Chapter X: Part 10

It appears, by what follows these words, that the question here related especially to those gifts of the Holy Ghost which were given, in the first age of the church, as a sign of God's power, and a witness that the work of the gospel was from God. Yet although this be so, and therefore the words, in this particular sense, cannot to any good purpose be asked now; yet there is another sense, and that not a lower but a far higher one, in which we may ask them, and in which it concerns us in the highest degree, what sort of answer we can give to them, I say, "what sort of answer;" for I think it is true of all Christians that, in a certain measure, they have received the Holy Ghost. Not only does the doctrine of our own, and I believe every other, church, concerning baptism, show this: but it seems also necessarily to follow, from those words of St. Paul, that "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost." And yet the Scripture and common experience alike show us, that a man may call Jesus Lord, and yet not be really his, nor one who will be owned by Him at the last day. So that what is of real importance to us is, the degree of fulness and force with which we could give the answer to the words of the text; not simply saying that we have received the Holy Ghost, which would be true, but might be far from sufficient; but saying that we have received Him and are receiving Him more and more, so that our hearts and lives are showing the impression of his heavenly seal daily more and more clearly and completely.

And this must really have always been the answer which it concerned every Christian to be able to make; although it has been in various instances, and by very opposite parties, tried to be evaded. It is evaded alike by those who set too highly the grace given in baptism, and by those who, setting this too low, direct our attention to another point in a man's life, which they call his justification or conversion. For both alike would give an exaggerated importance to one particular moment of our lives, and to the grace then given. Now, the importance of particular moments in men's lives differs exceedingly in different persons; but yet in all may be exaggerated. I suppose that if ever in any man's life a particular point was of immense importance, it was the point of his conversion in the case of St. Paul. There were here united all that grace which according to one view accompanies baptism especially, and all which according to the other view accompanies conversion and justification. Here was a point which separated St. Paul's later life from his earlier with a broader line of separation than can possibly be the ease in general. There can be no doubt that he, if ever man did, received at that particular time the Holy Ghost. But if, ten or twenty years afterwards, St. Paul had been asked concerning what the Holy Ghost had done for him, he would not certainly have confined himself in his answer to the grace once given him at his conversion and baptism, but would have spoken of that which he had been receiving since every hour and every day, carrying forward and completing that work of God which had been begun at the time of his journey to Damascus. And as he had received more and more grace, so was his confidence in his acceptance with God at the last day more and more assured. For he writes to the Corinthians, many years after his conversion and baptism, that he kept under his body, and was bringing it into subjection, lest that by any means, after having preached to others, he should be himself a castaway. And some years later still, though he does not use so strong an expression as that of becoming a castaway, yet he still says, even when writing to the Philippians from Rome, that he counted not himself to have apprehended, nor to have attained his object fully; but forgetting what was behind, even the grace of his conversion and baptism, he pressed on to the things which were before, even that continued and increasing grace which was required to bring him in safety to his heavenly crown. But if we go on some years yet farther, when his labours were ended, and the sure prospect of speedy death was before him; when the past grace was everything, and what he could expect yet to come was scarcely any other than that particular aid which we need in our struggle with the last enemy--death; then, his language is free from all uncertainty; then, in the full sense of the words, he could say that he had received the Holy Ghost, that his spirit had been fully born again for its eternal being, and that there only remained the raising up also of his mortal body, to complete that new creation of body and soul which Christ's Spirit works in Christ's redeemed. "I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me my crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me at that day."

It seems, then, that the great question which we should be anxious to be able to answer in the affirmative, is this, "_Are we receiving_ the Holy Ghost since we believed?" "Since we believed," whether we choose to carry back the date of our first belief to the very time of our baptism, when grace was given to us,--we know not to what degree nor how,--yet given to us, as being then received into Christ's flock; or whether we go back only to that time when we can ourselves remember ourselves to have believed, and so can remember that God's grace was given to us. Have we been ever since, and are we still, receiving the Holy Ghost? O blessed above all blessedness, if we can say that this is true of us! O blessed with a blessedness most complete, if we only do not too entirely abandon ourselves to enjoy it! Elect of God; holy and beloved; justified and sanctified; there is nothing in all the world that could impair or destroy such happiness, except we ourselves, in evil hour, believed it to be out of the reach of danger.

