It is because men in their own minds do not believe that Christ is the ruler of the world, that they lose all hope of God's delivering them, and break out into mad rebellion. It is because, again, men do not believe that Christ is the ruler of the world, that, when their rebellion has failed, they sink into slavishness and dull despair, and bow their necks to the yoke of the first tyrant who arises; and try to make a covenant with death and hell. Better far for them, had they made a covenant with Christ, who is ready to deliver men from death and hell in this world, as well as in the world to come.

But he who believes in Christ, in the living Christ, the ordering Christ, the governing Christ, will possess his soul in patience. He will not fret himself, lest he should do evil; because he can always put his trust in the Lord, until the tyranny be overpast. He will not hastily rebel: but neither will he truckle basely and cowardly to the ways of this wicked world. For Christ the Lord hates those ways, and has judged them, and doomed them to destruction; and he reigns, and will reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.



SERMON XVI.—TERROR BY NIGHT



(Preached in Lent.)

PSALM xci. 5.

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night.

You may see, if you will read your Bible, that the night is spoken of in the Old Testament much as we speak of it now, as a beautiful and holy thing. The old Jews were not afraid of any terror by night. They rejoiced to consider the heavens, the work of God's fingers, the moon and the stars, which he had ordained. They looked on night, as we do, as a blessed time of rest and peace for men, in which the beasts of the forest seek their meat from God, while all things are springing and growing, man knows not how, under the sleepless eye of a good and loving Creator.

But, on the other hand, you may remark that St. Paul, in his Epistles, speaks of night in a very different tone. He is always opposing night to day, and darkness to light; as if darkness was evil in itself, and a pattern of all evil in men's souls. And St. Paul knew what he was saying, and knew how to say it; for he spoke by the Holy Spirit of God.

The reason of this difference is simple. The old Jews spoke of God's night, such as we country folks may see, thank God, as often as we will. St. Paul spoke of man's night, such as it might be seen, alas! in the cities of the Roman empire. All those to whom he wrote— Romans, Corinthians, Ephesians, and the rest—dwelt in great cities, heathen and profligate; and night in them was mixed up with all that was ugly, dangerous, and foul. They were bad enough by day: after sunset, they became hells on earth. The people, high and low, were sunk in wickedness; the lower classes in poverty, and often despair. The streets were utterly unlighted; and in the darkness robbery, house-breaking, murder, were so common, that no one who had anything to lose went through the streets without his weapon or a guard; while inside the houses, things went on at night—works of darkness—of which no man who knows of them dare talk. For as St. Paul says, 'It is a shame even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.' Evil things are done by night still, in London, Paris, New York, and many a great city; but they are pure, respectable, comfortable, and happy, when compared with one of those old heathen cities, which St. Paul knew but too well.

Again. Our own forefathers were afraid of the night and its terrors, and looked on night as on an ugly time: but for very different reasons from those for which St. Paul warned his disciples of night and the works of darkness. Though they lived in the country, they did not rejoice in God's heaven, or in the moon and stars which he had ordained. They fancied that the night was the time in which all ghastly and ugly phantoms began to move; that it was peopled with ghosts, skeletons, demons, witches, who held revels on the hill-tops, or stole into houses to suck the life out of sleeping men. The cry of the wild fowl, and the howling of the wind, were to them the yells of evil spirits. They dared not pass a graveyard by night for fear of seeing things of which we will not talk. They fancied that the forests, the fens, the caves, were full of spiteful and ugly spirits, who tempted men to danger and to death; and when they prayed to be delivered from the perils and dangers of the night, they prayed not only against those real dangers of fire, of robbers, of sudden sickness, and so forth, against which we all must pray, but against a thousand horrible creatures which the good God never created, but which their own fancy had invented.

Now in the Bible, from beginning to end, you will find no teaching of this kind. That there are angels, and that there are also evil spirits, the Bible says distinctly; and that they can sometimes appear to men. But it is most worthy of remark how little the Bible says about them, not how much; how it keeps them, as it were, in the background, instead of bringing them forward; while our forefathers seem continually talking of them, continually bringing them forward— I had almost said they thought of nothing else. If you compare the Holy Bible with the works which were most popular among our forefathers, especially among the lower class, till within the last 200 years, you will see at once what I mean,—how ghosts, apparitions, demons, witchcraft, are perpetually spoken of in them; how seldom they are spoken of in the Bible; lest, I suppose, men should think of them rather than of God, as our forefathers seem to have been but too much given to do.

And so with this Psalm. It takes for granted that men will have terrors by night; that they will be at times afraid of what may come to them in the darkness. But it tells them not to be afraid, for that as long as they say to God, 'Thou art my hope and my stronghold; in thee will I trust,' so long they will not be afraid for any terror by night.

It was because our forefathers did not say that, that they were afraid, and the terror by night grew on them; till at times it made them half mad with fear of ghosts, witches, demons, and such-like; and with the madness of fear came the madness of cruelty; and they committed, again and again, such atrocities as I will not speak of here; crimes for which we must trust that God has forgiven them, for they knew not what they did.

But, though we happily no longer believe in the terror by night which comes from witches, demons, or ghosts, there is another kind of terror by night in which we must believe, for it comes to us from God, and should be listened to as the voice of God: even that terror about our own sinfulness, folly, weakness which comes to us in dreams or in sleepless nights. Some will say, 'These painful dreams, these painful waking thoughts, are merely bodily, and can be explained by bodily causes, known to physicians.' Whether they can or not, matters very little to you and me. Things may be bodily, and yet teach us spiritual lessons. A book—the very Bible itself—is a bodily thing: bodily leaves of paper, printed with bodily ink; and yet out of it we may learn lessons for our souls of the most awful and eternal importance. And so with these night fancies and night thoughts. We may learn from them. We are forced often to learn from them, whether we will or not. They are often God's message to us, calling us to repentance and amendment of life. They are often God's book of judgment, wherein our sins are written, which God is setting before us, and showing us the things which we have done.

Who that has come to middle age does not know how dreams sometimes remind him painfully of what he once was, of what he would be still, without God's grace? How in his dreams he finds himself tempted by the old sins; giving way to the old meannesses, weaknesses, follies? How dreams remind him, awfully enough, that though his circumstances have changed,—his opinions, his whole manner of life, have changed— yet he is still the same person that he was ten, twenty, thirty, forty years ago, and will be for ever? Nothing bears witness to the abiding, enduring, immortal oneness of the soul like dreams when they prove to a man, in a way which cannot be mistaken—that is, by making him do the deed over again in fancy—that he is the same person who told that lie, felt that hatred, many a year ago; and who would do the same again, if God's grace left him to that weak and sinful nature, which is his master in sleep, and runs riot in his dreams. Whether God sends to men in these days dreams which enable them to look forward, and to foretell things to come, I cannot say. But this I can say, that God sends dreams to men which enable them to look back, and recollect things past, which they had forgotten only too easily; and that these humbling and penitential dreams are God's warning that (as the Article says) the infection of nature doth remain, even in those who are regenerate; that nothing but the continual help of God's Spirit will keep us from falling back, or falling away.

Again: those sad thoughts which weigh on the mind when lying awake at night, when all things look black to a man; when he is more ashamed of himself, more angry with himself, more ready to take the darkest view of his own character and of his own prospects of life, than he ever is by day,—do not these thoughts, too, come from God? Is it not God who is holding the man's eyes waking? Is it not God who is making him search out his own heart, and commune with his spirit? I believe that so it is. If any one says, 'It is all caused by the darkness and silence. You have nothing to distract your attention as you have by day, and therefore the mind becomes unwholesomely excited, and feeds upon itself,' I answer, then they are good things, now and then, this darkness and this silence, if they do prevent the mind from being distracted, as it is all day long, by business and pleasure; if they leave a man's soul alone with itself, to look itself in the face, and be thoroughly ashamed of what it sees. In the noise and glare of the day, we are all too apt to fancy that all is right with us, and say, 'I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing;' and the night does us a kindly office if it helps us to find out that we knew not that we were poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked—not only in the sight of God, but in our own sight, when we look honestly at ourselves.

The wise man says:-

'Oh, would some power the gift but give us, To see ourselves as others see us!'

and those painful thoughts make us do that. For if we see some faults in ourselves, be sure our neighbours see them likewise, and perhaps many more beside.

But more: these sad thoughts make us see ourselves as God sees us. For if we see faults in ourselves, we may be sure that the pure and holy God, in whose sight the very heavens are not clean, and who charges his angels with folly, sees our faults with infinitely greater clearness, and in infinitely greater number. So let us face those sad night thoughts, however painful, however humiliating they may be; for by them God is calling us to repentance, and forcing us to keep Lent in spirit and in truth, whether we keep it outwardly or not.

'What,' some may say, 'you would have us, then, afraid of the terror by night?' My dear friends, that is exactly what I would not have. I would teach you from Holy Scripture how to profit by the terror, how to thank God for the terror, instead of being afraid of it, as you otherwise certainly will be. For these ugly dreams, these sad thoughts do come, whether you choose or not. Whether you choose or not, you all have, or will have seasons of depression, of anxiety, of melancholy. Shall they teach you, or merely terrify you? Shall they only bring remorse, or shall they bring repentance?

