Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

GOD does not forbid, rather He requires us to engage in worldly occupations. He has sent us into the world in need of food and raiment, which the majority of us can only get by working for them, and has endowed us with faculties and powers which have their legitimate exercise in worldly pursuits. There can be no question that by GOD’S appointment man is to labour and trade, or employ himself in some way in worldly things, for sustenance and for exercise of many of his powers. And if this is so, then neither can there be any question, that it must be lawful to think in some way of the morrow, to provide what we shall need in it, to consider and plan for our employment and gain in it. It would be quite impossible to carry on many callings—more especially those which have distinctly the approval of GOD, as husbandry, for instance—if we might not forecast, anticipate, provide, propose, and plan. And if all this may be done, then we may and must mark out particular works and places, and specific periods of time, wherein to perform what we propose. If a husbandman may not think of the harvest, how shall he do the duties of the seed time? If the merchant may not fix on a mart nor make arrangements for sojourning there till he has disposed of his goods, nor count the number of days which the ship will require for transporting them, then how shall he know what wares to purchase? how shall he persuade himself to have anything to do with merchandise? Surely, he must take for granted—or at least he must act as if he took for granted—some certainty of time and opportunity, and so he must in one sense presume upon the future. Still, brethren, the very illustrations I have chosen tell against counting on actual certainty. The husbandman ploughs in hope and sows in hope; but knows all the time that the fowls of the air may rob him of his crop, that the needful rain or sun may be withholden from it, that the worm, and the mildew, and the blast may destroy it. The merchant freights his vessel with full knowledge—(not always without fear)—that fire or storm may cause it to be lost in the sea, or that if it reaches the place of sale, there may then be no demand for it. Each is obliged to admit contingencies; to prepare and act as if all power and all time and circumstances were in his own hands, while he knows and feels that it is far otherwise; that much may be uncontrollably against him; that he may be disappointed of all his hope. Nor does he omit altogether to provide for the contingency. He asks, “What if I should be disappointed, if my plans should fail, if the time should be prolonged or shortened against my expectation? What is to be done with the gain, if anything happens to me?” So he insures his vessel, and gives directions whither to carry, or what to do with his merchandise if aught should render it unsaleable at the proposed mart, and he makes his will! Wisely he takes into account what he calls “chance,” and therefore sobers his expectations and rules his plans by the consideration of what may happen to frustrate them! A like consideration—not of “chance,” for he does not believe in chance, but of the possible unexpected operations of GOD’S providence—is to sanctify the Christian’s plans and appointments, and to prevent him from becoming a worldling. He may think and say, what he will do on the morrow; he may set out on a long journey, or propose to himself a week, a month’s, a year’s, a ten years’ sojourn in some distant city; he may make ample and long preparations for buying and selling, and getting gain; he may pull down his barns (if they are not large enough) and build greater; he may entertain some thoughts of possibly enjoying, after years of toil and care, an old age of ease and happiness, and so may make provision for that happiness. He need not, and should not, be ever saying to himself, “It is of no use my undertaking this business, I may not live to carry it out.” “If I were sure of life, I would remove this and alter that, but let it be now, it must do for my poor uncertain days.” (The world would stand still, if men were to act, or refuse to act, upon such arguments as these, arguments not suggested by God.) No, brethren, whatever your calling, follow it honestly and heartily; whatever your possessions, use them, and use them so as to get the most legitimate good out of them, and do not despise the opportunities and the goods which GOD has given you. But consider when you propose to yourselves anything which draws by anticipation on the future, consider, I say, “What is my life? It is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away,” and qualify your scheme by saying to yourselves, “If the LORD will, I should live and do this or that.” Yes! and provide, as far as you can, _lest the_ LORD _should not will_. And here, brethren, we have suggested to us another reason for admitting an “if” into our counsels, and for allowing it to have its say, and for heeding well what it suggests. The Christian is allowed, and even required to follow a worldly calling, but still he has a higher calling, which he must not neglect, which he must most regard. Life was not given him only that he might eat and drink, and take his pleasure, and grow rich, and build palaces, and be filled with knowledge, and perfected in accomplishments. These are but the lower employments of life, or its intermittent pastimes. Its business is religion—the laying hold on salvation, and following the holy service to which we are bound, wherein we are apprentices and probationers for eternal glory, and whereby we are allowed and enabled to lay up treasure in heaven—the dedication of ourselves to CHRIST our Saviour, to live under His rule, and by His grace; to set forth His glory in all we do; to become qualified by unlearning and renouncing what is amiss, and acquiring new tastes, and inclinations, and powers, and fashioning ourselves after His glorious image for the state to which He will call us when this life is over. “If the LORD will I should live and do this or that.” How does such a suggestion break in upon and check the presuming worldliness of the called of GOD! “Here am I,” it makes him exclaim, “actually laying myself out for the engrossing and long-continued pursuit of worldly ends. Yet GOD may cut short my life in the midst of it, and if He does, without giving me time to resume my higher calling, to repair what is out of order, to fill up what is wanting, to make my peace with Him, to become fit for death—oh, to what in that case will my folly and my sin bring me! How shall I stand before Him at His awful Advent? What account shall I render of my neglected stewardship? What will justify my presumption in His delay? What excuse my want of the wedding garment? Surely He will deal with me as with one who knew his Master’s will, yet did it not; who refused the glory which he was created, and redeemed, and sanctified to render; who has preferred Mammon to GOD, earth to heaven; who has contracted the worldliness from which GOD shrinks, and despised the holiness which alone He will accept!” It is an awakening, a sobering, a solemn suggestion. It reveals to him the anomaly, the folly, the sin, the peril of his condition, whatever the kind of worldliness which engrosses him. He a servant of CHRIST, a votary of religion, a worker for eternity, an heir of glory, forgetting his calling, neglecting his best hopes and interests, perverting his time and powers, and opportunities from their highest and most necessary use, to gratify self with childish pleasures, to heap up gold, to make to himself a name among the pigmies of the earth; to become admired or stared at for his appearance or accomplishments; to excel in knowledge of languages, or sciences, or history, or for any other earthly end; when not only what he seeks must soon be yielded up (even if he succeeds in getting it), but also through the seeking he must neglect all that GOD requires of him, and forfeit all that GOD offers! Oh, how silly, how sinful, how awfully hazardous the course he is pursuing!

