inherit eternal life, shall
head our catalogue. Another mode of treatment, a few
polite words, making the yoke easy and the burden light
at the first, might have attached this person to the cause
of Christ. Why was such a burden laid on him  in the
very beginning, as few from  among the wealthy class
could have born at a maturer stage of discipleship? Does
it not seem harsh to repel him as Christ did? Why he
was put to this test we may understand better at another
time; at present I seek to show that our Lord did what
He knew would drive the rich young man away, unless he
were willing to bear all trials and go all lengths in the
good Master's service.  He put such conditions before
him, as, if refused, could hardly fail to make him  an
enemy at last. Thus He wanted positive friends or positive
foes. He purposely tested characters and dispositions at
their weakest point.
More fearful still was the trial to which Judas was
subject. I stop, not to inquire why the Master admitted
this unworthy man into his nearest intimacy, why He
did not drive him away in the early part of his ministry,
when such words as, " Have I not chosen you twelve, and
one of you is a devil," show how He looked into Judas'
heart. Instead of doing that He kept Him by His side; He
put the common purse into the hands of the man whom
covetousness might turn into a thief; He trusted him, as if
offering him a chance to act the traitor; in short He treated
Judas so that he could not help becoming a thoroughly
good man on Christ's side, or the basest of villains. Oh,
why, we may ask, as we contemplate him while he is becoming steeped in guilt under the very eye of Christ, —Oh,
why was he brought to choose between heaven and hell;
why exposed to temptation by the confidence and the
purity of Christ, when his first offers of service might have




Neutrality in regard to Christ Impossible.    65
been  rejected  and he have remained in comparative
ignorance and indifference? Whatever we say to that,
one thing is clear, that Judas could not help being a sure
friend, or a vile and hollow enemy of the Master.
And as we draw near the cross, we see the truth put
into still clearer light that Christ forced people to take
sides in respect to Him. First, Herod comes to view, the
very man who had killed John, and whom Christ for a
long time avoided. He had heard of Christ in his hall of
guilty pleasures; his remorse had suggested that John his
victim had risen from the dead, and was working miracles
under the name of Jesus; but he had had no personal
interview, no occasion to reject the claims of the remarkable man.  Now, however, at the very last, an
opportunity was given to him of showing his friendship or
his opposition. And how does he use it? First to gratify
a curiosity so strong that he is represented as exceedingly glad to see Him; then, when he found that no miracle
was to be expected, and no answer to inquisitive questions to be got from Jesus, the soul of the cruel, cowardly,
man turned into mockery; he sat Him at nought and
arrayed him  in a gorgeous robe. He fell in with the
vehement accusations of chief priests and scribes. Thus
to him also it was given to be with Christ or against Him,
and he chose in conformity with his character.
Still more remarkable was the position of positive
hostility into which Pilate was forced. This rapacious,
unprincipled Roman moved in a sphere so unlike that of
Christ, and was brought into contact with Jewish ideas at
so few points, that it would have been perfectly natural
for him to feel supreme indifference in the case. What
could he care about the squabbles of Jews whom he
despised and disliked? And, at least, no sympathy with
the reigning opinion of the Jewish Council could have
influenced him. But, he too, was forced to take sides for
or against Christ, and that after a personal interview, in




66     Neutrality in regard to Christ Impossible.
which the words and demeanor of our Lord made a
strong impression upon him. He tried, perhaps, in the
first moments of the examination, to be indifferent, but
could not. There are certain persons whom you cannot
keep your eyes off from, who attract and yet over-awe
you. Pilate seems to have seen something strange and
unique in the prisoner at his judgment-seat. He became,
ere long, convinced that Christ was innocent. His
knowledge  of men assured him of the fact. Nay, there
was something great and grand about the prisoner. Surely
he could be no ordinary man. Pilate was without prejudices-in the best condition to intervene between the prisoner and the party calling for his death. He wanted to
take His side. But the clamors of the great men of the
Jews made him afraid, and he wavered.
Next he tried to avoid taking sides, by throwing the responsibility on the enemies of Christ. But they told him
what he knew well, that the Romans had taken away the
right of life and death from the Jewish Council, so that
the decision rested with him alone. Then, as if a formality could clear him  from  guilt, he took water and
washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am
innocent of the blood of this just person; see ye to it.
All the effect of this was to make them more deliberate in
their guilt. They took sides indeed when they said His
blood be upon us and on our children. And he sided
against Christ, when, out of policy, he stifled his own sense
of justice and gave Him up. He did this when he felt
that Christ actually pitied him as being put in a place by
Divine Providence for which he was unequal, when the
sin of the chief priest, a greater sinner, dragged him along
into guilt beyond what could naturally have fallen on
him.
Next we have a most striking narrative of two men
alike in crime, one of whom justified Christ, and the other
mocked Him. The two malefactors, just before the dark



Neutrality in regard to Christ Impossible.    67
ness of death and on the very cross of their agony, as well
as on their way to the cross, observed and watched the
wonderful man. The one was struck with the conviction that tie was innocent, and true, and worthy to be
trusted; the other, jeeringly and without a particle of trust,
called on Him to save Hiimself and them, if He could.
Strange, fearful contrast between an open soul and a
closed soul at this dread hour, between the ingenuous penitent, who saw the light from Christ at the darkest moment, and the hardened one who wanted to be saved from
death, but wanted no Saviour.
There was but one other occasion after this, during the
life of the Lord, for taking sides.  The soldiers, cruel,
brutal, yet ignorant, had mocked Him, spit upon Him, took
the side that such men, who believe in sin but not in goodness, would naturally take, but there was a heathen officer
appointed to watch at the cross, whose mind the scene affected very differently. He may have known very little
of our Lord before, but when the earthquake strangely accompanied the last breath of Christ, his awe-struck soul,
no doubt prepared to admit the innocence of Christ before,
took His side while He hung there as a malefactor.
"Verily," said he, "this was a righteous man; truly this
was the Son of God."
The method which Christ took to bring His claims before
men, and to test them in manifold ways, is a subject full
of instruction and of argument for the reality of the claims
themselves. Some of this instruction I hope to be permitted, by Divine Providence, to lay before you at another
time. At present, I will not pursue that train of thought,
but confine myself to a remark which naturally follows
and completes what has been said: it is, that the Gospel
still carries on the same method of presenting Christ to
men, and of pressing His personal claims to their love and
obedience. All tbhings else almost have changed, in the
external aspect of religion, since Christ was on earth; estab



68     Neutrality in regard to Christ Impossible.
lished order has taken the place of a nascent church, form
has succeeded to the simple oral preaching of the first teachers, doctrine fixed by men has interpreted, and almost
stifled the unsystematic Gospel of the New Testament, but
in and above all change Christ appears, pressing Himself
upon our notice, demanding that we adhere to Him in personal devotion, and putting it to the proof, oftentimes, by
tests hard to be endured, whether we will forsake all and
follow Him, or whether we will forsake Him and follow
the Pharisees and the Priests, the Pilate and Herod
of the New Testament, the hardened thief and the Apostle
that betrayed Him.  He might, as I have said before, take
another way to win us. He might use fair words with us,
leave out of view the hardships, the oppositions we may
encounter, and tell us of nothing but flowers and smooth
roads and delightful prospects. But this way of treating.us He no more adopts than He condescended to smooth the
road into religion to the men of his day. Whatever there
is of severity in His exclusive claim to supremacy over our
hearts, He will not abate one jot of. We may think Him
severe, but He repeats the old message, He cleaves to the
old principle. He wants disciples, but He wants such only
as have counted the cost, and have determined to forsake
everything else but Him, such as are ready to love parents
and all nearest kinsmen with a love that may be called
hatred, so far does it fall below the height of love to Him.
He tries us perhaps at the very point where we are most
tender, most likely to estimate His service a hardship. To
one He says, " Let the dead bury the dead, but go thou and
preach the Gospel."  To another, "Sell all thou hast and
give it to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven,
and come follow me."  To another, " Whoso looketh on a
woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her in
his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and
cast it from thee."  To another, " Whosoever will save his
life shall lose it."  To another, " If ye forgive not men their
tresplisses, neither will your Father in heaven forgive




Neutrality in regard to Christ Impossible.    69
your trespasses."  And to another, "Except thou be converted and become as a little child, thou shalt not enter
into the kingdom of heaven." Thus He approaches the delaying, the worldly, the covetous, the lustful, the selfish,
the unforgiving, and the proud at the very point, where
sin is dearest and conscience has been most drugged: He
says to them, I ask you to give up that sin for My sake;
other things are to be done afterwards, but that sacrifice I
call for now. Oh how many poor, imbecile wills, how
many longing hearts would have been calmed for the time,
if He could have consented to take another course, if He
had been willing to touch with His probe, not the sorest
wound, but the one half healed, to take the out-works, and
not drive right at the citadel. And oh! how many resist
and fall away, and will have nothing to do with Christ,
just because He requires so much at first. Could not-our
hearts ask-could not our characters, by some other process, have gathered strength by yielding in little things to
yield finally in great? But such is not the way into the
kingdom of God, and so we turn away from Christ and
from His offers.
It is remarkable, too, how now-more in fact now than
for many ages-Christ -forces Himself upon the notice of
those who believe Him not. When they speculate about
religion, when they trace human culture back through history, Christ stands right in their way; doctrines of men,
claims of churches, moral codes they might pass by; but
they cannot pass Christ by; He confronts them with a revered, yet not welcome presence. They cannot be indifferent to Him; they must examine His pretensions; He
perplexes them like some problem hard to be solved. They
say to Him, "Thou who hast killed the old religions, Thou
who hast divided history in twain, and begun a new order
of ages, and hast struck Thy roots into all human interests,
who art Thou? Give us more proof of Thy rights over us
than Gospels, and their fruits in the world afford."  Like
Herod, they long to see some miracle done by Him. But




70     Neutrality in iregard to Christ Impossible.
lHe keeps a dead silence, only bidding them forsake their
sins. They raise this and that objection, they pare down
the Gospel, they lop off myths, but still there He stands to
be accounted for, and claims of them that they follow Him.
And so He puts them to a hard proof, calling on them  for
all those works and sentiments that make up a perfect life,
while yet. they will not draw strength from Him. for the
great conflict with eviL  They must be for Him or against
Him; for His side, whoever He be, is the side of all virtue.
They cannot be neutral, even when they deny that He has
any right over them, for whatever else He has done or not
done, He has set up a kingdom of love and well-doing in
the world; every one that loveth, and doeth well, must be
for Him, every one who loveth not, and doeth evil, is
against Himn




SERMON V.
THE SELF-PROPAGATING POWER OF SIN.
PROVERBS, v. 22. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself,
and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.
IT is very common in the Scriptures to bring divine providence and the results of sin into immediate and close
connection with each other, as if the pain attendant on sin
were a direct act of God.  But there are other passages
where sin is looked at, as bringing its own punishment
with it by a law of the world analogous to the physical
laws of nature. Each of these ways of stating the doctrine
of retribution has its advantages: the one makes a vivid
appeal to our feelings by setting God as a person of infinite holiness directly before us; the other represents the
punishment of sin to be such an essential part of the system of things, such an unalterable law of the moral universe, that nothing but divine grace, making exceptions to
law, and bringing in remedies unknown to law, can prevent its infliction.
In the text the results of sin are represented as taking
place in the natural order of things. The sinner thinks
that sin is over and gone when it is once committed. But
wisdom says no! It has consequences from which he cannot escape; it throws its cords around him, and takes hold
of him so that he cannot get away. If you put a divine
punisher of sin out of sight, sin does the work of the executioner on the sinner. " He shall die without instruction,
and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray."
Among these consequences of sin certain ones are often
insisted upon,-such as bodily evils, loss of temporal ad71




72        The Self-Propagating Power of Sin.
vantages, fear of the wrath of God,-which show the displeasure of the Creator on the natural side, as connecting
sin and pain together.  But there is a far more awful
view of sin, when we look at it on the moral side, as propagating itself, becoming more intense, tending to blacken
and corrupt the whole character, and to annihilate the
hopes and the powers of the soul. It is to this aspect of
sin that I invite your attention in the present discourse.
It is one which is very affecting and impressive in itself,
and it has to do, you will observe, not with the purpose ot
God, but with facts, as old as mankind and as lasting as
the soul; with facts which any heathen sage might notice,
and which Christianity does not create; with facts as awful
as any punishment of sin through the body and the sensitive powers of the human being. You may call these consequences of sin, as you like, retributive or not; you
may say or deny that sin punishes the sinner by making
him  more and more morally corrupt. I care not for the
terms used,-the fact, the dark fact, as a part of the system of things, remains unaltered.
Let us now turn our minds to some of the general classes
of facts or laws of character to which these consequences
of sin can be reduced.
I. The first of these laws of character which we notice,
is the direct power of sin to propagate itself in the individual soul. If each act of sin stood alone by itself, and
when committed brought nothing with it but its positive
punishment, then half its sting would be taken away. It
may be that in that case punishment would be strictly
remedial, for the innocent soul, enticed into evil and
speedily tasting the bitter fruits, would have ample power
to return into the ways of lite, for sin, by the supposition,
had made no impress on the character. The soul might
recover, as the body now recovers after a scratch or a
bruise.  But alas it is not so. Sin is the fruitfullest
of all parents; each new  sin is a new  ever flowing




The Self-Propagating Power of Sin.       73
source of corruption, and there is no limit to the issue of
death.
1. The first illustration of this power of sin which we
notice is that exceedingly familiar one of the law of habit,
or the tendency of a certain kind of sin to produce another
of the same kind. The law of habit, which applies alike to
all our physical, mental and moral actions, must be regarded in its design as a truly benevolent one; for what
greater blessing could the new-made immortal have, who
must at all events encounter temptation, than to be
strengthened by resistance, and thus to acquire such a degree of virtue, that temptation at length would no longer
be needed or be feared if it came nigh. But the law of
habit, when the soul yields to sin, works death to the sinner:-like the pillar of the cloud which made day to
Israel, and was darkness to the Egyptians, so this law,
which is bright to the well-doer, sheds night upon the path
of the sinner until he is plunged into the sea of death. It
reigns over every act, quality, and state of the soul, to
render the sinful act easier, to intensify the desire, to destroy the impression of danger, to increase the spirit of
neglect and delay. Take the internal affection of envy for
an example of the ease of sin.  The soul separated from
God becomes unhappy and discontented. In its discontent the sight of the enjoyments of others gives it pain by
making it aware continually of the void within, and this
is what we call envy. Now the tendency has become such
that every good whatever, pertaining to another, by this
revival of the feeling of unrest will give the soul pain;
and thus it places itself at war with all the joy in the universe, and this, although it bleeds under the stings of envy
at every pore. Why does it not cast off this tormentor in
some desperate struggle as if for eternal life? Alas! the
law of character is stronger than the soul; the soul must
envy if away from God, and must envy more and more,
and on less and less provocation, the farther it flees from
4




74        The Self-Propagating Power of Sin.
its true rest. It must in the end acquire the impression
that all the happiness or prosperity of others is inconsistent with its own.
Or, take an external habit-such as some sensual appetite, for an example. An appetite, we are told, answers to
some end for which man was made, and the pleasure attending it is a wise provision for fulfilling the end. Under
the law of reason and of God, therefore, any appetite
would be innocent and harmless; none of them would interfere with the claims of God or of man, of the soul or of
the body; none would be clamorous for instantaneous gratification, nor stir up an agitation in the soul, nor demand
to be gratified at the wrong time or in the wrong degree.
And as if to prevent the formation of evil habits, God has
made the pain and the shame and the loss from excess so
obvious in the world, that every new transgressor is forewarned by the shipwrecks of others if not by the voice of
conscience. When now these barriers are past, which are
placed in the way of sin by the law of God imprinted on
human nature, law parts company with the sinner, and
turns into his enemy-not indeed into his enemy in this
sense that it hands him over to hopeless punishment, but
in this, that it shows him, by what he is now bringing on
himself, what he will one day bring on himself, when all
his powers of resistance to temptation are weakened, and
his leaning to unlawful pleasure has grown strong. For
by yielding to sinful desire he changes the current of his
thought, so that a new object seizes on the trains of
thought and bends them from their old direction; he discovers new facilities for indulgence, and new ways of keeping it secret; he invents excuses for it, which rise in their
sophistry and their wide-reaching extent, until every pleasure, however base, could be justified on the same ground;
he increases the strength of desire until it becomes his main
purpose to live for its gratification;-yes, when it has become so -strong that its intensity has grown into an awful
hunger, and when nature has become so blunt that all




The Self-Propagating Power of Sin.      75
pleasure from it is killed out, desire rages still the more
fiercely, and the aim now is to put an end to an ever returning torment, rather than to supply new pleasure to a
sated soul. Oh! ye drunkards, who drink now to still a
gnawing on the vitals which you liken to the fires of hell,
and who yet are so holden by the cords of your sins that
you are incurable; oh! ye degraded libertines, who have
abused your natures in the indulgence of brutish lusts,
until intellect is wasted and the body is diseased all over;
oh! ye tenants of hospitals, who in catering to some vice
have not been able to stop, until the divine ray of a soul
is buried in hopeless idiocy, rise up in your dreadful
legions, and testify to these young souls who are forming
their habits, what the tendency is of indulged sins; bear
witness if your own iniquities have not taken you and you
are not holden by the cords of your sins-bear witness if
sin must not be a vast evil, when it leads to such an end.
2. But another illustration of the self-propagating
power of sin is found in the tendency of a sin of one kind
to produce sins of ANOTHER kind. We supposed a little
while since that each act of sin stood by itself, without
having any fruits or results within the soul. Suppose now
that each kind of sin stood alone, with no tendency to
bring on any other. If this were so, how much would
the poison of sin be qualified, how much of self-restorative
power would be still left to the sinner. For by the supposition he has not undermined character; all his moral
perceptions, his dispositions, his native tendencies to virtue
remain unimpaired; and it may be these will prove
stronger than the rebellious desire which has risen up to
destroy the peace and break the confederacy of harmonious
powers within the soul. And thus perhaps the disorders
caused by this one inordinate impulse, when every thing
is tamed down and brought back into place again, may be
a landmark in the soul's history in favor of lasting union
and peace. But alas! the supposition is a dream relating




76         The Self-Propagating Power of Sin.
to a possible kind of nature, and does not apply to the
character of man.  The confederacy of powers in him
admits of no separate action of any one wayward impulse,
but as soon as evil in one shape appears, it tends to corrupt all the parts of the soul, to disorganize, to reduce
other powers under its own control, to weaken those which
resist, until the most harmonious of structures becomes a
wreck, the fairest of temples lies on the ground, with its
walls parted and its pillars broken, a hopeless ruin. And
could it well be otherwise, if sin be a divorce of the soul
from God?  Ought not some awful confusion naturally to
ensue, when the soul, at war within, at war with the laws
of its nature, must be conceived of as being at war with
its God also?
The first point we notice here is, that one sort of sin puts
the body or soul, or both, into such a state, that another
sort becomes more easy and natural.  Thus there is an
afinity between bodily lusts, they are relations who introduce one another into the quarter they have occupiedand, again, any one of them tends to derange the soul by a
loss of inward peace.  In this way, drunkenness, for instance, may be the forerunner, not only of other base
indulgences, but even of envy, distant as their province
seems; for the loss of comfort, or of a good name, which
drunkenness brings with it, may make the prosperity of
another a source of anguish. By an opposite process, the
loss of inward quiet, which an internal sin, like envy or
inordinate worldly care occasions, may drive the man into
degrading pleasures in quest of something to satisfy or
stupefy the soul. Still further it will seem natural, if not
necessary, that one wrong affection should render another
easier, if not give birth to it, as anger may give rise to
detraction, revenge, and all the hateful brood that herd
with them, or pride, after blunting the edge of the sympathies, may open the door to the same malevolent traits
of character. And even an absorbing master passion, like




The Self-Propagating Power of Sin.       77
covetousness or ambition, when it has grown so great as to
domineer over the enslaved soul, although it may exclude
some other inconsistent passion, does not reign alone, but
has around and behind it a gloomy train of satellites,
which are little tyrants in turh. Covetousness-let it sway
the soul, and suspicion, fraud, falsehood, discontent, envy,
malice, will get as firm a foothold as the master demon
himself, and no power of his can afterwards drive them
from his company..The miser cannot be also a prodigal,
but he must have spirits of hate and death in his soul.
So ambition may exclude covetousness from the throne,
but it has another train of its own familiars, as greedy, if
not as base, as those of covetousness. When the spirit of
evil conquers a Iman, "it taketh to itself seven other
spirits, and they enter in and dwell there, and the last
state of that man is worse than the first."
But, again, a more striking example of the connection
between difverent kinds of sins is seen, when a man resorts
to a new kind of sin to save himself from the effects of the
first. The general explanation of this fact in character is
simple enough. According to God's merciful system in
this world-under which many are kept back from sins,
or at least from gross ones, after a warning of experiencesin is generally attended with evil consequences, which are
sufficiently annoying. Now, when a soul has gone far
enough on in its evil career to perceive what is coming,
two paths are open to it. One is to confess its fault to
God, and seek peace and union with Him; the other is to
devise some mode of concealing sin, or of supplying the
wants which its commission in the past has occasioned.
This last is the ordinary way, in which human nature endeavors to avoid the cords of its sins, when they begin to
hold it tight. And in this way the reign of sin is extended
over the character, and reaches on through all the lengths
of time.
Thus let a man by vicious practice have brought him



78        The Self-Propagating Power of Sin.
self into fear of want, he lies under a fearful temptation to
steal or rob or peculate or commit forgery, according to
his condition of life, his facility of gaining his end, and
his qualities of character. I need not say that the number of those comparatively innocent thieves, who " steal
to satisfy the soul when they are hungry," bears a small
ratio to those whom guilt drives onward into deeper guilt;
or that the plunderers and defrauders of more genteel
society are almost all of them led into their new crimes
in order to repair the ruin with which old ones had
threatened them.
But the painfullest view of our life suggested by these
considerations, is that by the process of sin just described
falsehood is introduced into the world and spread to an
infinite extent. Every sin needs a falsehood, some concealment or pretense or profession, to support it, and thus
the sinner knows that in the case of each new sin he can
resort to a new lie to save himself from  immediate evil.
Think what a deadly fountain is opened here, which, but
for previous sinning, would never have sent forth its poisonous waters over the world, and what an awful temptation comes upon the sinner's soul from the success and
ease of its past concealments and lies. Virtue needs no
cloak nor borrowed garb. There never would be an act of
insincerity, or even of dissimulation in a virtuous worldnot a tone or gesture or hint tending to deceive or misguide. All the boundless numbers of all the forms of
untruthfulness, whose very names show their frequency,
insincerities, prevarications, equivocations, falsehoods, lies,
concealments of truths, pretenses, hypocrisies, treacheries,
perjuries, and the rest,-all these are the supports, and
the resorts of sin, generated by sin, generating sin. And
thus, if the sin that gave birth to the falsehood tempts the
soul no longer, the falsehood still sets up its tent in the
soul. In the impressive language of the prophet, "that
which the palmer worm hath left, hath the locust eaten.




The Self-Propagating Power of Sin.        79
and that which the locust hath left hath the canker worm
eaten, and that which the canker worm hath left hath the
caterpillar eaten." It is as with a burning house: whom
the flame consumes not the smoke suffocates.
Nor can I forbear to mention in this place that another
dark shade is thrown over the malignity of sin, from the
fact, that it so often makes use of innocent motives to propagate its power over the soul.  The fear of danger or
evil is a good thing, for it quickens the mind in its efforts
to avoid danger, and lead us into the path of virtue which
is the path of safety. The love of esteem is a social principle most happily put into us that it may aid the virtue of
the one by the approbation of the many. But see how, the
moment that sin reigns within us, these innocent principles become sources of temptation and ministers of death
to the soul.  The fear of danger or of want, impels into
new crimes as an escape from the results of old ones. The
love of esteem  is the handmaid of all falsehood and
hypocrisy.  What a picture this gives of the baneful
power of sin-that it can undermine and corrupt the soul
by the help of the very affections which were made to be
the servants of virtue-that what can be used to build up
everything good, it uses only to destroy.
II. Another law of character by which the propagation
and strength of sin is secured, is the tendency of sin to
produce moral blindness.  Our Saviour has stated the
leading thought here in these words: "Every one that
doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light,
lest his deeds should be reproved."  Sin freely chosen
must needs stek for some justification or palliation; otherwise the moral sense is aroused, and the soul is filled with
pain and alarm.  Such justification cannot be found in
moral or religious truth, and of this the soul is more or
less distinctly aware.  Hence an instinctive dread of
truth, and a willingness to receive and embrace plausible,
unsound excuses for sin, which neutralize or destroy its




80         The Self-Propagating Power of Sin.
power.  And in the process, inasmuch as there is a moral
if not a logical affinity between all truths, and the same
between all falsehoods, when one untruth is embraced it
brings another in its train, and yet another, until a whole
system is constructed, on which the mind relies the more,
because it has the compactness and strength of a system.
Of course, the system of truth is driven out, and a hostility grows up in the soul towards it, because it is perceived
to be a destroyer of present comfort and peace.  "Lest
his deeds should be reproved."  They who know  how
annoying is the fault-finder, and how irritating sometimes
is even the reproof of a friend given in kindness, will estimate what the feeling would be towards truth when it
came into the soul while falsehood was building up its
castle, and sought to pull it down; what a bitter war
would ensue, a war which might reach beyond truth itself
to all that love it, to all that preach it, to the book which
professes to contain it, to the author of it Himself.  In
short the opposition is fitly expressed by that great physical contrast of light with darkness, which our Saviour
uses in His illustration.
Now the ways in which this overthrow of unperverted
moral judgments, this rejection of light tends to strengthen
the power of sin, are manifold. It decreases the restraining and remedial power of conscience; it kills the sense
of danger and even adds hopefulness to sin; it destroys
any influence which the beauty and glory of truth could
put forth; in short, it removes those checks from prudence, from the moral powers, and'from  the character of
God, which retard the career of sin.  If sin  reigned
before, how much more tyrannical its reign when falsehood is become its prime minister.
II. Closely connected with this blinding power of sin
is another law of character-that sin tends to benumb
and root out the sensibilities,-by which process again,
its power over the soul is anew increased.  " Who, being




The Sel-Propcagating Power of'Sin.         81
past feeling, have given themselves over to lasciviousness,
to work all uncleanness with greediness."   We may
perhaps reduce such a law, if it shall be found to exist,
under the general law of habit, for where. there is a longcontinued check on the exercise of a feeling, it loses its
power by habitual neglect, or suppression, just as it gains
power by exercise. Now that such a law does exist, we
may almost assume: it is acknowledged, and its workings
are seen on every hand. It is seen in the acquired cruelty
of men of blood.  "What difference do one hundred
thousand men dead or alive make to me?" said Napoleon,
when an Austrian statesman urged the loss of life which
his measures would involve.  It is seen in the horrible
want of pity of the miser; it is seen in that deadness to
conscience, produced by long sinning, to which we have
alluded above; in that sinking down below the sense of
character which the drunkard carries, as it were, on his
face; in the disregard of rights which the prodigal manifests; in the extinction of the family affections; in the
astonishing selfishness of the seducer; in the destruction
almost complete of the religious-sense of the blasphemer.
And this view of sin shows it in its true light as a
perverter of nature; an overturner of all those particular
traits, the union of which under love to God makes the
harmony and beauty of the soul: Sin tends to destroy
even those qualities which in a brute awaken our deep
interest, and to put into their place a lead-colored monotonous selfishness, which is not properly human nature,
but its wreck and overthrow.  Oh 1 when selfishness, from
being an instinct, becomes a law, a reign, a tyranny over
the soul, when this corruption has absorbed and assimilated to itself all the feelings and affections, must not the
power of sin be greatly augmented?
IV. Another of the self-perpetuating processes of sin
consists in its crippling the power of the will to undertake a reform.  The will itself, indeed, as a. faculty, can3*




82        The Self-Propagating Power of Sin.
not suffer extinction, any more than the soul. It must
continue through thousands of years of sinning, and may
show a fearful energy against the enemies of sin: it may
even consent to what looks like disinterested sacrifices,
out of mere hostility to goodness. But I refer to those
cases, very frequent in life, which show a will so long
overcome by the strength of sin and by ill-success in opposing it, that the purpose of reform is abandoned in despair. Here the infirmity of the will depends not on deficiency of intellect, nor on natural weakness of the
faculty, nor on constitutional want of hope, but on a
practical estimate of the chances of success derived from
experience. The man has fallen into a bad habit and
struggles like a captive to set himself free. He undertakes the task with a firm purpose, and a strong hope, but
there are two things he has not taken into account-the
temporary excitement and even recklessness which desire
can introduce into the soul, and the. fallacious pleas by
which it attempts to pacify conscience. At the moment
of temptation, therefore, he loses his strength and will to
resist, and is again caught and claimed by the kidnappers
of the soul. The power of habit, now known to him by
experience, increases the probabilities of being overcome
again, and he goes back to this work of resistance with
less hope than before. And so, repeated failures prostrate
him, he owns himself vanquished, foresees no better times
ahead, and yields as a slave to sin. Must not sin now
have a heavier dominion over him than at first-yea, if
he fall into some new kind of sin, will not this sense of
weakness go with him, and help on the conquests of the
new master?  Oh wretched man that he is, who shall
deliver him from the body of this death? Who but that
very Ransomer from whom sin keeps him far away?
The outcries of human nature under this bondage to
sin are tragic indeed; no scene of murdered helplessness
is more lamentable. Hear how Coleridge writes during




The Self-Propagating Power of Sin.      83
that part of his life when he was a slave of opium, from
which at length divine grace rescued him. The words
are from a letter to Mr. Cottle "Had I but a few hundred pounds, but two hundred, half to send to Mrs. Coleridge, and half to place myself in a private mad-house,
where I could procure nothing but what a physician
thought proper, and where a medical attendant could be
constantly with me for two or three months (in less than
that time life or death would be determined), then there
might be hope. Now there is none! 0 God! how willingly would I place myself under Dr. Pox, in his establishment; for my case is a species of madness, only that
it is a derangement, an utter impotence of the volition,
and not of the intellectual faculties. You bid me rouse
myself! go bid a paralytic in both arms to rub them
briskly together, and that will cure him.'Alas!' he
would reply,'that I cannot move my arms is my complaint, and my misery.' "
I knew a man once, now dead, a learned lawyer and a'
fine Greek scholar, but a drunkard. At his death his
journal was found, and there, from day to day, he recorded his lapses, his lamentations, his hopes, or his want of
hopes; and the dreary record went on until he died without reform.  It suggested to me the analogy of an officer
in a weak fortress writing down the successes of the enemy.
Now they are on the esplanade, now upon the glacis, now
they have taken a bastion, now the resisting soldiers are
slain, and now a half-completed sentence shows that he,
too, is dead.  Oh, when sin takes our will away and our
hope, what is left to resist its power?
V. Sin propagates itself by means of the tendency of
men to associate with persons of like character and to
avoid the company of persons of an opposite character.
The good and the bad, the farther their characters diverge,
have the less fellowship with one another, until their tastes
judgments, pleasures, and purposes, become diametrically




84        The Self-Propagating Power of Sin.
opposite. It is indeed a merciful provision that ten
thousand ties of kindred, neighborhood, business, mutual
dependence, bind men of all characters and lives to one
another. And by the constitution of this earthly being
of ours, good and evil being in the germ  and not having
attained their full growth, cannot take the attitude of full
opposition, because they cannot appear to each other as
they really are. There is, moreover, a constant possibility
of reform in a world of grace. But even here, in this
world of confused and imperfect characters, what a separation takes place between the opposite principles, between
the men of honor who shrink from the contact of the base,
and the men of dishonor who dread seeing themselves in
the light of noble deeds, and dread coming to a discovery of their own shame; between the women of purity,
and the forlorn ones who have cast character and hope
away; between the servant of God, and him who believes
in no God or keeps at a distance from His face. But this
separation, effected by sin, is far from keeping the sinner
alone. He needs company the more, the less he is able to
find resources, comfort, support within himself. Thus
there are, in fact, two societies in spite of the binding
forces among mankind, and if each of us, my friends,
could live long enough to carry out the tendencies in us to
their perfection, if this world consisted of old inhabitants
who had time to develop their qualities in full, then there
would be as wide a separation between men of opposite
lives as if they dwelt in different planets.
In the operation of this law of companionship, if I may
so call it, the evil have a power and an increasing power
over each other.  The worst maxims and the worst
opinions prevail, for they are a logical result of evil characters. Separated from the good, the evil have no check
on their mutual influence. The older corrupt the younger.
Can you doubt that every perversion of truth, every depraved habit, must have full sweep in such a society?




The Self-Propagating Power of Sin.        85
Can you question the power of sin to propagate, to intensify itself, where the social principle itself is in the service
of evil? 0, what a blessing it is that in this system of
grace such societies are of limited dimensions, are broken
up by various causes, and that remedial influences from
rejected grace shine sometimes with life-giving power into
these chambers of death. Blessed be God that the full
fruits of sin are not gathered in this world, for the tendencies, even when partially counteracted, and manifested but
in their beginnings, are beyond measure appalling.
In conclusion, now, I have to say that with the justice
or goodness of this system, I have at present nothing to
do. The Bible did not set it on foot, the Bible does not
fully explain it, but only looks at it as a dark fact. Nor
can I stop to discuss the question whether men who are
thus under the sway of moral death, are so wholly by
their own fault, or partly by their misfortune. Somehow
or other mankind, ready as they are to palliate sin, are
unanimous through all their races and generations and
forms of life, in feeling and owning a load of sinfulness.
But suppose mankind in this wholly wrong, I ask whether
it does any good, when you have the pestilence, to inquire
whom you took it from, or whether you were to blame in
catching it, rather than whether it can be cured? Nor
finally, will I refute the unfounded suggestion, that sin
may be a stage of being through which we all must pass
toward a higher. At least, sin does not cure itself or pave
the way toward truth and right. The question then still is,
is there any cure? There is no cure certainly in continuing to sin. Sin no more destroys its own sway over the
soul than Satan casts out Satan. If there be any cure it
must be found outside of the region which sin governs,
either from some law of character, if there be any, over
which sin has not gotten the mastery, or from some divine
strength which is to be sought with all possible earnestness.




86         The Self-Propaagating Power of Sin.
Tell me, then, my hearer, is sin or is it not a great evil,
one which no pains to oppose or to cure, are too great?
Do you say that you are not sensible of the greatness of
the evil, that the tendencies which have been told of are
seen in extreme cases only?  But if the tendencies are
inseparable from sin; if it sometimes fails to work out its
full task, because some influence outside of the man controls it in part; if you can see its devastations in all ages
and climes; if even the one vice of drunkenness has slain
more victims than pestilence and war, what then?  Is it
not fair to point out such inevitable tendencies, is it not
wise to dread them, is it not consistent with truth to use
them as the measure of the power of sin?
I call on you then to find out for yourself a cure. I
offer you one, Christ and His gracious Spirit. But if you
do not believe in it, or dislike it, choose for yourself some
other.  Be a Pharisee, or an ascetic, fight against sin,
crucify it in your own fashion. Get rid of it in some new
way of your own if you can, no matter how, provided
only you are freed effectually from this self-spreading and
self-continuing curse. Oh, my friends, the poor self-tormenting Hindoo Faquir may be wrong in his means, but
his end is a nobler one than you can ever reach, while you
neglect your character. Yes! all, in every land, Pagans
or Christians, clowns or philosophers, who, in whatever
way have fought against or wept over the grand evil, will
rise up in the judgment and condemn you because you
have thought so lightly of this dread malady of your soul.




SERMON VI.
SIN UNNATURAL.
JER. ii. 12, 13. Be astonished, 0 ye heavens at this and be horribly
afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the Lord. For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters,
and have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no
water.
THE heavens and all their host obey the law  of their
nature with unchanging regularity.  But man, another
of the works of God, commits two evils; he forsakes the
fountain of living waters, and hews out for himself broken
cisterns that can hold no water. In thus deserting the
waters of life he is untrue to his own nature. If the
heavens had a soul and could notice this unnatural conduct, so unlike to their conformity to the law of their
being, they would  be  astonished and horribly afraid.
The whole universe under physical law  would cry out
against man's strange disobedience to moral law, his
swerving from his nature, his disloyalty to the author of
his nature.
It is this aspect of man as a sinner and this quality of
his sin, for which I bespeak your attention at the present
time.  There is something unaccountable and unnatural
about sin, which, if we were not the victims of its power
every day, would startle us also and make us horribly
afraid.  If we merely heard of it as existing in some
other of God's worlds, we should  doubt whether the
report of it that reached our ears could be true.  We
should demand more than the usual amount of testimony,
as in the case of a miracle, before believing so unnatural
a story, and when it was proved, should not cease to
87




88                  Sin Unnatural.
wonder, and to ask what cause beyond our experience had
brought to pass a thing so marvellous.
This view of sin as being unnatural is quite unlike that
which men are apt to take. It is not strange, they think,
to cheat or lie or get drunk, but to lead a perfectly sober,
truthful, honest life is wonderful. To remain in a state
of sin is quite natural, but to become a true Christian by
a hearty reception of the Gospel is regarded as so unnatural, that many who profess to believe in Christianity
refuse their faith to the reality of conversion, and many
others describe it as the infusion of a new nature, as if
the very seeds and capabilities of goodness had been lost
out of the human soul.
This is explained in part by the fact that man, as
fallen, is in an abnormal or unnatural state, so that he
wonders, when he sees the normal condition of his nature.
The very description of this state as a fall implies that it
is unnatural, that it is a departure from  a type or character properly belonging to mankind, a sinking down
from a level where we had been placed, or a separation
from God with whom  we were for a time in harmony.
And yet we are so removed in character and in experience
from the higher, holier life which is our birth-right, that
such a life startles us as something not human. Men stare
at goodness, as if it had no right to be here on earth, or
suspect it as unreal. Even Christ, a practical life and not
an idea of the mind, Christ all instinct with living goodness, is a marvel in His perfection, so that some seek for
flaws in His character, and others cannot believe that
such goodness existed in the shape of man, and others
still refer his perfection to the God within Him; and yet
He was, as a perfect man, a sample of a regular unfolding
of our nature.  The regular irregularity of man is the
wonder.  There is none like it in the material world,
The asteroids, the deformities, and unwonted misgrowths
of animals, and even double flowers, are strange, but they




Sin Unnatural.                  89
are exceptions. So it is also with deranged reason. But
here the abnormal, is the order of things, the conformity
to nature is the exception almost unheard of.
Among the marvels or mysteries of sin, we name as the
firstThat it prevents men from pursuing what they own
to be the highest good.
There is an often quoted passage of the poet Ovid *
where a person in a conflict between reason and desire is
made to say, " Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor;"
and in a like strain we hear the apostle Paul, or rather
the man made aware of the bondage of sin saying through
him, " That which I do, I allow not: for what I would, that
do I not, but what I hate, that do I."  And so true to
human nature such words are, that no one ever thought
of them as being misrepresentations of the real state of
man.  No! man everywhere, by every kind of confession,
uttered or unuttered, makes known that he has an idea of
duty, right, good, within him to which he fails to conform,
that he does this by no constraint, but prefers the known,worse to the known better, that in so acting he sacrifices
what he verily believes to be his highest happiness even
in this world, casting another world out of account. And
everywhere we see examples of this sacrifice of a higher
good to a lower, of acknowledged greater happiness to
less, of the improvement of the mind to the enjoyments of
the body, of future hopes to present pleasure, of an object
of desire felt to be praiseworthy and exalted to one which
is base and low and sure to be followed by remorse. We
find this cleaving to the best of men and to the wisest: the
influences of the gospel may weaken but never remove this
tendency.  It belongs to mankind.
But if any thing can be inferred from our nature and
capacities, it is certain, that an estimate of the comparas Metam. vii., 20, 21.




90                 Sin Unnatural.
tive values of things desirable is implanted in our minds,
in order that we may choose the superior good and refuse
the inferior. When we fail to do this, we reproach ourselves with folly or with sin. When we look back upon
past choices and pathways in life, we feel remorse or selfapprobation, or at least, respect or despise ourselves, in
proportion as we have been true or false to our estimates
and convictions in our choices between objects of desire.
This is inevitable, whether we make the true good to consist in happiness, or in obedience to the law of duty, or in
being like God, or under whatever aspect we view that
which we believe to be the highest object of desire. Thus
there is a universal preference of a lower good to a higher
in the life of men, a universal power of comparing goods
with tolerable accuracy, and a universal condemnation
lying on the race for not being true to its estimates and
standards.
Is there not, now, something very strange in this fatal
proclivity toward the low, in this constant, wide-spread,
unalterable folly of choosing wrong within the moral
sphere of action? Suppose that we found the same obliquity of judgment and choice elsewhere-that, for instance, a scholar, aware what was the right meaning of a
passage according to the laws of thought and language,
deliberately chose a wrong meaning; or a merchant, acquainted with the laws of trade, undertook an adventure
with his eyes open, from which only ruin was to be expected; or a general, patriotic and discerning, adopted a
plan of battle which all his experience had condemned as
sure to end in his defeat; should we not regard such a
person, if we could conceive he had thus acted, as a kind
of moral prodigy, as fit to be put away in a museum of
morbid psychology among the deranged men who have
believed themselves to be two persons, or that their souls
had gone from their bodies? Do you say that this is a perverted use of freedom? But is there nothing strange in a




Sin Unnatural.                  91
perversion, which sacrifices a known good?  Or do you
say that it is a fatal, hopeless want of freedom? But is
there nothing strange in such fatality, if a creature of God
is made to choose what he condemns; and if there were no
God, would it not be equally strange that man, the offspring of chance, should regularly condemn what he
chooses? Or will you say that by some internal excitement
of desire the present inferior good or even the present evil
puts on fair colors, takes a false dress, and with a half
conscious connivance of the soul deceives it into sin?
Very well, but why cannot the superior good which is in
itself all beauty and in its fruits all enjoyment,-why
cannot this take its proper place before the mind, and act
with its proper strength? Is there nothing strange in this
-that falsehood should have such power of fascination,
such constant power, and truth show itself so feeble, at
the very time when we discern them  both, and own the
force of obligation? Must we not, when we reflect what
man was made for, what the law of his nature is, what
his harmonies and his true life are, wonder that he should
make such choices in the sunlight of truth, with great
risks and threatened evils attending a wrong choice, with
conscience not yet seared, with  his soul craving the
better portion, and often, very often, witnessing against him
that he is preferring death to life? Here then is a marvel
of our nature: sin is something unnatural and monstrous;
its sway is not according to the true law of the soul's constitution but against it.
II. Another marvel, connected with the sway of sin is,
that it is not dependent on a weak capacity, but that the
very highest intellects are often employed in its service.
It is indeed true, that sagacity and folly will differ in
their ways of sinning and of escaping detection. An absurd, or ill-contrived crime, will be committed by a boy or
a half-witted person, and not by a man of shrewdness.
Whence it may happen, that the criminals in a peniten



92                 Sin Urnnaturai.
tiary may be, in the average, below the ordinary range of
intellect. In other words, the vigor of mind will show
itself, either by abstaining from certain crimes, or bycommitting them in such a way that they will not be brought
to light.  But we do not find that the highest abilities
keep men from  sinning, from  a life of pleasure, from
deadly selfishness, from  feelings which carry with them
their own sting. Great minds lie like wrecks all along the
course of life; either they disbelieve against evidence, or
give themselves up to monstrous pleasures, or destroy the
welfare of society by their self-will, or gnaw upon themselves with a deadly hatred of others. If they are sometimes philosophers, or great inventors, or philanthropists,
they are at other times in the front ranks of wickedness.
There have been great infidels, as well as great Christiahs.
There have been great conquerors, scourges of men, as well
as great philanthropists. And, on the other hand, persons
of feeble capacity are oftentimes good; better than manyif not than any —of the great men of their times. Nay, so
often have intellect and morals been out of harmony, that
many persons think knavery a prima facie evidence of
talent,-confessing thus, that in their opinion, men are
likely to employ their powers of mind in a wrong and
foolish way.
Now is there not something very strange in this? We
do not wonder when we hear that an idiot, or half-idiot,
has committed a crime; and a court will not punish him,
because he has not mind enough to balance his native
strength of passion. He will be shut up as a dangerous
person, but not punished as a criminal. Ought it not to
be strange, on the other hand, that intellect is used by so
many, not to check desires, which end in crime, but to enlarge the plans of sinning, and to purchase impunity?
And if a moderate intellect will fit a man for the business
of this world, ought we not to expect, if there is not something abnormal in our condition, that the CGesars and Na



Sin Unnatural.                 93
poleons, that the great statesmen, and poets, and artists,
should be pre-eminently the men of God; men for whose
minds this world was too small, who shook off its fetters
and soared away towards the Great Mind that filleth the
universe? But who among them turns his thoughts thus
upward, and forms his plans on a scale as grand as his
own mind? It does not surprise us to see the very ablest
men slaves of drunkenness or impurity, or to see them filled
with intense hate; their intellects, so far from looking
ahead and warning them against dangers, are ministering
to their lusts, and putting fuel on the flame, like the engineers in a steamer, when it is running on the rocks.
And, therefore, moralists have made tirades against the
weakness of the human intellect, because great men have
rushed into all follies to their own ruin. Whereas the iutellect is not at fault-it can scale the heavens, and travel
through eternity, it can search all depths of science, and is
equal to all things with which our nature has to do;why should it then not mitigate, why should it carry forward the great malady of sin?
III. Another marvel of sin is that its existence involves
the contradiction of the freedom and the slavery of the
will. This is but another aspect of the truth which we
have already considered-that the soul steadily chooses in
some strange way an inferior good before a superior; but
it is too important a view of our nature not to be noticed
by itself. Mankind in choosing the evil, have been an
enigma to themselves, and to the philosophers who have
studied human nature. On the one hand, duty implies
power to do what is required, freedom to yield to a given
motive or reject it; on the other hand, the experience of
the soul points to a bondage under sin, in which the freedom natural and essential to it is obstructed, and the man
is as much a slave, as if he never gave his assent. So
helpless man appears, so fruitless are his unaided efforts
to escape from evil habit, and above all to yield himself




94                 Sin Unnatural.
to God his rightful ruler, that the unexercised freedom
seems unreal to many, and they deny its existence. Some
hold that the will is swayed by laws as sure and almost as
mechanical as those of the outer world. Others quiet
their consciences by the plea that they are not responsible.
But after all, the faith in human freedom  comes back
and falls into conflict with the certain awful fact of the
bondage of our nature under sin.  We see our nature exercise its freedom in various ways-choosing now a higher
good in preference to a lower, and now a lower before a
higher,-doing this over and over within the sphere of
earthly things, yet when it looks the supreme good full in
the face unable to choose Him, unable to love Him, until,
in some great crisis which we call conversion, and which
is as marvellous as sin is, we find the soul acting with
recovered power, acting out itself, and soaring in love to
the fountain and life of its being. Oh, who can deny this
to be marvellous, that all good things, save the truest
good, are accepted or rejected ad libitum, while that which
alone deserves to be called good, is avoided and disliked
constantly.  Ye philosophers, tell us if there be any
marvel in nature like this. It is as if a balance should
tell every small weight with minutest accuracy, and when
a large weight was put on, should refuse to move at all.
It is as if the planets should feel each other's attraction
but be insensible to the force of the central sun. Is not
sin then as unaccountable as it is deep-seated and spreading in our nature?
IV. But, fourthly, the same mystery of sin appears, when
we consider that it has a power of resisting all known
motives to a better life. This, again, is only another form
of the remark, that we are kept by sin from pursuing our
highest good; but under this last head we view man as
opposing God's plan for his salvation, while the other is
more general. Here we see how causeless and unreasonable are the movements of sin, even when its bitterness




Sin Unnatural.                  95
has been experienced, and the way of recovery been made
known. If there had been no higher life disclosed to us
in the Gospel, it would not seem so very strange that the
calls of earthly prudence should be disregarded, that between motives not vastly different in power, a weaker
should prevail over a stronger, that earthly interests
should be sacrificed to earthly pleasure; for earth is but
a point, and if we lose in the continuance of our enjoyment, when we are deaf to the voice of prudence and
listen to pleasure, we yet gain in the intensity of it, we
crowd more into a moment.  But the marvel is, that the
Gospel, with  its mighty motives, appeals in vain to
thousands who profess to have no doubt that it is from
God. There is surely no such crowd of motives and
reasons attendant on any other question as on that of the
reception of Christianity.. It is a question between life
and death, in which our highest interests are concerned,
which appeals to our hopes and fears, our consciences,
our aspirations after a better life, our gratitude and love.
It founds its appeals on the most remarkable facts in the
universe, on the love of God to sinners, on the incarnation
and death of Christ.  We have the offer of pardon,
peace, help to raise us up to God, deliverance from fear,
support in death, and a blessed immortality. The way in
which the Gospel comes to us is the most inviting possible
-through a person who lived a life like ours on earth,
and came into tender sympathy with us; through a concrete exhibition of everything true and good, not through
doctrine and abstract statement. It has been the religion
of our fathers, and of the holy in all time. It is venerable
in our eyes.  It is God's voice to us. Where else can so
many motives, such power of persuasion be found; and
yet where else, in what other sphere where motives
operate, is there so little success?  Even Christians who
have given themselves to the Gospel, confess that all these
weighty considerations often fail to move them; that they




96                   Sin Unnatural.
stand still or turn backwards a great part of their lives,
rather than make progress.  So marvellous is the power
of sin to deaden the force of motives to virtue, even in
the minds of the best persons the world contains.
Nor will the force of these considerations be escaped by
saying that the motives fail to act because the Gospel
which presents them is not believed. If by belief is meant
faith in its divine origin, thousands have that faith, and
would highly resent the charge of being without it, who
are as little governed by the motives to which it appeals,
as the professed infidel.  Or if by belief is meant such an
impression of the reality of the Gospel as makes its facts
and truths motives of action, that is the very marvel of
which we speak, that this dread assemblage of truths can
be accepted as real, without exerting a motive power upon
the soul, without awaking it from  its dreams of worldliness.
And, again, if one should say that the marvel is lessened by the consideration that man is a creature of sense,
over whom  spiritual, intangible realities can have no
power, or that he must be educated up by a long process
to a capacity for spiritual life, I reply, that as far as we
admit this we see another of the marvels of sin. Here is
a creature, formed in God's image, yet sunk so low that
his brutish nature has almost forgotten its relationship to
its author; the noblest, most essential powers of his soul
lie so latent that they seem to be extinct. Is there not
something very strange in this degradation, this locking
up of the spirit, this unnatural fall?  But man is not a
creature of sense with the spiritual powers wholly unexercised. All religions with their appeals to invisible gods,
all ascetic and mystical efforts to become virtuous, the
love of fame creating a world for the author or warrior
after his death, all affection for the departed, all systems
of philosophy, all standards of duty above that of the
Epicurean, show another capacity in man, that, namely,




Sin Unnatural.                  97
to which the Gospel speaks, when it invites the soul to a
fellowship with God and an inheritance in eternal life.
That this capacity is so inactive and feeble under the Gospel, that is the wonder. Our nature can not explain this;
it can be referred only to the unnatural state of man as a
sinner.
V. Another of the marvels of sin is, that it can blind
the mind to truth and evidence. Of this we see numberless examples in daily life. We see men who have been
accustomed to judge of evidence within the- same sphere
in which religion moves, that of moral and historical
proof, rejecting the Gospel, and afterwards acknowledging
that they were wilfully prejudiced, that their objections
ought to have had no weight with a candid mind. We
see prejudice  against the Gospel lurking under some
plausible but false plea, which the man has never taken
the pains to examine, although immense personal interests
are involved.  We see men rejecting the Gospel unthinkingly, repeating some stale argument scarcely worth refutation, as if a great matter like the welfare of the soul
might be trifled with, and made light of. We see men in
a state of skepticism half their lives, resting on nothing,
and willing so to live, rather than to make up their minds
on the truth or the falsehood of Christianity. We see
men claiming that they have sifted evidence with all candor, yet starting with an assumption to the prejudice of
the Gospel which is obviously false.
It is strange too, how quick the change is, when for
some reason the moral or religious sensibilities are awakened after long slumber, how quick, I say, the change is
from skepticism, or denial of the Gospel, or even hostility,
to a state of belief. Multitudes of intelligent men have
passed through such a conversion, and have felt ever
afterwards that truth and evidence were sufficient, but
that their souls were in a dishonest state. Now how is
this?  Is this a new prejudice which has seized upon
5




98                  Sin Unnatural.
them, at their conversion, and has their candid skepticism
given way to dishonest faith; or did sin,-that which in a
thousand ways, through hope and fear, through indolence,
through malignity, through love of pleasure, blinds and
stupefies, did sin destroy their power of being candid before?
The power of sin to prevent the force of truth seems
marvellous, especially when we consider the greatness of
the risk run in rejecting the truth. It is possible that
belief and the favor of God may go together.  It is quite
possible that character and happiness forever may depend
upon receiving the truth and the motives which it carries
in its train; thus personal interests, welfare, the possibility of virtue, God's enduring smile, all may depend
upon belief in the Gospel. It certainly claims so much
importance for its truth. Is now the state of that mind,
which is thoughtless of its own interests for eternity,
while it is alive to the smallest interests of time, a state
of the highest'candor and impartiality, or is it a state of
prejudice or of lethargy so deep that nothing, not even
the hazards of a future life, can shake it off? And is not
this a strange, unnatural state, when a soul that is made
to watch over its own welfare a great way on; a soul that
can plan for ages after death; a soul whose very selfishness ought to make it more intensely anxious to know
what is the way of life; that such a soul can treat truth
like a play-thing; that a man of intellect can grow old
without sifting the evidence of the Gospel; that many
shrewd men can die with their hostility to it unquenched,
as if it were the great foe of their peace?
VI. I only add, that the inconsistency of sin is marvellous in this respect; that we allow  and excuse in ourselves what we condemn in others.  Men seem  sometimes
to have no moral sense, so open are their violations of
morality, and so false their justifications of their conduct.
And yet, when they come to pass censure upon others,




Sin Unnatural.                 99
they show such a quickness to discern little faults, such
an acquaintance with the rule of duty, such an unwillingness to make allowances, that you would think a new
faculty had been imparted to their minds.  These severe
critics of others are all the while laying up decisions and
precedents against themselves, yet when their cases come
on, the judges reverse their own judgments. They condemn men unsparingly for sins to which they are not
tempted, although the radical principle in their own and
in other's sins is confessedly the same. They blame and
hate others for heart sins, such as envy, when they feel
no compunction for this, the commonest of sins, in their
own hearts. They complain of detraction and evil speaking, when they are injuring the good name and aspersing
the character of others continually. Perhaps, after they
have fallen into a sin which they had condemned in others
before, they become, in that particular, somewhat milder
censors. There is, however, in other cases, a very constant
condemnation and justification, by turns, of-the very same
sins. Marvellous inconsistency! Strange that the same
mind balances between two standards of conduct so long.
Why does not the man, whose own rules condemn himself,
begin to sentence himself, or to excuse and pardon others?
Is not this an unnatural state of mind; impossible, save
on the supposition that it is effected by some strange perversion of its judgments?
Such are some of the points of view from which sin
looks unnatural, a breach of the order of things, a monstrous innovation introduced into the world.  But we
have not exhausted the subject. If we take a view, for
an instant, of some of the affections and sentiments, the
same thing may be made apparent. We have the feeling
of reverence within us to lead us to worship, and yet
while all false and foul divinities are worshiped, man
flees from the face of the infinitely holy and beautiful
God. We are endowed with sympathy, that we may




100                Sin Unnatural.
rejoice in the joy, and grieve at the pain of others; yet,
what seems more natural, or is more common in the world
than envy which grieves at the joy, and even malice, which
rejoices at the pain of men? It may be shown, that every
sentiment under the control of principle and right reason,
which are the natural condition of man, would harmonize
with every other. But the social principles are all taken
hold of by sin, and so disharmony seems to be written on
our souls, and on society. Shame leads us to do things
that are in reality shameful, and a sense of honor, things
that are dishonorable.  Selfishness reigning supreme,
brings the individuals of society into hostility, and one
society into hostility to another. Fear, covetousness, love
of superiority, suspicion, and their kindred, make a state
of disorder in the world seem so natural, that war, according to some thinkers, is the normal condition of man.
We have thus looked at some of the phenomena which
take place among men under the sway of sin, phenomena
common enough-alas! far too common-but not natural
nor regular actings of our souls. And this strangeness
has always been felt to exist.'Some have talked of two
souls with different characteristics. Some, of opposite
spiritual powers, leading a soul different ways. Some
have done violence to their primary convictions, by denying the existence of sin, as if man became lets of an
enigma on that supposition; but sin remains, and the
strange perversion remains, which it brings into the system of motives and into the intellectual state! Perversion! Do not words like this, and like wrong, that is
something wrung or twisted, and many others, indicate the
judgment which has been passed on sin by the makers
of language, that is by human minds, as something opposed to the right, the good, and the true?
And if sin is thus unnatural, thus strange in its workings, true faith in Christ, true godliness, union with God,
on the other hand, is natural, is regular, is in harmony




Sin  Unnatural.                     101
with truth and reason. We become the followers of Christ,
and in proportion as we are so, we pursue the highest
good; every good  thing  takes its place in our regard
according to its importance; our wills no longer remain
under bondage to sin, while conscious of freedom; every
motive has its due sway over us; every truth is sure of
admission to our hearts; we have the same standard for
ourselves and for others, only throwing something into
the scale in their favor as a make-weight to our own
selfishness.  We are brought, in short, into harmony with
God, and  thus put forth  our natural powers in their
natural direction.  Then, as we look back on the old
pathway of sin, it seems a delusion, a bondage, a marvel;
we are astonished at it, and conversion seems the only
reasonable, the only natural thing.  And when we look
at a world under the control of sin, strange, inexplicable,
sad, as its mysterious introduction among us seems, its
fearful, unreasonable, all perverting power is the strange
thing which ought to affect us most.  Redemption, too, is
strange. It is marvellous. But if sin has been discovered
by us to be so perverse and marvellous a thing, we shall
not estimate the outlay of divine power in redemption as
too great.  Christ and His cross are in proportion to sin;
and when we come to think of it, we  shall sometimes
feel as if the incarnation of the Son of God was not more
wonderful than that free, responsible men, to whom  their
own interests are so valuable, should act without regard
for every thing true and good; that above all, they should
reject this very redemption which Christ has provided for
them.*
* Compare Augustin de Civit. Dei xi. Cap. 17.
"Sine dubio, ubi esset vitium malitie, natura non vitiata praecessit,
vitium autem ita contra naturam est, ut non possit nisi nocere nature.
Non itaque esset vitium recedere a Deo, nisi naturm, eujus id vitium
est, potius competeret esse uem Deo. Quapropter etiam voluntas mala
grande testimonium est nature bonse."
And again, Lib. xii. Cap. 3:
"Naturte ille, quie ex mala voluntatis vitio vitiate sunt, in quantuml
vitiosae sunt, male sunt; in quantum autem naturae sunt, bonms sunt."




