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SERMONS

PREACHED IN

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LONDON.

1829 — 1869.

BY T. BINNEY, LL.D.
SECOND SERIES,
EDITED, WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCH,
BT
HENRY ALLON, D.D.

H&artban :
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1875.
[ All rights reserved ]

OXFORD
BY E. PIOKAED HALL AND J. H. STACY,
rBINTKBS TO THE TTNTVETtSlTY.

' The old oedeb changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himsele in manx wats,
Lest one good custom should coebupt the woeld.'
Morte If Arthur.

ADVEBTISEMENT.
Mr. Blnney, in his will, formally prohibited any
' Biography ' of himself — that is, any collection of the
minute details of an uneventful life, intrinsically un
important, and interesting only as connected with his
own public work. The intellectual life of such a man
would be interesting enough, but no adequate materials
for it exist.
It is hoped that the following sketch, written at the
request of his family, and which is critical rather than
biographical, does not violate either the spirit or the
letter of his prohibition.
It will be observed that in some of the sermons con
tained in this volume there are passages which occur in
other sermons previously published ; e. g. in the con
cluding part of the sermon on ' Messiah Suffering, and
Messiah Satisfied,' there are excerpts from the sermon
' Salvation by Fire, and Salvation in its Fulness/ con
tained in the First Series. Both sermons were preached
before either was published. It has not been thought
desirable to mutilate any sermon by the omission
of such repetitions, nor necessary to indicate them
severally. Only a few of Mr. Binney's manuscripts indicate the
dates or occasions of his sermons ; where such occur
they are here given.

1)2

CONTENTS.

SERMON I.
MESSIAH SUFFERING, AND MESSIAH SATISFIED.

PAGE

* Se shall see of the travail of Sis soul, and shall he satisfied.' — Isaiah
liii. 11  1
For the London Missionary Society ; preached in Surrey Chapel, May 8, 1839.

SERMON II.

RECONCILIATION.
' All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself hy Jesus Christ,
and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation ; to wit, that God
was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their
trespasses unto them ; and hath committed unto us the word of reconcilia
tion. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did
heseech you hy us : we pray you in Chrisfs stead, he ye reconciled to God.
For he hath made Mm to he sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might
he made the righteousness of God in him. We then, as workers together
with him, heseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in
vain.'— 2 Cob. v. 18—21 ; vi. 1  51
Preached in the Wesleyan Chapel, City Road, October 81, 1866.

SERMON III.
THE PEACE OF GOD.
I.
' The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts
and minds through Christ Jesus' — Philippians iv. 7  79
Preached in the King's Weigh House Chapel, June 20, 1852.

x CONTENTS. SERMON IV.
THE PEACE OF GOD.
II. PAGE
' The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts
and minds through Christ Jesus' — Philippians iv. 7  94
SERMON V.
THE PEACE OF GOD.
HI.
' The peace of God, which passeth all understanding , shall keep your hearts
and minds through Christ Jesus.' — Philippians iv. 7  106
SERMON VI.
THE PEACE OF GOD.
IV.
' The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts
' through Christ Jesus.' — Philippians iv. 7 . . . . . 121

SERMON VII.
MYSTERIES TO ANGELS.
' Which things the angels desire to look into.' — 1 Petee i. 12  132
SERMON VIII.
GETHSEMANE.
'Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith
unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And /<«
took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began, to be
sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, 2fi/ soul is exceed
ing sorrowful , even unto death : tarry ye here, and tvatch with me. And
he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, 0 mi/
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as
I will, hut as thou, will. And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth
them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me

CONTENTS. xi
PAGE
one hour 1 Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation : the
spirit indeed is willing, hut the flesh is weak. Se went away again the
second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass
away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. And he came and
found them asleep again : for their eyes were heavy. And he left them,
and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same
words. Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on
now, and take your rest : behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of
man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Mise, let us he going : be
hold, he is at hand that doth betray me.' — Matthew xxvi. 36 — 46 . . 150
Preached in the King's Weigh House Chapel, December 22, 1850.

SERMON IX.
CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS.
' Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.' — Romans xiii. 14  166
SERMON X.
MARY OF BETHANY.
' She hath done what she could.' — Mabk xiv. 8  188
Funeral Sermon for Miss Wells of Walthamstow.
SERMON XI.
' The well-beloved Gains' — 3 John 1  205
Funeral Sermon for Joseph Proctor, Esq.
SERMON XII.
CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS.
' Be courteous.' — 1 Peteb iii. 8  226
Preached at the Monthly Lecture of the London Congregational
Ministers, in the Barbican Chapel, March 14, 1837.
SERMON XIII.
THOUGHTS THAT PERISH.
' In that very day his thoughts perish.' — Psalm cxlvi. 4  216
For the Wesleyan Day Schools; preached in Great Queen Street
Chapel, Lincoln's Inn Fields, June 13, 1841.

xii CONTENTS.
SERMON XIV.
SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY. PAGE
'Israel hath forgotten his maker and buildeth temples ; and Judah hath
multiplied fenced cities; but I will send afire upon his cities, and it
shall devour the palaces thereof — HoSEA viii. 14  267

SERMON XV.
ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.
' That they all may be one ; as thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that
they also may be one in us : that the world may believe that thou hast
sent me.' — John xvii. 21  294

SERMON XVI.
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT : ITS POSSIBILITY AND PROMISE.
' It doth not yet appear what we shall he.' — 1 John iii. 2  316
SERMON XVII.
CARNALITY.
* Are ye not carnal, and walk as men ? ' — 1 Cob. iii. 3  341
For the London Missionary Society; preached in Albany Street
Chapel, Edinburgh, April 25, 1850.

BIOGBAPHICAL

AND

CRITICAL SKETCH.

Mr. Binney's eminence as a minister of Christ rested upon
bases which could scarcely be demonstrated. His name is not
connected with any monumental achievement either in philan
thropy, oratory, or literature. For reasons which may appear
in the course of these remarks, he has left behind him no work
which can be regarded as an adequate expression of his indis
putable power. His reputation, like that of many great men,
was won by the impression made by great faculties and noble
character in their normal exercises — in his case, in the common
fellowship and counsel of ministers, and in such preachings and
writings as the ordinary course of a minister's work gives occa
sion for. Able as are some of his sermons and pamphlets, to
those otherwise unacquainted with him or his work, they will not
seem to justify the reputation and reverence which were ac
corded to him. These were evoked by the staple qualities of
the man — a great intellectual, social, and religious presence —
rather than by any specific achievement.
The reputation and the reverence, however, were not the less,
but rather the more, because thus inspired by the character and
power of the entire man. They were the gradual and uncon
scious growth of many years of public life. They were indicated
by the vague feeling, the indefinite impression of greatness pro
duced by the mere action of the social wave. The movement is
felt far beyond intelligent recognition of its cause. Occasional
sermons and pamphlets and speeches simply justified this im
pression of surpassing ability.
Reputation so won is commonly the best merited. It does
not rest upon accidental successes, or exceptional achievements.

xiv BIOGRAPHICAL
but on general qualities, which may or may not actually fulfil
their promise. Such reputation is exceptionally difficult to win,
especially by a Nonconformist minister. Not only is the in
tellectual demand for two entire Sunday and one week-day
services, — each involving sermons of forty or forty-five minutes
in length, and two or three extemporaneous prayers, — very
inimical to intrinsic literary excellency, but his very position
as a Nonconformist excludes adventitious aids of official sanction
and occasion. He must win his way and sustain his services (
by dint of sheer intellectual and moral force.
A man, therefore, who, destitute of high scholarship and inde
pendently of adventitious circumstance, and despite the presump
tions and prejudices which a Nonconformist pastorate excites —
more especially in controversial times, when it is necessary for
him to take a decided and resolute part in ecclesiastical polemics
— achieves a reputation such as that of Mr. Binney, as attested
by the bulletins and articles of the daily press during his illness
and on his death, and by the thousands who followed him to
his grave, must of necessity be a man of distinguished ability.
Mr. Binney's power was developed by the necessities and
processes of self-education. The son of parents in compara
tively humble circumstances, he was born in Newcastle-upon-
Tyne in 1798, and after receiving an ordinary day-school
education, he was apprenticed for seven years to Mr. Angas,
a bookseller in Side Street. His own account of himself at this
period, given in an address to the young men of his congrega
tion, sufficiently indicates both the circumstances and the man.
' I was seven years in a bookseller's concern, and during that
time my hours were, for two years, from seven to eight, and for
five years, from seven to seven, under great pressure. I have
sometimes been engaged from six till ten. But, somehow, all
the time, and especially from my fourteenth to my twentieth
year, I found opportunities for much reading and a great deal
of composition. I did not shirk, however, my Latin and Greek,
for I went for some time, two evenings in a week, to an old
Presbyterian clergyman to learn the elements of the two lan
guages, and could read Csesar and St. John ; but my great work
was English. I read many of the best authors ; I wrote largely
both poetry and prose ; and I did so with much painstaking
I laboured to acquire a good style of expression, as well as

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. xv
merely to express my thoughts. Some of the plans I pursued
were rather odd, and produced odd results. I read the whole]
of Johnson's " Rambler," put down all the new words I met!
with — and they were a good many — with their proper mean-/
ings ; and then I wrote essays in imitation of Johnson, and used
them up. I did the same with Thompson's " Seasons," and wrote
blank verse to use his words, and also to acquire something of
music and rhythm. And so I went on, sometimes writing long
poems in heroic verse ; one on the " Being of a God ;" another,
in two or three " Books," in blank verse, in imitation of the
" Paradise Lost." I wrote essays on " The Immortality of the
Soul ;" sermons ; a tragedy in three acts ; and other things very
wonderful in their way you may be sure ! I think I can say
I never fancied myself a poet or a philosopher ; but I wrote on
and on to acquire the power to write with readiness ; and I say
to you, with a full conviction of the truth of what I say, that ,
having lived to gain some little reputation as a writer, I attri- I
bute all my success to what I did for myself, and to the habits!
I formed during those years to which I have thus referred.'
His father, who was of Scotch extraction, was an elder of the
Presbyterian congregation in the Wall Knoll, the minister of
which was the Rev. Adam Robson. In a sketch of the late
Rev. Richard Fletcher, of St. Kilda, Melbourne, Mr. Binney
says: 'It must have been about the year 1817 or 181 8, when
some ten or twelve of us, all youths under twenty, mostly con
nected by birth and training with the Presbyterian churches of
Newcastle, formed ourselves into a society for the study of the
Scriptures, prayer, and mutual religious improvement. It was
not a literary class. We met on a Sunday evening, and though
essays and sermons were read, it was not with the object of
criticism or discussion, but rather as a means of spiritual ad
vancement. The congregations to which most of us belonged
were connected with the Established Church of Scotland; at
least that was the case with Mr. Fletcher and myself. His
father was an elder, at the time I speak of, of the Silver Street
congregation, of which the Rev. A. Laidlaw was then the minis
ter. It was in the vestry of this church that our meetings were
held.' A minister of the Anti-burgher Church, the Rev. William Sym,
was in the habit of giving instruction to young men who were

xvi BIOGRAPHICAL
desirous of mental improvement in classics and other branches
of knowledge. Several young men who afterwards entered the
ministry, among them Mr. Binney, availed themselves of this.
By what influences he was led to connect himself with Con-
gregationalists, or to consecrate himself to the ministry among
them, is not known. He was recommended by Mr. Atkin, the
Presbyterian minister at Morpeth, to the Theological Seminary
then established at Wymondley, Herts, founded by the trustees
of Mr. Coward— an institution afterwards, with Highbury and
Homerton Colleges, merged in New College, St. John's Wood,
London. Probably he found the standards of the Church of
Scotland somewhat too rigid. The curriculum of study at such
an institution was both limited in time and imperfect in quality.
Mr. Binney continued there only three years, and so far as
vague traditions enable a judgment, he was not a very severe
student. It is certain however, that he had excited no ordinary
expectations. Clearly the course of education at Wymondley could not make
a man an accomplished scholar or a learned exegete. For some
reasons, it is to be regretted when great natural powers do not re
ceive the highest degree of culture. Few who knew Mr. Binney's
intellectual qualities, can have failed to regret that they were
not subjected to the severe mathematical or classical culture of
one of the Universities : as, for example, those of Robert Hall
were. This would probably have corrected, in part at least, a
certain desultoriness of habit both in thinking and working
which was characteristic of him, and which was one of the
reasons why he did not achieve greater works in authorship.
Next to the possession of great powers is the importance of
their being early disciplined to exact and continuous appli
cation. This, however, depends upon the kind of work that a man
has to do, and upon the results which are desired.
Does not the technical application of the term education
unduly limit it to the knowledge and habit of the schools ? It
is only one kind of education that scholastic training gives.
There is another which is the peculiar achievement of the strug
gles of powerful minds after self-education. If the ministry of
the Gospel were fulfilled entirely, or even chiefly by achieve
ments iu exegesis, theology, or oratory, there could be no ques-

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. xvii
tion about the necessity of a university curriculum. But there
are experiences and sympathies of human life which especially
qualify a man to minister the Gospel of Christ to sinful, sorrow
ful men — even as Christ Himself, by His human experience, was
qualified to be 'a faithful and merciful High Priest' — and for the
lack of which no book-learning can compensate.
A youth sent from a sequestered home to a public school, and
thence to a university, may acquire a large amount of know
ledge and experience, and an admirable discipline of his mental
powers; he may be carefully cultured in moral principles and
sentiments, and receive a due polish of social manner ; he will
also become, partially, at least, acquainted with certain classes
and habits of life. For ordinary life, for politics, for professions,
for mercantile pursuits, and for the use of hereditary property,
no education is better; but for the specific work of a minister
of the mercy and consolation of Christ's Gospel, for the develop
ment of the humanities of a man, for knowledge of toiling,
struggling, sinning life, as men realize it in great cities or in
rural parishes, and for the practical development of sympathies
therewith, another and a very different education is necessary.
The minister of religion is a great deal more than a Biblical
exegete, a theological teacher, a cultured scholar : these, in an
adequate degree, he must be, if he will do his work fully ; but
his chief ministry is of the pardon, and sympathy, and sanctify
ing influences of the Gospel, and this is not primarily dependent
upon these. Many an illiterate man, in virtue of his education
in human nature and its necessities, has been a great and suc
cessful minister of Christ ; but no man has ever become a great
and successful minister of Christ in virtue of mere scholarship.
John Owen told Charles II that he would gladly relinquish all
his learning to be able to preach like John Bunyan. So that if it
were an alternative — which it is not — a purely literary educa
tion for the ministry, or an education of only such human ex
periences as are realized by common struggles and sympathies,
there could be no room for hesitation. If, on an intellectual
estimate, it be an evil for ministers to be defective in literary
education, on every spiritual and religious estimate it is an incal
culably greater evil for them to be only scholars. No qualification
for the ministry is so potent and precious as practical acquaint
ance with the struggles and necessities of men's common life.

xviii BIOGRAPHICAL
This, perhaps, has been the characteristic distinction between
the clergy of the Established Church, who had exclusive access
to the national Universities, and the Nonconformist ministers
of the past. With equal consecration of heart and purpose,
their processes of education were different ; and it can hardly
be questioned that, while the clergyman, in virtue of his
education and official position, has been in the parish a ' gentle-
man' to whom rustic ignorance and rudeness might look up;
the Nonconformist minister, while not the less a ' gentleman/ let
us hope, has been more of a practical helper and sympathiser, to
whom sinning, sorrowing, struggling men might turn.
Mr. Binney's ' seven years in the bookseller's concern' were no
doubt the secret of much of that distinctive intuition and sym
pathy which made his ministry so singularly attractive to the
business men of the City of London, and especially to young
men. He spoke to them with a practical knowledge of their
temptations, struggles, and feelings. Instead of the formal
regulation sermons, which a mere scholar must preach, he spoke
directly and intelligently to the conditions and the heart of their
conscious life.
Then again, the self- education of a vital, forceful nature, is a
struggle for acquisition and development, which beyond any other
struggle is an impulse and an exercise ; as also an active and eager
assimilation. The competitive struggles of school and university
life ; the self-directed struggles of ambitious genius towards poli
tics, literature, art, or the professions, are of equal value in their
departments; but they are different. They do not make such
demands upon the inventive and self-reliant powers ; at any rate
the ordinary competitions and strivings of schools and universities
can bear no comparison with it.
One has only to note the distinctive force and aptitude of self-
made men in every department of life—politics, law, literature,
or commerce, and especially in the ministry — to see how largely
scholastic deficiency is compensated by exceptional power. The
necessity for practical success produces an aptitude of acqui
sition, resource, and adaptation, which, in the ministry especially,
marks off two distinct classes, respectively characteristic of the
Episcopalian and of the Nonconformist churches of England.
One may listen to a hundred sermons from well-educated clergy
men ; and, scholastically faultless, religiously decorous, and even

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. xix
evangelically good as they may be, they are so destitute of prac
tical aptitude, and of definite human purpose, that they pass over
mind, heart, and experience, and therefore over memory, like a
light breeze over a cornfield ; while even an illiterate Methodist
local preacher, whose thought is confused, whose grammar is of
the wildest, and pronunciation the most vulgar, makes you feel
that he has a definite purpose, a practical human aim, and that
according to the best instincts and faculties of his nature he is
striving to accomplish it. Dr. Whateley speaks of preachers
who aim at nothing and hit it. Such a man aims at something,
although he may sometimes miss it ; and his self-directed efforts
at thinking and preaching develope vigour, distinctness, and
aptitude, such as no other training could give him.
Mr. Binney attained to an adequate degree of scholastic edu
cation. He was able to use the results of classical and philo
sophical learning so far as his ministry required them. He had
carefully cultured, more especially, a fine sense for language.
But the great strength of his pulpit lay in its humanities, and
was the result of a wide and profound education in the religious
necessities of practical human life. His own experiences of
struggling life were varied enough, and continued long enough,
to enable sympathetic imagination to do its work ; so that the
preacher realised the religious necessities of men so circumstanced.
His sympathies were quick, apprehensive, and practical ;
while his thinking was clear, robust, independent, and compre
hensive. He was a great natural philosopher in the moral
domain of things, applying to the great problems of life experi
mental rather than metaphysical tests.
It happened to Mr. Binney, as it happens to many ministers,
especially to men of marked individuality, that he did not at first
find his appropriate sphere of pastoral labour. For about twelve
months he was minister of the New Meeting, now Howard
Chapel, Bedford ; of which John Howard was one of the founders.
In August, 1834, he accepted an invitation to the pastorate of
St. James Street Chapel, at Newport, in the Isle of Wight. In
December, of the same year, he was ordained. A letter from the
Rev. T. Morrell, his tutor at Wymondley, relating to his settle
ment at Newport, addressed to Mr. Kirkpatrick one of the Dea
cons of the Church, is worth quoting, inasmuch as it indicates the
judgment of Mr. Binney, which a shrewd and able man formed

xx BIOGRAPHICAL
at the beginning of his career : ' In reply to your enquiries
respecting Mr. Binney, I have much pleasure in being able to
bear the highest testimony to his talents and respectability as a
minister. Should his life and health be spared, I think he is
likely to attain to no ordinary eminence in the Church of Christ.
His mind is of the first order ; but he has somewhat of the eccen
tricity which usually attends a high degree of genius and talent,
combined with a very susceptible mind. His pulpit talents are
very considerable, and the general strain of his preaching is
practical, Evangelical, and eminently devotional. He has been
blessed with a highly encouraging degree of usefulness at
Bedford, where he has laboured during the last year; though
circumstances, which I consider fully sufficient to justify his
removal, have induced him to abandon that station.'
If there be any virtue in the adaptation of a minister to his
particular sphere of labour, this process of ' elective affinities ' is a
necessity ; and it is as wholesome as it is accordant with common
sense. Congregational ministers cannot be helped much by
patronage, nor can they be hindered by adverse influences. They
find their fitting sphere by a process of natural selection.
Churches can neither be induced to accept as a minister a man
whom they deem unfitting, nor prevented from choosing a man
who approves himself to them, wherever he may come from,
or whatever his lack of influential friends. Many an un
known student is called to the best of the churches ; many a
son of wealthy and influential families has to labour in obscure
places. If, during his College curriculum, or the first years of his
ministry, a young man evince distinctive abilities, this becomes
rapidly known, especially to churches without pastors; and if
their judgments so appraise him, there is nothing to prevent his
attaining, per saltum, one of the foremost and best remunerated
pastorates. There is nothing of which Congregational ministers
and churches are more justly proud, than of the working of this
law of supply and demand, whereby, as a rule, the right man
finds the right place.
Minds of a certain order, and especially ministers accustomed
to the more absolute legal securities of patronage or official ap
pointment, shrink from the notion of a voluntary choice, by the
ecclesiastical fellowship as such, and have much to say in theo
retic deprecation of it. And it is freely conceded that occasion-

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. xxi
ally and incidentally there are practical disadvantages connected
with the process. There is a certain repugnance in men of sensi
tive feeling to have their abilities tested and their claims adjudged
by the members of a church, some of them only ill qualified to
form judgments, and likely enough to be influenced by specious
rather than by sterling qualities. Only one would suppose that
the same sensitive feelings would shrink from the humiliating
conditions incidental to patronage, and from being imposed
upon a possibly inimical church. Like all questions of expedi
ency, however, this is one not of absolute but of relative advantage.
There are excellencies and defects in all methods of ministerial
appointment ; but, having respect to both the precedents of early
church history, and the actual experiences of modern church
life, Congregational churches and ministers are well contented
with their own. Some of the high satisfactions of ministers are
found in the conscious voluntariness on both sides of the pastoral
relationship. What can be more reasonable than that the first
condition ; of it should be ascertained affinity — the intellectual
and religious fitness of a man to do the special work to which
he is called ? And the only way of ascertaining this is practical
experiment. As with the ministry itself, so with the pastorate
of any particular church, it would be a cruel and injurious neces
sity which bound to a church a pastor when experience had
proved that the formation of the relationship had been a practical
mistake. It is surely a weak, not to say a cowardly and unjust
feeling on the part of a minister to wish for legal security in his
pastorate in the absence of the affectionate preference of the
church. Even admitting that the ignorance or capriciousness of
a church may occasionally inflict wrong upon a minister ; of the
two evils, it is better for the general weal of a church that the
individual minister should suffer by an unwarrantable rejection,
than that the church should suffer by the enforced ministrations
of a man from whom its members derive no spiritual benefit.
If there are to be error and wrong, is it not better that a minister
should suffer professionally than that a church should suffer
spiritually? Especially may this be urged, inasmuch as prac
tically such instances are very rare. As a rule churches are
very considerate and forbearing, although it is natural enough
that men who are not approved by them should deem themselves
hardly treated.

xxii BIOGRAPHICAL
If, for any cause whatever, there be lack of congruity between
pastor and people, as may well be without blame attaching to
either, is it not clearly expedient in the interests of religion that
they should separate ? Many a church has found its prosperity,
and many a minister his life and joy, in such changes. Any
system is surely better than secular and official patronage. Con
ceding that prime ministers, lord chancellors, bishops, and great
proprietors are moved by the most conscientious and unbiassed
religious solicitude, in making their appointments ; should any
man, or any synod of men, have the power to impose upon a
church, of which necessarily they know but little, the minister
and pastor upon whose ministrations the intelligence, sanctity,
and comfort of their religious life depend ? No human judgment
however wise, no religious solicitude however earnest, is a qualifi
cation for appointing thus the pastors of a diocese, or the Church-
dignitaries of a kingdom. In no other department of life would
it be tolerated, that pergonal choice should thus be superseded
by authoritative nomination. In every sense it is a cardinal wrong
to the Christian liberties and religious interests of a congrega
tion. A fitting and acceptable minister is thus only a happy
accident. To make the office of a minister of the Gospel a
' living,' and to dispose of it in the auction mart, or by gift or
heritage, simply as such, is an outrage upon every religious
conception of the Church of Christ. Surely those who are to
be taught in religious things should have some option in the
appointment of their teacher !
In all churches natural ability will assert itself, and promotion
more or less will follow its development. The self-adjusting pro
cesses of Congregational churches enable this with perfect facility,
and almost infallible certainty. No gifted man can be relegated
to obscurity. And pecuniary advance is necessarily involved in
ecclesiastical promotion ; the larger the church the larger the
stipend of its minister. It is the natural working of the&law of
supply and demand : the man is placed and remunerated according
to his abilities. At the outset of his career he moves until he
finds his adequate and fitting sphere— his only law that of affinity.
And so effectually does this work that men like Mr. Binney seem
to have been designed and selected by a special Providence for the
spheres which they ultimately fill, and with which their names be
come identified. Most Nonconformist ministers who attain to

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. xxiii
eminence are so palpably thus adapted to their position, that it is
difficult to imagine them in any other. The incipient congruity
which induces the settlement is, by a reciprocal process, rapidly
moulded into harmony : while the minister moulds the church,
the church also moulds him. Thus the relationship grows to
something like inviolability. Men like Mr. Binney have no
prouder, more thankful, and more inspiring consciousness than
that they occupy their place by the spontaneous, loving, and
growing attachment of their people. It is their solace and
strength amid the thousand solicitudes and discouragements of
ministerial life ; and it often gives resolution and hope where
everything else would fail. In the religious solicitudes of a
faithful and sensitive pastor, the thought that he is where he is,
independently of the will or affection of his people, must be
almost intolerable. His very modesty will often prevent that
assurance of these which he might justly feel.
Thus, after six years of ministerial life, Mr. Binney found
himself minister of the Weigh House Chapel, for which, no
doubt, his five years' pastorate at Newport was an important
part of his preparation. At Newport he found and came into
casual contact with a clergyman who afterwards attained to
eminence in his own church, Dr. Wilberforce, the late Bishop of
Winchester, one of the most able and distinguished prelates of
his day. Shortly before the death of both, they met at a dinner
at Fishmongers' Hall, when these early experiences were re
called. At Newport Mr. Binney made his first essay in authorship, in
a 'Memoir of the late Stephen Morrell,' a young minister of
great promise, to whom he was much attached, who died at the
early age of twenty-four, after a pastorate of little more than a
year. It is an odd, discursive book ; a curiosity in its way. The
material for it was very limited, and the book is largely made
up of desultory disquisitions about most things characteristic
of ministerial work and of Congregational churches ; but every
where it indicates an independent, vigorous, and suggestive
mind. The character of Mr. Binney's mind, thus early, maybe inferred
from the volume on ' The Practical Power of Faith/ preached as
a course of sermons at Newport, and published in 1830, shortly
after his removal to London. Although not free from the
C 2,

xxiv BIOGRAPHICAL
defects of unpractised authorship, and from occasional diffuse-
ness, it is by many deemed his best production. The sermon on
1 The Ultimate Design of the Christian Ministry,' preached be
fore the Hampshire County Association, was also published
during this period, as were also one or two of the sermons in
cluded in this volume.
There was no special reason for his removal from Newport,
beyond his manifest qualifications for a more important sphere ;
and possibly a certain consciousness of imperfect fitness for the
place that he occupied. An entry in the church-book at New
port, made by himself, records the circumstances of his removal.
' The Rev. Thomas Binney, educated at Wymondley College,
Herts, and afterwards, for about twelve months, minister of the
New Meeting House, Bedford, came to supply the congregation
assembling in the Independent Chapel, St. James' Street, New
port, I. W., on the first Sabbath of August, 1824. He was
requested to remain one or two months, during which time he
preached also at Nook Hill Chapel, as that church was also with
out a pastor, and some thoughts were entertained of a union of
the two. This was found to be impracticable. Mr. Binney
received and accepted a call to settle over the church assembling
in St. James' Street. He was publicly set apart, or ordained to this
work, on the 29th day of December, 1824. His esteemed friend
and tutor, the Rev. T. Morrell, of Wymondley College, delivered
an affectionate and impressive charge from the apostolic admo
nition to Timothy — " Study to show thvself approved unto
God." ' In the month of March, 1 829, Mr. Binney received an invi
tation from the church assembling at the Weigh House, London,
to visit them with a view to the pastoral office. This, on con
sideration, he declined. It was followed in April by another,
accompanied by a personal visit from one of the aeacons, deputed
by the rest to this business. He consented, with much hesita
tion, to spend three Sabbaths in London, the last two in April
and the first in May.
' Immediately on arriving at this decision, Mr. Binney called
a special church meeting and communicated his intention;
stating that, whatever might be the result of the journey, what
ever his ultimate decision, or whatever the consequences of dis
closure, he could go with conscientious satisfaction only by the

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. xxv
church knowing the nature of his visit. He wrote to the same
import to the Congregational committee, who met the same
evening. ' From the Weigh House he received an unanimous and urgent
call, expressed in terms peculiarly strong. He entertained the
subject, when first proposed, reluctantly. He went to London
with repugnance ; but he felt a gradual conviction grow upon
him of what it seemed his duty to do. He concluded that it
became him to accept the call, and he did so.
' Immediately after this he called another official church meet
ing, and wrote again, at the same time, to the Congregational
committee, communicating to both this final result. He fixed
the first Sabbath in July as the last on which he should officiate.
He was thus, including the period of his probationary services,
five years all but one month over the Society.
1 During this period there were no deacons to co-operate with
the pastor in the business of the church. The attendance was
in general good. Some were added to the church, whose names
follow. But, strictly speaking, it cannot be said that the society
was very prosperous. For this reasons might be assigned,
furnished both by the pastor and the people ; but, may the Lord
pardon the imperfections of both ; and now, Oh Lord ! " send
now prosperity." Amen and Amen.
'T. B.'
In a funeral sermon preached on the death of Mr. Binney,
the Rev. Morison Newland, the present minister of the church
at Newport, remarks, in commenting upon the above minute,
' No doubt Mr. Binney was not readily appreciated there. He
was at no time a popular preacher in the ordinary acceptance of
the term. He attempted no flights of imagination; but calm
and deliberate, yet with wonderful force, he used argument and
appealed to reason, making his way to the minds and consciences
of the thoughtful.'
He began his work as the pastor of the church at the Weigh
House in the autumn of the same year.
He now found himself in a sphere which called forth the
full energy of all his powers. His temperament needed the
excitement and urgency not only of occasion but of imperative
demand. He had considerable power of independent and spon
taneous thought ; but, happily for himself, neither his facility

xxvi BIOGRAPHICAL
of expression, his intellectual self-respect, nor his sense of religious
responsibility, permitted him, as a rule, to dispense with labour.
It can hardly be said of him that he was a persistent and patient
thinker in the ratiocinative sense of the term ; he probably could
not have thought out a great theological treatise ; he simply
had not acquired the habit ; but he had that persistence of re
current thought which is more characteristic of the teacher and
preacher. His range of thought, as a rule, was restricted to the
limits of a discourse, and was directed to the popular exposition
and presentation of truth ; but, within these limits, his think
ing was keen, subtle, and comprehensive. His sermons were well
conceived, and had often a grandeur of elevation, a breadth and a
strength which approached to genius. On special occasions he
took great pains ; he was very fastidious in the choice of words ;
and his positions are put with great lucidity and force. The
blending of intellectual and emotional elements is most admir
able ; while he was incapable of rhetorical appeal merely to
excite emotion, and which was not penetrated with clear intel
lectual reason, he was never coldly intellectual. His processes
of thought, which were often elaborate, were always permeated
with warm human sympathies on his part, and with a latent
appeal to the feelings of his auditors.
No one could listen to him with indifference. His power of
exciting an audience to rapt attention on special occasions, not
infrequently for an hour and a half, was very great. No one can
read his greater sermons without feeling himself in the grasp of a
masculine, thorough, and unconventional mind, which apprehended
the relations of his teaching to great principles and systems,
even though he himself did not fully follow them out. A cer
tain desultoriness — very possible in preaching — perhaps the result
of mental indolence, the inertness of mass, which demanded great
occasion for its movement, together with a well-founded confi
dence in his own spontaneous power, sometimes resulted in very
poor sermons; of which no one was more conscious than himself.
He used to say that he could preach the poorest sermon of any
man in London. But even in his most desultory talks there
were reaches and turns of thought, flashes of light, glimpses of
great principles, and unconventional forms of expression which
made the hearer feel that he was in the presence of no ordinary
man. It was like the casual talk of a thoughtful, vigorous man.

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. xxvii
As Johnson said of Burke, you could not take shelter with him,
from a shower of rain under a door-way without discovering
that he was a great man : so was it with Mr. Binney and even
his most unfortunate hearer.
For years after coming to London, Mr. Binney's ministry
was remarkable for sermons of great massiveness and power;
often of rich imagination and highly cultured beauty, into which
he threw more of the rhetoric of passion than those who knew
him only in later life might suppose. He was never a mere
rhetorician, nor a popular preacher after whom crowds ran. The
balance of power in him was too well-adjusted for this. The
intellectual element always asserted itself. It could not be sub
dued to mere sentiment or prettiness, or to passionate rhetoric.
His sermons were elaborate statements of truth, with strong
reasonings thereupon, wrought in a masculine imagination, and
transfused with the warmth of a great and earnest soul. He
rapidly attracted to himself thoughtful and cultured men. His
congregation, generally filling the aisles of his new and spacious
chapel, was almost unique in its intellectual character and im
press ; so that the qualities which first attracted such men, found
a peculiar sphere for their development. Combined with the
strong intellectual qualities of his preaching, and with frequent
outbursts of genuine eloquence, were, first, a certain colloquialism
and deliberateness, which was the earnest unconventional expres
sion of the man, and which had the appearance of spontaneous
thinking, earnestly submitted to the direct judgment of his
auditors; and, next, a Jarge dramatic element, which found
expression, not, of course, in the personification of character, but
in pictorial narrative and rhetoric, so that the imaginative repro
duction of circumstances and characters was often of a very vivid
and arresting kind. There was, too, in him a vein of eccentricity,
which could not be altogether controlled even by his deeply
devout and reverent feeling, and which, therefore, often found
odd and sometimes petulant expression. Every true orator will
be more or less of a dramatist, and perhaps of a humourist ; at
least he will break away from mere canons of conventional pro
priety, whenever a point or an occasion seems to demand it. Mr.
Binney was incapable of any wilful disregard of either conven
tional propriety, or conventional feeling ; but, like many men of
genius, he was so constituted, that ideas grouped themselves into

xxviii BIOGRAPHICAL
peculiar combinations, and incidents suggested peculiar thoughts,
and liberated peculiar feelings, which could not be repressed.
They were the natural expression of the man. If the rock be
charged with water, it depends only upon the potency of the rod
which smites it, whether it shall gush out. Oddity is sometimes
the parasite of genius, at other times it is its genuine scintil
lation. Some of the anecdotes of Mr. Binney's oddities are either
apocryphal or exaggerated ; others, are true, and are of things
which, when he reflected upon them, or learned from their effects,
that they were brusque and produced pain, were to himself an
acute sorrow and a deep humiliation. He became like a little child;
no assiduity was too great to remove and atone for the pain that
he had unwittingly caused. It was worth bearing a rough thing
from Mr. Binney, to see the greatness and to feel the tenderness
of his nature in atoning for it, to even the humblest and poorest.
Mr. Binney soon came to be recognized as especially a preacher
to young men, hundreds of whom from city houses gathered
round his pulpit. He soon felt that this was both his aptitude,
and a necessity of his position ; and to this ministry he specially
addressed himself. His power of imaginative sympathy enabled
him to understand the intellectual and moral condition of young
men's lives in London. Perhaps no minister has ever more
thoroughly entered into the difficulties of thought, and the perils
of heart, of young men in the business houses of a great city.
He very frequently addressed to them special sermons, and courses
of sermons ; some of which, those on the Proverbs, and those on
the history of Joseph, especially, he published. Nor probably
has any minister of religion in our day so strongly moulded and
so nobly inspired so many characters and lives of strong men
belonging to this class. It is scarcely too much to say, that in
hundreds of men, now in the meridian of life, and powerfully
influencing commercial, intellectual, and religious life, both in
London and in provincial towns throughout the kingdom, and
throughout the colonies, Mr. Binney has incarnated himself.
The influences exerted by a preacher are of all influences the
most intangible, his thoughts enter the intellectual life of men
and shape it, and the moral life of men and fertilize it ; but it is
as the rain fertilizes the soil, itself disappearing in the process,
leaving those benefited often unconscious of the blessing they
have received. In a great commercial city like London, young

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. xxix
men are a stream of life flowing through it, rather than a per
manent element of life in it. The influence of a minister there
fore can be inferred only from chance indications. In Mr.
Binney's instance, such were afforded by his visits to Australia
and the United States. Wherever he went, in either country,
he found men who had been his hearers at the Weigh House ;
men often high in commercial, political, or social life, and who in
numerous instances testified to the determining and permanent
power of his ministry upon their lives.
It was only natural that such a man should attract attention
beyond his own church. Not only was he recognised by the
Congregational churches of London and the kingdom, as a man
of unusual promise and power ; but he at once challenged the
attention of other churches.
A striking indication of this is afforded by the singular and
disproportionate controversy, occasioned by the famous sentence,
quoted, or rather misquoted, from the Appendix to the Address
delivered by him at the laying of the foundation stone of the new
Weigh House Chapel, Oct. 16, 1833, and afterwards published.
Mr. Binney was then a young man, and had been in London
only three years; and yet a note to this published address aroused
a controversy in which almost the entire of the religious press,
as well as several Episcopal dignitaries, and a great number of the
clergy, took part, and in which vials of ecclesiastical wrath of the
most abusive character were poured upon his head. This in itself
was a remarkable testimony to his power. The ' sentence,' severed
from its connection, is often quoted as a phrase to adorn a speech,
and sometimes, alas, to give point to a printed argument. The
entire paragraph is as follows :
' These pages contain statements of some of the principles and
proceedings of a Dissenting Church, and statements against the
principle and operation of a religious establishment. There is
nothing improper in this. Churchmen and Dissenters have an
equal right to advocate what they respectively approve, and to
expose and condemn what they respectively reject. For one
sermon or tract published by Dissenters in support of Dissent, a
dozen may be found published by Churchmen in support of the
Church ; published by individuals, voluntarily, or in consequence
of episcopal and archidiaconal visitations, and by the " Society
for Promoting Christian Knowledge." These latter in hundreds

xxx BIOGRAPHICAL
and thousands. I have no fault to find with this. I think it
right for every man, and every body of men, to endeavour, by all
possible means, universally to establish those principles of eccle
siastical polity, which they consider to be intimately connected
with the purity of the Church, and the welfare of the world ;
only let the " Society" just mentioned be careful that its
portraitures of Methodism and Dissent, display something like
" Christian Knowledge," and not downright, heathenish igno
rance. Truth cannot be injured by fair and full discussion, and
by open and uncompromising statements. I have no hesitation
about saying that I am an enemy to the Establishment ; and I
do not see that a Churchman need hesitate to say, that he is an
enemy to Dissent. Neither of us would mean the persons of
Churchmen or Dissenters, nor the Episcopal nor other portions of
the universal church ; but the principle of the national religious
establishment, which we should respectively regard as deserving,
universally, opposition or support. It is with me, I confess, a
matter of deep, serious, religious conviction, that the Established
Church is a great national evil ; that it is an obstacle to the
progress of truth and godliness in the land ; that it destroys
more souls than it saves ; and that, therefore, its end is most
devoutly to be wished by every lover of God and man. Right
or wrong this is my belief; and I should feel not the slightest
offence if a Churchman were to express himself to me in precisely
the same words with respect to Dissent. We know very well
that we do thus actually differ in opinion, and it would be very
foolish for either to be offended, because the other expresses it.
We are bound, each of us, to adopt those principles which we
conscientiously consider to be true, and we are equally bound, in
proportion to our ability, to defend and diffuse them.'
It is enough to say here, that the reference of the writer is
guardedly, formally, and emphatically to the principle of Esta
blishment, and would have equal pertinence were the Church
actually established Presbyterian instead of Episcopal. He im
pugns neither the Episcopal Church nor any of its members.
And it would not be difficult to show that Mr. Binney's judg
ment of the deterrent, unspiritual influences of the connexion
of the Episcopal church with the civil government, severe as it is,
is not more so than that of many eminent, holy, and devoted
Episcopalians themselves.

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. xxxi
Mr. Binney's ministry in London began when important
changes in the opinions and practices of Congregational Churches
were pending. All times are times of transition, the new is ever
evolving out of the old, and the process is one of transformation ;
but some periods are more marked than others in the transitions
effected in them. They are the salient points of history ; in
fluences gather to a head ; it is the moment when the shell is
broken and the change takes palpable form. It may not intrin
sically be a moment of change greater than the previous silent
processes, but it appears so, and the accident which may cause
the manifestation of it is often superficially regarded as its cause.
In many social, political, and religious respects the second quar
ter of the present century was a new birth of time ; many old
things, which were the conditions of life of our fathers, passed
away ; many things, now familiar to us as conditions of life, then
became new. The entire life of Nonconformists underwent a
change, not only in the new social relations and developments
which the removal of grievous disabilities caused, but in the
internal life of their Churches. Doubtless all these changes
would have occurred under any circumstances ; they were the
natural developments of social and religious life ; but it is not too
much to say concerning some of the changes which passed upon
the inner life of Congregational Churches, that Mr. Binney's
great abilities, strong individuality, and prominent position, gave
a special impetus to the tendency, and a special character to the
result. Above most of his brethren, perhaps, he was one of those
men who, appearing in an incipient stage of transition, both
give and receive its impress, and unwittingly rule it.
The very basis and attitude of Nonconformity have undergone
changes corresponding with the varying conditions in which
it has had to maintain itself. The first forms of revolt from
the Established Church of these realms have uniformly been
practical not speculative. No great secession on the ground
of a priori principles has ever occurred in our religious
history. Principles of anti-state-churchism have always been
an induction from practical experiences; the ideal of an esta
blishment has been clung to for a while by those who for
some one specific grievance, it may be, were forced out of it,
with perhaps the hope that the reform of practical abuses
from which they suffered would enable their return. But

xxxii BIOGRAPHICAL
they have soon come to understand, by experience, what the
true liberties and privileges of the spiritual church are ; and, by
an easy induction, how incompatible in many other important
things pertaining to doctrine, to ritual, and to discipline, the
control of the civil legislature is. It is a dangerous thing to
force upon men the investigation of principles. A single experi
ence will often suffice to teach a great principle, which is found
to have many unsuspected applications. It has rarely taken
more than a generation to teach seceders a creed of voluntaryism ;
and the fact is very significant, that in the history of the English
Establishment there is no single instance of the return to its
bosom of any organised secession. Concerning most of these, —
from the days of the Savoy Conference to the days of modern
Wesleyanism, — it has been true that cif they had been mindful
of that country from whence they came out, they might have
had opportunity to have returned ; ' but one and all they have
' desired a better country.' No allurements have availed hitherto
to bring back to the house of bondage which they had left
those who have had experience of liberty. Even in the deepest
poverty, Congregationalists, Baptists, Quakers, Methodists, have
chosen to support their own humble village services rather than
return to the gratuitous and dignified services of the Parish
Church. The residuary Establishment wonders that its social
advantages and the redress of grievances never actually induce
such return, however near to success schemes of comprehension
may appear to come. In Calamy's time it seemed as if success were
certain, but I suspect there were latent principles and feelings
that would ultimately have proved insurmountable. It is not
easy to fathom the depth of the narrowest chasm of separation.
Thus it happens that in our own day we see the whole process
repeated in the Churches of Scotland.
Of necessity, Nonconformity became a doctrine generations
ago ; but when Mr. Binney commenced his public life it was
in danger of passing into a phase of hard and acrid ecclesi
astical and political dogma. Its traditional methods, which
were the mere expediencies or necessities of the first seceders
had come to be unduly regarded as essentially entering into its
principles. Its politics had a not unnatural dash of bitterness
and its church order and worship an equally obvious tinge of
asceticism. There certainly was not less of religious life than

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. xxxiii
before or since ; but there was a distinct access of social resent-
fulness and ecclesiastical rigidity at the persistent denial of
social rights. Under the protection of the Toleration Act, and
against enormous odds, the preceding generations had waged
the great battle of ' Civil and Religious Liberty ;' a phrase which
had become a watchword, and had won some signal victories.
Only in 1828 were the Test and Corporation Acts repealed ; only
in 1 833 were Nonconformist chapels exempted from church rates;
not until 1836 was the Marriage Act passed which released
Nonconformists from the obligation to have their marriages
celebrated at the Parish Church, and with the religious ritual of
the Book of Common Prayer. Like the Israelites in Egypt,
they had multiplied exceedingly, their oppression notwithstand
ing ; and the contemptuous toleration of the beginning of the
present century had given place to a feeling of considerable un
easiness at their growth; so that on both sides the polemical
feeling was exceptionally strong and bitter.
Mr. Binney's emotional temperament, perhaps too his early
associations with the Established Church of Scotland, prevented
sympathy with the hard spirit which polemics sometimes gene
rate. At the same time he was an uncompromising Noncon
formist ; and his convictions compelled him to take a strenuous
part in the conflict.
While yet at Newport, he had in 1831, under the signature of
1 Fiat Justitia,' addressed a letter on Clerical Conformity to the
Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel, — occasioned by a speech delivered
by the latter on the platform of the British and Foreign Bible
Society— a letter which excited considerable controversy ; which
again elicited from the author two other letters under the same
signature. Mr. Binney's publications on the Church and State question
were numerous, and extended over a great number of years.
The letters of ' Fiat Justitia ' were followed by the ' Address deli
vered on laying the first stone of the new King's Weigh House,'
published in 1834, which rapidly went through six editions, and
led to a multifarious controversy, in the course of which Mr.
Binney published two or three pamphlets under the pseudonym
of r John Search.' In 1834 he published 'The ultimate Object
of the Evangelical Dissenters,' a sermon preached in the Weigh
House Chapel on the occasion of petitions to Parliament for ' The

xxxiv BIOGRAPHICAL
Removal of Dissenters' Grievances.' In 1835 he preached in
the Poultry Chapel, at the monthly meeting of the Ministers
of the London Congregational Union, a discourse entitled ' Dis
sent not Schism,' in reply to an intolerant charge of Bishop
Blomfield, which he published at their request. In 1 839, on the
occasion of the reopening of Chadwell Street Chapel, Penton-
ville, of which the Rev. Ridley H. Herschell was minister, he
preached the sermon afterwards published under the title of
' Conscientious Clerical Nonconformity.' In April, 1840, he
delivered a week-day lecture in the Weigh House Chapel in
reply to Dr. McNeile's ' Lectures on Church Establishments/
which he published under the title ' Righteousness exalteth a
Nation.' In 1841, the imprisonment for some months of Mr.
William Baines in Leicester Gaol for non-payment of church
rates aroused his indignation, and under the pseudonym of ' A.
Balance, Esq., of the Middle Temple,' he published a scathing
pamphlet, in the form of a dialogue, entitled ' Leicester Gaol.'
' The Christian Ministry not a Priesthood,' a discourse on the
sacerdotal pretensions of the Episcopal Church, was published in
1849. In 1850 the case of Mr. Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter
elicited from Mr. Binney a series of papers on the aspects of the
doctrine of ' Baptismal Regeneration as taught in the Established
Church,' and illustrated by this famous law-suit ; which were
published under the title of ' The Great Gorham Case/ edited by
' John Search.'
Mr. Binney's visit to Australia led to a correspondence with
the Bishop of Adelaide, originating in a letter addressed to
Mr. Binney by the Bishop on the relations of the Episcopal
Church in the Colonies to Nonconforming Churches, and dis
cussing the possibilities of interchange of ministerial services.
The interest of this was enhanced by a simultaneous Memorial
addressed to the Bishop by a number of Episcopalian laymen,
including the Governor of the Colony and the Ministers of the
State, requesting that Mr. Binney might be asked to preach in
the Cathedral — a request that the Bishop did not judge himself
it liberty to comply with. This led to an address by Mr.
Binney from the Presidential Chair of the Tasmanian Con
gregational Union on ' The Church of the Future,' afterwards
incorporated in a volume entitled ' Lights and Shadows of
Australian Life,' published in 1862, on Mr. Binney's return to

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. xxxv
England. In 1862, the year of the Bicentenary Commemora
tion of the ejection of the two thousand clergymen, Mr. Binney
preached and published two sermons entitled ' Farewell Sunday'
and ' St. Bartholomew's Day.' In 1863 he reprinted, or rather
recast, an article contributed to the Eclectic Review some years
before, and entitled it ' Breakers on both sides : Thoughts on
Creeds, Subscriptions, Trust Deeds, &c, in relation to Protest-
-antism and Dissent.' Edited by J. S. Eldon, Esq., LL.D. The
rapid development of the Episcopal Church of what came to be
called 'Ritualism,' led Mr. Binney, in 1867, to publish a small
volume entitled ' Micah, the Priest-maker,' — the expansion of
six lectures on the subject delivered to his own congregation.
The convictions and sympathies of Mr. Binney led him to
introduce into the controversy in which he took so prominent
and continuous a part, certain religious elements which lifted it
out of the domain of mere ecclesiastical polemics. While he did
not undervalue the merely political and social aspects of Noncon
formity, his contention for its position was mainly because of its
religious principles and influences. It represented rights and
powers of the spiritual life of men, which in his estimation were
inherent and precious.
His example and urgency had a great influence in attempering
with religious feeling the entire course of the controversy, that is
still being waged, and in giving to it the high religious char
acter which, during the last quarter of a century, has been so
prominent in it ; especially in the advocacy of his fellow-student
Mr. Edward Miall. Whatever in ignorance or in contempt
may be said about 'Political Dissenters,' it would be difficult
to find any Nonconformist taking any prominent part in the
controversy about Established Churches, who does not, at any
rate, assume to take first and most prominently, religious
grounds. Many of Mr. Binney's natural preferences and sympathies
would have led him into the Established Church : — his aesthetic
tastes in worship, and his shrinking from any position of an
tagonism, especially. He was one of the least extreme and
violent of any Nonconformist minister of his generation. No
misconception could be greater than to class him with Noncon
formist radicals. Only his strong religious convictions made
him a Nonconformist and constrained his pen.

xxxvi BIOGRAPHICAL
In his discourse on 'Conscientious Clerical Nonconformity,
replying to an imaginary urgency to conform, after discussing
different points of difficulty, he thus sums up his conclusion, in
words that are noble in their lofty morality, and burning in their
stern indignation :
' Why should I do it ? Why should I take such extreme pains
to get my understanding to inform my conscience, that there is
nothing in the terms of clerical conformity, and nothing in the
doings and sayings of the priesthood, at which it need revolt.
Let me put to my soul a plain question. Should I take all this
trouble under other circumstances ? Should I for a moment
think of attempting any such thing, if the terms in question were
proposed to me by a poor and persecuted sect ? . . . . With
my views I should be condemned. Masked or mitigated as
subscription might be, it would often, I fear, rise before me in
its true character, cover me with confusion, fill me with bitter
ness. Retaining my sentiments as scriptural and true; yet
admitting as such, and promising to use, and actually using,
language apparently the very reverse ; — what would this de
mand ? To what would it expose me ? I must sophisticate
my understanding. I must fetter my intellect. I must shut my
eyes, and close my ears, to much that at present seems distinct
and loud. I must call things by their wrong names, and that,
too, where mistake may be infinitely hazardous. I must say
to God, in an act of worship, what I should repudiate to man
in confidential conversation. Acts like these would be pregnant
with painful and punitive consequences. I should lose, I fear, the
love of truth ; or the power of pursuing, acknowledging, main
taining it ... . The very services of religion would be
sources of anguish. Prayer itself would consist, at times, of
words which I feel I can never approve, and which, ever as I
uttered them, would renew my misgivings, and disturb my peace.
My nature, in its highest essence, would be injured. My moral
sense would be sacrificed or seduced. I cannot do it. I will
not. This, too, would be "great wickedness and sin against God."
It would be sin against myself. I never will consent to pay such
a price for the advantages which clerical conformity can confer.
I see them all ; I feel their attraction. Principle as to some —
preference as to others — taste, habit, associations, as to most —
strongly induce and impel me towards them. I could wish them

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. xxxvii
mine. I should be glad to secure them. I would give for them
anything consistent with honour. It should not be heroism to
refuse that. I determine to refuse it. To all the inducements to
enter the Establishment, I oppose one thing, and but one. With
my predilections I have little else ; but with my opinions I ought
to have that — a living conscience. By God's help, I will strive to
retain it. It shall be kept by me, and kept alive. It and I
must part company if I offend it by deliberately doing what is
wrong. God of my strength, preserve me from this. " Let Thy
grace be sufficient for me; keep bade Thy servant from presump
tuous sin; " with the light which Thou, I trust, hast poured into
my soul, and the love with which Thou hast replenished my
heart, I dare not permit myself to sanction and to say, what I
feel I must, if I consent to use these forms and offices. "A good
conscience " is to be found only in withholding that consent. I am
determined to withhold it. I go nowhere unless conscience can
go with me. I am satisfied to remain wherever it remains.
This is my feeling ; and on account of this — and of this only — I
here resolve to refuse orders.' pp. 47, 48.
Hence, throughout his life, his influence in the controversy
was to attemper with religious principles and feelings the merely
political aspects of Nonconformist disabilities, and, by thus
elevating the Nonconformist argument, to give it power.
His difficulties were not so much with Episcopal Church forms
and liturgical services, as with sacerdotal assumptions and the
false relations of state-churchism.
Another distinctive change in Nonconformity, in which Mr.
Binney's influence was great, and still more individually marked,
was in its services of worship. Two influences in Nonconformist
history had unduly depreciated its worship, and had given pro
minence to its preaching. The first was, that some of the most
pernicious of the corruptions of the Romish and Anglican
Churches, against which Puritanism, both within the Establish
ment and without it, was a protest, had come through services
of worship. It is easier for a degenerate Church to overlay and
deaden spiritual life by sensuous and elaborate services of ritual,
than to pervert it by the preaching of erroneous doctrine.
Preaching even of error implies earnestness ; and, as before out
of the Romish Church, so out of the Anglican Church earnest
ness had well nigh died. The Reformation was a revolt of
d

xxxviii BIOGRAPHICAL
spiritual Puritanism from the unspiritualness of the Romish
Church. Evangelicalism, first within, and then both within
and without the Episcopal Church, was a revolt of spiritual
Puritanism from the ritual and sacramental elements of that
Church, the germs of which it had retained from the Romish
Church, and which from various influences were quickened into
life within it. Nonconformity was a Puritan revolt against the
Establishment itself, as unavoidably generating sacerdotal as
sumptions and sensuous or mechanical ritual.
It was, therefore, only natural that, after the reiterated lapses
of the Reformed Establishment, the repudiation of ritual services,
and ornate ceremonial, of the first Nonconformist Puritans, should
take an extreme and even a violent form. It is the uniform law
of extremes ; they generate each other. Under the circumstances
this can hardly be censured ; for although generally disuse is
about the worst corrective of abuse, a habit may have become so
ingrained, and a feeling so inveterate, that a clean sweep is the
only practicable reformation. There is a contagion of certain
things which only destruction by fire can purge. In normal
circumstances, it is not the remedy to which men would have
recourse, but in desperate circumstances, it may be the only
remedy, even of the wisest ; although they may know that it will
entail disabilities to follow for a long time after. The harvest
must sometimes be sacrificed to save the country ; the suburb
razed to defend the city; even at the cost of famine and desola
tion. Rightly or wrongly, this was the conviction of the Noncon
formist Puritans. According to manifold contemporary testi
mony they were men of large culture ; their homes were elegant
and artistic ; they saw no sin in refinement and merriment,
although their necessary severities no doubt generated an op
posite spirit in those who came after them. They thought it
right and imperative to declare war against all ritual worship,
against liturgies, organs, and ecclesiastical art: some Baptist
Churches went so far as to disallow not only chanting but hymn
singing 1. This they thought was the only means of purging
1 The controversy which arose at the close of the 17th century about hymn
singing beoame very violent, and produced innumerable pamphlets which are
very curious. See Crosby's History of the English Baptists, ii. 29S ; Ivimey's
History of the Baptists, ii. 374; Macaulay's History of England, iii. 461.

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. xxxix
the sources of corruption. They too were ' thorough.' And
could this have been limited to the necessity which demanded
it, their wisdom could scarcely have been questioned : nay, even
with the risk that it might be otherwise, it was perhaps
the wisest policy they could have adopted. If in the worship
of the spiritual God either extreme is inevitable, according
to all spiritual estimates, that of asceticism is better than
that of sensuousness. The contrasted histories of Lutheran and
Calvinistic worship might well justify the English Puritan.
Better worship in the painful severity of a Quaker meeting than
burn incense and perform priestly rites of sacrifice as to an idol.
So thought the sturdy early Independents : they were icono
clasts of ecclesiastical ritual and furniture, not through lack of
taste or perversion of conscience, but through an uncompromis
ing spirituality that was prepared to sacrifice things deemed by
themselves both beautiful and precious. The tradition has been
maintained in both branches of the old Puritan stock. Within
the Establishment the Evangelical Puritans instinctively recoil
from ritual. Even down to the present generation their ser
vices are as bald, and their singing as uncouth, as the Book of
Common Prayer will permit them to be. At the present time
the prose Psalms are more generally sung, and Gregorian music
is more extensively used in Nonconformist churches than in
Evangelical Episcopalian churches. That which in the latter
would provoke resentment as a suspicious approximation to
ritualism, passes unquestioned in the former. In the reaction
from Puritan asceticism which has at length set in, the Noncon
formist Puritan, in the fearless immunity of his freedom, has
surpassed the Episcopal Puritan, in his by no means groundless
fear. As a rule the Psalmody of the former is more cultured
than that of the latter.
Unhappily the severe expedients of the Puritans became the
traditional principles of their descendants, maintained as a kind
of religion long after the necessity for them had passed away.
When Mr. Binney's ministerial life commenced, there was pro
bably not a Nonconformist congregation in the kingdom who
would not have deemed it almost a compromise of principle to
sing the rhythmical Psalms of the Old Testament. Within the
Established Church, Tate and Brady, and, without it, Dr. Walts,
must render these into Iambic verses before it was lawful to
d2

xl BIOGRAPHICAL
sing them. The few Nonconformist congregations, such as
those of Lady Huntingdon's Connexion, which, from the acci
dent of their origin, continued to use the Liturgy of the Book
of Common Prayer, were looked at very shyly by their more
sturdy and orthodox Congregationalist brethren. Organs in
Nonconformist churches were very rare. Indeed, to the close
of Mr. Binney's ministry, the Weigh House Chapel continued
without one. The worship of Praise and Prayer had degenerated
into mere introductory exercises of a preaching service.
Another cause of this was, that preaching was the great in
strument of Puritan warfare and usefulness. With the Puritans
it was the revival of a dormant power in the Church. In the
Romish and Anglican Churches it had fallen into neglect ; and
when employed by thePuritans, instead of themselves resuscitating
it, they made it, with Psalm-singing, a •reproach and a sectarian
badge. The Puritans, therefore, not only had recourse to preach
ing, with the fervour which a resuscitated agency excites, and
with the zeal of polemical vindication, but their earnest religious
souls yearned for the promulgation of the truth of God which
alone could restore the pure spiritual life of the Church. The
pulpit became, in an almost unprecedented degree, the chief
means of quickening and sustaining the religious life of the age.
Books were few, religious journals were unknown ; and both for
the maintenance of their own faith, and for the polemical vindi
cation of their position, sermons were demanded, which were
elaborate theological treatises ; and not infrequently, as in some
parts of Scotland and Wales even in the present day, two and
even three sermons were preached in immediate succession.
Preaching is God's great ordinance for spreading His truth :
it must therefore ever be the great function of the missionary
and the polemic. In the hands of the Puritans, as before of
Luther and his coadjutors, it was the great instrument of reli
gious reformation. For many generations, therefore, the charac
ter of Nonconformist Church services was determined by this
twofold tradition — the repudiation of ritual, and the magnifying
of preaching.
Mr. Binney was among the first to inaugurate another order
of things. This had become possible, inasmuch as Noncon
formist Puritanism, in both its theology and its religious life,
had drifted so far from Romanism and Anglicanism, that no

AND CRITICAL SKETCH xli
suspicion of affinity with either could attach to it. Its ultra-
Protestant position had been so thoroughly secured, that the
polemical attitude and feeling could no longer be maintained.
Many elements of the old Romish controversy are practically
lost out of the consciousness of Nonconformists for this reason :
they can no more argue matters such as the ecclesiastical as
sumptions of Sacerdotalism, the Real Presence, Auricular Con
fession, which are convulsing the Episcopal Church, than
they can argue the dogmas of Llamaism. Practically they are
as far removed from the one as from the other. To them
these are as much dead controversies as are Manicheanism
and Docetism. The only part in them that they can take, the
only interest in them that they can feel, is for the sake of others
whom they do practically affect — not for their own. Hence
the indifference to certain ecclesiastical questions and to anti-
Romish agitations which so often perplexes the Evangelical
Puritans of the Establishment.
The only hindrance therefore to a normal worship in Non
conformist Churches was the ascetic traditions of the past, per
petuated simply because it had been, not because it continued
to be a living necessity. It was not kept alive by a near and
well-grounded cause of fear. In Mr. Binney's nature there were
elements eminently aesthetic and devotional. Nothing was to
him more disturbing or painful than irreverence in worship.
Even in crowded Churches, and on special occasions, when perhaps
excuse may be found for it, any movement of an anxious official
during praise or prayer was intolerable to him ; and he would
pause in the announcement of a hymn, or the reading of Scrip
ture, until the offender had found his place, sometimes while the
whole length of the Church was traversed. There is a tradition
which possibly may be a myth — but, even so, it is representa
tive of truth — that on one occasion, while preaching, he was
discomposed by some person loudly blowing his nose. He paused,
and looked annihilation at the offender, wbo7"nothing discon
certed, repeated the process two or three times, and at length
told Mr. Binney that he might now go on, for he had done.
Mr. Binney at once, therefore, began to redeem and magnify the
devotional part of public services. Not at first, so far as I can
learn, of set purpose, or by any specific plan or regulations.
Such reforms are not so effected ; but intuitively, by the simple

xlii BIOGRAPHICAL
reverence of his own spirit, the larger, more absorbing, more
elevating devotions of his own pulpit. He soon became con
scious that he was effecting a needful reform, and threw his
whole soul into it. He never lost an opportunity of denouncing
the subordination or any unseemliness of the service of praise
and prayer, and of vindicating for it its proper prominence and
reverence. Thus a public spirit of worship was produced, not
by a devotional method adapted, so much as by a devotional life
generated. The worship-services of the Weigh House soon
attained a religious excellency which attracted as much attention
as its preachings. The devotional spirit in public worship can
not be secured by mere plans, and methods, and books of worship
service ; it must grow with and out of the devotional life ; and
when the life has grown, all methods are possible, and any
method will be eagerly adapted that practically serves it. Per
haps the most beautiful rhythmical and eloquent of all his pro
ductions is ' The Service of Song in the House of the Lord/
published in 1848, the rudiments of which were first preached
as a sermon to his congregation in connexion with a course of
Lectures on Psalmody by the Rev. J. J. Waite. It is a resume
in bibliographical order of the allusions to worship song which
are to be found in the Bible. Its characterisations of the Hebrew
Psalms are full of spiritual discernment, imaginative beauty, and
exquisite diction. A few sentences may be quoted : —
' As to their form,, they include all varieties of lyrical compo
sition ; they are of every character as to the nature of their
subjects ; and of all shades and colours of poetic feeling ; but, as
to their essence, they are as a Light from heaven, or an Oracle
from the sanctuary ; — they discover secrets, Divine and human ;
they lay open the Holy of Holies of both God and man, for they
reveal the hidden things belonging to both, as the life of the
One is developed in the other. The Psalms are the depositories
of the mysteries, the record of the struggles, the wailing when
worsted, the pa?ans when triumphant of that life. Thejr are the
thousand-voiced heart of the Church, uttering from within, from
the secret depths and chambers of her being, her spiritual con
sciousness — all that she remembers, experiences, believes • suffers
from sin and the flesh, fears from earth or hell, achieves by
heavenly succour, and hopes from God and His Christ. They
are for all time— they can never be outgrown. No Dispensation

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. xliii
while the world stands and continues what it is, can ever raise
us above the reach or the need of them. They describe every
spiritual vicissitude ; they speak to all classes of minds ; they
command every natural emotion. They are penitential, jubi
lant, adorative, deprecatory ; — they are tender, mournful, joyous,
majestic; — soft as the descent of the dew ; low as the whisper of
love ; loud as the voice of thunder ; terrible as the Almightiness
of God ! The effect of some of them in the Temple service must
have been immense. Sung by numbers carefully " instructed,"
and accompanied by those who could play " skilfully ; " arranged
in parts for " courses " and individuals, who answered each other
in alternate verse ; — various voices, single or combined, being
" lifted up," sometimes in specific and personal expression, as the
high service deepened and advanced ; — priests, Levites, the mon
arch, the multitude ; there would be every variety of " pleasant "
movement, and all the forms and forces of sound, — personal reci
tative; individual song; dual and semi-choral antiphonal response ;
burst and swell of voice and instruments; attenuated cadences;
apostrophe and repeat ; united, full, harmonious combinations !
With such a service, and such psalms, it was natural that the
Hebrews should love with enthusiasm, and learn with delight,
their national anthems, songs, and melodies ; nor is it surprising
that they were known among the Heathen as a people possessed
of these treasures of verse, and devoted to their recitation by
tongue and harp. Hence it was that their enemies required of
them (whether in seriousness or derision it matters not) " the
words of a song," and said " Sing us one of the songs of Sion." '
pp. 27, 28.
This perhaps may be the place to say, that great as Mr.
Binney unquestionably was as a preacher, he was equally re
markable in his public prayers. Extemporary prayer has the
disadvantage of being affected by the minister's moods ; although,
even at the worst, it has some vital elements which contrast
favourably with the mechanical reading of a liturgy. But it
has also the advantage of embodying the minister's highest
inspiration ; and perhaps no worship so nearly approaches devo
tional perfection as when a man like Mr. Binney, under the
high inspiration of prayer, pours out a full heart of sympathetic
feeling and supplication. Nothing so excites the devotional
feeling of a congregation. The element of expectancy quickens

xliv BIOGRAPHICAL
feeling, while it does not hinder prayer. There is a quick,
almost intuitive apprehension of the sentiments and petitions
that the minister expresses. Few theoretic misconceptions are
greater than that the prayer of the people is disabled because
of their ignorance of what is to be asked for. To persons who
for a lifetime have been accustomed to the use of a liturgy, this
may really be so at first. There is an element of curiosity, an
expectation which mere novelty excites, which may hinder that
absorbed consciousness of God and of human need which prayer
demands ; but to those so accustomed to extemporary prayer as
to have no such sense of novelty, the feeling is unknown. There
is among Nonconformist congregations an almost unanimous
testimony to the devotional inspiration of their services of
prayer — making allowance, that is, for such exceptions as there
are to every general estimate. There are ministers incompetent
to pray extemporaneously, just as there are readers of liturgies
who destroy all possibility of inspiration from them. There is
often in extemporary prayers a fervour and intensity of feeling
which carries both minister and people as near to God as men are
likely to get in public worship. It is no uncommon thing to
hear the sentiment expressed, that were it an alternative, the
sermon would be dispensed with sooner than the prayer.
' Mr. Binney had peculiar power of imaginative sympathy : he
vividly realised the diversified conditions of sin and sorrow, doubt
and struggle, of those whose devotions he was leading ; and to
these he not infrequently gave expression with a pathos of
feeling, and with an intensity of supplication, that was in
describably full of contagion and inspiration.
A few months before his death the writer heard him pray on
some special oocasion. He was entirely carried away by his
vivid realisation of God and of manifold human necessities ; and
for fully half-an-hour poured out ascription and supplication,
realisings of God's presence and of the helpings of His hand,
and rejoicings in His favour, which made one feel as if standing
before God in the Holy of Holies.
Mr. Binney felt that the devotions of the congregation were
grievously imperilled by inefficient, undevout, or irreverent
ministers, and the feeling led him to desire some form of litur
gical prayer. While he realised beyond most the inestimable
advantages of appropriate extemporary prayer, he was offended

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. xlv
beyond most at the incongruities of the opposite ; although, had
it been an alternative, he would not, for a moment, have hesi
tated in giving his verdict against a liturgy as being susceptible
of perhaps the worst possible abuses by incompetent or un-
spiritual men.
His theory was, that the best provision for the worship of
Nonconformist churches would be a combination of both — ample
provision in each service of worship for the expression in extem
poraneous prayer of more individual and experimental necessi
ties, with provision also for the liturgical expression of such
common and permanent necessities as must enter into every
public service. The best sometimes need liturgical help, while
congregations would be saved from the inflictions of the worst.
It is, however, to be doubted whether practically such a combi
nation of two methods of prayer so radically different could be
maintained. Hitherto, the one has uniformly discredited and
superseded the other : indolence and unspiritualness abuse the
liturgical possibility to the neglect or disqualification of extem
porary prayer ; or the throbbing life and conscious reality of the
latter discredit the cold propriety of the former. No method
has a monopoly of either advantage or disadvantage. The dis
advantages of a uniform liturgy, not necessarily demanding even
spiritual apprehensions or sympathies in the minister, have been
abundantly demonstrated. Nothing in the history of public
worship has been capable of such absolute religious death as
liturgies. Most persons know their history in the Romish
Church. In the Eastern Church they are more mechanical still.
The service of a Jewish synagogue is not often very inspiring ;
while the soporific character of the services of the Established
Church, until within the last forty years, has become a bye-word
and a proverb.
On the other hand, it is doubtless a grievous evil for the
devotions of a congregation to be sacrificed by the extempora
neous prayer of a minister defective in intellectual power, in
imaginative sympathy, or in devotional feeling. If all who
conduct such services were equal to the best, the question would
scarcely have two sides. For the chief ends of religious life in
prayer, rude incongruity, with life, is better than the most
polished propriety without life. There is neither necessity
nor reason in either extreme; but if the practical tendency

xlvi , BIOGRAPHICAL
of things is to either, we can have no hesitancy about our
choice. It is instructive that no single instance of a suc
cessful combination of the two methods of public prayer can
be adduced : a strong presumption that, like many ideals in the
domain of exj>ediency, this encounters practical hindrances or
counteractions which are fatal to it.
Mr. Binney edited and published in this country an American
work on Liturgies by the Rev. Charles W. Baird, D.D., of New
York, being Historical Sketches of the Liturgical forms of the
Reformed Churches. To this the editor prefixed an Introduction,
and added an Appendix ' Touching the question, " Are Dissenters
to have a Liturgy ? " ' in which he expresses his opinion that the
numerous publications and discussions on the subject 'indicate
dissatisfaction with the state of worship prevalent amongst us —
worship properly so called ; they show a yearning for something
deeper and richer than what we have, deeper devotion and richer
song ; something, too, in which the people shall take a prominent
and active part, not in psalmody only, but in supplication ; in
which they shall be called vocally to utter some portions of the
Church's common prayer, so that by audible repetitions, and appro
priate response, and other modes of united action, they shall feel
that they positively do pray, as well as listen to another praying.
All this is indicated by the facts referred to, an underlying and
growing dissatisfaction with things as they are, a desire for
worship to be more highly estimated, to occupy a more dis
tinguished place, to have generally attached to it greater
importance in the "assemblies of the saints," and for all to
discharge actively and consciously " the ministry" that belongs
to the " priesthood of God." All this is " good," and, whether or
not it lead to the adoption of forms of prayer, which perhaps are
not the best or wisest method of supplying what is longed for,
it may lead to this, which in itself is something, indeed much.
It may induce Presbyterian and Nonconformist ministers to pay
more attention than many of them have hitherto done to the
worship of the Church ; to cultivate, if I may say so, devotional
taste ; to use in prayer modes of speech, and even tones and
gestures more simple, natural, becoming, and devout ; in speak
ing to "the Father," to speak more from the heart than the
head ; to be more religious and less theological ; to think more
of the wants which are to be made known to God, than of the

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. xlvii
points and systems which are to be taught to men. And in
addition to these things, to encourage, for the joy and solace of
the Church, as means alike of edification and grace, better and
higher forms of praise than that with which many have hitherto
been content. The people, too, may be led to many higher and
better things than they yet know ; to a deeper sense, of the
solemnity of worship than is often felt, and to a more becoming
behaviour in the House of God than is sometimes seen ; to more
reverence, greater stillness, less noise, more punctuality, every
thing, in short, that shall make it manifest that they come
themselves to engage in the service ; that they feel it belongs to
them, that they would be sorry to miss it, to be absent at its
commencement, to be disturbed as it proceeds, or to disturb
others ; and that, without disparaging or undervaluing preach
ing, they should yet feel that they would as much regret the loss
of the worship, as of any sermon however eloquent, or even
spiritual. ' . . . During the whole of my ministerial life, I have gone on
the principle of attaching special importance to worship, showing
that I did so, and trying to get the people to do the same. All
my convictions, however, formed and deepened by long reflection,
reading, and experience, are strongly against the principle of con
fining worship to the provisions of a strictly imposed ritual, a
thing admitting of no variation, and forbidding free prayer. At
the same time, I am ready to confess that I have felt, under
the solemnity and awfulness of ever-recurring public duty, as
if I should occasionally have been glad if I could have fallen
back on the partial use of some liturgical assistance. This,
however, might have proved a snare, and have tempted to
negligence, by facilitating the adoption of the letter and form
where the spirit of devotion was felt, or imagined to be low.'
But little needs to be added to this extract ; very characteris
tically it states the pros and the cons of the question. It would
be a fatal symptom if any church were perfectly satisfied with
its own worship — if that is, its ideal were no higher than its
attainment. Probably the most religious, in churches in which
liturgies are used, feel equal dissatisfaction with their worship,
and look longingly to the churches that possess the liberty of
extemporaneous prayer as the remedy for their own special
defects. Such yearnings and strivings after ideals of religious life

xlviii ' BIOGRAPHICAL
and worship are the necessary conditions of progress, and will
probably be as permanent as worship itself. The question in
any given case is, what is the true remedy ? Experience makes
Nonconformists conscious of the defects of extemporaneous
prayer, but does it not equally suggest the doubt whether the
true remedy is to be found in liturgical forms, exclusive or mixed.
The history of liturgical worship is not very encouraging. Is
not the true remedy, in all churches, a deeper and broader spiritual
life. It is one of those nicely balanced questions concerning
which, even by the least judicial, much is to be said on both
sides, and concerning which no wise man will speak dogmatically.
A priori reasoning will not avail much, and is commonly con
tradicted by experience. The only solution is in experiments,
widely enough and variously enough made; only again, these
probably will lead to convictions diametrically opposed to each
other, according to the different tastes and temperament of men.
One man or church prays more devotionally in the use of a
liturgy, another in the exercise of extemporaneous prayer ; and to
individual preference this and kindred questions must be left. It
is a matter of liberty in which no man may judge his brother.
There is, however, nothing in the polity of Nonconformist
churches, nor in their worship, save the prepossessions of associa
tion and tradition, which are found in all churches, to hinder
them from trying any liturgical experiments they please.
Mr. Binney was as solicitous about the excellency of public
praise, as about the excellency of public prayer. He himself was
not a musician. So far as I know he could not achieve even a
psalm tune, but he had keen susceptibilities of musical beauty and
devoutness. He therefore employed all his influence in the pro
motion of the worship-music of his congregation. He did
perhaps all that in the circumstances could be done in providing
for it and for Nonconformist churches generally, a new book of
psalmody, in which he was aided by Dr. Wm. Cooke, one of the
Weigh House deacons, and Dr. Lowell Mason, of New York, to
whom the musical arrangements were entrusted.
Mr. Binney was one of the first to introduce into Nonconform
ist churches the chanting of the Rhythmical Psalms of the Old
Testament, according to the authorised version. By sermons,
addresses, and publications of various kinds he undoubtedly did
much to stimulate the feeling, and to deepen the sense of

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. xlix
responsibility among Nonconformists in the public worship of
the Church. This was his chief service, and he could have
rendered no greater. He helped to generate a conviction and a
feeling about worship, which will be fruitful in manifold efforts
and publications, each probably a more adequate expression for
church praise than its predecessor. To enkindle an enthusiasm
is a service far greater than to produce a thing.
The commencement of Mr. Binney's ministry was synchronous
also, with a doctrinal change which passed upon Puritan theology,
both within the Establishment and without it. Doctrinal changes
in other schools of theological thought were coincident with it ;
such as the rationalistic development of what has come to be
called Broad Churchism, common to both Episcopalians and non-
Episcopalians, and the sacramentarian development known as
Anglicanism, which is almost restricted to the former. Indeed
in theological as in philosophical thought change is incessant.
' It never continueth in one stay.' It is the essential condition
of vital and vigorous thought ; stagnant theological thought
would be indicative of paralysis or death. Great principles,
fundamental doctrines, remain. These, as in almost every science,
are conclusively established ; but our apprehension of them and
of their relationships change with our increasing knowledge
and our developing wisdom. Now and then there are periods
when the elements of change gather as it were to a head, and
work an epoch which history will record.
The change which passed upon Puritan theology forty or fifty
years ago was not the only nor perhaps the chief of such tran
sitions. As the most signal and notable, the historian of theology
will have to record the rise of the Oxford Tractarian movement.
This, however, was retrogressive. Avowedly and emphatically
it looked backward, and endeavoured to drag back the Church to
the ideas and modes of the fourth century, and of the anti-
protestant party in the English Church of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. It was accompanied with that revived re
ligious feeling which generally inspires and marks such move
ments, and chiefly gives them success ; and it produced a
transformation in the services of the Episcopal Church and a
change in the character of its clergy, beyond all praise. In all
other respects the movement was retrogressive, and singularly
analogous to that of the Judaizers in the Early Church, who

