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           Title: Sermons for the New Life.
      Creator(s): Bushnell, Horace (1802-1876)
     Print Basis: Charles Scribner & Co., 1868-1876
   CCEL Subjects: All; Sermons
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                                    SERMONS

    FOR

                                 THE NEW LIFE.

    BY

HORACE BUSHNELL

    SEVENTH EDITION,

  NEW YORK:
  CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., No. 654 BROADWAY.
  1868.

   Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by
   CHARLES SCRIBNER.
   In the Clerks Office of the District Court of the United States
   for the Southern District of New York

   R M. WOBBS STEREOTYPER, HARTFORD, CT

   John F.Trow, Printer.
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Dedication

TO MY DEAR FLOCK IN HARTFORD

WHO HAVE ADHERED TO ME

IN DAYS OF ACCUSATION,

AND HAVE UPHELD ME FOR A QUARTER OF A CENTURY

IN THE MUCH GREATER TRIALS OF

A CONSCIOUSLY INSUFFICIENT AND DEFECTIVE MINISTRY,

THESE SERMONS ARE INSCRIBED

AS A TOKEN OF

RESPECT AND IMPERISHABLE AFFECTION.
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                                       I

EVERY MAN'S LIFE A PLAN OF GOD.

   Isaiah xlv. 5.--"I girded thee, though thou hast not known me,"

   So beautiful is the character and history of Cyrus, the person here
   addressed, that many have doubted whether the sketch given by Xenophon
   was not intended as an idealizing, or merely romantic picture. And yet,
   there have been examples of as great beauty unfolded, here and there,
   in all the darkest recesses of the heathen world, and it accords
   entirely with the hypothesis of historic verity in the account given us
   of this remarkable man, that he is designated and named by our prophet,
   even before he is born, as a chosen foster-son of God. "I have surnamed
   thee," he declares, "I have girded thee, though thou hast not known
   me." And what should he be but a model of all princely beauty, of
   bravery, of justice, of impartial honor to the lowly, of greatness and
   true magnanimity in every form, when God has girded him, unseen, to be
   the minister of his own great and sovereign purposes to the nations of
   his time.

   Something of the same kind will also be detected in the history and
   personal consciousness of almost every great and remarkable character.
   Christ himself testifies to the girding of the Almighty, when he
   says,--"To this end was I born, and for this purpose came I into the
   world." Abraham was girded for a particular work and mission, in what
   is otherwise denominated his call. Joseph, in Egypt, distinguishes the
   girding of God's hand, when he comforts his guilty brothers in the
   assurance,--"So, it was not you that sent me hither, but God." Moses
   and Samuel were even called by name, and set to their great life-work,
   in the same manner. And what is Paul endeavoring, in all the stress and
   pressure of his mighty apostleship, but to perform the work for which
   God's Spirit girded him at his call, and to apprehend that for which he
   was apprehended of Christ Jesus. And yet these great master-spirits of
   the world are not so much distinguished, after all, by the acts they
   do, as by the sense itself of some mysterious girding of the Almighty
   upon them, whose behests they are set on to fulfill. And all men may
   have this; for the humblest and commonest have a place and a work
   assigned them, in the same manner, and have it for their privilege to
   be always ennobled in the same lofty consciousness. God is girding
   every man for a place and a calling, in which, taking it from him, even
   though it be internally humble, he may be as consciously exalted as if
   he held the rule of a kingdom. The truth I propose then for your
   consideration is this,--

   That God has a definite life-plan for every human person, girding him,
   visibly or invisibly, for some exact thing, which it will be the true
   significance and glory of his life to have accomplished.

   Many persons, I am well aware, never even think of any such thing. They
   suppose that, for most men, life is a necessarily stale and common
   affair. What it means for them they do not know, and they scarcely
   conceive that it means any thing. They even complain, venting heavy
   sighs, that, while some few are set forward by God to do great works
   and fill important places, they are not allowed to believe that there
   is any particular object in their existence. It is remarkable,
   considering how generally this kind of impression prevails, that the
   Holy Scriptures never give way to it, but seem, as it were, in all
   possible ways, to be holding up the dignity of common life, and giving
   a meaning to its appointments, which the natural dullness and lowness
   of mere human opinion can not apprehend.

   They not only show us explicitly, as we have seen, that God has a
   definite purpose in the lives of men already great, but they show us,
   how frequently, in the conditions of obscurity and depression,
   preparations of counsel going on, by which the commonest offices are to
   become the necessary first chapter of a great and powerful history.
   David among the sheep; Elisha following after the plough; Nehemiah
   bearing the cup; Hannah, who can say nothing less common than that she
   is the wife of Elkanah and a woman of a sorrowful spirit,--who, that
   looks on these humble people, at their humble post of service, and
   discovers, at last, how dear a purpose God was cherishing in them, can
   be justified in thinking that God has no particular plan for him,
   because he is not signalized by any kind of distinction?

   Besides, what do the scriptures show us, but that God has a particular
   care for every man, a personal interest in him and a sympathy with him
   and his trials, watching for the uses of his one talent as attentively
   and kindly and approving him as heartily, in the right employment of
   it, as if he had given him ten; and, what is the giving out of the
   talents itself. but an exhibition of the fact that God has a definite
   purpose, charge and work, be it this or that for every man?

   They also make it the privilege of every man to live in the secret
   guidance of God; which is plainly nugatory, unless there is some chosen
   work, or sphere, into which he may be guided; for how shall God guide
   him, having nothing appointed or marked out for him to be guided into?
   no field opened for him, no course set down which is to be his wisdom?

   God also professes in his Word to have purposes pre-arranged for all
   events; to govern by a plan which is from eternity even, and which, in
   some proper sense, comprehends every thing. And what is this but
   another way of conceiving that God has a definite place and plan
   adjusted for every human being? And, without such a plan, he could not
   even govern the world intelligently, or make a proper universe of the
   created system; for it becomes a universe only in the grand unity of
   reason, which includes it. Otherwise, it were only a jumble of
   fortuities, without counsel, end or law.

   Turning, now, from the scriptures to the works of God, how constantly
   are we met here by the fact, everywhere, visible, that ends and uses
   are the regulative reasons of all existing things. This we discover
   often, when we are least able to understand the speculative mystery of
   objects; for it is precisely the uses of things that are most palpable.
   These uses are to God, no doubt, as to us, the significance of his
   works. And they compose, taken together, a grand reciprocal system, in
   which part answers actively to part, constructing thus an
   all-comprehensive and glorious whole. And the system is, in fact, so
   perfect, that the loss or displacement of any member would fatally
   derange the general order. If there were any smallest star in heaven
   that had no place to fill, that oversight would beget a disturbance
   which no Leverrier could compute; because it would be a real and
   eternal, and not merely casual or apparent disorder. One grain, more or
   less, of sand would disturb, or even fatally disorder the whole scheme
   of the heavenly motions. So nicely balanced, and so carefully hung, are
   the worlds, that even the grains of their dust are counted, and their
   places adjusted to a correspondent nicety. There is nothing included in
   the gross, or total sum, that could be dispensed with. The same is true
   in regard to forces that are apparently irregular. Every particle of
   air is moved by laws of as great precision as the laws of the heavenly
   bodies, or, indeed, by the same laws; keeping its appointed place, and
   serving its appointed use. Every odor exhales in the nicest conformity
   with its appointed place and law. Even the viewless and mysterious
   heat, stealing through the dark centers and impenetrable depths of the
   worlds, obeys its uses with- unfaltering exactness, dissolving never so
   much as an atom that was not to be dissolved. What now shall we say of
   man, appearing, as it were, in the center of this great circle of uses.
   They are all adjusted for him: has he, then, no ends appointed for
   himself? Noblest of all creatures, and closest to God, as he certainly
   is, are we to say that his Creator has no definite thoughts concerning
   him, no place prepared for him to fill, no use for him to serve, which
   is the reason of his existence?

   There is, then, I conclude, a definite and proper end, or issue, for
   every man's existence; an end, which, to the heart of God, is the good
   intended for him, or for which he was intended; that which he is
   privileged to become, called to become, ought to become; that which God
   will assist him to become and which he can not miss, save by his own
   fault. Every human soul has a complete and perfect plan, cherished for
   it in the heart of God--a divine biography marked out, which it enters
   into life, to live. This life, rightly unfolded, will be a complete and
   beautiful whole, an experience led on by God and unfolded by his secret
   nurture, as the trees and the flowers, by the secret nurture of the
   world; a drama cast in the mould of a perfect art, with no part
   wanting; a divine study for the man himself, and for others; a study
   that shall forever unfold, in wondrous beauty, the love and
   faithfulness of God; great in its conception, great in the Divine skill
   by which it is shaped; above all, great in the momentous and glorious
   issues it prepares. What a thought is this for every human soul to
   cherish! What dignity does it add to life! What support does it bring
   to the trials of life! What instigations does it add to send us onward
   in every thing that constitutes our excellence! We live in the Divine
   thought. We fill a place in the great everlasting plan of God's
   intelligence. We never sink below his care, never drop out of his
   counsel.

   But there is, I must add, a single, but very important and even fearful
   qualification. Things all serve their uses, and never break out of
   their place. They have no power to do it. Not so with us. We are able,
   as free beings, to refuse the place and the duties God appoints; which,
   if we do then we sink into something lower and less worthy of us. That
   highest and best condition for which God designed us is no more
   possible. We are fallen out of it, and it can not be wholly recovered.
   And yet, as that was the best thing possible for us in the reach of
   God's original counsel, so there is a place designed for us now, which
   is the next best possible. God calls us now to the best thing left, and
   will do so till all good possibility is narrowed down and spent. And
   then, when he can not use us any more for our own good, he will use us
   for the good of others, an example of the misery and horrible
   desperation to which any soul must come, when all the good ends, and
   all the holy callings of God's friendly and fatherly purpose are
   exhausted. Or it may be now that, remitting all other plans and
   purposes in our behalf, he will hence. forth use us, wholly against our
   will, to be the demonstration of his justice and avenging power before
   the eyes of mankind; saying over us, as he did over Pharaoh in the day
   of his judgments, "Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up,
   that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared
   throughout all the earth." Doubtless, He had other and more genial
   plans to serve in this bad man, if only he could have accepted such;
   but, knowing his certain rejection of these, God turned his mighty
   counsel in him wholly on the use to be made of him as a reprobate. How
   many Pharaohs in common life refuse every other use God will make of
   them, choosing only to figure, in their small way, as reprobates; and
   descending, in that manner, to a fate that painfully mimics his.

   God has, then, I conclude, a definite life-plan set for every man; one
   that, being accepted and followed, will conduct him to the best and
   noblest end possible. No qualification of this doctrine is needed, save
   the fearful one just named; that we, by our perversity, so often refuse
   to take the place and do the work he gives us.

   It follows, in the same way, that, as God, in fixing on our end or use,
   will choose the best end or use possible, so he will appoint for us the
   best manner possible of attaining it; for, as it is a part of God's
   perfection to choose the best things, and not things partially good, so
   it will be in all the methods he prescribes for their attainment. And
   so, as you pass on, stage by stage, in your courses of experience, it
   is made clear to you that, whatever you have laid upon you to do or to
   suffer, whatever to want, whatever to surrender or to conquer, is
   exactly best for you. Your life is a school, exactly adapted to your
   lesson, and that to the best, last end of your existence.

   No room for a discouraged or depressed feeling, therefore, is left you.
   Enough that you exist for a purpose high enough to give meaning to
   life, and to support a genuine inspiration. If your sphere is outwardly
   humble, if it even appears to be quite insignificant, God understands
   it better than you do, and it is a part of his wisdom to bring out
   great sentiments in humble conditions, great principles in works that
   are outwardly trivial, great characters under great adversities and
   heavy loads of incumbrance. The tallest saints of God will often be
   those who walk in the deepest obscurity, and are even despised or quite
   overlooked by man. Let it be enough that God is in your history and
   that the plan of your biography is his, the issue he has set for it is
   the highest and the best. Away, then, O man, with thy feeble complaints
   and feverish despondencies. There is no place left for this kind of
   nonsense. Let it fill thee with cheerfulness and exalted feeling,
   however deep in obscurity your lot may be, that God is leading you on,
   girding you for a work, preparing you to a good that is worthy of his
   Divine magnificence. If God is really preparing us all to become that
   which is the very highest and best thing possible there ought never to
   be a discouraged or uncheerful being in the world.

   Nor is it any detraction from such a kind of life that the helm of its
   guidance is, by the supposition, to be in God, and not in our own will
   and wisdom. This, in fact, is its dignity: it is a kind of divine
   order, a creation molded by the loving thoughts of God; in that view,
   to the man himself a continual discovery, as it is unfolded, both of
   himself and God. A discovery of some kind it must be to all; for,
   however resolutely or defiantly we undertake to accomplish our own
   objects, and cut our own way through to a definite self-appointed
   future, it will never be true, for one moment, that we are certain of
   this future, and will almost always be true that we are met by changes
   and conditions unexpected. This, in fact, is one of the common
   mitigations even of a selfish and self-directed life, that its events
   come up out of the unknown and overtake the subject, as discoveries he
   could not shun, or anticipate. Evil itself is far less evil, even to
   the worldly man, that it comes by surprises. Were the scenes of
   necessary bitterness, wrong, trial, disappointment, self-accusation,
   every such man has to pass through in his life, distinctly set before
   him at the beginning, how forbidding generally, and how dismal the
   prospect. We say, therefore, how frequently, "I could not have endured
   these distasteful, painful years, these emptinesses, these trials and
   torments that have rent me, one after another, if I had definitely
   known beforehand what kind of lot was before me." And yet, how poor a
   comfort is it to such pains and disasters that they overtook the
   sufferer as surprises and sorrows not set down beforehand in the
   self-appointed programme of life. How different, how inspiring and
   magnificent, instead, to live, by holy consent, a life all discovery;
   to see it unfolding, moment by moment, a plan of God, our own life-plan
   conceived in his paternal love; each event, incident, experience,
   whether bright or dark, having its mission from him, and revealing,
   either now or in its future issues, the magnificence of his favoring
   counsel; to be sure, in the dark day, of a light that will. follow,
   that loss will terminate in gain, that trial will issue in rest, doubt
   in satisfaction, suffering in patience, patience in purity, and all in
   a consummation of greatness and dignity that even God will look on with
   a smile. How magnificent, how strong in its repose, how full of rest is
   such a kind of life! Call it human still, decry it, let it down by
   whatever diminutives can be invented, still it is great; a charge which
   ought even to inspire a dull minded man with energy and holy
   enthusiasm.

   But, the inquiry will be made, supposing all this to be true, in the
   manner stated, how can we ever get hold of this life-plan God has made
   for us, or find our way into it? Here, to many if not all, will be the
   main stress of doubt and practical suspense.

   Observe, then, first of all, some negatives that are important and must
   be avoided. They are these:--

   You will never come into God's plan, if you study singularity; for, if
   God has a design or plan for every man's life, then it is exactly
   appropriate to his nature; and, as every man's nature is singular and
   peculiar to himself,--as peculiar as his face or look,--then it follows
   that God will lead every man into a singular, original and peculiar
   life, without any study of singularity on his part. Let him seek to be
   just what God will have him, and the talents, the duties and
   circumstances of his life will require him to be, and then he will be
   just peculiar enough. He will have a life of his own; a life that is
   naturally and, therefore, healthily peculiar; a simple, unaffected,
   unambitious life, whose plan is not in himself, but in God.

   As little will he seek to copy the life of another. No man is ever
   called to be another. God has as many plans for men as he has men; and,
   therefore, he never requires them to measure their life exactly by any
   other life. We are not to require it of ourselves to have the precise
   feelings, or exercises, or do the works, or pass through the trials of
   other men; for God will handle us according to what we are, and not
   according to what other men are. And whoever undertakes to be exercised
   by any given fashion, or to be any given character, such as he knows or
   has read of, will find it impossible, even as it is to make himself
   another nature. God's plan must hold and we must seek no other. To
   strain after something new and peculiar is fantastic and weak, and is
   also as nearly wicked as that kind of weakness can be. To be a copyist,
   working at the reproduction of a human model, is to have no faith in
   one's significance, to judge that God means nothing in his particular
   life, but only in the life of some other man. Submitting himself, in
   this manner, to the fixed opinion that his life means nothing, and that
   nothing is left for him but to borrow or beg a life-plan from some
   other man, what can the copyist become but an affectation or a dull
   imposture.

   In this view also, you are never to complain of your birth, your
   training, your employments, your hardships; never to fancy that you
   could be something if only you had a different lot and sphere assigned
   you. God understands his own plan, and he knows what you want a great
   deal better than you do. The very things that you most deprecate, as
   fatal limitations or obstructions, are probably what you most want.
   What you call hindrances, obstacles, discouragements, are probably
   God's opportunities; and it is nothing new that the patient should
   dislike his medicines, or any certain proof that they are poisons. No!
   a truce to all such impatience! Choke that devilish envy which gnaws at
   your heart, because you are not in the same lot with others; bring down
   your soul, or, rather, bring it up to receive God's will and do his
   work, in your lot, in your sphere, under your cloud of obscurity,
   against your temptations; and then you shall find that your condition
   is never opposed to your good, but really consistent with it. Hence it
   was that an apostle required his converts to abide each one in that
   calling wherein he was called; to fill his place till he opens a way,
   by filling it, to some other; the bondman to fill his house of bondage
   with love and duty, the laborer to labor, the woman to be a woman, the
   men to show themselves men,--all to acknowledge God's hand in their
   lot, and seek to cooperate with that good design which he most
   assuredly cherishes for them.

   Another frequent mistake to be carefully avoided is that, while you
   surrender and renounce all thought of making up a plan, or choosing out
   a plan, for yourself, as one that you set by your own will, you also
   give up the hope or expectation that God will set you in any scheme of
   life, where the whole course of it will be known, or set down
   beforehand. If you go to him to be guided, he will guide you; but he
   will not comfort your distrust, or half trust of him, by showing you
   the chart of all his purposes concerning you. He will only show you
   into a way where, if you go cheerfully and trustfully forward, he will
   show you on still further. No contract will be made with you, save that
   he engages, if you trust him, to lead you into the best things, all the
   way through. And, if they are better than you can either ask or think
   beforehand, they will be none the worse for that.

   But we must not stop in negatives. How, then, or by what more positive
   directions can a man, who really desires to do it, come into the plan
   God lays for him, so as to live it and rationally believe that he does?
   You are on the point of choosing, it may be, this or that calling,
   wanting to know where duty lies and what the course God himself would
   have you take. Beginning at a point most remote, and where the
   generality of truth is widest,

   Consider (1,) the character of God, and you will draw a large deduction
   from that; for, all that God designs for you will be in harmony with
   his character. He is a being infinitely good, just, true. Therefore,
   you are to know that he can not really seek any thing contrary to this
   in you. You may make yourselves contrary, in every attribute of
   character, to God; but he never made you to become any thing different
   from, or unworthy of, himself. A good being could not make another to
   be a bad being, as the proper issue and desired end of his existence;
   least of all could one infinitely good. A great many employments or
   callings are, by these first principles, forever cut off. No thought is
   permitted you, even for a moment, of any work or calling that does not
   represent the industry, justice, truth, beneficence, mercy of God.

   (2.) Consider your relation to him as a creature. All created wills
   have their natural center and rest in God's will. In him they all come
   into a play of harmony, and the proper harmony of being is possible
   only in this way. Thus, you know that you are called to have a will
   perfectly harmonized with God's and rested in his, and that gives you a
   large insight into what you are to be, or what is the real end of your
   being. In fact, nine-tenths of your particular duties may be settled,
   at once, by a simple reference in this manner to what God wills.

   (3.) You have a conscience, which is given to be an interpreter of his
   will and thus of your duty, and, in both, of what you are to become.

   (4.) God's law and his written Word are guides to present duty, which,
   if faithfully accepted, will help to set you in accordance with the
   mind of God and the plan he has laid for you. "I am a stranger in the
   earth," said one, "hide not thy commandments from me;" knowing that
   God's commandments would give him a clue to the true meaning and
   business of his life.

   (5.) Be an observer of Providence; for God is showing you ever, by the
   way in which he leads you, whither he means to lead. Study your trials,
   your talents, the world's wants, and stand ready to serve God now, in
   whatever he brings to your hand.

   Again (6,) consult your friends, and especially those who are most in
   the teaching of God. They know your talents and personal qualifications
   better, in some respects, than you do yourself. Ask their judgment of
   you and of the spheres and works to which you are best adapted.

   Once more (7,) go to God himself, and ask for the calling of God; for,
   as certainly as he has a plan or calling for you, he will somehow guide
   you into it. And this is the proper office and work of his Spirit. By
   this private teaching he can show us, and will, into the very plan that
   is set for us. And this is the significance of what is prescribed as
   our duty, viz., living and walking in the Spirit; for the Spirit of God
   is a kind of universal presence, or inspiration, in the world's bosom;
   an unfailing inner light, which if we accept and live in, we are guided
   thereby into a consenting choice, so that what God wills for us we also
   will for ourselves,--settling into it as the needle to the pole. By
   this hidden union with God, or intercourse with him, we get a wisdom or
   insight deeper than we know ourselves; a sympathy, a oneness with the
   Divine will and love. We go into the very plan of God for us, and are
   led along in it by him, consenting, cooperating, answering to him, we
   know not how, and working out, with nicest exactness, that good end for
   which his unseen counsel girded us and sent us into the world. In this
   manner, not neglecting the other methods just named, but gathering in
   all their separate lights, to be interpreted in the higher light of the
   Spirit, we can never be greatly at a loss to find our way into God's
   counsel and plan. The duties of the present moment we shall meet as
   they rise, and these will open a gate into the next, and we shall thus
   pass on, trustfully and securely, almost never in doubt as to what God
   calls us to do.

   It is not to be supposed that you have followed me, in such a subject
   as this, without encountering questions from within that are piercing.
   It has put you on reflection; it has set you to the inquiry, what you
   have been doing and becoming thus far in your course, and what you are
   hereafter to be? Ten, twenty, fifty, seventy years ago, you came into
   this living world, an l began to breathe this mortal air. The guardian
   angel that came to take charge of you said, "To this end is he born,
   for this cause is he come into the world." Or, if this be a Jewish
   fancy, God said the same himself. He had a definite plan for you, a
   good end settled and cherished for you in his heart. This it was that
   gave a meaning and a glory to your life. Apart from this, it was not,
   in his view, life for you to live; it was accident, frustration, death.
   What now, O soul, hast thou done? what progress hast thou made? how
   much of the blessed life-plan of thy Father hast thou executed? How far
   on thy way art thou to the good, best end thy God has designed for
   thee?

   Do I hear thy soul confessing, with a suppressed sob within thee, that,
   up to this time, thou hast never sought God's chosen plan at all. Hast
   thou, even to this hour, and during so many years, been following a way
   and a plan of thine own, regardless, hitherto, of all God's purposes in
   thee? Well, if it be so, what hast thou gotten? How does thy plan work?
   Does it bring thee peace, content, dignity of aim and feeling, purity,
   rest; or, does it plunge thee into mires of disturbance, scorch thee in
   flames of passion, worry thee with cares, burden thee with bitter
   reflections, cross thee, disappoint, sadden, sour thee? And what are
   thy prospects? what is the issue to come? After thou hast worked out
   this hard plan of thine own, will it come to a good end? Hast thou
   courage now to go on and work it through?

   Perhaps you may be entertaining yourself, for the time, with a notion
   of your prosperity, counting yourself happy in past successes, and
   counting on greater successes to come, Do you call it, then, success,
   that you are getting on in a plan of your own? There can not be a
   greater delusion. You set up a plan that is not God's, and rejoice that
   it seems to prosper; not observing that you are just as much farther
   off from God's plan for you and from all true wisdom, as you seem to
   prosper more. And the day is coming when just this truth will be
   revealed to you, as the bitterest pang of your defeat and shame.

   No matter which it be, prosperity or acknowledged defeat, the case is
   much the same in one as in the other, if you stand apart from God and
   his counsel. There is nothing good preparing for any man who will not
   live in God's plan. If he goes a prospecting for himself, and will not
   apprehend that for which he is apprehended, it can not be to any good
   purpose.

   And really, I know not any thing, my hearers, more sad and painful to
   think of, to a soul properly enlightened by reason and God's truth,
   than so many years of Divine good squandered and lost; whole years,
   possibly many years, of that great and blessed biography which God
   designed for you, occupied by a frivolous and foolish invention of your
   own, substituted for the good counsel of God's infinite wisdom and
   love. O, let the past suffice!

   Young man, or woman, this is the day of hope to you, All your best
   opportunities are still before you. Now, too, you are laying your plans
   for the future. Why not lay them in God? Who has planned for you as
   wisely and faithfully as he? Let your life begin with him. Believe that
   you are girded by your God for a holy and great calling. Go to him and
   consecrate your life to him, knowing assuredly that he will lead you
   into just that life which is your highest honor and blessing.

   And what shall I say to the older man, who is further on in his course
   and is still without God in the world? The beginning of wisdom, my
   friend, you have yet to learn. You have really done nothing, as yet,
   that you was sent into the world to do. All your best opportunities,
   too, are gone or going by. The best end, the next best, and the next
   are gone, and nothing but the dregs of opportunity is left. And still
   Christ calls even you. There is a place still left for you; not the
   best and bright est, but an humble and good one. To this you are called
   for this you are apprehended of Christ Jesus still. O, come, repent of
   your dusty and dull and weary way, and take the call that is offered.

   All men, living without God, are adventurers out upon God's world, in
   neglect of him, to choose their own course. Hence the sorrowful, sad
   looking host they make. O, that I could show them whence their
   bitterness, their dryness, their unutterable sorrows, come. O, that I
   could silence, for one hour, the noisy tumult of their works, and get
   them to look in upon that better, higher life of fruitfulness and
   blessing to which their God has appointed them. Will they ever see it?
   Alas! I fear!

   Friends of God, disciples of the Son of God, how inspiring and
   magnificent the promise, or privilege that is offered here to you. Does
   it still encounter only unbelief in your heart? does it seem to you
   impossible that you can ever find your way into a path prepared for you
   by God, and be led along in it by his mighty counsel. Let me tell you a
   secret. It requires a very close, well-kept life to do this; a life in
   which the soul can have confidence always toward God; a life which
   allows the Spirit always to abide and reign, driven away by no affront
   of selfishness. There must be a complete renunciation of self-will. God
   and religion must be practically first; and the testimony that we
   please God must be the element of our peace, And such a disciple I have
   never known who did not have it for his joy that God was leading him
   on, shaping his life for him, bringing him along out of one moment into
   the next, year by year. To such a disciple, there is nothing strained
   or difficult in saying that God's plan can be found, or that this is
   the true mode and privilege of life. Nothing to him is easier or more
   natural. He knows God ever present, feels that God determines all
   things for him, rejoices in the confidence that the everlasting counsel
   of his Friend is shaping every turn of his experience. He does not go
   hunting after this confidence; it comes to him, abides in him,
   fortifies his breast, and makes his existence itself an element of
   peace. And this, my brethren, is your privilege, if only you can live
   close enough to have the secret of the Lord with you.

   How sacred, how strong in its repose, how majestic, how nearly divine
   is a life thus ordered! The simple thought of a life which is to be the
   unfolding, in this manner, of a Divine plan, is too beautiful, too
   captivating, to suffer one indifferent or heedless moment. Living in
   this manner, every turn of your experience will be a discovery to you
   of God, every change a token of his Fatherly counsel. Whatever
   obscurity, darkness, trial, suffering falls upon you; your defeats,
   losses, injuries; your outward state, employment, relations; what seems
   hard, unaccountable, severe, or, as nature might say, vexatious,--all
   these you will see are parts or constitutive elements in God's
   beautiful and good plan for you, and, as such, are to be accepted with
   a smile. Trust God! have an implicit trust in God! and these very
   things will impart the highest zest to life. If you were in your own
   will, you could not bear them; and, if you fall, at any time, into your
   own will, they will break you down. But, the glory of your condition,
   as a Christian, is that you are in the mighty and good will of God.
   Hence it was that Bunyan called his hero Great Heart; for, no heart can
   be weak that is in the confidence of God. See how it was with Paul:
   counting all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge;
   enduring, with godlike patience, unspeakable sufferings; casting every
   thing behind him, and following on to apprehend that for which he was
   apprehended. He had a great and mighty will, but no self-will:
   therefore, he was strong, a true lion of the faith. Away, then, with
   all feeble complaints, all meagre and mean anxieties. Take your duty,
   and be strong in it, as God will make you strong. The harder it is, the
   stronger, in fact, you will be. Understand, also, that the great
   question here is, not what you will get, but what you will become. The
   greatest wealth you can ever get will be in yourself. Take your
   burdens, and troubles, and losses, and wrongs, if come they must and
   will, as your opportunities, knowing that God has girded you for
   greater things than these. O, to live out such a life as God appoints,
   how great a thing it is!--to do the duties, make the sacrifices, bear
   the adversities. finish the plan, and then to say, with Christ, (who of
   us ill be able? )--"It is finished!"
     __________________________________________________________________

                                       II

THE SPIRIT IN MAN.

   Job xxxii. 8.--"But there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of
   the Almighty giveth them understanding."

   IT is something great in man, as the speaker, Elihu, conceives, that he
   is spirit, and, as being such, is capable of being inspired. For he is
   not, as some commentators appear to suppose, re-publishing here, the
   historical fact, that the Almighty breathed into man, at the first, a
   living understanding soul; but, speaking in the present tense, he
   magnifies man as being able to be inspired, because he is spirit, and
   God that he inspires him.

   I undertake to enlist you here in a range of contemplation exceedingly
   remote from the apprehension of most persons in our time. So completely
   occupied are they with the humanitarian, world-ward relations of life,
   that the God-ward relations pass unheeded, and, for the most part,
   unrecognized. Or, if they sometimes think of such relations, it is only
   in the sense that we are responsible to God, as we are to any human
   government, for what we do as men, not in the sense that our very
   nature has itself a God-ward side, being related constitutionally to
   him, as plants are to the sun, or living bodies to the air they
   breathe. That we may duly apprehend a truth so far out of the way of
   our times, and yet so necessary to any fit conceptions of our nature
   and life, let me bespeak, on your part, even a voluntary and compelled
   attention.

   My subject is, the spirit in man; or what is the same, the fact that we
   are, as being spirit, permeable and inspirable by the Almighty.

   The word "spirit," means literally, breath, and it is applied to the
   soul, not merely because of its immateriality, but for the additional
   reason that the Almighty can breathe himself into it and through it.
   The word "inspiration," as here used, denotes this act of inbreathing,
   and it will serve the convenience of my subject to use it in this
   meaning in my discourse; though it is not exactly coincident with the
   more common meaning attached to it, when we speak of the inspiration of
   the writers of Scripture. I certainly need not apologize for the use of
   a term, in, at least, one of its Scripture meanings. I only notify you
   that any one is inspired, as I shall here speak, who is breathed in,
   visited internally, and so, all infallibility apart, raised in
   intelligence, guided in choice, convinced of sin, upheld in suffering,
   empowered to victory. In this more general sense, Bezaleel was inspired
   when he "was filled with the Spirit of God, in wisdom and in
   understanding, to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver,
   and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of
   timber." Any one is inspired, as we now speak, just as far as he is
   raised internally, in thought, feeling, perception, or action, by a
   Divine movement within. In the capacity of this, he is called an
   inspirable creature, and has this for one of his highest distinctions.
   What higher distinction can he have, than a capacity for God; to let in
   the Divine nature, to entertain the eternal spirit witnessing with his
   spirit, to be gifted thus with understanding, ennobled in impulse,
   raised in power, and this, without any retrenchment of his personal
   freedom, but so as even to intensify his proper individuality.

   Just as it is the distinction of a crystal, that it is transparent,
   able to let the light into and through its close flinty body, and be
   irradiated by it in the whole mass of its substance, without being at
   all more or less distinctly a crystal, so it is the grand distinction
   of humanity, that it is made permeable by the divine nature, prepared
   in that manner to receive and entemple the Infinite Spirit; to be
   energized by him and filled with his glory, in every faculty, feeling
   and power. Our accepted doctrine of the Holy Spirit really implies just
   this, that we are made capable of this interior presence of the divine
   nature; that, as matter is open to the free access and unimpeded
   passage of the electric flash, so is the soul open to the subtle
   motions of the Eternal Spirit, and ready, as it were, to be the vehicle
   of God's thought and action; so of his character and joy.

   As to the manner of this divine presence, or working, we, of course,
   know nothing. We only know, reverting to comparisons just given, that,
   as matter conducts electricity, so the human soul becomes a conductor
   of the divine will, and sentiments. Or as we can not see how the
   crystal receives the light, or how, being a perfectly opaque body in
   itself, it becomes luminous without the least change in its own
   organization, so here we can understand that the human soul, or spirit,
   is made capable of the divine spirit, without any loss of its own human
   individuality; but, the manner of the fact is, in both cases,
   uninvestigable and mysterious. The Scriptures use a great variety of
   figures to represent this truth, and gives us a vivid practical sense
   of it but they do not undertake to show us the manner. They compare it
   to the wind that bloweth where it listeth--thou canst not tell whence
   it cometh, and whither it goeth. They speak of it as teaching--he shall
   teach you all things. Drawing,--except the Father which hath sent me
   draw him. Quickening--it is the spirit that quickeneth. Begetting
   anew,--born of water and of the spirit. Sealing,--sealed with the Holy
   Spirit of promise. Dwelling in the soul,--the Spirit of God dwelleth in
   you. Walking in it,--I will walk in them. Leading,--led of the Spirit.
   Strengthening,--strengthened with might by thy Spirit. Witnessing
   reciprocally with us,--bearing witness with our spirit. By reason of a
   certain analogy that pertains between the works of the Spirit in lost
   man, and the working of the life principle in bodies, it is also
   called, comprehensively, "the spirit of life." In which, however,
   nothing is explained to us respecting the manner; for we do not know,
   at all, how the life-principle works, we only know its effects; that it
   quickens the dead matter, organizes, vivifies and conserves it by its
   presence, and that, somehow, the matter, without ceasing at all to be
   matter, obeys it.

   Let us now consider what and how much it signifies that we are spirit;
   capable, in this manner, of the divine concourse. In this point of view
   it is, that we are raised most distinctly above all other forms of
   existence known co us. When it is declared in the scripture, that the
   Spirit of God moved upon the waters of chaos, it is not meant that he
   was inspiring chaos, but only that he was acting creatively in it. So
   it is not understood, when all the host of heaven are said to be
   created by the breath of the Almighty, that the stars are inspired
   creatures; much less, that the brute animals are inspired, because they
   are said to live, when the Almighty sendeth forth his Spirit. The will,
   or force of God, can act omnipotently on all created things, as things.
   He can penetrate all central fires and dissolve, or annihilate, every
   most secret atom of the worlds, but it can not be said that these
   things receive him. Nothing can truly receive him but spirit. He may
   pass through things and have them pliant everywhere to his touch, but
   they derive nothing from him that is personal to him. No creature can
   truly receive him, save one that is constitutionally related to him in
   terms that permit correspondence; there must be intelligence offered to
   his intelligence, sentiments to his sentiments, reason to his reason,
   will to his will, personality to his person. To speak of an inspired
   mountain, or planet, or breeze of air, an inspired block, or an
   inspired brute, has even a sound of irreverence. Not so to speak of an
   inspired man; for man is spirit, a nature configured to God, and
   therefore able to receive him. And by this, he is separated from, and
   set above all other of God's creatures, and shown to be scarcely less
   different from them in kind than the Creator himself. True, he is a
   creature, but a creature how gloriously distinguished; one that can
   partake the Infinite Creator himself, and come up thus into the range
   of his principles, motives, thoughts and powers. Not even the obedient
   worlds of heaven can so receive him. Following in the track of his
   will, and filling even immensity with their stupendous frame of order,
   they yet have nothing fellow to God in their substance, and can not,
   therefore do what the humblest soul is able; can not receive the
   communication of God. They can be shaken, melted, exploded, annihilated
   by his will, but they are not vast enough, or high enough in quality to
   be inspired by him Spirit only can be inspired.

   We sometimes undertake to magnify the dignity cf man by dwelling on the
   wonderful achievements of his intelligence. He creates and uses
   language, makes records oI the past, enacts laws, builds institutions,
   climbs the heavens, searching out their times and orbits, penetrates
   the secret affinities and counts the atoms of matter, bridges the sea
   by his inventions, commands the lightning itself to think his thoughts
   and run upon his errands in the ends of the world,--none but a
   stupendous creature, we suppose, and rightly, can be manifested in acts
   of intelligence like these. And yet, to be penetrated and lighted up
   from within by the mind of God, to have the understanding of things
   unseen by the inspiration of the Almighty, in one word, to be spirit,
   and have the consciousness even of God, as being irradiated and filled
   with his divine fullness; this, after all, is the distinction that
   makes any mere show of intelligence quite insignificant.

   We sometimes dwell on the fact of the moral nature in man, conceiving
   that in this, he is seen to be, most of all, exalted. And our
   impression is right, if by the moral we understand, also, the spiritual
   and religious nature, as we often do. But, in strict propriety, the
   moral nature is quite another and vastly inferior thing, as respects
   the scale of its dignity. The spiritual is even as much higher than the
   moral, as the moral is higher than the animal. To be a moral being is
   to have a sense of duty and a power of choice that supports and
   justifies responsibility. It is that in us which recognizes the
   supremacy of moral ideas or abstract notions, and acknowledges their
   binding force, as laws or principles. Animals, for example, have a
   certain power of intelligence, but they have no sense of duty, or law;
   that is a point quite above their tier of existence. But to be raised
   in this manner above them, as being simply a moral creature, is by no
   means any principal distinction. An atheist can have moral ideas, and,
   acting on the plane of the world as a member of human society, can feel
   and can personally honor the obligations of principle. But, to be
   spirit, or to have a spiritual nature, is to be practically related to
   a being in us and about us, who is above all mere abstractions, or
   principles: viz., to the person of God Himself. It is to be capable,
   not of duty only, or of sentiments of duty, but of receiving God, of
   knowing Him within, of being permeated, filled, ennobled, glorified, by
   his infinite Spirit. Ideas can not walk in us, or witness, or beget
   anew, or seal; but, the living God, communicating Himself to souls, can
   do this and more--can raise them to his own plane of existence, and
   make them partakers with him, even in his character itself. And here it
   is that humanity culminates, or reveals the summit of its dignity; it
   is, in being spirit, and, as such, open to the visitation and the.
   indwelling power of God. This it is, and this only, that makes us
   properly religious beings. Angelic nature can not, in this view, be
   higher. No creature being can excel in order a soul so configured to
   God as to be inspirable by him; able to receive his impulse, fall into
   his movement, rest in his ends, and be finally perfected in the
   eternity of his joys.

   It is also in virtue of this distinction between a merely moral nature
   and spirit, that redemption, or the restoration from evil is possible;
   for that we are down, under evil, can not be denied. Were there no
   other way for us, but to act on ourselves, and bring ourselves out of
   our disorder into the abstractions of law and duty, our case were
   utterly hopeless. As certainly as sin exists, we are in it forever.
   Were there no divine access to us, no capacity of inspiration in us,
   the body of a common rock could as well light itself up by the sun, as
   we come into the light again of true virtue, assisted only by the
   abstract principles, or light of duty. There is no possibility of
   redemption, or spiritual restoration for us, save that, as being open
   to the inbreathing of God, we may so be impregnated with a new power of
   life, and, by force of a divine visitation within, be regenerated in
   the holiness of God. All which is described in the scripture as being
   born of God. And what a height of almost divinity do we look upon in
   such a truth as that! What man will not even tremble, as in awe of
   himself, when he contemplates, in this word of scripture, the eternal
   Spirit of God coursing through the secret cells and chambers of his
   feeling, turning him about in his motions, breathing in his thoughts,
   and calling back his wild affections to a common center with His own.

   Glance a moment also, at this point, on the origin and constituted
   relation of our human nature, as spirit, with it? author and creator.
   In the original scheme of existence, it was planned that man should be
   complete, and, as it were, infinite in God, by reason of his continual
   participation of God. And this is the true normal state of man. In
   which normal state he was to be a continually inspired creature,
   conscious always of God as of himself, actuated by the divine
   character, exalted by the divine beatitude. This, accordingly, is the
   true idea of the fall. It is not that man fell away from certain moral
   notions, or laws, but it is that he fell away from the personal
   inhabitation of God, lost inspiration, and so became a dark, enslaved
   creature,--alienated, as the apostle says, from the life of of God.
   Still, his capacity of inspiration is not absolutely gone, or closed
   up, and God is striving ever in the gospel, to regain his dominion over
   him, again to fill him as a renewed creature with his Spirit. And when
   he is truly yielded up again to the inspiration of God, when he is born
   of the Spirit, then he is so far restored to the normal state from
   which he fell; made conscious again of God, knowing God as revealed in
   his inmost life, by a knowledge that is immediate; filled with joy and
   peace, fortified in strength, guided by the motions of eternal wisdom.
   This is the real significance, as we just now saw, of Christian
   regeneration. It is not that the subject is set in a new relation to
   certain abstract laws, tests, obligations, but it is that he is brought
   back into his true normal relation to the Eternal Spirit of God, and
   begins to live, as he was made to live, an inspired life,--led of the
   Spirit, dwelt in, walked in by the Spirit, made to be a temple for the
   inhabitation of God, as he was originally designed to be.
   Sanctification, properly regarded, is, accordingly, nothing but a
   completed inspiration; a bringing of every thought into captivity to
   the divine movement. And then, if we look at the attributes of
   character perfected, how superlative, how evidently divine they
   are--the self-renunciation, the patience, the fortitude in suffering,
   the courage superior to death and all torments of persecution, the
   repose, the joy, the abounding beneficence, the forgiveness of enemies,
   the fidelity to God, that dies sooner than renounce Him--these are the
   results and characters, by which the inspired life is distinguished.
   Meantime the subject of this grace is no way taken off from his proper
   individuality, by the state of inspired impulse into which he is come,
   but he appears rather to others, and also seems to himself, to have
   risen to a more complete and potent individuality than he ever knew
   before. It is as if he had just here discovered him. self and awakened
   to the consciousness of his sovereignty over all things round him.
   Knowing that God worketh in him to will and to do, his willing and
   doing are just so much the more energetic, because he is raised in such
   a degree, by the new flood of movement upon which he is now embarked.
   He governs himself the more sublimely, and, as it were, imperially,
   that he is crowned as a king by the inspiration he feels. He subdues
   the body, tramples pain and scorn, rides over death, and takes a
   reigning attitude in all things with his master; simply because the
   individuality of his nature, never before developed under the bondage
   of his fallen state, is now developed by his inspiration. As being
   spirit, he could never be developed, save in the divine atmosphere,
   and, therefore, being now at home in God again, he discovers at once
   what it is to be a man.

   Observe also, in some particulars, what takes place in the human soul,
   as an inspirable nature, when it is practically filled and operated by
   the Spirit of God. It has now that higher Spirit witnessing with
   itself. "Witnessing with,"--there is a glorious and blessed
   concomitancy in the subject, a kind of double sense in which he takes
   note, both of God and of himself together, and is, at one and the same
   moment, conscious of both. He is no longer a simple feather of
   humanity, driven about by the fickle winds of this world's changes,
   but, in the new sense he has of a composite life, in which God Himself
   is a pre siding force, he is raised into a glorious equilibrium above
   himself, and set in rest upon the rock of God's eternity. His strength
   is immovable; indeed he is, in a sense, impassible. All his powers and
   talents are quickened to a glow. His perceptions are cleared, his
   imagination exalted, and his whole horizon within is gloriously
   luminous.

   See how it is in examples; what a man is before the holy visitation,
   and what he becomes in it. The man Enoch, walked in the deep mires of
   this world, as little superior to them, or as little raised above them,
   as other men of his ungodly times. But, when the testimony came that he
   pleased God, when the internal witness of God's love was unfolded in
   his consciousness, his affinities were changed, even to such a degree
   that the earth could hold him down no longer. Joseph, as Joseph, is the
   favored son of his father, distinguished by a certain natural grace,
   and the wearing of a particular coat. But he begins to have dreams, and
   then a power to interpret dreams, and God is with him in both, leading
   him on to a great and splendid future, and finishing a glorious beauty
   in his character, so that even we can see it as confidently as he knows
   it himself. Moses passes through the preparations of the scholar, then
   becomes! a refugee tending sheep on the backside of Horeb; a man
   scarcely more, to us, than if he had been kept, till this time, in his
   mother's basket among the rushes of the Nile. But the call overtakes
   him and the spirit now of God's own might enters into him. He becomes,
   at once, a prophet and a commander, the Liberator and Leader and
   Law-giver of his people, and the founder, in that manner, of a history
   that foreshadows, and even prepares a language for, the doctrines of
   Christ and the great mystery of salvation to be revealed in Christ,
   after fifteen centuries have passed away. Peter, again, the companion
   of Jesus and the hearer of his word, knew less, in Fact, of Christ, and
   the real import of his mission, than Moses was able to represent, or
   anticipate, in the forms of his ritual. He even seemed to imagine, down
   to the day of Pentecost itself, that the kingdom of Christ was exploded
   in his death. But when his dull humanity was lighted up by the advent
   of the Spirit on that day, a marvelous insight takes him, and he
   preaches Christ and the saving wonder of his death to three thousand
   men, as strangely overtaken with another sense of the glorious
   crucified as he. That was Peter as a man; this is Peter the rock, on
   whom God is building his Church. So the man Paul is going to Damascus,
   full of learning, and exceedingly mad with Pharisaic sanctity, there to
   exterminate the hated sect of Jesus. But this Paul is spirit, and
   behold a power breaks into him, on his way, and a voice internal calls
   to him, by which he is immediately become another; himself, yet still
   another; an apostle whose inspiration is Christ and for whom he is
   ready to die. Then how little, how mad with a man's animosities; now
   how lofty in his repose, how mighty in his action, how nearly divine in
   his character. When John, the apostle, lands, or is landed at Patmos,
   it does not appear that he carried to it thoughts or perceptions that
   were higher, or more far-reaching than many others might carry. But he
   is in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heaven is opened within,
   discovering to him, in scenes and images how sublime, the successive
   chapters of all the future ages of the kingdom. So there have, in all
   ages, been prophetic gifts, intimations, premonitions, dreams, visions,
   powers of healing, gifts of understanding, discernings of spirits,
   whenever the eternal Spirit. in souls, lifts them above their merely
   human range, and becomes the inhabiting grace of their personality. He
   enriches them with wisdom, fills them with a supernatural confidence,
   opens resources of character, and shows them to the world in the grand
   koinonia or fellowship of his own majestic life. We see them girded
   thus, and going forth to subdue kingdoms and conquer the world to
   Christ; and we discover, in what they show of heavenly fire and
   brightness, how much it signifies that God comes into men, or can. in
   the communication of himself. Apart from God, they are low,
   short-sighted, earthly and weak; but, being spirit, no sooner does the
   inspiration of the Almighty breathe into them, than they become
   powerful, and see afar, and shine with a dignity that is visibly
   divine.

   But we do not really conceive the height of this subject, till we bring
   into view the place it holds in the economy of the heavenly state. All
   good angels and glorified men are distinguished by the fact that they
   are now filled with a complete inspiration from the fullness of God. It
   is their spiritual perfection that they are perfectly inspired, so that
   their whole action is in the divine impulse. All sin, all defect and
   spiritual distemper are drunk up or lost in the divine perfection.
   Their complete inspiration is their dignity, their strength, the spring
   of their swiftness and joy; and the Alleluia of their adoring
   eternity--the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth,--celebrates a reign not
   about them in things, nor in some third heaven above, but in them, in
   the more magnificent heaven of their own exalted powers and thoughts,
   and the glorified passions of their spirit. Inspiration is their
   heaven; the Lord God giveth them light. All that we mean by the
   heavenly joy and perfection is nothing but the restoration and the
   everlasting bloom of that high capacity for God, in which our normal
   state began, and of which that first state was only the germ, or
   prophecy. Man finds his paradise, when he is imparadised in God. It is
   not that he is squared to certain abstractions, or perfected in his
   moral conformity to certain impersonal laws; but it is that he is
   filled with the sublime personality of God, and forever exalted by his
   inspirations, moving in the divine movement, rested on the divine
   center, blessed in the divine beatitude.

   On the other hand, what is called hell, in the scripture, is a world of
   misery, constituted by the complete absence of God. It is outer
   darkness, because it is that night of the mind, which overtakes it when
   it strays from God and his light. To be severed eternally from God's
   inspirations is enough, as we are constituted, to seal our complete
   misery. No matter whether it be that our capacity of inspiration is
   extinct, or whether it continues, gasping after the inspiring breath of
   God forever shut away. One is the misery of deformity and weakness; the
   other of exile and want. One is that of a soul halved in its capacity,
   which leaves the. other half unregulated and torn by disorders which it
   has no higher nature left to subordinate and quell; the other is that
   of a soul in full capacity, torn by disorders equally hopeless and
   struggling with immortal want beside.

   I have endeavored, in this manner, to unfold, as I was able, the real
   import of the spirit in man, taken as a nature capable of receiving the
   inspiration of the Almighty. This, it can hardly be questioned, is the
   greatest of all distinctions,--superior to free will, to conscience, to
   reason, and to every other gift or faculty of human nature. An
   important light is shed by this great truth on many points that meet us
   in the facts of human life and religious experience.

   1. It is a singular and somewhat curious confirmation of what I have
   been saying, that poets and orators have been so ready, in all ages of
   the world, to invoke inspirations. It is not a mere rhetorical flourish
   of trumpets as the critics appear to suppose. It is because they are
   made to be inspired. What they ask for, whether they know it or not, is
   suggested by native affinities that crave a state of inspiration. They
   really want to be exalted above themselves, and speak from a higher
   point as being divinely empowered. Hence their invocations of the
   Muses, and Apollo, and Mars, of seraphim and of Christ. They want some
   deific impulse. A something in their nature lifts them up to this. And
   the same is in us all. No man has any satisfaction in himself, simply
   as a person acting from his own center. He dwindles painfully in this
   manner and becomes a mere dry point, position without magnitude. We
   never come into the sense of magnitude till we receive God's measures
   in our feeling and rise to an attitude exalted by the consciousness of
   God.

   2. We discover in this subject what is the true ground and the rational
   significance of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, as advanced in the
   gospels. It is not simply that sin has made a necessity for the divine
   nature to do something new, but rather that sin had abolished something
   old, which needs to be restored. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit is
   grounded in the primordial nature of all spiritual beings. They are
   made, as we have said, to be divinely inhabited, made to live in
   eternal inspiration. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit pertains to all
   created spirit in all worlds, only with modifications adapted to their
   state. To be in the Spirit is their normal condition, their conserving
   law, their light, and strength, and glory. And therefore, when they
   sin, falling away from God's Spirit, and dropping into the darkness of
   mere self-hood, there can, of course, be no recovery, till the eternal
   Spirit is re-installed in their nature. They require to be regenerated,
   born of the Spirit, which only means that the lost inspiration is now
   restored. Accordingly, the question so often mooted, whether men have
   power to regenerate themselves, is seen to be idle and even senseless;
   for the plain reason that being regenerated is the same thing as having
   inspiration; that is, being in the divine impulse and order. The
   precise thing needed is to be raised out of the separated,
   self-centered, evil state into the inspired state, and the regulative
   order of God's own movement. Are we then going to regenerate ourselves,
   going to inspire ourselves? If it were a merely moral change, a change
   before the mind's own abstractions, ideas, or principles, it would not
   be plainly absurd to think it; but, when it is a renewal that even
   consists in the inbreathing of God's Spirit, and the being in his
   impulse, what Scougal appropriately calls "The Life of God in the Soul
   of Man," how shall it even be imagined that we can pass the change upon
   ourselves? And yet how simple it is! How much easier, in fact, than to
   drag ourselves into good of any kind. Open your whole nature to God,
   offer yourselves in the spirit of contrition and of a real,
   unquestioning faith, to the occupancy of God, and the light will not
   more certainly break into the sky, and fill the horizon with day, when
   the morning sun is risen. Ask, in one word, and ye shall receive, seek
   and ye shall find. This now is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It is
   not some new idea of the gospel. It is an advance of the Divine love to
   recover lost ground and bring back guilty souls among men, to that
   which is the original, everlasting bliss and beauty of all the created
   intelligences of God.

   3. We discover, in our subject, what significance there is in the pride
   which looks on spiritual religion as a humiliation, or deems it even a
   mortification not to be endured. A mortification for this tiny speck of
   mortality not to stay by itself in its own littleness and frailty! A
   mortification to be brought up into the sense of God's own greatness! A
   mortification to be ennobled by the Spirit of God, to have all our
   experience modulated and glorified by him! A mortification to be in
   God's wisdom, to be established in the confidence of his infinite
   majesty, to think with him and from him, to move in the glorious order
   of his perfect mind, and be the embodiment eternally of his impulse! O,
   how petty and weak this pride how contemptible this contempt! And yet,
   to be a Christian, to be given up to the Spirit of God and carefully
   offered to his holy guidance,--how many look on it as a weakness, a
   loss of dignity, a thing which only the tamer and less manly souls can
   descend to. I know not any thing else that exhibits the folly and
   conceit of man like this pride. As if it were some loss or abatement to
   be set in a plane with God, to have the inspiration of the Almighty, to
   receive a higher nature and life in the Eternal Life and impulse of
   God. It is as if the world of matter were to be ashamed of the sun, and
   shrink with inward mortification from the state of day! What is God but
   our day, the sun of our eternity, the light of our light. Without whom,
   as the light of our seeing, the universe of nature were a mere
   phosphorescence of fate, unintelligent and cold, life a driblet of
   vanity, and eternity itself a protracted and amplified nothingness. O,
   my friends, this pride you have against religion will sometime be
   inverted, and you will be overwhelmed by the discovery of its true
   merit. You have read those powerful words, "shame and everlasting
   contempt." And what do you think is their meaning? It is to look on the
   saints in the glory of their resurrection, and see them visibly
   perfected and ennobled by the inhabitation of God, and remember that
   such was the honor you rejected: to wither and mentally die in the
   sense of your own little separated speck of vanity, when surrounded
   with holy myriads, gloriously transfigured by the light of God upon
   them,--this is shame and everlasting contempt. O, that I could help you
   to understand, as then you will, how great a thing it is to be
   established everlastingly in the inspired state. These are they who are
   made kings and priests unto God; the kinsmen of angels, the companions
   of seraphim, bright, and strong, and free, because the Eternal Spirit
   leads them, and shines forever, in glorious evidence, through them. The
   Lord God giveth them light. Despised of man, they are princes now at
   God's right hand. Wise, great, mighty and majestic, creatures in the
   range of divinity, you may see, in their glorious beauty and the royal
   confidence of their eternity, how much it signifies to be a spirit
   capable of God and the abiding grace of his presence.

   Finally, it remains to conduct you forward into that view of the great
   future of Christianity on earth, in which much of the practical
   interest of our subject lies. It is a great misfortune, as I view it,
   that we have brought down the word inspiration to a use so narrow and
   technical; asserting it only of prophecy and other scripture writings,
   and carefully excluding from it all participation, by ourselves, in
   whatever sense it might be taken. We cut ourselves off, in this manner,
   from any common terms with the anointed men of scripture and the
   scripture times. They belong to another tier of existence, with which
   we can not dare to claim affinity; and so we become a class
   unprivileged, shut down to a kind of second-hand life, feeding on their
   words. The result is that we are occupied almost wholly with
   second-hand relations to God. Our views of life are low and earthly,
   because our possibilities are low. And then we complain that Christian
   character grows worldly, and loses depth and tone, as if it were
   finally going to quite vanish out of the world; that religious
   convictions grow feeble; that the ministry and the preached word
   produce no longer the true apostolic effects. As if any thing apostolic
   in power could remain, when no apostolic faith or grace is left us;
   when, in fact, the apostles and all scripture writers are really set
   between us and God to fence us away, not before, as examples to help us
   on; for they, we are told, were inspired, which we, in no sense, can
   be. And so, being shut down to a meaner existence, there is no relief
   for us but in a recoil against inspiration itself, even that of the
   Holy Scriptures; for, who will believe, (how many are beginning to ask
   it,) that men were inspired long ages ago, when now any such thing is
   incredible?

   There is yet to be a revision of this whole subject. Not that we are to
   assert or claim the same inspiration with the writers of scripture. God
   has a particular kind of inspiration for every man, just according to
   what he is and the uses he will make of him; for the tradesmen Bezaleel
   as truly as for Moses. He will dignify every right calling by being
   joined to us in it; for there is nothing given us to do, which he will
   not help us to do rightly and wisely, filling us with a lofty and
   fortified consciousness of his presence with us in it. It is not for us
   to say, beforehand, what gifts, or what kind of inspiration God will
   bestow Enough that he will take us into his own care, and work his own
   counsel in us. We have no lisp of authority for assuming that he never
   wants another book of scripture written, though probably enough he does
   not. He will take care of that: only let us set no limits to the Holy
   One of Israel, and be ready to admit his guidance, and wait to be his
   qualified instruments, whether in work or suffering, whether as
   tradesmen, or merchants, or teachers, or ministers, or prisoners, or
   domestics, or slaves.

   I believe, furthermore, that there is going, finally, to be entered
   into the world a more general, systematic and soundly intellectual
   conviction respecting all these secret relations of souls to God. When
   we have been out into all the fields of science, and gotten our opinion
   of the scientific order by which God works in matter, and the laws
   immaterial by which all matter is swayed, I believe that we shall turn
   round God-ward, to consider what our relations may be on that side; and
   then we shall not only take up the doctrine of the Spirit and of holy
   inspiration, looking no more, as now, after some mere casual, fitful,
   partially fantastic, visitations of what we call the Spirit, but we
   shall discover in it the truth of a grand, universal, intelligent,
   systematic, abiding inspiration, and the whole human race, lifted by
   this discovery, will fall into this gift, knowing that in God is the
   only divine privilege of existence. To be in this inspiration will be
   nothing extraordinary now, any more than that men should be sober,
   which out of it they are not. Without something like this breaking into
   the world's mind, that kingdom which is righteousness, and peace, and
   joy in the Holy Ghost, and which it is promised shall finally fill the
   earth, can, manifestly, never come. These too, are the last days of the
   promise; days when the apostolic grace, instead of being confined to
   apostles, and shut away from the living, is to bathe, and fill, and
   glorify itself in all created minds on earth.

   And the sooner, brethren and friends, we begin to look for this the
   better. And what shall we do sooner than prepare ourselves for the
   grace that is offered. First, believe that you may have it, and may
   live in this abiding witness and participation of God's Spirit.
   Sacrifice every thing cheerfully and calmly for this. Esteem it no
   forbid. ding sanctimony to be holy. Aspire to these majestic honors, by
   a life rationally set to do God's will and purified to receive it. Live
   as with God; and, whatever be your calling, pray for the gift that will
   perfectly qualify you in it. Let his tabernacle so be set up in you,
   and be a witness for him, in that manner, of the day, when it shall be
   said, in the fullness of his universal light, the tabernacle of God is
   with men.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                      III.

DIGNITY OF HUMAN NATURE SHOWN FROM ITS RUINS

   Romans iii., 13-18.--"Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their
   tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips.
   Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to
   shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. And the way of
   peace they have not known. There is no ear of God before their eyes."

   A MOST dark and dismal picture of humanity, it must be admitted; and
   yet it has two sides or aspects. In one view, it is' the picture of
   weakness, wretchedness, shame and disgust; all which they discover in
   it who most sturdily resent the impeachment of it. In the other, it
   presents a being higher than even they can boast; a fearfully great
   being; great in his evil will, his demoniacal passions, his contempt of
   fear, the splendor of his degradation, and the magnificence of his woe.

   It is this latter view of the picture to which, at the present time, I
   propose to call your attention, exhibiting,--

   The dignity of man, as revealed by the ruin he makes in his fall and
   apostacy from God.

   It has been the way of many, in our time, to magnify humanity, or the
   dignity of human nature, by tracing its capabilities and the tokens it
   reveals of a natural affinity with God and truth. They distinguish
   lovely instincts, powers and properties allied to God, aspirations
   reaching after God; many virtues, according to the common use of that
   term; many beautiful and graceful charities; and, by such kind of
   evidences, or proofs, they repel, sometimes with scorn, what they call
   the libelous, or even the insulting doctrine of total depravity. And
   this they do, as I will add, not without some show of reason, when the
   fact of our depravity is asserted in a manner that excludes the
   admission of any such high aspirations and amiable properties, or
   virtues, as we certainly discover in human conduct, apart from any
   gifts and graces of religion. And it must be admitted that some
   teachers have given occasion for this kind of offense; not observing
   the compatibility of great aspirations and majestic affinities with a
   state of deep spiritual thraldom; assuming, also, with as little right,
   the want of all appropriate sensibilities and receptivities for the
   truth, as a necessary inference from the complete destitution of
   holiness. They make out, in this manner, a doctrine of human depravity,
   in which there is no proper humanity left.

   I am not required by my subject to settle the litigation between these
   two extremes; one of which makes the gospel unnecessary, because there
   is no depravation to restore; and the other of which makes it
   impossible, because there is nothing left to which any holy appeal can
   be made; but I undertake, in partial disregard of both, to show the
   essential greatness and dignity of man from the ruin itself which he
   becomes; confident of this, that in no other point of view, will he
   prove the spiritual sublimity of his nature so convincingly.

   Nor is it any thing new, or a turn more ingenious than just, that we
   undertake to raise our conceptions of human nature in this manner; for
   it is in just this way that we are accustomed to get our measures and
   form our conceptions of many things;--of the power, for example, of
   ancient dynasties and the magnificence of ancient works and cities.
   Falling thus, it may be, on patches of paved road here and there, on
   lines leading out divergently from ancient Rome, uncovering and
   decyphering the mile-stones by their sides, marked with postal
   distances, here for Britain, here for Germany, here for Ephesus and
   Babylon, here for Brundusium, the port of the Appian Way, and so for
   Egypt, Numidia and the provinces of the sun; imagining the couriers
   flying back and forth, bearing the mandates of the central authority to
   so many distant nations, followed by the military legions trailing on
   to execute them; we receive an impression of the empire, from these
   scattered vestiges, which almost no words of historic description could
   give us. So, if we desire to form some opinion of the dynasty of the
   Pharaohs, of whom history gives us but the faintest remembrances and
   obscurest traditions, we have only to look on the monumental mountains,
   piled up to molder on the silent plain of Egypt, and these dumb
   historians in stone will show us more of that vast and populous empire,
   measuring by the amount of realized impression, more of the imperial
   haughtiness of the monarchs, more of the servitude of their people and
   of the captive myriads of the tributary nations, than even Heroditus
   and Strabo, history and geography, together.

   The same is true, even more strikingly, of ancient cities. Though
   described by historians, in terms of definite measurement, with their
   great structures and defenses and the royal splendor of their courts,
   we form no sufficient conception of their grandeur, till we look upon
   their ruins. Even the eloquence of Homer describing the glory and
   magnificence of Thebes, the vast circuit of its walls, its hundred
   gates, and the chariots of war pouring out of all, to vanquish and hold
   in subjection the peoples of as many nations, yields only a faint,
   unimpressive conception of the city; but, to pass through the ruins of
   Karnac and Luxor, a vast desolation of temples and pillared avenues
   that dwarf all the present structures of the world, solemn, silent and
   hoary, covered with historic sculptures that relate the conquest of
   kingdoms--a journey to pass through, a maze in which even comprehension
   is lost--this reveals a fit conception of the grandest city of the
   world as no words could describe it. Beheld and judged by the majesty
   of its ruins, there is a poetry in the stones surpassing all majesty of
   song. So, when the prophet Jonah, endeavoring, as he best can, to raise
   some adequate opinion of the greatness of Nineveh, declares that it is
   an exceeding great city, of three days' journey; and, when Nahum
   follows, magnifying its splendor in terms of high description that
   correspond; still, so ambiguous and faint is the impression made, that
   many were doubting whether, after all, "the exceeding great city" was
   any thing more than a vast inclosure of gardens and pasture grounds for
   sheep, where a moderate population subsisted under the protection of a
   wall. No one had any proper conception of the city till just now, when
   a traveler and antiquary digs into the tomb where it lies, opens to
   view, at points many miles asunder, its temples and palaces, drags out
   the heavy sculptures, shows the inscriptions, collects the tokens of
   art and splendor, and says, "this is Nineveh, the exceeding great
   city,'" and then, judging of its extent from the vast and glorious
   ruin, we begin to have some fit impression of its magnitude and
   splendor. And so it is with Babylon, Ephesus, Tadmor of the desert,
   Baalbeo and the nameless cities and pyramids of the extinct American
   race. All great ruins are but a name for greatness in ruins, and we see
   the magnitude of the structure in that of the ruin made by it, in its
   fall.

   So it is with man. Our most veritable, though saddest, impressions of
   his greatness, as a creature, we shall derive from the magnificent ruin
   he displays. In that ruin we shall distinguish fallen powers, that lie
   as broken pillars on the ground; temples of beauty, whose scarred and
   shattered walls still indicate their ancient, original glory; summits
   covered with broken stones, infested by asps, where the palaces of high
   thought and great aspiration stood, and righteous courage went up to
   maintain the citadel of the mind,--all a ruin now, "archangel ruined."

   And exactly this, I conceive, is the legitimate impression of the
   scripture representations of man, as apostate from duty and God.
   Thoughtfully regarded, all exaggerations and contending theories apart,
   it is as if they were showing us the original dignity of man, from the
   magnificence of the ruin in which he lies. How sublime a creature must
   that be, call him either man or demon, who is able to confront the
   Almighty and tear himself away from his throne. And, as if to forbid
   our taking his deep misery and shame as tokens of contempt, imagining
   that a creature so humiliated is inherently weak and low, the first men
   are shown us living out a thousand years of lustful energy, and braving
   the Almighty in strong defiance to the last. "The earth also is corrupt
   before God, and the earth is filled with violence." We look, as it
   were, upon a race of Titans, broken loose from order and making war
   upon God and each other;. beholding, in their outward force, a type of
   that original majesty which pertains to the moral nature of a being,
   endowed with a self-determining liberty, capable of choices against
   God, and thus of a character in evil that shall be his own. They fill
   the earth, even up to the sky, with wrath and the demoniacal tumult of
   their wrongs, till God can suffer them no longer, sending forth his
   flood to sweep them from the earth. So of the remarkable picture given
   by Paul, in the first chapter of the epistle to the Romans. In one view
   we are disgusted, in another shocked, doubting whether it presents a
   creature most foolish and vile or most sublimely impious and wicked:
   and coming out, finally, where the chapter ends--"who knowing the
   judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death,
   not only do the same but have pleasure in them that do them"--there to
   confess the certain greatness of a being whose audacity is so nearly
   infinite, whose adherence to the league with evil is maintained with a
   pertinacity so damnably desperate and relentless. And the picture of
   the text corresponds, yielding no impression of a merely feeble and
   vile creature, but of a creature rather most terrible and swift;
   destructive, fierce and fearless; miserable in his greatness; great as
   in evil. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they
   have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth
   is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood.
   Destruction and misery are in their way; and the way of peace have they
   not known; there is no fear of God before their eyes.

   But we come to the ruin as it is, and we look upon it with our own
   eyes, to receive the true, original impression for ourselves.

   We look, first of all, upon the false religions of the world; pompous
   and costly rites transacted before crocodiles and onions; magnificent
   temples built over all monkeyish and monstrous creatures, carved by
   men's hands; children offered up, by their mothers, in fire, or in
   water; kings offered on the altars, by their people, to propitiate a
   wooden image; gorgeous palaces and trappings of barbaric majesty,
   studded all over with beetles in gold, or precious stones, to serve as
   a protection against pestilences, poisons and accidents. I can not fill
   out a picture that so nearly fills the world. Doubtless it is a picture
   of ruin-- yet of a ruin how visibly magnificent. For, how high a nature
   must that be, how intensely allied to what is divine, that it must
   prepare such pomps, incur such sacrifices, and can elevate such trifles
   of imposture to a place of reverence. If we say that, in all this, it
   is feeling after God if haply it may find him, which in one view is the
   truth, then how inextinguishable and grand are those religious
   instincts by which it is allied to the holy, the infinite, the eternal,
   but invisible one.

   The wars of the world yield a similar impression. What opinion should
   we have of the energy, ferocity and fearful passion of a race of
   animals, could any such be found, who marshal themselves by the hundred
   thousand, marching across kingdoms and deserts to fight, and strewing
   leagues of ground with a covering of dead, before they yield the
   victory. One race there is that figure in these heroics of war, in a
   small way, viz., the tiny race of ants; whom God has made a spectacle
   to mock the glory and magnificence of human wars; lest, carried away by
   so many brave shows and by the applauses of the drunken ages of the
   world, we pass, undiscovered, the meanness and littleness of that
   selfish ambition, or pride, by which human wars are instigated. These
   are men such as history, in all past ages, shows them to be; swift to
   shed blood, swifter than the tiger race, and more terrible. Cities and
   empires are swept by their terrible marches, and become a desolation in
   their path. Destruction and misery are in their ways--O what
   destruction, misery, how deep and long! And what shall we think of any
   creature of God displayed in signs like these. Plainly enough he is a
   creature in ruins, but how magnificent a creature! Mean as the ant in
   his passions, but erecting, on the desolations he makes, thrones of
   honor and renown, and raising himself into the attitude of a god,
   before the obsequious ages of mankind; for who of us can live content,
   as we are tempered, without some hero to admire and worship?

   Consider again the persecutions of the good; fires for the saints of
   all ages, dungeons for the friends of liberty and benefactors of their
   times, poison for Socrates, a cross for Jesus Christ. What does it
   mean? What face shall we put on this outstanding demonstration of the
   world? No other but this, that cursing and bitterness, the poison even
   of asps, and more, is entered into the heart of man. He hates with a
   diabolical hatred. Feeling "how awful goodness is," the sight of it
   rouses him to madness, and he will not stop till he has tasted blood.
   And what a being is this that can be stung with so great madness, by
   the spectacle of a good and holy life. The fiercest of animals are
   capable of no such devilish instigation; because they are too low to be
   capable of goodness, or even of the thought, But here is a creature who
   can not bear the reminder, even of good, or of any thing above the ruin
   where his desolated glory lies. O how great is the nature which is
   capable of this dire phrenzy.

   The great characters of the world furnish another striking proof of the
   transcendent quality of human nature, by the dignity they are able to
   connect even with their littleness and meanness. On a small island of
   the southern Atlantic, is shut up a remarkable prisoner, wearing
   himself out there in a feeble mixture of peevishness and jealousy,
   solaced by no great thoughts and no heroic spirit; a kind of dotard
   before the time, killing and consuming himself by the intense
   littleness into which he has shrunk. And this is the great conqueror of
   the modern world, the man whose name is the greatest of modern names,
   or, some will say, of all names the human world has pronounced; a man,
   nevertheless, who carried his greatest victories and told his meanest
   lies in close proximity, a character as destitute of private
   magnanimity, as he was remarkable for the stupendous powers of his
   understanding and the more stupendous and imperial leadership of his
   will. How great a being must it be, that makes a point of so great
   dignity before the world, despite of so much that is really little and
   contemptible.

   But he is not alone. The immortal Kepler, piloting science into the
   skies, and comprehending the vastness of heaven, for the first time, in
   the fixed embrace of definite thought, only proves the magnificence of
   man as a ruin, when you discover the strange ferment of irritability
   and "superstition wild," in which his great thoughts are brewed and his
   mighty life dissolved.

   So also Bacon proves the amazing wealth and grandeur of the human soul
   only the more sublimely that, living in an element of cunning,
   servility and ingratitude, and dying under the shame of a convict, he
   is yet able to dignify disgrace by the stupendous majesty of his
   genius, and commands the reverence even of the world, as to one of its
   sublimest benefactors. And the poet's stinging line--

   "The greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind,"

   pictures, only with a small excess of satire, the magnificence of ruin
   comprehended in the man.

   Probably no one of mankind has raised himself to a higher pitch of
   renown by the superlative attributes of genius displayed in his
   writings, than the great English dramatist; flowering out,
   nevertheless, into such eminence of glory, on a compost of fustian,
   buffoonery and other vile stuff, which he so magnificently covers with
   splendor and irradiates with beauty, that disgust itself is lost in the
   vehemence of praise. And so we shall find, almost universally, that the
   greatness of the world's great men, is proved by the inborn qualities
   that tower above the ruins of weakness and shame, in which they appear,
   and out of which, as solitary pillars and dismantled temples they rise.

   But we must look more directly into the contents of human nature, and
   the internal ruin by which they are displayed. And here you may notice,
   first of all, the sublime vehemence of the passions. What a creature
   must that be, who, out of mere hatred, or revenge, will deliberately
   take the life of a fellow man, and then dispatch his own to avoid the
   ignominy of a public execution. Suppose there might be found some tiger
   that, for the mere bitterness of his grudge against some other whelp of
   his mother, springs upon him in his sleep and rends him in pieces, and
   then deliberately tears open his own throat to escape the vengeance of
   the family. No tiger of the desert is ever instigated by any so intense
   and terrible passion, that, for the sweetness of revenge, is willing
   afterward to rush on death itself. This kind of phrenzy plainly belongs
   to none but a creature immortal, an archangel ruined, in whose breast a
   fire of hell may burn high enough and deep enough to scorch down even
   reason and the innate love of life. Or take the passion of
   covetousness, generally regarded as one essentially mean and degraded.
   After all, how great a creature must that be, who is goaded by a zeal
   of acquisition so restless, so self-sacrificing, so insatiable. The
   poor, gaunt miser, starving for want, that he may keep the count of his
   gold--whom do we more naturally pity and despise. And yet he were even
   the greatest of heroes, if he could deny himself with so great
   patience, in a good and holy cause. How grand a gift that immortality,
   how deep those gulfs of want in the soul, that instigate a madness so
   desolating to character, a self-immolation so relentless, a niggard
   suffering so sublime. The same is true even of the licentious and
   gluttonous lusts and their loathsome results. No race of animals can
   show the parallel of such vices; because they are none of them
   instigated by a nature so insatiable, so essentially great, in the
   magnificence of wants that find no good to satisfy their cravings. The
   ruin we say is beastly, but the beasts are clear of the comparison; it
   requires a meld vaster than theirs, to burst the limits of nature in
   excesses so disgusting.

   Consider again the wild mixtures of thought, displayed both in the
   waking life and the dreams of mankind. How grand! how mean! how sudden
   the leap from one to the other! how inscrutable the succession! how
   defiant of orderly control! It is as if the soul were a thinking ruin;
   which it verily is. The angel and the demon life appear to be
   contending in it. The imagination revels in beauty exceeding all the
   beauty of things, wails in images dire and monstrous, wallows in
   murderous and base suggestions that shame our inward dignity; so that a
   great part of the study and a principal art of life, is to keep our
   decency, by a wise selection from what we think and a careful
   suppression of the remainder. A diseased and crazy mixture, such as
   represents a ruin, is the form of our inward experience. And yet, a
   ruin how magnificent, one which a buried Nineveh, or a desolated Thebes
   can parallel only in the faintest degree; comprehending all that is
   purest, brightest, most divine, even that which is above the firmament
   itself; all that is worst, most sordid, meanest, most deformed.

   Notice, also, the significance of remorse. How great a creature must
   that be that, looking down upon itself from some high summit in itself,
   some throne of truth and judgment which no devastation of order can
   reach, withers in relentless condemnation of itself, gnaws and
   chastises itself in the sense of what it is! Call it a ruin, as it
   plainly is, there rises out of the desolated wreck of its former
   splendor, that which indicates and measures the sublimity of the
   original temple. The conscience stands erect, resisting all the ravages
   of violence and decay, and by this, we distinguish the temple of God
   that was; a soul divinely gifted, made to be the abode of his spirit,
   the vehicle of his power, the mirror of his glory. A creature of
   remorse is a divine creature of necessity, only it is the wreck of a
   divinity that was.

   So again, you may conceive the greatness of man, by the ruin he makes,
   if you advert to the dissonance and obstinacy of his evil will. It is
   dissonant as being out of harmony with God and the world, and all
   beside in the soul itself; viz., the reason, the conscience, the wants,
   the hopes, and even the remembrances of the soul. How great a creature
   is it that, knowing God, can set itself off from God and resist him,
   can make itself a unit, separate from all beings beside, and maintain a
   persistent rebellion even against its own convictions, fears and
   aspirations. Like a Pharaoh it sits on its Egyptian throne, quailing in
   darkness, under the successive fears and judgments of life, relenting
   for the moment, then gathering itself up again to re-assert the
   obstinacy of its pride, and die, it may be, in its evil. What a power
   is this, capable of a dominion how sublime, a work and sphere how
   transcendent! If sin is weak, if it is mean, little, selfish and
   deformed, and we are ready to set humanity down as a low and paltry
   thing of nothing worth, how terrible and tragic in its evil grandeur
   does it appear, when we turn to look upon its defiance of God, and the
   desperate obstinacy of its warfare. Who, knowing the judgment of God,
   that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the
   same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Or as we have it in the
   text,--There is no fear of God before their eyes. In one view there is
   fear enough, the soul is all its life long haunted by this fear, but
   there is a desperation of will that tramples fear and makes it as
   though it were not.

   Consider once more the religious aspirations and capacities of
   religious attraction that are garnered up, and still live in the ruins
   of humanity. How plain it is, in all the most forward. demonstrations
   of the race, that man is a creature for religion; a creature secretly
   allied to God him. self, as the needle is to the pole, attracted toward
   God, aspiring consciously, or unconsciously, to the friendship and love
   of God. Neither is it true that, in his fallen state, he has no
   capacity left of religious affection, or attraction, till it is first
   new created in him. All his capacities of love and truth are in him
   still, only buried and stifled by the smoldering ruin in which he lies.
   There is a capacity in him still to be moved and drawn, to be charmed
   and melted by the divine love and beauty. The old affinity lives though
   smothered in selfishness and lust, and even proves itself in sorrowful
   evidence, when he bows himself down to a reptile or an idol. He will do
   his most expensive works for religion. There is a deep panting still in
   his bosom, however suppressed, that cries inaudibly and sobs with
   secret longing after God. Hence the sublime unhappiness of the race.
   There is a vast, immortal want stirring on the world and forbidding it
   to rest. In the cursing and bitterness, in the deceit of tongues, in
   the poison of asps, in the swiftness to blood, in all the destruction
   and misery of the world's ruin, there is yet a vast insatiate hunger
   for the good, the true, the holy, the divine, and a great part of the
   misery of the ruin is that it is so great a ruin; a desolation of that
   which can not utterly perish, and still lives, asserting its defrauded
   rights and reclaiming its lost glories. And therefore it is that life
   be comes an experience to the race so tragic in its character, so dark
   and wild, so bitter, so incapable of peace. The way of peace we can not
   know, till we find our peace, where our immortal aspirations place it,
   in the fullness and the friendly eternity of God.

