Chapter XII: Part 12

Now, then, where is the solution to be found? for some solution there must be, unless we will either condemn a most true principle, or defend a most false conclusion. The error lies in confounding God's moral law with his law of ordinances; precisely the same error which led the Jews to stone Stephen. The law had undoubtedly commanded that he who blasphemed God should be stoned; the Jews called Stephen's speaking against the holy place and against the law blasphemy against God, and they murdered God's faithful servant and Christ's blessed martyr. Even so the law had said, Let no miracle be so great as to tempt you to forsake God: the Jews considered the forsaking the law of the Sabbath to be a forsaking of God, and they said that Christ's miracle was a work of Satan. There is no blasphemy into which we may not fall, no crime from which we shall be safe, if we do not separate in our minds most clearly such laws as relate to moral and eternal duties, and such as relate to outward or positive ordinances, even when commanded or instituted by God himself. It is most false to say that the fact of their being commanded sets them on a level with each other. So long as they are commanded to us, it is no doubt our duty to obey them equally: but the difference between them is this, that whereas the first are commanded to us and to our children for ever, and no possible evidence can be so great as to persuade us that God has repealed them; (for the utmost conceivable amount of external testimony, such as that of miracles, could only lead to madness;--the human mind might, conceivably, be overwhelmed by the conflict, but should never and could never be tempted to renounce its very being, and lie against its Maker;) the others, that is, the commands to observe certain forms and ordinances, are in their nature essentially temporary and changeable: we have no right to assume that they will be continued, and therefore a miracle at any time might justly require us to forsake them; and not only an outward miracle, but the changed circumstances of the times may speak God's will no less clearly than a miracle, and may absolutely make it our duty to lay aside those ordinances, which to us hitherto, and to our fathers before us, were indeed the commands of God.

Now let us take the other question,--which may indeed be called a question as to the allowableness of resting confidently in truth already gained, without consenting to examine the claims of something asserting itself to be a new truth, yet which seems to interfere with the old. Is nothing within us to be safe from possible doubt, or is everything? Or is it here, as in the former case, that there are truths so tried and so sacred that it were blasphemy to question them; while there are others, often closely intermixed with these, which are not so sacred, because they are not eternal; which may and ought to be examined when occasion requires; and which may be laid aside, or exchanged rather, for some higher truth, if it shall reasonably appear that their work is done, and that if we retain them longer they will change their character, and become no longer true but false. "David having served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, and was gathered unto his fathers, and saw corruption; but He whom God raised again saw no corruption." This is the difference between positive ordinances and moral: the first serve their appointed number of generations by the will of God, and then are gathered to their fathers, and perish; the latter are by the right hand of God exalted, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.

"We know," said the Jews, "that God spake to Moses; but for this fellow, we know not from whence he is." There was a time when their fathers had held almost the very same language to Moses: "they refused him, saying Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?" But now they knew that God had spoken to Moses, but were refusing Him who was sent unto them after Moses. God had spoken unto Moses, it was most true: he had spoken to him and given him commandments which were to last for ever; and which Christ, so far from undoing, was sent to confirm and to perfect; he had spoken to him other things, which were not to last for ever, but yet which were not to be cast away with dishonour; but having, in the fulness of time, done their work, were then, like David, to fall asleep. All that was required of the Jews, was not to reject as blasphemy a doctrine which should distinguish between these two sorts of truths: which in no way requires to believe that God had not spoken to Moses,--which, on the contrary, maintained that he had so spoken,--but only contended that he has also, in these last days, spoken unto us by his Son; and that his Son, bearing the full image of Divine authority, might well be believed if he spoke of some parts of Moses's law as having now fulfilled their work, seeing that they were such parts only as, by their very nature, were not eternal: they had not been from the beginning, and therefore they would not live on to the end.

