SERMON XXV.
THE ABIDING PRESENCE OF THE HOLY GHOST, OUR STAY AND OUR COMFORT.

WHITSUNDAY.

HAGGAI ii. 5.

"According to the word that I covenanted with, you when ye came out of Egypt, so My Spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not."

WHEN we look around us, and see how very unlike the appearance of things is to what we read of in Holy Scripture, and in the histories of the first and best times of the Church, it is but natural, according to our human infirmity, that our hearts should at times feel as if they would utterly die down within us; we are tempted to say to ourselves, "Hath God forgotten to be gracious?" Hath He quite "cast away His people?" For instance; what a blessed sight was that which was seen at Jerusalem on the evening of the first Whitsunday, eighteen hundred and thirty years ago! c when three thousand were converted by one sermon of the blessed S. Peter, and being converted, so continued together, so stedfast in the Apostles' doctrine and communion, and in breaking of Bread and prayer, that all men might plainly see they were of one heart and one soul. There was such love of one another among them, that it seemed as if each one counted his property just as much his brethren's as his own. There was such love of God, as brought them daily to the blessed Feast of His Body and Blood: and a very great many of those who were before unbelieving, seeing how those Christians loved God and one another, were moved to come in and give their names to Christ: and so our Lord's directions in the Sermon on the Mount began to be most gloriously and happily fulfilled. His Church's light so shone before men, that they, seeing what good works were wrought therein, gave glory to the heavenly Father and King of the Church by true repentance, conversion and perseverance.

Such was the fair and bright appearance of the city of God, the holy city, new Jerusalem, the mother of us all, on this the first day of her earthly existence, when, by the coming of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, she did. as it were, come down from God out of heaven. And now we are keeping this our mother's birthday after so many hundred years, and it may be with us in some measure, as it is when persons who knew one another in the prime of life meet again in old age; so great is the change and decay that they hardly seem to one another the same persons. So the Christian Body, Christ's mystical Body, the. Church on earth, seems in every part so full of spots, wrinkles, and blemishes, that it is hard for us to discover therein the true tokens of His "dove," His "undefiled," "fair as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners," of whom such glorious things are spoken everywhere in God's book.

When thoughts such as these come over us, like a cloud over the heavenly sunshine of this good and great Day, the first thing we should say to ourselves is, "Let things be ever so bad, sure I am that it is not God's doing, but mine own. The decays and corruptions and divisions of the Church are my fault, and the fault of such as I am, our fault, our own fault, our own most grievous fault." Try always to consider such things with a meek and humble spirit. In no wise let them make you fretful and unbelieving. "Let God be true, but every man a liar." He has told us beforehand that iniquity would abound, and the love of the greater part wax cold, but He has also told us, that no one soul will be lost, except by its own fault: for "he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." Let us pray that the sad falling off, which it is impossible not to see, on comparing things as they are now with the first beginnings of the Church, may make us each one watchful and humble for himself and for those committed to his charge: afraid for himself and for them: compassionate to all, earnestly clinging, by prayer and humble obedience, to the Creed and commandments as he was sworn to them in Baptism: receiving them and all God's will as it really stands in the Word of God, not as the fallen and corrupting world interprets them.

Having so made up our minds, we may go on humbly to take to ourselves the special comfort which Holy Scripture provides for Christians, trying to be faithful in evil times. We are not to doubt, but earnestly to believe, that the backslidings of God's people can never make void His Truth. As He is the same in Himself, Blessed, and Holy, for all our sin and misery, so is He the same to His Church, the faithful God, keeping His covenant of mercy. His promises in the Old and New Testament are not at all blotted out; Holy Baptism and Holy Communion are still His true tokens; in a word, His Spirit is still among us and within us, as on the evening of that great Day of Pentecost, although we, His new Israel, His own elect people, have so often and so long grieved Him by our many transgressions. It is of great consequence that we should be aware of this; otherwise we shall neither be duly thankful to our long-suffering God, nor careful, as we ought, to make the most of His grace.

We are to believe, I say, that God's Spirit continues with us, however fallen and corrupt the times may be. And in this faith we may be greatly encouraged, by opening our Bibles, and looking at the many promises which God gave to His people by His later prophets; I mean, by those whom He sent to instruct them when they had just returned from their captivity and were about building the second temple: such as Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. Very great and grievous had been the sins of Israel: fearfully and sadly had the nation provoked God, profaning the holiest things and practising the most abominable ways, and heavily had the wrath of God fallen upon them; the city and temple desolate, the daily sacrifice taken away, and the chief of the people carried away captive. Compare this with the word which the same people Israel had heard from the Almighty at the beginning, "I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them; I am the Lord their God." Well might it seem, at the time of the captivity, that this promise had utterly failed: but when they began to repent in earnest, God graciously shewed them that He was their God as much as ever: His promise to dwell among them, had not failed; only the tokens of His Presence were obscured for a time. So He assures them distinctly by one of His prophets, at the time when after much discouragement they were beginning to build again the House of the Lord. They had got on some way with their work, and they had a melancholy feeling upon them, that after all it would not be half so beautiful as the old temple which Solomon had builded, and which had been of late destroyed for their sins. "Whosoever was left among them that saw this house in its first glory, when he looked at it now, it was in his eyes in comparison as nothing." That was a sad and discouraging thought: but hear how the Merciful One met it with good words and comfortable words. "Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech the high priest: and be strong all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work: for I am with you, saith the Lord of Hosts: according to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so My Spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not." This, you see, was just what they wanted. God had promised His good Spirit, His peculiar Presence, to be with their fathers in the beginning, and He, as a pillar of fire and cloud of glory had led them on though they rebelled and vexed Him, and had caused them to rest in the land of promise, arid had dwelt with them continually; and now when they had begun to fear lest they should have finally driven Him away by their sins, it was everything to them to be told that He still remained among them, as in former times.

