SERMON III.

THE DAILY SELF-DENIAL OF CHRIST.

A LENTEN SERMON.

MATT. xvi. 24.

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

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" THIS," brethren, “ is an hard saying; who can hear it?"

You observe in what terms the Captain of our Salvation lays down the laws of His service; how, having been Himself a man of sorrows, He would attire His Church and people in the same uniform of woe. "Hereunto are ye called," declares the same Peter who, on this occasion, when our text was spoken, would have saved Christ from being the model, as he afterwards, for a while, strove to save himself from being the copyist of shame and suffering; "Hereunto are ye called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps." In truth it is an "hard saying," but in a different sense from that mysterious saying to which Christ's hearers first applied the expression. The discourse at Capernaum was "hard" to the natural reason; this is hard to the natural temper and disposition. But so far from opposing the calm verdict of unprejudiced reason, it will, I believe, the more we reflect, be found the more perfectly to correspond to everything we can collect from the notices of reason, and the information of experience. The doctrine, I say, that man must ordinarily be made perfect through suffering; that affliction, in a greater or less measure of it, is—particular instances of exception apart-the great earthly instrument in the hand of

God for bringing the spirits of men into subjection to the Father of spirits; that a course of uninterupted prosperity is, in its very nature, adverse to the inward principle of religion, and, therefore, requires to be tempered by extraordinary prudence and secret self-denial; this I conceive to be not only the universal voice of Scripture, but clearly demonstrable to every one who will patiently attend to the lessons of common experience, and the workings of his own heart within him.

When, however, we speak thus of affliction, and suffering, and self-denial, as requisite to the formation of the Christian character, it is right, in order to prevent doubts and misconstructions, to say that the terms are employed in a wide sense. I do not mean to assert, that direct persecution is essential to holiness; that saints can be bred only in sight of the dungeon and the stake; or even that overwhelming earthly reverses are necessary to form the man of God. The thing required is self-denial, and it may be exercised in many-in all spheres of life. The thing required is not momentary, or the result of anything momentary; it is a constant and habitual temper, and hence in St. Luke's record of this discourse, the taking of the cross is declared to be "daily." The cross is a large and comprehensive word, but with whatever variety applied to individuals, it cannot lose its essential nature; it still carries the nails that pierced the body, and the shame that penetrates the soul. Wherever it rises upon the page of Scripture, it cannot but bring with it the shadow of pain and trouble; wherever it is planted, whatever be the celestial consolations, surely the daily world can no longer be the pleasant land it was of old. Wherever it is erected, surely as at first there will be "darkness over all the earth," even though that darkness may make the stars of heaven shine more brightly. The thing imported in this daily cross is self-denial, and with self-denial the uneasy murmurs of the self that is denied, with self-denial more or less of pain;-of pain that has many alleviations, trouble that may gradually decrease as patience grows to the consummation of her "perfect work," and the stamp of God is deeper impressed upon the soul, but that in few cases can ever be expected wholly to cease, and that no earnest pilgrim of Zion

should ever wish to wholly cease. Think of all the fettered but impatient vices, the tolerated imperfections, the residues of old follies, the rash impulses of even the better nature, the self-deceits, the masked and plausible weaknesses,—benevolence becoming lethargic under the name of retirement, or ambitious under the title of zeal,—the self-excusings, the concealed reluctancies, that beset even the holiest among us; and you will incline to pronounce that, where life is but too short for discipline, we ought not to covet too much repose before the grave. Circumstantially the cross may vary, but its purpose is the same in all; and that purpose our Lord has here, with great precision, assigned. When the Apostles had to exhort and console, they spoke of direct and pressing persecution as the characteristic of the cross which they had themselves to sustain, and to induce others to sustain. Christ, with (as became Him) a master grasp of all the coming ages of the Church, went back upon the universal principle, and spoke of self-denial,-self-denial that applies with equal force to every age, rank, and position of human life.

