And now, I always tell you that each fresh portion of the Old Testament reveals to men something fresh concerning the character of God. You may say, These plagues of Egypt reveal God's mighty power, but what do they reveal of his character? They reveal this: that there is in God that which, for want of a better word, we must call anger; a quite awful sternness and severity; not only a power to punish, but a determination to punish, if men will not take his warnings—if men will not obey his will.

There is no use trying to hide from ourselves that awful truth—God is not weakly indulgent. Our God can be, if he will, a consuming fire. Upon the sinner he will surely rain fire and brimstone, storm and tempest of some kind or other. This shall be their portion too surely. Vengeance is his, and vengeance he will take. But upon whom? On the proud and the tyrannical, on the cruel, the false, the unjust. So say the Psalms again and again, and so says the history of these plagues of Egypt. Therefore his anger is a loving anger, a just auger, a merciful anger, a useful anger, an anger exercised for the good of mankind. See in this case why did God destroy the crops of Egypt—even the first-born of Egypt? Merely for the pleasure of destroying? God forbid. It was to deliver the poor Israelites from their cruel taskmasters; to force these Egyptians by terrible lessons, since they were deaf to the voice of justice and humanity— to force them, I say—to have mercy on their fellow-creatures, and let the oppressed go free. Therefore God was, even in Egypt, a God of love, who desired the good of man, who would do justice for those who were unjustly treated, even though it cost his love a pang; for none can believe that God is pleased at having to punish, pleased at having to destroy the works of his own hands, or the creatures which he has made. No; the Lord was a God of love even when he sent his sore plagues on Egypt, and therefore we may believe what the Bible tells us, that that same Lord showed, as on this day, a still greater proof of his love, when, as on this day, he entered into Jerusalem, meek and lowly, sitting on an ass, and going, as he well knew, to certain death. Before the week was over he would be betrayed, mocked, scourged, crucified by the very people whom he came to save; and yet he did it, he endured it. Instead of pouring out on them, as on the Egyptians of old, the cup of wrath and misery, he put out his hand, took the cup of wrath and misery to himself, and drank it to its very dregs. Was not that, too, a miracle? Ay, a greater miracle than all the plagues of Egypt. They were physical miracles; this a moral miracle. They were miracles of nature; this of grace. They were miracles of the Lord's power; these of the Lord's love. Think of that miracle of miracles which was worked in this Passion Week—the miracle of the Lord Jehovah stooping to die for sinful man, and say after that there is anything too hard for the Lord.



SERMON XI. THE GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IS THE GOD OF THE NEW



(Palm Sunday.)

Exodus ix. 14. I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth.

We are now beginning Passion Week, the week of the whole year which ought to teach us most theology; that is, most concerning God, his character and his spirit.

For in this Passion Week God did that which utterly and perfectly showed forth his glory, as it never has been shown forth before or since. In this week Jesus Christ, the incarnate God, died on the cross for man, and showed that his name, his character, his glory was love—love without bound or end.

It was to teach us this that the special services, lessons, collects, epistles, and gospels of this week were chosen.

The second lesson, the collects, the epistles, the gospel for to- day, all set before us the patience of Christ, the humility of Christ, the love of Christ, the self-sacrifice of Christ, the Lamb without spot, enduring all things that he might save sinful man.

But if so, what does this first lesson—the chapter of Exodus from which my text is taken—what does it teach us concerning God? Does it teach us that his name is love?

At first sight you would think that it did not. At first sight you would fancy that it spoke of God in quite a different tone from the second lesson.

In the second lesson, the words of Jesus the Son of God are all gentleness, patience, tenderness. A quiet sadness hangs over them all. They are the words of one who is come (as he said himself), not to destroy men's lives, but to save them; not to punish sins, but to wash them away by his own most precious blood.

But in the first lesson how differently he seems to speak. His words there are the words of a stern and awful judge, who can, and who will destroy whatsoever interferes with his will and his purpose.

'I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and on thy servants, and all thy people, that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth.' The cattle and sheep shall be destroyed with murrain; man and beast shall be tormented with boils and blains; the crops shall be smitten with hail; the locusts shall eat up every green thing in the land; and at last all the first-born of Egypt shall die in one night, and the land be filled with mourning, horror, and desolation, before the anger of this terrible God, who will destroy and destroy till he makes himself obeyed.

Can this be he who rode into Jerusalem, as on this day, meek and lowly, upon an ass's colt; who on the night that he was betrayed washed his disciples' feet, even the feet of Judas who betrayed him? Who prayed for his murderers as he hung upon the cross, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do?'

Can these two be the same?

Is the Lord Jehovah of the Old Testament the Lord Jesus of the New?

They are the same, my friends. He who laid waste the land of Egypt is he who came to seek and to save that which was lost.

He who slew the children in Egypt is he who took little children up in his arms and blessed them.

He who spoke the awful words of the text is he who was brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep before the shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.

This is very wonderful. But why should it NOT be wonderful? What can God be but wonderful? His character, just because it is perfect, must contain in itself all other characters, all forms of spiritual life which are without sin. And yet again it is not so very wonderful. Have we not seen—I have often—in the same mortal man these two different characters at once? Have we not seen soldiers and sailors, brave men, stern men, men who have fought in many a bloody battle, to whom it is a light thing to kill their fellow-men, or to be killed themselves in the cause of duty; and yet most full of tenderness, as gentle as lambs to little children and to weak women; nursing the sick lovingly and carefully with the same hand which would not shrink from firing the fatal cannon to blast a whole company into eternity, or sink a ship with all its crew? I have seen such men, brave as the lion and gentle as the lamb, and I saw in them the likeness of Christ—the Lion of Judah; and yet the Lamb of God.

Christ is the Lamb of God; and in him there are the innocence of the lamb, the gentleness of the lamb, the patience of the lamb: but there is more. What words are these which St. John speaks in the spirit?—

'And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places; and the kings of the earth, and the great, and the rich, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman and every freeman hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?'

Yes, look at that awful book of Revelation with which the Bible ends, and see if the Bible does not end as it began, by revealing a God who, however loving and merciful, long-suffering, and of great goodness, still wages war eternally against all sin and unrighteousness of man, and who will by no means clear the guilty; a God of whom the apostle St. Paul, who knew most of his mercy and forgiveness to sinners, could nevertheless say, just as Moses had said ages before him, 'Our God is a consuming fire.'

Now I think it most necessary to recollect this in Passion Week; ay, and to do more—to remember it all our lives long.

For it is too much the fashion now, and has often been so before, to think only of one side of our Lord's character, of the side which seems more pleasant and less awful. People please themselves in hymns which talk of the meek and lowly Jesus, and in pictures which represent him with a sad, weary, delicate, almost feminine face. Now I do not say that this is wrong. He is the same yesterday, to- day, and for ever; as tender, as compassionate now as when he was on earth; and it is good that little children and innocent young people should think of him as an altogether gentle, gracious, loveable being; for with the meek he will be meek; but again, with the froward, the violent, and self-willed, he will be froward. He will show the violent that he is the stronger of the two, and the self- willed that he will have his will and not theirs done.

So it is good that the widow and the orphan, the weary and the distressed, should think of Jesus as utterly tender and true, compassionate and merciful, and rest their broken hearts upon him, the everlasting rock. But while it is written, that whosoever shall fall on that rock he shall be broken, it is written too, that on whomsoever that rock shall fall, it will grind him to powder.

It is good that those who wish to be gracious themselves, loving themselves, should remember that Christ is gracious, Christ is loving. But it is good also, that those who do NOT wish to be gracious and loving themselves, but to be proud and self-willed, unjust and cruel, should remember that the gracious and loving Christ is also the most terrible and awful of all beings; sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing asunder the very joints and marrow, discerning the most secret thoughts and intents of the heart; a righteous judge, strong and patient, who is provoked every day: but if a man WILL not turn he will whet his sword. He hath bent his bow and made it ready, and laid his arrows in order against the persecutors. What Christ's countenance, my friends, was like when on earth, we do NOT know; but what his countenance is like now, we all may know; for what says St. John, and how did Christ appear to him, who had been on earth his private and beloved friend?

