, filling our hearts with food and gladness, for
a witness of His love and fostering care; prospering us, whensoever we
have kept His laws, above all other nations upon earth. Shall not that
heaven witness against us? Into that heaven ascended Christ the Lord,
that He might fill all things with His power and His rule, and might send
from thence on us His Holy Spirit, the Spirit whom we worship this day,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. By that same Spirit,
and by none other, have been thought all the noble thoughts which
Englishmen ever thought. By that Spirit have been spoken all the noble
words which Englishmen ever spoke. By that Spirit have been done all the
noble deeds which Englishmen have ever done. To that Spirit we owe all
that is truly noble, truly strong, truly stable, in our English life. It
is He that has given us power to get wealth, to keep wealth, to use
wealth. And if we begin to deny that, as we are inclined to do now-a-
days; if we lay our grand success and prosperity to the account of our
own cleverness, our own ability; if we say, as Moses warned the
Israelites they would say, in the days of their success and prosperity,
not--"It is God who has given us power to get wealth," but--"Mine arm,
and the might of my hand, has gotten me this wealth;"--in plain words--If
we begin to do what we are all too apt to do just now, to worship our own
brains instead of God: then the heaven above us will witness against us,
this Whitsuntide above all seasons in the year; and say--Into heaven the
Lord ascended who died for you on the Cross. From heaven He sent down
gifts for you, and your forefathers, even while you were His enemies,
that the Lord God might dwell among you. And behold, instead of thanking
God, fearing God, and confessing that you are nothing, and God is all,
you talk as if you were the arbiters of your own futures, the makers of
your own gifts. Instead of giving God the glory, you take the glory to
yourselves. Instead of declaring the glory of God, like the heavens, and
shewing his handiwork, like the stars, you shew forth your own glory and
boast of your own handiwork. Beware, and fear; as your forefathers
feared, and lived, because they gave the glory to God.

And shall not the earth witness against us? Look round, when you go out
of church, upon this noble English land. Why is it not, as many a l