Therefore, this is our duty, this is our only hope or safety—to do our best to keep alive and strong the likeness of God in ourselves; to try to grow, not more and more mean, and brutal, and carnal, but more and more noble, and human, and spiritual; to crush down our base passions, our selfish inclinations, by the help of the Spirit of God, and to think of and to pray for, whatsoever is like Christ and like God; to pray for a noble love of what is good and noble, for a noble hate of what is bad; and whatsoever things are pure and lovely and of good report to think of these things. And to pray, too, for forgiveness from Christ, and for the sake of Christ, whenever we have yielded to our low passions, and defiled the likeness of God in us, and grieved His Spirit, lest at the last day it be said to us, if not in words yet in acts, which there will be no mistaking, no escaping,—"I made thee in My likeness in the beginning of the creation, I redeemed thee into My likeness on the cross, I baptised thee into My likeness by my Holy Spirit; and what hast thou hast done with My likeness? Thou hast cast it away, thou hast let it die out in thee, thou hast lived after the flesh and not after the spirit, and hast put on the likeness of the carnal man, the likeness of the brute. Thou hast copied the vanity of the peacock, the silliness of the ape, the cunning of the fox, the rapacity of the tiger, the sensuality of the swine; but thou hast not copied God, thy God, who died that thou mightest live, and be a man. Then, thou hast destroyed God's likeness, for thou hast destroyed it in thyself. Thou hast slain a man, for thou hast slain thy own manhood, and art thine own murderer, and thine own blood shall be required at thy hand. That which thou hast done to God's likeness in thee, shall be done to that which remains of thee in a second death."

And from that may Christ in His mercy deliver us all. Amen.



SERMON VII. TEMPTATION



Eversley, 1872. Chester Cathedral, 1872.

St Matt. iv. 3. "And when the tempter came to Him, he said, If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread."

Let me say a few words to-day about a solemn subject, namely, Temptation. I do not mean the temptations of the flesh—the temptations which all men have to yield to the low animal nature in them, and behave like brutes. I mean those deeper and more terrible temptations, which our Lord conquered in that great struggle with evil which is commonly called His temptation in the wilderness. These were temptations of an evil spirit— the temptations which entice some men, at least, to behave like devils.

Now these temptations specially beset religious men—men who are, or fancy themselves, superior to their fellow-men, more favoured by God, and with nobler powers, and grander work to do, than the common average of mankind. But specially, I say, they beset those who are, or fancy themselves, the children of God. And, therefore, I humbly suppose our Lord had to endure and to conquer these very temptations because He was not merely a child of God, but the Son of God—the perfect Man, made in the perfect likeness of His Father. He had to endure these temptations, and to conquer them, that He might be able to succour us when we are tempted, seeing that He was tempted in like manner as we are, yet without sin.

Now it has been said, and, I think, well said, that what proves our Lord's three temptations to have been very subtle and dangerous and terrible, is this—that we cannot see at first sight that they were temptations at all. The first two do not look to us to be wrong. If our Lord could make stones into bread to satisfy His hunger, why should He not do so? If He could prove to the Jews that He was the Son of God, their divine King and Saviour, by casting Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, and being miraculously supported in the air by angels—if He could do that, why should He not do it? And lastly, the third temptation looks at first sight so preposterous that it seems silly of the evil spirit to have hinted at it. To ask any man of piety, much less the Son of God Himself, to fall down and worship the devil, seems perfectly absurd—a request not to be listened to for a moment, but put aside with contempt.

Well, my friends, and the very danger of these spiritual temptations is— that they do not look like temptations. They do not look ugly, absurd, wrong, they look pleasant, reasonable, right.

The devil, says the apostle, transforms himself at times into an angel of light. If so, then he is certainly far more dangerous than if he came as an angel of darkness and horror. If you met some venomous snake, with loathsome spots upon his scales, his eyes full of rage and cunning, his head raised to strike at you, hissing and showing his fangs, there would be no temptation to have to do with him. You would know that you had to deal with an evil beast, and must either kill him or escape from him at once. But if, again, you met, as you may meet in the tropics, a lovely little coral snake, braided with red and white, its mouth so small that it seems impossible that it can bite, and so gentle that children may take it up and play with it, then you might be tempted, as many a poor child has been ere now, to admire it, fondle it, wreathe it round the neck for a necklace, or round the arm for a bracelet, till the play goes one step too far, the snake loses its temper, gives one tiny scratch upon the lip or finger, and that scratch is certain death. That would be a temptation indeed; one all the more dangerous because there is, I am told, another sort of coral snake perfectly harmless, which is so exactly like the deadly one, that no child, and few grown people, can know them apart.

Even so it is with our worst temptations. They look sometimes so exactly like what is good and noble and useful and religious, that we mistake the evil for the good, and play with it till it stings us, and we find out too late that the wages of sin are death. Thus religious people, just because they are religious, are apt to be specially tempted to mistake evil for good, to do something specially wrong, when they think they are doing something specially right, and so give occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme; till, as a hard and experienced man of the world once said: "Whenever I hear a man talking of his conscience, I know that he is going to do something particularly foolish; whenever I hear of a man talking of his duty, I know that he is going to do something particularly cruel."

Do I say this to frighten you away from being religious? God forbid. Better to be religious and to fear and love God, though you were tempted by all the devils out of the pit, than to be irreligious and a mere animal, and be tempted only by your own carnal nature, as the animals are. Better to be tempted, like the hermits of old, and even to fall and rise again, singing, "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy, when I fall I shall arise;" than to live the life of the flesh, "like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains." It is the price a man must pay for hungering and thirsting after righteousness, for longing to be a child of God in spirit and in truth. "The devil," says a wise man of old, "does not tempt bad men, because he has got them already; he tempts good men, because he has NOT got them, and wants to get them."

But how shall we know these temptations? God knows, my friends, better than I; and I trust that He will teach you to know, according to what each of you needs to know. But as far as my small experience goes, the root of them all is pride and self-conceit. Whatsoever thoughts or feelings tempt us to pride and self-conceit are of the devil, not of God. The devil is specially the spirit of pride; and, therefore, whatever tempts you to fancy yourself something different from your fellow-men, superior to your fellow men, safer than them, more favoured by God than them, that is a temptation of the spirit of pride. Whatever tempts you to think that you can do without God's help and God's providence; whatever tempts you to do anything extraordinary, and show yourself off, that you may make a figure in the world; and above all, whatever tempts you to antinomianism, that is, to fancy that God will overlook sins in you which He will not overlook in other men—all these are temptations from the spirit of pride. They are temptations like our Lord's temptations. These temptations came on our Lord more terribly than they ever can on you and me, just because He was the Son of Man, the perfect Man, and, therefore, had more real reason for being proud (if such a thing could be) than any man, or than all men put together. But He conquered the temptations because He was perfect Man, led by the Spirit of God; and, therefore, He knew that the only way to be a perfect man was not to be proud, however powerful, wise, and glorious He might be; but to submit Himself humbly and utterly, as every man should do, to the will of His Father in Heaven, from whom alone His greatness came.

Now the spirit of pride cannot understand the beauty of humility, and the spirit of self-will cannot understand the beauty of obedience; and, therefore, it is reasonable to suppose the devil could not understand our Lord. If He be the Son of God, so might Satan argue, He has all the more reason to be proud; and, therefore, it is all the more easy to tempt Him into shewing His pride, into proving Himself a conceited, self-willed, rebellious being—in one word, an evil spirit.

And therefore (as you will see at first sight) the first two temptations were clearly meant to tempt our Lord to pride; for would they not tempt you and me to pride? If we could feed ourselves by making bread of stones, would not that make us proud enough? So proud, I fear, that we should soon fancy that we could do without God and His providence, and were masters of nature and all her secrets. If you and I could make the whole city worship and obey us, by casting ourselves off this cathedral unhurt, would not that make us proud enough? So proud, I fear, that we should end in committing some great folly, or great crime in our conceit and vainglory.

