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Title: The Good News of God
Author: Kingsley, Charles
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Good News of God" ***
Transcribed from the 1887 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
THE
GOOD NEWS OF GOD
* * * * *
SERMONS
* * * * *
BY
CHARLES KINGSLEY M.A.
* * * * *
London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1887
[_The Right of Translation is Reserved_]
* * * * *
Transferred from Messrs. LONGMAN & CO., 1863
Reprinted, Fcap. 8vo, 1866, 1874, 1877, 1878
Reprinted, Crown 8vo, 1878, 1880, 1881, 1883, 1885, 1887
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
SERMON PAGE
I. THE BEATIFIC VISION 1
II. THE GLORY OF THE CROSS 10
III. THE LIFE OF GOD 16
IV. THE SONG OF THE THREE CHILDREN 26
V. THE ETERNAL GOODNESS 34
VI. WORSHIP 43
VII. GOD’S INHERITANCE 51
VIII. ‘DE PROFUNDIS’ 57
IX. THE LOVE OF GOD ITS OWN REWARD 67
X. THE RACE OF LIFE 73
XI. SELF-RESPECT AND SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS 84
XII. TRUE REPENTANCE 94
XIII. THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT 105
XIV. HEROES AND HEROINES 116
XV. THE MEASURE OF THE CROSS 124
XVI. THE PURE IN HEART 132
XVII. MUSIC 140
XVIII. THE CHRIST CHILD 148
XIX. CHRIST’S BOYHOOD 155
XX. THE LOCUST-SWARMS 161
XXI. SALVATION 169
XXII. THE BEGINNING AND END OF WISDOM 174
XXIII. HUMAN NATURE 181
XXIV. THE CHARITY OF GOD 190
XXV. THE DAYS OF THE WEEK 195
XXVI. THE HEAVENLY FATHER 203
XXVII. THE GOOD SHEPHERD 211
XXVIII. DARK TIMES 219
XXIX. GOD’S CREATION 229
XXX. TRUE PRUDENCE 236
XXXI. THE PENITENT THIEF 249
XXXII. THE TEMPER OF CHRIST 258
XXXIII. THE FRIEND OF SINNERS 268
XXXIV. THE SEA OF GLASS 278
XXXV. A GOD IN PAIN 291
XXXVI. ON THE FALL 297
XXXVII. THE WORTHY COMMUNICANT 304
XXXVIII. OUR DESERTS 310
XXXIX. THE LOFTINESS OF GOD 317
SERMON I.
THE BEATIFIC VISION.
MATTHEW xxii. 27.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy mind.
THESE words often puzzle and pain really good people, because they seem
to put the hardest duty first. It seems, at times, so much more easy to
love one’s neighbour than to love God. And strange as it may seem, that
is partly true. St. John tells us so—‘He that loves not his brother whom
he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?’ Therefore many
good people, who really do love God, are unhappy at times because they
feel that they do not love him enough. They say in their hearts—‘I wish
to do right, and I try to do it: but I am afraid I do not do it from love
to God.’
I think that they are often too hard upon themselves. I believe that
they are very often loving God with their whole hearts, when they think
that they are not doing so. But still, it is well to be afraid of
oneself, and dissatisfied with oneself.
I think, too—nay, I am certain—that many good people do not love God as
they ought, and as they would wish to do, because they have not been
rightly taught who God is, and what He is like. They have not been
taught that God is loveable; they have been taught that God feels
feelings, and does deeds, which if a man felt, or did, we should call him
arbitrary, proud, revengeful, cruel: and yet they are told to love him;
and they do not know how to love such a being as that. Nor do I either,
my friends.
Let us therefore think over to-day for ourselves why we ought to love
God; and why both Bible and Catechism bid child as well as man to love
the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, and minds, before they bid
us love our neighbours. And keep this in mind all through, that the
reason why we are to love God must depend upon what God’s character is.
For you cannot love any one because you are told to love them. You can
only love them because they are loveable and worthy of your love. And
that they will not be, unless they are loving themselves; as it is
written, we love God because he first loved us.
Now, friends, look at this one thing first. When we see any man do a
just action, or a kind action, do we not like to see it? Do we not like
the man the better for doing it? A man must be sunk very low in
stupidity and ill-feeling—dead in tresspasses and sins, as the Bible
calls it—if he does not. Indeed, I never saw the man yet, however bad he
was himself, who did not, in his better moments, admire what was right
and good; and say, ‘Bad as I may be, that man is a good man, and I wish I
could do as he does.’
One sees the same, but far more strongly, in little children. From their
earliest years, as far as I have ever seen, children like and admire what
is good, even though they be naughty themselves; and if you tell them of
any very loving, generous, or brave action, their hearts leap up in
answer to it. They feel at once how beautiful goodness is.
But why?
St. John tells us. That feeling comes, he tells us, from Christ, the
light who is the life of men, and lights every man who comes into the
world; and that light in our hearts, which makes us see, and admire, and
love what is good, is none other than Christ himself shining in our
hearts, and showing to us his own likeness, and the beauty thereof.
But if we stop there; if we only admire what is good, without trying to
copy it, we shall lose that light. Our corrupt and diseased nature (and
corrupt and diseased it is, as we shall surely find, as soon as we begin
to try to do right) will quench that heavenly spark in us more and more,
till it dies out—as God forbid that it should die out in any of us. For
if it did die out, we should care no more for what is good. We should
see nothing beautiful, and noble, and glorious, in being just, and
loving, and merciful. And then, indeed, we should see nothing worth
loving in God himself:—and it were better for us that we had never been
born.
But none of us, I trust, are fallen as low as that. We all, surely,
admire a good action, and love a good man. Surely we do. Then I will go
on, to ask you one question more.
Did it ever strike you, that goodness is not merely _a_ beautiful thing,
but THE beautiful thing—by far the most beautiful thing in the world; and
that badness is not merely _an_ ugly thing, but the ugliest thing in the
world?—So that nothing is to be compared for value with goodness; that
riches, honour, power, pleasure, learning, the whole world and all in it,
are not worth having, in comparison with being good; and the utterly best
thing for a man is to be good, even though he were never to be rewarded
for it: and the utterly worst thing for a man is to be bad, even though
he were never to be punished for it; and, in a word, goodness is the only
thing worth loving, and badness the only thing worth hating.
Did you ever feel this, my friends? Happy are those among you who have
felt it; for of you the Lord says, Blessed are they that hunger and
thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled. Ay, happy are you
who have felt it; for it is the sign, the very and true sign, that the
Holy Spirit of God, who is the Spirit of goodness, is working in your
hearts with power, revealing to you the exceeding beauty of holiness, and
the exceeding sinfulness of sin.
But did it never strike you besides, that goodness was one, and
everlasting? Let me explain what I mean.
Did you never see, that all good men show their goodness in the same way,
by doing the same kind of good actions? Let them be English or French,
black or white, if they be good, there is the same honesty, the same
truthfulness, the same love, the same mercy in all; and what is right and
good for you and me, now and here, is right and good for every man,
everywhere, and at all times for ever. Surely, surely, what is noble,
and loveable, and admirable now, was so five thousand years ago, and will
be five thousand years hence. What is honourable for us here, would be
equally honourable for us in America or Australia—ay, or in the farthest
star in the skies.
But, some of you may say, men at different times and in different
countries have had very different notions—indeed quite opposite notions,
of what men ought to be.
I know that some people say so. I can only answer that I differ from
them. True, some men have had less light than others, and, God knows,
have made fearful mistakes enough, and fancied that they could please God
by behaving like devils: but on the first principles of goodness, all the
world has been pretty well agreed all along; for wherever men have been
taught what is really right, there have been plenty of hearts to answer,
‘Yes, this is good! this is what we have wanted all along, though we knew
it not.’ And all the wisest men among the heathen—the men who have been
honoured, and even worshipped as blessings to their fellow men, have
agreed, one and all, in the great and golden rule, ‘Thou shalt love God,
with all thy heart and soul, and thy neighbour as thyself.’
Believe about this as you may, my friends, still I believe, and will
believe; I preach, and will preach, this, and nought else but this:—That
there is but one everlasting goodness, which is good in men, good in all
rational beings—yea, good in God himself.
These last are solemn words, but they are true; and the more you think
over them, the more, I tell you, will you find them true. And to them I
have been trying to lead you; and will try once more.
For, did it never strike you, again—as it has me—and all the world has
looked different to me since I found it out—that there must be ONE, in
whom all goodness is gathered together; ONE, who must be perfectly and
absolutely good? And did it never strike you, that all the goodness in
the world must, in some way or other, come from HIM? I believe that our
hearts and reasons, if we will listen fairly to them, tell us that it
must be so; and I am certain that the Bible tells us so, from beginning
to end. When we see the million rain-drops of the shower, we say, with
reason, there must be one great sea from which all these drops have come.
When we see the countless rays of light, we say, with reason, there must
be one great central sun from which all these are shed forth. And when
we see, as it were, countless drops, and countless rays of goodness
scattered about in the world, a little good in this man, and a little
good in that, shall we not say, there must be one great sea, one central
sun of goodness, from whence all human goodness comes? And where can
that centre of goodness be, but in the very character of God himself?
Yes, my friends; if you would know what God is, think of all the noble,
beautiful, loveable actions, tempers, feelings, which you ever saw or
heard of. Think of all the good, and admirable, and loveable people whom
you ever met; and fancy to yourselves all that goodness, nobleness,
admirableness, loveableness, and millions of times more, gathered
together in one, to make one perfectly good character—and then you have
some faint notion of God, some dim sight of God, who is the eternal and
perfect Goodness.
It is but a faint notion, no doubt, that the best man can have of God’s
goodness, so dull has sin made our hearts and brains: but let us comfort
ourselves with this thought—That the more we learn to love what is good,
the more we accustom ourselves to think of good people and good things,
and to ask ourselves why and how this action and that is good, the more
shall we be able to see the goodness of God. And to see that, even for a
moment, is worth all sights in earth or heaven.
Worth all sights, indeed. No wonder that the saints of old called it the
‘Beatific Vision,’ that is, the sight which makes a man utterly blessed;
namely, to see, if but for a moment, with his mind’s eye what God is
like, and behold he is utterly good!
No wonder that they said (and I doubt not that they spoke honestly and
simply what they felt) that while that thought was before them, this
world was utterly nothing to them; that they were as men in a dream, or
dead, not caring to eat or to move, for fear of losing that glorious
thought; but felt as if they were (as they were most really and truly)
caught up into heaven, and taken utterly out of themselves by the beauty
and glory of God’s perfect goodness. No wonder that they cried out with
David, ‘Whom have I in heaven, O Lord, but Thee? and there is none on
earth whom I desire in comparison of Thee.’ No wonder that they said
with St. Peter when he saw our Lord’s glory, ‘Lord, it is good for us to
be here,’ and felt like men gazing upon some glorious picture or
magnificent show, off which they cannot take their eyes; and which makes
them forget for the time all beside in heaven and earth.
And it was good for them to be there: but not too long. Man was sent
into this world not merely to see, but to do; and the more he sees, the
more he is bound to go and do accordingly. St. Peter had to come down
from the mount, and preach the Gospel wearily for many a year, and die at
last upon the cross. St. Augustine, in like wise, though he would gladly
have lived and died doing nothing but fixing his soul’s eye steadily on
the glory of God’s goodness, had to come down from the mount likewise,
and work, and preach, and teach, and wear himself out in daily drudgery
for that God whom he learnt to serve, even when he could not adore Him in
the press of business, and the bustle of a rotten and dying world.
But see, my dear friends, and consider it well—Before a man can come to
that state of mind, or anything like it, he must have begun by loving
goodness wherever he saw it; and have settled in his heart that to be
good, and therefore to do good, is the most beautiful thing in the world.
So he will begin by loving his brother whom he has seen, and by taking
delight in good people, and in all honest, true, loving, merciful,
generous words and actions, and in those who say and do them. And so he
will be fit to love God, whom he has not seen, when he finds out (as God
grant that you may all find out) that all goodness of which we can
conceive, and far, far more, is gathered together in God, and flows out
from him eternally over his whole creation, by that Holy Spirit who
proceeds from the Father and the Son, and is the Lord and Giver of life,
and therefore of goodness. For goodness is nothing else, if you will
receive it, but the eternal life of God, which he has lived, and lives
now, and will live for evermore, God blessed for ever. Amen.
So, my dear friends, it will not be so difficult for you to love God, if
you will only begin by loving goodness, which is God’s likeness, and the
inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit. For you will be like a man who has
long admired a beautiful picture of some one whom he does not know, and
at last meets the person for whom the picture was meant—and behold the
living face is a thousand times more fair and noble than the painted one.
You will be like a child which has been brought up from its birth in a
room into which the sun never shone; and then goes out for the first
time, and sees the sun in all his splendour bathing the earth with glory.
If that child had loved to watch the dim narrow rays of light which shone
into his dark room, what will he not feel at the sight of that sun from
which all those rays had come Just so will they feel who, having loved
goodness for its own sake, and loved their neighbours for the sake of
what little goodness is in them, have their eyes opened at last to see
all goodness, without flaw or failing, bound or end, in the character of
God, which he has shown forth in Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the
likeness of his Father’s glory, and the express image of his person; to
whom be glory and honour for ever. Amen.
SERMON II.
THE GLORY OF THE CROSS.
JOHN xvii. 1.
Father, the hour is come. Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may
glorify thee.
I spoke to you lately of the beatific vision of God. I will speak of it
again to-day; and say this.
If any man wishes to see God, truly and fully, with the eyes of his soul:
if any man wishes for that beatific vision of God; that perfect sight of
God’s perfect goodness; then must that man go, and sit down at the foot
of Christ’s cross, and look steadfastly upon him who hangs thereon. And
there he will see, what the wisest and best among the heathen, among the
Mussulmans, among all who are not Christian men, never have seen, and
cannot see unto this day, however much they may feel (and some of them,
thank God, do feel) that God is the Eternal Goodness, and must be loved
accordingly.
And what shall we see upon the cross?
Many things, friends, and more than I, or all the preachers in the world,
will be able to explain to you, though we preached till the end of the
world. But one thing we shall see, if we will, which we have forgotten
sadly, Christians though we be, in these very days; forgotten it, most of
us, so utterly, that in order to bring you back to it, I must take a
seemingly roundabout road.
Does it seem, or does it not seem, to you, that the finest thing in a man
is magnanimity—what we call in plain English, greatness of soul? And if
it does seem to you to be so, what do you mean by greatness of soul?
When you speak of a great soul, and of a great man, what manner of man do
you mean?
Do you mean a very clever man, a very far-sighted man, a very determined
man, a very powerful man, and therefore a very successful man? A man who
can manage everything, and every person whom he comes across, and turn
and use them for his own ends, till he rises to be great and glorious—a
ruler, king, or what you will?
Well—he is a great man: but I know a greater, and nobler, and more
glorious stamp of man; and you do also. Let us try again, and think if
we can find his likeness, and draw it for ourselves. Would he not be
somewhat like this pattern?—A man who was aware that he had vast power,
and yet used that power not for himself but for others; not for ambition,
but for doing good? Surely the man who used his power for other people
would be the greater-souled man, would he not? Let us go on, then, to
find out more of his likeness. Would he be stern, or would he be tender?
Would he be patient, or would he be fretful? Would he be a man who
stands fiercely on his own rights, or would he be very careful of other
men’s rights, and very ready to waive his own rights gracefully and
generously? Would he be extreme to mark what was done amiss against him,
or would he be very patient when he was wronged himself, though indignant
enough if he saw others wronged? Would he be one who easily lost his
temper, and lost his head, and could be thrown off his balance by one
foolish man? Surely not. He would be a man whom no fool, nor all fools
together could throw off his balance; a man who could not lose his
temper, could not lose his self-respect; a man who could bear with those
who are peevish, make allowances for those who are weak and ignorant,
forgive those who are insolent, and conquer those who are ungrateful, not
by punishment, but by fresh kindness, overcoming their evil by his
good.—A man, in short, whom no ill-usage without, and no ill-temper
within, could shake out of his even path of generosity and benevolence.
Is not that the truly magnanimous man; the great and royal soul? Is not
that the stamp of man whom we should admire, if we met him on earth?
Should we not reverence that man; esteem it an honour and a pleasure to
work under that man, to take him for our teacher, our leader, in hopes
that, by copying his example, our souls might become great like his?
Is it so, my friends? Then know this, that in admiring that man, you
admire the likeness of God. In wishing to be like that man, you wish to
be like God.
For this is God’s true greatness; this is God’s true glory; this is God’s
true royalty; the greatness, glory, and royalty of loving, forgiving,
generous power, which pours itself out, untiring and undisgusted, in help
and mercy to all which he has made; the glory of a Father who is perfect
in this, that he causeth his rain to fall on the evil and on the good,
and his sun to shine upon the just and on the unjust, and is good to the
unthankful and the evil; a Father who has not dealt with us after our
sins, or rewarded us after our iniquities: a Father who is not extreme to
mark what is done amiss, but whom it is worth while to fear, for with him
is mercy and plenteous redemption;—all this, and more—a Father who so
loved a world which had forgotten him, a world whose sins must have been
disgusting to him, that he spared not his only begotten Son, but freely
gave him for us, and will with him freely give us all things; a Father,
in one word, whose name and essence is love, even as it is the name and
essence of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
This, my friends, is the glory of God: but this glory never shone out in
its full splendour till it shone upon the cross.
For—that we may go back again, to that great-souled man, of whom I spoke
just now—did we not leave out one thing in his character? or at least,
one thing by which his character might be proved and tried? We said that
he should be generous and forgiving; we said that he should bear
patiently folly, peevishness, ingratitude: but what if we asked of him,
that he should sacrifice himself utterly for the peevish, ungrateful men
for whose good he was toiling? What if we asked him to give up, for
them, not only all which made life worth having, but to give up life
itself? To die for them; and, what is bitterest of all, to die by their
hands—to receive as their reward for all his goodness to them a shameful
death? If he dare submit to that, then we should call his greatness of
soul perfect. Magnanimity, we should say, could rise no higher; in that
would be the perfection of goodness.
Surely your hearts answer, that this is true. When you hear of a father
sacrificing his own life for his children; when you hear of a soldier
dying for his country; when you hear of a clergyman or a physician
killing himself by his work, while he is labouring to save the souls or
the bodies of his fellow-creatures; then you feel—There is goodness in
its highest shape. To give up our lives for others is one of the most
beautiful, and noble, and glorious things on earth. But to give up our
lives, willingly, joyfully for men who misunderstand us, hate us, despise
us, is, if possible, a more glorious action still, and the very
perfection of perfect virtue. Then, looking at Christ’s cross, we see
that, and even more—ay, far more than that. The cross was the perfect
token of the perfect greatness of God, and of the perfect glory of God.
So on the cross, the Father justified himself to man; yea, glorified
himself in the glory of his crucified Son. On the cross God proved
himself to be perfectly just, perfectly good, perfectly generous,
perfectly glorious, beyond all that man could ever have dared to conceive
or dream. That God must be good, the wise heathens knew; but that God
was so utterly good that he could stoop to suffer, to die, for men, and
by men—that they never dreamed. That was the mystery of God’s love,
which was hid in Christ from the foundation of the world, and which was
revealed at last upon the cross of Calvary by him who prayed for his
murderers—‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ That
truly blessed sight of a Saviour-God, who did not disdain to die the
meanest and the most fearful of deaths—that, that came home at once, and
has come home ever since, to all hearts which had left in them any love
and respect for goodness, and melted them with the fire of divine love;
as God grant it may melt yours, this day, and henceforth for ever.
I can say no more, my friends. If this good news does not come home to
your hearts by its own power, it will never be brought home to you by any
words of mine.
SERMON III.
THE LIFE OF GOD.
1 JOHN i. 2.
For the Life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness,
and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father and
was manifested unto us!
WHAT do we mean, when we speak of the Life everlasting?
Do we mean that men’s souls are immortal, and will live for ever after
death, either in happiness or misery?
We must mean more than that. At least we ought to mean more than that,
if we be Christian men. For the Bible tells us, that Christ brought life
and immortality to light. Therefore they must have been in darkness
before Christ’s coming; and men did not know as much about life and
immortality before Christ’s coming as they know—or ought to know—now.
But if we need only believe that we shall live for ever after death in
happiness or misery, then Christ has not brought life and immortality to
light. He has thrown no fresh light upon the matter.
And why? For this simple reason, that the old heathen knew as much as
that before Christ came.
The old Greeks and Romans, and Persians, and our own forefathers before
they became Christians, believed that men’s souls would live for ever
happy or miserable. The Mussulmans, Mahommedans, Turks as they are
called in the Prayer-book, believe as much as that now. They believe
that men’s souls live for ever after death, and go to ‘heaven’ or ‘hell.’
So those words ‘everlasting Life’ must needs mean something more than
that. What do they mean?
First. What does everlasting mean?
It means exactly the same as eternal. The two words are the same: only
everlasting is English, and eternal Latin. But they have the same sense.
Now everlasting and eternal mean something which has neither beginning
nor end. That is certain. The wisest of the heathen knew that: but we
are apt to forget it. We are apt to think a thing may be everlasting,
because it has no end, though it has a beginning. We are careless
thinkers, if we fancy that. God is eternal because he has neither
beginning nor end.
But here come two puzzles.
First. The Athanasian Creed says that there is but one Eternal, that is,
God; and never were truer words written.
But do we not make out two Eternals? For God is one Eternal; and eternal
life is another Eternal. Now which is right; we, or the Athanasian
Creed? I shall hold by the Athanasian Creed, my friends, and ask you to
think again over the matter: thus—If there be but one Eternal, there is
but one way of escaping out of our puzzle, which makes two Eternals; and
that is, to go back to the old doctrine of St. Paul, and St. John, and
the wisest of the Fathers, and say—There is but one Eternal; and
therefore eternal life is in the Eternal God. And it is eternal Life
because it is God’s life; the life which God lives; and it is eternal
just because, and only because, it is the life of God; and eternal death
is nothing but the want of God’s eternal life.
Certainly, whether you think this true or not, St. John thought it true;
for he says so most positively in the text. He says that the Life was
manifested—showed plainly upon earth, and that he had seen it. And he
says that he saw it in a man, whom his eyes had seen, and his hands had
handled. How could that be?
My friends, how else could it be? How can you see life, but by seeing
some one live it? You cannot see a man’s life, unless you see him live
such and such a life, or hear of his living such and such a life, and so
knowing what his life, manners, character, are. And so no one could have
seen God’s life, or known what life God lived, and what character God’s
was, had it not been for the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
was made flesh, and dwelt among us, that by seeing him, the Son, we might
see the Father, whose likeness he was, and is, and ever will be.
But now, says St. John, we know what God’s eternal life is; for we know
what Christ’s life was on earth. And more, we know that it is a life
which men may live; for Christ lived it perfectly and utterly, though He
was a man.
What sort of life, then, is everlasting life?
Who can tell altogether and completely? And yet who cannot tell in part?
Use the common sense, my friends, which God has given to you, and
think;—If eternal life be the life of God, it must be a good life; for
God is good. That is the first, and the most certain thing which we can
say of it. It must be a righteous and just life; a loving and merciful
life; for God is righteous, just, loving, merciful; and more, it must be
an useful life, a life of good works; for God is eternally useful, doing
good to all his creatures, working for ever for the benefit of all which
he has made.
Yes—a life of good works. There is no good life without good works.
When you talk of a man’s life, you mean not only what he feels and
thinks, but what he does. What is in his heart goes for nothing, unless
he brings it out in his actions, as far as he can.
Therefore St. James says, ‘Thou hast faith, and I have works. Shew me
thy faith _without_ thy works,’ (and who can do that?) ‘and I will shew
thee my faith by my works.’
