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   Title: Selected Sermons of Schleiermacher: translated by Mary F.
   Wilson.
   Creator(s): Schleiermacher, Friedrich (1768-1834)
   Print Basis: New York: Funk & Wagnalls. (1890 ?)
   Rights: Public Domain
   CCEL Subjects: All;
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    THE

                           FOREIGN BIBLICAL LIBRARY.

    EDITED BY THE REV

W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.,

   Editor of the "Expositor"

SCHLEIERMACHER'S SERMONS.

  NEW YORK:

FUNK & WAGNALLS,

  18 & 20, ASTOR PLACE.

                                SELECTED SERMONS

    OF

                                SCHLEIERMACHER.

TRANSLATED BY

MARY F. WILSON.

  NEW YORK:

FUNK & WAGNALLS,

  18 & 20, ASTOR PLACE.
     __________________________________________________________________
     __________________________________________________________________

CONTENTS.

   PAGE
   BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 1
                 I.

   THE POWER OF PRAYER IN RELATION TO OUTWARD CIRCUMSTANCES
   38
   Matthew xxvi. 36-46.
                 II.

   THE DYING SAVIOUR OUR EXAMPLE
   52
   Mark xv. 34-41.
                III.

   A NATION'S DUTY IN A WAR FOR FREEDOM
   67
   Jeremiah xvii. 5-8; xviii. 7-10.
                 IV.

   NECESSITY OF THE NEW BIRTH
   83
   John iii. 1-8.
                 V.

   CHRIST AND THE UNSTABLE
   103
   Matthew xxi 10-16.
                 VI.

   FORGIVENESS AND LOVE
   118
   Luke vii. 36-50.

VII.

   ON MARRIAGE
   130
   Ephesians v. 22-31.
                VIII.

   THE CHRISTIAN TRAINING OF CHILDREN
   146
   Colossians iii. 21.
                 IX.

   THE CHRISTIAN TRAINING OF CHILDREN
   163
   Ephesians vi. 4.
                 X.

   REJOICING BEFORE GOD
   183
   Psalm lxviii. 3, 4.
                 XI.

   LOVE AND SERVICE
   195
   John xxi. 16.
                XII.

   GOD'S RESTRAINING POWER
   212
   Job xxxviii. 11.
                XIII.

   THE LAST LOOK AT LIFE
   235
   John xix. 30.
                XIV.

   THE DEATH OF THE SAVIOUR THE END OF ALL SACRIFICES
   250
   Hebrews x. 8-12.
                 XV.

   CHRIST'S RESURRECTION AN IMAGE OF OUR NEW LIFE
   266
   Romans vi. 4-8.
                XVI.

   JESUS BORN THE SON OF GOD
   279
   Luke i. 31, 32.
                XVII.

   CHRIST BRINGING A SWORD
   295
   Matthew x. 34.
               XVIII.

   THE SAVIOUR'S PEACE
   314
   John xiv. 27.
                XIX.

   WHY THE DIVINE INVITATION IS REFUSED
   326
   Luke xiv. 18-20.
                 XX.

   LOVED IN THE BELOVED
   343
   John xvi. 27.
                XXI.

   THANKSGIVING AFTER CHASTISEMENT
   355
   Hebrews xii. 11, 12.
                XXII.

   GOD'S LOVE MAGNIFIED IN CHRIST'S DEATH
   372
   Romans v. 7, 8.
               XXIII.

   THE PRAYER OF STEPHEN
   385
   Acts vii. 60.
                XXIV.

   PROVOKING EACH OTHER TO LOVE AND GOOD WORKS
   397
   Hebrews x. 24.
                XXV.

   THE SAVIOUR'S LAST HOURS
   412
   Luke xxiii. 44-49.
                XXVI.

   THE PARTING PROMISES OF THE SAVIOUR
   423
   Acts i. 6-11.
               XXVII.

   TRUE HARVEST JOY
   439
          Luke xii. 16-21.
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

   IT seems desirable that those who make public references to a man of
   note should have an opportunity of making themselves acquainted with
   his opinions and character. A religious paper some time ago filled up a
   corner with this little piece of intelligence: "It is a very notable
   fact that a son of Hegel, a son of Schelling, and a daughter of
   Schleiermacher, are not only orthodox Christians, but most deeply
   interested in the progress of religion." Another periodical presently
   repeated the paragraph, prefaced by the remark that what is true in
   regard to faith--that it is not hereditary--is happily no less true in
   regard to unbelief. No; faith is not hereditary in the strictest sense,
   as Schleiermacher took pains to make clear, enforcing in his baptismal
   addresses, as well as on other occasions, the truth, "that which is
   born of the flesh is flesh." And yet we know, not only from Scripture,
   but from the undeniable witness of history, public and private, that
   there is a blessed heritage of faith; that "the seed of the righteous
   is blessed"; and she were no true daughter of Schleiermacher who should
   be otherwise than most deeply interested in the progress of true
   religion. As to orthodoxy, that is a term in these days so difficult to
   define that the readers of this volume must be left to judge for
   themselves whether or not it is anything wonderful that a child of the
   author of these sermons should be an orthodox Christian. This is, on
   every ground, more desirable than that a translator unversed in the
   fine distinctions and definitions of theologians, should attempt to
   give a categorical statement of the views of one to whom has been
   imputed, on the one hand, every shade of heterodox opinion,--who has
   been denounced in turn as pietist, rationalist, pantheist, even
   atheist; and who, on the other hand, has been held to fill a place in
   the Christian Church not inferior to that of Luther or even of Paul.

   The sermons have been selected with a view to as wide a range of
   subjects as possible, from the four volumes of Schleiermacher's
   published discourses; and they are arranged, so far as this could be
   done, according to the order of time in which they appeared, that the
   reader may be more able to judge of the development and progress of the
   author's mind. It will also tend to a clearer understanding and a
   juster appreciation of the sermons, as well as give them a more living
   and personal interest, that the reader be made acquainted with
   something of the author's history, and of the times in which he lived
   and worked.

   Friedrich Ernst Schleiermacher, born at Breslau, November 21st, 1768,
   was the firstborn son of a poor army chaplain of the Reformed faith; a
   man of earnest, evangelical piety, whose heart, as well as that of the
   mother, was set on the spiritual prosperity of their children. The
   little Fritz, in the frequent necessary absences of his father, took
   his first steps in education under his mother's care. At five years old
   he went to school, where, as he tells us, by his ready memory and the
   ease with which he acquired mere verbal knowledge, he came to be
   thought very clever,--an opinion with which he himself entirely agreed;
   and so became very conceited. But from the character of his master's
   school reports, it is plain that the boy was not only clever, but a
   uniformly good and diligent pupil. The removal of his parents, when he
   was in his tenth year, to Pless, and then to Anhalt, brought a change
   that was greatly to the benefit of the delicate child. For nearly two
   years he lived much in the open air in the country, his mother wisely
   judging that if he kept up the book-knowledge he had, it was enough for
   his years. "Fritz," she says, "is all spirit, and Carl all body." So,
   for the time, Fritz occupied himself in making Latin and French
   translations, acted as schoolmaster to his wild little brother,
   teaching him reading and arithmetic, and, these duties accomplished,
   shared his games and rambles out of doors, sometimes joined by the
   quiet, retiring elder sister Lotte, the loving, beloved and trusted
   friend of Fritz through all changing circumstances till the day of her
   death in 1831.

   But even in those earliest years the boy was a thinker; and open and
   docile as he was to all his good mother's Christian instructions, the
   active, inquiring mind could take nothing for granted. "I had already,"
   he tells us, "sustained manifold internal religious conflicts. The
   doctrine of eternal punishment and reward had already exercised a
   disturbing power over my childish imagination; and in my eleventh year
   I spent several sleepless nights in consequence of not being able to
   come to a satisfactory conclusion concerning the mutual relation
   between the sufferings of Christ and the punishment for which these
   sufferings were a substitute." A boy of ten losing his sleep, not
   through anxiety as to his own spiritual safety, but in the endeavour to
   solve a theological problem which has exercised the minds of devout and
   scholarly men in every age of the Church! It was clear this boy's life
   would not run on common or smooth lines. He spent most of two years in
   a boarding-school at Pless, where scepticism attacked him in the form
   of doubting the authenticity of all the ancient authors, because he
   himself did not know any proofs of their genuineness. But a politic
   fear of losing his much-valued reputation for cleverness, by betraying
   his ignorance, made him keep a wise silence about those doubts until he
   should be able to sift the matter for himself.

   Before Friedrich was thirteen, lie and Carl, as well as their sister
   Charlotte, were placed under the care of the Moravian Brethren, at
   first, for a time, at Gnadenfrei, whence the boys went in 1783 to
   Niesky. Steeped as Germany then was, almost universally, in the
   benumbing poison of rationalism, or wrapped in the chilling slumber of
   a deep formalism, the faithful few, like the good chaplain and his
   wife, with whom the pure gospel light and life still remained, felt
   themselves a somewhat helpless and discouraged remnant; and the parents
   thought they found in the pious, tranquil, well-ordered life of the
   Congregation a haven of safety for their children. And the children
   themselves, impressed by what their parents represented to them of the
   depravity and dangers of the world, became, as the father writes, "more
   and more anxious not to be sent away from us and out into the world,
   full of their natural corruption, and implored to be allowed to go to
   Niesky." Here the boy spent several happy years, pursuing eagerly every
   path of knowledge that was opened to him; the seeds of pure faith and
   love and Christian fellowship, sown from his tenderest years on good
   soil, and fostered by this genial atmosphere, already bringing forth
   fair fruit. His letters to his sister, during his stay at Niesky, show
   how honestly and earnestly the young heart was set on serving and
   pleasing the Saviour whom he already loved. "He alone is my stay; the
   God who died for me on the cross. . . . Ah, did but the love of Christ
   fill our hearts day and night! . . . did we but cling to Him, so that
   not even for one moment could we be drawn away from Him!" "In this
   short period how much have I not experienced; that is to say, much evil
   as regards myself, and much mercy as regards the Saviour. I have
   merited wrath, say I, on my side; I have atoned for yon, cries the
   Lamb, from the cross." Expressions such as these indicate what was the
   prevailing tone of the young student's letters for some years.

   But it was necessary that he who was to lead others to new and firmer
   standing-ground should himself struggle through the flood and test
   every step; it was fitting that the soldier who was to lead the fight
   against the deadly evils of his time should learn the use of his weapon
   in battling for his own life and liberty. Even at Niesky, the earnest,
   loving heart, longing after real communion with the Saviour, yet as
   rigidly honest with himself as with others, had undergone sore
   perplexities and struggles from having never been able to feel sure
   that the spiritual experiences which he saw and believed to be real in
   those around him, and which he felt to be very desirable for himself,
   were, in his own case, anything but inventions of his imagination. And
   when, in his seventeenth year, he was sent to the seminary at Barby,
   while these difficulties still perplexed him, he was soon plunged into
   deeper troubles. These will be most clearly explained in his own words.

   In the autumn of 1786 he writes to his father: "With one thing only I
   am not content. I wish very much to study theology, and that
   thoroughly; but I shall not be able to boast of having done anything of
   the kind when I leave this, for, in my opinion, we are kept within too
   narrow limits in point of reading. Except what we see in the scientific
   periodicals, we learn nothing about the objections, arguments and
   discussions raised in the present day in regard to exegesis and
   dogmatics. Even in the lectures delivered to us sufficient mention is
   not made of these matters, and yet knowledge of them is absolutely
   necessary for a future theologian. The fact that they fear to lay them
   before us awakens in many minds a suspicion that the objections of the
   innovators must approve themselves to the intellect and be difficult to
   refute. I do not, however, share this opinion."

   This was meant to prepare the father for what the son knew would be a
   terrible blow to him--the avowal of the change in his views, which he
   thus makes in a letter six months later: "Alas! dearest father, if you
   believe that, without this faith, no one can attain to salvation in the
   next world, nor to tranquility in this and such, I know, is your
   belief--oh! then, pray to God to grant it to me, for to me it is now
   lost. I cannot believe that He, who called Himself the Son of man, was
   the true, eternal God; I cannot believe that His death was a vicarious
   atonement, because He never expressly said so Himself; and I cannot
   believe it to have been necessary, because God, who evidently did not
   create men for perfection, but for the pursuit of it, cannot possibly
   intend to punish them eternally because they have not attained it."

   Let it be remembered that these are the words of a lad of little more
   than eighteen; and yet the letter in which they occur is the furthest
   possible from resembling the utterance of some callow theologian, who
   imagines that because an idea is new to him it is new to every one
   else, and whose most profound conviction seems to be, "I have more
   understanding than all my teachers." On the contrary, its tone is
   throughout humble, self-distrustful, full of deepest regret for his
   lost faith and for the conclusions to which he has felt, in the
   meantime, compelled to come; and full, even more, of reverential
   tenderness towards his father and bitterest sorrow for the pain which
   he is so unwillingly inflicting, and which he tries to soften by the
   hope of a change by-and-by. "Comfort yourself, dear father," he writes;
   "for I know you were long in the same state in which I am now. Doubts
   assailed you at one time as they now do me, and yet you have become
   what you now are. Think, hope, believe that the same may be the case
   with me." He entreats to be allowed to go to study at Halle;
   representing that by so doing, and having the opportunity of examining
   different views, he would be much more likely to change his own;
   whereas, by remaining among the Brethren, "I should never," he says,
   "be able to get rid of my doubts. For I am debarred from the
   possibility of examining for myself in how far the objections of the
   innovators may or may not be well founded, as I am forbidden to read
   anything of the kind, and no one here will even refute my own
   objections."

   The correspondence following this letter is pathetic in its
   painfulness. The father, whose deep affection for his son and pride in
   his superior gifts only added a tenfold keenness to the sting of the
   disappointment, could see nothing in the youth's doubts but the pride
   and depravity of his heart, and a longing after the world and its
   honours; and poured out tears and reproaches, mingled with entreaties
   to return from his evil way. He even spoke of feeling compelled to
   discard him; but this is evidently a mere figure of speech. And the
   son, on his side, miserable with the strife in his own mind,
   heart-broken because of his father's grief, meekly justifying himself
   against misunderstandings, and yet unable to give the only comfort that
   would avail, suffered probably still more keenly.

   The question of leaving Barby was settled by the Brethren, who refused
   to allow one who had imbibed such views to remain among them even on
   probation. Thus cut off from all his moorings, external as well as
   spiritual, his position was sufficiently trying. But in his uncle
   Stubenrauch, his mother's brother, then a professor of theology at
   Halle, he found the very friend for his need; one who, while better
   able than the father to understand .the young man's position, gave him
   sound and Christian advice, and also set things before his
   brother-in-law in so wise and hopeful a light that ere long the old
   man's letters to his son regained all their wonted affectionate tone.
   Under the roof of this kind uncle, Schleiermacher spent two years at
   Halle, studying with his usual passionate eagerness, but without any
   definite plan; as he says himself, taking a taste of everything, making
   a fragmentary study of all sciences, and "hindered in various ways by
   that conceit which is peculiar to the self-educated." The necessity of
   self-support led him to cultivate the English and French languages with
   a view to teaching; and when at the end of those two years the uncle
   retired to a living at Drossen, the nephew accompanied him, and spent
   another year chiefly in adding to his knowledge of theology. His
   life-long gratitude to this fatherly friend finds graceful expression
   in his own words: "Nothing gives me more pain than to think that I have
   not availed myself sufficiently of his friendship to be able to say, in
   lieu of all praise, `See what I have become, and to him I owe it.'"

   What great and essential changes took place in his views during these
   and succeeding years will be best seen in the following sermons.
   Throughout his life he retained a most kindly feeling towards the
   Brethren, with whom a strong tie remained for him through his sister
   having taken up her permanent abode among them. He often and gratefully
   spoke of what he owed to his early training among them, and more than
   once revisited them. On one of those occasions, writing from
   Gnadenfrei, Charlotte's home, he says, "Here it was that that mystic
   tendency developed itself which has been of so much importance to me,
   and has supported and carried me through all the storms of scepticism.
   Then it was only germinating, now it has attained to its full
   development; and I may say that, after all that I have passed through,
   I have become a Herrnhuter again, only of a higher order." And later,
   in 1805, after spending the Easter as a welcome and honoured guest at
   Barby--that Barby which had cast him out as poison--he describes to his
   friend the "beautiful service on Good Friday, based altogether on the
   great idea of the Atonement," and goes on to say, "there is not,
   throughout Christendom, in our day, a form of public worship which
   expresses more worthily, and awakens more thoroughly, the spirit of
   true Christian piety than does that of the Herrnhut brotherhood! . . .
   I could not but feel deeply how far behind them we are in our church,
   where the poor sermon is everything . . . and is rarely animated by a
   true and living spirit.

   "It will soon be my duty to institute divine service here [at Halle],
   which is to present a pattern, and to act as a stimulus, to new and
   far-spread generations of religious teachers; but how wretchedly
   cramped am I as to means, and how much I deplore that I cannot
   transplant hither the best and most attractive elements of what I
   witnessed at Barby!"

   These long extracts, while showing his own feeling towards the Brethren
   and their institutions, will also serve to show what estimate they had
   by that time formed of his Christian character.

   In the summer of 1790 Schleiermacher passed his examination as a
   licentiate of theology, and soon afterwards obtained a situation as
   private tutor in the family of Count von Dohna of Schlobitten. Here he
   spent three years very happily, treated with great kindness by the
   whole family, delighting in the happy domestic life and in the
   opportunity of forming his manners in polished society; preaching,
   visiting the sick, and studying as diligently as time permitted. This
   pleasant episode was brought to a close through his being unable
   conscientiously to agree with the views of the parents as to the system
   to be followed in the children's education. After about half a year
   spent in teaching in Berlin, he was appointed and ordained as assistant
   to an aged pastor at Landsberg on the Warthe. He writes to his father
   on entering on this new office: "From my heart I do wish that God's
   blessing may be upon my sermons, so that they may be sources of true
   edification and speak to the heart, as, I trust, they will ever come
   from the heart. To you I need not say how deeply I am moved at the
   thought of being numbered among those to whom so important an office is
   entrusted, nor need I assure you that I do not now, and never shall,
   look upon it merely as a means of livelihood."

   After two years of faithful pastoral work at Landsberg, he was
   appointed preacher to the Charity House in Berlin, a position which he
   held for the next six years. These years mark a new and most
   influential era in his life. He very soon became a daily and honoured
   guest in the house of the Jewish physician, Dr. Marcus Herz and his
   beautiful and highly gifted wife Henrietta. There he met the most
   intellectual and cultured society in Berlin, as well as many
   distinguished foreigners, for whom the Herzes always kept open house.
   In this congenial and stimulating atmosphere, Schleiermacher's mind
   revelled and expanded, while ever steadily holding on its own
   independent course. He carried on his researches now, as throughout his
   life, in every department of knowledge--literature, science,
   philosophy, theology; he gave a candid and attentive hearing to the
   views of others, patiently and without prejudice weighed them, and held
   to what he accounted truth, whether sup ported by others or alone. "I
   do not believe," he says, "that I shall ever attain to a fully
   wrought-out system, so that I could answer every question that could be
   raised, conclusively, and in agreement with all my other knowledge. But
   I have all along believed that the proving and investigating, the
   patient hearing of all witnesses and all parties, is the only means for
   attaining at last to a sufficient amount of certainty, and above all to
   a well-defined boundary between that about which one must necessarily
   take a side, and that which one may leave undecided with out detriment
   to his repose and happiness."

   In this social circle also, not only his intellect but his large, deep
   heart found the outlet and the sympathy which seemed to him a necessity
   of life. From childhood onwards he felt it impossible to live without
   loving and being beloved. To one friend he writes: "I stretch forth all
   my roots and leaves in search of affection, . . . and when I am unable
   to drink in full draughts of it, I at once dry up and wither." In
   forming his friendships ho was slow to give confidence till sure of his
   ground. Intellect and genius no doubt attracted him, but in a friend he
   demanded more than these. "I cannot," he says, "allow any one to
   penetrate into the inmost recesses of my mind until I am satisfied of
   the purity and uprightness of his character. I cannot philosophize with
   any one whose moral sentiments I do not approve." And again: "For his
   intellect alone I love no man. Schelling and Goethe are two mighty
   intellects, but I shall never be tempted to love them." And once more,
   in defending himself against the charge of having undesirable friends:
   "Never will I be the friend of a man of disreputable principles; but
   neither will I ever, out of fear of the world, withdraw the consolation
   of my friendship from any one who has innocently incurred its ban." But
   when sure of a pure, true character, he was ready to love in spite of
   many faults; and having once given his confidence, he was eager to lay
   open his whole soul to his friend, and to receive a like fulness of
   communication in return; to have a constant and full and sympathetic
   interchange of opinions and feelings on all possible subjects. It was
   perhaps this need of expression that in part made it more natural to
   him to form friendships with women than with men; though more probably
   the reason was in the deep, delicate tenderness of his nature. With
   Henrietta Herz, who was as lovely in character as in person, he formed
   a friendship that lasted for life; and with several other female
   friends, all distinguished both by intellectual culture and by personal
   character, he kept up the closest intimacy.

   His faithful sister Charlotte, whom, in her cloistered seclusion, he
   kept fully acquainted with all his doings and interests, feared, not
   entirely without reason, that these friendships might injure him in his
   professional position by exposing his conduct to misconstruction, and
   also that there might be a danger of his deceiving himself as to the
   nature of his feelings. He replies at great length, affectionately and
   patiently going into detail to relieve her loving anxiety. He grants,
   as to the latter point, that the danger does exist, but assures her
   that he is always and entirely on his guard, and that between Mrs. Herz
   and himself any warmer feeling than friendship would never have been
   possible. And as to the danger to his position, he expresses his
   conviction that, just because he is a minister, it is his duty to
   disregard appearances, not, of course, out of mere bravado, but when
   ever there is good and sufficient reason. And therefore, as he feels
   sure that these friendships are, on the one hand, essential to him in
   the cultivation of his mind and heart, and that, on the other hand,
   they enable him to do much good, he maintains his right to enjoy them.

   One faculty which Schleiermacher greatly valued in his friends, that of
   minutely and exactly observing and describing their own mental
   processes, was a very strongly marked characteristic of his own mind.
   This feature indeed comes out so very prominently in his letters that
   we are obliged to remind ourselves that they are the letters of a
   German. And yet this habitual, deliberate introspection, which is so
   commonly an indication and accompaniment of a morbid
   self-consciousness, was far from being so in his case. Self-conscious
   he was, in the sense of being fully and intensely aware of every phase
   and variation in his inner life; but in his relations with his
   fellow-men his manner had the childlike simplicity that marks every
   truly great man.

   There must have been few more attractive guests in those days at Mrs.
   Herz's gatherings than the small, slightly deformed man, with keen,
   flashing eye, and calm, self-possessed manner, who quietly listened and
   discussed and gave his opinion, and at the same time saw and heard all
   that was done or said in the room; whose face expressed at once
   intellectual power and a most winning kindliness.

   The most notable of the male friends whom Schleiermacher acquired
   during this first residence in Berlin was Friedrich Schlegel, who
   arrived in the city not long after him, and who for some time shared
   his lodgings. He regarded Schlegel's mental powers with intense
   admiration, and considered his intimate association with him as the
   greatest possible advantage to himself. "In regard to intellect," he
   says, "he is so infinitely superior to me that I cannot speak of his
   mind but with profound reverence." For a few years his connection with
   Schlegel occupied a large place in his thoughts and time; a connection
   of which he said that it would ever remain one of the most remarkable
   epochs in his life. Mrs. Herz says he was liable to the not very
   uncommon weakness of greatly exaggerating the merits of his friends;
   and it is evident that whatever Schlegel's real merits were, his friend
   saw him through some glorifying medium in his own imagination. "I
   cannot help," he says, "loving the ideal that dwells in him, al though
   I am very doubtful whether it will not be shivered to atoms before he
   succeeds in embodying a harmonious presentment of it, either in his
   works or in his life. How ever, I see before me, in imagination, the
   great and truly sublime image of what he may be if he ever attain his
   true development. How could I then feel otherwise towards him than I
   do? "It was probably from thus idealising his friend, and also from a
   generous feeling of his having been unfairly dealt with, that
   Schleiermacher was moved to write a series of letters in defence of
   Lucinda, a book of Schlegel's which was severely condemned, and, it
   would seem, not without good reason; and which Schleiermacher himself
   had at first disliked. Of this incident a German critic remarks, that
   "the astonishment felt at seeing a healthy and pure mind, such as
   Schleiermacher's, finding pleasure in the Lucinda is exceeded by the
   admiration experienced at beholding the purified reflection of the work
   furnished by the pure mind." Schleiermacher probably did in this case
   like the godly old woman who, after hearing a sermon that was very dry
   bones to most of the hearers, gave notes of it that were savoury and
   wholesome food. She had read her own devout thoughts into it.

   On his twenty-ninth birthday he writes to Charlotte a lively account of
   how he had been surprised in the morning by the arrival, first of two
   young Dohnas, (his former Schlobitten pupils, now officers resident for
   a time in Berlin,) and then of Schlegel and some of his lady friends;
   how his table was spread with chocolate and cakes, how "Mrs. Herz gave
   me a watchguard and Mrs. Veit a pair of gloves and a small wineglass
   out of which to drink the Burgundy she had ordered for my stomach, and
   Schlegel a small bottle of perfume for my linen, which he knows I am
   very fond of." And then he goes on to say how Schlegel had incited the
   others to join in extorting from him a promise to produce something
   original in writing before the end of the year; "a promise that weighs
   heavily on me, as I have not the least desire to be an author." This
   promise was redeemed by his beginning to contribute short papers to the
   Athenaeum, then conducted by the brothers Schlegel.

   But he soon found weightier work for his pen. In the spring of 1799,
   during a short absence at Potsdam, he completed in two months his
   Discourses on Religion, addressed to the cultivated Classes among its
   Contemners. He was very far from anticipating what was to be the effect
   of this work, and had doubts of its being allowed to pass by the public
   censor; doubts not unfounded, for it was barely sanctioned. Its aim was
   to prove that religion is an eternal necessity in human nature, and to
   distinguish what is essential in it from the accidental and false
   additions of men.

   The book startled the nation as with the blast of a trumpet. Men awoke,
   especially young men, from the torpor of unbelief or fashionable
   indifference, and began to inquire, What is truth? The appearance of
   the work is regarded as forming a distinct epoch in the religious
   history of Germany. Harms, who had become dissatisfied with
   rationalism, relates of himself after reading the book twice through,
   hardly pausing to eat or sleep: "I suddenly recognised that all
   rationalism, and all aesthetics, and all knowledge derived from
   ourselves, are utterly worthless and useless as regards the work of
   salvation; and the necessity of our salvation coming from another
   source, so to say, flashed upon me. . . . I may, with truth, call it
   the hour in which my higher life was born. I received from that book
   the impulse of a movement that will never cease." The great Neander
   also regarded the reading of these Discourses as the turning-point in
   his religious life, and many of the most noted thinkers and preachers
   of Germany were no loss deeply impressed and influenced. It is
   significant of how little the author sought or valued fame that in none
   of his letters of that period is there the slightest reference to the
   sensation produced by the book, nothing indeed to indicate that he was
   even aware of it. On its being sent to the printer he writes to Mrs.
   Herz: "It is a strange coincidence that one of my sermons should have
   appeared at the same time as my Discourses on Religion. My name thus
   stands among a number of great theologians and preachers, and in order
   to excuse himself for having placed it there, B-- has been so bold as
   to say in the preface that I am highly valued in Berlin on account of
   my talents and my knowledge. . . . What may I not yet become in this
   sublunary sphere!"

   In the following year he published his Monologues, which he describes
   as "a man's deepest and most intimate communings with himself." These
   gained him many friends among the best kind of people. Indeed he found
   it necessary more than once to explain that the Monologues presented
   the ideal to which he desired to attain, not the picture of what he
   really was. Amiel, in his Journal, after a criticism of the Monologues
   at considerable length, thus winds up. "What a life! what a man! These
   glimpses into the inner regions of a great sould do one good. Contact
   of this kind strengthens, restores, refreshes. Courage returns as we
   gaze; when we see what has been, we doubt no more that it can be again.
   At the sight of a man, we too say to ourselves, Let us also be men!"

   In the first year of the new century the first collection of
   Schleiermacher's sermons was given to the world, dedicated to his good
   uncle Stubenrauch. This must have been done at the urgent desire of his
   friends; for even so late as 1824, in referring to the fourth
   collection which had then been published, he says: "I am still opposed
   to the publication of the sermons in a printed form; because all
   sermons, and mine more especially, are only intended to be heard."
   Something of this he expresses in the dedication to his uncle, and
   adds, among other interesting explanations: "Others will be offended
   that the distinction between moral and immoral men, between the pious
   and the worldly- minded, is so strictly drawn, as among our theologians
   it has for a long time been supposed to be no longer the fashion to do
   so; but you know that I could not avoid this offence without being
   unfaithful to what I hold to be the essential part of Christianity."

   In addition to all his other labours, Schleiermacher undertook, jointly
   with Schlegel, the translation of Plato, from which, however, the
   latter soon withdrew; and Schleiermacher, after years of toil,
   completed the task alone.

   Schlegel remained only a short time in Berlin, and the increasing
   difference of their views on various subjects, and perhaps, above all,
   on religion, gradually made the tie between the two much less close,
   though Schleiermacher never ceased to speak with warm affection of his
   early friend.

   It should be noted that Schleiermacher carried on all these labours
   under the burden of wretched health, from which he suffered during most
   of his life. His eyesight also was weak, and at one time he seemed in
   danger of losing it altogether; but his resolute will refused to allow
   even severe physical pain to put a stop to his work, or hinder his
   enjoyment of social intercourse.

   About the same time that Schlegel left Berlin, Schleiermacher was
   introduced, during a visit in the island of Ruegen, to an earnest young
   preacher, Ehrenfried von Willich, with whom he at once formed a warm
   friendship--a friendship that was to lead to very important results for
   his own future life. His remarks to Charlotte show how much more
   congenial to him was the Christian pastor than the brilliant
   philosopher. "Willich has not Friedrich Schlegel's great, deep and
   all-comprehensive intellect; but he is in many respects nearer to my
   heart, and his sentiments regarding life are more similar to my own."
   And after each of them had visited him in Berlin: "Willich has been
   here. . . . That I derive more enjoyment from his presence than from
   Schlegel's you may easily guess."

   One portion of his experience, which began during those six years so
   full of import and of progress for him, must not be omitted; not only
   because it for the time so deeply and powerfully affected him, but
   because it illustrates so strange a state of society, as well as some
   peculiar views of his own.

   One of his most intimate friends was Eleanore Grunow, a highly cultured
   and gifted woman, most unhappily married to a clergyman in the city.
   Schleiermacher held very strongly that a marriage in which there is
   nothing but the outward tie--no inward oneness, no heart union--is an
   immoral connection, and no real marriage; and that therefore the
   dissolution of such a connection is a moral duty. Most right-thinking
   men and women will grant his premisses; but to admit his condition
   would open the door to dangerous consequences. From keen sympathy with
   the daily sufferings of his friend, as well as the congeniality of mind
   that had first drawn them together, Schleiermacher's feeling deepened
   into a strong attachment, which, so far from being frowned on by his
   conscience, was mixed with his most sacred thoughts and plans. The law
   of Prussia permitted divorce on the ground of mutual consent, without
   any criminality on either aide; public opinion attached no stigma to
   the practice; there were instances of it in Schleiermacher's immediate
   circle; and it was his earnest desire that Eleanore shonld obtain a
   dissolution of her miserable union and become his wife. All his
   intercourse and correspondence with her was carried on with perfect
   openness, and his best friends, good and pure men and women, knew and
   sympathised with his wishes. But Eleanore could not come to a decision;
   and in the distress and trouble of his mind, he accepted, in the spring
   of 1802, an appointment as court-preacher at Stolpe in Pomerania, thus
   voluntarily going into what he felt to be banishment.

   At Stolpe he consoled himself with long letters to various friends,
   filled with details of his work, literary and pastoral, criticisms of
   books read in his solitude, or of prominent literary men, and of
   course, above all, with minute accounts of mental experiences, or
   comments on such accounts received. It would be pleasant, if apace
   permitted, to give large extracts from those letters, which present so
   much more vividly than any description a picture of the man; his
   unceasing mental activity, his quiet, playful humour, his warm, deep
   sympathy. The letters are not the less interesting in that they are in
   some respects so utterly unlike the letters of an Englishman, and still
   more those of a Scotchman. The effusiveness, the sentimentality, if one
   may so speak, is probably quite as much a national characteristic as a
   specialty of Schleiermacher individually. But it seems to us more like
   a school-girl than a profound philosopher when wo read how he, as it
   were, fell in love with some of his male friends at first sight, as for
   instance with Willich, with whom he "communed in silence," while the
   rest of the company sang. Speaking of another, with whom ho had
   exchanged a few letters before they met, he says, when they mot
   accidentally, "We exclaimed in one breath, `What, this is Huelsen!'
   and, `What, this is Schleiermacher!' And then we fell into each other's
   arms. After having gazed at each other in silence a few moments, it was
   as though wo had been in the habit of seeing each other daily for
   years." And of his friend Reimer, who published his works, he tells
   Charlotte, "Yesterday a sudden action took place within us, . . .
   during which we took possession, as it were, of each other as intimate
   heart-friends. Do not ask me at present to describe this. I am too much
   overwhelmed and too perplexed. . . . He folded me in his arms, with the
   words, `Henceforward let there be no thing concealed between us!'"

   One quotation of another character we must give, as showing both the
   state of the Church at the time, and Schleiermacher's position and
   feeling in regard to it. "Last Wednesday the synodal assembly of this
   diocese took place, and the dean was so kind as to invite mo to be
   present. This occupied almost the whole day. How sad it made me! Ah,
   dear friend, to find yourself among thirty-live such clergymen! I did
   not feel ashamed of belonging to the profession, but with my whole
   heart I longed for and I pictured to myself those future times which, I
   trust, are not far distant, when such an assembly will be impossible. I
   shall not live to see it, but could I only in some way contribute to
   bring it about! Of the openly disreputable among them I will not speak;
   . . . but the universal degradation, the entire unsusceptibility to all
   higher influences, the base and sensuous views depend upon it, I was
   the only one among them who mourned in heart, the only one; for had
   there been another I must have found him, I knocked and searched so
   earnestly."

   During his stay at Stolpe, in the autumn of 1803, Schleiermacher
   published his Critical Enquiry into the Existing Systems of Ethics,
   criticising especially the systems of Kant and Fichte, and giving the
   highest place to Plato and Spinoza, but formulating no completed system
   of his own.

   But his mind was still disturbed and unsettled, and his heart often
   deeply distressed in connection with Eleanore, who seemed, just at this
   time, to have given him up, though the correspondence was resumed for
   two years more. He calls this book his tombstone--a remnant of the
   happy past. And yet it was at this very time he undertook to carry on
   alone the translation of Plato! But it is only fair to add, that he
   explains his doing this, though with the prospect of a speedy death
   before him, by saying that, "just as a man ought to do nothing because
   of death, so also he ought to leave nothing undone because of death."

   In May, 1804, Schleiermacher was appointed preacher to the University
   at Halle, and professor extraordinarius of theology. In the interval of
   comparative leisure, before turning his steps southward, he paid a
   short visit to Willich, now settled at Stralsund; and in Ruegen, where
   they had first met, was introduced to Willich's betrothed bride,
   Henriette von Muehlenfels, a charming and beautiful girl of sixteen,
   then living in the house of her married sister, Charlotte von Kathen.
   Schleiermacher entered with joyful sympathy into their happiness. Ho
   and the young bride forthwith adopted each other as father and
   daughter, and from that time there was a frequent interchange of
   letters overflowing with affection on both sides. In October he was
   settled at Halle, and there, in H. Steffens, professor of natural
   philosophy, he found another friend in whose companionship he took
   great delight. He writes about him: "Steffens profound and
   inexhaustible mind, joined to his childlike and amiable nature, so
   susceptible of every generous emotion, gives me new pleasure every time
   I spend a few hours with him." And again: "Never have I with such
   sincerity of heart placed another man as high above myself in every
   respect as I do this one, whom, were it seemly between man and man, I
   could almost adore. . . . The man is altogether so indescribably
   attractive--as deep, as spontaneous and as witty as Friedrich Schlegel
   at his best." And so on, with much more in the same strain. And the
   feeling was thoroughly reciprocated.

   In speaking of a night spent together on a pedestrian excursion,
   Steffens says: "This night will be to me ever memorable. . . . Never
   did Schleiermacher seem to me intellectually greater, morally purer.
   Even to this day that night appears to me one of the most remarkable of
   my life, as if sanctified. . . . I have a testimony of the impression
   this night made upon him, in a letter to his dear friend Mrs. Herz. It
   was the reflection of his own purity that made me appear to him in a
   glorified light during these truly holy hours. Never did the deep
   religiosity of his morality strike me more forcibly. The Saviour was
   with us, as He has promised to be `when two or three are gathered
   together in His name.'"

   The following Easter Schleiermacher made the visit to Barby which has
   already been referred to; and later in the summer took another little
   tour, in the course of which he visited his dear Lotte, and made
   acquaintance for the first time with his younger half-sister, Nanni,
   whom he brought with him to Halle, thus making for himself, at last, a
   little home. One very characteristic passage in his account of the
   pedestrian portion of this tour may be quoted. "Our longest and most
   interesting day's journey I went through under intense suffering from
   cramps in the stomach; yet I did not give in, or allow the state of my
   health to cause us one hour's delay, nor did the difficulties and
   sufferings in any way impair my enjoyment, and now they seem as nothing
   compared with the glorious and lasting impression which the sight of
   nature in its sublimity has made upon me."

   And now, October, 1805, occurred the crisis which Schleiermacher
   regarded as an unspeakable calamity, but which was in reality a
   merciful deliverance from a great evil. Eleanore seemed to have decided
   on the final step. Schleiermacher writes to the Willichs of visiting
   them again, and adds his hope that it may be "with the excellent
   Eleanore," "the best loved of all my belongings."

   She had gone to the house of her brother, who had under taken to
   conduct the business of the divorce, the husband had given his consent,
   when Eleanore was suddenly overcome by scruples of conscience, and
   returned to her husband's house, and all communication between her and
   Schleiermacher was thenceforward at an end.

   It came upon him as a crushing, heart-sickening blow; he spoke of it as
   having destroyed his life and made it utterly worthless; but he lived
   to take a wiser and sounder view of the position, and to thank, God who
   had reserved some better thing for him.

   But neither sorrow nor any other personal interest was allowed to
   hinder his work. His influence extended rapidly, especially among the
   students. He devoted an evening weekly to receiving in his house any of
   them who chose to come, and of this plan he says, "I do not know which
   party gains most, the young people or myself."

   In the beginning of 1806 he published anonymously the Christmas
   Festival, a delightful little book in the form of a dialogue, in which
   he introduces several of his friends--Henriette von Willich, with her
   baby daughter; her sister, Charlotte von Kathen, with her sick child,
   and others. The book is pervaded with earnest Christi an feeling, and
   bears on the condition of the country in consequence of the French
   invasion. For now the troubles of war were pressing heavily; and when,
   in October, the battle of Jena threw Prussia for the time entirely
   under the heel of the conqueror, the University was suppressed, the
   students dispersed, and Schleiermacher's professional occupation was
   gone. He writes to his friend Reimer an account of the pillage of the
   town by the French, humorously describing his own part in it, in which
   he and Steffens were deprived of their watches, besides "all my shirts,
   with the exception of five, and all the silver spoons, with the
   exception of two." After this he and Nanni united their housekeeping
   with Steffens and his family; a measure which he says "was imperative,
   for I had only very little money, which I had borrowed, and Steffens
   had none at all." And thus they economized fuel and light as well as
   other items, though Nanni did not enjoy it, as what housekeeper would?
   But he still held to his post, in hope of better times for the
   University, and exerted all his influence, which was not small, to stir
   up a true and noble patriotism and a spirit of determined resistance in
   defence of all that the nation held dear. A few extracts from his
   letters during this stirring time may be given.

   "Would you desire to be spared any danger, any suffering, at the cost
   of the conviction of having delivered over future generations to base
   servitude, and of having exposed them to be inoculated with the
   despicable sentiments of an utterly corrupted people? Believe me,
   sooner or later, a great and universal struggle must ensue, the objects
   of which will be as much our sentiments, our religion, and our mental
   culture, as our outward liberty and worldly goods, . . . a struggle
   which will unite sovereigns and people by a more beautiful bond than
   has existed for centuries." "The general demoralization is fearful; on
   all sides yawning abysses of infamy and cowardice stare you in the
   face. Only a few, and fore most among these the king and the queen,
   form glorious exceptions." "The rod of wrath must fall upon every
   German land; only on this condition can a strong and happy future bloom
   forth. Happy they who live to see it; but they who die, let them die in
   faith." "I have no fear, except, sometimes, of a dishonourable peace,
   which may save the appearance--but only the appearance--of a national
   existence and freedom. But even in regard to this I feel tranquil; for
   if the nations submit to it, it will prove that they are not yet ripe
   for better things; and the severer visitations, amid which they are to
   mature, will not fail soon to fall upon them." "The king alone, in his
   steadfastness, it is gratifying to behold; and I trust, now that he has
   got over the capture of his capital and the surrender of his fortresses
   without suing for peace, he will not think of separating his fate from
   that of the rest of Europe. . . . The conflict must become wider and
   deeper, if new life and prosperity are to rise out of the universal
   desolation."

   In the following spring, February, 1807, during the siege of Stralsund,
   young Willich, who had refused to desert his flock, was smitten by a
   fever that raged in the town, and died after a week's illness. The poor
   young wife, still only nineteen, turned in her desolation to her "dear
   father, Schleier," for comfort; and few real fathers could have entered
   more fully into the sorrows of a stricken child. Henriette returned to
   Ruegen, to be near her relatives, and during the unsettled, troublous
   times that followed, Schleiermacher maintained a steady correspondence
   with her and her sister, so far as the distracted state of the country
   permitted. He lingered in Halle until the winter, in the hope that the
   University might be restored; but when, in December, prayers were
   ordered in the churches for Jerome Bonaparte and his wife as king and
   queen of Westphalia, it was more than his patriotic spirit could brook,
   and he betook himself to Berlin, to preach and to lecture in the
   meantime as he might find opportunity.

   Once more, in the following summer, Schleiermacher found his way to
   Ruegen. In personal intercourse, his fatherly affection for Henriette
   easily and naturally developed into a deeper and warmer feeling, and he
   carried back with him to Berlin her promise to be his wife when more
   settled times should come.

   Early in 1809 he was appointed pastor of Trinity Church in Berlin, and
   when, in May, he brought home his bride with her two little children,
   he felt that his happiness was complete. Even in his much younger days
   he had delighted in studying family life, and often spoke of it as
   man's most perfect state; and now he wrote to his old friend Mrs. Herz:
   "I have taught so much about the beauty and holiness of family life
   that I ought to have an opportunity of showing that what I have taught
   has been to me more than empty words, and that the doctrine has in
   truth sprung from my deepest feelings and from my inward energy." And
   though he was nearly twenty years older than his Jette, nowhere could
   he have found a wife more thoroughly suited for him. Thoughtful and
   intelligent, she grew and developed in contact with his strong nature,
   while yet retaining her individual character; and their deep, mutual
   love only deepened through the years until the end. And when, in
   addition to the two little ones whom he had so fully taken to his
   fatherly heart, children of his own came to make it a complete family,
   his cup of joy overflowed. Now at last he had found a sphere in which
   his rich nature and his great intellect had full scope. His genial,
   loving, social disposition made him the centre of a wide and
   ever-increasing circle of warmly attached friends of all classes. He
   went much into society, and received much at home; not merely because
   of his unceasing delight in intercourse with his fellows, but because
   he believed that intimate personal association was the most effective
   medium of influence for good. And in this he seems to have judged
   correctly; for those who knew him agree in their testimony that great
   as was the effect of his written works, and still greater that of his
   preaching, it was the whole living personality of the man that told
   most powerfully on all who came in contact with him.

   In 1810, when the University of Berlin was re-constituted, with Fichte
   as rector, Schleiermacher was called to a chair of theology, and the
   next year became Secretary to the Academy of Science. One public office
   after another was thrust upon him; while preaching, writing and
   lecturing went on with unabated diligence. It fatigues the mind even to
   read the list of the subjects on which he lectured: New Testament
   exegesis; introduction to and interpretation of the New Testament,
   ethics, both philosophic and Christian, dogmatic and practical
   theology, church history, history of philosophy, psychology, dialectics
   (logic and metaphysics), politics, pedagogy and aesthetics. His
   preaching drew in creasing crowds, not only of the more intellectual
   classes, but from among the poor and uneducated, who found that they
   received in it food for the hunger of their hearts, guidance from
   Scripture for the practical affairs of daily life, and comfort in its
   sorrows.

   It has already been said that Schleiermacher considered all sermons,
   and his own more especially, as intended only to be heard, not read.
   The specialty in his own case arose from the fact that his sermons were
   never written; all his published discourses being printed from notes
   taken during delivery. They were very deeply thought out; but a few
   very brief notes were all that he committed to paper; leaving his
   already well-defined thoughts to take shape as his feelings warmed with
   his theme and took a special tone from the sympathetic reflex influence
   of the people assembled before him. This habit of speaking without
   previous arrangement, with the wealth of ideas that would flow in upon
   him--one thought suggesting still another--probably accounts in part
   for the strange, often obscure style of his sermons--the long, involved
   sentences, reaching occasionally the fearful length of a page and a
   half; sentences in which, however, one of his constant hearers says he
   never lost his way (which is much more than can be said of all his
   readers), and in which he always arrived with certainty at the right
   conclusion. His friend Wilhelm von Humboldt says of him: "Those who may
   have read his numerous writings ever so diligently, but who have never
   heard him speak, must, nevertheless, remain unacquainted with the most
   rare power and the most remarkable qualities of the man. His strength
   lay in the deeply penetrative character of his words, when preaching or
   engaged in any other of his ecclesiastical functions. It would be wrong
   to call it rhetoric, for it was so entirely free from art. It was the
   persuasive, penetrative, kindling effusion of a feeling, which seemed
   not so much to be enlightened by one of the rarest intellects as to
   move side by side with it in perfect unison." A recent writer says of
   his eloquence, that it was almost as golden as that of Plato; and a
   short German notice of him gives the much more valuable testimony, that
   by his preaching thousands were won to the Saviour. Another criticism
   from Ami el may here be quoted. u While some shock me by their
   sacerdotal dogmatism, others repel me by their rationalizing laicism.
   It seems to me that good preaching ought to combine, as
   Schleiermacher's did, perfect moral humility with energetic
   independence of thought; a profound sense of sin with respect for
   criticism and a passion for truth."

   In the pulpit as elsewhere, Schleiermacher was, during those troubled
   times, a fearless patriot, and laboured unceasingly, in conjunction
   with Fichte and other noble-hearted men, to arouse in the people a true
   spirit of freedom, that should lead them to unite in casting off the
   foreign yoke; his friend Moritz Arndt, who had been obliged, after the
   battle of Jena, to flee from the wrath of Napoleon, but had now
   returned, greatly aiding the cause by his stirring patriot songs,
   especially the one, popular wherever the German language is spoken,
   "What is the German's Fatherland?"

   Schleiermacher's second collection of sermons, published in 1808,
   twelve in number, all bear on the special circum stances of the
   country. Eight of them were preached in Halle, and the rest in Berlin.
   In his preface to them he says: "May this work contribute something to
   effect what we so greatly need, to arouse and animate pious courage and
   true desire for thorough improvement, and to make it clear whence alone
   true prosperity can come to us, and how each one must help towards it."

   When at length, in the spring of 1813, Europe began to feel that she
   had had "enough of Bonaparte"; when Prussia at last aroused herself to
   cast off her humiliating chains; Schleiermacher felt that Berlin was no
   longer a safe place for his most precious treasures, and sent his wife
   and children for some weeks into Silesia, remaining himself, and taking
   an active part in all the exciting events of those stormy days. He
   writes to his wife, "As for regular study, that is not to be thought of
   till the immediate crisis is over. I am continuing my lectures, but I
   believe I am the only professor who does so." The danger to Berlin,
   however, blew over; and he was able again to gather his little flock
   around him. Among the sermons in this volume is one preached at the
   calling out of the Landwehr in that eventful year; and we transcribe a
   part of Bishop Eilert's eloquent account of one which does not appear
   in the published collection.

   "The students of the University and the gymnasium, who were about to
   start for Breslau as volunteers, in uniform and armed, had in a body
   requested Schleiermacher to deliver a sermon and administer the
   sacrament to them immediately before their departure, thus to
   consecrate them for their holy undertaking. Their firearms were piled
   in front or rested against the walls of the church of the Holy Trinity.
   The beautiful old hymn, `In all my acts,' sung with heartfelt effusion,
   had attuned the minds of the congregation to the proper pitch of
   solemnity. After having pronounced a short prayer, full of unction,
   Schleiermacher went up into the pulpit. . . . There, in this holy
   place, and at this solemn hour, stood the physically so small and
   insignificant man, his noble countenance beaming with intellect, and
   his clear, sonorous, penetrating voice ringing through the overflowing
   church. Speaking from his heart with pious enthusiasm, his every word
   penetrated to the heart, and the clear, full, mighty stream of his
   eloquence carried every one along with it. His bold, frank declaration
   of the causes of our deep fall, his severe denunciation of our actual
   defects, as evinced in the narrow-hearted spirit of caste, of proud
   aristocratism, and in the dead forms of bureaucratism, struck down like
   thunder and lightning, and the subsequent elevation of the heart to God
   on the wings of solemn devotion was like harp-tones from a higher
   world. . . . And when, at last, with the full fire of enthusiasm, he
   addressed the noble youths already equipped for battle, and next,
   turning to their mothers, the greater number of whom were present, he
   concluded with the words, `Blessed is the womb that has borne such a
   son! blessed the breast that has nourished such a babe!' a thrill of
   deep emotion ran through the assembly, and amid loud sobs and weeping,
   Schleiermacher pronounced the closing Amen."

