Sermons preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton. Second series

Front matter

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THE GIFT OF

The date shows when this volume was taken.

Preface

TO THE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION.

In the preface to the First Volume I explained the circumstances under which these Sermons were preserved, and it is not therefore necessary for me to do more now than allude to that preface, in publishing this Second Volume. But I cannot forbear taking this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging the numerous tributes to my dear Brother's usefulness which I have received since the First Volume was issued.

Two years have now passed since those earnest and eloquent lips were silent in death; yet I am assured that his teaching is stiU remembered with love and gratitude; and I have a confident hope that the publication of these Sermons, imperfect as they are, and confessedly inadequate to the full representation of the grace and power which charb PREFACE TO THE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION.

acterized his ministry, will be a means of continuing the blessed work which he did in his lifetime, and thus many who never saw his face may receive a lasting benefit from his teaching.

CONTENTS,

MEMOIR. Page 13

SERMON I. [Preached June 22, 1851.]

Luke xli. 13-15. — " And one of the company said unto him. Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me. And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge, or a divider over you ? And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness : for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesbeth." 17

SERMON II,

THE STAR IN THE EAST.

Matt. ii. 1, 2. — "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying. Where is he that is born King of the Jews ? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him." , . , , 46

* This Sermon should have followed next after Sermon XVII. in Volume I. (The Message of the Church to Men of Wealth), to which it is the sequel, completing the argument.

8 CONTENTS.

SEEMON III.

[Preached February 10, 1850.] THE HEALING OP JAIRUS' DAUGHTER.

Matt. ix. 23-25. — " And when Jesus came into the ruler's house, and saw the minstrels and the people making a noise, he said unto them. Give place ; for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn. But when the people were put forth, he went in, and tookher by the hand, and the maid arose." Page 60

SEEMON IV.

[Preached March 10, 1850.] BAPTISM.

Gal. iii. 26-29. — " For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female : for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." 75

SEEMON V.

[Preached March 17, 1850.] BAPTISM.

1 PETEiRiii. 21. — "The like figure whereunto, even baptism, doth also now save us." 92

SEEMON VI.

[Preached October 13, 1850.]

ELIJAH.

1 Euros xix. 4. — " But he himself went on a day's journey Into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper-tree ; and he requested for himself that he might die ; and said, It is enough : now Lord, take away my life ; for I am not better than my fethera."

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COKTBNTS. 9

SEEMON VII.

[Preached January 12, 1851.] NOTES ON PSALM LI.

Written by Dayid, after a double crime : Uriah put in the forefront of the battle, — the wife of the murdered man taken, &o. . • . Page 117

SEEMON VIII.

[Preached March 2, 1851.]

OBEDIENCE THE ORGAN OF SPIBITUAL KNOWLEDGE.

John vii. 17. — "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doetrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." - . . 128

SEEMON IX.

[Preached March, 30, 1851.] EBLIGIOUS DEPRESSION.

FsALM xlii. 1-3. — "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God? My tears hare been my meat day and night, while they continually say nnto me. Where is thy God ? " 141

SEEMON X.

[Preached April 6, 1851.] FAITH OF THE CENTURION.

Matt. viii. 10. — " When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed. Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." 149

SEEMON XI.

[Preached July 27, 1851.] THE RESTORATION OF THE ERRING.

Gal. vi 1,2. — " Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness ; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." 159 jlO eO:Nt»NT3.

SERMON XII.

[Preached ChrUtmas Pay, 185]..] CHRIST THE SON.

IIbb. i. 1.—" God, who at sundty times, and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son." Vage 172

SERMON XIII.

[Preached April 25, 1852.] WORLDLINESS.

1 John ii. 15-17. — "If any man love the vrorld, the love of the Father

is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and

V the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is

of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof ; but

ue that doeth the will of God abideth forever." 182

SERMON XIV.

[Preached November 14, 1852.]

THE SYDENHAM PALACE, AND THE RELIGIOUS NON-OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH.

Rom. xiv. 5, 6. — " One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; . and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to tbe Lord he eateth not, aaid giveth God thanks." 198

SERMON XV.

THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF JEStTS.

LCKB ii. 40. — "Aild the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him." 213

OONIBNTS. 11

SERMON XYl.

[Preached January .9, 1853.] CHEIST'S ESTIMATE OF SIN.

IiOKE xix. 10 — " The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" Page 229

SEEMON XVII.

[Preached Jtmnary 16, 1863.]

THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHRIST.

