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THE CONTEMPORARY PULPIT LIBRARY.
S E R M O N S- BY THE LATE RIGHT REV.
J. B. LIGHTFOOT, D.D., D.C.L.,
LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM.
www.archive.org/deatils/sermonsbishop00lighuof
NEW YORK:
THOMAS WHITTAKER,
2 AND 3, BIBLE HOUSE.
1890.
CONTENTS.*
PAGE
BETHEL i
THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN HEAVEN S PATHWAY. . 17
THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL AN ARGUMENT IN FAVOUR OF
CHRISTIANITY 29
THE VISION OF GOD 43
THE HEAVENLY TEACHER f 55
CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. I. . . . . 65
II. ....... 83
,, ,, ,, III 100
WOMAN AND THE GOSPEL . 116
PILATE 129
THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN 145
OUR CITIZENSHIP 157
AMBITION . . . . . . . . . 170
* These sermons are printed from reporter* s notes.
Sermons
BY THE LATE
RIGHT REV. J. B. LIGHTFOOT, D.D., D.C.L.,
LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM.
BETHEL.*
"Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not." GEN.
xxviii. 1 6.
AN unobtrusive, unimpressive scene, almost in
distinguishable, even to the qurious eye of the
archaeologist, "in the maze of undistinguished
hills which encompass it " with nothing to
attract the eye, and nothing to fire the imagina
tion ; large slabs of bare rock traversed by a
well-worn thoroughfare ; " no religio loci, no
awful shades, no lofty hills." So is the site of
Bethel described by the modern traveller. Yet
this was none other than the House of God ; this
was the very gate of heaven.
An unimpressive scene in itself, but appearing
still more commonplace, when contrasted with the
famous shrines of heathendom the rock fortress
of the Athene, or the pleasant groves of Daphne,
or the cloven peak of Parnassus, or the sea-girt
* Preached at Cambridge* Oct. 23rd, j88i.
I
2 The Contemporary Pulpit.
sanctuary of Delos. No beauty, no grandeur,
nothing of loveliness and nothing of awe, nothing
exceptional of any kind which can explain or
justify its selection. Was there not ground for
the wanderer s surprise on that memorable night ?
Why should this one spot be chosen to plant the
foot of the ladder which connected heaven and
earth ? Why in this bleak wilderness ? Why
amidst these bare rocks ? Why here of all places
in the world ? Yes, why here ?
The paradox of Bethel is the paradox of the
Gospel is the paradox of God s spiritual dis
pensations at all times. The Incarnation itself
was the supreme manifestation of this paradox.
The building up of the Church was the proper
sequel to the Incarnation.
Look at the accompaniments of the Incarnation.
Could any environment of circumstances well have
been imagined more incongruous, more alien to
this unique event in human history, this supreme
revelation of God s wisdom, and power, and
beneficence ? An obscure corner of the Roman
world an insignificant and clown-trodden race,
scorned and hated by the rest of mankind an
ox-stall for a nursery, and a carpenter s shop for a
school what is wanting to complete the paradox ?
Yes, there is still one feature to be added to
the picture the crowning incongruity of all the
felon s death on the cross. Said not the prophet
Bethel. 3
rightly, when he foretold that there should be
nothing lovely in His life and circumstances, as
men count loveliness ; "no form or comeliness ; "
" no beauty that we should desire him " ?
And the same paradox, which ruled the founda
tion of the Church, extended also to its building
up. The great statesmen, the powerful captains,
in the kingdom of God were fishermen and tent-
makers. Never was this characteristic incongruity
of the Gospel more signally manifested than in
the preaching of St. Paul at Athens. Have we
ever realized the force of that single word with
which the historian describes the impression left
on the Apostle s mind by this far-famed city ?
Gazing on the most sublime and beautiful crea
tions of Greek art, the masterpieces of Phidias
and Praxiteles, he has no eye for their beauty or
their sublimity. He pierces through the veil
of the material and transitory, and behind this
semblance of grace and glory the true nature of
things reveals itself. To him this chief centre of
human culture and intelligence, this
" Eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence,"
appears only as KaeiSa)Xos, overrun with idols,
beset with phantoms which mislead, and vanities
which corrupt. Art and culture are God s own
gifts, legitimate embellishments of life, even of
4 The Contemporary Pulpit.
worship, which is the highest form of life. But
if culture aims at displacing religion, if art seeks
to dethrone God, why, then, in the highest
interests of humanity, be it our prayer that the
sword of the barbarian and the axe of the
iconoclast may descend once more, and sweep
them ruthlessly away. There was, at least, this
redeeming feature in ancient art, that it gave
expression to whatsoever sense of the Divine lay
buried in the heathen mind. But art and culture,
which studiously ignore God what can be said
for these ? In this one word KaeiSwXos lies the
germ of that fierce and protracted struggle of
Christianity with Paganism, which ended indeed
in a splendid victory, though not without in
flicting many a wound on humanity of which the
scars and seams still remain. Notwithstanding
the merciless scoffs of a Celsus and the biting
sarcasm of a Julian the Apostle s words were
verified in their literal truth. Strength was made
perfect in weakness. God chose the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise, aye,
and the uncomely things of the world to confound
the beautiful. The things which are not, brought
to nought the things which are.