   When the country was once more restored to freedom, Schleiermacher
   shared the experience of many another public-spirited man who has cared
   more for his country's real welfare than for his own advancement. The
   men who had stirred the people to assert their liberties against a
   foreign tyrant were regarded with suspicion by the government, as being
   equally likely to encourage resistance to an undue exercise of power on
   the part of their lawful ruler. Fichte's pure, beautiful life had
   already closed, during the war, at the comparatively early age of
   fifty-one, stricken down by hospital fever caught from his wife, who,
   with loving devotion, nursed the war-patients for five months, and all
   but fell a victim as well as her husband. But Arndt and many others of
   the leading patriots were deprived of office or suspended, and
   Schleiermacher himself, often in danger of dismissal, probably escaped
   only because the authorities feared to deprive the city of so bright an
   ornament, and of a teacher so greatly beloved. Those things did not
   greatly disturb his equanimity. He calmly and earnestly went on with
   his work, enjoying the society of his friends, at perfect rest in his
   happy home circle, and often recruiting health and spirits by a summer
   tour, sometimes with wife and children, sometimes alone, or in the
   company of a congenial friend. In 1817 a little change took place in
   his household. Nanni, who had continued to live with him after his
   marriage, became the wife of Arndt, and her place was supplied by his
   own sister Charlotte, the gentle play fellow of his childhood, and his
   life-long trusted friend, who at last left her retreat among the
   Brethren to spend the evening of her days beside her beloved Fritz.

   It was for Schleiermacher one of the penalties of greatness that his
   far-seeing wisdom, which made him so much in advance of his age, and
   his outspoken boldness in stating his independent opinions, compelled
   him, notwithstanding his peaceable and loving disposition, to be a man
   of war for the greater part of his life. In the question of proposed
   Church Reform, he declared that it was vain to attempt to improve the
   constitution of the clergy if the reform were not founded on a
   well-organized Christian presbyterian system, with extensive assemblies
   of elders chosen by the community; just as a truly free
   state-constitution is based on a free and living communal system.

   In the great question of the union of the Reformed and Lutheran
   Churches he also took a very prominent part. The leading opponent of
   the union was Claus Harms of Kiel, who, in the beginning of his career,
   had owed so much to Schleiermacher's Discourses. He held that such a
   union would be an apostasy, not only from Lutheranism, but from
   Christianity. But Schleiermacher, with deeper insight, pointed out that
   none of the Reformers had created a new thing; that they had only
   cleared the old, pure doctrine from the rubbish with which it had been
   overlaid, and that therefore the work of the Reformation was not to
   found a Lutheran Church, nor a Reformed Church, "but to bring forth in
   renewed glory the Evangelical Church, which is guided and governed by
   its founder, Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, . . . the quickening
   centre of the Church."

   From his letters during a holiday tour in 1818, we give a few short
   extracts:

   "The cathedral (Prague) is a noble, but unfinished edifice, in Gothic
   style; . . . beneath it the history of Bohemia lies interred. . . . The
   people seem to be quite indifferent to all the beautiful monuments that
   surround them, and to all the great memories that are attached to them,
   and appear to be utterly unconscious that, with their Protestantism and
   their religious liberty, they lost all their dignity. . . . I was
   actually seized with a shudder--a religious shudder--at the sight of
   the immense Jesuit college, and with a political shudder at the equally
   gigantic palace of Wallenstein. But what shall I say of the ruinous
   state of churches and convents? Protestantism has been wrenched from
   the people with unheard-of cruelty, but Catholicism they cannot prevent
   from rotting among them." "We received a visit from a Catholic
   ecclesiastic, who pleased me so much, that we parted from each other
   with a brotherly kiss and with tearful eyes." [Munich] "Old Jacobi was
   actually moved on seeing me. We endeavoured to come to an understanding
   relative to our views, but we got no further than to under stand
   wherein the difference between us consists; and he always listened to
   me very good-naturedly when I told him that I thought his great mistake
   was that he confounded this difference with another."

   Schleiermacher's family at this time consisted of two daughters of his
   own and an adopted daughter, besides the young Von Willichs; and in
   1820 his joy received its crown in the birth of a son. He writes to his
   sister-in-law announcing the event, and says: "This time I had not felt
   so strong a wish that it should be a boy as on former occasions. I was
   too much penetrated by the feeling that we do not know what we wish
   for, more especially in the present times. But when it proved to be a
   boy, you may conceive with what joy and thankfulness I received him,
   and that my first prayer to God was, to be inspired with wisdom and
   power from above to educate the child to His glory."

   It was, alas! but a short time that the training of the boy was left in
   his hands.

   In 1821 Schleiermacher published what is considered his chief
   theological work, The Christian Faith systematically presented
   according to the fundamental Propositions of the Evangelical Church,
   familiarly known as the Glaubenslehre. "The fundamental principle of
   this classical work" (we here quote from the Encyclopaedia Britannica)
   "is that religious feeling, the sense of absolute dependence on God, as
   communicated by Jesus Christ through the Church, and not the creeds, or
   the letter of Scripture, or the rationalistic under standing, is the
   source and law of dogmatic theology. It is therefore simply a
   description of the facts of religious feeling, or of the inner life of
   the soul in its relation to God, and these inward facts looked at in
   the various stages of their development, and presented in their inner
   connection. It aims . . . to put an end to the unreason and
   superficiality of both supernaturalism and rationalism, and to deliver
   theology from dependence on ever-changing systems of philosophy."

   This great work caused him fresh troubles, by arousing the bitter
   opposition of those whose systems he attacked. He also incurred anew
   the ill-will and suspicion of the government by his boldly contending
   for the right of the Church to frame her own liturgy, without the
   dictation of the king and his ministers. In 1824 he writes to Charlotte
   von Kathen: "My outward position is very precarious, perhaps more so
   than ever. The suspicions of demagogical tendencies in regard to me
   have, I trust, been allayed; but the ecclesiastical questions must soon
   be brought to a head, and should the result be violent measures, I must
   infallibly be one of the first victims. I cannot say that I am alarmed,
   or that in itself the thought of this troubles me; for in regard to
   these matters I know that I have done nothing but what t was bound to
   do; and I almost think I may say, also, that I have done all that I
   ought to do."

   And again, in 1827, to the same friend: "When you hear how constantly I
   am engaged in conflicts which I can not avoid without doing violence to
   my conscience, you will, I am sure, feel sorry that the last part of my
   life should be spent amid so much turmoil, and that I should be obliged
   to waste so much time on these matters, which, according to all
   appearance, might be used to much better purpose. However, I do not
   repine, but think, on the contrary, that it is all for the best; and
   when my book of life is made up, I shall have greater reason for
   thankfulness than most people. From what I have heard from several
   quarters, things seem this time to have been very near coming to a
   crisis. As for myself, I rarely know how these matters stand, and
   generally do not hear the worst until it has blown over. May it ever
   remain so; for it is my endeavour to do nothing that I may have to
   repent of after wards, and for the rest I leave the result to God."

   In the autumn of 1827 Schleiermacher and his wife took a journey into
   Galicia to bring home a second adopted daughter, a little child of
   Nanni's sister, who had died there, leaving a young family. Thus in
   almost continual outward strife, but in home happiness and heart peace,
   the years sped on.

   Schleiermacher's only visit to England, a very short one, occurred in
   1828. His companion on this journey was Alexander von Forstner,
   son-in-law of Charlotte von Kathen. On the way they spent a few days at
   Bonn with Nanni and her husband; and in a letter to his wife,
   Schleiermacher gives a pretty picture of Nanni's little flock of five,
   one of whom "said a little prayer in the true Arndt style." Arndt had
   been, so early as 1819, suspended from his professorship on a charge of
   "demagogic movements," though allowed to retain his salary. It was not
   till 1840 that he was restored, when he was already above seventy. The
   brave old patriot lived to be ninety-one, and only died in 1860.
   Schleiermacher preached once in London, at the re-opening of the church
   of the Savoy.

   In the following year a heart-breaking sorrow came upon him in the
   death of his only son, his little Nathanael, who was taken from him
   after a short illness, when only nine years old. The blow, he said,
   drove the nails into his own coffin; yet, with his wonted self-control,
   he would not allow his grief to hinder his work. He had delighted in
   helping the child with his lessons for the gymnasium, and having his
   bright companionship in his study; but on the very day of his funeral
   the mourning father took up again the burden of his daily duties, and
   "life," he says, "goes on in its old grooves, but more slowly and more
   heavily." His discourse at the child's funeral, included in the present
   selection, is considered one of his finest.

   The king seemed at last to become aware that it was possible for
   thorough devotion to the liberties of the people to exist in perfect
   harmony with utter fidelity to the sovereign, and in 1831 he conferred
   on Schleiermacher the Order of the Red Eagle, an honour which was
   valuable to him only as an assurance of the restored favour and
   confidence of the king. In the same year his faithful Lotte was taken
   to her rest. She had in her last days retired to the house of the
   Brethren in the city, to secure the quiet that had become desirable in
   her feeble state.

   Schleiermacher's habitual feeling towards his opponents may be
   understood from the following extract.

   "Amid the various conflicts which I am necessarily exposed to in my
   career, and amid the numerous misunderstandings of the extreme parties
   on both sides, through which I am obliged to wind my way, it is ever a
   great encouragement to me when I discover even a faint glimmer that
   leads me to think that we hold the same goal in view, and are labouring
   for the same end. . . . Thus at least I learn to unite, quietly within
   myself, with many who believe themselves far distant from me, and
   herein dwells a peculiar life-giving energy." He only grieved that
   profitless controversy inevitably consumed so much precious time, which
   he would gladly have used in more pleasant and lasting work.

   In the midst of his other labours he took time to write to his
   step-son, Ehrenfried von Willich, wise and most loving counsels as to
   his studies, his companionships, and the future direction of his life.
   This young man obtained in 1831 a government appointment at
   Aix-la-Chapelle. To him the mother sends a pleasant picture of
   Schleiermacher in holiday guise. "I shall never forget the impression
   it made upon me to see dear father in his blue blouse, with his silvery
   white hair, as lively and youthful as a young lad about to wander forth
   into the world for the first time, giving a parting word to all, who
   pressed round him with joyful emotion."

   One other extract from the mother's letters shows us a pleasant part of
   the family life. "Our Wednesday receptions are very much frequented, so
   that we cannot be said to live in great retirement. . . . The Wednesday
   evenings are often rendered doubly cheerful by a great number of young
   people. The circle of young maidens in our house is a spectacle which
   gladdens many hearts; and how this fresh and youthful circle gathered
   round your father embellishes and sweetens his old age, you will
   readily conceive."

   In the summer of 1833 Schleiermacher went, in company with his friend
   Count Schwerin, of Putzar, in Pornerania, on a tour which he said would
   be his last, "with the exception of the long one," through Sweden,
   Norway and Denmark. His home letters during this journey are marked by
   a deepened tenderness, and still more, as we are assured by the
   translator of his letters, by the absence of every indication of the
   fact that his progress through the northern kingdoms was a continual
   ovation; his arrival in Copenhagen being hailed with the greatest
   enthusiasm, professors, students and distinguished men joining to
   honour him by a public banquet, winding up with a torchlight
   procession.

   His last letter was written January 30th, 1834, to Ehrenfried von
   Willich. In it he speaks of the happy prospect of having all the
   children assembled in May to celebrate the silver wedding of the
   parents, refers to arrangements for the approaching marriage of one of
   the girls to the son of Count Schwerin, playfully enlarges on the
   wonderful accomplishments of the first grandchild, probably the child
   of Ehrenfried's sister; and closes by saying he has been for three days
   confined to the house by a cough and hoarseness, but hopes to resume
   his usual work on the morrow. But his ailment suddenly developed
   inflammation of the lungs, and after a week of intense suffering, the
   great, brave, tender spirit passed away. His wife, in her notes of that
   week, relates that after the death film had already overspread his
   eyes, and his whole aspect was that of death, he suddenly raised
   himself, and in a clear and strong voice spoke out, "I have never clung
   to the dead letter; and we have the atoning death of Jesus Christ, His
   body and blood." He then desired the things necessary for Communion to
   be quickly brought, and after solemn prayer, administered it to each of
   those present, while an expression of heavenly rapture spread over his
   features, and a strange lustre shone in his eyes. Finally he himself
   partook, adding, "On these words of the Scripture I rely; they are the
   foundation of my faith;" and after pronouncing the blessing, sank back
   on his pillow with a farewell word and look of love, and in a few
   minutes breathed his last, February 12th, 1834.

   The sensation his death caused in Berlin, and indeed throughout
   Germany, was indescribable. The honour which had so often been withheld
   from him by prejudice and jealousy during his life was abundantly
   accorded to him in death. The carriages of the king and the crown
   prince were the foremost of a hundred that formed his funeral
   procession, thirty-six of the students who loved and revered him as a
   father shared the privilege of bearing his coffin to the grave, and the
   streets and the cemetery were thronged with weeping thousands, mourning
   for a teacher and a friend whose like they might never see again.
     __________________________________________________________________
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I.

THE POWER OF PRAYER IN RELATION TO OUTWARD CIRCUMSTANCES.

    TEXT: MATT. xxvi. 36-46.

   TO be a religious man and to pray are really one and the same thing. To
   join the thought of God with every thought of any importance that
   occurs to us; in all our admiration of external nature, to regard it as
   the work of His wisdom; to take counsel with God about all our plans,
   that we may be able to carry them out in His name; and even in our most
   mirthful hours to remember His all-seeing eye; this is the prayer
   without ceasing to which we are called, and which is really the essence
   of true religion.

   As to the benefit of prayer there can be no question. Surely, surely we
   have all experienced it! If our joys have often remained innocent,
   while others strayed into ways of sin; if our judgments have been mixed
   with gentleness and modesty, where pride and arrogance might most
   easily have gained the day; if we have been guarded from the evil which
   the judgment of man all too willingly excuses; then we owe this
   beneficent protection to the power of prayer.

   Whether prayer has another kind of power in the world besides this, is
   a question that may easily be raised, and on which, if we are not to
   have our minds needlessly disturbed, we must come to some fixed belief.

   If we are to bring all our thoughts into harmony with the thought of
   God, then we may and shall direct our wishes to certain things that we
   desire may occur to, or be averted from ourselves or others. Now if we
   regard the fulfilment of those wishes as the aim of our prayers, and
   connect with this idea what is promised in answer to prayer then,
   whether we consider this answer, as some do, as a distinct and
   infallible mark of the divine favour; or if we only believe, as very
   many do, that our prayers throw some additional weight into the scale;
   either way, what a narrowing of our mental condition accompanies such a
   belief; how it sets limits to the reasonableness of our wishes, and
   even to the humility of our hearts! For thus our minds are filled with
   hopes, the usually disappointing issues of which disturb our peace, and
   indeed may bring us into the most painful uncertainty as to our
   standing with God. Let us therefore consider together this aspect of
   prayer. The portion of the history of our Lord's passion which we take
   as our subject is specially suitable for this purpose, as it shows us
   our Lord Himself engaged in the kind of prayer we are speaking of.

   We will consider the nature of His prayer and its results: and you will
   certainly grant this beforehand, that the disciple is not above his
   master, and that we cannot expect more from our prayers than Christ
   obtained by His. For if the granting of our petitions is a token of
   God's favour, then it would certainly have been given above all to Him
   in whom God was so supremely well-pleased. If it is only to be given
   when a man's own strength is not equal to what he seeks, and when there
   is need of special help, then let me remind you how utterly the Saviour
   denied Himself all human succour, and what strict limits He set to
   Himself by the laws which He followed in all His actions. If the
   success of the prayer depends on the importance, or on the innocence of
   the thing desired, then you know that no trifle ever occupied His mind,
   and that though in all points tempted like us, He was without sin.

   If, then, we cannot beforehand come to the conclusion that what
   Christ's prayer effected ours can also effect, this at least is
   certain, that where His prayer could not prevail neither will ours
   succeed. This similarity of our position with His must be a soothing
   thought to us all, whatever may be the result of our inquiry; and
   therefore I ask the more confidently for your calm and unprejudiced
   attention.

   We have here a direct view of the Saviour, before He fell into the
   hands of His enemies, in an agitated and anxious state of mind. He knew
   that there was a plot against His life, which was now on the point of
   being carried out; and plainly and calmly as He had before talked with
   His disciples of what was before Him, now that He was to enter on the
   conflict--now that all, as it came nearer, looked darker and more
   certain--the various feelings that such a prospect could not but excite
   in His mind threw Him into a state of stronger agitation than was at
   all usual with him. He sought solitude, and then fled from it; from
   prayer He went back to His disciples, who were in no condition to
   comfort or cheer Him; and from them He went back again to prayer. In
   circumstances like these, oven to those who are furthest from true
   piety, the old, half-forgotten memory of God comes back, and they turn
   to Him for help and deliverance; in such circumstances even those whose
   spirit is bravest, and who are absolutely submissive to the divine
   will, are yet not quite without anxiety or without wishes; and
   therefore, in this instance, the prayer of the Saviour took the form of
   one of the ordinary petitions of men for a result according to their
   desires.

   It is the value and the power of a prayer of this kind that we wish to
   consider. Let us first examine carefully the case before us, to see
   what it teaches us, and then, secondly, note any deductions to be drawn
   from it.

   I. First, then, fix it firmly in your minds that you have the privilege
   of laying before God your wishes about the more important concerns of
   your lives. It cannot be superfluous, in these times, to strengthen
   ourselves in this belief. Those who would like to banish everything
   belonging to religion from the minds of men, by allowing no room for
   the exercise of it in daily life, do not fail to represent such a
   prayer as an offence against the Most High. It is irreverent, they say,
   to express a wish rising out of the narrowness of our intellect and
   heart, about something which His decree has long ago settled; it is an
   ill-timed curiosity to say, I wish it might be so and so, when we shall
   presently learn how He has willed it. Do not be perplexed by such
   words. Christ did it, therefore we, too, may do it. It is one of the
   privileges that belong to our position as children of God. That would
   be a slavish family in which the children were not at liberty to
   express their wishes in the presence of their wiser father. And is any
   one able all at once to suppress his desires? If we cannot do so, then
   let us always speak them out when our heart is moved to do so; for even
   if we do shut them up within us, they are not hidden from Him. Do not
   listen to those who tell you that, before you approach God, you must
   have your mind composed and your heart at peace; that it is unseemly to
   appear before Him in this agitated state, while the dread of pain and
   disappointment, the clinging to some good thing which you are on the
   point of losing, still tosses your heart to and fro, and leaves no room
   for submission to the holy will of God. If you waited until submission
   had won the victory, you would feel neither the need nor the
   inclination for such a prayer, and the privilege of offering it would
   be useless to you. If the feelings that stir your heart are sinful
   emotions; if these emotions are kindled by the fire of passion; then
   the thought of God and prayer to Him can have no place beside them, But
   that disquietude, so altogether natural to man as God has made him,
   which agitates us at the touch of loss and misfortune, or when
   threatened with a check being laid on our activities, or with
   separation from those we love--such disquietude should not keep us back
   from God; for only thus will our hearts not condemn us, and we shall
   have confidence towards God (1 John iii. 21). Christ Himself, as you
   see here, used no other means to allay this so unusual agitation in His
   holy soul. Prayer alone was the means He took. In the very midst of His
   trouble He turned in supplication to His heavenly Father; just when His
   soul was sorrowful even unto death, He left His disciples to go and
   pray.

   But while I most sincerely encourage you to do this, I just as
   earnestly entreat you, in the second place, by no means to feel sure
   that what you ask will of necessity take place because of your prayer.
   The words of Christ leave no room to doubt that He really and most
   earnestly prayed that the suffering before Him might be averted; He
   uses the very same words which He always used in speaking of it; and we
   know only too well from the close of His history that the event was not
   according to His prayer. That which He had always foreseen and foretold
   befel Him; He had the cup of suffering, just as He saw it set before
   Him in His hour of sorrow and dread, to drain to the last drop. And a
   result which His prayer did not effect will not and cannot be effected
   by ours. Do not then infer, as many do, from the promises in certain
   passages of Scripture, that God always gives what is asked of Him in
   true faith and out of a pure heart. You will not deny that Christ had a
   faith that might have been pre-eminently a reason for God's favour, and
   in His filial and submissive entreaty you will find nothing unbefitting
   to a pure heart. Such an answer then must have been given to Him above
   all others; and the words spoken by Himself, "Ask, and ye shall
   receive," must therefore have some other meaning than that which we
   have indicated, since this was not the sense in which the promise was
   fulfilled to Him, the Author and Finisher of our faith. And if not to
   Him, how should it come to pass that God should fulfil your wishes
   because of your prayers? Do you think it might be more possible in your
   case than in His, because His suffering and death was a part of God's
   great plan for the restoration of the human race? But in reality every
   thing is taken into account in God's plan, and it is all one plan.
   Whatever your heart may long for, sooner will heaven and earth pass
   away than the slightest tittle be changed of what has been decreed in
   the counsels of the Most High. Or is this your idea: it is true that
   the Eternal cannot change His purpose, but knowing all things
   beforehand, He knew when and what His pious and beloved children would
   ask from Him, and has so arranged the chain of events that the issue
   shall accord with their wishes? That is to try at once to honour the
   wisdom of God and to flatter the childish fancies of men. God has not
   called us to so high a place as that our wishes should be prophecies;
   but certainly to some thing higher than that the granting of those
   wishes should be to us the most precious evidence of His favour. This
   is really among the most perverted of the devices with which people
   have tried to adorn religion; but it is only an invention of a warped
   understanding, not a conclusion drawn from the way in which God reveals
   Himself in the world. It is dishonouring to Christ to think that He
   should not have been the first in this respect; and it is dishonouring
   to men that if God had arranged all this, we should so seldom meet with
   examples of answered prayer.

   Let us see then, in the third place, what really is the effect of our
   prayers, if it is not to be sought in the agreement of the result with
   the expressed wish. Just the effect that it produced in Christ's own
   case. Consider, with me, what passed, on that occasion, in His mind. He
   began with the definite wish that His sufferings might pass away from
   Him; but as soon as He fixed His thought on His Father in heaven to
   whom He prayed, this wish was at once qualified by the humble, "if it
   be possible." When from the sleeping disciples, the sight of whom must
   have still more disheartened Him and added fresh bitterness to His
   sense of desertion, He returned to prayer, He already bent His own wish
   before the thought that the will of the Father might be something
   different. To reconcile Himself to this, and willingly to consent to
   it, was now His chief object; nor would He have wished that the will of
   God should not be done, had He been able by that means to gain all that
   the world could give.

   And when He had prayed for the third time all anxiety and dread were
   gone. He had no longer any wish of His own. With words in which He
   sought to impart to them some of the courage He had gained, He awakened
   His friends from their sleep, and went with calm spirit and holy
   firmness to meet the traitor.

   There you see the effect that such a prayer ought to have. It should
   make us cease from our eager longing for the possession of some earthly
   good, or the averting of some dreaded evil; it should bring us courage
   to want, or to suffer, if God has so appointed it; it should lift us up
   out of the helplessness into which we are brought by fear and passion,
   and bring us to the consciousness and full use of our powers; that so
   we may be able in all circumstances to conduct ourselves as it becomes
   those who remember that they are living and acting under the eye and
   the protection of the Most High.

   But prayer will more necessarily produce this effect if some point is
   not entirely lacking in our conception of the Divine Being. If we lay
   before God a wish that this or that may so happen in the world as it
   seems to be best for us, we must remember that we are laying it before
   the Unchangeable, in whose mind no new thought or purpose can arise
   since the day when He said, "all is very good." What was then decreed
   will take place; we must not lose sight of the indisputable certainty
   of this thought. Well, and suppose that which you fear has been
   decreed? Suppose you are to be torn away from your beloved field of
   labour, or to lose the friend to whom your heart cleaves, or that the
   undeserved calumny is still to rest on you? Inevitably our first
   impulse will be to thrust back those fears. It cannot be, we say; it
   will not be: it would be too hard; too unfatherly. But the thought, it
   cannot be, will perish in our hearts when we remember that it is the
   Unsearchable whom our hope seeks to limit in this way. It may easily
   be--it may easily be, is the voice that reaches us from a thousand
   examples of unmerited and hardly endurable suffering. And if it should
   be so--we cannot bend His will; then what remains to us but to bring
   our will into accord with His?

   And we are drawn to do this, and to do it from the heart, by the
   encouraging thought that He to whom we would present our petition is
   the Only Wise. You imagine something to be beneficial and good, and you
   wish that God may allow it to happen. Does not your wish as well as
   your judgment stand silent at the thought of Him? How far can you see
   into the consequences and the connection of those events, even as
   regards your own well-being? He knows the best and the whole. If
   according to His appointment you must do without what you desire, you
   have compensation for that in all the good that you see in the world.
   And thus will be called forth in us distrust of our own wisdom;
   humility, that looks on ourselves as only a little part of the whole;
   benevolence, that will find its satisfaction more in consideration of
   the world than in our own prosperity.

   But the Wise is also the Kind. He will not let thee suffer and lack thy
   desires merely for the sake of others; His will is that to the upright
   man everything shall serve to his own highest good. And so there comes
   to us the trust that, little part as we are, account has been taken of
   us among the whole; and from this comes repose of the spirit; for,
   whatever befals us, good must come out of it; and thus, at last the
   quieted and soothed heart can cry, Father, Thy will be done. If we once
   face the dreaded evil with calmness and submission, we shall readily
   see in the right light the intention of all that happens to us, and our
   chief attention will be directed to that. He who prays must remember
   that everything that befalls us has its end in ourselves, and is
   intended for our improvement and the increase of good in us. Then he
   will become conscious that this aim of the Most High, which his excited
   feelings had for a little while pushed out of sight, is yet in reality
   his own aim also. And if everything can be, and ought to be, a means to
   this end, why should he shrink from anything that may come upon him? If
   both prosperity and adversity draw out and confirm good points of
   character; if in both he can act worthily and in a way well-pleasing to
   God; why should he not welcome both as coming from the hand of God and
   by His direction? When the heart has reached this point it has taken
   the right attitude. Now we are occupied with some thing else than our
   feelings; with the question, What will be required of me should this or
   that befall? what kind of powers shall I employ? what kind of stand
   shall I make against it? what acts of thoughtlessness must I avoid? And
   if we find that it always depends on those same qualities which we have
   often exercised and studied over; that the whole of what we may be able
   to accomplish consists of single acts which we have often before
   performed with good results; then the soul that had shrunk in fear
   comes back to the consciousness of its powers; then we feel ourselves
   strong enough to walk in the way that God has traced out for us, strong
   enough to comfort those who are sad on our account and more
   disheartened than ourselves; and if the hour comes when the evil does
   befall, we can say, with a mind composed and at peace, Let us rise and
   go to meet it.

   According to the example of the Saviour, these are the right effects of
   such a prayer. I hope they will appear to you all great and important
   enough to make you willingly forget the impossible and wonderful which
   so many regard as the main point in prayer. If you count it a better
   thing to teach those whose training is in your hands to bear all kinds
   of trouble and hardships, than always to guard them from it, then
   praise the divine wisdom which, in giving us prayer, has put into our
   hands a powerful means to the former, but not to the latter.

   In order to enable you still further to consider this important
   subject, let me add--

   II. Some general inferences that may be drawn from what the example of
   Christ has taught us.

   1. If nothing is changed on account of our prayers in the course of
   things ordained by God, we must not attach any special value to
   occasional apparent answers that we may receive. There seldom elapses
   any considerable time in which our health, or our outward prosperity,
   or our relations with those who are dearest to us in the world, are not
   threatened by various dangers; and I hope there are few among us who do
   not make such things subjects of prayer. But whatever may be the issue
   of these critical circumstances, beware of asking in your prayers for
   the reason of them, or seeking to know how far God has been pleased or
   displeased. Besides that this is dishonouring God, as we have already
   seen, it utterly corrupts your judgment of your own and of other men's
   merits, and teaches you to attach importance to things that have none
   whatever.

   And yet on this judgment, if you are intelligent and consistent with
   yourself, depends your whole mode of life and action. And this holds
   good even as to the fulfilment of our purest and noblest wishes, that
   is, those which are concerned with the progress of good, whether in
   general or that in which we are instruments and fellow-labourers.
   Rejoice if your righteous undertakings are successful; rejoice if God
   makes use of you as direct instruments for the increase of good in the
   world; rejoice if at last you are specially successful in what has long
   been the chief object of your efforts, your anxieties and your prayers;
   but let not those things lead you to the proud belief that they are a
   distinctive sign of God's satisfaction with your spiritual condition.
   Many a one with whom nothing succeeds, and whose work in the world
   seems to be in vain, not only purposes as honestly, but certainly does
   his duty as zealously and is as thoroughly devout as you. To measure
   human merit by such things is a dangerous imperfection of faith, and
   one of those for which very specially Christ became the Mediator
   between God and us. See how even He seemed to fail in everything, and
   yet how God made use of Him in the noblest way! How His request was not
   granted, and yet He was at that moment, as always, the Son in whom the
   Father was well pleased.

   2. You will now, I hope, admit that there is no true prayer but that
   which I described in the beginning of our meditation; that is to say,
   the prayer we offer when we have the living thought of God
   accompanying, purifying and sanctifying all our other thoughts,
   feelings and purposes. All other forms which prayer may assume in
   isolated cases must, if you would really please God, resolve themselves
   into this one highest aspect, which takes in your whole manner of life.
   Our prayer of thanksgiving is just our thought of God united with our
   joy at what has taken place; and it will only be pleasing to Him if it
   hallows and elevates this joy, if it is the means of raising our
   interest from earthly to higher things. If it is only thanks, mere joy
   in the new possession that God has lent us, our thankoffering has no
   value in His eyes.

   And it is the same with our petitions, whether they concern our own
   circumstances, or are brotherly intercessions. If our prayer has not
   the effect of moderating the wish that it expressed, of replacing the
   eager desire with quiet submission, the anxious expectation with devout
   calmness; then it was no true prayer, and gives sure proof that we are
   not yet at all capable of this real kind of prayer.

   3. In the third place, I will say to you frankly that it seems to me a
   mark of greater and more genuine piety when this entreating kind of
   prayer is only seldom used by us, and we do not allow our thoughts to
   be long occupied with it. For why is it, after all, that our prayer
   takes the form of entreaty? When we desire something that we ourselves
   cannot accomplish, and at the same time remember God; then occurs to us
   first of all the thought of His almighty power in contrast to our
   weakness, and we would like to try to make that power favourable to us.
   That is prayer as dictated by the weak human heart. But there lies at
   the bottom of this a defective idea of God. If we called to mind what
   should always come most readily to our thoughts--His holiness and
   wisdom--our wish would quickly take the form by which the prayers of
   pious men must always be distinguished. And, no doubt, the more
   habitual real piety is with us, the oftener we think of all that we can
   learn about God, just so much the more quickly will this change take
   place.

   Those who boast that they can persist in prayer, that they do not grow
   weary in beseeching God to bring about this or that, are still very far
   from the spirit of true godly fear. It is told us of Christ several
   times that He retired into solitude, and spent whole nights in prayer.
   But it was not the fear of anything that might occur, not interest in
   any event, that drew Him to prayer; but the need of His heart to give
   Himself up to devout meditation, and to the undisturbed enjoyment of
   communion with His Father, without a definite wish or a special
   request. Whereas, when we find Jesus entreating, it is in exceptional
   and therefore only in rare instances. It needed, indeed, an occasion of
   strong emotion, such as is not likely to occur very frequently in our
   lives, to call forth in His holy soul so much that must tend to our
   comfort in the subject before us. Are you overtaken by such an
   occasion? Then entreat, until true prayer makes you forget entreaty.

   As for those who boast that they often supplicate in this way; that
   they seek God's presence several times a day to ask about everything,
   either that has already happened or that they wish to obtain, and to
   thank Him for every trifle connected with their daily life; it seems to
   me they have little to boast of. However much they may say of the
   devotion with which they offer these prayers, I really believe that in
   such prayers there is no real devotion. At stated times they lay their
   wants before God; their prayers belong, like other little pieces of
   business, to the order of the day; and from them they go at once to
   other employments or pleasures in which no trace of religion can be
   seen; and in the same way they come from the midst of cares and work
   and merriment to prayer, with their minds filled and pervaded with
   earthly things. Does that, to a heart whose intercourse with God is
   habitual, indicate a good state of things? He who is chiefly aroused to
   the thought of God" by a sense of dependence certainly does not think
   really of Him at all, and the true Christian spirit is utterly wanting
   in him. Whatever assurances such persons may give us of the blessings
   brought to their hearts by such prayer, these are certainly only
   incidental and passing emotions. Do they not always speak the same
   customary words? Do they not, for the most part, pray with their
   thoughts far away? We all know how little effect such prayer can have
   on one's inner life. It is in truth no loss to Christianity when such
   customs fall into disuse. No; with a light heart would I see all these
   forms and fixed hours of prayer disappear; free as they may be from any
   superstitious intention, and what ever bearing they may be thought to
   have on morality and fulfilment of duty. A heart-stirring thought of
   the Creator, when our eye rests on His works, out of the quiet delight
   which we take in His creation; a thought of the Ruler of the world,
   checking our false estimates, amidst our talk of the fortunes and
   undertakings of men; a sense of Him whose image becomes manifest in us
   when we feel ourselves overflowing with love and good-will, amidst the
   social enjoyment of those noble human feelings; a glad sense of His
   love when we are enjoying His gifts; when we succeed in some good work,
   a thankful sense of His support; when we meditate on His commandments,
   the great hope that He wishes to raise us to His own likeness; this is
   true prayer: the blessings of which I heartily desire we may all
   abundantly enjoy.
     __________________________________________________________________

II.

THE DYING SAVIOUR OUR EXAMPLE.

   (On Good Friday.)

    TEXT: MARK xv. 34-41.

   HEAVENLY Father! On all who are assembling to day to commemorate the
   death of the Holy One, in whom Thou wast well pleased, look graciously
   down! Let not one go away from the cross of Thy Well-beloved without
   exclaiming, with new, living faith, Truly this was the Son of God! Let
   not one wipe away his tears of emotion until the heartfelt desire has
   taken possession of him that his end may be like that of this righteous
   One! Let not the feeling of holy reverence and admiration, that must
   lay hold on every one at the remembrance of the dying Christ, be left
   behind within these walls and bear no fruit; let it go forth with us
   all into our life, so that it may be more and more consecrated to Thee,
   and become more like to His, until at last we follow Him, in departing
   with good courage to Thee. Amen.

   A sad and moved heart, my brethren, I take for granted in all of us at
   this hour, and to this I wish to address myself. Let us, I entreat you,
   lay aside, at least for the present, all the separate notions that each
   of us may have of certain particular benefits and blessings from the
   death of Jesus. I honour them all, if they dwell in a heart that I
   honour; but it would be sad if the most sacred of days were spent in
   raising questions, in sifting opinions, in instituting discussions, by
   which minds are not moved for good, and are often quite turned away
   from each other, through differences, which of course there must always
   be, coming to light at the very time when we desire to be most
   cordially united. No, we wish to unite in such meditations as may be of
   equal importance and equal blessing to us all, as surely as we all
   reverence in Christ the Author of our faith, as we all count His death
   a death of love and obedience, as we all set before us His life even to
   death as the pattern which we seek to follow; yes, His life even to
   death, not even excluding the last experiences of His holy soul.
   Whether we, like Him, shall retain to our last heart-beat the full use
   of all the faculties of our minds, is a question on which we can come
   to no decision; it is a special favour of God, depending on the
   circumstances in which He brings about the close of our life. But the
   last heart-beat is not really the end of life; life ceases with the
   last thought and feeling that our spirit brings forth in union with its
   body; with the last glance in which the surrounding world is still
   visible to us; with the last consciousness of our earthly
   circumstances; and if we are then to treat those circumstances, and to
   regard this world, and to look back on our past life just as He did,
   that can be the fruit solely of a life led just as His was, and of a
   mind just as collected. Therefore let us learn to die in seeing Christ
   die! It is no small thing that I expect from you in calling on you to
   do this; for it is with the death of the Saviour as it was with His
   life; let him who seeks only happiness and joy shun likeness to Him;
   let him alone seek it who covets what is great and perfect at any
   price. An easier end, a gentler sleeping away than the Saviour's there
   may easily be; but none that would be more sublime, none more worthy of
   a pious and virtuous heart. Let him who covets such an end look now
   with me at the perfecting of the Holy One of God.

   In wishing that we may die as Christ did, I do not mean to advert to
   that state of mind which for every one who has walked in the right way
   is a matter of course. That regret for a wasted life may not be our
   last crushing feeling, that a too fond clinging to the joys and
   possessions of this world may not make the leaving of it more difficult
   than it ought to be, that no anxious doubt may mingle in our childlike
   submission to Him who is leading us into the valley of death; let there
   be no question of these things among us. There are three other
   particulars to which I wish to direct your attention as something
   greatly to be desired; desirable, I mean, just for this reason, that in
   order to act as Christ did in those circumstances, the close and
   complete likeness to Him, at which we are all aiming, will be
   necessary. I desire, then, that in dying we may all have, in the first
   place, the same sorrow over unaccomplished deeds; secondly, the same
   calmness under the unjust judgments of the world; and thirdly, that we
   may be in the same way surrounded by tender and faithful friends. Let
   your devout attention be directed for the present to these particulars.

   I. Oh, that we might all die with the same sorrow over unaccomplished
   deeds, which was so plainly revealed in the Saviour's sorrowful cry,
   "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" For do you suppose that
   this cry was wrung from Him by bodily suffering? Heavy as the pressure
   of that may have been, yet for Him to whom it still left strength for
   such expressions of kindness, of care and sympathy as Christ gave from
   His cross, it could not obscure the principle He had so often asserted,
   that suffering can just as little be a token of the displeasure of the
   Most High as success is a pledge of His favour. Or was it that Jesus
   clung to the joys of life, so that He was afflicted by the necessity of
   leaving it while so young? Or was it perhaps that His imagination was
   so filled with ideas of future worldly greatness that He was mortified
   at not being able to attain to it? No; but He loved His duty with His
   whole heart; the thought of the great work to which He had devoted His
   life still filled His soul. And when He reflected how far that work
   still was from completion; how in fact not one of His disciples had
   clearly understood His views and feelings or seen into His plan, how
   little they were prepared for all that must now burst upon them, and
   how easily the bond that held them together might be dissolved; could
   we well wonder if He had asked, My God, My God, why hast Thou withdrawn
   Thy protecting hand from this undertaking? But this He does not ask.
   fie knew how closely the thread of His designs was woven into the plan
   of Providence; He only wished that it had been appointed to Himself to
   carry on the great business still further; He only asks, from the depth
   of a heart that cannot do enough of good, why the Eternal should now
   call Him away, in order to carry forward the great work without His
   help; He saw so plainly what more He would have brought to pass; and
   the Most High was not permitting Him to do it.

   It is this very desire and sorrow that I wish for us all in our last
   hours. It is not needful for this that we be snatched away, as Christ
   was, in the prime of life from some great work; every one may feel
   thus, in whatever position he may be. Are you servants of the State,
   administrators of public regulations; may you grieve that you cannot
   still reform abuses and introduce improvements! Are you independent and
   wealthy; may you grieve that you cannot set agoing one more benevolent
   institution, or do this thing and that for the unfortunate whom you
   protect! Are you scholars and philosophers; may you be reluctant to
   interrupt an instructive presentation of your thoughts, or to turn away
   from a new field of human knowledge! Are you artists and workmen; may
   it grieve you that you are not to bestow on one more piece of work at
   least the new perfection that you have planned or practised! You young
   men, may you long for even a little while in which to practise and set
   forth, in your own domestic life, the principles of virtue and religion
   which you hold dear! You men in your prime, may it break your hearts
   not to be able to complete the training of your children, to bring on
   further the young who were trustfully clinging to you! You old men, may
   it grieve you not to be able still longer to use, for the good of your
   descendants, the well-earned respect in which you are held, and to
   support with the counsel of your mature wisdom any good work that is
   undertaken around you!

   In wishing this for you, my brethren, I am, in fact, only wishing that
   you may never cease to love your work, and to devote to it your whole
   consideration, your whole strength. If there could ever be a point in
   human life at which, for those so disposed, the account might be
   closed, and no work in process, I should be inclined to wish, for the
   sake of sparing you this pain, that each of you might die at that point
   of time, before a new series of operations were begun, which you could
   not complete; but such a resting-point you will not find. There is no
   rest and no standing still in a spirit that loves duty and work. Every
   change brought about by the course of nature and of human affairs
   brings with it new problems and new duties; while you are occupied in
   meeting the duties of one relationship another has already developed.
   And even were it not so, the reciprocal influence of action and
   reflection produces an incessant movement, and ever new desires and
   efforts. Each action enlarges and corrects our insight into the
   subject; and all improved insight makes us eager at once to apply it.
   In the midst of work, therefore, in the midst of unfinished work, death
   finds every one who is making a right use of life; and from the painful
   feeling that results from this, he alone can be free who cowardly flees
   from his obligations and buries himself in vanity and shadows when the
   voice of duty is addressed to him; such a one may die weary of life,
   for he has never known its fairest charm. Or the man of slavish spirit,
   who is content with an empty show of virtue, and knows no higher aim
   than to have done nothing deserving of punishment--he also, provided
   his delusion holds out so long, may meet death without feeling; for the
   future which he is losing has not drawn him with the attraction of new
   services and completed works, but has only shown him fearful struggles
   and new temptations.

   But, some one might say, even thus there remains also to the sensual
   and earthly-minded, who is driven from one desire to another, a still
   unsatisfied longing for some enjoyment; are we, then, with our pain,
   really in the least degree better than he? Are we better, indeed! We
   can do what he cannot: we can ask God why He sends us this pain, and He
   will answer us. Even Christ did not die in asking this sorrowful
   question. Whatever in it proceeds from the blameless desire that good
   may be done through us will be lost in the thought that His grace must
   be sufficient for us; whatever zeal we have for the cause of God will
   be changed into childlike confidence in Him who will find ways and
   means for His purposes without us. A divine repose thus soothes away
   that pain. If it is really only good that we have in view, then let us
   in commending our spirit to God also commend with comfort our works and
   plans to Him; and whatever may remain incomplete, we shall yet be able
   justly to say, It is finished.

   II. Again, we could all desire to die with undisturbed tranquility,
   notwithstanding all unjust and unreasonable judgments, the most
   unfeeling and hostile behaviour of men. This we see in the case of
   Christ.

   With the meanest cruelty His adversaries found amusement in the
   sufferings of His last moments, and misconstrued, out of malice or
   ignorance, His plain words, that they might turn them to ridicule; yet
   not the slightest sign of displeasure escaped His lips. That treatment
   from men to wards Him who had deserved so much from them appears
   perhaps the very bitterest ingredient in His cup of suffering; and yet
   I feel bound to say that even this is a kind of suffering which, as
   long as things are in their present state in the world, we also shall
   have to bear, though in a slighter degree; and in the face of which, in
   whatever way it ma} come upon us, the composure of the Saviour must be
   welcome and desirable to us. Unreasonable judgments are something that
   we must inevitably bear. No one is so high, and no one so low, that
   they cannot reach him. And a really Christian and upright
   disposition--why should we shut our eyes to the fact?--is everywhere so
   rare that men have too little opportunity of observing it to be able to
   discover and distinguish it. Then why should they presuppose just what
   is unknown and rare, in order to explain men's conduct by that? They
   take most satisfaction in what is most improbable; they exhaust
   themselves in ingeniously imagining what is absurd.

   Moreover, it is not at all difficult to attribute every separate
   expression of this Christian feeling to some other motive. If
   incidentally something results from it that is agreeable to the
   ordinary inclinations of men, then the explanation is ready. If it
   cannot well be said that such a satisfaction was sought or aimed at in
   what was done, then it was vanity, the desire to appear singular;
   hypocrisy, seeking to make a show of virtue and unselfishness; or there
   was some hidden motive at the bottom of it, which the sagacity of a spy
   quickly discovers. And then if one action, thus explained, contradicts
   others, the assumptions become the bolder, and scorn is poured more
   maliciously on so inconsistent a man. He casts out devils by the prince
   of devils; this is the way in which those who truly honour God and His
   law in the most difficult positions, where they have acted most nobly,
   are judged by the great majority of men. They will rather believe that
   we do good out of hatred, that we care little for the good things of
   the world out of selfishness, that we expose ourselves to the ridicule
   of the world from a desire for glory--rather all this than attribute
   anything to real and unfeigned godliness. If we are obliged during our
   lifetime to make a considerable experience of this, it will be all the
   more certainly the case in our last hours.

   If we continue to the end vigorous and active in the community, the
   attention of many will be directed to our manner of withdrawing from
   the scene. If to the end we are the centre of a little circle of
   beloved and congenial spirits, with whom our thoughts, our counsels,
   the expression of our opinions had always some influence, other eyes
   will be turned with curiosity to our dying bed. And if we have then
   still strength to express our inmost feelings, those spectators will
   see in those hours everything that they were unable to understand or
   reconcile, pressed into very narrow compass. Our unchanged attachment
   to the occupations of life, which we have loved and earnestly carried
   on, and the joy with which we look forward to what is prepared for us
   in the better kingdom of Christ; the calmness with which we shall be
   ready to part with all that belongs only to our surroundings in this
   world, and to what is peculiar to the earthly condition; the calmness
   with which we shall even see our powers decaying, our senses failing,
   and our limbs growing benumbed under the first touch of the cold hand
   of death; and, together with that, our continued lively interest in
   everything that concerns the welfare of our friends and relatives, the
   prosperity of the Fatherland, the peace of society, the extension of
   truth, and the unimpeded progress of good in the world; how can all
   these things together be anything but incomprehensible to them? Then,
   that they may not be obliged to admire this greatness of soul, as they
   call it, they will call to mind every act of weakness, perhaps from
   long ago; or if they have not that at command, they will remember, as
   they did with Christ, words and actions which breathed the very spirit
   of His, but on which they had long ago pronounced a perverted sentence
   of condemnation; then, even in the last utterances of a pious heart
   that honours the law of God, they will again discover the old pride,
   which was long ago their abomination, the fanaticism that they long ago
   despised, the party zeal that they have always hated, the hypocrisy
   that they had often felt compelled to expose. Alas for us if then those
   who love us should be obliged carefully to conceal from us the last
   hard and false judgments that have been pronounced on us, lest they
   should awaken us from the sweet dream that men at least know and honour
   true piety and a moral tone of feeling, though they themselves have no
   share in it! Alas for us if it were necessary then to deceive us as to
   the opinion of men, lest some bitter feeling should cloud our last
   hours! It would be a sign that we had never learned to know men; that
   we had gone about among them innocently but also very ignorantly, and
   that if longer life were allotted to us, we should go on being mistaken
   about them, It is therefore with good reason that I wish for us all in
   this event the Saviour's calmness and equanimity; for it is the result
   of the most mature wisdom and the most genuine piety. He whose heart
   would not even in his last moments be broken by the blindness that
   degenerates into abuse and calumny, should it come under his notice,
   must be one who has long known the foolish wisdom and the deep
   corruption of men. He who, in such a case, is not betrayed into angrily
   repenting of the kindness he has shown them has certainly had in view
   in all his doings, not the favour of men, not praise, not gratitude,
   but only the will of the Most High. He who even then retains enough of
   goodwill to say, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they
   do,--his love is of the purest and most divine kind.

   III. We could all desire to die surrounded, as the Saviour was, with
   loving and suffering friends. There stood His tender mother and the
   disciple whom He loved, and He established between them a heartfelt
   bond of care and faith fulness; there stood the women who had followed
   Him, and no doubt many others of His worshippers less known to us. What
   a comfort must it have been to Him that He could still exert a
   beneficent influence on them all, and strengthen their faith and their
   purposes by everything great and divine that was manifested in Him! And
   as certainly must their fidelity and their presence have softened for
   Him the sufferings of death, and filled His heart with comforting
   feelings. If His sorrow at the interruption of His work bore witness
   that He had worthily maintained His post; if His equanimity under the
   mockery of His enemies could be a proof of the reality and fulness of
   His wisdom; on the other hand, this love and faithfulness, enduring
   even to death, were the best testimony that He, with His loving heart,
   had enjoyed in His whole sphere of work the highest happiness of life.
   And it is for such reasons that I wish for ourselves, above all things,
   to die in such company; nay, as much as lies with ourselves, I demand
   it of every one.

