Sermons preached before the University of Oxford : second series, 1868-1879

Contents

The Idea of Religion— God, the Object of Religion— The Subject of Religion, the Soul— The Obstacle to Religion, Sin— Prayer, the Characteristic Action of Religion — The Mediator, the Guarantee of Religious Life.

Sixth Edition, Revised. Crown Zvo. 5 J1.

SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. First Series, 1859-1868.

Preface to tfje ©econo <ZEtutton

In this Edition a Sermon1 which has been preached since the publication of the first edition is inserted at the request of some persons who heard it.

Christ Church,

Whitsuntide 1880.

Sermon xvn.

CONTENTS.

SERMON L

PREJUDICE AND EXPERIENCE.

St. John i. 46.

PAGE

Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come oat of Nazareth ? Philip saith unto him, Come and see 1

^rcacfjfU at St. fHarg's on tfje Xinetantfj Sunoap after JZZrinits, Oct. 23, 18Z0.

SERMON II

HUMILITY AND TRUTH. 1 Cor. iv. 7.

Who maketh thee to differ from another ? And what hast thou that thou hast not received ? Now, if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? 18

SERMON III.

IMPORT OF FAITH IN A CREATOR.

Gen. i. 1.

In the beginnina God created the heaven and the earth ... 38 $3reacf)20 at St. fflarg's on Septuagcsitna Sunoap, fieb. 5, 1871.

X

Contents.

SERMON IV.

WORTH OF FAITH IN A LIFE TO COME.

Rev. vii. 9, 10.

PAGE

/ beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God Which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb . . 55 ^reacfieo at St. fHarg'g on trje 2Tbjentg=first Sunoag after Krtnttg, Nob. 10, 1878.

SERMON Y.

INFLUENCES OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

St. John iii. 8.

The icind blowcth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth . . 78 " iPreacfjeU at St. fHarg's on E2Ef)ttsun Sag, 3une 4, 1876.

SERMON VI.

GROWTH IN THE APPREHENSION OF TRUTH.

Heb. vi. t.

Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on

unto perfection 98

^reacrjeo at St. fflarg's on trje jfirst Sunbag after Brittits W Sunbag), June 15, 1879.

SERMON VII.

THE LIFE OF FAITH AND THE ATHAN ASIAN CREED. St. John iii. 36.

He that believcth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on him . , , . . . , , m t .119

Contents.

XI

SERMON" VIII.

CHRIST'S SERVICE AND PUBLIC OPINION.

Gal. l io.

PAGE

If I yet pleased men, I should not be a servant of Christ . . .144 ^reacrjeo at St. iSarg'y on tfje JEfoentg^fiftrj Suntiag after STrtnitg, Noo. 18, X8ZZ.

SEEM ON IX.

CHRIST IN THE STORM.

St. Mark iv. 38.

And He was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep upon a pillow ; and they awake Him, and say unto Him, Master, carest Thou not that we perish? § 165

^reacijeo at St. USarg's on t$e £b3entg=tf)tro Sunfcag after Crinitg, Nob. 12, 1871.

SEEMON X.

SACERDOTALISM. 2 Cor. v. 18.

But all things are of God, Who hath reconciled us unto Himself, through Jesus Christ, and hath given unto us the ministry of The Reconciliation : to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them ; and hath given unto us the word of The Reconciliation . . . . 183

$reari)eo at St. fflarg's on Seiasesttna Sunoag, San. 31, 1875.

SERMON XI.

THE PROPHECY OF THE MAGNIFICAT.

St. Luke i. 51-53.

He hath shewed strength with His arm : He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty

away 203

xii

Contents.

SERMON XII.

THE FALL OF JERICHO.

Heb. xi. 30.

TAGE

By faith the ivalls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days . 222

iPreacfjco at St. fHarg's on Srtnttg Sunoag, 3une 8, 1873 (3&amsoen Sermon).

SERMON XIII.

THE COURAGE OF FAITH.

Rom. i. 16.