But if the witness of memory and conscience be less favourable; if we can remember long seasons of our lives during which we were not receiving the Holy Ghost; long seasons of a cold and hard state, in which there was, as it were, neither rain nor dew, nor yet sun to ripen what had grown before; but all was so ungenial that no new thing grew; and what had grown was withering and almost dying; what shall be said, then, and how can the time be made up which was so wasted? But we remember, it may be, that this deadly season passed away: the rain fell once more, and the tender dew, and the quickening sun shone brightly: our spiritual growth began again, and is now going on healthily; we have not always been receiving the Holy Ghost since we believed, but we are receiving him now. How gracious, then, has God been to us, that he has again renewed us unto repentance; that he has shown that we have not, in the fullest sense, sinned against the Holy Ghost, seeing that the Holy Ghost still abides with us! we grieved him, and tried his long-suffering, but he has not abandoned us to our own evil hearts; we are receiving him who is the giver of life, and we still live.

But must not we speak of others? is not another case to be supposed possible? may there not be some who cannot say with truth that they are receiving the holy Ghost now? They received him once; we doubt it not; perhaps they were receiving him for some length of time; their early childhood was watched by Christian care; their youth and early manhood, when it received freshly things of this world, received also, with lively thankfulness, the grace of God; they can remember a time when they were growing in goodness; when they were being renewed after the image of God. But they can remember, also, that this time passed away; the grace of early childhood was put out by the temptations of boyhood; the grace of youth and opening manhood died away amid the hardness of this life's maturity. It is so, I believe, often; that boyhood, which is, as it were, ripened childhood, destroys the grace of our earliest years; that again, when youth offers us a second beginning of life, we are again impressed with good; but that ripened youth, which is manhood, brings with it again the reason of hardness, and again our spiritual growth, is destroyed. We can remember, I am supposing, that this fatal change did take place; but can we date it to any particular act, or month, or day, or hour? We can do so most rarely: in this respect the seed of death can even less be traced to its beginning than the seed of life. And yet there _was_ a beginning, only we do not remember it. And why do we not remember it? Because the real beginning was in some act which seemed of so little consequence that it made no impression; in the altering some habit which we judged to be a mere trifle; in the indulging some temper which even at the time we hardly noticed. Some such little thing,--little in our view of it,--made the fatal turn; we received the grace of God less and less: we heeded not the change for a season; and when it was so marked that we could not but heed it, then we had ceased to regard it; and so it was that the spring of our life was dried up: and it is of no more avail to our present and future state, that we once received grace, than the rain of last winter will be sufficient to ripen the summer's harvest, if from this time forward we have nothing but drought and cold.

Some few, again, there may be, who, within their own recollection, could not say that they have received the Holy Ghost: persons who have lived among careless friends, to whom the way of life has never been steadily pointed out; while the way of death, with all its manifold paths, meeting at last in one, has been continually before them. Shall we say that these, because they have been baptized, are therefore guilty of having rejected grace given? that this sin is aggravated, because a mercy was offered them once of which they were unconscious? We would not say this; but we would say that it is impossible but that they must have received the Holy Ghost within their memory; it is impossible but that conscience must have sometimes spoken, and that they must have sometimes been enabled to obey it; it is impossible but that they must have had some notions of sin, and some desires to struggle against it; and so far as they ever felt that desire, it was the work of God's Holy Spirit. Man cannot dare to say how great the amount of their guilt may be; but guilt there certainly is; they have grieved the Holy Spirit; and, though we dare not say that they have utterly blasphemed him, yet they have a long hardness to overcome, and every hour of delayed turning to God increases it: it may be possible still to overcome it, but meanwhile it is not overcome; they are not receiving the Holy Spirit; they are not being renewed into the likeness of Christ, without which no man can see God.

Here, then, are the four cases, one of which must belong to every one of us here assembled. Either we have been always and still are receiving the Holy Ghost; or we can remember when we were not, but yet are receiving him now; or we can remember when we were, but yet now are not; or we cannot remember to have received him ever, nor are we yet receiving him. I cannot say which of the last two states is the most dreadful, nor scarcely which of the first two states is the most blessed. But yet as even those happy states admit not of over-confidence, so neither do the last two most unhappy states oblige us to despair. Not to despair; but they do urge us to every degree of fear less than despair. There is far more danger of our not fearing enough than of our being driven to despair. There is far more danger of your looking on the season of youth, of our looking on to old age; you trusting to the second freshness and tenderness of the first,--we to the calmness and necessary reflection of the last. There is far more danger of our thus hardening ourselves beyond recall; there is not only the danger, but there is the sin, the greatest sin, I suppose, of which the human mind is capable, that of deliberately choosing evil for the present rather than good, calculating that, by and by, we shall choose good rather than evil. I believe, that it is impossible to conceive of any state of mind more sinful than one which should so feel and so choose; and this is the state which we incur, and which we persist in whenever we put off the thought of repentance. Now, then, it only remains, that we apply this each to ourselves; I say all of us apply it, the young and the old alike; for there is not one here so young as not to have cause to apply it; there is not one of us who would not, I am sure, be a different person from what he now is, if he were to ask himself steadily every day, Have I been and am I receiving the Holy Ghost since I believed?