'His head and his hair were white as snow, and his eyes were like a flame of fire, and his voice like the sound of many waters; and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance was as the sun when he shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.'

That is the likeness of Christ, my friends; and we must remember that it is his likeness, and fall at his feet, and humble ourselves before his unspeakable majesty, if we wish that he should do to us at the last day as he did to St. John—lay his hand upon us, saying, 'Fear not, I am the first and the last, and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen. I have the keys of death and hell.'

Yes, it is good that we should all remember this. For if we do not, we may fall, as thousands fall, into a very unwholesome and immoral notion about religion. We may get to fancy, as thousands do, rich and poor, that because Christ the Lord is meek and gentle, patient and long-suffering, that he is therefore easy, indulgent, careless about our doing wrong; and that we can, in plain English, trifle with Christ, and take liberties with his everlasting laws of right and wrong; and so fancy, that provided we talk of the meek and lowly Jesus, and of his blood washing away all our sins, that we are free to behave very much as if Jesus had never come into the world to teach men their duty, and free to commit almost any sin which does not disgrace us among our neighbours, or render us punishable by the law.

My friends, it is NOT SO. And those who fancy that it is so, will find out their mistake bitterly enough. Infinite love and forgiveness to those who repent and amend and do right; but infinite rigour and punishment to those who will not amend and do right. This is the everlasting law of God's universe; and every soul of man will find it out at last, and find that the Lord Jesus Christ is not a Being to be trifled with, and that the precious blood which he shed on the cross is of no avail to those who are not minded to be righteous even as he is righteous.

'But Christ is so loving, so tender-hearted that he surely will not punish us for our sins.' This is the confused notion that too many people have about him. And the answer to it is, that just BECAUSE Christ is so loving, so tender-hearted, therefore he MUST punish us for our sins, unless we utterly give up our sins, and do right instead of wrong.

That false notion springs out of men's selfishness. They think of sin as something which only hurts themselves; when they do wrong they think merely, 'What punishment will God inflict on ME for doing wrong?' They are wrapt up in themselves. They forget that their sins are not merely a matter between them and Christ, but between them and their neighbours; that every wrong action they commit, every wrong word they speak, every wrong habit in which they indulge themselves, sooner or later, more or less hurts their neighbours— ay, hurts all mankind.

And does Christ care only for THEM? Does he not care for their neighbours? Has he not all mankind to provide for, and govern and guide? And can he allow bad men to go on making this world worse, without punishing them, any more than a gardener can allow weeds to hurt his flowers, and not root them up? What would you say of a man who was so merciful to the weeds that he let them choke the flowers? What would you say of a shepherd who was so merciful to the wolves that he let them eat his sheep? What would you say of a magistrate who was so merciful to thieves that he let them rob the honest men? And do you fancy that Christ is a less careful and just governor of the world than the magistrate who punishes the thief that honest men may live in safety?

Not so. Not only will Christ punish the wolves who devour his sheep, but he will punish his sheep themselves if they hurt each other, torment each other, lead each other astray, or in any way interfere with the just and equal rule of his kingdom; and this, not out of spite or cruelty, but simply because he is perfect love.

Go, therefore, and think of Christ this Passion Week as he was, and is, and ever will be. Think of the whole Christ, and not of some part of his character which may specially please your fancy. Think of him as the patient and forgiving Christ, who prayed for his murderers, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' But remember that, in this very Passion Week, there came out of those most gentle lips—the lips which blessed little children, and cried to all who were weary and heavy laden, to come to him and he would give them rest—that out of those most gentle lips, I say, in this very Passion Week, there went forth the most awful threats which ever were uttered, 'Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?' Think of him as the Lamb who offered himself freely on the cross for sinners. But think of him, too, as the Lamb who shall one day come in glory to judge all men according to their works. Think of him as full of boundless tenderness and humanity, boundless long-suffering and mercy. But remember that beneath that boundless sweetness and tenderness there burns a consuming fire; a fire of divine scorn and indignation against all who sin, like Pharaoh, out of cruelty and pride; against all which is foul and brutal, mean and base, false and hypocritical, cruel and unjust; a fire which burns, and will burn against all the wickedness which is done on earth, and all the misery and sorrow which is suffered on earth, till the Lord has burned it up for ever, and there is nothing but love and justice, order and usefulness, peace and happiness, left in the universe of God.

Oh, think of these things, and cast away your sins betimes, at the foot of his everlasting cross, lest you be consumed with your sins in his everlasting fire!



SERMON XII. THE BIRTHNIGHT OF FREEDOM



(Easter Day.)

Exodus xii. 42. This is a night to be much observed unto the Lord, for bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt.

To be much observed unto the Lord by the children of Israel. And by us, too, my friends; and by all nations who call themselves FREE.

There are many and good ways of looking at Easter Day. Let us look at it in this way for once.

It is the day on which God himself set men FREE.

Consider the story. These Israelites, the children of Abraham, the brave, wild patriarch of the desert, have been settled for hundreds of years in the rich lowlands of Egypt. There they have been eating and drinking their fill, and growing more weak, slavish, luxurious, fonder and fonder of the flesh-pots of Egypt; fattening literally for the slaughter, like beasts in a stall. They are spiritually dead—dead in trespasses and sins. They do not want to be free, to be a nation. They are content to be slaves and idolaters, if they can only fill their stomachs. This is the spiritual death of a nation.

I say, they do not want to be free. When they are oppressed, they cry out—as an animal cries when you beat him. But after they are free, when they get into danger, or miss their meat, they cry out too, and are willing enough to return to slavery; as the dog which has run away for fear of the whip, will go back to his kennel for the sake of his food. 'Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? Wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us to carry us out of Egypt?' And again, 'Would God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, where we did sit by the flesh-pots, and eat meat to the full!' BRUTALIZED, in one word, were these poor children of Israel.

Then God took their cause into his own hand; I say emphatically into his own hand. If that part of the story be not true, I care nothing for the rest. If God did not personally and actually interfere on behalf of those poor slaves; if the plagues of Egypt are not TRUE— the passage of the Red Sea be not TRUE—the story tells me and you nothing; gives us no hope for ourselves, no hope for mankind.

For see. One says, and truly, God is good; God is love; God is just; God hates oppression and wrong.

BUT if God be love, he must surely show his love by doing loving things.

If God be just, he must show his justice by doing just things.

If God hates oppression, then he must free the oppressed.

If God hates wrong, then he must set the wrong right.

For what would you think of a man who professed to be loving and just, and to hate oppression and wrong, and yet never took the trouble to do a good action, or to put down wrong, when he had the power? You would call him a hypocrite; you would think his love and justice very much on his tongue, and not in his heart.

And will you believe that God is like that man? God forbid!

Comfortable scholars and luxurious ladies may content themselves with a DEAD God, who does not interfere to help the oppressed, to right the wrong, to bind up the broken-hearted; but men and women who work, who sorrow, who suffer, who partake of all the ills which flesh is heir to—they want a LIVING God, an acting God, a God who WILL interfere to right the wrong. Yes—they want a living God. And they have a living God—even the God who interfered to bring the Israelites out of Egypt with signs and wonders, and a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and executed judgment upon Pharaoh and his proud and cruel hosts. And when they read in the Bible of that God, when they read in their Bibles the story of the Exodus, their hearts answer, THIS is right. This is the God whom we need. This is what ought to have happened. This is true: for it must be true. Let comfortable folks who know no sorrow trouble their brains as to whether sixty or six hundred thousand fighting men came out of Egypt with Moses. We care not for numbers. What we care for is, not how many came out, but who brought them out, and that he who brought them out was GOD. And the book which tells us that, we will cling to, will love, will reverence above all the books on earth, because it tells of a living God, who works and acts and interferes for men; who not only hates wrong, but rights wrong; not only hates oppression, but puts oppressors down; not only pities the oppressed, but sets the oppressed free; a God who not only wills that man should have freedom, but sent freedom down to him from heaven.