And St. John says, there is no use _saying_ you love. ‘Let us love not
in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth;’ and again—and would to
God that most people who talk so glibly about heaven and hell, and the
ways of getting thither, would recollect this one plain text—‘Little
children, let no man deceive you. He that _doeth_ righteousness is
righteous, even as God is righteous.’ And therefore it is that St. Paul
bids rich men ‘be rich also in noble deeds,’ generous and liberal of
their money to all who want, that they may ‘lay hold of that which is
really life,’ namely, the eternal life of goodness.
And therefore also, my friends, we may be sure that God loves in deed and
in truth: because it is written that God is love.
For if a man loves, he longs to help those whom he loves. It is the very
essence of love, that it cannot be still, cannot be idle, cannot be
satisfied with itself, cannot contain itself, but must go out to do good
to those whom it loves, to seek and to save that which is lost. And
therefore God is perfect love, and his eternal life a life of eternal
love, because he sends his Son eternally to seek and to save that which
is lost.
This, then, is eternal life; a life of everlasting love showing itself in
everlasting good works; and whosoever lives that life, he lives the life
of God, and hath eternal life.
What I have just said will help you, I think, to understand another royal
text about eternal life.
For now’ we may understand why it is written, that this is life eternal,
to know the true and only God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. For if
eternal life be God’s life, we must know God, and God’s character, to
know what eternal life is like: and if no man has seen God at any time,
and God’s life can only be seen in the life of Christ, then we must know
Christ, and Christ’s life, to know God and God’s life; that the saying
may be fulfilled in us, God hath given to us eternal life, and this life
is in his Son.
One other royal text, did I say? We may understand many, perhaps all,
the texts which speak of life, and eternal life, if we will look at them
in this way. We may see why St. Paul says that to be spiritually minded
is life; and that the life of Jesus may be manifested in men: and how the
sin of the old heathen lay in this, that they were alienated from the
life of God. We may understand how Christ’s commandment is everlasting
life; how the water which he gives, can spring up within a man’s heart to
everlasting life—all such texts we may, and shall, understand more and
more, if we will bear in mind that everlasting life is the life of God
and of Christ, a life of love; a life of perfect, active,
self-sacrificing goodness, which is the one only true life for all
rational beings, whether on earth or in heaven.
In heaven, my friends, as well as on earth. Form your own notions, as
you will, about angels, and saints in heaven, for every one must have
some notions about them, and try to picture to himself what the souls of
those whom he has loved and lost are doing in the other world: but bear
this in mind: that if the saints in heaven live the everlasting life,
they must be living a life of usefulness, of love and of good works.
And here I must say, friends, that however much the Roman Catholics may
be wrong on many points, they have remembered one thing about the life
everlasting, which we are too apt to forget; and that is, that
everlasting life cannot be a selfish, idle life, spent only in being
happy oneself. They believe that the saints in heaven are _not_ idle;
that they are eternally helping mankind; doing all sorts of good offices
for those souls who need them; that, as St. Paul says of the angels, they
are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to those who are heirs of
salvation. And I cannot see why they should not be right. For if the
saints’ delight was to do good on earth, much more will it be to do good
in heaven. If they helped poor sufferers, if they taught the ignorant,
if they comforted the afflicted, here on earth, much more will they be
able, much more will they be willing, to help, comfort, teach them, now
that they are in the full power, the full freedom, the full love and zeal
of the everlasting life. If their hearts were warmed and softened by the
fire of God’s love here, how much more there! If they lived God’s life
of love here, how much more there, before the throne of God, and the face
of Christ!
But if any one shall say, that the souls of good men in heaven cannot
help us who are here on earth, I answer, When did they ascend into
heaven, to find out that? If they had ever been there, friends, be sure
they would have had better news to bring home than this—that those whom
we have honoured and loved on earth have lost the power which they used
to have, of comforting us who are struggling here below. That notion
springs altogether out of a superstitious fancy that heaven is a great
many millions of miles away from this earth—which fancy, wherever men get
it from, they certainly do not get it from the Bible. Moreover it seems
to me, that if the saints in heaven cannot help men, then they cannot be
happy in heaven. Cannot be happy? Ay, must be miserable. For what
greater misery for really good men, than to see things going wrong, and
not to be able to mend them; to see poor creatures suffering, and not to
be able to comfort them? No, my friends, we will believe—what every one
who loves a beloved friend comes sooner or later to believe—that those
whom we have honoured and loved, though taken from our eyes, are near to
our spirits; that they still fight for us, under the banner of their
Master Christ, and still work for us, by virtue of his life of love,
which they live in him and by him for ever.
Pray to them, indeed, we need not, as if they would help us out of any
self-will of their own. There, I think, the Roman Catholics are wrong.
They pray to the saints as if the saints had wills of their own, and
fancies of their own, and were respecters of persons; and could have
favourites, and grant private favours to those who especially admired and
(I fear I must say it) flattered them. But why should we do that? That
is to lower God’s saints in our own eyes. For if we believe that they
are made perfect, and like perfectly the everlasting life, then we must
believe that there is no self-will in them: but that they do God’s will,
and not their own, and go on God’s errands, and not their own; that he,
and not their own liking, sends them whithersoever he wills; and that if
we ask of _him_—of God our Father himself, that is enough for us.
And what shall we ask?
Ask—‘Father, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.’
For in asking that, we ask for the best of all things. We ask for the
happiness, the power, the glory of saints and angels. We ask to be put
into tune with God’s whole universe, from the meanest flower beneath our
feet, to the most glorious spirit whom God ever created. We ask for the
one everlasting life which can never die, fail, change, or disappoint:
yea, for the everlasting life which Christ the only begotten Son lives
from eternity to eternity, for ever saying to his Father, ‘Thy will be
done.’
Yes—when we ask God to make us do his will, then indeed we ask for
everlasting life.
Does that seem little? Would you rather ask for all manner of pleasant
things, if not in this life, at least in the life to come?
Oh, my friends, consider this. We were not put into this world to get
pleasant things; and we shall not be put into the next world, as it seems
to me, to get pleasant things. We were put into this world to do God’s
will. And we shall be put (I believe) into the next world for the very
same purpose—to do God’s will; and if we do that, we shall find pleasure
enough in doing it. I do not doubt that in the next world all manner of
harmless pleasure will come to us likewise; because that will be, we
hope, a perfect and a just world, not a piecemeal, confused, often unjust
world, like this: but pleasant things will come to us in the next life,
only in proportion as we shall be doing God’s will in the next life; and
we shall be happy and blessed, only because we shall be living that
eternal life of which I have been preaching to you all along, the life
which Christ lives and has lived and will live for ever, saying to the
Eternal Father—I come to do thy will—not my will but thine be done.
Oh! may God give to us all his Spirit; the Spirit by which Christ did his
Father’s will, and lived his Father’s life in the soul and body of a
mortal man, that we may live here a life of obedience and of good works,
which is the only true and living life of faith; and that when we die it
may be said of us—‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; for they
rest from their labours, and their works do follow them.’
They rest from their labours. All their struggles, disappointments,
failures, backslidings, which made them unhappy here, because they could
not perfectly do the will of God, are past and over for ever. But their
works follow them. The good which they did on earth—that is not past and
over. It cannot die. It lives and grows for ever, following on in their
path long after they are dead, and bearing fruit unto everlasting life,
not only in them, but in men whom they never saw, and in generations yet
unborn.
SERMON IV.
THE SONG OF THE THREE CHILDREN.
DANIEL iii. 16, 17, 18.
O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the
burning fiery furnace; and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O
king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not
serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
WE read this morning, instead of the Te Deum, the Song of the Three
Children, beginning, ‘Oh all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord:
praise him, and magnify him for ever.’ It was proper to do so: because
the Ananias, Azarias, and Misael mentioned in it, are the same as the
Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, whose story we heard in the first
lesson; and because some of the old Jews held that this noble hymn was
composed by them, and sung by them in the burning fiery furnace,
wherefore it has been called ‘The Song of the Three Children;’ for child,
in old English, meant a young man.
Be that as it may, it is a glorious hymn, worthy of the Church of God,
worthy of those three young men, worthy of all the noble army of martyrs;
and if the three young men did not actually use the very words of it,
still it was what they believed; and, because they believed it, they had
courage to tell Nebuchadnezzar that they were not careful to answer
him—had no manner of doubt or anxiety whatsoever as to what they were to
say, when he called on them to worship his gods. For his gods, we know,
were the sun, moon, and planets, and the angels who (as the Chaldeans
believed) ruled over the heavenly bodies; and that image of gold is
supposed, by some learned men, to have been probably a sign or picture of
the wondrous power of life and growth which there is in all earthly
things—and that a sign of which I need not speak, or you hear. So that
the meaning of this Song of the Three Children is simply this:
‘You bid us worship the things about us, which we see with our bodily
eyes. We answer, that we know the one true God, who made all these
things; and that, therefore, instead of worshipping _them_, we will bid
them to worship _him_.’
Now let us spend a few minutes in looking into this hymn, and seeing what
it teaches us.
You see at once, that it says that the one God, and not many gods, made
all things: much more, that things did not make themselves, or grow up of
their own accord, by any virtue or life of their own.
But it says more. It calls upon all things which God has made, to bless
him, praise him, and magnify him for ever. This is much more than merely
saying, ‘One God made the world.’ For this is saying something about
God’s character; declaring what this one God is like.
For when you bless a person—(I do not mean when you pray God to bless
him—that is a different thing)—when you bless any one, I say, you bless
him because he is blessed, and has done blessed things: because he has
shown himself good, generous, merciful, useful. You praise a person
because he is praiseworthy, noble, and admirable. You magnify a
person—that is, speak of him to every one, and everywhere, in the highest
terms—because you think that every one ought to know how good and great
he is. And, therefore, when the hymn says, ‘Bless God, praise him, and
magnify him for ever,’ it does not merely confess God’s power. No. It
confesses, too, God’s wisdom, goodness, beauty, love, and calls on all
heaven and earth to admire him, the alone admirable, and adore him, the
alone adorable.
For this is really to believe in God. Not merely to believe that there
is a God, but to know what God is like, and to know that He is worthy to
be believed in; worthy to be trusted, honoured, loved with heart and mind
and soul, because we know that He is worthy of our love.
And this, we have a right to say, these three young men did, or whosoever
wrote this hymn; and that as a reward for their faith in God, there was
granted to them that deep insight into the meaning of the world about
them, which shines out through every verse of this hymn.
Deep? I tell you, my friends, that this hymn is so deep, that it is too
deep for the shallow brains of which the world is full now-a-days, who
fancy that they know all about heaven and earth, just because they happen
to have been born now, and not two hundred years ago. To such this old
hymn means nothing; it is in their eyes merely an old-fashioned figure of
speech to call on sun and stars, green herb and creeping thing, to praise
and bless God. Nevertheless, the old hymn stands in our prayer-books, as
a precious heir-loom to our children; and long may it stand. Though we
may forget its meaning, yet perhaps our children after us will recollect
it once more, and say with their hearts, what we now, I fear, only say
with our lips and should not say at all, if it was not put into our
months by the Prayer-book.
Do you not understand what I mean? Then think of this:—
If we were writing a hymn about God, should we dare to say to the things
about us—to the cattle feeding in the fields—much less to the clouds over
our heads, and to the wells of which we drink, ‘Bless ye the Lord, praise
him, and magnify him for ever?’
We should not dare; and for two reasons.
First—There is a notion abroad, borrowed from the old monks, that this
earth is in some way bad, and cursed; that a curse is on it still for
man’s sake: but a notion which is contrary to plain fact; for if we till
the ground, it does _not_ bring forth thorns and thistles to us, as the
Scripture says it was to do for Adam, but wholesome food, and rich
returns for our labour: and which in the next place is flatly contrary to
Scripture: for we read in Genesis viii. 21, how the Lord said, ‘I will
not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake;’ and the Psalms
always speak of this earth, and of all created things, as if there was no
curse at all on them; saying that ‘all things serve God, and continue as
they were at the beginning,’ and that ‘He has given them a law which
cannot be broken;’ and in the face of those words, let who will talk of
the earth being cursed, I will not; and you shall not, if I can help it.
Another reason why we dare not talk of this earth as this hymn does is,
that we have got into the habit of saying, ‘Cattle and creeping
things—they are not rational beings. How can they praise God? Clouds
and wells—they are not even living things. How can they praise God? Why
speak of them in a hymn; much less speak to them?’
Yet this hymn does speak to them; and so do the Psalms and the Prophets
again and again. And so will men do hereafter, when the fashions and the
fancies of these days are past, and men have their eyes opened once more
to see the glory which is around them from their cradle to their grave,
and hear once more ‘The Word of the Lord walking among the trees of the
garden.’
But how can this be? How can not only dumb things, but even dead things,
praise God?
My friends, this is a great mystery, of which the wisest men as yet know
but little, and confess freely how little they know. But this at least
we know already, and can say boldly—all things praise God, by fulfilling
the law which our Lord himself declared, when he said ‘Not every one who
saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he
that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.’
By doing the will of the heavenly Father. By obeying the laws which God
has given them. By taking the shape which he has appointed for them. By
being of the use for which he intended them. By multiplying each after
their kind, by laws and means a thousand times more strange than any
signs and wonders of which man can fancy for himself; and by thus showing
forth God’s boundless wisdom, goodness, love, and tender care of all
which he has made.
Yes, my friends, in this sense (and this is the true sense) all things
can serve and praise God, and all things do serve and praise Him. Not a
cloud which fleets across the sky, not a clod of earth which crumbles
under the frost, not a blade of grass which breaks through the snow in
spring, not a dead leaf which falls to the earth in autumn, but is doing
God’s work, and showing forth God’s glory. Not a tiny insect, too small
to be seen by human eyes without the help of a microscope, but is as
fearfully and wonderfully made as you and me, and has its proper food,
habitation, work, appointed for it, and not in vain. Nothing is idle,
nothing is wasted, nothing goes wrong, in this wondrous world of God.
The very scum upon the standing pool, which seems mere dirt and dust, is
all alive, peopled by millions of creatures, each full of beauty, full of
use, obeying laws of God too deep for us to do aught but dimly guess at
them; and as men see deeper and deeper into the mystery of God’s
creation, they find in the commonest things about them wonder and glory,
such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the
heart of man to conceive; and can only say with the Psalmist, ‘Oh Lord,
thy ways are infinite, thy thoughts are very deep;’ and confess that the
grass beneath their feet, the clouds above their heads—ay, every worm
beneath the sod and bird upon the bough, do, in very deed and truth,
bless the Lord who made them, praise him, and magnify him for ever, not
with words indeed, but with works; and say to man all day long, ‘Go thou,
and do likewise.’
Yes, my friends, let us go and do likewise. If we wish really to obey
the lesson of the Hymn of the Three Children, let us do the will of God:
and so worship him in spirit and in truth. Do not fancy, as too many do,
that thou canst praise God by singing hymns to him in church once a week,
and disobeying him all the week long, crying to him ‘Lord, Lord,’ and
then living as if he were not thy Lord, but thou wast thine own Lord, and
hadst a right to do thine own will, and not his. If thou wilt really
bless God, then try to live his blessed life of Goodness. If thou wilt
truly praise God, then behave as if God was praiseworthy, good, and right
in what he bids thee do. If thou wouldest really magnify God, and
declare his greatness, then behave as if he were indeed the Great God,
who ought to be obeyed—ay, who _must_ be obeyed; for his commandment is
life, and it alone, to thee, as well as to all which He has made. Dost
thou fancy as the heathen do, that God needs to be flattered with fine
words? or that thou wilt be heard for thy much speaking, and thy vain
repetitions? He asks of thee works, as well as words; and more, He asks
of thee works first, and words after. And better it is to praise him
truly by works without words, than falsely by words without works.
Cry, if thou wilt, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts;’ but show that
thou believest him to be holy, by being holy thyself. Sing, if Thou
wilt, of ‘The Father of an Infinite Majesty:’ but show that thou
believest his majesty to be infinite, by obeying his commandments, like
those Three Children, let them cost thee what they may. Join, and join
freely, in the songs of the heavenly host; for God has given thee reason
and speech, after the likeness of his only begotten Son, and thou mayest
use them, as well as every other gift, in the service of thy Father. But
take care lest, while thou art trying to copy the angels, thou art not
even as righteous as the beasts of the field. For they bless and praise
God by obeying his laws; and till thou dost that, and obeyest God’s laws
likewise, thou art not as good as the grass beneath thy feet.
For after all has been said and sung, my friends, the sum and substance
of true religion remains what it was, and what it will be for ever; and
lies in this one word, ‘If ye love me, keep my commandments.’
SERMON V.
THE ETERNAL GOODNESS.
MATTHEW xxii. 39.
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
WHY are wrong things wrong? Why, for instance, is it wrong to steal?
Because God has forbidden it, you may answer. But is it so? Whatsoever
God forbids must be wrong. But, is it wrong because God forbids it, or
does God forbid it because it is wrong?
For instance, suppose that God had not forbidden us to steal, would it be
right then to steal, or at least, not wrong?
We must really think of this. It is no mere question of words, it is a
solemn practical question, which has to do with our every-day conduct,
and yet which goes down to the deepest of all matters, even to the depths
of God himself.
The question is simply this. Did God, who made all things, make right
and wrong? Many people think so. They think that God made goodness.
But how can that be? For if God made goodness, there could have been no
goodness before God made it. That is clear. But God was always good,
good from all eternity. But how could that be? How could God be good,
before there was any goodness made? That notion will not do then. And
all we can say is that goodness is eternal and everlasting, just as God
is: because God was and is and ever will be eternally and always good.
But is eternal goodness one thing, and the eternal God, another? That
cannot be, again; for as the Athanasian Creed tells us so wisely and
well, there are not many Eternals, but one Eternal. Therefore goodness
must be the Spirit of God; and God must be the Spirit of goodness; and
right is nothing else but the character of the everlasting God, and of
those who are inspired by God.
What is wrong, then? Whatever is unlike right; whatever is unlike
goodness; whatever is unlike God; that is wrong. And why does God forbid
us to do wrong? Simply because wrong is unlike himself. He is perfectly
beautiful, perfectly blest and happy, because he is perfectly good; and
he wishes to see all his creatures beautiful, blest, and happy: but they
can only be so by being perfectly good; and they can only be perfectly
good by being perfectly like God their Father; and they can only be
perfectly like God the Father by being full of love, loving their
neighbour as themselves.
For what do we mean when we talk of right, righteousness, goodness?
Many answers have been given to that question.
The old Romans, who were a stern, legal-minded people, used to say that
righteousness meant to hurt no man, and to give every man his own. The
Eastern people had a better answer still, which our blessed Lord used in
one place, when he told them that righteousness was to do to other people
as we would they should do to us: but the best answer, the perfect
answer, is our Lord’s in the text, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself.’ This is the true, eternal righteousness. Not a legal
righteousness, not a righteousness made up of forms and ceremonies, of
keeping days holy, and abstaining from meats, or any other arbitrary
commands, whether of God or of man. This is God’s goodness, God’s
righteousness, Christ’s own goodness and righteousness. Do you not see
what I mean? Remember only one word of St. John’s. God is love. Love
is the goodness of God. God is perfectly good, because he is perfect
love. Then if you are full of love, you are good with the same goodness
with which God is good, and righteous with Christ’s righteousness. That
as what St. Paul wished to be, when he wished to be found in Christ, not
having his own righteousness, but the righteousness which is by faith in
Christ. His own righteousness was the selfish and self-conceited
righteousness which he had before his conversion, made up of forms, and
ceremonies, and doctrines, which made him narrow-hearted, bigoted,
self-conceited, fierce, cruel, a persecutor; the righteousness which made
him stand by in cold blood to see St. Stephen stoned. But the
righteousness which is by faith in Christ is a loving heart, and a loving
life, which every man will long to lead who believes really in Jesus
Christ. For when he looks at Christ, Christ’s humiliation, Christ’s
work, Christ’s agony, Christ’s death, and sees in it nothing but utter
and perfect _Love_ to poor sinful, undeserving man, then his heart makes
answer, Yes, I believe in that! I believe and am sure that that is the
most beautiful character in the world; that that is the utterly noble and
right sort of person to be—full of love as Christ was. I ought to be
like that. My conscience tells me that I ought. And I can be like that.
Christ, who was so good himself, must wish to make me good like himself,
and I can trust him to do it. I can have faith in him, that he will make
me like himself, full of the Spirit of love, without which I shall be
only useless and miserable. And I trust him enough to be sure that, good
as he is, he cannot mean to leave me useless or miserable. So, by true
faith in Christ, the man comes to have Christ’s righteousness—that is, to
be loving as Christ was. He believes that Christ’s loving character is
perfect beauty; that he must be the Son of God, if his character be like
that. He believes that Christ can and will fill him with the same spirit
of love; and as he believes, so is it with him, and in him those words
are fulfilled, ‘Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God
dwelleth in him, and he in God;’ and that ‘If a man love me,’ says the
Lord, ‘I and my Father will come to him, and take up our abode with him.’
Those are wonderful words: but if you will recollect what I have just
said, you may understand a little of them. St. John puts the same thing
very simply, but very boldly. ‘God is Love,’ he says, ‘and he that
dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.’ Strange as it may
seem, it must be so if God be love. Let us thank God that it is true,
and keep in mind what awful and wonderful creatures we are, that God
should dwell in us; what blessed and glorious creatures we may become in
time, if we will only listen to the voice of God who speaks within our
hearts.
And what does that voice say? The old commandment, my friends, which was
from the beginning, ‘Love one another.’ Whatever thoughts or feeling in
your hearts contradict that; whatever tempts you to despise your
neighbour, to be angry with him, to suspect him, to fancy him shut out
from God’s love, that is not of God. No voice in our hearts is God’s
voice, but what says in some shape or other, ‘Love thy neighbour as
thyself. Care for him, bear with him long, and try to do him good.’
For love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth
God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. Still less
can he who is not loving fulfil the law; for the law of God is the very
pattern and picture of God’s character; and if a man does not know what
God is like, he will never know what God’s law is like; and though he may
read his Bible all day long, he will learn no more from it than a dumb
animal will, unless his heart is full of love. For love is the light by
which we see God, by which we understand his Bible; by which we
understand our duty, and God’s dealings, in the world. Love is the light
by which we understand our own hearts; by which we understand our
neighbours’ hearts. So it is. If you hate any man, or have a spite
against him, you will never know what is in that man’s heart, never be
able to form a just opinion of his character. If you want to understand
human beings, or to do justice to their feelings, you must begin by
loving them heartily and freely, and the more you like them the better
you will understand them, and in general the better you will find them to
be at heart, the more worthy of your trust, at least the more worthy of
your compassion.
At least, so St. John says, ‘He that saith he is in the light, and hates
his brother, is in darkness even till now, and knoweth not whither he
goeth. But he that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is
no occasion of stumbling in him.’
No occasion of stumbling. That is of making mistakes in our behaviour to
our neighbours, which cause scandal, drive them from us, and make them
suspect us, dislike us—and perhaps with too good reason. Just think for
yourselves. What does half the misery, and all the quarrelling in the
world come from, but from people’s loving themselves better than their
neighbours? Would children be disobedient and neglectful to their
parents, if they did not love themselves better than their parents? Why
does a man kill, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness, covet his
neighbour’s goods, his neighbour’s custom, his neighbour’s rights, but
because he loves his own pleasure or interest better than his
neighbour’s, loves himself better than the man whom he wrongs? Would a
man take advantage of his neighbour if he loved him as well as himself?
Would he be hard on his neighbour, and say, Pay me the uttermost
farthing, if he loved him as he loves himself? Would he speak evil of
his neighbour behind his back, if he loved him as himself? Would he
cross his neighbour’s temper, just because he _will_ have his own way,
right or wrong, if he loved him as himself? Judge for yourselves. What
would the world become like this moment if every man loved his neighbour
as himself, thought of his neighbour as much as he thinks of himself?
