the cause of true religion be strengthened, and the beauty of holiness be set forth! How would the devout unanimity of Christians silence the blasphemers, confound the cavillers, awaken the careless, shame the profligate! How great, on the other hand, must be the inconsistency of Christians, in this respect, bring discredit on its profession, and encourage its adversaries to press forward their designs! But if it be thus apparent that the assembling of ourselves together is a duty which we owe to the honour of God and the cause of Christ's Gospel, it is not less evident that we are also bound to it by a regard to the Christian welfare of our brethren. Indeed, the two objects are so connected with each other, that the one may be regarded as the end to be sought for, and the other the means by which it is to be attained. God is glorified first in the sanctification, and then in the salvation of sinners: and it is because men are thereby brought within the verge of divine instruction, and the gracious influences of the Spirit, and of closer communion with the Saviour, that we speak of our religious assemblies as contributing to the glory of God. The Apostle having set forth the universal efficacy of Christ's death, to the redemption both of the Jew and the Gentile who should call on his name, says of the latter, "How shall they call on him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?" This gradual ascent from the spiritual necessities of the people to the authoritative commission of the teachers, applies to every age of the Church. It is to the institution of public assemblies for the common worship of God, and for the instruction of his people, without which the commission of his ministers would be a dead letter, we are to ascribe, under the influence of his grace more especially promised in such instances, that his Name is hallowed, his Word understood and remembered, his Sacraments sought for and received, and, consequently, religious knowledge and religious feeling diffused throughout the community at large. Unless the great truths of religion are not merely set before mankind, but forced on their notice, they will be disregarded; for there is an apathy, and incuriousness, in the great mass of mankind, even respecting the things which are of infinite concernment to them, which requires to be excited from without: they must be invited, exhorted, admonished, rebuked, by those who have authority to do so. The servants of the Lord must go forth into the high ways and hedges of the world, and compel those who are loitering there to come in. Over the doors of every one of the Lord's houses, wherein his word is faithfully preached, is written, in characters of light, unseen by the carnalminded man, but discernible to the inquiring eye of teachable humility, "Whosoever is athirst, let him come; and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely." The observance of the Sabbath, and the setting apart of times and places to the offices of religion, are mementos which prevent religion itself from going into decay and oblivion in the ministering of those who are appointed to feed the Church of God, or the means by which the Bible itself is rendered available to the ends it was intended to answer. And it is at those times, and in those places, and by those ministrations, that the promised aid of the Spirit may be sought for with the assurance of obtaining it. The Spirit has been promised to the Church of Christ, an abiding and a sanctifying Spirit, even to the end. It is by his aid and power that each individual member of that Church must realize the privileges of the Gospel, and apply to himself in particular the benefits which Christ has purchased for mankind at large without it, not a step can be taken in the path of righteousness. We may bear the name of Christ, our foreheads may have been sealed with his cross at baptism, we may have all the outward badges, all the tokens of discipleship; but if we have not the Spirit of Christ we are none of his. The capacity of having such a portion of it which makes it possible for us to ask for and obtain more, is imparted to us at baptism; that power of asking, and obtaining, and improving, is the great privilege of discipleship-the great instrument of the benefits we derive from being translated from a state of nature into one of grace. But then the Spirit of God ordinarily works by the instrumentality of man, and he must be resorted to in the use of them: he was known to mankind, to all the world, first by giving the volume of inspiration ; then by enlightening their minds to the discernment of its meaning, by the ministry of instituted teachers, by the sacraments, by all the means of grace, and all the methods of education. It becomes, therefore, the sacred duty of every Christian community, to take care that the Lord's people shall not lack opportunity of profiting by those means; that they shall have places and times for the public worship of God, and for the ministration of those ordinances to which the promise of the Spirit is annexed. This is the best method we can adopt for preserving our poorer brethren, not only in the unity of the Church, but in the bond of peace, and in quietness of life, and in habits of sobriety and industry, and in obedience to the laws. What, then, is the inference which I would persuade you to draw from these considerations, with reference to the object of this discourse? Is it not too obvious to need explanation? Does any one who now hears me, believe that this country can be saved from the dangers which threaten its peace and security, by any other means whatever than that of a great moral regeneration, or that such a regeneration can be wrought by any other instrumentality than that of religion? Is it not a false and delusive empyricism, which holds out to us for the evils that afflict, any other