Now, whether our Lord could or could not have done these wonderful deeds, one thing is plain—that He would not do them; and, therefore, we may presume that He ought not to have done them. It seems as if He did not wish to be a wonderful man: but only a perfectly good man, and He would do nothing to help Himself but what any other man could do. He answered the evil spirit simply out of Scripture, as any other pious man might have done. When He was bidden to make the stones into bread, He answers not as the Eternal Son of God, but simply as a man. "It is written:"—it is the belief of Moses and the old prophets of my people that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God:—as much as to say, If I am to be delivered out of this need, God will deliver me by some means or other, just as He delivers other men out of their needs. When He was bidden cast Himself from the temple, and so save Himself, probably from sorrow, poverty, persecution, and the death on the cross, He answers out of Scripture as any other Jew would have done. "It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." He says nothing—this is most important—of His being the eternal Son of God. He keeps that in the background. There the fact was; but He veiled the glory of His godhead, that He might assert the rights of His manhood, and shew that mere man, by the help of the Spirit of God, could obey God, and keep His commandments.

I say these last words with all diffidence and humility, and trusting that the Lord will pardon any mistake which I may make about His Divine Words. I only say them because wiser men than I have often taken the same view already. Of course there is more, far more, in this wonderful saying than we can understand, or ever will understand. But this I think is plain—that our Lord determined to behave as any and every other man ought to have done in His place; in order to shew all God's children the example of perfect humility and perfect obedience to God.

But again, the devil asked our Lord to fall down and worship him. Now how could that be a temptation to pride? Surely that was asking our Lord to do anything but a proud action, rather the most humiliating and most base of all actions. My friends, it seems to me that if our Lord had fallen down and worshipped the evil spirit, He would have given way to the spirit of pride utterly and boundlessly; and I will tell you why.

The devil wanted our Lord to do evil that good might come. It would have been a blessing, that all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of man should be our Lord's,—the very blessing for this poor earth which He came to buy, and which He bought with His own precious blood. And here the devil offered Him the very prize for which He came down on earth, without struggle or difficulty, if He would but do, for one moment, one wrong thing. What temptation that would be to our Lord as God, I dare not say. But that to our Lord as Man, it must have been the most terrible of all temptations, I can well believe: because history shews us, and, alas! our own experience in modern times shews us, persons yielding to that temptation perpetually; pious people, benevolent people, people who long to spread the Bible, to convert sinners, to found charities, to amend laws, to set the world right in some way or other, and who fancy that therefore, in carrying out their fine projects, they have a right to do evil that good may come.

This is a very painful subject; all the more painful just now, because I sometimes think it is the special sin of this country and this generation, and that God will bring on us some heavy punishment for it. But all who know the world in its various phases, and especially what are called the religious world, and the philanthropic world, and the political world, know too well that men, not otherwise bad men, will do things and say things, to carry out some favourite project or movement, or to support some party, religious or other, which they would (I hope) be ashamed to say and do for their own private gain. Now what is this, but worshipping the evil spirit, in order to get power over this world, that they may (as they fancy) amend it? And what is this but self- conceit—ruinous, I had almost said, blasphemous? These people think themselves so certainly in the right, and their plans so absolutely necessary to the good of the world, that God has given them a special licence to do what they like in carrying them out; that He will excuse in them falsehoods and meannesses, even tyranny and violences which He will excuse in no one else.

Now, is not this self-conceit? What would you think of a servant who disobeyed you, cheated you, and yet said to himself—No matter, my master dare not turn me off: I am so useful that he cannot do without me. Even so in all ages, and now as much as, or more than ever, have men said, We are so necessary to God and God's cause, that He cannot do without us; and therefore though He hates sin in everyone else, He will excuse sin in us, as long as we are about His business.

Therefore, my dear friends, whenever we are tempted to do or say anything rash, or vain, or mean, because we are the children of God; whenever we are inclined to be puffed up with spiritual pride, and to fancy that we may take liberties which other men must not take, because we are the children of God; let us remember the words of the text, and answer the tempter, when he says, If thou be the Son of God, do this and that, as our Lord answered him—"If I be the Child of God, what then? This—that I must behave as if God were my Father. I must trust my God utterly, and I must obey Him utterly. I must do no rash or vain thing to tempt God, even though it looks as if I should have a great success, and do much good thereby. I must do no mean or base thing, nor give way for a moment to the wicked ways of this wicked world, even though again it looks as if I should have a great success, and do much good thereby. In one word, I must worship my Father in heaven, and Him only must I serve. If He wants me, He will use me. If He does not want me, He will use some one else. Who am I, that God cannot govern the world without my help? My business is to refrain my soul, and keep it low, even as a weaned child, and not to meddle with matters too high for me. My business is to do the little, simple, everyday duties which lie nearest me, and be faithful in a few things; and then, if Christ will, He may make me some day ruler over many things, and I shall enter into the joy of my Lord, which is the joy of doing good to my fellow men. But I shall never enter into that by thrusting myself into Christ's way, with grand schemes and hasty projects, as if I knew better than He how to make His kingdom come. If I do, my pride will have a fall. Because I would not be faithful over a few things, I shall be tempted to be unfaithful over many things; and instead of entering into the joy of my Lord, I shall be in danger of the awful judgment pronounced on those who do evil that good may come, who shall say in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will He protest unto them—I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity."

Oh, my friends, in all your projects for good, as in all other matters which come before you in your mortal life, keep innocence and take heed to the thing that is right. For that, and that alone, shall bring a man peace at the last.

To which, may God in His mercy bring us all. Amen.



SERMON VIII. MOTHER'S LOVE



Eversley, Second Sunday in Lent, 1872.

St Matthew xv. 22-28. "And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour."

If you want a proof from Scripture that there are two sides to our blessed Lord's character—that He is a Judge and an Avenger as well as a Saviour and a Pardoner—that He is infinitely severe as well as infinitely merciful—that, while we may come boldly to His throne of grace to find help and mercy in time of need, we must, at the same time, tremble before His throne of justice—if you want a proof of all this, I say, then look at the Epistle and the Gospel for this day. Put them side by side, and compare them, and you will see how perfectly they shew, one after the other, the two sides.

The Epistle for the day tells men and women that they must lead moral, pure, and modest lives. It does not advise them to do so. It does not say, It will be better to do so, more proper and conducive to the good of society, more likely to bring you to heaven at last. It says, You must, for it is the commandment of the Lord Jesus, and the will of God. Let no man encroach on or defraud his brother in the matter, says St Paul; by which he means, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife. And why? "Because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified."

My friends, people talk loosely of the Thunder of Sinai and the rigour of Moses' law, and set them against what they call the gentle voice of the Gospel, and the mild religion of Christ. Why, here are the Thunders of Sinai uttered as loud as ever, from the very foot of the Cross of Christ; and the terrible, "Thou shalt not," of Moses' law, with the curse of God for a penalty on the sinner, uttered by the Apostle of Faith, and Freedom, in the name of Christ and of God. St Paul is not afraid to call Christ an Avenger. How could he be? He believed that it was Christ who spoke to Moses on Sinai—the very same Christ who prayed for His murderers, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." And he knew that Christ was the eternal Son of God, the same yesterday, to- day, and for ever; that He had not changed since Moses' time, and could never change; that what He forbade in Moses' time, hated in Moses' time, and avenged in Moses' time, He would forbid, and hate, and avenge for ever. And that, therefore, he who despises the warnings of the Law despises not man merely, but God, who has also given to us His Holy Spirit to know what is unchangeable, the everlastingly right, from what is everlastingly wrong. So much for that side of our Lord's character; so much for sinners who, after their hardness and impenitent hearts, treasure up for themselves wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to St Paul's Gospel.

