It will work on

LECT. IV. As the moral sense under spiritual influence becomes purer it perceives a purer idea in the law. Then the purer ideal reacts in turn upon the moral sense, and so on and on increasingly. And thus by-and-by all that is temporary or accidental in God's revealings falls away as no real essential part of His spiritual law. Thus it is that we stand on a different moral level in Christ from what the prophets stood in Moses, and that "the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than even John the Baptist," the greatest of all the prophets. And the Spirit of God will go on to perfec- teaching the meek and true of heart until not a single doctrine which is incompatible with the love, the justice, the righteousness, the Fatherhood of God, will be held as the doctrine of the revelation of Jesus Christ. Nothing in dogma which opposes itself to the true spiritual Christian consciousness will be able to keep its ground. However much in some things we may be confused now, as those in Old Testament days were confused then, yet still, now as then, God's true ideas working through lower forms will victoriously establish themselves in moral perfectness, and those who believe shall be led out of the earthly into that which is heavenly.

tion.

But still
Divine

But for ever and ever, behind all changes of jealousy is ideas and circumstances, the God who is a jealous

LECT. IV.

fact of the

on the

God abides the same in nature as in purpose. "I am Jehovah, I change not." The whole the great sway and drift of human life depends upon the sinful relationship of the human heart to the Invisible world. Holy One. Oh! believe it. Look out upon the world which lies in wickedness; see, it is "like a troubled sea which cannot rest," which cannot be pure, "whose waters cast up mire and dirt," "because there is no peace," saith the jealous God, "to the wicked." Look out upon the empires Its work which once were great and glorious but are now ancient no more, and learn how Divine jealousy deals empires. with the idolatries and infidelities of the human heart, smiting nations with moral corruption until their sins work their ruin. Never will a nation given up to wickedness and worldliness continue in prosperity. She will be tried for a season, and then weighed in the balances of jealousy and judgment. Her light will die out, her influence fail, her power decay. Let England look to herself in this all-important matter. There is idolatry without visible images; the idolatry of money, of pleasure, of intellect, of self in a hundred forms. But however subtle may be its spirit it breeds woe and death, moral taint, and a corrupted manhood. God is a jealous God! Look into yourselves, and learn from the unrest It is the which creeps over you, you know not how or

The warn

ing as to our own country.

secret of

our own inner life.

LECT. IV. why, from the sorrows which afflict you secretly when life is selfish and faith is poor, that God "made thee for Himself, and that thou shalt never have rest 'till thou findest rest in Him." Moral life and blessedness can be sustained neither in nations nor individuals without true faith and worship of the One Holy Jehovah.

The last clause.

A song of hope.

And faith.

Of reason also,

There remains for consideration as the crown of the whole, the last clause of the text, "shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments."

It is like a song of hope. Evil may work as far as the third or the fourth generation, but good shall maintain itself for a thousand, that is, for ever. Do you see it? Evil is for a time only, and shall die, but good is eternal. It shall triumph at the last.

This is the Christian faith-glorious faith—but it is reason too, for it is God who reigns. And look at the course of the world. If you only glance unbelievingly, either superficially or fretfully, you see but a confused, inextricable mass of events, almost a moral chaos, in which evil seems even to have the largest share.

But gaze

Then it

around more widely and attentively.
appears that there is progress. By slow but

and actual steady steps we perceive that the good gains ground, that the light grows brighter. Eighteen

fact.

hundred years ago, to bring it home, England LECT. IV. was a land of barbarians. Through what evils, moral and physical, has she not passed, which at the time of trial would doubtless seem overwhelming; yet to-day, thank God, with all her faults, she holds forth the beacon-light of religion and liberty. And the wide earth over, in spite of wars and pestilences, and abounding evils of every kind, there is a strong current of good which flows on with increasing power. There is a Spirit which broods still upon the face of the waters. The world grows beneath the care which fosters every effort of good, and which responds to every prayer of the true-hearted.

Bible the

same song.

It pro

truth of

The double the Cross.

In the first pages of Genesis man falls from The whole God, and Eden is lost; in the last pages of Revelation the New Jerusalem descends from heaven, and man is redeemed. These are the first and last things of human history. In the centre of it is the cross of Christ. What does it express? A jealousy Divine, a love most holy. claims a jealousy that will not clear the guilty, but the jealousy of a love which can die to redeem. There on the cross is the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world, reconciling it unto God; and there along the shining track of resurrection and ascension light the Captain of our salvation leads many sons unto glory.

LECT. IV.

The
"mercy"
of the
Son of

man in the
Church,
and its
work.

True faith is confident in hope,

and steadfast in work,

This then is the Divine truth which appeals to faith and hope in these words, "shewing mercy unto thousands (of generations) of them that love me and keep my commandments." The good work of the Son of man who loved God perfectly is in the world. It is the heritage of the Church. It lives on in Christian hearts. It is a leaven hid in three measures of meal to work till the whole is leavened.

And we, brethren, never believe in God so truly as when all this is our living, rejoicing faith, as when we are confident that Divine jealousy will work until "He shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied," and God's love be all in all.

Such faith will work with God and Christ. He who believes that every thought of good and every effort of good will go on and on, influencing a thousand generations, right away to the ultimate triumph of holiness over sin, will neither be

chary of his thoughts nor hold back his effort. like Christ. The clearer this truth is to his moral vision the

easier will all needful self-sacrifice become, and like “Him who loved us, and gave Himself for us, that He might purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works," the responsive soul will be able to endure the cross and despise the shame for the joy which the glorified Christ