the journey; he entered into no conversation, but appeared deeply
absorbed in his own thoughts, and since his return he very rarely
leaves his study, except for his meals, and these he often takes in
almost total silence. An incident occurred on Saturday week, which,
when viewed in connection with the strange alteration of his habits
and manners, induces me to hope that his religious opinions, like my
own, are undergoing a decided change. He said to me, 'I shall read
the service to-morrow, and my curate shall preach;' assigning as the
reason for such an unusual arrangement, that he could not select a
sermon to his mind; adding, 'I must get a new set.' What spiritual
influence that visit is now exerting over him, time alone will
show; but as it relates to myself, I assure you, my dear Sophia,
I shall never forget it; and I hope the vivid impressions of the
superlative importance of personal piety which I received, will
never become obliterated. The idea which most forcibly struck me was
one which came out incidentally at our interview with the excellent
Mrs. Stevens--_that genuine religion was a source of mental bliss_;
it takes its rise in the heart, and brings us into contact with a
living Saviour. As soon as this grand idea took possession of my
mind, I saw the absurdity, and I may say the impiety of deifying
the ceremonies of religion, by ascribing a regenerating power to
baptism, an absolving power to confirmation, and a saving power
to the priesthood of any church. O! how often have I uttered, in
conjunction with others, when in church, the following prayer: '_O
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy upon us, miserable
sinners_.' But I never _felt_ myself a miserable sinner till _now_.
I never _felt_ the need of mercy till _now_. I uttered the prayer
quite mechanically, not from the heart; but _now_ I feel its
appropriateness and its urgent necessity; and I begin to hope he
will have mercy on me and on my dear husband.
"You are aware that my sister, who is an eminently devout woman, is
also a Dissenter; and hitherto, when she has visited us, we have
felt some objection to her staying over the Sunday, because, having
no sympathy with your uncle's style of preaching, she could not go
with us to church; and we both felt a reluctance to tolerate an
inmate of the rectory going to a Dissenting chapel. But the other
evening, when alluding to her expected visit, he said to me, 'I
hope she will remain with us some weeks; and I see no good reason
why we should object to her attending the Dissenting chapel, as we
know she prefers it. The apostle commands us to be _courteous_; and
hence we must not suffer any of our ecclesiastical antipathies or
predilections to set aside the law of Christian politeness.' This
first budding of liberality was hailed by me with more delight than
we feel when gathering the first snow-drop of spring; in itself a
proof that our visit has thawed away the ice-bound antipathies of a
frigid ecclesiastical formalism. Remember me most affectionately to
your papa and mamma, and believe me to be, my dear Sophia, your most
affectionate aunt,
"A. R."
Soon after receiving this letter, Miss Roscoe wrote to her aunt, in
the following terms:--
"MY DEAR AUNT,--Yours of the 14th more than delighted us; it excited
our gratitude to the Author of all good desires and all holy
counsels; and both mamma and papa have consented that I should come
to you as soon as I can conveniently get ready. I often prayed,
while you were with us, that your visit might prove a spiritual
blessing to us all; and I now indulge the hope that the Lord is
answering my prayers. To see you and my dear uncle moving out of
dull, monotonous formality, into newness of life, and to hail you as
fellow-heirs of the grace of life, will be indeed the consummation
of bliss. With united affection to you and yours,
"SOPHIA."
* * * * *
The Rev. Mr. Roscoe had not preached for many Sundays, leaving
this part of his clerical duties to be performed by his curate;
and one evening, when in conversation with his family, he made
a communication that startled them. Alluding to the discussions
which had taken place at his brother's mansion, he said, "They
have altogether unfitted me for my ministerial functions. I cannot
preach _now, for I do not know what to preach_. I am compelled to
renounce my former belief, and I see no alternative but to adopt the
evangelical faith; and yet I do not clearly understand it. It is at
present enveloped in a thick mist, which may possibly clear off as
I pursue my inquiries; and yet I scarcely know how to pursue them.
However, I have decided on one important step, which I have no doubt
will startle many, and may bring upon me some opprobrium, and that
is, I have engaged an evangelical preacher to succeed my present
curate, who leaves next Sunday, having obtained preferment. My new
curate may prove to me a counsellor and a guide." The effect of this
unexpected announcement was electrical, and some tears were shed, as
an homage of gratitude to the God of all grace.