   Regarding man, then, as immersed in evil, a being in disorder, a
   spiritual intelligence in a state of ruin, we derogate nothing from his
   dignity. Small conception has any one of the dignity of human nature,
   who conceives it only on the side of praise, or as set off by the
   figments of a merely natural virtue. As little could he apprehend the
   tragic sublimity of Hamlet, considered only as an amiable son
   ingenuously hurt by the insult done his father's name and honor. The
   character is great, not here, but in its wildness and its tragic
   mystery; delicate and fierce, vindictive and cool, shrewd and terrible,
   a reasonable and a reasoning madness, more than we can solve, all that
   we can feel. And so it is that we discover the true majesty of human
   nature itself, in the tragic grandeur of its disorders, nowhere else.
   Nothing do we know of its measures, regarded in the smooth
   plausibilities and the respectable airs of good breeding, and worldly
   virtue. It is only as a lost being that man appears to be truly great.
   Judge him by the ruin he makes, wander among the shattered pillars and
   fallen towers of his majesty, behold the immortal and eternal vestiges,
   study his passions, thoughts, aspirations, woes; behold the destruction
   and misery that are in his ways,--destruction how sublime, misery how
   deep, clung to with how great pertinacity, and then say,--this is man,
   this is the dignity of human nature. It will kindle no pride in you,
   stimulate no pompous conceit, but it will reveal a terror, discover a
   shame, speak a true conviction, and, it may be, draw forth a tear.

   Having reached this natural limit of our subject, let us pause a
   moment, and look about us on some of the practical issues to which it
   is related.

   It is getting to be a great hcpe of our time, that society is going to
   slide into something better, by a course of natural progress; by the
   advance of education, by great public reforms, by courses of
   self-culture and philanthropic practice We have a kind of new gospel
   that corresponds; a gospel which preaches not so much a faith in God's
   salvation as a faith in human nature; an attenuated moralizing gospel
   that proposes development, not regeneration; showing men how to grow
   better, how to cultivate their amiable instincts, how to be rational in
   their own light and govern themselves by their own power. Sometimes it
   is given as the true problem, how to reform the shape and re-construct
   the style of their heads, and even this it is expected they will
   certainly be able to do! Alas that we are taken, or can be, with so
   great folly. How plain it is that no such gospel meets our want. What
   can it do for us but turn us away, more and more fatally, from that
   gospel of the Son of God, which is our only hope. Man as a ruin, going
   after development, and progress, and philanthropy, and social culture,
   and, by this fire-fly glimmer, to make a day of glory! And this is the
   doctrine that proposes shortly to restore society, to settle the
   passion, regenerate the affection, re-glorify the thought, fill the
   aspiration of a desiring and disjointed world! As if any being but God
   had power to grapple with these human disorders; as if man, or society,
   crazed and maddened by the demoniacal frenzy of sin, were going to
   rebuild the state of order, and re-construct the shattered harmony of
   nature, by such kind of desultory counsel and unsteady application as
   it can manage to enforce in its own cause; going to do this miracle by
   its science, its compacts, and self-executed reforms! As soon will the
   desolations of Karnac gather up their fragments and re-construct the
   pros portions out of which they have fallen. No, it is not progress,
   not reforms that are wanted as any principal thing. Nothing meets our
   case, but to come unto God and be medicated in him; to be born of God,
   and so, by his regenerative power, to be set in heaven's own order. He
   alone can re-build the ruin, he alone set up the glorious temple of the
   mind; and those divine affinities in us that raven with immortal
   hunger--he alone can satisfy them in the bestowment of himself.

   And this brings me to speak of another point, where the subject
   unfolded carries an important application. The great difficulty with
   christianity in our time is, that, as a fact, or salvation, it is too
   great for belief. After all our supposed discoveries of dignity in
   human nature, we have commonly none but the meanest opinion of man. How
   can we imagine or believe that any such history as that of Jesus Christ
   is a fact, or that the infinite God has transacted any such wonder for
   man? a being so far below his rational concern, or the range of his
   practical sympathy. God manifest in the flesh! God in Christ
   reconciling the world unto himself! the birth of the manger! the life
   of miracle! the incarnate dying! and the world darkening ii, funeral
   grief around the mighty sufferer's cross!--it is extravagant, out of
   proportion, who can believe it? Any one, I answer, who has not lost the
   magnitude of man. No work of God holds a juster proportion than this
   great mystery of godliness, and if we did but understand the great
   mystery of ungodliness we should think so. No man will ever have any
   difficulty in believing the work of Christ who has not lost the
   measures of humanity. But for this, no man will ever think it reason to
   deny his divinity, explain away his incarnation, or reject the mystery
   of his cross. To restore this tragic fall required a tragic salvation.
   Nor did ever any sinner who had come to himself, felt the bondage of
   his sin, trembled in the sense of his terrible disorders, groaned over
   the deep gulfs of want opened by his sin, struggled with himself to
   compose the bitter struggles of his nature, heaved in throes of anguish
   to emancipate himself,--no such person, however deep in philosophy, or
   scepticism, ever thought, for one moment, that Christ was too great a
   Saviour. O, it was a divine Saviour, an almighty Saviour, coming out
   from God's eternity, that he wanted! none but such was sufficient! Him
   he could believe in, just because he was great,--equal to the measures
   of his want, able to burst the bondage of his sin. "For God so loved
   the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth
   in him should not perish, but should have everlasting life."--O, it is
   the word of reason to his soul. He believes, and on this rock, as a
   rock of adequate salvation, he rests.

   Once more, it is another and important use of the subject we have here
   presented, that the magnitude and real importance of the soul are
   discovered in it, as nowhere else. For it is not by any computations of
   reason, but in your wild disorders, your suppressed affinities for God,
   the distempers and storms of your passions, and the magnificent chaos
   of your immortality, that you will get the truest opinion of your
   consequence to yourselves. Just that which makes you most oblivious and
   blindest to your own significance, ought to make you most aware of it
   and press you most earnestly to God. I know not how it is but the soul
   appears under sin, all selfish as it is, to shrink and grow small in
   its own sight. Perhaps it is due, in part, to the consciousness we
   have, in sin, of moral littleness and meanness. We commonly speak of it
   in figures of this kind, we call it low and weak and degraded, and fall
   into the impression that these words are real measures of our natural
   magnitude. Whereas, in another sense, the sin we speak of is mighty,
   terrible, God-defying and triumphant. Let this thought come to you, my
   friends, as well as the other, and if sin is morally little, let it be,
   in power, mighty as it really is. The shadow by which most convincingly
   your true height is measured, is that which is cast athwart the abyss
   of your shame and spiritual ignominy. Just here it is that you will get
   your most veritable impressions of your immortality; even as you get
   your best impression of armies, not by the count of numbers, but by the
   thunder-shock of battle, and the carnage of the field when it is over.
   We try all other methods, but in vain, to rouse in men's bosoms some
   barely initial sense of their consequence to themselves, and get some
   hold, in that manner, of the stupendous immortality Christ recognizes
   in them and throws off his glory to redeem. We take the guage of your
   power as a mind, showing what this power of mind has been able, in the
   explorations of matter and light and air, of sea and land, and the
   distant fields of heaven, to do. We display its inventions, recount its
   victories over nature. We represent, as vividly as we can, and by
   computations as vast and far-reaching as we are master of, in our
   finite arithmetic, the meaning of the word, eternity. All in vain. What
   are you still but the insect of some present hour, in which you live
   and flutter and die? But here we take another method, we call you to
   the battle field of sin. We show you the vestiges, This we say is man,
   the fallen principality. In these tragic desolations of intelligence
   and genius, of passion, pride and sorrow, behold the import of his
   eternity. Be no mere spectator, turn the glass we give you round upon
   yourself, look into the ruin of your own conscious spirit, and see how
   much it signifies, both that you are a sinner and a man. Here, within
   the soul's gloomy chamber, the loosened passions rage and chafe,
   impatient of their law; here huddle on the wild and desultory thoughts;
   here the imagination crowds in shapes of glory and disgust, tokens both
   and mockeries of its own creative power, no longer in the keeping of
   reason; here sits remorse scowling and biting her chain; here creep out
   the fears, a meagre and pale multitude; here drives on the will in his
   chariot of war; here lie trampled the great aspirations, groaning in
   immortal thirst; here the blasted affections weeping out their life in
   silent injury; all that you see without, in the wars, revenges and the
   crazed religions of the world, is faithfully represented in the
   appalling disorders of your own spirit. And yet, despite all this, a
   fact which overtops and crowns all other evidence, you are trying and
   contriving still to be happy--a happy ruin The eternal destiny is in
   you, and you can not break loose from it. With your farthing bribes you
   try to hush your stupendous wants, with your single drops, (drops of
   gall and not of water,) to fill the ocean of your immortal aspirations.
   You call on destruction to help you, and misery to give you comfort,
   and complain that destruction and misery are still in all your ways. O,
   this great and mighty soul, were it something less, you might find what
   to do with it; charm it with the jingle of a golden toy, house it in a
   safe with ledgers and stocks, take it about on journeys to see and be
   seen! Any thing would please it and bring it content But it is the
   godlike soul, capable of rest in nothing but God; able to be filled and
   satisfied with nothing but his fullness and the confidence of his
   friendship. What man that lives in sin can know it, or conceive it; who
   believe what it is!

   O, thou Prince of Life! come in thy great salvation to these blinded
   and lost men, and lay thy piercing question to their ear,--What shall
   it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Breathe,
   O breathe on these majestic ruins, and rouse to life again, though it
   be but for one hour, the forgotten sense of their eternity, their lost
   eternity.

   Even so, your lost eternity. The great salvation coming, then, is not
   too great; nought else, or less could suffice. For if there be any
   truth that can fitly appall you, live you with conviction, drive you
   home to God, dissolve you in tears of repentance, it is here, when you
   discover yourself and your terrible misdoings, in the ruins of your
   desolated majesty. In these awful and scarred vestiges, too, what type
   is given you of that other and final ruin, of which Christ so kindly
   and faithfully warned you, when, describing the house you are building
   on these treacherous sands, he showed the fatal storm beating
   vehemently against it, with only this one issue possible--And
   immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                      IV.

THE HUNGER OF THE SOUL.

   Luke xv. 17.--"And when he came to himself he said, flow many hired
   servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish
   with hunger."

   THIS gentleman's son that was, and is now a swine-herd, brings his
   meditation to a most natural and fit conclusion. His low occupation,
   and the husks on which he has been feeding to save his life, recall his
   father's house, and the hired servants there that have bread enough and
   to spare, and, no longer able to contain himself, he cries, in bitter
   desolation, "I perish with hunger." And so, in this story of the
   prodigal, Christ teaches all men their hunger, by means of that on
   which they feed, and the necessary baseness of their sin, by the
   lowness of the objects to which they descend for their life.

   The swine, according to Jewish opinion, is an unclean animal, not to be
   eaten as food, and therefore is not raised, except by those idolaters
   and men of no religion, who live as outcasts in their country. Hence it
   is looked upon as the lowest and most abject of all occupations to be a
   swine herd. He is the disgust of all men, an unclean character, who is,
   among other men, what the swine is among other animals. He may not
   enter the temple, or even come near it.

   By the husks on which the prodigal is said, in his hunger, to have fed
   himself, we are not to understand exactly what is meant by the English
   word husks, but a certain fruit, the fruit of the carob tree, which
   grows in pods and has a mealy and sweet taste. It is described by Galen
   as a "woody kind of food, creating bile, and hard of digestion;"
   useful, as acorns are with us, in the feeding of swine, and sometimes
   eaten by the poorer sort of men, to escape starvation. Still it can
   work no injury, since this kind of fruit is unknown to us, to retain
   the word husks; a word that comes nearer producing the true impression
   of the parable, which is the principal thing, than any other which
   might be substituted.

   The important thing to be noted, as regards my present object, is the
   prodigal's hunger. About this central point, or fact, all the other
   incidents of the parable are gathered. And by this wretched figure of
   destitution, the Saviour of the world represents man under sin; he is
   one who forsakes the life of duty and religion, to go after earthly
   things. He is, therefore, reduced to the lowest condition of want, or
   spiritual hunger. His food is not the proper food of a man, but of a
   swine rather. A high-born creature, as being in God's image, he
   descends to occupations that are unclean, and feeds his starving nature
   on that which belongs only to a reprobate, or unclean class of animals.
   In this lot of deep debasement and bitter privation, there is no
   language in which he may so naturally vent his misery as when he cries,
   "I perish with hunger."

   What I propose, then, for our meditation, is the truth here expressed,
   that a life separated from God is a life of bitter hunger, or even of
   spiritual starvation.

   My object will be, not so much to prove this truth as to make it
   apparent, or visible, as a real fact, by means of appropriate
   illustrations. But, in order to this, it will be necessary.

   I. To exhibit the true grounds of the fact stated; for, as we discover
   how and for what reasons the life of sin must be a life of hunger, we
   shall see the more readily and clearly the force of those
   illustrations, by which the fact is exhibited.

   The great principle that underlies the whole subject and all the facts
   pertaining to it is, that the soul is a creature that wants food, in
   order to its satisfaction, as truly as the body. No principle is more
   certain, and yet there is none so generally overlooked, or hidden from
   the sight of men.

   Of course it is not meant, when the soul is said to be a creature
   wanting food, that it receives by a literal mastication, and has a
   palate to be gratified in what it receives. I only mean to universalize
   the great truth that pertains to all vital creatures and organs; viz.,
   that they differ from all dead substances, stones for example, in the
   fact that they subsist in a healthy state of vital energy and
   development, by receiving, appropriating, or feeding upon something out
   of themselves. Every tree and plant is, in this view, a feeding
   creature, and grows by that which feeds it, that, viz., which it
   derives from the air and clouds, from the soil and the changing
   influence of day and night. In this larger sense, every organ of the
   body is a receptive and feeding organ. Sometimes it is fed by other
   organs, which prepare and furnish to it the food that is needful for
   its growth and subsistence. In this manner even the bones are feeding
   creatures. So the senses are fed by the elements appropriate, the ear
   by sounds, the eye by the light. And so true is this, that an eye shut
   up in total darkness, and probably an ear cut off from all sound, will
   finally die, or become an exterminated sense; even as that whole tribe
   of fishes, discovered in the cave, are found to have no eyes. Now what
   I mean to say is, that all these vital creatures, vegetable and animal,
   are only so many types of the soul, which is the highest, purest form
   of vital being we know; and that, as they all subsist by feeding on
   something not in themselves, and die for hunger without that food, just
   so the soul is a creature wanting food, and fevering itself in bitter
   hunger when that food is denied.

   Hence it is that, in that most unnatural of all modes of punishment,
   regarded unaccountably with so great favor by many, the punishment I
   mean of absolute solitary confinement, a very large proportion of the
   prisoners become idiotic. Cut off from all the living sights and
   sounds, the faces of friends, the voices of social interchange, and the
   works and interests of life; shut away thus from all that enters into
   feeling, or quickens intelligence, or exercises judgment, or nerves the
   will to action, the soul has no longer any thing to feed upon, and, for
   want of food, it dies,--dies into blank idiocy.

   Neither let this want of food in souls be regarded as a merely
   philosophic truth, or discovery. It is a truth so natural to the
   feeling of mankind, that it breaks into language every hour, and
   appears and re-appears in the scripture, in so many forms, that I can
   not stay to enumerate half of them. Job brings it forward, by a direct
   and simple comparison, when he says,--For the ear trieth words, as the
   mouth tasteth meat,--where he means by the ear, you perceive, not the
   outward but the inward ear of the understanding. So the Psalmist
   says,--My soul shall be satisfied, as with marrow and fatness. And so
   also the prophet, beholding his apostate countrymen dying for hunger
   and thirst in their sins, calls to them saying,--Ho, every one that
   thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money, come ye
   buy and eat. Wherefore do you spend money for that which is not bread,
   and your labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto
   me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in
   fatness. In the same way, an apostle speaks of them that have tasted
   the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come; and another,
   of them that have tasted that the Lord is gracious, and there. fore
   desire the sincere milk of the word, that they may grow thereby.

   True these are all figures of speech, transferred from the feeding of
   the body to that of the soul. But they are transferred because they
   have a fitness to be transferred. The analogy of the soul is so close
   to that of the body, that it speaks of its hunger, its food, its
   fullness, and growth, and fatness, under the images it derives from the
   body.

   Hence you will observe that our blessed Lord appears to have always the
   feeling, that he has come down into a realm of hungry, famishing souls.
   You see this in the parable of the prodigal son, and that of the feast
   or supper. Hence also that very remarkable discourse in the 6th chapter
   of John, where he declares himself as the living bread that came down
   from heaven--that a man may eat thereof and not die. Whoso eateth my
   flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life. My flesh is meat indeed,
   and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my
   blood, dwelleth in me and I in him, As the living Father hath sent me,
   and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by
   me.

   Many, I believe, are not able to read this language, without a kind of
   revolted feeling. What can it mean that they are to live by eating
   Christ? There is no difficulty, I answer, in the language, save in
   getting at the rational and true sense of the figure employed, and,
   when this is done, it becomes language strikingly significant. Suppose
   it were said that a tree can live, only as it eats the air and the
   light; the meaning, of course, would not be that it takes these
   elements by mastication, but that it has such a nature that it takes
   them into itself and gets a nutriment of growth out of them, and that
   without them, so appropriated, it would die. So, when Christ says,--I
   will manifest myself unto him,--we will come and make our abode with
   him,--he means that he will be so received and appropriated by the soul
   as to be its light, the breathing of its life, that which feeds it
   internally. He assumes, in all that he says, that as the tree has a
   nature requiring to be fed by air and light, so the soul has a nature
   inherently related to God, the Infinite Spirit. Hence the deep hunger
   of the world in sin; because the sin is its attempt to live without God
   and apart from God.

   Accordingly, it is the grand endeavor of the gospel to communicate God
   to men. They have undertaken to live without him, and do not see that
   they are starving in the bitterness of their experiment. It is not, as
   with bodily hunger, where they have a sure instinct compelling them to
   seek their food, but they go after the husks, and would fain be filled
   with these, not even so much as conceiving what is their real want, or
   how it comes. For it is a remarkable fact that so few men, living in
   the flesh, have any conception that God is the necessary supply and
   nutriment of their spiritual nature, without which they famish and die.
   It has an extravagant sound, when they hear it They do not believe it.
   How can it be that they have any such high relation to the Eternal God,
   or he to them? It is as if the tree were to say,--what can I, a mere
   trunk of wood, all dark and solid within, standing fast in my rod of
   ground,-what can I have to do with the free moving air, and the
   boundless sea of light that fills the world? And yet it is a nature
   made to feed on these, taking them into its body to supply, and
   vitalize, and color every fibre of its substance. Just so it is that
   every finite spirit is inherently related to the infinite, in him to
   live, and move, and have its being. It wants the knowledge of God, the
   society of God, the approbation of God, the internal manifestation of
   God, a consciousness lighted up by his presence, to receive of his
   fullness, to be strong in his might, to rest in his love, and be
   centered everlastingly in his glory. Apart from Him, it is an
   incomplete creature, a poor blank fragment of existence, hungry, dry
   and cold. And still, alas! it can not think so. Therefore Christ comes
   into the world to incarnate the divine nature, otherwise unrecognized,
   before it; so to reveal God to its knowledge, enter him into its faith
   and feeling, make him its living bread, the food of its eternity.
   Therefore of his fullness we arc called to feed, receiving of him
   freely grace for grace When he is received, he restores the
   consciousness of God, fills the soul with the divine light, and sets it
   in that connection with God which is life,--eternal life.

   Holding this view of the inherent relation between created souls and
   God as their nourishing principle, we pass--

   II. To a consideration of the necessary hunger of a state of sin, and
   the tokens by which it is indicated. A hungry herd of animals, waiting
   for the time of their feeding, do not show their hunger more
   convincingly, by their impatient cries and eager looks and motions,
   than the human race do theirs, in the works, and ways, and tempers of
   their selfish life.

   I can only point you to a few of these demonstrations. And a very
   impressive and remarkable one you have in this; viz., the common
   endeavor to make the body receive double, so as to satisfy both itself
   and the soul too with its pleasures. The effort is, how continually, to
   stimulate the body by delicacies, and condiments, and sparkling bowls,
   and licentious pleasures of all kinds, and so to make the body do
   double service. Hence too, the drunkenness, and high feasting, and
   other vices of excess. The animals have no such vices; because they
   have no hunger save simply that of the body; but man has a hunger also
   of the mind or soul, when separated from God by his sin, and therefore
   he must somehow try to pacify that. And he does it by a work of double
   feeding put upon the body. We call it sensuality. But the body asks not
   for it. The body is satisfied by simply that which allows it to grow
   and maintain its vigor. It is the unsatisfied, hungry mind that flies
   to the body for some stimulus of sensation, compelling it to devour so
   many more of the husks, or carobs, as will feed the hungry prodigal
   within. Thus it is that so many dissipated youth are seen plunging into
   pleasures of excess,--midnight feastings and surfeitings, debaucheries
   of lust and impiety; it is because they are hungry, because their soul,
   separated from God and the true bread of life in Him, aches for the
   hunger it suffers. And so it is the world over; men are hungry
   everywhere, and they compel the body to make a swine's heaven for the
   comfort of the godlike soul.

   Again we see the hunger of sin, by the immense number of drudges there
   are in the world. It makes little difference, generally, whether men
   are poor or rich. Some terrible hunger is upon them, and it drives them
   madly forward, through burdens, and sacrifices, and toils, that would
   be rank oppression put upon a slave. It is not simply that they are
   industrious--industry is a virtue--but they are drudges, instigated by
   such a passion of want that they are wholly unable to moderate their
   plans by any terms of reason.

   You see too what indicates the uneasiness of this hunger, in the
   constant shifting of their plans and arrangements. Even the more
   constant, stable characters, such as hold most firmly to their
   pursuits, are yet seen to be uneasy in them; comforting their
   uneasiness by one change or an: other; a new kind of crop, a new
   partner, a new stand, a wheeling about of counters, or a change of
   shelves, or a different way of transportation, or another place of
   banking,--nothing is ever quite right, because they are too uneasy in
   their hunger to be quiet long in any thing.

   Others show their hunger by their closeness; the very look of their
   face is hungry, the gripe of their hand is hungry, the answer of their
   charity is the answer of hunger, the prices they pay for service are
   the grudged allowance of a heart that is pinched by its own stringent
   destitution.

   Observe again the quarrels of debt and credit, the false weights, the
   fraudulent charges, the habitual lies of false recommendation, the
   arts, stratagems, oppressions, of trade,--how hungry do they look.

   Notice again how men contrive, in one way or another, to get, if
   possible, some food of content for the soul that has a finer and more
   fit quality than the swine's food with which they so often overtask the
   body;--honor, power, admiration, flattery, society, literary
   accomplishments. Works of genius are stimulated, how often, by a kind
   of superlative hunger. And the same is true even of the virtues that
   connect a repute of moderation; such as temperance, frugality,
   plainness, stoical superiority to suffering; a kind of subtle hunger
   for some consciousness of good is the secret root on which they grow.

   There is no end to the diverse arts men practice, to get tome food for
   their soul, and to whatever course they turn themselves, you will see,
   as clearly as possible, that they are hungry. Nay, they say it
   themselves. What sad bewailings do you hear from them, calling the
   world ashes, wondering at the poverty of existence, fretting at the
   courses of Providence and blaming their harshness, raging profanely
   against God's appointments, and venting their impatience with life, in
   curses on its emptiness. All this, you understand, is the hunger they
   are in. Feeding on carobs only, as they do, what shall we expect but to
   see them feed impatiently?

   This also, you will notice as a striking evidence that, however well
   they succeed in the providing of earthly things, they are never
   satisfied. They say they are not, have it for a proverb that no man is,
   or can be. How can they be satisfied with lands, or money, or honor, or
   any finite good, when their hunger is infinite, reaching after God and
   the fullness of his infinite life,--God, who is the object of their
   intelligence, their love, their hope, their worship; the complement of
   their weakness, the crown of their glory, the sublimity of their rest
   forever. Such kind of hunger manifestly could not be satisfied with any
   finite good, and therefore it never is. Look also at some of the more
   internal and experimental evidences supplied by consciousness.

   Consider, for example, the vice of envy, and the general propenseness
   of men to be in it. There are very few per. sons, however generous in
   their dispositions, who are not sometimes bitten by this very subtle
   and bitter sin. And the root of this misery is hunger of soul. Envy is
   only a malignant, selfish hunger, casting its evil eye on the elevation
   or supposed happiness of others. The bitterness of ii is not simply
   that it really wants what others have, but that the soul, gnawed by a
   deep spiritual hunger which it thinks not of, is so profoundly
   embittered that every kind of good it looks upon rasps it with a
   feeling of torment, and rouses a degree of impatience and ill nature,
   out of all terms of reason. It is the feeling of a prodigal, or
   spendthrift who, after he has spent all, vents his ill nature on every
   body but himself, and hates the good possessed by others, because it is
   not his own. O, how many human souls are gnawed through and through,
   all their lives long, by this devilish hunger, envy.

   Remorse differs from envy only in the fact that the soul here turns
   upon itself, just as they say it is the principal distress of extreme
   bodily hunger, that the organs of digestion begin themselves to be
   gnawed and digested, ir place of the food on which the digestive power
   is accustomed to spend its energy. Remorse, in the same way, is a moral
   hunger of the soul. It is the bitter wail of a famished immortality. It
   is your conscience lashing your perverse will; your defrauded, hungry
   love weeping its dry, pitchy tears on the desert your evil life has
   made for it. It is your whole spiritual nature famished by sin
   muttering wrathfully, and growling like a caged lion at the bars which
   shut him up to himself. And as bodily hunger sometimes causes the
   starving man to see devils in his ravings, so this hunger of remorse
   fills the soul with angry demons and ministers of vengeance, waiting to
   execute judgment. Sleep vanishes not seldom, or comes only in dreams
   that scare the sleeper. The day lags heavily. The look is on the
   ground. The walk is apart and silent, and the man carries a load under
   which he stoops, a load of selfish regret and worldly sorrow, that
   worketh death.

   Or, if we speak of care, the corroding, weary, ever multiplying care,
   of which you are every day complaining, what again is this but your
   hunger. We like to speak, however, not of care, but, in the plural, of
   cares; for these, we imagine, are outside of us, in things, not in
   ourselves. But these cares are all in ourselves, and of ourselves, and
   not in things at all,--things are not cares; cares are only cravings of
   that immortal hunger which the swine's food of earthly things can not
   satisfy. You say in them all. what shall I do, for I perish with
   hunger? You look up from the bitter husks or carobs, and say, I must
   have more and better; and these more and better things are your cares.
   The very word care meant, originally, want; and these cares are nothing
   but the wants of a hungry soul misnamed.

   Sometimes, again, your feeling takes the turn of disgust. You are
   disgusted with yourself and life, and all the employments and objects
   of your pursuit, disgusted even with your pleasures. How insipid, and
   dry, and foolish they appear. An air of distaste settles on all
   objects. They are all husks, acorns, food for swine and not for men.
   Just so it is in the starvation of the body. It creates a fever and, in
   that fever, appetite dies. And this, accordingly, is the rankest proof
   of hunger in the soul, that it has run itself down to the starvation
   point of universal disgust. Life is cheap. It seems a very dull and
   mean thing to live,--as to live a prodigal and swine-herd's life it
   certainly is. Sometimes, too, your disgust turns upon your own
   character and feeling; your ambition, your pride, your very thoughts,
   and you ache for the mortification that comes upon you. My
   ambition--how low it creeps. My pride--what have I, or am I to be proud
   of. My very thoughts are all trailing in the dust, and the dust is
   dry--O God, is it this to be a man!

   I might speak also of your perpetual irritations, your fits of anger,
   your animosities, your jealousies, your gloomy hypochondriac fears.
   These all, at bottom, are the disturbances of hunger in the soul. How
   certainly is the child irritable when it is hungry. Even the placidity
   of infancy vanishes, when the body is ravening for food. So it is with
   man. He is irritable, flies to fits of passion, loses self-government,
   simply because the placid state of satisfaction is wanting in his
   higher nature. He is out of rest, because of his immortal hunger.
   Three-quarters of the ill nature of the world is caused by the fact,
   that the soul, without God, is empty, and so out of rest. We charge it,
   more often than justice requires, to some fault of temperament; but
   there is no temperament that would not be quieted and evened by the
   fullness of God.

   Now the Spirit of God will sometimes show you, in an unwonted manner,
   the secret of these troubles; for he is the interpreter of the soul's
   hunger. He comes to it whispering inwardly the awful secret of its
   pains,--"without God and without hope in the world." He reminds the
   prodigal of his bad history. He bids the swine-herd look up from his
   sensual objects, and works, and remember his home and his Father; tells
   him of a great supper prepared, and that all things are now ready, and
   bids him come. Conscious of the deep poverty he is in, conscious of
   that immortal being whose deep wants have been so long denied, wants
   that can be satisfied only by the essential, eternal participation of
   the fullness of God, he hears a gentle voice of love saying,--I am the
   bread of life, I am1 the living bread that came down from heaven. If
   any man eat of this bread he shall live. Are there none of you to whom
   this voice is calling now?

   I will not pursue these illustrations further. Would that all my
   hearers could but open their minds to the lesson they teach. I know
   almost no subject, or truth, that will explain so many things in the
   uneasy demonstrations of mankind; or that, to any thoughtful person,
   living without God, will resolve so many mysteries concerning himself.
   Granting simply the fact that God is the want of the soul, or created
   intelligence, what can it be, separated from God, but an element of
   uneasiness and bitter disturbance? If the soul, as a vital and organic
   nature, requires this divine food, or nutriment, to sustain it, and in
   this highest, vastest want gets no supply; what else can you need to
   account for the unrest and the otherwise inexplicable frustration of
   your experience? And yet how many of you, goaded by this torment all
   your lives, do not understand it? You go after this or that objective,
   circumstantial good, thrust on, as in some kind of madness, by the
   terrible impulsion of your hungry immortality; confessing, all the
   time, that you fail, even when, in form, you succeed, and showing by
   your demonstrations that your objects, whether gained or lost, have no
   relation to your want; but your understandings are holden from any true
   discovery of your sin. It is as if you were under some dispossession,
   even as the Saviour intimates in his parable. He looks upon the
   prodigal described, as one that has lost his reckoning, or his reason;
   and when he discovers the secret of his misery, speaks of him as just
   then having come to himself. Could you come thus to yourselves, how
   quickly would you cease from your husks and return to your Father! How
   absurd the folly, then, of any attempt to satisfy, or quiet your
   hunger, by any inferior, merely external good!

   O, ye prodigals, young and old, prodigals of all names and degrees; ye
   that have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to
   come, and have fallen away; ye that have always lived in the minding of
   earthly things, how clear is it here that no swine's food, no husks of
   money, pleasure, show, ambition, can feed you; that you have a divine
   part which none, or all of these dry carobs of sin can feed, which
   nothing can supply and satisfy but God himself?

   And what should be a discovery more welcome than this. In what are you
   more ennobled, than in the fact that you are related thus, inherently,
   to God; having a nature so high, wants so deep and vast, that only he
   can feed them, and not even he by any bestowment which does not include
   the bestowment of himself. Would you willingly exterminate this want of
   your being, and so be rid eternally of this hunger? That would be to
   cease from being a man and to become a worm; and even that worm
   remembering what it was, would be a worm gnawing itself with eternal
   regrets. No, this torment that you feel is the torment of your
   greatness. It compliments you more, even by its cravings and its
   shameful humiliations, than all most subtle flatteries and highest
   applauses. Nay, there is nothing in which God himself exalts you more
   than by his own expostulation when he says--"wherefore do you spend
   your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which
   satisfieth not; hearken diligently unto me and eat ye that which is
   good. Incline your ear and come unto me, hear and your soul shall
   live." Why should we humble ourselves to so many things that are ashes
   and call them bread; doubling our bodily pleasures in vices that take
   hold on hell; chasing after gains with cancerous appetite; torturing
   our invention to find some opiate of society, applause, or show, that
   will quiet and content our unrest. All in vain. O, ye starving minds,
   hearken, for one hour, to this, and turn yourselves to it as your
   misery points you,--God, God, God alone, is the true food. Ask it thus
   of God to give you the food that is convenient for you and he gives you
   Himself. And that is bread, bread of life, bread of eternity. Take it
   for your true supply, and you hunger no more.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                       V.

THE REASON OF FAITH.

   John vi. 36.--"But I said unto you, That ye also hail seen me and
   believe not."

   IT is the grand distinction of Christianity, that by which it is
   separated from all philosophies and schemes of mere ethics, that it
   makes its appeal to faith and upon that, as a fundamental condition,
   rests the promise of salvation. It is called the word of faith, the
   disciples are distinguished as believers, and Christ is published as
   the Saviour of them that believe.

   But precisely this, which is the boast of apostles, is the scandal and
   offense of men. Were the word any thing but a word of faith; a word of
   rhetoric, or of reason, or of absolute philosophy, or of ethics, or of
   grammar and lexicography, they could more easily accept it; but,
   finding it instead a word of faith, they reject and scorn it. As if
   there were some merit, or could be some dignity in faith! What is it
   but an arbitrary condition, imposed to humble our self-respect, or
   trample our proper intelligence? For what is there to value or praise,
   say they, in the mere belief of any thing? If we hold any truth by our
   reason, or by some act of perception, or by the showing of sufficient
   evidence, what need of holding it by faith? If we undertake to hold it
   without such evidence, what is our belief in it but a surrender of our
   proper intelligence?

   This kind of logic, so common as even to be the cant of our times, has
   all its plausibility in its own defect of insight, and nothing is
   wanting, in any case, to its complete refutation, but simply a due
   understanding of what faith is, and what the office it fills. In this
   view, I propose a discourse on the reason of faith; or to show how it
   is that we, as intelligent beings, are called to believe; and how, as
   sinners, we can, in the nature of things, be saved only as we believe.

   I select the particular passage, just cited, for my text, simply
   because it sets us at the point where seeing and believing are brought
   together; expecting to get some advantage, as regards the illustration
   of my subject, from the mutual reference of one to the other, as held
   in such proximity. In this verse, (the 36th,) they are brought together
   as not being united,--ye have seen me and believe not. Shortly after,
   (in the 40th verse,) they are brought together as being, or to be
   united,--every one that seeth the Son and believeth on him.

   Now the first thing we observe, for it stands on the face of the
   language, is that faith is not sight, but something different; so
   different that we may see and not believe. The next thing is that sight
   does not, in the scripture view, exclude faith, or supersede the
   necessity of it, as the common cavil supposes; for, after sight, faith
   is expected. And still, a third point is, that sight is supposed even
   to furnish a ground for faith, making it obligatory and, where it is
   not yielded, increasing the guilt of the subject; which appears, both
   in the complaint of one verse and the requirement of the other.

   Thus much in regard to the particular case of the per Eons addressed;
   for they were such as had themselves seen Christ, witnessed his
   miracles, heard his teachings, and watched the progress of his
   ministry. In that respect, our case is different. We get, by historic
   evidences, what they got by their senses. The attestations we have, are
   even more reliable evidences, I think, than those of sight; but they
   bring us to exactly the same point, viz., a settled impression of fact.
   That such a being lived they saw with their eyes, and we are satisfied
   that he lived by other evidences addressing our judging faculty, as
   sight addressed theirs. We take their case, accordingly, as the case
   proposed, and shape our argument to it.

   Suppose then that you had lived as a contemporary in the days of
   Christ; that you had been privy to the dialogue between the angel and
   Mary, and also, to all the intercourse of Mary and Elizabeth; that you
   had heard the song of the angels at the nativity, and seen their
   shining forms in the sky; that you was entirely familiar with the youth
   of Jesus, was present at his baptism, saw him begin his ministry, heard
   all his discourses, witnessed all his miracles, stood by his cross in
   the hour of his passion: that you saw him, heard him, ate with him,
   touched him after his resurrection, and finally beheld his ascension
   from Olivet. You have had, in other words, a complete sense view of
   him, from his first breath onward. What now does all this signify to
   you?

   Possibly much, possibly nothing. If received without any kind of faith,
   absolutely nothing; if with two kinds of faith which are universally
   practiced, it signifies the greatest fact of history; if with a third,
   equally rational and distinctively Christian, it signifies a new life
   in the soul, and eternal salvation.

   Let us, in the first place, look at these two kinds of faith which are
   universally practiced; for, if faith is, in the nature of things,
   absurd or unintelligent, we shall be as likely to discover the fact
   here as anywhere. And we may discover, possibly, that the very persons
   who discard faith, as an offense to intelligence, are not even able to
   do the commonest acts of intelligence without it.

   We begin, then, with the case of sight, or perception by sight. It has
   been, as some of you know, a great, or even principal question with our
   philosophers, for the last hundred years, and these are commonly the
   people most ready to complain of faith, how it is that we perceive
   objects? The question was raised by Berkeley's denial that we see them
   at all, which, though it convinced nobody, puzzled every body. He said,
   for example, that the persons who saw Christ did not really see him,
   they had only certain pictures cast in the back of the eye; which
   pictures, he maintained, were mere subjective impressions, nothing
   more; that, by the supposition, spectators are never at the objects,
   but only at the images, which are all, intellectually speaking, they
   know any thing about. If they take it as a fact, that they see real
   objects, they do it by a naked act of assumption, and, for aught that
   appears, impose upon themselves. The question, accordingly, has been,
   not whether real objects are perceived, for that is not often
   questioned now, but how we can imagine them to be; how, in other words,
   it is that we bridge the gulf between sensations and their objects; how
   it is that, having a tree-picture or a star-picture in the back of the
   eye, we make it to be a tree, really existing on some distant hill, or
   a real star, filling its measurable space many hundred millions of
   miles distant? Some deny the possibility of any solution; reducing even
   sight itself and all that we call evidence mn it to a mystery forever
   transcending intelligence. The best solutions agree virtually in
   this:--they conceive the soul to be such a creature that, when it has
   these forms in the eye, it takes them, as it were, instinctively, to be
   more than forms, viz., objects perceived; which is the same as to say
   that we complete sensation itself; or issue it in perception, by
   assigning reality ourselves to the distant object. And what is this,
   but to say that we do it by a kind of sense-faith contributed from
   ourselves? In our very seeing we see by faith, and, without the faith,
   we should only take in impressions to remain as last things in the
   brain. Hence, perhaps, the word perception, a through-taking, because
   we have taken hold of objects through distances, and so have bridged
   the gulf between us and reality. Is then sight itself unintelligent,
   because it includes an act of faith? Or, if we believe in realities,
   and have them by believing, would it be wiser and more rational to let
   alone realities and live in figures and phantasms, painted on the
   retina of our eyes?

   But there is another kind of faith, less subtle than this which also is
   universally practiced, and admitted universally to be intelligent. It
   is that kind of faith which, after sensation is passed, or perception
   is completed, assigns truth to the things seen, and takes them to be
   sound historic verities. Thus, after Christ had been seen in all the
   facts of his life, it became a distinct question what to make of the
   facts; whether possibly there could have been some conspiracy in the
   miracles; some collusion, or acting in the parts of Mary and her son;
   some self-imposition, or hallucination that will account for his
   opinions of himself and the remarkable pretensions he put forth;
   whether possibly, there was any mistake in the senses, or any slight of
   hand by which they were imposed upon? Before, the difficulty was
   natural, and related to the laws of sensation. Here it is moral, and
   respects the verity, or integrity of the agents. For it is a remarkable
   fact that the mere seeing of any wonder never concludes the mind of the
   spectator. How many, for example, are testifying, in our time, that
   they have seen, with their own eyes, the most fantastic and extravagant
   wonders wrought by the modern necromancy; and yet they very commonly
   conclude by saying, that they know not what to make of them; evidently
   doubting whether, after all, the slight of hand tricks of jugglery,
   ventriloquism, and magic, and the sometimes wondrous cunning of a lying
   character, will not account for all they saw. These doubts are not the
   ingenious doubts of philosophy, but the practical misgivings, questions
   and withholding of good sense. And here, again, we perceive, as before,
   that the mere seeing of Christ concludes nothing in the spectator, as
   regards his verity. He does not stand before the mind as a necessary
   truth of arithmetic or geometry; there the seeing ends debate, the mind
   is ipso facto concluded and there is no room for faith, either to be
   given or withholden. As the philosopher doubted whether the objects
   seen had any real existence out of him, so the practical spectator
   doubts, after all Christ's wonders, whether every thing was genuine,
   and the Christ who lived just such a being as he seemed to be. Probably
   the evidence, to one who saw, was as perfect as it could be; but if we
   could imagine it to be increased in quantity and power a thousand fold,
   remaining the same in kind, the mere seeing would conclude nothing. All
   you could say in such a case, would be that a given impression has been
   made; but that impression is practically naught, till an act of
   intellectual assent, or credence, is added on your part, which act of
   assent is also another kind of faith. If God were to burn himself into
   souls by lenses bigger than worlds, all you could say would be that so
   much impression is made, which impression is no historic verity to the
   mind, till the mind assents, on its part, and concludes itself upon the
   impression. Then the impression becomes, to it, a real and historic
   fact, a sentence of credit passed.

   We now come to the Christian, or third kind of faith, with some
   advantages already gained. Indeed, the argument against faith, as an
   offense to reason, or as being insignificant where there is evidence,
   and absurd where there is not, is already quite ended. We discover, in
   fact, two degrees or kinds of faith, going before and typifying and
   commending to our respect the higher faith that is to come after, as a
   faith of salvation. We discover, also, that we can not even do the
   commonest acts of intelligence without some kind of faith. First, we
   complete an act of perception only by a kind of sense-faith, moving
   from ourselves, and not from the objects perceived. Next, we pass on
   the historic verity, the moral genuineness of what we see, and our act
   of credit, so passed, is also a kind of faith moving from us, and is
   something over and above all the impressions we have received. A third
   faith remains that is just as intelligent and, in fact, is only more
   intelligent than the others, because it carries their results forward
   into the true uses.

   This, distinctively, is the scripture faith the faith of salvation, the
   believing unto life eternal. It begins just where the other and last
   named faith ended. That decided the greatest fact of history, viz.,
   that Christ actually was according to all his demonstrations. It passed
   on the genuine truth of those demonstrations, and set them as
   accredited to the account of history. Let every thing stop at that
   point, and we only have a Christ, just as we have a Gautamozin, or a
   Sardanapalus. The christian facts are stored in history, and are
   scarcely more significant to us, than if they were stored in the moon.
   What is wanted, just here, in the case of Christ, and what also is
   justified and even required by the facts of his life, is a faith that
   goes beyond the mere evidence of propositions, or propositional
   verities about Christ, viz., the faith of a transaction; and this faith
   is Christian faith. It is the act of trust by which one being, a
   sinner, commits himself to another being, a Saviour. It is not mind
   dealing with notions, or notional truths. It is what can not be a
   proposition at all. But it is being trusting itself to being, and so
   becoming other and different, by a relation wholly transactional.

   If a man comes to a banker with a letter of credit from some other
   banker, that letter may be read and seen to be a real letter. The
   signature also may be approved, and the credit of the drawing party
   honored by the other, as being wholly reliable. So far what is done is
   merely opinionative or notional, and there is no transactional faith.
   And yet there is a good preparation for this: just that is done which
   makes it intelligent. When the receiving party, therefore, accepts the
   letter and intrusts himself actually to the drawing party in so much
   money, there is the real act of faith, an act which answers to the
   operative, or transactional faith of a disciple.

   Another and perhaps better illustration may be taken from the patient
   or sick person, as related to his physician. He sends for a physician,
   just because he has been led to have a certain favorable opinion of his
   faithfulness and capacity. But the suffering him to feel his pulse,
   investigate his symptoms, and tell the diagnosis of his disease imports
   nothing. It is only the committing of his being and life to this other
   being, consenting to receive and take his medicines, that imports a
   real faith, the faith of a transaction.

   In the same manner Christian faith is the faith of a transaction. It is
   not the committing of one's thought, in assent to any proposition, but
   the trusting of one's being to a being, there to be rested, kept,
   guided, molded, governed and possessed forever.

   In this faith many things are pre-supposed, many included; and, after
   it, many will follow.

   Every thing is pre-supposed that makes the act intelligent and
   rational. That Christ actually lived and was what he declared himself
   to be. That he was no other than the incarnate Word of the Father. That
   he came into the world to recover and redeem it. That he is able to do
   it; able to forgive, regenerate, justify and set in eternal peace with
   God, and that all we see, in his passion, is a true revelation of God's
   feeling to the world.

   There was also a certain antecedent improbability of any such holy
   visitation, or regenerative grace, which has to be liquidated or
   cleared, before the supposed faith can be transacted. We live in a
   state under sin, where causes are running against us, or running
   destructively in us. We have also a certain scientific respect to
   causes, and expect them to continue. But Christ comes into the world,
   as one not under the scheme of causes. He declares that he is not of
   the world, but is from above. He undertakes to verify his claim by his
   miracles, and his miracles by his transcendent character. Assuming all
   the attributes of a power supernatural, he declares that he can take us
   out of nature and deliver us of the bad causes loosened by our sin, Now
   that he really is such a being, having such a power supernatural, able
   thus to save unto the uttermost, we are to have accredited, before we
   can trust ourselves to him.

   But this will be less difficult, because we are urged by such a sense
   of bondage under sin, and have such loads of conscious want, brokenness
   and helplessness upon us. Besides, if we look again into our disorders,
   we find that they are themselves abnormal, disturbances only, by our
   sin, of the pure and orderly harmony of causes; so that Christ, in
   restoring us, does not break up, but only recomposes the true order of
   nature. Inasmuch, therefore, as our salvation, or deliverance from
   evil, implies a restoration, and not any breach of nature, the
   incredible thing appears to be already done by sin itself, and the
   credible, the restoration only, remains.

   Having now all this previous matter cleared, we come to the
   transactional faith itself. We commit ourselves to the Lord Jesus, by
   an act of total and eternal trust, which is our faith. The act is
   intelligent, because it is intelligently prepared. It is not absurd, as
   being something more than evidence. It is not superseded by evidence.
   It is like the banker's acceptance, and the patient's taking of
   medicine, a transactional faith that follows evidence.

   The matters included in this act, for of these we will no speak, are
   the surrender of our mere self-care, the ceasing to live from our own
   point of separated will, a complete admission of the mind of Christ, a
   consenting, practically to be modulated by his motives and aims, and to
   live, as it were, infolded in his spirit. It is committing one's
   character wholly to the living character of Jesus, so that every
   willing and working and sentiment shall be pliant to his superior mind
   and spirit; just as a man, trusting himself to some superior man, in a
   total and complete confidence, allows that other to flow down upon him,
   assimilate him, and, as far as he may, with a superiority so slight,
   conform him to the subject of his trust. Only there is, in the faith of
   salvation, a trusting in Christ vastly more interior and searching, a
   presence internal to parts internal, a complete bathing of the trusting
   soul in Christ's own love and beauty.

   Those things, which were just now named as pre-supposed matters, are
   all opinionative and prior to this which is the real faith, and this
   faith must go beyond all mere historic credences of opinion; it must
   include the actual surrender of the man to the Saviour. It must even
   include the eternity or finality of that surrender; for if it is made
   only as an experiment, and the design is only to try what the Saviour
   will do, then it is experiment, not faith. Any thing and every thing
   which is necessary to make the soul a total, final deposite of trust in
   the Lord Jesus, must be included in the faith, else it is not faith,
   and can not have the power of faith. It must be as if, henceforth, the
   subject saw his every thing in Christ, his righteousness, his whole
   character, his life-work and death. struggle, and the hope of his
   eternity.

   How great is the transaction! and great results will follow, such as
   these:--

   He will be as one possessed by Christ, created anew in Christ Jesus.
   There will be a Christ power resting upon him and operative in him; an
   immediate knowledge of Christ, as a being revealed in the
   consciousness. A Christly character will come over him, and work itself
   into him. All his views of life will be changed. The old disturbance
   will be settled into loving order, and a conscious and sweet peace will
   flow down, like a divine river, through the soul, watering all its
   dryness. It will be in liberty, free to good; wanting only
   opportunities to do God's will. Fear will be cast out, confidence
   established, hope anchored, and all the great eternity to come taken
   possession of Christ will constrain every motion, in such a way that no
   constraint shall be felt, and the new man will be so exhilarated in
   obedience, and raised so high in the sense of God upon him, that
   sacrifice itself will be joy, and the fires of martyrdom a chariot to
   the victor soul.

   But the most remarkable, because to some the most unaccountable and
   extravagant result of faith, is the creation of new evidence. The
   exercise of faith is itself a proving of the matter, or the being
   trusted. It requires, in order to make it intelligent, some evidence
   going before; and then more evidence will follow, of still another
   kind. As in trying a physician, or trusting one's life to him, new
   evidence is obtained from the successful management of the disease, so
   the soul that trusts itself to Christ knows him with a new kind of
   knowledge, that is more immediate and clear, knows him as a friend
   revealed within, knows him as the real power of God, even God in
   sacrifice. He that believeth hath the witness in himself,--the proof of
   Jesus, in him, is made out and verified by trust. Every thing in that
   text of scripture, that stumbles so many of our wise reasoners, is
   verified to the letter:--Now faith is the substance of things hoped
   for, the evidence of things not seen. It is not said that faith goes
   before all evidence, but that, coming after some evidence, it discovers
   more and greater. It makes substance of what before stood in hope; it
   proves things unseen and knows them by the immediate evidence of their
   power in the soul. Hence it is that faith is described, everywhere, as
   a state so intensely luminous. Trust in God will even prove him to be,
   more inevitably and gloriously than all scientific arguments. The
   taking immortality by trust and acting one's mighty nature into it
   proves it, as it were, by the contact of it. The faith itself evidences
   the unseen life, when all previous evidences wore a questionable look.
   And so the whole Christian life becomes an element of light, because
   the. trust itself is an experience of Christ and of God.

   And so truly intelligent is the process, that it answers exactly, in a
   higher plane, to the process of perception itself, already referred to.
   For when objects, that cast their picture in the eye, are accepted and
   trusted to as being more than pictures, solid realities, then, by that
   faith, is begun a kind of experiment. Taking, now, all these objects to
   be realities, we go into all the practical uses of life, handling them
   as if realities, and so, finding how they support all our uses and show
   themselves to be what we took them for, we say that we know them to be
   real, having found them by our trust. Exactly so, only in a much higher
   and nobler sense, it is that faith is the substance of things hoped
   for, and the evidence of things not seen. Is there any thing in this
   which scandalizes intelligence? I think not.

   If now you have followed me, in these illustrations, which I know are
   somewhat abstruse, you will not complain of their abstruseness, but
   will be glad, by any means, to escape from those difficulties which
   have been gathered round the subject of faith, by the unilluminated and
   superficial speculations of our times. Handling the subject more
   superficially, I might have seemed to some to do more, but should, in
   fact, have done nothing. Let us gather up now, in closing, some of the
   lessons it yields. And--

   1. The mistake is here corrected of those, who are continually assuming
   that the gospel is a theorem, a something to be thought out, and not a
   new premise of fact communicated by God,--by men to be received in all
   the three-fold gradations of faith. To mill out a scheme of free will
   and responsibility, to settle metaphysically questions of ability and
   inability, to show the scheme of regeneration as related to a theory of
   sin and not to the conscious fact, may all be very ingenious and we may
   call it gospel; but it is scarcely more than a form of rationalism.
   Feeding on such kind of notional and abstract wisdom, and not on
   Christ, the bread that came down from heaven, we grow, at once, more
   ingenious in the head, and more shallow in the heart, and, in just the
   compound ratio of both, more naturalistic and sceptical. Loosing out
   our robustness, in this manner, and the earnestness of our spiritual
   convictions, our ministry becomes, in just the same degree, more
   ambitious and mere untransforming to the people, and the danger is
   that, finally, even the sense of religion, as a gift of God, a divine
   light in the soul, resealed from faith to faith, will quite die out and
   be lost. Our gospel will be nature, and our faith will be reason, and
   the true Christ will be nothing,--all the grand, life-giving truths of
   the incarnate appearing and cross are resolved into myths and legends.

   2. We discover that the requirement of faith, as a condition of
   salvation, is not arbitrary, as many appear to suppose, but is only a
   declaration of the fact, before existing, that without faith there can
   be no deliverance from sin. The precise difficulty with us in our sin
   is, that we can not make ourselves good and happy by acting on
   ourselves. Faith, accordingly, is not required of us, because Christ
   wants to humble us a little, as a kind of satisfaction for letting go
   the penalty of our sins, but because we can not otherwise be cleared of
   them at all. What we want is God, God whom we have lost; to be united
   being to being, sinner to Saviour; thus to be quickened, raised up, and
   made again to partake, as before sin, the divine nature. And, for just
   this reason, faith is required; for we come into the power of God only
   as we trust ourselves to him. And here it is, at this precise point,
   that our gospel excels all philosophies, proving most evidently its
   divine origin. It sees the problem as it is, and shows, in the
   requirement of faith as the condition of salvation, that it comprehends
   the whole reason of our state. It has the sagacity to see that,
   plainly, there is no such thing as a raising of man. without God; also
   that there is no God save as we find him by our trust, and have him
   revealed within, by resting our eternity on him. And hence it is that
   all those scripture forms of imputation spring up, as a necessary
   language of faith, under the gospel. We come, in our trust, unto God,
   and the moment we so embrace him, by committing our total being and
   eternity to him, we find every thing in us transformed. There is life
   in us from God; a kind of Christ-consciousness is opened in us
   testifying, with the apostle,--Christ liveth in me. We see, therefore,
   in him, the store of all gifts and graces. Every thing flows down upon
   us from him, and so we begin to speak of being washed, sanctified,
   justified, in him. He is our peace, our light, our bread; the way, the
   truth, and the life. And, in just the same manner, he is our
   righteousness; for he is, so to speak, a soul of everlasting integrity
   for us, and when we come in to be with him, he becomes in us what he is
   to himself. We are new created and clothed in righteousness, from his
   glorious investiture. The righteousness of God, which is, by faith of
   Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe, is upon us, and
   the very instinct of our faith, looking unto God in this conscious
   translation of his nature to us, is to call him The Lord our
   Righteousness, the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.

   Such now, my friends is faith. It gives you God, fills you with God in
   immediate experimental knowledge, puts you in possession of all there
   is in him, and allows you to be invested with his character itself. Is
   such faith a burden, a hard and arbitrary requirement? Why, it is your
   only hope, your only possibility. Shall this most grand and blessed
   possibility be rejected? Sc far it has been, and you have even been
   able, it may be, in your lightness, to invent ingenious reasons against
   any such plan of salvation. God forbid that you do not some time take
   the penalty of having just that salvation, without faith to work out,
   which you so blindly approve!

   3. We perceive, in our subject, that mere impressions can never amount
   to faith. At this point, the unbelievers and all such as are waiting to
   have convictions and spiritual impressions wrought in them that amount
   to faith, perfectly agree. The unbelievers and cavillers say that
   impressions, taken as evidences, are every thing, and that, over and
   above these, faith is nonsense. You that are waiting to be in faith, by
   merely having your convictions and feelings intensified, say the same
   thing; for you expect your impressions to coalesce in faith, and so to
   be faith. That, as we have seen already, is forever impossible. Faith
   is more than impression; it moves from you, it is the trusting of your
   being, in a total, final act of commitment, to the being of Christ,
   your Saviour. Impressions shot into you, even by thunder-bolts, would
   not be faith in you. Ye also have seen me, says Jesus, and believe not.
   No impression can be stronger and more positive than sight, and yet not
   even this was equivalent to faith. It was a good ground of faith,
   nothing more. Whatever drawings, then, impressions, convictions,
   evidences, God in his mercy may give you, they will only ask your faith
   and wait for it. Will you, can you, then, believe? On that question
   hangs every thing decisive as regards your salvation. This crisis of
   faith,--can you ever pass it, or will you always be waiting for a faith
   to begin in you which is not faith, and never can be? Let the faith be
   yours, as it must; your own coming to Christ, your own act of
   self-surrender, your coming over to him and eternal trust in him for
   peace, life, truth and bread; knowing assuredly that he will be made
   unto you all these, and more,--wisdom, righteousness, sanctification
   and redemption.

   Finally, it is very plain that what is now most wanted, in the
   Christian world, is more faith. We too little respect faith, we dabble
   too much in reason; fabricating gospels, where we ought to be receiving
   Christ; limiting all faith, if we chance to allow of faith, by the
   measures of previous evidence, and cutting the wings of faith when,
   laying hold of God, and bathing in the secret mind of God, it conquers
   more and higher evidence. Here is the secret of our sects and schisms,
   that we are so much in the head; for, when we should be one in faith,
   by receiving our one Lord, as soon as we go off into schemes and
   contrived summaries of notions, reasoned into gospels, what can follow
   but that we have as many gospels as we have heads and theories? It
   never can be otherwise, till we are united by faith. The word of reason
   is a word of interminalble schism and subdivision, and the propagation
   of it, as in those animals that multiply by dividing their own bodies,
   will be a fissiparous process to the end of the world. O, that the
   bleeding and lacerated body of Christ could once more be gathered unto
   the Head, and fastened there by a simple, vital trust; that his counsel
   and feeling and all his divine graces might flow down upon it, as a
   sacred healing and a vivifying impulse of love and sacrifice; and that
   so, fighting each other no more, we might all together fight the good
   fight of faith.

   We shall never recover the true apostolic energy and be indued with
   power from on high, as the first disciples were--and this exactly is
   the prayer in which the holiest most expectant and most longing souls
   on earth are waiting now before God--till we recover the lost faith. As
   regards a higher sanctification, which is, I trust, the cherished hope
   of us all, nothing is plainer than the impossibility of it, except as
   we can yield to faith a higher honor and abide in it with a holier
   confidence. Every man is sanctified according to his faith; for it is
   by this trusting of himself to Christ that he becomes invested,
   exalted, irradiated, and finally glorified in Christ. Be it unto you
   according to your faith, is the true principle, and by that the whole
   life. state of the church on earth always has been, always will be
   graduated. Increase our faith, then, Lord! be this our prayer.

   That prayer, I believe, is yet to be heard. After we have gone through
   all the rounds of science, speculation, dialectic cavil, and wise
   unbelief, we shall do what they did not even in the apostolic times, we
   shall begin to settle conceptions of faith that will allow us, and all
   the ages to come, to stand fast in it and do it honor. And then God
   will pour himself into the church again, I know not in what gifts.
   Faith will then be no horseman out upon the plain, but will have a
   citadel manned and defended, whence no power of man can ever dislodge
   it again. Faith will be as much stronger now than science, as it is
   higher and more diffusive. And now the reign of God is established.
   Christ is now the creed, and the whole church of God is in it,
   fulfilling the work of faith with power.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                      VI.

REGENERATION.

   John iii. 3.--"Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily I say
   unto thee, except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of
   God."

   THIS very peculiar expression, born again, is a phrase that was
   generated historically in the political state, then taken up by Christ,
   and appropriated figuratively to the spiritual use in which we find it.
   Thus foreigners, or Gentiles, were regarded by the Jewish people as
   unclean. Therefore, if any Gentile man wanted to become a Jewish
   citizen, he was baptized with water, in connection with other
   appropriate ceremonies, and so, being cleansed, was admitted to be a
   true son of Abraham. It was as if he had been born, a second time, of
   the stock of Abraham; and becoming, in this manner, a native Jew, as
   related to the Jewish state, he was said, in form of law, to be born
   again. Our term naturalization signifies essentially the same thing;
   viz., that the subject is made to be a natural born American, or, in
   the eye of the law, a native citizen. Finding this Jewish ceremony on
   foot, and familiarly known, Christ takes advantage of it, (and the more
   naturally that a person so regenerated was, by the supposition,
   entered, religiously, into the covenant of Abraham,) as affording a
   good analogy, and a good form of expression, to represent the
   naturalization of a soul in the kingdom of heaven. Regarding us, in our
   common state under sin, as aliens, or foreigners, and not citizens in
   the kingdom; unclean in a deeper than ceremonial and political sense;
   he says, in a manner most emphatic,--Verily, verily I say unto thee,
   except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God. And
   again,--Marvel not that I said unto you, ye must be born again. In this
   language, so employed he gives us to understand that no man can ever be
   accepted before God, or entered into the kingdom of the glorified, who
   is not cleansed by a spiritual transformation, in that manner born of
   God, and so made native in the kingdom. He does not leave us to suppose
   that he is speaking merely of a ceremonial cleansing. He only takes the
   water by the way, as a symbol, and adds the Spirit as the real
   cleansing power;--Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he can
   not enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is
   flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

   I propose, now, a deliberate examination of this great subject, hoping
   to present such a view of it as will command the respect of any
   thoughtful person, whatever may have been his previous difficulties and
   objections. My object will be to unfold the scripture doctrine, in a
   way to make it clear, not doubting that, when it is intelligibly shown,
   it will also prove itself to be soundly intelligent, and will so
   command our assent, as a proper truth of sal vation. I believe, also,
   that many minds are confused, to such a degree, m their notions of this
   subject, as must fatally hinder them, in their efforts to enter the
   gate which it opens.

   I call your attention specially to three points:--

   1. That Christ requires of all mankind, without distinction some great
   and important change, as the necessary condition of their salvation.

   II. The nature and definition of this change.

   III. The manner in which it is, and is to be, effected.

   I. That Christ requires of all some great and important change.

   He does not, of course, require it of such as are already subjects of
   the change, and many are so even from their earliest years; having
   grown up into Christ by the preventing or anticipating grace of their
   nurture in the Lord; so that they can recollect no time, when Christ
   was not their love, and the currents of their inclination did not run
   toward his word and his cause. The case, however, of such is no real
   exception; and, besides this, there is even no semblance of exception.
   Intelligence, in fact, is not more necessary to our proper humanity,
   than the second birth of this humanity, as Christ speaks, to its
   salvation. Many can not believe, or admit any such doctrine. It savors
   of hardness, they imagine, or undue severity, and does not correspond
   with what they think they see, in the examples of natural character
   among men. There is too much amiability and integrity, too much of
   exactness and even of scrupulousness in duty, to allow any such
   sweeping requirement, or the supposition of any such universal
   necessity. How can it be said or imagined that so many moral,
   honorable, lovely, beneficent and habitually reverent persons need to.
   be radically and fundamentally changed in character, before they can be
   saved?

   That, according to Christ, depends on the question whether "the one
   thing" is really lacking in them or not. If it be, not even the fact
   that he can look upon them with love will, at all, modify his
   requirement. This is the word of Christ, this his new testament
   still,--regeneration universal regeneration, thus salvation.

   We can see too, for ourselves, that Christianity is based on the fact
   of this necessity. It is not any doctrine of development, or
   self-culture; no scheme of ethical practice, or social re-organization;
   but it is a salvation; a power moving on fallen humanity from above its
   level, to regenerate and so to save. The whole fabric is absurd
   therefore, unless there was something to be done in man and for him
   that required a supernatural intervention. We can see too, at a glance,
   that the style of the transaction is supernatural, from the incarnate
   appearing onward. Were it otherwise, were Christianity a merely natural
   and earthly product, then it were only a fungus growing out of the
   world, and, with all its high pretensions, could have nothing more to
   do for the world, than any other fungus for the heap on which it grows.
   The very name, Jesus, is a false pretense, unless he has something to
   do for the race, which the race can not do for itself; something
   regenerative and new-creative; something fitly called a salvation.

   But how can we imagine, some of you will ask, that God is going to
   stand upon any such definite and rigid terms with us? Is he not a more
   liberal being and capable of doing better things? Since he is very good
   and very great, and we are very weak and very much under the law of
   circumstances, is it not more rational to suppose that he will find
   some way to save us, and that, if we do not come into any such
   particular terms of life, it will be about as well? May we not safely
   risk the consequences? It ought to be a sufficient answer to all such
   suggestions, that Christ evidently understood what is necessary for us,
   better than we do, and that we discover no disposition to
   uncharitableness or harshness in him. He comes directly out from God
   and knows the mind of God. He takes our case upon him, and is so
   pressed by the necessities of our state, that he is even willing to die
   for us.

   It ought also to be observed that all such kinds of argument are a plea
   for looseness, which is not the manner of God. Contrary to this, we
   discover, in all we know of him, that he is the exactest of beings;
   doing nothing without fixed principles, and allowing nothing out of its
   true place and order. He weighs every world of the sky, even to its
   last atom, and rolls it into an orbit exactly suited to its uses and
   quantities. Nothing is smuggled out of place, or into place, because it
   is well enough anywhere. If a retreating army wants to cross a frozen
   river, the ice will not put off dissolving, but will run into the
   liquid state, at i certain exact point of temperature. If a man wants
   to live, there is yet some diseased speck of matter, it may be, in his
   brain, or heart, which no microscope even could detect, and by that
   speck, or because of it, he will die at a certain exact time; which
   time will not be delayed, for a day, simply because it is only a speck.
   Is then character a matter that God will treat more loosely? will he
   decide the great questions of order and place, dependent on it, by no
   exact terms or conditions? If he undertakes to save, will he save as by
   accommodation, or by some fixed law? If he undertakes to construct a
   beatific state, will he gather in a jumble of good and bad, and call it
   heaven? How certainly will any expectation of heaven, based on the
   looseness of God, and the confidence that he will stand for no very
   exact terms, issue in dreadful disappointment. And the more certainly,
   in this case, that the exactness supposed refers, not to any mere atoms
   of quantity, but to eternal distinctions of kind. His law of gravity
   will as soon put the sea on the backs of the mountains, as his terms of
   salvation will gather into life them that are not quickened in his Son.

   Do we not also see as clearly, as possible, for ourselves, what
   signifies much; that some men, a very large class of men, are certainly
   not in a condition to enter the kingdom of God, or any happy and good
   state. They have no purity or sympathy with it. They are slaves of
   passion. They are cruel, tyrannical, brutal, and even disgusting to,
   decency; fearful, unbelieving, abominable. Who can think that these are
   ready to melt into a perfectly blessed and celestial society? But, if
   not these, then there must be a division, and where shall it fall? If a
   line must be drawn, it must be drawn somewhere, and what is on one side
   of that line will not be on the other; which is the same as to say that
   there must be exact terms of salvation if there are any.

   Again, we know, we feel in our own consciousness, while living in the
   mere life of nature, that we are not in a state to enjoy the felicities
   of a purely religious and spotlessly sinless world. We turn from it
   with inward pain. Our heart is not there. We want the joys of that
   state.; we feel a certain hunger, at times, after God himself; and that
   hunger is to us an assured evidence that we have him not. I do not
   undertake to press this argument further than it will bear. I only say
   that we feel conscious of something uncongenial, in our state, toward
   God and heaven. We seem to ourselves not to be in the kingdom of God,
   but without, and can hardly imagine how we shall ever find any so great
   felicity in the employments of holy minds.

   It is also a very significant proof that some great change is needed in
   us that, when we give ourselves to some new purpose of amendment, or
   undertake to act up more exactly to the ideals of our mind, we are
   consciously legal in it, and do all by a kind of constraint. Something
   tells us that we are not spontaneous in what we do; that our currents
   do not run this way, but the contrary. A sad kind of heaven will be
   made by this sort of virtue! How dry it is, and if we call it service,
   how hard a service! What we want is liberty, to be in a kind of
   inspiration, to have our inclinations run the way of our duty, to be so
   deep in the spirit of it as to love it for its own sake. And this
   exactly is what is meant by the being born of God. It is having God
   revealed in the soul, moving in it as the grand impulse of life, so
   that duty is easy and, as it were, natural. Then we are in the kingdom,
   as being naturalized in it, or native born. Our regeneration makes us
   free in good. How manifest is it that, without this freedom, this newly
   generated inclination to good, all our supposed service is mockery, our
   seeming excellence destitute of sound reality.

   There is then a change, a great spiritual change, required by
   Christianity as necessary to salvation, and we find abundant reason, in
   all that we know of ourselves and the world, to admit the necessity of
   some transformation quite as radical. In presence of a truth so
   momentous and serious, we now raise the question--

   II. What is the nature of this change, how shall it be conceived?

   To make the answer as clear as possible, let some things which only
   confuse the mind, and which often enter largely into the discussion, be
   excluded.

   Thus a great deal of debate is had over the supposed instantaneousness
   of the change. But that is a matter of theory and not of necessary
   experience. If we call the change a change from bad in kind to good in
   kind, from a wrong principle of life to a right, the change will imply
   a beginning of what is good and right, and a gradual be. ginning of any
   thing would seem to be speculatively impossible. Still the change is,
   in that view, only an instantaneous beginning. But, however this may be
   in speculation, there is often, or even commonly, no consciousness of
   any such sudden transition. The subject often can not tell the hour, or
   the day; he only knows, it may be, looking back over hours or days, or
   even months, that he is a different man.

   Some persons hold impressions of the change which suppose, or even
   require it to be gradual. This is an error quite as likely to confuse
   the mind; for then they set out, almost of course, to make it a change
   only of degrees, in the old plane of the natural character. The true
   practical method is to drop out all considerations and questions of
   time, and look at nothing but the simple fact of the change itself,
   whenever and however accomplished.

   Much, again, is said in this matter of previous states and
   exercises--conviction, distress, tumult; then of light, peace, hope,
   bursting suddenly into the soul. Let no one attempt to realize any such
   description. Something of the kind may be common among the inductive
   causes, or the consequences of the change, but has nothing to do with
   its radical idea.

   Excluding now all these points, which are practically immaterial and
   irrelevant, as regards a definite conception of the change, let us
   carefully observe, first of all, he w the scriptures speak of it, or
   what figure it makes in their representations; and more especially the
   fact that they never speak of it as being a change of degrees, an
   amendment of the life, an improvement or growing better in the plane of
   the old character. Contrary to this, they use bold, sweeping contrasts,
   and deal, as it were, in totalities. It is the being born again, or
   born over; as if it were a spiritual reproduction of the man. They
   describe him as one new created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Old
   things they declare to be passed away, behold all things are become
   new. It is passing from death to its opposite, life. It is dying with
   Christ, to walk with him in newness of life. That which is born of the
   flesh is declared to be flesh; and, in the same sense, that which is
   born of the Spirit to be spirit; as if a second nature, free to good,
   were inbreathed by the Divine Spirit, partaking his own quality.

   It is called putting off the old man and putting on the new man, which
   after God is created in righteousness and true holiness; as if there
   was even a substitution of one man for another in the change, a new
   divine man in the place of the old.

   Again, it is called being transformed, and that by a renewing even of
   the mind, or intelligent principle.

   Again, as if forever to exclude the idea of a mere growing better by
   care, and duty, and self improvement, an apostle says--Not by works of
   righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved
   us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.

   Now you understand that a change of this kind can be spoken of, or
   described, only in figures. Therefore none of these expressions are to
   be taken as literal truths. But the great question under them is
   this--is the change spoken of a change merely of degree, or is it a
   change of kind? is it simply the improving of principles already
   planted in the soul, or is it the passing into a new state under new
   principles, to be started into a life radically different from the
   former? I have not one doubt which of the two alter. natives to accept
   as the true answer. Had it been the matter in hand, in redeeming the
   world, simply to make us better in degree, it would have been the
   easiest thing in the world to say it. The gospel does not say it. On
   the contrary, it labors after terms in which to set forth a change of
   kind, of principle,--a grand anakainosis, renovation, new creation,
   spiritually speaking, of the man.

   Nor is there any thing contrary to this, in those expressions which
   require a process of growth and gradual advancement. For it is only
   potentially that the new life is regarded as a complete or total
   renovation. As the child is potentially a man, as the seed planted is
   potentially the full grown plant, so it is with the regenerated life in
   Christ. It is a beginning, the implanting of a new seed, and then we
   are to see, first the blade, then the ear, and after that the full corn
   in the ear. All such conceptions of growth fall into place under the
   fact that the new character begun is only begun, and that, while it is
   the root and spring of a complete renovation, it must needs unfold
   itself and fill itself out into completeness, by a process of holy
   living. On the other hand, there could be no growth if there were not
   something planted, and it is everywhere assumed and taught that, until
   the new man is born, or begotten, there is not so much as a seed of
   true holiness, no principle that can be unfolded; that, without faith,
   the soul abideth even in death, and therefore can not grow.

   Advancing now from this point, let us see if we can accurately conceive
   the interior nature of the change.

   Every man is conscious of this; that when he acts in any particular
   manner of wrong doing, or sin, or neglect of God, there is something in
   the matter besides the mere act, or acts. There is a something back of
   the action which is the reason why it is done. In the mere act itself,
   there is, in fact, no character at all. In striking another, for
   example, the mere thrust of the arm, by the will, is the act; and,
   taken in that narrow mechanical sense, there is no wrong in it, more
   than there is in the motion that dispenses a charity. The wrong is back
   of the act, in some habit of soul, some disposition, some status of
   character, whence the action comes. Now this something, whatever it be,
   is the wrong of all wrong, the sin of all sin, and this must be
   changed--which change is the condition of salvation.

   Sometimes this change is conceived to be a really organic change in the
   subject. The strong expressions just referred to, in the scripture, are
   taken literally, as if there was and must needs be, a literal
   re-creation of tie man. The difficulty back of the wrong action is
   conceived to be the man himself, as a mal-constructed and
   constitutionally evil being, who can never be less evil, till something
   is taken out of him and replaced by a new insertion, which is, in fact,
   a new creation, by the fiat of omnipotence. But this, it is plain,
   would be no proper regeneration of the man, but the generation rather
   of another man in his place. Personal identity would be overthrown. The
   man would not, or should not, be consciously the same that he was.
   Besides, we are required to put off the old man ourselves and put on
   the new, and even to make ourselves a new heart and a new spirit, which
   shows, as clearly as possible, that we are to act concurrently in the
   change ourselves, whatever it be. But how can we act concurrently in a
   literal re-creation of our nature?

   Sometimes, again, the change is conceived to be only a change of
   purpose, a change of what is called the governing purpose. You
   determined this morning, for example, to attend worship in this place.
   This determination, or purpose, being made, it in one view passed out
   of mind; you did not continue to say and repeat, "I will do it," till
   you reached the place and took your seat; and yet it was virtually in
   you, governing all your thousand subordinate volitions, in rising,
   preparing, walking, choosing your way, and the like, down to that
   moment. Just so there is, it is said, a bad governing purpose of sin,
   or self-devotion, back of the whole life, making it what it is; and
   what christianity does or requires, is the change of that purpose;
   which being changed, a change is wrought in the whole life and
   character. And this, it is conceived, is to be born again. The change
   of the governing purpose is the regeneration of the man.

   The illustration, somewhat popularly taken, has truth in it, and it may
   be used in many cases with advantage. Still it is not exactly a bad
   governing purpose that we find, when we look for the seat of our
   disorder, but a something rather which we call a bad mind, state, or
   disposition. Having a certain quality of freedom, this bad mind, state,
   or disposition, may be represented analogically by a bad governing
   purpose, though it can not be identified with that. It is to the
   character what the will is dynamically to the actions, a bad affinity
   that distempers and carnalizes the whole man. I know not how to
   describe it better than to call it a false love, a wrong love, a
   downward, selfish love. How this love gets dominion, or becomes
   established in us, is not now the question. Enough to know that this
   wrong love is in us, and, being in us, is the source of a wrong life,
   much as the bad governing purpose is said to be. Only it is amore real
   and fatal condition of bondage and a less superficial evil. When we
   speak of a purpose that needs to be changed, we have only to will it
   and the change is wrought. But when we speak of changing one's reigning
   love, so that his life shall be under another love, a right love, a
   heavenly, a divine love, that is quite another and deeper and more
   difficult matter.

   Every man's life, practically speaking, is shaped by his love. If it is
   a downward, earthly love, then his actions will be tinged by it, all
   his life will be as his reigning love This love, you perceive, is not a
   mere sentiment, or casual emotion, but is the man's settled affinity;
   it is thal which is, to his character, what the magnetic force is to
   the needle, the power that adjusts all his aims and works, and
   practically determines the man. It only must b: either a downward love,
   or an upward love; for, being the last love and deepest of the man,
   there can not be two last and deepest, it must be one or the other. And
   then, as this love changes, it works a general revolution of the man.

   Hence it is that so much is said of the heart in the gospel, and of a
   change of the heart; for it is what proceeds out of the heart that
   defileth the man. The meaning is, not that christianity proposes to
   give us a new organ of soul, or to extract one member of the soul and
   insert an other, but that it will change the love of the heart. A man's
   love is the same thing as a man's heart.

   Thus it is declared that God will write his laws in the hearts of men,
   which is saying that he will bring his laws info their love. In
   accordance also with this, it is declared that love is of God, and
   every one that loveth is born of God; that is, that every one that has
   the right love, the heavenly or divine love established in him, has the
   change on which salvation hangs.

   I have brought you on thus far, in a simple and direct line of thought,
   to what may be called a scriptural and correct view of the change. And
   yet there is another and higher which is also scriptural, and which
   needs to be held in view, in order to a right understanding of our next
   point, the manner in which the change is effected.

