1

watching, the Invisible Hand stretched out to guide and support him? Who that has ever known what it is to have a kind father or mother, nurse, or teacher, or guardian, would not most earnestly rejoice, and think himself happy, to have the sense of such care as theirs made for ever present to his mind, even when otherwise he would seem most forlorn? Now such a sense of things is godliness. It is the natural and ordained fruit of afflictions well endured; it naturally follows after patience, if we will let it just as we never feel more deeply the inestimable blessing of a kind friend, parent, or nurse, than when they have been waiting on us in heavy sickness or affliction. The more is the pity, that Christian sufferers should ever behave in such a way as to separate patience from godliness, which yet they seem to do, when they get over their cares and troubles by a sort of natural cheerfulness, or because they like to be thought courageous, and are never the nearer to God for them. Let young persons, especially, beware of this-beware of taking things too lightly too cheerfully. We are not to faint when we are rebuked of the LORD, but neither are we to despise His chastenings. We do well to let every thing put us in mind of His Presence, since in truth every thing is, one way or another, a token of that Presence. Thus shall we make patience and good temper, in the ordinary trials of life, minister to our devotion and godliness.

And godliness will bring Brotherly Kindness. As we try to find Our CREATOR and REDEEMER in all things, we shall be led to find HIM in His Church more particularly. For this is what the Scripture means by brotherly kindness: loving all who are around us as brethren, because they are members of the same CHRIST, children of the same GOD, inheritors of the same Kingdom of Heaven: And this comes naturally after godliness: nay, godliness is imperfect and unreal without it: for this commandment have we from HIM, that he who loveth GOD, love his brother also. And he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love GOD whom he hath not seen? Ask yourselves, then, this further question; are my serious thoughts of such a kind, as to make me more loving and considerate, more attentive and obliging, to all around me, considering that they are members of the same CHRIST, and that what I do to them, CHRIST reckons done to

HIM? Because, if my godliness has not this effect on me, I have reason to fear that it is but a show of godliness, something hypocritical, something like that of the Pharisees. God defend us all from that snare.

:

:

And yet one thing remains. We must add to Brotherly Kindness Charity. The love which for CHRIST's sake is so strong towards those who are united with us in CHRIST, must also for CHRIST'S sake overflow towards all men: towards the heathen and unbelieving towards those who are parted from CHRIST by their sins towards those who use us ill, who judge us amiss, and speak unkindly of us. All persons must expect more or less trials of this kind: and most, young persons especially, are apt to imagine a great deal more of ill usage than really is intended. But even the empty imagination may do them good, if they turn it into an occasion of charity, really forgiving, loving, and trying to serve, those whom they do but dream to have been in any way their enemies.

On the whole: many and great as the things which our LORD requires of us may seem, they are not, you see, too many, nor too great, for the least and simplest among us, if only he will set his heart to the keeping of his Baptismal vow; not in his own strength, which is nothing, but in the strength of that good SPIRIT, who is all in all.

SERMON CCLIII.

WORLDLY TOLERATION AND BROTHERLY LOVE.

FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

1 ST. JOHN iii. 13.

"Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren."

Ir may well seem strange at first hearing, how the world should come to hate the Gospel; to hate that which of all other things clearly does the most good, and encourages the kindest and most charitable conduct. It seems strange, I say, at first hearing, and when people have as yet no experience, that men should set themselves against such a doctrine. But when we come to know more of these two things, the world and the Gospel, we see most clearly that it is quite impossible they should ever truly and thoroughly agree.