The practical conclusion is, that, whilst we hold fast, with an undoubting and unwavering faith, all truths which, by their very nature, are eternal, and to deny which is no other than to speak against the Holy Ghost, we should listen patiently to, and pass no harsh judgment on, those who question other truths not necessarily eternal, while they declare that they are, to the best of their consciences, seeking to obey God and Christ. When I say, that we should listen patiently, and not pass harsh judgments upon those who question such points, I say it without at all meaning that we should agree with them. It would be monstrous indeed, to suppose that old opinions are never combated wrongly; that old institutions are never pronounced to have lived out their appointed time, when, in fact, they are still in their full vigour. But the language of those who defend the doctrines and the ordinances of the Church may, and often does, partake of the sin of that of the Pharisees, even when those against whom they are contending, are not, like Christ, bringing in a new and higher truth, but an actual error. To point out that it is an error, to defend ourselves and the Church from it, is most right, and most highly our duty; but it is neither right, nor our duty, but the very sin of the Pharisees, to put it down merely by saying, "As for this fellow, we know not from whence he is;" to treat the whole question as an impiety, and to deny the virtues and the holiness of those who maintain it, because they are, as we call it, "speaking blasphemous things against the holy place and against the law." The mischief of this to ourselves is infinite; nay, in its extreme, it leads to language which is fearfully resembling the very blasphemy against the Holy Ghost; for, when we say, as has been said, that where men's lives are apparently good and holy, and their doctrines are against those of the Church, the holiness is an unreal holiness, and that we cannot see into their hearts, this is, in fact, denying the Holy Spirit's most infallible sign--the fruits of righteousness; and being positive rather of the truth of the Church, than of the truth of God. There is nothing so certain as that goodness is from God; nothing so certain as that sin is not from God; nothing so certain as that sin is not from him. To deny, or doubt this, is to dispute the greatest assurance of truth that God has ever been pleased to give to us. It does not, by any means, follow, that all good men are free from error, nor that error is less error because good men hold it; but to make the error which is less certain, a reason for disputing the goodness which is more certain, is the spirit, not of God, nor of the Church of God, but of those false zealots who put an idol in God's place; of such as rejected Christ and murdered Stephen.

LECTURE XXXIV.

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1 CORINTHIANS xiv, 20.

_Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit, in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men_.

It would be going a great deal too far to say, that they who fulfilled the latter part of this command, were sure also to fulfil the former; that they who were men in understanding, were, therefore, likely to be children in malice. But the converse holds good, with remarkable certainty, that they who are children in understanding, are proportionally apt to be men in malice: that is, in proportion as men neglect that which should be the guide of their lives, so are they left to the mastery of their passions; and as nature and outward circumstances do not allow these passions to remain as quiet and as little grown as they are in childhood,--for they are sure to ripen without any trouble of ours,--so men are left with nothing but the evils of both ages, the vices of the man, and the unripeness and ignorance of the child.

It is indeed a strange and almost incredible thing, that any should ever have united in their minds the notions of innocence and ignorance as applied to any but literal children: nor is it less strange, that any should ever have been afraid of their understanding, and should have sought goodness through prejudice, and blindness, and folly. Compared with this, their conduct was infinitely reasonable who weakened and tormented their bodies in order to strengthen, as they thought, their spiritual nature. Such conduct was, by comparison, reasonable because there is a great deal of bodily weakness and discomfort, which really does not interfere with the strength and purity of our character in itself, although, by abridging our activity, it may lessen our means of usefulness. But what should we say of a man who directed his ill usage of his body to that part of our system which is most closely connected with the brain; who were purposely to impair his nervous system, and subject himself to those delusions and diseased views of things which are the well-known result of any disorder there? Yet this is precisely what they do who seek to mortify and lower their understanding. It is as impossible that they should become better men by such a process, as if they were literally to take medicines to affect their nerves or their brain, in the hope of becoming idiotic or delirious. It is, in fact, the worst kind of self-murder; for it is a presumptuous destroying of that which is our best life, because we dread to undergo those trials which God has appointed for the perfecting both of it and of us.

But from the wilful blindness of these men, let us turn to the Christian wisdom of the Apostle: "In malice be ye children, but in understanding be men." Let us turn to what is recorded of our Lord in his early life, at that age when, as man, the cultivation of his understanding was his particular duty--that he was found in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions: not asking questions only, as one too impatient or too vain to wait for an answer, or to consider it when he had received it; not hearing only, as one careless and passive, who thinks that the words of wisdom can improve his mind by being indolently admitted through the ears, with no more effort than his body uses when it is refreshed by a cooling air, or when it is laid down in running water; but both hearing and asking questions; docile and patient, yet active and intelligent; knowing that the wisdom was to be communicated from without, but that it belongs to the vigorous exercise of the power within, to apprehend it, and to convert it to nourishment.