   Do not say that it does not depend on you, but on the free grace of
   God, whether before your death the fairest ties of nature may be
   loosed, whether many a one among you may not perhaps remain the last of
   all his connection, whether death may not come upon many of you far
   away from parents and children, from brothers and sisters and kindred.
   I entreat you, honoured and blessed as those affections are which
   nature itself has created, do not think solely of them. It is the
   common rule that death has here made many blanks before it takes
   ourselves away from our place; but though all who are related to us by
   ties of blood were gathered round our dying bed, we could not
   experience the comfort afforded by the presence of friendship, unless
   they were at the same time the confidants of our sentiments, and under
   stood our inmost heart. Behold, said Christ once, pointing to His
   chosen friends, these are My mother and My brethren; just those it was,
   for the most part, who now, as sorrowing friends, stood round His
   cross; and. just such ought not to be lacking to any of us so long as
   we are still on earth. Do not doubt whether you can attain to this
   happiness; it would be no adverse fortune, but a mournful sign that you
   had not rightly solved the highest problem of life. The world is not
   arranged in so malevolent a spirit that from any one who needs and
   deserves it a friend should be with held to whom he may open his heart.
   The power of human nature in drawing congenial minds together is so
   great that if you only think more correctly and deeply about every
   thing, if you feel anything more heartily and particularly, and express
   it in your actions, the people who are certain to find this out are
   just those who know how to value it, or who are like you in that
   respect. It will only depend on your need of enjoying love and
   friendship whether a firm and lasting union of spirits is brought
   about; it depends only on your own will whether you shall still enjoy
   even in death the peculiar comforts imparted by the presence of
   friends. Do not fear, when you have found them, that the mutability of
   the human heart will deprive you of them; that does not reach the
   depths in which true friendship strikes its roots. Look at Christ; He
   lost none of His own, but only the one lost sheep, that the Scripture
   might be fulfilled; and be convinced that in real friendship there can
   be no instability, no unfaithfulness. Do not fear that death may
   nevertheless carry off all these from you before the goal of your own
   life is reached; for that faculty of the human spirit never ceases, and
   you can never be quite without objects on whom to use it. It is true, a
   friend whom you have lost will never be replaced; each later connection
   will take a different form from the preceding; but yet it may be deep
   and heartfelt, and then it gives the happy consciousness that you enjoy
   love and respect for your own sake, and influence the depths of a human
   soul by your own. And fear least of all, I entreat you, the destructive
   inroads that time may make on your own mind. Do not suppose that dying
   in possession of loving friends is a special privilege of those who,
   like Christ, are called away in the flower of their days. Whatever may
   be said, it is not in the nature of the human soul to become in old age
   blunted to those joys, to treat the old connections more coldly, and to
   form new ones reluctantly. If you have ever rightly estimated them, you
   will always long for them, and never, even in extreme old age, will you
   stand alone in the world; nay, even if you knew that the next day was
   to be your last, you would yet, if you met to-day for the first time
   with one whom you could embrace with hearty love, long to win his
   affection and try by tender ways to attract it to yourself. But, you
   will say, although it is possible and desirable to have friends till
   the end of life, ought we not then at least to send them away from us
   rather than to gather them round us? Why increase still more the bitter
   sensations connected with death by witnessing with sadness and anxiety
   the sorrow of our friends, and thinking of the critical circumstances
   in which we are perhaps leaving one and another? Why should we mutually
   make it obvious, by all that is most vivid in the present, how great a
   loss we are suffering? We see that Christ did not think in this way. He
   did not send away His mother and His friend from His cross, but
   willingly allowed them to be witnesses of His death. A sacred duty
   calls on us to do the same. We are not by our own fault to break off
   man's highest ministry even by a moment too soon. We do not know what
   profitable results the very last outpourings of love may have; and if
   we show to our friends how a man is exalted even in death by the power
   of piety and of true wisdom, it will be a blessed impression. But even
   for our own sakes I desire for us that very sorrow and sadness; for in
   order not to shrink from such experiences we must be animated by a
   certain courage, which has the most important effect on a man's whole
   life, and imparts something great and sublime even to its close. It is
   cowardly and ungrateful to deny ourselves the last enjoyment of any
   blessing, because we are obliged to remember that it is the last; for
   that would lead to casting away from us all the gifts of God, and
   prematurely to deprive our life of every thing pleasant. Even in happy
   youth does not the feeling of the transitory nature of all earthly
   things arise? Are we not often involuntarily seized by the thought that
   each joy may be the last; and ought we not often intentionally to hold
   fast that thought and look it in the face? but it ought just as little
   to disturb and discourage a brave spirit in his last moment as in the
   midst of the hope of a long life. It is an ignoble thing ever to shrink
   from a pain which is only made possible by the finest instincts of our
   nature; with so cowardly a state of mind we should have been obliged
   from the beginning to neglect what was best in us, because we are
   always exposed in some way to this pain; but a brave spirit will, even
   at the last moment, feel more strengthened and elevated by the
   consciousness of having possessed and cultivated this disposition than
   shaken and weakened by the deepest sorrow.

   Let us all strive until our last moment after these purest joys of
   life! let us bind firmly every tie of love and goodwill, and most
   firmly of all, not perhaps those which afford us the most lively
   pleasure, but that which is meant to strengthen and perfect what is
   highest and noblest in us through real union of minds. Who could help
   thinking, in this connection, of the union which some of us are about
   to renew at the Lord's Table, of the covenant of brotherly love and of
   faithful following of Jesus! The more we value the being fellow-members
   of Christ, and the more worthy we are, so much the more certainly shall
   we become like Him, even in our death, in regard to all that we have
   now been considering. We know that wherever several persons are united
   in seeking the same end, each one's pleasure and zeal is increased. And
   if we take this serious view of the fellowship in which we stand with
   all to whom, in common with us, is committed the promotion of Christ's
   great work, on whom, as on us, His Spirit rests, how much more
   opportunity does that give us for all kinds of good! how much more
   cheerfully can we take up what lies in our own way! how many a call do
   we meet to lend our support to what others have begun! Oh, none are
   more diligent in good works than the members of this covenant! Death
   assuredly finds them in the midst of manifold activities; they
   certainly look with sad wistfulness, when leaving the world, at their
   noble legacy of deeds begun!

   You are now engaging anew to go on according to our common rule of
   faith, you make your profession of this publicly and aloud, and there
   is no doubt that the more honesty and seriousness you show in this act
   the less can you escape the derision to which those who reverence
   religion are exposed. But the encouraging approval of your brethren
   will compensate you for the cruel judgments of the world; the example
   of so many who have patiently borne what was to be suffered for the
   faith will strengthen your courage. And what should be the nursery of
   sincere and faithful friends, if not the Church of Christ, the
   association of men with whom unselfishness and benevolence, sympathy
   and helpful love are natural sentiments, among whom every kind of
   wisdom and perfection ought to exist and to be ready for the service of
   each? Thus then renew with sincere and devout hearts this glorious
   covenant, and let us all desire that the Saviour who instituted it may
   look down on us well pleased, and that His Spirit may rest abundantly
   upon us.

   (Preached before the King, in the Royal Garrison Church at Potsdam,
   probably in March. 1799.)
     __________________________________________________________________

III.

A NATION'S DUTY IN A WAR FOR FREEDOM.

   (Preached March 28th, 1813.)

    TEXT: JEREMIAH xvii. 5-8, AND xviii. 7-10.

   MY devout hearers! Through an extraordinary occurrence we find the
   order of our discourses on the suffering Saviour interrupted, and our
   to-day's meeting devoted to a very different subject. How deeply have
   we all been moved by the events of the last weeks! We saw march forth
   from our gates the army of a people nominally allied to us, but our
   feeling was not that of parting with friends; with thankful joy did we
   feel at last the long, heavy pressure removed from us. Immediately
   after that came the troops of another nation, nominally at war with us;
   but with the most joyful enthusiasm were they received when they made
   themselves known as the friends of the king and the people. And when,
   not long after them, we saw our own warriors also returning, then no
   one could any longer doubt, and the word passed joyfully from mouth to
   mouth: Thanks for the heavenly, unmistakable tokens which God the Lord
   has given through the fearful turmoil of war in the North; thanks to
   the noble and brave military leaders who, disregarding the appearance
   of disobedience and the infraction of the letter, and acting really
   according to the mind and spirit of the king, dared to take the first
   decisive step towards freeing us from the intolerable bonds under which
   we had so long been held; thanks to the king, who when this favourable
   moment presented itself, could not do otherwise than let his feeling,
   which was entirely the same as ours, bear sway; thanks to all this, the
   great change, the transition from bondage to freedom, is in
   preparation. But openly as wo thanked God with joy among ourselves, it
   was not yet time to do so publicly; for the king had not yet spoken. At
   last sounded forth to us the long and impatiently expected royal word,
   which, although certainly the public papers have deeply impressed it on
   us all, we shall as certainly hear once more with joy and emotion when
   it is read to-day by the king's command from every pulpit in the city.
   It runs thus. [Here followed the summons of the king, To my people.]

   Thus the king; and I count it only fair to abstain from speaking in
   laudation of this royal word. It is still fresh in all our hearts, the
   delight in the certainty of battle which this word gives us, in the
   high and noble spirit which here gives utterance to what all the best
   in the nation had long felt and thought. And now, hardly had we heard
   this glorious call when our ear was greeted by the triumphant shout of
   a city loved and revered by every German heart, which was the first to
   be freed from the direct yoke of the enemy; and, as the crown of all,
   we saw our beloved king himself come among us with a feeling--we may
   freely admit it to ourselves--that can never before have lifted up his
   heart, for he never before had an opportunity of feeling so deeply and
   truly that which is the source of the highest happiness and exaltation
   to a ruler, the purest harmony between his will and his people's wish;
   we saw him lead forth on the way to meet the enemy the army which, at
   his command, had been consecrated and blessed for the battle by prayer.
   This then, the departure of our army to battle, to decisive battle for
   what is highest and noblest, is the subject which, as it assuredly
   fills and stirs all our hearts, is to occupy our attention at this
   hour, so that for us also this holy war may begin with humble,
   elevating thoughts of God, and that our hope and our joy may be
   sanctified to Him.

   I have taken these words of the prophet on which to found our
   meditation, not at all, as it may possibly appear, in order to
   institute a comparison between ourselves and that nation against whom
   we are going to war; but merely in order rightly to distinguish what is
   conflicting in our own history, that we may thus be led up to the
   essential part in the great change in which we are rejoicing. For, my
   friends, the joy that befits us in this place is not joy merely because
   the oppression and suffering under which we have long sighed are now at
   an end; not the joy which paints for us in anticipation bright pictures
   of future prosperity which we hope to attain; here this must be only
   second and last with us. And if, nevertheless, this contrast still
   presents itself to us, let us apply it to ourselves in this way, that
   we feel, as the prophet represents to us, that in the individual, but
   still more in the mass, changes in the lot depend on the rise and fall
   of intrinsic worth. Yes, let us here consider the great change entirely
   from this point of our worthiness before God. On two things included in
   this, these words give us light; first, what, in this aspect, is the
   exact significance and the real nature of the change; and second, what
   we must therefore feel called on to do.

   I. In order to understand rightly what is the main point in the great
   change in our position as citizens which is begun by the present
   declaration of war, wo must look back to a former time well known to us
   all, and through which many of us lived, when deep decay and fearful
   devastations had fallen on these lands. Then, through the efforts of
   several wise and strict rulers, through a judicious taking advantage of
   events, through successfully conducted wars, but most through the
   growing up of a noble and free aspiring spirit in the people
   themselves, we became a nation and kingdom regarding which the whole
   world saw that the Lord would build and plant it and had promised to do
   it good. And suddenly enough for all those to whom gradual growth is
   less perceptible, we found ourselves at this height. But gradually, and
   while dreaming of rising yet far higher, we slipped downwards, and then
   just as suddenly plunged to the bottom. For we began to boast of our
   strength, to rely on the fear with which we might inspire other
   nations, and thus the effects of our former fame were to carry us ever
   higher without the forth-putting of our own power, without works on our
   part pleasing to God. We became the man who makes flesh his arm and
   whose heart departeth from the Lord. Dishonest acquisitions enlarged
   our territory in a way more apparent than profit able; for we acquired
   but few true brethren who willingly obeyed the same laws and laboured
   for the same end. While other States put forth efforts and wore
   themselves out in constantly renewed wars, partly for the sake of the
   same great blessings for which we are now about to fight, we thought to
   become ever mightier and more formidable through repose. Thus our
   self-confident prudence was gradually followed by despondency, and we
   became in yet another way the man who trusts in man; for he also who
   flatters men and fears them trusts in man. And with our fame our very
   sense of honour became, more and more, as time went on, an empty name.
   And more and more our heart departed from the Lord. In a puffed-up,
   unnatural prosperity the old virtues were by degrees lost, a flood of
   vanity and dissipation laid waste the laborious works of long and
   better years; and plainly as the voice of the Lord made itself heard
   warning us to repentance, we did not obey Him; we did evil in His
   sight, and therefore He repented of the good that He had promised to do
   us. And suddenly, just as we seemed about to rouse up out of the long
   blindness and stupidity in which, however, the greater number were
   still wrapped, though not more deeply than before--suddenly the Lord
   spoke out against us as against a nation and kingdom which He would
   pluck up and pull down and destroy. Then there fell upon us that
   grievous, crushing disaster in war, and this sudden fall from the
   height into the abyss was followed by the ever more deeply and
   painfully suicidal calamity of peace. I am not speaking of the
   privations, of the distress, of the poverty, of the constantly
   increasing difficulty in all the external relations of life; I speak
   only of the inward spiritual corruption which was, one hardly knows
   whether to say, brought to light by this state of things, or actually
   created and formed by it. The wretched habit of continually bearing
   indignity, which we practised publicly and privately during those seven
   dismal years with the feeling that to let righteous indignation have
   free course could only increase the evil without any beneficial
   result--that habit and that feeling are the fruit of sluggishness, of
   enervation, of cowardice; but how did they in turn increase and spread
   cowardice, sluggishness and enervation, until all confidence in
   ourselves, every hope, except the foolish hope of a help that was to
   come merely from without--till even the wish to be able to help
   ourselves, nay, till even the sense of being worthy of a better
   condition disappeared; and the miserable idea took possession of men's
   minds that the living, mental energy of the nation was entirely
   exhausted, and the hour of utter ruin had come. This fear had power
   with not a few among us, who were day by day expecting the dissolution
   of our separate existence, and who, no longer hoping to see any comfort
   in the future, were only speculating how they could most comfortably
   accommodate themselves to the foreign yoke. The impossibility which we
   so often met, of escaping the danger of the moment without falsehood
   and fraud, the necessity to feign praise and approval, nay, even
   agreement and friendship, where we could only despise and detest; all
   this was no doubt the fruit of that loss of shame which for the sake of
   life ignored all life's noble aims; but how fearfully was this
   shamelessness developed by that condition of things, and what an amount
   of humiliation it took even to provoke public indignation! The
   insecurity of all property and all rights was no doubt in great part a
   consequence of the thoughtlessness with which, in times of calamity,
   people so often try to free themselves from the distress of the moment
   or to enjoy its fleeting pleasure, without remembering what they ruin
   or risk in the long run; but to what a degree did that in secure
   condition increase this thoughtlessness! How did we see luxury and
   extravagance as in the most prosperous times! how did we see usury and
   regardless violence sucking up the property of others and lavishing its
   own, as if all were indeed devoted to speedy ruin! This is the deep
   corruption into which, on the one hand, we had fallen; and if, on the
   other hand, our fall and these its effects opened the eyes of many for
   the first time, others made it more plainly visible than before what
   was wanting in us; if, in many, a noble ardour was kindled to cast off
   the indignity that oppressed us from without, and to banish what
   defiled us within, yet even these noble germs of better things, without
   definite form or connection, could only excite apprehensions of an
   irregular outbreak, behind which the cowardice and baseness of others
   would only the more impregnably intrench and fortify themselves.

   Such was our condition, my friends, and no one could conceal from
   himself that if we continued in the same alliances and in the same
   state of dependence, we must become more and more like the heath in the
   desert. Now if I regard the renunciation of these alliances and the
   attitude of war which, on the contrary, we have assumed, and the
   beginning of which we are celebrating--if I regard these as the
   beginning for us all of being lifted up from this deep fall; if I hope
   that God will now repent of the evil that He purposed to do us; this is
   founded chiefly on the following things.

   In the first place, and to begin with what every one must at moments
   have most deeply felt; this change is in itself the turning back to
   truth, the deliverance from the humiliating hypocrisy, which every one,
   the more he believed him self bound to represent in his talk not
   himself but the State, really carried to a dreadful perfection. Now,
   thank God, we can again say when we abhor, or when we love and respect;
   and as every man of honour must stand to his word with deeds, we must
   surely feel free and strong in this, we must feel that we have a right
   to hope; for he who yields himself to truth without reservation is
   trusting in the Lord. But just because the word alone is nothing, and
   because this word more than any other demands deeds, therefore this
   change is the return to free action and to independence. How long, my
   friends, have we really had no will about our common affairs, always
   accommodating our selves to circumstances, and to the oppressive
   foreign force, so far as it chose to reach! Now we have once more a
   will; now the king, confiding in his people, has declared a
   determination in which (because after this no reconciliation can be
   hoped for) there is involved the resolution to enter on a course of
   brave deeds which can only end, as the royal word says, in glorious
   ruin or in the firm establishment of this precious blessing of liberty.
   And hence we found on this change the hope that we shall preserve for
   ourselves our own distinctive character, our laws, our constitution and
   our culture. Every nation, my friends, which has developed to a certain
   height is degraded by receiving into it a foreign element, even though
   that may be good in itself; for God has imparted to each its own
   nature, and has therefore marked out bounds and limits for the
   habitations of the different races of men on the face of the earth. And
   yet how the foreign element has lately been thrusting itself upon us!
   how it threatened the more as time went on to drive out our good
   manners and ways! And what a foreign element! Half the product of the
   unbridled ferocity of those horrible internal disorders, half devised
   for the later tyranny. In rising up to cast this utterly off and to
   keep it away from us for the future, we become once more a kingdom that
   trusts in the Lord; for in Him is that nation trusting which means to
   defend at any price the distinctive aims and spirit which God has
   implanted in it, and is thus fighting for God's work; and only in
   proportion as we succeed in this can we become as a tree planted by the
   waters, that fears not when heat cometh, and brings forth its own fruit
   without ceasing.

   But a joyful hope of revival arises very specially from the way and
   manner in which the great work of which we are celebrating the
   commencement is developing. First of all, let us not pass unmentioned
   the gifts which we see offered by rich and poor, great and small, on
   the altar of the Fatherland. We do not wish to consider those according
   to their sufficiency for the purpose to which they are devoted--for
   willingly and abundantly as they are given, they yet meet but a small
   part of the need--but according to their inward significance and to the
   spirit of which they are the expression. In offering them we did not
   wait till a requisition was made and a command given, but as soon as we
   knew the need we hastened to offer. As it is death to any commonwealth
   if only the letter of the law prevails, and no one takes more interest
   in it, by act or feeling, than that prescribes; as this is a sure sign
   that the higher blessings of life are not produced by fixed
   regulations; so this loyal, living feeling about whatever is necessary
   for the commonwealth is a sure sign that the life-giving sap of true
   love has penetrated into the State, and that the leaves of this
   spiritual tree will remain green even in the heat and in the year of
   drought. And if many a one has devoted all that he had remaining of
   earthly jewels and treasures, let us regard this as the necessary
   avowal that in this war it is not a question of earthly, but of
   spiritual possessions, and that we are ready, and will be so to the
   last, to do without and sacrifice all the former in order to gain the
   latter, and content although we should be obliged, after the
   successfully decisive battle, to begin the building up of our earthly
   prosperity from the very foundation. That is what it is to trust in the
   Lord, and to seek only after His kingdom.

   But let us look particularly at the form which the defence of the
   Fatherland is to take. Among all the divisions that crippled our powers
   and impeded our progress, there was none more unhappy than that between
   soldier and citizen, resulting from the rooted opinion that he who was
   engaged in a peaceful trade or profession could have neither knowledge
   .nor skill to defend his property and the common Fatherland in the time
   of danger. Hence the special privileges which were granted to those on
   whom alone the safety of the State depended, and still more to those
   who were exclusively appointed to command them; hence the jealousy of
   the citizen as to those privileges, and the general dislike to a class
   which in time of peace seemed only a burden to all the rest. Many
   commendable attempts were no doubt made to diminish this evil, but
   without results of any consequence. Now this separation is to be
   abolished; the difference is now to exist only between those who,
   constantly occupied with the proper arts of war, are, in the precision
   of their exercises and performances, an example to all others as well
   as the nucleus to which they gather, and those who, scantily instructed
   and drilled, only take up arms when it becomes necessary; but courage
   is to be expected from all, all are to know the use of their weapons,
   all are to take a growing share in the danger, the greater it becomes.
   We have been wisely led thus far step by step. The brave ardour of our
   young men was known whenever it became a question of this struggle;
   they were appealed to, and we saw them at the first call pour in from
   all ranks, from all nobler occupations to arms. Where a new good thing
   is to be quickly spread, the fathers must often be taught by the
   children; we have good reason to hope that it will be so at present,
   and that after that example of the young, for whom we should venture
   everything rather than they for us, every one will now be prepared to
   take part in the defence of the Fatherland according to his assigned
   order. For this reason the king is now instituting the Landwehr. And as
   this is also to be specially published to-day, hear what he says about
   it. [Here followed the summons to the Landwehr.]

   What an exalted feeling this call must awaken in all of us! what a firm
   confidence in the strength thus united! what a happy foretaste of the
   harmony and love in which all ranks will be bound together, when they
   have all stood side by side face to face with death for the Fatherland!
   what a happy anticipation of the united endeavour to lay in this way
   the foundation of a life that shall be worth such efforts, and in which
   unity and strength shall be equally seen!

   Thus, my dear friends, we see in this glorious and spirited change in
   our condition the beginnings of a happy rising again from a deep fall,
   the returning favour of the Most High, who is again promising to do us
   good. Let us, then, also reflect how we are obeying His voice, let us
   further consider, in a few words, what we must in the first place feel
   called on to do, by this change of affairs. I shall be able to be the
   shorter about this, as your minds must already, by what has gone
   before, be directed to what I have to say.

   II. I speak first of those who are called directly to the defence of
   the Fatherland, whether they belong to the armies that are already in
   motion, or whether, according to their own inclination or by the law of
   the lot, they are incorporated in that great bulwark which is still to
   be formed. I do not wish to do what is superfluous, by exhorting them
   to courage and bravery. He can never be wanting in courage whose mind
   is filled with the common aim, and who has made it entirely his own.
   For if, in that case, he finds himself in the great mass of conflicting
   powers which are organized into a noble whole; if he finds it
   impossible to think of himself singly, but must regard himself as only
   a little part of the whole; then his attention and his wishes can also
   only be directed to the movements of the whole. And that these
   movements may always accomplish the proposed aim--that alone is what he
   works for with all his strength; and thus whatever may befal himself in
   doing so, even were it the final human event, must appear to him only
   as an utterly insignificant casualty, which he himself regards as
   little as it can be regarded among the whole. This is the natural
   courage of him who loves the cause for which he is fighting. But I
   should like to warn you lest personal ambition weaken the high nobility
   and the true effectiveness of this courage. Let your emulation never be
   as to what each one brings to pass; let it be only as to the spirit
   that each manifests and the virtue he practises. He who strives to do
   this and that, and not just what always comes to him in his own place,
   is withdrawing from the natural arrangement of united work, to the
   injury of the whole. If public distinctions must certainly depend on
   success, then let every one strive, not to earn them, but to deserve
   them; let every one remember that all who did their duty faithfully
   helped to earn those things which others have received; and that the
   consciousness of having done all that it was possible for zeal and
   goodwill to do, and the recognition of those who know this, outweigh
   all other distinctions. I would caution you, moreover, not to let
   thoughtlessness weaken this natural courage. Not a few seem to think
   that everything is already done, that there is hardly need of the
   armies that have already gone forth and are doubtless about to begin
   the pursuit of the scattered, terrified remnant of the enemy's ruined
   forces to the utmost bounds of the German Fatherland; and that if more
   men lit for arms were called out, it could only be, not so much for
   immediate need, as to make use of this splendid opportunity in forming
   a better and more powerful system of defence for the future. Let such
   people beware lest the unexpected, which is what oftenest casts men
   down, come upon them with its terrible force, and they then indeed
   fear, when the heat cometh. The king's message is very far from
   countenancing this light view; it does not conceal from us the power of
   the enemy, nor the greatness of his resources; and we ourselves have
   some idea of the embittered feeling that he must have against us. Let
   us secure our courage by being prepared for everything, even for each
   of us in person to defend or avenge home and hearth.

   I speak in the next place of the rest of us in connection with those,
   the defenders of the common cause; of our selves as their relatives and
   friends. The feeling which formerly, when the State was involved in
   war, was shared by only a few, and as to which they were sometimes
   pitied and sometimes envied by others--the seeing of their best-beloved
   ones exposed to the danger of death in battle and to the various
   disasters of war; this feeling will now be come universal. For which of
   us is there that will not now see among the hosts of the army or of the
   Landwehr, at least relations, benefactors, pupils, heart-friends, if
   not father, husband, brother and son going to meet those very dangers?
   And let us then feel that we are not on this account to be pitied, but
   to be counted happy; that the more highly we value those connected with
   us, the more ought we to sympathise with and enter into all that is
   great and glorious in their calling. And the more we love them as
   ourselves, let us all the more offer and consecrate them to the
   Fatherland, just as we would yield up our own lives for it were we
   called on to do so. Much precious blood will flow, many a beloved head
   will fall; let us not embitter their glorious lot by mournful fears and
   weak sorrow, but see to it that, worthy of the great cause, we remain
   green and fresh; let us remember how much happier it is to offer up
   life as a sacrifice in the noble struggle against this destructive
   power than in the impotent struggle of medical art against the unknown
   powers of nature. And the loving cares which, if we could, we would
   gladly bestow on our own when sick and wounded--let those cares make us
   entirely a joint community, as the cause is common; let us care for and
   serve all whom we can, in the firm confidence that in the same way
   there will be no lack of tender nursing and treatment of our loved ones
   from others who feel as we do. But, above all, let us take care that
   the well-deserved honour of those who have dedicated themselves to this
   sacred struggle be not lost. As we ourselves have been most deeply
   moved by the distress and humiliation of the past years, and the
   glorious resurrection of the Fatherland in these days, let us also
   impress all this most strongly on the rising generation; that this
   eternally memorable time may indeed be remembered, and that each
   descendant whom it concerns may say with just pride, There fought, or
   there fell, a relation of mine.

   I speak further, on the other hand, of those who, while others have
   gone out to defend the Fatherland, are to regulate and direct its
   internal affairs, and discharge all the various offices which it
   requires. May this great decisive time arouse them all to redoubled
   faithfulness and solicitude, to redoubled abhorrence of all neglect at
   home through indolence or irregularity--for I will not say through
   self-interest or unfaithfulness--while in the field citizens are
   offering up their life-blood. May they abhor it as the most shameful
   treachery to this very blood and to all the virtues that offer it up.
   Let them remember that every power must be conscientiously applied,
   every department of the common wealth faithfully administered; if the
   great work is to succeed. Above all, let them remember that if the
   courage of those who have gone to the war is to hold out, they wish to
   see, in the strength and wisdom of the constitution and government, a
   guarantee for the higher blessings for which they are fighting.
   Therefore be it far from any one among us to think himself wise when he
   is not so; let no one thrust himself, to the exceeding detriment of the
   common wealth, into an office which he is not capable of filling; let
   no one allow himself to be so blinded by friendly partiality as to
   favour such presumptuous undertakings. But when one is wise, then let
   him strive to act, and to act vigorously and faithfully. Let those who
   administer justice remember that the sacred sense of the rights of
   nations and states, which lies at the foundation of this whole
   struggle, can only be in a healthy state where the rights of the
   citizens are faithfully observed; let those who have the care of
   keeping order and security remember that very specially in the exercise
   of their occupation is to be shown most gloriously that noble and
   beautiful combination of liberty and obedience in which we have long
   prided ourselves, and by which, in days of repose as in times of war,
   we must chiefly mark our difference, both from the former licence and
   from the later servitude of the nation against which we are contending.
   Let those who are to elevate the sentiments of the people and to form
   the minds of the young remember that they, in their quiet work, are the
   guardians and keepers of the most sacred property; that on their
   faithfulness in duty and on the blessing resting on it, it depends
   whether there shall be faculties with which to light, and above all
   whether there shall be anything to fight for--a faith, a hope, a love.
   Lastly, let those who manage the public taxes remember that under the
   poor earthly form of money and of goods there is offered to them in
   tribute the efforts of all the noble and intellectual faculties which
   have established the dominion of man over nature; that it is not the
   people's superfluity, not their savings which are to be disposed of,
   but what they have pinched themselves to give. Let all remember how
   greatly the importance of their work is increased in such times as
   these, so that, in the first place, they themselves, to whom obedience
   is to be given, may in their great calling obey the voice of the Lord.

   And finally, in contrast with those who are directly at work for the
   Fatherland, I speak of those to whom this is not permitted, who dare
   not even wish that the necessity should arise that would call them also
   to arms. Well, if it is painful to them to devote this great time
   entirely to quiet work, although they would gladly be waging war, let
   them consider that we have an internal war to carry on, which is of
   equally decisive importance. If our real low condition consists in evil
   of many kinds, let us begin first by lifting ourselves out of that;
   there is still much to be rooted out, much to be fought against. Let us
   be brave in this war--it also requires courage; it has its dangers
   also. Let no one enjoy unshaken respect in society, who still by word
   or deed preaches despondency or indifference, and who seems inclined to
   prefer our former condition with quietness to the struggle for a
   better! Let every one be watched and unmasked who thinks that the more
   the eyes of all are turned to those at a distance, he may the more
   securely and secretly indulge in a now more than ever criminal and
   traitorous selfishness. Let no one remain unchecked, who perhaps in the
   foolish delusion of preparing for himself a more endurable fate in the
   event of an unsuccessful issue, seeks to exempt himself from, or in any
   way to obstruct, the vigorous measures which are indispensably
   necessary to making the issue successful. And even if narrow-mindedness
   and baseness of this kind should try in a greater or less degree to
   creep into the public administration, then, because the danger is
   doubled, let us also fight with double energy and take no rest until we
   conquer. Thus shall we also have our own part to sustain, we shall wage
   the same war as the others, only in a different way; and if those who
   are placed behind doubtful troops to intimidate those who might think
   of giving way prematurely, take credit to themselves for a part of the
   victory, though they have done no fighting, this may also be permitted
   to us.

   These, my friends, are the demands which the present times make on us.
   Let each of us, then, stand to his post and not give way! let each of
   us keep fresh and green in the sense of the great holy powers that
   animate him! let each of us trust in God and call on Him, as we are now
   about to do together!

   Merciful God and Lord! Thou hast done great things for us in calling
   our fatherland to fight for a free and honour able existence, in which
   we may be able to advance Thy work. Grant us in addition, safety and
   grace. Victory comes from Thee, and we know well that we do not always
   know what we are doing in asking of Thee what seems good to us. But
   with greater confidence than ever, even with a strong faith, we entreat
   of Thee prosperity and blessing on the arms of our king and his allies,
   because it seems to us almost as if Thy kingdom and the noblest gifts
   that past centuries have won for us would be in danger, if these
   efforts were in vain. Protect the beloved head of our king, and all the
   princes of his house, who are now with the army. Grant wisdom and
   strength to the commanders, courage to the soldiers, faithful
   steadfastness to all. And grant also, as Thou canst change and turn the
   fortune of war, that its blessings may not be lost to us; that each one
   may be purified and grow in the inner man; that each may do what he
   can, be it much or little; that we may grow stronger in confidence in
   Thee, and in obedience to Thy will, an obedience reaching even to
   death, like the obedience of Thy Son. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

IV.

NECESSITY OF THE NEW BIRTH.

   (On Trinity Sunday.)

    TEXT: JOHN iii. 1-8.

   WHEN the Saviour promised to His disciples the Spirit, who, after His
   own departure from the earth, was to come upon them abundantly, He said
   to them, He will take of Mine and give unto you, and thereby He will
   glorify Me in and through you. We have once more completed the circle
   of our memorial festivals, from His birth to the fulfilment of that
   promise; and now, without being reminded, by the universal custom of
   the Church, of any specially great event in the times of the founding
   of Christianity, we have before our Christian assemblies a long period
   of quiet meditation. What better can we wish for that period, than that
   this very Spirit who glorifies Christ may be always among us, so that
   each of our devout meditations may exalt Him in our eyes, and that
   thus, through His having a more constant and active power in us, He may
   be also more and more glorified through us.

   It is therefore my purpose, in the period on which we are entering, to
   follow the words of the Saviour that I have just quoted; we will take
   of His own, that His Spirit may more and more enlighten us and glorify
   Him before us. They shall be words which the evangelists have preserved
   for us as His own; the most direct sayings from His lips, with which we
   intend during this time to connect our meditations. If, then, His
   Spirit is actually among us, if Christ becomes increasingly glorious to
   us through our study of His words, our inward parts more and more
   enlightened by the eternal, divine light, which He brought from heaven,
   our hearts more and more purified; we shall then, when the next time of
   commemorating our Lord comes round, return with new joy and gratitude
   to the beautiful circle of our Christian festivals, and anew, with yet
   purer spirit and in a way more worthy of Him, participate in adoring
   remembrance of His birth, His sufferings and His glorification.

   And with what words can we better begin the series of our proposed
   meditations, than with one of those which most closely connect the
   festival period just closed with that which lies before us? The Saviour
   has now, as it were, completed anew before our eyes His work, of the
   chief points in which our Church festivals were meant to remind us; He
   has taken to Himself flesh and blood, He has become obedient, even to
   the death of the cross, He has comforted and instructed His people, He
   has sent down the promised Spirit after His own final departure from
   the world, and prepared His disciples for the founding and extension of
   His kingdom. Now as He generally began His work of teaching by inviting
   men into the kingdom of God, which had come near to them, we may
   suitably begin by asking, How are we to attain, or how have we at some
   former time attained to our part in the Saviour's benefits? How does
   His kingdom still go on extending in the present day? The remarkable
   saying of the Saviour which we have taken as the ground of our
   meditation, gives a clear answer to these questions.

   In this whole conversation of the Saviour with Nicodemus, it is very
   difficult to understand the precise connection, more so than in most of
   the Saviour's other discourses; but we shall not be surprised at this
   if we reflect how it is with ourselves when we wish to communicate our
   most important thoughts, and are limited to a brief conversation in
   which to do so. We cannot in such a case bestow the usual pains and
   attention on so arranging our discourse that the other shall instantly
   take up our meaning; we cannot so enlarge that all the bearings of one
   thought on another shall become quite obvious; but, knowing that only a
   little time is granted us, we feel constrained, and strive to give
   expression only to what is most important, to comprise in few words a
   real wealth of thoughts and to impress these thoroughly on the hearer,
   so that he may afterwards reflect more minutely on their import, and
   may then be able to discover what at present escapes him. It was in
   this position, so far as such a comparison can be made at all, that
   Christ here found Himself. He was only rarely in the capital, on the
   occasions of the great feasts, and this man could only come to Him
   during the night. Hence the Saviour hastens to point out to the
   inquiring man the main points on which every thing depends; hence the
   conversation that must contain so much, passes abruptly from one great
   thought to another; and it is possible that John also may have had too
   little room to communicate much in the course of the conversation which
   would have given us here and there clearer insight into the connection.

   But the chief of all the weighty matters which our Lord had to say to
   Nicodemus is just the answer to the question we have proposed. A man
   must be born anew, else he cannot see the kingdom of God. One life must
   be destroyed and give place to another--the life of the flesh to the
   life of the Spirit: that is the only way in which any one can enter the
   kingdom of God; the new birth is the only manner in which new numbers
   are ever being won to it. The inquirer has various objections to this,
   and the Saviour removes them; but certainly in a way which we may
   believe left him still much to think about, and intimated to him that
   nothing but a higher personal experience would help him to a full
   clearness of understanding. Let us take the same course, by considering
   that a man comes into the kingdom of God only through the new birth of
   the Spirit. We will first make plain to ourselves, according to the
   Saviour's words, our common understanding of this in its simple truth:
   secondly, we will see what objections the masters in Israel have now as
   then against this doctrine; and thirdly, how we know of no other
   information or advice to give on the subject than what the Saviour said
   to Nicodemus.

   I. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he
   cannot see the kingdom of God. These are the Saviour's words, and this,
   rightly considered, may be said to have been always the common
   understanding of Christians; I mean, the faith of the Church. There is
   no doubt a sense in which it may be said that every one who is born at
   all, whatever he may be, sees the kingdom of God and is in it. For as a
   man's kingdom is there where his will is held to be law, and where he
   arranges and commands; in this sense the kingdom of God is indeed
   everywhere, as certainly as God is almighty, and all that live are in
   it. But we all speak, just as the Saviour did, of a kingdom of God
   which does not include every one. For as the kingdom of an earthly
   prince does not, strictly speaking, extend over every place where
   people act outwardly according to his will, but only where his will is
   also the real and common will of those who serve him and live under his
   rule, while the rest--however much outward appearances say the
   reverse--are in a state of secret enmity against him; so the kingdom of
   God, in this narrower sense, is only in those who are actuated by a
   spirit common to them all, making known the will of God in their
   hearts. Those manifold gifts, which always work in harmony towards the
   same end, because they proceed from the same Spirit; those fruits of
   the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, faith, purity; those various
   ministries which are fulfilled now by this one, now by that one--for if
   one is gone another is never wanting--and always faithfully and ably,
   under the one Master; those willing servants, bound for ever, for life
   and death, ministering in the word of truth, in the power of God, by
   the armour of righteousness; those unknown, and yet well known; those
   dying ones, who always live anew; those poor, who make many rich; those
   strong ones, who are never covetous of vain-glory, so as to envy and
   hate each other--that is the kingdom of God. And in each individual it
   is, as the Scripture says, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit; the peace
   of God, which, confiding in the eternal love and wisdom, is disturbed
   by nothing; resting in the faith that the Lord will, as time goes on,
   glorify Himself more and more in the world of spirits; the peace of
   God, which brings quiet and calmness to the otherwise stormy soul, by
   which its conflicting passions are brought to rest, so that it is like
   the pure mirror, in which every object is clearly and correctly
   pictured. The kingdom of God in each person is joy in the Holy Spirit;
   the joy, far above all earthly things, in the fellowship of men with
   God; the joy that wants nothing more eventful than that we always feel
   the power of God more influential in us, and are always less losing the
   consciousness of Him in whom we live and move and have our being. But
   all men do not live in this union, nor experience this peace and joy.
   We know the great multitude of those who, born of the flesh, are only
   flesh. It is true they have all, at least many among them, a common
   aim; but because what each of them seeks belongs only to his worldly
   existence, the association they form is far from stable, hardly to be
   compared to that higher kingdom of God; they are only temporarily
   allied as individuals, and none of them can really regard what another
   does or enjoys as being also his own and advancing his purpose. And
   thus they have no peace but in the gratification of their wild
   passions, their natural instincts, or, it may be, of the gentle,
   cheerful, social affections; and next to this, from no outward
   hindrance coming in the way of their doings. Nor have they any joy but
   that of finding themselves in full possession of the wealth and
   appliances of life, from which that gratification proceeds; of having
   new treasures of this kind thrown open to them, and of finding
   themselves abundantly endowed in comparison with others, so that their
   enjoyments are secured for a long time or for ever. This is certain,
   that those persons are not in the kingdom of God, but are leading, far
   away from it, a life that is rich, luxurious, and in its way,
   splendidly expanding. It may be highly refined and ennobled; but even
   the noblest and most refined natural life and motives are still only
   flesh, and never become spirit. Although in the whole life of such men
   there occurred no act that might not also occur in the life of him who
   is led by the Spirit of God, yet so long as truth, integrity, love are
   regarded only as means towards enjoyment, and that alone is aimed at,
   of whatever kind it may be; so long as this and no other is the inner
   motive; so long as the ruling sentiment does not refer to God and to
   His plans, we perceive the difference most distinctly. From no amount
   of still higher elevating or perfecting or outward purifying whatever
   of this life, which, as to its inmost motives, is carnal, can that
   spiritual life ever be produced; such a life is born of the flesh, and
   remains flesh although developed to the highest bloom of health and
   beauty; there is no possible transition, such as that from a state of
   coarse, carnal life to a cultured, restrained, pleasing condition, and
   from this to what is really good and holy. If such men are to come into
   the kingdom of God, they must lead there an entirely different and new
   life, and the be ginning of a new life is a new birth. And we are
   assuredly, all of us, far from assuming that those who so live could
   never, just because they have once given this form to their lives,
   attain to the new life; and that a new birth, although necessary for
   them, would be impossible--but that what is once born flesh must for
   ever remain flesh. For from that it must follow that what is spirit
   must have been originally born of the Spirit; but that is by no means
   what we know of ourselves. On the contrary, our experience, our
   distinct remembrance, tells each of us that the peace of God has not
   always dwelt in us from the beginning, but that it was given to us,
   that the flesh ruled in us before the Spirit. Though we may never have
   had a period of gross transgressions, of disgraceful passions or
   degrading pleasures, yet, beginning from innocence and purity of heart,
   we did not attain gradually more and more to the complete strength and
   virtue of a life pleasing to God. Between the beginning of our
   existence and our present life and aims there lies a time in which lust
   was the prevailing power; in which it conceived and brought forth sin.
   If we are honest, we can say that there is a period on which we look
   back only with the feeling that we appear to ourselves to have become
   since then different men. That which was then our innermost I and Self
   has now become something far off. and strange to us; and the law of
   divine appointment, which has now through the grace of God become the
   law of our life, which we love and obey, was then far off and strange.
   We were only aware of it as an external force, impeding the free course
   of our life, just as now the separate stirrings of the flesh and of sin
   are a force which we do not ascribe to our real life. Thus, then, it is
   true that one life has ceased and another has begun. But the beginning
   of the new life is the new birth; and this holds good universally, If
   any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; the old is passed away,
   behold all is become new.

   Thus Christ makes a division between two periods of the human race, and
   He is Himself its regeneration. The Christian period is not the
   continuation of the Jewish and pagan period, but a new one. And so for
   every nation the appearing of the gospel in it is its regeneration, not
   only a perfecting of its former condition; for, as we learn from
   history, much that was really good and beautiful often perishes in the
   first place, and the whole form is changed, the whole life takes
   another direction. So almost every great historical event is a judgment
   on some evil that has gained the mastery, and it thus becomes in one
   aspect or another the germ of a new life; and only where we find and
   understand the two things in their connection do we find and recognise
   a great phenomenon. And the same is true as to individuals; sin must
   have somewhere gained the upper hand, the flesh must have been active
   and ruling, that grace may have the mastery when the spirit attains to
   life; every one must first have tasted the life of corruption, and
   then, by the second act of divine omnipotence and love, he is born of
   the Spirit and becomes spirit. We have all, as Christians, an
   invincible and inalienable consciousness of this transformation; and
   when we welcome as members of our alliance in a stricter sense some who
   formerly did not belong to it, we take for granted that they have
   become such by the new birth which is from God.

   Yet, my friends, this very thing is, on the other hand, a hard saying,
   a much-disputed doctrine; and as that inquiring and well-meaning master
   in Israel could not reconcile himself to it, but asked, How can such
   things be? so very many Christians, even masters in Israel, and among
   them those who are longing for knowledge and honest in motive, have a
   great deal to object to this demand, that a man must be born again. Let
   us now, in the second place, consider those objections.

   II. When to the Saviour's assertion, Except a man be born again, he
   cannot see the kingdom of God, Nicodemus made the objection, How can a
   man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his
   mother's womb, and be born? we are not to suppose that this man, who
   was a ruler of the Jews and a master in Israel, was so simple as to
   believe that Jesus, whom he regarded as a teacher sent from God, wished
   this to be understood literally of the physical birth, or that, if he
   had believed this, he would have had anything more to do with one who
   made such an assertion. On the contrary, from the words of the Saviour
   that follow, when to the question put by Nicodemus a second time, How
   can these things be? He answered, Art thou a master in Israel and
   knowest not these things? we must certainly conclude that this form of
   expression under the figure of the new birth was known to him. And
   indeed it could not be unknown among a people who made so great
   endeavours with so confident a hope of extending their faith and their
   institutions, and who prized the exclusiveness of their descent. It was
   a glory and a gain with this people when any foreigner was moved to
   seek participation in their law and in their hopes; but they could only
   attain fully to this by receiving a share in the nation's genealogy;
   they must become children of Abraham, and hence the expression of being
   born again might and must often have been used. This new birth, then,
   was also the beginning of a new life, which was to be lived no longer
   after the customs of the pagan fathers, but according to the manner of
   the new father, and according to the later law, which unite all his
   genuine and true-born children. But this new life was, after all, only
   a life according to a new outward law, which became more and more by
   habit a part of a man's life, other wise everything remained
   essentially the same; the same reverence which they had formerly
   divided among many supposed gods, was directed to the one true God, who
   yet had been dimly guessed at behind those many illusions; and the same
   virtue which a right-thinking heathen had no doubt already practised
   before he became inclined to Judaism, he had to practise and cultivate
   under that new law. That new birth was thus, as it were, only a new
   birth from a different flesh, and this Nicodemus could understand. What
   was born flesh remained flesh, notwithstanding this change. But now,
   when the Saviour required of all who would see the kingdom of God, even
   of him and all his brethren, that they should be born again; he
   concluded, and that most justly, that it was a question of a different
   and more inward change; and it was just in looking at this as required
   of himself, that he asked doubtfully, How can a man be born again when
   he is old? How a man who had so long been flesh should yet be able to
   be born of the Spirit, and to lead, with all his heart, a life actually
   and entirely new; this he did not understand.

   Very closely related to this are the objections of the men of our own
   days, and, in part, of the present masters in Israel. Their opinion
   takes this direction--that a man is of course constantly changing
   during his life on earth, one in a greater, another in a less degree;
   and that with one this change may be more a real advance from good to
   better, with another more a mere variation of conditions the value of
   which may be pretty much alike. Every man, they say, is at the same
   time flesh and spirit; thus has God in a similar way endowed all; only
   in some, through that progress which they make, the spirit gains more
   and more command over the flesh, and those are the good; with others,
   on the contrary, the spirit is long kept under, is only rarely seen in
   its beauty and strength; and the greater part of their life is devoted
   to various manifestations of carnality, in violent secret or open
   conflict with the spirit, and those are the wicked; but the great
   majority of men are those whoso lives pass away in continual
   vacillations, without a decisive preponderance on the one side or the
   other. But still the spirit is present and at work in all; for
   otherwise they could not be men, but would be beasts. Now if, after a
   long apparent resistance, during which, however, the spirit is inwardly
   gaining strength unseen, it suddenly comes forth with increased power,
   this looks like a special divine communication and revelation, and if
   from that point onwards there is a permanent supremacy of the spirit
   over the flesh, then this is regarded as a transformation, and it is
   called conversion or new birth. And yet it is not the beginning of a
   new life; the same spirit has always been in the man and has lived and
   worked in him, warning, threatening, resisting, punishing, making him
   ashamed. For, say they, if it is to be supposed that this power which
   draws man to a higher and better life, and which people are accustomed
   to call the Spirit of God, is not given to men until later, how could
   it be said that a man was the same man as before, if an entirely new
   element were added to his being? and if only some receive this power
   and others do not, how can it be said that the two beings are of the
   same kind and partake of one and the same nature? And if that higher
   life which is the condition of the divine approval and of a man's
   present and future blessedness, can only be attained by means of a
   power to be thus specially communicated to him by God, and God imparts
   this power to some earlier, so that they are able to attain a higher
   perfection in this life, and to others later, though He does impart it
   to them, and to others again not at all, what a change takes place in
   our idea of the divine Being, in whom we strive to imagine infinite
   righteousness and infinite love united; how does this change into an
   idea of utterly unintelligible, and for that very reason terrible
   despotism! For why does He take compassion on the one, and leave the
   other to his fate? If man is at first born only of the flesh and is
   wholly flesh, then there is nothing beforehand in any one that would
   make him more fit for the kingdom of God or inclined towards it, and
   therefore no ground in the one for being preferred or in the other for
   being set aside. And can that be regarded as a Christian doctrine, or
   indeed at all as one, without which the whole of Christianity is not
   rightly understood, which brings such confusion into that living sense
   of God, which is really the source of everything good in man?

   And to this they further add, that it is a doctrine that burdens and
   perplexes the conscience, and on account of it, all that God does for
   men is for a great many of them fruit less, so that they attain to no
   real repose and joy in life; and if this is not the case with still
   many more, that is only because they do not really hold this doctrine
   very firmly. For if in the midst of a man's life a new life must be
   begun, one must surely be able to show and give proof when and how it
   began. With the lower creatures, whose life assumes different forms one
   after another, this is the case--we can see how the one life dies out
   and the other springs up--and therefore we ought to be able just in the
   same way to perceive when the flesh dies and the man is born of the
   Spirit. Hence among the friends of this doctrine a desire naturally
   prevails to be distinctly aware of the moment of this change, this new
   birth. Now the more this new life, as is the way with life in general,
   has been the outcome of hard struggles amid tears and groans, the more
   sure every one feels able to be, that he is born of the Spirit; and the
   less one particular moment stands out distinctly from all others as the
   starting point of this new life, the more uncertain it seems to be
   whether the new birth has actually taken place, and every thing that
   seems to indicate the new life is suspected of being possibly an empty
   show. But, it is said, not without justice, how few men come in a
   natural way to such a distinctly marked out moment, which perceptibly
   and, as it were, visibly separates the two parts of their lives! And
   just because this is so, this opinion has always produced a vain
   striving after such a moment, with which the conviction of divine grace
   may be specially connected, and on the remembrance of which the mind
   may rest in full confidence. Hence it has always stirred up a multitude
   of tormenting and useless anxieties in the best of men, who though
   obedient to all the teachings of Christianity, yet could never attain
   to any real comfort on account of this one opinion, which it was not in
   their power to verify. Indeed how many examples have there been in
   every age, that these doubts have gnawed away a man's life, have dried
   up the inmost marrow of his spirit, and have, not unfrequently, shaken
   his mind into complete derangement! And this--so it is asked, not, as
   it seems, unreasonably--this is supposed to be a doctrine revealed by
   the God who does not even desire the death of the sinner, much less
   that of the righteous? This is sup posed to be the teaching of the
   Saviour, the friend of man, who came to seek that which was lost, as if
   He had rather come to cast into awful perplexity those who are walking
   in the straight and safe way?