So then in its accompaniments, not less than
in its main idea, this incident at Bethel is a type
of the Gospel of Christ. This exile, the repre
sentative of the Israel after the flesh, prefigures
Bethel. 5
a greater outcast and wanderer, the representative
of the Israel after the spirit, the representative of
the whole family of man. This ladder reared up
from earth to heaven, whereby angels ascend and
descend, what is it but the Incarnation of the
Eternal Word, wherein God is made man, and
man is taken up into God ? This it is which
establishes the title of Christianity as the absolute
and final religion of the world this indissoluble
union* of the human with the divine this one
only adequate response to the deepest religious
cravings of mankind. Hence the Church has
ever clung with a tenacity of grasp, which shallow
hearts could ill understand, to this central idea,
the indefeasible wedlock of heaven and earth
in the God-man. And to those whose sight is
purged by faith, to those who are gifted with
the eye of the Spirit, the vision of Bethel will
be vouchsafed with a far more exceeding glory :
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye
shall see heaven open and the angels of God
ascending and descending upon the Son of Man :"
on the Son of Man : yes, and on thyself too, O
man, for thou art one with this Son of Man, one
with the Father in Him.
"Gifted with the eye of the Spirit," I say; for
in vain the heavens are riven asunder, and the
glory streams forth, and all things are flooded
with light, if the capacity of vision be absent.
6 The Contemporary Pulpit.
Only the cold bare stones beneath, only the
midnight gloom overhead, only the dreary,
monotonous waste around, these and these alone
are visible otherwise. We have been saddened,
perhaps we have been disconcerted, as recently
we read the dreary epitaph which sums up the
creed of a brilliant man of science not long since
deceased a hopeless, soul-less, lifeless . creed, to
which his own very faculties and acquisitions
appear to us to give the lie. We have been
saddened justly ; but why should we be discon
certed ? God be thanked, the most absolute
childlike faith has not unfrequently been found
united with the highest scientific intellect. We
in this place have never yet lacked bright ex
amples of such a union, and God grant we never
may. But what right have we to expect it as
a matter of course ? What claim do the most
brilliant mathematical faculties, or the keenest
scholarly instincts, give to a man to speak with
authority on the things of the Spirit ? Are we
not told on authority before which we bow that
a special faculty is needed for this special know
ledge ; that " eye hath not seen and ear hath
not heard " ; that only the Spirit of God
the Spirit which He vouchsafes to His sons
knoweth the things of God? And does not all
analogy enforce the truth of this lesson ? One
man has a keenly sensitive musical ear, but he is
Bethel. 7
colour-blind. Another has a quick eye for the
faintest gradations of colour, but he cannot dis
tinguish one note of music from another. Does
the imperfect eye of the one know any haze of
uncertainty over the hues of the rainbow ; or the
obtuse ear of the other disparage the master
works of a Handel, or a Mozart, or a Beethoven ?
Here is a mathematician who sees in a sublime
creation of imaginative genius only a tissue of
unproven hypotheses ; and here is a poet, to whom
the plainest processes of algebra, and the simplest
problems in geometry, are mere barbarian gabble,
conveying no distinct impression to the brain, and
leaving no intelligible idea on the mind. Judge
no man in this matter. To his own master he
stands or falls. But judge yourselves. Yes, spare
no rigour and relax no vigilance when the judge
is the criminal also. Believe it, this spiritual
faculty is an infinitely subtle and delicate mecha
nism. You cannot trifle with it, cannot roughly
handle it, cannot neglect it and suffer it to rust
from disuse, without infinite peril to yourselves.
Nothing not the highest intellectual gains can
compensate you for its injury or its loss. The
private prayer mechanically repeated, then hurried
over, then intermitted, and at last dropped ; the
devotional reading found to be daily more irk
some, because suffered to be daily more listless ;
the valuable moral and spiritual discipline of the
The Contemporary Pulpit.
early morning chapel, gradually neglected; the
unobtrusive opportunities of witnessing for Christ
by deeds of kindness and words of wisdom suf
fered to slip by, these, and such as these, are
the unfailing indications of spiritual decline ; till
disuse is followed by paralysis, and paralysis ends
in death ; and you are left without God in the
world. And yet when again you young men
when again, in the years to come, can you hope
that the conditions of your life will be as favour
able to this spiritual self-discipline as they are
now ? Where else do you expect to find in the
same degree the opportunities for private medi
tation and retirement, the daily common prayer
and the frequent communions, the inspiring and
sanctifying friendships, the wholesome occupation
for the mind and the healthy recreations for the
body, every appliance and every aid which, if
you will employ them aright, neither disusing
them nor misusing them, will combine to build
up and to perfect the man of God ? Choose ye,
this day. To you, more especially, I appeal who
have recently commenced your residence here,
and to whom, therefore, with the changed con
ditions of life a heightened ideal of life also is
suggested. This is the momentous alternative.
Shall your life hereafter be typified by the barren
rocks and the monotonous waste, hard and dreary,
if nothing worse ; or shall it be illumined within
Bethel. 9
and around with the effulgence of God s own
presence, so that
" The earth and every common sight
To you shall seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream " ?
A dream ? nay, not a dream, but an everlasting
reality, eternal, as God s own being is eternal.
There are two ways of looking on the relations
between the things of this life and the things of
eternity. A false and a true. The false way
regards the one as the rejection of the other.
They are reciprocally exclusive. The avocations,
the interests, the amusements of daily life nature
and history, poetry and art these are so many
hindrances to the heavenly life. Every moment
given to work is a moment subtracted from prayer
thus the inward life becomes a constant reflec
tion upon the conditions of the outward. This
is the spirit which of old peopled the desert with
anchorites ; the spirit which in all ages, though
under divers forms, has made a religion of selfish
ness. This is the voice which cries, " Lo, here !
and lo, there ! " though all the while the kingdom
of heaven is within us, in the very midst of us.
The true conception is the reverse of all this. Its
ideal is not a separation, but an identification of
the two. It takes its stand on the old maxim
io The Contemporary Piilpit.
laborare est orare. It strives that its work shall
be prayer, and its prayer shall be work. Nature
and history to it are not the veil of God s
presence ; they are the investiture of God s glory.