   Thus far, you will observe, I have looked directly at the subject of
   the change, regarding only what transpires in him as a man. He is not
   re-created, he is not simply changed in his governing purpose, he is
   changed in his ruling love. Still he could not be so changed as a man
   in his own spirit, without and apart from another change, of which this
   is only an incident. After all, the principal stress of the change is
   not in himself, as viewed by himself, but in his personal relation to
   God, a being external to himself. In his prior, unregenerate state as a
   sinner, he was separated from God and centered in himself, living in
   himself and to himself. And he was not made to live in this manner. He
   was made to live in God, to be conscious of God, to know him by an
   immediate knowledge, to act by his divine impulse, in a word, to be
   inspired by him. By this I mean not that he is to be inspired in the
   same sense and manner as a prophet is, or a writer of scripture, which
   is the sense commonly attached to the word; I only mean that he is made
   to be occupied, filled, governed, moved, exalted, by His all-containing
   Spirit; so that all his tempers, actions, ends, enjoyments, will be
   from God. A tree can as well live out of the light, or out of the air,
   as a finite soul out of God and separate from God. Here then is the
   grand overtowering summit of the change. that the man is born of God.
   He is born into God, restored to the living connection with God that
   was lost by his sin, made to be a partaker of the divine nature, and
   live a life hid with Christ in God. He acts no more by his mere human
   will, as before; he says, yet not I, but Christ, liveth in me. God is
   now revealed in him; he is not a sole, simple, human nature; but he is
   a human nature occupied by the divine, living and acting in an inspired
   movement;--all which is signified by the declaration, that which is
   born of the Spirit is spirit. He is more than a human person, he is
   spirit; a human person, that is, pervaded, illuminated, swayed,
   exalted, empowered, and finally to be glorified by the life and Spirit
   of God developed freely in him. This emphatically is regeneration. It
   can not be fully defined by looking simply at the man himself. He must
   be regarded as in relation to another being. He is really parted from
   sin and quickened in a spirit of life, only as he is restored to God
   and received into the glorious occupancy of the divine nature.

   But whether we regard the change as a change in the soul's ruling love,
   or in the higher form of it here recognized, makes little difference;
   for, in fact, neither of these two will be found separated from the
   other. If a man's ruling love is changed, he will, of course, be
   altered in his relation to God, and restored to oneness with him. And
   if he is restored to that oneness, his ruling love will be changed.
   There will be no precedence of time in one to the other. They will be
   rigidly coincident. They will even be mutual conditions one of the
   other. No man will ever be united to God, except in and by a love that
   embraces or entemples God. No man ever will be changed in his ruling
   love, except in the embrace of God, and His revelation in the soul. The
   consequences therefore of the change will be such as belong to both.
   The soul is now entered into rest; rest in love, rest in God. It is
   flooded also with a wondrously luminous joy; its whole horizon is
   filled with light; the light of a new love, the light of God revealed
   within. It has the beginning of true blessedness; because God himself
   and the principle of God's own blessedness are in it. It settles into
   peace; for now it is at one with God and all the creatures of God. It
   is filled with the confidence of hope; because God, who is wholly given
   himself to a right love, will never forsake it, in life or death. It is
   free to good, inclined to good; for the good love reigns in it, and it
   would even have to deny itself not to do the works of love. It
   consciously knows God, within; for God is there now in a new relation,
   love present to love, love answering to love. There is no alienation,
   or separation, but oneness. If a man love me, says the Saviour, he will
   keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him
   and make our abode with him. That abode in the soul is a new condition
   of divine movement; for it is in the movement of God. All things, of
   course, are new. Life proceeds from a new center, of which God is the
   rest and prop. The bible is a new book, because there is a light in the
   soul by which to read it. Duties are new, because the divine love the
   soul is in has changed all the relations of time and the aims of life.
   The saints of God on earth are no longer shunned, but greeted in new
   terms of celestial brotherhood. The very world itself is revealed in
   new beauty and joy to the mind, because it is looked upon with another
   and different love, and beheld as the symbol of God.

   But let this one caution be observed. You are likely to be more
   attracted by the consequences of the change than by the change itself.
   But with the consequences you have nothing to do. God will take care of
   these. It may be that your mind will be so artificial, or so confused,
   as to miss the consequences for a time, after the reality is passed.
   But God will bring them out in his own good time, perhaps gradually,
   certainly in the way that is best for you. Let him do his own work, and
   be it yours to look after nothing but the new love. This brings me to
   speak, as I shall do in the briefest manner possible,--

   III. Of the manner in which the change, already described, is to be
   effected.

   To maintain that such a change can be manipulated, or officially
   passed, by a priest, in the rite of baptism, is no better than a solemn
   trifling with the subject. Indeed, so plain is this, that a sober
   argument, instituted to prove the contrary, is itself a half surrender
   of the truth. "Born of water and of the Spirit," says our Lord, and the
   language is a Hebraism, which presents the water as the symbol and the
   Spirit as the power of the change.

   Equally plain is it that the change is not to be effected, by waiting
   for some new creating act of God, to be literally passed on the soul.
   Whoever thinks to compliment the sovereignty of God in that manner,
   mocks both himself and God. The change, as we have seen, passes only by
   consent and a free concurrence with God. God will never demolish a
   sinner's personality.

   As little is it to be accomplished by any mere willing, or change of
   purpose, apart from God. There must be a change. of purpose, a final,
   total, sweeping change of all purpose, but that of itself will not
   change the soul's love, least of all will it be a birth of God into the
   soul. A man can as little drag himself up into a new reigning love, as
   he can drag a Judas into paradise. Or, if we say nothing of this, how
   can he execute a change, that consists in the revelation of God, by
   acting on himself? "Born of God," remember, is the christian idea, not
   born of self-exercise; "created anew in Christ Jesus," not
   self-created. You must get beyond your own mere will, else you will
   find, even though you strain your will to the utmost for a hundred
   years, that, while to will is present, you perform not. You can not
   lift this bondage, or break this chain, or burst open a way into
   freedom through this barrier, till you can say;--I thank God through
   Jesus Christ my Lord; for the law of the spirit of life hath made me
   free from the law of sin and death.

   The question then recurs, how shall this change be effected? The whole
   endeavor, I answer, on your part must be God-ward. In the first place,
   you must give up every purpose. end, employment, hope, that conflicts
   with God and takes you away from him. Hence what is said in so many
   forms of self-renunciation. Hence the requirement to forsake all. It is
   on the ground that, in your life of sin, you are altogether in
   self-love, centered in yourself, living for yourself, making a god of
   your own objects and works. These occupy the soul, fill it, bear rule
   in it, and God can not enter. You must make room for God, create a void
   for him to fill, die to yourself that Christ may live within.

   But this negative work of self-clearing is not enough. There must be a
   positive reaching after God, an offering up of the soul to him, that he
   may come and dwell in it and consecrate it as his temple. For, as
   certainly as the light will pour into an open window, just so certainly
   will God reveal himself in a mind that is opened to his approach. Now
   this opening of the mind, this reaching after God, is faith; and hence
   it is that so much is made of faith. For God is revealed outwardly, in
   the incarnate life and death of Jesus, in order that he may present
   himself in a manner level to our feeling, and quickening to our love,
   and so encourage that faith by which he may come in, to re-establish
   his presence in us. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of
   darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge
   of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ. O, it is there that
   the true God shines--let him shine into our hearts! Jesus, if we
   understand him, is the true manifestation of God, and he is manifested
   to be the regenerating power of a new divine life. By his beautiful
   childhood, by his loving acts and words, by his sorrowful death, God
   undertakes to impregnate our dead hearts with his love, and so to
   establish himself eternally in us. What is said of the Spirit is said
   of him, as being also the Spirit of Jesus. For, in highest virtuality,
   they are one, even as Christ himself declares, when dis. coursing of
   the promised Spirit,--"I will come to you," "but ye see me." Receive
   him, therefore, as receiving Christ, and him as the accepted image of
   God, and this will be your faith, this the regeneration of your love,
   and this the token of your new connection with God.

   Allow no artificial questions of before and after to detain you here,
   as debating whether Christ, or the Spirit, or the faith, or the new
   born love, must be first. Enough to know that, if your faith is
   conditioned by the Spirit, so is the victory of the Spirit conditioned
   by your faith; that here you have all these mercies streaming upon you,
   and that nothing effectual can be done, till your faith meets them and
   they are revealed in your faith. Enough to know that, if the faith is
   to be God's work, it is also to be your act, and it can not be worked
   before it is acted. Let Christ also be your help in this acting of
   faith and this receiving of God, even as he set himself to give it in
   his conversation with Nicodemus; going directly on to speak of himself
   and the grace brought down to sinners in his person, declaring that, as
   Moses lifted up the brazen serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son
   of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish
   but have everlasting life. He brings the divine love down to this most
   wondrous attitude, the cross, that we may there drop out our sin, and
   receive into our faith the love, the God of love expressed. And
   therefore it is represented that Christ ever stands before the door and
   knocks for ad mission, with a promise that, if any. man open the door
   (which is faith,) he will come in and sup with him. Christianity is God
   descending to the door to get admission; this is the grand philosophy
   of the incarnation. God is just what you see him here, and he comes to
   be revealed in you as he is presented before you. Thus received, you
   are born again, born of God. A new love enters, God enters, and eternal
   life begins.

   Shall he enter th us with you? How many of you are there that ought to
   hear this call. And no one of you is excluded. You may have come hither
   to-day with no such high intention. Still the call is to you. If you
   ask who? how many? when? all, I answer, all, and that to-day. Do you
   not see a glorious simplicity in this truth of regeneration! How
   beautiful is God in the light of it, how deep in love Christ Jesus and
   his cross, how close, in all this, comes the tenderness and winning
   grace of your God! No matter if you did not think of receiving him, are
   you going to reject him? Is it nothing to be so exalted, so divinely
   ennobled? Have you fallen so low that no such greatness can attract
   you?

   Then be it so. Have it as confessed that, when you saw the true gate
   open, you would not enter. Go back to your sins. Plunge into your
   little cares, fall down to your base idols, creep along through the low
   affinities of your sin, make a covenant with hunger and thirst, and
   hide it from you, if you can, that you was made for God, made to live
   in the consciousness of Him, as a mind irradiated by His spirit,
   quickened by his life, cleared by His purity. But if you can not be
   attracted by this, let it be no wonder, call it no severity, that
   Christ has not opened heaven to you. No wonder is it to him, even if it
   be to you, and therefore he says, whispers it to you kindly, but
   faithfully, as you turn yourself away,--"Marvel not that I said unto
   you ye must be born again.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                      VII.

THE PERSONAL LOVE AND LEAD OF CHRIST.

   John x. 3.--"And he calleth his own sheep by name and leadeth them
   out."

   IN this parable, Christ is a shepherd, and his people are his flock.
   And two points, on which the beauty and significance of the parable
   principally turn, are referred to in the text, which might not be
   distinctly observed by one who is not acquainted with the peculiar
   manner of the eastern shepherds. They have, in the first place, a name
   for every sheep, and every sheep knows its name when it is called. And
   then the shepherd does not drive the flock, as we commonly speak, but
   he leads them, going before. To these two points, or to the instruction
   contained under these two analogies, I now propose to call your
   attention.

   I. He calleth his own sheep by name. As we have names for dogs and
   other animals, which they themselves know, so it was with the eastern
   shepherds and their flocks. This fact is shown historically, by many
   references. It is to this, for example, that Isaiah refers when he
   represents the Almighty Creator as leading out the starry heavens,.
   like a shepherd leading his flock;--Lift up your eyes and behold who
   hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number; he
   calleth them all by names. The shepherd in this view is not as one who
   keeps a hive of bees, knowing well the hive, but never any particular
   bee in it, but he has a particular recognition of every sheep, has a
   name for every one, teaches every one to know that name and follow at
   the call. This also is signified in the words that immediately
   follow,--The sheep follow him, for they know his voice,--words that
   refer, not so much to the mere tones of his voice, as to the fact that
   he is able, as a stranger is not, to call the names they are wont to
   answer as their own.

   Under this analogy stands the tender and beautiful truth, that Christ
   holds a particular relation to individual persons; knows them, loves
   them, watches for them, leads them individually, even as if calling
   them by name.

   In this respect, the parable is designed to counteract and correct,
   what has in all ages been the common infirmity of Christian
   believers;--they believe that God has a real care of the church and of
   all great bodies of saints, but how difficult is it to imagine that he
   ever particularly notes, or personally recognizes them. They know that
   God has a vast empire, and that the cares and counsels of his love
   include immense numbers of minds, and they fall into the impression
   that he must needs deal with them in the gross, or as noting only
   generals, just as they would do themselves. They even take an air of
   philosophy in this opinion, asking how we can imagine that so great a
   being takes a particular notice of, and holds a particular and personal
   relation to, individual men. There could not be a greater mistake, even
   as regards the matter of philosophy; for the relation God holds to
   objects of knowledge is different, in all respects, from that which is
   held by us. Our general terms, man, tree, insect, flower, are the names
   of particular. or single specimens, extended, on the ground of a
   perceived similarity, to kinds or species. They come, in this manner,
   to stand for millions of. particular men, trees, insects, flowers, that
   we do not and never can know. They are, to just this extent, words of
   ignorance; only we are able, in the use, to hold right judgments of
   innumerable particulars we do not know, and have the words, so far, as
   words of wisdom. But God does not generalize in this manner, getting up
   general terms under which to handle particulars, which, as particulars,
   he does not know. He is not obliged to accommodate his ignorance, or
   shortness of perception, by any such splicing process in words, His
   knowledge of wholes is a real and complete knowledge. It is a knowledge
   of wholes, as being a distinct knowledge of particulars. Indeed,
   whatever particulars exist, or by him are created, he must first have
   thought; and therefore they were known by him, as being thought, even
   before they became subjects of knowledge in the world of fact. Holding
   in his thought the eternal archetypes of kinds and species, he also
   thought each individual in its particular type, as dominated by the
   common archetype. So that all things, even things most particular, are
   known or thought by him eternally, before they take existence in time.
   When he thinks of wholes or kinds therefore--of society, the church,
   the nation, the race, he knows nothing of them in our faint, partial
   way of generalization, but he knows them intuitively, through and
   through; the wholes in the particulars, the particulars in the wholes;
   knows them in their types, knows them in their archetypes, knows them
   in their genesis out of both; so with a knowledge that is more than
   verbal, a solid, systematic, specific knowledge. Nay, it is more,--a
   necessary, inevitable knowledge; for the sun can no more shine on the
   world, as in the gross, without touching every particular straw and
   atom with his light, than God can know, or love whole bodies of saints,
   without knowing and loving every individual saint. In one view, it
   requires no particular act of tenderness, or condescension in him; it
   is the sublime necessity of his Perfect Mind. Being a perfect mind, and
   not a mere spark of intelligence like us, he can not fall into the
   imperfections and shorten himself to the half-seeing of our
   contrivance, when we strain ourselves to set up generals, in a way to
   piece out and hide our ignorance.

   And yet we could not wean ourselves of this folly, could not believe
   that our God has a particular notice of us and a particular interest in
   our personal history. And this was one of the great uses of the
   incarnation; it was to humanize God, reducing him to a human
   personality, that we might believe in that particular and personal
   love, in which he reigns from eternity. For Christ was visibly one of
   us, and we see, in all his demonstrations, that he is attentive to
   every personal want, woe, cry of the world. When a lone woman came up
   in a crowd to steal, as it were, some healing power out of his person,
   or out of the hem of his garment, he would not let her off in that
   impersonal, unrecognizing way; he compelled her to show herself and to
   confess her name, and sent her away with his personal blessing. He
   pours out, everywhere, a particular sympathy on every particular child
   of sorrow; he even hunts up the youth he has before healed of his
   blindness, and opens to him, persecuted as he is for being healed, the
   secrets of his glorious Messiahship. The result, accordingly, of this
   incarnate history is that we are drawn to a different opinion of God;
   we have seen that he can love as a man loves another, and that such is
   the way of his love. He has tasted death we say, not for all men only,
   but for every man. We even dare to say, for me,--who loved me and gave
   himself for me. Nay, he goes even further than this himself, calling us
   friends, and claiming that dear relationship with us; friends, because
   he is on the private footing of friendship and personal
   confidence;--The servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth, but I have
   called you friends. He even goes beyond this, promising a friendship so
   particular and personal that it shall be a kind of secret, or cypher of
   mutual understanding, open to no other; a new white stone given by his
   king, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving
   he that receiveth it.

   Indeed, I might go on to show, from every particular work and turn of
   this gospel, how intensely personal it is. What is communion that is
   not communion with particular souls? Is it the communion or fellowship
   of God that he reaches only great bodies of men? If he promises comfort
   or support, whom does he comfort or support, when he touches no
   individual person? The promises to prayer--whom does he hear, when he
   hears the prayer of nobody in particular, and for nothing in
   particular? The work of the Holy Spirit in souls--what is it, in all
   its degrees and modes; in their calling, their guidance, their
   sanctification; what can it be imagined that he does which is not
   personal, the bestowment of a convincing, illuminating, drawing,
   renovating grace, exactly tempered to, and by, the individual blessed;
   a visiting of his intelligent person, at just the point of his
   particular want, sin, sorrow, prejudice, so as to exactly meet his
   personality at that particular time. We speak, indeed, of the Holy
   Spirit as falling on communities, or assemblies, but we must not
   suppose that he touches the general body and no particular person. On
   the contrary, if we understand ourselves, he reaches the general body
   only by and through individuals; save that there is an effect of mutual
   excitement, which is secondary and comes from their sense of what is
   revealed in each other, under the power of the Spirit in each. How then
   can it be imagined that God effectually calls any person by his Spirit,
   without dispensing a grace most distinctly and even adaptively
   personal?

   So it is, in short, with every thing included in the gospel as a grace
   of salvation; every thing in the renewing, fashioning, guidance,
   discipline, sanctification, and final crowning of an heir of glory. His
   Saviour and Lord is over him and with him, as the good shepherd,
   calling him by name; so that he is finally saved, not as a man, or some
   one of mankind, led forth, by his Lord, in the general flock, but as
   the Master's dear Simon, or James, or Alpheus, or Martha, whose name is
   so recorded in the Lamb's book of life.

   And, in this view, it is, I suppose, that the church, in baptizing her
   children, takes there, at the font, with a most beautiful and touching
   propriety, what she calls the "Christian name;" as if it were Christ's
   own gift; a name bestowed by him, in which he recognizes the child's
   discipleship, and which, as often as it is spoken, he is himself to
   recognize as the calling of his Master's voice;--And he calleth his own
   sheep by name.

   Consider now the--

   II. Point of the text--he leadeth them out. It is not said, you
   observe, that the shepherd driveth them out, for that was not the
   manner of shepherds, but that he leadeth them, going before to call
   them after him. This, indeed, is expressly and formally said in the
   next verse--and when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before
   them, and the sheep follow him. Hence those poetic figures of the Old
   Testament--The Lord is my shepherd, he leadeth me beside the still
   waters. Thou leddest thy people, like a flock, by the hand of Moses and
   Aaron. Give ear, O shepherd, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock. The
   same custom of going before the flock pertains, even now, it is said,
   in the sheep-walks of Spain.

   What a beautiful image, or picture, to represent the attitude and
   personal relationship of Jesus among his followers;--That he does not
   drive them on before, as a herd of unwilling disciples, but goes before
   himself leading them into paths that he has trod, and dangers he has
   met, and sacrifices he has borne himself calling them after him and to
   be only followers. He leadeth them out.

   If driving could do any good, he might well enough drive his flock as a
   body, caring nothing for any one of them in particular; but, if he is
   going to draw them after him, he must work upon their inclinations,
   draw them by their personal favor to him, and must therefore know them
   personally, and call them to follow, as it were, by name. Just the
   difference will be observed in this matter that pertains between the
   eastern shepherds and those of the west, and north. No sooner do we
   come upon this latter fashion of driving flocks a-field, than we see
   the noting, knowing and calling of particular sheep disappear. When the
   driving and thrusting on before becomes the manner, there is no need of
   getting any one of them under a power of confidence and attraction, no
   need of noting them individually at all. So, if driving were in place,
   Christ might well enough let fall the fires of Sodom behind his flock
   and drive them out, as he drove Lot's family, or his vain hearted wife,
   out of the city. But the best use that could be made of such a flock,
   after all, would be to turn them into pillars of salt and let them
   stand. No disciple is a real disciple till he becomes a follower, going
   after the shepherd, as one that follows by name, and is drawn by love.

   Here then is the beauty and glory of Christ, as a Redeemer and Saviour
   of lost man, that he goes before, always before, and never behind his
   flock. He begins with infancy, that he may show a grace for childhood.
   He is made under the law, and carefully fulfills all righteousness
   there, that he may sanctify the law to us, and make it honorable. He
   goes before us in the bearing of temptations, that we may bear them
   after him, being tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.
   He taught us forgiveness by forgiving himself his enemies. He went
   before us in the loss of all things, that we might be able to follow,
   in the renouncing of the world and its dominion. The works of love that
   he requires of us, in words, are preceded and illustrated by real deeds
   of love, to which he gave up all his mighty powers from day to day. He
   bore the cross himself that he commanded us to take up and bear after
   him. Requiring us to hate even life for the gospel's sake, he went
   before us in dying for the gospel; suffering a death most bitter at the
   hand of enemies exasperated only by his goodness, and that when, at a
   word; he might have called to his aid whole legions of angels, and
   driven them out of the world. And then he went before us in the
   bursting of the grave and the resurrection from it; becoming, in his
   own person, the first fruits of them that slept. And, finally, he
   ascended and passed within the veil before us, as our forerunner, whom
   we are to follow even there. In all which he is our shepherd. going
   before us, and never behind; calling, but never driving; bearing all
   the losses he calls us to bear; meeting all the dangers, suffering all
   the cruelties and pains which it is given us to suffer, and drawing us
   to follow where he leads.

   And then we see what kindred spirit entered into the teachers that he
   gave to lead his flock. They were such as followed him in the
   regeneration; going up at last, according to his promise, to sit on
   thrones of glory with him. And it is remarkable that the apostles took
   it as incumbent on them always, in their Master's law, to require
   nothing of others in which they were not forward themselves. Thus, when
   Paul says, once and again--I beseech you be ye followers of me;
   brethren, be followers together of me; it has a sound, taken as it may
   be taken, of conceit, or vanity; but, when we look upon him as a man
   who goes after Christ, in the ways of scorn and suffering patience; in
   labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more
   frequent, in deaths oft, receiving more than once his forty stripes
   save one, beaten with rods and stoned out of cities, running the
   gauntlet through all sorts of perils, in weariness and painfulness, in
   watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and
   nakedness, accounted as the filth of the world and the offscouring of
   all things--when we see him tramping on heavily thus, bearing his
   Master's dark flag of patience and loss. and calling others to follow,
   we only see that he has taken Christ's own spirit and despises even to
   send the flock before him, where he does not lead himself.

   Ah! we have seen things different from this; teachers that bind heavy
   burdens and lay them on men's shoulders, which they themselves will not
   so much as lighten with the touch of their fingers; priests and
   confessors that feed their lusts out of the charities extorted from the
   poor, imposing on them loads of penance in turn, to humble them and
   keep them in subjection; philanthropists publishing theories and great
   swelling words of equality, and tapering off in the commendation of
   virtues they themselves do not practice, and even inwardly distaste.
   All such are men that drive a flock. But Christ, the true shepherd, the
   eternal Son of God, wants nothing in his flock that he does not show in
   himself. He goes before them, bearing all the bitterest loads of
   sacrifice and facing all the fiercest terrors himself, only calling
   them gently to come and follow. "Come unto me, all ye that labor and
   are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and
   learn of me. My yoke is easy and my burden light."

   The uses and applications of this subject are many. The time allows me
   to name only a few that are most practical.

   1. A great mistake, or false impression, held by most worldly minds,
   and even by some who profess to be disciples, is here corrected; viz.,
   the mistake of regarding the christian life as a legal and constrained
   service. It is as if the flock were driven by the shepherd, and not as
   if it were led by the shepherd's call going before. In this image, or
   figure, is beautifully represented the freedom of the disciple. He is
   one who is led by a personal influence, one who hears the voice and
   answers to the name by which he is called. He could not be thrust on,
   as in a crowd, by mere force, or fear. Christ wants to lead men by
   their love, their personal love to him, and the confidence of his
   personal love to them. And therefore the representation is, not that he
   is a shepherd going behind, with dogs, to gather in the flock, and keep
   them before him, but that he draws them after him, and gets them into
   such a training of confidence, that they will hear his call and follow.
   The whole relation, therefore, of discipleship is a relation of
   liberty. No one goes to his duty because he must, but only because his
   heart is in it. His inclinations are that way, for his heart is in the
   Master's love, and he follows him gladly. It no doubt seems to you, my
   friends, when you look on only as strangers to Christ, that this must
   be a hard and dry service; for you see no attraction in it. But the
   reason is that your heart is not in it. With a new heart, quickened by
   the grace of Christ, all this would be changed. It will then seem
   wholly attractive. All the currents of your love will run that way, and
   the freest freedom of your nature will be to go after Christ. No
   sacrifice will be hard, no service a burden. The wonder now will be
   that all men do not rush in after Christ, to be his eager followers.
   God grant that even to-day you may have this truth, as an experience,
   in the choice of Christ, and the renewing of his promised Spirit.

   Brethren, are there some of you that hold this same impression of the
   life of duty! If so, if you have no knowledge of this freedom in
   Christ, the sign is a dark one for you. Perhaps it is not exactly the
   same impression that you hold. It may be that you have it only in a
   degree, accordingly as you are over-legal in your conceptions of duty,
   and rob yourself, in that manner, of its comforts, Let your mistake be
   now corrected. See, in particular: that Christ is not behind you but
   before, calling and drawing you on. He wants your faith, wants your
   love, not a minute, and scrupulous, and careful piling up of
   legalities. You are not to stand off, doing something for him that he
   is to examine and report upon as accepted, by statute conditions; but
   you are to go after him, and be with him, and keep along in his train,
   feeding in his pasture, and following where he leads. This is the
   liberty, the beautiful liberty of Christ. Claim your glorious
   privilege, in the name of a disciple; be no more a servant, when Christ
   will own you as a friend.

   2. We discover, in this subject, what to think of that large class of
   disciples who aspire to be specially faithful, and hold a specially
   high-toned manner of life, but are, after all, principally strenuous in
   putting others forward, and laying burdens upon others. Christ, we have
   seen, goes before when he leads, and so did his apostles, calling on
   the saints to follow. But there is a cheaper way some have, in which
   they beguile even themselves. It is a kind of righteousness with them
   that they have such stern principles of duty and sacrifice. How greatly
   are they scandalized too by the self-indulgence, the parsimony, the
   show, the pleasures, the vanities of others, who profess the christian
   name. And in all this they may be sincere and not hypocritical. They
   only find it so much easier to be stiff in their judgments, and
   self-renouncing in their words and exhortations, that they slide over,
   only the more unwittingly, their own looseness and deficiency, in the
   very things they insist on. How many preachers of Christ fall into just
   this snare: pray for us, brethren, for our temptation is great.
   Christians of this class commonly have it as a kind of merit, and how
   many christian ministers repeat the same thing, that they never ask it
   of others to follow. them. God forbid that they should indulge in any
   such conceit as that! Yes, God forbid, indeed, the conceit, for it
   would be one; and, what is more, God forbid that others be ever found
   as their followers; and for just the reason that they do not follow
   Christ. They half consciously know it themselves--hence their modesty.
   Would they could also understand how great a thing it is in Christ and
   his first messengers, that they go before, to lead in all sacrifice and
   suffering; doing first themselves whatsoever they lay upon others. I
   believe, my brethren, that there are almost none of us who do not slide
   into this infirmity, complimenting ourselves on the high principles we
   hold, and the severe standards we set up, in our words and judgments,
   when, in our practice, we fall low enough to require some such kind of
   comfort, to piece out our evidence and satisfaction. And then we
   compliment, again, our modesty, that we do not propose to be examples
   to others! How much more and more genuinely modest should we be, if we
   judged only as we practiced and set forward others in words, only as we
   fortify words by example. Let us understand ourselves in this; that we
   are not what we talk, or stand for with our words, but what we do and
   become.

   3. Consider, in this subject, what is true of any real disciple, who is
   straying from Christ; viz., that his Holy Shepherd, folding the flock
   and caring for it as a shepherd should, does not let him go, or take it
   only as a fact that the flock is diminished by one, not caring by what
   one. He knows what one it is, and, if the wanderer will listen, he may
   hear the shepherd calling his name. The love of Christ, as we have
   seen, is personal and particular, and he watches for his flock with a
   directly personal care. Do not imagine, then, if you consciously begin
   to fall off, or stray, that you are no longer cared for by the
   Shepherd. Christ follows you with his personal and particular love, and
   will not let you go. That same tenderness which melted the heart of an
   apostle, when he said--"who loved me and gave himself for me," pursues
   you still. It is faithful, patient, forgiving, and true; it waits and
   lingers, it whispers and calls, saying, "will ye also go away;" holding
   on upon you by a personal and persistent love, that will not be content
   till you are gathered back into the fold, to be, as before, a follower.
   And the same is true where the love of many waxes cold, and whole
   bodies of disciples are chilled by worldliness, or carried away by
   common temptations; it is not the mass only, or the general flock, that
   Christ regards. Each one he follows and calls, as truly as if he were
   the only one. The wrong they do him, and the grief he feels, is
   personal. By name and privately he deals with each, gathering him back,
   if possible, to prayer and holy living, to faith, and sacrifice, and
   works of love. By these private reproofs, and these tender and personal
   remonstrances, brethren, he is calling after all you that stray from
   him to-day. And, if you think you have personal apologies, or have been
   stolen away by temptations you could not detect, he knows exactly what
   is true, and will every true allowance make, and, as being faithful to
   you, he will make no other. Whatever grace you want to bind you up and
   establish you, he waits to bestow. He will not only forgive you;
   readily and completely, but he will embrace you heartily, and take you
   again to his confidence; the same sweet personal confidence in which
   you stood before. O, thou wavering, faltering, failing disciple I come
   thou, at his call, and see!

   Finally, consider the close understanding with Christ the ennobled
   confidence and dignity of a true discipleship. To be a disciple, is to
   have the revelation of Christ, and the secret witness of his love in
   the soul. It implies a most intimate and closely reciprocal state.
   According to the representation of the parable, the Holy Shepherd knows
   his own sheep with a particular knowledge, and calleth them by name;
   while they, on their part, know his voice and follow. A stranger will
   they not follow, but flee from him; for they know not the voice of
   strangers. And he also says himself,--I am the good shepherd and know
   my sheep, and am known of mine. O, this deep and blessed knowledge--the
   knowledge of Christ--to be in the secret witness of his love, to be in
   his guidance, to be strong in his support, to be led into the mind of
   God by him, and have our prayers shaped by his inward teaching; so to
   be set in God's everlasting counsel, and be filled with the testimony
   that we please him, this, all this it is to know Christ's voice. Happy
   are we, brethren, if the sense of this knowledge be in us.

   And what can fill us with a loftier inspiration, or lift us into a more
   sublime and blessed confidence, than this,--the fact what Christ, the
   Eternal Shepherd, has a personal recognition of us, leading us on, by
   name, and calling us to follow. No matter whether he call us into ways
   of gain or of suffering, of honor or of scorn; it is all one, with such
   a leader before us. Nay, if we go down to sound the depths of sorrow,
   and ennoble the pains of sacrifice, and perfume the grave of ignominy,
   what are these but a more inspiring and more godlike call, since he is
   now our leader even here. O, my brethren, here is our misery, that we
   think to go above Christ, and find some cheaper way when, if we could
   truly descend to his level of sacrifice, and take his cross to follow,
   we should be raised in feeling and power, ennobled in impulse,
   glorified with him in his joy. After all, the secret of all our
   dryness, the root of all our weakness, our want of fruit and progress,
   our dearth and desolation, is, that we can not follow Christ. First, we
   can not believe that he has any particular care of us, or personal
   interest in our life, and then, falling away, at that point, from his
   lead, we drop into ourselves, to do a few casual works of duty, in
   which neither we nor others are greatly blessed. God forbid that we
   sacrifice our peace so cheaply. Let us hear, O, let us hear, to-day,
   the Shepherd's voice, and, as he knows us in our sin, so let us go
   after him in his sacrifice. Let us claim that inspiration, that
   ennobled confidence, that comes of being truly with him. Folded thus in
   his personal care, and led by the calling of his voice, for which we
   always listen, let us take his promise and follow, going in and out and
   finding pasture.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                     VIII.

LIGHT ON THE CLOUD.

   Job xxxvii. 21.--"And now men see not the bright light which is in the
   clouds: but the wind passeth, and clanseth them."

   THE argument is, let man be silent when God is dealing with him; for he
   can not fathom God's inscrutable wisdom. Behold, God is great, and we
   know him not. God thundereth marvelously with his voice: great things
   doeth he which we can not comprehend. Dost thou know the wondrous works
   of him that is perfect in knowledge? Teach us what we shall say unto
   him; for we can not order our speech by reason of darkness. If a man
   speak, surely he shall be swallowed up.

   Then follows the text, representing man's life under the figure of a
   cloudy day. The sun is in the heavens, and there is always a bright
   light on the other side of the clouds; but only a dull, pale beam
   pierces through. Still, as the wind comes at length to the natural day
   of clouds, clearing them all away, and pouring in, from the whole
   firmament, a glorious and joyful light, so will a grand clearing come
   to the cloudy and dark day of life, and a full effulgence of light,
   from the throne of God, will irradiate all the objects of knowledge and
   experience.

   Our reading of the text, you will observe, substitutes for cleansing,
   clearing away, which is more intelligible. Perhaps, also, it is better
   to read "on the clouds," and not "in." Still, the meaning is virtually
   the same. The words, thus explained, offer three points which invite
   our attention.

   I. We live under a cloud, and see God's way only dim light.

   II. God shines, at all times, with a bright light, above the cloud, and
   on the other side of it.

   III. This cloud of obscuration is finally to be cleared away.

   I. We live under a cloud, and see God's way only by a dim light.

   As beings of intelligence, we find ourselves hedged in by mystery on
   every side. All our seeming knowledge is skirted, close at hand, by
   dark confines of ignorance. However drunk with conceit we may be,
   however ready to judge every thing, we still comprehend almost nothing.

   What then does it mean? Is God jealous of intelligence in us? Has he
   purposely drawn a cloud over his ways, to baffle the search of our
   understanding? Exactly contrary to this; he is a being who dwelleth in
   light, and calls as to walk in the light with him. He has set his works
   about us, to be a revelation to us always of his power and glory. His
   word he gives us, to be the expression of his will and character, and
   bring us into acquaintance with himself. His Spirit he gives us, to be
   a teacher and illuminator within. By all his providential works, he is
   training intelligence in us and making us capable of knowledge.

   No view of the subject, therefore, can be true that accuses him. The
   true account appears to be that the cloud, under which we are shut
   down, is not heavier than it must be. How can a being infinite be
   understood, or comprehended, by a being finite? And, when this being
   infinite has plans that include infinite quantities, times and
   relations, in which every present event is the last link of a train of
   causes reaching downward from a past eternity, and is to be connected
   also with every future event of a future eternity, how can a mortal,
   placed between these two eternities, without knowing either, understand
   the present fact, whatever it be, whose reasons are in both?

   Besides, we have only just begun to be; and a begun existence is, by
   the supposition, one that has just begun to know, and has every thing
   to learn. How then can we expect, in a few short years, to master the
   knowledge of God and his universal kingdom? What can he be to such but
   a mystery? If we could think him out, without any experience, as we do
   the truths of arithmetic and geometry, we might get on faster and more
   easily. But God is not a mere thought of our own brain, as these truths
   are, but a being in the world of substance, fact and event, and all
   such knowledge has to be gotten slowly, through the rub of experience.
   We open, after a few days, our infantile eyes and begin to look about,
   perceive, handle, suffer, act and be acted on, and, proceeding in this
   manner, we gather in, by degrees, our data and material of knowledge;
   and so, by trial, comparison, distinction, the study of effects and
   wants, of rights and wrongs, of uses and abuses, we frame judgments of
   things, and begin to pass our verdict on the matters we know. But how
   long will it take us to penetrate, in this manner, the real
   significance of God's dealings with us and. the world, and pass a
   really illuminated judgment on them? And yet, if we but love the right,
   as the first father did before his sin, God will be revealed in us
   internally, as the object of our love and trust, even from the first
   hour. He will not appear to be distant, or difficult. We shall know him
   as a friendly presence in our heart's love, and we shall have such a
   blessed confidence in him that if, in the outer world of fact and
   event, clouds and darkness appear to be round about him, we shall have
   the certainty within that justice and judgment are the habitation of
   his throne. Meanwhile, he will be teaching us graciously, and drawing
   us insensibly, through our holy sympathies, into the sense of his ways,
   and widening, as fast as possible, the circle of our human limitation,
   that we may expatiate in discoveries more free. And thus it comes to
   pass that, as the eyelids of the infant are shut down, at first, over
   his unpracticed eyes, which are finally strengthened for the open day,
   by the little, faint light that shines through them, so our finite,
   childish mind, saved from being dazzled, or struck blind, by God's
   powerful effulgence, and quickened by the gentle light that streams
   through his cloud, is prepared to gaze on the fullness of his glory,
   and receive his piercing brightness undimmed.

   But there is another fact less welcome that must not be forgot, when we
   speak of the darkness that obscures our knowledge of God. There is not
   only a necessary, but a guilty limitation upon us. And therefore we are
   not only obliged to learn, but, as being under sin, are also in a
   temper that forbids learning, having our mind disordered and clouded by
   evil. Hence, come our perplexities; for, as the sun can not show
   distinctly what it is in the bottom of a muddy pool, so God can never
   be distinctly revealed in the depths of a foul and earthly mind. To
   understand a philosopher requires, they tell us, a philosopher; to
   understand patriotism, requires a patriot; to understand purity, one
   that is pure; so, to understand God, requires a godlike spirit. Having
   this, God will as certainly be revealed in the soul, as light through a
   transparent window. He that loveth knoweth God, for God is love. What
   darkness then must be upon a mind that is not congenially tempered, a
   mind unlike to God, opposite to God, selfish, lustful, remorseful, and
   malignant! Even as an apostle says--Having the understanding darkened,
   being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in
   them, because of the blindness of their heart.

   The very activity of reason, which ought to beget knowledge, begets
   only darkness now, artificial darkness. We begin a quarrel with
   limitation itself, and so with God. le is not only hid behind thick
   walls of mystery, but he is dreaded as a power unfriendly, suspected,
   doubted, repugnantly conceived. Whatever can not be comprehended, and
   how very little can be, is construed as one construes an enemy, or as
   an ill-natured child construes the authority of a faithful father. An
   evil judgement taken up yesterday prepares another to-day, and this
   another tomorrow, and so a vast complicated web of false judgments, in'
   the name of reason, ia spread over all the subjects of knowledge. We
   fall into a state thus of general confusion, in which even the
   distinctions of knowledge are lost. Presenting our little mirror to the
   clear light of God, we might have received true images of things, and
   gotten by degrees a glorious wealth of knowledge, but we break the
   mirror, in the perversity of our sin, and offer only the shivered
   fragments to the light; when, of course, we see distinctly nothing.
   Then, probably enough, we begin to sympathize with ourselves and
   justify the ignorance we are in, wondering, if there be a God, that he
   should be so dark to us, or that he should fall behind these walls of
   silence, and suffer himself to be only doubtfully guessed, through fogs
   of ignorance and obscurity. Reminded than he is and must be a mystery,
   we take it as a great hardship, or, it may be, an absurdity, that we
   are required to believe what we can not comprehend. We are perplexed by
   the mode of his existence and action--how can he fill all things, and
   yet have no dimensions? How is it that he knows all things, before the
   things known exist? Foreknowing what we will do, how can we be blamed
   for what we were thus certain beforehand to do? How is it that he
   creates, governs, redeems, and yet never forms a new purpose, or
   originates a new act, which is not from eternity? How is he infinitely
   happy, when a great many things ought to be, and are declared to be,
   repugnant or abhorrent to his feeling? How does he produce worlds out
   of nothing, or out of himself, when nothing else exists? How did he
   invent forms and colors, never having seen them?

   Entering the field of supposed revelation, the difficulties are
   increased in number, and the mysteries are piled higher than before.
   God is here declared to be incarnate, in the person of Jesus Christ,
   and the whole history of this wonderful person is made up of things
   logically incompatible. He is the eternal son of God, and the son of
   Mary; he is Lord of all, and is born in a manger; stills the sea by his
   word, and traveling on foot is weary; asks, who convinceth me of sin?
   and prays like one wading through all the deepest evils of sin; dies
   like a man and rises like a god, bursting the bars of death by his
   power. Even God himself is no more simply God, but a threefold mystery
   that mocks all understanding,--Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Is it
   revelation, then, that only burdens faith with mysteries more nearly
   impossible? Exactly so; nothing is more clear to any really thoughtful
   person than that, until some high point is passed, God ought to be
   enveloped in greater mystery, and will be, the closer he is brought to
   the mind. Knowing nothing of him, he is no mystery at all; knowing a
   little, he is mystery begun; knowing more, he is a great and manifold
   deep, not to be fathomed. We are, and ought to be, overwhelmed by his
   magnitudes, till we are able to mount higher summits of intelligence
   than now. Or, if it be answered that, in some of these things, we have
   contradictions, and not mere difficulties, it is enough to reply that
   the highest truths are wont to be expressed in forms of thought and
   language that, as forms, are repugnant. Nor is it any fault of these
   mere instrumental contradictions that we can not reconcile them, if
   only they roll upon us senses of God's deep majesty and love, otherwise
   impossible. Our amazement itself is but the vehicle of his truth.

   Turning next to the creative works of God, we find the cloud also upon
   these. The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, by understanding hath
   he established the heavens, there is no searching of his understanding;
   why he created the worlds when he did, and not before; what he could
   have been doing, or what enjoyment having, previous to their creation;
   and, if all things are governed by inherent laws, what more, as the
   universal governor, he can find any place to do since:--these are
   questions, again, before which speculative reason reels in amazement.
   If the baffled inquirer then drops out the search after God. as many
   do, and says,--I will go down to nature, and it shall, at least, be my
   comfort that nature is intelligible, and even a subject of definite
   science, he shortly discovers that science only changes the place of
   mystery and leaves it unresolved. Hearing, with a kind of scientific
   pity, Job's question about the thunder,--who can understand the noise
   of his tabernacle? he at first thinks it something of consequence to
   say that thunder is the noise of electricity, and not of God's
   tabernacle at all. But he shortly finds himself asking, who can
   understand electricity? and then, at last, he is with Job again. So,
   when he hears Job ask, Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven,-he
   recollects the great Newtonian discovery of gravity, and how, by aid of
   that principle, even the weights of the stars have been exactly
   measured, and their times predicted, and imagines that, now the secrets
   of astronomy are out, the ordinances of heaven are understood. But
   here, again, it finally occurs to him to ask, what is gravity? and
   forth with he is lost in a depth of mystery as profound as that of Job
   himself. And so, asking what is matter,--what is life, animal and
   vegetable,--what is heat, light, attraction, affinity,--he discovers
   that, as yet, we really comprehend nothing, and that nature is a realm
   as truly mysterious even as God. Not a living thing grows out of the
   earth, or walks upon it, or flies above it; not an inanimate object
   exists, in heaven, earth, or sea, which is not filled and circled about
   with mystery as truly as in the days of Adam or Job, and which is not
   really as much above the under standing of science, as the deepest
   things of God's eternity or of his secret life.

   But there is, at least, one subject that he must understand and know
   even to its center; viz., himself. Is he not a self-conscious being,
   and how can there be a cloud over that which is comprehended even by
   consciousness itself? Precisely contrary to this, there are more
   mysteries and dark questions grouped in his own person, than he has
   ever met in the whole universe beside. He can not even trace, with any
   exactness, the process by which he has been trained to be what he is,
   or the subtle forces by which his character has been shaped. Only the
   smallest fraction of his past history can he distinctly remember, all
   the rest is gone. Even the sins for which he must answer before God are
   gone out of his reach, and can no more be reckoned up in order, till
   the forgotten past gives up its dead things, to be again remembered. As
   little can he discover the manner of his own spirit, how he remembers,
   perceives objects, compares them, and, above all, how he wills and what
   it is that drives him to a sentence against himself when he wills the
   wrong. He knows too that, in wrong, he is after self-advantage; and
   every wrong, he also knew at the time, must be to his disadvantage; why
   then did he do it? He an not tell. The sin of his sin will be, when he
   is judged before God, that he can not tell. Even the familiar fact of
   his connection with a body is altogether inexplicable; and why any act
   of his will should produce a motion of his body, he can no more
   discover than why it should produce a motion among the stars. The
   beating of his heart and the heaving of his lungs are equally
   mysterious In his whole nature and experience, he is, in fact, a deep
   and inscrutable mystery to himself. God breathes unseen in his heart,
   and yet he wonders that God is so far off. Death comes in stealthily,
   and distills the fatal poison that will end his life, unseen and
   unsuspected. He goes down to his grave, not knowing, by any judgment of
   his own, apart from God's promise, (which he does not believe,) that he
   shall live again. What shall be the manner of his resurrection and with
   what body he shall come, he can as little comprehend, as he can the
   mystery of the incarnation.

   Finding, therefore, God, nature, himself, overhung with this same
   cloud, it is not wonderful that he suffers bitter afflictions and galls
   himself against every corner of God's purposes. Why is society a weight
   so oppressive on the weak and the poor? If sin is such an evil, as it
   certainly is, why did the Creator, being Almighty, suffer it? Indeed,
   there is almost nothing that meets us, between our first breathing and
   our graves, that does not, to an evil mind, connect, in one way or
   another, some perplexity, some accusing or questioning thought, some
   inference that m painful, or perhaps atheistical. Can it be? Why should
   it be? How can a good God let it be? If he means to have it otherwise,
   is he not defeated? if defeated, is he God? If he has no plan, how can
   I trust him? if his plan will suffer such things, how then can I trust
   him?--these are the questions that are continually crowding upon us.
   The cloud is all the while over us. He hath made darkness his pavilion
   and thick clouds of the skies. This man's prosperity is dark; that
   man's adversity is dark. The persecutions of the good, the afflictions
   of the righteous, the desolations of conquest, the fall of nations and
   their liberties, the extinction of churches, the sufferings of
   innocence, the pains of animals, the removal by death of genius and
   character just ripened to bless the world--there is no end to our dark
   questions. There are times, too, when our own personal experience
   becomes enveloped in darkness. We not only can not guess what it means,
   or what God will do with us in it, but it wears a look contrary to what
   appear to be our just expectations. We are grieved. perplexed,
   confounded. Other men are blessed in things much worse. We ourselves
   have been successful in things far more questionable, and when our
   deserts were less. What does it mean that God is covering his way,
   under these thick clouds of mystery and seeming caprice? In short, we
   may sum it up, as a general truth, that nothing in the world is really
   luminous, to a mind unilluminated by religion; and, if we say that the
   Christian walks in the light, it is not so much that he can always
   understand God as it is that he has confidence in him, and has him
   always near.

   Thus we live. Practically, much is known about God and his ways, all
   that we need to know; but, speculatively, or by the mere understanding,
   almost nothing, save that we can not know. The believing mind dwells in
   continual light; for, when God is revealed within, curious and
   perplexing questions are silent. But the mind that judges God, or
   demands a right to comprehend him before it believes, stumbles,
   complains, wrangles, and finds no issue to its labor. Still there is
   light, and we pass on now to show,--

   II. That there is abundance of light on the other side of the cloud,
   and above it.

   This we might readily infer, from the fact that so much of light shines
   through. When the clouds overhead are utterly black, too black to be
   visible, we understand that it is night, or that the sun is absent;
   but, when there is a practical and sufficient light for our works, we
   know that the sun is behind them, and we call it day. So it is when God
   spreadeth a cloud upon his throne. We could not see even the mystery,
   if there were no light behind it, just as we could not see the clouds
   if no light shone through.

   The experience of every soul that turns to God is a convincing proof
   that there is light somewhere, and that which is bright and clear. Was
   it a man struggling with great afflictions, an injured man crushed by
   heavy wrongs; was it a man desolated and broken down by domestic
   sorrows; was it a rich man stripped by sore losses and calamities, was
   it a proud man blasted by slander; was it an atheist groping after
   curious knowledge and starving on the chaff of questions unresolved--be
   it one or another of these, for all alike were tormented in the same
   perplexities of the darkened understanding, every thing was dark and
   dry and empty; but when they come to Christ and believe in him, it is
   their common surprise to find how suddenly every thing becomes
   luminous. Speculatively, they understand nothing which before was
   hidden, and yet there is a wondrous glory shining on their path. God is
   revealed within, and God is light. The flaming circle of eternal day
   skirts the horizon of the mind. Their dark questions are forgot, or
   left behind. They are even become insignificant. Their dignity is gone,
   and the soul, basking in the blessed sunshine of God's love, thinks it
   nothing, any more, if it could understand all mysteries. In all which
   it is made plain that, if we are under the cloud, there is yet a bright
   light above.

   It will also be found, as another indication, that things which, at
   some time, appeared to be dark,--afflictions, losses, trials, wrongs,
   defeated prayers, and deeds of suffering patience yielding no
   fruit,--are very apt, afterward, to change color and become visitations
   of mercy. And so where God was specially dark, he commonly brings out,
   in the end, some good, or blessing in which the subject discovers that
   his Heavenly Father only understood his wants better than he did
   himself. God was dark in his way, only because his goodness was too
   deep in counsel, for him to follow it to its mark. It is with him as
   with Joseph, sold into slavery, and so into the rule of a kingdom; or
   as it was with Job, whose latter end, after he had been stripped of
   every thing, was more blessed than his beginning; or as with Nehemiah,
   whose sorrowing and disconsolate look itself brought him the
   opportunity to restore the desolations over which he sorrowed. Even the
   salvation of the world is accomplished through treachery, false
   witness, and a cross. All our experience in life goes to show that the
   better understanding we have of God's dealings, the more satisfactory
   they appear. Things which seemed dark or inexplicable, or even
   impossible for God to suffer without wrong in himself, are really
   bright with goodness in the end. What then shall we conclude, but that,
   on the other side of the cloud, there is always a bright and glorious
   light, however dark it is underneath.

   Hence it is that the scriptures make so much of God's character as a
   light-giving power, and turn the figure about into so many forms. In
   God, they say, is light and no darkness at all. According to John's
   vision of the Lord--His countenance was as the sun that shineth in his
   strength. The image of him given by. another apostle is even more
   sublime,--Who only hath immortality dwelling in light that no man can
   approach unto,--language, possibly, in which he had some reference to
   his own conversion, a when light, above the brightness of the sun,
   bursting upon him and shining round about him, seared his eye-balls so
   that afterward there fell off from them, as it had been scales of
   cinder. God, therefore, he conceives to be light inapproachable, as
   figured in that experience. And probably enough he would say that, as
   the astronomers in looking at the sun arm their sight with a smoky or
   colored medium, so the very clouds we complain of are mercifully
   Interposed, in part, and rather assist than hinder our vision.

   It is little therefore to say, and should never be a fact incredible,
   that however dark our lot may be, there is light enough on the other
   side of the cloud, in that pure empyrean where God dwells, to irradiate
   every darkness of the world; light enough to clear every difficult
   question, remove every ground of obscurity, conquer every atheistic
   suspicion, silence every hard judgment; light enough to satisfy, nay to
   ravish the mind forever. Even the darkest things God has explanations
   for, and it is only necessary to be let into his views and designs, as
   when we are made capable of being we certainly shall, to see a
   transcendent wisdom and beauty in them all. At present, we have no
   capacity broad enough to comprehend such a revelation. We see through a
   glass darkly, but we see what we can. When we can see more, there is
   more to be seen. On the other side of the cloud there is abundance of
   light. This brings me to say,--

   III. That the cloud we arc under will finally break way aid be cleared.

   On this point we have many distinct indications. Thus it coincides with
   the general analogy of God's works, to look for obscurity first, and
   light afterward. According to the scripture account of the creation,
   there was, first, a period of complete darkness; then a period of mist
   and cloud, where the day light is visible, but not the sun; then the
   sun beams out in a clear open sky, which is called, in a way of
   external description, the creation of the sun. How many of the animals
   begin their life at birth with their eyes closed, which are afterward
   opened to behold the world into which they have come. How many myriads
   of insects begin their existence underground, emerging afterward from
   their dark abode, to take wings and glitter in the golden light of day.
   If we observe the manner too of our own intellectual discoveries, we
   shall generally see the inquirer groping long and painfully under a
   cloud, trying and experimenting in a thousand guesses to no purpose,
   till finally a thought takes him and behold the difficulty is solved!
   At a single flash, so to speak, the light breaks in, and what before
   was dark is clear and simple as the day. Darkness first and light
   afterward, this is the law of science universally. By so many and
   various analogies, we are led to expect that the cloud, under which we
   live in things spiritual, will finally be lifted, and the splendor of
   eternal glory poured around us.

   Our desire of knowledge, and the manner in which God manages to inflame
   that desire, indicate the same thing. This desire he has planted
   naturally in us, as hunger is natural in our bodies, or the want of
   light in our eyes. And the eye is not a more certain indication that
   light is to be given, than our desire to know divine things is that we
   shall be permitted to know them. And the evidence is yet further
   increased, in the fact that the good have a stronger desire of this
   knowledge than mere nature kindles. And if we say, with the scripture,
   that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, doubtless the
   body of it is to come after. It is the glory of God, indeed, to conceal
   a thing, but not absolutely, or for the sake of concealment. He does it
   only till a mind and appetite for the truth is prepared, to make his
   revelation to. He gives us a dim light and sets us prying at the walls
   of mystery, that he may create an appetite and relish in us for true
   knowledge. Then it shall be a joyful and glorious gift--drink to the
   thirsty, food to the hungry, light to the prisoner's cell. And he will
   pour it in from the whole firmament of his glory. He will open his
   secret things, open the boundaries of universal order, open his own
   glorious mind and his eternal purposes.

   The scriptures also notify us of a grand assize, or judgment, when the
   merit of all his doings with us, as of our doings toward: him, will be
   revised, and it appears to be a demand of natural reason that some
   grand exposition of the kind should be made, that we may be let into
   the manner of his government far enough to do it honor. This will
   require him to take away the cloud, in regard to all that is darkest in
   our earthly state. Every perplexity must now be cleared, and the whole
   moral administration of God, as related to the soul, must be
   sufficiently explained. Sin, the fall, the pains and penalties and
   disabilities consequent, redemption, grace, the discipline of the
   righteous, the abandonment of the incorrigibly wicked--all these must
   now be understood. God has light enough to shed on all these things,
   and he will not conceal it. He will shine forth in glorious and
   transcendent brightness, unmasked by cloud, and all created minds, but
   the incorrigible outcasts and enemies of his government, will
   respond;--Alleluia, salvation, and glory, and honor, and power be unto
   the Lord our God; for just and true are his judgments.

   Precisely what is to be the manner and measure of out knowledge, in
   this fuller and more glorious revelation of the future, is not clear to
   us now, for that is one of the dark things, or mysteries, of our
   present state. But the language of scripture is remarkable.. It even
   declares that we shall see God as he is; and the intensity of the
   expression is augmented, if possible, by the effects attributed to the
   sight--we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. We shall be
   so irradiated and penetrated, in other words, by his glory, as to be
   transformed into a spiritual resemblance; partaking his purity,
   reflecting his beauty, ennobled by his divinity. It is even declared
   that our knowledge of him shall be complete. Now we know in part, then
   shall we know even as also we are known. To say that we shall know God
   as he knows us, is certainly the strongest declaration possible, and it
   is probably hyperbolical; for it would seem to be incredible that a
   finite mind should at once, or even at any time in its eternity,
   comprehend the infinite, as it is comprehended by the infinite. It is
   also more agreeable to suppose that there will be an everlasting growth
   in knowledge, and that the bless ed minds will be forever penetrating
   new depths of discovery, clearing up wider fields of obscurity,
   attaining to a higher converse with God and a deeper insight of his
   works, and that this breaking forth of light and beauty in them by
   degrees and upon search, will both occupy their powers and feed their
   joy. Still, that there will be a great and sudden clearing of God's
   way, as we enter that world, and a real dispersion of all the clouds
   that darken us here, is doubtless to be expected; for when our sin is
   completely taken away, (as we know it then will be,) all our guilty
   blindness will go with it, and that of itself will prepare a glorious
   unveiling of God and a vision of his beauty as it is.

   In what manner we shall become acquainted with God's mind, or the
   secrets of his interior life, whether through some manifestation by the
   Eternal Word, like the incarnate appearing of Jesus, or partly in some
   way more direct, we can not tell. But the divine nature and plan will
   be open, doubtless, in some way most appropriate, for our everlasting
   study and our everlasting progress in discovery. The whole system of
   his moral purposes and providential decrees, his penal distributions
   and redeeming works, will be accessible to us, and all the creatures
   and creations of his power offered to our acquaintance and free
   inspection. Our present difficulties and hard questions will soon be
   solved and passed by. Even the world itself, so difficult to penetrate,
   so clouded with mystery, will become a transparency to us, through
   which God's light will pour as the sun through the open sky. John knew
   no better way of describing the perfectly luminous state of the blessed
   minds than to say,--and there shall be no night there, and they have no
   candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light.
   They dwell thus in the eternal daylight of love and reason; for they
   are so let into the mind of God, and the glorious mysteries of his
   nature, that every thing is lighted up as they come to it even as the
   earth and its objects by the sun--The Lord God giveth them light.

   In closing the review of such a subject as this, let us first of all
   receive a lesson of modesty, and particularly such as are most wont to
   complain of God, and boldest in their judgments against him. Which way
   soever we turn, in our search after knowledge, we run against mystery
   at the second or third step. And a great part of our misery, a still
   greater of our unbelief, and all the lunatic rage of our skepticism,
   arises in the fact that we either do not, or will not see it to be so.
   Ignorance trying to comprehend what is inscrutable, and out of
   patience, that it can not make the high things of God come down to its
   own petty measures, is the definition of all atheism. There is no true
   comfort in life, no dignity in reason, apart from modesty. We wrangle
   with providence and call it reason, we rush upon God's mysteries, and
   tear ourselves against the appointments of his throne, and then,
   because we bleed, complain that he cruelly mocks our understanding. All
   our disputings and hard speeches are the frothing of our ignorance,
   maddened by our pride. O, if we could see our own limitations, and how
   little it is possible for us to know of matters infinite, how much
   less, clouded by the necessary blindness of a mind disordered by evil,
   we should then be in a way to learn, and the lessons God will teach
   would put us in a way to know what now is hidden from us. Knowledge
   puffeth up, charity buildeth up. One makes a balloon of us, the other a
   temple. And as one, lighter than the wind, is driven loose in its
   aerial voyage, to be frozen in the airy heights of speculation, or
   drifted into the sea to be drowned in the waters of ignorance, which it
   risked without ability to swim, so the other, grounded on a rock, rises
   into solid majesty, proportionate, enduring, and strong. After all his
   labored disputings and lofty reasons with his friends, Job turns
   himself to God and says--I know that thou canst do every thing, and
   that nothing can be withholden from thee. Who is he that hideth counsel
   without knowledge. Therefore have I uttered that I understood not;
   things too wonderful for me, that I knew not. There is the true point
   of modesty--he has found it at last! Whoever finds it has made a great
   attainment.

   How clear is it also, in this subject, that there is no place for
   complaint or repining under the sorrows and trials of life. There is
   nothing in what has befallen, or befalls you, my friends, which
   justifies impatience or peevishness. God is inscrutable, but not wrong.
   Remember, if the cloud is over you, that there is a bright light always
   on the other side; also, that the time is coming, either in his world
   or the next, when that cloud will be swept away and the fullness of
   God's light and wisdom poured around you. Every thing which has
   befallen you, whatever sorrow your heart bleeds with, whatever pain you
   suffer, even though it be the pains of a passion like that which Jesus
   endured at the hands of his enemies--nothing is wanting, but to see the
   light that actually exists, waiting to be revealed, and you will be
   satisfied. If your life is dark, then walk by faith, and God is pledged
   to keep you as safe as if you could understand every thing. He that
   dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the
   shadow of the Almighty.

   These things, however, I can say, with no propriety, to many. No such
   comforts, or hopes belong to you that are living without God. You have
   nothing to expect from the revelations of the future. The cloud that
   you complain of will indeed be cleared away, and you will see that, in
   all your afflictions, severities, and losses, God was dealing with you
   righteously and kindly. You will be satisfied with God and with all
   that he has done for you, but alas you will not be satisfied with
   yourself. That is more difficult, forever impossible! And I can
   conceive no pang more dreadful than to see, as you will, the cloud
   lifted from every dealing of God that you thought to be harsh, or
   unrighteous, and to feel that, as he is justified, you yourself are
   forever condemned. You can no more accuse your birth, your capacity,
   your education, your health, your friends, your enemies, your
   temptations. You still had opportunities, convictions, calls of grace,
   and calls of blessing. You are judged according to that you had, and
   not according to that you had not. Your mouth is eternally shut, and
   God is eternally clear.

   Finally it accords with our subject to observe that, while the
   inscrutability of God should keep us in modesty and stay our complaints
   against him, it should never suppress, but rather sharpen our desire of
   knowledge. For the more there is that is hidden, the more is to be
   discovered and known, if not to-day then to-morrow, if not to-morrow,
   when the time God sets for it is come. To know, is not to surmount God,
   as some would appear to imagine. Rightly viewed, all real knowledge is
   but the knowledge of God. Knowledge is the fire of adoration, adoration
   is the gate of knowledge. And when this gate of the soul is fully
   opened, as it will be when the adoring grace is complete in our
   deliverance from all impurity, what a revelation of knowledge must
   follow. Having now a desire of knowledge perfected in us that is clear
   of all conceit, ambition, haste, impatience, the clouds under which we
   lived in our sin are forever rolled away, and our adoring nature,
   transparent to God as a window to the sun, is filled with his eternal
   light. No mysteries remain but such as comfort us in the promise of a
   glorious employment. The light of the moon is as the light of the sun,
   and the light of the sun sevenfold, and every object of knowledge,
   irradiated by the brightness of God, shines with a new celestial
   clearness and an inconceivable beauty The resurrection morning is a
   true sun-rising, the inbursting of a cloudless day on all the righteous
   dead. They wake transfigured, at their Master's call, with the fashion
   of their countenance altered and shining like his own.


     Creature all grandeur, son of truth and light,

     Up from the dust, the last great day is bright,--

     Bright on the Holy Mountain round the throne,

     Bright where in borrowed light the far stars shone;

     Regions on regions far away they shine,

     'Tis light ineffable! 'tis light divine!

     Immortal light and life forevermore!

   There was a cloud, and there was a time when man saw not the brightness
   that shined upon it from above. That cloud is lifted, and God is clear
   in his own essential beauty and glory forever.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                      IX.

THE CAPACITY OF RELIGION EXTIRPATED BY DISUSE.

   Matthew xxv. 28.--"Take, therefore, the talent from him."

   MANY persons read this parable of the talents, I believe, very much as
   if it related only to gifts external to the person; or, if to gifts
   that are personal, to such only as are called talents, in the lower and
   merely man-ward relations and uses of life; such as the understanding,
   reason, memory, imagination, feeling, and whatever powers are most
   concerned in discovery, management, address, and influence over others.
   But the Great Teacher's meaning reaches higher than this, and
   comprehends more; viz., those talents, more especially, which go to
   exalt the subject in his God-ward relations. The main stress of his
   doctrine hinges, I conceive, on our responsibility, as regards the
   capacity of religion itself; for this, in highest pre-eminence, is the
   talent, the royal gift of man. The capacity of religion, taken as the
   highest trust God gives us, he is teaching his disciples may be
   fivefolded, tenfolded, indefinitely increased, as all other gifts are,
   by a proper use; or it may be neglected, hid, suppressed, and, being
   thus kept back, may finally be so reduced as to be even extirpated.
   This latter, the extirpation, or taking away; of the holy talent, is
   the fearful and admonitory close to which the parable is brought in my
   text. In pursuing the subject presented, two points will naturally
   engage our attention.

   I. That the capacity for religion is a talent, the highest talent we
   have. And,--

   II. That this capacity is one that, by total disuse and the overgrowth
   of others, is finally etirpated.

   I. The capacity for religion is a talent, the highest talent we have.
   We mean by a talent, the capacity for doing, or becoming something; as
   for learning, speaking, trade, command. Our talents are as numerous,
   therefore, and various as the effects we may operate.

   We have talents of the body too, and talents of the mind, or soul. Our
   talents of body are strength, endurance, grace, swiftness, beauty, and
   the like. Our mental or spiritual talents are more various, and, for
   the purpose we have now in hand, may be subdivided into such as belong,
   in part, to the natural life, and such as belong wholly to the
   religious and spiritual.

   All those which can be used, or which come into play, in earthly
   subjects, and apart from God and religion, are natural, and those which
   relate immediately to God, and things unseen, as connected with God,
   are religious. In the former class, we may name intellect, judgment,
   reason, observation, abstraction, imagination, memory, feeling,
   affection, will, conscience, and all the moral sentiments. These all
   come into the uses and act a part in the activities of religion, but
   they have uses and activities in things earthly, where religion is
   wholly apart, or may be, and therefore we do not class them as
   religious talents. An atheist can remember, reason, hate, and even talk
   of duty; and therefore these several kinds of talent are not
   distinctively religious.

   The religious talents compose the whole God-ward side of faculty in us.
   They are such especially as come into exercise in the matter of
   religious faith and experience, and nowhere else. They include, first,
   the want of God, which is, in fact, a receptivity for God. All wants
   are capacities of reception, and in this view are talents according to
   their measure. Low grades of being want low objects, but the want of
   man is God. And, as all great wants, in things inferior, such as
   knowledge, honor, power, belong only to great men, what shall we
   consider this want of God to be, but the highest possible endowment.

   Nearly related to this talent of want is the talent of inspiration. By
   this we mean a capacity to be permeated, illuminated, guided, exalted,
   by God or the Spirit of God within, and yet so as not to be any the
   less completely ourselves. This is a high distinction, a glorious
   talent. No other kind of being known to us, in the works of God,
   whether animate or inanimate, has the capacity to admit, in this
   manner, and be visited by, the inspirations of God. It requires a
   nature gloriously akin to God in its mold, thus to let in his action,
   falling freely into chime with his freedom, and, in consciously
   self-acting power, receiving the impulsion of his eternal thought and
   character.

   We have also another religious talent, or God-ward capacity, which may
   be called the spiritual sense, or the power of divine apprehension.
   Some kind of apprehensive, or perceptive power, belongs to every
   creature of life, as we may see in the distinguishing touch of the
   sensitive plant, in the keen auditory and scenting powers of many
   quadrupeds, in our own five senses, or, rising still higher, in that
   piercing insight of mind which distinguishes the intellectual and
   scientific verities of things. So also there is given to our spiritual
   nature, a still higher talent, the spiritual sense, the power of
   distinguishing God and receiving the manifestation or immediate witness
   of God. I speak not here of a speculating up to God, or an inference
   that conducts to God, but of a window that opens directly on him from
   within, lets in the immediate light or revelation of God, and makes the
   soul even conscious of his reality as of its own.

   The capacity of religious love is another and distinct kind of talent.
   Other kinds of love are merely emotional, or humanly social, involving
   no principle of life, either good or bad, and no particular spiritual
   condition. Whereas this love of God, and of men as related to God, is a
   determining force, in respect to all character and all springs of
   action. We. have it only as we have a certain talent. or capacity of
   religious love; the capacity, that is, to let m or appropriate the love
   of God to us. Which if we do, it comes, not as some rill or ripple of
   our human love, changing nothing in us, but it pours in, as a tide,
   with mighty floods of joy and power, and sets the whole nature beating
   with it, as the shores give answer to the ocean roll and roar. Now the
   man acts out of love and from it. He chimes with all good freely; for
   his love is the spirit of all good. His activity is rest, and a
   lubricating power of joy gladdens all the works of duty and sacrifice.

   The power of faith, also, is a religious talent, which is to religion
   what the inductive or experimental power is to science. It is a power
   of knowing God, or finding God by experiment. It is the power in human
   souls of falling on God, and being recumbent on him in trust, so as to
   prove him out and find the answer of his personality Reason can not do
   it, but faith can. It knows God, or may reciprocally, and finds a way
   into his secret will and mind so as to be of him, a conscious partaker
   of his divine nature and life.

   These now are the talents of religion, the highest, noblest, closest to
   divinity, of all the powers we have. And yet how many never once think
   of them as having any special consequence, or even as being talents at
   all, just because, living in separation from God, they are never once
   allowed to come into use.

   If then you will see, in the plainest manner, what is their true place
   and order in the soul, you shall find them, first of all, at the head
   of all its other powers, holding them subordinate. They are like the
   capital city of an empire, flowing down upon all the other cities, to
   regulate, animate, and, at the same time, appropriate them all. What we
   sometimes call the intellectual powers,--observation, abstraction,
   reason, memory, imagination,--submit themselves at once, when religion
   comes into the field, to be the servitors of religion. None of these
   faculties make use of the religious, but the religious use and
   appropriate them; in which we see, at a glance, their natural
   inferiority.

   Next, you will see that all these other talents fall into a stunted and
   partially disabled state, when they are not shone upon, kept in warmth,
   and raised in grade, by the talents of religion. They sometimes grow
   intense in their downward activity on mere things: witness the
   scientific activity of the French people; but this scientific intensity
   only makes the tenuity, the affectations, the sentimentalities
   substituted for love, the mock heroics of fame substituted for the
   heroics of faith, the barrenness of great thought, the pruriency of
   conceit, the more painfully evident. No people, emptied of religion,
   was ever genuinely great in any thing.

   How manifestly too are the subjects of the religious talents superior
   to those of the natural--even as the heaven is high above the earth.
   History, science, political judgments, poetry as a mere growth of
   nature, philosophy as a development of reason, belong to these. The
   others look on God, embrace the infinite in God, receive the love of
   God, experience God, let in the inspirations of God, discover worlds
   beyond the world, seize the fact of immortality, deal in salvation,
   aspire to ideal and divine perfection.

   Again, it will be seen that all the greatest things, ever done in the
   world, have been done by the instigations and holy elevations of the
   religious capacity. We shall never have done hearing, I suppose, of
   Regulus and Curtius, and such like specimens of the Roman virtue, great
   in death; but the whole army of the martyrs, comprising thousands of
   women and even many small children, dying firmly in the refusal to deny
   the Lord Jesus, are a full match and more, by the legion, for the
   bravest of the Romans. What but the mighty mastership of religion has
   ever led a people up through civil wars and revolutions, into a
   regenerated order and liberty? What has planted colonies for a great
   history but religion? The most august and most beautiful structures of
   the world have been temples of religion; crystalizations, we may say,
   of worship. The noblest charities, the best fruits of learning, the
   richest discoveries, the best institutions of law and justice, every
   greatest thing the world has seen, represents, more or less directly
   the fruit. fulness and creativeness of the religious talents.

   The real summit, therefore, of our humanity is here, a our blessed Lord
   plainly understands in his parable of the talents. He does not overlook
   other and inferior gifts, for God will certainly hold us responsible
   for all gifts; but it is this, more especially, that he holds in view,
   when he says,--take therefore the talent from him. In the clause that
   follows, we are not to understand, of course, that God will literally
   pass the talent over to one who has been more faithful. The terms are
   sufficiently met, by understanding that God will so dispense the
   talents, as to regularly increase the gifts of the faithful, and
   regularly diminish, or gradually extirpate, the gifts of those who will
   not use them. We proceed then,--

   II. To show that the religious talent, or capacity, is one that, by
   total disuse and the overgrowth of others, is finally extirpated.

   Few men, living without God, are aware of any such possibility, and,
   still less, of the tremendous fact itself. That they are really
   reducing themselves in this manner to lower dimensions, shortening in
   their souls, making blank spaces of all the highest and divinest
   talents of their nature,--alas, they dream not of it; on the contrary,
   they imagine that they are getting above religion, growing too
   competent and wise to be longer subjected to its authority, or
   incommoded by its requirements. They do not see, or suspect that this
   very fact is evidence itself of a process more radical and fearful,
   even that which Christ himself is teaching in the parable. Are you
   willing, my friends, to allow the discovery of this process, this dying
   process, this extirpating process, which, in your neglect of God, is
   removing, by degrees, the very talent for religion, your highest and
   most sacred endowment.

   Hear then, first of all, what is the teaching of the scripture. That
   this is the precise point of the parable of the talents we have seen
   already. "In close connection, also, Christ reiterates his favorite
   maxim,--To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not
   shall be taken away even that which he hath. And here, also, the very
   point of meaning is, that neglected or abused talents will be shortened
   more and more by continued neglect and abuse, and, at last, will be
   virtually taken away or exterminated. What is said, in the scripture,
   of spiritual blindness, or the loss of spiritual perception, will also
   occur to you. For this people's heart is waxed gross, says the Saviour,
   and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed.
   What is this closing of the eye, this loss of sight, but the judicial
   extirpation of sight? Even as he says in another place,--He hath
   blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, that they should not see
   with their eyes, nor understand with their heart. Hence, also, what is
   said, derogatively, of the wisdom of the wise and the understanding of
   the prudent,--that conceit of opinion, falsely called philosophy, which
   grows up in the neglect of God. The word of God looks on it with pity,
   calls it folly and strong delusion, as if it were a kind of disability
   that comes on the soul in the gradual loss, or extirpation of its
   highest powers. What is it but the uplifting littleness of opinion,
   when these highest powers are taken away? These babblings of opinion,
   speculation, reason, are also presented in a more pathologic way, as a
   kind of cancerous activity in the lower functions, that will finally
   devour all the higher powers of godliness and love:--Shun profane and
   vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness, and their
   word will eat as doth a canker How sadly verified is the picture, in
   the ever increasing ungodliness of the over-curious and merely
   speculative spirit; in the swelling bulk of its conceit and the
   reduction correspondently, of all highest function of insight.

   Now this general view of a necessary taking away, or spiritual
   extirpation, of which we are admonished by the scriptures under these
   various forms, is referrible, I conceive, to two great laws, or causes.
   It is due partly to the neglect of the higher talents of our religious
   nature, and partly to the overactivity or overgrowth of the other and
   subordinate talents.

   1. To the neglect of the talents, or capacities of religion. All living
   members, whether of body or mind, require use, or exercise. It is
   necessary to their development, and, without it, they even die. Thus,
   if one of the arms be kept in free use, from childhood onward, while
   the other is drawn up over the head and made rigid there, by long and
   violent detention, a feat of religious austerity which the idolaters of
   the East often practice, the free arm and shoulder will grow to full
   size, and the other will gradually shrink and perish. So if one of the
   eyes were permanently covered, so as never to see the light, the other
   would be likely to grow more sharp and precise in its power, while this
   is losing its capacity and becoming a discontinued organ, or inlet of
   perception. It is on the same principle that the fishes which inhabit
   the underground river of a great western cave, while, in form and
   species, they appear to correspond with others that swim in the surface
   waters of the region adjacent, have yet the remarkable distinction of
   possessing no eyes. Since there is no light in their underground
   element, the physical organism instinctively changes type. It will not
   even go on to make eyes, when they can not be used. It there. fore
   drops them out, presenting us the strange, exceptional product of an
   eyeless race.

   So it is with all mental and spiritual organs. Not used, they gradually
   wither and die. The child, for example, that grows up in utter neglect
   and without education, or any thing to develop its powers, grows dull,
   at last, and brutish; and, by the time it is twenty or thirty years
   old, the powers it had appear to be very much taken away. The man, thus
   abridged in faculty, can not learn to read without the greatest
   difficulty. The hand can not be trained to grace, or the eye to
   exactness. The very conscience, disused, as having any relation to God,
   is blunted and stupefied. But, while we note this visible decay of the
   functions specified, let it be observed that, here, in the case of the
   child, there is no such thing as a complete disuse. The most uneducated
   man has a certain necessary use of his common faculties of
   intelligence, and in some low sense, keeps them in exercise. He can not
   take care of his body, can not provide for life, can not act his part
   among men, without contrivance, thought, plan, memory, reason, all the
   powers that distinguish him as an intelligent being. Hence these
   faculties never can be wholly exterminated by disuse, however much
   reduced in scope and quality they may be. But it is not so with the
   religious talents. In a worldly life they are almost absolutely
   disused. They are kept under, suppressed, allowed no range, or play.
   According to the parable, they are wrapped up in a napkin and hid.
   Refusing to know God, to let your deep want receive him, to admit the
   holy permeations of his spirit, to be flooded with his all,
   transforming love, to come into the secret discerning and acquaintance
   of his mind, and live in the mutuality of his personal fellowship, you
   command all these higher talents of your soul to exist in disuse. This
   is the tearful, horrible thing in your life of sin, that you sentence
   all your God-ward powers to a state of utter nothingness, to be ears
   that must not hear, eyes that must not see. And then, what must finally
   follow, but that they can not? How is it possible for any talent or
   gift to survive that can not be exercised? And this process of
   extirpation will be hastened, again,--

   2. By the operation of that immense overgrowth or overactivity which is
   kept up in the other powers. Thus it is that gardeners, when a tree is
   making wood too fast, understand that it will make no fruit; all the
   juices and nutritive fluids being carried off in the other direction,
   to make wood. And therefore, to hasten the growth of fruit, they head
   in the branches. So when trees are growing rapidly upward, as in a
   forest, that growth calls away the juices from the lower and lateral
   branches and leaves them to die. A healthy limb of our body, being
   checked by some disease, the other limbs or members call off the
   nutriment in their direction; when it begins to wither, and, at last,
   is virtually extirpated. Just so it is, when a child becomes
   preternaturally active in some particular faculty, under the stimulus
   of success or much applause; it turns out finally that the wonderful
   activity that made him a prodigy in figures, or in memory, unless early
   arrested, has sunk him to a rank as much below mediocrity in every
   thing else. His overgrowth in arithmetic, or in the memorizing powers,
   takes away the nutriment of all his other functions, and leaves him to
   a miserable inferiority.

   Just so it is, again, when the pursuit of money grows to a monster
   passion of the soul; the mind dwindles, the affections wither, and
   sometimes even the nerve of hunger itself ceases to act; leaving the
   wretched miser to per ish by starvation, fast by his heap of gold. So
   if a man lives for the table, the organs of the mouth and chin change
   their expression, the eye grows dull, the gait heavy, the voice takes a
   coarse animalized sound, and the higher qualities of intelligence, he
   may once have manifested, will be manifested nowhere, save as purveyors
   to the organs of taste and the gastric energy.

   In the same way, a man who is brought up in mere conventionalities and
   taught to regard appearances as the only realities, loses out the sense
   of truth. He blushes at the least defect in his toilette, and lies to
   get away from an honest debt, without any trace of compunction, or
   shame for his baseness.