Would it not become heaven on earth at once? There would be no need then
for soldiers and policemen, lawyers, rates and taxes, my friends, and all
the expensive and heavy machinery which is now needed to force people
into keeping something of God’s law. Ay, there would be no need of
sermons, preachers and prophets to tell men of God’s law, and warn them
of the misery of breaking it. They would keep the law of their own
free-will, by love. For love is the fulfilling of the law; and as St.
Augustine says, ‘Love you neighbour, and then do what you will—because
you will be sure to will what is right.’ So truly did our Lord say, that
on this one commandment hung all the law and the prophets.
But though that blessed state of things will not come to the whole world
till the day when Christ shall reign in that new heaven and new earth, in
which Righteousness shall dwell, still it may come here, now, on earth,
to each and every one of us, if we will but ask from God the blessed
gift; to love our neighbour as we love ourselves.
And then, my friends, whether we be rich or poor, fortunate or
unfortunate, still that spirit of Love which is the Spirit of God, will
be its exceeding great reward.
I say, its own reward.
For what is to be our reward, if we do our duty earnestly, however
imperfectly? ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into
the joy of thy Lord.’
And what is the joy of our Lord? What is the joy of Christ? The joy and
delight which springs for ever in his great heart, from feeling that he
is for ever doing good; from loving all, and living for all; from knowing
that if not all, yet millions on millions are grateful to him, and will
be for ever.
My friends, if you have ever done a kind action; if you have ever helped
any one in distress, or given up a pleasure for the sake of others—do you
not know that that deed gave you a peace, a self-content, a joy for the
moment at least, which nothing in this world could give, or take away?
And if the person whom you helped thanked you; if you felt that you had
made that man your friend; that he trusted you now, looked on you now as
a brother—did not that double the pleasure? I ask you, is there any
pleasure in the world like that of doing good, and being thanked for it?
Then that is the joy of your Lord. That is the joy of Christ rising up
in you, as often as you do good; the love which is in you rejoicing in
itself, because it has found a loving thing to do, and has called out the
love of a human being in return.
Yes, if you will receive it, that is the joy of Christ—the glorious
knowledge that he is doing endless good, and calling out endless love to
himself and to the Father, till the day when he shall give up to his
Father the kingdom which he has won back from sin and death, and God
shall be all in all.
That is the joy of your Lord. If you wish for any different sort of joy
after you die, you must not ask me to tell you of it; for I know nothing
about the matter save what I find written in the Holy Scripture.
SERMON VI.
WORSHIP.
ISAIAH i. 12, 13.
When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your
hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is
an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of
assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn
meeting.
THIS is a very awful text; one of those which terrify us—or at least
ought to terrify us—and set us on asking ourselves seriously and
honestly—‘What do I believe after all? What manner of man am I after
all? What sort of show should I make after all, if the people round me
knew my heart and all my secret thoughts? What sort of show, then, do I
already make, in the sight of Almighty God, who sees every man exactly as
he is?’
I say, such texts as this ought to terrify us. It is good to be
terrified now and then; to be startled, and called to account, and set
thinking, and sobered, as it were, now and then, that we may look at
ourselves honestly anti bravely, and see, if we can, what sort of men we
are.
And therefore, perhaps, it is that this chapter is chosen for the first
Advent Lesson; to prepare us for Christmas; to frighten us somewhat; at
least to set us thinking seriously, and to make us fit to keep Christmas
in spirit and in truth.
For whom does this text speak of?
It speaks of religious people, and of a religious nation; and of a
fearful mistake which they were making, and a fearful danger into which
they had fallen. Now we are religious people, and England is a religious
nation; and therefore we may possibly make the same mistake, and fall
into the same danger, as these old Jews.
I do not say that we have done so; but we may; for human nature is just
the same now as it was then; and therefore it is as well for us to look
round—at least once now and then, and see whether we too are in danger of
falling, while we think that we are standing safe.
What does Isaiah, then, tell the religious Jews of his day?
That their worship of God, their church-going, their sabbaths, and their
appointed feasts were a weariness and an abomination to him. That God
loathed them, and would not listen to the prayers which were made in
them. That the whole matter was a mockery and a lie in his sight.
These are awful words enough—that God should hate and loathe what he
himself had appointed; that what would be, one would think, one of the
most natural and most pleasant sights to a loving Father in
heaven—namely, his own children worshipping, blessing, and praising
him—should be horrible in his sight. There is something very shocking in
that; at least to Church people like us. If we were Dissenters, who go
to chapel chiefly to hear sermons, it would be easy for us to say—‘Of
course, forms and ceremonies and appointed feasts are nothing to begin
with; they are man’s invention at best, and may therefore be easily
enough an abomination to God.’ But we know that they are not so; that
forms and ceremonies and appointed feasts are good things as long as they
have spirit and truth in them; that whether or not they be of man’s
invention, they spring out of the most simple, wholesome wants of our
human nature, which is a good thing and not a bad one, for God made it in
his own likeness, and bestowed it on us. We know, or ought to know, that
appointed feast days, like Christmas, are good and comfortable
ordinances, which cheer our hearts on our way through this world, and
give us something noble and lovely to look forward to month after month;
that they are like landmarks along the road of life, reminding us of what
God has done, and is doing, for us and all mankind. And if you do not
know, I know, that people who throw away ordinances and festivals end, at
least in a generation or two, in throwing away the Gospel truth which
that ordinance or festival reminds us of; just as too many who have
thrown away Good Friday have thrown away the Good Friday good news, that
Christ died for all mankind; and too many who have thrown away Christmas
are throwing away—often without meaning to do so—the Christmas good news,
that Christ really took on himself the whole of our human nature, and
took the manhood into God.
So it is, my friends, and so it will be. For these forms and festivals
are the old landmarks and beacons of the Gospel; and if a man will not
look at the landmarks, then he will lose his way.
Therefore, to Church people like us, it ought to be a shocking thing even
to suspect that God may be saying to us, ‘Your appointed feasts my soul
hateth;’ and it ought to set them seriously thinking how such a thing may
happen, that they may guard against it. For if God be not pleased with
our coming to his house, what right have we in his house at all?
But recollect this, my dear friends, that we are not to use this text to
search and judge others’ faults, but to search and judge our own.
For if a man, hearing this sermon, looks at his neighbour across the
church, and says in his heart, ‘Ay, such a bad one as he is—what right
has he in church?’—then God answers that man, ‘Who art thou who judgest
another? To his own master he standeth or falleth.’ Yes, my friends,
recollect what the old tomb-stone outside says—(and right good doctrine
it is)—and fit it to this sermon.
When this you see, pray judge not me
For sin enough I own.
Judge yourselves; mend your lives;
Leave other folks alone.
But if a man, hearing this sermon, begins to say to himself, Such a man
as I am—so full of faults as I am—what right have I in church? So
selfish—so uncharitable—so worldly—so useless—so unfair (or whatever
other faults the man may feel guilty of)—in one word, so unlike what I
ought to be—so unlike Christ—so unlike God whom I come to worship. How
little I act up to what I believe! how little I really believe what I
have learnt! what right have I in church? What if God were saying the
same of me as he said of those old Jews, ‘Thy church-going, thy coming to
communion, thy Christmas-day, my soul hateth; I am weary to bear it. Who
hath required this at thy hands, to tread my courts?’ People round me
may think me good enough as men go now; but I know myself too well; and I
know that instead of saying with the Pharisee to any man here, ‘I thank
God that I am not as this man or that,’ I ought rather to stand afar off
like the publican, and not lift up so much as my eyes toward heaven,
crying only ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner.’
If a man should think thus, my friends, his thoughts may make him very
serious for awhile; nay, very sad. But they need not make him miserable:
need still less make him despair.
They ought to set him on thinking—Why do I come to church?
Because it is the fashion?
Because I want to hear the preacher?
No—to worship God.
But what is worshipping God?
That must depend entirely my friends, upon who God is.
As I often tell you, most questions—ay, if you will receive it, all
questions—depend upon this one root question, who is God?
But certainly this question of worshipping God must depend upon who God
is. For how he ought to be worshipped depends on what will please him.
And what will please him, depends on what his character is.
If God be, as some fancy, hard and arbitrary, then you must worship him
in a way in which a hard arbitrary person would like to be addressed;
with all crouching, and cringing, and slavish terror.
If God be again, as some fancy, cold, and hard of hearing, then you must
worship him accordingly. You must cry aloud as Baal’s priests did to
catch his notice, and put yourselves to torment (as they did, and as many
a Christian has done since) to move his pity; and you must use
repetitions as the heathen do, and believe that you will be heard for
your much speaking. The Lord Jesus called all such repetitions vain, and
much speaking a fancy: but then, the Lord Jesus spoke to men of a Father
in heaven, a very different God from such as I speak of—and, alas! some
Christian people believe in.
But, my friends, if you believe in your heavenly Father, the good God
whom your Lord Jesus Christ has revealed to you; and if you will consider
that he is good, and consider what that word good means, then you will
not have far to seek before you find what worship means, and how you can
worship him in spirit and in truth.
For if God be good, worshipping him must mean praising and admiring
him—adoring him, as we call it—for being good.
And nothing more?
Certainly much more. Also to ask him to make us good. That, too, must
be a part of worshipping a good God. For the very property of goodness
is, that it wishes to make others good. And if God be good, he must wish
to make us good also.
To adore God, then, for his goodness, and to pray to him to make us good,
is the sum and substance of all wholesome worship.
And for that purpose a man may come to church, and worship God in spirit
and in truth, though he be dissatisfied with himself, and ashamed of
himself; and knows that he is wrong in many things:—provided always that
he wishes to be set right, and made good.
For he may come saying, ‘O God, thou art good, and I am bad; and for that
very reason I come. I come to be made good. I admire thy goodness, and
I long to copy it; but I cannot unless thou help me. Purge me; make me
clean. Cleanse thou me from my secret faults, and give me truth in the
inward parts. Do what thou wilt with me. Train me as thou wilt. Punish
me if it be necessary. Only make me good.’
Then is the man fit indeed to come to church, sins and all:—if he carry
his sins into church not to carry them out again safely and carefully, as
we are all too apt to do, but to cast them down at the foot of Christ’s
cross, in the hope (and no man ever hoped that hope in vain)—that he will
be lightened of that burden, and leave some of them at least behind him.
Ay, no man, I say, ever hoped that in vain. No man ever yet felt the
burden of his sins really intolerable and unbearable, but what the burden
of his sins was taken off him before all was over, and Christ’s
righteousness given to him instead.
Then a man is fit, not only to come to church, but to come to Holy
Communion on Christmas-day, and all days. For then and there he will
find put into words for him the very deepest sorrows and longings of his
heart. There he may say as heartily as he can (and the more heartily the
better), ‘I acknowledge and bewail my manifold sins and wickedness. The
remembrance of them is grievous unto me; the burden of them is
intolerable:’ but there he will hear Christ promising in return to pardon
and deliver him from all his sins, to confirm and strengthen him in all
goodness. That last is what he ought to want; and if he wants it, he
will surely find it.
He may join there with the whole universe of God in crying, ‘Holy, holy,
holy, Lord God of Hosts, heaven and earth are full of Thy glory:’ and
still in the same breath he may confess again his unworthiness so much as
to gather up the crumbs under God’s table, and cast himself simply and
utterly upon the eternal property of God’s eternal essence, which
is—always to have mercy. But he will hear forthwith Christ’s own
answer—‘If thou art bad, I can and will make thee good. My blood shall
wash away thy sin: my body shall preserve thee, body, soul, and spirit,
to the everlasting life of goodness.’
And so God will bless that man’s communion to him; and bless to him his
keeping of Christmas-day; because out of a true penitent heart and lively
faith he will be offering to the good God the sacrifice of his own bad
self, that God may take it, and make it good; and so will be worshipping
the everlasting and infinite Goodness, in spirit and in truth.
SERMON VII.
GOD’S INHERITANCE.
GAL. iv. 6, 7.
Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into
your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a
servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
THIS is the second good news of Christmas-day.
The first is, that the Son of God became man.
The second is, why he became man. That men might become the sons of God
through him.
Therefore St. Paul says, You are the sons of God. Not—you may be, if you
are very good: but you are, in order that you may become very good. Your
being good does not tell you that you are the sons of God: your baptism
tells you so. Your baptism gives you a right to say, I am the child of
God. How shall I behave then? What ought a child of God to be like?
Now St. Paul, you see, knew well that we could not make ourselves God’s
children by any feelings, fancies, or experiences of our own. But he
knew just as well that we cannot make ourselves behave as God’s children
should, by any thoughts and trying of our own.
God alone made us His children; God alone can make us behave like his
children.
And therefore St. Paul says, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our
hearts: by which we cry to God, Our Father.
But some will say, Have we that Spirit?
St. Paul says that you have: and surely he speaks truth.
Let us search, then, and see where that Spirit is in us. It is a great
and awful honour for sinful men: but I do believe that if we seek, we
shall find that He is not far from any one of us, for in Him we live and
move, and have our being; and all in us which is not ignorance,
falsehood, folly, and filth, comes from Him.
Now the Bible says that this Spirit is the Spirit of God’s Son, the
Spirit of Christ:—and what sort of Spirit is that?
We may see by remembering what sort of a Spirit Christ had when on earth;
for He certainly has the same Spirit now—the Spirit which proceedeth
everlastingly from the Father and from the Son.
And what was that Like? What was Christ Like? What was his Spirit Like?
It was a Spirit of Love, mercy, pity, generosity, usefulness,
unselfishness. A spirit of truth, honour, fearless love of what was
right: a spirit of duty and willing obedience, which made Him rejoice in
doing His Father’s will. In all things the spirit of a perfect _Son_, in
all things a lovely, noble, holy spirit.
And now, my dear friends, is there nothing in you like that? You may
forget it at times, you may disobey it very often: but is there not
something in all your hearts more or less, which makes you love and
admire what is right?
When you hear of a noble action, is there nothing in you which makes you
approve and admire it? Is there nothing in your hearts which makes you
pity those who are in sorrow and long to help them? Nothing which stirs
your heart up when you hear of a man’s nobly doing his duty, and dying
rather than desert his post, or do a wrong or mean thing? Surely there
is—surely there is.
Then, O my dear friends, when those feelings come into your hearts,
rejoice with trembling, as men to whom God has given a great and precious
gift. For they are none other than the Spirit of the Son of God,
striving with your hearts that He may form Christ in you, and raise up
your hearts to cry with full faith to God, ‘My Father which art in
heaven!’
‘Ah but,’ you will say, ‘we like what is right, but we do not always do
it. We like to see pity and mercy: but we are very often proud and
selfish and tyrannical. We like to see justice and honour: but we are
too apt to be mean and unjust ourselves. We like to see other people
doing their duty: but we very often do not do ours.’
Well, my dear friends, perhaps that is true. If it be, confess your sins
like honest men, and they shall be forgiven you. If you can so complain
of yourselves, I am sure I can of myself, ten times more.
But do you not see that this very thing is a sign to you that the good
and noble thoughts in you are not your own but God’s? If they came out
of your own spirits, then you would have no difficulty in obeying them.
But they came out of God’s Spirit; and our sinful and self-willed spirits
are striving against his, and trying to turn away from God’s light. What
can we do then? We can cherish those noble thoughts, those pure and
higher feelings, when they arise. We can welcome them as heavenly
medicine from our heavenly Father. We can resolve not to turn away from
them, even though they make us ashamed. Not to grieve the Spirit of the
Son of God, even though he grieves us (as he ought to do and will do more
and more), by showing us our own weakness and meanness, and how unlike we
are to Christ, the only begotten Son.
If we shut our hearts to those good feelings, they will go away and leave
us. And if they do, we shall neither respect our neighbours, nor respect
ourselves. We shall see no good in our neighbours, but become scornful
and suspicious to them; and if we do that, we shall soon see no good in
ourselves. We shall become discontented with ourselves, more and more
given up to angry thoughts and mean ways, which we hate and despise, all
the while that we go on in them.
And then—mark my words—we shall lose all real feeling of God being our
Father, and we his sons. We shall begin to fancy ourselves his slaves,
and not his children; and God our taskmaster, and not our Father. We
shall dislike the thought of God. We shall long to hide from God. We
shall fall back into slavish terror, and a fearful looking forward to of
judgment and fiery indignation, because we have trampled under foot the
grace of God, the noble, pure, tender, and truly graceful feelings which
God’s Spirit bestowed on us, to fill us with the grace of Christ.
Therefore, my dear friends, never check any good or right feelings in
yourselves, or in your children; for they come from the spirit of the Son
of God himself. But, as St. Paul says, Phil. iv. 3, ‘Finally, brethren,
whatsoever things are honourable, whatsoever things are just, what soever
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of
good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on
these things’, . . . ‘and the God of peace shall be with you.’ Avoid all
which can make you mean, low, selfish, cruel. Cling to all which can
fill your mind with lofty, kindly, generous, loyal thoughts; and so, in
God’s good time, you will enter into the meaning of those great
words—Abba, Father. The more you give up your hearts to such good
feelings, the more you will understand of God; the more nobleness there
is in you, the more you will see God’s nobleness, God’s justice, God’s
love, God’s true glory. The more you become like God’s Son, the more you
will understand how God can stoop to call himself your Father; and the
more you will understand what a Father, what a perfect Father God is.
And in the world to come, I trust, you will enter into the glorious
liberty of the sons of God—that liberty which comes, as I told you last
Sunday, not from doing your own will, but the will of God; that glory
which comes, not from having anything of your own to pride yourselves
upon, but from being filled with the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus
Christ, by which you shall for ever look up freely, and yet reverently,
to the Almighty God of heaven and earth, and say, ‘Impossible as the
honour seems for man, yet thou, O God, hast said it, and it is true.
Thou, even thou art my Father, and I thy son in Jesus Christ, who became
awhile the Son of man on earth, that I might become for ever the son of
God in heaven.’
And so will come true to us St. Paul’s great words:—If we be sons, then
heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ.
Heirs of God: but what is our inheritance? The same as Christ’s.
And what is Christ’s inheritance? What but God himself?—The knowledge of
our Father in heaven, of his love to us, and of his eternal beauty and
glory, which fills all heavens and all worlds with light and life.
SERMON VIII.
‘DE PROFUNDIS.’
PSALM cxxx. 1.
Out of the deep have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice.
WHAT is this deep of which David speaks so often? He knew it well, for
he had been in it often and long. He was just the sort of man to be in
it often. A man with great good in him, and great evil; with very strong
passions and feelings, dragging him down into the deep, and great light
and understanding to show him the dark secrets of that horrible pit when
he was in it; and with great love of God too, and of order, and justice,
and of all good and beautiful things, to make him feel the horribleness
of that pit where he ought not to be, all the more from its difference,
its contrast, with the beautiful world of light, and order, and
righteousness where he ought to be. Therefore he knew that deep well,
and abhorred it, and he heaps together every ugly name, to try and
express what no man can express, the horror of that place. It is a
horrible pit, mire and clay, where he can find no footing, but sinks all
the deeper for his struggling. It is a place of darkness and of storms,
a shoreless and bottomless sea, where he is drowning, and drowning, while
all God’s waves and billows go over him. It is a place of utter
loneliness, where he sits like a sparrow on the housetop, or a doleful
bird in the desert, while God has put his lovers and friends away from
him, and hid his acquaintance out of his sight, and no man cares for his
soul, and all men seem to him liars, and God himself seems to have
forgotten him and forgotten all the world. It is a dreadful net which
has entangled his feet, a dark prison in which he is set so fast that he
cannot get forth. It is a torturing disgusting disease, which gives his
flesh no health, and his bones no rest, and his wounds are putrid and
corrupt. It is a battle-field after the fight, where he seems to lie
stript among the dead, like those who are wounded and cut away from God’s
hand, and lies groaning in the dust of death, seeing nothing round him
but doleful shapes of destruction and misery, alone in the outer
darkness, while a horrible dread overwhelms him. Yea, it is hell itself,
the pit of hell, the nethermost hell, he says, where God’s wrath burns
like fire, till his tongue cleaves to his gums, and his bones are burnt
up like a firebrand, till he is weary of crying; his throat is dry, his
heart fails him for waiting so long upon his God.
Yes. A dark and strange place is that same deep pit of God—if, indeed,
it be God’s and God made it. Perhaps God did not make it. For God saw
everything that he had made, and behold it was very good: and that pit
cannot be very good; for all good things are orderly, and in shape; and
in that pit is no shape, no order, nothing but contradiction and
confusion. When a man is in that pit, it will seem to him as if he were
alone in the world, and longing above all things for company; and yet he
will hate to have any one to speak to him, and wrap himself up in himself
to brood over his own misery. When he is in that pit he shall be so
blind that he can see nothing, though his eyes be open in broad noon-day.
When he is in that pit he will hate the thing which he loves most, and
love the thing which he hates most. When he is in that pit he will long
to die, and yet cling to life desperately, and be horribly afraid of
dying. When he is in that pit it will seem to him that God is awfully,
horribly near him, and he will try to hide from God, try to escape from
under God’s hand: and yet all the while that God seems so dreadfully near
him, God will seem further off from him than ever, millions and millions
of miles away, parted from him by walls of iron, and a great gulf which
he can never pass. There is nothing but contradiction in that pit: the
man who is in it is of two minds about himself, and his kin and
neighbours, and all heaven and earth; and knows not where to turn, or
what to think, or even where he is at all.
For the food which he gets in that deep pit is very hunger of soul, and
rage, and vain desires. And the ground which he stands on in that deep
is a bottomless quagmire, and doubt, and change, and shapeless dread.
And the air which he breathes in that deep is the very fire of God, which
burns up everlastingly all the chalk and dross of the world.
I said that that deep was not merely the deep of affliction. No: for you
may see men with every comfort which wealth and home can give, who are
tormented day and night in that deep pit in the midst of all their
prosperity, calling for a drop of water to cool their tongue, and finding
none. And you may see poor creatures dying in agony on lonely sick beds,
who are not in that pit at all, but in that better place whereof it is
written, ‘Blessed are they who, going through the vale of misery, use it
for a well, and the pools are filled with water;’ and again, ‘If any man
thirst, let him come to me, and drink;’ and ‘the water that I shall give
him shall be in him a well of water, springing up to everlasting life.’
No—that deep pit is a far worse place; an utterly bad place; and yet it
may be good for a man to have fallen into it; and, strangely enough, if
he do fall in, the lower he sinks in it, the better for him at last.
That is another strange contradiction in that pit, which David found,
that though it was a bottomless pit, the deeper he sank in it, the more
likely he was to find his feet set on a rock; the further down in the
nethermost hell he was, the nearer he was to being delivered from the
nethermost hell.
Of course, if he had staid in that pit, he must have died, body and soul.
No mortal man, or immortal soul could endure it long. No immortal soul
could; for he would lose all hope, all faith in God, all feeling of there
being anything like justice and order in the world, all hope for himself,
or for mankind, lying so in that living grave where no man can see God’s
righteousness, or his faithfulness in that land where all things are
forgotten.
And his mere mortal body could not stand it. The misery and terror and
confusion of his soul would soon wear out his body, and he would die, as
I have seen men actually die, when their souls have been left in that
deep somewhat too long; shrink together into dark melancholy, and pine
away, and die. And I have seen sweet young creatures too, whom God for
some purpose of his own (which must be good and loving, for _He_ did it)
has let fall awhile into that deep of darkness; and then in compassion to
their youth, and tenderness, and innocence, has lifted them gently out
again, and set their weary feet upon the everlasting Rock, which is
Christ; and has filled them with the light of his countenance, and joy
and peace in believing; and has led them by green pastures and made them
rest by the waters of comfort; and yet, though their souls were healed,
their bodies were not. That fearful struggle has been too much for frail
humanity, and they have drooped, and faded, and gone peacefully after a
while home to their God, as a fair flower withers if the fire has but
once past over it.