SERMON VII.
SIN NOT SELF-REFORMATORY.
IsAIAH i. 5. Why should ye be stricken any more? Ye will revolt
more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
I HAVE lately called your attention to two aspects of
sin, to its dreadful power of propagating itself, and to its
being a violence against nature. I invite your attention
to-day, to a third aspect, that there is no tendency in sin
to cure itself, or that sin has in itself and its consequences
no self-reforming power.
It might seem, if sin can be called uninatural and monstrous, that nature could shake it off, and return to her
own law. It might seem  also, that the results of sin
would cure the sinner of his evil tendencies, and send him
back on the path of wisdom. Do we not learn continually by our mistakes?  Are not men made better by the
faults they have committed and the evils they have suffered?  What is more common than that the beginning
of a religious life proceeds from some out-breaking sin,
which shows to a man for the first time his true weakness
of character, and leads him in humble shame to the grace
of the Gospel?
We grant that a man in a state of sin may be led to
abandon some sin, or some excess of sin, from  considerations of prudence. We grant also that affliction softens
many characters which it fails to lead to sincere repentance, by lowering their pride, nr by sobering their views
of life. We have no doubt that the seeds of a better life
are sown amid the storms and floods of calamity. And
for the Christian it is certain that sorrow is a principal
means of growth in holiness. Nay, it may even happen
102




Sin not Self-Reformatory.            103
that a sin committed by a Christian may in the end make
him a better man, as Peter, after his denial of Christ and
the knowledge he thus gained of his feebleness, grew in
real strength as much as he declined in self-confidence,
and was able the better to strengthen his brethren.
Wte admit, also, and rejoice to admit, that a life of sin,
being a life of unrest and disappointment, cannot fail of
being felt to be such, so that a sense of inward want, a
longing for redemption, enters into the feelings of many
hearts that are not willing to confess it.  Many persons
who have not reached the true peace of the Gospel, sigh
for it; many feel the weakness of the disease, without
applying to the physician; many reform  their lives in
Pharisaical strictness, without coming to Christ: and many
come to Christ, being led to Him by this inward unrest,
this inward void which a life of sin has produced.
But all this does not oppose the view which we take
of sin, that it contains within itself no radical cure, no real
reformation.  Man is not led by sin into holiness.  The
means of recovery lie outside of the region of sin, beyond
the reach of experienrce,-they lie in the free grace of
God, which sin very often opposes and rejects, when it
comes with its healing medicines and its assurances of
deliverance.  The most which prudence can do, acting in
view of the experienced consequences of sin, is to plaster
over the exterior, to avoid dangerous habits, to choose
deep-seated sins in lieu of such as lie on the surface.
Exchanging thus Pharisaical pride for vice, respectable
sin for vulgar sin, sin that does not injure for sin that injures body and.good name, it seems to the unthinking to
have worked a marvellous cure.  But there is no true
reformation, no giving of a new form  to the soul, in the
case. The physician has changed the seat of the malady,
he has not driven it out of the constitution.
Now that sin works out no cure of itself; that sin by no




104            Sin not Self-Reformatory.
process, direct or indirect, can purify the character, will
appear
First, from the self-propagating nature of sin, to which
your attention was called some time since.  If sin has the
nature to spread and strengthen its power, if by repetition
habits are formed which are hard to be broken, if habits of
indulgence in one kind of sin pave the way for other kinds,
if the blindness of mind which supervenes adds to the
ease of sinning, and takes away from the force of reformatory motives, if discouragement and the feeling that all
moral strength is gone render return upon one's step
more difficult, if sin spreading from one person to another
increases the evil of society, and therefore reduces the
power of each one of its members to rise above the general
corruption, do not all these considerations show that sin
provides no cure for itself, that there is, without divine
intervention, no remedy for it at all?  If sin at once
extends its sway in the soul, and weakens the power of
existing motives, whence can a cure come, unless from
new motives and from influences of a divine origin?  Can
any one show that there is any maximum of strength in
sin, so that after some length of continuance, after the
round of experiences is run over, after wisdom is gained,
its force abates, and the soul enters on a work of selfrestoration?  Alas! this does not verify itself in the life
of men. Is it the nature of virtue after long persistence
to chop round like the wind, and give place to vice?  Can
vice be shown from  what we see of character to have a
contrary quality?
II. The same thing will. appear from the fact, that the
mass of the persons who are truly recovered from  sin,
ascribe their cure to some external cause,-nay, I should
say to some extraordinary cause, which sin had nothing to
do with bringing into existence. Ask any one who seems
to you to have a sincere principle of godliness, what it
was that wrought the change in his case, by which he for



Sin not Self-Reformatory.            105
sook his old sins. Will he tell you that it was sin leading
him round, by the experience -of its baneful effects, to a
life of holiness?  Will he even refer it to sense of obligation awakened by the law of God'? Or will he not rather
ascribe it to the perception of God's love in pardoning
sinners through His Son? Nor will he stop there; he will
go beyond the outward motive of truth to the inward operation of a Divine Spirit.  Somehow  religious persons
agree in attributing the change of their life to a cause as
remote as possible from  sin. Sin, by no means, wrought
the transformation.  Law did not.  Even the unaided
truth of the Gospel did not. But if sin could cure, if it
did cure itself, we should find another conviction in the
minds of those who were under its treatment; we should
not see this unanimity. You cannot make those who have
spent the most thought, and had the deepest experience
of the quality of sin, admit, that spiritual death of itself
works a spiritual resurrection.
Moreover, were it so, you could not admit the necessity
of the Gospel. What is the use of medicine, if the disease,
after running its course, strengthens the constitution, so as
to secure it against maladies in the future?  Can truth,
with all its motives, do as much?  If, then, the experience of sin, by some wonderful law of nature, is fraught
with such a benign efficacy, the Gospel is officious in its
offers of help; it were better that the human race be left
alone, until it find itself, through its sins, advanced to
a position of superior virtue.
To this it may be added, that the prescriptions of the
Gospel themselves often fail to cure the soul: not half of
those who are brought up under the Gospel, are truly
Christians. This again shows how hard the cure of sin is.
For the motives drawn from  the Gospel do not operate
against nature, but with it, and if nature has of itself a
restorative power, they ought only to accelerate the process.  Why should nature reject them?  Wahy should
5*




106             Sin not Self-Reformatory.
they fail in any case? Is it not a proof of the severity of
the disease of sin, that they often have no good effect
whatever?
III. We do not find that inordinate desire is rendered
moderate by the experience that it fails to satisfy the soul.
A most important class of sins are those of excited desire,
or, as the Scriptures call them, of lust. The extravagance
of our desires-the fact that they grow into undue strength,
and reach after wrong objects, is owing to- our state of sin
itself, to the want of a regulative principle of godliness.
When the spirit of love and obedience is absent, something
must take its place, or there will be a vacuum in the soul,
which is abhorrent to our nature. Our individual natures
determine what this master-passion shall- be. Is it the
love of money?  This love, indulged, grows in strength,
and grasps at more than it ever possesses. But, inasmuch
as no such gratification can fill the soul, inasmuch as man
was made to be nourished by angels' food, and not by the
husks which the swine do eat, there must come a time of
dissatisfaction, a feeling of emptiness, an apprehension of
coming want. How is it now with the soul which has
thus pampered its earthly desires, and starved its heavenly?
Does it cure itself of its misplaced affections? If it could,
all the warnings and contemplations of the moral philosophers might be thrown to the winds, and we should only
need to preach intemperance in order to secure temperance; to feed the fire of excess, that it might the more
speedily burn out; to place temptations in the way of the
youth, that he might become a roe' at his prime, and so
have an old age of moderation before him?  But who
would risk such an experiment?  Does the aged miser
relax his hold on his money-bags, and settle down on the
lees of benevolence?  Does the worn-out voluptuary, even
when his senses are blunted, shake off his vices and become
a new man? Is this the natural process? Is it so common
as to be looked on without wonder?  Or, rather, when the
grace of God-a cause fiom without and extraordinary —




Sin not Self-Reformatory.           107
penetrates into the heart of such a man, do not men look
on his change with suspicion, as a kind of compulsory
divorce from his vices; or, if he is admitted to be a sincere
penitent, is it not regarded as among the marvellous results of Divine grace?
No! my friends, think not that nature or some law of
the mind breaks the chains of desire so easily, when a life
or long years of a life have hardened the  bondage.
Christ knew of no such thing when -He said "How hardly
shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of
God."  Calculate not too confidently on the moral powers
of a mind which has spent all its strength on sinful
desires. It is not so very easy a thing for a supremely
selfish man to renounce himself, even with the offers of
the Gospel before his eyes. The soul must take a leap
almost in the dark; must in its own apprehension run
the risk of being stripped of every thing without gaining
anything.  "Give up my supreme good?  Why not ask
me to annihilate myself?  How do I know; who have
never had it in mybosom, that this new affection, this
love of God to which you call me, is not as much smoke
as that old desire which has reigned in my members?"
Such are some of the suspicions with which a jaded, sated
soul will look on the invitations of the Gospel, even while
it owns its want of inward peace.  Without the gospel
what promise of good is sufficient to stem or alter the
desires of such a soul?
IV. The pain or loss, endured as a fruit of sin, is not,
of itself, reformatory.  I have already said that under
the Gospel such wages of sin are often made use of by
the divine Spirit to sober, subdue, and renovate the character. Many have been enabled to say that before they
were afflicted they went astray, but that now they keep
God's word.  And this benefit from  afflictions is by no
means confined to those trials which are properly the
direct consequences of sin, but belongs to all the sufferings




108           Sin not Sel'-lRejformatory.
of this earthly state, whatever be their source. But even
under the Gospel, how many, instead of being reformed by
the punishment of their sins, are hardened, embittered,
filled with complaints against divine justice and human
law. The tenants of prisons, under the old system of
stern infliction, were rather corrupted than made better by
confinement, by every display of the justice and indignation of society. The Jewish system was one where justice
preponderated, yet although grace was not there excluded, we find continual complaints on the part of the
prophets that the people remained hardened through all
the discipline of God, although it was fatherly chastisement, which held out hope of restoration to the divine
favor. "Why should you be stricken any more? ye will
revolt more and more," says Isaiah in the words of our
text. But a passage from the prophet Amos may stand
instead of all others. "I have given you cleanness of
teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your
places, yet ye have not turned unto Me, saith the Lord.
And also I have withholden the, rain from you when
there were yet three months to the harvest-yet have ye
not returned unto Me, saith the Lord. I have smitten
you with blasting and mildew; when your gardens and
your vineyards and your olive trees increased, the palmer
worm devoured them; yet have ye not returned unto Me,
saith the Lord. I have sent among you the pestilence
after the manner of Egypt-yet have ye not returned
unto Me, saith the Lord. I have overthrown some of
you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye
were as 4 fire-brand plucked out of the burning; yet have
ye not returned unto Me, saith the Lord. Therefore thus
will I do to thee, 0 Israel; and because I will do this
unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, 0 Israel."
Such was a large experience of the efficacy of punishment under the Jewish economy. Turn now to a state of
things where the divine clemency is wholly unknown or




Sin not Self-Reformatory.            109
seen only in its feeblest glimmerings.  Will naked law,
will pure justice work a reform to which divine clemency
is unequal?
V. Remorse of conscience is not reformatory.  Perhaps
we ought to say that remorse in its design was put into
the soul as a safeguard against sin, in order to prevent the
new offender from  repeating his transgressions.  But in
the present state of man remorse has no such power for
the following reasons:
First, it is dependent for its power, and even for its existence, on the truth of which the mind is in possession.  Of
itself it teaches nothing; it infers no general rules of morality from single instances, no law of action from separate
actions; it rather obeys the truth which is before the mind
at the time. If now the mind lies within the reach of any
means by which it can ward off the force of truth or put
falsehood in the place of truth, sin will get the better of
remorse, the dread of remorse will cease to set the soul
upon its guard.
We say, secondly, that every sinner has such means of
warding off the force of truth, and so of weakening the
power of self-condemnation, at his command. The sophistries which a sinful soul plays off upon itself; the excuses
which palliate, if they do not justify transgression, are innumerable.  Admit the plea that a strong temptation
renders sin venial, or that a man has no freedom to do
otherwise than he has done, or that pleasure is the end of
existence, or that inconsideration is an excuse for wrongdoing, and what becomes of remorse? It has for the present lost its sting. The guilty soul learns to trifle with it.
But, again, remorse according to the operation of the
law of habit is a sentiment which loses its strength as the
sinner continues to sin. It is benumbed like other'sensibilities which are violated, like pity, which is blunted by
acts of cruelty, or sympathy, which is undermined by the
indulgence of envy: when we injure the powers of our




110            Sin not Self-Reformatory.
souls in their legitimate exercise, they take a terrible revenge upon us by neglecting to do their work; the sentinels have been tampered with by a traitor within, and
the camp is open to the enemy.  What good are you to
get from the voice of conscience, if you have enfeebled its
power so that it can be scarcely heard? Will the whisper of reproof reform you when the loud thunder could
not?
But, once more, suppose that all this benumbing of conscience is temporary, as indeed it may well be; suppose
that through these years of sinning it has silently gathered
its electric power, but, when the soul is hackneyed in sin
and life is in the dregs, will give a terrible shock-will
this work reform?  Will remorse then take its seat as an
admonisher, and not rather as a judge And a doomster in
the great criminal court of God? Will there be courage
to undertake a work then for which the best hopes, the
greatest strength of resolution, and the help of God are
wanted?  No! discouragement then must prevent reform.
The sorrow of the world worketh death.  The most hopeless of all persons is he who has put darkness for light,
and stupefied his conscience for years with success, until
some crisis, some danger of death comes. Then the cry will
generally be, even under a Gospel of mercy —"It is too
late."
VI. Finally, the experience of sin brings the soul no
nearer to religious truth.  Truth is the treasury from
which our active powers draw their instruments or motives
for the government of the life. Now if sin, as we learned
its nature and results by experience, brought us nearer
and nearer to the truth which can regulate our character,
and deepened the impressions which our condition here
below ought to make upon us, then the gray-haired sinner
of a life-time were worthy of all envy, and sin would contain in itself, instead of a sting at the last, a Gospel of
mercy. But it is not so, as is plain from what we see of
life and know of our own selves.




Sin not Self-Reformatory.          111
For sin, amongst other of its effects, makes us more
afraid of God or more indifferent to Him. The first inward change wrought by sin is to beget a feeling of separation from God; we have, by sinning, severed our interests
from those of the moral universe over which God reigns,
and we know that the good of the universe cannot be
sacrificed to our wishes;-nay more, we perceive that our
selfish desires oppose that good and the will of the great
Ruler.  We may not have reached this feeling by our reason, but from the first movements of remorse it is a feeling,
almost a moral instinct with us. Adam  and his wife, as
soon as they sinned, hid themselves from God, among the
trees of the garden.
This being so, how are we to attain to a true knowledge
of religion?  Is there any method, without taking into
account God, the great factor? But the sinful soul turns
from Him in fear with an instinctive feeling that lEe is an
enemy.  Must not, then, almost of necessity, a false system concerning God and man be embraced rather than a
true?'And when such a system takes possession of the
mind, will it not be harder to find out the truth, than it
was before?  Perhaps now  one great point is gained,
namely that the dread of God is abated:-will it be easy
to break up such pleasant sluinbers and acknowledge the
terrible truth, that neither God nor the order of the world
can fail to be anenemy to the man who clings to his sins?
Or suppose what happens under the Gospel, when sin
and the purpose of future repentance live together in a
Worldly life, that a person has become quite indifferent
to God; he is not afraid of God because the Gospel of
mercy shihes upon the world; he does not love God, because all higher love is buried under a load of sin,-he is
a neutral. Is this a state where the experience of sin will
teach the truth?  Must we tbt say here, as in the last
case, that this attitude is taken in order to have quiet in
sin, and that it requires the strongest motives, the strongest




112            Sin not Self-Reformatory.
impressions to break up this false peace? Or if we should
say that a real hostility lies concealed under this indifference we should only make the case worse. The soul incurs the guilt of opposition to God, but continues to escape
the conviction of it. This is plainly no good condition
for exercising honesty of mind in view of the truth.
To this we may add that a habit of skepticism is contracted in a course of sinning, which it is exceedingly
hard to lay aside. It became necessary in order to palliate sin and render self-reproach less bitter, as we have
already seen, to devise excuses for the indulgence of
wrong desires. These pretexts are half believed, they are
not simply taken up at the moment of sin and then laid
aside, but they acquire some positive influence over the
mind, they fill it at least with doubts of which sin has
the benefit. In this way there grows up a skepticism in
regard to the great rules of conduct. But there is no
stopping at this point. We cannot doubt concerning the
rules of morality, without stretching these doubts into religious truth, both natural and revealed. The skepticism
then must run through all those classes of truth which
can furnish moral and religious motives. Is then such
a habit easy to be shaken off? Is it easy, when habits of
sin have brought on habits of skepticism, to become perfectly candid, and to throw aside the doubts of a life-time,
which are often specious and in a certain sense honestly
entertained?  Will it not be hard to break up the partnership between the mind and the heart, between falsehood
and sin, so long as each supports the other? The Scriptures
teach us that "evil men and seducers wax worse and worse,
deceiving and being deceived." They deceive themselves
and are deceived by themselves as well as deceive others.
Thus they cut off the power of motives.  We cannot
reach truth by the experience of sin any more than we
can make good legislators out of law-breakers and culprits,




Sin not Self-Reformatory.          1i3
The blindness of the mind is the best security against reformation.
From the course of thought in this discourse it appears
in the first place that our present life shows no favor to the
opinion that sin is a necessary stage in the development of
character towards perfection.  This opinion draws so
little support from what we know of man that it deserves
to be called a chimera, a bare theory devised to get rid of
a difficulty in the system of the world, to wit, the permission of evil. No reason can be given, which is valid, why
a finite being cannot remain innocent and holy, as the
holy angels are, and as we are assured by the Scriptures
that Christ was. No argument can be derived from experience to prove that sin, when once begun, works out its
own cure. The cures of it, which have seemed radical,
have come from abroad, from a system of grace, from the
free act of God, or at least from a belief in the divine forgiveness. The tendency of sin, as life shows, is to grow
blinder, more insensible, less open to truth, less capable of goodness. If, then, any one should say that in
spite of all this the soul in some other life will turn right
about on its course, we shall not argue with him, any
more than if he should say'that the spirits of the blessed
will have wings or will inhabit the sun.
And again the experience of this world throws light, or,
I should rather say, darkness, on the condition of the
sinner who dies impenitent. There is no tendency in the
experience of his whole life towards reform. How can it be
shown that there will be hereafter? If he has contracted
guilt, and Divine justice reigns over him, will not his circumstances be worse then than now; more unpropitious
for knowing the truth, more fitted to indurate him in sin?
In this world Divine compassion in Christ shines on men,
and wins many over from sin; but mercy in its very idea
is a free act which may have a limit: who can tell us that
death is not that limit? The sinner goes away from the




114           NSin not eltJ-Jleformatory.
world with a perverted will, with selfish affections predominant, in the full tide of his ungodliness? Who can
tell that these are not a part of his soul, and who cannot
tell, that with such a soul, whether he sees the full blaze
of truth or wanders in new errors, he must be miserable?
Then, lastly, our subject points, as with a finger that
can be seen, to the best time for getting rid of sin. All
we have said, is but a commentary on that text, " exhort
one another daily while it is called to-day, lest any of you
be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." Do not think
that the swearer will become reverent from the practice of
profanity, or the drunkard, sober from the thirst he has acquired for strong drink and the evils he falls into, or the
revengeful, forgiving from the torment of his vindictiveness, or the selfish man, benevolent from the indulgence
of evil affections, or the ungodly man, godly from neglecting and disobeying God. Do not think, you who are
young, that a little more acquaintance with the evil of
life will be of use to you. Far from this, it will lead you,
like Adam, to try to hide from God. You will lose your
innocence, lose your peace, lose your soul, and for what?
To discover how easy is the course of sin, and how fast it
grows when you run into temptation. 0, that Divine
grace would make its own use of your past sins —to humble
you and show you that their end is death, before your
standard of character has fallen too low, and the blindness of sin is too great for recovery. Sin is now shaping
your character; he is adding stroke after stroke for the
final countenance and form. If you wait, all will be
fixed; his work will be done.




SERMON VIII.
SIN MEASURED BY THE DISPOSITION, NOT BY THE ACT.
1 JOHN iii. 15. Whoso hateth his brother is a murderer.
THESE are harsh words, some will say, and many will
deny that they are just. " I hate such a one, it is true,
but I would not harm him for the world. There is surely
a wide interval between the feeling of rancor or even
the bitter lasting quarrel, and the act of Cain who was of
that wicked one and slew his brother.  Why come to a
reader or hearer who is consciously incapable of acts of
injury, and say to him such severe things, as if on purpose to make him  odious to himself, if he puts faith in
them, and so to render him  desperate?"
As for the spirit of the words it is enough to say at
present that they proceed from  the apostle of love, and
that, if true, they ought to be known. Moreover, if you
find fault with him, you must find the same fault with
Him from whom he learned his religion. Does not Christ
say that "whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her
hath committed adultery with her already in his heart?"
The measure of the desire or imagination is the sinful indulgence to which it can lead, as in the other case the
measure of-the hatred is the injury to a brother man.
But besides this, our feeling that we are incapable of this
or that sin is not to be entirely trusted, so that we ought to
be slow before we reproach passages like this with being
unfair descriptions of our nature and of ourselves. There
was a man once to whom  a prophet foretold that he
would be king over Syria and would do immense evil to
the children of Israel.  "Is thy  servant a dog," he
replied, that " I should do this great thing?" But on the
1.5




116  Sin measured by the Disposition, not by the Act.
morrow he murdered his sovereign, and reigned in his
stead. So too our great poet portrays to us a man,
loyal, upright hitherto, conscious of no secret treachery,
into whose mind the infernal powers sent the thought,
that he, now Thane of Cawdor, should be king hereafter.
The thought ripened into a wish, the wish into a plan: he
murdered his king, when asleep and a guest under the
protection of the rights of hospitality, and from this dark
beginning he waded on through blood, to retain what he
had grasped, until he worked out his own ruin.
So then, let us calmly look at the words of the apostle,
without taxing them hastily with harshness. Let us feel
that they may represent human nature under a true light,
and may apply to us, unless ours is an exceptional case.
The apostle says not that all hatred will end in murder,
-far from it-nor that all hatred is equally intense and
equally reckless, nor that hatred which bursts out into
great crime may not imply a worse state of soul than
such as remains within, and does no obvious harm  to
others. Nor does he intend to confine the murderous
quality to positive hatred. Want of love, hardened selfishness, acting on calculation with no rage or wrath in it,
may be as deadly, as murderous, as malignity or revenge.
He had just said, " he that loveth not his brother abideth
in death."  He might have said with truth "he that
loveth not his brother is a murderer," for want of love
and hatred are only forms of one common character,
which in the one case has excited feeling in its company,
and in the other shows itself as bald self-interest.
The Apostle teaches us in these words, that evil lies in
the heart, and that the evil there, which meets with some temporary or some lasting hindrance, differs not in kind from
that which is ripened by opportunity. It may be forever
dormant as far as the notice of man is concerned. It
may never burst forth into the poisonous flower of wicked
action, yet the hatred within  and the hatred in the




Sin measured by the Disposition, not by the Act. 117
wicked action are one and the same, one quality runs
through both.  The powder that is explosive and the
powder that explodes do not differ.
Need I show the justness of this teaching which John
borrows from his Lord?  Unless evil begins only when the
feeling bursts into action; unless there is no inward sin and
no other form of sin besides particular intended acts of it;
unless the quality of the feeling and of the desire, however
excited or inordinate, is neither good nor evil until a
resolution is made to commit outward transgressions; there
must be evil tempers, vicious propensities, wrong desires,
a bad heart.  The hatred or the lust may be repressed,
and that is a praiseworthy discipline. But if there be no
principle reigning in the soul, which will introduce love
instead of hatred and change the nature of the soul
itself, the thought and the act will be both evil, and the
act will be the measure of the thought. And this is the
doctrine of all moralists, however they may differ about
the essential character and moral power of human nature.
They hold that the way to prevent crime is to bring a
new set of thoughts or motives before the soul, that by an
abhorrence of evil, or by a sense of the beauty of virtue,
or in some other way the forms of crime may be prevented.
And they all teach that nothing effectual is secured for
the improvement of human character, until the soul itself
is conformed to a perfect standard.
It is true, notwithstanding what we have said, that the
strength of an active principle in human nature, such as
hatred leading to revenge or lust leading to self-indulgence, is measured-somewhat rudely it may be-by its outbreak into forms of sin which conscience and society condemn. It is just as we measure the power of a flood by
its breaking down a dam  or transporting heavy masses
to a distance.  There are restraining influences which
secure human society from the explosion of injurious passions, so that such a crime as murder, common enough,




118  Sin measured by the Disposition, not by the Act.
if you gather up all the instances of it in a year, will
excite wonder and awe in the place where it is committed.
It seems, as men contemplate the injury, as they judge of
it by the rage of the wicked mind, by the want of an impulse they find within themselves to a similar deed, by the
vastness of the wrong, or by the terrible condition of a
society where such crimes are of daily frequency, that it
is out of the common course of things, and that it presents
human nature to us in a new light. And in truth, it is
in an important sense, an extraordinary crime, that is, a
crime which is not produced by the ordinary state of
human souls. But so is an earthquake in one sense an
extraordinary phenomenon, while yet the forces which
shake the world are not new but as old and as natural as
the earth itself. We may calculate with certainty that
the greater part of the malignity and revenge in human
breasts will not lead to murder, for we know  what
obstructions sin encounters before it finds a vent in enormous crimes. We know that fear of consequences, conscience; respect for public opinion, pity, are as permanent
and universal as sin itself is, and that they are the dam
and the banks which keep the stream  of unregulated
selfishness from sweeping over society. Yet though we
call the crime extraordinary, whenever it occurs we trace
it back to some principle or habit. That man who committed homicide was subject to great fits of rage which he
took no pains to restrain, or his natural heat was increased by strong drink, or he had such a covetous temper
that he was tempted by it into robbery and murder. All
this is obviously just.
But with all this, we have a right to say, that the limit to
which a passion, such as hatred or lust, leads, is a fair
measure of its general power.  When hatred leads to murder, it is no exceptional case. The extreme limit is the
measure of its tendency and its natural strength.  This is
the measure which the Apostle applies to it: he that




Sin measured by the Disposition, not by the Act.  119?hateth is a murderer, because hatred destroys all the happiness of others that is in its way, whether the happiness consist in a good name, or in riches, or in life. Hatred has that in itself that it rejoices in the evil of others,
and, in certain circumstances, will assuredly occasion that
evil.
We apply to the strength of hatred, or some other evil passion, the samne measurement which we apply to the capacities
of the mind. A  man of genius seems at one time to be
inert and without creative power: at another, he will produce a poem or a picture that the world admires. We
measure his genius by his best productions, by what he
does in the most favorable circumstances, not by the vacancy of his dreamy or inactive hours, where thought is
gathering strength for a new flight. Why not judge of
sin, and especially of hatred, after the same fashion?
What it can do in its unimpeded moments, when the chains
are off its neck, and the fetters and manacles are cast
from hand and foot, is the measure of its deranged power.
It lay inactive, half asleep, until the fatal moment came,
when all temptations seemed to plead at once, and al restraining voices were silent. Now it shows what it can do,
what its true strength is. Now we see it in its simple, unchecked energy, while, for the most part, it lay before in
a kind of chemical union with the other principles that
govern mankind.
The justness of the Apostle's words is shown by the awful
quickness with which resolutions are sometimes taken to commit great crimes. Nothing is more fearful and awful about
our nature than this rapid rush of a human soul from
seeming innocence to full-blown guilt. With one bound
the soul leaps over all those blessed restraints that tie us
to outward virtue and to the respect of mankind.  We
flee into crime, as if the dogs of sinful desire were on us,
and we sought the outward act as a relief from the agitation and war within the soul. So strange do some such




120  Sin measured by the Disposition, not by the Act.
historical crimes appear, that they look like the sway of
destiny. A divine Nemesis, or Ate, urged the man into
telf-ruin. The tragedy of life was not accomplished by
his own free will. And when the deed is done, unthinking
men will ascribe it to the force of circumstances, as if circumstances could have any effect, independently of the
passion or selfish desire itself. And the criminal himself
may think that he was hardly a moral agent in the deed;
that his own power of resistance was destroyed by temptation against his will; or, that others, the most respectable
men in his society, would do the same. To all of which,
we reply, that the consent of his soul was his sin; that his
sin was weakness; that if he had wanted strength really,
and prayed for it, it would have come down out of heaven,
and that whether others would have acted like him or not
is a point of no importance. Perhaps they would. We do
not charge him with being so much worse than others, as
his murder, or his lust, is enormous beyond their acts. We
charge on human nature, when it hates, the same quality
of guilt it would have when its hate bursts into act. We
charge this on all who hate, or do not love, in order that
they may know what they are, and may come to the Divine
Christ, whose love is the life of the world.
I will illustrate this leap of a soul into sin by a single
case, the particulars of which- I may not repeat with entire accuracy, having to trust to a somewhat imperfect
recollection. There was in London, a few years since, a
German tailor, who was, probably, not more dissolute
than hundreds of others in such a vast city, a mild, inoffensive man, whom  nobody thought capable of dark
deeds of wickedness.  He found himself in a car of an
underground railroad, in company with a wealthy man.
They were alone, and yet, as the cars had a number of
stopping-places in their five or six miles' course, every
few minutes a new passenger might come into their compartment.  They were alone, I say, for a passenger had




Sin measured by the Disposition, not by the Act. 121
left them, and the door was shut. Now, in the interval
of three or four minutes, this man had murdered the
wealthy man by his side, had seized his purse and watch,
and in the hurry taken his hat by mistake, and had left
the train the instant it reached the next station. He fled
to this country, was seized on his landing, was found to
have the dead man's hat and watch, was handed over to
the English authorities, carried back, tried, and sent to his
execution. How terrible was this speed of crime! No
whirlwind or water-spout, no thunder-cloud flying through
mid-heaven could represent its swiftness, and yet here
there was nothing unaccountable, nothing monstrous. He
himself had been no prodigy of sin, nor was he now.
The crime was an epitome of his life, a condensed extract
of his character. We may safely say, that what took a
moment to resolve and to execute, was not the growth of
those moments. It lay in his soul, in its selfishness, that
was all ready to sacrifice the rights, the life, of a brother
man, for the gratification of a wicked desire. You or I
would not have done this, my hearer, but we have that
within us, perhaps, that might lead to the doing of it.
We are of the same clay.
And again, the Apostle's principle is vindicated by the
rapid deterioration which we often observe in the lives of
particular men. There are some who seem to remain at a
fixed point all their lives, growing neither worse nor
better, and meeting all the demands which the laws of
social life impose upon them. There are others, who, with
no external change, are growing better within, are more
under the sway of principle and of right emotions.
There is a third class, whose lives resemble a gentle
stream, that suddenly pours over rocks; the outward
manifestations of character have become wholly new.
From a life of temperance, or purity, or peace, they run
over into one of intemperance, lewdness, or violence. It
seems as if they had only covered up their sins before, as
6




122  Sin measured by the Disposition, not by the Act.
if an evil life could not begin, all of a sudden, but the
habits of sin must have been suppressed, perhaps, for a
long period. But it is not so.  They have not grown suddenly worse, but some natural motives, which swayed them
before, have given way to other natural motives which
were for a time counteracted. Self-indulgence was counteracted by prudence or by conscience, hatred was kept
down or shut up in the breast by public opinion. Meanwhile changes of life, more liberty of action, greater
means of self-gratification, new forms of society, new sentiments and opinions, make the road of temptation leading
to outward sin easier.  I do not deny that an outbreak
of sin also has a tendency to deteriorate character still
further, as we see especially in the case of drunkards,
who, losing their own respect and that of their society,
become desperate and reckless, weighing the pleasure of
drinking against that which they have lost, and resorting
to that pleasure to still the regrets of their souls. But
what I wish to say is, that the deterioration went on in
silence before the act of outward sin, or was the result of a
choice of sin, against known and estimated motives for
right-doing. The sin, when it appeared in a palpable
shape, was not of a new kind. Their characters had not
become monstrous, and borne fruit, of which before they
were incapable. They were not new men, as men are said
to be when they put forth new love towards God, when
they return to Him  from  a life of sin in the spirit of
obedience.  But all happened in the regular way of
development, not by a fated pre-arranged plan which
would excuse them, and take them out of the ranks of
responsible beings, but by a development in which their
own free choice went with the laws of character.
According to this view of man, there is nothing strange
when hatred culminates in murder, there is no new principle injected, there is, in reality, no sudden worsening/of
the character. It is natural, not monstrous or morbid,




Sin measured by the Disposition, not by the Act. 123
that he who indulges hatred in his heart should yield,
when he is tempted to manifest it in the life.  The deed
is the expression of the feeling, as words are of thoughts.
There may be a long silence of passion, and the first you
know of it, it may cry aloud, it may hurry into publicity
as full-grown crime.
I add, again, that if in any given case it were certain that
sinful affections would be suppressed and be prevented from
going out into sinful deeds, the apostle's principle would still
be true.  There are thousands of people who indulge
malignant passions and commit no murder, to one who is
actually led to this extremity of crime. It is wholly improbable that the well-educated, the intelligent, the prudent, the compassionate, will be led into any outrageous
violence towards their fellow-men, even if they allow
malevolent emotions, such as envy and pride, to have
dominion over them. But this is quite consistent with
the words of John.  The spirit of the extreme crime is
in the unblamed malice or the unobserved envy. It is
neutralized, as the oxygen of air is by nitrogen. The
two in mechanical union form an innocuous atmosphere,
and yet we know that oxygen alone would be a principle
of death. So hate in the heart is a deadly affection although counteracted, and although it may be always
counteracted.
1. In closing this discourse I wish to remark in the first
place, that sin deceives us until it comes into manifestation.
Men are apt to think that they are good enough, because
no indications of a corrupt character are shown in their
lives. And then, when the time of trial comes and they
yield, they excuse themselves because temptation is so
strong and so sudden. In neither case does their moral
judgment conform to the true state of things. Principle
means that which will stand the test, when native characteristics which were on its side have turned against it. The
measure of principle is the strength  of resistance to




124  Sin measured by the Disposition, not by the Act.
attacks of temptation, and if hatred or lust is a cherished
feeling of the heart, there is no possibility of resistance
when circumstances turn so as to favor sin, How deceitful then and how  false the judgments fiom  a mere
absence of outward sin! And these judgments are contradicted by continual experience, for we are obliged to
admit that characters full of open faults, and even stained
by manifest sins, are often more estimable than those in
which the fault never comes to the surface.  Peter, who
denied his Master and yet really loved Him, would have
been less worthy of regard, if he had loved less although
he never had denied. His sin was a revelation of what
sin is, but not of the comparative worth of his character.
So too the great crimes of David show that sin in the
form of strong desire leads to enormous wickedness, even
to so heinous a crime as murder, while yet in the judgment of God and of man, many a person would stand far
below David in character, who had lived an outwardly
unspotted life.
And this shows the importance of the disclosures of our
character which positive acts of sin  make to ourselves. We
live in self-ignorance.  Our selfishness or our malevolence
is so calm, so constant, so quiet, that it makes no impression even on ourselves who ought to be conscious of the
internal temper.  By and by there arrives a crisis of
trial; a storm of temptation blows down our prudence;
selfishness in one form prevails over selfishness in anotherthe stormy wind over the gentle steady breeze. Now we
discover what we can do, and if we are wise, our weakness becomes manifest, our pride of character is gone; we
humble and distrust ourselves, and seek strength from that
celestial source which is ever open for us.
2. Sins committed by others may fairly suggest to us *what
we ourselves can do, and so, in a certain sense we may be
humbled by them, when we apply them as the measuring
line of the deep possibilities of sin within ourselves. We




Sin measured by the Disposition, not by the Act.  125
belong to the same race with the most grievous offender
who has violated social law, and hurt his own soul.  We
have the same propensities. Circumstances, part of which
he did not create for himself, have caused much, if not all
of the difference between him and us. We see in him  a
picture of ourselves, drawn indeed in dark colors, but a
veritable resemblance. Perhaps, viewed by the eyes of
God, he is even better than you or I. And in the same
way, all the crimes of our race, as we read of them in the
history of the past,.or hear from time to time of dreadful
corruptions in the present, ought to be mementos to us
what we are capable of doing, of what we have been saved
from, not by our natural virtue, but by the restraints of a
merciful God.  We ought to have, in this direction as well
as in others, a sympathy with man. As we admire him  in
the manifestationsof his powers, his wisdom, his genius,
his goodness, so we ought to follow him in his depths of
ruin, with a fellow-feeling drawn from the consciousness
of having the same seeds of guilt in us. As we say with
exultation in the first case "I also am a man," we should
feel the sympathy of a brother, together with the humbling sense of a common weakness, in the other case also.
It was no cant when John Bradford, the English clergyman and martyr under Mary, said, as he saw a man going
to Tyburn to be hanged for crime, "There, but for the
grace of God, goes John Bradford."  Many a Pharisee,
if he had heard it, would have said that the man was
making a hypocritical confession according to the formula
of a certain school, in which the plan is to make human
nature as bad as possible, in order that Scriptural grace
may be exalted. But Bradford died for Christ, whereas.the Pharisee would doubtless have recanted.  And Bradford was in the right of it. He knew by a proving of
his own heart, which the Pharisee was a stranger to, how
desire or feeling leads to sin. He knew by a sympathy
with the most unworthy, what was hidden from  the




126  Sin measured by the Disposition, not by the Act.
Pharisee, that men are alike to a greater degree than
they are different.. He did not magnify his sins, and
liability to great sins, in order to magnify the grace of
God, but he magnified the grace of God, because he felt
and found within himself the same sinful nature which
he saw in the unworthiest. He read himself in the history
of his fallen and guilty brother.
And so we see that the Apostle's words, "He that hateth his
brother is a murderer," are a protest against all Pharisaism,
all overvaluation of ourselves, all undervaluation of
others.  They cherish pity for the erring, and without
some such principle as the words involve, we should despise the faults, rather than compassionate.  At the same
time we condemn the sin. The apostle's words are the
strongest possible condemnation  of  hatred.  Christ's
words, already cited, are the strongest possible condemnation of lust. As soon as we receive them and make them
the rule of our judgment, we bring ourselves and the open
offender against morality or the rights of men to the same
standard. The same hatred which lay unexpressed in us,
uttered itself by an act of murder in him. Our feeling
did no obvious harm  as his did, but the wrong was the
same.  We stand then on a common level,-he being
more hardened perhaps by his career of sin than we,-we
need a common redemption, and if that redemption has
come to me, it has opened my mind at once to the frightful
possibilities of crime within my human nature, and the
glorious possibilities of even divine excellence to which
divine strength enables me to attain. I do not thank God
that I am not as other men are, but I own that I am like
other men, except so far as power above me has lifted me
above my old self. And the lifting up has consisted, if it
is real, not in simply keeping me from murder or lust, but
in helping me to entertain the spirit of love instead of that
of self and hatred.
3. Finally, we see what an uncompromising principle




Sin measured by the Disposition, not by the Act.  127
love is. The apostle John abounds in such incisive remarks as, " He that hateth his brother is a murderer;"
"He that loveth not his brother abideth in death;" "He
that loveth not. knoweth not God;" " If a man say, I
love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar." Some
seem to think that love is a state of mind in which all
moral sentiment disappears, the most loving having an
indiscriminate good-will towards all of every character.
But a man of such a nature would be a monster whom
none could respect, without strength of soul, without adaptation for the society of mankind.  He has no true love
who does not feel within him the same aversion from all
the forms of wickedness which Christ and His apostles
showed, in their words and in their lives.  He has no true
love, no complacency in goodness, who does not from the
soul condemn every thing that is evil. There is no benevolence any where in any moral being, which is not instinctively opposed to selfishness in all its forms.  One
may say with truth love hates malevolence, hates all that is
opposed to itself in the feelings or the manifestations of
the inner life.  The conception of it as consisting in a
weak good nature which is indifferent to character has no
foundation in the word of God or in the lives of men
whom we cannot help revering.  Love is an element of a
strong character which views men as they are in all their
sins, which feels no favor towards the principles by rwhich 
the worldly, the selfish, the proud are governed. Andthus as it looks on moral evil in all its deformity, it can
feel intense pity toward the blind in sin, the misguided,
the fallen, the unworthy, and is ever ready to sacrifice its
own interests for their good.  This is the sign of love that
it is capable of self-sacrifce. But no true self-sacrifice can
exist without a sense of the misery of sin. Even the lower
forms of love hardly deserve to be called by the name, when
the motive is mere compassion, without a sense of the
greatest evil in human nature.  He who can relieve




128  Sin measured by the Disposition;, not by the Act.
misery but is indifferent to the sin he sees around him,
who only excuses it or makes light of it, he is not, to say
the least, made perfect in love.  The possibility is, that
he has no true love at all.
Let us remember then, that the love conceived of by
the apostle, the love that dwelt in Christ is something
more than instinctive benevolence, good nature and compassion; that it is a moral quality of the highest order,
implying in the soul repugnance to sin, to selfishness, to
malevolence, to ungodliness; and that it is prompted, in the
effort of doing away with sin and of reforming sinners, to
all compassionate, self-sacrificing efforts. This is the love
that enlarged the soul of the apostle John, causing him to
utter his strong language on the evil of hatred; this is the
love that made Christ at once hate sin with all intensity,
and seek to redeem sinners by the highest act of pity and
self-sacrifice. This is the love of God, who sent His Son
to be the Saviour of the world, because sin was in His eye
the greatest of evils.




SERMON IX.
THE BLINDNESS OF MEN, AND THE NEARNESS OF THE
SPIRITUAL WORLD.
2 Kings vi. 17. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray Thee, open
his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young
man, and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and
chariots of fire round about Elisha.
To THE eye of unbelief, and of distrust, this visible, outward world is everything.  Its value is the only assignable value; its history. the only true history; its dangers the
only dangers to be shunned; its help the only help to be
sought.  The. servant of Elisha, until his eye was divinely
opened, saw  nothing but the hosts of the enemy surrounding Dothan and cutting off escape; but as soon as
divine light fell on him, he beheld a new spiritual world.
There were more on his side than against him, and
mightier. He lifted up his eye, and behold the mountain
around the city was full of horses and chariots of fire, sent
there for the protection of Elisha.  He was now the en,
lightened one, the man of opened eyes; while the Syrians,
who gloried in their strength, were smitten with blindness,
and led captive by a single unarmed man.  His mind had
drawn in a great lesson.  The chariots of fire, indeed, and
horses of fire, were, in one sense, unreal; that is, they were
not of flesh, nor obvious to human sense: they were unearthly powers, who assumed a form  by which they could
make an impression of truth on the distrustful, fleshly
mind of the prophet's servant.  There were no chariots
there, nor horses; but there were spiritual hosts, who
showed themselves before t.he imagination of the young
129




130         The Blindness of Men, and the
man to be more than a match for the army of besiegers.
Thus a great truth from heaven, a reality as lasting and
as wide as the universe, was taught him, that, beyond our
eyes and ears, a majestic, spiritual world is moving on in
silence; that an unseen God has infinite, unseen resources;
that the causes and issue of things lie outside of the horizon
of the senses; that immense agencies may be at work in all
stillness and without the slightest show, of which the
worldly mind does not so much as dream. If there are
hosts of foes of God, there is a God of hosts above them.
If there is a throne of iniquity, which frameth mischief by
a law, there is a higher throne of righteousness.  "If thou
seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of
judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at tlhe
matter, for He that is higher than the highest regardeth,
and there be higher than they."
Let us take up the vision presented to the young man
in the text, as a rebuke to distrust, and generally to unbelief, that worldly state of mind, content with the outside of
things, from which, in an hour of danger, distrust proceeds. The unbelieving man, we are taught, is a superficial man, and a blind man. There are things the most
momentous in the whole world, which he cannot perceive,
nor apprehend. There is a world around him, in him,
larger, mightier, more enduring, than the earth's rocky
base, with bearings on life and destiny of untold importance, a world which meets him  on every hand, follows
him along while he travels through this world, into the
noiseless workings of which he is unable to penetrate, the
existence of which, therefore, enters not into his plans, nor
affects his desires. Is he not blind in such thick unbelief?
Or, if he admits into his mind the existence of such a
world, and is continually falling back into distrust, so that
goodness seems to him to have no power on its side, is he
not still but a blear-eyed man, whose eye needs to be




Near-ness of the Spirtzual World.        131
opened in order to see the array of spiritual forces that are
under the command of God?
1. Let us apply the text first to that particular form of
unbelief, namely distrust, which is especially referred to.
The blindness and sinfulness of distrust will be apparent,
when we take into view the plans and resources of the invisible world. It is a part of the plan that this invisible
world does not manifest itself by obvious interferences in
the present order of things: everything which we can
touch, taste, see or hear, goes on by law and process as
much as if there were no God.  It is another part, that,
although evil has entered into the system, and although
there is an everlasting conflict between evil and good, yet
no act of power is put forth by Him, who must be conceived to side with goodness and to love it with all his
heart.  Such being the case, while, on the whole, and in
the end, the right side will conquer, it is often depressed
and defeated; its progress is so slow that for days and
years it seems to stand still. This is true of the cause of
God in the world, and, to a degree, is true of the same
cause in the heart of the single person. Thus it will often
happen, that distrustful hearts will send up a cry like
that of Elisha's servant in the text, "Alas master! what
shall we do?' The distrustful good man will say with
the Psalmist, "God has forgotten to be gracious. He
hath, in anger, shut up His tender mercies."
Now the blindness of such distrust is made apparent,
from considerations already hinted at and implied in our
text.
First, God is ever active, and has an intense sympathy
with what is good and true.  Between this and atheism,
there is no middle ground, for the distrustful man of this
day will not fall into the Epicurean's belief, that God is
indifferent to human things, and indisposed to interfere, or
into the Manichean belief, that there is an equal contest
waging between light and darkness. Such being the case,




132         The Blindness of Men, and the
we say secondly, that God must have a plan, and that the
plan may consist partly in leaving the subordinate combatants on the sides of good and evil to themselves, without divine interference in favor of what God must love.
It is as if the general of an army, whose troops were raw
and needed to be inured by long discipline to military
hardships and military skill, suffered them  to undergo
partial defeats until they were ripe for some great movements of decisive battle. Must such a general, of necessity, be hard-hearted, or devoid of love to his country and
his cause? So God may suffer the conflicts of this world
to go on in order to fasten the hearts of His loyal people
to Himself; He may let His cause in the world go backward seemingly; He may let single souls grapple with
doubt and temptation, in order at last to bring forward a
well-trained army of faithful friends, and make ready for
a decisive triumph. Is there anything absurd in such an
explanation of God's plan? If it were only a supposition,
will it not remove difficulties, and is not the distrustful
man blind not to know that God's plans, which embrace
boundless ages, may, like the paths of the planets, be apparently  retrograde, while  really, they  are tending
towards a glorious consummation?
But thirdly, the power of divine help may be nigh and
ready, if an act of trust be put forth. The chariots and
horses of fire are near by, but it may be that according to
God's plan or according to the constitution of the mind,
they will give no aid, as long as the soul or the church
loses its confidence. We have put this forward as a possibility, but it becomes probable, if not certain, when the
plan of co-operation between the spiritual powers and man
here below is properly considered.  Every thing moves
forward on a system of partnership, if I may so call it,
between divine and human agency. If the divine did
everything, man would be a machine, or an idle, useless
part of the universe. If man did everything, God would




Nearness of the Spiritual World.        133
disappear from His own world, and man could lay claim to
everything. Such being the case, man must be nerved to
action, and among the strengthening influences there must
be trust in his divine partner. How without this can he
undertake with courage, persevere with hope, or accomplish with humility? How can the true relation be discerned between God and His finite creature, or how can
the creature keep his right position in the universe, without trust which recognizes at once his dependence and the
presence of a helping God?
2. But we pass on to consider the attitude which unbelief
takes in regard to spiritual power and presence. There is
a more radical and deadly form of doubt than distrust.
Distrust believes and disbelieves at once, or passes to and
fro in its various moods of courage and apprehension,
from one state of mind to its opposite, but there is an unbelief which is fixed and unbroken by any fits of belief,
which recognizes no spiritual agency or none affecting the
conduct. Distrust catches a glimpse now and then of the
horses and chariots of fire, and again loses the sight, as we
lose the sight of a star or distant mountain on the horizon;
but unbelief sees and hears nothing except the sights and
sounds of this material world. Let us look for the rest of
this discourse at this unbelief, at its blindness, at the
greatness of its blindness.
I. Here we may notice first that unbelief must in fact
admit, while it denies, the existence of some kind of spiritual world. The unbeliever, though he may be a materialist and a sensualist, recognizes those immaterial forces
which we call the human soul. He feels himself to be
governed by desires or by reason, and to have a power of
choice between the objects which he regards as being in
different degrees good.  He uses motives to persuade
others, and cannot help making a wide distinction in his
own mind between the power which gives direction to the
body or confines its motion, and the power which moves




134         The Blindness of Men, and the
the soul. He admits the existence of invisible social principles, which imply a reference of each individual to a
community-life; and the existence of a feeling of justice
which seems intended to preside over such a society, distributing to each of its members what is due to him, and
binding the whole body together by the feeling of obligation expressed in law  and penalty.  He beholds the
nations of the world bound together by the same feeling
of justice, and amid all their crimes and follies app(-aling
to the sense of obligation as pervading mankind.  Nay
more, he finds in the lives of men and in history, possibly
within himself, an indelible sense of sin, a sense of ill-desert
as old as the world, and with it, going through the whole
course of history numberless efforts to propitiate some invisible God above the soul, who is felt to be offended by
evil doing.  All this the unbeliever has to recognize,
however he may account for it all; and thus his mind
must have created for itself a world full of life and movement, connected by many cords with the world of sight,
but as different from  it as possible.  This world out of
sight, moreover, is of exceedingly great importance, he
finds, to himself.  His welfare depends on it.  His happiness is bound up with it.  Regrests for remediless evil, a
sense of injury from others, their contempt or malice, has
more of gall in it than anything he can taste, and the
pleasures drawn from  an invisible world, more of sweetness. He is thus forced to regard the external world as a
mere minister to these strange forces which.we call soul;
and yet he is blind, it may be, to the existence of such a
thing, or if he believes in soul, he lives for sense, as really
as if soul were nothing.
II. In this invisible spiritual world, even if we confine
it to mankind, great and most remarkable events are
going forward, which the unbelieving man is too blind to
perceive, or to which he fails to give their true value.
He reads the history of the earth's surface, of human




Nearness of the Spiritual World.        135
progress, of states in their rise or fall, but he forgets that
there is another kind of history more internal, governed
by spiritual ideas, and by influences most mighty although
invisible. That human character should be tried, formed,
improved or depraved; that multitudes of minds with the
idea of obligation and the sense of sin should be contending
with sin or should have become its prostrate victims; that
a faith in eternal realities and in a divine revelation
should have become a settled  principle  in  countless
breasts;-these certainly, unless it can be proved that the
soul is to die with the body, are events of deep significance,
rising in their weight beyond  earthquakes or flaring
comets or victories or revolutions of states.  Nay more,
all the external history of man is modified by these
spiritual powers, so that to be blind to them is to be blind
not only to one of the worlds with which our being is connected, but to history and to life itself.
Let us look at some of these events or classes of events
which belong to this spiritual kingdom, in order to estimate their importance, and the blindness of him who takes
no account of them.
We refer first to the life of a man once obscure and unnoticed in an obscure nation, who by the force of His life
and of His character has swayed more souls and done more
for man's inner life than all other human beings put together. What would the external manifestations of man's
nature, manners, morals, law, art, science, government, be
at this day apart from Jesus Christ; and yet His peculiar
province is the invisible region of the soul. Listen to the
words in which a noted novelist of Germany, Jean Paul,
speaks of Him: "Jesus, the purest among the mighty, the
mightiest among the pure, with His pierced hand lifted.kingdoms off their hinges, the stream  of centuries out of
its bed, and still rules the ages on their course. An individual once trod on the earth, who by moral omnipotence
alone controlled other times and founded an eternity of




136         The Blindness of Men, and the
His own; one, who, soft-blooming and easily drawn as a
sun-flower, burning and attracting as a sun, still, in His
mild form, moved and turned Himself and nations and
centuries together towards the all enlightening primal sun:
it is that still spirit, which we call Jesus Christ. If He
existed, either there is a Providence, or He is that Providence. Only quiet teaching and quiet dying were the
notes wherewith this higher Orpheus tamed men-beasts,
and turned rocks by His music into cities." *
The power, then, by which this wonderful life of Jesus
fed itself, was wholly of the spiritual world. He lived
in communion with the highest conceptions of virtue; he
lived in intimacy with the infinite Father, or at least, as
the unbeliever must admit, with a God who to Him was
a reality; He had a deep theory of human nature in the
ruin of its spiritual capacity, which, joined with His
deeper love, moved Him to what He regarded as a life for
man's redemption. And the result of His spiritual life
and thinking has been the alteration of the worldchanges which no laws, nor wars, nor arts could have effected.
And by what instruments has He worked so mightily
on human hearts and characters?  By spiritual ones, by
the feeling of guilt, the longing for purity and peace of
soul, by offering pardon and the promises of life-giving
assistance to the contrite, by a life and example of united
love and holiness, by unveiling God and the soul's unending life. Such are the means by which He has set up His
throne over mankind, pushing His sway beyond souls
into every thing which pertains to man. And yet the
unbeliever sees nothing great or wonderful or spiritual
in Him; he accounts for Christ as for some natural phenomenon, as for a meteoric stone from the skies; acknowledging perhaps that he cannot explain Him entirely, but
- From the Dammerungen fiir Deutschland, vol. 33, pp. 6, 16 of his
works, Berlin, 1827.




Nearness of the Spiritual World.          137
persuaded that He had no connection with a higher
spiritual world.
Passing away from this great, unique fact, let us look at
classes of spiritual facts to which the unbeliever will give
no heed, which are of continual occurrence, and which
may follow one another in the life of one and the same
human being. 
We begin with a condition of a human soul when it is
grappling with great and strong doubts concerning spiritual realities, or when the dark shadow of guilt has fallen
upon it.  How it heaves one with sorrow, and arouses all
our sympathy, to see that soul struggling against billows
of skepticism, willing to give up all earthly hopes to solve
the great mysteries of God, sin, redemption, and eternity,
crying to heaven and to man to help it on its way, crying
like Ajax to give it light if only to die in.  0, what outward events can compare in importance or interest with
such passages as this in the life of a soul!
Or look at another state of a human soul, which is
much more common.  There is a conflict of long standing
between desire on the one hand, and the voice of duty
together with aspirations after an honorable and a perfect
life on the other. The soul has been often bowed down
to the dust by defeat; but so intense is its conviction of
the necessity of resistance, so real and practical before its
eyes the great idea of duty, that it will sooner yield up its
existence  than forsake the struggling.  The smile or
frown of the world without is now nothing in its esteem.
Invisible things are the forces which arouse it to action.
Now, whether it shall rise or fall, is in this struggle of no
importance?  Is the supreme worth which is attached to
character in such a mind undeserving of notice? Say you
who are worldly and unspiritual, or rather, when you estimate the power of mind thrown into the struggle, or the
possible results in the direction of hope or despair, is any




138         The Blindness of Men, and the
contest of material forces, however vast, of weight enough
to be placed by its side?
But there is another and a more advanced class of
spiritual facts. Great multitudes think that they have
got beyond the first and hardest encounters of such a conflict; and have made headway principally, because the
great thoughts of a holy God and of a redemption from
sin somehow threw strength into their souls, and helped
them  to rise out of the atmosphere of spiritual death.
Henceforth they are engaged in leading a life of virtue,
of intercourse with a divine and spiritual helper, of faith
in an endless life. Their aim is to fit their characters for
such endless life by becoming on earth as much like God
as possible. And as they proceed on their way, imperfectly indeed, but as successfully as is the lot of human
strivings, hope of spiritual good in prospect cheers them,
the favor of an invisible God brightens their path, all
unseen things become more real and all seen things more
unsubstantial. There is, thus, a spiritual life led by great
numbers of men on earth, a life of resistance to sin, a life
of love. a life of faith in those divine things, which,
whether they can be proved true or not, form the most
noble characters.
But as we watch these persons longer, and behold them
at the termination of their earthly lives, we meet with
another group of spiritual facts, which are of almost
hourly occurrence   These persons, as they leave this
world, rather grow than wane in the conviction that what
has had the chief power over their lives has been a profound reality. Hope instead of expiring at death grows
brighter. Sin, instead of seeming a small thing to be
watched and striven against, seems darker and more terrible. God now is ineffably true, redemption ineffably
valuable.  They die, giving  every proof that these
spiritual ideas are enstamped on their souls, have moulded




Nearness of the Spiritual World.        139
their characters, and have fitted them for a spiritual, holy
world, if there be any such place.
Facts such as these are occurring in countless instances, while the unbeliever is reading his newspaper,
driving his trade, enjoying life like an animal, with no
inquiry whether there be a spiritual world, and with no
interest in the success or disappointment of this nobler
class of minds.  Oh! are there not among mankind two
different kinds of worlds?  While some are acting as if
right and wrong, life and soul and God are dead realities,
others cleave to the dust like the serpent's brood; while
some devote their lives to the attainment of virtue, the
improvement of character, the preparation for death,
others eat, drink, live, think, wish, as if the earth enclosed
and satisfied man.  "Some, to their everlasting home this
solemn moment fly," on wings of hope, while others have
no more than a brute's concern about death, and a transient dread of some possibility beyond it.  What a contrast, if the vast throng of spiritual ones could be mustered  over against the vaster throng of unbelievers.
What a difference of character and of main purpose,
what a difference of thoughts reigning in the intellect and
over the heart.  Could two worlds of material substance,
made by the hand of God, differ so widely?  If the unbelievers are enlightened, the others are benighted; if the
world of spiritual minds are in the light, the other world
is blind and in darkness, "and in love with darkness."
III. These events of the spiritual world among mankind depend on the existence and presence of a spiritual
world above mankind.  This is indeed obvious, and has
come into view as we looked at the life of Christ and of
those who followed Him  in a spiritual life. If the unbeliever is on true, safe ground, there is nothing that ought
to rule the life except the material earth and its laws, the
desires, chiefly the animal ones, and some few of the
social principles.  If the spiritual man is right, there is




140         The Blindness of Men, and the
a higher world, beyond the laws of matter, desire, and
society. The exercise of his reason, conscience, and affections has introduced him among a different set of realities
which themselves involve the existence of real personalities above man. He now acknowledges the laws of a
moral universe-laws made to regulate thought, and
therefore emanating from a being who has planned and
thought. Sin itself, felt in his conscience, conducts down
upon him the justice of the universe. When once God
is admitted to be a reality, there is a system centering at
His throne; let him for a moment, in thought, conceive
of God as not existing, and the spiritual world among men
becomes darkly and inexplicably incomplete. Whether
the process is logical or not, he finds he must deny moral
and spiritual realities among men, or carry them upward
until they fill the universe. Thus he cannot stop short of
a personal God, of a world of real beings of which He
is the centre, or he must give up everything. And so,
from the opposite quarter, the unbeliever must strand on
atheism.
IV. If, now, there is such a world with God for its
centre, it is the height of blindness not to see it. This is
obvious from a great variety of considerations. If there is
such a world, it must be of infinite importance compared
with the world of matter; the interests of the soul are
bound up with it, and to live as if they depended upon the
earth must be self-ruin.  If God exists, His existence
must, in various ways, be of boundless moment to the
soul, and especially must the thought of God, and faith in
Him, be of the greatest weight in moving and directing the
character. The life passed under the power of spiritual
realities is as different from a life according to the course
of this world, as Heaven is from hell. If sin is a fact, it
is a very weighty, a very dreadful fact. If there be such
a. thing as recovery from sin possible, it is the pearl of
great price.  And if all this be so, and the unbeliever




Nearness of the Spiritual World.       141
snuts nis eye to it, how great must be his blindness, how
deserving is his state of being called a state of spiritual
darkness and death!
V. Such blindness needs to be overcome by a divine
act of opening the eyes. Men may well pray "Lord,
open his eyes that he may see." And the unbeliever himself, if a glimmering of light falls on him, may well pray
for help from the God of light. If there is such an entire
contrast between the worlds of which we have spoken, it
must needs be that old habits of thought, strengthened
through an unspiritual life, must render spiritual apprehension exceedingly difficult; that the intense reality
which has gathered around worldly objects must make
objects of faith seem spectral and misty; that inordinate
desire, gravitating toward the ground, must make all
upward movement of the soul next to impossible; that
speculative difficulties must block up the path, if the soul
should try to break away from the prison of sensual things;
that the dawn of faith must be overhung with clouds
of distrust; that the soul must feel itself without strength
to use faculties which have been so long asleep.  How
can belief grow up in a mind full of skepticism, in a soul
almost without the power to trust?  Can argument produce belief in spiritual realities?  But where the power
of appreciating moral truth is nearly gone, where conscience is blunt, and the affections almost extinct, argument can have no force, for it runs back to convictions
which are either dead, or too weak to arouse to action.
If the unbeliever had never had his attention called to
spiritual things, his slumbering powers that have a sympathy with the invisible might possibly be awakened;
but now, long use, long love of the earth, has enfeebled
and deadened him. He cannot catch hold of divine
realities and lift himself upward. The hardest step is
the first, and this costs almost superhuman effort.
Is his case then hopeless?  No, not hopeless, if you




142             The Blindness of Men.
take into account the resources of the invisible world,
but only hopeless, if you look at this world of outward
things, at his present strength, at the character which a
life of unbelief and worldliness has formed.  Weak as
he is, the spiritual world is as near him and as powerful
as ever, possessed of means to awaken and enlighten him.
The most interesting of thoughts in his case is that these
superior powers are at work on man, as is shown by the
throng who have come out of sin, have seen the light of
God, and received a spiritual life. All praise be to the enlightening Spirit which has opened so many blind eyeshe too may see. The chariots and horses of fire may
present themselves to him also. Under the influences of
the new spiritual sight, he may become a new man. and
the rpvel things of the invisible world may fill him with
joy




SERMON X.
UTNION OF JUSTICE AND GRACE IN GOD.
ExoDus xxxiv. 7. Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and
that will by no means clear the guilty.
RoArNS iII. 26. That he might be just, and the justifier of him which
believeth in Jesus.
THERE is an agreement in the spirit of these two most
important passages of scripture. The one proclaims the
union in the character of God of forgiveness and holiness.
The other declares that when God, in His plan of salvation
through  Christ, treats  sinners as if they had  never
offended, He is at the same time just. He was not willing
to exercise His highest act of forgiveness, without at the
same time and in the same transaction showing that He has
as sincere and strong an aversion to sin, as if He had not
cleared the guilty but allowed the law to take its course.
It is not my.purpose at this time to treat theologically
of this union of qualities that may be called opposites in
the divine government, nor chiefly to seek to show how
they were manifested in Christ's work and passion; but my
object is to show how the human race is prepared for such
a twofold exhibition of the divine character, and how the
exhibition trains men up in those excellencies of character
which would be defects if they existed apart.  "Behold
the goodness and severity of God," says the Apostle Paul.
In most cases the goodness is illustrated by one kind of
events and the severity by another, but in Christ's work the
same event of His death displayed the two sides of God's
character alike and at once, and thus pardon was never
offered to the guilty without a loud protest against sin.
Now  the pains taken to inculcate both  these  qualities
143




144       Union of Justice and Grace in God.
through the entire scriptures seem to point at something
in man, some conceptionv of character which he needs to have
impressed upon him  and which he ought to realize in his
own life.  We may go farther and say that this two-sided
view of God meets man's conceptions already awakened by
the actings of his own nature, and thus strikes a chord in
man which is in harmony with the scriptures and especially with the gospel.
I. And in pursuing this subject we remark first that
among men he who is capable of exercising only hard. unrelenting justice is held to be far from perfection, and cannot be loved  while on the other hand a character in which
bare kindness or goodness is the only noticeable trait
secures no respect. Only where we see the two qualities
united can we feel decided confidence and attachment.
Let us look first at several manifestations of bare justice
in character or temper, and then at mere kindness or
goodness, in order to see whether this be not so.
First we notice sternness, which is the attribute of one
who has a strict rule of duty or of propriety in his mind,
and measures the conduct of men by inflexible rules of
right.  He condemns and approves for good cause.  He
has no favorites and pays no respect to persons, but approves or condemns by the same severe rule all alike,
whether friends or foes.  He notices all departures from
the standards: a little one does not escape his penetrating
eye; a great one meets with its proportionate censure.  In
short, morals and manners are estimated by him with impartiality, and deviations from the right rule are blamed
as strictly as if he had no other feeling but that of justice,
and were not a man.  When this character runs into excess, so that a man rates defects at more than their
just weight, we call him  harsh or severe, and when he
takes pleasure in discovering defects we call him  censorious, and these characters we dislike by an instinct of
nature.  But let the man be sivmply stern-is he loved for




Union of Justice and Grace in God.         145
this quality'? Certainly not, if the trait throws others
which are fitted to give relief to it into the shade.  And
this dislike, assuredly, is owing, not to the unwillingness
of fallen men to be narrowly scanned, but to the distorted
picture of human nature which is presented by a character,
in which simple justice predominates in the temper and
the life.
Again, we will call up before us the quality of indignation, and conceive all the manifestations of the life within
to run in that channel.  Indignation is the expression,
especially the sudden expression, of displeasure at what
is regarded as unworthy of a man.  Like sternness, it
implies the recognition of a standard supposed to be
righteous, united to a strict judgment according to the standard and to displeasure at short-comings. Indignation is a
virtue of character, and no character can be perfect if it
be absent. It is a sense of justice carried into the soul
and kindling it up into anger.  It is the resistance of
human sensibility against wrong doing.  In indignation
there is properly no selfish element, any more than in
justice, of which indignation is the hand-maid.  We may
add that indignation serves the sympathies of our nature;
it takes under the protection of its just wrath public
wrongs, wrongs done to the defenceless and the humble.
It is a generous emotion, for it breathes defiance to arbitrary power, to whatever exalts itself against humanity;
it draws its sword against tyrannical public sentiment; it
shelters the rights of the minority and the despised under
its wing. Thus there is no noble soul in which this is not
found a guest.  But suppose now that indignation gives
the key note to character; suppose that a man, like a
mastiff at the door of righteousness, is forever growling
at injustice; that his eye is sharp to see wrong which
ordinary senses cannot discover; and suppose also in its
favor, that its strength  is duly proportioned  to the
strength of the wrong perceived, so that it is neither ex7




146       Union of Justice and Grace in God.
cited on the wrong occasion nor runs over the line of
justice;-even then, we ask, will such a man be loved?
Certainly not. He will be respected for his fidelity to
justice, but loved he cannot be. No one likes to take a
storm home to his bosom, or feels gladness when the lightning is playing before his eyes. The reformer, whose soul
is continually on fire with just wrath against social or
political sins, is perhaps the most useful man in a community, and yet he is apt to have but few instalments of
love paid to him. Even the quiet and the loving among
his advocates like to stand a little way beyond the hearing of his denunciations. And yet he is the truest servant
of justice.
I mention but one more of those traits of character
which partake of the quality of justice-it is dutifulness.
What is more praised and honored in the world than this
quality, which in its lower forms of legality constitutes the
honest citizen, and in its higher the man of unshaken
fidelity to conscience and to God? Moreover, dutifulness,
in its wider sense, embraces the feelings and affections
which are due to those who are near to us, so that it
occupies a field from which love is not shut out. But
look at it as consisting in the mere discharge of obligations,
as the naked inclination of the soul to do what is commanded by lawful authority, and you will see that it
excites no love, draws no sympathy towards itself, is no
bond of union between minds.  And it is so with the lawgiver as with the subject:  maintenance of law, like
loyalty to law, is a quality possessed of little attractiveness,
essential as it is to the stability and welfare whether of a
state or of the universe.
But I pass over to the other side of the subject and
remark, that a character in which bare kindness or goodness
throws all other qualities into the shade secures no respect.
And here we speak of true kindliness of nature, not of that
semblance of it, which does kind acts on calculation, in




Union of Justice and Grace in God.       147
order to get back the like from others. It is felt, when
we observe a character where this ground color in its
various shades is discernible, that it has some essential
deficiency, that it is incapable of meeting any of the crises
in any of the kinds of society which God has ordained,
that it is unmanly and unheroic, if not often deserving
of contempt.  Illustrations offer themselves on every
hand, from which we can pick out but one or two. The
first which we notice is indiscriminate alms-giving.  When
the tendency to relieve distress appears in the character
as an uncontrolled instinct; when a man scatters his
money or good deeds without inquiring into the claims of
the petitioners, who need only ask to come away fullhanded; who pronounces such an unreasoning freeness of
beneficence worthy of honor from mankind?  Is it not
rather felt to be an amiable weakness, an evil in the shape
of good?  Such a man may have a certain kind of love
bestowed on him; he may be popular; he certainly will
be popular in a community of beggars, though even they,
doubtless, will discover his want of moral strength.
Another form  of the same one-sidedness is seen in
reluctance to reprove others. Many amiable persons can
never rebuke for their faults those even whom they sincerely love, from an unwillingness to wound their feelings.
To their minds reproof is a kind of judicial act, which
ought to come from a superior sitting in a trial of conduct; they cannot nerve themselves to the discharge of
such an office, much as they desire to see the fault corrected. Now, is it not evident, that when one intimate
friend acts toward another on this principle, much of the
respect which would otherwise grow  up, and without
which love itself cannot be deep, must fail to exist?
May not even the stern, when the sting of reproof has
passed away, and the benefit remains, occupy a higher
place of regard.
So too, to give but one more illustration, the indulgent




148       Union of Justice and Grace in God.
person, when that quality is excessive, not only does a
vast amount of evil, but is unable to take a high place in
other hearts.  Indiscriminate or unreasoning indulgence
fails in the end to secure the love which it obtains at
first, and comes to be despised. The child is delighted
with it, but taxes it more and more until compliance is
outrun, and then complains; the grown-up, reflecting
person feels that by it his interests were sacrificed.
And if we look into several of the principal employments of life we shall see that a tendency to either
extreme, of gentleness or of severity, is most hurtful to
society.  In famnily government the lax discipline of the
father hurts the child, and the father's sternness ruins him.
The teacher by over indulgence fosters idleness in the pupil,
while by harshness he makes him  hate study and rouses
rebellion.  The military officer by slack discipline corrupts
and enervates an army, as well as makes it a pest to the
region where it is quartered, and by cruel rigor destroys
that pride in the service, and that attachment to the
leader, without which an army cannot fight well.  The
magistrate who out of pity pardons every convict is a foe
to the state's true interest; he who drives law to the extreme,
causes law itself to lose its power.  The judge must lean
towards equity, or the strict letter of the statute will be an
injury to society; a Draco whose laws are written in
blood will arouse, by and by, such a feeling that the laws
will not be enforced. In short through all the forms of
life, when authority is given to some over others, the existence of either of these qualities without the other
destroys all sound moral government.
On the contrary, where both qualities are found in
due  measure, they insure the best government which
the circumstances allow.  They do not check each other,
as might be supposed, but add to each other's power.
The indiscriminately kind man is felt to be weak; the
harsh, rigorous nature may have intellect in abundance,




Union of Justice and Grace in God.       149
but fails to warm the souls of men. When united they
form  character, a character in which there is depth, the
depth of intellect resting below temper and impulse on a
foundation of wisdom and true excellence of heart. There
can be no moral government among men without wisdom,
for he who makes men good must look not at immediate
impressions but at results: he must take long stretches of
time into view, and long series and interactions of causes
shaping character.  When did instinctive benevolence
ever fail to thwart its own wishes andto corrupt its beneficiaries?
The union of these opposites, where alone wisdom can
be found, ensures the best government, and as every one
must be in some way a governor, of a family, or a workshop, if not of a town or state, the whole of the vast
interests of mankind depend on this union.
II. If God is to be honored and loved by human beings
He must present himself to our minds under the same twofold aspect.  He must be seen in the light of those qualities which we may call by the name of justice, and of
those to which we give the names of goodness, kindness,
tenderness or mercy.
What would be the kind of manifestations of the
divine character suited to the nature of unfallen human
beings, it is, perhaps, not very important to inquire. But
we see no reason to suppose that they would differ from
the exhibitions of God given fully in the Scriptures, and
less clearly in life and history, to man in his state of sin,
except that the peculiar trait of mercy would not then be
called forth.  Human character as such, whether innocent or fallen, is made for moral government, for obedience to the'law of a superior, and for the acknowledgment
of the rights of equals, as well as for the reciprocation of
benevolence; so that display of divine justice or righteousness and of divine goodness or kindness would be needed
for the education of the race as much then as in our




150      Union of Justice and Grace in God.
present fallen condition. It can hardly be supposed that
the sense of justice would fade out of the minds of men
in a perfectly pure society, or that righteousness and the
consciousness of obligation would then find no place in
the intercourse of men. There must be law so long as
there are finite beings; only law would play a very
subordinate part in a pure world. But, however this may
be, sin, by the law of our moral nature, brings with it the
sense of the displeasure of God, a sense which the heathen
cannot destroy, even when they form gods to themselves
with human passions and a human standard of morals.
And thus in a state of sin divine justice, divine wrath,
divine punishment must occupy such a foremost place
that all eyes can see it. Now these principles of human
nature have strong appeals made to them  by feelings
which lay dormant in a state of innocence,-fear of retribution, a feeling that our interests are separate from those
of God and His universe, remorse for sin, the desire to
hide our guilt from our own eyes and to keep out of sight
of God as much as possible. These are either the wounds
made by the sword of justice, or the human methods to
cure those wounds without looking our condition and our
character in the face.
Suppose now the revelations of God to man, all of
them, to take this one form of severe justice or indignation against sin, of stern authority or vindication of injured law.  Man, we will suppose, remains as he was,
and nature contains all the sources of enjoyment which it
had before he fell, but the heavens of God are covered
with a black cloud, out of which issue lightnings and
thunderings upon human souls. Sinai itself will now retain only the latter part of that matchless verse, from
which we take our text.  We hear no longer of "the
Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering
and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for
thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin;" but




Union of Justice and Grace in God.       151
the words which follow-that " God will by no means clear
the guilty," that He " visits the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children unto the third and to the fourth generations "
-these words are re-echoed and rebound continually from
the angry skies. Now what is the influence of all this
disclosure of unmingled justice upon temper and character? Is there any education in it towards a life of love
and of trust, towards a life of virtue growing out of these
sister affections? Remorse may be aroused by it. Is not
remorse a paralysis of the soul, making it more helpless
than before, unnerving resolution and killing hope? Or
pleasure may be sought as a relief from  the burden of
gloomy care.  I)oes that bring men to God, or is not its
very aim to forget Him? Or the soul may swerve from
just conceptions of its relations to God; it may abrogate
for itself, so to speak, His law of righteousness and construct a laxer code. Is such error any fit education for
the race in righteousness and goodness?  And if man
should compare this unmitigated justice of God with the
gentleness of human law, which allows pardons and respites,
would not the awful sternness of the divine character be
made so much the gloomier by the contrast?  Or if, what
we' must regard as the truer supposition, such manifestations of God were to make their impress upon human
law, would that not become a law of inexorable cruelty
and of bloody revenge, and would not law-if law there
could be-deepen the traits in man's nature that are most
fell and deadly, while the tender ones would find little
room to expand?  Let those savage tribes,whose characters are formed by and assimilated to the malignant beings
they worship, answer.
On the other hand let us think for a moment what kind
of a moral training the human race would have under the
one-sided exhibition of the divine goodness. And here suppose first, as we have done before, the race to be uncorrupt,
and that there is no positive need, in order to aid restora



152      Union of Justice and Grace in God.
tion to virtue, that a disclosure should be made of forgiveness.  In this state of things would not man-knowing
nothing of divine justice-remain a weakling in rectitude,
unable to dare or resist?  Could he have any strong
points of character about him?  Could he be a minister
and interpreter of God in any high sense outside of the
natural world, and would not the higher world Qf morals
be to him an unexplored, unknown kingdom?  We conceive of the angelic hosts as siding with God, when they
see the majesty of His righteousness even in the punishment of sin. And in the Apocalypse Heaven is full of
the cry, "Even so Lord God Almighty, for just and true
are thy judgments."  They have been educated-perhaps
by the spectacle of sin in the universe-into indignation
against sin, but the race of man in the case supposed would
belittle more than higher animals, undeveloped in those
moral faculties which behold God in His entire character.
But let us turn to the existing state of things in a race
of sinners. Let this race, which has swerved from righteousness, be educated under impressions of divine goodness
and kindness, only excepting from these manifestations of
God a revelation of forgiveness, for forgiveness implies antecedent justice which in the case supposed is set aside. Let
then all that looks like forgiveness take the form of clemency or rather of indulgence. "You are conscious of sin,"
the divine government will say to mankind, "but you
nerd not trouble yourselves about sin; God overlooks it;
He has no censure or penalty or prison for it that you
know of. So you may take your way through life with
the less burden, because you can shake off the thought of
divine wrath and retribution."  But is this the true means
of maintaining the rights of God, or of educating man for
a life of virtue?  Nay, rather, is not such an exhibition
of God's feelings towards sin calculated to dcstroy all
respect for His character, even in the very persons who
may be supposed to draw benefit from His indulgence?