"I hope, Sir," said Mrs. Burder, "the Divine Spirit is gently
leading you out of the darkness of theological error, into the
marvellous light of pure, evangelical truth; and though for a while
a thick mist of obscurity may envelope some parts of its harmonious
theory, yet if you follow on to know the Lord, the pathway of your
inquiry will become clearer and brighter, till in the progress of
time you will comprehend, by practical experience of its power, what
the apostle designates the height and the depth, the breadth and
the length of the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge; and then
you will have both joy and peace in believing."
"It will, indeed," said Mrs. Roscoe, "be a delight to my soul to
hear pure evangelical truth proclaimed in our church, in which a
cold and frigid Tractarianism, which I never very well liked, has
long been in the ascendant."
"And to hear it proclaimed by my dear uncle," said Miss Roscoe,
"will be as joyous to my heart as the coming up of John the
Baptist out of the wilderness, proclaiming the speedy appearance
of the Messiah, was to the devout Jews, who were waiting for the
consolation of Israel."
"Your father, my dear Sophia, has been the means of effecting a
thorough revolution in my theological opinions and belief; but had
there not been another power presiding over our discussions, more
powerful than his cogent arguments, my haughty spirit would never
have yielded to him the palm of victory. Yes, and I am not ashamed
to avow it, '_by the grace of God I am what I am_.' I have always
loved my brother as my brother, but now, henceforth, I shall love
and revere him, as my spiritual father in Christ."
"Do you recollect, uncle, what part of the discussion made the first
and the deepest impression against your Tractarianism, and in favour
of evangelical truth?"
"Yes; I felt staggered by the case of Simon Magus,[19] as a
self-evident proof that baptism is not regeneration. The argument
rising out of the possible loss[20] of a parish register I felt to
be very powerful. I was also, more than once during our debates,
very solemnly impressed by your father's serious and intense
earnestness; but one expression he uttered, when replying to some
observations of your aunt, went to the core of my heart, and I could
not extract it."
[19] See page 321.
[20] See page 348.
"Do you recollect the expression?" said Miss Roscoe.
"Yes, and its accompaniments, and the long train of reflections it
gave rise to. It was this:--'All false religions take man as he is,
and leave him essentially the same; but in genuine religion the
_man_ changes,'[21] and I saw an illustration and confirmation of
this in your papa. I recollected the time when he was as decided
a Tractarian as myself, equally averse to evangelical truth, and
more intolerant in his spirit against others. The conversion of
Saul of Tarsus did not excite more astonishment amongst the Jews
and the disciples of Christ, than I felt at the change which had
taken place in my brother. In him I saw a living proof that the
_man changes_,[21] and I saw also that the change brought him into
a nearer spiritual conformity to the primitive disciples of Jesus
Christ. Then the emphatic exclamation of your aunt helped on this
new process of thinking and feeling, and my spirit instinctively
responded to the truthfulness of her utterance, 'I must have the
religion of principle--that of mere form has no life; it does not
bring me into contact with a living Saviour.'"
[21] See page 344.
"I often felt," said Mrs. John Roscoe, addressing her niece,
"when associating with your friends, that I was with persons of a
new order, very diverse in spirit and in style of speech to our
Tractarian neighbours,--advocates for the same ecclesiastical
ceremonies, but regarding them merely as the external medium for the
conveyance of Divine truth and grace to the mind; not magnifying
them, as endowed with any mysterious, self-contained power to
operate by their own immediate agency. But the point of difference
which struck me most forcibly, was their constant reference to the
absolute necessity of a supernatural renovation of the soul, and the
infusion of a new and spiritual life."
"And, my dear aunt, was this the only point of difference which you
discerned between us and your Tractarian friends?"
"O no. Perhaps if I refer to a passage in a sermon which I heard
the venerable Mr. Ingleby preach, it will give you an idea of the
other point of difference I perceived. It was contained in a sermon
from John iii. 14, 15, and was to this effect: Jesus Christ stands
in the same relation to us which the elevated brazen serpent did to
the bitten Israelites--every one who looked to it was healed. We,
as sinners, are thus addressed: 'Look unto me, and be ye saved, all
the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else' (Isa.
xlv. 22). 'You are not,' he said, with intense earnestness, 'to look
to your virtues for salvation, nor are you to look to your religious
ceremonies for salvation; but you are to look to Jesus Christ,
symbolized by the brazen serpent of the Hebrew camp, a living
Saviour, and one mighty to save.' This was a beautiful passage,
beautiful from its simplicity and its adaptation to our condition.