   And so also the child, brought up as a thief, gets an infinite power of
   cunning and adroitness, and loses out just as much in the power of true
   perception.

   In the same way, a race of men long occupied in ferocious wars grow
   sharp in the hearing, keen as the beasts of prey in pursuit,
   sensitively shy of death, when it can be avoided, and when it can not,
   equally stoical in regard to it; but, while these talents of blood are
   unfolding so remarkably, they lose out utterly the sense of order, the
   instinct of prudence and providence, all the sweet charities, all the
   finer powers of thought, and become a savage race. Having lost a full
   half of their nature and sunk below the possibility of progress, we,
   for that reason, call them savages.

   By a little different process, the Christian monks were turned to
   fiends of blood, without being savages. Exercised, day and night, in a
   devotion that was aired by no outward, social duties, waiting only on
   the dreams and visions of a cloistered religion, all the gentle
   humanities and social charities were absorbed or taken away. And then
   their very prayers would draw blood, and they would go out from the
   real presence itself, to bless the knife, or kindle the fire.

   Now just this extirpating process, which you have seen operating here
   on so large a scale, is going on continually in the overactive
   worldliness of all men that are living without God. An extravagant
   activity of some kind is always stimulating their inferior and merely
   natural faculties, and extirpating the higher talents of religion.
   Occupied with schemes that are only world-ward and selfish, there is an
   egregiously intense activity in that direction, coupled with entire
   inaction in all the highest perceptions and noblest affinities of their
   godlike nature. To say that these latter will be finally taken away, or
   extirpated in this manner is to say nothing which permits a doubt. It
   can not be otherwise. All the laws of vital being, whether in body or
   mind, must be overturned to allow it to be otherwise. No man can live
   out a life of sin without also living out all the God-ward talent of
   his soul.

   Let me come a degree nearer to you now, and lay the question side by
   side with your experience. Is it wrong to assume that your religious
   sense was proportionately much stronger and more active in childhood
   than it is now? Thus onward, during your minority, you felt the reality
   of God and things unseen, as you can not now, by year utmost effort. It
   is as if these worlds beyond the world had faded away, or quite gone
   out. You have a great deal more knowledge than you then had,--knowledge
   of books, men, business, scenes, subjects, a more practiced judgment, a
   greater force of argument; but it troubles you to find that these
   higher things are just as much further off and less real. It even
   surprises you to find that you are growing skeptical, without any, the
   least, effort to be so. Perhaps you begin, at times, to imagine that it
   must be only because of some fatal weakness in the evidences of
   religion. Why else should it lose its power over your mind, as you grow
   more intelligent? There is one very simple answer, my friends, to this
   inquiry, viz., that eyes disused gradually lose the power to see. If
   God gave you a religious talent, whereby to ally you to himself, an eye
   to see him and catch the light of unseen worlds, a want to long after
   him, and you have never used this higher nature at all, what wonder is
   it that it begins to wither and do its functions feebly, as a perishing
   member? If your bodily eyes had, for so long a time, been covered and
   forbidden once to see, what less could have befallen them? Your very
   hand, held fast to your side for only half the time, would be a
   perished member. And what does it signify that your other faculties, or
   talents, have been growing in strength so plausibly? What could be the
   result of this selfish and world-ward activity, but a prodigious
   drawing off of personal life and energy in -that direction? Hence it is
   that you grow blind to God. Hence that, when you undertake to live a
   different life, you get on so poorly and your very prayers fly away
   into nothingness, finding only emptiness to embrace, and darkness to
   see.

   All this, my friends, which I gather out of your own experience, is but
   a version practical of Christ's own words--take therefore the talent
   from him. It is being taken away rapidly, and the shreds of it will
   very soon be all that is left. Your religious nature will finally
   become a virtually exterminated organ. Neither let it be imagined that,
   meaning no such thing, but really intending, at some future time, to
   turn yourself to God, no such thing will be allowed to befall you. It
   is befalling you and that is enough to spoil you of any such
   confidence. Besides, it was not shown in the parable that the servant
   who disused his talent threw it away. He carefully wrapped it up, and
   meant to keep it safe. But it was not safe to him. His lord took it
   away, and the same thing is now befalling you. The purpose you have, at
   some future time, to use your talent avails nothing. It is going from
   you and, before you know it, will be utterly, irrecoverably gone.

   The thoughts that crowd upon us, standing before a subject like this,
   are practical and serious. And,--

   1. How manifestly hideous the process going on in human souls, under
   the power of sin. It is a process of real and fixed deformity. Who of
   us has not seen it even with his eyes? The most beautiful natural
   character, in man or woman, changes, how certainly, its type, when
   growing old in worldliness and the neglect of religion. The grace
   perishes, the beautiful feeling dries away, the angles grow hard, the
   sociality grows cold and formal, the temper irritable and peevish, and
   the look wears a kind of half expression, as if something once in it
   were gone out forever. It should be so, and so, in awful deed, it is
   for a whole side of the nature, most noble and closest in affinity with
   God, has been taken away. On the other hand, it will be seen that a
   thoroughly religious old person holds the proportions of life, and even
   grows more mellow and attractive as life advances. Indeed, the most
   beautiful sight on earth is an aged saint of God, growing cheerful in
   his faith as life advances, becoming mellowed in his love, and more and
   more visibly pervaded and brightened by the clear light of religion.

   This deforming process too is a halving process, with all that are in
   it. It exterminates the noblest side of faculty in them and all the
   most affluent springs of their greatness it forever dries away. It
   murders the angel in us, and saves the drudge or the worm. The man that
   in left is but a partial being, a worker, a schemer, a creature of
   passion, thought, will, hunger, remorse, but no divine principle, no
   kinsman of Christ, or of God. And this is the fearful taking away of
   which our blessed Lord admonishes; a taking away of the gems and
   leaving the casket, a taking away of the great and leaving the little,
   a taking away of the godlike and celestial and a leaving of the sinner
   in his sin.

   2. It follows, in the same manner, that there is no genuine culture, no
   proper education, which does not include religion. Much, indeed, of
   what is called education is only a power of deformity, a stimulus of
   overgrowth in the lower functions of the spirit, as a creature of
   intelligence, which overlooks and leaves to wither, causes to wither,
   all the metropolitan powers of a great mind and character. The first
   light of mind is God, the only genuine heat is religion, imaginative
   insight is kindled only by the fervors of holy truth, all noblest
   breadth and volume are unfolded in the regal amplitude of God's
   eternity and kingdom, all grandest energy and force in the impulsions
   of duty and the inspirations of faith. All training, separated from
   these, operates even a shortening of faculty, as truly as an increase.
   It is a kind of gymnastic for the arm that paralyzes the spine. It
   diminishes the quantity of the subject, where all sovereign quantity
   begins, and increases. it only in some lower point, where it ends; as
   if building the trunk of a lighthouse staunch and tall were enough,
   without preparing any light and revolving clockwork for the top. Hence
   it is that so many scholars, most bent down upon their tasks, and
   digging most intently into the supposed excellence, turn out, after
   all, to be so miserably diminished in all that constitutes power. Hence
   also that men of taste are so often attenuated by their refinements,
   and dwarfed by the overgrown accuracy and polish of their attainments.
   No man is ever educated, in due form, save as being a man; that is, a
   creature related to God, and having all his highest summits of capacity
   unfolded by the great thoughts, and greater sentiments, and nobler
   inspirations of religion.

   3. Let no one comfort himself in the intense activity ol his mind on
   the subject of religion. That is one of the things to be dreaded. To be
   always thinking, debating, scheming, in reference to the great
   questions of religion, without using any of the talents that belong
   more appropriately to God and the receiving of God, is just the way to
   extirpate the talents most rapidly, and so to close up the mind in
   spiritual darkness. And no man is more certainly dark to God than one
   who is always at work upon his mystery, by the mere understanding. To
   be curious, to speculate much, to be dinning always in argument,
   battle-dooring always in opinions and dogmas, whether on the free side
   of rationalistic audacity, or the stiff side of catechetic orthodoxy,
   makes little difference; all such activity is cancerous and destructive
   to the real talents of religion. What you do with the understanding
   never reaches God. He is known only by them that receive him into their
   love, their faith, their deep want, known only as he is enshrined
   within, felt as a divine force, breathed in the inspirations of his
   secret life. The geometer might as well expect to solve his problems by
   the function of smell, as a responsible soul to find God by the
   understanding. How little does it signify then that you are always
   thoughtful on religious subjects? That, by itself, will only be your
   ruin.

   4. Make as little of the hope that the Holy Spirit, will sometime open
   your closed or consciously closing faculties. It requires a talent, so
   to speak, for the Holy Spirit, to entertain or receive him. A rock can
   not receive the Holy Spirit. No more can a mind that has lost, or
   extinguished, the talent for inspiration. The Holy Spirit, glorious and
   joyful truth, does find a way into souls that are steeped in spiritual
   lethargy, does beget anew the sense of holy things that appeared to be
   faded almost away. But, when the very faculty that makes his working
   possible is quite closed up, or so nearly closed that no living
   receptivity is left for him to work in, when the soul has no fit room,
   or function, to receive his inspiring motions, more than a tree, half
   dead, to receive the quickening sap of the spring, or an ossified heart
   to let the life-power play its action, then, manifestly, nothing is to
   be hoped for longer from his quickening visitations. The soul was
   originally made to be dwelt in, actuated, filled with God, but finally
   this high talent is virtually extirpated; when, of course, there is
   nothing to hope for longer. It may not be so with you, and it also may.

   5. The truth we are here bringing into view wears no look of promise,
   in regard to the future condition of bad men. If we talk of their final
   restoration, what is going to restore them, when the very thing we see
   in them, here, is the gradual extinction of their capabilities of
   religion? Their want of God itself dies out, and they have no God-ward
   aspirations left. The talent of inspiration, of spiritual perception,
   of love, of faith, every inlet of their nature that was open to God, is
   closed and virtually extirpated. This is no figure of speech, that
   merely signifies their habitual obscuration, it is fact. By what then
   are they going to be restored? Will God take them up, as they enter
   into the future life, and re-create their extirpated faculties of
   religion? Will the pains of hell burn a religion into their lower
   faculties, and so restore them?

   But there is another hope, viz., that bad men will finally be
   themselves extirpated and cease; that the life of sin will finally burn
   them quite out, or cause them literally and totally to perish. But the
   difficulty here is that no such tendency is visible. It is only seen
   that the talent for religion, which is the higher and diviner side of
   the soul, is extirpated. The other parts are kept in some kind of
   activity, and are sometimes even overgrown, by the stimulations of
   worldly, or vicious impulse. If we some times look on a poor, imbruted
   mortal,-one who walks, looks, speaks, not as a proper man but as the
   vestiges only of a man,--asking in ourselves what is there left that is
   worth salvation?--as if there were nothing;--still he lives and, what
   is more, some of his quantities, viz., his passions and appetites and
   all his lowest affinities are even increased. His thoughts too run as
   rapidly as they ever did, only they run low; his imaginations live,
   only they live in the stye of his passions. It is not, then,
   annihilation that we see in him. Nothing is really annihilated but the
   celestial possibilities. And so it is with every soul that refuses God
   and religion. A living creature remains,--a mind, a memory, a heart of
   passion, fears, irritability, will,--all these remain; nothing is gone
   but the angel life that stood with them, and bound them all to God.
   What remains, remains; and, for aught that we can see, must remain; and
   there is the fatal, inevitable fact. How hopeless! God forbid that any
   of us may ever know what it means!

   Finally, how clear it is that the earliest time in religion is the best
   time. If there be any of my hearers that have lived many years, and
   have consciously not begun to live unto God, they have much to think of
   in a subject like this. How well do they know that God is further off
   than he was, and their spiritual apprehensions less distinct. They have
   felt the sentence--take therefore the talent from him--passing upon
   them in its power, for many years. And how much further will you go in
   this neglect of God, before the extirpation begun is fatally complete.
   My friends, there is not an hour to lose. Only with the greatest
   difficulty will you be able, now, to gather up yourself and open your
   closing gates to the entrance of God and his salvation.

   Here too is the peculiar blessing and the hopeful advantage of youth.
   The talents which older men lose out, by their worldly practice and
   neglect of God, are fresh in them and free. Hence their common
   readiness to apprehend God and the things of religion. It is not
   because they are green, or unripe, as many think, but because they have
   a side of talent not yet eaten out by sinful practice; because God is
   mirrored so clearly in the depths of their nature, and breathed so
   freely into the recesses of their open life. Hence their ready
   sensibility, their quick perception, their ability to feel out, in
   experiment, what reason can not master,--God, Christ, the inspiring
   grace, the heavenly peace, eternal life. Hence, also, the fact that so
   great a share of those who believe, embrace Christ in their youth. And
   this, my young friends, is the day therefore of privilege to you. O
   that you could see the bright eminence of your condition. The holy
   talent now is yours. In a few selfish years it will be shortening, and,
   before you know it, will be quite taken away. This best, highest, most
   glorious talent of your nature God is now calling you to save. Make,
   then, no delay in this first matter of life, the choice of God. Give
   him up thy talent, whole and fresh, to be increased by early devotion
   and a life-long fidelity in his service. Call it the dew of thy youth,
   understanding well that, when thy sun is fairly up, it will, like dew,
   be gone.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                       X.

UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE.

   John xx. 8.--"Then went in also that other disciple."

   IN this slight touch or turn of history, is opened to iis if we scan it
   closely, one of the most serious and fruitful chapters of Christian
   doctrine. Thus it is that men are ever touching unconsciously the
   springs of motion in each other; thus it is that one man, without
   thought or intention, or even a consciousness of the fact, is ever
   leading some other after him. Little does Peter think, as he comes up
   where his doubting brother is looking into the sepulchre, and goes
   straight in, after his peculiar manner, that he is drawing in his
   brother apostle after him. As little does John think, when he loses his
   misgivings, and goes into the sepulchre after Peter, that he is
   following his brother. And just so, unawares to himself, is every man,
   the whole race through, laying hold of his fellow-man, to lead him
   where otherwise he would not go' We overrun the boundaries of our
   personality--we flow together. A Peter leads a John, a John goes after
   a Peter, both of them unconscious of any influence exerted or received.
   And thus our life and conduct are ever propagating themselves, by a law
   of social contagion, throughout the circles and times in which we live.

   There are, then, you will perceive, two sorts of influence belonging to
   man; that which is active or voluntary, and that which is
   unconscious;--that which we exert purposely or in the endeavor to sway
   another, as by teaching, by argument, by persuasion, by threatenings,
   by offers and promises,--and that which flows out from us, unawares to
   ourselves, the same which Peter had over John when he led him into the
   sepulchre. The importance of our efforts to do good, that is of our
   voluntary influence, and the sacred obligation we are under to exert
   ourselves in this way, are often and seriously insisted on. It is thus
   that Christianity has become, in the present age, a principle of so
   much greater activity than it has been for many centuries before; and
   we fervently hope that it will yet become far more active than it now
   is, nor cease to multiply its industry, till it is seen by all mankind
   to embody the beneficence and the living energy of Christ himself.

   But there needs to be produced, at the same time, and partly for this
   object, a more thorough appreciation of the relative importance of that
   kind of influence, or beneficence which is insensibly exerted. The
   tremendous weight and efficacy of this, compared with the other, and
   the sacred responsibility laid upon us in regard to this, are felt in
   no such degree or proportion as they should be; and the consequent loss
   we suffer in character, as well as that which the Church suffers in
   beauty and strength, is incalculable. The more stress, too, needs to be
   laid on this subject of insensible influence, because it is insensible;
   because it is out of mind, and, when we seek to trace it, beyond a full
   discovery.

   If the doubt occur to any of you, in the announcement of this subject,
   whether we are properly responsible for an influence which we exert
   insensibly; we are not, I reply, except so far as this influence flows
   directly from our character and conduct. And this it does, even much
   more uniformly than our active influence. In the latter we may fail of
   our end by a want of wisdom or skill m which case we are still as
   meritorious, in God's sight, as if we succeeded. So, again, we may
   really succeed, and do great good by our active endeavors, from motives
   altogether base and hypocritical, in which case we are as evil, in
   God's sight, as if we had failed. But the influences we exert
   unconsciously will almost never disagree with our real character. They
   are honest influences, following our character, as the shadow follows
   the sun. And, therefore, we are much more certainly responsible for
   them, and their effects on the world. They go streaming from us in all
   directions, though in channels that we do not see, poisoning or healing
   around the roots of society, and among the hidden wells of character.
   If good our selves, they are good; if bad, they are bad. And, since
   they reflect so exactly our character, it is impossible to doubt our
   responsibility for their effects on the world. We must answer not only
   for what we do with a purpose, but for the influence we exert
   insensibly. To give you any just impressions of the breadth and
   seriousness of such a reckoning I know to be impossible. No mind can
   trace it. But it will be something gained if I am able to awaken only a
   suspicion of the vast extent and power of those influences, which are
   ever flowing out unbidden upon society, from your life and character.

   In the prosecution of my design, let me ask of you, first of all, to
   expel the common prejudice that there can be nothing of consequence in
   unconscious influences, because they make no report, and fall on the
   world unobserved. Histories and biographies make little account of the
   power men exert insensibly over each other. They tell how men have led
   armies, established empires, enacted laws, gained causes, sung,
   reasoned, and taught;--always occupied in setting forth what they do
   with a purpose. But what they do without a purpose, the streams of
   influence that flow out from their persons unbidden on the world, they
   can not trace or compute, and seldom even mention. So also the public
   laws make men responsible only for what they do with a positive
   purpose, and take no account of the mischiefs or benefits that are
   communicated, by their noxious or healthful example. The same is true
   in the discipline of families, churches, and schools; they make no
   account of the things we do, except we will them. What we do insensibly
   passes for nothing, because no human government can trace such
   influences with sufficient certainty to make their authors responsible.

   But you must not conclude that influences of this kind are
   insignificant, because they are unnoticed and noiseless. How is it in
   the natural world? Behind the mere show, the outward noise and stir of
   the world, nature always conceals her hand of control, and the laws by
   which she rules. Who ever saw with the eye, for example, or heard with
   the ear, the exertions of that tremendous astronomic force, which every
   moment holds the compact of the physical universe together? The
   lightning is, in fact, but a mere fire-fly spark in comparison; but,
   because it glares on the clouds, and thunders so terribly in the ear,
   and rives the tree or the lock where it falls, many will be ready to
   think that it is a vastly more potent agent than gravity.

   The Bible calls the good man's life a light, and it is the nature of
   light to flow out spontaneously in all directions, and fill the world
   unconsciously with its beams. So the Christian shines, it would say,
   not so much because he will, as because he is a luminous object. Not
   that the active influence of Christians is made of no account in the
   figure, but only that this symbol of light has its propriety in the
   fact that their unconscious influence is the chief influence, and has
   the precedence in its power over the world. And yet, there are many who
   will be ready to think that light is a very tame and feeble instrument,
   because it is noiseless. An earthquake, for example, is to them a much
   more vigorous and effective agency. Hear how it comes thundering
   through the solid foundations of nature. It rocks a whole continent.
   The noblest works of man,--cities, monuments, and temples,--are in a
   moment leveled to the ground, or swallowed down the opening gulfs of
   fire. Little do they think that the light of every morning, the soft,
   and genial, and silent light, is an agent many times more powerful. But
   let the light of the morning cease and return no more, let the hour of
   morning come, and bring with it no dawn: the outcries of a
   horror-striken world fill the air, and make, as it were, the darkness
   audible. The beasts go wild and frantic at the loss of the sun. The
   vegetable growths turn pale and die. A chill creeps on, and frosty
   winds begin to howl across the freezing earth. Colder, and yet colder,
   is the night. The vital blood, at length, of all creatures, stops
   congealed. Down goes the frost toward the earth's center. The heart of
   the sea is frozen; nay, the earthquakes are themselves frozen in, under
   their fiery caverns. The very globe itself, too, and a1 the fellow
   planets that have lost their sun, are be come mere balls of ice,
   swinging silent in the darkness Such is the light, which revisits us in
   the silence of the morning. It makes no shock or scar. It would not
   wake an infant in his cradle. And yet it perpetually new creates the
   world, rescuing it, each. morning as a prey, from nigh, and chaos. So
   the Christian is a light, even "the light of the world," and we must
   not think that, because he shines insensibly or silently, as a mere
   luminous object, he is therefore powerless. The greatest powers are
   ever those whi-h lie back of the little stirs and commotions of nature;
   and I verily believe that the insensible influences of good men are as
   much more potent than what I have called their voluntary or active, as
   the great silent powers of nature are of greater consequence than her
   little disturbances arid tumults. The law of human influence is deeper
   than many suspect, and they lose sight of it altogether. The outward
   endeavors made by good men or bad to sway others, they call their
   influence; whereas it is, in fact, but a fraction, and, in most cases,
   but a very small fraction, of the good or evil that flows out of their
   lives. Nay, I will even go further. How many persons do you meet, the
   insensible influence of whose manners and character is so decided as
   often to thwart their voluntary influence; so that, whatever they
   attempt to do, in the way of controlling others, they are sure to carry
   the exact opposite of what they intend! And it will generally be found
   that, where men undertake by argument or persuasion to exert a power,
   in the face of qualities that make them odious or detestable, or only
   not entitled to respect, their insensible influence will be too strong
   for them. The total effect of the life is then of a kind directly
   opposite to the voluntary endeavor; which, of course, does not add so
   much as a fraction to it.

   I call your attention, next, to the twofold powers of effect and
   expression by which man connects with his fellow man. If we distinguish
   man as a creature of language, and thus qualified to communicate
   himself to others, there are in him two sets or kinds of language, one
   which is voluntary in the use, and one that is involuntary; that of
   speech in the literal sense, and that expression of the eye, the face,
   the look, the gait, the motion, the tone or cadence, which is sometimes
   called the natural language of the sentiments. This natural language,
   too, is greatly enlarged by the conduct of life, that which, in
   business and society, reveals the principles and spirit of men. Speech,
   or voluntary language, is a door to the soul, that we may open or shut
   at will; the other is a door that stands open evermore, and reveals to
   others constantly and often very clearly, the tempers, tastes, and
   motives of their hearts. Within, as we may represent, is character,
   charging the common reservoir of influence, and through these twofold
   gates of the soul, pouring itself out on the world. Out of one it flows
   at choice, and whensoever we purpose to do good or evil to men. Out of
   the other it flows each moment, as light from the sun, and propagates
   itself in all beholders.

   Then if we go over to others, that is, to the subjects of influence, we
   find every man endowed with two inlets of impression; the ear and the
   understanding for the reception of speech, and the sympathetic powers,
   the sensibilities or affections, for tinder to those sparks of emotion
   revealed by looks, tones, manners, and general conduct. And these
   sympathetic powers, though not immediately rational, are yet inlets,
   open on all sides, to the understanding and character. They have a
   certain wonderful capacity to receive impressions, and catch the
   meaning of signs, and propagate in us whatsoever falls into their
   passive molds, from others. The impressions they receive do not come
   through verbal propositions, and are never received into verbal
   proposition, it may be, in the mind, and therefore many think nothing
   of them. But precisely on this account are they the more powerful,
   because it is as if one heart were thus going directly into another,
   and carrying in its feelings with it. Beholding, as in a glass, the
   feelings of our neighbor, we are changed into the same image, by the
   assimilating power of sensibility and fellow-feeling. Many have gone so
   far, and not without show, at least, of reason, as to maintain that the
   look or expression, and even the very features of children, are often
   changed, by exclusive intercourse with nurses and attendants.
   Furthermore, if we carefully consider, we shall find it scarcely
   possible to doubt, that simply to look on bad and malignant faces, or
   those whose expressions have become infected by vice, to be with them
   and become familiarized to them, is enough permanently to affect the
   character of persons of mature age. I do not say that it must of
   necessity subvert their character, for the evil looked upon may never
   be loved or welcomed in practice; but it is something to have these bad
   images in the soul, giving out their expressions there, and diffusing
   their odor among the thoughts, as long as we live. How dangerous a
   thing is it, for example, for a man to become accustomed to sights of
   cruelty? What man, valuing the honor of his soul, would not shrink from
   yielding himself to such an influence? No more is it a thing of
   indifference to become accustomed to look on the manners, and receive
   the bad expression of any kind of sin.

   The door of involuntary communication, I have said, is always open. Of
   course we are communicating ourselves in this way, to others at every
   moment of our intercourse or presence with them. But how very seldom,
   in comparison, do we undertake by means of speech to influence others!
   Even the best Christian, one who most improves his opportunities to do
   good, attempts but seldom to sway another by voluntary influence,
   whereas he is all the while shining as a luminous object unawares, and
   communicating of his heart to the world.

   But there is yet another view of this double line of communication
   which man has with his fellow-men, which is more general, and displays
   the import of the truth yet more convincingly. It is by one of these
   modes of communication that we are constituted members of voluntary
   society, and by the other, parts of a general mass, or members of
   involuntary society. You are all, in a certain view, individuals, and
   separate as persons from each other: you are also, in a certain other
   view, parts of a common body, as truly as the parts of a stone. Thus if
   you ask how it is that you and all men came, without your consent to
   exist in society, to be within its power, to be under its laws, the
   answer is, that while you are a man, you are also a fractional element
   of a larger and more comprehensive being, called society--be it the
   family, the church, the state. In a certain department of your nature,
   it is open; its sympathies and feelings are open. On this open side you
   all adhere together, as parts of a larger nature, in which there is a
   common circulation of want, impulse, and law. Being thus made common to
   each other voluntarily, you become one mass, one consolidated social
   body, animated by one life. And observe how far this involuntary
   communication and sympathy between the members of a state or family is
   sovereign over their character. It always results in what we call the
   national or family spirit; for there is a spirit peculiar to every
   state and family in the world. Sometimes, too, this national or family
   spirit takes a religious or an irreligious character, and appears
   almost to absorb the religious self-government of individuals. What was
   the national spirit of France, for example, at a certain time, but a
   spirit of infidelity? What is the religious spirit of Spain at this
   moment, but a spirit of bigotry, quite as wide of Christianity and
   destructive to character as the spirit of falsehood? What is the family
   spirit in many a house, but the spirit of gain, or pleasure, or
   appetite, in which every thing that is warm, dignified, genial, and
   good in religion, is visibly absent? Sometimes you will almost fancy
   that you see the shapes of money in the eyes of the children. So it is
   that we are led on by nations, as it were, to a good or bad
   immortality. Far down in the secret foundations of life and society,
   there lie concealed great laws and channels of influence, which make
   the race common to each other in all the main departments or divisions
   of the social mass-laws which often escape our notice altogether, but
   which are to society as gravity to the general system of God's works.

   But these are general considerations, and more fit, perhaps, to give
   you a rational conception of the modes of influence and their relative
   power, than to verify that conception, or establish its truth. I now
   proceed to add, therefore, some miscellaneous proofs of a more
   particular nature.

   And I mention, first of all, the instinct of imitation in children. We
   begin our mortal experience, not with acts grounded in judgment or
   reason, or with ideas received through language, but by simple
   imitation, and, under the guidance of this, we lay our foundations. The
   child looks and listens, and whatsoever tone of feeling or manner of
   conduct is displayed around him, sinks into his plastic, passive soul,
   and becomes a mold of his being ever after, The very handling of the
   nursery is significant, and the petulance, the passion, the gentleness,
   the tranquillity indicated by it, are all reproduced in the child. His
   soul is a purely receptive nature, and that, for a considerable period,
   without choice or selection. A little further on, he begins voluntarily
   to copy every thing he sees. Voice, manner, gait, every thing which the
   eye sees, the mimic instinct delights to act over. And thus we have a
   whole generation of future men, receiving from us their very
   beginnings, and the deepest impulses of their life and immortality.
   They watch us every moment, in the family, before the hearth, and at
   the table; and when we are meaning them no good or evil, when we are
   conscious of exerting no influence over them, they are drawing from us
   impressions and molds of habit, which, if wrong, no heavenly discipline
   can wholly remove; or, if right, no bad associations utterly dissipate.
   Now it may be doubted, I think, whether, in all the active influence of
   our lives, we do as much to shape the destiny of our fellow-men, as we
   do in this single article of unconscious influence over children.

   Still further on, respect for others takes the place of imitation. We
   naturally desire the, approbation or good opinion of others. You see
   the strength of this feeling in the article of fashion. How few persons
   have the nerve to resist a fashion! We have fashions, too, in
   literature, and in worship, and in moral and religious doctrine, almost
   equally powerful. How many will violate the best rules of society,
   because it is the practice of their circle! How many reject Christ
   because of friends or acquaintance, who have no suspicion of the
   influence they exert, and will not have, till the last day shows them
   what they have done Every good man has thus a power in his person, more
   mighty than his words and arguments, and which others feel when he
   little suspects it. Every bad man, too, has a fund of poison in his
   character, which is tainting those around him, when it is not in his
   thoughts to do them an injury. He is read and understood. His sensual
   tastes and habits, his unbelieving spirit, his suppressed leer at
   religion, have all a power, and take hold of the hearts of others,
   whether he will have it so or not.

   Again, how well understood is it, that the most active feelings and
   impulses of mankind are contagious. How quick enthusiasm of any sort is
   to kindle, and how rapidly it catches from one to another, till a
   nation blazes in the flame! In the case of the crusades, you have an
   example where the personal enthusiasm of one man put all the states of
   Europe in motion. Fanaticism is almost equally contagious. Fear and
   superstition always infect the mind of the circle in which they are
   manifested. The spirit of war generally becomes an epidemic of madness,
   when once it has got possession of a few minds. The spirit of party is
   propagated in a similar manner. How any slight ope. ration in the
   market may spread, like a fire, if successful, till trade runs wild in
   a general infatuation, is well known. Now, in all these examples, the
   effect is produced, not by active endeavor to carry influence, but
   mostly by that insensible propagation which follows, when a flame of
   any kind is once kindled.

   Is it also true, you may ask, that the religious spirit propagates
   itself or tends to propagate itself in the same way? I see no reason to
   question that it does. Nor does any thing in the doctrine of spiritual
   influences, when rightly understood, forbid the supposition. For
   spiritual influences are never separated from the laws of thought in
   the individual, and the laws of feeling and influence in society. If,
   too, every disciple is to be an "epistle known and read of all men,"
   what shall we expect, but that all men will be somehow affected by the
   reading? Or, if he is to be a light in the world, what shall we look
   for, but that others, seeing his good works, shall glorify God on his
   account? How often is it seen too as a fact of observation, that one,
   or a few good men, kindle at length a holy fire in the community in
   which they live, and become the leaven of a general reformation! Such
   men give a more vivid proof in their persons of the reality of
   religious faith, than any words or arguments could yield. They are
   active; they endeavor, of course, to exert a good voluntary influence;
   but still their chief power lies in their holiness, and the sense they
   produce in others of their close relation to God.

   It now remains to exhibit the very important fact, that where the
   direct or active influence of men is supposed to be great, even this is
   due, in a principal degree, to that insensible influence by which their
   arguments, reproofs, and persuasions are secretly invigorated. It is
   not mere words which turn men; it is the heart mounting, uncalled, into
   the expression of the features; it is the eye illuminated by reason,
   the look beaming with goodness; it is the tone of the voice, that
   instrument of the soul, which changes quality with such amazing
   facility, and gives out in the soft, the tender, the tremulous, the
   firm, every shade of emotion and character. And so much is there in
   this, that the moral stature and character of the man that speaks are
   likely to be well represented in his manner. If he is a stranger, his
   way will inspire confidence and attract good will. His virtues will be
   seen, as it were, gathering round him to minister words and forms of
   thought, and their voices will be heard in the fall of his cadences.
   And the same is true of bad men, or men who have nothing in their
   character corresponding to what they attempt to do. If without heart or
   interest you attempt to move another, the involuntary man tells what
   you are doing, in a hundred ways at once. A hypocrite, endeavoring to
   exert a good influence, only tries to convey by words what the lying
   look, and the faithless affectation, or dry exaggeration of his manner,
   perpetually resists. We have it for a fashion to attribute great or
   even prodigious results to the voluntary efforts and labors of men.
   Whatever they effect is commonly referred to nothing but the immediate
   power of what they do. Let us take an example, like that of Paul, and
   analyze it. Paul was a man of great fervor and enthusiasm. He combined,
   withal, more of what is lofty and morally commanding in his character,
   than most of the very distinguished men of the world. Having this for
   his natural character, and his natural character exalted and made
   luminous by christian faith, and the manifest indwelling of God, he had
   of course an almost superhuman sway over others. Doubtless he was
   intelligent, strong in argument, eloquent, active, to the utmost of his
   powers, but still he moved the world more by what he was than by what
   he did. The grandeur and spiritual splendor of his character were ever
   adding to his active efforts an element of silent power, which was the
   real and chief cause of their efficacy. He convinced, subdued,
   inspired, and led, because of the half divine authority which appeared
   in his conduct, and his glowing spirit. He fought the good fight,
   because he kept the faith, and filled his powerful nature with
   influences drawn from higher worlds.

   And here I must conduct you to a yet higher example, even that of the
   Son of God, the light of the world. Men dislike to be swayed by direct,
   voluntary influence. They are jealous of such control, and are
   therefore best approached by conduct and feeling, and the authority of
   simple worth, which seem to make no purposed onset. If goodness
   appears, they welcome its celestial smile; if heaven descends to
   encircle them, they yield to its sweetness; if truth appears in the
   life, they honor it with a secret homage; if personal majesty and glory
   appear, they bow with reverence, and acknowledge with shame, their own
   vileness. Now it is on this side of human nature that Christ visits us,
   preparing just that kind of influence which the spirit of truth may
   wield with the most persuasive and subduing effect. It is the grandeur
   of his character which constitutes the chief power of his ministry, not
   his miracles or teachings apart from his character. Miracles were
   useful, at the time, to arrest attention, and his doctrine is useful at
   all times as the highest revelation of truth possible in speech; but
   the greatest truth of the gospel, not withstanding, is Christ
   himself--a human body become the organ of the divine nature, and
   revealing, under the conditions of an earthly life, the glory of God!
   Tile Scripture writers have much to say, in this connection, of the
   image of God; and an image, you know, is that which simply represents,
   not that which acts, or reasons, or persuades. Now it is this image of
   God which makes tile center, the sun itself, of the gospel. The
   journeyings, teachings, miracles, and sufferings of Christ, all had
   their use in bringing out this image, or what is the same, in making
   conspicuous the character and feelings of God, both toward sinners and
   toward sin. And here is the power of Christ--it is what of God's
   beauty, love, truth, and justice shines through him. It is the
   influence which flows unconsciously and spontaneously out of Christ, as
   the friend of man, the light of the world, the glory of the Father,
   made visible. And some have gone so far as to conjecture that God made
   the human person, originally, with a view to its becoming the organ or
   vehicle, by which he might reveal his communicable attributes to other
   worlds. Christ, they believe, came to inhabit this organ, that he might
   execute a purpose so sublime. The human person is constituted, they
   say, to be a mirror of God; and God, being imaged in that mirror, as in
   Christ, is held up to the view of this and other worlds. It certainly
   is to the view of this; and if the Divine nature can use this organ so
   effectively to express itself unto us, if it can bring itself, through
   the looks, tones, motions, and conduct of a human person, more close to
   our sympathies than by any other means, how can we think that an organ
   so communicative, inhabited by us, is not always breathing our spirit
   and transferring our image insensibly to others?

   I have protracted the argument on this subject beyond what I could have
   wished, but I can not dismiss it without suggesting a few thoughts
   necessary to its complete practical effect.

   One very obvious and serious inference from it, and the first which I
   will name, is, that it is impossible to live in this world, and escape
   responsibility. It is not they alone, as you have seen, who are trying
   purposely to convert or corrupt others, who exert an influence; you can
   not live without exerting influence. The doors of your soul are open on
   others, and theirs on you. You inhabit a house which is well nigh
   transparent; and what you are within,' you are ever showing yourself to
   be without, by signs that have no ambiguous expression. If you had the
   seeds of a pestilence in your body, you would not have a more active
   contagion, than you have in your tempers, tastes, and principles.
   Simply to be in this world, whatever you are, is to exert an
   influence--an influence, too, compared with which mere language and
   persuasion are feeble. You say that you mean well; at least, you think
   you mean to injure no one. Do you injure no one? Is your example
   harmless? Is it ever on the side of God and duty? You can not
   reasonably doubt that others are continually re3eiving impressions from
   your character. As little can you doubt that you must answer for these
   impressions. If the influence you exert is unconsciously exerted, then
   it is only the most sincere, the truest expression of your character.
   And for what can you be held responsible, if not for this? Do not
   deceive yourselves in the thought that you are, at least, doing no
   injury, and are, therefore, living without responsibility; first make
   it sure that you are not every hour infusing moral death insensibly
   into your children, wives, husbands, friends, and acquaintances. By a
   mere look or glance, not unlikely, you are conveying the influence that
   shall turn the scale of some one's immortality. Dismiss, therefore, the
   thought that you are living without responsibility; that is impossible.
   Better is it frankly to admit the truth; and if you will risk the
   influence of a character unsanctified by duty and religion, prepare to
   meet your reckoning manfully, and receive the just recompense of
   reward.

   The true philosophy or method of doing good is also here explained. It
   is, first of all and principally, to be good--to have a character that
   will of itself communicate good. There must and will be active effort
   where there is goodness of principle; but the latter we should hold to
   be the principal thing, the root and life of all.. Whether it is a
   mistake more sad or more ridiculous, to make mere stir synonymous with
   doing good, we need not inquire; enough, to be sure that one who has
   taken up such a notion of doing good, is for that reason a nuisance to
   the church. The Christian is called a light, not lightning. In order to
   act with effect on others, he must walk in the Spirit, and thus become
   the image of goodness: he must be so akin to God, and so filled with
   His dispositions, that he shall seem to surround himself with a
   hallowed atmosphere. It is folly to endeavor to make ourselves shine
   before we are luminous. If the sun without his beams should talk to the
   planets, and argue with them till the final day, it would not make them
   shine; there must be light in the sun itself, and then they will shine,
   of course. And this, my brethren, is what God intends for you all. It
   is the great idea of his gospel, and the work of his spirit, to make
   you lights in the world. His greatest joy is to give you character, to
   beautify your example, to exalt your principles, and make you each the
   depository of his own almighty grace. But in order to this, some thing
   is necessary on your part-a full surrender of your mind to duty and to
   God, and a perpetual desire of this spiritual intimacy; having this,
   having a participation thus of the goodness of God, you will as
   naturally communicate good as the sun communicates his beams.

   Our doctrine of unconscious and undesigning influence shows how it is,
   also, that the preaching of Christ is often so unfruitful, and
   especially in times of spiritual coldness. It is not because truth
   ceases to be truth, nor, of necessity, because it is preached in a less
   vivid manner, but because there are so many influences, preaching
   against the preacher. He is one, the people are many; his attempt to
   convince and persuade is a voluntary influence; their lives, on the
   other hand, and especially the lives of those who profess what is
   better, are so many unconscious influences, ever streaming forth upon
   the people, and back and forth between each other. He preaches the
   truth, and they, with one consent, are preaching the truth down; and
   how can he prevail against so many, and by a kind of influence so
   unequal? When the people of God are glowing with spiritual devotion to
   Him, and love to men, the case is different; then they are all
   preaching with the preacher, and making an atmosphere of warmth for his
   words to fall in; great is the company of them that publish the truth,
   and proportionally great its power. Shall I say more? Have you not
   already felt, my brethren, the application to which I would bring you?
   We do not exonerate ourselves; we do not claim to be nearer to God or
   holier than you; but ah! you know not how easy it is to make a winter
   about us, or how cold it feels! Our endeavor is to preach the truth of
   Christ and his cross as clearly and as forcibly as we can. Sometimes it
   has a visible effect, and we are filled with joy; sometimes it has no
   effect, and then we struggle on, as we must, but under great
   oppression. Have we none among you that preach against us in your
   lives? If we show you the light of God's truth, does it never fall on
   banks of ice; which if the light shines through, the crystal masses are
   yet as cold as before? We do not accuse you; that we leave to God, and
   to those who may rise up in the last day to testify against you. If
   they shall come out of your own families; if they are the children that
   wear your names, the husband or wife of your affections; if they
   declare that you, by your example, kept them away from Christ's truth
   and mercy, we may have accusations to meet of our own and we leave you
   to acquit yourselves as best you may. I only warn you, here, of the
   guilt which our Lord Jesus Christ will impute to them that hinder his
   gospel.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                      XI.

OBLIGATION A PRIVILEGE.

   Psalms cxix. 54.--"Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my
   pilgrimage."

   WHEN the eastern traveler takes shelter from the scorching heat of
   noon, or halts for the night, in some inn or caravansary, which is, for
   the time, the house of his pilgrimage, he takes the sackbut or the lyre
   and sooths his rest with a song-a song it may be of war, romance, or
   love. But the poet of Israel finds his theme, we perceive, in the
   statutes of Jehovah--Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my
   pilgrimage. These have been my pastime, with these I have refreshed my
   resting hours by the way, and cheered myself onward through the
   wearisome journey and across the scorching deserts of life. Not songs
   of old tradition, not ballads of war, or wine, or love, have supported
   me, but I have sung of God's commandments, and these have been the
   solace of my weary hours, the comfort of my rest. This 119th Psalm,
   which is, in every verse, an ode or hymn in praise of God's
   law,--sufficiently illustrates his meaning.

   Multitudes of men, it is evident as it need be, have a very different
   conception of this matter. Divine law, divine obligation,
   responsibility in any form, authority under any conditions, they feel
   to be a real annoyance to life. They want their own will and way. Why
   must they be hampered by these constant restrictions? Why must they be
   shortened in their pleasures, crippled in their ambition, held back
   from all their strongest impulses; just those by which they might
   otherwise show their vigor and make a brave and manly figure of their
   life. But in stead of being allowed any such generous freedom, they are
   tethered, they fancy, tamed, subjected to continual scruples of fear
   and twinges of conviction, confused, weakened, let down in their
   confidence, and all the best comfort of their life is taken away. Could
   they only be rid of this annoyance, life would be a comparatively easy
   and fair experience.

   In this controversy you have taken up with the Psalmist, he is very
   plainly right, and you as plainly wrong; as I shall now undertake to
   show, and as you, considering that God's law is upon you and can by no
   means be escaped, ought most gladly to hear and discover. His doctrine,
   removing the poetry of the form, is this,--

     That obligation to God is our privilege.

   Some of you will fancy, it may be, at the outset, that the pilgrimage
   he speaks of is made by the statutes; that the restrictions of
   obligations are so hard and close, as to cut off, in fact, all the true
   pleasures of life, and reduce it to a pilgrimage in its dryness; But
   this pilgrimage is made by no sense of restriction. Every man, even the
   most licentious and reckless is a pilgrim; the atheist is a pilgrim;
   such are only a more unhappy class of pilgrims, a reluctant class who
   are driven across the deserts, cheerfully traversed by others, and by
   the fountains where others quench their thirst. There is a perfect
   harmony between obligation to God and all the sources of pleasure and
   happiness God has provided, so that there is no real collision between
   the statutes over us and the conditions round us. It is only false
   pleasures that are denied us, those that would brutalize the mind, or
   mar the health of the body, or somehow violate the happiness of fellow
   beings round us. Consider the long run of life and take in all the
   interests of it, and you will find that what we call obligation to God,
   not only does not infringe upon your pleasures, but actually commands
   you on, to the greatest and highest enjoyments of which you are
   capable.

   There is another objection or false impression that needs to be
   noticed; viz., that the very enforcements of penalty and terror added
   to God's law, to compel an acceptance of it or obedience to it, are a
   kind of concession that it is not a privilege, but a restriction or
   severity rather, which can not otherwise be carried. Is it then a fair
   inference, that human laws are severe and hard restrictions, and no
   true privilege, or blessing, because they are duly enforced by
   additions of penalty? It is only to malefactors and felons that they
   are so; and for these only, considered as being enforced by terrors,
   they are made. They are restrictions to the lawless and disobedient,
   never to the good. On the contrary, a right minded, loyal people, will
   value their laws and cherish them as the safeguard even of their
   liberty. Just so also, the righteous. man will have God's statutes for
   his songs, in all the course of his pilgrimage.

   Dismissing now these common impressions, let us go on to inquire a
   little more definitely, how it would be with us, if we existed under no
   terms of obligation; for if we are to settle it fairly, whether
   obligation is a privilege or not. this manifestly is the mode in which
   the question should be stated. The true alternative between obligation
   and no obligation supposes, on the negative side, that we are not even
   to have the sense of obligation, or of moral distinctions; for the
   sense of obligation is the same thing as being obliged, or put in
   responsibility.

   In such a case, our external condition must obviously be as different
   as possible from what it is now.

   In the first place, there could, of course, be no such thing as
   criminal law for the defense of property, reputation and life; because
   the moral distinctions in which criminal law is grounded, are all
   wanting. The laws against theft and murder, for example, suppose the
   fact that these are understood already and blamed as being
   wrongs--violations, that is, of moral obligation. And there is no
   conceivable way of defining these crimes, and bringing them to
   judgment, except by reference to notions, or distinctions already
   admitted. Murder, for example, can not be defined as a mere killing, or
   in any external way; for no external sign will hold without exception,
   Hence the law is obliged to define it as a killing with malice
   aforethought--to go into the heart, that is, and distinguish it there,
   as being done with a consciously criminal intent. The defenses of civil
   society, therefore, must all be wanting, where there is no recognized
   obligation to God. We are so far reduced to the condition of the
   quadruped races. Having, as they, no moral and religious ideas, we can
   not legislate. Civil society is, in fact, impossible, and all that is
   genial and peaceful, under the benign protection of the state, is a
   good no longer attainable. If a man's property is plundered, he knows
   it only as a loss, not as a crime. If his children are murdered or sold
   into slavery, he may be angry as a bear robbed of her whelps, but he
   has no conception of a wrong in what lie suffers. There is nothing left
   us in these low possibilities, bat to herd, as animals do, and take
   from each other what we must; to gore and tear and devour; to fly, to
   hide, to quiver with terror, the weak before the strong, and so live on
   as we best can; for to invent a criminal law without even the notion of
   a crime, and to phrase it in language that any tribunal could
   interpret, when the idea of crime has not yet arrived, is manifestly
   impossible.

   Again, what we call society, as far as there is any element of dignity
   or blessing in it, depends on these moral obligations. Without these it
   would be intercourse without friendship, truth, charity, or mercy. All
   that is warm and trustful and dear in society, rests in the keeping of
   these moral bonds.. Extinguish moral ideas and laws and these lovely
   virtues also die; for their life is upheld by the sense of duty and
   right. Where there is no law there is no sin, or guilt--as little is
   there any virtue. Of course there is nothing to praise, or confide in.
   Truth is not conceived. Friendship and love are things of convenience,
   determinable also by convenience. Chastity, without the moral idea, is
   a name as honorable as hunger, and as worthy to be kept. Purity and
   truth are accidents. Domestic faith and the tender affections that
   ennoble and bless the homes, are as reliable as the other caprices of
   unregulated impulse and passion. Without moral obligations, therefore,
   binding us to God, society is discontinued. Nothing that deserves the
   name is possible. Life, in fact, is wrong with. out a sense of wrong;
   society a proximity of distrust and fear, and the passions,
   unrestrained by duty, a hell of general torment, without any sense of
   blame to explain it.

   But these are matters external to which I refer, just to call up some
   faint conception of the immense revolution it makes in our human
   existence, only to remove this one element of obligation. Let us enter
   now the spiritual nature itself, and see how much is there depending on
   this great privilege of obligation to God.

   This claim of God's authority, this bond of duty laid upon us, is
   virtually the throne of God erected in the soul. It is sovereign, of
   course, unaccommodating therefore, and may be felt as a sore annoyance.
   When violated, it will scorch the bosom ever with pangs of remorse that
   are the most fiery and implacable of all mental sufferings. But of
   this, there is no need; all such pains are avoidable by due obedience.
   And then obligation to God becomes the spring instead of the most
   dignified, fullest, healthiest joys any where attainable. The
   self-approving consciousness, the consciousness of good--what can raise
   one to a loftier pitch of confidence and blessing. It is with these
   obligations to God, just as it is with the physical laws. These latter,
   violated by neglect, excess, or obstinacy, are our most relentless
   enemies and persecutors; respected and deferred to, they become our
   most faithful friends and helpers. Did any one ever judge, on this
   account, that they are only hindrances and restraints on our happiness
   which were better to be discontinued? Loosen then the grand
   attractions, and let the huge bulks of heaven fly as they will. Make
   the stones soluble, at times, and the waters combustible, without any
   change of conditions; let congelation be sometimes by fire, and
   liquefaction by frost; let the water-fall sometimes mount upward into
   the air, and the smoke plunge downward on the ground. Abolish all the
   stable restrictions of law, and let nature loose, to go such way, or
   after such gait, as she pleases; and, by that time, we shall find that
   her uses are gone, and that all our magnificent liberty in them is
   taken away. The powers, which before consented to serve us, have become
   our enemies, and we are lost in a hell of physical anarchy that suffers
   none of the uses of life. Just so it would be, if we could exterminate
   and strip out of our way these constraints of obligation to God. We
   should find that even the release we covet is, in fact, the bitterest
   and sorest frustration of our desired liberty.

   Thus how much, for example, does it signify, as regards your comfort,
   that this one matter, a matter so profoundly central too, in your
   experiences and views of life, is fixed. Opinions, sentiments, hopes,
   fears, popularities, and to these also you may add all the honors and
   gifts of fortune, are in a fluxile, shifting state. There is no fixed
   element in any one of them. You live in them as you do in the weather.
   Even the courses of your mind, and the shifting phases you pass are a
   kind of internal weather that never settles, or becomes fixed. But in
   the sacred fact of obligation you touch the immutable and lay hold, as
   it were, of the eternities. At the very center of your being, there is
   a fixed element, and that of a kind or degree essentially sovereign.
   And in that fact every thing pertaining to your existence is changed.
   You are no more afloat or a-sea, in the endless phases and
   variabilities just referred to, but a very large class of your
   judgments and views of life and acknowledged principles are immovably
   settled. A standard is set up in your thought, by which a great part of
   your questions are determined, and about which your otherwise random
   thoughts may settle into order and law Few men ever conceive what they
   owe to obligation here, as the mere bond of order and mental
   conservation. Doubtless obligation violated, is the minister of pain,
   but to be without obligation, is a pain more bitter and distract ing;
   for it is much to know that you have a compass in the ship, even if you
   do not use it. Sent forth into life to choose every thing by mere
   interest and will, to be played with always by your passions and your
   fancies, and to frame your judgments apart from any fixed point or
   standard of judgment, life would soon become a distressful puzzle to
   you, which you could not bear. You would make and unmake, till you lost
   all stability and all confidence in your own thoughts. Your confusion
   itself would be insupportable. You would even go mad in the struggle;
   you would cry aloud and lift your dismal prayer to accident, in fault
   of any other divinity, for something fixed. Give me fate, give me
   something established, though it be a continent of fire! I can not live
   in these bottomless sands!

   How good and sublime a gift, in this view, is the gift of law. It comes
   down smiling from the skies and enters into souls, as the beginning and
   throne of wisdom. Or using a different figure, we may say that man
   comes into being bringing his law with him; a law as definite and
   stable as that of the firmament; one that shall go with him, when
   consentingly accepted, and mark out the path of his pilgrimage, binding
   all his otherwise random exercises of desire, fancy and free will, to
   an orbit of goodness and truth. Every thing within him now is under a
   determinating rule. His soul is held in a harmonious balance of powers,
   like the heavenly worlds. Reason, feeling, passion, fancy, all work in
   together under the great conserving law of obligation to God, and the
   soul is kept in recollection, as a self-understanding nature. Who can
   think of man, wedded in this manner to the stability and eternity of
   God, without uniting a sense even of grandeur and sublimity, with the
   bond of obligation by which ne is th-u set fast and centralized in the
   immutable.

   Consider, again, the truly fraternal relation between our obligations
   to God and what we call our liberty. Instead of restraining our
   liberty, they only show us, in fact, how to use our liberty, and how to
   air it, if I may so speak, in great and heroic actions. How insipid and
   foolish a thing were life, if there were nothing laid upon us to do.
   What is it, on the other hand, but the zest and glory of life, that
   something good and great, something really worthy to be done is laid
   upon us. It is not self-indulgence allowed, but victory achieved, that
   can make a fit happiness for man. Therefore we are set down here amid
   changes, perils, wrongs and miseries, where to save ourselves and serve
   our kind, all manner of great works are to be done. Besides, we
   practically admit the arrangement, much oftener than we think. Tell any
   young man, for example, who is just converted to Christ, of some great
   sacrifice he is called to make; as in preaching Christ to men, or going
   to preach him to the heathen; and that call, set forth as a sacrifice
   of all things, will work upon him more powerfully, by a hundred times,
   than it would, if you undertook to soften it by showing what respect he
   would gain, how comfortable he would be, and how much easier in this
   than in any other calling of life. We do not want any such caresses in
   the name of duty. To let go self-indulgence and try something stronger,
   is a call that draws us always, when our heart is up for duty; nay,
   even nature loves heroic impulse and oftentimes prefers the difficult.

   It is well, therefore,--all the better that we are put upon the doing
   of what is not always agreeable to the flesh. And when God lays upon us
   the duties of self-command and self-sacrifice, when he calls us to act
   and to suffer heroically, how could he more effectually dignify or
   ennoble our liberty? Now we have our object and our errand, and we know
   that we can meet our losses, come as they will. Before every man and in
   all his duties there is something like a victory to be gained and he
   can say, as the soldier of duty;--Strike me my enemy, beat upon me O ye
   hail! Mine it is to fulfill God's statutes, and therein I make you my
   servants.

   Obligation to God also, imparts zest to life, by giving to our actions
   a higher import and, when they are right, a more consciously elevated
   spirit. The most serene, the most truly godlike enjoyment open to man,
   is, that which he receives in the testimony that he pleases God and the
   moral self-approbation of his own mind. When he regards his life as
   having a moral quality, over and above what may be called its secular
   and economic import; as having to do with the holy and true and good,
   and as being, in that highest view, a worthy and upright life; then he
   feels a joy which, if it be human, partakes also of the divine. It is a
   kind of joy too that connects in his mind with thoughts of his own
   personal perfection, and this makes it even a sublime thing to live. In
   the mere prudential life of man as an earthly creature, in his cares,
   doings, plans and pleasures, there is no respect to any results of
   quality in the person, but only to what he may get, or suffer, or be,
   in this life. The idea of personal perfection enters only with that of
   obligation to God. There dawns the thought of a divine quality--the
   moral, the good, the holy; and his soul rises out of a life in the
   dust, to look about for those angelic prospects, which are suited to
   the perfect glory of a perfect mind. Now, too, enters the great thought
   of eternity.. Obligation is a word that opens eternity; for the idea
   itself is immutable, and therefore, it must needs suggest and prove an
   immutable state. Now you become to yourself quite another and different
   creature, a denizen of eternity. Breathing, digestion, growth, a fine
   show and a titled name,--none of these have much to do with the real
   import of life. You are living on the verge of great perils, meditating
   perfection, after the style of God, and in your every thought of duty
   coupling the thought also of immutable good and glory. If you. are a
   politician, a tradesman, a man of toil, or of letters, you are yet in
   none of these a mere life-time creature, but, in all, you are doing
   battle for eternity, and receiving the discipline of an angel. Ennobled
   by such a thought, how is the soul armed against evil, made superior to
   passion, and assisted to act a worthy part in life's scenes. Now you
   find a power in the very sublimity of your trial. You surmount your
   narrow infirmities, you exercise yourself easily in great virtues, you
   rise into a lofty and glorious serenity of spirit, all because the
   inspiring presence of eternity fills your life.

   In this article of obligation to God, you are set also in immediate
   relation to God himself; and, in a relation so high, every thing in you
   and about you changes its import. The world is no more a mere physical
   frame--it exists rather as a theatre of religion. God is in it, every
   where, training his creature unto himself. He is clearly seen by the
   things that are made. The objects of science take a moral import. Human
   history becomes Divine history, the history of Providence. The soul's
   King is here on every side looking in upon it, encouraging to duty, and
   smiling upon what is rightly done. The intellect pierces through the
   shell of the senses, and discerns, everywhere, God. The reason is
   encircled by mysteries vast and holy. Imagination soars into her own
   appropriate realm of spirit and divinity, and all the faculties we
   have, are bathed in joy, and transfigured in the Creator's light. Set
   thus in a personal relation to God, every thing changes its aspect and
   its meaning.

   How different thus, one from the other, is the world of Voltaire, and
   the world of Milton. They look, if you please, upon the same sun and
   consider the light together. They walk the same shore of the same
   ocean, they meditate of its vastness and listen to the chorus of its
   waters. They feel the gentleness of the dew, and the majesty of the
   storm. They ask what is the meaning of man's history, what is birth,
   life, death; but how different all, are the things they look upon and
   the thoughts they cherish. One discovers only the clay world and its
   material beauties, flashes into shallow brilliancy and, weaving a song
   of surfaces, empties himself of all that he has felt or seen. But the
   other, back of all and through all visible things, has seen spirit and
   divinity. God is there, giving out himself to his children, and all the
   furniture of life, its objects, scenes and relations, take a religious
   meaning. A radiant glow and warmth pervade the world. The meanings are
   inexhaustible. Nothing is wearisome or dull, or mean; for nothing can
   be that is dignified by God's presence and ordered by his care to serve
   a religious use.

   It is also a great fact, as regards a due impression of obligation to
   God, and of what is conferred in it, that it raises and tones the
   spiritual emotions of obedience and, into a key of sublimity, which is
   the completeness of their joy. For ye are complete in him, says our
   apostle, well knowing that it is not what we are in ourselves that
   makes our completeness, but that our measure of being is full, only
   when we come unto God as an object and unite ourselves to the good and
   great emotions of God. This brings all high affinities and affections
   into play; for, without God, as an object for the soul to admire, love,
   and worship, it were only an incomplete nature, an instrument of music
   without a medium of sound. True, the cowardly spirit of guilt finds no
   such happiness in being related to God, and would even shun the thought
   of any such relation. Therefore some will even argue against religious
   obligation, because it introduces fear, and fear, they say, is a base
   and uncomfortable passion. Rather say that the guilt is base, by which
   God is offended, and confidence changed to fear. Neither forget that
   one thing is baser for the guilty even than fear, and that is not to
   fear. Besides, it is a part of he blessing and greatness of obligation
   that life is thus made critical, and that obedience is thus intensified
   in its joy, by great and fearful emotions. The more critical,
   therefore, life is, without shaking our courage, the closer are we to
   sublimity of feeling; for in all sublimity there is an element of fear.
   And so the greatness of God, the infinitude of his nature, the majesty
   of his word and will, the purity, justice, and severe perfection of his
   character,--all these bring a sense of fear to the mind, and, precisely
   on this account, God, as an object, will raise every good mind to a
   perpetual sublimity of feeling, and in that mar ner fill out the
   measure of its possible joy; for joy is never fall, save when the soul
   quivers with awe, and the beatitude itself rises to a pitch of
   fearfulness. And thus it is that obligation to God is precisely that
   which is needed to make our good complete; for this only sets our mind
   before an object that can sufficiently move it. Before Him, all the
   deep and powerful emotions that lie in the vicinity of fear are waked
   into life; every cord of feeling is pitched to its highest key or
   capacity, and the soul quivers eternally in the sacred awe of God and
   his commandments; thrilled as by the sound of many waters, or the roll
   of some anthem that stirs the framework of the worlds.

   On this subject, too, experimental proofs may be cited, such as ought
   to leave no doubt and even no defect of impression. Would that I could
   refer you each to his own experience; which I can not, because, by the
   supposition, I am speaking to those that have had no such experience
   And yet there have been many who, without any specially religious
   habit, have discovered still this truth, in its regulative and
   otherwise beneficent influence on their life. A few years before his
   death, the great statesman of New England, having a large party of
   friends dining with him at Marshfield, was called on by one of the
   party, as they became seated at the table, to specify what one thing he
   had met with in his life which had done most for him, or contributed
   most effectually to the success of his personal history. After a
   moment, he replied,--"The most fruitful and elevating influence I have
   ever seemed to meet has been my impression of obligation to God."
   Precisely in what manner the benefit was supposed to accrue I am not
   informed; probably, however, as an influence that raised the pitch of
   his mind, gave balance and clearness to his judgments, and set him on a
   moral footing in his ideas and principles, such as certified his
   consciousness as a speaker, and added insight and energy to his words
   Whatever may have been the particular benefits of which he spoke, the
   scene, as described by one present, was one most impressive in its
   dignity. He dropped the knife, as if turned to some better hospitality,
   and went on for many minutes in a discourse on his theme, unfolding it
   with wonderful beauty and freshness. The guests were taken by surprise,
   and sat listening with intense wonder at the exposition he was making,
   and still more at the subdued, yet lifted, manner, by which his feeling
   was attested,--agreeing generally, as they fell into little groups
   afterward, that he probably never spoke with a finer eloquence.

   But there are higher and holier witnesses and a great cloud of them,
   whose testimony ought to be more convincing. Thus, if you will but open
   the word of God's truth and listen to the songs that break out there,
   under God's statutes; if you will behold the good of past ages bending
   over God's law, as the spring of their sweetest enjoyments, crying
   each,--O, how love I thy law; if you will observe, too, what
   enlargement and freedom of soul they find in their obedience, and how
   they look upon the mere natural life of the flesh as bondage in
   comparison; if you will see how they disarm all their trials and
   dangers by this same obedience; how they come away to God from the
   scorching sands of their pilgrimage, as to the shadow of a great rock,
   and refresh their fainting spirits by singing the statutes of the Lord;
   if you will see what a character of courage, and patience, and
   self-sacrifice they receive; how all great sentiments, such as carry
   their own dignity and blessing with them, spring up in the rugged
   trials of duty and obedience to God; then, last of all, if you will
   dare to break over the confines of mortality ascending to look on, as
   spectator, in that world of the glorified, where the law of God makes
   full illustration of its import in the high experiences it nourishes
   and the benign society it organizes, you will, by that time get, I am
   sure, an impression of the bliss, and greatness, and glory of
   obligation to God, such as will profoundly instruct you. What seems to
   you now to be a most unwelcome constraint, or even an annoyance to your
   peace, you will thus find reason, after all, to believe is only the
   best and dearest privilege vouchsafed you.

   Arresting my argument here, to what, in conclusion, shall I more fitly
   draw you than to that which is, in truth, the point established, viz.,
   the fact that it is only religion, the great bond of love and duty to
   God, that makes our existence valuable or even tolerable. Without this,
   to live were only to graze. We could not guess why we exist, or care to
   exist longer. If responsibility to God is felt as a constraint, if it
   makes you uneasy and restive, better this than to find no real import
   in any thing. If you chafe, it is still against the throne of order,
   and there is some sense of meaning in that. If God's will is heavy on
   you, the protection it extends is not. If the circle of your motion is
   restricted, it is only that the goodness of Jehovah is drawing itself
   more closely round you. If you tremble, it is not because of the cold.
   If still you sigh over the emptiness of your experience, it might be
   even more empty; for you do, at least, know that every thing in life is
   now become great and momentous. You can not make it seem either futile
   or insignificant. If you are only a transgressor, still the liveliest
   thoughts and the mot thrilling truths that ever visit your mind are
   such as come from the throne of duty. Religion religion!-it is the
   light of the world, the sun of its warmth, the zest of all its works.
   Without this, the beauties of the world are but splendid gewgaws, the
   stars of heaven glittering orbs of ice, and, what is yet far worse and
   colder, the trials of existence profitless and unadulterated miseries.

   How convincing, how appalling a proof then is it, of some dire disorder
   and depravation in mankind, that when obligation to God is the spring
   of all that is dearest, noblest in thought, and most exalted in
   experience, we are yet compelled to urge it on them, by so many
   entreaties, and even to force it on their fears, by God's threatened
   penalties. What does it mean, this strange, suicidal aversion to God's
   statutes; that which ought to be our song, endurable only as we are
   held to it by terrors and penalties of fire? Nay, worse, if possible,
   you shall even hear, not seldom, the men that say they love God's
   statutes, and who therefore ought to be singing on their way,
   complaining of their dearth and dryness, and the necessary vanity of
   their experience. Let these latter see that the vanity they complain of
   is the cheat of their own self-devotion, and the littleness of their
   own empty heart. Let them pray God to enlarge their heart, and then
   they will run the way of God's commandments with true lightness and
   freedom. All this moping ends, when the fire of duty kindles. As to the
   other and larger class, who are living, confessedly, in no terms of
   obligation to God, let them see, first of all, what they gain by it;
   how the load of life's burden chafes them; how they are crushed,
   crippled, wearied, confounded, when they try to get their songs out of
   this world and the dust itself of their pilgrimage; then go to God, and
   set their life on the footing of religion, or duty to God which if they
   do, it shall be all gladness and peace; for the rhythm of all God's
   works and worlds chimes with his eternal law of duty.

   Nothing is more certain or clear, than that human souls are made for
   law, and so for the abode of God. Without law therefore, without God,
   they must even freeze and die. Hence, even Christ himself, must needs
   establish and sanctify the law; for the deliverance and liberty he
   comes to bring are still to be sought only in obedience. Henceforth
   duty is the brother of liberty, and both rejoice in the common
   motherhood of law. And just here, my friends, is the secret of a great
   part of your misery and of the darkness that envelops your life.
   Without obligation you have no light, save what little may prick
   through your eyelids. Only he that keeps God's commandments walks in
   the light. The moment you can make a very simple discovery, viz., that
   obligation to God is your privilege and is not imposed as a burden,
   your experience will teach you many things,--that duty is liberty, that
   repentance is a release from sorrow, that sacrifice is gain, that
   humility is dignity, that the truth from which you hide is a healing
   element that bathes your disordered life, and that even the penalties
   and terrors of God are the artillery only of protection to his realm.

   Such and no other is the glad ministry of religion. Say not, when we
   come to you tendering its gifts, as we do today, that you are not
   ready, that you are not sufficiently racked by remorse and guilty
   conviction, that you have spent, as yet, no sorrowing days or sleepless
   nights,--what can these do for you? God wants none of these; he only
   wants you to accept him as your privilege. When he calls you to
   repentance and new obedience, this is what he means; that you quit your
   madness, cease to gore yourself by your sins, come to your right mind,
   and accept, as a privilege, his good, eternal law. Giving thus your
   life to duty, let it, from this time forth, suffuse alike your trials
   and enjoyments with its own pure gladness, and let the self-approving
   dignity and greatness of a right mind be gilded--visibly and
   consciously gilded--by the smile of God. And, as the good and great
   society of the blessed is to be settled ill this glorious harmony of
   law, and the statutes of the Lord are to be the song of their
   consolidated joy and rest, sing them also here; and, in all life's
   changes, in the dark days and the bright, in sorrow and patience and
   wrong, in successes and hopes and consummated labors,--everywhere
   adhere to this, and have it as the strength of your days, that your
   obligations to God are the best and highest privilege he gives you.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                      XII

HAPPINESS AND JOY.

   John xv. 11.--"These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might
   remain in you, and that your joy might be full."

   CHRIST enters the world, bringing joy;--Good tidings of great joy, cry
   the angels, which shall be to all people. So now he leaves it,
   bestowing his gospel as a gift of joy,--These things have I spoken unto
   you, that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full.
   This testament of his joy he also renews in his parting prayer. And now
   come I to thee, and these things I speak in the world, that they might
   have my joy fulfilled in themselves. "Man of sorrows" though we call
   him, still he counts himself the man of joy.

   Would that I could bring you into his meaning, when he thus speaks, and
   assist you to realize the unspeakable import which it has to him. It is
   an impression deeply rooted in the minds of men that the Christian life
   is a life of constraint, hardship, loss, penance, and comparative
   suffering; Christ, you perceive, has no such conception of it, and no
   such conception is true. Contrary, to this, I shall undertake to show
   that it is a life of true joy, the profoundest and only real joy
   attainable,--not a merely future joy, to be received hereafter, as the
   reward of a painful and sad life here, but a present, living, and
   completely full joy, unfolded in the soul of every man whose fidelity
   and constancy permit him to receive it.

   To clear this truth and show it forth, in the proper light of evidence,
   it is necessary, first of all, to exhibit a mistake which clouds the
   judgments, almost or quite universally, of those who are not in the
   secret of the christian joy, as revealed to a religious experience. It
   is the mistake of not distinguishing between happiness and joy, or of
   sup. posing them to be really one and the same thing. It is the
   mistake, indeed, not merely of their judgment, but of their practice;
   for they all go after happiness without so much as a thought, more
   commonly, of any thing higher or better. Happiness, they assume, and in
   their practice say, is the real joy of existence, beyond which and
   different from which there is, in kind, no other.

   Now there is even a distinction of kind between the two, a distinction
   beautifully represented in the words them selves. Thus happiness,
   according to the original use of the term, is that which happens, or
   comes to one by a hap, that is, by an outward befalling, or favorable
   condition. Some good is conceived, out of the soul, which comes to it
   as a happy visitation, stirring in the receiver a pleasant excitement.
   It is what money yields, or will buy; dress, equipage, fashion,
   luxuries of the table; or it is settlement in life, independence, love,
   applause, admiration, honor, glory, or the more conventional and public
   benefits of rank, political standing, victory, power. All these stir a
   delight in the soul, which is not of the soul, or its quality, but from
   without. Hence they are looked upon as happening to the soul and, in
   that sense, create happiness. We have another word from the Latins,
   which very nearly corresponds with this from the Saxons; viz., fortune.
   For, whatever befell the soul, or came to it bringing it pleasure, was
   considered to be its good chance, and was called fortunate. I suppose,
   indeed, that there is no language in the world that does not contain
   this idea, just because all mankind are after benefits that will stir
   pleasure in the soul, without regard to its quality; after happiness,
   after fortune.

   But joy differs from this, as being of the soul itself, originating in
   its quality. And this appears in the original form of the word; which,
   instead of suggesting a hap, literally denotes a leap, or spring. Here
   again also the Latins had exult, which literally means a leaping forth.
   The radical idea then of joy is this; that the soul is in such order
   and beautiful harmony, has such springs of life opened in its own
   blessed virtues, that it pours forth a sovereign joy from within. The
   motion is outward and not toward, as we conceive it to be in happiness.
   It is not the bliss of condition, but of character. There is, in this,
   a well-spring of triumphant, sovereign good, and the soul is able thus
   to pour out rivers of joy into the deserts of outward experience. It
   has a light in its own luminous center, where God is, that gilds the
   darkest nights of external adversity, a music charming all the stormy
   discords of outward injury and pain into beats of rhythm, and melodies
   of peace.

   I ought, perhaps, to say that the original distinction between these
   two words, thus sharply defined, is not always regarded; I have traced
   the distinction only for the convenience of my present subject, and not
   because the words are always used, or must be, in this manner. In their
   secondary uses, words are often applied more loosely, and so it has
   fallen out with these, which are used, by the common class of writers
   indiscriminately, one for the other. Still it will be seen that one of
   our English poets, Mr. Coleridge, distinguished always for the
   exactness of his language, uses them both in immediate connection, so
   as to preserve their exact distinction, without any apparent design to
   do so, or consciousness of the fact. Addressing a noble christian lady,
   he gives his conception of joy, as an all transforming, all victorious
   power, in virtuous souls, in terms like these:--


   "O, pure of heart, thou needest not ask of me,

   What this strong music of the soul may be,--

   What and wherein it doth exist,

   This light, this glory, this fair, luminous mist,

   This beautiful and beauty-making power.

   Joy, virtuous lady, joy that ne'er was given,

   Save to the pure and in their purest hour,

   Life and life's effluence, cloud at once and shower,

   Joy, lady, is the spirit and the power

   That wedding nature to us gives in dower

   A new earth and new heaven,--

   We in ourselves rejoice."

   Immediately after, without any thought of drawing the contrast, he
   speaks of his own folly, with regret, because he was caught by the
   temptations of fortune and now endures the bitter penalty.


   "Fancy made me dreams of happiness;

   For hope grew round me like the twining vine,

   And fruits and foliage, not my own, seemed mine."

   The picture he draws for himself is the picture, alas! of the general
   folly of mankind. Their "fancy makes them dreams of happiness;"
   promising to bless them in what may be gathered "round" them in "fruits
   and foliage not their own;" that is, not of themselves but external.
   All good, they fancy, is in condition, not in character. They think of
   happiness, go after happiness, and have, also how generally, no thought
   of joy.

   And yet we have many and various symbols of joy about us, from which we
   might well enough take the hint, as it would seem, of some possible
   felicity that is freer and higher in quality than the mere pleasures of
   fortune, or condition. The sportive children, too full of physical life
   to be able even to restrain their activity; the birds of the morning
   pouring out their music simply because it is in them, ought to suggest
   the possibility of some free, manly joy that is nobler than happiness.
   Precisely this too we have been permitted, thank God, to look upon, in
   the examples of goodness, and to hear in the report of history; for
   history is holding up her holy examples ever before us, showing us the
   saints of God singing out their joy together in caves and dens of the
   earth at dead of night, showing too the souls of her martyrs issuing,
   with a shout, from the fires that crisp their bodies.

   Again, it is necessary, in order to a right conception of the meaning
   of christian joy, as now defined, that we discover how to dispose of
   certain facts, or incidents, which commonly produce a contrary
   impression.

   Thus, when the Saviour bequeathes his joy to us, and prays to have it
   fulfilled in us, it will naturally be remembered that he lives a
   persecuted and abused life, that he passes through an agony to his
   death, and dies in a manner most of all ignominious and afflictive.
   Where then is the joy of which he speaks, or which he prays to have
   bestowed upon us? Are burdens, toils, sorrows, persecutions,
   crucifixions, joys?

   To this I answer that they may, in one view, be such, and in his case
   actually were. He was a truly afflicted being, a man of sorrows in the
   matter of happiness; that is, in the outward condition, or befalling of
   his earthly state; still he had ever within a joy, a center of rest, a
   consciousness of purity and harmony, a spring of good, an internal
   fullness which was perfectly sufficient. And, indeed, we may call it
   one of the highest points of sublimity in his life,' that he reveals
   the essentially victorious power of joy in the divine nature itself;
   for God, in the contradiction of sinners, in the wrongs, disorders,
   ungrateful re turns, and disgusting miseries of his sinful subjects,
   suffers a degree of abhorrence and pain that may properly be called so
   much of unhappiness; and he would even be an unhappy being were it not
   that the love, and patience, and redeeming tenderness he pours into
   their bosom, are to him a welling up eternally of conscious joy;--joy
   the more sublime, because of its inherent and victorious excellence.
   And exactly so he represents himself, in the incarnate person of
   Christ. In his parable of the shepherd, calling in his neighbors to
   rejoice with him over the sheep he has found, he opens the secret
   consciousness of joy he feels himself, as being that shepherd. His
   manner too was sometimes that of exultation even, as when the
   evangelist, noticing his deep inward joy of heart, says,--In that hour
   Jesus rejoiced in spirit. And then, how much does it signify, when
   coming to the close of his career, and just about to finish it by a
   suffering death, he says, glancing backward in thought over all he has
   experienced,--"My joy"--bequeathing it to his disciples, as the dearest
   legacy he can give, the best, last wish he is able to express! What
   then does it signify of real privation, or loss, to become his
   follower!

   But it requires, you will say, the admission of serious and indeed of
   painful thought in us to begin such a life, the solemn review of our
   character, the discovery of our sin, the sense of our shame and
   bondage, and our miserably lost condition under it; sorrow, repentance,
   self-renunciation, the loss of all things. The whole prospect, in
   short, which is opened, in coming to Christ, is painfully forbidding.
   The gospel even requires of us, in so many words, to cut off right
   hands, and pluck out right eyes, and deny and crucify ourselves, and be
   poor in spirit, and pass through life under a cross. Where then is the
   place for joy? how can the christian life be called a life of joy?

   It is not, I answer, in these things, taken simply by themselves. But
   receive an illustration: consider, a moment, what labors, cares,
   self-denials, restrictions of freedom, limitations of present pleasure,
   all men have to suffer in the way of what is called success; what
   application the scholar must undergo to win the distinctions of genius,
   what dangers and privations the hero must encounter to command the
   honors of victory. Are all these made unhappy because of the losses
   they are obliged to make? Are they not rather raised in feeling on this
   very account? If they all gained their precise point, or standing of
   success, by mere fortune, as by a ticket in some lottery, would the
   sacrifices and labors, thus avoided, be a clear saving, or addition to
   their happiness? Contrary to this, it would render their successes
   almost or quite barren of satisfaction.

   But how is this? There are so many hard burdens and painful losses, or
   sacrifices, and yet they subtract nothing, we say, but rather add to
   the real amount of enjoyment, in the successes gained by endurance and
   industry! There appears to be something bordering on contradiction here
   how shall we solve it?

   The solution is easy, viz., that the, sacrifice made is s sacrifice of
   happiness, a sacrifice of ease pleasure, comfort of condition; and the
   gain made is a gain of something more ennobling and more consciously
   akin to greatness, a gain that partakes, as far as any outward success
   can, the nature of joy. The man of industry and enterprise, the
   scholar, the statesman, the hero, says within himself these are not
   gifts of fortune to me, they are my conquests; tokens of my patience,
   economy, application, fortitude, integrity. In them his soul is
   elevated from within. He has a higher consciousness, and a felicity, of
   course, that partakes, in some remote degree, of the sublime nature of
   joy. It is not condition, or things about him, making him happy, but it
   is the fire kindling within, the soul awaking to joy as a creative and
   victorious energy; and, in this view, it is a faint realization, on the
   footing of a mere worldly life, of the immense superiority of joy to
   happiness. And it will be found, accordingly, as a matter of fact, that
   men, even worldly men, despise and nauseate mere happiness, if we hold
   the word to its strictest and most proper meaning. Using it more
   loosely, they fancy, and will say, that they are after happiness. Still
   the instinct of a higher life is in them and they really despise what
   they do not conquer. None but the tamest and most abject will sit down
   to be nursed by fortune. All that have any real manhood we see cutting
   their way through severities and toils, that promise achievement, or a
   sense of victory. In such a truth, meeting your eyes on every hand, you
   may see how it is possible for the repentances, sacrifices,
   self-denials, and labors of the christian life, to issue in joy. If
   Christ requires you literally to renounce all happiness, all good of
   condition, nothing is more clear than the possibility that even this
   may issue in a most complete and sovereign joy.