Now, what is recorded of our Lord for our example, as to the manner in which he received instruction when delivered by word of mouth, this same thing should we do with that instruction, which, as is the ease with most of ours, we derive from reading. Put the Scriptures in the place of those living teachers whom Christ was so eager to hear; the words of Christ, and of his Spirit, instead of those far inferior guides from whom, notwithstanding, he, for our sakes, once submitted to learn; and what can be more exact than the application of the example? Let us be found in God's true temple, in the communion of his faithful people,--his universal Church, sitting down as it were, surrounded by the voices of the oracles of God--prophets, apostles, and Jesus Christ himself: let us be found with the record of these oracles in our hands, both reading them and asking them questions.

It is quite clear that what hinders a true understanding of anything is vagueness; and it is by this process of asking questions that vagueness is to be dispelled: for, in the first place, it removes one great vagueness, or indistinctness, which is very apt to beset the minds of many; namely, the not clearly seeing whether they understand a thing or no; and much more, the not seeing what it is that they do understand, and what it is which they do not. Take any one of our Lord's parables, and read it even to a young child: there will be something of an impression conveyed, and some feelings awakened; but all will be indistinct; the child will not know whether he understands or no, but will soon gain the habit of supposing that he does, as that is at once the least troublesome, and the least unpleasant to our vanity. And this same vague impression is often received by uneducated persons from reading or bearing either the Scriptures or sermons; it is by no means the same as if they had read or heard something in an unknown language; but yet they can give no distinct account of what they have heard or read; they do not know how far they understand it, and how far they do not. Here, then, is the use of "asking questions,"--asking questions of ourselves or of our book, I mean, for I am supposing the case of our reading, when it can rarely happen that we have any living person at hand to give us an answer. Now, taking the earliest and simplest state of knowledge, it is plain that the first question to put to ourselves will be, "Do I understand the meaning of all the words and expressions in what I have been reading?" I know that this is taking things at their very beginning, but it is my wish to do so. Now, so plain and forcible is the English of our Bible, generally speaking, that the words difficult to be understood will probably not be many: yet some such do occur, owing, in some instances, to a change of the language; as in the words "let," and "prevent," which now signify, the one, "to allow, or suffer to be done," and the other "to stop, or hinder," but which signified, when our translation was made, the first, "to stop or hinder," and the second, "to be beforehand with us;" as in the prayer, "Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings, with thy most gracious favour;" the meaning is, "Let thy favour be with us beforehand, O Lord, in whatever we are going to do." In other instances the words are difficult because they are used in a particular sense, such as we do not learn from our common language; of which kind are the words "elect," "saints," "justification," "righteousness," and many others. Now, if we ask ourselves "whether we understand these words or no," our common sense, when thus questioned, will readily tell us, whether we do or not; although if we had not directly asked the question, it might never have thought about it. Of course, our common sense cannot tell us what the true meaning is; that is a matter of information, and our means of gaining information may be more or less; but still, a great step is gained, the mist is partly cleared away; we can say to ourselves, "Here is something which I do understand, and here is something which I do not; I must keep the two distinct, for the first I may use, the second I cannot; I will mark it down as a thing about which I may get explanation at another time; but at present it is a blank in the picture, it is the same as if it were not there." This, then, is the first process of self-questioning, adapted, as I have already said, to those whose knowledge is most elementary.

Suppose, however, that we are got beyond difficulties of this sort--that the words and particular expressions of the Scriptures are mostly clear to us. Now, take again one of our Lord's parables; say, for instance, that of the labourers in the vineyard: we read it, and find that he who went to work at the eleventh hour received as much as he who had been working all the day. This seems to say, that he who begins to serve God in his old age shall receive his crown of glory no less than he who has served him all his life. But now try the process of self-questioning: what do I think that Christ means me to learn from this? what is the lesson to me? what is it to make me feel, or think, or do? If it makes me think that I shall receive an equal crown of glory if I begin to serve God in my old age, and therefore if it leads me to live carelessly, this is clearly making Christ encourage wickedness; and such a thought is blasphemy. He cannot mean me to learn this from it: let me look at the parable again. Who is it who is reproved in those words which seem to contain its real object? It is one who complains of God for having rewarded others equally with himself. Now this I can see is not a good feeling: it is pride and jealousy. In order, then to learn what the parable means me to learn, let me put myself in the position of those reproved in it. If I complain that others are rewarded by God as much as I am, it is altogether a bad feeling, and one which I ought to check; for I have nothing to do with God's dealings to others, let me think of what concerns myself. Here I have the lesson of the parable complete: and here I find it is useful for me. But if I take it for a different object, and suppose that it means to encourage waiting till the eleventh hour--waiting till we are old before we repent--we find that we make it only actually to be mischievous to us. And thus we gain a great piece of knowledge: namely, that the parables of our Lord are mostly designed to teach, some one particular lesson, with respect to some one particular fault: and that if we take them generally, as if all in them was applicable to all persons, whether exposed to that particular fault or not, we shall absolutely be in danger of deriving mischief from them instead of good. It is true, that in this particular parable, the gross wickedness of such an interpretation as I have mentioned is guarded against even in the story itself; because those who worked only at the eleventh hour are expressly said to have stood idle so long only because no man had hired them; their delay, therefore, was no fault of their own. But even if this circumstance had been left out, it would have been just the same; because the general rule is, that we apply to a parable only for its particular lesson, and do not strain it to any thing else. Had this been well understood, no one would have ever found so much difficulty in understanding the parable of the unjust steward.