For the world is like a spoiled and sickly child, wholly taken

up with pleasing itself for the moment, and quite perverted in its taste and relish of things; putting continually evil for good and good for evil, bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. The Gospel, on the other hand, is like a faithful Physician, applying his remedies in due season, whether such remedies please the patient or no; and very careful, if I may so speak, to look after his diet and daily habits; continually denying him things which he most covets, and urging on him practices which are most irksome, and most contrary to his turn of mind. It is the patient's nature, the nature of us all, to be taken up with things present, and care little for things invisible; but the Physician, the Gospel, keeps calling on us day and night to remember that things invisible are

all in all. Our disease is, to think well of ourselves, and to count it hard when we are bid to be in earnest, lowly and meek, and to depend entirely on CHRIST our SAVIOUR. No wonder that we loathe such a remedy as the Gospel, of which the selfdenying doctrines are the very sum and substance.

Then again, even a child, who considers at all what happened to our LORD, while He was among men, would be prepared to find the truth unpopular, and the world hating those who stand up for it. For as our SAVIOUR HIMSELF argued, "The Disciple is not above his MASTER, nor the servant above his LORD. If they have called the MASTER of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household. If they have persecuted ME, they will also persecute you: if they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also." We hear the people with one voice, crying out, 'Crucify HIM, crucify HIM;" we see HIM scourged, insulted, and hanged on a tree; and this alone might well prepare us for what should happen to His Gospel afterwards. But He gave besides, and His Apostles added, many direct and express warnings. "They shall put you," HE said, "out of the Synagogues; yea, the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth GoD service. Ye shall be hated of all men for My Name's sake: ye shall be betrayed both by parents and brethren, and kinsfolk and friends." These warnings our LORD gave beforehand, in addition to the most plain and emphatical warning of His own bitter Cross, that His friends and followers might not be surprised and frightened, when they found their kind and amiable religion every where treated with scorn and hatred, and themselves in danger of being put to death with torments, because, like HIM, and in obedience to His Commands, they went about doing good.

And yet it is certain that at times our SAVIOUR HIMSELF was very much favoured by the people: more than once we read of the Scribes and Pharisees being afraid to lay hands on HIM, because they feared the multitude; and every one knows how gloriously He made His last entry into Jerusalem, the same voices, which a few days afterwards were instant requiring that HE should be crucified, being then lifted up in Hosannas to the SON of David. And it was the same sort of thing with His Apostles after HIM. Two or three times, after they were seized,

their enemies were forced to let them go, because of their favour among all the people. Their miracles and their charities won them favour, but there was something in their doctrine, when fully understood, which forfeited that favour again.

and so it

Such as the way of the world was then, so it is now, will be always. The sweet, and amiable, and useful spirit of the Gospel will always obtain for it a certain degree of favour; but further than this people will not go; and when the whole Gospel, the whole counsel and will of God, is pressed upon them earnestly and without reserve, they will presently begin to be vexed and angry, and, as far as God's Providence allows, will in some way or another contrive to persecute its Teachers. For the whole Gospel of JESUS CHRIST, the whole counsel and message of GOD, is not only a kind and gentle, but it is also a strict self-denying Law. It looks to people's good, not to their satisfaction: it cares not whether they are pleased or angry, provided the great end be accomplished, of leading them, practically and in earnest, to care for their souls, and love Gov's Truth, and amend their

ways accordingly. It is as absurd to expect such a message to be generally popular, as if a Physician were to expect that his patients should generally like the medicines he gives them.

The more we know of the history of the Gospel, the more we shall be confirmed in these notions. Observe what treatment the Church met with at the hands of the unbelieving Jews; how they proved; first, crucifiers of our LORD, and afterwards murderers of St. Stephen and persecutors of St. Paul; and observe the cause of their being such. It was that the great notions they had formed, of being rich and mighty in the present world, were all to be thrown by at once, and poverty, patience, humility, practised in their place. This was the true cause of Jewish unbelief; as our SAVIOUR showed clearly enough in His Parable of the wicked Husbandmen, who refused to pay the rent of the Vineyard. When they saw the Master's Son coming himself to demand the rent, they said, "Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours." That is, they put our LORD to death, in order that His meek and self-denying Kingdom being at an end, their own proud and worldly Kingdom, which they were always dreaming of, might be set up and flourish, and they be noble and powerful in it.

VOL. VIII.

L