LECTURE XI.

ST. LUKE xxi. 36.

Watch ye, therefore, and pray always, that ye may beaccounted worthy to escape all these things that shallcome to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.

This might be a text for a history of the Christian Church, from its foundation to this hour, or to the latest hour of the world's existence. We might observe how it Lad fulfilled its Lord's command; with what steadiness it had gone forward on its course, with the constant hope of meeting Him once again in glory. We might see how it had escaped all these things that were to come to pass: tracing its course amidst the manifold revolutions of the world, inward and outward. In the few words, "all these things that shall come to pass," are contained all the events of the last eighteen hundred years: indistinct and unknown to us, as long as they are thus folded up together; but capable of being unrolled before our eyes in a long order, in which should be displayed all the outward changes of nations, the spread of discovery, the vicissitudes of conquest; and yet more, the inward changes of men's minds, the various schools of philosophy, the successive forms of public opinion, the influences of various races, all the manifold elements by which the moral character of the Christian world has been affected. We might observe how the Church had escaped all these things, or to what degree it had received from any of them good or evil. And then, stopping at the point at which it has actually arrived, we might consider how far it deserves the character of that Church, "without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing," which should be presented before the Son of Man at his coming again.

This would be a great subject; and one, if worthily executed, full of the deepest instruction to us all. But our Lord's words may also be made the text for a history or inquiry of another sort, far less comprehensive in time and space, far less grand, far less interesting to the understanding; yet, on the other hand, capable of being wrought out far more completely, and far more interesting to the spiritual and eternal welfare of each of us. They may be made the text for an inquiry into the course hitherto held, not by the Church as a body, but by each of us individual members of it; an inquiry how far we, each of us, have watched and prayed always, that we might be accounted worthy to escape all the things which should come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man. And, in this view of the words, the expression "all these things which shall come to pass" has reference no longer to great political revolutions, nor to schools of philosophy, nor to prominent points of national character; but to those humbler events, to those lesser changes, outward and inward, through which we each, pass between our cradle and our grave. How have we escaped these, or turned them to good account? Have earthly things so ministered to our eternal welfare, that if we were each one of us, by a stroke from heaven, cut off at that very point in our course to which we have severally attained this day, we should be accounted worthy to stand before the Son of Man?

Here is, indeed, a very humble history for us each to study; yet what other history can concern us so nearly? And as, in the history of the world, experience in part supplies the place of prophecy, and the fate of one nation is in a manner a mirror to another, so in our individual history, the experience of the old is a lesson to the middle-aged, and that of the middle-aged a lesson to the young. If you wish to know what are the things which shall come to pass with respect to you, we can draw aside the veil from your coming life, because what you will be is no other than what we are. If we would go onwards, in like manner, and ask what are the things which shall come to pass with respect to us, our coming life may be seen in the past and present life of the old; for what we shall be is no other than what they have been, or than what they are.

Let us take, then, the actual moment with, each of us, and suppose that our Lord speaks to each of us as he did to his first disciples: "Watch and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things which shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man." We ask, naturally, "What are the things which shall come to pass?" and it is to this question that I am to try to suggest the answer.

Those arrived at middle age may ask the question, "What are the things which shall come to pass to us?" Now, setting aside extraordinary accidents, on which we cannot reckon, and the answer would, I think, be something of this sort: There will not come to pass, it is likely, any great change in our condition or employment in life. In middle age our calling, with all the duties which it involves, must generally be fixed for each of us. Our particular kind of trial will not, it is probable, be much altered. We must not, as in youth, fancy that, although our actual occupation does not suit us, although its temptations are often too strong for us, yet a change may take place to another line of duty, and the temptations in that new line may be less formidable. In middle age it will not do to indulge such fond hopes as these. On the contrary, our hope must lie, not in escape, but in victory. If our temptations press us hard, we cannot expect to have them exchanged for others less powerful: they will remain with us, and we must overcome them, or perish. Have we tastes not fully reconciled to our calling,--faculties which seem not to have found their proper field? We must seek our remedy not from without, humanly speaking, but from within: we must discipline ourselves; we must teach our tastes to cling gracefully around that duty to which else they must be helplessly fastened. If any faculties appear not to have found their proper field, we must think that God has, for certain wise reasons, judged it best for us that they should not be exercised; and we must be content to render him the service of others. In this respect, then, the immediate prospect for middle age is not so much change as steadfastness. Fortune will not suit herself to our wishes: we must learn to suit our wishes to her.

But go on a little farther, and what are the things which must come to pass then? A new and most solemn interest arising to us in the entrance of our children into active life. Hitherto they have lived under our care, and our duty to them was simple; but now there comes the choice of a profession, the watching and guiding them, as well as we can, at this critical moment of their course. What cares await us here; and yet what need of avoiding over care! What a trial for us, how we value our children's worldly interests when compared with their eternal--whether we prefer for them the path which may lead most readily to worldly wealth and honour, or that in, which they may best and safest follow Christ! This is a danger which will come to pass to us ere long: do we watch and pray that we may be delivered from it?