This is another great step towards the dispelling vagueness, to apply the particular lesson of each part of Scripture to that state of knowledge, or feeling, or practice in ourselves, which it was intended to benefit; to apply it as a lesson to ourselves, not as a general truth for our neighbours. And the very desire to do this, makes us naturally look with care to the object of every passage--to see to whom it was addressed, and on what occasion; for this will often surely guide us to the point that we want. But in order to do this, we must strive to clothe the whole in our own common language; to get rid of those expressions which to us convey the meaning faintly; and to put it into such others as shall come most strongly home to us. This I have spoken of on other occasions; and I have so often witnessed the bad effects of not doing so, that I am sure it may well bear to be noticed again; I mean the putting such words as "persecution," "the cares and riches of the world," "the kingdom of God," "confessing Christ," "denying Christ," and many others, into a language which to us has more lively reality, which makes us manifestly see that it is of us, and of our common life, and of our dangers, that the scripture is speaking, and not only of things in a remote time and country, and under circumstances quite unlike our own. Therefore I have a strong objection to the use of what is called peculiarly religious language, because I am sure that it hinders us from bringing the matter of that language thoroughly home to us; our minds do not entirely assimilate with, it; or if they fancy that they do, it is only by their becoming themselves affected, and losing their sense of the reality of things around them. For our language is fixed for us, and we cannot alter it; and into that common language in which we think and feel, all truth must be translated, if we would think and feel respecting it at once rightly, clearly, and vividly. Happy is he, who, by practising this early, has imbued his own natural language with the spirit of God's wisdom and holiness; and who can see, and understand, and feel them the better, because they are so put into a form with which he is perfectly familiar.

More might be said, very much more, but here I will now pause. In this world, wherein heavenly things are, after all, hard to seize and fix upon, we have great need that no mists of imperfect understanding darken them, over and above those of the corrupt will. To see them clearly, to understand them distinctly and vividly, may, indeed, after all be vain: a thicker veil may yet remain behind, and we may see and understand, and yet perish. Only the clear sight of God in Christ can be no light blessing; and there may be a hope, that understanding and approving with all our minds his excellent wisdom, the light may warm us as well as assist our sight; that we may see, and not in our vague and empty sense, but in the force of the scriptural meaning of the word,--may see, and so believe.

LECTURE XXXV.

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MATTHEW xxvi. 45, 46.

_Sleep on now and take your rest; behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be. going; behold, he is at hand that doth betray me_.

I take these verses for my text, in the first place, because some have fancied a difficulty in them, and have even proposed to alter the translation, and read the first words as a question, "Do ye still sleep and take your rest?" and because they are really a very good illustration of our Lord's manner of speaking, a manner which it is of the highest importance to us fully to understand. And, secondly, I take them as a text for the general lesson which they convey to us; their mixture of condemnation and mercy; their view, at once looking backwards and forwards, not losing sight of irreparable evils of a neglected past, nor yet making those evils worse by so dwelling upon them as to forget the still available future; not concealing from us the solemn truth, that what is done cannot be undone, yet warning us also not to undo by a vain despair that future which may yet be done to our soul's health.