/ am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ ; for it is the power of God

unto salvation to every one that believeth 242

$reacbeti at St. flarg's on 5Trmitg Sunoag, fHag 25, 1877 (ftamscen Sermon).

SERMON XIV.

THE CURSE ON MEROZ.

Judges v. 23.

Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty . . . . .264

^reacrjeo at St. JSarg's on trje Secono Sunoag after STrinttg (act Sunoag), June 9, 1872.

SERMON XV.

THE GOSPEL AND THE POOR.

St. Luke iv. 18.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to

preach the Gospel to the poor ' . 2S1

$reac?)eo at St. fflarg's on OTrjitsun JBag, 3une 9, 1878.

Contents.

xiii

SERMON XVI.

CHRIST AND HUMAN LAW.

St. John xix. 10, n.

PAGE

Then saith Pilate unto Him, SpeaJcest Thou not unto me ? Tcnowest Thou not that I have power to crucify Thee, and have power to release Thee ? Jesus answered, Thou couldcst have no power at all against Me, except it were given thee from above : therefore he tJiat delivered Me unto thee hath the greater sin .... 300 33«adjeti at St. j/flarn/s on tfjc Erjiro Sunoan. in Hent, jfcb. 28, 1869 (asstje Sermon).

SERMON XVII.

THE CURE OF LOW SPIRITS.

Ps. xliii. 5.

Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul ? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise Him, Who is the health of my countenance, and my God ..... 332

33wacrjeo at St. fHarg's on Sciagesitna Sunoag, jFetr. I, 1880.

SERMON L

PREJUDICE AND EXPERIENCE.

St. John i. 46.

Xathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth ? Philip saith vnto him, Come and see.

THE main purpose of the fourth Evangelist was to show, by a careful selection from our Lord's words and works, what was the full and momentous truth respecting His Divine Person.1 But subordinate to this object there were others ; and among these it was of importance to dispose of an objection, which would have been urged often and earnestly at the close of the Apostolical age. If the miracles of Christ were such as the earlier Evangelists had described, how was it, men asked, that they did not produce a more general conviction of His Divine Mission among His countrymen and contemporaries ? The answer which the fourth Gospel gives to this question is in effect, that the conduct and temper of the Jews furnishes a sufficient explanation of their insensibility to the real value of the miracles of Christ. The picture of the Jews which is presented by the fourth Evangelist offers some undeniable points of contrast to that which meets us in the first three Gospels. The first three Gospels describe several individual Jews with marked lights and shadows of personal character : the fourth Gospel refers to them as a class with

1 St. John xx. 31.

A

Prejudice and Experience. [Serm.

an average habit of thought and feeling. There is no inconsistency between these representations ; and here, as elsewhere, St. John says enough to serve his immediate purpose, without at all implying that it is exhaustive, or more than a selection from the rich materials before him. " The Jews," as he describes them, are morally and spiritually, rather than intellectually, deficient and dull; they are at no loss for ingeniously captious arguments, but they are deaf to the persuasive eloquence of spiritual beauty. Face to face with the Light of the World, Who, as the Evangelist is persuaded, has only to be contemplated steadily by the true spirit's eye in order to be forthwith adored, the Jews arm themselves with the weapons of a petty dialectic, which betrays a warp and narrowness in the moral sympathies, even more than any intellectual wrongheadedness or religious ignorance. Thus the dialogues of the Gospel are an illustration of the thesis that "the Light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not j"1 they show us how it was that the Incarnate Word came unto the people which was, in virtue of its past history, especially His own, and which, although His own, did not receive Him.2

One great misery of this Jewish temper was that it kept men at a distance from our Lord. Physically, indeed, the Jews were close to Him; but spiritually they lived in another sphere of being. As they heard His language with the outward ear, and then set themselves to confute it; so they beheld His works with the bodily eye, but saw in them nothing higher than a skill which eluded detection. The reason was, according to the Evangelist, because both the words and works could only be placed in their true perspective by souls who were already in some sort of willing contact, however tentative and provisional, with the Person of the Speaker and Worker. St. John, indeed, does not

