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LECTURE XVIII.

That it may please thee to have mercy upon all men ; That it may please thee to forgive our enemies, persecutors, and slanderers, and to turn their hearts;

We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.

In a former petition of the Litany, we interceded on behalf of "all nations;" that such nations as are yet without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of our Israel, strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world*, living in darkness, and the shadow of death, may be speedily embraced in the unity of one Lord, one faith, one baptism†; and that the nations which at present constitute his Church upon earth may be perfected, strengthened, stablished in the faith.

We now, in all the comprehensiveness of Christian charity, beseech mercy upon "all men;" not only upon the holy Church universal, but upon the universal race of mankind; upon ourselves, upon our fellow-christians, upon all; even upon them who, to the last hour of their existence, bow the knee to stock and stone.

And let us not suppose that these poor ignorant † Ephes. iv. 5.

* Ephes. ii. 12.

heathens are shut out from "mercy." mercy." Let no indiscreet, though well-intended zeal, on our part, for the diffusion of the light of truth, lead us to suppose that the millions who are yet in darkness must necessarily perish. This were an unworthy conception, both of God's mercy and of God's justice, and is, moreover, repugnant to his own revealed word: 66 Many shall come from the east and from the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness*." It was in reference to a heathen that our Saviour uttered these memorable words. Whatever misconceptions might be mixed up with them, this heathen had formed such becoming notions of the power of the Divine Being whom he addressed, and had appealed to him with such humility and piety on behalf of his servant, that our Lord said to them that followed: "Verily, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel."

The case of the unconverted, with regard to God's favour, is very distinctly put by St. Paul: "When the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves; which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else

* Matthew viii. 11, 12.

excusing one another*." The heathen centurion, of whom we have been speaking, had cherished, by habitually and diligently obeying, this "law written in the heart." He, therefore, was accepted of God; and so assuredly will all heathens be accepted of him, who zealously and faithfully profit by such means of improvement, however limited, as they may severally enjoy. When our Church says: "This is the Catholic faith, which, except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved," she, of course, alludes to those only who have had every means of knowing the truth, but deliberately, obstinately, finally reject it; not to the poor heathen, who neither knows, cannot know, the need or the existence of a Saviour; for, "how shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?" And how can it be reconciled with the justice and goodness of God to suppose that any one of his creatures shall be punished to all eternity for not doing that which he had it not in his power to do? No: let popery deal damnation round the earth as it may, holy Scripture contains no such merciless doctrine, for it says: "If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, not according to what he hath not†;" and the Church of England, ever faithful echo of Holy Scripture, makes no such distinction either, but offers up the prayer of faith for "mercy upon * Rom. ii. 14, 15.

2 Cor. viii. 12.

all men."

Thou art inexcusable, O man, whoso

ever thou art, that judgest otherwise.

Let the pious and honoured labours of the missionary, then, be placed upon their right footing. Let neither the jealous proselytizing spirit of popery, nor the ignorant enthusiasm of some amongst ourselves, seduce any of you, my friends, to believe that heathens are necessarily doomed to eternal perdition unless converted to Christ. The real grounds of all missionary exertions, as set forth in Scripture, are briefly these: first, there is great danger on our part if we do not zealously and faithfully exert ourselves to bring souls unto Christ : "O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die, if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul." St. Paul took this view of his responsibility to do all that in him lay to bring the heathen world to Christ, when he said to the Corinthian brethren: "Though I preach the Gospel, I have nothing to glory of; for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the

* Ezekiel xxxiii. 7-9.

Gospel*." On another occasion, he expresses the same conviction of his responsibility, in an equally emphatic manner, by saying: "I am a debtor to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwiset." And we are equally debtors to all whom our influence can reach, to the conquered inhabitants of the east, the subject negro population of the west, the isles of the south, the morally frozen regions of the north; woe is equally unto us, as a Christian nation, as a wealthy, influential, and cultivated people, if we devote not, collectively and individually, our wealth, our influence, and our knowledge, to the great and glorious work, which was begun by the angels of heaven, of publishing peace upon earth, good will towards men.

Secondly, if we are Christians in heart, as well as in name, we know the blessedness of Christianity; we know what a support it is under every trial and sorrow, how comforting it is in regard to the life which now is as well as that which is to come; how it befriends us whenever we are cast down in our way, and pours oil and wine into every wound of our soul; and as, if we love Christ, we shall for his sake love the brethren, that love were of itself a sufficient motive for us to make them partakers of this blessedness.

Thirdly, if we mean any thing when we pray "thy kingdom come," we mean that we earnestly desire to see it embrace the whole of his fallen + Rom. i. 14.

* 1 Cor. ix. 16.