Remorse. In that is nothing but pain. A man may see all the wrong and folly he has done; he may fret over it, torment himself with it, curse himself for it, and yet be the worse, and not the better, for what he sees. If he be a strong-minded man, he may escape from remorse in the bustle of business or pleasure. If he be a weak- minded man, he may escape from it in drunkenness, as hundreds do; or he may fall into melancholy, superstition, despair, suicide.

But if his sadness breeds, not remorse, but repentance—that is, in one word, if instead of keeping his sins to himself, he takes his sins to God—then all will be well. Then he will not be afraid of the terror, but thankful for it, when he knows that it is what St. Paul calls, the terror of the Lord.

This is why the old Psalmists were not afraid of the terror by night; because they knew that their anxiety had come from God, and therefore went to God for forgiveness, for help, for comfort. Therefore it is that one says, 'I am weary of groaning. Every night wash I my bed, and water my couch with my tears,' and yet says the next moment, 'Away from me, all ye that work vanity. The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping. The Lord will receive my prayer.'

Therefore it is that another says, 'While I held my sins my bones waxed old through my daily complaining;' and the next moment—'I said I will confess my sins unto the Lord, and so thou forgavest the wickedness of my sin.'

Therefore it is that again another says, 'Thou holdest mine eyes waking. I am so feeble that I cannot speak. I call to remembrance my sin, and in the night season I commune with my heart, and search out my spirit. Will the Lord absent himself for ever, and will he be no more entreated? Is his mercy clean gone for ever, and his promise come utterly to an end for evermore? And I said, It is mine own infirmity; but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most Highest. I will remember the works of the Lord, and call to mind the wonders of old.'

And another, 'Why art thou so heavy, O my soul, and why art thou so disquieted within me? O put thy trust in God, for I shall yet give him thanks, who is the help of my countenance, and my God.'

And therefore it is, that our Lord Jesus Christ, in order that he might taste sorrow for every man, and be made in all things like to his brethren, endured, once and for all, in the garden of Gethsemane, the terror which cometh by night, as none ever endured it before or since; the agony of dread, the agony of helplessness, in which he prayed yet more earnestly, and his sweat was as great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And there appeared an angel from heaven strengthening him; because he stood not on his own strength, but cast himself on his Father and our Father, on his God and our God. So says St. Paul, who tells us how our Lord, in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared—though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the Author of everlasting salvation unto all them that obey him.

Oh, may we all, in the hour of shame and sadness, in the hour of darkness and confusion, and, above all, in the hour of death and the day of judgment, take refuge with him in whom alone is help, and comfort, and salvation for this life and the life to come—even Jesus Christ, who died for us on the cross.



SERMON XVII.—THE SON OF THUNDER



ST. JOHN i. 1.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

We read this morning the first chapter of the Gospel according to St. John.

Some of you, I am sure, must have felt, as you heard it, how grand was the very sound of the words. Some one once compared the sound of St. John's Gospel to a great church bell: simple, slow, and awful; and awful just because it is so simple and slow. The words are very short,—most of them of one syllable,—so that even a child may understand them if he will: but every word is full of meaning.

'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.'

Those, I hold, are perhaps the deepest words ever written by man. Whole books have been written, and whole books more might be written upon them, and on the words which come after them. 'That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.' They go down to the mystery of all mysteries,—to the mystery of the unfathomable One God, who dwells alone in the light which none can approach unto, self-sustained and self-sufficing for ever. And then they go on to the other great mystery—how that God comes forth out of himself to give life and light to all things which he has made; and what is the bond between the Abysmal Father in heaven, and us his human children, and the world in which we live:- even Jesus Christ, God of the substance of his Father, begotten before the worlds, and man of the substance of his mother, born in the world.

Yes. The root and ground of all true philosophy lies in this chapter. Its words are so deep that the wisest man might spend his life over them without finding out all that they mean. And yet they are so simple that any child can understand enough of their meaning to know its duty, and to do it.

Remark, again, how short the sentences are. Each is made up of a very few words, and followed by a full stop, that our minds may come to a full stop likewise, and think over what we have heard before St. John goes on to tell us more.

Yes. St. John does not hurry either himself or us. He takes his time; and he wishes us to take our time likewise. His message will keep; for it is eternal. It is not a story of yesterday, or to-day, or to-morrow. It is the story of eternity,—of what is, and was, and always will be.

Always has the Word been with God, and always will he be God.

Always has the Word been making all things, and always will he be making.

Always has the Spirit been proceeding, and always will the Spirit be proceeding, from the Word and from the Father of the Word, giving their light and their life to men.

St. John's message will last for ever; and therefore he tells it slowly and deliberately, knowing that no time can change what he has to say; for it is the good news of the Word, Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, because he is God of very God, eternally in the bosom of the Father.

Now St. John, who writes thus simply and quietly, was no weak or soft person. He was one of the two whom the Lord surnamed Boanerges, the Son of Thunder—the man of the loud and awful voice. Painters have liked to draw St. John as young, soft, and feminine, because he was the Apostle of Love. I beg you to put that sentimental notion out of your minds, and to remember that the only hint which Holy Scripture gives us about St. John's person is, that he was 'a Son of Thunder;' that his very voice, when he chose, was awful; that he, and his brother James, before they were converted, were not of a soft, but of a terrible temper; that it was James and John, the Sons of Thunder, who wanted to call down thunder and lightning from heaven on all the villages who would not receive the Lord.

A Son of Thunder. Think over that name, and think over it carefully, remembering that it was our Lord himself who gave St. John the name; and that it therefore has, surely, some deep meaning.

Do not fancy that it means merely a loud and noisy person. I have known too many, carelessly looking only at the outsides and shows of things, and not at their inside and reality, fancy that that was what it meant. I have known them fancy that they themselves were sons of thunder when they raved and shouted, and used violent language, in preaching, or in public speaking. And I have heard foolish people honour such men the more, and think them the more in earnest, the more noise they made, and say of him; 'He is a true Boanerges—a Son of Thunder, like St. John.'

Like St. John? The only sermon of St. John's which we have on record is that which they say he used to preach over and over again when he was carried as an old man into his church at Ephesus. And that was no more than these few words over and over again, Sunday after Sunday, 'Little children, love one another.'

That was the way in which St. John, the Son of Thunder, spoke when age and long obedience to the Spirit of God had taught him how to use his strength wisely and well.

Like St. John? Is there anywhere, in St. John's Gospel or Epistles, one violent expression? One sentence of great swelling words? Are not the words of the Son of Thunder, as I have been telling you, peculiarly calm, slow, simple, gentle? Can those whose mouths are full of noisy and violent talk, be true Sons of Thunder, if St. John was one?

No. And if you will think for yourselves, you will see that there is a deeper meaning in our Lord's name for St. John than merely that he was a loud and violent man.

You hear the roar of the thunder, but you know surely that it is not the thunder itself; that it is only its echo rolling on from cloud to cloud and hill from hill.

But the thunder itself—if you have ever been close enough to it to hear it—is very different from that, and far more awful. Still and silently it broods till its time is come. And then there is one ear- piercing crack, one blinding flash, and all is over. Nothing so swift, so instantaneous, as the thunder itself, and yet nothing so strong.

And such are those sudden flashes of indignation against sin and falsehood which break out for a moment in St. John's writing, piercing, like the Word of God himself, the very joints and marrow of the heart, and showing, in one terrible word, what is the real matter with the bad man's soul; as the thunderbolt lights up for an instant the whole heavens far and wide. 'If we say that we have fellowship with God, and walk in darkness, we lie.' In that one plain, ugly word, he tells us the whole truth, frightful as it is, and then he goes on calmly once more. And again:

'He that saith, I know God, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar. He that committeth sin is of the devil. He that hateth his brother is a murderer. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? He that doeth good is of God; but he that doeth evil has not seen God.'

Such words as these, coming as they do amid the usually quiet and gentle language of St. John—these are truly words of thunder; going straight to their mark, tearing off the mask from hypocrisy and self- deceiving and false religion, and speaking the truth in majesty.

And yet there is no noisiness, no wordiness, about them; nothing like rant or violence. Such a man is a liar, says St. John: but he says no more. That is all, and that is enough.

So speaks the true Son of Thunder. And his words, like the thunder, echo from land to land; and we hear them now, this day, in a foreign tongue, eighteen hundred years after they were written: while thousands of bigger, noisier, and frothier words and more violent books have been lost and forgotten utterly.

And now, my friends, we may find in St. John's example a wholesome lesson for ourselves. We may learn from it that noisiness is not earnestness, that violence is not strength. Noise is a sign of want of faith, and violence is a sign of weakness.

The man who is really in earnest, who has real faith in what he is saying and doing, will not be noisy, and loud, and in a hurry, as it is written, 'He that believeth will not make haste.' He that is really strong; he who knows that he can do his work, if he takes his time and uses his wit, and God prospers him—he will not be violent, but will work on in silence and peaceful industry, as it is written, 'Thy strength is to sit still.'

I know that you here do not require this warning much for yourselves. There is, thank God, something in our quiet, industrious, country life which breeds in men that solid, sober temper, the temper which produces much work and little talk, which is the mark of a true Englishman, a true gentleman, and a true Christian.