But some I have seen, men and women, who have arisen, like David, out of
that strange deep, all the stronger for their fall; and have found out
another strange contradiction about that deep, and the fire of God which
burns below in it. For that fire hardens a man and softens him at the
same time; and he comes out of it hardened to that hardness of which it
is written, ‘Do thou endure hardness like a good soldier of Jesus
Christ;’ and again, ‘I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith, I
have finished my course:’ yet softened to that softness of which it is
written, ‘Be ye tenderhearted, compassionate, forgiving one another, even
as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you;’—and again, ‘We have a High
Priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, seeing
that he has been tempted in all things like as we are, yet without sin.’
Happy, thrice happy are they who have thus walked through the valley of
the shadow of death, and found it the path which leads to everlasting
life. Happy are they who have thus writhed awhile in the fierce fire of
God, and have had burnt out of them the chaff and dross, and all which
offends, and makes them vain, light, and yet makes them dull, drags them
down at the same time; till only the pure gold of God’s righteousness is
left, seven times tried in the fire, incorruptible, and precious in the
sight of God and man. Such people need not regret—they will not
regret—all that they have gone through. It has made them brave, made
them sober, made them patient. It has given them
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength and skill;
and so has shaped them into the likeness of Christ, who was made perfect
by suffering; and though he were a Son, yet in the days of his flesh,
made strong supplication and crying with tears to his Father, and was
heard in that he feared; and so, though he died on the cross and
descended into hell, yet triumphed over death and hell, by dying and by
descending; and conquered them by submitting to them. And yet they have
been softened in that fierce furnace of God’s wrath, into another
likeness of Christ—which after all is still the same; the character which
he showed when he wept by the grave of Lazarus, and over the sinful city
of Jerusalem; which he showed when his heart yearned over the perishing
multitude, and over the leper, and the palsied man, and the maniac
possessed with devils; the character which he showed when he said to the
woman taken in adultery, ‘Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more;’
which he showed when he said to the sinful Magdalene, who washed his feet
with tears, and wiped them with her hair, ‘her sins, which are many, are
forgiven; for she loved much;’ the likeness which he showed in his very
death agony upon the torturing cross, when he prayed for his murderers,
‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ This is the
character which man may get in that dark deep.—To feel for all, and feel
with all; to rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who
weep; to understand people’s trials, and make allowances for their
temptations; to put oneself in their place, till we see with their eyes,
and feel with their hearts, till we judge no man, and have hope for all;
to be fair, and patient, and tender with every one we meet; to despise no
one, despair of no one, because Christ despises none, and despairs of
none; to look upon every one we meet with love, almost with pity, as
people who either have been down into the deep of horror, or may go down
into it any day; to see our own sins in other people’s sins, and know
that we might do what they do, and feel as they feel, any moment, did God
desert us; to give and forgive, to live and let live, even as Christ
gives to us, and forgives us, and lives for us, and lets us live, in
spite of all our sins.
And how shall we learn this? How shall the bottomless pit, if we fall
into it, be but a pathway to the everlasting rock?
David tells us:
‘Out of the deep have I cried unto thee, O Lord.’
He cried to God.
Not to himself, his own learning, talents, wealth, prudence, to pull him
out of that pit. Not to princes, nobles, and great men. Not to
doctrines, books, church-goings. Not to the dearest friend he had on
earth; for they had forsaken him, could not understand him, thought him
perhaps beside himself. Not to his own good works, almsgivings,
church-goings, church-buildings. Not to his own experiences, faith’s
assurances, frames or feelings. The matter was too terrible to be
plastered over in that way, or in any way. He was face to face with God
alone, in utter weakness, in utter nakedness of soul, He cried to God
himself. There was the lesson.
God took away from him all things, that he might have no one to cry to
but God.
God took him up, and cast him down: and there he sat all alone,
astonished and confounded, like Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, when she
sat alone upon the parching rock. Like Rizpah, he watched the dead
corpses of all his hopes and plans, all for which he had lived, and which
made life worth having, withering away there by his side. But it was
told David what Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, had done. And it is told
to one greater than David, even to Jesus Christ, the Son of David, what
the poor soul does when it sits alone in its despair. Or rather it need
not be told him; for he sees all, weeps over all, will comfort all: and
it shall be to that poor soul as it was to poor deserted Hagar in the
sandy desert, when the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast her
child—the only thing she had left—under one of the shrubs and hurried
away; for she said, ‘Let me not see the child die.’ And the angel of the
Lord called to her out of heaven, saying, ‘The Lord hath heard the voice
of the lad where he is;’ and God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of
water.
It shall be with that poor soul as it was with Moses, when he went up
alone into the mount of God, and fasted forty days and forty nights amid
the earthquake and the thunderstorm, and the rocks which melted before
the Lord. And behold, when it was past, he talked face to face with God,
as a man talketh with his friend, and his countenance shone with heavenly
light, when he came down triumphant out of the mount of God.
So shall it be with every soul of man who, being in the deep, cries out
of that deep to God, whether in bloody India or in peaceful England. For
He with whom we have to do is not a tyrant, but a Father; not a
taskmaster, but a Giver and a Redeemer. We may ask him freely, as David
does, to consider our complaint, because he will consider it well, and
understand it, and do it justice. He is not extreme to mark what is done
amiss, and therefore we can abide his judgments. There is mercy with
him, and therefore it is worth while to fear him. He waits for us year
after year, with patience which cannot tire; therefore it is but fair
that we should wait a while for him. With him is plenteous redemption,
and therefore redemption enough for us, and for those likewise whom we
love. He will redeem us from all our sins: and what do we need more? He
will make us perfect, even as our Father in heaven is perfect. Let him
then, if he must, make us perfect by sufferings. By sufferings Christ
was made perfect; and what was the best path for Jesus Christ is surely
good enough for us, even though it be a rough and a thorny one. Let us
lie still beneath God’s hand; for though his hand be heavy upon us, it is
strong and safe beneath us too; and none can pluck us out of his hand,
for in him we live and move and have our being; and though we go down
into hell with David, with David we shall find God there, and find, with
David, that he will not leave our souls in hell, or suffer his holy ones
to see corruption. Yes; have faith in God. Nothing in thee which he has
made shall see corruption; for it is a thought of God’s, and no thought
of his can perish. Nothing shall be purged out of thee but thy disease;
nothing shall be burnt out of thee but thy dross; and that in thee shall
be saved, and live to all eternity, of which God said at the beginning,
Let us make man in our own image. Yes. Have faith in God; and say to
him once for all, ‘Though thou slay me, yet will I love thee; for thou
lovedst me in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world.’
SERMON IX.
THE LOVE OF GOD ITS OWN REWARD.
DEUT. xxx. 19, 20.
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have
set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose
life that both thou and thy seed may live; that thou mayest love the
Lord thy God, and that thou mayest cleave unto him, for he is thy
life and the length of thy days, that thou mayest dwell in the land
which the Lord God sware unto thy fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
to give them.
I SPOKE to you last Sunday on this text. But there is something more in
it, which I had not time to speak of then.
Moses here tells the Israelites what will happen to them if they keep
God’s law.
They will love God. That was to be their reward. They were to have
other rewards beside. Beside loving God, it would be well with them and
their children, and they would live long in the land which God had given
them. But their first reward, their great reward, would be that they
would love God.
If they obeyed God, they would have reason to love him.
Now we commonly put this differently.
We say, If you love God, you will obey him; which is quite true. But
what Moses says is truer still, and deeper still. Moses says, If you
obey God, you will love him.
Again we say, If you love God, God will reward you; which is true; though
not always true in this life. But Moses says a truer and deeper thing.
Moses says that loving God is our reward; that the greatest reward, the
greatest blessing which a man can have, is this—that the man should love
God. Now does this seem strange? It is not strange, nevertheless.
For there are two sorts of faith; and one must always, I sometimes think,
come before the other.
The first is implicit faith—blind faith—the sort of faith a child has in
what its parents tell it. A child, we know, believes its parents
blindly, even though it does not understand what they tell it. It takes
for granted that they are right.
The second is experimental faith—the faith which comes from experience
and reason, when a man looks back upon his life, and on God’s dealings
with him; and then sees from experience what reason he has for trusting
and loving God, who has helped him onward through so many chances and
changes for so many years.
Now some people cry out against blind implicit faith, as if it was
childish and unreasonable. But I cannot. I think every one learns to
love his neighbour, very much as Moses told the Jews they would learn to
love God; namely, by trusting them somewhat blindly at first.
Is it not so? Is it not so always with young people, when they begin to
be fond of each other? They trust each other, they do not know why, or
how. Before they are married, they have little or no experience of each
other; of each other’s tempers and characters: and yet they trust each
other, and say in their hearts, ‘He can never be false to me;’ and are
ready to put their honour and fortunes into each other’s hands, to live
together for better for worse, till death them part. It is a blind faith
in each other, that, and those who will may laugh at it, and call it the
folly and rashness of youth. I do not believe that God laughs at it:
that God calls it folly and rashness. It surely comes from God.
For there is something in each of them worth trusting, worth loving.
True, they may be disappointed in each other; but they need not be. If
they are true to themselves; if they will listen to the better voice
within, and be true to their own better feelings, all will be well, and
they will find after marriage that they did not do a rash and a foolish
thing, when they gave up themselves to each other, and cast in their lot
together blindly to live and die.
And then, after that first blind faith and love in each other which they
had before marriage, will come, as the years roll by, a deeper, sounder
faith and love from experience.—An experience of which I shall not talk
here; for those who have not felt it for themselves would not know what I
mean; and those who have felt it need no clumsy words of mine to describe
it to them.
Now, my dear friends, this is one of the things by which marriage is
consecrated to an excellent mystery, as the Prayer-book says. This is
one of the things in which marriage is a pattern and picture of the
spiritual union which is between Christ and his Church.
First, as I said, comes blind faith. A young person, setting out in
life, has little experience of God’s love; he has little to make him sure
that the way of life, and honour, and peace, is to obey God’s laws. But
he is told so. His Bible tells him so. Wiser and older people than he
tell him so, and God himself tells him so. God himself makes up in the
young person’s heart a desire after goodness.
Then he takes it for granted blindly. He says to himself, I can but try.
They tell me to taste and see whether the Lord is gracious. I will
taste. They tell me that the way of his commandments is the way to make
life worth loving, and to see good days. I will try. And so the years
go by. The young person has grown middle-aged, old. He or she has been
through many trials, many disappointments; perhaps more than one bitter
loss. But if they have held fast by God; if they have tried, however
clumsily, to keep God’s law, and walk in God’s way, then there will have
grown up in them a trust in God, and a love for God, deeper and broader
far than any which they had in youth; a love grounded on experience.
They can point back to so many blessings which the Lord gave them
unexpectedly; to so many sorrows which the Lord gave them strength to
bear, though they seemed at first sight past bearing; to so many
disappointments which seemed ill luck at the time, and yet which turned
out good for them in the end. And so comes a deep, reasonable love to
their Heavenly Father. Now they have _tasted_ that the Lord is gracious.
Now they can say, with the Samaritans, ‘Now we believe, not because of
thy saying, but because we have heard him ourselves, and know that this
is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.’ And when sadness and
affliction come on them, as it must come, they can look back, and so get
strength to look forward. They can say with David, ‘I will go on in the
strength of the Lord God. I will make mention only of his righteousness.
Oh my God, thou hast taught me from my youth up until now; hitherto have
I declared thy wondrous works. Now also, when I am old and grey-headed,
oh Lord, forsake me not, till I have showed thy strength unto this
generation, and thy power to those whom I leave behind me.’
And so, by remembering what God _has_ been to them, they can face what is
coming. ‘They will not be afraid of evil tidings,’ as David says; ‘for
their heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.’
And when old age comes, and brings weakness and sickness, and low
spirits, still they have comfort. They can say with David again, ‘I have
been young, and now am old, but never saw I the righteous forsaken, nor
his seed begging their bread.’
Oh my dear friends, young people especially—there are many things which
you may long for which you cannot have: much happiness which is _not_
within your reach. But _this_ you can have, if you will but long for it:
this happiness _is_ within your reach, if you will but put out your hand
and take it.—The everlasting unfailing comfort of loving God, and of
knowing that God loves you. Oh choose that now at once. Choose God’s
ways which are pleasantness, and God’s paths which are peace; and then in
your old age, whether you become rich or poor, whether you are left
alone, or go down to your grave in peace with children and grandchildren
to close your eyes, you will still have the one great reward, the true
reward, the everlasting reward which Moses promised the old Israelites.
You will have reason to love God, who has carried you safe through life,
and will carry you safe through death, and to say with all his saints and
martyrs, ‘Many things I know not; and many things I have lost: but this I
know.—I know in whom I have believed; and this I cannot lose; even God
himself, whose name is faithful and true.’
SERMON X.
THE RACE OF LIFE.
JOHN i. 26.
There standeth one among you whom ye know not.
THIS is a solemn text. It warns us, and yet it comforts us. It tells us
that there is a person standing among us so great, that John the Baptist,
the greatest of the prophets, was not worthy to unloose his shoes’
latchet.
Some of you know who he is. Some of you, perhaps, do not. If you know
him, you will be glad to be reminded of him to-day. If you do not know
him, I will tell you who he is.
Only bear this in mind, that whether you know him or not, he is standing
among us. We have not driven him away, and cannot drive him away. Our
not seeing him will not prevent his seeing us. He is always near us;
ready, if we ask him, as the Collect bids us, to ‘come among us, and with
great might succour us.’
For, my friends, this is the meaning of the text, as far as it has to do
with us. The noble Collect for to-day tells this, and explains to us
what we are to think of the Epistle and the Gospel.
The Epistle tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ is at hand, and that
therefore we are to fret about nothing, but make our requests known to
him. The Gospel tells us that he stands among us. The Collect tells us
what we are to do, because he is at hand, because he stands among us.
And what are we to do?
Recollect my friends, what John the Baptist said, according to St.
Matthew, after the words in the text—‘He shall baptize you with the Holy
Ghost, and with fire.’
The Collect asks him to do that—the first half of it at least. To
baptize us with the Holy Ghost, lest he should need to baptize us with
fire.
For the Collect says, we have all a race to run. We have all a journey
to make through life. We have all so to get through this world, that we
shall inherit the world to come; so to pass through the things of time
(as one of the Collects says) that we finally lose not the things
eternal. God has given each of us our powers and character, marked out
for each of us our path in life, set each of us our duty to do.
But how shall we make the proper use of our powers?
How shall we keep to our path in life?
How shall we do our duty faithfully?
In short, so as St. Paul puts it—How shall we run our race, so as not to
lose, but to win it?
For the Collect says—and we ought to have found it out for ourselves
before now—Our sins and wickedness hinder us sorely in running the race
which is set before us.
Our sins and wickedness. The Collect speaks of these as two different
things; and I believe rightly, for the New Testament speaks of them as
two different things. Sin, in the New Testament, means strictly what we
call “failings,” “defects” a missing the mark, a falling short; as it is
written—All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God, that is, of
the likeness of a perfect man. {75}
Thus, stupidity, laziness, cowardice, bad temper, greediness after
pleasure—these are strictly speaking what the New Testament calls sins.
Wickedness—iniquity—seem to be harder words, and to mean worse offences.
They mean the evil things which a man does, not out of the weakness of
his mortal nature, but out of his own wicked will, and what the Bible
calls the naughtiness of his heart. So wickedness means, not merely open
crimes which are punishable by the law, but all which comes out of a
man’s own wilfulness and perverseness—injustice (which is the first
meaning of iniquity), cunning, falsehood, covetousness, pride,
self-conceit, tyranny, cruelty—these seem to be what the Scripture calls
wickedness. Of course one cannot draw the line exactly, in any matters
so puzzling as questions about our own souls must always be: but on the
whole. I think you will find this rule not far wrong—
That all which comes from the weakness of a man’s soul, is sin: all which
comes from abusing its strength, is wickedness. All which drags a man
down, and makes him more like a brute animal, is sin: all which puffs him
up, and makes him more like a devil, is wickedness. It is as well to
bear this in mind, because a man may have a great horror of sin, and be
hard enough, and too hard upon poor sinners; and yet all the time he may
be thoroughly, and to his heart’s core, a wicked man. The Pharisees of
old were so. So they are now. Take you care that you be not like to
them. Keep clear of sin: but keep clear of wickedness likewise.
For, says the Collect, both will hinder you in your race: perhaps cause
you to break down in it, and never reach the goal at all.
Sin will hinder you, by dragging you back.
Wickedness will hinder you, by putting you altogether out of the right
road.
If a man be laden with sins; stupid, lazy, careless, over fond of
pleasure;—much more, if he be given up to enjoying himself in bad ways,
about which we all know too well—then he is like a man who starts in a
race, weak, crippled, over-weighted, or not caring whether he wins or
loses; and who therefore lags behind, or grows tired, or looks round, and
wants to stop and amuse himself, instead of pushing on stoutly and
bravely. And therefore St. Paul bids us lay aside every weight (that is
every bad habit which makes us lazy and careless), and the sin which does
so easily beset us, and run with patience our appointed race, looking to
Jesus, the author of our faith—who stands by to give us faith,
confidence, courage to go on—Jesus, who has compassion on those who are
ignorant, and out of the way by no wilfulness of their own; who can be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities; who can help us, can deliver
us, and who will do what he can, and do all he can.
He can and will strengthen us, freshen us, encourage us, inspirit us, by
giving us his Holy Spirit, that we may have spirit and power to run our
race, day by day, and tide by tide. And so, if he sees us weak and
fainting over our work, he will baptize us with the Holy Ghost.
And yet there are times when he will baptize a sinner not only with the
Holy Ghost, but with fire—I am still speaking, mind, of a sinner, not of
a wicked man.
And when? When he sees the man sitting down by the roadside to play,
with no intention of moving on. I do not say—if he sees the man sitting
down to play at all. God forbid! How can a man run his life-long
race—how can he even keep up for a week, a day, at doing his best at the
full stretch of his power, without stopping to take breath? I cannot,
God knows. If any man can—be it so. Some are stronger than others: but
be sure of this; that God counts it no sin in a man to stop and take
breath. ‘Press forward toward the mark of your high calling,’ St. Paul
says: but he does not forbid a man to refresh and amuse himself
harmlessly and rationally, from time to time, with all the pleasant
things which God has put into this world. They do refresh us, and they
do amuse us, these pleasant things. And God made them, and put them
here. Surely he put them here to refresh and amuse us. He did not
surely put them here to trap us, and snare us, and tempt us not to run
the very race which he himself has set before us? No, no, my friends.
He made pleasant things to please us, amusing things to amuse us. Every
good gift comes from him.
But if a man thinks of nothing but amusing himself, he is like a horse
who stands still in the middle of a journey, and begins feeding. Let him
do his day’s journey, and feed afterwards; and so get strength for his
next day’s work. But if he will stand still, and feed; if he will forget
that he has any work at all to do; then we shall punish him, to make him
go on. And so will God do with us. He will strike us then; and sharply
too. Much more, if a man gives himself up to sinful pleasure; if he
gives himself up to a loose and profligate life, and, like many a young
man, wastes his substance in riotous living, and devours his heavenly
Father’s gifts with harlots—then God will strike that man; and all the
more sharply the more worth and power there is in the man. The more God
has given the man, the sharper will be God’s stroke, if he deserves it.
And why?
Ask yourselves. Suppose that your horse had plunged into a deep ditch,
and was lying there in mire and thorns; would you not strike him, and
sharply too, to make him put out his whole strength, and rise, and by one
great struggle clear himself?
Of course you would: and the more spirited, the more powerful the animal
was, the sharper you would be with him, because the more sure you would
be that he could answer to your call if he chose.
Even so does God with us. If he sees us lying down; forgetting utterly
that we have any work or duty to do; and wallowing in the mire of fleshly
lusts, and thorns of worldly cares, then he will strike; and all the more
sharply, the more real worth or power there is in us; that he may rouse
us, and force us to exert ourselves and by one great struggle, like the
mired horse, clear ourselves out of the sin which besets us, and holds us
down, and leap, as it were, once and for all, out of the death of sin,
into the life of righteousness.
But much more if there be not merely sin in us, but wickedness;
self-will, self-conceit, and rebellion.
For see, my friends. If we were training a young animal, how should we
treat it? If it were merely weak, we should strengthen and exercise it.
If it were merely ignorant, we should teach it. If it were lazy, we
should begin to punish it; but gently, that it might still have
confidence, faith in us, and pleasure in its work.
But if we found wickedness in it—vice, as we rightly call it—if it became
restive, that is, rebellious and self-willed, then we should punish it
indeed. Seldom, perhaps, but very sharply; that it might see clearly
that we were the stronger, and that rebellion was of no use at all.
And so does the Lord with us, my friends. If we will not go his way by
kindness, he will make us go by severity.
First, when we are christened, and after that day by day, if we ask
him—and often when we ask him not—he gives us the gentle baptism of his
Holy Spirit, freshening, strengthening, encouraging, inspiriting. But if
we will not go on well for that; if we will rebel, and try our own way,
and rush out of God’s road after this and that, in pride and self-will,
as if we were our own masters; then, my friends—then will God baptize us
with fire, and strike with a blow which goes nigh to cut a man in two.
Very seldom he strikes; for he is pitiful, and of tender mercy: but with
a rod as of fire, of which it is written, that it is sharper than a
two-edged sword, and pierces through the joints and marrow. Very seldom:
but very sharply, that there may be no mistake about what the blow means,
and that the man may know, however cunning, or proud, or self-righteous
he may be, that God is the Lord, God is his Master, and will be obeyed;
and woe to him, if he obey him not. And what can a man do then, but
writhe in the bitterness of his soul, and get back into God’s highway as
fast as he can, in fear and trembling lest the next blow cut him in
asunder? And so, by the bitterness of disappointment, or bereavement, or
sickness, or poverty, or worst of all, of shame, will the Lord baptize
the man with fire.
But all in love, my friends; and all for the man’s good. Does God _like_
to punish his creatures? _like_ to torment them? Some think that he
does, and say that he finds what they call ‘satisfaction’ in punishing.
I think that they mistake the devil for God. No, my friends; what does
he say himself? ‘Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked; and not
rather that he should turn from his ways, and live?’ Surely he has not.
If he had, do you think that he would have sent us into this world at
all? I do not. And I trust and hope that you will not. Believe that
even when he cuts us to the heart’s core, and baptizes us with fire, he
does it only out of his eternal love, that he may help and deliver us all
the more speedily.
For God’s sake—for Christ’s sake—for your own sake—keep that in mind,
that Christ’s will, and therefore God’s will, is to help and deliver us;
that he stands by us, and comes among us, for that very purpose.
Consider St. Paul’s parable, in which he talks of us as men running a
race, and of Christ as the judge who looks on to see how we run. But for
what purpose does Christ look on? To catch us out, as we say? To mark
down every fault of ours, and punish wherever he has an opportunity or a
reason? Does he stand there spying, frowning, fault-finding, accusing
every man in his turn, extreme to watch what is done amiss? If an
earthly judge did that, we should call him—what he would be—an
ill-conditioned man. But dare we fancy anything ill-conditioned in God?
God forbid! His conditions are altogether good, and his will a good will
to men; and therefore, say the Epistle and the Collect, we ought not to
be terrified, but to rejoice, at the thought that the Lord is looking on.
However badly we are running our race, yet if we are trying to move
forward at all, we ought to rejoice that God in Christ is looking on.
And why?
Why? Because he is looking on, not to torment, but to help. Because he
loves us better than we love ourselves. Because he is more anxious for
us to get safely through this world than we are ourselves.
Will you understand that, and believe that, once for all, my
friends?—That God is not _against_ you, but _for_ you, in the struggles
of life; that he _wants_ you to get through safe; _wants_ you to succeed;
_wants_ you to win; and that therefore he will help you, and hear your
cry.