What, then? Shall he abandon it all in terror? Shall he hate the world and flee from it? Shall he become a hermit, refusing to receive good, and to do good in his generation? Shall he give up his earthly calling, foregoing the temporal advantages which are held out to him; not exercising the powers which are entrusted to him; supposing that the GOD who put him into this world, and qualified him to fill a place in it, and stimulated him by pressing necessities, or by indwelling desires to seek profit or pleasure, nevertheless meant him to have nothing to do with the world; that because presently he is to die, now he ought not to live; but to drag a sad, inactive, solitary, impatient existence. Surely not! His place now is in the world, his work is in the world; he refuses GOD service in not exercising his worldly calling; he gives up the means of probation, and the opportunities of development and improvement in the highest powers and best graces, and disqualifies himself for heaven, if he fulfils not his destiny on earth. Let him abide in his calling; let him discharge its obligations; let him pursue its advantages, and cull its pleasures, and perform all its bidding; but throughout all, let him remember, and act upon the remembrance that he is not a mere worldling; and to keep him from being absorbed in the world, or grovelling in its pursuits, to quicken him in concern for higher responsibilities and privileges, to impress upon him that all that is of the world is temporary and fleeting, that the world is passing away from him, and he from it, let him reflect frequently and seriously, “What is my life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away;” and so let him temper the lower life (and raise himself above it), by piously resolving that its present occupations, its plans and hopes shall all be subject to the condition, “If the LORD will I should live, and do this or that.”

That we all want to be influenced by such thoughts is too evident to need proof. The very best of us are wont practically to regard this earth as our abiding home, or the only stage upon which we shall ever act a part, and earthly pursuits and pleasures as the only aims and rewards of our being. We may write “D. V.,” or say, “If the LORD will,” after every engagement, every proposed scheme. We may make our wills and set our houses in order, and purchase a burial place, and carry about a shroud, and yet forget that we have to die. Grey hairs, or enfeebled frames, and the perceptible growth within us of the seeds of mortal disease, and sick beds, and sudden deaths around us, may cause us momentary misgivings, may make us perhaps permanently a little uneasy: but still we live on, as though there were no end of life; we put off preparation for death, and for another state after death, as though we could not die till we chose to do so. Not for want of knowledge, of constant testimonies and reminders of the contrary are we thus confident (for we all know that our life is but a vapour which the heat may presently dispel, or the wind of the next moment cause to vanish), but because we do not feel ourselves to be so entirely in the hands of an Omnipotent and mysteriously exercised Providence, as to need to be constantly depending upon it, and asking of it, “If the LORD will;” and so presenting to ourselves, in all its force, the consideration that perhaps “The LORD may _not_ will.” I speak to men, and women, and children, full of present occupations and future plans. I bid you consider your occupations and review your plans. Do you imagine that the first may be at any moment interrupted, and the last never begun to be carried out? Some of you are almost exclusively pleasure seekers; others, careless creatures of the present; others intent upon business, or profit, upon obtaining power, or knowledge, or fame; either reaping a worldly harvest now, or sowing for a future worldly harvest. Others are divided in care and desire between this life and the next. Others are in theory, and in much practice, living above this world, using it but not abusing it, in it but not of it. Put the question to yourselves, all and each of you. Do you feel your life to be such a vapour, that it is in momentary risk of vanishing away; that only if the LORD will, will it appear a little time; that possibly He may not will? You would say, “yes,” doubtless, if you were forced to answer aloud, as you sit in church, interrogated by the messenger of CHRIST out of the Bible, just as to a question out of the Church Catechism, you would give an answer out of the Church Catechism. But do you _feel_ “yes”? Is it your sure and strong conviction? Do your lives say “yes”? I shall not be unjust to you, if I say that I stand in doubt of many of you; that, alas! I have no doubt of some; that your hearts do not thus respond; that your lives give a manifest contradiction.