   These are the objections, not only of worldly people (who are not the
   persons to whom the demands of Christianity appear too rigorous), but
   also of many masters in Israel, to the Saviour's words, that a man must
   be born again in order to enter the kingdom of God. And if we ask them
   what they propose to make of those words, if they are really Christians
   and do not dispute the words of the Saviour, then all that probably
   remains for them to say is, that at the time when Christ spoke these
   words they had their own important meaning, and that the mistake is
   only in trying to apply them to the present time. For at that time,
   they will say, every one, even he in whom a spiritual rule was already
   established, needed to experience so great a change, in order to enter
   the kingdom of God through Jesus, that it might really be regarded as a
   complete revolution. It was necessary that his idea of God, from which
   all good ways and doings of a man proceed, should be changed; the God
   of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, although He was certainly not thought of
   in a fleshly way as an idol, but spiritually as the source of all good,
   needed to become for him the universal Father of men, who desires only
   to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, and who purifies the hearts of
   the heathen also through faith in His Son. In like manner it was
   necessary that his whole endeavours to observe the externals of that
   separating law which was, nevertheless, a spiritual law, seeing that it
   told against evil desires in every way--that these endeavours should be
   directed to the universal law under which all men can unite. His love
   had to change from the narrow-hearted love of those of his own race,
   which, nevertheless, being opposed to selfishness, was a work of the
   Spirit, into that love which embraces in all men alike the image of
   God; and his hopes of earthly power and greatness, which yet were to be
   the power and glory of the righteous, behoved to change into joy in a
   wholly spiritual kingdom of God. But no, there is no such revolution as
   this, seeing that the very beginnings of what is spiritual in a man
   born and brought up as a Christian can have no other distinction than
   this. For this very knowledge is in stilled into every one from his
   youth up; these sentiments are in every way required from all; and as
   certainly as every man is born at once flesh and spirit, just as
   certainly every Christian has from the beginning this spirit, which
   therefore only needs gradually to increase, without any entire change,
   in order to the man's becoming a man of God, fitted for every good
   work.

   III. Now what are we going to reply to all this? I know nothing else
   than what Christ answered to Nicodemus, Marvel not that I said unto
   thee, ye must be born again: the wind bloweth where it listeth, and
   thou hearest the sound thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh or
   whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Just so
   should we have to tell those objectors, that they seem indeed to know
   the works of the Spirit very well, and yet not to know whence they
   come. You think, I would say to them, that this is the way of it, that
   the right knowledge is now instilled into all from their youth, so that
   now no one can think less or worse of God and divine things than is
   according to their amount of Christian knowledge. You think it is
   enough that every one is called on by all means to have sentiments
   conformed to the gospel; because, seeing that these sentiments are
   widely diffused, and that it becomes publicly known how each person
   stands affected towards them, it is certain that every one who stands
   in awe of public opinion and to whom the respect of men is of
   consequence, is very careful not to set them openly at defiance; and if
   he goes on being thus careful, he becomes naturally more and more
   unaccustomed to act in direct opposition to them, and more incapable of
   doing so: and hence, because these sentiments and principles have
   passed into all social institutions and regulations, the carnality of
   men is restrained even from childhood, and thus at a very early stage
   the flesh is, as it were, spiritualized. So that in a kind of casual
   way, you think, it is to be done? and that if this kind of thing went
   on continuously, a man would gradually become, without the need of a
   further great inward change, a man well-pleasing to God and fitted for
   the work of God! Do you actually fail to see the vast difference
   between the highest perfection to which man can attain from this point,
   and the still most imperfect virtue of the beginner in true faith? We,
   on our side, cannot but say that while the kingdom of God no doubt has
   an effect on those whom you describe, the latter alone is actually in
   it, and bears it within him. The evil that the former avoids is, as
   regards his being in the kingdom of God, just the same as if he had
   done it; and the good that he does must be forgiven to him just as much
   as the evil, if he is to enter that kingdom, because it is never the
   result of faith. Yes, between your perfect man and our beginner there
   is just as great a gulf as between the man in Abraham's bosom and the
   one in the place of torment. For what we seek is only effected when
   that which, as you say, every one now knows,--although this universal
   knowledge must be of a very subordinate kind, so long as it remains a
   dead knowledge in so many,--when this becomes ill the individual man a
   living impulse, his only impulse, the essence and the inmost strength
   of his life; not a law that comes to him from without and which he
   fears and respects, but his one pleasure and love, without which he
   does not feel right. And that is the faith of which it is truly said
   that it comes by preaching, which, however, only means that the grace
   of God brings it about through the word and life of those in whom it
   already is; not at all that it develops naturally and of itself out of
   the dead knowledge. From that knowledge to faith there is no gradual
   transition; we come to it only by means of an entire change and a new
   birth. And is it the case in any other sphere that what is dead becomes
   gradually and of itself a living being; what belongs to others a thing
   of our own; fear and dislike of anything, not mere habitude and in
   difference, but delight and love? And yet such is the difference which
   we have described. For if the opponents of our doctrine appeal to the
   feelings of approval of good, of shame and regret for evil, which
   originate and develop as of themselves in the Christian community; and
   if we further concede, what may be much more rarely the case than is
   supposed, that those feelings are quite pure and genuine; yet it is
   certain that notwithstanding all the keenness of those feelings, the
   will is quite void of what the feeling approves, and leans to something
   quite different: it is certain that, much reason as there may be for
   maintaining that man does not of his own accord will evil as evil, just
   as little does he of his own accord will good as good, and that the
   strength and persistence of this feeling does not even in the longest
   time transform the will; but on the contrary, if such a change do not
   take place through grace, even the feeling itself does not continue in
   its sharpness and purity, but gets gradually blunted into in difference
   and obduracy. And if our opponents further appeal to the fact that
   every man, even the most wicked, has moments in which he feels really
   moved to good, and that therefore even for such there is no need of a
   new birth, but only that those moments be made permanent; yet we all
   know only too well from a former time those unsatisfactory, fleeting
   emotions, in which there was certainly a hint of the new man; but we
   know also that we then felt only as if taken hold of by an unknown
   power. We felt that if this power became a part of us and constantly
   dwelt in us, we should become different persons; but even the most
   earnest wishes were not capable of effecting this. Now this very thing,
   the renewing of the will, which is undoubtedly the centre of the whole
   being, the continual indwelling, as the Spirit of God, of that which
   before only stirred the feelings from with out, and in a passing way as
   the power of the Word and of the Church;--this is the new birth, before
   which, now as in the time of Nicodemus, a man, though possessed of all
   those advantages, is still only flesh; and of which no one will assert
   that it is connected with the natural birth into earthly life; for he
   who should assert this about himself would make him self equal to the
   Son of God; but on the contrary, we have all come short of this glory
   that we ought to have before God. The second birth may be easier now
   than at the time when Jesus talked with Nicodemus; it must be so,
   otherwise there would be no consistency in the work of God; but it is
   quite as necessary for entering the kingdom of God; and every one must
   be so much the more shut up to it, because the servant who is always
   hearing his Lord's will, and has in deed in himself a warning voice to
   remind him of it, and yet never does it, is deserving of the greater
   contempt, and more over of double punishment.

   And as to the difficulties that may arise in adhering to these words of
   the Saviour, that a man enters the kingdom of God only through the new
   birth; we have no cause to allow our faith or our feelings to be
   confused by such fancies. Is there a single one of the doctrines
   peculiar to Christianity, about which those to whom it is distasteful,
   or who cannot understand its nature, do not make the same assertions?
   Believers are not perplexed in this way; it is only those who pervert
   the terms of faith into sophistries which are beyond man's province,
   who are caught in their own net. They ask, if it is thus with the
   Spirit of God, and some may have it and others not, how can it be said,
   in that case, that men have all the same kind of nature? But are there
   not in every higher, living nature, faculties, and those indeed the
   noblest, that are not developed until a later- period? Now, if with
   certain persons this development is delayed, those faculties are
   imperfectly cultivated, and therefore unhealthy--marred and disfigured
   in many ways. And we say this freely of those who are without the
   Spirit of God; for to have that Spirit belongs to the original nature
   of man, who was created in the image of God. They say, if a man has not
   been born again, and this can only take place through grace, then it
   seems a mere arbitrary choice on God's part, that He shows this grace
   to some and not to others. Is not this the creature speaking foolish
   words against Him who has formed it? words which are too high for him,
   and which he does not understand? Well, suppose that you admit no
   difference between those who are born anew of the Spirit and those who
   are only flesh; does that, if you are set on reasoning in this way, at
   all take you past the difficulty of having to think of God as acting in
   an arbitrary way? You place your comfort, your satisfaction, we will
   suppose, in virtue, in piety, in the cultivation of your mind; or if
   you chose to place them in something lower it would be all the same.
   For some are certainly better and more pious than others, have more
   virtue and culture, or if you prefer it, more gifts of fortune, more
   comforts and enjoyments. Now, if you take together all those
   accomplishments that you possess, all these delightful circumstances in
   which you are placed, would you really be arrogant enough to maintain
   that you owe all this to yourself? that you have given much to
   yourself, or if you have but little, that you have withheld more from
   yourself? Have not God's leadings a great share in the developing of
   your faculties, in the determining of your position? And when you look
   at the inner nature of each one, and find one richly gifted and another
   but scantily; has each made his own nature, or is it of God? Therefore
   it is not the new birth that is the stumbling-block of those
   sophistical objectors; it is that they are trying to contend with God,
   as no man can possibly contend with Him! Assuredly never yet has a
   believing soul become doubtful about receiving afresh the divine grace,
   or been troubled in the lively and vigorous use of it, because he saw
   that others did not possess it just as he did; and never has a heart
   that was honestly longing for that grace left off entreating for it
   from heaven, because all did not possess it in exactly the same degree!
   The man who really desires what is good will make no such mistake; it
   is only the vain sophist who becomes a fool in counting himself wise.
   What can hurt the man who follows after good? Nothing; not even the
   deepest mystery of the divine will.

   And none of us, my friends, must let himself be perplexed by the
   suggestion that if a new birth were necessary, every one ought to know
   and be able to point out when this miracle of divine grace was wrought
   on him. On what alone is it that this demand is founded, which
   certainly many Christians, because they count too much on certain
   special experiences, are accustomed to make? It cannot be denied, in
   regard to such persons, that they certainly argue too much from their
   own experiences; by which they have perplexed many an anxious heart.
   But the Saviour says nothing of this; He rather leaves us free to give
   a wider meaning to the words, Thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst
   not tell whence it cometh; a meaning in which they less imply a
   reproach, than express the man's necessary uncertainty. For could it be
   the same thing to require, Ye must be born again, and You must know
   when and how you were born again. Do we know it about our natural
   birth, otherwise than by the accounts of others, such as no one can
   give us about what has been transacted between God and the soul alone?
   Is not the beginning of every form of life, from the lowest to the
   highest, hidden in the impenetrable darkness of divine creation, and is
   it likely that this would not be the case with the most mysterious
   creation of the Spirit? that the new life would be just as
   imperceptibly entered on and developed as the old? And certainly those
   also are mistaken who think they have actually watched the beginning of
   this life. It may be that they regard as such one of the many
   preparatory stirrings of the mind, from which, after all, no continuous
   spiritual life resulted, or that they confound the first full
   consciousness of that life with the beginning of it. To this
   consciousness each of us attains sooner or later; it reveals itself in
   certain moments of exuberant feeling; it is authenticated by the fruits
   of the Spirit, which are love, joy, peace, patience; it is the witness
   of the Spirit of God in our hearts that we are the children of God; and
   with this let us be satisfied. But let us never sit down so contented
   with the sense and the certainty of our own life in the kingdom of God,
   as not to make it our most earnest endeavour to help others forward
   into this new life. And in this loving endeavour let us aim at nothing
   less, and set nothing less before them than this great word of the
   Saviour, so that the little that we can do may be done in the right
   direction, and that even we may help in the work of the Spirit of God.
   Amen.

   (From the Author's third collection, published in 1814.)
     __________________________________________________________________

V.

CHRIST AND THE UNSTABLE.

    TEXT: MATT. xxi. 10-16.

   WE have lately seen from several examples that what is properly to be
   regarded as the suffering of the Saviour, that is, His pain on account
   of sin, and of the opposition which it offered to His divine work, did
   not begin merely with the time which, in a stricter sense, we indicate
   as His period of suffering, but accompanied Him from the beginning of
   His earthly life, and more especially during His public career. We
   shall consider this to-day more closely in connection with those events
   which immediately preceded the sufferings of the Saviour, specially so
   called. Now, if a meditation of this kind is to be really profitable to
   us, we must have regard to two things. On the one hand, as we are
   called and chosen as members of the consecrated body, the Church, of
   which Christ is the head, to devote our selves to the work of Christ in
   order to carry it on according to the measure which God has dealt to
   each; so in the same warfare against sin, we must also meet with the
   same opposition which He experienced, and Christ's pain must be come
   ours; and by what He showed Himself to be in the days of His life on
   earth, He is set forth as the shining example which we are to follow.
   And on the other hand, as we are invited, with all who are weary and
   heavy-laden, to enjoy the fruits of His redemption; and as we can only
   enjoy these with the humble feeling that, mighty as His strength may be
   in us who are weak, yet sin is never quite eradicated in us, and that
   the remainder of it in us opposes His work, thus making us the cause of
   sufferings to Him and His people such as He met with at that time; so,
   those who caused Him pain in the days of His earthly life must stand
   before us as a warning and alarming example, lest we sit down idly and
   indulge that which is like them, in ourselves; causing rather to burn
   increasingly in us a holy anger against evil, that thereby there may be
   more and more room for the Holy Spirit to work in us and by us.

   The words of our text show us the Saviour in His last entry into the
   capital of His nation, at the summit of His popularity among men, and
   at the highest stage of His influence. He is no longer called simply
   Jesus of Nazareth; His disciples, and after them the people, and,
   following their example, the children in the temple, cried, Hosanna to
   the Son of David! the very name by which the expected deliverer of the
   nation was designated, We see Him exercise magisterial authority, as it
   were, in the temple, as, besides the existing rulers, it became Him
   alone to do, who was called to institute a new and higher order of
   divine things. But how soon, my friends, how unexpectedly soon do we
   see the whole state of things change! How easily are all the people who
   have just been shouting their applause around Him, turned away from
   Him! How soon do we find the Lord, who seemed so lately to have
   everything at His command, a prisoner and bound in the hands of His
   enemies! How soon is He who but now had been hailed as the Son of David
   that cometh in the name of the Lord, brought forward and accused as a
   malefactor! If we ask the reason of this, we meet, no doubt, on the one
   hand, the unhappy disciple who betrayed Him; on the other, the enmity
   of the niters, restrained only by fear of the enthusiastic people; but
   how would they have ventured to lay hands on Him, how would hatred and
   treachery have dared to approach Him, if this enthusiasm of the people
   had been less evanescent, if the fickle disposition of the people had
   not favoured their purpose? And the Saviour knew this disposition, even
   when they were all strewing palms before Him and greeting Him as the
   Deliverer; we can trace this sting in His heart through all His
   sayings; and this suffering of soul was present with Him even in the
   height of His popularity. This then is the subject on which I wish to
   speak,--the fickle disposition of men as a source of suffering to our
   Saviour, and in the order that I have already indicated; namely,
   considering first, how our Saviour bore Himself in regard to this, and
   how, therefore, we also are to act; and secondly, setting before us, as
   a warning example, those who prepared this suffering for our Saviour.

   I. Yes, my devout friends, we cannot and dare not conceal it from
   ourselves, the position of those who seek to promote what is good, who
   are in earnest in labouring at the work of redemption, is still the
   same as that of the Saviour Himself. They are a little handful--each
   one of them alone--but, still more where they would like to work in
   union, beset by enemies and traitors. They meet, no doubt, on the other
   hand, with much admiration; much enthusiasm is aroused by their
   courage, their self-sacrifice, their constancy; but often in the most
   decisive moment this enthusiasm fails to stand the test, and they see
   themselves forsaken and thrown back upon themselves. Under these
   circumstances then, surrounded by people of this fickle disposition,
   what can we learn from the conduct of the Saviour? In the first place,
   He knew the fickleness of the populace, and hence did not allow himself
   to be deluded by their ebullition of kindly feeling. Who among us, my
   friends, in the Saviour's position, if at that feast which drew
   together many thousands from all parts of the country into Jerusalem,
   he had been met with such universal favour by the populace--if on every
   side so much willingness to accept his help had been manifested, so
   much eagerness to commit themselves to his guidance--who would not have
   formed the most flattering hopes, which yet no results would have
   justified; who would not have allowed himself to be seduced into
   schemes which would have had no relation to the actually existing means
   that were to be put in operation! Very far was the Saviour from this!
   Though we do not find that He expressed aloud His suspicion of the real
   import of these marks of honour, or that He rejected them, yet all His
   discourses between this brilliant moment and the time of His being
   seized, of which the evangelists have preserved for us so great an
   abundance, show plainly how correctly He estimated His position. How
   many hints there are that the people would, notwithstanding all this,
   refuse and reject Him; how many open and more private warnings to those
   who led others astray or suffered themselves to be so led; how many
   words of comfort because all the good that He had planned for men would
   not be spread abroad until future generations. He even saw plainly
   beforehand the temporary painful timidity of His disciples, and
   foretold that when the Shepherd should be smitten the flock would be
   scattered. And so He did not allow Himself to be misled into building
   any far-reaching project on those utterances of the multitudes that
   poured around Him with their plaudits; no open war against those who,
   to their own condemnation and the ruin of the people, sat in Moses
   seat; no attempt to give to the kingdom of truth a striking, outward
   form, and put it in the place of the worn-out, dead priesthood; only
   all kinds of precautions that it might be brought safely, in its unseen
   form, through all the coming storms. Oh, my friends, that we might
   learn this from the Saviour! For there is nothing more bitter than
   hopes and plans for good that have proved vain, and of which we are
   obliged afterwards to confess that they had not been so well-founded as
   we thought, and that we might easily have foreseen their unsuccessful
   issue. But we shall only acquire this wisdom by keeping our zeal for
   the kingdom of God pure from all culpable thoughtlessness, and by
   letting the deepest earnestness rule our lives; we shall only learn it
   if in our judgment of men's state of mind, vanity has no part whatever,
   and if, in order to estimate it, we always look into the inmost
   recesses and the former history of our own hearts.

   But in the second place, the Saviour by no means neglected to make use
   of the favourable, though transitory, emotions of the people. If we
   assume, as we must, that He who had no need that any one should tell
   Him what was in man, knew the multitude for what they were, even in the
   midst of their enthusiastic acclamations, we see how little this
   interfered with His usual manner of acting. Though He knew that these
   same people who were now shouting their rejoicings around Him, would
   soon by their acts be against Him, just as His open enemies had always
   been, yet He did not now hesitate to make it understood that He was
   indeed the One who was to come: If these should not speak, He says,
   according to another account, the stones would immediately cry out.
   What He would gladly have done long before, cast out the crying abuses
   from the temple and cleanse His Father's house, He felt that He could
   now do; He felt that these stirrings of feeling, transient as they
   were, made all opposition to His absolute authority for the moment
   impossible; and if He knew equally well that in a few days it would all
   sink back into the old disorder, yet He omitted nothing that the moment
   allowed, nothing that was an indication of His office, and worthy of
   His having effected in so short a time. He did not scorn to effect what
   was to pass away, because even previsions of the future are profitable;
   and thus He sought to draw from even this transient excitement every
   advantage which it really offered.

   As to ourselves, my friends, as we allow ourselves too easily to be
   carried away into indulging extravagant hopes, when we see men better
   than they really are, so we are also too much inclined to despond when
   we observe that their movements towards good were only passing and
   superficial ebullitions. We are disgusted with their praise, their
   honour, their attachment, when we find how at other times they give the
   same to those who are utterly different from us, to whose views and
   mode of action we are thoroughly opposed. We lose all delight in their
   pious emotions, in their interest in what is good, when we see plainly
   how soon it is swept away by anything whatever that touches them
   personally, or how readily the same easily-moved feelings may be
   enlisted on the opposite side. And, indeed, because what we really love
   and honour is only real goodness that flows from the pure fountain, we
   would prefer to have nothing at all in common with such people, and
   rather fear to injure our work by using the passing impulses of such
   uncertain characters even as instruments and means towards what we are
   trying to do. Would that we could in this matter follow exactly in the
   footsteps of the Saviour! Holy indignation at the changeable character
   of men was not indeed unknown to Him, nor did He reckon this
   fluctuating multitude, in their favouring mood, in the number of His
   people; but He had no hesitation in availing Himself of their mood in
   order to effect something good by means of it. On men themselves there
   can certainly be nothing built in such a state of temporary excitement,
   and nothing that it produces is of much value, in so far as it is their
   work. But why should it not be of value as a work of ours, which yet
   could not have been accomplished without them? If we can wring from
   them a contribution or some co-operation in a good cause, which does
   not on that account become theirs, nor is the worse for it, are we to
   miss the opportunity? Rather let us avail ourselves the more quickly of
   the uncertain and brief help, the more uncertain and brief it is; and
   let us reflect that this also is a talent that God has entrusted to us,
   a power that we are to use, each of us where he is placed in the Lord's
   vineyard, so as to accomplish with it as much as we can. And this will
   become the more easy to us if, in the third place, we become like the
   Saviour in this, that even in these transient stirrings of feeling we
   do not fail to recognise their noble and divine origin. For in His
   conduct this is plainly to be observed. Therefore He bore with, and
   indeed took pleasure in, the acclamations which expressed the emotions
   that His superior dignity had aroused, though but for a moment, in
   their minds. Therefore He did not oppose them with that sullen
   sternness with which another would perhaps have told them that they
   were not worthy thus to greet Him. But when the chief priests and
   elders came and asked Him in doubt, Hearest Thou what these say? or,
   according to another evangelist, Rebuke Thy disciples and forbid the
   people; He did neither the one nor the other: on the contrary, He
   acknowledged it as a good thing, as praise offered to God and to Him,
   by referring to the Scripture that says, Out of the mouth of babes and
   sucklings hast Thou prepared praise; He recognised it as necessary, by
   answering them, as another evangelist tells us, Verily, if these should
   hold their peace, the stones would cry out. And can we, my dear
   friends, do otherwise than, like the Saviour, recognise the Spirit of
   God even in such transient excitements among men? No man can call Jesus
   Lord, says the apostle, but by the Holy Spirit, and this word we may
   neither wrest nor explain away. Every impression, therefore, even
   though transient, produced by the words or the person of the Saviour,
   that bends the knees of men to the dust in real feeling before Him;
   every honest, though only momentary testimony of their reverence
   towards Him, by which they, as it were, glorify His throne set up in
   the Church; every feeling of horror that seizes their hearts at the
   thought that His rule round about them, which they themselves have so
   little supported, may some day come to an end; every service, every
   contribution which they pay, with their heart's consent, to what we as
   ministers and servants of our Lord undertake:--all this is the work of
   the Divine Spirit. And are we not to honour and recognise it? Are the
   indications of it too many and too various, so that we may easily do
   without or neglect some of them? If we justly feel grieved that every
   stirring of this Spirit in the hearts of men does not take a thorough
   hold and renew and sanctify them, are we therefore to rejoice the less
   at His every lightest knock at the door of men's hearts, at even the
   first traces of a life of their own, though it is not yet permanent?
   Ought we not to be less cast down by the fugitive character of such
   moments than cheered because there is, nevertheless, a stirring in the
   hearts of men? Though we do not always venture to prophesy that such
   stirrings will at some future time lead to fear, and to a point at
   which men will repent and smite on their breasts and ask, What shall we
   do to be saved?--even supposing we did not foresee this, are we, on
   that account, not even to take the pure enjoyment of the thing itself?
   For what better proof can there be how deep the germ of the divine lies
   in human nature, and properly belongs to its essence, and hence what
   can be more moving and cheering to us, than those very fits of piety
   wrung from hardened or thoughtless men?

   May we all thus learn from the Saviour to restrain the natural feeling
   of aggrieved indignation at the fickleness of men, by striving to find
   out all that God is effecting, and being set with our whole soul on
   every good work that our hand finds to do. But do we become altogether
   like Him in this matter, only by thus acting in regard to the
   fickleness of others? Must we not also think about banishing it from
   ourselves? Only remember that in Him there was and could be no trace
   whatever of this infirmity of human nature; remember, at the same time,
   how often you good men, even at heart pious men, have yielded to it in
   dismissing your weightiest convictions and resolutions; look around
   you; how much good is forgotten through fickleness, that was begun
   vigorously and with noble zeal; and you will not fail to acknowledge
   that even the best are not quite free from this mischievous weakness.

   II. Let us therefore, secondly, set before ourselves as a warning, the
   inward condition of those who in this fickle way forsook the Saviour,
   and the responsibilities they incurred.

   We have certainly no reason to assume that many of those who had
   celebrated the Saviour's entry, who had publicly directed the hope of
   the whole nation to Him, and, as His numerous retinue, had supported
   His strong measures in the temple, would, a few days after, have joined
   in the cry, Crucify, crucify Him! that the very same people who so
   confidently proclaimed Him as the Messiah, had afterwards a hand in His
   death as if He had been a base impostor; or even that their hope of a
   new and better kingdom of God had entirely vanished, and that just for
   that reason they would have preferred to see Him utterly destroyed on
   whom this hope had rested with so decided a predilection. No, the
   sentiments of men are seldom so entirely turned round, especially from
   what is good and true to what is perverted and evil! It is not so,
   assuredly, with any of us, that we could by any possible means become
   doubtful as to Christ being the foundation-stone of our faith and our
   salvation, His image and His word the universal standard of all our
   actions. But just as those people would not likely have thus kept
   silence, so that we cannot understand what has become of the great host
   of admirers and adherents, but rather there would have arisen a great
   and serious struggle, if they had not become doubtful whether
   supporting Jesus was really after all the means by which that better
   kingdom of God was to be brought in, or if they must not postpone their
   hopes to another time; so we also as individuals are often unstable,
   and what we held with the strongest conviction as good and right, and
   as necessary for the well-being of present and future generations, and
   were ready to promote with all our powers, we not unfrequently become
   again uncertain about, when the decisive moment is at hand. Now, in
   seeking to point out, from the example of that mixed multitude, what is
   the cause of this changeable behaviour, I think that many a one is
   saying to himself, But how are we to know at first, and who is to
   judge, if such a thing occurs with us, whether it is instability, or
   rather a later and correct knowledge? for how often it is only through
   a state of vacillation, and after having inclined alternately to this
   side and to that, that we arrive at a firm conviction! And how often a
   man is too hasty with his resolutions, so that it is a real step in the
   way of improvement when from a false certainty he comes to doubt and
   uncertainty! But this question need not interfere with the view I have
   started, for just how these changes of conviction come to pass can only
   be determined by what has preceded them in us and without us. Let us
   only, in the first place, not forget that we enjoy a great advantage
   over those contemporaries of Jesus whom we are setting before us as a
   warning example. That is, that a Christian guided by the Spirit of
   Christ will seldom come to a firm decision on any important matter by
   himself, but through that same Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth; and
   if he takes up anything in a fit of passionate excitement, a sense of
   insecurity will arise at the same moment and will go on increasing; and
   therefore with him it is rarely an advance when from firm conviction he
   goes back to doubt. Now if with ourselves, what we felt certain about
   becomes again doubtful, the firm purpose unsettled, whence does that
   come? This we shall see in those men, in whom we see mirrored both the
   bold and the cowardly heart.

   In the first place, my friends, what is expressed by the jubilation of
   that multitude at the entry of Christ, but the hope that He would
   redeem Israel? They believed that the time was come, or would presently
   be, when He would come forward publicly, and announce Himself with
   authoritative credentials, as God's ambassador; everything would then
   bend before Him, and they, reminding Him at the same time of the way in
   which they had even now professed their faith in Him, would then renew
   their profession, and would not only obtain from Him deliverance from
   all their troubles, but would also share in all the glory of His
   kingdom. But now they saw Christ Himself in trouble; and if they meant
   to be loyal to Him, they must have felt called on, instead of merely
   receiving help and deliverance from Him, to help Him, as it were, in
   the first place, by making their voices heard in opposition to the
   demand of the angry crowd. You see here, my friends, how it is not
   infrequently with many people. Some prospective undertaking of an
   individual or of a community appears to us in the highest degree
   desirable and profitable, perhaps even necessary, to prepare the way
   for and to support what most concerns ourselves. We long for the moment
   when they will begin their operations, we receive the first indications
   of it with rejoicing and exultation, we set ourselves in readiness to
   apply the hoped-for help to our own uses, and then we join in the cause
   itself with all our might. But if, meanwhile, the enterprise itself
   come into danger; if those in whom we hoped meet with difficulties and
   opposition, and seem to be themselves in need of help; then we become
   doubtful, and think that in those who are themselves in want of our
   help there cannot surety be the power that we supposed to help us; we
   think we must have been mistaken, and are quite rejoiced that we have
   been warned at the right time and have discovered our mistake. But is
   not this a very strange way of thinking, opposed to universal
   experience and to the first principles of all human action? Is there
   any power in human affairs except by the union of human faculties? Is
   there any kind of help and support that should not be mutual? Can any
   one receive help in any way, whether from friendship, or through family
   connections, or by the public authority, if he has not him self without
   intermission upheld and maintained those very powers? Is it not,
   therefore, the greatest folly if, instead of supporting with all our
   might that from which we expect good--as the friends of the Saviour
   ought to have showed publicly that the voice of His accusers was by no
   means the voice of the whole people--if, instead of this, we think that
   there can certainly be no help and deliverance for us in what will
   perhaps perish if we ourselves do not support it? Did not the Saviour
   for this very reason come in the form of a servant, was He not tempted
   in all things like as we are, that we might understand that God will
   bestow everything on us only in a human way; that is, growing up
   gradually from a feeble beginning that stands in need of help?

   But, in the second place, it is certainly still worse if the fickleness
   arises from the fact that it is just we ourselves who ought to afford
   help to what we have counted good and excellent; if it is when the
   consummation is to be reached perhaps in doubtful, unpromising
   circumstances, that the firmness of our resolutions is lost; in short,
   if a timid disposition or cowardice is the source of our instability.
   That was certainly the case with many who, when they shouted their
   Hosannas to the Saviour, had firmly resolved to join Him and share His
   fate; who at that time were not intimidated by the well-known hatred of
   the upper classes towards Him, but intended nobly and gloriously to
   maintain that struggle together with Him; but now, when it was actually
   begun, they drew back. And how often do we meet with the same spectacle
   in individuals among men who have recognised what is good. At a
   distance, opposition, struggles, self-sacrifice cannot alarm them; but
   when the moment conies they lose heart; anxiety and misgiving master
   the weak mind, and instead of saying to themselves, The thing you meant
   to do is still right and good, but you are too timid, too feeble, too
   weak of will to carry it out, you have given yourself credit for what
   you are not capable of doing;--instead of this, the desponding heart
   abuses and deceives the understanding and poisons the judgment with
   worthless fancies, as if what had formerly been aimed at with lively
   zeal were neither so good nor so necessary a thing as had then been
   supposed; as if beneficent time had now for the first time revealed the
   true nature of the case. Oh, my friends, I cannot begin to tell what
   deep debasement there is in this condition; with what compassion,
   bordering on contempt, noble and strong souls look down on it, and how
   they grieve or reproach themselves for having perhaps reckoned more on
   us unstable ones than the Saviour did on the men of His time. And how
   much shame do we prepare for ourselves if that from which we in our
   cowardice drew back, is yet splendidly carried out! how much reproach
   if, just because of our cowardly instability, it is discontinued! For
   we are not, of course, to covet that every good work should be done
   through us, and we may rejoice just as deeply in that which, through
   the grace of God, is done by others; but this joy befits only those,
   and in fact they alone share it, who have themselves done all they
   could. And if we are disappointed of something that we had desired as a
   great blessing, there remains to us, it is true, the comfort that all
   is only for the best as the Lord orders it; but this comfort befits
   only those, and they alone actually enjoy it, who have risked
   everything in order to attain what they desired. Shame and confusion,
   on the contrary, on those who are compelled to say to themselves, If
   you had continued steadfast, you might now be among those who are
   thanking God that He has made use of them for the furthering of what is
   good; but now you have done everything that lay with you to hinder it.
   And a burning and grievous sting must be fixed in the hearts of those
   who are obliged to say to themselves, that God will now again prepare
   praise for Himself only out of the mouth of sucklings; that everything
   on which perhaps their hopes, with those of many thousands, were set,
   is again deferred for the next generation; nay, that perhaps only the
   stones are speaking of that which was then undeveloped and went back,
   while free and pious men might be joyfully thanking God if it had been
   accomplished; and that this also is their fault. For where an unstable
   disposition gains the upper hand, there the little number of the good
   and strong labour in vain for the present, and none but babes, who are
   witnesses of the great fault without sharing in it, dare to hope; when
   faint-hearted hesitation prevents the aim from being promptly met at
   the right moment, then all that men, moved by the presence of what is
   great and divine, have felt, is like sterile blossoms from which there
   remains no fruit. But monuments of ruin will speak; for where precious
   opportunities are missed for the kingdom of God, there ruin breaks in,
   there follow close behind, as they did then, the judgments of God.

   Yes, my friends, unstable souls are like that fig-tree, the account of
   which comes soon after our text, the tree to which, in returning to the
   city next morning from Bethany, the Saviour went to pluck fruit, and
   found nothing but leaves. So also those people, however much
   cultivation has been bestowed on them by the stirring and inspiring
   presence of what is good and beautiful, have never anything to show but
   the barren decoration of fine feelings and high-sounding words. But the
   Saviour's heart was vexed; He said to the tree, Be thou forthwith dried
   up! And what have such people to expect, especially in so decisive a
   time, but that the power that exhausts itself in empty utterances will
   entirely leave them, and nothing but the outward life remain, as a
   warning monument.

   Let every one then, trembling at the thought of such results, strive to
   have his heart kept steadfast, to be ready at any cost to cleave to
   what he has recognised as true and right. And that we may be able to do
   this, oh let us be branches in our vine, the Lord, so pervaded by His
   Spirit and His presence, that, far from being sounding brass or
   tinkling cymbals, we may enjoy the living faith that makes no
   difficulty about mountains being removed, and the living love of which
   our eternal fountain is the Lord, who clung even to the weak disciples
   with heartfelt fidelity, and bound them together, as may He also bind
   us, to loyalty in life and in death. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

VI.

FORGIVENESS AND LOVE.

    TEXT: LUKE vii. 36-50.

   HOWEVER much admiration and honour was given to our Saviour by many of
   His contemporaries during His life on earth; however powerfully a yet
   greater number were struck, at least for the moment, by His exalted
   character; still just His greatest words and His noblest deeds often
   remained dark even to the noblest and best around Him, and seemed to
   the rest a piece of insolent pretension. When He spoke of His eternal
   relation to the Eternal Father, even His more intimate disciples asked
   in childish perplexity, Lord, show us the Father; while the mass of the
   people were shocked at His words as at a blasphemy. When He spoke to an
   unfortunate the great word, Go, thy sins are forgiven thee, they
   murmured among themselves and said, Who is this that forgiveth sins?

   And even the ideas they had of Him were inconsistent with each other.
   Daily they heard from Him and His disciples that He had come to set up
   the kingdom of God: could they wonder, then, that Ho who affirmed this
   of Himself, also claimed the right to forgive sins? Could they believe
   in the possibility of a kingdom of God in which the great word, Thy
   sins are forgiven, would not be spoken to every one belonging to it?
   Did they believe that through their sacrifices they found forgiveness
   of sins, although no power could proceed from them to elevate and
   advance men so far that they should not be always needing forgiveness
   anew and as much as ever; and yet did it seem to them a strange thing
   that now at last this greatest and most comforting of all assurances so
   necessary to them, should proceed from the depths of this divine heart,
   from Him who so mightily moved the souls of men?

   We all feel that true love to the Saviour could have struck no deep
   roots in hearts that could so marvel.

   It is of course different with us, my Christian friends. We acknowledge
   Him as our Mediator with His and our Father, through union with whom
   the forgiveness of sins comes to us once for all, and who pronounces it
   to us ever anew in His word, and by the special manner of His presence
   with believers. But while those people long ago asked, Who is this that
   forgiveth sins? it well befits us to raise the question, Who are we to
   whom sin is forgiven?--are we, at least, in so far worthy of this great
   word that we thoroughly feel its deep meaning and that it stirs us to
   fervent gratitude and love? There is an idea very common among
   us,--which has indeed its true side, and which is founded on living
   faith,--that if we have once found the way of salvation we should no
   longer let our thoughts dwell on the weakening and tormenting sense of
   sin; but that when it is confessed and put away by repentance and
   faith, it should only serve in the way of instruction and warning; that
   we should then go forward with alacrity and courage in the work of
   establishing, specially on this foundation, our relationship of love
   and fellowship \vith the Saviour, as the power for a life more
   honouring to Him flows ever more abundantly into our souls from His
   word, from His memorial, and from His image present to our minds. This
   is all quite true; but the one view must not exclude the other, and
   there is certainly great danger of our relation to the Saviour losing
   its distinctive character if this thought does not keep a lasting hold
   of our hearts, that it is He who speaks to us the great word, Go, thy
   sins are forgiven thee. For He Himself makes this very consciousness at
   once the ground and the measure of the love that we are able to give
   Him, and that love is certainly the source of the power that proceeds
   from Him.

   The simple and touching narrative of our text has never failed to take
   a wonderful hold of every heart not utterly in capable of feeling. In
   reading it we cannot but be struck afresh with the sense of how
   glorious a thing it is to be drawn to the Saviour by a feeling of one's
   own lost condition; and every one must recognise the profound truth of
   the direct application which the Saviour makes of the incident, when
   contrasting the weeping woman who was a sinner with the righteous man
   whose guest He was. But the broader inference which our Lord finally
   draws from it has always seemed, to many minds, questionable and
   obscure. Let us therefore, for the present, confine our attention to
   these last words, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she
   loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little."
   Let us consider the universal connection between the forgiveness of sin
   and love, as here laid down by the Saviour. Let us note how the conduct
   of this woman bears on the relation of men to the Saviour, and how all
   the lessons of the narrative serve first of all to illustrate this;
   while at the same time there are allusions throughout to everyday human
   relationships, and the Saviour states His main principle in quite a
   general way. Let us, therefore, consider first our common relation to
   Christ, and then our ordinary brotherly relationships with each other.

   I. First, then, as to our common relation to the Saviour. Can we accept
   as universally true this principle which He lays down, Her sins, which
   are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is
   forgiven, the same loveth little? Serious difficulties have in fact
   been raised as to the first part of the statement. Thus, when the
   Saviour says, She has been forgiven much, for she loved much, He takes
   the love as the ground of the forgiveness, and so, in fact, places love
   in the position of claiming forgiveness--even much forgiveness; which
   will yet be granted for the sake of the love. But he who needs much
   forgiveness must of course have sinned much. Then is love--at once the
   deepest and inmost source and the richest and purest outcome of every
   thing good and noble--always to spring out of evil? is sin to be the
   soil that yields the largest returns, from which good grows the most
   richly and produces the noblest fruits? And if love is the only true
   virtue--the sum of all the commandments of God--then must not all sins
   just amount to this, that love is wanting in a man's heart? But how can
   you reconcile these things? The more a man needs forgiveness, you say,
   and therefore the more he has sinned--that is, the further his heart is
   from love, the deeper he is sunk in lovelessness and selfishness--is he
   just so much the more able to love? Is he to be made capable of love by
   its very absence?

   Now, how shall we answer such objections? Simply by what experience
   teaches us. For what, in fact, does produce more love--above all such
   love as comes from the gratitude of the needy--than a keenly felt sense
   of need so entirely possessing a man's heart that he is conscious only
   of the one longing for help and deliverance, and then his actual
   experience of deliverance? The very name Jesus, Saviour, implies that
   our love shall be of this kind. The power of sin creates such a sense
   of need. And when is this great word, Thy sins are forgiven thee,
   spoken to a man? When can he receive it? Not until his heart, long as
   it may have been hardened, opens at last to the eternal light; and the
   more clearly a man recognises, in that light, his own position, just so
   much the greater must be his sense of the misery from which he longs to
   be delivered. And it is thus--with this feeling of the guilt of a heart
   that has become a stranger to love--with this longing to escape from
   the consciousness of condemnation--that every one who for the first
   time seriously and truly estimates what is meant by being a Christian,
   comes to the Saviour. And ever as he sees things more clearly in the
   eternal light of truth, he becomes more fully conscious that, if he is
   to be forgiven at all, he must be forgiven much. And in order to the
   full strength of this conviction, and through it to the man's
   capability of grateful love, there is no need, as objectors fear, that
   a man should be guilty of great and open sins, of extraordinary and
   heinous offences; as if the more sins a man should commit, it were the
   better for him. There is nothing whatever in the words of the Saviour
   to imply that the power of loving belongs pre-eminently to him who has
   made himself preeminently a mark for the scorn of the world. Christ
   simply means to deal with the Pharisee according to his capacity for
   understanding; and therefore He sets before him one man who owes a
   certain sum and another who owes ten times as much, and bids him decide
   which will be the most grateful for the remission of the debt. But if
   we examine this story of His in a spirit of simple desire for truth,
   and with the honest purpose of discriminating between the mere external
   and the spiritual, can we really believe that the greatness of the debt
   is meant to figure a great amount of specially aggravated sins? For the
   person who has contracted a small debt may have just as far exceeded
   his means, and may have just as carelessly overlooked the impossibility
   of restitution, as another who contracts a great one. He must then,
   naturally, be as grateful as the other for remission. And, just so, the
   same amount of guilt may attach to very different amounts of sin; and
   he who, tried by the mere external test of the world, is pronounced
   pure, may have as much to be forgiven as he who, to the world's eyes,
   seems laden with sins. But we may be very sure that the Saviour did not
   mean to measure the need of forgiveness by any such external rule; and
   it is just as certain that the mind has no measure by which to estimate
   spiritual corruption, either when we compare men with each other or
   with the purity of the Saviour. What can we conclude then, but that by
   these different amounts of debt the Saviour means to indicate the
   different degrees of the sense of sin? And thus shall we see this,
   first of all, to be no more than true, To whom much is forgiven, the
   same will love much; he who has seen deep and clearly into the abyss of
   his sinful heart, will cling with proportionate gratitude to Him who
   has delivered and raised him up.

   But on the other hand the Saviour is entirely right when He inverts the
   statement, and says, Much is forgiven to her, for she loved much. For,
   my friends, how do we attain to the pardon of that for which we must be
   forgiven, be it much or little? Is it not those very people who find
   the greatest difficulty in the declaration of our Lord, who also say
   most confidently that God can only forgive, and in point of fact does
   only forgive, when a man is firmly resolved on a new life, and has set
   out in the way of holiness?

   But is it of any use to think of holiness if we are not thoroughly
   convinced of the opposition between good and evil? and will holiness
   not advance the more steadily just in proportion to the abhorrence with
   which each one regards the evil of which all, including himself, have
   so much to be forgiven? And if the life of God to which holiness leads
   is a life of love, then the sense of forgiveness cannot awake in the
   heart until the stream of Divine love which accompanies the forgiveness
   has begun to work its way through the hardened crust of the heart, and
   the living water to flow in; and the heart in which this fountain of
   love flows abundantly is, without doubt, the heart to which comes most
   strongly the glad assurance that much is forgiven.

   And now we can quite simply take up the other half of the Saviour's
   declaration, But to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little,
   without any stirring of anxious doubts or misgivings, as if it implied
   that it was an advantage to have sinned more than others; as if grace
   could go forth most powerfully only on him in whom sin had been
   mightiest; as if he who, while still far from the life of God, was
   restrained, possibly by some mere external check, from plunging deep in
   the slough of sensuality, should now, as if in punishment of that
   abstinence, be able to attain only to a low degree of the spiritual
   life; and as if this statement offered a dangerous incentive to
   hardened and obdurate sinners to persist in their sins; or, as the
   apostle expresses it, to continue in sin that grace may abound; giving
   themselves up utterly to their lusts and passions in order that there
   may be a deeper repentance and therefore a higher measure of gratitude
   when the hour of grace arrives. All this is mere vain and empty talk.
   He to whom much is forgiven is not he who has sinned much, but he who
   feels that, in this respect, the difference among men as a whole is not
   so great as we foolishly imagine, and that one has little honour above
   another so long as all lack the honour that comes from God. It is he,
   in short, who, in his own sin, mourns over all sin the sin of the whole
   world; who bathes the feet of the Saviour with his tears, and pours
   forth on Him the fragrant ointment of a grateful and lowly heart. He to
   whom little is forgiven is not he who has sinned little--for who indeed
   could stand forth and say, It is I--but he who still thinks too lightly
   of his sin, perhaps because, unconsciously, he is unwilling to owe too
   much to the grace of God in Christ.

   Such a man was the Pharisee who had invited Christ, but in the worldly
   wisdom of a cold heart still doubted His being a true prophet, and who
   was afraid of showing the Saviour too much honour, even in his own
   house.

   And just such as he are all who wish to come to the Saviour, not with
   the grateful love of the needy, not with the humble love of the
   outcast, but with the easy, complaisant love of one who, in the
   strength of his own excellence, can easily afford to acknowledge the
   excellence and godliness that shine forth from Christ.

   And such are all those who readily admit the Saviour's claim to
   gratitude for bringing blessing to mankind, but are not willing to
   admit that it was necessary in their own case that this blessing should
   begin with their being rescued from a state of degradation and ruin. To
   all such, little is forgiven, and so they love little. Either they have
   little love, little heart or feeling in any direction, or it goes out
   chiefly on mere earthly things. Lukewarm is their love to the Saviour.
   Since there is really such a Saviour, they keep up a connection with
   Him; but in their innermost heart they think they could perhaps do very
   well without Him. Lukewarm too is their interest in His work. For they
   do not perceive that all coldness of feeling, all stupid indifference
   to what is good, all slothful relaxing in our efforts to please God,
   are really sins; and therefore it is easy for them to boast that little
   has been forgiven them.

   But the true love of the really godly takes quite another view. In the
   consciousness of our calling, made clear to us only in Him, in the
   thought of our vows so often made to Him, how can we but feel that to
   us much has been for given, and that there must always be much to
   forgive.

   II. Let us, in the second place, apply these words of the Saviour to
   our brotherly relations with each other. We are justified in doing
   this, because He Himself, in the lesson of our text, chooses such a
   human relation, though but a very external and slight one, to
   illustrate the relation of His people to Himself; and still further
   because He, who has manifested Himself to all in order to say to them,
   Thy sins are forgiven thee, does not shrink from even then calling us
   brethren.

   It is true, indeed, that in our relation to the Saviour, this
   connection between forgiveness and love is, in two aspects, one-sided.
   It is only we who are forgiven, while it is He alone who forgives; and
   again, it is only we who love because much is forgiven us, while He, on
   the other hand, loves because He has forgiven much; because the
   consciousness of having raised us up and united us to the Father
   commends us ever anew to His love.

   But in our relation to our brethren the bond is reciprocal. We are
   forgiven, and therefore we love; we forgive others, and therefore also
   we love them; and for the same twofold reason do our brethren love us.
   If the mutual forgiveness is large and generous, so must the love be
   that springs from it; if it is small, the love will also be poor and
   lukewarm. Yes, my friends, in every relation of life we must feel this,
   that much is forgiven us because we have loved much--that we love
   little, if little is forgiven us. Look at the dearest and closest
   relationships; those with husband or wife, with children, with brothers
   and sisters, with all whom God has laid specially on our hearts, and
   made the objects of our warmest love. Which of us can boast that in
   these relationships we have sinned little, and that little has been
   forgiven us? Oh, consider what life is, with all our variable moods,
   our little unfairnesses, our never-ceasing battle against selfish ways
   and cowardly sloth; and you will feel constrained to confess that it is
   only those who love little to whom little is forgiven; those who are
   satisfied with what can be measured by a mere external and legal
   standard. But he who requires of himself what the Spirit in His fulness
   can accomplish--and how much that is, the spirit of love alone can
   estimate; he who longs for the good of those whom God has given him
   just as he longs for his own; in a word, he who loves much;--oh, how
   often will he find cause to entreat for patience and forbearance; how
   deeply will he feel that to him much must be forgiven.

   But just because all who live with him know so well the deep-seated
   principle of his loving character; because in presence of this
   master-feeling all roughnesses are smoothed away, all vexations
   vanish;--for these very reasons he meets with patience and forbearance;
   and much is forgiven to him, because he loves much.

   And just so it is in all the less intimate social relations among men.
   He who is content with standing in no one's way, injuring no one,
   neglecting nothing that the rules of a correct life can demand, may
   readily suppose that there is little to be forgiven him; but then he
   loves little. He who, on the other hand, lays himself out to exert a
   kindly and cheering influence on the lives of others,--how many sins of
   omission, how many moments of lazy indifference or cold reserve will he
   have to reproach himself with! But if men are only aware that this is
   the ruling principle of his life, if they feel how much he loves, and
   see how much ho lovingly accomplishes, then much is forgiven to him.

   Let us think of what we owe to the fathers, the sons, and the servants
   of our country. How common it is among us to think that only he who has
   been guilty of glaring offences against these relationships needs
   forgiveness. But, alas, how little love there is! How does each of us,
   under cover of external laws, seek only his own advantage!