   Or take an illustration, somewhat different, of the nature of these
   christian struggles and sacrifices. A great and noble spirit, some
   archangel or prince of the sky, who is highest in his mold of all the
   forms of created being, has somehow come under a conscious respect, we
   will suppose, to condition; fallen out of joy and become a lover of
   fortune or happiness. He finds that he is looking for good only in
   objects round him, and in things that imply no dignity of soul, or
   merit of quality in him; shows and equipages, liveries, social rank,
   things that please His appetite, or his lusts. He finds that he is
   living for these, and really makes nothing of any higher good; living
   as if there were no fountains of good to be opened within; or as if,
   being only a vegetable, there could be nothing for him better than just
   to feel what the rain, and sun, and soil of outward condition give him
   to feel. He blushes at the discovery, and drops his head. And, as he
   begins to weep, a thought of fire strikes out from his immortality, and
   he says,--No, it shall not be. God made me, not to be under and subject
   to things about me, or to ask my happiness at their hands. Rather was
   it for me to be above all creatures, as I was before them in order;
   having my joy in the greatness of my spirit, and the victorious freedom
   and fullness of my life. O, I hear the call of my God! I will arise and
   be what he commands me to be. These felicities of fortune shall tempt
   me and humble me no more. I cast them off, I renounce them forever!

   In the execution, then, of such a purpose, you see him go to his work.
   That he may clear himself of the dominion of things, he gives up all
   his outward splendors of state and show, makes a loss of all his
   resources and even comforts, and, finding his soul still looking
   covertly after the goods she has lost, he goes to frequent voluntary
   fasting, that he may clear himself yet more effectually from his
   bondage. He is not yet free. He finds the pampered spirit of
   self-indulgence still asking for ease, and indisposing him to victory.
   Then he asks for labor, seeks out something to be done, asks it of his
   God to give him some hard service, nay a warfare, if he will, that his
   soul may fight herself clear.

   Now, the question I have to ask is this,--when you look upon the
   sacrifices and struggles of this great being, his losses, repentances,
   self-mortifications, works and warfares, does it seem to you that he is
   growing miserable under them? Do you not see how his consciousness
   rises in elevation, as he clears himself of his humiliating bondage;
   how his soul finds springs of joy opening in herself, as the good of
   condition falls off and perishes; how every loss disencumbers him; how
   every toil, and fasting, and fight, as it clears him more of the notion
   or thought of happiness, lifts him into a joy as much more ennobled as
   it is more sovereign? Nay, you can hardly look on, as you see him fight
   his holy purpose through, without being kindled and exalted in feeling
   yourself by the sublimity of his warfare.

   But, exactly this is the true conception of the sacrifices required in
   the christian life. They are all required to emancipate the soul and
   raise it above its servile dependence on condition. They are losses of
   mere happiness, and for just that reason they are preparations of joy.

   Having disposed, in this manner, of what may seem to be facts opposed,
   or adverse to the supposition that christian sacrifice and piety
   support a victorious joy, I will now undertake to show the positive
   reality itself.

   And here we notice, first of all, the fact that, in a life of
   selfishness and sin, there is a well-spring of misery, which is now
   taken away. No matter what, or however fortunate, the external
   condition of an unbelieving, evil mind, there is yet a disturbance, a
   bitterness, a sorrow within, too strong to be mastered by any outward
   felicity. The whole internal nature is in a state of discord. The
   understanding, conscience, will, affections, appetites, imaginations,
   make a battle-field of the breast, and the unhappy subject is rasped,
   irritated, bittered, filled with fear, shamed by self-reproaches, stung
   by guilty convictions, gnawed by remorse, jealous, envious, hateful,
   lustful, discontented, fretful, living always under a sky in which some
   kind of storm is raging. And this discord is the misery, the hell of
   sin. O, if men had only some contrary experience of the heavenly peace,
   how great this misery would seem. And yet they know it not, they even
   dare to imagine, sometimes, that they are happy; just because their
   experience has brought no contrasts, to reveal the torment they suffer.
   Still they break out notwithstanding, now and then, with impatience,
   and vent their uneasiness in complaints that show how poorly they get
   on. They even testify, in words, that life is a burden. It is a burden,
   a much heavier and more galling burden than they know, and will be,
   even though they have all gifts of fortune, all honors and applauses
   crowded upon them, to make them happy. How much then does it signify,
   that Christ takes away this burden, restores this discord. For Christ
   is the embodied harmony of God, and he that receives him settles into
   harmony with him. My peace I give unto you, is the Saviour's word, and
   this peace of Christ is the equanimity, dignity, firmness, serenity,
   which made his outwardly afflicted life appear to flow in a calmness so
   nearly sublime. Bring any most fortunate of worldly minds into this
   peace, and the mere negative power of it, in quelling the soul's
   discords, would even seem to be a kind of translation. Just to
   exterminate the evil of the mind, and clear the sovereign hell which
   sin creates in it, would suffice to make a seeming paradise.

   Besides there is a fact more positive,--the soul is such a nature that,
   no sooner is it set in peace with itself than it becomes an instrument
   in tune, a living instrument, discoursing heavenly music in its
   thoughts, and chanting melodies of bliss, even in its dreams. We may
   even say, apart from all declamation, for such is its nature, that when
   a soul is in this harmony, no fires of calamity, no pains of outward
   torment can, for one moment, break the sovereign spell of its joy. It
   will turn the fires to freshening gales, and the pains to sweet
   instigations of love and blessing.

   Thus much we say, looking only at the soul's nature, its necessary
   distraction under the power of evil, its necessary blessedness in the
   harmony of rectitude. But we must ascend to a plane that is higher, and
   consider, more directly, what pertains to its religious nature. Little
   conception have we of its joy, or capacities of joy, till we see it
   established in God. The christian soul is one that has come unto God,
   and rested in the peace of God. It dares to call him Father, without
   any sense of daring. It is in such confidence toward him, that it even
   partakes His confidence in Himself. It is strong with his strength,
   having all its faculties in a glorious play of energy. It endures
   hardness with facility. It turns adversity into peace, for it sees a
   friendly hand ministering only good in What it suffers. In dark times
   it is never anxious; for God is its trust and God will suffer no harm
   to befall it. Having the testimony within that it pleases God, it
   approves itself in the holy smile of God, that consciously rests upon
   it. Divinely guided, walking in the Spirit, it is raised by a kind of
   inspiration. It sees God and knows him by an immediate and ever-present
   knowledge; according even to the promise,--Blessed are the pure in
   heart, for they shall see God. It is consciously ennobled, in this
   manner, by the proximity of God, expanded in volume, raised in
   greatness, thrilled by the eternal sublimities of God's deep nature and
   counsel. To a mind thus tempered, fortune can add little, and as little
   take away. Nothing can reach or, at least, break down a soul
   established in this lofty consciousness. It partakes a divine nature,
   it is become a kind of divine creature, and the clouds that overcast
   the sky of other men, sail under it. The hail that beats other men to
   the ground, the reproaches, execrations, conspiracies, and lies, under
   which other men are cowed, can not hail upward, and therefore can not
   reach the hight of this divine confidence. Blessed are ye when men
   shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against
   you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad. Such is the joy
   Christ bequeathed to his followers; such the good tidings of great joy
   that he brought into the world.

   There is also, in the christian type of character, as related to God, a
   peculiarity which needs, in this connection, to be mentioned by itself.
   It is a character, rooted in the divine love, and in that view is a
   sovereign bliss welling up from within; able thus to triumph and sing,
   independent of all circumstance and condition. A human soul can love
   every body, in despite of every hindrance, -and by that love, can bring
   every body into its enjoyment. No power is strong enough to forbid this
   act of love, none therefore strong enough to conquer the joy of love;
   for whoever is loved, even though it be an enemy, is and must be
   enjoyed. Besides it is a peculiarity of love that it takes possession
   of its neighbor's riches and successes, and makes them its own. Loving
   him, it loves all that he has for his sake, whether he be friend or
   enemy; enjoys his corn forts, looks on his prospects and all the
   beauties of his gardens and fields, with a pleasure as real as if they
   were legally its own. Love, in fact, overleaps all titles of law, and
   becomes a kind of universal owner; appropriates all wealth, and beauty,
   and blessing to itself, and enters into the full enjoyment. It
   understands the declaration well,--for all things are yours. Having
   such resources of joy in its own nature, the word that signifies love,
   in the original of the New Testament, is radically one with that which
   signifies joy. According to the family registers of that language, they
   are twins of the same birth. Love is joy, and all true joy is
   love,--they can not be separated. And Christ is an exhibition to us of
   this fact in his own person, a revelation of God's eternal joy as being
   a revelation of God's eternal love; coming down thus to utter in our
   ears this glorious call, as a voice sounding out from God's
   eternity,--Enter ye into the joy of your Lord. He finds us hunting
   after condition; the low and questionable felicity of happiness. He
   says, behold my poverty, look on my burden of contempt, take the gauge
   of my labors, note the insults and wrongs of my enemies, watch with me
   in my agony, follow me to my cross. This, O, mortal! this, worshipper
   of happiness! is my joy. I give it to remain in you, that your joy, as
   mine, might be full. Enter into this love as God made you to love, love
   with me your enemies, labor and pray with me for their recovery to God,
   make my cause your cause, take up my cross and follow me, and then, in
   the loss of all things, you shall know that love is the sovereignty of
   good, the highest throne of sufficiency to which any being, created or
   uncreated, can ascend. Coming up into love, you clear all dependence of
   condition, you ascend into the very joy of God, and this is my joy.
   This I have taught you, this I now bequeath to your race.

   Now it is precisely in this love, and nowhere else, that the followers
   of Christ have actually found so great joy. This is their light, the
   day-star dawning in their hearts, the renewing of their inward man,
   their joy of faith, the believing that makes them rejoice with joy
   unspeakable and full of glory. By this they become exceeding joyful in
   all their tribulations. They are raised above the world and conquer it,
   in the loss they make of it;--dying, and still able to live; chastened,
   but not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many
   rich; having nothing, yet possessing all things. Their heart is
   enlarged in the divine love, and is become, in that manner, a fountain
   of essential, eternal, indestructible, and sovereign joy They realize,
   in a word, the very testament of Christ,--His joy is in them, and their
   joy is full.

   Mark now some of the inspiring and quickening thoughts that crowd upon
   us in the subject reviewed. And--

   1. Joy is for ail men. It does not depend on circumstance, or
   condition; if it did, it could only be for the few It is not the fruit
   of good luck, or of fortune, or even of outward success, which all men
   can not have. It is of the soul, or the soul's character; it is the
   wealth of the soul's own being, when it is filled with the spirit of
   Jesus, which is the spirit of eternal love. If you want, therefore, to
   know who of mankind can have the gift of joy, you have only to ask who
   of them have souls; for every soul is made to be a well-spring of
   eternal blessedness, and will be, if only it permits the waters of the
   eternal love to rise within. It can have right thoughts and true, and
   be set in everlasting harmony with itself. It can love, and so; without
   going about to find what shall bless it, it has all the material of
   blessing in itself; resources in its own immortal nature, as a creature
   dwelling in the light of God, which can not fail, or be exhausted;--all
   men are for joy, and joy for all.

   2. It is equally evident that the reason why they do not nave it, is
   that they do not seek it where it is,--in the receiving of Christ and
   the spirit of his life. They go after it in things without, not in
   character within; they have all faith in fortune, none in character. So
   they build palaces, and accumulate splendors about them, and keep s
   desert within. And then, since the desert within can not be made to
   rejoice in the gewgaws and vanities without, they sigh, they are very
   melancholy, the world is a hard world, vanity of vanities, all is
   vanity. Let them cease this whimpering about the vanities and come to
   Christ; let them receive his joy, and there is an end to the hunger.
   Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, and ye shall find rest to your
   souls. There is nothing hard in what I require. When I call you to
   renounce all and take up your cross and follow me, I only seek to
   withdraw you from the chase after happiness, that I may fill you with
   joy. My yoke is easy, therefore, and my burden is light. Ah I how many
   have found it to be exactly so! What surprise have they felt in the
   dawning of this Christian joy. They seemed about to lose every thing,
   and found themselves, instead, possessing all things.

   3. It is here seen to be important that we hold some rational and
   worthy conception of the heavenly felicity. How easy it is for the
   christian, who has tasted the true joy of Christ, to let go the idea of
   joy and slide into the pursuit only of happiness, or the good of
   condition. Worldly minds are in this vein always; they more generally
   do not even conceive any thing different, and the whole gravitation
   therefore of the world, both in its pursuits and opinions, is in this
   direction. Heaven itself is thought of as a place, a condition, a kind
   of paradise external, which has power to make every body happy. The
   question of universal salvation turns on just this point, inquiring
   whether all souls will be got into the happy place, not whether they
   will all break into eternity as carrying the eternal joy with them.
   Stated in that manner, the question is even too absurd for debate. I
   very much fear too that those teachers who propose religion to us as a
   problem only of happiness, calling us to Christ that we may get the
   rewards of happiness, the highest happiness. degrade our conceptions,
   and let us down below the truth. When we speak of joy, we do not speak
   of something we are after, but of something that will come to us, when
   we are after God and duty. It is a prize unbought, and is freest,
   purest in its flow, when it comes unsought. No getting into heaven, as
   a place, will compass it. You must carry it with you, else it is not
   there. You must have it in you, as the music of a well-ordered soul,
   the fire of a holy purpose, the welling up, out of the central depths,
   of eternal springs that hide their waters there. It is the rest of
   confidence, the blessedness of internal light and outflowing
   benevolence,--the highest form of life and spiritual majesty. Being the
   birth of character, it has eternity in it. Rising from within, it is
   sovereign over all circumstance and hindrance. It is the joy of the
   Lord in the soul of man, because it is joy like his, and because it is
   from Him, participated by the secret life of goodness.

   And this, my friends, is the glory of the heavenly state. If you have
   been thinking of heaven only, as a happy place, looking for it as the
   reward of some dull, lifeless service, arguing it for all men, as the
   place where God will show his goodness, by making blessed, loathsome
   and base souls, cheat yourselves no more by this folly. Consider only
   whether heaven be in you now. For heaven, as we have seen, is nothing
   but the joy of a perfectly harmonized being, filled with God and his
   love. The charter of it is,--He that overcometh shall inherit. It is
   the victorious energy of righteousness forever established in the soul,
   And this in us, pure and supreme, fulfills the glorious be quest of
   Christ our Lord,--that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy
   may be full. It remains,--it in full.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                      XIII

THE TRUE PROBLEM OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE.

   Revelations ii. 4.--"Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee,
   because thou hast left thy first love."

   THERE are some texts of scripture that suffer a much harder lot than
   any of the martyrs, because their martyrdom is perpetual; and this I
   think is one of the number. Two classes appear to concur in destroying
   its dignity; viz., the class who deem it a matter of cant to make any
   thing of conversion, and the class who make religion itself a matter of
   cant, by seeing nothing in it but conversion.

   My object, however, is not so much to balance these opposites, or even
   to recover the passage of scripture that is lost between them; but it
   is to clear the way of all christian experience, by showing what it
   does and how it proceeds. There are many disciples of our time who,
   like the Ephesian disciples, are to be warmly commended for their
   intended fidelity, and are yet greatly troubled and depressed by what
   appears to be a real loss of ground in their piety. Christ knows their
   works, approves their patience, commends their withdrawing always from
   them that are evil; testifies for them that they have withstood false
   teachers, with a wary and circumspect fidelity, made sacrifices,
   labored and not fainted; and yet they are compelled to sigh over a
   certain subsidence of that pure sensibility and that high inspiration,
   in which their disciples ship began. The clearness of that hour is
   blurred, the fresh joy interspaced with dryness. Omissions of duty are
   discovered which they did not mean; they do not en. joy the sacrifices
   they make as they once did, and make them often in a legal,
   self-constrained manner. Rallying themselves to new struggles, as they
   frequently do, to retrieve their losses, they simply hurry on their own
   will, and therefore thrust themselves out of faith only the more
   rapidly. The danger is, at this Ephesian point of depression, that not
   knowing what their change of phase really signifies, or under what
   conditions a real progress in holy character is to be made, they will
   finally surrender, as to a doom of retrogradation too strong to be
   resisted. I design, if possible, to bring them help, calling their
   attention directly to these two points:--

   I. The relation of the first love, or the beginning of the christian
   discipleship, to the subsequent life.

   II. The relation of the subsequent life, including its apparent losses,
   to the beginning.

   What we call conversion is not a change distinctly traceable in the
   experience of all disciples, though it is and must be a realized fact
   in all. There are many that grew up out of their infancy, or childhood,
   in the grace of Christ, and remember no time when they began to love
   him. Even such, however, will commonly remember a time, when their love
   to God and divine things became a fact so fresh, so newly conscious, as
   to raise a doubt, whether it was not then for the first time kindled.
   In other cases there is no doubt of a beginning,--a real, conscious,
   definitely remembered beginning; a new turning to God, a fresh-born
   christian love. The conversion to Christ is marked as distinctly as
   that of the Ephesian church, when coming over to Christ, from their
   previous idolatry. The love is consciously first love, a new revelation
   of God in the soul; a restored consciousness of God, a birth of joy and
   glorified song in the horizon of the soul's life, like that which burst
   into our sky when Jesus was born into the world. All things were
   new,--Christ was new, the word a new light, worship a new gift, the
   world a new realm of beauty shining in the brightness of its author:
   even the man himself was new to himself. Sin was gone, and fear also
   was gone with it. To love was his all, and he loved every thing. The
   day dawned in joy, and the thoughts of the night were songs in his
   heart. Then how tender, how teachable; in his conscience how true, in
   his works how dutiful. It was the divine childhood, as it were, of his
   faith, and the beauty of childhood was in it. This was his first love,
   and if all do not remember any precise experience of the kind, they do,
   at least, remember what was so far resembled to this as to leave no
   important distinction.

   I. What now is the import of such a state, what its relation to the
   subsequent life and character?

   It is not, I answer, what they assume, who conceive it to be only a new
   thought taken up by the subject himself which he may as naturally drop
   the next moment, or may go on to cultivate till it is perfected in a
   character. It is more, a character begun, a divine fact accomplished,
   in which the subject is started on a new career of regenerated liberty
   in good. I answer again that it is not any such thing as they assume it
   to be, who take it as a completed gift, which only needs to be held
   fast. It is less, far less than this. To God it is one of his
   beginnings, which he will carry on to perfection; to the subject
   himself it is the dawn of his paradise, an experience that will stand
   behind him as an image of the glory to be revealed before, an ideal set
   up, in his beatitude, of that state in which his soul is to be
   perfected and to find its rest. In one view, indeed, it is a kind of
   perfect state,--a state resembled to innocence. It is free, it is full
   of God, it is for the time without care. New born, as it were, the
   spirit of a babe is in it. The consciousness of sin is, for a time,
   almost or quite suspended,--sin is washed away, the heart is clean. The
   eye is single, as a child's eye. The spirit is tender, as a child's
   spirit,--so ingenuous, so pure in its intentions, so simple in its
   love, that it even wears the grace of a heavenly childhood.

   In this flowering state of beauty the soul discovers, and even has in
   its feeling the sense of perfection, and is thus awakened from within
   to the great ideal, in which its bliss is to be consummated. The
   perfection conceived too and set up as the mark of attainment, is
   something more than a form of grace to be hereafter realized. It is now
   realized, as far as it can be--the very citizenship of the soul is
   changed; it has gone over into a new world, and is entered there into
   new relations. But it has not made acquaintance there; it scarcely
   knows how it came in, or how to stay, and the whole problem of the
   life-struggle is, to become established in what has before been
   initiated.

   There is a certain analogy between this state, paradisaically
   beautiful, pure, and clean, and that external paradise in which our
   human history began. What could be more lovely and blessed, what in a
   certain formal sense more perfect than the upright, innocent,
   all-harmonious childhood of the first human pair. But it was beauty
   without strength, the ingenuous goodness of beings unacquainted with
   evil. A single breath of temptation is enough to sweep it all away. The
   only way to establish it is to lose it and regain it. Paradise lost and
   regained is not a conception only of the poet, but it is the grand
   world-problem of probation itself. No state of virtue is complete,
   however total the virtue, save as it is won by a conflict with evil,
   and fortified by the struggles of a resolute and even bitter
   experience. Somewhat in the same way, it is necessary that a christian
   should fight out the conquest of his paradise, in order to be really
   established in it. There is no absolute necessity that he should lose
   it, nor any such qualified necessity as there was that the first man
   should fall from his integrity; for he is, by the supposition, one who
   has learned already the bitterness of evil, by a life thus far steeped
   in the gall of it. He has been outside of his paradise, to look on it
   from thence, as Adam had not. He has only not been inside long enough
   to thoroughly understand the place. He will commonly never be
   established in it, therefore, till he knows it more experimentally, and
   gets wonted in it. And yet there are a few, as I verily believe, who
   never go outside again, from the moment of their first entering, but
   stay within, unfolding all their life long, as flowers, in their
   paradise,--trustful, ductile, faithful, and therefore unfaltering in
   their steadfastness.

   Still the probability that any one will continue in the clearness and
   freshness of his first love to God, suffering no apparent loss, falling
   into no. disturbance or state of self-accusing doubt, is not great. And
   where the love is really not lost, it will commonly need to be
   conquered again, over and over, and wrought into the soul by a
   protracted and resolute warfare. The germ that was planted as impulse
   must be nourished by discipline. What was initiated as feeling must be
   matured by holy application, till it becomes one of the soul's own
   habits.

   A mere glance at the new-born state of love discovers how incomplete
   and unreliable it is. Regarded in the mere form of feeling, it is all
   beauty and life. A halo of innocence rests upon it, and it seems a
   fresh made creature, reeking in the dews of its first morning. But how
   strange a creature is it to itself,--waking to the discovery of its
   existence, bewildered by the mystery of existence. An angel as it were
   in feeling, it is yet a child in self-understanding. The sacred and
   pure feeling you may plainly see is environed by all manner of defects,
   weaknesses, and half-conquered mischiefs, just ready to roll back upon
   it and stifle its life. The really sublime feeling of rest and
   confidence into which it has come, you will see is backed, a little way
   off, by causes of unrest, insufficiency, anxiousness and fear.
   Questions numberless, scruples, fluctuating moods, bad thoughts,
   unmanageable doubts, emotions spent that can not be restored by the
   will, novelty passing by and the excitements of novelty vanishing with
   it,--there is a whole army of secret invaders close at hand, and you
   may figure them all as peering in upon the soul, from their places of
   ambush, ready to make their assault. And what is worst of all, the
   confidence it has in the Spirit of God, and which, evenly held, would
   bear it triumphantly through, is itself unpracticed, and is probably
   underlaid by a suppressed feeling of panic, lest he should sometime
   take his leave capriciously. It certainly would not be strange, if the
   disciple, beset by so many defects and so little ripe in his
   experience, should seem for a while to lose ground, even while
   strenuously careful to maintain his fidelity. And then Christ will have
   somewhat against him. He will not judge him harshly and charge it
   against him as a crime that has no mitigations; it will only be a fatal
   impeachment of his discipleship, when he finally surrenders the
   struggle, and relapses into a prayerless and worldly life.

   The significance then of the first love as related to the subsequent
   life, is twofold. In the first place, it is the birth of a new,
   supernatural, and divine consciousness in the soul, in which it is
   raised to another plane, and begins to live as from a new point. And
   secondly, it is so much of a reality, or fact realized, that it
   initiates, in the subject, experimentally, a conception of that rest,
   that fullness, and peace, and joyous purity, in which it will be the
   bliss and greatness of his eternity to be established. In both
   respects, it is the beginning of the end; and yet, to carry the
   beginning over to the end, and give it there its due fulfillment,
   requires a large and varied trial of experience. The office and
   operation of this trial it now remains to exhibit as proposed.--

   II. In a consideration of the subsequent life, as related to the
   beginning, orfirst love. The real object of the subsequent life, as a
   struggle of experience, is to produce in wisdom what is there begotten
   as a feeling, or a new love; and thus to make a fixed state of that
   which was initiated only as a love. It is to convert a heavenly impulse
   into a heavenly habit. It is to raise the christian childhood into a
   christian manhood,--to make the first love a second or completed love;
   or, what is the same, to fulfill the first love, and give it a
   pervading fullness in the soul; such that the whole man, as a thinking,
   self-knowing, acting, choosing, tempted and temptible creature, shall
   coalesce with it, and be forever rested, immovably grounded in it.

   The paradise of first love is a germ, we may conceive, in the soul's
   feeling of the paradise to be fulfilled in its wisdom. And when the
   heavenly in feeling becomes the heavenly in choice, thought, judgment,
   and habit, so that the whole nature consents and rests in it as a known
   state, then is it fulfilled or completed. Then is the ideal awakened by
   the first love become a fact or attainment. See now, briefly, in what
   manner the experimental life works this fulfillment.

   At first the disciple knows, we shall see, very little of himself, and
   still less how to carry himself so as to meet the new state of divine
   consciousness, into which he is born. You may look upon him as
   literally a new, supernatural man, and just as a child has to learn the
   use of his own body, in handling, tasting, heaving, climbing, falling,
   running, so the new man learns, in the struggles of practical life, his
   own new nature,--how to work his thoughts, rule his passions, feed his
   wants, settle his choices, and clear his affections. Thus, at last, his
   whole nature becomes limber and quick to his love; so that the life he
   had in feeling, he can operate, express, fortify, and feed, At first,
   nothing co-operates in settled harmony with his new life; but, if he is
   faithful, he will learn how to make every thing in him work with it,
   and assist the edifying of his soul in love.

   A great point with him is the learning how to maintain his new
   supernatural relation of sonship and vital access to God. Conscious of
   any loss, or apparent separation, he is likely, at first, to throw
   himself out of God's peace only the more completely, by the panic he
   indulges, and the violent throes he makes to re-establish himself. The
   feeling in which he is raised to a participation of God can not
   instruct him how to maintain that participation, or to keep an open
   state of access. How to work his will, his inward suggestions and
   outward duties; how to shape his life and order his prayers, so as to
   set himself always before God, and command a ready approach, he knows,
   as yet, only by the guidance of his feeling. But the struggle of
   experience brings him into a growing acquaintance both with God and
   himself as related to God, removing in this manner his awkwardness, so
   that he is able to reject all false methods and all raw experiments,
   and address himself to God skillfully, as a friend will address a
   friend. He knows exactly how he must stand before God, to be one with
   him and abide in him. He comes into the secret of God easily and, as it
   were, naturally, and receives the manifestation of God as one who lives
   in the adoption of a son.

   In the same way, or by the same course of experience, he conceives more
   and more perfectly what is the true idea of character. At first,
   character is to him a mere feeling or impulse, a frame. Next, perhaps,
   it becomes a life of work and self-denial. Next a principle, nothing
   but a matter of principle. Next he conceives that it is something
   outwardly beautiful, a beautiful life. After a while, he discovers that
   he has been trying to mold what is spiritual by his mere natural taste,
   and forgotten the first love, as the animating life and divine
   principle of beauty, And so he draws himself on, by degrees, through
   all the variant phases of loss and self-criticism, to a more full and
   rounded conception of character, returning at last to that which lay in
   his first love. So that character is, at last conceived as a life whose
   action choice, thought, and expression are ail animated and shaped by
   the spirit of holiness and divine beauty which was first breathed into
   his feeling. Nothing is so difficult to settle as the conception of a
   perfect character; nothing, at the same time, so necessary. And every
   faithful christian will be conscious of a constantly progressive
   change, in his conception of what he is to be.

   A very great point to be gained, by the struggle of experience, is to
   learn when one has a right to the state of confidence and rest. At
   first the disciple measures himself wholly by his feeling. If feeling
   changes, as it will and must at times, then he condemns himself, and
   condemning himself perhaps without reason, he breaks his confidence
   toward God and stifles his peace. Then he is ready to die to get back
   his confidence, but not knowing how he lost it, he knows not where to
   find it. He had been at his business, and as that occupied his
   attention, it took off also somewhat of his feeling: charging this to
   the account of sin, and not to any want of experience in turning the
   mind so as to keep or recover its emotions, he put his conscience
   against him where it ought to have been his helper, and fell into the
   greater difficulty because he fell into mental confusion. Or perhaps he
   had played with his children, or he had talked in society about things
   not religious, in order to accommodate the circle he was in: this
   touched the delicate feeling of his soul; and, as feeling does not
   reason or judge, the wound was taken for admitted sin. On one occasion
   he did not give heed to some insignificant, or really absurd scruple.
   On another he declined some duty which really was no duty, and was
   better not to be done. In short, he was continually condemning and
   tormenting himself, and gratuitously forbidding himself all confidence
   toward God. But finally, after battering down his own confidence and
   stifling his love in this manner by self-discouragement for many years,
   he is corrected by God's Spirit and led into a discovery of himself and
   the world that is more just, ceases to condemn himself in that which he
   alloweth, so to allow himself in any thing which he condemneth; and now
   behold what a morning it is for his love! His perturbed, anxious state
   is gone. God's smile is always upon him. His peace flows down upon him
   as a river from the throne. His first love returns, henceforth to abide
   and never depart. Everywhere it goes with him, into all the callings of
   industry and business, into social pleasures and recreations, bathing
   his soul as a divine element.

   By a similar process he learns how to modulate and operate his will. On
   one side his soul was in the divine love. On the other he had his will.
   But, how to work his will so as perfectly to suit his love, he at first
   did not know. He accordingly took his love into the care of his will;
   for assuredly he must do all that is possible to keep it alive. He thus
   deranged all right order and health within by his violent
   superintendence, battered down the joy he wished to keep, and could not
   understand what he should do more; for, as yet, all he had done seemed
   to be killing his love. He had not learned that love flows down only
   from God, who is its object, and can not be manufactured within
   ourselves. But he discovers finally that it was first kindled by
   losing, for the time, his will. Understanding now that he is to lose
   his will in God's will, and abandon himself wholly to God, to rest in
   him and receive of his fullness; finding too that will is only a form
   of self-seeking, he makes a total loss of will, self, and all his
   sufficiency, whereupon the first love floods his nature again, and
   bathes him like a sea without a shore. And yet it will not be strange
   if he finds, within a year, that, as he once overacted his will in
   self-conduct, so now he is underacting it in quietism; that his love
   grows thin for want of energy, and, returning to his will again, he
   takes it up in God; dares to have plans and ends, and to be a person;
   wrestles with God and prevails with him; and so becomes, at last, a
   prince, acknowledged and crowned before him.

   His thinking power undergoes a similar discipline. At first, he doubted
   much, doubted whether he had a right to doubt, and whether he did
   doubt, and yet more how to get rid of his doubts. The clatter of his
   old, disordered, thinking nature began, ere long, to drown his love by
   the perpetual noise it made; old associations led in trains of evil
   suggestion, which, like armies of wrath, overran and desolated his
   soul. He attacked every one of them in turn and that kept him thinking
   of the base things he wanted to forget. He discovers, at length, that
   all he can do is to fill his capacity with something better,--his mind
   with truth, his heart with God and faith, his hands with duty, and all
   with the holy enthusiasm of christian hope; and then, since there is no
   room left for idle fancies and vain imaginations to enter, he is free,
   the torments of evil suggestion are shut away. The courses and currents
   of the soul are now cleared, and his thoughts, like couriers sent up
   through the empyrean, will return bringing visions of God and divine
   beauty to waken the pure first love and kindle its joyful flames.

   At first he had a very perplexing war with his motives. He feared that
   his motive was selfish, and then he feared that his fear was selfish.
   He dug at himself so intently, to detect his selfishness, as to create
   the selfishness he feared. The complications of his heart were
   infinite, and he became confused in his attempt to untwist them. He
   blamed his love to God because he loved him for his goodness, and then
   tried to love him more without any thought of his goodness. He was so
   curious, in fact, to know his motives that he knew nothing of them, and
   finally stifled his love in the effort to understand it, and act the
   critic over it. At length, after months or years it may be of
   desolation, he discovers, as he had never done before, that he was a
   child in his first love, and had a child's simplicity. And now he has
   learned simplicity by his trial! Falling now into that first
   simplicity, there to abide, because he knows it, the first love blooms
   again,--blooms as a flower, let us hope, that is never to wither. His
   motive is pure, because it is simple; and his eye, being single toward
   God, his whole body is full of light.

   Thus far it is supposed, in all the illustrations given, that the new
   love kindled by the Spirit has to maintain itself, in company with
   great personal defects in the subject. These defects are a constant
   tendency in him to defections that correspond. Whenever he yields to
   them, he suffers a loss which is, in that case, a guilty or blameable
   loss. But he will sometimes be reduced or let down, simply because, or
   principally because, he has too little skill or insight to avoid it.
   And this reduction will sometimes go so far as to be a kind of
   subsidence out of the supernatural into the natural state. He is
   confused and lost, and his very love appears to be quite dead. God is
   hidden, as it were, behind a veil, and can not be found. Duties kept
   up, as by the Ephesians, without liberty, yield no fruit of peace or
   blessing. And now, since it is not in the nature of a soul to stand
   empty and fight off evil, with no power left but a vacuum, it will not
   be strange if he lets in the world, grows light, covetous, ambitious,
   and has only a name to live. All this, in one view, is but thq working
   of his defects. Doubtless he is blameable, in a degree, though not as
   he would be if he had no such defects to contend with. Christ has
   somewhat against him, looks on him as one made subject to vanity not
   willingly, or willingly in part, and waits to restore him. His very
   losses too will be a lesson of experience really invaluable. He has
   learned his defects by his failures, and the day is not far distant
   when the dryness of his present experience will create, in his heart,
   an irrepressible longing for the recovery of the ground he has lost.
   For there is yet, slumbering in his memory, the dim ideal of a first
   love to Christ. Around that ideal are gathered many distasteful
   recollections and associations; but there ii a faint, sweet light of
   beauty in the center. And now as, in turn, the world itself palls, that
   faint spot of light remembered as the dawn of love to Christ, will grow
   radiant and beam as a sun upon him. As a prodigal he will return; as a
   prodigal returning, be met a great way off, and welcomed by his
   forgiving and rejoicing father. Now he is in his love as one
   instructed. His defects are corrected by his failures, and, by a common
   paradox of experience, supplemented by his losses; and so he is
   prepared to stand fast in his love. Sometimes a very dull and carnal,
   or capricious nature will go through this kind of bad experience more
   than once, and then will appear to be saved only so as by fire. But,
   more commonly, the time past of one such misery will suffice.

   You perceive, in this review, how every thing in the subsequent life of
   the disciple is designed of God to fulfill the first love. A great part
   of the struggle which we call experience, appears to operate exactly
   the ether way; to confuse and stifle the first fire of the spirit.
   Still the process of God is contrived to bring us round, at last, to
   the simple state which we embraced, in feeling, and help us to embrace
   it in wisdom. Then the first love fills the whole nature, and the
   divine beauty of the child is perfected in the divine beauty of a
   vigorous and victorious manhood The beginning is the beginning of the
   end, the end the child and fruit of the beginning.

   I am well aware that some will be dissatisfied with a view of the
   christian life that appears to anticipate so many turns and phases, and
   so much of losing experience. They will think it better to take a
   key-note that is lower, and start upon a level that can be maintained.
   Thus, if. we say nothing of a conversion, or the high experience
   involved in that term, and commence a course of devout observances and
   church formalities; or if, taking a different method, we set ourselves
   to a careful and diligent self-culture, praying and worshipping as a
   part of the process, and for the sake of the effect, noting our
   defects, chastening our passions, cherishing our religious tastes and
   sentiments; then, in one or the other of these methods, we may go
   steadily on, it will be imagined, clear of all fluctuations,
   maintaining an even, respectable, and dignified piety. Yes, undoubtedly
   we may, and that for the very reason that we have no first love to
   lose, no fervors to be abated, and, in fact, no divine birth or
   experience at all. The piety commended is, in either case, a kind of
   stalagmite piety, built up from below, with the disadvantage of no
   drippings from above; a really cavernous formation, upon which the'
   true light of day never shone. In some cases, the soul may pass over in
   this manner imperceptibly, into some faint experience of God that is
   genuine; but the dignity it boasts is the dignity of a consistent
   poverty and ignorance of God, and nothing is more easy to be
   maintained. On the other hand, the very reason why there are so many
   phases, or seeming lapses, in christian experience, is not because it
   is false, but oftener because it is genuine; because God has really
   dawned upon the soul's faith, and kindled a fire supernatural in its
   love. Hence, to settle it into this high relation, as a properly known
   relation, is often a work of much time and difficulty. The problem is
   neither more nor less than to learn the way of God, and come into
   practical acquaintance with him. And how can this be done without a
   large experience of defeat and disasters endlessly varied. How can a
   being so weak and ignorant, knowing, at first, almost nothing of the
   high relations into which he has come, learn to walk evenly with God,
   save as he is instructed by many waverings, reactions, irregularities,
   and throes of losing experience. Grazing in the pasture ground of a
   mere human culture, we might show more plausibly; but now we move
   irregularly, just because we are in a level where the experience of
   nature does not instruct us. We lose ground, fall out of place, subside
   and waver, just because we are after something transcendent, something
   above us; climbing up unto God, to rest our eternity in him,--a being
   whom, as yet, we do not sufficiently know, and whom to know is life
   eternal. Therefore we best like that kind of life which appears least
   plausible in present show, well understanding that, if nothing more
   were in hand than simply to maintain a level march, on the footing of
   mere nature, there is no feeblest christian, or even no-christian, who
   could not do it triumphantly.

   The fact then of a truly first love, the grand christian fact of a
   spiritual conversion or regeneration, is no way obscured by the losing
   experiences that so often follow. On the contrary, its evidence is
   rather augmented by these irregularities and seeming defections. And,
   if it be more than nothing, then it is, of all mortal experiences, the
   chief; a change mysterious, tremendous, luminous, joyful, fearful,
   every thing which a first contact of acquaintance with God can make it.

   Where the transition to this state of divine consciousness, from a
   merely self-conscious life under sin, is inartificially made, and
   distorted by no mixtures of tumult from the subject's own eagerness, it
   is, in the birth, a kind of celestial state, like that of the
   glorified; clear, clean, peaceful, and full, wanting nothing but what,
   for the time, it does not know it wants;--the settled confidence, the
   practically instructed wisdom, the established and tried character, of
   the glorified. And yet all the better is it, imparadised in this glory,
   this first love, this regenerative life, this inward lifting of the
   soul's order, that a prize so transcendent is still, in a sense, to be
   won or fought out and gained as a victory. For life has now a meaning,
   and its work is great; as great, in fact, in the humblest walks and
   affairs as in the highest. And the more difficulties one has to
   encounter, within and without, the more significant and the higher in
   inspiration his life will be. The very troubles that others look on
   with pity, as if he had taken up a kind of piety more perilous and
   burdensome than was necessary, will be his fields of victory, and his
   course of life will be just as much happier as it is more consciously
   heroic. He has something great to live for, nay, something worthy even
   to die for, if he must,--that which makes it glorious to live and not
   less glorious to die.

   This war too is one, my brethren, as I verily believe, that, in all
   that is bitterest and most painful, may be effectually carried and
   ended without waiting for the end of your life. The bitterness and
   painfulness are, in fact, nowhere, except in the losing or apparently
   losing experiences of which I have been speaking, and these may
   assuredly be surmounted. There is a standing above all sense of loss, a
   peace of God that can not be shaken, a first love made second and
   final, into which you may come soon, if you are faithful, and in which
   you may abide. The doctrine of Wesley and his followers may be
   exaggerated, or partially misconceived; I think it is. They appear to
   hold that there is a kind of second conversion, higher than the first,
   which they imagine is complete sanctification. But it is, if I am
   right, neither more nor less than the point of the first love reached
   again, with the advantage of much wisdom or self-understanding brought
   back with it. The disciple is, for that reason, stronger, wider in
   volume, more able to abide or stand fast. But, if he is not strong
   enough, he will very certainly take another circuit, and perhaps
   another. Enough that there is hope,--that there is a state of profound
   liberty, assurance, and peace, which you may attain to, and in which
   you may abide. Indeed, the original love itself was but a foretaste in
   feeling, of that which you may achieve in wisdom; and you are to set
   that mark in your eye, expecting to emerge again, or to climb patiently
   up into a state of purity and fellowship closely resembled to that.

   If, then, you have now become entangled, discouraged, darkened,--if you
   seem to have quite given over,--blame yourself, not in your infirmity,
   but only in your sin. See, if possible, exactly what and where your
   blame is, and let your repentances and confessions exactly cover it.
   Probably you did not fall consentingly, but you seem to have been
   thrown by your own distracted, half illuminated mind. You struggled
   hard, and with so great self-exertion, not unlikely, that you fell out
   of faith, and were even floored by your struggles themselves. You
   fanned the love so violently that you rather blew out than kindled the
   flame. The harder you lifted, the deeper in mire you sunk. At last, you
   gave over with a sigh, and fell back as one quite spent. And now, it
   may be that you even look upon the whole subject of spiritual religion
   with a kind of dread. It wears a painful and distasteful look. And yet
   there is one bright spot in the retrospect; viz., the gentle,
   ingenuous, heavenly feeling, the peace, the cleanness, the fullness of
   heart, the liberty in God and his love, the luminous, inward glory;
   and, if you could see nothing else but this, how attractive the
   remembered blessedness would be; the more attractive for the emptiness
   you have since experienced, and the general distaste of the world,
   which so often afflicts you. Nay, with all the disrespect you may
   possibly put on this former experience, it is precisely this and the
   opening of your higher nature in it, that makes a great part of the
   distaste you now suffer toward the world. What a call then have you in
   this joy remembered! And God indorses it, offering to seal all this
   upon you, and more. He blames you not for any thing unavoidable, he
   only blames you for your letting go of Him, and your final surrender of
   the struggle. This he waits to forgive. He will do more, he will even
   make what is blameable in your sad loss and defection turn to your
   account. Can you ask encouragement to a new effort better than this?
   Come back then, O, thou prodigal, to thy father! Quit thy sad folly and
   emptiness, thy reproaches of soul, thy diseased longings, and thy
   restless sighs. Return again to thy God, and give thyself to him, in a
   final and last sacrifice. Ask the restored revelation. Conquer again,
   as Christ will help you, the original love, in that to abide and rest.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                      XIV

THE LOST PURITY RESTORED.

   1 John, iii. 3.--"And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth
   himself, even as he is pure."

   THIS hope, as the apostle is speaking, is a hope to be with Christ; and
   as Christ is, in highest verity, the manifestation of God who is
   infinite purity, it is a hope to be concomitant with purity, the purity
   of Christ and of God; which again is but a hope of being entered into,
   and perfectly answerable to, the purity of God. And then it follows,
   yet again, that every man that hath this hope in him will be purifying
   himself here on earth, even according to the purity of Christ with whom
   he hopes to be.

   Accordingly the subject raised for our consideration is purity of soul,
   as the aim of spiritual redemption, and the legitimate issue of
   Christian experience. Let us see--

   I. If we can form a fit conception of what purity is. Ii we refer to
   examples, it is the character of angels and of God--the simplicity, the
   unstained excellence, the undimmed radiance, the spotless beauty. Or it
   is God as represented here on earth, in the sinless and perfect life of
   Christ; his superiority to sense and passion and the opinions of the
   world, his simple devotion to truth, his unambitious goodness, his
   holy, harmless, undefiled life, as being with, yet separate from
   sinners.

   If we go to analogy, purity is, in character, what transparency is in
   the crystal. It is water flowing, unmixed and clear, from the mountain
   spring. Or it is the white of snow. Or it is the clear open heaven,
   through which the sparkling stars appear, hidden by no mist of
   obstruction. Or it is the pure light itself in which they shine. A pure
   character is that, in mind and feeling and spirit of life, which all
   these clear, untarnished symbols of nature, image, in their lower and
   merely sensible sphere, to our outward eye.

   Or if we describe purity by reference to contrasts, then it is a
   character opposite to all sin, and so to most of what we see in the
   corrupted character of mankind. It is innocent, just as man is not. It
   is incorrupt as opposed to passion, self-seeking, foul imaginations,
   base desires, enslaved affections, a bad conscience and turbid currents
   of thought. it is the innocence of infancy without the stain--that
   innocence matured into the spotless, positive and eternally established
   holiness of a responsible manhood. It is man lifted up out of the mires
   of sin, washed as a spirit into the clean white love and righteousness
   of his redeemer, and so purged of himself as to be man, without any
   thing of the sordid and defiled character of a sinner.

   Or we may set forth the idea of purity, under a reference to the modes
   of causes. In the natural world, as for example in the heavens, causes
   act in a manner that is unconfused and regular. All things proceed
   according to their law. Hence the purity of the firmament. In the world
   of causes, it is the scientific ideal of purity that events transpire
   normally, according to the constitutive order and original law of the
   creation. But as soon as a soul transgresses, it breaks out of order,
   and its whole internal working becomes mixed, confused, tumultuous,
   corrupt. Abiding in God, all its internal motions would proceed in the
   simple, harmonious, orderly progress of the firmament, and it would be
   a pure soul. Plunging into sin, it breaks order and falls into mixtures
   of causes in all its actions. The passions are loose upon the reason,
   the will overturns the conscience, the desires become unruly, the
   thoughts are some of them suggested by the natural law of the mind, and
   some are thrust in by the disorders of vitiated feeling, corrupt
   imagination, disordered memory, and morbid impulse. In short, the soul
   is in a mixture of causes, and so out of all purity. The man is
   corrupted, as we say, and the word corrupt means broken together,
   dissolved into mixture and confusion--which is the opposite of purity.

   Or finally, we may describe purity absolutely as it is when viewed in
   its own positive quality. And here it is chastity of soul, that state
   of the spiritual nature in which it is seen to have no contacts, or
   affinities, but such as fall within the circle of unforbidden joy and
   uncorrupted pleasure. It is unsensual, superior to the dominion of
   passion, living in the pleasures of the mind and of goodness, devoted
   in its virgin love, to the converse of truth only, and inaccessible to
   evil. Absolute purity is untemptible, as in God. Adam therefore was
   never in absolute purity. His purity was more negative than positive.
   He was innocent, he had not sinned; but for want of an established
   positive purity, he was ready to be tempted and open to temptation. But
   if he is now among the glorified, he is in absolute purity because he
   is untemptible. Real chastity is that which can not know temptation,
   and this is what we mean by absolute purity. It puts the soul as truly
   asunder and apart from the reach of evil suggestion as God himself is,
   in the glorious chastity of his holiness.

   In all these methods we make so many distinct approaches to the true
   idea of spiritual purity. Distant as the character is from any thing we
   know in this sad world of defilement and corrupted life, still it is
   the aim and purpose of Christian redemption, as I now proceed--

   II. To show, to raise us up into the state of complete purity before
   God. The call of the word is,--Come now and let us reason together,
   saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white
   as snow; though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool. And it
   is curious, to observe, when we read the scripture, what an apparatus
   of cleansing God appears to have set in array for the purification of
   souls;--sprinklings, washings, baptisms of water and, what are more
   searching and more terribly energetic purifiers, baptisms of fire;
   fierce meltings also as of silver in the refiner's crucible; purifyings
   of the flesh and purgings of the conscience; lustrations of blood, even
   of Christ's own blood; washings of the word, and washings of
   regeneration by the Holy Ghost. It would seem, on looking at the
   manifold array of cleansing elements, applications, gifts and
   sacraments, as if God had undertaken it as the great object and
   crowning mercy of his reign, to effect a solemn purgation of the world.
   We seem, as we read, to see him summoning up all angels and ministers
   of his will and instruments of his power, and sending them out in
   commission to cleanse the sin of the world, or even to wash the defiled
   planet itself into purity.

   Or, if we observe more directly what is said concerning the particular
   object of Christ's mission as a work of redemption, it is plainly
   declared that he gave himself for the church,--That he might sanctify
   and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might
   present it unto himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle
   or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. And
   then again the disciple himself who has embraced the Lord, in that
   which is the chief mercy and last end of his mission, will purify
   himself, it is declared, even as Christ is pure; that is, if I rightly
   understand the language of the text, he will be engaged to purify
   himself, endeavoring after purity, such as Christ himself reveals. It
   is not intended, I suppose, to affirm that every disciple, in the
   Christian hope, has actually become as pure as Christ, but only that
   this is his end or mark.

   But a question rises here of great practical significance, viz.,
   whether, by a due improvement of the means offered in Christ, or by any
   possible faith in him, it is given us to attain to a state which can
   fitly be called purity, or which is to itself a state consciously pure?

   To this, I answer both yes and no. There may be a Christian purity that
   is related to the soul as investiture, or as a condition superinduced,
   which is not of it, or in it, as pertaining to its own quality, or to
   the cast of its own habit. Christ, in other words, may be so completely
   put on that, the whole consciousness may be of him, and all the motions
   of sins give way to the dominating efficacy of his harmonious and
   perfect mind; when, at the same time, the subject viewed in himself, or
   in the contents and modes of causes in his own personality, is
   disordered, broken, mixed, chaotic, and widely distant still from real
   purity. The point may be illustrated by a supposition. Let a man
   habitually narrow and mean in his dispositions, fall into the society
   of a great and powerful nature in some one distinguished for the
   magnanimity of his impulses. Let this nobler being be accepted as his
   friend, trusted in, loved, admired, so as to virtually infold and
   subordinate the mean person, as long as he is with him, to his own
   spirit. This, at least we can imagine, whether any such example ever
   occurred or not. Now it will be seen that, as long as this nobler
   nature is side by side with the other, it becomes a kind of
   investiture, clothes it, as it were, with its own impulses and even
   puts it in the sense of magnanimity. Consciously now the mean man is
   all magnanimous; for his mean thoughts are, by the supposition, drunk
   up and lost in the abysses of the nobler nature he clings to. He is
   magnanimous by investiture; that is, by the occupancy of another, who
   clothes him with his own characters. But if you ask what he is in his
   own personal habit, cast, or quality, he is little different, possibly,
   from what he was before. He has had the consciousness waked up in him
   of a generous life and feeling, which is indeed a great boon to his
   meagre nature, and if he could be kept, for long years, in the mold of
   this superinduced character, he would be gradually assimilated to it.
   But if the better nature were to be soon withdrawn by a separation, he
   would fall back into the native meanness of his own proper person, and
   be what he was with only slight modifications.

   Now Christ, in his glorious and divine purity, is that better nature
   which has power, if we believe in him with a total all-subjecting
   faith, to invest us with a complete consciousness of purity, to bring
   every thought into captivity to his own incorruptible order and
   chastity. He is such a cause upon us, when so received, that all our
   mixed modes of causes, will be subjected to the interior chime of his
   own all perfect harmony. Our consciousness even is cast in the molds of
   his; for he is so effectually put on, that he dominates in the whole
   movement of our experience. This, at least, is conceivable as being the
   permitted or possible triumph of faith; while, at the same time,
   regarding what we are in ourselves and apart from this divine
   investiture, we are very far from any such purity. Still the case is
   varied here from that which we just now supposed, in the fact that the
   assimilation of the subject party will be more rapid and certain,
   because of the agency of the Spirit concurring with the power of
   Christ; and also in the fact that the union established by faith is
   more interior and more indissoluble. He may, therefore, have the Spirit
   to work in him and the power of Christ to rest upon him in such measure
   as to be kept in the conscious chastity of Christ's own love, year by
   year, and be wrought into a continually approaching assimilation to it.

   The answer thus given to the question raised agrees at all points, it
   will be seen, with the scripture, and particularly with what is taught
   by our apostle in close connection with my text. On one side of it he
   writes,--If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the
   truth is not in us; for, however deep we are in our union to Christ, or
   however completely we are invested in his purity, we are not in
   ourselves restored, in the same degree, to the character of it. We are
   in a kind of anticipative purity, which is becoming personal to us and
   a fixed habit; we are living to be pure, as Christ is; but, regarded as
   apart from him, the work is only initiated,--we still have sin, we are
   broken, disordered, and corrupt. For, as long as we abide in Christ,
   our action is from him, not from our own corrupt and broken nature;
   exactly as the apostle writes, on the other side of the text, or
   immediately after:--Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not. He lives in a
   consciousness, that is, which is not sustained by his own mere humanly
   personal character, but by the sense of another, and the righteousness
   that is of God by faith upon him.

   The result, consequently, is that, being thus held up by the attachment
   to him of Christ's affinities, he is growing like him,--pure as he is
   pure. The diseased qualities gendered in him, heretofore, are being
   gradually purged away. His passions are being tamed to order and
   refined to God's pure dominion. His imaginations settle into the truth,
   and grow healthy and clear. The fashion of this world is not only
   broken, as it was in the first moment of God's discovery to his heart,
   but the memories of it fade, the diseased longings are healed, so that
   all his old affinities, in this direction, will at last be extirpated.
   All the mixed causes involved in sin or spiritual impurity will fall
   into chime, and all the foul currents of evil suggestion be cleared to
   a transparent flow. The mind will grow regular and simple in its
   action, ceasing to be vexed, as it was, by noxious mixtures of fear,
   selfishness, doubt, and temptation. And so all the inbred corruptions
   of its bad state--that is, those which remain over as effects of sin,
   after sin as a voluntary life is forsaken--will be gradually purged
   away.

   To illustrate how far it is possible for this purifying work to go on
   in the present life, I will simply say that the very currents of
   thought, as it is propagated in the mind, may become so purified that,
   when the will does not interfere, and the mind is allowed, for an hour,
   to run in its own way, without hindrance, one thing suggesting another
   as in revery, there may yet be no evil, wicked, or foul suggestion
   thrust into it. Or in the state of sleep, where the will never
   interferes, but the thoughts rush on by a law of their own, the mixed
   causes of corruption may be so fax cleared away, and the soul restored
   to such simplicity and pureness, that the dreams will be only dreams of
   love and beauty: peaceful, and clear, and happy; somewhat as we may
   imagine the waking thoughts of angels to be. There have been
   Christians, who have testified to this heavenly sereneness of thought,
   out of their own experience. And precisely this is what Paul refers to,
   when he speaks of bringing into captivity every thought to the
   obedience of Christ. When the mixed causes are taken captive in the
   soul, and Christ is the law of the whole action, then, in the same
   degree, simplicity returns and purity.

   Still the body is dead because of sin. Disease, corruption, so far, at
   least, remain, and therefore it doth not yet appear what we shall be.
   Perfect, absolute purity it is hardly supposable may be realized here.
   Enough to know that there need be no limit to the process, while life
   remains, and that, when life ends, it may be gloriously approximated to
   the state of completeness.

   Or perhaps some one of my audience may just here raise a doubt from the
   other side,--whether absolute purity can ever be restored. Can the
   soul's chastity, once lost, ever be recovered? Having once sinned, can
   it ever become pure in the absolute and perfect sense, as if it had
   not? Let no such doubt be harbored. We must not be too much under the
   power of social impressions. If society pronounces on the irredeemable
   loss of fallen chastity, society has no mercy; and pride, as well as
   truth, enters into its relentless judgments. Be this as it may, God has
   undertaken to redeem the fall of sin, and restore the soul to purity as
   a condition of absolute holiness. Browned by sin, mottled by the stains
   of a corrupted life, he has under taken still to give it the whiteness
   of snow. True he can not undo what has been done. The sin is committed,
   the corruption has followed. Therefore, if there were any prudishness
   in angelic minds, they might well enough refuse forever to own us as
   beings intact by sin. And yet God can raise us to a purity that is
   higher even than the purity of an intact virtue. He can make us
   untemptibly pure, pure even as Christ is pure, which Adam certainly was
   not. What we call purity in him, prior to his sin, is beautiful and
   lovely; a pure white lily blooming in the creation's morning; but it is
   frail also and temptible, and, before the noon is up, it hangs upon a
   broken stem, dishonored and torn. God can raise us up, if not to the
   same, yet to a much higher, and stronger, and more absolute chastity,
   the participation, viz., of his own unchangeable holiness!

   Having this view of Christ and his gospel, as the plan of God for
   restoring men to a complete spiritual purity; seeing that he invites us
   to this, gives us means and aids to realize this, and yields to them
   that truly desire it a hope so high as this, I proceed--

   III. To inquire in what manner we may promote our advancement toward
   the state of purity, and finally have it in complete realization.

   And, first of all, we must set our heart upon it. We must learn to
   conceive the beauty, and glory, and the essential beatitude of a pure
   state. We must see the degradation, realize the bitterness, confusion,
   disorder, instability, and conflict of a mixed state, where all the
   causes of internal action are thrown out of God's original law. We must
   learn to conceive, on the other hand, and what can be more
   difficult--the dignity, the beauty, the infinitely peaceful and truly
   divine elevation of a pure soul. Nothing is more distant from us, in
   our unreflective, headlong state of carnality and self-devotion, than
   to conceive purity. It is high like God, and we can not attain unto it.
   And therefore our desire after it can not be duly inflamed, or
   kindled;--as it must be, if we are ever to obtain it. Labor then, with
   all closest, most persistent application, to conceive purity;--what it
   would be to you, if your soul were in it; the consciousness of it; the
   essential peace; the elevation above all passion and unregulated
   impulse; the singleness and simplicity of it; the glowing shapes and
   glorified visions of a pure imagination; the oneness of your soul with
   God; the conscious participation of what is highest in God, his
   untemptible chastity in goodness and truth. Work at this idea of
   purity, turn it round and round in your contemplations, reach after it,
   pray yourself into it, and have it thus as the highest conceivable
   good, the real good you seek,--to be pure. Let it be your life to envy
   God's purity, if I may so speak; for, if there be any holy, and
   blessed, and fruitful kind of envy, it is this. Have it as the accepted
   aim and effort of your life, to be assimilated thus in purity to God;
   for when such a desire becomes practically fixed in you, the way will
   certainly be found. The way to purity is difficult of discovery only to
   those who practically do not care to find it.

   One of your early discoveries will be, that the way to attain to purity
   of soul is, not to forsake the world and retire from it. This was the
   error that originally carried men and women into remote deserts and
   caves, and finally built up monasteries and instituted vows of single
   life, or celibacy. It was to get away from the world, and have nothing
   to think of but God, and so to present the soul as a chaste virgin to
   Christ. It was called the state of spiritual chastity, and the souls
   thus taken out of the world were supposed to be specially pure and
   incorrupt, or in a certain way to be. It was as if the church had
   prayed, directly against Christ's word, to be taken out of the world.
   And then, what a horrible imposture did this unchristian gospel of
   purity prove itself, ere long, to be! No, the only real and truly
   christian way of purity is to live in the open world and not be of it,
   and keep the soul unspotted from it. There are no fires that will melt
   out our drossy and corrupt particles like God's refining fires of duty
   and trial, living, as he sends us to live, in the open field of the
   world's sins and sorrows, its plausibilities and lies, its
   persecutions, animosities, and fears, its eager delights and bitter
   wants.

   St. Francis de Sales had been able, in his knowledge of the cloistered
   men and the cloistered life, to see how necessary it is for the soul to
   be aired in the outward exposures of the world, and, if we do net stop
   to question the facts of his illustrations, no one has spoken of this
   necessity with greater force and beauty of conception. "Many persons
   believe," he says, "that, as no beast dares taste the seed of the herb
   Palma Christi, so no man ought to aspire to the palm of Christian
   piety, as long as he lives in the bustle of temporal affairs. Now, to
   such I shall prove that, as the mother-pearl fish lives in the sea
   without receiving a drop of salt water; and as, toward the Chelidonian
   islands, springs of fresh water may be found in the midst of the sea;
   and as the fire-fly passes through the flames, without burning its
   wings; so a vigorous and resolute soul may live in the world, without
   being infected with any of its humors, may discover sweet springs of
   piety amidst its salt waters, and fly among the flames of earthly
   concupiscence, without burning the wings of the holy desires of a
   devout life." It was only forbidden him to say, what is not forbidden
   me, that here alone, in these common exposures of work and contacts of
   duty, is true christian purity itself successfully cultivated. Alas!
   for the man who is obliged to be shut up to himself, as in the convent
   life, to face his own lusts, disorders, and passions, and strangle them
   in direct conflict, with nothing else to do or to occupy the soul.

   Having this determined, that he who will purify himself as Christ is
   pure must live in the world, then one thing more is needed, viz., that
   we live in Christ, and seek to be as closely and intimately one with
   him as possible. And this includes more things than the time will
   suffer me to name.

   First, a willingness wholly to cease from the old man, as corrupt, in
   order that a completely new man from Christ may be formed in you; for,
   if you will halve the sacrifice and retain what portion is safe or
   convenient of the old life of nature, it is no such thing as purity
   that you propose, nothing but a baptizing of mixture and defilement. I
   call it a new man that you want, after the scripture method, because
   the character is the man more truly than any thing else, and there is
   no purity but to be completely new. Therefore the old must as
   completely die,--which it will not, if we secretly nourish and cling to
   it.

   Secondly, the life must be determined implicitly by the faith of
   Christ. Purifying their hearts by faith, says an apostle;
   well-understanding that faith in Christ as the true sacrifice and
   grace, is the only power that can purge the conscience from dead works
   to serve the living God in purity. It is faith only that can truly
   appropriate Christ as a Saviour, able to save to the uttermost, and
   faithful to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Then again, which is
   more, if possible, it is faith alone that enables one to embrace Christ
   as a power, and live in the society of his person; for it is thus,
   pre-eminently, that a soul may become purified. It is Christ beheld,
   with face unveiled, reflecting God's own beauty and love upon us, as in
   a glass, that changes us from glory to glory. If by faith we go with
   Christ; if we bear his cross in duty after him; if we hang upon his
   words, wrestle with him in his agony, die with him in his passion, rise
   with him in his resurrection; in a word, if we are perfectly insphered
   in his society, so as to be of it, then we shall grow pure. The
   assimilating power of Christ, when faithfully adhered to as the soul's
   divine brother, and lived with and lived upon, will infallibly
   renovate, transform, and purify us. The result is just as certain as
   our oneness or society with him. We shall grow pure because he is. The
   glorious power of his character and life will so invest our nature,
   that we shall be in it and live it. It is only they that talk much of
   faith, meaning by it the faith of notions and opinions, and not the
   faith of Jesus as a personal revelation,--these only it is who can not
   be purified by their faith. Sometimes they even have it as their merit,
   judging from their confessions, that they are growing more and more
   corrupt. Having that faith to which Jesus is personally revealed, you
   can be conscious of a growing purity of soul, and I know not any other
   way. God forbid that you should think of making purity for yourself, or
   by any operation on yourself. It must flow into you from above. It must
   be the new man that is created in Christ Jesus,--created by your faith,
   as receiving of him and of his fullness, grace for grace. And O, the
   dignity, the conscious blessedness of a life of faith, when it knows in
   itself, or distinctly sees, the divine purity forming its own chaste
   image of love and truth within;--beholds the fine linen, clean and
   white, which is the righteousness of the saints investing the soul, as
   a robe of life from God! In such a life there is consciously something
   going on, which answers to the great errand of life and gives it the
   seal of blessing.

   Again, passing over many other particulars, I will simply draw your
   minds a little closer to the text by observing, as included in the
   general idea of living in Christ, a looking forward to him in his
   exalted state, and an habitual converse with him there. He that hath
   this hope in him, says the text;--understanding that the hope of being
   with Christ, and seeing him as he is, does of itself draw the soul
   toward his purity. I say not that we are to be looking away to heaven,
   as being disgusted with the world; much less to be praising heaven's
   adorable purity in high words of contrast, as if to excuse or atone for
   the lack of all purity here. I only say that we are to be much in the
   meditation of Christ as glorified, surrounded with the glorified; to
   let our mind be hallowed by its pure converse and the themes in which
   it dwells; to live in the anticipation of what is most pure in the
   universe, as being what we most love and long for in the universe; and
   so we are to be raised by our longings, and purified with Christ by the
   hopes we rest upon his person. This hope, this reaching upward of soul
   to Christ, is exactly what Paul means, when he speaks of living a life
   that is hid with Christ in God. When a soul is there infolded, hid with
   Christ in the recesses of God's pure majesty, O, what airs of health
   breathe upon it and through it! how vital does it become, and how
   rapidly do the mixed causes of sin settle into the transparent flow of
   order and peace!

   It only remains to just name--

   IV. Some of the signs by which our growth in purity may be known. This
   I will do in the briefest manner possible, and conclude.

   Fastidiousness then, I will first of all caution you, is not any
   evidence of purity, but the contrary. A fastidious character is one
   that shows, by excess of delicacy, a real defect and loss of it. It is
   too delicate to be practical, simply because it is practically
   indelicate and corrupt Hence, in religion, it is a great principle
   that, to the pure all things are pure. When any disciple, therefore,
   calls it purity to be shocked or repelled by the scripture names of
   sins, or the practical works of mercy needed in a world of shame and
   defilement, he reveals therein a bad imagination and a mind that is
   itself defiled. No, the true signs of purity are these:--

   That we abide in the conscious light of God, while living in a world of
   defilement, and know him as a presence manifested in the soul. Blessed
   are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Purity sees God.

   A good conscience signifies the same; for the conscience, like the eye,
   is troubled by any speck of defilement and wrong that falls into it.

   A growing sensibility to sin signifies the same; for, if the conscience
   grows peaceful and clear, it will also grow tender and delicate.

   If you are more able to be singular and think less of the opinions of
   men, not in a scornful way but in love, that again shows that the
   world's law is losing its power over you, and your devotion to God is
   growing more single and true.

   Do you find that passion is submitting itself to the gentle reign of
   God within you, losing its heat and fierceness, and becoming tamed
   under the sweet dominion of christian love? That again is the growth of
   purity.

   The discovery that your imagination ceases to revel in images of wrong,
   revenge, and lust, becoming at once more quiet and more clear,
   conceiving God and Christ and unseen worlds of purity, with greater
   distinctness and sublimity, and roving, as by a divine instinct, among
   the eternal verities and transcendent glories of a perfect state,
   asking there to be employed and nowhere else with so great zest,--this
   also shows that a high and sacred affinity for what is pure is growing
   stronger and more clear within you.

   So, again, if your feeling reaches after heaven, and your longings are
   thitherward, if you love and long for it because chiefly of its purity;
   loosened from this world not by your wearinesses and disgusts, which
   all men suffer, but by the positive affinities of your heart for what
   is best and purest above,--this also is a powerful token of growing
   purification.

   Do you also find that your thoughts, when freest and most unrestrained,
   are yet growing simple, orderly, right, and true, interrupted less and
   less frequently by bad or wicked suggestion?--then you have in this a
   most convincing and conclusive proof, that you are being delivered of
   the mixtures and defilements of a corrupted nature.

   Or, again, it is a yet more simple sign, and one that in eludes, in a
   manner, all others, if you find that you are deeper and deeper in the
   love of Christ. For, if Christ spreads himself over your being, and you
   begin to know nothing else and want nothing else; if you love him for
   his character, as the only perfect, and cleave to his sinless life, as
   the holiest, and loveliest, and grandest miracle of the earth; if words
   begin to faint when you speak of him, and all that can be said or
   thought looks cheap and low, compared with what he is; then it is most
   certain that you are growing in purity; for the growing enlargement of
   your apprehensions of Christ is the result of a growing purity, and
   will be also the cause of a purity more perfect still.

   And now, my brethren, I have many things to say, but I only ask whether
   you perceive, by signs like these, that you are growing pure? That you
   believe yourselves to be disciples we know,--that is easy; but I ask
   you here seriously, before God, whether you find that your religion has
   any purifying power? Is it a baptism? Is it a finer's fire? Does it
   move you to cry,--Create in me a clean heart, O, God? True piety,
   brethren, is a power, and purity is the result;--a result, as I have
   shown you, that may be indefinitely realized, even here on earth. Is it
   realized in you by the signs I have named? You hope in Christ that you
   shall be with him, and see him as he is. O, it is well, the most
   elevating hope, the most inspiring and celestial thought, which ever
   fell into the soul of a mortal! I only ask if you see in your life, in
   the practical bent of your works, that this hope has verity enough in
   you to take hold of your springs of action, and bring you into a true
   endeavor after Christ's purity? What an opinion then will you be seen
   to have of the soul when you are living for its purity! And then, what
   sublimity is there to your eye in that state of glory, in which your
   soul practically dwelleth among its kindred spirits, pure as they, and
   all as Christ is pure. These are they that have washed their robes and
   made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

   But how little signifies this discourse of purity to very many of my
   hearers! I well understand the vacant, dreamy sound of such discourses
   before the conception of purity, and the sense of it gotten out of the
   want and out of Christ the supply, is opened to the soul. What is there
   so great in purity? who, that is untouched by God's gracious
   quickening, cares enough for purity to give the word an earnest
   significance? It has, of course, no greatness to us, because the fact
   itself is a lost fact. We can not think it, because it is really gone
   out of the mind's reach and knowledge. But, O, when once the heart
   feels a touch of its divinity, then a yearning is wakened, then the
   greatest and sublimest thing for a mortal is the unmixed life! a soul
   established in the eternal chastity of truth and goodness! O, God! who
   of this people shall ever know what it is? I can not tell them; thou
   alone canst breathe into them, and set in their living apprehension a
   truth so impossible for any mere words to express!

   This only I can testify, as God has given me words, (and I pray God to
   show you their meaning,) that the heaven we are sent here to prepare,
   is a most pure world, open only to the pure;--And there shall, in
   nowise, enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever
   worketh abomination; or maketh a lie, but they that are written in the
   Lamb's book of life.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                      XV.

LIVING TO GOD IN SMALL THINGS.

   Luke xvi. 10.--"He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful
   also in much; and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in
   much."

   A READINESS to do some great thing is not peculiar to Naaman the
   Syrian. There are many Christians who can never find a place large
   enough to do their duty. They must needs strain after great changes,
   and their works must utter themselves by a loud report. Any reform in
   society, short of a revolution, any improvement in character, less
   radical than that of conversion, is too faint a work, in their view, to
   be much valued. Nor is it merely ambition, but often it is a truly
   christian zeal, guarded by no sufficient views of the less imposing
   matters of life, which betrays men into such impressions. If there be
   any thing, in fact, wherein the views of God and the impressions of men
   are apt to be at total variance, it is in respect to the solemnity and
   importance of ordinary duties. The hurtfulness of mistake here, is of
   course very great. Trying always to do great things, to have
   extraordinary occasions every day, or to produce extraordinary changes,
   when small ones are quite as much needed, ends, of course, in defeat
   and dissipation. It produces a sort of religion in the gross, which is
   no religion in particular. My text leads me to speak--

   Of the importance of living to God on common occasions and in small
   things.

   He that is faithful in that which is least, says the Saviour, is
   faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust
   also in much. This was a favorite sentiment with him. In his sermon on
   the mount, it was thus expressed--Whosoever, therefore, shall break one
   of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called
   the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach
   them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. And when
   he rebuked the Pharisees, in their tything of mint, anise, and cummin,
   he was careful to speak very guardedly--These things ought ye to have
   done, and not to leave the other undone. It will instruct us in
   prosecuting this subject--

   1. To notice how little we know concerning the relative importance of
   events and duties. We use the terms great and small in speaking of
   actions, occasions, plans, and duties, only in reference to the mere
   outward look and first impression. Some of the most latent agents and
   mean looking substances in nature, are yet the most operative; but yet,
   when we speak of natural objects, we call them great or small, not
   according to their operativeness, but according to size, count, report,
   or show. So it comes to pass, when we are classing actions, duties, or
   occasions, that we call a certain class great and another small, when
   really the latter are many fold more important and influential than the
   former. We may suppose, for illustration, two transactions in business,
   as different in their nominal amount as a million of dollars and a
   single dollar. The former we call a large transaction, the latter a
   small one. But God might reverse these terms. He would have no such
   thought as the counting of dollars. He would look, first of all, at the
   principle involved in the two cases. And here he would discover, not
   unlikely, that the nominally small one, owing to the nature of the
   transaction, or to the humble condition of the parties, or to their
   peculiar temper and disposition, took a deeper hold of their being, and
   did more to settle or unsettle great and everlasting principle, than
   the other. Next, perhaps, he would look at the consequences of the two
   transactions, as developed in the great future; and here he would
   perhaps discover that the one which seems to us the smaller, is the
   hinge of vastly greater consequences than the other. If the dollars had
   been sands of dust, they would not have had less weight in the divine
   judgment.

   We are generally ignorant of the real significance of events, which we
   think we understand. Almost every person can recollect one or more
   instances, where the whole after-current of his life was turned by some
   single word, or some incident so trivial as scarcely to fix his notice
   at the time. On the other hand, many great crises of danger, many high
   and stirring occasions, in which, at the time, his total being was
   absorbed, have passed by, leaving no trace of effect on his permanent
   interests, and are well nigh vanished from his memory. The conversation
   of the stage-coach is often preparing results, which the solemn
   assembly and the most imposing and eloquent rites will fail to produce.
   What countryman, knowing the dairyman's daughter, could have suspected
   that she was living to a mightier purpose and result, than almost any
   person in the church of God, however eminent? The outward of occasions
   and duties is, in fact, almost no index of their importance; and our
   judgments concerning what is great and small, are without any certain
   validity. These terms. as we use them, are, in fact, only words of
   outward description, not words of definite measurement.

   2. It is to be observed, that even as the world judges, small things
   constitute almost the whole of life. The great days of the year, for
   example, are few, and when they come, they seldom bring any thing great
   to us. And the matter of all common days is made up of little things,
   or ordinary and stale transactions. Scarcely once in a year does any
   thing really remarkable befall us. If I were to begin and give an
   inventory of the things you do in any single day, your muscular
   motions, each of which is accomplished by a separate act of will, the
   objects you see, the words you utter, the contrivances you frame, your
   thoughts, passions, gratifications, and trials, many of you would not
   be able to hear it recited with sobriety. But three hundred and
   sixty-five such days make up a year, and a year is a twentieth,
   fiftieth, or seventieth part of your life. And thus, with the exception
   of some few striking passages, or great and critical occasions, perhaps
   not more than five or six in all, your life is made up of common, and
   as men are wont to judge, unimportant things. But yet, at the end, you
   have done up an amazing work, and fixed an amazing result. You stand at
   the bar of God, and look back on a life made up of small things--but
   yet a life, how momentous, for good or evil!

   3. It very much exalts, as well as sanctions, the view I am advancing,
   that God is so observant of small things. He upholds the sparrow's
   wing, clothes the lily with his own beautifying hand, and numbers the
   hairs of his children He holds the balancings of the clouds. He maketh
   small the drops of rain. It astonishes all thought to observe the
   minuteness of God's government, and of the natural, and common
   processes which he carries on from day to day. His dominions are spread
   out, system beyond system, system above system, filling all hight and
   latitude, but he is never lost in the vast or magnificent. He descends
   to an infinite detail, and builds a little universe in the smallest
   things. He carries on a process of growth in every tree, and flower,
   and living thing; accomplishes in each an internal organization and
   works the functions of an internal laboratory, too delicate all for eye
   or instrument to trace. He articulates the members and impels the
   instincts of every living mote that shines in the sunbeam. As when we
   ascend toward the distant and the vast; so when we descend toward the
   minute, we see his attention acuminated, and his skill concentrated on
   his object; and the last discernible particle dies out of our sight
   with the same divine glory on it, as on the last orb that glimmers in
   the skirt of the universe. God is as careful to finish the mote as the
   planet, both because it consists only with his perfection to finish
   every thing, and because the perfection of his greatest structures is
   the result of perfection in their smallest parts or particles. On this
   patience of detail rests all the glory and order of the created
   universe, spiritual and material. God could thunder the year round; he
   could shake the ribs of the world with perpetual earthquakes; he could
   blaze on the air, and brush the affrighted mountains, each day with his
   comets. But if he could not feed the grass with his dew, and breath
   into the little lungs of his insect family; if he could not expend his
   care on small things, and descend to an interest in their perfection,
   his works would be only crude and disjointed machines, compounded of
   mistakes and malformations, without beauty and order, and fitted to no
   perfect end.

   The works of Christ are, if possible, a still brighter illustration of
   the same truth. Notwithstanding the vast stretch and compass of the
   work of redemption, it is a work of the most humble detail in its style
   of execution. The Saviour could have preached a sermon on the mount
   every morning. Each night he could have stilled the sea, before his
   astonished disciples, and shown the conscious waves lulling into peace
   under his feet. He could have transfigured himself before Pilate and
   the astonished multitudes of the temple. He could have made visible
   ascensions in the noon of every day, and revealed his form standing in
   the sun, like the angel of the apocalypse. But this was not his mind.
   The incidents of which his work is principally made up, are, humanly
   speaking, very humble and unpretending. The most faithful pastor in the
   world was never able, in any degree, to approach the Saviour, in the
   lowliness of his manner and his attention to humble things. His
   teachings were in retired places, and his illustrations drawn from
   ordinary affairs. If the finger of faith touched him in the crowd, he
   knew the touch and distinguished also the faith. He reproved the
   ambitious housewifery of an humble woman. After he had healed a poor
   being, blind from his birth--a work transcending all but divine
   power--he returned and sought him out, as the most humble
   Sabbath-school teacher might have done; and when he had found him, cast
   out and persecuted by men, he taught him privately the highest secrets
   of his Messiahship. When the world around hung darkened in sympathy
   with his cross, and the earth was shaking with inward amazement, he
   himself was remembering his mother, and discharging the filial cares of
   a good son. And when he burst the bars of death, its first and final
   conqueror, he folded the linen clothes and the napkin, and laid them in
   order apart, showing that in the greatest things, he had a set purpose
   also concerning the smallest. And thus, when perfectly scanned, the
   work of Christ's? redemption, like the created universe, is seen to be
   a vast orb of glory, wrought up out of finished particles. Now a life
   of great and prodigious exploits would have been comparatively an easy
   thing for him, but to cover himself with beauty and glory in small
   things, to fill and adorn every little human occasion, so as to make it
   divine,--this was a work of skill, which no mind or hand was equal to,
   but that which shaped the atoms of the world. Such everywhere is God.
   He nowhere overlooks or despises small things.