Brethren, I am not here to accuse, but to admonish and help. Let me suggest, then, why you fail to realise such a palpable truth. It is, first, because you have an idea that the Advent is far off; and, secondly, because, as I have reminded you in so many ways lately, you shut GOD too much out of this present world. The first disciples, as you may see from St. Paul’s and St. Peter’s Epistles, were filled with the conviction that the Advent was very near, that the next moment might reveal it. This did not take them out of the world, for they believed that CHRIST would come to them in the world. Neither did it make them forsake their earthly calling, for they knew that it was in that calling that they were to serve GOD, and to prepare for His coming. But it caused them always to have regard to the end, and it sanctified every pursuit and plan with the thought, “The LORD may come,” and so constantly suggested the proviso, “If the LORD will.” We have no such conviction of CHRIST’S nearness, and therefore have little reference to it, and are faintly impressed with it. We argue, the Judgment has tarried so many years, it may therefore tarry many more. Death has so long spared us, he will not come to us yet. We shall have time to finish our present occupations, we can enter upon and execute many fresh plans. We need not raise a doubt, “If the LORD will.”

But, secondly, we shut GOD out of this present world. We forget that He is ever with us; that He is constantly exercising His providence over us; that He is not ignorant, or indifferent, much less distant, when we propose and proceed to execute; that it is by His exercised permission, by His actual letting us go in anger, that we fall into sin; by His inclining, and helping, and carrying us, that we think, and attempt, and perform what is good; that thus watching and caring for us, and surrounding us, He is at once the Witness, the Judge, the Rewarder of our every thought and way; that consequently, when He has tried us enough, or when we have long wearied Him, He is at hand to decide about us, and, deciding, to execute the decision. His forbearance and interference, the length of the probation, the numbers and kinds of trial, are different in different cases. He knows what is right and sufficient for each, and He applies it, and then He says, “It is enough. Thy righteousness is as length of days. Well done, good and faithful servant;” or, “It is of no use that thou shouldst be stricken any more. Thou wilt revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. Depart from me!” And in either case the vapour is dispelled—it vanisheth away.

O for the full perception and realisation of this truth; that we are in the hands of a watching, proving, waiting, judging, visiting GOD. It would be hard then to do or propose anything, without immediately adding, “If the LORD will.”

Two concluding thoughts suggest themselves.

First, that life is of such different duration in different cases, because we have individual capabilities and responsibilities, and some by many trials and length of days are proved, others quickly and easily made perfect, or wholly hardened; and because a discerning, ruling GOD is ever at hand to close the trial at the fit moment.

Secondly, that we are individually kept uncertain of the duration of our life, to counteract the sad proneness which belongs to us, of putting off eternal interests, and following our own ways to the uttermost; to give to every moment, and every act of life, such vital importance, that we may fear to squander or pervert it; to keep us ever mindful of our latter end, and always intent upon doing the LORD’S work, and preparing ourselves for heaven; that the GOD at hand may never be slighted, and the world be always so loosely held, that we may easily and readily let go of it whenever the LORD will.

“Go to now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the LORD will, we shall live, and do this, or that.”

SERMON IV. THE UNKNOWN GOD.

ACTS, XVII., 22, 23.

_Ye men of Athens_, _I perceive that in all things ye are too
superstitious_. _For as I passed by_, _and beheld your devotions_,
_I found an altar with this inscription_, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. _Whom
therefore ye ignorantly worship_, _Him declare I unto you_.

THE city of Athens was wholly given to idolatry. It was crowded with altars, dedicated to the supposed superior deities, to deified men, to abstract virtues, Love, Truth, Mercy, and the like. Whatever new god was described and recommended to them was immediately recognised, and thenceforth worshipped; and, besides, the Athenians’ love of something new, led them to search out for and invent gods for themselves. Hence it came to pass, that there were more idols in that one city than in all the rest of Greece: so that Satirist did not much exaggerate when he said that in Athens you might more easily find a god than a man. It belongs not to our present purpose to consider how this arose; to contemplate the strange coexistence of so much superstition and so much cultivation of intellect, or to strive to enter into the feelings which animated Paul, when his spirit was stirred within him at the sight of the city wholly given to idolatry. We pass on to the time when the Apostle stood on Mars’s hill, in sight of many heathen altars, surrounded by Epicureans and Stoics and disciples of many other schools of philosophy, some striving to silence him, others intent upon hearing something new from him—to meet the contentious gainsayings of the one, to enlist the curiosity of the other; to make use of their various dispositions, of all that he saw and heard, in promoting the glory of GOD, and, if it might be, in leading them to salvation.