Scholars have said that the old Greeks were the fathers of freedom; and there have been other peoples in the world's history who have made glorious and successful struggles to throw off their tyrants and be free. And they have said, We are the fathers of freedom; liberty was born with us. Not so, my friends! Liberty is of a far older and far nobler house; Liberty was born, if you will receive it, on the first Easter night, on the night to be much remembered among the children of Israel—ay, among all mankind—when God himself stooped from heaven to set the oppressed free. Then was freedom born. Not in the counsels of men, however wise; or in the battles of men, however brave: but in the counsels of God, and the battle of God—amid human agony and terror, and the shaking of the heaven and the earth; amid the great cry throughout Egypt when a first-born son lay dead in every house; and the tempest which swept aside the Red Sea waves; and the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night; and the Red Sea shore covered with the corpses of the Egyptians; and the thunderings and lightnings and earthquakes of Sinai; and the sound as of a trumpet waxing loud and long; and the voice, most human and most divine, which spake from off the lonely mountain peak to that vast horde of coward and degenerate slaves, and said, 'I am the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Thou shalt obey my laws, and keep my commandments to do them.' Oh! the man who would rob his suffering fellow-creatures of that story—he knows not how deep and bitter are the needs of man.

Then was freedom born: but not of man; not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of the will of God, from whom all good things come; and of Christ, who is the life and the light of men and of nations, and of the whole world, and of all worlds, past, present, and to come.

From God came freedom. To be used as his gift, according to his laws; for he gave, and he can take away; as it is written, 'He shall take the kingdom of God from you, and give it to a people bringing forth the fruits thereof.' 'For there be many first that shall be last; and last that shall be first.' It is this which makes the Jews indeed a peculiar people: the thought that the living God had actually and really done for them what they could not do for themselves; that he had made them a nation, and not they themselves. It is this which makes the Old Testament an utterly different book, with an utterly different lesson, to the written history of any other nation in the world.

And yet it is this which makes the history of the Jews the key to every other history in the world. For in it Jesus Christ our Lord, the living God who makes history, who governs all nations, reveals and unveils himself, and teaches not the Jews only, but us and all nations, that it is he who hath made us, and not we ourselves; that we got not the land in possession by our own sword, nor was it our own strength that helped us, but thou, O Lord, because thou hadst a favour unto us; that not to us, not to us is the praise of any national greatness or glory, but to God, from whom it comes as surely a free gift as the gift of liberty to the Jews of old.

I say, the history of the Jews is the history of the whole Church, and of every nation in Christendom.

As with the Jews, so with the nations of Europe; whenever they have trusted in themselves, their own power and wisdom, they have ended in weakness and folly. Whenever they have trusted in Christ the living God, and said, 'It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves,' they have risen to strength and wisdom. When they have forgotten the living God, national life and patriotism have died in them, as they died in the Jews. When they have remembered that the most high God was their Redeemer, then in them, as in the Jews, have national life and patriotism revived.

And as it was with the Jews in the wilderness, so it has been with them since Christ's resurrection. They fancied that they were going at once into the promised land. So did the first Christians. But the Jews had to wander forty years in the wilderness; and Christendom has had to wander too, in strange and bloodstained paths, for one thousand eight hundred years and more. For why? The Israelites were not worthy to enter at once into rest; no more have the nation of Christ's Church been worthy. The Israelites brought out of Egypt base and slavish passions, which had to be purged out of them; so have we out of heathendom. They brought out, too, heathen superstitions, and mixed them up with the worship of God, bearing about in the wilderness the tabernacle of Moloch and the image of their god Remphan, and making the calf in Horeb; and so, alas! again and again, has the Church of Christ.

Nay, the whole generation, save two, who came out of Egypt, had to die in the wilderness, and leave their bones scattered far and wide. And so has mankind been dying, by war and by disease, and by many fearful scourges besides what is called now-a-days, natural decay.

But all the while a new generation was springing up, trained in the wilderness to be bold and hardy; trained, too, under Moses' stern law, to the fear of God; to reverence, and discipline, and obedience, without which freedom is merely brutal license, and a nation is no nation, but a mere flock of sheep or a herd of wolves.

And so, for these one thousand eight hundred years have the generations of Christendom, by the training of the Church and the light of the Gospel, been growing in wisdom and knowledge; growing in morality and humanity, in that true discipline and loyalty which are the yoke-fellows of freedom and independence, to make them fit for that higher state, that heavenly Canaan, of which we know not WHEN it will come, nor whether its place will be on this earth or elsewhere; but of which it is written, 'And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.

'And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it; and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it. And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.'

That, the perfect Easter Day, seems far enough off as yet; but it will come. As the Lord liveth, it will come; and to it may Christ in his mercy bring us all, and our children's children after us. Amen.



SERMON XIII. KORAH, DATHAN, AND ABIRAM



(First Sunday after Easter, 1863.)

Numbers xvi. 32-35. And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation. And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also. And there came out a fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense.

I will begin by saying that there are several things in this chapter which I do not understand, and cannot explain to you. Be it so. That is no reason why we should not look at the parts of the chapter which we can understand and can explain.

There are matters without end in the world round us, and in our own hearts, and in the life of every one, which we cannot explain; and therefore we need not be surprised to find things which we cannot explain in the life and history of the most remarkable nation upon earth—the nation whose business it has been to teach all other nations the knowledge of the true God, and who was specially and curiously trained for that work.

But the one broad common-sense lesson of this chapter, it seems to me, is one which is on the very surface of it; one which every true Englishman at least will see, and see to be true, when he hears the chapter read; and that is, the necessity of DISCIPLINE.

God has brought the Israelites out of Egypt, and set them free. One of the first lessons which they have to learn is, that freedom does not mean license and discord—does not mean every one doing that which is right in the sight of his own eyes. From that springs self-will, division, quarrels, revolt, civil war, weakness, profligacy, and ruin to the whole people. Without order, discipline, obedience to law, there can be no true and lasting freedom; and, therefore, order must be kept at all risks, the law obeyed, and rebellion punished.

Now rebellion may be and ought to be punished far more severely in some cases than in others. If men rebel here, in Great Britain or Ireland, we smile at them, and let them off with a slight imprisonment, because we are not afraid of them. They can do no harm.

But there are cases in which rebellion must be punished with a swift and sharp hand. On board a ship at sea, for instance, where the safety of the whole ship, the lives of the whole crew, depend on instant obedience, mutiny may be punished by death on the spot. Many a commander has ere now, and rightly too, struck down the rebel without trial or argument, and ended him and his mutiny on the spot; by the sound rule that it is expedient that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.

And so it was with the Israelites in the desert. All depended on their obedience. God had given them a law—a constitution, as we should say now—perfectly fitted, no doubt, for them. If they once began to rebel and mutiny against that law, all was over with them. That great, foolish, ignorant multitude would have broken up, probably fought among themselves—certainly parted company, and either starved in the desert, or have been destroyed piecemeal by the wild warlike tribes, Midianites, Moabites, Amalekites—who were ready enough for slaughter and plunder. They would never have reached Canaan. They would never have become a great nation. So they had to be, by necessity, under martial law. The word must be, Obey or die. As for any cruelty in putting Korah, Dathan, and Abiram to death, it was worth the death of a hundred such—or a thousand—to preserve the great and glorious nation of the Jews to be the teachers of the world.