JoHK xvii. 19. — " And for their sates I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truthj" . t 244

SERMON XVIII.

[Preached January 23, 1853.] THE FIRST MIRACLE.

I. THE OLOBT OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER,

John ii. 11. — " This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him."

SEEMON XIX.

THE FIRST MIRACLE.

II. THE GLORY OF THE DIVINE SON.

John ii. 11. — " l3iis beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him."

SERMON XX.

[Preached March 20, 1853.]

John x. 14, 15. — " I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father ; and I lay down my life for the sheep." 294

12 CONTENTS.

CHAPTEE XXI.

[Preached Easter-iay, March 27, 1853.] THE DOUBT OF THOMAS.

John xx.. 29. — " Jesus aaith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed ; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." Page 812

CHAPTEE XXII.

[Preached May 8, 1853.]

THE IRREPARABLE PAST.

Mark xiv. 41, 42. — "And he cometh the third time, and saith unto them. Sleep on now, and take your rest : it is enough, the hour is come ; behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise up, let us go ; lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand." - . . . 329

MEMOIR.

Fkederick WiLiJAM RoBEBTSON was bom in London, the 3d February, 1816. He had Scotch blood in his veins ; his grandfather held a com'mission in the 83d or Glasgow Regiment, during the American war. Of his early life we know little ; it seems to have been passed in considerable vicissitude. One fact is interesting for its clear foreshadowing of the man : when four years old he derived his chief pleasure from books ; to the last he was an ardent, zealous student. He passed some years of his childhood at Leith Port, where his father, a Captain of Artillery, was stationed. At nine we find him at the Grammar School of Beverley. Removed from this, he accompanied his parents to the Continent, residing chiefly in France ; and at fifteen he entered the New Academy in Edinburgh, where, under Archdeacon Williams, he distinguished himself in Greek and Latin verse. After a year of the Academy, he attended the philosophical classes at the University, and prepared himself for the study of the Law.* The profession was uncongenial, his dislike to it grew upon him, and in a few months it was abandoned for the Army, to which he had a strong predilection.

He was of a military ancestry and a military family. To the end it was the heart of a soldier that beat within the delicate and shattered frame. " Those who have enjoyed his confidence, even of late years, can well understand the boyish ardor and enthusiasm with which he contemplated a military life. Despite extreme nervous sensibility, and an almost feminine delicacy of feeling, he

* Dr. Terrot, now Bishop of Edinburgh, acted as his private tutor. 2 (13)

was at heart brave, manly, intrepid, with a quick sympathy for all that was noble, courageous, and unselfish — ■ with, as he himself expressed it, an ' unutterable admirar tion of heroic daring.' " Those who have read his Lectures on Poetry will not readily forget the ardor with which he relates the chivalry of our soldiers in Scinde, the strong sympathy by which he interprets the thoughts they only felt, the fine burst of enthusiasm with which he defends war against the abuse of peace societies :

" Take away honor and imagination and poetry from war, and it becomes carnage. Doubtless. And take away public spirit and invisible principles from resistance to a tax, and Hampden becomes a noisy demagogue. . . . Carnage is terrible. The conreraion of producers into destroyers is a calamity. Death, and insults to woman worse than death, and human features obliterated beneath the hoof of the war-horse, and reeking hospitals, and ruined commerce, ahd violated homes, and broken hearts — they are all awful. But there is something worse than death. Cowardice is Worse. And the decay of enthusiasm and manliness is worse. And it ia worse than death ->- ay, worse than a hundred thousand deaths — when a people has gravitated down into the creed, that the ' wealth of nations ' consists not in generous hearts —

'fire in each breast, and freedom in eaeh brow' —

in national virtues, and primitive simplicity, and heroic endurance, and preference oF duty to life ; not in men, but in silk, and cotton and something that they call ' capital.' Peace is blessed. Peace arising out of charity. But peace, springing out of the calculations of selfishness, is not blessed. If the price to be paid for peace is this, that wealth accumulate and men decay, better far that every street in every town of our once noble country should run blood ! ' '

There must be many who yet remember the thrill of the words with which he prefaced Wordsworth's noble sonnet

" tt is not to be thought of that the flood: " — " The moment was like that of the deep silence which precedes a thunder-storm, when every breath is hushed, and every separate dried leaf, as it falls through the boughs, is hear(J tinkling down from branch to branch ; when men's breath was held, whm men's blood beat thick in their hearts as they waited, in solemn and grand, but not in painful — rather in triumphant — expectation, for the moment when the storm should break, and the French cry of Glory ! shjuld be thundered back again by England's sublimer battle-cry of Duty!"