And, therefore, to it is vouchsafed the vision of
grace, and comfort, and strength, as to the
patriarchs of old. The solitary wanderer along
the dreary thoroughfare of this life lays himself
down. He has nothing but the bare stones
beneath for a couch, and nothing but the mid
night sky overhead for a tent. He closes his
eyes for a moment ; and the whole place is
flooded with glory. Ah ! the Lord was in this
place, though he knew it not ; but he knows
it now knows it in the access of strength,
knows it in the promise of hope, knows it in
the celestial voice and the ineffable light. All
the common interests of life the associations, the
amusements, the cares, the hopes, the friendships,
the conflicts all are invested with a dignity
and an awe unsuspected before. Reverence is
henceforth the ruling spirit of his life. This
monotonous round of commonplace toils and
commonplace pleasures is none other than the
House of God. This barren, stony thoroughfare
of life is the very portal of heaven.
To read these hieroglyphics traced on nature,
on history, on the human soul to decipher this
handwriting of God wheresoever it appears, and
Bethel. 1 1
where does it not appear ? is the ultimate and
final study of man. All history is a parable of
God s dealings ; and we must learn the interpreta
tion of the parable. All nature is a sacrament of
God s being and attributes, and we must strive
to pierce through the outward sign to the inward
meaning. To realize God s presence, to hear
God s voice, to see God s visage, let this be
henceforth the aim and the discipline of our lives.
So at length we shall pass from Bethel to Peniel
from the palace courts to the presence chamber
itself. We shall see God face to face. It is a
vision of power, of majesty, of awe unspeakable ;
but it is a vision also of purification, of light, of
strength, of life. The blessing is won at length
by that long lonely wrestling under the midnight
sky. The fraud, the worldliness, the self-seeking
is thrown off like a slough. All is changed.
Old things have passed away. The supplanted
rises from the struggle, the supplanter rises no
more, but the Israel, the Prince, who has power
with God and with men. Shall not Moses
prayer then be our prayer, " Lord, I beseech
Thee, show me Thy glory " ?
" Show me Thy glory." Where else shall
this glory reveal itself if not in the studies of
this place ? These properties of numbers, these
selections of space, these phenomena of light,
of heat, of energy,, of life, of language, of thought,
12 The Contemporary Pulpit.
what are they ? Individual facts to be recorded,
arranged, tabulated, marshalled under several
heads, which we call laws, and having so called
them, with a strange self-complacency and con
tentment fold our hands, as if nothing more
were to be done, as if by the mere imposition of
a name we had crowned them absolute sovereigns
of the Universe ? Or are they manifestations
partial, indeed, and needing to be supplemented
of a power, a majesty, a wisdom, an order, a
beneficence, a finality, a oneness, a One, who is
shown to us as the Eternal Father in the reve
lation of the Eternal Son ? Can we afford to
look down from the serene heights of modern
science and culture on the untutored Indian,
who saw God s face in the shifting clouds, and
heard God s voice in the whistling winds ? Nay,
was there not a truth in this childish ignorance
which threatens to elude the grasp of our man
hood s wisdom ? Was it altogether a baseless
dream in those stoic Pantheists, who endowed
each several planet with an animating spirit of
its own ? altogether a wild fancy in those
Christian fathers assigning to each its particular
angel, who should whirl it through space and
hold it in its course ? Was it not rather a
Divine instinct feeling after a higher truth ?
Human life cannot rest satisfied with the science
of phenomena alone. It needs to supplement
Bethel. 13
science with poetry. And the true, the abso
lute, the final poetry is the recognition of God
the Creator and Governor, of God the all-
wise and all-powerful, of God the Father, the
Redeemer, the Sanctifier, of God the eternal
love. "Blessed are they who have eyes to
see," thus to them
" The meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."
Thoughts of immortality, of wisdom, of light, of
love.
" Show me Thy Glory," where else again
shall His glory be seen, if not in those friend
ships which are the crowning gift of University
life ? This intimate communion of soul with soul,
this linking of heart with heart, is it merely a
matter of human convenience, of human preference,
or has it a Divine side also ? This love, this
devotion, this reliance of the weak on the strong,
this reverence for a nature purer, nobler, more
upright, more manly, more unselfish than your
own what is its meaning ? It is a precious,
unspeakably precious, gift of God, you will say
far beyond wealth, or fame, or popularity, or
ease, or any earthly boon of which you can con
ceive. Yes, but it is more than this. May we
not call it in some sense a sacrament, a sign
and a parable of your relation to your Lord ?
14 The Contemporary Pulpit.
You are awed no other word will express this
feeling you are awed with the honour done to
you by this friendship. You do not talk much
about it it is too sacred a thing but you do
feel it. You confess to yourself day and night
your own unworthiness. And yet, though you
strive to be worthy, you would not wish to feel
worthy. The very sense of undeservedness in
vests the gift with a bountifulness and a glory
which you would not forego. The fountains of
your thanksgiving would cease to flow freely if
you claimed it as a right ; and it is a joyful and
a pleasant thing to be thankful. Apply this ex
perience to the infinitely higher gift of Christ s
friendship, of Christ s sacrifice. Herein lies the
power of the Cross which men called and still
call weakness the power which awes, inspires,
energises, which elevates the heart and sanctifies
the life herein this feeling of boundless thanks
giving arises from this sense of absolute unde
servedness. For is it not true, that those will
love most to whom most is given and forgiven ?
So then this your friendship is found to be none
other than the House of God. The Lord is in
this place, and happy are ye if ye know it.