It must be borne in mind that some of these news-seeking Athenians inconsistently enough contended with him, because he taught what was novel; while others, on that very account, were favourable to him, hoping that he would set forth some strange gods—some additional objects of worship to whom they might erect altars. “Ye men of Athens,” he said, “I perceive from actual observation that you, more than other people, have great regard for religion.” This is the right meaning of the words translated: “In all things ye are too superstitious.” It is not likely that the Apostle would have commenced a speech intended to conciliate and enlighten them, with words that would at once affront them, and make them deaf to all else he had to say. Besides, it is clear from what follows, that he is not directly calling upon them to abandon what was false, but to understand and accept rightly a truth which they held in ignorance. “I say nothing to you now upon the many gods whom you worship _by name_, but, pointing to an altar inscribed to the Unknown GOD (it was probably in sight) I answer those who contend with me for speaking about the unknown, and gratify those who want to hear something new, by taking that altar as my text, and preaching to you about ‘the Unknown GOD’—about no new god, for He is already the object of your worship; but still about one of whom much that is new to you may be said. Give ear to me, ye that are so full of reverence for the gods, while I describe to you an object indeed of your present reverence, but one of whose nature and operations and demands upon you, you know nothing.”

Respecting the existence of such an altar, we are told that the Athenians through the very excess of their idolatry (which led them to look for gods in every place and circumstance, and to ascribe every event, good or ill, to the influence of some deity) had on more than one occasion, when an unusually severe pestilence had visited them, which they could not connect with any of their known gods, conjectured that it must be the doing of some god whom they did not propitiate with sacrifices, and, failing to find out who it was, and yet fearing to neglect his worship, had caused altars _without names_ to be erected, and offerings to be made to the nameless being; and that in course of time these altars came to be described, and to bear a corresponding inscription, as severally the altars of an “unknown god.” There is no reason to suppose that they meant to exalt that god above the others, that they had any clearly defined ideas of the general operations of one unknown Being, much less that they meant under that title to worship the GOD of the Jews; but with a kind of natural instinct, a very vague feeling that something beyond and above what they knew, existed, they had stumbled, as it were, in the dark, upon a real truth, which was now to be revealed to them. “Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship—Whom you are right in worshipping, but of Whose proper worship you know nothing, Him declare I, and reveal unto you.” You know how St. Paul went on, meeting without mentioning the errors of the various sects of philosophers, that there was indeed a GOD who made the world, and all things therein; that He was not a mere idol of wood and stone (“dwelling not in temples made with hands”), that He had no such passions, and no such needs as they ascribed to Jove and Mars and their deified men (“Neither is worshipped with men’s hands as though He needed anything”), that He was not a sentiment—an ideal thing—a being bound by fate—an indifferent spectator of men’s ways. “He giveth to all life and breath and all things.” “In Him we live and move and have our being.” “He hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He hath chosen;” to whom He has borne such signal testimony in raising Him from the dead; in whose name, and at whose command, I come to tell you of the resurrection from the dead, and to call you out of the ignorance which GOD will no longer wink at, and to urge upon you repentance and preparation for judgment. So he spoke of the unknown GOD. Some mocked, and refused to understand; some were in doubt and difficulty, and wished to hear more; others began to know Him who had hitherto been unknown, and clave unto the Apostle, and believed. And shortly after Paul departed from Athens, never, as far as we know, to visit again!

It would be interesting to consider the strange rise and spread of ignorance which in course of time made the GOD, Who had been seen and heard and walked with in Eden, and had never left Himself without witness, wholly unknown to the creatures of His hand, and the objects of His providential care; to contemplate the idolatry of ignorant heathen man, not seeing GOD in all His works, not able to find Him even when looking for Him and desiring to worship Him, believing in every god but the true One, sometimes even offering sacrifices to devils; to discuss, too, how it is the world by wisdom knows not, and never has known GOD, that intellect cannot search Him out, that intellect has even blinded many to whom the unknown GOD was plainly exhibited; to ask how much of this is natural, how much unnatural, how much judicial—the punishment of pride, the reward of loving darkness rather than light, because of evil deeds. But interesting as would be the consideration of “GOD unknown in the world,” there is a more important theme suggested by the text for us to dwell on, namely, “GOD unknown in the Church.” “There standeth one among you Whom ye know not.” Let me speak to you on this, brethren.

Whatever may be the state and disposition of the people whom the clergyman has to deal with in his various daily ministrations and his intercourse with the world, once a week, at least, he addresses an assembly in some sense given to religion. As he stands in the pulpit on the Lord’s Day he may adopt almost the words of St. Paul on the Areopagus: “I perceive that you (and such as you) are more than the rest of mankind GOD-fearing, taking an interest in religion, listening to its teaching, partaking of its ordinances, supplicating, praising, serving GOD.”