I have been baptized, confirmed, have taken the sacrament many
times, and have passed through the entire process of ecclesiastical
training, but I now find I am not spiritually regenerated, and that
I need a Saviour just as much as any unbaptized heathen."
"Tractarians," said Miss Roscoe, "neither deny nor repudiate Jesus
Christ; they maintain his original dignity, and often depict, in
strongly exciting language, his humiliation and his sufferings.
They also extol him as the perfection of moral dignity, combined
with personal excellencies of the purest order; but they do not
give to him that prominence as a Saviour mighty to save, which the
inspired writers and which the evangelical clergy give to him. His
substitutional work they virtually reject, as we do the legend of
baptismal regeneration. He is, in their ecclesiastical domain,
more as the spectre of the Christian faith, moving silently in dim
twilight amongst its established forms and lifeless ceremonies, than
as the ever-living Son of God, giving life to the spiritually dead,
healing the moral disorders of fallen humanity, and saving the chief
of sinners from everlasting woe."
On Sunday afternoon they all went to church, and heard the curate
deliver his farewell sermon, which, like most sermons of the same
school, was a pompous eulogium on the church, its apostolic orders,
and its sacraments. Jesus Christ was visible in the remote distance,
but not drawing the people to himself by the virtue of his death;
the efficacy of the attractive power was deposited in the laver of
baptism, and the absolution of the priesthood.
"I am devoutly thankful," said Mrs. Roscoe, as they were returning
from church, "that this is the last sermon of the Tractarian school
we shall have from this pulpit."
"I think," said Miss Roscoe, as they were chatting together after
tea, "we shall be guilty of no offence against any law of our
statute-book if we go together to the Dissenting chapel this
evening, as we have no service at church."
"I shall not object," said Mr. Roscoe, "to your going; but if I
go, now that I have appointed an evangelical curate to do duty at
church, a report may be raised that I am going to turn Dissenter.
This would most likely operate to my prejudice. However, I intend to
hear the sermon, which I can do very easily by walking in the garden
alongside the chapel, where I have of late heard many of Mr. Davis's
sermons, and have more than admired them; I have felt them."
"My uncle! you progress in liberality rather rapidly. I hope this
is not a sign that you will soon be taken from us; choice fruit
sometimes gets prematurely ripe."
"O no. I am not meet for heaven as yet. But now that I begin to
know and feel the real power of the truth on my _heart_, I shall
throw off the mantle of bigotry; it never sits gracefully on a true
believer in Christ. One faith ought to produce one spirit--the
spirit of love and Christian fellowship. We shall all be one in
heaven, and why not all one on earth?"
The text for the evening sermon was part of the 29th verse of the
34th chapter of the prophecies of Ezekiel--"A PLANT OF RENOWN."
After a concise exposition of the prophecy, Mr. Davis remarked, "It
is not my intention to give you a lecture on the future restoration
of the Jews to the land of their fathers, but rather to fix your
attention on that glorious _One_ who is announced in my text under
the beautifully appropriate image of a plant of renown. That it
refers exclusively to Jesus Christ I shall take for granted, and the
following is the leading question I mean to discuss--What is the
primary cause to which his pre-eminent distinction and celebrity
may be attributed? That there are some subordinate causes which
have contributed to it, I readily admit, such as his miracles,
his teaching, and the moral grandeur and social loveliness of his
character; but these, though brilliant and imposing, are not enough
to account for the unparalleled celebrity which he still maintains
in universal estimation. For suppose, after performing the miracles
which he did perform, and after conveying the knowledge of spiritual
truths which he did convey, and after developing the character which
he did develope, he had suddenly disappeared, like Enoch or Elijah,
doing nothing more in behalf of man, what an impenetrable cloud of
mystery would hang over the design of his appearing on earth? We
should, in that case, be reduced to the necessity of believing that
the greatest, the wisest, and the most benevolent being that ever
appeared in the human form, came and went away without accomplishing
any purpose commensurate with the moral grandeur of his character,
or the vastness of his resources for practical utility. He would
flit before our imagination as a wonderful being, but a being
of no essential importance to us. His history might live in our
recollection without exciting an emotion of gratitude or of love,
or it might pass from our recollection without our sustaining any
perceptible loss, proving a vast brilliant mirage in the dreary
desert of humanity; or, like some splendid night-dream, leaving at
the dawn of morning its romantic incidents feebly and uselessly
imprinted on the fancy. If, then, his splendid miracles, his sublime
revelation of spiritual truth, and his unique character, blending in
equal proportions the perfections of divinity with the excellencies
of unfallen humanity, are insufficient to account for his unfading
and ever-increasing celebrity, and for the absolute dominion he
holds over the thoughts, the admiration, and the supreme affection
of his disciples, of every tribe and every grade of the intellectual
and social world, to what other cause are we to attribute it? To
what other cause! to his death, and the relation in which he stands,
by virtue of his death, to the great family of man. He came to give
his life a ransom for many; his life he gave, laying it down of
himself; he suffered, the just for the unjust; he died for us.