   4. It is a fact of history and of observation, that all efficient men,
   while they have been men of comprehension, have also been men of
   detail. I wish it were possible to produce as high an example of this
   two-fold character among the servants of God and benevolence in these
   times, as we have in that fiery prodigy of war and conquest, who, in
   the beginning of the present century, desolated Europe. Napoleon was
   the most effective man in modern times--some will say of all times. The
   secret of his character was, that while his plans were more vast, more
   various, and, of course, more difficult than those of other men, he had
   the talent, at the same time, to fill them up with perfect promptness
   and precision, in every particular of execution. His vast and daring
   plans would have been visionary in any other man; but with him every
   vision flew out of his brain, a chariot of iron; because it was filled
   up, in all the particulars of execution, to be a solid and compact
   framework in every part. His armies were together only one great engine
   of desolation, of which he was the head or brain. Numbers, spaces,
   times, were all distinct in his eye. The wheeling of every legion,
   however remote, was mentally present to him. The tramp of every foot
   sounded in his ear. The numbers were always supplied, the spaces passed
   over, the times met, and so the work was done. The nearest moral
   approximation I know of, was Paul the apostle. Paul had great
   principles, great plans, and a great enthusiasm. He had the art, at the
   same time, to bring his great principles into a powerful application to
   his own conduct, and to all the common affairs of all the disciples in
   his churches. He detected every want, understood every character; set
   his guards against those whom he distrusted; kept all his work turning
   in a motion of discipline; prompted to every duty. You will find his
   epistles distinguished by great principles; and, at the same time, by a
   various and circumstantial attention to all the common affairs of life;
   and, in that, you have the secret of his efficiency. There must be
   detail in every great work. It is an element of effectiveness, which no
   reach of plan, no enthusiasm of purpose, can dispense with. Thus, if a
   man conceives the idea of becoming eminent in learning, but cannot toil
   through the million of little drudgeries necessary to carry him on, his
   learning will be soon told. Or, if a man undertakes to become rich, but
   despises the small and gradual advances by which wealth is ordinarily
   accumulated, his expectations will, of course, be the sum of his
   riches. Accurate and careful detail, the minding of common occasions
   and small things, combined with general scope and vigor, is the secret
   of all the efficiency and success in the world. God has so ordered
   things, that great and sudden leaps are seldom observable. Every
   advance in the general must be made by advances in particular. The
   trees and the corn do not leap out suddenly into maturity, but they
   climb upward, by little and little, and after the minutest possible
   increment. The orbs of heaven, too, accomplish their circles not by one
   or two extraordinary starts or springs, but by traveling on through
   paces and roods of the sky. It is thus, and only thus, that any
   disciple will become efficient in the service of his Master. He can not
   do up his works of usefulness by the prodigious stir and commotion of a
   few extraordinary occasions. Laying down great plans, he must
   accomplish them by great industry, by minute attentions, by saving
   small advances, by working out his way as God shall assist him.

   5. It is to be observed, that there is more of real piety in adorning
   one small than one great occasion. This may seem paradoxical, but what
   I intend will be seen by one or two illustrations. I have spoken of the
   minuteness of God's works. When I regard the eternal God as engaged in
   polishing an atom, or elaborating the functions of a mote invisible to
   the eye, what evidence do I there receive of his desire to perfect his
   works! No gross and mighty world, however plausibly shaped, would yield
   a hundredth part the intensity of evidence. An illustration from human
   things will present a closer parallel. It is perfectly well understood,
   or if not, it should be, that almost any husband would leap into the
   sea, or rush into a burning edifice to rescue a perishing wife. But to
   anticipate the convenience or happiness of a wife in some small matter
   the neglect of which would be unobserved, is a more eloquent proof of
   tenderness. This shows a mindful fondness, which wants occasions in
   which to express itself. And the smaller the occasion seized upon, the
   more intensely affectionate is the attention paid. Piety toward God may
   be well tested or measured, in the same way. Peter found no difficulty
   in drawing his sword and fighting for his Master, even at the hazard of
   his life, though but an hour or less afterward he forsook him and
   denied him. His valor on that great and exciting occasion was no proof
   of his piety. But when the gentle Mary came, with her box of ointment,
   and poured it on the Saviour's head--an act which satisfied no want;
   met no exigency, and was of no use, except as a gratuitous and studied
   proof of her attachment to Jesus, he marks it as an eminent example of
   piety; saying--Verily I say unto you wheresoever this gospel shall be
   preached in the world, there also shall this, that this woman hath
   done, be told for a memorial of her.

   My brethren, this piety which is faithful in that which is least, is
   really a more difficult piety than that which triumphs and glares on
   high occasions. Our judgments are apt to be dazzled by a vain
   admiration of the more public attempts and the more imposing
   manifestations of occasional zeal. It requires less piety, I verily
   believe, to be a martyr for Christ, than it does to love a powerless
   enemy; or to look upon the success of a rival without envy; or even to
   maintain a perfect and guileless integrity in the common transactions
   of life. Precisely this, in fact, is the lesson which history teaches.
   How many, alas! of those who have died in the manner of martyrdom,
   manifestly sought that distinction, and brought it on themselves by
   instigation of a mere fanatical ambition! Such facts seem designed to
   show us that the common spheres of life and business, the small matters
   of the street, the shop, the hearth, and the table, are more genial to
   true piety, than any artificial extraordinary scenes of a more imposing
   description. Excitement, ambition, a thousand questionable causes, may
   elevate us occasionally to great attempts; but they will never lead us
   into the more humble duties of constancy and godly industry; or teach
   us to adorn the unpretending spheres of life with a heavenly spirit. We
   love to do great things; our natural pride would be greatly pleased, if
   God had made the sky taller, the world larger, and given us a more
   royal style of life and duty. But he understands us well. His purpose
   is to heal our infirmity; and with this very intent, I am persuaded, he
   has ordained these humble spheres of action, so that no ostentation, no
   great and striking explosions of godliness shall tempt our heart. And
   in the same way, his word declares, that bestowing all one's goods to
   feed the poor, or giving his body to be burned, and of consequence,
   that great speeches and donations, that a mighty zeal for reform, that
   a prodigious jealousy for sound doctrine, without something
   better--without charity, profiteth nothing. And the picture of charity
   is humble enough;--It suffereth long and is kind, envieth not, vaunteth
   not itself; is not puffed up; doth not behave itself unseemly; seeketh
   not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, beareth all
   things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

   6. The importance of living to God, in ordinary and small things, is
   seen, in the fact that character, which is the end of religion, is in
   its very nature a growth. Conversion is a great change; old things are
   passed away, behold all things are become new. This however is the
   language of a hope or confidence, somewhat prophetic; exulting, at the
   beginning, in the realization of future victory. The young disciple,
   certainly, is far enough from a consciousness of complete deliverance
   from sin. In that respect, his work is but just begun. He is now in the
   blade; we shall see him next in the ear; and after that, he will ripen
   to the full corn in the ear. His character, as a man and a Christian,
   is to accomplish its stature by growing. And all the offices of life,
   domestic, social, civil, useful, are contrived of God to be the soil,
   as Christ is the sun, of such a growth. All the cares, wants, labors,
   dangers, accidents, intercourses of life, are adjusted for the very
   purpose of exercising and ripening character. They are precisely
   adapted for this end, by God's all-perfect wisdom. This, in fact, is
   the grand philosophy of the structure of all things. And, accordingly,
   there never has been a great and beautiful character, which has not
   become so by filling well the ordinary and smaller offices appointed of
   God.

   The wonderful fortunes of Joseph seem, at first, to have fallen
   suddenly upon him, and altogether by a miracle. But a closer attention
   to his history will show you that he rose only by a gradual progress,
   and by the natural power of his virtues. The astonishing art he had of
   winning the confidence of others had, after all, no magic in it save
   the magic of goodness; and God assisted him, only as he assists other
   good men. The growth of his fortunes was the shadow only of his growth
   in character. By his assiduity, he made every thing prosper; and by his
   good faith, he won the confidence, first of Potiphar, then of the
   keeper of the prison, then of Pharaoh himself. And so he grew up gently
   and silently till the helm of the Egyptian kingdom was found in his
   hand.

   Peter, too, after he had flourished so vauntingly with his sword,
   entered on a growing and faithful life. From an ignorant fisherman, he
   became a skillful writer, a finished Christian, and a teacher of
   faithful living, in the common offices of life. He occupied his great
   apostleship in exhorting subjects to obey the ordinances of governors
   for the Lord's sake; servants to be subject to their masters; wives to
   study such a carriage as would win their unbelieving husbands; and
   husbands to give honor to the wife, as being heirs together of the
   grace of life. But in a manner to comprehend every thing good, he
   said:--Giving all diligence (this is the true notion of Christian
   excellence)--giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue
   knowledge, to knowledge temperance, to temperance patience, to patience
   godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness
   charity. The impression is unavoidable, that he now regarded religion,
   not as a sword fight, but as a growth of holy character, kept up by all
   diligence in the walks of life.

   Every good example in the word of God, is an illustration of the same
   truth. To finish a character on a sudden, or by any but ordinary
   duties, carefully and piously done, by a mere religion of Sundays and
   birth-days, and revivals and contributions, and orthodoxies, and public
   reforms, is nowhere undertaken. They watered the plant in secret,
   trained it up at family altars, strengthened it in the exposures of
   business, till it became a beautiful and heavenly growth, and ready,
   with all its blooming fruit, to adorn the paradise of God.

   It ought also to be noticed, under this head, that all the mischiefs
   which befall Christian character and destroy its growth, are such as
   lie in the ordinary humble duties of life. Christians do not fall back
   into declension or disgraceful apostacy on a sudden, or by the
   overcoming power of great and strange temptations. They are stolen away
   rather by little and little, and almost insensibly to themselves, They
   commonly fall into some lightness of carriage; some irritation of
   temper in their family or business; some neglect of duty to children,
   apprentices, or friends; some artfulness; some fault of integrity in
   business. These are the beginnings of evil. At length they grow a
   little more remiss. They begin to slight their secret duties. The world
   and its fashions become more powerful, and they yield a little farther;
   till at length they are utterly fallen from the spirit and standing of
   Christians. And thus, you perceive that all the dangers which beset our
   piety, lie in the humble and ordinary matters of life. Here then is the
   place where religion must make her conquests. Here she must build her
   barriers and take her stand. And if it be a matter of consequence that
   the people of God should live constant and godly lives; that they
   should grow in the strength of their principles, and the beauty of
   their example; that the church should clear herself of all reproach,
   and stand invested with honor in the sight of all mankind,--if this be
   important, so important is it that we live well in small things, and
   adorn the common incidents of life with a heavenly temper and practice.
   Religion must forever be unstable, the people of Christ must fall into
   declension and disgrace, if it be not understood that here is the true
   field of the Christian life.

   These illustrations of the importance of living to God in ordinary and
   common things might be carried to almost any extent; but I will arrest
   the subject here, and proceed to suggest some applications which may be
   useful.

   1. Private Christians are here instructed in the true method of
   Christian progress and usefulness. It is a first truth with you all, I
   doubt not, brethren, that divine aid and intercourse are your only
   strength and reliance. You know, too well, the infirmity of your best
   purposes and endeavors. to hope for any thing but defeat, without the
   Spirit of God dwelling in you and superintending your warfare. In what
   manner you may secure this divine indwelling permanently is here made
   plain. It is not by attempts above your capacity, or by the invention
   of great and extraordinary occasions; but it is by living unto God
   daily. If you feel the necessity of making spiritual attainments, of
   growing in holiness; if you think as little of mere starts and
   explosions in religious zeal as they deserve, and as much of growths,
   habits, and purified affections as God does, you will have a delightful
   work to prosecute in the midst of all your ordinary cares and
   employments, and you will have the inward witness of divine communion
   ever vouchsafed you. The sins, by which God's Spirit is ordinarily
   grieved, are the sins of small things--laxities in keeping the temper,
   slight neglects of duty, lightness, sharpness of dealing. If it is your
   habit to walk with God in the humblest occupations of your days, it is
   very nearly certain that you will be filled with the Spirit always.

   If it be a question with you, how to overcome bad and pernicious
   habits, the mode is here before you. The reason why those who are
   converted to Christ, often make so poor a work of rectifying their old
   habits, is that they lay down their work in the very places where it
   needs to be prosecuted most carefully, that is, in their common
   employments. They do not live to God in that which is least. They
   reserve their piety for those exercises, public and private, which are
   immediately religious, and so a wide door is left open in all the
   common duties of life for their old habits to break in and take them
   captive. As if it were enough, in shutting out a flood, to dike the
   higher points of the ground and leave the lower!

   If the question be, in what manner you may grow in knowledge and
   intellectual strength, the answer is readily given. You can do it by no
   means save that of pertinacious, untiring application. No one becomes a
   Christian who can not by the cultivation of thought, and by acquiring a
   well-discriminated knowledge of the scriptures, make himself a gift of
   four fold, and perhaps even an hundred fold value to the church. This
   he can do by industry, by improving small opportunities, and, not
   least, by endeavoring to realize the principles and the beauty of
   Christ in all his daily conduct. In this point of view, religion is
   cultivation itself, and that of the noblest kind. And never does it
   truly justify its nature, except when it is seen elevating the mind,
   the manners, the whole moral dignity of the subject.

   Why is it that a certain class of men, who never thrust themselves on
   public observation, by any very signal acts, do yet attain to a very
   commanding influence, and leave a deep and lasting impression on the
   world? They are the men who thrive by constancy and by means of small
   advances, just as others do who thrive in wealth. They live to God in
   the common doings of their daily life, as well as in the more
   extraordinary transactions, in which they mingle. In this way, they
   show themselves to be actuated by good principle, not from respect to
   the occasions where it may be manifested, but from respect to principle
   itself. And their carefulness to honor God in humble things, is
   stronger proof to men of their uprightness, than the most distinguished
   acts or sacrifices. Such persons operate principally by the weight of
   confidence and moral respect they acquire, which is the most legitimate
   and powerful action in the world. At first, it is not felt, because it
   is noiseless, and is not thoroughly appreciated. It is action without
   pretense, without attack, and therefore, perhaps, without notice for a
   time. But by degrees the personal motives begin to be understood, and
   the beauty and moral dignity of the life are felt. No proclamation of
   an aim or purpose has, in the mean time, gone before the disciple to
   awaken suspicion or start opposition. The simple power of his goodness
   and uprightness flows out as an emanation on all around him. He shines
   like the sun, not because he purposes to shine, but because he is full
   of light. The bad man is rebuked, the good man strengthened by his
   example; every thing evil and ungraceful is ashamed before him, every
   thing right and lovely is made stronger and lovelier. And now, if he
   has the talent to undertake some great enterprise of reform or of
   benevolence, in the name of his Master, he has something already
   prepared in the good opinions of mankind, to soften or neutralize the
   pretense of such attempts, and give him favor in them. Or, if a
   Christian of this stamp has not the talents or standing necessary to
   lead in the more active forms of enterprise, he will yet accomplish a
   high and noble purpose in his life. The silent savor of his name may,
   perhaps, do more good after he is laid in his grave, than abler men do
   by the most active efforts.

   I often hear mentioned, by the Christians of our city, the name of a
   certain godly man, who has been dead many years; and he is always
   spoken of with so much respectfulness and affection, that I, a stranger
   of another generation, feel his power, and the sound of his name
   refreshes me. That man was one who lived to God in small things. I know
   this, not by any description which has thus set forth his character,
   but from the very respect and homage with which he is named. Virtually,
   he still lives among us, and the face of his goodness shines upon all
   our Christian labors. And is it not a delightful aspect of the
   Christian faith, that it opens so sure a prospect of doing good, on all
   who are in humble condition, or whose talents are too feeble to act in
   the more public spheres of enterprise and duty? Such are called to act
   by their simple goodness more than others are; and who has not felt the
   possibility that such, when faithful, do actually discharge a calling,
   the more exalted, because of its unmixed nature? If there were none of
   these unpretending but beautiful examples, blooming in depression,
   sweetening affliction by their Christian patience, adorning poverty by
   their high integrity, and dying in the Christian heroism of faith,--if,
   I say, there were no such examples making their latent impressions in
   the public mind, of the dignity and truth of the gospel, who shall
   prove that our great men, who are supposed to accomplish so much by
   their eloquence, their notable sacrifices and far-reaching plans, would
   not utterly fail in them? However this may be, we have reason enough,
   all of us, for living to God in every sphere of life. Blessed are they
   that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times.

   2. Our subject enables us to offer some useful suggestions, concerning
   the manner in which churches may be made to prosper.

   First of all, brethren, you will have a care to maintain your purity
   and your honor, by the exercise of a sound discipline. And here you
   will be faithful in that which is least. You will not wait until a
   crisis comes, or a flagrant case arises, where the hand of
   extermination is needed. That is often a very cruel discipline, rather
   than one of brotherly love. Nothing, of course, should be done in a
   meddlesome spirit; for this would be more mischievous than neglect. But
   small things will yet be watched, the first gentle declinings noted and
   faithfully but kindly reproved. Your church should be like a family,
   not waiting till the ruin of a member is complete and irremediable, but
   acting preventively. This would be a healthy discipline, and it is the
   only sort, I am persuaded, on which God will ever smile.

   The same spirit of watchfulness and attention is necessary to all the
   solid interests of your church. It is not enough that you attempt to
   bless it occasionally by some act of generosity or some fit of
   exertion. Your brethren, suffering from injustice or evil report, must
   have your faithful sympathy; such as are struggling with adversity must
   have your aid; when it is possible, the more h amble and private
   exercises of your church must be attended.

   The impression can not be too deeply fixed, that a church must grow
   chiefly by its industry and the personal growth of its members. Some
   churches seem to feel that, if any thing is to be done, some great
   operation must be started. They can not even repent without concert and
   a general ado. Have you not the preaching of God's word, fifty-two
   sabbaths in the year? Have you not also families, friendships,
   interchanges of business, meetings for prayer, brotherly vows,
   opportunities of private and public charity? Do not despise these
   common occasions--God has not planned the world badly. Christ did not
   want higher occasions than the Father gave him. The grand maxim of his
   mission was, that the humblest spheres give the greatest weight and
   dignity to principles--He was the good carpenter, saving the world!
   Rightly viewed, my brethren, there are no small occasions in this
   world, as in our haste we too often think. Great principles, principles
   sacred even to God, are at stake in every moment of life. What we want,
   therefore, is not invention, but industry; not the advantages of new
   and extraordinary times, but the realizing of our principles by
   adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour in all times.

   One of the best securities for the growth and prosperity of a church,
   is to be sought in a faithful exhibition of religion in families. Here
   is a law of increase, which God has incorporated in his church, and by
   which he designs to give it strength and encouragement. But why is
   it--I ask the question with grief and pain--why is it that so many
   children, so many apprentices and servants are seen to grow up, or to
   live many years in Christian families, without any regard, or even
   respect for religion? It is because their parents, guardians, or
   masters have that sort of piety which can flourish only like Peter's
   sword, on great occasions. Then, perhaps, they are exceedingly full of
   piety, and put forth many awkward efforts to do good in their families;
   enough, it may be, to give them a permanent disgust for religious
   things. But when the great occasion is past, their work is done up. A
   spirit of worldliness now rolls in again, a want of conscience begins
   to appear, a light and carnal conversation to show itself. The
   preaching of the gospel is very critically, and somewhat wittily
   canvassed on the Sabbath. The day itself, in the mean time, fares
   scarcely better than the preacher. It is shortened by degrees at both
   ends, and again by a newspaper or some trifling conversation, in the
   middle. There is no instructive remark at the family prayers, and
   perhaps no family instruction anywhere. There is no effort to point the
   rising family toward a better world, and apparently no living for such
   a world. Bad tempers are manifested in government and in business. Arts
   are practiced below dignity and wide of integrity. How is it possible
   that the children and youth of a family should not learn to despise
   such a religion? How different would be the result, if there were a
   simple unostentatious piety kept up with constancy, and the fear of God
   were seen to be a controlling principle, in all the daily conduct and
   plans of life! I have heard of many striking cases of conversion, which
   were produced, under God, by simply seeing the godly life of a
   Christian in his family without a word of direct address, and in a time
   of general inattention to religious things. In such a family every
   child and inmate will certainly respect religion. And the church, in
   fact, may count on receiving a constant and certain flow of increase
   from the bosom of such families.

   I will not pursue this head farther. But feel assured of this,
   brethren, that an every-day religion; one that loves the duties of our
   common walk; one that makes an honest man; one that accomplishes an
   intellectual and moral growth in the subject; one that works in all
   weather, and improves all opportunities, will best, and most healthily
   prcmote the growth of a church, and the power of the gospel. God
   prescribes our duty; and it were wrong not to believe that if we
   undertake God's real work, he will furnish us to it, and give us
   pleasure in it. He will transfuse into us some portion of his own
   versatility; he will attract us into a nicer observation of his wisdom
   in our humble duties and concerns. We shall more admire the healthiness
   of that which grows up in God's natural springtimes, and ripens in the
   air of his common days. The ordinary will thus grow dignified and
   sacred in our sight; and without discarding all invention in respect to
   means and opportunities, we shall yet especially love the daily bread
   of a common grace, in our common works and cares. And all the more that
   it was the taste of our blessed Master, to make the ordinary glow with
   mercy and goodness, Him we are to follow. We are to work after no set
   fashion of high endeavor, but to walk with him, performing as it were,
   a ministry on foot, that we may stop at the humblest matters and prove
   our fidelity there.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                      XVI.

THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE.

   Heb. vii. 16.--Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment,
   but after the power of an endless life.

   THIS word after is a word of correspondence, and im. plies two subjects
   brought in comparison. That Christ has the power of an endless life in
   his own person is certainly true; but to say that he is made a priest
   after this power subjective in himself, is awkward even to a degree
   that violates the natural grammar of speech. The suggestion is
   different; viz., that the priesthood of Christ is graduated by the
   wants and measures of the human soul as the priesthood of the law was
   not; that the endless life in which he comes, matches and measures the
   endless life in mankind whose fall he is to restore; providing a
   salvation as strong as their sin, and as long or lasting as the run of
   their immortality. He is able thus to save unto the utter most. Powers
   of endless life though we be, falling principalities, wandering stars
   shooting downward in the precipitation of evil, he is able to bring us
   off, re-establish our dismantled eternities, and set us in the peace
   and confidence of an eternal righteousness.

   I propose to exhibit the work of Christ in this high relation, which
   will lead me to consider--

   I. The power of an endless life in man, what it is, and, as being under
   sin, requires.

   II. What Christ, in his eternal priesthood, does to restore it.

   1. The power of an endless life, what it is and requires. The greatness
   of our immortality, as commonly handled, is one of the dullest
   subjects, partly because it finds apprehension asleep in us, and partly
   because the strained computations entered into, and the words piled up
   as magnifiers, in a way of impressing the sense of its eternal
   duration, carry no impression, start no sense of magnitude in us. Even
   if we raise no doubt or objection, they do little more than drum us to
   sleep in our own nothingness. We exist here only in the germ, and it is
   much as if the life power in some seed, that, for example, of the great
   cedars of the west, were to begin a magnifying of its own importance to
   itself in the fact that it has so long a time to live; and finally,
   because of the tiny figure it makes, and because the forces it contains
   are as yet unrealized, to settle inertly down upon the feeling that,
   after all, it is only a seed, a dull, insignificant speck of matter,
   wanting to be a little greater than it can. Instead, then, of
   attempting to magnify the soul by any formal computation on the score
   of time or duration, let us simply take up and follow the hint that is
   given us in this brief expression, the power of an endless life.

   It is a power, a power of life, a power of endless life.

   The word translated power in the text, is the original of our word
   dynamic, denoting a certain impetus, momentum, or causative force,
   which is cumulative, growing stronger and more impelling as it goes.
   And this is the nature of life or vital force universally,--it is a
   force cumulative as long as it continues. It enters into matter as a
   building, organizing, lifting power, and knows not how to stop till
   death stops it. We use the word grow to describe its action, and it
   does not even know how to subsist without growth. In which growth it
   lays hold continually of new material, expands in volume, and fills a
   larger sphere of body with its power.

   Now these innumerable lives, animal and vegetable, at work upon the
   world, creating and new-creating, and producing their immense
   transformations of matter, are all immaterial forces or powers;
   related, in that manner, to souls, which are only a highest class of
   powers. The human soul can not be more efficiently described than by
   calling it the power of an endless life; and to it all these lower
   immaterialities, at work in matter, look up as mute prophets,
   testifying, by the magical sovereignty they wield in the processes and
   material transformations of growth, to the possible forces embodied in
   that highest, noblest form of life. And sometimes, since our spiritual
   nature, taken as a power of life, organizes nothing material and
   external by which its action is made visible, God allows the inferior
   lives in given examples, especially of the tree species, to have a
   small eternity of growth, and lift their giant forms to the clouds,
   that we may stand lost in amazement before the majesty of that silent
   power that works in life, when many centuries only are given to be the
   lease of its activity. The work is slow, the cumulative process
   silent,--viewed externally, nothing appears that we name force, and yet
   this living creature called a tree, throbs internally in fullness of
   life, circulates its juices, swells in volume, towers in majesty; till
   finally it gives to the very word life a historic presence and
   sublimity. It begins with a mere seed or germ, a tiny speck so inert
   and frail that we might even laugh at the bare suggestion of power in
   such a look of nothingness; just as at our present point of dullness
   and weakness, we can give no sound of meaning to any thing said of our
   own spiritual greatness, and yet that seed, long centuries ago, when
   the tremendous babyhood of Mahomet was nursing at his mother's breast,
   sprouted apace, gathered to itself new circles of matter, year by year
   and age after age, kept its pumps in play, sent up new supplies of
   food, piling length on length in the sky, conserving still and
   vitalizing all; and now it stands entire in pillared majesty, mounting
   upward still, and tossing back the storms that break on its green
   pinnacles, a bulk immense, such as being felled and hollowed would even
   make a modern ship of war.

   And yet these cumulative powers of vegetable life are only feeble types
   of that higher, fearfully vaster power, that pertains to the endless
   life of a soul--that power that known or unknown dwells in you and in
   me. What Abel now is, or Enoch, as an angel of God, in the volume of
   his endless life and the vast energies unfolded in his growth by the
   river of God, they may set you trying to guess, but can by no means
   help you adequately to conceive. The possible majesty to which any free
   intelligence of God may grow, in the endless increment of ages, is
   after all rather hinted than imaged in their merely vegetable grandeur.

   Quickened by these analogies, let us pass directly to the soul or
   spiritual nature itself, as a power of endless growth or increment; for
   it is only in this way that we begin to conceive the real magnitude and
   majesty of the soul, and not by any mere computations based on its
   eternity or immortality.

   What it means, in this higher and nobler sense, to be a power of life,
   we are very commonly restrained from observing by two or three
   considerations that require to be named. First, when looking after the
   measures of the soul, we very naturally lay hold of what first occurs
   to us, and begin to busy ourselves in the contemplation of its eternal
   duration. Whereas the eternal duration of the soul, at any given
   measure, if we look no farther, is nothing but the eternal continuance
   of its mediocrity or comparative littleness. Its eternal growth in
   volume and power is in that manner quite lost sight of, and the
   computation misses every thing most impressive, in its future
   significance and history. Secondly, the growth of the soul is a merely
   spiritual growth, indicated by no visible and material form that is
   expanded by it and with it as in the growth of a tree, and therefore
   passes comparatively unnoticed by many, just because they can not see
   it with their eyes. And then again, thirdly, as the human body attains
   to its maturity, and, finally, in the decays of age, becomes an
   apparent limit to the spiritual powers and faculties, we drop into the
   impression that these have now passed their climacteric, and that we
   have actually seen the utmost volume it is in their nature ever to
   attain. We do not catch the significance of the fact that the soul
   outgrows the growth and outlives the vigor of the body, which is not
   true in trees; revealing its majestic properties as a force independent
   and qualifiedly sovereign. Observing how long the soul-force goes on to
   expand after the body-force has reached its maximum, and when disease
   and age have begun to shatter the frail house iL inhabits, how long it
   braves these bodily decrepitudes, driving on, still on, like a strong
   engine in a poorly timbered vessel, through seas not too heavy for it,
   but only for the crazy hulk it impels,--observing this, and making due
   account of it, we should only be the more impressed with a sense of
   some inherent everlasting power of growth and progress in its endless
   life.

   Stripping aside now all these impediments, let us pass directly into
   the soul's history, and catch from what transpires in its first
   indications the sign or promise of what it is to become. In its
   beginning it is a mere seed of possibility. All the infant faculties
   are folded up, at first, and scarcely a sign of power is visible in it.
   But a doom of growth is in it, and the hidden momentum of an endless
   power is driving it on. And a falling body will not gather momentum in
   its fall more naturally and certainly, than it will gather force, in
   the necessary struggle of its endless life now begun. We may think
   little of the increase; it is a matter of course, and why should we
   take note of it? But if no increase or development appears, if the
   faculties all sleep as at the first, we take sad note of that, and
   draw, how reluctantly, the conclusion that our child is an idiot and
   not a proper man! And what a chasm is there between the idiot and the
   man; one a being unprogressive a being who is not a power; the other a
   careering force started on its way to eternity, a principle of might
   and majesty begun to be unfolded, and to be progressively unfolded
   forever. Intelligence, reason, conscience, observation, choice, memory,
   enthusiasm, all the fires of his inborn eternity are kindling to a
   glow, and, looking on him as a force immortal, just beginning to reveal
   the symptoms of what he shall be, we call him man. Only a few years ago
   he lay in his cradle, a barely breathing principle of life, but in that
   life were gathered up, as in a germ or seed, all these godlike powers
   that are now so conspicuous in the volume of his personal growth. In a
   sense, all that is in him now was in him then, as the power of an
   endless life, and still the sublime progression of his power is only
   begun. He conquers now the sea and its storms. He climbs the heavens,
   and searches out the mysteries of the stars. He harnesses the
   lightning. He bids the rocks dissolve, and summons the secret atoms to
   give up their names and laws. He subdues the face of the world, and
   compels the forces of the waters' and the fires to be his servants. He
   makes laws, hurls empires down upon empires in the fields of war,
   speaks words that can not die, sings to distant realms and peoples
   across vast ages of time; in a word, he executes all that is included
   in history, showing his tremendous energy in almost every thing that
   stirs the silence and changes the conditions of the world. Every thing
   is transformed by him even up to the stars. Not all the winds, and
   storms, and earthquakes, and seas, and seasons of the world, have done
   as much to revolutionize the world as he, the power of an endless life,
   has done since the day he came forth upon it, and received, as he is
   most truly declared to have done, dominion over it.

   And yet we have, in the power thus developed, nothing more than a mere
   hint or initial sign of what is to be the real stature of his
   personality in the process of his ever lasting development. We exist
   here only in the small. that God may have us in a state of flexibility,
   and bend or fashion us, at the best advantage, to the model of his own
   great life and character. And most of us, therefore, have scarcely a
   conception of the exceeding weight of glory to be comprehended in our
   existence. If we take, for example, the faculty of memory, how very
   obvious is it that as we pass eternally on, we shall have more and more
   to remember, and finally shall have gathered in more into this great
   storehouse of the soul, than is now contained in all the libraries of
   the world. And there is not one of our faculties that has not, in its
   volume, a similar power of expansion. Indeed, if it were not so, the
   memory would finally overflow and drown all our other faculties, and
   the spirits, instead of being powers, would virtually cease to be any
   thing more than registers of the past.

   But we are not obliged to take our conclusion by inference. We can see
   for ourselves that the associations of the mind, which are a great part
   of its riches, must be increasing in number and variety forever,
   stimulating thought by multiplying its suggestives, and beautifying
   thought by weaving into it the colors of sentiment, endlessly varied.

   The imagination is gathering in its images and kindling its eternal
   fires in the same manner. Having passed. through many trains of worlds,
   mixing with scenes, societies, orders of intelligence and powers of
   beatitude--just that which made the apostle in Patmos into a poet, by
   the visions of a single day--it is impossible that every soul should
   not finally become filled with a glorious and powerful imagery, and be
   waked to a wonderfully creative energy.

   By the supposition it is another incident of this power of endless
   life, that passing down the eternal galleries of fact and event, it
   must be forever having new cognitions and accumulating new premises. By
   its own contacts it will, at some future time, have touched even whole
   worlds and felt them through and made premises of all there is in them.
   It will know God by experiences correspondently enlarged, and itself by
   a consciousness correspondently illuminated. Having gathered in, at
   last, such worlds of premise, it is difficult for us now to conceive
   the vigor into which a soul may come, or the volume it may exhibit, the
   wonderful depth and scope of its judgments, its rapidity and certainty,
   and the vastness of its generalizations. It passes over more and more,
   and that necessarily, from the condition of a creature gathering up
   premises, into the condition of God, creating out of premises; for if
   it is not actually set to the creation of worlds, its very thoughts
   will be a discoursing in world-problems and theories equally vast in
   their complications.

   In the same manner, the executive energy of the will, the volume of the
   benevolent affections, and all the active powers, will be showing, more
   and more impressively, what it is to be a power of endless life. They
   that have been swift in doing God's will and fulfilling his mighty
   errands, will acquire a marvelous address and energy in the use of
   their powers. They that have taken worlds into their love will have a
   love correspondently capacious, whereupon also it will be seen that
   their will is settled in firmness, and raised in majesty according to
   the vastness of impulse there is in the love behind it. They that have
   great thoughts, too, will be able to manage great causes, and they that
   are lubricated eternally in the joys that feed their activity, will
   never tire. What force, then, must be finally developed in what now
   appears to be the tenuous and fickle impulse, and the merely frictional
   activity of a human soul.

   On this subject the scriptures indulge in no declamation, but only
   speak in hints and start us off by questions, well understanding that
   the utmost they can do is to waken in us the sense of a future scale of
   being unimaginable, and beyond the compass of our definite thought.
   Here they drive us out in the almost cold mathematical question, what
   shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
   Here they show us in John's vision, Moses and Elijah, as angels,
   suggesting our future classification among angels, which are sometimes
   called chariots of God, to indicate their excelling strength and
   swiftness in careering through his empire, to do his will. Here they
   speak of powers unimaginable as regards the volume of their
   personality, calling them dominions, thrones, principalities, powers,
   and appear to set us on a footing with these dim majesties. Here they
   notify us that it doth not yet appear what we shall be. Here they call
   us sons of God. Here they bolt upon us-But I said ye are gods; as if
   meaning to waken us by a shock! In these and all ways possible, they
   contrive to start some better conception in us of ourselves, and of the
   immense significance of the soul; forbidding us always to be the dull
   mediocrities into which, under the stupor of our unbelief, we are
   commonly so ready to subside. O, if we could tear aside the veil, and
   see for but one hour what it signifies to be a soul in the power of an
   endless life, what a revelation would it be!

   But there is yet another side or element of meaning suggested by this
   expression, which requires to be noted. It looks on the soul as a
   falling power, a bad force, rushing downward into ruinous and final
   disorder. If we call it a principality in its possible volume, it is a
   falling principality. It was this which made the mighty priesthood of
   the Lord necessary. For the moment we look in upon the soul's great
   movement as a power, and find sin entered there, we perceive that every
   thing is in disorder. It is like a mighty engine in which some pivot or
   lever is broken, whirling and crashing and driving itself into a wreck.
   The disastrous effects of sin in a soul will be just according to the
   powers it contains, or embodies; for every force becomes a bad force, a
   misdirected and self-destructive force, a force which can never be
   restored, save by some other which is mightier and superior. What, in
   this view, can be more frightful than the disorders loosened in it by a
   state of sin.

   And what shall we say of the result or end? Must the immortal nature
   still increase in volume without limit, and so in the volume of its
   miseries; or only in its miseries by the conscious depths of shame and
   weakness into which it is falling? On this subject I know not what to
   say. We do see that bad minds, in their evil life, gather force and
   expand in many, at least, of their capabilities, on to a certain point
   or limit. As far as to that point or limit, they appear to grow
   intense, powerful, and, as the world says, great. But they seem, at
   last, and apart from the mere decay of years, to begin a diminishing
   process they grow jealous, imperious, cruel, and so far weak They
   become little, in the girding of their own stringent selfishness. They
   burn to a cinder in the heat of their own devilish passion. And so,
   beginning as heroes and demigods, they many of them taper off into
   awfully intense but still little men--intense at a mere point; which
   appears to be the conception of a fiend. Is it so that the bitterness
   of hell is finally created? Is it toward this pungent, acrid, awfully
   intensified, and talented littleness, that all souls under sin are
   gravitating? However this may be, we can see for ourselves that the
   disorders of sin, running loose in human souls, must be driving them
   downward into everlasting and complete ruin, the wreck cf all that is
   mightiest and loftiest in their immortality. One of the sublimest and
   most fearful pictures ever given of this you will find in the first
   chapter to the Romans. It reads like some battle among the gods, where
   all that is great and terrible and wild in the confusion, answers to
   the majesty of the powers engaged. And this is man, the power of an
   endless life, under sin. By what adequate power, in earth or in heaven,
   shall that sin be taken away? This brings me to consider--

   II. What Christ, in his eternal priesthood, has done; or the fitness
   and practical necessity of it, as related to the stupendous exigency of
   our redemption.

   The great impediment which the gospel of Christ encounters, in our
   world, that which most fatally hinders its reception, or embrace, is
   that it is too great a work. It transcends our belief, it wears a look
   of extravagance. We are beings too insignificant and low to engage any
   such interest on the part of God, or justify any such expenditure. The
   preparations made, and the parts acte., are not in the proportions of
   reason, and the very terms of the great salvation have, to our dull
   ears, a declamatory sound. How can we really think that the eternal God
   has set these more than epic machineries at work for such a creature as
   man?

   My principal object, therefore, in the contemplations raised by this
   topic, has been to start some conception of ourselves, in the power of
   an endless life, that is more adequate. Mere immortality, or
   everlasting continuance, when it is the continuance only of littleness
   or mediocrity, does not make a platform or occasion high enough for
   this great mystery of the gospel. It is only when we see in human
   souls, taken as germs of power, a future magnitude and majesty
   transcending all present measures, that we come into any fit conception
   at all of Christ's mission to the world. Entering the gospel at this
   point, and regarding it as a work undertaken for the redemption of
   beings scarcely imagined as yet, of dominions, principalities,
   powers,--spiritual intelligences so transcendent that we have, as yet,
   no words to name them,--every thing done takes a look of proportion; it
   appears even to be needed. and we readily admit that nothing less could
   suffice to restore the falling powers, or stop the tragic disorders
   loosened in them by their sin. How much more if, instead of drawing
   thus upon our imagination, we could definitely grasp the real import of
   our being, that which hitherto is only indicated, never displayed, and
   have it as a matter of positive and distinct apprehension. This power
   of endless life--could we lay hold of it; could we truly feel its
   movement in us, and follow the internal presage to its mark; or could
   we only grasp the bad force there is in it, and know it rushing
   downward, in the terrible lava-flood of its disorders, how true and
   rational, how magnificently divine would the great salvation of Christ
   appear, and in how great dread of ourselves should we hasten to it for
   refuge!

   Then it would shock us no more that visibly it is no mere man that has
   arrived. Were he only a human teacher, reformer, philosopher, coming in
   our human plane to lecture on our self-improvement as men, in the
   measures of men, he would even be less credible than now. Nothing meets
   our want, in fact, but to see the boundaries of nature and time break
   way to let in a being and a power visibly not of this world. Let him be
   the Eternal Son of God and Word of the Father, descending out of higher
   worlds to be incarnate in this. As we have lost our measures, let us
   recover them, if possible, in the sense restored of our everlasting
   brotherhood with him. Let him so be made a priest for us, not after the
   law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless
   life--the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of his
   person--God manifest in the flesh--God in Christ, reconciling the world
   unto himself. All the better and more proportionate and probable is it,
   if he comes heralded by innumerable angels, bursting into the sky, to
   congratulate their fallen peers with songs of deliverance--Glory to God
   in the Highest, peace on earth, good will toward men. Humbled to the
   flesh and its external conditions, he will only the more certainly even
   himself with our want, if he dares to say--Before Abraham was, I
   am--all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Is he faultless,
   so that no man convinceth him of sin, revealing in the humble guise of
   humanity the absolute beauty of God; how could any thing less or
   inferior meet our want? If he dares to make the most astounding
   pretensions, all the better, if only his pretensions are borne out by
   his life and actions. Let him heal the sick, feed the hungry, still the
   sea by his word. Let his doctrine not be human, let it bear the stamp
   of a higher mind and be verified and sealed by the perfection of his
   character. Let him be transfigured, if he may, in the sight of two
   worlds; of angels from the upper and of men from this; that, beholding
   his excellent glory, no doubt may be left of his transcendent quality.

   No matter if the men that follow him and love him are, just for the
   time, too slow to apprehend him. How could they see, with eyes holden,
   the divinity that is hid under such a garb of poverty and patience? How
   could they seize on the possibility that this man of sorrows is
   revealing even the depths of God's eternal love, by these more than
   mortal burdens? If the factitious distinctions of society pass for
   nothing with him, if he takes his lot among the outcast poor, how else
   could he show that it is not any tier of quality, but our great fallen
   humanity, the power of an endless life, that engages him. And when,
   with a degree of unconcern that is itself sublime, he says--The prince
   of this world cometh and hath nothing in me; how else could he convey
   so fitly the impression that the highest royalty and stateliest throne
   to him is simple man himself?

   But the tragedy gathers to its last act, and fearful is to be the
   close. Never did the powers of eternity, or endless life in souls,
   reveal themselves so terribly before. But he came to break their force,
   and how so certainly as to let it break itself across his patience? By
   his miracles and reproofs, and quite as much by the unknown mystery of
   greatness in his character, the deepest depths of malice in immortal
   evil are now finally stirred; the world's wild wrath is concentered on
   his person, and his soul is, for the hour, under an eclipse of sorrow;
   exceeding sorrowful even unto death. But the agony is shortly passed;
   he says, I am ready; and they take him, Son of God though he be, and
   Word of the Father, and Lord of glory, to a cross They nail him fast,
   and what a sign do they give, in that dire phrenzy, of the immortal
   depth of their passion! The sun refuses to look on the sight, and the
   frame of nature shudders! He dies! it is finished! The body that was
   taken for endurance and patience, has drunk up all the shafts of the
   world's malice, and now rests in the tomb.

   No! there is more. Lo! he is not here, but is risen he has burst the
   bars of death and become the first fruits of them that slept. In that
   sign behold his victory. Just that is done which signifies eternal
   redemption--the con quest and recovery of free minds, taken as powers
   dismantled by eternal evil. By this offering, once for all the work is
   finished. What can evil do, or passion, after this, when its bitterest
   arrows, shot into the divine patience, are by that patience so tenderly
   and sovereignly broken? Therefore now to make the triumph evident, he
   ascends, a visible conqueror, to the Father, there to stand as priest
   forever, sending forth his Spirit to seal, and testifying that he is
   able to save unto the uttermost all that come unto God by him.

   This, in brief historic outline, is the great salvation. And it is not
   too great. It stands in glorious proportion with the work to be done.
   Nothing else or less would suffice. It is a work supernatural
   transacted in the plane of nature; and what but such a work could
   restore the broken order of the soul under evil? It incarnates God in
   the world, and what but some such opening of the senses to God or of
   God to the senses, could reinstate him in minds that have lost the
   consciousness of him, and fallen off to live apart? What but this could
   enter him again, as a power, into the world's life and history? We are
   astonished by the revelation of divine feeling; the expense of the
   sacrifice wears a look of extravagance. If we are only the dull
   mediocrities we commonly take ourselves to be, it is quite incredible.
   But if God, seeing through our possibilities into our real eternities,
   comprehends, in the view, all we are to be or become, as powers of
   endless life, is there not some probability that he discovers a good
   deal more in us than we do in ourselves; enough to justify all the
   concern he testifies, all the sacrifice he makes in the passion of his
   Son? And as God has accurately weighed the worlds and even the atoms,
   accurately set them in their distances and altitudes, has he not also
   in this incarnate grace and passion, which offend so many by their ex.
   tess, measured accurately the unknown depths and magnitudes of our
   eternity, the momentum of our fall, the tragic mystery of our disorder?
   And if we can not comprehend ourselves, if we are even a mystery to
   ourselves, what should his salvation be but a mystery of godliness
   equally transcendent? If Christ were a philosopher, a human teacher, a
   human example, we might doubtless reason him and set him in our present
   scales of proportion, but he would as certainly do nothing for us equal
   to our want.

   Inasmuch as our understanding has not yet reached our measures, we
   plainly want a grace which only faith can receive; for it is the
   distinction of faith that it can receive a medication it can not
   definitely trace, and admit into the consciousness what it can not
   master in thought. Christ therefore comes not as a problem given to our
   reason, but as a salvation offered to our faith. His passion reaches a
   deeper point in us than we can definitely think, and his Eternal Spirit
   is a healing priesthood for us, in the lowest and profoundest roots of
   our great immortality, those which we have never seen ourselves. By our
   faith in him too as a mystery, he comes into our guiltiness, at a point
   back of all speculative comprehension, restoring that peace of
   innocence which is speculatively impossible; for how in mere
   speculation can any thing done for our sin, annihilate the fact; and
   without that, how take our guilt away? Still it goes! We know, as we
   embrace him, that it goes! He has reached a point in us, by his
   mysterious priesthood, deep enough even to take our guiltiness away,
   and establish us in a peace that is even as the peace of innocence!

   So, if we speak of our passions, our internal disorders, the wild,
   confused and even downward rush of our inthralled powers, he performs,
   in a mystery of love and the Spirit, what no teaching or example could.
   The manner we can trace by no effort of the understanding; we can only
   see that he is somehow able to come into the very germ principle of our
   life, and be a central, regulating, new-creating force in our
   disordered growth itself. And if we speak of righteousness, it is ours,
   when it is not ours; how can a being unrighteous be established in the
   sense of righteousness? Logically, or according to the sentence of our
   speculative reason, it is impossible. And yet, in Christ, we have it!
   We are consciously in it, as we are in him, and all we can say is, that
   it is the righteousness of God, by faith, unto all and upon all them
   that believe.

   But I must draw my subject to a close. It is a common impression with
   persons who hear, but do not accept, the calls of Christ and his
   salvation, that they are required to be somewhat less in order to be
   Christian. They must be diminished in quantity, taken down, shortened,
   made feeble and little, and then, by the time they have let go their
   manhood, they will possibly come into the way of salvation. They hear
   it declared that, in becoming little children, humble, meek, poor in
   spirit; in ceasing from our will and reason; and in giving up
   ourselves, our eagerness, revenge, and passion,--thus, and thus only,
   can we be accepted; but, instead of taking all these as so many figures
   antagonistic to our pride, our ambition, and the determined
   self-pleasing of our sin, they take them absolutely, as requiring a
   real surrender and loss of our proper manhood itself. Exactly contrary
   to this, the gospel requires them to be more than they are,--greater,
   higher, nobler, stronger,--all which they were made to be in the power
   of their endless life. These expressions, just referred to, have no
   other aim than simply to cut off weaknesses, break down infirmities,
   tear away boundaries, and let the soul out into liberty, and power, and
   greatness. What is weaker than pride, self-will, revenge, the puffing
   of conceit and rationality, the constringing littleness of all selfish
   passion. And, in just these things it is that human souls are so
   fatally shrunk in all their conceptions of themselves; so that Christ
   encounters, in all men, this first and most insurmountable difficulty;
   to make them apprised of their real value to themselves. For, no sooner
   do they wake to the sense of their great immortality than they are even
   oppressed by it. Every thing else shrinks to nothingness, and they go
   to him for life. And then, when they receive him, it is even a bursting
   forth into magnitude. A new inspiration is upon them, all their powers
   are exalted, a wondrous inconceivable energy is felt, and, having come
   into the sense of God, which is the element of all real greatness, they
   discover, as it were in amazement, what it is to be in the true
   capacity.

   A similar mistake is connected with their impressions of faith. They
   are jealous of faith, as being only weakness. They blame the gospel,
   because it requires faith, as a condition of salvation. And yet, as I
   have here abundantly shown, it requires faith just because it is a
   salvation large enough to meet the measures of the soul, as a power of
   endless life. And, O, if you could once get away, my friends, from that
   sense of mediocrity and nothingness to which you are shut up, under the
   stupor of your self-seeking and your sin, how easy would it be for you
   to believe? Nay, if but some faintest suspicion could steal into you of
   what your soul is, and the tremendous evils working in it, nothing but
   the mystery of Christ's death and passion would be sufficient for you.
   Now you are nothing to yourselves, and therefore Christ is too great,
   the mystery of his cross an offense. O, thou spirit of grace, visit
   these darkened minds, to whom thy gospel is hid, and let the light of
   the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ, shine
   into them! Raise in them the piercing question, that tears the world
   away and displays the grimace of its follies,--What shall it profit a
   man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?

   I should do you a wrong to close this subject without conducting your
   minds forward to those anticipations of the future which it so
   naturally suggests. You have all observed the remarkable interest which
   beings of other worlds are shown, here and there in the scripture, to
   feel in the transactions of this. These, like us, are powers of endless
   life, intelligences that have had a history parallel to our own. Some
   of them, doubtless, have existed myriads of ages, and consequently now
   are far on in the course of their development,--far enough on to have
   discerned what existence is, and the amount of power and dignity there
   is in it. Hence their interest in us, who as yet are only candidates,
   in their view, for a greatness yet to be revealed. And the interest
   they show seems extravagant to us, just as the gospel itself is, and
   for the same reasons. They break into the sky, when Christ is born,
   chanting their All-Hail. They visit the world on heavenly errands and
   perform their unseen ministries to the heirs of salvation. They watch
   for our repentances, and there is joy among them before God, when but
   one is gathered to their company, in the faith of salvation. And the
   reason is that they have learned so much about the proportions and
   measures of things, which as yet are hidden from us. These angels that
   excel in strength, these ancient princes and hierarchs that have grown
   up in God's eternity and unfolded their mighty powers in whole ages of
   good, recognize in us compeers that are finally to be advanced, as they
   are.

   And here is the point where our true future dawns upon us. It doth not
   yet appear what we shall be. We lie here in our nest, unfledged and
   weak, guessing dimly at our future, and scarce believing what even now
   appears. But the power is in us, and that power is to be finally
   revealed. And what a revelation will that be! Is it possible, you will
   ask in amazement, that you, a creature that was sunk in such dullness,
   and sold to such trivialities in your bondage to the world, were, all
   this time, related to God and the ancient orders of his kingdom, in a
   being so majestic!

   How great a terror to some of you may that discovery be! I can not say
   exactly how it will be with the bad minds, now given up finally to
   their disorders. Powers of endless life they still must be; but how far
   shrank by that stringent selfishness, how far burned away, as
   magnitudes, by that fierce combustion of passion, I do not know. But,
   if they diminish in volume and shrink to a more intensified power of
   littleness and fiendishness, eaten out, as regards all highest volume,
   by the malice of evil and the undying worm of its regrets, it will not
   be so with the righteous. They will develop greater force of mind,
   greater volume of feeling, greater majesty of will and character, even
   forever. In the grand mystery of Christ and his eternal
   priesthood,--Christ, who ever liveth to make intercession,--they will
   be set in personal and experimental connection with all the great
   problems of grace and counsels of love, comprised in the plan by which
   they have been trained, and the glories to which they are exalted.
   Attaining thus to greater force and stature of spirit than we are able
   now to conceive, they have exactly that supplied to their discovery
   which will carry them still further on, with the greatest expedition,
   Their subjects and conferences will be those of principalities and
   powers, and the conceptions of their great society will be
   correspondent; for they are now coming to the stature necessary to a
   fit contemplation of such themes. The Lamb of redemption and the throne
   of law, and a government comprising both will be the field of their
   study, and they will find their own once petty experience related to
   all that is vastest and most transcendent in the works and appointments
   of God's empire. O, what thoughts will spring up in such minds,
   surrounded by such fellow intelligences, entered on such themes, and
   present to such discoveries! How grand their action! How majestic their
   communion Their praise how august! Their joys how full and clear! Shall
   we ever figure, my friends, in scenes like these? O, this power of
   endless life!--great King of Life, and Priest of Eternity, reveal
   thyself to us, and us to ourselves, and quicken us to this unknown
   future before us.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                     XVII.

RESPECTABLE SIN.

   John viii. 9.--"And they which heard it, being convicted by their own
   conscience, went out, one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto
   the last, and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the
   midst."

   IT is with sins as with men or families, some have pedigree and some
   have not; for there are kinds and modes of sin that have, in all ages,
   been held in respect and embalmed with all the honors of history; and
   there are others that never were and never can be raised above the
   level even of disgust. The noble sins will, of course, be judged in a
   very different manner from the humble, baseborn sins. The sins of fame,
   honor, place, power, bravery, genius, always in good repute, will not
   seldom be admired and applauded. But the low-blooded sins of felony,
   and vice, and base depravity are associated with brutality, and are
   universally held in contempt. Whether the real demerit of the two
   classes of sin is measured by such distinctions is more questionable.
   Such distinctions certainly had little weight with Christ. He was even
   more severe upon the sins of learning, wealth, station, and religious
   sanctimony, than upon the more plebeian, or more despised class of
   sins. Indeed, he seems to look directly through all the fair
   conventionalities, and to bring his judgment down upon come point more
   interior and deeper. He appears, in general, to be thoroughly disgusted
   with all the mere respectabilities, whether men or sins. The
   hypocrisies of religion, the impostures of learning, the gilded shows
   of wealth gotten by extortion, the proud airs of authority and power
   employed in acts of oppression, provoke his indignation, and he deals
   with them in such terms of emphasis as indicate the profoundest
   possible abhorrence.

   Hence the jealousy with which he was watched by the elders, and
   priests, and rulers; for every few days some Rabbi, Scribe, lawyer, or
   committee of such, was sent out to observe him, or question him, or
   draw him, if possible, into some kind of treason in his doctrine;
   because they feared his influence with the people, lest he might put
   himself at their head and raise a great revolution that would even
   subvert the present social order.

   The cunning plot his enemies are working, in my text, is instigated by
   this kind of fear. He is teaching, it appears, a great multitude of
   people in the temple, when suddenly a company of Scribes and Pharisees
   are seen hustling in through the crowd, leading up a woman, to set her
   before him. She has been guilty, they say, of a base crime which the
   law of Moses punishes with public stoning and death, and they demand of
   him what shall be done with her? hoping that, out of the same perverse
   favor he is wont to show to low people, he will take the woman's part,
   and so give them the desired opportunity to throw contempt on his
   character, and exasperate the popular superstition against him.

   Christ, perceiving apparently their design, determines to put them to
   confusion. He remains a long time silent, making no answer, and of
   course none that can be taken hold of. They press him for a reply;
   still no reply is given. They wait, and still it is not given. There
   they stand in the center of the great concourse, all looking at them,
   and, as they soon begin to fancy, looking directly into them. It is a
   most uncomfortable position for them. To give still greater pungency to
   their thoughts, Christ withdraws his eyes from them, and, as if waiting
   for their complete confusion, writes abstractedly on the pavement At
   length they grow perplexed, and begin to ask themselves how they shall
   get out of their very awkward predicament. They press him still more
   vehemently, but he refuses to speak, save simply to say,--Let the man
   of you that is without sin throw the first stone at the woman, if she
   is guilty; and immediately falls to writing abstractedly on the ground
   again. The arrow sticks, and the suspense of silence makes them more
   and more conscious of the pain; till finally they can bear it no
   longer. Convicted thus by their own conscience, they went out, as the
   text has it, one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last,
   and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

   Look upon them now, as they withdraw, and follow them with your eye, as
   probably Christ and the whole assembly did. Observe the mannerly order
   of their shame,--beginning at the eldest, even unto the last! See how
   carefully they keep the sacred rules of good breeding and deference to
   age, even in their sniveling defeat, and the chagrin of their baffled
   conspiracy, and you will begin to find how base a thing may take on
   airs of dignity, and how contemptible, in fact, these airs of dignity
   may be.

   The subject thus presented is respectable sin, sin that takes on the
   semblance of goodness and judges itself by the dignity of its manner
   and appearance. Almost all the really great or sublime sins of the
   world are of this class, and I shall undertake to show that this more
   respectable type of sin is often, if not generally, deepest in the
   spirit of sin, and, in the sight of God, most guilty.

   Just this, I think, has been the impression of you all, in the
   remarkable scene referred to in my text. These plausible accusers,
   pressing in with their victim in such airs of dignity, and retiring in
   such careful deference to age as not to allow even a year's difference
   to be disregarded, have yet been virtually detected and foiled in a
   thoroughly wicked conspiracy. Had they been a gang of thieves, their
   transaction would have been more base only in the name; for it was, in
   fact, a kind of dramatic lie, deliberately planned, to snare an
   artless, worthy, and visibly holy man. Accordingly, now that they are
   gone, driven out by the recoil of their own base trick, the Saviour,
   without using any word of reproach, quietly proceeds to bring out the
   scene just where their real character will be most impressively
   displayed. He says to the woman, "Where are thine accusers? Hath no man
   condemned thee?" "No man, Lord." "Neither do I; go, sin no more."
   Sinner that she was, not even these sanctimonious conspirators could
   stand the challenge of their own sins long enough to accuse her. And
   the result is, that we are left by Christ in the impression, and that
   designedly, that on the whole, the woman, in her most shameful sin, was
   really less of a sinner than they. Her, therefore, we pity. Them we
   denounce and despise. How many things are we ready to imagine, that
   might soften our judgment of her fall, if we only knew the secret of
   her sad history. Our judgment of their stratagem, on the other hand,
   permits no softening, but we approve ourselves only the more
   confidently, the more heartily we despise and the more unrestrainedly
   we detest their hypocrisy in it. In pursuing now this very serious
   subject, we need,--

   First of all, to clear the influence of a false or defective
   impression, growing out of the fact, that we ourselves are persons that
   live so entirely in the atmosphere of character and decency. Our range
   of life is so walled in by the respectability of our associations, that
   what is on the other side of the wall is very much a world unknown.
   Hence we have no such opinion or impression of sin, anywhere, as we
   ought to have. It is with us all our life long and in all our
   associations; much as it is with us here in our assembly for worship.
   The offensive and repulsive forms of sin are almost never here, by so
   much as any one sign, or symptom. The sin is here, and sin that wants
   salvation; but it is sin so thoroughly respectable as to make it very
   nearly impossible to produce any just impression of its deformity.
   Sitting here in this atmosphere of decency and order, how can you
   suffer any just impression of the dreadful nature of that evil which,
   after all, wears a look so plausible. If there came in with you, to
   mingle in your audience, a fair representation only of the town; if you
   heard, in the porch, the profane oaths of the cellars and hells of
   gambling; if you looked about with a cautious feeling, right and left,
   in the seat, lest some one might rifle your dress, or pick your pocket;
   if the victims of drink were seen reeling into the seats, here and
   there, and their hungry, shivering children were crying at the door,
   for bread; if the diseased and loathsome relics of vice, recognized
   sometimes as the sons and daughters of families once living in respect
   and affluence, were sprinkled about you, tainting the air you breathe;
   in a word, if actual life were here, in correct representation, how
   different a matter would it be for me to speak of sin, how different
   for you to hear! And the same holds true of the associations of your
   life generally. Sin, in its really revolting, shocking forms, seldom
   gets near enough to you to meet your eye. What you know of it is mostly
   gotten from the newspapers, and is scarcely more of a reality to you,
   many times, than the volcanoes you hear of in the moon.

   Secondly, we need also to clear another false or defective impression,
   growing out of the general tendency in mankind to identify sin with
   vice; and, of course, to judge that whatever is clear of vice is clear
   also of sin; which, in fact, is the same as to judge that whatever sin
   is respectable is no sin at all. Or, sometimes, we identify sin with
   acts of wrong, or personal injury, such as deeds of robbery, fraud,
   seduction, slander, and the like. In this view, again, whatever sin is
   respectable enough to be clear of all such deeds of wrong is, of
   course, no sin. Whereas, there may be great sin where there is no vice,
   bitter and deep guiltiness before God where there is never one act of
   personal wrong or injury committed. All vice, all wrong, presupposes
   sin, but sin may be the reigning principle of the life, from childhood
   to the grave, and never produce one scar of vice, or blamable injury to
   a fellow-being. Indeed we must go further, we must definitely say that
   even virtue itself, as the term is commonly used, classes under sin, or
   has its root in sin. Virtue, as men speak, is conduct approved
   irrespectively of any good principle of conduct; and it is, for the
   most part, a goodness wholly negative, consisting in the not doing, the
   abstaining, and keeping off from whatever is confessedly base and
   vicious. Sin, on the other hand, is the negation of good as respects
   the principle of good. Any thing is sin, as God judges, which is not in
   the positive, all-dominating power of universal love. Any thing called
   virtue, therefore, which consists in barely not doing, is sin of
   course; because it is not in any positive principle of love, or duty to
   God. Half the sin of mankind, therefore, consists, or is made up of
   virtue; that is, of what is generally called virtue, and passes for a
   virtuous character in the common speech of men. It is, in fact,
   respectable sin, nothing more; and has exactly the same root with all
   sin, even the worst; viz., the not being in God's love and a state of
   positive allegiance to God.

   Consider now, thirdly, and make due account of the fact, that
   respectable sin is not less guilty because it has a less revolting
   aspect. A feeling is very generally indulged, even by such as are
   confessedly blamable for not being in the christian life, that their
   blame or guilt is a thing of higher and finer quality than it would be
   under the excesses and degrading vices many practice. They measure
   their sin by their outward standing and conduct, whereas all sin is of
   the same principle. The sin of one class is, in fact, the sin of the
   other, as respects every thing but manner and degree. There are
   different kinds of vice, but only one kind of sin; viz., the state of
   being without God, or cut of allegiance to God. All evil and sin, as we
   just now saw, are of this same negative root; the want of any holy
   principle; the state set off from God, and disempowered and degraded by
   the separation. The respectable sin, therefore, shades into the
   unrespectable, not as being different in kind, but only as twilight
   shades into the night. The evil spirit, called sin, may be trained up
   to politeness, and made to be genteel sin; it may be elegant,
   cultivated sih; it may be very exclusive and fashionable sin; it may be
   industrious, thrifty sin; it may be a great political manager, a great
   commercial operator, a great inventor; it may be learned, scientific,
   eloquent, highly poetic sin; still it is sin, and, being that, has in
   fact the same radical or fundamental quality that, in its ranker and
   less restrained conditions, produce all the most hideous and revolting
   crimes of the world.

   There is a very great difference, I admit, between a courteous man and
   one who is ill-natured and insulting, between a generous man and a
   niggard, a pure and a lewd, a man who lives in thought and a man who
   lives in appetite, a great and wise operator in the market and a thief;
   and yet, taken as apart from all accidental modifications, or degrees,
   the sin-quality or principle is exactly the same in all. As in water
   face answereth to face, so one class of hearts to the other. The
   respectable and the disgusting are twin brothers; only you see in one
   how well he can be made to look, and in the other how both would look,
   if that which is in both were allowed to have its bent and work its own
   results unrestrained.

   Again, fourthly, it is often true that what is looked upon as
   respectable sin is really more base in spirit, or internal quality,
   than that which is more and more universally despised. And yet this is
   not the judgment of those who are most apt to rule the judgments of the
   world. The lies of high life, for example, are the liberties asserted
   by power and respectable audacity. The lies of commoners and humble
   persons are a fatal, irredeemable dishonor. The fashionable, who spurns
   the obligation of an honest debt, is only asserting the right and title
   of fashion; but the merchant, or the tradesman, who avoids the payment
   of his bond, loses his honor and becomes a knave. The conqueror, who
   overruns and desolates a kingdom, will be named with respect or
   admiration by history, wh1en, probably enough, God will look upon him
   with as much greater abhorrence, than if he had robbed a hen-roost, as
   his crime is bloodier and more afflictive to the good of the world, How
   very respectable those learned impostors the Scribes, and those
   sanctimonious extortioners the Pharisees! How base those knavish
   tax-gatherers and sinners in low life! But Christ, who respected not
   the appearance, but judged righteous judgment, had a different opinion.
   It is not the show of a sin, my friends, which makes it base, but it is
   its interior quality,--what it is in motive, feeling, thought. It is
   the gloat of inward passion, the stringent pinch of meanness, the
   foulness of inward desire and conception, the fire of inward malignity,
   the rot of lust and hypocrisy. It is not for me, as public inspector of
   sins, to pass on their relative quality, or fix the brand of their
   degree. I will only say that the outwardly respectable look of them is
   no good test of their quality; leaving it, as a question between you
   and your God, whether, if all the inward shapes of your thought,
   motive, feeling, desire, and passion were brought out into the open
   sight of this community, and all the false and factitious rules of
   judgment accepted by us were swept away, it might not possibly appear
   that there are characters here, in this very respectable assembly, as
   base in real demerit as many that are classed among the outcasts of the
   town.

   It is obvious, fifthly, that what I am calling respectable sin is
   commonly more inexcusable,--not always, but commonly. Sometimes the
   most depraved and abandoned characters are those who have cast
   themselves down, bv their perversity, from the highest standing of
   privilege. But, however this may be, it can not be denied that the
   depraved and abject classes of society have, to a great extent, been
   trained up to the very life they lead; to be idle and beg, to be
   cunning, sharp, predatory, in one way or another, thieves; to look upon
   the base pleasures of self-indulgence and appetite as the highest
   rewards of existence. They are ignorant by right of their origin,
   brutal in manners and feeling, accustomed only to what is lowest in the
   possible range of human character. Sometimes, alas I the real want of
   bread has made them desperate. I will not become the sponsor of their
   crime; enough that they are criminal, and consciously so. But who is
   there of you that does not pity their hard lot; who of you that,
   considering their most sad history, is not often more ready to weep
   over than to judge them. Is it incredible to you that, in your own
   respectable aid decent life of sin, taken as related to your high
   advantages, there may even be a degree of criminality, which, as God
   estimates crime, is far more inexcusable than that for which many are
   doomed to suffer the severest and most ignominious penalties of public
   law?

   I add a single consideration further; viz., that respectable sin is
   more injurious, or a greater mischief, than the baser and more
   disgusting forms of vicious abandonment. The latter create for us
   greater public burdens, in the way of charity and taxation for the
   poor, and of judicial proceedings and punishments for public
   malefactors. They annoy us more too by their miseries and the crimes by
   which they disturb the security and peace of society. And vet it is
   really a fair subject of doubt, whether, in a moral point of view, they
   have not a wholesome influence and are not a social benefit. They tempt
   no one. Contrary to this, they repel and warn away from vice every one
   that looks upon them. They hang out a flag of distress upon every shoal
   of temptation. They show us the last results of all sin, and the colors
   in which they exhibit sin are always disgusting, never attractive. In
   this view they are really one of the moral wants of the world. We
   should never conceive the inherent baseness of sin, if it were not
   shown by their experiment; revealed in their delirium, their rags,
   their bloated faces, and bleared eyes, and tottering bodies, and, more
   than all, in the extinction of their human feeling, and the
   substitution of a habit or type of being so essentially brutal. We look
   down into this hell that vice opens, and with a shudder turn away!
   Meantime, respectable sin,--how attractive, how fascinating its
   pleasures. Its gay hours, its shows and equipages, its courteous
   society, its entertainments, its surroundings of courtly form and
   incident,--how delicious to the inspection of fancy. Even its excesses
   seem to be only a name for spirit. The places of temptation too are not
   the hells and brothels, but the saloons of pleasure and elegant
   dissipation. Vice is the daughter of pleasure; all unrespectable sin
   the daughter of respectable. Nay, if we go to the bottom, church-going
   sin is the most plausible form of sin that was ever invented, and, in
   that view, the most dangerous. For, if a man never goes to the place of
   worship, we take his sin with a warning, or at least with some little
   sense of caution; but, if he is regular at church, a respectful hearer
   of the word, a sober, correct, thoughtful man, still, (though never a
   Christian,) a safe, successful, always respected, never-faltering
   character,--then how many will be ready to imagine that there is one
   form of sin that is about as good as piety itself, and possibly even
   better than piety. And so this church-going sin gives countenance and
   courage to all other,--all the better and more effective countenance
   because no such thing is intended. There is, in short, no such thing as
   taking away the evil of sin by making it respectable. Make it even
   virtuous, as men speak, and it will only be the worse in its power, as
   regards the enticements it offers to evil. It will not shock any one by
   deeds of robbery and murder, it will not revolt any one by its
   disgusting spectacles of shame and misery, but how many will it
   encourage and shield, in just that rejection of God, which is to be
   their bitter fall and their eternal overthrow.

   It is scarcely possible, in closing this very serious subject, to name
   and duly set forth all the applications of which it is capable, or
   which it even presses on our attention.

   With how little reason, for example, are Christian people, and indeed
   all others, cowed by the mere name and standing of men, who are living
   still under the power of sin, and resisting or neglecting still the
   grace of their salvation. Doubtless it is well enough to look on them
   with respect, and treat them with a just deference; but however high
   they may seem, allow them never to overtop your pity. For what is the
   fair show they make, but a most sorrowful appeal to your compassions
   and your prayers? How can a true Christian, one who is consciously
   ennobled by the glorious heirship in which he is set, ever be
   intimidated, or awed, or kept back in his approaches or his prayers, by
   respect to that which is only respectable sin? If he goes to God,
   entering even into the holiest with boldness, how much more will he be
   able to stand before these princes of name and title and power, and
   speak to them of Christ and his great salvation. To falter in this
   boldness, brethren, is even a great wrong to our Master's gospel, which
   puts us, even the humblest of us, in a higher plane of dignity; far far
   above any most honored sinner of mankind.

   Again, it is impossible in such a subject as this, no, to raise the
   question of morality, what it is, and is worth, and where it will land
   us in the great allotments of eternity. Morality, taken as apart from
   religion, is but another name for decency in sin. It is just that
   negative species of virtue, which consists in not doing what is
   scandalously depraved or wicked. But there is no heart of holy
   principle in it, any more than there is in the worst of felonies. It is
   the very same thing, as respects the denial of God, or the state of
   personal separation from God, that distinguishes all the most reprobate
   forms of character. A correct, outwardly virtuous man is the principle
   of sin well-dressed and respectably kept--nothing more. And will that
   save you? You can, I am sure, be in no great danger of believing that.
   A far greater danger is that the decent, outwardly respectable manner
   of your sin will keep you from the discovery of its real nature, as a
   root of character in you. If we undertake to set forth the inherent
   weakness and baseness of sin, to open up the vile and disgustful
   qualities which make it, as the scriptures declare, abominable and
   hateful to God, if we speak of its poisonous and bitter effects within,
   and the inevitable and awful bondage it works in all the powers of
   choice and character, who of you can believe what we say? Such
   representations, you will think if you do not openly say, partake of
   extravagance. What can you know of sin, what can you feel of your deep
   spiritual need, when you are living so respectably and maintain, in the
   outward life, a show of so great integrity, and even so much of
   refinement often in what is called virtue. True conviction of sin--how
   difficult is it, when its appearances and modes of life are so fair,
   when it twines itself so cunningly about, or creeps so insidiously
   into, our amiable qualities, and sets off its internal disorders by so
   many outward charms and attractions!

   If then we are right in this estimate of morality and the very great
   dangers involved in it, how necessary is it, for a similar reason, that
   every man out of Christ, not living in any vicious practice, should set
   himself to the deliberate canvassing of his own moral state. Make a
   study of this subtle, cunningly veiled character, the state of
   reputable sin, and study it long enough to fathom its real import. Look
   into the secret motives and springs of your character; inspect and
   study long enough to really perceive the strange, wild current of your
   thoughts; detect the subtle canker in your feeling; comprehend the deep
   ferment of your lusts, enmities, and passions; hunt down the selfish
   principle which instigates and misdirects and turns off your whole life
   from God, setting all your aims on issues that reject Him; ask, in a
   word, how this respectable sin appears, when viewed inwardly; how, if
   unrestrained by pride, and the conventional rules of decency and
   character, it would appear outwardly. Fathom the deep hunger of your
   soul, and listen to its inward wail of bondage, its mournful, unuttered
   cry of want after God. Ask it of the enlightening Spirit of God, that
   he will open to your view yourself, and make you to know all that is
   inmost, deepest, most hidden in the habitually veiled deformity of your
   sin. Make it your prayer even to God--Search me, O God, and try me!

   You have a motive also in making this inquest, that is even more
   pressing than many of you will suspect. For no matter how respectable
   your sin is, you never can tell where it will carry you--how long it
   will be respectable, or where it will end. Enough to know that it is
   sin, and. that the principle of all sin is one and the same. In its
   very germ you have, potentially, whatever is abhorrent, abominable,
   disgusting; and when the fruit is ripe, no man can guess into what
   shape of debasement and moral infamy, or public crime, it may finally
   bring him. If he hears of a murder, like that of Webster, for example,
   he may be very confident that, in his particular and particularly
   virtuous case of unreligious living, there is no liability to any such
   result. And perhaps there is not. Perhaps the danger is different.
   Avoiding what is bloody, he may fall into what is false or low--some
   damning dishonesty or fraud, some violation of trust, some
   falsification of accounts, some debauchery of lust or appetite, some
   brutality which makes his very name and person a disgust. Sin works by
   no set methods. It has a way of ruin for every man, that is original
   and proper only to himself. Suffice it to say that, as long as you are
   in it and under its power, you can never tell what you are in danger
   of. This one thing you may have as a truth eternally fixed, that
   respectable sin is, in principle, the mother of all basest crime.
   Follow it on to the bitter end, and there is ignominy eternal. There is
   a law of retribution that keeps it company, and is never parted from
   it; by which law the end is being shaped and the hideous result
   prepared. If the delicate, pretentious, always correct sinner keeps to
   his decency here, the proper end will show itself hereafter, and then
   it will be seen how dark, after all, how deep in criminality, how
   bronzed in guilty thought, is every soul becoming under even the
   fairest shows of virtue, coupled with neglect of God, and separated
   from his personal love.

   Advancing now a stage, observe again that it is on just this view of
   the world and of human character under sin, chat the whole
   superstructure of Christianity is based Christ comes forth to the world
   as a lost world. He makes no distinction of respectable and
   unrespectable as regards the common want of salvation. Nay, it is plain
   from his searching rebukes laid on the heads of the priests, the
   rulers, and others in high life, that he is sometimes moved with
   greatest abhorrence by the sin of those who are most respectable and
   even sanctimonious. Hence the solemn universality of his terms of
   salvation. Hence the declared impossibility of eternal life to any,
   save by the same great radical change of character; a fact which he
   testifies directly to Nicodemus, the conscientious inquirer after
   truth, the sober and just senator, one of the very highest, noblest men
   in the nation,--Except a man be born, again, he can not see the kingdom
   of God. He asks not how you appear, but whether you are human. Nay, if
   you come to him, like the young ruler, clothed in all such comely
   virtues that he is constrained to look on you ingenuous, conscientious
   character with love, he will tell you, when you ask him what you are to
   do to have eternal life, that you must forsake all and come and follow
   him. Decency, correctness, praise--all these are but the guise of your
   sin, which guise he will tell you must be forever abandoned as a ground
   of confidence before God, and the sin, which now it only adorns and
   covers, must be itself removed and forever taken away by the blood of
   the Lamb.

   Have I now in my audience any forlorn one, like the woman of my text,
   any youth, or older person, who is consciously sinking into the toils
   of vice and beginning to taste its bitter humiliations; any that has
   consciously lost or begun to lose the condition of respect and
   reputable living; any that begins to scorn himself, or seems to be
   sinking under the pitiless scorn of the world's judgments? To such an
   one I rejoice to say, in the name of Jesus Christ, that there is no
   scorn with him. He does not measure sin by our conventional and often
   false rules of judgment. The basest sin he was even wont to find, in
   many cases, under the finest covering of respect. He will judge you
   rightly, not harshly. If you have fallen, or begun to fall, he wants to
   raise you. He offers you his free sympathy and support, and, if others
   lay their look of contempt upon your soul, he invites you kindly,
   whispers love and courage, and if you are ready to receive him, waits
   also to say--Thou art mine, go, son; go, daughter; sin no more!

   Brethren professed in the name and gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, it
   is him I follow, and not any want of charity I indulge, when I remind
   you that a still more mournful application of this subject is possibly
   required. What, alas! and apart from all severity of judgment, is the
   profession of many disciples but a state of serious and repeatable sin?
   They are virtuous persons, as that term is commonly used, good always
   on the negative side of prudence and caution. They have no vices. They
   bring no scandal on the cause of Christ by their walk. But to what does
   all this amount, if there be nothing farther and more positive to go
   with it? Does the mere keeping out of vice and scandalous misdoing,
   does the exactest possible life, in fact, if we speak only of its
   correctness, constitute a living and true piety? What is it, even at
   the best, but a reputable, or possibly a somewhat christian-looking
   state of sin? The Pharisees and other religious persons of the
   Saviour's time were abundantly and even sanctimoniously exact persons.
   And yet the Saviour discovered in them. if we can judge from the tone
   of his rebukes; the worst and most incurable type of moral abandonment.
   They had so little sense of holiness, and so little sympathy with it,
   that they were his bitterest enemies, and even became his betrayers and
   murderers. He saw all this beforehand, wrapped up in their
   character;--their washings, sacrifices, long prayers, and scrupulous
   tithings did not conceal it. You certainly have no such ceremonies; you
   do not believe in them, but you have covenants, communions, baptisms,
   family altars. Have you, in company with these, and answering to these,
   the new man of love, created anew in Christ Jesus unto good works? If
   you have not, if you live a dumb, unpositive life, under the power of
   the world, selfish still as before, and self-pursuing; if the old man
   is not crucified, and the new man, Christ, is certainly not being
   formed within you, then your profession signifies nothing but the mere
   respectability of your sin What is your supposed piety but this, if it
   have no spiritual and inwardly transforming power? Christ is redemption
   only as he actually redeems and delivers our nature from sin. If he is
   not the law and spring of a new spirit of life, he is nothing. Beware,
   let me say to you in Christ's name,--beware of the leaven of the
   Pharisees and Sadducees. The true principle, my brethren, is this, and
   if this will yield us no just title to the Christian name, what we call
   our piety is in honest truth nothing more or better than a decent shape
   of sin;--For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons
   of God--as many, no more. Are we so led, do we so live?