Now this Korah, Dathan, and Abiram rebel. They rebel against Moses about a question of the priesthood. It really matters little to us what that question was—it was a question of Moses' law, which, of course, is now done away. Only remember this, that these men were princes—great feudal noblemen, as we should say; and that they rebelled on the strength of their rank and their rights as noblemen to make laws for themselves and for the people; and that the mob of their dependents seem to have been inclined to support them.

Surely if Moses had executed martial law on them with his own hand, he would have been as perfectly justified as a captain of a ship of war or a general of an army would be now.

But he did not do so. And why? Because MOSES did not bring the people out of Egypt. Moses was not their king. GOD brought them out of Egypt. God was their king. That was the lesson which they had to learn, and to teach other nations also. They have rebelled, not against Moses, but against God; and not Moses, but God must punish, and show that he is not a dead God, but a living God, one who can defend himself, and enforce his own laws, and execute judgment—and, if need be, vengeance—without needing any man to fight his battles for him.

And God does so. The powers of Nature—the earthquake and the nether fire—shall punish these rebels; and so they do.

'And Moses said, Hereby ye shall know that the Lord hath sent me to do all these works; for I have not done them of mine own mind. If these men die the common death of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men; then the Lord hath not sent me. But if the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth and swallow them up, with all that appertain to them and they go down quick into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord.'

Men have thought differently of the story; but I call it a righteous story, and a noble story, and one which agrees with my conscience, and my reason, and my notion of what ought to be, and my experience also of what is—of the way in which God's world is governed unto this day.

What then are we to think of the earth opening and swallowing them up? What are we to think of a fire coming out from the Lord, and consuming two hundred and fifty men that offered incense?

This first. That discipline and order are so absolutely necessary for the well-being of a nation that they must be kept at all risks, and enforced by the most terrible punishments.

It seems to me (to speak with all reverence) as if God had said to the Jews, 'I have set you free. I will make of you a great nation; I will lead you into a good land and large. But if you are to be a great nation, if you are to conquer that good land and large, you must obey: and you shall obey. The earthquake and the fire shall teach you to obey, and make you an example to the rest of the Israelites, and to all nations after you.' But how hard, some may think, that the wives and the children should suffer for their parents' sins.

My friends, we do not know that a single woman or child died then for whom it was not better that he or she should die. That is one of the deep things which we must leave to the perfect justice and mercy of God.

And next—what is it after all, but what we see going on round us all the day long? God does visit the sins of the fathers on the children. There is no denying it. Wives do suffer for their husbands' sins; children and children's children for whole generations after generations suffer for their parents' sins, and become unhealthy, or superstitious, or profligate, or poor, or slavish, because their parents sinned, and dragged down their children with them in their fall. It is a law of the world; and therefore it is a law of God. And it is reasonable to be believed that God might choose to teach the Israelites, once and for all, that it WAS a law of his world. For by swallowing up those women and children with the men, God said to the Israelites, it seems to me in a way which could not be mistaken, 'This is the consequence of lawlessness and disorder—that you not only injure yourselves, but your children after you, and involve your families in the same ruin as yourselves.'

But there was another lesson, and a deep lesson, in the earthquake and in the fire. And what was this? that the earthquake and the fire came out from the Lord.

Earthquakes have swallowed up not hundreds merely, but many thousands, in many countries, and at many times.

Fire has come forth, and still comes forth from the ground, from the clouds, from the consequences of man's own carelessness, and destroys beast and man, and the works of man's hands. Then men ask in terror and doubt, 'Who sends the earthquake and the fire? Do they come from the devil—the destroyer? Do they come by chance, from some brute and blind powers of nature?'

This chapter answers, 'No. They come from the Lord, from whom all good things do come; from the Lord who delivered the Israelites out of Egypt; who so loved the world that he spared not his only begotten Son, but freely gave him for us.'

Now I say that is a gospel, and good news, which we want now as much as ever men did; which the children of Israel wanted then, though not one whit more than we.

Many hundreds of years had these Israelites been in Egypt. Storm, lightning, earthquake, the fires of the burning mountains, were things unknown to them. They were going into Canaan—a good land and fruitful, but a land of storms and thunders; a land, too, of earthquakes and subterranean fires. The deepest earthquake-crack in the world is the valley of the Jordan, ending in the Dead Sea—a long valley, through which at different points the nether fires of the earth even now burst up at times. In Abraham's time they had destroyed the five cities of the plain. The prophets mention them, especially Isaiah and Micah, as breaking out again in their own times; and in our own lifetime earthquake and fire have done fearful destruction in the north part of the Holy Land.

Now what was to prevent the Israelites worshipping the earthquake and the fire as gods?

Nothing. Conceive the terror and horror of the Jews coming out of that quiet land of Egypt, the first time they felt the ground rocking and rolling; the first time they heard the roar of the earthquake beneath their feet; the first time they saw, in the magnificent words of Micah, the mountains molten and the valleys cleft as wax before the fire, like water poured down a steep place; and discovered that beneath their very feet was Tophet, the pit of fire and brimstone, ready to burst up and overwhelm them they knew not when.

What could they do, but what the Canaanites did who dwelt already in that land? What but to say, 'The fire is king. The fire is the great and dreadful God, and to him we must pray, lest he devour us up.' For so did the Canaanites. They called the fire Moloch, which means simply the king; and they worshipped this fire-king, and made idols of him, and offered human sacrifices to him. They had idols of metal, before which an everlasting fire burned; and on the arms of the idol the priests laid the children who were to be sacrificed, that they might roll down into the fire and be burnt alive. That is actual fact. In one case, which we know of well, hundreds of years after Moses' time, the Carthaginians offered two hundred boys of their best families to Moloch in one day. This is that making the children pass through the fire to Moloch—burning them in the fire to Moloch—of which we read several times in the Old Testament; as ugly and accursed a superstition as men ever invented.

What deliverance was there for them from these abominable superstitions, except to know that the fire-kingdom was God's kingdom, and not Moloch's at all; to know with Micah and with David that the hills were molten like wax BEFORE THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD; that it was the blast of his breath which discovered the foundations of the world; that it was HE who made the sea flee and drove back the Jordan stream; that it was before HIM that the mountains skipped like rams and the little hills like young sheep; that the battles of shaking were God's battles, with which he could fight for his people; that it was he who ordained Tophet, and whose spirit kindled it. That it was he—and that too in mercy as well as anger—who visited the land in Isaiah's time with thunder and earthquake, and great noise, and storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire. That the earth opened and swallowed up those whom God chose, and no others. That if fire came forth, it came forth from the Lord, and burned where and what God chose, and nothing else. Yes. If you will only understand, once and for all, that the history of the Jews is the history of the Lord's turning a people from the cowardly, slavish worship of sun and stars, of earthquakes and burning mountains, and all the brute powers of nature which the heathen worshipped, and teaching them to trust and obey him, the living God, the Lord and Master of all, then the Old Testament will be clear to you throughout; but if not, then not.

You cannot read your Bibles without seeing how that great lesson was stamped into the very hearts of the Hebrew prophets; how they are continually speaking of the fire and the earthquake, and yet continually declaring that they too obey God and do God's will, and that the man who fears God need not fear them—that God was their hope and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore would they not fear, though the earth was moved, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.

And we, too, need the same lesson in these scientific days. We too need to fix it in our hearts, that the powers of nature are the powers of God; that he orders them by his providence to do what he will, and when and where he will; that, as the Psalmist says, the winds are his messengers and the flames of fire his ministers. And this we shall learn from the Bible, and from no other book whatsoever.