That he retained this soldier-spirit is, ia a man of his fervent piety, a proof that it is not an ungodly spirit. Colonel Gardiner thought it no blot on the escutcheon of his faith that he went out to fight at Prestonpans ; heroic Hedley Vicars received his mortal v?^ound as he led a bayonet charge. And had Mr. Robertson entered the army with the "deep religious convictions" he entertained, he would, by the grace of God, have wielded the same healthy Christian influence as an ofiScer, though in a much narrower sphere, which he did wield as a clergyman.

God, however, had better things in store for him. He had been placed, at the request of King William IV., upon the Commander-in-Chief's list. Some delay occurred before he received his commission. His friends took advantage of it to urge the higher claims of the Church ; among others, the present Bishop of Cashel pressed him to devote himself directly to the service of God. He was strongly moved, but not decided. He left it to his father to choose : the result was that he matriculated at Oxford. Four days after his matriculation, he received the offer of a cornetcy in the 2d Dragoon Guards ; but his course had been taken, and he would not turn back. We need not point out the perfect confidence between father and son which this incident reveals, nor the humility and unselfishness of Mr. Robertson. They were manifested as touchingly and strikingly at another crisis of his history. They characterized his life.

There is but scanty record of his terms at Oxford. He was a hard student, and acquired a high reputation ; but, from a singular diffidence, he refused to go up for honors, though urged by his tutors, and twice requested, under peculiarly flattering circumstances, by the Examiners. Mr. Buskin was one of his associates, and doubtless stimulated his keen relish for art. And from a passage in his Lectures, it appears that even then he cultivated the habit of close observation, the perception of the nicer shaded c>f feeling, which distinguished him in riper years :

" At Blenheim, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough, there \a a Madonna, into which the old Catholic painter has tried to cast the religious conceptions of the Middle Ages, virgin purity and infinite repose. The look is upwards, the predominant color of the picture blue, which we know has in itself a strange power to lull and soothe. It is impossible to gaze on this picture without being conscious of a calming influence. During that period of the year in which the friends of the young men of Oxford come to visit their brothers and sons, and Blenheim becomes a place of favorite resort, I have stood aside near that picture, to watch its effect on the different gazers, and have seen group after group of young undergraduates and ladies, full of life and noisy spirits, unconsciously stilled before it, the countenance relaxing into calmness, and the voice sinking to a whisper. The painter had spoken his message, and human beings, ages after, felt what he meant to say."

While at Brazenose he witnessed two scenes which left an ineffaceable impression on his memory, to which he referred long after with lively emotion. He saw the triumph of " Arnold, the type of English action, and Wordsworth the type of English thought." The two men who had quietly revolutionized England — who had been greeted at the outset with hostility and scorn — who, with firm patient manliness, and in the living conviction of the truth they loved, had held on their way against reproach, calumny, inveterate prejudice, public opinion — were crowned in the same theatre with enthusiastic applause. It sunk deep into the heart of the student. There lay in it a sig.

MEMOIB. 1 7

nificant prophecy for himself. He reaped the darkness and the wrong ; the glory and the light came too late.

Immediately after leaving college he was ordained, and discharged the duties of a curate at Winchester for about twelve months, when " his health began to decline, and he went on the Continent to recruit his shattered energies." In his absence he visited much of the beautiful scenery that is accessible to an enthusiastic, and, notwithstanding his nervous delicacy, hardy traveller. It was no doubt a time of exquisite enjoyment. His sermons abound in rapid sketches that unfold his intense delight in natural beauty, and which are remarkable no less for their poetry of expression, than their fidelity, and the vividness they assume from the notice of trifles, characteristic, but commonly unheeded. He was married at Geneva, and soon after returned to England. During the next four years he acted as curate of Christ Church, Cheltenham ; and at the beginning of 1847 he removed to St. Ebbs, Oxford. It was while officiating here for two months that he received the offer of the Church at Brighton, with which his name and work will be always associated. " At St. Ebbs he received a stipend for his services miserably inadequate to their value ; yet when the incumbency of Trinity Chapel, Brighton, with the comparatively splendid income to be derived from it, was pointed out to him, he only expressed a willingness to sacrifice his own personal convenience and emolument to the cause in which he labored, and left it to the Bishop of Oxford to send him wherever his lordship thought he would be most useful. The Bishop advised his coming to Brighton, and he prepared to do so." Between the Army and the Church, he left the choice with his father; between St. Ebbs and Brighton, with his Bishop There was the same humility, childlikeness, unselfishness ; but in this instance more direct consecration to God, a 2*

16 MEMOIB.

higher pitch of self-sacrifice. He entered oti his work at Brighton August 15, 1847.