The interest of life, which had, perhaps, something begun to fade for ourselves, will revive with vigour at this period in behalf of our children; but after this it will go on steadily ebbing. What life can offer we have tasted for ourselves; we have seen it tasted, or in the way to be tasted, by them. The harvest is gathered, and the symptoms of the fall appear. Is it that some faculty becomes a little impaired, some taste a little dulled; or is it that the friends and companions of our life are beginning to drop away from us? Long since, those whom we loved of the generation before us have been gathered to the grave; now those of our own generation are falling fast also--brothers, sisters, friends of our early youth, a wife, a husband. We are surrounded by a younger generation, to whom the half of our lives, with all their recollections and sympathies, are a thing unknown. Impatience, weariness, a clinging to the past, a vain wish to prolong it in an earthly future,--these are the things which shall befal us then: and they will befal us too surely, and too irresistibly, unless, by earlier watchfulness and prayer, we may have been enabled to avoid them. For vain will it be, with faculties at once weakened by the decay of nature and perverted by long habits of worldliness, to essay, for the first time, to force our way into the kingdom of heaven. Old age is not the season for contest and victory; nor shall we then be so able to escape unharmed from the temptations of life as to stand before the Son of Man.

These are the things which will come to pass for us and for you. But for you there is much more to come, which to us is not future now, but past or present. With you, for a time, it will be all a course forwards and upwards. From the preparation for life, you will come to the reality; from a state of less importance, you will be passing on to one of greater. Your temptations, whatever they may be now, will not certainly become weaker. As outward restraint is more and more taken off from you, so your need of inward restraint will be greater. Will those who are extravagant now on a small scale, be less extravagant on a large scale? Will those who are selfish now, become less selfish amidst a wider field of enjoyment? Will those who know not or care not for Christ, while yet, as it were, standing quietly on the shore, be led to think of him more amidst the excitement of the first setting sail, amidst the interest of the first newly-seen country?

You know not yet, nor can know, the immense importance of that period of life on which many of you are entering, or have just entered. You are coming, or come, to what may be called the second beginning of life: to which, in the common course of things, there will succeed no third. Ignorance, absence of temptation, the presence of all good impressions, constitute much of the innocence of mere childhood,--so beautiful while it lasts, so sure to be soon blighted! It is blighted in the first experience of life, most commonly when a boy first goes to school. Then his mere innocence, which indeed he may be said to have worn rather instinctively than by choice, becomes grievously polluted. Then come the hardness, the coarseness, the intense selfishness; sometimes, too, the falsehood, the cruelty, the folly of the boy: then comes that period, so trying to the faith of parents, when all their early care seems blasted; when the vineyard, which they had fenced so tenderly, seems all despoiled and trodden under foot. It is indeed a discouraging season, the exact image of the ungenial springs of our natural year. But after this there comes, as it were, a second beginning of life, when principle takes the place of innocence. There is a time,--many of you must have arrived at it,--when thought and inquiry awaken; when, out of the mere chaos of boyhood, the elements of the future character of the man begin to appear. Blessed are they for whom the confusion and disarray of their boyish life is quickened into a true life by the moving of the Spirit of God! Blessed are they for whom the beginnings of thought and inquiry are the beginnings also of faith and love; when the new character receives, as it is forming, the Christian seed, and the man is also the Christian. And, then, this second beginning of life, resting on faith and conscious principle, and not on mere passive innocence, stands sure for the middle and the end: those who so watch and pray as to escape out of this critical period, not merely unharmed, but, as it were, set clearly on their way to heaven, will, with God's grace, escape out of the things which shall befal them afterwards, till they shall stand before the Son of Man.

But the word is, "Watch and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape." We see the time with many of you come, or immediately coming; out of your present stateacharacter will certainly be formed; as surely as the innocence of childhood has perished, so surely will the carelessness of boyhood perish too.Acharacter will be formed, whether you watch and pray, or whether you do neither; but the great point is what this character may be. If you do not watch the process, it will surely be the character of death eternal. Thought and inquiry will satisfy themselves very readily with an answer as far as regards spiritual things: their whole vigour will be devoted to the things of this world, to science or to business, or to public matters, all alike hardening rather than softening to the mind, if its thoughts do not go to something higher and deeper still. And as years pass on, we may think on these our favourite or professional subjects more and more earnestly; our views on them may be clearer and sounder, but there comes again nothing like the first free burst of thought in youth; the intellect in later life, if its tone was not rightly taken earlier, becomes narrowed in proportion to its greater vigour; one thing it sees clearly, but it is blind to all beside. It is in youth that the after tone of the mind is happily formed, when that natural burst of thought is sanctified and quickened by God's Spirit, and we set up within us to love and adore, all our days, the one image of the truth of God, our Saviour Jesus. Then, whatever else may befal us afterwards, it rarely happens that our faith will fail; his image, implanted in us, preserves us amid every change; we are counted worthy to escape all the things which may come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.

PROVERBS i. 28.

Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer;they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me.

Christ's gospel gives out the forgiveness of sins; and as this is its very essence, so also in what we read connected with Christ's gospel, the tone of encouragement, of mercy, of loving-kindness to sinners, is ever predominant. What was needed at the beginning of the gospel is no less needed now; we cannot spare one jot or one tittle of this gracious language; now, as ever, the free grace, that most seems to be without the law, does most surely establish the law. But yet there is another language, which is to be found alike in the Old Testament and in the New; a language not indeed so common as the language of mercy, but yet repeated many times; a language which we also need as fully as it was ever needed, and of whose severity we can no more spare one tittle than we can spare anything of the comfort of the other. And yet this language has not, I think, been enforced so often as it should have been. Men have rather shrunk from it, and seemed afraid of it; they have connected it sometimes with certain foolish and presumptuous questions, which we, indeed, do well to turn from; but they have not seen, that with such it has no natural connexion, but belongs to a certain fact in the constitution of our nature, and is most highly moral and practical.