1 BIOGRAPHICAL
incurred such severe reprehension from the apostle Paul. True
progress in both theological thought and spiritual worship is
forwards not backwards.
The change that took place in Puritan theology was essentially
progressive ; it was the emancipation of thought and life from
the terrible and disabling bondage of fatalistic Calvinism. The
religious recognition of God and of God's presence in human
affairs, which is the true and vital principle of Calvinism, and
which has been characteristic of all religious peoples, had been
formulated in logical categories, and pressed to logical issues,
which virtually limited God's love and destroyed human respon
sibility, and was kept from Antinomianism, only by the strong
instincts and affections of the religious heart.
The fierce controversies of Calvinist and Arminian, such as
excited to unseemly wrath and vituperation even holy men like
Toplady and Wesley, had not altogether disappeared from the
pulpit, but they were rapidly subsiding. Among Nonconformists
the mild Calvinism of which Dr. Williams, of Rotherham, Dr.
Payne, of Exeter, and Dr. Wardlaw, of Glasgow, were exponents,
was in the ascendant. It was a transitional phase through
which Calvinistic thought was passing, and like all compromises
it was partial and transient. In trust deeds, in traditional
dogmas, and in confessions of faith at ordinations, the older
forms of Calvinistic thought continued, but vital conviction was
dying out of them ; they were affirmed with hesitancy, and as a
fealty rather than as a life, they had reached that ominous stage
when traditions retain a lingering hold after vital convictions
have ceased. This indeed was true of both sides of the contro
versy. Men were beginning to doubt both traditional Calvinism
and traditional Antinomianism, as adequate exponents of the
mysteries of the Divine thought and purpose; and indeed whether
these could be formulated at all. They began to suspect that
elements of truth were to be found in both ; and that concerning
the great mysteries of metaphysical theology and the purposes
and methods of the Divine love men knew much less than the
controversy had assumed. Since then, this feeling has grown,
and has caused its almost total cessation. The pulpits are few in
deed in which any minister would now venture to dilate upon it.
No theologian writes about it; unless as an apologist to justify
modifications of it, or as a historian, to analyze and expound a

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. Ii
past stage of theological thought. Men leave these great
mysteries in the inscrutableness common to both the theological
and the philosophical aspects of them. It is not merely that the
one concedes somewhat to the other, it is that both have attained
that higher stage of thought which recognises the limits of the
knowable ; and is reverently silent, and meekly tolerant where
once it was dogmatic and denunciatory.
When Mr. Binney's ministry began, the controversy retained
considerable vitality ; and suspicion of unsoundness on any of
' The Five Points ' involved considerable obloquy. With Mr.
Binney's emotional temperament it was impossible that mere
logic could determine his theology. His conclusions were
reached very largely through the intuitions of his religious
nature. At no time did he enter into the controversy; but none
the less he practically, at first perhaps half unconsciously, re
fused the old Calvinistic positions. This I suspect was his chief
reason for leaving the Church of Fcotland; while it unques
tionably was the ground of the suspicion which gathered round
him when a student at Wymondley, that he was not ' sound in
the faith.' His preaching was a quiet disintegrating power, —
not only did it lack the strong affirmative statements of the
Calvinistic preachers of the day, but its broad humanities were
altogether incongruous with them. It lacked the flavour of the

school ; and because of its suppressio veri, if not of its
falsi, it awakened anxious suspicions respecting the course and
the goal of the strong and independent young preacher.
Mr. Binney's reverential nature, as well as the judicial
qualities of his intellect always kept him from extreme positions.
He did not think that the opposite of error is necessarily truth.
He seemed to think that truth as well as safety generally lay in
the middle. If therefore he did not advance to the extreme of
one position, neither did he recede to that of the opposite. He
was a many-sided thinker, and saw mediations and qualifications
where men less balanced in judgment and less reverent in feeling
were confident of absolute truth. This was characteristic of Mr.
Binney's thinking in all matters, whether theological, ecclesiasti
cal, political, or social. So far from his being either traditionally
conservative or radically revolutionary, I do not remember any
part that he took in any public question that was not eminently
independent and moderate. He was an Evangelical Protestant

Iii BIOGRAPHICAL
in theology; but he saw more to excuse, if not to sympathise
with, in those from whom he differed than most of his brethren.
He was a decided and uncompromising opponent of the alliance
of Church and State ; but few men so carefully distinguished
between the Episcopal Church and its establishment, or had so
much real sympathy of feeling with many of the accidents of
establishment. Not infrequently he seemed to most of his
voluntary brethren to surrender positions in the argument which
it was perilous to surrender. It was only characteristic that to
the last he was one of the few Nonconformist leaders who ad
hered to the old platform of religious education in day schools,
even where these had become institutions of the state, and were
maintained out of public rates. His emotional temperament
and his judicial thinking led him not only to do full justice, but
often to magnify the argument of an opponent, and to occupy
an intermediate position, which the more extreme thought an
undue conservatism, and the more rash lack of moral courage.
Whether or not it was the former, will be determined by the
relative position of the critic. Such estimates must necessarily
be comparative. The presumption is that an intermediate posi
tion is nearest the truth, not of course in questions of morals,
but in questions of philosophy and expediency.
That it was not the latter may be affirmed from the fact that
few men were more fearless, or more uncompromising in the
avowal and maintenance of convictions, clearly and conclusively
formed. At the same time it may be admitted that, with most
men, he had an increasing repugnance to controversy. His
warm affections, his ingenuous and almost womanly delight in
human love, made him shrink from polemical conflicts, into
which others eagerly threw themselves, and sometimes kept him
silent when perhaps he ought to have spoken.
It was a singular misjudgment of one of his critics at the
time of his death, that he adhered blindly and timidly to tra
ditional theology. It is true that his name is not connected
with any theological revolt from the old, nor with any creation
of the new ; which is true also of many great names in English
theology. The essential independence and robustness of his
thinking kept him from blindly accepting the old, while his
essential fairness and reverence kept him from propounding the
new. He did not depart from the old lines of Christian theology,

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. liii
but he subjected them to searching and independent criticisms.
He saw too much of the old to be retained to be a mere revolu
tionist, and too much of the new to be received to be a mere
conservative. Mr. Binney's habit of mind was essentially critical, not
creative ; he lacked indeed some essential elements of a creator.
He was utterly destitute of metaphysics, and had but little
affinity with mysticism. He neither speculated in the domain
of abstract thought, nor soared into the domain of ecstatic feel
ing. For both , his theological thinking and his religious life,
he demanded well ascertained and clearly defined ground. He
refused to think beyond the bounds of exact knowledge. He
indulged no feeling beyond the inspiration of definite recogni
tions. Both were doubtless defects. All high thinking must
pass into the domain of the metaphysical, all religious feeling
must have its ultimate issue in mysticism ; the known leads to
the unknown ; hypothesis is the means of discovery ; the high
est order of thinkers speculate far beyond the bounds of exact
knowledge ; the most saintly fervours cannot justify themselves
by exact reasons. Those are the true prophets, the seers of the
Church, who win for both its theology and its religious life new
domains ; the hypothesis of one generation becomes the demon
strated truth of another.
Mr. Binney was contented to plant his foot firmly on the
boundary line of exact knowledge ; when knowledge ceased he
refused to go further. He could stand and adore; no man
more reverently worshipped before the infinite, but he would not
explore. It was holy ground, and he simply put his shoes off
his feet, and bowed his head.
The result was a firm, critical, penetrating, and judicial, but
unspeculative mind. He applied searching tests to existing
knowledge, and by a fine eclectic process came to results which
seemed to be impregnable. He would not adventure into domains
that could not be tested. Hence every sermon that he preached,
every argument that he constructed, lays first a solid foundation
of carefully hewn and well adjusted stones, upon which an exact
and well defined superstructure is erected. In other words, Mr.
Binney was a great teacher, rather than a great prophet. If he
did not add to the theological thought of his generation, he
tested it, and subjected it to very searching analysis. The pro-

liv BIOGRAPHICAL
cess was pre-eminently that of the judicial bench, and it was
often singularly able and lucid.
Mr. Binney was never a Calvinist. Not so much at first,
because he had reasoned out opposite convictions, but because
his human sympathies and religious instincts refused the hard
and terrible conclusions of Calvinistic predestination. He was
one of the earliest of his generation to maintain the broad uni
versal purpose of the Divine Father's love, and of the salvation
which is proffered through Christ. And, it may be added here,
for the same reasons he rejected the dogma of eternal punish
ment ; which seems passing through the same stages of instinctive
shrinking from it, traditional affirmation, subtle disintegration,
and religious abandonment. While Mr. Binney shrank from pro
pounding any alternative theory of the destiny of the wicked, he
distinctly refused to believe in eternal torments. He felt that con
clusions from which, not in their sinful and alienated, but in their
best and holiest feelings, good men instinctively recoiled, could not
be possible to the holy and loving God. He felt too that it was
not possible, as with some mysteries which are simply things
unknown, to bow in silence before these conclusions. They involve
a necessary appeal to moral judgment and feeling, and if in this
appeal, repugnance, and not sympathetic conviction is produced,
there must be reason to doubt their correctness.
His own conclusion, avowed in many conversations on the
subject, was ' It cannot be, that which our best feelings shrink
from, cannot be possible to God. In some way or other he will
solve the dark problem of evil in harmony with his righteousness
and love.' And here he was contented to rest. Mr. Binney
propounded no counter theory of universalism, or of repentance
beyond the grave ; to both he saw, both in the statements of
Scripture and in the moral philosophy of things, insuperable
objections. He thought that the exegesis of scriptural repre
sentations needed a thorough re-examination ; and that a reason
able and reverent interpretation of the strong language of
Scripture was possible which would not necessitate the dogma of
eternal suffering.
Among Nonconformists Mr. Binney's critical, and broad, humane
preaching had a great influence in the transition from the
Calvinistic thought of fifty years ago to the more evangelical
Catholicity of the last quarter of a century. But it was an

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. 1V
influence of contagion rather than of theological polemics. And
it was only one of many influences. Like most spiritual forces,
however, it was more leavening and transforming than any
polemics could have been. He did not found a school, but he
infused a spirit.
His preaching was characteristically concrete in form. It was
never metaphysical; it was not often purely argumentative.
More commonly it was embodied in concrete forms and- con
ditions of life. And it was never more effective than when some
scriptural history or character was the medium of it. The com
bination of graphic description, dramatic portraiture, grasp of
great principles, practical ethics, and rhetorical fervour was often
very remarkable. Memories of such sermons, delivered in his
earlier ministry, when imagination and passion were at their
prime, and were the inspirations of a high order of eloquence —
the eloquence of thought and not of mere words — are very vivid
in those who heard them ; and perhaps surpassed any preaching
of its kind in the history of the modern English pulpit.
Another great quality of Mr. Binney's preaching was its
intense humanity. It was not a mere discoursing on theology, or
teaching of morals. It was emphatically a ministry of divine
things to human necessities.
He did not think it enough to take a text of Scripture
and expound its meaning, nor a theological doctrine and
demonstrate its truth, nor a principle of morals and justify its
obligation; the Scripture text, the theological doctrine, the
moral principle was, in his hands, simply a means to an end ;
which was the religious renovation, nurture, and comfort of
sinning and sorrowing men. His preaching was not limited to
the mere truth of things, it sought out their aptitudes and
urged their applications. What God had said, what Jesus Christ
did, what Abraham or Peter was, were, for the ends of his preach
ing; important only as they produced upon those to whom he
preached practical religious effects. To him, the Bible was not
mere theology, or history, or religious archeeology, to be ex
pounded in a professional lecture ; it was a moral instrument,
worthless for the purposes of his preaching save as it produced
upon his auditors effects corresponding to their characters and
needs. His sermons were instinct with human solicitudes and sympa-
e 2

Ivi BIOGRAPHICAL
thies : they touch men in their actual condition — young men in
commercial houses, young women in shops and work-rooms, or
in fashionable families, merchants in the market, mothers in the
home, men and women in the manifold conditions of their sin and
sorrow — in this nineteenth century. They are anything but
theological essays, or ethical disquisitions, or antiquarian investi
gations. They are clinical lectures, moral remedies, practical
ministries, coming home to men's business and bosoms, in the
broadest, most practical, and searching way.
In this sense his preaching indicated a great change from
both the theological disquisitions of the Nonconformist pulpit,
and the religious platitudes of that of the Established Church ;
as also from the exclusively elementary preaching of repentance
and faith, which was the great instrument of the Methodist
revival, and which the Methodist pulpit perpetuated.
Mr. Binney's sympathies spread themselves over the whole
of human life. His ministry was not merely an evangel for
impenitent men, it was a nurture for religious men in all the
stages of their religious growth, and in all the varieties of their
religious need — their ignorances and temptations, their struggles
and sins, their cares and sorrows, their joys and hopes. Its uncon
scious motto was the text of one of his earliest and best sermons,
' Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man
in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ
Jesus.' As the sermons in both this volume and the volume that pre
ceded it will demonstrate, he held very firmly by the fundamental
principles of evangelical theology — the Incarnation, and the
expiatory atonement of Christ; nor can any one doubt, as the
result of independent and searching thought. His conviction that
these were the highest and most profoundly philosophical of all
the theories of the relations of God to man, and that they were
the most searching and potent of all religious inspirations, only
grew in certainty and entireness with his maturing judgment.
He found in them the root and the power of all practical religion.
No preacher urged with greater frequency or cogency the moral
constraints of the great doctrines of grace. Incidentally, in the
development in different sermons, of various lines of moral
reasoning and religious demonstration, he will be found to
have done as much as most men of his generation for the vindi
cation of these doctrines.

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. lvii
Hence Mr. Binney was always careful to justify his doctrine
to the moral conscience of men. He held that nothing could
affect men religiously that did not enter their intellectual con
victions, and approve itself to their moral conscience. Men may
be silenced by mere authority, they are not made wiser or better
by it. A word of God is authoritative because it is His. Mr.
Binney would have been the first to bow before it as such,
and to demand of his hearers that they should do the same.
But he would also have maintained that simply to bow to
external authority, even though Divine, would work no religious
process in the soul. In order to this, truth must take possession
of its intellectual convictions and moral sympathies; it must secure
the urgency of belief and the constraint of affection. In this
way alone can it be a religious power to a man.
Hence Mr. Binney always sought to ' commend his preaching
to every man's conscience in the sight of God.' In this sense
he attached vital importance to the ' verifying faculty in man;'
to which all moral and religious truth must make its appeal.
He held that while unspiritual feeling may reject the most
certain and glorious truth of God, any dogma that claims to be
of God, but which does not commend itself to holy and reverent
feeling is of very doubtful credentials. Under no preaching were
hearers made to feel more profoundly the perfect moral harmony
of the evangelical truths of the Bible and the nature and
necessities of men ; that these were as the key and the lock ; and
that the truth rightly expounded, and the necessity rightly
apprehended, were, in their perfect congruity, one of the most
conclusive demonstrations of the divine provision of the salva
tion that is in Christ.
A word may be here added about the style of Mr. Binney's
preaching ; which again was a quiet but utter revolt from the
conventional pulpit style that he found. It was the day of
stilted rhetoric, elaborate climax, magniloquent sentences, and
wrought-up passion. The form of the sermon was as artificial
as an epic poem would have been. It was constructed on a
conventional model, it was elaborated into grand rhetorical
sentences and paragraphs, it moved like a procession, and came
to an end like a tragedy. Mr. Binney, in his own preaching,
changed all that. He began not only to preach the common
things and thoughts of practical life, but to preach them in

lviii BIOGRAPHICAL
ordinary colloquial speech. As a rule he did not write his
sermons, although he carefully by writing prepared them for
speaking. Generally without a note, save in his waistcoat pocket,
and with characteristic attitude, — the forefinger of his right hand
very frequently in the palm of his left, — his sermons were
familiar in language as ordinary conversation ; they were a kind
of inspired talk, differing from fireside discussion only in their
monologue and orderly arrangement. They had two chief marks
of inspiration : — at times the apparent hesitancy, or deliberation,
, as if casting about for the best way of marshalling or presenting
his thought ; at other times the gradual and unconscious swell of
thought and feeling into forcible and even grand eloquence. It
was in no sense paint put on, it was always the glow and colour
induced by exercise. The eloquence was not made, it grew out
of the kindling fervour of the speaker ; and sometimes descrip
tion, demonstration, and appeal rose to magnificent heights and
forms of imagination and passion.
Largely through the contagion of his example the Noncon
formist pulpit was delivered from artificial structures and stilted
rhetoric, and acquired the human, familiar, every-day speech
which now characterizes most of its preachers; and in which,
while some rhetorical excellencies may have been lost, a great
many unrealities and fripperies have been got rid of. This
change indeed has come over all pulpits and forms of modern
speaking, and has been wrought by various causes. It must
suffice to say here that Mr. Binney's realistic preaching very
powerfully affected Nonconformists, although it was only one
influence among many.
Preaching was Mr. Binney's distinctive power — the practical
application to the spiritual needs of men of the truths and
provisions of Christ's Gospel. It was not lecturing, it was not
oratory, it was not ratiocination, it was not the production
of theological essays ; it was a distinctive mode of speech that
dealt at once with mind, heart, and life, and that laid under con
tribution whatever the best ministered to them. There was an
intense religious reality in his sermons ; they not only avoided,
they were strongly repellant of everything either in thought,
speech, or feeling that was unreal; they* dealt with practical
human interests, touching them with the inspiration of the
loftiest truths, and ruling them with the holiest and divinest

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. lix
sanctions. They were full of broad religious sympathies, which
refused to be narrowed by mere creeds or ecclesiastical belong
ings. In their realisations of historic or actual life they were
very vivid, often highly dramatic. They were penetrating in
practical wisdom, full of pithy sayings, and charged with moral
earnestness. This latter quality was felt alike in the selection
of his topics, the character of his treatment, and the tenacity of
his aim. In his appeals, especially, there was a peculiar strength
and sometimes an agonistic cogency ; they gathered into them
selves all the potent elements of the sermon ; they were argument,
entreaty, sentiment, fused in the solemnities of the interests
involved and in the sympathies of the preacher. The moral
grasp which characterised Mr. Binney's ministry was very
vigorous. He compelled men to listen to him, and made them
feel that he was dealing with their deepest truest life.
His largeness of nature was felt in all his sermons and seen in
all his thinking. He was equally incapable of tricks in the
pulpit, of meanness in social life, and of narrowness in judgment.
Whatever his defects they were not littlenesses. Nothing was
foreign to him that was human. Whatever the sinner in
moral life, whatever the heretic in theological thought, he was
sure of generous construction and tender sympathy from Mr.
Binney. In thought and in feeling he was a broad, many-sided
man ; and in the sense in which these qualities are claimed for a
distinctive school, he anticipated much that has been since taught
by Mr. Maurice, Mr. Robertson, and Mr. Kingsley. Indeed he
was incapable of the impatience, not to say intolerance of some
men of this school towards those who differ from them.
His power was that of a great spiritual force. Intuitively
he laid hold of the spiritual essence both of the truth that he
taught, and the life that he addressed. No preacher carried you
more directly to the heart of things, or made you feel more
strongly the unimportance of their mere accidents. Hence he
won equal confidence and affection from jaded men and sorrowful
women, from generous youth and ingenuous childhood. We
need only compare his sermons on Money ; on the Hebrew Wife
and Maiden ; his lectures on the Proverbs, and on Joseph ; and
his address to the boys of Mill Hill Grammar School, to see how
versatile was his religious imagination, and how wide the range
of his sympathies.

Ix BIOGRAPHICAL
Few men craved human love more than he, or won so large
and diversified a tribute of it. He loved his kind, and delighted
in social intercourse. His correspondence was very extensive,
and with some of his young literary friends very frequent.
Through his warm and eager affections he exercised a great
personal ministry, and a subtle and powerful influence. He had
intense joy in the love of men and women, and he amply repaid
it with the affluence of his own great nature. In the real
dependencies of life, a truer heart, a more sympathising and
faithful friend could not be found. He was a man to whom
interest, honour, life itself might be confidently trusted ; so that
during his life he won, not from women only but from strong
men, a worship which is very rare, and which made the demon
stration of interest during his last illness, and of respect at his
funeral such as are not often seen.
Hence he was sensitive to public opinion. He was for instance
greatly annoyed and hurt at Mr. Dickens' caricature of what
took place at Mr. Hone's funeral ; and he thought it worth while,
when this was reproduced in Mr. Forster's life of Dickens, to
supply the biographer with detailed proof of its misrepresenta
tions. But — notwithstanding the explicit and public contra
diction of Mr. George Cruikshank, to whom Dickens alleges
that his observations during prayer were made, but who really
knelt at the opposite side of the fire-place, and the confir
matory testimony of four or five persons still living who were
present, including members of Mr. Hone's own family — Mr.
Forster, instead of an open and generous retractation of his
friend's lawless and somewhat unscrupulous imagination, has
thought fit, in the appendix to the third volume, to refuse
to pronounce a judgment, while he conveys an insinuation which
only aggravates the original offence. Clearly Mr. Dickens
indulged in that irrepressible tendency to caricature, which,
while it is one of the literary charms of the artist, is a serious
drawback in the moral impression made by the man.
As an illustration of the kind of influence which Mr. Binney's
preaching exercised, it may be mentioned here, that Mr. Hone,
the author of ' The Every Day Book/' — when living in Gracechurch
Street, and an avowed apostle of infidelity — according to a state
ment of his own, accidentally took shelter from a shower in the
Weigh House Chapel. Mr. Binney was preaching in ' an honest,

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. ki
manly, intellectual style/ such as Mr. Hone had never before
heard ; then he prayed, ' calmly, with deep feeling, and very
devoutly/ This, and ' the simple grandeur and honesty of the
man' so impressed Hone that he went again, and became a
regular, but apparently at first, a furtive attendant, ' in a corner
of the gallery,' and before long, a genuine Christian. And after
years of consistent Christian discipleship, bringing up a large
family in ' the nurture and admonition of the Lord,' he died, a
devout and humble Christian man, and Mr. Binney buried
him. In the judgment of all who knew Mr. Binney he had far
greater intellectual capability than is indicated in any of his
actual productions. This was partly the result of the conditions
under which his work had to be done, and partly of his lack of
early intellectual training. But concerning him as concerning
most men it is vain to speculate on what might have been done,
or to regret that he was not other than he was. He probably
did the work that his nature in its entireness was best fitted to
do. God prepares his instruments by processes different from
ours and doubtless wiser. Special training for intellectual work,
such as his simple brain-power unquestionably qualified him for,
would probably have impaired the more subtle spiritual power of
the work that he actually did.
As with many men, his intellectual force culminated early ;
neither as thinker nor theologian did his later life produce much.
A wise criticism of him which appeared in the Nonconformist
newspaper at the time of his death, puts this with all the
prominence and emphasis that are necessary.
' It not seldom happens that large growths begin to decay
soon ; and this is sometimes strikingly seen when the growth is
both physical and spiritual, and the life that has gone to form it
has spent itself in over-intensity in its earlier days. Such we
believe was the case with the remarkable man whose loss we
deplore. The latter of the two generations with whom he has
lived has often silently wondered at the stories told of his early
manhood, and sometimes even complained of his indecision, his
timidity, his excessive candour on all sides, his lack of nerve for
fighting when a fight with a bishop or a novelist was necessary,
or some foul-mouthed Dissenting fakeer or newspaper Fenian
was to be extinguished, of the loose texture of his thinking, and

Ixii BIOGRAPHICAL
even of his style ; of the secularity of tone which spread itself
here and there just a little over his writings, and of the in
creasing dominance of peculiarities of address which took away
something from the dignity and authority of his influence over
the church and the nation. There was little room for such
criticism at the time of the accession of Queen Victoria. Then,
at all events, when the vitality was at its height, there was a
voice at the King's Weigh House which went straight into the
heart of the people, and there was a hand which could strike with
a will at social and ecclesiastical iniquities. And not a little of
the general turn of thought which has rendered possible the
many reforms subsequently effected by direct legislation, is fairly
traceable to the vigorous arguments of " John Search " and the
author of " Dissent not Schism." But men who are enjoying
the fruit of arduous toils and sacrifices do not always know who
were their benefactors, and thoughtlessly complain of the
decayed energy which is the penalty of early and extraordinary
self-devotion. ' Amidst the decay of energy, however, enough of power was
left, almost to the very end, to constitute one of the most whole
some and religious influences of the last quarter of a century.
There was more than an occasional flood of the old intensity of
feeling, and many a radiant burst of the old splendour of thought
and diction, but better than all, a mellow, fatherly wisdom of
which his juniors took counsel as of an oracle of common sense;
and a steadfastness of friendship which caused those who knew
him longest, through forty or fifty years, to reckon on his fidelity
and affection as beyond the accidents of time or distance.' —
Nonconformist, March 4, 1874.
All through his life Mr. Binney's influence gathered ; to admira
tion for his great gifts and grateful appreciation of his great
services, succeeded the quiet deference and reverence, and the
subtle but powerful influence of mere presence, which come
of long-tested wisdom and fidelity, and of gathering personal
affection. For many years before he died Mr. Binney was the
recognised Nestor of his denomination. His presence gave it a
tone and a character. Men do not assume such positions ; such
influence cannot be conferred ; they are growths of life, the
natural products of great gifts, nobly and holily used. It is a
leadership that cannot be defined. It was not a leadership of

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. lxiii
office, still less of assumption. It was simply that of the im
pression, and estimate, and reference which an entire life produces ;
which gathers as rain-clouds through the unrecognised exhalation
of sunbeams, the entire result of long years of miscellaneous
thought and speech, and presence and sympathy : — a silent
impalpable spiritual influence ever unconsciously accumulating,
and creating a certain appreciation in individuals, in the Church,
and in public opinion. Who shall say how influence gathers?
What specific achievement of intellect or heart creates it ? Who
knows what he does in the process of doing it? Instances
there are of the sudden development of some extraordinary gift.
The young preacher shoots up into the firmament of the Church
like a rocket, and sometimes he sustains through years his
brilliancy and elevation. But then the influence like the gift is
partial ; it is the influence of magnetic attraction rather than
that of gravitation. Mr. Binney's influence was not achieved
thus; it was the growth of the seed corn into the harvest; it was
the fulfilment of morning promise in noontide strength and
evening mellowness ; it was the collective product of the entire
man and of his whole life and work. Mr. Binney had no one
paramount gift. His unquestioned greatness consisted of an
unusual and harmonious combination of many gifts. In each
separate attribute of his power he has been transcended by many
of his contemporaries. He was a clear, strong thinker, but the
Nonconformist churches have had thinkers more penetrating,
acute, and profound. He was a well-informed and well-practised
theologian, but he pretended to no eminence in theological
science; the purely scientific side of theology indeed he scarcely
touched. His reading was extensive, his information orderly,
and within its range precise ; his exegesis was keen and true, but
no one would claim for him the acquirements of the scholar.
He was an effective, we may say a great preacher, one of the
chief pulpit notabilities of his day, but he was in no sense a
great orator ; he had neither the rhetoric nor the passion which
the highest oratory demands. But all these powers were
possessed by him in a high degree, although by no means in the
highest; and they were blended in him in a very beautiful
and almost perfect harmony, and combined with high moral
qualities which gave them vitality and force, and which made the .
whole man a man of distinctive, well-balanced, and singular

lxiv BIOGRAPHICAL
power. The constituents of manifold excellencies were in his
preaching, regulating and enhancing one another ; the momentum
of the whole, being noble moral qualities, which could not be
mistaken! It does not come within the purpose of this sketch to accu
mulate biographical details. Probably an instinctive shrinking
from such was the cause of Mr. Binney's interdict upon a
biography. It must, however, be mentioned that in 1852 he received
from the University of Aberdeen the degree of LLD., and in
1 861 from one of the colleges of the United States, the degree
of D.D. But he did not use either; he preferred the higher
form of designation, 'Thomas Binney,' which had become his
household name among his brethren. Only within the last three
or four years, when he undertook some professional duties in
connexion with New College, did he tacitly sanction any use of
these honours in connexion with his name.
It scarcely need be said that the churches to which he belonged
called him to their highest honours of office and service. He
was twice Chairman of the Congregational Union ; and special
preacher on occasions innumerable.
In 1869 Mr. Binney retired from the Pastorate of the Weigh
House Church, chiefly on account of the church building having
been purchased under Parliamentary powers for the construction
of a Railway — subsequently abandoned by its projectors. His
last sermon was preached in Westminster Chapel in November
1873. The sunset was not without clouds. For some months he
declined under an insidious malady; and, as constitutionally, he
was liable to states of great depression, and more than once had
to seek in prolonged rest and foreign travel recovery from such,
it is scarcely to be wondered at that physical weakness and the
depressing character of his disease — which was an affection of the
heart — acting upon a temperament sensitive almost to morbidness,
affected his religious feelings. A week or two before he died he
fell into a condition of great despondencj', ' crushed, body, soul,
and spirit,' as he expressed it to me; but it was a failure of
feeling rather than of faith. When I reminded him of the
comforts wherewith he had comforted others, ' Yes/ he replied, ' I
have preached and written a great deal, and both in my preaching

AND CRITICAL SKETCH. Ixv
and writing I have aimed at setting forth these great funda
mental truths, and in the review of them I feel that I have done
right ; I simply rest upon them now.' He found great comfort
in hymns, and especially in the Psalms, which he delighted to
hear read to him, more particularly in the sleepless hours of the
night ; but at times it was very dark. He could not be sure
about his own spiritual state. The fifty-first Psalm was ever
upon his lips ; and he looked to God's mercy through Jesus Christ,
with the humility and docility of a little child. But the cloud
lifted ; his last words were expressive of relief, and faith,
and hope ; and ' the enemy was still as a stone till he went
over.' He died in the early morning of Feb. 24, 1874, and was buried
March 2, in Abney Park Cemetery. Devotional services were
conducted in Stamford Hill Chapel, by the Revs. Dr. Halley,
Dr. Raleigh, E. Mannering, W. Braden and LI. Bevan ; the
address was delivered by the Rev. J. C. Harrison. The service
at the grave was read by the Rev. Dr. Allon, who delivered a
short address ; the concluding prayers were read by the Rev. Dr.
Stanley, Dean of Westminster. Many thousands of spectators
gathered round the grave, and deputations from the principal
religious societies joined in the long procession.
The funeral sermons were preached in the Weigh House
Chapel, the following Sunday, by the Revs. Dr. Stoughton and
W. Braden.
It would be difficult to estimate the quickening power of Mr.
Binney upon the Nonconformist ministry. None of his contem
poraries approached it. Hundreds of men preaching Christ's
Gospel now, are preaching it more truly, broadly, nobly, and
lovingly through the inspirations of the Weigh House pulpit.
Around it, for years, students of our metropolitan colleges, and
young ministers visiting London used to gather. At first
perhaps, overpowered by his strong individuality, some of them
unduly reflected him. But with the bane there came the anti
dote. Mr. Binney quickened as well as impressed ; and by and
bye the life and growth obliterated the mere impressions, like
the bark of a tree growing over initials cut into it : and the
men are strong in the strength of their own quickened life and
augmented power. We thank God that he has lived. He has
fertilized our churches and our ministry, and has done much to

lxvi BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCH.
ennoble our entire commercial life. ' He was a burning and
shining light, and we rejoiced to walk in his light.' This
generation of Nonconformist ministers must pass away before
his name ceases to be a spell, his memory a tenderness, and his
teaching a spiritual power.

SERMONS.

SEKMON I.
MESSIAH SUFFERING, AND MESSIAH SATISFIED.
' He shall see of the travail of His soul, and, shall be satisfied.' —
Isaiah liii. 11.
We can conceive - of religion only under two aspects —
or (in other words) as being, in respect to its essential
elements, of two kinds. Wherever it exists in the
whole universe, it must of necessity we think be the
one or the other. The human faculties would seem
to be incapable of forming the idea of a third kind of
religion. Unquestionably this is the case with respect
to religion as true ; and even with respect to it as
false, or as imaginary, we suspect it to be the case
also. Two kinds of true and acceptable religion there
may be ; and there can be no more. There was a
time, when only one of these existed among God's
creatures ; and it is not perhaps going too far, to say
that if God had pleased, the other might never have
existed at all. These two kinds of religion cannot be
conceived of as existing together in the same minds,
or in the same world under a state of probation ; but
they may be conceived of as existing together in the
same world in two classes of minds after the probation
of each is complete. They can be conceived of too, of
course, as existing successively one after the other in
VOL. II. b& B

2 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
the same mind and among the same creatures. But
the history of such a world would be perhaps unique —
it would probably stand out discriminated and distin
guished from all the other provinces of God's great
empire by this very circumstance ; it might probably
become an object of interest, and of more than curiosity
to every one of them, from facts connected with it, illus
trating principles important to them all. Such a world,
if there be one is this which we inhabit ; such facts if
found anywhere are found in the history and religion
of man.
These two kinds of religion are the religion of
unfallen and the religion of fallen beings — of mind
in its natural, and of mind in its accidental condition —
in its state as created by God, and in one superinduced
by its own disobedience. In other words, religion,
wherever it exists within the whole compass of the
creation, must be that either of the innocent or of the
guilty. Creatures may be imagined (and such creatures
there are), whose character and circumstances may be
such, that they have and can have no religion at all ;
but any that have religion must have it, as to its
essential and distinctive attributes and properties,
determined and modified by their being under the pro
bation or enjoying the results either of simple law or of
sovereign mercy.
Hell is without religion. It has a God — for God
'is there;' but in it He has no temple, no priest
hood, no worshippers. Heaven has religion of the
two kinds already described ; and of each it exhibits
the highest form it has yet attained. Earth has one ;
but it has had both. And (different from heaven,
whose fallen inhabitants were cast out), it has had
both in the same minds and in the same race.
Nay, it might even be said, perhaps, without im-

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 3
propriety, that both of these kinds of religion have
existed on earth together — (a thing probably without
parallel in any world under probation) ; for One who
described himself as the ' Son of man/ though He never
was so described by others — and who was ' made under
the law,' and who was ' tempted like as we are/ lived
amongst us once and lived without sin, but not with
out religion; yet in Him one would think it must have
been something more akin to the first religion of
man, than to the second. Simple in its elements, in
its exercise instinctive, irrepressible, and pure, it must
have resembled that of the first man in his first state,
even while modified in its accidents (though not in its
essence) by existing surrounded by his posterity in their
fallen state.
As we conceive that there could not be, so we
think there never has been, any but the two specified
kinds of religion in the world. And as we further
think that they cannot in the very nature of things co
exist in the same minds, so we conceive that at the
point in the history of humanity where the one ended,
the other began. With the fall, the probation of law
(properly speaking) terminated; with the promise of
Messiah, the probation of mercy commenced. At that
moment, the religion of man underwent a change as
to its essential elements. It became an entirely dif
ferent thing from what it had been before. That it.
has continued ever since ; and in all of the race who will
have a religion in the next state, that it will remain,
and remain for ever.
It is thus obvious, that when we speak of the dif
ferent dispensations of religion, we do not mean (or
we ought not to mean) that there was any elementary
or essential difference in religion itself, under the
patriarchal, the Levitical, or the prophetical dispen-
B 2

4 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
sations respectively; or between what it was under
them all and what it is under the Gospel. Keligion
has been one and the same thing, from the first pro
mise given in paradise, and the first prayer uttered by
man in virtue of that promise — until this hour. Man
has never been contemplated by God as merely under
the law, since words of hope were spoken to him by
mercy, since he was directed to present a sacrifice of
blood, or warned and called and persuaded to repent.
Of these things Law, as Law, knows nothing ; and
wherever they exist authorised by God, they indicate
the presence and the operation of the Gospel. Under
all preceding dispensations therefore, every act which
mere law could not authorise, every feeling which it
could not encourage, every admonition and remon
strance which it could not give, is to be referred to
the fact, that the mediatorial system was established
and in action from the moment that the Saviour's
coming was announced, and that the Spirit that spake
to the Church in its infancy was the same Spirit (' the
Spirit of Christ') that spake to it when it rose to its
majority and manhood.
It is thus easy to see, that though the prophet
Isaiah has acquired in the Church the honourable
distinction of being frequently denominated 'the
Evangelical Prophet,' this intimates or ought to inti
mate, not that he did what the other prophets did
not, but that he did it in a more remarkable manner.
It is a distinction, not of kind, but of degree. Accord
ing to the principles already stated, if these principles
be sound, all the prophets were necessarily evangelical ;
—evangelical not only because they spake beforehand
of 'the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should
follow,' but because the very object of their office in
relation to their contemporaries, which was to 'show

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 5
to Judah his transgression and to Israel his sin' — to
show it with a view to their repentance and pardon — •
actually partook of an evangelical character, by in
cluding within it ends which Law (as Law) can never
contemplate, and which it requires the Gospel to au
thorise and suggest.
An important part, however, of the prophetical
function certainly was to prepare the Church for the
coming of Messiah, by exciting its expectations and
confirming its faith through the utterance of predic
tions respecting His appearance. It is in reference to
this principally, that the epithet ' Evangelical ' has been
appropriated to Isaiah. It belongs however to the ' holy
men who spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost ' from the beginninp; of the world. From Adam
to Enoch, and from Enoch to Moses, as well in the
law as in the psalms, and in all the prophets from
Moses to Malachi, things were uttered and things are
recorded concerning 'the Desire of all nations.' To
' testify of Jesus ' was ' the spirit of prophecy ; ' and
'to Him give all the prophets witness.' The epithet
'Evangelical' belongs to them as a body. It simply
expresses what they all were in fact, and is applied
to Isaiah only to express what he was by eminence.
His allusions to Christ are comparatively frequent,
his predictions distinct, his pictures splendid, his lan
guage lofty, stirring, sublime. The harp of Isaiah
was occupied, oftener than that of others, with the
themes belonging to the coming age ; its notes were
louder and longer continued, when he touched upon
them ; while the visions he saw and the scenes he sung
are presented to the Church so invested with glory
and so instinct with fife, that we seem to be looking
on what is passing before us, or listening to the nar
ration and celebration of events, instead of receiving

6 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
from one, who knew not fully what he said — the pro
phetic announcement of things to come.
Among the prophecies of Isaiah, that which is con
tained in the chapter before us stands eminent and
illustrious. Keceived and interpreted according to the
sense attached to it by Christians, it involves in it a
striking proof of the truth and divinity of our holy
religion. It does this simply as a prophecy, irrespec
tive of its dogmatic or theological character. It is a
prediction of what was to come to pass. It is not
merely capable of being turned into a prediction by
a little force, or a little ingenuity, but it was uttered
as such ; it was meant when uttered to be received
as such. And it was unquestionably in being— it was
written and read — seven centuries before the events,
which are supposed to have fulfilled it. It is found
in a Jewish, as distinguished from a Christian writing
—in a writing admitted, preserved, believed, by those
who have every reason for wishing this passage altered
or expunged. After the appearing of Jesus Christ,
a passage like this could not have been introduced
into the writings of Isaiah by Christians ; the jealousy
of the Jews would prevent that. It would not be in
troduced by Jews ; that would be inconsistent with
their unbelief. To be here at all, it must have formed
an original part of the prophetical Scriptures. Such
it is admitted to be — and admitted by the Jew; he
preserved and he perused it as such, before the ap
pearance of the 'Man of sorrows;' and after he had
seen Him — seen Him ' grow up as a tender plant and
as a root out of a dry ground ;' after he had looked
upon Him and found in Him 'nothing to desire,'
' neither form nor comeliness ' nor verdure nor beauty ;
after he had ' hid his face from Him' and 'esteemed
Him not,' 'wounded' and 'bruised' 'imprisoned' and

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 7
'oppressed' Him, ' despised and rejected' and 'smitten
Him to death ;' after this, it was impossible to recede.
The book was in the hands of both parties, and the
passage in the custody of both; the Jew could not
have expunged it, for the Church would have de
tected and denounced the fraud; the Christian would
not, for he exulted in its existence and import. It
thus stands an acknowledged portion of a writing
strictly and intentionally prophetic, uttered and re
corded and received as prophetical, hundreds of years
before the occurrence of all that it so distinctly and
graphically describes. Now the thing to be observed
in connection with these remarks is this — that the
particulars of the prophecy are so many, they are so
minute, they are so singular, they are previously so
improbable, that they never could have been foreseen
by human sagacity, and surely never thrown together
by any lucky but hazardous guesses. They were all
fulfilled, and fulfilled with minute and marvellous
fidelity, in Jesus Christ. They apply to no other
person; to Him they do apply — and apply with an
accuracy, which would be admitted to be wonderful
and which never would be doubted, did it not involve
the admission of the truth of His pretensions. That
it does this is seen by the simplest of all arguments : —
none can foresee future events but God ; a clear and
indubitable prediction is produced, having long after
wards its fulfilment in the character and history of
one claiming a Divine mission ; therefore (it is im
possible to hesitate) that mission was Divine ; He must
have sent him, who foresaw His coming, and fore
seeing foretold it.
Such is the value and the use of every prophecy,
whose character and meaning are clearly ascertained,
and whose import can be proved to have met its ac-

8 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
complishment. But the prophecy before us does more
than this, it not only proves, in relation to Christ,
the truth of His pretensions, but it proves what some
at least of those pretensions were ; it not only demon
strates that He came from God, but it also demon
strates what He came for — what He came to accomplish
for man. If words are to be permitted to have any
meaning, if the language of the Bible was intended to
be understood, the prophecy is a declaration, positive,
unequivocal, distinct — that Messiah was to be made
a propitiatory sacrifice. His innocence is asserted, His
righteousness declared, His exquisite agonies, bodily
and mental, alike described ; Jehovah is represented
as crushing Him, ' bruising Him ' and ' putting Him to
grief and 'making His soul an offering for sin;'
He is Himself depicted as suffering as a substitute,
as 'bearing the griefs and carrying the sorrows' of
others, as ' wounded for their transgression, bruised
for their iniquities/ on their account afflicted and
stricken and smitten to death, and as having 'laid
upon Him the iniquity of them all.' Every variety
of phrase is employed, as if purposely to render mis
take impossible, and to mark the importance of the
subject itself.
Many translations of the passage have been at
tempted, but none succeeds in getting rid of and
excluding its pervading idea. The Jew who rejects
Christ, and who applies therefore the prophecy to
his nation as a whole and not to an individual, is
endlessly embarrassed by its personal allusions; and
the Christian (if Christian he be) who rejects the
Bedeemer's sacrifice and atonement, may alter and
attenuate the phraseology of the passage,' may change
and modify and emasculate it, but the great truth cannot
be concealed ; its existence is indicated and its presence

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 9
is felt, whatever be the language in which it is conveyed
¦ — aye, even in that which is carefully selected, not for the
purpose of expressing but of hiding it. The nature
of the work of Christ, the 'decease which He accom-
.plished at Jerusalem/ the efficacy of His sufferings
and the nature of His death, 'His soul being made
an offering for sin ' — this truth is so abundantly borne
out in the ample and illustrious prophecy before us,
that it flames forth, however it may be clothed, just
as the glory of Christ's body when transfigured upon
the Mount shone through and illumined the robes He
wore. It rises up in spite of every effort to reduce
and to subdue it, even as the mighty champion of
Israel snapped asunder the new ropes and the green
withs, by which he was attempted to be bound.
Of this prophecy we select one expression, and to that
we purpose to confine our remarks. After a descrip
tion of the ' sufferings of Christ,' the prophet proceeds
in the close of the chapter to glance, as it were at ' the
glory that should follow,' at the consequences to re
sult from them to the sufferer, and to his seed. Among
the former are the words of the text, ' He shall see
of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied.'
By these words our meditations are to be re
gulated at this time. I beg to remark that my
purpose and intention is not to criticise them, not to
discuss them, not to enter into any elaborate justifi
cation of their rendering or their truth ; — but taking
for granted that they mean what they say, and that
we are all agreed both about the truth and the im
portance of that meaning, and presuming to think
that on this occasion our object should be to nourish
faith, to inflame piety, and to get the heart into a right
condition — aiming at it rather than at the head ; — ¦
thinking and purposing thus — not lightly, but 'as in

10 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
the sight of Christ,' and as having a service to do for
Him, I shall content myself in my further remarks
with 'stirring you up by way of remembrance,' re
minding you in a few brief and rapid illustrations of
some of those things which are ' most assuredly believed
among us/ and of the manner in which they ought to
move us to act.
I shall, in the first place, therefore, endeavour to
set before you a few thoughts illustrative of the
meaning of the text, and then, in the second place,
two or three practical observations to show how we
who believe that meaning ought to be affected.
i. And in the first place, just mark the singularity
and greatness — which the words would seem to teach
us to attach to Christ.
' He shall see the travail of his soul.' These words
imply a distinction between Christ and the Church, a
distinction between Him and all the saved from among
men. The Church is one thing, Christ is another. He
is not a part of it — one of the many millions of minds
of which it is composed. He does not rank with saved
men ; He cannot be included in the same category.
He, looking upon them, " shall see the travail of His
soul ;" they, looking to Him, shall behold the source
of their spiritual existence. In such a case, there must
be an essential difference between the parties. To
confound them together, as of the same nature, and
as such possessing all the properties of that nature
in common, and nothing else on either side, would
seem like confounding the potter with the material
substance he can fashion as he will, or the Creator of
the world with the work of His hands. God is not
a part of the creation ; nor is Christ a part of the
Church. Whatever His felloAvship with humanity in

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. n
order to accomplish His gracious purposes, if He could
not be conceived of as removed far above and beyond
all fellowship and all sympathy with the feelings of
saved and redeemed men, as such, He never could have
been the author of their salvation or redemption.
This essential distinction — or at least the supremacy
resulting from it — would seem to be indicated by
another circumstance. ' He' — pre-eminently I think —
' He shall be satisfied ; ' as if to intimate, that were He
not, whatever else might be achieved or felt, nothing
comparatively would seem to be accomplished. All
things connected with the salvation of the world are to
be so ordered, as to issue in affording to the mind of
Messiah a perfect and plenary satisfaction. He shall
not have to acquiesce in results, which He may believe
to be right, but which He cannot comprehend (which
we, I apprehend, will have to do throughout all
eternity) ; nor, however others may be permitted to
enter into His joy, will all His joy be such as they can
share. He shall have a delight and a blessedness of
His own ; it shall be peculiar, incomprehensible, com
plete ; He shall be filled with an eternal and ineffable
satisfaction, of which He Himself shall say, ' It is
enough.' And it would seem to be intimated by the
words before us, that if this were not the case, it would
be felt as if all that has been done would have been
done in vain, and as if none in earth or heaven, till He
were satisfied, would either be disposed or could be
permitted to rejoice.
Let us ever remember, that our Lord Jesus Christ is
not to be considered as one in a long lineage and
procession of prophets, or even at the head of them, the
most illustrious. He is not to be considered as. a link
in a chain, each of the rest having properties in com
mon, a purpose and an agency of a kind with His.

12 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
He is not to be considered as a light, or a light-bearer,
associated with others, He having his place and portion
of illumination and they theirs independently of Him ;
as the stars of heaven and the lights of the Church are
independent of each other. He is not to be considered
as one among a number of God's servants and mes
sengers to mankind, a unit of a class, from whom He
differed not either in the constitution of His person or
in the nature of His work. Were this the case, He
would be of the Church ; were this the case, He would
be one of the saved from among men Himself; were
this the case, the ' satisfaction' of Christ arising from
the results of the Gospel, though it might differ in
degree, could not differ in kind, from that of other
prophets and apostles, since they equally with Him ac
complished their assigned and allotted service and
" finished the work given them to do.' The whole
Bible, from the beginning to the end of it, opposes and
repels a classification like this — the including Christ
under the same category as the saved from among men.
From the moment that the mediatorial dispensation
was established, intimations were given respecting the
Mediator ; and ever as we trace them, we find them
rising in interest, splendour, and elevation, till they
conduct us to the very throne of God, and exhibit Him
as the object of Divine worship, .regaled (and rightfully
regaled) with the homage and the honours of heaven.
The promise of Messiah mitigated the primitive curse,
and sustained man under his awful apprehensions.
He was the spirit of patriarchal institutions, and the
theme of patriarchal song ; Abraham ' rejoiced to see
His day,' though he saw it ' afar off,' and descried it
faintly. Levitical ceremonies derived their meaning
from Him. Prophecies and facts, types and traditions,
sustained the expectation, and augmented the im-

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 13
portance of His personal advent. With a view to that,
the course of the Church and the history of nations
was regarded, and governed, and determined. He
appeared at length in 'the fulness of time;' He was
' made flesh, and dwelt among us ; ' He tabernacled as
the true and eternal Shechinah in the body that ' was
prepared for Him.' He came and He departed ; He
came and ' the kingdom of heaven' was His being with
us ; He departed, and heaven is our being with Him.
There, separate and distinct from apostles and prophets
and martyrs, from angels and men, He receives the
homage and the adoration of them all, participating
with ' Him that sitteth upon the throne' the worship
and honours, that from ' every creature in heaven and
on earth' rise rapturously to seek and encircle it for
ever. It is perfectly obvious, that He of whom such
things are spoken (and spoken they are) must be re
garded as differing in nature from every other Divine
messenger; and therefore he is appropriately represented
as enjoying a ' satisfaction' which none of them can
share, something with which they cannot intermeddle.
2. But the passage not only thus attaches import
ance to Christ, it indicates His peculiar work and
attaches pre-eminent importance to that.
' He shall see of the travail of His soul.' This re
markable expression is pregnant with meaning. It
implies that all the glory of the Church, all in the
salvation of sinners, the perfection of the faithful,
whatever in the consequences of His undertaking con
nected either with God or man which can be regarded
as a source of satisfaction to Messiah — it implies that
all is to be attributed to the fact, that ' His soul was
made an offering for sin.' This was the express
purpose, for which the Son of God descended from hea
ven. With this view He 'took hold of the seed of

14 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
Abraham,' and was 'found in fashion as a man,' and
'through the eternal Spirit presented Himself without
spot to God' — to 'take away sin' and to 'destroy the
works of the devil.' ' Without shedding of blood there
could be no remission.' If law could have given life to
the condemned, ' verily righteousness would have been
by law ;' but 'what law could not do' God hath done,
by ' sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and
for sin/ ' making Him to be a sin-offering for us, who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him.' God ' spared not His Son ;' for it not
only 'pleased the Father to bruise Him and to put
Him to grief/ but ' it behoved Him' (there was a ne
cessity for it in the nature of things,) ' it behoved Him
in bringing the guilty to glory, to make the Captain of
their salvation perfect through suffering.' The suf
ferings of Christ and the salvation of men are con
nected together as cause and effect. It is from the
one, that the other flows. The anguish of the garden,
the groans of the cross, occasion and produce the
raptures of the redeemed.
This necessary connection, however, between the
sufferings of Christ and the glory that follows is not all
that the language suggests ; it suggests also an im
portant truth, in relation to the nature of those suf
ferings themselves. ' The travail of His soul' — would
seem to indicate that the mind of Messiah was more
immediately the seat of His atoning agonies. It car
ries us further than to what was physical ; it teaches
us to attach but inferior importance to the bruising
and the piercing of the flesh — to the animal pain (if I
may so speak), which the Redeemer endured, and
which, whatever was its extent, was probably sur
passed in many of the martyrs. Christ probably did
not suffer in His body more (nor so much) than many

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. i5
that have suffered for Him. ' The travail of His soul'
would seem to explain that mysterious amazement,
which overtook and overwhelmed the Lord Jesus pre
vious to His public rejection by the people, before the
hand of man had touched Him, when alone with His
disciples and in the attitude of prayer. If it be proper
to use such an expression with respect to Him — and
I would do it with all reverence, yet I would say —
that at that moment He seemed destitute or bereft
of the high bearing, the calm serenity, the mag
nanimous heroism, the contempt of danger, pain,
death, which have often illustrated the conduct of
His followers, even women, under circumstances similar
or worse — worse, if the external circumstances were
all. Now this is a fact in the history of Jesus, eternally
irreconcileable with the idea of His dying merely as a
witness for truth, or an example to others ; it can be
accounted for, with honour to His character, only on
the ground of His sustaining as a sacrificial Victim,
and sustaining in His soul sufferings exclusively and
pre-eminently His own. The text thus intimates, you
observe, not only that Christ is to have a 'satisfaction'
which none can share, but that it was purchased by
agonies which none can comprehend.
Of those agonies the passage further depicts the
intense and aggravated character. Assuming the cor
rectness of the common version, the words involve a
figurative allusion ; and that allusion suggests the idea
of peculiar, prolonged, unspeakable suffering. The
event, from which the expression is derived and to
which it refers, is the most painful among the ordinary
dispensations of Providence. The anguish connected
with it is in Scripture directly associated with the
apostacy, and described as emphatically a part of the

16 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
curse, and is referred to whenever the sacred writers
wish to convey a strong idea of amazement and con
sternation, agony and terror. The pangs of ' a wo
man in travail' is a phrase sanctioned and employed
again and again by the Divine Spirit, as an image
combining in itself all that can be conceived of the
extreme and the terrible in human suffering. And
this image, among others, is here employed to depict
the mental sensations of the Son of God, when 'the
chastisement of our peace was upon Him,' when He
'bore our griefs and carried our sorrows,' and was
stricken for us even unto death. The phrase thus re
calls us to the idea with which we set out, that the
personal sufferings of Christ are the procuring cause
and in that sense the source and fountain of human
salvation. ' Travail' is the peculiar suffering connected
with the birth, the natural birth of a human being;
and as applied in the text to Christ, it intimates that
in His agony and passion and bloody sweat, in the
throes and pangs of His soul, He endured what was
necessary to give spiritual existence to His Church.
But for this it could not have been; by this it was
brought into being, or, at least, the possibility of its
being was created ; and in consequence of this, it stands
related to Christ in a manner altogether exclusive and
peculiar. In this way the text indicates, we think, what it was
that constituted the peculiar work of Messiah, and
shows the pre-eminent importance to be attached to it.
It was not what Christ was in His moral character ;
it was not what He taught in His religious instructions ;
it was not what He did as a prophet ' mighty in deed
and in word' performing miracles and predicting
events ; it was not His announcement of the efficacy
of repentance ; His affirming the resurrection ; revealing

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 17
immortality, or rising from the dead — it was not these
things, any, or all them, that constituted that peculiar
work, by which Christ became personally and alone the
Saviour of men. These things — or things similar to
them, as great and as good — had all been taught or
done before He appeared. He taught respecting them
no new truth. The prophets had taught and called
to repentance ; a future life both of soul and body had
become in the time of Christ a common and vulgar
expectation ; mighty works had been done by com
missioned messengers — seas divided, armies annihilated,
thunder and fire evoked from the clouds, the sun and
moon arrested in their march, even the grave had
given up its dead — returning them alive. But even if
not, if such things had not been, if all that Jesus
taught and did had been new, still it would not have
been necessary for the 'Word to be made flesh' to
teach and to do it. Man could have done all that
would have been required. And if this were the case,
then, as what one man does another man may do, it
would follow that you or I, either of us, any of you,
or I individually, or a woman, the Virgin Mary or any
other, any of our wives or sisters or daughters, any one
of us might, if God had so pleased, have been con
stituted the redeemer of the world, the head of the
Church, and the light and the life of men. If Christ's
work was nothing but what man could do, we might
have done it. In our name, therefore, grace might
have come, and might abound ; in our name ' repent
ance and remission of sins might have been preached
to all nations ; ' to us everything in heaven and earth
might have been subjected, put into our hands, placed
under our feet ; and from us the whole of the saved
might have derived their existence as pardoned and
purified. We cannot conceive this ; we shrink h>
vol. 11. c

18 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
stinctively from the very thought, as if there were
blasphemy in the very idea of it; and we attach
therefore to the Redeemer and to the 'travail of the
Redeemer's soul' ideas which cannot be associated with
any being or with the sufferings of any being, possessed
of merely human attributes and affections.
3. The next idea which the text warrants, appears
to be this — the greatness of the results, which are to
flow from the Redeemer's sufferings. 'He shall be
satisfied! The words indicate that the mind of Messiah shall
be replenished with a fulness of joy, an exuberance
and redundancy so to speak of intense and rapturous
emotion, when He witnesses the effect of His sufferings
in the salvation of the redeemed.
That the results productive in Him of feelings like
these must be surpassingly and inconceivably great,
might be argued and illustrated by many topics. When
we speak of Messiah, we speak not merely of ' the man
Jesus,' but of that Divine Person mysteriously in Him
associated with humanity — the eternal 'Word,' that
' was with God and was God,' ' by whom all things
were created, and without whom nothing was made
that was made.' It would therefore be perfectly
legitimate, if time permitted, to illustrate the supposed
and anticipated glory of the new creation by adverting
to the extent and splendour of the old, and to the
capacities and views of the mind that produced it.
When we think of the fabric and furniture of the
material universe, the beauty and the elaborateness so to
speak of the infinitude of things existing upon earth,
and the vastness and the magnificence of celestial
objects, it becomes us to remember that all this was
necessary to 'satisfy' Him that made them, and to
realise and embody His great idea, His idea of what

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 19
it would be proper for Him to do in producing a work
worthy of Himself. All that we see in the heavens
above and on the earth beneath ; and far more which
we see not, which 'the eagle's eye' hath not seen,
which man hath neither reached by his instruments
nor can realise without them — it took them all, to
content (so to speak) the mind of their Maker, when
giving adequate proof of His wisdom and omnipotence.
How much sublimer, may we suppose, must those
spiritual results necessarily be, with which He is to be
'satisfied' — 'satisfied' as the mirror of His moral per
fections, of His holiness and mercy, of His tenderness
and truth ! The new creation, the materials of which
(if we may use such an expression) are to be redeemed
and sanctified minds, may be reasonably expected to
surpass as far the old and the earthly, as the human
intellect is superior to dead brute matter, as the love of
God's heart must necessarily excel the power of His
hand, or as the redemption of the lost exceeds and
surpasses the support of the living. For Christ to be
' satisfied,' when the new creation shall not only be
complete but be pronounced * good,' there must be that
in it, on which He can exercise complacency pro
portionate to the view He can take of what it would
be proper to embody and illustrate in the highest work
of Divine compassion, purity, and love. When we con
sider the infinite capacities of His mind, the ideas He
is capable of forming of what is possible in the nature
of things or what would be becoming in the view of
the universe — when we consider how far He must be
from whatever is low, limited or mean — when we con
sider the unfathomable recesses, the inaccessible heights,
which there must necessarily be in His conceptions —
we cannot but feel that it will be impossible for Him
to be pleased or ' satisfied ' with any results, but such as
c 2

20 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
shall perfectly harmonise with the grasp and grandeur
of His own mind; especially so when those results
are to be regarded by Himself, and by all worlds,
as the product of extraordinary means and mighty
preparations. But leaving this abstract view and these perhaps too
adventurous speculations, let us confine ourselves to
the words of the text, and contemplate Messiah, as such,
a ' manifestation in the flesh,' and therefore allowed to
be conceived and spoken of ' after the manner of men.'
That the results must be great, which are ultimately
to follow from the Redeemer's sufferings and by which
He is to be ' satisfied,' must be evident from the extent
and intensity of those sufferings themselves. Let us
just, brethren, meditate a moment on this. ' He shall
see of the travail of his soul.' . What this was, who can
tell 1 We have already seen the simple fact of the
unique and incomprehensible nature, which must have
attached to the sufferings of Jesus ; we are now to see
the bearing of this upon His anticipated recompense.
What the sufferings of Messiah really were in them
selves, it is as impossible to say as it is to conceive
of their magnitude and their depth. They could not
literally be the agonies of the damned; literally the
curse due to sin, or the direct results on a spiritual
nature of the foul act of personal transgression. And
yet if any thing there be bearing any resemblance to
them at all — (which probably there is not) it must
be found among the victims of retributive justice. He
shall ' make His soul an offering for sin.' The sufferings
of Christ, whatever they were, in fact, were those which
resulted from the presentation of Himself as a real
sacrifice, the sacrifice of a living sensitive Being in an
' offering made by fire unto the Lord.' The fire indeed
was spiritual, like the thing it touched ; and from that

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 21
very circumstance it was the more terrible. It was not
that element that can become the servant of man, and
minister to His wrath, and be made to seize upon and
'destroy the body, and after that hath nothing more
that it can do'; but it was fire which nothing but
heaven could furnish, something which God alone
could inflict and which a spiritual nature alone could
feel. It descended upon the soul of the Redeemer,
and (if I may so speak) consumed it, like the fire
which descended upon the altar of the prophet, ' which
consumed the burnt-sacrifice and the wood and the
stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was
in the trench.' Sufferings flowing from a source like
this cannot but be felt to have been unparalleled and
unspeakable, they necessarily transcend, not only the
power of language, but the power of thought. But
for all these sufferings Messiah is to be recompensed.
He is to receive as it were an adequate compensation
for enduring that infinity and eternity of anguish,
which was compressed into that one mysterious hour
when He was called to take from the hand of the
Father the full ' cup' of ' trembling and astonishment/
He is to be recompensed ; He is to ' see His seed/
' He is to see of the travail oe His soul,' He is to
be 'satisfied/ 'A woman, when she is in travail
hath sorrow because her hour is come ; but presently
she remembereth no more the anguish for joy that a
man is born into the world.' Agonies the most ex
quisite are in a moment rewarded by the sight of her
offspring, and by the rise of those deep and thrilling
emotions, which fill her heart with a calm but irre
pressible rapture. And it is thus, it is said, but in an
infinitely higher degree, that Christ is to be rewarded
and satisfied at last. The inconceivable grandeur of
that salvation which is ' yet to be revealed,' or of those

22 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
results, which are at length to flow from the Redeemer's
sufferings, may thus be inferred from the inconceivable
intensity of those sufferings themselves, by which
they are to be produced and by which they may be
measured. We can only speak of what we know not, by
language taken from what we know. Speaking there
fore confessedly ' after the manner of men/ that is, in
terms more suited to our modes of thinking than to the
nature of the thing thought of — we introduce another,
and concluding topic on this point. If it be proper to
speak thus, consider the period occupied, and the care
expended, and the anxiety sustained in carrying on the
process, the result of which is to ' satisfy' Messiah. In
nature, that which is of slow growth is always distin
guished by proportionate excellence. Among men, long-
continued and arduous labour is expected to be followed
by corresponding results, both in the effects produced
and in the rewards enjoyed. The work of redemption
extends over the history of all time. It fills the records
of ages and centuries ; it stretches from the fall of man
to the restitution of all things, from the entrance of
sin to the resurrection of the dead. Nay, more than
this; previous to the birth of time, it occupied the
thought and the councils of the Eternal. The Son of
God is ' the Lamb slain from before the foundation of
the world.' He was probably ' the Angel of the
covenant' — 'the Angel of the presence ;' He was ' with
the Church in the wilderness ; ' He ' tabernacled in the
flesh.' After His humiliation He was exalted, but He
was exalted to execute official duties ; ' the government
is upon His shoulder/ and 'all power in heaven and
in earth is committed to His hands' — committed that
He may direct the movements of nature and decide the
destiny of nations, that He may preside over and

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 23
prosecute the war which is waging between the worlds
of light and darkness, and that thus He may bring
His Church safely into its promised rest. For
all this, for these protracted anxieties, these laborious
engagements, this ruling, warfare, and watchfulness —
for all this Messiah will be ' satisfied.' He will receive
a reward, proportioned to the magnitude of the work
performed, something which shall be a full compensa
tion for the anxious anticipation of the past eternity, the
labours of time, the duties of earth, and the not less ar
duous though different duties and solicitudes of heaven.
4. We conclude this portion of the discourse by
observing, that though they are not specified in the
text, it becomes us briefly to glance at what we may
suppose those things to be, which the Saviour seeing
shall be satisfied. In other words, the grounds of
Christ's satisfaction.
It is not necessary, nor would it be proper, to do
more than barely to intimate what these are. Such
topics require no extended illustration ; the merest
hint sufficing in most cases to call up in any mind
conversant with Scripture a number of illustrative
texts and images.
The grounds and sources of the Saviour's 'satis
faction' will of course be those results to the world
and man, and those bearings on the character of God
and on the instruction and virtue of the intelligent
universe, which will flow from the fact of His me
diatorial undertaking ; and all these may of course
be considered, both as to what shall transpire in time,
as they gradually evolve and advance here, and as to
what shall be seen in eternity when the great designs
of mercy are finished and the Church of God perfected
for ever. ' Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither
wilt Thou suffer Thine holy One to see corruption;

24 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
Thou wilt show me the path of life, Thou shalt fill me
with joy ; I shall be satisfied when I awake up with
Thy likeness.' ' Men and brethren, let me freely speak
unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead
and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day ;
but he being a prophet, and knowing that God had
sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins,
according to the flesh, He would raise up Christ to
sit on his throne, he seeing this before spake of the
resurrection of Christ, that His soul was not left in
hell, neither His flesh did see corruption.' And at the
moment when this prophecy was fulfilled and the Son
of God came forth from the place of the dead, we may
reasonably suppose that His heart was penetrated with
the glow of indescribable delight and His head anointed
with ' the oil of gladness/ and that the prospects which
then opened upon the world and Him in virtue of what
He had accomplished communicated the beginnings of
that joy, which is to grow and enlarge, and rise and
deepen, as His purposes are realised till it become the
' satisfaction' predicted in the text. Whatever may be
meant by the restored image of God in man — whatever
may be included in the perfect sanctification of a
human soul, its being ' the temple of the Holy Ghost,'
replenished with knowledge and true holiness, and so
directing the outer man that the body may be spoken
of as 'a living sacrifice' — whatever may be understood
by 'walking in the light/ 'having fellowship with the
light,' being 'spiritually minded,' being clothed with
Christ, 'putting on the Lord Jesus,' 'crucifying the
flesh with its affections and lusts,' the Divine Word
'dwelling in the heart in all wisdom and spiritual
understanding' — whatever can be conceived of the
effects of these, and of all kindred things, meeting in
their highest state compatible with the present con-

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 25
dition of our nature, and meeting not in an individual
mind or in small numbers of minds with great chasms
of corruption between, but pervading the masses of
society and meeting in the heart and character of
nations: whatever would be the consequence to the
entire race of this universality of all sanctifying elements
in all their conceivable vigour and success — whatever
would be their effects upon man's views of himself, and
of the Godhead, and of worship, and of truth, and of
the rule of duty — whatever would be their influence on
individual behaviour, and social habits, and govern
ment, and commerce, and education, and literature —
whatever can be imagined to take place in order to
the accomplishment of the ' glorious things/ which have
been spoken by the prophets, until their splendid
pictures should be realized by facts, ' the idols utterly
abolished,' the gods that made not the heavens having
perished from under them, antichrist cast out, error
expelled, divisions healed, the Church one, 'truth
springing from the earth and righteousness looking
down from heaven,' 'all men blessed in Christ and
all nations calling Him blessed' — whatever can be
supposed on Scriptural authority to be included in
these general and comprehensive expressions may be
properly regarded as constituting some of those objects,
from which the predicted satisfaction of Messiah is to
spring, so far as it shall spring at all from anything
that shall transpire amid the scenes and on the surface
of this earth, and among men, and in the Church on this
side heaven.
In relation to what will present itself to the mind
of Christ in reviewing His work and in looking on
the Church in its ultimate perfection, such things as
the following may be supposed to be included as con
tributing to ' the joy that was set before Him ' and

26 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
which will certainly be His. There will be the fact
that God shall be glorified in the view. of all worlds,
His perfections illustrated and displayed, His govern
ment evinced to be entitled to universal confidence,
respect, admiration, and awe. Perhaps there may be in
the mind of Messiah the consciousness of having created
and diffused throughout all places of God's dominion a
new element, conservative of the virtue of moral beings,
by which not only they that exist are nourished, but
through which any in future to be brought into being
shall be kept from falling while subjected to probation ;
for it may be, that since God has revealed himself in
the person of His Son in a manner which never was
attempted before, and which never will be repeated —
the knowledge of this, added to all that Adam could
know in his first state, may perhaps be communicated
to future species of intelligent creatures, and contri
bute to keep and preserve them in holiness. At any
rate, in relation to the Church itself, there will be
the immense number of the saved. Messiah, it is
predicted, is to ' see his seed,' 'justify many/ and ' the
pleasure of Jehovah is to prosper in His hand/ This
work could not, I think, be said to 'prosper' if the
number of the lost should exceed that of the saved,
if sin and Satan were to have the pre-eminence, if as
to the sweep of its influence evil were to have the
largest sway, and thus to exult and triumph over
the means of opposing it. The work could hardly
be said to ' prosper,' I think, if the number of the
lost and saved were to be nearly balanced, or if the
success of Messiah in rescuing from death were to
be but little superior to that of His adversary in
seducing to destruction. Those who shall ' come to
Zion with songs and with everlasting joy upon their
heads, and from whom sorrow and sighing shall flee

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 27
away,' will, as to numbers, surpass, I imagine, in an
inconceivable degree (a degree that shall destroy every
thing like parallel or proportion between them) those
who shall be consigned to the ' outer darkness ' where is
' weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.' They shall
be brought from all lands, and from under every dis
pensation ; they shall be ' of all nations and kindreds
and people and tongues ;' they shall be of every class
and rank and colour and condition ; and they shall
constitute 'a number that no man can number/
equalling or exceeding the sands of the sea, or ' the
stars of heaven/ or ' the grass of the field,' or * the
drops of dew from the womb of the morning.' And
all this, seen and regarded as the acknowledged result
of 'the travail of His soul,' shall contribute to the
'satisfaction' of the Redeemer's heart.
In addition to the inconceivable number of the saved,
there will be the equally inconceivable perfection of
their character. Then, in the most emphatic sense,
Christ will be ' glorified in His people.' They will
be presented to Himself ' without spot or wrinkle or
any such thing.' They will be free (and freed for
ever) from the consciousness of corruption, the pre
sence of temptation, the possibility of sin — filled with
love, imbued with perfect and immaculate holiness.
The effects of the apostacy shall all have disappeared.
Each individual of the mighty aggregate shall realise
in himself the idea of a pure moral intelligence, re
plenished with the happiness and clothed with the
character, for which it was made and for which it
was redeemed. And all this, the direct consequence
of what was suffered by Messiah, when 'His soul
was made an offering for sin' 'that they might be
made the righteousness of God in Him.' Besides this,
there will be the fact of the entire nature of the saved

28 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
and perfected participating their perfection, the glories
of the ' spiritual body ' added to the sanctity of the
renovated spirit — ' the earthly house of this tabernacle,'
in which now we 'groan, being burdened/ having be
come a glorious and splendid temple, incapable of
pollution, ruin, and decay. In short, to sum up all in
a few words, there will be the sight by Messiah of
all the blessedness, which His sufferings secured and
His hand dispensed; there will be the admiration of
angelic beings, and friendship and harmony, never to be
disturbed, established again between them and the
members of the once apostate family ; there will be
the admiration and the love of the redeemed, their
calm rapture, their intense gratitude, their humble,
yet loud and lofty Hosannahs ; " there will be, if I
might dare so to express it — there will be, on the part
of the Redeemer Himself, the laying down of His
laborious functions, the termination of His Mediatorial
government, the conclusion of the contest between
Himself and all the enemies He shall have reduced
and subdued ; the end in the creature of all miscon
ceptions of His character and ways, His claims and
deserts, the cessation from all that is official and tem
porary, and the return to the unruffled and unutterable
delights, which He enjoyed with the Father before
all worlds, when He lay in His bosom and was lost
in His love.
II. Having thus completed the first thing we pro
posed doing, namely, to illustrate the subject matter
of the text — we shall draw our remarks to a conclu
sion, by adding, in the next place, three observations
of a somewhat directly practical character. The first
will be intended to promote humility — the second,
faith — the third, self-examination, with a view to in
creased personal devotedness.