God taught the Jews this, by a strange and miraculous education, that they might teach it in their turn to all mankind. And they have taught it. For the Bible bids us—as no other book does—not to be afraid of the world on which we live; not to be afraid of earthquake or tempest, or any of the powers of nature which seem to us terrible and cruel, and destroying; for they are the powers of the good and just and loving God. They obey our Father in heaven, without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And therefore we need not fear them, or look on them with any blind superstition, as things too awful for us to search into. We may search into their causes; find out, if we can, the laws which they obey, because those laws are given them by God our Father; try, by using those laws, to escape them, as we are learning now to escape tempests; or to prevent them, as we are learning now to prevent pestilences: and where we cannot do that, face them manfully, saying, 'It is my Father's will. These terrible events must be doing God's work. They may be punishing the guilty; they may be taking the righteous away from the evil to come; they may be teaching wise men lessons which will enable them years hence to save lives without number; they may be preparing the face of the earth for the use of generations yet unborn. Whatever they are doing they are and must be doing good; for they are doing the will of the living Father, who willeth that none should perish, and hateth nothing that he hath made.'

This, my friends, is the lesson which the Bible teaches; and because it teaches that lesson it is the Book of books, and the inspired word or message, not of men concerning God, but of God himself, concerning himself, his kingdom over this world and over all worlds, and his good will to men.



SERMON XIV. BALAAM



NUMBERS xxiii. 19. God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?

If I was asked for any proof that the story of Balaam, as I find it in the Bible, is a true story, I should lay my hand on this one only—and that is, the deep knowledge of human nature which is shown in it.

The character of Balaam is so perfectly natural, and yet of a kind so very difficult to unravel and explain, that if the story was invented by man, as poems or novels are, it must have been invented very late indeed in the history of the Jews; at a time when they had grown to be a far more civilised people, far more experienced in the cunning tricks of the human heart than they were, as far as we can see from the Bible, before the Babylonish captivity. But it was NOT invented late; for no Jew in these later times would have thought of making Balaam a heathen, to be a prophet of God, or a believer in the true God at all. The later Jews took up the notion that God spoke to and cared for the Jews only, and that all other nations were accursed.

There is no reason, therefore, against simply believing the story as it stands. It seems a very ancient story indeed, suiting exactly in its smallest details the place where Moses, or whoever wrote the Book of Numbers, has put it.

We, in these days, are accustomed to draw a sharp line between the good and the bad, the converted and the unconverted, the children of God and the children of this world, those who have God's Spirit and those who have not, which we find nowhere in Scripture; and therefore when we read of such a man as Balaam we cannot understand him. He is a bad man, but yet he is a prophet. How can that be? He knows the true God. More, he has the Spirit of God in him, and thereby utters deep and wonderful prophecies; and yet he is a bad man and a rogue. How can that be?

The puzzle, my friends, is one of our own making. If, instead of taking up doctrines out of books, we will use our own eyes and ears and common sense, and look honestly at this world as it is, and men and women as they are, we shall find nothing unnatural or strange in Balaam; we shall find him very like a good many people whom we know; very like—nay, probably, too like—ourselves in some particulars.

Now bear in mind, first, that Balaam is no impostor or magician. He is a wise man, and a prophet of God. God really speaks to him, and really inspires him.

And bear in mind, too, that Balaam's inspiration did not merely open his mouth to say wonderful words which he did not understand, but opened his heart to say righteous and wise things which he did understand.

'Remember,' says the prophet Micah, 'O my people, what Balak, king of Moab, consulted, and what Balaam, the son of Beor, answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal, that ye may know the righteousness of the Lord. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.' Why, what deeper or wiser words are there in the whole Old Testament? This man Balaam had seen down into the deepest depths of all morality, unto the deepest depths of all religion. The man who knew that, knew more than ninety-nine in a hundred do even in a Christian country now, and more than nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine in a million knew in those days. Let no one, after that speech, doubt that Balaam was indeed a prophet of the Lord; and yet he was a bad man, and came deservedly to a bad end.

So much easier, my friends, is it to know what is right than to do what is right.

What then was wrong in Balaam?

This, that he was double-minded. He wished to serve God. True. But he wished to serve himself by serving God, as too many do in all times.

That was what was wrong with him—self-seeking; and the Bible story brings out that self-seeking with a delicacy, a keenness, and a perfect knowledge of human nature, which ought to teach us some of the secrets of our own hearts. Watch how Balaam, as a matter of course, inquires of the Lord whether he may go, and refuses, seemingly at first honestly.

Then how the temptation grows on him; how, when he feels tempted, he fights against it in fine-sounding professions, just because he feels that he is going to yield to it. Then how he begins to tempt God, by asking him again, in hopes that God may have changed his mind. Then when he has his foolish wish granted he goes. Then when the terrible warning comes to him that he is on the wrong road, that God's wrath is gone out against him, and his angel ready to destroy him, he is full still of hollow professions of obedience, instead of casting himself utterly upon God's mercy, and confessing his sin, and entreating pardon.

Then how, instead of being frightened at God's letting him have his way, he is emboldened by it to tempt God more and more, and begins offering bullocks and rams on altars, first in this place and then in that, in hopes still that GOD may change his mind, and let him curse Israel; in hopes that God may be like one of the idols of the heathen, who could (so the heathen thought) be coaxed and flattered round by sacrifices to do whatever their worshippers wished.

Then, when he finds that all is of no use; that he must not curse Israel, and must not earn Balak's silver and gold, he is forced to be an honest man in spite of himself; and therefore he makes the best of his disappointment by taking mighty credit to himself for being honest, while he wishes all the while he might have been allowed to have been dishonest. Oh, if all this is not poor human nature, drawn by the pen of a truly inspired writer, what is it?

Moreover, it is curious to watch how as Balaam is forced step by step to be an honest man, so step by step he rises. A weight falls off his mind and heart, and the Spirit of God comes upon him.

He feels for once that he must speak his mind, that he must obey God. As he looks down from off the mountain top, and sees the vast encampment of the Israelites spread over the vale below, for miles and miles, as far as the eye can see, all ordered, disciplined, arranged according to their tribes, the Spirit of God comes upon him, and he gives way to it and speaks.

The sight of that magnificent array wakens up in him the thought of how divine is older, how strong is order, how order is the life and root of a nation, and how much more, when that order is the order of God.

'How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river's side, as the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters. His king shall be higher than Agag,' and all his wild Amalekite hordes. He will be a true nation, civilized, ordered, loyal and united, for God is teaching him.

Who can resist such a nation as that? 'God has brought him out of Egypt. He has the strength of an unicorn.' 'I shall see him,' he says, 'but not now; I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.' And when he looked on Amalek, he took up his parable, and said, 'Amalek was the first of the nation; but his latter end shall be that he perish for ever.' And he looked on the Kenites, and took up his parable, and said, 'Strong is thy dwelling-place, and thou puttest thy nest in a rock. Nevertheless, the Kenite shall be wasted, till Asshur shall carry thee away captive.' 'Alas, who shall live when God doeth this!'

And then, beyond all, after all the Canaanites and other Syrian races have been destroyed, he sees, dimly and afar off, another destruction still.

In his home in the far east the fame of the ships of Chittim has reached him; the fame of the new people, the sea-roving heroes of the Greeks, of whom old Homer sang; the handsomest, cunningest, most daring of mankind, who are spreading their little trading colonies along all the isles and shores, as we now are spreading ours over the world. Those ships of Chittim, too, have a great and glorious future before them. Some day or other they will come and afflict Asshur, the great empire of the East, out of which Balaam probably came; and afflict Eber too, the kingdom of the Jews, and they too shall perish for ever.

Dimly he sees it, for it is very far away. But that it will come he sees; and beyond that all is dark. He has said his say; he has spoken the whole truth for once. Balak's house full of silver and gold would not have bought him off and stopped his mouth when such awful thoughts crowded on his mind. So he returns to his place—to do what?