Hitherto he had been a quiet, faithftil, laborious curate, doing his parish work zealously and unobtrusively; "benefiting greatly those under the influence of his ministry." Genial and lovable, he had many friends.

There were some to admire his rare powers ; and a few even bold enough to follow his originality, though it led them very far out of the beaten tracks of thought. In Brighton it was different. Trinity Chapel was well known. It Was occupied by one of the most aristocratic and intellectual audiences in England. His eloquence -"and originality could not fail to be marked. And if the congregation was intellectual, he was preeminently so. The Chapel became crowded. Sittings were scarcely ever to be had. For six years the enthusiasm never slackened ; it grew and spread silently and steadily, and when he died broke out in a burst of universal sorrow. He was in no way misled by it. He was thankful for being 'listened to, for he felt he had a message from God to dehver. But he put iio faith in mere excitement, the eager upturned face, the still hush of attention. " What is ministerial success ? " he asks. -^" Crowded churches^- full aisles — attentive congregations — the approval of the religious world — much impressioR produced ? Elijah thought so ; and when he found Out his mistake, and discovered that the applause on Oarmel subsided into hideous stillness, his heart well-nigh broke with disappointment. Ministerial success lies in altered lives and obedient humble hearts ; unseen work recognized in the judgment-day." That success was abundantly vouchsafed to him. It was the testimony of ©nG who knew him well : — "I cannot count up conquests in any place or by any man so numerous and so vast,'^ conquests achieved in so short a period, and in many iti stances over the hearts and consciences of those whom.

from their age or pursuits, it is always most difficult to reach, — as were the conquests of that devoted soldier of the cross of Christ whose followers you were." *

Mr. Kobertson left no means untried by which to win sinful men and women to the love of Christ. He sought them in their homes, in their haunts of vice, suffering no paiu nor trouble of his own to hinder him, deterred by no fear of misconception, never losing sight of them, pleading with them with the irresistible force of an ardent nature sanctified and intensified by the Holy Spirit. Even in his undergraduateship, there were many who received througL him light, strSngth, and the knowledge of a Saviour ; and their number kept pace with the widening sphere of his influence.

Yet there was a dark side to all this, a shadow that blighted where it fell. The originality, the manly outspoken thoughts, the freedom from conventionalism and cant phrase, the firm grasp of truth, the bold utterance of it without respect of persons or parties, — all this, which had attracted no great notice in the curate at Winchester or Cheltenham, became as noted as the popularity of the incumbent of Brighton. Prom this time he was attacked with coarse abuse, his words were twisted, his meaning misrepresented. He was pursued with a venom which only religious men and religious papers know how to use ; his simplest acts were turned into an engine to assail him ; he was held up to odium by bad names, persecuted with a relentless cruelty that embittered his life. He did not complain. " It seems to me a pitiful thing," he once said, " for any man to aspire to be true and to speak truth, and then to complain in astonishment that truth has not crowns to give, but thorns." f But he had a feeble body, and a

♦ From a Funeral Sermon by the Rev. James Anderson, the excellent Preacher of Lincoln's Inn. t Second Address to the Working Men.

20 MEMOIE.

nervous system which was exquisitely acute ; and, " humanly speaking, his death was hastened by anxiety and intense susceptibility, acting upon an exhausted frame, unfit to cope longer with the trouble and suffering so plentifully strewn in his path." * To a man who was thoughtless enough to charge him with gaining considerable selfapplause and great popularity with the multitude by affecting to look down from a cool, philosophic height on the struggle and heat below, he wrote a touching letter, in which he thus sorrowfully describes his own position :

" He will find himself [he is supposing his accuser in his place], to his painful surprise, charged on the one side for his earnestness with heresy, and on the other for his charity with latudinarianism. .... He wUl find his attempt to love men, and his yearnings for their sympathy, met by suspicion of his motives, and malignant slanders upon his life ; his passionate desire to reach ideas instead of words, and get to the root of what men mean, he will find treated, even by those who think that they are candid, as the gratification of a literary taste, and the affectation of a philosophic height above the strife of human existence. I would not recommend him to try that philosophic height which he thinks so self-indulgent, unless he has the hardihood to face the keenest winds that blow over all lonely places, whether lonely heights or lonely flats. If he can steel his heart against distrust and suspicion, — if he can dare to be pronounced dangerous by the ignorant, hinted at by his brethren in public, and warned against in private, — if he can resolve to be struck on every side, and not strike again, giving aU quarter and asking none, — if he can struggle in the dark with the prayer for light of Ajax on his lips, in silence and alone, — then let him adopt the line which seems so easy, and be fair and generous and chivalrous to all."