The language to which. I allude is expressed, amongst other passages, by the words of the text. They speak of men's calling upon God, and of his refusing to hear them; of men's seeking God, and not finding him. Remember, at the same time, our Lord's words, "Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find." I purposely put together these opposite passages, because the full character of God's Revelation is thus seen more clearly. Do we doubt that our Lord's words are true, and do we not prize them as some of the most precious which he has left us? We do well to do so; but shall we doubt any more the truth of the words of the text; and shall we not consider them as a warning no less needful than the comfort in the other case? Indeed, as true as it is, that, if we seek God, we shall find him; so true is it that we may seek him, and yet not find him.

Now, then, how to explain this seeming contradiction? We can see at once, that these things are not said of the same persons, or rather of the same characters at the same time. They are said of the same persons: that is, there is no one here assembled who is not concerned with both, and to whom both may not be applicable. Only they are not and cannot be both applicable to the same person at the very same time. If God will be found by us, at any given moment, on our seeking him, it is impossible that, at that same moment, he should also not be found. Thus far is plain to every one.

And now, is it true of us, at this present time, that God will be found by us if we seek him, or that he will not be found? If we say that he will be found, then the words of the text are not applicable to us at present, although at some future time they may be; and then we have that well-known difficulty to encounter, to attempt to draw the mind's attention to a future and only contingent evil. If we say that he will not be found, then of what avail can it be to say any word more? Why sit we in this place, to preach, or to listen to preaching, if God, after all, will not be found? Or, again, should we say that there are some by whom he will not be found, then who are they that are thus horribly marked out from among their brethren? Can we dare to conceive of any one amongst us that he is such an one; that there are some, nay, that there is any one amongst us, to whom it is the same thing whether he will hear, or whether he will forbear; who may close his ears as safely as open them, because God has turned his face from him for ever? It were indeed horrible to suppose that any one of us were in such a state; and happily it is a thought of horror which the truth may allow us to repel.

But what, if I were to say, that now, at this very moment, the words of the text are both applicable to us, and not applicable? Is this a contradiction, and therefore impossible? Or is it but a seeming contradiction only, and not only possible, but true? Let us see how the case appears to be.

We should allow, I suppose, that the words of the text were at no time in any man's earthly life so true as they will be at the day of judgment. The hardest heart, the most obdurate in sin, the most closed against all repentance, is yet more within the reach of grace, we should imagine, whilst he is alive and in health, than he will be at the day of the resurrection. We can admit, then, that the words of the text may be true, in a greater or less degree; that they will be more entirely true at the last day, than at any earlier period, but yet that they may be substantially true, true almost beyond exception, in the life that now is. Now carry this same principle a little farther, and we come to our very own case. The words of the text will be more true at the day of judgment, than they ever are on earth; and yet on earth they are often true substantially and practically. And even so, they may be more true to each of us a few years hence, than they are at this moment; and yet, in a certain degree, they may be true at this moment; true, not absolutely and entirely, but partially; so true as to give a most solemn earnest, if we are not warned in time, of their more entire truth hereafter,--first, in this earthly life; then most perfectly of all, when we shall arise at the last day.

It may be, then, that the words of the text, although not applicable to us in their full and most fatal sense, may yet be applicable to us in a certain degree: the evil which they speak of may be, not wholly future and contingent, and a thing to be feared, but present in part, actual, and a matter of experience. This is not contradiction: it is not impossible; itmay beour case. Let us see whether it really is so, that is, whether it is in any degree true of us, that when we call upon God he will not answer; that when we seek him, we shall in any manner be unable to find him.

It is manifest that, in proportion as Christ's words "Seek, and ye shall find," are true to any man, so are the words of the text less true to him; and in proportion as Christ's words are less true to any one, so are the words of the text more true to him. Now, is Christ's promise, "Seek, and ye shall find," equally true to all of us? Conceive of one--the thing is rare, but not impossible,--of one who had been so kept from evil, and so happily led forward in good, that when arrived at boyhood, his soul had scarcely more stain upon it than when it was first fully cleansed, and forgiven, in baptism! Conceive him speaking truth, without any effort, on all occasions; not greedy, not proud, not violent, not selfish, not feeling conscious that he was living a life of sin, and therefore glad to come to God, rather than shrinking away from him! Conceive how completely to such an one would Christ's words be fulfilled, "Seek, and ye shall find!" When would his prayers be unblessed or unfruitful? When would he turn his thoughts to God without feeling pleasure in doing so; without a lively consciousness of God's love to him; without an assured sense of the reality of things not seen, of redemption and grace and glory? Would not the communion with God, enjoyed by one so untainted, come up to the full measure of those high promises, "It shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear?" Would it not be plain, that God was as truly found, by such a person, as he was sought in sincerity and earnestness?