But, when we turn to the Gospel for the day, we see the other side of our Lord's character, boundless condescension and boundless charity. We see Him there still a Judge, as He always is and always will be, judging the secrets of a poor woman's heart, and that woman a heathen. He judges her openly, in public, before His disciples. But He is a Judge who judges righteous judgment, and not according to appearances; who is no respecter of persons; who is perfectly fair, even though the woman be a heathen: and, instead of condemning her and driving her away, He acquits her, He grants her prayer, He heals her daughter, even though that daughter was also a heathen, and one who knew Him not. I say our Lord judged the woman after He had tried her, as gold is tried in the fire. Why He did so, we cannot tell. Perhaps He wanted, by the trial, to make her a better woman, to bring out something noble which lay in her heart unknown to her, though not to Him who knew what was in man. Perhaps He wished to shew his disciples, who looked down on her as a heathen dog, that a heathen, too, could have faith, humility, nobleness, and grace of heart. Be that as it may, when the poor woman came crying to Him, He answered her not a word. His disciples besought Him to send her away—and I am inclined to think that they wished Him to grant her what she asked, simply to be rid of her. "Send her away," they said, "for she crieth after us." Our Lord, we learn from St Mark, did not wish to be known in that place just then. The poor woman, with her crying, was drawing attention to them, and, perhaps, gathering a crowd. Somewhat noisy and troublesome, perhaps she was, in her motherly eagerness. But our Lord was still seemingly stern. He would not listen, it seemed, to His disciples any more than to the heathen woman. "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." So our Lord said, and (what is worth remembering) if He said so, what He said was true. He was the King of the people of Israel, the Royal Prince of David's line; and, as a man, His duty was only to His own people. And this woman was a Greek, a Syro- phenician by nation—of a mixed race of people, notoriously low and profligate, and old enemies of the Jews.

Then, it seems, He went into a house, and would have no man know it. But, says St Mark, "He could not be hid." The mother's wit found our Lord out, and the mother's heart urged her on, and, in spite of all His rebuffs, she seems to have got into the house and worshipped Him. She "fell at His feet," says St Mark—doubtless bowing her forehead to the ground, in the fashion of those lands—an honour which was paid, I believe, only to persons who were royal or divine. So she confessed that He was a king—perhaps a God come down on earth—and again she cried to Him. "Lord, help me." And what was our Lord's answer—seemingly more stern than ever? "Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it unto the dogs." Hard words. Yes: but all depends on how they were spoken. All depends on our Lord's look as He spoke them, and, even more, on the tone of His voice. We all know that two men may use the very same words to us;—and the one shall speak sneeringly, brutally, and raise in us indignation or despair; another shall use the same words, but solemnly, tenderly, and raise in us confidence and hope. And so it may have been—so, I fancy, it must have been—with the tone of our Lord's voice, with the expression of His face. Did He speak with a frown, or with something like a smile? There must have been some tenderness, meaningness, pity in His voice which the quick woman's wit caught instantly, and the quick mother's heart interpreted as a sign of hope.

Let Him call her a dog if He would. What matter to a mother to be called a dog, if she could thereby save her child from a devil? Perhaps she was little better than a dog. They were a bad people these Syrians, quick- witted, highly civilised, but vicious, and teaching vice to other nations, till some of the wisest Romans cursed the day when the Syrians first spread into Rome, and debauched the sturdy Romans with their new- fangled, foreign sins. They were a bad people, and, perhaps, she had been as bad as the rest. But if she were a dog, at least she felt that the dog had found its Master, and must fawn on Him, if it were but for the hope of getting something from Him.

And so, in the poor heathen mother's heart, there rose up a whole heaven of perfect humility, faith, adoration. If she were base and mean, yet our Lord was great, and wise, and good; and that was all the more reason why He should be magnanimous, generous, condescending, like a true King, to the basest and meanest of His subjects. She asked not for money, or honour, or this world's fine things: but simply for her child's health, her child's deliverance from some mysterious and degrading illness. Surely there was no harm in asking for that. It was simply a mother's prayer, a simply human prayer, which our Lord must grant, if He were indeed a man of woman born, if He had a mother, and could feel for a mother, if He had human tenderness, human pity in Him. And so, with her quick Syrian wit, she answers our Lord with those wonderful words— perhaps the most pathetic words in the whole Bible—so full of humility, of reverence, and yet with a certain archness, almost playfulness, in them, as it were, turning our Lord's words against Him; and, by that very thing, shewing how utterly she trusted Him,—"Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."

Those were the beautiful words—more beautiful to me than whole volumes of poetry—which our Lord had as it were crushed out of the woman's heart. Doubtless, He knew all the while that they were in her heart, though not as yet shaped into words. Doubtless, He was trying her, to shew His disciples—and all Christians who should ever read the Bible— what was in her heart, what she was capable of saying when it came to the point. So He tried her, and judged her, and acquitted her. Out of the abundance of her heart her mouth had spoken. By her words she was justified. By those few words she proved her utter faith in our Lord's power and goodness—perhaps her faith in His godhead. By those words she proved the gentleness and humility, the graciousness and gracefulness of her own character. By those words she proved, too,—and oh, you that are mothers, is that nothing?—the perfect disinterestedness of her mother's love. And so she conquered—as the blessed Lord loves to be conquered— as all noble souls who are like their blessed Lord, love to be conquered- -by the prayer of faith, of humility, of confidence, of earnestness, and she had her reward. "O woman," said He, the Maker of all heaven and earth, "great is thy faith. For this saying go thy way. Be it unto thee even as thou wilt. The devil is gone out of thy daughter." She went, full of faith; and when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed.

One word more, and I have done. I do not think that any one who really took in the full meaning of this beautiful story, would ever care to pray to Saints, or to the Blessed Virgin, for help; fancying that they, and specially the Blessed Virgin, being a woman, are more humane than our Lord, and can feel more quickly, if not more keenly, for poor creatures in distress. We are not here to judge these people, or any people. To their own master they stand or fall. But for the honour of our Lord, we may say, Does not this story shew that the Lord is humane enough, tender enough, to satisfy all mankind? Does not this story shew that even if He seem silent at first, and does not grant our prayers, yet still He may be keeping us waiting, as He kept this heathen woman, only that He may be gracious to us at last? Does not this story shew us especially that our Lord can feel for mothers and with mothers; that He actually allowed Himself to be won over—if I may use such a word in all reverence—by the wit and grace of a mother pleading for her child? Was it not so? "O woman, great is thy faith. For this saying go thy way. Be it unto thee even as thou wilt." Ah! are not those gracious words a comfort to every mother, bidding her, in the Lord's own name, to come boldly where mothers—of all human beings—have oftenest need to come, to the throne of Christ's grace, to find mercy, and grace to help in time of need?

Yes, my friends, such is our Lord, and such is our God. Infinite in severity to the scornful, the proud, the disobedient: infinite in tenderness to the earnest, the humble, the obedient. Let us come to Him, earnest, humble, obedient, and we shall find Him, indeed, a refuge of the soul and body in spirit and in truth.

Thou, O Lord, art all I want. All and more in thee I find. Amen.



SERMON IX. GOOD FRIDAY



Eversley, 1856.

St. Luke xxiv. 5, 6. "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen."

This is a very solemn day; for on this day the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. The question for us is, how ought we to keep it? that is, what sort of thoughts ought to be in our minds upon this day? Now, many most excellent and pious persons, and most pious books, seem to think that we ought to-day to think as much as possible of the sufferings of our Blessed Lord; and because we cannot, of course, understand or imagine the sufferings of His Spirit, to think of what we can, that is, His bodily sufferings. They, therefore, seem to wish to fill our minds with the most painful pictures of agony, and shame, and death, and sorrow; and not only with our Lord's sorrows, but with those of His Blessed Mother, and of the disciples, and the holy women who stood by His cross; they wish to stir us up to pity and horror, and to bring before us the saddest parts of Holy Scripture, such as the Lamentations of Jeremiah; as well as dwell at great length upon very painful details, which may be all quite true, but of which Scripture says nothing; as so to make this day a day of darkness, and sorrow, and horror, just such as it would have been to us if we had stood by Christ's cross, like these holy women, without expecting Him to rise again, and believing that all was over—that all hope of Israel's being redeemed was gone, and that the wicked Jews had really conquered that perfectly good, and admirable Saviour, and put Him out of the world for ever.

Now, I judge no man; to his own master he standeth or falleth; yea, and he shall stand, for God is able to make him stand. But it does seem to me that these good people are seeking the living among the dead, and forgetting that Christ is neither on the cross nor in the tomb, but that He is risen; and it seems to me better to bid you follow to-day the Bible and the Church Service, and to think of what they tell you to think of.