The rancor of his opponents did not even cease with Kfe,— it followed him to the stillness of the tomb. In papers which met the eye of his afflicted relatives while the earth was yet fresh upon his grave, weighty doubts were expressed about the possibility of his salvation. The

* Preface to the Lectures on Poetiy.

MEMOIE. 21

Christian mind of Britain has talcen its own view of the matter. Edition after edition of his Sermons is exhausted. His name stands high, and it is rising surely to its fitting place. He is spoken of with strong difference of opinion sometimes, — but even then with respect and admiration ; and his Sermons are already assumed to be a landmark in the religious thought of his country. There was encouragement, too, during these brief six years. On the Christmas morning after his settlement in Brighton, he found a set of handsome prayer-books on the reading-desk, presented by the servants who attended his Chapel. The year before he died, he received an address from the young men, no less affectionate than cheering to the heart of the pastor. He was able to say, in his reply: " I know that there are many who were long in darkness and doubt and saw no light, and who have now found an anchor and a

rock and a resting-place I feel deeply grateful to

be enabled to say that, if my ministry were to close to-morrow, it has not been in this town altogether an entire failure." And, through all his trials, the love, and earnestness, and ready helpful sympathy, of his congregation, were an unspeakable comfort.

To his preaching we have previously referred in some detail. We shall not return to it now, though we feel painfully how much has been left unsaid. It was marked by an intense realization of the truth of Christ, and an equally intense realization of the life of Christ. He interpreted Scripture with a marvellous insight. A clear light often flashes from passages which another man would have left or made dark enigmas. The inward gifts which God bestowed on him in such large measure are manifest in every page of his writings. They were wedded in exquisite harmony to many outward graces, — those which lend effective aid to the persuasion of the preacher. He had "a noble and attractive mien;" "an utterance the most

22 MEMOIB.

exquisitely melodious and thrilling ; " a face that reflected everj shifting play of feeling ; a figure frail, and made frailer by diseas6> but erect and manly ; a refined delicacy, a winning grace. He spoke with an impassioned eloquence, of which his posthumous Sermons can give but feint conception. Men the most widely opposed to him, scoflTers and careless sceptics, when they entered his church, were arrested by the torrent-flow of thought, the poetic imagery, the fiery glow of the words ; yet more than all, perhaps, they were thrilled by his mysterious knowledge of the human heart, the depth and purity of his love for God. He was an extemporary preacher. His manner was to have " a few words pencilled upon a card or scrap of note-paper, and sufficing by way of groundwork ; yet his spontaneous efforts were, in point of composition, as highly finished as if they had been set dowE and committed to memory." His style was simple, but not in the sense commonly received of sentences (no matter about the thoughts) running after each other on easy words of two syllables; for, though his language was plain, apt, and never redundant, the thoughts were profound, the reasoning close, the whole tone intellectual. It required patient and trained effort of mind to follow him and take up his fulness of meaning. His congregation was composed of the highly educated, and he preached to them as a man of education and refinement. It was his special vocation. Yet the poor were never sent hungry' away. His later Sermons are pervaded by a tone of sadness:

" Not one of us but has felt his heart aching for want of sympathy. We have had our lonely hours, our days of disappointment, and our moments of hopelessness; times when our highest feelings have been misunderstood, and our purest met with ridicule. Days when our hoary secret was lying unshared, like ice upon the heart. And then the spirit gives way ; we have wished that all were over, — that we could lie down tired, and rest lik« the children, from life." '

He dwells on "the lofty sadness wMoh characterized the late ministry of Jesus, as He went down from the sunny mountain-tops of life, into the darkening shades of the valley where lies the grave."

His thoughts turn with a weary melancholy to the carelessness with which men live and die :

" Have you ever seen those marble statues in some public square or garden, which art has so fashioned into a perennial fountain, that through the lips, or through the hands, the eJear water flows in a perpetual stream, on and on foreyer, and the marble stands there — passiye, cold — waking &p effort tp arrpst the gUding water ?