If he cannot earn Balak's gold by cursing Israel, he can do it by giving him cunning and politic advice. He advises Balak to make friends with the Israelites and mix them up with his people by enticing them to the feasts of his idols, at which the women threw themselves away in shameful profligacy, after the custom of the heathens of these parts.

In the next chapter we read how Moses, and Phinehas, Aaron's grandson, put down those filthy abominations with a high hand; and how Balaam's detestable plot, instead of making peace, makes war; and in chapter xxxi. you read the terrible destruction of the whole nation of the Midianites, and among it this one short and terrible hint: 'Balaam also, the son of Beor, they slew with the sword.'

But what may we learn from this ugly story?

Recollect what I said at first, that we should find Balaam too like many people now-a-days; perhaps too like ourselves.

Too like indeed. For never were men more tempted to sin as Balaam did than in these days, when religion is all the fashion, and pays a man, and helps him on in life; when, indeed, a man cannot expect to succeed without professing some sort of religion or other.

Thereby comes a terrible temptation to many men. I do not mean to hypocrites, but to really well-meaning men. They like religion. They wish to be good; they have the feeling of devotion. They pray, they read their Bibles, they are attentive to services and to sermons, and are more or less pious people. But soon—too soon— they find that their piety is profitable. Their business increases. Their credit increases. They are trusted and respected; their advice is asked and taken. They gain power over their fellow-men. What a fine thing it is, they think, to be pious!

Then creeps in the love of the world; the love of money, or power, or admiration; and they begin to value religion because it helps them to get on in the world. They begin more and more to love Piety not for its own sake, but for the sake of what it brings; not because it pleases God, but because it pleases the world; not because it enables them to help their fellow-men, but because it enables them to help themselves.

So they get double-minded, unstable, inconsistent, as St. James says, in all their ways; trying to serve God and Mammon at once. Trying to do good—as long as doing good does not hurt them in the world's eyes; but longing oftener and oftener to do wrong, if only God would not be angry. Then comes on Balaam's frame of mind, 'If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the commandment of the Lord.'

Oh no. They would not do a wrong thing for the world—only they must be quite sure first that it is wrong. Has God really forbidden it? Why should they not take care of their interest? Why should they not get on in the world? So they begin, like Balaam, to tempt God, to see how far they can go; to see if God has forbidden this and that mean, or cowardly, or covetous, or ambitious deed. So they soon settle for themselves what God has forbidden and what he has not; and their rule of life becomes this—that whatsoever is safe and whatsoever is profitable is pretty sure to be right; and after that no wonder if, like Balaam, they indulge themselves in every sort of sin, provided only it is respectable, and does not hurt them in the world's eyes.

And all the while they keep up their religion. Ay, they are often more attentive than ever to religion, because their consciences pinch them at times, and have to be silenced and drugged by continual church-goings and chapel-goings, and readings and prayings, in order that they may be able to say to themselves with Balaam, 'Thus saith Balaam, he who heard the word of God, and had the knowledge of the Most High.'

So they say to themselves, 'I must be right. How religious I am; how fond of sermons, and of church services, and church restorations, and missionary meetings, and charitable institutions, and everything that is good and pious. I MUST be right with God.' Deceiving their ownselves, and saying to themselves, 'I am rich and increased with goods, I have need of nothing,' and not knowing that they are wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked.

Would God that such people, of whom there are too many, would take St. John's warning and buy of the Lord gold tried in the fire—the true gold of honesty—that they may be truly rich, and anoint their eyes with eye-salve that they may see themselves for once as they are.

But what does this story teach us concerning God? For remember, as I tell you every Sunday, that each fresh story in the Pentateuch reveals to us something fresh about the character of God. What does Balaam's story reveal? Balaam himself tells us in the text, 'God is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent. Hath he said, and shall he not do it?'

Yes. Fancy not that any wishes or prayers of yours can persuade God to alter his everlasting laws of right and wrong. If he has commanded a thing, he has commanded it because it is according to his everlasting laws, which cannot change, because they are made in his eternal image and likeness. Therefore if God has commanded you a thing, DO IT heartily, fully, without arguing or complaining. If you begin arguing with God's law, excusing yourself from it, inventing reasons why YOU need not obey it in this particular instance, though every one else ought, then you will end, like Balaam, in disobeying the law, and it will grind you to powder.

But if you obey God's law honestly, with a single eye and a whole heart, you will find in it a blessing, and peace, and strength, and everlasting life.



SERMON XV. DEUTERONOMY



(Third Sunday after Easter.)

Deut. iv. 39, 40. Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else. Thou shall keep therefore his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, for ever.

Learned men have argued much of late as to who wrote the book of Deuteronomy. After having read a good deal on the subject, I can only say that I see no reason why we should not believe the ancient account which the Jews give, that it was written, or at least spoken by Moses.

No doubt there are difficulties in the book. If there had not been, there would never have been any dispute about the matter; but the plain, broad, common-sense case is this:

The book of Deuteronomy is made up of several great orations or sermons, delivered, says the work itself, by Moses, to the whole people of the Jews, before they left the wilderness and entered into the land of Canaan; wherefore it is called Deuteronomy, or the second law. In it some small matters of the law are altered, as was to be expected, when the Jews were going to change their place and their whole way of life. But the whole teaching and meaning of the book is exactly that of Exodus and Leviticus. Moreover, it is, if possible, the grandest and deepest book of the Old Testament. Its depth and wisdom are unequalled. I hold it to be the sum and substance of all political philosophy and morality of the true life of a nation. The books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, grand as they are, are, as it were, its children; growths out of the root which Deuteronomy reveals.

Now if Moses did not write it, who did?

As for the style of it being different from that of Exodus and Leviticus, the simple answer is, Why not? They are books of history and of laws. This is a book of sermons or orations, spoken first, and not written, which, of course, would be in a different style. Besides, why should not Moses have spoken differently at the end of forty years' such experience as never man had before or since? Every one who thinks, writes, or speaks in public, knows how his style alters, as fresh knowledge and experience come to him. Are you to suppose that Moses gained nothing by HIS experience?

As for a few texts in it being like Isaiah or Jeremiah, they are likely enough to be so; for if (as I believe) Deuteronomy was written long before those books, what more likely than that Isaiah and Jeremiah should have studied it, and taken some of its words to themselves when they were preaching to the Jews just what Deuteronomy preaches?

As for any one else having written it in Moses' name, hundreds of years after his death, I cannot believe it. If there had been in Israel a prophet great and wise enough to write Deuteronomy, we must have heard more about him, for he must have been famous at the time when he did live; while, if he were great enough to write Deuteronomy, he would have surely written in his own name, as Isaiah and all the other prophets wrote, instead of writing under a feigned name, and putting words into Moses' mouth which he did not speak, and laws he did not give. Good men are not in the habit of telling lies: much less prophets of God. Men do not begin to play cowardly tricks of that kind till after they have lost faith in the LIVING God, and got to believe that God was with their forefathers, but is not with them. A Jew of the time of the Apocrypha, or of the time of our Lord, might have done such a thing, because he had lost faith in the living God; but then his work would have been of a very different kind from this noble and heart-stirring book. For the pith and marrow, the essence and life of Deuteronomy is, that it is full of faith in the living God; and for that very reason I am going to speak to you to-day.

For the rest, whether Moses wrote the book down, and put it together in the shape in which we now have it, we shall never be able to tell. The several orations may have been put together into one book. Alterations may have crept in by the carelessness of copiers; sentences may have been added to it by later prophets—as, of course, the grand account of Moses' death, which probably was at first the beginning of the book of Joshua. And beyond that we need know nothing—even if we need know that.

There the book is; and people, if they be wise, will, instead of trying to pick it to pieces, read and study it in fear and trembling, that the curses pronounced in it may NOT come, and the blessings pronounced in it may come upon this English land.