It may, indeed, occasionally be that some present themselves to see if there is anything in the church for them to object to, or ridicule; that others have come in conformity to the fashion, to hear something new, to see and be seen; to make a show of respectability, to wile away an idle time; and that many others, though proposing to themselves the observance of a religious duty, are so formal, so listless, so unreal, that it cannot be said of them that they are “given to religion.” Nevertheless, I repeat that the clergyman, as he stands in the pulpit, has before him the best, _i.e._, the most religious of mankind; not mockers, and revilers, and persecutors; not gainsayers, and despisers, and forgetters; but real worshippers—more or less reverential and earnest, more or less enlightened—of the true GOD. But has he not in these same persons (as St. Paul had in the Athenians) many worshippers of an unknown GOD? May he not venture to say to almost all, “Whom ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.” Christian worshippers, my brethren, often have many idols, who share almost equally with GOD their interest and affections and service. They have, many of them, their “ism,” their Paul, their Cephas, or Apollos, their favourite dogma, their preferences and prejudices for some particular rites, and ceremonies, and modes of worship. In church, and out of church, their religion consists largely in giving heed to these things: GOD is in their thoughts, but not in all their thoughts, or not the chief, the engrossing object of their thoughts; He is one of many objects. You find this out if you listen to their remarks after service. “Such a chant went well or badly; the preacher’s manner was pleasing, or the contrary; his language very ornate, or very bald; the theme one they like, or one they do not like; the rubric strictly observed, or strangely disregarded;” and so on. Of course, as all these things are means to an end, and as the end is gained, or not gained, by their suitableness, or the opposite, it is lawful and right to give them some consideration: but I put it to you, brethren, whether they are not too often regarded as themselves the end; as though, provided they were satisfactory, there was nothing more wanting; as though they were rightly as much the objects of interest as the GOD in Whose service they are used, or, rather, as though regarding them were regarding GOD!

O brethren, we are too attentive to the system—too regardless of the Centre! We want to know—(to feel, I mean, for the Christian’s knowledge is of the heart)—that GOD is above all—that where other objects have anything like an equal share of attention, where they hide Him from us in His pure essence and direct influence, there He is ignorantly worshipped—that He is a Spirit, not a chant, a voice, a figure of speech, a rubric, a turning east or west. Through these we may reach Him; many of them are steps and accessories to worship; but if in these we rest, then we set them up as idols, side by side with Him, and prove that to us He is but as the unknown god of the Athenians.

See, dear brethren, I beseech you, if aught of this old error clings to you, and pray GOD to clear you from it, and resolve henceforth to strive to keep clear. Treat means as means—value them; be glad that they are becomingly afforded you, and rejoice if they help you; but do not let the best of them beguile you, nor the worst of them hinder you, from finding and worshipping GOD Himself; from going away filled with thoughts of Him. “I prayed to GOD; I praised Him; I held communion with Him; I heard the things of GOD from His messenger, and have now to go and live by what I have done, and received, and heard.” These are the thoughts to take away from church with you, and to prove to you that you wisely worship the known GOD.

I have dwelt much on this part of the subject, because of the general forgetfulness of it; a forgetfulness which prevents many from rendering acceptable service to GOD, and from obtaining the full help and comfort which religion affords to all who rightly use it.

But there are many other kinds of ignorant worship. It is possible to cast down all idols, and worship GOD alone, and yet err. The so-called spiritualist does this: the man who supposes that addressing himself directly to GOD, is sufficient, without the use of appointed forms and ordinances; who attaches no importance to baptism and holy communion; who thinks that no grace accompanies their use, or that he can have the grace without the sign; who says that praying at home is a good substitute for congregational worship; who boasts that he can read a sermon for himself, and a better one than he can hear in church; or that the Bible is sufficiently clear to him without an interpreter.

Such an one ignorantly worships an unknown GOD. He dictates, instead of obeying; he chooses, instead of submitting to what is appointed for him; he puts reason in the place of faith; he refuses to walk in GOD’S way of salvation; he disputes the Divine wisdom in requiring him to be baptised, and to partake of the Cup and Bread of Blessing; in warning not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together; in asking, “How shall they hear without a preacher?” in appointing a standing ministry; he rebels against GOD, when he disregards these ordinances; he makes GOD a liar when he presumes to deem them unnecessary. Oh, he has great need that the GOD whom he ignorantly worships, should be plainly declared unto him!