1 St. John i. 5. 2 St. Johni. 11.

I.] Prejudice and Experience. 3

depreciate the evidential force of the miracles to which our Lord Himself appealed :l each of the seven miracles which the Evangelist describes is in some way pre-eminent, and the greatest of all the recorded miracles of Christ is described by St. John alone.2 But the tendency of his narrative is to discourage exaggerated expectations as to the power of miracles by themselves to create faith; he does not allow us to suppose that they will enforce a conviction by sheer intellectual constraint in the case of those who are morally and spiritually indisposed to embrace it. Even the most startling miracle was not meant to stand unaided and alone : in the design of Providence it was to co-operate with the attractive power of a Faultless Character, appealing persuasively to the moral sense. When the moral sense was paralysed, a miracle naturally appeared to the understanding only in the light of an unusual or unwelcome occurrence, for which it was presumed some explanation, natural or artificial, must be forthcoming. A miracle becomes I an intellectual challenge which irritates, where it is not I the accompaniment of a moral influence which wins. To be in intimate contact with the Person of Christ, the Word Incarnate, manifesting forth His Glory ; to gaze upon Him, not fitfully, but constantly, earnestly, penetratingly ; to learn at length to see in His words and works the harmonious product of His superhuman Personality, a perpetual radiation from the Life of the A 11 -Perfect Being : this was what St. John desired for his countrymen, as being what he had experienced himself. But it was precisely this for which the leading moral features of their peculiar temper so seriously indisposed the Jews : and the result is exhibited in St. John's narrative. He leads us on step by step to a double climax, in which the evidence for Christ's claims and His rejection by the Jews alike reach the

1 St. John x. 38. St Matt. xi. 4, 5. Of. Heb. ii. 4. 1 St. John xi

Prejudice and Experience.

Serm.

highest point conceivable. On the one hand, Lazarus is raised from the dead : on the other, the Son of God is crucified.

If the fourth Gospel thus sets itself to explain why it was that the J ews did not receive the Light of the World manifested among them, it naturally completes this explanation by showing, in the way of contrast, how it was that the disciples did receive Him. The disciples, too, had had their difficulties in the way of faith : they came of the same stock as their unbelieving contemporaries; they breathed the same intellectual and originally the same moral atmosphere ; they were fed by the same truths and warped by the same prejudices. But they placed themselves morally and spiritually in contact with the Person of Christ, the Incarnate Word, and from Him there streamed forth upon their souls a power which made them His. This is the Evangelist's inner sense when he tells us, as if incidentally, that the two disciples of the Baptist came and saw where Jesus dwelt ; 1 or that Andrew brings his own brother Simon to Jesus;2 or that St. Philip meets Nathanael's a priori objection to the prophetic or spiritual associations of Nazareth by the simple invitation, " Come and see." 3

Nathanael comes before our Lord as the victim and exponent of a popular prejudice. It was one of several irrational prejudices which went to make up the dull or passionate hostility shown towards Jesus Christ by the Jewish opinion of the time. When Philip, in his eager enthusiasm, announces that in Jesus from Nazareth was to be found the fulfilment of all the choicest hopes with which the Mosaic and prophetical writings had inspired the noblest souls in Israel, Nathanael bluntly asks whether any good thing can come out of Nazareth.

I-J

Prejudice a?id Experience.

Why should no good come out of Nazareth ? What was the nature of this presumption against Nazareth ? Did it rest on some political or social feeling, the exact ground of which may have been guessed at by later tradition, but the true reason of which is lost ? Or was its motive theocratic ? Does " good " in Nathanael's mouth mean that specific good which in the judgment of every religious Israelite lay in the fulfilment of the Messianic promise ? Is it his meaning that if the new Prophet announced Himself as from Nazareth, the case against Him must be decisive ; because while Nazareth is not so much as named in the Jewish Scriptures, every Israelite knows that the Messianic King is to be born in Bethlehem, little indeed among the cities of Judah, yet " not the least," considering its theocratic rank, and the extraordinary honour that awaited it ? 1 Or is Nathanael swayed by some popular saying, which altogether warps his judgment ; and which, whatever may have been its historical origin, has placed the Galilean village under a religious ban, so that any disposition to expect from it a message of truth or an effort of virtue at once incurs rebuke or even ridicule ?