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 29
i. The first thing, on which we wish to fix your
attention, is the painful fact, that the 'satisfaction'
of Messiah in relation to the present world should after
so long a time remain incomplete.
We speak, as we have already said, ' after the manner
of men ;' we affect not abstract accuracy, nor artificial
niceties of expression. The Bible is a popular book ;
and it warrants in its expositors the employment of plain
and popular language. The Bible attributes to God
feelings and affections — hope and desire, repentance and
disappointment — just as we experience them in our
selves ; and however we may demonstrate the fact by our
philosophy that there can be none of these things in the
Divine mind, it is our highest wisdom to feel and act as
if there were. We are thus then warranted in speaking
of the present incompleteness of the Saviour's satisfac
tion, in consequence of the continued prevalence in the
world of what grieves and offends His Holy Spirit; and
which (however hard the saying to our speculations
and theories) — ought to have disappeared long since,
and would have done so, had the Church been faithful
to her office and her Lord. I am well aware that
we often err, both in exaggerating and in diminish
ing what was achieved at first, and what has con
tinued to be secured, by the Gospel for mankind. But
after admitting all that can be required or claimed
for Christianity, either in relation to its first advances
or to what has been done in these latter days, either
in relation to its direct and positive or to its indirect
and collateral influence, still it is just a simple and
undeniable fact, that the great mass and majority of
the species have been subjected neither to the one
nor the other — neither to the direct nor to the col
lateral influence of our holy religion. By far the
greater number of men and nations existing upon

30 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
earth in the nineteenth century of the Christian era,
and of the dispensation of the Spirit — are idolaters,
' having no hope, and being without God in the world/
' dead in trespasses and sins,' ' walking in all . lascivi-
ousness and uncleanness/ cruelty and blood, ' according
to the Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that
worketh in the children of disobedience, fulfilling the
desires of the flesh and of the mind, being by nature
children of wrath even as others/ In addition to
these, are the deceived but devoted followers of the
false prophet; and in addition to these, are the de
scendants of Abraham, the subjects of the first election,
the blind adherents to their father's faith, the mise
rable fugitives from the hallowed place of their father's
sepulchres. All these, differing from each other, yet
agree in this — that they are ignorant of Christ, have
superseded or rejected Him, and therefore can present
nothing to His eye, on which it can rest with complacent
satisfaction. This is the state of things after eighteen
centuries, during which the command to fill and to
replenish the earth has been resting upon the Church,
and the means of doing it have been in her hands.
I am well aware, that the speculative unbeliever is
disposed to imagine, that in this fact he has a reason
and an apology for his unbelief. He assumes, that a
system of religion, if true, would soon and certainly
become universal — that it would be so plain and at
tended with such evidence, that no one would be able
to misapprehend, to doubt, or to reject it — and that
because it is possible to do all this in relation to
Christianity, and because Christianity is not universal,
therefore (he infers) it is not and it cannot be true.
To which demonstration, it is sufficient to reply that
it condemns Deism more than Christianity ; and that
the Deist who employs it is silenced, or ought to be,

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 31
by his own argument. If a religion, being true, must
of necessity be so plain as to prevent mistake and so
soon become universal as to demonstrate its divinity,
how comes it that Deism, which on the objector's hypo
thesis is true, and is a religion, and the only Divine
one, has yet the least pretension to universality of any
— that it is utterly non-obvious, the world over —
that all nations in all times have failed to find
it 1 — and this too, not because, as it is with us, its
documents were ungenerously withheld by those, to
whom they were committed for dispersion ; but with
the scroll and the writing revealing the truth per
petually before them, over their heads in the canopy
of heaven, and beneath their feet in the spreading
earth. The Bible of the infidel, containing as he
affirms the exclusively true and only faith, has thus
been unfolding its ample page in all times, and before
all eyes ; and yet instead of being universally ac
knowledged and received and understood, it has the
least claim of any to these marks of and demonstra
tions of genuineness ; for all idolaters, as well as all
Mahometans, Jews, and Christians, agree in rejecting
it. The want of universality of what is called Deism,
seeing that its preachers and its documents have
been everywhere, condemns it ; but the want of uni
versality on the part of Christianity condemns, not
it, but Christians. Instead of the Gospel having been
in the world two thousand years, its preachers and
documents have been kept back, withheld from the
nations by the unfaithfulness of the Church. Instead
of this, if the Bible with all its revelations had been
in the hands and before the eyes of all men for sixty
centuries, and yet was everywhere superseded by
other and opposite forms of belief, in that case indeed

32 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
the cause of Christianity would certainly be desperate.
This, which is the case with Deism, is however not
the case with Christianity. Let her heralds and her
documents be so completely dispersed over the earth,
as not only to bring them within the reach, but to
force them continually upon the attention of men ;
and then let us see what will be the result — whether
to return to the language of the text, the 'satisfac
tion ' of the Messiah would not be soon and immensely
augmented by the disappearance from the earth of the
enormities of heathenism.
Now this which we have imagined — the universal
dispersion of the means and instruments of Christian
instruction — is what ought to have been by this time
not merely a supposition, but a fact ; and it would
have been thus, had the successive generations of
the Church been faithful. And had they been so,
there can be no doubt, that instead of lamenting as
we are bound to do this day, the continued incom
pleteness of the Redeemer's joy, we might have been
called this morning to mingle our voices with the
voices from heaven, saying with them, ' The kingdoms
of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord
and of His Anointed.'
I am well aware, that representations like these are
startling to some persons, and that it is regarded as
presumptuous and wrong to imagine for a moment
that the history of the Church could have been any
thing else than what it has been. I am well aware
also, that it is very possible to take the history of
the Church, the limited diffusion of the Gospel in the
world, the apparent frustration of the Divine purposes,
and the non-accomplishment for so long a time of
the very ends for which Christ died — it is very possible
to take all these, and admitting them to be difficul-

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 33
ties, to alleviate them by many just and important
considerations ; or even taking them as facts, to gather
from them views both of God and man which are
true and valuable, and which perhaps could not have
been but at the price of the unfaithfulness of the
Church. I know these things ; I know them as mat
ters of opinion and speculation. In their proper place,
let them go for what they are worth ; it is not their
proper place to intrude here; here we have nothing
to do with them. The purposes of God, or the over
ruling providence of God, God's wisdom in bringing
good out of evil — nothing of this sort can be allowed
to affect the responsibility of man. The Church had
a work given her to do ; she went on doing it for a
time, and doing it well. Had she gone on as she
begun she might ere now have done it entirely. The
mystery of God would have been finished, the satis
faction of Messiah complete---' all men blessed in Him,
all nations calling Him blessed.' But this is not the
case ; and we are to account for it, not by referring
to the sovereignty of God, but by taking shame to our
selves for the sinfulness of man.
2. In the second place, in spite of all past disap
pointments, we confidently expect the fulfilment of
this prophecy.
By the fulfilment of the prophecy, in connection
with our present remarks, of course we mean its ful
filment in the present world — the universal prevalence
of the Gospel, in opposition to all idolatrous and
antichristian systems of religion — and the results of
this, on the virtue and happiness of individuals and
nations. The aspect, in which this subject presents itself in
a meeting like this, is obviously that of a matter
resting upon Divine authority and anticipated by the
vol. 11. D

34 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
exercise of religious faith. Nevertheless it is not to be
forgotten, and we may be permitted to remark, that
the circumstance of Christianity being at some future
time, and that time perhaps not very remote, the
general and predominant, if not the exclusive re
ligion of mankind may be looked for with a great
degree of probability, altogether irrespective of the
question of its truth or falsehood. Even supposing
Christianity be false, it does not follow that it will
not be universal; or rather, admitting for the sake
of argument that it is so, the probability still is that
it will. Human nature is unquestionably character
ised by capacity for religion ; the capacity in some
way or other will display itself and must be met;
the whole race cannot be conceived of as abjuring
and abandoning religion entirely. Barbarous and
idolatrous nations, having their minds expanded and
elevated by intercourse with the inhabitants, and by
acquaintance, with the literature of nations nominally
Christian, will even by this process be spoiled for
idolaters ; it would seem impossible under their cir
cumstances that they should remain satisfied with
idolatry — as indeed we know to be the case among
the educated in India at present. In the absence of
all acquaintance with a more rational faith nations may
become civilized and remain idolatrous, like the ancient
nations ; but if the principles of such a faith be
present and felt even in the very secular literature
by which they are improved, there would be every
probability of their rejecting idolatry, and even of
professing, though it might be nothing more, that
purer faith itself. When it is considered moreover
that Christianity did triumph over the idolatry of the
whole civilized world — that it is now the religion of
the most powerful, improved, enlightened and in-

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 35
fluential of the nations, of those by whose influence
and literature other nations will be raised, if they are
raised at all — when we consider the activity and
strength and spirit of enterprise and ambitious daring
(if we may so speak) which Christianity in all its
forms is now displaying and putting forth, so that
everywhere among its adherents there is movement
and life, a mustering of their forces, despatching of
emissaries, effort and aggression, aye and successful
aggression, invasion, advance, an conquest — when it
is considered that these things are occurring in every
quarter of the globe, and are likely to occur, all
parts of the Church seeming eager to ' go up and pos
sess' the earth — the probability is that Christianity-
not any one particular form of it, but Christianity as
a religion, even if it be false, has the prospect before
it of one day superseding every other, and of being
acknowledged and professed by universal man.
But whatever may be thought of this, whether
reason regards such a result as probable or improbable,
faith, religious faith, is taught to expect it with abso
lute certainty. We, as Christians, 'have a sure word
of prophecy/ to which we do well to take heed. ' He
shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satis
fied.' We believe that this will be accomplished by
the state of things, that shall yet exist in the earth —
in the supposed grounds and sources of the Redeemer's
' satisfaction,' as before enumerated, becoming actual,
obvious, living facts. ' The mouth of the Lord hath
spoken,' and 'the zeal of the Lord will do' this. Truth,
purity, knowledge, religion, all heavenly and all manly
virtues, all individual and all social and national ex
cellence, shall yet distinguish the human race — elevate,
unite it. The speculations of visionary philosophers
shall be more than realised, and the pictures of worldly
D 2

36 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
potes surpassed; mankind shall advance to a higher
perfection than the first dared to dream of or predict,
and their homes and neighbourhoods and social insti
tutions shall be redolent with a felicity which it
entered not into the hearts of the second to conceive.
And all this shall be done by agencies contemplated by
neither. The world shall be regenerated, but not by
mere improvements in legislation, not by the mission
and the might of the schoolmaster, not by literary
lectures, not by turning churches into scientific insti
tutions or superseding cities by philanthropic parallelo
grams, but by the diffusion of the knowledge and the
practical realisation, the world over, of the principles
and the spirit of apostolic Christianity. This at least
is the persuasion of the Church. Such is the prospect
open to the eye of religious faith — of that faith which
is the confident expectation of things hoped for and the
perfect conviction of things not seen.
But this end, however confidently expected, even
faith expects not without the employment of appro
priate instrumentality. Means are to be used, as
essentially necessary to secure the end — and to be used
by the Church, as essentially necessary to the irbeing
used aright. One nation is not to be converted by
another nation as such ; but all nations are to be con
verted by the Church. One after another is to be
embraced by her, till the world, as distinct from the
Church shall have disappeared, and the word world
be but another name for the congregation of God.
Among the means employed, which we need not do
more than just enumerate — there must be the sending
forth of both the Bible and the preacher, the letter of the
message and the living messenger. The Bible by itself,
in many cases, would be no better than so much waste
paper ; the messenger by himself would be deprived of

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. S7
the aid of God's authoritative statement of the message.
There must be ' the sword of the Spirit, which is the
Word of God,' and not the weapons fabricated by the
councils and authority of man ; there must be the
power of the truth, and not a dependence upon the
supposed power, either of the framework of a particular
polity, or the mystic acts of particular persons. 'I
heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come
salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God,
and the power of His Christ ; for the accuser of our
brethren is cast down, which accused them before our
God day and night.' But ' they overcame him by the
blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony.'
The preaching of the cross, by the living voice — the
establishment of the truth by the written Word. These
are the instruments to be used by the Church against
every thing she is appointed to subdue. In addition to
this, she is to use with God prayer and supplication
night and day. Her office is that of an advocate on
earth, resembling that of the Advocate in heaven ; she
is the acknowledged and anointed priesthood of the
world, appointed to make intercession for transgressors,
to ' stand between the living and the dead,' and to
secure by prayer the efficacy of the means which she
employs in faith. And (if I may put the matter in
this way) with herself she is to use such searching and
solemn and frequent considerations of what really
constitutes her greatest duty and her highest honour,
as to be ready to give up her best sons, her richest,
greatest, most eminently endowed and cultivated minds
— to yield them up and to send them forth far hence
unto the heathen. She is to ' deny herself,' to ' crucify
the flesh,' ' not to be conformed to the world,' to dare
to be singular — in many points to oppose surrounding
society. Oh ! the Church, the Church ! she ought by

38 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
this time to have learnt to be serious in the midst of
a trifling, and severe in the midst of a luxurious, and
liberal in the midst of a money-getting, and mammon-
worshipping generation. All these things and more
than these the Church must do, in order that that
which she expects may be accomplished. For she is to
accomplish it and not another.
3. Lastly, the subject ought to lead us individually
and personally seriously to examine whether we are
contributing to the Saviour's ' satisfaction/ either by
what we are or by what we are doing.
It was once my intention to have adverted to those
things in nominally Christian nations, and in the visible
Church, especially such as concern ourselves, which we
cannot but suppose retard and interfere with, instead
of promoting, the Redeemer's satisfaction. Among
these things, it would have become us to notice the
fact of the sanction and encouragement of idolatry,
and of all its worst and nameless abominations, by the
government of this country, the gain and profit of
superstition and whoredom, actually being received by
professed Christians and Christian ministers in this
land. It would have become us to notice the zeal
and activity of ' the man of sin' — his intrusion upon
our distant missionary settlements, and his advances at
home upon the sphere and the professors of the re
formed faith. It might not have been improper also
just to glance at the rise and ascendancy of pernicious
errors among Protestants themselves. The divided
and distracted condition of the Church — that it is
not one, not what Christ prayed for, and what He
longs to see it ; it is two — ten — twenty — a hundred.
It would have become us to notice, that many in it do
not understand — that some will not and that others
cannot exemplify — the principles and the practice of

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 39
Catholic communion. Then there would have been
the secular and luxurious habits of many Christians ;
the want of seriousness, simplicity, and spirituality even
in the doing of the work of Christ, and especially in the
feelings with which we have attended, and the manner
in which we have conducted, our great public religious
meetings. There are many glaring and • open faults
among us nationally and ecclesiastically— that is, as
the English people, and as parts and branches of the
visible Church — to which I had thought of referring, as
being obviously things, which must be repulsive and
painful to the eye and heart of the chief ' Shepherd
and Bishop of our souls.' But I pass over them all ;
and in consistency with the principle upon which I
have endeavoured to conduct this service, I shall now
conclude it by directing my appeals practically and
seriously, as a man of God and a minister of Jesus
Christ, to the heart and the conscience of each indi
vidual. What are we 1 what are we doing \ In either
respect, dear brethren, are we contributing any thing
to that ' satisfaction/ which Christ is to derive from
the contemplation of men % Every one of us is at
this moment, and at every moment, either pleasing
or displeasing to Christ. His promised satisfaction is
daily so to speak either augmented or diminished by
us individually. We impart joy, or we withhold it.
If the Holy Ghost can be 'grieved/ surely the mind
of Christ can be hurt and offended by what He sees
in His people. What, then, does He see in us ? Are
we His at all % His truly and spiritually — His by an
act of voluntary consecration ? Has He been ' satisfied'
by beholding our repentance and tears, our faith in His
blood, our purposes of amendment, our accession to His
Church \ If so, have we advanced in harmony with

40 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
this beginning'? 'As we received Christ Jesus the
Lord/ have we ' so walked in Him % ' Are we ' rooted
and grounded in Him 1 ' Are we ' growing up unto
Him in all things?' Are we like Him? Are we
striving to be like Him ? Do we ever do or forbear
to do any one thing, because we wish either to re
semble what Christ was on earth, or to contribute to
His satisfaction as He surveys us from heaven 1 Our
principles of action, our cherished and habitual trains
of thought, our aim in life, our government or mis-
government of ourselves, of the tongue, the heart, the
habits — these things, what are they 1 What is Christ's
view of them % What feelings do they excite in Him 1
Do we five by any law, and is that law His 1 Have
we character (properly speaking), and is that character
Christian 1 Is every professed and avowed Christian
here this morning, a reality or a pretence, a veritable
thing or a mockery and a name % In all the relation
ships of life and of society — at home, abroad, in the
closet, the family, the church, the counting-house, in
the social circle, the private engagement, the public
meeting, in going out and in coming in, in the
crowded city or the highway, in buying and selling,
in giving assistance or getting gain, in influencing
others or being influenced, in preaching or hearing,
in sickness or health, in labour or repose, as husbands
or fathers, as wives, sisters, brothers, sons, as masters
or servants, high or low, rich or poor, raised by educa
tion or untaught — what are we ? Under all circum
stances and in all capacities, would an angel be able
to recognise and read us — recognise the consistent
members of Christ, read our Christianity in all our
doings % Would the fact of our Christianity, our real
participation of the mind of Christ, be in all cases a
key to the whole phenomena of our behaviour — a

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 41
principle that would account, and account adequately,
for all our words and for all appearances 1 Men and
brethren, is it thus — is it thus — that we are so imbued
with the spirit and so clothed with the image of Christ,
and so habitually under the power of our professed
principles, that their fruits and effects rise with accept
ance, continually to Messiah, and by contributing to
sustain and enlarge His ' satisfaction' compensate in
some measure for the other and opposite phenomena
of the earth, for the sounds of blasphemy which flow
from its surface and meet His ear, and the sights of sin
wretchedness and rebellion which meet His eye when
He looks on its inhabitants 1 Is it thus f
Men, brethren, and fathers, ' suffer the word of ex
hortation.' Our Head and Lord, in the visions of the
Apocalypse, showed by His appearance in the midst
of the candlesticks the constant observation He exer
cises over us ; and he evinced by His epistles to the
Asiatic churches how deeply He was affected by their
stability or declension, their warmth or indifference,
their purity or pollution, their apathy or their zeal.
'He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit
saith unto the churches.' 'What I say unto one I
say unto all, Watch.' ' Watch and be sober.' ' Keep
your garments pure.' ' Endure to the end.' ' Be
zealous/ ' Be faithful unto death/ ' Let no man take
thy crown.'
Various and affecting, my brethren, is the fate of
those, who start together on the spiritual voyage, as
represented by the images of Scripture. Some, ' put
ting away a good conscience, concerning faith make
shipwreck/ They apostatize and perish. Other some
are all but wrecked ; inattentive to their instructions,
negligent and unwatchful, sailing on without taking their
soundings or consulting their chart, they get damaged

42 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
or endangered by many adverse and hurtful entangle
ments. Still they are saved ; they are saved — ' yet
so as by fire;' they "suffer loss;' they escape with
life and nothing else ; they struggle to the shore,
and they appear before Christ naked and ashamed.
Others again enter the haven in full sail ; they ad
vance calmly and safely, under the beams of a bright
sun, borne onward by a smooth sea, and amid angelic
sounds of congratulation and welcome they have ' an
abundant entrance ' into the kingdom and joy of their
Lord.' ' Say I these things as a man % Saith not the
law the same also V The law doubtless ; we have
the mind of Christ. Of the three classes of persons
just mentioned, the last of course contribute most to
the Redeemer's joy, the second but little, the first
nothing. Oh ! my brethren, few are here, we trust,
whose course and character portend only ultimate
apostacy. Some few — (dare we say more X) — are here,
who are so acting as to be preparing for the 'abun
dant entrance into the kingdom of their Lord.' But the
greater number, we cannot but fear, and we dare not
conceal it — the greater number, if saved at all, have
perhaps little to expect beyond that, which, while
it is a mercy, is also a disgrace — salvation 'by fire !'
Do not let us shrink from the plain words of the
Holy Ghost. There is such a thing as an ' abundant
entrance,' a welcome into heaven ; and there is such
a thing as being saved with difficulty, saved ' as by
fire.' In the one case, there is not only faith, but
there are the ' works of faith and the labours of love,'
the fruits of holiness, spirituality, beneficence, follow
ing with him, following in his company and in his
train, as if he were attended by the Christian virtues
and graces in person, and advanced like a conqueror
to whom had been decreed a procession and a triumph,

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 43
advanced through the principal entrance, seen and
saluted in the public streets and places of the city.
In the other case, there is the loss of every thing but
faith, and almost that; the works of the individual
have vanished, some great mistake (though consistent
with sincerity) having unfitted them for following
with him. He lives uselessly ; in good works he dies
poor ; he finds himself at length empty and alone ;
alone and unattended he makes his way by some ob
scure passage into the Jerusalem that is above; no
sounds of welcome or of 'Well done !' greet him as he
goes ; yet he feels that he may advance ; he is saved,
though that be all ; he has liberty to enter, and entering
he shall remain, and remaining he shall be blessed ; but
he has not accorded to him ' an abundant entrance,'
and he will never mingle but with the commonalty of
heaven. There are those who shall do more ; for as ' one
star differeth from another star in glory,' so 'they
that turn many to righteousness ' shall be distinguished
from others, and shall 'shine as the brightness of the
firmament ' itself. They that obtain the ' abundant
entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord
and Saviour/ are those who have most abundantly
contributed to His satisfaction while here. One way
of doing that unquestionably is, by contributing in
some manner to the realisation upon earth of those
things from which the Saviour's satisfaction springs.
One way of doing that is the spread of the Gospel and
the conversion of men through the instrumentality of
missionary societies. And the way by which that in
strumentality can be kept active is by the 'good
works' or liberal gifts and donations of the faithful —
the giving of money by those that have it, and their
giving in proportion to what they have.

44 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
We are coming to the conclusion of the whole
matter — to the practical improvement now to be made
by the devotement of part of our property to God.
We do not take Scripture in its plain, literal, and
intended sense upon this subject. The abuse of some
things by the Church of Rome has led to their utter
neglect by Protestants, and has given to other things
a disproportionate importance. To think that heaven
can be purchased by the money of a sinner, is a great
error; but to think that a saint, by the proper use
of his, may secure to himself a more elevated place
in heaven, is no such thing. The good works of man
as man can have no merit, and no weight in obtain
ing pardon and reconciliation from God ; but the
good works of a believing man, a man by another
process pardoned and reconciled — these have a merit
and will be taken into account, and will determine
the amount of the reward of grace. Justification by
faith is a cardinal truth ; but it is not the whole truth.
It is a great thing ; but it is not all things. It should
never be lost sight of; but it should not absorb at
tention exclusively. Justification by works is equally
true, and in its place equally important. Christian
works, the fruit of faith, have a real worth, a positive
value, a beneficial operation ; and a proper discharge of
that stewardship over ' the mammon of unrighteousness/
with which God has entrusted some of His servants, is
particularly specified in the New Testament as con
nected with the future Christian reward, if not indeed
with even the Christian's future safety. ' Charge them
that are rich in this world, that they be not high-
minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living
God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy ; charge
them that they do good, that they be rich in good
works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate;

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. • 45
laying up in store for themselves a good foundation
against the time to come, that they may lay hold on
eternal life.' These are the words of Him, ' who hath
the seven Spirits of God/ ' the faithful and true wit
ness,' the Lord of His Church — words uttered by
Him through His apostle, uttered to a minister,
uttered as a solemn charge or command with which
He was entrusted to address as the law of their Lord
to certain of those under Him in the Church. The
phraseology, the images, and the turns of thought,
are all Divine ; and if Paul had not used them, we
in this day should not have dared to have done so ;
or, if we had, we should have exposed ourselves to
the charge of subverting the Gospel, not preaching
Christ, changing the doctrine of justification by faith.
'Good works!' 'rich in good works,' it would be
said — 'laying up in store for themselves a good
foundation against the time to come, that they may
lay hold on eternal life !' if all this was not a plain
text of Scripture, some would object to it as not evan
gelical, as if it impiously contradicted the statement,
that 'other foundation can no man lay than that is
laid, which is Jesus Christ' — as if it denied the fact
that He 'only is the way,' and alone 'has the words
of eternal fife ' — as if they attributed riches to those who
are ' poor and miserable and blind and naked,' or works
to those whose best righteousness is but ' as filthy rags.'
Whatever of this kind however might be thought or
said, if we had advanced the sentiment in our own
words, nothing can be said or ought to be said when
it comes before us here in the words of Christ. Here
is the text ; it is plain, positive, distinct ; there is
no getting over it. Timothy is solemnly commanded
as solemnly to charge the Church, and to announce
to it as the authoritative rule instituted by the Lord,

46 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
that rich men, who are ' rich in good works/ will
have 'a foundation' which otherwise they would not
have had, and will thus be enabled to 'lay hold on
eternal life.'
I am well aware, that this text may be considered
as embodying a great general principle, a principle
applicable to the poor as well as to the rich, as inculca
ting faithfulness in the discharge of our stewardship,
whatever that stewardship may be. Still it is a fact,
that it does address itself to a particular class, and that
it speaks to them and speaks of them, as possessing the
means of securing to themselves more abundant honour.
This class has hardly, I fear, been awake to its obliga
tions, or done its fair proportion in the missionary
cause. Beyond a certain level among professing Chris
tians, the claims of Societies are met almost by all
to the same numerical extent, and according to the
same scale and standard of contribution. Whatever
may be unknown, and invisible, it certainly does not
appear as if there was anything like that diversity
in the gifts of men to God which there seems to
be in God's gifts of riches to men. The rendering of
the stewards, is not a criterion by which we can
judge of the extent of the stewardship. I have no
wish to see rich men stripping themselves of their
estates and giving them to the Church, as hi the
days of antichrist, when children became beggars be
cause their fathers were saints ; I have no wish to
see this, and I know I should not see it if I had;
but neither do I wish that the rich disciples of the
Lord Jesus should go on suffering the Church to de
pend almost exclusively upon the pence of the poor
with no splendid acts of liberahty (or but few) from
them. It is a very different thing, giving large sums
to societies for the diffusion of the Gospel, and giving

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 47
them for the enriching of the priesthood; there is
not in the one case the peril that there is in the
other. The beneficence of the faithful in early times
was often as magnificent in itself, as in its operation
it proved to be injurious. The Church was corrupted
from within, corrupted by the large donations of rich men,
before she was corrupted from without by the powers
of the world : the money being given to a wrong ob
ject issued in producing a bad result. But it does
not follow that the giving of the money was itself
wrong, or that if the same amount was now given
to a better object the effects and consequences would
still be bad. By no means ; by no means. We must
all get over our morbid fear of attaching goodness
to good works ; and the rich especially must feel it
to be their duty to be 'rich in them.' There are
poor churches — I do not hesitate to say, there are
poor churches among us — who do not give to their
ministers half what they ought, and who yet contri
bute very largely to the Missionary Society; giving
(as it appears to me) the bread of the pastor to feed
the nations; and there are rich Christians, who keep
adding and accumulating, accumulating and adding,
and still subscribing but their annual pittance to the
cause of Christ, thus holding back and depriving Him
of His own. It is very true, that the smallest gift
may be cast into the treasury, 'two mites' shall not
be despised, nor shall the ' cup of cold water ' lose its
reward. The 'two mites' however must be the stock
of the ' poor widow,' and the ' water ' must be given
by him that hath nothing else to give. If the cup
happen to be a gold one, and the owner of it gives
to Christ's famished and fainting cause the little
water but keeps the valuable vessel himself, let him
not be surprised if that comes upon him which is

48 MESSIAH SUFFERING,
written by the apostle — 'Your riches are corrupted,
and your garments are moth-eaten ; your gold and
silver is cankered ; and the rust of them shall be a
witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it
were fire.' Salvation ' by fire ' is bad enough ; but to
be lost, not saved, to be ' tormented by the flame ' must
be far worse.
We conclude — praying to God that this appeal to
those that have it to give, may come with His blessing
upon their hearts. We conclude, by again asking you,
dear brethren, to ' suffer the word of exhortation/ be
seeching you to allow us earnestly to urge upon the
consciences of all present the questions we have already
asked ; What are we % what are we doing 1 What
are we in our personal characters'? what are we doing
to realise the objects for which Christ died ? How
far are we presenting in our conduct what contributes
to His predicted satisfaction % These questions and
such as these, individually put and applied by your
selves, frequently repeated, urged, prayed over, fol
lowed out in practical results — this is the object we
have been attempting to promote. Let each and all
unite in the attempt ; and especially let ministers —
if, I may be allowed on an occasion like this to ad
dress myself particularly to them — apply these questions
to their souls. We, my brethren, pre-eminently claim
an apostolic succession, and an apostolic ministry — for
taking our stand directly and at once upon the teach
ing of the Scriptures, there is not even another link
between the apostles and ourselves — and it becomes
us therefore pre-eminently to display apostolic piety
and apostolical zeal. If ministers are personally pleas
ing to Christ, the Church will be blessed and His
cause flourish. But if not — if instead of contributing
to His satisfaction, they diminish and disturb it —

AND MESSIAH SATISFIED. 49
this will be the source of injury to both. ' The pastors
have become brutish, they have not sought the Lord ;
therefore they shall not prosper and their flocks shall
be scattered.' Awful and memorable words ! words full
of terror ! But brethren, they are full of instruction
too. Let ministers aim, in their personal character and
official faithfulness, to ' satisfy Christ ; and then instead
of the curse here denounced, every thing they do shall
prosper.' Their flock shall not be scattered ; or if
scattered it shall be as missionaries or as the wives
of missionaries, going forth in every direction, ani
mated by zeal, separated from each other only to
unite the world, and to bring it as 'one flock' to the
' one Shepherd.' If their flock be scattered, it shall be
as they were scattered ' who went everywhere preach
ing the Word ;' or it shall be as the tribe of Levi was
'scattered in Jacob and divided in Israel,' when the
curse of his father was turned into a blessing by his
father's God. If we take this great city at this
season with the thousands of ministers and churches
that are in it, how different the scene, on the one
supposition, that all are in that state in which if they
were to die they would be saved, but ' saved so as by
fire,' saved as Lot and his daughters escaped from
Sodom — and on the other supposition that all were
in that state in which if called to death they would
receive an 'abundant entrance' into 'the joy of their
Lord.' On these two suppositions how different both
in appearance and fact, would be every thing we
should either attempt or do ! What a difference in
the tone and feeling and topics of our public meet
ings and our private intercourse, our hours of retire
ment, our state of mind, our desires and aims in
speaking and in hearing! How different in the two
cases the incense that would ascend to Christ from
VOL. II. E

50 MESSIAH SUFFERING, Src.
all our doings! the joy and satisfaction with which
He would regard them! the amount that would be
laid upon the altar, in the form of grateful pecuniary
contributions ! the blessing we should receive and
should carry away with us through the duties of
another year, and the blessing that would rest upon,
and the success that would be awarded to our hallowed
enterprise !

SERMON II.
RECONCILIATION.
'All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus
Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation ; to
wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself
not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed
unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors
for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us : we pray you in
Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to
be sin for us, who knew no sin ; that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him. We then, as workers together with
him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain?
—2 Coe. v. 18—21. vi. 1.
It is impossible to read over, or to listen to, this pas
sage, with any thing like serious earnestness, without feel
ing that it is full of great thoughts, and that probably
there is more in it than is at first obvious. To people
accustomed to the sight and the sound of the letter of
their Bibles — who have been brought up in familiarity
with New Testament language — to them, it may occasion
no surprise, they have heard it all their lives, there is
nothing strange about it ; they think they understand
it. It excites no questionings, no spirit of musing and
pondering, like that of the ancient prophets, who
' enquired and searched diligently as to what the spirit
E 2

52 RECONCILIATION.
of Christ that was in them did signify.' We imagine, how
ever, that the text would make a very different impres
sion on a certain class of thoughtful men — men of trained
and cultured intellect, of large general knowledge, but
utterly unacquainted with the New Testament, ignorant
of the opinions, beliefs, theologies, the habits of thought
and speech of religious people ! To such, I apprehend
the passage before us would be utterly unintelligible.
It would probably require a good deal of instruction to
enable them to attach any distinct ideas to some of its
expressions, or to enter into the thoughts and convic
tions of St. Paul, when he used the words and sentences,
selected of course by him as the best and most appro
priate for giving to his thoughts fitting and adequate
utterance. In this passage before us, there is matter enough
for a dozen sermons. There might be drawn out of
it a whole system of theology. The fact is, that there
is hardly a great theological question that might not
be connected, more or less, with one or other of its
statements. There are those who strongly insist on
the distinction between theology and religion, and who
think that the pulpit should be employed to nourish
religion rather than to instruct in theology. Now,
we fully admit the distinction referred to. Theology
has to do with the intellect — with the just apprehen
sion, and the systematic arrangement of objective
truths; religion is a thing of the heart; it is concerned
with the culture of devotion, the development of the
Divine affections, the strengthening and purifying of
the springs of practical goodness. It should be remem
bered, however, that theology and religion have alike
their place ; the one is as real a thing as the other ;
both have their claims to attention ; each has its own
special relation to us. It is not too much to affirm that,

RECON CILIA TION. 5 3
while there may be theology without religion, there can
not be religion without theology : that is to say, that
while it is quite possible for a man to speculate about
objective truth, and to have in his understanding a com
plete system of theological beliefs, without any earnest
religious feeling; it is not possible for any one to be
religious without believing something, without having
some views and convictions respecting God, Divine
government, the condition and prospects of humanity,
and so on. Such views and convictions are absolutely
necessary for religion to exist at all ; however imper
fect they may be, however poor, false, insufficient they
are, to all intents and purposes as theologies. The theo
logy may be very meagre, but, such as it is, it constitutes,
and is required to constitute, an underlying basis on which
the religious sentiments, aspirations, and affections of
the individual rest, and by which they are inspired and
regulated. This being the case, it is obvious that the
truer the theology, the better will be the religion, —
that is, supposing the one acts adequately on the
other ; for religious feeling will be strong, healthy,
and pure in proportion as it is prompted and guided
by right thought.
Religion without theology (that is, without a basis of
distinct, defined, and properly apprehended objective
truth) will be in danger of becoming attenuated and
getting dwarfed. It may take the form of a poetical
sentimentalism, a thing that can live upon, be satisfied,
and regaled by beautiful utterances, which gently and
softly stimulate or soothe ; or it may affect ritual
istic forms, find excitement to the imagination in what
addresses the eye, and rest for the conscience in sacer
dotal ministrations. But it will be a poor look out for
religion — religion with bone and muscle in it — when
the Christian pulpit ceases to appeal by the force of

54 RECONCILIATION.
argument to the intellect and reason, and to aim at
making Christian people to be in understanding men.
It will be a misfortune for the Church, if the preacher,
as such, ceases to be a power, and gives place to the
poet or the priest. Human nature needs something
more than what can be supplied either by him who has
only a lovely song, and a pleasant voice, and can play
well upon an instrument, or by him who professes to
teach by acting, regarding manly thought and argu
mentative appeal as things with which neither he nor
the people have any thing to do.
St. Paul was neither the one nor the other of these
questionable characters. He had higher views than
either of the warmth and glow, the aspirations and joys
of subjective religion ; but he connected this with the
power and influence of objective truth. In his sermons
and letters he never overlooked, never forgot the emo
tional in man ; but he sought to reach it by setting
forth what was to be believed ; 'the things which God
had made known for the obedience of faith;' and, when
necessary, by explaining, demonstrating, and defending
them with all the force of an accomplished logician, and
all the resources of an eloquent advocate. He did this
because, while he rejoiced to know that a very little
light would guide to heaven a child-like soul, yet he
also knew that it was better to grow up into ' a perfect
man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ.' And this spiritual and religious attainment he
associated with ' the opening of the eyes of the under
standing/ that the soul ' might be filled with the
knowledge of God,' be ' strengthened with all might,'
and ' kept in perfect peace.' The principle on which all
this proceeds is simple and obvious. It is this : If God
has revealed to us what is the actual and the true
respecting Himself, — His attributes and government, rule

RECONCILIATION. 55
and law ; respecting ourselves, — our condition, needs,
obligations, prospects, — it must be of the first importance
for us to ascertain what that revelation unveils and as
serts, for that must be the true thought which should con
stitute our theology; and that the true theology which,
acting according to its own nature, is adapted to originate
and sustain the highest and healthiest religion.
It is not my intention, in addressing you from this
long text, to deliver a long discourse, going minutely
into every verse, sentence by sentence, and bringing out
all the theology they may be supposed to embrace ; all
I shall aim at will be to get a general impression of
the import of the passage as a whole ; believing that,
if two or three only of its more suggestive points are
apprehended and felt (supposing them to be what they
appear to us), enough will be done to stimulate thought,
and to secure something like useful impression.
The order of our observations will be this : —
In the first place, we shall notice one or two things
which are not distinctly expressed in the passage, but
which are necessarily implied, and must be regarded as
underlying what is expressed for that to have any
consistent meaning.
In the second place, we shall notice what the text
does distinctly express and declare ; things which, as so
declared, are to be accepted by us as so much true,
Divine thought.
Then, lastly, we shall advert to the agency appointed
to realize and secure what the things revealed to us are
framed to accomplish, — the agency itself, and the spirit
with which it is to be employed. I.
In noticing what is implied in the passage — what
logically underlies it — we refer to the following things :

56 RECONCILIATION.
1. That Humanity, in itself considered, is supposed
to be, in some way, separated from God ; in a state of
estrangement, if not of antagonism. There would seem
to be an implied exposure to peril and condemnation.
There is no sense or meaning in what is expressly
stated by the apostle, except on this hypothesis. The
thing is" assumed ; it does not need to be argued or
demonstrated ; the world needs to be reconciled — recon
ciled to God. Such language is never employed
respecting those that are as one — between whom
there is no rupture, whose harmony of feeling, whose
unity of relationship, has never been broken. We
cannot conceive that what is implied by ' reconciliation'
could be said or assumed in any statement descriptive
of the condition of angels in heaven ; it could not be
predicated of any species of moral intelligences who
were holy and obedient, distinguished by unswerving
loyalty to God. The language before us would seem
to imply not only a deranged and dislocated condition
of things, but that it was derangement, something
superinduced, the result of what had occurred; as it
seems difficult to imagine that the primary and original
condition of Humanity, as it came fresh from the hand
of God, could have been such, as that it stood in need of
being 'reconciled to Him.' Sin is the source of this
supposed estrangement, opposition, enmity ; not, how
ever, from God, but ' by man came sin into the world ;'
and ' all have sinned/ and ' the whole world is guilty
before Him.'
2. But a second thing implied in the passage,
though not expressed, is this : that ' God loved the
world, even when it was dead in trespasses and sins.' It
had broken away from Him, left the light, gone into
the darkness ; a great gulf, an awful chasm had thus
been interposed between Him and it. But He kept

RECON CILIA TION. 5 7
looking across the ever widening, separating space,
following the wanderer with infinite pity, compas
sionate tenderness, willing to recall and restore it,
though it knew it not. The great round wo: Id, the
home of a race, sinful and guilty, 'far gone from original
righteousness,' hung in God's heaven, dark and repul
sive, and yet all the time surrounded by a distant
but luminous halo, composed of God's loving thoughts
and merciful intentions.
Issuing from this ' excellent glory/ ever and anon, as
we know, there came forth some beam, or breaking of
prophetic light, indicative of an ultimate purpose, a
purpose which might come to take some definite shape,
and find expression and embodiment in some positive,
perhaps visible, form. Humanity is sinful, estranged
from God, not at one with Him, needing to be re
conciled ; yet, in spite of its condition of enmity and
repulsiveness, God loves it, broods over it, hovers
around it, and longs, if possible, to draw it to Himself ;
for ' all things are of God ;' all that preceded, prepared
for, accompanied, consummated, and crowned His ' re
demption of the world by Jesus Christ :' all things are
of Him.
3. These two things, then, human sinfulness and
Divine love, are underlying facts on which the state
ments of the apostle proceed. Perhaps it might be
said that there is one other thing — a third implication,
not an assumed fact, indeed, but an understood prin
ciple, a principle perceived by St. Paul, and perceived
as a necessary logical issue from the constitution of
things as it shaped itself to him. It is this : that God's
love, if it is to take effect in the highest sense, if it is to
secure and accomplish ' the reconciling of the world,'
must be expressed and manifested in some form of
supernatural interposition. It would seem not to be

58 RECONCILIATION.
enough that it should fill His heart, it must move His
hand ; it is well that it should exist, that it should
surround the world as a luminous atmosphere; nay,
more, that occasionally there should come from it, or
even often or habitually, flashes of light, or mysterious
voices, indicating that it exists : all this is well, but it
is not enough. To be efficient and successful, it must
needs come forth in some positive arrangement, some
merciful and miraculous provision, something which
shall not only be an utterance, but a work. We say,
that a principle like this is implied in the passage,
because it goes on to state the fact that something was
done ; and certainly that something is of such a nature,
that we cannot suppose it would have been done if
there had not been, in the actual constitution of things,
an insurmountable necessity for it. ' If law could have
given life, verily righteousness would have been by
law.' Before we pass on from this first part of our discourse
to the second, we pause for a moment to interpose a
remark, which, what we have so far been looking at
suggests : it may be introduced by this Scripture :
' He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and
that He is a rewarder of them who diligently seek Him.'
It is not enough to know, or believe, that ' God is ' for
man to go to Him ; of course, there must be this
belief, for without it there could be no movement
heavenward at all. God, however, may be believed to
be ; humanity may feel that He is ; but what He is
may so shape itself to the imagination as to repel and
terrify rather than attract. This has been very much
the case everywhere and always. Savage and civilized,
ignorant and advanced, rude and cultivated communities
have been very much alike here. Men universally
seem to have regarded God with apprehension rather

RECONCILIATION. 59
than with trust. If they have had, as a first thought,
that God is, their second has usually been that He was
against them. However philosophers might reason, or
poets sing ; however the one might demonstrate that
the gods left the world very much to itself, living at
their ease and caring nothing about it : or the other
depict them as only so many frail and fallible immortals,
whose very vices might induce them to sympathize with
humanity; however this might be, the religion of the
masses in all ages — the instincts and convictions of the
common mind, which found expression in sacred rites —
these always took the form of fear and dread, and con
scious exposure to judgment and wrath. God was
believed in ; but only as one to be propitiated, mollified,
won over; to whom, if any one went, he must go, not
only with expensive ritual observances, but very often
with bitter and painful bodily inflictions, fastings and
lacerations, scourgings and torments, and all this as so
much personal suffering and sacrifice, that might, as the
act of the individual, prevail to remove the Divine dis
pleasure, and adjust matters between the sinner and God.
Such has ever been the sort of religion that has seemed
natural to man. No doubt it has in it elements
which indicate a sort of consciousness of the true and
actual moral condition of humanity, though it blunders
as to the way by which it is to be relieved. Now, the
Gospel teaches that God has done what men have
thought they themselves must do, and what they have
vainly tried to do ; it teaches that He has interfered
to adjust matters, or to arrange for their adjustment.
It proclaims in words not to be mistaken, that the door
into the heavenly places — the gate to the way by which
man ' comes to God' — is opened from within, not from
without, by the Divine hand withdrawing the bolt,
not by the individual finding the key, for ' all things are

60 RECONCILIATION.
of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus
Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconcilia
tion, to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the
world unto Himself, not imputing to men their tres
passes.' II.
This brings us naturally to the second thing which
we proposed to do : after the notice of what is implied
in the passage, though not expressed, we come to the
consideration of what the text does distinctly express
and declare.
Under this head, the first thing to be noticed is,
that that pre-existing love of God to man, which we have
seen to be presupposed and understood as such — a Divine
reality, surrounding and embracing the world, though
only as a luminous halo, the reflection of what filled the
pitying parental heart — this love takes a positive form,
and is made manifest by a Divine act.
The glory, so to speak, which shone at a distance,
looking down from the heaven above, towards the far
off wandering star, the darkened earth, this became
condensed and embodied, and took visible shape ; and
that in a person, for ' the kindness and love of God,
our Saviour, toward man appeared} the Divine philan
thropy, which always was, became known, was ex
pressed and declared, shone forth, and was shed on us
abundantly, through Jesus Christ ; for ' God was in
Christ reconciling the world unto Himself The idea
is that, at a particular time, at a special crisis of the
world's history, that which before had existed in God
as Divine affection, compassionate tenderness, pity or
purpose, was clothed upon, made visible in the person
of Christ, and in Him approached the world, and

RECONCILIATION. 61
revealed itself to it : ' In this was the love of God
manifested.' That is the first idea, which we take up and look at,
in its most simple form. God, in Christ, made a move
ment towards man, to do something for him ; that is
all ; all, that is to say, which, as the first thing we
detach and separate from whatever else the passage
may be found to assert or reveal. Who the Christ was ;
in what way God manifested Himself ' in Him,' or acted
through Him ; what the Christ did to express the
Divine solicitude for man, whether by speech or deed,
or both, nothing of all this is yet said, or is yet before
us. It is enough to fasten the eye and fix the attention
on the bare fact, that an interposition took place to
meet the moral condition of humanity ; that this origi
nated in God, that it took the form of the appearance
and mission of a person, and that person the Christ.
It is to be observed, however, that this idea, in its
naked simplicity, its bald absoluteness, without any
specific explanation of who the Christ was, or what He
did, this one thing covers much more, and has far more
in it, than to many may at first appear. That God
was ' in Christ ' in order that something might be done
to save the world, is a statement which at once forms
itself into a protest against the sufficiency of all forms
of natural religion, philosophic or sentimental. None
of these go farther than God's revelation of Himself
in His works in the heavens and the earth, in the con
stitution of humanity, and in the signs of providential
superintendence and moral government. By the help
of these things, man is ' to feel after God,' to approach
Him, and make his way to Him, as well as he can. No
system of mere naturalism goes, or can go, farther than
this. But here is something altogether different, some
thing which, in its simplest form confronts it, and

62 RECONCILIATION.
opposes it ; not with an absolute denial of its having
any truth in it at all, but with a positive pronunciation
of its utter insufficiency. Instead of man finding his
way to God, ' coming to Him/ led and guided by the
light of nature, God Himself comes to man, moves
towards him in Christ, draws near, and thus ' com-
mendeth His love towards us/
Let us now look at the farther and more special
revelations of the text : —
The phrase, ' God was in Christ reconciling the world
to Himself/ does not so much express God's being in
Christ in the sense of indwelling and personal manifes
tation, as that He, through Christ, instrumentally was
accomplishing His great and beneficial designs. It is
another form of what had just been said, ' all things are
of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus
Christ.' All things connected with human salvation are to be
referred to God ; they originate in Him, flow down
from Him, are condensed and concentrated in a per
sonal Christ; and not only so, but it is God Himself,
who, by and through Christ, effectuates the reconciling
of the world.
This idea, that it is God — God Himself — who comes
forth to accomplish the reconciling of the world, runs
through the whole passage, pervades it, and is made to
stand out with emphatic prominence. It was He who
was 'in Christ' for this purpose. It was He who
' made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin.' It was
He, who, having ' reconciled the world to Himself/
' gave the word and ministry of reconciliation/ and,
through it, it was He who besought man to be recon
ciled to Him. These are the statements of the text.
We have no intention of going minutely into many of
the questions to which they have given rise. All that

RECONCILIATION. 63
we aim at is to ascertain and set forth in a few par
ticulars the general impression which the passage, as a
whole, would seem calculated to make on any plain
man of ordinary understanding, whom we may suppose
to have some general acquaintance with the characteristic
teachings of Scripture.
1. It may be noticed, then, in the first place, that
there would seem to be two reconciliations referred to
in the text ; there is one which is accomplished by God,
and there is another to be secured by man. God, in
Christ, 'reconciled the world to Himself;' on the ground
of that men are besought ' to be reconciled to God.'
. The one reconciliation contemplated the race, the other
belongs to the individual. In the one, men are passive,
the thing is done for them, — done as an act of pure
favour, unsolicited on their part, without even their
knowledge, concurrence, or consent ; the other is to be
the result of voluntary obedience to the Divine invita
tion, of intelligence, trust, grateful acceptance of the
offered mercy. The one reconciliation is an accom
plished fact, a thing done ; the other is only in the
process of accomplishment. And not only so, it is sus
pended on a condition ; it may, or may not, be realized.
Nothing can be plainer than that this is what the
text says : ' God hath reconciled us to Himself by
Jesus Christ.' ' Now, then, be ye reconciled to God.'
' Receive not the grace of God in vain.'
2. The reconciliation effected by God was accom
plished by His doing two things : the one being the
basis of the other. ' He made Him to be sin for us,
who knew no sin ; ' we put that first, though it is last
mentioned, because it is so mentioned, as evidently to
be the root thought out of which what is previously
mentioned springs. ' He made Him to be sin for us,
who knew no sin ; ' then, as the result of that, He

64 RECONCILIATION.
' did not impute to men their transgressions.' The
two things are so related ; or so, at least, they must be
conceived of as related. The first is the ground of the
second, not the second of the first. God did not first
' cease to impute to men their trespasses,' and then
' make Christ to be sin for them ; ' but Christ ' having
been made sin,' the blotting out of the trespasses
evolved as a result. The one thing became possible
on the ground of the other.
Here it may be remarked, that what is thus set
forth as the first reconciliation, although it is expressed
by ' God's reconciling the world unto Himself,' may
really, and more correctly, be said to be ' God's recon
ciling of Himself to the world.' Harsh as this phrase
seems to be, and perhaps is, repulsively as it sounds in
the ear of modern thought, there is a sense in which
it is perfectly admissible. It does not refer to any
personal feeling in God, — to any wrath, resentment,
reluctancy, that needed to be mollified, removed, or
overcome. We have already seen that such an idea
cannot be entertained, from what necessarily underlies
the statements of the text. The pre-existing compas
sion, the inherent and overflowing love of God's throb
bing fatherly heart, is that out of which the Divine action
came as a result.
The meaning is, that sin disturbs and interrupts
the natural action of things in the Divine government ;
that the relations between a sinful race and the
righteous ruler of the world, became such, as to inter
pose obstacles to men and God coming together, which
obstacles, being removed, matters are so adjusted, that
not God's personal feelings, so to speak, but his official
attitude to the world is changed. The disorder and
confusion, the lawlessness and anarchy, which, as
' spiritual wickedness,' took possession of the world

RECONCILIATION. 65
through sin, rendered it not only unworthy, but unfit
for the continued residence of God. He withdrew
from it. He retired and was gone. He could not look
with complacency on what it ' repented Him to have
made,' nor take up His abode among men again, till
that was removed which occasioned His reluctant
departure, and prevented even a wished-for return.
It was removed. 'He, who knew no sin, was made
sin/ The blackness and foulness of that which
belonged to the race gathered about and rested upon
Him, and this with such a result, that it became
possible for God to come again into immediate and
cordial contact with man. TJiis was God's recon
ciliation to the world. It was relative and official. It
originated in Himself ; was His own purpose and act ;
carried out and consummated by Him ; a thing, in
itself considered, great and wonderful, but which, in
the Divine procedure, was only to be a means to an
end, a step towards something ultimate. ' I will go
and return to My place, until they acknowledge their
transgressions and seek My face/ With these words
of the prophet God might be supposed to have taken
His mournful departure from mankind when 'sin reigned
over them/ and ' all had corrupted their way.' But
instead of continuing to seclude Himself in His secret
place, remaining there in majestic isolation, waiting
till men should come to their right mind, and
' acknowledge their transgressions,' He ' came forth from
His place,' and did that, ' in virtue of which He could
look on men without ' imputing their transgressions to
them/ and could even return and tabernacle in the
midst of them, and invite them to come and be at
peace with Him. ' In Christ He was reconciled to the
world,' that the world also ' might be reconciled to
Him.' VOL. II. F

66 RECONCILIATION.
3. Hence, the third thing to be noticed is, that in
this reconciliation and return of God to the world,
a foundation is laid for the return to and reconciliation
of man with God, and for the consequent restoration
of the Divine image, the reflection of God's eternal
rectitude, in the reconciled and sanctified. God's recon
ciling of the world to Himself, in the sense of reconciling
Himself to it, included actually, the ultimate salvation
of none, though it rendered possible, potentially, that
of all, without exception ; Christ ' who knew no sin,
being made sin,' and God, on that ground, ' not imput
ing to men their trespasses/ These things are grandly
comprehensive, unlimited, universal ; conveying the-
assurance that the race is redeemed, but they do not
of themselves secure the salvation of the individual.
The first process, indeed, makes way for the second,
and its aim is to bring it to pass ; but the second does
not succeed the first by absolute and inevitable
necessity. After the sovereign interposition, the finished
work of God in Christ, we have to enter into the
region of Divine appeal and human responsibility ;
of persuasion, privilege, emotion ; the action of the
reason; of spiritual faculty and affection ; of conscience,
consideration, will ; and all that belongs to those
mysterious processes, out of which come voluntary
choice, and moral determination. God having done for
the race what needed to be done, but what it was
unable to do for itself, calls upon it to acquiesce in
what has been accomplished ; to accept and receive
the reconciliation ; to trust the love that underlies the
work, and the promises with which its announcement is
accompanied and crowned; to learn and understand
that there is now nothing to interpose between man
and God, since sin has been reckoned with, and no
longer stands in the way. The expostulation and

RECONCILIATION. 67
appeal, the merciful message, is sent, not to the race
in its corporate capacity, and as a whole, but to each
individual included in it, as such, for the acceptance of
what is offered must be a personal act ; to every one,
however, without exception, is ' the Word ' of ' the
ministry of reconciliation ' ' sent.' God being recon
ciled to men, men are besought to be reconciled to God ;
and this for the greatest of all purposes ; not merely
that they may be delivered from wrath, escape hell,
' lay hold of the hope set before them ; ' but, that as
Christ ' who knew no sin, was made sin for them,' they,
who have known sin, ' may be made the righteousness of
God in Him.'
In thus setting forth what the text appears to us
to say and to assert, it will be observed, that we
have used and repeated its own terms, its special
phraseology, without critical or theological explana
tions. We have done this, because we are not so much
intent on presenting a theory of the Gospel, as of
presenting the Gospel itself, — its central fact ; that fact,
we think, is to be regarded and felt as the object of
faith, rather than as a thing to be taken to pieces,
analysed, put together again, by the manipulations of
the understanding. The one presiding, predominant
idea of the passage is, that every thing is to be looked
at in relation to God. Redemption has its source in
Him, flows down from His heart, takes form and shape
from His hand. The Christ, through whom He acts, is,
' by Him/ ' made sin ; ' what is thus done, as the begin
ning of the process, is His doing ; and the end to be
reached in man — the righteousness of the saints, is
' God's righteousness.'
There are other relations and aspects of the
great subject, of which other Scriptures would
warrant the presentation. It might be approached
F 2

68 RECONCILIATION.
from the opposite side ; the eye might rest on
the Christ, — on what He did and accomplished, on
His personal acts, — not on those of God, which ter
minated on Him. This might be done, and it is
important, at times, to do it ; but just now we restrict
ourselves to the teaching of the text ; and, while we do
not attempt or profess to do more than set forth its
facts, as such, and as far as they go, we propose here to
quote some other Scriptures, which, based on the
pervading and predominant idea of this, God's agency,
may perhaps be seen to add something to it, something
very like explanation of what the thing done meant or
involved, the necessity for it, and for the form it took.
Keeping in mind, then, the several particulars which
we have found to be implied or expressed in the words
before us, let us listen to some of the ' many like
words,' like, and yet not the same ; some of them
rather more than the same which are spoken to us as
' from heaven/ We shall so arrange them, as that they
may come, as nearly as possible, in the order in which
have come to us the points they are intended to
illustrate. ' God is love.'
' God so loved the world, that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should
not perish, but have everlasting life.'
' In this was manifested the love of God toward us,
because that God sent His only begotten Son into the
world that we might live through Him. Herein is love,
not that we loved God, but that God loved us, and
sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins/
'Jesus Christ, whom God hath set forth to be a
propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His
righteousness for the remission of sins that are past,
through .the forbearance of God; to declare at this

RECONCILIATION. 69
time His righteousness, that He might be just, and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.'
' God commendeth His love toward us, in that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.'
' He died for our sins.' ' He died, the just for the
unjust, to bring us to God.'
' We are not redeemed with corruptible things,
such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of
Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.'
' The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin/
' Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin
of the world.'
' All we, like sheep, have gone astray ; the Lord
hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.' ' He was
wounded for our transgressions ; He was bruised for
our iniquities/ ' He had done no violence, neither was
any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to
bruise Him ; and to put Him to grief. When Thou shalt
make His soul to be an offering for sin, He shall see His
seed : He shall see of the travail of His soul ; by His
knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many, for
He shall bear their iniquities.'
' He bore our sins in His own body on the tree.'
' In Him we have redemption, through His blood :
even the forgiveness of sins.'
' By Him, all who believe are justified from all
things/ ' Christ Jesus gave Himself a ransom for all.'
' God, our Saviour, will have all men to be saved, and
to come unto the knowledge of the truth.' ' Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.'
' We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ,
the righteous ; He is the propitiation for our sins ; and
not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole
world/ ' He can save to the uttermost all that come
unto God by Him/

70 RECONCILIATION.
' If when we were enemies we were reconciled to
God by the death of His Son, much more, being
reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.'
' I count all things but loss, for the excellency of
the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord. I count them
but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him,
not having mine own righteousness, which is of the
law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the
righteousness which is of God by faith/
' What the laAv could not do, in that it was weak
through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the
flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be
fulfilled in us, wdio walk not after the flesh, but after
the spirit.'
' Christ gave Himself for us that He might redeem
us from all iniquity, and purify to Himself a peculiar
people, zealous of good works/
' Of Him, are we, in Christ Jesus, who, of God, is
made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctifi-
cation, and redemption.'
' We know that when Christ, who is our life, shall
appear, we shall be like Him ; and every man that
hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as He is
pure.' ' They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with
its affections and lusts.'
' Giving thanks unto the Father, who has made us
meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in
light.' 'Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge,
shall give me at that day ; and not to me only, but
unto all them also that love His appearing.'
Now, these Scriptures, it is very obvious, go to con-

RECONCILIA TION. 7 1
firm and illustrate, in every particular, the statements
of the text. Running all through them are the
leading ideas, which, implied or expressed, we have
found in the passage before us. They are here ; here
in these other passages ; and that not only substan
tially, but expanded, amplified, illustrated ; they are
set forth with such additional strokes and touches
as to have given to them, at once, a distinctness of
presentation, and a mysterious depth of significancy ;
a meaning measureless, vast, soul-subduing, profound ;
something before which we stand in awe, 'dumb with
silence ; ' feeling that we must be content to adore and
wonder, where we cannot comprehend. The passages
quoted embody and reiterate, in every variety of
phrase, in divers forms of expansion and emphasis,
what the text asserts in its comprehensive and preg
nant words. In the one, as in the other, we have, first,
God's love, inherent, infinite, irrepressible, as the
source and fountain whence every thing proceeds, the
root in which all originate ; then we have this love
taking form, being embodied and manifested in a
personal Christ ; then, ivhen thus manifested, we have
Divine acts terminating on the Christ ; acts, which
connect Him with the sin of the world, and are meant
for its removal ; then, we further find, that these acts
have respect to the race ; the love towards man, which
is seen in and expressed by them, is love towards
humanity, it is philanthropy, the most absolute,
unrestricted, limitless, universal ; then, the merciful
intention, the thing to be secured, as to its immediate
object, its first result, is to be wrought out in the
individual ; it is suspended on personal acts, the accept
ance of the reconciliation ; and lastly, as to its ultimate
issue in those by whom ' the grace is not received in
vain,' it consists in their participation, here and

72 RECONCILIATION.
hereafter, of a Divine righteousness — ' the righteousness
of God-
Now, as in the first thing that came before us, out of the
positive statements of the text — the bare fact that God
manifested Himself in Christ, that He did thus super-
naturally interfere on our behalf — as in this, we heard
a distinct protest against the sufficiency of natural
religion ; so in the farther statements of the text,
especially as corroborated and explained by the other
Scriptures quoted, we have another protest ; a protest,
that is to say, against the sufficiency of certain modes of
presentation of that which is revealed. If the teaching
of the New Testament, according to what it seems to say
— seems to common sense and ordinary apprehension —
if, as such, it is to have any adequate meaning attached
to it, or any meaning at all, it would appear to follow
that some of the forms in which the Gospel is, or has
been presented, must be regarded as chargeable with
defect. From what has been adduced, if we rightly appre
hend it, the following things, illustrative of the remark
just made, would seem to come out : —
1st. Christianity is something more, in the first place,
than the mission of a teacher and prophet ; a God-
sent man ; one of the same order with other men so
sent ; men like Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, who were filled
with Divine ideas by the direct and immediate inspira
tion of God, but who were human and fallible, liable
to sin, and who did sin. Christ was not one of these ;
He did not exclusively belong to them : the torch,
enkindled from above, which passed with them from
hand to hand, was not passed to Him by the last of
the line ; nor was the one He held simply of the same
sort with theirs, put by the Divine hand into His.
Admitting that He was teacher, prophet, inspired man,

RECONCILIATION. 73
nothing of this sort exhausts the meaning, or at all
approaches the meaning, of the various and wonderful
representations and statements that have come before
us. 2d. Christianity is something more than the embodi
ment in Christ of perfect virtue, active and passive;
that is, practical holiness without spot, submission to
suffering with unmurmuring patience. It is not this :
a Divine thing exhibited to the world to arrest its
thoughtlessness, attract its wonder, rebuke its depra
vity, stimulate its slumbering instincts, and call forth a
sacred ambition ; an example and moral that might at
once enforce goodness and allure towards it ; that
might so operate on humanity as to become such a
powerful incentive to virtue, such a moral force, so
constraining and persuasive an influence, as would
impel men or draw them to repentance and obedience ;
thus bringing the sinful to righteousness, annihilating
their transgressions, and so securing their reconciliation
to God. It is something more than this : something
different from it altogether, if what the text before us
and its sister texts mean what they seem to say.
3d. Christianity is something more than all that
can be included in what was simply subjective in
Christ. Let Him be regarded as Divine'; the Son of
God manifest in the flesh ; and then think of His
personal purity, His complete fulfilment of all righteous
ness, His zeal for God, His compassion for men, His
sympathy with their condition as sinful and lost, His
crushing realization of their guilt, His utter abhorrence
of it, His sense of its malignity, magnitude, desert,
His agony and grief on account of it, His voluntary
acceptance of suffering and death, as, in some way, the
result of it, His thus sacrificing Himself that God might
be honoured and man saved. Admit all this. Still,

74 RECONCILIATION.
more than this would seem to be me^nt by what
Scripture declares. All this may be included in the
Gospel ; in God's arrangements for the reconciling of
the world ; but this does not come up to, it does not
cover or fathom, the mighty meaning of those expres
sions which reveal to us the hand and action of God :
that ' He made Him to be sin for us, who knew no
sin ; ' that ' He set Him forth as a propitiation ; ' that
' He made His soul an offering for sin,' and ' laid on Him
the iniquity of us all.' Language like this goes far
beyond the personal and subjective in Christ, and
introduces into what was done for the redemption of
the world another and a different element altogether.
We may not be able to explain what the mysterious
statements we have referred to mean ; we cannot,
perhaps, understand their exact significance, nor see
far into ' the deep things of God/ which they set forth
rather than disclose ; but we can see this, that there is,
and must be, in what is asserted, far more than what
can be included in our Lord's personal feelings, percep
tions, and acts.
4th. Christianity is something more than that fatherly
love of God, which is seen in His coming forth to speak
words of entreaty to His disobedient children, beseeching
tbem to be reconciled to Him. It is often said, that
God does not need to be reconciled to man ; but that it
is man that needs to be reconciled to God ; and that
this is what God is seeking to effect. All this is true,
but there is something else which is also true. It is a
great and blessed truth that God does not need to be
reconciled to man, requires no setting forth of any
propitiation to give freedom and flow to the gushings
of His love ; but that, instead of this, He beseeches
man to trust in His mercy, and become reconciled to
Him. It is to be noted, however, that this is the

RECONCILIATION. 75
consequence and outcome of something else ; some
thing that has gone before. God does not need to be
reconciled, because, in so far as in any sense that was
required, it was effected by what He did in Christ. It
is on the ground and in consequence of that previous
and preparatory reconciliation that the other becomes
possible. As it was said by St. Paul, ' the times of past
ignorance God winked at, but now He commandeth all
men everywhere to repent ;' so it may be said by us,
' God having set forth Christ as a propitiation ;' 'Christ
having once suffered, the just for the unjust ;' and
' suffered once for all :' this being so, ' now, then, hath
He given the word of reconciliation, beseeching men
to be reconciled to Him.' It is a glorious and loving
word, but it comes out of a previous and necessary
Divine act.
5th. Christianity, in its ultimate aim, its personal
issues in the individual ; the making sinful men to be
partakers of ' the righteousness of God,' is more than
either the one or the other of the two things to
which, respectively, some would limit it. It is some
thing more than what is said to be imputed to the
believing man ; and it is also something more than
what is subjectively realized in the Christian disciple.
There is a true thought in each of these things, but
neither includes the whole truth standing alone. There
is, unquestionably, a being ' found in Christ, not having
our own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness
which is of God by faith ; ' but then, in addition to this,
there is also such a practical ' growing up into Christ
in all things/ such a voluntary, though aided and in
wrought, ' conformity to Him,' that the righteousness of
the law is fulfilled in them who walk not after the
flesh, but after the spirit.' The expression in the text,

76 RECONCILIATION.
when the light of other Scriptures is cast upon it,
stands out as something more than either of these
things, because combining in itself the essence of both ;
man, as a sinner, accepted, pardoned, justified, through
believing ; the believing man, as such, having become a
new creature, advancing from attainment to attainment
in subjective righteousness, till he reaches the perfection
of Christian manhood, ' the measure of the stature of
the fulness of Christ.'
I have thus brought out and set before you what, it
appears to me, this text says and means. The matters
we have enumerated are so many facts ; facts which
belong to, or are included in the Christian idea of the
' redemption of the world by Jesus Christ.' I have not
pretended to give the philosophy of the facts, by
attempting to explain them ; shewing why they were,
and how they secured their declared object, especially, if
I may so express it, how they influenced God. Why
they were ; the necessity in the nature of things which
demanded them ; that, to me, is demonstrated simply
by their having occurred : their mode of operation, and
even their precise nature I am willing to be ignorant
of, content to believe that they so operated as to secure,
and were what was requisite to secure for humanity the
glad tidings that have come to us, and ' the grace in
which we stand.'
If the facts themselves should be met by philosophical
objections, by reasonings apparently demonstrating their
utter incredibility, we should say, with the Hebrew
confessors in Babylon, ' We are not careful to answer in
this matter.' Accepting the Gospel as what we hold it
to be, 'the Word of God, and not the word of man,' we
accept its facts on that authority; the highest of all
reasons, the simplest and strongest of all logic : God
says so. We confide in the promise He has connected

REC0NC1LIA TIO N. 77
with the fact, the promise of salvation ' to those who
believe ' (not to those who understand) ; hence, we are
willing to be saved by faith ; by trust in Him, ' who
hath done great things for us ; ' things of which He
knew the necessity ; things, the nature and operation of
which He could explain, though we cannot.
If the New Testament is to be allowed to speak as
the oracles of God, to tell us, what is not to be
questioned, but believed ; if we are satisfied that the
facts of Christianity, as recorded in the Gospels, and as
expounded by the apogtles, are true, then we must be
content, I fear, to admit and avow many things on
which the wise men of the world, the disputer of this
age, will look with wonder or scorn, which science will
repudiate, and which we ourselves cannot pretend to
harmonize with human philosophy. The same principle
applies to what we have to believe as to what we have
to do. I could not undertake to reconcile the practice of
prayer with the principles of ' your philosophy.' I
cannot explain how it can be influential, or how it can
be answered, consistently with God's nature, perfections,
and government ; His omniscience, prescience, purposes,
on the one side ; on the other, His administration of all
things by fixed general laws, touching alike the
righteous and the wicked. I pray, not as a philosopher,
but as a believer ; not as the result of reasoning, but
from the impulses of ttrareasoning instinct, and on the
ground of religious faith ; not because I can fully
understand what I do, but because He understands who
tells me to do it. I do it, and I leave to Him the
explanation. I confide in it, and expect it to be
influential, and for myself and others to be benefited by
it. I do not know how. I pray in faith, as I walk by
faith, willing to wait for the discoveries of the all-
explaining and all-reconciling world, where light for

78 RECONCILIATION.
the reason may be as abundant as joy for the heart ;
as satisfying a ' fulness ' of the one as of the other.
Just in the same way is it that I feel myself obliged to
act in respect to the objects of faith. I receive the
facts ; I do not concern myself, or not anxiously, about
their explanation ; about what is called the rationale,
or the philosophy of the plan of salvation. God forbid!
I dislike the phrase, though in some lips it has a modest
and admirable meaning. But, it is best to come to
this, ' to receive the kingdom of God as a little child/
remembering that he that loveth, knoweth ; he that
loveth best, knoweth most ; hnoiveth, if he is not asked.
This heart-knowledge of the ' deep things of God/ is of
more value than the apprehension by the understanding
of all the explanations of all the creeds. Let us be
content, then, with this, that with respect to what the
intellect might wish to fathom, but cannot, it is enough
to be assured that ' what we know not now, we shall
know hereafter/

SEEMON III.
THE peace of god.
I.
' The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts
and minds through Jesus Christ.' — Philippians iv. 7.
We have the highest authority for mixing personal
allusions with religious teaching. The Apostle Paul,
in writing his letters to the Churches — letters which
were to become ' Holy Scripture ' to the whole world,
and to all time — very frequently introduced what was
personal to himself. These personal references are of
two kinds; they relate to what belonged to the apostle's
outward life, his sufferings, afflictions, bodily ailments,
and so on, which might interest his friends, simply
as friends exciting their sympathy, prompting their
prayers, or, when past, calling for their thankfulness.
They consist, also, of what belonged to the apostle's
inward fife, to his primary state of pharisaic religious
ness, his conversion, the lights and shadows of his
Christian experience, his hopes and fears, and such like,
which would interest his friends, as Christians, and
might throw warmth and colour on all he taught.
In the epistle before us, there are a good many of both
kinds of these personalities. It is a letter of thanks,
acknowledging attentions which had been shewn to the

80 THE PEACE OF GOD.
apostle by his friends at Philippi. They had heard of
his sufferings and affliction at Rome, and they had
sent to him at once expressions of sympathy and
material assistance. He tells them, in return, many
things about himself, entering into particulars about
the way in which he had been tried by the conduct of
some who purposely annoyed him, or sought to do so,
wishing ' to add affliction to his bonds ;' how he had
been comforted by others, especially by Timothy, who
had served with him in the Gospel ' as a son with a
father ;' and how Epaphroditus '• had been sick,' how he
¦was distressed by the thought that the Philippians had
heard of, and would be alarmed by, his sickness ; but
how God had mercifully restored him to health, lest the
apostle himself should have had ' sorrow upon sorrow/
To these references to personal matters and relative cir
cumstances, belonging to his outward life, we have, added
in this epistle, many and minute details of his inward,
spiritual experience. The apostle tells the Philippians,
of what he had been as a Jew, and of the change that
took place in him when he became a Christian ; how he
sacrificed every thing for the sake of Christ ; how he
came to despise what he once valued, throwing away
from him his views as a Pharisee, and his attainments
as a ritualist, and caring for nothing but to win Christ,
and to be found in Him. He describes the intenseness
with which he internally panted after holiness ; wishing
in all things to attain fellowship with, and conformity
to Christ, pressing after the prize of his high calling,
forgetting past attainments, ' the things that were
behind,' and ' reaching forth to those that are before.'
He tells how the inconsistencies of worldly professors
moved him to tears ; and how his own conversation and
hopes were in heaven. He indicates his readiness to
submit joyfully to a violent death, if that would con-

THE PEACE OF GOD. 81
firm the faith of the Church. He assures the PhiHppians
of his frequent prayers for them, and distinctly men
tions what he prays for. He expresses confidence in their
prayers and intercessions for himself, and says that he
knows he shall benefit by them. He goes down into
the depths of his soul, and reveals the law of his
spiritual fife — 'for me to live is Christ.' He goes
upwards towards the place the Master has gone
to prepare, and he says, 'for me to die is gain/ He
indicates indifference to life or death, as if both were
the same to him, except as either might more imme
diately bear on the magnifying of Christ, or the service
of the Church. He indulges the hope of being let out
of prison, of leaving Rome, and being permitted to
revisit Philippi and Macedonia ; but with these hopes of
a personal nature, there mingle feelings of the deepest
spiritual anxiety, which he could not repress, and did
not wish to repress, and which he thought it right to
embody in writing. Having ' confidence ' of abiding in
the flesh, it will be, he says, ' for your furtherance and
joy of faith, that your rejoicing may be more abundant
by my coming to you again/ In the prospect of this,
he reveals the earnestness of his apostolic zeal, and the
object of his public ministerial life, in the touching
exhortation : ' Only let your conversation be as be-
cometh the Gospel of Christ ; that, whether I come
and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your
affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind
striving together for the faith of the Gospel.' In this
way, then, do we find personal matters — matters con
nected with health, and sickness, and common life, and
with the secret history of the individual soul mingling
themselves with the religious teaching and writing of
the apostles.
It would be easy to show that this fact is full of
VOL. IT. G

82 THE PEACE OF GOD.
instruction, and that instead of being a presumption
against the inspiration of the apostolic letters it is rather
an argument the other way. It certainly is not exactly
what we should expect to characterise a revelation
from God ; but on that very account it is not what
impostors would be likely to adopt. Instead of the
sublime and Divine stateliness with which our first
and natural thought is that God would speak, if He
were to condescend to speak to us at all, we have
letters and papers containing, indeed, the utterances
of lofty thought, and the glorious unfolding of hope
and duty ; but these great and Divine things, instead
of standing before us in the simplicity and purity
of something fresh and direct from heaven, are mixed
and intermingled with all that is familiar in ordi
nary life, and with much that belongs to the feel
ings and consciousness of the individual writer, the
mere human amanuensis of the supposed Inspiring
Spirit. Just so ; and happy for us that it is so, and
when we think of it, the more is it likely to be God's
own doing — His chosen way of speaking to us ; because
it is not the way which would most likely have
suggested itself to man. The advantages of these
humanities of the New Testament — these personal
allusions to little things and individual experience, are
very great. By an apostle's reference to the states of
mind which preceded, accompanied, or followed his
conversion — his spiritual habits, his motives, aims,
hopes, and vicissitudes — by all this we learn how the
truth revealed by God is intended to affect man ; and we
have thus, as it were, a revelation of both God and man —
of the Divine and of human nature — at once. Inspired,
revealed, objective truth, thus ceases to be a mere
sublime something out of ourselves, to be looked at or
listened to ; it comes to be something mingling with our

THE PEACE OF GOD. 83
own being, in the person of the speaker or writer
addressing us, one of our own race, and thus stands
exhibited to the eye, in that form in which it is to be
embodied in our heart and life. Then, again, the
allusions by the sacred writers, to what belongs to our
outward and ordinary life, to health and sickness, com
forts and vexations, journeying and lodging, passing and
temporary satisfactions or inconveniences, recovery of
strength, restoration of impaired sense or faculty, hopes
of return to a particular place, renewed visits to
attached friends, personal remembrances of the distant,
salutations to particular individuals by name — these and
a hundred other things all teach us how the true
philosophy of life consists in great thoughts being
habitually connected with little things ; how the dis
cipline of life consists principally of small matters ; how
these may exercise the divinest principles, call forth the
deepest sympathy, and nourish and perfect the highest
excellence ; how we are to be interested in each other
with respect to the ordinary events of fife, as well with
respect to what is to be evolved in a higher world;
how the little accidents and duties of time are the
proper preparation for the revelations of eternity : how,
in short, the true spiritual greatness of man in this fife
is not to be looked for in his doing great things, but in
his doing small things after a great and serious manner.
In this way it is that the allusions of the sacred
writers to minute, personal, and common things in
connection with their highest religious teachings may
not only answer great moral purposes, and convey to us
many practical . lessons ; but in doing so, may prepare
us for admitting the probability that the thing is from
God, since it is so adapted to effect what it would be
His purpose by a revelation to accomplish ; but is not
exactly the way in which man would imagine He
G 2

84 THE PEACE OF GOD.
would attempt it, and would not, therefore, be the
form in which he would be likely to express himself in
a series of pretended Divine books.
Whatever might be thought, however, of this sug
gested argument, it must certainly be admitted that
the facts referred to would sanction, by the highest
authority, occasional allusion to what was personal to
himself, in a minister of religion, and especially in the
pastor of a church. It would not be at all improper,
for instance, if, in dilating on some spiritual truth, he
referred, for illustration, to what he might himself have
felt ; to the secrets, that is to say, of his own spiritual
fife. This, I repeat, would not be improper, and it
might even be highly advantageous. The man would
have apostolic warrant for it, and he might have with it
God's blessing. Such allusions, however, should, I
think, not be very frequent ; they would be most in
keeping, too, with the more private and devotional
meetings of the Church ; they would always require
much simplicity of character, and much appropriateness
in the occasion to be becoming and graceful ; they
would, indeed, be worse than useless if the hearers had
not perfect confidence in the speaker, and something of
spiritual sympathy with him. In the hands, however,
of a tried and proved instructor, one not a novice,
whom years and experience had made wise with the
wisdom of the heart, in such a case, occasional personal
references to what he himself had known and felt,
tasted and handled of the things of God, might be
eminently useful, and would most certainly be apo
stolic. In the same way there may be times and
seasons when, with great appropriateness, the pastor of
a church may refer publicly to providential circum
stances connected with himself; to personal affliction
or relative bereavement, to sickness or recovery, or
other matters of like sort. But anything of this

THE PEACE OF GOD. 85
nature should also, I think, be very seldom done ; it
should be justified by something more than ordinary in
the occasion ; but it may be done — done in connection
with the religious instruction of the Church ; and, for
the doing of it, and the doing of it so, the minister,
you have seen, would have the sanction of apostolic
example ; for the addressing a congregation as a part of
ordinary ministerial duties cannot, certainly, be a more
serious or religious act than the writing of a letter or
discourse, which was destined to become a part of the
New Testament or ' Holy Scripture.'
There can be few present, I presume, to whom it is
necessary to say that these remarks have been sug
gested by the peculiar circumstances in which we
assemble this morning. To most of you this will be
obvious. It was not required, perhaps, at so great a
length, to justify the allusions to myself which I am
about to make, though at the same time, it may not be
without its use to have it thus shewn that for such
allusions there is such authority. I am not going to
refer to those personal and private matters which
belong to the history of the heart, the mental and
spiritual exercises which a season of affliction may call
forth ; but to the fact of that affliction, a thing which,
however pergonal in itself, is, in a minister, public in its
relations; to that there can be no indelicacy in referring ;
there woidd be something like insensibility, indeed,
in returning to one's customary engagements without
glancing at the long interval by which they have been
interrupted. It is exactly four months since I last officiated in
this pulpit. That day was the second Sunday in
February. I was then, according to my own feeling
and consciousness, perfectly well, in full vigorous
health, as I had been all the winter. I delivered

86 THE PEACE OF GOD.
a lecture on the Tuesday evening in Exeter Hall, on
the Wednesday morning I had my weekly Bible lecture
in this place, the same evening I was at a public
meeting. I went home without being sensible of any
thing whatever, except, perhaps, a slight feehng of
fatigue ; but on entering my study and attempting to
read, I found that I could not. The first impression
was that I had lost the sight of the right eye. I
expected, however, that it would pass off with a night's
rest : it did not do so.
It was soon discovered that there was no failure of
sight, properly speaking, but only a muscular derange
ment, which time, and rest, and medical appliances
might be expected perfectly to remove. By God's
blessing on the means employed, by the wisdom and
propriety of those means themselves, as suggested by
men of experience and skill, and, I doubt not, through
your prayers, I have attained to that feeling of restored
power which encourages me to attempt recommencing,
though with much care, the discharge of my accustomed
public duties.
* % ¦?$• * * *
I have thought it right to refer, as I have done, to
that personal affliction which has closed my lips for four
months. This cannot, I think, be regarded as unbe
coming, or seem unnatural, in one who has been the
minister of the same people for twenty-three years, and
who considers himself, this morning, not so much deliver
ing a discourse, as addressing to his own flock' (I had
almost said family) a few words, which will be interesting
to them ; though by others they may be heard with some
thing like impatience, or, at least, without any special
sympathy. I have thought it right, too, to give an
intimation of what I mean to attempt, and what I do
not, both with respect to my duties here, and what are
supposed to be owing to the Church at large.