And therefore when you find yourselves wrong, utterly wrong, do not cry
to this man or that man, ‘Do _you_ help me; do you set me a little more
right, before God comes and finds me in the wrong, and punishes me.’ Cry
to God himself, to Christ himself; ask _him_ to lift you up, ask him to
set you right. Do not be like St. Peter before his conversion, and cry,
‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord; wait a little, till I
have risen up, and washed off my stains, and made myself somewhat fit to
be seen.’—No. Cry, ‘Come quickly, O Lord—at once, just because I am a
sinful man; just because I am sore let and hindered in running my race by
my own sins and wickedness; because I am lazy and stupid; because I am
perverse and vicious, _therefore_ raise up thy power, and come to me, thy
miserable creature, thy lost child, and with thy great might succour me.
Lift me up for I have fallen very low; deliver me, for I have plunged out
of thy sound and safe highway into deep mire, where no ground is. Help
myself I cannot, and if thou help me not, I am undone.’
Do so. Pray so. Let your sins and wickedness be to you not a reason for
hiding from Christ who stands by; but a reason, the reason of all
reasons, for crying to Christ who stands by.
And then, whether he deliver you by kind means or by sharp ones, deliver
you he will; and set your feet on firm ground, and order your goings,
that you may run with patience the race which is set before you along the
road of life, and the pathway of God’s commandments, wherein there is no
death.
This, my friends, is one of the meanings of Advent. This is the meaning
of the Collect, the Epistle, and the Gospel.—That God in Christ stands by
us, ready to help and deliver us; and that if we cry to him even out of
the lowest depth, he will hear our voice. And that then, when he has
once put us into the right road again, and sees us going bravely along it
to the best of the power which he has given us, he will fulfil to us his
eternal promise, ‘Thy sins—and not only thy sins, but thine iniquities—I
will remember no more.’
SERMON XI.
SELF-RESPECT AND SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS.
PSALM vii. 8.
Give sentence for me, O Lord, according to my righteousness; and
according to the innocency that is in me.
IS this speech self-righteous? If so, it is a bad speech; for
self-righteousness is a bad temper of mind; there are few worse. If we
say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in
us. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have
not sinned, we make him a liar.
This is plain enough; and true as God is true. But there is another
temper of mind which is right in its way; and which is not
self-righteousness, though it may look like it at first sight. I mean
the temper of Job, when his friends were trying to prove to him that he
must be a bad man, and to make him accuse himself of all sorts of sins
which he had not committed; and he answered that he would utter no
deceit, and tell no lies about himself. ‘Till I die I will not remove
mine integrity from me; my righteousness I will hold fast, and will not
let it go; my heart shall not reproach me as long as I live.’ I have, on
the whole, tried to be a good man, and I will not make myself out a bad
one.
For, my friends, with the Bible as with everything else, we must hear
both sides of the question, lest we understand neither side.
We may misuse St. John’s doctrine, that if we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves. We may deceive ourselves in the very opposite way.
In the first place, some people, having learnt that it is right to
confess their sins, try to have as many sins as possible to confess. I
do not mean that they commit the sins, but that they try to fancy they
have committed them. This is very common now, and has been for many
hundred years, especially among young women and lads who are of a weakly
melancholy temper, or who have suffered some great disappointment. They
are fond of accusing themselves; of making little faults into great ones;
of racking their memories to find themselves out in the wrong; of taking
the darkest possible view of themselves, and of what is going to happen
to them. They forget that Solomon, the wise, when he says, ‘Be not
over-much wicked; neither be thou foolish—why shouldst thou die before
thy time?’—says also, ‘Be not righteous over-much; neither make thyself
over-wise. Why shouldst thou destroy thyself?’
For such people do destroy themselves. I have seen them kill their own
bodies, and die early, by this folly. And I have seen them kill their
own souls, too, and enter into strong delusions, till they believe a lie,
and many lies, from which one had hoped that the Bible would have
delivered any and every man.
One cannot be angry with such people. One can only pity them, and pity
them all the more, when one finds them generally the most innocent, the
very persons who have least to confess. One can but pity them, when one
sees them applying to themselves God’s warnings against sins of which
they never even heard the names, and fancying that God speaks to them, as
St. Paul says that he did to the old heathen Romans, when they were
steeped up to the lips in every crime.
No—one can do more than pity them. One can pray for them that they may
learn to know God, and who he is: and by knowing him, may be delivered
out of the hands of cunning and cruel teachers, who make a market of
their melancholy, and hide from them the truth about God, lest the truth
should make them free, while their teachers wish to keep them slaves.
This is one misuse of St. John’s doctrine. There is another and a far
worse misuse of it.
A man may be proud of confessing his sins; may become self-righteous and
conceited, according to the number of the sins which he confesses.
So deceitful is this same human heart of ours, that so it is I have seen
people quite proud of calling themselves miserable sinners. I say, proud
of it. For if they had really felt themselves miserable sinners, they
would have said less about their own feelings. If a man really feels
what sin is—if he feels what a miserable, pitiful, mean thing it is to be
doing wrong when one knows better, to be the slave of one’s own tempers,
passions, appetites—oh, if man or woman ever knew the exceeding
sinfulness of sin, he would hide his own shame in the depths of his
heart, and tell it to God alone, or at most to none on earth save the
holiest, the wisest, the trustiest, the nearest and the dearest.
But when one hears a man always talking about his own sinfulness, one
suspects—and from experience one has only too much reason to suspect—that
he is simply saying in a civil way, ‘I am a better man than you; for I
talk about my sinfulness, and you do not.’
For if you answer such a man, as old Job or David would have done, ‘I
will not confess what I have not felt. I have tried and am trying to be
an upright, respectable, sober, right-living man. Let God judge me
according to the innocency that is in me. I know that I am not perfect:
no man is that: but I will not cant; I will not be a hypocrite; and if I
accuse myself of sins which I have not committed, it seems to me that I
shall be mocking God, and deceiving myself. I will trust to God to judge
me fairly, to balance between the good and the evil which is in me, and
deal with me accordingly.’
If you speak in that way, the other man will answer you plainly enough,
‘Ah! you are utterly benighted. You are building on legality and
morality. You have not yet learnt the first principles of the Gospel.’
And with these, and other words, will give you to understand this—That he
thinks he is going to heaven, and you are going to hell.
Now, my dear friends, you are partly right, and he is partly right. St.
Paul will show you where you are right and where he is right. He does
so, I think, in a certain noble text of his in which he says, ‘I judge
not mine own self; for I know nothing against myself, yet am I not hereby
justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord.’
Now remember that no man was less self-righteous than St. Paul. No man
ever saw more clearly the sinfulness of sin. No man ever put into words
so strongly the struggle between good and evil which goes on in the human
heart. In one place, even, when speaking of his former life, he calls
himself the chief of sinners. Yet St. Paul, when he had done his duty,
knew that he had done it, and was not afraid to say—as no honest and
upright man need be afraid to say—‘I know nothing against myself.’ For
if you have done right, my friend, it is God who has helped you to do it;
and it is difficult to see how you can honour God, by pretending instead
that he has left you to do wrong.
This, then, seems to be the rule. If you have done wrong, be not afraid
to confess it. If you have done right, be not afraid to confess that
either. And meanwhile keep up your self-respect. Try to do your duty.
Try to keep your honour bright. Let no man be able to say that he is the
worse for you. Still more let no woman be able to say that she is the
worse for you; for if you treat another man’s daughter as you would not
let him treat yours, where is your honour then, or your clear conscience?
What cares man, what cares God, for your professions of uprightness and
respectability, if you take good care to behave well to men, who can
defend themselves, and take no care to behave well to a poor girl, who
cannot defend herself? Recollect that when Job stood up for his own
integrity, and would not give up his belief that he was a righteous man,
he took care to justify himself in this matter, as well as on others. ‘I
made a covenant with mine eyes,’ he says; ‘why then should I think upon a
maid? If mine heart have been deceived by a woman; or if I have laid
wait at my neighbour’s door;’ ‘Then,’ he says in words too strong for me
to repeat, ‘let others do to my wife as I have done to theirs.’
Avoid this sin, and all sins. Let no man be able to say that you have
defrauded him, that you have tyrannized over him; that you have neglected
to do your duty by him. Let no man be able to say that you have rewarded
him evil for evil. If possible, let him not be able to say that you have
even lost your temper with him. Be generous; be forgiving. If you have
an opportunity, be like David, and help him who without a cause is your
enemy; and then you will have a right to say, like David, ‘Give sentence
with me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, and according to the
cleanness of my hands in thy sight.’
True—that will not justify you. In God’s sight shall no man living be
justified, if justification is to come by having no faults. What man is
there who lives, and sins not? Who is there among us, but knows that he
is not the man he might be? Who does not know, that even if he seldom
does what he ought not, he too often leaves undone what he ought? And
more than that—none of us but does many a really wrong thing of which he
never knows, at least in this life. None of us but are blind, more or
less, to our own faults; and often blind—God forgive us!—to our very
worst faults.
Then let us remember, that he who judges us _is the Lord_.
Now is that a thought to be afraid of?
David did not think so, when he had done right. For he says, in this
Psalm, ‘Judge me, O Lord!’
And when he has done wrong, he thinks so still less; for then he asks God
all the more earnestly, not only to judge him, but to correct him
likewise. ‘Purge me,’ he says, ‘and I shall be clean. Cleanse thou me
from my secret faults, and make me to understand wisdom secretly. For
thou requirest truth in the inward parts.’
That is bravely spoken, and worthy of an honest man, who wishes above all
things to be right, whatsoever it may cost him.
But how did David get courage to ask that?
By knowing God, and who God was.
For this, my friends, is the key to the whole matter—as it is to all
matters—Who is God?
If you believe God to be a hard task-master, and a cruel being, extreme
to mark what is done amiss, an accuser like the devil, instead of a
forgiver and a Saviour, as he really is;—then you will begin judging
yourself wrongly and clumsily, instead of asking God to judge you wisely
and well.
You will break both of the golden rules which St. Anthony, the famous
hermit, used to give to his scholars.—‘Regret not that which is past; and
trust not in thine own righteousness.’ For you will lose time, and lose
heart, in fretting over old sins and follies, instead of confessing them
once and for all to God, and going boldly to his throne of grace to find
mercy and grace to help you in the time of need; that you may try again
and do better for the future. And so it will be true of you—I am sure I
have seen it come true of many a poor soul—what David found, before he
found out the goodness of God’s free pardon:—‘While I held my tongue, my
bones waxed old through my daily complaining. For thy hand was heavy
upon me night and day; my moisture was like the drought in summer.’
And all that while (such contradictory creatures are we all), you may be
breaking St. Anthony’s other golden rule, and trusting in your own
righteousness.
You will begin trying to cleanse yourself from little outside faults, and
fancying that that is all you have to do, instead of asking God to
cleanse you from your secret faults, from the deep inward faults which he
alone can see; forgetting that they are the root, and the outside faults
only the fruit. And so you will be like a foolish sick man, who is
afraid of the doctor, and therefore tries to physic himself. But what
does he do? Only tamper and peddle with the outside symptoms of his
complaint, instead of going to the physician, that he may find out and
cure the complaint itself. Many a man has killed his own body in that
way; and many a man more, I fear, has killed his own soul, because he was
afraid of going to the Great Physician.
But if you will believe that God is good, and not evil; if you will
believe that the heavenly Father is indeed _your_ Father; if you will
believe that the Lord Jesus Christ really loves you, really died to save
you, really wishes to deliver you from your sins, and make you what you
ought to be, and what you can be: then you will have heart to do your
duty; because you will be sure that God helps you to do your duty. You
will have heart to fight bravely against your bad habits, instead of
fretting cowardly over them; because you know that God is fighting
against them for you. You will not, on the other hand, trust in your own
righteousness; because you will soon learn that you have no righteousness
of your own: but that all the good in you comes from God, who works in
you to will and to do of his good pleasure.
And when you examine yourself, and think over your own life and
character, as every man ought to do, especially in Advent and Lent, you
will have heart to say, ‘O God, thou knowest how far I am right, and how
far wrong. I leave myself in thy hand, certain that thou wilt deal
fairly, justly, lovingly with me, as a Father with his son. I do not
pretend to be better than I am: neither will I pretend to be worse than I
am. Truly, I know nothing about it. I, ignorant human being that I am,
can never fully know how far I am right, and how far wrong. I find light
and darkness fighting together in my heart, and I cannot divide between
them. But thou canst. Thou knowest. Thou hast made me; thou lovest me;
thou hast sent thy Son into the world to make me what I ought to be; and
therefore I believe that he will make me what I ought to be. Thou
willest not that I should perish, but come to the knowledge of the truth:
and therefore I believe that I shall not perish, but come to the
knowledge of the truth about thee, about my own character, my own duty,
about everything which it is needful for me to know. And therefore I
will go boldly on, doing my duty as well as I can, though not perfectly,
day by day; and asking thee day by day to feed my soul with its daily
bread. Thou feedest my soul with _its_ daily bread. How much more then
wilt thou feed my mind and my heart, more precious by far than my body?
Yes, I will trust thee for soul and for body alike; and if I need
correcting for my sins, I am sure at least of this, that the worst thing
that can happen to me or any man, is to do wrong and _not_ to be
corrected; and the best thing is to be set right, even by hard blows, as
often as I stray out of the way. And therefore I will take my punishment
quietly and manfully, and try to thank thee for it, as I ought; for I
know that thou wilt not punish me beyond what I deserve, but far below
what I deserve; and that thou wilt punish me only to bring me to myself,
and to correct me, and purge me, and strengthen me. For this I
believe—on the warrant of thine own word I believe it—undeserved as the
honour is, that thou art my Father, and lovest me; and dost not afflict
any man willingly, or grieve the children of men out of passion or out of
spite; and that thou willest not that I should be damned, nor any man;
but willest have all men saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth.
SERMON XII.
TRUE REPENTANCE.
EZEKIEL xviii. 27.
When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness which he hath
committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save
his soul alive.
WE hear a great deal about repentance, and how necessary it is for a man
to repent of his sins; for unless a man repent, he cannot be forgiven.
But do we all of us really know what repentance means?
I sometimes fear not. I sometimes fear, that though this text stands at
the opening of the Church service, and though people hear it as often as
any text in the whole Bible, yet they have not really learnt the lesson
which God sends them by it.
What, then, does repentance mean?
‘Being sorry for what we have done wrong,’ say some.
But is that all? I suppose there are few wicked things done upon earth,
for which the doers of them are not sorry, sooner or later. A man does a
wrong thing, and his conscience pricks him, and makes him uneasy, and he
says in his heart, ‘I wish after all I had left that alone.’ But the
next time he is tempted to do the same thing, he does it, and is ashamed
of himself afterwards again: but that is not repentance. I suppose that
there have been few murders committed in the world, after which sooner or
later the murderer did not say in his heart—‘Ah, that that man were alive
and well again!’ But that is not repentance.
For aught I can tell, the very devil is sorry for his sin;—discontented,
angry with himself, ashamed of himself for being a devil. He may be so
to all eternity, and yet never repent. For the dark uneasy feeling which
comes over every man sooner or later, after doing wrong, is not
repentance; it is remorse; the most horrible and miserable of all
feelings, when it comes upon a man in its full strength; the feeling of
hating oneself, being at war with oneself, and with all the world, and
with God who made it.
But that will save no man’s soul alive. Repentance will save any and
every soul alive, then and there: but remorse will not. Remorse may only
kill him. Kill his body, by making him, as many a poor creature has
done, put an end to himself in sheer despair: and kill his soul at least,
by making him say in his heart, ‘Well, if bad I am, bad I must be. I
hate myself, and God hates me also. All I can do is, to forget my
unhappiness if I can, in business, in pleasure, in drink, and drive
remorse out of my head;’ and often a man succeeds in so doing. The first
time he does a wrong thing, he feels sorry and ashamed after it. Then he
takes courage after awhile, and does it again; and feels less sorrow and
shame; and so again and again, till the sin becomes easier and easier to
him, and his conscience grows more and more dull; till at last perhaps,
the feeling of its being wrong quite dies within—and that is the death of
his soul.
But of true repentance, it is written, that he who repents shall save his
soul _alive_. And how?
The word for repentance in Scripture means simply a change of mind. To
change one’s mind is, in Scripture words, to repent.
Now if a man changes his mind, he changes his conduct also. If you set
out to go to a place and change your mind, then you do not go there. If
as you go on, you begin to have doubts about its being right to go, or to
be sorry that you are going, and still walk on in the same road, however
slowly or unwillingly, that is not changing your mind about going. If
you do change your mind, you will change your steps. You will turn back,
or turn off, and go some other road.
This may seem too simple to talk of. But if it be, why do not people act
upon it? If a man finds that in his way through life he is on the wrong
road, the road which leads to shame, and sorrow, and death and hell, why
will he confess that he is on the wrong road, and say that he is very
sorry (as perhaps he really may be) that he is going wrong, and yet go
on, and persevere on the wrong path? At least, as long as he keeps on
the road which leads to ruin, he has not changed his mind, or repented at
all. He may find the road unpleasant, full of thorns, and briars, and
pit-falls; for believe me, however broad the road is which leads to
destruction, it is only the _gate_ of it which is easy and comfortable;
it soon gets darker and rougher, that road of sin; and the further you
walk along it, the uglier and more wretched a road it is: but all the
misery which it gives to a man is only useless remorse, unless he fairly
repents, and turns out of that road into the path which leads to life.
Now the one great business of foolish man in all times has been to save
his soul (as he calls it) without doing right; to go to heaven (as he
calls it) without walking the road which leads to heaven. It is a folly
and a dream. For no man can get to heaven, unless he be heavenly; and
being heavenly is simply being good, and neither more or less. And sin
is death, and no man can save his soul alive, while it is dead in sin.
Still men have been trying to do it in all ages and countries; and as
soon as one plan has failed, they have tried some new one; and have
invented some false repentance which was to serve instead of the true
one. The old Jews seem to have thought that the repentance which God
required was burnt-offerings and sacrifices: that if they could only
offer bullocks and goats enough on God’s altar, he would forgive them
their sins. But David, and Isaiah after him, and Ezekiel after him,
found out that _that_ was but a dream; that that sort of repentance would
save no man’s soul; that God did not require burnt-offerings and
sacrifice for sin: but simply that a man should do right and not wrong.
‘When ye come before me,’ saith the Lord, ‘who has required this at your
hand, to tread my courts?’ They were to bring no more vain offerings:
but to put away the evil of their doings; to cease to do evil, to learn
to do well; to seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless,
plead for the widow; and then, and then only, though their sins were as
scarlet, they should be white as snow. For God would take them for what
they were—as good, if they were good; as bad, if they were bad. And this
agrees exactly with the text. ‘When the wicked man turneth away from his
wickedness which he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and
right, he shall save his soul alive.’
The Papists again, thought that the repentance which God required, was
for a man to punish himself bitterly for his sins; to starve and torture
himself, to give up all that makes life pleasant, and so to atone. And
good and pious men and women, with a real hatred and horror of sin, tried
this: but they found that making themselves miserable took away their
sins no more than burnt-offerings and sacrifices would do it. Their
consciences were not relieved; they gained no feeling of comfort, no
assurance of God’s love. Then they said, ‘I have not punished myself
enough. I have not made myself miserable enough. I will try whether
more torture and misery will not wipe out my sins.’ And so they tried
again, and failed again, and then tried harder still, till many a noble
man and woman in old times killed themselves piecemeal by slow torments,
in trying to atone for their sins, and wash out in their own blood what
was already washed out in the blood of Jesus Christ. But on the whole,
that was found to be a failure. And now the great mass of the Papists
have fallen back on the wretched notion that repentance merely means
confessing their sins to a priest, and receiving absolution from him, and
doing some little penance too childish to speak of here.
But is there no false repentance among us English, too, my friends? No
paltry substitute for the only true repentance which God will accept,
which is, turning round and doing right? How many there are, who feel—‘I
am very wrong. I am very sinful. I am on the road to hell. I am
quarrelling and losing my temper, and using bad language.—Or—I am
cheating my neighbour. Or—I am living in adultery and drunkenness: I
must repent before it is too late.’ But what do they mean by repenting?
Coming as often as they can to church or chapel, and reading all the
religious books which they can get hold of: till they come, from often
reading and hearing about the Gospel promises, to some confused notion
that their sins are washed away in Christ’s blood; or perhaps, on the
strength of some violent feelings, believe that they are converted all on
a sudden, and clothed with the robe of Christ’s righteousness, and
renewed by God’s Spirit, and that now they belong to the number of
believers, and are among God’s elect.
Now, my dear friends, I complain of no one going to hear all the good
they can; I complain of no one reading all the religious books they can:
but I think—and more, I know—that hearing sermons and reading tracts may
be, and is often, turned into a complete snare of the devil by people who
do not wish to give up their sins and do right, but only want to be
comfortable in their sins.
Hear sermons if you will; read good books if you will: but bear in mind,
that you know already quite enough to lead you to _repentance_. You need
neither book nor sermon to teach you those ten commandments which hang
here over the communion table: all that books and tracts and sermons can
do is to teach you how to _keep_ those commandments in spirit and in
truth: but I am sure I have seen people read books, and run about to
sermons, in order to enable them to forget those ten commandments; in
order to find excuses for not keeping them; and to find doctrines which
tell them, that because Christ has done all, they need do nothing;—only
_feel_ a little thankfulness, and a little sorrow for sin, and a little
liking to hear about religion: and call that repentance, and conversion,
and the renewal of the Holy Spirit.
Now, my dear friends, let me ask you as reasonable beings, Do you think
that hearing me or any man preach, can save your souls alive? Do you
think that sitting over a book for an hour a day, or all day long, will
save your souls alive? Do you think that your sins are washed away in
Christ’s blood, when they are there still, and you are committing them?
Would they be here, and you doing them, if they were put away? Do you
think that your sins can be put away out of God’s sight, if they are not
even put out of your own sight? If you are doing wrong, do you think
that God will treat you as if you were doing right? Cannot God see in
you what you see in yourselves? Do you think a man can be clothed in
Christ’s righteousness at the very same time that he is clothed in his
own unrighteousness? Can he be good and bad at once? Do you think a man
can be converted—that is turned round—when he is going on his old road
the whole week? Do you think that a man has repented—that is, changed
his mind—when he is in just the same mind as ever as to how he shall
behave to his family, his customers, and everybody with whom he has to
do? Do you think that a man is renewed by God’s Spirit, when except for
a few religious phrases, and a little more outside respectability, he is
just the old man, the same character at heart he ever was? Do you think
that there is any use in a man’s belonging to the number of believers, if
he does not do what he believes; or any use in thinking that God has
elected and chosen him, when he chooses not to do what God has chosen
that every man must do, or die?
Be not deceived. God is not mocked. What a man sows, that shall he
reap. Let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous,
even as Christ is righteous, and no one else.
He who tries to do as Christ did, and he only, has Christ’s righteousness
imputed to him, because he is trying to do what Christ did, that which is
lawful and right. He who does righteousness, and he only, has truly
repented, changed his mind about what he should do, and turned away from
his wickedness which he has committed, and is now doing that which is
lawful and right. He who does righteousness, and he only, shall save his
soul alive: not by feeling this thing, or believing about that thing, but
by doing that which is lawful and right.
We must face it, my dear friends. We cannot deceive God: and God will
certainly not deceive himself. He sees us as we are, and takes us for
what we are. What is right in us, he accepts for the salvation of Jesus
Christ, in whom we are created unto good works. What is wrong in us, he
will assuredly punish, and give us the exact reward of the deeds done in
the body, whether they be good or evil. Every work of ours shall come
into judgment, unless it be repented of, and put away by the only true
repentance—not doing the thing any more.
God, I say, will judge righteous judgment, and take us as we are.
For the sake of Jesus the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,
there is full, free, and perfect forgiveness for every sin, when we give
it up. As soon as a man turns round, and, instead of doing wrong, tries
to do right, he need be under no manner of fear or terror any more. He
is taken back into his Father’s house as freely and graciously as the
prodigal son in the parable was. Whatsoever dark score there was against
him in God’s books is wiped out there and then, and he starts clear, a
new man, with a fresh chance of life. And whosoever tells him that the
score is not wiped out, lies, and contradicts flatly God’s holy word.