First, a difficulty has been fancied to exist in the words, as if our Lord had bade his disciples to do two contradictory things: telling them, first, to sleep on and take their rust, and then saying, "Rise, let us be going." And because in St. Luke's account, when our Lord comes to his disciples the last time, his words are given thus, "Why sleep ye? rise and pray, that ye enter not into temptation:" therefore, as I have said, his words in the text have been translated, "Are ye sleeping and resting for the remainder of the time?" Now, I should not take up your time with things of this sort, where I believe our common translation to be most certainly right, were it not for the sake of one or two general remarks, which I think may not be out of place. It is a general rule, that in passages not obscure, but appearing to contain some moral difficulty, if I may so speak; that is, something which seems inconsistent with our notions of God's holiness, or wisdom, or justice; something, in short, of a stumbling-block, which we fear may occasion a triumph to unbelievers; it is a rule, I say, that in passages of this kind the difficulty is not to be met by departing from the common-received translation. And the reason of this is plain; that had not the commonly received translation in such cases been clearly the right one, it would never have come to be commonly received. Amongst the thousands of interpreters of Scripture, all, from the earliest time, anxious to remove grounds of cavil from the adversaries of their faith, a passage would never have been translated so as to afford such a ground, if the right translation of it could have been different. Such places are especially those in which the common translation needs not to be suspected: and it is merely leading us astray from the true explanation of the apparent difficulty, when we thus attempt to evade it by tampering with the translation. A notable instance of this was afforded some few years since in a new translation of some of the books of the Old Testament; in which it was pretended that most of those points which had been most attacked by unbelievers were, in fact, mere mistranslations, and that the real meaning of the original was something totally different; and, in order to show the necessity of his alterations, the writer entirely allowed the objections of unbelievers to the common reading; and said that no sufficient answer had been or could be made to them. This was an extreme case, and probably imposed only on a very few: but less instances of the same thing are common: St. Paul's words about being baptized for the dead, have been twisted to all sorts of senses, from their natural and only possible meaning, because men could not bear to believe that the superstition of being baptized as proxies for another could have existed at a period which they were resolved to consider so pure: and so in the text, a force has been put upon the words which they cannot bear, in order to remove a supposed contradiction: and all that would have been gained by the change would be, to have one instructive illustration the less of our Lord's peculiar manner of discourse, and one instance the less of the inimitable way in which his language, addressed directly to the circumstances before him, contains, at the same time, a general lesson, for the use of all his disciples in all ages.

Our Lord's habitual language was parabolical; I use the word in a wide sense, to include all language which is not meant to be taken according to the letter. Observe his conversation with the Samaritan woman; it begins at once with parable, "If thou hadst known who it was that asked of thee, saying, Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water." And again, "Whoso drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but it shall be in him a well of water, springing up unto life eternal." This seems to have been, if I may venture to say so, the favourite language in which he preferred to speak; but when he found that he was not understood, then, according to the nature of the case, he went on in two or three different manners. When he, to whom all hearts were open, saw that the misunderstanding was wilful, that it arose out of a disposition glad to find an excuse, in his pretended obscurity, for not listening to him and obeying him, then, instead of explaining his language, he made it more and more figurative; more likely to be misunderstood, or to offend those whom he knew to be disposed beforehand to misunderstand and to be offended. A famous example of this may be seen in the sixth chapter of St. John; there he first calls himself the Bread of Life, and says, that whosoever should eat of that bread should live for ever: but when he found that the Jews cavilled at this language, instead of explaining it, he only added expressions yet more strongly parabolical; "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you:" and he dwells on this image so long, that we find that many of his disciples, bent on interpreting it literally, and, in this sense, finding it utterly shocking, went back and walked no more with him. Again, when he found not a disposition to cavil, but yet a profound ignorance of his meaning, arising from a state of mind wholly unused to think of spiritual good and evil, he neither used, as to those who wilfully misunderstood him, language that would offend them still more, nor yet did he offer a direct explanation; but he broke off the conversation, and adopted another method of instruction. Thus, when the Samaritan woman, thinking only of bodily wants, answered him by saying, "Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw," he neither goes on to speak to her in the same language, nor yet does he explain it; but at once addresses her in a different manner, saying, "Go, call thy husband, and come hither." Thirdly, when he was speaking to his own disciples, to whom it was given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, he generally explained his meaning,--at least so far as to prevent practical error,--when he found that they had not understood him. Thus, when he had said to them, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod," and they thought only of leaven and of bread in the literal sense, he upbraids them, indeed, for their slowness, saying, "Are ye also yet without understanding?" but he goes on to tell them in express terms that he did not mean to speak to them of the leaven of bread. And the words of the text are an exactly similar instance: his first address is parabolical; that is, it is not meant to be taken to the letter; "Sleep on now, and take your rest," meaning, "Ye can now do me no good by watching, for the time is past, and he who betrayed me is at hand; ye might as well sleep on now and take your rest, for I need not try you any longer." But, as the time was really pressing, and there was a possibility that they might have misunderstood his words, and have really continued to sleep, he immediately added in different language, "Rise, let us be going; behold, he is at hand that doth betray me." We must be prepared, then, to find that our Lord's language, not only to the Jews at large, but even to his own disciples, is commonly parabolical; the worst interpretation which we can give to it is commonly the literal one. His conversation with his disciples, just before he went out to the garden of Gethsemane, as recorded in the thirteenth, and following chapters of St. John, is a most striking proof of this. If any one looks through them, he will find how many are the comparisons, and figurative manners of speaking, which abound in them, and how often his disciples were at a loss to understand his meaning, And he himself declares this, for, at the end of the sixteenth chapter, he says expressly, "These things I have spoken unto you in proverbs;"--that is, language not to be taken according to the letter;--"the time is coming when I will no more speak unto you in proverbs, but will show you plainly of the Father." And then, when he goes on to declare, what he never, it seems, had before told them in such express and literal language, "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again I leave the world, and go to my Father," his disciples seem to have welcomed with joy this departure from his usual manner of speaking, and said immediately, "Lo! now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb: now we know that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou earnest forth from God."

