My Dear Stanley, I dedicate these Sermons to you, not that I may make you responsible for any doctrine or statement contained in them, but as the simplest method of telling you how much they owe to your book on the Jewish Church, and of expressing my deep gratitude to you for publishing that book at such a time as this. It has given to me (and I doubt not to many other clergymen) a fresh confidence and energy in preaching to my people the Gospel of the Old Testament as the same with that of the

( Septuagesima Sunday .) GENESIS i.  I.  In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. We have begun this Sunday to read the book of Genesis.  I trust that you will listen to it as you ought—with peculiar respect and awe, as the oldest part of the Bible, and therefore the oldest of all known works—the earliest human thought which has been handed down to us. And what is the first written thought which has been handed down to us by the Providence of Almighty God? ‘In the beginning God cre

( Trinity Sunday .) GENESIS i. 26.  And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. This is a hard saying.  It is difficult at times to believe it to be true. If one looks not at what God has made man, but at what man has made himself, one will never believe it to be true. When one looks at what man has made himself; at the back streets of some of our great cities; at the thousands of poor Germans and Irish across the ocean bribed to kill and to be killed, they know not why; at t

( Preached also at the Chapel Royal, St. James, Sexagesima Sunday .) GENESIS iii. 8.  And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. These words would startle us, if we heard them for the first time.  I do not know but that they may startle us now, often as we have heard them, if we think seriously over them.  That God should appear to mortal man, and speak with mortal man.  It is most wonderful.  It is utterly unlike anything that we have ever seen, or th

( Quinquagesima Sunday .) GENESIS ix. 13.  I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. We all know the history of Noah’s flood.  What have we learnt from that history?  What were we intended to learn from it?  What thoughts should we have about it? There are many thoughts which we may have.  We may think how the flood came to pass; what means God used to make it rain forty days; what is meant by breaking up the fountains of the great deep.  W

( First Sunday in Lent ) GENESIS xvii.  1, 2.  And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. I have told you that the Bible reveals, that is, unveils the Lord God, Jesus Christ our Lord, and through him God the Father Almighty.  I have tried to show you how the Bible does so, step by step.  I go on to show you another step which the Bible takes, and which explains much that has gone before.

( Second Sunday in Lent .) GENESIS xxv. 29-34.  And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint: And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.  And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.  And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?  And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.  Then

( Preached on the Sunday before the Wedding of the Prince of Wales.  March 8th, third Sunday in Lent .) GENESIS xxxix. 9.  How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? The story of Joseph is one which will go home to all healthy hearts.  Every child can understand, every child can feel with it.  It is a story for all men and all times.  Even if it had not been true, and not real fact, but a romance of man’s invention, it would have been loved and admired by men; far more then, when w

( Fourth Sunday in Lent .) PHILIPPIANS iv. 8.  Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. It may not be easy to see what this text has to do with the story of Joseph, which we have just been reading, or with the meaning of the Bible of which I have been speaking to y

( Fifth Sunday in Lent .) EXODUS iii. 14.  And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM. And now, my friends, we are come, on this Sunday, to the most beautiful, and the most important story of the whole Bible—excepting of course, the story of our Lord Jesus Christ—the story of how a family grew to be a great nation.  You remember that I told you that the history of the Jews, had been only, as yet, the history of a family. Now that family is grown to be a great tribe, a great herd of people, but not

( Palm Sunday .) EXODUS ix. 13, 14.  Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.  For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth. You will understand, I think, the meaning of the ten plagues of Egypt better, if I explain to you in a few words what kind of a country Egypt is, what kind of people the Egyptians were.  Some of you, doubtle

( Palm Sunday .) Exodus ix. 14.  I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth. We are now beginning Passion Week, the week of the whole year which ought to teach us most theology; that is, most concerning God, his character and his spirit. For in this Passion Week God did that which utterly and perfectly showed forth his glory, as it never has been shown forth before or sinc

( Easter Day .) Exodus xii. 42.  This is a night to be much observed unto the Lord, for bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt. To be much observed unto the Lord by the children of Israel.  And by us, too, my friends; and by all nations who call themselves free. There are many and good ways of looking at Easter Day.  Let us look at it in this way for once. It is the day on which God himself set men free. Consider the story.  These Israelites, the children of Abraham, the brave, wild patria

( First Sunday after Easter , 1863.) Numbers xvi. 32-35.  And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.  They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.  And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also.  And there came out a fire from the

NUMBERS xxiii. 19.  God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? If I was asked for any proof that the story of Balaam, as I find it in the Bible, is a true story, I should lay my hand on this one only—and that is, the deep knowledge of human nature which is shown in it. The character of Balaam is so perfectly natural, and yet of a kind so very difficult to unravel and

( Third Sunday after Easter .) Deut. iv. 39, 40.  Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else.  Thou shall keep therefore his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, for ever. Learned men have argued much of late as to who

( Fifth Sunday after Easter .) Deut. viii. 11-18.  Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee fort

( Fifth Sunday after Easter .) DEUT. xi.  11, 12.  The land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven.  A land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year, even unto the end of the year. I told you, when I spoke of the earthquakes of the Holy Land, that it seems as if God had meant specially to train that strange people the Jews, by putting them into a country where

( First Sunday after Trinity .) DEUT. xxxiv. 5, 6.  So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord.  And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor; but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. Some might regret that the last three chapters of Deuteronomy are not read among our Sunday lessons.  There was not, however, room for them; and I do not doubt that those who chose our lessons knew better than I what chap