"Death severs all relative connections; but the living survivors
can derive no benefit from the departed, because all intercourse
is broken off, and the medium of communication destroyed. But here
is an exception to the universal rule; by giving his life as a
ransom for sinners, he became the Saviour of all who believe in
him, and his death is the mystic power which brings them into a
close and indissoluble union and fellowship with him. John Bunyan,
when incarcerated in Bedford jail, was building up his fame as one
of the most sagacious moral philosophers of his age; his genius,
having gauged the depth of human sorrow, discovered and made known
the source of its alleviation and relief--by an allegorical form
of representation, which charms the imagination while it touches
the heart. His Pilgrim leaves the City of Destruction with a heavy
burden on his back, and he groans beneath its weight through every
stage of his progress, till, on ascending a little eminence, he
suddenly and unexpectedly descries the cross, when in a moment the
straps of his burden snap asunder; it rolls off and disappears. This
was to him a joyful discovery; and he exclaims, 'He hath given me
rest by his sorrow, and life by his death.' Yes, brethren--
----'The cross!
There and there only, is the power to save.
There no delusive hope invites despair;
No mock'ry meets you, no deception there.
The spells and charms that blinded you before,
All vanish there, and fascinate no more.'
Hence, when a sinner feels the pressure of guilt on his conscience,
and stands terror-struck lest the wrath of God should fall upon him,
he looks by faith to Jesus Christ giving his life a ransom, and then
a power is emitted which soothes his sorrows and allays his fears,
and gives him joy and peace in believing. And when he arrives at the
great crisis of his destiny, conscious that he is going from this
world into the great world of spirits, what is it that braces up the
nerves of his soul, now on the eve of becoming disembodied? what
is it that gives buoyancy to his hope, and calmness if not ecstasy
to his feelings? what is it that acts with such great power at
such an eventful crisis?--it is a simple trust in the efficacy of
the death of Jesus Christ. Hence you may often hear the departing
believer saying, as his last audible utterance, _Who loved me_, and
GAVE HIMSELF FOR ME; and his conscious assurance of this great fact
disarms death of his sting, and he passes onward into the eternal
world with a hope full of immortality."
After proving that he will maintain his celebrity through all future
periods of time, and onwards for ever, both in the estimation
of the saved and the lost--the saved will never forget him, or
cease to feel the manifestations of his love; nor will the lost
ever forget him, or cease to feel the terror of his righteous
displeasure--he concluded his sermon as follows:--"Will those doomed
spirits, who were his contemporaries during his earthly sojourn,
and who distinguished themselves by their daring and unprovoked
hostility, ever forget his appearance when they held him under their
subjection, or his appearance now he has them under his own? Will
Judas ever forget taking the sop, and then going deliberately away
to receive the reward of treachery? Will he ever forget re-entering
the garden, passing along its lonely pathway, followed by an armed
force, and stepping forward in advance to give the appointed signal,
by saluting him? Will he ever forget the tortuous question, which
still vibrates on his ear--'_Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man
with a kiss_?' Will Caiaphas, the high-priest, ever forget rending
his clothes, and accusing him of blasphemy, because he admitted he
was the Son of God? Or will any of his associates in the council
ever forget that they once spat in his face, and buffeted him, and
smote him with the palms of their hands? Will Herod and his men of
war, now seeing him on his throne of majesty, ever forget setting
him at nought, and mocking him, arraying him in a gorgeous robe,
and dismissing him in derisive scorn and contempt? Will Pilate ever
forget when the Lord of glory stood as a criminal at his tribunal?