Again, that man ignorantly worships GOD, who substitutes the forms for the life of religion; who supposes that a sanctuary service atones for all want of service elsewhere; who prays in church, but not in his closet; who hears the Bible read or expounded, but does not search it diligently for himself; who receives sacraments, but does not foster, and use, and develop the sacramental grace, which is entrusted to him as an awful talent to be increased and accounted for; who balances the religion of Sunday against the worldliness of the whole week; who every seventh day eases his conscience of its sin, by sighing out the general confession, and forthwith takes to himself the comfort of the declaration of forgiveness, and then goes back to his old transgressions and omissions, till the holy day comes round again. Of course whoever does this, or any part of it deliberately, is grossly, culpably ignorant of the GOD whom he professes to worship; but it is not of such that I speak now. I have in mind professing Christians, persons who busy themselves about religion, who are regular in their attendance on means of grace, who never wilfully desecrate the LORD’S day, who knowing that unpardoned sin separates from GOD, and that without grace, life is unblessed, are anxious for pardon and grace, and frequently seek them in GOD’S appointed ways; but yet, forget, are not impressed with the danger of a relapse, and the sin of non-improvement, and so somehow or other, fall into a routine of formal religion on Sunday, which is not in their thoughts, except as a matter that belongs to next Sunday all through the week. This is to worship ignorantly an unknown GOD—a GOD Who does not accept intermittent worship, Who bestows pardon only on repentance and amendment of life, Who gives grace for use, Whose sacraments are meals to sustain life and strengthen for service, Whose Sabbath is a holy rest to refresh for holy work, in Whom we live, and move, and have our being, Whose glory is to be our constant aim, His presence our perpetual joy. But these, and many other ignorances—such as the disregard of particular attributes, the picturing for oneself what GOD ought to be like, and so varying the picture according to the fancy of him who draws it, instead of searching how, and what manner of GOD He has declared Himself to be, and what worship is appointed, and therefore acceptable—these, I say, are the faults of individuals, or of certain classes only. Let me now speak of an ignorance, a respect in which GOD is more or less unknown, which concerns us all. And here, dear brethren, my object is not to censure, to blame you for what you have not, but pointing out to you the GOD whom Scripture reveals, to help you to correct what is amiss, to fill up what is wanting in your conceptions of GOD, and so to attain to the blessedness of knowing Him fully, and to discharge the duty of worshipping Him in spirit and in truth.

Observe St. Paul, while acknowledging the religious reverence of the Athenians, evidently deals with them as men who understood not the truths, the objects, the blessings of religion; as those who when they had built their altars, and celebrated their holy days, and offered their sacrifices, thought they had fulfilled all that religion required of them, and who expected to get nothing by their religion, but exemption from certain grievous pestilences, or help perhaps in war—mere occasional miraculous manifestations of dreadful power—who had no conceptions of sanctifying influence, of moral responsibility, of rewards of righteousness. To them he declares GOD to be, One not far from them, One whom they might find, in Whom they then lived and moved, and had their being, Who henceforth would not wink at any ignorance, Who was at present treating them, and regarding them with a view to a coming judgment. Now we are better (thank GOD, who maketh us to differ!) than these Athenians; but still we want somewhat of the heart-knowledge which Paul would have impressed on them. We want to be more fully convinced that religion is not a pastime, but a business; that not only duty, but interest, momentous interest, is involved in it, especially that it is not a mere concern and preparation and provision for the future, but a present substantial reality; that GOD is not the object of distant worship; that His wrath and His mercy are, not rarely, but constantly, being exercised here; that He is not a departed LORD, Who has set us to do His work against His return, and will take no account of us till some far off day; that He has not left us unrewarded, unpunished, unhelped in the present, not caring what we are, what we do, what we suffer, so as when He comes back, we have either done what He appointed, or have assumed the position of penitents for offence, and supplicants of compassion.

Is it not matter of experience that we are not sufficiently influenced by the hopes and fears of religion, that we do not adequately reverence GOD, or seek Him, and rest on Him, because we suppose that He is afar off, and that all that we have to expect from Him, will only begin to be realised in the next world? GOD, as a present GOD, is too much unknown to us. We do not feel that He is now about us; that His eye is watching us, and His arm upraised over each of us at every moment of our lives; that He is a guest actually in us, to be honoured and waited on now. We do not know of His present closeness, of His immediate rewards and punishments, His pleasure or displeasure, His instant succour, or instant withdrawal from us, according to what He sees in us. We do all, and bear all in distant expectation, and therefore we do negligently, and bear feebly and impatiently. Could we realise the perpetual working, the instant retribution, the very touching of GOD now, it would be easy to regard and serve Him, it would be all but impossible to neglect Him. No man could prefer dross to gold, misery to bliss, death to life, if they were both offered him at the same moment. No one could hesitate whom to obey, whom to trust, whom to fear, whom to love, if GOD were seen on the one side, and fellow man on the other. It is because GOD, and the things of GOD, are supposed to be far off, that we first prefer the other, and then practically regard it as that which alone has real existence.