   Oh that the hard crust of the heart were shattered, and that in the
   pure vital air, real, unrestrained love might burst forth into a flame!
   How would the scales then fall from our eyes! how clearly should we
   then see how infinitely much we all need to be forgiven! but at the
   same time how surely would the sense of a free, full life of love bring
   to us forgiveness and oblivion of all the past.

   Let us think of our special connection with those to whom we are united
   by the common bond of faith and of the forgiveness obtained for us by
   Christ. How much more we could do to purify and strengthen this holy
   bond, by teaching, by help, and by example; how much more in the way of
   finding out and helping forward everything good, and in sifting out and
   suppressing the evil; how much more by counsel and comfort, by
   forbearance and long-suffering, to be representatives of Jesus! How
   much we have to be forgiven! and yet how plain it is that nothing but
   love--the earnest longing and effort always to do more and to be
   more--can cover the multitude of sins. But think also how much this
   bond of believers itself, so to speak, forgives; how it acknowledges us
   notwithstanding our weaknesses; how from it the strength of our oneness
   in spirit and faith flows into our inmost being and draws us towards
   the holiness which is our goal.

   On the other hand, my friends, how can we as believers--as those who
   are strong in love and faith--shut our eyes to the fact that others
   stand to us and to a whole community of men, so far as we represent it,
   in the same relation which we ourselves bear to the whole Church and to
   Christ, her Head? Well, once more, then, let us forgive much, that from
   this cause we may be able to love much and to be much loved! Let us
   reflect how Christ's forgiveness acts on the feelings; how not those
   whose closed eyes He opened, not those whom He healed of grievous
   infirmities, not even those whom He awakened from physical death, clung
   to Him with such fervent gratitude, or received from Him so lasting a
   gift of love, as they to whom He could say, Go in peace; thy sins are
   forgiven thee. And so it is among ourselves. All other benefits and
   gifts that we can bestow have less power to strengthen the bond of love
   than gentle sympathy with the inmost feelings, helpful support given to
   the weak, restoring and raising up and comforting the fallen and
   penitent. That was the brightest glory of the Saviour, of whom the seer
   under the old covenant foretold, the bruised reed shall He not break,
   and the smoking flax shall He not quench. Oh, how many such do we see
   around us here! Let us bind up every bruised reed with a tender hand;
   let us gently breathe the breath of love on the expiring spark, if by
   any means we may revive it; that so we may draw the closer to Him, and
   feel how blessed are those who gain from Him the name of brethren, and
   that we may be able to pray with truth, Forgive us, as we forgive.
   Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

VII.

ON MARRIAGE.

    TEXT: EPH. v. 22-31.

   IN completing lately the annual round of our Christian holy-days, I
   expressed to you the wish that the holy emotions which our hearts
   experience at such seasons might not pass away with them; but that the
   impressions then made might accompany us during the other half of the
   year, so that without any extraordinary festival incitement we might
   constantly retain a more lively sense of communion with the Redeemer,
   and a fuller enjoyment of what the eternal Father has done through Him.
   Now if we find that this is not the case, and inquire for the reason,
   we usually hear this answer, That it is the pressure of daily life that
   continually draws us back from elevating communion with God into the
   tumult of the world. And yet, my friends, what constitutes the life on
   which we would so fain lay the blame of our waning feelings of
   devotion, of our instability and our transient impressions? It
   consists, in fact, of just those natural relations which God the Lord
   Himself has established, out of which the Christian community must be
   built up, and in which, in their turn, all the blessings of true
   Christian piety are to take root, that they may be more and more widely
   extended. How then can this life draw us away from communion with God
   and the Saviour, when it is really His own holy body winch ought to be
   thoroughly pervaded by His own living power? If this does take place,
   must it not be because we have lost sight of the real meaning of these
   relationships, or because vain and false ideas that have become
   associated with them have hidden from us their true nature?

   I have therefore thought it might not be superfluous to take a survey
   of the most important of our life-relationships, and to study them in
   the glass of the divine Word, in order both to revive in our minds the
   Christian meaning of them, and that we may more consciously realize
   that, far from drawing us back from communion with God and devoted love
   to the Saviour, they are fitted greatly to confirm those graces in
   ourselves and through us to call them forth in others.

   We will begin this series of meditations with the relation ship which
   is the foundation of all others, namely, the holy bond of marriage,
   which we must regard as the first appointment of God after His almighty
   Word had called man into existence. Out of this sacred union are
   developed all other human relations; on it rests the Christian family,
   and of such Christian families Christian communities consist. Moreover,
   on this union depends the propagation of the human race, and the
   transmitting of the power of the divine Word from one generation to
   another. Therefore let us to day consider this foundation of the whole
   Christian Church in the light of God's Word.

   The leading idea in this representation of Christian marriage is, that
   while the apostle reveals to us the inmost depths of love on which the
   whole fabric of the Church is founded, he at the same time draws our
   thoughts to the holy relationship between Christ and His people. I say
   it is the leading idea; for we thus see clearly that in marriage, as
   the original root of all social life, there should be nothing that
   could draw us away from Christ our Lord; rather we are taught to refer
   everything belonging to it to that great union of our hearts with the
   Saviour. We shall best under stand the apostle's ideal of Christian
   married life by considering two points in his description of it: first,
   an earthly and a heavenly view of it, which are yet one; and secondly,
   a difference which resolves itself into a most perfect likeness.

   I. First, then, let us see how the earthly and the heavenly view of
   Christian marriage which the apostle presents to us are thoroughly one,
   and cannot be separated.

   He gives us first the earthly view in the words, A man shall leave his
   father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be
   one flesh. Certainly it could not be more clearly and strongly set
   before us than in these words, and we could find no clearer rule by
   which to judge of the many and varied phases of the married state which
   we see around us, even in what calls itself refined society. For, alas,
   how often among Christians does marriage assume, even from this earthly
   point of view, a truly dreadful aspect! How often do we see the two who
   should be one giving way to anger against each other, separated by
   dissension and strife, and sometimes even so embittered against each
   other that, instead of trying to avoid quarrels, they wilfully seek out
   occasions for them. In such cases it need not be said that two have not
   become one. Again, how often has the married state a troubled aspect,
   when, for want of any glad assurance of being one in heart, both
   parties keep watchful guard over themselves, seeking by the most
   obliging and compliant manner and behaviour, and by self-denying
   sacrifice, to avoid all occasions for dispute, and trying by the most
   tender considerateness to make up, if possible, for the absence of true
   love. And here also, even if it is only one of the parties who is
   obliged to exercise this self-constraint, while the other is in the
   right position, it is easy to see that the two have not become
   one--that there is no true union, but only a carefully maintained
   contract. Once more, how often has marriage a repulsive aspect, when
   married people live, it is true, in peace and harmony, but only because
   in course of time they have become accustomed to each other, and
   because, while they make as little demand as possible on each other,
   both find their real satisfaction in other relations of life and in
   other companionships! That in a connection so indifferent and dead the
   two are not one flesh is certain, for that implies a living union; and
   it is equally certain that in this case there has been no heart impulse
   constraining to leave father and mother and cleave to husband or wife,
   and that therefore even the earthly side of a Christian marriage is
   wanting. But why should I go on to multiply these illustrations? Let me
   rather say in a word that, in so far as each has separate joys and
   sorrows (even supposing that they have much more regard to the
   interests of each other than to their own); in so far as the wife needs
   to remind herself to be submissive, and the husband to remind himself
   to give honour to the weaker vessel; however faithfully they may obey
   those admonitions of conscience; and in short, wherever there are
   opposing wishes and aims to be adjusted, fully and generously as those
   mental concessions may be carried out; just in so far as these
   conditions exist, the word of the apostle is not yet fulfilled,--the
   love that makes truly one is not and never has been enthroned there.

   But let us suppose that a conjugal union, viewed on its earthly side,
   does fully correspond to the deep meaning of that apostolic word about
   the life that has become one through love; let us suppose that there is
   no need for one of the pair to forget himself or herself out of love
   for the other, because each feels and shares every emotion of the
   other, and a kind of intuitive perception of the wishes on the one side
   inclines the other towards the same objects. Let us suppose that no
   happiness is enjoyed and no pain borne, apart; that the minds arc
   occupied with the same desires and aims, so that they have really one
   common life; and that even if days of adversity come, the consciousness
   of their true heart-union will enable them to bear the trial so well
   and wisely that, when it is past, they will be glad to have gone
   through such an experience together. Let there be all this, and so a
   marriage answering, in this aspect, to the word of the apostle; yet, if
   it is nothing more than this, we can hardly venture to hope that it
   will continue to be even thus. Rather we should be ready to fear that,
   as is too often the case, this beautiful harmony was only the effect of
   the first glow of affection, which might gradually die away as the more
   lively emotion gave place to a tranquil and customary state of feeling.
   A union like this is indeed rare and beautiful; and much good, in many
   ways, may result from it; but if this earthly perfection is not founded
   on something greater, it still lacks its true proportion, and the
   marriage still fails to correspond with the picture which the apostle
   has drawn for us, because there is still wanting the resemblance to the
   union of Christ with His Church.

   For this is the other side of the apostle's picture; setting before us
   Him who so loved the Church that He gave Himself for it, that He might
   sanctify and cleanse it.

   Here, then, is the heavenly side of Christian marriage union; its
   higher aim is that each should sanctify and be sanctified by the other.
   Without this aim, even that perfect harmony that we have described is
   so wanting in an adequate object, that it can hardly fail to be
   resolved back into nothing. And what gain worth reckoning could come
   from a life-fellowship so narrow that it could only be nourished or
   exercised in connection with outward life ? The twofold life would in
   that case be no better than the single. Where married life is such as
   this--regular, pure, cultured, it may be, but still, when weighed in
   the Christian balance, only sensuous, and in the highest sense of the
   word, unspiritual--we cannot count the difference so very great,
   whether it is lived by each separately, or by the two for each other
   and unitedly; nor can that union deserve the high honour which is here
   put on marriage by the apostle. The results of conjugal love in such a
   marriage are no doubt great and beautiful. It makes a cheerful and
   pleasant life even when there are few external helps; it makes it easy
   to be tranquil on all occasions of difficulty and vexation. But for us
   Christians this is not enough. Things are only right when all the
   faculties and energies of the human soul thus developed are at once
   instruments of the divine Spirit, and, in order to continue such, find
   their own natural key, and keep it steadily in tune. For if in a
   thoroughly Christian marriage we had no other joy than this, that it
   exhibited to us a harmonious play of natural powers, and if this were
   the highest end of conjugal love, I could find there no resemblance to
   the relationship between Christ and His Church. Married love is
   Christian only when each party receives a spiritual stimulus from the
   other; when that which, in the nature of the one, is opposed to the
   influence of the Spirit, is restrained and softened by the other; when
   each, if inclined to grow weak in this direction, is lifted up arid sup
   ported by the other; when both see more clearly through the eyes of
   each other how they stand as to their fellowship with God; in short,
   when both parties feel the power of the Spirit exalted and enhanced in
   this union as it could be in no other way. Where the manifold blessings
   which God has associated with this union are thus experienced and
   enjoyed in all their warmth and fulness, riot in a mere earthly way,
   but each heart saying from its depths, Our conversation in in heaven;
   where love to each other is thus hallowed by mutual, higher love to the
   Saviour, so that the wife can say to her husband, You are to me as
   Christ is to the Church, and the husband to the wife, You are to me as
   the Church is to Christ; where this love is always growing stronger, as
   experience proves that with their strength united both make more rapid
   progress towards their common aim of holiness; there, my friends, is
   the heavenly side of Christian marriage. And of such marriages we may
   say with truth that they were decreed in heaven; for it has been by the
   mysterious drawing of the Spirit Himself that the wife has been guided
   to her husband and the husband to his wife; the unaccountable
   conviction which is daily more clearly proved to have been true, that
   each has been predestined as specially belonging to the other, as the
   most peculiar blessing and the most helpful companion on their common
   way. But where these things are wanting, beautiful and commendable as
   every thing else may be, there must be wanting also the true fidelity
   and security, and with those, the true Christian value of married life.

   But if that earthly part of which we have spoken is nothing without the
   heavenly, it is equally true that the heavenly part cannot do without
   the earthly, without the closest fellowship in the pleasures and pains,
   the cares and the work of this world.

   It is an old delusion, already long recognised as such among us, but in
   earlier times very common in the Christian Church, that the Christian
   who wished to give himself up to the influences of the Spirit, to
   obtain the salvation of his soul, and to win even in this life
   something higher than its transitory things, could do no better than to
   withdraw him self as far as possible from the world, and to flee at
   once from its pleasures and its business, its sufferings and its cares.
   From this delusion--as if the heavenly could exist and dwell in this
   world apart from the earthly--arose that long-continued and mistaken
   habit of looking down on this holy state; a habit which was the cause
   of so much confusion and vice; and now, after we have so long been
   aware that no one is so good as to be above this God-appointed means of
   grace, why should we again surround it with this delusion? And yet this
   is done when it is asserted that, though it would not be justifiable in
   a single man, yet a united pair would have the most perfect right,
   because each found sufficiency in the other, to separate themselves as
   far as possible from the world, and retire from it for the sake of each
   other. It is a reviving of this delusion to suppose that by a
   many-sided, active life, the bond of conjugal love is not sanctified,
   but desecrated; not enriched, but robbed of a great part of the joys
   designed for it. A dangerous mistake! for even the deepest love can
   only make men capable of good and purify them from evil in proportion
   as it strives to fulfil its whole duty, and shuns no part of its
   vocation; and two human beings united by God can only be sufficient for
   each other in so far as a life of activity brings to each the
   temptations and trials against which they need respectively to guard,
   and sharpens the eyes of both to search into the depths of their hearts
   and bring hidden things to light. A questionable fancy at the same
   time, because even in the most beloved ones we can only have lasting
   joy and pleasure when we see them in the active exercise of their
   natural faculties, so that when time has stripped off its early
   blossoms we see the ripening fruits of the life. And how very far this
   delusion is from being sanctioned by the apostle's words! For when he
   points us to the connection between Christ and the Church, is that
   union in any sense identified with a morbid, contemplative life? Must
   it not have cost the Lord toil to take captive all those thousands? And
   is not His Church made up of servants who are blessed only when the
   Lord finds them watching at every hour? And when the apostle bids the
   wives be subject to their husbands, has he in his eye that modest,
   retiring spirit, which makes the distinction between command and
   obedience naturally disappear, while every desire to rule might be only
   a groundless whim about little or nothing? No; undoubtedly he was
   thinking of the necessary relations in which every Christian home
   stands to the larger economy of the community with which it is
   associated; in which the husband alone represents the household, and in
   relation to which it is therefore he who must act, while the wife takes
   part, not directly, but only through her connection with her husband.
   And in laying down as a rule the position that naturally results from
   this, the apostle shows us that it is God's, will that each Christian
   household should form a part of that wider association, and fill its
   place in it by fitting and honour-able work. Therefore, without regard
   to their different positions, or to the greater or less facility with
   which in union they can avoid hard work, each pair entering on the
   married state is reminded of the divine rule, that the man is to eat
   bread in the sweat of his brow, and that it is appointed to the woman,
   not only to bear children with sorrow, but with the most earnest and
   diligent solicitude to tend and minister to them and to the whole
   household.

   And let us by no means regard this as a matter of necessity, or as an
   interruption to our spiritual enjoyments, which God has appointed on
   account of our weakness, lest they should grow commonplace to us and
   lose their value. It is only in common, social life that men's
   happiness and well-being have room to grow, and only by a judicious
   division of work that each becomes most distinctly conscious of his own
   powers; and so also it is only through this divine arrangement that we
   find out what special gifts the Spirit of God has created in each
   family, and both husband and wife, earnestly working together at their
   everyday duty, at once find out what is their own work, and enjoy their
   work in the vineyard of the Lord.

   II. I have thus laid before you various considerations, in order to
   prove that if we are to experience the power and blessing of Christian
   marriage we must not try to maintain the heavenly aspect of it to the
   exclusion of the earthly. But these same considerations lead us to the
   second point which I desire you to notice, namely, that while there is
   in these two sides of marriage a great apparent dissimilarity, it is
   needful that we be convinced that even this dissimilarity resolves
   itself into the most perfect likeness.

   Look first at the dissimilarity. When the apostle says husbands are to
   love their wives as Christ loved the Church, we know that this is a
   love which not only permits but requires love in return, seeing how
   constantly we are exhorted to love Him who has first so greatly loved
   us; but we know also that it is from another point of view a love that
   is raised far above all reciprocal love, seeing that the Church cannot
   in any way repay Christ her Redeemer, and can do nothing for Him, but
   only go on receiving from Him a more and more complete redemption. Now
   if, in the same way, the wife can do nothing for her husband, but be
   always receiving from him, then the wife is in a bad case as regards
   her husband, and the woman is always placed at a disadvantage. And
   again, when we read that the wife is to be subject to her husband as to
   the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is of the
   Church; then if the wife is to be always subject and the husband alone
   may command--as unquestionably the Church can never in any sense
   command Christ, but He must always continue to be absolutely Master--in
   this light also the wife is in a bad position in relation to her
   husband. And we husbands might seem to have just as little reason to be
   satisfied with the position here assigned to us, well aware as we are
   that we cannot worthily fill such a position, and that the more
   spiritual the marriage union is seen to be, the less room have we for
   the proud assumption that we have got so far in advance of our wives as
   Christ is above the Church. But neither could we be satisfied with what
   some say; that as this epistle was written in a time when the marriage
   union was only beginning to be understood as a union of holy love, and
   when women still had a much inferior position to men, therefore the
   language must be taken less exactly, and in a somewhat different
   meaning, so as to be adapted to present times. For we could not be
   willing to have the meaning of anything changed that we find in God's
   word; nor can we allow ourselves to under stand the language less
   exactly, lest by sophistry and vain interpretation we miss the true
   comfort which that divine Word contains. Therefore let us rather try to
   penetrate still more deeply into the meaning of these words, and in
   order that we may succeed in doing so we must study them in their right
   connection.

   Taking first the words to the wives--that they be subject to their
   husbands, and that the husband is the head of the wife--let us set
   alongside of them those other words which recall to us the Scripture
   narrative of the first institution of this holy union, that a man shall
   leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife. How clearly
   do these words, which describe the universal divine order, point to a
   power going forth from the feminine nature which takes possession of
   and masters the man. As soon as a man is in a position to leave his
   father's house, justified by education and religion in beginning an
   independent life, he seeks for himself a wife; he seeks, but woe to him
   if he chooses merely according to his own will, whether he is led by
   some prudent calculation, or in the self-will of impatient passion
   seizes on the object of his choice. No security has he in this way that
   he has found her with whom he can enter on the true life of love;
   nothing that guarantees to him an attachment that will compensate him
   for all that he leaves and gives up. If he is to cleave to his wife, a
   power must proceed from her that keeps so firm a hold of him that he
   feels every desire satisfied, every longing stilled; and it must be
   this same power that at first unconsciously attracts and captivates
   him. And when the wife pronounces the Yes, by which the man becomes her
   head--a freely spoken Yes, without which no man can become the head of
   his wife in Christian communion--she feels that, according to the
   universal order and special counsel of God, he has become her head,
   through an unconscious and involuntary exercise of that power which
   dwells in her; she feels that, for their whole life together, true
   Christian fidelity, full unweakened affection depends on the continued
   operation of this power, which raises a Christian marriage union out of
   the region of change and accident, and shows it as an eternal work of
   the eternal Love, worthy to stand among the holiest and greatest of
   such works.

   Therefore the divine rule, that the wife shall be subject to her
   husband, and the husband the head of the wife, stands unchanged, and it
   certainly could not be changed by us with impunity; it stands, because
   it is only in the Christian Church and in a civilized community that
   there can be a Christian marriage; and in both of these it is the part
   of the man, to whom God has assigned the binding word and the public
   deed, to represent the household; and it is never well if the wife
   takes a direct part in those larger concerns. The rule stands; and yet
   we find no painful contrast with the higher union, but one which
   resolves itself into the most glorious likeness. For if things, even at
   home, in so far as they have more or less bearing on those wider
   connections, are regulated by the husband; if he pursues his daily work
   from home quite alone, without the help and company of his wife, so
   causing to the family some measure of pain and anxiety while providing
   honourably for their comfort; nevertheless, if he always returns with a
   heart cleaving to the wife whom God has given him, according to that
   first divine commandment; if he finds refreshment in his weariness, and
   strength against difficulties in that union of faithful love; then the
   true wife also feels that her power and blessing are in all that he
   does, and orders, and provides; and thus before God and to their own
   consciousness, they still stand equal as in the moment when, through
   that voluntary Yes on either side, the husband became the head of the
   wife, and she became subject to him.

   And now let us look once more at that word, that men are to love their
   wives as Christ loved the Church, in connection with those other words,
   that He is the Saviour of His body, and that He gave Himself for the
   Church that He might sanctify and cleanse it. For when we find how
   often, from the beginning, His Redemption is spoken of in the same
   terms that we have used in picturing the seeking love of the
   husband--for Christ also came to seek;--when we think how, drawn down
   to us by the sole power of love, He left the glory which He had with
   the Father to establish a life and kingdom for Himself on earth; when
   we remember that His own did not first choose Him, but He them, though
   now, it is true, they love Him with all their hearts who first so loved
   them; finally, when we realize that Christ now binds Himself up so
   closely with His people that whatever they ask in His Name He will
   obtain for them from the Father, and that, though separated from them
   in body, He is always with them in Spirit; then wo are powerfully
   struck with the resemblance between this deep, holy mystery of love in
   individual lives and the great mystery of redemption, and we feel that
   we understand the apostle's injunction to husbands to love their wives
   as Christ loves the Church. Are we still inclined to mistake here? to
   feel as if, according to this view, the husband alone must do all, and
   that the wife could as little do anything for him, or be profitable to
   him, as the Church can for Christ? Are the wives, and, for their sakes,
   the husbands, troubled by the thoughts that what we suggested as
   equalizing conditions--the wife refreshing and strengthening her
   husband while he plans and rules--must thus come to nothing? Then let
   us remember that it is impossible that a comparison between Christ and
   men should apply at every point, and of course the relation of wife to
   husband cannot, in every particular, present a parallel to that of the
   Church to Christ. And if we ask, in what special points is this
   possible, and in what not so, we have the answer in these words,--that
   Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her that He might sanctify
   her. The husband is to take this self-sacrificing love as his example;
   gladly returning from his wider circle in the busy world to the quiet
   of his fireside, there to share with the wife of his heart all that is
   purifying or elevating in what he has met with or done or felt. The
   likeness is found, not in this, that Christ is our King (as if implying
   that an exclusive and unlimited authority should belong to the
   husband), but in this, that to the Church, as His body, He is Saviour
   and Redeemer. We know that as our Redeemer He has freed us from
   bondage, for it is the liberty of the children of God to which we are
   redeemed. Let the husband, then, take this freedom-giving love as his
   example, and act as the head of his wife in delivering her from all
   bondage both of heart and life, to which her sex so easily resign
   themselves, in removing out of her way all restrictions, so that the
   power of their united life may have unimpeded exercise in her. Then,
   even on this side, the contrast will pass into likeness; when the
   husband, although the ruling head, not only is in full sympathy with
   the body, but draws the brightest gladness and the most powerful
   stimulus toward everything good from the spiritual freshness and
   healthfulness of her whose life is one with his own. And thus, in their
   life together, will be more and more fully realized that which is only
   promised to the Church in her relation to Christ in the distant future,
   that we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He is; as the
   wife, without leaving her quiet, modest sphere, becomes ever more like
   her husband, because she both understands and influences him in all his
   ways and actions. Daily experience teaches this in Christian marriage
   in the happiest way; and it is thus that our wives enjoy their proper
   share in all that their husbands accomplish or aim at in the different
   spheres of public life.

   If, then, the wife, while she is and must be subject to her husband, is
   made more and more free by him who loves her after the pattern of
   Christ; and the husband, while truly the head, is so only as he cleaves
   to his wife in inviolable fidelity and deepest love; each merging the
   thought of rule on the one side and subordination on the other in the
   nobler and higher sense of a perfect oneness of life; then every
   appearance of difference from the great model disappears, as even the
   apostle himself lost sight of his heavenly and glorious ideas in the
   one thought that two should become one.

   When thus every difference is resolved into the mutual and gladsome
   sense of heart harmony; when to the common life is added a pure
   spiritual union, that gloriously pictures the Saviour's soul-satisfying
   love, raising the soul to fellow ship with God; when the hearts so
   purified feel impelled with increased power to labour earnestly in
   carrying on the work of God in themselves and in those whom He has
   given them, and among whom He has placed them; then, according to the
   mind of the apostle, we have the realized ideal of Christian marriage,
   the foundation stone of the Church of the Redeemer.

   But all these glorious things, and whatever besides may be contained in
   our text, are summed up in another passage of Scripture in the simple
   words, Let marriage be had in honour among all. These words indeed send
   us to self-examination and to humiliation. All the great things that
   the apostle says to us about Christian marriage come just in plain
   words to this, that we be honourable in it. So that wherever in
   marriage the earthly side is not closely joined to the heavenly; where
   both parties do not lend their strength to each other, that both may
   faithfully and perfectly fulfil their vocations; where all distinctions
   are not being constantly equalized into a perfect and conscious unity;
   that marriage is wanting in true honour. Either it has not been
   honourably entered on, and the mutual Yes, instead of being true before
   God, has been an insult to Him; or it has not been honourably
   maintained, one or other having gone back more or less, and certainly
   not unwittingly, from that Yes. And indeed the latter failure naturally
   results from the former; for we find it easy to take back a little from
   a plighted word when it has not been given with a deliberate and
   steadfast purpose. Let all then ponder how much is implied in this,
   that it is only in the Christian sense that the married state can be
   maintained with true honour. In truth it can only be so when both
   husband and wife have received into their hearts our Lord and Master,
   and Ho forms the third in the union consecrated to Him through love.
   For He never goes back from His word, but is ever mindful of His
   promise that wherever two are together in His Name, there will He, in
   whom alone we can be strong and happy, be with them.
     __________________________________________________________________

VIII.

THE CHRISTIAN TRAINING OF CHILDREN.

    TEXT: COL. iii. 21.

   MY devout hearers! Christian families, founded on the holy bond of
   marriage, are appointed, in the divine order of things, to be the
   nurseries of the future generation. It is there that the young souls
   who are to be our successors in cultivating the vineyard of God are to
   be trained and developed; it is there the process is to begin of
   restraining and cleansing away the corruption inherent in them as the
   children of sinful men; there that their earliest longings after
   fellowship with God are to be stirred, and that they are to be fitted,
   by training and exercise, for future usefulness in every good work.
   Therefore what more interesting subject can we consider than this most
   important work of Christian parents? which, however, is not the
   business of parents exclusively. If it were so, the subject would be
   less suitable for us; for we are not all parents who are met here; not
   all even engaged in the training and teaching of children. But in this
   case, as in others, the great, universal law of human life holds good,
   that two or three are not sufficient for the carrying on of a Christian
   work. And therefore the bringing up of children is not the work of the
   parents alone, nor even of the parents in conjunction with those whom
   they have directly engaged to help them in the way of oversight and
   instruction. Rather, because we all live in relations more or less
   intimate with the young, and exercise an influence on them; because it
   deeply concerns us all, as members of the Christian Church, that
   Christian dispositions and faculties should be called forth in them, we
   may correctly say that the bringing up of the younger generation, as a
   whole, is a work that belongs to the whole adult community, and wo are
   all bound to see that our share of the work is of the right kind.

   But how difficult it seems to treat in a general way a subject like
   this in a manner suitable for a gathering of this kind. For how is it
   possible in a few separate discourses to review in a profitable way so
   wide a field of human wisdom and skill? and what an endless diversity
   of opinions must be taken into account, which would first have to be
   reconciled. However, this is not at all the place for setting forth a
   finished system of human wisdom and art for the training of our
   children. All that we can do is to awaken or confirm in our minds
   convictions of duty which shall lead us, at each moment, to the right
   steps. And when this is all we aim at, we shall be the less disturbed
   by the differing opinions, though they do indeed seem, at first sight,
   to present a difficulty. For some people hold that a man is entirely a
   result of training; that if it is only set about in the right way, and
   each part of the plan exactly calculated and fitted to the rest, one
   may make anything he chooses of any child; may draw forth in him, by
   practice, whatever natural gift he will, and may endue him, by
   instruction, with all kinds of intelligence and skill. Others, on the
   contrary, perhaps as lazy and careless as the first are proud and
   over-confident, maintain that with all our labour and skill we are,
   after all, helpless against the power of nature; that what we have
   built up with long toil is often overthrown with a single blow, when
   the object of our care begins to be more left to himself, and is able
   to give free play to his real nature; and that in reality every one
   must accomplish the work of his own salvation and education, in so far
   as that depends on man. It might, therefore, seem impossible to speak
   with any profit to those two classes of people together. But if I say
   to the latter class, Little as you may promise yourselves from
   training, yet, if you are careful to conduct yourselves according to
   God's will in all your relations with grown-up people, you must be
   still more circumspect in your conduct towards your children, and it is
   only about this we shall speak; and if I say to the former, Much as you
   think you are able to do, even if you think the whole matter lies in
   your hand, yet you will not say that it is a matter of indifference how
   you manage, and all is left to your good pleasure; you will admit that
   there is a will of God, which you must seek to do: and in this both
   parties will be agreed, if they wish to treat the matter in a Christian
   way. And this is the only way in which it can be spoken of here; from
   no other standpoint can we consider any subject. We can only ask, How
   are children to be brought up for God? What, if we do not wish to miss
   this aim, is the will of God for us as regards them; what must we
   chiefly avoid; to what must we give the greatest amount of attention?
   Keeping these points in view, then, let us, with God's help, enter on
   this subject.

   It is somewhat remarkable that the apostle, in speaking here of the
   various relationships of family life, while he treats many other
   relations much more in detail, on the great subject of the training of
   children says absolutely nothing beyond the words we have read. In a
   similar context in the Epistle to the Ephesians, we find, it is true, a
   further exhortation added; but even there it is prefaced by this same
   warning of our text, "Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath."
   This error, then--the only one against which the New Testament
   Scriptures so emphatically warn us--must be, it would seem, that which
   we are above all to guard against in the training of our children;
   indeed, it would almost appear that if we were only watchful enough
   against that, everything else would be of much less consequence. In the
   hope then that we have found the most important point in this lesson,
   let us try to-day to lay to heart this warning, not to embitter our
   children.

   It is evident that, in our relations with the young, we not merely
   give, but receive; that they are given to us by God, not only that we
   may mould and guide them, but that they may be to us a strength and a
   joy. I believe, therefore, that we shall only understand the apostle's
   warning in the full extent of its meaning if we examine, first, what it
   implies as to what we are to be to the children; and secondly, how much
   bearing it has on what the children are to be to the parents.

   I. When, in meditating on our text, I put to myself the question, Why,
   out of all the things to warn us against in connection with the young,
   the apostle should have singled out just this, as of the greatest
   consequence, that they should not be provoked to bitterness? it seemed
   to me this must have been his idea; that, of all treatment, this was
   the most unnatural and the most injurious.

   Man has enemies enough within: corruption of many kinds is deeply
   rooted in the human heart, and sooner or later springs up and manifests
   itself in various forms, according to different natural dispositions.
   And it is a comparatively rare thing that sinful tendencies show
   themselves for the first time in mature life. It is only in rare
   instances that, while much that is good and lovely comes out in the
   character of a child under parental training and teaching, there is no
   indication, however slight, of the depravity that lies hidden in his
   nature, and that this depravity only breaks out suddenly and
   irresistibly when the attractions of a life of excitement and passion
   seize on the soul. Much more usually all the evil tendencies in the
   child's nature will have shown themselves very unmistakably before he
   has exchanged his father's house for the great stage of the world. And
   if during that time he has been watchfully cared for and guarded by
   those under whose authority God and nature have placed him; if every
   influence on his mind has come more or less through the medium of the
   parents, then does it not look very decidedly as if all the vices and
   faults that have crept into his character, having come to light during
   his life with his parents, have done so as the result of that life? I
   feel pretty sure that Christian parents who walk uprightly before God
   will not venture to repel this charge. If dispositions like our own
   have been found in our children, it was the effect of our hurtful
   example; the sin of the old called forth that of the young. Or, if they
   have opposite faults from ours, it is generally resistance of the wrong
   with which our faults threaten them that rouses theirs to activity. How
   often, too, do we see that even the tenderness of parents, when it
   takes a mistaken direction, only promotes the development of wrong
   tendencies and passionate tempers. In all this there is, unhappily,
   sufficient cause of regret and humiliation; and we are not to try to
   excuse it, for we are undeniably in fault, and these things only prove
   how limited are still our attainments in sanctification and wisdom; but
   as we see the fact daily before our eyes, and can only congratulate him
   as happiest to whom it applies least, we must conclude that it is at
   least human and natural. But when children in their daily life with us
   are provoked to bitterness, and the bitterness makes them shrink from
   us, and the shrinking grows to a secret repugnance, with all that such
   a state of feeling necessarily implies; this is a condition of things
   that the apostle could not bear to enlarge on, and nothing can be more
   unnatural. For bitterness, beloved friends, is an emotion in the
   direction of hatred, and therefore contains the possibility of a
   diminution, or rather, to speak plainly, of an extinction (though,
   perhaps, but for the moment) of the children's affection. We were
   lately reflecting on what an unhappy and unnatural state of things it
   is between married people when variance and discord take the place of
   love, or are even found where love still exists. And yet we must
   remember that the marriage union is only entered into after the
   character and tastes on both sides are fully formed; and that there may
   be many things in each of which the other is not aware, which may
   therefore appear unexpectedly and disturb their peace. We must also
   take into account that married pairs have often come from widely
   different circles, and that each of them may easily have habits and
   ideas that are strange to the other, and to which they only gradually
   become accustomed. Bat how entirely different the case is between
   parents and children! The whole being of the child is, in its very
   origin and essence, related to the parents; a thousand resemblances
   declare this to us in the most striking way; and it would seem
   inevitable that every new stage of the child's development must result
   in increasing love and unity of feeling. The child grows up in the
   closest connection with the parents; his earliest glance meets the
   loving eye of the mother; it is her notice that the first bright smile
   of the little one seeks to attract. The first lesson his mother teaches
   him is to know and love his father; and as the young minds expand, they
   cannot but feel more and more how everything comes to them from and
   through their parents. Here, therefore, is the inmost, inviolate
   sanctuary of love; and if here, in children, who are at first all
   clinging affection, there yet arises estrangement, anger, repugnance;
   if the love which can never be uprooted from their hearts, instead of
   being set on those who naturally and by God's appointment are nearest
   to thorn, turns away to other objects, so that they can bear from
   others what from their parents would embitter them; this is surely the
   most unnatural outcome that could be from the home training. And in the
   same way it is unnatural, though in a different degree, when children
   become embittered against other grown-up people who take a part in
   their training, and have an influence on their lives. For though those
   persons have not so close a natural relation to them, the children are
   given to their care by the parents; and if they work in harmony with
   the parents they form a part with them of the sacred family circle. The
   child feels himself helped forward and supported by them; and this
   draws forth an attachment strong enough to bear many demands and many
   prohibitions. It is always thus when things take their clear, natural
   course; and the contrary condition always stirs in us a sense of
   repulsion, as from something unnatural.

   And as this is the most unnatural state of things between parents and
   children, it is also the most injurious. It is a responsibility which
   we cannot evade, though it bears less heavily on the more pious and
   experienced and wise among us, that we must, by our own weaknesses and
   faults help to bring out the faulty parts of our children's natural
   characters. It is inevitable, too, that many tendencies may begin to
   take shape in their nature without our at once noticing them, and that,
   even when we do notice them, we may not be able at once to deal with
   them, but must wait until they become outwardly manifest, so that they
   can be pointed out to the children themselves. And when we reach this
   point, the question of the success or failure of our work depends
   entirely on how far they will yield themselves to us to be cured of
   their faults; how far they trust us, and believe that we mean well to
   them and will do well by them, even in many ways that seem hard to
   them. And if at first many things have been neglected, it is well if,
   as soon as our eyes are opened to see what weeds the enemy has sown
   while we slept, we at once set to work heartily, and are sure of
   finding a trustful heart that believes that, if we weep, there must be
   some cause for tears, if we are alarmed, there must be actual danger,
   that if we have recourse to hard measures, it is because milder means
   would not suit the purpose. If this is the case, nothing is lost as
   yet. We have in the reverent confidence of the child an ally in the
   very stronghold which the enemy has seized; and before powers thus
   united he will be compelled to yield. And even if, as it may and often
   does happen, we have entered on a wrong path, still there is nothing
   lost, if at once, when we discover that in labouring against an old
   evil we have called up a new one, we bravely turn round and begin
   again. Time may, of course, be lost; many joys may be lost or
   postponed; but as to the real work of training there is nothing lost;
   for there is no diminution of our power to combat evil in our children
   so long as love remains unchilled and confidence unbroken. But how
   sadly different it is when that which has crept into our children's
   hearts, without our knowledge perhaps, but assuredly not without our
   fault, is a bitter, hostile spirit! What shall give us courage then?
   What confident hope can inspire us? Where are we to begin? If the salt
   has lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? If love has perished
   and confidence is gone, where is the key with which we can once more
   gain admittance to their hearts? where is the rein with which we can
   draw away these young spirits from the path of ruin? It is easy to give
   the answer--unhappily, it is not far to seek for; it may be found in
   many neglected, disorderly families of professing Christians. For if
   the hearts of the children have been embittered against us, so that
   they have learned to shrink from us; if their natural confidence has
   given place to a sullen mistrust--a feeling that we always consider our
   own interests rather than theirs; then there is only one way--and God
   be praised there is still one--by which even this malignant enemy can
   be overcome: it may be, as it were, starved out, by our withholding
   from it all nutriment. Only a long experience of an opposite course of
   conduct on our part, until even the heart that has grown cold and
   suspicious can no longer resist the conviction that our only desire is
   to win it back to us,--only this will gradually banish suspicion, and,
   by making room in the closed heart for love, will give us once more an
   entrance there. It will call for inexhaustible patience, absolute
   self-control, thorough self-denial; it is a tedious and toilsome
   way,--a way which I am persuaded is not followed in every Christian
   home in which the children have become estranged through provocation.
   But even if, step by step, we gradually gain a little ground on this
   tedious and toilsome path, we must at the same time be fighting against
   other forms of evil, which far from remaining in abeyance because the
   natural, loving relations are disturbed, will only appear in greater
   number and gain strength more rapidly. And what means of opposing these
   new evils remain to us, if our admonitions find no willing ear, our
   directions to profitable occupations no pliant will? There remains only
   the harsh way of authority; and that is the plan which, sad to say, we
   see only too commonly followed around us. And oh, how dangerous a way
   it is! We see clearly enough in other human relations how little men
   can be influenced by force, and we always feel drawn as by a secret
   spell to set ourselves in league against sheer power and its doings.
   And justly so. For the less a human being yields to force, he proves
   the more plainly that there is nothing of a slavish spirit in him; that
   he is conscious of a nobility in his nature that is above mere power;
   and the more a man tries to gain his ends with others by force, he
   shows the more clearly that either he is not gifted with reason and
   love--the only powers that should be brought to bear on a human
   being--or he does not understand how to use them. And are we to intro
   duce force into the peaceful sanctuary of our homes, and use it towards
   our children, at an age when they are capable of being influenced by
   reason and love? Force cannot reach their hearts, where we really wish
   our influence to tell; it can only restrain the outward demonstrations
   of their faults that disturb and annoy us. Thus we can protect
   ourselves against them by force, and have a right to do so, if we find
   ourselves in the unhappy position of needing such defence: but nothing
   whatever can we teach by force. It will only make their faults take
   deeper and firmer root, like plants whose upward growth has been cut
   off. Indeed the more successful we are in obtaining this mere external
   improvement, we have the deeper cause for sorrow; because in this way
   we only make it more apparent into what a slavish state our children
   have sunk. And therefore it is not unusual with us who are parents,
   when we grow weary of this struggle, to give up all godly training, and
   to leave the children to their own way. And being thus, as it were,
   defeated, we are left behind with nothing but our pious wishes on their
   behalf, which we have often too much reason to fear are in vain; and
   for ourselves remorseful tears, which at best can only serve for
   warning to ourselves and others for the future.

   It is very clear, then, that the apostle had good reason for giving
   this warning the most prominent place in his counsels as to our conduct
   towards our children. If we only guard against the children becoming
   distrustful of us, everything else is easily put right; but if we have
   got into this unhappy condition, it involves ruin and loss in our whole
   relations with them.

   II. But we are to speak not only of how we to whom God has entrusted
   the hearts of the young are to fulfil His will towards them, but also
   of what, according to His appointment, the young are to be to us. On
   this point I cannot expect to say anything new to any of you: I hope I
   need only appeal to the happy experience of each of you, in proof of
   how much blessing has come to us through our intercourse with the
   young; how this, more than anything else, keeps us fresh and cheerful,
   so that the heart burdened with many cares can still work bravely on;
   and how by such intercourse we are at once purified from disturbing
   passions and helped forward in the way of holiness. But such results
   can only come from an intercourse that is characterized by mutual love
   and by regard to God's will; for if we provoke and embitter the young
   spirits, all these blessings are lost. We shall be the more convinced
   of this if we reflect how it is, exactly, that we derive such profit
   from the young who are growing up in the midst of us.

   Let us consider, in the first place, that the social world around us is
   a constantly changing scene, a hurrying succession of endlessly
   complicated situations, in which, at every step, we find more to impede
   than to help us forward, and must keep a look out on every side lest we
   come into collision with others. Every one will bear testimony to this,
   whether he moves in a higher or lower social circle. The external forms
   may differ, but the essential condition is the same. When we contrast
   this with what we are told of the peaceful simplicity of former days,
   we are sometimes inclined to lament that such times are gone, and long
   to recall them. But let us remember not only that this is out of our
   power, but that as this simplicity was merely an effect of the
   isolation in which different communities lived, it must necessarily
   pass away when commerce and mutual interest begin to be more widely
   extended. And it is God's purpose that such intercourse among men shall
   be extended; were it only for this reason, not to mention any other,
   that God's life-giving Word may be carried everywhere, and may lay hold
   of all men and all nations who are still strangers to it. But in
   proportion as this intercourse in creases, life becomes for each
   individual a more difficult thing; it becomes the more needful for
   every one to take heed against complications in his own concerns; and
   each one is the more liable to get involved in the cares and mistakes
   of others, and to be swayed by their wishes and passions. And from this
   maze of business, from these end less precautions and projects, from
   the fretting contact with the vain and selfish passions of the
   worldly-minded crowd, whither can a thoughtful man withdraw to find
   quiet and repose of mind, but first and best to his own little home
   circle? It is there that life after the old peaceful fashion should
   still be found, there that we should be able to forget, as long as
   possible, the world with its ways and doings, to realize afresh that
   God has created man with simple tastes, and be anew refreshed and
   strengthened by the sight of innocent, unaffected gaiety. But from
   whom, for the most part, do we expect this kind of help? Not from the
   grown-up members of the family; for either they are themselves taken up
   with life's troubles and cares, or their sympathy with us has by
   experience so sharpened their eyes that they are quick to notice when
   anything has occurred either to depress or to gratify us: and therefore
   they are often only too likely to recall our thoughts to what we wished
   to forget. It is only the children, joyous and free from care, who can
   diffuse around us this atmosphere of oblivion of the world, that is so
   needful for us. It is they who, when we come back to the home circle,
   see in our faces nothing but our joy in being there again, and
   themselves feel only that they have been missing us and now have us
   back once more. What a strengthening virtue there is in this bright
   atmosphere, which at once takes us back to man's original state! how
   quickly it effaces from the soul all traces of even the busiest and
   most harassing life! Happy is the man who has this as his daily
   experience! But this happiness is of course lost for him in whoso homo
   the young hearts have become embittered; for he finds awaiting him at
   home only more painful difficulties than those he has left behind. For
   from whatever cause the bitterness of children against a grown-up
   person may have arisen, there must have been something like this to
   begin with; that he has slighted them and their affairs as of too
   little importance to be worth his notice; that when they gave free
   expression to their feelings, they found in him no sympathetic
   response; that instead of shaking off his variable moods, before coming
   home, or, better still, getting quit of them altogether, he has brought
   them with him, and given vent to his ill-humour amidst his family. But
   for some such coldness on our part, or some such indulgence in
   uncertain tempers to cause it, no feeling of bitterness can arise. But
   if unhappily that has taken place, and the children have learned to
   shrink from us; then of course their ingenuous frankness is lost, and
   they themselves have only become an additional part of our anxiety and
   care. The gladness with which they should come to meet us is damped by
   the feeling that it is not only one whom they respect but one whom they
   fear, that is coming home; they wait with closed hearts and painful
   suspense to see what kind of humour we are in, and from each of our
   moods they have something or another to keep carefully out of sight. In
   this way all that is trying in our outward life, indeed almost all the
   vexations and unpleasantnesses that we must encounter there, are
   transplanted, with their desecrating influence, into the sanctuary of
   the home: in this way we deprive ourselves of the refreshment and
   strength that should come to us through the children in our home life.
   Alas for him whose experience this is, though only occasion ally, and
   through only one or another of the little ones whom God has given him.

   Now let us take another thought in this connection. It is a very
   complicated state of things that prevails in the wider circle of
   society in which we move; and from that cause, though not from that
   alone, a most imperfect state. This is a fact that, indeed, calls for
   neither discussion nor proof; we all feel it to be so. But it is to be
   hoped that the more this is felt the more deep and habitual is our
   longing for the perfect state. And although we live here by faith and
   not by sight; yet, just as we cannot imagine any life of sight in which
   there should not be still some mixture of faith; as little can we have
   any idea of any kind of faith quite apart from some measure of sight,
   dim and uncertain .though it might be. Thus, animated by the faith that
   things are to improve in the world, we look forward gladly to that
   better future, and there is nothing so effectual as this hope in
   strengthening us to be steadfast in our warfare and unwearying in our
   labours. But how can we look at the future but in our children? It is
   they who are to come after us and fill our place: it is for them we
   ought to lay up an inheritance in a better order of things. And we are
   the more content to lose sight of ourselves in the thought of them when
   we recall the comforting words of the Saviour Himself in a similar
   connection; His prediction that the kingdom of heaven, into which the
   men and women at that time refused to enter, should belong to their
   children. Therefore if it is our inevitable lot to see our own or
   kindred infirmities manifesting themselves in our children, we long to
   see, at the same time, indications of the presence of faculties that
   will lighten many a struggle for them, and hasten on many a victory; we
   long to see for ourselves something of that which we hope for, that the
   sons will be better than the fathers, and as the natural consequence of
   that, will be more prosperous than they.

   You remember that impressive scene in the life of the patriarch Jacob,
   when though in a strange country, yet confident in the divine promise,
   he regarded the land as the possession of his descendants; and, seeing
   in his sons, now grown to manhood, all the generations that were to
   follow, pronounced on each of them, by the spirit of prophecy, a
   blessing specially adapted to the peculiar characteristics of him who
   received it. We could desire nothing better than to find ourselves in a
   similar position when we feel that the time of our work on earth is
   drawing to its close. A man could hardly have a more enriching, and
   comforting feeling in leaving this earthly scene than that of being
   able to indicate to each of those whom he leaves behind what is to be
   his special place in the work of God's kingdom, and what his own
   personal share in its blessings. And if this would be a comfort to us
   at the time of our death, so, even now, nothing could be more cheering
   to us, when wearied with the business of life and out of heart with our
   work, than some such prospect of what our children may be able to
   accomplish and what will be their portion in life. But as this
   prophetic vision of Jacob's was not solely the fruit of his faith in
   the sure promise of God; his exact acquaintance with all the characters
   of his family contributing something to it; neither can we attain to a
   similar comforting anticipation, unless the hearts of our children are
   opened to us, so that we have penetrated to their depths and know their
   inmost recesses. And how can this be if we have not lived in gladsome
   harmony with them, if they have not been frank and ingenuous in their
   intercourse with us? And therefore we come back once more to the
   warning of our text. Parents ought, by the nature of things, to be able
   to form a more correct judgment about their children than can be done
   in any other human relation. But this only holds good when the
   relationship remains natural and pure. The more a feeling of constraint
   grows up between them and us, the more readily shall we be mistaken in
   their characters. If they have become distrustful by being embittered,
   they shut up against us the access to their inner nature; the young
   spirit is enclosed in a crust through which often even the eye of
   wisdom and love is unable to pierce. Then our judgment varies with our
   feelings. We are able to make no happy forecast of their future; and we
   lose what would be our most effectual means of comfort when cast down
   by the imperfection of present things.

   You see the matter, then, on both sides. When we provoke and estrange
   our children, both they and we lose the best of our life together. And
   as they, on their side, can best guard against any growing bitterness
   by respectful obedience, according to the first commandment with
   promise; let us, on our part, be unremitting in that self-denying love
   to them, which seeks not our own pleasure and advantage, bat theirs,
   and which has its direct reward in the brightness and peace which the
   companionship of the young so naturally brings when there are no jars
   and misunderstandings.

