SERMON IV.

ARE THERE FEW THAT BE SAVED?'

LUKE xiii. 23, 24.

"Then said one unto Him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And He said unto them, Strive to enter in at the strait gate."

THIS passage, my brethren, gives us the very essence of our Lord's teaching respecting the present and the future. Since He had dwelt so often on the difficulty and narrowness of virtue's uphillward path, and on the few who toil in it, whereas many are to be seen rushing along the broad road that leadeth to destruction,-some one (who perhaps had more speculative curiosity than moral earnestness) wanted to know the

1 Preached in Westminster Abbey, Nov 18, 1877.

issues of this fact;—and therefore asked Him the plain, direct question, "Lord, are there few that be saved?" Now supposing that it were so; -supposing that, as thousands of theologians have taught for thousands of years, the vast majority are in the next world for ever lost,—would not our Lord have said so? would not His teaching have gained a terrific awfulness from admitting it? Had the answer to the question been a plain "Yes!" --and had that view been as essential to morality as some assert, surely it would have been worse than dangerous, it would have been unkind to suppress it! But what is the answer of Divine wisdom? Is it some glaring agony of fire and brimstone for billions of years? Is it in that style in which the coarse terrorism of the Puritan is at one with the coarse terrorism of the Inquisition? No; but it is a refusal to answer. It is a strong warning to the questioner. It is a tacit rebuke of the very question. It is the pointing to a strait gate, and a

narrow way,

whereby alone we can enter into the kingdom of God. In this sad world it is but the few who find that way, and until they find it they cannot see the kingdom of God. But there is not one word here about an irreversible doom to a material torment; not one word to tell us that all who walk in that broad road inevitably reach its fatal goal. And are we not 'bound to consider the silences of Scripture no less than its utterances?' If we still yearn for any answer about the future we may find it perhaps in the glorious words of Isaiah," Fear not; for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the East, and gather thee from the West; I will say to the North, Give up; and to the South, Keep not back; bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth;" or in the dazzling vision of the seer of the Apocalypse, "I beheld, and lo! a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues, stood before

1 Is. xli, 10.

"2

the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;" or in the calm promise of our Blessed Lord Himself. "In My Father's House are many mansions.' But the spirit of the answer of our Blessed Lord was this, "The fate of the souls that He hath made is in the hands of Him that made them, not in thine. Enter thou in at the strait gate."

2. It was in that spirit, my brethren, that I strove to speak to you last Sunday, believing that much of the popular teaching about the awful subject of future retribution-its physical tortures, its endless duration, its irreversible finality at the instant of death,-gives us an utterly false picture of the God of Love, which, though it may find warrant in the prima facie aspect of texts wrongly translated or totally misunderstood, finds no warrant either in the general tone of Scripture or in God's no less sacred teachings to our individual souls. And if some would represent such 2 John xiv. 2.

1 Rev. vii. 9.

a view as dangerous, I reply that my only question. is, 'Is it true?' It is falsehood which is always dangerous; but truth never. It is not for us to construct after our own fashion the unseen world. You think that men will not love God without the terror of an endless hell? So thought not David. He said, "There is mercy with Thee: therefore shalt Thou be feared." And in any case it is useless to dogmatise about things which God has not revealed. "Things are as they are, and will be as they will be;" and for us to misrepresent them by the fallibility of human system, or at the bidding of human expedience, is a blasphemy against truth and against God. What is dangerous is to drive some into indignant atheism, and to entangle others with an evil superstition, and to crush others under a deep despair, by representing Him whose name is Love as a remorseless Avenger, instead of as a Father, who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, neither keepeth He His anger for ever. Evil souls