Now compare with this, my brethren, our own condition, and God's dealings with us. God's good word to His people at the first was, "I will dwell among them, and will be their God." Our Lord's new word to His own new people was, "I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you." "I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." But this not in His own Person, but by His own and His Father's Spirit. ail will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever: even the Spirit of Truth:" "He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you:" and so, "if a man keep My words, My Father will love Him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him." This indwelling of the Father and the Son by the Spirit is the promise of the Father, concerning which the disciples heard so much from their Lord. It is the Gift, the free Gift, "the Gift of God," the Gift by Grace, of which our Lord spake to the Samaritan woman, comparing it to living water; and S. Paul to the Romans, shewing how more than complete it is as a cure for all our sin and misery. It is That by which we are members of Christ, children of God, inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. It is Christ in us, "the hope of glory." It is therefore our all in all; our guide in life, and the pledge of our eternal bliss. What a favour, to be chosen out of the world to inherit such a promise! What a shame, what a loss, what an unspeakable misery, being chosen, to forfeit it by our unworthiness!

But now, however it may be with the several sinners who continue impenitent within the enclosure of God's Church; of whom, alas! there are too, too many; certain it is that Christ has promised never to forsake His Church itself, but to continue with those who stand in the place of His Apostles even to the end of the world. And again He saith to the same Church, "As for Me, this is My covenant with them, saith the Lord; My Spirit that is upon thee, and My words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth, and for ever." The tokens of this covenant are, the Bishops of the Church, the Holy Bible, the Creeds of the Church, the Holy Sacraments. Where these are, there is the Gift, there is the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit inwardly and the Church outwardly, and there the blessed word in the book of Revelation is accomplished: "The Spirit and the Bride say, Come:--and let him that is athirst come: and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely."

All these heavenly promises are as fresh now as they were at the beginning, would we but so take it. We, Christians who are now living, are the same people, the same family, with those who heard S. Peter preach, and were converted and baptized on the Day of Pentecost. We are Christ's family, for whom so great things have been done. We have been spiritually born as they were, of water and of the Holy Ghost; bred, as they were, in the one true Faith, taught evermore by the Church out of Holy Scripture. We have the same privileges as they had, if only we had the heart to claim them. Those children, when they stand up to say the catechism, say in effect the same words as Timothy said to S. Paul, when he was catechised by him in his young days. All of us in rehearsing our Creed, are but echoing the same sounds, the same form of sound words, which our forefathers in Christ have been rehearsing, ever since the Apostles were on earth. We have the same dangers and temptations as they had; and, thanks be to God for it, we have the same Saviour to plead for us, the same Holy Spirit to help us, the same hope of everlasting life to encourage and uphold us, the same rules of holy penitence to revive and recover us when we fall. In all these things we are one and the same with the Apostles and their companions, even as we must come to the same death, judgement, and eternity.

Wherefore, as it was said to the Jews returning from Babylon, "My Spirit abideth in you, according to My covenant, fear not:" so it is said to us. We Christians of these latter days are in one sense encouraged not to fear, while yet in another sense we are bidden to fear exceedingly. We are not to fear, as though Christ's Spirit were withdrawn, as though His heavenly mercies and judgements were not surrounding us on every side, far more wonderfully than they encompassed the Jews in the wilderness. We need not fear as though we were out of the Church, but we have the very greatest need to fear lest we prove unworthy of the Church. Observe, my brethren, how it was with those Israelites of the Captivity, to whom it was said, "My Spirit remaineth among you, fear not." They were not living at random, nor taking things easily: they did not say to themselves, "Why should we fear? we are leading as religious lives as our parents did before us, as strict as any of our neighbours." But they were continually about a great work of penitence, repairing the city and temple of the Lord, which lay in ruins on account of their sins. So must we, my brethren, each in his place and station, if we are to be partakers of the comfort given to them. We, each one in his providential place and station, must be working the work of the Lord, His penitential work; building up His spiritual city and temple within us, too nearly, alas! ruined by our many wilful imperfections and sins. We must be busy, really busy, in amending ourselves, our daily and hourly thoughts, words, and actions; and then we need not be too much cast down with fear, lest our old bad ways, or present frailties, should drive the Holy Ghost from us. We may say to ourselves, "It is too true: I have sadly broken my vows, and have sinned wilfully against the Lord. If He were extreme to mark what is done amiss, His Spirit would long ago have departed from me. But He is giving me daily all these signs, that I am still in the Church, that my day of grace is not over. As He bore with Israel of old, as He bore with the murderers of His Son, as in times past He hath borne with me most unworthy, so as yet He is bearing with me: I will not despair, it is not His will that I should perish; He still bids me pray, and encourages me to do my best: and by God's grace I will do my best." By meditations such as these, continually accompanying our prayers, at home and in Church, we shall be encouraged in our daily task of penitence: we shall learn to love God more and more, as we obey Him more and more exactly, and the good Spirit Who came down to be the Comforter of His elect while our Saviour is away, will not forsake us, when He, the same Saviour, shall come again to be our Judge. He will hear on our behalf the prayer of His Church at this season: such a measure of His grace, that we, running the way of His commandments, may obtain His gracious promises and be made partakers of His heavenly treasure. So be it, O Lord, through the same Jesus Christ: To Whom be glory &c.

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