Union of Justice and Grace in God.        153
For how could a policy which would ruin a family and
dissolve a state, which would make children and citizens
feel that their interests had been neglected,-when emanating from a higher throne-be any safer or wiser?  We
can see also, that God, so manifested, could secure as
little affection as respect; for the good could not put their
trust in Him, the bad would be won from their sins by no
evidence of love on His part; all would feel that the most
essential character of a ruler was wanting.  And the
influence on civil order would be most disastrous; either
human  government copying  after the  divine, would
abolish its punishments, open its houses of correction and
let every one do as he chose, or would make a vain
attempt to maintain righteousness and order, when the
whole current of religion ran against it. We cannot conceive of a greater disaster than such a divine administration, the very belief in which, if it had no reality,
would unsettle everything man holds dear.
But when both sides of God's character and government
are revealed together, every point is gained.  God can be
revered and felt to be worthy of reverence, can be loved
and be felt to be worthy of love. The righteous can feel
safe under His shelter, and the wicked can dread His displeasure.  The trembling sinner can look with  hope
toward the light which beams from His mingled justice
and holiness. Man, in all the forms of society, can feel
that God's known character and will is the cement which
bindc  the family, the State, the nations of mankind together by a twisted cord of justice and good-will.  Man
can now be educated for the offices of the world and for
eternal life, for all time and all places on one plan,
because the policy of the family and of the State is seen
to be the policy of' Heaven and of the universe.  Law
reigns and pardon is offered to sinners without weakening
the authority or venerableness of the law-giver.  "There
is forgiveness with thee that thou miayest be feared." Sin



154      Union of Justice and Grace in God.
ners are recovered and reclaimed first by a sense of sin,
and then by a perception of divine love, and without the
latter they would not think of their sins, or grow into
that filial fear, that holy worship which the Psalmist intends. Only under this two-fold aspect of God is true
religion, the religion of the soul, possible.
III. We add thirdly, that it involves a very high degree
of wisdom to know when to be just or severe, and when
to exercise goodness or grace.  The mere impulse of
benevolence would, as we have seen, destroy every government from the lowest to the highest, from the government
of a family to the government of the universe. Nor can
a strong sense of the evils of sin determine whether sin
ought, in any particular case, to be dealt with in the way
of forbearance or of punishment, of grace or of wrath.
The mnre attribute of justice would not be a safe guide
for any administration, divine or human; only it is safer
than the mere impulse of benevolence, for its object is to
maintain law and right. But the presence of neither
quality in the soul is any guide of conduct. If a magistrate, invested with the pardoning power, pardons because
he hates to see suffering, why should he not, with as good
reason, punish because he hates to see crime?  And so the
attribute of justice in God renders it at least as certain
that He will punish, as His goodness, that He will save.
What is there then that shall decide under any government, divine or human, whether law shall have its perfect
course or shall be interrupted?  Nay, more, if the law be
good, must there not be a reason for its interruption, a
reason lying beyond the pity of the law-giver and the sufferings of transgressors?
We come then to this result, that only wide-looking and
far-looking wisdom can decide in the case of a particular
offender whether such interruption of law by pardon is
possible, without hazarding the permanent good of the
society in question. Feeling cannot decide, mere experi



Union oj Justice and Grace.in God.      155
ence cannot decide; only a wisdom confirmed by experience, acquainted with the play of motives, capable of
judging how the moral education of society will be affected
by different ways of administering law, only this high
gift, granted in scanty measure to the best minds, is fully
equal to a problem of setting law aside and yet maintaining its force.
How much more then, would it be a problem  beyond
man's power to solve whether God could pardon sin, if He
had not disclosed Himself in His feelings and His measures?  For in the case of human law, equity often demands exceptions, and pettier offences are beneath notice,
and the sentiments of the subjects of law concerning the
law are to be taken into account. But there, in the universal law before the mind of God there is no divergence
between strict justice and equity; a little sin, if there be
such a thing, is caught by the net of omniscient righteousness as surely as a great one; and the unerring truth of
God is to govern, not to be governed by, the sentiment of
the worlds. What man then, who but a peer of God, can
rise to so high a seat of wisdom as to decide whether or
not He can pardon sin?  I marvel, when I hear men who
could not decide a case aright in court, who in a chair of
state might do vast mischief by unwise pardons, nay, who
spoil their own children, perhaps, by indulgence or by
harshness, I marvel, when I hear these men legislating
for the universe, as if they were " gods and all of them
children of the most High." I marvel, when I hear their
theories on sin and on retribution, as if defection from the
Maker and Father of the universe were a little thing, all
the dimensions of which they could ascertain by their
square and compass.  What? Have not men been legislating for centuries and yet with all the lights of transmitted
experience unable to reach the golden mean between
severity and laxity, complaining of their fathers only to
be found fault with themselves by the next age, disputing




156      Union of Justice and Grace in God.
until now on the very principles of criminal law, and shall
such a race that cannot govern itself sit in judgment on
God?  He who can comprehend the universe, and can
fathom  character and the bearings of His dealings on
character, He and He alone can tell when to be forbearing and when to smite, when to forgive and how long
to hold out offers of forgiveness,  how to mingle and
to proportion holiness with love in His dealings with
sinners.
It is a great problem to govern a nation; it is a greater
to govern a virtuous universe; but a greater still is presented when the element of evil is thrown into the question,
and the interests of the many come into conflict with the
happiness of the sinful few. Especially when we look on
God as training His creatures up for a higher condition;
enlarging their powers, helping  the strong to  grow
stronger, pitying the weak and revealing Himself as their
forgiving God; then above all does it appear that the
balances of the moral universe are exceedingly delicate,
and that there is need of a hand, firm and wise beyond
our thought, to hold them.
No solution of the intricacies of things has been offered
to man deserving of notice but that which Christ has
made. The reconciliation of holiness and love in His
work, its just, well-balanced training of the whole moral
nature challenge our respect, our admiration, even if we
will stand aloof from Christ. He is made of God unto us
wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
The training of our race depends more on the moral impressions that are made upon it than on anything else,
and these moral impressions depend mainly on the recognized character of God. With a certain character of God,
law and society, family life and state life, would have no
foundation to rest upon, no defence of their integrity and
their sacredness: with a certain other conception of God,




Union of Justice and Grace in God.       157
severity, wrath, ferocity, all the harsher qualities would be
cultivated, religion would wear a malign countenance, law
would be a minister of death. How vastly important then
is the religious conviction concerning God for the welfare
of mankind.  And may we not go farther and say that
other worlds besides ours, that principalities aud powers in
heavenly places need a similar training?  Is there anything strange in the hints thrown out by our sacred
writers, that the scheme of God, as it culminates in Christ,
should be used for the ennoblement and perfection of the
heavenly host?  I do not mean that sin is necessary to
manifest God more fully and clearly to the higher intelli-.
gences, but that when once it exists, an incidental but a
great good is drawn from it for those who have never
offended. Conceive of them as spectators of the fall and
the first measures of God for the restoration of man.
Something yet remains in this world-history to satisfy
their minds for which they wait in faith. At length the
full solution comes in Christ incarnate and suffering;
now they burst into rapturous joy and learn new wisdom,
and become more faithful to righteousness, as they see the
mystery of grace unfolded; now "unto the principalities
and powers in heavenly places" is "made known by the
church the manifold wisdom of God."
And now, having brought your minds to Christ, I close
with the remark that He united the two sides of character
which we have spoken of, in their due mixture, in His one
person. There has been one man who has shown a perfect
balance of character in this respect, and He is fitted for
this reason to represent God and to be a moral legislator
for mankind. This is remarkable in regard to our Lord,
that a person who should have become acquainted only
with His traits of love, as forbearance, condescension,
patience, mildness, pity, and forgiveness, would be apt to
suppose that he had seen the whole framework of His character; while another person who heard His awful rebukes




153      Union of Justice and Grace in God.
of the Pharisees, and saw with what zeal He defended the
rights of God, and observed what He thought of sin and
what were his threatenings against it, would take Him for
a man made out of iron justice alone. But He united in
unrivalled harmony both these aspects of character. And
it is well worthy of being remarked that their union
proves their genuineness and their depth. He who could
love so and forgive so, notwithstanding His deep sense of
the sin, what strength of character must He have had,
what a depth and truth of love, what a power of loving,
what an inexhaustible richness of soul! And He who could
rebuke so and show such strong displeasure against evil
doing, how hard, humanly speaking, must it have been for
Him to love objects so far from loveliness; and if He loved
them as He did, must not His love have been of another
kicnd than ours, one superior to personal slights and injuries, wholly unlike instinctive kindness of temper, partaking of a quality of lofty wisdom! You would think that
each of these traits would check and neutralize the other,
that the holy hater of sin could not bend into love, that
the man'compact' of love must be blind to justice, but it
was not so. The strength of His holiness and justice
proves the depth of His love, and His love was the stronger,
because it rested on the fixed rock of justice and holiness.
This union of qualities, which, as in the case of the
Saviour, leads not to a dead-lock of character, but to active
living perfection, is allied to wisdom or rather is itself wisdom, for it implies moral judgment perfectly sound and
rectitude unshaken.  Christ then, with such a nature,
would be the loving Saviour, the friend of sinners, but he
would be also the wise law-giver and the just Judge.  He
is thus like God and fitted to represent God; he embodies
that idea of God, which, with the help of the noblest passages
of the Old Testament, our minds, in their best frames of
thought and feeling, are able to form. And if, in a
larger sphere, the Son of Man shall judge the world He




Union of Justice and  Grace in  God.            159
came to save, it will be not in a new character, but only in
a new office.
Worthy His hand to hold the keys,
~Guided by wisdom and by love;
Worthy to nt!l o'er mortal life,
O'er worlds beiow anid worlds above.




SERMON XIL
EARTHLY THINGS MUST BE BELIEVED BEFORE
HEAVENLY CAN BE.
JOHN iii. 13. If I have told you earthly things and ye believed not,
how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
THESE words contain an argument from the less to the
greater.  If you disbelieve what I say in cases where
human experience and consciousness give their voice in
favor of my testimony, how much more will you disbelieve, when I declare to you that which is far beyond
the reach of human knowledge?  And if the elementary
knowledge within your attainment is rejected or denied,
how can you receive that superior or divine knowledge,
which has no force nor meaning for the mind, unless it, is
brought into connection with these very earthly elements?
I purpose to illustrate and unfold the words of our
Lord, first, by attempting to find out what the earthly and
what the heavenly things are of which He speaks, and
secondly, by showing how unbelief in the heavenly things
is necessarily involved in rejection of the earthly.
I. First, then, the earthly things are those which it did
not require a teacher from  Heaven to make known. A
large portion of the truth which affects the interests of
our spiritual and' immortal nature is of this sort. Such
truth is generally admitted in civilized communities with
more or less distinctness, because it reposes on primary
moral convictions which are common to all men. Even
through Pagan and barbarous lands, it is involved in the
feelings and confessions of all the people. The office of
a religious teacher or of an inspired prophet is not to dis160




Earthly things must be believed before Heavenly can be. 161
close these earthly things, as if they were the matter of a
new revelation, but he takes them  for granted, or else he
reaffirms them  because the minds of men, for some
reason, discover them  dimly and blindly.  It may be,
indeed, of the greatest importance that he should reaffirm
them, for he needs to carry the minds of men with him
when he advances to the higher and heavenly things,
and doubt or disbelief at the earthly threshold would be
a most serious impediment in his way. But we may say of
Christ, at least, that He never would have come into the
world to show men what their own reason could show
them without His help, and that all His work about such
earthly things was preparatory to a much higher work,
to a revelation of that which lay beyond the eyes and ears
of men, of that which He knew in His heavenly existence
in the heavenly world.
An illustration or two will, I hope, make all this plain.
Christ had told Nicodernus that a man must be born
again, or born from above, in order to see the kingdom of
G d. Nicodemus, after receiving his instructions on this
great subject, exclaimed, how can these things be? The
Great Teacher, in reply, asks with surprise, how Nicodemus could be a master in Israel and not know these
things-not be familiar with the necessity of regeneration
before Christ had placed it within the view of his mind.
The necessity of regeneration then, as the condition of
entrance into the expected kingdom of God, was one of
those earthly things which Nicodemus ought to have
known before; it was a truth,- discoverable without revelation, and needing no messenger from Heaven to unfold
it, not to know which argued surprising blindness on the
part of a master in Israel.
Now let us look at this truth, in order to see whether
it be an earthly thing, or whether the great Teacher did
not expect too much from the educated Jew who was
sitting at His feet.




162          Earthly things must be believed
Was it then a new doctrine in the world,-so new, that
a learned Jew might well stare when it was first propound-d to him? Let the prayer of the penitent, " Create
in me a clean heart O God, and renew within me a right
spirit,"-answer. Or such a passage, again, as that in
Ezekiel, "A new heart will I give you and a new spirit
will I put within you! and I will take away the stony
heart out of your flesh, and will give you an heart of
flesh."
But perhaps, if not new, it was a heavenly truth, taught
by inspiration first, and received on divine authority But
how is this consistent with the fact that through the Old
Testament, essentially if not in so many words, it is implied in every exhortation to repentance, every description of the state of men in their sins, every statement
which makes of the godly or the holy a class distinct
from  the rest of mankind?  We must admit then a
natural foundation for it in the universal consciousness of
sin. Was it strange that a Jew, whose sense of sin was
kept alive by the moral and the ceremonial portions of
the law, should feel his need of a spiritual renovation?
Was it strange, when he struggled with himself and
found his fleshly appetites too strong, that he fell back on
God as a helper, and admitted the presence of God's lifegiving Spirit to be his great want? To what other conclusion, in fact, could Uny one arrive, who started from
the fact of sin and was earnestly bent on improving his
own character? Surely such earthly teachers as consciousness and experience were enough to reveal this to an
earnest Jewish soul. And may we not go farther, and
say that every thoughtful mind among the Greeks and
Romans who regarded the improvement of character to
be of prime importance, came to the same result,-that
the soul was in a state of disharmony, that life was in
ruins, and that he would be man's greatest benefactor
who could point out to man a better help than the dis



Before Heeavenly can be.          163
cipline of philosophy. Nor is this to be argued more
from individual confessions, than from the success of the
Gospel when it went through the heathen world preaching
its heavenly announcements. Men received these because
they were prepared for them by a sense of want and a
sense of sin which had been smouldering in their hearts.
To them the necessity of a new birth seemed like an old
doctrine of their own experience, with a more vivid light
thrown upon it by the Gospel.
And so all those decisions which our moral nature pronounces, when the fact of sin is honestly admitted, are
earthly things which Christ needed to preach, but did not
first reveal. The ill desert of sin, the anger of God
against sin, the judgment which will follow sin, the helplessness of him who is under the yoke of sin-these and
such as these are the earthly things which conscience and
life had impressed on many a Jew, yes, and on many a
heathen all over the world, from  the realms of Druid
worship to those lands in the East where men have
sought to purify the soul by the torture of the body.
Such, then, are the earthly things which our Saviour
has in view: they are what man could discov.er for himself, or, if by reason of his blindness he could not do this,
might realize to be true as soon as they were told him.
What, on the other hand, were the heavenly things?
Plainly, such as no skill of man could discover, no philosopher could reason out, no consciousness, or experience
construct,-such as needed a Divine messenger from the
skies to make them  known. It may be that some intimations of these heavenly things were conveyed to God's
people by the old prophets; it may be that God's dealings
of forbearance and compassion suggested the possibility of
them, or of something like them; it may even be that human nature in thoughtful heathen minds is never without
hope of some light to come, some intervention or deliverance; but, granting all this, still, the heavenly things




164         Earthly things must be believed
needed to be disclosed by the same hand that had fanned
these embers of hope, and had furborne to punish sin, and
had inspired the prophets to promise future good.
What these heavenly things were, our Lord'lets us
know in the verses following our text. They were such as
the lifting up on the cross of the Son of man for the sins
of the world, the love of God in sending His Son for man's
salvation, and not for his condemnation. That a rescue of
man in his sins was desirable-this might be freely admitted; that there was no other hope for him, this, too,
experience might teach, but that God had resolved to interpose on man's behalf, in what way He would interpose,
who was to be the deliverer, what He was to do for this
end, what man would do to Him-all this was wrapped in
impenetrable darkness, except so far as prophets had
caught glimpses of heavenly realities, which they themselves imperfectly understood.
Those religious truths, then, which consciousness and
experience reveal to a candid spirit, are called by our
Lord earthly things; those truths, on the other hand,
which lie beyond the knowledge of man, and which only
a messenger from  heaven can reveal, He calls heavenly
things.
II. In illustration of these words of Christ, I remark,
that belief in the earthly things is a necessary antecedent
to belief in the heavenly. It is impossible for him who
rejects the first class of truths to accept the other. No
man can receive Christ, as a teacher come from God, and
making known what no earthly teacher could discover,
and yet deny or discard that which he assumes as the very
reason for which His revelation is brought to man. Nay,
further, no man can receive Christ without being made
ready for Him by the teachings of conscience and of
reason. The root of unbelief.and of skepticism lies deeper
down in the soul than many a man thinks: it is not merely
rejection of the supernatural, or even the closing of the




Before Heavenly can be.             165
heart to God's infinite love, manifest in His dear Son, but
it is shutting the ear to the very voice of nature crying
within us, telling us of our immense needs, and thus
bringing us to a Christ all ready for our reception. And
thus unbelief takes its true place: it is not only sin against
Christ, blindness to revealed glories, insensibility to love
from heaven,-it is, also, sin against nature, sin against
reason, sin against the soul's deepest, most universal convictions.
Observe, then, that without faith in the earthly things
pointed out above, Christ's heavenly revelation can have
no interest, is not a practical subject, and is altogether improbable.
God must have manifested Himself in Christ, for some
good reason lying outside of the revelation itself? It was
not in order to make a revelation for its own sake, that
Christ was sent, but it was for some cause arising out of
the nature and condition of man. It was to provide a
remedy for some existing evil, and for some evil bearing
a proportion in its magnitude to the grandeur of the intervention. But the evil, in order to be cured, must be
felt and acknowledged, for there are no magical processes
in God's government, there is no way of getting rid of
evil in man's nature or in human society without the effective co-operation of man himself. Now such co-operation is prevented, not only by unbelief in the value of the
remedy, but just as much by unbelief in the need of any
remedy at all. How is man to discover his need of a
remedy? Not from the revelation which places it within
his reach,-although the uses of this may be very great
in drawing his attention to moral maladies from which
his eye was turned away before-but from his own moral
sense, his consciousness of sin, his observation of the laws
of character, his study of society, and of his fellow-men.
Suppose now he will not admit his sinfulness, can the
revelation do him any good? Can it even be received for




166          Earthly things must be believed
true? Will he not reason that if sin is no evil, there is no
need of any remedy for it, much less of a remedy so marvellous as the incarnation and death of the Son of God?
And if his premises are true, will he not have a right so
to reason? Suppose that among the multitudes preached
to by the Apostle Paul, there had been one sinless man,
one man utterly unconscious of having ever offended
God, or suppose there had been one utterly devoid, by his
nature, of a sense of good and evil. If the Apostle in
his ignorance of human hearts had offered the salvation
from heaven to either of these men, could either of them
have received it?  Would it have been a revelation intended for either of them? Was not the nature of both
such that they would be obliged to reject a revelation
pre-supposing sin? And so, too, all men who will not
admit the great fact of their sinfulness, as discovered from
their earthly experience, must reject, cannot fail to reject,
a revelation from heaven which without that sinfulness
can have no meaning.
I have spoken exclusively of sinfulness in this argument, because all the earthly things, all the religious doctrines which Christ's heavenly doctrine pre-supposes, revolve around this one fact of human sin. Our nature is
such as sin makes it, our relations to God are determined
by sin, our power of self-recovery is crippled by sin, the
question whether God can pardon sin is an unsettled question before a positive offer is made,the future prospects of
the soul are dark as long as there is sin past or present to
be taken into account. Let me add too that sin itself, and
sin alone makes us unwilling to admit those earthly things
which furnish the reason why Christ came into the world,
and thus prepares the way for all skepticism-that relating to our nature and obligations towards God, and
that relating to the grand recoverer. Sin seeks to deny
its own existence, it pretends to be dead, it succeeds in
making the soul insensible to its own state, and thus incapable of receiving Christ.




Before Heavenly can be.             167
One or two illustrations will, I trust, make it plain, that
the unbelief which rejects Christ has its root in the denial
of those very truths which need no revelation for their establishment.
The philosophy called Pantheistic denies the freedom
of man, and holds that sin is a necessary stage in the progress of the development of a finite creature. Now between such a view of man's moral nature and wants, and
the coming of Christ from heaven to save him, how can
there be any harmony?  If man is unfree, why call on
him to believe, or complain of him for not believing? If
sin is necessary for the finite mind, if it is an unavoidable
stage of being, why not let it alone, and what wisdom is
there in a remedial system which assumes that it can be
cured? And indeed how could a God who is Himself
bound by necessity, who is in a process of evolution over
which He has no control, out of His own free love send
His Son on an errand of mercy into this world?  Or if
He came, since nature is subject to the same bondage,
how could He work miracles, which by the theory are impossible? Thus, then, there is no need of a revelation, nor
any possibility of one, nor can there be any evidence for
one. Is the rejection of Christ's heavenly message, then,
on the part.of the Pantheist, due chiefly to its nature, or
its difficulties-or, is not the conclusion in this school a
foregone one, good against any possible or conceivable
revelation, good against any opening of heaven to earth,
and any way from earth to heaven,-good even against
that fixed consciousness of sin, which cleaves to the race,
and which must, on Pantheistic principles, be pronounced
to be a fixed illusion?
For another illustration of a more practical nature let
us look at the Pharisee. Here is a man who believes in
the earthly things, as it seems, for he believes in God, even
in the God of Israel.  He believes that there is such a
thing as sin, and it troubles him, as is evident by the




168          Earthly things must be believed
trouble he takes to get rid of the sense of it. Now, why
does he reject the Saviour's claims to be the Christ ot God?
It is because his view of sin, of his relation to God, of his
character, is shallow. Hle can, by external observance, by
decorum, by morality, by almsgiving, by bigoted attachment to the faith of his ancestors,-he can in these ways
satisfy himself, and keep religion from invading the inner
provinces of his soul. But the sacred Teacher has a battery
to play upon him: He says, except a man be born again,
be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot see the lingdom  of God. Here Christ comes into border-land where
the earthly and the heavenly meet; He opens the world of
spiritual power, and shows him that all works without the
work of the Spirit are works of the flesh. This is a step
beyond where he is willing to follow the Teacher come
fiom God. This, which he ought to have found out of
himself, he is not willing to admit. "How  can these
things be?" But if not, how then can those other things
be-those glorious announcements out of the heavens
which Christ is all ready to tell him? He must shrivel up
in his skepticism. And he does not see all the while that
he is passing judgment on himself. For if, with all his
Jewish lore, and his access to the books of God, and his
ready faith in a portion of the truth there announced, he
cannot receive the doctrine of a new spiritual birth, when
it is taught by Scripture and by experience, do not his
blindness and unbelief show that he needs to have his eyes
and his heart opened before he can enter into the kingdom
of God?
Not very unlike the state of the Pharisee is the state of
that class of worldly men who live an easy, self-satisfied
life, in entire unconcern for the future interests of their
souls. If they had even the convictions of Plato in regard
to the lapse of souls; or the convictions of Aristotle in regard to the importance of character; or the convictions of
the Stoics in regard to the freedom and nobility of the vir



Before Heavenly can be.           169
tuous soul, could they think so meanly as they do of their
immortal part?  If then, when Christ tells them  these
things, which the best heathen in substance admit, and
they believe not, how can they believe, when He begins to
tell them of the strength of a Divine love which drew
Him down into this world? If He tells them about the nselves, and holds the mirror before them that they may
look into their souls, and they believe n t, how can they
believe when He tells them of Himself, of this unknown
being beyond the skies? He can have no hold on their
minds, He can be of no practical interest whatever, there is
no good reason which they admit for His coming into the
world. How then can they believe when He speaks of
Himself as having come from God?
Thus it appears that when the earthly things of which
Christ discourses are rejected, all that He says of heavenly
truth will be rejected also. On the other hand, he who
receives Christ's testimony concerning the former will
believe what He says of the latter.
We have already seen that in the condition of human
nature and its wrong relations to God,-truths within the
reach of an earthly mind,-lie the reason for Christ's coming
into this world. But these reasons, it is plain, must be
perceived and acknowledged by each soul that hears the
Gospel, otherwise the Gospel can be of no use to him
whatever. And the faith which receives Christ is a faith
which contemplates His coming to relieve some acknowledged want, to cure some felt evil, to readjust some controversy with God of which there is a painful conscious,
ness. Suppose now, that an individual has reached this
station of faith, that he believes in the sad reality of sin,
that he believes in a discord between the soul and God,
that he believes in the necessity of a new spiritual life,
if men are to be holy or blessed; and suppose that Christ
now manifests Himself to such a person, confirming first
what He was but too conscious of before, and then adding
8




170         Earthly things must be believed
a revelation of love and hope which offers through a
crucified Saviour reconciliation to God and eternal life.
What will be this man's treatment of the new heavenly
things thus disclosed to him?  The first effect will be to
confirm and deepen his impressions in regard to all those
soul-truths which he previously admitted. The next effect
must be to receive Christ's new message, and to come into
a state of harmony with God.  For what is there to prevent this. He has no prejudice to surmount. When
Christ tells him of his sin and his need of a spiritual life,
it is what he has already felt. He finds no difficulty in
the evidences of Christ's mission. It carries with it, taken
in connection with the character of its author, its own
evidence. He cannot regard God's new revelation as in
itself incredible. Far from this, it is very credible. He
could not, indeed, have solved the problem of what God
would do, but in what God has done he sees a beauty,
a glory, a divine perfection of love and holiness, a suitableness for man's wants and sins, which confirm and are
confirmed by the character and works of the Messenger.
Thus he cannot but believe the heavenly things, the new
revelation, since he believes the earthly things, the religious
truths discernible by man and already known before the
heavenly things are made manifest.
We learn from  these words of our Lord, as thus illustrated, that there is nothing strange in man's rejection
of the Gospel. When we look at Christ's message from
one point of view, when we take into account its offer of
free grace, its promises and helps, the moral beauty of its
founder, the new relations which it institutes between God
and the soul, together with all the wants, the anxieties,
the sorrows which it can be seen and be shown to relieve,
we marvel that any one should stay away from this feast
of love, and so we begin to think that there is some want
of evidence for the Gospel; that difficulties in the Gospel,
not to be explained, keep men with so-nle show of reason




Before Heavenly can be.            171
in a state of skepticism. But, my friends, Christ and experience teach us something truer than this. Skepticism
or disbelief is not the marvel, but faith is the marvel. It
would be more of an evidence against the Gospel that it
should be believed by men as they are, than it. is an evidence against the Gospel that men as they are reject it.
If a Gospel came offering peace and life without any
mention of an inner process in the soul, if the Saviour,
with the evidence of His mission which we have now, had
distributed external gifts, and changed society by His benevolent agency, there would have been a crowding of all
men to Him, He would not have left a few half fledged,
doubting disciples in this world, when He left it for the
Father.  No  the Gospel is not disbelieved for what it is
and for its want of evidence, but for what it pre-supposes.
It is the under-pinning of the Gospel which is unsightly
in the eyes of so many.  Christ is beautiful enough
to penetrate with a kind of joy into the hearts of unbelievers, but these dreadful postulates, these sad realities of man's nature and of his relation to God-these are
the barrier and must be the barrier between Christ and
souls in their sins. It is not miracles, again, or difficulties touching the matter of inspiration, which keep men in
unbelief.  Remove these and there is some other intrenchment behind them.  But let a soul receive Christ's postulates, and miracles or no miracles, inspiration or no inspiration, it throws its gates open wide, and joyfully surrenders to Christ. This is shown by those instances, not
uncommon, where men who had intrenched themselves
for years in some scheme of thought opposing the foundations of the Gospel, suddenly, in affliction or adversity, or
under the unusual influences of religion, abandon their
sheme altogether and go over to Christ the redeemer.
Christ is where He was before.  But they denied the very
reason why He came into the world.  Therefore they




172 Earthly things must be believed before Heavenly can be.
could only disbelieve.  Now they can only believe.  The
unbelief while it lasted was as natural, as inevitable as
the faith was afterwards.
Such cases show also that unbelief in the earthly things
of religion is weak, so that there is hope in some favored
moment of driving it from  its place.  Christ, when He
speaks, is sustained by the deepest, most fixed things in
human nature, by its standard of character, by its ideal
of perfection, by its sense of waut, by its sense of guilt,
by its longing for the favor of God.  These and such as
these are the helpers of faith, the guides to Christ. These
the objector overlooks when he thinks that the Gospel
must fall under his blows.  These the unbeliever covers
up but cannot extinguish. And if, at some blest time, the
Spirit calls the soul into the presence both of these things
and of Christ, so that it sees itself and its deliverer face
to face,-then it enters into the kingdom of God.




SERMON XII,
TIE PLACE OF FEAR AS A MOTIVE IN RELIGION.
LUKE xii. 4-5. But I say unto you, my friends, be not afraid of
them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.
But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear; fear Him, which, after He
hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, fear Him.
THESE words were spoken by one who perfectly understood both God and man, and who, having no fear but
rather a perfect love of God in Himself, was under no personal inducement to over-estimate the fear of God, as a
motive to be urged upon others. The quality of the fear
spoken of is defined by the words applied to men-" them
that kill the body," and by the words applied to God"which, after He hath killed, hath power to cast into
hell." It is, then, no filial fear or reverence of God, it
is nothing else but a dread of wrath that our Lord had
in His mind.  The importance, again, of entertaining
such a fear, is shown by the emphatic repetition "yea, I
say unto you, fear Him." Nor can the words be softened
in their meaning by saying that it is God, rather than
man, who ought to be the object of fear, or at least, the
object of some persons' fear, for they are positive, they
point to an evil greater than death, which Christ treats,
and must have regarded, if He was honest, as a fearful
possibility.   They are  used, moreover, by the  moral
teacher of mankind, as bringing a motive to bear upon
His hearers, which He held to be necessary for their good,
and as counteracting another motive-the fear of man,
which unduly swayed or might sway their conduct.
Fear, then, may sometimes, and in the case of some
persons,-we have the authority of the author of the
173




174   The Place of Fear as a Motive in Relgion.
Gospel for what we say-be used, under the Gospel, with
propriety and with benefit, as a motive to counteract the
force of sin. It is, and it ought to be known to be, a "fearful thing," for some descriptions of men, " to fall into the
hands of the living God."  And yet there are many who
would discard this motive altogether, or at least are unwilling to have it urged. The essence of religion being
confessedly love, and Christ Himself having made peace
between God and man, they argue that love and peace
alone should be preached; that no sinner should be
alarmed or agitated at a view of his sins, but only drawn
to God by His free offers of life; that it hurts the character and has marred the aspects of religious life in past
ages, to act on the soul by presenting to its view its
deserts and its risks; that the sinner is driven away from
God and made desperate by appeals to His fears, and the
Christian, if thus introduced into a religi' us life, is made
a slave rather than a child.  In short, they would let the
motive of fear act where small earthly rishie and evils are
to be avoided, but where great perils lie before the soul,
and a black cloud overhangs the future life, they would
shut men's eyes, if possible, or turn them towards another
quarter.  And thus they seem to reverse the teaching of
Christ; they fell us to fear man who at most can kill the
body, and not to fear God who can cast into hell.
I admit all their premises, but it seems to me that their
conclusion is false, foolish, and dangerous. And it is for
the purpose of showing that fear has its- place in a practical system of religion, and of settling the boundaries
within which it is a wholesome motive, that I address you
on the present occasion. It has appeared to me to be an
important subject, because in the oscillation of religious
sentiment men have become unduly ticklish in regard to
the use of such a motive as fear. There was a time when
terror was too much preached, or preached in too exciting
a way, so as to overpower the soul and not even to secure




The Place of Fear as a Motive in Religion.  175
the avoidance of danger.  This was revolting to a sound
Christian taste and a healthy Christian experience, and so
there came a reaction. But it seems as if the world could
never keep in mind the two halves of truth at once, but
must shift from one side to another according to the last
impression made by practical evil, and so the reaction
went too far.  Just as a severe father is apt to make a son
indulgent, just as despotical authority is succeeded by
licentious private judgment and unbridled will, so here the
opposite of wrong is regarded as of course right, one truth
is lost sight of while another engrosses the attention of all.
Tt were well, too, if besides this reaction, we should not
have to say that a false and weak doctrine of benevolence
had not enfeebled the conviction of the righteousness of
punishment, and so the dread of it, and if a pantheistic
view of the world, stealing over men's minds without being
acknowledged, were not taking away from  sin its freedom
and responsibility, and so its ill-desert and its peril.
I. I proceed then to remark in the first place that fear
is implanted in the soul by divine benevolence, as a selfpreserving impulse, and if there are dangers to the soul
from  sin it may have an important office in avoiding
them.  If there were no dangers, or if they could not be
foreseen, or if, when foreseen, they could not be avoided,
there could be no place for fear and no explanation of it
in the plan of our nature.  But what could man do without fear, surrounded as he is by enemies of his life,
of his health, of his peace, of his prosperity?   It is
one of the earliest of emotions, as the life of man in its
first stages manifests. It is one main condition of human
improvement; we seek security because we apprehend evil,
and the apprehension stimulates us to provide for our defence by stable governments, by military, naval, and police
defences, by criminal law and courts of justice.  What
value would there be in life, or what stability in health, if
fear of loss did not move us to guard ourselves at these




176  The Place of Fear as a Motive in Religion.
points? or how could we hope and calculate for the
future, if fear went not along with hope to provide against
the dangers by which the hope might be frustrated? The
prevention of risks is one of our principal activities, and
men tried to insure themselves against dreaded evils thousands of years before insurance companies were thought of.
Nor is it in regard to our material interests and life only
that fear has a work to do. Our reputations and our
characters are not placed beyond its action, and that a
wholesome action.  How  many reputations have been
saved by a dread of reproach, which thus brings the power
of the moral judgments of the many to the support of the
halting and tempted one? How many characters have
been aided at weak moments by the fear of the consequences of sin, when reason and conscience were giving
way?  And this, too, we may notice, that fear is generally
in the service of morality and rectitude, as much as it is
in the service of the life and material welfare of men.
There may indeed be false moral judgments afloat in the
world, and a perverse public sentiment may frown on the
righteous more than on the wrong-doers; but in general fear
must be on the lookout for the conservation of society, and
thus it will ally itself to that moral rectitude which is
society's chief conservation.
These things being so, if there are dangers from sin, why
should they not be feared when perceived, and be pointed
out to the sinner if unperceived. If there are risks to
character, how can a reasonable being fail to take them
into account, or if he is not aware of them, how can a
benevolent man fail to forewarn him? If God's.favor is
worth everything and we can forfeit or have forfeited it,
what but fear can lead us in a world like this to avoid or
repair the evil? If sin is eating into our life, blasting its
blossoms and despoiling it of all solid fruit, and the time
for amendment has not slipped by, how good a friend is
that fear which can bring us to reflection, to resolution, to




The Place of Fear as a Motive in Religion.   177
a new life?  Why should we refuse to appeal to the motive of fear, when great interests, paramount interests are
at stake, and yet appeal to it when the risk is small and
the loss would be trivial?
II. Will it be said that fear is a base motive, and has
no power to make any man better, inasmuch as a character formed under the sway of fear can never have any freeness or elevation? I accept the statement in part, but it
does not tell the whole truth, and needs to be guarded and
qualified in order to be capable of practical application.
Fear is not a base motive if it aids us in securing our welfare.  It may at times be the only motive within call.  A
character built on fear is a base character without doubt,
but a character in the formation of which fear at the right
time and in the right degree has had sore share may be
the best of all characters.
No active principle of our nature is base, which is
necessary, as fear is, for our preservation.  If there are
objective dangers to body or soul, to the interests of time
or of eternity, it is not base, it is rather wise to seek by a
subjective impulse to avoid the danger.  Some persons
seem  to admire unthinking brute courage, which makes
no estimate of the assailing or of the resisting power,
which flies by instinct in the face of danger instead of
avoiding it with the resources of reason.  But while such
animal heroism is more admirable than unthinking, palsying fear, it has no moral quality whatever.  True courage
calculates danger, provides against danger, and thus has
need of fear itself to obtain information of threatening
evil.  Moral courage, the highest form of the quality, does
not consist in having no sensibility to public opinion but
in standing up against it, whilst it fears and would gladly
avoid it.
And again, fear is not base and debasing, for this reason,
that a higher fear often counteracts and overcomes a
lower. The fear of doing wrong may overcome the fear
8*




178  The Place of Fear as a Motive in Religion.
of death; the fear of aod, the fear of man; the fear of
hazarding our eternal interests, the fear of injuring our
temporal. Does not fear thus in the eye of reason take
the color and borrow some of the nobleness of the cause
in which it is enlisted? It may, therefore, be appealed to
rightfully by the noblest persons, by those who are
agitated by no fears themselves, and are acting in the
best of causes.  "Be not afraid," says our Saviour, "of
them that kill the body, and after that have no more that
they can do; but I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear."
"Who art thou," says the prophet, "that thou shouldst
be afraid of a man that shall die and of the son of man
which shall be made as grass, and forgettest the Lord thy
Maker that hath stretched forth the heavens and laid the
foundation of the earth?"  Such is the language of those
who were not afraid to face the world, while men, who
tremble like an aspen at the thought of encountering a
hostile public opinion, maintain that fear ought never to
be appealed to in matters of religion.
And again, fear is sometimes the only force which
can act on our character. To this I shall refer again, and
will only say here, that thousands of times a sudden unforeseen temptation has been resisted by its aid, when
reason was asleep, and desire was kindled into passion.
If this has happened in the case of persons in a state of
sin, when yielding might have ruined them, and if Chris.
tians in like circumstances have been saved from shiipwrecking the soul and dishonoring God, who shall dare
to exclude such a force from its proper play in the formation of character?
But, with all this, we freely admit, that a character
formed under the predominant influence of fear, is a low
and base one, incapable of anything generous or noble.
This, which is true where the falmily government is severe,
and the civil government a despotism, is eminently true
in religion. Love is the brightest principle in a religious




The Place of Fear as a Motive in Religion.  179
life, without which there can be no communion and no cheerful obedience.  As perfect love casts out fear, so perfect
fear casts out love. We hate, and we seek to avoid those
whom we only fear. How then can a character have anything heavenly in it, when the controlling motive is one
which excludes the sway of love and of duty? Fear alone
would not only never make a man better, but would prevent him from ever becoming better. Just as the necessity of self-preservation, if constant and strong, would keep
our eyes away from higher thoughts, and cultivate an ignoble love of life, so would dread of God withdraw us
from those truths which are the true remedy for the moral
disease of our nature.
There is another evil attendant on the predominant
sway of fear, when it is less strong.  The efforts to which
it prompts may be directed not toward the avoidance of
danger, but towards the prevention of fear itself. For this
purpose all subterfuges may be used, all falsehoods welcotned, which can lessen the subjective estimates of danger.
And that this is very common, and very fatal, all experience will testify. The world is full of falsehoods, that get
their strength from this very source.  We all know how
unwilling we are to listen to a class of truths lest our anxieties should be aroused, and we may have discovered in
ourselves a bias against truth, a desire to disbelieve it, for
this very reason.
But all this may be admitted, and it may be true that
the control of fear is neither elevating nor truly reformatory;
while yet it is most true, that fear within its just limits
may be both beneficial and necessary for creatures such as
man. Why should not religion make use at the right time
of every emotion that is not sinful in itself, of fear and
shame, as well as of hope and gratitude and. a sense of duty?
These must all be applied in the moral education of the
individual for an earthly life, and they are equally essential in the concerns of the soul with God.




180  The Place of Fear as a Motive in Religion.
III. Fear, when used as a motive in religion, must take
counsel of the reason and not of the imagination. If it
becomes too intense, if it amounts to terror its use is lost.
The foresight of danger and the apprehension it must
awaken do us no good, unless they turn us towards the
means of escape and of safety. These means themselves
lie within the reach of our reason alone, and in order
that reason may take advantage of them, it must be collected, sound in its calculations, not wholly absorbed by
the danger itself, able to bring all the considerations that
bear on the case before the view of the will, and to direct
the active powers. The emotions, when they become extreme, paralyze our powers: we feel only and are incapable of action. There is such a thing as being swallowed
up in overmuch grief.  Remorse or the sorrow of the
world for sin worketh death. Shame, when excessive,
prevents reform.  Even hope, if unduly confident, destroys the power to attain to that which we hope for. But
of all the emotions fear may become the most unmanning
and paralyzing. It was given to us to avoid danger, but
when it rises into terror it leads to despair. It destroys the
presence of mind which is essential to effective action.
Its connection with the imagination is very intimate, if
not on account of its own nature, as anticipating a vague
unknown evil, at least on account of man's sinful nature,
which the more easily pictures a frowning future, because
it knows that sin is linked to punishment. Of this the
dark superstitions of the  heathen  world  give  most
abundant proof.
Such being the case, it must follow that the office of a
preacher of the truth is to appeal to fear only in that
degree that the mind may fairly view the risks to which
sin is exposed, and may be able to use all its energy to
avoid them. He is unwise and hurts the souls of men
who goes beyond this limit. He thinks, when he sees
evidences of alarm produced by his startling pictures that




The Place of Fear as a Motive in Religion.  181
there is power in his preaching; but generally-at least
among persons accustomed to reflection-it is not so. He
forgets that a high excitement of the soul for the most
part ends in listlessness, and when repeated and habitual,
passes into a dreadful hardening and deadening of the
active powers. He forgets that lasting and useful impressions are those in which the truth has the predominating
share.  He does not seem to be aware that the most fearful things, the most truly to be feared, are those which
will not fit into his shallow declamations. The fearful
callousness of the soul which the Gospel has only hardened; the dreadful power of habits of sin to destroy as
well the love of truth, as the honesty of purpose, and the
energy of the will; the awful certainty of remorse, as the
soul becomes alive, when it is too late, to its self-ruiil and
to the displeasure of God; the dreary isolation of an impenitent selfish soul, as it pursues its way through its
existence-these considerations and such as these, growing
out of the inevitable laws of man's nature and the unchanging government of God, rouse the soul to action
when they are realized,-they are truly fearful and yet
they allow the soul, while they are contemplated, the free
use of all its powers. But terrors painted to the imagination, like a thunder-cloud, appal, pass away and are forgotten.
IV. The proper use of fear, then, is to aid the higher
class of motives in conversion, and afterwards, through a
Christian life, above all in the first stages of it, to spring
to the rescue of the soul on a sudden assault of temptation.
The office of fear is analogous to that of miracles.  It
does not and cannot convert men from  sin, as miracles
alone cannot produce a rational faith.  But fear will
bring eternal things into the minds of those who would
otherwise think nothing of them, as miracles bring the
presence of divine power in confirmation of truth to the




182   The Place of Fear as a Motive in Religion.
notice of mankind. Still more, fear adds the motive of a
pressing interest to all the other appeals which the gospel
makes to the world. Men may say what they please of
the baseness of being made good by such means, they may
feel it to be unworthy of a man to obey a lower motive,
when there are so many higher to which the gospel and
its preachers can appeal.  But what if these higher considerations have been pressed for years without effect?
What shall arouse a man in his sins who has resisted all
the claims of duty, who has been deaf to the voice of love,
whose conscience is dead and his heart hard? Is he growing better under these high appeals, so that by and by his
whole nature will be open to the power of the gospel; or
rather is not some  uneasiness, some  sense of danger at the right moment, some anxiety about his higher
interests needed to lead him to give his attention to the
old story of the gospel?  Do you say this is a low point
to start from in a religious life? Very true, but it is a still
lower fall of an immortal soul, when it has not only cast
off the sense of duty but the sense of fear also. And is it
not compassionate in the gospel and in its author to place,
by the side of the mercy which invites,the peril which is
to be shunned?  Moreover, what does experience say if
not this-that few or no persons are led to break the
chains of worldly habit, unless some sense of risk, some
solicitude for their future welfare, lifts up its startling
voice in company with the soft expostulations of the gospel. Suppose that the gospel had sounded no notes of
alarm; would man in his sins, who, as it is, moves so sluggishly and tardily in the prospect of a remote evil, be ever
led to move at all?  Nay, might he not argue, if there
were no danger threatened and no harm  to be avoiided,
that sin must be an inconsiderable evil, since the divine
law-giver has not thought it worth His while to call in the
aid of a strong motive, to which all human Ibrms of government find it necessary to appeal even in order to secure
outward peace?




The Place of Fear as a Motive in Religion.  183
Or will you say that if unbelief is the grand obstacle in
the way of the gospel, this unbelief will cast off fear as
well as benumb conscience?  But there is a ready answer
to this, that a soul in its sins cannot help doing homage to
the violated law of duty, so far as' to retain some uneasiness at least, some suspicion, that all is not right, that its
highest interests are at hazard, that law and God cannot
be at peace with sin.  And this is fear in some form,
whether it gives forth a whisper or a loud proclamation of
danger, whether it renders the soul restless only or summons it to an instant escape from the consequences of sin.
Thus fear is a most efficient and necessary auxiliary,
before conversion, to those higher and nobler truths which
bring on this happy change.  But after conversion also,
so long as the old habits of sin retain anything of their
power, and the religious nature is as yet unripe, it is of
the highest service.  There are crises of temptation, as
many of us can testify, when the ground was slipping
under our feet, when some sophistry was taking the edge
off from the right and from duty, when the desired evil
seemed so good, and the enticement of sin was growing so
irresistible, and the will was becoming so weak, that all
was well nigh lost for us, and we had perhaps half given
ourselves over. If at such a time fear-fear of divine
wrath, or fear of loss of reputation, or fear of remorse,
yes, or fear even of hell,-came to the rescue of the
discouraged  forces of Christian virtue, and we were
enabled to refuse and to overcome, ashamed as we might
well be of our surprise and of our all but defeat, we had
in that experience a measure of the service that fear
could render to our salvation at such a time of imminent
peril.  Verily we are sometimes saved by fear as well as
by hope.  Its office in the Christian life is only occasional,
it may have long furloughs, and be off duty the greater
part of our lives, but blessed be the author of our salvation, that in our extremity it does its work well, and we




184   The Place of Fear as a Motive in Religion.
are safe. Such times may be turning points in character;
and if permitted in the eternal life, to study ourselves and
the dealings of a redeeming God with us, we may well
adore the grace that saved us, "with fear, pulling us out
of the fire" by an arm of strength.
V. Finally, when fear has done this its work of an occasional auxiliary to the higher motives of the Gospel, it
is no longer needed. The last stage of a purified character
is the perfect love which casteth out fear. This stage is
within the attainment of every tempted, erring Christian.
It is not, even on earth, wholly an ideal state; nay, it is so
far within the reach of all, that all Christians ought to
aim  to reach it. There are, I doubt not, anxious, trembling Christians who are much better men than some who
feel no fear and make no question of their salvation.
There are some again, who are assured of Heaven with
no good ground whatever.  But there is a state such as
the Apostle John speaks of in his epistle, such as hi,
probably was conscious of, in which love has arrived at'that perfection and strength, that the soul is in unwavering and complete harmony with God.  What can
now disturb its peace, what call forth its fear, conscious
as it is of its own love, and strong in trust on Him?  Can
anything hurt it? "All things work together for good to
them who love God."  Can anything lead it into sin?
But all its desires are in subjection to the reigning principle of love. Can anything separate it from the love of
God?  No, "neither things present nor things to come,
nor height nor depth, nor any other creature."  Can its
salvation fail?  But perfect love is both the assurance of
salvation and is salvation itself.
Thus for the Christian who has reached this stage of
the higher life fear is no longer wanted. In the soul's
infancy, in the infancy of the renewed nature, it threw in
its contribution to the upholding of the character, but now
it may never cease to slumber, it may fade out of the soul




The Place of Fear as a Motive in Religion.  185
for any need there is of its service. In the first part of
the voyage there were sunken rocks, there was a call for
anxiety, there were outcries of pressing danger, but the
pacific seas are entered, and there are no alarms any more.
Blessed is the man who has tasted of this peace within.
And how does he contrast with the sinning man who is
uneasy and yet will not forsake his sins; who practices on
his own mind and conscience by false excuses, the shallowness of which he himself half discerns; who is dimly
conscious of the wrath of God and yet will not secure the
divine favor. Can he drown fear? No, it will never die;
it may sleep for the present but must awake at length.
For him the first part of the voyage seems quiet, but the
alarms, the rocks, the shipwreck come at the end.




SERMON XIII.
PETER HELPED BY HIS FALL TO STRENGTHEN HIS
BRETHREN.
LUKE xxii. 32. Second clause. And when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.
THE deplorable sin of Peter was not destined to cut him
off from Christian hope or from the power of serving his
Master. He was to be converted anew, and when so converted, he was to have the office as well as the faculty of
strengthening his brethren.
These words of our Lord are not a little remarkable.
On the first view of such a crime as Peter's, we should
suppose that all his influence over his brethren, all his
ability to do good, his capacity to impart strength to others,
were lost, and that forever. At the most, he could only
hope to be forgiven, and to live as an unnoticed believer,
brooding in the shade over his ingratitude and content to
take an obscure place during the remainder of his life.
For consider in what position he would now be placed.
First his own shame would naturally bring with it a
sense of weakness, and would furnish a good reason for
concentrating his efforts upon himself. The power of
shame who does not know, who has acted unwisely or
wickedly, when better things were expected of him, when
he expected better things of himself, above all when he
had made a profession which implied a high standard of
conduct. The man himself is pierced and stung by a most
painful consciousness of being unworthy. How can he
have the courage to warn or comfort his brethren, when
he has sunk lower than all the others! He reads his
186




Peter helped by his fall to strengthen his brethren.  187
shame, also, in the countenances and the carriage of all
who come in his way. They reflect back on him, like so
many mirrors, the traits of his own fallen character. They
reaffirm his verdict against himself. How then can he
face them, how can he presume to aid them in their struggles against sin, when every admonition, every instruction
given to them  reminds him of his own lapse! He will be
apt then to feel that the remainder of life will be fitliest
spent in seeking to cure himself in penitential retirement.
What more can he do than to save himself, and serve as a
passive warning and example!.
Again, his brethren in such a case would naturally
lower their opinion of him. A  sin, the recovery from
which is like a second conversion, is a startling thing to a
Christian Church. The Christian body is a holy brotherhood; holiness is the very essence of their renewed character: when, therefore, one of their number, above all one
who, like Peter, has stood high in the affections and the
confidence of his brethren, falls away, what can prevent a
loss of confidence?  Is it strange, that suspicion at times
goes to an unjust, to a cruel extreme, and denies to such a
man the possession of the Christian character?  At all
events, the opinion of him, which was so high before, is
greatly lowered, and the power with which he acted on
others before must be greatly lessened, if not wholly
destroyed.
Moreover, thirdly, his brethren will naturally feel that
a man of such glaring sins is not the man to be put foremost in their efforts to do good outside of the Church.
"We want a man for our representative" —they will be
apt to say-" who, when he goes out among men, will reflect
no dishonor on us, who will not be met by taunts and
jeers, as having deserted the cause which he advocates in
its times of danger.  Would not a general, convicted of
cowardice, be likely to encourage the foe, would he be the
best man to send against them, would he smite them with




188              Peter helped by his fall
terror?  Let the man of glaring sins retire into the ranks;
let him take the humblest place, and not seek to convert
others, after he has fallen so low as to need a new conversion himself."
Such reflections have reason and justice in them, but
they are not the suggestions of the highest Christian
feeling.  Our Lord points us to higher wisdom, to a wisdom built on that glorious system of grace which makes
use of our sins as so many warnings to us, so many helps
in the future, so many arguments for the glory of Divine
forgiveness.
Let us then turn our thoughts to the power which such
a man as Peter acquires, from his very sins, of strengthening his brethren.
And here let no one suppose that sin, which is moral
weakness, can of itself in any way or by any experience
be a source of strength.  Innocence, sinlessness alone is
strength. Sin is feebleness, and that is the falsest of all
doctrines, the most inconsistent of all with our experience,
which affirms that sin is a necessary stage through which
a finite being must pass towards moral perfection; that a
time is coming in the future, when all blots and blemishes
of character will wipe themselves out, when all falsehoods,
all dishonors, all selfishness will blossom into perfect
benevolence, nobility and truth. It is the best possible
thing never to have sinned.  It is the next best to be recovered from sin. He is the best Christian who leads the
holiest life. And no sin in the Christian can bring him
of itself into holiness. It rather destroys his peace, separates him from God, fills him with self-distrust.
But, notwithstanding all this, it may be true, under a
system of grace, that the manifestation of character which
is mnade by a particular sin may turn into a blessing to him
who is allowed to fall into it.  In this case it is not sin,
but an outward sin that is the source of good, and this is
accomplished, not in the ordinary course of things, but




To strengthen his brethren.         189
through the grace of the Gospel. Of two persons in the
same moral condition before the eye of God one may be
untempted and so far forth innocent, while the other yields
to a temptation, before which the first also would have
fallen, had it been allowed to assail him. Now I say
in such a case as this the outward sin may under the
Gospel be made a blessing to him who commits it; nay,
more, the blessing may extend beyond himself to all
around him. He may become a wiser, better, stronger
Christian than he was before.
1. And this will be made apparent, if we consider first
that in this way he arrives at a better knowledge of his
own character and is impressively warned against his own
faults.
A Christian believer may have defects of character
such as pride, or self-confidence, or envy, or animosity,
without being aware of them. In the even flow of his life
there may be no conflicts with besetting sin, and therefore no revelation is made to himself of what he is and
what he can do by his experience. Perhaps even he may
be aware of his peculiar biases to evil, yet by mere selfexamination he is incapable of measuring their strength.
He contemplates only an imaginary trial, and gains an
easy victory, because he cannot estimate the force of those
real incitements to evil that attack him in the moment of
temptation. He is thus profoundly ignorant of himself.
He says with Peter, "Though all should betray thee, yet
will not I."  Now how is such a person to become a better
and a wiser man, without some new discovery of himself,
and how can he make this discovery except by being left
to himself amid the assaults of temptation?  We make
no progress in any kind of excellence when we are selfignorant, and our ignorance can be broken through only
by a disclosure of our weakness to our own eyes-a disclosure so vivid as to make a permanent impression.  In
short, temptation is necessary for self-knowledge, and




190             Peter helped by his fall
yielding to sin is necessary, because our state of mind involves it.  The discovery we make is worth the sin,
because we shall thus be enabled to triumph over future
temptation and to avoid future sin.
And not only does the Christian thus arrive at a knowledge of himself, but at the same time he is put on his
guard for the future.  No lessons are so impressive as
those which our mistakes teach us. In the province of
mere knowledge what recollections are so lasting as those
which our displays of ignorance before others fasten upon
our memories.  Or what incentives to better manners are
so efficacious as the keen sense of mortification, when we
have violated the laws of polite society.  Many a man
has become learned because he made ignominious mistakes; mliny a man has become polished, because his illbreeding has become evident to himself.  Can the same
principle fail of acting in the spiritual sphere, if the hope
of forgiveness be not cut off?  Will not the sin, the attendant self-knowledge, the dread of future lapses and
future shame be thus so many blessings?  May not he
who is converted, become stronger, more careful, wiser,
and therefore, so far as his own character is concerned,
better able to strengthen his brethren.
All this is illustrated by the case of Peter.  His great
fault was self-confidence and impetuous haste in feeling
and acting,-qualities capable by discipline, such as Christ
intended for him, of being softened down into manly selfreliance, and earnest, toilsome affection, and yet likely,
before they assumed such shapes, to lead him- into most
serious errors. It is interesting to notice how he tried the
feelings and exercised the forbearance of the Master
beyond all the other disciples, and how Christ, with a full
discernment of his faults, was educating him for a noble
work in the world. The crisis in his character came at
length, when with a courage which we cannot but admire,
yet with a presumption which not even Christ's predictions




To strengthen his brethren.         191
could restrain, he threw himself into dangers to which he
was unequal.  He courted the trial; and woful sin, never
to be forgotten sin, was the result. But when he went out
and wept bitterly, a lesson was engraven on his memory
as lasting as his existence. He now understood himself;
he was on his guard against himself, he lost all of his presumption and self-confidence but none of his courage.
His renewed, purified character, fitted him to encourage
his brethren, and to take the lead in the great work of
preaching Christ to the world. We must say, then, that
Christ's declaration concerning him  was strikingly fulfilled; and that he was better, not because he sinned, but
because the sin that was in him was made to stand out
before his eyes in its real deformity.
2. But secondly, a person who is thus recovered from
his sins has the practical power derived from a renewed
hope of forgiveness.  The influences of this hope of
pardon on the character can hardly be estimated too high,
but they vary with the strength and the vividness of the
hope, or in other words, with the impression which the
divine grace displayed in pardon makes upon the soul.
He who feels sin to be a very great evil, who feels that
his own sins have been very great, will be prepared to
magnify the grace of God in forgiveness; and in the same
proportion gratitude, love, humility, the sense of dependence, the feeling of obligation will be increased. Such is
the decision of our Saviour. "When they had nothing to
pay, he frankly forgave them  both.  Tell me, therefore,
which of them will love him most? Simon answered and
said, I suppose that he to whom he forgave most? And
He said unto him, thou hast rightly judged."  But the
process here, by which sin ends in love is really a subjective one. We do not love much because we have much
forgiven, but because we feel that we have much forgiven.
And this feeling that we have much forgiven, depends
again for its depth on our estimate of our sins. Here we




192             Peter helped by his fall
reach the explanation why an open outward sin, when repented of and forgiven, may bind us more closely to
divine grace, and strengthen within us the principles on
which Christian activity depends to a greater degree, than
if our sin had lurked only in the secret places of the
heart. Coming out into open day it can be better measured by such finite minds as ours; it can be seen in its
full strength, as overleaping restraint, as a wild, resistless
force which will reach its object in spite of conscience and
of shame. He who hateth his brother is a murderer,
says the Apostle John, but it is only when we see the
murderous dispositions of a malignant soul breaking out
into slander or violence, that we can properly judge what
a fearful power of sin had lain there before. So too it is
only when we find sin within us bursting forth like a
deluge of fire, that we can understand ourselves. Understanding ourselves, we measure divine grace better, and
measuring divine grace, we go forth into our future lives
with new impressions, with a renewed hope.  We are
better qualified to speak to others of what. the grace of
God can do. We are enabled to set a higher value on the
Gospel of forgiveness, and to make known how we value
it by the labors of consecrated lives. Grace is more of a
reality to us, than it ever was before.
I would not be understood here as saying that Christian believers need to sin openly and grossly in order to
magnify the grace of the gospel. Such a remark would
be put to shame by the great multitudes of most saintly
characters, who have been led in all innocence up to the
very summit of Christian attainments, who, without temptation, without external outbreaking sin, have come to a
most enviable acquaintance with the heights and depths
of divine love. Oh, that there were more of such! But I
mean to say that sometimes true, but self-ignorant Christians are led to know what they are and what Christ can
do for them by being left to themselves and being suffered




To strengthen his brethren.        193
to fall before temptation. Then they know what grace
means; then they can speak of it in all humility, and yet,
with assurance to their brethren; then they can fortify
others against temptation; then especially they can make
earnest, mighty preachers of righteousness and of divine
love. In their self-ignorance they were only capable of
falling: now they rise into a strong Christian life which
rests on divine grace, and can testify to others concerning
the gospel of the grace of God.
And how was it with Peter?  Can we doubt that when,
at Pentecost, he preached repentance and baptism for the
remission of sins, his own experience a few weeks before
helped him as he spoke; that knowing full well what remission was, and what the marvellous compassion of
Christ was, he brought, whenever he preached, the treasures of his unfading memory before a world in sin? Or,
when we read his first epistle,-that epistle of hope as it
has been called,-as, for instance, where he speaks of believers being begotten again to a lively hope through the
resurrection of Christ from the dead,-can we doubt that
indelibly associating his own denial of the Master with
the Master's death and resurrection, he was thus rendered
perpetually humble, grateful, and useful?
3. A person in Peter's condition appeals to the affections
of the Church, and he has a closer hold upon them than if
he had never become a kind of representative of Divine
grace.
A principal means of doing good to our brethren is the
confidence we inspire, and this confidence depends principally on the exhibition of a clear Christian character.
Within the Christian Church the same spirit prevails
which God has. As He views the penitent sinner with
favor, although his sins may have been as scarlet, so unquestioned conversion from: the depths of sin establishes
a man in the regards of those who believe in divine grace.
The Church pardons those whom God pardons, and loves
9




194            Peter helped by his fall
those whom God loves. It was nothing against Paul, it
abridged the affections of none towards him that he had
persecuted the Church of God-nay rather, as he walked
around, a monument of that mercy which he once contemned and hated, he awakened in all a livelier sense of
the excellence of redemption, and was endeared to all as a
monument of the grace of Christ. Thus he was enabled
to win his way to a higher influence than he could otherwise have attained. And the same is true when a Christian man, like Peter, is recovered from a lapse, and gives
evidence of sincere conversion. He may have disgraced
the body to which he belongs, he may have caused many
to mourn over him, he must have awakened doubts in regard to his own sincerity, he may even have disturbed
some minds with the suspicion that there is no such thing
as conversion or as a genuine Christian life. But when
his character shines again as gold, all this is forgiven and
forgotten. He returns to his home in the affections of
Christ's people, with an experience of the bitterness of sin,
with an experience of the power of the Gospel, which is
fitted to keep others from falling, to excite their thankgivings, to kindle their affection as for one saved from
drowning or the flames. And why should not such a one
be able to recover, and even more than recover, his old
place, his old influence? What is to prevent this on their
part?  They believe in restoring grace.  They know
that the same nature is in them. They do not measure
character, as Pharisees do, by external acts alone, but
they know that important as external acts are, a Christian,
whose faults are patent to all, may be, on the whole, a
better man, a nobler character, than another Christian
whose life runs along on an unbroken level, never falling
below the standard of his brethren, never rising into
marked excellence. And so they can trust him, they can
be willing to learn from hi O. And he, strong in their confidence, can seek to repair whatever wrong he has done to




To strengthen his brethren.         195
Christ and to His cause.  He has a deeper experience,
from which he can draw lessons of warning, new motives
to be more earnest in the desire to recover the ground he
has lost, more humility and dependence on Divine strength,
fitting him to work for God with more caution in the future and with more success.
We conclude these meditations with the thought that
no other system  except the Christian system  of grace
could thus afford to honor penitence, because no other
gives such testimony against sin. It is because Christianity is so holy, that it can take hold of the fallen to lift
them out of the mire in which they have sunk, and can
make use of those even who have dishonored Christ, as
promoters of His cause before a censorious and Pharisaical
world. In the early church there was a stricter party,
who withdrew entirely the confidence of the communities
where they had the control, from such as had lapsed in
times of persecution. But while it was altogether right
to insist on full proof of repentance, their rigor showed
that they did not fully comprehend the Gospel. While
they honored it on one side, they departed from its spirit
on another. Paul felt not so. The man who had disgraced Christianity at Corinth, when he evinced thorough
repentance, was taken back into a holy body, to be a
blessing again, and to be blest in that sacred circle. But
if the Gospel had been another kind of religion, if external
purity of morals had been its highest aim, then doubtless
every marked lapse would have been visited with hopeless
exclusion, lest the white, or rather the whitewashed, robes
of the pure should be soiled by the contact of the unclean.
But Christ came to call sinners to repentance, and so His
Church is a blessed sort of hospital, where the faulty and
guilty can be cured; where bitter, ineffaceable memories,
instead of overwhelming the soul in sorrow, can be the
starting-point of a new life, can be a motive to new
fidelity, a warning against return to sin; where the sym



196 Peter helped by his fall to strengthen his brethren.
thies aroused by a common experience can greet the
penitent on his return; and where those whose sin-malady
has been of a more hidden sort, knowing that they, too,
belong to the class of the recovered, can welcome him as a
fellow in suffering, a fellow in salvation.
And if we, my Christian friends, would draw all the use
we can from this subject, we shall feel that the recollection
of our sins ought to guide us not only into repentance, but
into the purpose of leading a more useful life in the time
to come. Most of us may have no occasion to reproach
ourselves with open and disgraceful sin. Let us praise
God that this is so. But who of us does not know that
the same seeds of death are in us, which sprung up and
showed themselves in Peter's denial of his Lord? Have
we also learned from our past sins? Does the time seem
more than sufficient, wherein we have been less faithful
than we ought to have been? Oh, let the recollections of
a life, sincere, it may be, but full of stagnation, full of
apathy, stimulate us to devote the future to the service of
God, to the benefit of man! Then may we draw some
good from our past imperfections, and rise far above our
present level of service and love.