   It would be beyond the limits and the proper scope of our present
   meditation to go on to specify in what ways more particularly the
   feeling of bitterness is produced in children, that so it might be
   watched against the more surely. Therefore I can only repeat this
   general caution: be watchful; notice the very first appearances, and
   turn round at once if you find yourself entering on a wrong course. For
   however excellent a plan it might be to have exact and certain rules
   about this, who could depend on his being able to keep them all? Who
   could boast of being so entirely master of all his emotions that he
   could be sure of keeping clear of everything that went against the
   precepts he had himself laid down? No; even with the most thorough
   knowledge we cannot make sure that there shall not be now and then
   moments in which we both feel and give expression to something that we
   must acknowledge to be a cause of provocation. But let me not, in
   saying this, be thought to put any discouragement in the way of
   Christian people. If we only turn at once and earnestly exercise
   self-control, no real harm will be done. The evil in such cases is
   averted through the working of two gifts with which God has endowed the
   human soul; a capacity of forgetting, and clear-sightedness. The young,
   ingenuous mind easily forgets, especially impressions that are
   unpleasant; because it is intended to be nourished by love, not by
   fear. It is only the recurrence of the harsh or painful ways that
   gradually sharpens the memory of the children in that direction.
   Therefore we may take comfort in thinking of this gift of God in
   connection with what are only our occasional and infrequent failures in
   this respect. And it also tells in our favour in such cases, that the
   human soul is, from childhood upwards, abundantly clear-sighted.
   Children learn very early to distinguish between what we may say or do
   in the mere heat and agitation of the moment, and what is our real and
   habitual feeling. And therefore while, on the one hand, we may try in
   vain to bribe their confidence by a few occasional indulgences or marks
   of favour while the ruling tone of our intercourse with them is
   harshness or half-contemptuous indifference; on the other hand, we may
   be equally sure that if only we are truly and lovingly devoted to them,
   if we earnestly seek their real welfare, if we attach to our inter
   course with them the importance and interest it deserves, they will not
   fail--even if our human infirmities should sometimes make trouble--to
   take the exact and true measure of our real and prevailing feeling
   towards them, and to cling to us in childlike confidence and affection.
   Only let our whole life be pure in their sight, and our inmost heart
   before God; let it be our constant concern to keep far away whatever
   may weaken love or be hurtful to frank simplicity; then we shall never
   have the sad experience of our children growing distrustful through
   bitter feeling, and the blessing of God shall direct the whole sacred
   work of training in. the midst of us.
     __________________________________________________________________

IX.

THE CHRISTIAN TRAINING OF CHILDREN.

   (Second Sermon.)

    TEXT: EPH. vi. 4.

   IN making special mention of our children in our prayers, as we have
   done to-day, what we have chiefly in our thoughts is not merely to
   commend their earthly life and welfare, with all that affects it, to
   God's gracious care; we are much more concerned to obtain a blessing on
   the unfolding of their spiritual faculties, that it may be carried on
   in a right way, well-pleasing to God. This prayer is prompted in the
   first place by the humble conviction that if our manifold cares and
   painstaking for our children, which fill up so large a part of our
   life, are to prosper according to our heart's desire, the Holy Spirit
   must work in them; and further, we are encouraged to offer the prayer
   by the devout confidence that this is so. It is just in this confidence
   that we present our children in their tender infancy to be received by
   the heavenly Father into the Christian Church, that is, into the
   fellowship of His Spirit, by the sacrament of baptism; and as often as
   we take part in such an act we anew acknowledge this conviction and
   profess this confidence. It is reasonable, therefore, to sup pose that
   we should be agreed as to the kind of influence we exercise on the
   young, and that in the hands of all Christians this important work
   should take one and the same direction. For if the Spirit of God is at
   work in the hearts of our children, what can we desire but to be His
   instruments? For Him alone, and in His name, not for ourselves, can we
   expend our cares on them. To try to make out of the rising generation
   either a profit to their elders or an exact copy of them, is an aim
   which we must leave to those who think first and most of themselves,
   because they lack this glorious faith in a divine Spirit who works in
   man, and with that, necessarily, the faith that there can be any
   progress in all that makes man's true dignity. But for us, let our one
   aim in the training of our children be the honour of God; they are the
   fairest portion of the vineyard which He has set us to cultivate. The
   essential point in all Christian training of children is to make them
   susceptible to the influence of the Spirit who is promised to them as
   well as to ourselves. We are to aim at this by trying to check the
   earliest symptoms of whatever might afterwards interfere with or oppose
   that influence, and striving by word and deed to awaken in them
   longings for what they can attain to only by the Spirit's help we are
   to do it by helping them to judge clearly of every human model that
   appears to them worthy of imitation, and making them quick to see what
   is to be rejected. Thus they will be prepared for receiving and
   retaining the image of the Saviour; and this is the aim and spirit that
   should characterize both our general inter course with the young, and
   all the special loving cares that we bestow on them. And the less of
   selfishness there is in this love, the less these efforts depend merely
   on natural feeling and impulse, the more possible and right it is for
   the whole of us as a community to participate in both. We can receive
   all the little ones without distinction, as the Lord said, in His name,
   for they are all represented to us by that child whom He set before the
   disciples; and while it is a most precious blessing from God to be
   directly entrusted with the care of a portion of the younger
   generation, there can be no object more worthy of the exertions of
   those who have not been thus privileged, than the furthering of this
   great work by every means in their power, despising no part of it that
   may fall to their share. In this sense of brotherly and common
   interest, therefore, let us pursue our meditation on this subject
   to-day, and may God grant us His blessing.

   In this passage we find another precept added to that which I lately
   took as our subject of discourse from another epistle. That first
   exhortation was meant to set before us that which, according to the
   mind of the apostle, we ought most carefully to avoid in the training
   of children; this further counsel is meant, I might say, to include
   everything that ought to find a place in our intercourse with them, in
   order to their being brought up in the discipline and admonition of the
   Lord. It may indeed seem at first sight as if the apostle's direction
   were partial and insufficient. When we remember on how many different
   things we expend labour and pains in the education of the young, and
   how we all, without exception, have it in view not merely that they
   should turn out pious and Christian people, but that they should be
   thoroughly fitted for every worldly business they may engage in, and
   should develop every pleasing and estimable quality of mind and heart,
   this thought may very naturally arise. But the apostle's own feeling
   was certainly not that he was speaking of some single part of the work,
   incidentally selected, but that he had hit on a counsel which included
   everything. Let us then see if we cannot find in these words the basis
   of all training such as God approves, And to this end we must inquire
   what is implied in doing everything for the young, first with a view to
   discipline, and secondly for a purpose of admonition.

   I. What then is included in, and what is meant by, all our dealings
   with the young who are growing up among us tending to their discipline;
   all that we teach them or enjoin on them, or give or deny them. We must
   first of all clearly ascertain the meaning of the expression, on which
   everything depends in the question before us.

   Discipline is by no means synonymous with punishment, though in common
   conversation we are accustomed often to use it so; but something
   entirely different. For punishment is incurred by disobedience;
   discipline takes obedience for granted: punishment gives children
   merely something to suffer; discipline, something to do: punishment
   adds something of a disagreeable and bitter feeling, more or less
   voluntary on the child's part, to what is already wrong and deserving
   of blame in him; while discipline rather calls forth a commendable
   exertion of his powers to accomplish something or to do without
   something; an effort which is in itself sufficient to produce a feeling
   of inward joy. And just as the law never effects anything better than
   the knowledge of sin, and gives no strength to do right; as little can
   punishment, which derives its power from fear or from bitter
   experience, produce anything but an outward avoiding of sin, without
   any turning away of the heart from evil. Tor the heart can be disposed
   towards good only by love, which drives out fear, and with fear all the
   power of punishment. But discipline, which aims by steady exercise to
   control and regulate every emotion, and to subdue all the lower
   instincts of nature under the rule of the higher, imparts a salutary
   knowledge of the power of will, and gives an earnest of liberty and
   internal order. Such is discipline: and so very different is it from
   punishment that, as all will readily admit, the more we find ourselves
   obliged still to have recourse to punishment after our children have be
   come capable of a conscious effort of will and of being stirred to
   shame, the more undeniable witness do we bear against ourselves that we
   have erred and have done too little in the way of discipline. For if we
   felt that we were teaching our children the right use of discipline, so
   that they had begun to exercise a habitual command over themselves and
   to be wrought upon by the nobler emotion of shame, we should have no
   need to call fear to our aid in order to quell one mere external
   manifestation by means of another. And thus, too, we should experience
   that the larger a place we have given to discipline in our method, the
   more must punishment lose its effect; because the young mind is already
   practised in refusing to have its decisions influenced by
   considerations either of pleasure or the reverse.

   But while discipline is on the one hand an entirely different thing
   from punishment, it is just as far, on the other hand, from that
   indolent quiescence in which unhappily so many think they may watch the
   development of their children. Such persons forget that while God the
   Lord has, it is true, set heaven before us as a state in which we may
   satisfy ourselves with simply beholding, and with enjoying the
   blessings that flow to us through the exercise of heavenly energies, it
   is far from being so among men on earth. God has placed us here, not as
   spectators, but as rulers in His name; as His instruments through whom
   He means to carry out all His gracious purposes towards man; the strong
   and those of riper years guiding and bestowing care on the weak and the
   young. The right form for this rule and this painstaking as regards the
   young is discipline; but if we take no pains we impede the fulfilment
   of the divine promises. And if, where the system of punishment
   prevails, it might seem as if all hope of the Spirit of God being able
   to take possession of the young minds had been given up, the only
   endeavour being to keep each part of the natural disposition in check
   by means of some other part; it is equally true that the hope which
   predominates where the system of easy-going, indolent looking-on at the
   development of our children is followed is a delusive hope, which is
   only too likely to be put to shame. For if it is expected that
   admonition alone is to take the place of discipline, this hope is
   grounded on the illusive idea that everything can be effected by words,
   and that action is unnecessary: or if the non-interference extends to
   speech as well as to more active efforts, there is in that case a more
   mischievous delusion; whether it be the idea that a work of the Divine
   Spirit may begin in the children without God making use of the parents
   and others as His instruments; or even that they may naturally develop
   good dispositions and habits without that Spirit who is the life of the
   Christian Church, and who, in these words of our text, calls on us to
   train our children by discipline. And the further we are, on the one
   side, from that miserable condition, as slavish as it is tyrannical, of
   being satisfied with what can be accomplished by punishment; and the
   more free we keep, on the other side, from the dangerous error of
   nattering ourselves that in those respects which depend chiefly on us,
   our children can of themselves turn out well; just so much the more
   must we feel and acknowledge the great value and importance of
   discipline. But we must practise it not only now and then on special
   occasions, when we are struck by some quality or disposition in excess
   that seems to call for repression, or by some deficiency that indicates
   a need for stimulus; but seeing that discipline is the one thing
   besides admonition which the apostle commends to us in the training of
   our children, that training will only be of the right kind when all our
   dealings with our children and all the occupations we prescribe or
   allow to them become to them means of discipline, and are prescribed or
   allowed only in that light. This perhaps sounds strange and too severe;
   but it is just as true as it will prove, on closer consideration, to be
   kind and loving.

   For where could Christian parents be found who would not try, so far as
   their position enabled them, to have their children instructed in all
   kinds of useful knowledge, and taught by practice to acquire skill in
   all desirable arts? Do we not in fact hold all those who "neglect this
   guilty of a grievous wrong against their children and against the Lord
   who has committed them to their care? But are all, even of those who
   fulfil these duties, deserving of unqualified commendation? I think
   not. For if we see that parents, or those who occupy their place, do
   these things in an unreflecting way, just as the fancy may strike them,
   then, even if their operations turn out well, we do not give them the
   credit of the success, but ascribe it to the generally prevalent good
   customs and methods which they have followed without knowing why they
   did so. Or when we see that parents do act with consideration, and have
   reasons for what they decide on, are they, even in that case, sure
   always to be worthy of praise, and is it all the same, in our opinion,
   what their reasons may be? If parents, instead of waiting to see what
   their children may show an inclination or a natural turn for, or taking
   into account any such tendency that may already have shown itself,
   selfishly insist on keeping them to the parents own special line of
   life, and wish only to have the children initiated into that, in order
   to make them as like themselves as possible, have we not here bitter
   cause to complain of an un-Christian exercise of authority over the
   young? And must it not be a source of both pain and indignation to the
   young themselves, when they are old enough to understand the conduct of
   those who brought them up, to feel how much selfishness was mixed with
   the love of their parents and guardians? Or, again, if a direction
   towards some definite line of life is given to the young by the kind
   and character of the instructions and training given to them, from such
   motives as these: that this special course seems to offer tempting
   worldly prospects; that patronage and support of various kinds make it
   easier and pleasanter than other paths might be; that wealth and honour
   seem to beckon from its goal more distinctly than from other
   directions:--is there not cause of reproach in this case also, that an
   utterly blind despotism is guilty of the grievous wrong of daring, for
   the sake of uncertain worldly advantage, to turn aside the young nature
   from that for which God has created it, and so to cripple its actings
   by a sense of constraint? And what can be the effect on the young
   themselves, but that either they will be misled into treating the
   things about which we exhort them as matters of indifference in
   themselves and holding them lightly, while they esteem worldly gain the
   really highest thing; or that, not less to the damage of their souls,
   their reverence towards those whose example they ought to follow must
   suffer shipwreck.

   Or, to take another case: parents may take careful note of any
   indications their children give of natural gifts, and then, as if it
   were only a question of winning a race, strain every nerve to the
   utmost--often at the cost of a lifetime's happiness to their children,
   and at the risk of all permanent success--only that they may have the
   gratification of seeing their children surpass others, so that the
   excellence of their training may be admired, whether in the strictly
   correct conduct of their young people, or in the stores which they have
   acquired in the line of art and science. How this grieves us to the
   heart, to see even the noblest gifts of the young under such guidance
   made to subserve only vain and sordid ends!

   In view, then, of all these ways in which we are liable to go wrong, we
   cannot but feel how difficult it is to keep a clear conscience in this
   important business. How alone shall we keep it void of offence?
   Certainly in no other way than this: we must neither set before
   ourselves any worldly aim in the education and training of our
   children, nor teach them to think of anything merely worldly and
   external as the object to be attained by it; but rather, putting out of
   view all other results, we must try to Lave them made distinctly
   conscious of what powers and capacities they possess which may, by and
   by, be used in carrying on the work of God on earth; and to have those
   powers brought under the control of their will, by their learning both
   to overcome indolence and dissipation, and to guard against being
   passionately engrossed in any single object. And this is just what the
   apostle means. For instruction and training of all kinds, so directed,
   will only serve as discipline to the young; and only by such discipline
   will they acquire a real possession in the shape of a thorough fitness
   for every work of God that, in the course of their life, they may find
   occasion to do.

   But see still further how far the province of discipline extends. Even
   in the intercourse with their equals, and the pleasures suitable to
   their age which we permit our children to enjoy, our first
   consideration must be that these things are such as will tend to their
   discipline. This may, I admit, seem specially hard, that the very
   things that are meant for recreation and unfettered amusement should be
   used as means of discipline. But children receive quite as much of
   their education by companionship and in their plays as by direct
   instruction and regular work; and therefore when the apostle insists on
   their being trained by discipline, he refuses to look at even this part
   of their training in any other light. And as we cannot but acknowledge
   that, even with the best will, much is overlooked in the companionships
   and amusements of our children, so that they do receive spiritual
   injury; would it not be well for us to consider whether this may not
   result from neglecting this view of the subject, and regulating this
   important part of our children's lives on some other principle? I do
   not wish to speak of those parents and guides who have regard solely to
   worldly and external considerations in directing the companionships of
   the young. We know how ill such arrangements usually turn out; how the
   children some times become hard and obdurate, and sometimes deplorably
   pliant and easily led; and how, for the most part, their bright
   childhood passes joylessly away. I wish rather to think only of those
   who select so anxiously and cautiously the company in which they allow
   their children to mix, that they have only desirable examples before
   them, while all quarrelling and passionate excitement are as much as
   possible avoided. For even care such as this is often far from being
   successful; some of the children turning out vain and puffed up with
   conceit, others peevish and discontented, and none perhaps attaining to
   a salutary self-knowledge. Whereas, if we look at it simply in this
   light, that our children's intercourse with others is to be to them, as
   ours is to us, a means of discipline; teaching them to hold fellowship
   even with characters very different from their own, and each to make a
   happy life for himself by being ready to help others and willing to
   give way to them, and learning to suppress all disturbing and
   unfriendly feelings; then even in this position they are taken care of
   in the best way, if only at the same time we maintain rule and order,
   and keep away from them temptations that might be too strong for them.
   And it is the same as to their amusements, if we look at them in the
   light of discipline. In their games they learn to use and control all
   the powers that are least called forth in their work; in this way they
   will have the greatest benefit and the greatest enjoyment from them,
   and there will be the less danger of their be coming devoted to
   pleasure, or lazy and averse to work, liking mere pleasure as opposed
   to exertion; or even perhaps, if there is anything of sloth and
   idleness in their recreation, becoming ungodly and giving place to the
   devil.

   Thus, then, it appears to me that the apostle was entirely right in
   laying down no other rule as to all the doings of the young of which we
   have the regulation and control, than that they should all serve in the
   way of discipline. And the more perfect we try to make our training,
   the less must there be which we have not been able to direct on that
   principle. And the more such training grows out of the circumstances of
   everyday life, without any need of altering or interrupting its natural
   course, so much the more pleasing to God, we may be sure, and the more
   certain of a prosperous issue, is the work of our love and wisdom on
   behalf of the young.

   II. But, my friends, however excellent a thing it is to train our
   children by discipline, what is, after all, the highest thing that can
   be effected by this means? The preparing of the way for the Lord, that
   He may be able to enter; the adorning of the temple, that He may be
   able to dwell in it: but towards the actual entering and indwelling of
   the Lord, discipline can contribute nothing. To have all the human
   powers, in so far as they are capable of serving the purposes of the
   Spirit, trained and brought under control, so that they are accustomed
   only to act at the bidding or permission of a higher power that warns
   and commands through parents and teachers,--this is the work of
   discipline; and an admirable and excellent work it assuredly is. But
   even if our children learn ever so well in loyal obedience, to set
   aside their own pleasure and conform to the wishes of their elders,
   what profit is it, if a time does not come when the joy of the Spirit
   arises in their hearts to fill the place of the repressed pleasures of
   the flesh; when they, of their own accord, make a habit of following
   the good ways into which previously our will has drawn them; that is to
   say, what have we gained, if the Spirit of God does not actually come
   and make His abode in their hearts? For, until this takes place, the
   care and pains of our training have not attained their end; not until
   then have the faculties which we have drawn out and trained found their
   true Master; not till then can we comfort ourselves with the thought of
   one day seeing our children working alongside of us as independent
   members of the Christian community. And this, we are all well aware, no
   discipline is capable of bringing about. But, it may be asked, is this
   not as really beyond the province of all human influence as it is
   beyond that of discipline? Can we in any way whatever contribute to
   this end? Does not the Lord Himself say, that the Spirit moves where He
   will, and that we cannot so much as know, much less command, where He
   is to go? Yes, we recognise the truth of that word of Christ in this
   connection also, and therefore willingly confess our inability; both
   that God alone may have all the glory, and for the mournful comfort of
   all Christian parents to whom God has appointed the pain of seeing that
   their children do not come direct from their training hands as temples
   of the Divine Spirit, and to whose sorrow we have no right to add
   bitterness by assuming the place of judges, and charging them with the
   blame of their children not yet having received the Spirit of God. But
   while acknowledging our helplessness, let us not forget that the same
   Saviour who spoke of the Spirit acting where He will, yet charged His
   disciples to go and teach all nations; and that it was just by this
   free movement of the Divine Spirit that the mouths of those on whom He
   descended were opened to declare the mighty works of God; that is,
   above all, His works wrought on the soul of man, for there are none
   mightier. This, then, is what we are capable of doing, and what we are
   even commanded to do; in our daily intercourse with the young to
   commend the mighty works of God, that we may stir up in their minds
   aspirations after a happier condition, in which the Divine Spirit is
   won to enter the heart of man; and this is what the apostle, in the
   part of our text which we have still to consider, calls the admonition
   of the Lord.

   And here I must begin by examining an opinion very common even among
   well-disposed people, which might seem to find some sanction in these
   words of the apostle. It is said that as he speaks first of bringing up
   our children by discipline, and then mentions the admonition of the
   Lord as the second thing, he must agree with those who think it is
   right to guard against speaking too early of divine things to the young
   and directing them to the Saviour, and that not till those riper years,
   when discipline shall have completed its work, will the young be
   capable of receiving the admonition of the Lord. But we must certainly
   acquit the apostle of holding any such opinion, and that all the more
   confidently because we are sure that no one in his days would have
   taken this view, not even those who now defend it. For in those early
   days of Christianity,--when Christians were not only closely surrounded
   everywhere with heathen or Jewish life, but were also exposed to their
   adverse influence and opposition,--if parents had deferred the
   admonition of the Lord to such a time, it must often have happened
   that, before it arrived, the young spirit was already deeply involved
   in un-Christian ways. But does this not apply to every time, only in
   other forms, so long as there is still a struggle between light and
   darkness? Docs not ungodliness of every kind surround us only too
   closely on every hand, seeking to obtain a footing, and to disturb the
   holy regulations of Christian society? Has the enemy fallen asleep,
   who, while we sleep, is wakeful enough to sow tares among our wheat?
   And if he is sure to do this always, what will he not do, if we till
   the field indeed, but neglect to sow the wheat? will he not in that
   case completely fill it with tares, so that there will be no room left
   for the good seed? Therefore the admonition of the Lord, which the
   apostle enjoins, must be found side by side with discipline, as soon as
   we perceive that ungodliness is be ginning insidiously to approach the
   young minds. And with good reason; for we cannot permit it to have
   scope, we know of nothing else to oppose to it but the one power in
   which we know safety is to be found the power of redemption. Therefore
   as soon as the age of innocence is past, as soon as sin becomes active
   and the law has brought some knowledge of sin, it is a fitting time for
   us to make the erring soul conscious of the need of a higher help, to
   bring it into contact with God, and seek to arouse in it love to the
   Saviour who is the fountain of life and blessedness, and love to God
   who has given us His Son. And this is the admonition of the Lord.

   But what are the grounds on which it is possible for even well-meaning
   and pious Christians to fear that the young may be too early and to
   their injury admonished concerning the Lord? They evidently consider
   that the young can not yet understand what we tell them about God and
   the Saviour, and therefore will either take up some wrong and merely
   natural and external idea, the effect of which will be, partly, to
   degrade the holiest things, and partly, to prepare the way for unbelief
   when they see, as they grow older, how poor and vain their conceptions
   were, and yet suppose that this is really what was taught them in child
   hood; or our instructions will become to them a dead letter, which they
   retain and repeat without thought; which will cause sacred things to
   lose their power with them, and will blunt and deaden beforehand the
   desire after those things that would otherwise have awakened when they
   were older. But let us ask, do we ourselves, then, comprehend God? are
   we capable of fathoming and measuring the Saviour? are we able to
   express in precise, universally applicable and universally intelligible
   language His mysterious influence on us? and do we, because of our
   inability to do this, refrain from dealings with our God and Saviour,
   or from conversation and teaching concerning Him? And again, how could
   we begin and carry on the education of our children at all how strictly
   should we not have to shun all their questions if we wished to avoid
   everything in teaching and conversation that they could not understand?
   Is any thing that they meet with for the first time, and from which we
   have no power to divert their attention, more comprehensible to them
   than the Eternal? Is it to be supposed that their first ideas even of
   the things of this world can be exact and right, and not, rather, all
   formed according to their own childish fashion? And yet as their
   characters gradually develop it becomes evident that even in this
   childish way they have got hold of the germ of the truth, which goes on
   unfolding with growing power, and in due time casts away the husk that
   protected without disfiguring it. Therefore we may hope that this will
   still more be the case when we talk with them about Him who is Himself
   the Truth; that a living seed, though hidden in a poor husk, will gain
   a firm hold in their souls; and hence there is here no reason for
   withholding from them the knowledge of God and of the Saviour. But even
   supposing that we wished to do so, should we be able? And do we not
   feel constrained to say, God be praised that it is not in our power!
   for if it were, the indications in our domestic and social life of our
   belonging to a people of God and forming a community of believers would
   be far more rare than unhappily they already are. No; this cannot in
   any way be so kept concealed that the children should not very early
   hear some thing of God and their Redeemer.

   And as to the fear that too early teaching about God and divine things
   might become to the children only a dead letter; it would, no doubt, be
   well grounded, if our instructions were only meant to satisfy a mere
   curiosity which had arisen in their minds about this as about other and
   mere outward subjects. But that would be no admonition of the Lord; for
   admonition has always a reference to something that the person has to
   do and to alter, especially in himself. Therefore it is especially when
   we wish to affect the inmost feelings of our children that the apostle
   would have us turn their thoughts towards the Lord. If we see them
   indulging in emotions either of joy or vexation, that border on sin, we
   are to point out to them the difference between godly and ungodly modes
   of feeling. And does it not seem to you that this difference will be
   best understood by a mind which has already felt the stirring of better
   things? If we see them presumptuously uplifted, though it may be only
   in half-childish over-confidence, or depressed and disheartened,--and
   this still more if they are old enough for greater and graver concerns
   to have a place in their lives--we can tell them of man's dependence on
   God. We can tell them of the blessedness of him who, making it his one
   endeavour to fulfil the will of God, holds fast, amidst all earthly
   reverses, the comfort that, without the will of the Father, from whom
   come none but good gifts, not a hair of his head can perish; and who
   uses all earthly possessions as entrusted to him by God for the
   furtherance of His work. And do you think they cannot understand this
   as soon as a sense of duty has been awakened in them, and they have
   noticed something of the difficulties of life? When we see that in
   their awakening minds conflicting thoughts `accuse and excuse one
   another,' we are to point them to that law which God has written in
   men's hearts and made manifest in His Son, and teach them to
   distinguish its voice. And do you think they are not capable of fixing
   their eyes on that guiding star as soon as uncertainty and conflicting
   judgment has begun in themselves?

   And it is not simply to God that we are to lead them in this way, but
   equally and at the same time to the Saviour, out of whose fulness they,
   like ourselves, must from the very beginning receive all knowledge of
   God and all enjoyment of fellowship with Him. This is indeed the direct
   meaning of the apostolic words; for it is Christ who is the Lord, and
   the admonition towards God is only included in the admonition towards
   Christ; as the Son presupposes the Father. And as the Saviour Himself
   commanded His disciples not to forbid the little ones to come, and
   thereby made it plain that even for them there was to be a blessing in
   His presence; we may neither doubt of our having the right nor of its
   being our duty to bring our children early to Him who came for their
   salvation also, that He may bless them. Did not He Himself thank His
   Father that He had revealed the mystery which the wise and mature of
   His time would not receive, to the little ones who greeted Him with
   songs of praise as the Saviour who was to come. Why should it not be
   specially fitting, at that tender age when the mind draws so much of
   its food from pictures, to seek God also in a picture,--Him of whom we
   are permitted to make no image for ourselves, in that picture which He
   has Himself given to us; why should it not be fitting that the little
   ones should see and honour the Father in the Son, and direct their
   earliest pious aspirations to the express imago of the divine nature,
   the brightness of the heavenly glory in earthly and human form? Why
   should not the young, as soon as they begin to distinguish between good
   and evil in themselves, to require perfection of themselves, and to
   have some misgivings of its being unattainable, be capable of receiving
   into their hearts Him who knew no sin? Why should not they, who owe
   their birth and their sustained life to human love, be both able and
   willing to hear and to obey the voice of divine love in Christ? Why, as
   soon as they begin to feel the burden of the law and to dread the
   bondage of sin, should it not be possible to point them, for their
   comfort and encouragement, to Him who alone is able to make them free
   from both? And how can we but lead them to Him, as soon as their
   attention is sufficiently aroused by what they hear about Him to make
   them ask, Who is He? Indeed as soon as they become capable of ob
   serving ourselves and our whole manner of life, and begin to take note
   of the more inward and spiritual part of it, and to ask, Why is that?
   could we at such a time deny to our children the presence of Him whose
   life in us makes every thing in us that they honour and love? Would it
   not be taking to ourselves the honour that is due to Him, if we did not
   direct them, for help in becoming such characters as they admire, to
   Him who gave Himself that He might sanctify to Himself a people fitted
   for good works. Let us then, in this direction also, lay aside every
   anxious fear, and train not only the growing-up young people, but also,
   as the apostle says, the children, in the admonition of the Lord, in
   the firm confidence that, as soon as sin can be recognised and felt,
   and the fruit of the Spirit desired, it can no longer be too early to
   tell the news of grace and salvation.

   But just as we saw that everything that we teach our children and set
   them to do must tend to their discipline, if the apostle's first word
   is to be fully carried out; so we should very imperfectly fulfil the
   second if we limited its meaning to words of instruction, and to such
   words alone as bear directly on spiritual subjects. On the contrary,
   every admonition must be an admonition towards the Lord, for otherwise
   some of them would very soon contradict others; and every method by
   which we seek to influence and stir their hearts is an admonition.
   Therefore if we wish to excite in them love of what is good and right,
   let us not point out to them the earthly blessings that result from it;
   if we wish to warn them against the evil that is beginning to show
   itself in their hearts, let us not talk to them of the bad consequences
   which it brings; for that would be an admonition towards the things of
   this world, not an ad monition towards the Lord; but let us teach them
   to discern what is like God and pleasing to Him, or not so; what is
   according to the covenant and command of the Saviour, or the reverse;
   and this also will be an admonition to the And if we cannot hinder the
   whole chequered drama of life unfolding ever more fully before them as
   time goes on, with all the follies and weaknesses of men as well as
   with everything good and noble; let us try rather to turn away their
   thoughts about it from the judgment of men, from the blame or the
   admiration of the world; lest we should be admonishing them to vanity
   and to eye-service before men. But on the one hand while we show them
   how difficult a thing it is to judge what is in man, let us exhort them
   to the sole fear of Him who alone understands how to judge. And while
   on the other hand we teach them to recognise the first appearances in
   their own hearts of all the wrong and evil that cannot fail to be
   there; and to seek out the hidden virtues of Christ's disciples, often
   very far from what makes the greatest show in the eyes of the world;
   let us by this also turn their thoughts to the Lord, who sees secret
   things, and tries the heart and the reins.

   But more than all words, our most powerful admonition to the Lord must
   be our whole daily life, lived with our children in true and faithful
   love; and this just as certainly as that God is love, and love is the
   most universal and intelligible manifestation of the Eternal. If they
   feel our love pervading everything, not as a mere form of selfishness,
   that seeks only to be pleased and caressed; not as the whim of the
   moment, favouring and slighting with out reason; nor yet a variable
   natural instinct, that may easily grow cold, or degenerate into weak
   indulgence; but as a reflection--feeble, it may be, yet not too dim to
   be always more or less recognisable--of the eternal love, and as having
   the closest connection with that service which we have vowed to the
   Saviour as our Head: this will be the most powerful of all admonitions
   to the Lord; and only through this will they learn to understand and
   practically to accept all the rest.

   In this way, then, the apostle proves his point, that everything that
   we can do with our children is summed up in this, that we bring them up
   in discipline and in the admonition of the Lord. But here we are
   constrained to say, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
   God! For if everything is to tend to discipline and the admonition of
   the Lord for our children, we must lay aside all vain and ungodly views
   that terminate on the transitory concerns of this world, and seek only
   that our houses may become temples of the Holy Spirit, and that the
   abundant blessing of God may abide among us; we must not cease to
   receive willingly and joyfully into believing and obedient hearts every
   admonition to the Lord which we ourselves still need, that we may go on
   growing in purer love and more thorough self-command, and so allow
   nothing to frustrate our great aim of having our children brought to
   the Lord. If we keep this aim steadily in view, we shall certainly
   become aware that God is with us, helping in the work; and so far from
   the most assiduous care for our children interfering with our own
   spiritual life, that life will, through this very work, open out to us
   in the most wonderful way. For in working for the training and
   sanctifying of others, we are ourselves sanctified and trained; and
   thus a building according to God's mind will rise on the foundation
   which He Himself has laid, and which none may remove with impunity.
   Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

X.

REJOICING BEFORE GOD.

   (Preached on the Anniversary of the Battle of Leipsic, October 18th,
   1818.)

    TEXT: PSALM lxviii. 3, 4.

   ANY one who had heard our last hymn without knowing the occasion of
   to-day's festival might suppose that we seemed more like entering on a
   day of supplication in regard to the future, than on what it really is,
   a day of thankful remembrance of the great and divine deliverance
   wrought for us in the immediate past. But can we, or ought we, to
   separate these? God's kindness and grace always anticipate our will and
   resolution; and therefore we can only ground each request to Him for
   blessing and prosperity in the future on our heartfelt sense of
   gratitude for what we have already received from Him, for the favours
   of the same kind with which He has loaded and satisfied us. And so, in
   taking a thoughtful view of the past, the more our eyes are turned to
   one important point and we feel stirred up to thankfulness towards God,
   must we not ask ourselves so much the more earnestly whether we are
   even worthy, by the use which we make of them, to offer thanks for His
   gifts; whether, by a life tending more to His honour, we deserve to
   bring into His courts our thanks and praise for His gracious help? Let
   this, then, be the direction that our common meditations take to-day.
   Let us go down into the depths of our hearts, and examine ourselves
   before the Lord, and beseech Him for cleansing, that so our thanks may
   rise to Him well-pleasing and not in vain.

   In those times which we unite with all our brethren of the Fatherland
   in commemorating to-day, we were firmly persuaded that, especially in
   order to put far from among us all godless habits which threatened to
   take root so firmly, to maintain the old foundations of piety and
   loyalty which were in danger of becoming insecure, and to strengthen
   anew the natural ties of love which were becoming relaxed by the
   intrusion of the stranger;--that for all these reasons it was necessary
   to wage that perilous warfare. Well then, the more we were convinced of
   this, the more must it concern us now, in commemorating the divine help
   given in that struggle, that we be not of those who must melt like wax
   before the fire at the presence of the Lord; the more careful must we
   be that our joy is a heartfelt joy before the Lord, and that our whole
   being, consecrated anew to Him in thankfulness, may be maintained
   before Him in truth and faithfulness. To ask what is meant by a joy
   before God, how it is distinguished from the transitory joy of the
   world or in oneself, would be, unless in so far as each of us is able
   to answer it or has already answered it for himself, a wide question,
   too wide for one meditation. I will therefore confine myself to showing
   what our joy must be free from, if it is to deserve the name of a joy
   before the Lord.

   Three principal points here suggest themselves to me to which I wish to
   direct your attention: that every joy that is to hold its ground in
   God's presence must be free; first, from falsehood; secondly, from
   slothfulness; and thirdly, from vanity.

   I. Our joy in the deliverance which God wrought for us is to be free
   from falsehood. We know that when the war was imminent, of which we are
   now celebrating the decisive day (though not that day alone), all those
   whom we hail as brothers and fellow-countrymen were not of one mind on
   the great matter. If some had for long been waiting and hoping for the
   moment when their desire to win back with the sword a natural and
   honourable position should be gratified; there were others who thought
   that the existing condition of things could be borne, and that it was
   wiser to put up with it than hastily to stake everything in an
   uncertain war. Now those who thought and spoke in this way, must always
   have a claim to our respect, in so far as, after the resolution was
   taken, though contrary to their opinion, they did all that the
   Fatherland and the law required of them; because they fairly
   contributed their share to the common cause. For the first thing at the
   forming of any great resolution is always that every one should seek to
   bring his own convictions to bear; the second, that he frankly join in
   what has finally become the common will. But if the events that
   followed have not changed the opinion of those our brethren, and yet
   they feel able to take part in the general joy of an anniversary such
   as this, we must point out to them that theirs is a different joy from
   that of the rest, and that it cannot be quite that which the joy before
   the Lord ought to be. For by himself, perhaps, and in an earthly way,
   one may rejoice when that which he has done with half conviction or
   without any conviction comes to a successful issue; but before God he
   can only be ashamed. For it is not over outward things that we are
   allowed to rejoice before God, who Himself has no outward part and who
   makes no account of anything outward, but only of that which is in the
   heart; we are not to rejoice over consequences and events, but only in
   the power and deed from which they proceeded. But those persons cannot
   rejoice in those things, who hold that the influential opinion at that
   time was not the right one, but count that man should have a still
   greater power of endurance to bear what exasperates him, and to bend
   still lower under what can only appear to him an external necessity;
   for such persons rejoice only in the results, not in the deed. But be
   there few or many such, can the rest of us who are met here to-day to
   thank God for inclining the hearts of men and nations at that time to
   refuse any longer to bear dishonourable chains, for inspiring them with
   courage and hope and loving enthusiasm;--can we say that ours is a
   truthful thanksgiving, and can our joy be a joy before the Lord, if
   those sentiments over which we rejoice have no longer the same power in
   our hearts? Can we claim this if we are now no longer inspired with the
   same zeal to restore a social life befitting us and pleasing to God; if
   we are not striving, with a perseverance worthy of that first
   enthusiasm, to keep safe and to improve what then through God's
   blessing came anew into our possession? Can we claim it if we have now
   become careless about the difference between what is worthy and what is
   unworthy of man; if we are now turning back, and after the old, evil
   manner, each seeking his own; each one seeking to gain, out of the
   treasure won for all, as much as possible for himself: and all no
   longer united with that first love, each denying himself to seek the
   common weal? No, in that case our joy is no joy before God, for He is a
   God of truth; in that case the false spirit must melt before Him like
   wax; and the empty joy, let it show itself as it will, and put on what
   pious appearance it will, can only be, for the most part, the pleasure
   of this world; while the shout of our text, Let the righteous be glad
   and rejoice before God, when it sounds in the untrue soul, sounds like
   the cry of the avenger, destroying its joy. Only if the old zeal has
   not been allowed to cool; only if that is still true with us which we
   then felt as the most sacred truth of our lives, that a man does not
   exist for himself, but for the common cause; that to risk life for the
   brethren is the call of God in the soul, and that not arbitrary power,
   but the well-knit bonds of justice are the surest supports of piety and
   spiritual prosperity; only if we feel those convictions as strongly as
   we then did, are our hearts really rejoicing before God. If it is so
   with us, we are in a position to think, if not without pain and
   mourning, at least with feelings purified from base mixture, of what
   this war has cost us, to remember those who watered the harvest of our
   joy with their precious blood, and set their seal, by their death, to
   the faith and strength that inspired us; while this remembrance
   especially must without doubt cause the untrue heart to melt like wax
   before God.

   II. But our grateful joy before God must also be free from
   slothfulness. It seems really superfluous to say this; for slothfulness
   and joy can never harmonize. Joy arouses the spirit, so that it is
   nothing but strength and life and activity; and this is pre-eminently
   true of joy before God, for it is ever exciting, ever bringing into
   action whatever may be specially in our hearts at the same time. But
   man's perversity has found out how to separate what God has intimately
   joined, and to join things which according to natural law are opposed
   to each other. And so there is such a thing as a slothful joy over even
   so great events as those which we remember on days like this. For the
   man who only rejoices because we have happily surmounted our miseries,
   and because the source of manifold calamities is closed; who after this
   happy turn of affairs would like to repose on the results of those
   exertions, and now rejoices chiefly that the time of exertion is past,
   and that now, without the putting forth of such efforts, without
   interruption to industry (hindrances being successfully cleared away),
   the prosperity of all, or at least his own must go on as a matter of
   course; such a man rejoices, if he rejoices at all, with a slothful
   joy. And of this joy, whatever else we may or may not be able to think
   of it, we must certainly think and feel that it cannot be a joy before
   God. In presence of the Eternal we cannot rejoice on account of
   anything being past; that which is but a concern of the passing moment
   vanishes at the thought of Him and cannot be joined to that thought.
   Hence also it comes that we can by no means associate the thought of
   God with mere pleasures of the senses and rejoice in such pleasures
   before Him; because the pleasures of sense pass away with every moment,
   and must be renewed every moment if they are to last. And those who
   have no better rejoicing to-day than the poor joy that the former
   distress is past, what means have they of quickening their joy, what
   makes their condition still something like joy, but the hope of now
   enjoying the pleasures of life instead of bearing its miseries? And
   thus the pleasure-seekers, who are slothful as to spiritual concerns,
   can by no means rejoice before God.

   But now we must inquire whether there may not be found some slothful
   ones even among those who are conscious of a genuine sympathy with the
   acts of that time, the remembrance of which kindles our joy to
   enthusiasm to-day. We shall all, at least, be able to distinguish
   between two different positions. Besides the many who, in taking part,
   each according to his circumstances, in the efforts of that time, were
   laid hold of in a natural way by the common ardour; there were others
   in whom this sympathy was only a transient impulse, and who showed
   themselves at that time capable of doing and bearing what they would
   not have thought possible before, nor perhaps would think possible now.
   But even then, how every fluctuation of events was mirrored in their
   uncertain feelings; so that whenever affairs took an unfavourable turn
   they were full of dread about what was to follow, and inclined
   beforehand to throw the blame of the misfortune on those who had urged
   them on; and how much more must a feeling produced in so superficial a
   way, being only the effect of one momentous hour and without force in
   itself, have become, since that time, thoroughly deadened! And from all
   who only participated in those great deeds in this way, we can
   certainly expect to-day only a faint and dull kind of joy, that is
   nothing more than the dreamy remembrance of an unwonted state of mind
   in which they found themselves for a time, about which they know
   neither whence it arose nor whither it has vanished; only they know
   right well that they could not now rise to it again. The very core of
   their hearts takes shape from the slothfulness and impotence of their
   own souls, and can neither now nor ever send forth a living shoot of
   joy. If they desire to rejoice with us, it is only from the contagion
   of our joy; so that theirs is only a pale reflection of the lively joy
   of those in whom that first zeal was a true and living sentiment, and
   in whom still abides, as a steady and unchanging principle, the
   strength by which they laid hold of the slothful souls and carried them
   along with them. To those steadfast souls alone belongs not only their
   own joy, but that of the others, and they alone can truly rejoice
   before God, the living God who controls our doings as well as animates
   and inspires us; but those slothful ones would attempt in vain to
   appear before God with their soulless joy, when the thought of Him is
   not even able to keep their cold hearts steadfast. We can rejoice
   before Him only when we feel in ourselves an ever active power for
   good; feel it as His gift, flowing out to us from Him, as the effect of
   His Spirit in us. Yes, only when we are going forward in the work which
   we then undertook; only when each of us is constantly presenting anew
   to those who wish to sink down in indolent repose, the picture of what
   is right in God's sight and pleasing to men, ever bringing before them
   what is still lacking in us, how many enemies there still are to be
   conquered by the power of faith and love; only when we are of this mind
   can we rejoice together before God for all His good gifts, and so also
   for that great day. And it is only such joy that can be called a joy
   from the heart, as the heart is the source of life and activity in man,
   and of all the feelings that move him and pass over from him to others.
   Hence if it is the wicked who melt like wax before the Lord, it seems
   as if we must say that the slothful are wicked; at least if they cannot
   stand even before us, without being constantly steeled anew by the
   pervading strength of others, still less will their joy be able to
   stand before the thought of God. For what is lifeless and slothful
   fears and shuns life, as falsehood fears and shuns the truth.

   III. Finally, our joy must be free from all vanity. That is to say,
   there are two ways of looking at human affairs. On the one side we
   really feel that all earthly and perishable things are nothing in
   themselves, that all not only originate from the Eternal, but are
   continually and actually carried on and upheld by Him, and can only
   live and move and have their being in Him. If we thus consider and feel
   about any thing that concerns us, then we think of it in God, and we
   cannot fail to have in our hearts true joy in the Lord. On the other
   hand, the Eternal does none of His works directly before our eyes, but
   does everything in connection with the affairs of men by means of men
   and the influence of external nature. Therefore individual men and
   individual events always justly attract our attention. And in studying
   them we are led on from each individual to another connected with him,
   from each later event to one that preceded it; but the more we allow
   ourselves to separate this way of looking at things from the former,
   and please and satisfy ourselves with thus arranging facts in a circle,
   the more does our whole mind and character become tainted with vanity,
   and it is only pleasure or pain about transitory things that stirs our
   spirit. If, therefore, the joy that we feel to-day is to be a joy that
   will stand before God, it must not be joy in what this or that
   individual has done; it must not go back on--I will not say, any merit
   of our own but not even on the merit of other individuals. For if we
   are to rejoice before the Lord, we can only rejoice in the deed which
   He the Lord accomplished among us. And if we rejoice in our own work,
   we are no longer rejoicing before Him, and so our sense of the Eternal
   becomes weakened, and that which the Lord wrought is changed for us
   into a vain and unintelligible play of earthly powers and acts and
   sufferings; indeed, the more we look into it in this way the more we
   believe that we see in events only that sport of chance by which man is
   always punished when he forgets God. And how vain a thing is joy of
   this kind! how little power of lasting there is in it! and how every
   human merit, even that which we sought thus unselfishly to exalt, melts
   away, when we reflect how often it would not have been earned at all,
   if some outward circumstance, that no one could control, had turned out
   differently! But certainly, be it said for our comfort, if any set of
   events is fitted to cure us of the vanity of a false joy like this,
   those great events are so. He who wishes to rejoice in human judgment
   and intelligence, in perfect art and skilfully calculated plans, must
   seek for himself some other subject. For about this, the opposite
   feeling is much too general for such ideas; the feeling that there is
   no single person of whom it could be said that it was his doing; no
   single event, not even the special one we commemorate to-day, after the
   occurrence of which it could be said that now all was safe. Rather, if
   we look at details and study man's part in the matter, the heroes and
   directors of the war themselves will not deny, that even the most
   brilliant deeds were accompanied by mistakes, and that as God brought
   all about for the best, He caused even those mistakes to prove a
   blessing. So that here very specially it is clear to us all that the
   glory is due to God alone, and here we can most easily resist all
   vainglorious joy. And so we come back to what we began with.

   If we choose to derive our joy rather from outward than inward causes,
   from results rather than from sentiments, vanity will inevitably come
   into play; each individual may then take credit for one thing or
   another, and follow out endlessly the traces of what he has contributed
   to the work, and each may seek out one among those who have done the
   largest share, and make an idol of him, and give him the glory: for if
   vanity is once aroused it can make everything take what form it
   pleases. But if in our joy our thoughts are turned to God and to the
   powers which He stirred up at that time, we are constrained to take an
   opposite view, and we have the clearest perception that not only the
   will but the accomplishment of it came from God. Then we understand
   that it was in His counsel that the events which took place were
   determined; and we also feel that we defraud ourselves of the purest
   joy, if, on a day like this, we give the slightest place to
   vainglorious boasting. No, let all empty show disappear from among us!
   It is only joy before God that endures; while the joy of vanity is
   disposed of with that godlessness of character that melts like wax
   before God. For gratitude and confidence are inseparable companions. If
   we take credit to ourselves and to each other for the great things God
   has done, we can also cherish no confidence but in human strength and
   human counsel. And let us only ask if things are now in such a
   position, through what then took place, that such a confidence would
   satisfy us? When we look fairly at our needs, our wishes, our hopes,
   must we not still acknowledge that human help is useless, and that it
   is the Lord alone on whom we can rely? And therefore it is only from
   joy before God, far from all self-applause, that the right confidence
   can proceed; a confidence, not that He will always in time of need
   again order events for our profit and glory; but that He will not with
   draw His Spirit from us; that He who at that time drew out among us so
   much self-sacrificing love, so much pure loyalty and faith, will
   preserve to us this treasure, and be ever re-animating it in us by the
   power of His Spirit. It will not be a confidence that, after the
   outward enemies are conquered, we may let things take their course,
   until a time comes when there shall again be need to fight; but that
   the Lord will keep the hearts of His people together in a living unity;
   that He will keep their spiritual eyes clear to see what is right; that
   He will work as effectually among us in time of peace as He did, to His
   own glory, in time of danger. It will be the confidence that the Lord
   is with the humble hearts; that He never forsakes those who have no
   reliance on themselves; that He will never suffer His glory to perish
   among those who glory in nothing but His strength; and that a permanent
   and inexhaustible power of enjoyment is the portion of those who in all
   things rejoice in God alone.

   Let us then cleanse our hearts from falsity, from slothfulness, from
   vanity! for we feel that if these are overcome a pure and imperishable
   joy before God will naturally spring up in our hearts. For this purpose
   the holy table of the Lord is spread among us to-day. Join all of you
   in spirit with those who will partake of it to-day. If we are one with
   Him, who alone among those born of woman could say, I am the way and
   the truth; if we are pervaded by the spirit of Him whose motto was, The
   Father worketh, and I work; if we are one with Him who was entirely
   possessed with the conviction that it became Him to do the Father's
   will, and that He lived in God and God in Him; then we shall be ever
   drawing closer to the eternal, imperishable life, to freedom from all
   vanity, and ever becoming more worthy of the great things which the
   Lord Jesus has done for us. Amen.

   Prayer.

   Yea, Lord, to Thee be brought praise and honour! Thou didst raise us up
   when we were crushed and had almost perished! It is Thy will to make us
   again a vessel unto honour, after we were despised and seemed like a
   vessel of wrath; Thou alone hast done it, to Thee let all our hearts be
   devoted! Rule Thou in our hearts as Thou hast outwardly ruled among us.
   Make us by Thy Spirit more and more a people to Thy praise, a royal and
   priestly nation; govern us by Thy word and Spirit that we may be ever
   be coming worthier of that highest name which we bear, the name that
   comes to us from Thy Son. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

XI.

LOVE AND SERVICE.

   TEXT: JOHN xxi. 16. "He saith to him again a second time, Simon, son of
   John, lovest thou Me? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I
   love Thee. He saith unto him, Tend my sheep."