But as long as a man does _not_ give up his sins, the dark score _does_
stand against him in God’s books; and no praying, reading, devoutness of
any kind will wipe it out; and as long as he sins, he is still in his
sins, and his sins will be his ruin. Whosoever tells him that they are
wiped out, he too lies, and contradicts flatly God’s holy word.
For God is just, and true; and therefore God takes us for what we are,
and will do so to all eternity; and you will find it so, my dearest
friends. In spite of all doctrines which men have invented, and then
pretended to find in the Bible, to drug men’s consciences, and confuse
God’s clear light in their hearts, you will find, now and for ever, that
if you do right you will be happy even in the midst of sorrow; if you do
wrong, you will be miserable even in the midst of pleasure. Oh believe
this, my dear friends, and do not rashly count on some sudden magical
change happening to you as soon as you die to make you fit for heaven.
There is not one word in the Bible which gives us reason to suppose that
we shall not be in the next world the same persons which we have made
ourselves in this world. If we are unjust here, we shall, for aught we
know, or can know, try to be unjust there; if we be filthy here, we shall
be so there; if we be proud here, we shall be so there; if we be selfish
here, we shall be so there. What we sow here, we shall reap there. And
it is good for us to know this, and face this. Anything is good for us,
however unpleasant it may be, which drives us from the only real misery,
which is sin and selfishness, to the only true happiness, which is the
everlasting life of Christ; a pure, loving, just, generous, useful life
of goodness, which is the righteousness of Christ, and the glory of
Christ, and which will be our righteousness and our glory also for ever:
but only if we live it; only if we be useful as Christ was, generous as
Christ was, just as Christ was, gentle as Christ was, pure as Christ was,
loving as Christ was, and so put on Christ, not in name and in word, but
in spirit and in truth, that having worn Christ’s likeness in this world,
we may share his victory over all evil in the life to come.
SERMON XIII.
THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT.
(_Twelfth Sunday after Trinity_.)
II COR. iii. 6.
God, who hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the
letter, but of the Spirit: for the letter killeth, but the Spirit
giveth life.
WHEN we look at the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for to-day one after the
other, we do not see, perhaps, what they have to do with each other. But
they have to do with each other. They agree with each other. They
explain each other. They all three tell us what God is like, and what we
are to believe about God, and why we are to have faith in God.
The Collect tells of a God who is more ready to hear than we are to pray;
and is ‘wont to give’—that is, usually, and as a matter of course, every
day and all day long, gives us—‘more than either we desire or deserve,’
of a God who gives and forgives, abundant in mercy. It bids us, when we
pray to God, remember that we are praying to a perfectly bountiful,
perfectly generous God.
Some people worship quite a different God to that. They fancy that God
is hard; that he sits judging each man by the letter of the law; watching
and marking down every little fault which they commit; extreme to mark
what is done amiss; and that in the very face of Scripture, which says
that God is _not_ extreme to mark what is done amiss; for if he were, who
could abide it?
Their notion of God is, that he is very like themselves; proud, grudging,
hard to be entreated, expecting everything from men, but not willing to
give without a great deal of continued asking and begging, and outward
reverence, and scrupulous fear lest he should be offended unexpectedly at
the least mistake; and they fancy, like the heathen, that they shall be
heard for their much speaking. They forget altogether that God is their
Father, and knows what they need before they ask, and their ignorance in
asking, and has (as any father fit to be called a father would have)
compassion on their infirmities.
There is a great deal of this lip-service, and superstitious devoutness,
creeping in now-a-days; a spirit of bondage unto fear. St. Paul warns us
against it, and calls it will-worship, and voluntary humility. And I
tell you of it, that it is not Christian at all, but heathen; and I say
to you, as St. Paul bids me say, God, who made the world, and all
therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in
temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as
though he needed anything, seeing that he giveth to all life and breath,
and all things. For in him we live and move, and have our being, and are
the offspring—the children—of God.
Away, then, with this miserable spirit of bondage and fear, which insults
that good God which it pretends to honour; and in spirit and in truth,
not with slavish crouchings and cringings, copied from the old heathen,
let us worship _The Father_.
But this leads us to the Epistle.
St. Paul tells us how it is that God is wont to give us more than we
either desire or deserve: because he is the Lord and Giver of life, in
whom all created things live and move and have their being. Therefore in
the Epistle he tells us of a Spirit which gives life.
But some may ask, ‘What life?’
The Gospel answers that, and says, ‘All life.’
It tells us that our Lord Christ cared not merely for the life of men’s
souls, but for the life of their bodies. That wherever he went he
brought with him, not merely health for men’s souls by his teaching, but
health for their bodies by his miracles. That when he saw a man who was
deaf and had an impediment in his speech, he sighed over him in
compassion; and did not think it beneath him to cure that poor man of his
infirmity, though it was no such very great one.
For he wished to show men that his heavenly Father cared for them
altogether, body as well as soul; that all health and strength whatsoever
came from him.
When we hear, therefore, of the Spirit giving life, we are not to fancy
that means only some high devout spiritual life, or that God’s Spirit has
to do only with a few elect saints. That may be a very pleasant fancy
for those who believe themselves to be the elect saints; but the message
of the Gospel is far wider and deeper than that, or any other of vain
man’s narrow notions. It tells us that life—all life which we can see;
all health, strength, beauty, order, use, power of doing good work in
God’s earthly world, come from the Spirit of God, just as much as the
spiritual life which we cannot see—goodness, amiableness, purity,
justice, virtue, power of doing work in God’s heavenly world. This
latter is the higher life: and the former the lower, though good and
necessary in its place: but the lower, as well as the higher, is life;
and comes from the Spirit of God, who gives life and breath to all
things.
And now, perhaps, we may see what St. Paul meant, by his being a minister
‘not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter killeth, but the
Spirit giveth life.’
Do you not see yet, my friends? Then I will tell you.
If I were to get up in this pulpit, and preach the terrors of the law,
and the wrath of God, and hell fire: if I tried to bind heavy burdens on
you, and grievous to be borne, crying—You _must_ do this, you _must_ feel
that, you _must_ believe the other—while I having fewer temptations and
more education than you, touched not those burdens with one of my
fingers; if I tried to make out as many sins as I could against you,
crying continually, this was wrong, and that was wrong, making you
believe that God is always on the watch to catch you tripping, and
telling you that the least of your sins deserved endless torment—things
which neither I nor any man can find in the Bible, nor in common justice,
nor common humanity, nor elsewhere, save in the lying mouth of the great
devil himself;—or if I put into your hands books of self-examination (as
they are called) full of long lists of sins, frightening poor innocents,
and defiling their thoughts and consciences, and making the heart of the
righteous sad, whom God has not made sad;—if I, in plain English, had my
mouth full of cursing and bitterness, threatening and fault-finding, and
distrustful, and disrespectful, and insolent language about you my
parishioners: why then I might fancy myself a Christian priest, and a
minister of the Gospel, and a very able, and eloquent, and earnest one;
and might perhaps gain for myself the credit of being a ‘searching
preacher,’ by speaking evil of people who are most of them as good and
better than I, and by taking a low, mean, false view of that human nature
which God made in his own image, and Christ justified in his own man’s
flesh, and soul, and spirit; but instead of being an able minister of the
New Covenant, or of the Spirit of God, I should be no such man, but the
very opposite.
No. I should be one of those of whom the Psalmist says, ‘Their mouths
are full of cursing and bitterness’—and also, ‘Their feet are swift to
shed blood.’
To shed blood; to kill with the letter which killeth; and your blood, if
I did succeed in killing your souls, would be upon my foolish head.
For such preaching as that does kill.
It kills three things.
1. It kills the Gospel. It turns the good news of God into the very
worst news possible, and the ministration of righteousness into the
ministration of condemnation.
2. It kills the souls of the congregation—or would kill them, if God’s
wisdom and love were not stronger than his minister’s folly and hardness.
For it kills in them self-respect and hope, and makes them say to
themselves, ‘God has made me bad, and bad I must be. Let me eat and
drink, for to-morrow I die. God requires all this of me, and I cannot do
it. I shall not try to do it. I shall take my chance of being saved at
last, I know not how.’ It frightens people away from church, from
religion, from the very thought of God. It sets people on spying out
their neighbours’ faults, on judging and condemning, on fancying
themselves righteous and despising others; and so kills in them faith,
hope, and charity, which are the very life of their spirits.
3. And by a just judgment, it kills the soul of the preacher also. It
makes him forget who he is, what God has set him to do; and at last, even
who God is. It makes him fancy that he is doing God’s work, while he is
simply doing the work of the devil, the slanderer and accuser of the
brethren; judging and condemning his congregation, when God has said,
‘Judge not and ye shall not be judged, condemn not and ye shall not be
condemned.’ It makes him at last like the false God whom he has been
preaching (for every man at last copies the God in whom he believes),
dark and deceiving, proud and cruel;—and may the Lord have mercy upon his
soul!
But I will tell you how I can be an able minister of the New Testament,
and of the Spirit who gives life.
If I say to you—and I do say it now, and will say it as long as I am
here—Trust God, because God is good; obey God, because God is good.
I preach to you the good God of the Collect, even your heavenly Father;
who needs not be won over or appeased by anything which you can do, for
he loves you already for the sake of his dear Son, whose members you are.
He will not hear you the more for your much speaking, for he knows your
necessities before you ask, and your ignorance in asking. He will not
judge you according to the letter of Moses’ law, or any other law
whatsoever, but according to the spirit of your longings and struggles
after what is right. He will not be extreme to mark what you do amiss,
but will help you to mend it, if you desire to mend; setting you straight
when you go wrong, and helping you up when you fall, if only your spirit
is struggling after what is right.
This all-good heavenly Father I preach to you, and I say to you, Trust
_him_.
I preach to you a Spirit who is the Lord and Giver of life; who hates
death, and therefore wills not that you should die; who has given you all
the life you have, all health and strength of body, all wit and power of
mind, all right, pure, loving, noble feelings of heart and spirit, and
who is both able and willing to keep them alive and healthy in you for
ever.
This all-good Spirit of life I preach to you; and I say to you, Trust
_him_.
I preach to you a Son of God, who is the likeness of his Father’s glory,
and the express image of his person; in order that by seeing him and how
good he is, you may see your heavenly Father, and how good he is
likewise; a Son of God who is your Saviour and your Judge; who judges you
that he may save you, and saves you by judging you; who has all power
given to him in heaven and earth, and declares that almighty power most
chiefly by showing mercy and pity; who, when he was upon earth, made the
deaf to hear, the lame to walk, the blind to see; who ate and drank with
publicans and sinners, and was the friend of all mankind; a Son of God
who has declared everlasting war against disease, ignorance, sin, death,
and all which makes men miserable. Those are his enemies; and he reigns,
and will reign, till he has put all enemies under his feet, and there is
nothing left in God’s universe but order and usefulness, health and
beauty, knowledge and virtue, in the day when God shall be all in all.
This all-good Son of God I preach to you, and I say to you, Trust _him_,
and obey him. Obey him, not lest he should become angry and harm you,
like the false gods of the heathen, but because his commandments are
life; because he has made them for your good.
Oh! when will people understand that—that God has not made laws out of
any arbitrariness, but for our good?—That his commandments are _Life_?
David of old knew as much as that. Why do not we know more, instead of
knowing, most of us, much less? It is simple enough, if you will but
look at it with simple minds. God has made us; and if he had not loved
us, he would not have made us at all. God has sent us into the world;
and if he had not loved us, he would not have sent us into the world at
all. In him we live, and move, and have our being, and are the offspring
and children of God. And therefore God alone knows what is good for us;
what is the good life, the wholesome, the safe, the right, the
everlasting life for us. And he sends his Son to tell us—This is the
right life; a life like Christ’s; a life according to God’s Spirit; and
if you do not live that life you will die, not only body but soul also,
because you are not living the life which God meant for you when he made
you. Just as if you eat the wrong food, you will kill your bodies; so if
you think the wrong thoughts, and feel the wrong feelings, and therefore
do the wrong things, you will kill your own souls. God will not kill
you; you will kill yourselves. God grudges you nothing. God does not
wish to hurt you, wish to punish you. He wishes you to live and be
happy; to live for ever, and be happy for ever. But as your body cannot
live unless it be healthy, so your soul cannot live unless it be healthy.
And it cannot be healthy unless it live the right life. And it cannot
live the right life without the right spirit. And the only right spirit
is the Spirit of God himself the Spirit of your Father in heaven, who
will make you, as children should be, like your Father.
But that Spirit is not far from any of you. In him you live, and move,
and have your being already. Were he to leave you for a moment you would
die, and be turned again to your dust. From him comes all the good of
body and soul which you have already. Trust him for more. Ask him for
more. Go boldly to the throne of his grace, remembering that it is a
throne of _grace_, of kindness, tenderness, patience, bountiful love, and
wealth without end. Do not think that he is hard of hearing, or hard of
giving. How can he be? For he is the Spirit of the all-generous Father
and of the all-generous Son, and has given, and gives now; and delights
to give, and delights to be asked. He is the charity of God; the
boundless love by which all things consist; and, like all love, becomes
more rich by spending, and glorifies himself by giving himself away; and
has sworn by himself—that is, by his own eternal and necessary character,
which he cannot alter or unmake—‘This is the new covenant which I will
make with my people. I will write my laws in their hearts, and in their
minds will I write them; and I will dwell with them, and be their God.’
Oh, my friends, take these words to yourselves; and trust in that good
Father in heaven, whose love sent you into this world, and gave you the
priceless blessing of life; whose love sent his Son to show you the
pattern of life, and to redeem you freely from all your sins; whose love
sends his Spirit to give you the power of leading the everlasting life,
and will raise you up again, body and soul, to that same everlasting life
after death. Trust him, for he is your Father. Whatever else he is, he
is that. He has bid you call him that, and he will hear you. If you
forget that he is your Father, you forget him, and worship a false God of
your own invention. And whenever you doubt; whenever the devil, or
ignorant preachers, or superstitious books, make you afraid, and tempt
you to fancy that God hates you, and watches to catch you tripping, take
refuge in that blessed name, and say, ‘Satan, I defy thee; for the
Almighty God of heaven is my Father.’
SERMON XIV.
HEROES AND HEROINES.
(_Whitsunday_.)
PSALM xxxii. 8.
I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I
will guide thee with mine eye.
THIS is God’s promise; which he fulfilled at sundry times and in
different manners to all the men of the old world who trusted in him. He
informed them; that is, he put them into right form, right shape, right
character, and made them the men which they were meant to be. He taught
them in the way in which they ought to go. He guided them where they
could not guide themselves.
But God fulfilled this promise utterly and completely on the first
Whitsuntide, when the Holy Spirit came down on the apostles.
That was an extraordinary and special gift; because the apostles had to
do an extraordinary and special work. They had to preach the Gospel to
all nations, and therefore they wanted tongues with which to speak to all
nations; at least to those of their countrymen who came from foreign
parts, and spoke foreign tongues, that they might carry home the good
news of Christ into all lands. And they wanted tongues of fire, too, to
set their own hearts on fire with divine zeal and earnestness, and to set
on fire the hearts of those who heard them.
But that was an extraordinary gift. There was never anything like it
before; nor has been, as far as we know, since; because it has not been
needed.
It is enough for us to know, that the apostles had what they needed. God
called and sent them to do a great work: and therefore, being just and
merciful, he gave them the power which was wanted for that great work.
But if that is a special case; if there has been nothing like it since,
what has Whitsuntide to do with us? We need no tongues of fire, and we
shall have none on this Whitsunday or any Whitsunday. Has Whitsunday
then no blessing for us? Do we get nothing by it? God forbid, my
friends.
We get what the apostles got, and neither more nor less; though not in
the same shape as they did.
God called them to do a work: God calls us, each of us, to do some work.
God gave them the Holy Spirit to make them able to do their work. God
gives _us_ the Holy Spirit, to make us able to do _our_ work, whatsoever
that may be.
As their day, so their strength was: as our day is, so our strength shall
be.
For instance.—
How often one sees a person—a woman, say—easy and comfortable, enjoying
life, and taking little trouble about anything, because she has no need.
And when one looks at such a woman, one is apt to say hastily in one’s
heart, ‘Ah, she does not know what sorrow is—and well for her she does
not; for she would make but a poor fight if trouble came on her; she
would make but a poor nurse if she had to sit months by a sick bed. She
would become down-hearted, and peevish, and useless. There is no
strength in her to stand in the evil day.’
And perhaps that woman would say so of herself. She might be painfully
afraid of the thought of affliction; she might shrink from the notion of
having to nurse any one; from having to give up her own pleasure and ease
for the sake of others; and she would say of herself, as you say of her,
‘What would become of me if sorrow came? _I_ have no strength to stand
in the evil day.’
Yes, my friends, and you say true, and she says true. And yet not true
either. She has no strength to stand: but she will stand nevertheless,
for God is able to make her stand. As her day, so her strength shall be.
A day of suffering, anxiety, weariness, all but despair may come to her.
But in that day she shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire;
and then you shall be astonished, and she shall be astonished, at what
she can do, and what she can endure; because God’s Spirit will give her a
right judgment in all things, and enable her, even in the midst of her
sorrow, to rejoice in his holy comfort. And people will call her—those
at least who know her—a ‘heroine.’ And they speak truly and well, and
give her the right and true name. Why, I will tell you presently.
Or how often it happens to a man to be thrown into circumstances which he
never expected. An officer, perhaps, in war time in a foreign land—in
India now. He has a work to do: a heavy, dangerous, difficult, almost
hopeless work. He does not like it. He is afraid of it. He wishes
himself anywhere but where he is. He has little or no hope of
succeeding; and if he fails, he fears that he will be blamed,
misunderstood, slandered. But he feels he must go through with it. He
cannot turn back; he cannot escape. As the saying is, the bull is
brought to the stake, and he must bide the baiting.
At first, perhaps, he tries to buoy himself up. He begins his work in a
little pride and self-conceit, and notion of his own courage and cunning.
He tries to fancy himself strong enough for anything. He feeds himself
up with the thought of what people will say of him; the hope of gaining
honour and praise: and that is not altogether a wrong feeling—God forbid!
But the further the man gets into his work, the more difficult it grows,
and the more hopeless he grows. He finds himself weak, when he expected
to be strong; puzzled when he thought himself cunning. He is not sure
whether he is doing right. He is afraid of responsibility. It is a
heavy burden on him, too heavy to bear. His own honour and good name may
depend upon a single word which he speaks. The comfort, the fortune, the
lives of human beings may depend on his making up his mind at an hour’s
notice to do exactly the right thing at the right time. People round him
may be mistaking him, slandering him, plotting against him, rebelling
against him, even while he is trying to do them all the good he can.
Little comfort does he get then from the thought of what people at home
may say of him. He is set in the snare, and he cannot find his way out.
He is at his own wits’ end; and from whence shall he get fresh wits? Who
will give him a right judgment in all things? Who will give him a holy
comfort in which he can rejoice?—a comfort which will make him cheerful,
because he knows it is a right comfort, and that he is doing right? His
heart is sinking within him, getting chill and cold with despair. Who
will put fresh fire and spirit into it?
God will. When he has learnt how weak he is in himself, how stupid he is
in himself;—ay, bitter as it is to a brave man to have to confess it, how
cowardly he is in himself—then, when he has learnt the golden lesson, God
will baptize him with the Holy Ghost and with fire.
A time will come to that man, when, finding no help in himself, no help
in man, he will go for help to God.
Old words which he learnt at his mother’s knee come back to him—old words
that he almost forgot, perhaps, in the strength and gaiety of his youth
and prosperity. And he prays. He prays clumsily enough, perhaps. He is
not accustomed to praying; and he hardly knows what to ask for, or how to
ask for it. Be it so. In that he is not so very much worse off than
others. What did St. Paul say, even of himself? ‘We know not how to ask
for anything as we ought: but the Spirit maketh intercession for us with
groanings that cannot be uttered’—too deep for words. Yes, in every
honest heart there are longings too deep for words. A man knows he wants
something: but knows not what he wants. He cannot find the right words
to say to God. Let him take comfort. What he does not know, the Holy
Spirit of Whitsuntide—the Spirit of Jesus Christ—does know. Christ knows
what we want, and offers our clumsy prayers up to our heavenly Father,
not in the shape in which we put them, but as they ought to be, as we
should like them to be; and our Father hears them.
Yes. Our Father hears the man who cries to him, however clumsily, for
light and strength to do his duty. So it is; so it has been always; so
it will be to the end. And then as the man’s day, so his strength will
be. He may be utterly puzzled, utterly down-hearted, utterly hopeless:
but the day comes to him in which he is baptized with the Holy Ghost and
with fire. He begins to have a right judgment; to see clearly what he
ought to do, and how to do it. He grows more shrewd, more prompt, more
steady than he ever has been before. And there comes a fire into his
heart, such as there never was before; a spirit and a determination which
nothing can daunt or break, which makes him bold, cheerful, earnest, in
the face of the anxiety and danger which would have, at any other time,
broken his heart. The man is lifted up above himself, and carried on
through his work, he hardly knows how, till he succeeds nobly, or if he
fails, fails nobly; and be the end as it may, he gets the work done which
God has given him to do.
And then when he looks back, he is astonished at himself. He wonders how
he could dare so much; wonders how he could endure so much; wonders how
the right thought came into his head at the right moment. He hardly
knows himself again. It seems to him, when he thinks over it all, like a
grand and awful dream. And the world is astonished at him likewise.
They cry, ‘Who would have thought there was so much in this man? who
would have expected such things of him?’ And they call him a hero—and so
he is.
Yes, the world is right, more right than it thinks in both sayings. Who
would have expected there was so much in the man? For there was not so
much in him, till God put it there.
And again they are right, too; more right than they think in calling that
man a hero, or that woman a heroine.
For what is the old meaning, the true meaning of a hero or a heroine?
It meant—and ought to mean—one who is a son or a daughter of God, and
whom God informs and strengthens, and sends out to do noble work,
teaching them the way wherein they should go. That was the right meaning
of a hero and of a heroine even among the old heathens. Let it mean the
same among us Christians, when we talk of a hero; and let us give God the
glory, and say—There is a man who has entered, even if it be but for one
day’s danger and trial, into the blessings of Whitsuntide and the power
of God’s Spirit; a man whom God has informed and taught in the way
wherein he should go. May that same God give him grace to abide herein
all the days of his life!
Yes, my friends, may God give us all grace to under stand Whitsuntide,
and feed on the blessings of Whitsuntide; not merely once in a way, in
some great sorrow, great danger, great struggle, great striving point of
our lives; but every day and all day long, and to rejoice in the power of
his Spirit, till it becomes to us—would that it could to-day become to
us;—like the air we breathe; till having got our life’s work done, if not
done perfectly, yet still done, we may go hence to receive the due reward
of our deeds.
SERMON XV.
THE MEASURE OF THE CROSS.
EPHESIANS iii. 18, 19.
That ye may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the
breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of
Christ, which passeth knowledge.
THESE words are very deep, and difficult to understand; for St. Paul does
not tell us exactly of what he is speaking. He does not say what it is,
the breadth and length, and depth, and height of which we are to
comprehend and take in. Only he tells us afterwards what will come of
our taking it in; we shall know the love of Christ.
And therefore many great fathers and divines, whose names there is no
need for me to tell you, but whose opinions we must always respect, have
said that what St. Paul is speaking of is, the Cross of Christ.
Of course they do not mean the wood of which the actual cross was made.
They mean the thing of which the cross was a sign and token.
Now of what is the cross a token?
Of the love of Christ, which is the love of God.
But of what kind of love?
Not the love which is satisfied with sitting still and enjoying itself,
as long as nothing puts it out, and turns its love to anger—what we call
mere good nature and good temper; not that, not that, my friends: but
love which will dare, and do, and yearn, and mourn; love which cannot
rest; love which sacrifices itself; love which will suffer, love which
will die, for what it loves;—such love as a father has, who perishes
himself to save his drowning child.