LECTURE XXVII.

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TRINITY SUNDAY.

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JOHN iii. 9.

_How can these things be_?

This is the second question put by Nicodemus to our Lord with regard to the truths which Jesus was declaring to him. The first was, "How can a man be born when he is old?" which was said upon our Lord's telling him that, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Now, it will be observed, that these two questions are treated by our Lord in a different manner: to the first he, in fact, gives an answer; that is, he removes by his answer that difficulty in Nicodemus's mind which led to the question; but to the second he gives no answer, and leaves Nicodemus--and with Nicodemus, us all also--exactly in the same ignorance as he found him at the beginning.

Now, is there any difference in the nature of these two questions, which led our Lord to treat them so differently? We might suppose beforehand that there would be; and when we come to examine them, so we shall find it. The difficulty in the first question rendered true faith impossible, and, therefore, our Lord removed it; the difficulty in the second question did not properly interfere with faith at all, but might, through man's fault, be a temptation to him to refuse to believe. And as this, like other temptations, must be overcome by us, and not taken away from our path before we encounter it, so our Lord did not think proper to remove it or to lessen it.

We must now unfold this difference more clearly. When Christ said, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," Nicodemus could not possibly believe what our Lord said, because he did not understand his meaning. He did not know what he meant by "a man's being born again," and, therefore, he could not believe, as he did not know what he was to believe. Words which we do not understand, are like words spoken in an unknown language; we can neither believe them nor disbelieve them, because we do not know what they say. For instance, I repeat these words, [Greek: tous pantas haemas phanerothaenai dei emprosaen tou baematos tou Christou.] Now, if I were to ask, Do you believe these words? is it not manifest that all of you who know Greek enough, to understand them may also believe them; but of those who do not know Greek, not a single person can yet believe them? They are as yet words spoken as to the air. But when I add, that these words mean, "We must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ;" now we can all believe them because we can all understand them.

It is, then, perfectly impossible for any man to believe a statement except in proportion as he understands its meaning. And, therefore, our Lord explained what he meant to Nicodemus, and told him that, by being born again, he did not mean the natural birth of the body; but a birth caused by the Spirit, and therefore itself a birth of a spirit: for, as that which is born from a body is itself also a body, so that which is born of a spirit is itself also a spirit. So that Christ's words now are seen to have this meaning,--No man can enter into the kingdom of God except God's Spirit creates in him a spirit or mind like unto himself, and like unto Christ, and like unto the Father. Nicodemus, then, could now understand what was meant, and might have believed it. But he asks rather another question, "How can these things be?" How can God's Spirit create within me a spirit like himself, while I continue a man as before? Many persons since have asked similar questions; but to none of them is an answer given. How God's Spirit works within us I cannot tell; but if we take the appointed means of procuring his aid, we shall surely find that he has worked and does work in us to life eternal.

We must, then, in order to believe, understand what it is that is told us; but it is by no means necessary that we should understand how it is to happen. It is not necessary, and in a thousand instances we do not know. "If we take poison, we shall die:" there is a statement which we can understand, and therefore believe. But do we understand how it is that poison kills us? Does every one here know how poisons act upon the human frame, and what is the different operation of different poisons,--how laudanum kills, for instance, and how arsenic? Surely there are very few of us, at most, who do understand this: and yet would it not be exceedingly unreasonable to refuse to believe that poison will kill us, because we do not understand the manner _how_?

Thus far, I think, the question is perfectly plain, so soon as it is once laid before us. But the real point of perplexity is to be found a step further. In almost all propositions there is something about the terms which we do understand, and something which we do not. For instance, let me say these few words:--"A frigate was lost amidst the breakers." These words would be understood in a certain degree, by all who hear me: and so far as all understand them, all can believe them. All would understand that a ship had sunk in the water, or been dashed to pieces; that it would be useful no more for the purposes for which it had been made. But what is meant by the words "frigate" and "breakers" all would not understand, and many would understand very differently: that is to say, those who had happened to have known most about the sea and sea affairs would understand most about them, while those who knew less would understand less; but probably none of us would understand their meaning so fully, or would have so distinct and lively an image of the things, as would be enjoyed by an actual seaman; and even amongst seamen themselves, there would again be different degrees of understanding, according to their different degrees of experience, or knowledge of ships, or powers of mind.