Decide this question as we may, there can be no doubt about the strength of Nathanael's prejudice against Nazareth. Nor, let us remark, was he, as yet, morally the worse for entertaining it. Himself a native of Galilee, he had heard Nazareth depreciated all his life, and he simply gave expression to a conviction which it had not occurred to him to question. He held it, together with his other opinions and beliefs, with honest tenacity. If the intellectual furniture of our several minds could be examined and catalogued, it would probably be found that we are most, if not all of us, to a certain extent in Nathanael's condition: we have received from our elders an assortment of prepossessions which combine with the highest of

1 Micah v. 2. St. Matt. ii. 5, 6.

Prejudice and Experience. [Serm.

truths the least tenable of assumptions. Most of us who think at all are engaged throughout our lives in revising at least some portion of this hereditary mental stock. Some men, it may be feared, only succeed in ridding themselves of priceless truths, while they cling on uninquiringly to stupid superstitions ; as was his case who had no faith in the truth of Christ's Eesurrection, but would on no account forget to turn his money in his pocket at the sight of the new moon.

Now, so long as an untenable prejudice lies dormant in the mind, and its holder has not been called upon to consider its worth, he is not necessarily the worse for holding it. Nathanael's prejudice against Nazareth was quite without foundation. Yet we know on the highest authority that he was an Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile. 1 Although the victim of a serious misapprehension, he had not trifled with his sense of truth, and the consequence was that his mistake did not permanently injure him. Nathanael is the type of that simple goodness in union with narrow prejudice which is sometimes in our day branded as " Philistinism." Brethren, it is well to be large-minded ; but there are worse things in the moral world than " Philistinism." It is better to be cramped and narrowed by unexamined prejudice, than to hold no one conviction with the earnestness which would prompt you to make sacrifices for it. It is better to be making the most of some onesided or imperfect creed, which is a local or temporary compound of truth and error, than to pass through life with a feeble interest in all religions ; an interest so comprehensive and so diluted as to involve conviction of the truth of none : —

" Sitting apart, holding no form of creed, But contemplating all."

Nathanael was wrong about Nazareth ; but he was near

1 St. John i. 47.

Prejudice and Experience.

to the Truth and Wisdom with which, throughout all time, Xazareth is associated.

And yet, although a man may hold to a misapprehension with such entire honesty of purpose that his moral nature is quite intact, the misapprehension is undoubtedly a misfortune. It is some disaster for any mind to hold any one thing for truth that is untrue, however insignificant it be, or however honestly it be held. It is a greater disaster when the false prejudice bars the way to some truth behind it, which, but for it, would find an entrance to the soul ; and the greatness of the disaster will in this case be measured by the importance of the excluded truth. There are false prejudices which shut out no truth, and which lead to no error. If it is better to be without them, they may be tolerated without much difficulty. But a prejudice which keeps us from knowing a good man, or from recognising a great truth, is to be seriously deplored. What would Xathanael be thinking of his prejudice against Xazareth now, if it had really kept him back from discipleship to the Lord of Life ?

In the sub-apostolic age, there was a persuasion abroad in heathen society that the Christians devoured little children. This misapprehension was doubtless traceable to the current language employed by the first Christians on the subject of the Eucharist ; their true meaning would never have occurred to a pagan who chanced to hear them. Yet how complete a barrier, not to say against conversion, but against any contact whatever with the " exitiabilis superstitio" must have been erected by a real belief that Christians were guilty of so inhuman a crime ! How many souls may not such a prepossession have kept back, only too effectually, from all that Christ's Gospel had to give them !

