SERMON XIX. HE THAT DOETH THE TRUTH. ST. JOHN iii. 21. "He that doeth the truth." IN preaching to you on these words a few Sundays since, I observed that the truth is spoken of in Holy Scripture in two very remarkable ways; first, as it is an estate or condition (according to which we are said to be in the truth, or to abide in the truth, and the truth is said to make us free and to sanctify us), and secondly, as it is a mode of living (according to which we are taught, that the evil spirits "did not the truth," that he that doeth "the truth cometh to the light," and that we Christians have been taught the holy, pure, practical truth, as it was exhibited in Jesus). To the second of these senses I wish to call your attention again, as it seems to be one from which much important warning and direction may arise. The truth, then, is often spoken of in Holy Scripture as something to be done; as a rule of holiness, a rule of purity, a rule of all sorts of practical acceptableness with God. God created the worlds, and all the intelligent and unintelligent creatures in them, in order that by an uniform and perfect exercise of their respective powers, they might together conspire to do Him glory. Each in his degree, each in his place should do His work, give Him praise, rise to such degrees of improvement and perfection as their respective nature admits. Thus should all creation, in a wonderful order, conspire to work out the will of God. In that will so wrought should be their happiness, their good, and their perfection. The lower services and the higher services, the services of beings unendowed with choice or freedom of will, and the services of free intelligent creatures,—all should work together, all work for good, all contribute to swell the great total of obedience, of active submission, of energetic fulfilment of the great law and will of God. If they do so, and to the extent that they do so, they do the truth; they work truly; they do what they were created to do. The will of God is not frustrate in them. The great machine works as its maker designed it. Each acts out the truth of his own nature; each acts out the truth of God's will. Evil And, again, the will of God is a true will. Goodness and holiness are God's will, and goodness and holiness are true, and not false. and unholiness are in themselves false, and not true. They are offences against the first axioms of moral thought. Whether the will of God be the first free cause of good being good, and evil being evil, or whatever conceivable account can be given of the origin of their respective quality, goodness is true, and badness is false. Thus, trace back as far as we will the origin of goodness, we find that it loses itself into truth. It issues forth from God who is true. It is His law of truth in the matter of moral obedience. And so also, to obey it fully, is to obey it truly. They only do the truth who, in truth,—that is, in the fullest and most perfect obedience,-fulfil the law which is the law of truth. In like manner sin is falsehood. separate law of evil, to be obeyed in It is not a evil, but it is the departure from the law of truth. Intelligent, free creatures, owing an intelligent, free obedience, a true obedience to the truth, withhold it, or deviate from it, or otherwise imperfectly discharge it, and forthwith sin and evil have their being. So the evil spirits abode not in the truth. They sinned; they deviated from the true law, and introduced sin and falsehood into the creation of God. The devil was a murderer and liar from the beginning. He was the first, and since then he has spread his own evil widely among God's creatures, till our very intelligent and free nature itself, the very nature that was created capable of so high and excellent offices of obedience and praise, is corrupted and weakened, prone to all manner of sin, loving falsehood rather than truth, darkness rather than light, because its deeds are naturally evil. It is plain (as soon as we regard the law of God in this light, in which the Holy Scriptures so often present it to us) that the law of truth must needs be a very holy and righteous law. It is also plain that it is far higher, and holier, and more searching than it is often thought. How it cuts like a sword through all the easy living, the self-indulgence, and lazy half-service which characterize these later ages of the Church! If there be a truth of holy thoughts, surely there is much unlicensed and random thinking,—much letting loose of the imagination on things trifling, and enervating, and unprofitable, which must partake in a great and serious degree of the nature of falsehood. If there be a sacred truth of holy words, there must be much idle and frivolous, and satirical, and bold talking, which must be very far below that high standard of truth, and so be really false. Above all, if there be a real sacred truth of duty and holy living, there must be a vast deal of practical and dangerous falsehood, in the waste of time, the imperfectness of service, the very easy and self-complacent way of life of very many baptized Christians. Indeed, we may readily see, that the ordinary rule of living, as we may judge of it from seeing how men live, is quite of another kind from the rule of truth. As long as they refrain from clear and notorious sins, and discharge certain clear and undoubted duties, men think themselves more or less at liberty to live in the rest of their behaviour as they like best. There are, as it were, certain buoys marking out particular shoals of sin, and these they must take care to steer clear of, but meanwhile, they have a free choice of navigating in a wide and easy channel, following their own fancy, and doing as much or as little therein as they please. It is this way of living and behaving which our Lord calls hypo |