Well, then, this is what we have to mend. I have been urging the mending on these Sundays in Advent, in striving to show you that there is a GOD present to superintend, and provide, and care for you in this life, and in every event and moment of this life; that there is an actual and immediate judgment of every deed, good and evil, and that there is a present business of religion, and a direct service of GOD to be now attended to. It is not head-knowledge that you want, but heart-perception, and realisation. You want to feel what you must know (because the Bible has told you that GOD is a GOD at hand, and not a GOD afar off); that godliness has the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come; that the irreligious is condemned already. No expectation, no delay, no vision. All fulfilled, immediate, and substantially real. You fancy, perhaps, that it cannot be so. You urge that it is contrary to your experience; you have served GOD, and not been rewarded; you have trusted in Him, and not been supported; you have sinned against Him, and not been punished. Brethren, believe me, you have not. “Experience” means that which has been ascertained by trial. Make trial, and all will be proved. Devote yourselves now to GOD, follow Him, give up for Him to-day, and you shall be rewarded to-day. Sin against Him to-day, and you shall be punished to-day. Invoke His aid to-day, and you shall surely have it. Do not prescribe your own mode of visitation. Be sure that He will use His, and watch for it, and seek to know it, and then you will have an experience to quote. I only repeat to you what He has said. When you know Him, you will find that He is true. Then wait on Him, acquaint yourselves with Him, serve Him in the present, and look for Him in the present, and you will find Him in the present.

SERMON V. FAITH AND ITS BLESSEDNESS.

ST. JOHN, XX., 29.

_Thomas_, _because thou hast seen me_, _thou hast believed_: _blessed
are they that have not seen_, _and yet have believed_.

DOES our LORD mean to say that there was no blessedness in the sight which he then presented?—that it was not a precious privilege actually to see Him, to hear Him, to be perceptibly with Him? Would He, too, withdraw and reverse the blessing He had formerly pronounced—“Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see”? Would He tell us that the kings and prophets, who saw the promises only afar off, who fancied and conjectured, and died in hope, were more blessed than the hearers of the Sermon of the Mount, the spectators of the Transfiguration, the companions of that three years’ ministry, the guests at Emmaus, the disciple that reclined on His bosom? No, surely! The blessedness of the Apostles, in certainly seeing, and being with CHRIST in the flesh, is, in its peace and joy, a blessedness which stands pre-eminent and alone, and must do till again He is seen in Heaven. But peace and joy are not the greatest blessings. That which calms, that which gladdens, is nothing in comparison with that which sanctifies and elevates; and there is a blessedness which does this; and which, therefore, is greater. It is the blessedness which faith produces. “Blessed (_i.e._, more blessed) are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” Belief, faith—what is it? It may be described as the assent of the understanding, to that which is not proved to any of our senses, but which appears credible because of the testimony given to it. We all have this faith, in human affairs. We all of us accept as true—are convinced of their truth, and act upon the conviction—things which are not proved to us, but are supported by reliable statement. If you serve for wages, or sell goods on credit, or become surety for another, or go out to seek a new home in a distant land, you do it in faith. You cannot see into the heart, and be sure of the honesty of your employer, your customer, your friend; but what appears, from what you are told by others of him, you rely on him. And so again, you do not actually know that there is such a land as you propose to seek, but you believe it, because of all that travellers have said of it, of the goods you have seen, the letters you have read, which are stated to have come from it. Of course, as the testimony varies in its credibility, this faith is of different degrees. You have such faith in your well-tried friend, in his integrity and his wisdom, that you know, you say, that he will not deceive you, and that he cannot be deceived himself. Others, of whom you know less, you believe more slowly. Some, you think, are not qualified to give testimony; they have the thing second-hand, or they were not competent to judge of what they saw, and heard, and felt; or they are not truthful, and may wilfully misrepresent: and even, in the best cases, faith is sometimes misplaced. Therefore, your faith in human things, has always, perhaps (and should have) a trace of doubt in it—sometimes is weak, sometimes fails altogether. It would be wrong and injurious to have equal faith in all; but, on the other hand, to be always doubting, to refuse to believe without seeing, would be misery, and folly, and mockery of self. Divine faith is different: the accepting (that is) of what is recommended to us by the testimony of GOD, by well-proved miracles, by prophecies since fulfilled, by any other of GOD’S witnesses. This is perfect. It admits of no doubts and qualifications. It is as sure of what it believes, as if it handled, and heard, and saw it: yea, surer, for its own judgment might be deceived; but GOD knows all things and judges rightly, and GOD cannot deceive. Therefore, when GOD reveals, we may not question the plausibility of what is shown; we have no room for doubt as to His opportunities of knowing, His truthfulness in communicating what is narrated. All we may do, is to ask—Has GOD spoken, are these things His testimony? And this we ought to do; for there is no blessing pronounced by the text on the credulous, who take everything as from GOD, without examination. Thomas surely would have erred, if, simply because some one told him of CHRIST’S resurrection, he had straightway believed it. We are exhorted not to believe every spirit, but to try the spirits whether they be of GOD. We have to examine miracles, to see whether they are real or pretended, and prophecies, to see that they were not written after the professed fulfilments, and all revelations, lest they should be spurious. Failing to do this, we might have followed Theudas, who came to nought, or Joan of Arc: we might become Mohammedans or Mormonites. We have to guard against this; not to be credulous; to be sure that it is GOD that speaks: but then, being sure, whatever He describes, however incomprehensible or improbable, whatever He commands, no matter how apparently unreasonable, whatever He promises, against experience, against opinion, against hope, to accept all, and rely on all, and lead the life of reliance. Yes, brethren, this is the believing which alone is blessed; the believing which leads to doing. Faith is the evidence by which we see things naturally unseen; it is the substance, the very handled reality, of things naturally only hoped for; and which, by its revelations of beauty and bliss, by its sanctions and persuasions, and by all that it shows us of the present, and promises or threatens in the future, makes us fly to GOD, and cling to Him, and depend on Him, and live for Him, and look for Him. Less than this—mere assent of the understanding, without heart-embracing, and life-demonstrating, and exercising—is not the belief that is blessed. Faith without works is dead, being alone. If then, brethren, you would be partakers of the blessedness promised in the text, you must have fully received, and be acting upon the form of religion which GOD has given you. You must have implicit trust in Him for help and support and peace and blessing. You must know that whatever He has described is real, whatever He has promised or threatened will surely be fulfilled, on the conditions He has laid down; and you must testify and act upon your knowledge by a corresponding life. I do not say that all this is demanded of you in perfection; that the hope of blessing is gone, if you fail of aught of it: but I do say that, if in anything you distrust GOD, if you question or demand further proof of, or are indifferent to anything He has revealed, and deliberately do not live by it, then you cannot claim the benediction of the text.