or when, after pronouncing his innocence, he ordered him to be
stripped, and scourged, and then sent him forth to the death of
torture and infamy? Will the man who placed the crown of thorns on
his head, or the man who put the reed of mockery in his hand, or the
men who nailed him to the cross, or the debased malefactor, whose
last breath was spent in reviling him--or will any of the Scribes
and the Pharisees, whose malignant spirit gave an impulse and a tone
to the infuriated rabble, ever forget what they did and what they
said against _Him_ who now sits on the throne of majesty and of
power, and the day of whose vengeance is come? Ah! no. He will be
held in everlasting remembrance by celestial and infernal spirits,
and by the saved and the lost, who once sojourned in this vale of
tears."
"There is," said Mr. Roscoe, "I must confess, a power and an
impressiveness in this style of preaching, as much superior to our
cold and formal Tractarianism, as the beauty and the fertility of
summer surpasses the icy chills and sterility of winter."
"The one," said Miss Roscoe, "is the empire of death; the other, of
life."
"I long," said Mrs. John Roscoe, "for next Sunday, when I hope we
shall hear, for the first time in our church, the glorious gospel of
the blessed God."
* * * * *
The Sabbath dawned, and it was a lovely day. Public curiosity had
been awakened by the suddenness and novelty of the change; the
church was crowded, for the fame of the preacher had preceded
him. The service was read by the Rev. Mr. Roscoe. His new curate
entered the pulpit with graceful ease, his countenance betokening
a deep sense of his responsibility to God and to the people, to
act a faithful part in the ministration of Divine truth. His text
was a very appropriate one, and it was announced with impressive
distinctness, yet in a mild and rather pathetic tone: "_Unto me,
who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given,
that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of
Christ_" (Eph. iii. 8). After a very brief introduction, he said,
"Here are two things to which I will now call your attention,
first, the estimate which the apostle forms of himself; and, second,
the commission he was engaged to execute." A few extracts from the
_second_ division of his discourse, may not be unacceptable to the
intelligent reader. He first gave a graphic sketch of the impure
and degrading mythology of the Gentile world, and the safeguards
which were placed around it, by the sagacity of its priests, in
conjunction with imperial authority, to protect it against any
movements which might be made to subvert it, or bring it under the
ban of popular outrage or odium. He then represented Paul taking
a survey of it, meditating on its antiquity, its imposing and
beguiling fascinations, its undisputed ascendency over the passions
and prejudices of the people, exclaiming, in anticipation of its
overthrow, But _who is sufficient_ to do it? "His faith, brethren,"
said the preacher, "was as strong as his zeal was ardent; and while
conscious that he was in himself less than the least of all saints,
yet he knew he had received a commission to go forth and destroy
this stronghold of Satanic impurity and crime, and he was to do this
by preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ.
"1. The subject of his preaching was _defined_. He was to preach
about Jesus Christ. He doubtless told the people that Jesus Christ
was the Son of God, who had appeared on earth in the likeness of
men; and then, after giving a sketch of his character, detailing
some of his miracles, and repeating some of his sayings, he
announced his ignominious and agonizing death. Had Paul been an
impostor or a fanatic, and had Jesus Christ been, what our German
infidels say he was, a mythical being, the apostle would have cast
the myth of his death into the shade, under a full conviction
that it was far more likely to elicit the expression of scornful
contempt, than to awaken any poignant or sublime emotions in the
souls of the people. But no; his death is the chief subject of the
apostle's preaching--the magnetic power of a mysterious attraction,
awakening morbid sensibilities, and stirring death itself into
vigorous life; it is _the_ fact of his extraordinary history on
which he dwells with impassioned earnestness: 'For I determined not
to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified'
(1 Cor. ii. 2). He does not dwell on his tragical death to excite
popular odium against his murderers, nor to excite popular sympathy
or admiration by a description of the calm self-possession and the
moral dignity he displayed in his sufferings; but he dwells on it
as a marvellous manifestation of Divine benevolence: 'For God so
loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life' (John
iii. 16; Rom. v).