Now the cross of Christ is a token to us, that God’s love to us is like
that: a love which will dare anything, and suffer anything, for the sake
of saving sinful man.
And therefore it is, that from the earliest times the cross has been the
special sign of Christians. We keep it up still, when we make the sign
of the cross on children’s foreheads in baptism: but we have given up
using the sign of the cross commonly, because it was perverted, in old
times, into a superstitious charm. Men worshipped the cross like an
idol, or bits of wood which they fancied were pieces of the actual cross,
while they were forgetting what the cross meant. So the use of the cross
fell into disrepute, and was put down in England.
But that is no reason why we should forget what the cross meant, and
means now, and will mean for ever. Indeed, the better Christians, the
better men we are, the more will Christ’s cross fill us with thoughts
which nothing else can give us; thoughts which we are glad enough, often,
to forget and put away; so bitterly do they remind us of our own
laziness, selfishness, and love of pleasure.
But still, the cross is our sign. It is God’s everlasting token to us,
that he has told us Christians something about himself which none of the
wisest among the heathen knew; which infidels now do not know; which
nothing but the cross can teach to men.
There were men among the old heathens who believed in one God; and some
of them saw that he must be, on the whole, a good and a just God. But
they could not help thinking of God (with very rare exceptions) as a
respecter of persons, a God who had favourites; and at least, that he was
a God who loved his friends, and hated his enemies. So the Mussulmans
believe now. So do the Jews; indeed, so they did all along, though they
ought to have known better; for their prophets in the Old Testament told
them a very different tale about God’s love.
But that was all they could believe—in a God who was not unjust or
wicked, but was at least hard, proud, unbending: while the notion that
God could love his enemies, and bless those who used him despitefully and
persecuted him—much less die for his enemies—that would have seemed to
them impossible and absurd. They stumbled at the stumbling-block of the
cross. God, they thought, would do to men as they did to him. If they
loved him, he would love them. If they neglected him, he would hate and
destroy them.
But when the apostles preached the Gospel, the good news of Christ
crucified, they preached a very different tale; a tale quite new; utterly
different from any that mankind had ever heard before.
St. Paul calls it a mystery—a secret—which had been hidden from the
foundation of the world till then, and was then revealed by God’s Spirit;
namely, this boundless love of God, shown by Christ’s dying on the cross.
And, he says, his great hope, his great business, the thing on which his
heart was set, and which God had sent him into the world to do, was
this—to make people know the love of Christ; to look at Christ’s cross,
and take in its breadth, and length, and depth, and height. It passes
knowledge, he says. We shall never know the whole of it—never know all
that God’s love has done, and will do: but the more we know of it, the
more blessed and hopeful, the more strong and earnest, the more good and
righteous we shall become.
And what is the breadth of Christ’s cross? My friends, it is as broad as
the whole world; for he died for the whole world, as it is written, ‘He
is a propitiation not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole
world;’ and again, ‘God willeth that none should perish;’ and again, ‘As
by the offence judgment came on all men to condemnation, even so by the
righteousness of one, the gift came upon all men to justification of
life.’
And that is the breadth of Christ’s cross.
And what is the length of Christ’s cross? The length thereof, says an
old father, signifies the time during which its virtue will last.
How long, then, is the cross of Christ? Long enough to last through all
time. As long as there is a sinner to be saved; as long as there is
ignorance, sorrow, pain, death, or anything else which is contrary to God
and hurtful to man, in the universe of God, so long will Christ’s cross
last. For it is written, he must reign till he hath put all enemies
under his feet; and God is all in all. And that is the length of the
cross of Christ.
And how high is Christ’s cross? As high as the highest heaven, and the
throne of God, and the bosom of the Father—that bosom out of which for
ever proceed all created things. Ay, as high as the highest heaven;
for—if you will receive it—when Christ hung upon the cross, heaven came
down on earth, and earth ascended into heaven. Christ never showed forth
his Father’s glory so perfectly as when, hanging upon the cross, he cried
in his death-agony, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they
do.’ Those words showed the true height of the cross; and caused St.
John to know that his vision was true, and no dream, when he saw
afterwards in the midst of the throne of God a lamb as it had been slain.
And that is the height of the cross of Christ.
And how deep is the cross of Christ?
This is a great mystery, and one which people in these days are afraid to
look at; and darken it of their own will, because they will neither
believe their Bibles, nor the voice of their own hearts.
But if the cross of Christ be as high as heaven, then, it seems to me, it
must also be as deep as hell, deep enough to reach the deepest sinner in
the deepest pit to which he may fall. We know that Christ descended into
hell. We know that he preached to the spirits in prison. We know that
it is written, ‘As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive.’ We know that when the wicked man turns from his wickedness, and
does what is lawful and right, he will save his soul alive. We know that
in the very same chapter God tells us that his ways are not unequal—that
he has not one law for one man, and another for another, or one law for
one year, and another for another. It is possible, therefore, that he
has not one law for this life, and another for the life to come. Let us
hope, then, that David’s words may be true after all, when speaking by
the Spirit of God, he says, not only, ‘if I ascend up to heaven, thou art
there;’ but ‘if I go down to hell, thou art there also;’ and let us hope
that _that_ is the depth of the cross of Christ.
At all events, my friends, I believe that we shall find St. Paul’s words
true, when he says, that Christ’s love passes knowledge; and therefore
that we shall find this also;—that however broad we may think Christ’s
cross, it is broader still. However long, it is longer still. However
high, it is higher still. However deep, it is deeper still. Yes, we
shall find that St. Paul spoke solemn truth when he said, that Christ had
ascended on high that he might fill all things; that Christ filled all in
all; and that he must reign till the day when he shall give up the
kingdom to God, even the Father, that God may be all in all.
And now do you take all this about the breadth and length of Christ’s
cross to be only ingenious fancies, and a pretty play of words?
Ah, my friends, the day will come when you will find that the measure of
Christ’s cross is the most important question upon earth.
In the hour of death, and in the day of judgment; then the one thing
which you will care to think of (if you can think at all then, as too
many poor souls cannot, and therefore had best think of it now before
their wits fail them)—the one thing which you will care to think of, I
say, will be—not, how clever you have been, how successful you have been,
how much admired you have been, how much money you have made:—‘Of course
not,’ you answer; ‘I shall be thinking of the state of my soul; whether I
am fit to die; whether I have faith enough to meet God; whether I have
good works enough to meet God.’
Will you, my friend? Then you will soon grow tired of thinking of that
likewise, at least I hope and trust that you will. For, however much
faith you may have had, you will find that you have not had enough.
However so many good works you may have done, you will find that you have
not done enough. The better man you are, the more you will be
dissatisfied with yourself; the more you will be ashamed of yourself;
till with all saints, Romanist or Protestant, or other, who have been
worthy of the name of saints, you will be driven—if you are in earnest
about your own soul—to give up thinking of yourself, and to think only of
the cross of Christ, and of the love of Christ which shines thereon; and
ask—Is it great enough to cover my sins? to save one as utterly unworthy
to be saved as I. And so, after all, you will be forced to throw
yourself—where you ought to have thrown yourself at the outset—at the
foot of Christ’s cross; and say in spirit and in truth—
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling—
In plain words, I throw myself, with all my sins, upon that absolute and
boundless love of God which made all things, and me among them, and
hateth nothing that he hath made; who redeemed all mankind, and me among
them, and hath said by the mouth of his only-begotten Son, ‘Him that
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.’
SERMON XVI.
THE PURE IN HEART.
TITUS i. 15.
Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and
unbelieving is nothing pure: but even their mind and conscience is
defiled.
THIS seems at first a strange and startling saying: but it is a true one;
and the more we think over it, the more we shall find it true.
All things are pure in themselves; good in themselves; because God made
them. Is it not written, ‘God saw all that he had made, and behold, it
was very good?’ Therefore St. Paul says, that all things are ours; and
that Christ gives us all things richly to enjoy. All we need is, to use
things in the right way; that is, in the way in which God intended them
to be used.
For God is a God of truth; a true, a faithful, and—if I may so speak—an
honest and honourable, and fair God: not a deceiving or unfair God, who
lays snares for his creatures, or leads them into temptation. That would
be a bad God, a cruel God, very unlike the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. He has put us into a good world, and not a wilderness, as some
people call it. If any part of this world be a wilderness, it is because
men have made it so, or left it so, by their own wilfulness, ignorance,
cowardice, laziness, violence. No: God, I say, has put us into a good
world, and given us pure and harmless appetites, feelings, relations.
Therefore all the relations of life are holy. To be a husband, a father,
a brother, a son, is pure and good. To have property and to use it: to
enjoy ourselves in this life as far as we can, without hurting ourselves
or our neighbours; all this is pure, and good, and holy. God does not
grudge or upbraid. He does not frown upon innocent pleasure. For God is
light, and in him is no darkness at all. Therefore he rejoices in seeing
his creatures healthy and happy. Therefore, as I believe, Christ smiles
out of heaven upon the little children at their play; and the laugh of a
babe is heavenly music in his ears.
All things are pure which God has given to man. And therefore, if a man
be pure in heart, all which God has given him will not only do him no
harm, but do him good. All the comforts and blessings of this life will
help to make him a better man. They will teach him about his own
character; about human nature, and the people with whom he has to do;
ay—about God himself, as it is written, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.’
All the blessings and comforts of this life, my friends (as well as the
anxieties which must come to those who have a family, or property, even
if he do not meet with losses and afflictions), ought to help to improve
a man’s temper, to call out in him right feelings, to teach him more and
more of the likeness of God.
If he be a married man, marriage ought to teach him not to live for
himself only, but to sacrifice his own fancies, his own ease, his own
will, for the sake of the woman whom God has given him; as Christ
sacrificed himself, and his own life, for mankind. And so, by the
feelings of a husband, he may enter into the mystery of the love of
Christ, and of the cross of Christ; and so, if only he be pure in heart,
he will see God.
If he have parents, he may learn by being a son how blessed it is to
obey, how useful to a man’s character to submit: ay, he will find out
more still. He will find out that not by being self-willed and
independent does the finest and noblest parts of his character come out,
but by copying his Father in everything; that going where his Father
sends him; being jealous of his Father’s honour; doing not his own will,
but his Father’s; that all this, I say, is its own reward; for instead of
lowering a man, it raises him, and calls out in him all that is purest,
tenderest, soberest, bravest. I tell you this day—Just as far as you are
good sons to your parents, so far will you be able to understand the
mystery of the co-equal and co-eternal Son of God; who though he were in
the form of God, did not snatch greedily at being on the same footing
with his Father, but emptied himself, and took on him the form of a
slave, that he might do his Father’s will, and reveal his Father’s glory.
And so, if you be only pure in heart, you will see God.
If, again, a man have children—how they ought to teach him, to train
him;—teach him to restrain his own temper, lest he provoke them to anger;
to be calm and moderate with them, lest he frighten them into lying; to
avoid bad language, gluttony, drunkenness, and every coarse sin, lest he
tempt them to follow his example. I tell you, friends, that you will
find, if you choose, all the noblest, most generous, most Godlike parts
of your character called out to your children; and by having the feelings
of a father to your children, learn what feelings our Father in heaven
has toward us, his human offspring. And so, if only you be pure in
heart, you will see God.
If again, a man has money, money can teach him (as it teaches hundreds of
pure-hearted men) that charity and generosity are not only a duty, but an
honour and a joy; that ‘mercy is twice blest; it blesses him that gives,
and him that takes;’ that giving is the highest pleasure upon earth,
because it is God’s own pleasure; because the blessedness of God, and the
glory of God is this, that he giveth to all liberally, and upbraideth
not. And so in his wealth—if only he be pure in heart, a man will see
God.
If, again, a man has health, and strength, and high spirits, they too
will teach him, if his heart be pure. He will learn from them to look up
to God as the Lord and Giver of life, health, strength; of the power to
work, and the power to delight in working: because God himself is ever
full of life, ever busy, ever rejoicing to put forth his almighty power
for the good of the whole universe, as it is written, ‘My Father worketh
hitherto, and I work.’ And so—in every relation of life—if only a man’s
heart be pure, he will see God.
How, then, can we get the pure heart which will make all things pure to
us? By asking for the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, the Pure Spirit,
in whom is no selfishness.
For if our hearts be selfish, they cannot be pure. The pure in heart, is
the same as the man whose eye is single, and that is the man who is not
caring for himself, thinking of himself. If a man be thinking of
himself, he will never enjoy life. The pure blessings which God has
given him will be no blessings to him; as it is written, ‘He that saveth
his life shall lose it.’
Do you not know that that is true? Do not the miseries of life (I do not
mean the afflictions, like loss of friends or kin), but the miseries of
life which make a man dark, and fretful, and prevent his enjoying God’s
gifts—do they not come, nineteen-twentieths of them, from thinking about
oneself; from lusting and longing after this and that; from spite,
vanity, bad temper, wounded pride, disappointed covetousness? ‘I cannot
get this or that; that money, that place; this or that fine thing or the
other: and how can I be contented?’ There is a man whose heart is not
pure. ‘That man has used me ill, and I cannot help thinking of it,
brooding over it. I cannot forgive him. How can I be expected to
forgive him?’ There is a man whose heart is not pure; and more, there is
a man who is making himself miserable.
See again, how a man may make marriage a curse to him instead of a
blessing, without being unfaithful to his wife (which we all know to be
simply abominable and unmanly, and far below anything of which I am
talking now). And how? Simply by bad temper, vanity, greediness, and
selfish love of his own dignity, his own pleasure, his own this, that,
and the other. So, too, he may make his children a torment to him,
instead of letting them be God’s lesson-book to him, in which he may see
the likeness of the angels in heaven.
He may make his wealth a continual anxiety to him: ay, he may make it, by
ambition, covetousness, and wild speculation, the cause of his shame and
ruin; if only his heart be not pure.
Ay, there is not a blessing on earth which a man may not turn into a
curse. There is not a good gift of God out of which a man may not get
harm, if only his heart be not pure; as it is written, ‘To those who are
defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure: but even their mind and
conscience are defiled.’
But defiled with what? Fouled with what? There is the question. Many
answers have been invented by people who did not believe in that faithful
and true God of whom I told you just now; people who fancied that this
world was a bad world, and that God laid snares for his creatures and
tempted his creatures. But the true answer is only to be got, like most
true answers, by observing; by using our eyes and ears, and seeing what
really makes people turn blessings into curses, and suck poison out of
every flower.
And that is, simply, self.
If you want to spoil all that God gives you; if you want to be miserable
yourself, and a maker of misery to others, the way is easy enough. Only
be selfish, and it is done at once. Be defiled and unbelieving. Defile
and foul God’s good gifts by self, and by loving yourself more than what
is right. Do not believe that the good God knows your needs before you
ask, and will give you whatsoever is good for you. Think about yourself;
about what _you_ want, what _you_ like, what respect people ought to pay
_you_, what people think of _you_: and then to you nothing will be pure.
You will spoil everything you touch; you will make sin and misery for
yourself out of everything which God sends you; you will be as wretched
as you choose on earth, or in heaven either.
In heaven either, I say. For that proud, greedy, selfish, self-seeking
spirit would turn heaven into hell. It did turn heaven into hell, for
the great devil himself. It was by pride, by seeking his own glory—(so,
at least, wise men say)—that he fell from heaven to hell. He was not
content to give up his own will and do God’s will, like the other angels.
He was not content to serve God, and rejoice in God’s glory. He would be
a master himself, and set up for himself, and rejoice in his own glory;
and so, when he wanted to make a private heaven of his own, he found that
he had made a hell. When he wanted to be a little God for himself, he
lost the life of the true God, to lose which is eternal death. And why?
Because his heart was not pure, clean, honest, simple, unselfish.
Therefore he saw God no more, and learnt to hate him whose name is love.
May God keep our hearts pure from that selfishness which is the root of
all sin; from selfishness, out of which alone spring adultery, foul
living, drunkenness, evil speaking, lying, slandering, injustice,
oppression, cruelty, and all which makes man worse than the beasts. May
God give us those pure hearts of which it is written, that the fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness,
meekness, temperance. Against such, St. Paul says, there is no law. And
why? Because no law is needed. For, as a wise father says—‘Love, and do
what thou wilt;’ for then thou wilt be sure to will what is right; and,
as St. Paul says, If your heart be pure, all things will be pure to you.
SERMON XVII.
MUSIC.
(_Christmas Day_.)
LUKE ii. 13, 14.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly
host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on
earth peace, good will toward men.
YOU have been just singing Christmas hymns; and my text speaks of the
first Christmas hymn. Now what the words of that hymn meant; what Peace
on earth and good-will towards man meant, I have often told you. To-day
I want you, for once, to think of this—that it was a hymn; that these
angels were singing, even as human beings sing.
Music.—There is something very wonderful in music. Words are wonderful
enough: but music is even more wonderful. It speaks not to our thoughts
as words do: it speaks straight to our hearts and spirits, to the very
core and root of our souls. Music soothes us, stirs us up; it puts noble
feelings into us; it melts us to tears, we know not how:—it is a language
by itself, just as perfect, in its way, as speech, as words; just as
divine, just as blessed.
Music has been called the speech of angels; I will go further, and call
it the speech of God himself—and I will, with God’s help, show you a
little what I mean this Christmas day.
Music, I say, without words, is wonderful and blessed; one of God’s best
gifts to men. But in singing you have both the wonders together, music
and words. Singing speaks at once to the head and to the heart, to our
understanding and to our feelings; and therefore, perhaps, the most
beautiful way in which the reasonable soul of man can show itself
(except, of course, doing _right_, which always is, and always will be,
the most beautiful thing) is singing.
Now, why do we all enjoy music? Because it sounds sweet. But _why_ does
it sound sweet?
That is a mystery known only to God.
Two things I may make you understand—two things which help to make
music—melody and harmony. Now, as most of you know, there is melody in
music when the different sounds of the same tune follow each other, so as
to give us pleasure; there is harmony in music when different sounds,
instead of following each other, come at the same time, so as to give us
pleasure.
But why do they please us? and what is more, why do they please angels?
and more still, why do they please God? Why is there music in heaven?
Consider St. John’s visions in the Revelations. Why did St. John hear
therein harpers with their harps, and the mystic beasts, and the elders,
singing a new song to God and to the Lamb; and the voices of many angels
round about them, whose number was ten thousand times ten thousand?
In this is a great mystery. I will try to explain what little of it I
seem to see.
First—There is music in heaven, because in music there is no self-will.
Music goes on certain laws and rules. Man did not make those laws of
music; he has only found them out: and if he be self-willed and break
them, there is an end of his music instantly; all he brings out is
discord and ugly sounds. The greatest musician in the world is as much
bound by those laws as the learner in the school; and the greatest
musician is the one who, instead of fancying that, because he is clever,
he may throw aside the laws of music, knows the laws of music best, and
observes them most reverently. And therefore it was that the old Greeks,
the wisest of all the heathens, made a point of teaching their children
_music_; because, they said, it taught them not to be self-willed and
fanciful, but to see the beauty of order, the usefulness of rule, the
divineness of law.
And therefore music is fit for heaven; therefore music is a pattern and
type of heaven, and of the everlasting life of God, which perfect spirits
live in heaven; a life of melody and order in themselves; a life of
harmony with each other and with God. Music, I say, is a pattern of the
everlasting life of heaven; because in heaven, as in music, is perfect
freedom and perfect pleasure; and yet that freedom comes not from
throwing away law, but from obeying God’s law perfectly; and that
pleasure comes, not from self-will, and doing each what he likes, but
from perfectly doing the will of the Father who is in heaven.
And that in itself would be sweet music, even if there were neither voice
nor sound in heaven. For wherever there is order and obedience, there is
sweet music for the ears of Christ. Whatsoever does its duty, according
to its kind which Christ has given it, makes melody in the ears of
Christ. Whatsoever is useful to the things around it, makes harmony in
the ears of Christ. Therefore those wise old Greeks used to talk of the
music of the spheres. They said that sun, moon, and stars, going round
each in its appointed path, made as they rolled along across the heavens
everlasting music before the throne of God. And so, too, the old Psalms
say. Do you not recollect that noble verse, which speaks of the stars of
heaven, and says—
What though no human voice or sound
Amid their radiant orbs be found?
To Reason’s ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice;
For ever singing as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine.
And therefore it is, that that noble Song of the Three Children calls
upon sun and moon, and stars of heaven, to bless the Lord, praise him,
and magnify him for ever: and not only upon them, but on the smallest
things on earth;—on mountains and hills, green herbs and springs, cattle
and feathered fowl; they too, he says, can bless the Lord, and magnify
him for ever. And how? By fulfilling the law which God has given them;
and by living each after their kind, according to the wisdom wherewith
Christ the Word of God created them, when he beheld all that he had made,
and behold, it was very good.
And so can we, my friends; so can we. Some of us may not be able to make
music with our voices: but we can make it with our hearts, and join in
the angels’ song this day, if not with our lips, yet in our lives.
If thou fulfillest the law which God has given thee, the law of love and
liberty, then thou makest music before God, and thy life is a hymn of
praise to God.
If thou art in love and charity with thy neighbours, thou art making
sweeter harmony in the ears of the Lord Jesus Christ, than psaltery,
dulcimer, and all kinds of music.
If thou art living a righteous and a useful life, doing thy duty orderly
and cheerfully where God has put thee, then thou art making sweeter
melody in the ears of the Lord Jesus Christ, than if thou hadst the
throat of a nightingale; for then thou in thy humble place art humbly
copying the everlasting harmony and melody which is in heaven; the
everlasting harmony and melody by which God made the world and all that
therein is, and behold it was very good, in the day when the morning
stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy over the
new-created earth, which God had made to be a pattern of his own
perfection.
For this is that mystery of which I spoke just now, when I said that
music was as it were the voice of God himself. Yes, I say it with all
reverence: but I do say it. There is music in God. Not the music of
voice or sound; a music which no ears can hear, but only the spirit of a
man, when awakened by the Holy Spirit, and taught to know God, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit.
There is one everlasting melody in heaven, which Christ, the Word of God,
makes for ever, when he does all things perfectly and wisely, and
righteously and gloriously, full of grace and truth: and from that all
melody comes, and is a dim pattern thereof here; and is beautiful only
because it is a dim pattern thereof.
And there is an everlasting harmony in God; which is the harmony between
the Father and the Son; who though he be co-equal and co-eternal with his
Father, does nothing of himself, but only what he seeth his Father do;
saying for ever, ‘Not my will, but thine be done,’ and hears his Father
answer for ever, ‘Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.’
Therefore, all melody and all harmony upon earth, whether in the song of
birds, the whisper of the wind, the concourse of voices, or the sounds of
those cunning instruments which man has learnt to create, because he is
made in the image of Christ, the Word of God, who creates all things; all
music upon earth, I say, is beautiful in as far as it is a pattern and
type of the everlasting music which is in heaven; which was before all
worlds, and shall be after them; for by its rules all worlds were made,
and will be made for ever, even the everlasting melody of the wise and
loving will of God, and the everlasting harmony of the Father toward the
Son, and of the Son toward the Father, in one Holy Spirit who proceeds
from them both, to give melody and harmony, order and beauty, life and
light, to all which God has made.
Therefore music is a sacred, a divine, a Godlike thing, and was given to
man by Christ to lift our hearts up to God, and make us feel something of
the glory and beauty of God and of all which God has made.
Therefore, too, music is most fit for Christmas day, of all days in the
year. Christmas has always been a day of songs, of carols and of hymns;
and so let it be for ever. If we had no music all the rest of the year
in church or out of church, let us have it at least on Christmas day.
For on Christmas day most of all days (if I may talk of eternal things
according to the laws of time) was manifested on earth the everlasting
music which is in heaven.