But now, take the most of us: suppose us not to have been kept carefully from evil, nor led on steadily in good; suppose us to have reached boyhood with bad dispositions, ready for the first temptation, with habits of good uncultivated; suppose us to have no great horror of a lie, when it can serve our turn; with much love of pleasure, and little love of our duty; with much, selfishness, and little or no thought of God: suppose such an one, so sadly altered from a state of baptismal purity, to be saying his prayers as he had been taught to say them, and saying them sometimes with a thought of their meaning and a wish that God would hear them. But does God hear them? I ask of your own consciences, whether you have had any sense that he has heard you? whether death and judgment, Christ and Christ's service, have become more real to you after such prayers? If not, then is it not manifest, that you have sought God, and have not found him; that you have called upon him and he has not heard? You know by experience, that you are not as those true children who are ever with him, who listen to catch the lightest whisper of his Spirit, for whom, he, too, vouchsafes to bless the faintest breathing of their prayer.

Or, again, in trying to turn from evil to good, have you ever found your resolutions give way, the ground which you had gained slide from under your feet, till you fell back again to what you were at the beginning? Has this ever happened to us? If it has, then in that case, also, we sought God, but failed to find him; the victory was not yours, but the enemy's; the Spirit of Christ did not help you so as to conquer.

Take another case yet again. Has it ever happened to any of you, to have done a mischief to yourselves which you could not undo? It need not be one of the very highest kind; but has it ever happened, that, by neglect, you have lost ground in the society in which you are placed, which you cannot recover; that your contemporaries have gained an advance upon you, while you have not time left to overtake them? Does it ever happen that, from neglecting some particular element of learning in its proper season, and other things claiming your attention afterwards, you go on with a disadvantage, which you would fain remove, but cannot? Does it, in short, ever happen to any, that his complete success here is become impossible; that whatever prospects of another kind may be open to him elsewhere, yet that he cannot now be numbered amongst those who have turned the particular advantages here afforded them to that end which they might and ought to have done?

To whomsoever this has happened, the truth of the words of the text is matter of experience, not in their full and most dreadful extent, but yet quite enough to prove that they are true; and that just as he now feels them in part, so, if he continues to be what he is, he will one day feel them wholly. He feels that it is possible to seek God, and not to find him; he has learnt by experience that neglected good, or committed evil, may be beyond the power of after-regret to undo. It is true, that as yet, to him, other prospects may be open: prospects which, probably, he may deem no less fair than those which he has forfeited. This may be so; but the point to observe is, that one prospect was lost so irretrievably by his own fault, that afterwards, when he wished to regain it, he could not. Now God gives him other prospects, which he may realize: but as he forfeited his first prospect beyond recovery, so he may do also with his last: and though ill-success at school may be made up by success in another sphere, yet what is to make up for ill-success in the great business of life, when that, too, has been forfeited as irrecoverably; when his last chance is gone as hopelessly as his first?

Now, surely there is in all this an intelligible lesson. I am not at all exaggerating the importance of the particular prospect forfeited here: but I am pressing upon you, that this prospect may be, and often is, forfeited irrecoverably; that when you wish to regain it, it is too late, and you cannot. And I press this, because it is a true type of the whole of human life; because it is just as possible to forfeit salvation irrecoverably, as to forfeit that earthly good which is the prize of well-doing here, with this infinite difference, that the last forfeit is not only irretrievable, but fatal; it can no more be made up for, than it can be regained. Here, then, your present condition is a type of the complete truth of the text: but there are other points, to which I alluded before, in which it is more than a type; it is the very truth itself, although, happily, only in an imperfect measure. That unanswered prayer, of which I spoke, those broken resolutions,--are they not actually a calling on God, without his hearing us; a seeking him, without finding him? We remember who it was that could say with truth to his Father, "I know that thou nearest me always." We know what it is that hinders God from hearing us always; because we are not thoroughly one in his Son Christ Jesus. But this unanswered prayer is not properly the State of Christ's redeemed: it is an enemy that hath brought us to this; the same enemy who will, in time, make all our prayers to be unanswered, as some are now; who will cause God, not only to be slow to listen, but to refuse to listen for ever. Now we are not heard at once, we must repeat our prayers, with more and more earnestness, that God, at last, may hear, and may bless us. But if, instead of repeating them the more, we do the very contrary, and repeat them the less; if, because we have no comfort, and no seeming good from them, we give them up altogether; then the time will surely come when all prayer will be but the hopeless prayer of Esau, because it will be only the prayer of fear; because it will be only the dread of destruction that will, or can, move us:--the love of good will have gone beyond recall. Such prayer does but ask for pardon without repentance; and this never is, or can be, granted.

So then, in conclusion, that very feeling of coldness, and unwillingness to pray, because we have often prayed in vain, is surely working in us that perfect death, which is the full truth of the words of the text. Of all of us, those who the least like to pray, who have prayed with the least benefit, have the most need to pray again. If they have sought God, without finding him, let them take heed that this be not their case for ever; that the truth, of which the seed is even now in them, may not be ripened to their everlasting destruction, when all their seeking, and all their prayer, will be as rejected by God, as, in part, it has been already.

MARK xii. 34.

Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.