SERMON XIV.
FORGETTING THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE BEHIND.
PHILIPPIANS iii. parts of verses 12, 13, 14. Not as though I had
already attained, either were already perfect-but this one thing I do,
forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those
which are before, I press toward the mark.
IT is an  exceedingly painful feeling, when we look
back on life, and have to confess that a great object remains unaccomplished.  Thus, suppose a philosopher to
have begun his work in all earnestness with the aim  to
explore the recesses of truth.  He thought all mysteries
would unlock their doors to him.  Nothing would be uncertain.  A harmonious system  would unite together all
truth and reconcile all contradictions.  But now in his
old age, after the work of years is ended, he finds difficulties which no skill of his can penetrate, and mysteries
which defy him; there is more darkness even than he
thought there was, when he first began to speculate; and
he comes to the mortifying conclusion, that either he is no
philosopher, or philosophy has no instruments with which
she can penetrate into the true essence of things. So, too,
let a man start on a career of noble endeavor to aid the
cause of liberty in an oppressed nation.  He has devoted
to it his best thoughts, his time, his money; he has written, has acted, has suffered; and now, as his life is in
its wane, a tyrant fills the throne, the people are no
wiser or sounder, or fitter for freedom, and he is going to
die with the conviction that his toils have been spent
upon the wind.
The feelings of the Christian, as he looks back on his
path, are like these, only more painful.  His great life
197




198   Forgetting those Things which are Behind.
work has been or ought to have been, to live for God and
to become united to God. This end was not beyond the
measure of his powers, when he considers the helps offered
to him. The philosopher, perhaps, labors under a mistake in reaching after that which is unattainable, and if
he fails, need not reproach himself.  The advocate of
freedom did what he could and is not responsible ior anything else. But he is responsible for his distance from
that perfect standard, which, ever since his initiation into
the Christian life has shone like a star before him.  " Oh,
what an interval there is, he cries, between what I am
and what I might have been.  Oh! how many in fewer
years have put on a heavenly purity, breathe a seraph's
fire, do work for God which seems almost miraculous,
while here I lie or creep, dragging these chains that fasten
me to the earth, unable, save at long intervals to feel like
a citizen of Heaven or to have heavenly aspirations."
This too, is to be observed of the Christian, that as he
advances in the Christian course, his standard of perfection rises, whence what satisfied him once fails to satisfy
him now. As he put on godliness perhaps the change
was great, and therefore the attainment seemed to be
great. Perfection to his unpractised eye, unused to the
distances and magnitudes of spiritual things, seemed close
by, as blind men, on recovering sight, think they can take
hold of the moon. But he walks onward, making fresh
discoveries all the while of two objects, of himself and of
the majestic law of Christian duty. His life pleases him
less, for he sees through outward actions more into his
soul. His standard rises and rises until nothing but godlike perfection is worthy of his aims or hopes.
Thus when he runs on into mature Christian life, although he may find nothing exceptionable in his outer man
and his conduct, he has a burden on his soul which gives
sometimes intolerable pain.  Oh how  distressing it is,
when men, as they look at him, call him  perfect, to feel




Forgetting those Things which are Behind.   199
that he has, concealed beyond their eyes, within his soul,
the germs of a multitude of sins, that no constitutional
propensity is wholly overcome, but the fallen enemy rises
for new fight as soon as a little sleepiness or self-satisfaction overtakes him.  When thus over-estimated by others,
he feels sometimes, that to have a reputation so much beyond his deserts is to be a hypocrite, and he wants in all
honesty to unbosom himself to the world, that they may
not extol him above his true level.
This feeling, too, of not having attained, of not being
already perfect, is a disheartening one.  Is the past to be
the criterion of the future?  Death is a little way on;
shall any attainments of any account be made before that
great door of exit from life be opened? If not perfect
now, not masters over our own sinful propensities nor
thoroughly united to God as yet, shall we ever be?  Oh!
must life close when that great life-work is but half done,
but just begun rather?
And the impression of sadness, at not having attained
is deepened, when he thinks of what he has done to reach
perfection.  He may have been unwatchful, forgetful,
careless, without earnestness, but he cannot blame himself
for entire lack of endeavor, or lack of strong desire.  He
has in some sort been fighting against sin for many years, and
that habitually. But the trouble is that so many struggles
have been so unprofitable. For the power of thought in
meditation, the strength of effort in desire, and the use of
means have been perhaps beyond any that he has given to
any other subject in the world, perhaps beyond all other
efforts put together.  What has been accomplished?  Oh!
it is as if a man were climbing a steep mountain with a
dead lody tied to him; he stumbles, he falls backwards,
he rises wounded and weary.  There the same body of
death is forcing him  to the same lapses still; and the
mountain top seemed as far off, if not farther off, than
when he set out on the journey.




200   Forgetting those Things which are Behind.
And soon he must meet the Great Judge, who, however
merciful, commands him  to be perfect as He is, and expects perfection from him. Here is one eye that knows
all his lapses, all his heart sins, all that which a cloud
covers from  the eyes of men.  We men make strange
work of judging, we solve all sorts of hard scientific problems, but we misjudge character, misinterpret motives,
praising and blaming almost as if we were throwing dice;
but there is one, and from Him lies no appeal, who hears
the silence of the thought, and.measures us with infinitesimal precision, and admits no excuses; who cannot swerve
onfe hair's breadth from truth. Oh! what will he say of
me?  Can I in His sight have made any attainment in
Christian virtue? Could I but hear Him say that I have
been faithful in a few things, what a divine joy would
spring up in my soul. But what if He condemns me,
does not my own partial, blear-eyed heart condemn me
also?
But perhaps Paul, when he wrote, " Not as though I
had attained neither were already perfect," did not feel
thus. Perhaps as he led no life of compromises with the
world as I have done, as " the world was crucified to him
and he unto the world," there was a security in his face
as he looked forward  and as he looked backward;
as he looked from  a hill top on the valley he had
passed and looked towards the bright afternoon sun.
Could he sympathize with the struggling but often conquered Christian  Can I presume to place myself, if not
on a level, yet in the same pathway with him?  Was
there any need of further exertion that he might reach
the crown, or had he it not on his head? In short, can I
claim a share in the feelings of such a man? Is it for me
he has left the.declaration that he had not yet attained,
and the advice to forget thethings that are behind and
press forward to that which is before? I cannot doubt
that it is for me he has written -these words, when I read




Forgetting those Things which are Behind.   201
his confession that he had something yet to learn concerning Christ and the power of His resurrection; when I find
that he urges-on himself the necessity of earnest haste and
zeal to apprehend and secure these blessings for which he
was apprehended and enlisted by Christ in his service;
and when I find him  exhorting all to whom he wrote to
be together followers of him. Let me then consider what
he intended by forgetting that which is behind.
It will be plain, I think, that he did not mean absolute
forgetfulness, an entire fading out of the mind of all remembrances of past life. How would this be possible, or
to be desired, if it were possible?  What would then become of experience, of the motives running over from the
past to guard and purify the future, of the fountain of
thankfulness which deep memories supply, or even of faith
itself resting for its support on past deliverances?  Or are
sins in the past alone to be forgotten? How, then, are the
blessed fruits of holiness to grow out of sorrow for them
continually?  Will that argument of the Apostle Peter
ever lose its force:   for the time past of our lives is more
than sufficient to have wrought the will of the flesh?"  Or
can the sorrow of having wasted life and lived away from
God ever be wholly buried up and smothered by time?
Nay, will not holiness itself draw sorrow from the remotest
recollection of sin?
It is comparative forgetfulness then, that the Apostle
means. It must not be our chief religious work to rnmember the past, but to press forward towards something better in the future.  And here we may say,
I. First, that it is not good or healthy for a soul to  brood
over past sin. There is such a thing as disturbing the
balance between the two parts of repentance, sorrow for
sin and active obedience. Sorrow for sin is foundation
work. - Should a man be employed all his days in laying
foundations, what could he do besides?  It may be well to
look down now and then to see that there are no flaws or




202   Forgetting those Things which are Behind.
cracks in the lower parts of the house, but we must be
putting story upon story, and finishing the upper chambers or we shall accomplish nothing. "Therefore, leaving
the principles of the doctrine of Christ let us go on unto
perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance
from dead works."
Sorrow for sin too is subordinate work. It has no value
in itself apart from its necessary action on character. Let
a man stop there, what has he gained, what has God
gained? Is not forgiveness, or as it is called in the Bible,
God's having our sins no more in remembrance, intended
to put them in a certain sense out of our remembrance,
and to aid us in thinking of better things towards which
forgiveness opens the prospect?
And this also deserves to be noticed that brooding over
past sins has a dangerous influence on character, as might
be inferred from the fact that it is not what God calls us
to.  In its extreme, when  unattended  with hope, it
becomes remorse. Did ever good grow out of remorse, or
is it not a paralysis of soul, where power over the will is
lost?  What can be more deadening and benumbing to
character than a fixed state of inaction, a sorrow followed
by no effort to relieve one's self from that which arouses
the sorrow? " The sorrow of the world worketh death.".
And when this sorrow is not remorse, but is attended with
a slight hope of forgiveness, it may be excessive-I do not
mean out of proportion to our sins, but too great for the
proper play of the active powers; in short, as the Apostle
Paul says, such a penitent is in danger of being "swallowed up with overmuch sorrow."  The whole harmony
of our nature is disturbed by a tendency to brood over
the past. In a certain sense it is right to say,-" I cannot
undo my sins; regret for them  cannot wipe them  out!
Why then should I give the whole energy of my soul to
the thought of them? If I am truly sorry for them that
is enough. It is betterthat I should be doing my life.




Forgetting those Things which are Behind.   203
work of glorifying God, and serving my generation than
that I should be increasing the sense of my unworthiness,
and crowding my mind with  poignant regrets. The
natural course is from a right estimate of sin to sorrow
for it, from sorrow to the purpose of new obedience. If I
fail of this last, I fail of whatever is most important,
and I surely shall fail, if all my religion gathers itself on
this one point of looking back upon my past life. Suppose I felt my ignorance as keenly without one exertion
to remedy it by acquisitions of knowledge; or brooded
in despondency over my ill health without the use of diet
and medicine; or over any deficiency or inaptitude until
my mind became full of it to the exclusion of other
things. Is this a hopeful state of mind? Is there any cure
in such treatment of our maladies, whether of the mind
or soul? No; better would it be, if possible, to forget all
my past sin, than thus to remember it, without remembering
also the Gospel provisions and the Gospel motives for sinners.'
II. But secondly I must forget the things that are
behind in this sense also,-that I must not infer what my
religious life for the future will be from the probabilities of
the past.
The doctrine of probabilities is a very good one to go
upon in worldly matters, wherever a permanent law prevails, or wherever there are constant reasons in nature or
in man for exceptions from general laws of God. Only
ascertain what has happened in the past, and you will
know what shall happen in the future. Here the rule isremembering "the things that are behind I press forward."
Only ascertain by careful record how many have died and
at what age, in a given climate and with a given proficiency
of medical science, how many houses burn up in the year,
how many shipwrecks occur, how many persons kill themselves or kill others, and you know what to expect hereafter, until causes of variation change the probabilities




204   Forgetting those Things which are Behind.
of things. You can thus carry on your insurances of
lives and against wrecks to a profit; you will be tolerably
certain that the average temperature, mortality, amount
of crime, increase of population will be the same next
year, or for the next ten years, as for the last year or the
last decade.
Now  suppose that I should adopt this principle of
judging in regard to the probabilities of my spiritual
course for the future. I have maturely considered my
past life, and find just about such an amount of attainment, little if any progress, the same constitutional
sins vanquishing me again and again, the same obstructions to my spiritual progress rising up here and there all
along my way, effort scarcely rewarded, and great effort
succeeded by a natural weariness and unwatchfulness. In
short, I analyze my character as a chemist would his compound. I find such a small percentage of the noble metal
and so much of the worthless earth. Or I judge, as the
underwriters of an insurance policy,-so many failures, so
many sins.  To-morrow shall be as to-day. That is the
law of character.  No essential improvement, at the best a
slow, fixed advance. My rate is ascertained, and will not
materially alter until the machine gives way and the
wheels stop.
Now I want to ask, if the Apostle Paul had in his mind
all the statistics of character and condition that the newest
tables supply, whether he would have made this use of the
past?  You answer, almost in scorn, No! by no means.
And why not? Is it because character is not true to itself,
has no principles to rest upon, and rules to work by, but
flashes out, rocket-like, in random, uncertain vagaries?
Or is it because there are not sad, disheartening probabilities running over from the past into the present, and
filling the soul with a feeling of exhaustion and of fear at
the great work lying ahead in life? Or is it not rather
because there are factors in the spiritual life, which can




Forgetting those Things which are Behind.  205
change the face of things to any extent, and which hide
from all calculations of the probable.  Suppose you were
deliberately to say, that it is not probable that the divine
Spirit would give you more strength hereafter than now, or
that He would not lift you up to a holier life, or that
you should never have any renewals or quickenings, any
cheering impulses- more than you have had in the dull
desert of the past? Would you not feel that such an estimate of spiritual probabilities was all but impious-that
it was false, because it reduced the agency of the freest of
all beings to the working of a law; that it almost denied
the reality of a spiritual world, whose movements, powers,
and intentions are wholly aside from finite calculat ion?
Beware then, my brethren, how you remember your
past life only to throw discouragement over your exertions
and hopes for the future. Such a habit is destructive of
faith and of hope; or rather springs from the want of them
both. Foiget the things that are behind, and firmly believe, that it is very possible, yes!  very natural, for you to
grow faster in goodness in a year, than' you have grown in
ten, or in all your life. Firmly believe that resources, you
know not how great, are within your reach, that you have
within yourselves, with God's help, a power of resistance
to evil, and of growth in good, which has never yet been
put forth,-believe this; and you can and may yet see
days of brightness such as you have always thought improbable. To him who takes spiritual agencies into view,
progress is natural, sloth and stagnation are unnatural.
You have been despondent because you have been worldly.
Keep God in sight, and all things are possible.
III. Akin to this last remark is another, which deserves
notice by itself, that we must not remember the past as our
standard of action or character. It would be better to forget our whole life, sins and all, than to look back with a
sense of satisfaction. And here let me make a distinction.
A man who is conscious of high purposes running as main




206    Forgetting those Things which are Behind.
threads through the web of life may be glad, as he takes
his reviews of bygone days, that the grace of God has
enabled him to live on the whole up to the level of Christian principles.  He will thus say with Paul, "for our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in
simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom but
by the grace of God we have had our conversation in this
world."  Was now the Apostle, when he wrote this, satisfied with himself, and content to run along as he had done
without rising higher?  This we cannot impute to him,
for he would be inconsistent, if such were his feelings, in
writing, "not as though I had already attained or were
already made perfect."  There must ever be a discontent
with themselves in the minds of Christians.  Until perfection is reached in all respects, until all the inner movements are of the right kind and in the right degree, the
chasm between actual attainment and the standard will
seem vast, and the vaster, the higher the aim of the Christian.  And he may well suspect himself either of declension or of something worse, who is content to live as he
has lived in the past. This discontent is nothing more
than the soul's judgment agaiust itself of having fallen
below the life to which God has called it, of having made
little of its spiritual advantages, of having feebly used its
spiritual capacities; and with such a deep-seated sense of
short-coming there will often be united a desire to be
transplanted to a better sphere in the hope of escaping
from sin.
Hence to forget the past, in the sense of the Apostle,
and to remember it in order to avoid its evils are one and
the same thing. If we can feel with Peter "that the time
past of our lives is more than sufficient to have wrought
the will of the flesh," if thus we lose sight of it as a standard and remember it only as a warning, we shall do what
Paul says he did. Feeling that we have not attained, and
carrying in our minds the causes and items of our past




Forgetting those Things which are Behind.   207
mistakes, we shall run forward the more diligently and
earnestly. The farther we get from our past experience,
-so far as it is one of sin,-the better. The higher we
can rise above our past selves the nearer we shall come to
God. If the world has had an undue hold on me heretofore-let each one say,-it shall have so much the less
hold in the future. If I have been distrustful, or covetous, or have given way to any besetting sin, oh, how much
I have clogged myself. What a different person I might
have been in these years since I first set out on my journey
heavenward! Oh! let me now throw the more zeal into
my efforts to lead a holy life, the more cause I have to be
dissatisfied with my surveys of the life I have spent. Let
me feel that I have made really no attainments until I
have reached my goal.
IV. And thus we come to what is the Apostle's principal thought, that the soul must be so occupied with the
future, that the past shall be only subordinate and subsidiary. If I have been in wretchedness all my past existence, the fact and the remembrance are of no account,
except so far as they help me to escape from my misery
and heighten my enjoyment by contrast. If I have been
poor, and now the door to wealth is opened, exertion to
gain it is the main thing, and I may wholly forget my
poverty, if motives enough from other sources stimulate
me to action. So if I have been ignorant and am now advanced a little way in knowledge, my sense of ignorance
may urge me on a little, but the boundless expanse of
knowledge, opening before me, will incite me far more.
It is better to have the mind filled with what can and
ought to be done, than to be living in the past, and living
over the past. " Reaching forth unto those things which
are before," is the Apostle's motto. The future has in it
possibilities almost infinite. Two Christians starting alike
to-day, but pursuing different courses, the one running on
with his face turned to the past, and the other pressing,




208    Forgetting those Things which are Behind.
and looking towards the mark,-will be next year, or at
the end of life, at an immense distance from one another.
Here is a man who is forever brooding over his sins.
What strenuous exertions can he make, if he do not rather
give up the hopes of the Christian life with its joys? Here
is another, who thinks the future will be as the past, the
same gloomy record of unexecuted resolutions and unfinished efforts. If faith in God and hope of success are necessary for success, what can such a man do except stagnate in his sins? Here is a third, who thinks that the past
presents a pretty fair record on which he can dwell without
dissatisfaction.  What will he do more or better than he
has done? These are the men that are looking backward.
But here is one again who has, we will suppose, been sadly
foiled and disappointed heretofore, who has done very little
of what he purposed when he began to be a Christian.
Broken vows, unfinished efforts lie strown all along his
way. His life seems a failure.  Can such a kind of Christian he says, enter heaven?  But I will not despair, he
adds, until two things fail,-until God who offers the help
of His Spirit deludes me, and until the object I have to attain shall seem less momentous than it does now. And so
he throws himself on the effort to be a better, holier man,
with a kind of self-abandonment, as the sailor trusts himself
to the deep. Farewell, land, says he. I must look out at
the bow, not at the stern, spread all sail, and get across
this interval between me and my port, or perish.
Oh, my Christian friends, let us forge t all but God and
Christ, and the great work before us. Let us, by an act of
resolute, constant will, make all things else of such minor
importance, that they shall not take up undue room in our
souls, leaving no space for nobler things. Are we dissatisfied with ourselves? But with God's help we can become other men; we can, I may say, cease to be ourselves,
even as we profess not to be our own. Are we discouraged?
But "the Lord, the Creator of heaven and earth, fainteth




Forgetting those Things which are Behind.   209
not, neither is weary. To them that have no might He
increaseth strength." Is it too hard a work to be an earnest
Christian?  Why did we set out, and why do we not return
at once to our sins? Is there not a fair prospect of success?
And if we fail, shall we lose anything by resolute endeavor?  Is there not a positive gain to character, in
heroic, earnest cffort, even if we were to grasp a shadow?
But what we aim at is not a shadow. It is that for which
we are apprehended of Christ Jesus.  It is the prize
of the high calling of God.  Unless God calls, and
Christ takes hold of our souls for nothing, we are running
forward to secure the very thing for which we were made.
Let us so run that we may obtain,




SERMON XV.
SOBRIETY OF MIND URGED ON YOUNG MEN.
TITUS ii. 6. Young men, likewise, exhort to be sober-minded.,
ALL Christian goodness is one in its essence, and the
many forms of virtue, with which it beautifies the character, spring from  the same root.  It is one sovereign principle for all relations, temperaments, conditions and ages,
while yet, through the imperfection of human nature, one
off-shoot may need  more tending and vigilance than
another.  The Christian moralist will take both these
considerations into view; while he insists on radical Christian virtue, in its forms of faith, love or godliness, he
will not neglect urging men to those derived and particular qualities of character, which imply the principle within, and of necessity flow from it.
One such quality, or department of godliness, the
apostle has inview in the text, where he would have
young men exhorted to be sober-minded.  The quality is
of equal obligation for all periods of life-it is a necessary outgrowth of the hidden life in all; and yet, if Godliness has sway over the character of the Christian in
advanced life, sobriety of mind will have become deepseated in him almost of course, while on the other hand,
the youthful Christian is peculiarly exposed to danger
just at this point, and a failure here, would obstruct his
course through life, if not prove fatal to the existence of
piety.
But the reasons for exhorting young men to this virtue
will be made more apparent in the sequel: at present we
~ A Baccalaureate sermon preached in 1858.
210




Sobriety of mind urged on Young Men.      211
propose to ask what the sobriety of mind is which the
Apostle Paul directs Titus to enforce upon Christian
youth? What is it especially as a Christian virtue, growing out of the realities disclosed by the Gospel? How
does it differ from native phlegm and caution? Is it akin
to prudential abstinence from whatever will damage our
earthly interests, or has it a solider foundation and a
higher aim? How does it differ from the virtue of similar name cultivated by philosophic discipline? What
are the leading motives by which it should be enforced?
Such questions I shall attempt to answer, in the hope that
distinct views of the nature of this quality may be of use,
and especially that the class, which will assemble for the
last time in this house of worship, may carry something
away with them; which may help them in the scenes of an
untried world.
The term sobriety of mind, according to its original import, denoted a negation-the absence of intoxication.
From  this more sensual starting point it proceeded to
denote the removal of all such exciting influences as tend
to blind and bewilder the mind, to weaken the power of
judgment, to bring our nature under the dominion of
passions which plead for immediate gratification. It was
felt to be a small thing if a man could control the love for
strong drink; the mind  could  become stupefied and
deranged by the force of more spiritual causes-imaginations and desires above the senses-and could lose the
mastery over itself as completely as if it had suffered an
intoxication. Thus sobriety of mind came to mean moral
soundness or health, the dominion of reason over desire.
The word in our text, strictly translated, means "soundminded," or healthy-minded, and implies the conviction
that there is a certain standard of character, or condition
of the mind which bears an analogy to health of body, a
condition in which all the functions of the mind ale in
their right state, in which sound or healthy views of things




212     Sobriety of mind urged on Young Men.
are taken, in which no part of human nature is either
inoperative or unduly developed. In this large sense,
soundness of mind may serve as a description of the harmony or regular action implied in virtue; but inasmuch
as the passions and desires, excited by objects which have
strong influence over us in our present state of being,
more than anything else destroy sanity of mind, the term
is usually confined to the control over worldly desires,
and to views of life which commend themselves to right
reason. Thus, soundness of mind includes self-restraint
and temperance, the former of which is the power of
governing the passions, and the other the habit of using
all pleasures without going to excess. But soundness or
sobriety of mind is more radical than either of these, for it
includes those just views of life, that appreciation of the
value of enjoyment and of the world compared with duty
and the higher life of the soul, without the sway of which
in the soul it can neither exercise continence nor self-control, nor temperance. Soundness or sobriety of mind,
also, is far from stopping at the boundaries of the passions,
especially the sensual; all the desires, even those which
have little to do with the body, as the desire of fame, of
power, of superiority, and the desire of wealth-the means
of gratifying all other desires-are placed under its control.
1. As thus understood, sobriety of mind is to be distinguished, we remark first, from a native sluggishness or
cautiousness which may conspire with it to prevent excess.
It is not, in its true idea, of a physical nature. Some men
are born with more of the animal, others with more of the
spiritual about them. Some are constitutionally impetuous and unreflecting; others are cool and thoughtful.
Some are unsuspicious, others descry danger afar off.
Some, by the force of imagination, dress up enjoyment to
themselves in gala robes, and have the power of kindling
up desire by beautifying and magnifying the object out of




Sobriety of mind urged on Young Men.    213
which it is drawn; others are matter of fact persons who
have no skill to throw halos around things either good or
bad. Some again learn quick from  the experience of
evil; others, either because they are hopeful or because
they forget past impressions, yield to the solicitations of
desire, until a habit of being overcome, and a sense of
moral weakness root out the very thought of resistance.
The mind which possesses a constitutional sobriety, derived from sources such as we have named, may steer its
way safely through many of the perils of life, and, perhaps, when exposed to particular temptations, may conquer by insensibility, where weak Christian  principle,
united with strong propensity, might be overcome. It
may be well to have a nature in which there is no master
passion, or if that cannot be, to have one where the calculation of consequences is a wakeful foe of excess. But
this native temperament is, of course, not the sobriety of
mind to which the Apostle exhorts, since it is not voluntarily assumed, nor ea'sily shaken off. Nor can such a
nature go far in the way of moral discipline; if it keeps
out vice, it keeps out virtue.  It cannot, therefore, by
victories over faults, promote the great ends of a life of
trial in this world. At the best, such a cold, cautious
nature is the negation of evil; no interesting or lofty
character ever grew upon such a stock. If a man, for
instance, can never become angry, he may be saved from
many foolish and sinful acts, but it is many times better
to have a subdued power of anger, which you have acquired by exertions which have cost you something, than
to be a stone.
Moreover, if such native sobriety of mind exists, it is
rare. There is generally some weak spot, where passion
can with success approach men who seem  like icicles.
What class of persons is more thoroughly worldly than
many who are proof against the allurements of vice, but
speculate with the gambler's intense excitement, or burn




214     Sobriety of mind urged on Young -Men.
with a devouring lust for power.  Perhaps the greatest
insobriety of mind belongs to those who, in most respects,
have an entire mastery over themselves,-who view the
world on many of its sides as it is, but concentrate all
their forces on one object, with an untiring restless fever
of soul, which the votary of pleasure seldom knows.
2. A second thought suggests itself here, that the Apostle's
sober-mindedness is not to be confounded with that self-control which springs from worldly prudence and shrewd calculations of success in life.  There are men who live exclusively for earthly enjoyment, who yet have attained to a
mastery over their own lusts.  They know what the laws
of health will allow, what the body will bear, how far
they may go in pleasure consistently with prudence and
economy, what degree of restraint is demanded to preserve their reputation. They will, therefore, keep themselves sober while their less discreet, and perhaps less corrupt, companions are intoxicated at their side; they live a
long healthy life, while others die of the effects of vicious
indulgence, and retain their good name while others ruin
themselves in the opinion of society. Verily, they have
their reward; but their sober-mindedness is certainly no
such virtue that even a philosopher could commend it.
Another illustration to the same effect is afforded by
the money-making  spirit.  Covetousness is a  passion
which puts on a grave aspect, subdues the soul into regularity, methodizes time, prevents extravagance, leaves
no vacant room for sensuality, and, like the nobler aims
of our nature, looks far beyond the present moment. You
would call a man, therefore, who is domineered over by
covetousness, a sober-minded man; and, indeed, many of
his feelings and opinions are on the side of good order
and the well-being of society. It is a vice into which
sober Pharisees are apt- to fall.  An avaricious man is
often quite religious; he goes to church; he pays for a
pew; he believes  in  conversion-perhaps, he  thinks




Sobriety of mind urged on Young Men.    215
himself converted.  Is he now  deserving of the name
" sober-minded," or " sound-minded?" Look into his soul,
which is full of excited hopes, of speculative projects, of
feverish anxieties; look at his mercantile morality, which
permits false commendations of what he has to sell, unfair
advantages in a bargain, jealousies and misrepresentations
of a competitor, and say whether such a man is sober, or
even sane?
Another form  still of insobriety of mind, under the
garb of gravity and decorum, is exceedingly common in
this country; it is found in the political aspirant. A
little knowledge of men convinces such a person that in
order to succeed in his chosen life, he must gain confidence
by the appearance of honesty and morality, but cannot
gain office without suppressing his feelings and sacrificing
his principles, on occasions when his interests demand it.
Accordingly he gives an external adherence to the laws
of morality by which society is governed, and professes to
hold Christianity in respect.  He  bridles his temper,
because to yield to anger in the conflicts of party would
place him at a disadvantage. He controls his appetites,
if he finds that self-indulgence will take confidence away
from  him.  In short, he is consummately prudent, but
within he is full of hatred, anxieties, cravings, discontents,
which, if they could be seen, would show how far he is
from a sound mind.
These illustrations bring us to the conclusion that prudence, as it is generally understood, is a low principle of
action. Being nothing more than enlightened selfishness,
it does not deserve the name of a virtue. It may be the
helmsman to steer the baldest and meanest worldliness to
its destined point, just as it may assist weak virtue by its
timely suggestions. It is often found in opposition to the
noblest impulses which man can feel.  It would have
been, doubtless, very imprudent for the young man in the
Gospel to sell all and follow Christ, very imprudent to



216     Sobriety of mind urged on Young Men.
declare one's self as Christian and be burnt at the stake
for it, very imprudent to avow  your honest convictions
and lose the good will or custom  of society. In these
cases, as the servant of fear, it opposes conscience honor
and religious principle; in other cases, as the servant of
an earthly mind, it may oppose faith in eternal realities.
Sobriety of mind, then, is not learned by habits of mere
prudence, nor is the character in which it prevails of
course open to right impressions, nor is it a very great
gain, if we look at the highest interests of the soul, to
exhort young men to be prudent and there to stop.  The
Pharisees were more prudent and calculating than the
publicans, but they shut their ears to Christ.  And at
this day, we find the worldliest persons, however used to
prudence and self-control, the least capable of anything
lofty or noble.
3. Sobriety of mind, being something more than a temperament averse to excess, something more than self-control on selfish principles, may be looked at as a philosophical, or as a Christian virtue.  In both cases, it is a
subordination of the desires and passions to the higher
principles of the soul; in both, it is a spontaneous self-'government according to the rules of right living, not
according to calculations of temporal advancement. All
philosophy has assigned to this virtue of sophrosune, as
the Greeks, or temperantia as the Latins called it, a very
prominent place. It is one of Plato's four generic virtues,
and sometimes he assigns to it so wide a range as to
include his cardinal virtue of justice.  Nay, in the matter
of desire, philosophers have gone beyond this point of
self-restraint, on the theory that desire in its own nature
is evil, and the root of all evil. They have taught that
perfection can be reached only by extinguishing desire,
by waging war with every bodily appetite and every affection.  Thus they have substituted abstinence for temperance, annihilation of desire for moderation, apathy for




Sobriety of mind urged on Young Men.    217
self-control; but they have also made virtue impossible
for the mass of men, and introduced into the world an
asceticism  which bore the fruit of moroseness or of
spiritual pride.
But where philosophy has kept near to the true idea of
sobriety of mind, it has wanted authority and motive. It
has found its arguments for the virtue in the beauty of the
virtue itself, apart from the will of God, and from the sobering influences of the doctrine of eternal life.  By not
teaching that man in himself is weak through sin, and
that he can obtain help.from on high, it has lost sight of
the greatest encouragement to perseverance, and the surest
preventive of despair. By treating the virtues as if they
were separate plants, instead of growths from  one common principle, it has scattered men's efforts to improve
themselves, and directed their attention to the stream
rather than the fountain.  Finally, it had  not truth
enough in its hands to work any radical change in human character: God, a positive law, the great issues of
conduct, were hid from its eyes, and only such truth remained, for the discipline of natures prone to excess, as
might be picked up along the path of experience, or
derived from the doctrine of the beautiful and the good.
When we speak of Christian sobriety of mind, we mean
nothing generically different from the notion which philosophy had already formed. But we mean sobriety of mind
sustained by Christian principles, enforced by Christian
motives, and dwelling amid other manifestations of a
Christian or purified character. Let us consider it when
thus broadly understood, in some of its most prominent
characteristics.
1. First, it involves an estimate of earthly pleasure and
good formed under the power of faith.
The first feeling of a noble soul, after discovering the
doctrine of immortal life, might be conceived to be an intense disgust with everything earthly. So small a sphere
1Q0




218      Sobriety of mind urged on Young Men.
for such a being!  Such prison walls for a freeman with
godlike properties and duration! Such food of the pettiest earthly trifles instead of ambrosial meats!  Why
should I not enter the great temple at once, instead of
wandering listlessly about the gates?  Why not imitate
the philosophic youth of old, who threw himself from the
rock, in order to reach his soul's higher existence by a
short road?
But no! says the Gospel.  Life cannot be disgusting to
the wise man, nor is it filled with trifles, for everything in
it connects itself with eternity. It is the school for the
formation of unalterable character, the starting point in a
course of endless good or evil, the first act of a drama of
the profoundest meaning.  Its little duties and trials are
contrived with a view to vast results: they look forward to
the attainment of angelic excellence. These desires which
stir within you, and bring you into necessary relations to
this present life, give also to this life much of its deep import, for on your treatment of them depends your everlasting welfare. The question in regard to them is, whether
they shall reign or serve; whether they shall dazzle the
soul, or whether the light of God, giving every object and
each word its due importance, shall be perceived; whether,
in view of the great issues of conduct, you will quit yourself like a man, keeping body and soul in subjection to
righteousness, or lose the thought that you have any eternal interests to secure. You ought then to feel your immortality in every limb and every faculty, to move about
as a creature of the skies which has shed its wings for a
season, to carry into every plan and action a consciousness
of your destiny.
The doctrine of a future life does not tend to calm  and
subdue the desires only by thefear of the consequences of
excess, and the hope of the rewards of virtue, but it serves
also as a measure of the immense value of virtue and the
immense evil of sin. If the soul capable of stretching its




Sobriety of mind urged on Young Men.    219
thoughts into eternity and of loving like God were to die
with the body, of what great importance would virtue be?
Would not God, if moral quality were the highest of
things in his regard, give it a duration reaching beyond
half a century? Do we not judge of the value of other
things in part by their permanence?  So men must reason; and, on the other hand, in the immortal life which
God has assigned to the soul, they must find a proof how
He reckons the value of character, and a motive to subjugate the desires. It now becomes a more serious question
how I shall live: virtue and vice have put on new dimensions, and grown to a gigantic size. Let us eat and drink,
for to-morrow we die, says the unbeliever. Let us cultivate our undying powers, and feed with heavenly food that
which is to last forever, says the Christian. To the one,
the gratification of worldly desire is the essence and end
of life; to the view of the other, they who live in pleasure
are dead while they live, and there is no true life which
does not take hold of immortality.
And, again, faith in the God of revelation and in Christ
produces sobriety of mind, by exalting the standard of
excellence. In the Scriptures the mind is brought into
intimacy with objects most remote from excited desire;
spiritual things are so opposite to sensual, that even a
feeble conception of God's holiness tends to allay anger,
quench lust, and bring a momentary calm into the soul
even of the worst of men. Were there no express code of
morals, the soul familiar with God would dread and
shrink from inordinate desire by a moral instinct, for his
character -speaks with the force of law. So, too, God in
human flesh, living amid these same lusts which corrupt
mankind, and overcoming them, has brought a new
standard into this world. What an infinite distance between His calm  look at both worlds, His superiority to
desires even the most innocent, and the feverish thirst,
the intense longings for momentary good of earthly minds.




220     Sobriety of mind urged on Young Men.
With His advent into the world, a new idea of life began,
and the victory of the spirit over the flesh is rendered
possible.
2. But it is not enough to have a standard of character; the young man, if he would be sober-minded, must
have rules of living calculated beforehand to resist the
allurements of the world when they arise.  In some
branches of morality, it may be most advisable to act
without definite rules, making the inner spirit the guide
of conduct.  Nor will rules in any department of ethics,
without such a central regulator, even if observed, fail of
being followed by undue self-confidence, and thus of preparing the way for their own violation.  But rules are,especially needed to keep the soul in due sobriety, because
the excited desires sweep in sudden gusts over the soul,
prostrating reason, conscience, and even prudence before
them. If a liability to such bursts of desire is allowed,
the habit must ensue of giving way to them; thus two
evil habits, that of inordinate desire or passion, and that
of giving up self-control, support one another, and grow
together.  The rule or maxim at such times may be that
on which the mind may fall back. It is a kind of fortress
reared by the wisdom  and thoughtfulness of the past, to
which the assaulted soul may retire until it has recruited
its strength for the battle.
It is the part of Christian ethics to make known what
rules are needed for our moral guidance, and to enforce
them by the appropriate motives.  In this place, no such
thing can be attempted, and yet I cannot pass on without
calling your attention to one or two parts of conduct,
where it is peculiarly important to have well settled principles of action.
In regard to the bodily appetites, Christian sobriety begins to be lost as soon as they are made ends in themselves,
without regard to something higher.  Here, then, if any
where, we must begin to put forth a self-denying will. An




Sobriety of mind urged on Young Men.          221
appetite within its sphere, subordinate to the great purpose
for which it was implanted, as that of hunger for the support of the body, has no kind of evil influence on the
spiritual nature. Out of that sphere it becomes a ferocious
tyrant,-one that not only enslaves the soul, but destroys
the power of recovery.'The question of abstinence, or moderate use, apart from
its bearings on others, and where gratification is innocent,
is a question to be determined by individual strength. To
abstain from things innocent, is a confession of weakness.
Yet such a confession is better than presumptuous self-trust
and indulgence after you are overcome.
In regard to amusements and diversions, sobriety consists
in keeping them in their place, as recreations after bodily
and mental toil.  They must not then usurp the rights of
labor, unless we are resolved to destroy the earnestness and
seriousness of character, which grows out of a conviction
that life is full of meaning. The insane love of amusement
is even more despicable than the insane gratification of the
appetites. We see natures of very high capacity enthralled
by sensuality, who have glimpses of a better life, and struggle hard at times to fulfill the ends for which an immortal soul was given them.  But the thorough votary of
amusement is a mere earth-worm, without aspirations, and
without powers to rise into the air.
The sober Christian is taught by the precepts of the
New Testament to beware especially of covetousness.  The
love of gain is one of the most dangerous of the desires,
on account of its expressing itself in the soberest acts
of an industrious life, and on account of its comprehensiveness.  As money stands for every commodity, so
covetousness steps in front of every desire, acting now
as the representative of the love of pleasure, now  of
the necessary wants of life, and now even  of real or
counterfeit benevolence.  A desire so wide-sweeping is as
widely dangerous.  The Christian, as he looks abroad over




222    Sobriety of mind urged on Young Men.
life, beholds here the cause of shipwrecks of character, of
damaged fortunes, of ruined hopes. It defeats its own ends
by running out into wild speculation.  It is, as we have
said before, a sad, staid, sober passion, and seems to those
who admit it into their hearts to be allied to all the virtues
of society, but it is, for all that, a fire that consumes the
soul with burning cares, it magnifies the world, and absorbs
all the thoughts. To no man is eternity so far off as to the
covetous man.  No worldling is more justly called an
idolater.
The sober Christian, then, will not aim and bend the
efforts of his life to be rich. He cannot do this, for the
love of riches is a brief term for the love of earthly objects,
it is worldly-mindedness condensed.  If in the course of
his honest industry, or by some other act of Divine Providence, riches come into his hands, they are his to use under
a sense of his increased responsibility. The probability is
that he will have more of them, the certainty is that lie
will use them better than if he had spent the energies of
his soul on the desire of accumulation.
The love of political distinction and populcr favor easily
runs, in our country, into an absorbing passion, which in
its course we see overflowing honesty, truthfulness and all
moral principle.  How  can a serious man consent to
hazard his character and his soul in such a pursuit?  He
cannot seek office for its own sake, nor expose himself to
those temptations which he sees ruining so many men of
aspiring minds throughout the country.  His only question will be, whether he may hold it when it is offered to
him without his seeking; whether the depraving influences
of public life are not too great to expose himself to such a
snare.
3. Need I add that rules must be followed by a settled
purpose, by a resolution formed in the view of spiritual
and divine truth to adopt such a course of life as sobriety
of mind requires. The purpose must be rigorous, admit



Sobriety of mind urged on Young Men.    223
ting no compromises nor exceptions, nor giving way when
a great opportunity offers, as when some vast speculation
would gather treasures for a whole life. It must be thus
a settled purpose, on which temporary excitements shall
beat without effect. We see in this country of ours too
many fitful Christians, who are burning a large part of
the time with the intensest craving for wealth, and deny
to tlheir souls all food of heavenly meditation.  From this
fever they are recovered by a temporary religious awakening, only to relapse again after a few months. Whether
they are Christians at all we may not judge, but certainly
they are far from the sobriety of mind with which Christianity endows the soul.
Such are some of the requisites for maintaining sobriety
of mind: that a standard of life and thought be formed
under the influence of spiritual things, that rules of conduct be provided to assist the soul amid the assaults of
tempestuous desire, and that an earnest purpose of living
according to the law of the Gospel engage on the side of
Christian sobriety all the effective force of the will.
4. And if this essentially Christian duty of sobriety of
mind is binding on all, it needs to be pressed with especial
earnestness on young men, who are apt to fail just at this
point. Without the lessons of experience, impulsive and
incautious, proverbially hopeful, often dazzled by the
colors which their own imaginations throw around the
objects of pursuit, who need so much as they a voice of
counsel and of solemn warning, drawn from  the eternal
issues of conduct? Who need so much to be led away in
thought from time, in which they are just beginning to be
actors, and to be instructed  to measure things by a
divinely furnished  rule of judgment?  Their minds
naturally, and by a divine appointment, take hold of life
with a strong zest; and earthly desires are at their side,
urging them, according to the design of their existence, to
the fulfillment of earthly duties, and yet able to draw




224     Sobriety of mind urged on Young Men.
them  away into every excess.' Feeling is exuberant,
temper quick, passsion strong; the evil of indulgence is
unknown, or lies afar off and may not be guarded against;
restraint has not become habitual.  Let all go on in an
unchecked progress, let there be no light from the skies to
reveal higher duties and a nobler life, and what preservative is there against the mad sweep of sensual passions,
if the temperament lead that way, or against the insane
thirst for gold or office?
How precious then, ought that fountain to be regarded
from which sobering draughts may be continually drawn,
which tells us of a blessed life, that is passed in calmness where no gusts of passion invade, and is to be
measured, not by outbursts of wild joy, but by the depth
of an inward peace; which tells us of a holy life, whose
communings with an Infinite Father and a Divine Saviour
curb, as by a wand of magic, every lust, and bring the
soul into harmony; which tells us of a noble life full of
great purposes, the least of which is worth more to the
soul than all that pleasure ever promised; which tells us
of a life looking out beyond the grave, and in its measurements finding all objects bounded by this world to be ineffably small, all lusts which make us earthly to be our chief
enemies. Oh!  my friends, come to that fountain; wait
not for the experiences of the bitter, to teach you the
sweet; wait not to be taught prudence by the necessity of
choosing between two master passions, one of which burns
and the other freezes the soul, but learn wisdom here and
take it with you into life.
To exhort young men to be sober-minded is also a hopeful
task, however much the levity and thoughtlessness of youth
may seem to make it a difficult one. They have, unless
some premature corruption has gathered its black cloud
over them, a readiness to receive impressions from moral
beauty and harmony; they have an unworldly character;
their earthliness having as yet taken the form of particu



Sobriety of mind urged on Young Men.        225
lar acts of exuberant feeling or of boiling passion, rather
than that of fixed, downward-looking purposes.  A young
man, when won over to habits of sober-minded piety, has
it in his power to cultivate a rounded, harmonious, beautiful life, which grows serener and calmer to its end. When
the hoary victim  of passion, the worn-out slave of covetousness, or the profligate, false-hearted politician, seeks the
consolations of religion in old age, after he has lost the
relish and the benefit of his sins, religion welcomes him
indeed, useless as he may be to her. But her discipline of
him is that of the hospital, where his maimed and shattered character can be nursed through the remaining fragment of life.  But in the man who has taken on him,
when young, the habits of Christian sobriety, we see the
heavenly life engrafted on the stock of fresh character, and
so penetrating it, that all his conduct seems to be the easy
flow of an uninjured nature.
And if such a young man reaches the boundaries of old
age, what a blessed sight is he. The fire of anger, which
he has controlled his life-long, plays only in a genial flame
of indignation against sin. Those baser appetites, which
cost him perhaps many a struggle to overcome, have died
out of his character.  Covetousness, as it n.ever filled him
with evil cravings in his manhood, so has no torment of
miserly fears for his old age. His brow of peace tells of
numberless triumphs over sin, followed by undisturbed repose. Such an old age of dignity and peace, when we
see it among us, is a purifying power in society,-it is a
protest against exaggerated feelings and excited desires, it
is a forerunner of heavenly rest. Compare it, in its tranquility and noiseless movement, with the disappointment,
the self-reproach, the weariness and emptiness of a worldling, who feels the bitter penal sobering of life in its dregs,
and see in it the beauty of the gospel.
It deserves also to be noticed that from habits of Christian sobriety a young man finds a moral taste springing up
10o




226     Sobriety of mind urged on Young Men.
within him, which is both a beautifier and a conservator
of character. To him, accustomed to the quiet workings
of a soul obedient to supreme order, all lawless movement,
outbursts of passion, fitful displays of force, whatever in
the soul "suffers the nature of an insurrection," is a mark
of disease and weakness. Greatness he symbolizes not by
the vexed sea-surface, but by the profound still depths of
ocean, not by the volcano, but by the mountain resting on
its everlasting base, not by the super-human force of the
maniac, but by energy of will controlled by reason. With
such a taste he passes judgment on character, on literature
and art; he is offended by agitations, convulsive efforts,
action or feeling beyond the occasion. He is attracted by
quiet unobtrusive manners and by natures which hold in
reserve a part of their power. In religion he looks for
action without noise, and feeling; ever gushing forth, but
ever under control. Thus does religion, by subduing the
fever of worldly desire, refine his judgment, and raise his
style of feeling. Without knowing it, he has gained an
instinct of moral propriety, which is one of the fairest blossoms of a religious life.
Such are some of the reasons for exhorting young men
to be sober-minded. But besides these general considerations, there is one to be drawn from the opposite tendency
of our times and country. The spirit of the times shows a
preponderance of the subjective in all departments of
thinking and acting. Feeling has become more intense,
action more hurried, whether in  religion, politics, or
ordinary life. But in our country, there are reasons why
there should be more of this spirit than in the rest of the
world. By our temperament we are rendered rapid and
eager.  In action we are unfettered, and desire finds
objects to attract it on every side. Our great prosperity
and success add force to courage and zeal; we are hopeful, incautious and speculative. Freedom  of intercourse,
and diffusion of knowledge, circulate feeling with electric




Sobriety of mind urged on Young Men.    227
speed; we move in masses, and intensify each other's
feeling by sympathy.  We spend heedlessly on pleasure,
because we feel no great need of laying up for the future.
Material comforts are greatly enlarged without a due
advance of intellectual improvement. The great energies
of the nation are directed to that which is present and
outward; we are unreflecting, like children. Intensely
anxious to obtain present results, we cannot wait and let
the future ripen our labors. And so pleasure bursts forth
into enormous excesses, covetousness runs into the wildest
speculations; contentment, calmness, unambitiousness, are
rare virtues. A spirit like this ends in the most intense
worldliness, which would be our speedy ruin, did not
disasters continually call us back to reflection, and did
not religion interfere to save us. How peculiarly great
the need of watchfulness and self-restraint within, where
all is thus in a constant agitation without us. How can
we stand our ground against the prevalent sin of'exorbitant desire, with no unusual effort to keep our hearts near
to God and eternal things?  Does it not become us preeminently to cultivate each for himself, that true independence of character which follows God's judgment of
things in opposition to man's, so that, when the flood of
popular thinking rushes by us, we may stand upright and
unshaken in our place?
BELOVED  PUPILS, CANDIDATES FOR THE DEGREE OF
BACHELOR OF ARTS:The lesson of this discourse, which I hope to leave on
your memory, is, that there is a sobriety of mind, far
unlike a dispassionate temperament and the self-discipline
of worldly prudence, which is built on Christian faith in
things invisible,-God and Christ, and a future life-and
which consists in subjugating the passions and desires to
the law of reason enlightened by religion. To such a sobriety-the mind's true health and peace-I invite you




228     Sobriety of mind urged on Young Men.
this day. I exhort you, as you leave these scenes for a
world of excitements, to resolve before God, that you will
carry the realities of spiritual life in your minds, wherever
your pilgrimage through this world may lie,-into business, into study, into office, if that should be laid upon
you; that. you will not rush into the absorbing pursuits of
the world as if they were your life, but with the eye of
meditative faith will keep in view the higher life beyond.
Nor do I alone, following the directions of the Scriptures,
exhort you to sobriety of mind. The same lesson is urged
on you from  every quarter. There are voices of providence which urge to it. Within a few months you have
witnessed one of the most wide-spread commercial disasters
that have visited this country, the cause of which, in the
main, was an eager, excited, insane desire of wealth, leading to over-trading, speculation, fraud, and the bankruptcy of multitudes, innocent as well as guilty. How
empty after such a crisis does the soul appear that has
staked all its happiness on the world, while the soberminded man of moderate desires lives through the storm
in blessed peace.  Voices too from  the dead enforce
the same lesson. More than one classmate is crying to
you from the world of spirits that a life of earthly desires
ends in the dark, while a life of faith brightens into the
perfect day of God. Within one short week a new voice
has reached you from the waters, that overwhelmed one
once belonging to your number.  "So live each day," it
cries, "that a sudden death shall not come upon you like
a thief, and remember that death is ever sudden to him
who has not shaken off his sins." Voices too of the Divine Spirit have added their persuasives to the calls of
Providence. You have completed a year which is memorable in our collegiate history. At its beginning, several
of you in calmness and thoughtfulness listened to the invitations of heavenly truth, and before it closed, numbers
more, with many of your fellow-stud&nts, gave evidence of




Sobriety of mind urged on Young Men.    229
altered lives and new hopes. The same movement you
have watched in its progress, generally without noise or
agitation, through the land: great multitudes you have
seen discovering tha.t a treaslsre ir heeven is better than
wealth, and submitting their souis to tne sobering, enlightening power of the Gospel.
With such voices urging you to a life of religious sobriety, you are going forth into a fascinating world. i do
not overstate its dangers when I say, that no man, be he
Christian or not, can go through the world safely unless
he guards his heart against inordinate loves, and with firm
purpose shuts his ear to the suggestions of evil. How will
you stand in the day of hazard, and how will the dr ad
balance be at last-for you, or against you?  Oh! that
grace may be given you to act wisely and thoughtfully.
Then, as each one reaches his earthly goal, and launches
away into the untrodden life of the Spirit, you may meet
again in heavenly places, to keep up a virtuous fellowship
forever. God grant that this may be so.-FAREWELL.




SERMON XVI.
REVERENCE AND ITS RELATION TO WORSHIP.
ExoDus, iii. 5. And He said, Draw not nigh hither; put off thy shoes
from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
THE command of our text was given when God appeared to Moses in the bush, under the symbol of an
unconsuming flame. The place was holy by reason of
God's special presence and of His intention to select it
in the future as the spot for proclaiming His holy law.
But the soles of Moses' sandals had come into contact
with much that was polluted, and were too impure to
tread upon consecrated ground. In thus commanding, God
speaks not of a holiness belonging to the spot which lay
in His own mind, but accommodates Himself to'the apprehension of the finite mind. To a creature like man
one spot might be more holy than another, because it
suggested to his thoughts some special manifestation of the
divine presence; and Moses, in order to show his sense of
this holiness or his reverence for God, might with reason
be called upon to perform  a symbolical act which was
suited to the genius of the age, was the natural language
of the sentiment, and without which the sentiment would
be chilled or stifled.
Since the unconsuming fire appeared to Moses at his
initiation into his great office, there has been a two-fold
change in the form of worship, or the expression of religious feeling. The first change has been that symbol, the
sign presented to the eye or made by the human body,
has given place to the language of the voice. In the
earlier ages every symbol meant something and was
intelligible. The language of bodily movement far sur230




Reverence and its relation to Worship.     23I
passed in impressiveness the as yet imperfect dialect of religious intercourse.  Men sought an utterance of the obscure feeling in the soul by a visible token of its presence,
and there was a natural sign-language which was fitted
for the ideas pertaining to divine worship. The complex
ceremonial, which we now understand but in part, was full
of life and meaning; it continued so until language reached
its maturity, until spiritual ideas found a freer vent, and
carried more force with them through words than through
signs. It was no empty or arbitrary thing when men
stretched their arms upward towards God in heaven in
token of need of help; nor when they bowed or fell down
before Him in token of unworthiness; nor when the priest
in confessions of sin put his hand on the head of the goat,
as if laying the burden of guilt on him; nor when incense
fragrant to man's sense ascended in its wreaths of smoke
to the sky, as a sign of the rising of accepted supplications.
The other great change since the time of Moses, is that
worship is no longer local. Then an altar was built and
consecrated, where in after times God might be sought,
and where, more than elsewhere, men might hope to find
Him  propitious.  Then there was a common centre of
public worship, away from which no part of the public
prescribed ritual could be accepted. Israel among the
nations, Jerusalem in Israel, the temple at Jerusalem, the
most holy place in the temple were so many sanctuaries,
one within another, where religion shut herself up from
the gaze of men, as yet unprepared to spread her light
over the world. But in Christ all this was done away.
"The hour cometh," says He, "when ye shall neither in
this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father,"
that is, ye shall not resort to Mount Gerizimn nor to Jerusalem to seek the common Father of believing souls; but
all such shall have free access to Him, wherever scattered
through the world. For to the spiritual Christian the




232     Reverence and its relation to Worship.
world is God's temple; he turns not towards Mount Zion,
because God is everywhere, nur does he look for a visible
Christ reigning at the earthly Jerusalem, because ie is
with all His people always to the end cf the world. In
the believer's highest states of feeling, life, in all its work,
is worship; every where he is a king and a priest unto
God.
But in spite of these changes, the sentiment of reverence, which demanded the ancient symbols and clung to
holy spots, remains and ever will remain in the human
soul. It cannot be repressed without a disjointing of our
moral and religious nature. It cannot be extinguished
without embruting man, whose highest office, even according to Plato, was to hymn the Creator. It leads to an
expression of religious feeling, vague it may be or irrational,
if without the guidance bf the divine word: yet without
it there can be no religion; and profaneness or the loss of
reverence is the foe equally of feeling and of faith, of the
sentiment which gropes for God and of the worship in
which we are helped to realize His presence.
Let us consider first the nature of reverence. Here we
have to deal with something incapable of definition, which
is seemingly a simple, uncompounded  sentiment, and
cannot be known without being felt. In these respects,
however, it is on a level with the other sentiments or sensibilities, with shame, for instance, and with remorse, which
could never be described, so that even an angel could
fully get at their meaning.  As we know that human
nature is alike, we assume the existence of such principles
in every human breast.  They may not be as lively in
one as in another, or one sensibility may be dull and
another intense, but probably no human being  ever
existed without some trace of them.. They may also be
blunted by a course of known and wilful sin. Thus it is
a common experience of man, that shame, which was
without doubt intended to deter us from that which is




Reverence and its relation to Worship.     233
shameful,.- when it is resisted, and as it were trampled
under foot, becomes dead and arouses no pain in the soul,
as the liar's brazen tongue, and the harlot's brazen face
testily.  So too, remorse may seem  to be extinct for a
course of years, and the bold sinner seems to have gotten
the victory over his conscience.  But the deadness of -the
sensibility is often only for a time, and this fact shows that
it is a part of us, which can here or hereafter assert its
rights in tones which must be heeded.  Under a new view
of truth, shame will make the ears tingle, and remorse
will lash the soul with its scorpions.  In the same way,
when profaneness and fleshliness seem to have shut the
door of the soul to the presence of the divine majesty, the
sentiment of reverence  inay return again at the call of
spiritual truths, and he may bow in adoration, who not
long before braved divine wrath by his profaneness.
Reverence has some points of resemblance to other feelings which seem to be simple, and with which it ought
not to be confounded. And there is the more need of distinguishing them, since they may exist together as mingled
but independent emotions.  It differs from  fear, for it can
exist in circumstances where we have no sense of personal
danger.  And yet so similar are the two emotions, that in
some languages, the same word will more or less be used
to express them both, as indeed reverence and shame sometimes claim a common right to the same term. But shame
differs from reverence in this, that it contemplates a judgment formed concerning our conduct by another, or has
reference to a standard of conduct adopted by others,
while reverence seems to be irrespective of our conduct
and to depend upon something else. It is widely different again from the feeling of dependence, with which, in
religious feeling, it is often associated.  We both revere
and feel our dependence on God, but it is evident that we
can feel our dependence on a being without revering Him,
and can revere one who has no power over our condition.




234      Reverence and its relation to Worship.
And finally the sense of the sublime-or if that be a complex feeling-the feeling of awe, which is contained in it,
seems to differ from reverence, which relates to persons
and their actions, while the other sensibility is aroused by
operations in the material world.  It will not be said
tiau, a. venerate the phenomena of nature, or the great
earth itself; and when we speak of venerable moss-grown
trees, the language is justified by the transfer of personal
life to such objects, or by their resemblance to what is
venerable in man.
Reverence then is awakened by personal attributes, and
not by mere power, which by itself repels and strikes fear
into our souls, nor by great intellect separate from character.  Qualities of character are its especial field, and
the moral traits which awaken it run along the scale from
the inferior exhibitions of human excellence to the higher
and vaster perfections which a Christian ascribes to God.
Thus fortitude, generosity, magnanimity, self-sacrificeabove all when they are great of their sort, or appear in
the company of a great mind-call forth our reverence as
really as infinite benevolence, justice, and holiness. But
there are certain relations between men also, which call
forth this feeling.  They are of such a kind as to remove
persons from  an equality and to excite a sense of inferiority in the mind of one of the parties. Of this description are the relations of the child and subject to the
parent and ruler, and of youth to old age, in which latter
case perhaps the wisdom and experience usually ascribed
to old age aid the feeling.  In general it may be said that
reverence will not be felt, unless we observe something
which lifts a person above us, prevents entire equality and
free familiarity, and impresses us with a belief of his moral
greatness. We can scarcely be said to revere our equals;
we imay admire them, but they would not be our equals if
we revered them.  Under institutions which encourage
the spirit of equality therefore reverence will be checked.




