SERMON IX.

THE VICTORY OF OBEDIENCE.

DEUTERONOMY XI. 26-28.

Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; a blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day: and a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside out of the way.

BEDIENCE is a specific duty consequent upon a specific relation. Considered as a virtue, it is that compliance, or that service, which we owe to certain beings under certain circumstances; it is just submission to lawful authority. It cannot be regarded as a matter of absolute, universal, unconditional obligation. We are bound to obey, only where there exists a right to issue commands, or to exercise jurisdiction. As, according to the Apostolical precept, we must render to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour' (Rom. xiii. 7), so likewise obedience to whom obedience. Thus, the wife is to obey the husband, children are to obey parents, servants are to obey masters, the citizens of a state are to obey the appointed rulers of a state. And, generally, in the Church, as in the civil government, we are 'to obey them that have the rule over us, and submit ourselves' (Heb. xiii. 17).

But if parents were to obey children, or rulers were to obey those not meant or fitted to rule, we should have, instead of an equitable and beneficial line of action, a course at once preposterous and ruinous, subversive of every principle of discipline and order. Therefore, before we yield obedience, we have to consider whom we are about to obey, to what extent, and for what purposes. Obedience may even become guilt, if it be given to those who have not a claim upon it, in preference to those who have; or to those who have the slighter claim, in preference to those who have the stronger. As it is a relative duty, so it is a duty of degree. We are to obey some men rather than other men; and we are 'to obey God rather than man' (Acts v. 29).

For, again, as obedience has limits as to persons, so likewise it has limits as to things. No power can be entitled to enforce obedience to mandates, which are essentially and supremely evil; and we are called to obey only so far as it is right and holy to obey. Few things are more dangerous to the interests of true morality, or of true religion, than to make that a virtue universally, which is only a virtue in particular cases. Wherefore, as universal vows of poverty, or of celibacy, so universal vows of obedience, whether of a monk to the superiors of his order, or of a Jesuit to the general of the Jesuits, appear to me to be departures from real sanctity, rather than examples of it. To place our powers, faculties, and resources, our property and even our lives, at the disposal of another; to put away our own reason and conscience, by the prostration of them at the footstool of a fellow-being, so that we are pledged to perform whatever that fellow-being enjoins; this cannot belong to the true counsels of perfection, but must

be always on the confines of fanaticism and crime. History is full of instances,-witness the secret tribunals of Germany during the middle ages-witness the bonds into which conspirators have entered with the chiefs of a conspiracy-where the promise of obedience has been an engagement to commit murder, and where the murderer has deemed himself absolved by the promise of obedience.

There is, however, One Being-and it is plain on the principles just enunciated that there can be only oneto whom unlimited, unreserved, unqualified obedience is at all times due. And that Being is He, all whose commands are just and righteous, and whose 'kingdom ruleth over all.' It is of obedience to that Being that I proceed to speak in the remainder of this discourse.

It must be almost needless to affirm, that the perfections of the Godhead, together with the relation in which man stands towards God, constitute the ground of this obedience, and render it indispensable. I say, the perfections of the Godhead; for, as long as the character of God includes infinite might, infinite wisdom, and infinite goodness, so long He must challenge to himself an obedience which none can divide with him. I say, the relation in which man stands towards God; for sovereignty belongs to the Creator, because it is involved in the idea of Creatorship, that He must be the Lord, Owner and Governor of the world which He has made; obedience belongs to the creature, because it is involved in the idea of creatureship, that he is a derivative and dependent being, indebted to his Framer for all that he possesses or can possess. What are we, if we fight against God, or unless we serve and obey Him?

My brethren, as His service is perfect freedom, so

obedience to Him is our glory and our blessedness. If we refer to what has been lately laid before you concerning the Will of God, and our working together with God, we shall have a clear and convincing view of this great verity. For what do we thus find the true nature of our obedience to be? It is not the blind obedience of a machine, acting by compulsion, and without variation, in compliance with the springs and forces by which it is swayed, and having its every movement determined for it without any consciousness or volition of its own. It is not the abject obedience of a slave, who has no personal interest in the object to be accomplished, but gives his grudging exertions for fear of the lash. It is a willing obedience; it is the loving reverential obedience of a son; it is the cheerful obedience of a freeman, who feels his pride and his delight to be in his allegiance; it is the glad and earnest obedience of a fellow-labourer, in a capacity infinitely subordinate indeed, and yet most honourable; working on his own account, for his own sake, for his own benefit; having his share in an arduous, but ennobling toil; admitted to a co-partnership in an issue sure to be successful. It is, moreover, not a stupid and unreflecting, but a deliberate and intelligent obedience; one, that obeys the more, as by study and meditation it knows and discovers the more. It has, therefore, in spite of the apparent paradox, an element of choice in it, as well as an element of necessity. And hence the obedience itself is exalted into a privilege and a power.

It also becomes a victory. There is, in truth, no victory for man save in devout and energetic obedience to a Being higher than himself; to Him who is the supreme and only Potentate, and to the laws which He has ordained. Let us open this point somewhat

more fully; for it demands and deserves all our attention.

And, that we may rise by degrees to the highest themes, let us first consider the necessity and the victory of obedience, in reference to what in our common vocabulary we denominate the laws of nature; that is, in fact, to the Lord God, as He manifests himself in the constitution and administration of the physical world. For I have already endeavoured to shew, that Natural Laws are but names and abstractions, or, at most, mechanical instruments, save as they are rules established by God, or workings of his own living Spirit: in other words, that the real creative and active energy is the Divine Will; and that the Laws of Nature, as we call them, are but the expressions or exhibitions of that Will. We would entirely regard them as such, throughout the following observations. And certainly we shall not be less disposed to study God's laws, whether his physical laws, or his moral laws, as knowing them to be the index of the will of Him who is God.

Regarding, then, the Laws of Nature and the Will of God, as synonymous or equivalent terms, I would remark, that man conquers by obedience to them, and that he never resists, or infringes, any one of them without loss and suffering. It is, as we all know, a favourite portion of the current language of the day, to talk of man's victories over nature; of his subduing its materials to his use; of his making servants and tributaries of its elements. Earth, air, fire, and water, are represented as vanquished and subject to him: and the mechanical marvels of our age are adduced as instances of this subjection. Well: but these victories, after all, are the victories of obedience. Man conquers only as he obeys it is only by compliance with nature that