Once again ; look into your own soul, and
what do you find there ? Yes, ye yourselves
are the temple of the living God. He is there
there, whether you will or not. Through your
Bethel. 1 5
reason, through your conscience, through your
remorses and regrets, through your capacity of
amendment, through your aspirations and ideals,
He speaks to you. You are His coinage. His
image and superscription are stamped upon you.
Aye, and He has also re-stamped you, re-created
you, in Christ Jesus by the earnest of His Spirit.
If it be true of your body that it is fearfully
and wonderfully made, is it not far more true
of your soul ? Henceforward you will regard
yourself with awe and reverence, as a sanctuary
of the eternal goodness. You will not, you dare
not, profane this sanctuary. Here is the true
self-respect nay, not self-respect, for self is
abased, self is overawed, self veils the face and
falls prostrate in the presence of Infinite Wisdom,
and Purity, and Love thus revealed. Surely,
surely the Lord was in this place in this poor,
self-seeking, restless, rebellious soul of mine, and
/, I thought it a common thing, I went on my
way heedless, I followed my own devices and
desires, I knew it not.
In conclusion, I have been asked to plead
before you to-day a cause which it should not
require many words of mine to enforce. The
Barnwell and Chesterton Clergy Fund appeals
to you year by year for aid. Of all claims this
(I say it advisedly) should be a first charge on
the liberality of members of the University.
1 6 The Contemporary Pulpit.
These populous and growing suburbs are created
by your needs. They are chiefly peopled by
college servants and others for whom you are
responsible. Zealous clergy are willing to work
for the work s sake in these districts commonly
for stipends which no one could call remunera
tive sometimes for no stipends at all. And yet
it is still the same old story which I remember
years ago. There is still the same difficulty in
meeting current expenses ; still the same fear
lest the spiritual machinery should be impaired
for lack of funds ; still the same precarious hand-
to-mouth existence, of which we heard complaint
in years past. Is it quite creditable that matters
should go on thus ? In a thousand ways you
all, some directly, some indirectly, you all are
reaping, materially, intellectually, or spiritually
the fruits gathered from the liberality of past
ages ? Will you not make an adequate return ?
Steady, continuous subscriptions are needed. A
liberal response to this day s appeal is needed.
The Fund is largely dependent on the proceeds
of the University Sermon. Not less than a
hundred pounds will suffice to meet all require
ments. Will you not give it this day, either in
this church, or in contributions sent afterwards
to the treasurer ? Think not that you hear
only the poor words of the preacher in this
appeal. Christ Himself pleads with you. Christ s
The Consciousness of Sin Heavens Pathway. 1 7
own words ring in your ears, " Ye did it, ye did
it not, to Me? Ah, yes, the Lord was in this
place in this weary pleading of the preacher,
in these trite commonplaces of spiritual need :
and we, we knew it not. God grant that you
may know it in time. God forbid that He
should ever say to you, " I knew you not."
THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN
HEAVEN S PATHWAY.*
"When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus knees,
saying-, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord."
LUKE v. 8.
To those who search the Scriptures, not because
in them they think they have eternal life, but
because in them they trust to find historical
difficulties, this account of St. Peter s call has
seemed to reward their search. The narrative
indeed, is simple and inartificial in itself; the
incidents follow in a natural order ; the traits 01
character are wonderfully realistic and lifelike.
There is confessedly an air of truthfulness about
the whole story ; but how how, it is asked
can this account be reconciled with the narrative
given in St. John s Gospel ? There we have a
wholly different story of St. Peter s call. His
* Preached in St. Paul s Cathedral on Sunday Afternoon,
September 6th, 1874.
1 8 The Contemporary P^ilpit.
brother Andrew is a scholar of the Baptist. The
Baptist points out Jesus to Andrew and to a
fellow-disciple. They follow Jesus ; they are
accepted by Him ; they lodge that day with
Him ; they are convinced that He is the Christ.
Andrew takes his brother Simon to Jesus ; Jesus
receives him. " Thou art Simon, the son of
Jona. Thou shalt be called Cephas." This
account also is perfectly plain, but how can the
two be harmonised? "Have we not here," it
is said, " two irreconcilable narratives in fact,
two distinct legends of the call of St. Peter ? "
I have more than once remarked that the
apparent moral contradictions of the Bible are
often its most valuable moral lessons. A similar
remark will apply to its apparent historical con
tradictions. Underlying these is very frequently
a subtle harmony, which eluded us at our first
hasty search. The two accounts are after all
not contradictory, but supplementary, the one
to the other. So it is here. Read St. Luke s
narrative carefully, and it will be apparent that
this cannot have been the first meeting of St.
Peter with our Lord. I say nothing of the
healing of his wife s mother, for, though this
is related earlier in St. Luke s Gospel, yet it is
plain from the narrative in the other evangelists
that it is not related here in chronological order.
But what are the facts ? These fishermen have
The Consciousness of Sin Heavens Pathway, ig
been toiling throughout the night ; their labour
has been wholly unrewarded, though night is the
proper season for plying their craft ; and now in
the bright glare of the morning sun now when,
after the ill-success of the night, it would be
perfect madness to expect a haul now they are
suddenly, imperiously bidden to put out again
into the deep sea, and to let down their nets.
And the command is obeyed. There is the
lurking misgiving, there is the tacit remon
strance ; but there is prompt obedience not
withstanding. " Master, we have toiled all the
night ; nevertheless, at Thy word I will let down
the net." " At Thy word! Who is this, that
this most unreasonable demand meets with such
ready acquiescence ? Is it possible that He can
have been a mere passing stranger, or a mere
casual acquaintance ? How could His advice
have been entertained for a moment when He
told an experienced fisherman to do what a
fisherman knew to be utterly foolish and futile ?