But if you go (as more and more of you will go) into the great towns, you will hear much noisy and violent speaking from pulpits, and at public meetings. You will read much noisy and violent writing in newspapers and books.

Now I say to you, distrust such talk. It may seem to you very earnest and passionate. Distrust it for that very reason. It may seem to you very eloquent and full of fine words. Distrust it for that very reason. The man who cannot tell his story without wrapping it up in fine words, generally does not know very clearly what he is talking about. The man who cannot speak or write without scolding and exaggeration, is not very likely to be able to give sound advice to his fellow-men.

Remember that it is by violent language of this kind, in all ages, that fanatical preachers have deceived silly men and women to their shame and ruin; and mob-leaders have stirred up riots and horrible confusions. Remember this: and distrust violent and wordy persons wheresoever you shall meet them: but after listening to them, if you must, go home, and take out your Bibles, and read the Gospel of St. John, and see how he spoke, the true Son of Thunder, whose words are gone out into all lands, and their sound unto the end of the world, just because they are calm and sober, plain and simple, like the words of Jesus Christ his Lord and our Lord, who spake as never man spake.

And for ourselves—let us remember our Lord's own warning: 'Let your Yea be Yea, and your Nay Nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.'

Tell your story plainly and calmly; speak your mind if you must. But speak it quietly. Do not try to make out the worst case for your adversary; do not exaggerate; do not use strong language: say the truth, the whole truth; but say nothing but the truth, in patience and in charity. For everything beyond that comes of evil,—of some evil or fault in us. Either we are not quite sure that we are right; or we have lost our temper, and then we see the whole matter awry, through the mist of passion; or we are selfish, and looking out for our own interest, or our own credit, instead of judging the matter fairly. This, or something else, is certainly wrong in us whenever we give way to violent language. Therefore, whenever we are tempted to say more than is needful, let us remember St. John's words, and ask God for his Holy Spirit, the spirit of love, which, instead of weakening a man's words, makes them all the stronger in the cause of truth, because they are spoken in love.



SERMON XVIII.—HUMILITY



LUKE v. 8.

Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.

Few stories in the New Testament are as well known as this. Few go home more deeply to the heart of man. Most simple, most graceful is the story, and yet it has in it depths unfathomable.

Great painters have loved to draw, great poets have loved to sing, that scene on the lake of Gennesaret. The clear blue water, land- locked with mountains; the meadows on the shore, gay with their lilies of the field, on which our Lord bade them look, and know the bounty of their Father in heaven; the rich gardens, olive-yards, and vineyards on the slopes; the towns and villas scattered along the shore, all of bright white limestone, gay in the sun; the crowds of boats, fishing continually for the fish which swarm to this day in the lake;—everywhere beautiful country life, busy and gay, healthy and civilized likewise—and in the midst of it, the Maker of all heaven and earth sitting in a poor fisher's boat, and condescending to tell them where the shoal of fish was lying. It is a wonderful scene. Let us thank God that it happened once on earth. Let us try to see what we may learn from it in these days, in which our God and Saviour no longer walks this earth in human form.

'Ah!' some may say, 'but for that very reason there is no lesson in the story for us in these days. True it is, that God does not walk the earth now in human form. He works no miracles, either for fishermen, or for any other men. We shall never see a miraculous draught of fishes. We shall never be convinced, as St. Peter was, by a miracle, that Christ is close to us. What has the story to do with us?'

My friends, are things, after all, so different now from what they were then? Is our case after all so very different from St. Peter's? God and Christ cannot change, for they are eternal—the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and if Christ was near St. Peter on the lake of Gennesaret, he is near us now, and here; for in him we live and move and have our being; and he is about our path, and about our bed, and spieth out all our ways: near us for ever, whether we know it or not. And human nature cannot change. There is in us the same heart as there was in St. Peter, for evil and for good. When St. Peter found suddenly that it was the Lord who was in his boat, his first feeling was one of fear: 'Depart from me for I am a sinful man, O Lord.' And when we recollect at moments that God is close to us, watching all we do, all we say, yea, all we think, are we not afraid, for the moment at least? Do we not feel the thought of God's presence a burden? Do we never long to hide from God?—to forget God again, and cry in our hearts: 'Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord'?

God grant to us all, that after that first feeling of dread and awe is over, we may go on, as St. Peter went on, to the better feelings of admiration, loyalty, worship and say at last, as St. Peter said afterwards, when the Lord asked him if he too would leave him: 'Lord, to whom shall we go? for thou hast the words of eternal life.'

But do I blame St. Peter for saying, 'Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord'? God forbid! Who am I, to blame St. Peter? Especially when even the Lord Jesus did not blame him, but only bade him not to be afraid.

And why did the Lord not blame him, even when he asked Him to go away?

Because St. Peter was honest. He said frankly and naturally what was in his heart. And honesty, even if it is mistaken, never offends God, and ought never to offend men. God requires truth in the inward parts; and if a man speaks the truth—if he expresses his own thoughts and feelings frankly and honestly—then, even if he is not right, he is at least on the only road to get right, as St. Peter was.

He spoke not from dislike of our Lord, but from modesty; from a feeling of awe, of uneasiness, of dread, at the presence of one who was infinitely greater, wiser, better than himself.

And that feeling of reverence and modesty, even when it takes the shape, as it often will in young people, of shyness and fear, is a divine and noble feeling—the beginning of all goodness. Indeed, I question whether there can be any real and sound goodness in any man's heart, if he has no modesty, and no reverence. Boldness, forwardness, self-conceit, above all in the young—we know how ugly they are in our eyes; and the Bible tells us again and again how ugly they are in the sight of God.

The truly great and free and noble soul—and St. Peter's soul was such—is that of the man who feels awe and reverence in the presence of those who are wiser and holier than himself; who is abashed and humbled when he compares himself with his betters, just because his standard is so high. Because he knows how much better he should be than he is; because he is discontented with himself, ashamed of himself, therefore he shrinks, at first, from the very company which, after a while, he learns to like best, because it teaches him most. And so it was with St. Peter's noble soul. He felt himself, in the presence of that pure Christ, a sinful man:- not perhaps what we should call sinful; but sinful in comparison of Christ. He felt his own meanness, ignorance, selfishness, weakness. He felt unworthy to be in such good company. He felt unworthy,—he, the ignorant fisherman,—to have such a guest in his poor boat. 'Go elsewhere, Lord,' he tried to say, 'to a place and to companions more fit for thee. I am ashamed to stand in thy presence. I am dazzled by the brightness of thy countenance, crushed down by the thought of thy wisdom and power, uneasy lest I say or do something unfit for thee; lest I anger thee unawares in my ignorance, clumsiness; lest I betray to thee my own bad habits: and those bad habits I feel in thy presence as I never felt before. Thou art too condescending; thou honourest me too much; thou hast taken me for a better man than I am; thou knowest not what a poor miserable creature I am at heart— "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord."'

There spoke out the truly noble soul, who was ready the next moment, as soon as he had recovered himself, to leave all and follow Christ; who was ready afterwards to wander, to suffer, to die upon the cross for his Lord; and who, when he was led out to execution, asked to be crucified (as it is said St. Peter actually did) with his head downwards; for it was too much honour for him to die looking up to heaven, as his Lord had died.

Do you not understand me yet? Then think what you would have thought of St. Peter, if, instead of saying, 'Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord,' St. Peter had said, 'Stay with me, for I am a holy man, O Lord. I am just the sort of person who deserves the honour of thy company; and my boat, poor though it is, more fit for thee than the palace of a king.' Would St. Peter have seemed to you then wiser or more foolish, better or worse, than he does now, when in his confused honest humility, he begs the Lord to go away and leave him? And do you not feel that a man is (as a great poet says) 'displeasing alike to God and to the enemies of God,' when he comes boldly to the throne of grace, not to find grace and mercy, because he feels that he needs them: but to boast of God's grace, and make God's mercy to him an excuse for looking down upon his fellow- creatures; and worships, like the Pharisee, in self-conceit and pride, thanking God that he is not as other men are?

Better far to be the publican, who stood afar off, and dare not lift up as much as his eyes toward heaven, but cried only, 'God be merciful to me a sinner.' Better far to be the honest and devout soldier, who, when Jesus offered to come to his house, answered, 'Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof. But speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.'

Only he must say that in honesty, in spirit, and in truth, like St. Peter. For a man may shrink from religion, from the thought of God, from coming to the Holy Communion, for two most opposite reasons.

He may shrink from them because he knows he is full of sins, and wishes to keep his sins; and knows that, if he worships God, if he comes to the Holy Communion—indeed, if he remembers the presence of God at all,—he pledges himself to give up his bad habits; to repent and amend, which is just what he has no mind to do. So he turns away from God, because he chooses to remain bad. May the Lord have mercy on his soul, for he has no mercy on it himself! He chooses evil, and refuses good; and evil will be his ruin.

But, again, a man may shrink from God, from church, from the Holy Communion, because he feels himself bad, and longs to be good; because he feels himself full of evil habits, and hates them, and sees how ugly they are, and is afraid to appear in the presence of God foul with sin.