Now the Bible, it is most remarkable, never enlarges anywhere upon even the bodily sufferings of our dear and blessed Lord. The evangelists keep a silence on that point which is most lofty, dignified, and delicate. What sad and dreadful things might not St. John, the beloved apostle as he was, have said, if he had chosen, about what he saw and what he felt, as he stood by that cross on Calvary—words which would have stirred to pity the most cruel, and drawn tears from a heart of stone? And yet all he says is, "They crucified Him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst." He passes it over, as it were, as a thing which he ought not to dwell on; and why should we put words into St. John's mouth which he did not think fit to put into his own? He wrote by the Spirit of God; and therefore he knew best what to say, and what not to say. Why should we try and say anything more for him? Scripture is perfect. Let us be content with it. The apostles, too, in their Epistles, never dwell on Christ's sufferings. I entreat you to remark this. They never mention His death except in words of cheerfulness and triumph. They seem so full of the glorious fruits of His death, that they have, as it were, no time to speak of the death itself. "Who, for the joy which was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." That is the apostles' key-note. For God's sake let it be ours too, unless we fancy that we can improve on Scripture, or that we can feel more for our Lord than St. Paul did. In the Lessons, the Psalms, the Epistle, and Gospel for this day, you find just the same spirit. All except one Psalm are songs of hope, joy, deliverance, triumph. The Collects for this day, which are particularly remarkable, being three in number, and evidently meant to teach us the key-note of Good Friday, make no mention of our Lord's sufferings, save to say that He was CONTENTED, "contented to be betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death upon the cross," but are full of prayers that the glorious fruits of His death may be fulfilled, not only in us and all Christians, but in the very heathen who have not known Him; drawing us away, as it were, from looking too closely upon the cross itself, lest we should forget what the cross meant, what the cross conquered, what the cross gained, for us and mankind.

Surely, this was not done without a reason. And I cannot but think the reason was to keep us from seeking the living among the dead; to keep us from knowing Christ any longer after the flesh, and spending tears and emotions over His bodily sufferings; to keep us from thinking and sorrowing too much over the dead Christ, lest we should forget, as some do, that He is alive for evermore; and while they weep over the dead Christ or the crucifix, go to the blessed Virgin and the saints to do for them all that the living Christ is longing to do for them, if they would but go straight to Him to whom all power is given in heaven and earth; whom St John saw, no longer hanging on the accursed tree, but with His hair as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire, and His voice like the sound of many waters, and His countenance as the sun when he shineth in his strength, saying unto him, "Fear not, I am the first and the last; I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore." This is what Christ is now. In this shape He is looking at us now. In this shape He is hearing me speak. In this shape He is watching every feeling of your hearts, discerning your most secret intents, seeing through and through the thoughts which you would confess to no human being, hardly even to yourselves. This is He, a living Christ, an almighty Christ, an all-seeing Christ, and yet a most patient and loving Christ. He needs not our pity; but our gratitude, our obedience, our worship. Why seek Him among the dead? He is not there, He is risen! He is not there, He is here! Bow yourselves before Him now; for He is in the midst of you; and those eyes of His, more piercing than the mid-day sunbeams, are upon you, and your hearts, and your thoughts, and upon mine also. God have mercy upon me a sinner.

Yes, my friends, why seek the living among the dead? He is not there, but here. We may try to put ourselves in the place of the disciples and the Virgin Mary, as they stood by Jesus' cross; but we cannot do it, for they saw Him on the cross, and thought that He was lost to them for ever; they saw Him die, and gave up all hope of His rising again. And we know that Christ is not lost to us for ever. We know Christ is not on the cross, but at the right hand of God in bliss and glory unspeakable. We may be told to watch with the three Maries at the tomb of Christ: but we cannot do as they did, for they thought that all was over, and brought sweet spices to embalm His body, which they thought was in the tomb; and we know that all was not over, that His body is not in the tomb, that the grave could not hold Him, that His body is ascended into heaven; that instead of His body needing spices to embalm it, it is His body which embalms all heaven and earth, and is the very life of the world, and food which preserves our souls and bodies to everlasting life. We are not in the place of those blessed women; God has not put us in their place, and we cannot put ourselves into their place; and if we could and did, by any imaginations of our own, we should only tell ourselves a lie. Good Friday was to them indeed a day of darkness, horror, disappointment, all but despair; because Easter Day had not yet come, and Christ had not yet risen. But Good Friday cannot be a day of darkness to us, because Christ has risen, and we know it, and cannot forget it; we cannot forget that Easter dawn, when the Sun of Righteousness arose, never to set again. Has not the light of that Resurrection morning filled with glory the cross and the grave, yea the very agony in the Garden, and hell itself, which Christ harrowed for us? Has it not risen a light to lighten the Gentiles, a joy to angels and archangels, and saints, and all the elect of God; ay, to the whole universe of God, so that the very stars in their courses, the trees as they bud each spring, yea, the very birds upon the bough, are singing for ever, in the ears of those who have ears to hear, "Christ is risen?" And shall we, under pretence of honouring Christ and of bestowing on Him a pity which He needs least of all, try to spend Good Friday and Passion Week in forgetting Easter Day; try to think of Christ's death as we should if He had not risen, and try to make out ourselves and the world infinitely worse off than we really know that we are? Christ has died, but He has risen again; and we must not think of one without the other. Heavenly things are too important, too true, too real—Christ is too near us, and too loving to us, too earnest about our salvation, for us to spend our thoughts on any such attempts (however reverently meant) at imaginative play-acting in our own minds about His hanging on His cross, while we know that He is not on His cross; and about watching by His tomb, when we know that He is not in His tomb. Let us thank Him, bless Him, serve Him, die for Him, if need be, in return for all He endured for us: but let us keep our sorrow and our pity, and our tears, for our own daily sins—we have enough of them to employ all our sorrow, and more;—and not in voluntary humility and will-worship, against which St Paul warns us, lose sight of our real Christ, of Him who was dead and is alive for evermore, and dwells in us by faith; now and for ever, amen; and hath the keys of death and hell, and has opened them for us, and for our fathers before us, and for our children after us, and for nations yet unborn.

True, this is a solemn day, for on it the Son of God fought such a fight, that He could only win it at the price of His own life's blood; and a humiliating day, for our sins helped to nail Him on the cross—and therefore a day of humiliation and of humility. Proud, self-willed thoughts are surely out of place to-day (and what day are they in place?) On this day God agonised for man: but it is a day of triumph and deliverance; and we must go home as men who have stood by and seen a fearful fight—a fight which makes the blood of him who watches it run cold; but we have seen, too, a glorious victory—such a victory as never was won on earth before or since; and we therefore must think cheerfully of the battle, for the sake of the victory that was won; and remember that on this day death was indeed swallowed up in victory—because death was the victory itself.

The question on which the fate of the whole world depended was, whether Christ dare die; and He dared die. Whether Christ would endure to the end; and He did endure. Whether He would utterly drink the cup which His Father had given Him; and He drank it to the dregs; and so by His very agony He showed Himself noble, beautiful, glorious, adorable, beyond all that words can express. And so the cross was His throne of glory; the prints of the nails in His hands and feet were the very tokens of His triumph; His very sorrows were His bliss; and those last words, "It is finished," were no cry of despair, but a trumpet-call of triumph, which rang from the highest heaven to the lowest hell, proclaiming to all created things, that the very fountain of life, by dying, had conquered death, that good had conquered evil, love had conquered selfishness, God had conquered man, and all the enemies of man; and that He who died was the first begotten from the dead, and the King of all the princes of the earth, who was going to fulfil, more and more, as the years and the ages rolled on, the glorious prayer which we have prayed this day, graciously to behold that family for whom He had been contented to die; and wisely and orderly to call each man to a vocation and a ministry, in which he might duly serve God and be a blessing to all around him, by the inspiration of Christ's Holy Spirit; and to have mercy, in His own good time, upon all Jews, Turks, heathens, and infidels, and bring them home to His flock, that they may be saved, and made one fold under one Shepherd—Him who was dead and is alive for evermore.