Now these Jews were to worship and obey Jehovah, the one true God, and him only. And why?

Why, indeed? You MUST understand why, or you will never understand this book of Deuteronomy or any part of the Old Testament, and if you do not, then you will understand very little, if anything, of the New.

You must understand that this was not to be a mere matter of RELIGION with the old Jews, this trusting and obeying the true God. Indeed, the word religion, so far as I know, is never mentioned once in the Old Testament at all. By religion we now mean some plan of believing and obeying God, which will save our souls after we die. But Moses said nothing to the Jews about that. He never even anywhere told them that they would live again after this life. We do not know the reason of that. But we may suppose that he knew best. And as we believe that God sent him, we must believe that God knew best also; and that he thought it good for these Jews not to be told too much about the next life; perhaps for fear that they should forget that God was the living God; the God of now, as well as of hereafter; the God of this life, as well as of the life to come. My friends, I sometimes think we need putting in mind of that in these days as much as those old Jews did.

However that may be, what Moses promised these Jews, if they trusted in the living God, was that they should be a great nation, they and their children after them; that they should drive out the Canaanites before them; that they should conquer their enemies, and that a thousand should flee before one of them; that they should be blessed in their crops, their orchards, their gardens; that they should have none of the evil diseases of Egypt; that there should be none barren among them, or among their cattle. In a word, that they should be thoroughly and always a strong, happy, prosperous people.

This is what God promised them by Moses, and nothing else; and therefore this is what we must think about, and see whether it has anything to do with us, when we read the book of Deuteronomy, and nothing else.

On the other hand, God warned them by the mouth of Moses that if they forgot the Lord God, and went and worshipped the things round them, men or beasts, or sun and moon and stars, then poverty, misery, and ruin of every kind would surely fall upon them.

And that this last was no empty threat is proved by the plain facts of their sacred history. For they DID forget God, and worshipped Baalim, the sun, moon, and stars; and ruin of every kind DID come upon them, till they were carried away captive to Babylon. And this we must think of when we read the book of Deuteronomy, and nothing else. If they wished to prosper, they were to know and consider in their hearts that Jehovah was God, and there was none else. Yes— this was the continual thought which a true Jew was to have. The thought of a God who was HIS God; the God of his fathers before him, and the God of his children after him; the God of the whole nation of the Jews, throughout all their generations.

But not their God only. No. The God of the Gentiles also, of all the nations upon the earth. He was to believe that his God alone, of all the gods of the nations, was the true and only God, who had made all nations, and appointed them their times and the bounds of their habitations.

We cannot understand now, in these happier days, all that that meant; all the strength and comfort, all the godly fear, the feeling of solemn responsibility which that thought ought to have given, and did give to the Jews—that they were the people of Jehovah, the one true God.

For you must remember that all the nations round them then, and all the great heathen nations afterwards, were, as far as we know, the people of some god or other. Religion and politics were with them one and the same thing. They had some god, or gods, whom they looked to as the head or king of their nation, who had a special favour to them, and would bless and prosper them according as they showed him special reverence, and after that god the whole nation was often named.

The Ammonites' god was Ammon, the hidden god, the lord of their sheep and cattle. The Zidonians had Ashtoreth, the moon. The Phoenicians worshipped Moloch, the fire. Many of the Canaanites worshipped Baal, the lord, or Baalim, the lords—the sun, moon, and stars. The Philistines afterwards (for we read nothing of Philistines in Moses' time) worshipped Dagon, the fish-god, and so forth. The Egyptians had gods without number—gods invented out of beasts, and birds, and the fruits of the earth, and the season, and the weather, and the sun and moon and stars. Each class and trade, from the highest to the lowest, and each city and town throughout the land seems to have had its special god, who was worshipped there, and expected to take care of that particular class of men or that particular place.

What a thought it must have been for the Jews—all these people have their gods, but they are all wrong. We have the RIGHT God; the only true God. They are the people of this god, or of that; we are the people of the one true God. They look to many gods; we look to the one God, who made all things, and beside whom there is none else. They look to one god to bless them in one thing, and another in another; one to send them sunshine, one to send them fruitful seasons, one to prosper their crops, another their flocks and herds, and so forth. We look to one God to do all these things for us, because he is Lord of all at once, and has made all.

Therefore we need not fear the gods of the heathen, or cry to any of them, even in our utmost distress; for we belong to him who is before all gods, the God of gods, of whom it is written, 'Worship him, all ye gods;' and 'It is the Lord who made the heaven and the earth, the sea and all that therein is. Him only shalt thou worship, and him only shalt thou serve.' If we obey him, and keep his commandments; if we trust in him, utterly, through good fortune and through bad—then we must prosper in peace and war, we and our children after us; because our prosperity is grounded on the real truth, and that of the heathen on a lie; and all that the heathen expect their false gods to do for them, one here and another there, all that, the one real God will do for us, himself alone.

Do you not see what a power and courage that thought must have given to the Jews? Do you not see how worshipping God, and loving God, and serving God, must have been a very different, a much deeper, and a truly holier matter to them than the miserable selfish thing which is miscalled religion by too many people now-a-days, by which a man hopes to creep out of this world into heaven all by himself, without any real care or love for his fellow-creatures, or those he leaves behind him?

No. An old Jew's faith in God, and obedience to God, was part of his family life, part of his politics, part of his patriotism. If he obeyed God, and clave earnestly to God, then a blessing would come on him in the field and in the house, on his crops and on his cattle, going out and coming in; and on his children and his children's children to a thousand generations. He would be helping, if he obeyed and trusted God, to advance his country's prosperity; to insure her success in war and peace, to raise the name and fame of the Jewish people among all the nations round, that all might say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and an understanding people.'

Thus the duty he owed to God was not merely a duty which he owed his own conscience or his own soul; it was a duty which he owed to his family, to his kindred, to his country. It was not merely an opinion that there was one God and not two; it was a belief that the one and only true God was protecting him, teaching him, inspiring him and all his nation. That the true God would teach their hands to war and their fingers to fight. That the true God would cause their folds to be full of sheep. That their valleys should stand rich with corn, that they should laugh and sing. That the true God would enable them to sit every man under his own vine and his own fig-tree, and eat the labour of his hands, he and his children after him to perpetual generations.

This was the message and teaching which God gave these Jews. It is very different from what many people now-a-days would have given them, if they had had the ordering of the matter, and the making of those slaves into a free nation. But perhaps there is one proof that God DID give it them, and that the Bible speaks truth, when it says that not man, but God gave them their law.

No doubt man would have done it differently. But God's ways are not as man's ways, nor God's thoughts as man's thoughts.

And God's ways have proved themselves to be the right ways. His purpose has come to pass. This little nation of the Jews, inhabiting a country not as large as Wales, without sea-port towns and commerce, without colonies or conquests—and at last, for its own sins, conquered itself, and scattered abroad over the whole civilized world—has taught the whole civilized world, has converted the whole civilized world, has influenced all the good and all the wise unto this day so enormously, that the world has actually gone beyond them, and become Christian by fully understanding their teaching and their Bible, while they have remained mere Jews by not fully understanding it. Truly, if that is not a proof that God revealed something to the Jews which they never found out for themselves, which was too great for them to understand, which was God's boundless message and not any narrow message of man's invention—if that does not prove it, I say—I know not what proof men would have.

But now I have told you that God bade these Jews to look for blessings in THIS life, and blessings on their whole nation, and on their children after them, if they obeyed and served him. Does God NOT bid us to look for any such blessings? The Jews were to be blessed in THIS world. Are we only to be blessed in the next?