I have taken the instance at random, and any other proposition might have served my purpose as well. But men do not speak to one another at random; when they say anything to their neighbour, they mean it to produce on his mind a certain effect. Suppose that we were living near the sea-coast, and any one were suddenly to come in, and to utter the words which I have taken as my example: should we not know that what the man meant by these words was, that there was a danger at hand for which our help was needed? It matters not that we have no distinct ideas of the terms "frigate" or "breakers;" we understand enough for our belief and practice, and we should hasten to the sea-shore accordingly. Or suppose that the same words were told us of a frigate in which we had some near relation: should we not see at once that what we were meant to understand and to believe in the words was, that we had lost a relation? That is the truth with which we are concerned; and this we can understand and feel, although we may be able to understand nothing more of the words in which that truth is conveyed to us. Now, in like manner, in whatever God says to us there is a purpose: it is intended to produce on our minds a certain impression, and so far it must be understood. But when God speaks to us of heavenly things, the terms employed can only be understood in part, and so far as God's purpose with regard to our minds reaches; but there must be a great deal in them which we can no more understand than one who had never seen a ship, or a picture of one, could understand the word "frigate." Our business is to consider what impression or what actions the words are intended to produce in us. Up to this point we can and must understand them: beyond this they may be wholly above the reach of our faculties, and we can form of them no ideas at all.

It is clear that this will be the case most especially whenever God reveals to us anything concerning himself. Take these few words, for example, "God is a spirit;" take them as a mere abstract truth, and how little can we understand about them! Who will dare to say that he understands all that is contained in the words "God" and "spirit?" We might weary ourselves for ever in attempting so to search out either. But God said these words to us: and the point is, What impression did he mean them to have upon us? how far can we understand them? This he has not by any means left doubtful, for it follows immediately, "They who worship him should worship Him in spirit and in truth." For this end the words were spoken, and thus far they are clear to us. God lives not on Mount Gerizim or at Jerusalem: but in every place he hears the prayers of the sincere and contrite heart, in no place will he regard the offerings of the proud and evil.

Or again, "God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that all who believe in him should not perish, but have eternal life." Here are words in themselves, as abstract truths, perfectly overwhelming; "God," "God's only-begotten Son," "Eternity." Who shall understand these things, when it is said, that "none knoweth the Son, save the Father; that none knoweth the Father, save the Son?" But did God tell us the words for nothing? can we understand nothing from them? believe nothing? feel nothing? Nay, they were spoken that we might both understand, and believe, and feel. How must He love us, who gives for us his only-begotten Son! how surely may we believe in Him who is an only-begotten Son to his Father,--so equal in nature, so entire in union!--What must that happiness be, which reaches beyond our powers of counting! Would we go further?--then the veil is drawn before us; other truths there are, no doubt, contained in the words; truths which the angels might desire to look into; truths which even they may be unable to understand. But these are the secret things which belong unto our God; the things which are revealed they are what belong to us and to our children, that we may understand, and believe, and do them.

Again, "the Comforter, whom Christ will send unto us from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of Christ." What words are here! "The Spirit of Truth," "the Spirit proceeding from the Father;" the Spirit "whom Christ will send," and "send from the Father." Can any created being understand, to the full, such "heavenly things" as these? But would Christ have uttered to his disciples mere unintelligible words, which could tell them nothing, and excite in them no feeling but mere wonder? Not so; but the words told them that Christ was not to be lost to them after he had left them on earth; that every gift of God was his: that even that Spirit of God, in which is contained all the fulness of the Godhead, is the Spirit of Christ also; that that mighty power which should work in them so abundantly, was of no other or lower origin than God himself; as entirely God, as the spirit of man is man. But can we therefore understand the Spirit of God, or conceive of him? How should we, when we cannot understand our own? This, and this only, we understand and believe, that without him our spirits cannot be quickened; that unless we pray daily for his aid, and listen to his calls within us, our spirit will never be created after his image, and we cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

It is thus, and thus only, that the revelations of God's word are beyond our understandings: that in them, beings and things are spoken of, which, taken generally, and in themselves, we should in vain endeavour to comprehend. But what God means us to know, or feel, or do, respecting them, that we can understand; and beyond this we have no concern. It is, in fact, a contradiction to speak of revealing what is unintelligible; for so far as it is a revealed truth it is intelligible; so far as it is unintelligible, it is not revealed. But though a thing revealed must be intelligible in itself, yet it by no means follows that we can understand _how_ it happens. When we are told that the dead shall rise again, we can understand quite well what is meant; that we beings who feel happiness and misery, shall feel them again, either the one or the other, after we seemingly have done with them for ever in the grave. But "How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come?" are questions to which, whether asked scoffingly or sincerely, we can give no answers; here our understanding fails, and here the truth is not revealed to us.