Observe St. Philip's way of dealing with Xathanael. Philip might have argued, either that the prejudice against Xazareth rested on no sure foundation, or that, whatever

Prejudice and Experience. [Serm.

its truth, Jesus belonged to Nazareth in so limited and temporary a sense, that the reputation of the place did not touch Him or His claim to fulfil the Messianic prophecies. This, perhaps, would have been our modern plan of meeting the objection. Philip takes a shorter course. His object is not to put himself arguLaentatively in the right by vindicating Nazareth, or by showing that it does not stand in his way : he only wants to bring Nathanael into the Presence, ay, close to the Person of the Son pf God. He is convinced that if Nathanael can only see Him, speak with Him, breathe the atmosphere that surrounds Him, feel the Divine majesty and tenderness which had already won himself, the prejudice against Nazareth will simply be forgotten. " Philip saith unto him, Come and see." The objection might be discussed at another time ; but the immediate value of the objection might be settled at once by the simple process of contact with Him to Whose claims it was apparently fatal.

II

St. Philip's invitation has, obviously enough, a very wide range of applicability. There is no department of the kingdom of truth whose representatives may not echo the "Come and see" of the Apostle. Scientific, historical, moral, as well as theological truth, may and must proclaim, in such terms as these, their anxiety to be approached and examined. Nor would such applications of the text involve an overstraining of it ; since, properly speaking, all truth is in one sense religious truth. It leads ultimately up to God; it is what it is by His Will and authority. As all true virtue, wherever found, is a ray of the life of the All-Holy ; so all solid knowledge, all really accurate thought, descends from the Eternal Eeason, and ought, when we apprehend it, to guide us upwards to Him. This

I.] Prejudice and Experience. 9 was a consideration upon which the teachers of the great Christian School of Alexandria were wont to dwell. By means of it they bridged over chasms between much of what was true in the Platonic philosophy, representing as it did the most active speculation of the time, and the Revelation of God in Christ. All truth is indeed the inheritance of the Church of Christ, although she may be long in entering upon some portions of her patrimony, or may even, here or there, through the mistakes of those who act on her behalf, depreciate and for a while disown her share in it. " All things are yours," said an Apostle to his children in the faith ; 1 and Ins words are not less true of the treasures of knowledge than of the treasures of Grace.

To create the sense of this — the unity and the magnificence of truth — is one purpose of an University. The Universities of Europe were creations of the Christian Church. They sprang from her effort to realize the unity of all districts of existing human knowledge, as in harmony with and under the presidency of the knowledge of God revealed in Christ. Faith in the real and ultimately discoverable harmony of all truth is the faith upon which this University was built ; and as a result of this faith, it must aim at encouraging a spirit of generous sympathy between the representatives of and workers in the various departments of knowledge which it has brought together and fosters.

The intellectual value of such a spirit as this need not be insisted on. It is the crowning grace of a liberal education. AVhen the fields of human knowledge are so various and so vast as is the case in our day, the utmost that can be done by single minds not of encyclopedic range, is to master one subject or branch of a subject as thoroughly as possible, and to rest content with knowing that others are working in regions where neither time nor strength will permit us to

1 I Cor. iii. 21.

IO

Prejudice and Experience.

[Serm.

enter, but where we can at least follow them with interest and respect. To know at least the outline of what may be known; to know accurately the real frontier of his own narrow knowledge ; — this is more distinctively the attribute of an educated man, than the accumulation of any number of facts and figures. It carries with it the power of estimating what is known philosophically; of placing it in something like its true relation to conterminous fields of knowledge ; of anticipating, at least tentatively and partially, that day of cloudless light, when all truth, the highest and the lowest, will be seen in its absolute unity.

Nor does the moral and religious value of this spirit rank below the intellectual. In a place like this, the good to be gained by intercourse with character is at least as great as the good to be gained by the appropriation and mastery of thought ; the vastness and variety of the moral world around us, if we have eyes to see it, is not inferior to that of the world of knowledge. Each man whom we know has probably at least some one moral beauty in nature or from grace ; while different studies beget their characteristic moral excellences and deficiencies: so that as classes of students, no less than as individuals, we have much to learn from each other. One study demands intellectual integrity, another reverence, another patience, another nerve and determination ; and when mixing with their different representatives, we may learn, if not all the truth they severally have to teach, at least the specific moral excellence which is developed in attaining it.