panacea than Christianity? Is there any radical cure for pauperism, any infallible antidote against listlessness and insecurity, any specific remedy for intemperance and dishonesty, but the Gospel? Will any thing, think you, short of vital religion, neutralize the malignity of those elements which have long been fermenting in the depths below, and are now heaving the surface, and may at any moment explode beneath our feet? Government may legislate, the arm of justice may be bared, the sword of vengeance may be unsheathed-nay, more, associated charity may exhaust her energies and resources; but, after all, it is upon the faithfulness, the zeal, and the diligence of the ministers of religion, and upon the Spirit of God blessing their righteous efforts, that you must depend for ultimate security. And, if we mistake not, the time is not far distant, when Christianity, not perhaps without a tremendous conflict, shall vindicate its own supremacy, and authority, as the true foundation and cementing principle of government and social order. "It is our conscious belief," says one of the most profound and eloquent of modern writers-" It is our conscious belief, that our established Church is an indispensable safeguard against the desolating floods of irreligion. Leave us our existing machinery, and provide that right and efficient men be appointed to work it, and the country may still be saved; and humanly speaking, its Christian instructors will be its only saviours. The reformers of our national morality will be the reformers that will do us good: this is the great specific for the people's well-being; and however traduced it may be by VOL. I. 2 G the liberalism of our age, or undervalued in the estimation of inerely secular politicians, it is by the Christianity of our towns and parishes that the country shall stand or fall." But, then, our existing machinery, excellent as it is in itself, is not sufficient to meet the existing demand for its produce. It has not grown with the growth, nor strengthened with the strength, of the rapidly increasing population. Neither has the field been widened, nor the number of shepherds augmented, in any just proportion to the increase of the flock. Something, indeed, was done, in more auspicious times, by the legislature of this Christian country, towards preserving and perpetuating its Christianity, by grants of money for the erection of additional churches. And I would fain be told by those who complain of such an expenditure of the public resources, I would fain be told whether the people at large would have been benefitted in an equal degree, whether vice and profaneness would have been equally checked, morality and virtue equally promoted, the interests of society equally strengthened and advanced in every direction, had the same amount of money been expended on bridges, or tunnels, or jails, or edifices for the attainments of science, or the receptacle of the arts. For what was then done, inadequate as it was to the wants that require it, we are thankful; and our poor brethren, too, in the country ought to rejoice in the reflection, that by such an expenditure nearly three hundred thousand persons enjoy, and will continue for generations to enjoy, the advantages of religious instruction, and the opportunities of common worship, and the means of edification and grace, who were before utterly destitute of it. But for the means of supplying these advantages to the multitudes which are yet unprovided for, we may no longer look to the legislature of this Christian country; we must depend upon the Christian liberality of individuals: and individual liberality has already nearly equalled in its results the benevolence of the state; for it has effected an increase of church accommodation in nine hundred and fifty-nine parishes, and an amount of two hundred and forty thousand additional sittings, of which one hundred and seventy-eight thousand are free, and appropriated only to the use of that class for whom it is the especial duty of the Christian Church to make provision. The Gospel is to be preached to the poor: and yet how utterly inadequate is the provision which it has hitherto been enabled to make, when compared with the breadth and depth of the spiritual destitution that requires it; and how inconsiderable are the sums that have been contributed towards a society, which, in proportion to its numbers, hath wrought a larger amount of unmixed good than any other which claims the support of the Christian public: a society, which I am bold to say has a paramount and sacred ciaim upon the charity of every member of the Church of England, whom Providence has endowed with the means of doing good. “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." If it be said, as sometimes it has been said, "Let the clergy look to it, they are the persons chiefly concerned; let them contribute:" we answer, They have contributed, and they are contributing -I will not say beyond what might be reasonably expected of them, but far beyond their due proportion, as compared with the lay members of our church. But will any one venture to assert, that it is the peculiar concern of the clergy; that it is not his own interest, that it is not every man's interest, as well as the inte est of the clergy, that the country should be religious and moral, that the lan should be Christianized, that it should be peopled with well-instructed, well principled, well ordered members of society, in every class, and especially in the lower orders, overrun and desolated by drunkards, and spendthrifts, and robbers, and incendiaries, and assassins? And will any one deny, that the alternative must depend on the instruction of the people, and that therefore it is the interest of individual societies? for it is the duty of every Christian to do all that can be done to increase the means and opportunities of