Let him be of good cheer. He is not going wrong wilfully. But he is making a mistake. Let him make it no more. He feels himself unworthy. Let him come all the more, that he may be made worthy. Let him come, because he is worthy. For—strange it may seem, but true it is—that a man is the more worthy to draw near to God the more he feels himself to be utterly unworthy thereof.

He who partakes worthily of the Holy Communion is he who says with his whole heart, 'We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table.' He with whom Christ will take up his abode is he who says, 'Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof.'

For humility is the beginning of all goodness, and the end of all wisdom.

He who says that he sees is blind. He who knows his own blindness sees. He who says he has no sin in him is the sinner. He who confesses his sins is the righteous man; for God is faithful and just to forgive him, as he did St. Peter, and to cleanse him from all unrighteousness.



SERMON XIX.—A WHITSUN SERMON



PSALM civ. 24, 27-30.

O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. . . . These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.

You may not understand why I read this morning, instead of the Te Deum, the 'Song of the three Children,' which calls on all powers and creatures in the world to bless and praise God. You may not understand also, at first, why this grand 104th Psalm was chosen as one of the special Psalms for Whitsuntide,—what it has to do with the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the Spirit of God. Let me try to explain it to you, and may God grant that you may find something worth remembering among my clumsy words.

You were told this morning that there were two ways of learning concerning God and the Spirit of God,—that one was by the hearing of the ear, and the Holy Bible; the other by the seeing of the eye—by nature and the world around us. It is of the latter I speak this afternoon,—of what you can learn concerning God by seeing, if only you have eyes, and the same Spirit of God to open those eyes, as the Psalmist had.

The man who wrote this Psalm looked round him on the wondrous world in which we dwell, and all he saw in it spoke to him of God; of one God, boundless in wisdom and in power, in love and care; and of one Spirit of God, the Lord and Giver of Life.

He saw all this, and so glorious did it seem to him, as he looked on the fair world round him, that he could not contain himself. Not only was his reason satisfied, but his heart was touched. It was so glorious that he could not speak of it coldly, calmly; and he burst out into singing a song of praise—'O Lord our God, thou art become exceeding glorious; thou art clothed with majesty and honour.' For he saw everywhere order; all things working together for good. He saw everywhere order and rule; and something within him told him, there must be a Lawgiver, an Orderer, a Ruler and he must be One.

Again, the Psalmist saw everywhere a purpose; things evidently created to be of use to each other. And the Spirit of God told him there must be One who purposed all this; who meant to do it, and who had done it; who thought it out and planned it by wisdom and understanding.

Then the Psalmist saw how everything, from the highest to the lowest, was of use. The fir trees were a dwelling for the stork; and the very stony rocks, where nothing else can live, were a refuge for the wild goats; everywhere he saw use and bounty—food, shelter, life, happiness, given to man and beast, and not earned by them; then he said—'There must be a bountiful Lord, a Giver, generous and loving, from whom the very lions seek their meat, when they roar after their prey; on whom all the creeping things innumerable wait in the great sea, that he may give them meat in due season.'

But, moreover, he saw everywhere beauty; shapes, and colours, and sounds, which were beautiful in his eyes, and gave him pleasure deep and strange, he knew not why: and the Spirit of God within him told him—'These fair things please thee. Do they not please Him who made them? He that formed the ear, shall he not hear the song of birds? He that made the eye, shall he not see the colours of the flowers? He who made thee to rejoice in the beauty of the earth, shall not he rejoice in his own works?' And God seemed to him, in his mind's eye, to delight in his own works, as a painter delights in the picture which he has drawn, as a gardener delights in the flowers which he has planted; as a cunning workman delights in the curious machine which he has invented; as a king delights in the fair parks and gardens and stately palaces which he has laid out, and builded, and adorned, for his own pleasure, as well as for the good of his subjects.

And then, beneath all, and beyond all, there came to him another question—What is life?

The painter paints his picture, but it has no life. The workman makes his machine, but, though it moves and works, it has no life. The gardener,—his flowers have life, but he has not given it to them; he can only sow the seemingly dead seeds. Who is He that giveth those seeds a body as it pleases him, and to every seed its own body, its own growth of leaf, form, and colour? God alone. And what is that life which he does give? Who can tell that? What is life? What is it which changes the seed into a flower, the egg into a bird? It is not the seed itself; the egg itself. What power or will have they, over themselves? It is not in the seed, or in the egg, as all now know from experience. You may look for it with all the microscopes in the world, but you will not find it. There is nothing to be found by the eyes of mortal man which can account for the growth and life of any created thing.

And what is death? What does the live thing lose, when it loses life? This moment the bird was alive; a tiny pellet of shot has gone through its brain, and now its life is lost: but what is lost? It is just the same size, shape, colour; it weighs exactly the same as it did when alive. What is the thing not to be seen, touched, weighed, described, or understood, which it has lost, which we call life?

And to that deep question the Psalmist had an answer whispered to him,—a hint only, as it were, in a parable. Life is the breath of God. It is the Spirit of God, who is the Lord and Giver of life. God breathes into things the breath of life. When he takes away that breath they die, and are turned again to their dust. When he lets his breath go forth again, they are made, and he renews the face of the earth.

That is enough for thee, O man, to know. What life is thou canst not know. Thou canst only speak of it in a figure—as the breath, the Spirit of God. That Spirit of God is not the universe itself. But he is working in all things, giving them form and life, dividing to each severally as he will; all their shape, their beauty, their powers, their instincts, their thoughts; all in them save brute matter and dead dust: from him they come, and to him they return again. All order, all law, all force, all usefulness, come from him. He is the Lord and Giver of life, in whom all things live, and move, and have their being.

Therefore, my friends, let us at all times, in all places, and especially at this Whitsuntide, remember that all we see, or can see, except sin, is the work of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God. Let us look on the world around us, as what it is, as what the old Psalmist saw it to be,—a sacred place, full of God's presence, shaped, quickened, and guided by the Spirit of God, the Lord and Giver of life.

My dear friends, God grant that you may all learn to look upon this world as the Psalmist looked on it. God grant that you may all learn to see, each in your own way, what a great and pious poet of our fathers' time put into words far wiser and grander than any which I can invent for you, when he said how, looking on the earth, the sea, the sky, he felt -

'A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean, and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: A motion and a spirit that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world; Of eye and ear, both what they half create And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.' {243}

'Of all my moral being.'

Yes; of our moral being, our characters, our souls. By looking upon this beautiful and wonderful world around us with reverence, and earnestness, and love, as what it is,—the work of God's Spirit,—we shall become not merely the more learned, or the more happy, we shall become actually better men. The beauties in the earth and sky; the flowers with their fair hues and fragrant scents; the song of birds; the green shaughs and woodlands; the moors purple with heath, and golden with furze; the shapes of clouds, from the delicate mist upon the lawn to the thunder pillar towering up in awful might; the sunrise and sunset, painted by God afresh each morn and even; the blue sky, which is the image of God the heavenly Father, boundless, clear, and calm, looking down on all below with the same smile of love, sending his rain alike on the evil and on the good, and causing his sun to shine alike on the just and on the unjust:- he who watches all these things, day by day, will find his heart grow quiet, sober, meek, contented. His eyes will be turned away from beholding vanity. His soul will be kept from vexation of spirit. In God's tabernacle, which is the universe of all the worlds, he will be kept from the strife of tongues. As he watches the work of God's Spirit, the beauty of God's Spirit, the wisdom of God's Spirit, the fruitfulness of God's Spirit, which shines forth in every wayside flower, and every gnat which dances in the sun, he will rejoice in God's work, even as God himself rejoices. He will learn to value things at their true price, and see things of their real size. Ambition, fame, money, will seem small things to him as he considers the lilies of the field, how the heavenly Father clothes them, and the birds of the air, how the heavenly Father feeds them; and he will say with the wise man -

'All the windy ways of men Are but dust that rises up, And is lightly laid again.'

Dust, indeed, and not worthy the attention of the wise man, who considers how the very heaven and earth shall perish, and yet God endure; how—'They all shall wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture shall God change them, and they shall be changed: but God is the same, and his years shall not fail.'

And as that man grows more quiet, he will grow more loving likewise; more merciful to the very dumb animals. He will be ashamed even to disturb a bird upon its nest, when he remembers the builder and maker of that nest is not the bird alone, but God. He will believe the words of the wise man -

'He prayeth well who loveth well Both man, and bird, and beast. He prayeth best who loveth best All things, both great and small; For the great God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.'

More quiet, more loving will that man grow; and more pious likewise. For there ought to come to that man a sense of God's presence, of God's nearness, which will fill him with a wholesome fear of God. As he sees with the inward eyes of his reason God's Spirit at work for ever on every seed, on every insect, ay, on every nerve and muscle of his own body, he will heartily say with the Psalmist—'I will give thanks unto thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvellous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in thy book were all my members written, which day by day were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. Whither shall I go then from thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I climb up to heaven, thou art there; if I go down to hell, thou art there also; if I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand hold me still. If I say, Peradventure the darkness shall cover me, then shall my night be turned into day.'

Yes, God he will see is everywhere, over all, and through all, and in all; and from God there is no escape. The only hope, the only wisdom, is to open his heart to God as a child to its father, and cry with the Psalmist—'Try me, O God, and search the ground of my heart; prove me, and examine my thoughts. Look well if there be any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.'