Whoever has gone up any hill of more than common height, may remember the very different impression which the self-same point, whether bush, or stone, or cliff, has made upon him as he viewed it from below and from above. In going up it seemed so high, that we fancied, if we were once arrived at it, we should be at the summit of our ascent; while, when we had got beyond it, and looked down upon it, it seemed almost sunk to the level of the common plain; and we wondered that it could ever have appeared high to us.

What happens with any natural object according to the different points from which we view it, happens also to any particular stage of advancement in our moral characters. There is a goodness which appears very exalted or very ordinary, according as it is much above or much below our own level. And this is the case with the expression of our Lord in the text, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." Does this seem a great thing or a little thing to be said to us? Does it give us a notion of a height which we should think it happiness to have readied; or of a state so little advanced, that it would be misery to be forced to go back to it? For, according as it seems to us the one or the other, so we may judge of the greater or less progress which we have made in ascending the holy mountain of our God.

But while I say this, it is necessary to distinguish between two several senses, in which we may be said to be near to the kingdom of God, or actually in it. These two are in respect of knowledge, and in respect of feeling and practice. And our Lord's words seem to refer particularly to knowledge. The scribe to whom he used them, had expressed so just a sense of the true way of pleasing God, had so risen above the common false notions of his age and country, that his understanding seemed to be ripe for the truths of that kingdom of God, which was to make the worship of God to consist in spirit and in truth. Now as far as the knowledge of the kingdom of God is concerned, although, undoubtedly, there are many amongst us who are deficient in it, yet it is true also, that a great many of us are in possession of it; we are familiar enough with the truths of the kingdom of God, and our understandings fully approve them. But we may be near to or far from the kingdom of God, in respect also of feeling and practice; and this is the great matter that concerns us. It is here, then, that we should ask ourselves what we think of our Lord's words in the text; and whether he to whom they were spoken appears to us an object of envy or of compassion; one whom we envy for having advanced so far, or pity for not being advanced further.

"Not far from the kingdom of God." Again, if we take the words Kingdom of God in their highest sense, then the expression contains all that we could desire to have said of us in this life; hope itself on this side of the grave can go no higher. For as, in this sense, the kingdom of God cannot be actually entered before our death; so the best thing that can be said of us here, is, that we are not far from it; but we are in the land of Beulah, so happily imagined in the Pilgrim's Progress; all of our pilgrimage completed, save the last act of crossing the river; with the city of God full in sight, and with hearts ready to enter into it. In this sense, even St. Paul himself, when he wrote his last epistle from Rome, could say no more, could hope for, could desire no more, than to be not far from the kingdom of God.

Yet again, take the words "Kingdom of God" in their lowest sense, and then it is woe to us all, if the expression in the text is all that can be said of us; if, in this sense, we are only not far from the kingdom of God. For take the kingdom of God as God's visible Church, and then, if we are not Christians at all, but only not far from becoming so; if we have not received Christ, but are not far from receiving him; this is a state so imperfect, that he who is in it, has not yet reached to the beginning of his Christian course; and we need not say how far he must be from its end, if he have not yet come as far as its beginning.

Thus, in one sense, the words express something so high that nothing can be higher; in another, something so low, that, to us, nothing can be lower. We have yet to seek that sense, in which they may afford us a useful criterion of our own several states, by appearing high, perhaps, to some of us, and to others low.

The sense which we seek is given by our Lord, when he declares that the kingdom of God is within us; or by St. Paul, when he tells us, that it is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. And now it is no more a thing which we cannot yet have reached, or, on the other hand, which we all have reached: there is now a great difference in us, some are far from it, some are near it, and some are in it; and thus it is, that they who are near it, seem in it to those who are afar off, and far from it to those who are in it.

Now, first, do they seem far from it? Then, indeed, ours is a happy state, as many of us as can truly feel that they live so constantly in holy and heavenly tempers, in such lively faith and love, so tasting all the blessings of God's kingdom, its peace, and its hope, and its joy, that they cannot bear to think of that time, when these blessings were not enjoyed except in prospect; when they rather desired to have faith and love, than could be said actually to have them; when their tempers were not holy and heavenly, although they were fully alive to the excellence of their being so, and had seen them already cleansed from the opposites of such a state, from ill-nature, and passion, and pride.

If any such there be, in whom good resolutions have long since ripened into good actions, and the continued good actions have now led to confirmed good habits, how miserable will they think it to be only "not far from the kingdom of God!" How ill could they bear to go over again the struggle which used to accompany every action, when it was done in defiance of habits of evil; or to be called back to that condition when resolutions for good were formed over and over again, because they were so often broken, but had as yet rarely led to any solid fruit! How thankful will they be to have escaped from that season when they were seeking, but had not yet found; when they were asking of God, but had not yet received; when they were knocking, but the door had not yet been opened! They were then, indeed, not far from the kingdom of God, but they were still without its walls; they were still strangers, and not citizens. It had held out to them a refuge, and they had fled to it as suppliants to the sanctuary; but they had not yet had the word of peace spoken, to bid them no more kneel without, as suppliants, but to enter and go in and out freely; for that all things were theirs, because they were Christ's.