The narrative itself, I say, implies some previous
knowledge of our Lord on St. Peter s part. He
would never have acted as he is represented
here as acting unless he had believed, or, at least,
had suspected, that there was a more than human
power and intelligence in our Lord. In short,
the narrative of St. Luke presupposes the nar
rative of St. John. Jesus speaks to Peter now
20 The Contemporary Pulpit.
as one who has a right to command. The
incident in St. John gives the personal call of
Peter ; the incident in St. Luke gives his official
call. On the one occasion he is represented as
a disciple and a follower ; on the other occasion
he is declared an apostle and a teacher. " From
henceforth thou shalt catch men."
But I did not select this text with any special
purpose of discussing historical difficulties. Such
discussions, indeed, are necessary when they
are forced upon us, but they only distract the
mind from the moral and spiritual lessons of the
Scripture. Nor, I think, is the lesson in the
text difficult to extricate. All history teaches
by example, and the Scriptural narrative is the
intensification of history. The miracles of our
Lord are not miracles only. They are most
frequently acted parables also. And have we
not here a parable of the most intense pathos
and of the widest application ?
" Master, we have toiled all the night, and
we have taken nothing." What is this but a
true, painfully true, image of the efforts, the
struggles, the futilities, the despairs of humanity ;
not in isolated cases, here and there only, of
disappointed hopes and unrealised aim, but
with thousands of men and women who are born
into this world, and live and labour, and suffer
and die, without securing any substantial and
The Consciousness of Sin Heavens Pathway. 2 T
enduring good, simply because they have lived
and died apart from God, who alone survives the
decay of time, and alone can give satisfaction
to the immortal spirit of man ?
" We have toiled all the night." Yes ; we see
it now now when the morning light of eternity
has burst upon our aching eyeballs. We have
toiled all the night. There was darkness above
and around us ; there was toil of hands and toil of
heart ; there was the struggle for subsistence ;
there was the race after wealth and honour ;
there was the eager pursuit of phantom goods.
We had our pleasures and we had our pains.
We had our failures and we had our successes.
Yes, our splendid successes as men counted them
as we were half tempted to count them
ourselves. But we have taken nothing. Our
successes are as our failures ; our pains are as
our pleasures, now. In the all-absorbing abyss
of time we have taken nothing, absolutely nothing
nothing which can escape the jaws of the grave,
nothing which will pass the portals of death.
We stand alone, stripped of everything, alone
with God, alone with eternity.
You pursued wealth, and you pursued it not
in vain ; you determined that your career should
be a success, and a success you made it. You
surrounded yourself with every material comfort ;
you added to these substantial appliances all the
22 The Contemporary Pulpit.
embellishments and all the refinements of life.
What then ? Did they give you the satisfaction
you hoped for ? Could you feel that there was
any finality in such aims and acquisitions as
these ? No. The hope was better after all than
the realisation ; the prospect was brighter than
the attainment. You were restless, discontented,
craving still. There was a hunger of soul, though
you would not confess it a hunger of soul,
which rejected and loathed these husks. And
now where are they, and what are they ? Or
you pursued honour and fame, and men lavishly
bestowed upon you that which you so eagerly
sought, till you seemed at length to have all,
and more than all, that you had set your heart
upon. But still there was no contentment, be
cause there was no finality. Dropsy-like your
craving only grew with the gratification. Each
fresh draught of applause created a fresh thirst.
Every imagined slight, every unintentional neglect,
every trivial rebuff, was a keen agony to you.
You had only increased your sensitiveness ; you
had not secured your satisfaction. Or, again, you
had set your heart on human love, God s greatest
boon if you use it without misusing it, if you
subordinate it to his Divine love. Your human
affections, your human friendships, were everything
to you. In the buoyant hopefulness of youth, in
the solid security of middle age, it seemed as
The Consciousness of Sin Heavens Pathway. 23
though these must last for ever. But soon
enough the painful truth dawned upon you. The
march of life began to tell on your comrades in
the journey. One dropped at your side, and then
another. The ranks were visibly thinning, and
there was no one to step in and take the vacant
places. First the mother at whose knees you
had lisped your earliest faltering prayer ; then the
friend who shared all your counsels, who was more
than a brother to you ; then the wife whom you
cherished as another self; then the little daughter
whose innocent childish talk had solaced you in
many a grievous hour : so, one by one, they fell
away, and you are left gradually alone and more
alone ; they leave you when you need them most,
and at length in the vacancy of your solitude you
make the bitter discovery that though you have
toiled all night you have taken nothing you
have taken nothing at all.
A short time ago we laid in the vaults of this
cathedral the last mortal remains of one * who
has achieved for himself a foremost place among
the masters of his art in our own age. It was
fit that his bones should lie here, side by side
with more than one famous brother sculptor who
has gone before him side by side with the most
illustrious names in the sister art of painting ;
with Reynolds, whose easy grace in the delineation
* Mr. Foley, R.A., sculptor.
24 The Contemporary Pulpit.
of human portraiture stands quite without a rival ;
with Turner, who has succeeded as no other
painter has succeeded, in any age or country, in
reproducing on canvas the subtle play of light
and shade, the ever-varying aspect, the depth,
the infinity, of external nature ; with Landseer,
too, our most recent guest in this our artists
resting-place, whose genial and vigorous repre
sentations of the lower animal life have invested
it with almost a human interest, and, so doing,
have taught us many a suggestive lesson of
humanity and kindliness. Side by side, too,
with England s greatest architects, and Wren,
their prince, whose genius needs no word of
eulogy here, for his monument is above and
around us. Such a place of sepulture well befitted
such a man. It is our tribute of respect for noble
gifts nobly used. It is our expression of thanks
giving to God, who thus endows His servants that
they may employ their endowments to exalt and
to embellish human life.