Therefore, my dear friends, if we wish to keep Good Friday in spirit and in truth, we cannot do so better than by trying to carry out the very end for which Christ died on this day; and doing our part, small though it be, toward bringing those poor heathens home into Christ's fold, and teaching them the gospel and good news that for them, too, Christ died, and over them, too, Christ reigns alive for evermore; and bringing them home into His flock, that they, too, may find a place in His great family, and have their calling and ministry appointed to them among the nations of those who are saved and walk in the light of God and of the Lamb.

I have refrained till now from speaking to you much about missionaries, and the duty which lies on us all of helping missions. It seemed to me that I must first teach you to understand these first and second collects before I went on. to the third; that I must first teach you that you belonged to Christ's family, and that He had called each of you, and appointed each of you to some order and degree in His Holy Church. But now, if indeed you have learnt that—if my preaching here for fourteen years has had any effect to teach you who and what you are, and what your duty is, let me entreat you to go on, and take the lesson of that third collect, and think of those poor Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics, who still—many a million of them—sit, or rather wander, and fall, and lie, miserably wallowing in darkness and the shadow of death, and think whether you cannot do something toward helping them. What you can do, and how it is to be done, I will tell you hereafter; and, by God's grace, I hope to see men of God in this pulpit, who having been missionaries themselves, can tell you better than I, what remains to be done, and how you can help to do it. But take home this one thought with you, this Good Friday,—Christ, who liveth and was dead, and behold He is alive for evermore, if He be indeed precious to you, if you indeed feel for His sufferings, if you indeed believe that what He bought by those sufferings was a right to all the souls on earth, then do what you can toward repaying Him for His sufferings, by seeing of the travail of His soul, and being satisfied. All the reward He asks, or ever asked, is the hearts of sinners, that He may convert them; the souls of sinners, that He may save them; and they belong to Him already, for He bought them this day with His own most precious blood. Do something, then, toward helping Christ to His own.



SERMON X. THE IMAGE OF THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY



Eversley, Easter Day, 1871.

1 Cor. xv. 49. "As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly."

This season of Easter is the most joyful of all the year. It is the most comfortable time, in the true old sense of that word; for it is the season which ought to comfort us most—that is, it gives us strength; strength to live like men, and strength to die like men, when our time comes. Strength to live like men. Strength to fight against the temptation which Solomon felt when he said: "I have seen all the works which are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit. For what has a man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he has laboured under the sun? For all his days are sorrow, and his travail grief. Yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This also is vanity. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts: as the one dieth, so dieth the other: yea, they have all one breath: so that a man has no pre-eminence over a beast; for all is vanity. All go to one place: all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that it goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that it goeth downward to the earth?" So thought Solomon in his temptation, and made up his mind that there was nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and make his soul enjoy good in his labour.

So thought Solomon, in spite of all his wisdom, because he had not heard the good news of Easter day. And so think many now, who are called wise men and philosophers; because they, alas! for them, will not believe the good news of Easter day.

But what says Easter day? Easter day says, Man has pre-eminence over a beast. The man is redeemed from the death of the beasts by Christ, who rose on Easter day. Easter day says, Wherever the spirit of the beast goes, wherever the spirit of the brutal and the wicked man goes, the spirit of the true Christian goes upward, to Christ, who bought it with His precious blood. Easter day says, The body may turn to the dust from which it was taken, but the spirit lives for ever before God, who shall give it another body, as it shall please Him, as He gives to every seed its own body. And, therefore, Easter day says, There is something better for a man than to eat and drink and enjoy himself, for to-morrow he may die, and all be over; and that something is, to labour not merely for the meat which perishes with the perishing body, but to labour after the fruits of the spirit—love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. These the life of the body does not give us; and these the death of the body not take away from us; for they are spiritual and heavenly, eternal and divine; and he who has them cannot die for ever. And therefore, we may comfort ourselves in all our labour, if only we labour at the one useful work on earth, to be good, and to do good, and to make others good likewise.

True it is, as St. Paul says, that if in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable. For we do not care to be of the earth, earthy: we long to be of the heaven, heavenly. We do not care to spend our time in eating and drinking, mean covetousness, ambition, and the base pleasures of the flesh: we long after high and noble things, which we cannot get on earth, or at best only in fragments, and at rare moments; after the holiness and the blessedness of ourselves and our fellow-creatures. But we have hope in Christ for the next life as well as for this. Hope that in the next life He will give us power to succeed, where we failed here; that He will enable us to be good and to do good, and, if not to make others good (for there, we trust, all will be good together), to enjoy the fulness of that pleasure for which we have been longing on earth—the pleasure of seeing others good, as Christ is good and perfect, as their Father in heaven is perfect.

To be good ourselves, and to live for ever in good company—ah my friends, that is true bliss. If we cannot reach that after death, it were better for us that death should make an end of us, and that when our body decays in the grave we should be annihilated, and become nothing for ever.

But Easter day says to us, If you labour to create good company in this life, by trying to make other people round you good, you shall enjoy for ever in the next world the good company which you have helped to make. If you labour to make yourself good in this life, you shall enjoy the fruit of your labour in the next life by being good, and, therefore, blessed for ever. Easter day says, Your labour is not vanity and vexation of spirit. It is solid work, which shall receive solid pay from God hereafter. Easter day is a pledge—I may say a sacrament—from God to us, that He will righteously reward all righteous work; and that, therefore, it is worth any man's while to labour, to suffer, if need be even to die, in trying to be good, noble, useful, self-sacrificing, as Christ toiled and suffered and died and sacrificed Himself to do good. For then he will share Christ's reward, as he has shared Christ's labour, and be rewarded, as Christ was, by resurrection to eternal life.

And so Easter day should give us strength to live like men—the only truly manly, truly human life; the life of being good and doing good.

And strength to die. Men are afraid of dying, principally, I believe, because they fear the unknown. It is not that they are afraid of the pain of dying. It is not that they are afraid of going to hell; for in all my experience, at least, I have met with but one person who thought that he was going to hell. Neither is it that they are afraid of not going to heaven. Their expectation almost always is, that they are going thither. But they do not care much to go to heaven. They are willing enough to go there, because they know that they must go somewhere. But their notions of what heaven will be like are by no means clear. They have sung rapturous hymns in church or chapel about the heavenly Jerusalem, and passing Jordan safe to Canaan's shore, with no very clear notion of what the words meant—and small blame to them.

But when they think of actually dying, they feel as if to go into the next world was to be turned out into the dark night, into an unknown land, away from house and home, and all they have known, and all they have loved; and they are ready to say with the good old heathen emperor, when he lay a-dying—

"Little soul of mine, wandering, kindly, Companion and guest of my body; Into what place art thou now departing, Shivering, naked, and pale?"

And so they shrink from death. They must shrink from death, unless they will believe with their whole hearts the good news of Easter day. The more thoughtful and clever they are, the more they will shrink from death, and dread the thought of losing their bodies. They have always had bodies here on earth. They only know themselves as souls embodied, living in bodies; and they cannot think of themselves in the next world with any comfort, if they may not think of themselves as having bodies.