I have dwelt purposely somewhat the longer upon this, because the more that we can feel the truth of this picture, the more that we can put ourselves into the position of those who are within the kingdom of God, and who, living in the light of it, look back with pity upon those who are only kneeling without its gates,--the more strongly we shall feel what must be our condition, if those who are without its gates appear to us to be objects of envy rather than pity, because they are so near to that place from which we feel ourselves to be so distant. Or, to speak without a figure, if we could but understand how persons advanced in goodness would shrink from the thought of being now only resolving to be good, then we shall perceive how very evil must be our condition, if this very resolving to be good seems to us to be an advance so desirable; if we are so far from being good actually, that the very setting ourselves in earnest to seek for good strikes us as a point of absolute proficiency in comparison of our present degradation.

Yet is not this the case with many of us? Do we not consider it a great point gained, if we can be brought to think seriously, to pray in earnest, to read the Bible, to begin to look to our own ways and lives? We feel it for ourselves, and others also feel it for us: it is natural, it is unavoidable, that we feel great joy, that we think a great deal is done, if we see any of you, after leading a life of manifest carelessness, and therefore of manifest sin, beginning to take more pains with himself, and so becoming what is called somewhat more steady and more serious. I know that the impression is apt to be too strong upon us: we are but too apt to boast for him who putteth on his armour as for him who putteth it off; because he who putteth on his armour at least shows that he is preparing for the battle, which so many never do at all. We observe some of these signs of seriousness: we see perhaps, that a person begins to attend at the Communion; that he pays more attention to his ordinary duties; that he becomes more regular. We see this, and we are not only thankful for it,--this we ought to be,--but we satisfy ourselves too readily that all is done: we reckon a person, somewhat too hastily, to be already belonging to the kingdom of God, because we have seen him turning towards it. Then, if he afterwards does not appear to be entered into it; if we see that he is not what we expected, that he is no longer serious, no longer attentive to his common duties, we are overmuch disappointed; and, perhaps are tempted too completely to despair for him. Is it not that we confounded together the beginning and the end; the being good, and the trying to become so: the resolution with the act; the act with the habit? Did we not forget that he is not at once out of danger who begins to mend: that the first softening of the dry burning skin, the first abating of the hard quick pulse, is far removed from the coolness, and steadiness, and even vigour of health restored, or never interrupted?

But what made us forget truths so obvious? What made us confound things so different that the most ignorant ought to be able to distinguish them? Cannot we tell why it is? Is it not because there are so many in whom we cannot see even as good signs as these,--of whom we cannot but feel that it would be a great advance for them, a matter of earnest thankfulness, if we could only see that they were not far from the kingdom of God,--nay, even that their steps were tending thither? Let us look ever so earnestly, let us watch ever so carefully, let us hope ever so charitably, we cannot see, we can scarcely fancy that we see, even the desire to turn to God. We do not see gross wickedness; it is well; we see much that is amiable; that is well also: but the desire to turn to God, the tending of the steps towards the kingdom of heaven,--that we cannot see. But this is a thing, it may be said, that man cannot see: it may exist, although we cannot perceive it. Oh, that it might and may be so! Yet, surely, as out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, so a principle so mighty as the desire of turning to God cannot leave itself without a witness: some symptoms must be shown to those who are eagerly watching for them; some ground for hope must be afforded where hope is so ready to kindle. If no sign of life appears, can the life indeed be stirring? And if the life be not stirring; if the disorder is going on in so many cases, raging, with no symptom of abatement; is it not natural, that when we do see such symptoms, we should rejoice even with over-measure, that we should forget how much is yet to be done, when we see that something has been done.

To such persons, it would be an enviable state, to be not far from the kingdom of God. But what, then, must be their state actually? A hopeful one, according to many standards of judgment; a state that promises well, it may be, for a healthy and prosperous life, with many friends, perhaps with much distinction. We know that all this prospect may be blighted; still it exists at present;--the healthy constitution, the easy fortune, the cheerful and good-humoured temper, the quickness and power of understanding; all these, no doubt, are hopeful signs for a period of forty, or fifty, or perhaps sixty years to come. But what is to come then? what is the prospect for the next period, not of fifty, or sixty, not of a hundred, not of a thousand, years; not of any number that can be numbered, but of time everlasting? Is their actual state one of hopeful promise for this period, for this life which no death shall terminate? Nay, is it a state of any promise at all, of any chance at all? Suppose, for a moment, one with a crippled body, full of the seeds of hereditary disease, poor, friendless, irritable in temper, low in understanding; suppose such an one just entering upon youth, and ask yourselves, for what would you consent that his prospects should be yours? What should you think would be your chance of happiness in life, if you were beginning in such a condition? Yet, I tell you that poor, diseased, irritable, friendless cripple has a far better prospect of passing his fifty, or sixty, years, tolerably, than they who have not begun to turn towards God have of a tolerable eternity. Much more wretched is the promise of their life; much more justly should we be tempted, concerning them, to breathe that fearful thought, that it were good for them if they had never been born. And now if, as by miracle, that cripple's limbs were to be at once made sound, if the seeds of disease were to vanish, if some large fortune were left him, if his temper sweetened, and his mind became vigorous, should not we be excused, considering what he had been and what he now was, if we, for a moment, forgot the uncertainty of the future; if we thought that a promise so changed, was almost equivalent to performance? And may not this same excuse be urged for some over-fondness of confidence for their well-doing whom we see so near to the kingdom of God, when we consider how utter is the misery, how hopeless the condition of those who do not appear to have, as yet, stirred one single step towards it?