But one thought cannot fail to strike us here.
We may remember that the great conqueror of
modern time, when it was suggested to him to
perpetuate some signal incident in his triumphant
career by an historical picture, asked how long the
work would last. He was told two or three
centuries perhaps, under favourable circum
stances, five centuries. This would not satisfy his
The Consciousness of Sin Heavens Pathway. 25
devouring ambition. This was not the immortality
of fame which he had designed for himself. He
must have a more enduring memorial than this.
Compared with the canvas of the painter, the
marble of the sculptor is long-lived indeed. The
most enduring of human works are the works of
the sculptor s chisel. The stern granite features
of the Pharaoh who befriended Joseph and the
Pharaoh who persecuted Israel may still look down
on the land which they ruled with an iron rule
between three and four thousand years ago. The
winged lions and winged bulls on which the con
temporaries of Shalmanezer and Sennacherib may
have gazed in awe, in the royal palaces of Assyria,
still confront us in our national museum with the
same weird look, unchanged though all else has
changed, surviving still, though a hundred genera
tions of men have been born, and lived, and died,
meanwhile. And it may be that in the centuries
to come, some curious explorer will exhume,
from the grass-grown mounds of this ruined
city, a work of art bearing the name of him
whom on Friday last we bore to an honoured
resting-place perhaps the effigy of a prince
who flourished in a remote epoch of the past,
when England was still a nation, and who sank
into an untimely grave amidst a people s mourning.
And thus the sculptor s fame will have a second
lease of life.
26 The Contemporary Pulpit.
But after all, thirty centuries are but as three
are but as three years or three days compared
with eternity. Napoleon s ambition was a
perverted instinct, but it was an instinct, never
theless. Man feels that he was not made to
die ; he will not consent to die. This thirst for
enduring fame, what is it but an echo, a mocking
echo, of an eternal verity ? Yes, he will live.
The materialist may tell him that, when the eye
and the ear are dissolved into gases and decom
posed into dust, it matters nothing to him with
what honours men may adorn his memory, with
what praises they may celebrate his name. He,
too his personality, or what he was pleased to
call his personality is dissolved, is dissipated,
is gone ; but the materialist never yet has been
able, never will be able, to persuade mankind.
The natural instinct of man revolts against the
assumption ; and the ambition of the Christian,
the ambition for eternity alone, expresses truly
this general instinct of man. To labour for the
good things of this world, to labour for fame
in the coming centuries, what is it, after all, if
our views are bounded by this narrow horizon ?
Why, then, like the disappointed fishermen of
the Galilean lake, we have toiled all the night
long, and, for our pains, we have taken nothing.
And this change this conversion, if you
will comes sometimes, it may be, despite our-
The Consciousness of Sin Heavens Pathway. 27
selves, but comes remember this comes most
often in answer to some act of obedience,
to some surrender of self-will on our part We
may complain ; we may demur ; we may distrust.
We have toiled all the night, and have taken
nothing; but we recognise the authority of the
Divine voice, and we force ourselves into com
pliance "nevertheless, at Thy word." The
command is general : it has come to all alike,
" Let ye down your nets." But, like Peter, we
specialise it, we adopt it, we appropriate it to
ourselves : " I will let down the net." And so
we do what seems hard and unreasonable ; we
do what we have never done before.
And the response the response to this obe
dience is a light flashed in upon our soul, a
double revelation, a revelation of mixed pleasure
and pain, for it is a revelation at once of the
sin within and of God without. The marvellous
bounty of God s grace dazzles and astounds our
vision, and, in our perplexity of heart, the de
spairing, craving, forbidding, yearning cry is
wrung from our lips, " Depart from me ! Depart
from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man ! "
" Depart from me, O Lord." I know it all
now. I see my sin, because I see Thy goodness.
Yes, I have beheld Thy holiness, Thy purity,
Thy truth, Thy grace, Thy love, and I have been
stunned with the contrast to self. The brightness
28 The Contemporary Pulpit.
of the light has intensified the blackness of the
shade. Depart from me, O Lord ! what can I
have in common with Thee? I, so selfish, so vile,
so sin-laden, with Thee, so merciful, so righteous,
so holy. In very deed, Thy ways are not as my
ways, and Thy thoughts are not as my thoughts.
Depart from me, O Lord ! This " fear of the
Lord" is, indeed, the "beginning of wisdom."
This consciousness of sin is the true pathway to
heaven. The saintliest of men have ever felt
and spoken most strongly of their own sinfulness.
The intensity of their language has provoked the
sneer of the worldling has been an evidence
here of their own conviction that, despite their
pretensions to holiness, they are ho better than
he, perhaps somewhat worse. But they know,
and he doth not know, what sin means and what
God means, and so the despairing cry is wrung
from their agony, " Depart from me, O Lord."
" Depart from me, O Lord ! And yet not
so, Lord." Even while Peter is speaking his
gestures belie his words. His lips implore Jesus
despairingly to depart, but his eyes and his
hands entreat Him passionately to stay. " Not
so, Lord, for how can I endure to part with
Thee ? In Thy presence is hope, is light, is joy.
Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the
words of eternal life. Depart from me ? No ;
it is for the godless to say, Depart from
The History of Israel. 29
us, for we desire not the knowledge of God.
It is for the unclean spirits to rave against
Thee Let us alone, Thou Jesus of Nazareth!
What have we to do with Thee ? But I, I have
everything to do with Thee. I am created in the
image of God. I have a ray of the Divine light,
a seed of the Divine word, within me. And like
seeks like ; therefore I yearn after Thee, therefore
I am drawn towards Thee, therefore I stretch out
my hands to Thee over the wide chasm of sin
which yawns between us. Depart from me ?