THE PEACE OF GOD. 87
' The peace of God, which passeth all understanding,
keep your hearts and minds by Jesus Christ.' By leaving
out one word, you observe, we turn the apostle's positive
statement in this passage into an earnest devout wish.
My object in taking these words, and putting the
thought they embody in this form, is to indicate,
that I return to my duties in this place, breathing, as
it were, this prayer for you. I would thus express
what it is, in the enjoyment of which I wish you all to
live ; and if I might dare to add it, I would thus express
what it is, that I would wish my ministry among you
might be adapted to promote. I am quite sure that
the words set before us what ought to be the object
of desire to both ministers and people in the Christian
Church ; the end of all hearing, the end of all
preaching. If there be a God, it must be of the
last importance for His intelligent creatures to be in
sympathy with Him, and to partake, in some sort, of
His blessedness — of that deep, unruffled calmness and
peace which He at once enjoys and imparts. If there
be a Christ, or a Mediator with God, if any of God's
creatures need redemption and a Redeemer, then we
may be well assured that the end for which they were
made, and the blessedness of which they are capable,
will be attainable only through Him ; through that
anointed one, the Messiah or Christ, without whom no
man cometh to the Father, and by whom all spiritual
gifts are dispersed. If there is any truth in religion at
all, anything possible to men of sympathy and commu
nion with God ; if there is really a Divine, spiritual
life capable of being lived by humanity here ; and
especially if the source, means, and agents of that life
be what the Christian revelation says they are : then we
may be assured that, in more ways than one, religion,
as to its nature, influence, peace, power, will be some-

88 THE PEACE OF GOD.
thing surpassing ' all understanding.' If there be an
ultimate destiny for man, another life to succeed the
present ; if that life is to be inconceivably glorious ; to
consist in the perfect and immutable conformity of our
whole nature to that of the glorified humanity of the
Lord ; if He is to be revealed at some future time, and
is then to confer this ultimate blessedness on those that
are firm and faithful unto death ; it must be of great
importance to be ' kept ' and preserved ' till that day/
It must be well also to know, in a world like this
and with a nature like ours; with 'hearts' so apt
to be troubled ; with minds so often doubtful and
irresolute ; with that within us so mclined ' to depart
from the living God ;' what it is which, instru-
mentally, can best keep our hearts and minds, till
the day of Christ. And, finally, if there are any
means by which that which can do this may be secured
or preserved ; if there are any habits on the cultivation
of which the enjoyment of the peace of God is
suspended, that peace which passes understanding and
secures perseverance ; it must be of vast advantage to
know what these are, and to have them plainly
described and earnestly enforced. All these, and three
or four more very weighty and important matters, are
included in or suggested by the text, and to all these
I had intended to refer in my address to you this morn
ing, or, at least to have commenced the illustration of
some of them. As, however, it has laid on my mind
in the form of something like a moral duty, a binding
obligation, to attempt doing very little to-day, to
speak, in fact, as shortly as I can with propriety and
decency ; and as, moreover, I do not so much pretend to
preach this morning, as to prepare the way for again
entering on my public duties, I shall content myself
with having indicated, by what I have said, the sort

THE PEACE OF GOD. 89
of topics which from the text before us, may be raised
and discussed. I shall hope, in a sermon or two, to
bring them before you. I will attempt this on the
mornings of the next two or three sabbaths. By the
time I have done that, I shall be able to judge how far
I feel myself competent to the full discharge of the
duties of the pastoral and ministerial function. In the
meantime I shall conclude this address by one or two
words suggested by the occasion.
During the four months that I have been laid aside,
there has been much connected with the congregation
deserving to be thought of with satisfaction and
gratitude. In every way in which kindness and
sympathy could have been expressed towards me, you
have expressed it. I have been assured of them, by
private and personal enquiries and communications ;
by resolutions of the church conveyed to me by the
deacons ; by the assurance of your earnest intercessions
and prayers ; and by your desire to relieve me of all
thought and anxiety about the supply of the pulpit.
I have been gratified by the success of the officers of
the church in securing for you the services of the many
excellent and eminent ministers who have supplied my
lack of service, and by the prompt and cordial kindness,
the spirit of true fraternal sympathy, with which my
brethren themselves were ready to help us, and in
which they so efficiently helped us, in our time of
need. Having mentioned my brethren in the ministry, I
cannot refrain from a passing tribute to the memory of
two, who have been removed by death during the
period of my own indisposition; Mr. Palmer and Mr.
Yockney. With both of them I had been in the
habit of frequent intercourse for many years. With
the one in connection with public societies in which we

90 THE PEACE OF GOD.
acted together, and also as one of the ministers of the
city, and in the same district with ourselves. The
other I knew somewhat more privately, though with
him also I was united in public concerns. They were
both good and holy men, honoured and useful in their
spheres of influence. Though not filling, or not of late
years, conspicuous places in the public eye, they were
loved where they were known, and are lamented with
tender and affectionate regard by many attached friends.
By the decease of Mr. Palmer, I became, I believe, the
minister of longest standing of our body in the City of
London properly so called. Since my coming hither,
every pulpit has received a new occupant, and some
have been vacant more than once. It is a feehng full
of solemnity that comes over one in thinking of such
things. In any large assembly of ministers of my
own denomination, I find myself surrounded by num
bers whom I do not know, with whose names and persons
I am unacquainted, and, of course, with a great majority
younger than myself. In the city, and even beyond it,
though not the oldest in point of age, I have been
longer than most in connection with the church over
which I am placed ; longer than any in the city itself.
The time will soon come when I, too, must give
place to others. May God give me to be faithful
to my trust and service till then, and may you, my
brethren, ever remember that, by your prayers, you
may greatly aid and benefit one who needs all the
help which the most earnest supplications of a church
can secure !
I am very thankful that during my enforced and
necessary retirement, there has no great calamity fallen
on any family of the church. Some things, indeed,
there have been, of which I have heard with sorrow,
and which, at a distance from you, called forth my

THE PEACE OF GOD. 91
sympathy. One individual, a member of the church
for twenty years, and who had entered into the last
decade of his threescore and ten, has been removed by
death. We have reason to believe that he has fallen
asleep in Christ, and that he rests in Him from the
labours and sorrows of this mortal life. Another case,
much more affecting, I cannot help referring to, as it
illustrates the blessedness of early decision, and conveys
important lessons to the young. A young man came
up to London some two years since or more, to carry
on his legal education, and to prepare for going to the
bar. He attached himself to this place of worship, and
last year became a communicant, or, as we say, joined
the Church. He was a young man of sincere piety, of
high principle, and amiable manners ; intelligent,
studious ; looking forward to a profession, but not
dependent upon it. He had, by the providence of God,
independent means of support. He was twenty-six
years of age ; was engaged to one to whom he had
long been attached, and who was worthy of his
affection ; the day for their marriage was fixed ; pre
parations were being made for it ; that day is now past ;
he lived over it, but he died without being permitted to
lead his intended bride to the altar, leaving her who
was expecting to be a happy wife, a virgin-widow.
The circumstances are very touching ; they show
how, in this world, darkness and disappointment may
suddenly wither the fairest hopes and desolate the
brightest scenes. I am happy to add that our young
friend so died as to show bow religious faith can sustain
the soul under the greatest disappointments, the most
painful frustration of earthly expectations. ' In the
garden there was a sepulchre ; ' the grave may open in
the very front of the bridal procession, and for one or
other of those for whom it is made ; but in the case of

92 THE PEACE OF GOD.
the Christian, the sepulchre is one which tells of Him
who is the resurrection and the life, and the grave which
opens for bride or bridegroom, opens as a passage to
conduct ' to the marriage supper of the Lamb.' But
you shall hear the particulars, written to me by the
father of the lady. I will give them in his own words.
The letter is written from the country. ' He was to be
married to my daughter on the 20th of May. On
Monday, the 13th, he left for London, to make some
arrangements there, The same night he ruptured a
blood-vessel. The hsemorrhage was stayed on the
morning of Thursday, the 16 th, and did not return.
There was a gradual improvement till the 25th, when
a sudden change took place, and after a series of
alterations, watched with unremitting assiduity by
(among others) his only brother, and my afflicted,
sorrowing daughter, he died in the Lord on Saturday
last, the 25th of May.
' Thus (he goes on), thus the shadow of death is spread
over the nuptial preparation ! My beloved daughter is
virtually a young mourning widow. We are all called
to mourn the loss of no common excellence in early life ;
but, thanks be to God, " not to sorrow as those without
hope." " He sleeps in Jesus, and is blessed." His end
was peace, perfect peace ; the proximity of that end
was more ; it was joy and peace in believing. It was
an edifying spectacle, until nature, sinking into quiet
insensibility, was the pacific harbinger of the spirit's
dismission to its heaven of rest ; the bosom of God.
' My daughter, I am thankful to say, was the happy
partaker of his faith and hope in God, and has been
supported as only the simple, sincere believer can be.
I am thankful to remember ' (excuse my including this
sentence in the quotation), 'I am thankful to remem
ber, what I am rejoiced to hear from him, his pleasure,

THE PEACE OF GOD. 93
his profit, and spiritual edification under your ministry.
Though comparatively young, his was a matured mind
in human learning and accomplishments, in sacred
knowledge, in the science of salvation, as modest and
humble, as he was truly wise ; and with the enlarged
means of doing good (lately come into his possession),
and with a nobJe disposition to do it, I may truly say
(with submission to God) that his removal is a loss to
the Church and to the world.'
Here, then, is one of the illustrations, which pro
vidence is constantly affording us, of that peace of God
which passeth all understanding, and how it keeps the
heart and mind of those that have it, filling them with
calm and tranquil satisfaction, even at the moment of
aggravated earthly disappointment, and when required
to quit the world at an age and in circumstances that
could not but make life desirable and attractive. I
leave you, however, to draw from the fact, its lessons
for yourselves. The simple reading of the father's
touching and beautiful narrative is a sermon in itself.
I commend it, especially, to the consideration of the
young. May every young man and young woman
who now hears me, be partakers of like precious faith
with our deceased brother, and with her who is
called to the endurance of her great and peculiar
sorrow ! May they thus be fitted for life, with its joys
and hopes, if fife be granted them, or for an early,
happy death, if life be denied ! May every one of us,
of every age, have a good hope through grace ! May
health and sickness, joy and sorrow, all times and all
things, work together for our good ! And may ' the
peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep
our hearts and minds by Jesus Christ ! ' Amen.

SEEMON IV.
THE PEACE OF GOD.
II.
' The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your
hearts and minds through Jesus Christ!— Philippians iv. 7.
In these words there are four things. In the first
place there is what we call the subject of the propo
sition, ' the peace of God ;' and then, secondly, there is
the statement respecting it, that it can ' keep/ that is,
guard and protect, ' the heart and mind.' These two
principal ideas have appended to them other two, by
which they are respectively enhanced and modified.
The peace of God is described as 'passing all under
standing,' and the mind and heart are said to be kept
by it 'through Christ Jesus.' I shall endeavour to
direct and assist your meditations on the passage, by a
few remarks explanatory and illustrative of each of
these particulars.
The direct and positive import of the statement I
understand to be this — that the experience and enjoyment
of the blessedness of the religious life, the life of God in
the soul of man, is the best and most potent preservative
both of the appiness and the virtue of humanity ; our
surest defence against everything from within and
from without by which we might be disturbed in a

THE PEACE OF GOD. 95
world of trouble, or seduced from goodness by tempta
tions to sin. It is the Christian form of the old
Hebrew faith as embodied in expressions like these :
' he that believeth shall never be confounded ; ' ' the
joy of the Lord is your strength.'
By the 'peace of God' the apostle does not mean
either the blessedness which belongs to the Divine
nature, as that of the * ever happy God/ nor that ' rest '
which is laid up for us in heaven, and which is to
become the inheritance of the Church in that day when
' glory, honour, and peace ' are to be bestowed on ' every
man that worketh good/ I take the phrase to refer to
what is at present experienced by man, the deep, inward
repose and peace of the spiritual life ; a blessedness
denominated 'the peace of God/ because it is that
which God communicates, which He sustains, which
results from our will being in harmony with His, from
our being brought into a state of reconciliation, from
our living in habits of obedience, from the constant
exercise of faith, hope, and love, from devotional
communion with God Himself, and from interest and
complacency in Godlike men. A central peace ; a state
of calm, deep, spiritual repose, Divine in its origin,
religious in its nature, holy in its impulses, heavenly in
its results ; the happiness for which man was made, for
which he was redeemed, which belongs to him as
sanctified, and which grows with the growth of his
Godlikeness. This is ' the peace of God ; ' the peace of
God 'which passeth all understanding;' which partakes
in some measure of the very blessedness of God Him
self; and which realises, by anticipation, something
of that which belongs to the condition of the upper
world. These general statements had, perhaps, better be
illustrated by Scriptural quotations explanatory of the

96 THE PEACE OF GOD.
principal elements that combine to make up this peace
of God in man. Having ascertained these, you will easily
see that you gather along with them other involved or
correlative matters, bearing on the different parts of the
subject. (i) ' Being justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ ; by whom also we have
access, by faith, into this grace wherein we stand, and
rejoice in hope of the glory of God.'1 In this passage
you have the primary basis, the first and fundamental
element of the peace of God. Man is contemplated as a
sinner ; as conscious of guilt and exposed to punishment.
The apostle argues that, of course, he cannot be justified
by law ; that is, that law cannot pronounce and declare
that he has actually fulfilled its demands, and is
entitled to the rewards of obedience ; for the supposition
or fact is exactly the contrary. It is assumed or asserted,
proved, and felt to be a thing corroborated by human
consciousness, that man has violated the law, and that
law, as law, has nothing to do but to condemn him.
Let this idea be distinctly realised, and it is seen at
once that, if true, it has power in it terribly to disturb
and agitate the soul. Christianity says it is true.
Universal facts proclaim the sinfulness of man ; and
universal philosophy must approve the statement that
the law that has been broken, and that therefore con
demns, cannot by possibility absolve or justify. Simply
considered as a sinner, sin, law, God, futurity, moral
government, coming retribution, all realised as positive
facts, there is everything in the condition of man to
excite dark and terrible forebodings. The apostle meets
his case by the proclamation of Divine mercy ; not
mercy, however, simply considered as a necessary
1 Rom. v. 1.

THE PEACE OF GOD. 97
attribute of the Supreme nature, as a tender and
benevolent Divine affection to which the guilty and
miserable might appeal ; but as something which had
been embodied in a supernatural fact, and was to be
contemplated and confided in as thus apprehended. He
announces and declares that God hath ' set forth Christ
as a propitiation, through faith in His blood, for the
remission of sins, that He might be the justifier of him
that believeth ; ' that as man could not be justified
by law, through the fact of obedience, he should or
might be through grace, by the act of faith. By the
pure favour or gratuitous mercy of God, faith or trust
in Christ was to be accounted for righteousness, and to
do for man, in the solemnities of the judgment, what, if
he passed through them with safety, must otherwise
have been done by the righteousness of law, or by per
fect personal obedience to it. This, says the apostle, is
the Gospel. We ourselves have received it. We have
' trusted in Christ.' We were ' sinful and disobedient ; '
we ' served divers lusts and passions of the flesh and of
the mind;' we deserved condemnation ; but we 'obtained
mercy ;' ' there is no condemnation to them that are in
Christ Jesus ;' the burden of guilt has been removed,
and the terrors of the conscience are stilled ; the dark^
ness is past, day has dawned ; ' the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God hath shined into our
hearts, in the face of Jesus Christ ; ' we are ' light in
the Lord;' all is peaceful ; we have 'joy and peace in
believing ; ' for ' being justified by faith, we have peace
with God, and rejoice in hope/
This, then, is the first element that enters into the
constitution of ' the peace of God,' in man. It is mercy
meeting man as a sinner, providing and revealing the
ground of forgiveness, presenting it to the apprehension,
and urging it on the acceptance of faith ; it is man
VOL. II. H

98 THE PEACE OF GOD.
believing the testimony, confiding in the object set
forth ; , using it in the way and for the purposes
prescribed ; and experiencing as the result the promised
blessedness ; the ' blessedness of the man whose trans
gression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, and to
whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.' ' There is no
peace, saith my God, to the wicked.' There is peace
for him, when 'the wicked forsakes his way, and the
unrighteous man his thoughts, and turns unto the
Lord, who can abundantly pardon.' The prophet was
disturbed and agitated by what revealed to him the
glory and purity of the Divine nature, and the
corruption and offensiveness of his own ; ' woe is me !
for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips ; '
but he was calmed and tranquillized, and became the
partaker of a Divine peace, when a live coal from the
altar of sacrifice was laid upon his mouth, and the
voice of the seraphim was heard saying, ' Lo ! this has
touched thy lips ; thine iniquity is taken away, and thy
sin is purged.' No angelic voice in vivid dream, nor
waking vision, is to be expected now, announcing to
the sinner the forgiveness of his sins ; but there may be
such a certainty of the truth of the Gospel, such a
persuasion of the fidelity of God, such a perception of
the nature and appropriateness of His mode of merciful
intervention in Christ, such a consciousness of contrition
and faith, and such an indescribable realisation of peace,
hope, love, and joy, that the penitent and believing
man may be able neither to doubt the fact of His
forgiveness, nor to resist the feeling of deep, calm,
sober blessedness which the humble persuasion of the
fact brings with it. It is not essential to the reality of
faith that its exercise should be accompanied with this
sense of assurance ; but, in the higher forms of the
spiritual life, in the more robust and nobler of the sons

THE PEACE OF GOD. 99
of God, whose religion is a matter of life and death to
them, a decided, serious, and resolute thing, there is
always something of an inward consciousness that they
have obtained 'access into that Grace' in which the
accepted and the justified ' stand.' Hope of this, or the
humble persuasion of it, is the commencement in man
of the peace of God.
(2.) 'To be spiritually-minded is life and peace.'1
These words describe a second ingredient of that com
plex spiritual whole, which the subject of our discourse
brings before us. The passage is taken from the
apostle's discourse on the work of the Spirit in man, as
the former passage was taken from his discourse on the
work of Christ for man ; both of them being included in
the Epistle to the Romans, the most elaborate, the most
profound, and the most consecutive of all his writings.
By being 'spiritually-minded,' the apostle means that
the sinful man, who has been led to the exercise of faith
and repentance, and has sought, through Christ, the
forgiveness of sin — that he, in virtue of a holy, Divine
influence, the exerted agency of the Spirit of God, has
his moral tastes so rectified, his moral affections so
cleansed and elevated, that he loves, with a deep, earnest
love, all spiritual things and exercises. ' The minding of
the things of the flesh/ and ' the minding of the things
of the spirit/ which are the two things opposed to each
other in the apostle's discourse, are intended to describe
two different conditions of the soul ; in the one it is
so penetrated and imbued with the flesh, or is so com
pletely subject to the evil principle, that it turns with
disgust from all that is good, it dislikes and disrelishes
holy objects, exercises, and pursuits ; its tastes and
instincts are thus strongly impelled towards whatever
1 Rom. viii. 6.
H 2

100 THE PEACE OF GOD.
is worldly, sensual, or base ; it affects and pursues the
objects of concupiscence ; it can be active and alert in
obeying the irregular dictates of the flesh, but it is ' not
subject to the law of God, neither, indeed, can be.' In
the other condition of the soul, that described as ' the
minding of the things of the spirit,' it is supposed to be
so emancipated from the flesh, so freed from its poison
and power, and so imbued, penetrated, and possessed by
the Spirit of God, that it instinctively prefers spiritual
things ; its affections attach themselves to whatever is
Divine, pure, and holy ; the man ' delights in the law
of God,' from the natural force of his inward life ; sin
is loathed by him, not only from principle, but from
taste, and is shunned and avoided, not merely from a
sentiment of duty, but from the aversion of an irrepres
sible disgust ; he turns towards thoughts, exercises, and
acts that have in them anything of a Divine element,
with a readiness and vivacity that indicate a harmony
between himself and them ; such a one is spoken of in
Scripture as ' renewed in the spirit of his mind ;' as
' washed,' ' cleansed/ ' regenerated/ ' sanctified ;' as being
'born of the Spirit;' as being thus 'a partaker of the
Divine nature ;' and hence the subject of that spiritual-
mindedness which is life and peace.
The plain meaning of this I take to be, that man was
made for God; that all his powers, faculties, and
affections were so constituted, that they were to find
their supreme enjoyment in Him ; that sin has disturbed
this original law, and has given to the flesh an unnatural
ascendency ; that this ascendency is unnatural accord
ing to the primitive constitution of our nature, and that
like everything that is so, it is productive of misery and
misrule, anarchy and disturbance. Though men may
be under the dominion of the flesh, and have their
tastes and affections so pervaded by its impulses, that

THE PEACE OF GOD. 101
they can only ' mind the things of the flesh/ their moral
sense is not destroyed ; the law is still written on their
hearts ; conscience can still accuse and judge. The
consequence is, that to the idea of antagonism between
the sinner and God, there is to be added that of
antagonism in himself; the want of harmony among
the principles of his own nature, with the misery and
unrest which necessarily flow from this dislocation of
his moral being. There can be nothing like inward
mental peace, when those faculties that should rule are
dethroned, and are trampled upon by the rude rabble of
inferior appetites. Spiritual renovation restores the
natural order of things ; reason is enlightened, the
affections are purified, passion is restrained, the animal
is brought into subjection to the man, and the man
bound by love and loyalty to God. ' Old things pass
away, and behold all things become new/ By the
redemption of Christ, then, man, as a sinner ' receives
the atonement or reconciliation,' and is brought to be at
one with God ; and, by the sanctification of the Spirit,
mind and heart, judgment and affection, the faculties
that direct and the passions that impel, are all brought
into harmony with each other. There is subjective
peace in the man himself. This, too, is ' the peace of
God/ It is that for which God created man at first,
and for which he is ' created anew in Christ Jesus.' It
is itself a directly Divine donation ; and it consists in
something like a spiritual approach to the moral
harmony of the Divine nature.
(3.) A third element in ' the peace of God ' may be
expressed by the words, ' Great peace have they that
love thy law:' 'The work of righteousness is peace:'
' In the keeping of His commandments there is great
reward.' When men practically hearken to God, and
habitually live in harmony with Him, then their ' peace

102 THE PEACE OF GOD.
flows like a river, and their righteousnesses as the waves
of the sea/ These, and numberless passages that might
be quoted, all direct us to the further idea of the
correspondence of the Christian's outward conduct with
the instincts and impulses of his inward life. ' Pure
religion and undeffled before God and the Father is
this — to visit the fatherless, and the widows in their
affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the
world/ That is to say, it is positive and practical ; it
consists in habits of benevolence, purity, integrity, up
rightness, the constant culture of all that belongs to
' holy conversation/ the study and the pursuit of ' what
soever things are true, just, lovely, honourable, and of
good report/ Solid Christian goodness does not consist
in luxurious emotion, in fine sentiments, in devotional
ecstasy, in inward fervour, and spiritual satisfactions.
That condition of the heart, which is described as ' the
minding of the things of the spirit/ is to find appropriate
expression and embodiment in the maintenance of a
uniform and elevated morality ; ' to faith is to be added
virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge temperance, to
temperance patience, to patience godliness, to godliness
brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity.'
It is only by a course of practical obedience, exem
plifying the virtues of the Christian character, that that
peace of conscience can be preserved, which begins in
the exercise of repentance and faith ; and that harmony
of the soul perpetuated, which flows from the influence
of the sanctifying spirit. ' The good man is satisfied
from himself.' There is a calmness and tranquillity
maintained in the heart, by the internal consciousness
of worth and character. Practical inconsistency, in
professedly religious men, cannot but disturb their
inward peace, darken their prospects, and ' pierce them
through with many sorrows/ Guilt is a thing full of

THE PEACE OF GOD. 103
fears ; a small sin, indulged and permitted in Christian
conduct, will intercept the light that alone can gladden
and cheer the soul, as a small object close to the eye
will exclude the sun and veil the heavens. ' Herein do
I exercise myself,' says Paul, ' to have a conscience void
of offence towards God and towards man.' ' I will wash
my hands in innocency,' said David ; ' I will walk in
mine integrity ;' ' my conscience shall not reproach me
as long as I live.' It would have been well for him had
it been so. We all know, alas ! how he fell by tempta
tion, tarnished the virtue of many years, and opened the
sources of grief and bitterness for his after life. Wrong
never will come right. The peace of the soul cannot
but be broken by anything approaching to positive
sin. The preservation of the Christian from outward
inconsistencies, his continued perseverance in those
practical habits which harmonize his outward daily
life with his inward convictions and religious profession ;
is therefore another part of that 'peace of God' of which
we discourse. ' The righteous also shall hold on his
way ; and he that hath clean hands shall wax stronger
and stronger/ ' Who is it that will harm you, if ye be
followers of that which is good V ' The Lord will bless
His people with peace.'
(4.) The last thing that we shall notice, as illus
trating the subject, may be expressed in the words
of the prophet : ' Thou wilt keep him in perfect
peace, whose mind is stayed upon Thee.'1 In addition
to the effect of justification, the subjective results of
regenerating influence, and the blessed consciousness
of practical consistency, there is the constant exercise
of filial trust — faith ' staying itself on God, in re
lation to everything that belongs to the events and
the circumstances of life. There is ' a thought for the
1 Isa. xxvi. 3.

104 THE PEACE OF GOD.
morrow/ which is proper and becoming ; a regard to the
future, plans and purposes, wishes and hopes — yea, even
apprehensions and anxieties— which are all natuial, rea
sonable, and right. But there is also a care ' that hath
torment ;' there is a fear that is sinful ; there are expec
tations that are presumptuous; there is a way of thinking
about what may happen, and of wishing to determine
it, that seems to forget that there is a God above us,
or which could be justified only on the ground that we
ourselves governed the world. A Christian man who
realizes the fact that all his ' times are in God's hand,'
that 'He fixes the bounds of his habitation,' and
determines and ' perfects that which concerns him ; '
who lives under the vivid and constant recollection, not
only of the personality, but of the Fatherhood of God ;
who really believes that in the Divine mind there is a
paternal plan and purpose respecting him, that his
' Heavenly Father knoweth what he hath need of,' that
' if he seek first/ and keep his eye on ' the kingdom of
God/ ' other things shall be added unto him ;' that 'all
things are working together for good,' both present and
ultimate ; that ' a sparrow cannot fall to the ground
without the will of God/ and that any one of His
children is, in His estimation, ' of more value than many
sparrows ;' that to those who ' commit their way unto
the Lord, He will give the desire of their hearts ;' that
life and death, riches and poverty, birth and bereave
ment, honour and neglect, all the events and circum
stances of life, are God's servants, whose actions He at
once directs and limits, regulating every thing ' accord
ing to the council of His own will ;' he who thoroughly
believes all this, and other connected truths, to whom
it is an ever present reality, that infinite wisdom,
rectitude, and love are presiding over and directing all
his concerns ; who ' casts his care/ and ' stays his soul,'

THE PEACE OF GOD. 105
on Him in whom these perfections centre cannot
but be saved from the perturbations and anxieties
which disturb and torment the worldly mind ; and
must habitually be kept in that ' perfect peace ' which
flows alike from the faith and the love that ' casts out
fear.' This, also, is ' the peace of God/ The heart that
is filled with it cannot easily have its tranquillity dis
turbed. It is kept from murmuring at what God does,
from petulance and impatience for what He does not.
It can confide and wait; it can believe and be thankful;
it can trust and hope ; it can suffer and be satisfied.
Robust and healthy religious faith thus sustains and
perpetuates instrumentally the peace of God in the soul
of man : to it life comparatively has no trouble, death
and the grave have no terror. They who thus five and
walk by faith find for their feelings fitting utterance in
glowing and exultant words like these : ' God is our
refuge and strength ; therefore will we not fear, though
the earth be removed, and the mountains be carried into
the midst of the sea/ 'Though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art
with me ; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me/
' Happy is the people that is in such a state ; yea,
happy is the people whose God is the Lord/ ' May the
peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep
your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus !'

SEEMON V.
THE PEACE OF GOD.
III.
' The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your
hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.' — Philippians iv. 7.
In our last discourse on this passage we observed
that it contained four things : — First, the subject of the
whole statement, 'the peace of God;' and secondly,
what is affirmed respecting it, that it can ' keep/ that
is, guard or protect our ' hearts and minds/ These two
principal ideas have each of them another associated
with it — what the peace of God is in itself is enhanced
by the saying that it ' passeth all understanding ;' what
it does is modified by the words 'through Christ
Jesus.' We restricted ourselves last Sunday to the first idea,
' the peace of God.' We explained and illustrated four
things, which we regard as included in it ; each of these
we expressed in the words of Scripture : the following
passages you will remember and recognise as those
which we successively adduced and dwelt upon :
' Being justified by faith, we have peace with God' —
'To be spiritually-minded is life and peace' — 'Great
peace have they that love Thy law ' — 'He shall be kept
in perfect peace whose soul is stayed upon God/ Here is

THE PEACE OF GOD. 107
'peace' from the hope of pardon; peace from the spiritual
renewal of the mind and heart ; peace from the harmony
of the outward with the inward life, practical consistency ;
and peace from the resignation of all earthly concerns to
God in the steady exercise of filial trust. These constitute
the different elements which go to make up the complex
blessedness of the rehgious life ; the deep, calm, sober
consciousness of inward peace : ' the peace of God which
passeth all understanding.'
We propose now to pursue the subject, by meditating
this morning on the two ideas suggested by the state
ment, that this peace is the peace of God, and that it
'passeth all understanding ;' that is, we propose looking
at its nature and its greatness, its Divine source, and
its incomprehensible character.
The inward blessedness of the religious life is called
the peace of God, principally because it is something
imparted by God, something Divinely communicated,
sustained, and preserved, and this, too, with especial
reference to the unnatural condition to which man is
reduced by the apostacy, and the consequent super
natural interposition through which he is Divinely
restored. It will contribute, however, I think, to the
fuller and clearer apprehension of the subject, to assign
several reasons for denominating the blessedness of the
religious man the peace of God ; each of which
may be a reason in itself, though all are to be com
bined, and to be looked at in their combined force, if we
would take in at one view the whole ground and
compass of the expression.
I. The nature of this is such that it is denominated the
' peace of God.' For this we assign the following reasons :
(i.) In the first place, because it is that for which God
made man at first. It is the realisation of His original
idea of the happiness of Humanity. Of course, there is

108 THE PEACE OF GOD.
an important sense in which it may be said to be more
than this. It may seem very strange to speak of any
thing being possible to man, any joy or blessedness,
beyond what God intended him for at first. On the
theory of Christianity, however, the principle of the
Gospel, it is easy to understand, that the sinful and the
guilty, considered as apostate and fallen, if redeemed,
pardoned, saved, and glorified, may become the subjects
of a blessedness altogether their own ; new, unique, of
a sublimer and intenser nature than that which belongs
to sinless intelligence. We do not, however, go into
that just now. We wish at present to say, that reli
gious blessedness is, in part, the realisation of that for
which man was made ; it springs from intercourse with
God, from devotional communion, from filial trust, from
loving obedience, from doing His will, from walking in
harmony with His laws and commandments, from the
just apprehension of spiritual truth, the light of faith
illuminating and purifying the reason, from the regal
power of conscience and duty, from just and regulated
affections, from perfect repose in God's Fatherhood, and
from conscious complacency in everything that pleases,
and in all beings that are like Him.
Now, these things, and others that might be men
tioned, are such as wouldhave entered into the happi
ness of man had he never sinned ; many of them,
of course, enter into that of the angels in heaven.
Man was made for these ; he was intended to be
religious, spiritual, holy, loving, virtuous, obedient,
trustful, acquainted with God, and having constant,
free, filial access to Him. All this is, in some measure,
enjoyed by those in whose inward experience there is
that which may be denominated ' the peace of God.'
There may, as we have hinted, be something more, but
there is this ; this blessedness springing from the exercise

THE PEACE OF GOD. 109
of those affections, and the re-establishment of those
relations towards God, which was God's original idea
of what man was to enjoy and to be ; and because it is
this it is the peace of God, that which was originally
intended by Him for man.
(2.) Then, to this general statement, you might add, in
the second place, that religious blessedness, as now
experienced by Humanity, is denominated the peace of
God, because it is the result of His merciful interposi
tion for man, as well as the realisation of His original
idea respecting him. In this view of it you will
observe that there is the addition of two things to
what has gone before : there is the idea of something
having been done by God to produce it, beyond and
above the original constitution of the world and man ;
and, as included in this, that the results of this inter
position, in human experience, must be of a nature
different from, and altogether additional to, the blessed
ness that would have belonged to Humanity, had it
only realised that for which it was made. Startling as
statements like these are to the ear of a shallow and
unreflecting philosophy, they are nothing but the ex
pression of what must of necessity be true, if there
really be a ' Gospel ' in the world, and if Christianity
be a Gospel at all. In a Christian Church, we profess
Christianity ; a Scriptural Christianity we hold to
include redemption and a Redeemer ; to be a thing
based on the fact of sin in man, to consist in a Divine,
that is, in a miraculous or supernatural interposition on
his behalf, and to be productive of results in those that
receive it, peculiar to them as sinners that obtain
mercy, altogether distinct from any thing that can ever
be experienced by the unfallen, by an innocent or a
perfectly virtuous intelligence. The blessedness of
such, then, is denominated the peace of God, because it

110 THE PEACE OF GOD.
is by God's grace that it is possible, because it is by the
gift of His Son that it is procured, and because it is by
the application of His truth that it is produced. This
blessedness, as consisting in the hope of the forgiveness
of sin, the restoration of confidence and complacency in
man as constituted, by a new and supernatural method,
a Son of God, all that is included in ' peace of con
science,' 'deliverance from wrath/ 'joy and peace in
believing,' 'peace and joy from being justified by faith;
all this belongs to a happiness which unfallen natures
cannot know ; which man, had he remained upright and
innocent, would not have needed ; which is additional to
that for which he was made, by being a part of that
for which he was redeemed ; and which is denominated
emphatically the peace of God, because it is that which
depended for its existence on God's ' redemption of the
world by Jesus Christ ;' and which does exist, whenever
it is enjoyed, because of, and as the result of, that
redemption. ' God was in Christ reconciling the world
unto Himself.' ' He is our peace/ ' God set forth His
Son to be a propitiation for our sins/ ' In Him we have
redemption, through His blood, even the forgiveness of
sins.' ' We are saved from wrath through Him.' ' In Him,
though now we see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice
with joy unspeakable and full of glory/ But it would be
endless to transcribe, or to attempt to repeat, the different
passages, illustrative of what we have advanced. On the
admission of the truth of the Bible, and the reality of
Christianity, the thing, too, is so plain that it is un
necessary to argue it. God, througl <Jie mission of
His Son, has given a Gospel to the world ; that Gospel
produces peace in every heart that truly receives it ;
that peace is God's peace ; it could not exist, but for the
Gospel, and no Gospel would exist but for Him.
(3.) But a third idea may be referred to. The blessed-

THE PEACE OF GOD. Ill
ness of the spiritual life in man is denominated the peace
of God, because, in addition to its including restoration
to the happiness for which God originally designed him,
and the possession of that which God supernaturally
provided for by the Gospel ; it is that which is imme
diately produced by God's Spirit, and is thus, in some
degree, of the nature of a direct Divine donation. We
do not argue the point as to the possibility of Divine
influence; it is enough for us that the Scriptures assert
the fact, and inculcate the doctrine. That they do this
it would be a waste of words to attempt to prove.
Because they do it, they establish the abstract possi
bility of the thing ; and in doing this, they teach what
it is as philosophical to admit as it is devout to believe.
When Christ was about to leave the world, He promised
His depressed and sorrowing disciples that He would
send them ' another Comforter.' This Comforter was to
' abide with them for ever/ He was to be a perpetual
resident in the midst of the Church. He was to be, to
the Lord's personal associates, an equivalent for the
loss of His personal presence, and He was to be, to all
other believers, throughout all time, as the Lord Him
self. ' The Comforter,' said Christ, ' is the Holy Ghost,
whom the Father will send in My name;' and then He
immediately adds, as if to interpret the meaning of the
promise, and the force of His words : ' Peace I leave
with you, My peace I give unto you ; not as the world
giveth, give I unto you ; let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid/ ' The fruit of the Spirit is
peace.' ' The kingdom of God is not meat and drink ;
but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy
Ghost.' 'May the God of hope fill you with all joy
and peace in believing, and make you to abound in
hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost/ 'God,' it is
said, is ' the Author of Peace in all the Churches of His

112 THE PEACE OF GOD.
saints.' It is a Divine blessing imparted to the soul
by Him ; it flows from Him as its source, and is diffused
abroad in the heart by His Spirit. The form of blessing
appointed to be used in the ancient Church was in these
words : ' The Lord bless thee and keep thee ; the Lord
make His face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto
thee : the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and
give thee peace.' And in all the Apostolic epistles there
is the Christian form of benediction and salutation,
varying, it is true, in different epistles, in respect of
phraseology, but always expressive of the same idea :
' Grace and peace from God the Father ;' ' grace and
peace from the Lord Jesus Christ ;' ' Now the Lord of
peace Himself give you peace always, by all means.'
' The Lord be with you.' Religious peace— the happi
ness and blessedness of the spiritual life — is the peace
of God, because it is from Him, bestowed by Him,
shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost. It is
'-the Lord that blesses His people with peace.'
(4.) It might be said, perhaps, in the last place, that
religious peace is the peace of God, because it is sus
tained, nourished, and enlarged by those acts and
exercises, private and public, which bring the soul into
contact with God ; by meditation upon His truth, by
vivid and realising views of all that is by His authority
revealed to faith ; by confidence and trust in those
promises and declarations which, to the devout mind,
are felt to be like words 'spoken from heaven;' by
prayer and praise, song and sacrament, with whatever
belongs to the communion of the Church, and the
fellowship of the faithful. All these things, which are
commonly spoken of as religious duties, or religious
acts, but which are not literally in themselves religion,
constitute modes by which the religious principle ex
presses itself, and by which, instrumentally, it is corro-

THE PEACE OF GOD. 113
borated and confirmed. Some of them are direct
Divine appointments, incumbent on the Church as duty
by what has in it the nature of law ; others are forms of
thought and feeling, action and utterance, into which
the spiritual life of man naturally falls as impelled by
the force of a Divine instinct ; the habitual result of all
is the maintenance and increase of that peace, which,
growing continually from ' walking with Him/ is appro
priately designated ' the peace of God.'
Such, then, in few words, are the nature and sources,
the instruments and agency, of that blessedness of
which we discourse. It is connected with the activity
of the reason and the conscience, the apprehension of
truth and the love of duty; with the objective facts of
the Christian redemption, and the subjective enjoyment
of spiritual influence; with purified affections, moral
habits, holy aspirations, devotional tastes, rehgious
worship, a living conscience, a sense of security in
acceptance with God, loyalty to His service, conformity
to His will, submission to His appointments ; with the
hope of ultimately living with Him in the glorious
' inheritance of the saints in light.' Such is the peace
of God. There is the peace of the devil ; the peace of
the world, of sin, and of the flesh. There is the con-
tentedness of the man that believes nothing ; the
satisfaction of the blind that will not see. There is the
tranquillity of the dead, — of those who are 'past feel
ing/ whose ' conscience is hardened through the deceit-
fulness of sin,' dried and ' seared as with a red hot
iron.' There is the composure of ignorance, the lux
urious calm of a superficial sentimentalism ; the soporific
dream of a presumptuous philosophy. There are all
these things, and others that might be mentioned ; by
the help of which men may contrive to live quiet and
contented, and even, at last, to die 'like lambs/ innocent,
VOL. II. I

114 THE PEACE OF GOD.
so to speak, of apprehension and fear, with no thought
of the past or the future, and without a feeling to make
them afraid. These various forms of tranquillity, greatly
differ from the ' peace of God/ In one way or other,
they consist in the destruction of man's inward life, of
the healthy exercise of faculty and affection, of being
and doing, in accordance with what man was meant to
be and do. It was the complaint of the Roman historian,1
that the conquering leader of an invading army ' made a
solitude and called it peace/ It was the peace of the
desert, the tranquillity of the grave ; very different from
that condition of country which consists in lands rich
and cultivated, in cities full of life and gladness, in a
people numerous, happy, refined, and free. Just such
a contrast is there in the heart of man, between the
peace of the devil, and the peace of God. The one
poisons and destroys, blasts and extinguishes, all life ;
reducing the soul, with all its spiritual and moral
capacities, to a hard, dead, senseless petrifaction; and
he calls it peace : the other awakens, animates, and
cheers, opens the eye to beauty and to truth, the con
science to duty, the heart to love ; imparts joy by the
knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sin;
fills the mind with spiritual consolation and Divine hope ;
strengthens by His grace for noble suffering and high
service, and makes the life fruitful in earnest en
deavours and holy achievements. The whole of man's
nature is raised, quickened, perfected, adorned ; it is
restored to harmony with heaven and in itself. This
is productive of deep, calm, conscious blessedness ; and
this blessedness is ' the peace of God.'
II. The second thing to which attention may be
directed, is the statements in the text, that this peace
of God 'passeth all understanding.' It will not be
1 Tacitus.

THE PEACE OF GOD. 115
possible to do more than to offer a few brief suggestions,
which may direct you as to the channel in which, on a
subject like this, you may individually permit your
thoughts to flow.
By the peace of God passing all understanding, some
would appear to think the apostle means that it
becomes so powerful in the soul, such an impelHng and
commanding principle of action, as to exert a sort of
regal directing force over the whole mind ; that, in the
case of each individual in whom it resides, it subordi
nates and controls, and brings into subjection to itself,
all capacity, faculty, and affection, sits supreme over all
the active powers of the man, and directs them to ends
in harmony with itself. I think there is truth in what
is intended to be expressed by statements like these;
but that truth is probably to be found in the latter
portion of the .text, in which we read of the peace of
God : keeping ' the human ' heart and mind.' We take
the statement in its plain and obvious sense. It would
seem to mean that the peace of God has that about it
which is so profound, great, and mysterious, that it
literally surpasses all apprehension and all utterance ;
it is incapable of being fathomed, measured, understood,
or explained by any created intelligence whatever.
Now, there is nothing unphilosophical in this. Those
who are most profoundly acquainted with the constitu
tion of nature, and the phenomena of humanity, are
well aware how mystery surrounds them on all sides ;
how they are incessantly met with ultimate facts, —
things which confront them with a firm and resolute
sternness as facts; whose being and agency they are
obliged to admit as existing realities, but which none
amongst them can pretend to understand. In the
natural laws which belong to the operations of the
human mind, in things connected with our own con-
i 2

116 THE PEACE OF GOD.
sciousness, — with what is perceptive, intellectual, or
emotional, — there are many matters of which we can
say nothing, but that they are. And, if so, it is surely
not wonderful that this should be the case with what
pertains to . the religious life, to that which, as the
development of a natural instinct, philosophy itself
would not hesitate to call man's highest life ; but which,
as the result of redemption and renewal, is something
Divine, — higher than the highest of all manifestations,
which nature is capable of, without God.
According to the Scriptures, — our supreme guide in
all matters connected with religious faith and ex
perience, — the subject befqre us might be put, I think,
in this way : —
(1) In the first place, the peace of God in the soul of
man, or the felt blessedness of the religious life, passes
the understanding of the men of the world. They
cannot comprehend it. The very terms and phrases by
which it is expressed, though nothing but the authorized
language of the Bible, are 'foolishness to them;' or
repugnant, and therefore disliked ; or mysterious, and
needing to be translated. They may sometimes have to
listen to the sober statements of a Christian man
respecting what he has 'felt and handled, tasted and
known of the word of life,' ' the peace of God,' and ' the
powers of the world to come/ If restrained by feelings
or courtesy, they are silent, but incredulous, looking
and listening with wonder or pity ; if not restrained,
they reject the whole thing with ridicule or contempt,
as cant and jargon. Nor is this wonderful. Many
things connected with art and taste, science and philo
sophy, can be understood only through the medium of
experience. It is the same with religion ; and it is
perfectly in keeping with all mental laws, that to him
who is destitute of personal experience, the very Ian-

THE PEACE OF GOD. 117
guage of religion must be. incomprehensible. 'The
natural man receive th not the things of the Spirit of
God ; for they are foolishness unto him ; neither can he
know them, because they are spiritually discerned.'
' These things are hidden from the wise and prudent ;
but they are revealed unto babes.' To men of the
world, a Christian man may with wisdom and modesty
express himself in the words of the Master : ' I have
meat to eat which ye know not of/ The spiritual life
is Divine and secret, — ' your life is hid with Christ in
God ;' it has ' a joy with which a stranger cannot inter
meddle, and cannot know ;' it produces moral effects, for
which the worldly cannot account, and which they
despise and misrepresent because they do not under
stand them ; ' they wonder,' says Peter, ' that you run
not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil
of you/ In the time of the old prophets, it is said, that
'he that turned from iniquity was accounted mad,'
and that 'the spiritual man was esteemed a fool.' It
has been thus in every age, and is the same still,
and all from the same cause, — from the peace of God,
which constitutes the blessedness of the religious life,
passing the comprehension of all those that have it
not. (2) In the second place, the peace of God, as a felt,
conscious, and experienced blessedness, passes the under
standing of the Christian himself. Light sometimes
gushes into the intellect, illuminating all the chambers
of the mind, filling it with clear apprehensions of the
truth, a persuasion of its reahty, and the impression of
its power in a manner perfectly inexplicable and mys
terious. The man, all on a sudden, is filled with joy
and peace in beheving, from seeing, with the clearness
of open vision, matters of faith, after which he had been
toiling in doubt and darkness, and was just on the point

118 THE PEACE OF GOD.
of abandoning for ever. It is not reasoning that has
done it, nor logic, nor persuasion, though all these may
have concurred, it is the ' demonstration of the Spirit and
of power/
In the same way the load has dropped from the
shoulder, the burden of guilt has been lifted from the
soul, the troubled conscience has experienced repose, the
anxious penitent has entered into rest. The blessedness
of the man ' whose transgression is forgiven, and whose
sin is covered,' has seemed to come like an angel of
God, in a manner at once mysterious and Divine. The
heart of the man, from the disturbing power of his con
victions, was tossed and agitated like the sea in a storm ;
in a moment there has come over the spirit 'a great
calm/ as if He who commanded the waters of the lake,
had said again, ' Peace, be still.' It has been thus, too,
with taste and affection; by a sudden transition, the
reckless and impure have become like unto a little child;
the great devil has been cast out, lust and passion
have died within the man, and a new man has risen
up, clothed in righteousness and true holiness, ' after the
image of Him that created him'. So, also, in times of
great and terrible affliction, Christians have been kept
in such calm peace, as has been a perfect amazement
and mystery to themselves. Under persecution, tor
ture, and death they have been filled with a deep,
ineffable tranquillity. And so, too, in the ordinary
course of the Christian life ; — in the contemplation of
truth, in the exercise of prayer, in the engagements of
worship, and in the communion of the Church, there has
been experienced by many such a deep blessedness, as
no words were adequate to describe. They could not
account for it ; there it was, a felt reality, a thing
neither to be doubted of, nor explained; which had a
depth, and a power which passed understanding, but

THE PEACE OF GOD. 119
which could no more be denied than the existence and
reahty of material things.
(3) In the last place, the peace of God, looked at in
connexion with the facts and agencies from which it
springs, is a thing which passes the understanding even
of angelic intelligence. Religion, in the greatness of its
truths and its influence, thus literally passes ' all under
standing/ The inward joys of faith and hope, as we have
already seen, are associated with the Messiah's redemptive
work, and with the mission of the Comforter, ' the suf
ferings of Christ, and the glory that is to follow/ But,
'into these things angels desire to look.' There are
depths about them which they cannot fathom, and
heights which they cannot reach. ' The love of Christ
passeth knowledge;' its 'riches' are 'unsearchable ;' the
things of God, none knoweth, in heaven or in earth,
' but the Spirit of God.' How the work of Christ, in its
benefits and blessings, is applied to the soul, we cannot
tell. How the Spirit of God touches the heart, we do
not know ; 'such knowledge is too wonderful for us ; it
is high, we cannot attain unto it/ In the mystery of
God, of the Father and of Christ, there are ' treasures
of wisdom ' laid up, which no created intelligence will
ever comprehend, and which eternity will not exhaust.
But this mystery is precisely that, out of which flows
to man the peace of God ; the stream partakes of the
nature of its source, and hence the Divine gift of the
incomprehensible God, itself surpasses 'all under
standing.' ' Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling,
and to present you perfect before His presence with
exceeding joy, to the only wise God, our Saviour, be all
glory, honour, might, and dominion now and for ever.'
' May the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I
pray God that your whole body, soul, and spirit be pre-

120 THE PEACE OF GOD.
served blameless unto the coming of Jesus Christ.'
' For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ (of whom the whole family in heaven
and earth is named), that He would grant you, according
to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with
might by His Spirit in the inner man : that Christ may
dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted
and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with
all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth,
and height; and to know the love of Christ which
passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the
fulness of God/ 'Now unto Him that is able to do
exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that worketh in us ; unto Him
be glory, in the Church, by Christ Jesus, throughout all
ages, world without end. Amen.'

SEEMON VI.
THE PEACE OF GOD.
IV.
' The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your
hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.' — Philippians iv. 7.
Having already explained what we consider to be
meant by the ' peace of God/ and in what senses it ' sur
passes all understanding,' we propose this morning, in a
few concluding remarks, to illustrate the statement that
it can ' keep the heart and mind through Jesus Christ.'
By ' keeping' the heart and mind, we do not under
stand 'keeping possession of it,' but that, this being
understood — the peace of God being supposed to be
in the soul, cherished and maintained there as an
established resident, it will keep, in the sense of guard
ing and protecting the heart and mind ; that is, it will
preserve and defend them from those dangers to which
they are exposed, or, at least, keep them in a condition
of tranquil security. The word occurs in three other
places only in the New Testament. They are the
following : ' In Damascus, the governor, under Aretas
the king, kept the city of the Damascenes with a
garrison ; ' 1 the words * with a garrison/ being included
in the word that stands for 'kept/ they are thus
expressive of the idea which our translators associated
with it, or with it, at least, in this particular connexion.
' Before faith came, we were "kept" under the law, shut
1 2 Cor. xi. 32.

122 THE PEACE OF GOD.
up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.' 1
Here the idea is safety — preservation — as if, however,
in a sort of strong room, or protected custody. ' Who
are kept by the power of God, through faith, unto
salvation;'2 perhaps 'preserved as in a fortress! Then
there is the text : ' The peace of God shall keep your
hearts and minds,' — shall guard and preserve both from
whatever would invade or distract either.
The general import of the statement, as was formerly
intimated, I take to be this : that the experience and
enjoyment of the blessedness of the religious life is the
most powerful preservative both of the happiness and of
the virtue of man ; that it constitutes a defence against
what might disturb, and against what might corrupt
us ; against the sources of distress, and against the
assaults of temptation. The plain truth, or the whole
truth, might be put, perhaps, in this way : trouble and
sin are, by the peace of God, cast out of the human soul,
and they are kept out. The spirit of man is dispossessed
by it of the great Devil, and is protected by it from his
re-entrance ; ' a stronger than he keeps the house.'
The adversary that ' seeketh to destroy/ is successfully
resisted: 'They that are of God' have 'overcome the
wicked one/ and ' he toucheth them not,' for ' greater is
He that is in them, than he that is in the world.'
Of course, all strong, general statements like these,
might need to be modified, or have to be regarded as
admitting exceptions, or have to be explained as
apparently at variance with other statements, or with
the freedom of human agency, or with the fears and the
falHbility of the best of men. We shall not care to go
into these matters at present. Our object will be
broadly to illustrate the assertion of the text, trusting
to your good sense, and to your average intelligence to
1 Gal. iii. 23. * j Peter j g>

THE PEACE OF GOD. 123
make those modifications for yourselves, with which
all broad general statements are ordinarily understood.
The first thing to be done is, to recall, as well as you
can, the explanations you have already received of ' the
peace of God, which passeth all understanding.' As to
its constituent elements, we described, you remember,
four: — peace, from the hope of forgiveness, from spiritual
renovation, from practical consistency, and from filial
trust. ' Being justified by faith, we have peace with
God;' 'To be spiritually minded, is life and peace;1
' Great peace have they who love Thy law ;' ' Thou
wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed
upon Thee.' This is the peace of God, inasmuch as
it is what man was meant for ; what God's interposition
for him in Christ secures ; what is Divinely imparted
by the Holy Spirit ; and what is sustained and fed by
all that is included in communion with God. It passes
all understanding ; inasmuch as it is something quite
inexplicable to the men of the world ; as it is mystery,
even to* them by whom it is experienced ; and as it
is the result of those redemptive acts and processes,
into which the highest intelligences are said ' to desire
to look,' with the intimation that they cannot com
prehend them. This is the peace of God ; a blessedness
deep, real, potent ; that which, entering into and taking
possession of the soul of man, excludes by its very
nature what has troubled and what has defiled it ; and
which, keeping possession of it, it is further said, will
guard and protect it from what would trouble and
defile it again.
At first sight, to say this, seems like asserting a
truism or committing a tautology. Of course, if a man
is happy, he is happy ; if his happiness flows from or
consists in goodness, if he continues happy, he will be
good. There needs no angel from heaven to tell us

124 THE PEACE OF GOD.
that. If the peace of God is the expulsion from the
soul of the feeling of distress and the love of sin, of
course it must keep and guard it from them, for by
supposition, it is itself simply a state of freedom from
both ; a condition of mind that can have no existence
but in proportion as the individual is happy and good.
If it be itself, therefore, goodness and happiness, it
seems strange to say that it will keep a man good and
happy, or protect him from that, by which goodness
and happiness might be lost. There must certainly be
some confusion somewhere. At least, there is some
thing not easy to comprehend, or not easy to explain.
This may very likely be the case, where a subject
' passes all understanding,' and can only be apprehended
in some sort by being experienced. Still, it may not
be impossible to throw light upon it, or to find that light
may be thrown upon it by some principle or other of
intelligible explication.
That principle, however, which lies at the bottom of
it, and illustrates the way in which it comes to pass
must be looked for, I think, in that wonderful con
stitution of our nature by which we are at once the
subjects and the objects of thought. We can think about
ourselves ; look, by the reason, down upon and into
our experience and consciousness ; we can watch the
processes that are going on within us ; we can at
the same moment be sensible of both thought and
emotion, and can direct the one to the action of the
other. We have a sort of double nature ; we can judge
ourselves ; we can try, examine, pronounce sentence,
excuse, condemn. Each of us is himself, but we have
each within us another self. The one self is placed, as
it were, over the other, and is responsible for it and
governs it; it can reason on the facts that belong
to it, and can draw from them rules for its government

THE PEACE OF GOD. 125
and regulation. This other self is like another man ;
we can each look at it separately from ourselves ; it can
be the object of our approbation or blame ; we can give
it, so to speak, counsel and advice ; we can refer it to
its own experience and consciousness for motives to
determine its course or volitions ; according to that it
has known and felt, we can tell it how it ought to
determine and to act ; according as it does act, we deem
it wise, or we call it foolish ; it is like a distinct and
separate intelligence within us ; we can speak of it, to
it, refer it to itself, compare or contrast its condition at
one time with its condition at another, and draw from
both what may direct or warn. AH the time this second
being is simply ourselves ; its consciousness, our con
sciousness ; its memory, our memory ; the judge and
the judged ; the teacher and the taught ; the adviser
and the advised one.
Now, let us keep this fact in view, and see how
it may be applied to the subject before us. A sinful
man has become the subject of the Christian life, and
of a deep and real rehgious experience. 'The peace
of God, which passeth all understanding,' has been
felt by him. In proportion to his intelligence and
knowledge, his reason has apprehended the Gospel ; in
proportion to his faith in its provisions, his conscience
has been relieved and quieted ; he has ' entered into
rest ;' seen clearly the ground of justification ; has
' received the atonement/ and realised ' peace with G od
through Jesus Christ.' He has become conscious of
new spiritual instincts ; has been filled and penetrated
with a Divine sense of the beauty of holiness, and
has understood by feeling it, the joy of being in har
mony with God and with himself. Connected with
this, he has brought forth the 'fruits of the Spirit/
walked 'in the way of the Divine testimonies/ and

126 THE PEACE OF GOD.
reaped the comforts springing from 'a conscience void of
offence to God and man.' The whole has been crowned
by the sober certainty of perfect peace, in the habitual
casting of his care on God, and the vivid realisation of
the great truth that ' all things are working together for
good/ since, whatever his Heavenly Father appoints,
must, of necessity, be right and best. It is a fact, then,
let us suppose, that a man has come to have an inward
experience of aU this, and to have felt at times glowings
and gushings of the blessedness it includes, utterly
indescribable, deep, mysterious, 'passing knowledge;'
and yet so real and certain withal, that he could not
but regard it as a witness in himself, an experimental
testimony to the truth of the Gospel ; a Divine
demonstration of its power to do for us, ' above what
we are able to ask or think.'
Now, there are many ways in which a consciousness
like this will tend to ' guard ' the heart and mind, and
keep them alike from sorrow and sin. Without
attempting nicely to discriminate between what may
be intended by the two terms 'heart' and 'mind;'
how one may refer to the feelings and affections, the
other to the intellect ; how one may include the passions
and sentiments, and whatever touches on earthly things,
and the possible future of the present life, and the
other may include the conscience and the reason, and
whatever touches the higher spheres of thought and
being ; without attempting to settle or adjust matters
of this sort, it is enough to understand that the terms
taken together, must include in them every faculty of the
inner man, — all its powers and capacities, whatever be
longs to it, and that can in any way affect its moral con
dition. These are all guarded and watched over by the
peace of God/ kept in safety, and preserved from giving
way to the attacks or artifices of temptation and sin.

THE PEACE OF GOD. 127
A few brief remarks will illustrate our meaning.
(1) Suppose an attack to be made on the man's belief,
that the clear light of the understanding gets eclipsed,
dark clouds of doubt and suspicion veiling the in
ward, bright sky, beneath which the whole scheme of
Christian truth had lain revealed in its fulness and
beauty. I do not say that the man need not go to his
books and arguments, or that he will derive no benefit
from treatises on the outworks and evidences of
Christianity; but I do say that his own personal
experience of its power, the portable evidence he used
to carry about with him in the conscious adaptation
of the system to his soul, and which he can look at
as a clear distinct fact in his history will often do
more to dissipate doubt and to reveal the hollowness
of sceptical suggestions, than the most learned or
logical argument of the schools. Nay, the peace of
God, as a felt possession, will prevent the rising or
entrance of the doubt itself, will render the inward
suggestion impossible, or will instantly repel it, if it
come from without. The man may have a spiritual
perception of its fallacy, though he may not be able to
put it into words ; he will feel sure that he is right,
and the objector wrong, whoever he may be, or whence-
soever the objection springs. This may not do much to
convince or influence other minds ; but that, at present,
is not the question ; it is enough, to the security
of the man before us, that his experience guards and
protects his own.
(2) In the same way, if the thought and memory
of his old sins come to disturb the tranquillity of his
conscience, and to terrify him again with the idea of
guilt, I do not say that he is not to suffer these
recollections to rise, and not to be humbled and abased,
by the thought of them ; but I do say, that the counter

128 THE PEACE OF GOD.
recollection of the peace and joy which he had in be
lieving, the strong consolation which he consciously
enjoyed when he fled for refuge to the hope which
was set before him in the Gospel, will very legitimately
come into operation, and may prove a protection
from what would intrude upon and break his peace.
And not only so, but here, again, it is t:ue, that
the possession of peace will prevent the rising, or
resist the entrance, of that into the soul, which would
throw it back again on hopelessness and despair.
All may be repelled by the man calmly and firmly
saying to himself, ' I know in whom I believed ;' ' I
have tasted that the Lord is gracious ;' ' I will hope and
not be afraid.'
(3) In like manner the peace of God will ' guard ' the
heart against murmuring and anxiety, fear and distrust,
in relation to the affairs and events of life. When
filial confidence is strong and active, this, of course, is
the peace of God ; and then, by supposition, the heart
and mind are filled with its blessedness. But the
fortress may be attacked, care and anxiety, and a whole
rabble of earthly solicitudes may storm the soul, and aim
at reducing it to weakness and distraction ; the mind is
not always proof against the power of these, they may
often disturb what they cannot destroy: in such
circumstances the man may revert to the past facts of
his personal experience. He may be re-animated and
cheered by remembering and recalling how he had
'been kept in perfect peace, when his soul was stayed
upon God ; ' and the thought of this may give him the
victory in the hour of danger. The peace of God, not
only as a felt spiritual reality, but as having been
known and possessed, as remembered, therefore, among
the matters of inward consciousness and actual ex
perience, may protect the soul from yielding to tempta-

THE PEACE OF GOD. 129
tion, and may restore it to itself, by prompting the
sudden appeal and resolution — 'Thou hast been my
help, therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will I
rejoice.' The psalms frequently illustrate this. The one
self ' of the Psalmist looks over the facts in the con
sciousness of the other,' and bids it, as it were, to cheer
up, to take courage, and to see, in the experience of
the past, grounds for hope and reasons for repose.
' Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art
thou disquieted within me 1 Hope thou in God, for
thou shalt yet praise Him, who is the health of my
countenance and my God.'
(4) In the last place, it may be observed, that 'the
peace of God ' is a guard and preservative, strong and
sure, against all sin. The religiously happy are morally
strong : they are strong in the Lord and in the power
of His might. Duty is pleasant, and obedience easy,
because the spiritual mind is in joyous harmony with
God's requirements. The power of the religious life is
felt in subordinating to itself, in controlling and
regulating the inferior nature. It keeps the heart by
keeping in its volatile affections, not permitting them
to go forth to twine themselves round any thing for
bidden; the nature of man is purified and raised by
that Holy Spirit from whom religious peace comes ; its
tendencies, therefore, cannot be loose, vagrant, and low,
seeing that the man is born of God. Besides this, sin
is rejected, resisted, and repelled, from the knowledge
that it will damage the peace of the soul. The man's
consciousness of the blessedness of that peace, his desire
to retain it, with the thought of the calamity that would
come to him by its loss, all this makes him strong to
resist and repel temptation. The great thing, however,
is really this— the difficulty of a man's being tempted,
who is really full of the peace of God ; ' God cannot be
VOL. II. K

130 THE PEACE OF GOD.
tempted with evil,' the good are 'partakers of the Divine
nature/ the ' wicked one toucheth them not ;' religious
blessedness dilating the soul, it is not easy for the devil
himself to put before the mind what can be a tempta
tion. A rich man cannot be tempted to some petty theft,
— the sight of a shilling cannot endanger his honour or
honesty; a prince or a nobis cannot be tempted by
what would involve them in some trifling meanness ; to
a sober man there is no temptation in the sight of a
tavern ; to a decent man, none in the low indulgence of
the tap-room ; to a virtuous man, none in the disgusting
and repelling solicitations of the harlot. There is no
difficulty in such persons putting away from them such
things. They may be temptations to others, but they
are none to them. Their inward condition guards and
keeps their hearts and minds. In the same way,
the spiritual and spiritually happy man, who is
living in the blessedness of the Divine hfe, cannot be
affected by ordinary temptations, or by what are
temptations to ordinary men. What might overcome
others are nothing to him; he is raised above them,
he has lost the feeling of affinity with them, his state
of mind shields him from their influence, the peace
of God guards and protects him, so that he cannot
feel attracted towards sin, or drawn from duty by the
miserable offers which the world, the flesh, and the
devil, have the power to make to him. In this way, I
think, we may illustrate to ourselves the power of the
' peace of God,' or the felt blessedness of the religious
life, to guard and keep the mind and heart.
It is not necessary to dwell on the concluding
clause, stating that it does this ' through Jesus Christ.'
We all know, that as He is the object of faith, so also He
is the source or medium of spiritual influence. The
peace of God can exist only through the knowledge of

THE PEACE OF GOD. 131
Christ ; it can be maintained only through His grace and
blessing. It is a Christian endowment, it springs from
Christ being received, it is enlarged by His being loved,
by our seeking to have that mind in us which was in
Him, by ' putting Him on,' by ' so walking ' that ' the
spirit of life in Christ Jesus may deliver us from the
law of sin and death.' ' He is exalted to give repentance
and remission of sins ; ' ' we are quickened by Him/
' with Him raised/ and ' made to sit together with Him
in heavenly places/ He governs the Church, ad
ministers discipline, bestows gifts, and preserves to the
end those ' that come unto God by Him.' In virtue of
His work on earth, we, as sinners, obtain peace at first ;
if, as justified, any man sin, it is by His work in heaven
that peace is restored ; ' we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous/ He 'is the way,
the truth, and the life;' 'no man cometh unto the
Father, but by Him;' by Him all grace necessary alike
for action and joy continues to be imparted to them that
believe. If the Gospel be true, it is the greatest and
most momentous of all truths ; if there really be a
Christ, one anointed of God, sent to us, and set forth
as the Redeemer of the lost, every thing connected
with man's religion must centre in Him. It is perfectly
natural, therefore, to read — 'from Him, and by Him, and
for Him are all things.' ' The head of every man is
Christ,' and ' He is head of all principality and power ; '
' He is the head over all things to His Church, which is
His body, the fulness of Him which filleth all in all.'
Through Him may your hearts and minds be kept and
guarded from suffering and from sin, by the daily
supply of His grace and spirit maintaining within you,
in conscious fulness, 'the peace of God, which passeth
all understanding ! '

K 2

SEEMON VII.
MYSTERIES TO ANGELS.
' Which things the angels desire to look into.' — 1 Petee i. 12.
The Scriptures abound with sublime representations
of the character and government of God. There is a
combined view of both in the triumphal song of Moses,
worthy of repeated recollection : ' Who is" like unto
Thee, 0 Lord, among the gods "? who is like unto
Thee % Glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing
wonders.' Here is a description of the essential purity
of the Divine nature, and the profound reverence with
which He is to be worshipped, combined with the state
ment of the fact that His government of the world and
the Church abounds with such marvellous events, as are
adapted to excite the admiration of His offspring. He
is sometimes described more generally as 'the God that
doeth wonders;' as if this were a peculiar perfection; as
if it had been displayed so often, and had drawn so
repeatedly the attention of His creatures, as to have
furnished an appropriate epithet by which He might be
distinguished. Still farther, to shew that the develop
ment of this perfection is not confined to the govern
ment of the world and man, but that it is seen in other
parts and places of His dominion, and is gazed upon by

MYSTERIES TO ANGELS. 133
other and higher natures, He is described by the
prophet Daniel, as the God that doeth wonders not only
in earth but in heaven ; as if He sometimes surpassed
the penetration and baffled the ingenuity of the eldest
and the wisest of the spirits that surround His throne,
teaching them to feel the infinitude of His wisdom, and
the greatness of His power ; shewing that even in that
world of light, humility is a necessary virtue, and that
it behoves its inhabitants not only to exclaim 'great
and marveUous are Thy works/ but to acquiesce and to
adore where they cannot comprehend.
Were there no such statements in the Scriptures as
those which have now been adduced, still, the fact to
which we have referred, would follow, from the
essential perfection of the Divine nature. It is not
more true that an insect never can be a man, than that
man never can be God ; but neither is it more true that
a man never can be God, than that an angel never can
be God. The highest created nature never can be
Divine; it never can possess infinite knowledge; it never
can receive into itself the treasures of the infinite
intellect; it never can ' find out the Almighty to perfec
tion/ Supposing it to five for thousands of centuries
before the very throne of God, doing nothing but
receive incessant acquisitions from the Divine under
standing, yet, with all this, it does not advance a single
step towards equality with Him; there is still an
immeasurable extent of knowledge beyond it, and there
would always be this ; so that there never could come a
time when it might not, at any moment, be surprised
and overwhelmed by some marvellous manifestation of
the mind of God. In fact, it will always be the case,
throughout all the coming eternity, with respect to all
the inhabitants of all worlds, that their ignorance will
surpass their knowledge in an infinite degree. There

134 MYSTERIES TO ANGELS.
will be a far greater number of subjects of which they
will know nothing, than of which they will know
something ; and there will be far more of which they
will know merely something, than of which they will
know all.
From these general representations and reasonings,
you will readily perceive that there is nothing won
derful in our being told that there are things into
which angels desire to look. The wonder would have
been if it had been said, there were not such things, —
if it had been said, either that their knowledge was
so perfect, as to include the complete comprehension
of all subjects, or that their minds were so passive
as never to be agitated by a wave of hallowed
curiosity. Seeing, then, that the wonder is not in the simple
fact that angels should be sensible of ignorance, and
feel anxious to pore over and to penetrate those subjects,
which at once excite their interest and surpass their
comprehension, the point of the text must be sought
for in something else than in the mere enunciation of
this fact; what that something else is, all of you, I am
persuaded, have already perceived. It is not that there
are subjects which angels contemplate with eager gaze
and continued assiduity, but that we should be told
what these subjects are; that it should actually be
revealed to man upon earth, what it is that constitutes
the wonder of heaven, and still more, that he should
find that these subjects concern himself; that they are
connected with his condition and his destiny, that they
belong to the conduct of Jehovah in relation to our
world, and not to any of the other departments of the
Divine administration. It is this which confers upon
this passage its grand peculiarity, which invests it with
surpassing interest, and fills it with varied instruction.

MYSTERIES TO ANGELS. 135
Allow me to direct your attention to a brief illustra
tion of the following particulars : —
First, the things themselves which angels investigate.
Secondly, the manner in which their investigation is
conducted. Thirdly, the lessons conveyed to the world and the
Church both by the fact and the manner of this angelic
employment. I. The things themselves which angels investigate.
What these things are we learn from the previous part
of the chapter, and especiaUy from the previous part of
the twelfth verse itself in which the text occurs. The
things into which the angels desire to look, are de
scribed in other words, as * the things which are now
reported by those who preach the Gospel;' that is, they
are the facts of which the Gospel consists ; for the
Gospel is a system of facts, it is a statement of certain
things which have been done, or which are doing, on
behalf of a sinful world ; and it is these things — these
facts or transactions — which the inhabitants of heaven
are represented as bending from their seats with an
earnest desire to explore and to comprehend.
Now, what these facts are might easily be ascer
tained by taking the words of the twelfth verse, which
have already been referred to, and by dwelling for a
moment upon them : the words are, 'the things which
are reported by those who preach the Gospel.' The
question then occurs : ' What were these things'?' What
did those who preached the Gospel say \ To what facts
did they refer 1 Did they speak of any person or
persons, and did they declare any thing remarkable
respecting them? It is evident that the answer to these
questions, if the answer can be furnished, will give the
answer to that in relation to the objects of angelic
inquiry. Whatever the things were which the preachers

136 MYSTERIES TO ANGELS.
of the Gospel reported, which they declared to' their
hearers as constituting their message, these are the
things into which angels desire to look.
Now, it would be very easy to ascertain what it was,
which the first preachers of the Gospel reported. We
should only have to refer to the sermon of Peter on the
day of Pentecost, to the address of the same apostle
to the multitude in the Temple or to the Judges of the
Sanhedrim, to the discourse of Stephen, the exposition of
Philip, the speeches of Paul and Barnabas, or to any of
those passages explanatory of the Gospel, contained in
the Acts of the Apostles. We should have to refer also,
for more minute information, to the Apostolic epistles,
to the accounts which the writers often give of the
manner in which they discharged their office at first,
and of the subjects which they made the habitual theme
of their ministry. In these epistles are also to be found
declarations against error, arguments in support of the
truth, exhortations to constancy in the belief of what
had been delivered to them by their authorized in
structors, and references to the great facts upon which
the apostles themselves reposed, and in which they
rejoiced with serene satisfaction. All these resources
are at hand, and furnish a most exphcit and extended
reply to the question. They would, indeed, furnish a
reply so extended, and include so many points, that it
would be impossible to enumerate them in a single
discourse. For the sake, therefore, of brevity, we shall
confine ourselves, in the present investigation, to a few
remarks on the immediate context, which will sufficiently
illustrate the present particular.
The things into which angels desire to look may,
then, I think, be said, in one word, according to the
expression in the eleventh verse, to be ' the sufferings of
Christ, and the glory that should follow.' This, it is

MYSTERIES TO ANGELS. 137
said, is what was testified beforehand by the prophets,
when they spake of the salvation of the Church. This
it was which they desired to investigate, that they
might understand the time, and manner of the time,
when it should occur ; and this, which they spake of,
and which they studied, is that which did come to pass
in the time of the apostles, and was by them, reported
to the world. This, therefore, may justly be said to be
the great object towards which the admiration of
angels is directed.
' The sufferings of Christ and the glory that should
follow.' The principal particulars included in this
general expression are the following : —
1. Christ's incarnation. This was necessary, that He
might be capable of suffering. ' He was made flesh and
dwelt among us.' He emptied Himself of His glory,
and appeared in the likeness of man ; as ' the children
were partakers of flesh and blood, He, also, Himself
likewise took part of the same ; ' and He did this in
order that, ' through death, He might destroy him that
had the power of death/ in order that by suffering
He might be ' made perfect as the captain of salva
tion.' This fact, of the incarnation of the Son of God,
was necessarily involved in that of His sufferings.
And to this, therefore, we may naturally suppose the
angelic attention to be directed. Perhaps this circum
stance may be referred to by the Apostle when he says :
' Great is the mystery of godliness : God was mani
fested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels;'
contemplated by them with awe and surprise, while
appearing in our world in association with a sensitive
and suffering nature. The incarnation of Christ might
have drawn downwards the attention of heaven
had He appeared upon earth to triumph and to reign,
instead of to suffer, — had He appeared in the most

138 MYSTERIES TO ANGELS.
splendid rank ,of humanity, and assumed the most
elevated position of the species ; to Him all rank, and
station, and grandeur, and opulence were poor and
despicable things ; and those who in heaven had
been commanded to worship Him, and who had veiled
their faces before His glory there, would have seen
nothing to admire in His unlimited possession of the
distinctions of earth, nothing but the mysterious con
descension which could induce Him, in any form, to
visit it at all.
But, in the second place, His sufferings themselves
were objects to which as facts, the angels are repre
sented as directing their regards. These included all
that was physical, all that flowed from His capacity to
experience pain by hunger, thirst, fatigue, death : all
that was moral, — whatever lacerated sensibihty by the
insults and ridicule, the unfeeling contempt, and the
cruel mockings of His exasperated persecutors ; all
that was spiritual, whatever could impart pain to His
pure and immaculate spirit by the presentation before
it of positive sin ; and all that was mental, that
mysterious amazement which overwhelmed and op
pressed Him, when His soul experienced its painful
travail, and when His body, from the workings of His
mind, was suffused with a perspiration tinged with
blood. The endurance of these sufferings, their number,
their continuance, their intensity, constitute, another
subject of angelic contemplation. It is very probable
that all the facts, entering into the system of salvation,
were transacted in the view of angels, without their
knowing what was to be done before it was revealed ;
without their knowing what was to follow as the next
step in the series of wonders, and without their being
able to comprehend, at first sight, the meaning of the

MYSTERIES TO ANGELS. 139
mystery. If such were the case, we can easily under
stand how the sufferings of an innocent and virtuous
being — and that being the Lord of glory — a thing so
marvellous and so new in the moral administration of
a righteous God would excite their amazement and
stimulate their curiosity. It is true, that Moses and
Elias, when they appeared with Christ upon the Mount,
spake with Him respecting the decease which He was
to accomplish at Jerusalem ; but it is also to be remem
bered that they were glorified men — not angels; and
that from the distinguished offices they had sus
tained in the Church, it is probable they might be
admitted to a larger and clearer acquaintance with- the
councils of God in relation to that Church, than the
angels who were to be instructed and taught by study
ing attentively its origin, its history, its struggles, and
its triumph.
In the third place, the glories that followed the
sufferings of Christ are represented as another subject
of celestial meditation. These glories, I apprehend,
include every thing connected with the consummation
of the personal work of the Redeemer, the establish
ment of His kingdom in the world, and the everlasting
salvation of His Church. The glories that succeeded
the sufferings of Christ, therefore, were : — the glory of
His resurrection from the dead; the glory of His
ascension into heaven ; the glory of His triumphant
entry into the holiest of all ; and the glory of the posi
tion which He occupies, and the work which He accom
plishes. Then, besides these, there was the glory of
the descent of the Spirit ; and the continued grandeur
and magnificence of the signs, and wonders, and
miracles which were achieved by the apostles wherever
they went as the heralds of the Gospel and the ambas
sadors of Christ. And, still farther, besides all these

140 MYSTERIES TO ANGELS.
outward indications of the glory which succeeded the
sufferings of Christ in the establishment of His visible
kingdom upon earth, there were the moral and spiritual
glories which surpass every other, and which continue
to be seen, in the converting and sanctifying influences
of the truth. By the preaching of the cross, or the
declaration of the doctrine and the fact, respecting the
sufferings of Christ, angels saw such glories follow, as
had not been anticipated ; multitudes were born to
God, passed from darkness to light, felt the knowledge
of the glory of God shine upon them, and from being
'dead in trespasses and in sins/ 'serving divers lusts and
pleasures,' 'slaves to the desires of the flesh and of the
mind, hateful and hating one another ;' from all this
they saw them rise into the rank of reasonable and
religious beings, become children of light, conformed to
the image of Christ, and called to glory and virtue.
And glories of this character are still flowing from the
sufferings of Christ ; and their eternal consummation,
by their being succeeded by others of a still higher and
purer effulgence, is confidently expected by the Church.
This is referred to in the preceding verses of the present
chapter, in which the apostle speaks of behevers being
raised to ' an inheritance, incorruptible, undeffled, and
that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for those
that are kept by the power of God, through faith, unto
that salvation which is ready to be revealed in the last
time/ When that time comes, and when that salvation
is revealed, in the entire perfection of the souls and
bodies of aU the redeemed, then — and not tiU then-
will be seen the entire manifestation of that glory, into
the process and the perfection of which, the angels of
heaven desire to look.
II. The manner in which their investigation is con
ducted.