And the more loving and affectionate they are, the more they will shrink from death, unless they believe with their whole hearts the good news of Easter day. For those whom they have loved on earth have bodies. Through their bodies—through their voices, their looks, their actions, they have known them, and thus they have loved them; and if their beloved ones are to have no bodies in the world to come, how shall they see them? how shall they know them? how shall they converse with them? It seems to them in that case neither they, nor those they love, would be the same persons in the world to come they are here; and that thought is lonely and dreadful, till they accept the good news of Easter day, the thrice blessed words of St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, which they hear at the burial of those whom they love and lose. Oh, blessed news for us, and for those we love; those without whose company the world to come would be lonely and cheerless to us. For now we can say, Tell me not that as the beast dies, so dies the man. Tell me not that as Adam died because of sin, so must I die, and all I love. Tell me not that it is the universal law of nature that all things born in time must die in time; and that every human being, animal, and plant carries in itself from its beginning to its end a law of death, the seed of its own destruction. I know all that; but I care little for it, because I know more than that. I know that the man's body dies as the beast's body dies; but I know that the body is not the man, but only the husk, the shell of the man; that the true man, the true woman, lives on after the loss of his mortal body; and that there is an eternal law of life, which conquers the law of death; and by that law a fresh body will grow up round the true man, the immortal spirit, and will be as fit—ay, far fitter—to do his work, than this poor mortal body which has turned to death on earth. Tell me not that because I am descended from a mortal and sinful old Adam, of whom it is written that he was of the earth, earthly, therefore my soul is a part of my body, and dies when my body dies. I belong not to the old Adam, but to the new Adam—the new Head of men, who is the Lord from heaven, the author of eternal life to all who obey Him. Do not tell me that I have nothing in me but the likeness of the old Adam, for that seems to me and to St. Paul nothing but the likeness of the fallen savage and the brute in human form. I know I have more in me—infinitely more—than that. What may be in store for the savage, the brutal, the wicked, is God's concern, not mine. But what is in store for me I know—that as I have borne the image of the earthly, so shall I bear the image of the heavenly, if only the Spirit of Christ, the new Adam, be in me. For if Christ be in us, "the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." And if the Spirit of Him which raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in us, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in us. How He will do it I know not; neither do I care to know. When He will do it I know not; but it will be when it ought to be; and that is enough for me. That He can do it I know, for He is the Maker of the universe, and to Him all power is given in heaven and earth; and as for its being strange, wonderful, past understanding, that matters little to me. That will be but one wonder more in a world where all is wonderful—one more mystery in an utterly mysterious universe.

And so, as Easter day has given us strength to live, let Easter day, too, give us strength to die.



SERMON XI. EASTER DAY



Chester Cathedral. 1870.

St John xii. 24, 25. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal."

This is our Lord's own parable. In it He tells us that His death, His resurrection, His ascension, is a mystery which we may believe, not only because the Bible tells us of it, but because it is reasonable, and according to the laws of His universe; a fulfilment, rather say the highest fulfilment, of one of those laws which runs through the world of nature, and through the spiritual and heavenly world likewise. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone;"—barren, useless, and truly dead to the rest of the world around it, because it is shut up in itself, and its hidden life, with all its wondrous powers of growth and fertility, remains undeveloped, and will remain so, till it decays away, a worthless thing, into worthless dust. But if it be buried in the earth a while, then the rich life which lay hid in it is called out by that seeming death, and it sprouts, tillers, and flowers, and ripens its grain—forty-fold, sixty-fold, an hundred-fold; and so it shows God's mind and will concerning it. It shows what is really in it, and develops the full capabilities of its being. Even so, says our Lord, would His death, His resurrection, His ascension be.

He speaks of His own resurrection and ascension; yes, but He speaks first of His own death. Before the corn can bring forth fruit, and show what is in it, fulfilling the law of its being, it must fall into the ground and die. Before our Lord could fulfil the prophecy, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption," He must fulfil the darker prophecy of that awful 88th Psalm, the only one of all the psalms which ends in sorrow, in all but despair, "My soul is full of trouble, and my life draweth nigh unto hell. I am counted as one of them that go down into the pit: and I have been even as a man that hath no strength. Free among the dead, like unto them that are wounded and lie in the grave, who are out of remembrance, and are cut away from thy hand." So it was to be. So, we may believe, it needed to be. Christ must suffer before He entered into His glory. He must die, before He could rise. He must descend into hell, before He ascended into heaven. For this is the law of God's kingdom. Without a Good Friday, there can be no Easter Day. Without self-sacrifice, there can be no blessedness, neither in earth nor in heaven. He that loveth his life will lose it. He that hateth his life in this paltry, selfish, luxurious, hypocritical world, shall keep it to life eternal. Our Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled that law; because it is the law, the law not of Moses, but of the kingdom of heaven, and must be fulfilled by him who would fulfil all righteousness, and be perfect, even as his Father in heaven is perfect.

Bear this in mind, I pray you, and whenever you think of our Lord's resurrection and ascension, remember always that the background to His triumph is—a tomb. Remember that it is the triumph over suffering; a triumph of One who still bears the prints of the nails in His hands and in His feet, and the wound of the spear in His side; like many a poor soul who has followed Him triumphant at last, and yet scarred, and only not maimed in the hard battle of life. Remember for ever the adorable wounds of Christ. Remember for ever that St John saw in the midst of the throne of God the likeness of a lamb, as it had been slain. For so alone you will learn what our Lord's resurrection and ascension are to all who have to suffer and to toil on earth. For if our Lord's triumph had had no suffering before it,—if He had conquered as the Hindoos represent their gods as conquering their enemies, without effort, without pain, destroying them, with careless ease, by lightnings, hurled by a hundred hands and aided by innumerable armies of spirits,—what would such a triumph have been to us? What comfort, what example to us here struggling, often sinning, in this piecemeal world? We want—and blessed be God, we have—a Captain of our salvation, who has been made perfect by sufferings. We want—and blessed be God, we have—an High Priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, because He has been tempted in all things like as we are, yet without sin. We want—and blessed be God, we have—a King who was glorified by suffering, that, if we are ever called on to sacrifice ourselves, we may hope, by suffering, to share His glory. And when we have remembered this, and fixed it in our minds, we may go on safely to think of His glory, and see that (as I said at first) His resurrection and ascension satisfy our consciences,— satisfy that highest reason and moral sense within us, which is none other than the voice of the Holy Spirit of God.

For see. Our Lord proved Himself to be the perfectly righteous Being, by His very passion. He proved it by being righteous utterly against His own interest; by enduring shame, torment, death, for righteousness' sake. But we feel that our Lord's history could not, must not, end there. Our conscience, which is our highest reason, shrinks from that thought. If our Lord had died and never risen, then would His history be full of nothing but despair to all who long to copy Him and do right at all costs. Our consciences demand that God should be just. We say with Abraham, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Shall not He, who suffered without hope of reward, have His reward nevertheless? Shall not He who cried, "My God! my God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?" be justified by having it proved to all the world that God had not forsaken Him? But we surely cannot be more just than God. If we expect God to do right, we shall surely "find that He has done right, and more right than we could expect or dream. Therefore we may believe—I say that we must believe, if we be truly reasonable beings—what the Bible tells us; that Christ, who suffered more than all, was rewarded more than all; that Christ, who humbled Himself more than all, was exalted more than all; and that His resurrection and ascension, as St Paul tells us again and again, was meant to show men this,—to show them that God the Father has been infinitely just to the infinite merits of God the Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,—to justify our Lord to all mankind by His triumph over death and hell, and in justifying Him to justify His Father and our Father, his God and our God.

And what is true of Christ must be true of us, the members of Christ. He is entered into His rest, and you desire to enter into it likewise. You have a right to desire it, for it is written, "There remaineth a rest for the people of God." Remember, then, that true rest can only be attained as He attained it, through labour. You desire to be glorified with Christ. Remember that true glory can only be attained in earth or heaven through self-sacrifice. Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; whosoever will lose his life shall save it. If that eternal moral law held good enough for the sinless Christ, who, though He were a son, yet learned obedience by the things which He suffered, how much more must it hold good of you and me and all moral and rational beings,—yea, for the very angels in heaven. They have not sinned. That we know; and we do not know; and I presume cannot know, that they have ever suffered. But this at least we know, that they have submitted. They have obeyed and have given up their own wills to be the ministers of God's will. In them is neither self-will nor selfishness; and therefore by faith, that is, by trust and loyalty, they stand. And so, by consenting to lose their individual life of selfishness, they have saved their eternal life in God, the life of blessedness and holiness; just as all evil spirits have lost their eternal life by trying to save their selfish life, and be something in themselves and of themselves without respect to God.