Thus, to take the ordinary state of Christians,-which always must be the most important practical one,-the law of life here intended will be chiefly evidenced in such characteristics as these (always reserving a readiness for any of the more searching trials of Christian firmness, which few can expect to be very long without, in some form, experiencing); a subdued, strict, and patient temper, the produce, or the progressive growth of the "overcoming" power of faith, realizing the invisible, and filled with the awe of a present God; a constant and zealous watchfulness over the peculiar occasions of temptation belonging to one's station; an avoidance of all exaggerated excitements, as being, however seductive, wholly unsuited to the healthy state of the Christian mind, which is eminently "sober:" in short, that tenderness of conscience and habitual humbleness of spirit, which seems so touchingly expressed by the Hebrew idiom of "walking softly." It is thus, perhaps, that one would describe the spirit of Gospel self-denial in the average condition of human life. In prosperity and adversity, new characters of the same spirit emerge. The resolute servant of

Christ is marked, in great worldly prosperity, by a deliberate refusal of high earthly enjoyments; by a constant consciousness of that exceeding peril of his position, of which his Master has spoken so awfully (Matt. xix. 24); by a purposed counteraction of the cruel kindness of fortune in large charities and carnest internal mortification. In extreme adversity, it is given to such an one to welcome it as the appointed instrument of discipline," the schoolmaster to bring him to Christ;" to measure love by chastisement, and see the deepest tenderness in the severest trial; to find, in the cross itself, a sad unearthly joy; and in praying, "thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven," to make earth, by the power of such resignation, in some degree the heaven that he prays it may imitate!

There is one case which I think of importance enough to be specially mentioned, as an exception to the Christian's avoidance of all unusual degrees of excitement; it is that in which some perilous temptation has required to be met as it ever ought, if possible-by a sudden change of scene and state. In this case, it may be a point of Christian prudence to introduce occupations somewhat more stimulant than the usual average, —in the first place, to engage the imagination, which too often perpetuates old temptations on a new scene, and in a form even more perilously attractive; in the next place, to prevent, after the sudden vacuum of engrossing thoughts, the dangerous col lapse of melancholy and despair. This is exactly analogous to the use of stimulants in medicine, and is, like that, an excep tion to the general course of regimen, always pre-supposing a disordered state of the spiritual patient. The few who have wisdom and firmness enough to prosecute through Life the great work of self-improvement will value hints of this kind, which indeed are disregarded only because we live from day to day, w it were, by chance; and forget that human life itse.fie ne mach an An governed by its own rules and precepte of perfection, as the most complicated profession by which that fe le maintained or adorned

Ex we must conader more specially the root of the passage before LE The command it containe is based upon the great principu off the inlution d Cars:

legislators (for who but He could dare it?) His life is the Law of His people.

If we would gain the root of the matter, then, we must contemplate suffering as manifested in Christ Himself; and in Him behold the archetype of that sanctified and sanctifying sorrow, of which His mourning saints attempt to present their scattered images. Let Peter himself and his fellow-saints be seen in their Master. If there be healing in these bitter waters, let us analyze them in the freshness of their fountain; from it the streams derive every precious quality they possess.

On this occasion, then, I shall speak of the Master, the disciples are but His likeness. To-day we shall examine the movements of the Leader in this march of the cross; the followers may see themselves in Him. That you may not forget the relation of the subject to yourselves, I have briefly told you how you are to bear this banner of your profession; but I have told it only briefly, because I would for the present engage you principally with its relation to Christ. I speak then of the daily self-denial of the Son of God, which is here set forth as the model of ours, for it is only as we understand the model that we can expect to understand the copy. The subject may require a little attention, but none can more abundantly reward it.

The everlasting God of heaven and earth was Himself a mourner! The Author of light, life, and happiness has Himself wept real tears! Amazing fact-which familiarity alone can deprive of unspeakable wonder! Let us endeavour to escape the lulling effect of that familiarity by approaching the subject from its principles, and thus gradually gaining some conception of the marvellousness of its nature, when first presented to a mind properly prepared to receive it.

The ultimate facts of the Bible and of the Reason (for the Bible is but the perfection of Reason) are the existence in God's universe of Good and Evil, with Happiness and Misery as belonging respectively to each. Under these all-grasping titles we may class everything; but once arrived at them we can go no further. We can neither explain them in the world, nor can we explain them away from it; we can neither unravel