MYSTERIES TO ANGELS. 141
This seems to be expressed in a very strong remark
able manner by the words of the -text. To give the full
force of them, it would be necessary to render them in
this way, ' into which things, the angels earnestly desire
to look attentively! The idea of strong and anxious
interest, combined with steady and persevering effort, is
intended to be conveyed, and is conveyed by the
apostle. There is conveyed too, in the context, by
the words, the notion of their bending down, as if
their eyes were intently fixed on the object which
they were anxious to comprehend ; just as a person,
solicitous about any writing which he finds it diffi
cult to decipher, places it before him in all positions,
looks at it steadily and long, and, to use a well-
known and powerfully appropriate expression, pores
over it with a view, if possible, to ascertain its signifi
cance. Or, rather, there is an allusion, in the image
presented by the apostle's phraseology, to the figures
of the cherubim that were placed over the ark of the
covenant, in the Most Holy Place, and which, being
placed in a bending attitude, seemed to be stooping
down, as if endeavouring with humihty and devotion, and
yet with intense effort, to ascertain what the ark con
tained, or to comprehend the meaning of the institute.
The manner in which angelic natures are re
presented as pursuing their enquiries into the plan
of salvation, may be further illustrated by the way
in which the prophets are said to have pursued
theirs. 'Of this salvation/ it is said in the ioth verse
of this chapter — the prophets have enquired and
searched diligently.' They 'enquired/ using every
means in their power, conversing one with another,
musing and meditating on whatever was revealed of
the Divine intentions, and comparing together the
different discoveries of different seers, that they might

142 MYSTERIES TO ANGELS.
understand, by books, the pleasure of the supreme. They
searched— the word is very emphatic — they searched
as those do, who search for grains of gold hidden
among sand or compacted with ore, who endeavour to
separate the one from the other, that they may exult
in the possession of the pure and precious metal. In
this way the prophets are said to have enquired into
the facts which they announced respecting the sufferings
of Christ and the glory that should follow ; and it is not
to be supposed that the enquiries of heaven would be less
intense, varied, or vigorous, than the enquiries of earth.
On the whole, the way in which the text describes
the investigation of evangelical truth by superior spirits
would seem to imply that they attach immense im
portance to it ; that they feel it to be pregnant with
instruction even to them : that they regard it as worthy
of their serious and protracted contemplation ; that
they give it that, and give it with humility and awe,
feeling that it is at once holy and mysterious, involving
views of the Divine character and government, which,
even by celestial natures are not to be intently under
stood, and which, when understood, command the ad
miration of the mind as much as they before excited its
enquiry. Into these things the angels desire to look.
They desire to look because they wish to understand;
when they understand something, they wish to under
stand more ; the more they comprehend, the more they
admire : appetite grows with gratification, knowledge
only increases curiosity. The subject, as they persevere
in the study of it, only discloses its profounder depths
and displays its greater amplitude ; they are rewarded
for past attention, and excited to continued assiduity ;
they attain much, but they feel that the great whole can
never be comprehended ; they desire to know it, but it
passeth knowledge. And this is their happiness ; their

MYSTERIES TO ANGELS. 143
pleasure is their employment ; the one is always in
creasing and the other can never be exhausted. The
object of their study is infinite and boundless, ' it is the
mystery of God, of the Father, and of Christ, in whom
are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.'
The intense and assiduous attention with which the
angels investigate the system of mercy evinces the
profound interest with which they regard it. There
are four sources from which that interest may arise, or
four kinds of interest connected with the contemplation.
In the first place, an interest in relation to God; inasmuch
as the subject illustrates His perfections in a manner
peculiar and incomparable, affording lessons respecting
His wisdom, His mercy, His rectitude, His holiness, and
His wrath, which are not to be learnt from any thing
besides. In the second place, an interest in relation to
themselves ; by the work of Christ they are themselves
brought into a new and intimate connection with man.
It is said that by this means not only is God reconciled
to men, but men and angels are reconciled to each
other ; the things in heaven and the things on earth
are harmonized ; the spirits that kept their first estate,
and the spirits that are brought back again from one of
apostacy, are gathered together under one Head, and
Messiah reigns and rejoices over both. We may at
present be insensible to this, but angels feel it: they
feel it on their own account ; they feel that those in
whose condemnation as rebels they must have acquiesced,
had they been condemned, they are permitted to regard
as brethren, they are allowed to love and to look upon
as constituting one great and happy family with them
selves. In the third place, they feel an interest in
relation to man ; that is, as it concerns himself. They
know the worth of the soul, the value of existence, the
terrors of the curse, the joys of virtue, the happiness of

144 MYSTERIES TO ANGELS.
reposing in the bosom of God ; they know the degra
dation of sin, the hell of disordered and polluted affec
tions, with all the calamities and consequences of trans
gression ; and, therefore, they are interested in a subject
which exhibits God's method of saving lost sinners, and
restoring them to happiness and heaven. Hence it is
that they not only look at the sufferings of Christ, but
at the glories which follow ; those glories, which consist
in the triumphs of Truth in individual conversions, and
which will consist in the universal displays of its power.
They rejoice over one sinner that repents; and they will
rejoice still more when it shall be proclaimed through
the whole territory of heaven that 'the kingdoms of
this world are become the kingdoms of God, and of His
Anointed.' In the last place, they feel an interest in
relation to other orders of being, and the preservation
and formation of their virtue. Should other classes of
creatures be called into existence and placed in circum
stances of trial, it is perhaps felt that the knowledge of
the Divine conduct in relation to the Church, supposing
it to be imparted, would furnish the most powerful of
all motives (because the most perfect and impressive
view of the Divine character) to devotion and obedience.
Since God has illustrated the principles of His govern
ment in the person of His Son, in a manner which
never was attempted before, and which never can be
repeated, it is this we may suppose, rather than any
mere abstract view of His perfections, which now
constitutes, if we may so speak, the conservative element
of the virtue of the universe.
III. The lessons conveyed to the world and the
Church, both by the fact and the manner of this angelic
employment. First : In the first place, we are taught in general,
that there is something incomprehensible and mysterious

MYSTERIES TO ANGELS. 145
in God's method of saving the world. The obvious
sense of the passage corroborates this suggestion ; the
language implies that there is something about the
sufferings and work of Christ which even angels feel to
require prolonged attention fully to comprehend ; they
are conscious that they are called to grapple with a
subject that surpasses them ; it has recesses which they
cannot fathom and heights which they cannot reach.
They desire to look into it ; they had not accomphshed
the investigation at the time the apostle wrote ; they
had not succeeded in fully penetrating the matter,
though all the facts had transpired before them. Though
they had observed the opening of every successive
scene and the development of every transaction for four
thousand years ; and that too with the advantage of
high capacities and elevated genius — capacities un
injured by sin, unimpaired by apostacy, with natures
probably that never weary, and with attention that
never wanders ; with all this, they were still desiring to
look into and to linger upon the subject when the apostle
wrote, and they are yet doing the same, and they will
do it for ever. Now if these things be so (and so they
certainly are), then we are taught that there is a
mystery connected with our faith ; and that they who
deny this, and who reject the doctrines of our Lord's
divinity, atonement and sacrifice, will find it difficult
to make their system agree with this view of angelic
embarrassment and angelic occupation. If the Gospel
be nothing but the appearance upon earth of a good
and virtuous, though fallible and peccable man ; if it
be nothing but the discovery by Him of the efficacy of
repentance, and the certainty of a future life, then I do
not see that there is anything so wonderful in this as to
task the faculties and overpower the perceptions of
superior spirits. I am well aware that feeling this
VOL. II. L

146 MYSTERIES TO ANGELS.
difficulty the advocates of the system we oppose have
been led to deny either the existence of angels alto
gether, or that such beings are referred to in the text.
They interpret the term as intended to mean the pro
phets of the Old Testament and the apostles and
preachers of the New, who were angels or messengers
to the world, and who did not fully comprehend the
subjects on which they spoke. But this interpretation
is not only inconsistent with the expression of the
apostle, which is not ' the angels/ as it stands in our
version, but simply ' angels,' referring to no antecedent,
but describing the whole celestial hierarchy, and intro
ducing anew and additional idea into the whole passage;
but it is inconsistent with certain favourite dogmas of
the objectors themselves. Their system is plain and
simple, and rational, because it gets rid of all mysteries,
and everybody can understand it ; but the apostles
could not understand it. To the angels of the primitive
churches there was something about it which they could
not reach ; but there is nothing now which we of this
age cannot fully explain. Such is the contradiction in
which the rejection of the truth necessarily ends. On
the plain principles of scriptural interpretation all is
consistent, both angels and men feel the sublimity and
grandeur of the Gospel, for unquestionably 'great is the
mystery of godliness/
Second : Pride and indifference in relation to Chris
tianity are rebuked.
Angels, before whom the whole universe opens its
ample and opulent page, who can feel an interest in
the investigation of every subject within the circle of
science and the economy of nature, turn from them
all to find in the system of redemption the fittest field
for the employment of their faculties, and the richest
reward of their intellectual exertions. They do not

MYSTERIES TO ANGELS. 147'
feel that they stoop by professing to be religious, or that
they descend from their proper and their proud eleva
tion by looking upon such subjects, as if they were only
adapted to weaker and inferior natures. No; that
which man in his haughtiness despises, they, with in
effable humility and modesty approach. They study
and explore it, and they find it an exhaustless source of
employment and instruction. ' To the principalities
and powers in heavenly places is made known, by the
Church, the manifold wisdom of God! And yet proud
and presumptuous man, 'who is but of yesterday and
knoweth nothing/ whose capacities are not for a moment
to be compared with those of the angels that are great
in might, he can reject this wisdom as if it were foolish
ness ; he can cast upon it a hasty glance, and then
coolly abandon it for ever ; or he can five in a world in
which it is developed in its principles and its power,
and yet never feel the slightest curiosity to investigate
either. Marvellous infatuation, and not less marvellous
indifference. The contempt of the infidel and the
apathy of the careless are equally condemned by the
importance attached in heaven to the knowledge of
the Gospel.
Third : Rashness and indolence in the study of the
Scriptures are condemned.
There may neither be the pride nor the apathy to
which we have just adverted, and yet there may be
much in the character which the angelic example would
condemn. In some there is an impatience of enquiry,
or a want of reverence, or an inadequate impression of
the deep seriousness with which all religious reading
should be pursued; and in others there are such languid
and feeble efforts to acquire anythrng like just con
ceptions of the truth, as indicate that their hearts are
little alive to its attractions and its grandeur, I fear
L 2

148 MYSTERIES TO ANGELS.
that we all have reason to lament over the frequent
appearance of something like these deficiencies in our
selves. Let us study then to correct them by observing
the patient attention and the devout attitude with
which high and holy beings are represented as studying
the covenant of grace. Let us remember that in God's
fight we shall see light, that holiness and humility are
the best handmaids to knowledge, that He whom we
serve regards the heart rather than the intellect, that
the meek He will guide in judgment, ' that the secret of
the Lord is with them that fear him, and He will show
them His covenant.'
Fourthly : Hope is encouraged in relation to the
ultimate perfection of the Church, and the discoveries
that may be expected in the succeeding eternity.
It is the prerogative of wisdom to preserve a proportion
between means and ends — not to excite expectation by
a magnificent apparatus to be employed for producing
some limited effect. The wisdom of God is seen in
nature, producing in the most beautiful manner the
most stupendous results by means most admirable for
their simplicity. In redemption, He is represented by
a strong figure, as having exhausted Himself, as having
poured all the riches of His wisdom into the con
struction of the plan for the salvation of His Church.
The very means employed are such as surpass angelic
comprehension, • and overpower the ' sons of light ' by
their stupendous magnificence. What then may we
expect the final result to be, of which these are the
procuring cause \ What are the ' exceeding riches of
glory ' which are to flow from ' the exceeding riches of
grace V And when we arrive in that world and in that
state in which this consummation shall be enjoyed, what
visions may we expect to open upon our view of those
great subjects, of which, at present, our most exalted

MYSTERIES TO ANGELS. 149
conceptions are inadequate and mean? Who can tell
what 'God hath laid up for those that love Him?' Who
can conceive the surpassing lustre of that place which
Christ is preparing for them that are His \ And who
can calculate the magnitude and the grandeur of those
views which, by the constant accessions of the future
life, we may at length come to have of everything
connected with the system of redemption ? We can
hardly hope that now, but we may hope that then, the
prayer of the apostle will in some measure be answered
in us, 'that the eyes of our understanding being
opened, we may be able to comprehend with all saints
the breadth and length, the depth and height, and to
know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, and
be filled with all the fulness of God.'

SEEMON VIII.
GETHSEMANE.
' Then cometh Jesus unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto his
disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. And he took
with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be
sorrowful and very heavy. Then saith he unto them, My soul is
exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, fyc' — Matthew xxvi. 36-46.
The sufferings of Christ are as prominent an object
in the New Testament as any thing concerning Him.
He is as much spoken of for what He suffered, as for
what He did ; as much remembered for what He endured,
as for what He taught. He was ' a man of sorrows, and
acquainted with grief/ Grief and He, if we may so
speak, walked together as intimate associates ; were
united, as inseparable friends. They were acquainted
not merely by 'the hearing of the ear/ or as by a casual
glance and distant recognition, a short and hasty
interview, and anon separation and departure ; there
was close and constant intimacy, an intimacy that
grew closer and deeper, till the one, as it were, merged
in the other ; till Jesus in a manner disappeared, being
entirely hidden and overshadowed by grief. His self-
possession seemed to forsake Him ; His calm greatness
to be obscured and eclipsed. He, who had required of
others so often and so strongly, that they should bear

GETHSEMANE. 151
the cross, lay, when His own was in sight, prostrate on
the earth, convulsed, alarmed, and in tears ; utterly
overwhelmed by His feelings, in a manner and to an
extent that, at first sight, excites thoughts which it is
hardly proper to express ; as if what is recorded
appeared to involve something that was pusillanimous,
abject, and unworthy of Himself.
The three great scenes in the life of the Lord, on
which an earnest and thoughtful man will often dwell,
are the wilderness, the mount, and the garden; in
other words, the temptation, the transfiguration, and the
agony in Gethsemane. The Cross, indeed, comes after
all, and concludes all ; but that, properly understood, is
included in the last : it is the close and the consumma
tion of what begins in Gethsemane. In this respect
Calvary is but the continuance, or the summit, of the
Mount of Olives. The temptations of the wilderness
strengthened and prepared the Christ for action ; He
came forth from the successful conflict ' in the power of
the Spirit,' and so spake and so acted, that all men mar
velled. Then came His glorious interview and familiar
converse with Moses and Elias. The Divine effulgence
of the bright cloud, and the remembered tones of the
Paternal voice, cheered His spirit in the prospect of the
'decease which He was to accomplish at Jerusalem,'
He came down from the place of vision, and instantly
set Himself to proceed thither. Thither He came, and,
on ' the night on which He was betrayed/ knowing that
'His hour was come, and that the things concerning Him
had an end/ He went, as He was wont, to the Mount of
Olives, to a garden whither He was accustomed to
resort for converse and prayer with His disciples. To
this sacred place, this favourite retreat, He came once
more ; the Twelve were with Him, all but one ; and
that one ' knew the place,' and was expected soon to be

152 GETHSEMANE.
there too, though in company with those that would
disturb its serenity and pollute its sacredness. The
greater number of those that accompanied Him, Jesus
left by themselves, taking with Him into a more
retired part of the garden, Peter and the two sons of
Zebedee, James and John, and ' He began to be sorrow
ful and very heavy.' Then commenced that mysterious
eclipse of His holy, calm, and Divine soul, which three
out of the four Evangelists have described. This, we
propose to make the subject of our present meditation.
In venturing to approach it, we desire and pray that
we may be enabled to do so, with that humility,
reverence, and awe, which it becomes us to feel, in
treading upon a spot so holy, and gazing upon a
spectacle so mysterious ; may we feel, where it may
be impossible to reason, and adore when we cannot
comprehend. I. The first thing to which we direct attention, is the
intense severity of the suffering which now overwhelmed
and oppressed the mind of Christ.
In noticing the indications of this, and indeed, in our
remarks on the whole subject, we shall not confine our
selves to what is stated by any one of the Evangelists,
but shall collect and combine what is most observable
in their separate accounts. These separate accounts
are in perfect keeping and harmony with each other ;
at the same time words and expressions are varied by
the different writers, and some incidents and circum
stances noticed by one, that the others omit ; only
showing that while they agree in substance because
they describe a real occurrence, they are distinguished
by that diversity of manner that proves them to have
been distinct and independent witnesses.
The extreme intenseness and severity of Christ's
sufferings in the garden, are indicated by several

GETHSEMANE. 153
circumstances. In the first place, it appears, that as
soon as He had retired with the three disciples who
were permitted to be near Him, the internal conflict
commenced, and a sudden change took place in His
appearance. Matthew says, that 'He began to be
sorrowful and very heavy;' and Mark, varying the
expression, uses instead of the word 'sorrowful/ the
phrase ' sore amazed ;' ' He was sore amazed, and
very heavy.' The original terms are all singularly
forcible. They are very inadequately rendered in our
(authorised) version, and indeed hardly admit of being
represented by any single words in our language.
They imply, that He was utterly overwhelmed by
irresistible dejection and anguish of mind ; that He was
struck through, as it were, by the most piercing and
bitter sorrow ; that He was astounded and alarmed, as
if taken by surprise, astonished at the magnitude of the
trial, and wondering at His own weakness before it.
There was a complete prostration of the bodily powers ;
a suspension or deprivation, so to speak, of nervous
energy ; he was ' very heavy! Both Matthew and
Mark record this — very heavy ; that is, He was so
oppressed that it seemed to stupify Him ; He appeared
as if incapable of rousing or exerting His faculties
or His faith. He was stunned as by a blow. His
internal strength seemed to fail and forsake Him, and
He appeared in danger of passively yielding to the
onset of sorrow, as if it were hopeless to bear up
against it.
The next particular that shows the severity of His
suffering, is the language in which He Himself describes
it : ' My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death ;'
'exceeding sorrowful ;' the word signifies to be entirely
surrounded by sorrow, for grief to be pressing on the
spirit on all sides, as the atmosphere presses on the body,

154 GETHSEMANE.
or water on an object when immersed. Exceeding sorrow
ful ' even unto death.' It seemed to Him, if I may dare
so to express it — it seemed to Him as if His soul must
die ; as if His spirit was enduring a mortal pang ; or, at
least, as if the grief that consumed it, must speedily ter
minate His bodily fife. The distressing state of mental
and physical exhaustion, of utter helplessness, and, at
first, of apparent self-abandonment, to which Christ was
reduced, is depicted very forcibly in some of the psalms
in which Messiah is undoubtedly the speaker. ' I am a
worm and no man.' 'I am poured out like water.'
' My heart is like wax ; it is melted in the midst of my
bowels/ ' My strength is dried up ; Thou hast brought
me into the dust of death/ 'I am consumed by the
blow of Thine hand/
The next circumstance by which the crushing and
agonising nature of the Lord's sufferings is in
dicated, may be seen, I think, in His earnest appeal
to His three friends : ' tarry ye here, and watch with
me.' These words, in one aspect, at least, in which
they may be viewed, seem to betray an anxiety
not to be left alone ; a sort of painful, restless dread,
lest the disciples should depart, or that He should
not be able to find them, and fall back upon their
sympathy, when He returned from the spot to which
He was about to retire. And here, as appropriately as
anywhere else, I may make the remark that it especi
ally behoves us, in thinking and speaking of the
sufferings of Messiah, to remember His humanity. The
humanity of Christ is as much a truth, perhaps as great
a truth, as His divinity. While, in some mysterious
manner, the Messiah was God manifest in the flesh :
He was also truly and properly a man ; He had a body
and a soul, and was susceptible of the same pains and
affections with ourselves ; in fact, it was only His

GETHSEMANE. 155
humanity that could suffer, and in that He was ' tried
in all points, even as we are/ 'learning obedience
by the things that He suffered/ and ' through suffering,
being made perfect.' His human affections, and the
nature of His personal temperament as a man, seem to
me to be indicated by the anxiety He expressed for His
friends to tarry with Him and watch. There are
men so formed and constituted that they care nothing
about, and feel no want of, the sympathy of others.
They feel a strong personal independence ; a sufficiency
in themselves for any thing they have to accomplish or
endure, to which the company or concurrence of others
can add nothing, and which even their opposition and
ridicule cannot diminish. There are other men, more
distinguished by tenderness than strength, whose
susceptibilities are acute and keen, tenderly alive to
insult or friendship, and by whom the sympathies of
friendship are greatly valued as a frequent source of
consolation and vigour. This latter class are not in
capable of acting alone ; they can accomplish unaided
labours and endure solitary suffering, but they cannot
do either from natural and constitutional inflexibility ;
they need, in order to do it, to feel laid upon them the
stern and strong necessity of duty; to be constantly
kept up by this; and even then, to be without the com
pany and concurrence, to be deprived of the sympathy,
or exposed to the opposition of others, is exquisitely
painful. To this latter class, Jesus, considered as a
man, belonged as a man. His natural susceptibilities
and feelings were acute and tender. I think it
likely that there was something of elaborate fine
ness and perfection about His bodily structure, that
not only rendered it singularly sensible to pain, but
gave increased intensity to the feelings of His exqui
sitely soft and loving spirit. It is intimated that He

156 GETHSEMANE.
was keenly sensible to 'shame' and insult; He felt
' reproach ;' and He clung to the society and sympathy
of His friends. They were endeared to Him by ' con
tinuing with Him in His temptations ;' He especially
and anxiously wished them to be near when His sorrow
was great upon Him, and by this anxiety He indicated its
greatness ; He knew, indeed, that the hour would come,
and was very near, when they would be stricken and
scattered, and would leave Him alone ; and though He
felt that He would still have the Father with Him, so
appalhng were the first approaches of His agony, so
fearful the alarm and agitation of His spirits, that He
seemed to dread the solitary conflict, and besought the
three to remain nigh; 'tarry ye here, and watch with me!
The particulars next to be noticed, which further
indicate the intenseness and severity of Christ's anguish
of mind, are those connected with His supplications ;
the object, frequency, and manner of His prayer. His
earnest, impassioned, and repeated request to the
Father was, that that hour might pass from Him ; He
'offered up His supplications with strong crying and
tears.' Again and again He returned to ask the same
thing : ' if it were possible that the cup might pass.'
The strength and vigour of the principle of obedience
were displayed, indeed, at the same time, by His
breathing the sentiment of filial submission to the
Father's will, at the moment that He asked relief ; but
that relief He did ask, and asked it repeatedly, and
asked it in a manner that showed the excruciating
torture He endured ; He 'kneeled down ;' He 'fell on His
face ; ' He lay, as it were, helpless and prostrate on the
ground ; anon, He wrestled as in ' agony ;' He appeared
to be in deadly conflict with some strong and mighty
antagonist ; it was approaching midnight ; the air was
cool, and the damp and thick dew was falling to the

GETHSEMANE. 157
earth and moistening all things ; but Jesus in His
agony was as one heated in battle ; sweat covered Him,
and that of no common or ordinary kind ; it was like
great drops of blood ; perhaps it was blood ; clots oi
gore fell from Him to the ground ; the anguish of His
spirit thus making itself visible on the body.
In the last place, 'there appeared an angel from
heaven, strengthening Him.' But this shows to what a
mysterious .condition of weakness He was reduced. He
needed to be strengthened ; to be helped, perhaps, by the
angel's arm to rise and stand upon His feet, and to be
animated and cheered by the angel's suggestions, to
admit the thoughts that would sustain His soul.
Physically and mentally He was brought very low, and
required to have His anguish assuaged, His courage
recalled, and His frame supported, by one from heaven.
Putting together all the particulars that have thus
been glanced at, it is impossible not to feel that we
have set before us in the Gethsemane conflict of the
great sufferer, an instance of mental distress, or soul-
trouble, of the depth, magnitude, and intensity of which
it is utterly impossible for us adequately either to con
ceive or speak.
II. In the second place, it becomes us, with humility
and awe, to enquire into the nature and source of this
extraordinary distress and anguish of spirit which so
overpowered and prostrated the Son of God.
The suffering of Christ in Gethsemane was not bodily
pain ; physically He was in health and vigour, at the
prime of life, and in the flower of His age. The torture
of the Cross was before Him, with all the preliminary
accumulations of woe ; but I cannot think that the
mere apprehension of these will sufficiently account for
what He endured. His mind had long been familiar
with the death that He was to die, and He knew and

158 GETHSEMANE.
had predicted His speedy resurrection to a glorious life.
Now, it seems impossible to imagine that an event, how
ever painful, which was to be so immediately succeeded
by ' fulness of joy/ could have thrown Him into such
mysterious agony of mind. In after times, martyrs, —
men and women — were called to suffer the most excru
ciating tortures ; had to entertain the prospect and
undergo the infliction of death, in forms as lingering
and dreadful as His, and which involved as great an
aggregate of physical suffering ; and they anticipated and
endured with cheerfulness, joy, magnanimity, rapture.
If Jesus was merely a martyr for truth, and was about to
seal His testimony with His blood, I would say it with
reverence, but I would say it, that His example fails
rather than otherwise at this point, and that His con
duct was surpassed, in firmness and heroism, by other
sufferers. These other sufferers, too, it is to be
remembered, on every supposition, far inferior to Him
in character, not sustaining so glorious an office, nor
anticipating so great a reward. Some other cause must
certainly be found for Christ's darkness and distress of
mind, distinct from the mere apprehension of the
Cross. The seat of His suffering was the soul. But then,
it is again and again affirmed, that He was 'holy,
harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners/ — that He was
'without spot,' — had no speck or stain of guilt upon
His conscience. He could not therefore be oppressed
by any feeling of personal demerit. He had no frailty,
no defect ; He had never erred, in thought, word, or
deed ; He had no conscious deficiencies to oppress Him,
nothing to acknowledge and confess with shame, no
necessity to pray for mercy, no iniquity to fill Him
with terror at the thought of God : in spite of this,
however, His soul was ' troubled ' — was ' exceeding sor-

GETHSEMANE. 159
rowful, even unto death' — overpowered and beset with
bitter anguish.
I know of no principle on which this mental suf
fering of a perfectly innocent and holy being, can be
rationally accounted for, except that, which refers it
to the fact of His being a sacrificial and propitiatory
victim. ' His soul was made an offering for sin/ ' He
bore our griefs and carried our sorrows/ ' He was
wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our
iniquities ; the chastisement of our peace was upon
Him.' 'It pleased the Lord to bruise Him and to
put Him to grief; Jehovah laid on Him the iniquity
of us all.' His mental sufferings were 'the travail of
His soul/ the pangs and throes through which a guilty
and dead world might be reborn, and rise again to
the life of God. ' He suffered, the just for the unjust.'
'He was made sin for us who knew no sin/ 'He
redeemed us . from the curse of the law, being made a
curse for us.' ' By His stripes we are healed/
The great doctrine of redemption by sacrifice — ' God
setting forth His Son as a propitiation through faith
in His blood/ — appears to me to be distinctly stated,
in these, and many similar passages of Scripture. We
are redeemed from the penalty and the power of sin,
' by the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without
blemish and without spot/ It is quite possible, we
think, to show by very sufficient and satisfactory
arguments, the consistency of the doctrine of atone
ment with right reason ; and the necessity which
there is, in the nature of things, and under the
government of a Holy God, for some positive ground
for the exercise of mercy, distinct from, and additional
to, both the repentance of the sinner, and the paternal
tenderness of the Divine Mind. That part of the subject,
however, we entirely waive at present, and, taking

160 GETHSEMANE.
the fact as we have stated it, that Christ suffered as
a propitiatory victim, we ask, if any account can be
given on this ground, of the causes and the nature
of His extraordinary mental agony and terror %
The Scriptures, I think, seem to refer to three
sources of this distress and anguish. There was some
mysterious conflict with the great adversary of God
and man, from whose tyranny He came to redeem
us. When discomfited in the temptation, the Devil,
it is said, 'departed from Him for a season; and in
Gethsemane he seems to have returned, — for it was
then, as Christ Himself expressed it, 'the hour of the
power of darkness! I know nothing of the mode of
the Tempter's approach, or of the nature of the hellish
suggestions, by which he disturbed the serenity of
Jesus ; I do not pretend to understand the possibility
even of the thing itself : but that it was, the Scripture
just quoted seems to assert. Here then is one source
of mental conflict ; the subtilty and malice of the
Devil, the combined forces of the bottomless pit were
brought against Him, and in some way, impossible to
be explained, overwhelmed Him with darkness, dis
composed His spirit, and alarmed His soul by infamous
temptations. Then it is also said, that it ' pleased the
Father to bruise Him and to put Him to grief/ that
'Jehovah made His soul an offering for sin/ that He
caUed for the sword, and awoke it against the Shepherd,
and pierced and smote Him. There was some mys
terious infliction direct from the hand of God, some
wonderful withdrawal of His countenance and com
placency, or at least of their sensible manifestation ;
fire descended from heaven to consume the sacrifice.
Again I add, I can explain nothing : I think the fact
rests clearly upon scriptural statements, but I can go
little beyond its simple assertion. That little, however,

GETHSEMANE. 161
perhaps the next particular will lead us to suggest. It
is said, then, in the third place, that our iniquities
were ' laid upon Him,' and that, in some sense, He bore
the curse and penalty of transgression. I need hardly
say, that we reject the notion that He literally endured
the punishment of sin ; this would have been im
possible, since that includes actual remorse, and Christ
could never feel that He was a sinner, though He was
treated as if He were: nor would it have consisted
with the nature of the Gospel, and the display of
mercy, since the penalty literally exacted, mercy would
be impossible, and the sinner might demand his release
from justice. Still there was suffering in the mind
of Christ, flowing into it from human guilt ; His pure
mind had such an apprehension of sin, such a view of
all its vile and malignant properties ; its possible
attributes and gigantic magnitude so rose and spread
before Him, that He started as in amazement from the
dreadful object, and trembled, and was terrified ex
ceedingly : sin was ' laid upon Him,' and it sank and
crushed Him, and, in some sense, its poison and bitter
ness entered into His soul. The conclusion to which
I am led, I confess, is this, that while, as I have said,
I deem it impossible for Jesus to have endured that
literal remorse, which is the natural and direct punish
ment of sin, yet, I do think, that His agony of mind
was the nearest to this which it was possible for Him
to experience. He was so affected by the pressure of
sin upon Him on all sides, that He felt something like
the terror, anguish and agitation of a burdened con
science, and a wounded spirit. His mind was in a
tempest when His agony was at its height ; it wrought
upon His frame till His sweat was blood; the arrows
of God seemed to have entered into His soul, He had
all the appearance of a sinner stricken for his sins.
VOL. II. M

162 GETHSEMANE.
I again repeat, that this could not literally be the
case; I only say that it was the nearest to it that
the Christ could feel or God inflict : and I see not
that there is any more mystery in something of this
nature being felt, than in the fact of a perfectly pure
and spotless being suffering at all.
III. The third and last thing to which we direct
attention, is the conduct of Jesus under His mysterious
trial. He was ' sorrowful/ ' amazed/ and ' very heavy;' but
He roused Himself to pray. The action of His mind so
wrought upon Him, that He seemed suddenly deprived
of strength, but He fell prostrate on the ground and
prayed ; again and again he prayed, increasing in
fervour, earnestness, and importunity. He prayed,
though disappointed in the support and sympathy of
His friends. Instead of watching with Him, seek
ing, if possible, to soothe His mind, and to mourn
an anguish they could not share, they gave way
to fatigue and sleep ; and though repeatedly roused
by their Lord's reproof, administered much more in
sorrow than in anger, again they neglected His request
and admonition, and left Him ' to tread the wine-press
alone.' He prayed anxiously for the relief He sought,
but always with submission to the Father's will ; He
asked it, if it were possible ; He pleaded for it on
the ground, that with God all things were possible.
Being in an agony He prayed 'more earnestly;' as His
grief and sorrow increased upon Him, He increased
in the strength and fervour of His prayer. And yet,
as He proceeded to repeat His request, the language
of acquiescence became more absolute ; at first He
says, ' if it be possible let this cup pass/ but afterwards
He says, ' if this cup may not pass, Thy will be done ; '
as if He felt what that will was, and meekly placed

GETHSEMANE. 163
Himself in harmony with it. We have reason to
believe, however, that He did obtain, if not the thing
He sought, that which was sufficient to supply its place.
The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, that
'He offered up supplications with strong crying and
tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death,
and was heard in that He feared;' or, was heard in respect
to the thing He feared. He was not literally delivered
from death; nor from those deadly mental pangs, so
much worse than the Cross itself; but He was saved
from sinking under them ; He was strengthened by an
angel sent to Him from the Father; and was thus
enabled to bear up till the darkness had passed away.
It was similar, I imagine, to what is recorded of the
apostle afterwards, 'he besought the Lord thrice that
a certain evil might be removed :' he was at length
answered, not by the removal of the evil, but by
the promise of grace and strength to sustain it. With
this he was satisfied; and he felt that he had been
heard, ' in respect to the object of his fear;' for, though
he had not received the thing he sought, he had
obtained a sufficient equivalent. The great sufferer,
in the hour of His mighty anguish, wept and prayed
for relief in His sorrow, and relief He had ; for relief
comes, whether the cup of sorrow be removed, or we
have strength given us to drink it.
Having thus adverted to the severity and the sources
of the Christ's conflict and sufferings in Gethsemane ;
and to His spirit and deportment under them ; it only
remains to conclude the subject by a very brief prac
tical improvement. We should learn from it, such
things as the following : — first, the evil of sin, and the
holiness of God. How fearful and bitter is moral
transgression, when the innocent and immaculate sub
stitute of the guilty, was affected as we have seen,
M 2

164 GETHSEMANE.
by its pressure on His spirit! How intense must be
the hostility of God against it, when, in order to the
demonstration of that hostility, and for the purpose
of displaying His righteousness in connection with the
pardon of the penitent, ' He spared not His own Son,
but freely delivered Him up for us all,' that 'He
might taste death for every man ! ' Again, we need not
be surprised at the fearful agonies that are sometimes
endured from the deep sense of unpardoned sin. Happy
will it be for every one of us, at every return of recol
lected guilt, to cling to the hope provided for us in the
vicarious sufferings of the Christ of God. ' The blood
of Christ cleanseth from all sin.' Pardon, in the Gospel
is promised for a reason; that reason is the great
redemptive act of the sacrifice of Messiah, which is
to be confided in and pleaded by the contrite man.
That reason never failed, and it never will fail, so long
as there is a sinner to believe, and a God to hear. Again,
let us dread to sin ; and if we sin, let us not be surprised
if we feel its bitterness. Let us fear to fall into the
hands of the Just and Holy One ; but let us not despair
of ultimate relief, since Christ died to facilitate the
actings of His compassion and tenderness, ' who re-
taineth not His anger for ever, because He delighteth
in mercy.' Again, in the trials and conflicts of the
Christian life, in every season of suffering and sorrow,
let us learn to imitate the example of Jesus. However
we may value or desire, let us not depend on the
sympathy of others. Let us never forget, that in
conflict with temptation, and in wrestling with God,
we must of necessity act alone. Let us pray with
fervour, importunity, repetition : if the surges rise and
overwhelm the spirit, if, like the Lord, we have agony
and anguish, let us learn to pray ' the more earnestly/ —
to pray, if needs be, with prostration and tears. The

GETHSEMANE. 165
grace of Christ will never be denied to the sincere and
sorrowful, though its manifestation may be delayed.
He lives ' a faithful and merciful High Priest, in that,
He Himself having suffered being tempted, He knows
how to succour them that are tempted/ Imitating
His example, and confiding in His mercy, succour and
hght will come at last. No Christian must ever
expect to be without his Gethsemanes, but he that
faints not, but continues to pray without ceasing, will
always find, 'that there is no Gethsemane without
its angel.'

SEEMON IX.
CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS.
'Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.' — Romans xiii. 14.
The way in which the New Testament sets forth the
connection of Christians with Christ, is very remarkable.
Terms the most intense, figures the most numerous,
varied, and significant, are employed to assert the fact,
or illustrate the wonder. Christians are said to be 'in
Christ ; ' in Him, in some sense altogether peculiar ; in
a way in which no man would ever be represented as
being in another, and in which good men can never be
spoken of as being in Isaiah, Paul, or John. We never
think of saying that the disciples of any school of
philosophy, science, art, or religion are in their pro
fessors or teachers, in the way in which Christians are
in Christ, or, in fact, as being in them at all. In the
same way, we feel that there is something more intended
than the simple belief of Christ's words, when it is said,
' Except ye eat the flesh, and drink the blood of the
Son of Man, ye have no life in you.' It is true that
the instructions of a teacher may be spoken of as food,
and the figure may be employed of those who learn,
eating and being nourished by them as such ; but it
would be something far beyond this, if pupils were to
be spoken of as eating the flesh and blood of their
teacher himself ! This is what is said of Christians and
Christ ; and it evidently hides some deep meaning, and

CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS. 167
refers to some spiritual mystery. Again ; Paul, speaking
in the name of all other Christian men, says, ' I am
dead. I am crucified with Christ ; nevertheless I live,
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me!
So the Church continually speaks of Christ being its
life : ' When Christ who is our life shall appear ' — ' Our
life is hid with Christ in God.' Then, there are the
well-known figures of the tree, the building, and the
body. ' I am the vine ; ye are the branches. As the
branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the
vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in me. Without
me (out of, cut off, separate from me), ye can do
nothing.' In the second figure, the building, Christ is
the foundation-stone ; but it is a living stone, and a
life-giving one. Christians, 'as living stones,' with a
life in them derived from and sustained by Him, are
built up ' upon Him, a spiritual house, and grow into a
holy temple in the Lord.' So, if the Church is repre
sented as a body, Christ is not only the Head, He is
the heart, — the vital power and principle pervading the
whole ; and Christians are so identified with Him, and
He so incorporated with them, that they are said to be
His ' members,' ' His flesh, and His bones.' Well, all
this is very wonderful. It is the characteristic style,
however, of the New Testament; and the remark is
obvious, that this singular mode of setting forth truth,
may prepare us for modes equally singular in enforcing •
duty ; it is of a piece, therefore, with the way in which
doctrine is stated, to have command and precept in
words like these : ' Put ye on, the Lord Jestjs
Christ/ We propose to offer a few remarks, illustrative and
practical, on these words.
I. The first thing to be noted is, of course, the duty
intended to be enforced : ' put on Christ.' Every one

168 CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS.
can see that the expression is figurative ; but the minds
(or ears) of most may be so familiar with it, as not to be
struck with the somewhat starthng image it presents.
To put on a person, as you would put on clothes, — to
invest and cover yourself with a living man, as you
would with a garment, — is, certainly, no ordinary mode
of speech. The literal meaning, however, is obvious
enough, the image only gives to it point and force.
To put on Christ, is to endeavour to be like Him ; to
have Him on, is to succeed in the attempt. To clothe
himself with Christ, is for a man to take the several
virtues which constituted and adorned the character of
Jesus, and with these to invest his soul; just as he
takes the articles of dress, and with these clothes his
body. The plain import of the precept is, to enforce
the imitation of Christ, the copying His example,
trying to be like Him ; imbibing His spirit, — the spirit
of the life which was in Christ Jesus ; that our life in
its daily aspect, acts, and utterances, may be like His.
Many a man has so far done this, as to put others in
mind of Christ ; he was so Christ-like : just as if
one of His loving followers had, after His departure,
put on the garments which the Lord had worn ; he
might have so appeared, and so moved in them, as to
look like Him, and to remind other disciples of Him ;
recalling to them His gait, countenance, or form. Does
any one of us, think you, put people in mind of Jesus
Christ ? Especially those most familiar with His spirit
and character ; as set forth in the New Testament ?
II. But, in the next place, let it be observed, that to
' put on Christ ' does not mean any formal, mechanical
attempts after mere external likeness to Him, as clothes
may be put on a block of wood, a lay figure ; or as the
portraiture and appearance of a man may be wrought
out on canvass in paint and oil ; or as costly and beauti-

CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS. 169
ful garments — purple and silk — might be put over a
diseased and ulcerated body. What is meant by
putting on Christ, is not so much a studied imitation of
what in Him may be supposed to have met the eye of
observers, as the culture of a deep internal sympathy
with His spirit ; — the drinking ' in its principles and
power' of that hidden life which manifested itself in
His words and deeds. It is not so much, in fact, literally
a ' putting on/ as a ' giving out/ the growth and
development from within of a spiritual force, which, by
its own inherent law, takes the form of a likeness to
Christ. It is expressed in different ways in other
Scriptures. There is, for instance, the idea of the
individual, or the Church, ' growing up into Christ in all
things ; ' life first, and then growth, development,
form. So, there is ' the renewing of the inward man ;'
the soul re-created ; the breath of life infused into the
dead : the 'putting off of the old man, the putting on of the
new/ and so on. These, and similar phrases and figures,
all shew how the process under consideration begins and
advances, — begins in Divine and gracious actings of the
Spirit of God on the heart of man, and advances to the
outward and visible manifestation in conduct and cha
racter of Christ-like virtue. It is quite possible to dress
a dead man in ' gay clothing,' to put royal robes even
on a lifeless corpse. In some lights, and at particular
distances, such figures might look as if they were alive ;
but properly examined, and the truth seen, nothing can
be imagined more repulsive and unnatural. In the
same way, a mere external, simulated likeness to Christ
may be put on over a dead spiritual nature. Such a
putting on, however, of ' outward appearance ' is the
farthest possible from what is contemplated by the text.
Instead of being a duty, it is a sin. Instead of consti
tuting likeness to Christ, it is the most emphatic un-

170 CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS.
likeness. Instead of presenting to Him what he can
regard with complacency as the reflected image of Him
self, it presents only an aggravated image of His worst
enemies; those whom He likened, when on earth, to
' whited sepulchres/ which, while outwardly decent and
beautiful, were within ' full of corruption and dead
men's bones.' A mere external putting on of Christ, is
as far short of the present true spiritual life of a
Christian man, as it would fall short of the future
immortal and glorified life promised to the Church, if
the words, ' this mortal must put on immortality, and
this corruptible must put on incorruption,' were only to
be fulfilled by an external, glorious outward vail being
thrown over 'the vile body,' and the 'fleshly mind/
The more resplendent and luminous the investiture, so
much the worse, if it covered only pollution and cor
ruption. Christ, then, both in this life and the next, is
to be put on, not over nature, — over the natural man ;
but nature being changed and renewed by grace, the
natural man becoming spiritual through a death unto
sin and a life unto righteousness, a visible Christ comes
out in the character, as a development or emanation
from within ; just as the inward essential glory of the
Lord came out on the Mount of Transfiguration. That
was not so much an external lustre put upon Christ, as
the issue or display of what had been vailed and re
pressed ; a lustre that inherently belonged to Him as
the Son of God, — ' the brightness of the Father's glory,
and the express image of His person.'
III. The putting on of Christ, in the passage before
us, is not to be interpreted by certain ordinary forms of
speech, in which a sinner is represented as being
justified by his becoming, through faith, so united to
Christ as to be clothed with His righteousness ; the
righteousness of Christ covering him as a robe, and so

CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS. 171
hiding his sins from the eye of God. Whether this
way of expressing and representing the doctrine of
justification be correct or not, it is to be noticed here,
that the text refers rather to what is meant bv sancti-
fication, — a subjective participation of life through
Christ, and the consequent outgrowth, as already ex
plained, of a practical likeness and conformity to Him.
Justification, properly speaking, is pardon — the blotting
out of sin ; it includes, however, according to the
Christian idea of it, the accounting a man just, and
treating him as if he were, though he is not. Well
considered, it must be felt, that it does not require
righteousness to be seen either in the man, or on the
man, for the very ground on which it proceeds is, that
righteousness is altogether wanting; and that pardon
must be received as an act of grace. If the sinner
either had a personal righteousness of his own, or the
actual righteousness of another literally transferred to
him, his salvation would be by law, — by works, — not of
grace or favour. In the case supposed, pardon would
either be impossible, from not being needed ; or, it would
be a thing to be demanded as a right which Justice
itself could not refuse ; which is self-contradictory.
The Scriptural truth of the matter is simply this : —
pardon for sin, according to the Gospel, is based upon,
and is obtained through, or in virtue of, an external
reason,— a reason external to the sinner, with which,
however, he is to be in personal harmony by repentance
and faith. That reason is the redemptive work of
Christ, His death and sacrifice as the Lamb of God; and
for Christ's being that, for His oblation of Himself to be
acceptable and efficient, His unspotted innocence and
perfect righteousness were essential. He could thus die
* the just for the unjust ;' He ' who knew no sin could
be made a sin offering;' and, on the ground of that

172 CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS.
mighty and mysterious act, they who believe in Him,
can have their sins blotted out by a free and full
forgiveness, which is pardon, simply considered ; and,
not only so, but they can be accounted or regarded as
righteous, and treated as if they were, which is justifi
cation. This, however, is not effected by the literal
transference to their account, or the external putting
on to their souls of the actual righteousness, or the
righteous acts and works of Christ. No ; the Scripture
says it is thus : — that God, for Christ's sake, ' imputes
righteousness ; ' ' faith is counted for righteousness ; '
the man has nothing of the sort in him or about him,
either his own or any one else's ; but he clings to, and
trusts, and pleads the sacrificial blood of a sinless and
righteous Christ ; and the faith which he thus has, is, in
virtue of its uniting him to Christ, reckoned for the
righteousness which he has not. There is thus, sure
enough, in the justification of a sinful man, the imputa
tion of righteousness, though not the literal transference
of that of Christ. This is the way in which the Scrip
ture describes what it calls ' the righteousness of God,' or
' God's method of justification;' that is, the accounting,
or regarding and treating the sinner as just, as if he had
fulfilled the law, though he has not. This, however,
though effected through Christ in virtue of His personal
redemptive work, and by man coming to God through
Him, is not 'the putting on' of Christ which is in
tended in the text. That is the real and actual sancti-
fication of the believer, the subjective, personal holiness
of the saint, and not anything, as in the case of a
sinner, reckoned or imputed. It comes after justifica
tion, and is to be the fruit and the proof of it. ' As
many as have been baptised into Christ have put on
Christ.' ' Therefore, we are buried with Him by
baptism into death ; that like as Christ was raised up

CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS. 173
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we
should walk in newness of life ; knowing this, that our
old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin
might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not
serve sin.' As the incarnation, atonement, resurrection,
ascension, intercession of Christ, with all kindred objec
tive facts, are not ends in themselves ; as they all stand
in the order of means to an ultimate end, — the eternal
salvation and purity of the Church ; so contrition,
repentance, faith, forgiveness, acceptance, justification,
on the part, or in the person of a sinner are not ends,
but means, — means towards the grand subjective result
which the Gospel contemplates — the manifestation of
that personal holiness, which consists in being like
Christ, who was like God. ' This is the will of God, —
your sanctification.' — ' Put ye on the Lord Jesus
Christ.' — ' Every man who has hope in him, purifies
himself even as He was pure.'
IV. You may next notice how the absolute form of
the precept seems to imply and suggest the fact of the
moral perfection of Christ. 'Put on Christ;' imbibe
His Spirit, imitate His virtues, copy His example, drink
into His life. Be like Him in every thing. Whatever
in Him — in spirit, principle, or form was capable of
being copied by ordinary humanity, that observe and
do. No caution is given as if there were some things
which were not to be put on ; some faults, errors,
inconsistencies, sins, which were to be separated and
put aside from the pre-eminent virtue which on
the whole distinguished Him. As far as all that
is moral and spiritual is concerned, ' put on Christ.'
The more completely you do this the better. Your
efforts may be universal. There is no fear of your
being too much like Him ; or of your being led astray,
or tempted to do wrong, by studying and striving

174 CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS.
to be what He was. There is a great thought im
plied in, and underlying all this. It would not do
to speak thus of anyone else, however distinguished
he may have been in the annals of the Church. It
would not do to tell men, in this absolute way, to
put on Abraham, or Isaiah, or David, or Peter, or Paul,
or John. In every other character there is something
to be excepted ; some act or habit against which we are
to be warned. Put on Abraham, — but not his weakness,
fear, duplicity, falsehood, and occasional defective faith ;
David, — but not his sensuality and bloodguiltiness ;
Peter, — but not the impetuosity and forwardness which
impelled him at one time, the cowardice that crushed
him at another. And so you might go on through the
whole catalogue of saints, and prophets, and apostles ;
in each and every one of all the holy men that ever
lived, there was something to be avoided and shunned,
not imitated ; something which might act as a tempta
tion ; conformity to which might be disgrace and
shame. Of Christ alone, the perfect type, model, and
reality of all excellence, can it be said, without limit,
and without reserve, ' put Him on ' — ' grow up into
Him, in all things.'
V. Nevertheless, it is to be remembered, in the next
place, that there ivere things in Christ which we cannot
or must not imitate; and that there are many things to
be attended to by us, which were not seen, and could
not be seen in Him. This remark bears on a distinc
tion which needs often to be drawn, which should
always be recollected and observed, — the distinction
between spirit and form ; between a principle and its
mode of manifestation ; or, in immediate relation to the
present subject, the distinction and difference between
an example and a pattern. A pattern is a model or
copy which is to be literally traced and imitated ; every

CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS. 175
stroke and line exactly transferred from what is before
the eye to what is beneath the hand ; just as an
engraver produces in the print the facsimile of the
painting of the artist. An example may be something
which, in the form of it, we cannot repeat, but the
spirit and principle of which we may imbibe and
cultivate and infuse into other acts different in
form but the same in kind. We cannot, like Christ,
perform miracles of healing, or any other ; but we can
cultivate the spirit of compassion and love which
moved Him to what He did. We cannot fast forty
days ; but we can fast. We shall not be tempted
exactly as He was ; but we shall be tempted, and
tempted in the same way ; that is, the same parts of
our nature will be assailed, — the 'animal, the man, the
saint ; appetite, passion, religious faith ; lust, ambition,
spiritual pride ; and we can learn to resist them all as
He resisted; and in the same way, — by ' the sword of
the Spirit, which is the Word of God.' It might not
be right for us, or for some of us, to go into the com
pany of sinners, and eat with them, as Christ did ; nor
to use such terrible invectives as fell from His lips
when denouncing those whom He condemned ; but we
can cherish the spirit which led Him to seek the lost,
and we shall be sure to find some way for its proper
expression ; and we can learn to sympathize with that
deep and holy repugnance to evil which flashed forth in
His burning words. In like manner we should re
member that we have not in Christ's personal religion
(if I may so express it) the exhibition of what ours is
to be. His was not the religion of a sinner. He had
nothing to do with repentance. He never had to con
fess sin, to pray for pardon, to seek mercy through
faith in another ; or to indulge any of those feelings
and sentiments which belong to those who have to pass

176 CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS.
from death to life, from despair to hope, through con
trition and tears to rest and joy. So, also, there are
many acts of personal holiness and relative virtue which
our Lord did not and could not exercise. He was not
a merchant, nor a maoistrate, nor the head of a house-
hold. He neither stood in society as we stand, nor did
He sustain the same private relations, or have resting
upon Him the same domestic duties, as some of us have
to sustain and discharge.
On all these accounts, and others that might be
mentioned, it is impossible for Christ to furnish
to us an exact pattern, the literal form and mould
of that we are to be and do, either in relation to
spiritual experience or practical behaviour. But the
point is this, — that Pie embodied the principle of
universal obedience, the fulfilment of every obligation
arising from all the relations which He did or could
sustain towards God or man. This is what vje are
to do, and what we may learn from Him to do. Our
relations may differ from His ; our duties may be
different ; but, just as He did everything which was
given Him to do, we are to ' put Him on/ in that
respect, and to aim at a universal conformity to what
is the will of God respecting us. Nor ought we to
forget that in the personal character of Jesus ; in His
disposition, spirit, and behaviour ; in His labours, devo
tion, zeal ; His piety, faith, love ; His benevolence,
pity, compassion ; His patience, submission, sorrow, and
many other things, there is much exhibited which may
be imitated in form as well as in spirit. And, at the
same time it should be recollected that His divinest
acts of condescension and love, the most wonderful
parts of His redemptive work, are represented as in
volving principles which may be acted upon by us, and
displaying sentiments with which we may sympathize.

CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS. 177
' Let that mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus- :
who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery
to be equal with God ; but made Himself of no reputa
tion, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was
made in the likeness of men.' ' Hereby we perceive
His love, because He laid down His life for us, and we
ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.' ' Christ
also suffered, leaving us an example that we should
follow His steps.' As in some of our Lord's ordinary
acts, there was an expression and a form which may be
imitated ; so, in the most mysterious and wonderful of
them there was a principle and a spirit which may be
felt, imbibed, and obeyed by the humblest of His
disciples. With respect to the practical carrying out of the
injunction of the text, — those by whom it is to be
attempted, and the way in which it may be done, — we
shall now offer two or three remarks.
1. You will notice, in the first place, that the words
are addressed to a Christian Church, — to persons pro
fessing to have received the Gospel, who, as sinful
men had come to God through Christ, by repentance
and faith, seeking the forgiveness of their sins. To
require men to 'put on Christ/ in the sense of the
text, is not to preach the Gospel, properly so called.
The Cross and the Sacrifice come first ; men, considered
as guilty and in peril, are exhorted 'to be reconciled
to God/ and, for this purpose to accept His offered
salvation, looking to Him ' who gave Himself for them/
that ' they might not perish, but have everlasting life/
It is after this, and, as reconciled, as professedly,
members of Christ, that men are required to 'put
Him on/ in the sense of being practically like Him,
by the daily manifestation of personal holiness. The
duty before us, therefore, specially belongs to 'those
VOL. II. N

178 CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS.
who profess and call themselves Christians ; ' to com
municants and members of Christian churches ; and,
emphatically, to such as believe themselves 'to have
obtained mercy/ and who profess to have 'a good
hope through grace.' The more distinctly and em
phatically, therefore, a man claims to be a child of
God, and attaches importance to the doctrinal truth
by which the privilege is secured, the more distinctly
and emphatically is he to be told that the work
of ' putting on Christ ' belongs to him.
In connection with this statement, however, it is
important to interpose a cautionary remark or two
to other parties, and especially to the younger
members of Christian families. It is the duty of all
men to ' put on Christ/ as it is the duty of all men
to partake of the Lord's Supper; although with many,
or, most men, there is a previous duty, that of accepting
Christ, and submitting to Him. Both duties, however,
are pressing with equal obligation on all ;• and it is
not to be supposed that you have nothing to do
with the one, till you have attended to the other.
While you neglect the first, you are guilty of despising
both. Let no man, therefore, suppose that he may
go on sinning till, by some Divine interposition, he
shall be called and converted, and brought to accept
the Gospel, when, all his past transgressions being
blotted out, and purged away for ever, he will take
a new start, and begin to ' put on Christ/ and ' grow
up into Him/ — which he was not in a condition to
do before. There is a truth in this; it is thus
that men may be changed through the Gospel, and
become 'new creatures/ and 'pass from death to
life/ and 'from Satan to God.' But, if any man
reckon upon this, — if he plans, and calculates, and
continues in sin, on the ground of it, — he may wake

CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS. 1 79
up, one day, and find that the very capacity to
repent and believe has been destroyed by the process,
and is gone from him for ever! It is, particularly,
to be taught, to the children of Christian families, that
they, 'trained and brought up in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord/ are to ' put on Christ ' from
the very first; that they are not to serve sin till they
are men and women, and then to be converted and
justified, and to pass through a conscious and per
ceptible change, before which they could not be
expected to try to be like Christ ! The natural history
of religion in the children of the Church, should be
a different process from this, though, perhaps, it very
seldom is so. They are born under mercy ; they are
brought forth to be in immediate contact with spiritual
influences ; they are heirs to great and precious
promises ; and, from the first dawn of reason, they
should be taught to make the battle with the flesh
a Christian battle, by fighting it under Christian
motives, from obedience to Christ, with a view to
please Him, from fear of His anger, and in obedience
to His will. They are thus, as their earliest lesson,
to learn to ' put on Christ/ by striving to be like Him,
and studying to obey Him ; shunning and dreading
all sin, falsehood, impurity, and everything that is
evil, because they are Christ's. In this way, after
many a slip, and fall, and failure, they may gradually
come to a new form of peace and joy in the clear per
ception of objective truth ; and to a sense of forgiving
and reconciling mercy, which will not be lessened by
their having begun to love, and to be like Christ,
before they knew the full extent and the precise
nature of their obligations to Him as the Saviour
and Redeemer of the world and man. Christian
young persons cannot be familiar with the technicalities
N 2

180 CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS.
of Scientific Theology, nor can they understand the
steps of the process through which old, flagrant trans
gressors awake up, and fight their way to God. But,
they can understand that sin is a fearful and bitter
thing ; they know that Jesus never committed it,
even as a child, and a youth; they can feel that
they ought to endeavour to be like Him, and they
can ask Him to help them in the effort ' to put Him
on ; ' and, so doing, they will be ' kept from the paths
of the Destroyer ;' have their fives and souls preserved
comparatively unspotted ; and find that this will be
no source of regret to them when they come to
understand the Gospel as a system, to accept, and
to rejoice in that blood which cleanseth from guilt,
and in that atonement and intercession which unites
and reconciles sinners to God. These Evangelical
facts and doctrines they will come to glory in, not
only as the ground and basis of their pardon and
acceptance, but as the source of that preventing grace
and mercy which 'kept them from evil/ and which
taught them, before they well knew what they did,
to 'put on Christ/ by teaching their young hearts
to love holiness and to hate sin.
2. With respect to the way in which professing
Christians should endeavour to carry out the injunc
tion of the text, we can say very little just now;
that part of the subject would require a whole discourse
to itself. A very few hints may be briefly and
rapidly given. They may be such as these. To ' put
on Christ,' there must be, in the first place, a thoroughly
honest and sincere desire to be like Him. This needs
deep consideration; for many people ask God to
give them spiritual blessings which they are by no
means prepared to receive; and which, if given,
would involve results, call to duties or to sacrifices,

CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS. 181
they would instantly shrink from. That the desire
to be like Christ should be real and sincere, Christians
have need to pray for the influence and grace of the
Holy Spirit, whose work in man, very specially,
perhaps, has to do with moral taste, feeling, and
sentiment ; the disposing of the mind to delight in
what is spiritual and godlike, and earnestly to wish
for its subjective realisation. Then, secondly, there
should be the frequent and devout study of the
personal character of Jesus, in order to understand
both its form and spirit. Christ, as a man should be
contemplated, that what, as such, He was and did,
should be seen, felt, sympathized with, admired, and
panted after. Then, thirdly, there should be the
study of what Christ taught, what He Himself verbally
enjoined and required ; and the study of what the
apostles taught respecting Him, as the model and
type of what Christians ought to be. Fourthly,
there should be the deliberate, designed, habitual, and
conscious effort of realising all this in yourselves, your
personal character and daily life ; remembering that
while you pray for Divine help, and hope to succeed
only through the grace of the Divine Spirit, yet, that
the actual 'putting on' of Christ, the personal doing
of what is required, is to be your act ; it cannot
be God's. He ' works in you ; ' but He does so that
you may both ' will and do.' The willing and doing
belong to man, whatever of the Divine and super
natural may precede or underlie them.
Fifthly, there should be seasons of special devotion
and prolonged thought, when a Christian man should
'examine himself' in respect to his likeness, or, un-
likeness to Christ. Ordinary, it may be formal reading
and prayer is not enough . for the perils, exigencies
and duties of the Divine life. In general, the world

182 CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS.
is too much with us, and we with it, for us to be quite
aware of those changes of feeling and temperature
which stealthily creep over the soul. It is well,
therefore, to counteract this, by occasional special
seasons of review, self-examination, humiliation and
prayer. At such seasons it will often be found that
it is not necessary for the man to say to lumself, in
looking back to particular incidents which he did not
notice at the time, ' Was that like Christ % ' ' Did I
then put on Christ ? ' The unlikeness, the absence of
what was Christlike, will flash on the soul with
intuitive demonstration, and fill it with surprise and
shame !
In the last place, — for time would fail us to enu
merate all the rules that might be laid down on this
duty, — let there be carefulness, on the part of the
Christian, to guard against all religious acts becoming
mere formalities. Acts and exercises of a religious
nature may not be neglected ; but they may become as
dry and dead as bran and chaff. The soul cannot five
by them. Private and family prayer, public worship,
sacramental communion, benevolent activity, may all
become vapid and lifeless. As such, they will assist no
one in the grand objects of the rehgious life. See to it,
then, that these things be living realities with you;
that they do not sink into mere forms, shows, and
shams, which might have been something to you once,
but which are nothing now. In fact, if it comes to this,
they will be worse than nothing. Instead of being
spiritual agencies, aiding you, through God's blessing,
to ' grow up into Christ in all things/ they may become
a perilous deception. They may lead you to be satisfied
with an outward show of godliness, — a painted re
semblance to Christ, covering a hollow or worldly
heart ; — a ' name to live, while you are dead.'

CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS. 183
We conclude the discourse, by two or three remarks
on the advantage and blessedness of obedience to this
apostolic injunction ; the happy results to the Christian
of his ' putting on Christ/
1. In the first place ; it constitutes the most solid
and satisfactory proof of inward religion, — or, as some
would express it, of a man's acceptance with God, or,
his being in a state of grace. Christ comes to do
two things for us ; — To secure for us the forgiveness
of sin, and to deliver us from its service and power ;
to bring us to God, and to make us like Him ; to
bear away the burden of guilt from the conscience,
and, then, by His grace to enable us to run in the
way of hohness, and, by the loving and adoring con
templation of Himself to be 'changed into the same
image/ to 'purify ourselves even as He was pure.'
Now, as the one of these results is to flow from the
other, its actual existence ascertains and proves the
reahty of the other. The spiritual processes connected
with the contrition, faith, forgiveness, and acceptance
of a sinner, in passing through the great crisis of the
religious life, are all inward and secret ; they are
matters of consciousness to himself, often, very often
liable to be attended with uncertainty and doubt :
and they are connected with what passes in the Divine
mind of which he has no distinct and particular revela
tion. In spite, therefore, of what he may regard as
an internal witness, a Divine testimony to his personal
acceptance ; in spite of gushes of feeling, tranquil trust,
hope, peace, joy ; there is still a necessity for the
practical fruits of faith to be brought forth, by the
coming out upon him of Christ's likeness, that he
himself, as well as others, may have proof and demon
stration that he is born of God. Visions, or voices,
do not reveal to men that their sins are forgiven,

184 CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS.
at the moment when God forgives them. But the
image of God being wrought upon them ; they delight
ing in it, and seeking to be clothed with it more and
more; all this tends to assure them that they have
been forgiven, and that, in these blessed results of
Redemption, they have the witness in themselves that
they are redeemed, and have passed from death unto
life. A vital union with Christ, an interest in Him,
and His redemptive work, is best evinced and proved
to ourselves and others by a loving and holy, habitual
and practical growing up into His image and like
ness. 2. In. the second place; 'putting on Christ' is the
only way of securing and preserving that peace and
comfort which, specifically, belong to the rehgious life.
The peace which is to dwell in the heart of the saint,
is a different thing from that which comes to the
sinner, when he first finds himself at the foot of the
Cross. The peace of the sinner flows into him ; it is
drawn entirely from without, from the blood that
cleanseth, the promise of pardon, the assurance of
mercy. The peace of the saint comes also, primarily
from God ; but it is wrought out through his own
consciousness, and the facts of his inward and personal
life ; it springs from purified affections, God-likeness,
holy consistency, a mind and heart free from tur
bulence and unrest, by being free from any conscious
departure from the living God. Now, just in pro
portion as a Christian man 'puts on Christ,' and
inwardly and honestly feels that he is doing so, in
that proportion will the appropriate blessedness of
the Christian life be likely to be secured to him. It
is one of the most fearful things in the world for a
professedly Christian man to go on in the fancied
possession of peace, and of joy in the Holy Ghost,

CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS. 185
after he has ceased to be careful to 'put on Christ;'
or, peradventure when through yielding to temptation,
he may, in some measure, have put Him off! The
only solid and permanent blessedness for Christians —
that which will last, which God delights to nourish
and contemplate, and which angels can look down
upon without wonder or tears — is that which is con
nected with conformity to Christ. 'A good man is
satisfied from himself.' He is not satisfied with himself.
He could wish he were different in many respects, and
better in all. But still, so far as he is a 'good' and
Christian man, he is 'satisfied from himself;' that is,
through the medium of his personal consciousness,
his felt loyalty to God and Christ, to duty and to
Truth. The mind even of good men may sometimes
be painfully exercised ; harassed with doubts and fears ;
subject to great and bitter anguish : either from recent
and actual sin, or, from fresh and aggravated views
of sin, or, from mistaken notions of duty, or, from
intense and microscopic self-inspection, continued till
it becomes disease. I suppose the holiest man that
ever lived, if he was to be shut up by himself, and
to think of nothing but his sins, would sink into
despair, or go mad. At the same time, it is to be
remembered that he will endure ordinary self-converse
the best, who has best ' put on Christ/ It is always
well to have a Christ upon us, to bear us company, as
well as one over us, or at our side.
3. To 'put on Christ,' or, to have put Him on is
the great secret of spiritual strength, safety, and per
severance. The words of the text give us the Divine
and spiritual meaning of the figure in the twelfth
verse, ' put on the armour of hght.' When a man
is covered over with Christ, ' clothed upon ' with Him,
he is like a warrior armed with an armour of polished

186 CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS.
silver, and with the sun shining upon it, making him
a resplendent terror to his adversaries. The Christ
like man is strong. ' The righteous is bold as a
lion.' He has courage and magnanimity ; he can
resist anything, and attempt anything ; confidence in
his Captain, his weapons, and his cause, inspires him
with the persuasion of success, a prophecy which fulfils
itself. A two-souled man, a man with two hearts in
him, one cleaving to the flesh, the other faintly rising
towards God, such a man can do nothing. He is
irresolute, unstable, 'like a wave of the sea driven
with the wind and tossed.' But the man who has
'put on Christ,' and has, really, cast off and crucified
the flesh, is single, united, one. He has a distinct
object, and an exclusive and uniform devotion to it.
Clothed with the armour of hght, by being clothed
with the image, and filled with the spirit of Christ,
he is enabled to resist the great Tempter ; to ' quench
his fiery darts ; ' to detect and elude his stratagems
and devices ; and, to go on conquering and to conquer,
till evil itself ceases to tempt. Because there is so
much of Christ about him, 'the wicked one' passes
by, departs, and 'toucheth him not.'
4. In the last place. To 'put on Christ' is the
best preparation for 'the day of His coming;' when,
they only who are like Him will be able to look upon
Him, and 'see Him as He is/ The apostle, in the
immediate context, uses figures of speech, which rather
invert our ordinary notions respecting life and death.
Instead of fife being the day, with the night of the
grave at the end of it ; he makes fife the night, —
our condition in it a sleep ; and the change that is
to take place by its termination — its termination by
death, or, ' the coming of the Lord/ — the day. ' The
night is far spent/ the night of life, ' the day is at

CHRISTIANS IN CHRIST, CHRIST IN CHRISTIANS. 187
hand ; ' the day of the revelation of Jesus Christ ;
therefore, as we must soon wake out of sleep, whether
we will or no, let us awake now, consciously and
willingly ; let us walk ' as in the day/ as if it had
already come ; and, to do this, let us ' put on Christ/
for, when He comes, that will be what He will
look for ; and they alone who are clothed with Him
will be ' able to abide the day of His coming, and
to stand when He appeareth.' It will be a terrible
thing for any Christian to go on sleeping and dreaming
till he is awakened by the stroke of death, or the
last trump, and, then, to start up, and to discover that
he has deceived himself all his life, having been content
with a place in the Church, and a name ; having been
asleep, or rather, dead, in the midst of all fife-giving
agencies, nothing of Christ in him, or, upon him ;
all that he was, or, supposed himself to be, now
turning out to have been sham, pretence, chaff, and
wind, no substance or reahty about it! No words of
any language, or, of any world can adequately describe
the intense anguish, the terror and the tears which
would attend the awaking up of a human soul to a
discovery and a consciousness like that ! May God
in His infinite mercy save us all from such a result!
May He so help us to ' put on Christ/ and so satisfy
and fill us with His image and likeness, that when
we come to stand before Him, we may feel ourselves
to be in harmony with Him, and with the holy heaven
to which He belongs ! There, as the ultimate issue of
His love and grace shall we find our congenial home
among the sons of God ; the unfallen, ' who kept
their first estate/ the redeemed and sanctified, brought
back from apostacy and pollution by Him who ' washed
them from their sins in His blood, and made them
kings and priests unto God, even the Father ! ' Amen.

SEEMON X.
MARY OF BETHANY.
1 She hath done what she could.' — Mark xiv. 8.
The narrative, in which these words occur, compared
with one in almost every respect like it, which is found
in the 26th of Matthew, and also in the 12th of
John, has been the source of great difficulty, in all
attempts to harmonize the four Gospels, so as to make
out of them a regular continuous history. The accounts
in Matthew and Mark perfectly coincide, and that of
John substantially agrees with them. All the three
say, that the incident took place at Bethany. Matthew
and Mark both lay the scene in the house of Simon.
John does not say it was not there — he connects it
with Christ's visit to the ' place where Lazarus was;'
but by saying that ' they' made Him a feast, and that
' Lazarus was one of those who sat at meat with him,'
he would seem to imply that the company assembled in
some other house than his, in one, in fact, where he
was a guest, and this, of course, might have been
Simon's. There is no real discrepancy here. All the
other particulars are the same in the three accounts,
except that Matthew and Mark speak of * some of the

MARY OF BETHANY. 189
disciples' murmuring, while John expressly mentions
'Judas;' — but neither is there here any discrepancy,
since both statements may be alike true ; more than
one murmured, but Judas did so more emphatically
than the rest. ' What is it then,' it may be asked,
'that makes the difficulty?' It is this: the first two
Evangelists convey the impression, or perhaps, state
that the thing occurred ' two days ' before the Passover
while John seems to intimate that it was 'six' days
before it. The difficulty is, to harmonize these two
apparently inconsistent dates.
There are two ways of meeting the difficulty. It may
be supposed either that the thing occurred twice, — both
on the sixth and second day before the Passover ; or,
that in respect to the time (the thing having only oc
curred once), there is a difference among the Evange
lists, which must be allowed to pass as an inaccuracy,
on one side or the other ; against which may not only
be set their substantial agreement, but which may be
said to aid in strengthening and sustaining that agree
ment as an agreement in the truth, since it shows that
there was no collusion — no private understanding among
them, — but that each wrote as an independent witness.
Different minds may decide differently between the two
alternatives mentioned. Some will think the improba
bilities so great of the same thing having been done
twice, at the same place, among the same people, and
accompanied by the same circumstances, — its being met
by the same objection, and that calling forth the same
reply, — and all within a week, and, indeed, much less, —
that they will decide for one event, and consider that
all the Evangelists refer to one and the same thing;
while others will think, that any improbabilities are
less formidable than that one of the authorized and
inspired biographers of Jesus should be supposed capa-

190 MARY OF BETHANY.
ble of erring with respect to the day or the hour when
any particular event occurred.
In spite, however, of the serious aspect of the last
remark, I should not hesitate, myself, to take, if
necessary, the first alternative, or rather the first choice,
as just described, between the alternatives. We have
other cases in which literal accuracy cannot have been
maintained by all the Evangelists, because all do not
literally agree, — as in the case of the cure of a bhnd
man (one says two blind men), which is placed in one
account, when Jesus is entering Jericho, and in another,
when He is leaving it ; as in the case, also, of the pre
cise words of the inscription on the Cross. I do not
think these little differences of much importance, when
looked at in connection with the harmony of the Evan
gelists in all that is substantial ; indeed, for the reason
already assigned, they may rather be regarded as having
their use.
It may even be remarked that none of the Evan
gelists actually say, that, on such or such a precise day,
the incident occurred. Matthew and Mark undoubt
edly connect it with events that were taking place
about two days before the Passover, though they do not
positively fix it then. John says, that Jesus came to
Bethany six days before the Passover, and he then in
troduces the story ; but he does not say that it took
place on the day of His arrival. It might have been
subsequent to it, and the phrase ' the next day' in the
12th verse, therefore, may mean, the day after his arrival
at Bethany, and not the day after the occurrence of the
incident. Still, I admit that the probability is, that it
occurred six days before the Passover ; as I deem it cer
tain, that all the Evangelists refer to the same event.
We will take the time to be what we have said, and will

MARY OF BETHANY. 191
now proceed to look at the fact, with all the circum
stances as recorded by the three historians.
In looking at the history according to the Chro
nology we have adopted, the supper given to Jesus took
place on the evening of His arrival at Bethany, and that
day would be the Sabbath. The next day was ' the
first day of the week ; ' it was that on which He made
what we call His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, in
consequence of which we have what is termed 'Palm
Sunday.' Jesus must have rested during the Sabbath
— from six o'clock of the preceding evening till six
o'clock of the day in question — at some little distance
from Bethany ; or He might start time enough before
six o'clock, to accomplish 'a Sabbath day's journey'
before the Sabbath closed ; or even, as Lord of the
Sabbath, and as opposed to a rigid attachment to what
was ceremonial, especially when substituted for vital
religiousness, He might choose to walk a greater distance
than was usual or was tolerated on that day. He
arrived, at any rate, at Bethany, as the Sabbath was
closing, or soon after it was closed. He was expected ;
a supper was prepared for Him ; friends and neigh
bours were invited to meet Him. The day had been one
of rest and worship. People would be at leisure. After
six o'clock, business might recommence, or any secular
pursuit be engaged in ; but Simon and Lazarus, and
others, like minded with them, instead of thinking of
the shop or the farm, dedicated the evening to a social
entertainment in honour of the Lord. The day that had
been passed in quietness and devotion, was to close in
hospitable and friendly intercourse.
The little village of Bethany, pleasantly situated on
the road running over the Mount of Olives, some
two miles or so from Jerusalem, was much endeared to

192 MART OF BETHANY
Jesus, by His having frequently sojourned there, with
a beloved and loving household. Here lived Lazarus,
with his two sisters, Martha and Mary ; here too, lived
Simon who had been a leper, — whom Jesus had mira
culously cleansed from his leprosy, even as He had recalled
Lazarus from the grave. Other disciples, no doubt, re
sided in the village, and in the immediate vicinity, who
were all rejoiced whenever the steps of the Master
brought Him to their neighbourhood. On the present
occasion He came, it is likely, to be, as was His wont,
the guest of Lazarus ; but the evening meal was to be
taken with friends at the house of Simon. It might
be larger, and more commodious for the purpose ; or in
this way, the two friends might have agreed together
to divide their attention, and share the honour of
receiving Jesus. Martha was busy in preparation and
service ; Mary* was happy in her listening love. It is
interesting to notice in the Gospel narratives how every
character, once introduced, retains throughout its own
identity, and this often under very great alterations of
circumstances. It was perfectly natural that Martha
and Mary should just do what they are here said to have
been doing ; Martha's occupation, at least, is described,
and Mary's we can readily conjecture. The Evan
gelists are the most simple, the least artificial, writers
in the world, — their preservation of the harmony and
unity of a character, was not the result of design,
but resulted from their just recording the truth as
they knew it.
Lazarus (alive) sat at meat with Simon (in health) ;
— the friend and physician of both was to be honoured ;
— His disciples were entertained with Him, and many
others besides, were, doubtless, at the feast.
What thoughts and feelings would be busy with the
minds and hearts of all present ! There were his, with

MART OF BETHANY 193
which none could intermeddle, and which none could
conjecture! He knew what was to happen before
another Sabbath, — where He would be then, — and what
would be the dreadful darkness of that day to His loving
friends. He was to enter Jerusalem on the morrow,
and He knew that He was going thither to die. Lazarus
was listening to the voice that brought with it recollec
tions of what must have seemed like a second birth,
in mature age, into a familiar and remembered world;
and Simon, surrounded by society, was receiving at his
table Him to whom he was indebted for being allowed
to mingle in society at all. Then there were the disci
ples, with whom He had conversed on the way re
specting His approaching end, — who had ventured to
reason with, or rebuke Him for His forebodings, — and
who had ' wondered what the rising from the dead
could mean.' Among them might be some, tender and
contemplative, who might be still thinking of His
mysterious words, and whose souls were beginning to
settle into sadness as part of their import seemed
opening to their view ; while others among them, im
petuous, restless, ambitious spirits, who were indulging
dreams of mere mundane glory, and in haste for their
accomphshment, might be petulant and disturbed by
what they deemed delay, and anxious to precipitate
what they hoped was near. Others might be present
who were not disciples, — who were there by invitation,
who came in doubt, or from motives of curiosity ; and
others, besides, who resisted impressions, and would not
believe, though they saw ' one who had risen from the
dead/ As the evening proceeded, the company were startled
by a remarkable incident. Mary, after looking at the
Master as He lay on the couch, appearing, probably,
fatigued and sad, rose up, went behind Him, and taking
vol. n. o

194 MART OF BETHANT.
' an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard, very costly/
' very precious/ ' a pound's weight,' she broke the seal
that secured it in the vessel, and then ' poured it on
His head/ and ' on His feet/ All present were taken
by surprise ; and 'the house was filled with the odour
of the ointment.' It was an act of love, gratitude,
respect ; it required at the moment a strong impulse,
but it was not merely the result of impulse. The act
had been meditated ; she had most probably saved and
husbanded that she might make the purchase ; she had
'kept' it by her for some time ; the fitting opportunity
was at length afforded, and her hoarded treasure and her
holy love were poured out at the same moment, and in
the same act.
'And there were some that had indignation!' , Some
of His disciples — His, who was thus honoured, — looked
on, not only without approval, but with positive dis
pleasure ! They felt indignant ; then 'they murmured;'
then, what was ' within them' they put into more
distinct and articulate speech, — they called it ' waste,'
(as if anything could be wasted on Him!) and they
asked ' for what purpose' such waste was ? They
began to calculate the value of the ointment ; they
might perhaps exaggerate it ! Some thought it might
have been sold ' for much ; ' others fixed on ' three
hundred pence' (between nine and ten pounds), as
what it might have fetched ; while Judas asked ' why
it had not been sold ' for that sum, and ' given to
the poor;' that is, given to him as the keeper of the
bag, to whose custody the twelve entrusted their
little store ; ' not that he cared for the poor,' but ' be
cause he was a thief/ and thought that from such a sum
he could have stolen largely without detection. It is
really terrible to think how the greatest virtue and
the greatest villany — the largest and the meanest soul

MART OF BETHANY 195
— self-sacrificing love and intense selfishness — ineffable
goodness and sordid lust, may come together into
nearness and contact in a world like this. Only
think, — Jesus and Judas in the same room ! But it is
so still ; such sorts of contact can yet occur, though not
of beings so largely apart. A delicate, loving, pure-
minded woman, may have sat in. the same public
carriage with a murderer or murderess, reeking with
blood, and fleeing from justice ! In the same company
may be conversing together, eminent piety and secret
sin! Touching each other, in the same pew, in the
Church of God, may be one who is ' simple concerning
evil,' and another to whom vice has left, nothing unre-
vealed !
In spite of her magnanimity and her approving con
sciousness, Mary was ' troubled ' by the murmurings
and questionings that arose around her. But they
were silenced, and she was re-assured by the words of
the Master, which were reproof to them and approval
of her. He gave an interpretation of what she had
done, above the meaning of her will, and rewarded her
by a prediction beyond her feelings of desert. But these
ideas had better be developed in a series of remarks,
along with some others that may now, in the second
place, be deduced from the story.
I. It is allowable for women openly to shew their
attachment to Christ and His cause. They are not,
indeed (as we think), to be preachers or pastors. They
are not publicly to teach in the Church ; they are
not thus to seem to assume the place of authority, but
so far are to be in subjection, learning in silence ;
nevertheless they are not cut off from active service.
Many modes of influence and usefulness are open to
them ; just as, in the sacred history, we find in many
ways, both in the lifetime of our Lord and afterwards,
o 2

196 MART OF BETHANY.
the agency of woman was permitted or required. It is
interesting to observe, and yet also somewhat singular
and startling, that there were certain women who ' fol
lowed Jesus and ministered to Him of their substance;'
who, by their companionship would seem to have soft
ened the rigour of His circumstances, and by their
property contributed to the modest enjoyments and
moderate comfort of His life. Several women ' abode
with the apostles,' — 'gathered with them' in the upper
room in Jerusalem, and formed a part of the foundation
of the Church. There were women who 'laboured
with Paul in the Gospel,' many of whose names are
honourably recorded. Some appear to have been dea
conesses, like ' Phoebe, the servant of the Church at
Cenchrea:' while others (or perhaps the same) desig
nated ' widows,' an official, possibly, as well as a per
sonally descriptive term — had, it is likely, a good
deal to do with the children and orphans, and were
expected to influence, admonish, and watch over the
younger members of their own sex. Some women, hke
Dorcas, made garments for the poor ; others, it would
appear, travelled with the apostles as sisters or wives.
Priscilla, as much as her husband, helped to instruct
Apollos in the faith; and many, doubtless, of those
noble and 'honourable women/ who before their re
ception of the Christian doctrine, were, as proselytes,
pious and intelligent, found, in the Christian com
munities, ample means of useful activity. So in the
present day, there are ways in which women, in a
perfectly proper and becoming manner, can show their
love to the Master, and evince their zeal in His service.
There are many things, indeed, which, but for them,
would stop or languish.
It is not only not inconsistent with conventional pro
prieties, for them to regulate schools, visit societies,

MART OF BETHANY 197
and other institutions, but many of these, in most places
and churches would get deranged, or die, without their
constant superintendence or personal agency. Nor is
it improper to say that, as in early times, she was to be
honourably distinguished, who was 'well reported of
for good works,' in that "she had washed the saints'
feet/ or been actively hospitable to missionaries and
ministers ; so in the present day, there is still oppor
tunity for the thoughtful kindness of woman's call
ing in relation to those or to their families and their
representatives, who, at home or abroad, are devoted
to, and are doing the work of God.
II. Women may sometimes shew their regard for
Christ in a way very startling to others, — not approved
by them— and that may be thought extravagant or
wrong. I am not going to defend obtrusiveness or
eccentricity : many things, doubtless, have often been
done by both men and women, utterly indefensible —
anything but modest, sober, or right ; the young have
acted unbecoming their age, — the female unbecoming her
sex ; some have forgotten their social position ; others
have ignored the claims of kindred on their property,
— children have been beggared by their fathers being
saints ; and intelligent piety has had to bear the rebuke
of vulgar insolence under the garb of passionate zeal.
Still it is but a poor form of life — of Christian man
hood, that never prompts to the doing of anything but
what the world, or the generality of the Church shall
deem unexceptional. I don't say but that the most calm,
calculating, and respectably prudent and decorous of
professors, may have a real and sincere religious life
in him ; but that in such persons, there is not only
no enthusiasm, no abandonment to a great governing
impulse, but there is an incapacity of understanding and
appreciating those in whom such things are. Higher

198 MART OF BETHANY
natures, however, of this sort will every now and then
be rising up somewhere ; and, though only consistent
with themselves and with the absolute of Christian duty
and obligation, though only just and true to their own
convictions, and to what, perhaps, ought to be the con
victions of others, they will appear to many to be
worthy of condemnation, possibly contempt, instead of
being either listened to, approved, or imitated. When
ever there is very deep, strong, and impulsive religious
feehng, — the notion that the ideal of the Christian
mind ought to be embodied in facts and actions, — the
chances are that something will be projected, attempted
or done, which the Church generally will not go along
with. It may rebuke it; it may be something that
shall seem to condemn it by contrast. Then it will be
unanimously voted an extravagance. It will be im
puted to bad or suspicious motives ; or to ignorance or
simplicity ; or anything but what might give it force as
an example. Or, sometimes, without venturing to con
demn the effort, or the expense, absolutely considered,
it will still be insisted that both might have been
more wisely directed ; something else might have been
thought of, that would have been so much better. It
may even happen, if what is done, or purposed, should
contemplate the honour of religion where it is, rather
than its propagation where it is not, then an approach
will be made to a depreciation of Christ Himself ; the
thought of ' waste/ will come to be muttered in com
plaint or objection ; as if motive and object might not
concur in the thought and feeling of some of His dis
ciples, to justify at times in relation to Him, something
that should seem like ostentation — something that
would be ' sacrifice !' It is really sad to think that there
are some people who, whatever a person may do, will
find something in it to blame. Women, especially, can

MART OF BETHANT. 199
never do anything allowable or right. One poor, crushed
sinful creature creeps towards Christ in penitence and
shame, — 'washes His feet with her tears, and wipes
them with the hair of her head ;' she is looked at with
disgust and scorn, — nothing is thought of but her past
sin, — except it be her present presumption and daring
to intrude among respectable people ! It is not true
faith. Another woman, not a sinner, not with tears of
anguish and contrition, but as a disciple, and under the
influence of grateful love, saves of her substance, spends
and purchases, and draws nigh, and pours out on the
head of her Lord the precious ointment, to express her
soul and relieve her love. She is charged with waste
and extravagance ; her efforts are misdirected. It is
not true charity. So it may be still. The penitent
may be repelled by the self-righteous, — the munificent
libelled by the churl ; no body can please all ; while
high and unwonted forms of action will run the risk of
displeasing most.
III. The act, that may be thus misunderstood, may
be acceptable to, approved, and honoured by Christ.
In the case before us, Mary obtained a double reward.
In the first place, she found that she had done a thing
far greater than she intended. She only meant to show
Jesus attention and respect, by an act of expensive
courtesy, according to the custom of her country and
her age. But Jesus said, that she had done a good
work far beyond this, and ' had anointed His body for
the burial.' Painful as it might be to her to listen to
language so prophetic of sorrow, it must yet have ele
vated her own act in her own estimation. That, it ap
peared, had assumed an aspect to the mind of Jesus
wonderfully affecting, and had penetrated His soul to a
depth and in a manner she had never anticipated. Our
Lord, as it were, was pleased with and accepted the

200 MART OF BETHANT.
auspicious omen, embodied in this grateful, devoted act.
He felt as if death was less dreadful when He was
beforehand prepared for the sepulchre by the love of
those for whom He was to die. But in the second place,
He assured Mary, through His words to the company,
that what she had done would be mentioned to her
praise, would be a lasting laudatory memorial through
out the whole world, wherever the Gospel should be
preached, for all time. She never thought of this.
She never thought of anything, but of how much she
loved, and of the way she was to express it. It was
necessary for the act to be in some degree public, as she
wished it to be a part of the ceremonial of His recep
tion ; but beyond this she never looked ; even from
that she would willingly have escaped, had it been
possible. As to the thing going beyond the friends
present, or the hmits of the viUage, it never occurred
to her. But Jesus said that it should be talked of,
written about, read everywhere the world over, —
always, while there is a Gospel to be preached or men
to hear it.
And so it may often be yet ; actions that may now be
questioned or condemned, may not only be acceptable
to Christ, but they may appear to Him in an aspect
utterly inconceivable by the doers ; far more may be
effected than they think ; seed may be sown which
they knew not they had in their hand, — a sacrifice
offered, richer than anything they thought they pos
sessed ; and those who would have shrunk back from
publicity, may find that their names 'cannot be hid,'
and that good deeds performed in secret, or with few
observers, are drawn forth, and set up, and become at
once a memorial and a model throughout the world.
IV. This misapprehension on the part of some, this
approval of Christ, and predicted reward of Mary's

MART OF BETHANT. 201
service, all sprang from her having ' done what she
could.' Now, this may mean, that she had done what was
open to her in her position and circumstances ; that she
could not do what many others did ; she was debarred
that ; she therefore thought, and contrived, and tried to
find out something that might be possible to her, and
this was what was suggested, and she did it. What
ever might be thought of the mode of expression, let
the motive be regarded, and the manner in which she
is shut out from other forms of action, and so accept
the service as it is meant, and estimate its value and
worth by that. Or the words may mean, she was not
satisfied with what others said or did ; with what she
might have been content with without censure; have
done or not done, and escape observation. What was
passable according to the ordinary standard, was not
sufficient to satisfy the hunger and thirst of her spirit ;
the throbbings of her zeal — her longing and labouring
love. She put, therefore, her whole ability to tribute
or rather to the test, and resolved to do all and every
thing it was capable of effecting. She ' devised/ there
fore, 'liberal things ;' she purposed in her heart, planned
with her head, put to her hand, pushed on, persevered,
prayed and toiled day by day, exerting the utmost of
her power that she might accomplish all that was in her
will, and she has done it. Gabriel could do no more ;
nor any of the highest creatures of God.
In either of these senses, or both, the thing is seen
still : and when it is, is still often the occasion of
surprise. Some things suggested by necessity, unheard
of modes for the giving utterance, expression, and pal
pable shape, to inward religious love, will appear odd,
out of the way, strange. And others, which are only
the actings out, to the utmost limits of abilhty, of what

202 MART OF BETHANT.
a man really can do when he ' has a mind to work/ will
surprise and stagger after another fashion ; shaming
the listless, astonishing the covetous, exasperating the
selfish, and becoming a wonder to the individual
himself. We are obviously reminded by the story before us of
the duty of a Christian to do something for Christ,
something for His honour, His cause, or His servants.
Now, it is lamentable to think, that there are persons
who not only do not fulfil this duty, but violate and op
pose it in every possible way : who not only do nothing
for Christ, but who do everything they can against
Him ; who blaspheme His name, deny His pretensions,
reject His Gospel, and pour contempt on His ministers
and people. It is sad also, to think, that there are
many professing Christians who rather hinder than help
the cause of God. To such the words of the Saviour
apply, 'he that is not with me is against me, and he
that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.' Neu
trality is antagonism. To stand, doing nothing, is to
be obstacles in the way of those that work. Not to
' hold forth the word of life/ not to ' shine as a light in
the world,' is to lie like an opaque, big stone, through
which the beams of truth cannot pierce. Then, again,
it is a very serious subject of thought, that there are so
many of those who do something, that never exert the
half of their ability. They do not honestly do what
they can. Obligation and capacity are commensurate.
God does not desire ' to reap where He has not sown,
nor to gather where He has not strawed/ but where He
has 'given much, of them He will expect the more.'
He expects not from a brute the service of a man, nor
from a man the obedience of an angel ; He expects not
from him that has one talent the results of five, nor
from him that has five the results of ten ; but He does

MART OF BETHANT. 203
expect everywhere, and from all beings, that each shall
serve according to his actual and ' several ability.'
With respect to the power to do something for Christ,
this differs in different men, and in the same man at dif
ferent times ; there are differences of talent, wealth,
influence, station, opportunity ; — and there are very
frequently, growth and accession, in all these things, as
Christians advance and succeed in life. It will often be
found, however, that the most able and endowed classes
do the least, — and of certain individuals it is sometimes
true, that as their means increase their doings diminish ;
for it is diminution, if, while Providence enlarges power,
the service rendered is only what it was. But, it is
further to be noticed, that there are some, nay, doubt
less many, many more than we reckon, or suspect, who
are entitled in some degree to our Lord's commendation
of this loving woman — ' she hath done what she could/
Some do this in the one sense, some in the other, some
in both. There are those, who, by the force of an in
genious love — a love urged by necessity to expedients
— hit on methods the most remarkable, and do some
thing that would never have been dreamt of, had they
been on a level with others in ability, like the poor blind
girl, who of course did her work -without candles, and
who gave to a missionary society the value of the
number she would have used during the winter, if she
had had her sight, because then she must have bought
them. Oh, what a beautiful luminous soul must have
been dwelling behind that physical darkness. And
there are those too, who by effort, self-denial, and
sacrifice, advance in the way of agency or offering as far
as their ability can go. They will have their reward.
When they 'rest from their labours, their works will
follow them.' They may find, possibly, that they did
more and greater things than they thought they did,, or

204 MART OF BETHANT.
even purposed to do ; and that these were the seeds
and beginnings of others, which are to go on growing
while the world lasts, and which, in their grand ulti
mate results, are never to die.
Who, then, will consecrate themselves to the Lord ?
Who will consider their talents and opportunities, their
duties and obligations, and henceforth determine to do
what they can ? To put their hand to every duty, in
such a spirit, and with such resolves, that they shall do
it ' with all their might ? ' 'Be not weary in well doing,
for in due season ye shall reap if ye faint not ;' 'to do
good and to communicate forget not, for with such
sacrifices God is well pleased.' ' If these things be in
you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither
be barren nor unfruitful in the work of the Lord, doing
these things " ye make your calling and election sure ; "
" ye shall never fall," and so shall an entrance be ad
ministered unto you abundantly, into the everlasting
kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ/ Amen.