Reverence and its relation to Worship.     235
It is a common remark among Europeans, that such is
the case in this country; that viewed from their point of
view democratic America has less reverence for God, less
respect for old age, less veneration for parents, than the
lands where the principle of equality does not run so en-.tirely through the institutions. And the religious sentiment seems to need a continual protection against these
political influences, lest the decencies and the solemnities
of worship become quite unable to stand their ground
against disrespect of the simplest forms of religion.
As we revere man, so we can revere his laws and institutions, which are personal acts emanating from  minds
in times past, calculated to call forth our moral feelings,
and by their authority impressing us with a sense of our
subjection.  In the same manner the law  of God, the
word of God, all that presents to us His character calls
upon us to exercise the feeling of reverence.  God is associated with all His institutions, with whatever is divine:
His divine personality shines through them all.
II. This attempt to define the nature of reverence is
important only as helping us to understand the uses and
the abuses of the sensibility. Here we make two remarks,
thefirst that it is one of the pillars which support religion,
one of those fundamental feelings without which there
could in the proper sense be no such thing as religious
worship, and the second that in itself it has no virtue and
is no guide, but may fasten upon the wrong as well as
upon the right object.
Reverence is one of the chief pillars of religion.  As
soon as we feel that we are dependent on a Divine Being,
as soon as we learn from observation of our finite nature,
or are taught by our very instinct, that an infinite arm is
reached forth for our support, so soon the sentiment of
reverence prompts us to worship; and, following its voice,
we try to lay down for curselves the proper way of worsnip.  Man has very often been called a religious animal,




236     Reverence and its relation to Worship.
and is, without doubt, such. Wherever he dwells on the
earth, in all ages and races, he has had some kind of religion, so that Atheism is really fighting against nature. If
it succeeded in destroying the faith that binds earth to
heaven, its triumph would be short-lived. Human nature
would cry out again "for God, the living God."  The
sense of dependence, the tendency towards reverence and
worship are indestructible. And if pantheism could overthrow the established faith, it could not prevent some kind
of religion from rising up in the world. Probably polytheism-with a veneration of the personified forces or objects of nature, would be the result.
This office of reverence is similar to the offices performed by the moral sensibilities and by shame. If there
were no moral sense there could be no obligation. The
feeling of self-approval and disapprobation call for a moral
code or standard, and would be unmeaning otherwise.
Shame and love of esteem contain in themselves a reference to society and its judgments. If man were a solitary
being, having no intercourse with his fellows, such sentiments would be unmeaning. Hence, we may say, that as
shame supposes that we are to live in society, and remorse
that we are to be under moral law; so reverence supposes
both that we are made for worship, and that there is some
object out of ourselves calling for our worship. Otherwise
our nature would be a riddle, containing traces of a plan,
but leaving the plan unfinished. God being acknowledged,
we can explain reverence and the feeling of dependence.
These, being parts of our essential nature, point forward to
God. Then the plan appears to be complete. God and
the feelings which His existence and nature awaken thus
explain one another.
But, secondly, reverence is no guide by itself, and has in
itself no virtue. The mere sentiment is blind, just as shame
and remorse are blind. If shame were a perfect guide, we
should always be ashamed of things shameful, and never




Reverence and its relation to Worship.   237
of anything else. But it is not so. The opinions of a
sinful society make men ashamed to do what they know to
be right, and ashamed not to do wrong, so that no small
amount of manliness and of religious principle is needed
to follow a guide acknowledged to be better than the
public voice. In the same way self-approval and remorse
are no infallible guides. They recognize the everlasting
distinction of right and wr(ng, they require us to admit,
that some things must be right and some things wrong, but
they do not enlighten us as to the contents of a law of
righteousness.  If they did, the history of morals would
not be a series of mistakes and perversions, a calling of
good evil and evil good, a putting of darkness for light
and light for darkness, of bitter for -sweet and of sweet for
bitter. The same holds good in respect to reverence.
Neither this sentiment nor the feeling of dependence reveals
to man the nature of the object which he is prompted to
worship, and on which he depends. Otherwise it would not
be true, that nearly all the religions of the world have had
objects of worship which a cultivated moral sense could
not honor or venerate. Something beyond the feeling, for
which the feeling is preparatory, is wanted to guide us into
the knowledge of the real and living object of worship..
The feeling of reverence in outward religious worship
is neither good nor.evil  It must exist in some degree of
strength; it may aid the mind in the worship of the true
God; but worship in itself is not virtuous, nay, religion,
taken in its general sense of a bond of union between man
and a divine being, is not necessarily virtuous. There are
many very religious persons, in that acceptation of the
word, who are very wicked, and the religion itself may encourage malice, impurity and falsehood. I refer to this
because it is beginning to be the fashion among a certain
class of writers to speak of several of the emotions as if
they had something holy about them, as if reverence, for
instance, and the sense of dependence were virtuous senti



2"3     lReverence and its relation to Worship.
ments and acceptable to God, whatever their objects might
be, whatever the rites of the religion which call' them
forth. Thus the acceptableness of the worshiper's oblations would not lie in the state of his will or disposition,
or in the fitness of the object worshiped, but merely in
the existence of the sentiments upon which the act of worship is built. A very easy kind of doctrine this which
overlooks the moral element of religion. But I trust no
one who hears me will imagine that the worship of a
Malay pirate to his tutelary god is virtuous because it is
worship, or that the obscene dances and songs of many
heathen nations are to be put on a level with the choral
songs that ascend on high from Christian temples-" Holy,
holy, holy is the Lord. God of hosts, the whole earth is full
of Thy glory," or "Blessing, and glory, and honor, and
power be unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the
Lamb forever."
And thus we reach the point that revelation is needful in
order that man may know what he ought to revere with
religious adoration. If our race had continued innocent,
perhaps, a faith in God would have spread over the world,
rivalling in its purity and elevation the conceptions of
God drawn from the Bible.  But a sinful race cannot
originate a pure doctrine concerning God. The immoral,
unholy feelings of man will color his conceptions of the
divinity, uhless there is a standard of truth to which he
bows. He will worship, but into his worship the taint of
lust, revenge, and falsehood will enter.  He will make a
mythology, but the mythology though full of beauty, it
may be, will be full also of all rottenness.
III. But thirdly, what will be the office of reverence in
connection with the religion of Christ, and what the duties
to which it prompts and summons us? Here by way of
illustration notice the effect on life and manners of some
other sentiments and principles.  Regard for public
opinion-how inevitably this mingles its influence with all




Reverence and its relation, to Worship.    239
our life, so that we follow the fashions and judgments of
society, receive its faith blindly, are afraid to depart from
its law, which haunts us when there are no spectators, and
brings into our solitudes the presence of invisible human
witnesses. And so the notion of equality  how it moulds
our manners, sets us on the watch for our rights, makes us
coarse, disrespectful, arrogant, as if society were advancing
claims all the while which it was necessary for us to
oppose. It is the same with reverence. This sentiment
may be traced in all the religions of man's devising as well
as in the revealed religion of the Scriptures. In the former it casts aside from worship whatever is supposed to be
offensive to the divinity; it leads to a posture, to forms and
to rites of worship such as set forth the veneration and
devotion of the worshiper; it leads with other sentiments
to places of worship where acts of homage can be rendered, and to such accessories of worship as will help the
spirit of reverence to rise up free from all impediments.
In the true religion it is no longer blind but an enlightened handmaid of true spiritual feeling. Here the problem is not simply to excite reverence together with the
other feelings that rise towards God, not merely in worship
to place before the soul the high and holy One who inhabiteth eternity, but to do this as an intelligent service built
on the truth, and drawing its supplies of emotion from the
truth of positive revelation.
The worship which the Scriptures encourage is made up
of the form and the spirit. Let us look at each of these
by itself.
There has ever been a difference in regard to the form
ofworship. Some minds, some states of enlightenment,
some stages of religious knowledge crave more of form than
others. Yet if the question, what the forms shall be, were left
to the sentiment of reverence alone, the decision how much
form we should have in Christendom, would be comparatively easy. But as soon as a form expresses the natural




240     Reverence and its relation to Worst p.
language of reverence or adoration, or of gratitude and
love mingled with reverence, art takes hold of it. The
sacred house of God, where the style ought to partake of
that severe simplicity and majesty which kindle the purest
feelings, is overloaded with elaborate ornament, telling
the worshiper nothing but the builder's art and the costliness of the structure. That is false art which drowns
other thoughts in admiration of the finish, which injures
worship by that which draws the mind away from  worship. So of music. It is one of the noblest sensibilities
of man that he can pour forth his soul to God in song;
but here, again, while true art favors simplicity and
grandeur, false art favors that style of church music which
exhibits best the skill of the singers, as if man ought
to be thought of in an act of worship, which is unmeaning
and useless if it do not move and then compose the soul.
And there is, again, a natural form of reverence for the
worshiper. His posture, his attire, his decorum  in all
respects must be such that worship can be in harmony
with the place and with the great being who is worshiped.
There is a reverential feeling which, as an accompaniment of spiritual ideas, will regulate all this. As at a
festival among his fellow-men, a man will be polite and
friendly, as his garb, his words, his manner will suit the
occasion, so it should be when he meets God. Our respectful treatment of our fellow-men is dictated by the
thought that they have rights which we cannot violate
without selfish rudeness; but God has His rights, which to
violate is to sin, and reverence in the heart will show us
how to worship Him aright, and the question in all the
forms of worship will be how the soul can be aided in
communing with God.
The spiritual side of worship, then, is the great thing.
It is better to worship on the lonely heath, or under the
stars than in the most gorgeous cathedral, if Christian
feeling is called forth amid God's works and not amid the




Reverence and its relation to Worship.     241
lavish adornments of human art.  The forms, simple or
more elaborate, prepare for the spiritual service; they help
the soul upward, but they are not spiritual themselves.A
Here truth comes in. The recognition of God in all His
relations to us, of Christ in His work, of our sin and
want,-realities of this magnitude entering the soul with
the sentiment of reverence, dispose us to adoration, confession, praise, to sympathy with sacred song if we cannot
join in it ourselves.
And here we notice briefly two offences against the
true spirit of worship, formality and profaneness.  Formality is the form without the spirit. It is found most
generally where an elaborate ritual is in use, and the
worshiper by a decent or reverent observance of the outward rites satisfies his conscience, or purchases for himself,
as he thinks, exemption from higher obligation, since he has
satisfied, as he imagines, the claims of God. But formality may exist also in modes of worship, where there is
the least of a ritual. A decorous posture and manner,
conduct due to the place, is all the worshiper of this
kind has to offer to God. But he ought not to imagine
that this is enough, or that a heart-searching God can
accept of this, or that he is fitting himself for the worship
on high, where they sing "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God
Almighty, which is and was, and is to come! Blessing and
honor and glory and power be unto Him  that sitteth on
the throne and to the Lamb, for ever and ever!"
But irreverence, which in its extreme is profanity and
blasphemy, is a sin of deeper dye than formality. The
demands of reverence are satisfied by the decorum and
seriousness of formality, while the higher claims of a
spiritual religion are overlooked or forgotten. But profanity has overcome the natural restraints of a sentiment
to which even pagans pay regard. It is a contempt of
God, as if He were not worthy of being treated with the
respect due even a man like ourselves. The religious
11




242     Reverence and its relation to Worship.
sentiments. in the habits of a Christian believer are associated with: the time and place of worship. His spirit is
subdued into a devout, solemn awe of God; he can in his
best frames realize that the church is' the house of God
and the gate of heaven.. But the profane worshiper has
formed no such tie in his mind between God and His
house,, between God and the prayers and praises that go
up to: His throne. His thoughts are profane. His words
are mingled with curses. Nothing sacred has any hold
on his mind. How. can he.have any fellowship with God
or God with him?  And if there is a heaven, a place of
God's special manifestation of His glories, how could he
enter it without dismay and despair?
What has been said suggests the thought that Atheism
and Pantheism  lead to idolatry of the creature. The
remark has been made alreadythat reverence involves a
personal object, and as the sentiment is universal in man's
nature it seeks for a personal object: above nature; man
cannot be' satisfied with worshiping his fellow-man unless'his standard of greatness and goodness is miserably low,
or unless he has by his dogmas ruled all persons higher
than man out of the universe. When now this happens,
when the great object above nature is denied to exist or
to exist as a person, the source from which the reverential
mind can supply its wants is gone; the heavens and earth
are now an empty temple. But man, after this denial of
God, remains as he was before; he still needs something
to admire, something to revere, something to take the
place of the lost divinity.  What has he now to construct
his object of'adoration, his idol out of? Is it the heavens,
or the earth, or the sun, that almost living symbol of the
infinite, ever present Lord? But by his science he finds
these to be dead matter, under law, acting by mechanical
necessity.'What' is there venerable in a mighty machine
more than in a small one on the same plan; in an engine
of a thousand horse-power more than in one of ten? He




Reverence and its relation to Worship.   243
must look for his idol beyond the material world. But
the only mind remaining after God is cast away is man's.
To this, then, in its highest forms of power he looks as his
make-shift for the living God; this he invests in the course
of time with an unreal superiority drawn from his imagination; it becomes his hero or demigod, and he strives to
fill with its presence his soul, emptied of God and which
only God can fill.  When Atheism reigned in France the
church of St. Genevieve became the Pantheon, was dedicated to the great men of France by their grateful country,
and received the bones of persons like Rousseau, Voltaire,
Mirabeau and Marat. How near an approach to those
pagan times, when the Roman emperor obtained divine
honors after his death, and his genius was sacrificed to in
his life-time.
Our subject, again, helps us to see how man is prepared
for religion in his nature,- and how the revealed religion carries on that preparation. The native sentiments
fit him for communion with a God, and among them reverence especially controls the manner and form of his approach to his Deity in acts of worship. If this were all, if
he had no light from heaven, religion would be ignorant
worship of the unknown God, or impure worship of a false
and foul Divinity. But Christianity now appears to disclose to him what sin had hidden before, and the new way
of reconciliation to God, which sin had rendered necessary.
But if the Gospel, while thus throwing light and hope into
his soul, had not provided free play for all the original
sensibilities which take hold on God, it might have been
charged with imperfection, with not developing the whole
of our nature in harmony. It has, however, food in its
glorious realities for them all; its majestic representation
of the infinitely holy One give full scope to reverence; gratitude is excited to the full by the doctrine of God's providential care and gracious presence; trust and hope by His
promises and offers of mercy-in short, all our nature is




244     Reverence and its relation to Worship.
taken into account by the author of the Gospel; a skill
and a provision for the human soul appears in it; it aims
to round off the human character, and to bring man to his
highest earthly perfection.
And so, also; the Gospel cultivates the sensibilities, reverence, among the rest, for the heavenly state. Prayer
here, such as God can accept, adoration and praise here
are qualifying souls for the deeper and nobler emotions
which will accompany.the grander revelations of fhat
world. Whether any of these sensibilities will be superseded there, I will not venture to inquire. But it is not
probable that reverence will ever cease, since the disclosures of the glories of God there, natural and moral, will
make the distance between the finite man and the infinite
God greater and greater, so that there will be the more
need of reverence, and the more room for its exercise.
Prepare, then, my hearers, by worship here for worship
there. Wherever else light-minded, be devout in God's
house and in worship. If you have been profane, shake off
the habit; learn to see God everywhere and to adore Him.
If you have been formal and yet decent, think that God
cannot accept such services. Give your mind to the grand
thoughts of the Gospel, and enter on the worship of God
in spirit and in truth. Then you will have joy when you
unite with all the good ones of earth and heaven in the
cry, "Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty, which is
and was and is to come!" "Blessing and honor and glory
and power be unto Him that sitteth on the throne and
unto the Lamb forever and ever!"




SERMON XVII.
THE VIRTUES WHICH HAVE TRUTHFULNESS FOR THEIR
BASIS.
EPHES. iv. 25. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth
with his neighbor; for we are members one of another.
THE quality of truthfulness, or of allegiance to truth,
in the character, extends far beyond the point of scrupulously avoiding untrue statements. A person may never
tell what would usually be called a falsehood, and yet may
have a thoroughly insincere, hypocritical, or artificial
character. It needs but a coarse, dull*sense of right and
wrong to abstain from telling lies, while it belongs to a
very sensitive, delicate conscience to shun the numberless
by-paths of false appearances and false pretences which
meet one on all sides and are very pleasant to walk in.
The finish of the character, in regard to truthfulness, is
one of the noblest attainments of Christian manhood, and
it is as difficult as perfection is in any other department.
To make any progress in this direction we must have a
clear view of the field; we must form an idea of what it
is to be an Israelite indeed without guile; we must perceive how insinuating in some of its forms untruthfulness
is, and how blessed the height-if we can reach it-where
our whole soul shall breathe the air of truth, and of
nothing but truth.
Give me then your attention, dear brethren, while I lay
before you in a miscellaneous way some of those.faults of
character partaking of the quality of the false, which, as
men and as Christians, we ought to avoid, and some of
those forms of truthfulness which we ought to admire and
must possess if we are followers of Christ.
245




246 The Virtues which have Truthfulness for their Basis.
And may I not mention first, as worthy of being in
general avoided, the quality of dissimulation, or the concealment of our real opinions, which has been contrasted
with simulation, or the pretending to be, or to think, something other than the reality. Here I doo not refer to those
native differences which must always be observable between
frank or demonstrative and reserved or undemonstrative
characters. Nor do I at all say that we are always bound
to express what we think, or that we may not put ourselves
on our guard. by concealment against designing enemies.
But I refer to studious concealment of principles and feelings in order that others may have a false impression of us
from our silence. The kind of frankness which consists
in avowing our true sentiments, or at least the readiness
to do this, on the right occasion, is what all men admire;
and when the moving cause to dissimulation is fear, the
opposite quality may be a very manly and even a highly
Christian one. So, for instance, he who confesses Christ
amid a company of scoffers, instead of holding his peace
and covering up the convictions of his soul, has the spirit
of a martyr. And he will have this good fruit of his
openness, that besides feeling conscious of doing a noble
act, he strengthens his convictions themselves. It has
been laid to the charge of Cromwell that he was a dissembler, who allowed others to interpret his silence as they
would, and then surprised them by acting otherwise than
they expected.  His most favorable biographers have
defended him on the ground that he told no lies, and that
being in the midst of dangerous plotters, he was unable to
save himself or his cause in any other way. I will not
dispute the justice of the defence, but I notice the instance
as showing how men confound dissembling with falsehood,
and therefore how these must border on one another; and
as showing also that a high religionist like Cromwell, by
his dissembling, gave color to the charge that his religion
was insincere. It is obviousthat the practice, carried out




The Virtues which have Truthfulnessfor their Basis. 247
to any great length, is wrong and fraught with danger. It
is wrong, for what right have I to live on terms of confidence with others, hear their indiscreet utterances of honest opinion, give them  impressions by my constant silence
that I think with them, and yet all the while differ from
them  entirely?  Would they admit me to their communion, if they knew what I know of my sentiments? And
is it not an obligation of honor and justice that in a free
interchange of feelings I shall not be an insidious spectator, on the watch while others are opening their breasts?
Nay, rather, does not a certain freedom  of intercourse
imply that continued silence means assent or at least no
disapprobation?  We may appeal to instinctive feeling
also, and ask whom men will respect-him who hides his
true self in important respects from others out of fear or
that he may have the benefit of their companionship, or
him who is resolved to put on no disguise, but to let himself pass among his fellows for what he is?   Such a man
loses nothing, for all see that he has a love of truth superior to fear or interest.
And again, dissimulation is fraught with danger, for it
leads into falsehood. The habit of making false impressions or suffering them to be made by silence lies next door
to direct untruth.  You feel that you have deceived by
concealment, and that you may just as well reach the
same point by a lie. Suppose the case of an early Christian, who shut up his faith in himself, heard Christians
traduced and heathenism advocated, and kept his peace
until the heathen around him  thought him lukewarm  or
one of themselves-would. he, when trial came, be as
likely to say, "I too am a believer in Christ," and suffer
for his Lord, as he would have been, if in all modest ways
he had let his faith be known?  He kept still because he
was afraid, and he nursed his fear?  Would not the same
fear be the more likely to make him recreant to Christ?
Dissimulation, then, if dictated by fear or policy, is




248 The Virtues which have Truthfulness for their Basis.
dangerous as fostering a cowardly, unmanly temper, and
as leading across the line which separates disingenuous
concealment from positive untruth.
Next to dissimulation I mention pretence, which implies an intentional concealment of the reality by somnething false or feigned offered to the inspection of others.
A man is conscious of something pertaining to him which
he would gladly hide from view, and so he endeavors to
make a false impression of himself before his fellow-men
by some specious show or unfounded claim. Or he desires the reputation of that which he is not or does not
possess, and endeavors by his conduct to lead others into
error. Thus a merchant who has no capital makes a false
impression on others in regard to his pecuniary ability,
that he may obtain a loan of money; or a sciolist pretends
to have learning, when he is ignorant; or a libertine to be
moral when he is immoral; or a hypocrite in religion to
be a believer or a good man when he is neither. We call
by the name of hypocrisy the worst kind of pretence, false
assumption of the religious character for selfish purposes.
All men, good and bad, concur in condemning and abhorring this class of persons; and truly he is among the worst
of mankind who lives directly under the truths and motives of a gospel which loathes hypocrisy, and yet for
selfish purposes puts on a cloak of religion. He is so bad
that many who are no hypocrites think quite well of
themselves, because they  are better than  he.  But,
in fact, all pretence is one; and  all pretenders are
players of a part; they put on a mask to hide their true
characters.  There are pretenders to wealth, who, by
dexterous shows get the reputation  of riches, when
they cannot pay their debts.  There are pretenders
to skill in a learned profession, who impose on  the
ignorant by making the little they know seem  great.
There are pretenders to familiarity with great people,
who want to seem important in other men's eyes. There




The Virtues which have Truthfulnessfor their Basis. 249
are pretenders in all the departments of business-such
for instance as sell a few articles cheap in order to makethe more upon their principal goods. In fact all competition as the world goes, encourages pretence, for men
will not wait until their character brings customers, but
will seek custom by pretence, before they can establish a
reputation. There are, again, pretenders in the fashionable
world, who impose on the judgment of others, or creep
into good company by audacious assumption. These and
all other pretenders-pretenders to morality, who talk
smoothly and eloquently of virtue, while they practice
vice in secret; pretenders to sentiment, who borrow the
language of others to cover dead and worn-out hearts;
pretenders to taste, who ape the judgment of critics or connoisseurs with no sensibility of eye or ear or soul; pretenders to religion, who dishonor and disgrace religion,
and yet all the more show the value and the need of it in
the world-all these need only to be mentioned, for the
moral sense of mankind is against them  and awards
them  scoffs or indignation, according to a milder or
harsher rule for measuring their characters. And without doubt, the feeling of man reflects herein the moral
estimates of God, and of our Lord, who has said things
of hypocrisy as fearful as any words that were ever
uttered. For let us think of the great God watching every
kind of hypocrite as he tries to deceive his fellows by
empty shows; as he glories in his success; as he thinks the
secret is known only to himself. Can He, the infinitely
pure and true, fall below man in His abhorrence of such
a character?  And if the blind man could once open his
eye on God, seeing Him in all the glory of His truth,
and seeing that there is one immortal witness againstihim,
who knows all and remembers all, could he help being
withered and loathing himself?
But enough of these: there is a less obvious kind of
pretence into which we are all apt to fall, which, how-i




250 The Virtues which have Truthfulness for their Basis.
ever, cannot stand on its defence, when tried by the laws,
of truth.  It is what is called cant; a word which denotes
the aping of others in expressions of feeling and opinion,
by the use of set, stereotyped words which pass current in
a certain circle of religion, fashion, or taste. Take religious cant as the most signal example.  I refer not now
to the words peculiar to a certain sect to denote their
views concerning doctrine and a religious life, for there
must be such words, and they contain more or less of
truth. Nor can the term  cant be applied with any propriety to the terms for conversion or repentance, or an
exercise of our religious nature in view of truth.  He
whose taste would be offended by these words, when used
on the proper occasion, would most probably dislike the
thing denoted by them, and the Gospel itself.
But, there are many senses of words peculiar to certain
classes of religious people, and many phrases, also, coined
by them in the fervency of their feeling,-expressions of a
genuine Christian spirit in their mouth, which others without their earnestness borrow from  them: perhaps in the
next age, when piety no longer burns with a bright flame,
they remain on the lips, as marks that religion has become a mere lip-service. Now the use of such words may
offend a nice taste, but cant is something beyond want of
taste; it is deadness using the language of life; it is insincerity clothed in the garb of sincerity, and it is, therefore,
a sin against truth.  In the most marked cases, cant. is
the dialect of hypocrisy, using on calculation terms to
which it attaches no living sense drawn from experience.
In the least marked cases it is catching up from others and
saying over by rote that which proceeds not from the heart.
But there are other kinds of cant, as that of sentiment,
when a person adopts language of feeling or of fancy,
which is not the utterance of the soul within, but a lesson
taught by society; or as the cant of taste, where an instructed person apes the language of critics and seems to




The Virtues which have Truthfulness for their Basis. 251
have lively sensibility, when he is incapable of perceiving
the beauty or the majesty, whether of nature or of art.
Such pretension, which passes from one to another, like a
contagion, a truthful mind will instinctively shrink from.
He cannot say what he does not truly feel. He cannot
profess to judge where he knows he has no power of passing a judgment. It gives him pain to be thought better
or more knowing than he is, or to be rated higher than
the truth will warrant. And this without doubt accords
with the judgment of the God of truth. Avoid then all
pretence. Act out not a borrowed character, but that
which belongs to you. It is better to bear our own fruit
than to have foreign blossoms hanging on us. Develop
your own life into Christian perfection, rather than ape
another's words and put on his likeness. There is none of
us, the most crabbed, the most ungainly, the most inflexible, that cannot be built up with God's help, into a living
temple beautified by holiness; there is none of us, however
promising and apt, that will cover his true self up in a
borrowed robe, who will not readily be detected by sharp
observers, and at last be laid bare at the great trial of
character.
We mention next, as closely bordering on the vice of
character already named, insincerity, especially in professions of regard and in the bestowment of praise. When a
person puts on the semblance of friendship for another,
expressing it in warm terms to his face, while he laughs
at him behind his back, we call this hypocrisy of a black
dye.  But some insincere ways of making  another
believe that you are his friend are not so obviously
wicked as this. You have a kindly feeling towards him
and exaggerate it in your words or shows, so that he
mistakes by your fault his true place in your esteem. Or
you are indifferent to him and yet abuse the signs of
politeness, so that he puts a false construction on your
words and shows. You thus present yourself to others as




252 The Virtues which have Truthfulness for their Basis.
ready to do for them what is beyond your intention, and
when the test comes and you fail, they are wounded and
feel that they have been falsely dealt with. Most of
such insincere professions are the refuges of selfishness
ashamed to come to the light and putting on the forms
of good will. They are produced by a high standard of
character around us,-we are ashamed to be thought to
fail in kindness or friendliness, and so assume its garb.
Here we see how love in the heart would prevent all such
false shows. Having the feeling within us we should not
be anxious to exhibit it. -It would manifest itself freely.
Our civility would not be well-bred but heart-felt; not a
manner put on but an expression of the hidden man
within.
The same insincerity appears in the form  of flattery.
This may be tio sin of falsehood; one may tell the truth
to another merely to please him and secure his esteem;
the evil here lying in the motive and the disregard for his
character, which is injured by having only its best side
placed before his eyes.  But there is another flattery
more insidious and full of the spirit of falsehood, as
where one shows a deference to another in his manner
which he does not feel, or where he exaggerates his
excellencies or glosses over his failings, or where he imputes to him  motives which could not have existed.
There are then two evils in this bad practice, the motive
for it and the false representation. Love would prevent
both. It would praise where praise would do good; it
would insinuate nothing which was not strictly true. It
would not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoice in the truth.
We pass on next to the faults of character opposed to
simplicity. This word denoted at first the quality of being
unfolded, as contrasted to that which was folded together,
and so simplicity in a moral sense and duplicity are moral
opposites. But the word has a wide application; when
used in reference to taste it denotes the avoidance of the




The Virtues which have Truthfulness for their Basis. 253
artificial, the overwrought, the overloaded with ornament,
the pretentious.  When used in reference to our purposes
it denotes that two motives, as self-interest and good-will,
are not mixed in producing the same act, or that we aim
at truth rather than at impression. As a moral quality
it denotes the absence from guile, a character without
artifice. Everywhere we perceive that it implies the
true as against the false, the real and natural as against
the artificial, and we feel that a general simplicity of character, if native, is a most valuable characteristic, and if
a fruit of Christian principle, is a following of Him  in
whose mouth was no guile. On the other hand the want of
this quality is a serious defect. Even a taste which rejects
it, a taste for excess of ornament, for instance, is a sure
result of an immoral civilization, so that here we have
another sign that truth as a trait of society is necessary
for all healthy judgments as well as sound morals, and
that as soon as falsehood creeps in, it brings a blight upon
art as well as on character.
It is noticeable that simplicity of character or freedom
from artifice and guile is often connected with openness or
transparency of character.  Now a man whose guilelessness is apparent seems to other men, in a community
where falsehood prevails, to be destitute of a power which
it is often desirable to use. He has an aversion native or
from principle to falsehood, and, therefore, appears to be
unable to defeat the designs of falsehood.  Hence simplicity and kindred words come in a number of languages
to mean want of penetration, want of common sense, and
the more depraved the community, the more easy and
natural will such a transition of sense be. Trickery, the
power to circumvent and to deceive, will pass for talent,
and the simple-hearted will be despised.  But in truth
there is no necessary connection between simplicity and
folly, between knavery and shrewdness.  And no characteristic is more successful in life, or more widely esteemed




254 The Virtues which have Truthfulness for their Basis.
than simplicity. The man who gains his objects in a
round-about way, who covers himself up in a mist, who
resorts to indirect means to gain his end, becomes suspected and feared; he in turn suspects and fears others;
and thus his character causes an alienation or even an
opposition between him  and his fellow-men, which interferes with his success by destroying confidence, and, it
may be, lands him at last in positive dishonesty.  The
simple-hearted again not only are loved and trusted, but
have their souls open to all truth which rests on evidence.
They may be as wise as serpents while they are as harmless
as doves; they may see the. stratagem  and chicanery of
others, while they would shrink from  using the same
weapons themselves.  They often defeat artifice by simplicity, because a trickish, artful mind cannot understand a quality so unlike its own. They come with the
best preparation to the truths and obligations of religion,
for they are apt to be not far from the kingdom of God,
as having a love for simple truth and a sincerity of purpose.
Simplicity in statements, again, is a form  which the
truthful spirit assumes, and the fault most opposite to it is
careless or reckless exaggeration.  There are causes for
exaggeration which are not strictly criminal.  Such are
excitement of feeling and a lively conception. The orator
or the preacher with all due love of truth may run into
overstatements, may enhance the relative importance of
that which arouses his soul for the time-this is pardonable, it may be not easily avoidable; but even here, the
desire to conform to the strict truth, going along with all
the movements of the mind, will give rise to a certain sobriety of statement, and especially will prevent a conscientious man from aiming to produce an effect by intentional exaggeration. This is a sin against the law of
truth.  The impression must be heightened beyond what
the reality will warrant-the person thinks-in order that




The Virtues which have Truthfulness for their Basis. 255
any effect may be produced.   ie confounds overstrained
expression with force, and adherence to the reality with
weakness. Thus he betrays a want of confidence in the
power of truth, and this fault of his brings his own
reward. For men will easily discover his exaggerations
and will make excessive deduction from  them. If he
gives statements of events, men will distrust his reports;
if he argues, they will be unconvinced, because  this
quality of his injures all his arguments; and so it turns
out, that he is weak, and simple truth in all its forms of
bare statement, of eloquent but honest representation, of
honest feeling not put on for effect,-simple truth, I say,
is ever strong.
Another and a kindred fault opposed to a spirit of
truthfulness is inaccuracy in representation and reports. It
may be in this case that an imperfect memory of particularsprevents a person from retaining exact outlines of
events in his mind, or that the power of observation is
impaired by physical defects. In such a case a person
ought to be aware of his liability to error, and the love
of truth will supply him  with caution, or lead him  to
qualify his statements. But there are cases where inaccuracy is more culpable, as where it proceeds from  undue
haste which cannot stop to sift evidence or collect materials for judgment, or-what is far worse-where the inaccuracy is due to partiality or prejudice. In the first
case loyalty to truth demands that a man should not
sacrifice it to impatience or indolence, which is a common
sin. How many books are rendered worthless and pass
away because they are unreliable through the hurry of
their authors. How many reports have to be recalled,
the circulation of which might have been. stopped by a
little care, but the injurious effects of which nothing can
heal. In the other case the sin is equally against truth
and love, and approaches to the nature of slander,-a sin




256 The Virtues which have Truthfulness for their Basis.
so unsocial and malignant that all men unite in detesting it.
Another of the truthful virtues is candor, which partakes
of the nature also of justice. It admits the weight of
what makes against ourselves and confesses this with readi?
ness. It acknowledges mistakes out of a spirit of fairness.
In argument it gives an impartial view of the reasons
urged by the opposite side. In stating the arguments of
another it has no bias but gives them just as they are,
mingling with them  no conclusions of our own. In repeating facts which concern ourselves it puts no color on
them and conceals nothing, but is willing to concede what
may be injurious to our own cause. It prevents us from
using false reasoning, from arguing for victory and not for
truth. It is, in short, an unselfish, equitable love of the
right as well as the true, and as such places the man who
manifests it on a vantage ground against unfair, trickish,
unscrupulous opposers. The want of candor, whether passion, or prejudice, or selfish desire of success leads to it, is
a trait which every lover of truth will avoid.
I only add the mention of a sin somewhat akin to pretence and hypocrisy-the assigning of pretexts and motives
for our conduct which do not exist. This is a very common fault of our sinful nature, and it springs from the
consciousness that the real motive is not good enough to
be displayed, but must be put in the back-ground while
some other is thrust forward. This is often not very deliberate —in which case there would be a condemnation of
the act at the instant as of something false-but is half
self-deception and half deception of others, like those
polite expressions of regard which mean little or nothing.
It takes place often in regard to actions of trifling importance. Little acts of selfishness are whitened into something better; excuses are plead which are unreal; by a
series of petty deceptions unpleasant impressions concerning ourselves are brushed away from the minds of others.




The Virtues which have Truthfulness for their Basis. 257
And the little hypocrisies pave the way for great. They
blind us to ourselves. The pretexts we use to impose on
others we half put faith in, and thus we weave a web of
falsehood in which we ourselves are entangled.
Such, presented in a miscellaneous way, are some of
the forms of a character which departs from truth and
from the God of truth. And now, when we look at the
law of truth and the virtue of truthfulness in their details,
does there not appear to be a great breadth in them? Do
they not form a bulwark for the whole life and character?
Let us think, my dear brethren, of the great beauty of a
life built on truth, which avoids falsehood not in its
grosser forms only, nor in those shapes which all condemn, but in those aspects of it which many fail to perceive. It is the noblest attainment, next after being in
love with God and man, to have a truthful spirit. As
falsehood supports all sin, so does truth all virtue. But
it is not an easy thing for man in his state of sin to live a
life of unsullied truthfulness.  Temptations to vain shows,
to insincerity, to double-dealing meet him on every side.
He loves esteem, and this principle leads him to wear
false colors, to practice hypocrisy that he may seem to be
good when he is not. He falls into sin, and to save himself from  its consequences he resorts to falsehoods.  He
colors facts or suppresses them; he misrepresents his motives for the better, that some faint traits of that worth
which he will not possess may seem  to belong to him.
Then, too, he is exposed to corrupt examples; multitudes
around him are false and hollow, and to save themselves
from the gnawings of conscience they invent false arguments for falsehood-thus adding an assault on truth
itself to falsehood in practice. And in this career of pretence, the whole moral nature wilts; their souls feel a
general blight, for he who has lost his veneration for truth
has a mortal wound in his soul.
And how is it among us, my dear brethren?  We are




258 The Virtues which have Truthfulness for their Basis.
gathered from the great world into a little community to
study truth, to become exact, to enter into the reality of
things; our intellects are trained to detect fallacies, to
draw nice lines round the borders of truth, to construct
systems of truth rising up to the throne of God. In such a
community ought not veracity, honor, sincerity to reign?
Where, in any gathering of young persons, shou-ld a high
standard of general uprightness so easily be formed, and
be maintained by so strong a sentiment? But what is the
actual state of things? Do not facts, every now and then
coming to light, do not your own charges made against
one another, authorize us to believe, that not a few live
here in a course of deliberate deception from year to year,
that false excuses are invented, as if it were a small thing
to sin against God and your own souls for a trifling purpose? You are under very mild law,  you assent to it by
placing yourself here, and yet you avoid its operation by
the most unworthy of all expedients.  But if the evil
stopped here, it would be trifling compared with what it
is. Think of the general distrust concerning character,
which it brings in its train, instructors necessarily distrusting students, and students distrusting each other. Think
how falsehood, as I showed in my last Sunday's discourse,
helps on every other evil habit, so that you open the door
wide to the enticements of all other sins, when you consent
to commit this sin. Think, that if you do not lower your
standard and justify lying, you cannot help despising
yourself, nor help knowing that others must feel the same
towards you; or if you have built up a wall of sophistries,
in order to stifle the calls of conscience, so much the worse,
for a callous conscience is the beginning of the soul's
death. Think, if you should be aroused into repentance,
what self-reproach you must pass through-self-reproach
often bursting out into confession, and not content until it
has made known the worst even to man. And all this is
the preparation of intelligent, educated persons, taught to




The Virtues which have Truthfulness for their Basis. 259
takc large views of life and of the issues of human conduct-this is their preparation for the throne of the Judge,
for the future life, where shame shall be exposed, and
trutn shall penetrate every dark recess. Oh, my dear
friends, I beseech you to think of these things with that
sobriety and that candor which they deserve! If you have
yielded to a false sentiment, resist it henceforth. If you
have helped to make it, help to unmake it. If you have
come to believe that all are dishonest, become honest yourselves and you will confide in others. If you have sinned,
turn from  sin. Blessed be God, that while there must
be an entire alienation on His part from the untruthful,
His compassions are always awake for those who forsake
evil. Enter into fellowship with Him  by ingenuous confession and by avoiding "every false way."  Pass over to
the side of a Saviour, who never deceived men, and will
be true to the end. Take the part of all honor and uprightness. Let each one, in all earnestness, say, "Give me
Thy help, 0 God, that I may live a life of strict, unchangeable truthfulness."




SERMON XVIII.
THE DEBT OWED BY EVERY GENERATION TO THE PAST.
GOSPEL OF JOHN iv. 38. Other men labored, and ye have entered into
their labors.
I WILL not stop to ask who were the other men here
spoken of by our Lord; whether He refers in the plural
only to Himself, or points back also to others-to the
prophets, or even to Moses, as the forerunners of the
Apostles and the pioneers in the work of the kingdom of
Heaven. In any case, a principle of the widest application is brought before us that no individual, in the
strictest sense, begins his own work; that. all enter into
and carry out the labors of others; and so, too, that all
the generations of the world reap the fields their forefathers sowed; that there is a dependence, a succession, in
all the labors of men, a running account kept up by each
present age to the credit of the whole past, and especially
to the credit of its immediate predecessors
This is indeed a characteristic of man in which he differs almost wholly from the best endowed animals. They,
in their successive generations, reach the same point of
maturity, act out the characters of their races to about
the same degree of perfection, and die without advancing
their kind or leaving any new store of power or enjoyment
to their posterity. If man, by taming and training them,
can in a degree improve their breeds, even his action has
the least effect upon their races as wholes. The individuals
may be more graceful, or strong, or useful; but no quality
of self-improvement has entered into the species. Man, on
the other hand, the feeblest of creatures at his birth and
the most dependent, is able to retain, transmit, record, and
260




The Debt owed by every Generation to the Past. 261
plan; by his social and moral instincts he forms commonwealths and makes laws; he learns from others; he communicates to others; he trains the young members of the
community up to the measure of its knowledge and wisdom; he invents and spreads inventions-he thus builds
a tower of one platform upon another, reaching toward
the skies, from which, as its stories ascend, he holds nearer
converse with Heaven and casts his eye over ampler
spaces of earth.
Now for all this the labor of one generation will not
suffice; but there must be constant, world-wide work and
transmission. Human progress consists in this: that men
have labored with body, with mind, and each next age has
entered into their labors. It is possible indeed for a generation to send nothing of value down the stream of time;
nay, it may obliterate or corrupt, and so put its successors
into a worse position than if it had not existed. Such
retrograde movements show that the law of progress is not
a fatal one, nor dependent solely on the stores of knowledge that have been laid up; but on the other hand there
is no other law of progress aside from this which we have
before us: that each generation, by the help of its predecessors' toil handed down and retained, adds something to
the general stock for the benefit of coming ages. Nor
does God, when He intervenes in human history by supernatural revelations, disturb this law, for forthwith the
truth, the power, the moral advancement, are leaven
thrown into an age or a people, or possibly into a single
mind, to leaven the whole world afterward by the same
process by which human improvements produce their
effect. And we ought not to separate progress from God,
as some do, for He is in it all, whether it springs directly
from something done by man, or from His own revelation.
He is in all invention; in all learning and science the plan
is throughout His. Bezaleel, the ingenious artificer of the
tabernacle, was animated by His spirit; and so all genius,




262  The Debt owed by every Generation to the Past.
all power, that starts the world forward, is as truly a part
of His world-plan as is the Christian scheme of redemption.
I. Let us consider, in some of its particulars, this plan of
God for the human race,-that each generation enters into
the labors of its predecessors, reaping what they have
sown, while at the same time, if it is true to its appointed
work, it hands over something more to posterity than it
had received. Reflect then first on the labors which the
teachers of mankind have undergone, in order that the
world might reach its present state of advancement.  The
class of teachers may be divided into two portions, into
such as transmit only and such as also originate.  The
first act directly on those who are just following them
in the order of time; the others have a much wider
field of direct action; they are the teachers of all time,
the " masters of all who know." To few is it given, out
of the whole human race, thus to act over many ages and
through many lands. The greatest portion either move
the thought of their own times in new channels, or, in a
more humble office still, simply make known to others
what they themselves have learned. Yet all these teachers
have labored and men are entered into their labors. They
have labored hard and long. Men, as they enjoy a work
of art or give themselves to the study of a work of philosophy, must not suppose that everything flowed smoothly 
while the composition was going on, or that there were no
difficulties in the preparation.  "He that goeth forth
weeping, bearing precious seed," is the fit motto for all who
have employed their minds for the benefit of mankind.
What agony of mind  have inventors endured; what
anxiety and heart-sickness; what unfruitful experiments,
reaching through long years, have they tried, before success ctroWned their efforts.. The same is true of any work
of art which has long kept its place in the heart of a
nation or of the world: A work of genius is the essence,
it may be, of a whole life, the condensed knowledge, judg



The Debt owed by every Generation to the Past.  263
ment, skill, that make up the man. So, too, in all the
sciences, as in the philosophy of thought or of morals,
what perplexities has a mind contended with, what hope
and patience has it spent, what weighings of evidence,
what reflection, what consultation  have been  needed
before the painful work of composition began. It must
not be supposed, that glimpses of truth are vouchsafed to
those that skim over the surface of things in the spirit of
curiosity or amusement; nor that inventions enter vacant
minds unsought and in full perfection; nor that to the
great poet or painter even the labor of composition or of
correction, severe as it is, at all compares with that preparatory thought and work on which the whole achievement depended.
So, also, the other class of teachers whose office it is to
put knowledge derived from others into form, and to train
the minds of their generations-they too have labored
long and earnestly in order to fit themselves for their
work.  The conscientious instructor has gone through
three series of toils; he has labored hard to learn as he
would have his scholars labor, he has qualified himself by
still severer toil for his special duty, and then comes the
new office of imparting and guiding from day to daythe hardest labor of all, because the fruits of it do not at
once appear.
Now into the labors of these classes of teachers and
trainers each new  generation of the educated enters.
You my friends are debtors to the past and indeed to the
remote paAt. For you Aristotle thotght his best thoughts,
though they may have taken new shapes before they
reached your minds; for you the Greek poets and the
English of high renown have sung their strains; for you,
art has brought to light its treasures; for you discoverers
have ventured into untrodden  seas-a  t[houuaad forgotten names have lived and wrought for your benefit,
without whom, it may be, society would have been far




264  The Debt owed by every Generation to the Past.
behind its present point of advancement. For you, too,
the teacher of the present has spent the best hours of his
life, has thought his best thought, has patiently drilled
and inculcated, that you may enter into his labors and
may, if you will, go beyond him in cultivation and in
wisdom.  Small perhaps is the proficiency which you may
have seemed to yourselves to have made under his
training, for the natural and one of the best fruits of a
true education is to reveal to us how little we know, and
how far we are from the heights of perfect science.' But
perhaps in the years to come, even although the knowledge and power gained here may be indistinguishable
from that which other masters or yourselves have procured for you, you will gratefully attribute something
of your culture and something of your success to those
who have labored for you here. They will then, perhaps,
be beyond the reach of your acknowledgments; they
may be little conscious of what they have done for you;
they can see but little fruit, of course from  the toils of
each faithfully spent day; but if it should appear that
some good thought of theirs was fruitful in your minds,
some ideal of patient, finished scholarship was awakened
within you, some solid preparation was given you for the
work of a true life, then will they deserve to be remembered, and you will be called by such remembrances
to hand down what they have imparted and whatever else
you shall have gained by your own labor to the next
generation.
II. Other men have labored in the practical spheres of
life, and we are entered into their labors. Here there
arise before us all who have labored for the social, political, moral, religious, welfare of man, from the mother,
into whose hands all the tender beginnings of practical
life are committed, through every faithful teacher and
faithful example up to the founders of states, and the




The Debt owed by every Generation to the Past. 265
founders of religion, up, even, to the Lord Jesus Christ
Himself.
It is to be observed in regard to these laborers both
that their work is of all importance, and that it is necessary for the success of those other laborers who work in
the fields of science. For life is more than thought, and
without a well-ordered life there can be little progress in
thought. Such is the action of the moral nature on the
mind that a bad soul is unfitted for all the science that is
directly concerned with life; it is warped and blinded by
selfish interests, it often falls into doubt, and is wanting
in those higher impulses which are of such aid in intellectual pursuits.  Nor is the sway of society over the individual less marked. A corrupt society, a vicious government are uncivilizing agents of the greatest power, not
merely by their neglect or repression of what is good,
but by their sympathy with positive evil. And above all
the other influences rises religion in its power to ennoble
or to degrade the soul, to fill it with fear and falsehood,
or to raise it to a communion with God and with His
thoughts.
It is to be observed, further, in regard to these laborers
in the vineyard of life, that their work never ends. The
results of knowledge stay in the world, but society and
government are ever changing; religion at one time reigns,
at another is conquered by doubt or vice, so that there is
an endless struggle here between the powers of corruption
and the powers of progress,-a struggle in which the interests of science also are involved. Had the race been
good enough to have retained the faint primeval knowledge and faith of God; had it been able, by reason of its
moral strength, to have instituted everywhere just societies
and governments, in sympathy with all truth and goodness; centuries ago, without question, the point of advancement which we have now reached would have been left
out of sight, and a state of mankind have been begun of
12




266  The Debt owed by every Generation to the- Past.
which we only dream almost without hope. The path of
the reformers, civilizers, purifiers has been up-hill against
reigning corruptions, against the hankering of man for a
slothful, unthinking life; in short, against that lapse of
souls from God for which Christ furnishes the only allsufficient remedy.
The labors, therefore, of these classes of practical laborers have been greater than of such as encounter the
difficulties and the mysteries of thought. No philosopher
ever so toiled to find out or to spread truth, as reformers
and preachers of righteousness to make the world and the
soul better. They have begun their work in a sense of
loneliness and insufficiency; they have held out against
fear, scorn, and uncertainty; in the tragic language of the
Apostle John, they have come to their own and their own
received them not. Take the example of any of the pioneers of righteousness. Before them lies a life-work, which,
to be fulfilled, must cross a thousand prejudices, a thousand
interests; governments fear them, and are arrayed against
them; priesthoods hate them; they are maligned; men fear
to join them;- who so hated and so despised as the best
patriots, the best philanthropists, the best friends of God
and of man. Listen to the complaint of the tender-hearted
Jeremiah, who preached wrath against wicked prophets
and wicked politicians: "Woe is me, my mother, that
thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury,
nor have men lent to me on usury, yet every one of them
doth curse me."  Or, mark the language of the Apostle
Paul, in the same strain, only nobler and purer from the
taint of discontent-"In all things approving ourselves as
the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in
necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in
tumults, in labors"  or where he says, "We are made the
filth of the world and are the offscouring of all things unto
this day."  Or, let a greater and a holier one teach us




The Debt owed by every Generation to the Past. 267
what immediate reward awaits all who begin the great
movement of the world: "If the world hate you, ye know
that it hated Me before it hated you."  And although religion, as coming most athwart the prejudices and the fears
of men encounters the greatest opposition, the same fate
has been tolerably sure for every true reformer of mankind,-first reproach, calumny, persecution, then death,
for the patriot by the sword, for the martyr by the flames.
Is it nothing now to have endured this or the like
of this?  Nothing  to  have  labored  against hope
and against fear, and then to die with the thought
that the work is just begun? No one persecutes the philosopher who speculates on final causes, or constructs a
theory of the parabola, or experiments on a new gas;
their labors may be long and trying, but the souls of these
other laborers, besides all their toil, are harrowed and
lacerated, so that martyrdom  itself may be a positive
relief.
And we are entered into their labors. Your studies.of
history, my young friends, will have taught you what
thanks you owe to the struggles and contests of good men
in the past, noT  need you go back beyond the few last
years for one of the most striking illustrations. In order
that a reign of justice in our land should be secured, that
we should no longer be the reproach of the civilized
world, as a nation of freemen holding four millions of
slaves in perpetual bondage and justifying our curse as
an institution of God, how many hundred thousands have
given up their lives and how many cries of mourners have
resounded through the land. We have gained a precious
inheritance, precious at its beginning, to be more precious
as years roll on, but at what a cost. So also the whole
history of our land speaks of labor; of labor the fruits of
which we are now enjoying. The toil and agony of mind
which the first pilgrims endured in their separation from
their homes, in their contests with the wild men and the




268 The Debt owed by every Generation to the Past.
wilderness, in their want and uncertainty;the struggles
and sacrifices of the revolution, easily read on a few
pages of history, but hard enough to bear-these have sent
down to us an inheritance more precious than has fallen to
any other people. Or if you go farther back and read the
record of each important addition to English history, of
every new charter or petition or declaration of right, of
every resistance against tyranny and every bulwark of
freedom; remember that each of these had its contest, its
patience, and that your acknowledged rights of speech, of
worship, of secure possession, of a share in the commonwealth have cost many lives of men who have left no
name, many sorrows of the unnoticed, and that thousands
have been preparing the way for your era of light and
freedom. Nor are the labors of reformers of less moment.
You are in a better state of society than fell to the lot of
your fathers, because divinely gifted men saw what were
the evils that obstructed human progress, and had courage and patience enough to oppose them. Some one voice
perhaps was lifted up amid derision and persecution, some
one worked on hoping against hope, and died committing
his cause to the few select ones who were as fearless and
as loving  as he. Then by slow degrees the stream
widened and became a resistless flood to change the face
of society. The fruits of all this belong to yol. But you
could not have these fruits, gathered by the patriot and
the reformer, at your command, unless also a higher class
of laborers in the spiritual field had co-operated with
them and prepared the way for them. The preacher of
righteousness and the martyr were the forerunners of freedom and of all improvement in society. The martyr did
not think, perhaps, when he expressed his devotion to
Christ by a painful death that any thing great was to
grow out of it-he only acted out what he felt. But
these religious laborers have changed the face of the
world. They have brought into literature and art, new




The Debt owed by every Generation to the Past. 269
ideas of purity and spirituality, into life another standard
of character, by which all truthfulness, honor, justice and
benevolence are duly valued. And from  them  we go
back to Him in whose cause they taught by word or by
life-to the great laborer who came not to be ministered
unto but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for
many. It were easy to show that without Him the labor
of all others would have served only to prop up decaying
civilizations, and to supply short enjoyment to unsatisfied
souls, but that from  Him has proceeded the power that
helps every laborer for man's welfare: all thinkers have
better thoughts because He came into the world, all
workers have better ground to stand upon, and better
hopes. He penetrates beyond the religious, or the moral,
or the social sphere into all art, science, invention: even
the science of wealth, the lowest in one respect of the
sciences, is not below His influence. Such a thing it is to
have had the Son of God in the world, and to have entered into His labors.
What we Jhave said thus far, has served to show the
dependence of the successive portions of our race upon
foregoing ages for their means of improvement and the
relations of the benefactors of mankind among themselves, the thinkers being most indebted to those who
have moulded life by their works, and of these the
Founder of our religion with His successors taking the
lead.
1. An important reflection occurs here, which is indeed
involved in what has preceded, that a very great work,
often the chief work of the best spirits of an age, must be
to oppose, to seek to destroy the tendencies of the preceding one. Sin is ignorance, ungodliness and one-sidedness: therefore in our race there are perpetual obstacles
to true progress. These obstacles the age itself may be
most wedded to, and the spirit of the age can be met only
by noble, self-sacrificing minds, who shed a new light on




270  The Debt owed by every Generation to the Past.
the world. There are multitudes of these, at whose head
stands Christ; and his service to mankind is to be weighed
not only by what He positively taught but by His sublime
courage in standing up against the existing forms of evil.
And so we, if we would have other men enter into our
labors, must declare against whatever is outward, voluptuous, unbelieving and godless in our civilization. An educated young man in Christendom is bound not to follow
blindly the lead of the spirit of the time. If there is a
tendency among us to sink knowledge into a minister of
pleasure, a caterer to wealth, he must in his practice
preach the meanness of such a spirit, and the danger of
putting the lower uses of this life above the higher. If
there is a tendency to swift, unthinking action without
meditation enough on principle, he must counteract it by
the calmness of his soul, by his unshaken fidelity to his
convictions. If there is a tendency in our thinking to
exalt law above divine will, and to turn a ay from whatever claims to be supernatural, he must make up his mind
on this immense subject, and being persuaded that there
is divine truth among men, must defend it before the
world, preaching to men that a civilization without God
in Christ is a civilization without lofty motives and most
earthly, hollow and decaying, corrupting to art, morals
and society. This he must proclaim that others after him
may enter into the labors of Christ, and of the true ones
in all ages.
2. Another reflection which forces itself upon us, is
that all this labor of successive generations does not pay
its cost, unless man is an immortal. There are those who
do not believe this, and who, in a kind of despair, look
about for something great in lieu of the immortal individual whose light they put out; accordingly we hear
much of the immortality of the race and of collective
humanity. But who told them that the race is immortal?
If it has lasted through all the aeons and has made such




The Debt owed. by every: Generation to the Past. 271
small advances until now, the prospect is rather dark for
the future laborer. If it began to exist some few thousand years ago, it may cease to exist ere long. Who
knows, unless he has access to some revelation, that a geological catastrophe may not sweep this race off, like so
many others before: it, or some conflagration, like that of
which the Stoics taught, may not consume all things; or,
if the race is to be immortal, what is its value and the
value of laboring for it, or yet the likelihood of raising
it up to a state of perfection, when all the motives drawn
from  endless life and from God are gone? Can a man
conscious of high capacities, and proud of spirit, condescend to spend his strength to the advantage of these
bubbles that float awhile and then vanish as they burst?
To us, it seems that the means of improving the race
depend on the question of the immortality of the person,
and that the motive to undertake this work shrinks
almost to nothing when this immortality is even soberly
doubted. And above all, after the exalted conceptions of
redemption and of communion with God had faded out,
after the grand theatre of immortal life had dwindled
into a little booth of twigs, would. not a paralysis seize on
every earnest mind? Is not the conclusion a most natural
one-"let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die"?
3. There is another reflection of immediate practical
bearing for each one of us-that we have no reason to
boast of our knowledge or refinement, for we have entered
into the labors of others.  What we have, we have
acquired by extraneous help. Why then should we be
elated, and not rather humbled, because we have made so
little use of the help afforded us?  Only he can on good
grounds feel exaltation of mind who is indebted neither
to man nor to God for his attainments.  But where is
there such a person? The day laborer is nearest to this
state of perfect independence, but the hoe and the rake
which extend his arms, the spade, by which he applies




272  The Debt owed by every Generation to the Past.
the motions of his foot, are the inventions of distant ages;
for the preparation of their materials, for the perfecting
of their forms, hundreds of men have thought their best
thoughts and done their best work. And so it is with all
applications of mechanical power, so it is with all discoveries of principles and their reduction to practice. We
make our labor profitable by means of the labor of others;
their failures save us from failure, their successes are our
inheritance.  Who, in the widest reach of inventions, in
the boldest triumphs of man over nature, has. added a
tithe to what men accomplished in the same time before
him?  "Other men have labored, and he is entered into
their labors"
In the lower regions of work then no one can boast that
he took his own path; is it otherwise in the highest?
Must not he who has enlarged science, he who has blessed
the world by his benevolent deeds, he who has refined his
own mind or character, acknowledge the same dependence? For the thoughts which have disciplined such a
one for his work are the undying thouglts of former
sages and philanthropists. The examples that animated
him were set by the wise and good of all ages, and "were
recorded for his admonition upon whom the ends of the
world are come."  The drama of the world has been
played for him. Martyrs have bled for him. And more
than this, if he has been able to consecrate himself to the
service of God, he knows that he would have remained a
worldling, but for the divine grace which came to him in
his sins and rendered him a man of faith, self-denial and
execution, which raised his standard of attainment, gave
him courage and patience, and helped him to do great
things through a busy life.
There are two ways in which we can nurse our intellectual pride and self-conceit; we can compare ourselves with
others, who are below us, and can imagine that we have
reached our fancied height alone. The best cure for the




The Debt owed by every Generation to the Past. 273
first is to compare ourselves with something higher, above
all with the infinitude of God; but we may also compare
ourselves with the truly great of past ages, and we cannot
fail to be humbled when we think how much more they
have done than we with slenderer preparation, and how
little the noblest spirits of the world have accomplished
after all. But another cure ought to be the discovery of
our dependence. Let us feel that the little we know has
for the most part come to us at second-hand. We have
dressed ourselves by the help of the wardrobes of the past.
We should have been as naked as savages had not the
poets and sages, the reformers and men of God met us on
our way to clothe us in the garments of a Christian civilization. Not one of them, not one true man ever felt a,
conceit of knowledge. Hear Agassiz' noble words: "I
have devoted my whole life to the study of nature and
yet a single sentence expresses all that I have done. I
have shown that there is a correspondence between the
succession of fishes in geological times and the different
stages of their growth in the egg, this is all." *  Such is
the humility of a comprehensive mind that knows what
others have done and knows what remains undone. Such
a mind cares very little what he may have wrought out,
or who may have deserved the honor of this or that discovery. He grasps, rather, the whole of the truth within
his reach, and seeks to make the most of it forl mankind.
4. And thus we are led to our last reflection, that the
law of our race, which we have been considering, our dependence on the past, and the hope of progress for the
future, ought to carry us out of ourselves, to unite us to
our species and to beget within us sympathy with man.
"Freely ye have received, freely give," says the Masterwords which may be applied to all our blessings as Well as
to that most necessary one proceeding directly from Him.
Men have lived in the past for us. In a world of igno^ Methods of Study in Natural History, p. 23.
13"




274  The Debt owed by every Generation to the Past.
rance, thousands have searched for knowledge as for hid
treasures, and their labors have blessed us. In a world of
sin, multitudes have lived and died to lay the foundations
of order and justice, to reform evils, and to show the path
to God.  Unknown benefactors and teachers, as well as
known, have handed down to us all that enriches and purifies the soul. Is it nothing that we are compassed about
with so great a cloud of witnesses? Or is it nothing that
the destinies of the world are in no small degree dependent on each new generation? Or that the success of all
efforts beyond the field of pure science grows, in a great degree, out of the motive with which they were begun? Let
us come, then, into sympathy with the wise and good of
the past; let us pay over to others,in a grateful spirit and
with interest, what we have received; let our aims in life
respect the welfare of all.
And this deserves to be considered for our encouragement, that every advance makes a new advance easier;
every conquest over matter puts it more completely at our
feet; every correction of social abuses renders thinking
well and acting well less difficult; every government, where
justice and freedom  go hand in hand, spreads its light
over the world; every widening of the influence of religion
makes it seem more like a natural thing that a nation can
be born in a day. And if the world has made great advances in these latter days, and is making them, is there
not something inspiriting to the laborer in the hope of
greater and more rapid success, in the hope of success in the
highest of all causes,-that cause of Christ which includes
all temporal, as well as spiritual welfare?  "Let us" then
"not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall
reap, if we faint not."




SERMON XIX.
THE NEED OF THE MEDITATIVE SPIRIT IN MODERN
CHRISTIANITY.
PSALM CXIX. 97. O how love I Thy law I It is my meditation:all
the day.
[AN ORDINATION SERMON.]
THIS is one of many passages which show the thoughtful character of religious men under the old dispensation.
The religions of the heathen were almost entirely an external service, with no obvious groundwork of doctrine or
food for thought; but the religion of the Jews, with all its
complex ceremonial, had a basis of thought, which supplied pious minds, trained within its pale, with the materials for life-long reflection. The pious Jew was not only
religious, in so far as he saw the agency of God everywhere in the world, but he was meditative also, in so far
as the constant object of his thinking was God in the
works of His hand, in the history of His people, and in
the law which proceeded from His mouth. His habit of
meditation was encouraged and increased, we may believe,
as from age to age the writings of inspired men increased
the stock of religious thoughts; but from the first there
seems to have been a tendency to thoughtfulness in the
Jewish character, going hand in hand with conceptions of
the character of God which called for profound reflection.
Religion thus among the Jews took the place which
both religion and philosophy occupied among the heathen.
Through the lands of idolatrous worship the great mass of
men Were ignorant and brutish, mere creatures of the
senses, unused to reflection on any subject. But here and
there a man would arise of deeper thoughts and higher
275




276         The need of the Meditative Spirit
aims, one who longed to solve the problems of the universe which crowded about him, and had for his only help
in this work the powers of his own reason. By the efforts
of such minds philosophy was built into a system embracing the doctrine of God, the doctrine of nature, and the
doctrine of man. It took a scientific shape, and contained
within itself all those means of moral and intellectual improvement, by the help of which the philosopher fondly
hoped to escape from that thick ignorance and that subjection to sensuality which he saw all around him. Thus
with him contemplation of truth was the way to become
liberated from the dominion of the senses, to allow reason
h3r full control, and to be united with God. Now what
he attempted with such imperfect means, the Jewish religion had accomplished already in a number of pious
minds by its sublime doctrine concerning Jehovah, as well
as by its code of moral precepts; while at the same time
by its ritual it ministered to the feeling of the worshiper
and formed a bond of national union. And as the philosopher looked to contemplation to lead him to the perfection for which he aspired, so the pious Jew meditated
on the word of God, as the means of his religious enjoyment and improvement.
It is my aim  in this discourse to inculcate the importance of religious meditation, which the sages and the
saints of old alike both practiced and recommended. My
method will be,-after looking for a moment at the religious life of former ages of Christianity in this respect,to notice the great preponderance of religious activity over
meditation in the present age; to inquire into the causes
of this characteristic, and to show that the symmetry and
efficiency of religion are secured only by combining contemplation with action.
I. If now, in pursuance of this plan, we turn our eyes
to the first or Apostolic age of Christianity, we find the
religious life moving onward in a harmonious development.




In Modern Christianity.           277
Active zeal and thoughtful meditation were united in the
characters first formed by Christian truth. The Apostles
were daily familiar with the greatest of thoughts: the
truths of the Gospel dwelt continually in their minds and
souls: they found high delight in meditating upon these
things. And yet, so far were they from living within
themselves, from surrendering themselves to delicious contemplation, that the truth on which they fed spurred them
to untiring activity in the service of mankind. Their
minds were with Christ and upon Christ, as if they had
no time for action, and they were as earnestly active as if
they had no room for meditation.
Descending now  a few ages from  the days of the
Apostles, we find that a change has fallen upon the Christian Church. Many of the most religious minds have fled
from the world of men, as if perfection of character could
be attained only in solitude by ascetic discipline and by
the power of contemplation. There are now two kinds of
religion: that of the multitude engaged in the commerce
and sustaining the relations of life, who received on trust
the scanty truth which was doled out to them; and that of
the few who, escapingfrom the business of the external
world, from family cares, and, as they hoped, from temptations, gave themselves up to a higher kind of piety,-to
that which is concerned in religious worship and religious
thinking. Thus the mass of Christian people have fallen
into the profoundest ignorance, with scarcely an effort for
their enlightenment, while here and there a secluded company are devoted to sacred studies, themselves in danger
all the while, from want of motive and from doing violence
to nature, of sinking into as deep ignorance and deeper
vice than that which they sought to escape.
At length, in God's mercy, Protestantism dawned on the
world. It is the glory of Protestantism that it has opened
the Bible and trained up a thoughtful religious laity. By
sending men to the Scriptures as the fountain-head of




278         The need of the Meditative Spirit
truth, by increasing the  efficiency of the  pulpit, by
making use of the new engine of the press, it supplied
rich food to multitudes of hungry minds. -At the same
time it was averse to a life of mere contemplation and seclusion; it appealed to the sympathies on which social
religion depends, and it awakened a consciousness of
power and a sense of responsibility in the individual
which drove him forward on a path of active usefulness.
Those nations, which have been the truest' representatives
of the Protestant spirit, have produced the largest number
of men, not professionally addicted to the study of the
Scriptures, who have meditated most profoundly upon
their contents; and those ages have carried out its principles most faithfully in which a thoughtful interest in
doctrine and in the preaching of the word has pervaded
society.
The churches of New England were long characterized
by containing a large number of laymen who made
Scriptural truth their daily study amid the cares of
business or of professional life. The means of studying
the Scriptures were less accessible than now; a knowledge
of much which forms the externals of divine truth, such
as sacred geography and antiquities, was far less diffused;
but the amount of acquaintance with the essence of the
Scriptures was greater.  Perhaps I may say also that
thought moved in too doctrinal a channel, being  controlled too much by the Westminster Catechism  or by
New England Theology, and not enough by the pure
word of God; but find what fault you will with our
fathers, the fact remains, that they were a meditative
generation, that religious truth was the principal training
of their minds, the principal subject about which the
thinking of pious men in every kind of life was occupied.
To familiarity with the Scriptures they united deep convictions of its truth, firm principles and unerring instincts
in matters of practical life.