But let us observe what it is that he said: "A time is coming when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but shall show you plainly of the Father." That time came immediately. He spoke to them after his resurrection, opening their understandings to understand the Scriptures: he spoke yet more fully, by his Spirit, after the day of Pentecost, leading them into all truth. And what they thus heard in the ear, they proclaimed, according to his bidding, upon the house-tops. When the Holy Spirit brought to their remembrance all that he had said to them, and gave their minds a spiritual judgment, to compare what they thus had brought before them, to see his words in their true light and their true bearings, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, they were no niggards of this heavenly treasure; nor did they, according to the vain heresy of the worst corrupters of Christ's gospel, imitate and surpass that sin which they had so heavily judged in Ananias. They kept back no part-of that which they professed and were commanded to lay wholly and entirely at the feet of God's church. They did not so lie to the Holy Ghost, as to erect a wicked system of priestcraft in the place of that holy gospel of which they were ministers. They had no reserve of a secret doctrine for themselves and a chosen few, keeping in their own hands the key of knowledge, and opening only half of the door; but as they had freely received, so they freely gave; all that they knew, they taught to all: and so, through their blessed teaching, we too can understand our Lord's words as they were taught to understand them: and what is parabolical, is no longer on that account obscure, but full of light and of beauty, fulfilling the end for which it was chosen, the most effective of all ways of teaching, because the liveliest.

I have left myself but little space to touch upon the second part of the subject--the general lesson conveyed in our Lord's-words to his disciples: "Sleep on now, and take your rest.--Rise; let us be going." How truly do we deserve the reproof; how thankfully may we accept the call. We have forfeited many opportunities which we would in vain recover; we have been careless when we should have been watchful; and that for which we should have watched, is now lost by our neglect; and it is no good to watch for it any more. Let us remember this, while it is called to-day; for how often is it particularly applicable to us here, from the passing nature of your stay amongst us! To both you and us too often belongs our Lord's remonstrance, "What, could ye not watch with me one hour?" So short a time as you stay here, could we not be watching with Christ that little period: from which, if well improved, there might spring forth a fruit so lasting? But, alas! we too often sleep it away: we do not all that we might do, nor do you; evil grows instead of good, till the time is past, and you leave us; and we may as well sleep on, and take our rest, so far as all that particular good was concerned--the improvement, namely, of your time at this place, for which we are alike set to watch. But are we to take the words of reproach literally? May we really sleep on, and take our rest? Oh vain and wilful folly, so to misunderstand! But, lest we should misunderstand, let us hear our Lord's next words: "Rise; let us be going," and that instantly: the time and opportunity already lost for ever is far more than enough.--"Rise; let us be going:" so Christ calls us; for he has still other work for us to do, for him, and with him. The future is yet our own, though the past be lost. We have sinned greatly and irreparably; but let us not do so yet again: other opportunities are afforded us; the disciples would not watch with him in the garden, but he calls them to go with him to his trial and his judgment; and one, we know, watched by him even on his cross:--so he calls to us; so he calls now; but he will not so call for ever. There will be a time when we might strike out the words, "Rise; let us be going;" they will concern us then no more. It is only said, "Sleep on now, and take your rest: all your watching time has been wasted, and you can now watch no more;" there remains only to sleep--to sleep that last sleep, from which we shall then never wake to God and happiness, but in which we shall be awake for ever to sin and to misery.