   THERE is no more important charge than that which the Lord gave to His
   apostle in these words. He calls Himself the Shepherd of His flock;
   therefore what He here committed to the charge of the apostle was to do
   the Lord's own work in His name, and under His oversight and ruling
   direction as Chief Shepherd. But this is a charge committed by no means
   exclusively to the Apostle Peter, nor exclusively to the rest of the
   apostles, nor to those alone who now in a special and official way
   serve the Lord as teachers and overseers in His Church: it is the duty
   of all Christians without exception; we are all to be labourers in His
   vineyard. But in this vineyard, the plants of which are none other than
   redeemed souls, its fruits none other than the fruits of the Spirit,
   what can any one find to do that would not be included in the
   expression, Tend My sheep? Co-operation and help in the work which the
   Lord has to do on the souls that God has given Him, this and nothing
   else can we supply to Him, and He can make use of nothing else. If
   therefore we are to present our whole life to Him as a living
   thank-offering; if we are bound to show that He has sanctified our
   souls, by our making some use of the powers we owe to Him, then we must
   all certainly take part in the work which, in the words of our text, He
   commits to the apostle. But He connects this charge with Peter's answer
   to His question, Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me? And thus it
   appears to us that in an examination to which, as it were, the Lord
   subjects Peter, this love to Christ is the one thing He requires of
   him, with a view to his feeding Christ's sheep. But we find among
   Christians in all ages very different opinions about this. Some adhere
   strictly to this word of the Lord, and say that there is absolutely no
   other spiritual qualification for this duty; that a man has no need to
   acquire anything else beforehand in order to render to the Lord the
   service to which all are called; that he only needs to be growing ever
   stronger in love to the Saviour, and to be able ever more joyfully to
   answer with the apostle, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee. Others,
   on the contrary, maintain that of course the Lord knew everything else
   that was in the apostle; what spiritual faculties were awakened, what
   light of knowledge was kindled in him; but because Peter had fallen and
   denied Him, He may have stood in doubt about just this one point; or
   rather, though He, knowing what was in all hearts, could not doubt, the
   rest of the disciples might have doubted whether love to the Lord was
   still quite as lively in his heart as it had been. And therefore, they
   say, the Lord addressed this question to him, not as if there were
   nothing else required in order to tend His sheep, but because all the
   other disciples knew quite well the kind and measure of everything else
   in the soul of Peter, but on this one indispensable point it was
   necessary for him to come out clearly. In response to these different
   views, whether love to Christ is sufficient qualification for the
   fulfilment of the Christian's calling, or something more is required,
   let us consider more closely the words pf our text. First, and most
   necessary, let us try rightly to understand the Saviour's words in this
   connection; and secondly, let us go further back and inquire together
   how those different views may be supposed to have arisen among
   Christians, in order still more fully to assure ourselves as to what
   has been the mind and will of the Lord.

   I. First, then, if we wish to ascertain which of those two meanings the
   Saviour may be supposed really to have had, it will be necessary for us
   to begin by asking what, according to the nature of things, is implied
   in the commission with which the Lord here charges His disciple, Tend
   My sheep. Confining ourselves to the figurative expression which the
   Saviour uses, it unquestionably includes very specially two things:
   first, that the sheep of the flock must be protected; then, that they
   must be fed. The shepherd's care takes in both of these parts;
   therefore the Lord expects from His disciple and entrusts to him both
   kinds of work. Well, now let us next ask by what means and in what
   manner the souls of men are protected, so that they may not again
   withdraw or wander from the Lord's flock, and that in the flock no
   danger may approach or evil befall them? Certainly, we answer
   unanimously, love to Him is the first requisite; that love must call
   forth in each of us the strong desire to keep our own soul and the
   souls of others in living fellowship with Him; it must make us quick to
   notice whatever might be adverse to that fellowship. But now if we are
   asked to go a step further, and assert that this love to the Saviour is
   sufficient by itself for the work, then, it seems to me, we must say
   No. What a knowledge of the human heart in its obduracy and in its
   despondency is needful in order to protect the soul in spite of these;
   with what clear spiritual insight must we penetrate its most hidden
   recesses if we wish to note and trace out, before it be too late,
   anything in men's own souls that endangers their fellowship with the
   Saviour if we are to detect the first stirrings of evil, and make those
   aware of it in whom we see it, so that if possible they may turn before
   they have fairly entered on a wrong course! What a knowledge we need to
   have of the ways of sin, and of the various snares that are prepared by
   those who are still sunk in earthly cares and sensual pleasures, for
   those who are just beginning to show a desire to struggle towards the
   higher, spiritual life! What experiences of the ways of the world are
   needful--experiences always dearly bought--to know how to bring
   flattery and dissimulation to light by the truth, and to distinguish
   them by their fruits; to be able to warn the inexperienced, and dispel
   for them the illusive semblance of kindness and goodness behind which
   those only too often conceal themselves who are trying to entice others
   into the way of ruin. When we think of all this, we must indeed admit
   that besides love to Christ, true wisdom also belongs to the work of
   tending His sheep. And now let us look at the second point--that the
   souls belonging to the Lord's flock are also to be fed. What other food
   for souls is there but the Word of God? None, certainly; for the Word
   that became flesh and came into the world is also the true bread of
   life that came down from heaven. And Christ Himself said that the flesh
   profits nothing, but that His words are spirit and life. He therefore
   who means to feed redeemed souls must know how to dispense and portion
   out to them the divine Word. Now it is certain that if we are to
   partake of this food ourselves and dispense it to others, in the first
   place, our love to Christ must be a well-founded love which recognises
   that He alone has the words of life. But, in the next place, how
   needful it is on the one hand that we be able to form a correct
   judgment on the various relations and conditions in which men are
   found, to decide in each case what kind of food is most necessary and
   suitable for the soul, and with true wisdom to select from the great
   abundance and the infinite fulness of the divine Word that which is
   best fitted to nourish each one and strengthen him for good in every
   emergency. But then, on the other hand, still more, what is needful in
   order to be able rightly to divide the Word of God, although we know
   how it ought to be distributed to every one? Well, certainly this, that
   we first clearly and fully understand it ourselves. But the interval of
   a long course of centuries lies between us and the first utterance of
   those words; they are written in a foreign and now dead language: and
   yet the true and perfect under standing of the divine Word can only be
   that which corresponds most nearly to the way in which all those who
   heard it from the living lips of the Lord and His apostles--those whose
   minds were most awake, most favourably disposed and best
   prepared--understood it and applied it to themselves. Therefore a power
   of transporting our thoughts to distant times and into conditions of
   society strange to us, a knowledge of foreign tongues and customs, is a
   part of the qualification for rightly dividing the Word of God. And so,
   if we are to approach our brethren with the divine words, and thus tend
   Christ's sheep, love to Him is, no doubt, the first condition; for this
   is the same thing as our own pleasure and joy in the divine Word, and
   it is love to Him alone that can constrain us to this whole work, for
   he who does not love Christ Himself, does not love His flock. But if it
   is asserted that love alone suffices, we shall again deny it, and
   certainly still more truly in our case than in that of His first
   disciples, and feel bound to say that, besides love, a right perception
   is also needful for the work. And thus when we consider the subject on
   this side, those persons seem to be right who think, that when the
   Saviour meant to commission His disciple to tend His sheep, He asked
   especially about his love to Him, because there might have been room to
   doubt whether that remained unchanged; but everything else that he
   needed for the work--the wisdom and knowledge--He took for granted in
   him as already known.

   But that justice may be done to all parties, let us now study the
   subject from another side. Suppose that love to Christ is a living
   principle in us; must we not, in that case, necessarily take a deep
   interest in the whole great work of the Lord? Must we not burn with
   desire to become acquainted according to the full measure of our
   powers, both with the Lord Himself and with the whole great work of God
   which is committed to Him? The reverse of this would indeed betray
   evident indifference. But if we wish to be acquainted with the Saviour,
   with Him who alone is pure and good, the one perfect Man of God, must
   we not at the same time go on looking into the sinful heart of man, in
   order that we may be able exactly to distinguish in it that which is
   the work of the Saviour and bears the features of His likeness, from
   what proceeds from human corruption and has no part in His character;
   so that our idea of the object of our love may be kept pure and holy,
   and nothing extraneous be mixed with it. And thus we see that love to
   the Saviour really produces in us, as a matter of course, that
   knowledge of the human heart, with all its depths and errors, which is
   necessary in order to our tending the Lord's sheep with wisdom, and
   fulfilling our work in His kingdom. And in the same way, could we
   suppose it possible that we should love the Lord without listening most
   eagerly to every word from His own mouth, as well as to every word
   which the Spirit, who took of the fulness of Christ and glorified Him,
   has spoken by the lips of His disciples? Can there be that living love
   to the Saviour, without our occupying ourselves diligently with His
   Word? And though every part of it is not equally available, seeing that
   some parts need more and some less of those helps that depend on all
   kinds of human wisdom and historical knowledge; yet do we not feel that
   in the Christian community, where no one buries his talent, every one
   has sufficient means at command for attaining to a knowledge of the
   divine Word, such as will enable him, in so far as can be expected of
   him, to feed the souls of his brethren, and at the fitting time to
   offer them the bread of comfort and truth out of the abundance of this
   divine teaching?

   Yes, I will even go further. In this world each of us has his own
   particular calling in the civil community, according to the place in
   which the Lord has set us; and in order to carry on that calling wisely
   and with good results on behalf of his family, each one needs to
   acquire by practice, skill and sagacity about various everyday
   concerns, as well as much knowledge of the world and of men. Now do we
   mean to say that all this business activity is a thing apart from love
   to the Saviour, so that all our pleasure and joy in it comes from a
   different source? Do we mean to say that when we expend our time and
   put forth the powers of our mind on this, it must be some other motive
   that inspires us; and that every one who is engaged in any earthly
   calling must necessarily have a heart divided between love to it and
   love to the Saviour, and must take away from the one what he gives to
   the other? By no means; on the contrary, every thing that can justly
   make demands on the powers of Christians is closely connected with the
   great work of the Saviour on earth. And when His apostles recommended
   to their congregations that every one should work with his hands to
   some good purpose, and should seek after all things lovely and of good
   report, those exhortations were just suggested, like all others, by the
   love of Christ which constrained His apostles; and this same love is to
   be the motive power by which Christians are to carry out such
   directions. For he who truly loves the Lord will do Him honour in the
   presence of men; he will help to glorify the spiritual presence of the
   Lord to the utmost; he will show that his whole soul is thoroughly
   pervaded by love to Him; all its emotions will be sanctified by His
   presence; and love to Him will be a power that helps the believer more
   effectually in all the concerns of everyday life, and that is able more
   thoroughly to overcome obstacles than any other incentive that could be
   set before him.

   But this is equally true; that all those various kinds of human
   knowledge and insight which, when directed by the love of Christ, are a
   help to us in every part of our work, if they proceed from any other
   source, can only be injurious. A knowledge of the world and of the
   human heart, if it is only, as it were, a surreptitious means of
   carrying out more successfully schemes of selfishness, or of indulging
   ambition, will not only effect nothing in the kingdom of God and help
   no human soul, but in the end it will cheat its very possessors of
   their foolish aims. If all knowledge of past times and of dead
   languages, and of everything that belongs to a deep and thorough
   understanding of the different parts of God's Word, is only acquired in
   order to make a show before the world, or because a man, having missed
   his highest end, seeks to satisfy the cravings of his spirit in another
   direction; and if one should nevertheless set himself to use it in
   investigating God's Word as he would in any ordinary matter; oh, be
   sure he will never thus attain to a correct and living understanding of
   it: and so far from one who enters on the work of dividing the Word of
   God with only this equipment being fit to feed the Lord's sheep; his
   doing so is much more likely to tend to his own ruin.

   Therefore, my friends, after all, it is nothing but love to Christ
   alone! If we consider it in connection with all that it leads to, we
   see that it does suffice for the fulfilment of the great work which the
   Lord, in the words of our text entrusts to all His disciples, in the
   measure that He expects from each. If one has been thoughtlessly
   dreaming away his time and has cared little about seeking out and
   employing the treasures hidden in every soul; it is love which first
   awakens him and impels him to take up and gather about him, according
   to the position in which the Lord has placed him, everything that can
   make him more capable of fulfilling in the world the great calling of
   all the servants of the Lord. Or if a man, before he is brought into
   the living fellowship of faith and love with the Saviour, has been
   eagerly following some other course, and from some other motive has
   been enriching his mind with knowledge and cultivating its faculties;
   what a change is made on such a person by love to the Saviour, as soon
   as it takes possession of his soul! It pervades his whole being,
   transforms every thing in him, gives a new direction to everything that
   has been used in the service of vanity, and sets it free to be a living
   power for good; so that he stands forth a new creature; all the powers
   of his soul united in active obedience to the motive that inspires him,
   and obeying no other. The first apostles of the Lord seem to us to
   resemble the first mentioned class. He found them plain men, longing
   and hoping in their honest piety for better times; but feebly
   furnished, and far from having any deep understanding of the word of
   God and therefore also far from knowing the human heart and the world
   in which they were placed. But they received everything from Him; love
   to Him and the joyful belief that in Him they had found the promised
   Saviour, and heartfelt gratitude that He had chosen them to be His
   instruments--these motives impelled and constrained them to receive and
   hold fast in their inmost hearts all the words of wisdom from His
   mouth; and thus they were able afterwards to come forward and teach
   differently and more efficiently than they who from their youth up had
   been instructed in the Scriptures and in the commandments of the
   fathers. And on the other hand, those who had previously been wandering
   in some opposite way are represented to us by that apostle whom the
   Lord won to Himself when he was in the very act of persecuting His
   Church. He had sat at the feet of great teachers, and was equipped with
   all the wisdom of his people which concerned itself especially with the
   earlier divine relation; and thus he was well practised in everything
   that could in any way be necessary to ensure success in the profession
   he had chosen of scribe and teacher of the law. But how was everything
   transformed from the moment when he perceived that the Way he was
   persecuting was God's way; when he was arrested by the voice, It is
   hard for thee to kick against the pricks! from the moment when the
   question, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? sank into his soul; when
   his heart recognised the Lord and received from Him the great vocation
   to go and proclaim the gospel among all nations. From that moment every
   thing was made to serve the one end, everything in his soul
   subordinated to the love of Christ, controlled and pervaded by it, and
   thus fitted to contribute to the work of the Lord; so that however much
   use Paul might make of what he had been taught from his youth, he could
   nevertheless say with truth that he did not come with the wisdom of
   men; for everything in him was changed into a really divine wisdom,
   learning and skill.

   But if we were inclined to suppose from this that, because love to
   Christ produces everything that really carries on the work of His
   kingdom, therefore each individual should be fit for every kind of
   work, in proportion as he is inspired and constrained by that love; and
   if therefore each one tried to take a part in everything that was to be
   done in the kingdom of God this would be both a false representation of
   human affairs, and a vain delusion. If we think of our selves apart
   from all that has most to do in determining our work in this world and
   giving it for the first time a fixed direction, we see that we have got
   no further, with all our love to Christ, than to resemble those of whom
   the Lord speaks in His parable, who stood waiting in the market-place
   for some one to hire them; and then the Master comes, and as often as
   He finds any, leads them into His vineyard, and appoints to each his
   work, according to his powers and circumstances. And so with us; if
   only we have love to Christ this will not fail to occur; the Master
   calls us, some in this direction, some in that; whither and when is
   decided by the circumstances in which each of us is placed, and which
   are more favourable to some and more adverse to others; but all of us
   will certainly have experience of both. But whatever lot has been cast
   for any one, he becomes a labourer in the Lord's vineyard only in so
   far as love to Christ constrains him and teaches him what it is fitting
   for him to do in the place where the Lord has set him. This is what
   each one must see to; but for everything else, let him build nothing on
   the skill of man, or what he may choose to do. For all the rest is the
   mysterious dealing of God, who certainly often directs things so
   wonderfully just that no man may fancy that he himself is able to
   manage events, but that all may acknowledge that the Lord has reserved
   it to Himself in the secret course of His counsel, to appoint to each
   the place in His vineyard in which he is to tend the sheep of the flock
   according to his knowledge and capacity.

   Hence then, my friends, it appears as if there could really be no
   dispute among Christians as to how far love to Christ does or does not
   suffice for the fulfilling of the work which the Lord has committed to
   us.

   II. Let us, therefore, inquire shortly, in the second place, whence
   this dispute has nevertheless arisen, and on what it is founded. On
   this, of course, that alongside of the highway of truth run two
   opposite byways, one on either side, such byways as men are apt to
   wander into, even in the kingdom of God. The person who teaches that
   love to Christ is sufficient and that a man needs nothing in addition,
   warns us against one of these byways, and the person who says that love
   to Christ is indeed the foundation, the first and indispensable thing,
   but that we need much besides if we are really to bring forth fruit and
   be useful in the Lord's work; this one, in his turn, sots himself in
   opposition to the other byway. The first error arises from this, that
   many, even devout men, do not sufficiently remember what the Lord means
   when He says, My kingdom is not of this world. The Lord's Church still
   lives in perpetual warfare with that which, in contrast with it,
   Scripture calls the world; the conflict of light with darkness is still
   going on. For clearly as the light shines in the darkness, there is
   still a portion of the darkness that has not admitted it; and so the
   long struggle goes on, the struggle of good against evil, of simple,
   heavenly truth against the perversity of the children of men, the
   struggle with which we are all acquainted. But because this struggle is
   not always easy, and the Church of God still often meets with hard
   usage here and there; many, out of an ill-advised though really living
   and hearty love to Christ and His kingdom, still hold the opinion that
   if the world oppresses the Church by the employment of outward means,
   by power and authority, the Church would, on her side, do well to
   provide herself with all kinds of means of defence similar to those
   with which she is attacked. They think that if the opponents of the
   gospel seek to take ad vantage of its simple-hearted professors by
   human wisdom and skill, we ought also to try by a judicious use of our
   knowledge and skill to intimidate and perplex those opponents. And thus
   we very easily lose sight of that great word of the Lord, If My kingdom
   were of this world, then My servants would fight for it with the
   weapons of this world; and so men do fight for the kingdom of God with
   the weapons of this world, and thereby only produce in it more
   confusion and uncertainty; they dim the light and increase the
   darkness. Now when such things occur it is time to remember that when
   Christ commissioned His disciple to tend His sheep, He questioned him
   about nothing but his love to Him. Whatever resulted from this love,
   therefore, was to be used for the profit of the Lord's flock, but
   everything else, not allied to it, could produce no beneficial effect
   in His kingdom, and could neither protect nor help His flock. But such
   things have occurred, and the Christian Church has many times strayed
   into this byway, since from being a persecuted and much-enduring Church
   she has be come a ruling power; but above all since she was called in a
   distinctive sense, the Church of Rome. For now she was honoured and
   glorified by the powers of the world and her self invested with
   authority, and every powerful weapon was placed in her hands to be used
   for her own purposes. And as worldly power uses speech in various ways
   to attain its ends, so here also an art of speech was adopted and
   practised, often flattering and treacherous enough, in order to carry
   out designs which so much worldly effort made impure and base. And
   indeed it took much more than love to Christ to accustom His flock to
   the oppressive yoke under which they were to be held prisoners. And so
   it came that, instead of a true temple of the Spirit of God, there
   arose a building in which it must have become ever more impossible for
   those to dwell who had learned to know for themselves the spiritual
   union with the Saviour, and desired to find their salvation in that
   alone; until at last the Lord brought about the time for which we so
   often thank Him in our meetings in our morning prayer; the time when
   the clearer light of the gospel was able to shine for us anew. Then we
   returned to the Christian's living and profound conviction that the
   Lord's kingdom is not of this world; that no worldly power or skill can
   ever protect or defend it; that spiritual power alone can enable it to
   stand against all storms and attacks; and that in all the concerns of
   that kingdom, no power must bear rule but love to the Saviour, and all
   that it begets in the souls of men.

   Now as to the other byway; what leads to it is this, that there are
   really a great many Christians who would like to turn their love to the
   Saviour into something that they enjoy quietly and all by themselves.
   They wish to be absorbed in the sense of His spiritual presence and
   nearness; they reverence and love Him as the source of every good and
   lovely emotion of their hearts, and as taking a lively pleasure in them
   all. Now this is all beautiful and right, and is certainly no byway.
   But if they desire to know nothing but this kind of enjoyment, and thus
   virtually forget the whole world around them; what can be the result
   but a life whose aims terminate on itself, and which is therefore
   utterly inefficient for the great aims of the Saviour? For it is
   evident that a man is selfish if he allows himself to be satisfied with
   merely his own salvation, and so becomes always more indifferent to the
   whole outward duty of a Christian, and to the great work of the Saviour
   in the world--of that Saviour to whom we owe deepest love and exclusive
   reverence very specially on this account, that He did not live for
   Himself, but came to serve, to seek and save the lost, and to invite
   the weary and heavy-laden to come to Him. Now if a man truly enough
   feels himself lost and gone astray, and is glad of the coining of
   Christ to save him; if he feels himself weary and heavy-laden, and
   follows, not in vain, the path that leads to Him who alone can refresh
   his soul; and if yet it never enters his mind that the refreshed soul
   ought to bring forth all good and beautiful fruits; that he is to set
   himself, in the strength of love to the Lord, to save and refresh
   others; and that each one is not only to be a sheep of the flock, but
   is called to take his own part in tending the Lord's sheep, then he has
   got into a byway. And the greater the number is of those who follow
   this course, even though each does not mean to be for himself alone,
   and though they rejoice together by hundreds, but still only in. this
   self-centred enjoyment of love; just so much the more numerous are
   those who are withdrawing themselves from supporting the kingdom of
   God, and from carrying forward His work. And when things come to this
   state it is high time for a voice from the opposite side to make itself
   heard by those secluded souls, buried in slothful love to Christ, and
   to say to them, Such a love as that is not enough; more than that is
   needful for meeting rightly the call which Christ addresses to you as
   to others: if you really wish to live with Him you must also act for
   Him; if spiritual gifts have been developed in you, you must put them
   to use in the kingdom of God. In this sense, then, it may no doubt be
   said that something in addition to love to Christ is wanted for the
   tending of His sheep; and yet the full truth is this, that such a love
   is not true love, but an impure and selfish substitute for it. For the
   Lord did not come in order to dwell in souls in an isolated way, and to
   begin His life mysteriously and specially in each; the blessings of His
   presence are to reach to all by means of fellowship and communion; and
   this ought never to cease until all the sheep are gathered from every
   quarter of the world, till all have come to the maturity of a perfect
   man in Christ, till His Church stands before Him blameless in regard to
   the whole duty of man on earth. Now he who does not labour in this work
   of the Lord, does not love it; and he who does not love the Lord's work
   would boast in vain of loving the Lord Himself. And if it is a poor,
   pitiful love like this we are thinking of--a love that will certainly
   always be impure and false as long as it is confined to mere personal
   enjoyment--then we are right in saying that for the fulfilment of a
   Christian's whole duty, more than love is necessary. But if we mean the
   real and vigorous love to Christ, such as it was in the apostles, and
   such as it has always been in all faithful, actively-working
   Christians, whose hearts are set on the common weal; then we must say,
   we need nothing beyond that. That love will produce everything that can
   in any way be useful to us as labourers in the Lord's vineyard, it will
   develop every faculty that each of us needs in order to exercise an
   influence wherever the Lord has placed us; and thus we shall be able
   with our whole being to praise the Lord, when everything that is lovely
   and commendable and of good report among Christians proceeds from no
   other source than love to the Lord.

   It is just the same here as with the dispute whether faith is
   sufficient to justify and save a man, or whether works must be added to
   faith. As this is always only an empty strife about words--for faith
   which is not active by works is no true faith, but dead, and the works
   that do not come from faith are only dead works--in the same way the
   dispute as to whether love is enough to fit us for tending the Lord's
   sheep, or whether something more is needed, is only a vain strife of
   words: for that is not real love to the Saviour which has not the
   effect of making us devote and sanctify all our powers to Him, and use
   them in the work of His kingdom. If it does this, then we need nothing
   more. All occupation about earthly affairs, to which Christians, as
   men, are called, all knowledge of what is needful for the furtherance
   of Christ's cause on earth--all these things come rightly to us if
   only, in every moment and every part of our life, we are inspired by
   the right kind of love to Christ, if we regard everything that comes to
   be done only in the light of its being something belonging to His holy
   kingdom.

   If then, my friends, we have concluded that one thing alone is needful,
   let us seek to experience in its glorious fulness, and to keep clearly
   before our minds, what is included in this one thing. Let us put out to
   interest this talent committed to us, and by means of it obtain
   whatever tends to the glorifying of God's kingdom, so that if the Lord
   asks in our inmost hearts the question he put to Peter, we also may be
   able, with a good conscience, to answer, "Lord, Thou knowest that I
   love Thee." Then shall we all, with joy, and with gladsome hope that
   the word has not been spoken in vain, hear from Him the call, Go, then,
   and tend My sheep. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

XII.

GOD'S RESTRAINING POWER.

   (New Year's Day.)

   TEXT: JOB xxxviii. 11. "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further: and
   here shall thy proud waves be stayed."

   THESE words are taken from a sublime discourse, which -- is put by the
   writer in the mouth of the Highest Himself, the Creator and Preserver
   of the world. In it He answers Job out of the whirlwind, when he had
   complained, though reverently and humbly, that the Lord did not allow
   men to find Him; that, moreover, He gave no account of His matters to
   them, and that therefore nothing remained for them but silently to fear
   Him. Then the Lord came forth, it is said, out of the whirlwind, and
   talked with Job about his want of understanding; and from this
   discourse the words of our text are taken. And when, on a day such as
   this, we look back on the past, on so many unexpected disasters, so
   many hopes left unfulfilled, wishes disappointed, complications, as the
   results of which the Lord brought about something totally different
   from what we had anticipated and hoped, not always, perhaps, out of
   mere human selfishness, but out of genuine love to what is good, and
   from wise desires for the common welfare--when all this is gathered
   into one view before us, how ready are our thoughts to take the same
   direction as Job's! The Lord is not to be found out by men; we do not
   divine His counsel, either in our most aspiring hopes or our most
   moderate wishes. He renders no account to us; for as one year after
   another passes, none of them solves the problem of those that went
   before; His ways are ever unsearchable, and His thoughts beyond the
   comprehension of us poor children of men. But if the Lord had wished us
   to rest content in this state of apparent submission, He would not have
   answered Job out of the whirlwind, and--which signifies still more--His
   Son could not have said to us, "Ye are no longer servants, but friends,
   for ye know what your Lord doeth."

   To this knowledge of the doings of the Lord we shall be helped by this
   sublime address, the kernel of whose whole contents is contained in the
   few words of our text. The Lord represents Himself, throughout this
   discourse, as He who has called into being and who sustains by His
   almighty word all things that are, and has also appointed to everything
   in the world its measure and rule; nothing can hold back from obeying
   His mighty word, nor may any thing go beyond what He commands it.
   "Hitherto, . . . and no further: and here shall thy proud waves be
   stayed!"

   Let us, then, consider more closely how the spirit and meaning of all
   the Divine counsels, the great secret of the Divine government of the
   world, is contained in this fact, that God the Lord has appointed to
   all things their fixed and definite limits. And in connection with this
   day, let us see, first, how we find in this truth our best comfort in
   turning our eyes from the past into the future; and, secondly, how
   these words also contain for us the most sacred and precious example,
   the great law, according to which we are to regulate our whole life in
   the service of God.

   I. A great part of the discourse which is ascribed to God the Lord in
   this ancient and sacred book is occupied with the works of Nature, and
   sets forth how, even in the natural creation, God has appointed all
   things their measure. As when the world came into being, and took shape
   at His word, He set free the infinite variety of forces by whose active
   agency all things consist, He also held them in check. Each of those
   forces is in itself just as proud and ungovernable an agent as that
   element to which the words of our text directly refer, and, tends to go
   on extending in all directions, and to overwhelm everything, far and
   wide. But the Lord calls forth an opposing force, and checks the one by
   means of the other. In this way, at the creation, He separated and
   united all things; thus He separated the light from the darkness, while
   He caused to remain, in fixed and definite degrees, the beneficent
   alternation of day and night; thus He separated the solid land from the
   waters, and yet, by means of the appointed proportion between them,
   each supports, preserves, and fertilizes the other.

   But looking at the natural world as it lies before us in these days, we
   know even by our own eyesight, and still more from the well-grounded
   and harmonious testimony of those who have seriously and continuously
   occupied themselves in studying those natural facts, that there are to
   be found manifold traces, both on the surface and in the depths of the
   earth, of great and repeated disturbances. The hidden subterraneous
   fire has cast up vast masses from below, devastating and transforming
   the face of Nature; the sea, which the Lord seemed to have gathered
   together and shut up within impassable barriers, has yet often over
   flowed; but only thus, by the repeated mingling and dividing of the
   solid and the fluid, could the earth gain that perfect proportion by
   which it becomes capable of supporting and nourishing the whole mass of
   infinitely diversified life that moves upon it.

   And even yet, though all these natural forces seem partly to be brought
   into equilibrium through the often recurring alternation of agitation
   and repose, and partly to be turned into other directions and
   controlled in various ways by human intelligence, the Lord sometimes
   allows them--though mostly in small and isolated instances--to overpass
   their ordinary limits, so that men again become afraid that this force
   or that might work its way to uncontrollable power, and sweep away all
   the rest. Often still the fires of the abyss, released from their
   bonds, burst forth into the air, and cover the ground with flaming
   death; the waters still often pour down in torrents from above, and far
   over flow their accustomed shores, destroying the works of men, and
   laying waste great tracts of the laboriously cultivated land; but the
   Lord, in His own time, extinguishes the fire, and causes the waters to
   go down, and man gathers again the spoil they have left; and everywhere
   it is God who determines, and gradually develops more and more clearly
   and exactly, the right proportions; and everywhere we see arise out of
   the seeming destruction a new and better order of things. But where one
   natural force seems to rise uncontrollable after having been confined,
   and in its unmeasured power threatens the ruin of all that is calm and
   peaceful, the presence of the Eternal is more hidden from us; just as
   the prophet did not find Him in the whirlwind and in the fire. Our
   predominant impression at such times is that of a force of Nature which
   has, as it were, broken loose; and we are overpowered by a sense of our
   own helplessness, and of the insignificance of man in presence of those
   universal powers. But when the floodgates of heaven or the doors of the
   lower world are closed, when the destroying tempests are stilled, and
   that which had poured forth without control returns to the limits
   within which it can subsist alongside of all other forces, then we
   perceive the Lord; then He makes Himself known to us, where order
   arises and is exercised, where a kindly and benignant rule prevails.
   And when we have thus grasped the idea that it was the Lord who spoke,
   saying, "Hitherto, and no further: here shall thy proud waves be
   stayed," then we begin also to reflect that the two aspects of Nature
   are closely connected, and we no longer see in that apparent
   destruction a revolted power of mere Nature, but the governing will of
   Him who commanded that the waves should so far overflow, in order that
   the just proportions should be obtained for each new step in the order
   of things.

   But all natural things are really for us either a feeble shadow of
   spiritual things or a specially significant emblem of them. Let us
   therefore consider in particular that part of His creation into which
   the Lord breathed the breath of life; let us consider man, whom He
   formed into a living soul. Oh! here it is above all, my friends, that
   we have so often to exclaim that the ways of the Lord are unsearchable
   and His thoughts past finding out. Those who, by natural relationship,
   are meant to be bound together in love, are severed by pride and
   selfish passion; those who should be of one heart, often scorn even the
   most superficial connection; those who should be serving each other as
   equals having mutual interests, aim only at lording it over others.
   Wild passions break out and distract men's minds, so that there is an
   end to all rule and unity, not only for each individual but even for
   society as a whole. Thus in this department also we see Nature, after
   being brought into some degree of order, ready to destroy itself and to
   perish in confusion. And it is not always self-interest alone that
   kindles this fire, nor is the fire itself always a strife only over the
   possession of earthly things. This state of things occurs very
   specially when opposite views are taken in consulting and arranging
   about ordinary affairs; or as to the deepest sources of the public and
   common weal and woe; or the most efficient means, in difficult given
   circumstances, for promoting one object and discouraging another. And
   when such views are no longer confined to discussion, but each party,
   believing himself obliged to take precautions against the damage that
   might result from the other view, sets him self to oppose his
   antagonist by force, then what rumpus disorders take place in human
   affairs! How eagerly do men toil in their fury, believing that they are
   only destroying in order to build up what is fairer, but only building
   what must in its turn be overthrown. What a horrible game is then
   carried on with this as its watchword, that it is better for a few to
   perish, and so the mass be preserved, than that all should be corrupted
   through weakly sparing some infected members! and into what an abyss of
   ruin do great portions of our race sometimes plunge in this manner! But
   be it arrogant self-seeking and criminal ambition, or wild passions and
   burning rage; be it sensual lusts and ignoble pleasures, or only the
   man's better will, aiming at what is really good, but misguided, and so
   inflamed into the resemblance of those evil motives; sooner or later a
   point is reached at which the Lord says, "Hitherto, and no further:
   here shall thy proud waves be stayed." If men are no longer willing to
   derive their knowledge of sin from the law, God allows all the horrors
   of lawlessness to break loose, that they may see what is hidden in
   their hearts. But yet the Lord does not permit the reign of reason and
   morality to be utterly subverted. He has laid their foundations in
   human nature with a power that can never be entirely overcome. So if
   the wild flood has overflowed those shores, God brings man back to his
   senses, matured by sorrowful experiences; if there have been fierce
   outbreaks of hatred, the counsel of the Lord brings about a heartfelt
   love, made stronger by sufferings endured in common.

   But let us turn our eyes from this chequered and tumultuous scene of
   outward acts and circumstances, and look into the more silent depths of
   the human soul. Think of a reflecting man who studies the mysteries of
   man's mind, and seeks to understand the internal nature of the world in
   which he lives, and to search out the laws according to which
   everything in it goes on. In thus penetrating ever more deeply into his
   own nature and into the essential nature of all things, he may soon
   become aware how much nobler a pursuit such investigations are than
   those in which the greater number of our brethren, constrained by the
   cares of daily life, are obliged to toil. But if he then begins to
   imagine that they are too noble to be mixed up in any degree with
   common life, and therefore more and more withdraws from it, then the
   balance of the soul and of life is in danger. Actual life appears to
   him petty, or even contemptible, in comparison with the ideals with
   which his mind is occupied; then, in a very different spirit from the
   humility of those in this book of Job, who, in their debates and
   interchange of thought, sought to vindicate God's hiding of Himself, he
   imagines that he has fathomed the mystery of the world and its laws;
   nay, that even the Highest Himself is not hidden from him, but that he
   stands within that light which is inaccessible to all others. Thus he
   builds for himself a temple of pride and sets himself up in it as the
   object of worship. And from this temple flows forth an icy stream of
   loveless and unbelieving sophistry, chilling to death the tender life
   of the spirit, and often even making the wonderful life-giving
   fountains of the Divine word for long periods unavailable to many
   because of its sweeping flood. But this flood also can only rage for
   its appointed time; then, to those spiritual elements that have burst
   their bonds, the voice of the Lord calls, "Hitherto, and no further:
   here shall thy proud waves be stayed." New problems arise in the
   mysteries of Nature as well as in the human mind, and bring to nought
   the premature self-complacency of the wise of this world, who thought
   they had grasped and fathomed everything: they seek in vain the key to
   the riddle, and are obliged to acknowledge that they have unwisely
   spoken about what they did not understand, that which concerns them
   most nearly becoming indeed a witness to their ignorance. And when this
   spell of self-conceit is dissolved, then the killing frost also begins
   to yield, and a more genial atmosphere is spread over the spiritual
   life. That life absorbs only the more eagerly all the renewing and
   refreshment of childlike confidence; and the spirits that had grown
   afraid to trust accept all the more cordially the wholesome mysteries
   of faith, the longer they have been deprived of these comforts. And so
   these proud waves of the human mind not only subside, but leave a
   permanent blessing be hind them, and thus God appoints measure and
   limits to everything that seems to rise against His rule, and even to
   that which appeared to intend to take heaven by violence.

   But however comforting are the prospects for the future which the
   knowledge of these truths opens to us, we have one point more to
   consider in this respect; that is, the new creation of God which has
   only taken shape since the Word was made flesh, and appeared to us in
   the glory of the only-begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and
   truth. In this new creation which the Spirit of God establishes in the
   hearts of men, and from which we more and more expect, as time goes on,
   a new heaven and a new earth to result, it might be supposed that all
   would go on within right limits, and that the new earth would be
   distinguished mainly by this, that it should never again be the scene
   of ruin and devastation, though only in appearance; but that everything
   should progress in regular and successful order. But unhappily we
   nowhere see this. The praise of never swerving from the fairest and
   most perfect rule, and of maintaining the most perfect harmony of
   character, belongs exclusively to One, after whose measure we, indeed,
   are to become a perfect man, but only taken as a whole; and from whom,
   according to the measure that pleases Him, each of us, as a portion of
   the whole, receives manifold but variously diversified gifts of the
   Spirit, which manifest themselves in different ways according to
   differences of time and situation as well as of Nature. And already in
   the earliest times, when it was a still easier thing for all
   Christendom to agree, did there not arise under the very eyes of the
   apostles, as we see from Paul's epistles to the Corinthians, an emulous
   contention as to those separate gifts, which presents to us an idea of
   confusion, in the single member separating itself from the body and
   wishing to be something by itself, as if it could do with out the rest.
   That was not the effect of the Spirit's guidance, it was the impulse of
   human nature that did not yet understand itself in these higher
   circumstances, and which in newly receiving the gifts of the Spirit,
   wished to break away from obedience to His control. God allowed this to
   occur that it might be seen how much this mysterious bond still needed
   to be strengthened, and then the authoritative voice of the apostle
   interposed, reconciling and laying down rules. And when the Spirit of
   God was no longer confined to the limits of the Jewish nation, but
   brought heathen also to the knowledge of the truth in Christ, and the
   Church rejoiced that out of every nation he that feareth God and
   worketh righteousness is accepted of Him, to be brought to the
   knowledge of the Gospel; how soon was that first joy disturbed by hot
   contentions that threatened to rend the Church of God even in its
   earliest infancy! But through the wisdom of the apostles and the
   earnestness and love of the primitive Church, God spoke a calming word
   of peace, and the waves stopped short at threatening, and were not
   permitted to overflow. And when the Divine word in its rapid course
   laid hold of widely different peoples, and the diversity of tongues
   refused to be brought into harmony; when the variety of dispositions in
   the Church of God was always becoming greater, and each one had
   something different to fear as being injurious to the new life in him,
   as well as some point in the doctrines of salvation that he felt
   peculiarly bound to maintain; when, as the result of this, doctrine was
   presented in various lights and the Christian life assumed various
   forms, according to the riches of the Divine wisdom, which provided
   that the Gospel should be all things to all men so that by any means
   some might be gained; how very far were the minds of men from
   recognising and entering into the purpose of this rich wisdom! What
   strife and misunderstandings arose! and how quickly in this sacred
   territory of the Christian Church and of the Divine Word sprang up all
   the overbearing arrogance of a fancied exclusive knowledge, all
   passionate desire to persecute and destroy, by which means it is
   falsely imagined that social relations are best protected, and the
   fruits of human wisdom most securely preserved and extended! It was
   difficult to believe that there yet lay in the inmost hearts of the
   excited disputants, as the cause of all this, a true zeal for the
   kingdom of God. These sad scenes of devastation with in the Lord's
   vineyard have indeed always been the most dreadful of all the
   manifestations of human nature broken loose from restraint. The Most
   High, in permitting them, wished to appoint a sign by which Christians
   might discern in how small a degree that word of Christ, "My kingdom is
   not of this world," had yet become spirit and life in their hearts.
   Often has the bloody sign been repeated, but ever again came the
   command of the Lord, "No further! "to those waves also; and so strife
   was again turned into peace, estranged hearts were again bound
   together, and always new light and life were gained. But now? Has not a
   permanent separation taken place since the time when a part of
   Christendom came to the conclusion in regard to all the teaching that
   still inculcates the legal spirit of the Old Testament, making much of
   outward ceremonial and never allowing men to feel secure; in regard to
   all the worship that is borrowed from the glittering pomp of sensuous
   paganism, and everything that compromises the equality of all believers
   under the one Master--that these are nothing but a defiling of our holy
   temple? And what a distracted condition was that of the Christian world
   so long as the warfare on this matter went on!--a warfare that was only
   ended by a schism which still continues, and makes itself from time to
   time more sharply felt; and the end of which we cannot forecast! Yet
   even in this case the Lord has spoken the same word of power, "One
   Lord, one Spirit, one baptism, one God and Father of us all." At this
   watchword of the apostle, for unity in the Spirit by the bond of peace,
   a halt was bound to be made; this barrier could not be forced; before
   it even those waves of strife were compelled to subside.

   Oh, what comfort for the future is warranted to us by such a
   retrospect! what comfort both in view of that which lies directly
   before us, and for the more distant future! All the forces that have
   ever been roused to strife and contention against each other, not only
   still exist among men, but are still far from being bound in an
   indissoluble union. On the contrary, as the summit of perfection has in
   no respect been reached, the same occasions still present themselves
   from time to time, now for one force, now for another, to break out,
   and with destructive power to overpass their boundaries, so that the
   Lord must again draw them within their lines, and prescribe bounds and
   limits. And even in the Church of Christ--nay, within the borders of
   our own Church--the thing that has been still is. Vanity still stirs up
   rivalry in connection with men's different gifts; and the great
   diversity of views and opinions, instead of throwing increasing light
   on each, and helping men towards the truth in mutual love, still
   stimulates them to passionate contention, through their narrow and
   partial reliance on their own investigations on the one side, or the
   traditions of the elders on the other. Be it so! Even with these things
   in prospect we will look forward cheerfully to the future. The Lord has
   hitherto appointed limits in the natural world; and in the time to come
   that world will not deviate from His rule, according to which temporary
   disturbances are ever becoming of less significance. He has hitherto
   set limits to every outbreak of human passions; to all the
   complications that have arisen from men's conflicting dispositions and
   wishes, up to the present time; He has thrown over the kingdom of grace
   the defence that He promised to Him whom He set on His right hand; and
   He will do so still in the future. And this is not all. Out of every
   apparent convulsion Nature has come forth into more fixed order, and
   more receptive to the formative influences of man. All the
   often-recurring ruptures and wars have brought the relations of the
   nations to each other, as well as the internal relations of each
   people, into such a form, that their brotherly connection comes out
   more distinctly, and peace and concord are gaining a firmer footing and
   more enduring power. After every display of the overweening
   extravagances of the human mind, the chasm between what is evolved out
   of its own depths, and what is produced in devoutly exercised spirits
   by the power of the divine Word, is gradually becoming less. Through
   all the sufferings of the Christian Church, she has fought her way to a
   blessed liberation from the bondage of human authority, and to a
   clearer light of truth. And so it will be with all the troubles that
   may be before us in the future. God the Lord will set bounds and limits
   to them with the same result as before, and not without an equal
   blessing; and we may indulge the special hope that the Church of God,
   although passing through many forms of strife and division, will, as
   the salt of the earth, be ever attaining a closer likeness to the
   perfection of Him in whom, as the express image of God, there can be
   nothing discordant, but all is holy unity and blessed peace.

   II. But we are to find in the consideration of this truth, not only our
   comfort for the future, but our direction and the law of our life, for
   this and for every year which the Lord is still pleased in His grace to
   grant us on earth.

   But we need to be on our guard in this matter against two forms of
   error. Men are often inclined, with an only too easy indifference, to
   accept it as a settled thing that the ways of the Most High are
   unsearchable. Out of this easy acquiescence the Lord thundered Job by
   the power of His sublime discourse. When men's views on this point are
   in some degree corrected, and they allow themselves to be persuaded
   that though they cannot understand God's doings in detail, or all at
   once--in which sense we may say everything is unsearchable to us--yet
   that at least in the great, general course of human affairs, they do
   see, though but as in a glass darkly, something of the beneficent rule
   and glorious wisdom of the Most High, in connection with all the
   struggles and commotions in this world; when this point is reached,
   most men are apt to fall into error, which takes with some the form of
   a culpable carelessness in regard to their own conduct; with others,
   that of an entirely passive expectation of coining events.

   The latter class, when they see excess and overbearing pride bearing
   sway in the circle in which they move, and outbreaks of hostile and
   excited passions--though they are not without anxiety and concern as to
   how far the evil may have power to go, and all that may be ruined or
   retarded by it--yet console themselves with the thought that the Lord
   holds the reins over all, and directs in such a way that they may hold
   themselves entirely aloof, and regard themselves as not at all called
   on to co-operate in those divine plans. But for this comforting thought
   they would probably have taken some action, but now they wish to be
   mere spectators of what the Lord may bring about, as if in regard to
   human things, He carried out His purposes otherwise than by means of
   human instruments. The former class are persons who, if they believed
   that human instrumentality alone came into play, would perhaps often be
   alarmed at the manner in which they yield to their depraved
   inclinations; but they cherish the thought that the Lord Himself
   appoints bounds and limits, and restores order after confusion; and
   therefore they hold themselves no longer bound to feel any anxiety
   about the consequences of their acts, but think that, for their part,
   they can all the more readily follow, without measure or rule, the
   desires of their own mind. For, according to their theory, even though
   they could do no otherwise than obey the impulse of inward inclination
   and external necessity, the Most High will no doubt see to it that the
   consequences are neither more nor less than what He has determined. But
   what can we call this but a criminal indifference as to whether the
   will of God is to be done through us with our own will, or against it?
   And yet this is just what makes the essential difference between those
   who are God's servants and friends, and those who are only His
   slaves--involuntary and unconscious instruments. What can we call it
   but criminal indifference as to whether the things we desire belong to
   what God will establish and maintain, or to what He can only suppress
   and destroy? And yet in the one case we belong, by our will, to the
   kingdom of God; in the other case, to the world.

   And to return to that class of persons who--while recognising God as
   the upholder and mover of all, who out of everything can bring
   good--are yet pleased to wait in slothful inaction for what may happen,
   without caring to take a share in His work--have they not cause to
   charge themselves with knowing God and seeing Him, only apart from
   themselves?

   So let it never be with us!--us who claim to be not far from God, but
   in Him to live and move and have our being; not so with us, who have
   not merely a God working apart from us, but to whom Christ has promised
   to come, and with the Father take up His abode in our hearts! And if it
   is this very Father in heaven who appoints to everything its just
   limits and appropriate law, and if He has given us of His Spirit,
   manifestly this cannot but have the effect of leading us also to
   endeavour to maintain and restore limits and law everywhere. First, in
   the kingdom of Nature; for when, in the beginning, the Most High made
   over the earth, with all that breathes and moves on it, to the first
   parents of our race, it was His design that man should subdue it, and
   have dominion over it. Thus we ourselves are to be the standard of all
   earthly things; their relation to us is to be brought out in all
   circumstances, and is to be the true law of their being, and to this we
   are to direct our efforts. And if the Lord should again, for the
   moment, set free the forces of Nature from this law which is ordinarily
   in operation, so that they overpass the bounds appointed to them, and
   lay in ruins, more or less of the works of men, then what is the only
   wise and fitting course? Not, surely, to sit calmly waiting to see what
   the issue may be; still less to allow ourselves foolishly to be seduced
   into irregularity and strife, throwing it over on the Lord to restore,
   as He may please, the old state of things out of the new disorders. No;
   all such events should be a new call to us to bring our measure and
   rule to bear more powerfully on external Nature, to establish more and
   more the dominion of mind over it, and to impress on it ever more
   deeply the stamp of that dominion; in short, to subdue it more and
   more, by every means, under the spiritual power of man, whom the Most
   High Himself has appointed as its ruler. The more we unite our powers
   on every such occasion, in this new year; the more faithfully we
   support each other in this work, each one with the gift that he has
   received, whether it be clear insight into affairs, or power over
   minds, or abundance of outward means; so much the more shall we glorify
   the Name of the Most High, by making progress in fulfilling the great
   vocation to which He has called us.

   But this is no doubt only the outside view of the subject, that to
   which the better educated part of the community, who decide the action
   of the rest, are naturally prompted by the well-understood motive of
   personal advantage, or the most careful calculation as to the best
   means of securing what is required by their social life, which is
   constantly becoming more artificial and complex, as well as mutually
   dependent. Much more should we be concerned to keep rule and order in
   the spiritual world, and generally where man has to do with man.
   Nowhere should we be able to look on idly at men wandering away into
   error. Wherever the restless excitement and inflamed passions of the
   human soul have broken out in fury; where selfishness and lust of power
   have engaged in conflict with the right and good, and are reaching the
   point of tyranny; there we are to interpose: wherever arrogance and
   violence work hand in hand with cowardice and servility, in the most
   mischievous alliance that can be formed against right and truth, we
   must, as a matter of course, come openly and boldly for ward. Only we
   are to do this, not at all in the way of bringing to bear a force
   equally lawless and out of bounds, though of an opposite kind; but in
   this way, that by our whole life, by our opinions and modes of action,
   we really and truly represent law and order. And not only so: the
   spirit of order, that is a vital principle in us, should make us quick
   to detect the very first indications of the approach of a condition of
   things that in its consummation annihilates safe boundaries, and
   threatens to endanger and destroy all that promotes and preserves
   social life. But even without such premonitions, and without a definite
   purpose on our part, every one of us ought, in the circle of his work
   and of his social relations, so to contribute to the maintaining and
   strengthening of rule and order, that efforts in the opposite direction
   are restrained beforehand. Well for that community--and for such a
   community alone--in every rank of which there is a goodly number of
   those who, by their manner of life and the whole tone of their daily
   conduct, serve as a mighty voice of God, sounding out on every side the
   cry, "Hitherto and no further: here shall the proud waves be broken!"