This is a great mystery; indeed, it is the mystery of the eternal, divine, and blessed life, to which God of His mercy bring us all. And therefore Good Friday, Easter Day, Ascension Day, are set as great lights in the firmament of the spiritual year,—to remind us that we are not animals, born to do what we like, and fulfil the sinful lusts of the flesh, the ways whereof are death; but that we are moral and rational beings, members of Christ, children of God, inheritors of the kingdom of heaven; and that, therefore, I say it again, like Christ our Lord, we must die in order to live, stoop in order to conquer. They remind us that honour must grow out of humility; that freedom must grow out of discipline; that sure conquest must be born of heavy struggles; righteous joy out of righteous sorrow; pure laughter out of pure tears; true strength out of the true knowledge of our own weakness; sound peace of mind out of sound contrition; and that the heart which has a right to cry, "The Lord is on my side, I will not fear what man doeth unto me," must be born out of the heart which has cried, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" They remind us that in all things, as says our Lord, there cannot be joy, because a man is born into the world, unless there first be sorrow, because the hour of birth is come; and that he who would be planted into the likeness of Christ's resurrection, must, like the corn of wheat, be first planted into the likeness of His death, and die to sin and self, that he may live to righteousness and to God; and, like the corn of wheat, become truly living, truly strong, truly rich, truly useful, and develop the hidden capabilities of his being, fulfilling the mind and will of God concerning him. Again, I say, this is a great mystery. But again, I say, this is the law, not Moses' law, but the Gospel law;—the law of liberty, by which a man becomes truly free, because he has trampled under foot the passions of his own selfish flesh, till his immortal spirit can ascend free into the light of God, and into the love of God, and into the beneficence of God. My dear friends, remember these words, for they are true. Remember that St Paul always couples with the resurrection and ascension of our bodies in the next life the resurrection and ascension of our souls in this life; for without that, the resurrection of our bodies would be but a resurrection to fresh sin, and therefore to fresh misery and ruin. Remember his great words about that moral resurrection and ascension of our wills, our hearts, our characters, our actions. "God," he says, "who is rich in mercy, for His great love, wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace are ye saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus."

And what are those heavenly places? And what is our duty in them? Let St Paul himself answer. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God."

And what are they? Let St Paul answer once more; who should know better than he, save Christ alone? "Whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report. If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

Yes, think of these things,—and, thinking of them, ask the Holy Spirit of God to inspire you, and make a Whitsuntide in your hearts, even as He has made, I trust, a Good Friday and an Eastertide and an Ascension Day; that so, knowing these things, you may be blessed in doing them; that so- -and so only—may be fulfilled in you and me or any rational being, those blessed promises which were fulfilled in Christ our Lord. "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." "He that now goeth on his way weeping, and beareth forth good seed, shall doubtless come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him." "Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee, in whose heart are Thy ways; who going through the vale of misery, use it for a well, and the pools are filled with water. They will go from strength to strength: and unto the God of gods appeareth every one of them in Sion." To which may God in His great mercy bring us all. Amen.



SERMON XII. PRESENCE IN ABSENCE



Eversley, third Sunday after Easter. 1862.

St John xvi. 16. "A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father."

Divines differ, and, perhaps, have always differed, about the meaning of these words. Some think that our Lord speaks in them of His death and resurrection. Others that He speaks of His ascension and coming again in glory. I cannot decide which is right. I dare not decide. It is a very solemn thing—too solemn for me—to say of any words of our Lord's they mean exactly this or that, and no more. For if wise men's words have (as they often have) more meanings than one, and yet all true, then surely the words of Jesus, the Son of God, who spake as never man spake—His words, I say, may have many meanings; yea, meanings without end, meanings which we shall never fully understand, perhaps even in heaven, and yet all alike true.

But I think it is certain that most of the early Christians understood these words of our Lord's ascension and coming again in glory. They believed that He was coming again in a very little while during their own life-time, in a few months or years, to make an end of the world and to judge the quick and the dead. And as they waited for His coming, one generation after another, and yet He did not come, a sadness fell upon them. Christ seemed to have left the world. The little while that He had promised to be away seemed to have become a very long while. Hundreds of years passed, and yet Christ did not come in glory. And, as I said, a sadness fell on all the Church. Surely, they said, this is the time of which Christ said we were to weep and lament till we saw Him again—this is the time of which He said that the bridegroom should be taken from us, and we should fast in those days. And they did fast, and weep, and lament; and their religion became a very sad and melancholy one—most sad in those who were most holy, and loved their Lord best, and longed most for His coming in glory.

What happened after that again I could tell you, but we have nothing to do with it to-day. We will rather go back, and see what the Lord's disciples thought He meant when He said,—"A little while, and ye shall not see me; and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father." One would think, surely, that they must have taken those words to mean His death and resurrection. They heard Him speak them on the very night that He was betrayed. They saw Him taken from them that very night. In horror and agony they saw Him mocked and scourged, crucified, dead, and buried, as they thought for ever, and the world around rejoicing over His death. Surely they wept and lamented then. Surely they thought that He had gone away and left them then.

And the third day, beyond all hope or expectation, they beheld Him alive again, unchanged, perfect, and glorious—as near them and as faithful to them as ever. Surely that was seeing Him again after a little while. Surely then their sorrow was turned to joy. Surely then a man, the man of all men, was born into the world a second time, and in them was fulfilled our Lord's most exquisite parable—most human and yet most divine—of the mother remembering no more her anguish for joy that a man is born into the world.

I think, too, that we may see, by the disciples' conduct, that they took these words of the text to speak of Christ's death and resurrection. For when He ascended to heaven out of their sight, did they consider that was seeing Him no more? Did they think that He had gone away and left them? Did they, therefore, as would have been natural, weep and lament? On the contrary, we are told expressly by St Luke that they "returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and were continually in the temple," not weeping and lamenting, but praising and blessing God. Plainly they did not consider that Christ was parted from them when He ascended into heaven. He had been training them during the forty days between Easter Day and Ascension Day to think of Him as continually near them, whether they saw Him or not. Suddenly He came and went again. Mysteriously He appeared and disappeared. He showed them that though they saw not Him, He saw them, heard their words, knew the thoughts and intents of their hearts. He was always near them they felt; with them to the end of the world, whether in sight or out of sight. And when they saw Him ascend into heaven, it seemed to them no separation, no calamity, no change in His relation to them. He was gone to heaven. Surely He had been in heaven during those forty days, whenever they had not seen Him. He had gone to the Father. Might He not have been with the Father during those forty days, whenever they had not seen Him? Nay; was He not always in heaven? Was not heaven very near them? Did not Christ bring heaven with Him whithersoever He went? Was He not always with the Father, the Father who fills all things, in whom all created things live, and move, and have their being? How could they have thought otherwise about our Lord, when almost His last words to them were not, Lo, I leave you alone, but, "Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world."

My friends, these may seem deep words to some—doubtless they are, for they are the words of the Bible—so deep that plain, unlearned people can make no use of them, and draw no lesson from them. I do not think so. I think it is of endless use and endless importance to you how you think about Christ; and, therefore, how you think about these forty days between our Lord's resurrection and ascension. You may think of our Lord in two ways. You may think of Him as having gone very far away, millions of millions of miles into the sky, and not to return till the last day,— and then, I do not say that you will weep and lament. There are not many who have that notion about our Lord, and yet love Him enough to weep and lament at the thought of His having gone away. But your religion, when it wakes up in you, will be a melancholy and terrifying one. I say, when it wakes up in you—for you will be tempted continually to let it go to sleep. There will come over you the feeling—God forgive us, does it not come over us all but too often?—Christ is far away. Does He see me? Does He hear me? Will He find me out? Does it matter very much what I say and do now, provided I make my peace with Him before I die? And so will come over you not merely a carelessness about religious duties, about prayer, reading, church-going, but worse still, a carelessness about right and wrong. You will be in danger of caring little about controlling your passions, about speaking the truth, about being just and merciful to your fellow-men. And then, when your conscience wakes you up at times, and cries, Prepare to meet thy God! you will be terrified and anxious at the thought of judgment, and shrink from the thought of Christ's seeing you. My friends, that is a fearful state, though a very common one. What is it but a foretaste of that dreadful terror in which those who would not see in Christ their Lord and Saviour will call on the mountains to fall on them, and the hills to cover them, from Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the anger of the Lamb?