How, then, has Christianity no mysteries? In one sense, blessed be God for it, it has many. Using mysteries in St. Paul's sense of great revelations of things which were and must be unknown to all, except God had revealed them: then, indeed, they are many; the pillar and ground of truth, great without controversy, and full of salvation. But take mysteries in our more common sense of the word,--as things which are revealed to none, and can be understood by none,--then it is true that Christianity leaves many such in existence; that many such she has done away; that none has she created. She leaves many mysteries with respect to God, and with respect to ourselves; God is still incomprehensible; life and death have many things in them beyond our questioning; we may still look around us, above us, and within us, and wonder, and be ignorant. But if she still leaves the veil drawn over much in heaven and in earth, yet from how much has she removed it! Life and death are still in many respects dark; but she has brought to light immortality. God is still in himself incomprehensible; but all his glory, and all his perfections, are revealed to us in his only-begotten Son Christ Jesus. God's Spirit who can search out in his own proper essence? yet Christianity has taught us how we may have him to dwell with us for ever, and taste the fulness of his blessings. Yea, thanks be to God for the great Christian mystery which we this day celebrate; that he has revealed himself to us as our Saviour and our Comforter; that he has revealed to us his infinite love, in that he has given us his only-begotten Son to die for us, and his own Eternal Spirit to make our hearts his temple.

LECTURE XXVIII.

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EXODUS iii. 6.

_And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God_.

LUKE xxiii. 30.

_Then shall they begin to say to the mountains. Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us_.

These two passages occur, the one in the first lesson of this morning's service, the other in the second. One or other of them must have been, or must be, the case of you, of me, of every soul of man that lives or has lived since the world began. There must be a time in the existence of every human being when he will fear God. But the great, the infinite difference is, whether we fear him at the beginning of our relations to him, or at the end.

The fear of Moses was felt at the beginning of his knowledge of God. When God revealed himself to him at the bush, it was, so far as we are told, the first time that Moses learnt to know him. The fear of those who say to the mountains, "Fall on us," is felt at the very end of their knowledge of God; for to those who are punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, God is not. So that the two cases in the text are exact instances of the difference of which I spoke, in the most extreme degree. Moses, the greatest of the prophets, fears God at first; those who are cast into hell, fear him at last.

The appearance of God, as described in this passage of Scripture, is an image also of his dealings with us at the beginning of our course, when we fear him with a saving fear. "The bush burned with fire, but the bush was not consumed." God shows his terrors, but he does not, as yet, destroy with them. It is the very opposite to this at last, for then he is expressly said to be a consuming fire.

Moses turned aside to see this great sight, why the bush was not burnt. That sight is the very same which the world has been offering for so many hundreds of years: God's terrors are around it, but, as yet, it is not consumed, because he wills that we should fear him before it is too late.

There is, indeed, this great difference;--that the signs of God's presence do not now force themselves upon our eyes; so that we may, if we choose, walk on our own way, without turning aside to see and observe them. And thus we do not see God, and do not, therefore, hide our faces for fear of him, but go on, and feel no fear, till the time when we cannot help seeing him. And it may be, that this time will never come till our life, and with it our space of trial, is gone for ever.

Here, then, is our state, that God will manifest himself no more to us in such a way as that we cannot help seeing him. The burning bush will be no more given us as a sign; Christ will no more manifest himself unto the world. And yet, unless we do see him, unless we learn to fear him while he is yet an unconsuming fire, unless we know that he is near, and that the place whereon we stand is holy ground, we shall most certainly see him when he will be a consuming fire, and when we shall join in crying to the mountains, to fall on us, and to the hills, to cover us.