If this be the intellectual and moral value of University life, it is too precious to be imperilled by the temptation to think that no truth or goodness is to be looked for at the hands of certain men, or in the pursuit of certain studies. Have we in Oxford altogether escaped this temptation ? Have those, whom a strong and lofty faith should have rendered generous, always and altogether

I.] Prejudice and Experience. 1 1

succeeded in escaping it ? Have we never pointed to the Nazareth of the physical sciences ; of some one of them, it may be, which a vagrant materialist has for awhile dishonoured, but which cannot reasonably or justly be so credited with his error, as to warrant us in supposing that no good thing can come out of the laboratories in which it is pursued ? Have we never banned the Xazareth of criticism ; too readily supposing that, because some teachers of Heidelberg or Tubingen have mistaken wild imagination for history in their treatment of the Holy Gospels, no good thing can be expected to come from any critical school ? The loyalty to Eevelation which animates our prejudice does not justify it ; the great Alexandrians who baptized the Platonic philosophy, would have bidden us of to-day welcome, and christen the critical and scientific spirit. We might be assured that, whatever its exaggerations, we have much to learn from it, and that in the Ions: run it must do the work of Him AVhom we

o

adore.

Men who hold a large and exacting creed with earnestness, have no doubt, from their very sincerity, to guard against a tendency to narrow judgments. And it is easy for others who have no positive faith whatever to enlarge on deficiencies, the temptation to which, unhappily for themselves, they have never known ; just as the famishing poor of our great cities are naturally and keenly alive to abuses of property on the part of the wealthy classes. But is there then no liability to narrow prejudices in any sections of the " liberal " world ? Is it never thought or whispered that from the Xazareth of Orthodoxy, with its cherished traditions and s}mrpathies, with its passionate attachment to the past of Christendom, with its undeniable adherence to a fixed body of truths as stamped with Divine and therefore unerring authority, no good can be expected to come ; no real additions to our spiritual and intellectual wealth, no new development or enrichment of our moral energies ? What is the Nazareth of so termed " sacerdotalism " but the endeavour to treat as serious our Saviour's promises of authorization and support to those weak human agencies by which from age to age He asserts His power and His love among the sons of men ? Yet is not this Nazareth too often banned, as if nothing higher than some unworthy and selfish effort to increase the wealth or power of a clerical order could be expected to come out of it ? And do you suppose, my liberal brethren, that in surrendering your imaginations to such prejudices as these you lose nothing ; that you debar yourselves from access to no wide fields of truth, which else were open to you ; that you cut yourselves off from the enjoyment of no moral beauties, which you too most assuredly would know how to honour and to profit by, not less than we ?

Certainly the temptation to hold that no good thing can come out of this or that department of human interest and work, be it social, political, philosophical, or religious, is not extinct. But in the name of whatever truth there may be, and some truth there must be, in each and all of them, the University, as a kindly mother, bids us " come and see." Here we have no excuse for intellectual or moral isolation: interests and states of mind, which elsewhere are unavoidably found apart, are brought into close juxtaposition in Oxford, as a necessary result of our work and circumstances. Here, if anywhere, it might be hoped that explanations might be made, and reconciliations effected, which elsewhere are improbable : between love of the past and aspirations for the future; between the energies of philosophical and scientific enterprise and the claims of faith ; between the intellectual hardness of the critical spirit, and the tender enthusiasms of devotion to our Living Lord. But if this is to be, we must be sufficiently generous, let me rather say

I.] Prejudice and Experience, 1 3 sufficiently truthful, to conquer prejudice. Some of us might wish that there were no such tasks as these before us ; but we have no more the making of the speculative than of the material world. Our duty is to make the best of what God has given us.