But it occurs to you to ask, perhaps, how it is that GOD selects believing, rather than seeing, on any other way of reception for special blessing.

Now, it is not necessary that GOD should account to us for what He does or wills. Creatures of His hand, we are made for Him; dependents on His bounty, we must thankfully receive it in any way and form of bestowal. But still there are reasons which may be briefly suggested for the selection of faith.

First, then, faith embodies the entire trustful devotion to GOD, which, above any assent to what is proved, any following of what is seen or heard, magnifies the honour of GOD, and so sets forth His glory. It owns His truth, His providence, His love, and prompts to a free-will, spiritual, glorifying service of Him. Secondly, unless there are to be perpetual miracles, faith alone can be permanently and universally influential. If we are to be guided by sight, or hearing, or touching, then the revelations to one generation would have to be repeated to each following generation, and those of one country performed again in every other. Thus CHRIST would have had to continue on earth, to have visited every land, and been crucified and raised from the dead in every land, or to have gathered all nations into Judea to witness what was done; and this would have had to be repeated over and over again to our fathers, to us, to our children, or else some would have been without the necessary influence to serve, and love, and depend on Him. And more than this, since the sights we see and the sounds we hear, are soon over, and leave but a faint remembrance behind, we should be imperfectly influenced by them, when CHRIST ceased to speak; or when He passed into another place we should be without our object of worship, our instructor or hope. And even if these objections can be met, still the perpetuity of CHRIST’S visible presence, the beholding of His miracles, and hearing of His words, would necessarily put a stop to all worldly occupations; would make probation little more than a name; would constrain men by natural influences to a carnal or slavish adherence to Him, or would drive them into reckless rebellion, and instant and irrevocable condemnation.

But again, faith is more blessed because it has greater privileges—because it reveals more clearly, brings nearer, than any sense could do. If you only hear a loved one, do you not desire to see him? If you see him, are you not unblessed unless you embrace him? And then, is there not an influence, a way of communicating, that surpasses this—a purer, a more spiritual influence, one which brings you together, and keeps you together, and makes you one—love, which surpasses, which is independent of, or only uses as accessories, the bodily senses? We are too apt, brethren, to talk of seeing as believing; to count sense above feeling; to exalt what belongs to the body, above what belongs to the mind or spirit. Doubtless, the error arises from the way in which we speak of faith giving way to sight in heaven, as though the eyes of the body only, and not the mind and spirit, were to behold CHRIST then; as though mental and spiritual perception were not better than bodily; as though there were no assurance that faith is an abiding gift, and that, therefore, while in heaven there will be much to gratify the eye of the body, there will still be much more which faith alone can realise. My brethren, the greatest eternal blessedness will be vouchsafed to faith, and the greatest blessedness of this state belongs to faith, because it is the exercise of man’s noblest and best, and most reliable faculties, far superior in excellence, far more certain in ascertaining the truth, than ears, or eyes, or hands.