Every person who thinks at all, must, I am sure, be satisfied, that our great want, the great need of our condition, is this one thing--to realize to ourselves the presence of God. It is a want not at all peculiar to the young. Thoughtfulness, in one sense, is indeed likely to come with advancing years: we are more apt to think at forty than at fifteen; but it by no means follows that we are more apt to think about God. In this matter we are nearly at a level at all times of our life: it is with all of us our one great want, to bring the idea of God, with a living and abiding power, home to our minds.

This is illustrated by a wish ascribed to a great and good man--Johnson, and which has been noticed with a sneer by unbelievers, a wish that he might see a spirit from the other world, to testify to him of the truth of the resurrection. This has been sneered at, as if it were a confession of the unsatisfactory nature of the evidence which we actually possess: but, in truth, it is a confession only of the weakness which clings to us all, that things unseen, which our reason only assures us to be real, are continually overpowered by things affecting our senses; and, therefore, it was a natural wish that sight might, in a manner, come to the aid of reason; that the eye might see, and the ear might hear, a form and words which belonged to another world. And this wish might arise (I do not say wisely, or that his deliberate judgment would sanction it, but it might arise) in the breast of a good man, and one who would be willing to lay down his life in proof of his belief in Christ's promises. It might arise, not because he felt any doubt, when his mind turned calmly to the subject; not because he was hesitating what should be the main principle of his life; but because his experience had told him, that there are many times in the life of man when the mind does not fully exert itself; when habit and impressions rule us, in a manner, in its stead. And when so many of our impressions must be earthly, and as our impressions colour our habits, is it not natural (I do not say wise, but is it not natural) to desire some one forcible unearthly impression, which might, on the other side, colour our habits, and so influence us at those times when the mind, almost by the necessity of our condition, cannot directly interpose its own deliberate decision as our authority?

No doubt the wish to which I have been alluding is not one which our reason would sanction; but it expresses in a very lively and striking manner a want which is most true and real, although it proposes an impossible remedy. But the question cannot but occur to us, Can it be that our heavenly Father, who knows whereof we are made, should have intended us to live wholly by faith in this world? That is, Can it have been his will that all visible signs of himself should be withdrawn from us; and that we should be left only with the record and the evidence of his mighty works done in our behalf in past times; and with that other evidence of his wisdom and power which is afforded by the wonders of his creation?

We look into the Scriptures and we learn that such was not his will. We were to live by faith, indeed, with, respect to the unseen world, there the sign given was to be for ever only the sign of Christ's resurrection. But yet it was not designed that the evidence of Christ's having redeemed us should be sought for only in the records of the past; he purposed that there should be a living record, a record that might speak to our senses as well as to our reason; that should continually present us with impressions of the reality of Christ's salvation; and so might work upon the habits of our life, as insensibly as the air we breathe. This living witness, which should last till Christ came again, was to be no other than his own body instinct with his own Spirit--his people, the temple of the Holy Ghost, his holy universal Church.

If we consider for a moment, this would entirely meet the want of which I have been speaking. It is possible, certainly, to look upon the face of nature without being reminded of God; yet it is surely true, that in the outward creation, in the order of the seasons, the laws of the heavenly bodies, the wonderful wisdom and goodness displayed in the constitution of every living thing in its order, there is a tendency at least to impress us with, the thought of God, if nothing else obstructed it. But there is a constant obstruction in the state of man. Looking at men, hearing them, considering them, it is not only possible not to be reminded of God; but their very tendency is to exclude him from our minds, because the moral workmanship which is so predominant in them has assuredly not had God for its author. We all in our dealings with one another, lead each other away from God. We present to each other's view what seems to be a complete world of our own, in which God is not. We see a beginning, a middle, and an end; we see faculties for acquiring knowledge, and for receiving enjoyment; and earth furnishes knowledge to the one and enjoyment to the other. We see desires, and we see the objects to which they are limited; we see that death removes men from all these objects, and consistently with this, we observe, that death is generally regarded as the greatest of all evils. Man's witness, then, as far as it goes, is against the reality of God and of eternity. His life, his language, his desires, his understanding appear, when we look over the world, to refer to no being higher than himself, to no other state of things than that of which sight testifies.

