SERMON X.1

JOHN X. 16.

"And other sheep I have which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one flock, one shepherd."

You heard these memorably beautiful words, my brethren, in this morning's Gospel; and many of you will have detected a slight alteration in my reading of the text; our English version has "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring that they may be all one fold and one shepherd." But the two words rendered "fold" are in the Greek different; what our Lord says is that He, as the one, as the

Preached in Westminster Abbey on April 27th, 1879.

Good Shepherd, must lead His other sheep not of this fold that they may all be one flock, one shepherd. The folds may ever be different; the flock is always to be one. It is

one of the many points in which our English version loses by want of perfect accuracy. That version is as a whole incomparable in its melody and force; it will ever continue to speak to the ear like music, to the heart like a voice that can never be forgotten; but in many points it will gain in perfectness and truth by the revision which it is now receiving, and since it will lose nothing and gain much, we cannot doubt that the forthcoming version will be accepted with the welcome which it deserves.

2. There is an almost inexhaustible depth and wisdom in these words; and it would be well for us, if, instead of our crude theories of a mechanical inspiration-which have been theories fraught in all ages with the pride and intolerance of individuals, with injury to the Church, and with mischief to mankind-it would be well for us, I say, if, instead of this

superstitious exaltation of the letter which killeth, we accustomed ourselves to understand in their full significance-in the spirit which giveth life, were it but a few of those passages which reveal to us the deep things of God. In this verse, for instance, there lies a truth hidden from men for æons, but now revealed. That truth is the great Idea of Humanity -of the whole race of mankind as gathered up into one under the Federal Headship of its Lord.

3. In this meaning the very word Humanity was unknown to the ancient world. In Greek there is nothing corresponding to it; in Latin, Humanitas means kindly nature or "refined culture." The Jew looked on the world as divided into Jews and Gentiles; of which the Jews were the children of the Most Highest, the Gentiles dogs and sinners. The Greeks looked on the world as divided into Greeks and barbarians; of which the Greeks were the lords. of the human race, the barbarians were natural enemies and natural slaves. Jew and Greek

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and barbarian, alike looked on mankind as divided into men and women; of which women were fit only for ignorance and seclusion, as the chattels of man's pleasure and the servants of his caprice. And what was the consequence of these errors? It was that the ancient world was cursed with a triple curse, the curse of slavery, the curse of corruption, the curse of endless wars. What had Christianity to say to this state of things? She taught emphatically and for the first time that there is no favouritism with God; that God is no respecter of persons; that in God's sight all men are equally guilty, all equally redeemed; that each man is exactly so great as he is in God's sight and no greater; that man is to be honoured simply as man, and not for the honours of his station, or the accidents of his birth; that neither the religious privileges of the Jew, nor the intellectual endowments of the Greeks, made them any dearer to God than any other children in His great family of man. Christianity taught us in the words of St. Peter, to honour all

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men; and in the words of St. Paul, that in Christ Jesus there is neither circumcision nor uncircumcision; neither Jew nor Greek; neither male nor female; neither barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ all and in all. these great apostles thus taught, because, in the view of our Lord and Master, mankind were indeed as sheep without a shepherd,-scattered by a thousand wolves, and wandering in the dark and cloudy day,—but He is the Good Shepherd, whose work it was to seek for His lost sheep, and bring them back again into His one flock. In the Jewish temple ran a middle wall of partition, on which were stern inscriptions forbidding any Gentile to set foot within it on pain of death; Jesus came to break down that middle wall; to make God's Temple co-extensive with the universe, and its worshippers with all mankind. The Gospel introduced then into the world a new, a glorious, a beneficent conception the conception of mankind as one great

I 1 Pet. ii. 17.

2 1 Cor. vii. 19; Gal. v. 6, vi. 15; Col. iii. 11.