   But, my friends, if we are in earnest in this matter--and what could
   more nearly concern us on such a day as this?--if we really long that
   in each new year of our lives these principles should come more
   powerfully into action, we must guard with special care against what
   happens only too easily, allowing ourselves to be carried away either
   by the violent or the more insidious evil ways of men; and so, perhaps
   with the best intentions, giving vent to our feelings in an extravagant
   way, which it becomes needful for the Lord to check. For nothing can
   have more disastrous results than our attempting to overcome evil, not
   with good, but with counter-evil, and, in contending for law and order,
   ourselves going beyond what is lawful. But how easily do many, even of
   the best people, fall into this mistake! Indeed, we may as well say
   plainly, we shall only be safe from such errors in so far as we live
   fully and heartily in the new creation to which, God be thanked, we all
   belong, and obey the Spirit who rules in that creation. For only
   through this Spirit has the Lord caused His eternal and holy laws to
   find an entirely natural soil in the human soul. The Spirit who in our
   hearts cries, "Abba, Father," the Spirit who is at once the Spirit of
   sonship and the Spirit of liberty, He alone it is who brings us
   thoroughly into accord with that inward character of the divine
   government in human affairs, by virtue of which everything passionate
   and uugoverned must be opposed, so that law and order may be everywhere
   restored. But where the power of this Spirit of Christianity is not yet
   felt, even the rational desire to extend knowledge is not pure love of
   truth, for many side issues find a place; and even the most zealous and
   self-sacrificing public spirit is, in that case, still a selfish
   feeling, seeing that it does not embrace the whole human family, and is
   therefore still liable to be swayed by passion or even by hostility.
   Nothing but the universal love and the pure truth taught by the Spirit
   of God can make men wholly free.

   But how can we possibly count on maintaining rule and order, by means
   of a pure and vigorous life as new creatures, in the whole world of
   men, even among those whose hearts are, alas, still closed against the
   Spirit of God, who desires to dwell in all,--how, I say, can we do
   this, unless this Spirit in the first place demonstrates by actual
   fact, in the Christian Church itself, the blessed power of overcoming
   all inferior motives, that the Lord's beneficent rule and order may be
   upheld? How shall we do it unless the Church is more and more getting
   rid of the delusion that the profit and honour of one may be shame and
   loss to another; and all are becoming more and more united in ono
   Spirit, with a common aim; unless each seeks the good of the rest
   without fearing to lose his own in doing so; unless there is the most
   joyful and confident seeking of the truth in love, so that love may
   have the glorious courage to be everywhere and always true and only
   true? For only thus, we are well assured, is that blessedness advanced,
   which the Lord came to bring, and in this way alone are men more and
   more freed from the influence of every meaner power, which makes them
   in reality weary and heavy laden.

   For this end, my friends, the Lord opens to us all another year of
   forbearance and grace. If, during its course, the comforting truths
   that furnished the first part of our meditation constantly confirm us
   in the resolutions that have occupied our later thoughts, we shall
   employ this year according to the holy will of God. Let us, for this
   purpose, seek after all spiritual gifts, in so far as we are able to
   stir them up and cultivate them in ourselves; for all have the power,
   if they will use it rightly, to maintain and restore rule and order in
   their own minds. And as to those gifts that seem to be denied to
   ourselves, let us not only rejoice heartily when we find them in
   others, but hold such persons in honour, and protect and further them
   in their operations as wo alone can; for a thorough co-operation of all
   faculties and gifts of the Spirit is necessary, if suitable resistance
   is to be made where there are proud waves to be broken. But only in the
   proportion in which we allow the one Spirit, from whom come at once the
   gifts and the knowledge to use them rightly, to have undisturbed
   control; only in so far shall we be, each for himself and for the
   community, a pure example of divine moderation and eternal order.

   As the divine Spirit who moved on the face of the waters established
   law and order in the natural world, so that those conditions are only
   developed more fully through all disturbances and warring forces; so
   when Christ appeared and His Spirit was poured out on all flesh, the
   eternal foundations of law and order were laid for the disordered
   spiritual world. Here also they will go on developing; each period as
   it passes will bear witness to their growing power; and as often as a
   new period begins, all in whom this Spirit lives and works should have
   this in view. But this Spirit is none other than the Spirit of love.
   And therefore the apostle, after exhorting Christians, as I have just
   been doing, to seek after all spiritual gifts, and most earnestly after
   the best, said rightly, in reference to love, that he would show them a
   more excellent way; for without love all the rest is worthless. And as
   those gifts are certainly perfect gifts, and the more richly any
   community is endowed with them the better times they may expect, love
   is even in this case the only bond of perfectness, because by love
   alone are those perfect gifts so united and kept in union that each
   fills up its appropriate measure, but never goes beyond it. Think of
   what spiritual gift you will; without love, it will either lie dormant
   in the soul like a dead faculty, or, once awakened, it will need only
   some slight provocation to exalt itself beyond the bounds of friendly
   concord with the rest. But love is this bond because love is itself the
   power that calls forth divine law and order. For it was through law and
   order that God, in His love, meant to reveal Himself in the creation of
   the world; and it is to love we owe the law and order of the new
   creation. Rule and limits must be set to all things else, but love,
   that produces and includes both, has no need to be so restrained. Love
   needs no rule, for she is not unruly; she has no proud waves that must
   be broken, for she envies not, is not puffed up, but is long-suffering
   and meek; she seeks not her own, and is not easily provoked (and what
   could raise more wild and foaming waves than that?), but beareth all
   things, because she hopeth all things. Therefore if, in the new year we
   are entering on to-day, love only dwells ever more richly among us,
   then the love of Christ, which is the source of all Christian brotherly
   love, will, on the one hand, constrain us to promote, by every means,
   thorough harmony and cheerful co-operation in every good work. And so
   it will come to pass more and more that, without great noise and battle
   drowning the voice of Christ; by a gentle but irresistible power--the
   power that belongs to the creating and upholding word of God alone--all
   threatening waves will be broken, and all hearts so bound together by
   this mysterious and yet unmistakable power, that wherever in the
   spiritual world anything still rises in rebellion, it may find no solid
   support; and the swollen streams in separate places may never again
   increase to a general and destroying flood. And on the other hand each
   of us will experience, in himself and in our whole community, fewer and
   fewer interruptions of the inward peace which the Lord left to His
   people; and there will more and more rarely occur such seasons of
   disturbance, that even to His own Church the Lord must address these
   words--words of healing, it is true, but still always the threatening
   words of a judge, "Hitherto, and no further; here shall thy proud waves
   be stayed."

   Let us then, with such comfort and such purposes, enter with cheerful
   courage on this new year of our lives. This year, like the rest--let us
   not deceive ourselves--will bring to us many occasions on which we
   shall find it needful to say, remembering with hope and confidence the
   words of our text; these waves also will find their boundary, and the
   limit which the Lord has appointed them. And if we are far from seeing
   how this can be, let us only, in the strength of love which rejoices in
   the truth, not be found wanting in our service to God; let us bear
   witness to the Lord's will whenever a favourable door is opened to us,
   and seek to overcome evil with good, and to hush the tempest with words
   of peace: and thus shall we also be fellow-workers, and in a similar
   way, though it may be only in a small degree, with Him who commanded
   the winds and the sea. And so it will come about that all the storms
   will be only external to us, while in our spiritual house there will
   only be heard the rushing of the Spirit, bearing witness with our
   spirits, that we, who are faithful according to law and order, as the
   Son was faithful in all His house, are the children of God. And this
   house itself will prove to be like that one which, though the floods
   come and the winds blow, and beat upon it, stands immovable, being
   founded on the true rock. Amen.

   Prayer.

   Even so, Almighty God and Father, we humble ourselves before Thy throne
   at the beginning of a new year that Thou givest us to use in Thy
   service, and in advancing Thy kingdom. Thou who restrainest and
   measurest all things, and under whose government nothing can happen but
   according to Thy command, wilt reveal in this year also Thy power and
   Thy wisdom, by all Thy dealings, to those who take pleasure in Thy
   ways, and whose eyesight is clear to behold Thy works, and their ears
   open to hear Thy holy voice. Oh, let that voice speak to us ever more
   distinctly from Thy written Word, and from the depths of our hearts,
   where Thou hast given Thy Spirit to dwell. Oh, that we might hear it
   ever more clearly, and follow it in loyal obedience more than hitherto,
   so that we should find the right measure of things without contention,
   and should live without times of disturbance and disorder in the
   kingdom which Thy Son has founded. To this end we commend to Thee, for
   this new year, all Christians on earth, and especially our evangelical
   Church. Build her up more and more, through the operation of Thy
   Spirit, into a Church well-pleasing to Thee! Let the light of the
   gospel be by her means ever shining brighter and further, that many may
   be awakened and born again to the new life, who are still sitting in
   the darkness and shadow of death! Glorify Thy Son more and more in all
   those who profess His name, and let the Spirit of order and of peace
   rule everywhere in the Christian Church! To this end grant Thy blessing
   on the bond of love and fellowship which unites Thy people, on the
   preaching of Thy Word, and on the distribution of the memorials of Thy
   Son.

   We specially commend to Thee also, for this year, our beloved
   Fatherland. Bless the king, the crown prince and his consort, and the
   whole royal House. May that House be in this year an equally blessed
   and beautiful example of Christian piety, so that all loyal subjects
   may rejoice in seeing its undisturbed and ever-increasing prosperity.
   Continue to the king the enlightening and the support of Thy Spirit,
   for the fulfilment of the great duty which Thou hast laid upon him.
   Surround him with faithful and zealous ministers, who understand how to
   help him and to carry out what is right and well-pleasing to Thee. Keep
   all his subjects loyal and obedient throughout the kingdom Thou hast
   given him; so that under his protection Christian churches may rise up
   everywhere, and that we may be always coming nearer to our common aim
   of likeness to our Saviour. We likewise, gracious God and Father,
   commend to Thy special care the training of the young, and the
   Christian households throughout our Fatherland, and in this city; that
   so every family that guides its affairs according to Thy will, may have
   the sense of Thy good pleasure within, and may shine as a helpful
   example to those with out. Yea, do Thou bless each one in that calling
   to which Thou hast guided him; so that we all may have the happy
   experience that we also can contribute something to the advancement of
   Thy kingdom, by wise use of the talent which Thou hast entrusted to us;
   and that from one year to another each of us, as a faithful servant of
   Thine, may be able to be set over more. And for those to whom, in the
   course of this year, Thou hast appointed sorrow and adversities, take
   Thou a loving concern when they seek refuge with Thee; and let us all
   experience, more and more, that in the measure which Thou appointest to
   all things, the purpose of Thy fatherly love is that our souls, for
   which Thou hast so graciously cared, may be more and more attaining to
   the right stature, and that for this very reason all things must work
   for the best to those who trust in Thee and love Thee. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

XIII.

THE LAST LOOK AT LIFE,

   (Passion Sermon.)

   TEXT: JOHN xix. 30. "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He
   said, It is finished."

   THESE greatest and most glorious of the last words -*- of our Saviour
   on the cross come immediately after those which are apparently of the
   least significance and importance. The Lord said, "I thirst;" then the
   moistened sponge was handed to Him; and when He had received the
   soothing, though not pleasant draught, He cried, "It is finished." And
   we must not break the connection of these two sayings, for the apostle
   has joined them most closely by placing just before his report of them
   the words, "When Jesus saw that all things were now finished, that the
   Scripture might be accomplished." Now if the former is the least
   important of the Saviour's last words, seeing that, considered in
   itself, it concerns merely the satisfying of a bodily need; the latter
   is indisputably the greatest of all those words; it is the saying which
   has always been, as it were, the anchor for the faith of Christians;
   the word in which this truth is perfectly proved and made glorious to
   them; that according to the divine counsel, salvation could be won for
   men in no other way than this; that He who was sent into the world for
   their salvation should be obedient even to the death of the cross. But
   if we direct our attention to this great word alone, we are overpowered
   by the infinity of the subject, and we have reason to be glad that the
   very apostle who has preserved this word for us has also left us a key
   to it, which gives our thoughts a more definite direction. Such a key
   we find in those preceding words, "When Jesus saw that all things were
   finished, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, He said, I thirst."
   John knew that the soul of the Saviour. was engaged in thus comparing
   all that had so far befallen Him, with the divine promises, as they
   were uttered through the whole series of revelations in the written
   word of God; and as He thus set promise and fulfilment side by side,
   and so became conscious in a human way of the completion of the divine
   purpose, He cried, "It is finished."

   Of course at that moment everything was not yet finished. As our
   redemption from sin and our justification before God must go together;
   so also it was necessary that He who needed to die there for our sin
   should be raised again for our justification. As the fact that the
   disciples saw the Father only in Him, was connected with this, that
   when He left the world He returned to the Father; so also the fact that
   He loved the disciples implied that He could not leave them orphans,
   but must send them another Comforter who should abide with them, and
   after them with us also; even the Spirit of truth. But the spiritual
   eye of the Saviour saw everything finished in the sacred moment of His
   death; and for this reason that moment is the central point of our
   faith. For by His obedience unto death He obtained for us the
   life-giving Spirit; in that He suffered, He has been crowned with glory
   and honour. Therefore if in the moment of His death He could say, in
   this sense, "It is finished," He must have regarded His death in that
   infinite connection which begins with the first promise given to fallen
   man concerning the seed of the woman, and reaches forward into that
   eternity in which He will bring to the Father all those whom the Father
   has given Him, that they may share in the praise and glory with which
   He has been crowned. All this is no doubt perfectly true; but let us
   return to the definite direction that the apostle gives us, and confine
   ourselves to considering this word chiefly as the final look at a past
   life; and let us, especially in the first place, see in it as the
   Saviour did, the accomplishment of His destiny during this earthly
   life; and secondly, apply the great word of the Lord, as our heart
   constrains us to do, to ourselves.

   I. As the Saviour said so often during His life that the Son of Man did
   nothing of Himself, but did the things that He saw with the Father, and
   spoke the words that He heard from Him; we must naturally suppose that
   He was constantly engaged in the profoundest meditation on the ways of
   God; and that, raised as He was above all human weakness of mind, it
   was so still, even in these last painful hours of His life; and thus
   all words relating to Himself in the Divine revelations of the Old
   Testament were present to His soul. We have already had an example of
   this in His earlier words on the cross; when even the pains and
   weakness that He had to endure recalled to His remembrance words of
   holy Scripture, and He applied one and another of them to- His own
   circumstances. But certainly we should ill understand Him, if we
   believed that it was these personal details in which He found
   everything finished that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. That He was
   hanging there on the cross, surrounded by the powerful enemies who had
   brought about His death; that His bones were consumed and His tongue
   clave to His jaws; that He saw His clothes shared among the soldiers
   and lots cast for His coat; the contemplation of separate incidents
   like these, and the comparing of them with the words of the Psalm,
   might indeed to a certain extent, and perhaps more than would have been
   the case with another, turn away the attention of the suffering Saviour
   from the torturing sense of physical pain; but to occupy entirely His
   soul, that was ever bent on greater things, was what those outward
   details could not do; nor was it those things on account of which He
   cried with such satisfaction, "It is finished."

   If then we must seek for greater things, let us not give the reins to
   our own imaginations, which certainly would not succeed in
   understanding Christ; rather let us speak of such words of Scripture as
   His disciples, in speaking of the essential facts of His life, apply to
   Him with inspired unanimity, and which must now have come most
   naturally before His mind. Now where could we find His whole office
   and- work in relation to the ruined and weakened human race more
   perfectly expressed than, in the first place, in those words of the
   prophet, in which one of the evangelists describes to us the Saviour's
   whole manner of dealing--I mean those words, as tender as they are
   strong, "He will not break the bruised reed, and the smoking flax will
   He not quench"? These are words which, through what He had done
   throughout His life of duty, and what He was now doing in dying, were
   now being fulfilled to the whole human race, which might well be
   regarded as only a bruised reed and an expiring taper; so that even in
   the hour of death, yes, dying there alone, He could yet feel called on
   to praise and glorify the name of His Father in the great congregation;
   like him whose words He used when He said; "My God, why hast Thou
   forsaken me." And thus He also found that other word perfectly
   fulfilled, which His disciples universally apply to Him; that He took
   upon Him our sicknesses and that through His pains we are healed; it
   was this which now in the last look at His life He saw finished, that
   the Scriptures might be fulfilled.

   But we cannot properly feel the full value of this last word of
   Christ's, unless we can transport ourselves in thought into that time,
   and into the state of mind of all those who clung to the Lord with a
   faith that was still weak and imperfect. When He made His entry into
   the capital of His nation, coming to the feast which was to be the
   feast of His own death and resurrection, and was hailed by thousands as
   He who came in the name of the Lord, the promised Son of David; when
   the palms, the emblem of the victorious king who with victory brought
   peace, were strewn before His feet; what kind of expectations were
   probably stirring in the minds of that joy-intoxicated multitude, that
   streamed in from all directions to share in this triumphal entry? For
   the most part, unhappily, expectations of an external glory and power;
   expectations which the Saviour had never encouraged, and which He had
   not come to fulfil. And even His disciples, though many words must have
   lived in their remembrance by which the Saviour had often, indeed on
   every occasion, sought to turn away their hopes and their love from the
   glory of this world, and had pointed them to that spiritual world which
   would be subject to Him as its Lord and Master;--even they were not yet
   quite sure whether in some way, though perhaps further off in the
   future, an outward power and authority might not be the means of
   setting up this kingdom in its full splendour; and even they were
   perhaps carried away by the enthusiasm of the people in those glorious
   days to share in such earthly expectations. But the palms that were
   then strewn before the Saviour's feet were now first wound into the
   true, glorious victor-wreath around His dying head, when all that was
   at that time said in human misunderstanding was fulfilled in its real,
   spiritual sense, according to the secret counsel and purpose of God,
   Thus, on the cross, in His death, Christ was altogether He who came in
   the name of the Lord, and thus and no otherwise was He to be magnified
   and blessed from that moment to all eternity. It was thus also that the
   apostle felt it, who has recorded this word for us; and therefore he
   says, When Jesus saw that all was finished, that the Scripture might be
   fulfilled. So that the Scripture was now completely fulfilled in Him,
   and, erroneously as the great majority had always interpreted these
   glorious words of prophetic men, their true import would now be better
   apprehended by all; and therefore, in this sense also, all was
   finished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled; and then He bore
   testimony to Himself in that great word, which, uttered now and here,
   must have made His disciples abandon for ever all their false earthly
   expectations;--then He exclaimed, "It is finished"! And now they knew
   also that seeing they could not fare better than their Lord and Master,
   they too could fulfil their vocation only through suffering and
   tribulation, and so enter into the kingdom of His glory; now they knew
   that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; for the flesh
   and blood of Christ had fastened Him to the cross, and that therefore
   they were now to know no man according to the flesh; now they knew that
   His whole work was a purely spiritual work, and that His authority, for
   which they were to fight and which they were to extend, was no other
   than that which He, as the Crucified, sets up for Himself in the hearts
   of the children of men.

   But there is one thing more that we must not overlook. When the
   Saviour, in this connection with the fulfilling of Scripture, uttered
   the words, "It is finished," we cannot but feel that the reference is
   not only, nor indeed even chiefly, to what He has done; that He is not
   merely looking back on what He might regard as His own work; but what
   He very specially points to is what has been done in and through Him.
   It was not His own work, and He could not mean in these words to
   represent it as such, that He had so early reached the goal of His
   great destiny; but it was the fulfilment of the divine decree, through
   the divine leading and foreknowledge. His death was the great moment
   for which all human things from the beginning of our race had been
   bound to work together; it was indicated long before through manifold
   pictures of the sufferings of God's servants in an evil world; and who
   could question that those pictures, wherever they are found, contained
   the expression of a knowledge that came from above, although as yet
   seen only in a very feeble and glimmering light? But those
   representations became more and more distinct in the sacred discourses
   of men who were filled with the divine Spirit; and now they were being
   realized; for the appearing of the Saviour was an offence and
   foolishness to the perversity of the human heart; and this perversity
   was increased to spite and malignity by the faith in the Saviour and
   love to Him that began to be manifested. It was what was done to Him He
   was now chiefly looking at. His life, as regarded work, He had closed
   already with that sublime prayer which this same evangelist has
   preserved for us, in which He gives account to His Father of how He had
   glorified Him, the Father, through His whole life, and at the same time
   declares His hope that now the Father will also glorify the Son. But
   confidently as He could at that time present Himself before God with
   those whom the Father had given Him and chosen out of the world,
   perfectly conscious as He was of duty fully and purely fulfilled, it
   was not then that He spoke the great word, "It is finished." But if,
   speaking exactly, He did nothing more after that, what are we to
   understand by His refraining until now from saying, "It is finished"?
   Most evidently this: that the divine counsel concerning a man is never
   accomplished through that alone which the man does; and this holds good
   even of Him, the one gracious Man, of Him, the only righteous One. The
   counsel of God is always fulfilled through the working together of all
   the forces which the Most High sets in operation; not only those of
   which we can say, in a restricted sense, that He gives both the will
   and the accomplishment, but those also of which we like best to think
   that He merely says to them, Hitherto, and no further. The Divine
   counsel is only fulfilled through that which is utterly hidden from
   us--the reciprocal influence of all times and all spaces; one day must
   tell it to another, the earth to the heavens, and the heavens again to
   the earth; from everything, taken together, that the individual man has
   power to do, and does, though never from that alone, there results that
   of which it can be said, "It is finished." This word of the Lord
   therefore indicates to us that, in His last great moments, He forgot,
   or set in the background, even His own work on the earth, which for
   this very reason He had previously wound up, in order again to direct
   His thoughts solely to the work of His Father in heaven. That which
   filled up the last moment of His human life was this--He was absorbed
   in contemplating the mystery of the divine counsels; so that even this
   great act of His departure, though, in another aspect, it was
   emphatically His own deed and His holiest service, He preferred to
   regard as what had been not only foretold but prepared, as what was now
   directly accomplished only through the divine wisdom and its leadings,
   working together to this end.

   II. Now if this is the right idea of the state of mind in which the
   Saviour spoke the words of our text; if we recognise even in this
   greatest and most important of His last words the profound humility of
   Him who, though He was in the form of God and thought it no robbery to
   be equal with God, yet in the last hour of His life, putting in the
   shade His own deed and service, rested and rejoiced only in this, that
   the counsel of His Father was being fulfilled, how can we then think of
   applying this word to ourselves, and how shall I redeem the promise
   that I have given for the second part of our meditation? Were it a
   question merely of the active life, of the human influence of the
   Saviour, even then we might well ask, what are we in comparison with
   Him, and how could any one of us think of comparing him self with Him?
   And yet in that case the application to ourselves might be an easier
   thing. For when Christ, as our High Priest, in that prayer to which I
   have already referred, closed His account with His heavenly Father, it
   was with Him just as with other children of men. Although God was in
   Him, reconciling the world to Himself, yet that world still lay before
   His eyes unreconciled, enveloped in the darkness and shadow of death;
   and He presented to His Father only some few who had attached
   themselves to Him in faith and love as the fruit of His life-work, as
   those who were chosen out of the world, so that He could say with a
   glad heart, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world;
   they have heard and believed Thy word that. I have come forth from
   Thee." And even then He had to mourn over a lost sheep, so that even in
   His own immediate circle what He Himself had said was fulfilled, that
   all are not chosen who are called; and thus He also experienced that in
   direct influence on men there is no perfect and in variable success.
   Then He also needed to come with prayer to His heavenly Father for the
   work from which Ho was now, as to His human agency, to withdraw His
   hand; and He thus acknowledged that though in another and a higher
   sense He had done all, yet the direct results were only now beginning,
   and that it was needful for the Father to complete what the Son could
   only initiate. In all this, therefore, my friends, we should find a
   great deal that we could apply to ourselves, if the question concerned
   the last converse of the soul with God before quitting this earthly
   scene. Each of us has those whom the Lord has given us, whom we are to
   present to Him as chosen out of the world; and he who, though feeling
   his own weakness, has faithfully and wisely carried on the work of the
   Lord on earth, desiring nothing besides, will also be able to say in
   faith, "Here am I, Father, and those whom Thou hast given me." And to
   him who, like the Saviour, has to mourn over disappointed hopes, if one
   or another forcibly tears himself away from the loving and guiding
   hand, in spite of all guarding and upholding love, to him there will
   assuredly not be wanting such a comfort as this, "that the Scripture
   might be fulfilled."

   But this is not exactly the question with which we are concerned here
   in this great word of the Lord; it is rather as to what befel Him so
   that all that was written of Him might be fulfilled, and nothing left
   undone. And what kind of a comparison can we institute here? Do the
   Scriptures--which, as He Himself said, testify of Him in every page, if
   the Spirit of God enlightens the eyes of the reader--those Scriptures
   in which He was promised, from the beginning, and which He had in view
   as fulfilled in Himself when He spoke the word, It is finished--do
   those Scriptures speak also of us, my friends? Can we also, at the
   close of our life, cast such a look into the past as to be able to
   rejoice that the Scriptures are fulfilled in us? Oh, doubtless, they
   speak of us all! Do they not say, the whole of you are sinners, and
   come short of the praise that you should have with God? That, you see,
   is the first Scripture which is fulfilled in us all; and if we imagine
   our eye directed, in the last hours of our life, to the time that will
   then be past, and to Him in whom glory to God and to the divine will is
   portrayed to us all, ah, then each of us will say, Now I am dying; this
   Scripture is fulfilled in me! But the Scriptures say also, Christ is
   become to us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification. Well, then,
   he who can glory in the grace of the Lord, who has not been deaf to the
   voice of His Spirit, who finds himself in that living fellowship with
   Christ in which all things are common to Christ and him, and in his
   last moments can look back on such a life, lived in faith on the Son of
   God, and Christ living in him,--to him this Scripture is the most
   genuine expression of his consciousness of what has formed the full and
   complete value of his life. For whatever cannot be included under this,
   forms no part of the value of his life; and in the glad assurance that
   this Scripture, this edifying, saving Scripture, is fulfilled even in
   him, he will then be able to say, It is finished.

   But let us not stop short, my friends, at the most general point of our
   faith, at the consciousness of salvation which is involved in
   fellowship with the Saviour; for in that fellow ship (though assuredly
   never but through and with Him) we can certainly follow out still
   further the analogy between this word from His lips, and our experience
   in the moment of our departure; or rather, in the last look at our past
   life that we may be permitted to take with as entire consciousness as
   the Saviour had. For the whole time of the Saviour's presence on earth,
   but very specially the great moment in which He completed, by His
   death, the work of reconciling the world to God, was, to an extent in
   which it can be said of no other time, the great point of transition,
   at which two different periods divided: the time of longing desire and
   hopeful anticipation, and the time of blessed fulfilment and of
   life-giving faith, creating men anew to works of love. But we also, as
   a whole, yea, every one of us, mean and obscure as our existence in the
   world may be, are in a similar way included in the great connected plan
   of the divine dealings. For the same thing is always occur ring over
   again in the Church of the Lord, only in less degrees. When Christ said
   to His disciples that He had yet many things to say to them, but they
   could not bear them now, and referred them to the Spirit whom He would
   send to them, He in fact introduced even for them a time of longing and
   anticipation, the fulfilment of which was not to come until later. And
   everything in the present time which we recognise as deficiency and
   imperfection stirs us to longing and anticipation, and these are
   followed by fulfilment. Now if this goes on until we have attained to
   the fulness of a perfect man in Christ--and until then we cannot cease
   to wish and hope--we are all so situated that longing and fulfilment
   alternate; and no sooner is one desire fulfilled, though always in only
   an imperfect way, than we long after something else. But to this still
   imperfect state of fulfilment something connected with the good
   pleasure and will of God is to be added by each living generation,
   leaving to the young only its unfulfilled aims; and to this work of the
   men of his time, every one who accounts himself a living member of this
   God-sanctified body is to contribute his share. Now as all that was to
   take place had not yet actually occurred when the Saviour cried, "It is
   finished," so in our case, also, we may, with the same faith which we
   see in Him who is the Author and Perfecter of ours, regard that which
   we have still to meet as included in what has already taken place. And
   just in the same way, when we come to our last look at the life we have
   spent, our thoughts may rest with heartfelt thankfulness to God, on
   what has been done, not certainly through our own merit, for that is
   the Lord's alone, nor by our work exclusively, for our out ward
   position and a great deal that does not depend on us has always some
   part in it; but still, on what has been brought, through our presence,
   our agency, our indirect influence in many and divers ways, to its sole
   completion; or has, at least, gone on from being a wish and
   anticipation to the beginning of fulfilment. And we are to regard all
   this taken together, and indeed estimate it, as that which our natural
   characteristics, as well as the circumstances in which God has placed
   us, indicated from the first as our work; and in our last look at life
   we shall praise God with equal humility and gratitude that what He
   apportioned to us, according to His wisdom, as our day's work, is
   actually accomplished. We shall acknowledge humbly how much we have
   found it needful to avail ourselves of from without, in order to
   accomplish even the little that we have actually done; how many
   obstacles there were that could only have been removed through
   favourable circumstances or by the help of others; so that we may seek
   in vain anywhere for work that is exclusively our own. But if God will,
   we shall then also have to acknowledge thankfully how even in us,
   though it may be but in small measure, the beautiful word of Scripture
   has been fulfilled, that all the gifts of the Spirit in the Church are
   manifested for the common good; and that as the Scripture sets before
   us the fruits of the Spirit in the delightful group of love, joy,
   peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, purity;
   some of those fruits, though not perhaps perfectly ripened, nor of the
   choicest beauty, have grown up in the garden of our heart. It was no
   doubt Christ alone in whom everything belonging to the image of God in
   this human nature developed ever increasingly and without interruption,
   in the fairest symmetry; and the time at which He appeared, the circum
   stances amidst which He lived, contributed nothing to this; they only
   helped to make it possible for this glory of the only-begotten Son to
   take effect in the way and measure which the divine wisdom had
   determined from all eternity. And it was just that divine decree that
   He counted as accomplished, when, while He was yet on the cross, this
   glory appeared to Him in its full splendour. With us the case is
   certainly very different; for none of us will be able to look back on
   his life without becoming aware of the fluctuating and unsteady
   progress of his soul. Falls and risings again; the hand bravely laid on
   the plough and then dubiously withdrawn; the work of God eagerly
   entered on, and then again the hands hanging feebly down; this and no
   other is the manner of our spiritual life, only taking different forms
   in its early bloom and in its gradual coming to maturity; and different
   also in each according to his natural disposition and his outward
   circumstances. But however saddening this may be, yet, in another
   aspect, if at the end of our life we, like Christ, look less at what we
   ourselves have done, and rather at what, according to God's gracious
   counsel and foreknowledge has been done in and through us; then wo
   shall be like Him, even in this, that everything at the close of our
   life will still harmonize in a joyful, "It is finished." For if once
   the Word of God has been held up before us as the pure mirror of the
   truth, in which each of us may recognise himself, and we have really
   looked into it; then we shall feel constrained to testify that though
   we have once and often forgotten what manner of men we were, yet we
   have been always drawn to return and look into that mirror anew; and
   that even our vacillations and falls, our negligence and our evil
   desires, have served to give us a deeper and clearer self-knowledge,
   which is one of the greatest possessions that can be granted to us with
   which to depart hence. If we have once turned away from the universal
   restlessness of the human race to the true Shepherd and Overseer of our
   souls, and have experienced that in Him we find rest and refreshing; if
   then we have at any time, through the cowardice of the human heart,
   sought, when something painful threatened us, some other shelter that
   seemed to lie nearer to us;--or if, in the self-will of our heart, we
   have ventured alone into seductive pastures; yet our Shepherd has
   followed and sought us in various ways: and through these changes in
   our experience we have become the more firmly convinced that protection
   and safety, as well as comfort and refreshing, are only to be found in
   union with Him. Have we often, it may be, under the pressure of the
   world and amidst its obstinate opposition, admitted the thought that
   the Lord, whose pound, entrusted to us, we are to put out to usury, is
   a hard Master, who wishes to reap where He has not sown? yet we have
   been hindered, sometimes in one way, sometimes in another, from utterly
   burying it, and shall have something, little as it may be, to show,
   that has been gained by it. Now if through the gracious over-ruling of
   God, who glorifies him whom He has justified, even our weaknesses and
   mistakes have not only tended to confirm our own character, but have
   also been useful to our brethren in the way of doctrine, and warning,
   and instruction in righteousness,--as indeed we have often ourselves
   experienced this effect from the weaknesses of others,--then we shall
   be constrained to acknowledge that true as that other word of Scripture
   remains, which we shall each of us separately apply to himself,
   regarding the praise that we ought to have with God; yet to each
   individual member of the Church of Christ, as well as to the body in
   which we are united as a whole, that word is also fulfilled, and will
   always go on being fulfilled, as to our whole life, sufferings and
   work, that to those who love God, all things must work for good. If we
   thus some day look back on the life we have spent, when we have reached
   its close, we shall thankfully and gladly acknowledge that it has been
   the eternally wise kindness and the compassionate love of the heavenly
   Father towards all who are called His children, which, through errors
   and weakness, through joys and sufferings, has bound us ever more
   closely and at last inseparably to Him, whom indeed we cannot let go if
   the Scripture is to be fulfilled in us, and in fellow ship with whom,
   and comforted as He himself was, we shall be able to cry, "It is
   finished." Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

XIV.

THE DEATH OF THE SAVIOUR THE END OF ALL SACRIFICES.

   (Good Friday.)

    TEXT: HEB. x. 8-12.

   DEEPLY as our feelings may be moved on a day such as this, deeply as
   our hearts may be affected with a sense of sin, and at the same time
   filled with thankfulness for the mercy from on high, that planned to
   save us by God not sparing His own Son, we can only be sure of having
   found the right and true use of the day, when we bring our thoughts and
   feelings to the test of Scripture.

   We find there a twofold treatment of the supremely important event
   which we commemorate to-day. The gospel narratives unfold to us the
   facts of Christ's life and death, setting them before us, each with its
   own accompanying circumstances; and in every line of their history we
   see, closely side by side, the clearest light of heavenly love and
   purity, and the darkest shadow of sin and perversity. Which of us would
   not gladly linger over this history during this time set apart
   specially for meditation on the sufferings of Christ? Who would not
   expect once more to experience the purifying and elevating power of
   those sacred narratives? And the more we kept in view, in such
   meditations, the spiritual aspect of the facts, not allowing it to be
   pushed aside by what is only external, the purer would be the blessing
   that we derived from such a contemplation of the life of Christ. But
   the apostles, in their letters to individual brethren as well as to
   Christian congregations, take this acquaintance with outward facts as a
   thing for granted; while they seize every opportunity of directing the
   attention of Christians to the deep, mysterious significance of the
   death of Christ for our salvation, and to its connection with the great
   end and purpose of redemption, with the whole of our hopes and our
   faith. And the more suitable such meditations on the historical facts
   are for the days preceding this great day, during which no doubt all
   the pious members of our congregations have been constantly so engaged,
   not only during our meetings, but in the quiet of private devotion; the
   more natural it seems to me to turn in this sacred hour to one of those
   apostolic utterances, and to devote our attention to the deep
   significance of Christ's death for the salvation of men.

   It is very clear, from the whole context of these words, that the
   sacred writer regards the Saviour's death as the real transition point
   at which the old covenant terminated and the new covenant of God with
   man began. While he represents the death of the Saviour as an offering
   for sin, he at the same time sets it forth, in the words, "through one
   offering are perfected," as the end of all offerings and all
   sacrificial services, which, in the times before Christ, formed the
   essential element both in the worship of the Jewish people, and in the
   sacred rites, mixed with much delusion and error, of other nations. And
   we have here set in the sharpest contrast the inadequacy of all former
   offerings, and that eternal, divine power through which the offering of
   the Saviour transcends them all, and in so doing has made an end of all
   offerings. Let us then consider the death of the Saviour in contrast
   with all other offerings, and as the end of them.

   In the earlier part of this chapter the writer had said that the
   offerings would have ceased if those who offered them had had no more
   conscience of sin, but had been cleansed once for all; but through the
   offerings there was only a remembrance made of sins year by year; the
   sins themselves, he says in our text, can never, by the repetition of
   the offerings, be taken away. We shall, therefore, not only get hold of
   the real meaning of his discourse, but exhaust it as to its essential
   bearing, if we regard the death of Christ as the termination of all
   offerings in these two respects: first, because there is no longer need
   of any other remembrance of sin, to be renewed from day to day and from
   year to year; secondly, because, sin being really taken away, there is
   no longer need of any such insufficient offerings.

   I. Offerings, then, served at first as a remembrance of sin; but now,
   since Christ became a sacrifice for sin, there is no longer need for
   any other remembrance of it.

   How was it, then, that all the offerings under the old covenant were a
   remembrance of sin? In this way--that while the offering was supposed
   to make satisfaction for individual acts that transgressed the law of
   the Highest, so that there was no longer cause to fear being reproached
   or punished for them; at the same time the presenting of the offering
   was a confession of the guilty act; and by this public presentation
   each offerer made a remembrance of his sins, of everything in which he
   had come short of the law. We may only notice here, in passing, what an
   imperfect system this was. For what, after all, are the single out ward
   acts, in which sin manifests itself, in comparison with sin itself?
   Nothing but occasional outbreakings of the inward corruption,
   dependent, in a thousand ways, on external circumstances. If we compare
   two persons, of whom, on the same day, one has a multitude of such
   outward offences to repent of and to expiate, while the other can boast
   of not having committed one, is the latter, on that account, better
   than the former? By no means! Only he has fallen on a favouring hour,
   the other on an evil one; and corruption may have just as deep and firm
   a hold in the soul of the one as in that of the other. For just look at
   it in this way! How do we suppose a man can single out particular acts
   that he commits as those which are to be attributed to himself alone?
   That man may indeed be always right who in his inmost heart ascribes to
   himself, without reflecting on any one else, a culpable and criminal
   deed committed by him; but it would be unjust in others to let him
   settle his account in this manner, and think themselves cleared from
   all blame of his act, because he imputes it to himself alone; and
   therefore that man will never be quite wrong who includes others as
   connected more or less remotely, and often at who can tell what
   distance of time, with his fault. No, my friends, if we are only in any
   measure seeking the truth, if we look intelligently into the manifold
   ways in which the concerns of society are woven into each other, and
   become aware of all the open and hidden influences that people exercise
   on each other, we shall be ready to admit that each of us has his
   share, directly or indirectly, in the sins that appear in others; and
   that we can by no means consider that our reckoning ends with those
   which we personally commit. Oh, in very manifold ways,--not only by
   misleading example and inconsiderate speech, but by easy, lenient
   judgments, by neglecting to express disapproval, and in many ways
   besides, we all help to cause sin in others; and we can hardly say that
   any sin is the sin of one alone. For this reason, then, all remembrance
   of sin made by the offerings was imperfect and unsatisfactory, because
   it depended on this division of human responsibility, because it only
   dealt with sin when it became outwardly manifest, so that there was no
   true remembrance of inward sin impressed on the mind of the worshipper.
   And when the apostle says elsewhere that "by the law is the knowledge
   of sin," he is perfectly right; for this is, in fact, the highest merit
   that can be ascribed to an external law, although it possesses no power
   for real amendment; but he could certainly never have meant that the
   remembrance of sin, provided for by the offerings prescribed in the
   law, could ever have produced a complete consciousness of sin or a true
   knowledge of it. No, this is only effected fully by the contemplation
   of the suffering and dying Saviour. There we have presented to us in
   one view, in the authors of this death, the full depth of human
   depravity, and in Him who suffered it, the full glory of the
   only-begotten Son of the Father; so that we may say with perfect truth
   that there is no real remembrance of sin but the death of the Lord. In
   this, sin has accomplished its greatest work; here it shows itself in
   its full strength and completeness. The apostle John must also have
   taken this view when he summed up all sin in "the lust of the eyes, and
   the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life." It was the lust of the
   eyes, the mistaken tendency of man to be captivated by outward
   appearance, and by that to estimate character, which caused so many of
   our Lord's contemporaries to perplex themselves by superficial
   judgments. What good can come out of Nazareth? Of what consequence can
   this man be who has not learned the Scriptures in our way? The lust of
   the flesh, the delight that men take in the transitory blessings of the
   present life, the striving after distinction and honour in the world,
   after the securing and increasing of every outward possession, the joy
   of seeing others dependent on them and of being looked up to by
   them,--this was what caused the high priest and the elders of his
   people to agree in the decision. It is better that one man should
   perish than that the whole constitution, under which we can direct and
   restrain the people, should come to ruin. And the pride of life,--what
   is it? It is the pride built on man's presumptuous self-confidence when
   he imagines that, in his sagacity and experience of life, he has
   already possessed himself of what is best and most perfect, and
   therefore holds the powers unsurpassed to which he owes those
   possessions. Thus nothing better can gain entrance to his mind, and in
   the pleasant twilight of self-complacency all pure light is scorned and
   rejected. It was through this pride of life that the wise and powerful
   of those times did not believe John's announcement of the kingdom of
   God; and it was because of it that afterwards the secret of the divine
   counsels remained hidden from them, and could be revealed only to
   babes. But from this very cause, that the light was hidden from the
   wise and mighty because of their pride, they were able so to sin
   against Him who was the centre of all the promises, that they crucified
   Him. Hence we may truly say that we find, in that which was the cause
   of the Saviour's death, the most notable example of all that darkens
   the human soul and keeps men far from the way of truth and salvation:
   and a remembrance of sin, ineffaceable to all eternity, was recorded in
   the fact that in the one nation in which the knowledge of the only true
   God had been preserved, those very persons who should, above all
   others, have possessed and kept up this knowledge, were sinful and
   corrupt enough to slay on the cross the Prince of Life and the Lord of
   Glory. What more can we need as a remembrance of sin? There it stands,
   once for all, just as much for every individual, as for all times and
   for the whole human race. For whatever stirrings of sin we still have,
   whatever in us resists the will of God, of which He was the eternal
   embodiment, may always be traced to something of that which was the
   cause of the Lord's death; and thus we must regard all sins as having a
   share in crucifying Him. And hence every succeeding generation needed,
   just as little as we, any other remembrance of sin than that which was
   created by the death of the Lord: and He is thus the end of all
   offerings; because the sorrowful confession of single sins by means of
   such sacred observances, and the sorrow and repentance for separate
   outbreaks of sin, of whatever kind they may be, cannot by any means be
   compared with the sorrow with which we all, without distinction of
   better or worse, must be bowed down by this thought, that it was our
   kindred, men like ourselves, who, through the same corruption that we
   find in ourselves, crucified the Lord of Glory. A remembrance which
   thus bears upon everything evil in the human soul, makes every other
   for ever superfluous. And again, if in connection with distinct sinful
   acts that we have committed, we prescribe to ourselves, or have
   prescribed to us by others, certain performances, whether works of love
   or exercises of devotion; these can never make what is done as if it
   had not been, nor dry up the fountain of such acts, and therefore can
   be nothing but a remembrance of sin; so what would this be but to turn
   back to that imperfect system which has only the shadow instead of the
   reality? and what would be proved by our doing so, but that we fail to
   ascribe the due value to the remembrance of sin made by the death of
   Christ? Let us then use this day's solemn commemoration of that death,
   to establish ourselves anew on this article of our Church's faith; that
   even in this respect we have regard to nothing but the perfect
   sacrifice once finished by Christ on the cross. And let each one whose
   heart admonishes him to think of the corruption in his own breast, and
   every one who is still conscious of occasional symptoms of his old sin.
   cast himself down before the cross of Christ, and there, in the name of
   Him who was made the offering for sin, beseech the Father to preserve
   him from ever again, by his lust of the eyes and lust of the flesh and
   pride of life, crucifying afresh the Prince of Life and Lord of Glory.

   II. And as those offerings, often as they were repeated, were always
   only this imperfect kind of remembrance of sin; so, in the second
   place, they were quite incapable of taking away sin. But inasmuch as,
   with the repeated confession of sin they could only renew and keep up
   the remembrance of it, while its life and strength in the soul remained
   unchanged, those offerings kept alive the longing for some better help,
   and the earnest desire that One should appear, even though He must come
   down from heaven, who should in very deed be able to take away both sin
   itself and its power. Therefore in saying that the death of the Saviour
   was the end of all offerings, the author of our epistle specially means
   that even the sin itself was taken away, and so there was no further
   need of offerings; as he goes on to say, "Let us draw near with true
   hearts, in full faith, free from all evil conscience, and made clean."

   But how--in what manner and in what sense sin is taken away through the
   death of the Saviour--that, my friends, is the great mystery of the
   fellowship of His death and His life as declared in the Scriptures. For
   these two positions, that we are buried with Christ in His death, and
   that we have risen with Him to a new life, cannot be separated from
   true faith in the Saviour. For what is believing in Him if it is not at
   least this acknowledging Him as the promised Deliverer of men, as He
   who could direct the lost to the right way, and bring life to the dead,
   because He was Himself the Truth, and because sin had no place in Him.
   But if we acknowledge Him as all this, how T would it be possible that
   we should not all, just through His death, die to that which caused it?
   Believers could not have been willing to put the Saviour to death;
   therefore their faith must constrain them--otherwise it is no faith--to
   renounce every thing that brought Him to the cross. And thus the old
   man, everything that manifests the power of sin in us, is crucified
   with Christ.

   And not only so; it is just as necessary an effort of our faith in Him,
   that we receive His life as our own, so that we pan say with the
   apostle. "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." For it belongs
   to man's nature to desire communion with Him by whose breathing he
   became a reasonable soul. Even in times of the deepest darkness and
   corruption, men have not been able entirely to lose sight of the desire
   to be acquainted with the supreme Being, and to link their existence
   with His. Rather than leave unsatisfied this highest and most vital
   need, having once lost the right track, they associated their worship,
   as the apostle says, "with corruptible images of the creature, and
   served the creature instead of the Creator." And therefore if, in the
   foolish fables of paganism, in the gloomiest delusions of idol-worship,
   nay, even in the unnatural abominations that arose out of it, we cannot
   fail to recognise this striving and feeling after the divine Being;
   (although we freely admit there can be no greater pain or horror to an
   enlightened mind than to see the holiest things represented in so
   distorted and dishonouring a manner)--if this was so, was it not quite
   natural that those efforts, partly misguided and partly repressed,
   should be turned in the right direction when the Father revealed
   Himself in the Son; when the divine Word became flesh, and the teacher
   who points to the Father appeared in human form; when the divine Love
   became visible in the glory of the only-begotten Son, who knew nothing
   else and lived for nothing else than to labour to communicate to His
   brethren all that He had received, and to draw them all to Himself and
   into the one life which is His with the Father? For in truth there was
   nothing in the human soul beyond this sense of need and unsatisfied
   longing, that could take the side of the Saviour; there was no real
   perception of truth, no real inclination to wards good. But as it was a
   part of His work both to communicate such a perception and directly to
   create such a desire, His mighty, divine influence required no other
   ally than this sense of need, And thus it came about that those who
   acknowledged Him by faith not only died with Him as to the old man, but
   also rose again with Him to a new life; that is, to a life that was
   peculiarly His own, but which He gladly shared with them; a life that
   constantly drew fresh nourishment and strength from every word of
   wisdom that He spoke, and from every glance of divine compassion and
   love in His eyes. And these life-giving processes are now made
   permanent in the Christian Church by the preaching of the Word, and by
   the divine Spirit, who works by means of it. The works of creation, on
   the other hand, considered in themselves, although our knowledge of
   them has largely increased, have not become more efficacious, as
   experience sufficiently teaches, in making us acquainted with God and
   leading us to Him than they were long ago; and thus it still always
   comes to pass that the Father manifests Himself to us only in the Son;
   and that the mysteriously communicated life comes in the same way, by
   our rising again with the Saviour to the new life, but only after we
   have been buried with Him in His death, and therefore always in
   connection with that death.

   Seeing then that in this sense we are crucified with Christ, and with
   Him have risen to a new life, sin is in truth taken away; for not only
   the consciousness of it, or as the writer of our text expresses it, the
   "conscience of sin" is destroyed, but also its guilt is cancelled.

   For, as regards the first, we may surely say that he who has died to
   sin and the law--for both of these had a part in crucifying the
   Lord--has thereby lost the consciousness of sin thus far, that his will
   has thrown off its authority, and all participation in it. And he who
   has risen with the Saviour to a new life, so that Christ alone lives in
   him and is ever being more fully formed in him, while his former self
   lives no longer,--he has in so far lost the consciousness of sin, that
   he has gained the consciousness of something else, of this oneness of
   life with Christ, who never willed to do anything but the will of His
   heavenly Father. Now as in Christ Himself there was absolutely no sin,
   so no consciousness of sin can exist alongside of the consciousness of
   His life in us. Rather, as the life of Christ was a blessed life, so
   also our consciousness, in so far as we are united with Him, is only
   blessedness. For when our will is in thorough harmony with the whole
   will of God, so far as we can in any way know or conjecture what it is,
   there can be nothing to disturb or trouble us; while even the weakness
   that still remains in us, finding no encouragement from our will, is no
   longer a part of our real life, but rather belongs to the things apart
   from us against which we are to fight the good fight of faith; and in
   that fight we feel truly blessed, be cause we act as God's instruments
   and in His strength. It is true, therefore, that just in the measure in
   which Christ lives in us we are free from the "conscience of sin." This
   is indeed a doctrine of which, on the one hand, we may well say, "Not
   that I have already attained, but I follow after, if by any means I may
   attain"; but on the other hand we must admit--and praise God that it is
   so--it is the deepest, simplest, purest truth even now in the life and
   heart of the Christian. Union with Christ means for us nothing but
   blessedness, pure joy in the Lord, closest communion with His and our
   Father in heaven.

   But, it might be said, all this being granted, How is it brought about?
   How is this new consciousness which expels the "conscience of sin"
   wrought in us exactly through the death of the Saviour? For manifestly
   His disciples had faith in Him as the Son of the living God, and took
   heartfelt delight in the words of life which were at His command alone;
   and thus, even before His death, had that participation in His life.