SEEMON XI.
'THE WELL-BELOVED GAITJS.'
3 John 1.
At first sight, there is almost a want of congruity
between what the Bible is, and what we should have
expected a book from God would have been ; and yet,
when fully considered, this apparent defect becomes
itself a proof of the divinity of its claims.
Let any man imagine a number of individuals
eminently endowed, first forming the idea of what
such a book should be, and then sitting down and
endeavouring to realise it, by the composition of a
volume that should appear to be written, as they would
suppose God would write. Does it strike you, that
the volume, which human genius would produce under
such circumstances, would bear any resemblance to
the Bible as we have it ? I should think not. There
would be such an effort to appear always great, that
nothing would be natural ; there would be such a per
petual straining after effect ; the reader would never be
allowed to forget that he was listening to the language
of a God, and this would be sought to be secured
sometimes by pomp of expression, and sometimes by
extravagance of sentiments. To be simple, familiar,

206 THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS.
human ; to describe home scenes and domestic inci
dents ; to depict characters devoid of greatness ; or
in any way to touch ordinary topics, or to speak like
ordinary men, would appear, we may be certain, to
the supposed authors, to endanger the pretensions of
their book to divinity.
Depend upon it, my brethren, this is the way man
would think and feel : something like this, is what
is effected, when a book presents itself as coming from
God, and yet this is not the character of the New
Testament. True, indeed, the ideas it reveals are
original and vast ; they strike us at once as divine ;
but, the manner in which they are embodied and
developed, is the farthest possible from what we should
have expected ; the farthest possible from what it
would have been, if human wisdom unaided, had set
itself the task of conceiving and expressing divine
ideas. Nothing, for instance, can be so wonderful as
the idea of 'God manifest in the flesh/ the Word, or
Logos, becoming incarnate, and dwelling among men :
yet nothing can be farther, not only from the way in
which talented impostors would have described the
supposed embodiment of this, but from the way in which
we should have expected it to be done — the facts and
circumstances we should have been prepared to hear
of; nothing can be farther from this, than the simple
narrative of the Evangelists. Nothing, again, can be
more imposing than the idea of twelve men, filled
with divine gifts, constituted the visible representatives
and human ' ambassadors of God,' founding societies,
establishing laws, laying the basis of a moral and
spiritual kingdom in the world ; and for this purpose
both speaking with authority, and recording in written
documents the divine thoughts, through the influence
of which, mighty results in time, and for ever were

THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS. 207
to be secured ; nothing can be more imposing than
this. And yet nothing is so unlike what we should
have expected the reality to be, as for the most of
these men, to leave no authentic memorials behind
them, for them to be known only by their names ;
for those, with whose history we are acquainted to
have moved in the churches ' in weakness and in fear
and in much trembling ; ' and for their writings to
be taken up with temporary controversies, to consist
of loose and isolated letters ; and for these letters to
mix up with the sublime and authoritative communi
cations of the Spirit, the expressions of human feeling,
the familiarities of human friendship, details and
descriptions of mere private character and private
worth. Such, as to substance and manner, is the constitution
of the Christian Scriptures. They do not, at first sight,
at all resemble what we should previously have ex
pected a book from God to be ; they are the farthest
possible from what genius and intellect would have
attempted to produce, had they tried to construct
what might have passed for such a book : and this
circumstance, I cannot but think, is in itself a strong
presumption in favour of the claims of the New
Testament. It is not written as men would have
written it, who would always have been thinking of
saying something, that should carry on its front the
characters of heaven ; the familiarity and artlessness,
the perfectly simple and material manner, which dis
tinguish the Gospels and Epistles, irresistibly impress
the mind with the conviction, that the writers had
no notion of what they were really doing ; they were
not aware of the origin ality and grandeur of the
facts they recorded; they never thought, how what
they said would appear to the world, as professing

208 THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS.
to be so much divine revelation ; and hence they gave
utterance to the most extraordinary thoughts not only
in a manner the most unaffected, but generally in the
form of familiar letters, and sometimes exceedingly
short ones, and mixed up, as has already been said, with
such allusions to themselves, or others, as worldly
wisdom would have led them to repress had they been
impostors, because such allusions seem like an incon
gruity in any thing assuming to be written by God.
These observations particularly apply to the writings
of the Apostle John. Both in his Gospel and in his
largest Epistle, his conceptions are often great and
magnificent, yet his style is as simple as a child. He is
the most sublime, and the most artless of writers, — the
most divine, and the most human. He reveals to us,
more than the other Evangelists, the transitional glory
of the Son of God : and yet he records the most
touching of the facts which brought out His humanity and
tears. He gives us the most elevated of His discourses
and prayers, and yet he perpetuates some of the most
familiar of His sayings. The apostle's doctrinal state
ments are sublime and mysterious, and yet his writings
are singularly practical. His mind seems to have
been almost seraphic, and to have felt itself at home
in the higher forms of spiritual thought, and yet
he often descends, as in the Epistle before us, to the
familiar expressions of human feehng. The letter is
addressed to one whom he seems to have greatly
loved, and who, from the allusions which are made
to his character and virtues, would appear to have been
worthy of that love. Now, it is to the fact, that God
presided over the composition of the Bible, that we
owe so much of the human and the familiar inter
woven with the august and the divine. Man would
not have thought of this, or dared to have done it,

THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS. 209
had he sat down to try to write, as he might suppose
God would ; but God Himself, actually guiding the pen
of His servants led them to do what we in our wisdom
should have thought been beneath Him. On this
principle it is that a divine writing can come before
us in a familiar garb, and an inspired apostle instruct
the Church, by pouring out his feelings into the ear
of his friend, and placing that friend before it through
all time, as his excellent and ' well-beloved Gaius.'
In the following remarks, I propose, in the first
place, to point out the particulars which indicate
the general excellence, or illustrate the particular
features of the character of Gaius ; and, secondly, to
apply the subject to our present purpose,
I. In proceeding to notice the character of Gaius,
it may be proper to mention, as a preliminary remark,
that it is impossible to say with certainty, who he
was, or where he resided. The name occurs four
other times in the New Testament, but whether as
belonging to the same person, may admit of doubt :
all the individuals, however, who are distinguished
by it, appear to have been persons equally distinguished
for zeal or liberality. We first meet with a Gaius
in the nineteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles,
the 29th verse, ' the whole city was filled with confusion,
and having caught Gaius and Aristarchus, men of
Macedonia, Paul's companions in travel, they rushed
with one accord into the theatre/ This Gaius was
obviously a person of zeal and activity, he was travelling
with Paul, helping him in the Gospel, and became
involved with him in the persecutions which he endured.
In the next chapter of the Acts, at the 4th verse, we
find Paul in Greece (after a lapse of some time, greater,
it is likely than what appears at first sight), and
among the names of the persons mentioned as starting
vol. 11. p

210 THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS.
with him on his journey to Jerusalem, there occurs
that of a 'Gaius of Derbe.' Should this not be the
same Gaius already mentioned, it may yet be observed,
that he was doubtless a person of distinguished worth,
for the individuals here enumerated were ' chosen by
the churches ' to carry, with the apostle, the collection
they had made for the poor saints that dwelt in Judea,'
they must all, therefore, Gaius amongst them, have
possessed the confidence of the churches. Another time
we meet with an individual of this name, in the six
teenth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and the
23rd verse, not only with the name, but with a state
ment respecting him illustrative of his character, 'Gaius,
mine host, and of the whole Church, saluteth you.'
Christian liberality, evinced, by hospitable attention
to Christian ministers and Christian men, is thus
associated with the name of Gaius by the apostle,
and rendered a permanent record in the Church. Paul,
when he wrote to the Romans, was staying in his
house, he was his host; but this, so far from being
a solitary act, or a thing kept for great occasions and
distinguished men, was only the exercise of a virtue
that was habitual, and that was most disinterested
and comprehensive in its character. So large and
liberal was it in its expressions, that the apostle,
in a bold and generous hyperbole, styles him the host
of ' the whole Church,' as well as his own ; as if all Chris
tians were welcome to his house, as all certainly had a
place in his affections. This Gaius must have been
a person of property, and he seems to have used ' the
unrighteous mammon,' as ' a good steward of the grace
of God/ The last time that the name occurs, is in the
first chapter of the Epistle to the Corinthians, the 14th
verse ; ' I thank God that I baptized none of you but
Crispus and Gaius/ As Paul wrote to the Romans

THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS. 211
from Corinth, this Gaius, there can be no doubt, is
the same individual we have just described. The
exclamation of the apostle, I cannot but regard as
a testimony to his character, his having baptized him,
as a proof of his rank. Paul baptized few ; for his
office was to preach the Gospel and convert souls :
having done this, he devolved the administration of
the outward rite on any of his assistants : when he
did, therefore, undertake it himself, we may fairly
suppose, that there was something in the station or
circumstances of the convert, to occasion the distinction :
and considering the state of the Corinthian church,
when Paul wrote, the probability is, that while he
rejoiced that he had baptized none 'but Crispus and
Gaius/ their character was such, as to occasion no
regret, that he had baptized them.
We shall find hereafter, that the last Gaius to whom
we have referred, possessed some of the distinguishing
virtues which appear to have adorned 'the well-beloved
Gaius' of the text ; the ' host ' of Paul, and the friend
of John, had a character in common ; whether, however,
they were the same person, it is useless to enquire, and
unnecessary to determine. It is enough to know, and
it is interesting to know, that the name Gaius, whenever
it appears, is always associated with eminent piety ;
with piety illustrated by zeal, or by beneficence.
In proceeding to direct and confine your attention to
the character of the individual to whom the Epistle
before us was addressed, we shall first enumerate some
things which presume his possession of general excel
lence ; and then enumerate those virtues for which the
apostle especially commends him.
You will remark, then, that it is a presumption in
favour of Gaius that he should be singled out from
among the members of the Church to which he be-
P 2

212 THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS.
longed, to be the receiver of an apostolic communication.
This cannot but be regarded as a great and distinguished
honour, and as involving in it a testimony to the excel
lence of the man. It does not appear that he sustained
in the Church any official rank ; he was neither bishop
nor deacon ; that, however, which is more honourable
than office, high character, marked him out as worthy
the distinction to which we have referred. In addition
to this, it may be observed that the Church, in conse
quence of the conduct of Diotrephes, was in a state
greatly to pain the mind of the apostle ; and it speaks
much for the character of Gaius, that in such circum
stances, that mind naturally turned to and rested upon
him for sympathy and rehef. It appears, too, that his
character, whatever might be its peculiar and discrimi
nating features, was such, as greatly to contribute to
the apostle's satisfaction whenever he thought of it.
There was one joy, to which the apostle was keenly
alive — a joy than which he had no greater, and could
conceive no greater ; a joy springing from the know
ledge that those whom he regarded as his children in
the Gospel, maintained a character becoming their
profession; this joy Gaius imparted, enlarged, and
sustained in an eminent degree. It is further to be
observed, that the feelings of the apostle in relation to
Gaius were not those merely of admiration and respect
on account of his excellence, but of the most ardent
personal affection ; he not only dehghted in him as a
convert, and rejoiced greatly for his consistency as
a Christian, but he received and entertained him in the
sanctuary of his heart, and expressed for him a pecuhar
and intense love. Again and again is this love ex
pressed, even in the compass of this short epistle ; and
towards the close it is interesting to observe how it
flames forth in the delight with which the aged and

THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS. 213
apostolic man, anticipates a personal interview with his
friend. ' I have many things to write, but will not with
pen and ink write unto thee ; but I trust shortly to see
thee, and then we shall speak face to face.' Now, when
we remember the personal character, as well as the
official work of the apostle, — when we recollect that he
was ' the disciple whom Jesus loved/ and infer from this
circumstance that there was, perhaps, some resemblance
between him and what adorned and distinguished the
Saviour Himself, considered as a perfect human being, —
when we reflect that in his old age every thing which
commended him to the friendship of Jesus in early life
had been exalted and purified by long experience in
walking with God, and large donations of the Divine
Spirit, — when we add to this, what is not only probable,
but what we know, that He could regard with compla
cency no character that was not in some degree
assimilated to His Lord's, — we may fairly conclude that
his extreme partiality for his 'beloved Gaius/ his
expressions of attachment, his readiness to write to
him, his joy in the thought of a personal interview,
when they could speak fully and freely to each other, —
not only indicates that Gaius was a person of great
worth, but that there was some peculiar congeniality
and sympathy between him and the only individual
towards whom the immaculate Lamb of God enter
tained, when in the flesh, anything approaching to
private friendship.
The mere cursory reading of the epistle leaves upon
the mind the general impression which these remarks
embody, but there are statements in it, specific and
distinct, and to these statements we now turn.
1st. In the first place, Gaius was a person attached to
'the truth! John rejoiced greatly on account of 'the
truth that was in him.' The apostle lived to witness

214 THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS.
the diffusion of many pernicious errors in the Church,
especially of some connected with the person and work of
Christ. That which is emphatically 'the mystery of
godliness' — 'the Word being made flesh, and dwelling
among men,' — was very early exposed to perversion and
denial. Errors and mistakes of very opposite characters
sprung up respecting it. The Christian doctrine, ex
posed to the influence of Gentile philosophy, was speedily
corrupted by its deleterious infusions. Professing to be
wise beyond what was delivered to them ; not content
to receive the facts of the Gospel as such, but curiously
enquiring and pushing the enquiry, 'How can these
things be ? ' some among those that were converted to
Christianity doubted whether the Messiah was more
than man, while some denied that He was really man
at all. The first stumbled at His pre-existence and
incarnation, because He suffered indignity and anguish ;
the other, admitting His divine nature, thought it
beneath Him actually to suffer, and therefore denied
that His body or His sufferings were anything else but
illusory appearances. The pure truth was thus in
danger from equal errors, though on opposite sides, —
the one depriving us of the possibility of atonement,
the other robbing it of its grandeur and worth. To each
of these the apostle opposed himself; against each his
writings are directed ; sometimes by exposure of the
errors, but mostly by the simple strong assertion of
the truth. He frequently depicts the divinity and
glory of the Son of God, and as frequently asserts that
He actually 'came in the flesh ;' came visibly, substan
tially, and ' by blood/ All that is great and essential
in the Gospel, as a Divine method of saving mercy, — •
as involving in it ' the unspeakable gift' of Divine love,
the reality and value of the propitiatory sacrifice, — all is
involved in, and must stand or fall with, these doctrines.

THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS. 215
John not only felt this, but felt it so deeply that the
phrase 'the truth,' employed far more frequently by him
than by any other of the sacred writers, generally
stands, not for anything that may be divinely revealed,
but for the peculiar discoveries and facts connected with
the person and work of the Messiah. This truth Gaius
held ; held it as his life ; it was ' in him/ as filling his
intellect and his affections ; in his understanding as
a source of hght, in his heart as the object of love.
2d. In the second place, Gaius ' walked in the truth.'
By which I understand that his general conduct was
practically in harmony with what he professed. His
religion was something more than a theory — his faith
more than a speculation. He did not rest as an end, in
believing correctly. By this, indeed, he felt he was to
be brought to God ; only, however, for the further
purpose of being made like Him. ' The truth' that was
' in him,' was evinced to be a doctrine ' according to
godliness/ by the influence it exerted on his habits and
behaviour. He did not ' sin, because he was under
grace,' nor ' continue in sin for grace to abound ;' this
would have been to have become 'an enemy to the
Cross ;' an actual antagonist to those very truths which
the apostle taught, and to which he rejoiced that Gaius
adhered. No one demands, with greater exphcitness or
frequency than John, the cultivation by Christians of
practical morality, though no one insists with more
fervour on the necessity of attachment to doctrinal
truth. 'Let no man deceive you; he that doeth
righteousness, is righteous'; no one else, whatever he
may pretend, whatever the strength and sweep of his
intellect, the splendour of his speculations, the accu
racy of his faith, the extent of his knowledge, or
his reputation for sanctity. In this plain, practical,
common-sense manner, in relation to the moral virtues,

216 THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS.
the apostle habitually writes in all his epistles : the
most mystical, as he is often deemed, the most subhme
and spiritual, as he certainly is, of the sacred writers.
Had Gaius professed the truth, but 'held it in
unrighteousness ;' had he not ' adorned it' by habitual
holiness ; by ' the things that are just, pure, lovely, and
of good report ;' had he not proved by his personal
character that ' the grace of God which bringeth
salvation, taught him to deny ungodliness and worldly
lusts, and to live soberly and righteously in the world ;'
had he not ' added to his faith, virtue ; ' had he not
sought ' to put on Christ/ as well as to be saved by
'being found in Him;' with all the apostle's love
for what was accurate and orthodox, he would have had
no place in his friendship or esteem. Moral criminality
was deemed by John not only as bad as doctrinal
defection, but when joined to the knowledge and the
profession of the truth, as a great deal worse.
3d. The third thing particularly specified and
enlarged upon by the apostle, for which Gaius was
distinguished, was his attention and liberality to
preachers of the Gospel, whose circumstances demanded
sympathy and aid. ' Beloved thou doest faithfully
whatsoever thou doest to brethren and to strangers,
which have borne witness of thy charity before the
Church, whom if thou bring forward on their journey
after a godly sort, thou shaU do well : because, for His
name's sake they went forth, taking nothing of the
Gentiles. We therefore ought to receive such, that we
might be fellow-helpers to the truth.'
This passage would admit of great extent and variety
of observation ; we shall compress, however, what we
would have you specially to remark in it, into the
following particulars. In the first place, we accept the
interpretation of the ' brethren' and 'strangers' here men-

THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS. 217
tioned, which regards them as persons who went forth
from the primitive churches for the purpose of extend
ing the knowledge of Christ by preaching the Gospel.
They went forth impelled by compassion to the souls of
men, and sustained by faith in the providence of God.
They were themselves, most of them, poor ; their wish
was to make others rich ; and in seeking to impart to
them ' spiritual firings,' they determined to avoid every
appearance of pursuing a personal or carnal end. They
laboured with their hands, or hved on the bounty of
those who were already Christians like themselves, and
who could understand their character, and sympathise
with their object ; but 'they took nothing from the
Gentiles ; they ' sought not theirs, but them ; ' they
' coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel ; ' for the
sake of Christ they went forth, and by the friends of
Christ they trusted to be received, and to be brought
forward on their journey, from time to time, after a
godly sort. Secondly, thus to receive these humble
itinerants, to shew them kindness and encourage them
in their work, is represented by the apostle as one
mode by which a private Christian becomes emphati
cally a ' helper to the truth/ Without such aid, they
might ' become weary and faint in their minds ; '
discouragement might disable them for the full and
efficient discharge of their ministry ; or their time and
strength might be too much absorbed by provision for
the day that was passing over them, to permit their
adequate or successful devotement to the eternal
interests of their fellow-men. They ' go forth' with the
truth of Christ in their hearts and on their lips ; that
truth which makes wise to salvation, and the triumph
of which is identical with the happiness of the world
and man. But to be enabled to diffuse it, and to secure
the results at which they aim, they need to be helped by

218 THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS.
their Christian brethren, who in doing this, become
' helpers ' to the truth itself. The work done, is done
by them, as well by those who actually accomplish it.
It is reckoned as theirs by that Being who can accurately
attach every consequence to its appropriate instrumen
tality ; they will share in the reward of the faithful
labourer in that day when every man who has done any
thing, shall have praise of God ; when he who minis
tered and he who helped him either to continue or
extend his ministrations, shall be informed of the
results of their combined agency, and rejoice together
in what they see. Thirdly, this part of a 'fellow-
helper' Gaius performed. He might not have been
competent to the first office, or not have felt himself
providentially called to it ; he might have been a
person of slender capacity, inferior talents, or defective
education ; he might have wanted firmness and confi
dence ; have been ' of slow speech/ or ' a stammering
tongue.' With all his excellence, he might yet have
been destitute of those qualifications which would have
enabled him to preach the Gospel himself; but he had
other qualifications which fitted him to ' help' those who
did, and these he employed, and employed well. What
ever he did, he did faithfully ; that is, in a manner con
sistent with the faith he professed ; he did it, too, as
a devout and conscientious man, as one who had com
mitted to him the administration of a stewardship,
who was 'to give an account/ and who had thus to
' study to shew himself approved unto God/ by doing
what he did ' after a godly sort.' He was possessed to
some extent, 'of this world's goods ;' he had the power
to be beneficent by possessing the means ; but his wealth
probably was not so intrinsically great as it was ren
dered available by his mode of fife, by daily economy,
by inexpensive habits, by spending little on personal

THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS. 219
indulgence, by aversion from show, splendour, and
company, and by acting on the principle of seeking
to discover rather what he could do without, than what
might be warranted by his position in the world. In
this way, Gaius was enabled to do much ; far more, in
fact, in the way of preaching, than if he himself had
been the most eloquent of preachers ; for by aiding
many, and helping them on in their way and in their
work, he was, virtually speaking, at the same moment,
by many mouths, and in the eye of God, might be
regarded as converting many souls in several places,
and at the same time, and when otherwise occupied
himself, — when he was engaged in his worldly business,
at home in his family, asleep in his bed, at rest or on a
journey, in sickness or in health, living or dead.
Fourthly, Gaius did this, when some who should
have done it, did it not. Diotrephes, ' who loved to
have the pre-eminence/ was not covetous of a pre
eminence like his. This person might equal, or even
be superior to Gaius in wealth, he was certainly
superior to him in office ; but instead of encouraging
the servants of Christ, and becoming a worker and
helper, together with them, he not only did not receive
them himself, but forbade others to receive them too.
In spite, however, of coldness or scorn, of want of
sympathy, or of positive opposition, Gaius persevered
in fulfilling a duty which he felt to be important.
Lastly, The extent and manner in which this excel
lent man exemplified the virtue which principally dis
tinguished him, was such, that many of those who
experienced his kindness, 'bore witness of his charity
before the Church.' Whatever might be the repugnance
of Gaius to publicity, those whom he had ' helped ' in
the discharge of their mission ' could not forbear,' on
their return to the places whence they set out, or

220 THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS.
upon any fitting occasion in other places, to make honour
able mention of his name and virtues. In recounting
the incidents that had distinguished their journey, and
_especiaUy in recording the praise of God, the manner in
which He had providentially sustained them, — meeting
their wants by timely supplies, strengthening their
faith by unexpected encouragement, and animating
their ardour when ' ready to die,' by the countenance of
a friend, and the expressions of sympathy ; — when these
topics were adverted to by the ' brethren,' in reviewing
the events of their visits to the Gentiles, they were un
able to repress their public testimony to the ' beloved
Gaius/ for having been to many of them ' as an angel
of God/ ' The bowels of the saints,' in the language of
Scripture, ' had often been refreshed by him ;' he had
' washed their feet/ ' anointed their head/ saluted them
in love, cheered their hearts, filled their hands, and
sent them on their way, glad and grateful, more fit and
more disposed for service, loving their work and loving
their master, the servants of Christ, and the souls of
men, better than before. These things they publicly
testified ; they bore witness to what they had person
ally seen and felt ; they desired thus ' to glorify God '
' in him ' from whom they received help, that ' for the
gifts bestowed upon them,' through his instrumentality,
' thanks might be rendered on his behalf.'
4th. The fourth and last thing to which we shall
advert, is one that might be expected from what has
been said. Gaius, it appears, was obviously a person
whose ' soul prospered.' So emphatically was it thus,
in the estimation of John, that he made the spiritual
prosperity of his friend the measure of his prayers for
his bodily health, and for his prosperity in other things.
'Beloved, I wish above all things, that thou mayest
prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.'

THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS. 221
A terrible wish this, if it were offered for and were
to take effect on many a professor : it would blast them
in body and ruin them in circumstances ; it would
render them like the church that thought itself rich and
increased in goods, ' poor, and miserable, and blind, and
naked/ Very opposite, too, is the picture suggested by
the words before us, to what often meets us in the
history of individuals ; prosperity ruins them — the soul
languishes, from the very circumstance of the fehcity of
their outward fortune, so that all who love them have
to pray for disappointment rather than for success. In the
case of Gaius, however, it was otherwise. And let it
be remarked (the meaning of which remark many will
understand) that the words of the apostle seem to
imply that the health of Gaius was somewhat enfeebled.
This, it is thought, might affect his feelings, and render
the actual prosperity of his soul, while visible to others
unperceived by himself ; his excellence was obvious to
all who knew him, though bodily infirmity or mental
depression concealed the truth from his own conscious
ness. On this account, he was addressed by John in the
words of encouragement — words delicately but strongly
conveying the apostle's confidence in his spiritual
state, and assuring him, at the same time, of his con
stantly sharing in his supplications and prayers. Such
are the reciprocities of Christian friendship ; and such,
on the whole, is the view given us in this epistle of the
interest felt by the apostle in his friend, and of the
sterling excellence of that friend's character — the de
vout, and liberal, and ' well-beloved Gaius.'
II. We now come to apply the subject to our present
purpose. 1st, The first thought that is suggested to us here,
is the correspondence between the character we have
been endeavouring to delineate, and that of the friend

222 THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS.
whose removal from amongst us we mourn this day. I
have never been in the habit of making minute personal
allusions to those whose death I have attempted to
improve ; nor shall I, in this instance, forget the duty I
owe to the living, by any prolonged eulogy of the dead.
I do feel, however, that it would not be right to suffer
Joseph Procter to descend to the grave without a
public testimony to his many virtues. The circum
stances of this church are so altered by our removal
into a new and larger place, and by the increased attend
ance upon our services, that those who remain of the
original society are almost unknown to the mass of
attendants, and feel themselves to exist in the midst of
strangers. Our departed friend, therefore, though well-
known to the few who remain of former generations,
and respected and venerated wherever he was known,
might yet be unknown to the greater part of the pre
sent assembly. Such may be interested in the remarks
I shall offer ; while others, I believe, will testify in
their hearts to their substantial truth.
Our exceUent friend came to London when a young
man, and was united to this church under the ministry
of its late pastor, the Rev. John Clayton, who yet fives,
venerable alike for his age and his virtues. He was
engaged in business, and was blessed in his circum
stances by that God 'who giveth to man power
to get wealth;' who ' maketh rich and addeth no
sorrow/ I have not been curious to enquire into the
circumstances connected with his conversion. Many
persons can talk about this in their own history, who
get converted back again to the world. I look, there
fore, rather at those things which evince the reahty and
permanency of the change ; and these in the present
instance we have, in the history of a long and useful
life. Mr. Procter was connected with this church

THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS. 223
nearly fifty years; he stood sixth on the hst of its
members ; during the whole of that protracted period,
his ' walk and conversation became the Gospel/ In
business, ' integrity and uprighteousness preserved him,'
in his Christian character he greatly resembled the
'beloved Gaius/ He adhered to 'The Truth,' as he
understood it, and found it to the end ' an anchor of the
soul, sure and steadfast, entering into that within the
veil/ The very last sentence he ever uttered — the last
articulated and connected words that fell from his lips —
evinced this : ' Through — Jesus — Christ/ were these
words. ' Through Jesus Christ/ said the dying man —
the dying saint — and, I may add, the dying sinner.
'Through Jesus Christ/ there was balm there, and
pardon, and peace, and hope, and triumph. ' The
Truth' was 'in him;' it had been his food and
strength, his solace and his ' song in the house of his
pilgrimage,' and when heart and flesh failed and fainted
it sustained him still, and sustains him now ; the same
Truth that we live on here, we must live on for ever ;
on earth it is believed, it is seen in heaven ; it is this
that makes heaven what it is ; there ' we shall be ever
with the Lord ' — with that Lord in whom we trusted —
who was made flesh and dwelt among us — who came
by water and blood, and purged our sins in His own
body on the tree. ' Through Jesus Christ!
Our friend 'walked in the Truth ;' his life was holy,
consistent, and blameless. It was more than blameless
— it was eminently useful. There were many methods
by which he did good. He gave, of course, to many
charities — to benevolent and religious institutions. I
do not remember very formally or frequently applying
to him, for if ever I mentioned anything publicly, I took
it for granted that I should hear from him ; and some
times he would send to me at the beginning of the

224 THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS.
year a sum of money to be disposed of privately in any
way I should see fit. He was distinguished for his
distribution of religious tracts. In his journeys in the
summer he was always weU-armed with these weapons,
or laden, I should say, with these treasures, and
threw them abroad far and wide, as seed is scattered
by the sower on the earth. He probably distributed, in
the course of his life, a hundred thousand of these
silent instructors, and has, perhaps, met already in
heaven some who were saved by their instrumentahty.
But he circulated books as well as tracts ; he had a
great variety, for various classes and all ages — from the
smallest picture-book, to interest a child, to works
which could instruct the minister in his study. For
many years past, it was one of his chief and favourite
employments to make up parcels, including a number
of different publications, to send or commit to country
pastors, to be circulated, or given, or lent among their
people, as might seem best. These books were not
only such as are to be had from societies, he used to
have some printed expressly for himself; nay, if I
mistake not, he has had some written at his own sug
gestion, to inculcate a particular but neglected duty,
or to meet the case of a particular character.
In addition to these things, our friend, like Gaius, was
remarkable for his attention to poor ministers. These
he supplied in a variety of ways with books, clothes,
linen, money. He was the founder of the ' Associate
Fund,' or ' Ministers' Friend Society/ and for several
years its laborious treasurer. He did not always
receive the support and sympathy which he thought
the object should have secured ; but he still persevered
in his ' work of faith and labour of love.' Throughout
the country, in many of the homes of village pastors,
the loss of our excellent friend will be felt ; few men,

CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS. 241
We conclude this part of the subject by enumerating
a few passages of Scripture which obviously involve the
duty : ' Be gentle towards all men.' ' Let all wrath, and
clamour, and evil speaking be put away from you, with
all malice, and be ye kindly affectioned one to another
with brotherly love ; in honour preferring one another/
' Let each man please his neighbour to his good.' ' Give
honour to whom honour is due/ 'Honour all men/
' Giving none offence in any thing ; neither to Jew,
nor Gentile, nor to the Church of God.' ' Let not your
good be evil spoken of/ ' All things are lawful for me,
but I would not use my liberty as an occasion of offence.
I may eat meat, but I would not do it while the world
stands if it make my brother to offend/ Finally, ' be
courteous;' and 'whatsoever things are lovely and of
good report, think on these things and do them/
III. Such is the scriptural authority for your cul
tivation, and for our enforcement of this virtue. We
come now, in the third place, to offer a few inducements
to encourage and stimulate you in the pursuit of it.
An obligation, you know, has the force of positive
law, and is founded upon authority ; it comes as a
command, and requires obedience. An inducement, is
some consideration, founded on the natural propriety
of things, or on the advantages resulting from com
pliance with the obligation ; and is addressed to various
principles and feehngs within us, as a persuasion. We
shall very briefly notice two or three of such considera
tions as seem to constrain our attention to the subject
advocated in this discourse.
In the first place, we may begin with the very
lowest, by remarking, that an inducement to courtesy
arises, from the pleasure we personally experience
when it is observed towards ourselves. We cannot
help being conciliated by attention when it seems
VOL. II. R

242 CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS.
to be sincere ; it prepossesses us in favour of the person
who offers it, and will often dissipate prejudices we
may previously have entertained respecting him. It
is notorious on certain occasions of political excite
ment, how much can be effected by the condescend
ing affability of a great man. Without for a moment
defending the weakness which many manifest by suffer
ing themselves to be seduced by this, it yet shows the
power, which even the semblance of the virtue can
exercise ; and therefore it should stimulate us to the
attainment of what we feel and know to be of immense
advantage in the commerce of life.
Again, the consciousness of the power, and the
experience of the influence of courteousness, should
lead us to recollect, that others may often be acutely
pained by little indications of neglect, of which pos
sibly w7e were not at the moment aware, and by
which we intended no evil. It is incalculable how
many pangs of uneasiness we might prevent by a
little thought directed to our carriage in society, and
how much innocent happiness we might diffuse, not
only without expence, but with a positive and large
revenue of pleasure to ourselves. This, to every be
nevolent mind is surely a consideration of no ordinary
weight, and it ought to weigh with us who profess
such a religion as that of the New Testament. Ex
tensive evils have often arisen among friends, by
an accidental deficiency of attention or respect ; this
has occasioned coldness and distance, each has imagined
the other in the wrong, neither has gone openly
and ingenuously to examine the matter, but the feeling
has been allowed to rankle till something has oc
casioned it to explode, when it has given rise to
disclosures and recriminations of the most distressing
description. We find in this an inducement to a

CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS. 243
negative kind of courtesy, or, in other words, confidence
towards others, the belief that they may not have
intended what, in them, has occasioned pain to us.
Another inducement, particularly binding upon be
lievers, arises from the effect which this, or an opposite
conduct may have upon men of the world. 'Let not
your good/ says the apostle, 'be evil spoken of/ The
want, however, of this virtue has often had the effect
of destroying the influence of distinguished excellence,
and thus of producing the very thing which Paul
admonishes the Christian to prevent. In the same
way the exhibition of this, in a Christian character,
has conciliated esteem, has caused a favourable opinion
to be formed of the man's sentiments, and secured a
respectful attention to them; and has ultimately led to
their actual adoption by persons, who would have been
disgusted at the very first had they been approached
without the advantages of a courteous address.
Again, in looking at a character distinguished by
this virtue, we cannot but be impressed with the
dignity which it confers. It supposes a high degree
of self-government, a noble superiority to little weak
nesses by which many others are beset : — the subjuga
tion of selfishness, a commanding control over the class
of feelings which at times agitate the heart, a power
of expelling inutility and excitement, and of keeping
down the whole mass of grumbling insurgency that
struggles for expression, when circumstances occur
to occasion personal disquietude. The mind reigns
over it all and keeps the man awake and attentive
to the feelings of others in spite of the distraction of
his own. There is surely something in this far more
dignified and noble than in weakly submitting to the
influence of every trifle, to the loss of personal serenity,
and the neglect of relative enjoyment.
R 2

244 CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS.
To sum up all, we should discover an inducement in
the recollection of the charm with which the habit
invests and embellishes existence. It throws a halo
about society. If all mankind were perfect in the
principle and expressions of courteousness, the world
would be a scene of pervading and exalted satisfaction ;
private animosities would be extinguished, and public
contentions would cease for ever. In every domestic
circle brethren would dwell together in unity ; in every
kingdom righteousness and peace would embrace each
other ; and in every church the members, animated by
the supreme spirit of love, bearing upon their hearts
and in their habits the lineaments of His image, would
present the living and breathing reahty of scriptural
perfection. In concluding this discourse, we can only state the
following things, without attempting any expansion of
them: First, observe the glory and distinction of the
Gospel, in descending to regulate the smallest concerns
of life while it provides for the highest interests of
the soul. It thus bears the mark of His character
from whom if comes, whose eye is fixed upon every
individual atom of matter with as clear a distinctness
as that with which it expatiates over the most extensive
parts of His domain, or looks upon the everlasting
lamps that hang hi the heavens. Second, we may see
the little reason persons have to boast of what they
call 'speaking their mind;' a mistaken and affected
honesty, which often has its foundation in pride, and
is entirely inimical to the mild and amiable spirit of
our faith. Third, even from this subject the sinner
may discover the state of his heart, for instead of being
' gentle towards all men/ it often happens, that he
can be polite and courteous to all but a Christian.
As soon as he makes the discovery of Christian character,

CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS. 245
his whole manners are transformed from the politeness
of attention to the rudeness of insult. Fourth, if this,
one of the least of the commandments relating to our
intercourse with each other, and our happiness upon
earth, is supported by so much in Scripture, and is
proved to be important by so many considerations, how
much more momentous must all those discoveries be
which declare how we are to come before the Lord,
and which constitute the basis on which alone must be
built the hopes which relate to a coming eternity.
And if even this one virtue, in this depraved and
fallen world, can invest life with so many fascinations,
what are we to expect in a renovated universe, peopled
with perfect beings, the whole mind and habits of each
formed completely upon the model of universal excel
lence ? Finally, since the great principle of courtesy
is love unfeigned, actual benevolence ; since without
this it exists not, and since love to men in their
most important character as immortal and responsible
beings, cannot be felt unless we have been taught to
feel a concern for ourselves in our ruin ; let us see
to it that we seek, first of all, our personal salvation,
then the grace of Him who was meek and lowly in
heart to clothe us with His own character, and re
plenish us with His own Spirit : then shall we be like
Him, in that mildness and meekness, and love, which
form the foundation of Christian men's mutual atten
tions and of reciprocal respect. Then it will be no effort
to regard the feelings, and to promote in all things the
happiness of others, for the love of Christ and of the
brethren constraining us, we shall ' be courteous,' as if
by the necessity of nature. Amen.

SEEMON XIII.
THOUGHTS THAT PERISH.
1 In tliat very day his thoughts perish! — Psalm cxlvi. 4.
In the greater part of the Bible, we have the history
of the Church; things described. We stand, as it
were, at a distance ; we are spectators of its vicissitudes
and fortunes; we see it led from place to place; and
we have set before us the circumstances in Providence,
which externally happened to it. In the book of
Psalms, our position is changed. From being distant
observers, we are brought near, and are made auditors.
In this book we have the voice of the Church; we
have the utterance of her internal life. In approaching
this book and meditating on it, we are brought into
the holiest thing in the world, — into the very centre
and the heart of the Church of God ; the place which
God has taken as His abode and home; where He
resides and which He has sanctified ; where there is
the diffusion of His presence and Spirit. We come,
in the book of Psalms, and draw near unto this holy
thing; and we hear the utterances of the Divine
Mind. And we see how these utterances are modified
by external circumstances, — by the outward life,
which the Church is still living in the flesh, the
vicissitudes that pass over her, the storm and the
sunshine, the turbulence and tranquillity; how they
affect the inward life, and how the inward life in its

THOUGHTS THAT PERISH. 247
utterances is oftentimes modified by them. And in
reading the book of Psalms and looking at it in this
light, a devout man finds that these utterances are
just the expression of what he knows, feels, ex
periences, suffers, grieves over, and enjoys. The identity
of humanity — man ; — and the identity of religion in
its essential principles, in its experience and inward
life — what proof and evidence of these there is in the
book of Psalms ! So that many a time you will find,
that words which were uttered three thousand years
ago by men of other lands and of other habits and
other modes of life, are just the. very words and
utterances, which you would choose and select to
express your own feelings; so precisely indeed, that
you can find nothing better, nothing more expressive,
nothing more appropriate.
We do not know who put together these different
sacred compositions, or whether they were arranged
on any particular principle. This, however, is obvious,
— that the last series, those that close the whole, are
full of praise. Though in the former part, we meet
frequently with grief and shame and tears, a great
deal that presses upon the spirit ; and in the central
portion, many references to the various vicissitudes and
fortunes, through which the Church or the individual
has passed ; yet as we get towards the end and as the
book closes, it is Hallelujah — praise. As the ancient
Church ceases to speak to us, as she lays down her
lyre and ceases to touch it, the last tones are tones
of heaven; as if the warfare were done, the conflict
accomplished, and she were anticipating either the
revelations which are to make her glorious here, the
'new thing' which God is about to 'create' when He
places her under another dispensation ; or, as I trust
you and I shall do when we come to die, anticipating

248 THOUGHTS THAT PERISH.
the praise and occupation of that eternity and rest, for
which we hope in the bosom of God.
It is very beautiful to observe this: We have no book
of Psalms in the New Testament. The fact is, that this
is a New Testament book of Psalms; because of the
identity of rehgious feeling and rehgious life to which
I have referred. But we have the Revelation. We have
a revelation of the 'new song;' that Psalm in which
the Church is to join, and which is to rise up to the
throne of God and of the Lamb for ever. Here — in
the Apocalypse — is the book of Psalms for us, in which
the New Testament Church is taught, instead of
looking backward, to look forward and upward, and
to observe the thing which it has to do, for which
it has been redeemed and sanctified, and for which the
very elements of praise and joy have been put within it.
The words which I have read to you, are taken from
this latter part of the book; from a Psalm, which
begins with expressions of praise, and proceeds to
consider, in the character and government and per
fections of God, the ground which the Church has
for praise. But passing by all this, I will just fix your
attention for a few moments upon the words which
I have read. I think we may perhaps glean a thought
or two here, appropriate to our meeting together, and
to the thing which we wish to accomphsh among you
this morning.
I shall make one or two observations, illustrative of
some of the thoughts, which this statement may
suggest to us; and then close with a lesson or two,
which we will endeavour to extract from the medita
tion. 'In that very day his thoughts perish.' This is
spoken respecting man.
And, in the first place, you may meditate upon this

THOUGHTS THAT PERISH. 249
idea, which you may consider the words as suggesting :
that on the ' day/ that is here referred to, when man's
'breath goeth forth and he returneth to the earth,'
the most affecting aspect in which you can look at him,
is that which is here presented ; so far as the present
life is concerned, and to all appearance, he has ceased
to be a person, and has become a thing. Of that
which distinguished him as a person, there is no longer
any evidence; 'his thoughts' seem to have 'perished.'
Not that I think the Scripture teaches, or that even
philosophy would suggest, that he has ceased to be
a thinking being, ceased to be capable of thought,
ceased to exercise it. We must not construe the words
so. Some perhaps might be inclined to do that, —
especially such as would extinguish that period of
being, which we beheve passes between death and the
resurrection of the body; but the words, I fear, would
almost prove too much, if we took them just as they
stand. If in that sense we talk about ' thoughts perish
ing! I fear the thing is gone altogether, and that
we must give up the idea even of their being re
suscitated. But we have nothing to do with this sort
of speculation; for I think the Scripture is very plain.
Not only is it very plain, in respect of a revelation
of the future perpetuity of humanity, which is a great
thing, (giving us the idea of the resurrection of the
dead, and the existence of man as man, mind associated
with some material structure ; for even after the resur
rection we shall have bodies, though they are termed
'spiritual,') — not only does revelation thus give the
idea of the perpetuity of humanity as a whole, but
I think, that in addition to this, it sustains com
pletely the idea, that man as a mind, simply as an
intelligence, as a thinking being, will after death, and
between that solemn moment and the resurrection

250 THOUGHTS THAT PERISH.
of the body, be capable of thought and enjoyment
and action, and will possess and exercise these func
tions. I think there are intimations of this sort in
the Old Testament. Many things may be gathered
even from the Hebrew writings, to give us a notion,
that in that early age of the Church, some glimmerings
of this had come upon them ; and that ' life and im
mortality being brought to light by the Gospel' does
not at all signify the introduction of a new thing into
the Church, or into men's minds in the Church, but
merely the casting light upon and illustrating a thing
that the Church already had.
But to us, just standing upon this side, and looking
at what comes immediately before us, it is very affect
ing to look at man, and to feel, that so far as all
manifestations are given to us here, so far as we have
any indication, 'his thoughts' have 'perished/ So far
as this world is concerned, they are done with. The
great immortal appears to have gone, we cannot tell
whither. And in all languages, the terms that are
used are most affecting ; the ' remains,' the ' body/ the
* corpse/ — anything but a term to express personality;
no term is employed to express personality then. Per
sonality is, as it were, gone : and what is before us
is a thing, — a piece of matter. Very affecting, this.
You see, the sacred writer fixes upon the great thing
which distinguishes man, while he is living and acting
and fulfilling the ends of his being, and then affects
our minds by representing that thing as having de
parted. I suppose, that this wonderful faculty of ours,
this faculty of thinking, is the great thing which
distinguishes us. The lower animals have minds, —
some kind probably of immaterial mhid. Very extra
ordinary are some of their capacities. And yet I
apprehend, that the eye of one of these inferior crea-

THOUGHTS THAT PERISH. 251
tures, as it takes in, just as our eye takes in, all
the mighty universe of things, — and there are lying
upon it all the glories of the heaven and the earth — I
apprehend it sees nothing but just form and colour.
But what do we see ? From our having this mind, this
power of thinking, in association with this organ, when
there is brought before us, and painted (as it were)
before that mind all the glorious forms of the things
in heaven and earth, why, we see that which is not
seen; we see, and make out by our thinkings, Him
that is behind all, — whose hand gives the form of
beauty, whose hand throws out all the colours, who
is speaking and uttering to the ear of reason, to the
thing that can think, in the midst of this. We can
make out all this, while I apprehend there may be
eyes, many eyes, in this lower world, of other creatures,
that take in precisely the same things, but from their
incapacity to think see nothing of that which we see.
By our capacity of thought and meditation upon these
things, every thing becomes animated, vocal, eloquent,
full of life, speaking to us of spiritual things, spiritual
realities. What a wonderful power is this ! Power
to do this has made the world what it is. After the
fall, you know, there was man, lying like a poor, naked,
shipwrecked sailor; there he was, lying upon the
world just in this condition; and he had to start
up upon his feet, and God said to him, ' I will suffer
you to live, and I have given you a mind to think,
and I have given you hands with wonderful power
in them, and now go and just do with the world what
you can.'
And what has man done with it? What has he
done with the universe round about ? What has he
done with the raw material of creation ? How has he
covered the surface of the earth with the wonderful

252 THOUGHTS THAT PERISH.
productions of his power and genius ! How he
has sat here, amidst all the clouds and mists and
darkness of his fallen condition, and has looked out
— and out — and out — upon the great and wonderful
objects that are around him ; and with amazement and
astonishment and confusion he has thought — and
thought — and thought — and the thing has become
regular and systematic, until he can pierce into the
secrets of things, and he can predict and tell you what
is to take place a thousand years to come. It is
wonderful what he has done. This poor naked man,
this wreck, when you look at him lying there at the
beginning of the world, — he has risen up, and he and
his progeny have done all this. And it is very affect
ing to think, when we look at him, and see his
movements and expressions and doings and accomplish
ments, that the moment comes — and then ' the wonder
ful counsellor, and the eloquent orator, and the cunning
artificer' all seem to have gone, and he hes before us
a piece of clay; he has become a thing. ' In that very
day his thoughts perish.'
It is well for us sometimes to think about this
mysterious life of ours. What a beautiful thing is
a little child ! It seems so fresh and new, as if it
had just dropped down from the hand of God, — quite
a new thing. Wonderful is it to think now, that
there is not a particle of that matter, that looks so
new and beautiful, but what is as old as the creation.
The real new thing is the mind ; the real new thing
is the thinking thing. That which thou art touch
ing, which appears so soft and beautiful, so new
and fresh, — it was made before Adam — every particle
of it ; but there is a new thing, there is a new thing
born within it, there is a new thing that will never
die. When all the earth, the rocks and mountains

THOUGHTS THAT PERISH. 253
and all solid matter shall have faded away, this thing
that has been brought into being within this material
structure will live — and live for ever. Oh! it is
wonderful, this ; a wonderful thing that matter is
thus doing : — bringing, as it were, spark after spark
continually away from the great fountain of intellectual
life, and sustaining it for a little while, sustaining its
intellectual faculties, and then dismissing it to its
kindred and its home, and that mind going on and
on, and having to go on for ever as long as God.
But now let us take another thought from this
passage; a thought which will bring us somewhat
nearer to the real and literal meaning of the text —
somewhat nearer but not just exactly to it yet. I
would apply this statement, this phrase, and you may
apply it in your meditations, I think, to some good
purpose in this way : that all the thinkings of men
that are not really and thoroughly true, however
beautiful and magnificent they may be, and whatever
favour they may find with their parents, or whatever
favour they may find with man, to whom they are
presented, — all the beautiful thoughts that men may
have in their minds, — when they come to die, they
will find that they all 'perish' and become nothing,
if they are not true ; and then when the mind enters
into the world of truth, pure truth and intellect, it
will find it can carry nothing but truth with it. Oh !
what a Babel will fly off from many a mind, as it
is passing from this world of darkness and error,
and entering into the world of truth ! And what
thousands of thoughts, that are now wrapped about
the heart and esteemed most precious things, and in
which we exult as if we had treasure in them, will
all pass away, and the mind will find that it cannot
take a single particle of that into eternity along with

254 THOUGHTS THAT PERISH.
it ! ' The wisdom of the princes of this world that
comes to nought!' 'The princes of this world;' great
and distinguished intellectual men, that have been
intellectually 'princes' and giants in their day, and
have had their domain and their empire, and have
sat as kings and lords, and have given law to masses
of men, who have bowed down to them, and have
said — 'Yes, the thing which thou say est is true;'
and they have received it. There have been many
such great 'princes,' intellectual 'princes' like this.
Aye, but much, a very great part of the empire of
many of them has just been in the clouds. It has
not been truth. They have said, ' Thus and thus it
is/ — and men have beheved them ; and they have died,
and they have found that thus and thus it was not.
' The wisdom of the princes of this world that comes to
nought ! ' How that was proved before the appearance
of the Lord of glory, the Lord of light and truth !
What glorious systems some of these ancient men had
in their speculations, some of the 'princes' and teachers
of the world then ! But what did they ever do ?
What did they ever come to, in the way of producing
substantial virtue, of really filling the mind with true
thoughts with respect to God and nature and truth
and life and death and immortahty ? What did they
do with respect to the production of substantial virtue
and calm peace in the souls of men ? Nothing. And
when God came forth with the simplicity of His plan,
but in the might and majesty of His wisdom and His
truth, these things fell before it; and the fishermen —
the fishermen stood up and said, ' Thus it is,' — and
the ' princes of this world' retired, and their ' wisdom
came to nought/
Marvellous is it, that men will not learn a lesson
from these things; so that with a great deal of pre-

THOUGHTS THAT PERISH. 255
tension to reverence for God's Word, a great deal of
pretension of the just and important principle, that
now it is not for us to say, What thinkest thou ? but
it is for us to say, What readest thou ? — very sad,
that in spite of all this, men will still be going on
and indulging their dreams and their speculations,
instead of coming with docility and lowliness to the
teaching of the Spirit and mind of God. My dear
brethren, let us get our hearts impressed with this
thought : what a glorious thing it is to have Truth,
what a glorious thing it is to have God's Truth
in one's mind! Oh! for a human mind to be in
possession of thought, in such a sense as to have a
humble hope and feeling — 'Now this thought lies in
my mind here as it lies in the mind of God ; there
is some coincidence between my perceptions of this
thing and the perceptions of the Divine and in
finite Mind; and this thing, because it is true, and
because it lies in my mind as it lies in the mind
of God, has become part of my very nature, and
wherever I go, to any world throughout all eternity,
this will go with me, and it will be my companion
and my friend ! ' What a glorious thing it is, to have
the heart filled with a desire and a pure love towards
God's Truth! Oh! what a thing, to have the mind
enlightened, and by the Spirit of God to be led and
taught His own Truth ! ' In that very day his thoughts
perish' — Ah! my brethren, this has been true with
respect to many a learned theologian, many a man
mighty in controversy, many a man who has spoken
and preached and taught and written much about
truth. He has had his mind filled with the great
Babel of his own imaginings; and when he has died,
he has found it — nought — nought ! Nothing will go
into the presence of God with us, and nothing will

256 THOUGHTS THAT PERISH.
bear the eye of God in religion (I am now speaking
about religion and truth) — but what are really 'the
true sayings of God/ the utterances of the Divine Mind.
Let us try to get up to this thought ; and let us not
care how far we agree or disagree with one system
or another, if we can but come and sit at the feet of
Christ, and by His Holy Spirit be led into the Truth
' as it is in Him.'
And a great many things that fill and please the
imaginations of men — much of what is imaginative
in religion — at the day of death will ' perish.' ' We
see through a glass darkly.' We see as in a mirror —
in enigma. Many Christian men have their minds
filled full of certain colours and forms and imagery
about the unseen. There is a great deal in the minds
of Christian men, which to themselves appears very-
clear, and has its outline and form and colour and ap
parent substance, and they think 'thus and thus and
thus it is in eternity/ and ' this and this is the thing
that is about to be revealed/ Now I imagine, that a
vast deal of that will be found to ' perish' in the day
when we come among the realities of the spiritual state.
I do not know, that we can have much better notions
about the world into which we are to be born, than a
child has about this before it is born. It has life; it is
a living thing; it has got faculties and capacities wrapped
up in it, which are intended for the light of day and
for God's glorious universe ; it is being prepared for
this revelation ; but if it had the power of thinking,
in its dark mansion, could it conceive of any thing
like the glorious night with its moon and bright stars?
could it conceive of any thing like the light of the
earth, when the sun is upon it? could it form any
notion concerning the colours which meet us in
creation, and the mountains and the fields? could it

THE WELL-BELOVED GAIUS. 225
within a certain circle, could be more lamented, or more
sincerely mourned than Joseph Procter.
Yet this man was not distinguished for great capacity,
splendid talents, extensive information, varied know
ledge, cultivated taste. In some of these things he was
confessedly deficient ; nay, let it be acknowledged that
he had some peculiarities — peculiarities approaching to
infirmity or defect — this only renders it the more
observable that he did what he did, makes the grace
of God more conspicuous, and gives his example a
greater force. If with his two talents, or even one, he
accomplished so much, what ought others to do with
their five and ten ? He was ' a faithful and wise
steward,' and traded industriously with what was com
mitted to him ; and the results of his labours, and his
personal reward, will put to the blush, in the day of
reckoning, many whose gifts were greater than his.
The approbation of the Master, in the coming judgment,
will not be regulated by the number of our talents, but
by the use we have respectively made of them. He
who has left us, used his ; and we have no doubt, by
his faith as a sinner, and his fidelity as a servant, has
secured equally his salvation and his reward.

VOL. II. Q

SEEMON XII.
CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS.
'Be courteous.' — 1 Peteb iii. 8.
I suppose you are all aware of the particular sub
ject, which, at our last meeting, was fixed upon for
discussion at this. You are aware that the duty of
' courteousness ' was assigned to the preacher that he
might bring forward its true character as a Chris
tian virtue, and enforce it upon the attention of
Christian people. The text which I have read, leads
us directly to the subject, without our having any
recourse to circuitous argument on latent implications,
as it consists of a positive injunction respecting it,
addressed to the members of Christ's Church, by one
who sustained an inspired character, and could speak
with apostolical, that is, with Divine authority.
At first sight, the subject may appear to some, of
little or no importance : should any now present have
this idea respecting it, we hope, before we have done,
to produce some change in their opinion. That there
are other subjects of far greater moment we readily
admit, — subjects directly relating to the mode in
which a sinner is to be justified with God, and a saint
prepared for glory, — all the sublime verities of our

CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS. 227
Faith, all the solemn transactions of the judgment-
seat, and all the exquisite and overwhelming anticipa
tions of eternity. That there are subj ects of such intensity
and magnitude as these, involving everything fitted
to interest the heart, and absorb the intellect of man,
we readily admit, and we are well assured that those
of you who listen to the Sabbath ministrations of this
pulpit, are in the habit of hearing these truths regularly
enlarged upon with a prominence demanded by their
greatness ; and with a power calculated to arouse
attention, and stimulate enquiry. Some great principle
of the Gospel, or some great point in the Law of
Christ, certainly might have been selected for the
topic of this evening. There are, however, two con
siderations upon which we rest the propriety of the
selection we have made and by which we justify it.
(1) In the first place, we call to your remembrance
that the commission of our Lord consists of two parts,
both of which are to be distinctly and sedulously fulfilled.
The first regards the conversion of men to the faith,
for the salvation of the soul : and the second, their
complete instruction in the will of our Lord, for the
improvement and perfecting of the character. ' Go into
all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature ;'
that is the first part — 'teaching them to observe all
things whatsoever I have commanded you ;' that is
the second part : and you cannot but be struck with
the force and universality of the expression : ' observe
all things, whatsoever I have commanded you;' every
thing, you perceive, which we find in the discourses
of Christ, or the writings of His apostles, (for the
Spirit that inspired them took of the things of Christ
and shewed them unto them, for the use of the Church),
everything supported by any passage of holy writ,
is to be brought forward, in the course of our ministry,
Q 2

228 CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS.
as necessary to be observed. There may be degrees
of importance attaching to different parts of the New
Testament law, but every part is important. There
may be the lesser matters, and the weightier matters,
but both stand upon the very same authority, and
both are to be enforced in the public inculcation of
the truth ; anything which God has regarded as of
sufficient importance to occupy the pen of an apostle,
and to deserve a suggestion of the Spirit, ought surely
to receive from us a corresponding regard : and that
the duty to which we are this evening to request
your attention is included in the ' all things ' which
have been commanded to the Church, we can convince
you by a simple reading of the text. It is therefore
the duty of Christians to observe it ; and, moreover,
it is therefore the duty of ministers, those who are
to teach the observation of all things whatsoever, to
bring it sometimes before the people, that by hearing
their Lord's will, they may be prepared and prompted
to follow and fulfil it.
(2) Another consideration arises from the peculiar
nature of this service. The ministers of the different
Churches in the island1 meet together, four times a
year, for the promotion of kindly feeling in themselves,
by opportunities of Christian and cordial intercourse
with each other : with this, they connect a public
service, not only for the sake of those whom they
instruct, but to give the sanction of what is sacred
to their own friendship, and to breathe around the
sweet charities of this earth something of that pure
atmosphere that pervadeth heaven. These services
may be supposed to excite more than ordinary interest,
and, therefore, topics may be taken, and a manner of
treating them may be adopted, which we might not
1 The Isle of Wight.

CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS. 229
employ in the common course of our work - day
evening addresses. In our customary services we are
naturally in the habit of directing your attention to
the plain doctrines and duties of the Gospel, and to
the most obvious particulars of Christian experience,
and this we endeavour to do without either laboured
argument or lengthened illustration; you are in the
habit (every week) of having the prominent and dis
tinguishing principles of the Faith, presented to your
minds in one form or other, as the staple matter of
our ministry ; and therefore, on occasions of this kind
it is proper to select some point of duty or doctrine
distinct from the topics of our ordinary address, such
as would not be frequently or fully expatiated upon,
in the regular course of pulpit instruction ; and selecting
such, it is natural to suppose that you yourselves would
not be satisfied unless we made a more than usual
demand on both your attention and your time. One
of the advantages arising from the union of the public
teachers of religion consists in this, that, thus dis
cussions are produced on subjects which would other
wise be almost overlooked, difficult passages of Scripture
are explained, controverted doctrines are argued and
established. Or, the wisdom of that Being who gave
the Bible is set forth, by bringing into prominence
the fact, too frequently forgotten, that that Book is
distinguished by descending to all that is minute in
common life, as well as by treating of all that is mag
nificent in our common salvation.
. On such grounds we justify the intention of occupying
an evening like this, by the proposed subject : and
now we proceed to it. We shall first, endeavour to
explain what we mean by Christian courtesy ; second,
state the scriptural obligations to the discharge of the
duty ; and third, enumerate some of the inducements

230 CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS.
which ought to lead us to cultivate it, concluding with
a general remark or two suggested by the whole.
I. We shall succeed better perhaps in conveying a
full idea of this virtue, by indulging in a few remarks
descriptive of it, than by attempting an exact and
pointed definition. The words courtesy and courteous-
ness, are used, as you all know, in their primitive sense,
to express that pohsh and refinement of manners which
prevail in the courts of princes, and which distinguish
the intercourse of nobility ; and, because, from the
corruption of courts, those who move in them have
often used the manner and philosophy of affection and
respect, when feelings directly the reverse have been
rankling in the heart, the terms themselves have
become associated in many minds with all that belongs
to flattering insincerity and falsehood. Courtesy,
unquestionably refers to affability of manners in our
intercourse with each other, but Christian courtesy
includes the internal principle from which that affability
proceeds : it is true, there may be the outward appear
ance of attention without anything of the feeling of
actual regard ; but it is also true, that there may be the
feeling of actual regard, without anything like the
appearance of social attention : in the one case we
have a picture of many a man of the world, who cares
nothing about the principle, so long as he can impose
upon others by seeming to possess it, and in the other
case we have the picture of many a Christian, who
feels so satisfied in possessing the principle, that he
does not care on ordinary occasions, whether he seems.
to have it or not. The first character is positively
bad, and the second is extremely imperfect. He who
attends to the whole of his duty differs from both,
combining the internal feehng of benevolence with
aU the appropriate modes of its external manifestation.

CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS. 231
All true and proper courtesy, then, is founded upon
the principle which we have just mentioned — that is
benevolence, or good will towards the persons,— desire
to promote, and complacency in the happiness of others.
In great things, or upon occasions where benevolence
is exerted in an extraordinary degree, we think dis
tinctly of the principle as benevolence, and we apply
the term courtesy, to the mode of phraseology, or
the mode of action, in which it is expressed : but in
little things, the things themselves belong to courtesy;
or courtesy is benevolence. As, however, the manner
of doing even a great thing is little compared with
the thing itself, these two cases, perhaps, are of the
same import, and courteousness therefore may be called
'benevolence in trifles/ or a desire in little things, —
in words, and acts of minute attention and manner, —
to regard the feelings, and consult the comfort of
others. It implies the manifestation of civil respect,
a readiness to conform to their habits and tastes and
wishes in matters of indifference ; an obvious preference
of their accommodation to our own ; a care to avoid
remarks which may give pain ; in short, a universal
solicitude to diffuse the feehng of ease, and confidence,
and happiness around us. The thing may be the same
under different names, according to the rank of the
parties concerned; towards superiors it is deference,
towards inferiors it is civility, towards equals it is
amiableness or affability. Christian courtesy stands
opposed, in relation to superiors, not only to pre
sumption and impertinence, but to obsequiousness,
or a mean and contemptible prostration of man to
man : in relation to inferiors it is opposed to neglect,
either actual or relative, that is, either a froward and
positive contempt of them altogether, or a disregard
of their feelings in occasional intercourse: towards

232 CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS.
equals, who meet and mingle in the same society,
who come into frequent or habitual contact as members
of the same circle, it stands opposed to various par
ticulars, in which we may observe it incessantly
violated; such, for instance, as moroseness, or an
unwillingness to be conciliated, to sullenness, or a sour
and dogged gloom of countenance and carriage; to
impertinence of remark, to rudeness of reply, to in
attention either positive or negative, that is, either
actively to do something for others, or kindly to
receive what others do for us. It stands opposed
too, to what is eccentric, or the habit of indulging
in ourselves anything not tolerated by the general
usages of society : to fretfulness, or the art of making
others and ourselves miserable by a determination
never to be pleased, and by the want of justly ap
preciating sacrifices and services made to us, for the
very purpose of promoting our pleasure. Finally it
stands opposed to pride in all its forms, to the pride
of money, and the pride of family, and the pride of
rank, and the pride of intellect, and the pride of ac
complishments, and the worst of all species of pride,
the pride of spiritual pretension. In fact everything
by which courteousness is violated may be traced to
the twin vices of pride and selfishness ; as everything
of which it consists may be seen to emanate from
the opposite virtues, the benevolence of which we
have sppken, connected with another of much more
difficult attainment, viz. the happy art of forgetting,
or appearing to forget all the circumstances of mind,
body, or estate, by which we possess a personal
superiority over others.
Such is Christian courteousness ; — real benevolence,
or good will towards man in the heart, expressing
itself by corresponding forms of language and manner.

CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS. 233
For a person to possess the virtue in the Evangelical
sense of the term, however, implies two things, — first,
that benevolence exists in his mhid as a principle, —
not merely a fluctuating feeling, subject to perpetual
alternations according to the flow of the animal spirit,
the shifting circumstances of the day, or the clearness
or cloudiness of the atmosphere, — but, as a principle;
the steady resolution of the intellect, formed upon a
serious survey of the dependence of man on man; a
deliberate and devotional regard to the will of God :
and next, that the expression of this principle in the
manners, is so regular as to be habitual ; that it
governs and pervades the conduct, as an essential
and inseparable element ; that any accidental failure
through the sudden eruption of the remains of depravity
is lamented ; that an endeavour to repair the failure
accompanies the regret ; and that a return to the habit,
is the natural and necessary consequence of reason
and judgment regaining their asoendency.
The sphere of Christian courteousness is universal.
It should be seen in a family and among relatives.
Here, it is the mode of manifesting love, it exalts
and purifies affection, by causing its expression to
be at once respectful and delicate, while it keeps it
from being degraded or dissipated by vulgar famili
arities, and prompts to little ingenious devices, by which
it is sustained and gratified. The children of such
a circle are taught to consider that he is the greatest,
who imparts the greatest happiness to the rest. The
servants are treated with the respect due to our
common nature, their duties directed by request rather
than command. It should be seen in the Church ; in
a cordial regard to the brotherhood, a kind expression of
mutual interest, and of reciprocal sympathy. It should
accompany the Christian into the world. In the trans-

234 CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS.
actions of business, it should be distinguished by
a readiness to obhge, a carefulness to observe whatever
may impart satisfaction, and secure confidence ; and
upon particular occasions it should be most scrupulously
cultivated if we would either impart pleasure or
promote good. In observing, for instance, natural, or
acquired peculiarities, the one should never, and the
other very seldom become the subject of ridicule;
pity for the first should prevent our seeming to see
it, and a desire to rectify the second, should teach
us that this is not likely to be successful. In perceiving
ignorance or mistake, we should try to insinuate
knowledge, or to excite interest in, and direct attention
to some source of it, which, the individual being led
to examine, will find himself benefited ; but we never
ought to expose what we may ourselves observe to the
remark of others, unless perhaps to punish incorrigible
presumption. In arguing in defence of our opinions,
the virtue on which we discourse, should be exercised.
It should make us candid in the exhibition of our
reasons, respectful in the statement of objections to
the sentiments of others, calm in reply to attack,
and capable of combining respect with firmness in
our appeals to the understanding and the heart. It
should lead us to despise asperity and personality,
knowing that such things indicate the excitement
of mortified feeling, rather than a genuine love of
truth, or an anxiety to remove error ; it should prevent
the exultation of triumph, over an ingenuous and
silenced adversary, and prompt us, in all cases, to
show that we can love the good of the individual,
though we may not be able to approve his opinions.
In the administration of reproof to any with whom
we may be permitted such a privilege, it becomes
us most religiously to attend to the injunction of the

CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS. 235
text ; knowing that it is one of the most distinguishing
attributes of our nature, to be melted and improved
by the manifestation of kindness. A courteous regard
to the feehngs of the man in admonishing the brother,
will contribute more to his conviction and virtue,
than the force of hard arguments, or the pungency
of stinging reproof.
Christian benevolence, however, be it remembered,
and therefore Christian courtesy, has language of
pointed and penetrating power, as well as of tender
ness. Its tones are not all of that soft and dehcate
harmony that falls upon the heart like dew ; it has
a voice of thunder as well as of music, and in different
circumstances it can exercise each with perfect con
sistency. Respect to man as man, imphes no approval
of vice. He who was at once the mildest and most
benevolent of men, who felt and manifested by every
appropriate experience, all that man could feel in his
most fearful state, He, at one time, dehvered the
most terrible invectives, and employed the most cutting
epithets which it was possible for language to furnish ;
departing from His usual tone of calm and conciliating
address, He rose into something like passion and
stigmatized the Pharisees as a horde of serpents and
a generation of vipers. It is possible, therefore, for
benevolence sometimes to have no alternative but to
express itself in the tone of indignant vituperation.
Nor does courtesy towards Others imply a forgetful-
ness of what we owe to ourselves, or a just sense of
what others owe to us. Our Lord more than once
evaded a direct reply to interrogatories intended to
elicit words capable of some dangerous construction ;
and the Apostle Paul asserted both the respect due to
him as a man, and the political rights pertaining to him
as a Roman citizen, by refusing liberty when offered him,

236 CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS.
unless conferred in the manner in which it became him
to receive it. The virtue we advocate, therefore, is no
mean and pusiUanimous abandonment of ourselves to
the designing and the vicious, to take of us what ad
vantage, or to oppress us in what manner they please ; it
supposes a rational prudence in checking the advances
of the crafty, and a manly assertion of ourselves in
opposition to the attacks of injustice and insult.
In closing these general observations, — descriptive of
courteousness — we think it proper to make one remark
suggested by the conduct of our Lord, to which we
have referred. It is to be distinctly noticed that He
never, in His intercourse with publicans and sinners,
uttered anything against them in the tone with which
He stigmatized the Pharisees ; it was the profession of
religion by the latter in connection with their vices which
called forth His terrible rebuke. Hence, we learn that in
the exercise of courtesy, a greater degree of it may be
expressed towards people positively in the world than
towards inconsistent professors of religion. With this
view of the matter, the directions of Paul to the Church
perfectly coincide : ' When I wrote to you/ says he, ' not
to company with the wicked, I meant not altogether
with the wicked of this world, for then you must needs
go out of it, but if any that is a brother walk disorderly,
with such do not sit to eat/ Again he says, ' If any that
believe not, bid you to a feast, and you disposed to go —
go;' yet he allows not this to him who professes to
believe, and acts inconsistently with that profession;
obviously teaching us, that, while in our intercourse with
the world, we may accept of attentions and pay atten
tions to men, as men, who make no pretence at all to
religion, we are not to carry the same degree of courtesy
towards those who, as members of churches, continue,
after every endeavour for their benefit, to walk grossly

CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS. 237
unbecoming their peculiar profession. I may go to the
table of an unbeliever, and meet him with civil respect as
a man ; but I cannot go to the table, nor treat with the
same extent of respect that person who, as a Christian,
walks disorderly, lest by doing so I should, to the
Church and to this world, seem to sanction his incon
sistency. II. Having thus attempted to describe what cour
teousness is, — to distinguish it from its opposites, to
exhibit the sphere in which it is to act, and to mark
some apparent deviations from it in conduct, with
which the existence of it in the character is yet per
fectly compatible, — we now proceed, in the second
place, to shew the Scriptural obligations under which
we lie to the careful exercise of the virtue.
The obligations by which Christians are bound to the
exercise of courtesy may be briefly exhibited by such
remarks as these. In the first place, it rests upon the
very same authority as any other part of the Divine
law ; God has distinctly enjoined it. And thus we are
at once in possession of the most infallible of all argu
ments to vindicate its propriety. The text is a direct
and positive command, claiming the implicit obedience
of all who receive it as one of the sayings of God. He
who is perfect wisdom, has revealed nothing in vain ;
whatever it became Him to record, it becomes us to
acknowledge and obey. And here it may be observed,
that the appearance of such a passage as the present in
the New Testament, imphes that a distinct act of atten
tion is to be exercised by Christians upon this part of
their habits, that they may see to the proper acquisition
of the virtue ; that is to say, it implies that the recep
tion of the Gospel, the enjoyment of its blessings, the
internal presence of faith and love in the heart, are not
necessarily productive of this property of character, with-

238 CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS.
out there be the attention of the mind actively directed
to it. The very admonition to believers to be courteous,
supposes not only that they ought to be so, but that
they may be believers, and yet be deficient in courtesy;
that therefore it becomes them to suffer the word of
exhortation, and to see that they come behind in no gift,
that they go on from the first elements of character,
until they are ' perfect and entire, wanting nothing/
Even in the law of Moses there are several distinct pre
cepts which bear upon the present subject, by incul
cating a regard to the feelings, and a respect to the
person of others. ' When thou shall lend thy brother
anything, thou shalt not go into his house to fetch his
pledge ; ' as if it had been said — ' no, the feelings of the
poor man are sacred, and so is his abode ; intrude not
with curious observation into the sanctuary of his
misery ; there may be the relics of better days ; there
too, may be tokens of his deep destitution, which, with
a pardonable respect for himself, he may be reluctant
for another to witness ; increase not the pain he already
experiences by exploring what he would anxiously con
ceal. Let his house, however wretched, be inviolate ;
even the agent of mercy is not to enter it abruptly and
unbid, without consulting the feelings of its inhabitant ;
for, however destitute, still that inhabitant is a man
and a brother/ In the same spirit does the law impress
reverence for the authority and attention to the wants
of the aged ; and this, as the direct injunction of
Jehovah : ' Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head,
and honour the face of the old man : I am the Lord/ .
And to mention but one more of similar character :
' Thou shalt not curse the deaf ; ' 'thou shall kindly bear
with infirmity, and not be irritated by the uneasiness
which this defect of thy neighbour may occasion/ 'Thou
shalt not put a stumbling-block before the blind ; ' thou

CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS. 239
shalt exercise dehcate and respectful tenderness to the
afflicted, and thus alleviate by thy attention, the dis
tresses of thy brother/ If such precepts were given by
Moses, how much more is this precept of courtesy
binding upon us, from the benevolent system under
which we live, pervaded as it is by a spirit of such
pure and exalted philanthropy. The command to be
courteous we admit may be of less importance than
many others in the Divine Word, but, let us remember
who has said that, he who shall break one of the
least of His commandments, shall be accounted guilty ;
while he who shall keep one of the least and shall
teach men so, shall be accounted great in the kingdom
of heaven/
Again, to Divine authority we join Divine example.
Our Lord Himself displayed this virtue. Not only is it
necessarily included in His meekness and gentleness,
in His harmlessness, and in His freedom from everything
stern in character and boisterous in address, but the
very phraseology and motive of courteousness are attri
buted to Him. On one occasion he mildly expressed
His desire to the crew of a fishing vessel in these words :
'I pray you to put a little way from the land;' and
upon another occasion He directed tribute to be levied
in order to avoid giving offence. To His personal
example we add the expression of His sentiments.
When He saw in one place the indications of that pride,
that love of personal distinction, to which we referred
as opposed to courteousness, He rebuked, it, and con
descended to direct how by the mere manner of
minghng in a company we should manifest a delicate
respect to others and a preference of them to ourselves ;
adding, too, that this was even the most likely plan of
attaining ultimate honour. At another place He re
buked Simon who had received Him into his house,

240 CHRISTIAN COURTEOUSNESS.
and so far displayed his friendship, but who had omitted
those polite and customary attentions — of water for the
feet, and ointment for the head — which in Eastern
countries it was usual to pay. This deficiency in cour
tesy our Lord observed, and took occasion to animadvert
upon it ; teaching us that it is not enough to pretend to
be kind to others, unless we accompany it with all those
little but gratifying attentions which general custom
may have connected with the particular rank, whatever
it may be, which we may happen to sustain in society.
To the example of our Divine Master, we add that of
many eminent saints.. Abraham, when he stood up
and bowed himself before the people of the land.
Solomon, to his mother, rising up and paying her such
distinguished respect. And above all, Paul — Paul, the
most distinguished for zeal as an apostle, — was the
most remarkable for courtesy as a man ; his language
in some of his tenderness, and his conduct in some situa
tions, are a perfect model of polite and delicate address.
There is a dignity and refinement in his manners per
fectly fascinating when we look at him before his
judges, and hear him address them : ' I am not mad,
most noble Felix ; I would that all who hear me this
day were not only almost, but altogether such as I am,
except these bonds/ The significancy and elegance of
this action, combined with the sentiment contained in
the words, altogether constitute a picture which has
never been equalled. But the letter to Philemon is
a composition, unrivalled both hi its sentiments and
manner ; here the apostle appears as the perfect
master of every turn of thought, and every mode of
expression, indicative of eminence in the virtue to which
we refer. All these examples, be it remembered, prove
the force of scriptural authority ; and they thus involve
a scriptural obligation to exercise of the thing.