MATTHEW xxii. 14.

For many are called, but few are chosen.

The truth here expressed is one of the most solemn in the world, and would be one of the most overwhelming to us, if habit had not, in a manner, blunted our painful perception of it. There is contained in it matter of thought more than we could exhaust, and deeper than we could ever fathom. But on this I will not attempt to enter. I will rather take that view of the text which concerns us here; I will see in how many senses it is true, and with what feeling we should regard it.

"Many are called, but few are chosen." The direct application of this was to the parable of those invited to the supper; in which it had been related, how a great multitude had been invited, but how one among them--and the application as well as the fact in human life, require that thisoneshould be taken only as a specimen of a great number--had been found unworthy to enjoy the feast prepared for them. They had not on the wedding garment; they had not done their part to fit themselves for the offered blessing: therefore they were called, but not chosen. God had willed to do them good, but they would not; and therefore, though he had called them at the beginning, he, in the end, cast them out.

We have to do, then, not with an arbitrary call and an arbitrary choice, as if God called many in mockery, meaning to choose out of them only a few, and making his choice independently of any exertion of theirs. The picture is very different; it is a gracious call to us all, to come and receive the blessing; it is a reluctant casting out the greatest part of us, because we would not try to render ourselves fit for it.

I said, that we would take the words of the text in reference to ourselves, for here, too, it is true, that many are called, but few are chosen. It is a large number of you, which I see before me; and if we add to it all those who, within my memory, have sat in the same places before you, we shall have a number very considerable indeed. All these have been called; they have been sent here to enjoy the same advantages with each other; and those advantages have been put within their reach. They have entered into a great society which, on the one hand, might raise them forward, or, on the other, depress them. There has been a sufficient field for emulation: there have been examples and instructions for good; there have been results of credit and of real improvement made attainable to them, which might have lasted all their lives long. To this, they have been all, in their turns, called; and out of those so called, have all, or nearly all, been chosen? I am not speaking of those, who, I trust, would be a very small number, to whom the trial has failed utterly, who could look back on their stay here with no feelings but those of shame. But would there not be a very large number, to whom their stay here has been a loss, compared with what it might have been; who have reaped but a very small part of those advantages to which they had been at first called? Are there not too many who must look back on a part, at least, of their time here as wasted; on the seeds of bad habits sown, which, if conquered by after-care, yet, for a long time, were injurious to them? Are there not too many who carry away from here, instead of good notions, to be ripened and improved, evil notions, to be weeded out and destroyed? Are there not, in short, a great number who, after having had a great advantage put within their reach, and purchased for them by their friends, at a great expense, have made such insufficient use of their opportunities, to say nothing stronger, as to make it a question afterwards, whether it might not have been better for them had they never come here at all?

Thus far I have been speaking of what are called the advantages of this place in our common language. That argument, which Butler has so nobly handled, in one of the greatest works in our language, the resemblance, namely, between the course of things earthly and that of things spiritual, is one which we should never fail to notice. We can discern the type, as it were, of the highest truth of our Lord's sayings in the experience of our common life in worldly things. When he tells us, speaking of things spiritual, that "many are called, but few are chosen;" that "whoso hath, to him shall be given; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath,"--although the highest truth contained in these words be yet, in part, matter of faith, for we have not yet seen the end of God's dealings with us: yet what we do see, the evident truth of the words, that is, in respect to God's dealings with us in the course of his earthly providence, may reasonably assure us of their truth no less in respect to those dealings of God which as yet are future. I began, therefore, with reminding you of the truth of the words of the text with regard to worldly advantages; that even here, on this small scale, the general law holds good; that more things are provided for us than we will consent to use; that, in short, "many are called, but few are chosen."

But it were ill done to limit our view to this: we are called to much more than worldly advantages; and what if here, too, we add one more example to confirm our Lord's words, that "many are called, but few chosen?" Now here, as I said, it is very true that God's choice is as yet not a matter of sight or of certainty to us; we cannot yet say of ourselves, or of any other set of living men, that "few are chosen." But though the full truth is not yet revealed, still, as there is a type of it in our worldly experience, so there is also a higher type, an earnest, of it in our spiritual experience: there is a sense, and that a very true and a very important one, in which we can say already, say now, actually, in the life that now is; say, even in the early stage of it, that some are, and some are not, "chosen."

We have all been called, in a Christian sense, inasmuch as we have been all introduced into Christ's church by Baptism; and a very large proportion of us have been called again, many of us not very long since, at our Confirmation. We have been thus called to enter into Christ's kingdom: we have been called to lead a life of holiness and happiness from this time forth even for ever. Nothing can be stronger than the language in which the Scripture speaks of the nature of our high calling: "All things," says St. Paul to the Corinthians, "all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Peter, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours; and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." Now, if this be the prize to which we are called, who are they who are also chosen to it? In the first and most complete sense, no doubt, those who have entered into their rest; who are in no more danger, however slight; with whom the struggle is altogether past, and the victory securely won. These are entered within the veil, whither we can as yet penetrate only in hope. But hope, in its highest degree, differs little from assurance; and even, as we descend lower and lower, still, where hope is clearly predominant, there is, if not assurance, yet a great encouragement; and the Scripture, which delights to carry encouragement to the highest pitch to those who are following God, allows of our saying of even these that they are God's chosen. It gives them, as it were, the title beforehand, to make them feel how doubly miserable it must be not only not to obtain it, but to forfeit it after it had been already ours. So then, there are senses in which we may say that some are chosen now; although, strictly speaking, the term can by us be applied, in its full sense, to those only who are passed beyond the reach of evil.