In Modern Christianity.           279
Has the present age of Christians retained these qualities of the past? I think not. And here may I be permitted to say that it is not my province at the present
time to praise or blame, but only to discriminate.  The
age may be greatly in advance, for anything which concerns us now, of preceding ones. It may in regard to
activity, compass of knowledge, and a catholic spirit, be
superior to any since the landing of the pilgrims, and
may give many promises of a still nobler future. With all
this I have nothing to do. I only ask whether it is oharacterized by thoughtfulness to the same degree with the
foregoing ages. And the answer must be that religion
has to a considerable extent altered its type. It appears
now under the forms of activity, of sensibility occasionally
aroused, of interest in religious events, rather than in the
form of meditation on the word and truth of God. This
I think may be gathered from various indications. The
manner in which men begin a religious life will be apt to
leave its impress on their whole subsequent career.  Now
it is a common remark among ministers that formerly
very many passed through what was called a law-work,
that is, a time when they explored themselves, and thought
seriously on the great problems of their sinful nature and
of grace. At this work they were kept by their spiritual
advisers, very injudiciously, it might be, as if there were
but one and the same beaten path, by which all had to
attain to hope and comfort. But no doubt the result of
the process was to acquire a greater knowledge of the evil
in their hearts and a higher value for the deliverance
found in the Gospel. And no doubt also habits of selfreflection and a reflective, thoughtful habit of mind
generally were built up the more easily on such a foundation.
Again a difference may be traced between the present
and the foregoing age in regard to the importance which
doctrine assumes in the minds of Christians. The old




280          The need of the Meditative Spirit
angular Calvinism of our Fathers' days has gone out of
date, and even those ministers, who stickle for it most, use
it less to build up their people with than to try their
brethren by.  Perhaps it is well that a milder type of
theology has come into vogue, but surely it is not well, if
congregations very generally, as I believe is the case,
attach but little weight to doctrines, bestow  but little
thought upon them, do not love to hear them preached,
and fail to see the beauty of the system of divine truth.
One cannot help suspecting amid all these signs that the
verities of the Bible have a weaker hold upon the faith of
Christians among us than formerly; that it would be
comparatively easy now for a set of heretical or half-orthodox teachers to sap the foundation of belief in a
multitude of minds.  Where are now those stern, perhaps,
but firm and strong laymen, whose deep religious convictions and well settled theological opinions fit them to be
pillars in the churches?  Are they not few in number,
and pointed out as relics of the olden times?
Another indication of the state of mind is the subjects
which occupy the attention, and the conversation of Christian people. Perhaps I am not qualified to form a judgment here from  not having been called to the practical
duties of a parish: I will, therefore, rather hint the opinion than stoutly maintain, that the conversation of religious people, when they meet, is more on subjects external
to the inner life than formerly; they will talk about revivals perhaps, or prayer-meetings, or preaching, or the
work of missions, or some of the moral reforms in progress,
but less than of old, about that which constitutes the essenco of the Gospel, sin and redemption, the promises and
the heavenly inheritance, the trials and the encouragements of our pilgrimage through this world.
II. Such are sorn of the indications of a change of t ine
i:i religious character.  I proceed to assign several of the
causes to which this change may be ascribed.




In Modern Christianity.             281
1. And here the first cause which offers itself to our
consideration, is the wide field opened to religious activity in the present age. In the time of Edwards, a
century ago, the Church and the instructions of the pulpit
were the hinge on which everything turned. The relations
of the parish and of the individual Christian with the
great Christian world, were few and remote.  Religious
news, traveling from land to land, was a very small element in the training of the Christian mind. People found
the centre of a religious life in the Bible, and its circumference in the religious affairs of their own little community.  What was there to divert thought from  the lifegiving truths of the Gospel?  Why should not texts of
Scripture be the aliment of the mind, as godly men
followed the plough, or sat at the last, or wielded the
hammer, or journeyed along the way?  If such an event
as the great revival of 1740 broke in upon this stillness,
this isolation of mind, it was transitory in its effects: communities, after being electrified by the news of the mighty
work, fell back again nearly to their old state of quiet
thoughtfulness.
Turn your eyes now to the present century and mark
the change.  No age has been so full of religious events,
which draw to themselves the attention, awaken the sensibilities, demand the energies of Christians. The boundless
freedom  which our institutions give to movements, individual or associated, is rivalled by the boundless enterprise
with which the religious spirit presses onward to the conquest of the world. The effort of the Church is now to do
good. The old idea, that the first work of the Christian is
to aim at perfection in holiness, has given way before the
new idea, that his first work is to bring all whom he can
reach into the kingdom of Christ. The enterprises of benevolence multiply and subdivide themselves daily.  To
those which are exclusively religious, such as missions, the




282         The need of the Meditative Spirit
circulation of the Scriptures and the Sunday-school, succeed after awhile others in which religious zeal commences
the movement, but which immediately touch the moral
and not the spiritual interests of society. Each of these
movements has a history. Some of them have a great history. Some so link themselves to the destinies of our
country or even of mankind, as by their grandeur to
absorb the reflections of benevolent minds. Some enlist
together all the strongest feelings of the citizen, of the man
who believes in human rights, and, of the Christian, to such
a degree that they can easily disturb the just equilibrium
of the soul, and kindle it into a dangerous intensity. In
this system of religious activity there must be numerous
agents, some of whom, in another state of things, would
be foremost in inculcating doctrine and supplying fuel for
thought, but who now are wholly occupied with the theory
and the practice of active benevolence. There must be
intelligence, too, of what is in movement. Religious newspapers must circulate, deriving their support from the
news they give, or from their zeal in defending or opposing
certain practical measures, and not from the generally unread article intended for edification, which occupies one
of their columns. It is impossible, also, that the pulpit
should not insist much on the claims of benevolence,
should not stimulate to action, should not dwell far more
on the external relations of religion than on its internal
state and deep foundations.
Such now is the cause. I mean not to complain of it,
but, as one who looks on both sides of him, to ask whether
it is not adequate to produce the effect alleged; whether
that effect will not inevitably follow if the cause operates
with unmixed power?  Must it not tend to educate minds
which commune with history and with human progress
rather than with themselves?  Where, as long as it is allcontrolling, can we find the inward-looking man, or rather,
the upward-looking man, whose eye ranges beyond the




In Modern Christianity.           283
rim of these bright earthly scenes, and sweeps through
eternity?  Where is the man of calmness, who daily converses not only with human wretchedness but with infinite
purity; not only with God's kingdom but with God Himself; who asks not only what is to be the effect of a revolution in China, or. of a war of the great European powers,
or of crimes committed against freedom in Kansas, upon
the kingdom  of heaven, but whose mind rises to that
heaven itself which lies in calm brightness above the
storms of revolutions and the shakings of worlds?*
2. I mention next another cause for the change in respect to religious thoughtfulness,-a cause of more questionable character, and of great power. Not only does
religion run into activity, but the age in all its secular
aspects is eminently an active one, and  draws away
thought from the concerns of the soul and of religion to
entirely another sphere. The danger from this cause is
not merely that men will lose their interest in religious
t:uth, but that they will lose their interest in religion
altogether. Need I spend a moment in attempting to
show that this must be and is a cause of immense efficiency? Let any one consider the vast amount of knowledge in science and history with which the mind may be
absorbed; the daily news which is brought to every man's
door; the career open to all in politics or business; the
stimulus of endless competition; the great success and
rapidity in the acquisition of wealth; the constant excitements which our free institutions bring with them; let
him look at the spirit of speculation, the hot haste, the
anxiety for the future with which so many minds are
filled; and he will wonder that there can be any gaps of
time which reflection can seize upon, any corner of the
soul left for it; he will not wonder that men cannot spend
much deep thought on religion, but rather that it is not
banished from its old seat in the mind.
* Written in 1857.




284         The need of the Meditative Spirit
3. I will only add as a third cause of the altered
state of things, that the human mind now seems to crave
an excitement of its sensibilities, which habit is inconsistent with calm  reflection.  The indications of this
quality of our age are wide-spread and obvious; what its
origin is it may be difficult to say. It characterizes our
literature; the great poets of the older times are cold in
comparison with the reigning poets and novelists. The
eloquence of the present day must be fervid and impassioned, vehement and even violent, in order to suit the
minds of men and to carry them  along with it. Whereever we turn our eyes we find questions of great moment
touching social and political life arousing the highest intensity of feeling, so-that calmness of mind is becoming a
rare qualification. In religion we notice the same tendency, counteracted in a measure by the excitements of
the world and by general familiarity with religious truth,
but still manifesting itself by clear signs. The preaching
of doctrine fails to interest the minds of many, and those
doctrines which do not immediately affect the soul in
conversion seem to be regarded as of small importance.
I cannot account for this but on the supposition that men
weigh truth by its effect on their feelings and not by an
objective standard.
If now I have not deceived myself in regard to this
characteristic of our times, is it not evident that a habit
of mind ought to be engendered by it, which is the
opposite of patience, calmness and tranquility? How little
leisure or inclination can there be in men for studying
those truths which immediately affect their souls,-how
much less for pondering on those which have more remote
relations to their interests! And even as to the feelings
themselves, must we not suppose that the calmer ones,
such as reverence, submission, contentment, will have but
little room to spring up,since the truths in which they are
rooted are but rare subjects of contemplation?




In Modern Christianity.           285
III. If now such are the tendencies and the characteristics of the present era, it is of great practical importance
to urge the benefits of a habit of meditation as an antidote
to present evils. It seems, indeed, at first view, a hopeless
task to oppose or attempt to modify the spirit of the time,
which draws its life from causes far beyond the control
even of the whole church, and which cannot be counteracted all at once, even if all should unite in the endeavor.
Add to this that many will fail to perceive any occasion
for complaining of the existing state of things;-it is the
best possible, they will contentedly or conceitedly affirm.
Others will urge that the great ship of benevolence is flying forward with every sail set, and that it is unwise to do
any thing by which its velocity can be obstructed, or its
course altered. God will take care of His church, if it
"goes ahead." Praisers of the past, and prophets of ill to
come are birds of evil augury, whom every one with a
modern spirit and in the midst of action speaks against.
There must be, as there always have been, such persons,
but the less they are heeded the better.
Now in reply to such feelings, which spring from a vulgar and trivial type of over-practical minds, I have only
time to suggest in passing two thoughts. The first is
somewhat personal and confined to the subject of this discourse. I am not advocating a return to the standard of
religious life which any past age has adopted, for I am
perfectly aware that attempts to reproduce the past are
both idle and undesirable. The past had its faults as
great, or perhaps, greater than those of the present. But
it is roundness and entireness of Christian excellence at
which I would aim; this, so far as I can see, is what God
desires, what the Apostle Paul had in view, what every
mind not blinded with conceit must see to be supremely
desirable. I would have the characteristic excellences of
the old times and those of the present united together,
so " that we henceforth be no more children tossed to andi




286         The need of the Meditative Spirit
fro, but may grow up into Him in all things, which is the
head, even Christ."
But again I make the more general reply, that if the
history of the Church teaches anything, it teaches that
God does not intervene to counteract all the false and pernicious tendencies which grow up from age to age; that
He expects much from  the thoughtful foresight of the
Church itself; and that this foresight properly heeded,
may prevent great disaster. Take a single instance. The
tendency to asceticism in the ancient Church, will be
admitted to have been the parent of vast evil; to have
crippled the energies and retarded the growth of good;
to have given a wrong direction to the religious life. It
does not seem impossible that Christian men should have
discovered beforehand the falsehood which lay at the
bottom  of this movement; or, that being aware of it,
they should have aroused the Church to its danger; or,
that the danger being avoided, the progress of the Gospel
might have been accelerated by many ages,
Believing that the active practical spirit has gained an
ascendency in modern Christianity, we look to the cultivation of the contemplative tendency as its cure, not that
the latter may prevail and seize the place of the former,
(which would be a most undesirable result,) but that the
two, by their blending, may form a symmetrical and a
strong character;-a character in which every practical
endeavor will have more success than now, because solid
principle and firm conviction will be at the foundation.
1. In setting forth the benefits of such a spirit, we
remark in the first place, that the man of meditation
makes the Scriptures his own, draws from them their
treasures, and incorporates them into his religious life. It
is obvious that we must distinguish such a man from one
who has a system of theology by rote, and from one who
has a great amount of knowledge about the Scriptures
without penetrating  into their depths.  He may be




In Modern Christianity.             287
nothing of a theologian, he need be a man of no learning,
but ne may be far superior in his habits of thought to
both. Divine truth has a lodgment in his soul. It is
looked at with serious attention. From long acquaintance
he has become familiar with it, but it has not on that
account, lost its importance in his eyes; on the contrary,
it reveals to him new beauties, new treasures from day to
day. It is linked in with his strains of thought, as he sits,
or works, or walks.  It fills him  with thoughts while
other men are filled with projects and restless desires. It
supplies the wants both of his intellectual and his practical powers, and connects itself through his hopes and
fears, desires and conscience, with all the conduct of life.
The nature of divine truth is such, that its fullness of
meaning and of bearing upon life, only reveals itself by
degrees to a mind open for its reception.  The thoughtful mind discovers this richness of the word; text after
text opens and gathers power before the eye; truth after
truth puts on new glory.
2. Such being the general effect of meditation, it must
plainly tend to keep the believer closer to the doctrines of the
Scriptures. The truth of the word does not take its
proper shape or gain full assent by being seen to be in the
Scriptures, any more than by being systematically arranged and proved. The best kind of orthodoxy I apprehend to be this: when a believer studies the word with
thoughtfulness, he becomes imbued  with  its spirit, its
parts and truths assume their true relations to one another
in his mind, and thus, without his being aware, there has a
system of Biblical doctrine grown up within him.  Such
a believer, it may be, is unable to explain or to defend
the truth, but in the main it is with him, and he is
shielded against the plausibilities of error.
Contrast with him  a man of active executive mind,
who is a true Christian but has given very little reflection
to the word of God.  What-is there in the religious




288        The need of the Meditative Spirit
training of such a man to keep him from errors,-if not
from fundamental ones which Christian consciousness will
reject, yet from  such as may greatly obstruct his progress? Can it be expected that the truth has taken a consistent shape in his mind, or that he has attained to a
firm  persuasion concerning it, when his thoughts are
rarely turned in that direction? Will he not have derived
his opinions from others and not from the original source
of truth? Will not his opinions then be easily shaken if
others around him fall away from the doctrine of Christ?
3. Again, the Christian who mingles meditation with
action will be a man of strong convictions and of firm
principles. He has formed his opinions, we have seen, not
from a hasty examination of the word, not from leaning
upon the faith of other men, not even from the letter of
the Scriptures, but because by long thought their spirit
has been wrought into him. If he believes at all, must
he not believe with a strength  of conviction which is
unknown to other men? Will not his conviction answer
to the faith described in the Epistle to the Hebrews,
which is a confidence concerning things hoped for, a
persuasion of things not seen? Is there any other entrance
into such faith save by making invisible things the matter
of daily and deep contemplation? Do we not find in our
experience that we cannot make real to ourselves a proposition concerning an object not within the reach of the
senses except by turning it around in our minds in all
directions, by bringing it into connection with other truths
and with our interests, and by assigning to it that place
among our subjects of thought which its importance
demands?
But the principles of the meditative man, for the same
reason, will be firm. He has found in the Scriptures a
guide of duty, and is supplied with the great rules of
conduct. As he has thought over the word of God it has
come into connection with his own life.  le has not to




In Modern Christianity.           289
decide upon the rule of action at the moment when action
is necessary; he has not to find out what the law is and
fulfill it at the same time; but the truth.long ago estab-,
lished itself in.his mind, both as a guide of his thinking,
and as a platform for the government of his life.
If I am not deceived, what is especially wanting at the
present time is that firm conviction concerning an invisible world, which can be promoted only by means of
meditation. The world is in many respects a very different place from what it was in past ages. The arts
which subserve the comfort of men, the knowledge which
fascinates and ennobles, the manifold improvement in the
social system, make it hard for us to conceive that we are
on a pilgrimage through a strange country. Our homes
-as we fondly call them-contain all that can cheer and
charm, all that can make us happy at a distance from
God. How difficult it is to be heavenly-minded amid
such comforts in an age of refinement, plenty and peace!
How much to be envied were our pilgrim  fathers, if the
hazards and hardships of emigration into these wilds
almost forced them to commune with the better country!
Can this feeling of distance from spiritual realities of infinite importance be shaken off? Can Christians live amid
the attractions of the world, with the eye fixed, like the
pilot's, on the port? I see not how they can but by means
of such an outpouring of the Spirit as will make meditation on these things both easy and delightful.
4. The Christian who is given to meditation will be
steady in his feelings. The man in whom the active spirit
predominates and who is for the most part unused to reflection is liable to be impressed with views of religious
truth, which are agitating by reason of their novelty.
Their importance also, which calls for calmness of soul,
rather adds to the agitation. And it may be that the
various feelings to which religion appeals, rising in his soul
together, will so crowd on his notice that he cannot take
13




290         The need of the Meditative Spirit
correct views of duty or even feel aright. If indeed this
were all, great upheavings might be, as they sometimes
are, great blessings to the soul, the beginnings of a more
constant state of the sensibilities. But by an inevitable
law of nature a reaction comes on.  The man becomes
weary of this unnatural condition; feeling stagnates, and
something like insensibility follows. Thus the religious
life is fitful, spasmodic, and too often without result.
There are no good religious habits formed. The soul has
fallen down to its old level, and the same process must be
renewed with the greater difficulty.
The Christian who has formed habits of meditation
avoids this fluctuation of the spiritual life and the numberless evils which follow in its train. It is true that new
views of divine truth will enter his mind continually, and
a deeper significance will attach itself to the divine word.
But there is at no time such a great alteration of his state
of mind, there are no truths so new, that his soul will be
agitated and disturbed by their entrance.  As he has
lived in the conscious presence of truth and of God all
his Christian life, what is there to surprise or excite him,
when he discovers a little more meaning in the word, or
feels that God has drawn nearer to his soul?  Will he not
at such times, like a man accustomed to receive his prince,
rise and greet the divine presence in all self-possession
with reverent thankfulness?
"He waits in secret on his God
His God in secret sees,
Should earth be all in arms abroad,
His soul within has peace."
Is not this, brethren, that type of Christian character
which more than any other is needed, and which more
than any other exhibits the Christian in his beauty? I
know not a grander quality of the soul than that quiet
calmness which, while it feels deenly, yet remnains zove-eign
over the feelings, and in which lordly reason sits u poa the




In Modern Christianity.           291
throne. Superior to this in usefulness and not below it as
a source of power, is that steady, unwearied progress
which is the result of permanent: convictions, which is attended not with violent feelings, rising like gusts to-day
and dying down to-morrow, but with an undercurrent of
soul which "runs, and as it runs, forever will run on."
Such characters are like the mountains for majestic repose; they are like perennial deep streams for constancy.
Such characters we may have, if we mingle meditation
on divine truth with activity in works of usefulness.
5. I only add that the man of meditation will, even in the
practical matters of religion, be most judicious and most efficient.
He will be most judicious, for his policy will be guided
by the great truths on which he has profoundly thought.
As he understands what religion is better than others, he
will be better able to judge of plans by the Scriptural
standard. He will not aim at immediate or striking results but at enduring ones. He will eschew all devices
to act upon the public mind, as one whose own mind is
under the sway of holy truth. He will have no undue
respect nor undue fear of public opinion, for his own
opinion has been formed in silent thoughtfulness by something far higher than the judgment of mankind. He will
be likely to know best both what can be done and what is
unattainable. There is indeed a shrewdness of natural
judgment which may not have fallen to his portion, and
an almost intuitive knowledge of men in which he may
not excel. But of what avail is such natural sharpness
by its skilful use of means, when the end is a questionable
one?  And how often are they betrayed into grievous
errors and frustrated of their hopes who rely on their
shrewdness, and overlook something which proves an obstacle in their way, because it lies too deep down for their
superficial thinking? The truly practical man in the end
will be found to be one who has meditated long on truths




292        The need of the Meditative Spirit
and principles. There are men called practical, who have
a shallow knowledge of both, and whose excellence consists in readiness, power of persuasion, fertility of resource,
knowledge of men, and the like. But such qualities- will
go but little way, or rather they will disgrace their possessor, if his measures secure present success at the expense
of ultimate evil. Those plans alone will stand the test of
time which are built on principles outlasting time-governing past, present, and future alike.
And here, if I may be pardoned for the slight digression, I wish to speak of the contrast between the meditative man and that type of character of which the world is
full, the man of noise and of platforms, and of influence by great effort and great display of power. There
are men in our land, a great multitude of them, who seem
not to believe in heat but in flame, not in a breeze but in
a gale, who would scarcely recognize the still small voice
heard by Elijah as the chosen manifestation of God.
They believe in great impressions, in carrying everything
by a storm of words and arguments, in wielding power
over the public, especially over the people. They say,
as Christ's brethren said, "If Thou do these things
show  Thyself to the world."  And they are obnoxious
to the censure which the Apostle John passes on those
brethren of his Master: "For neither did His brethren
believe on Him."  For neither do these modern men
more than half believe in quiet goodness, in the power
of a life, in the strength of a silent character, in the use
of unseen means to do good, in the retired scholar, in
the still Christian.  To them  a force of the soul, to be
really such, must be acknowledged by the masses: they have
not enough of true taste and self-reliance to admire and
honor what is not popular. Now is such a type of character the most Christian one?  Nay, rather, is it not; as
far as it goes, unchristian, being built upon a view of what
forms character, and of the sources of true influence; which
is wholly unsound? It is easy to see how habits of medita



In Modern Christianity.            293
tive piety would correct this fault, how they would put
God's estimates of power in the place of man's; how, by
fostering simplicity, they would make all unnecessary display, or power exerted beyond the due proportion and not
reserved until it is needed, distasteful; how they would lead
to a greater reliance on the truth, than on the form of expressing truth, and on impressions working their way
silently, by the help of reflection, rather than on all the
power of that oratory which aims at immediate effects.
The man who meditates deeply, will, also, be most efficient. It is thought by some, that he can accomplish
nothing who is not bustling and in a hurry. It is hard, at
the present age, to wait for fruits:, we must see them
springing up before our eyes.  We want to sow not for
posterity, but for ourselves. Activity in doing good is
thought to consist in working fast, in doing a great deal in
a little time. Undoubtedly, if the trains are well laid,
the quicker the explosion the better. But we believe,
that true efficiency does not consist in speed, nor in the
momentary effect.  He may be the most efficient who
lodges one truth in an ungodly mind, and leaves it to
work slowly on the soul, and not he who forces a multitude of considerations upon it until it is distracted and
wearied. He may accomplish most whose useful results
no man sees, who makes no noise, who resembles the
silent forces of nature, and not he who will have every
thing finished up by a certain time or else consider nothing to be effected. The calmness and patience, the calculation on the distant future, the noiselessness, the unweariedness, which contribute largely to the success of some
men's labors, are qualities in which contemplation schools
the mind. The thoughtful Christian, will, as far as in
him lies, construct a solid, durable, substantial edifice, or
nothing at all.
Thus I have endeavored to show that the man given to
religious meditation, being familiar with the truths and




294         The need of a Meditative Spirit
principles of the Scriptures, will keep close to them, will
be a man of strong convictions and of firm principles, and
will be steady in his feelings, while in the practical matters of religion he will be judicious and efficient.
That preaching, then, let me add in conclusion, will supply a want of the times and do great good, which aids the
meditative spirit by dwelling on the truths and principles
of religion.  We hear many apprehensions expressed in
different quarters lest the pulpit has lost its power. Doubtless there is justice in these apprehensions, and the great
cause of this want of power is the worldliness which prevails on every hand. Or, in other words, a want of faith,
a spirit of unbelief in regard to spiritual realities, marks
the times, both in the church and out of it; and this unbelief is the effect of intense pursuit of worldly objects.
The pulpit can have no great increase of power except
the Divine Spirit lends His help in overcoming this
earthly-mindedness. But still, among different styles of
preaching, some will more naturally produce this effect
than others.
Can the pulpit increase its influence by fascinations of
style, by eloquence, or by passing over from the written to
the oral method of delivery? No doubt a change of form
or mode in preaching may be of use; but I should be
slow to expect much from a cause which has nothing to do
with the spiritualities of truth. There may be an entire
change in the style of preaching in the next age; but if
any change comes, it ought to be suggested by the spirit
then animating the body of Christians rather than to be
adopted for the purpose of recovering lost power.
Can the old system of doctrinal preaching, which stilllingers in a few pulpits, be restored to advantage-that, I
mean, which draws its staple materials from the sharply
defined tenets of systematic theology? It would seem
that this has had its day. Even those who think most
highly of it, preach what is distinctively and formally doc



In Modern Christianity.           295
tijnal far less than the last generation of ministers were
wont to do; nor can congregations now be made to listen
to those logical exhibitions of the truth on which our
fathers fed. This is in some respects an unhappy change
in public taste, for that old theological preaching trained
many minds into great clearness and acuteness, as well as
supplied them with great conceptions of the Divine Governmento But the change is not wholly unhappy, for the
preaching was not biblical, but theological; it was not an
exposition of God's word, but of a human system, and
that put together, where Scripture failed, by rational arguments. But whether happy or unhappy, the change has
come about; both preachers and hearers confess its influence. It will be well, as we have said once before, if men
do not become indifferent to doctrine-not to the human
modes of stating it merely, but to the doctrine of God
itself.
Or can the pulpit maintain its power by that preaching
which calls to action, especially to immediate action in
the great business of conversion? Doubtless, there must
always be, as there always has been such preaching,
and no system is of any value which discards it. But I
fail to see that preaching became successful in proportion
as it demanded a choice at the very instant, and enhanced
the agency of the sinner in the work of grace. And I
suspect that the preaching, which inculcated action somewhat exclusively,-the sinner's activity in his conversion,
the exertions of others for the same end, and benevolent
effort as the sum total of Christian duty-was one-sided
and imperfect in several respects. It did not sufficiently
take into account, that the upbuilding of the individual
in holiness was of supreme importance, and that benevolence could not be kept up by presenting to the mind
something to be done, without purifying and strengthening
the inner life by the glorious truths of the Gospel.
We are brought then, to the preaching which is most




296          The need of a Meditative Spirit
to be desired: it is that in which the great objects of
religion shall stand forth with greater prominence, while
the interests and duties of man shall force themselves on
the attention, as following of course.  It is that which
occupies itself more with invisible realities, and which
trusts to the spiritual power of truth and of God rather
than to the power by which man can move the feelings
and the will. It is preaching which comes from a mind
profoundly penetrated with divine truth, and used to long
reflection upon it, rather than from  a mind which has
mastered and can retail a theological system. It is that
which lodges weighty thoughts and wide-sweeping principles in the hearer's soul, rather than that which awakens
sensibilities that die down again, because they are not
rooted in deep truth. Preaching, even of the best kind,
has now too subjective a tendency. Those parts of the
truth which are the most telling and exciting; those parts
which relate most immediately to the operations of the
soul, take a front rank, while others have sunk in their
importance. It results from the same tendency that the
sentiments which lie deepest in the soul, such as a sense
of dependence, reverence and acquiescence, are but little
trained and cherished; while the more violent sensibilities, which are connected with human interests and doings,
are appealed to and trusted in, as the regulators of the
life. The preacher of meditative spirit, will avoid the
extremes of this tendency.  God and eternal truth being
near and real to himself, how can he fail to try to bring
them  near to his hearers?  He will thus be a serious
preacher, being penetrated by faith in invisible things.
He will be a preacher fitted to build up the Church of
God, to make it intelligent, thoughtful and constant. He
will carry his influence far down into the lives of men.
Let him die young in his field, still he has not ceased to
live or to preach. The best and ripest portion of his
flock will associate him with principles which sway their




In Modern Christianity.              297
conduct, with thoughts which have borne fruit through
their lives, with their whole progress in Christian excellence.  And he will lodge such convictions in the minds
of the irreligious, as will sink into their souls b-low the
reach of worldly desires, such at~, ii  be the means of
bringing them to the cordial love of the Gospel
13*




SERMON XX.
THE HELP WHICH THE MINISTER GETS FROM HIS
EXPERIENCE.
ACTS iv. 20. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen
and heard.
[AN ORDINATION SERMON.]
SUCH are the words with which the Apostles Peter and
John declared their determination to preach Christ in spite
of the orders of the Jewish Council. They had seen and
heard such things of and from Christ, they had received
such a commission to proclaim Him to the world, that it
was morally impossible for them to obey the commands of
the Sadducees. The courage to obey God rather than
man proceeded from what had come under their own experience, from Christ's words, from  His works, His life,
His resurrection. But this outward experience could have
inspired them with no such boldness, if it had not aroused
an inward experience; if it had not attached them to
Christ as a friend, a Master, a Saviour and a King.  The
influences of things seen and heard within their souls and
in their lives, created their strength to endure, to resist, to
hope on amid discouragements, to believe in the efficacy
and the triumph of the Gospel.
Unlike the Apostles, preachers in all the following ages
have heard and seen nothing marvellous; no form of a divine Saviour, no miracles of grace, no words never to be
forgotten, no resurrection and ascension of the Lord have
been repeated before their eyes and ears. But through
that which the Apostles said and heard, they have entered
into fellowship with the first preachers of the word; and so
298




The help the Minister gets from his Experience.   299
their fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus
Christ took its beginning. Thus, through the outward.
facts of the Gospel they have reached its spirit, have had
an inward experience of its power, a conviction of its reality, a confidence in its success, which is able to lift them
up above discouragements and fears, which can nerve
them with courage amid obstacles and dangers, which oan
assure them  that nothing is strong enough to contend on
equal terms with Christ.
It will not, then, be thought a very violent transition, if
we apply these words of Peter and John to preachers of
Christ now,.in their somewhat altered position; if we put
in the place of what the Apostles saw and heard the inward experience of their successors in the ministry; and
draw the inference, that this can sustain the soul of the
modern preacher, just as the personal knowledge of Christ
sustained the first ministers of the Gospel.
It is then the personal experience of the Christian minister, as exciting within him the spirit of faith, hope and
courage, which will be the subject of our discourse. A
simple theme, but one, as it seems to me, which can never
grow old or become unprofitable, for it deals with the
life of the individual Christian; it starts from his deepest
convictions, and says to him you must go forth into your
ministry from the facts of your inward consciousness as a
Christian; those phenomena within you, which came to
your notice in consequence of some divine power acting on
your soul, are to be repeated and can be repeated in
other souls whom your ministry reaches. Unless you are
unlike the rest of mankind and for that reason unfit to
preach to them, there have been transactions between you
and God in the region of your spiritual nature, in which
they can partake just as well as you. Your faith is an
experience. Why should not their's be?  As you have
a like nature with them, the same disease of sin, the same
capacity of being united to God, common offers of salva



300           The help which the Minister
tion, a common Saviour, so they must be affected by the
Gospel, if affected at all, in a way substantially the same
as you have been, and the power of the Gospel is as
capable of affecting them as it has been of affecting you.
True, there are infinite differences among men and no experience can be exactly repeated. No experience of one,
therefore, can be made the standard for others. But it is
true also that man as a sinner is cast in one mould, and
obligation is one, and holiness is one; Christ too, His promises and His spiritual power are one and the same, yesterday, to-day and forever. Deeper down, then, than these
varieties of individual experience lies a generic experience
common to all. While, therefore, we should violate charity by asserting that all the aspects of Christian life must
conform to our pattern, we do not violate truth by asserting that the generic results of the Gospel on character are
every where and in all men the same, and that the influences treasured up  in the Gospel are about equally
adapted for delivering all men from their sins and for
making them the children of God; so that he who has
become such may in all hope assume that what has been
the power of God for salvation to himself may be the
same for the people of his care, for all the dwellers in
Christian lands, yea, for all mankind.
I. From these general remarks we proceed to particular illustrations, and, in the first place, the experience
of the Christian preacher, assures him that the Gospel is
able to awaken a sense of sin by means of his preaching.
That which brought him to reflection, which opened his
eyes to his guilt and danger, which aroused within him a
new sense of want, unfelt before or stronger and deeper
than any felt before,-that same truth of that same Gospel, can, in the same manner, sway and heave the souls
of others.  The Gospel has not changed, and human
nature has not changed since he entered into the kingdom
of Heaven. The powers of the kingdom of Heaven, are




Gets from his Experience.           301
not exhausted or dead.  If they were, why should he
preach at all? So, then, his convictions awakened by
the Gospel, which he has not lost, but which are the rather
deeper than they were at first, tell him that the truth
which aroused his sense of sin is equally fitted to arouse
the same feeling in the hearts of others. And in the
midst of discouragement, this deep sense of the power of
the Gospel, of its adaptation to the soul of man, will inspire him with courage and hope.
Here let me give two  cautions before proceeding
further. The first, to which I have already adverted, is
this: that the minister of Christ must not expect just the
same sense of sin, with the same strength or the same
liveliness, to appear in all the varying forms of human
life and character. Formerly in New England, the law
work was expected to go in all cases, through the same
stages. This was narrow in theory, as confining the same
Spirit and the same truth within one channel, as if there
should be any the less variety in conversion than in other
spheres of God's agency; it was also narrow in its tendencies, in making good people look with suspicion on
those gentle, lovely souls, who, without struggle, and without any observable depth of emotion, began the Christian
life. We have outgrown this narrowness happily, but our
convictions are weaker in general than were those of our
fathers, and we need sometimes for that reason, after the
Christian life begins, to have a deepening of our impressions, if we are to become men of power. Let us then
value a pungent sense of sin while we accept the openings
of a Christian life under all their aspects.
The other caution is this: that the minister himself
should guard against discouragement on the ground that
his entrance into a religious life was attended by no
marked upheaval of his soul. Perhaps he might be a better instrument for awakening the convictions of others, if
this had been the case. But let him remember first that




302          The help which the Minister
the value of convictions consists in the general sense of the
reality of spiritual things which arises in the soul where
they are present; and, secondly, that we cannot measure
the strength or depth of our convictions or our emotions,
for we have no accurate standard of comparison for them.
Violent, outbreaking emotions may be shallow; unexpressed ones, may be deep. We forget the strength of
past emotions, and cannot use them in our comparisons.
One man will exaggerate, another will extenuate his feelings in description. A deep sense of spiritual reality
makes every feeling seem inadequate.  We wonder at our
coldness because our souls are moved to their depths.
This, then, is no ground foar discouragement. The man
who came to Christ without a marked struggle or a
marked intensity of feeling may be the deepest in his convictions of us all.
Let us see then how the experience of the minister
helps him in preaching to men in their sins, whatever may
have been the peculiar type of his own initiation into the
gospel.  We will suppose an extreme case.  He enters
into his work in the parish at a time when everything in
the spiritual regions is dead. There is no life in the
church. There have been no conversions for months or
years. There is all around him that feverish pursuit after
money, that intense worldliness, that sense of the reality
of the world which is so characteristic of this American
people. All are indifferent, professing to believe, but in
truth never thinking of the gospel. Oh! if some would
only oppose the truth, thinks he, that would be a sign of
awakening life, but there is not even opposition. And so
perhaps in his discouragement he thinks, and it may be
some of the less dead in his parish think, that the blame lies
at his door. He ought, he suspects, to preach in a different
style, or on different subjects. Perhaps, he thinks, he has
mistaken his calling. He has, he says, no electric power




Gets from his Experience.          303
over minds, or he has not piety enough, or he has faults
of manner or of character which spoil his influence.
We can easily see that in a condition of things like
this, an earnest Christian man must lose very much of his
working power. His natural gifts seem  to wither. His
religious sensibilities are benumbed. He lacks the sympathy which should cheer him, as he goes among his
people. In his despondency he overrates his ill success;
he thinks the seed is dead because it is slow in germinating. And so at a time when heroic effort is more than
ever wanted, when a man is needed with a voice lifted up
like a trumpet to show unto God's "people their transgressions, and unto the house of Jacob their sins," his
hands hang lifeless at his side, he can scarcely open his
mouth, he is like one in despair.
If now at such a time a wise physician of souls were
called upon for counsel, he might send him back to the
facts of his own. experience. Were you not once in your
sins, he would say, deaf to the voice of the Gospel, blind
to your true interests, living for this present world? Can
you bring any charge against this people of your's for
their impenitence and insensibility, which could not have
been brought against you?  But a time came when in
your case all was altered.  And why was it?  What
brought a change about?  You did not begin to see your
sins and feel your wants because you were given to reflection more than others, or because sin had hardened
you less, or because you had a better emotional nature,
or because something in  your case counteracted the
obstacles which lie in the way of your hearers. No! as
one who owes allegiance to a life-giving Spirit, you can
say nothing like this. You must place the cause of your
conversion outside of yourself, in no superior, more impressible nature of yours, but in some power of the Gospel
itself which is as well calculated to impress others, and
in some divine control over hearts which can as readily




304           The help which the Minister
move your hearers' hearts as it moved yours. And with
this conviction, which your experience forces upon you,
it is a shame for you to doubt the power of the Gospel or
to fail to see in the world a divine energy which can at
any time bring large fruits from  your preaching, which
even now, in all silence, beyond the reach of your eyes and
ears, may be preparing souls under your care for the
kingdom of heaven. Plant, then, in hope. Be not weary
in well doing, for in due season you shall reap, if you
faint not.
II. In the second place the experience of the Christian
preacher ought to supply him with encouragement and
hope in his efforts to promote religious life within the
church. The bearing which his experience has in this
case is not altogether the same as in the case of which we
have just spoken. Here it is a long experience, easily
recalled and standing forth in distinct outlines, embracing
his Christian life since his conversion up to the present
day. There it may have been the sin, or indifference, or
insensibility of years long past ending in conversion. The
pages of his old life are written in faded, half obliterated
characters, while the newer part of the volume is fresh
and legible. His life is also, in its later stages, a more
positive experience, spent in the actual presence of Christian motives and truths, just the same which he is called
to enforce upon the people of his charge, while in the
earlier stages it may have been negative, a withdrawal of
his mind from the influences of the Gospel, a disregard
of the truth, forgetfulness or carelessness.  Thus his
experience as a Christian is more vivid, and supplies him
with better means, perhaps, of judging concerning other
Christian hearts.
But perhaps the minister may say that his experience
is vivid enough since the beginning of the new life, but
that it is of the most discouraging kind. And who of us,
my Christian brethren, may not sympathize with him




Gets from his Experience.        305
when he describes his life, in strong, perhaps in unduly
strong terms, as made up of struggles against sin, with frequent defeats and almost barren victories, of oscillations
of a soul almost evenly balanced between earth and
heaven, of slow advances towards a higher life, with the
eye often directed towards the things that are behind. But
ought we to sympathize with him if he should turn his experience into an argument, and should say, what hope can
I have of building up the Church of God, when my toil
upon myself has been so unrewarded? Shall we admit his
conclusion, even if his premises, his gloomy views of his own
Christian life should be, in the main, true? Ought he to
admit his own conclusion? He certainly might, if religion
in the soul were a thing of natural development, but he
certainly cannot, if he believes in a principle of grace and
a quickening Spirit. Thus much, at least, we can say to
him: that his Christian course can help him to enter with
all sympathy into the faults and sins, the sluggishness and
moral weakness of his brethren. If the Christians of his
flock are oppressed with worldliness, and often fail of honoring the Gospel, may not this have been the case with
himself? And if they need a kind voice to warn, a kind
hand to lead them on toward heaven,-whose experience
qualifies for this blest office better than his own? He
pities himself, must he not also pity like sufferers? And
if he could only tell them of his sorrows, would not even
that be a kind of encouragement to them, when they think
that God has not forsaken him?  Then, again, his experience makes the virtue of patience and forbearance so
much the easier for him. Ministers sometimes lose their
temper, when they see Christian believers full of apathy
and worldliness. They feel as Moses did, when he said,
"Hear now ye rebels, must I draw water for you out of
this rock?"'  Must I give line upon line, precept upon precept, when it all bounds back from your hearts, as from
impenetrable stone? But his experience has taught him a




306           The help which the Minister
diviner charity. He has more cause to be impatient toward himself, for he can trace his own slothful, fitful progress, but there may be in them a holier life than appears
on the surface. So then, in charity and patience, suggested by what he knows of himself, let him work on to
build up the Church. In so doing he may, peradventure,
build up himself also, and may, ere long, possess and feel
a new power.
But a more important thought still remains to be considered. Whatever his religious experience may have
been, if he be a true Christian, he cannot help believing
both in the reality of spiritual life and in the Gospel's
power to make that life grow. That he has not been permitted to fall away-is not that something?  That, when
he has been cold and dead, a self-reforming power has
been put forth in him, that by some spiritual magic his
sins themselves have worked their own cure-is this
nothing, or can this be accounted for without a principle of
grace?  That the truth of God, for a while seemingly
lifeless, has spoken to him at length with a voice of mighty
power, with the charm of resistless music,-can this teach
him  no lesson?  And must he not admit, that, on the
whole, he has made some headway since his conversion,
and that part of his dissatisfaction with himself has proceeded from the sharpening of his spiritual faculty, from
the greater sensibility of his spiritual eye, which sees sins
where it did not before, and has measured the vastness of
perfection?  If so, his experience ought to encourage him.
He ought to build up his Church in hope.
His past history does not make him  despair of becoming a better man himself,-to do so would be treason.
Why should he despair of bringing others nearer to the
standard of perfect manhood in Christ Jesus?  He is
really pressing towards the mark, and has been, in spite
of his small success. Should not his experience help him
in urging others to do the same.? In his past life he can




Gets from his Experience.             307
see the truth and Spirit of God at work, and sometimes
with unusual power. Can his experience fail to convince
him  that a permanent power for the life of the Church is
treasured up in the Gospel, and that the Spirit of Life is
ever in the world?  Thus, even if his experience is an unsatisfactory one, he can work with hope: how much more
if he can discern a progress, if his choice of the ministry
itself was made in the spirit of consecration, if, as he
becomes better acquainted with the Gospel through his
experience, he sees in it more and more the resources of
an infinite mind for the holiness of Christian believers.
III. In the third place the experience of the Christian
minister is fitted to encourage him amid the cavils and
objections to the Gospel with which our age abounds.
Every age of great mental activity, since Christ came,
has tried to pick flaws in His religion; but never was
greater learning or more science opposed to it, so far at
least as its evidence and its authority are concerned, than
now.  Hostile criticism is attacking its facts and its inspiration with remorseless minuteness of scrutiny, while
a new philosophy denies the possibility of a revelation
and of miracles-if there -could  be any revelationin its support.  Philosophy goes farther than this: it
denies the personality of God, puts man under the law of
a fatal development, and holds that sin is a necessary
stage in a finite being's progress.  The Christian minister
has to encounter these forces of unbelief: they come up
in his studies; they fill the  atmosphere  through  the
lighter literature of the day; they have, we will suppose,
affected minds in his congregation. As he sees the cloud
which first gathered in Germany, passing on its gloomy
way over the British channel, and, like some plague of
cholera, breaking out on this side of the Atlantic, he may
naturally be filled with alarm. The pillars of the Gospel
seem  tottering.  The interests of society, of the Church
are at stake.




308            The help which the  linister
Now in such a time as this, whose beginnings only we
as yet discern on our shores, the Christian experience of
the minister is eminently fitted to bring hope and courage
back into his soul. For as the Gospel won its way and
established its convictions in his soul not by its historical
evidence simply, but by its adaptation to the wants of our
common nature, by its peace offered to him  when he felt
his alienation from God, by the satisfaction which it held
out to his longings for a higher and holier life, so he
knows that it may affect the hearts of his feliow-men.  It
is a magnet drawing souls to itself by its inward essential
power, and its main proof is the experience of its excellence. " He that believeth on the Son of God hath the
witness in himself."
Let us select for tests of the power of experience two
extreme standing-points of unbelief. The first shall be
that doctrine of pantheistic philosophy, according to which
the soul is not free, and sin is a necessary stage of development for a finite mind. The substance of such a doctrine,
so far as it directly affects character, is that the sense of
sin is a delusion, and that it is idle to talk of redemption.
If such a philosophy could reign over Christian nations,
it would soon eat out Christianity altogether and destroy
our modern civilization.  But can it reign?  Not unless
it can alter the nature of man, not unless this undying
sense of sin, this self-condemnation which is so vivid a
part of our experience, can be destroyed. Sin, in shortthe Christian man knows by experience-is one of the
great realities of our inner life; no hardening of the conscience can wholly deaden its smart; no carelessness or
occupation can wholly turn the mind away from  it; no
philosophy can wholly destroy essential human convictions. A  few minds may perish of such philosophy, but
doctrines that strike against human nature must in the
end suffer shipwreck.
The other case occurs where historical and critical ob



Gets from his Experience.          309
jections to the New Testament,-both to its truth and its
inspiration-are presented in their most plausible forms.
The Christian minister sees them  spreading around and
bearing bitter fruit. Young minds are perplexed and bewildered by them. Some professed believers are so employed and disturbed in encountering them, and in reaching a satisfying faith, that they almost lose the power of
doing good, and the healthy unfolding of their characters
seems to be suspended.  He may himself admit that these
objections have their force, and may be tempted to think
that the received views in regard to inspiration need to be
reconstructed. But will all this alarm him? Not if he
can fall back on a clear and definite experience. These
discussions may do great harm, they may land some souls
upon uncertainty and unbelief, but they do not after all
reach the essence of the gospel; they do not obliterate our
deep convictions; they do not supply a solid resting-place;
while the system of the gospel is found to bring peace,
hope and courage both to those who can and those who
cannot examine arguments. The man with an experience
looks on the baleful path of the forms of unbelief as he
would on a tornado or a flood; they have but a short-lived
sweep. The world of souls will surely return to the gospel. Faith, in its citadel, has not been reached, only some
outworks have been stormed. Man needs and is drawn to
Christ.
IV. In the last place we remark that the Christian
minister's experience will supply him with encouragement
and hope in regard to the universal spread of the gospel.
It seems at first view a desperate undertaking for the
church in these last ages, after having stood still for centuries, to rouse itself to the conversion of the world, to be
making up, as it were, for the inactivity and sloth of
many generations. Especially does it seem  to some a
fool-hardy thing for the church in our land to take this
burden on its shoulders, when the wants within our own




310           The help which the Minister
borders, the conflict-with heathenism and irreligion at
home, is becoming a greater task the more rapidly the
nation spreads. Such is the feeling of even benevolent
unbelief, which likewise exaggerates every difficulty growing out of the inferior culture of heathenism, out of
national prejudice, of language, and of whatever else holds
nations asunder.
But for every difficulty attendant on this greatest and
noblest work of our times the Christian minister's own
life and experience provides a counter argument. He was
not converted to Christ because he was an Anglo-Saxon,
or had Puritan ancestors, or partook of the superior culture of the nineteenth century, or was brought up to
weigh evidence, or was familiar with the story of redemption. How many he can point at possessed of all these
qualifications, who are more unimpressible than heathen;
and does he not find that familiarity with the truth,
knowledge of obligation and of danger, tend to paralyze
the power of religious motives? But he was led to Christ
as a sinner, by his desire of forgiveness and of peace with
God, on a path which a child or a heathen can take, where
no subtle analysis of processes or clear view of doctrines
is necessary. And so he feels that the same Gospel is as
well adapted to the mind of the dark idolater as to his
own, that it has a universal power, that it can meet men
in all stages of culture with an offer of salvation, which
can be expanded by one intellect into doctrines of the
divine government, and by another is received as a simple
promise from God. His experience then has taught him,
what no perception of the mind could so well teach, that
Christ is for mankind, that all men come to him in the
same way of faith, that the same question meets all-' Shall I break away from my sins and take this Saviour
for my master?"  What turned his heart, can in like
manner as easily turn the heart of any other, anywhere,
who listens to the story of Christ. Nor does he stop at




Gets from his Experience.           311
the conclusion that the Gospel. appeals to the common
principles of all nations and races; his experience suggests to him the well-grounded probability, that if God,
in  His providence, spreads such a universal religion
through the nations, some everywhere will receive it, and
that there cannot fail to be some harvest, sooner or later,
gathered over all the world for Christ.  The world is prepared to welcome Him, even where it seems least prepared.  Thus the Christian minister co-operates with missions in hope, and even in expectation. To him, the same
Spirit that taught him the way of life promises, as it were,
the conversion of mankind.
Thus has the encouragement supplied to the minister,
by his experience, been considered under four aspects.
He is not disheartened when he beholds the insensibility
of men in their sins, for he too, was once at the same
distance from  the Gospel.  He is not disheartened when
he sees lifelessness in the Church, but his experience, as
a believer, teaches him  patience  and sympathy, and,
although it may be an unsatisfying one, furnishes him
with hope and with the power of wise counsel.  He is not
disheartened when he sees philosophy and criticism making
earnest and fierce assaults on the word of God, for his experience tells him, that there are convictions and wants
deep down in the soul which infidelity can never reach,
and that it is on these that the truth of the Gospel fastens.
He is not unhopeful of the conversion of the world, for his
experience brings him  to perceive clearly the nature of
the Gospel as a salvation for mankind, because the dark
Pagan has a dim sense of sin, which Christ can relieve,
a.nd can come without a long process of mind, by the
help of intuitive convictions, to the reception of Christ's
word.
And now, in closing this discourse, we will suggest two
reflections, which can. be left in the minds of our hearers
without long remark.  The first is that experience ought




312            The help which the Minister
to make the preacher bold in declaring the truth; the other
is that it ought to make him a preacher of Divine Truth
and not of human systems.
As for the first, it is only necessary to say that religion,
like every moral movement, demands something more
than intellectual conviction from those who stand up before the world on its behalf. Such a kind of conviction is
not earnest, it is not courageous, it gives no assurance of
success. Far different is that experience of the Gospel
which is attended with a deep impression of its reality. In
this case the soul is committed to the cause. There are no
misgivings; the preacher appears before men to testify
rather than to argue; he knows what the Gospel can do
from what it has done in his own case. He is not ashamed
of it, for it is the power of God unto salvation.. The
most earnest appeals to men in their sins have come from
those who have had the deepest sense of sin. Assurance
of one's own Christian estate gives great plainness of
speech in addressing other Christians. The man of moral
courage and Christian heroism is he on whose soul Christianity has impressed the deepest feeling of its reality and
its importance.
And is it not plain also that experience is an important
aid in making a man a scriptural rather than a theological
preacher? That which he has felt within will, whether he
is conscious of it or not, be a guide in his manifestation of
the truth to others. But it is the truth of God's word that
has awakened, turned, and edified him. Those views of
sin and of Christ which have been used to renew his character he will naturally use to benefit others. The Spirit
did not convert him by logic and system, by showing him
the consistency of religious doctrine with itself in its sevr
eral parts, or with other truth belonging to the kingdom
of nature or of mind, but by awakening a sense of want
and of guilt, and by revealing the sufficiency of Christ.
This saving truth is scriptural and Divine. It is true that




Getsfrom his Experience.          313
a man may be narrow if he have a partial or limited experience; but he cannot be narrow if the whole Gospel
has had its appropriate sway over his soul, if his character
has been developed by it in harmony. Then will he preach
a better, truer Gospel h-l n hle cGuId:j without this experience, he had all theological learning and all logical
power. Then, too, learning will do him good as a help,
but not as an original source.
And if this be so, that which is most needed, in an age
of intense worldliness, or in one of increasing unbelief, is
a Christian life in the ministry, built on a deep and large
experience of revealed truth. Other things may be important, but this is all important.  Men may ask how
preaching may change its style in order to be more effective, or how theological training may be improved; or
they may strive to reform theological systems, or may devise new ways of reaching men in their sins, or, possibly,
may contrive some new organization for the Church of
Christ. But let them remember that it is the old Gospel
of Christ, proclaimed by men who have felt and experienced it, that must convert the-world.
14




SERMON XXI.
THE BENEFITS TO CHARACTER OF IGNORANCE OF THE
FUTURE.
ACTS i. 7. And he said unto them it is not for you to know the times
or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.
ONE department of knowledge, as our Lord here teaches
us, is kept by God within His own power, or, in other
words, is reserved to Himself, and not laid open before the
eyes of mortals. The laws of the kingdom of nature He
has in part spread before us for our study, and in that field
is leading mankind continually further into the deeper,
more hidden recesses of His counsels. These laws, when
we have once gathered them up from the examination of
the past, become our almost certain guides for the future.
It is true, indeed, that even in this department, all things
are not naked and open to our eyes.  The phenomena of
the atmosphere cannot be predicted with unerring accuracy, and the earth still contains many secrets which
may never be reached. It is, however, yet true, that in
the material world, where God acts by laws which partake
of His own immutability, He allows us to predict what He
will do hereafter, and gives us firm ground to stand upon
in our plans which reach into the distant future. "Thou
hast established the earth and it abideth."  "Forever, O
Lord, Thy word is settled in Heaven."
There is, however, another department, where knowledge
cannot be reduced to simple laws, where everything is
complicated, and the future is hidden from the foresight
of man. This is the department in which the agencies of
God and man meet, where the plan of the great Ruler and
314




Ignorance of the Future.           315
the plans of countless finite beings run across one another,
where the creatures of God are influencing and changing
and thwarting one another in manifold ways, and God
Himself is using them with or against their wills, by spiritual, invisible means, to accomplish His plan for the human race. So many agents, so many interactions create
a confusion and complication which none but infinite skill
can disentangle, the results of which only God can foresee.
Thus the divine government over men, where one would
think beforehand, from  our knowledge of man himself,
that all ought to be clear, is really hid in impenetrable
clouds. The coming history of the world, the future life
of every individual man lies beyond conjecture. Even the
events which are to affect His own kingdom of grace God
has kept in His own power. He has disclosed a little, He
has made the final winding up sure, but this is a region of
knowledge where He reigns alone, and shares the particulars of the boundless plan with no other.
It may be profitable to give one or two illustrations of
so plain a subject. And first we find, every one of us, in
our own experience, that the times and seasons of human
life God has put in His own power. All of us who have
passed the boundaries of youth can testify that an unexpected future has been unrolling itself before us through
all our years.  We make new acquaintances and they
affect our condition and prospects. Small circumstances
may have proved to be turning points in our lives, when
we had no suspicion of their importance. Our plans are
ever interrupted by novel events wholly unforeseen. Disease, misfortune, the death of friends, our own mortality,
as well as the prosperities and joys of our earthly condition, are as much hid from us as if the lot determined
them. No sagacity escapes from this ignorance, which is
indeed proverbial.
Another illustration is drawn from the strange mistakes
of the most practiced men, as they stand on the threshold




316          The benefits to Character of
of great events. There are vast revolutions in society and
govtrnment, which alter the whole course of the world,
and must have had deep foundations laid for them in the
past; yet the statesmen and philosophers of the time are
slumbering without anxiety on the sides of the volcano.
Nay, if some one, confident in the sway of general law,
assured that the divine government will have its way and
will claim its rights, ventures to predict in vague terms a
coming disaster, the men of his time will laugh at him as
a wild guesser. But the storm which he foreboded has
come, and has left desolations by wind, and flood, and
lightning,which the predicter himself did not anticipate.
Thus at the fall of the Roman republic, how little did
the Senatorial party augur, when they required Caesar to
resign his command on a certain day, that they were urging
on measures which would destroy the power of the aristocracy forever, would change Rome into an empire, would
bring on an immense revolution in society, law and government! How little did Caiaphas or Pilate dream, at
the crucifixion of Christ, of the power that would go forth
through all the ages from that submissive man who lay
under their hand! How little did Leo X. and the leading Italians imagine that Martin Luther would make an
era, and start a movement that would never stop! Who
thought a little before the French revolution, unless some
dreamer regarded as wild, that all the thrones of Europe
would be shaken, or that a man of Corsica would hold
half the continent under his foot? We call ourselves wise
in matters of revolution on this side of the Atlantic, but
if any saw the cloud of our present troubles arising, they
measured not its vastness or its duration, and some there
were among the leaders of the nation who ventured on
predictions that the storm would blow over in a little
space, only to earn for themselves the rebuke of levity and
folly. "O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in
himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps."




Ignorance of the Future.           317
Nor can I forbear giving one illustration more, which
seems to have a close relation to the text of my discourse.
The prophets and apostles, whose minds were divinely enlightened concerning the future, were yet kept to a great
degree in ignorance of that future, so that the times and
seasons-that is to say, the length of the interval between
events, and the fit opportunities of divine action, or the
crises of the kingdom of God-were not brought within
their range of sight. Some persons seem to imagine that
when God set apart a prophet to reveal His counsels to His
people, the man acquired a telescopic sight which penetrated into all the details of the remote and the future, as
though he had become a partaker of the divine mind.
But this is far from being true of those comprehensive
visions, in which the prophet foresaw the stages of the kingdom of God on earth.  We prophesy in part, says Paul,
that is imperfectly. And if the word to prophesy here de.
notes utterances concerning the divine will in the present,
and these are declared to be partial or incomplete, much
more partial must be the utterances concerning the divine
intentions in the future. " The prophets of the old time,"
says Peter, "searched what or what manner of time the
Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory
that should follow." All was vague but beautiful before
their eyes, enough to keep hope alive, for which object
they were set a-prophesying, but not enough to satisfy
curiosity. And so the Apostles knew not when their
Master would appear again on the earth: without doubt
their feelings and hopes antedated an event "the times
and seasons of which God had put in his own power,"
which He hos kept hidden until now from His church,
and which will come, when it comes, like a thief.
Such being the blindness of men in regard to the future
history of mankind, and such being the plan of God in
this department of His kingdom, we may profitably ask




318           The benefits to Character of
wr: at are the moral uses, the purposes of discipline for the
character of the individual and for the welfare of the
Church, which this arrangement of His was intended to
serve?  Doubtless an instinct, like that of the bird, presaging the storm or providing against winter, could have
been given to us; some foreboding or presentiment, such as
certain persons seem to have now and then, could have run
through our lives without tearing in twain the veil that
hides the future from our eyes. But man is left to his
traditions, and experiences, and hopes, and moral convictions, with no divine finger to warn or guide him, while
the lower animal has in one sense a closer union with
its Creator, and feels the cord which ties him to the
Supreme Reason. And the cause of the difference is,
that to the brute events are every thing, but character
nothing, while to the man character is every thing and
events nothing, save as they act on character.
Among the reasons why the events which make up
human life and history are concealed from  the prescience of man, we mention,
I. First, that in the province of individual effort uncertainty as to the future, united with probability of success, taxes the energies of man and develops his character
in a desirable way.
Our life is directed to a great extent by calculations
of the probable, and the possible, derived  from  the
past, and applied to the future. Hope and fear are
ever on the watch, looking forward for something to be
secured or avoided.  We know that what we hope for
may fail to be realized if we relax  our efforts. It is
obvious that this system of things runs through life and
gives to it that energy, industry and precaution, without
which life would end in calamity.  The man who is
certain of future good feels no impulse to secure it by
exertions of his own, for failure is regarded as impossible. The man who is uncertain has every motive to




Ignorance of the Future.            319
prevent ill success, and will avail himself of his powers,
of the helps afflrded by the laws of nature and by
human experience; he will understand his own strength
by putting it to the trial; he will guard against those
faults which can obstruct his way, and will, all the
while, be gathering new power as he goes forward. Not
only can he accomplish as much as he hoped for, but
in many cases a great deal more. He thus grows and
advances, while he who is certain of the future, who lets
causes beyuod himself have their way and floats down
the stream, is not disciplined by the work of life and
learns from life little or nothing..
In particular the difficulties which we are to meet with
in every good object, especially in endeavoring to improve
our characters, do not take us by surprise, as long as we
are ignorant of the fu ure. We admit the possibility of
them, we allow for their coming, and for their coming
when we can least foresee their approach, we work and
rest as in the neighborhood of enemies. Thus we are not
stunned by any force which they may bring against us
but hold out courageously, and are prepared for new exertions even when baffled and overthrown.
So too, while our uncertainty as to the future enables
us to take possible difficulties into view, it enables us also
to admit the possibilities of ultimate failure. Success is
uncertain. Countless failures in smaller things are teaching us that the grand result may never be reached, that
something may interpose to render it impossible. Thus
-we adjust our minds to the order of things appointed for
finite beings, and have the foundation laid in our character
for submission to a higher will.
Thus are we. hardened, made wary and careful; thus
the virtues of prudence, forethought, diligence, vigilance,
courage, and a train of others which move in harmony
with these, are cherished in our souls.
We have considered the effect of uncertainty as to the




320            The benefits to Character of
future thus far upon the character, whatever may be the
moral condition of the individual before God. Doubtless
a race of fallen beings is by this discipline made much
nobler and fitter for good, and contains within itself more
possibilities of recovery and progress than if it were endowed  with prophetic foresight, and  like God saw the
end with clear vision. But how does this law of our condition act in respect to our spiritual and eternal interests?
How does it act in relation to the interests of God's kingdom on earth.
As for the first point, our eternal interests, it is plain
that entire inability to.estimate the course of our future
life would cut off motive, and entire certainty might
plunge us into despair if the foreseen end were evil, and
into carelessness, if it were good.  But now we have the
highest motives to exertion,-a probability of success, if our
efforts are commensurate to the greatness of the issue, and
a certainty of failure, if we let earthly things take the
control of our lives. Nothing final is assured to us before
the end of our course by the gracious decree of God or
by our own exertions.  "So run that you may obtain"
is the rule for our  natures, and while by acting  in
conformity with this rule we secure all good and escape
all evil, we gain upon our way everlasting benefits for our
characters. The struggles through which we pass are the
means of purifying us from sin, and the result is worth
them all.
As for the other point, the interests of the kingdom of
God, as long as the law of the kingdom  is that nt thing is
brought to pass but by the co-operation of God and man,
and that nothing but promises of ultimate success, no immediate, sudden triumph of the principles of Christ, is
held out before the servants of God, it is plain that they
are in circumstances most favorable to strenuous exertion.
Nothing goes on without them; there are only moral
forces working without magic against the mass of evil in




Ignorance of the Future.            321
the kingdom of heaven and these forces they must wield.
They know not the result of each effort, th6y know not
when or how the kingdom will come in all its perfection.
But they have every motive for acting, each in his sphere,
and as a body, for carrying the work along through successive generations. The failure of others to do their part
cannot wholly prevent my efforts from bearing rich fruit,
and my failure to do mine can be a hinderance and a delay to the general success. Those same motives act then
here, those same virtues of character are strengthened in
the church, which are encouraged in any co-operation for
a future earthly object.
II. It is well that we cannot foresee the mass of difficulties which may beset and discourage us in our future
lives, and that all our trials do not press on us at once.
The trials of character which men meet with through
ignorance of the future sometimes break down the most
stout-hearted, and lead the most determined to give up an
enterprise. Nay, it often happens that an apprehended
difficulty will unnerve and terrify the soul so that it loses
all power of action. Suppose now, that this stage of
ignorance were exchanged for a state of certainty; that
we saw in long array, the trials, hazards, losses, pains,
contempts, that were to attend on our plans; that we
could take a measure of the bodily toil, the mental anxiety or tension, the spiritual struggles, the perplexities
and contests of our entire lives, is it not evident that the
mass of them would seem too great for human strength
to move, and, even if final success were within our reach,
should we not feel unequal to the number and severity of
the exertions required to secure it? Ignorance, then, of
the sum total of our difficulties is a great blessing for us,
and without it, we should not have courage to undertake
anything good and great.  We now encounter our toils
and anxieties one by one; we conquer them in detail, and
sweet hope lives through all the efforts. But then a great
14'




322           The benefits to Character of
cloud would hang around every new enterprise; a great
mountain or wide sea would be ever in our way; the
present and the future would conspire to terrify and dishearten us. I ask you, if any man is equal to the endurance, beforehand and at once, of all the pains that are
allotted to him through all time,-to the full prospect and
adequate conception of all that is to try him until he
reaches his goal? Only one man through all the ages has
had  such  knowledge,-He who "died every day He
lived," the death on the cross for our sins. And He,
without a perfect faith and consecration, would have sunk
under the burden.
A few illustrations will set this truth in a clear point of
view.
An inventor is a man who gropes in the dark, confident
that the laws of nature in her different departments may
be made to conspire for a certain result, and yet not knowing how. He works on through profitless experiments,
now elated with hope, now depressed by disappointment;
the world calls him a visionary who is wasting his property
and his life on a project; a thousand times he wishes that
he had had a different lot and a different nature. Byand-by, after many despairs and an amount of toil and
thought beyond calculation, he has gained what he sought
and he is happy. But let'the end be as bright as it may,
if he could have taken one clear, full look of his long,
dreary conflict with difficulties, at the time when he laid
his plan of life, who believes that he could have held
on his way in courage and hope? Would he not have fled
from such a career? and thus is not the world indebted
for much of its progress, for m any improvements in science
and art, to man's ignorance of the future?
Another illustration, which we all must feel,is suggested
by the present war. If we had foreseen its length, its
costliness in money and life, its ill successes interspersed
among its victories; if the soldiers, as they thought of enlisting, could have foreseen their hardships, wounds, de



lgnorance of the Future.           323
feats, is it not more than probable that the strength to
persevere would have been taken out of us, that a majority of the people would have shrunk from  the contest,
although certain of ultimate success?  Of how many public and private efforts the same thing can be said. We
can resolve nobly, we can grapple with each trial as it
comes, but the whole load of the futute, which God in His
mercy distributes over months and years, it is beyond our
powers to carry.
So also, when a man has devoted himself to the work
of preaching Christ's gospel, it is best for him to live in
ignorance of the future. The Apostles saw trials, bloody
ones, before them, and in prophetic' foresight foresaw a
falling away from the faith. But it was a mercy to them
that they did not see the slow rate at which Christian
truth has moved over the world, the days of Mohammed,
the days of papal darkness, the days of a divided, distracted church. Had all this arisen above their horizon,
the sadness and discouragement of the sight would have
benumbed even them. Like them  a minister goes hopefully into his. field. For long years his labors are crowned
with small fruit. The church declines. Men do not forsake their sins. Those from whom  he had hoped most
disappoint him utterly.  Like Elijah he is tempted to re
quest God to take away his life. Yet if no one else is
saved, he at least is purified by seeming ill-success, and a
seed may have been sown which will be reaped when he is
at rest. But if he had foreseen all, if he could have cast
his eye forward on the gloomy future, more than mortal
strength would have been needed by him to enter into his
work for Christ.
There is another illustration  which must commend
itself to all who have been endeavoring to live for God
through many years of this earthly life. Who of them
is not painfully conscious of fruitless struggles against
sins, of a slow and fitful progress, of frequent declensions,




324           The benefits to Character of
of great perplexities on the momentous points of truth
and duty, of despondency and uncertainty in regard to
the inward life? Now if all this had been foreseen at the
beginning, when as yet Christian virtue, unhardened and
feeble, was but a tender plant amid the weeds of sin, who
could have collected courage enough to endure so much
for the attainment of so little? We may safely say that
the life of the soul would be quenched at first, if the soul
could look forward with a full realization of all the trials
of its earthly pilgrimage.
And you, my young friends, whose hearts beat strong
with hope, you especially have reason to bless God that
He has kept the times and seasons of your lives in His own
power. You may feel a natural curiosity sometimes to
know what will befall you in the world: Where shall I be
when I finish my college and professional life; who will
be my intimates; what my condition; how long the duration of my lot? Such questions you may ask, but God
be praised that there is no oracle to answer. For if you
could look, as through some opened door, upon a series of
pictures representing exactly all your burdens, all your
disappointments, all your heart-griefs, all the obstacles in
your way, your energy and courage would flag, your hopes
would spring up no longer, life would lose the health
of its tone and its power of growing better. Such would
be the effects of a knowledge and a foresight which happily are not imparted to mortals.
I would not be much concerned,
Nor vainly long to see
The volumes of Thy deep decrees,
What months are writ for me.
III. Finally man's ignorance of the future aids the
spirit of piety. And of this large subject I have time to
dwell on one or two points only, as that the present limitations of our krowledge concerning the future help us to




Ignorance of the Future.           325
realize that God has a plan for us and for the world; that
they suggest to us our dependence and awaken our faith.
Let no one impute to me here the opinion that ignorance is in such sort a handmaid of piety, that, if we could
foresee the operation of all causes, we should eliminate
God's providence and activity from the world, but that,
as we cannot do this, we label with the name of providence what we cannot explain. Perhaps, if we had
insight enough to refer all phenomena, those of the material world and those of human life, to their complicated
causes, we should detect the secret invisible string which
the Great Ruler holds in His hands for swaying free
minds and controlling history: perhaps, however, even
then we might doubt, and be able not to see God, if He
stood before us. But proof of this sort, I do not value
much, and this is not the way, in which God impresses
His existence on our souls. A  healthy mind assumes
Him; He is the petitio principii. His manifestations in
His works may awaken a sense of God, but do not produce it. The preparation for our faith is laid in our very
nature and its natural development. Doubt of Him is
the daughter of sin.
Such being the readiness of our nature to receive the
presence of God in the world as an ultimate fact, the
simple inquiry now is, in what constitution of things are
we most freed from the sway of the visible world, and
most thrown back upon an invisible God,-when we can
see our way clear and distinct before us, or when uncertainty hangs around our future? The answer given by
all experience is, that when we feel surest of the success of
our plans, when we are strongest and most stable in our
own opinion, when we least fear disaster, then God is farthest off from  us; and that, when a deeper impression
comes home to us of the uncertainties of our condition,
when we can make the least calculation of the future, then
the reality and sway of God are forced upon our thoughts.