THOUGHTS THAT PERISH. 257
form any notion about the faces, the countenances and
the bright eyes of its parents and its brothers and
sisters, who are about to welcome it and rejoice over
it when it comes amongst them % Could it know any
thing of the reahty of activity and enjoyment which
there is ready for it in this world ? Aye, I fear that
many — many of our notions, many of the thoughts and
the dreams which we have about the world into which
we are to be born, are just as imperfect as those which
that mind could have of the world which is before it.
And therefore there are many things which men are
clinging to, many imaginative things in religion, which
I hold very cheap, and which I think will just perish and
pass away from the mind, as it enters into the glory
about to be revealed. And it will be a happiness that
they do ; because it will find the reality so much greater
and brighter and better, than it had before conceived.
Now just one thought more here. I would have
you take this passage and illustrate it in another way;
applying it to purposes — projects — intentions. That,
I think, is precisely the idea intended to be conveyed.
' In that very day his thoughts perish ; ' his purposes,
his projects — what, he intended to do. These cherished
thoughts are gone.
My dear brethren, there is something here for us.
You find many beautiful passages and instances in
Scripture, in which this idea is embodied and realised,
sometimes with great beauty and poetic effect, in
relation to the enemies of the Church. ' The enemy
said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the
spoil, my hand shall destroy them; Thou didst blow
with Thy wind, the sea covered them, they sank as
lead in the mighty waters/ ' In that very day their
thoughts perished.' ' Have they not sped ? have they
not divided the prey ? to every man a damsel or two ;
VOL. II. s

258 THOUGHTS THAT PERISH.
to Sisera a prey of divers colours, a prey of divers
colours of needlework ? So let all Thine enemies
perish, 0 Lord.' The sacred poet does not even sug
gest the idea that they had perished ; but feeling
that it was a fact, only lifts up her heart to God —
' So let all Thine enemies perish, 0 Lord.' And so
you will find in many parts of Scripture beautiful ideas
like this concerning the purposes and intentions that
were in men's hearts utterly 'perishing' by God's
just laying His hand upon them, — the purposes that
were in their hearts against the Church.
If our time permitted, this idea would afford, I think,
illustration of many things, — how the cherished inten
tions and purposes of men have come to nought.
There is one man, who is just going to make his last
voyage ; and then — ! This other man, his last specula
tion; and then — ! He is just going to do this thing,
or the other thing ; and then — ! And then what ?
Why, before it comes, all his thoughts ' have perished/
and his plans and purposes are gone !
How this should come home to the heart of some,
who have been thinking and purposing about religion,
and have just got so far and no further ! They have
been thinking about it, and thinking about it, and
planning and purposing and resolving; and they are
doing that now, which they iiave been doing for years.
Ah ! my friend, take care — take care ! The moment
may perhaps just be at hand, when all these purposes
shall perish, and thou shalt perish with them.
And with respect to some men, who have been great
in council in the Church, — for instance, in connection
with its benevolent machinery and movements ; they
have had their minds full of purposes and plans, which
were to be realised, and which, if realised and brought
to bear upon the Church in its movements and pro-

THOUGHTS THAT PERISH. 259
gress, were expected mightily to prevail; and they
have died. They have had thoughts growing up in
their hearts, plans and purposes which they have not
uttered, which they were nursing and maturing ; and
they have died, and these have perished with them.
And so with respect to intentions of benevolence ;
so with respect to purposes of sustaining this and
doing the other ; so with respect to many a Christian
determination that they will do more than they have
done, — purposing to do this and that for such and such
a cause : thus they have been going on, and their
heart has been warmed with the idea of what they
really intended to do ; and they have died, and the
thing has not been done and the whole purpose has
' perished/ Now let me conclude this meditation by one or
two words, just to bring out a lesson or two from
this subject.
I will not dwell, as I might do, upon the propriety
of our thinking frequently, if not perpetually, of what
at any moment may come to ourselves ; that so far as
the present fife, with its activities and enjoyments, is
concerned, we may at any moment cease to be con
nected with it. I know very well, that the laws
of God's providence are constructed for the sustainment
and the continuance of our lives, — the general law
embracing the whole race. God's purposes require that
man should live ; God's purposes require for their
fulfilment, that there should be men and women,
thinking and moving and acting in the world and in
the Church ; and therefore, considering the constitution
of our nature and the purposes of God, and what is
requisite for these purposes, with respect to many of us
the probability is, that for some time we shall go on
to live : that is the general probability. But ah ! it
S 2

260 THOUGHTS THAT PERISH.
becomes us to remember, that while God requires the
race, He does not require any one particular individual ;
and any one particular individual may at any moment
drop, and the great stream roll on, and bear the vessel
of God's mighty purpose. And that one individual
may be ourselves ; and at any moment it may come,
and our thoughts and our purposes may perish. Aye,
brethren, it does become us to think of this, and to
have it impressed upon our hearts.
May I just again mention, what I have only inci
dentally referred to — mention it now distinctly as a
lesson from this subject ; — the very great importance to
be attached to getting our minds filled with real Truth,
God's own Truth. If we really have here 'the true
sayings of God' — if God hath spoken to us, and
revealed to us a portion of that knowledge, which lies
in His own infinite intellect, and put it before us, and
said, ' Thus and thus think, and thus and thus thou wilt
approximate towards Me/ — oh ! brethren, how can we
apologise for our neglect, even if it amounts only to
neglect — our neglect of the authoritative testimony?
and how can we apologise for any opposition to it, and
for clinging to our own speculations ? Ah ! the fine
spun speculations of men in religion, the men who have
opposed themselves to God's Truth, set themselves
in array against the utterances of the Divine Mind,
and have had their own theories, their own specula
tions, their own systems of the universal progression of
man, and so on, — many a time they have all ' perished '
before the day of death. At its approach, as the thing
came near, the mighty fabric reared in the intellect
of the man began to totter, to falter, and to fall ; and
he was left bereft of his gods, the things that he
had worshipped, and found that they would not do to
go with him into eternity; and the hour was but a

THOUGHTS THAT PERISH. 261
short one, and the space brief, in which he had to fill his
mind with Divine Truth ere he appeared before God.
So it has been with them ; and they have died ! What
a thing it is, to be taught to read the Scriptures ; to be
brought into connection -with the Church of God; to
be answerable to God for having been hearkening to the
utterances of His own mind and Spirit telling us the
Truth ! What a thing it is, if we have not hearkened
to that, but have turned away from it, and chosen to
listen to some deceiver, — the worst deceiver of all,
the thing that is speaking within ourselves, our own
favourite fancy !
But another lesson, which I should like you to learn
from this subject is this, the vast superiority of any
thing that is really done, to anything that is merely
thought. Men may have fine thoughts and purposes
and projects in their mind, they may have beautiful
and magnificent things within them ; but if they are
only there, and go no further, they are but of little
worth. A thing that is within a man's mind, and ha's
never come out of it, may yet be a very great thing
to that man, because God searches the heart and looks
at the thoughts ; and a thought in a mind is an act
in relation to God — to another Mind — the great Spirit ;
and therefore, the thoughts that are in men's hearts and
minds, and have never come forth, never been uttered
at all, may yet be very great things in relation to
God's view of the character of that mind and the
influence of that upon its destiny. But still things
which merely exist in the mind, thoughts, however
beautiful and magnificent, — what are they, if they stop
there and never come out ! Purposes, projects, in
tentions, determinations, cherished in the heart, and
going no further. Let something be done; let some
thing be achieved ; let something be taken out of the

262 THOUGHTS THAT PERISH.
mind and heart, and substantiated and embodied in
an action. There is far more worth in that. Why,
both in the sight of man and of God, there is far
more worth in a single cup of cold water — a real
thing, a thing done, — than in all the finest thoughts
and the finest feelings of the sentimental voluptuary,
or in the wishes and prayers of the man whose faith
is dead. I say again, let something be done; let us
arise and do something. You may take the plan of
an architect as it lies upon paper ; the drawing is very
beautiful, and the shading is correct, and the archi
tectural edifice as it lies before the eye, is magnificent :
but you cannot live in it ; it will not defend you from
the storm or from the heat. But let the thing be
realised ; let it cease to be merely a picture, merely a
thought which exists in the mind, and let it come forth
and be embodied and be a real thing, and you can walk
m and out, and have the happiness and the conve
niences and the comforts of hfe in it. Now there is just
the same difference between a thought in a man's mind,
however beautiful it may be, and a thing really accom
plished and done. Ah ! then it becomes a hving thing ;
it becomes a thing of power. For real living things
done, time has no grave, — nor eternity either. They
are living, immortal things ; and it is by them that the
Church is sustained and that the Providence of God is
carried on, and the glory of Christ accomplished in the
world. Oh ! brethren, there is all the difference
between mere thinking and acting, that there is
between reality and nonentity ; for we really do
nothing, as to the actual business of the world, while
there is only thought existing in the mind. Thou hast
a heart ; God has given thee a heart to do something ;
oh ! let us have it impressed upon our minds to do
it. If we do not, we may just be approaching that

THOUGHTS THAT PERISH. 263
moment, when it shall be said with respect to us — ' In
that day his thoughts perished,' and there was an end
of them.
In the day of death, you see, things must terminate
with us. But I think we must not part, friends, this
morning, without just thinking of the difference that
there is between us and Him whom we love, — whom we
revere and worship. Our Lord Jesus Christ appeared
on earth, and His mind from the very first, from a very
early period, was full of thoughts and purposes ; but
He very soon began to act. When He came more
publicly forward and entered upon the doing what
He had all along purposed, from the commencement to
the close of His career, He was always occupied in
accomplishing. He was uttering things. And here I
may just remark, that if a thought in a man's mind be
born and brought forth and clothed in words, even if he
does nothing more with it, that is doing something ; it
may be taken up, it may become the foster-child of
another mind, and may grow up to be a man, and a
very mighty man ; that is doing something, if a
thought is born and put forth, so that when the man
dies the thought shall not die along with him. Our
Lord Jesus Christ was perpetually going about uttering
such thoughts. They seemed to be lost as they were
spoken ; there was nobody near, taking them down ;
they were uttered among plain men ; they seemed to
be scattered to the winds. And yet they were mighty
deeds. They were seeds that were cast upon the
mind, and they were to spring forth, and to bear
wonderful fruit of thoughts and doings. But He
came at last to die ; and the particular thing that
strikes my mind about this matter, is this, — just the
difference between Him and us. He came to die ; and
when He died, instead of saying that at that moment

264 THOUGHTS THAT PERISH.
the thoughts and purposes of His heart ' perished,' it
was just the contrary. If He had not died, they would
have perished ; if He had not died, they would have
come to nought. ' Except a corn of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die it
bringeth forth much fruit/ The peculiarity is, that
when He died, instead of the thoughts and purposes of
His heart dying and perishing, they sprang up into
reality and life, and became a living power, that was to
glorify God, convert the world, sanctify men, and people
heaven. Wonderful thing ! When we come to die, our
thoughts and purposes, and the things that fill our
heart will terminate and we can do nothing more ; but
when He came to die, it was just the completion and
realisation of the thought and thing, that filled His
soul. Now, my dear friends, let us take this last lesson, and
apply it to the present business, — the difference between
thinking and doing, between having good purposes, good
intentions, good projects of benevolence in thy heart,
my brother, and the doing of them— the doing of some
thing with thy hand. An appeal is to be made to you
this morning, on behalf of the Great Queen Street Wes-
leyan Methodist Day Schools, instituted in the year 1779.
' The Schools are particularly interesting to the Metho
dist Society and to the congregation worshipping in this
chapel, from their having been formerly under the
fostering care of the venerable founder of Methodism.'
Now there you have an impersonation of the great.
principle of doing things. If John Wesley had been
satisfied with thinking good thoughts, and having his
mind delighted and regaled with things within itself,
where would you have been ? Where would the world
have been ? Where, I had almost said, would British
Christianity have been at this day ? But he was a man

THOUGHTS THAT PERISH. 265
of incessant activity ; incessantly accomplishing, doing,
carrying his purposes into effect. And so his monument
— where is his monument ? Why, you know what occurs
when you go into St. Paul's and can find no monument
to the architect ; he tells you, if you want to see it,
you must look round — gaze and see. And you may
take your stand upon more countries than one upon this
earth, and if you ask where is the monument of John
Wesley — look round, and you will find it almost every
where, in the activity, the perseverance and the accom
plishing spirit of the Methodist body.
I was much interested, on taking up the Report, to
observe the illustration which the origin of these schools
furnished of the one lesson that I want you to carry
away with you this morning. It seems that 'in the
year 1779, one Margaret Stilles, (afterwards Mrs.
Wenlock,) who had been in the service of Mr. Wesley,
but was then hving as a housemaid to Mrs. Keysell,
was greatly distressed on account of a poor orphan
potboy, who was in danger of growing up in ignorance
and ungodliness.' There was a servantmaid, who had
got a thought, a good thought and desire, growing up
in her heart to do good to this individual. 'Being
without any other resource than her wages,' — it does
not say, she could do nothing, and the thought must
die, and must be merely a thought and nothing else,
and as a thought perish ; no, but — ' she applied to
fifteen members of the Methodist Society, and each
agreed to contribute one halfpenny weekly to pay a
pious schoolmaster for instructing the boy. Having
succeeded more easily than she expected, she made
similar appeals for other children, until some pious and
affluent friends took up the cause, and established two
schools, one for boys the other for girls,' — all through
the thought of this servantmaid, — but through its

266 THOUGHTS THAT PERISH.
being carried out, and through her making an effort
to realise it.
Now you see what has arisen from the desire of this
humble servantmaid to communicate Divine Truth to
one mind, and from her not being satisfied with having
the good thought just come over her as a momentary
visitant, or as a vision, beautiful to be admired, but not
to be realised. She took it up, and began to do some
thing — to do something very humbly and very simply,
and what has resulted ? Again, look around ! All that
has resulted from the desire of this poor girl, to give
this one halfpenny of her wages, and join to it the half
pence of a few others ; it was done, and that one mind
was brought under Christian training, and now you
have got hundreds, and have had thousands, and by the
blessing of God will, I hope, have thousands more.
Your schools are founded upon the principles of this
discourse ; that these boys and girls have got minds in
them — that they will think, that they were made for
thinking, and therefore you desire that they should
think rightly and should be enlightened. You bring
them under the instruction of the Scriptures, and give
them good thoughts ; and you desire by the instruction
of their hearts in great principles, to prepare them for
going out into the world and doing something for the
good of man and the glory of God under the influence
of pure spiritual Christianity.
May God bless you in your work, and may all that
are here present this morning determine at this time —
now — immediately — to do something as well as to feel
and think, and thus accomplish the object and purpose
of our meeting. Amen.

SEEMON XIV.
SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY.
' Israel hath forgotten his maker and buildeth temples ; and Judah
hath multiplied fenced cities ; but I will send a fire upon his
cities, and it shall devour the palaces thereof! — Hosea viii. 14.
It is the business of the Christian preacher, when
standing up in a congregation like this, to address him
self to Christian people; his audience consists, of course,
of those professedly such. Nevertheless we do not
hesitate to take a text from one of the old Hebrew,
prophets — words addressed centuries ago to Jews —
and to found on these words a discourse, which is to
be directed to people of another age, another country,
and another faith. In doing this, I propose to attempt
the following things : —
I. In the first place, to explain the principle on
which a passage from the ancient prophets may, most
legitimately, be applied to Christian people of the
present day.
II. On this principle, secondly, to apply and illus
trate the spirit and meaning of the particular passage
now read, and lying before us.
III. Then, in conclusion, to deduce certain truths
and lessons from this illustration.

268 SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY

I. The points of difference between the priestly and
the prophetical functions in the Jewish church were
many and remarkable. The priesthood was limited, in
its lowest grades, to a single tribe, in its higher, to a
single family; the prophet could be taken from any
tribe, and from any rank or condition of life. A priest
or Levite, indeed, might be called to the prophetical
office ; but this was not in virtue of his being priest
or Levite, but simply because God, in the sovereign
disposal of His gifts, chose to endow him with the
spirit of inspiration. The priesthood was subject to
canon and prescription ; it was hemmed in by fixed
and unalterable laws ; it had its routine of duties,
which remained the same from age to age ; its
authoritative code received no augmentation after
Moses had fallen asleep. The prophet was open to
divine communications that might respect new dis
coveries as well as old, and which, while related to
the past, and in harmony with what had been spoken
before, advanced the development of things in the
Church, and added to the sum of thought that con
stituted the substance of revealed truth. The priestly
office itself, indeed, and the whole of the Levitical
appointments were a visible and permanent prophecy,
exhibiting to the view of the Church the object of
a better hope ; they were a parable to the time then
present ; a representation, as in _ a mirror, of what,
one day, was to be substantially possessed ; but it
was not easy to understand their spiritual significancy,
or to conjecture what or whom they foretold. The
utterances of the prophets — ' as God spake by them
at sundry times and in divers manners' — threw fight
on the personal and institutional symbols, and gradually

SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY 269
revealed, more and more, the character and work of
' Him that was to come.'
To depict the future (either as to the ultimate form
of truth, or the fortunes of their own or neighbouring
nations) was not the whole, perhaps not the principal
part of the work of the prophets. In an especial
manner they were raised up ' to show to Judah his
transgression, and to Israel his sin/ They were
emphatically reformers ; a succession of strong, bold
men, sent forth as occasion required, 'to stand before
kings/ to rebuke princes, to expose the inconsistency
and hypocrisy of the priesthood, and to exhort, threaten,
or expostulate with the people. They were men of
movement ; but they were the advocates at once of
reform and progress. They recalled the national
. mind to laws and institutions long established ; but
they fixed upon the principles inherent in these,
applied them to the existing phenomena of their times,
and thus adapted their appeals to the peculiar cir
cumstances of each generation. They spake openly
of the corruptions of the Church, and the sins of the
state ; and, in consequence of this, they were some
times treated as political incendiaries, sometimes as
the fomenters of ecclesiastical agitation. They were
before their age ; but they were so, because — as I
have already intimated — they looked behind it as
well as at it ; they remembered the past, and through
it, sought to amend the present and advance the
future. They took divine thoughts, which had pre
viously been uttered, but which had not been prac
tically realized and obeyed — behind which, therefore,
the Church had faUen — and interpreting these by their
primitive aim and the hght of experience, they re
called attention to them as first principles ; as things
which, however old, being divine and true, contained the

270 SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY.
instruments of present reformation, and the germ of
a new age, by the force of which the chosen people
might master the evils that at any time prevailed,
and take a step onwards to what God from the first
intended them to be.
In some respects there is a greater similarity be
tween the state of things under the prophets and
the present condition of a Christian people, than
between that condition and the state of things in
the primitive Church. The circumstances of Chris
tians at the present day resemble those of Judah
and Israel, much more than those of the first converts
at Philippi or Corinth. The Jewish people had for
ages been in possession of their rehgion, and of their
religious institutions ; and there had appeared among
them, and were ever appearing from time to time, those
various forms of thought and opinion, habit and be
haviour which naturally occur in the history of a
people in their practical relations to their own faith.
To a nation so circumstanced — to a people by turns
obedient and rebellious, formal and sincere, corrupt
and apostate, or penitent and reformed — to such a
people the prophets addressed themselves ; and ad
dressed themselves directly to whatever, for the time,
was the prevalent characteristic of their religious state,
or of that of sections and classes among them. But
this is just the condition of a nation like our own, or
of any other nation in Christendom, or of Christendom
as a whole, or of those who constitute in every nation
and throughout the world, the visible Church of
Christ. Those 'who profess and call themselves
Christians/ have had Christianity among them for
many ages ; they stand variously affected to it — its
principles, spirit, requirements, and institutions — they
thus come to have a striking resemblance to those

SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY. 271
who, in former times, were thus cfrcumstanced and
thus affected in relation to their religion ; and hence,
what was uttered by their prophets to the one, may
be expected in principle to be applicable to the other.
Looking indeed, at what is popularly called a Christian
people, or at large masses of the professing Church,
and considering their political, social, and ecclesiastical
condition, their state of opinion, habits of thought and
modes of life, it might reasonably be expected that
there would even be more in the books of the pro
phets analogous to such, than in letters written to
small societies of recently converted heathen, who
had suddenlv come into a new condition, and whom
we of the present day cannot as a body exactly
resemble, either in what was good or in what was bad
about them, in the freshness and ardour of their young
enthusiasm, produced by the recency and rapidness of
their transition from 'darkness to light,' or in the
depraving effects of that previous darkness, the in
fluence of which they carried with them into their
second state. But, however this may be, certain it is,
that we find in the prophets, or may find, without any
extraordinary stretch of the imagination, the most re
markable analogies between the Jewish people and
ourselves ; many of the words which were spoken to
them — involving charge, threatening, exhortation, re
buke — being in spirit directly apphcable to us.
It may be worth a momentary extension of these
remarks to observe further, that the principle adverted
to may be brought forward and applied to the New
Testament. The application, however, would, in the
apprehension of some, cause the Gospels and the
Epistles to change places. There" is a very mistaken,
though very natural, tendency in many minds to con
found the word ' Gospels ' and ' Gospel/ They think

272 SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY.
that in the first we are most likely to find the second,
and that the sayings of Christ may be expected to
reveal to us the Christian truth ; indeed, some pay
special reverence to portions from the Gospels by
standing up when read in the public service of the
Church ; and other some appeal from the written
statements of apostolic men, to what they regard as the
more authoritative declarations of Jesus. I should be
the last to insinuate that the evangelical narratives
do not contain the elementary germ of every item of
evangelical truth; but I do say, that the Gospel,
properly so called, is not only not so fully developed,
taught and explained in them, as in the Epistles, but
that it was perfectly natural that this should be the
case ; and I further say, that the fact, lying at the
bottom of this, falling in with the principle already
advanced, gives to many of the most startling portions
of the Gospels a new meaning, by placing them in that
relation to the Epistles which the words of the prophets
bore to the law.
It is not, perhaps, sufficiently remembered that the
last years of the Jewish dispensation and the first of
the Christian were the same ; that the two economies
over-lapped each other ; and that while the one was
fading and vanishing away, the other was being
gradually developed and revealed. Our Lord was not
only ' of the seed of David according to the flesh/ but
He was 'made under the law,' — was a 'minister of the
circumcision/ and, to all intents and purposes, a Jew.
He came not only to be the 'Apostle and High Priest
of our profession,' — the Prophet, Priest and King of
the Christian Church, — but, in another sense of the word
altogether, He was also 'Jesus, the Prophet of Nazareth/
In this character He belonged to the Jewish dispen
sation, came to the people, especially to the priests,

SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY. 273
scribes, and rulers, in the spirit of one of the old
prophets, and took His stand on the basis of the yet
unrepealed economy. While He was doing this, He
was preparing as 'the Christ/ — the anointed, divine
Redeemer of the world, — to be the Gospel ; He was
advancing to His ' decease which He was to accomplish
at Jerusalem,' when that was to be done, which, at the
time none should understand ; which He Himself could
never fully explain and teach ; but which with all its
involved truths, and in aU its perfected development,
was to be apprehended and held up to the view of
the Church, by those whom He should commission,
and to whom He should hereafter be spiritually revealed.
From this fact, admitting, as I believe, of the most rigid
demonstration, it is easy to see, that it is not only
natural and reasonable to look for the exhibition of the
Gospel — the full statement of evangelical truth — to the
writings of the apostles rather than to those of evan
gelists ; but that the collateral fact just adverted to,
brings the utterances of Jesus to His contemporaries,
under the rule of the principle already applied to the
words of the prophets, and this imparts to them a
practical pungency in relation to ourselves.
Our Lord, then, let it be remembered, was to the
people of His own time a prophet. He belonged to
their Church, and He discharged towards it the office
of a reprover. Though the Mosaic dispensation was
coming to a close, it yet stood ; He and His contem
poraries were alike under it ; on this principle He
took His stand, and He spoke to the people as one
who would recall them to the true spirit of their
acknowledged faith ; who would reform abuses ; and
who, by exposing and denouncing flagrant sins,
would enforce the laws of eternal morahty. It was
in this character that He resented the desecration of
VOL. II. T

274 SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY.
the temple; complained that the people, in spite of
the number of professional guides, were left ' as sheep
having no shepherd ;' told them to do what was taught
' by them that sit in Moses' seat,' but ' not to do after
their example;' and then denounced, in the old pro
phetic spirit of withering scorn and burning indig
nation, the covetousness and extortion, the formality
and hypocrisy of 'the whited sepulchres;' the lovers
of pre-eminence, who liked to be bowed to, and robed,
and Rabbied ; who were punctilious in forms, and neg
ligent in essentials ; who oppressed widows, and ' made
long prayers ;' ' serpents/ ' vipers,' who could not
possibly ' escape the damnation of hell.' Now the
thing to be observed is, that the people to whom
Jesus addressed Himself, had long been in possession
of their religion ; that there had sprung up amongst
them doctrinal errors and ecclesiastical enormities ;
and that He spake out with terrible emphasis in re
lation to all that He would reform and denounce.
But the principle that lies at the bottom of aU this
is manifestly that which we before adverted to. Though
spoken to Jews, the words of Christ have a significancy
and force in relation to the Church throughout all time,
not simply because they were spoken by Him, but
because of the circumstances in which they were spoken.
Whenever a Christian people come to bear a resem
blance to our Lord's contemporaries, as the inheritors
of an ancient faith ; whenever, among such, there is
anything like the revival and re-appearance of the
things which He lamented, stigmatized or denounced ;
there, in all their original meaning, may the words, in
spirit, be practically applied. The apostolic epistles
may best explain to us the principles of our faith, and
reveal what was peculiar in its first recipients; but
where the Christian Church has been long established,

SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY. 275
and when it has come to be marked by the sins that
distinguished its predecessor, the writings of the pro
phets, and the words of Jesus, though addressed to the
subjects of the previous economy, may be found to have
a meaning beyond much that may occur in many of
the more exclusively Christian documents.
These views properly understood, give a peculiar
force, for practical purposes, to much and many things
in the prophetical writings with which some might
think we had nothing to do ; they throw also great
light on some of the startling and terrible words of
Jesus. Those words would not have done for the
apostles to have carried into the world, to repeat to
the nations ; they wanted another sort of message,
and they found that in telling, not what Christ had
said, but what He had done ; preaching and setting
forth Him in His redemptive character and work;
to us, however, not only is that message welcome
and necessary; but the discourses of Christ, rebuking
His contemporaries, have come to possess a direct appli
cation and terrible significancy.
It is the same with the words before us, and similar
passages in the writings of the prophets. Let us,
then, II.
Explain the statements of the text in their primary
reference to Israel and Judah, showing and illustrating,
as we proceed, their application, in spirit, to ourselves.
1. The first thing to be observed is, that those whom
God originally called to be one, whom He consolidated
into a Church, making them His family and people, are
now two ; they are split and divided into contending
factions. When the sons of Jacob were redeemed from the land
T 2

276 SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY.
of Egypt, they came out as one great and united army.
There were different tribes, but there was one people ;
they felt as the descendants of one man, and marched
forward as 'the host of God/ The tribes, with their
different banners and devices, had, in themselves, in
deed, each a separate unity ; but they were pervaded
by sentiments which they held in common, and which
fused and cemented them into a great whole. They
were arranged harmoniously round the tabernacle, — the
central seat of their common God ; their weapons of
war were for defence or conquest, against a common
enemy, or for the general interest, — they were not
intended to be turned against each other. When the
social and ecclesiastical arrangements were completed,
under which the Hebrew people were placed, there was
embodied in them the idea of oneness ; — oneness, real,
essential, great, though combined with a good deal of
visible and circumstantial diversity. Now, however, in
the period of the prophets, a material change has taken
place. That body, which is described, in the language
of unity, as ' the Church in the wilderness/ has become
the two ' Kingdoms of Israel and Judah/ They have
divided interests, are separated by mutual animosities,
are sometimes in the field, not as allies, but as oppo
nents and adversaries ; ' Judah vexes Israel, and Israel
envies Judah.' It is not difficult to see the application
of this to the Christian Church. Whether anything
like a large, comprehensive and Cathohc unity ever
existed, even in the apostolic age, I shall not stay to
enquire ; it is enough that the Master contemplated the
unity of the Church, that He prayed for it, and that He
suspended great results on its visible manifestation. At
first, the disciples were ' of one mind and of one heart ;'
they ' continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and
fellowship/ and were one alike in faith and order. As

SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY. 277
the Church widened and spread, and was diffused
among the nations, it was soon evident, however, that
neither a physical or material oneness (if we might so
call it), nor an absolute uniformity of opinion and
ceremony, constituted the union for which the Master
prayed. The mind of the Master is, of course, indicated
by that of His servant, — the meaning of the Lord, by
the explanatory conduct of His inspired apostle. Paul
could contemplate separate societies, varieties of opinion,
diversities of practice in relation to outward circum
stance and ceremony, without feeling that the unity
of the Church was violated or imperilled. He sought
for oneness in the universal reception of two or three
great truths, in the culture of an all-comprehending
brotherly love, and in the indulgence of the spirit of
peace, toleration and forbearance ; and, in spite of
many things that disfigured the character of the first
churches, it is not to be doubted that this essential
unity did for a long time, and to a large extent, prevail.
For many ages, however, Christians, it is well known,
have been classed and confederated, not like the dif
ferent tribes of the Jewish Church in its early stage,
nor like the distinct but mutually recognised churches
of apostolic times, but like Israel and Judah in the
period of their degradation, hostility and conflict. The
Church ' militant ' has been such, not from its battling,
as a consolidated force, against error and sin, the world
and the devil, but from its being torn into different
opposing factions, and from these perpetually hurling
their weapons and uttering their defiance, sometimes
their threats, execrations and curses, against each
other. I simply refer to the fact ; I go into nothing, at
present, beyond this ; nor do I blame one party more
than another. There it is, — the great fact of the dis-

278 SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY.
union and division of the Christian Church ; a great
evil ; a thing to be lamented as such, though good, un
doubtedly, has sometimes come out of it. It is not easy,
indeed, to conceive how many of the things we may
justly lament could have been prevented, or how some
virtues could have been exercised, without them. It
would seem quite impossible, in a world like this, and
with a nature like ours, with states, and kingdoms, and
political society (the ordinance of God), and with free
thought, the prerogative of man (subject only in each
individual to personal responsibihty to the Maker of the
mind and the Giver of the Bible), in such a world, and
among such a race, or in a race so circumstanced, it
would seem as if a real, hteral unity and uniformity of
opinion and practice, in respect to every thing included
in faith and worship, could not be secured without the
existence and exercise of a spiritual power, dangerous
to society, incompatible with the freedom and inde
pendence of nations, subversive of the rights and
liberties of Christians, and destructive even of religion
itself as a spontaneous and ' reasonable service.' More
over, in the wars and contentions carried on between
different parts of the Church, while it is certain that
there must be sin somewhere to occasion or foment
them, it is also certain that there may be virtue too ; on
the one side or the other there may be real and earnest
' contending for the faith ' — for the truth of God, or the
rights of His people. Still, admitting all this, it is a
simple fact, and one to be openly acknowledged and
deplored, that divisions and dissensions have extensively
prevailed, and still prevail, in the Christian Church-
schisms and feuds separating brethren, as Israel and
Judah were formerly separated ; things which, however
inevitable, and however productive of the exercise of
certain excellent virtues, are yet, in themselves, the

SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY. 279
symptom and proof of the presence and workings of
human imperfection.
2. The second thing to be noticed is, the different
conduct by which the two parties in the text were
respectively distinguished, — 'Israel builds temples;'
' Judah multiplies fenced cities.'
Israel fell from and corrupted the primitive institu
tions of divine worship. The people were detached
from the proper source of religious knowledge. They
were kept away from the only place where, with pro
priety and acceptance, they could offer sacrifice, and
where they could come into contact with God's true
priest. ' Temples ' were built over the whole land, at
Bethel and Dan, Gilead and Gilgal, and other places;
idols were multiplied in large numbers and with great
rapidity; and when once the corruption of God's worship
had commenced, it went on till it included the toleration,
sometimes the encouragement and practice, of all the
gross and debasing enormities which have ever and
everywhere been connected with idolatry. The people
were deprived of the true religion in its principles and
institutions, and were initiated into what was false and
idolatrous. To this they became excessively devoted.
In their own way, like the Athenians after them, they
were very religious, thoroughly given up to their own
superstitions. On all sides were to be seen altars and
worshippers. Everywhere, constantly, early and late,
they might have been seen engaged in some or other
rehgious service. They erected, as it is said, 'altars to
sin,' and altars were to them ' for sin ; ' they were
drawn to them and kept there, as by a judicial fascina
tion. It was thus that they not only built temples, but
were ever thronging to fill them.
Judah, on the other hand, was distinguished by
a different form of disobedience ; it retained the temple,

280 SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY.
the true priesthood, the law and the prophets, and
adhered to the truth as revealed by God, and to the
exact worship He required and prescribed. Although
it, too, sometimes fell into idolatry, and to all that
idolatry brought with it, yet ; for the sake of the
stronger contrast with Israel, we are warranted, at
present, to confine our attention to the one thing in
dicated by the prophet, and to conceive of them as
innocent in other respects. Judah, then, had an
orthodox creed, and an unexceptionable liturgy ; it had
just views of the Divine character ; it had the de
pository of truth in the holy writings, with most
orderly and decorous worship in the temple. But
with all this, Judah was deficient in real, earnest,
religious faith. The people believed in the true God so
far as outward acknowledgment went, but they did
not trust Him. They had correct ideas, as speculative
apprehensions, of His Divine power, supremacy, and
government; they knew that idols were 'nothing in
the world/ 'a vanity and a lie/ — having 'eyes, but
seeing not, ears, but hearing not, feet that could not
move, and hands that could not help ; ' they knew that
their God 'made the heavens,' and that 'He could
do whatever He pleased ; ' and they further knew, that
He had given to them great and precious promises
of constantly interposing on their behalf, preserving
them from danger, and saving them from 'all those
that should rise up against them.' They knew all this
and professed to believe it, and did believe it ; and
yet, knowing it and believing it, and never building
temples to other gods — being quite free from apostasy
and superstition — they so acted as to shew that they
were equally free from the influence and power of a
living faith, and that they had nothing about them
of a deep, thorough, earnest godliness. ' They multi-

SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY. 281
plied fenced cities/ They put their trust, not in
what God had promised to do for them, but in what
they thought they could do for themselves. They
multiplied fenced cities. Why ? God was their
defence ; He had promised to be their ' shield and
buckler/ He had expressly forbidden them 'to mul
tiply horses,' to keep a standing army, or to place
dependence on ' fortified places,' or ' an arm of flesh.'
He required simply a warm, sincere trust in Himself,
and He promised that He wrould save them. This
they professed to understand and do ; the elements of
this trust were in their pure creed, the profession of it
in their authorized worship. But they had the 'form
of godliness without the power' — while they approached
God ' with their lips, their hearts were far from Him ; '
they bowed in His temple, but they trusted in them
selves. It is not difficult, I think, to see the application
of both these forms of defection to different parts of the
Christian Church. There are particular communities
that, as bodies, might be characterized by the one or the
other of these sins ; while, in all bodies, different
individuals may be seen to be thus distinguished. It
cannot be denied that large portions of professedly
Christian people have been led away, like Israel of old,
from the original truth and simplicity of worship ; they
have set up altars, and built temples, and multiplied
the objects of what they profess to be a sort of sub
ordinate adoration. They have filled day and night
with hours of service and varieties of bodily religious
exercises ; many of them have been taught to regard life
as if it were bestowed for hardly any purpose beyond
the performance of external religious acts ; and these
acts have often had relation to idols, visible or invisible,
and not to God. In this way, in some parts of the

282 SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY.
Church, truth has been forsaken, error indulged, apos-
tacy induced, worship corrupted, till darkness has
brooded over the minds of the people, and they seem
to be 'wholly given to idolatry;' idolatry as real,
though perhaps not so rude, as that which was practised
by the people, and encouraged by the priests, in
Israel of old. In other parts of the Church again,
there has been the counterpart of the sin of Judah.
There has been no approach to idolatry and super
stition ; the creed has been orthodox ; the language
of the worshippers most evangelical ; the rites and
ceremonies punctiliously simple ; everything has been
studiously and scriptural ly exact, according to what
was considered the revealed standard (as among our
selves we talk of the ' primitive model ;') and yet,
in connection with all this, and in spite of it all,
there has been thorough secularity of heart, no true
faith, no earnest zeal, no living, burning devotion.
With ah that some people have of knowledge of the
truth, attachment to correctness of evangelical senti
ment, preference for purity and simplicity of worship ;
with all this, religion with them is not a life ; they
do not really and thoroughly trust God, they do not
love Him, walk with Him, honour Him, find their
rest and happiness in Him, and sincerely and honestly
depend upon Him. They love the world, are careful
to keep and tighten their grasp of it ; to realize about
them something like a tangible and visible dependence ;
and, while they profess in words to look 'not at the
things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen/
they prefer, in fact, to have something that they can
literally survey or touch in the form of sohd, material
possessions, with their deeds and parchments, and seals
and signatures. It is not possible to serve ' God and
Mammon,' but it is very common to try to do so ; and

SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY. 283
in those parts of the Church especially, where the
creed and the confession are the most pure, and where,
as a matter of course, men possess and value the ' form
of sound words/ It is even possible to assent to the
truth with the natural understanding, and yet to dislike
its consistent visible embodiment in others. In Judah,
there were really those who feared and trusted God,
and who practised what the others professed to believe ;
but we have reason to think that they were ridiculed as
fanatics, and had to meet together by stealth and in
secresy, in order to give full attendance to their inward
life. ' The spiritual man was esteemed a fool, and he
that turned from iniquity was accounted mad.' And
thus it has often been since in many Christian lands,
where there has been the knowledge of the truth with
out the power of it.
3. The particulars in the text that remain to be
noticed may all be included in a running illustration ;
they may be thus put. The conduct of Israel and
Judah, though so different, was ahke bad ; in each
case it proceeded from the same sinful source ; against
both the judgments of God were equally denounced.
First, The conduct of both, though different, was bad.
Israel had no right to build temples, even to God. A
temple is a place for altar and sacrifice ; and there was
only one spot, divinely prescribed, where such could be
erected and used with acceptance. Had Israel, there
fore, raised temples with the intention of worshipping
Jehovah, it would have been wrong. This, indeed, was
what, at first, was pretended to be done. The service at
Bethel and Dan was instituted for God ; the solemn
feast was to be a feast ' to the Lord/ But having once
acted, not only without sanction, but against law, the
progress of apostacy and corruption was rapid. A mere
human priesthood took the place of God's true ministers ;

284 SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY.
sacred rites became profane revels ; idols were multi
plied instead of altars, and the tendency of innovation
was from bad to worse. In the same way, while God
could not but be insulted by the flagrant idolatries and
superstitions of Israel, He was also insulted by the
formality, heartlessness, and hypocrisy of Judah. He
was equally mocked, if not more so, by those who pre
tended to adhere to His worship, to retain the truth, to
beheve His words, and to worship Him as 'the true
and only God/ and yet who had no sincere confidence in
Him ; who proved by their practice, that they gave no
credit to His solemn asseverations, and durst not trust
themselves to His promise or His oath ; who lived as if
there was nothing true or real in rehgion ; and who, in
spite of their professions, shewed that they themselves,
at least, had no real religion at all.
Secondly, The source of both sins was the same,
forgetfulness of God. The one forgot His natural
attributes, His exclusive divinity, His essential spiri
tuality, His sole government of the world and man,
and the fact of His regal, authoritative utterances in
relation to His worship. The other forgot His moral
perfections, His truth and faithfulness, the strength
and omnipotence of His word and promise, His desire
to see in the heart of the Church, a divine, spiritual,
and inward life, a life kindled from above, fanned by
devotion, fed by faith ; one which should detach them
from dependence on visible things and material appli
ances, and fit them for a world in which human power
and earthly possessions would be unknown. Both forgot
the true nature of religious service ; the one thinking
that they did well by being distinguished for their
many prayers, and becoming devoted to their many
superstitions; though they often mingled with their
sacred rites things that, anywhere, were shameless

SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY. 285
and immoral : the other attending on the decent and
the prescribed, but giving only the hand or the lip,
the external, constrained obedience of the body, separate
from the cultivated affections of the soul ; regardless
and forgetful of the utter worthlessness of such empty
acts to Him who is to be worshipped ' in spirit and in
truth/ who requires ' truth in the inward parts/ the
spiritual sacrifice of a 'broken heart/ the soul itself
yielded up to Him as ' a living temple,' a place for His
divine, habitual abode.
Thirdly, Against both God uttered His threatenings
and expressed His displeasure. ' Israel hath forgotten
His Maker and buildeth temples, Judah hath multiplied
fenced cities ; but I will send a fire upon his cities, and
it shall devour the palaces thereof.' The threatening is
doubtless to be taken distributively. Against the cities
of the one, and the palaces (or idolatrous temples) of
the other, the denounced judgment was to come forth.
' A fiery stream' was to issue from the Lord ; His
throne and sanctuary, that might have been as a
fountain of hving water, was to shoot forth a devour
ing flame. It was to divide itself as it proceeded, into
two parts ; the one stream was to pour into Judah and
burn to ashes the cities of strength in which she trusted;
her brazen towers, walls and bulwarks were to vanish
before it, and to become in an instant, smoke and ashes ;
her battlements were ' to be as tow and their builders
as flax/ and while both burned together, 'none could
help them/ The other stream was to direct its course
to the land of Israel, and temple after temple was to
be consumed; the idols would be unable to deliver
their worshippers; the objects and the agents of the
impious superstition were threatened, we may suppose,
with a common doom ; the land was to be purified by a
terrible purgation, and God to be avenged on all those

286 SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY.
by whom He had been dishonoured. The awful sentence
seems like a comment on another text in the book of
Psalms ; ' hear this, all ye that forget God,' — whether
your forgetfulness take the form of superstition or
formality — 'lest He tear you in pieces and there be
none to deliver/
It can hardly be necessary to spend time and words
in pursuing the parallel between all this and the
corresponding evils already referred to among pro
fessing Christians. Those parts of the Church that
have sunk into superstition and apostatized to idolatry,
and those that retain and profess the truth, but who
are utterly destitute of its spiritual power ; both are
alike and equaUy displeasing to God. In each case
there is forgetfulness of Him ; in the one, the neglect
of His authoritative discoveries and His declared will ;
in the other, of the spirituality of religion and its intense
demands on the heart and life. Against both judg
ments are demanded. ' If an angel were to preach
another Gospel,' and to introduce falsehood and super
stition into the Church, the highest authority has
solemnly said ' let him be accursed :' but to believe
the Gospel, or to profess to believe it, and yet to live
as if it were not a reality, is surely to be an ' enemy
to the Cross' in the highest sense, and to incur em
phatically 'the wrath of the Lamb/ This latter sin
is, perhaps, more exclusively the sin of individuals ;
the former of communities. The punishment of the one
therefore, may be looked for mostly at the last day ;
that of the other may ' come with observation' in the
present world. We read of those who will be denounced
and rejected at the judgment, though they say to the
Lord that ' He had taught in the midst of them, that
they had eaten and drunk in His presence, and that, in
His Name, they had even done many wonderful works.'

SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY. 287
And we read also of a great anti-Christian a.postasy,
a portion of the Church ' giving heed to seducing
spirits' and doctrines respecting the worship of the
dead, falling into all manner of various superstitions,
until it ceases to belong to the Church at all ; we read
of this, of its rise, visibility, attributes, and doom ; and
its doom is, hke that embodied in the words of the
prophet, 'when Christ shall appear as in flaming fire
to take vengeance upon them that know not God;'
that which is by emphasis the 'man of sin' shall be
consumed by the brightness of His appearance, and
destroyed by the breath of His mouth.
III.
We shall now, in conclusion, deduce very briefly
from the whole subject a few general observations
and lessons.
1. In the first place, religion is the most powerful
thing in the world. In some form or other it exercises
an almost universal influence. Nations have always, as
a whole, some sort of popular rehgious belief; in
dividuals, however undevout in their habits, are never
without occasional rehgious convictions. Religion has
had to do with the mightiest movements that have
taken place among men. The greatest facts in history
are religious facts ; the greatest revolutions have been
silently or violently brought about by rehgious thought.
Of all religions, the Jewish and the Christian have been
the most powerful ; for, if other behefs have prevailed,
or prevail, more largely over a greater number of minds,
none have equalled them in the character of the minds
whom they have subdued. Christendom is composed
of those nations that are the highest in philosophy, the
foremost in science, the brightest in literature, the
strong, regal masters of the world ; and Christianity,

288 SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY.
it should be remembered, includes as its basis, its
herald and precursor, the old, wonderful Hebrew faith.
Preachers and Prophets, Evangelists and Apostles, have
achieved wonders and gained victories, far before the
men who have headed armies and reigned as kings.
I remember reading, some years ago, an extract from
a French publication, which purported to be a record
of a speech of Napoleon, in which this idea was strongly
put. The writer stated that the Emperor had received
in the place of his last sojourn the present of a Bible
from an English gentleman, and that he was known
often to have consulted its pages. In one of his last
conversations, he expressed himself to this effect; —
'Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded
empires, but on what have we rested the creations of
our genius ? On force ; only Jesus has founded an
empire upon love ; and, at this moment, millions of
men would die for Him. It was not a day, nor a
battle, that won the victory over the world for the
Christian religion. No ! It was a long war, a fight
of three centuries, begun by the Apostles and con
tinued by their successors and the flow of the Christian
generations that followed. In that war all the kings
and powers of the earth were on one side ; on the
other, I see no army, but a mysterious force and a
few men, scattered here and there, through all parts
of the world, and who had no rallying point but their
faith in the mysteries of the Cross. I die before my
time, and my body will be put into the ground to
become the food of worms. What an abyss between
my deep wretchedness and Christ's eternal kingdom,
proclaimed, loved, adored, and speaking through the
world !' I cannot, of course, vouch for the authenticity
of this, but the great thought in it is just and true,
whether Napoleon uttered it or not.

SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY. 289
2. In the second place, this power, the strongest in
itself over the human mind, is exposed by the heart to
the greatest perversion, and that in various and oppo
site directions. We have an illustration of this in the
passage before us, and we have it exemplified, in all
ages, by successive facts. One class of men pervert reli
gion by superstition, another by formality and hypocrisy.
In neither case can humanity be satisfied without re
ligion, without something of religious service, or religious
belief; but men bring it down into conformity with
their own nature, and corrupt it in different ways.
Some, in former times, as we have seen, devoted them
selves to rehgious acts, but connected them with idola
trous objects of worship, and with rites and ceremonies
indulgent to corruption ; others, paid to religion the
homage and respect of outward profession, but, satis
fying or quieting their conscience with this, felt at
liberty, after they had done so, to serve the world
and to live without God. And so it is still, on every
side of us ; Israel and Judah may be daily met with
in England and America, or on the continent of Europe,
just as really as they were once to be seen in the land
of Palestine. On the one hand we have numbers of
devotees enclosed by a religion of superstitions and cere
monies ; on the other, the professors of a pure creed,
and the advocates of a simple worship, but many of
them utterly destitute of faith, as the divine and
spiritual life of the soul. It is sad to think of the
tendency of men to run into extremes, to spend their
strength in voluptuous emotion, or to rest satisfied
with the cold, though correct, admissions of the in
tellect. 3. This liability of religion to corruption, and this
power and tendency in man to corrupt it, are no pre
sumption against the reality of religion in general, or
VOL. II. u

290 SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY.
against the truth of Christianity in particular. The
variety of religious opinions and practices, the diversity
of sects, the contrariety of worship, habit, and ceremony,
among the professors of the Gospel, ought not to lead
any one to conclude that there is nothmg true or
nothing certain in religion itself; and that it may
safely be left without his caring much about the
matter. True religion, even as coming direct from
God, could not take forcible possession of the world
without destroying the freedom and responsibility of
man. However it might be before the fall, it is the
case now, that we have evil amongst us because we
have good. Voluntary obedience is the essence of
virtue ; voluntary disobedience of sin. Willing and
cheerful subjection to truth, willing abandonment to
the seduction of error, ahke flow from the probationary
position and capacity of humanity. The Gospel itself
is so placed before us that it does not over-ride our
individual freedom. It is fully sufficient to convince
and conquer, but we may find reasons for disbelief
if we wish it. It is open to our rejection if we choose
to reject it ; and, on the same grounds, it is liable
to be perverted and corrupted by its professors, if
they are not careful to watch over themselves, and
over the sacred deposit committed to their care. We
can do wrong because we can do right. The Church
has the power to corrupt religion because it has the
power to contend for 'the faith once delivered to the
saints.' The things mutually imply each other. Chris
tianity, as such, comes with its evidences as a trial
for mankind ; Christianity, as abused by superstition
on the one hand, and by formality on the other, is a
further trial, especiaUy for the faithful; but in both
cases, the whole thing is so in accordance with our
nature and circumstances, that the evils, alike of in-

SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY. 291
fidelity and perversion, are no argument against the
system itself.
4. While large masses of the professing Church
may seem to be characterized by particular and obvious
forms of error, we should always remember, that many
individuals in each mass may not be involved in the
surrounding corruption. In Israel there might be faith
ful and true men who held firmly their faith in God,
and never worshipped in the idolatrous temples. In
spite of the regal encouragement of idolatry and of the
dispersion and persecution of God's true priests, we
know that at one time, — at a time, too, when a
prophet imagined himself the solitary remaining wor
shipper of Jehovah, — ' God had reserved to Himself
7000 men that had not bowed the knee to Baal.' In
the same way there might be those in Judah, who, in
the midst of the worldliness and irreligion that sur
rounded them, and in spite of the practical infidelity
of the nation, were persons of deep and earnest faith,
looking up to God for preservation and deliverance,
and putting no trust in the waUs and bulwarks of
'fenced cities.' In like manner it may be now with
some who are living amid the superstitions of the
Papacy and with others who are surrounded by the
hollow formalities of a dead Protestantism.
5. From this subject, and from these remarks, it
next follows, that it is highly important for us to
consider what may be the tendency of any Church
system with which we are connected, and to examine
narrowly into our own spirit and temper. What is our
danger ? What is the genius so to speak, of that por
tion of the universal Church with which we are iden
tified ? What is our own constitutional temperament ?
What are our habits of thought? our preferences of
taste? the past influence of men or books to which
u 2

292 SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY.
we have been subjected? It is quite possible that
some of us may be insensibly drifting towards super
stition, becoming ready to build temples with Israel,
and to find satisfaction in mere ritual observances ;
though it is more likely in a congregation like this
that our danger lies in the opposite direction. It
becomes us then, to see to it, that we are not putting
knowledge in the place of faith ; resting satisfied with
an evangelical creed and a worldly heart ; buUding for
ourselves 'fenced cities/ while professing to have our
inheritance on high, and thus striving to succeed in
the hopeless attempt of serving, at once, ' God and
Mammon/ 6. This subject, while addressing itself principaUy
to professors of religion, is not without a lesson for
those who neglect it. Let the wicked and ungodly
remember, those who openly repudiate religion, and
who thank God that they are not hypocrites, let them
remember, that there are other sins besides hypocrisy,
and other virtues besides sincerity in wrong. Unbelief
of the truth will be found at last, as perilous as ' holding
it in unrighteousness.' They that ' obey not the Gospel/
as well as those who corrupt and pervert it, are to be
punished hereafter, with ' everlasting destruction from
the presence of the Lord/
7. FinaUy, let us aU rejoice in the thought, that,
in all God's threatenings, a condition is implied. 'If
I speak concerning a kingdom, or concerning a nation,
to pull down or to destroy, if that kingdom or that
nation turn from its iniquity, I wiU repent of the evil
I had thought to have done unto it !' The prophetical
Scriptures anticipate the Gospel. They predict Christ ;
they inculcate repentance ; they offer pardon. Even to
the Israel and Judah of the text words of encourage
ment, of counsel, and of hope were often addressed.

SUPERSTITION AND FORMALITY. 293
They were called and invited to 'acknowledge their
transgressions/ to ' draw nigh to God' with sincerity of
heart, and not merely with the tongue and the lip ; and
they were promised that ' iniquity should not be their
ruin.' The same messages are addressed to us, and are
urged and confirmed by the facts of the redemption.
' The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin/ ' He
can save to the uttermost aU that come unto God by
Him/ God would not only have ' aU men to be saved'
by coming ' to the knowledge of the truth,' but Christ,
in the Apocalypse, addressing the seven churches of
Asia, addressed the inconsistent, the superstitious, the
lukewarm, the fallen, and the false among them, urging
them to consider, to repent, to return, to ' do their first
works,' and to wash afresh in that fountain which
cleansed them at first, and could cleanse them again.
If the Church sins, as the Church, or as those belonging
to it, it has 'an Advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous,' who is the 'propitiation for its
sins/ and not for its sins only, but also 'for the sins
of the whole world.' Brethren, ' if any among you err
from the truth and one convert him, let him know, that
he that converteth a brother from the error of his way,
shall save a soul from death and shall cover a multitude
of sins/

SEEMON XV.
ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.
' That they all may be one, as thou Father art in me, and I in thee ;
that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that
thou hast sent me.' — John xvii. 21.
The valedictory addresses and the intercessory prayer
of the Son of God, are distinguished by extraordinary
elevation of thought, by sublimity and pathos of ex
pression. His mind, just before His departure, would
seem to have imbibed, in a more than usual degree, the
purity and the grandeur of that world into which He
was about to pass. As He approaches the cross, He
approaches the crown too ; as He advances towards the
scene of His deepest degradation, He is also advancing
towards the seat of His highest magnificence ; and the
brightness and splendour of that divine abode appear,
as it were, to fall upon His spirit, and to invest it with
glory. In His pre-existent state, whUe reposing ' in the
bosom of the Father,' and ' thinking it no robbery to be
equal with God/ He ' clothed Himself with hght as
with a garment ;' in His transfiguration on the mount,
He was visibly the subject of surpassing magnificence ;
for ' His countenance shone as the sun, and His raiment
was white as the hght ;' and now, in His last interview
with His disciples, though the ' earthly tabernacle' un
dergoes no change, and puts on no new and luminous

THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 295
appearance, the spirit within, by the greatness and
grandeur of its views, appears as if it were wrapped
in the mantle which it wore before aU worlds, and
had resumed its position at the summit of the uni
verse. If the heavens were to open, and God, ' who dweUeth
in light/ were to display His glory in the sight of
mortals ; or, if Christ were to appear, and to be ' trans
figured' before us, two effects, we imagine, would follow ;
all who beheld the wonder would be irresistibly con
vinced of the existence of God and the mission of His
Son ; and aU would confess that there was a mysterious
magnificence about both, on which it was impossible
steadily to gaze. Consequences, very similar, seem to
result from the contemplation of that mental magni
ficence — that august and incomparable display of divine
and holy thought — which appeared in the Messiah pre
vious to His passion, and is embodied and retained in
His discourses and prayer. They seem irresistibly to
impel the exclamation, ' Surely this was the Son of
God' — 'these sentiments are not of earth; this religion
cannot be from men :' but at the same time, they leave
upon the heart an oppressive sense of all that is deep,
indefinite, and dazzling; thoughts impossible to be justly
apprehended; and words which it wfil require the in
struction of heaven to explain.
On this account, I am not backward to acknowledge,
that there are many things in the chapters referred to,
which require to be classed with such as are ' hard to
be understood/ Even in the text itself, it may not be
easy to ascertain the exact import of every expression,
though the general sense may be sufficiently evident for
all practical purposes. The Lord prays for a union and
harmony among His followers, and this with a view to
the universal admission of His character and claims : it

296 THE UN ITT OF THE CHURCH.
follows, therefore, that there is a sense in which the
Christian Church may and ought to be one, and, that
this oneness, whenever it appears, will have a powerful
effect on the conversion of the world.
Warning you that I pretend not, in this discourse,
either to attempt a minute exposition of the text, or to
enter into elaborate argument on the subject suggested ;
permit me to request your attention to a few observa
tions, on the nature and the desireableness of that unity
of the Church, which Scripture requires us to preserve ;
which it warrants us to expect will ultimately prevail ;
and which, therefore, ought ever to be pursued as the
happy conclusion of aU controversy, and the end and
aim of aU agitation.
We shaU first mention some things in which this
unity does not consist ; second, those in which it
does ; and then conclude with appropriate general
observations.

1. When our Lord prayed that all His followers
might be one, He did not mean that a system of
perfect equality was to be established among them;
that there were to be no official distinctions ; and
that whatever was proper for one was to be proper
for all. He could not mean anything like this —
anything like a universal identity or sameness — so
that all believers were to possess equal endowments,
and to sustain and discharge the same functions. It
would not be possible to contend for this, even if the
clause in the text, ' as thou, Father, art hi me, and I
in thee,' were to be pushed to the utmost limit of
interpretation; for, however mysterious and intimate
may be the union between the Father and the Son;
however it may involve an entire equality when they

THE UNITT OF THE CHURCH. 297
are abstractly regarded as joint-participants of the divine
nature ; yet, in the work of redemption, they sustain
distinct offices, they discharge separate functions, and
are economicaUy related as superior and subordinate ;
and, it is in this view, unquestionably, that they are
spoken of in the text, and in kindred passages. Hence,
that Christ meant a oneness arising from the union of
persons absolutely equal — equal in every respect — is not
only absurd and impossible in itself, and contrary to the
nature of things, but is inconsistent with the proper
view of the analogy to which He refers, as well as with
other and plainer scriptural declarations. In the 12 th
chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and the 12 th
chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, the
Apostle Paul discourses largely upon the unity of the
Church. He shows that it may consist with the greatest
diversity of official distinctions and of spiritual gifts ;
that it is the union of many members in one body ;
members differing from each other as the ear from
the hand, and the eye from the foot ; that there are
certain officers, both extraordinary and ordinary, tem
porary and perpetual, to whom official superiority
belongs without entrenching upon the principle which
makes them one with the most obscure and undis
tinguished of the faithful : and, indeed, in the 4th
chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, he represents
such individuals as not only not interfering with the
principle in question, but as given for the very purpose
of carrying it out ; given ' for the perfecting of the
saints, the work of the ministry, and the building up
of the body of Christ ; that aU might come, in the unity
of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God, unto
a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the
fulness of Christ/ The whole Scripture, in fact, is
against such an interpretation of these words as would

298 THE UNITT OF THE CHURCH.
deprive the Church of those officers by whom, under
Christ, it is to be regulated and ruled; deprive it,
under the plea that any superiority of some over
others is subversive of a union in which all are em
phatically declared to be one. This principle, if fully
acted upon, instead of cementing and uniting, would
separate and disperse : if oneness were impossible
wherever official distinctions are permitted, the Church
would be reduced to a number of units, capable of no
vital or visible connexion, and agreeing in nothing but
in repelling each other.
2. Our Lord did not mean the opposite to this. He
did not mean that the Church universal was to form one
vast and visible society ; its base diffused throughout aU
nations, — its officers innumerable — distinguished by all
degrees and gradations of authority, and terminating at
length in a supreme and infallible head, His own vice
gerent and vicar upon earth.
Such was the oneness advocated and enforced by
the Popish Church. The establishment of a universal
spiritual monarchy, by which the whole world was to
be governed ; the subjects of which were to be ' all
tongues, and nations, and people ;' of which kings
and emperors were to be the vassals, bowing before it,
and receiving the sceptre as the gift of a priest : this
was the most stupendous and the most arrogant form
which human ambition ever assumed. Audacious, how
ever, as it was, there was something sublime about it —
sublime, both from the magnitude and the nature of
the conception. It was the idea of universal dominion,
and dominion of the highest order ; an empire, not over
matter, but over mind ; the government, not merely of
the body, but the soul; the subjugation, not only of
brute force, but of spiritual faculty, by which the whole
mass of intellect and power, at any time existing upon

THE UNITT OF THE CHURCH. 299
earth, might be chained to the footstool of one man.
The ground-work of this mighty fabric was laid in the
presumed obligation of preservmg among the faithful
ostensible unity. It was assumed and advocated that
the whole Christian world was to form one body —
every part and portion connected with the rest — and
all subordinated to the visible head, proudly seated
at the top. In this head aU was to centre ; with it
everything was to be united ; and this union was
declared to be the oneness which was deemed a
necessary attribute of the true Church.
That Christ did not mean a unity like this, we
gather from the fact that His inspired apostles, who
were commissioned by Him to lay the foundation of
the Church, never attempted to realize any such con
ception. Had it been Christ's idea, it would have
been theirs ; had it been theirs, they would have given
it vocal expression and visible existence ; they would
have enforced it upon others, and have foUowed it
themselves. But they never did this. Wherever they
went they formed separate churches, not parts of one
universal and connected community. They did not
join the church of one country with that of another —
that of every other country with these — and then fix
upon a certain spot, and a certain individual, where
all were to find their common centre and their visible
head- Not only so, but they did not even make their
churches the churches of nations, countries, and pro
vinces ; they were those of cities, villages, and towns.
There might be more than one in the same place.
There were many in districts of very limited extent.
There were several in Judea, several in Galatia. Each
church — however, in faith and feehng, connected with
others — preserved in itself, and exercised with perfect
freedom, the functions of a distinct and separate society.

300 THE UNITT OF THE CHURCH.
It is easy to perceive that this procedure of the
apostles is opposed to both those notions of oneness
to which we have referred; both the ultra-democratic
and the ultra-monarchical. They did not, in the places
they visited, merely convert a mass of the people, and
then leave them, without officers and without order, lest
they should entrench on the perfect equality of each
with all. Nor did they connect these several societies,
and constitute them one church, under the guidance
or government of a visible head, for the sake of securing
the unity of the whole. They took a middle path. They
established distinct churches in different places, leaving
them independent of the control of each other ; but, ac
cording to circumstances, they moulded and modified
each, in consistency with certain general principles, that
all might be able to secure the ends and purposes for
which they were instituted.
3. Our Lord did not mean that the universal
Church, throughout all its innumerable branches, and
in aU its separate societies, was to exhibit an entire
uniformity, in every minute particular, as to constitu
tion and government, and ceremonies of worship.
This is obvious from the fact that so extremely little
upon these subjects is expressly enjoined in the New
Testament. Here, indeed, is one of the great distinc
tions between Moses and Christ. With the first,
everything is minutely particularized and strictly
commanded; with the second, everything is general,
and is to be learnt from facts rather than precepts,
from practice and example rather than law. This
difference perfectly accords with the opposite character
of the two dispensations. The one was intended to
separate a nation from the rest of the world : it
raised, therefore, around them, a wall of partition in
its ordinances and ceremonies. The other was in-

THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 301
tended to unite all nations in a common faith, and
as a common family, and therefore it avoided minute
and multiplied observances, so as to adapt itself to
the condition of every people. Although in every
church founded by the apostles, there would be the
recognition of certain great common principles, yet, I
doubt not, there were many local peculiarities as to
the mode in which they were carried out. There
were diffused throughout the primitive Church the
two great bodies of the Circumcision and the Un-
circumcision ; and, though in Christ Jesus there was
to be neither the one nor the other, yet, for a long
time, the apostles themselves permitted and coun
tenanced both. It is unquestionable that a church
composed exclusively of converted Jews, and a church
composed exclusively of converted Gentiles, while they
would have all essential things in common, would differ
in many circumstantial particulars. Their former cus
toms and their former opinions, might both, to a certain
extent, influence and modify their Christian procedure :
they might occasion them to take different views of the
propriety or obligation of certain observances ; and,
whUe holding and recognising the same general apos
tolical principle, they might lead them to act upon
it in a different way, adopted respectively, from the
habits of the school, or the habits of the synagogue.
When Paul visited Jerusalem he was told of many
thousands who believed, who were Christians — members
of the Church — but all ' zealous for the law ;' he was
advised to condescend to their ceremonial predilections,
and his notions of Christian hberty permitted him to do
it. The very same man, however, who recommended
this leaning to the feeling of the Jew at Jerusalem,
advised very differently in the case of another church,
and leaned to the feeling of the Gentile at Antioch ;

302 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.
he interfered there in an opposite direction, and re
lieved the brethren from rites and ceremonies, which
others would have imposed and which others practised.
It is obvious, from these facts, that the primitive
churches might differ from each other in certain customs
and observances, and that, therefore, the oneness of the
whole was not intended to consist in anything like an
exact and unbroken uniformity.
4. Our Lord did not mean, that the unity of the
whole Church, or even of any one particular church, was
to include a perfect coincidence of opinion upon aU
points of doctrine and practice.
This is evident from what has already been said. As
a church may differ from other churches without for
feiting its character as a Christian community ; so a
Christian may differ from other Christians, without
forfeiting his character as a Christian man. The one
involves the other, as the greater includes the less;
the differences between two churches being the aggre
gate of the differences between two separate clusters
of individuals. Presuming that there is something
essentia], without which a society cannot be a church ;
and that there is something essential, without which
an individual cannot be a Christian ; yet, these being
possessed, there is room left for great diversity of in
dividual opinion, and the absence of that diversity, we
mean to assert, is not essential to the unity of the Church.
It might easily be evinced, from the constitution of
nature and the arrangements of providence, that a
perfect and universal coincidence of opinion is neither
to be expected nor desired. It is not possible to beings
situated as we are ; nor, probably, to any others in any
world. It is not likely that it would contribute, if it
were possible, either to the glory of God, or to the
happiness of the universe. It is not, however,, our

THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 303
present purpose to seek the proof of our position in
general argument. Whatever may be possible, or what
ever may prevail, in other departments of God's great
family, we contend that entire identity of sentiment
is not demanded in the Christian Church. We rest
this assertion on the 14th chapter of the Epistle to the
Romans. The apostle distinctly refers to two classes
of persons in that place, who held directly opposite
opinions ; and the point to be remarked is, that instead
of interposing his own opinion, and setting the matter
at rest, by an act of information or an act of authority, he
recommends both to keep their opinions ; approves the
conscientiousness with which they were actuated ; and
only denounces their want of charity in mutually
despising and condemning each other. Both these
classes of persons, thus differing in certain views of
religious duty, were in the Church, both were in the
same church, both are described as having been 're
ceived by Christ,' and both are exhorted to continue
united, and, in spite of their differences, ' to receive
each other as Christ had received them.' The weak
were forbidden to judge the strong ; and the strong
were commanded to respect the conscience, and to
avoid compelling the conformity of the weak.' In the
3rd chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians, the
apostle addresses the members of that church in a
manner demonstrative of the prevalence of a diversity
of sentiment among them. 'Let us, as many as be
perfect, be thus minded/ thus resolved ; ' and, if in
anything ye be otherwise minded/ if in anything ye
have different opinions, ' God will reveal even this
unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already
attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind
the same thing/ This exhortation proceeds on the pre
sumption both of agreement and diversity. They agreed

304 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.
up to a certain point, but they differed beyond it.
They were commanded to walk together as far as
they could, for the very purpose of learning to walk
together farther. The language thus takes for granted
the existence of differences, and therefore it establishes
the position, that an entire coincidence of sentiment,
on all points, is not essential to the oneness or unity
of the Church. II.
Having thus attempted to point out some things
in which the unity of the Church does not consist,
we shall now endeavour, very briefly, to mention others
in which it does : others necessary, either to its actual
existence or its visible development.
1. We observe, first, that its foundation must be laid
in an agreement as to the reception and profession
of fundamental truth.
That there are some things fundamental to Chris
tianity, few, we suppose, will have the hardihood to
deny ; and that these consist in its moral injunctions,
still fewer, we imagine, will have the folly to assert.
Whatever is fundamental, if found anywhere, must
be found among the doctrinal discoveries peculiar to
the system. For myself, I confess that I always en
deavour to reduce these to the fewest possible points
that Scripture, in my view of it, wiU permit. And I
do this, because, in proportion as we lessen the number
of essential doctrines, we enlarge the sphere of Christian
charity, and widen the ground of Christian comprehen
sion. The smaUer the number of those things which
the Gospel will warrant us to regard as requisite to
the Christianity of churches and men, the more of both
can we conscientiously embrace with" the feelings of
cordial and uncompromising brotherhood. I am accus-

THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 305
tomed in meditating upon this matter to take my stand
where, as it seems to my apprehension, the apostle Paul
took his. Paul, who, for the sake of usefulness or the
promotion of peace, could become all things to all men ;
who could be a Jew with the Jew, or a Gentile with the
Gentile ; who could appear and act either as under the
law or as free from it ; who could shave his head, and
circumcise Timothy, and keep fasts, and yet write
against 'the weak and the beggarly elements/ de
nouncing their weight and their imposition as a bond
age : — Paul, who could do all this — who, in fellowship
and affection, was the yielding universalist where pre
judice rather than principle was in question ; — he, with
all his accommodating versatility, with all his looks and
with aU his language of love, was firm as a rock and
terrible as thunder, when an important principle itself
was assailed. If ever he referred to what is to be con
sidered to be fundamental, he referred to it when he
said, ' though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any
other gospel unto you than that which we have
preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said
before, so say I now again, if any man preach any
other gospel unto you than that ye have received,
let him be accursed! Whatever that gospel was, to
which the apostle thus solemnly referred, it is obvious
that no man and no church that rejects it can properly
be Christian. On a subject, involving consequences so
momentous, it would be presumptuous to speak but
with caution and candour. Honesty and faithfulness,
however, equally demand that what we do think should
be declared with explicitness. It is very possible that
our opinion upon this subject, in connexion with our
view of its bearing on the business of the discourse,
would be branded by opposite parties, as chargeable
at once with vagueness and bigotry — with illiberality
VOL. II. x

306 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.
and with latitudinarianism. ' It is a small matter to be
judged of them or of men's judgment/ 'To the law
and to the testimony.' Guided, we trust, by that,
we do not hesitate to say, that we consider the
apostle to refer, as the whole tenor of the epistle
shews, to the doctrine of justification — justification on
the exclusive ground of faith in the atoning sacri
fice of the Son of God. The whole argument of the
apostle is directed, not, perhaps, against a verbal and
actual, but against an implied and virtual denial of
this doctrine by a primitive perversion of it, which
seduced the Galatians from the simphcity of Christ ;
and this circumstance imparts an additional impor
tance to the truth itself, and additional force to the
apostolic anathema. 'By the works of the law shaU
no flesh be justified.' ' Christ has redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us/ Who
ever, therefore, denies this doctrine, and seeks, in whole
or in part, to be justified by law, ' Christ can profit him
nothing/ He preaches or believes ' another gospel,
which is not another,' and in the language of the
apostle, 'Christ/ in regard to that man, 'has died in
vain.' The awful consequence inevitably results —
awful to contemplate, awful to express — that, what
ever else he may believe or disbelieve, he is not
united to 'the Head of the body,' and therefore he
cannot be included in the unity of that body itself.
If a society denies this doctrine, whatever may be
its external form — whatever it may have, or whatever
it may not have, as to other things, — however simple
or however splendid its ritual and ceremonies,— it, also,
has abandoned the faith for ' another gospel/ and has
put itself in a position, in which it is impossible to
recognize it as an integral part of the Christian com
munity. This grand fundamental doctrine involves in

THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 307
it, as it seems to us, the divinity of Christ, and the
necessity of renewaland sanctification by the Spirit;
but it does not involve either of the classes of opinion
which distinguish Calvinists and Arminians ; nor has
it anything to do with a particular form of church
government. It may be held in connexion with great
variety of sentiment on subordinate points ; and it may
be preached, as fully and as scripturally, by the en
nobled episcopal bishop of a place, as by the plain
congregational bishop of a people.
We lay the basis, then, of the unity of the Church
in the unity of the faith ; and that faith we find in
the reception of the atoning sacrifice and of the sancti
fying Spirit. Whatever individual has this faith, ex-
perimentaUy and spirituaUy — whatever else he has,
or whatever else he has not — is one with Christ as
a vital member of His mystical body ; whatever in
dividual clearly and credibly professes this faith —
whatever else he professes or denies — is a proper
subject for admission into any particular church ; and
whatever church exphcitly retains and teaches this
faith, without corrupting and destroying it by super
added perversions, is a true church, and ought to
be recognized as a part of the visible Christian com
munity. This faith may consist with every possible
form of discipline and order, and therefore no par
ticular form of order and discipline, in connexion with
which it does exist, can be properly considered as
subversive of a character derived from something dis
tinct from both and superior to either.
2. We observe, secondly, that the union of the
Church, thus founded on a oneness of faith, ought
to be manifested by the recognition of each other,
by Christians and Christian churches, thus har
monizing, x 2

308 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.
By every individual, who, in the language of Scrip
ture, 'holds the Head/ every other individual who
does the same, ought to be cheerfully recognized as
a Christian brother ; he ought to be cordially regarded
and greeted as such, and ought to share in that love of
the fraternity — that family affection — which is peculiar
to the genius and spirit of the gospel. This feehng,
properly cultivated, wfil produce a readiness to co
operate, in all benevolent and useful confederacies, for
the glory of God and the benefit bf man. This, how
ever, is but the union and fellowship of individual and
private members of the Church — their union, as such, in
their individual and private capacity — which, though
undoubtedly included in the prayer of Christ, is by
no means its largest and most emphatic fulfilment.
The text, to be realized in its subhmest sense, would
unquestionably require, not merely the recognition of
Christian by Christian, but the recognition of church
by church, not merely the union of individual be
lievers, in works of general benevolence, piety, and
mercy, but the communion and fellowship of ministers
and churches in the spiritual services and sacraments
of the faithful. Every Christian society ought to
possess the power, whether it . avail itself of the ex
ercise of the privilege or not, of accepting the services
of the ministers of every other. A difference of dis
cipline ought not to be a barrier between those who
equally hold and inculcate the same essential, saving,
and sanctifying truths; it ought not to keep com
munities, similarly circumstanced, from meeting and
mingling together in the most blessed and binding
of religious solemnities. All who expect to unite in
the services of heaven, ought to endeavour to unite
in the services of earth. Nothing should be a term
of communion but what is mutually admitted to be

THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 309
a term of salvation. Upon this principle, Episcopa
lians, Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, Methodists,
Moravians as ministers, might occasionally occupy the
pulpits of each other ; — as churches might join with
each other in listening to the doctrines and lessons
of their common Christianity; — and, as mutually
recognized portions of the universal Church, might
meet at the table or the altar, and partake together
of the same bread and of the same cup.
3. I observe, lastly, that if this mutual recog
nition, and universal communion of separate visible
churches, were admitted and practised, little would
be wanting either to the complete fulfilment of the
Saviour's prayer for His people, or to the ultimate
accomplishment of that result to the world with which
it is connected.
If ministers and churches felt and acted as we
have endeavoured to describe, there would not only
be a spiritual union, (which there is now,) between
all, in every church, who 'love the Lord Jesus Christ
in sincerity ;' but there would be an obvious and ac
knowledged demonstration of the fact. There would
not only exist, but there would be seen to exist, in
essentials — unity, and in everything else — liberty
and charity ; and this unity and this charity would
be the more remarkable, splendid, and impressive,
from the very differences that would distinguish, with
out dividing, the various sections of the blended and
harmonizing whole. The consequences of this sort of
visible oneness, would be beneficial alike to the Church
and to the world. Separate denominations would soon
lose their hold of whatever partakes of the nature of
sectarian attachments ; they would imbibe an enlarged
and accommodating spirit ; they would mutuaUy cease
to contend about trifles ; and they would come perhaps,

310 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.
in the end, fused and melted by the fire of love, to take
some new form, as one great consolidated community;
and thus, amid the glory and the lustre of the
latter days, might exhibit a literal fulfilment of the
Saviour's supplication. In relation to the world, the
annihilation of party distinctions, the removal of sec
tarian barriers, the drying up of the wells and foun
tains whence for ages have issued the waters of jealousy,
the extinction of former contentions, schisms, and strifes,
the taking in, into ' the garden of the Lord/ of every
large and of every little enclosure, the passing away
of all humiliating and painful recollections, in the
haUowed and harmonizing engagements of Sabbath in
tercourse and sacramental communion ; all this would
be such a plain and such a palpable demonstration of
the presence and the power of truth and love, that
men of the world would gaze — admire — believe. The
Church would become externally victorious, by ceasing
to be internaUy conflicting and militant ; she would
advance and conquer by presenting an aspect attractive
for its peacefulness ; that would be easy to consolidated
love, which is now difficult to divided and dissipated
zeal. III.
We conclude with two or three general observa
tions. 1. We remark, first, that the prayer in the text
is actually fulfilled to a much greater extent than
would at first sight be supposed, by looking at the
present aspect and condition of the Church.
We have seen that the existence of separate
churches — the want of uniformity among them in
government and ceremonies, and the profession of
different opinions on subordinate and secondary

THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 311
points — do not necessarily militate against an actual
agreement in fundamental truth, or the maintenance
of fraternal and affectionate feeling. How much
soever, therefore, there may be to lament, as still
wanting to the complete fulfilment of the Saviour's
prayer, there is much, very much, in which it is
permitted us cordially to rejoice. The great saving
principles of our common faith are exhibited with
equal explicitness, and urged and advocated with
equal zeal, by ministers of various denominations ;
and individual members of different churches are to
be found, side by side, in every enterprise of Christian
philanthropy. There is here, as far as it goes, a
union and a fellowship impressive and visible ; one,
which ought to arrest the attention and to affect the
mind of serious observers ; and which, if impartially
considered, might read to the infidel and the heretic
a solemn lesson in favour of those truths, which men,
who differ in everything else, agree in regarding as
of paramount importance. It is like the evidence to
the ancient records of Revelation, derived from the
united testimony of the Jew and the Samaritan ; they
differed from each other in many articles of their creed,
but they gloried with equal exultation in Moses, and
clung with equal pertinacity to the Pentateuch.
2. The prayer of Christ can never be fully ac
complished, but by the removal of aU that interferes
with the mutual recognition and the universal com
munion of Christian churches,
If Christians wait till every church is modelled
according to any supposed apostolical pattern ; that
is, if they wait till some one existing community
has drawn and absorbed all others into itself; if they
wait for this before they dare to open the heart and
to hold out the hand of feUowship to each other, I

312 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.
much fear that they will have to wait far longer
than any of them calculate. This consummation —
the triumph of some particular form of church order —
if it ever take place (which I deem very problematical),
is much more likely to follow the practice of universal
communion than to precede and to prepare for it. It
might come, however, if love began to light the way,
and, by enlarging and purifying the heart, to assist
the general judgment to discover and to welcome the
favoured economy ; but whether it ever come or not,
the obligation remains the same, and is imperative
and pressing, of seeking the commencement of uni
versal visible fellowship, as the proof of present fun
damental agreement, even if it should not prove the
prelude to universal uniformity. The one is an un
questionable duty, the other is probably a dream.
' They that dream, dream in the night,' — if I may be
permitted to modify a scriptural quotation — and, sup
posing myself to be addressing the members of all
evangelical communions, I would say to them — 'The
darkness is past, and the true light now shineth ;
ye, brethren, are not in darkness ; ye are aU the
chfidren of the light and the children of the day ;
ye are not of the night, nor of darkness; ye, there
fore, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the
breastplate of faith and love ; and for a helmet, the
hope of salvation. Whereto ye have attained, walk
by the same rule, mind the same thing; by reci
procal communion, keep the unity of the Spirit in the
bond of peace ; and, if in anything ye have different
opinions, God will reveal even this unto you.'
Deeply as I feel, and fondly as I cherish, the truth
and excellence of the principle which I have en
deavoured to establish, I am compelled to confess,
that, though I entertain no doubt of its ultimate

THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 313
triumph, I fear it wfil be long before it be generally
acknowledged, and longer still before it come into
anything like practical operation. In the meantime,
many obstacles must be removed, which, while they
continue, will retard and prevent its recognition and
adoption. The most important of these obstacles are,
sectarian partialities, ecclesiastical assumptions, and
political ascendency. The first leads the thorough
going Independent to dogmatize on the particulars
of the apostolical pattern, and to demand that every
church upon earth, to be worthy of the name, should
be moulded and fashioned according to his notions of
primitive law. The second, prompts the advocate
of Episcopacy to utter 'great swelling words;' to
look upon the minister of every minor communion
as a clerical intruder; to deny the validity of his
orders, his right to rule, and his commission to teach ;
to brand him as a schismatic and his people as a
sect. And the third, Political Ascendency, elevating
one party to the injury of others, inflames and exas
perates the animosities of all. These things, however,
cannot be eternal. So long as they exist, indeed, the
fulfilment of the prayer of Christ is impossible ; but,
as that prayer must be fulfilled as certainly as it was
offered, it follows, that whatever obstructs it will one
day be entirely removed. Secular governments will
cease to be partial and learn to be just. Ministers
and churches of different orders — one class no longer
encumbered by privilege, another no longer mortified
by insult — will learn to abandon their respective folhes,
and to draw towards each other when there is no
positive legal barrier to forbid. As secular jealousies
are extinguished, sectarian and ecclesiastical will sub
side. One man will cease to exult in his ' succession/
his neighbour will dismiss the conceit of his little

314 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.
republic embracing the world, both will come at
length to embrace each other, the Saviour wiU see
His supplications answered, 'men wiU be blessed in
Him, yea aU nations shall call Him blessed.' ' That
they all may be one, as thou Father art in me, and
I in Thee, that they also may be one in us, that the
world may believe that Thou hast sent me !'
3. Finally. We learn from this subject, how to
possess our souls in peace, amid the alarm and agita
tion, the tumult and the terror of the present times.
It becomes us to keep our eye and our heart steadily
and constantly on the prayer of Christ. It becomes
us to interpret by it the language of all surrounding
appearances. It becomes us to engage in every re
ligious movement, which the present position of the
Church may demand, with a simple desire to promote
its accomplishment, and a humble hope of being per
mitted to clo so. This will at once sanctify and ennoble
uncongenial duties, and sustain under the injustice of
calumny and insult. The day must dawn when your
object will be attained, for it is identified with the
Redeemer's predicted satisfaction. Every thing around
us is hastening its appearance. Events, in the estima
tion of many to be deplored and deprecated, are, to
minds of stronger faith and holier feeling, either neces
sary to precede it, or are already advancing and accele
rating its approach. None but these views — mistaken
or pretended as they are deemed by some — could make
it tolerable to touch various of the topics of present
excitement. Nothing but their connexion with the
ultimate triumph of Christian union, could confer
anything like importance on some of the complaints,
the questions and the controversies, of the troubled
day that is passing over us. For myself, I would
not lift my finger — if lifting it would satisfy the

THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 315
demands of my own denomination — I would not lift
my finger for the purpose, if, in my serious judgment,
it had nothing to do with the speedier fulfilment of
the prayer of Christ. That it has to do with it, is
my deep, solemn, and devotional conviction ; and it
is thus, that what is little in itself, may, from its
bearing upon great results, come to catch from them
something of relative sublimity. Nothing, however,
can be really little which may influence the destinies
of the universal Church ;' which may lead ultimately
to the prevalence of universal love ; and which, by
removing obstructions, may hasten the reahzation of
a prayer which our Lord uttered with peculiar anxiety
on earth, and which ever since, He may be considered
as having been reiterating in heaven. Thou art the
Prince of Peace ! Thou art the King of glory, 0
Christ! Take unto Thyself Thy great power and
reign. Let Thy prayer be heard, let Thy kingdom
come, let Thy wiU be done ; speedily, speedily, appear,
that there may be one fold under one Shepherd!
Amen and Amen.