My dear friends, take these thoughts home with you: and may God give you grace to ponder over them, and so make your Whitsun holiday more quiet, more pure, more full of lessons learnt from God's great green book which lies outside for every man to read. Of such as you said the wise heathen long ago—'Too happy are they who till the land, if they but knew the blessings which they have.'

And it is a blessing, a privilege, and therefore a responsibility laid on you by your Father and your Saviour, to have such a fair, peaceful, country scene around you, as you will behold when you leave this church,—a scene where everything is to the wise man, where everything should be to you, a witness of God's Spirit; a witness of God's power, God's wisdom, God's care, God's love. Go, and may God turn away your hearts from all that is mean and selfish, all that is coarse and low, and lift them up unto himself, as you look upon the fields, and woods, and sky, till you, too, say with the Psalmist—'O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. I will praise my God while I have my being; my joy shall be in the Lord.'



SERMON XX.—SELF-HELP



ST. JOHN xvi. 7.

It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.

This is a deep and strange saying. How can it be expedient, useful, or profitable, for any human being that Christ should go away from them? To be in Christ's presence; to see his face; to hear his voice;—would not this be the most expedient and profitable, yea, the most blessed and blissful of things which could befall us? Is it not that which saints hope to attain for ever in heaven—the beatific vision of Christ?

My dear friends, one thing is certain, that Christ loves us far better than we can love ourselves, and knows how to show that love. He would have stayed with the apostles, instead of ascending into heaven, if it had been expedient for them. Yea, if it had been expedient for him to have stayed on earth among mankind unto this very day, he would have stayed.

Because it was not expedient, not good for the apostles, not good for mankind, that he should stay among them, therefore he ascended into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God, all authority and power being given to him in heaven and in earth.

And he gives us a reason for so doing—only a hint; but still a hint, by which we may see to-day it was expedient for us that he should go away.

Unless he went away, the Comforter would not come. Now the true and exact meaning of the Comforter is the Strengthener, the Encourager— one who gives a man strength of mind, and courage of spirit, to do his work. Without that Comforter, the apostles would be weak and spiritless. Without being encouraged and inspirited by him, they would never get through the work which they had to do, of preaching the Gospel to the whole world.

We may surely see, if we think, some of the cause of this. The apostles, till our Lord's ascension, had been following him about like scholars following a master—almost like children holding by their father's hand. They had had no will of their own; no opinion of their own; they had never had to judge for themselves, or act for themselves; and, when they had tried to do so, they had always been in the wrong, and Christ had rebuked them. They had been like scholars, I say, with a teacher, or children with a parent. Yea rather, when one remembers who they were, poor fishermen, and who he was—God made man—they had been (I speak with all reverence) as dogs at their master's side—faithful and intelligent truly; but with no will of their own, looking for ever up to his hand and his eye, to see what he would have them do. But that could not last. It ought not to last. God does not wish us to be always as animals, not even always as children; he wishes us to become men; perfect men, who have their senses exercised by experience to discern good and evil.

And so it was to be with the apostles. They had to learn, as we all have to learn, self-help, self-government, self-determination. They were to think for themselves, and act for themselves; and yet not by themselves. For he would put into them a spirit, even his Spirit; and so, when they were thinking for themselves, they would be thinking as he would have them think; when they were acting for themselves, they would be acting as he would have them act. They would live; but not their own life, for Christ would live in them. They would speak: but not their own words; the Spirit of their Father would speak in them; that so they might come in the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God, to be perfect men, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.

My dear friends, this may seem deep and a mystery: but so are all things in this wondrous life of ours. And surely we see a pattern of all this in our own lives. Each child is educated—or ought to be— as Christ educated his apostles.

Have we not had, some of us, in early life some parent, friend, teacher, spiritual pastor, or master, to whom we looked up with unbounded respect? His word to us was law. His counsel was as the oracles of God. We did not dream of thinking for ourselves, acting for ourselves, while we had him to tell us how to think, how to act; and we were happy in our devotion. We felt what a blessed thing, not merely protecting and guiding, but elevating and ennobling, was reverence and obedience to one wiser and better than ourselves. But that did not last. It could not last. Our teacher was taken from us; perhaps by mere change of place, and the chances of this mortal life; perhaps by death, which sunders all fair bonds upon this side the grave. Perhaps, most painful of all, we began to differ from our teacher; to find that, though we respected and loved him still, though we felt a deep debt of thanks to him for what he had taught us, we could not quite agree in all; we had begun to think for ourselves, and we found that we must think for ourselves; and the new responsibility was very heavy. We felt like young birds thrust out of the nest to shift for themselves in the wide world.

But, after a while, we found that we could think, could act for ourselves, as we never expected to do. We found that we were no more children; that we were improving in manly virtues by having to bear our own burdens; and to acquire,

'The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill.'

And we found, too, that though our old teachers were parted from us, yet they were with us still; that (to compare small things with great, and Christ's servants with their Lord) a spirit came to us from them, and brought all things to our remembrance, whatsoever they had said to us; that we remembered their words more vividly, we understood their meaning more fully and deeply, now that they were parted, than we did when they were with us. We loved them as well, ay, better, than of old, for we saw more clearly what a debt we owed to them; and so it was, after all, expedient for us that they should have gone away. That parting with them, which seemed so dangerous to us, as well as painful, really comforted us—strengthened and encouraged us to become stronger and braver souls, full of self-help, self-government, self-determination.

And so we shall find it, I believe, in our religion.

We may say with a sigh, 'Ah, that I could see my Lord and Saviour. I should be safe then. I dare not sin then.'

It may be so. I am the last to deny that our Lord Jesus Christ has (as he certainly could, if he chose) shown himself bodily to certain of his saints (as he showed himself to St. Paul and to St. Stephen) in order to strengthen their faith in some great trial. But if it had been good for us in general to see the Lord in this life, doubt not that we should have seen him. And because we do not see him, be sure that it is not good.

We may say, again, 'Ah that the Lord Jesus had but remained on earth, what just laws, what peace and prosperity would the world have enjoyed! Wars would have ceased long ago; oppression and injustice would be unknown.'

It may be so. And yet again it may not. Perhaps our Lord's staying on earth would have had some quite different effect, of which we cannot even dream; and done, not good, but harm. Let us have faith in him. Let us believe in his perfect wisdom, and in his perfect love. Let us believe that he is educating us, as he educated the apostles, by going away. That he is by his absence helping men to help themselves, teaching men to teach themselves, guiding and governing men to guide and govern themselves by that law of liberty which is the law of his Spirit; to love the right, and to do the right, not from fear of punishment, but of their own heart and will.

For remember, he has not left us comfortless. He has not merely given us commands; he has given us the power of understanding, valuing, obeying these commands. For his Spirit is with us; the Spirit of Whitsuntide; the Comforter, the Encourager, the Strengthener, by whom we may both perceive and know what we ought to do, and also have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same.

Come to yonder holy table this day, and there claim your share in Christ, who is absent from you in the body, but ever present in the spirit. Come to that table, that you may live by Christ's life, and learn to love what he commandeth, and desire what he doth promise, that so your hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; namely, in the gracious motions and heavenly inspirations of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son.



SERMON XXI.—ENDURANCE



I PETER ii. 19.

This is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.

This is a great epistle, this epistle for the day, and full of deep lessons. Let us try to learn some of them.

'What glory is it,' St. Peter says, 'if, when ye be beaten for your faults, ye take it patiently?' What credit is it to a man, if, having broken the law, he submits to be punished? The man who will not do that, the man who resists punishment, is not a civilized man, but a savage and a mere animal. If he will not live under discipline, if he expects to break the law with impunity, he makes himself an outlaw; he puts himself by his rebellion outside the law, and becomes unfit for society, a public enemy of his fellow-men. The first lesson which men have to learn, which even the heathen have learnt, as soon as they have risen above mere savages, is the sacredness of law—the necessity of punishment for those who break the law.

The Jews had this feeling of the sacredness of law. Moses' divine law had taught it them. The Romans, heathen though they were, had the same feeling—that law was sacred; that men must obey law. And the good thing which they did for the world (though they did it at the expense of bloodshed and cruelty without end) was the bringing all the lawless nations and wild tribes about them under strict law, and drilling them into order and obedience. That it was, which gave the Roman power strength and success for many centuries.

But above the kingdom of law, which says to a man merely, 'Thou shalt not do wrong: and if thou dost, thou shalt be punished,' there is another kingdom, far deeper, wider, nobler; even the kingdom of grace, which says to a man, not merely, 'Do not do wrong,' but 'Do right;' and not only 'Do right for fear of being punished,' but 'Do right because it is right; do right because thou hast grace in thy heart; even the grace of God, and the Spirit of God, which makes thee love what is right, and see how right it is, and how beautiful; so that thou must follow after the right, not from fear of punishment, but in spite of fear of punishment; follow after the right, not when it is safe only, but when it is dangerous; not when it is honourable only in the eyes of men, but when it is despised. If thou hast God's grace in thy heart; if thou lovest what is right with the true love, which is the Spirit of God, then thou wilt never stop to ask, "Will it pay me to do right?" Thou wilt feel that the right thou must do, whether it pays thee or not; still loving the right, and cleaving steadfastly to the right, through disappointment, poverty, shame, trouble, death itself, if need be: if only thou canst keep a conscience void of offence toward God and man.'