sound religious teaching to the great mass of the population. And, oh, is it not a sickening thought, is it not a lamentable proof of our inconsistency as a Christian people, that the amount of money collected in this city, in fifteen years, should not exceed one-twentieth of the sum every year paid as the duty upon that poisonous beverage, which is destroying the bodies, and ruining the souls, of so many of our poor brethren? Be not offended, then, if I entreat you, before you determine upon the amount of your contributions this day, to propose to yourselves these questions: "Next to the working out my own salvation (and I thank God for the means and opportunities which his Church affords me for doing that), can any thing be more important than that I should contribute to the salvation of my brethren, and place within their reach the means and appliances which I myself am fortunate enough to possess? Can I in any other way more directly, or more effectually, contribute to the glory of God, to the progress of his Gospel, to the well-being of my country, to its present safety and its future prosperity? And, in the furtherance of this object, so important, so sacred, so dear in the eyes of God, so benevolent co mankind, what have I hitherto contributed? what efforts, what prayers, what portions of my worldly substance? And if on this occasion, which presents a distinct and unquestionable opportunity for setting forward God's glory in the salvation of my brethren, if I withhold that which is in my power to give, in what other way do I intend to evince my regard-on what other object shall I bestow the means I deny to them?" Shall I suggest the answer? By some object of mere secular and transient interest; by some of the pageants, or amusements, or the vanities of that world which we are commanded not to love. Let me add one word, in conclusion, with reference to the Apostle's closing argument: "And so much the more as ye see the day approaching." That "a day" is approaching, of awful interest to the Church of Christ in this nation, nay, that it is already come, no one can doubt who has noted the signs of the times, and watched in their combinations and workings the elements of our civil and religious polity. The conflict between good and evil, which is and ever will be waged, until the Gospel shall have achieved its final triumph, has for sometime past assumed a more determined aspect. That the crisis, which appears to be drawing nigh, will issue in the final exaltation of the true Church, we have an assurance in the recorded promise of Him who has built it on a rock. But surely it is a time for all those who desire to avert the fiery trials by which it must otherwise be purified, to exhort one another as they see the day approaching, to increased degrees of vigilance, of personal holiness, and a greater exemplarity of devotion, and a more decided acknowledgment of the sovereignty of Jehovah, and to larger measures of charity; provoking one another to good works by a combined and vigorous effort in the cause of God and Christ. Such, my brethren, is the solemn call which the Church addresses, through its unworthy minister, to every individual that now hears me. May that Holy Spirit which sanctifies and sustains the Church, dispose you to obey it. 459 THE SOUL AND ITS CAPACITIES. RIGHT REV. J. B. SUMNER, D.D., LORD "BISHOP OF CHESTER*. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul."—Gen. ii. 7. SUCH is the account of that mysterious principle within us which we cal. the soul; that part of our nature, in which resides the power of thinking and desiring, of hoping and fearing, of suffering and enjoying. It is not like the visible and tangible body, which is described as being formed out of the dust of the earth by the plastic hand of the Creator; but it proceeded immediately from God, who breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. And on this account, man is said to have been made in the image of God, after his likeness. It is the soul, and not the body, of man, which bears the image of God. God is a spirit; and the soul is immaterial: God is all-wise, all-good, all-intelligent; and the soul partakes of these properties, is gifted with intellect, and is capable, in a low and humble degree, of that wisdom and goodness which the Almighty possesses in perfection. I propose to direct your attention this morning to this, and to the properties of this, the superior part of our nature. It has an immediate bearing on the subject which we are desirous to promote, the education of children, the nurture of infants in the fear and admonition of the Lord; and it is a subject, which, by God's blessing, may be profitable to all. It tends to shew, that the care of the soul, the spiritual and immortal soul, is the first and great concern. May those who make it so, be strengthened and confirmed; may those who neglect it, be brought to a better mind. First, then, among the properties of the soul, let me consider ITS CAPACITY OF ENJOYMENT, AND ITS CAPACITY OF SUFFERING. I could appeal on this point, to the experience of every one who has lived but a few years in this fallen world: few have done so who cannot bear inward witness of what the soul is capable of suffering. How acute is the sense of disappointed hope. how sad the anticipation of expected evil: how bitter the feeling of desire, long indulged, and still deferred, making the heart sick: how intense are the pangs of sorrow; how intolerable the agony of remorse! The Holy Spirit, who knows what is in the heart of man, has given a fearful description of the misery in those words of Moses, which forewarned the Israelites of the consequences of disobedience: "The Lord shall give thee a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life: in the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou For the Lambeth Infant Schools. |