LECTURE XXXVI.

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2 CORINTHIANS v. 17, 18.

_Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new: and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ_.

I have, from time to time, spoken of that foolish misuse of the Scriptures, by which any one opening the volume of the Bible at random, and taking the first words which he finds, straightway applies them either to himself or to his neighbour; and then boasts that he has the word of God on his side, and that whosoever differs from him, is disputing and despising the word of God. The most extreme instances of this way of proceeding are so absurd, that they could not be noticed in this place becomingly; and these, of course, stand palpable to all, except to those who have allowed themselves to fall into them. But far short of these manifest follies, great errors have been maintained on general points, and great mistakes, whether of over presumption or of over fear, have been committed as to men's particular state, by quoting Scripture unadvisedly; by taking hold of its words to the neglect or actual violation of its spirit and real meaning. This is a great and a very common mischief, but yet there is a truth at the bottom of the error; it is true, that the greatest questions relating to God and to ourselves, may find their answer in the Scriptures; it is true, that if we search for this answer wisely we may surely find it.

Consider the words of the text, and see how easily they may be perverted, if with no more ado we take them, as said of ourselves, each individually, and as containing to each of us a statement positive of truth. "Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." If we believe that this is God's word respecting each of us, what violence must we do to our memory of the past, and our consciousness of the present, if we do try to persuade ourselves that so total a change has taken place in each of us, that what we once were, we are no longer; that what we are, we once were not; and this not in some few particular points, but in the main character of our minds. Again, "All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ." If we apply these words to each of us, what exceeding presumption would they breed! If all things in us and about us are now of God, what room can there be for sin? If God hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, what room can there be for fear or for danger? And thus, while we say we are quoting and believing the word of God, we do in fact turn it into a lie; we make it assert a falsehood as to our past state, and a falsehood as to our future state; we make it say, that our old nature is passed away, when it is not; that we have got a new nature when we have not; that we are reconciled to God, and therefore in safety, when we are, in fact, in the extremest danger.

But it is easy to see that we have no right to apply to ourselves words written by St. Paul eighteen hundred years ago, and applied by him to other persons. I go, then, farther; and I say, that if every member of the church of Corinth, to which they were written, had applied them to himself in the manner which I have shown above, the words would in many instances have been perverted no less, and would have been made to state what was false, and not what was true. And the same may be said of many other passages of St. Paul's Epistles, which, having been similarly misinterpreted, have furnished matter for endless controversies, and on which opposite theories of doctrine have been fondly raised, each of them alike unchristian and untrue.

Thus our present position is this:--that oftentimes by taking the representations of Scripture as true in fact, whether of ourselves or of others, we come to conclusions at once false and mischievous; being, as the case may be, either presumptuous, or fearful, or uncharitable, and claiming for each of these faults the sanction of the word of God.

A similar mistake in interpreting human compositions, has led to faults of another kind. Assuming as before, in interpreting St. Paul's words, that the language of our Liturgy is meant to describe, as a matter of fact, the actual feelings and condition of those who use it, or for whom it is used; and seeing manifestly that these feelings and condition do not agree with the words; we do not here, as with the Scripture, do violence to our common sense and conscience, by insisting upon it that we agree with the words, but we find fault with the words as being at variance with the matter of fact. Some say that the language of the General Confession is too strong a statement of sin; that the language of the Communion Service, of the Baptismal Service, and above all, of the Burial Service, is too full of encouragement and of assurance; that men are not all so bad as to require the one, 'nor so good as to deserve the other; that in both cases it should be lowered, to agree with the actual condition of those who use it.

Now it is worthy of notice, at any rate, that the self-same rule of interpretation applied to the Scripture and the Liturgy is found to suit with neither. We adhere positively to our rule: and thus, as we hold the words of Scripture sacred, we force common sense and conscience to make the facts agree with them; but not having the same respect for the words of the Liturgy, we complain of them as faulty and requiring alteration, because they do not agree with the facts.

I will not enter into the question whether the Liturgy has done wisely or not in thus imitating the Scripture; but I do contend that, in point of fact, there is this resemblance between them. St. Paul's Epistles, in particular, although it is true of other parts of the Scripture also, contain, as does the Liturgy of our Church, a great many passages which, if taken either universally or even generally as containing a matter of fact, will lead us into certain error. Is it, therefore, so very certain that we do wisely in so interpreting them?