SEEMON XVII.

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT : ITS POSSIBILITY AND PROMISE.
' It doth not yet appear what we shall be.' — 1 St. John iii. 2.
You are aU acquainted with the grand characteristic
of the Christian Faith ; that by it hfe and immortality
have been brought to light. There may be, and there
are, other peculiarities attached to the system, consti
tuting its essential principles, and forming the instru
ments of its moral and renovating influence ; but the
distinguishing property of the rehgion itself, considered
as a whole, is certainly that to which we have alluded :
that by it men are infaUibly assured of the certainty of
a future life— a certainty founded upon the fact of an
actual resurrection established by indubitable proof.
The necessity of divine interposition to produce and
perpetuate such a persuasion arises (as you are, no
doubt, aU of you aware) from this circumstance: that
after the most careful examination of such indications
as the universe contains of the condition of humanity —
the character and government of God — we feel the
necessity of supposing the existence of another world
in order to interpret the appearances of this. We feel
the necessity, that is to say, of supposing the existence
of a certain something of which there is no direct
proof, except so far as a proof and an argument are
involved in that necessity to which we have referred.

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: 317
A high degree of rational probability is the result of
this process ; but a solid and a salutary assurance is
utterly impossible by mere natural deduction, — it is
unattained and unattainable by the human mind even
after the most strenuous and successful exertions in
the philosophical and moral interpretation of visible
appearances. Now, in this state of speculative perplexity, Christi
anity meets us with the requisite assistance — it trans
forms a theoretical supposition into a positive assurance,
it renders certain what was previously probable —
and it fixes as a permanent principle in the under
standing what before floated in the heart as an indefi
nite and fluctuating feeling. Superior to mere philo
sophical conjecture, it teaches us to realise the sublime
and soothing anticipation, that ' though after our skin
worms destroy this body, yet in our flesh we shall see
God ' — that ' this corruptible must put on incorruption,
and mortality be swallowed up of life.' And then it is
the tendency of the human mind, under the powerful
impression of such an assurance as this, to indulge the
most splendid anticipations of the happiness and the
glory hereafter to be revealed ; combining in our con
ceptions whatever is captivating in knowledge or lovely
in virtue, whatever is pure in indulgence or perma
nent in joy. We imagine that all shaU eventually be
realised in ourselves ; and then, recollecting the infini
tude of the divine resources, and the eternity of that
existence, during the whole of whieh we hope to be
incessantly increasing our acquisitions, we feel our
selves insensibly led to expatiate in imagination on the
innumerable perplexities then to be explained, and the
instruments of improvement then to be possessed, and
the ever accumulating multitude of new objects of in
vestigation and new sources of pleasure ; and we rise

318 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT :
and revel in this sort of intellectual luxury when we
think of the expansion of our powers and the stability
of our character — the throbbings of renewed affection
and the perpetuity of virtuous friendship — till in the
midst of this rapturous but apparently rational enthu
siasm, we perhaps accidentally recollect some passage
like the present one which seems at first to stamp the
whole flow of such feeling with the character of fanciful
and fallacious indulgence, by announcing that, in spite
of all our florid anticipations, ' it doth not yet appear
what we shall be.'
No person who conceives correctly of the capacities
of human nature — and especially in connexion with
the certainty of a future life — can help the frequent
predominance of such inteUectual and moral antici
pations as these to which we have briefly adverted :
everything, in fact, around and within us combines to
suggest them to the mind of a thoughtful man.
And yet, if the passage just cited is to be taken as
an unqualified assertion, it wiU cast an absolute and
impenetrable gloom over all our conceptions. Instead
of being this, however, it may be shewn not only not
to be opposed to such conjectural anticipations, but
actually to afford us the greatest possible encourage
ment to their vigorous indulgence. To perceive this,
it is only necessary to observe the connexion of the
passage, and -to compare it with one or two others of
similar import. ' Now (says the apostle) are we the
sons of God. It doth not appear what we shall be;
but we know that when He shah appear we shah be
like Him.' The whole statement of the apostle then,
you perceive, contains two assertions — the one respect
ing a subject on which we have perfect information, and
the other respecting a subject on which we are in igno
rance ; that is to say, there is a reference in the whole

ITS POSSIBILITY AND PROMISE. 319
of the passage to something that we do know, and to
something that we do not know. If we are Christians we
do know that at present we are the sons of God ; and
we do know that hereafter we shaU be like Him ; but
we do not know the immense consequences which such
a resemblance implies. We know, most assuredly, the
fact of the resemblance itself; but we cannot conceive
adequately of the results which such an event may
contain. We know, in the abstract, the character we
shall support ; but we do not know the degree of
purity and of exceUence to which that character shall
be carried.
That such is the obvious signification of the passage
I suppose wiU not be disputed. In this general and
indefinite sense it discovers the grandeur of man's ulti
mate destiny ; but there is an additional idea to be
iUustrated which gives a more specific form to our
conceptions of the future. From the connexion of
the passage it appears highly probable that the Person
into whose likeness Christians are hereafter to be trans
formed is the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the first
begotten from the dead, who is exalted at the right
hand of God, and who appears in heaven as the first-
fruits of perfect and glorified humanity. In this light
the passage derives both perspicuity and strength from
two references of the apostle Paul to the same topic —
in the third ehapter of the epistle to the Colossians we
are informed that when Christ, who is our life, shall
appear, we shall also appear with Him in glory ; and in
the concluding verses of the third chapter of the epistle
to the Phihppians the idea of our future resemblance
to the Son of God is beautifuUy and emphatically
stated, ' For our conversation/ says the apostle, ' is in
heaven ; from whence also we look for the Saviour
the Lord Jesus Christ, who shah change our vile bodies

320 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT:
that they may be fashioned like unto His glorious
body, according to the working whereby He is able
to subdue all things unto Himself.'
These observations seem to include the substance of
what Christianity has done for us in the way of simple
discovery. Amid the obscurity in which we are natu
rally involved respecting our future destination, it
reveals the certainty of continued existence ; but it
does more than this; for in addition to the abstract
certainty, of which we could conceive nothing definite
in a world in which all that is visible of man dies and
is dissolved, and is dissipated in the shape of dust by
the wind of heaven — in addition, therefore, to the bare
abstract certainty of continued existence, Christianity
ascertains the nature of that existence by the nature
of the fact upon which that certainty is established,
and by the anticipations which the first Christians
indulged in connexion with that fact. This may be
termed the secondary advantage of Christ's resurrec
tion, that it gives a definiteness and a substantiality
if I may so speak to our conceptions of a future
world. ' The author and finisher of our faith ' has
arisen from the dead, and therefore His followers shaU
arise ; He has ascended into heaven, and therefore they
shaU ascend ; He will return to receive them unto Him
self, and they shall behold Him. They shall perceive
His Person and partake of His glory — they shall be
transformed into His likeness, and thus with expanded
and renovated faculties, with bodies spiritualised and
pure, and with the same mind in them that there is also
in Christ Jesus, they shall enter upon a state of moral
and religious enjoyment — to participate of moral and
rehgious pleasures — and to advance for ever and ever
in happiness and virtue.
Now in aU this there is nothing inconceivable — '

ITS POSSIBILITY AND PROMISE. 321
nothing obscure. You can easily realize, for instance,
the resurrection of the human race, you can conceive
them coming forth from the sepulchres, you can ima
gine them with bodies purged from corrupt tenden
cies, and minds emancipated from passion, rejoicing in
the renewal of their existence, exulting in the exer
cise of their expanded • and renovated powers, with
feelings triumphantly alive to the immense value of
that redemption they are about to realize, and the
endless beatitude before them. In such circumstances,
you can conceive them entering upon the possession
of the Kingdom of God prepared for their reception ;
those new heavens and that new earth replenished with
everything to promote their excellence and their joy,
in which they shaU witness manifestations of the
divine character at present beyond the power of their
nature to sustain, where they shall be the subjects of
an improving process which nothing shall interrupt,
where they shaU exercise a devotion that shall never
languish, and possess a serenity and a peace that
nothing shaU disturb.
Up to this point, to this commencement of the future
life, our conceptions are distinct : all this doth appear.
In thus attempting to realize, in imagination, the cha
racter which Christians shaU hereafter support, and
the circumstances with which their attainment of that
character shall be attended, we are regulated by the
express statements and the definite discoveries of
Scripture ; but, when we recollect the innumerable
instruments that may then be brought to bear upon the
improvement of that character, when we consider the
illimitable attainments men may make in knowledge
and holiness and enjoyment, when we remember the
society with which they shall always mingle, and the
avocations in which they shall be incessantly employed,
VOL. II. Y

322 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT:
when we think of their perfect freedom from what
ever would obstruct, and their possession of everything
to facilitate their advancement, when we remember
that every external circumstance and every internal
suggestion shall be combined to promote their mental
and moral progression, and that their minds shall be so
adapted to aU this — so perfectly poised as to feel every
impression and to follow every impulse, — and all this
throughout an endless existence ; when we endea
vour strongly to reahze these considerations, and to
attempt the conception of what Christians may be at
some distant point -of their future life, when they shall
have felt their various influences for such a period, and,
of course, have incessantly proceeded on their virtuous
advancement, then it is that we are lost in the con
templation of that sublimity and grandeur with which
they must be necessarily invested, and we feel the force
and the truth of the apostohe declaration, ' That it doth
not appear what we shall be/
Now, such is a general statement of that consum
mation of which Christianity assures us. Our next
remark will illustrate its obvious correspondence to the
natural constitution of the mind.
The most obvious distinction of human nature is
its capacity of improvement. Man possesses a power
of reducing everything around him into a sort of ser
vitude, to administer to his natural or artificial desires,
to become a means of elegance or of pleasure, to push
forward the whole species in the path of improvement.
This is certainly the characteristic distinction of human
nature. In the subordinate orders of creation, where
instinct supplies the place of reason, each individual,
in possessing that instinct, possesses the same degree
of knowledge with every other of the species— an im
pelling principle acting with undeviating uniformitv,

ITS POSSIBILITY AND PROMISE. 323
and producing perpetually the same results. They
make no advances, and they are incapable of making
them. Their habits and customs and operations, their
style of architecture, and their modes of government,
if I may be permitted to employ such phraseology,
continue now what they were on the first day of their
creation, and what they will be on the last of their
existence. Now with man it is precisely the opposite
of this : the instincts he possesses are not sufficient of
themselves to teach him the preservation of life, were
he abandoned in the first stages of infancy ; but nature
has given him ample recompence in the capacity of
reason and thought, by which he becomes capable of
combining his conceptions, and of uniting with his
kind in the construction and the accomplishment of
plans of improvement. Weak as an individual, as a
generation he is strong ; as a species, including aU
generations, he is invincible. Nature at first threw
him naked upon the world, and told him to make the
best of it ; surrounded by various gradations of beings,
many of them possessing physical capabilities far supe
rior to his, by this one capacity of improvement to
which we are referring, the naked and defenceless
man has conquered the strength of the strongest, has
outstripped the swiftness of the swiftest, has attired
himself in the decorations of the most elegant, and has
reduced to his service the most stubborn of the inferior
creation. And, besides these, grasping at whatever he
gazed upon, he has scanned the heavens, he has
counted and measured its luminaries — of some he has
discovered the laws, of others he has predicted the
return — he has traversed and fathomed the ocean, he
has explored the earth, he has interrogated her ele
ments, he has ascertained their combination, he has
explained her mysteries, he has subdued and governed
Y 2

324 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT:
his own species, he has restrained the lawlessness, and
curbed the ferocity of nature, he has originated all
that is refined and elegant and erudite, all that gives
its charm to society, and its influence to character.
He has done aU this, and more than this, because he
possesses as an essential property of his nature this
capacity of improvement, and is placed in a universe
where everything is adapted to employ and to develop
his energies, where he is compelled to think, and to
reason, and to act. The grandeur of the universe
fosters his genius, the loveliness of nature imparts
her inspiration, the collision of his associates gives
vigour to his efforts, every impression he receives con
tributes to the general result ; and thus, under such a
combination of impulses, he at last exhibits that rich
and fascinating assemblage of talents and virtues that
compose the character of refined, and social, and civi
lised man. Now, that man does possess this capacity
cannot be doubted ; and that it has been developed
in the attainment of all that we have referred to
cannot be doubted either ; and that this is the very
capacity which Christianity wiU carry up to its utmost
perfection is equaUy evident.
But there are two considerations which exceed
ingly reduce that feeling of proud exultation which
we are in such danger of indulging when surveying
the accomplishments of man. The first is, that with
all this exercise and improvement of characteristic
capability, not only is the great mass of the species
involved in ignorance, and misconception, and vulga
rity, but there does appear to be a universal moral
taint attached by some means or other to every indi
vidual ; so that, in fact, the very improvements which
man makes are often perverted into instruments of
moral contamination ; and thus, while the intellect may

ITS POSSIBILITY AND PROMISE. 325
be advancing with all its achievements, the passions
and the appetites, the corruption and the cupidity, the
whole army of vice and folly and imperfection are
sweeping over the world, and mixing themselves with
the exploits and the excellence of man. And the
second observation is, that with aU his discoveries,
there is one thing which he has never discovered,
he has never discovered a method by which his own
acquisitions might be perpetuated ; he has been inces
santly agitated with a wish for their indefinite perpe
tuity and expansion, he has anticipated with anxiety
and terror the approach of the moment which ap
peared to be the presage of eternal extinction, he has
longed to free himself from the fear of this, and to
indulge the certainty and the assurance of future action
and advancement ; — but he could not do it. This
the Gospel has done. When ' the world by wisdom
knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of
preaching, to save them that believe ;' and hence it is
that after all the splendid excursions of the human
inteUect, man must come to a certain Book wdiich has
been the object of ridicule as well as respect ; and he
must learn from its authoritative record, which de
mands an humble and implicit reception, the only
method by which his advantages can be secured and
his deficiencies supplied..
Now, it is further, to be observed, the declarations of
this Book are in, perfect accordance with man's charac
ter and condition. This assertion admits of proof from
every point of man's character ; but we are, at present,
concerned with only one point of it — its capacity for
indefinite improvement. The discoveries of Christi
anity respecting a future world, you have seen, are
precisely such as correspond with this capacity ; and
now we advance to offer a general remark on the quali-

326 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT:
fications required for the attainment of this ultimate
perfection; and these, it is to be remembered, are
within the power of aU classes of society, and of all
varieties of character. While the New Testament
values and venerates man for his inteUectual distinc
tions — for his standing in the scale of being only a
little lower than the angels of God, while it is aware
of his mental activity, and solicitous to advance him to
a sphere in which it shaU be fully and eternally in
dulged ; it, at the same time, seeks to effectuate this,
by affording a plan for the renovation of his moral
nature — a plan that can be brought to bear upon aU
orders of inteUect so as to embrace every human intel
ligence ; — and thus it seeks to fill the future world
which it reveals with disciples drawn from every clime
and country and condition. And an instrument adapted
to operate on the moral feelings of man, is the only
instrument that can possibly prove successful; for
though mankind are universally distinguished by a
capacity of improvement, that capacity, in a mere
intellectual sense, wiU always exhibit the most oppo
site extremes of cultivation and neglect, from the
different situations of individuals and classes of indi
viduals, consequent upon the necessary distinctions of
society ; and these extensive diversities never can be
removed while human nature continues as it is. But
the same capacity, considered in a moral sense — the
capacity of virtue and vice — though it too exhibits
amongst us every gradation of culture, yet has
this difference, that no station necessarily excludes
virtue, or necessarily imposes crime. Every individual
may be moral and rehgious, but every individual can
not be cultivated and refined. And here the excellence
and the grandeur of the Gospel displays itself. While
it exhibits, as the second great stage of human exist-

ITS POSSIBILITY AND PROMISE. 327
ence, a theatre peculiarly adapted to man as a being
susceptible of improvement, and therefore, when pro
perly and rationally full, peculiarly adapted to excite
the interest and solicitude of those who are most im
proved — whfie it does this, it only requires such dis
positions in those who receive it as aU may possess.
The Bible does not say that some have, and some have
not, improved their characteristic capacities ; but it
does say that ' all have sinned.' And it comes to all
under this character : it offers its salvation to all ; it
describes a Mediator provided for all ; and it enforces
such moral exercises as may be performed, through the
assistance it promises, by the most ignorant, and the
most weak, and the most abandoned of our brethren.
And thus, while directing the human imagination to
a world beyond us — a world which is emphatically the
world of mind — where our very bodies shall undergo
some mysterious process of refinement — where our in
tercourse shall be intimate with other beings of pure
intellect, and especiaUy with that Being whose under
standing is infinite — whUe Christianity opens before us
this world, and urges us to prepare for it, the prepa
ration it requires consists of simple acts of a moral
nature. From what we have so far advanced, it appears
that Christianity, by establishing the certainty of a
future fife and asserting the unlimited improvement
of our nature, has opened a sphere for the indulgence
of the most august anticipations, with regard to those
attainments which may be realised during the eter
nity that awaits us. This, we have attempted to
show, is in exact correspondence with the original im-
provabUity of man's nature, while the wisdom and the
benevolence of God are manifest in the moral simpli
city of the instruments employed to secure the result.

328 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT:
Iii the moral government of the world, God has so
conducted its history as to exhibit both the greatness
and the insignificance of man. He permitted the
ancient Gentiles to accomplish all that humanity could
accomplish by its natural and independent exertions.
They pushed their speculations to the farthest extent ;
they advanced to the very summit of art and science
and discovery ; but the greatest of all discoveries re
mained to be made, when they were compelled to be
indebted to a few ignorant and wandering Israelites
for the only consistent and inteUigible conceptions of
their duty and of their destiny, and of that process by
which they were to attain the perfection of their
nature, and to rise to the contemplation and to se
cure the complacency of the good and the beautiful
which it had been their boasted attempt to reach and
to recommend. God has effected for man, by an act
of gracious condescension, what man could never have
effected for himself. In the external universe we can
perceive the character of the Eternal as the wonderful
and the wise — the magnificent and the mighty ; but,
as the child of error and the subject of gmlt, it is not
from the natural attributes of his Maker, however
clearly conceived of, that man can ever derive the con
solation of hope ; and therefore it is that, in the scrip
tural revelation of Deity, He appears in an aspect
altogether original — in a character entirely new —
' Rising,' as the prophets describe Him, ' in His terrible
Majesty, and coming forth from His place to behold
the inhabitants of the earth/ He is represented as
looking down from thej habitation of His Hohness upon
the unlimited ravages of evil — upon the prevalence of
that principle of defection which in some mysterious
manner was introduced into the world, and was per
mitted to destroy it. Observing the derangement of

ITS POSSIBILITY AND PROMISE. 329
that once luminous system of moral and physical per
fection, whose beauty at first excited the song of
angehc intelligence ; perceiving the prostration of
greatness, the perversion of intellect, the violation
of purity, the degradation of aU that was originally
great and Godlike ; commiserating debasement like this,
the Divine Being is represented as making a merciful
movement towards His creatures, intent to confer upon
them a gift superlatively great — a gift as transcendent
in grandeur as it is incomparable in excellence. The
benevolent object of which is to restore the harmony
of the universe, to obliterate the impressions of evil,
and to place upon an imperishable basis the mental and
the moral majesty of man.
And the gift which God has conferred has done this :
He has given to the world eternal life ; and this life
is in His Son ; and every one who believes the message
He delivers, and acquiesces in its merciful proposals,
receives an assurance of immortality — immortality to
be spent in a complete emancipation from the power
and principle of evil, and in circumstances in which
the soul shall have room to expand itself, to make
attainments, to be exposed to influences, and to be
filled with conceptions adapted to elevate and to ad
vance it in the career of indefinite improvement. The
world hereafter to be inhabited, secured to us by the
mediation of the Son of God, is invariably represented
as emphatically the world of mind, where our very
bodies shaU undergo some mysterious process of refine
ment, where our intercourse shaU be incessant and in
timate with beings of pure inteUect, and especially with
that Being of whom it is peculiarly expressed that ' His
understanding is infinite.' ' The wages of sin is death ;
but the gift of God is eternal life through our Lord
Jesus Christ/ The spirit of this faith and assurance,

330 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT':
when fully and adequately felt, is manifest in the pro
duction of that sanctity and devotion, that purity of
feeling and thought, that expansion of mental and
moral loveliness which restores in some degree, even in
this world, amid innumerable surrounding counterac
tions, the lost and forfeited image of the Father. But
the ultimate, the anticipated, results shall hereafter be
realized, the sublime consummation of the system
shall be seen, the moment of freedom and perfection
approaches ; the destroyer whom sin has introduced
into the world, who reigns and riots amongst us, look
ing upon each as his inevitable victim — a stronger than
he shall destroy him. The inhabitants of his obscure
and silent receptacles shall hereafter be led forth as the
trophies of His conquest Who giveth us the victory.
The world itself shall be restored to its pristine perfec
tion, it shaU be purified by the process of the last
conflagration, and from the ashes and the wreck of its
remains shall arise a renovated universe ; and the cor
responding family of God, renovated and renewed by
the operation of His mercy, shaU enter upon those
sacred and sublime avocations which wUl secure the
progression of individual improvement, of ever accu
mulating knowledge and ever advancing virtue, through
out the long and delightful period of an existence
commensurate with the eternity of the Being who
bestowed it.
Now we have thus attempted to explain and Ulus-
trate the statement of the apostle. Our next object
shaU be to exhibit, by two or three distinct remarks,
the natural influence of such a faith on the sentiments
and the character.
1. In the first place we may notice the opposite feel
ings with which an infidel and a Christian contemplate
futurity. A philosophical deist may entertain certain

ITS POSSIBILITY AND PROMISE. 331
vague and indefinite conceptions of a future world ; he
may suppose it possible that the same Being who pro
duced man, may in some inconceivable manner, and in
some undiscovered world continue his existence after
its apparent extinction ; and there, he may imagine
the ignorance and the imperfection of this to be miti
gated or removed by more luminous exhibitions of
knowledge and more splendid examples of virtue. He
may suppose all this ; but he has no principle adequate
to the support of a confident certainty respecting it.
Besides, even if he feel strongly persuaded of the
abstract fact, that existence shall be continued, he has
no data by which definite and satisfactory conceptions
can be formed of the nature of that existence. The
idea of a resurrection is totally foreign from all the
suggestions of nature ; it is a matter of pure revela
tion, and can never, I should suppose, be consistently
entertained by the advocates of absolute infidelity.
Now, it is to be observed, that however strongly we
may beheve in the separate conscious existence of the
human soul, and however strenuously we may support
the fact as a doctrine of Scripture, — it is not from this
fact, scriptural as it is, that we derive our most satis
factory conceptions of the future. It is from the
ultimate resurrection of the dead, and their transfor
mation into the likeness of their Divine Master. It
is here that we possess something tangible — something
by which our anticipations of the future world can be
regulated and modified — from which they can derive a
consistency and a grandeur, and, at the same time, a
sobriety and an appropriateness utterly unattainable
on any other principle. Now, the unbeliever, however
far he may push his philosophical conjectures, knows
nothing of this fact, to any practical purpose ; and
therefore, if from any of his notions respecting the

332 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT :
nature of mind, he believes in its natural immortality,
and consequently entertains an expectation of conti
nued life, yet all his ideas of that life must partake of
that vague and unsatisfactory indistinctness which
must ever characterise our conceptions of disembodied
inteUigence. If, however, he has advanced to the highest emi
nence, or rather sunk to the lowest degradation of his
system, and professes to feel satisfied that there is
no hereafter at aU ; if, by some mysterious process of
thought, he has arrived at the prodigious conclusion
that there is, and that there can be, no such thing as
a coming retribution; if he has so far extinguished
every emotion of manly sensibility, and every rising
of intellectual ambition, as to look with satisfaction or
indifference upon the utter extinction of this mind with
all its wonderful movements, and this heart with all
its emotions, and life with all its endearments, and the
world with aU its lovehness, and the present with all
its activity, and the future with all its anticipated
joy ; if he has arrived at such a degree of information
as to know that death destroys aU this, and at such a
degree of obdurate and dishonourable hardihood as not
to care for it ; then, indeed, between him and the man
who indulges those rational and rehgious anticipations
to which we have directed you there exists the widest
of all possible distinctions. To the one ' it doth not
appear what he shall be,' because the prospect before
him is of such iUimitable extent, and so pregnant with
wonders, that he cannot adequately conceive of its
amazing magnificence : the other looks upon vacancy.
The ignorance' of the one arises from the imperfection
of his mind, not the defect of his information ; it is
darkness produced by the excess not the destitution of
light. The obscurity which a Christian encounters in

ITS POSSIBILITY AND PROMISE. ' 333
the anticipation of the future resembles that sensation
of indistinctness produced in the organ of vision by a
man's looking at the sun. That of the infidel is similar
to the gloom occasioned by the disappearance or the
extinction of the same luminary; and yet this is the
man who is enlightened, who, according to his own
phraseology, has experienced the mental expansion of
liberal opinions ; while, to mark the inconsistency of
such a pretension, by the very process of this expan
sion, he has cramped and crippled his conceptions of
God and man, and heaven and earth ; and now he lives
in the anticipation of an event which he expects will
dispose of him as if he had never been, and surround
him with an absolute and unmitigated gloom.
2. But we observe, secondly, that not only do the
Christian and the infidel differ in their anticipations
of the future, but they differ also in their conceptions
of the present.
The world, separate from consistent Christian anti
cipations of futurity, presents an enigma utterly inex
plicable. Individually, or collectively, man presents
to the mind of the contemplative observer a mass of
contradictions. We may observe in some the most
subhme inteUectual accomplishments, depraved and
darkened by licentious indulgence ; we may observe
the very capacities of the mind and of the heart, which
are designed to dignify and to sublimate, perverted to
the meanest of purposes ; we see genius, with aU its
towering aspirations, corrupting the age it might illus
trate and adorn ; and we may notice, at v times, an
intellectual weakness that almost provokes pity con
nected with a purity and a piety that secures venera
tion ; and we may witness among our associates the
most affecting exhibition of man's contradictory im
pulses in the struggle of the virtuous wish and the

334 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT:
virtuous resolve, the suggestions of our better nature,
and the strong and tyrannical inducements of sensuous
indulgence. Now, when infidelity succeeds in destroy
ing the hope of some future discoveries, by which the
present apparent inconsistencies shall be fully ex
plained — when it has eradicated from the bosom such
a consolatory expectation as this — when it has placed
mankind in a state of absolute inteUectual and moral
orphanage, by telling them that they look upon a for
saken universe and inhabit a fatherless world, it
has destroyed everything that can give true dignity
to the character of man, or attach rational import
ance to this present condition. Christianity has been
often accused of making nothing of the present world
and everything of the next : it is infidelity that
degrades it by destroying the connection between the
two. Instead of this world being considered as the
birth-place of immortal intelligences, it is degraded
to the mere receptacle of contradiction, weakness,
and error; instead of man standing in the image of
God, and bearing upon his uplifted brow the marks
of his majestic origin, and the indications of his subse
quent immortality, he comes forth from the dust to be
the subject of capacities of which he can give no expla
nation, to be tortured by pain, to be tantalised by
pleasure, or to be the sport of incessantly fluctuating
feelings ; and then, to return to the obscurity and the
silence from which he was thus mysteriously sum
moned to act a farce of which this is the termination.
Nowr, by indulging the anticipations of the future, to
which we have this day adverted, you can justify the
weakness and explain the perplexities of man. In
stead of occupying a world brought into existence no
one knows when, to be terminated no one knows
how — instead of standing alone, unconnected with other

ITS POSSIBILITY AND PROMISE. 335
beings (if there are others), with much to stimulate
desire, but nothing to impart hope — instead of this,
we are taught by our religion to conceive of the earth
we inhabit as the arena of a contest of infinite import
ance, upon the issue of which is suspended all that is
exquisite in enjoyment, and aU that is terrible in
doom ; that life cannot be insignificant in which the
heaven of the New Testament may be lost or won ; that
world cannot be mean which witnesses every moment
of its existence the birth of a being animated by a spirit
that can never be destroyed ; that earth surely does not
want dignity which earries upon its surface a race of
creatures who, in spite of all their degradation and their
weakness, have the prospect before them (if they choose)
of pursuing a course of progressive improvement, of
rising for ever and ever nearer and nearer to the throne
of the Eternal, by becoming increasingly capable of per
ceiving more of His beauty and enjoying more of His
beatitude. The abandoned and heartless unbeliever
may smile at the inconsistencies of human nature, and
may ridicule the pompous pretensions of the thing
called man ; or the sentimental unbeliever may profess
to mourn over the ignorance which he cannot alleviate,
and the perplexities which he cannot remove ; but the
recipient of the Gospel, and the recipient of the Gospel
alone, can attach to life its accurate and adequate im
portance. By anticipating the future, he learns to con
ceive correctly of the present : time borrows its terror or
its triumph from the eternity that comes after it ; and
thus the veriest trifle is elevated into infinite importance
by possessing an influence on the development of that
eternity. Everything little becomes great, everything
mean becomes dignified, everything dark becomes
luminous when seen in that light, reflected, as it were,
from the anticipated discoveries of the Son of God.

336 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT :
3. We may observe, further, what these discoveries of
Christianity afford. There is in human nature a prin
ciple of activity which nothing can repress — a per
petual importunity for something beyond us which
never can be satisfied. This world, beautiful and lovely
as it is (and it is lovely and beautiful), replenished
with everything to please the eye, and to regale the
appetite, and to furnish sources of sensitive indulgence,
is yet, when put experimentaUy to the test, insufficient
to produce perfect and unrepining satisfaction. In
most cases its acquisitions after a season of enjoyment,
produce a painful irritation that goads forward in
the pursuit of higher and farther attainments. This
universal dissatisfaction with the present, whatever it
be — this strong necessity to act and to advance — this
constant longing after something before us, attaining
it and then throwing it aside for some other thing that
happens to be seen when the eminence is gained — this
restlessness of mind that m^y be seen in all the various
exhibitions of human character (for the principle is
the same whether the object be the conquest of a
kingdom, or the acquisition of the most paltry and
insignificant advantage) — this property of the human
heart is perhaps one of the most intelligible indications
of the present condition of humanity. Its constant ex
perience of the inadequacy of surrounding objects to
satisfy its demands is almost of itself sufficient to teach
us that this world was never intended for the maturity,
though it may be honoured by nursing the infancy, of
man. In the beautiful adaptation of Christianity to
this very craving and solicitation of the mind is a strong
and a striking argument for its dignity and worth.
This inadequacy and imperfection with which we charge
every object of temporary attachment — this humiliating
exposure of the restless dissatisfaction of the human

ITS POSSIBILITY AND PROMISE. 337
heart — this is not to be despised as the cant of profes
sional declamation, the splenetic effusions of an absurd
and cheerless theology. We admit that the world can
do much ; that its Maker has been mindful of our hap
piness in the countless instruments of pleasure with
which He has fertilized and filled it ; but He has not
made it infinite ; yet, in a subordinate sense, He has
made our minds so, for He has so constructed them
that they never can be satisfied even if possessed of aU
the gratifications of sense and of intellect, unless there
be added to them aU a union with the moral excellen
cies of His own infinite nature. The experiment was
practically made in the case of the Hebrew monarch
whose restless desires led him to try every delight ; and
who was compelled, at last, to return from all the
varieties of every indulgence to fear God and keep His
commandments as constituting the whole of the duty,
and the distinction, and the happiness of man. Thus it
was, and is, and will be. Man will always be subjected
to the same solicitations; he will always act under them,
and he will always act wrongly, until he learns to pursue
that glory, honour, and immortality which the Son of
God wiU ultimately confer. The human mind must have
something to occupy it ; it must have a sphere for its
ambition and its hopes. This principle cannot be extin
guished ; it will adapt itself to all the varieties of
human character ; — it will woo the phflosopher in the
shape of discovery, and the poet in the shape of fame,
and the senator in the shape of power, and the king
in the shape of conquest. The frivolous and the vain,
the intelligent and the ignorant, the prudent, the
polished, and the licentious, every one of them will
pursue something, and every one of them will pursue
shadows until the sphere of his contemplation be
enlarged, and the perversion of his feelings corrected,
VOL. II. z

338 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT:
by the splendid exhibitions of futurity afforded by the
Gospel. These constitute a source of rational and satis
factory indulgence, they are adapted to the nature
and the duration of the mind, they afford something
upon which it can repose itself, and to which it must
come, or be destitute of repose for ever. It may sound
strange, in the ears of a depraved and thoughtless
world, for a man to select the objects of his ambition
and the sphere of his enterprise from another and an
invisible state. It is, however, but a poor argument
against it to term it enthusiasm ; and it is surely a
reason poorer still for terming it enthusiasm that the
duration of these objects only happens to be eternal,
and that the reality of their existence is founded only
upon the ' true sayings of God.'
Now we observe, in the last place, that supposing a
man to feel aU these considerations, and to follow them,
then it is manifest that they are adapted to promote
both the virtue and the happiness of that man.
The two great purposes designed to be accomplished
by the Gospel are, the improvement of character and
the diffusion of happiness. The New Testament not
only enforces a holiness of incomparable perfection, but
it promises ' a peace that passeth all understanding,
and a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory/ These
two objects are secured by a variety of instruments.
The whole system of salvation is such as is adapted
immediately to promote them. The interposition of
a suffering and a sacrificial Mediator, in such a manner,
that the evangelical offer of forgiveness is accompanied
by circumstances expressive at once of the malignity
of evil and of the holy benevolence of the Offended ;
this, of itself, when adequately felt, is calculated, and
was designed, both to diffuse tranquillity in the heart
and to stimulate to virtuous resolves and virtuous

ITS POSSIBILITY AND PROMISE. 339
achievements. And the same Spirit that calms the
mind regenerates the heart. He is the spirit of peace,
but He is also the spirit of purity : His influences are
at once consolatory and sanctifying ; He is given to the
converted man both to augment his joy and to ripen
his character. And thus it is also with those antici
pations which relate to the improvement of our nature
in a future world. They exert a direct and powerful
influence on the two things to which we are adverting.
They must promote happiness in proportion as they
are felt. In the midst of every vicissitude they direct
to an existence which no vicissitude can reach ; under
the painful consciousness of present imperfection they
elevate and soothe by teaching us to realize the delight
ful period when the moral properties of our character
shaU be fixed and refined, and every temporary trial
shaU produce its eternal weight of glory. In the dis
solution of endeared connections — in the disappoint
ment of a father's hope, the extinction of a husband's
joy, the bereavement- of a friend's solicitude — nothing,
nothing can communicate such consolation as the Chris
tian assurance of that succeeding existence when friend
shall meet friend, and heart answer to heart, and all
that is rational and aU that is rapturous shall be felt,
and felt for ever. And that virtue must be promoted by
the prospect of this anticipated joy is equally obvious.
The joy of heaven is the joy of virtue ; the happiness
of heaven is the triumph of holiness ; the song of
heaven is the song of the redeemed ; and the redeemed
are those who have washed their robes in the blood of
the Lamb, who are sanctified and purged in the name
of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. A
man may amuse and deceive himself by the indulgence
of a sentimental enthusiasm; he may fabricate in his
fancy a paradise of poetic or philosophical feeling;
z 2

340 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: ITS POSSIBILITY &c.
and he may exult in the splendour and the beauty of
his mere inteUectual suggestions ; but this is not the
heaven of the New Testament. The paradise which it
promises is a state of sublime moral elevation, for
which none but moral qualifications can capacitate ;
a state in which human beings are to stand in His
presence Who is hght itself, in whom there is no dark
ness at all ; the close contact of whose character they
can be enabled to sustain only by bearing its resem
blance already on themselves. He, therefore, who
humbly contemplates and who impressively feels the
evangelical representations of a future life, must be
animated by a desire to attain it ; and under the in
fluence of that desire he must inevitably be led to
imbibe, as it were, upon earth, the element and the
atmosphere of heaven ; he must aim at resembhng the
character of those exalted beings who worship God in
the beauty of holiness ; lest when he comes hereafter to
enter among them, he should experience a shock by a
transition into unnatural and uncongenial society.

SEEMON XVII*.
CARNALITY.
Are ye not carnal, and walk as men ? — 1 Cor. iii. 3.
It is hardly needful for me to say that I do not select
this passage with any idea that it is more necessary
to ask the question here than anywhere else. I have
no reason to think that this congregation, or that our
body here represented this morning by this mixed
audience is more open to censure than others ; or that
they ' are so far sinners above the rest of the Galileans/
and the other dweUers in Jerusalem, as to need the
interrogation of the text, and to merit the censure
implied in it. We proceed on the understanding that
we take this text on aecount of the two ideas which it
contains. We think these are very significant and
remarkable. The two ideas of the text are these : — ' Men/ as men,
are ' carnal ; ' Christians as Christians ought not to be
so. It does not teU us what it is to be ' carnal ; ' —
that we have to discover from other sources ; but, what
ever it be, that, it says, Christians ought not to be ;
* Preached in Albany Street Chapel, Edinburgh, on behalf of the
London Missionary Society, April 25, 1850. Printed from the notes
of Lord Gifford and David Maclaren, Esq. I much regret that all my
endeavours to find a manuscript copy, or to obtain a verbatim report
of this sermon have failed. — Ed.

342 CARNALITY.
and that, if Christians are ' carnal ' it is not because of
their Christianity. So far as they are 'carnal' they
'walk as men;' — as mere men. But the hypothesis is
that they are not mere ' men/ but Christian men, pre
senting peculiar modifications of humanity ; they are
renewed men — 'not of the world/ men, out of whom
the leaven of carnality ought to be expelled. The text,
then, implies a charge against men in general, — against
humanity ; and it affirms that as Christians we ought to
be different from this. 'Men' are 'carnal;' Christians
ought not to -be so. This is the subject of discourse.
We will endeavour
I. To ascertain what it is to be ' carnal ; ' and how far
the charge may be made good against humanity.
II. To show some of the reasons inherent in Chris
tianity itself why Christians ought not to be 'carnal/
III. Conclude with two or three general observa
tions.

We have first to ascertain what it is to be 'carnal;'
and how far the charge may be made good against
humanity. Let it be first understood that our object is to ascer
tain the sense of Scripture on this matter. We wish to
know the New Testament meaning of the word 'carnal;'
not that of any human system, philosophical or religious.
Indeed, the term is peculiarly a Scriptural term, and
the idea it stands for is very much also peculiar to the
book. This idea, in its different aspects, we wish to
ascertain. 1. Observe then in the first place, that the word
'carnal' is of the same kindred as the word 'flesh/
' fleshly,' and such like ; which are of such frequent
occurrence in the Scriptures. The term ' flesh/ however,

CARNALITY. 343
is sometimes used in a good sense ; as ' the heart of
flesh/ and, sometimes, in an indifferent sense, as 'all
flesh is grass ;' and in these and such like instances, the
word ' carnal ' could not be substituted for it. Mostly,
however, the words ' flesh ' and ' fleshly ' express what
is supposed to be bad, gross, offensive ; they are de
scriptive of human nature as corrupted, dislocated,
vicious ; and, at such times, the term ' carnal ' and its
derivatives would be equally applicable and equivalent.
Perhaps the terms ' carnal ' and ' fleshly ' have become
the equivalents of depraved and disordered humanity,
from the fact of man's being in the body, and, therefore,
from the evil in him being more generally and openly
manifested by the lustings and corruptions of the animal
appetites. Had intelligent moral beings never existed
in material bodies, there might have been sin, and
defection, and depravity, and yet there might not have
been reason for them to be stigmatised as ' carnal.'
No language known to us might have supplied any
epithet ; but such an one has been applied to depraved
angelic intelligences, immaterial natures, which are
termed ' spiritual wickednesses.' Though ' carnal ' and
'fleshly' are not to be confined to what is merely
animal, and though the devil and his angels are said to
be in the flesh, and to have ' carnal ' affections, yet the
word is generaUy used with respect to those who are in
the body, and in this world. The word ' flesh ' has
come to be used as if it exclusively indicated the seat
of moral depravity.
As we have thus got the identity of the ' carnal ' and
the 'fleshly/ let me next observe the different kinds
and gradations of their manifestation ; that is to say, let
us see in how many ways the Scriptures say, men may
be ' carnal ;' or, what different forms the flesh may take
in its varied influence on human character. We confine

344 CARNALITY.
ourselves to those great spheres in which what is 'carnal'
can display itself in man ; though in each of these spheres
there may be subordinate varieties of manifestation.
(1) The first sphere is that known under the expres
sion 'fleshly lusts.' These are the exorbitant and
irregular animal appetites. They are the 'fleshly lusts/
so called ; and they are felt and displayed by a being
having an animal nature. Everything, therefore, that
partakes of brute impulse, animal appetite, gluttony,
drunkenness, lust ; and whatever marks and indicates
the uncontrolled actings of an inferior nature — this is
carnality, and this is the first form of it ; a form so
gross, obvious, and offensive, as to suggest the source
of the term itself, however it may be applied to less
sensuous forms of evil.
(2) The second sphere of the display of the carnal is
that described by the phrase 'fleshly wisdom/ It is
used by Paul when he says that 'in simplicity and
godly sincerity,' not with ' fleshly wisdom ' he had had
his conversation in the world. By ' fleshly wisdom,' we
understand at least two kindred forms of carnality.
Not only the man who shall have such an eye to his
own interest, and be such a slave to a life of selfishness, as
that he shall be untrue, deceitful, fraudulent, slippery,
stooping everlastingly to the expedient, or the cunning,
in order to gain his ends : but also the man who, free
from all these bad or questionable things, shaU live solely
for social respectability ; for the pursuit and enjoyment
of the good things of this life ; the acquisition of pro-
pertyand wealth ; and who shall do this without thinking
of God, and without any regard to Him, or any notion
of elevating the pursuits of life by great and Divine
thoughts of duty, moral obligation, rehgious responsi
bility, though he may never stoop to anything immoral,
mean, or base. These two characters, though the one

CARNALITY. 345
is immeasurably better than the other, the one being
the mean and dishonest, the other being the manly and
virtuous man of society, yet, both of them five according
to the dictates of the * fleshly wisdom ; ' for, both are
equally without thoughts of God, and aim equally at
getting and keeping to earthly things ; though the
one may do it by one set of means, and the other by
another. (3) The last sphere of carnahty is far above these
preceding ones. It is indicated by what is called in
Scripture ' the fleshly mind/ and has to do with all the
actings of the intellect and the heart in relation to truth
and love, which are irregular, or defective. We found
this view, partly on what Paul says in the Epistle to
the Colossians, of certain men who ' intruded into things
which they had not seen/ vainly puffed up by their
'fleshly mind/ and 'not holding the Head;' and by
what he says in the context, that while as Christians
they are but babes needing milk, not able to bear the
strong meat fitted for those of mature age, and while
there was among them envying and strife and divisions,
they were ' carnal ' and ' walked as men.'
The way in which carnahty in this sphere displays
itself admits of at least three distinct forms.
There is the first form in which the intellect may
reject truth altogether ; in which it may turn away from
the testimony of the heavens and the earth, and per
versely refuse to read the writing which God's own
finger has inscribed on His works. And this same form
may be carried further by the rejection of aU verbal
communications from God ; and in this state of unbelief
it shall disport and regale itself with its own imagined
systems of nature and its own constructed philosophies
of man.
Or, secondly, the books may be admitted and pro-

346 CARNALITY.
fessedly received; the volume of visible things as ex
pressive and explanatory of what is spiritual and un
seen, and the other volume of written records as super
natural communications of truth ; but, instead of being
simply read, interpreted, and received, the perverse
ingenuity of man shall intrude itself among ' the things
which are not seen/ and shall so add to the commu
nications, so alter and explain, so corrupt and pervert
them by his hypotheses and phfiosophy and super
stition, as to make the Divine in nature and in the
Bible merely the ground and occasion for his filling the
invisible and the future with his own monstrous and
idolatrous creations ; turning the truth of God into a
lie, worshipping angels, or imagining forms of the
supernatural, and walking according to his own conceits,
so that he is vainly puffed up with his fleshly mind.
And, thirdly, there may be the holding of the
truth, simply and uncorrupted ; but they who hold it
may be so little instructed in it, may be content to
know nothing more than its first elements, may have so
httle and real spiritual knowledge that they remain to
be reckoned among babes or chfidren. Now aU these
are different forms of the evil actings of carnality in
the third and highest of the spheres in which it may
be displayed, and which belongs to the fleshly mind.
Such is the general statement of what is meant by
being ' carnal,' according to the Scriptures : the first
sense is the gross irregularity and disorder of the
animal nature ; the second is the disorder of the under
standing and the heart in respect to the social and
visible things of the present hfe ; the third is the dis
order of the reason and the imagination in relation to
spiritual objective truth and the neglect and perversion
of its immediate dictates. The first is ' sensual,' the
second ' earthly,' the third 'devilish ;' for the disloyalty

CARNALITY 347
of inteUect, and the indulgence of mental and spiritual
animosities are just those things of which spiritual
natures without bodies might be capable ; while they
would not be capable of either of the other two, but
would require to be clothed upon with matter and to be
inhabitants of a world like this.
2. The next remark we make is, that to be carnal in
the one or the other, or all of these forms, is charac
teristic of man as man. ' Are ye not carnal and walk
as men 1 ' I cannot enter largely into the proof of this ;
the whole history of the world and the Church con
stitutes that proof, and the aspect of society at the
present day indicates, as of old, that still the majority
are wicked. Take the history of man as connected
with civilization ; begin with a nation in the stage of
barbarism, and the view everywhere presented is
odious — disgusting outbreaks of appetite and lust. A
savage is but a bundle of the worst animal sensations,
and is entirely under the control of violent impulses.
Take the same people and elevate them a stage. Let a
nation rise from barbarism into a really civilized society,
come to understand the nature of property, social com
forts, law and possession, acquisition and conquest, and
the comforts of external civilization, shrewdness and
skill, arts and arms, science and commerce ; when aU the
energies of the tasteful, or the faculties of the under
standing, that looks no farther than the present life,
are employed to enlarge territory, increase wealth,
embellish existence, and so on. You know what de
velops then, the pride of property, the graspings of
avarice, frauds and greeds, and lust of power. They are
no longer mere animals but they are mere men. Then
when things have advanced further, and minds appear
with high spiritual capacity, reason, imagination, phUoso-
phy, they surround themselves with forms of beauty, and

348 CARNALITY.
school themselves in phUosophy ; they escape as it were
from the body and range the Unseen. But speculation
runs rampant and lawless ; 'professing themselves to be
wise they become fools.' And, as in the ruder ages, they
took the passions and appetites and lusts, and trans
ferred them to the skies, and made heaven and hell a
kind of mirror to reflect their own enormities ; so they
make schemes of the universe which teU nothing, or
reflect nothing ; or teU and reflect only that into which
they choose to intrude with their ' fleshly minds/ They
are as far from God as when given up to the gratifica
tion of mere animal passion.
We have spoken of the progress of man's history from
the lowest depths of savagery to the heights of civiliza
tion, in the ' order of nature ' as it is caUed. But we do
not believe that man began as a savage, that the savage
state was the first state of man, although in looking
abstractly at the matter we may begin there. Sacred
history looks at things quite differently. We find that
whatever may be said about people raising themselves
and discovering the good, and the true, and the Divine,
the Book says that when over and over again they have
had all this given them they have never kept it. And
so it is that the strongest marks and the clearest proofs
of what men reaUy are, are to be found from looking
into sacred history.
Soon after the faU of man from his first estate, with
abundant testimonies of God's character before him ; stUl
the world got so bad that the idea of God and of His
law, and of His nature, and of all Divine things was
lost, and men got so corrupted that religion had to be
reformed by a flood. The race could not be corrected,
it must be destroyed, as a punishment of man's wicked
ness, and as the means of the purification of the world.
Things had got so bad in the world that God's whole

CARNALITY. 349
Church got into the Ark in one famUy ; and this little
Church had a fresh earth to begin upon ; and every
thing was made favourable for it, and every idolater
was removed, and every mark of his superstition was
washed away, and the infant Church erected rightly
enough its first altar to the true God. But in a very
short time, long before the inmates of that Ark were
dead, there were many altars, but there were many Gods
too. All wrong again ! All lost again ! God forgotten,
and His glory given to idols ! Next, for the mainten
ance of the Divine idea among men another plan was
tried. Out of the mass of idolaters one individual was
taken, a new foundation was laid, and to Abraham and
his famfiy were to belong the knowledge of God, to be
kept fresh and pure by a constant Divine revelation.
And the Israelites were to be separated from aU others,
and shielded from corruption, and guarded and watched
over, and a Divine faith given them, and all foreign
influences kept out. And all this was done, and they
never comprehended it, never had the idea of it ; and
as a people their constant effort was to break away
from it, and get back again down to the foolish, and
low, and carnal, even to the very animal. And when
by afflictions and successive revelations, and a constant
series of prophets the national mind was improved, and
things became better, and people were enlightened, stUl
carnality was manifest in its highest forms. On the
one side the sceptic and the scoffer — the unbelieving
Sadducee ; on the other side the narrow minded, pre
judiced, bigoted formalist — the Pharisee.
Then came the last form of the truth which God has
established on the earth. When Jesus revealed Himself
and founded a new religion, He sent forth Apostles
over the whole world to proclam it. Now this form of
truth, Christianity, is, as we might show, had we time,

350 CARNALITY
antagonistic to every manifestation of carnality which
had preceded it. A new way is adopted. The truth is
committed to the Church; not to a separate nation,
but to a peculiar people in all nations, who are to
embody, and keep alive, and diffuse the knowledge
of God as revealed in Christ Jesus. Now, it is natural
to think man will be all right. He wiU walk in the
light and the truth, and rejoice in it. He did not!
He did not understand it ! He could not comprehend
the greatness of the things into which he was intro
duced. He covered it over. He went down into the
darkness, and for one thousand years it seemed as if the
God of truth had been expelled from His own earth,
and the whole essence of the Christian system ob
literated almost in every point ; and instead of God
revealed in Christ Jesus, there came the man of sin,
the opposite of God, and aU men bowed down and
worshipped him.
I don't know how you feel, but I have often felt that
man's true nature and the evil of it comes out most
in the highest manifestations of it, and under the
greatest appliances for its restraint. Men wiU some
times say, if you want to see man's wickedness, the
depravity of human nature, look abroad into the world,
look at men as men, and you wiU get proofs of it. But
instead of going to the world, I say, look at the Church,
and there see man's depravity ; there, where every
thing great and pure, and lofty and heavenly, is to be
sought for and expected. You will not have to seek
very long before you find it : all of which shows that
men are carnal.
But again, see how the different forms of carnality
in its different spheres of action are often developed in
the history of one individual. He begins the slave of
his appetites, every form of grossness and sensualism is

CARNALITY 351
yielded to, and he has no relish for anything but the
gratification of the animal. By and by he awakes
up as if he had had another soul given to him, and
he becomes respectable, and betakes himself to some
walk of honourable industry, and he is a painstaking
business man, and his friends speak of it as a conver
sion. No such thing ; it is just one form of carnality
succeeding and putting out another ; he now serves his
passions instead of his appetites ; a mere man instead of
a mere animal. But some go farther, They get tired
of the passions as they did before of the appetites, and
they take themselves to philosophy, and taste, and
science ; or they may study, and read, and write about
religion, vainly puffed up with their fleshly mind.
It is carnahty again ; the man is just going through
the three forms or manifestations of it.
Take one Ulustration more, which some may think a
little fanciful, but which I cannot deem wholly so. If a
thoughtful man looks at the society and literature
of England for the last two hundred years, he will see
in it successive developments of the three forms of
carnahty. Look at society for that period as pictured
in its literature. At the close of the seventeenth cen
tury, during the latter years of it, English literature and
English manners were exceedingly gross and offensive.
The plays and poems, and general fashion of the litera
ture of the period, were hcentious and sensual in the
extreme. The things that men and women did, and
saw, and heard, and talked about. There was obscenity
and grossness in the manners of the people, both of the
higher and the lower classes ; they manifested the pre
dominance of the fleshly lusts, of the desires and pro
pensities of the animal. I am speaking of the world,
not of the Church; not of what was found among
religious people, but of general society and general

352 CARNALITY.
literature, and the modes and habits of thinking of the
common mind. The latter part of the eighteenth cen
tury was an improvement upon the former. People got
to be prudent, and calculating, and respectable. Their
understanding was developed. The sense of property
and of social rights became strong, and morality was
valued. Mere morality, as pictured by the great
morahsts of the age, and various circumstances opera
ting on the common mind, did away with many of the
sensualities of the preceding period. The people in
general had correct notions of propriety and duty, and
of the moral conduct of life ; but there was a coldness
and a want of all high perception of the spiritual and
the Divine in relation to man. And to come to the
present day — I stUl speak of general society, its habits,
its leaders, its teachers, and writers, and general litera
ture — we have got farther than the men of the last
century ; and writers in our general hterature, in the
sphere of general thought, if they have to write upon
morals, or man and the life of man, talk veiy dif
ferently from the writers and the moralists of the last
century. They speak of the Divine, and the Godhke,
and the vast things for which man was made; the
Unseen, and eternity ; and there is a warmth and
a grandeur in their speculations, and they look with
contempt on the mechanical, cold, moral speculation of
the last century. But with aU their great thoughts
about man and the Divine, and aU their pretended
respect for Christianity, aye, and for Christ, they have
no idea of sitting down and being learners, they have
no notion of coming to the Great Teacher, of becoming
docile pupUs at the feet of Jesus, and regulating their
lives and thoughts by the Divine Book as emanations of
Divine law. It is just the worship of taste, and beauty,
and mind, the Divine, the Godlike, the heroic; but

CARNALITY. 353
nothing like the position of those to whom God has
spoken, who have a perfect form of truth, and whose
place and duty it is to sit and hear and obey.
What is all this but a higher development of car
nality ; does not all this shew that men are carnal.
II.
We proceed now in the next place to show the
reasons, inherent in Christianity itself, why Christians
are not to be carnal, in any of the senses which we have
now explained.
And here let me request attention to a preliminary
remark, that this argument is quite independent of
either the truth or excellency of Christianity itself.
Supposing a man were to stand up and say ' I demur
to what has been said about carnality being wrong ; I
think it all right and proper that men should enjoy
pleasure as much as they like ; that they should make
the best of the present world, and devote themselves
thoroughly to its interests ; and that, if they reason
and speculate on the Infinite and Invisible, it is reason
able and right that they should utterly neglect anything
in the form of extraneous teaching, and just think and
construct for themselves systems of opinion as best they
can.' To all this we reply, that is not the question ; you
may do as you like, and you may think it right ; and you
may indulge in everything that we stigmatise as 'carnal.'
But what we assert and affirm is this, that be it right
or wrong, Christians are not to do this. On the sup
position that persons have the Christian Scriptures in
their hands and professing to believe them, our position
is, that they, in consequence of that profession and
altogether independent of the abstract right or wrong
of the thing, and whether Christianity itself be true or
not; yet because they say we believe it to be true,
vol. ii. A a

354 CARNALITY.
they, because of their belief, are bound by the nature
and the tendency of the system, not to be carnal, not to
' walk as men.'
The following are some of the reasons : —
1. First, Christians ought not to be carnal because
Christianity, which they profess to believe, claims to be
a system of supernatural dogmatic truth. The Gospel
thus meets man at the highest point in the development
of the 'carnal' mind — cultivating philosophical reason
ing ; rising above the earth, and wandering among the
stars ; indulging all sorts of conjectures, and asking
all sorts of questions in his attempts to unseal the
universe, and to get at what it signifies — what there
may be of the spiritual and Divine on the other side
of the great, glorious, splendid curtain which covers all
things. While he is doing this — asking nature, Is this a
temple 1 Is there a Divinity within it ? Ought I to be
his worshipper % Have any ever entered beyond the
curtain and seen what it conceals % What am I, whence do
I come, whither do I go \ Do I reaUy stand between two
eternities 1 Is there an eternity coming ? How shaU I
penetrate the unseen 1 Is there anything superior to
what I see and feel ?
While he is asking this, Christianity appears. Be it true
or be it false, it takes its stand by his side and says, I can
teU you ; I can discover to you the unseen and the eternal.
' Say not in thine heart who shall ascend up to heaven
to bring the truth from above, or who shall descend into
the deep to bring it up from beneath ; the truth is nigh
thee ; I am the truth. I can tell thee all — become a
fool that you may be wise ; learn of me ; listen to my
words with unhesitating faith ; they are not to be ques
tioned or refused. And all who will do this wiU find
there is not a single question respecting God, or man,
or human life, or eternity, our condition, our wants,

CARNALITY. 355
our duties, our prospects, on which it cannot give
an answer distinct, clear, unequivocal ; and which being
accepted and admitted, will put an end to the ques
tions, conjectures, and intrusions of " the fleshly mind "
for ever.' This idea and claim of Christianity is an
tagonistic to carnality in its higher form, and the
Christian man will implicitly receive what it has to
teach. 2. Second, Christians ought not to be ' carnal' because
the truth itself, thus revealed, aims at the purification
of their spiritual nature, and must necessarily counter
act carnality in its inferior forms. I refer here to the
system of mercy and mediation through Christ. The
first idea had relation to the form of truth, the second
has relation to its substance. The various manifesta
tions of carnality that we have mentioned, may be
regarded as violations of different sets of laws. Some
persons will go with us the length of the first and
second classes of those laws, and refuse to go further.
But we cannot complete our idea of the Christian man
without including the third. In its first form of
development carnality in vice is the violation of a
system of physical laws, which, if it goes on, produces
the destruction of the physical and material structure.
So in regard to violations of the second order. If
there be a constant violation of the social system of
law by crime, character will go to pieces. These are
inevitable results.
How many persons stop here ! But Christianity
steps in and tells us that we are not only men living
in a body — members of society and therefore under
physical and social laws — but that we are intelligent
spirits, associated with the great Parent Spirit, and
under a great system of spiritual law, which includes
and covers both the others ; and that therefore sins— -
A a

356 CARNALITY.
sins of the body, sins of the mind — thoughts, which in a
spirit are acts in relation to the Parent Spirit — sins of
the moral nature, are violations of the great spiritual
system of which we are a part, and in which we must
for ever be found. These sins put us aU wrong, and
Christianity comes to put us right. It comes to put us
in harmony with this higher system ; to be a principle
infused into our being, which wUl put us right not only
with the higher but with the inferior systems of law
also. As in the latter there must be remedial medicine
for sins of the body, and civil law for sins against
society j so Christianity is remedial in the higher system
of spiritual law. It is a medicine for the disease —
a remedial process for the crime. It is atonement, and
sanctification. It is the ' grace of God which bringeth
salvation ; ' men live ' soberly/ — putting away carnality
from the body — the first sphere of its manifestation ; and
'righteously' — putting it away from social life — the
second sphere ; and ' godly ' — putting it away from the
spirit — the third sphere. If Christians believe this they
ought not to be carnal.
3. Christians ought not to be 'carnal' because
Christianity as a system of influence forbids it. By
this we refer to the provision which the Gospel makes
for the constant operation from without of an instru
mentality adapted to affect man's inward life. Look at
this in three aspects. Take Christianity as a system of
instruction. Supernatural and dogmatic, it meets one
aspect of the carnal mind ; it is a merciful provision, a
system of mediation, which may be aU at once and
easily apprehended ; but it is also a provision for fuU,
varied, constant, progressive teaching, that meets
carnality in all of its forms. Christian life being
given, the Christian man having it comes to have new
wants, a new nature to be nourished, to be redeemed

CARNALITY. 357
from carnahty, from being always babes in Christ. As
a system of influence Christianity accomplishes this.
Christianity^ is contained in a Book, the most in
teresting and wonderful book in the world, which
demands much study, and the study of which is a
task and discipline. I come to the Book that it
may meet me in my spiritual condition as a sinner ;
that, aware of my malady, it may teach me how to
be reconciled to God, make me a spiritual being, and
that according to spiritual law. If rightly studied,
it wiU be the instrument of constant development of
inteUectual and moral strength. And it is the property
of the people. ' The Bible the religion of Protestants/
that is only half the truth ; the other half is ' the
Bible the religion of the people/ Then the result of
this wiU be that as the spiritual system includes the
other two, the fulfilment of the spiritual system of law
includes the fulfilment of the others ; but he who by
renewal is alive spiritually unto God, wiU necessarUy
be raised above the mere worldly life. In addition
to the Book, Christianity employs the Preacher ; whose
office it is to bring forth things new and old, to instruct
and cause men to grow in righteousness and true
holiness. So that in all its parts the entire system is
adopted to make the Christian a new man. It develops
the mind, it fills the imagination, it elevates the
thought, it touches the heart.
It is further a system of Worship, Christian men
pray and praise, approach the Divine — the Infinite.
.... What an influence this is for purifying the
heart, raising man above a carnal life, inspiring him
with the Divine.
And aU are under the influence of the Holy Spirit of
God — spirit to spirit, thought to thought. He who
made the human spirit can act upon it ; the Spirit

358 CARNALITY.
of God becomes the soul of my spirit. 'He who is
spiritual hath crucified the flesh with its affections and
lusts/ 'Having received the Spirit we walk in the
Spirit/ 4. Christians ought not to be carnal because the op
posite of this, the temper and habits of a spiritual fife are
essential to their character and to their preparation for
the life to come. Christians profess and expect a life
to come, or future world, and of that world they have
distinct and definite views. Now, whatever be their
views of the future world, they believe in it, or say that
they believe it, and that they are going towards it.
And, because they are doing this, in their own esti
mation, they ought not to be carnal.
The Christian character is original and peculiar. It is
not a heathen or phUosopher washed and sanctified that
is here represented as delivered from the bondage, and
tyranny of the flesh and the carnal nature. Man as
man is not as he came from the hand of God ; he has
become a sinner, an apostate ; he needed a revelation
and a redemption, something more than he could
acquire by meditation and reformation. Now if a
Divine revelation is to be of use to him, he must be
subjectively conformed to it ; he must receive a germ
of life and character, which he could not have received
from any study of nature or virtue — he becomes a new
creature, he cannot therefore be carnal. He who is
of the Spirit has crucified the flesh with its affections
and lusts. ' The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the
spirit against the flesh, and they are contrary the one
to the other ; ' but he who has the Spirit, and who is ' led
by the Spirit,' and who ' walks in the Spirit,' and holds
by ' the law of the Spirit,' does not ' fulfil the works of
the flesh.' This holy and sacred power is represented as
that which helps to restrain all that is low, corrupt,

CARNALITY. 359
and fleshly, and to develope, elevate, and perfect aU
that is Divine. Now, putting these things together,
the inteUect, the heart, the social affections, and the
spiritual nature ; and these three sorts and sources of
influence — teaching, worship, and the Spirit of God,
— they are utterly antagonistic to aU carnahty.
5. Christians ought not to be carnal because they
cannot give any other satisfactory evidence of their
being Christians. The faU and apostacy of man dis
located our nature, and darkened the evil and meaning
of human life.
The world reveals God's natural glory, and suggests
our notions of duty. The fall made a revelation
necessary, which could not be written in the sky ; and it
made necessary also proofs and manifestations of our
having submitted to it. God's revelation set forth
moral and religious duties, higher than mere natural
theism would suggest. The nature of man is disturbed,
God has to provide a new process, and to enable new
and spiritual duties and character.
Christians moreover have, rightly or wrongly, a
conception of the future life, very distinct, precise and
peculiar. It is not the philosophical idea of the ' uni
versality of the soul ' of man, humanity. It conceives
of a separate state and of a spiritual body, in which
there wUl be no animal nature with its lusts ; no
private property, no 'getting on in circumstances/ so
as to enable and solicit carnality. Truth, all truth,
will be made manifest, we shall stand face to face with
it, disloyal speculation wiU be impossible, society will be
pure, loving, and good. ' Seeing then that we look for
such things, what manner of persons ought we to be
in aU holy conversation and godliness?'
What can a man living a carnal life have to do with

360 CARNALITY.
the Christian's heaven \ Were it imaginable for him to.
appear in that bright world, he would be glad to escape
to outer darkness.
6. In the last place, Christians ought not to be 'carnal/
because the work they have to do in the world forbids
it. They are represented as ' the light of the world '
and ' the salt of the earth/ They have to ' hold forth
the word of life,' and to ' shine as lights of the world/
Their ' light is so to shine before men that they may see
their good works, and glorify their Father which is in
heaven. As salt they are to keep the world from putre
faction and corruption ; as lights they are to ' hold forth
the word of life,' to be ' tabernacles of witness '—as
the lamp of God in Shiloh. The tendency of society,
of man as man, is to corruption and putrefaction ;
enjoyment is perhaps dangerous now to our injured
nature, and the tendency of our minds is towards
ignorance, presumption, irreligion worldliness, ' the lust
of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life/
All this has to be counteracted by more strenuous
efforts of the life of faith, spirituality and piety. Many
things that may not in themselves be wrong, the
Christian wiU have to avoid because the conditions
of them are such that they may be occasions of sin.
Thus, he may have to mortify, and crucify, and put
to torture and death, tastes and tendencies in him which
are not so much dangerous in themselves, as that they
become indulgencies. For him to be carnal is to turn
from the temple of God, and to worship the host of
heaven, or to admit ' all manner of fourfooted beasts and
creeping things ' within the Holy of Holies. If Chris
tians are to convert the world to spirituality and God,
carnality in them would make it worse ; only spirituality
of character can enable their work or secure its
purpose.

CARNALITY. 361
III.
A few general observations may now be offered.
1. The first remark suggested by this discourse is,
that Christianity, whether it- be true or false, certainly
contains exactly those things which, if they were firmly
believed and practicaUy and generally carried out,
would cure all the disorders of the world, and make
society everywhere virtuous and healthy. There can
be no question that carnality, in its grosser and more
offensive forms, is the enemy of aU purity, health, order
and joy ; and in its higher manifestation tends to de
grade and disorganise humanity. It is the fact that
men have religious and spiritual capacities which, if
they were developed and sustained to Christian pur
poses, to meet and perfect ends, would transform and
regenerate the world ; and the Christianity that can
do this must be a thing of living power. By its own
inherent power it can do this, whether it be true or
not ; it has only to be believed and honestly acted
out. 2. But the second remark is that the nature of the
system of Christ furnishes demonstration of its truth.
Men are carnal ; the strong tendencies of nature are
in this direction. We can hardly conceive that out
of and from this there should arise a system utterly
unlike its source and author, and that man should be
the author of it. It would be more credible that
the pure and holy God should have revealed a system
so pure and holy. This would be a thing that we could
believe ; rather than that man would either be likely to
originate or able to preserve the pure and Divine thing.
But it is not credible that with the proved carnality
of his nature he should of himself have given birth to
a system of transcendent purity, and that too a false-
VOL. II. b b

362" CARNALITY.
hood, a forgery, and a lie. It would be a greater miracle
for man to have been the creator of Christianity than
for Christianity to be the supernatural thing it is.
3. The third remark is, that whatever may be
thought of these observations and reasons, it is certain
that as Christians we hold this form of Christianity, and
have to develope this spirituahty. We are bound,
therefore, by conscience and consistency not to be
' carnal 'or to ' walk as men.' Seeing that we believe
these things, that we hold this truth, engage in this
worship, possess this volume, and look for the coming
of the Lord, and the new heavens and the new earth,
we, at any rate, ought to be putting off the works of
darkness, and putting on the armour of light. We
ought not to love the world or to hve for what is
worldly ; we ought as those who are risen with Christ,
by spiritual habits and acts, to have our affections fixed
on the Heaven where He is. He that hath this hope
in Christ purifies himself even as He is pure.

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