"I believe you, Sir; and I honour the motive which prompts such a devout exclamation."
On passing along Cheapside on our way to the chapel which Mr. Lewellin usually attended, we were astonished at seeing a placard, announcing that the Rev. Mr. Guion was to preach that evening at Bow Church, in behalf of the Church Missionary Society; and at my earnest entreaty, we decided on hearing him. By a statement he made at the commencement of his discourse, we found his appearance in the pulpit was in consequence of the sudden illness of a brother clergyman who stood engaged to preach on the occasion; and this accounted for our not hearing of this London visit when we were with him at Fairmount. Having my note-book in my pocket, and my pencils in good working order, I took down his sermon, and will transcribe from my manuscript a few passages, which, when delivered, made a deep impression on the whole congregation. His text was taken from 1 Tim. iii. 16, "And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." His arguments in confirmation of the divinity of Jesus Christ were few, but popular and conclusive, yet not common-place.
"He was seen of Angels."—"Our knowledge," said the eloquent preacher, "of angels is very superficial; yet we know, they are beings of a superior order—holy, intelligent, powerful, and benevolent. Jesus Christ was seen of them, at his birth, during his temptation in the wilderness, when enduring the agonizing conflict in the garden of Gethsemane, and on the morning of his resurrection; and they came to witness, and to take a ministering part in his ascension, when he went to resume the glory which he had with the Father before the world was. This SEEING him, denotes the intense interest they felt in his personal honour, and in the design of his mission to earth. 'Which things,' says the apostle Peter—that is the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow—'the angels desire to look into.' They pry into and labour to comprehend the grand theory of human redemption; and watch with intense solicitude its practical working in the soul of man. Hence, our Lord says, 'There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.' Yes, brethren, these pure and exalted spirits become comparatively insensible to the glories of the celestial world, when in the act of seeing a sinner who is ready to perish, rescued from the fearful peril of his condition, as we should become comparatively, if not absolutely insensible to the grandest and most picturesque scenery of nature, if we stood on some eminence, gazing on the heroine coming out of her father's cottage, hastening to the frothy beach, springing into the fishing-boat, braving the fury of the tempest and the wild uproar of the storm, to rescue the shipwrecked mariners from a vessel sinking in the deep waters. For it is a law of their nature, no less than of ours, that gratification shall yield to sympathy, and that the sight of deliverance from fatal danger, shall have a more gratifying effect on a sensitive and benevolent heart, than the most brilliant and exciting scenes which can be presented to the imagination, or to the senses;—thus demonstrating by a process as certain as any undeviating law of the material economy, that every order of being, except infernal spirits, have an instinctive abhorrence of the disastrous crisis in the progress of suffering; and that they feel an ecstasy of emotion which no sights of grandeur or of beauty, and which no sounds of melody can excite, when they behold an unanticipated deliverance from some horrifying and fatal termination. There stands the poor criminal on the fatal platform, and the minister of death is near him, making the necessary arrangements for his execution; deep sympathy is expressed in every countenance, many sighs are heaved, and many weep; the silent prayer is offered up, and all are breathless, expecting the drop to fall which is to hurl him with convulsive agonies into the other world. But there is a momentary pause, as an act of homage to a stranger, who very unexpectedly makes his appearance. This stranger, to whom all the officials and the doomed man pay marked attention, is also an official armed with power, not the power of death, but of life; he is the herald of mercy; and with a loud voice proclaims his pardon. The multitude, long absorbed in sympathetic grief, now raise the shout of gladsome triumph, as they gaze on the once doomed man, as he passes from the death of agony and infamy, to newness of life; they revel in the excess of ecstatic bliss; and feel more joyful in spirit over this one criminal saved from the horrors of an ignominious death, than over a whole community of righteous persons who were never involved in a sentence of condemnation.
"He was believed on in the World."—"The testimony of the Bible, and the records of ecclesiastical history, attest this fact, Rev. vii. 9, 10; and he is still believed on in the world. I know, brethren, that many persons of refined taste, and exquisite delicacy of feeling, greatly admire the character of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph and of Mary; and they feel a deep interest in the perusal of his history. Their imagination expands in reflecting on that magnificent scene beheld by the shepherds of Bethlehem, when his birth was announced by the angel of the Lord. His healing the sick in the temple—his opening the eyes of blind Bartimeus—and his raising the only son of the widow as the procession was moving to the grave, has a fine effect on their sensibilities. The Transfiguration of Tabor sheds a halo of glory around his Divine form, which attracts and gratifies their love of the marvellous. They catch the inspiration of a powerful sympathy on seeing him bathed in tears, as he stands beholding in the distant vision the desolations coming on the city of Jerusalem. And when they gather around his cross, they feel intense regret, intermingled with no slight degree of astonishment, that one so kind, so humane, and withal such a friend to suffering humanity, should be so rudely and so cruelly treated, and the falling tear bespeaks the sorrow of their heart. Now go amongst these refined, these poetic, these sentimental believers in the Divine origin of the Christian faith, with the blood of atonement, and what consternation will you produce! They will soon evince a strange revulsion of feeling; the term itself is harsh and unintelligible; it is the jargon of the uncouth and the vulgar; the crucifix charms their sentimentalism—they abhor the cross. Go and talk to them about the necessity of believing in the Son of God to save them from perishing; go and talk to them about joy and peace in believing, and about the good hope through grace, and you will soon lose caste, and be sent adrift amongst the wild fanatics of the age. They will bow down and do homage to the Divine origin of Christianity—that ideal Christianity, which takes its nature, shape, and hue from the creations of their fancy; but let the Christianity of the New Testament come before them in her simple form—pure and spiritual, breathing her own spirit, speaking her own language, delivering her own precepts and her own promises, advancing her own claims, and offering her own celestial gifts, on her own humiliating and changeless conditions, and they will treat her, as the Jews did her illustrious Author, with contemptuous scorn; and would rather have her driven from the face of the earth, than be enrolled as her devotees, or retained as her advocates. Be it so. But this you regret, on their account, as you know that they who believe not, will die in their sins and perish for ever, even though superior intelligence be blended with the fascination of the most distinguished accomplishments. And you also regret this terrible calamity on your own account, as the pardoned criminal necessarily feels an abatement of his joy when set free, by knowing that others are left for execution. But you, Christian brethren, believe on Him, and have the witness within. You believe on Him, and love Him; and to you he is precious. You believe on Him, and know that all is safe for time, safe in death, and safe for eternity."
"Really," said Mr. Gordon, as we were walking away, "I am almost tempted to believe in the truth of the Christian theory, on two accounts—it brings us into such close contact with beings of a superior order, so that in passing into the invisible world, we shall find that we are known there; and then it gives such security to the mind against the horrors of death." A sudden storm of heavy rain prevented any reply to these half-serious, half-ironical remarks; but on taking leave, as we were getting into our separate hackney coaches, he added, "I will call to-morrow evening, after business hours, and chat over those grave questions; and perhaps I can prevail on Newton to accompany me. Have patience; I may become a believer in the course of time."
THE SCEPTIC'S VISIT.
J ust after Mr. Lewellin had left home, to meet a friend on a matter of business, Mr. Gordon called, agreeably to his promise on the previous day, and we spent the evening together.