'But shall I have no reward?' asks a man, 'for doing right? Am I to give up a hundred pleasant things for conscience' sake, and get nothing in return?' Yes: there is a reward for righteousness, even in this life. God repays those who make sacrifices for conscience' sake, I verily believe, in most cases, a hundred fold in this life. In this life it stands true, that he who loses his life shall save it; that he who goes through the world with a single eye to duty, without selfishness, without vanity, without ambition, careless whether he be laughed at, careless whether he be ill-used, provided only his conscience acquits him, and God's approving smile is on him- -in this life it stands true that that man is the happiest man after all; that that man is the most prosperous man after all; that, like Christ, when he was doing his Father's work, he has meat to eat and strengthen him in his life's journey, which the world knows not of. But if not; if it seem good to God to let him taste the bitters, and not the sweets, of doing right, in this life; if it seem good to God that he should suffer—as many a man and woman too has suffered for doing right—nothing but contempt, neglect, prison, and death; is he worse off than Jesus Christ, his Lord, was before him? Shall the disciple be above his master? What if he have to drink of the cup of sorrow of which Christ drank, and be baptized with the baptism of martyrdom with which Christ was baptized? Where is he, but where the Son of God has been already? What is he doing, but treading in the steps of Christ crucified; that he may share in the blessing and glory and honour without end which God the Father heaped upon Christ his Son, because he was perfect in duty, perfect in love of right, perfect in resignation, perfect in submission under injustice, perfect in forgiveness of his murderers, perfect in faith in the justice and mercy of God: who did no sin—that is, never injured his own cause by anger or revenge; and had no guile in his mouth—that is, never prevaricated, lied, concealed his opinions, for fear of the consequences, however terrible; but before the chief priests and Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession, though he knew that it would bring on him a dreadful death; who, when he was reviled, reviled not again, but committed himself to him who judgeth righteously—the meekest of all beings, and in that very meekness the strongest of all beings; the most utterly resigned, and by that very resignation the most heroic—the being who seemed, on the cross of Calvary, most utterly conquered by injustice and violence: but who, by that very cross, conquered the whole world.

This is a great mystery, and hard to learn. Flesh and blood, our animal nature, will never compass it all; for it belongs, not to the flesh, but to the spirit. But our spirits, our immortal souls, may learn the lesson at last, if we feed them continually with the thought of Christ; if we meditate upon whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honourable, just, pure, lovely, and of good report. Then we may learn, at last, after many failures, and many sorrows of heart, that the spirit is stronger than the flesh; that meekness is stronger than wrath, silence stronger than shouting, peace stronger than war, forgiveness stronger than vengeance, just as Christ hanging on his cross was stronger—exercising a more vast and miraculous effect on the hearts of men—than if he had called whole armies of angels to destroy his enemies, like one of the old kings and conquerors of the earth, whose works have perished with themselves.

Yes, gradually we must learn that our strength is to sit still; that to do well and suffer for it, instead of returning evil for evil, and railing for railing, is to show forth the spirit of Christ, and to enter into the joy of our Lord.

The statesman debating in Parliament; the conqueror changing the fate of nations on bloody battle-fields; these all do their work; and are needful, doubtless, in a sinful, piecemeal world like this. But there are those of whom the noisy world never hears, who have chosen the better part which shall not be taken from them; who enter into a higher glory than that of statesmen, or conquerors, or the successful and famous of the earth. Many a man—clergyman or layman—struggling in poverty and obscurity, with daily toil of body and mind, to make his fellow-creatures better and happier; many a poor woman, bearing children in pain and sorrow, and bringing them up with pain and sorrow, but in industry, too, and piety; or submitting without complaint to a brutal husband; or sacrificing all her own hopes in life to feed and educate her brothers and sisters; or enduring for years the peevishness and troublesomeness of some relation;—all these (and the world which God sees is full of such, though the world which man sees takes no note of them)—gentle souls, humble souls, uncomplaining souls, suffering souls, pious souls—these are God's elect; these are Christ's sheep; these are the salt of the earth, who, by doing each their little duty as unto God, not unto men, keep society from decaying more than do all the constitutions and acts of parliament which statesmen ever invented. These are they—though they little dream of any such honour—who copy the likeness of the old martyrs, who did well and suffered for it; and the likeness of Christ, of whom it was said, 'He shall not strive nor cry, neither shall his voice be heard in the streets.'

For what was it in the old martyrs which made men look up to them, as persons infinitely better than themselves, with quite unmeasurable admiration; so that they worshipped them after their deaths, as if they had been gods rather than men?

It was this. The world in old times had been admiring successful people, just as it does at this day. Was a man powerful, rich? Had he slaves by the hundred? Was his table loaded with the richest meats and wines? Could he indulge every pleasure and fancy of his own? Could he heap his friends with benefits? Could he ruin or destroy any one who thwarted him? In one word, was he a mighty and successful tyrant? Then that was the man to honour and worship; that was the sort of man to become, if anyone had the chance, by fair means or foul. Just as the world worships now the successful man; and—if you will but make a million of money—will flatter you and court you, and never ask either how you made your money, or how you spend your money; or whether you are a good man or a bad one: for money in man's eyes, as charity in God's eyes, covereth a multitude of sins; and as long as thou doest well unto thyself, men will speak well of thee.

But there arose, in that wicked old world in which St. Paul lived, an entirely new sort of people—people who did not wish to be successful; did not wish to be rich; did not wish to be powerful; did not wish for pleasures and luxuries which this world could give: who only wished to be good; to do right, and to teach others to do right. Christians, they were called; after Christ their Lord and God. Weak old men, poor women, slaves, even children, were among them. Not many mighty, not many rich, not many noble, were called. They were mostly weak and oppressed people, who had been taught by suffering and sorrow.

One would have thought that the world would have despised these Christians, and let them go their own way in peace. But it was not so. The mighty of this world, and those who lived by pandering to their vices, so far from despising the Christians, saw at once how important they were. They saw that, if people went about the world determined to speak nothing but what they believed to be true, and to do nothing but what was right, then the wicked world would be indeed turned upside down, and, as they complained against St. Paul more than once, the hope of their gains would be gone. Therefore they conceived the most bitter hatred against these Christians, and rose against them, for the same simple reason that Cain rose up against Abel and slew him, because his works were wicked, and his brother's righteous. They argued with them; they threatened them; they tried to terrify them: but they found to their astonishment that the Christians would not change their minds for any terror. Then their hatred became rage and fury. They could not understand how such poor ignorant contemptible people as the Christians seemed to be, dared to have an opinion of their own, and to stand to it; how they dared to think themselves right, and all the world wrong; and in their fury they inflicted on them tortures to read of which should make the blood run cold. And their rage and fury increased to madness, when they found that these Christians, instead of complaining, instead of rebelling, instead of trying to avenge themselves, submitted to all their sufferings, not only patiently and uncomplaining, but joyfully, and as an honour and a glory. Some, no doubt, they conquered by torture, agony, and terror; and so made them deny Christ, and return to the wickedness of the heathen. But those renegades were always miserable. Their own consciences condemned them. They felt they had sold their own souls for a lie; and many of them, in their agony of mind, repented again, like St. Peter after he had denied his Lord through fear, proclaimed themselves Christians after all, went through all their tortures a second time, and died triumphant over death and hell.

But there were those—to be counted by hundreds, if not thousands— who dared all, and endured all; and won (as it was rightly called) the crown of martyrdom. Feeble old men, weak women, poor slaves, even little children, sealed their testimony with their blood, and conquered, not by fighting, but by suffering.

They conquered. They conquered for themselves in the next world; for they went to heaven and bliss, and their light affliction, which was but for a moment, worked out for them an exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

They conquered in this world also. For the very world which had scourged them, racked them, crucified them, burned them alive, when they were dead turned round and worshipped them as heroes, almost as divine beings. And they were divine; for they had in them the Divine Spirit, the Spirit of God and of Christ. Therefore the foolish world was awed, conscience-stricken, pricked to the heart, when it looked on those whom it had pierced, as it had pierced Christ the Lord, and cried, as the centurion cried on Calvary, 'Surely these were the sons and daughters of God. Surely there was some thing more divine, more noble, more beautiful in these poor creatures dying in torture, than in all the tyrants and conquerors and rich men of the earth. This is the true greatness, this is the true heroism—to do well and suffer for it patiently.'

And thenceforth men began to get, slowly but surely, a quite new idea of true greatness; they learnt to see that not revenge, but forgiveness; not violence, but resignation; not success, but holiness, are the perfection of humanity. They began to have a reverence for those who were weak in body, and simple in heart,—a reverence for women, for children, for slaves, for all whom the world despises, such as the old Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, had never had. They began to see that God could make strong the weak things of this world, and glorify himself in the courage and honesty of the poorest and the meanest. They began to see that in Christ Jesus was neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but that all were one in Christ Jesus, all alike capable of receiving the Spirit of God, all alike children of the one Father, who was above all, and in all, and with them all.