326           The benefits to Character of
The finite, dependent being is preserved in a sense of his
dependence, not by a process of reasoning, but by realizing
that he is not his own master, that he cannot foresee or
secure his own way, that confidence in himself as the guardian of his own interests is presumptuous. The uncertainties of our lives, our ignorance, our weakness suggest the
feeling of our dependence, and the sense of our dependence
is a prime essential of piety.
But our ignorance of the future is an aid to faith also.
We trust, where we do not know. We rely on character
because it is a security and because we cannot foresee
events.  The character of God is a guaranty for that
which shall come to pass. But why, one may ask, should
a finite mind, ignorant of the future, trust rather than distrust, believe rather than doubt?  Without question, our
ignorance opens the door both to faith and to the want of
it, and just here lies the trial of our characters. But when
our dependence on a Supreme power is felt, when the fact
is admitted that God has plans running through every
life and all history, then faith, and not distrust, is natural,
for such plans are good, they cannot fail; he who is in
harmony with them  shall prosper, and God will protect
his interests. Thus much natural religion could discover.
Doubtless, a spotless soul, without a revelation, would grow
up into confidence in God, would feel safe under His care,
in danger would look to Him as a present helper, would
commit its future into His hands.  But how much more is
faith excited by the united influence of a revelation which
gives us a right to trust in God, and of our state of ignorance concerning the future which impels us to faith because we have neither strength nor sight.
I cannot lay this subject down, without suggesting, as I
close, two thoughts that follow the train of our remarks.
The first of these is, that according to analogy, prophecy
will never shed more than a dim, uncertain light upon the
future before its fulfillment. The prophecies relating to




Ignorance of the Future.            327
Christ were such, that worldly minds could misinterpret
them, and this the Jewish spirit was sure to do. Christ
gave no satifaction, as we have seen, to His disciples, when
they questioned Him concerning the future destinies of the
kingdom of God.  So, too, when Peter, in idle curiosity,
asked his Master what should befall John, hoe received but
an ambiguous answer,-" If I will that he tarry till I
come, what is that to thee?  Follow thou Me."  And so
Paul went to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that
should befall him there, save that the Holy Ghost kept assuring him, as he traveled on his way, that bonds and
affl ctions were in store for him.  And the history of interpretation shows, that thus far the Church has made
little progress in applying prophecies to particular events.
Now according to our Saviour's words in our text this
ought to be so.  It is not for us "to know the times or
the seasons which the Father hath put into his own
power."  And if we have discovered the purpose of God
in keeping us ignorant of the future this ought to be so.
Prophecy gives us light, that the Church may not lose its
hope in the dark hours of its discipline.  But the light
reveals neither the length of the way, nor the severity of
the trials, nor the exact nature or extent of the final triumph, for such full knowledge would prevent those influences with which the present state of things acts on
character, and which are better than knowledge.
Finally, he who gains character out of the uncertainties
of life is a great gainer.  He who struggles on to what is
called success may gain nothing.  If'this world were our
all, he who after long effort has secured his prize, has only
gained that which is less sure than life itself, and has
besides passed through the healthy discipline which comes
from a life of work and uncertainty.  But if this world is
niot our all, what has he gained?  What uncertainty of
the future life has he provided for? May he not by limiting his plans to this world have lost every thing? May




328           Ignorance of the Future.
not preparation for the life to come be the very point
towards which finite ignorance was meant to conduct him?
Must he not perish it he opens his eye to all the uncertainties and risks of this life, while he has no forethought for
the great limitless future?
But on the other hand he who gains character out of
the uncertainties of life gains everything.  He has learned
in the dark not only those qualities of character which
make him a good actor in these earthly scenes and which
generally insure success; but he has learned also how to
depend on God, to trust in His providence, to act with
Him in His plans, and to secure His co-operation. He is
thus fitted for eternal life, for its employment, for its revelations. He has gained from his condition here what God
meant he should.  Soon this earthly darkness shall pass
away. Soon a boundless field of knowledge be open to
him; soon perfect certainty be within his reach. He now
knows as he is known. Is not this gain? *
1864.




SERMON XXII
THE STABILITY OF GOD'S THRONE.
Psalm xciii.
THE subject of this magnificent Psalm is the stability of
God in His natural and moral kingdom.  He is represented as a king upon his throne, robed in majesty and
girded with strength: to Him the world is indebted for its
stability, since He is from everlasting and His throne was
established of old. Against Him, thus sitting on His
throne, the wild, turbulent floods rise in their fury, as if
they would drive Him from  His established power, but
the Lord, seated on high, is mightier than all the disturbing forces-whether of nature or of nations, which lift
themselves against His authority. And of this stability
His law and moral government partake: His testimonies
or precepts are very sure; they may be relied upon, for
they have the permanency of God in them. Holiness becometh His house forever; there are fixed proprieties in the
worship of Him and in the relations of the worshiper,
which will not pass away.
The irregular forces of the natural world are elsewhere
represented under the image of a wild and swelling sea.
But some interpreters suppose, that the type includes the
moral commotion, also, of agitated, disquieted nations.
In the 65th Psalm the two kinds of disorder are spoken of
together as subject to the sway of God-" which stilleth the
noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the fury of
the people."  I shall give this latitude to the meaning
here, so that the doctrine of the Psalm is the stability of
329




330         The Stability of God's Throne.
God on His throne amid the natural and moral forces of
the world which seem to threaten the order of His government.
In illustration of the truths set forth in this Psalm, I
remark,
I. That the stability of God presented to us in the
Scriptures consists in His fixed character and purposes,
backed by unlimited power. It is not law,-regular and
uniform sequence, dependent on the necessity of things —
to which the Bible refers the order of nature. There is a
will above law, and a character of infinite wisdom and goodness behind will, which is the support of the universe. If
ever the Scriptures seem to represent God as arbitrary, as
willing and decreeing without a reason, the representation,
which is made in order to set forth, in a strong way, the
unalterableness and irresistibleness of the decree of God,
is corrected by other passages where the decrees of God
appear as His counsels, the results of His perfect wisdom
and moral excellence.
But this wisdom and moral excellence could not sit
upon a throne, God could not be a king without power
equal to His wisdom. Separate the two, conceive of wisdom without power, or power without wisdom, and there
could be no stability in the system  of things.  Power
alone would be ever fashioning and destroying; wisdom
would be ever contriving without accomplishing, or else
would confine itself to the field of its own limited resources, because it would be unwise to push further.
God's majesty and strength as a ruler, is in fact, the
union of His perfect attributes.
How unlike is this scriptural representation of God to
the conceptions of many heathen religions and heathen
philosophers. The god of heathenism is bound by and
under the control of the order of nature. A  higher
something, fate or law, sits above him, limiting his movements and making him its vicegerent and subordinate.




The Stability of God's Throne.       331
His will is a capricious, unreasonable decree, formed at
the time, or after a short foresight and deliberation; he
has no plans reaching from the beginning and embracing
all things. The order of the world is not his work.
The heathen philosopher, on the other hand, tried to
strip the Deity of all limitation and change, of every influence from finite things and every relation to them; and
so he reached the notion of bare entity. The stability
of God in his view was such, the idea of Him  was so
broad and abstract, that all personal attributes and works
must be denied to Him altogether. Thus, for all practical
purposes, the world was left to itself, and the Deity was
stripped of all that could awaken the feeling of awe and
respect in the human soul.
II. The stability of the world results from the stability
of God. It is the place where He unfolds His fixed but
progressive system.
The world makes the opposite impressions on the observer. First, it is a scene of endless change and alternation. Life and death, growth and decay, the wearing away
of the solid structure, and the reconstruction, the sinkings
and upheavings of its surface-phenomena like these
show a want of stability, a war of opposites. But again,
as the observer looks beyond these immediate appearances, he sees steady, unwavering law, which may have
had its way through countless ages, and shows no sign of
growing weary or coming to an end. " One generation
passeth away," he will say, "and  another generation
cometh, but the earth abideth forever."
The convictions also, of mankind give their testimony to the stability of the system.  We believe, we
know not why, in the permanence of the order of nature.
This primary faith is no mere result of experience, but is
a necessary law of thought for the unthinking and ignorant as well as for the philosopher. It does not assume
that there was no beginning of material things, or that




332         The Stability of God's Throne.
there can be no end, but only that there is so much assurance of the continuance of the system, that all fear of
present change may be dismissed, and all plans of man,
even if they embrace ages, may be rationally prosecuted.
The God who gives stability to the universe has revealed
this stability to mankind, that they may work their work
demanding foresight and long preparation without disquiet and anxiety.
But the system of the world unites progress with stability. The ancient thinkers could not reach the knowledge of this great fact, which geology has disclosed to our
eyes. The world itself, so fastened on its rocky base, has
been moulded over and over again; has risen and sunk
has received new forms of life rising in dignity up to man,
the newly settled tenant,-in short, has had a marvellous
and steadily advancing history, since it has been a fit
abode for animated beings.
These glimpses, which science gives us of the progress
of the system, accord with the declarations of Scripture,
concerning the unfolding of God's counsels in regard to
creation, redemption, and the world's future destiny. But
these great movements are no evidences of change-they
rather manifest a steady, onward march-an established
plan which needs many milleniums for its full accomplishment.  "The world is established that it cannot be
moved."  This stability is an emanation of the wisdom
and power of God,-of wisdom which has contrived it as
the theatre, where He is carrying forward His great plan,
and which must be kept in its place as long as the plan
demands, and of power which deals with unyielding
matter, as easily as the potter with the clay.
III. The Psalmist proceeds to speak of forces natural,
and perhaps moral or human, whose violence seems for
the time to obstruct the plan of God and to endanger the
stability of the system.
Casting our eyes first upon the seemingly irregular




The Stability of God's Throne.       333
forces of nature, with what awe we behold the great deep
agitated by tempests; overwhelming after a brief resistance the well-compacted vessel with all its treasure of
human lives; breaking down great cliffs along the coasts
which it has undermined with caverns; sweeping over
great tracts of level ground planted by the husbandmen;
tearing away dykes and dams so as to let in a flood upon
lands that have been reclaimed fro n its dominions. How
fearful, also, and wild are rivers in floods, when even
the scarcely noticed brook seems clothed with a new power
of death; how in a moment devastation is spread over
meadow and plain, and streams find out another channel
than that which for ages they have followed. Still more
irregular is the air in tempests, sweeping over thousands
of miles and destroying the works of man in its way; yet
more fearful the lightning with the thunder;-the most inevitable, when it strikes, of all foes. But of all earthly
forces the earthquake seems most like an insurrection
against God, as if the earth itself were no longer under
His curb-the earthquake tumbling cities down, cleaving
the ground with. great chasms, giving the watchword to
volcanic fires to pour themselves forth anew, and sending
the sea far up in destroying waves upon the populous
shore. These are wild, convulsionary forces, but others
wear away or alter the earth in silence. In a course of
ages what vast effects are produced by moisture, by heat
and cold, by the soil descending with the currents of
rivers, by melting snow and the decay of vegetable matter.
But notwithstanding all these powers, violent or quiet, the
world is established that it cannot be moved. The agitated sea and air, the flood and the lightning, do their
work, and that on the whole a beneficent work according
to God's laws, without endangering the safety of the system. Since man has been placed on the earth its face and
frame-work have remained nearly the same. Nay, earth
outlasts all attacks upon it, whether occasional and vio



334          The Stability of God's Throne.
lent, or silent and continual, and will endure until it shall
be remodeled again to become a dwelling-place of the
saints.
It is worth remarking also that there is a stability and
power of resistance in some of God's very minute works, as
if He were determined that life in all its species should go on
safely through all the disturbances of the elements.  The
eggs (-f the smallest animals show a vitality in extremes
of heat and cold that is truly surprising. Of the little
shell, the fragile tenement of a living being, a poet of our
day says that it is
Frail, but of force to withstand
Year after year the shock
Of cataract seas that snap 
The three deckers' oaken spine,
Athwart the ledges of rock.
But, again, in the moral system among men, forces yet
more terrific lift themselves up against established order.
The commotions of nations are more fearful than floods
or swelling seas or tempests in the air, or even than the
earthquake.   It is no exaggeration when the HI.brew prophets speak of them in figures borrowed from  the agitations in nature. "Ho to the multitude of many people,
says Isaiah, which make a noise like the noise of the seas,
and to the rushing of nations that make/ a rushing like
the rushing of mighty waters."  "The earth is utterly
broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is
moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like
a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the
transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall
fall and not rise again."  "The multitude of the strangers.
shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the terrible
ones shall be as chaff that passeth away; yea it shall be
at an instant, suddenly.  Thou shalt be visited of the
Lord with thunder and with earthquake, and great noise,
with storm and tempest and the flame of devouring fire."




The Stability of God's Throne.        335
The insurrectionary forces here are  those of blind
desire, furious will, ignorance and hatred. Sometimes,
when some of these reach a certain pitch of violence in a
single man, they are frightful. But how sublimely awful
they become when a whole people, millions of men, are
filled with fury together, and are banded in the pride of
power and in desperate resolution to do something unjust
and unholy before God and men,-when they court ruin
rather than consent to retrace their steps.
There is a difference between these violences in the moral
system and those in the kingdom  of nature. The wild
forces in the latter case obey an established law and do a
beneficent work-all at least, except the earthquake, into
the purpose of which men have not yet been able to penetrate. But violence in the moral world, the fury and wild
force of nations, as of individuals, is not only against
moral order but also against the original conception of
the system. The fact of sin, then, the impetuous rage of
sin on the great scale, looks as if finite beings were getting
the better of God, as if they were disappointing Him,
and marring somewhat the majesty of His throne, when
they lift up their waves against Him. But it is far otherwise: the Lord on high is in the end shown to be
"mightier than the noise of many waters, yea than the
mighty waves of the sea."
For first the law of retribution is continually coming
into play, when nations commit great crimes. The blind
force of finite minds punishes itself, and thus clothes God
before the eyes of His creatures with majesty, and establis; es His. throne. It is a glorious thing when national
wickedness is punished; God seems to come nearer then
than in the earthquake and the flood; He speaks a word
of rebuke and warning to many millions all at once. As
He sees them  madly given up to falsehoods, He leads
thnem by false hopes or rash counsels or the dissensions of
selfish ambition to disaster and disgrace, or He blows




336          The Stability of God's Throne.
upon them with His pestilential breath, crippling their
strength as in a moment, and filling them with dismay.
A nation sometimes gives up faith in Him. But there is
a law of His kingdom, which makes religion necessary to
national weal, and so these misguided men, who thought
to drive God out of His world, find Him coming back
armed with terrors, a consuming fire, a dread avenger.
They shall see Him  though they bandage their eyes
against the flashes of His lightnings; He will bring Himself back to their minds; men shall know there is a God
that judgeth in the earth.
And secondly, God draws good out of evil.  As in
storm, and flood, and lightning, so here His final purpose
is beneficent, although, through the perversity of man, not
always attained. Sometimes He chastises their pride, and
a humbled nation, bowing in repentance before Him, will
henceforth have in its hand the key of prosperity, will
respect the rights of others more, and learn lessons more
readily. Sometimes a vast structure of injustice on which
they set their hearts, which they upheld by all sophistry
in defiance of truth and God, is made the source of their
present ruin, but out of the trunk grows up again a vigorous tree, which will flourish for ages. A lesson of justice
has been burnt into them which they will not forget.
Sometimes they cast God away in voluptuous refinement and heartless skepticism. They are punished by
dissolution of civil order, by wild passions in society, by
strife of class with class, by political revolution.  They
are shaken until they acknowledge God again and become
able to have an orderly and established government.
Thus, nations lose their stability when they come into
conflict with the stability of God, with those principles of
eternal truth and justice, which are deeper foundations of
His throne than natural law and infinite power. So has
it been in our case. A nation enjoying every blessing,
has suddenly been thrown into the thickest of a political




The Stability of God's Throne.        337
storm  most vast and terrible. And why?  Because it
lifted itself up in pride and boastfulness, because it sanctioned manifest political injustice, and fell into political
corruption. God would not let it perish without an earnest attempt to save it. How signal has been the chastisement! The more guilty part of the land has been led in
demoniac madness into a state where they are ground as
between the upper and nether millstone. The less guilty
has been called to severe sacrifices, to humiliation, to
anxiety, to the discovery of its dependence on God, and it
knows not what it is destined still to endure. May we
not hope, however, that when this war shall end, when the
Lord on High shall have shown Himself mightier than the
noise of many waters, this nation, stripped of its political
injustice, humbled, made more honest, seeing God in its
history, will be prepared for a bright and high destiny?
May we not hope, that, mended like a watch, and moving
in harmony with divine order, it will fulfill its high
calling, which it had, in a great measure, abandoned, of
spreading a sense of justice, a pure political example, the
blessings of freedom  and of the Gospel, through the
nations?
II. The Psalmist passes on by an easy sequence to teach
us that God's testimonies or precepts are sure, that is, are
true, permanent, and to be relied upon. If the swelling
waters that lift up their voice are symbols of disorder
among nations as well as in nature, the transition is yet
more smooth; for from the majesty and power of God as
displayed against rebellious nations we go directly to His
precepts which they have violated and which He upholds
by His judgments.
From the stability of nature we could not infer at once
the stability of the moral system. But our nature compels us to refer this stability of nature to God, and to
attribute to the author of nature a moral character; a
plan of government, a kingdom. Nay, if we should sepa15




338          The Stability of God's Throne.
rate in thought the natural attributes in God from  the
moral, they would, standing alone, awaken no respect in
us; a king of limited power, but with a soul alive to
justice, would stand higher in our veneration.
But if God has a moral nature it must be a fixed one.
The great system of righteousness must take a permanent
place in a mind of boundless wisdom, which has no bia ses
and needs no experience.  And not only this, but the
moral in God's sight must have a far higher value than
the physical; righteousness is the stability of His throne;
it were better for heaven and earth to pass away than
that He should favor or sanction one jot of injustice. If
so, His precepts are sure, they can never be abrogated,
never be made light of. They are the reliance of all who
love righteousness, individuals or nations.  And thus
holiness becomes His house for ever. Having a character of holiness which will never alter, He demands a like
disposition from those who worship Him. The forms of
His worship may change, but its essence is the same for
ever, spiritual union with God, consecration to Him as a
holy, wise, true, merciful King and Father.
1. In closing this subject I remark first that whatever
adds to the strength of the conviction that God and His
precepts are immovable, adds also to the power of the
righteous in this world. We live in a world of irregularities where good and evil seem  to have oftentimes about
equal strength; nay, the complaint has arisen in many ages
from the servants of God that evil is the strongest. To
meet this faintness of heart God appeals to His omnipotence. "Lift up your eyes on high and behold who hath
created these things, that bringeth out their host by
number, why sayest thou, O  Jacob, and speakest, O
Israel! my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment
is passed over from my God?"  Shall He who spread the
heavens as a tent to dwell in, who created the earth, and




The Stability of God's Throne.       339
settled it on its foundation, shall He have no stability of
purposes, no uniformity of views in regard to what takes
place among men?  No, it cannot be! He must hate
fraud, injustice, faithlessness, malice and furious rage
more than you can, O Christian. Confide in Him then.
Go forth to your work in the world with courage, trusting
in the unchangeable righteousness of God. Every thing
right that you do as a man, a citizen, a Christian, has His
sympathy. He unchangeably loves right and must love
you. Is not a man strong, will not a church or a righteous nation be strong, if it can entertain faith like this?
2. Times of natural and moral convulsion are pre-eminently times calculated to bring God before the mind.
They bring Him from behind the cloud, He seems to
show  His face, and to those who humble themselves
before Him He speaks words of encouragement and hope.
We have already referred to God's-dealings with the nations
that lift up their wild cries against His sway, as seen in
His punishments and corrections. In this way Napoleon
was a preacher of righteousness to Europe; as the scourge
of God he awakened many from their dreary infidelity
and atheism. A German gentleman once told me that
amid the disasters of Prussia, about the time of the battle
of Jena, he first began to feel that there was a God in the
earth, having been a Pantheist before. And not only do
the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness at such
times, but the servants of God are brought near to Him.
Humbled before His majesty for their sins, they are fit to
be exalted. Seeing God in His majesty they trust in His
strength, in His righteousness. They are enabled to commit the interests which are dear to Him into His hands
with the assurance that He will do well. They rejoice in
His control, and love Him when He smites them  and
theirs. In the noble words of Tennyson their love and
faith




340           The Stability of God's Throne.
" Hear at times a sentinel
That moves about fromn place to place,
And whispers to the vast of space
Among the worlds that all is well.
And all is well, though faith and form
Be sundered in the night of fear;
Well roars the storm to those that hear
A deeper voice across the storm."
3. How glorious the system of God will appear to those
who shall see it in its oneness and completion.
Microscopic beauty, displays on a small scale or for a
brief -space of time, suit our minds now, but immense
outlines, long stretching plans are too great for us.  With
God one day is as.a thousand years and a thousand years
as one day; but it requires a special training for man to
rise to the comprehension of His counsels, so that the
brief experiences of our lives are constantly coining into
conflict with what He has made known to us concerning
Himself.  And if we were merely individuals, without the
bond of race and the experiences of the race, we could
have no conception of a great plan running on through
time, and destined to issue in something glorious when
time shall end.
Of such a plan He makes us aware in His word, and
the stability of His character, His unalterable wisdom, is
pledged to carry it through. History, when it arises to
the height of some critical epoch in the world's affairs
and looks through many ages, confirms the existence of
such a plan; although, if revelation did not furnish the
key it could not solve the mysteries of Providence, nor
be quite sure that there is a Providence.
Faith and hope, which are prophetic powers in a servant of God, go still farther: they argue from His character and His promises, the certainty, the stability of His
system.  Hence, the visions of faith are sometimes rapturous.  But how much more glorious will be the aspect
of the system  to those who shall be initiated in a future




The Stability of God's Throne.       341
life, into the wondrous counsels of God; who shall see
beginning, middle and end; the interruptions, the oppositions, the steps forward, the victory, the closing triumph?
God will not seem  slow or slack then, but majestic,
almighty, all-wise, one and the same through the whole
drama. We look upon some vast mountain of solid rock;
we call to mind that it has defied the elements for ages;
the flood rose and fell leaving it as it was, the rains and
snows have scarcely made an impression on its surface; it
has outlasted all human works and will stand until the
doom. Such, to illustrate great things by small, will the
stability of God's system  appear, when  surveyed  and
traced out from the heights of Heaven. But even in this
world, we may expect that at some future time, there will
be a most profound impression pervading mankind, of
the stability and oneness of God's counsels; general history will, one day, be more wrought out than now, and
will be brought into harmony with revelation. When such
a time shall come, the world will appear to be one more than
now, and the race one, and the counsels of God one from
their germ to their perfect fulfillment. Then the perverted'
will of man, the schemes of imperial power, the theories
sanctifying injustice, the great systems of oppression will
seem to have been used by God to spread His glory. As
then the enlightened eye shall look back on obstacles,
which, at their time, seemed insurmountable, but have
now faded away in the distance,-on the wrath of man
opposing God or defying Him, on revolutions in opinion
and in society, they will seem like the storm of yesterday,
which has left no trace on the sky, while the steady laws
of God run their constant race. "God has triumphed,
He has triumphed;" they will then say: "The floods
lifted up their voice, the floods lifted up their waves.
The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many
waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea."  And so
we may hope that human experience, running down in




342          The Stability of God's Throne.
the channel of history, will unite with faith and revelation, that a rectified opinion of mankind will ascribe to
God His proper majesty and His place in the affairs of
men, that a deep conviction of the stability of God's
moral system, of the unchangeableness of His holiness,
will drive unrighteousness from the world, and help to
purify the nations.*
e Written in 1862.




SERMON XXIII.
THE STABILITY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
ISAIAH Ix. 20, 21 (in part). The Lord shall be thine everlasting lightThy people shall be all righteous, they shall inherit the land forever.
ISAIAH lxvi. 22. As the new heavens and new earth, which I will
make shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and
your name remain.
THE  Christian  Church  is not the conqueror of the
Jewish polity, but the heir and -successor.  The new covenant has been developed out of the old.  There was no
break when Christ came, but a fulfilment and a completion.  And  so the promises were handed  down in the
Christian line, among which these from  the latter part
of Isaiah, relating to the stability of the ancient Church,
are not the least remarkable.  They declare that God is
an everlasting light to His people, that their permanence
is like the permanence of the creation of God.
The permanence of the Christian Church in the world,
if it be a fact, is unlike all facts of history.  Everything
human decays and passes away.  All institutions, forms
of government, civilizations, have their day and decline.
No one doubts that the old religions of India and its
castes are doomed to perish.  We cannot, therefore, be
assured from  history, that Christianity may not perish
also. Still, when you look at its origin, its power of
growth, its vitality, when everything  around was dead;.its changes of form joined to unchangeableness of principle; its power to correct evils within its pale; its predominance among the influences that act on mankind; its
universal character, and its consciousness-so to speakthat the world is its own, you cannot feel it to be otherwise
343




344      The Stability of the Christian Church.
than quite probable that it is to be man's guide to the end
of time.
Think how, at the first, before a church, in the external
sense of the word, arose, before a comrpactly organized
body, acting together in all places, with officers guided by
a common spirit, sent its power over the world,-how, at
its very birth, it was strong to resist and to oppose, and
strangled the serpents sent to destroy it in its very cradle.
What courage, what feeling of strength  there was in
those men who went forth alone to preach Christ, calculating beforehand that they should die in the struggle,
but sure that they were planting that which should live.
Or cast your eyes on that later time, when in all quiet, by
simple appeal to men's hearts, it spread itself over the
Roman empire, disarmed persecutors, got supreme power
into its hands, and rooted out the forms of heathenism.
Here it showed itself not only stable but dominant, and
this very dominion, by bringing causes of corruption
within the Church, put it to the severest test. But its
stability stood the test. It showed an inward vitality in
the cures which it applied to its own disease. The power
of self-reformation in a man, or in bodies political or religious, is surely an indication of an inward life. Or, if you
look at what the Church is doing now-bringing back the
apostolic age in endeavors to convert the world, grappling with all the hard problems of society, standing its
ground against the metaphysics of pantheism and of sensation, and raising the standard of personal godliness,you find her animated by the same spirit, and at the old
problem  with renewed courage.  Thus, though history is
not prophecy, though it cannot with authority predict the
universal and final sway of Christ's Gospel and of Christian institutions, it reveals, at the least, a working power,
a tenacity of life, a hopefulness, a benevolent energy,
which are not inconsistent with stability and with continuance until the end of time.




The Stability of the Christian Church.     345
To what is this stability due?  We shall look at several
causes to which it is not due, but to which, on a slu irpl'cial view, it might be ascribed; and then, shall endeavor
to show how in right reason it may be accounted for.
It is not owing, then, to strength borrowed from governments. A  Roman pro-consul in Asia Minor, wriling to
his emperor, in the year 104, could say that the contagious superstition of the Christians had then spread not
only through cities, but through villages and the open
country, until the heathen temples had become desolate,
the sacred festivals were neglected, and victims for sacrifice were in little demand.  To stop this, was the office of
persecution.  Thus the Church grew without help from
the government; it grew also in spite of long efforts of
the government to destroy it; whenever it has been protected by the State, it has been injured in proportion to
the closeness of the union, and it has flourished most
when most left to itself. It submits to all sorts of restraints and grows; it grows under neglect, but the embrace
of the powers of the world tends to stifle it.  It can no
more form an alliance with those who have the power
and the glory of the world in their gift, than its Master
could bow down and worship the tempter, bringing in his
hand the same offerings.
Nor is the stability of the Church due to the stability
of its forms of discipline and order. These have passed
through a great variety of changes, from the times of the
nascent Church, when there was little of established
order, down through the ages of hierarchy, to our times,
when the Church thrives in a great variety of forms, and
with varied theories of government. Some forms indeed
injure it, because they interfere with its spirituality and
its freedom, but it remains at this time to be proved, that
the Gospel cannot accommodate itself to any order of
discipline which permits its untrammeled development;
and its future form  of organization is still a problem: we
1 5e




846      The Stability of the Christian Church.
cannot tell whether it will be outwardly one or outwardly
many, and, if one, what will be its shape.
Nor yet is the stability of the church owing to the stability of theological systems. It grew, it almost reigned,
before any received dogmatic statements of its sacred truth
were current. It has outlived theories and expositions
innumerable, and indeed nothing connected with Christianity has been more changing than the scientific arrangements of its truths. We do not deny that a theology
incorporating falsehood into its system may be detrimental
to the Church and to the soul, but it is refreshing to
think that within certain limits of variation in its theology its faith and hope are the same. The same Gospel
cheers and vitalizes two opposite churches which denounce
one another: Augustine and the Greek Fathers, Luther
and Zwingli, Calvin and Arminius, Whitefield and
Wesley thought differently, bat at the bottom felt and
hoped alike. Amid all the varying chimes of theological
bells the same old hymn has been sung by the church,
" Blessing and glory and honor and power be unto Him
who sitteth on the throne and to the Lamb forever."
Nor can the stability of the church be explained by
saying that it got the control of opinion and kept thought
in leading strings, so that when science was emancipated,
new conditions full of danger to the church began. It
arose in spite of a reigning heathen opinion and philosophy, which it overthrew and put another in the place.
It has in its healthiest state favored all knowledge in the
confidence of being itself together with every other true
thing from God. That some opinion and some science
have been hostile to it and would undermine it, if universally admitted, is beyond question, and could not be
otherwise. That on the other hand some received dogmas
of the Church may have to be modified or thrown away
is quite possible, but nothing as yet shows that there is
on the part of physical science, as obtained by a study of




The Stability of the CGhristian Church.   347
nature, or of history, the science of human progress, a
hostility or even a want of sympathy with the Church
and with the Saviour.
Nor, lastly, can the stability of the Church be attributed
to the condescending patronage of large-minded men, who
saw in its justice and humanity a help for the world to be
found no where else, but yet did not believe in it themselves. There have been such men without doubt, who
have held Christianity to be an excellent religion for the
masses, who would uphold it even by law and by est;blishments, but did not call themselves Christians.  But in
truth they have had very little hand in sustaining the
Church. Perhaps their not entirely honest relation to
the Gospel may have done more harm than their support
did good. It is not unlikely that if they had persecuted
the Church, they would have done it still more good.
And it seems quite certain that such aid on earthly
grounds to religion will do little good and little harm to
those who seek the heavenly, to those who will have a
religion from God if they can find it in the universe, to
those whose justice and humanity and pains-taking for
mankind flow out of Christ the fountain, and out of irrepressible convictions in their own hearts.
To what, then, is the stability of the Church due, if all
these reasons are to be set aside? And to this question
it is no sufficient answer that the Holy Spirit is ever in and
with the Church. For the Spirit's office is to act on men
according to the laws of character by Divine realities. The
question, then, still recurs, to what causes in the hands of
the Divine Agent is the permanence of the Christian
Church to be ascribed?
I. It is due, I mention in the first place, to this: that
the Gospel, on which the Church is built, works out some
of the great problems which lie on the heart of man, in a
way to give lasting peace and satisfaction to the soul. I
refer to practical rather than to intellectual problems,




348       The Stability of the Christian Church.
although even the restless questionings of the mind either
meet with an answer from the divine oracles, or are carried
up into a higher realm of truth. The power inherent in
Christianity itself, as a way of reconciling God and man,
and of raising man above sin by great truths and great
hopes, is a real and a permanent power. It is suited to
all natures and capacities, to all races and times. Of
course, if a soul or an age rejects the Gospel, it can have
no effect on life as long as the unbelief lasts; but unbelief
is a forlorn state for every earnest mind. As unbelief
consists of mere denials and doubts, it only increases the
natural unrest which is the fruit of sin. The proofs of the
truth of the Gospel are not demonstrations, so that it does
not rise above the possibility of being doubted and rejected. But it puts its trust not on its cogent arguments,
addressed to the understanding, but chiefly on those appeals to the soul which carry with them their own evidence
and gain the consent of the whole nature. True, doubts
will arise in the intellectual region after the reception of
Christianity, as clouds in the atmosphere: there is no
known, there is no possible explanation to the full of the
relations between the finite and the infinite.  These, however, are of small account, if the experience of the soul assures it, that there is a light above the clouds, a real Sun
in which there is no darkness at all.
We assume in what we say, that mankind need and will
have some religion. It is as necessary for the race to be
bound to God by this cord, as to be bound together in societies by institutions and governments. For this reason,
when Christianity is first thrown among pagans, it may
naturally be looked on as an enemy. It strips souls of
their hopes, and they know not what it has to offer to fill
up the gap.  Hence opposition, persecution, the death or
exile of those who bring the tidings from heaven to unenlightened coasts. But it conquers, because man is, or at
least some meni ark, prepared for it. It tells them what




The Stability of the Christian Church.     349
they half knew before, it offers an unspeakably great gift,
it comes with an honest countenance that silences suspicion and distrust.  Frivolous souls turn from it, but they
do not make opinion, they pass for nothing in the general
weight of affairs; while earnest souls, even in paganism,
have a longing for something higher titan they can reach,
and if satisfied, will die for their convictions.  "This was
the God I called upon to save my child," said an Indian
woman to Mayhew, when he, for the first time, preached
the Gospel to the Nantucket Indians, and she received the
message which spoke of divine pity. B.er heart was ready
for a resurrection, and the voice of Christ raised her from
the dead.
And so the Gospel, as it travels along the ages, finds
many who will not open their hearts to it, but finds many
others who count it their chief treasure. They feel it to
be solid ground.  It does not quake under their feet.  Its
hopes and motives last for a life-time, and they expect to
live with its steady light shining upon them until their
eyes close in death.
If, on the other hand, Christ had furnished man only
with a relief from the earthly woes of a corrupt religion, a
vicious society, a grinding despotism, His Gospel might
have been embraced and diffused, but, as soon as conquest
and a new race had overturned the old order of things,
such a secular Gospel would have fulfilled its work, and,
like all the births of time, have been swallowed up by
time.  Or if there had been a flaw in it, if it had not
worn well, as tested by experience, if it had offered what it
could not give, had promised rest to souls whose unrest no
physician of souls could remove, the weakness of its pretensions would have been found out. The second or third
century would have witnessed its decline.  On the other
hand, the stability of the conviction presupposed and confirmed by Christianity, the lasting satisfaction attendant on
its method of salvation, the unchangeable grandeur of its




350       The Stability of the Christian Church.
aims, and of the motives by which it acts on mankind, its
peace and joy which are found to be abiding-these, tested
by experience, insure the stability of the Church, composed
of minds the same in their wants, and in their capacity of
receiving spiritual realities.
II. The stability of the Church is due, in the second
place, to those permanent features of the Gospel, which
bind men together in a brotherhood pervaded by the
spirit of love and fellowship. It would be a great thing if
each soul lived by itself in its own separate sphere, amid
incommunicable joys and hopes. And there is, indeed, in
every Christian breast a closed and locked chamber of
most inward feelings, where God and Christ alone are the
guests. But how poor and unsuited for such natures as
ours would a religion be, which lived thus beyond the eyes
and ears of friends and fellow-men, which was no bond or
cement of society, no companion in social life! Is it not
one of the highest glories of Christianity, if there is that in
it which fits it to enter into the common interests of men,
which ties believing souls together, makes them one body,
unites them in common worship, causes them to express
their feeling of brotherhood in Christian institutions, and
gives them that spirit of mutual help, which renders the
whole community strong? That there are such principles
of union, which not only bring.different minds into harmony, but almost of necessity give birth to institutions,
there can be no doubt. The existence of the Church of
Christ was involved in the Gospel itself, and it would have
grown up without any positive rules, from the necessities
of Christian intercourse, or of Christian instruction, from
the impulse of common feelings, from a common faith and
common hopes. Man has been called a political animal,
as led by the cravings of his nature to enter not only into
society, but into society which is organized under law and
government, and has thus a permanent life. But much
more will a Church grow out of the spirit of the Gospel,




The Stability of the Christian Church.     351
because here not only society, but brotherhood, a fellowship
of similar minds, is provided for by the very spirit wiuh
which Christ is received into the heart. This brotherhood,
furthermore, must be stable and permctalent,. because Christ
and the relations of believers to Him are permanent; because the Scriptures are in a fixed form, and because the
needs and the aims of a spiritual life, and the hopes of
immortal life, are permanent.
But here an objection is made; it will be said that the
church has changed and must change; that within a particular church there are diversities of intelligence, of character, of Christian progress, of degree of faith which cannot
fully be united, and that in the general body of believers
there is no external, and little internal union. In the
Catholic church, as soon as intelligence overcame the stagnation and paralysis of the middle ages, sects of philosophy
began to dispute, monks of different orders quarrelled, the
papal and the episcopal principles, or monarchy and aristocracy, contended together. In the Protestant world the
right of private judgment carries division much farther
still, and dogmatic differences are here of far higher importance than in Catholic Christendom, where a generally
received authority puts a check on the excesses of private
judgment.
We accept of this summary of facts as a fair one, with
whatever spirit it may be made. We do not believe either
that the right of controlling the opinions of the major part
of society by a select few has any validity, nor do we believe multiplicity of sects to be a blessing. We do not see
that there is any pledge in the Gospel against corruptions,
against abuse of Christian liberty, against infusing human
ingredients of weakness into  the divinely constituted
church.  The problem here, as in society, is to harmonize
liberty and order. The problem is not to avoid all change,
to bind men with fetters, so that they shall think and act
exactly as Christians did in the age of Augustin, or even




352       The Stability of the Christian Church.
in the age of the apostles. It is the great desideratum to
have a church flexible and yet fixed, obedient to the necessities of the times, yet adhering to the unchanging principles of Christianity. Just as in the English constitution,
with all its great alterations since the sixteenth century,
there have been certain fixed principles of justice, certain
fixed, or nearly fixed, rights of the people, certain political
landmarks; so and much more is it with the Church, or
if I must so say, the churches of Christ. There is an evil
in divisions into sects, as there is in strata of society. But.
the real church under all its shapes subsists through all the
evils. With heart-burnings and jealousies and unfounded
suspicions there is a general unity. They sing each other's
hymns, they pray together, in affliction they comfort one
another by the same grand truths treasured up in the divine word. God's forgiving love, Christ's sacrifice of
Himself for all, the Holy Spirit leading Christian hearts
into purity and peace, the foundations of morality in love
and obedience, immortal hopes  these precious things fixed
as the solid mountains are dear to all in spite of differences
in dogma or in discipline.  The time may come, and seems
approaching, when there shall be no mystical Quakers, no
logical Calvinists, no emotional Methodists, no Baptists or
Ritualists shut up within the close pale of a rite or of a
church, but even now the true church runs through and
into them all, as true to the general principles as if there
had been no separation.  Nay more, I cannot help believing that the time is not a great way off when godly Roman Catholics, as they hold to the same conversion from
sin with Protestants, to the same sacrifice of Christ, to the
same love from God and to God, will find their hearts too
large for their narrow church, will hold to a brotherhood
of saints in which all partake, and will say, as was said in
apostolic times, " We believe that through the grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they."
III. And this leads us thirdly to remark that the Church




The Stability of the Christian Church.     353
owes its permanence in part also to its self-reforming
capacity.  We hinted at this in the beginning of our
discourse, but it is too great a thing for a brief and passing
mention.
The human and the divine have ever mingled and will
ever mingle in the historical progress of Christianity, as
they mingle in the development of a Christian life. No
thinker, who rightly weighs past facts or the nature of the
case, can expect that a supernatural religion will keep out
all corruption from its own province. Men and ages may
fall away from the high standard of Christian life, which
the gospel holds up, and so they will pervert the truth,
for surely the idea is preposterous that a fallen man or a
fallen age will cling to the truth with the same fidelity and
interest which were showed in days of unworldliness and
purity.  "It must needs be that offences come."  "In the
latter times some shall depart front the faith."  "Many
shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the
way of truth shall be evil spoken of." Such sayings of
Christ and His Apostles are our guide.  Full of good
sense, they show that Christianity was neither founded nor
spread by idealists who thought that a world of sin would
offer no trials or sources of corruption to their followers.
They encountered bitter opposition, they expected to die
for the truth, and they did not rate the corrupting influences of the world upon a successful and triumphant
Church at all too low.
There are then unavoidable sources of corruption in the
revolutions of society, in the growth of wealth, in the love
of self-gratification, in the increase of worldly comforts.
There are other sources in the ignorance of untrained
Christians, in the ambition of the clergy, and their love of
dominion, in the rewards offered within the Church to the
aspiring in formalism, in a dead orthodoxy.  With the
conversion of Constantine came, as an ancient Christian
writer says, an unspeakable amount of hypocrisy into the




354      The Stability of the Christian Church.
Church. Thb conquest of Europe by the Germanic race,
necessary as it was for the ultimate good of the Church
and of mankind, spread over that continent brutal halfheathen men, ignorant of every thing, and this revolution
in society could not but retard the progress of Christian
light, as well as bring bad men into the Church itself.
But the worst of all corruptions are those silent ones which
arise from a decaying or a material or a hollow civilization,
which creep over men's souls to destroy the energy of
Christian life and neutralize the power of Christian truth.
Now how are these corruptions to be removed?  The
answer is that at the lowest ebb of Christian life and knowledge there remain within the reach of the Church the
sources of a better spiritual state, so that it can reform itself
as it has done more than once. First, as long as the
Bible is acknowledged as an authority, there is an appeal
to it from all other authorities, from popes, and councils,
and philosophers, and the current opinion of the time.
Next, there are at the times of greatest declension men
who are somehow led, as we believe, by the Divine Spirit
concurring with the word, into a deeper experience; they
rise above their times, they reach convictions which are
irrepressible, they must proclaim to the world at any cost
what they found out as the resting-places of their souls;
they become the starting points of a reform which sweeps
over all Christian nations. Let, for instance, the grand
truth of free remission of sins, without our works and
deservings through the mediation of Christ, be obscured in
the Church or half-forgotten, some man will appear who
has learned it anew from the Bible, and from the experience through which his own soul has past. From him
that reform, that rectification of opinion and life, which he
has undergone, will spread all around; nor can any
tyranny over human thought, any dread of public avowals
of faith, any fear of the consequences of separation wholly
destroy the movement. Thus the Church is ever coming




The Stability of the Christian Church.     355
back to the old principles and feelings, because the Bible is
the same Book, old yet new, the treasure-house of spiritual
power, and because when it is believed the same old effects
follow  that showed themselves when Christ was first
preached.
IV  Lastly the stability of the Church is ensured by the
stability of Christ. "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever." Here we will dwell not on the objective
truth which clusters around Christ, and emanates from
Him as the centre of the system  and its essence, so much
as on Christ fitted by His nature and work to be the attraction of the Christian soul. If the truth which lies at
the foundation of Christianity could lose its hold on the
minds of men, of course the Church and all positive religion, together with the meaning of life. and the best
qualities of modern civilization, would perish.  But the
hold which Christianity has depends on Christ, and the
hold which Christ has is chiefly dependent on those personal affections and reverential regard which souls that
receive Christ entertain towards Him.  Every thing then
in the stability and durability of the Church turns on
these two points; whether He is fitted to attract the soul
towards Himself, and whether any change of feeling towards Him can be detected in Christian minds through
new tendencies of thought or of civilization, or through
any other cause.
As it regards the first point no one can doubt, taking
Christ's personal life and work together, that He is fitted
to draw all men unto Himself. If Christians or any great
number of them  really love Him with a love surpassing
that which they feel towards the nearest earthly friend,
if He has held His place for centuries so that Christian
poetry and painting, Christian song in its union of voice
and music, all love to draw their subjects from  His life
and death, this is pretty good proof of what has been the
cord that binds the soul to Christ. So it was yesterday.




356      The Stability of the Christian Church.
Is it so to-day, and will it be so forever?  WVe may be
certain of this, that there never will be a new-edition of
Christianity with Christ left out of it. If He is given up
all positive religion, all authority which speaks to us men
from beyond our own nature will perish with Him.  He
is the principal part; the drama would be stale and empty
without Him.  But are there no signs of a rejection of
Christ, and can He stand the mass of attacks, critical, historical, metaphysical which  are made  against Him?
There are signs of a conflict from which some return with
deeper confidence to the Saviour, simplifying their faith
by pointing it more exclusively towards Him; while
others go away and deny Him, yet generally not without
deep reverence for His character. And thus we see that
in the struggles of doubt His character rises above all
question. It remains amid all the difficulties with which
the understanding concerns itself, a point of attraction for
the soul, an assurance of His sincerity, a proof that His
clear consciousness of what He was did not deceive Him.
Christ then is a fixed Saviour for the present and for the
future. Doubt is of to-day, but He is of all time. Once
let a soul feel its sins and have a longing for a better life,
and turn in simplicity to Christ, and discover how He can
satisfy its longings, and how in all boldness and in all
love He reveals Himself as its Saviour, that is all;-He is
received and loved. He is a permanent possession for the
soul. He does not wear out in a life-time. He is the permanent possession of the  Church in all its ages and
changes.  He does not wear out while there are men to
long for redemption.  He is, in the words of the Apocalypse, "The true and faithful witness, the first-begotten
from the dead; " and so the Church cries out, in the
words which follow these, "Unto Him that loved us and
washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made
us kings and priests unto God and His Father, to Him be
glory and dominion forever."




The Stability of the Christian Church.     357
The stability of the Church, we add in closing, is fitted
to inspire us with courage.  It may have its ups and
downs, its bright days and dark days: men's hearts, when
they see doubt, denial, the follies and the faults of Christians, may fail them  for fear, but it is an unreasonable
fear.  Doubt about your own endurance, if you will,
although that is the part of little faith; but do not doubt
that principles of salvation, which have stood their ground
against sin in so many minds in all the varying forms of
society, can work out and will work out the same results
and more glorious ones in the future. If the Gospel has
ever corrected your mistakes and follies, believe, as you
may fairly, that it may do the same for the Church.  If
it has held its own and perhaps made advances in your
heart, believe that it can do the same in the world. If
you have had times of trial or of darkness, and the Gospel was your stay, believe that it may be the general stay
of all believers. Let your experience put new life into
the promises of God, and the promises will put new life
into you. To this we must come at last, that whatever
Christ can do for us He can do for all; that if we can
testify to an abiding hold of His Gospel on our souls it
has in itself stability, and the Church built on it has stability
also.




SERMON XXIV.
LONGINGS FOR THE HEAVENLY CITY.
HEBREWS XI. 14-16. 14. For they that say such things declare
plainly that they seek a country: 15. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had
opportunity to have returned. 16. But now they desire a better country,
that is a heavenly, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God;
for he hath prepared for them a city.
THE language which comes from the lives of godly men
is that they are pilgrims and strangers on earth.  Such
was the declaration made by the patriarch Jacob to the
king of Egypt when he inquired of him his age.  "The
days of the years of my pilgrimage," he replied, " are an
hundred and thirty years; few and evil have the days of
the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the
days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of
their pilgrimage."  This confession of being a pilgrim was
not drawn from the patriarch by his feeling of the shortness of life, for he considered his fathers who had reached a
much greater age as pilgrims also.  Neither was it drawn
from  him  by the feeling that his life had been passed
among strangers away from his kindred and the graves of
his ancestors. For as the sacred writer says, if such had
been the feeling of the patriarchs, if they had sought an
earthly fatherland, they had constant opportunities to return; they needed only to cross the Euphrates at the same
old ford in order to find their kindred again and be among
the traditions of their fathers. But this was not what they
meant, when they felt as pilgrims and longed for a home.
The longing was a spiritual one; and even should we suppose that they klnew little of a future life, their feeling was
an aspiration for more of God and of blessedness in God
358




Longings for the Heavenly City.       359
than they could have here. They had a kind of sacred
discontent with the best that earth could give, and a sense
that without more maturity in godliness and more knowledge of God the end of their existence was unfulfilled.
This was the deep source from which their pilgrim feeling
proceeded; and hence the feeling continued, as long as
they were away from God. They thus recognized God as
their portion, and in turn He was not ashamed to be called
their God, that is, not their object of worship but their protector and guardian. Well He might thus be called, for
He had prepared for them a city. He would not suffer
these longings of theirs, which were founded on faith and
love to Him, to be unsatisfied.  He had built a city on
purpose for their reception. They were to have, instead
of tabernacles, in which they removed from one pasturage
to another, a settled home; instead of a dwelling among
strangers a dwelling among the truest friends, instead of a
lonely tent a thronged city, instead of a residence without
rights or security, a share in that safe commonwealth, that
heavenly polity over which God reigns.
The text, as thus expounded, supplies us with several
subjects for reflection, among which I name first the longing which the godly have for something better than this
world can give. Here we may notice first of all the difference in kind between this longing and sinful discontent on
the one hand, and the difference between it and the noble
aspirations of worldly minds on the other.
II. Discontent is the spirit of self-will, displeased with
the ordinances of God, or denying a providence and complaining of its destiny. This temper is insubordinate, for
it would remove the disposal of things out of God's hands:
it is proud and selfish, for so far from  being willing to
take an humble place in the universe it would take the
highest, and bend everything to its own arrangements:
it is worldly, for the excessive desire of earthly good, which
by the nature of the case must be ungratified, gives it




360.        Longings for the Heavenly City.
birth: it is not only miserable in itself, but the source of new
misery, for it leads the soul to look on the dark side of' its
earthly lot, and to make the most of whatever counteracts
the desires.
Compare with this discontent the temper of the godly
man, as he looks with dissatisfaction upon this world. He
may be in a depressed condition of life and surrounded
by the wrecks of hopes, but his tendency is not to complain or to chafe against the dispensations of God. He is
not dissatisfied with trials as such, for he views them as
intended to bring him into a state of holiness which will
more than make up for them. He is not dissatisfied with
God's providence, for he sees in it infinite reason and love.
He is not even dissatisfied with the world, for the reason
that his renewed nature has lowered his expectations and
anxieties in regard to worldly good, and changed his estimate of the nature of blessedness. There is then in his
feelings nothing of disappointment, or of that bitterness
towards human life, which we call misanthropy, and
which is as truly hatred of God, as it is hatred of man.
He is not disappointed and cannot be, because he has expected nothing inordinately great from his outward condition. He has entrusted his fund of hope to one who
cannot be false to him: he has laid up his treasure in
heaven.
The dissatisfaction of the godly man with this earthly
life is a feeling which can exist in the highest prosperity,
when the wishes are all gratified, when not a cloud is on
the sky. It has no reference whatever to external fortunes; no height of prosperity can extinguish it, and the
depths of sorrow only increase it. It has a divine source,
and is aroused by a sense of absence from  communion
more precious than any on earth, by a sense of imperfection which no progress in godliness has repressed, by a
sense of want of spiritual enjoyment for which no earthly
enjoyment can compensate. With such a dissatisfaction




Longings for the Heavenly City.       361
the highest contentment is compatible. The man may be
willing, yes, he may rejoice to stay amid his trials and in
a world of sin, in the hope of working for God and of
fitting himself for everlasting life. He is not like the
chained beast which howls with rage and bites his chain,
nor even like the caged bird, that sings as he flies about
the walls of his little prison but seizes the first chance to
escape: he is rather like the soldier in the garrison, with
whom he has often been compared, weary it may be with
the constant vigilance and the toilsome defence, but stationary until his commander allows him to depart, and
giving himself up meanwhile, with energy of will, perhaps
with heroic joy, to the defence of the fortress.
2. The feeling of the godly man towards this world, so
unlike the spirit of discontent, resembles much more the
higher aspirations of mere human nature. There are men
who seem to have by nature a high standard of character
and attainment, who, if they lived alone and were uneducated, would have a certain dignity about them  which is'not allotted to all. These men are not made to be worldlings; the toils of covetousness, the intrigues of ambition
they despise. If they engage in the pursuits of life, their
ideal follows them along their whole course. In art, if
they are artists, it places before them an excellence they
never reach. In poetry or eloquence, though they may
give high pleasure to others, they always keep a sense of
imperfection within themselves.  They are philosophers
not of a sensual school, but of an ideal or spiritual; they
live not by the rules of a prudential morality but with
lofty, perhaps with misty, aims. They set themselves to
the improvement of their own character or to the reformation of mankind. They are severe, exacting, unsatisfied
with the present, pushing forwards, it may be to an unattainable point in the future.
Now these men have this resemblance to the godly who
are our true pilgrims, that they are at a wide remove
16




362         Longings for the ELeavenly City.
from  earthly-mindedness in  its worst sense, that they
never reach the goal of their choice, and that thus they
gather a dissatisfaction, often a very great dissatisfaction,
with themselves and the world. But they differ from
them in this: that they have not surrendered their native
self-will, and that their standard, however lofty, is not
spiritual.  As they fail to take their proper place in God's
kingdom, there is nothing to prevent them from running
into the wildest complaints in respect to their condition.
Such men, who most need reliance and submission to God,
oftenest show the most improper temper, when they are
disappointed. How much of the biography of genius
consists of unfulfilled visions, of discontent with one's
self, and yet of complaints of the world's injustice, of
weariness of life. How many have taken the work of
ending this scene of dissatisfaction into their own suicidal
hands; unlike the heroic martyr at the stake, who longs
for the palms of Heaven, but will not shorten the hour of
agony one jot, since he is witnessing for God. How many
have lived like Rousseau, jealous, wretched inhabitants of
this world, neither pleased with themselves nor pleased
with the attentions of others, unlike the meekly suffering
Christian, whose cheerfulness is a bright lamp for the feet
of others, revealing to them the goodness of a divine
Father.
And again, these idealists, even the noblest of them all,
have nothing truly spiritual or godly in their aspirations.
We must admire them when we find them  grasping at
something beyond the attainment of man; we must sympathize with them in their struggles and their despondency, but we ought not to mistake the quality of their
endeavors. It is not communion with God, or likeness to
Him after which they long; they do not, under the sway
of the divine promises escape the corruption that is in the
world through lust, and so become partakers of the divine
nature. They may retain their aspirations after what is




Longings for the Heavenly City.       363
true and great, after perfection in art or science, or even
in character, without. lifting their eyes above the level of
this life, and taking God into view.  They are thus essentially distinct from the religious men after the scriptural
standard, who, though they may be rude and unlettered,
though they may have no appreciation of art and no.high
ideal, yet have taken into their souls a longing for God
and for communion with God.  "Their souls thirst for
God, for the living God; when shall I: come," they cry,
"and appear before God?" Now, though these aspirations
may be covered up and half-crushed by sinful worldly
anxieties, they exist; and they alone fit the soul for a
higher life, in which more glorious manifestations of God
will satisfy those who awake in.God's likeness. But the
aspirations of taste, science and self-discipline have;no
such preparatory influence; they rather take the place of
that more godlike sort of longing, and cheat the souls
where they lodge into the persuasion that they need no
transformation and no purer source of blessedness.
II. The text leads us to remark in the second place
that the godly have an opportunity to return to their
former state and make this world again their portion.
By not doing this they show that they seek a heavenly
country. The confessions which proceed from their lips
and lives prove that the world has not yet satisfied them.
But if their earthly desires are not subdued and controlled
by heavenly principles, they have abundant facilities for
making new experiments upon the world. They can immerse themselves in it again, as they did in their days of
thoughtlessness. They can assume that their ill success
in securing for themselves: earthly happiness was not
owing to the nature of man and of the objects offered to
him in the world, but to want of prudence or some wrong
direction of their efforts, or some sinister conjunction of
circumstances against them. They have the power to
throw themselves into the pursuit of this kind of good




364         Longings for the Heavenly City.
with as much eagerness as the merest worldling. There
are, moreover, temptations lying in their way, inviting
them to return to a worldly life, or to remain awhile
amid earthly enjoyments without thinking of their pilgrimage. The world is ready to welcome them back, for
it does not relish the silent reproofs which a non-conformist to its rules utters,- as he withdraws from  it.
There are ways of life for which something plausible can
be said, which excuse inordinate, engrossing love of the
world, and  dignify the exclusive minding of earthly
things with the name of virtue. Add to this that they
find within themselves something which conspires with
these outward tempters. They meet with difficulties which
perplex them; sloth calls them to present repose; fear
suggests future dangers; the world to come often seems
unreal and a great way off; the good they expect shrinks,
and present good swells in its dimensions. Thus they
have not only opportunity to return at times, but their
whole course is filled with such opportunities. Some who
seemed to be like them  have gone back, and made it
plain that the world was their home, and that they had
mistak-n their way, when they professed to begin the
pilgrim-life. These have never returned to the path on
which they set out, and by their careless, quiet satisfaction with this world condemn those who look beyond it.
Others are always halting, doubting which way they shall
go, going forward with averted eyes, and leaving their
sins with regret. You cannot tell what they are seeking
most. Certain it is they seem to make no progress on
their pilgrimage.
Amid these defections and haltings, these temptations
and opportunities to return, the man of a heavenly mind
utters his pilgrim's confession by his life, sings his pilgrimsong and goes forward. If his longings had been for
mere happiness he would have served the world like the
others. He would have refused to set out for heaven, or




Longings jbr the lewavenly City.       365
have returned, for it is destined for those who have only
happiness in view to make continual mistakes, to look for
it where it is not, and fail to see it where it is. Such
have no eye of faith to pierce the reality of things. But
he with opened eye is seeking for a better country, that is a
heavenly. It is not the extent of his dissatisfaction with
the world, or the strength of his resolution, or the force
of circumstances, or a peculiar nature which leads him on
in his chosen course, but the conviction that there is a
better country to which he can attain.  And it is better
not simply because it promises a greater amount of good,
or more lasting good such as the earth gives for a few
years, but because it lays before his hopes another kind of
good, as different from  earthly as possible. This difference between spiritual and temporal good was always a
reality of infinite importance, but he could not perceive it
until his eye was opened and his affections transferred.
Since that great revolution in his character, weak and
tempted and often vacillating as he has been, he has
resisted the invitations of the world to return to his old
plan of life, because his desires are fastened on a new
object, on the heavenly inheritance, which comprises all
that is holy and truly blessed.
III. Owing to these heavenly desires, to this spiritual
mind of the Christian, God is not ashamed to be called his
God. As his God and protector, God takes care of his
interests by preparing for him a city.
The aspirations of the heavenly mind point towards
God, and do homage to God not only as a lawgiver and
controller, but as a hope and portion. Now will God be
ashamed of such a heart, that breathes towards Him the
newlanguage of love and confidence?  Will He reject
from His service one who desires to be with Him and to
work for Him?  Will He make no difference between the
condition of those who have clung to this world in spite of
all divine influence, all warnings, all demonstrations of the




366         Longings for the Heavenly City.
emptiness of their hope, and those who have forsaken the
world to find Him? If He had made these no promise,
could He forbear to show them His complacency in their
choice; and if he has made them promises great and precious, will He fail in the performance?  They throw themselves, by an act of faith, on Him, take Him as their God,
resolve to cleave to Him, prize heaven because He is
there, and turn away from the earth because they cannot
see enough of Him  here: will He not value such faith,
such longing after Him, such surrendry of their happiness into His hands?  Assuredly He will.  He is far
from being ashamed of such service, far from disappointing
such hopes, far from  showing. to the universe, that such
consecration is of no account before Him, when, moreover,
His own Spirit inspired it. Therefore He enters into covenant with them: since they make Him, by an act of faith,
their God, that is their object of supreme veneration, their
hope, their guide, He becomes their God, that is, their protector-in which protection is included all necessary guidance by His Spirit and Providence here, together with the
hopes of immortal life.  They are not ashamed before the
world to make Him their God; He is not ashamed to be
called their God.
Acting as their God-the sacred writer proceeds to say
— He hath prepared for them a city. His preparations are
as large as their hopes. His foresight has, from the foundation of the world, arranged all things, so that whatever
changes overturn this world, there is an unchangeable
share in immortal life prepared for them. Others cannot
step in and take their inheritance. It is theirs by preparation, by the predetermination of God.
It is not without emphasis, that this portion prepared
for them  is called a city.  We have already, in brief,
summed up the notions that can lie in this word. Let us
now again give to it a moment's meditation.
It is a city which is prepared for them in contrast with a




Longings for the Heavenly City.        367
tent; it is something abiding and stationary, in contrast with
this temporary and uncertain state of existence.  The
dwellers in tents, as they drove their flocks from place to
place, beheld at a distance, perched on a hill-top, the cities
which the- industrious Canaanites had built.:  While they
were fastened to no one spot, the city dwellers lived within
their walls year after year; one generation of nomads
passed away after another, and still the city was there,
shining at a distance in the sun, with houses built to defy
time, whose walls were never taken down to be transported
to some other spot.  The city became to the owners of
flocks an emblem of what was lasting.: the tent became to
the citizens an emblem of what was short-lived and transient..
The man of God dwells in a tent or tabernacle in this
world, and not only wants no city here, but feels that he
can find none.  Still his nature longs for something
abiding.  Death, decay, change, uncertainty  are alien
from his nature, they run counter to tne longing for immortality which is within him.  Such an abiding-place
God, his God, hath provided for him. It is a city which
hath foundations, whose builder is the everlasting one, and
which the skill of such a builder has made indestructible.
It is a permanent home.  No more does he who is admitted into its gates need to be moved about in quest of a
new settlement. He is no more an emigrant or a pilgrim;
he is no more left to uncertain conjectures in regard to his
future condition.  This city henceforth: is to be his continual home, and his rest.
Again it is a city which is prepared for the godly man,
in distinction from a lonely tent among strangers. So that
his feeling of being by himself away from his best friends
will have an end. As the traveler in the East passes from
the bazaars and thronged streets of some capital, to the
border of the wilderness, where the Bedouin is encamped
for a season, he finds a new sort of people, who have no




368         Longings for the Heavenly Oily.
turn for city life, who are retired from the haunts of men,
and  when nearest to cities feel wholly estranged from
them.  Something so do godly men feel amid all the ties
and joys of this world. Its spirit is unlike theirs; they
have no home-feeling in its neighborhuod; they have,
while they live closest to it, an unsatisfied sense of absence from something most akin to them, a sense of emptiness for which hope alone furnishes a relief. The city
which God, their God, hath prepared for them  fills up
this want. There they are to be among friends, in whom
they can fully confide,-with God, Christ and  the redeemed,-there they will no more have that sense of
loneliness, which saddened them in their night-wanderings
through this world. The city is the great gathering place
of God's chosen ones, where nothing that hates or destroys can enter.
Again the place which God, their God, hath prepared
for them, is called a city, as being  the heavenly polity
where God reigns.  If the Bedouin or Tartar be carried
from his wild usages, to the rules and institutions of a
well-ordered commonwealth, he finds at once the entire
contrast with his old way of life.  He cannot adapt himself to the healthy control and method of a society so
wholly unlike his own spirit of license.
It is quite otherwise with the Christian. In this world,
as he wanders through it, he sees disorder, lawlessness, unbridled will: God reigns by natural law, but not over
human hearts or society.  And thus whatever institutions
arise on earth, they tend to acquire a godless character
and to decay. But this city, which God, his God, hath
prepared for him, is a  commonwealth of well-ordered,
sanctified minds, of citizens whose highest idea of freedom
is to serve and love with the entire devotion of the heart.
It is a place where the rights of God as a sovereign are
acknowlecdged with joy.  It is a city, where no citizen
violates the rights of another, where there can be no con



Longings for the Heavenly City.            369
flict of interests, no faction, no revolution, nor any itia',
penalty or restraint.  It is a place of periec  iharlamony, a
perfect commonwealth.
The reflections to which I have called your attenti n in
this discourse enable us to discover that heavenly longings and the feeling of the pilgrni can be ascribed to no
earthly origi.
There are those who think that what is divine in man,
as they call it, if unimpeded by counteracting causes and
refined by education, would blossom out into an unworldly,
heavenly character.  There is something in man which
discerns dimly or feels its celestial origin, and can be made
by the proper encouragement to trample the world under
its feet. The aspirations after ideal perfection, which we
considered in the early part of this discourse, can be made
without any help from God or revelation to fasten specifEcally upon heavenly things, and either to put on the nature of what is called faith in the Bible, or to take its
place.
This view of the capabilities of human nature is false,
but akin to truth.  A  great poet has said that "Heaven
lies about us in our infancy," while "shades of the prisonhouse begin to close upon the growing boy."
"The youth,"'le continues,.
" Who daily farther from ithe east
Must travel, still is nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day."
Now I believe and most cheerfully admit that if human
nature had retained its incorrupt state of child-like faith,
if the stream of gratitude and veneration had not almost
dried up in the bosom of man, if he had lived in sympathy
with whatever is pur.,-I admit that in this case, as the
fiIl''e. expanded, the recognition of a pure and infinite'  q-' b i:!-1n  el'eiveo i.:t 1 ('?"., ",":-'-''




370         Longings for the Heavenly City.
distinct proof, that with a feeling of his true destiny man
would have embraced a faith in immortal life, and that
heaven would have lain about us in childhood and in
manhood, like a sky into whose blue depths our eye could
penetrate. But from the wreck of this happy innocence
what has survived save longings that either gnaw the soul
or content themselves with an earthly object?  What is
there in the heaven or future life of any heathen mythology
that indicates this child-like purity of the race, or that acts
as a strong motive upon the man environed with earthly
things? Homer knew  what men are, when he made
Achilles among the shades say that he would rather be a
field laborer in the service of a poor man, than be king
over the dead. No! my friends, there is enough of relationship to heaven left, since our fall from innocence, to make
us without excuse when from love to this world we turn
our backs on celestial hopes, but not enough to exalt us
above that world-worship in which we are sunk, and which
is the very kernel of our sin. If we had affinities to a
heaven where God manifests His presence, we should on
the first news of it receive it as a message of life, but
worldliness is as intense, there is as little love for a spiritual
and heavenly inheritance among the money-loving and
earth-loving inhabitants of Christian lands, as among the
most besotted idolaters. There is need then of a new revelation, that the dark mind may have a light brought into
it in spite of itself, and of a new creation, that a love for
spiritual things may be awakened. Thus only can the
soul be led to lift its aspirations towards a heaven of unspotted holiness, bright with God's presence; thus only will
it believe and trust in the sure promise of God, and overcame earthly allurements. It is not enough that there be
a revival of a child's mind in the midst of manhood,although even that amid the world's resisting forces were
impossible-but there must also be a deadening of the old
worldly by the power of a new heavenly principle. Not




Longings for the Heavenly City.        371
without this can we receive the promises as motive powers
into our hearts, nor be persuaded by them, nor embrace
them, nor confess that we are strangers and pilgrims on
earth.  Without this remoulding of his nature, the most
aspiring, the most ideal will form for himself an earthly
paradise; with this the Christian of the coarsest mould will
put on by degrees heavenly properties, and become transfigured into an inhabitant of the city of God.