   To dismiss this subject without some prospective reference, or glance
   of forecast on the future, is impossible, however painful and appalling
   the contemplations it will raise. When you go to stand before God, my
   friends, it will not be your dress, or your house, or your titles, or
   your wealth, no, nor even your virtues, however much commended here,
   that will give you a title of entrance among the glorified. Respectable
   sin will not pass then and there as here., The honor, the nobility of
   it is now gone by. The degrees, indeed, of sin are many, but the kind
   is one, and that a poor, dejected, emptied form of shame and sorrow.
   How appalling such a thought to any one who is capable of thought, and
   not absolutely brutalized by his guilt. Furthermore, as sin is sin,
   everywhere and in all forms, the respectable and the unrespectable, the
   same in principle, and when the appearances are different, the same
   often in criminality, the world of future retribution must, of course,
   be a world of strange companionships. We are expressly told, and it
   seems a matter of reason also to suppose, that the spirits of guilty
   men will not be assorted there by their tastes, but by their character
   and demerits. Death is the limit and end of all mere conventionalities.
   The fictitious assortments of the earthly state never pass that limit.
   Rank, caste, fashion, disgust, fastidiousness, delicacy of sin--these
   are able to draw their social lines no longer. Proximity now is held to
   the stern, impartial principle of inward demerit;--That all may receive
   according to the deeds done in the body. This is the level of
   adjustment, and there appears to be no other. The standing of the high
   priests, the Scribes. and Pharisees, and the forlorn woman of my text,
   may be inverted now, or they may all take rank together. And so also
   many of you, that are now pleasing yourselves in the dignity of your
   virtues, and the honors of your social standing, may fall there into
   group and gradation, with such as now you even look away from with
   profoundest distaste or revulsion. The subject is painful; I will not
   pursue it. I will only remind you that where the lines of justice lead,
   there you must yourselves follow; and if that just award of respectable
   sin yields you only the promise of a scale of companionships from which
   your soul recoils with disgust, there is no wisdom for you but to be as
   disgustful of the sin as of the companionships, and draw yourself, at
   once, to Him who is Purity, and Peace, and Glory, and, in all, Eternal
   Life.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                     XVIII.

THE POWER OF GOD IN SELF-SACRIFICE.

   1 Cor. i. 24.--"Christ the power of God."

   THE cross and Christ crucified are the subject here in hand.
   Accordingly, when Christ is called the power of God, we are to
   understand Christ crucified; and then the problem is to conceive how
   Christ, dying in the weakness of mortality and exhibiting, just there,
   if we take him as the incarnate manifestation of God, the humblest
   tokens of passibility and frailty, is yet and there, as being the
   crucified, the power of God.

   At our present point and without some preparation of thought, we can
   hardly state intelligibly, or with due force of assertion, the answer
   to such a question. The two elements appear to be incompatible, and we
   can only say that the power spoken of is, not the efficient, or
   physical, but the moral power of God; that namely of his feeling and
   character But as this will be no statement sufficiently clear to stand
   as the ruling proposition of a discourse, I will risk a departure from
   our custom and, instead of drawing my subject formally from my text, I
   will begin at a point external and draw, by stages, toward it; paying
   it, as I conceive, the greater honor, that I suppose it to be so rich
   and deep in its meaning, as to require and to reward the labor of a
   discourse, if simply we may apprehend the lesson it teaches.

   Christ, then, the crucified, and so the power of God--this is our goal,
   let us see if we can reach it.

   We take our point of departure at the question of passibility in
   God--is He a being passible, or impassible?

   It would seem to follow from the infinitude of his creatively efficient
   power, and the immensity of his nature, that he is and must be
   impassible. There is, in fact, no power that is not in his hands. There
   are cases, it is true, where superiority in volume and physical force
   rather increases than diminishes passibility. Thus it is that man is
   subject to so great annoyance from the mere gnat, and the creature is
   able to inflict this inevitable suffering upon him, just because of his
   own atomic littleness. But there is no parallel in this for the
   relation of God to his creatures, or of theirs to Him; because they
   continue to exist only by His permission. Besides, He is spirit only,
   not a being that can be struck, or thrust upon, or any way violated by
   physical assault. What we call force, or physical power can not touch
   him. And even if it could, he is probably incapable of suffering from
   it, as truly as even space itself. Like space, like eternity, he is, in
   his own nature, as spirit, essentially impassible --impassible, that
   is, as related to force.

   But the inquiry is not ended when we reach this point, it is only
   begun. After all there must be some kind of passibleness in God, else
   there could be no genuine character in him. If he could not be pained
   by any thing, could not suffer any kind of wound, had no violable
   sympathy, he would be any thing but a perfect character. A cast iron
   Deity could not command our love and reverence. The beauty of God is
   that he has feeling and feels appropriately toward every thing done;
   that he feels badness as badness, and goodness as goodness, pained by
   one, pleased by the other. There must be so much, or such kind of
   passibility in him that he will feel toward every thing as it is, and
   will be diversely affected by diverse things, according to their
   quality. If wickedness and wrong stirred nothing in him different from
   what is stirred by a prayer, if He felt no disaffection toward a thief
   which He does not feel toward a martyr, no pleasure in a martyr
   faithful unto death which He does not in his persecutors, He would be a
   kind of no-character, we can hardly conceive such a being.

   A very large share of all the virtues have, in fact, an element of
   passivity, or passibility in them, and without that element they could.
   not exist. Indeed the greatness and power of character, culminates in
   the right proportion and co-ordination of these passive elements. And
   just here it is, we shall see, that even God's perfection culminates.
   He is great as being great in feeling.

   We raise a distinction, as among ourselves, between what we call the
   active and the passive virtues. Not that all virtues are not equally
   active, in the sense of being voluntary, or free, but that in some of
   them we communicate, and in some of them receive action. If I impart a
   charity, that is my active virtue; if I receive an insult without
   revenging, or wishing to revenge it, that is my passive virtue. All the
   wrong acts done us and also all the good are occasions of some
   appropriate, proportionate and really great feeling, which is our
   passive virtue. And without this passive virtue in its varieties, we
   should be only no-characters, dry logs of wood instead of Christian
   men. Or, if we kept on acting still, we should be only active machines,
   equally dry as wood, and only making more of noise; for what better is
   the active giving (f a charity, if there be no fellow-feeling, or
   pitying passion with it, to make it a charity?

   Now God must have these passive virtues as truly as men. They are the
   necessary soul of all greatness in him. How then shall we conceive him
   to have them and to have his sublime perfection culminate in them, when
   he is, in fact, impassible?

   This brings us to the true point of our question. We discover, first,
   that God is and must be physically impassible. We discover, next, that
   he ought to feel appropriately to all kinds of action, and must have,
   in order to his real greatness in character, all the passive virtues.
   He must in one view be impassible and in some other, passible,
   infinitely passible. And how is this, where is. the solution?

   It is here; that God, being physically impassible, impassible as
   relates to violating force, is yet morally passible. That is, he is a
   being whose very perfection it is, that he feels the moral significance
   of things, receives all actions according to their moral import,
   whether as done to himself, or by one created being to another. In this
   latter sense, he feels actions intensely according to the moral
   delicacy of his nature, deeply according to the depth of his nature. In
   this point of view, he is, just because he is perfect and infinite,
   infinitely passible. He has just that sense of things which infinite
   holiness must have, loves the tears of repentance in his child just as
   infinite mercy must, turns away from all wrong, as profoundly revolted
   by it, as his infinite, eternal chastity must be.

   It will be seen, at once, that God can receive the sense of actions
   morally, in this manner, when they can not touch him as force or
   physically. He can feel ingratitude when he can not feel a blow. He can
   loathe impurity when he can not be injured by any assault. He can be
   sore displeased by the cruelty of man to his fellow, when he could not
   suffer the cruelty himself. He is pleased and gratified by acts of
   sacrifice, when he could not be comforted, or enriched by the
   ministries of benevolence. All acts affect him just according to their
   quality. A thermometer is not more exactly and delicately passive to
   heat, than he is to the merit and demerit of all actions. So, as
   regards what lies in character and pertains in that way to spirit, he
   is the most intensely passible of all beings, and has it for his merit
   that he is.

   This, accordingly, is the representation given of him in the
   scriptures, or, as it will more assist my subject to say, in the Old
   Testament scriptures. Thus he is blessed, or said to be, in all the
   varieties of agreeable affection, according to the merit and beauty of
   whatever is done that is right. He smelled a sweet savor, we are told,
   in Noah's sacrifice. He has pleasure in them that hope in his mercy. He
   is affected with joy over his people, as a prophet represents, even to
   singing, in the day of their restored peace. He is tender in his
   feeling to the obedient, pitying them that fear him as a father pitieth
   his children. His very love is partly passive; that is, it is a being
   affected with complacency by those who are in the truth, and a being
   affected with compassion by the bitter and hard lot of those under sin.
   On the other hand, by how many unpleasant varieties, or pains of
   feeling does he profess to suffer, in his relation to scenes of human
   wrong, ingratitude and disgusting baseness. The sighing of the prisoner
   comes before him, to command his sympathy. He calls after his people,
   as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit. He testifies,--I am pressed
   under you as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves. His repentings
   are kindled together in view of the sins of his people. In all the
   afflictions of his people he is afflicted himself. And, in the same
   manner, he is said to be exercised by all manner of disagree. able and
   unpleasant sentiments in relation to all manner of evil doings;
   displeased, sore displeased, wroth, angry, loathing, abhorring,
   despising, hating, weary, filled with abomination, wounded, hurt,
   grieved, and even protests, like one sorrowing, that he could do
   nothing more for his vineyard that he has not done in it. There is, in
   short, no end to the variety of unhappy, or disagreeable sentiments
   that must be excited in God's breast of infinite purity, by the various
   complexities of guilt, wrong, shame and loathsomeness that are blended
   in the societies and scenes of our fallen world. If God could look on
   these things without disgust and abhorrence, he would not be God. He
   would want all that is most amiable, freshest, most delicate, purest in
   love, every thing that most commends him to our reverence.

   But these movings of disgust and abhorrence, all these sentiments that
   put him in a just relation with evil, are painful. Simply to say that
   one is displeased is to say that he is disagreeably affected; or merely
   to say that one dislikes a character is to allege that he is
   unpleasantly affected by it. What then shall we think of God, when all
   these varieties of displeasure and dislike must as certainly be living
   experiences in him, as he is a holy and a living God? So far he is a
   being subject to pain, by reason of his very perfections. Nay, his
   pains do them. selves enter into and make up a consubstantial part of
   his perfections.

   And what is this, some will ask, but to assume the unhappiness, or, at
   least, the diminished happiness, of God. Is then God unhappy? Is he
   less than infinitely blessed? Pressed by this difficulty, it has been
   the manner of many teachers to fall back on the physical impassibility
   of God, imagining that there, at that fixed point, the true solution
   must begin. God, they say, is impassible. We are therefore to
   understand that, in all these scripture expressions, these abhorrings,
   loathings, hatings, displeasures, angers, wearinesses, indignations,
   and the like, the bible is only speaking of God after the manner of
   men. Yes, but, supposing it to thus speak, what does it mean? Does it
   mean nothing? When it declares that God abominates sin, does it mean
   that he has no feeling at all in respect to it? Does it mean that he
   has a pleasant or pleased feeling? Neither; we mock the dignity of
   scripture, nay we mock the beauty itself of God, when we turn away, in
   this manner, all credit of right feeling and true rationality in Him.
   No, this is what we mean; we mean, if we understand ourselves, that the
   figures in question, are transferred from human uses and applied over
   to God; and that when so applied, they express something true
   concerning God; viz., the great fact that God has the same kind of
   displeased, disaffected, abhorrent and revolted feeling toward sin, as
   the purest and holiest man has, only it is God's feeling, in God's
   measures, and according to God's purity, that his disgust is deep as
   the sea, that his indignation is a storm vast as the world, that his
   whole infinitude is moved with dislike, distaste, disgust, offended
   purity, abhorrence and revolted love. It would even be a discredit to
   God to suppose any thing less.

   And so we come back on the difficulty, a hundred fold increased, and we
   ask again, how shall we save the infinite blessedness of God? By just
   dropping out our calculations of arithmetic, I answer, and looking at
   facts. It seems to be good arithmetic and logically inevitable that, if
   any subtraction is made from God's infinite happiness, he can not be
   infinitely happy. No, it is not inevitable. On the contrary, he may
   even be the more blessed because of the subtraction, for to see that he
   feels rightly toward evil, despite of the pain suffered from it, to be
   conscious of long suffering and patience toward it, to know that he is
   pouring and ever has been the fullness of his love upon it, to be
   studying now, in conscious sacrifice, a saving mercy;--out of this
   springs up a joy deeper and more sovereign than the pain, and by a
   fixed law of holy compensation, the sea of his blessedness is kept
   continually full. All moral natures exist under this law of
   compensation; so that every being is made more blessed in all the
   passive virtues. To receive evil rightly is to master it, to be rightly
   pained by it is to be kept in sovereign joy. To suffer well is bliss
   and victory.

   Probably no one ever thought of compassion as being any thing less than
   a joy, a holy bliss of feeling. And yet it is co-passion. It suffers
   with its objects, takes their burdens, struggles with their
   sorrows--all which is pain, a loss of happiness. Still it is no loss,
   because there is another element in the conscious greatness of the
   loss, and the man is even raised in order by the inward exaltation he
   feels. So in respect to pity, long suffering, patience with evil, and
   meekness under wrong. They have all a side of loss, and yet they are
   the noblest augmentations of blessedness. There is a law of moral
   compensation in them all, by which their suffering is married to
   inevitable joy,

   Nor is this fact of compensation wholly confined to actions moral; a
   similar return keeps company with loss and is expected to do so in
   other matters. The hearer of a tragedy, for example, goes to be
   afflicted, to have his soul harrowed and torn, that in so deep
   excitement he may feel the depth of his nature, and be exalted in the
   powerful surging of its waves! He suffers a great subtraction, but no
   diminution.

   We need not therefore be troubled or concerned for God's happiness,
   because he feels toward evil, and with all his feeling, exactly as he
   should. That, if only we can drop the stupid computations of arithmetic
   and look into the living order of mind, or spirit, is the sublimity
   even of his blessedness, as it is the necessary grace of his
   perfection.

   Thus far I have spoken of God's passive virtue, principally as
   concerned in feeling toward what is moral, just according to its
   quality; in being affected pleasantly, or disagreeably according to the
   good, or evil of what he looks upon. But there is a moral passivity in
   all perfect character that is vastly higher than this and reaches
   farther; viz., a passivity of mercy, or sacrifice. In this, a good, or
   perfect being not only feels toward good, or evil, according to what it
   is, but willingly endures evil, or submits to its bad quality and
   action to make it what it is not; to recover and heal it. No
   extraordinary purity is necessary to make any one sensible of
   disaffection, or disgust, or pain, in the contemplation of what is vile
   and wicked; but to submit one's ease and even one's personal comfort
   and pleasure to the endurance of wickedness, in order to recover and
   subdue it, requires what is far more difficult. I can be disgusted
   easily enough, by the ingratitude, offended by the treachery, wounded
   by the wrongs of an enemy, but to bear that enemy and put myself in the
   way of receiving more injury, in order to regain his friendship and
   restore him to a right feeling, is quite another matter. I am never
   perfect in my relation to him till I can. All perfect virtue will do
   this, and none is perfect but this, whether in man, or in angel, or in
   God.

   Just here then, we begin to open upon the true meaning of my
   text--Christ the power of God. There is no so great power even among
   men, as this of which I now 3peak. It conquers evil by enduring evil.
   It takes the cage of its enemy and. lets him break his malignity across
   the enduring meekness of its violated love. Just here it is that evil
   becomes insupportable to itself. It can argue against every thing but
   suffering patience, this disarms it. Looking in the face of suffering
   patience it sinks exhausted. All its fire is spent.

   In this view it is that Christ crucified is the power of God. It is
   because he shows God in self-sacrifice, because he brings out and makes
   historical in the world God's passive virtue, which is, in fact, the
   culminating head of power in his character. By this it is that he opens
   our human feeling, bad and blind as it is, pouring himself into its
   deepest recesses and bathing it with his cleansing, new-creating
   influence. There is even a kind of efficiency in it and that the
   highest, viz., moral efficiency; for it is moral power, not physical,
   not force. It is that kind of power which feeling has to impregnate
   feeling; that which one person has in good, to melt himself into and
   assimilate another in evil. Hence it is that so much is said of Christ
   as a new-discovered power--the power of God unto salvation; the Son of
   God with power; the power of Christ, Christ the power of God and the
   wisdom of God. The power spoken of here is conceived to be such that
   Christ is really our new creator. We are his workmanship created unto
   good works; new creatures therefore in him, transformed radically by
   our faith in him, passed from death unto life, born of God, renewed in
   the spirit of our mind, created after God in righteousness and true
   holiness. All the figures of cleansing, sprinkling, washing, healing,.
   purging, terminate in the same thing, the new creating efficacy of
   Christ, the power of God. It is the power of character, feeling, a
   right passivity, a culminating grace of sacrifice in God.

   But how does it appear that any so great efficacy is added to the known
   character of God, by the life and death of Christ? Was not every thing
   shown us in his death explicitly revealed, or, in language, formally
   ascribed to God, by the writers of the Old Testament? God, I have
   already shown, was certainly represented there as being duly affected
   by all evil; that is, he was shown to be affected according to its true
   nature; displeased, abhorrent, hurt, afflicted, offended in purity,
   burdened with grief and compassion. But to have these things said, or
   ascribed formally to God, is one thing, and a very different to have
   them lived and acted historically in the world. Perfections that are
   set before us in mere epithets have little significance, no
   significance but that which we give them by thinking them out. But
   perfections lived, embodied physically, and acted before the senses,
   under social conditions, have quite another grade of meaning. How much
   then does it signify when God comes out from nature, out of all
   abstractions and abstractive epithets, to be acted personally in just
   those glorious and divine passivities that we have least discerned in
   him and scarcely dare impute to him. By what other method can he meet
   us then, so entirely new and superior to all past revelations, as to
   come into our world-history in the human form; that organ most eloquent
   in its passivity, because it is, at once, most expressive and closest
   to our feeling.

   And if this be true respecting God's mere passivities of sensibility to
   right and wrong, how much truer is it, when we speak of him in
   sacrifice. No su6h impression, or conception of God was ever drawn out,
   as a truth positive, from any of the epithets we have cited. And what
   we call nature gives it no complexion of evidence. Nature represents
   inexorable force, a God omnipotent, self-centered, majestic, infinite
   and, as almost any one will judge, impassible. Such are the impressions
   it gives and it encourages no other. We could almost as soon look for
   sacrifice in a steam-engine as in nature. The only hint of possible
   relaxation we get from it is that which we borrow from the delay of
   punishment; for this one thing is clear, that justice here is not done,
   and therefore we may guess that other ideas enter into God's plans. So
   strongly opposite, therefore, is nature to any conception of
   flexibility in God, that we are continually put away from Christianity
   by its suggestions. So closely holden are we by its power, that God, as
   in sacrifice, appears to be quite inconceivable to many of us, even
   though we look on the passion of the Lord Jesus itself.

   To know him thus, we therefore need the more. If the Old Testament
   gives us only verbal epithets concerning God, and nature sets us off
   from the conception of any real passivity in these, how necessary,
   original, powerful, is the God of sacrifice, he that endures evil and
   takes it as a burden to bear, when we see him struggling under the
   load. And if still we can not believe, if we reduce our God in
   speculation still to a dry, unmoving, negative perfection, which
   escapes suffering by feeling nothing as it is, only the more wonderful
   is the power that can be a power so great upon us, when obstructed by
   such unbelief. Still the fact is fact--the Christ has lived, his great
   and mighty passion has entered into the world, and we do get
   impressions from it, even when we are shutting its most central truth
   away. Somewhere still there is, (how often do we say it) a wondrous
   power hid in the cross! It penetrates our deepest nature; and when our
   notional wisdoms are, at some time, left behind, when we are merely
   holding the historic fact in practical trust unexplained, nothing meets
   our feeling so well as to call it the great mystery of godliness. We do
   it because we feel a somewhat in it more than we can reason out of it;
   because it penetrates and works in our deepest nature, with a wondrous
   incomprehensible efficacy.

   But in all this we are supposing that Christ suffered and that he is
   indeed the incarnate Word of God's eternity--God manifest in the flesh.
   And the suffering is, by the supposition, physical--a suffering under
   force. If then God is in his very nature physically impassible, as we
   have said, how does it appear that he is any way expressed in the
   passion of Christ, how does the passion present him as in sacrifice?
   Ah, that is a difficulty! I confess, in all humility, that I can not
   reason it. I can only so far answer as to make out a case for faith,
   unobstructed by the veto of reason.

   And, first of all, it is not asserted, when we assert the physical
   impassibility of God, that he can not suffer by consent, or
   self-subjection, but only that he can not be subjected involuntarily.
   We know nothing of the liberty possessed by the divine nature, to exist
   under assumed conditions, whenever there are any sufficient reasons for
   so doing. To deny that God has such kind of liberty in the Word, might
   even be a greater infringement of his power, than to maintain his
   natural passibility.

   In the next place, we can clearly enough see that there is no
   difficulty in the passion of Christ which does not also exist in the
   incarnation itself. It is indeed the incarnation, or one of the
   included incidents. And the incarnation is, by the supposition, a fact
   abnormal, inconceivable, speculatively impossible. How can the infinite
   being, God, exist under finite conditions; how can the All-Present be
   localized; how (for that is only another form of the same question) can
   the impassible suffer? And yet it would be a most severe assumption to
   say that God can not, to express himself and forward his negotiation
   with sin, subject himself, in some way mysteriously qualified, to just
   these impossible conditions.

   Be this all as it may, there are ways of knowing and perceiving that
   are shorter, and, in many things, wiser than the processes of the head.
   In this passion of Jesus, it must be enough that I look on the travail
   of a divine feeling, and behold the spectacle of God in sacrifice. This
   I see and nothing less. He is visibly not a man. His character is not
   of this world. I feel a divinity in him. He floods me with a sense of
   God, such as I receive not from all God's works and worlds beside. And
   when I stand by his cross, when I look on that strong passion and
   shudder with the shuddering earth, and darken with the darkening sun,
   enough that I can say--My Lord and my God! I ask no sanction of the
   head. I want no logical endorsement. Enough that I can see the heart of
   God, and, in all this wondrous passion, know him as enduring the
   contradiction of sinners. No matter if I can not reason the mystery; no
   matter if the whole transaction is a doing of the impossible, when so
   plainly the impossible is done when I have the irresistible verdict in
   me, self-pronounced! Why should I debate the matter in my head, when I
   have the God of sacrifice in my heart? I will give up my sins. He that
   endures me so, subdues me, and I yield. O thou Lamb of God that takest
   away the sin of the world, what thou bearest in thy blessed hands and
   feet, I can not bear; take it all away. Hide me in the depths of thy
   suffering love, mold me to the image of thy divine passion!

   Here now, my friends, and at this point I close; here let us learn to
   conceive more fitly the greatness of God. His greatness culminates in
   sacrifice. He is great, because there is, a moral passivity so great in
   his perfections. All which the cross of Jesus signifies was central,
   eternally, in his majestic character. Nothing superlative is here
   displayed, nothing is done which adds so much as a trace to God's
   personal glories. All that is done is simply to express, or produce in
   real evidence, what his glories were from eternity. All that is
   discovered to us in the passion was in him from eternity. The cross was
   the crown of his perfection before the worlds were made. He was such a
   being as could feel toward evil and good according to what they are;
   such a being, too, as could suffer an enemy, endure his wrong in royal
   magnanimity, and subdue him by his patience. O, if he were only wise,
   omnipotent, a great architect piling immensity full of his works, fixed
   in his eternity, strong in his justice, firm in his decrees, that were
   doubtless something; even that would present him as an object worthy of
   profoundest reverence; but in the passion of Jesus he is more. There
   his power is force; here it is sacrifice. There he creates by his fiat;
   here he new-creates by the revelation of sacrifice. There he astonishes
   the eye; here he touches and transforms the heart. Is it wrong to say
   that here is the summit of his greatness? Were he, then, the mere ideal
   that figures in our new literature, some great no-person, some vast To
   Pan sleeping back of the stars; some clear fluid of impersonal reason,
   in which both we and the stars are floating, having neither will nor
   feeling; a form of stolidity made infinite; would he be a greater
   being, more admirable, warmer to our love, and worthier to be had in
   reverence? O, these great passibilities! this sorrowing love this
   enduring patience that bears the sins of the world! He that groans in
   the agony, he that thirsts on the cross, this is the real and
   true,--the Lord he is the God the Lord he is the God! The God of mere
   amplitude will do to amuse the fancy of the ingenious; the God of
   sacrifice only can approve himself to a sinner.

   And here it is that our gospel comes to be so great a power. It is not,
   on one hand, the power of omnipotence, or of a naked, ictic force,
   falling in secretly regenerative blows, like a slung shot in the night.
   Neither is it, on the other hand, any mere appeal of gratitude, or
   newly impressed obligation, drawing the soul to God by the
   consideration of what he has done, in the cross, to purchase a free
   remission. Bonds of gratitude, alas! have never been so great a power
   on human souls. And how does it appear that any such bond has been even
   admitted, when as yet the remission itself is rejected and the want of
   it unfelt? No! this power, this wonderful power! is God in sacrifice.
   It is measured and expressed and incorporated in the historic life of
   the world as a power new-creative in the passion of Jesus, the
   incarnate Word of God; for it is here that God pours out into the
   world's bosom his otherwise transcendent perfections, and opens, even
   to sight, the otherwise inaccessible glories of his love, It is even
   the official work, therefore, and mission of the Holy Spirit to be
   Christ in men, taking the things of Christ's passion and showing them
   unto men's hearts; for Christ, himself is, in his sacrifice, the mighty
   power of God. This is the power that has new-created and sent home, as
   trophies, in all the past ages, its uncounted myriads of believing,
   new-created, glorified souls; the power that established, propagates,
   perpetuates, a kingdom; the power that has tamed how much of enmity,
   dissolved how many times the rock of obstinacy, cleansed, purified,
   restored to heaven's order, comforted in heaven's peace how many
   guilty, otherwise despairing souls. It can do for you, O sinner of
   mankind! all that you want done. It can regenerate your habits, settle
   your disorders, glorify your baseness, and assimilate you perfectly to
   God. This it will do for you. Go to the cross, and meet there God in
   sacrifice. Behold him, as Jesus, bearing your sin, receiving the shafts
   of your enmity! Embrace Him, believe in Him, take Him to your inmost
   heart. Do this, and you shall feel sin die within you, and a glorious
   quickening, Christ the power of God, Christ in you the hope of glory,
   shall be consciously risen upon you, as the morn of your new creation.

   And you, my brethren that have known this dawning of the Lord--what a
   certification have you, in this sacrifice, of God's sympathy. How
   intensely personal is he to you. Go to him in your every trouble. Go to
   him most confidently in all the troubles of your inward shame, and the
   struggles even of your defeated hope. When tie loads of conscious sin
   are heaviest on you, and you seem even to be sinking in its mires,
   address him as the God of sacrifice. Have it also as your lesson, that
   you yourself will be most in power, when readiest in the enduring of
   evil that you will bear fruit and be strong, not by your force not by
   your address, not by your words, but only when you are with Christ in
   sacrifice. Strange that any one who has ever once felt the power of God
   in Christ, should, for so much as a moment, miss or fall out of this
   glorious truth. It comes of that delusion of our selfishness, which is,
   in fact, a second nature in us,--the seeing only weakness in patience,
   and loss in sacrifice. But if God's own might and blessing are in it,
   so also are yours. Look for power, look for the fullness of joy where
   Christ himself reveals it. Take his cross, that same which he brought
   forth out of the bosom of God's eternal perfections, and go back with
   him in it, to be glorified with him, in the hight of his beatitude.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                      XIX.

DUTY NOT MEASURED BY OUR OWN ABILITY.

   Luke ix 13.--"But he said unto them, Give ye them to eat."

   WHEN Christ lays it thus upon his disciples, in that solitary and
   desert place, to feed five thousand men, he can not be ignorant of the
   utter impossibility that they should do it. And when they reply that
   they have only five loaves and two fishes, though the answer is plainly
   sufficient, he is nowise diverted from his course by it, but presses
   directly on in the new order that they make the people sit down by
   fifties in a company, and be ready for the proposed repast. Debating in
   themselves, probably, what can be the use of such a proceeding, when
   really there is no supply of food to be distributed, they still execute
   his order. And then when all is made ready, he calls for the five
   loaves and two fishes, and, having blessed them, begins to break, and
   says to them--Distribute. Marvelous loaves! broken, they are not
   diminished! distributed, they still remain! And so returning, again and
   again, to replenish their baskets, they continue the distribution, till
   the hungry multitude are all satisfied as in a full supply. In this
   manner the original command--Give ye them to eat--is executed to the
   letter. They have made the people sit down, they have brought the
   loaves, they have distributed, and he at every step has justified his
   order, by making their scanty stool as good as a full supply.

   This narrative suggests and illustrates the following important
   principle--

   That men are often, and properly, put under obligation to do that for
   which they have, in themselves, no present ability.

   This principle I advance, not as questioning the truth that ability,
   being necessary to an act, is necessary to complete obligation toward
   the same, but as believing and designing to show that God has made
   provision, in very many things, for the coming in upon the subject of
   ability, as he goes forward to execute the duties incumbent on him. God
   requires no man to do, without ability to do; but he does not limit his
   requirement by the measures of previous or inherently contained
   ability. In many, or even in a majority of cases, the endowment of
   power is to come after the obligation, occurring step by step, as the
   exigences demand. Of what benefit is it that the subject have a
   complete ability in himself, provided he only has it where and when it
   is wanted? When, therefore, I maintain that men are often required to
   do that for which they have no present ability in themselves, I do it
   in the conviction that God has made provision, in many ways, for the
   enlargement of our means and powers so as to meet our emergencies. And
   he does this, we shall see, on a large scale, and by system,-does it in
   the natural life, and also in the works and experiences of the life of
   faith.

   Thus, to begin at the very lowest point of the subject, it is the
   nature of human strength and fortitude bodily to have an elastic
   measure, and to be so let forth or extended as to meet the exigences
   that arise. Within certain limits, for man is limited in every thing,
   the body gets the strength it wants, in the exercise for which it is
   wanted1 The body is not like mechanical tools and engines, which never
   acquire any degree of strength by use and the strain to which they are
   put, but rather begin to fail as they begin to be used; but it gains
   power for exertion by exertion, and sustains its competency in the same
   way. It is able to endure and conquer, because it has endured and
   conquered. God, therefore, may fitly call a given man to a course of
   life that requires much robustness and a high power of physical
   endurance, on the ground that when he is fully embarked in his calling,
   the robustness will come, or will be developed in it and by means of
   it, though previously it seemed not to exist. Indeed the physical
   imbecility of some men will be the great crime of their life, and they
   will be held answerable for it, on the simple ground that they had too
   little courage and were too self-indulgent to throw themselves on any
   such undertaking, as a true christian manliness required.

   There is yet another law pertaining to bodily capacity, which is more
   remarkable, viz., that muscular strength and endurance are often
   suddenly created or supplied by some great emergency for which they are
   wanted. What feats of giant strength have been performed under the
   stimulus of danger, or some impulse of humanity or affection. What
   sufferings have men supported in prisons, in deserts, on the ocean,
   sustained by hope, or nerved by despair. When the occasion is passed,
   and the man looks back upon the scene, how impossible does it seem that
   h1 should ever have done or suffered such things! It is indeed
   impossible to do it now. But then it was possible, in virtue of a great
   appointment of nature and providence, by which the very occasions to be
   met shall so excite the nerves of action as to give us power to meet
   them. They do it suddenly and just for the time. In an instant, they
   endue us with what appears to ourselves to be preternatural strength;
   and when the great exigency is over, vanquished by the very powers it
   has itself supplied, we sit down to rejoice in a tremor of weakness.

   So also it is the nature of courage to increase in the midst of perils
   and because of them, and courage is the strength of the heart. Often
   does the coward even become a hero by the accident of condition. How a
   man is able not seldom to proceed with firmness and heroic
   self-possession, when thrown amid difficult and perilous exposures or
   conflicts, who by no effort of courage could bring himself to engage in
   them, is well understood. Nor is it any thing strange for a woman, in
   some terrible and sudden crisis, to be nerved with firmness and
   dauntless self-possession,--then even to faint with terror when the
   crisis is past!

   Intellectual force too has the same elastic quality, and measures
   itself in the same way, by the exigences we are called to meet. Task
   it, and, for that very reason, it grows efficient. Plunge it into
   darkness, and it makes a sphere of light. It discovers its own force,
   by the exertion of force, measures its capacity by the difficulties it
   has overcome, its appetite for labor by the labor it has endured. So
   that here again, as in respect to the body, a man may have it laid upon
   him to be forward in some greatest call of duty, when as yet he seems
   to have no capacity for it; on the ground that his capacity will so be
   unfolded as to meet the measures of his undertaking. How many persons
   who thought they had no ability to teach a class of youth in the
   scriptures, have gotten their ability by doing it. And just so all
   great commanders, statesmen, lawgivers, scholars, preachers, have found
   the powers unfolded in their calling and by it, which were necessary
   for it.

   Here too great occasions beget great powers, and prepare the man to
   astonishing, almost preternatural acts of mental energy. In great
   occasions, when a principle, or a kingdom, or some holy cause of heaven
   is at stake, an inspiration seizes him, that fires the imagination,
   swells the high emotions, exalts and glorifies the will, and sends the
   spirit of the living creatures into every wheel of the mind before
   inert and lifeless. Thus electrified and penetrated by the great
   necessity, it becomes etherial, rapid, clear, a fire of energy, a
   resistless power. What reasonings, what bursts of eloquence, what
   living words of flame, does it send forth to kindle and glow in the
   world's history, for generations and ages to come.

   The same also is true, quite as remarkably, of what we sometimes call
   moral power. By this we mean the power of a life and a character, the
   power of good and great purposes, that power which comes at length to
   reside in a man distinguished in some course of estimable or great
   conduct. It is often this which dignifies the great senator, so as to
   make even his common words, words of grave wisdom, or perchance of high
   eloquence. It is this which. gives a power so mysterious often to the
   preacher of Christ, such a power that even his presence in any place
   will begin to disturb the conscience of many, even before they have
   heard him. No other power of man compares with this, and there is no
   individual who may not be measurably invested with it. Integrity,
   purity, goodness, success of any kind in the humblest persons, or the
   lowest walks of duty, begin to invest them finally with a character,
   and create a certain sense of momentum in them. Other men expect them
   to get on, because they are getting on, and bring them a repute that
   sets them forward, give them a salute that means--success! This kind of
   power is neither a natural gift, nor properly an acquisition, but it
   comes in upon one and settles on him, like a crown of glory, while
   discharging with fidelity his duties to God and man. It is a power
   contributed silently by others, a throne built for the victor, an
   eminence appointed him by the world. When contemplated in this light,
   how marked is the provision of God for letting down power upon a man,
   who will act his part well. The world comes to him, of its own accord,
   to exalt him with its tributary breath.

   And here again, also, it is to be noted that the power in question,
   this moral power, is often suddenly enlarged by the very occasions that
   call for it. Not seldom is it a fact that the very difficulty and
   grandeur of a design, which some heroic soul has undertaken to execute,
   exalts him, at once, to such a pre-eminence of moral power, that
   mankind are exalted with him, and inspired with energy and confidence
   by the contemplation of his magnificent spirit. How often indeed is a
   man a..e to carry a project, simply because he has made it so grand a
   project! He strikes, inspires, calls to his aid, by virtue of his great
   idea, his faith, his sublime confidence in truth, or justice, or duty.

   It is only a part, or rather a generalization of the truths already
   illustrated, that the great and successful men of history are commonly
   made by the great occasions they fill. They are the men who had faith
   to meet such occasions, and therefore the occasions marked them, called
   them to come and be what the successes of their faith would make them.
   The boy is but a shepherd, but he hears from his panic-stricken
   countrymen of the giant champion of their enemies. A fire siezes him,
   and he goes down, with nothing but his sling and his heart of faith, to
   lay that champion in the dust. Next he is a great military leader; next
   the king of his country. As with David, so with Nehemiah,--as with him,
   so with Paul,--as with him, so with Luther. A Socrates, a Tully, a
   Cromwell, a Washington,--all the great master spirits, the founders and
   law-givers of empires, and defenders of the rights of man, are made by
   the same law. These did not shrink despairingly within the compass of
   their poor abilities, but in their heart of faith, they embraced each
   one his cause, and went forth, under the inspiring force of their call,
   to apprehend that for which they were apprehended. They had all their
   enemies and their obstacles, such enemies and obstacles as they had in
   themselves no force to conquer. But their confidence in their cause
   gave them a force. For, as it is said that ferocious animals are
   disarmed by the eye of man, and will dare no violence; if he but
   steadily look at them, so it is when right looks upon wrong. Resist the
   devil, and he will flee from you; offer him a bold front, and he runs
   away. He goes, it may be, uttering threats of rage, but yet he goes! So
   it is that all the great, efficient men of the world are made. They are
   not strong, but out of weakness they are made strong.

   I have dwelt thus at length on these illustrations that are offered us
   in the natural life, simply because they will, for that reason, be most
   convincing to many. You see, as a fact, that the ability we have to
   suffer and do and conquer, is never an ability previously existing in
   ourselves, It is an ability that accrues, or comes upon us, in the
   exigences and occasions of life. How childish then is it in religion,
   to imagine that we are called to do nothing, save what we have ability
   to do beforehand; ability in ourselves to do. We have in fact no such
   ability at all--no ability that is inherent, as respects any thing laid
   upon us to do, our ability is what we can have, and then our duty is
   graduated by what we can have. Indeed we may affirm it as a truth
   universal, respecting vital natures of every kind, whether vegetable,
   animal, intellectual, or spiritual, that they have no rigidly inherent
   ability to do any thing whatever. No plant or tree can grow by any
   inherent ability, apart from sun, soil, moisture, heat, and the like.
   No animal can do as simple a thing as breathing by inherent
   ability,--he must have air; he can walk, or run, or climb, or fly, only
   by conditions external that must be supplied. So also the mind or
   intelligence can remember only as fit associations are supplied to
   assist the recall of things gone by; or discover laws, only when
   stimulated by the suggestions of appropriate facts; or maintain a power
   of high command, only when there are great occasions and perils to be
   mastered. In just the same way, passing to what is spiritual, God can
   not be loved, save as he is offered to love, in qualities that will
   awaken and support love. And, for the same reason, no sinner of mankind
   can regenerate himself by any inherent ability, apart from conditions
   powerfully presenting God, and pouring his radiance into the soul; for
   the regenerate state is only the new revelation of God within, whence
   before he was excluded; so that now the life proceeds from, Him, as its
   actuating impulse and law.

   This whole question of ability in man; of natural ability as opposed to
   moral inability, or qualified by it; of gracious ability, as a
   substitute for natural, or the equivalent of its restoration; is the
   discussion of a false issue, which consequently never can be settled.
   For there is really no such thing and never was, as an ability to
   holiness, or moral perfection, that is inherent. If we speak of natural
   ability to good, a soul has no more natural ability to maintain the
   state of perfect goodness, than a tree to grow without light, or heat,
   or moisture. Dependence is the condition of all true holiness, even in
   sinless minds, if such there be. They feed on what their God supplies,
   they are radiant with his light, they are warm by his heat, they are
   blessed and exalted by the participation of his beatitude; nay, his
   all-moving Spirit is the conserving and sustaining life of their
   perfections. So if we speak of a gracious ability given to souls under
   sin, conceiving that it is some common bestowment given to raise them
   up into a plane of freedom, or the possibility of a new life, which
   gracious ability is a something inherent and precedent to the
   obligations of repentance, that also is a pure fiction; no such ability
   is given, and none is wanted. All such inventions are unnecessary; as
   also all the supposed difficulties involved in the reconciling of
   responsibility and dependence,--they are al1 superseded and forever
   passed by, the moment we discover and fully come into the truth that
   all our powers and responsibilities are completed in and by our
   conditions; or, what is the same, by God's arrangements to bring in
   increments of grace and impulse of all kinds, just when they are
   wanted. There is no difficulty here which is not found in all those
   examples which have been already cited from the natural life; for God
   has arranged, in the spiritual or supernatural, to administer helps of
   grace, occasions, impulses, and secret ministries of love, so as to
   complete our possibilities and keep us in bonds of obligation to do
   continually what we can as little do, without such conspiring helps, as
   we can breathe without air, or maintain life without breathing.

   This, it will accordingly be found, is the Christian doctrine
   everywhere. Christianity has no conception of any such thing as a holy
   virtue wrought out and maintained by a responsible agent, acting from
   his own center, as a self-centered and merely self-operative
   force,--holy virtue it conceives, even apart from sin, to be the
   drinking out of God's fullness, receiving and living in his deific
   impulse, and having even its finiteness complemented by His infinite
   wisdom and majesty. As little conception has it of something done to
   raise a fallen creature into some inherent capacity, or ability to
   choose freely, that so he may be made responsible for choice. It
   boldly, undisguisedly declares to every human being under sin, that he
   has no complete power beforehand, as in reference to any thing really
   good. And then it calls him to good, on the express condition always,
   that he is to have powers, stimulants, increments, accruing as he wants
   them; that on these, or the promise of them, he may rest his faith and
   so go forward. It says to the struggling and misgiving penitent;--Let
   him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me, and he
   shall make peace with me. It calls every man to earnest and hopeful
   endeavor, by the consideration of an all-supporting grace that can not
   fail;--Work out salvation with fear and trembling; for it if God that
   worketh in you. It shows the Christian testifying in sublimity of
   confidence;--When I am weak, then am I strong,--I can do all things
   through Christ which strengtheneth me. It promises the faithful man all
   the support needed for his exigences, as they rise,--They that wait on
   the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up on wings as
   eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
   It also establishes, in a manner to comprehend every thing, a doctrine
   of Divine Concourse by the Holy Spirit, which carries in it the pledge
   of all accruing grace and light and might and holy impulsion;--Ask and
   ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened.
   Indeed the doctrine' or fact of the Holy Spirit is only another way of
   generalizing the truth that God will co-work invigoratively,
   correctively, and directively in all the good struggles of believing
   souls; and so will bring in, at all times and junctures, those
   increments of power that are necessary to success.

   It might also be added that Christianity itself is a grand empowering
   force in souls, and is designed to be,--that when we were without
   strength, Christ died for us. For he came forth into the world groping
   in its darkness, as the brightness of the Father's glory, that the
   light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of his great
   life and passion, might shine into our hearts. As when the returning
   sun of the spring warms out the torpid creatures, and sets them
   creeping forth, re-vitalized and re-empowered with life, so this Sun of
   Righteousness quickens the benumbed perceptions and imparts new warmth
   to the dead affections, placing us in new conditions of power; where,
   as we more fully believe, and more faithfully work, we are ever to find
   new increments of light and help conspiring with us. It only remains in
   gathering up this summary of the Christian doctrine concerning ability,
   to say that, taken comprehensively, it is all included in that favorite
   and more than once asserted maxim of Christ;--For to him that hath
   shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly. In this maxim he
   affirms the truth that every man is to expect his increments of power,
   just as they are wanted.

   In this very simple manner all the great speculative difficulties and
   supposed mysteries of freedom and dependence are dispatched in the New
   Testament. And it is a remarkable fact that no Christian there is ever
   found to be in any speculative trouble on this subject. It is never
   even so much as a question of curious debate. They see nothing wanted
   there but just to go into their places and take their responsibilities,
   and let God bear them out by his conspiring help, as they certainly
   know that he will. Paul came directly down upon the discovery that he
   had ability to will, as a matter of choice, and yet could not find how
   to perform; but, instead of seeing any difficulty in such a condition,
   he only glories that in Christ and the Spirit he gets accruing helps
   that enable him both to will and to do. And just there, where he might
   have sunk himself in one of the abysses of theology, he begins,
   instead, to sing;--I thank God through Jesus Christ.

   I will only add that all the simplest, most living, and most genuine
   Christians of our own time are such as rest their souls, day by day, cn
   this confidence and promise of accruing power, and make themselves
   responsible, not for what they have in some inherent ability, but for
   what they can have, in their times of stress and peril, and in the
   continual raising of their own personal quantity and power. They throw
   themselves on works wholly above then ability, and get accruing power
   in their works for others still higher and greater. Instead of
   gathering in their souls timorously beforehand, upon the little
   sufficiency they find in possession, they look upon the great world God
   has-made, and all the greater world of the Saviour's kingdom in it, as
   being friendly and tributary, ready to pour in help, minister light,
   and strengthen them to victory, just according to their faith. And so
   they grow in courage, confidence, personal volume, efficiency of every
   kind, and, instead of slinking into their graves out of impotent lives,
   they lie down in the honors of heroes.

   Let me express the hope, in closing this very important subject, that a
   class of persons who generally compose a large body in every christian
   assembly, will find their unhappy mistake corrected in it. I speak of
   such as make no beginning in the christian life, just because they want
   ability and assurance and all evidence given them beforehand. They
   would be quite ready to embark, if the voyage were as good as over.
   They can not put themselves on God's word, or trust him for any thing.
   They must be strong before they get strength. They must have evidence
   of discipleship before they dare to be disciples. They act upon no such
   principle in any of their worldly adventures. Here they get power by
   using it, throw themselves upon the water and learn to swim by
   swimming. Dismiss, I beseech you, one and all, and that forever, this
   unpractical. this really unmanly timidity. Commit the keeping of your
   soul to God, as to a faithful Creator. Believe that he is faithful, and
   love to trust him for his faithfulness. The Moment you can let go your
   misgiving, spiritless habit, and cast yourself on God, to go into your
   duty, you are free. If the wind is high, and the water looks deep, and
   you have no courage to venture on a holy life, behold Jesus coming to
   you, treading lightly on the crests of the billows, and he comes to
   say,--"It is I." What assurance more do you want after that?

   But there is a more general use of this subject which demands our
   notice. There are two great errors which, though opposite to each
   other, are yet both corrected by the view I have been seeking to
   impress. The error viz. of those who think the demands of the religious
   life so limited and trivial as to require but little care and small
   sacrifices; and the error of those who look upon them as being so many
   and great that they are discouraged under them. The former class is the
   more numerous and generally the more worthless. They are worldly
   disciples who have much christian delight, as they think, in magnifying
   salvation by grace. God, they suppose, will not be very exact with
   them; for he is a gracious and long-suffering God, and does not expect
   much of man in the way of goodness or effect. They take a certain
   pleasure, for reasons more artful than they themselves suspect, in
   dwelling on the weakness of men and their deep dependence on God. This
   is their reverence they imagine, their humility; yes, it is even a very
   considerable part of their religion. Of course they undertake nothing,
   throw themselves upon no great work of duty. They-are so respectful to
   their human weakness that they measure their obligations by it, and
   really undertake nothing that makes them feel their weakness, or
   demands any gift of grace and power transcending it.

   How different is the view of duty that God entertains for us, and
   everywhere asserts in the scriptures. In his sight we are all under
   obligation continually to undertake and do what is above our power, and
   to have this as the acknowledged rule of our life. He requires of us to
   be doing what we shall feel, to be carrying loads of duty and
   responsibility and sacrifice, under which, as men, we must tremble and
   faint; and so to be proving always that, to them that have no might, he
   increaseth strength. We are to undertake cheerfully and do with a ready
   mind all which, under his provisions of nature and grace, we may become
   able to do.

   Feeble are we? Yea, without God we are nothing. But what, by faith,
   every man may be, God requires him to be. This is the only Christian
   idea of duty. Measure obligation by inherent ability! No, my brethren,
   christian obligation has a very different measure. It is measured by
   the power that God will give us, measured by the gifts and possible
   increments of faith. And what a reckoning will it be for many of us,
   when Christ summons us to answer before him, under this law, not for
   what we were, but for what we might have been. Then how many of us
   possibly, that bore the name of Jesus, will find ourselves before God,
   as the mere residuary substances of a dry and fruitless life; without
   volume, without strength, or any proper christian manhood. The souls
   whom it was given us to lead to the Saviour are not there; the
   religious societies we ought to have gathered, the temples of worship
   we ought to have erected and left as monuments of our fidelity the
   charities we ought to have founded and consecrated to the blessing of
   the coming ages;--all these good things that we might have done, and
   which God was ready to empower us for doing, nowhere appear. And is
   that the kind of reckoning in which we are to be accepted as good and
   faithful servants? My brethren, God has little part with you, or you
   with him, in such a kind of life. A very delicate and critical question
   it is, whether you have any part with him at all. That only is
   christian faith that lives in the power of faith, in that does its
   works, makes its sacrifices, sustains its hopes, and measures its holy
   obligations. Almost every thing a Christian is to do for his times and
   the sphere in which he lives transcends his ability, and the very
   greatness and joy of his experience, shall I not say the reality also,
   consists in the fact that he is exalted above himself, and made a
   partaker, in his works, of a divine power, as in his character of the
   divine nature. He is a man who lives in God and by God is girded to his
   duties and his triumphs,--God in nature, God in the gospel, God in the
   Spirit, God in the plenitude of his promises.

   I named another error, that viz. of those who really think that the way
   of duty is too hard for them, who faint because the demands of God
   appear to be so high above their power. They forget, or overlook the
   provision God has made to bring in increments of power, and support
   them, in what appears to be too high for them. They hear the
   call,--give ye them to eat, and remember only their five loaves and two
   fishes, and what are these among so many? They seem not to notice, or,
   if they notice, not to believe, those words of promise by which God
   encourages and supports the insufficiency of men. Thus, if any one,
   trying to make higher attainments and achieve some higher standing in
   religion, is overwhelmed with the infirmity and bitter evil of his own
   heart, and cries,--My iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am
   not able to look up; what is there in such a discovery to break down
   his confidence? Just there is the place for him to believe and begin to
   sing with Paul,--I thank God, through Jesus Christ my Lord. The very
   first thing to be held by a true Christian, is that he has no inherent
   sufficiency for any thing; and then, upon the top of that, he should
   place, as the universal antidote of discouragement, the great principle
   of accruing grace, sealed by the promise,--My grace is sufficient for
   thee. So, again, there are many who faint when they look on almost any
   duty or good work, because they are so consciously unequal to it. Why,
   if they were not unequal, or felt themselves to be equal, they had
   better, for that reason, decline it; for there is nothing so utterly
   weak and impotent as this conceit of strength. Brethren, the day is
   wearing away, this is a desert place, there are hungry, perishing
   multitudes round us, and Christ is saying to us all,--Give ye them to
   eat. Say not--we can not, we have nothing to give. Go to your duty,
   every man, and trust yourselves to him; for he will give you all
   supply, just as fast as you need it. You will have just as much power
   as you believe you can have. Suppose, for example, you are called to be
   a Sabbath-school teacher, and you say within yourself,-I have no
   experience, no capacity, I must decline. That is the way to keep your
   incapacity forever. A truce to these cowardly suggestions. Be a
   Christian, throw yourself upon God's work, and get the ability you
   want, in it. So, if you are put in charge of any such effort or
   institution; so, if you are called to any work or office in the church,
   or to any exercise for the edification of others; say not that you are
   unable to edify; undertake to edify others, and then you will edify
   yourself and become able. So only is it possible for christian youth to
   ripen into a vigorous christian manhood. All the pillars of the church
   are made out of what would only be weeds in it, if there were no duties
   assumed, above their ability in the green state of weeds. And it is not
   the weeds whom Christ will save, but the pillars. No Christian will
   ever be good for any thing without christian courage, or, what is the
   same, christian faith. Take upon you readily, have it as a law to be
   always doing it, great works; that is, works that are great to you; and
   this in the faith that God so clearly justifies, that your abilities
   will be as your works. Make large adventures. Trust in God for great
   things. With your five loaves and two fishes he will show you a way to
   feed thousands.

   There is almost no limit to the power that may be exerted by a single
   church in this or any other community. Fill your places, meet your
   opportunities, and despair of nothing. Shine as lights, because you are
   luminous; let the Spirit of Christ and of God be visible in you,
   because you are filled therewith; and you will begin to see what power
   is possible to weakness! Have faith, O, ye of little faith. Hear the
   good word of the Lord, when he says,--I have called thee by thy name,
   thou art mine. Fear not, O, thou worm, Jacob. Behold I will make thee a
   new sharp threshing instrument, having teeth; thou shalt thresh the
   mountains and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Such
   are God's promises. Let us believe them; which if we can heartily do,
   nothing is impossible.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                      XX.

HE THAT KNOWS GOD WILL CONFESS HIM.

   Psalm xl. 10.--"I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I
   have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed
   thy loving-kindness and thy truth from the great congregation."

   WHAT any true poet will say is commonly most natural to be said and
   deepest in the truth; for his art is to be unrestrained by art, and to
   let the inspiration of his inmost, deepest life vent itself in song.
   And this exactly is the manner of our great Psalmist. We are not to
   understand that, in using the indicative form, he is merely reciting a
   historic fact, and telling us that he has not hic. God's righteousness
   in his heart. His meaning is deeper; viz., to say that he could not do
   it, but must needs testify of the goodness, and sing of the sweetness,
   and exult in the joy, he had found in the salvation of God and the
   secret witness of his Spirit. Nay, he must even send his song into the
   temple, and call on all the great congregation of Israel to sing it
   with him, and raise it as a chorus of praise to the great Jehovah. What
   I propose, accordingly, at the present time, is to speak of--

   The necessary openness of a holy experience; or, in other words, of the
   impossibility that the inward revelation of God in the soul should be
   shut up in it, and remain hid, or unacknowledged.

   I shall have in view especially two classes of hearers that are widely
   distinguished one from the other; first, the class who hide the grace
   of God in their heart undesignedly, or by reason of some undue modesty;
   and secondly, the class who, pretending to have it, or consciously
   having it not, take a pleasure in throwing discredit on all the
   appropriate expressions of it, such as are made by the open testimony
   and formal profession of Christ before men.

   The former class are certainly blamable in no such sense or degree as
   the others. They are naturally timorous and self-distrustful persons,
   it may be, and do not see that they are distrusting God rather than
   themselves. They seem to themselves to have been truly renewed in the
   love of God, but they have some doubts, and they make it appear to be
   wiser that they should not, just now, testify their supposed new
   experience. It is better, they think; to wait till they have had a
   long, secret trial of themselves, and learned whether they can
   endure,--better, that is, to see whether they can keep alive the grace
   under suppression; when it must be infallibly stifled and can not live,
   except in the open field of duty and love and holy fellowship. They are
   not simple; they are unnatural; what is in them, in their feeling,
   their secret hope, their joy begun, they regulate and suppress. If they
   were placed in heaven itself, they would not sing the first month,
   pretending that they had not tried their voices, or perchance doubting
   whether it is quite modest in them to thank God for his mercy, till
   they are more sure whether it is really to be sufficient in them. There
   is a great deal of unbelief in their backwardness; a great deal of
   self-consciousness ill their modesty; and sometimes a little will is
   cunningly mixed with both. Sometimes they wait to be exhorted and made
   much of by the sympathy of others. Sometimes the very wicked thought is
   cunningly let in, behind their seeming delicacy, that God should do
   more for them, and give them an experience with greater circumstance.

   In opposition now to both these classes, and without assuming to
   measure and graduate the exact degree of their blame before God, I
   undertake to show that, where there is a true grace of experience in
   the heart, it ought to be, must, and will be manifest. And I bring to
   your notice--

   1. The evident fact that a true inward experience, or discovery of God
   in the heart, is itself an impulse also of self-manifestation, as all
   love and gratitude are--wants to speak and declare itself, and will as
   naturally do it, when it is born, as a child will utter its first cry.
   And exactly this, as I just now said, is what David means; viz., that
   he had been obliged to speak, and was never able to shut up the fire
   burning in his spirit, from the first moment when it was kindled. He
   speaks as one who could not find how to suppress the joy that filled
   his heart, but must needs break loose in a testimony for God. And so it
   is in all cases the instinct of a new heart, in its experience of God,
   to acknowledge him. No one ever thinks it a matter of delicacy, or
   genuine modesty, to entirely suppress any reasonable joy; least of all,
   any fit testimony of gratitude toward a deliverer and for a
   deliverance. In such a case no one ever asks, what is the use? where is
   the propriety? for it is the simple instinct of his nature to speak,
   and he speaks.

   Thus, if one of you had been rescued, in a shipwreck on a foreign
   shore, by some common sailor who had risked his life to save you, and
   you should discover him across the street in some great city, you would
   rush to his side, sieze his hand, and begin at once, with a choking
   utterance, to testify your gratitude to him for so great a deliverance.
   Or, if you should pass restrainedly on, making no sign, pretending to
   yourself that you might be wanting in delicacy or modesty to publish
   your private feelings, by any such eager acknowledgment of your
   deliverer, or that you ought first to be more sure of the genuineness
   of your gratitude, what opinion must we have, in such a case, of your
   heartlessness and falseness to nature. In the same simple way, all
   ambition apart, all conceit of self forgot, all artificial and mock
   modesty excluded, it will be the instinct of every one that loves God
   to acknowledge him. He will say with our Psalmist, on another
   occasion,--Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what
   he hath done for my soul. Verily God hath heard me, he hath attended to
   the voice of my prayer.

   2. The change implied in a true Christian experience, or the revelation
   of God in the heart, is in its very nature the soul and root of an
   outward change that is correspondent. The faith implanted is a faith
   that works in appropriate demonstrations, and must as certainly work,
   as a living heart must beat or pulsate. It is the righteousness of God
   revealed within, to be henceforth the actuating spring and power of a
   righteous and devoted life. It will inform the whole man. It will glow
   in the countenance. It will irradiate the eye. It will speak from the
   tongue. It will modulate the very gait. It will cuter into all the
   transactions of business, the domestic tempers, the social
   manifestations and offices. It will make the man a benefactor, and call
   him into self-sacrifice for God and the truth. It will send him forth
   to be God's advocate with men, and require him, in that manner, to make
   full testimony, either formally or by implication, of what God has done
   for him. Of this, now, a true Christian experience is the root and
   beginning, else it is nothing. The inward change is no reality, but a
   pure fiction, if it does not issue in this. In this it will issue, when
   it is allowed to act unrestrainedly, even though it be, at first, the
   smallest seed of grace possible. And O, what multitudes are there, in
   whom God is just beginning to be revealed, who by some false modesty,
   some morbid thought of prudence, refusing to be natural and simple,
   take the mode of silence, secresy, or suppression, and so, in a very
   few days or months, fatally stifle the grace of their salvation. The
   result is worse, only in the fact that the abuse is more wicked, when
   the subject dares, in the hour of his holy visitation, to deliberately
   make up his mind that he will have his new-born joy as a secret, and
   live in it for some years, at least; until he has absolutely proved the
   genuineness of his faith. It will not be long, in such a case, before
   he gets evidence enough against it; for the only and the absolutely
   necessary proof of its genuineness is that it reveals itself; comes out
   into action, becomes a life and a confession. The good tree will show
   the good fruit. It can not go on to bear the old, bad fruit out of
   modesty, or a pretended shrinking from ostentation; it must reveal the
   righteousness of God within, by the fruits of righteousness without,
   else it is only a mockery.

   3. If any one proposes beforehand, in his religious endeavors, or in
   seeking after God, to come into a secret experience and keep it a
   secret, his endeavor is plainly one that falsifies the very notion of
   christian piety, and if he succeeds or seems to succeed, he only
   practices a fraud in which he imposes on himself. He proposes to find a
   grace, or obtain a grace from God, that he will hide and will not
   acknowledge, a grace, too, that will neither grow nor shine. Instead of
   taking up his cross to follow Christ, sacrificing openly wealth,
   reputation, friends, home, every thing dear for his Master's sake, he
   is going to find a grace that brings in fact no cross, requires no
   sacrifice. He is going to be saved in a more easy and more agreeable
   way than to come out and take his Master's part and bear the rough work
   of his Master's calling. To meet the scorn of the world, and endure the
   hardness that distinguishes a soldier, is not in his thoughts. Perhaps
   he does not expect to be so much of a Christian, so high in his
   attainments, and so eminently useful, but he hopes to be just enough
   Christian, in this more delicate and secret way, to save him; beyond
   which he cares for nothing more. But you have only to look into his
   heart, in such a case, to see that his motive is bad, even beyond
   respect. fie is only fawning about the cross, to get some private token
   of grace, when he does not mean to make any expense, or suffer any loss
   or self-denial for it. To come out and be separate, to make the cause
   and truth of Jesus a care of his own, to live a life that witnesses for
   God, is not his plan. He means no such thing. He wants, in fact, to be
   saved by a fraud; that is, by a secret experience hid in the heart,
   which makes no open testimony, costs no sacrifice for God. To say that
   such a state of mind is untruth itself, and that any spiritual
   experience it may assume to have had is no better, would be an insult
   even to your understanding.

   4. It is not less clear, as I have already said incidentally, and now
   say only more directly, that the grace of God in the heart,
   unmanifested or kept secret, as many propose that it shall be, even for
   their whole life, will be certainly stifled and extinguished. The
   thought itself is a mockery of the Holy Spirit. The heart might as well
   be required to live and not beat, as the new heart of love to hush
   itself and keep still in the bosom. Nothing can live that is not
   permitted to show the signs of life. Even a tree, a solid, massive oak,
   embracing the earth in roots equal to half its volume, and drawing out
   of the rich soil its needed nutriment, will be stifled and yield up its
   life, if it can not put on leaves at the extremities and grow. So let
   any, the best and ripest Christian, if such a one could be induced to
   do it, (as most assuredly he could not,) retire from all the acts and
   forbid himself all the duties, by which he would manifest his love to
   God, and declare God's love to men, and -that love would very soon be
   so far smothered in his bosom, as to leave no evidence there of its
   existence. Accordingly you will find that all that class of persons,
   who take the turn described, give the most abundant proofs, ere long,
   that God is not with them. How can he be with them, when they propose
   even to be disciples in such a way that, if all others were to follow
   and be like them, Christ would not have a church, or even one
   acknowledged friend or follower on earth? Will he consent, by his
   Spirit, do you think, to uphold a race of secret, unacknowledged
   followers, in this manner; followers who turn their back to him, will
   not confess, will not even speak, or act the grace they receive? Be it
   rather a faithful, as it is a most evident saying,--For if we be dead
   with him, we shall also live with him; if we suffer, we shall also
   reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us.

   5. This is the express teaching of the gospel, which every where and in
   every possible way calls out the souls renewed in Christ to live an
   open life of sacrifice and duty, and to witness a good
   confession.--Come and follow me, is the word of Jesus. Deny thyself,
   take up thy cross, and follow me. If it is a lowly calling, if we can
   not descend to it, then he says,--Blessed is he who is not offended in
   me. If our pride, or the pride of our position, is too great, then he
   says,--Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall
   the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his glory. To exclude
   any possible thought of a secret discipleship, he says,--I have chosen
   you and ordained you, that ye should bring forth fruit,--I have chosen
   you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you, and will
   persecute you as it has persecuted me. In the same way his apostles
   call upon all that love him to come out and be separate, to put on the
   whole armor of God and stand, to fight openly the good fight, to endure
   hardness, to make a loss of all things for his sake, to be his
   witnesses before men; leading always the way by their own bold,
   faithful testimony. When you look, for example, on such a character as
   Paul, it is even difficult to conceive how there can ever be any real
   communion of spirit, in any future world, between him and one so
   opposite as to think of living a secret, unavowed piety. Between that
   craven way of secrecy and mere self-saving on one hand, and his great
   heart of love and labor on the other, can any bond of sympathy ever
   exist? Scarcely does an open transgressor, acting out, with strong
   audacity, the unbelief and wickedness of which he dares to take the
   responsibility, appear to be as far removed, or as radically unlike. It
   never once occurs to Paul that he can keep the grace hid in his heart.
   He does not appear to come forth and speak because he has it as a point
   of obligation, as perhaps Daniel opened his window to let his prayer be
   heard, but he has a testimony to give for Jesus that he must give,
   because of the fire it kindles in his heart. So before the Areopagus,
   and Felix, and Agrippa, and Caesar, and on every shore touched by his
   feet, he goes preaching the word and telling the story of his wonderful
   experience on the way to Damascus. Who that looks on this heroic
   figure, and sees how the heavenly ardor raised in this man's breast by
   the revelation of Jesus, impels him forth and sends him through the
   world, in a life-long testimony which no sacrifices or perils are able
   to arrest, can descend, for one moment, to so mean a thought, as the
   possibility of being saved by u secret piety. Again--

   6. It deserves to be made a distinct point that there is no shade of
   encouragement given to this notion of salvation by a secret piety, in
   any of the scripture examples or teachings. If there is to be a large
   body of the secret heirs of salvation, such as will greatly surprise
   the m ore open, more pretentious friends of God, when they see the
   number, there ought to be at least some examples in the scripture to
   encourage such an expectation. The nearest approach to such
   encouragement any where given, is that which is afforded by the case of
   the two senators, Joseph and Nicodemus. One of them we are told was a
   disciple secretly, for fear of the Jews. And the other came to Jesus by
   night, to inquire of him, that he might not be counted a disciple. Both
   of them appear to have kept silence on his trial before the council,
   letting the decision go against him there, and taking no responsibility
   on his account. But after he was crucified, they came to ask the body
   and brought spices to embalm it. They were good as disciples to bury
   Jesus, but not to save his life, or serve him while living. Indeed if
   they had truly embalmed him in their hearts, so that we could hear of
   them afterward, making common cause with the disciples, it would
   greatly comfort us concerning them. Shall we ever hear any thing more
   of them, in that world where God's true witnesses are gathered and
   crowned? The truth is that there is a very heavy shade over these two
   delicate and courtly friends of Jesus. They were men of society, and
   therefore saw the dignity of Jesus, but if you would like to be
   reasonably confident of your salvation, it certainly becomes you to do
   something a great deal more positive than to let your Master die,
   making no stand for him even in the council where his death is voted,
   and then come in with spices to bury him. The most fragrant spices are
   those that honor one's life, and not the posthumous odors that embalm
   his body. How singular is it too that not even the Pentecost calls out
   these disciples of the tomb. It is as if they had been buried with
   their Master and had not risen. In that wondrous scene of fellowship
   where so many, from all parts of the world, are surprised to find
   themselves confessing and embracing, in open brotherhood, strangers of
   all climes and orders, and selling even their goods to relieve the
   common wants, it does not appear that any spices of the heavenly
   charity are brought in by these two secret friends of Jesus. When all
   beside are of one accord, rejoicing in acts of communion, such as the
   world has never seen, they have no part in it. Ananias and Sapphira had
   as much, or even more.

   Is it such examples that give encouragement to a secret piety? These
   two had certainly some notion of such a discipleship, but who will care
   to receive it from them? No, the real disciple is different; he is
   thought of as a man who stands for his Master, and is willing to die
   for his Master, Ye are the light of the world; and the light of the
   world is lighted up, of course, to shine. Men do not light a candle, he
   says, and put it under a bushel. Let your light so shine, that others,
   seeing your good works, may glorify your Father which is in heaven.

   Drawing our subject now to a conclusion, we notice, first of all, in a
   way of practical application, the very absurd pretense of those who
   congratulate themselves on having so much of secret merit, which they
   even count the more meritorious because they keep it secret. Some
   persons of a generally correct life are put on this course by the
   flatteries of others, who love to let down the honors of religion, and
   hold them up as a foil in doing it. Some do it willfully and
   scornfully, hinting that people who make so great a noise about
   religion would do well to be more modest, and that, if they were
   willing to proclaim their own merits, perhaps they might make as good a
   show themselves. And yet how many are there, if we may trust the
   world's report, of these secret saints!--not the least, but the
   greatest of all saints! It is very much as if a nation, fighting for
   its liberties, had vast armies of secret patriots, who did not believe
   in making so great a noise in the dust and carnage of the field, but,
   since they are too modest to put their superior bravery forward, and
   rush to the onset shouting for their country, are to be counted, for
   their modesty's sake, the bravest and truest patriots of all.

   The real truth is, in respect to almost all these pretenders to a
   secret religion, that they are persons who know nothing of it. They are
   moralists, it may be, practicing at what they call a virtue by
   themselves, but they do nothing that brings them into any relationship
   with God. It is not the righteousness of God which they have hidden so
   carefully, but it is their own,--which, after all, is not hid. They
   never pray, they have no experience of God, they are as ignorant as the
   worst of men of any such thing as a divine joy in the heart. They do
   not break out and confess the Lord, simply because he is not in them.
   Nothing is in them but themselves, and they do confess themselves, they
   even boast themselves. Just as naturally would they boast and testify
   the love of God, if they felt its power. They really publish all the
   merit they have now, and, when religion dawns in their hearty they will
   as certainly declare the grace of God in that.

   And this again brings us to notice the significance of the profession
   of Christ, when, and why, and with what views, it should be made. It
   should be made, because where there is any thing to be professed, it
   can not but be made. If a man loves God he will take his part with God,
   just as a citizen who loves his country will take the part of his
   country. He will draw himself to all God's friends and count them
   brothers, rejoicing with them in the fellowship o' the common love. He
   will set himself, in every manner, to strengthen, comfort, edify,
   stimulate them in their fidelity and application to good works. All
   this he will do by the simple instinct of his love to God. If there
   were no such thing enjoined upon the disciples of Christ, as a formal
   profession, or church organization, there would yet be generated,
   within six months, exactly the same thing. The disciples would come out
   of the world in a body, testifying what God has done for them in the
   quickening grace of Christ shed abroad in their hearts, and claiming
   their fellowship with each other. As our fathers in the Mayflower bound
   themselves in a kind of civil covenant on their passage, they would
   band themselves together in holy covenant before God, to co-operate in
   a form of spiritual order,--a church. They would have their officers
   and leaders. They would watch for each other. They would have terms
   adjusted by which to separate themselves from hypocrites and
   impostors,--all that we now have in our formal polities and church
   compacts. Co-operation is the strength of such as have a common cause,
   and organization is the certain requisite of this. In this way the
   followers of Jesus must and will be set in solid phalanx, to co-operate
   in the maintenance of their common cause.

   This matter of professing Christ appears to be regarded by many as a
   kind of optional duty. Just as optional as it is for light to shine, or
   goodness to be good, or joy to sing, or gratitude to give thanks, or
   love to labor and sacrifice for its ends. No! my friends, there is no
   option here, save as all duties are optional and eternity hangs on the
   option we make. Let no one of you receive or allow a different thought.
   Expect to be open, outstanding witnesses for God, and rejoice to be. In
   ready and glorious option, take your part with such, and stifle
   indignantly any lurking thought of being a secret follower.

   Following in the same train, we notice, again, what value there may be
   in discoveries of christian experience, and the legitimate use they may
   have in christian society. Some of the best and holiest impulses ever
   given to -the cause of God in men's hearts are given by testimonies of
   christian experience. Like all other things, they are capable of abuse.
   They may run to a really pitiful conceit, being not only misconceived
   by the subjects themselves, but even made a gospel of and thrust
   forward, on occasions where they are out of place and against all holy
   proprieties. Still there will be times, more or less private, when the
   humblest and weakest disciples can speak of what God has done for them,
   with the very best effect. Nor is there any thing so unpractical and
   destitute of christian respect as the shyness of some fastidious people
   in this matter. It never exists in a truly manly character, or in
   connection with a full-toned, living godliness. That will be no such
   dainty affair. It will speak out. It will declare what God has done,
   and show the method by which he works. The new joy felt will be a new
   song in the mouth, and every new deliverance will be fitly, gratefully
   confessed. There will be no shallow affectation of delicacy shutting
   the lips and sealing them in a forced dumbness, as if the righteousness
   of God had been taken by a deed of larceny. How often will two
   disciples help and strengthen each other by showing, each the other, in
   what-way God has led him, what his struggles have been, and where his
   victories. And, if there should be three or four included, or possibly,
   and in fit cases, more, a whole church, what is there to blame? They
   spake often, one to another, says the prophet, and God hearkened and
   heard it. God listens for nothing so tenderly as when his children help
   each other by their testimonies to his goodness and the way in which he
   has brought them deliverance. Besides there is a higher view of these
   personal testimonies and confessions. All these experiences, or
   life-histories of the faithful, will be among the grandest studies and
   most glorious revelations of the future,--a spiritual epic of wars, and
   defeats, and falls, and victories, and wondrous turns of deliverance,
   and unseen ministries of God and angels, that, when they are opened to
   the saints, will furnish the sublimest of all their discoveries of
   Christ and of God. Exactly as an apostle intimates in those most
   hopeful, inspiring words of his,--When he shall come to be glorified in
   his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe. May he not be
   glorified in them here, and, in some feebler measure, admired for the
   testimonies yielded by their experience, as their warfare goes on.

   And now, last of all, let this one thing be impressed: for every thing
   I have been saying leads to this, that the true wisdom, in all these
   matters of holy experience, is to act naturally. If you seem to
   yourself to have really passed from death unto life, and to have come
   into God's peace, interpose no affectations of modesty, no restrictions
   of mock prudence, but in true natural modesty and a sound natural
   discretion, testify the grace you have received. Take upon you promptly
   every duty, enter the church, obey the command of Christ, in the
   confession of his name and the public remembrance of his death. O, if
   we could get rid of so many affectations in religion, and so many
   unnatural, artificial wisdoms, how many more real Christians would
   there be, and these how much better and heartier. How many are there in
   our christian communities that are living afar off and apparently quite
   inaccessible, who, if, at a certain time in their life, they had gone
   forward and taken the places to which they were called, would now be
   among the shining members of the great body of saints. And how many in
   the church cripple themselves and all but extinguish their life, by
   allowing nothing good or right in them to be naturally acted out. They
   stifle every beginning of grace by their over-persistent handling,
   scrutinizing, and testing of it. They read Edwards on the Affections,
   it may be, till their affections are all worn out and killed by so much
   jealousy of them, when, if only they could give them breath in the open
   life of duty and sacrifice, they would flame up in the soul as heavenly
   fires, indubitable and irrepressible.

   If any of you, either out of the church or in, have lost ground in
   these artificial and restrictive ways, come back at once to your losing
   point and consent to be natural, to act out whatever grace God will
   give you, and, when you are conscious of his love to you, or his new
   creating presence and peace in your heart, be as ready to trust your
   consciousness as you are the consciousness that you think, or doubt, or
   do any thing else. In a word, do not hide the righteousness of God in
   your heart, lest you make a tomb of your heart and bury it there. Go
   forward and act out naturally, testify freely, live openly, the grace
   that is in you.

   Thus it was, I have already said, with the sturdy warriors of the faith
   in the first ages of the church. They were men who took the grace in
   them as a call. The love that broke into their hearts burned up all
   their false modesty. Their humble position was exalted by the faith of
   Jesus, and they stood forth in all the singularity of the cross, cowed
   by no superiors, daunted by no perils. God made them heroes by simply
   making them natural, and the time of Christly heroism will never he
   restored, till men can take their lives in their hands and go forth, in
   downright good faith, to follow their Master, acting out the spirit he
   has kindled in them, and testifying to mankind the riches of the grace
   they have found in his gospel What we want, above all things, in this
   age, is heartiness and holy simplicity; men who justify the holy
   impulse of grace in their hearts, and do not keep it back by artificial
   clogs of prudence and false fear, or the sham pretenses of
   fastidiousness and artificial delicacy. These are they whom God will
   make his witnesses in all ages. They dare to be holy, dare just as
   readily to be singular. What God puts in them that they accept, and
   when he puts a song, they sing it. They. know Christ inwardly, and
   therefore stand for him outwardly. They endure hardness. They fight a
   fight. And these are the souls, my brethren, who shall stand before God
   accepted. And we shall be accepted as we stand with them,--otherwise
   never, It will be a gathering of the true soldiers, a gathering of them
   that have made sacrifices, conquered perils, and lived their open
   testimony for God and his Son. They will come in covered with their
   dust and scars, and Christ will crown them, as heroes that have stood
   and kept their armor. And then how deep and piercing are those words of
   his,--Will they slay us forever, or will they make us
   alive?--Whosoever, therefore, shall confess me before men, him will I
   also confess before my Father, which is in heaven. But, whosoever shall
   deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father, which is in
   heaven.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                      XXI.

THE EFFICIENCY OF THE PASSIVE VIRTUES.

   Revelations i. 9.--"The kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ."

   KINGDOM and patience! a very singular conjunction of terms to say the
   least; as if, in Jesus Christ, were made compatible, authority and
   suffering, the impassive throne of a monarch and the meek subjection of
   a cross, the reigning power of a prince and the mild endurance of a
   lamb. What more striking paradox. And yet in this you have exactly that
   which is the prime distinction of Christianity. It is a kingdom erected
   by patience. It reigns in virtue of submission. Its victory and
   dominion are the fruits of a most peculiar and singular endurance. I
   say the fruits of endurance, and by this I mean, not the reward, but
   the proper results or effects of endurance Christ reigns over human
   souls and in them, erecting there his spiritual kingdom, not by force
   of will exerted in any way, but through his most sublime passivity in
   yielding himself to the wrongs and the malice of his adversaries. And
   with him, in this most remarkable peculiarity; all disciples are called
   to be partakers; even as the apostle in his exile at Patmos writes,--I
   John, who also am your brother and companion in tribulation, and in the
   kingdom and patience of Jesus. I offer it accordingly to your
   consideration, as a kind of first principle in a good life, which it
   will be the object of my discourse to illustrate--

   That the passive elements, or graces of the Christian life well
   maintained, are quite as efficient and fruitful as the active.

   It is not my design, of course, to discourage, or restrain what are
   called active works in religion. Christ himself was active beyond
   almost any human example. All great and true servants of God have been
   men of industry, and of earnest and strenuous application to works of
   duty. I only design to exhibit what many are so apt to overlook or
   forget, the sublime efficacy of those virtues which be long to the
   receiving, suffering, patient side of character. They are such as
   meekness, gentleness, forbearance, forgiveness, the endurance of wrong
   without anger and resentment, contentment, quietness, peace, and
   unambitious love. These all belong to the more passive side of char
   acter and are included, or may be, in the general and comprehensive
   term patience. What I design is to show that these are never barren
   virtues, as some are apt to imagine, but are often the most efficient
   and most operative powers that a true Christian wields; inasmuch as
   they carry just that kind of influence, which other men are least apt
   and least able to resist.