Nay, rather abide with me. Teach me, absolve
me, purify me, strengthen me. Take me to
Thyself, that I may be Thine and Thine only.
Abide with me, for the day of this life is far
spent, and the night cometh when no man can
work. Stay with me now and evermore, and so
fulfil Thy gracious promise : If a man love Me
and will keep My word, My Father will love him,
and we will come unto him, and make our abode
with him. :
THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL
AN ARGUMENT IN FAVOUR OF CHRISTIANITY.*
" They are Thy people and Thine inheritance." DEUT. ix. 29.
IT is related of a certain royal chaplain that,
being asked often by his sovereign to give a
* Sermon preached in St. Paul s Cathedral on Sunday,
May 2ist, 1876.
3O The Contemporary Pulpit.
concise and" convincing argument in favour of
Christianity, he replied in two words " The
Jews." It is this subject which I offer for your
consideration this afternoon the history and
character of the Israelite race as a witness to
Christianity. The subject is certainly not
inappropriate at this season, when the com
memoration of the great Pentecostal Day is fast
approaching, to which all the previous history
of the nation had tended, which substituted the
dispensation of the Spirit for the dispensation of
the Law, and expanded the religion of a tribe
into the religion of mankind. It is, moreover,
forced upon our notice by that remarkable chapter
in Deuteronomy which we have heard this after
noon, and which, by prophetic insight, brings
out with singular distinctness the prominent cha
racter and subsequent career of the race. Only
reflect upon such expressions as these: "Go
in to possess nations greater and mightier than
thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven " ;
" Understand, therefore, this day that the Lord
thy God is He which goeth over before thee " ;
" The Lord thy God giveth thee not this good
land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou
art a stiffnecked people ; "Ye have been
rebellious against the Lord from the day that
I knew you."
Read these passages in the full light which
The History of Israel. 31
thirty centuries of the nation s history have
thrown upon them. Study this contrast between
their character and their achievements as it
unfolds itself in all their subsequent history.
Consider, on the one hand, not only the first
conquest of Canaan to which the words more
immediately refer, but the succession of far
more brilliant victories over the great nations of
the world, culminating in that most magnificent
triumph of all the triumph of Christianity.
Consider, on the other hand, not only those
early murmurings and idolatries in the wilderness
to which the language more directly points, but
that long catalogue of rebellions of which the
subsequent history of Israel is made up, and
which reached its climax in the martyrdom of
the Lord of Life. Set these one against the
other, and you will confess that the utterances
of Deuteronomy are wonderful anticipations of
the future, succinct epitomes of centuries yet
to come. You may question, if you will, every
single prophecy in the Old Testament, but
the whole history of the Jews is one continuous
prophecy, more distinct and articulate than all.
You may deny if you will every successive
miracle which is recorded therein, but again the
history of the Jews is, from first to last, one stu
pendous miracle, more wonderful and convincing
than all. Here you have a, small, insignificant
32 The Contemporary Pulpit.
people stiff-necked, rebellious, worthless ; there
you have the most magnificent spiritual achieve
ments the most signal moral victories. What
conclusion can you draw, except that which is
drawn for you in the words which I have read :
"The Lord thy God is He that goeth before
you"? "They are Thy people and Thine in
heritance, which Thou broughtest out by Thy
mighty power and Thy stretched out arm."
Look first at the capacities of the people them
selves. They had no remarkable gifts which
might have led us to anticipate this unique des
tiny. They had no intellectual qualities of a very
high order like the Greeks vivid imagination,
subtlety of thought, aesthetic taste ; no political
capacity like the Romans, no organizing power
or faculty of legislation which might secure for
them the ascendency over the nations of the
world. They were, moreover, a stubborn, ex
clusive, intolerant people an unpractical people,
without the power, or at least the will, to adapt
themselves to the institutions, the feelings, and
the prejudices of the people with whom they,
were brought in contact. They were believed,
in consequence, to cherish an universal hatred
against the rest of mankind ; and they, in turn,
were hated by all hated, not with the hatred
of an admiring envy, but the hatred of a super
cilious scorn. Of all the tribes on the face of
The History of Israel. 33
the earth the Jews, we should have said, were
the very last to ingratiate themselves with the
other races of mankind, and to lay the civilised
world at their feet. And now turn from the
people themselves to the land of their abode.
Certainly this does not enable us to solve the
enigma. Palestine does not occupy a large space
in the Christian s imagination ; for it is a very
minute, insignificant spot in the map of the world.
It is, moreover, incapable of expansion, for it is
bounded on all sides either by sea or mountain
ranges, or by vast and impracticable deserts. To
a great extent all this country is mountainous and
barren, and even this meagre and unpromising
territory is not all their own. The sea-coast
would have been valuable to a people gifted
with commercial instincts. With commerce they
might have extended their influence ; but from
the sea-coast they were wholly excluded. The
Phoenicians on the north and the Philistines on
the south occupied all the most important har
bours ; and this territory of the Jews was so
unexpansive, so barren, so unpromising that they
were placed at a still greater disadvantage when
compared with the surrounding people. The
Jews are surrounded on all sides, and by the
most formidable neighbours. On the one side
by Egypt, a country of the highest fertility, the
foremost military power in the world, with an
34 The Contemporary Pulpit,
ancient civilisation which dated from a period
long before the birth of the father of the Israelite
people, whilst it stood foremost of the human
race in works of art in its day. Who was Israel,
then, that he could withstand Egypt? There,
again, on the other side, was another mighty
empire, first Assyria, then Babylon, the only
rival of Egypt of the ancient world. In these
places they had the same advantage of wide
plains of exceptional fertility, a high and remote
civilisation, an army of tremendous strength, and
a centralisation under an absolute rule, with all
the resources which a great and vast dominion
could command. As Persia succeeded Babylon,
and as Babylon succeeded Assyria, so Persia-
far more mighty and terrible overruns and
conquers all Western Asia. Egypt itself falls.