Now, Christ's Church, the living temple of the Holy Ghost, puts in the place of this natural and corrupt man, whose witness is against God, another sort of man, redeemed and regenerate, whose whole being breathes a perpetual witness of God. Consider, again, what we should see in such a Church. We should see a beginning, a middle, but the end is not yet visible; we should see, besides the faculties for knowledge and enjoyment which were receiving their gratification daily, other faculties of both kinds, whose gratification was as yet withheld; we should see desires not limited to any object now visible or attainable. We should see death looked to as the gate by which these hitherto unobtained objects were to be sought for; and we should hear it spoken of, not as the greatest of evils, but as an event solemn, indeed, and painful to nature, but full of blessing and of happiness. We should see love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; a constitution of nature as manifestly proclaiming its author to be the God of all holiness and loving-kindness, as the wonderful structure of our eyes or hands declares them to be the work of the God of all wisdom and power. We should thus see in all our fellow-men, not only as much, but far more than in the constitution of the lower animals, or of the plants, or of the heavenly bodies, a witness of God and of eternity. Their whole lives would be a witness; their whole conversation would be a witness; their outward and more peculiar acts of worship would then bear their part in harmony with all the rest. Every day would the voices of the Church be heard in its services of prayer and thanksgiving; every day would its members renew their pledges of faithfulness to Christ, and to one another, upon partaking together the memorials of his sacrifice.

What could we desire more than such a living witness as this? What sign in the sky, what momentary appearance of a spirit from the unseen world, could so impress us with the reality of God, as this daily worshipping in his living temple; this daily sight, of more than the Shechinah of old, even of his most Holy Spirit, diffusing on every side light and blessing? And what is now become of this witness? can names, and forms, and ordinances, supply its place? can our unfrequent worship, our most seldom communion, impress on us an image of men living altogether in the presence of God, and in communion with Christ? But before we dwell on this, we may, while considering the design of the true Church of Christ, well understand how such excellent things should be spoken of it, and how it should have been introduced into the Creed itself, following immediately after the mention of the Holy Ghost. That holy universal Church was to be the abiding witness of Christ's love and of Christ's promises; not in its outward forms only, for they by themselves are not a living witness; they cannot meet our want--to have God and heavenly things made real to us; but in its whole spirit, by which renewed man was to bear as visibly the image of God, as corrupted man had lost it. This was the sure sign that Christ had appointed to abide until his coming again; this sign, as striking as the burning bush, would compel us to observe; would make us sure that the place whereon we stand is holy ground.

Then follows the question: With this sign lost in its most essential points, how can we supply its place? and how can we best avail ourselves of those parts of it which still remain? and how can we each endeavour to build up a partial and most imperfect imitation of it, which may yet, in some sort, serve to supply our great want, and remind us daily of God? This opens a wide field for thought, to those who are willing to follow it; but much of it belongs to other occasions rather than this: the practical part of it,--the means of most imperfectly supplying the want of God's own appointed sign, a true and living universal Church, shall be the subject of my next Lecture.

LECTURE XXIX.

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PSALM cxxxvii. 4.

_How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land_?

This was said by the exiles of Jerusalem, when they were in the land of their captivity in Babylon. There is no reason to suppose that their condition was one of bondage, as it had been in Egypt: the nations removed by conquest, under the Persian kings, from their own country to another land, were no otherwise ill-treated; they had new homes given them in which they lived unmolested; only they were torn away from their own land, and were as sojourners in a land of strangers. But the peculiar evil of this state was, that they were torn away from the proper seat of their worship. The Jew in Babylon might have his own home, and his own land to cultivate, as he had in Judæa; but nothing could replace to him the loss of the temple at Jerusalem: there alone could the morning and evening sacrifices be offered; there alone could the sin-offering for the people be duly made. Banished from the temple, therefore, he was deprived also of the most solemn part of his religion; he was, as it were, exiled from God; and the worship of God, as it was now left to him,--that is, the offering up of prayers and praises,--was almost painful to him, as it reminded him so forcibly of his changed condition.

Such also, in some respects, was to be the state of the Christian Church after our Lord's ascension. The only acceptable sacrifice was now that of their great High Priest interceding for them in the presence of the Father: heaven was their temple, and they were far removed from it upon earth: they, too, like the Jews in Babylon, were a little society by themselves living in the midst of strangers. "Our citizenship," says St. Paul to the Philippians, "is in heaven:" here they were not citizens, but sojourners. Why, then, should not the early Christians have joined altogether in the feeling of the Jews at Babylon? why should not they, too, have felt and said, "How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?"

The answer is contained in what I said last Sunday; because Christ had not left them comfortless or forsaken, but was come again to them by his Holy Spirit; because God was dwelling in the midst of them; because they were not exiles from the temple of God, but were themselves become God's temple; because through the virtue of the one offering for sin once made, but for ever presented before God by their High Priest in heaven, they, in God's temple on earth, were presenting also their daily and acceptable sacrifice, the sacrifice of themselves; because also, though as yet they were a small society in a land of strangers, yet the stone formed without hands was to become a mighty mountain, and cover the whole earth: what was now the land of strangers was to become theirs; the whole earth should be full of the knowledge of the Lord; the kingdoms of the world were to become his kingdom; and thus earth, redeemed from the curse of sin, was again to be so blessed that God's servants living upon it should find it no place of exile.

