s
our Prayer-book, our Catechism, our Church of England preaches to
us. It is a Church meant for free men, who stand each face to face
with their Heavenly Father: but it is a Church meant also for loyal
men, who look on the law as the ordinance of God, and on their
rulers as the ministers of God; and if our freedom has had anything
to do (as no doubt it has) with our prosperity, I believe that we
owe the greater part of our freedom to the teaching and the general
tone of mind which our Prayer-book has given to us and to our
forefathers for now three hundred years.

Not that we have listened to that teaching, or acted up to it: God
knows, we have been but too like the Jews in Isaiah's time, who had
the Law of God, and yet did every man what was right in his own
eyes; we, like them, have been hypocritical; we, like them, have
neglected the poor, and the widow, and the orphan; we, like them,
have been too apt to pay tithe of mint and anise, and neglect the
weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and judgment. When we
read that awful first chapter of Isaiah, we may well tremble; for
all the charges which he brings against the Jews of his time would
just as well apply to us; but yet we can trust in the Lord, as
Isaiah did, and believe that He will be jealous for His land, and
for His name's sake, and not suffer the nations to say of us, 'Where
is now their God?' We can trust Him, that if He turn His hand on
us, as He did on the Jews of old, and bring us into danger and
trouble, yet it will be in love and mercy, that He may purge away
our dross, and take away all our alloy, and restore our rulers as at
the first, and our counsellors as at the beginning, that we may be
called, 'The city of righteousness, the faithful city.' True, we
must not fancy that we have any righteousness of our own, that we
merit God's favour above other people; our consciences ought to tell
us that cannot be; our Bibles tell us that is an empty boast. Did
we not hear this morning, 'Bring forth fruits meet for repentance:
and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our
father; for God is able of these stones to raise up children to
Abraham.' But we may comfort ourselves with the thought that there
is One standing among us (though we see Him not) who will, ay, and
does, 'baptize us with the Holy Ghost and with fire, whose fan is in
His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather the
wheat into His garner,' for