Those, then, we may call chosen, who, having heard their call, have turned to obey it, and have gone on following it. Those we may call chosen,--I do not say chosen irrevocably, but chosen now; chosen so that we may be very thankful to God on their behalf, and they thankful for themselves,--who, since their Confirmation, or since a period more remote, have kept God before their face, and tried to do His will. Those are, in the same way, chosen, who having found in themselves the sin which did most easily beset them, have struggled with it, and wholly, or in a great measure, have overcome it. Thus, they are chosen, who, having lived either in the frequent practice of selfish, extravagance, or of falsehood, or of idleness, or of excess in eating and drinking, have turned away from these things, and, for Christ's sake, have renounced them. They are chosen, I think, in yet a higher sense, who, having found their besetting sin to be, not so much any one particular fault, as a general ungodly carelessness, a lightness which for ever hindered them from serving God, have struggled with this most fatal enemy; and, even in youth, and health, and happiness, have learnt what it is to be sober-minded, what it is to think. Now, such as these have, in a manner, entered into their inheritance; they are not merely called, but chosen. God and spiritual things are not mere names to them, they are a reality. Such persons have tasted of the promises; they have known the pleasure--and what pleasure is comparable to it?--of feeling the bonds of evil passion or evil habit unwound from about their spirit; they have learnt what is that glorious liberty of being able to abstain from the things which we condemn, to do the things which we approve. They have felt true sense of power succeed to that of weakness. It is a delightful thing, after a long illness, after long helplessness, when our legs have been unable to support our weight, when our arms could lift nothing, our hands grasp nothing, when it was an effort to raise our head from the pillow, and it tired us even to speak in a whisper,--it is a delightful thing to feel every member restored to its proper strength; to find that exercise of limb, of voice, of body, which had been so long a pain, become now a source of perpetual pleasure. This is delightful; it pays for many an hour of previous weakness. But it is infinitely more delightful to feel the change from weakness to strength in our souls; to feel the languor of selfishness changed for the vigour of benevolence; to feel thought, hope, faith, love, which before were lying, as it were, in helplessness, now bounding in vigorous activity; to find the soul, which had been so long stretched as upon the sick bed of this earth, now able to stand upright, and looking and moving steadily towards heaven.

These are chosen; and they to whom this description does in no degree apply, they are not chosen. They are not chosen in any sense, they are called only. And, now, what is the proportion between the one and the other; are there as many chosen as there have been many called? Or do Christ's words apply in our case no less than in others; that though they who are called are many, yet they who are chosen are few?

This I dare not answer; there is a good as well as an evil which is unseen to the world at large, unseen even by all but those who watch us most nearly and most narrowly. All we can say is, that there are too many, who we must fear are not chosen; there are too few, of whom we can feel sure that they are. Yet hope is a wiser feeling than its opposite; it were as wrong as it would be miserable to abandon it. How gladly would we hope the best things of all those whom we saw this morning at Christ's holy table! How gladly would we believe of all such, that they were more than called merely; that they had listened to the call: that they had obeyed it; that they had already gained some Christian victories; that they were, in some sense, not called only, but chosen. But this we may say; that hope which we so long to entertain, that hope too happy to be at once indulged in, you may authorize us to feel it; you may convert it into confidence. Do you ask how? By going on steadily in good, by advancing from good to better, by not letting impressions fade with time. Now, with many of you, your confirmation is little more than three months distant; when we next meet at Christ's table, it will have passed by nearly half-a-year. It may be, that, in that added interval, it will have lost much of its force; that, from various causes, evil may have abounded in you more than good; that then shame, or a willing surrender of yourselves to carelessness, will keep away from Christ's Communion, many who have this day joined in it. But, if this were not to be so; if those, whom we have seen with joy this day communicating with us in the pledges of Christian fellowship, should continue to do so steadily; if, in the meantime, traits shall appear in you in other things that our hope was well founded; if the hatred of evil and the love of good were to be clearly manifest in you; if by signs not to be mistaken by those who watch earnestly for them, we might be assured that your part was taken, that you were striving with us in that service of our common Master, in which we would fain live and die; if evil was clearly lessened among us--not laughed at, but discouraged and put down; if instead of those turning away, who have now been with us at Christ's table, others, who have now turned away, should then be added to the number; then we should say, not doubtingly, that you were chosen: that you had tasted of the good things of Christ; that the good work of God was clearly begun in you. We might not, indeed, be without care, either for you or for ourselves: God forbid, that, in that sense, any of us should deem that we were chosen, until the grave has put us beyond temptation. But how happy were it to think of you as Christ's chosen, in that sense which should be a constant encouragement to us all: to think of you as going on towards God; to think of you as living to him daily; to think of you as on his side against all his enemies; to think of you as led by his Spirit, as living members of his holy and glorious Church,--militant now, in heaven triumphant!

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