DISCOURSE III.

NOMINAL AND REAL CHRISTIANITY.

Luke xiii. 26, 27. - THEN SHALL YE BEGIN TO SAY, WE HAVE EATEN AND DRUNK IN THY PRESENCE, AND THOU HAST TAUGHT IN OUR STREETS. BUT HE SHALL SAY, I TELL YOU, I KNOW YOU NOT WHENCE YE ARE.

In the passage containing these words, the kingdom of God is represented under the figure of a social festival, to which the master of the house has invited his chosen friends. When he finds that all are assembled, he rises up, and shuts to the door. Afterwards, other persons arrive, and solicit admission. He answers that they are strangers to him, and he cannot open to them. But they remonstrate, that they have been on terms of familiarity with him; they had eaten and drunk in his presence, and he had taught in their streets. Yet he rejoins only with the solemn asseveration, "I know you not whence ye are. Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity."

The application is obvious. Much has been said about what is transient and what is permanent in Christianity. But a far more important distinction is what is nominal and what is real in Christianity, as it respects personal character. The persons re

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ferred to in the text were the first nominal Christians. They were those who had gathered round Jesus in the crowd, had listened readily to his words, had joined in his retinue through the streets of Jerusalem, had wondered at his miracles, and had crossed the lake or gone into the wilderness after him, to renew the pleasing astonishment. They had probably never taken any active part against him,-never been forward to accuse him, -never been busy in exciting the tumults which endangered him,—never lent or would lend their voices to the cry, "Crucify him, crucify him." And so they hoped to be reckoned among his true disciples. But he did not know them they were nominal Christians only.

It is to be feared that the text has rather gained than lost emphasis by the lapse of time, and that the reality of our religion falls now more short of being co-extensive with its name. The external and apparent triumphs of the gospel are great. Its banner stretches over hundreds of millions of mankind. No sea that its missionaries have not crossed,- no shore or discovered island, on which its professors have not landed. The whole globe is so woven in, as with magnetic wires, in every direction, with an unbroken chain of Christian institutions, that, if every link in every heart in Christendom were sound, the world would be inundated with the Christian faith and spirit, and the millennium soon be no fanatic dream, but a fulfilled prediction.

There is outward honor enough paid to Christianity. See it in the annual celebration, so wide over

the earth, of our Lord's resurrection from the dead. From Greek and Roman cathedrals, as the day returns, all along to the village churches of this Western continent, even as the sun rises over the earth, the public rejoicing over that greatest of all earthly events spreads. On some little station, like a fort amid the Pacific Seas, the Easter song is sung. On the vessel's deck, in the Atlantic Main, as she tosses up against the gale, the mariner turns over his almanac to fix the date; and the excitement that swells the multitudes in populous cities, by invisible chords of sympathy, reaches and electrifies his breast. But are all these myriads, according to the intent of what they celebrate, living as immortal beings? Are they all actually looking upon the grave as but a low-arched portal, into which men pass after the great Forerunner, only to rise and move on at the other side? Are they clothed, in their conduct, with the dignity and purity which become those upon whom the light has streamed from the land of spirits? What proportion of them are so doing? What proportion of us are so doing? Who has asked himself, "Am I, by faith and my conversation in the world, risen with Christ, and seeking those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God?" Or who must confess that the event which has fixed the day of Christian worship for all ages, and, in the long reach of its influence, assembles the weekly worshippers of a myriad of congregations, has not yet carried

his thoughts and motives beyond the narrow horizon of earthly interests and plans?

Alas! these exultations over any of the great circumstances of our Lord's history become somewhat sad to the soul, when we ask that searching question, how far they are a formal and nominal, and how far a real and spiritual, thing. The green bough, taken as the symbol of the rejoicings over Christ's birth, not only gladdens but grieves me, when I see it hanging at the window of a worldly, self-seeking man, who appears to be no less worldly and selfseeking that he has hung it there. And the observance of the set time of lamentation over Christ's cross, lamentation for the sins and passions of the human heart, (for what else in that wonderful scene of Christ's moral and spiritual glory was there to lament over?) that lifted up that innocent form, and nailed those hands and feet strong and swift only for errands of mercy, - the observance itself becomes an unspeakable sorrow and a bitter shame, if our human passions and our unforsaken sins go on all the same before that unparalleled spectacle at which the sun in heaven veiled his face, and the earth beneath was shaken.

Nay, the distinction in the question is more close than these occasional reminiscences suggest. How far are we nominal and how far real worshippers in the regular service from Sunday to Sunday in God's house? In the consecrated temple you have secured your place; you pay your part to support the order of its ministrations; you attend upon the service;

you enjoy intellectually its thoughts and devotional sentiments. Christ himself is a being altogether spotless and lovely to your imagination. But how far is this a nominal and customary performance, and how far the very substance and hope of your heart?

I would not make what is to justify the Christian name a hard and severe exaction. I would not use any overstrained language. I know that our religion proposes a lofty attainment, which rises before our steps like successive height over height to the mountain-traveller. It is not required that a man shall be already perfect, in order to be a true Christian. But it is required that he should be a sincere seeker after perfection. It is required that he should be moving forward, and advancing up the straight and narrow way of life. And to this point our questioning may well and soberly come. Is God's word a fire burning away what is evil in our appetites? Is it a hammer that breaks in pieces the rock of our prejudice, or the idol of our lust? Does every stroke of it, as you hear, echo along the chambers of your soul? Is every line of it, as you read, written on the fleshly tables of your heart? the sharp edge of truth chisel out, in the deep quarry of your bosom, the very image of your Saviour? Does the eternal commandment of duty sink into your living affections, and shape them after the pattern of a divine rectitude? Do you suffer the sword of God's law to cut off the right hand of every darling propensity, of which you are con

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