SERMON XXV.
THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE.*
MATTHEW xxiv. 4. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached
in all the world for a witness to all nations, and then shall the end
come.
IT is the doctrine of the New Testament that the dispensation which was introduced by Christ is to continue
until the end of the world. The whole strain of the New
Testament shows this; and such passages especially as
"Of His kingdom  there shall be no end;" "He must
reign until He hath put all His enemies under His feet;"
"This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the
world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the
end come," are proofs, with many others like them, that
the Founder of Christianity and His disciples regarded it
as the final act of God's moral system for the human
race.  The very nature of Christ's religion would be
enough of itself to demonstrate that it must be, if true,
not a stage in a progress, but the ultimate form  of religious truth and thought, the last of God's economies, the
fruit which, when fully ripe, is followed by the plant's
death and the end of the year.  As the completion of
whatever was imperfect in Judaism, as intended for all
mankind, and claiming for itself to satisfy the religious
wants of all, it cannot be superseded by any new form of
truth, or supplemented by a later and improved revelation. All the progress of mankind until the end of time,
and all the hopes of mankind are treasured up in it, if
- This was originally preached in the College Chapel with omissions, and was afterwards enlarged and published in the New Eiglander
for July, 1869.
372




The Religion of the F'ture.            3'3
its claims are just.  When it shall have done its work,
the present condition of man on earth shall come to an
end, and a state of things wholly new, a state of retribution, shall succeed.
There are many persons in the present age who refuse
to admit these pretensions of Christianity.  It is not to be
the universal, nor the ultimate religion of the world. In
some respects it may have been a very-great improvement
on whatever of religious doctrine preceded it, and it has
carried the nations of Christendom to a higher state of
culture than was ever before reached; but it is like all
other religions in having no historical basis and no divine
authority. The progress of the world, hereafter, will consist in setting aside the exclusive claims of Christ, inl
retaining all that in His moral precepts which will endur(e 
the storms of time, and in giving the guidance of the
future to science and human insight. The religion of the
future will be a religion with all that is peculiar to Christianity cast away, while something of its spirit will be
retained; and, with the help of this spirit, without a revelation, the coming ages will reach the point of perfection
that is attainable by man.
The enemies of Christianity are divided among themselves. As Atheists, Pantheists, and Theists-the latter
of various classes-they even  oppose and  sometimes
denounce one another.  Of this irreconcilable difference
of opinion, however, we intend to make no use.  We will
suppose that the Theists are at length to triumph;-that
they who receive the doctrine of an infinite God, and
a divine plan in governing the world, and who hold
to a system  of morals something like that of Christ,
are to gain the day over all other thinkers;-that the
destinies of the world are to be put into their hands;that the religion of the future is to be as they shall shape
it.  Their way of thinking, we will suppose, has had its
perfect work. The reignr of Christianity is over. That




374           The Religion of the Future.
religion which soothed sorrows and inspired hope, which
took up man amid the despair of decaying antiquity, was
his only protector through the middle ages, and led on
modern civilization; which has encouraged philosophy to
reproduce the thoughts of God'lAvhich has given security
to states by its lofty morals, and exalts the poorest of. men
by awakening the feeling of human brotherhood and the
sense of human rights(;,?which has controlled and modified
art and letters,-that religion, we say, is fallen, its stronghold of facts is demolished, its miracles, whether to be
explained historically or not, are discarded as inconsistent
with the laws of the universe; its Christ is only a man, its
God has retired behind the curtain, never to reveal Himself in human affairs.  He spoke not to the fathers by
the prophets.  He speaks not to us by His Son. He will
never speak to mankind.  M en must do the best they can
without Christ and without a Gospel.
Let us make the most favorable supposition the case
admits of-that these foes of Chiist's religion are sincere,
earnest, philanthropic men, haters of all injustice and of
all falsehood; that they begin their work of destruction
with the purpose of introducing something better, and
really believe that the progress of men can only be
reached through their systems of thinking.  Let us suppose too, that unbelief creeps over the Christian world
not all at once, like a stroke of paralysis, but by a slow
undermining of the foundations, by an abandonment of
one point after another.  The Christian faith ceases not
at once to be respected or admired, but becomes by
degrees conscious of its weakness, loses hope, retreats
from  the more educated to the less, lingers longest with
the poor, the widow, the afflicted who have no weight in
the world, and at length dies out and is forgotten, to be
counted among the many religions, which she herself,
drove away from among mankind.
Now, we ask, What the world will do without a positive,




The Religion of the Future.             375
historical, revealed religion.  Let the religion  of the
future, as we will call the rival of Christianity, start on
its career with all veneration for the spirit of the Gospel;
can that veneration last?  What doctrines will be left to
rear their heads above the deluge of unbelief?  What
motives in favor of religion will survive the decay, the
extinction of Christianity?
We propose to attempt to answer some of these questions in a spirit of candor, to look at some of the disadvantages, which, will of necessity, attend on such a
religion, and to consider what prospects it can have of
spreading over and of bettering mankind.,
And here let it be permitted to us to say once for all,
that we compare the resources and powers of the Gospel
with systems of Theism, but that, if what we are about to
urge, has any weight, it will be still more weighty in the
comparison between Christianity and Pantheistic religions.
The point again toward which we turn our remarks, is
not directly the truth of the religions placed side by
side, nor directly their services to mankind, but rather to
find out whether any religion, which lays no claim to be a
revelation, even although holding fast to a personal God,
can fulfill the offices of a religion for the world, and
whether, if it cannot, progress or civilization can take its
place.
I. Our first position is that the absence from a religion
of historical facts is a very great weakness, or, in other
words, that the supposed religion of the future, being
unable, as it must be, to take the form  of facts and of
history, must be without a very great source of power.
Christianity is historical in its very nature, and cannot,
as we maintain, be torn apart from history, without both
ruining the religion and belittling the whole story of the
world; for the system  of redemption through Christ is a
progressive work going on in the world of men, and culminating in the manifestation here below of the Son of




376           The Religion of the Future.
God.  The religion being a story, and a story concerning
God, its evidences, it is quite natural to suppose, must not
merely make an appeal to the moral judgments and sentiments, but, like all other story, must depend on the
veracity of witnesses, on the truth of facts in the outer
world.  Moreover, as religion is a practical thing, as its
highest aim ever must be to be taken up into the lives of
men, and hence to interweave itself with all actions and
all history, it must exhibit life, or truth conviction and
principle in action, before our eyes-that is, it must be
historical.
All this, the great founder of Christianity and His first
followers were aware of, more so, perhaps, than any of
their successors in the following ages until the present
time.  He sent them  forth as witnesses; they took this
attitude before the world and felt that this was their leading vocation. Their view of the strength of the Gospel
was justified by their success. It spread by the simple
telling of a story, even among the most prejudiced, among
the Jews to whom  a suffering Christ was a stumblingblock, and among the Greeks, to whom  a new religion,
bursting in upon the events of the present world, was a
thing not so much as dreamed of. It is true that it contained a system  of doctrines, a philosophy suited to man's
wants, to his convictions, to his deepest nature, but it is
equally true, that the philosophy could not have existed
separate from  the facts and that by the facts it was
recommended, impressed, and established. 
To this force of the historical element in religion the
systems of heathenism bear testimony.
On whatever principle we account for the religions of
nature, it is evident that their mythologies and their worship indicate a desire to bring the Deity out of the region
of abstract thought, to represent Him to the human senses
and in contiguity with man, to call Him within the limits
of space and time. The great interest, the great charm of




The Religion of the Future.          377
heathenism consists in its mythology, as India, Greece,
Scandinavia, and even the new world bear witness: if its
views of the Divine Being had not taken the form of a
narrative, if the gods had not been represented as living
and moving and acting among men, it would have lacked
the lower to Iascinate and in a measure to satisfy the human soul. The Romans, who had at first a sober religion
without image worship and with a scanty mythology, to a
good degree deserted their earlier and vaguer system for
the more beautiful, more copious, more imaginative fables
of the Greeks. Upon mythology worship in a considerable degree depends; the sacredness of particular spots, the
reasons for particular rites, the character of the rites themseles, are all to be referred to ancient and venerated traditins. Poetry too and art are shaped by mythology;
they draw their materials from its fables, they act originally as its handmaids. And, when heathenism decays,
as decay it must, the overthrow grows out ofiphilosophical
views and historical criticism  rejecting the narratives
handed down from  ancient times.  All these and many
like considerations show that religion would appear dead
and barren to mankind if it assumed an abstract, philosophical form, that it would not come home to the soul, or
have a sway over the life.
Even the decay of heathenism  in the Roman empire,
that strange time when the old religion tried to brace
itself up against the spread of doubt and of Christianity,
indicates a longing for the appearance again of the Deity
amid human events: the magic tites, the mysteries, the
theurgic processes by which men sought to come into communication with the spiritual world, were, as it seems to
us, so many testimonies of human nature that the Gospel,
by means of its narrative form, that the economy of our
religion fron the first by its history, is most wisely accommodated to human nature and human wants; so that they




378          The Religion of the Future.
who expect much from a religion of mere abstractions
must be most signally disappointed.
And this experience of mankind under heathenism and
Christianity makes it probable that the nature of man
itself, rather than anything so variable as the style of culture and of knowledge, pronounces an historical form to be
necessary for the sway of religious ideas among mankind.
This is made more than probable by several considerations. Our nature, except when under strict philosophical
training, of which few are capable and from which many
turn away in disgust, revolts from abstractions and delights in concrete realities. We are made to take pleasure in personal existences and in their actions. Our sentiments need some object on which they can fasten. Reverence is not content with existing as a vague feeling, but
seeks for some reality which may be the object of worship.
The feeling of dge'i^dence needs to have that on which we
are dimly conscious of depending body itself forth in some
apprehensible form.  Thankfulness implies the purpose of
a known personal object to confer a benefit, and so all our
feelings go forth only towards distinctly apprehended personalities. But personalities evidence and manifest themselves through actions which have to do with life and the
world. So also the imagination is distressed-so to speak
-if it cannot give form  to the invisible and the ideal.
The Christian religion could not hold its ground in the
world but through a personal attachment to Christ. How
then can a religion, with no attraction derived from history and personal power, expect to be met by human sympathy and to spread through mankind?
But, again, a religion which has no history must bedestitute of the power of life and example.
Life, considered in relation to religion, is the embodiment and test of doctrine or principle. Example is an
illustration or acting out of principle in a particular case,
and implies an influence on the imitative nature of man.




The Religion of the Future.          379
Nothing gives so much power or weakness to a man as his
life. Nothing tests a religion so much as the way in which
it moulds the life of men. The life of Christ is the central
power in Christianity. The treasury of the Church is the
good lives of all faithful Christians, not because they can
do more than they ought, as the Romanists supposed, but
because they act just as they should. The blood of the
martyrs is the seed of the Church, not so much because
they dared to die for what they prized, as because there
lay behind the martyr's faith a liVe that rose above the (rdinary level. If Christianity had not put on a liviug
form, if it could not have passed at once from high and
loving precepts into the shape of pure men and women, we
should not be defending it now. Forgiveness might havo
sounded sweet in precept, but if Christ and His dying disciple, Stephen, had not forgiven, where would the humanity of the world have been at this time?
It seems certain, then, that the strength of Christianity,
as of Judaism  before it, lay in its history, in the lives
which it formed, and especially in that one life which it
set up as a perfect model. But for facts in the life of
Jesus, the cloud of witnesses would not have surrounded
us, the host of shining ones would not have arisen in our
sky. Mere precept, although invested with celestial authority, can effect little; an abstract standard of character,
not realized in the life, will be almost destitute of power
for the great mass of mankind.
But the man whose religion, as he thinks, is to control
the future, may ask whether it cannot become the "heir of
all the ages;" whether all that has been good and pure in
the lives of men, under the Gospel and under heathenism,
cannot be collected and used for the good of mankind?
Why may not Christ, with His saints, stand on the calendar of that religion, even as the heathen emperor, Alexander Severus, built a temple to Christ, and counted Him
among his gods? Meanwhile, he will say, the religion




380          The  Religion of the Future.
itself will be forming its own examples of a higher than
Christian virtue, and setting them up for the veneration of
all future time.
What success this proposed religion may have in the
way of making godly and finished lives we do not propose
now to consider. But this is certain, that a great part of
the glory of Christian lives must then be effaced and lost.
For Christ will have become a self-deceiver, and the
view of His own character under which He acted was false.
You cannot separate His consciousness of a peculiar relation to God from His life itself, and you cannot separate
the life of His followers from a faith in Him as divine,
and from the power of those truths which He taught, and
which, on the supposition, have turned out to be false, or
to be without divine authority. Either, then, veneration
and respect for the character of Christ and of the best
Christians will, in a good degree, cease! ~r it will be accounted a thing of small importance, whether that be true
or false which controls the life, since falsehood has attended the development of the noblest characters known
to the world.
II. The supposed new religion of the future must be a
religion without authority, a religion constructed by human reason alone. The Christian religion claims a twofold divine authority; it is from God and by God,-it is a
revelation contained in inspired writings. Even if you
gave up the latter source of authority, you would not cut
all its connection with heaven, unless the claim to inspiration be part and parcel of the revelation itself. Nor is the
Christian religion solitary in advancing such claims, but
all over the world, wherever religions have sprung up,
they have declared themselves to be disclosures of the Divine will. Nor is it important for our argument to decide
whether these religions have been the product of imposture, or of the myth-making power, or of a self-deluding
enthusiasm. If impostures, they confess a need of some




The Religion of the Future.          381
authority beyond their inventors. If the offspring of a
myth-making age, they clothe themselves in the garb of a
revelation from an instinctive sense that religion ought to
wear such a dress. If they grow up in an individual mind
of large imaginative power, the same craving for a connection with God and for an inspiration from Him is manifest.
It is further evident that the reception of religion in the
world has much depended upon faith in its divine origin.
That Christ was a teacher come from God was an essential element of His power, without which many would
have refused to listen to His words, and few, if any,'would have followed Him. The churches founded by the
apostles were founded on faith in a divine interruption of
the natural order of things. And so the written word is
indebted for no small part of its power, for the attention
originally given to it in spite of its defects of composition,
for the hold it has had on the best minds of the world, to
a belief that it is in some way authorized to give the news
of a plan of God, which man's own faculties could not
discover, that it contains facts and truths above nature
and above the reach of reason. And hence, if at any time
the evidences for the Christian Scriptures lose their hold
on the faith of any age, the religion itself is abandoned.
We are now thrown back upon reason; we must decide
between different schools of philosophy, or follow our
inward light, or be tossed on the uncertain waters of
skepticism. And the need of divine authority for the
guidance of our faith and conduct is felt by many of the
strongest minds to be so great, that it is only with extreme reluctance, and by a kind of necessity which is
harrowing to the soul, that they blow out the light that
was their guide and commit themselves to the direction of
reason. They feel when they reject the Gospel that some
authorized guide, some standard of truth, some charter,




382          The Religion of the Future.
speaking pardon and spiritual hope, would be divinely
precious.
The contrast between Christianity, as authorized to
make God known to men-not indeed shedding full light
on every side, but satisfying and stimulating without
suppressing reason,-and a religion of man's devising, is
one that reaches to the very foundation of the soul's life.
Religion in the soul would shrink into pitiably small
dimensions without the guidance and authority of a supernatural revelation. What is to become of faith in spiritual
realities, in what God thinks of conduct, in what He is
and how He will treat men, if the Scriptures are of
"private interpretation," if Christ spoke without authority,
if no one hath come down from heaven to tell the world
of heavenly things? What will trust find to lean upon,
if the "great and precious promises" are of human origin?
Where will repentance go for refuge if there is no assurance of pardon?  How will the soul be made strong
enough to resist sin, if there is no certainty of divine
assistance?  How can such a hope of heaven as reason
can establish fortify the erring against earthly trials, and
help them to die in peace?  In short, since every religious
feeling, every virtue, all morality, all practical benevolence are now maintained, as Christian experience demonstrates, by the voice of God in His word, will there not
be an end of all these things, and must not religion become so uncertain, so weak, when Christ shall be given
up, as to have next to no power over human life and
society?  Without divine authority, evidence and motive
power are taken away from  relicion, and without these
what can it do for the good of man?  Nay, without
assurance concerning those great questions that perplex
unaided reason, will not the main energy of human
thought be turned towards the problems' of philosophy
and away from practical virtue?  Can a religion drawn
up out of man's own soul satisfy his reason? Will there




The.Religion of the Future.           383
not be eternal questionings, as there were among the old
philosophers?  Will not the main strength of the greatest
minds be spent in filding out truth, instead of reducing it
to practice and using it for human improvement?  At
present to a very great extent Christianity satisfies the
cravings of the soul by its truth and by its evidence.
What can any other religion which claims no- such
authority bring into the world save doubt, restlessness,
self-dissatisfaction, and wandering, unsuccessful efforts after
rest?
To make the immense importance of divine authority
more apparent, let us briefly sketch the progress of subjective religion, as we find it arising and increasing under
the Gospel.  In the first instance there is a recognition,
founded on positive precepts, of a divine law reaching to
the thoughts and intents of the heart.  This the moral
sense approves and adopts as its rule, but what would
become of the standard of action, if the outward authority were to be disregarded and denied?  Is it not
certain that the divine requirement, as things are, originates and sustains all the convictions of the necessity of a
religious life, and awakens a sense of want and a sense of
sin by which the soul is led to God?  Then again in the
pathway of our return to God, we are met by positive assurances of danger on the one hand, and positive offers of
forgiveness on the other, without which it is certain that
religion on the.Christian plan could not begin to exist..And the terms of forgiveness, contained in these revelations which the Gospel makes, are the outward restingplace on which the peace of the soul through a long life
reposes. What assurance can it find within itself, or in
the plan of the world large enough to fill the place of this
authority?  Then the whole of internal religion is obviously maintained by declarations of Scripture, some of
which, singly, have afforded more comfort than all the
reasonings and  self-encouragements of unaided  minds




384          The Religion of the Future.
since the world began. A life of inward morality and of
holiness is built on the Scriptural exhibition of God and
His holiness. A life of benevolence is a following of the
precepts, and of the lives which are precepts, that the
Scriptures afford us. A life of hope needs distinct statements, and these must embrace both worlds. A  life of
unworldliness and self-renunciation needs promises to support it in its weakness, lest it should have given up everything to gain nothing. And so whatever aspect religion
presents to us in the soul, whether it consists in escaping
from sin, or in reconciliation of heart to God, or in acts
of morality or of philanthropy or of piety, or in the
development of certain feelings, or in the formation of a
certain character, it needs throughout and actually uses
the support of the Scriptures, as the guide of faith, the
directory of life, the strength of every feeling of the heart.
What then must happen when this revealed word shall
have been abandoned, when its former influence shall
have ceased, when its light shall have faded away from
the world's atmosphere, but that religion must lose its
hold on the world, must dwindle down into a  feeble,
sickly, timorous thing, looking every way for help, if it
do not quite expire?
But it will be said by a portion of those who hope to
see a new universal religion rise up on the ruins of Christianity, that their faith is in a certain sense from God and
is attended with authority from Him. Every good man,
every man who walks according to the inward light is in
a sense an inspired man. Christ had with Him more.
truth than any other human being, because He was better
than any. Thus there is a kind of natural inspiration of
the human race, which is slowly perfecting truth, eliminating errors, bringing man from the outward and historical,
from the claims to divine authority-proved now to be
unreliable and yet for a long time serving asstepping



The Religion of the Future.         385
stones in human progress-to the pure ultimately recognized inner light of the soul.
There is much of beauty and attractiveness in such a
theory as this, but it cannot stand the test of truth and
sound philosophy. It takes no account of the weakness
of human reason, as demonstrated by the history of
opinions,-of the vain efforts, for instance, made by the
Greek philosophers to attain to theological truth, and of
their hopeless diversity of views ending in skepticism. It
takes no account of the subsequent history of philosophical thought, which has failed down to the present time,
notwithstanding all the efforts of highly gifted minds in
the idealistic and pantheistic schools, to reach any assurance in regard to any doctrine of religion. It takes no
account of the diversities of opinion, into which men of
insight have been or may be led, either from confounding
their insight and the conclusions of their understandings,
or because insight itself, at least in the present condition
of human nature, is an unsafe guide. It demands that a
man should be good in order to have a true insight, but
how is he to be good except by truth which insight discovers, and how is he to be followed by those who have
no such clear insight as his? Would Christ have been a
lawgiver and an example for mankind if He had spoken
out His own private feelings without any claim to divine
authority? The theory then will at length discover that
it is decking itself in the robes of Christianity, that its illum lrination and insight are really borrowed from  the
Gospel, that whenever it shall succeed so far as to destroy
faith in a historic revelation, at once darkness and distrust
will begin to creep again over the minds of men whom
Christianity had somewhat enlighted.
This theory, moreover, discloses its own inconsistency
and falsehood by the position which it takes in regard to
Christ. The wisest, best, humblest, and most unselfish of
men, as is conceded, He made the most stupendous mistake
17




386           The Religion of the Future.
in regard to Himself, and brought it about that this mistake became engrafted on His religion, nay-that it gave te
His religion its distinctive character and its power in the
world.  So much light with so much darkness, such lofty
purity united to such false claims of exaltation above the
measure of a human being-this was the wisdom and excellence, this the insight of Jesus Christ. If He had insight
and nothing more, is not His insight wholly unreliable,
since He failed to see into Himself?
III. The supposed religion of the future will of necessity
have a very limited range of doctrines.
/Religious doctrine is the measure and sum total of the
motives which a religion can bring to bear upon character.) If the doctrines are false or immoral, they will form
perverted or defective characters; if scanty, they will have
little effect on character; if merely metaphysical and not
ethical, they will have no effect on character whatever.
It has been claimed by the friends of Christianity that it
is intensely practical, that its grand truths or doctrines,
especially those which are connected with its grand facts
or history, have a direct and most healthy bearing on human life, that it contains enough of truth to finish human
character on all its sides, and that, when believed, it actually forms characters of the highest excellence. The
question then is how much of loss of power over human
nature will arise from  a rejection of the most important
and distinctive doctrines of Christianity; by the side of
which question stand others already answered, How much
power will be lost by losing the vital force of a historical
religion, and how much will be lost by losing the authority of revelation, and throwing men back upon the results
of human speculation?
It is impossible at this time to predict what shape the
doctrines of the new religion of the future will ultimately
take.  But thus much we can say, that if it should start
with a certain apparatus of doctrines, part of them will at




The Religion of the Future.         387
length be broken or not used at all, and that owing to the
influence of Christian education, which its advocates cannot now escape, its motive power and seeming excellence
will be greatest at first, and will be growing less and less
afterward.
But let us try to form a candid estimate, as far as probabilities will allow, of the amount of truth and motive
that will be within the reach of this religion of the future,
and that can be used in endeavoring to give finish to
moral and religious character.
First, whatever is especially Christian, as distinguished
from natural religion and from the conclusions of human
reason, must be given up. The doctrine that the Word
became flesh, that God sent His Son to redeem men from
sin, will be looked upon as a fable, as an unaccountable
claim on the part of Jesus or an unauthorized addition to
His teachings. Thus, His relations to God and to man
being put on a wholly different basis, He ceases to be a
great personage governing the world's history, and sinks
into a teacher who mistook His own nature most fearfully,
and from whose most authentic doctrines very much must
be lopped off. That this alone would make a revolution
in the world, greater than any since the birth of Christ
Himself, cannot be questioned. Oh! what other throne,
what dynasty of high-born kings reaching through ages
and famed through the world, could fall, which man might
not forget in a century! But this kingdom  over hearts,
this invisible sway of Christ beginning in the self-consecration of the soul and ending in the entire renovation of
society and of government,-when can it cease to be'regretted?  Oh! what lapse of time, what changes in outer
things will prevent the world from bleeding at every pore
through a feeling that it has lost its guide and the pledge
of its stability!
Secondly, the doctrine concerning God and His provi-,
dence must be reduced to its lowest dimensions. Whether




388          The Religion of the Ftture.
the reigning form of this new religion will cling firmly to
the personality of God, as a cardinal point, and drive
Pantheists as a heretical sect beyond its pale, cannot be
distinctly anticipated. But suppose its standard doctrine
to be that human nature within itself, apart from  proof,
contains a recognition of a Deity, when we come to the
doctrine of providence and of spiritual influence, the
ground is more uncertain. To a Providence, in any such
sense that any interruptions of the common course of
physical law can be admitted, it cannot subscribe, for it
rejects all the miracles of the past. And thus it can
scarcely teach, with any show of consistency, that prayer
can in any way affect the order of things, or be an argument with God for bestowing blessings on the worshipers.
Moreover, without a positive revelation, that speaks of
a God near at hand and around His creatures, it is increasingly hard to put faith in that high doctrine, for
every advance of science thrusts Him  to a remoter distance. He has left the reins on the neck of time, and
inhabits His eternity as a vital energy, without concern or
pity for man. What check can the religion of the future
apply to this tendency to shut God out of the visible and
actual present?  Must it not succumb to the relentless
blows of science, and lose its faith in a hand guiding the'
world, since positive and natural religion together find it
so hard to furnish strong enough antidotes against skepticism?
The doctrine of spiritual influence, for aught that we
can see, it may with consistency admit. But who can tell
whether such influences can be hoped for, since they proceed from the free will of a sovereign, who has made no
promises either in an external revelation or to the soul?
May they be prayed for?  What encouragement is there
even to begin to pray, much more to persevere in it, when
everything is so uncertain?  May it not be the appointed
lot of man to struggle alone against internal evils, as he




The Religion of the Future.           389
must by the law of his nature against outward? In this
state of uncertainty there will not be much prayer, and
without Divine help the hope of improving the character
will decline. Does not this single consideration show that
a great part of practical religion will be cut up by the
roots?
Thirdly, the doctrine concerning man which Christianity
has taught us will need great modification. If the Gospel's
view of sin could be retained without its remedial provisions, if a sense of guilt, with no assurance of forgiveness,
could settle upon souls under the new religion as now,
mankind would cry out against it in desperation, they
would flee away from leaden clouds of death which let no
rays of hope through, or would wander, if not desperate,
into all kinds of heathenish ways of propitiating God. Will
it be said, that the glimpses which we catch without revelation of the Divine clemency and forbearance would be
enough of an assurance for sinning men?  We answer,
that they might satisfy a weak sense of sin, but could not
comfort a deep one. The sense of sin, then, as of a malady at the root of our nature for which each one of us is responsible, might very much fade away. God never having,
by any revelation from heaven, disclosed His wrath against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, what sufficient
evidence would there be that sin is a very great evil, how
would it be seen to alienate the soul from  Him, what
reason would there be to dread His frown?  Nor is it unlikely that sin would be regarded as a transitional state in
the necessary progress of human nature.  And it seems
likely, that the efforts against it would be confined principally to the rectification of society, to the removal of ignorance, to the relief of the lower classes, on the ground
that human nature is not bad, that evil emanates from society and can be effectually obstructed and dried up by
outward reformations. However this may be, it is certain
that by some ane;thetic process, what we call a sense of




390           The Religion of the Future.
sin, would be benumbed. But is it not evident, that the
cost of this would be immense?  Must there not ensue a
weakening of the very foundations of morality? Could
the family, could society endure this?  Will the religion
of the future be able to endure it?  Will not faith in God,
and faith in unalterable morality, in holiness and justice,
stand or fall together with faith in sin?  Must there not
then be a further plunge of a demoralized world into
Atheism?
Fourthly, the doctrine concerning the last things will
very probably be an open, unsettled question. Only a
glance at the history of opinion down to the most recent
times is enough to show that man has in vain sought to
solve the problem of the immortality and future destiny of
the soul. But let the religion of the future pronounce a
decisive word on these high doctrines; how little will it
gain since it has no new proofs to bring forward, and has
nothing but human insight to rest upon. And then, a
future state being admitted, are there to be rewards and
punishments?  May sin, here, affect our state in that future life?  If it may, we need some help from God, which
the religion does not make sure. If it may not, of what
value is the future life in relation to conduct?  What is
the future life in that case but a barren fact standing a
great way off? Thus, whether we consider the uncertainty
in which the religion must remain concerning a future life,
or the slender use it makes of this doctrine in the way of a
motive and of elevating man above worldly things, it will
be found quite indifferent whether the doctrine be retained or discarded; at the best, it will be an appendage
of no importance.
The whole of what we have said thus far, and especially
the consideration of the slender stock of truth at the disposal of the religion of the future, makes it clear that the
motive power of such a religion, its influence on life and
character, must be exceedingly small. Some room will be




The.Religion of the Futu're.        391
left for reverence, and for the sense of dependence; thankfulness also may be awakened to a degree, although crippled by doubts concerning Providence. But how narrow
will be the range of trust, how feeble the vigor of hope,
having no promises to feed upon; how poor a part will be
played by faith in things unseen! And if the doctrine of
immortal life gives an immense amplitude to human action, enlarges our sense of our own importance in the universe, and adds untold force to the reason for improving
our character, how lame will all efforts at moral excellence
be, how small the motive, how trifling the issues of conduct, when this great truth shall be feebly held or quite
discarded!
But in lieu of all other considerations touching this
point we urge that the new religion will have no fuel for
love towards God, that the harmony of the human and
divine soul will be nearly impossible. The justice of this
remark will stand in a clear light if we consider what excites the emotion of love,-of love, we mean, as involving
complacency, confidence, and general harmony of spirit,and how it differs from  some other feelings that play a
part in religion. The feeling of reverence will be aroused
according to the laws of our nature, although we may
have a very dim perception of the power that we revere.
So the sense of dependence implies indeed an object on
which we depend, but gives no light in regard to the qualities of that object. But love needs for its existence some
sort of disclosure or revelation of the feelings and character of the object towards which it goes forth. Between
man and man love cannot arise, unless one party has' a
manifestation of the character and feelings of the other.
We cannot Jove an unknown person, nor love on conjecture, nor love an intellect. It is the same in the case of
the Divine Being. There must go before all love to Him
some conviction of His moral excellence, and as love is reciprocal, some assurance that He can love in return. And




392          The Religion of the Future.
hence, again, there must be some persuasion that He can
regard sinners with favor in spite of their sins. The history of heathenism, the convictions of our own sinful
natures will show us that a sense of guilt without an assurance of pardon must drive men from the face of God;
they will show us the justice of those words, "We love
Him because He first loved us."
Now then if the Gospel which pretends to be a revelation
of God's character and of His mercy is to be abandoned as
untrue, what room is left for man's love to Him? He has
become an unknown God; how can we love Him of whose
character we know little, and of His feelings towards us
next to nothing?  Will it be said that something within
us leads us irresistibly to conceive of Him as absolute
moral perfection?  Were we to grant this, which the
diversities of human religions do not justify, yet love requires more it demands some knowledge of the relations
between Him and ourselves; and how do we gain any information on this point from our insights and instinctive
judgments?  If our nature assures us that He loves the
good, must it not equally reveal to us His alienation from
the morally evil? How then with our conscience of sin
can we love Him whom we have offended, love Him  of
whose pardon we have no assurance, love Him in whose
sight our nature is unholy? Love, then, in its highest and
noblest forms must be a stranger to the religion of the
future.  If love to God is the crown of our character, if to
call such a sentiment into life constitutes one of the chief
glories of Christ's religion, as well as one of the great
sources of its strength, must not a religion that knows little of God, and nothing of forgiveness, be incapable of
forming beautiful lives? Must it not perish and become
despised from its very weakness?
In short, the religion will Be of this earth, getting next
to no influence from the unseen life beyond this world, or
from the unseen life above this world. It lacks, therefore,




The Religion of the Future.          393
the power of faith and the possibility of a life of faith.
Can the age when it shall be established fail of being intensely worldly, and epicurean?  Think of the art and
literature of such an age: think of the spirit they must
breathe; think of the loss of motives for morality and a
religious life at which we hinted just now. Can such a
prospect fail to excite deep alarm?
IV. We remark very briefly that the new religion of
which we speak will be without the strength derived from
a church and its institutions.
The Christian Church of the present, with all its faults
and weaknesses, is the salt and the light of the world.
As holding, preserving, and spreading the faith of Christ,
as built on the feeling of brotherhood, and on trust in a
common Saviour, as bound together by social worship,
sacraments, a ministry and a discipline, and as containing
in itself a self-reforming power, it is one of the bonds
which bind mankind together, and on it the hopes of mankind in a great measure rest. Its influence extends far
beyond its own pale, and beyond the religious interests of
man; it originates or aids every effort to make him wiser,
happier, and more manly.
What now can take the place of the church, or compensate man for its fall, as fall it must, if the old historical religion is abandoned?  What common hopes, what
common object of reverence or love will the new religion
have to offer to its professors, nay, what common faith can
it supply them  with, except a few  meagre shreds not
large enough to cover the nakedness of reason? It must
have worship, but what kind of worship? That in which
sentimentality and taste take the lead, with the fewest,
the weakest appeals to religious feeling. Will it introduce prayer into its public services, when the question of
an answer to prayer is unsettled, or denied; or thanksgiving, when a Providence is doubted, and blind law accounts for all things? Can it have institutions? Institu17*




394          The Religion of the Future.
tions of a historical origin are out of the question, because
the religion has no history from  which to draw them.
Institutions made for the sake of having them  it can invent, but how weak the hold on the mind of man of such
institutions, how small their venerableness! What can it
have or find to replace the sacred supper? Compare the
fellowship pertaining to such a dead skeleton of a religion
with membership in Christ. Compare its preaching on a
narrow round of dogmas with the inexhaustible themes
of the Christian pulpit. Must not, in fact, morality take
the place of religion in the pulpit, and religious doctrine
be no more looked to as suggesting the great motives of
action? Compare the probable zeal for its propagation
with that resulting from the nature of the Gospel, and
from the command of Christ, " Go ye into all the world."'Can there be much zeal for its diffusion, especially as long
as its friends maintain that the systems of heathenism involve all the essential truths of religion? Wherever we
turn, then, we discover its weaknesses, we cannot find one
element of power. It will make no place for itself in the
affections of human souls.
V. If these things are so, human progress must cease,
and civilization, whenever the world shall throw away its
faith in revealed religion, must decline.
We seem to ourselves to have shown, that, whether the
form, the evidence, the substance, the motive power, or the
social influences of the new rival of Christianity be taken
into view, it is wholly weak and unreliable.  Can the
destinies of mankind be safely entrusted to a religion
without facts, without authority, with a minimum  of doctrines, and with no institutions at all? Must not the advancement of society in all that is good  cease, if
Christianity is to lose its hold upon the faith and love of
men?  If a large factor be thrown out of the account,
must not the product be greatly lessened?
There is but one answer to this question: such a decline




The Religion of the Future.            395
must take place, unless in the future other influences are
to make up for the diminished power of religion.  Just
this, we suppose, is what many thinkers anticipate, who
have rejected the claims of Christianity.  We apprehend,
that, as a class, those who have looked upon bare Theism
as the heir and successor of the Gospel, do not put very
much of dependence upon this predicted  religion of the
future; we conceive that it is expected to take its place as
a handmaid and not as a mistress, while civilization, or
progress, is looked upon as the coming Queen  of the
world.  The bitter taunt of the Greek poet is to be fulfilled, who makes his sophist say, that Vortex or Whirl
has expelled Jupiter from his throne; God is to cease to
reign and Progress will take his place.* This doctrine of
progress may adopt the form of a fatal development, or
that of a free advance in accordance with a divine plan.
The first form, or that which it must assume in a pantheistic theory of the world, does not now concern us. The
other form, or that which a Theist, who rejects the Scriptures, can embrace, will be something like this: that, in
the course of time there will be such an accumulation of
knowledge, such a lifting up of man above nature, such
improvements in government and legislation, such refinement diffused through society, that even in the lowest
classes, the propension will be towards sobriety, honesty,
chastity, and kindness.  And so a very little influence
from religion, very little knowledge of God, or concern
about Him will give all needed aid to the advancement
of mankind.
A  theory of human progress like this deserves, on
account of its importance, an extended examination; we
must content ourselves, however, with two or three remarks that bear on our subject more immediately: we
observe, then,
First, that the facts do not justify the hope of such a
*Aristoph. Nubcs, 381, AZi'oq reigns vice Ao6s.




396          The Religion of the Future.
progress; we mean, that the improvements which have
been made in society must be ascribed chiefly to Christianity; that advances in physical science have no great
weight in bringing about moral ones; and that ameliorations of governments and of society can scarcely begin,
cannot be made permanent, without the aid of religion.
It is apparent that a benevolent feeling aroused by the
Gospel has, in fact, had very much to do with modern
reforms; with reforms, for example, in prison discipline,
in the houses, habits, and privileges of the poor, in promoting temperance, in putting an end to the slave trade
and to slavery, in sending light to the ignorant, in endeavoring to spread the spirit of peace. Christ's religion
has in fact taken the lead in schemes for the benefit of
society, and it will be scarcely maintained that, while
thus at the head of this blessed movement, it has crippled
or suppressed other benevolent forces, which can take its
place when it shall become extinct. For where are they?
Were they in action when the Gospel overcame heathenism, and were they put in the background by it as by
some jealous monarch? On the other hand, without the
Gospel the field and the energy of benevolence will be
vastly lessened. The field will be earthly relations almost
exclusively.  The energy will be paralyzed, when the
conception of God's kingdom  on earth, when faith in
divine influences, shall be discarded, when the doctrine of
a future life shall be disbelieved or just clung to amid
the waves of uncertainty.. Again, the advance of science does not, in fact, secure
the advance of society, notwithstanding all the efforts of
Christians and other benevolent persons. As far as the
past can teach us, science may add indefinitely to its
stores, while society continues corrupt or degenerate.
There are armies of thieves and of reprobates, worse than
heathen, within sound of the voice of the great lecturers
of Paris. Officers of preventive and of correctional police




The Religion of the Future.          397
have plenty of work to do in all large cities, both in
Europe and this free land. In some respects the dangerous classes in large towns are worse than they were.
They know more, and are more excitable.  Their knowledge, having nothing to do with rules of conduct and the
meaning of life, being in fact such as a class of men without religion would gather, makes them craftieri.nore able
to combine, more able to evade justice.
Nor is there any necessary connection between the advance of science and the improvement of political institutions. Even the theory of politics may be conformed to
true science in a nation, while yet the body politic may
have no power to govern itself or to shake off abuses.
The moral energy, the spirit of self-sacrifice, the courage
to attempt reform in the right way, the hope of success,
the healthful tone of opinion in society concerning justice,
all these and other sources of national health are far less
dependent on the state of science than on religious and
moral influences.  Nations, in order to grow great, or
become free, or remain free, must, like single men, have
strength of character, and this is mainly from moral and
religious culture, or from a certain simplicity of life which
is lost in high cultivation.
2. But in the second place, theories of human progress,
like that at which we are looking, misconceive of and
underrate the power appropriate to religion in the civilization of the world, and also give an exceedingly earthly
view of life.
They misconceive of the civilizing power of the Gospel.
At least they seem to conceive of Christians as thinking
that religion  of itself, without the aid of any other
agencies, is the sole source of human improvement and
civilization. But the true and received statement is that
religion controls the forces which mould and refine the
soul and society. It is the main-spring or the governing
wheel which gives motion, and it also regulates and har



398           The Religion of the'Future.
monizes all movement.  It is in harmony with all truth
and in sympathy with all improvement, but it acts not
only through its own direct invisible power, but through
the laws of nature, of the soul, and of society. It looks
on the science of nature with favor, because this is an
exposition of the thoughts of God, and thus science has a
strong, healthy growth under its fostering influence. It
sends the individual's thoughts within, and thus aids the
science of the soul.  It makes him  aware of his rights
and his duties, and thus helps to build up a true philosophy of man in the state, as well as a just society. It
elevates his feelings and purifies his taste, and thus gives
wing to true art. It is the foe of vice, and thus of all
ignorance and of all oppression.  But its glory lies in
making " all things new," not without other agencies, but
through its control over them, and through its sway over
the individual soul.
Again, in such theories of civilization, the power of the
Christian religion seems to be greatly underrated.  In the
first place, a due value is not set upon that which is distinctively Christian, as compared with that which belongs
to Judaism  and to natural religion.  The history of
Christian art, the examination of religious experience, if
we look to no other sources of proof, will show us that the
great sway over life and society proceeds from that which
is new in Christianity, from Christ in His person, life, and
work, from forgiveness of sins and redemption, from  the
doctrine of the Holy Spirit, from  the judgment and the
future state. Take all this away, and you take away, if
we are not deceived, nearly all that constitutes the superiority and the glory of Christian civilization.
But again, such theories contemplate the civilizing
forces of Christianity as standing side by side; with those
of literature, art, science, law, and government. Tariffs,
roads, and printing presses, are held to be as original and
as efficient benefactors of society, as Bibles and sermons.




The Religion of the Future.            399
But this seems to be a very serious mistake, which grows
out -of another, still more fundamental, concerning the
nature of man,-an assumption that he is unfallen, that
he has all power within himself without the aid of new
truth from  Heaven, to elevate his condition.  Is it not
evident that the system of practical forces, which makes
up the Gospel, must, if believed and loved, govern the
will, heart, and life of the individual, and that through
the amelioration  of the individual, all civilizing influences will be either perfected or originated?  What
the Gospel has done or can do in the way of benefiting
society, the institutions it founds, the science it warms
into life, ought not surely to be alleged as reasons why we
can get along at some future day without the Gospel.
The Gospel is not the schoolmaster who leaves the grownup pupil to be guided -by his own reason; it is the leaven
hid in the meal until the whole mass is leavened.
The conservation of society can be entrusted only to
moral and religious forces. If religion has no moving,
preserving, checking, or balancing power, or if, as is true
of heathenism, it is itself immoral, then art, literature,
whatever promotes the advance of society, is paralyzed or
corrupted; and there comes on a decline of society, as in
Greece after Alexander and in Rome under the emperors,
without hope of recovery from any internal power. On
the other hand, if, as is true in the case'of Christianity,
the religion is ethical in the highest sense, in the sense
not only of teaching morals but of enlarging the conception of what is right, and supplying the highest motives
for the ennoblement of character, then there is a foundation laid, on which society, with all its interests, can rest,
and. there is opportunity for all that progress which is
possible in consistency with the condition of man.
We are now prepared to say, that if the influences from
the Gospel should be withdrawn, a most earthly civilization, one having its own doom  written on its forehead,




400          The Religion of the Future.
would take the place of that which Christianity has been
the leading agent in forming. Suppose, for instance, that
all thinkers should lose faith in the immortality of the
soul. Is it not evident, that with the abandonment of this
one truth, the concerns of the present world would begin
to assume a new relative importance, that all motives
drawn from a life to come would be feeble, that self-gratification must rise in value, and self-denial fall, that all the
aspirations of man must droop and wither?  Is it not
evident, that something of that mingled frivolity and despair which Atheism engenders, and of which heathen society, especially in its decay, when its faith is lost, gives us
examples, would brood over the world?  For how could
civilization fail to decline, when frivolity blighted the
taste and  depraved  the moral judgments, and when
despair, the sense of the emptiness of life, took away the
stimulus from all noble endeavor?
3. Finally, in one very important respect the very progress of society demands the assurances and supports of
positive Christian truth. As knowledge and refinement
increase, the standard of character tends to rise, and along
with it will deepen the feeling of responsibility and the
pain of falling below the standard. A sense of imperfection-of sinfulness, if we may call it so, as keen as any
other sense and more indestructible, will then be in vigorous exercise.'  How is this sense to be satisfied without a
Gospel? Heathenism has had its method of satisfying the
consciousness of sin, its reconciliation of man and God, in
which lay no small part of its strength. Christianity has
its method, and herein lies much of the service which it
has rendered to mankind. But naked Deism, the religion
of human insight and natural reason, says nothing of
pardon and redemption, nothing of a helping, life-giving
Spirit.  In this respect it occupies a much weaker position
than that which is taken by the systems of necessary development. They legitimately deny the reality of moral




The Beligton of the Future.           401
evil.  It has for them no existence, because the will is not
friee, or because sin, being a necessary stage for finite
minds, is not objectively evil.  But a system, in which a
personal God is a central principle, cannot extinguish the
sense of sin or deny its reality. Nay, the farther the true
refinement of society is carried, the higher the standard of
character is raised, and the vaster the creation is shown to
be by science; so much the more grandeur and glory are
spread around the throne of God. Sin, then, tends to enlarge in its dimensions before the eye of a refined age
which has not thrown aside its faith in the moral attributes of God. But Deism has nothing to satisfy this sense
of sin but baseless hopes and analogies drawn from the
unexplained, dealings of God.  If God ought to forgive
because the best conceptions of human virtue include forgiveness, He ought to have indignation against sin, because
that too enters as an element into our ideal of perfect character.  And how terrible that indignation!  What distance so vast as that between the Infinite One, inhabiting
His dwelling-place of holiness, and a soul conscious of
selfishness and of impurity!  The course of things, if
Deism should be the ultimate form of religion, can easily
be foretold.  As long as the recollections and influences
of Christianity survived its fall, earnest souls would hope
on, they would stay their soul-hunger on the milk drawn
from  the breasts of their dead mother.  But a new age
would toss about in uncertainty, if not in despair; or else,
throwing  aside their Deism  which brings before their
wearied minds the unsolved problem of the relations of
sinning man to a holy God, they would'hunt after peace
in the fields of Atheistic or Pantheistic philosophy. Civilization with God, but without Christ, leads to a terrible
dilemma.  If the sense of sin remain, the life of all noble
souls will be an anxious, gloomy tragedy.  Or if that
burden, so crushing, is thrown off, as in a life struggle, then
the standard of character will fall and the sense of sin




402          The Religion oJ the Future.
grow faint to such a degree that the pardon from God
craved in heathenism will not be needed, and the utmost
frivolity will be reached of life and manners. In either
case, the progress of civilization will be stopped; the world
of the future will be doomed; and the "religion of the
future" will turn out to be a miserable raft, unfit, after
the shipwreck of Christianity, to carry the hopes and the
welfare of mankind down the ages.




S:aPECIA.X  A.NNL    O                              ElToJ>lN: ENS T.
COMPLE TION OF
THE POPULAR EDITION
OF
artoun t'  iot Vp of Cgta&mb
From  the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth.
In Twelve Volumes, 12mo, $1.25 per Volume.
Or the I2 volumes in a neat casefor $15. The samze in zhaf caf, extra, at $36.
The great merits of this work have secured for it in this handsome but
inexpensive form a popular circulation almost without precedent.  It is the
only history deserving the name of one of the most moulentous epochs in
English history.
This edition of FROUDE'S HISTORY, containing all the matter of the Library Edition, is a popular one, the price being remarkably low, placing it
within the reach of those who are unable to purchase the Library Edition.
It is printed upon good white paper, and the type is large and clear, so
that it can be easily read by the weakest of eyes.  The binding is substantial and attractive, and the whole work merits the warmest praise.
ALSO NOW READY,
The large paper edition of FROUDE'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, in twelve
volumes. Price per volume, $5.
CRITICAL NOTICES.
"The ease and spirit, the gentleness and force, the grace and energy, the descriptive and
passionate power, the unstudied ease, and the consummate art of both imagery and diction
which distinguish this remarkable writer, will soon make a place for him among the most
interesting and distinguished of those who have attempted to write any portion of the wonderful history of England. Those who have not read any of these volumes can scarcely appreciate, without the trial, how rich a treat is in store for them." — New York Times.
" Since Macallay's first volume, no historical work has appeared which, in brilliance of
style as well as in keen analysis of character and events, can compare with the ten volumes
of' Froude's History of England.' "      -New York Inde~endelt.
" The style is excellent,- sound, honest, forcible, singularly perspicuous English;at times,
with a sort of picturesque simplicity, pictures dashed off with only a few touches, but perfectly alive...... We have never to read a passage twice...... We see the course of
events day by day, not only the more serious and important communications, but the gossip
of the hour.... If truth and vivid reality be the perfection of history, much is to be said
in favor of this mode of composition.: - London Quarterly.
THE LIBRARY EDITION OF FROUDE'S HISTORY.
Published in twelve volumes, printed upon heavy tinted paper, and handsomely bound in brown cloth, with gilt side and back, at $3 per volume;
in half calf, $5 per volume.
The above volumes sent, post-paid, to any address, by the Publishers, zuon
receipt of price.
CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO.,
654 Broadway, New York.




A Commeltary oil the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical.
B  y70HNi P. LA AGE, D.D., in connection with a number of enzinent European Di.
vines. Translatedfromn the Germian, tand edited, wi/t additions, original
and selected, by Phtilip Schaff, D. D., in connection with A  terican Divines of various evang-elical denominations.
Price per Volume, Cloth, $5.00; Sheep, $6.50.
T1N'VO L TI M:, S iNOW  P  L BI IS I E D.
A NE W VOLUME yUST REA D.
Comprising GALATIANS, EPHESIANS, PHILIPPIANS, AND  COLOSSIANS. Translated and Edited by Rev. C. C. Starbuck, M. B.
Riddle, D.D., and Prof. H. B. Hackett, D.D.
The nine volunues of Lange's Comminentar.y previously published, are.
I.                                        VI.
GENESIS.-Translated  and edited by   THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE
Tayler Lewis, LL.D., and A. Gosman,        ROMANS.-By J. P. Lange, D.D.
D.D~.                                      and F. R. Fay.  Translated by J. F.
II.                        Hurst, D.D., with additions by P. Schaff,
PROVERBS.-Translated and edited by           D.D., and Rev. M. B. Riddle.
President Charles A. Aiken, of Union
College.  ECCLESIASTES.-Trans-                             VII.
lated bv Prof. William Wells, and edited
by Tayler Lewis, LL.D., of Union Col-   CORINTHIANS.-Translated and edilege.  SO N G  OF  SOLOMON.-               ted by Drs. D. W. Poor and Conway
Translated and edited by W. H. Green,      Wing.
D.D., of Princeton.                                       VIII.
III.                     THESSALONIANS, TIMOTHY, TIMATTHEW.-Translated and edited by            TUS, PHI  EM  ON   AND  HEMPlHEW              e adSc haff D.D.   by  R BREWS.  Translated and edited by
Philip  chaf,.D.                         Drs. Harwood and Washburne, ProIV.                        fessors Kendrick, Hackett, and Day, and
MARK AND LUKE.-Translated and                the late Dr. John Lillie.
edited by Prof. W. G. T. Shedd, D.D.,
Philip Schaff, D.D., and Rev. C. C.                        IX.
Starbuck.                                THE  EPISTLES  GENERAL  OF
V.                        JAMES, PETER, JOHN, AND
ACTS.-Translated and edited by Chas.         JUDE.-Translated and edited by J
F. Schaffer, D.D.                          Isidor Mombert.
General Editor, Dr. PHILIP SCHAFF, Reformed.
CONTRIBUTORS:
W. G. T. SHEDD, D.D.,. --  Presbyterian    E. D. YEOMANS, D.D.,  -   - Presbyterian
E. A. WASHBURNE, D.D.,.. - Episcopal   Rev. C. C. STARBUCK, - - Congregational
A. C. KENDRICK, D.D.,-.      -  Baptist   J. ISIDOR MOMBERT, D.D., -  Episcopal
Dr. GREEN, -...... Presbyterian    D. WV. POOR, D.D., - -. Presbyterian
J. F. HURST, D.D.,  - - - - - Methodist   C. P. WING, D.D., -.     -     Presbyterian
TAYLEJ I.EWIS, LL.D., - Dutch Reformed    GEORGE E. DAY, D.D., - -Congregational
Rev. CHARLES F. SCHAFFER, Lutheran    Rev. P. H. STEENSTRA,  - - - Episcopal
R. D. HITCHCOCK, D.D., - - Presbyterian    A. GOSMAN, D.D., - - - - Presbyterian
E. HARWOOD, D.D.,...   -   Episcopal   Rev. CHARLES A. AIKEN, - Presbytcriast
II. B. HACKETT, D.D.,..   Baptist   Rev. M. B. RIDDLE,- - - Dutch Reformed
JOIN LILLIE, D.D., -   Presbyterian    Prof. WILLIAM WELLS, - -  -  Methoel
Eag Ech volume of " LANGE'S COMMIIENTAR Y" is complete in itself, and
can be purchased separately. Sent post-paid to any address upotn receilt of th price
($5 per volume) by the Publishers.
CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., 654 Broadway, N. Y




STANDARD VORKS
AT
GREATLY REDUCED PRICES.
REDUCED,
FROM     TO
FROUDE'3 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.  Popular edition. In
twelve volumes 12mo.  Per vol..................................... $3 oo  $I 25
The set in a neat case......................................... 36 00  15 oa
FROUDE'S SHORT STUDIES ON GREAT SUBJECTS. One
volume I 2mo...................................................       3    00  I  50
MOMMSEN'S HISTORY  OF ROME.  In four volumes crown 8vo.
Per vol.........................................................      5   2    00'The set in  a  neat case.........................................  o  oo   8  00
DEAN STANLEY. JEWISH CHURCH. PART I. Maps and
Plans.  One volume crown 8vo..............................   4 0o    2 50
PART II. One volume crowr 8vo..............................   5 oo   2 50
DEAN  STANLEY'S EASTERN  CHURCH. One vol. crown 8vo.  4 00   2 50
ARCHBISHOP TRENCH'S STUDIES IN THE GOSPELS.
One volume large i2mo, cloth...................................  3 oo   2 50
LORD DERBY'S TRANSLATION OF HOMER'S ILIAD.
Containing all the author's latest revisions and corrections,  Two
volumes in. one.........................................          5   2 50
FORSYTH'S LIFE  OF CICERO.  Two volumes in one............  500   2 50
CONYBEARE & HOWSON'S LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST.
PAUL.  Complete and unabridged edition.  The two volumes of the
London edition in one, with the Text and Notes entire, and the Maps
and  Illustrations...................................................  7  50   3  00
DR. J. ADDISON ALEXANDER'S SERMONS. Two volumes
in one, crown 8vo................................................  4 oo00   2 50
DR. J. W. ALEXANDER'S FAMILIAR LETTERS. Two
volumes in one, crown 8vo........................................  4 oo   2 50
DR. SCHAFF'S CHRISTIAN  CHURCH.  Three volumes in two.. II 25   7 50
DR. SHEDD'S HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. Two
volumes 8vo...................................................  7 50   5 00
DR. SHEDD'S HOMILETICS.  One volume 8vo..................  3 50   2 50
MAINE'S ANCIENT LAW.  One volume crown 8vo...............  3 00o    2 50
BRACE'S RACES OF THE  OLD  WORLD.  One vol. cr. 8vo...  2 50   2 o0
DR. JNO. LORD'S ANCIENT HISTORY. One volume x2mo...  3 oo   I 50
These works to be had of all Booksellers, or sent, Iost-jaid, ulon receipt  rf TiA
price, by the jublishers,
CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO.,
654 3?roadwaoy, JXew  York.




POPULAR AND STANDARD LIST OF BOOKS
PUBLISHED BY
(g~acle~   86Fkbne                                      c a le
IN 1869 AND'70.
ALEXANDER, H. C. Life of J. A. Alexander. Two vols. crown 8vo....... $5.oo
ALEXANDER, J. W. Forty  Years' Correspondence with  a Friend.
Ne7w Edtitioz.  One vol. I2mo......................................... 2.50
ALEXANDER, J. A   Sermons.  New  zEdition, One vol. 2mo............... 2.50
ANDERSON    Foreign Missions.'One vol. 12mo........................... 1.50
BOWEN, Prof. FRANCIS. Am. Political Economy.  One vol. crown 8vo.. 2.50
BROWNING, Mrs. E. B. Lady Geraldine's Courtship.  Illustrated. One
vol. small 4to...................................................               oo
BUSHNELL, HORACE. Women's Suffrage.  One vol. 12mo............. 1.50
CONYBEARE  & HOWSON.  St. Paul.  Com'tplete Edition.  One vol. 8vo. 3.00
COOLEY, Prof. Le ROY C. A Text Book on Natural Philosophy.  One
vol. 2o..................................................................50
A Text-Book of Chemistry.  One vol. i2mo. 1.25
DAY, Prof HENRY  N. The Young Composer. One vol. i2mo........... i.oo
-~~__ _-          ~The American Speller.  One vol.  2mo............25
FISHER, Rev. GEO. P. Supernatural Origin of Christianity  New Edition.
One  vol. Svo..........3..................................................  3.00
FROUDE, J. A.  History of England.  Vols. XI. and XII., cr. 8vo., per vol.. 3.00
Vols I. to XII.inclusive. I2mo., per vol 1.25
HAMILTON.  Reminiscences of J. A. Hamilton.  One vol. 8vo........... 5.00
HARPER, MARY J.  Practical Composition.  One vol. 2mo...................90
HEADLEY, J. T.  The Adirondacks.  New Edition. One vol. I2110o......... 1.75
HURST, JOHN  F. D.D.,  History of the Church in the Eighteenth and
Nineteenth Centuries. Two vols. 8vo.................................. 6.00
ILLUSTRATED  LIBRARY  OF WONDERS.   Fourteen vols. Illustrated,
per  vol................................................50
ERNINGHAM'S (Mrs.)  Journal.  One vol.  6mo..........................75
LANGE'S  (Prof J. P., D.D.) COMMENTARY.  Romans.  Onevol. 8vo. 5.00
- ~ - ________________ _-  -Proverbs. One vol. 8vo. 5.o0
LIFTING  THE VEIL. One vol. i2mo....................................... 1.25
LORD, Dr. JOHN. Ancient States and Empires. One vol. crown 8vo.... 3.00
MAINE, H. S. Ancient Law.  NAr#   Edition.  One vol. crown 8vo...........   2.50
Mc ILVAINE, Prof. J  H    Elocution.  One vol. I2mo....................  1.75
MOMMS-EN, Dr. THEODOR. The History of Rome. Three vols. cr. 8vo.,
per   vol..................................................................   2.00
MULLER, MAX. Chips from  a German Workshop. Two vols. cr. 8vo... 5.00
PORTER, Prof N. The Human Inte ledt.- One vol. 8vo.................. 5.00
POUCHI ET, F. A. The Universe. One vol. royal Svo......................2.00
SEAMAN, E  C. The Am. System  of Government. One vol. i2mo..... 1.50
SHEDD, WILLIAM   G. T., D.D.   A  History  of Christian  Dodrine.
New  ESdition. Two vols. 8vo.......................................... 5.00
A Treatise on Homiletics and
Pastoral Theology, New Edition.  One vol. 8vo....................... 2.50
SONGS OF LIFE.  Illustrated.  One vol. small 4to........................ 5.00
STANLEY, ARTHUR PENRHYN, D.D. Ledtures on the History of
the Jewish Church. New Edition. Two vols. crown 8vo.............. 5.00
Ledtures on the History of
the Eastern Church.  Nevw Edition.  One vol. cr. 8vo................. 2.
Sinai and Palestine.  New
Edition.  One vol. cr. 8vo............................................. 2.50
TRENCH, R. C.  Studies in the Gospels.  New Edition.  Onevol. 12mo.. 2.50
WOOD, Rev. J. G.  Bible Animals.  One vol. 8vo.......................... 5.00
WOOLSEY, T. D., D.D.  Essay on Divorce.  One vol. i2mo.............. 175