But, again: you may think of Christ as His truest servants, though they might have been long in darkness, in all ages and countries have thought of Him, sooner or later. And they thought of Him, as the disciples did; as of One who was about their path and about their bed, and spying out all their ways; as One who was in heaven, but who, for that very reason, was bringing heaven down to earth continually in the gracious inspirations of His Holy Spirit; as One who brought heaven down to them as often as He visited their hearts and comforted them with sweet assurance of His love, His faithfulness, His power—as God grant that He may comfort those of you who need comfort. And that thought, that Christ was always with them, even to the end of the world, sobered and steadied them, and yet refreshed and comforted them. It sobered them. What else could it do? Does it not sober us to see even a picture of Christ crucified? How must it have sobered them to carry, as good St Ignatius used to say of himself, Christ crucified in his heart. A man to whom Christ, as it were, showed perpetually His most blessed wounds, and said, Behold what I have endured—how dare he give way to his passion? How dare he be covetous, ambitious, revengeful, false? And yet it cheered and comforted them. How could it do otherwise, to know all day long that He who was wounded for their iniquities, and by whose stripes they were healed, was near them day and night, watching over them as a father over his child, saying to them,—"Fear not, I am He that was dead, and am alive for evermore, and I hold the keys of death and hell. Though thou walkest through the fires, I will be with thee. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." Yes, my friends, if you wish your life—and therefore your religion, which ought to be the very life of your life—to be at once sober and cheerful, full of earnestness and full of hope, believe our Lord's words which He spoke during these very forty days,—"Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world." Believe that heaven has not taken Him away from you, but brought Him nearer to you; and that He has ascended up on high, not that He, in whom alone is life, might empty this earth of His presence, but that He might fill all things, not this earth only, but all worlds, past, present, and to come. Believe that wherever two or three are gathered together in Christ's name, there He is in the midst of them; that the holy communion is the sign of His perpetual presence; and that when you kneel to receive the bread and wine, Christ is as near you—spiritually, indeed, and invisibly, but really and truly—as near you as those who are kneeling by your side.

And if it be so with Christ, then it is so with those who are Christ's, with those whom we love. It is the Christ in them which we love; and that Christ in them is their hope of glory; and that glory is the glory of Christ. They are partakers of His death, therefore they are partakers of His resurrection. Let us believe that blessed news in all its fulness, and be at peace. A little while and we see them; and again a little while and we do not see them. But why? Because they are gone to the Father, to the source and fount of all life and power, all light and love, that they may gain life from His life, power from His power, light from His light, love from His love—and surely not for nought?

Surely not for nought, my friends. For if they were like Christ on earth, and did not use their powers for themselves alone, if they are to be like Christ when they shall see Him as He is, then, more surely, will they not use their powers for themselves, but, as Christ uses His, for those they love.

Surely, like Christ, they may come and go, even now, unseen. Like Christ, they may breathe upon our restless hearts and say, Peace be unto you—and not in vain. For what they did for us when they were on earth they can more fully do now that they are in heaven. They may seem to have left us, and we, like the disciples, may weep and lament. But the day will come when the veil shall be taken from our eyes, and we shall see them as they are, with Christ, and in Christ for ever; and remember no more our anguish for joy that a man is born into the world, that another human being has entered that one true, real, and eternal world, wherein is neither disease, disorder, change, decay, nor death, for it is none other than the Bosom of the Father.



SERMON XIII. ASCENSION DAY



Eversley. Chester Cathedral. 1872.

St John viii. 58. "Before Abraham was, I am."

Let us consider these words awhile. They are most fit for our thoughts on this glorious day, on which the Lord Jesus ascended to His Father, and to our Father, to His God, and to our God, that He might be glorified with the glory which He had with the Father before the making of the world. For it is clear that we shall better understand Ascension Day, just as we shall better understand Christmas or Eastertide, the better we understand Who it was who was born at Christmas, suffered and rose at Eastertide, and, as on this day, ascended into heaven. Who, then, was He whose ascent we celebrate? What was that glory which, as far as we can judge of divine things, He resumed as on this day?

Let us think a few minutes, with all humility, not rashly intruding ourselves into the things we have not seen, or meddling with divine matters which are too hard for us, but taking our Lord's words simply as they stand, and where we do not understand them, believing them nevertheless.

Now it is clear that the book of Exodus and our Lord's words speak of the same person. The Old Testament tells of a personage who appeared to Moses in the wilderness, and who called Himself "the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." But this personage also calls Himself "I AM." "I AM THAT I AM:" "and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."

In the New Testament we read of a personage who calls Himself the Son of God, is continually called the Lord, and who tells His disciples to call Him by that name without reproving them, though they and He knew well what it meant—that it meant no less than this, that He, Jesus of Nazareth, poor mortal man as He seemed, was still the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I do not say that the disciples saw that at first, clearly or fully, till after our Lord's resurrection. But there was one moment shortly before His death, when they could have had no doubt who He assumed Himself to be. For the unbelieving Jews had no doubt, and considered Him a blasphemer; and these were His awful and wonderful words,—I do not pretend to understand them—I take them simply as I find them, and believe and adore. "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto Him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham?" One cannot blame them for asking that question, for Abraham had been dead then nearly two thousand years. But what is our Lord's solemn answer? "Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am."

"I Am." The same name by which our Lord God had revealed Himself to Moses in the wilderness, some sixteen hundred years before. If these words were true,—and the Lord prefaces them with Verily, verily, Amen, Amen, which was as solemn an asseveration as any oath could be—then the Lord Jesus Christ is none other than the God of Abraham, the God of Moses, the God of the Jews, the God of the whole universe, past, present, and to come.

Let us think awhile over this wonder of all wonders. The more we think over it, we shall find it not only the wonder of all wonders, but the good news of all good news.

The deepest and soundest philosophers will tell us that there must be an "I Am." That is, as they would say, a self-existent Being; neither made nor created, but who has made and created all things; who is without parts and passions, and is incomprehensible, that is cannot be comprehended, limited, made smaller or weaker, or acted on in any way by any of the things that He has made. So that this self-existing Being whom we call God, would be exactly what He is now, if the whole universe, sun, moon, and stars, were destroyed this moment; and would be exactly what He is now, if there had never been any universe at all, or any thing or being except His own perfect and self-existent Self. For He lives and moves and has His being in nothing. But all things live and move and have their being in Him. He was before all things, and by Him all things consist. And this is the Catholic Faith; and not only that, this is according to sound and right reason. But more: the soundest philosophers will tell you that God must be not merely a self-existent Being, but the "I Am:" that if God is a Spirit, and not merely a name for some powers and laws of brute nature and matter, He must be able to say to Himself, "I Am:" that He must know Himself, that He must be conscious of Himself, of who and what He is, as you and I are conscious of ourselves, and more or less of who and what we are. And this, also, I believe to be true, and rational, and necessary to the Catholic Faith.

But they will tell you again—and this, too, is surely true—that I Am must be the very name of God, because God alone can say perfectly, "I Am," and no more. You and I dare not, if we think accurately, say of ourselves, "I am." We may say, I am this or that; I am a man; I am an Englishman; but we must not say, "I am;" that is, "I exist of myself." We must say—not I am; but I become, or have become; I was made; I was created; I am growing, changing; I depend for my very existence on God and God's will, and if He willed, I should be nothing and nowhere in a moment. God alone can say, I Am, and there is none beside Me, and never has, nor can be. I exist, absolutely, and simply; because I choose to exist, and get life from nothing; for I Am the Life, and give life to all things. But you may say, What is all this to us? It is very difficult to understand, and dreary, and even awful. Why should we care for it, even if it be true? Yes, my friends; philosophy may be true, and yet be dreary, and awful, and have no gospel and good news in it at all. I believe it never can have; that only in Revelation, and in the Revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, can poor human beings find any gospel and good news at all. And sure I am, that that is an awful thought, a dreary thought, a crushing thought, which makes a man feel as small, and worthless, and helpless, and hopeless, as a grain of dust, or a mote in the sunbeam—that thought of God for ever contained in Himself, and saying for ever to Himself, "I Am, and there is none beside Me."