   We too commonly take up the impression that power is measured by
   exertion; that we are effective because simply of what we do, or the
   noise we make; consequently that, when we are not in exertion of some
   kind, we are not accomplishing any thing; and that if we are too
   humble, or poor, or infirm, to be engaged in great works and projects,
   there is really nothing for us to do, and we are living to no purpose.
   This very gross and wholly mistaken impression I wish to remove, by
   showing that a right passivity is sometimes the greatest and most
   effective Christian power, and that if we are brothers and companions
   in the kingdom and patience of Jesus, we are likely to fulfill the
   highest conception of the Christian life. Observe then--

   First of all, that the passive and submissive virtues are most of all
   remote from the exercise, or attainment of those who are out of the
   Christian spirit and the life of faith. All men are able to be active.
   Most men do exert themselves in works that are really useful. A vast
   multitude of the race have excelled in forms of active power that are
   commonly called virtuous, without any thought of religion. They have
   been great inventors, discoverers, teachers, law-givers, risked their
   life, or willingly yielded it up in the fields of war for the defense
   of their country, or the conquest of liberty, worn out every energy of
   mind and body, in the advancement of great human interests. Indeed it
   is commonly not difficult for men to be active or even bravely so; but
   when you come to the passive or receiving side of life, here they fail.
   To bear evil and wrong, to forgive, to suffer no resentment under
   injury, to be gentle when nature burns with a fierce heat, and pride
   clamors for redress, to restrain envy, to bear defeat with a firm and
   peaceful mind, not to be vexed or fretted by cares, losses, or petty
   injuries, to abide in contentment and serenity of spirit, when trouble
   and disappointment come--these, are conquests, alas how difficult to
   most of us! Accordingly it will be seen that a true Christian man is
   distinguished from other men, not so much by his beneficent works, as
   by his patience. In this he most excels and rises highest above the
   mere natural virtues of the world Just here it is that he is looked
   upon as a peculiar and partially divine character. The motives seem to
   be a mystery. What can set a man to the suffering of evil and wrong
   with such a spirit? Thought lingers questioning round him, asking for
   the secret of this mysterious passivity. Even if it be derided there is
   yet felt to be a something great in it; truly he is another kind of man
   and not of us, is the feeling of all who are not in Christ with him. By
   this he will be seen and felt to belong to a distinct order of being
   and character. He is set off by his patience, to be a brother and
   companion in the kingdom and patience of Jesus.

   Consider also more distinctly the immense power of principle that is
   necessary to establish the soul in these virtues of endurance and
   patience. Here is no place for ambition, no stimulus of passion, such
   as makes even cowards brave in the field. Here are no exploits to be
   carried, no applauses of the multitude to be won. The disciple knowing
   that God forgives and waits, wants to be like him; knowing that he has
   nothing himself to boast of but the shame of a sinner, wants to be
   nothing, and prefers to suffer and crucify his resentments, and since
   God would not contend with him, will not contend with those who do him
   injury. He gets the power of his patience wholly from above. It is not
   human, it is divine. Hence the impossibility of it even to great men.
   Napoleon, for example, had the active powers in such vigor, that he
   made the whole civilized world shake with dread. But when he came to
   the place where true greatness consisted only in patience, that was too
   great for him. Just where any Christian woman would have shone forth in
   the true radiance and sublimity of an all-victorious patience, he, the
   conqueror of empires, broke down into a peevish, fretful, irritable
   temper, and losing thus, at once, all dignity and composure of soul,
   died before his time, because he had been resolved into a mere compost
   of faculty by the ferment of his ungoverned passions. On the other
   hand, we have in Socrates an illustrious example of the dignity and
   sacred grandeur of patience. The good spirit or genius he spoke of as
   being ever with him, was, in fact, the teacher of this noble and truly
   divine submission to wrong. It wears no merely human look, and the
   world of all subsequent ages have been made to feel that here is a
   certain sublimity of virtue, which sets the man apart from all the
   great men of profane history. No ancient character stands with him. He
   is felt to be a kind of sacred man who, by means of his wonderful
   passivity to wrong. and his gentleness toward his enemies, is set quite
   above his kind, revealing as it were, the gift of some higher nature.
   You perceive in his example that the passive virtues both involve and
   express a higher range of principles; hence they are necessary to all
   highest character in the active. We can act out of the human, but to
   suffer well, requires a participation of what is divine. Hence the
   impression of greatness and sublimity which all men feel in the
   contemplation of that energy which is itself energized by a
   self-sacrificing and suffering patience. And accordingly there is no
   power over the human soul and character so effective and so nearly
   irresistible as this.

   Notice again, yet more distinctly, what will add a yet more conclusive
   evidence, how it is chiefly by this endurance of evil, that Christ, as
   a Redeemer, prevails against the sin of the human heart and subdues its
   enmity. Just upon the eve of what we call his passion, he says, in way
   of visible triumph, to his disciples,--"the prince of this world is
   judged;" as if the kingdom of evil were now to be crushed and his own
   new kingdom established, by some terrible bolt of judgment falling on
   his adversaries, It was even so; and that bolt of judgment was the
   passion of the cross. We had never seen before the sublime passivities
   of God's character, and his ability to endure the madness of evil. We
   had seen him in the smoke and heard him in thunders of Sinai. We had
   felt his judgments, we had trembled under his frown, we had seen the
   active management and sway of his Providence. But now in the cross, we
   see him bearing wrong, receiving the shafts of human enmity,.
   submitting himself, in his sublime patience, to the fury of the
   disobedient, and so, melting down by his gentleness what no terrors
   could intimidate, and no frowns of judgment could subdue. Thus our
   blessed Redeemer made himself a king and set up a kingdom. It is the
   kingdom of his patience. When law was broken, and all the supports of
   authority set up by God's majesty were quite torn away, God brought
   forth a power, greater than law, greater than majesty, even the power
   of his patience and by this he broke forever the spirit of evil in the
   world. The sinner could laugh at God's thunders and stiffen himself
   against all the activities of his omnipotent rule, when exerted to
   abase and humble him, but when he looks upon the cross of Jesus, and
   beholds the patience of God's love and mercy, then he relents and
   becomes a child. The new-creating grace of Christianity is scarcely
   more, in fact than a divine application of the principle, that when
   nothing else can subdue an enemy, patience sometimes will.

   Again, it is important to notice that men, as being under sin, are set
   against all active efforts to turn them, or persuade them, but never
   against that which implies no effort; viz., the gentle virtues of
   patience. We are naturally jealous of control by any method which
   involves a fixed design to exert control over us: therefore we are
   always on our guard in this direction. But we are none the less open,
   at all times, to the power of silent worth, and the unpretending
   goodness of those virtues that are included in patience. If a man is
   seen to live in content, and keep a mind unruffled by vexation, under
   great calamities and irritating wrongs, we have no guard set against
   that, we almost like to be swayed by such a kind of power. Indeed we
   should not have a good opinion of ourselves, if we did not admire such
   an example and praise it. And in just this way it happens, that many a
   proud and willful soul will resist the most eloquent sermon, and will
   then be completely subdued and melted by the heavenly serenity and
   patience of a sick woman. For a similar reason, all the submissive
   forms of excellence have an immense advantage. They provoke no
   opposition, because they are not put forth for us, but for their own
   sake. They fix our admiration therefore, win our homage, and melt into
   our feeling. They move us the more, because they do not attempt to move
   us. They are silent, empty of all power but that which lies in their
   goodness, and for just that reason they are among the greatest powers
   that Christianity wields.

   Once more it is important for every man, when he will cast the balance
   between the powers of action and of passion or when he will discover
   the real effectiveness of passive good, to refer to his own
   consciousness. See how little impression is often made upon you, by the
   most strenuous efforts to exert influence over you, and then how often
   you are swayed by feelings of respect, reverence, admiration,
   tenderness, from the simple observation of one who suffers well;
   receiving injury without resentment, gilding the lot of poverty and
   privation with a spirit of contentment and of filial trust in God;
   forgiving, gentle, unresisting, peaceful, and strong under great storms
   of affliction. How gently do these lovely powers of patience insinuate
   themselves into your respect and love. When some palpable assault of
   active endeavor, such as argument, advice, or exhortation, besieges
   you, how instinctively do you harden yourself against it, and offer
   yourself to it as a wall to be battered down if it can be. But when you
   see a Christian suffer well, strong in adversity, calm and happy in
   days of trouble, smiling on through months of pain, in a spirit of
   unmurmuring patience, contented with a hard lot of poverty and outward
   discouragement, how ready are you to feel the power of such examples,
   how welcome are they, as faces of blessing, to a place in your mind,
   and how often do they bend you, by their sacred power, to better
   purposes of life, that could not be extorted by any more obtrusive
   means. Let every Christian carefully observe his own consciousness
   here, and he will be in the least possible danger of dis-esteeming
   patience, as a barren or sterile virtue, or of looking upon effort and
   action as the only operative and fruitful Christian powers.

   Let us notice now in conclusion, some of the instructive and practical
   uses of the truth illustrated. And

   1. It is here that Christianity makes issue with the whole world on the
   question of human greatness. That is ever looked on by mankind and
   spoken of as greatness, which displays some form of active power. The
   soldier the statesman, the inventor, the orator, the reformer, the
   poet--all great thinkers and doers, by whom, as mighty men and men of
   renown, great masses of people or even nations are swayed in their
   opinions, or their history, or profoundly moved, prepared to some
   higher future--are taken as examples of the most real and highest form
   of greatness. It has never entered into human thought, unsanctified by
   religion, that there is or can be any such thing as greatness in the
   mere passive virtues, or in simply suffering well; least of all in
   suffering wrong and evil with a forgiving, unresentful spirit.
   Christianity is here alone, holding it forth as being, when required,
   the divinest, sublimest and most powerful of all virtues to suffer
   well. Even the summits of deific excellence and glory it reveals, by
   the endurance of enemies, and the bitter pangs of a cross accepted for
   their good. It works out the recovery of transgressors by the
   transforming power of sacrifice. And so it establishes a kingdom, which
   is itself the reign of the patience of Jesus. The whole plan centers in
   this one principle, that the suffering side of character has a power of
   its own, superior, in some respects, to the most active endeavors. And
   in this it proves its originality by standing quite alone. The Stoics
   appear to have had a dim apprehension that something of this kind might
   be true, but the patience they inculcated was that of the will and not
   the patience of love and trust. It was in fact, obstinacy, without any
   consent to suffering at all, a will hardening itself into flint a
   sensibility deadened by assumed apathy; and all this in the proud
   determination to be sufficient against all the evils of this life. It
   was not suffering well therefore, but refusing to suffer, and, in that
   view, was a most active and strenuous form of effort. And there was a
   certain greatness in this we can not deny, though it was only a
   mock-moral greatness and not that true heaven descended greatness,
   which belongs to Christian charity. To say--Let patience have her
   perfect work that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing; to
   understand that character is even consummated in these passive
   virtues-this could only be taught by the gospel of the cross. And yet
   how manifestly true it is, when once it is seen in such an example as
   that of Jesus, that a suffering love is the highest conceivable form of
   greatness.

   2. The office of the Christian martyrs is here explained. We look back
   upon the long ages of woe, the martyr ages of the church, and we behold
   a vast array of active genius and power, that could not be permitted to
   spend itself in works of benefaction to the race, but was consecrated
   of God to the more sacred and more fruitful grace of suffering. The
   design was, it would seem, to prepare a Christly past, to show whole
   ages of faith populated with men who were able, coming after their
   Master and bearing his cross, to suffer with him and add their human
   testimony to his. And they overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by
   the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the
   death. And so it has been ordered that the church of God shall know
   itself to be the child of suffering patience. The scholars, the
   preachers, all the great and noted characters, who have served the
   church by their labors, pass into shade, we think little of them, but
   the men of patience, the holy martyrs, these we feel as a sacred
   fatherhood, charging it, O how seriously and filially upon our souls,
   to be followers of them, who through faith and patience inherit the
   promises. Who that feels the power of these martyr ages descending on
   him, can ever think, even for a moment, that the passive virtues of the
   Christian life are sterile virtues, and that action is the only
   fruitful thing.

   3. We see in this subject, how it is that many persons are so
   abundantly active ir. religion, with so little effect; while others who
   are not conspicuous in action accomplish so much. The reason is, that
   one class trust mainly to the virtues of action, while the others unite
   also the virtues of patience. One class is brother and companion in the
   kingdom and works of Jesus, the other in the kingdom and patience of
   Jesus. Accordingly there is something of the same distinction between
   them, that there is between John the Baptist and the Saviour, as
   regards the extent and the subduing, permanent quality of their
   effects. Thus a man may be very active in warnings, exhortations,
   public prayers, plans of beneficence, contributions of time and money,
   and it may seem, when you look upon him, that he is going to produce
   immense effects by his life. But suppose him to be very much of a
   stranger to the patient virtues of Christ--railing at adversaries,
   blowing blasts of scorn upon those whom he wishes to reform in their
   practices, impetuous, willful, irritable, hot,--how much good is that
   man going to do by all his activity? What can he do but to irritate and
   vex and, as far as he is concerned, render the very name of religion or
   possibly of Christ himself, odious. Or suppose him to be a petulant
   neighbor, or a harsh and passionate man to persons in his employ,
   resentful and retaliatory against those who cross him in his interests,
   fretful and storming always with impatience, when providences do not
   work rightly, or when other men do not exactly fulfill their duties, or
   engagements. How manifest is it that such a man will do little, or
   nothing, by his religious activity. The difference between him and a
   right-minded, healthy Christian, is the same as between Jehu and Jesus.
   So the woman who is zealous in the street, busy ever in the works of
   active charity, but ill-natured and fretful in her house, impatient
   with her children, given to harsh words and bitter constructions upon
   the character of others, implacable in her resentment of supposed
   injuries, jealous, envious--what can she accomplish by any possible
   degree of activity? And how many are there in the churches who are
   really forward in all good works, but are continually thwarting all
   effect and reducing the value of their efforts as nearly to nothing as
   possible, by just such defects of passive goodness as some of these
   which I have named.

   On the other hand, have you never observed the immense power exerted by
   many Christian men and women, whose lives are passed in comparative
   silence? You know not how it is, they seem to be really doing little,
   and yet they are felt by thousands. And the secret of this wonder is
   that they know how to suffer well--they are in the patience of Jesus.
   They will not resent evil, or think evil. They are not easily provoked.
   They are content with their lot, though it be a lot of poverty and
   affliction. They will not be envious of others. When they are wronged
   they remember Christ and forgive, when opposed and thwarted, they
   endure and wait. They live in an element of composure and sweetness,
   and can not be irritated and fretted by men, because they are so much
   with God, and so ready to bear the cross of his Son, that human wrongs
   and judgments have little power to unsettle or disturb them. Now before
   these a continual flood of influence will be continually rolling. Their
   gentleness is stronger than the onsets and assaults of other men. They
   are in the kingdom of Jesus reigning with him, because they are with
   him in his patience.

   4. The reason why we have so many crosses, trials, wrongs, and pains,
   is here made evident. We have not one too many for the successful
   culture of our faith. The great thing, and that which it is most of all
   difficult to produce in us, is a participation of Christ's forgiving
   gentleness and patience. This, if we can learn it, is the most
   difficult and the most distinctively christian of all attainments.
   Therefore we need a continual discipline of occasions; poverty,
   sickness, bereavements, losses, treacheries, misrepresentations,
   oppressions, persecutions; we can hardly have too many for our own
   good, if only we receive them as our Saviour did his cross. It is by
   just these refining fires of trial and suffering, that we are to be
   most advanced in that to which we aspire. The first thing that our
   Saviour set himself to, when he began his ministry, was the inculcation
   of those traits that belong to the passive or patient side; for these
   he well understood were most remote from us, highest above us, and most
   of all cross to the impatient stormy spirit of sin within us. He opened
   his mouth and taught them for his first lesson,--Blessed are the poor
   in spirit; Blessed are the meek; Blessed are the peacemakers; Blessed
   are they that are persecuted for righteousness sake; and afterward, in
   the same discourse,--Resist not evil, whosoever shall smite thee on thy
   right cheek, turn to him the other also--Love your enemies, bless them
   that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that
   despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of
   your Father which is in heaven. And then, going on to unfold this
   latter idea, showing how God reveals his impartial, unresentful
   patience, he comes to this, at last, as the summit of all--Be ye
   therefore perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect--as if it
   were the crown of all perfection, whether in God or man, to endure evil
   well. Or, in other words, as if it were his opinion that all good
   character is consummated and crowned in the virtues included under
   patience.

   Therefore, I said we have not too many occasions given us for the
   exercise of patience; which, is yet, more evident, when we consider the
   Christian power of patience. How many are there who by reason of
   poverty, obscurity, infirmity of mind, or body, can never hope to do
   much by action, and who often sigh at the contemplation of their want
   of power to effect any thing. But it is given to them as to all, to
   suffer; let them only suffer well and they will give a testimony for
   God, which all who know them will deeply feel and profoundly respect.
   It is not necessary for all men to be great in action. The greatest and
   sublimest power is often simple patience; and for just that reason we
   need sometimes to see its greatness alone, that we may embrace the
   solitary, single idea of such greatness, and bring it into our hearts
   unconfused with all other kinds of power. Whoever gives to the church
   of God such a contribution--the invalid, the cripple, the neglected and
   forlorn woman-every such person yields a testimony for the cross, that
   is second in value to no other. Let this be remembered and let it be
   your joy, in every trial and grief and pain and wrong you suffer, that
   to suffer well is to be a true advocate, and apostle, and pillar of the
   faith.

   "They also serve, who only stand and wait."

   And here let me add is pre-eminently the office and power of woman. Her
   power is to be the power most especially of gentleness and patient
   endurance. An office so divine, let her joyfully accept and faithfully
   bear--adding sweetness to life in all its exasperating and bitter
   experiences, causing poverty to smile, cheering the hard lot of
   adversity, teaching pain the way of peace, abating hostilities and
   disarming injuries by the patience of her love. All the manifold
   conditions of human suffering and sorrow are many occasions given to
   woman, to prove the sublimity of true submission, and reveal the
   celestial power of passive goodness.

   Finally, there is reason to suspect that men not religious, are
   commonly averted from the Christian life, more by their dislike of the
   submissive and gentle virtues, than by any distaste of sacrifice and
   active duty. They could enter as companions into his kingdom, if only
   they could be excused from the patience. Their life of sin is a life of
   will, or self-will; therefore a life centered in themselves. They have
   undertaken to hew their own way; therefore to thrust and push and fret
   themselves against obstructions, and resent oppositions, to envy and
   hate and revenge themselves on enemies, is the luxury, in great part,
   of their sin. They can admire and praise benevolence, truth,
   disinterestedness of conduct, but to bear evil and love enemies and be
   patient--that is wholly distant from the temper they are in. They are
   not without admiration for these tle kinds of excellence, when
   displayed by God himself; they will even be affected by what they
   perceive to be the sublimity of His greatness in them; but they can not
   think of such in themselves without distaste or a feeling of
   dis-esteem. There is a want of spirit, something tame and weak in such
   ways, something too hard upon human pride to be endurable.

   And yet how plain it is, my friends, that for the want of just these
   passive virtues, your character is all disorder and confusion. There
   can be nothing, as you have seen, of the highest, truest greatness in
   you, without the virtues of patience; you are not called to descend to
   these, but, if possible to ascend. Christ commands you to take up his
   cross and follow him, not that he may humble you, or lay some penance
   upon you, but that you may surrender the low self-will and the feeble
   pride of your sin, and ascend into the sublime patience of heavenly
   charity. You begin to reign, the moment you begin to suffer well. You
   are only degraded when you suffer, and groan, writhing under pains God
   lays upon you, in the manner of a slave. Renounce what is real
   degradation, and the pride that now detains you will not be left.
   Choose what will most exalt you, and these gentle virtues of the cross
   will be accepted first. And then it will not be left us to exhort you;
   for you will even claim it as your joy, to be brother and companion in
   the kingdom and patience of Jesus.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                     XXII.

SPIRITUAL DISLODGEMENTS.

   Jeremiah xlviii. 8.--"Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he
   hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to
   vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity; therefore his taste
   remained in him, and his scent is not changed."

   THERE is a reference here, it will be seen, to wine, or to the process
   by which it is prepared and finished. It is first expressed from the
   grape, when it is a thick, discolored fluid or juice. It is then
   fermented, passing through a process that separates the impurities, and
   settles them as lees at the bottom. Standing thus upon its lees or
   dregs in some large tun or vat, it is not further improved. A gross and
   coarse flavor remains, and the scent of the feculent matter stays by
   and becomes fastened, as it were, in tne body of the wine itself. To
   separate this, and so to soften or refine the quality, it is now
   decanted or drawn off into separate jars or skins. After a while it is
   done again, and then again; and so, being emptied from vessel to
   vessel, the last remains of the lees or sediment are finally cleared,
   the crude flavors are reduced, the scent itself is refined by
   ventilation, and the perfect character is finished.

   So it has not been, the prophet says, with Moab. He hath been at ease
   from the first, shaken by no great overturnings or defeats, humbled and
   broken by no captivities, ventilated by no surprising changes or
   adversities. He has lived on, from age to age, in comparative security,
   settled on his lees; and therefore he has made no improvement. What he
   was, he still is; his taste remains in him, and the scent of his old
   idolatries and barbarities of custom is not changed. Accordingly the
   prophet goes on to declare, in the verses that follow, that God will
   now deal with him in a manner better adapted to his want; that he will
   cause him to wander, empty his vessels, break his bottles, give him all
   the agitation he needs, and so will make him to be ashamed of the
   idolatries of Chemosh, even as Israel was made ashamed of Bethel, their
   confidence.

   There has all along been a kind of mental reference, it will be seen,
   in his language, to the singular contrast between Moab and Israel,
   which here in these last words comes out. Israel, the covenanted
   people, have had no such easy and quiet sort of history. They have been
   wanderers, in a sense, all the while; shaken loose or unsettled every
   few years by some great change or adversity; by a state of slavery in
   Egypt, by a fifty years' roving and fighting in the wilderness, by a
   time of dreadful anarchy under the Judges, by overthrows and judgments
   under the Kings, by a revolt and separation of the kingdom, then by a
   captivity, then by another; and so, while Moab, heaved and loosened by
   no such changes, has retained the scent of its old customs and
   abominations, Israel has become quite another people. The calves of
   Bethel were long ago renounced; the low superstitions, the coarse and
   sensual habit, all the idolatrous fashions and affinities which
   corrupted their religion, have been gradually fined away.

   Similar contrasts might be instanced among the states and nations of
   our own time; in China, for example, and England; one standing
   motionless for long ages, and be. coming an effoete civilization,
   absolutely hopeless as regards the promise of a regenerated future; the
   other emptied from vessel to vessel, four times conquered, three times
   deluged with civil war, converted, reformed and re-reformed in
   religion, and finally emerging, after more than one change of dynasty,
   into a state of law, liberty, intelligence, and genuinely Christian
   manhood, to be one of the foremost and mightiest nations of the world.

   But my object is personal, not political or social, and the principle
   that underlies the text is one that may be universalized in its
   applications. It is this:

   That we require to be unsettled in life by many changes and
   interruptions of adversity, in order to be most effectually loosened
   from our own evils, and prepared to the will and work of God.

   We need, in other words, to be shaken out of our places and plans,
   agitated, emptied from vessel to vessel, else the flavors of our
   grossness and impurity remain. We can not be refined on our lees, or in
   any course of life that is uniformly prosperous and secure. My object
   will be to exhibit this truth and bring it into a just application to
   our own personal experience. Observe, then--

   1. How God manages, on a large scale, in the common matters of life, to
   keep us in a process of change and pre vent our lapsing into a state of
   security such as we desire, No sooner do we begin to settle, as we
   fancy, and become fixed, than some new turn arrives by which we are
   shaken loose and sorely tossed. When the prophet declares that He will
   overturn, overturn, overturn, he gives in that single word a general
   account of God's polity in all human affairs. The world is scarcely
   turned on its axle more certainly than it is overturned by the
   revolutions of Providence. It seems even to be a law, in every sort of
   business or trade, that nothing shall stand on its lees. Credit is a
   bubble bursting every hour at some gust of change, What we call
   securities are as well called insecurities. Titles themselves give way,
   and even real estate becomes unreal under our feet. Nor is it only we
   ourselves tiat unsettle the security of things. Nature herself
   conspires to loosen all our calculations, meeting us with her frosts,
   her blastings, her droughts, her storms, her fevers, and forbidding us
   ever to be sure of that for which we labor. Markets and market prices
   faithfully represent the unsteadiness of our objects. We look upon them
   as we might upon the sea, and it even makes one's head swim, only to
   note the fluctuations of all human goods and values represented there.
   Nothing in the world of business is allowed to have a base of
   calculable certainty. Unforeseen disasters wait on our plans, in so
   many forms and combinations, that we are sure of nothing, and commonly
   bring out nothing exactly as we expected to do.

   The very scheme of life appears to be itself a grand decanting process,
   where change follows change, and all are emptied from vessel to vessel.
   Here and there a man, like Moab, stands upon his lees, and commonly
   with the same effect. Fire, flood, famine, sickness in all forms and
   guises, wait upon us, seen or unseen, and we run the gauntlet through
   them, calling it life. And the design appears to be to turn us hither
   and thither, allowing us no chance to stagnate in any sort of benefit
   or security, Even the most successful, who seem, in one view, to go
   straight on to their mark, get on after all, rather by a dexterous and
   continual shifting, so as to keep their balance and exactly meet the
   changing conditions that befall them. Nor is there any thing to
   sentimentalize over in this ever shifting, overturning process, which
   must be encountered in all the works of life; no place for
   sighing--vanity of vanities. There is no vanity in it, more than in the
   mill that winnows and separates the grain.

   But we must hasten to points more immediately religious, carrying with
   us, as we may, a lesson derived from these analogies. Observe, then--

   2. That the radical evil of human character, as being under sin,
   consists in a determination to have our own way, which determination
   must be somehow reduced and extirpated. Hence the necessity that our
   experience be so appointed as to shake us loose continually from our
   purpose, or from all security and rest in it. Sin is but another name
   for self-direction. We cast off the will of God in it, and set up for a
   way and for objects of our own. We lay off plans to serve ourselves,
   and we mean to carry them straight through to their result. Whatever
   crosses us, or turns us aside, or in any way forbids us to do or
   succeed just as we like, becomes our annoyance. And these kinds of
   annoyance are so many and subtle and various, that the very world seems
   to be contrived to baffle us. In one view it is. It would not do for
   us, having east off the will of God, and set up our own will, to let us
   get on smoothly and never feel any friction or collision with the will
   cast off. Therefore God manages to turn us about, beat us back, empty
   us from vessel to vessel, and make us feel that our bad will is hedged
   about, after all, by his Almighty purposes. Sometimes we seem to bend,
   sometimes to break. Be it one or the other, we lose a part of our
   stiffness. By and by, to avoid breaking, me consent to bend, and so at
   last become more flexible to God, falling into a mood of letting go,
   then of consent, then of contrition. The coarse and bitter flavor of
   our self-will is reduced in this manner, and gradually fined away. If
   we could stand on our lees, in continual peace and serenity, if success
   were made secure, subject to no change or surprise, what, on the other
   hand, should we do more certainly than stay by our evil mind and take
   it as a matter of course that our will is to be done; the very thing
   above all others of which we most need to be cured.

   It would not answer even for the Christian, who has meant to surrender
   his will, and really wants to be perfected in the will of God, to be
   made safe in his plans and kept in a continual train of successes. He
   wants a reminder every hour; some defeat, surprise, adversity, peril;
   to be agitated, mortified, beaten out of his courses, so that all
   remains of self-will in him may be sifted out of him, and the very
   scent of his old perversity cleared. O, if we could be excused from all
   these changes and somersets, and go on securely in our projects, it
   would ruin the best of us. Life needs to be an element of danger and
   agitation,--perilous, changeful, eventful; we need to have our evil
   will met by the stronger will of God, in order to be kept advised, by
   our experience, of the impossibility of that which our sin has
   undertaken. It would not even do for us to be uniformly successful in
   our best meant and holiest works, our prayers, our acts of sacrifice,
   our sacred enjoyments; for we should very soon fall back into the
   subtle power of our self-will, and begin to imagine, in our vanity,
   that we are doing something ourselves Even here we need to be defeated
   and baffled, now and then, that we may be shaken out of our
   self-reliance and sufficiency, else the taste of our evil habit remains
   in us, and our scent is not changed.

   3. Consider the fact that our evils are generally hidden from us till
   they are discovered to us by some kind of trial or adversity. This is
   less true of vicious and really iniquitous men; they see every hour
   with their eyes what is in them, or at least they may, by the acts they
   do. Their profanities, frauds, and lies, their deeds of impurity and
   violence, all that comes out of them shows them to be defiled. Not so
   with a generally correct man, still less so with a genuine, faithful
   Christian, endeavoring after greater sanctification and a closer
   conformity to the will of God. Every such man, living a life outwardly
   blameless, and desiring earnestly to grow in all true holiness, is, by
   the supposition, correct outwardly, and therefore the evils that remain
   in his spirit are to a great extent latent from himself. Sometimes, in
   a frame of high communion with God, he imagines that he is much more
   nearly purified than he is. And when he knows, from his poverty and
   spiritual dullness, that something is certainly wrong in him, he will
   have great difficulty in detecting the precise point of his infirmity.
   It is in him like some scent in the air, the source of which is hidden
   and can not be traced. Perhaps he will never definitely trace it so as
   to have it as a discovery, and yet God will manage, by the gusts of
   adversity and change, to winnow it away, even though it be
   undiscovered. More commonly, however, every such turn of adversity will
   bring out some particular fault in him, which before was hid, and which
   he greatly needed to have discovered, and he will be able to set
   himself to the very work of purification by a direct endeavor. What
   good man ever fell into a time of deep chastening, who did not find
   some cunning infatuation, by which he was holden, broken up, and some
   new discovery made of himself. The veils of pride are rent, the rock of
   self-opinion is shattered, and he is reduced to a point of gentleness
   and tenderness that allows him to suffer a true conviction concerning
   what was hidden from his sight. Nor is any thing so effectual in this
   way as to meet some great overthrow that interrupts the whole course of
   life; all the better if it dislodges him even in his Christian works
   and appointments. What was I doing, he now asks, that I must needs be
   thrown out of my holiest engagements; for what fault was I brought
   under this discipline? He has every motive now to be ingenuous, for the
   hand of God is upon him, and what God declares to him he is ready to
   hear. And ah! how many things that weie hidden from him start up now
   into view! How could he be allowed to go on prosperously, when there
   was so much in him and his engagements that required rectification, and
   ought, if it be not removed, to forever exclude him from these
   engagements. Perhaps he will be thrown out of them entirely, and turned
   to something else, that he may there discover, in a second overthrow,
   other evils that are still hidden from his knowledge. O, it is a great
   thing with us that our God is faithful and will not spare to set us in
   order before our own eyes. If he should let us be as Moab from our
   youth, then should we be as Moab in the loss of all valuable
   improvement. Better is it, far better that he empties us about on this
   side and on that, and passes us through all sorts of captivities; for
   then we are, at least, learning something which is valuable to be
   known.

   4. It is another point of advantage in the changes and surprises
   through which we are continually passing, that we are prepared, in this
   manner, to the gracious and refining work of the spirit in us. When we
   are allowed to stand still and are agitated by no changes, we become
   incrusted, as it were, under our remaining faults or evils and shut up
   in them, as wine in the vat where it is kept. And the Spirit of God is
   shut away, in this manner, by the imperviousness of our settled habit.
   But when great changes or calamities come, our crust is broken up, and
   the freshening breath of the Spirit fans the open chamber of the soul,
   to purify it. Now the prayer, cleanse thou me from secret faults, finds
   an answer which before was impossible. Providence,. in this view, is an
   agitating power to break the incrustations of evil and let the gales of
   the Spirit blow where they list in us. Under some great calamity or
   sorrow, the loss of a child, the visitations of bodily pain, a failure
   in business, the slanders of an enemy, a persecution for the truth or
   for righteousness' sake, how tender and open to God does the soul
   become! Search me, O God, and try me, and see if there be any evil way
   in me, is now the ingenuous prayer, and the Spirit of God comes in to
   work the answer, finding every thing ready for an effectual and
   thorough purgation. And so, by a double process, Providence and the
   Spirit, both in unity, (for God is always one with himself,) we are
   perfected in holiness and finished in the complete beauty of Christ, We
   could never hope to have our secret evils cleared by any process of
   particular discovery and sanctification, but God's own Spirit can reach
   every most hidden fault, and all the innumerable, undiscoverable
   vestiges of our depravity, doing all things for us. And so, at last,
   even the scent of it will be finally changed. These holy ventilations
   of grace, it is our comfort to know that nothing can finally escape.
   Again--

   5. Too great quiet and security, long continued, are likely to allow
   the reaction or the recovered power of our old sins and must not
   therefore be suffered. As the wine standing on its dregs or lees
   contracts a taste from the lees, and must therefore be decanted or
   drawn off, so as to have no contact longer with their vile sedimentary
   matter, so we, in like manner, need to be separated from every thing
   pertaining to the former life, to be broken up in our expectations and
   loosened from the affinities of our former habit. In our conversion to
   God we pass a crisis that, like fermentation, clears our transparency
   and makes us apparently new; we are called new men in Christ Jesus;
   still the old man is not wholly removed. It settles like dregs at the
   bottom, so to speak, of our character, where t is, for the present,
   unseen. One might imagine, for the time, that it is wholly taken away,
   and yet it is there, and is only the more likely to infect us that it
   is not sufficiently mixed with our life to cloud our present
   transparency. Our sanctification is not to be completed save by
   separation from it. And therefore God, who is faithful to us, continues
   to sever us, as completely as possible, from all association with the
   old life and condition; breaks up our plans, compels a readjustment of
   our objects, empties us about from vessel to vessel, that our taste may
   not remain. Otherwise the hidden sediment of the old man will some.
   time flavor and corrupt the new even more than at first. Suppose a man
   is converted as a politician--there is nothing wrong certainly in being
   a politician--but how subtle is the power of those old habits and
   affinities in which he lived, and how likely are they, if he goes
   straight on by a course of prosperous ambition, to be finally corrupted
   by their subtle reaction. When he is defeated, therefore, a little
   further on, by untoward combinations, and thrown out of all hope in
   this direction, let him not think it hard that he is less successful
   now in the way of Christ, than he was before in the way of his natural
   ambition. God understands him and is leading him off not unlikely to
   some other engagement, that he may get him clear of the sediment on
   which he stands. In the same way doubtless it is that another is driven
   out of his business by a failure, another out of his family
   expectations by death and bereavement, another out of his very industry
   and his living by a loss of health, another out of prayers and
   expectations that were rooted in presumption, another out of works of
   beneficence that associated pride and vanity, another out of the
   ministry of Christ where by self-indulgence, or in some other way, his
   natural infirmities were rather increased than corrected. There is no
   engagement however sacred from which God will not sometimes separate
   us, that he may clear us of our sediment and the re actions of our
   hidden evils. Were it not for this, were every thing in our trade or
   engagement to go on perfectly secure and prosperous, how certainly
   would the old man steal up in it from the bottom where it lies, to
   corrupt and foul and fatally vitiate the new. This, our God will not
   suffer, and therefore he continues to unsettle us, tear us away from
   our works, our gains, our plans, our pleasures, our associations, and
   not seldom even from our recollections, that our change may go on to
   completion.

   Once more, we are most certainly finished, when we are brought closest
   to God, and we are never brought so near to God as when we are most
   completely separated from oui personal schemes and objects, and from
   all the works of the flesh. How tender do we become, when we are
   loosened by some great and sore disappointment; even as Israel was
   finally cured of its last vestiges of idolatry by its bitter
   captivities. Having nothing left of all our expectations, driven out of
   our places and plans and works, and all that our pride cherished,
   possibly out of our prayers themselves, because of the pride so
   cunningly veiled in their guises of sanctity, what can we do but
   confess that God himself is our all, and take Him as the total blessing
   of our life. How closely now are we drawn to Him, receiving, as it
   were, a divine flavor from his purity. And when he is thus brought
   nigh, how rapidly are we changed in all the secret scents and flavors
   of our defilement.

   And now let me suggest as in reference to all these illustrations, how
   much more they would signify if it were a day with us of great public
   calamity, a day, for example, of religious persecution, a day when
   fathers or sons are hunted or dragged to prison, or when possibly we
   ourselves are expecting every hour to be seized and arraigned for the
   faith of the gospel--and so to be witnesses for it even by the
   sacrifice on our lives. O these times of persecution, what Christians
   do they make! How little hold has this world, or its sins, of men who
   have laid even their lives upon the altar! We complain how often, that
   in these days of security and liberty, Christian piety grows thin and
   feeble, that it loses tone, and appears even to want a character of
   reality. The difficulty is that our opinions, our faith, our Christian
   life, cost us nothing, and the church slides into the world because
   there is no broad palpable line of suffering and sacrifice to separate
   the two. And for just this reason, how many in our time that have
   practically lost the distinction, are beginning to be chiefly occupied
   with Christianity, as a gift to this world; admiring it as a civilizer
   of society and a promoter of what is called human progress. How many
   even seem to expect that the modern conditions of political liberty and
   security, coalescing with and patronizing the gospel, are going to set
   it onward, and that henceforth the world must be growing into a kind of
   perfect state, by its own vital forces. Alas, I mistrust this millenium
   of Moab! it will never be seen. It is not in man, or human society, to
   be purified, exalted, and finally consummated by any such comfortable
   and even process. And there is nothing in our present indications to
   favor such a hope. These times of security and ease, when rightly
   viewed, are but the lull of the ocean between storms. It were hard to
   say that times of public fear and persecution are better. God knows
   what is better and will temper the ages himself. But alas for poor
   human nature, what does it show more evidently even now, in this short
   holiday of peace, than the inevitable tameness and feebleness of
   devotion, when the fires of great public adversity are smothered. Or if
   we seek to dress up still our giants and heroes in the faith, how
   shadowy and meagre do they look. And what can we rationally promise,
   but that our condition of ease and humanitarianism must finally run
   itself into the ground, preparing some terrible reaction, some war of
   Gog and Magog that shall empty the church from vessel to vessel leaving
   her again, as of old, nothing to hope for and look after on earth, but
   that she may win a better world in the sacrifice and loss of this.

   The applications of this subject are many and various.

   First of all, it brings a lesson of admonition to the class of worldly
   men who are continually prospered in the things of this life. One may
   be continually prospered in some things when he is not in all. He may
   be uniformly successful in his business engagements and enterprises,
   for example, when, iii fact, he is tossed by many and sore
   disappointments, and shaken by intense agonies of heart. And, by these,
   he may be kept in that airing of right conviction, which is needed to
   winnow his bad tempers, and sober his confidence. Far otherwise will it
   be with you, if you prosper in every thing and are agitated by no kind
   of adversity. This is the blessing of Moab, and the danger is that,
   standing thus upon the lees from your youth, disturbed by no crosses,
   unsettled by no changes, you will finally become so fast-rooted in
   pride and forgetfulness of God as to miss every thing most dear in
   existence. Nothing could be more perilous for you than just that which
   you deem your happiness. Nor is any word of God more pointedly serious
   than this--Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God. I
   commend it to your deepest and most thoughtful attention.

   Others, again, have been visited by many and great adversities, emptied
   about from vessel to vessel all their lives long, still wondering what
   it means, while still they adhere to their sins. There is, alas! no
   harder kind of life than this, a life of continual discipline that
   really teaches nothing. Is it so with you, or is it not? Scorched by
   all manner of adversities, are you still unpurified by the fires you
   have passed through? Defeated, crossed, crushed, beaten out of every
   plan, baffled in every project, shut away from every aspiration,
   blasted in every object your soul has embraced, are you still
   unprofited? I have known such examples,--fig trees that God has dug
   about every year, and that still remain as barren as if no hand of care
   had touched them. Is there any thing more strange, in all the subjects
   of knowledge, than that a man, an intelligent being, should be nowise
   instructed by the sufferings of a life?--separated in no degree from
   the world and self and the scent of his manifold evils, by that which
   God has sent upon him to correct his understanding, and purify his
   love, and fashion him even for the angelic glory? So he plods on still,
   contriving, and failing, and groping with his face downward, and hoping
   against hope, and wondering that the earth will not consent to bless
   him. O, poor, weatherworn, defeated, yet unprofited man,--he can not
   see when good cometh! There is no class of beings more to be pitied
   than defeated men who have gotten nothing out of their defeat but that
   dry sorrow of the world which makes it only more barren, and therefore
   more insupportable.

   Is it necessary, in the review of this subject, to remind any genuine
   Christian what benefits he ought to receive in the trials and changes
   through which he is called to pass? How many are there who are finally
   driven out of every plan they have laid for their course of life. Their
   families are dissolved and reconstructed. Their location is dis.
   lodged. Their business ends in defeat. No kind of settlement is
   attempted which is not broken up by some kind of change or adversity.
   And even where there is a measure of prosperity, how many are the
   changes, losses, trials, surprises, and pains. Do you find, my brother,
   that, when you are thus emptied about, dislodged, agitated, loosened,
   you are purified? Or, does the bad flavor of your worldly habits, the
   scent of your old ambition, or your earthly pride, remain. There could
   not be a worse sign for you as regards the reality of your christian
   confidence. And it will be a worse sign still, if you are habitually
   irritated by your defeats, and even dare to murmur impatiently against
   the strange severity of God,--as if it were a strange thing for you
   that your faithful God will try to bring you off the lees on which you
   stand! A far more strange thing is it that, having no great
   persecutions to suffer for Christ, you can not find how, as a follower,
   to endure these common trials, God forbid that you so little understand
   your privilege il them. Receive them meekly rather, and bow down to
   them gladly. Bid them welcome when they come, and, if they come not,
   ask for them; lift up your cry unto God, and beseech him that by any
   means he will correct you, and purify you, and separate you to himself.

   But there is a use of this subject that has many times occurred to you
   already, and to this, in conclusion, let us now come. [1] By the
   visitation of God upon us,--upon you, that is, and upon me,--the tenure
   and security of our relation as pastor and people has been interrupted
   now for two whole years. Whether it was God's design, by this
   interruption, to refine us and purify us to a better use of this
   relation, or to bring it to a full end, remains now to be seen The
   former is my earnest hope and my constant prayer Was there nothing in
   us, on one side or on both, that required this discipline and made it
   even necessary for us? Ts there no reason to suspect that, in our state
   of confidence and security, we were beginning to look for the blessing
   of Moab and not for the blessing of Israel? For myself, I feel
   constrained to admit that I had come to regard my continuance here too
   much as a matter of course, an appointment subject to no repeal or
   change. I had learned to trust you implicitly as my friends, and knew
   that you could never be less. I had let my roots run out and downward
   among you, in a growth of nearly a quarter of a century. There was
   stealing on me thus, as I now discover, a feeling of security and
   establishment, which is not good for any sinful man, and will not let
   him be the pilgrim on earth that he ought. Under the semblance of duty
   and constancy, I had undertaken to die here and nowhere else, knowing
   no other people, place, or work. And under this fair cover crept a
   little foolish pride, it may be, that really needed chastisement. As if
   it were for me to say where I would stay or die! Just here,
   unwittingly, my imagined constancy became presumption. Furthermore, I
   had always been too much like Moab, as I now see, and bitterly needed
   some kind of captivity more real, some change more crippling, than the
   trivial adversities I had heretofore tossed aside so lightly.

   Meantime, was there nothing on your part, or in you that required a
   similar discipline? Having seen your church almost uniformly prosperous
   for a long course of years, and growing steadily up from a feeble and
   small one, to a condition of strength, were there not many of you that
   were losing a righteous concern for it, and beginning to leave it
   practically to me, as if I could take care of it? ceasing in that
   manner from their trust in God, by which they had before upheld me, and
   from those personal responsibilities for it, which are the necessary
   condition of all earnestness in the christian life? I should do wrong
   not to say that I have, many times, been so far oppressed by this
   conviction, as to doubt whether it might not even be better for you, if
   I were entirely taken out of the way. You have been subjected to some
   uncommon trials on my account. Have you never slid from the christian
   constancy and patience in which you stood, into a temper of mere
   self-reliance, as if by some human sufficiency you had been able to
   stand unbroken? Were you touched by no subtle pride, were you betrayed
   into no undue self-confidence, were you slid unwittingly into no trust
   in a worm that you mistook for trust in God? Ah, if you had been cut
   down as a church by adversity, crippled, weakened, emptied from vessel
   to vessel, brought into captivity as regards all hope from man, how
   much might it have done for you. It is the blessing of Moab, as I
   greatly fear, that has injured you, and, as God is faithful, he would
   not let you suffer in this manner longer. And so, both for my sake and
   for yours, he has brought this heavy trial or adversity upon us. By
   this he takes us off our lees, and his design has been to ventilate us
   by the separation we have suffered. He means to purify us, to take away
   all our self-confidence, and our trust in each other, and bring us into
   implicit, humble trust in himself.

   And the work he has begun, I firmly believe that he will prosecute till
   his object is gained. If two years of separation will not bring us to
   our places and correct our sin, he will go further. He will finally
   command us apart and tear us loose from all our common ties and
   expectations. For myself, I am anxious to learn the lesson he is
   teaching, and I pray God that a similar purpose may enter into you. Let
   not this happy return, which God has vouchsafed me, and the
   congratulations of the occasion, drive away all the sober and searching
   truths God was trying to enter into our hearts. Be jealous of any such
   lightness. As you rejoice with me and give thanks unto God for his
   undeserved goodness, consent with me to God's corrections also, and
   join me in the prayer that other and heavier corrections may not be
   made necessary, by the want of all fruit in these. For be assured that,
   as you are Israel and not Moab, God will deal with you as he deals with
   Israel, and will not spare till your purification is accomplished. Let
   us go to him as penitents, in our common sorrow, and make our common
   confession before him, determined, every one, that he will turn himself
   to God's correcting hand, and follow it. And as thou hast smitten us,
   O, Lord, do thou heal us; as thou hast broken, do thou bind us up; that
   we may be established in holiness before thee, and walk humbly and
   carefully in thy sight, as they whom the Lord hath chastened.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [1] This discourse was so far colored, as a whole, by the peculiar
   interest of the occasion referred to here in the close, that retaining
   the occasional matter appears to be required.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                     XXIII.

CHRIST AS SEPARATE FROM THE WORLD.

   Hebrews vii. 26.--"Separate from sinners, and made higher than the
   heavens."

   WITH us of to-day, it is the commendation of Jesus that he is so
   profoundly humbled, identified so affectingly with our human state. But
   the power he had with the men of his time moved in exactly the opposite
   direction, being the impression he made of his remoteness and
   separateness from men, when he was, in fact, only a man, as they
   supposed, under all human conditions. With us, it is the wonder that he
   is brought so low. With them, that he could seem to rise so high; for
   they knew nothing, as yet, of his person considered as the incarnate
   Word of the Father. This contrast, however, between their position and
   ours is not as complete as may, at first, seem to us; for that which
   makes their impression, makes, after all, a good part of ours. For when
   we appeal thus to his humiliations under the flesh, and as a man of
   sorrows, M really do not count on the flesh and the sorrows, as being
   the Christly power, but only on what he brought into the world from
   above the world, by the flesh and the sorrows,--he holiness, the deific
   love, the self-sacrificing greatness, the everlasting beauty; in a
   word, all that most distinguishes him above mankind and shows him most
   transcendently separate from sinners. Here is the great power of
   Christianity--the immense importation it makes from worlds of glory
   outside. Hence the intimation of the text, that it became our Lord, as
   the priest of our salvation, to be not only holy, harmless, and
   undefiled, but separate also from sinners, and made higher than the
   heavens; that so he may be duly qualified for his transcendent work and
   office.

   What I propose, then, for my present subject, is,--The separateness of
   Jesus from men; the immense power it had and must ever have on their
   feeling and character.

   I do not mean by this that Christ was separated as being at all
   withdrawn, but only that in drawing himself most closely to them, he
   was felt by them never as being an their level of life and character,
   but as being parted from them by an immense chasm of distance. He was
   born of a woman, grew up in the trade of a mechanic, was known as a
   Nazarene, stood a man before the eye, and yet he early began to raise
   impressions that separated him, and set him asunder inexplicably from
   the world he was in.

   These impressions were not due, as I have said, to any distinct
   conceptions they had of him as being a higher nature incarnate; for not
   even his disciples took up any such definite conceptions of his nature,
   till after his death and ascension. It was guessed, indeed, that he
   might be Elias, or some one of the old prophets, but we are only v see,
   in such struggles of conjecture, how powerfully he has already
   impressed the sense of his distinction, or separateness of character;
   for such guesses or conjectures were even absurd, unless they were
   instigated by previous impressions of something very peculiar in his
   unearthly manner, requiring to be accounted for.

   His miracles had undoubtedly something to do with the impression of his
   separateness from ordinary men, but a great many others, who were
   strictly human, have wrought miracles, without creating any such gulf
   between them and mankind as we discover here.

   It is probably true also that the rumor of his being the Messiah, the
   great, long-expected prince and deliverer, had something to do in
   raising the impressions of men concerning him. But their views of the
   Messiah to come had prepared them to look only for some great hero and
   deliverer, and a kind of political millenium under his kingdom. There
   was nothing in their expectation that should separate him specially
   from mankind, as being a more than humanly superlative character.

   Pursuing then our inquiry, let us notice, in the first place, how the
   persons most remote and opposite, even they that finally conspired his
   death, were impressed or affected by him. They deny his Messiahship;
   they charge that only Beelzebub could help him do his miracles; they
   are scandalized by his familiarity with publicans and sinners and other
   low people; they arraign his doctrine as a heresy against many of the
   most sacred laws of their religion; they charge him with the crime of
   breaking their Sabbath, and even with excess in eating and drinking;
   and yet we can easily see that there is growing up, in their minds, a
   most peculiar awe of his person. And it appears to be excited more by
   his manners and doctrine and a certain indescribable originality and
   sanctity in both, than by any thing else. His townsmen the Nazarenes,
   for example, were taken with surprise, by his discourses in the
   synagogue and elsewhere, knowing well that he had never received the
   aids of learning. Is not this the carpenter's son? they inquired. Do we
   not all know his brothers and sisters, living here among us? Whence
   then these gracious words that we hear him speak? When his wonderful
   sermon on the mount was ended, what said the multitude? The very point
   of their astonishment was that he spoke with such an original and
   strong authority, and not as the Scribes; who were, in fact, the
   Sophists of Jewish learning, but were held in high respect as a learned
   order. The expressions made use of by these hearers of Jesus indicate,
   in fact, a raising of their own thoughts by what they had heard, and
   the sense they had of some sacred and even celestial freshness in his
   manner and doctrine. Without including the centurion at Capernaum among
   his enemies, we may gather something from him, in respect to the
   probable impression made by the bearing and discourse of Jesus. He was
   a Roman, but appears withal to have been a man of religious worth and
   culture. He had even built a synagogue for the people. of Capernaum, at
   his own expense. In that synagogue he had probably been rewarded in
   hearing Jesus speak; for the Saviour had been making Capernaum a kind
   of center for some time past. But we observe that when he sends to
   Jesus to obtain the healing of his servant, he has been so deeply
   impressed with the Saviour's manner, that he does not presume on his
   military position as keeping guard over a vanquished country, takes on
   no high airs of negotiation, but even requests that Jesus will not
   think it necessary to come under his roof, for he is really not wor.
   thy of so great honor. He may have apprehended that Christ might have
   some religious scruples in respect to the implied defilement of such
   intercourse with a nominal pagan. If so, there was the greater respect
   in his delicacy.

   Beginning with impressions like these, we can easily see that the
   public mind is gradually becoming saturated with a kind of awe of his
   person; as if he might be some higher, finer nature come into the
   world. This was the feeling that shook the courage of the traders and
   money-changers in the temple and made them fly, in such feeble panic
   before him. For the same reason it was that a band of officers sent out
   at an early period, to arrest him, returned without having executed
   their commission; for, they said,--Never man spake like this man. Such
   words of clearness and repose and purity fell on them, as excited their
   imagination, starting the conception apparently of one speaking out of
   eternity and worlds unknown. He put them under such constraints of
   fear, in short, by his words and manner, that they did not dare to
   arrest him. And just this kind of feeling grew upon the people, as his
   ministry advanced, till it became a superstition general; for it is the
   way of minds infected by any such tendencies, to make ghosts of the
   fancy out of mere impressions of superior dignity, and even goodness.
   Hence, so far from supposing that he could be captured as safely as a
   lamb, and with less of resistance, they appear to have had a kind of
   suspicion that he would strike blind, or annihilate the first man that
   touched him. Indeed one reason why they wanted to get him in their
   power, apparently was, that he was reported to have given out his
   determination to shake down the temple, and they were even much
   concerned lest he might do it. Hence the problem with them was, not how
   to arrest any common man, or sinner of mankind, but a superior,
   mysterious, fearful one, and there wanted, as they imagined, some kind
   of magic to do it. They took up thus an impression, that if they could
   suborn one of his followers, it would break the spell of his power and
   they could proceed safely. They bought off Judas accordingly, and he
   was to conduct them--not that they could not otherwise find the
   Saviour, not that Judas could do any thing physically in the matter of
   the arrest, which they could not do themselves; but they seem to have
   imagined that if Judas would bring them directly before him, and speak
   to him, it would assure them, and be a kind of token to him that his
   power was broken; for they believed greatly in spells and other such
   conceits of the fancy. And yet when they came upon him--a large band of
   marshals and assistants with torches and lanterns and all strong arms
   of defense--they were smitten with such dread at the thought of being
   actually before him, that they even reeled backward and fell to the
   ground! He was such a being, in their apprehension, that their chances
   of living another minute were doubtful!

   It is easy also to see that Pilate, even after his arrest, is
   profoundly impressed with the sense of something superior, more wise,
   or holy, or sacred, than he had seen before. The dignity of Christ's
   answer, and also of his manner had awakened visibly a kind of awe in
   his mind. It was as if he had undertaken to question a king in deed;
   one superior in all majesty to himself. Unaccountably to himself he
   grows superstitious, as if dealing with some divinity, he knows not
   who, and he can not so much as give his mere negative sentence of
   permission, pagan though he be, without washing his hands as
   religiously as if he were some Pharisee, to be clear of the guilt of
   the transaction. The centurion too, that kept guard by the cross,
   another Roman, is so affected, or impressed by the majestic manner of
   Jesus in his death, that he bears spontaneous witness, out of his own
   feeling, probably in words which he had heard, but only dimly
   understood as having some very mysterious and high meaning,--Truly this
   was the Son of God!

   If now it should be objected here that the enemies of Jesus would never
   have dared to insult his person so brutally in his trial and
   crucifixion, if they had been really impressed, as we are supposing,
   with the wonderful sacredness and separateness of his character, it is
   enough to answer that exactly this is the manner of cowardice. Only
   yesterday these same men were in such awe of him that they trembled
   inwardly at the sound of his name; and now that they find him strangely
   in their power, submit. ting to them in the meekness of a lamb, they
   grow brave, pleased to find that they can be; and to make it sure, they
   multiply their blows and other indignities, in a manner of low and
   really ignominious triumph over him. But how soon does the true shame
   and bitterness of their sin return upon them. For when they saw the
   funeral weeds of nature's sorrow hung over the sun, and felt the
   shuddering ague of the world, their spirit fell again. And all the
   people, says Luke, that came together to that sight, beholding the
   things that were done, smote their breasts and returned.

   Turn now, secondly, to the disciples, and observe how they were
   impressed or affected by the manner and spirit of Jesus. And here the
   remarkable thing is, that they appear to be more and more impressed
   with the distance between him and themselves, the longer they know him,
   and the more intimate and familiar their acquaintance with him. He took
   possession of them strangely even at the very first, much as you will
   see in the case of Matthew the publican. The man is sitting at the
   receipt of custom, and Christ, who is passing by, says to him--Come,
   follow me. That word has a mystery in it, which can not be withstood;
   he forsakes all and follows at command. At first, however, the
   impression had of Jesus is more shallow in all the disciples. It fared
   with them much as with the woman at the well, who took him first, for a
   common traveler, then for a prophet, and finally as the great Messiah,
   having only the faintest conception of him probably even then. But they
   grew more and more impressed with his greatness, and the strangeness of
   his quality; for there was so much in his authority, purity, love,
   wisdom, that they could only spell him out by syllables.

   Thus we may take Peter as an example for all the others; for, in the
   surname, Peter, that was early given him by his Master, and also by the
   promise that on him, as the rock of its foundation, the church was to
   be built, every thing was done to keep him assured and help him to
   maintain a footing of confidence. How then was it, as he came into
   closer acquaintance with his Master? At the first, when his brother
   Andrew conducted him to Jesus, he felt much as his brother did the day
   before, when he and his friend, having heard John's remarkable
   apostrophe--Behold the Lamb of God--accosted him freely, put
   themselves, as it were, upon him and spent, if we may judge, whole
   hours in their private questioning. Peter's exclamation, shortly after,
   at the miraculous draught of fishes,--Depart from me O Lord, for I am a
   sinful man, might seem to indicate a very wide sense of distance
   already felt between him and Christ; but it rather signifies after all,
   the violence of his wonder at the miracle, than any deep moral sense of
   the dignity, purity, and superior majesty of Christ. Accordingly it
   will be seen, sometime after this, that he is bold enough to take the
   Saviour to account and rebuke him, with a degree of emphasis not a
   little offensive, for the conceit of it. At the washing of the
   disciples' feet he breaks out again less boldly, but as soon as he
   finds that he is in a mistake, recalls his strong asseveration, saying
   in the gentlest manner,--not my feet only, but my hands and my head.
   Then again, at the scene of the table, where the revelation is--"One of
   you shall betray me," he has been so far removed, sunk so low, by the
   wonderful discourses of Jesus to which he has been listening, that he
   does not even dare to accost his Master with a question spoken aloud,
   but beckons to John to whisper it for him, as he lies reclining on the
   Saviour's breast. Then, once more, after having openly denied him and
   foresworn all connection with him, seeing that he is now stripped of
   his power and his very Messiahship is a virtually exploded hope, Peter
   is nevertheless under such an habitual awe of his person, that the
   simply catching a look of his eye, as he goes out of the hall of
   Caiaphas, and seeing it turned full upon him, breaks him quite down,
   and even overwhelms him with sorrow. He was in the most unlikely mood
   for it possible; fresh in the wrong, flushed by the very oaths he has
   taken, all in a tremor, unstrung for any consideration of truth by the
   inward disturbance of his falsity, and yet he is riven by that mere
   look of Jesus, as if it were a glance of the Almighty.

   The same thing could be shown by other examples, but it must suffice to
   say that, while the miracles of Christ do not increase in grandeur with
   the advance of this ministry, his disciples are visibly growing all the
   while more and more impressed with the sense of distance between him
   and themselves, and of some unknown, transcendent mystery, by which he
   is separated, as another kind of being, from the world he is in. This,
   in part, is their blessing; for, as they are humbled in it, so they are
   raised by it, feel the birth of new affinities, rise to higher
   thoughts, and are wakened to a conscious struggle after God.

   What now, thirdly, is the solution of this profound impression of
   separateness, made by Christ on the world? That his miracles and the
   repute of his Messiahship do not wholly account for it we have already
   observed. It may be imagined by some that he produced this impression
   artificially by means of certain scenes and observances designed to
   widen out the distance between him and the race; for, how could he
   otherwise obtain that power over them which he was properly entitled to
   have, by his own real eminence, unless he took some pains to set them
   in attitudes in which his eminence might be felt: In other words, if he
   is to have more than a man's power, he must somehow be more than a man.
   Thus, when he says to his mother,--Woman, what have I to do with thee,
   my hour is not yet come? or when, being notified that his mother and
   brethren are standing without waiting to see him, he asks,--Who then is
   my mother and who are my brethren? it will be imagined that he is
   purposely suggesting his higher derivation and his more transcendent
   affinities But, even if it were so, it must be understood only that he
   is speaking out of his spiritual consciousness, claiming thus affinity
   with God and with those who shall embrace him in the eternal
   brotherhood of faith; not as boasting the hight of his natural sonship.

   So, again, in the scene of the baptism and the vision of the dove
   descending upon him, introduced by the very strange outburst of
   prophetic utterance in John, when he sees the Saviour coming,--Behold
   the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world! it may be
   imagined that the design is to usher him into his ministry as a
   superior being. But what, in that view, shall we say of the great
   soul-struggle previous, called the temptation? It is not to be denied
   that the scene of the baptism connects impressions of some very exalted
   quality in the subject, and yet, if we bring in the temptation, and
   regard the transaction as a solemn inaugural of Christ's great
   ministry,--God's act of separation, his own act of assumption here
   passed,--there is nothing in it to set him off distinctly from men,
   save as he is set off by his character and his consecration to his
   work. Indeed, no one took up the impression from this inaugural scene
   that he was a being above the human order.

   On a certain occasion he is transfigured, and Moses and Elias appear as
   only secondary figures in the scene; by which it may be designed, some
   will fancy, to widen out the chasm between himself and men, showing
   himself to be the compeer and more,--even the Lord of angels aid
   glorified spirits. This may have been the design, or rather it probably
   was; at least, so far as to have that effect on the future ages; for it
   was important, we may believe, to right impressions of his person, in
   the coming time, that his excellent glory should some time have been
   discovered or uncovered to men, and the facts reported as historical
   proofs of his divinity. But it does not appear that the three, by whom
   the transfiguration was seen and reported, ever disclosed the fact
   during the Saviour's life-time; and it is remarkable that one of these,
   even after the fact, had such confidence and assurance toward his dear
   Lord, that he even dared to lay his head on that once transfigured
   breast! In which it is made clear that, however much we may imagine
   Christ to have been lifted in order by the scene of the
   transfiguration, he still remained a properly fellow nature, even to
   one who was present as a beholder; who felt, in his deepest center, the
   separateness of Christ, and the transcendent mystery of his character,
   but does not appear to have been at all removed, or thrown out of
   confidence by the sacred awe in which he saw him invested. He could
   never have laid his head on the bosom of a person regarded as being
   really deific.

   But what shall we say of the really astounding assumptions put forth by
   Christ? Were they not designed as declarations, or assertions of a
   superhuman order in his natural person? When he asks,--Who convinceth
   me of sin? when he declares,--Ye are from beneath, I am from above,--I
   am the bread that cometh down from heaven; when he dares to use the
   pronoun we, as relating to him self and the Father,--We will come unto
   him, and make our abode with him; when he speaks of the glory he had
   with the Father before the world was; when he engages, himself, to send
   down the Holy Spirit after his ascension,--I will send you another
   comforter; when he claims to be the judge of the world, and speaks of
   holding the world's throne; nay, when, to give his most ordinary and
   familiar mole of doctrine, he says,--I am the way, the truth, and the
   life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me; it is most certainly
   true, that he is challenging, in all such utterances, honors and
   prerogatives that are not human. At the same time, if he had not before
   separated himself heaven wide from men, by his character, and produced,
   in that manner, a sense of some wonderful mystery in him, he would have
   been utterly scouted and hooted out of the world for his preposterous
   assumptions. These very assumptions, therefore, presuppose a separation
   already realized, even more remarkable than that which is claimed, or
   asserted. Indeed, the minds of his disciples were so much occupied with
   the impressions they felt, under the realities of his character, that
   they scarcely attended to the strange assumptions of his words, and did
   not even seem to have taken their meaning till after his death.

   The remarkable separation, therefore, of Christ from the sinners of
   mankind, and the impression he awakened in them of that separation, was
   made, not by scenes, nor by words of assertion, nor by any thing
   designed for that purpose, but it grew out of his life and
   character,--his unworldliness, holiness, purity, truth, love; the
   dignity of his feeling, the transcendent wisdom and grace of his
   conduct. He was manifestly one that stood apart from the world, in his
   profoundest human sympathy with it. He often spent his nights in
   solitary prayer, closeted with God in the recesses of the mountains. He
   was plainly not under the world, or any fashions of human opinion. He
   was able to be singular, without apparently desiring it, and by the
   simple force of his superiority. Conventionalities had no power over
   him, learning no authority with him. He borrowed nothing from men. His
   very thoughts appeared to be coined in the mint of some wisdom higher
   than human. There was also this distinction in all his virtues, that
   they did not open, like those of men at the larger end, growing less
   and less, the further in they might be penetrated; but at the smaller,
   as if no strain, or ostentation were possible, growing larger
   therefore, and wider, and fuller, the more conversant and the more
   familiar with them any one might be. His whole ministry, therefore, was
   a kind of discovery and so a process of separation. The purity of his
   life grew tall; the truth of his doctrine more than mortal, or that of
   any mortal prophet; his love itself deific; and so--this is the
   grandeur and glory of his life,--he rose up out of humanity or the
   human level into deity and the separate order of uncreated life, by the
   mere force of his manner and character, and achieved, as man, the sense
   of a divine excellence, before his personal order as the Son of God was
   conceived. And so it finally became established in men's feeling, as it
   stood in his last prayer, that there was some inexplicable oneness,
   where his inmost life and spirit merged in the divine and became
   identical. His human fire had already mingled its blaze with the great
   central sun of deity.

   Accordingly what we see in his resurrection and ascension, and the
   scenes of intercourse between, is only a kind of final consummation, or
   complete rendering of what was already in men's hearts. There it begins
   to come out that he is the King, even the Lord of Glory. Death can not
   hold him. The earth can not fasten him. The parting clouds receive him
   and let him through to his throne, not more truly but only more visibly
   separate than before, in that he is made higher than the heavens.

   How great a thing now is it, my hearers, that such a being has come
   into our world and lived in it,--a being above mortality while in it; a
   being separate from sinners, bringing unto sinners, by a fellow nature,
   what is transcendent and even deific in the divine holiness and love.
   Yes, we have had a visitor among us, living out, in the molds of human
   conduct and feeling, the perfections of God! What an importation of
   glory and truth! Who, that lives, a man, can ever after this think it a
   low and common thing to fill these spheres, walk in these ranges of
   life, and do these works of duty, which have been raised so high, by
   the life of Jesus in the flesh! The world is no more the same that it
   was. All its main ideas and ideals are raised. A kind of sacred glory
   invests even our humblest spheres and most common concerns.

   Consider, again, as one of the points deducible from the truth we have
   been considering, how little reason is given us, in the mission of
   Christ, for the hope that God, who has such love to man, will not allow
   us to fail of salvation, by reason of any mere defect, or neglect, of
   application to Christ. What then does this peculiar separateness of
   Christ signify? Coming into the world to save it, taking on him our
   nature that he may draw himself as close to us as possible, what is
   growing all the while to be more and more felt in men's bosoms, but a
   sense of ever-widening, ever-deepening, and, in some sense,
   incommunicable separateness from him? And this, you will observe, is
   the separateness, not of condition, but of character. Nay, it grows out
   of his very love to us in part, and his profound oneness with us; for
   it is a love so pure and gentle, so patient, so disinterested, so
   self-sacrificing, that it parts him from us, in the very act of
   embrace, and makes us think of him even with awe! How then will it be;
   when he is met in the condition of his glory, and the guise of his
   humanity is laid off? There is nothing then to put him at one with us,
   or us at one with him, but just that incommunicable and separate
   character which fills us even here with dread. If then your very
   Saviour grows more and more separated from you, in all your
   impressions, the more you see of him, how will it be, when you drop the
   flesh and go to meet him, invested only in your proper character of
   sin? If before you thought of him with awe, and even with a holy dread,
   how little confidence will be left you there, when you see him in. the
   fullness of his glory, even that which he had with the Father before
   the world was. If he was separate before, how inevitably, insupportably
   separate now.

   Consider also and accurately distinguish, as here we may easily do,
   what is meant by holiness, and what especially is its power, or the law
   of its power. Holiness is not what we may do or become, in mere
   self-activity or self-culture, but it is the sense of a separated
   quality, in one who lives on a footing of intimacy and oneness with
   God. The original word, represented by our word holiness, means
   separation, or separateness; the character of being drawn apart, or
   exalted, by being consecrated to God and filled with inspiration from
   God. It supposes nothing unsocial, withdraws no one from those living
   sympathies that gladden human life. On the contrary, it quickens all
   most gentle and loving affinities and brings the subject just as much
   closer in feeling to his fellow-man, as he is closer to God, and less
   centralized in himself. But it changes the look or expression, raising,
   in that manner, the apparent grade of the subject and separating him
   from whatever is of the world, or under the spirit of the world. He is
   not simply a man as before, but he is more, a man exalted, hallowed,
   glorified. The divine tempers are in him, the power of the world is
   fallen off, his words have a different accent, his acts an air of
   repose, dignity, sanctity, and the result is that mankind feel him as
   one somehow become superior. It stirs their conscience to speak with
   him, it puts them under impressions that are consciously not of man
   alone. This is holiness--the condition of a man, when he is separated
   visibly from the world and raised above it, by a divine participation.
   It is, in fact, the greatest power ever exerted by man, being not the
   power of man, but only of God himself manifested in him.

   But the great and principal lesson derivable from this subject is, that
   Christianity is a regenerative power upon the world, only as it comes
   into the world in a separated character, as a revelation, or sacred
   importation of holiness.

   We have in these times, a very considerable and quite pretentious
   class, who have made the discovery that Christ actually eat with
   publicans and sinners! This fact indeed is their gospel. Christ they
   say was social, drew himself to every human being, poured his heart
   into every human joy and woe, lived in no ascetic manner as a being
   withdrawn from life. And so it becomes a principal matter of duty with
   us, to meet all human conditions in a human way and make ourselves
   acceptable to all. They do not observe that Jesus brought in something
   into every scene of society and hospitality, which showed a mind set
   off from all conformities. When he eat with publicans and sinners, he
   declared expressly that he did it as a physician goes to the sick, did
   it that he might so call sinners to repentance. So when he dined with
   Zaccheus, he there proclaimed himself the Son of Man, who was come to
   save the lost. When he shared the assiduous hospitality of Martha, what
   did he but remind her of the one thing needful, quite passed by in her
   over-doing carefulness? And when he dined with one of the great rich
   men of the Pharisees, what did he but strike at the very usurpation of
   all high fashion, by openly rebuking those who seized on the highest
   places of precedence? and what did he propose to the host himself, but
   that true hospitality is that which is given, with no hope of
   return?--in which also, he touched the very quick of all heartlessness
   and all real mockery in what is called society. Yes, it is true that
   Jesus eat with publicans and sinners. He never stood apart from any
   advance of men. But how visibly separated was he there and everywhere,
   from the shallow conventionalities of the world; how pure, majestic,
   free, and faithful to his great ministry of salvation!

   We have also a great many schemes of philanthropy started in these
   days, that suppose a preparation of man, or society to be moved
   directly forward, on its present plane, into some advanced, or nearly
   paradisaic state. The manner is to address men at their present point,
   in their present motive, under their present condition, with some hope
   of development, some scheme, truth, organization, and so to bring them
   into some compact, or way of life that will discontinue the present
   evils and make a happy state. As if there were any such feasibility to
   good in man, that he can be put in felicity by mere invitation, or
   consent! Christ and Christianity think otherwise. For the blessed
   Redeemer comes into the world, ill the full understanding that, in
   being identified with the world, he will become a great power, only as
   he is also separated from it. And in this lies the efficacy of his
   mission, that he brings to men what is not in them, what is opposite to
   them, the separated glory, the holiness of God. Come then ye holiday
   saviours, ye reformers, and philanthropic regenerators of the world,
   send forth your invitations to society, summon the world to come near
   and make even a fixed contract to be happy, and one that shall be
   indissoluble forever! Bring out your paper coaches and bid the sorrow
   stricken peoples ride forth, down the new millenium you promise without
   prophecy; do your utmost; stimulate every most confident hope, and then
   see what your toy-shop apparatus signifies!

   No, we want a salvation, which means a grace brought into the world,
   that is not of it. When the real Saviour comes, there will be great
   falling off, for the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. He will
   not be a popular Saviour. He that puts men in awe, as of some higher
   spirit and more divine of which they know nothing; he that visits the
   world to be unworldly in it, and draw men apart from it and break its
   terrible spell--he, I say, will not be hailed with favor and applause.
   Indeed I very much fear that many who assume even now to be his
   disciples, would not like him, if he were to appear on earth. His
   unworldly manner, his profound singularity as a being superior to sin,
   and to all human conventionalities, would offend them, and drive them
   quite away. Who of us, here to-day, would really follow Jesus and
   cleave to him, if he were now living among us? This brings me to speak
   of what is now the great and desolating error of our times. I mean the
   general conformity of the followers of Christ to the manners and ways,
   and, consequently, in a great degree, to the spirit of the world.
   Christ had his power, as we have seen, in the fact that he carried the
   impression of his separateness from it, and his superiority to it. He
   was no ascetic, his separation no contrived and prescribed separation,
   but was only the more real and radical that it was the very instinct,
   or freest impulse of his character. He could say;--The prince of this
   world cometh and hath nothing in me; counting the bad kingdom to be
   only a paste-board affair, whose laws and ways were but a vain show,
   that he could not even so much as feel. This now is what we want, such
   a fullness of divine participation, that we shall not require to be
   always shutting off the world by prescribed denials, but shall draw off
   from it naturally, because we are not of it. A true Christian, one who
   is deep enough in the godly life to have his affinities with God, will
   infallibly become a separated being. The instinct of holiness will draw
   him apart into a singular, superior, hidden life with God. And this is
   the true Christian power, besides which there is no other. And when
   this fails every thing goes with it.

   Neither let us be deceived in this matter, by our merely notional
   wisdoms, or deliberative judgments, for it is not a matter to be
   decided by any consideration of results--the question never is, what is
   really harmful and so, wrong, but what will meet the living and free
   instinct of a life of prayer and true godliness? I confess that when
   the question is raised, whether certain common forms of society and
   amusement are to be indulged or disallowed, the argument sometimes
   appears to preponderate on the side of indulgence. What is more
   innocent?--must we take the morose and, as it were, repugnant attitude
   of disallowing and rejecting every thing harmless that is approved by
   men? in what other way could we more certainly offend their good
   judgment and alienate their personal confidence? ought we not even to
   yield a certain allowable freedom for their sake? So stands the
   computation. Let it be granted that, as a matter of deliberation, the
   scale is turned for conformity. And yet the decision taken will not
   stand; for there is no truly living Christian that wants, or at all
   relishes such conformities. On the other hand, you will see that such
   as argue for them and make interest in them, however well disposed in
   matters philanthropic, have little or nothing in them of that which is
   the distinctively Christian power, and do not add any thing to the
   living impression of the gospel. For the radical element of all great
   impression is wanting--viz., the sense of a separated life. Their
   instinct does not run that way. What they want is conformity, more
   conformity, to be always like the world, not different from it, and in
   that gulf they sink, lost to all good effect, nay a hindrance to all.

   There is no greater mistake, as regards the true manner of impression
   on the world, than that we impress it as being homogeneous with it. If,
   in our dress we show the same extravagance, if our amusements are
   theirs without a distinction, if we follow after their shows, copy
   their manners, bury ourselves in their worldly objects, emulate their
   fashions, what are we different from them? It seems quite plausible to
   fancy the great honor we shall put on religion, when we are able to set
   it on a footing with all most worldly things, and show that we can be
   Christians in that plausible way. This we call a liberal piety. It is
   such as can excel in all high tastes, and make up a figure of beauty
   that must needs be a great commendation, we think, to religion. It may
   be a little better than to be openly apostate but alas! there is, how
   little power in such a kind of life! No, it is not conformity that we
   want, it is not being able to beat the world in its own way, but it is
   to stand apart from it, and produce the impression of a separated life;
   this it is and this only, that yields any proper sense of the true
   Christian power. It is not the being popular that makes one a help to
   religion, no holy man was ever a truly popular character. Even Christ
   himself, bringing the divine beauty into the world, profoundly
   disturbed the quiet of men by his very perfections. All really bad men
   adhering to their sin, hated him, and their animosity was finally
   raised to such a pitch, that they crucified him. And what does he say,
   turning to his disciples, but this very thing--The servant is not
   greater than his lord--if they have persecuted me they will persecute
   you. I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth
   you. We are certainly not to make a merit of being hated, for the worst
   and most wicked can do that; as little are we to make a merit of
   popularity and being even with the world in its ways. There is no just
   mode of life, no true holiness, or fruit of holy living, if we do not
   carry the conviction, by our self-denial, our sobriety in the matter of
   show, and our withholding from all that indicates being under the
   world, that we are in a life separated to God. Therefore his great call
   is--Come out from among them and be ye separate and touch not the
   unclean thing, and ye shall be my sons and daughters saith the Lord
   Almighty. And there is a most profound philosophy in this. If we are to
   impress the world we must be separate from sinners, even as Christ our
   Master was, or at least according to our human degree as being in his
   spirit The great difficulty is that we think to impress the world,
   standing on the world's own level and asking its approbation. We
   conform too easily and with too much appetite. We are all the while
   touching the unclean thing, bowing down to it, accepting its law, eager
   to be found approved in it. God therefore calls us away. O that we
   could take our lesson here, and plan our life, order our pursuits,
   choose our relaxations, prepare our families, so as to be truly with
   Christ, and so in fact that we ourselves can say, each for
   himself,--The prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me.

   And this exactly is our communion with Jesus; we propose to be one with
   him in it. In it, we connect with a power transcendent, the Son of Man
   in glory, whose image we aspire to, and whose mission, as the Crucified
   on earth, was the revelation of the Father's love and holiness. We ask
   to be separated with him and set apart to the same great life. Our
   communion is not on the level of our common humanity, but we rise in
   it; we scale the heavens where he sitteth at the right hand of God; we
   send our longings up and ask to have attachments knit to him; to be set
   in deepest, holiest, and most practical affinity with him; and so to
   live a life that is hid with Christ in God. In such a life, we become
   partakers of his holiness, and, in the separating grace of that,
   partakers also of his power.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                    Indexes
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture References

   Psalms

   [1]119:1-176

   John

   [2]6:36   [3]6:40   [4]6:48-51
     __________________________________________________________________

Index of Scripture Commentary

   Job

   [5]32:8   [6]37:21

   Psalms

   [7]40:10   [8]119:54

   Isaiah

   [9]45:5

   Jeremiah

   [10]48:8

   Matthew

   [11]25:28

   Luke

   [12]9:13   [13]15:17   [14]16:10

   John

   [15]3:3   [16]6:36   [17]8:9   [18]10:3   [19]15:11   [20]20:8

   Romans

   [21]3:13-18

   1 Corinthians

   [22]1:24

   Hebrews

   [23]7:26   [24]8:16

   1 John

   [25]3:3

   Revelation

   [26]1:9   [27]2:4
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Index of Pages of the Print Edition

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     __________________________________________________________________

            This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
               Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
                   generated on demand from ThML source.

References

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