And so the endurance and the sufferings of the early martyrs was the triumph of good over evil; the triumph of honesty and truth; of purity and virtue; of gentleness and patience; of faith in a just and loving God: because it was the triumph of the Spirit of Christ, by which he died, and rose again, and conquered shame and pain, and death and hell.



SERMON XXII.—TOLERATION



(Preached at Christ Church, Marylebone, 1867, for the Bishop of London's Fund.)

MATTHEW xiii. 24-30.

The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the household came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye toot up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest and in the time of harvest: I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

The thoughtful man who wishes well to the Gospel of Christ will hardly hear this parable without a feeling of humiliation. None of our Lord's parables are more clear and simple in their meaning; none have a more direct and practical command appended to them; none have been less regarded during the last fifteen hundred years. Toleration, solemnly enjoined, has been the exception. Persecution, solemnly forbidden, has been the rule. Men, as usual, have fancied themselves wiser than God; for they have believed themselves wise enough to do what he had told them that they were not wise enough to do, and so have tried to root the tares from among the wheat. Men have, as usual, lacked faith in Christ; they did not believe that he was actually governing the earth which belonged to him; that he was actually cultivating his field, the world: they therefore believed themselves bound to do for him what he neglected, or at least did not see fit, to do for himself; and they tried to root up the tares from among the wheat. They have tried to repress free thought, and to silence novel opinions, forgetful that Christ must have been right after all, and that in silencing opinions which startled them, they might be quenching the Spirit, and despising prophecies. But they found it more difficult to quench the Spirit than they fancied, when they began the policy of repression. They have found that the Spirit blew where it listed, and they heard the sound of it, but knew not whence it came, or whither it went; that the utterances which startled them, the tones of feeling and thought which terrified them, reappeared, though crushed in one place, suddenly in another; that the whole atmosphere was charged with them, as with electricity; and that it was impossible to say where the unseen force might not concentrate itself at any moment, and flash out in a lightning stroke. Then their fear has turned to a rage. They have thought no more of putting down opinions: but of putting down men. They have found it more difficult than they fancied to separate the man from his opinions; to hate the sin and love the sinner: and so they have begun to persecute; and, finding brute force, or at least the chichane of law, far more easy than either convincing their opponents or allowing themselves to be convinced by them, they have fined, imprisoned, tortured, burnt, exterminated; and, like the Roman conquerors of old, 'made a desert, and called that peace.'

And all the while the words stood written in the Scriptures which they professed to believe: 'Nay: lest while ye root up the tares, ye root up the wheat also.'

They had been told, if ever men were told, that the work was beyond their powers of discernment: that, whatever the tares were, or however they came into God's field the world, they were either too like the wheat, or too intimately entangled with them, for any mortal man to part them. God would part them in his own good time. If they trusted God, they would let them be; certain that he hated what was false, what was hurtful, infinitely more than they; certain that he would some day cast out of his kingdom all things which offend, and all that work injustice, and whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie; and that, therefore, if he suffered such things to abide awhile, it was for them to submit, and to believe that God loved the world better than they, and knew better how to govern it. But if, on the contrary, they did not believe God, then they would set to work, in their disobedient self-conceit, to do that which he had forbidden them; and the certain result would be that, with the tares, they would root up the wheat likewise.

Note here two things. First, it is not said that there were no tares among the wheat; nor that the servants would fail in rooting some of them up. They would succeed probably in doing some good: but they would succeed certainly in doing more harm. In their short-sighted, blind, erring, hasty zeal, they would destroy the good with the evil. Their knowledge of this complex and miraculous universe was too shallow, their canons of criticism were too narrow, to decide on what ought, or ought not, to grow in the field of him whose ways and thoughts were as much higher than theirs as the heaven is higher than the earth.

Note also, that the Lord does not blame them for their purpose. He merely points out to them its danger; and forbids it because it is dangerous; for their wish to root out the tares was not 'natural.' We shall libel it by calling it that. It was distinctly spiritual, the first impulse of spiritual men, who love right, and hate wrong, and desire to cultivate the one, and exterminate the other. To root out the tares; to put down bad men and wrong thoughts by force, is one of the earliest religious instincts. It is the child's instinct- -pardonable though mistaken. The natural man—whether the heathen savage at one end of the scale, or the epicurean man of the world at the other—has no such instinct. He will feel no anger against falsehood, because he has no love for truth; he will be liberal enough, tolerant enough, of all which does not touch his own self- interest; but that once threatened, he too may join the ranks of the bigots, and persecute, not like them, in the name of God and truth, but in those of society and order; and so the chief priests and Pontius Pilate may make common cause. And yet the chief priests, with their sense of duty, of truth, and of right, however blundering, concealed, perverted, may be a whole moral heaven higher than Pilate with no sense of aught beyond present expediency. But nevertheless what have been the consequences to both? That the chief priests have failed as utterly as the Pilates. As God forewarned them, they have rooted up the wheat with the tares; they have made the blood of martyrs the seed of the Church; and more, they have made martyrs of those who never deserved to be martyrs, by wholesale and indiscriminate condemnation. They have forgotten that the wheat and the tares grow together, not merely in separate men, but in each man's own heart and thoughts; that light and darkness, wisdom and folly, duty and ambition, self-sacrifice and self-conceit, are fighting in every soul of man in whom there is even the germ of spiritual life. Therefore they have made men offenders for a word. They have despised noble aspirations, ignored deep and sound insights, because they came in questionable shapes, mingled with errors or eccentricities. They have cried in their haste, 'Here are tares, and tares alone.'

Again and again have religious men done this, for many a hundred years; and again and again the Nemesis has fallen on them. A generation or two has passed, and the world has revolted from their unjust judgments. It has perceived, among the evil, good which it had overlooked in an indignant haste and passionateness, learnt from those who should have taught it wisdom, patience, and charity. It has made heroes of those who had been branded as heretics; and has cried, 'There was wheat, and wheat alone;' and so religious men have hindered the very cause for which they fancied that they were fighting; and have gained nothing by disobeying God's command, save to weaken their own moral influence, to increase the divisions of the Church, and to put a fresh stumbling-block in the path of the ignorant and the young.

And what have been the consequences to Christ's Church? Have not her enemies—and her friends too—for centuries past, cried in vain:-

'For forms of faith let graceless zealots fight, His can't he wrong, whose life is in the right.'

Of Christian morals her enemies have not complained: but that these morals have been postponed, neglected, forgotten, in the disputes over abstruse doctrines, over ceremonies, and over no-ceremonies; that men who were all fully agreed in their definition of goodness, and what a good man should be and do, have denounced each other concerning matters which had no influence whatsoever to practical morality, till the ungodly cried, 'See how these Christians hate one another! See how they waste their time in disputing concerning the accidents of the bread of life, forgetful that thousands were perishing round them for want of any bread of life at all!'

My friends, these things are true; and have been true for centuries. Let us not try to forget them by denouncing them as the utterances of the malevolent and the unbelieving. Let us rather imitate the wise man who said, that he was always grateful to his critics, for, however unjust their attacks, they were certain to attack, and therefore to show him, his weakest points. And here is our weakest point; namely, in our unhappy divisions—which are the fruits of self-will and self-conceit, and of the vain attempt to do that which God incarnate has told us we cannot do—to part the wheat from the tares.

We cannot part them. Man could never do it, even in the simpler Middle Age. Far less can he do it now in an age full of such strange, such complex influences; at once so progressive and conservative; an age in which the same man is often craving after some new prospect of the future, and craving at the same moment after the seemingly obsolete past; longing for fresh truth, and yet dreading to lose the old; with hope struggling against fear, courage against modesty, scorn of imbecility against reverence for authority in the same man's heart, while the mystery of the new world around him strives with the mystery of the old world which lies behind him; while the belief that man is the same being now as he was five thousand years ago strives with the plain fact that he is assuming round us utterly novel habits, opinions, politics; while the belief that Christ is the same now as he was in Judaea of old—yea, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever—strives with the plain fact that his field, the world, is in a state in which it never has been since the making of the world; while it is often most difficult, though (as I believe) certainly possible, to see those divine laws at work with which God governed the nations in old time. May God forgive us all, both laity and clergy, every cruel word, every uncharitable thought, every hasty judgment. Have we not need, in such a time as this, of that divine humility which is the elder sister of divine charity? Have we not need of some of that God-inspired modesty of St. Paul's: 'I think as a child, I speak as a child. I see through a glass darkly'? Have we not need to listen to his warning: 'he that regardeth the day, to the Lord he regardeth it; and he that regardeth it not, to the Lord he regardeth it not. Who art thou that judgest another? To his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, and he shall stand; for God is able to make him stand'? Have we not need to hear our Lord's solemn rebuke, when St. John boasted how he saw one casting out devils in Christ's name, and he forbade him, because he followed not them—'Forbid him not'? Have we not need to believe St. James, when he tells us that every good gift and every perfect gift cometh from above, from the Father of lights, and not (as we have too often fancied) sometimes from below, from darkness and the pit? Have we not need to keep in mind the canon of the wise Gamaliel?—'If this counsel or this work be of man, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, we cannot overthrow it, lest haply we too be found fighting even against God.' Have we not need to keep in mind that 'every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God;' and 'no man saith that Jesus is the Christ, save by the Spirit of God;' lest haply we, too, be found more fastidious than Almighty God himself? Have we not need to beware lest we, like the Scribes and Pharisees, should be found keeping the key of knowledge, and yet not entering in ourselves, and hindering those who would enter in? Have we not need to beware lest, while we are settling which is the right gate to the kingdom of heaven, the publicans and harlots should press into it before us; and lest, while we are boasting that we are the children of Abraham, God should, without our help, raise up children to Abraham of those stones outside; those hard hearts, dull brains, natures ground down by the drudgery of daily life till they are as the pavement of the streets; those so-called 'heathen masses' of whom we are bid to think this day.