Palestine is a mere speck, surrounded by the
huge dominions of the Persian monarch. What
chance has Israel against such terrible neigh
bours? Must it not be crushed and ground to
atoms and annihilated by its foes? But, at all
events, it might have been supposed that, how
ever stubborn and impracticable they were in
their attitude towards others, they would at least
be united amongst themselves that they would
be loyal to their country, that they would be
faithful to their laws and institutions, that they
would be true to their God. This internal.
The History of Israel. 35
cohesion would give them strength to resist
this absolute harmony would win for them an
influence that would compensate for the superior
advantages of their more powerful neighbours.
But what do we find as a matter of fact ? Their
national history is one continuous record of
murmuring, of rebellion, of internal feuds, of
moral and spiritual defection. They have no
sooner escaped from their Egyptian bondage,
their necks still bearing the scars of the tyrants
yoke, than they fall into shameless idolatry. The
worship of the golden calf is only the type and
presence of still more guilty lapses in centuries
yet to come ; the revolt against Moses and Aaron
only the type and shadow of the rebellious spirit
to which Israel rose in the distant future. Again
and again the religion of Jehovah is effaced, or
almost effaced, from the mind of the nation. Again
and again the hideous idolatries of Moloch ido
latries cruel, profligate, and shameless supplant
the worship of the Lord of heaven and earth.
And the political condition of the nation is not
one whit more hopeful than the religious. When
unity alone can save the people then there is
disruption. The Ten Tribes are severed from
the House of David, never to be united again.
The power of one kingdom is spent in neu
tralising the power of the other. This is a
concise history of the race during the period
36 The Contemporary Pulpit.
from the disruption to the captivity. The career
of Israel, from first to last, is a running comment
upon the words, " Not for thy righteousness or
for the uprightness of thine heart dost thou go
to possess the land," for " ye have been rebellious
against the Lord from the day that I knew you."
Not once or twice only the Mighty Archer has
strung His weapon and pointed His shaft, and
His aim has been frustrated by Israel s disobe
dience. His chosen instruments have been
snapped in His hands, starting aside like a
broken bow. Indeed, the history of Israel is
quite unique in the chronicles of nations. The
chronicles of other nations record the qualities
as well as the crimes of the people whose career
they commemorate. They praise their patriotism,
their prowess, their manifold virtues, their magni
ficent achievements. But the Bible, the chronicle
of the Jews, is one uninterrupted catalogue of
sins and shortcomings one long bill of indict
ment against Israel. One only is true, one
only is faithful, one only is victorious ; for he
fears not the nation, but the nation s God. So
then, however we look at the matter, there is
nothing which affords ground for hope ; and
when we question actual facts, we find they
correspond altogether to those expectations we
should have formed beforehand from the character
and position of the nation. Never has any people
The History of Israel. 37
lived upon the earth who passed through such
terrible disasters as the Jews. Never has any
people been so near to absolute extinction again
and again, and yet have survived. Again and
again the vision of the prophet has been realised.
Again and again the valley of the shadow of
death has been strewn with the dry bones of
carcases seemingly extinct. Again and again
there have been seasons of dark despair, when
even the most hopeful, challenged by the Divine
voice, could only respond, " O Lord God, Thou
knowest ! " But again and again there has been
a shaking of the dry bones the bones have come
together, bone to bone ; they have been strung
with sinews and clothed with flesh ; breath has
been breathed into them, and they have lived,
and have become an exceeding great army.
Think of those many centuries of Egyptian
bondage, when the life of the nation seemed
to have been strangled in its infancy. Reflect
next on that period in its youthful career, when
it is fighting its way inch by inch, and struggling
for very existence in Palestine, doing battle with
nations greater and mightier than itself, and with
" cities fenced high up to heaven." Look forward
again, and we see its fate during the manhood
of the nation under its king, the land now divided
against itself and overrun by successive invaders.
As of old so now again, but in a far more
38 The Contemporary Pulpit.
terrible sense, Israel finds himself face to face
with the Anakims and with those great empires
of the East before whom he appears but as
a grasshopper. The end was inevitable. For
a time Israel was a plaything in the hands
of those terrible neighbours, tossed to and
fro between two powerful rivals Egypt on the
one side, and Assyria and Babylon on the other
till at length, in a moment of victory, he is swept
away, and his place knows him no more. Could
anything seem more hopeless than the revival of
the nation from the Babylonish captivity? Yet
from Babylon, as from Egypt, Israel returned.
A new lease of life was granted, and with it
there followed a new lease of disaster also. His
old fate pursued him still. The saying was
fulfilled which had been spoken by the prophet :
" That which the locust hath left hath the canker-
worm eaten, and that which the canker-worm
hath left hath the caterpillar eaten." He was
rescued from the fangs of Babylon only to be
food for the Assyrians. He was drawn from the
feet of the Assyrians only to be devoured by
the insatiable Roman. And yet all the while
and this is the remarkable fact to which I ask
your attention amidst calamities the most over
whelming and suffering the most intense exiled,
enslaved, trampled under foot, only not annihi
lated all the while he was hopeful, was jubilant,
The History of Israel 39
was triumphant still. He was always dying, and
behold he lived. Century after century prophets
had declared, in no ambiguous terms, that despite
all these adverse appearances, despite all these
wearisome delays, Israel had a magnificent futur