Hast thou faith and could'st thou joy

Perils to abide?

Yet bethink thee how a saint

His dear Lord denied!

Yea, though all offended be,

I will not," he said;

But for those presumptuous words

Bitter tears were shed!

Taught from thence with lowly mind
Keep the place his love assigned;
Answering but, "Thy will be done,"
At his bidding thou shalt run,
Gathering strength in self-control,
Patiently possess thy soul,
Storing up each earnest thought

For a time with trial fraught.

SERMON VIII.

NATHANAEL.

JOHN I. 47.

JESUS SAW NATHANAEL COMING TO HIM, AND SAITH OF HIM, BEHOLD AN ISRAELITE INDEED, IN WHOM IS NO GUILE.

OUR Saviour and Friend can appreciate something besides our guilt and misery; he rejoices in the moral and Christian excellence of his followers. The reproachful name of publicans and sinners did not attach to all whom he loved; though all who truly loved him loved him the more for seeking and saving that which was lost. Doubtless there were more than are recorded who excited pleasure in him through approbation of their characters. John the Baptist, Nathanael, and the beloved disciple, Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus, show that he was not merely a philanthropist, nor an official Redeemer; that he appreciated goodness, and loved it in those who, while they needed as much as others to be justified by his grace, commended themselves to his affections

(165)

by their excellent qualities, and by that means made him their personal friend.

What could remain to be desired by one of whom Jesus Christ should say, "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile"?

We may suppose that Christ in these words expressed the idea of great moral excellence. Though completeness of character would require other things besides that which is here ascribed to Nathanael, and which he may have possessed, yet the characteristic here mentioned is, perhaps more than any thing else, the basis of moral character, and is essential to the approbation and love of Christ.

Truth may be said to be the foundation of the moral universe; for without it there can be no correct knowledge of God, no just conceptions of our duty and of right and wrong, no confidence between man and his Maker, nor among men. As regularity is essential in the movements of those heavenly bodies whose orbits intersect, so truth is indispensable in the relations of moral beings. God must insist on truth as of the first importance; all his communications to us will enforce it; all that we know of his character and acts will show his love of it, and his abhorrence of falsehood and deceit. If among men falsehood, so far as it prevails, makes intercourse impossible by deranging affairs, if to forge a name, to transmit

false information, to deceive in selling, are crimes which excite feelings like the instinctive impulses of self-defence against personal violence, much more disastrous must falsehood be in things affecting our moral and spiritual concerns.

Guile is the great characteristic of the evil which is in us. This is impressively taught in that passage where the inspired writer characterizes the human heart by saying, "The heart is deceitful above all things." David teaches this when he tells us that the man "to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity," is the same as he "in whose spirit there is no guile." In that psalm of penitence wrung from David by his disastrous fall and his recovery by God's free Spirit, written at a time when his experience led him to appreciate fully the nature of goodness, he says,

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts." These few words, uttered at such a moment from the inmost depths of a soul where God had made his own character and will to be felt in no ordinary degree, show us the infinite value which the heart-searching God places upon truth. David, the king, proposed to teach the young, whom he loved greatly, (and Solomon, also, in this way showed true wisdom,) one great secret of piety and happiness: "Come, ye chil dren, hearken unto me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good? Keep thy

tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile." Peter repeats the same thing in almost the same words: "For he that will love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile." John mentions this as a characteristic of the "hundred and forty and four thousand:" "And in their mouth was found no guile; for they are without fault before the throne of God." A name given by the Saviour to the Holy Spirit is, “the Spirit of Truth." It completes all which we need to say on this point when we remember that the character of the spotless Lamb of God is thus expressed: "who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth."

There are no limits to the pervading nature of guile in human character where it has power; it goes into all our feelings; it destroys that self-respect which makes us free and happy with others; we are embarrassed by it in our intercourse with God. Sincerity makes us transparent in our feelings. Truthfulness, like vitalizing blood, affects the unconscious complexion of a man's acts, his unstudied, spontaneous feelings, his impulses, as well as his principles. A man in whom is no guile is not necessarily so plain as to be discourteous, nor need he be blunt, nor abrupt, nor reserved; he will be honest, he will be faithful, he will naturally be free from jealousy and suspicion, charitable in his feelings and judgment, simple in his