If there be any truth, any reason, in what I have said—or rather in what Christ and his apostles have said—let us lay it to heart upon this day, on which the clergy of this great metropolis have found a common cause for which to plead, whatever may be their minor differences of opinion. Let us wish success to every argument by which this great cause may be enforced, to every scheme of good which may be built up by its funds. Let us remember that, however much the sermons preached this day differ in details, they will all agree, thank God, in the root and ground of their pleading—duty to Christ, and to those for whom Christ died. Let us remember that, to whatever outwardly different purposes the money collected may be applied, it will after all be applied to one purpose—to Christian civilization, Christian teaching, Christian discipline; and that any Christianity, any Christian civilization, any Christian discipline, is infinitely better than none; that, though all man's systems and methods must be imperfect, faulty, yet they are infinitely better than anarchy and heathendom, just as the wheat, however much mixed with weeds, is infinitely better than the weeds alone. But above all, let us wish well to all schemes of education, of whatever kind, certain that any education is better than none. And, therefore, let me entreat you to subscribe bountifully to that scheme for which I specially plead this day.

Let me remind you, very solemnly, that the present dearth of education in these realms is owing mainly to our unhappy religious dissensions; that it is the disputes, not of unbelievers, but of Christians, which have made it impossible for our government to fulfil one of the first rights, one of the first duties, of any government in a civilized country; namely, to command, and to compel, every child in the realm to receive a proper education. Strange and sad that so it should be: yet so it is. We have been letting, we are letting still, year by year, thousands sink and drown in the slough of heathendom and brutality, while we are debating learnedly whether a raft, or a boat, or a rope, or a life-buoy, is the legitimate instrument for saving them; and future historians will record with sorrow and wonder a fact which will be patent to them, though the dust of controversy hides it from our eyes—even the fact that the hinderers of education in these realms were to be found, not among the so-called sceptics, not among the so-called infidels; but among those who believed that God came down from heaven, and became man, and died on the cross, for every savage child in London streets. Compulsory government education is, by our own choice and determination, impossible. The more solemn is the duty laid on us, on laity and clergy alike, to supply that want by voluntary education. The clergy will do their duty, each in his own way. Let the laity do theirs likewise, in fear and trembling, as men who have voluntarily and deliberately undertaken to educate the lower classes; and who must do it, or bear the shame for ever. For in the last day, when we shall all appear before Him whose ways are not as our ways, or his thoughts as our thoughts—in that day, the question will not be, whether the compulsory system, or the denominational system, or any other system, satisfied best our sectarian ways and our narrow thoughts: but whether they satisfied the ways of that Father in heaven who willeth not that one little child should perish.



SERMON XXIII.—THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST



LUKE xix. 41.

And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it.

Let us think awhile what was meant by our Lord's weeping over Jerusalem. We ought to learn thereby somewhat more of our Lord's character, and of our Lord's government.

Why did he weep over that city whose people would, in a few days, mock him, scourge him, crucify him, and so fill up the measure of their own iniquity? Had Jesus been like too many, who since his time have fancied themselves saints and prophets, would he not have rather cursed the city than wept over it with tenderness, regret, sorrow, most human and most divine, for that horrible destruction which before forty years were past would sweep it off the face of the earth, and leave not one stone of those glorious buildings on another?

The only answer is—that, in spite of all its sins, he loved Jerusalem. For more than a thousand years, he had put his name there. It was to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the city set on a hill, which could not be hid. From Jerusalem was to go forth to all nations the knowledge of the one true God, as a light to lighten the Gentiles, as well as a glory to his people Israel.

This was our Lord's purpose; this had been his purpose for one thousand years and more: and behold, man's sin and folly had frustrated for a time the gracious will of God. That glorious city, with its temple, its worship, its religion, true as far as it went, and, in spite of all the traditions with which the Scribes and Pharisees had overlaid it, infinitely better than the creed or religion of any other people in the old world—all this, instead of being a blessing to the world, had become a curse. The Jews, who had the key of the knowledge of God, neither entered in themselves, nor let the Gentiles enter in. They who were to have taught all the world were hating and cursing all the world, and being hated and cursed by them in return. Jerusalem, the Holy City set on a hill, instead of being a light to the world, was become a nuisance to the world. Jerusalem was the salt of the world, meant to help it all from decay; but the salt had lost its savour, and in another generation it would be cast out and trodden under foot, and become a byword among the Gentiles.

Our Lord, The Lord, the hereditary King of the Jews according to the flesh, as well as the God of the Jews according to the Spirit, foresaw the destruction of the work of his own hands, of the spot on earth which was most precious to him. The ruin would be awful, the suffering horrible. The daughters of Jerusalem were to weep, not for him, but for themselves. Blessed would be the barren, and those that never nursed a child. They would call on the mountains to cover them, and on the hills to hide them, and call in vain. Such tribulation would fall on them as never had been since the making of the world. Mothers would eat their own children for famine. Three thousand crosses would stand at one time in the valley below with a living man writhing on each. Eleven hundred thousand souls would perish, or be sold as slaves. It must be. The eternal laws of retribution, according to which God governs the world, must have their way now. It was too late. It must happen now. But it need not have happened: and at that thought our Lord's infinite heart burst forth in human tenderness, human pity, human love, as he looked on that magnificent city, those gorgeous temples, castles, palaces, that mighty multitude which dreamt so little of the awful doom which they were bringing on themselves.

And now, where is he that wept over Jerusalem? Has he left this world to itself? Does he care no longer for the rise and fall of nations, the struggles and hopes, the successes and the failures of mankind?

Not so, my friends. He has ascended up on high, and sat down at the right hand of God: but he has done so, that he might fill all things. To him all power is given in heaven and earth. He reigneth over the nations. He sitteth on that throne whereof the eternal Father hath said to him, 'Sit thou on my right hand until I make thy foes thy footstool;' and again, 'Desire of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the utmost ends of the earth for thy possession.' He is set upon his throne (as St. John saw him in his Revelation) judging right, and ministering true judgment unto the people. The nations may furiously rage together, and the people may imagine a vain thing. The kings of the earth may stand up, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, 'Let us break their bonds'—that is their laws,— 'asunder, and cast away their cords'—that is, their Gospel—'from us.' They may say, 'Tush, God doth not see, neither doth God regard it. We are they that ought to speak. Who is Lord over us?' Nevertheless Christ is King of kings, and Lord of lords; he reigns, and will reign. And kings must be wise, and the judges of the earth must be learned; they must serve the Lord in fear, and rejoice before him with reverence. They must worship the Son, lest he be angry, and so they perish from the right way. All the nations of the world, with their kings and their people, their war, their trade, their politics, and their arts and sciences, are in his hands as clay in the hands of the potter, fulfilling his will and not their own, going his way and not their own. It is he who speaks concerning a nation or a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it. And it is he again who speaks concerning a nation or kingdom, to build and to plant it. For the Lord is king, be the world never so much moved. He sitteth between the cherubim, though the earth be never so unquiet.

But while we recollect this—which in these days almost all forget— that Christ the Lord is the ruler, and he alone; we must recollect likewise that he is not only a divine, but a human ruler. We must recollect—oh, blessed thought!—that there is a Man in the midst of the throne of heaven; that Christ has taken for ever the manhood into God; and that all judgment is committed to him because he is the Son of man, who can feel for men, and with men.

Yes, Christ's humanity is no less now than when he wept over Jerusalem; and therefore we may believe, we must believe, that while Jesus is very God of very God, yet his sacred heart is touched with a divine compassion for the follies of men, a divine regret for their failures, a divine pity for the ruin which they bring so often on themselves. We must believe that even when he destroys, he does so with regret; that when he cuts down the tree which cumbers the ground, he grieves over it; as he grieved over his chosen vine, the nation of the Jews.

It is a comfort to remember this as we watch the world change, and the fashions of it vanish away. Great kingdoms, venerable institutions, gallant parties, which have done good work in their time upon God's earth, grow old, wear out, lose their first love of what was just and true; and know not the things which belong to their peace, but grow, as the Jews grew in their latter years, more and more fanatical, quarrelsome, peevish, uncharitable; trying to make up by violence for the loss of strength and sincerity: till they come to an end, and die, often by unjust and unfair means, and by men worse than they. Shall we not believe that Christ has pity on them; that he who wept over Jerusalem going to destruction by its own blindness, sorrows over the sins and follies which bring shame on countries once prosperous, authorities once venerable, causes once noble?