With regard to our Liturgy I need not follow up the question now; but with regard to St. Paul, it is certain that he, in many parts of his Epistles, chooses to represent that which ought to be as that which actually was: he chooses to regard those to whom he is writing as being in all respects true Christians, as being worthy of their privileges, as answering to what God had done to them, as forming a church really inhabited by the Holy Spirit, and therefore being a true and living body of due proportions to Christ its Divine head. Nor does he trust exclusively to the common sense and conscience of those to whom he was writing to interpret his language correctly. He might Lave thought indeed that if he wrote to them as redeemed, justified, sanctified, as having all things new, as being the children of God, and the heirs of God, and the temples of the Holy Ghost, any individual who felt that he was none of these things, that sin was still mighty within him, and that he was sin's slave, would neither deny his own conscience, nor yet call St. Paul a deceiver; but would read in the difference between St. Paul's description of him and the reality, the exact measure of his own sin, and need of repentance and watchfulness. But he does not rely on this only: he notices sins as actually existing; he mingles the language of reproof and of anxiety, so as to make it quite clear that he did not mean his descriptions of their holiness and blessedness to apply to them all necessarily; he knew full well that they did not: but yet he knew also that, considering what God had done for them, it was monstrous that they should not be truly applicable.

But why then, you will say, did he use such language? why did he call men forgiven, redeemed, saved, justified, sanctified?--he uses all these terms often as applicable generally to those to whom he was writing;--why did he call them so, when in fact they were not so? He called them so for the same reason which, made prophecy foretell blessings upon Israel of old, and on the Christian church afterwards, which were fulfilled on neither:--in order to declare, and keep ever before us, what God has done and is willing to do for us: what he fain would do for us, if we would but suffer him; what divine powers are offered to us, and we will not use them; what divine happiness is designed for us, and we will not enter into it. Let us ponder all the magnificence of the scriptural language,--the words of the text for example, not as describing what we are when we are full of sin; nor yet as mere exaggerated language, which must be brought down to the level of our present reality. Let us consider it as containing the words of truth and soberness; not one jot or one tittle needs to be abated; it must not be lowered to us, but we rather raised to it. It is a truth, it is the word of God, it is the seal of our assurance: it is that which good men of old would have welcomed with the deepest joy; which, to good men now is a source of comfort unspeakable. For it tells us that God has done for us, is doing, will do, all that we need; it tells us that the price of our redemption has been paid, the kingdom of heaven has been set open, the power to walk as God's children has been given: that so far as God is concerned we are redeemed, we are saved, we are sanctified; it is but our own fault merely that we are not all of these actually and surely.

This is not a little matter to be persuaded of; if it be true, as I fear it is, that too many of us do not love God, is it not quite as true that we cannot believe that God loves us? Have we any thing like a distinct sense of the words of St. John, "We love God because he first loved us?" We believe in the love of our earthly friends; those who have so lately left their homes have no manner of doubt that their parents are interested in their welfare, though absent; that they will often think of them; and that, as far as it is possible at a distance from them, they are watching over their good, and anxious to promote it. The very name home implies all this; it implies that it is a place where those live who love us; and I do not question that the consciousness of possessing this love does, amidst all your faults and forgetfulnesses, rise not unfrequently within your minds, and restrain you from making yourselves altogether unworthy of it. Now, I say, that the words of the text, and hundreds of similar passages, are our assurance, if we would but believe them, that we have another home and another parent, by whom we are loved constantly and earnestly, who has done far more for us than our earthly parents can do. I grant that it is hard to believe this really; so infinite is the distance between God and us, that we cannot fancy that he cares for us; he may make laws for a world, or for a system, but what can he think or feel for us? It is, indeed, a thought absolutely overpowering to the mind; it may well seem incredible to us, judging either from our own littleness or our own forgetfulness; so hard as we find it to think enough of those to whom we are most nearly bound, how can the Most High. God think of us? But if there be any one particle of truth in Christianity, we are warranted in saying that God does love us; strange as it may seem, He, whom neither word nor thought of created being can compass; He, who made us and ten thousand worlds, loves each one of us individually; "the very hairs of our heads are all numbered." He so loved us, that he gave his only-begotten Son to die for us; and St. Paul well asks, "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, will he not also with him freely give us all things?"