SERMON XXVI.

THE WORLD PERISHABLE, THE CHRISTIAN
IMPERISHABLE.

1 JOHN ii. 17.

The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever."

THERE are two things which we constantly find opposed to one another in Holy Scripture-the world, which passes away; and the word of God, which does not pass away. This opposition, it is to be observed, is not only occasionally or accidentally introduced to our notice in a few texts scattered here and there; but is, in a manner, the entire burden of the Bible from the beginning to the end of it. In every page almost of that Holy Book we have again and again brought to our view the great difference between "the things which are seen, which are temporal, and the things which are not seen, which are eternal:" "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away." This, indeed, was said once for all by

12 Cor. iv. 18.

2 Matt. xxiv. 35.

our Saviour; but the same sentiment, inspired by the same Spirit, runs through the whole of Revelation. On the one hand, we have set before us the house built on the sand, which is easily washed away by the first storm; on the other hand, the house built on the rock, which no storm can destroy. On the one hand, we have the perishable and perishing things of this world, which cannot last for any length of time, but must always be shifting and changing and falling to pieces, like the clouds which break up and alter at every the least breath of wind: on the other hand, we have the everlasting unchangeable Godhead, His truth and His righteousness enduring through all ages; His promises certain and sure as His own Being; His gifts unfading treasures, which neither moth can corrupt nor rust destroy; His statutes more enduring than the heavens; His love imperishable as Eternity.

Such is the distinction which is always being set forth in the Bible between the fading things of this world and the crown reserved in heaven which "fadeth not away." "It breaks out, so to say, in all sorts of ways and forms, in psalms, in parables, in prophecies, in histories, in epistles, in the whole circle of thought which Scripture contains. Of all which our text is but one single illustration, cast in plain words, which no man can mistake. "The world passeth away, and the lust

1 Peter v. 4.

thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever."

Here we have two things opposed one to another the world, and he that doeth the will of God.

Of the world it is said, that it passeth away; of him that doeth the will of God it is said, that he abideth for ever. Let us consider these two de

clarations in their turn.

And, first, that the world passeth away: this let me call the lesson of life; for it is from life, and our experience in it, that we learn this. That he who doeth the will of God abideth for ever: this let me call the lesson of Scripture; for this we learn from Inspiration only. From life we learn that the world passeth away; a lesson well worth the learning, if persons would but attend to it; but by itself of little use, if it be not joined with that other lesson of Scripture, “My words shall not pass away."

Consider, then, that lesson of life which all must learn sooner or later, that the world passeth away. And this there are many ways of learning; so many, that time would fail in shewing the exceeding perishableness of even the very best gifts which depend for their foundation on this world alone.

Only recollect, for instance, what those who have been even slightly educated amongst us know from what they have read of history. How empires

have succeeded upon empires in the procession of past ages; each thought sure to last by the historians and mighty men of its own time; each, how ever, obliterated either suddenly or by degrees, and giving place to some new kingdom, new races of men, new forms, new polities, which in their turn again have become old and perished. This, in particular, we have learnt as respects the four great Empires mentioned in prophecy, Assyria, Persia, Gracia, and Rome; how they have been swept away, leaving few vestiges, those vestiges no better than ruins of ruins, scattered over the world in perpetual desolations, continual mementos of that fate which in due time awaits all the pride and pomp and glory of present monarchies and empires.

Then, again, consider the lives which we have left us of the great men of former times, how very little there is recorded of what seemed so much to each of them; so that, in respect to the greatest men, very often scarce a fragment of their history remains to us; little being known but that they lived and that they died. How they thought, how they acted, their fears, their hopes, their disappointments, their perplexities from day to day, their friends, their relations, their conversations, their schemes, all this has perished away from our knowledge, as though it had never been. This is true even of the famous of former times; but as for the many millions who lived in obscurity, and never became notorious in the world, of

all these it is utterly unknown even that they existed; their very names are perished away, and have left nothing behind, in the book of the world's history, but a desolate blank, impossible to be filled up till that day when the throne shall be set and the books opened, and great and small shall stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, and be judged out of the books, according to their works.1

Then, too, turning from the history of former generations of the world, consider the world itself -this earth on which we tread-what vicissitudes it has suffered from the time of its creation; how first it lost Eden; was then deluged by a flood which covered the highest mountains, and raising up lands from the depths of the seas, left us shells for our wonder on the tops of our hills; how, since that time, its surface has continually been changing by earthquakes and other causes; cities springing up where forests once spread in interminable gloom; fields spreading over buried cities; rivers altering their course; air and climate varying; generations of animals becoming extinct; and, in fact, the whole earth changing its external appearance, like a mantle which is put on and off, as though it were impossible for it to remain the same, but that it must go on for ever from change to change, till that last great change of all, when "the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the 1 Rev. xx. 12.