But if this, in its reality, does not now exist; if, although God's temple be on earth, the appointed sacrifice in it is not offered, the living sacrifice of ourselves; if the society has, by spreading, become weak, and the kingdoms of the earth are Christ's kingdoms in name alone; are we, then, come back once more to the condition of the Jews in Babylon? are we exiles from God, living amongst strangers? and must we, too, say, with the prophet, "How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?"

This was the question which I proposed to answer: What can we do to make our condition unlike that of exiles from God: to restore that true sign of his presence amongst us, the living fire of his Holy Spirit pervading every part of his temple? I mean, what can we do as individuals? for the question in any other sense is not to be asked or answered here. But we, each of us, must have felt, at some time or other, our distance from God. Put the idea in what form or what words we will, we must--every one of us who has ever thought seriously at all--we must regret that there is not a stronger and more abiding influence over us, to keep us from evil, and to turn us to good.

Now, the vestiges of Christ's church left among us are chiefly these: our prayers together, whether in our families or in this place; our reading of the Scriptures together; our communion, rare as it is, in the memorials of the body and blood of Christ our Saviour. These are the vestiges of that which was designed to be with us always, and in every part of our lives, the holy temple of God, his living church; but which now presents itself to us only at particular times, and places, and actions; in our worship and in our joint reading of the Scriptures, and in our communion.

It will be understood at once why I have not spoken here of prayer and reading the Scriptures by ourselves alone. Most necessary as these are to us, yet they do not belong to the helps ministered to us by the church; they belong to us each as individuals, and in these respects we must be in the same state everywhere: these were enjoyed by the Jews even in their exile in Babylon. But the church acts upon us through one another, and therefore the vestiges of the church can only be sought for in what we do, not alone, but together. I, therefore, noticed only that prayer, and that reading of the Scriptures, in which many of us took part in common.

Such common prayer takes place amongst us every morning and evening, as well as on Sundays within these walls. Whenever we meet on those occasions, we meet as Christ's church. Now, conceive how the effect of such meeting depends on the conduct of each of us. It is not necessary to notice behaviour openly profane and disorderly: this does not occur amongst us. We see, however, that if it did occur in any meeting for the purposes of religious worship, such a meeting would do us harm rather than good: its witness to us would not be in favour of God, but against him. But take another case: when we are assembled for prayers, suppose our behaviour, without being disorderly, was yet so manifestly indifferent as to be really indecent; that is, suppose every countenance showed such manifest signs of weariness, and impatience, and want of interest in what was going forward, that it was evident there was no general sympathy with any feeling of devotion. Would not the effect here also be injurious? would not such a meeting also shock and check our approaches towards God? would it not rather convince us that God was really far distant from us, instead of showing that he was in the midst of us?

Ascend one step higher. Our behaviour is neither disorderly, nor manifestly indifferent: it is decent, serious, respectful. What is the effect in this case? Not absolutely unfavourable certainly; but yet far from being much help towards good. We bear our witness that we are engaged in a matter that should be treated with reverence: this is very right; but do we more than this? Do we show that we are engaged in a matter that commands our interest also, as well as our respect? If not, our witness is not the witness of Christ's church: it does not go to declare that God is in us of a truth.

Let us go on one step more. We meet together to pray: we are orderly, we are quiet, we are serious; but the countenance shows that we are something more than these. There is on it the expression, never to be mistaken, of real interest. Remember I am speaking of meetings for prayer, where the words are perfectly familiar to us, and where the interest therefore cannot be the mere interest of novelty. Say, then, that our countenances express interest: I do not mean strong and excited feeling; but interest, which may be very real yet very quiet also. We look as if we thought of what we were engaged in, of what we are ourselves, and of what God is to us. We are joined in one common feeling of thankfulness to him for mercies past, of wishing for his help and love for the time to come. Now, think what would be the effect of such a meeting. Would it not be, clearly, positively good! Would not every individual's earnestness be confirmed by the manifest earnestness of others? Would not his own sense of God's reality be rendered stronger, by seeing that others felt it just as he did? Then, here would be the church of God rendering her appointed witness: she would be giving her sure sign that God is not far from any one of us.