To that the Seventh Article of our Church gives a plain and positive answer. For it says that those are not to be heard who pretend that the old Fathers, i.e. Moses and the Prophets, looked only for transitory promises—i.e. for promises which would pass away. No. They looked for eternal promises which could not pass away, because they were according to the eternal laws of God, which stand good both for this world and for all worlds for this life and for the life everlasting.

Yes, my friends, settle in your hearts that the book of Deuteronomy is meant for you, and for all the nations upon earth, as much as for the old Jews. That its promises and warnings are to you and to your children as surely as they were to the old Jews. Ay, that they are meant for every nation that is, or ever was, or ever will be upon earth. If you would prosper on the earth, fear God and keep his commandments; and know and consider it in your heart that the Lord Jesus Christ he is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath: there is none else. He it is who gives grace and honour. He it is who delivers us out of the hands of our enemies. He it is who blesses the fruit of the womb, and the fruit of the flock, and the fruit of the garden and the field. He is the living God, in whom this world, as well as the world to come, lives and moves and has its being; and only by obeying his laws can man prosper, he and his children after him, upon this earth of God.



SERMON XVI. NATIONAL WEALTH



(Fifth Sunday after Easter.)

Deut. viii. 11-18. Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint; who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end: and thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shall remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.

I told you before that the book of Deuteronomy was the foundation of all sound politics—as one would expect it to be, if its author were Moses, the greatest lawgiver whom the world ever saw. But here, in this lesson, is a proof of the truth of what I said. For here, in the text, is Moses' answer to the first great question in politics, What makes a nation prosperous?

To that wise men have always answered, as Moses answered, 'Good government; government according to the laws of God.' That alone makes a nation prosperous.

But the multitude—who are not wise men, nor likely to be for some time to come—give a different answer. They say, 'What makes a nation prosperous is its wealth. If Britain be only RICH, then she must be safe and right.'

To which Moses, being a wise lawgiver, and having, moreover, in him the Spirit of the Lord who knoweth what is in man, makes a reasonable, liberal, humane answer.

Moses does not deny that wealth is a good thing. He does not bid them not try to be rich. He takes for granted that they will grow rich; that the national fruit of their good government will be that they will increase in cattle and in crops and in money, and in all which makes an agricultural people rich.

He takes for granted, I say, that these Jews will grow very rich; but he warns them that their riches, like all other earthly things, may be a curse or a blessing to them. Nay, that they are not good in themselves, but mere tools which may be used for good or for evil. He warns them of a very great danger that riches will bring on them. And herein he shows his knowledge of the human heart; for it is a certain fact that whenever any nation has prospered, and their flocks and herds, and silver and gold, all that they had, have multiplied, then they have, as Moses warned the Jews, forgotten the Lord their God, and said, 'My power and the might of my hand hath gotten me this wealth.'

And it is true, also, that whenever any nation has begun to say that, they have fallen into confusion and misery, and sometimes into utter ruin, till they repented, and turned and remembered the Lord their God, and found out that the strength of a nation did not consist in riches, but in VIRTUE. For it is he that giveth the power to get wealth. He gives it in two ways: First, God gives the raw material; secondly, he gives the wit to use it.

You will all agree that God gives the first; that he gives the soil, the timber, the fisheries, the coal, the iron.

Do you believe it? I hope and trust that you do. But I fear that now-a-days many do not; for they boast of the resources of Britain as if we ourselves had made Britain, and not Almighty God; as if we had put the coal and the iron into the rocks, and not Almighty God ages before we were born.

And if they will not say that openly, at least they will say, 'But the coal, and iron, and all other raw material would have been useless, if it had not been for the genius and energy of the British race.'

Of course not. But who gave them that genius and energy? Who gave them the wit to find the coal and iron?

God; and God gave it to us when we needed it, and not before.

Think of this, I beseech you; for it is true, and wonderful, and a thing of which I may say, 'Come, and I will reason with you of the righteous acts of the Lord.'

Men say, 'As long as England is ahead of the world in coal and iron she may defy the world.' I do not believe it; for if she became a wicked nation all the coal and iron in the universe would not keep her from being ruined.

But even if it were true, which it is not, that the strength of Britain lies in coal and iron, and not in British hearts, what right have we to boast of coal and iron?

Did our forefathers know of them when they came into this land? Did they come after coal and iron?

Not they. They came here to settle as small yeomen; to till miserable little patches of corn, of which we should be now ashamed, and to feed cattle on the moors, and swine in the forests—and that was all they looked to. Then they found that there was iron, principally down south, in Sussex and Surrey; and they worked it, clumsily enough, with charcoal; and for more than twelve hundred years they were here in England, with no notion of the boundless wealth in iron and coal lying together in the same rocks which God had provided for them; or if they did guess at it, they could not use it, because they could not work deep mines, being unable to pump out the water; for God had not opened their eyes and shown them how to do it.

But just when it was wanted, God did show them. About the middle of the last century the iron in the Weald was all but worked out; the charcoal wood was getting scarcer and scarcer, and there was every chance that England, instead of being ahead of all nations in iron, would have fallen behind other nations; and then where should we have been now?

But, just about one hundred years ago, it pleased God to open the eyes of certain men, and they invented steam-engines. Then they could pump the mines, then they could discover and use the vast riches of our coal-mines. Then, too, sprung up a thousand useful arts and manufactures; while the land, not being wanted for charcoal and firewood, as of old, could be cleared of wood, and thousands of acres set free to grow corn. Population, which had been all but standing still, without increasing, has now more than doubled, and wealth inestimable has come to this generation, of which our forefathers never dreamed.

Now what have we to boast of in that? What, save to confess ourselves a very stupid race, who for twelve hundred years could not discover, or at least use the boundless wealth which God had given us, because we had not wit enough to invent so simple a thing as a steam-engine.

All we should do, instead of boasting, is to bless God that he revealed to us just what we needed, and at the very time at which we needed it, and confess that it is HE that giveth us power to get wealth. It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves.

Look again at another case, even more extraordinary, which has happened during our own times—indeed within the last ten years—the discovery of gold in Australia.

There had been rumours and whispers of gold for years before; and yet no one looked for gold, cared for it, hardly believed in it. God had dulled their understanding and blinded their eyes for some good purpose of his own. That is what the Bible would have said of such a matter, and that is what we should say.

And at last some man finds lying out upon the downs a huge lump of gold—by accident (as men call it; by the special providence of God, as they ought to call it); and at that every one starts up and awakes, and begins looking for gold. And now that their eyes are opened, behold! the gold is everywhere. Not merely in lonely forests and unexplored mountains, but on farms where the sheep have been pastured for years past; ay, even Melbourne streets were full of gold, under the feet of the passengers and the wheels of the carriages; there had the gold been all along, but men could not see it till God opened their eyes. Verily, verily, God is great, and man is small. I do not say that this was a miracle in the common meaning of the word; but I do say that this was a striking instance of that everlasting and special providence of the living God, who ordereth all things in heaven and earth, from the rise of a nation to the fall of a sparrow; and does so, not by breaking his own laws, but by making his laws work exactly as he will, when he will, and where he will; and I say that it is a fresh proof of the great saying, that no man can see a thing unless God shows it to him. For it is the Lord who gives us power to get wealth. It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; and in him we live and move, and have our being.

This, then, was what Moses commanded—to remember that they owed all to God. What they had, they had of God's free gift. What they were, they were by God's free grace. Therefore they were not to boast of themselves, their numbers, their wealth, their armies, their fair and fertile land. They were to make their boast of God, and of God's goodness.

He that gloried was to glory in the Lord, and confess that a Syrian ready to perish was their father Jacob, when the Lord had mercy on him, and made him the head of a great tribe, and the father of a great nation; that not themselves, but God had brought them out of Egypt with signs and wonders; that they got not the land in possession by their own bow, neither was it their own sword that helped them, but that God had driven out before them nations greater and mightier than they.