SERMON XI.'

THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL.

HEBREWS vi. 19.

"Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil."

Ir is a very peculiar and interesting cause which I have this day undertaken to plead that of the Floating Church, which offers the means of grace to our river population, to the most useful and wellnigh the most neglected of our countrymen-those who are carrying on our commerce, who have fought our battles, and who are ready, if peace be disturbed, to fight them again with equal valour, and, through God's help, with equal success. If there be a call to which the hearts of Englishmen more naturally respond than to any other, it must be that which demands succour for sailors. As a nation we seem

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1 Preached at Trinity Church, Chelsea, on behalf of the Episcopal Floating Church.

to have less fellowship with the land than with the sea; and our strongest sympathies are with those who plough its surface, and dare its perils. I feel, therefore, that I never had a charity sermon to preach, whose subject gave me so powerful a hold on the feelings of a congregation; and I think that this hold will not be lessened, if I engage your attention with a passage of Scripture, in which the imagery, if I may use the expression, is peculiarly maritime, whilst the truths which are inculcated are of the most interesting kind. The Apostle Paul had just been speaking of "laying hold on the hope set before us," by which he seems to denote the appropriation of those various blessings which have all been procured for us by Christ. The hope is that of eternal life; and to lay hold on this hope, must be so to believe upon Christ, that we have share in those sufferings and merits which purchased forgiveness and immortality for the lost. And when the Apostle proceeds, in the words of our text, to describe this hope as an anchor of the soul, we are to understand him as declaring that the expectation of God's favour, and of the glories of heaven, through the atonement and intercession of Christ, is exactly calculated to keep us stedfast and unmoved amid all the tempests of our earthly estate. We shall assume, then, as we are fully warranted by the context in doing, that the hope in question is the hope of salvation, through the finished work of the Mediator. And it will be our chief business to engage you with

the metaphorical description which the Apostle gives of this hope, and thus aptly to introduce the peculiar claims of the Floating Church. St. Paul likens this hope to an anchor; and then declares of this anchor, or the hope, that it "entereth into that within the veil." Let these be our topics of dis

course:

The first, that the Christian's hope is as an anchor to his soul.

The second, that this hope, or this anchor, "entereth into that within the veil."

I. Now the idea which is immediately suggested by this metaphor of the anchor, is that of our being exposed to great moral peril, tossed on rough waters, and in danger of making shipwreck of our faith. And we must be well aware, if at all acquainted with ourselves and our circumstances, that such idea is in every respect accurate; and that the imagery of a tempest-tossed ship, girt about by the rock and the quicksand, as well as beaten by the hurricane, gives no exaggerated picture of the believer in Christ, as opposition, under various forms, labours at his ruin. We are not, indeed, concerned at present with delineating the progress, but only the stedfastness of the Christian; but here, also, the ocean, with its waves and its navies, furnishes the aptest of figures. If there be any principle, or any set of principles, which keeps the Christian firm and immoveable amid the trials and tempests which, like billows and winds, beat on him furiously, it is

evident that we may fairly liken that principle, or that set of principles, to the anchor, which holds the ship fast, whilst the elements are raging, and enables her to ride out in safety the storm. And all, therefore, that is necessary, in order to the vindicating the metaphor of our text is, the showing that the hope of which St. Paul speaks is just calculated for the giving the Christian this fixedness, and thus preventing his being driven on the rock, or drawn into the whirlpool.

There are several, and all simple modes, in which it may be shown that such is the property of this hope. We first observe, that there is great risk of our being carried about, as an Apostle expresses it, "with every wind of doctrine;" and whatever, therefore, tends to the keeping us in the right faith, in spite of gusts of error, must deserve to be characterized "as an anchor of the soul." But we may unhesitatingly declare, that there is a power, the very strongest, in the hope of salvation through Christ, of enabling us to stand firm against the incursions of heresy. The man who has this hope will have no ear for doctrines which, in the least degree, depreciate the person or work of the Mediator. You take away from him all that he holds most precious, if you could once shake his belief in the Atonement. It is not that he is afraid of examining the grounds of his own confidence; it is, that, having well examined them, and certified himself as to their being irreversible, his confidence has become wound

up, as it were, with his being; and it is like assaulting his existence, to assault his hope. The hope presupposes faith in the Saviour; and faith has reasons for the persuasion that Jesus is God's Son, and "able to save to the uttermost:" and though the individual is ready enough to probe these reasons, and to bring them to any fitting criterion, it is evident, that where faith has once taken possession, and generated hope, he has so direct and overwhelming an interest in holding fast truth, that it must be more than a specious objection, or a wellturned cavil, which will prevail to the loosening his grasp.

And therefore do we affirm of the hope of salvation, that he who has it, is little likely to be carried about with every wind of doctrine. We scarcely dare think that those who are Christians only in profession and theory, would retain truth without wavering, if exposed to the machinations of insidious reasoners. They do not feel their everlasting portion so dependent on the doctrine of redemption through the blood and righteousness of a Surety, that, to shake this doctrine, is to make them castaways for eternity; and therefore neither can they oppose that resistance to assault which will be offered by others who know that it is their immortality they are called to surrender. You may look, then, on an individual, who, apparently unprepared for a vigorous defence of his creed, is yet not to be overborne by the strongest onset of heresy. And you may think