On Christmas day was fulfilled in time and space the everlasting harmony
of God, when the Father sent the Son into the world, that the world
through him might be saved; and the Son refused not, neither shrank back,
though he knew that sorrow, shame, and death awaited him, but answered,
‘A body hast thou prepared me . . . I come to do thy will, oh God!’ and
so emptied himself, and took on himself the form of a slave, and was
found in fashion as a man, that he might fulfil not his own will, but the
will of the Father who sent him.
On this day began that perfect melody of the Son’s life on earth; one
song and poem, as it were, of wise words, good deeds, spotless purity,
and untiring love, which he perfected when he died, and rose again, and
ascended on high for ever to make intercession for us with music sweeter
than the song of angels and archangels, and all the heavenly host.
Go home, then, remembering how divine and holy a thing music is, and
rejoice before the Lord this day with psalms and hymns, and spiritual
songs (by which last I think the apostle means not merely church
music—for that he calls psalms and hymns—but songs which have a good and
wholesome spirit in them); and remembering, too, that music, like
marriage, and all other beautiful things which God has given to man, is
not to be taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly; but, even when
it is most cheerful and joyful (as marriage is), reverently, discreetly,
soberly, and in the fear of God. Amen.
SERMON XVIII.
THE CHRIST CHILD.
(_Christmas Day_.)
LUKE ii. 7.
And she brought forth her first-born Son, and wrapt him in swaddling
clothes, and laid him in a manger.
MOTHER and child.—Think of it, my friends, on Christmas day. What more
beautiful sight is there in the world? What more beautiful sight, and
what more wonderful sight?
What more beautiful? That man must be very far from the kingdom of
God—he is not worthy to be called a man at all—whose heart has not been
touched by the sight of his first child in its mother’s bosom.
The greatest painters who have ever lived have tried to paint the beauty
of that simple thing—a mother with her babe: and have failed. One of
them, Rafaelle by name, to whom God gave the spirit of beauty in a
measure in which he never gave it, perhaps, to any other man, tried again
and again, for years, painting over and over that simple subject—the
mother and her babe—and could not satisfy himself. Each of his pictures
is most beautiful—each in a different way; and yet none of them is
perfect. There is more beauty in that simple every-day sight than he or
any man could express by his pencil and his colours. And yet it is a
sight which we see every day.
And as for the wonder of that sight—the mystery of it—I tell you this.
That physicians, and the wise men who look into the laws of nature, of
flesh and blood, say that the mystery is past their finding out; that if
they could find out the whole meaning, and the true meaning of those two
words, mother and child, they could get the key to the deepest wonders of
the world: but they cannot.
And philosophers, who look into the laws of soul and spirit, say the
same. The wiser men they are, the more they find in the soul of every
new-born babe, and its kindred to its mother, wonders and puzzles past
man’s understanding.
I will say boldly, my friends, that if one could find out the full
meaning of those two words, mother and child, one would be the wisest
philosopher on earth, and see deeper than all who have ever yet lived,
into the secrets of this world of time which we can see, and of the
eternal world, which no man can see, save with the eyes of his reasonable
soul.
And yet it is the most common, every-day sight. That only shows once
more what I so often try to show you, that the most common, every-day
things are the most wonderful. It shows us how we are to despise nothing
which God has made; above all, to despise nothing which belongs to human
nature, which is the likeness and image of God.
Above all, upon this Christmas day it is not merely ignorant and foolish,
but quite sinful and heretical, to despise anything which belongs to
human nature. For on this day God appeared in human nature, and in the
first and lowest shape of it—in the form of a new-born babe, that by
beginning at the beginning, he might end at the end; and being made in
all things like as his brethren, might perfectly and utterly take the
manhood into God.
This, then, we are to think of, at least on Christmas day—God revealed,
and shown to men, as a babe upon his mother’s bosom.
Men had pictured God to themselves already in many shapes—some foolish,
foul, brutal—God forgive them;—some noble and majestic. Sometimes they
thought of him as a mighty Lawgiver, sitting upon his throne in the
heavens, with solemn face and awful eyes, looking down upon all the
earth. That fancy was not a false one. St. John saw the Lord so.
‘And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man,
clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a
golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as
snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine
brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many
waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars; and out of his mouth
went a sharp two-edged sword; and his countenance was as the sun shining
in his strength.’
Sometimes, again, they thought of him as the terrible warrior, going
forth to conquer and destroy all which opposed him; to kill wicked
tyrants, and devils, and all who rebelled against him, and who hurt human
beings.
And that was not a false fancy either. St. John saw the Lord so.
‘And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon
him was called Faithful and True; and in righteousness he doth judge and
make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many
crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew but he himself: and
he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood; and his name is called,
The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon
white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his
mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations; and
he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of
the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.’
But all these were only, as it were, fancies about one side of God’s
character. It was only in the Babe of Bethlehem that the _whole_ of
God’s character shone forth, that men might not merely fear him and bow
before him, but trust in him and love him, as one who could be touched
with the feeling of their infirmities. {151}
It was on Christmas day that God appeared among men as a child upon a
mother’s bosom. And why? Surely for this reason, among a thousand more,
that he might teach men to feel for him and with him, and to be sure that
he felt for them and with them. To teach them to feel for him and with
him, he took the shape of a little child, to draw out all their love, all
their tenderness, and, if I may so say, all their pity.
A God in need! A God weak! God fed by mortal woman! A God wrapt in
swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger!—If that sight will not touch our
hearts, what will?
And by that same sight he has taught men that he feels with them and for
them. God has been through the pains of infancy. God has hungered. God
has wept. God has been ignorant. God has grown, and increased in
stature and in wisdom, and in favour both with God and man.
And why? That he might take on him our human nature. Not merely the
nature of a great man, of a wise man, of a grown up man only: but _all_
human nature, from the nature of the babe on its mother’s bosom, to the
nature of the full-grown and full-souled man, fighting with all his
powers against the evil of the world. All this is his, and he is all;
that no human being, from the strongest to the weakest, from the eldest
to the youngest, but may be able to say, ‘What I am, Christ has been.’
Take home with you, then, this thought, on this Christmas day, among all
the rest which Christmas ought to put into your minds. Respect your own
children. Look on them as the likeness of Christ, and the image of God;
and when you go home this day, believe that Christ is in them, the hope
of glory to them hereafter. Draw them round you, and say to them—each in
your own fashion—‘My children, God was made like to you this day, that
you might be made like God. Children, this is your day, for on this day
God became a child; that God gives you leave to think of him as a child,
that you may be sure he loves children, sure he understands children,
sure that a little child is as near and as dear to God as kings, nobles,
scholars, and divines.’
Yes, my dear children, you may think of God as a child, now and always.
For you Christ is always the Babe of Bethlehem. Do not say to
yourselves, ‘Christ is grown up long ago; he is a full-grown man.’ He
is, and yet he is not. His life is eternal in the heavens, above all
change of time and space; for time and space are but his creatures and
his tools. Therefore he can be all things to all men, because he is the
Son of man.
Yes; all things to all men. Hearken to me, you children, and you
grown-up children also, if there be any in this church—for if you will
receive it, such is the sacred heart of Jesus—all things to all; and
wherever there is the true heart of a true human being, there, beating in
perfect answer to it, is the heart of Christ.
To the strong he can be strongest; and to the weak, weakest of all. With
the mighty he can be the King of kings; and yet with the poor he can
wander, not having where to lay his head. With quiet Jacob he goes round
the farm, among the quiet sheep; and yet he ranges with wild Esau over
battle-field, and desert, and far unknown seas. With the mourner he
weeps for ever; and yet he will sit as of old—if he be but invited—and
bless the marriage-feast. For the penitent he hangs for ever on the
cross; and yet with the man who works for God his Father he stands for
ever in his glory, his eyes like a flame of fire, and out of his mouth a
two-edged sword, judging the nations of the earth. With the aged and the
dying he goes down for ever into the grave; and yet with you, children,
Christ lies for ever on his mother’s bosom, and looks up for ever into
his mother’s face, full of young life, and happiness, and innocence, the
everlasting Christ-child in whom you must believe, whom you must love, to
whom you must offer up your childish prayers.
The day will come when you can no longer think as a child, or pray as a
child, but put away childish things. I do not know whether you will be
the happier for that change. God grant that you may be the better for
it. Meanwhile, go home, and think of the baby Jesus, _your_ Lord, _your_
pattern, _your_ Saviour; and ask him to make you such good children to
your mothers, as the little Jesus was to the Blessed Virgin, when he
increased in knowledge and in stature, and in favour both with God and
man.
SERMON XIX.
CHRIST’S BOYHOOD.
LUKE ii. 52.
And Jesus increased in wisdom, and in stature, and in favour both
with God and man.
I DO not pretend to understand these words. I preach on them because the
Church has appointed them for this day. And most fitly. At Christmas we
think of our Lord’s birth. What more reasonable, than that we should go
on to think of our Lord’s boyhood? To think of this aright, even if we
do not altogether understand it, ought to help us to understand rightly
the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ; the right faith about which is,
that he was very man, of the substance of his mother. Now, if he were
very and real man, he must have been also very and real babe, very and
real boy, very and real youth, and then very and real full-grown man.
Now it is not so easy to believe that as it may seem. It is not so easy
to believe.
I have heard many preachers preach (without knowing it), what used to be
called the Apollinarian Heresy, which held that our Lord had not a real
human soul, but only a human body; and that his Godhead served him
instead of a human soul, and a man’s reason, man’s feelings.
About that the old fathers had great difficulty, before they could make
people understand that our Lord had been a real babe. It seemed to
people’s unclean fancies something shocking that our Lord should have
been born, as other children are born. They stumbled at the
stumbling-block of the manger in Bethlehem, as they did at the
stumbling-block of the cross on Calvary; and they wanted to make out that
our Lord was born into the world in some strange way—I know not how;—I do
not choose to talk of it here:—but they would fancy and invent anything,
rather than believe that Jesus was really born of the Virgin Mary, made
of the substance of his mother. So that it was hundreds of years before
the fathers of the Church set people’s minds thoroughly at rest about
that.
In the same way, though not so much, people found it very hard to believe
that our Lord grew up as a real human child. They would not believe that
he went down to Nazareth, and was subject to his father and mother.
People believe generally now—the Roman Catholics as well as we—that our
Lord worked at his father’s trade—that he himself handled the carpenter’s
tools. We have no certain proof of it: but it is so beautiful a thought,
that one hopes it is true. At least our believing it is a sign that we
do believe the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ more rightly than
most people did fifteen hundred years ago. For then, too many of them
would have been shocked at the notion.
They stumbled at the carpenter’s shop, even as they did at the manger and
at the cross. And they invented false gospels—one of which especially,
had strange and fanciful stories about our Lord’s childhood—which tried
to make him out.
Most of these stories are so childish I do not like to repeat them. One
of them may serve as a sample. Our Lord, it says, was playing with other
children of his own age, and making little birds out of clay: but those
which our Lord made became alive, and moved, and sang like real
birds.—Stories put together just to give our Lord some magical power,
different from other children, and pretending that he worked signs and
wonders: which were just what he refused to work.
But the old fathers rejected these false gospels and their childish
tales, and commanded Christian men only to believe what the Bible tells
us about our Lord’s childhood; for that is enough for us, and that will
help us better than any magical stories and childish fairy tales of man’s
invention, to believe rightly that God was made man, and dwelt among us.
And what does the Bible tell us? Very little indeed. And it tells us
very little, because we were meant to know very little. Trust your
Bibles always, my friends, and be sure, if you were meant to know more,
the Bible would tell you more.
It tells us that Jesus grew just as a human child grows, in body, soul,
and spirit.
Then it tells us of one case—only one—in which he seemed to act without
his parents’ leave. And as the saying is, the exception proves the rule.
It is plain that his rule was to obey, except in this case; that he was
always subject to his parents, as other children are, except on this one
occasion. And even in this case, he _went_ back with them, it is
expressly said, and was subject to them.
Now, I do not pretend to explain _why_ our Lord stayed behind in the
temple.
I cannot explain (who can?) the why and wherefore of what I see people do
in common daily life.
How much less can one explain why our Lord did this and that, who was
both man and God.
But one reason, and one which seems to me to be plain, on the very face
of St. Luke’s words—he stayed behind to learn; to learn all he could from
the Scribes and Pharisees, the doctors of the law.
He told the people after, when grown up, ‘The Scribes and Pharisees sit
in Moses’ seat. All therefore which they command you, that observe and
do.’ And he was a Jew himself, and came to fulfil all righteousness; and
therefore he fulfilled such righteousness as was customary among Jews
according to their law and religion.
Therefore I do not like at all a great many pictures which I see in
children’s Sunday books, which set the child Jesus in the midst, as on a
throne, holding up his hand as if _he_ were laying down the law, and the
Scribes and Pharisees looking angry and confounded. The Bible says not
that they heard him, but that he heard them; that they were astonished at
his understanding, not that they were confounded and angry. No. I must
believe that even those hard, proud Pharisees, looked with wonder and
admiration on the glorious Child; that they perhaps felt for the moment
that a prophet, another Samuel, had risen up among them. And surely that
is much more like the right notion of the child Jesus, full of meekness
and humility; of Jesus, who, though ‘he were a Son, learnt obedience by
the things which he suffered;’ of Jesus, who, while he increased in
stature, increased in favour with _man_, as well as with God: and surely
no child can increase in favour either with God or man, if he sets down
his elders, and contradicts and despises the teachers whom God has set
over him. No let us believe that when he said, ‘Know ye not that I must
be about my Father’s business?’ that a child’s way of doing the work of
his Father in heaven is to learn all that he can understand from his
teachers, spiritual pastors, and masters, whom God the Father has set
over him.
Therefore—and do listen to this, children and young people—if you wish
really to think what Christ has to do with _you_, you must remember that
he was once a real human child—not different outwardly from other
children, except in being a perfectly good child, in all things like as
you are, but without sin.
Then, whatever happens to you, you will have the comfort of
feeling—Christ understands this; Christ has been through this. Child
though I am, Christ can be touched with the feeling of my weakness, for
he was once a child like me.
And then, if trouble, or sickness, or death come among you—and you all
know how sickness and death _have_ come among you of late—you may be
cheerful and joyful still, if you will only try to be such children as
Jesus was. Obey your parents, and be subject to them, as he was; try to
learn from your teachers, pastors, and masters, as he did; try and pray
to increase daily in favour both with God and man, as he did: and then,
even if death should come and take you before your time, you need not be
afraid, for Jesus Christ is with you.
Your childish faults shall be forgiven you for Jesus’ sake; your childish
good conduct shall be accepted for Jesus Christ’s sake; and if you be
trying to be good children, doing your little work well where God has put
you, humble, obedient, and teachable, winning love from the people round
you, and from God your Father in heaven, then, I say, you need not be
afraid of sickness, not even afraid of death, for whenever it takes you,
it will find you about your Father’s business.
SERMON XX.
THE LOCUST-SWARMS.
JOEL ii. 12, 13.
Therefore also now, saith the Lord, Turn ye even to me with all your
heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning; and
rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your
God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great
kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.
THIS is one of the grandest chapters in the whole Old Testament, and one
which may teach us a great deal; and, above all, teach us to be thankful
to God for the blessings which we have.
I think I can explain what it means best by going back to the chapter
before it.
Joel begins his prophecy by bitter lamentation over the mischief which
the swarms of insects had done; such as had never been in his days, nor
in the days of his fathers. What the palmer worm had left, the locust
had eaten; what the locust had left, the cankerworm had eaten; and what
the cankerworm had left, the caterpillar had eaten. Whether these names
are rightly rendered, or whether they mean different sorts of locusts, or
the locusts in their different stages of growth, crawling at first and
flying at last, matters little. What mischief they had done was plain
enough. They had come up ‘a nation strong and without number, whose
teeth were like the teeth of a lion, and his cheek-teeth like those of a
strong lion. They had laid his vines waste, and barked his fig-tree, and
made its branches white; and all drunkards were howling and lamenting,
for the wine crop was utterly destroyed: and all other crops, it seems
likewise; the corn was wasted, the olives destroyed; the seed was rotten
under the clods, the granaries empty, the barns broken down, for the corn
was withered; the vine and fig, pomegranate, palm, and apple, were all
gone; the green grass was all gone; the beasts groaned, the herds were
perplexed, because they had no pasture; the flocks of sheep were
desolate.’ There seems to have been a dry season also, to make matters
worse; for Joel says the rivers of waters were dried up—likely enough, if
then, as now, it is the dry seasons which bring the locust-swarms. Still
the locusts had done the chief mischief. They came just as they come now
(only in smaller strength, thank God) in many parts of the East and of
Southern Russia, darkening the sky, and shutting out the very light of
the sun; the noise of their innumerable jaws like the noise of flame
devouring the stubble, as they settled upon every green thing, and gnawed
away leaf and bark; and a fire devoured before them, and behind them a
flame burned; the land was as the garden of Eden before them, and behind
them a desolate wilderness; {162} till there was not enough left to
supply the daily sacrifices, and the meat offering and the drink offering
were withheld from the house of God.
But what has all this to do with us? There have never, as far as we
know, been any locusts in England.
And what has this to do with God? Why does Joel tell these Jews that God
sent the locusts, and bid them cry to God to take them away? For these
locusts are natural things, and come by natural laws. And there is no
need that there should be locusts anywhere. For where the wild grass
plains are broken up and properly cultivated, there the locusts, which
lay their countless eggs in the old turf, disappear, and must disappear.
We know that now. We know that when the East is tilled (as God grant it
may be some day) as thoroughly as England is, locusts will be as unknown
there as here; and that is another comfortable proof to us that there is
no real curse upon God’s earth: but that just as far as man fulfils God’s
command to replenish the earth and subdue it, so far he gets rid of all
manner of terrible scourges and curses, which seemed to him in the days
of his ignorance, necessary and supernatural.
How, then, was Joel right in saying that God sent the locusts?
In this way, my friends.
Suppose you or I took cholera or fever. We know that cholera or fever is
preventible; that man has no right to have these pestilences in a
country, because they can be kept out and destroyed. But if you or I
caught cholera or fever by no fault or folly of our own, we are bound to
say, God sent me this sickness. It has some private lesson for _me_. It
is part of my education, my schooling in God’s school-house. It is meant
to make me a wiser and better man; and that he can only do by teaching me
more about himself. So with these locusts, and still more so; for Joel
did not know, could not know, that these locusts could be prevented. But
even if he had known that, it was not his fault or folly, or his
countrymen’s which had brought the locusts. Most probably they were
tilling the ground to the best of their knowledge. Most probably, too,
these locusts were not bred in Palestine at all; but came down upon the
north-wind (as they are said to do now), from some land hundreds of miles
away; and therefore Joel could say—Whatever I do not know about these
locusts, this I know; that God, whose providence orders all things in
heaven and earth, has sent them; that he means to teach you a lesson by
them; that they are part of his schooling to us Jews; that he intends to
make us wiser and better men by them: _and that he can only do by
teaching us more about himself_.
What, then, does Joel say about the locusts, which he might say to you or
me, if we were laid down by cholera or fever? He does not say, these
troubles have come upon you from devils, or evil spirits, or by any blind
chance of the world about you. He says, they have come on you from _the
Lord_; from the same good, loving, merciful Lord who brought your fathers
out of Egypt, and made a great nation of you, and has preserved you to
this day. And do not fancy that he is changed. Do not fancy that he has
forgotten you, or hates you, or has become cruel, or proud, or unlike
himself. It is you who have forgotten him, and have shown that by living
bad lives; and all he wishes is, to drive you back to him, that you may
live good lives. Turn to him; and you will find him unchanged; the same
loving, forgiving Lord as ever. He requires no sacrifices, no great
offerings on your part to win him round. All he asks is, that you should
confess yourselves in the wrong, and turn and repent. Turn therefore to
the Lord with all your heart, and with weeping, and with fasting, and
with mourning—(which was, and is still the Eastern fashion); and rend
your heart, and not your garments. And why? Because the Lord is very
dreadful, angry and dark, and has determined to destroy you all? Not so:
but because he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great
kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.
Yes, my friends: and this, you will find, is at the bottom of all true
repentance and turning to God. If you believe that God is dark, and
hard, and cruel, you may be afraid of him: but you cannot repent, cannot
turn to him. The more you think of him the more you will be terrified at
him, and turn from him. But if you believe that God is gracious and
merciful, then you can turn to him; then you can repent with a true
repentance, and a godly sorrow which breeds joy and peace of mind.
So Joel thought, at least; for he tells them, that if they will but turn
to God, if they will but confess themselves in the wrong, all shall be
well again, and better than before.
Now, if Joel had been a heathen, worshipping the false gods of the
Canaanites, he would have spoken very differently; he would have said,
perhaps—Baal, the true God, is angry with you, and he has sent the
drought.
Or, Ashtoreth, the Queen of Heaven, by whose power all seeds grow and all
creatures breed, is angry with you, and she has destroyed the seeds, and
sent the locusts.
Or, Ammon, the Lord of the sheep, is angry, and he has destroyed your
flocks and herds.
But one thing we know he would have said—These angry gods want _blood_.
You cannot pacify them without human blood. You must give them the most
dear and precious things you have—the most beautiful and pure. You must
sacrifice boys and girls to them; and then, perhaps, they will be
appeased.
We _know_ this. We know that the heathen, whenever they were in trouble,
took to human sacrifices.
The Canaanites—and the Jews when they fell into idolatry—used to burn
their children in the fire to Moloch.
We know that the Carthaginians, who were of the same blood and language
as the Canaanites, used human sacrifices; and that once when their city
was in great danger, they sacrificed at one time two hundred boys of
their highest families.
We know that the Greeks and Romans, who had much more humane and rational
notions about their gods, were tempted, in times of great distress, to
sacrifice human beings. It has always been so. The old Mexicans in
America used to sacrifice many thousands of men and women every year to
their idols; and when the Spaniards came and destroyed them off the face
of the earth in the name of the Lord—as Joshua did the Canaanites of
old—they found the walls of the idol temples crusted inches thick with
human blood. Even to this day, the wild Khonds in the Indian mountains,
and the Red men of America, sacrifice human beings at times, and, I fear,
very often indeed; and believe that the gods will be the more pleased,
and more certain to turn away their anger, the more horrible and
lingering tortures they inflict upon their wretched victims. I say,
these things were; and were it not for the light of the Gospel, these
things would be still; and when we hear of them, we ought to bow our
heads to our Father in heaven in thankfulness, and say—what Joel the
prophet taught the Jews to say dimly and in part—what our Lord Jesus and
his apostles taught us to say fully and perfectly—
It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, at all times and in all
places—whether in joy or sorrow, in wealth or in want, to give thanks to
thee, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, according to whose most true promise the
Holy Ghost came down from heaven upon the apostles, to teach them and to
lead them into all truth, and give them fervent zeal, constantly to
preach the Gospel to all nations, by which we have been brought out of
darkness and error into the clear light and true knowledge of thee and of
thy Son Jesus Christ.
Yes, my friends, this is the lesson which we have to learn from Joel’s
prophecy, and from all prophecies. This lesson the old prophets learnt
for themselves, slowly and dimly, through many temptations and sorrows.
This lesson our Lord Jesus Christ revealed fully, and left behind him to
his apostles. This lesson men have been learning slowly but surely in
all the hundreds of years which have past since; to know that there is
one Father in heaven, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom are all things; that they may, in all the chances and changes of
this mortal life, in weal and in woe, in light and in darkness, in plenty
and in want, look up to that heavenly Father who so loved them that he
spared not his only begotten Son, but freely gave him for them, and say,
‘Father, not our will but thine be done. All things come from thy hand,
and therefore all things come from thy love. We have received good from
thy hand, and shall we not receive evil? Though thou slay us, yet will
we trust in thee. For thou art gracious and merciful, long-suffering and
of great goodness. Thou art loving to every man, and thy mercy is over
all thy works. Thou art righteous in all thy ways, and holy in all thy
doings. Thou art nigh to all that call on thee; thou wilt hear their
cry, and wilt help them. For all thou desirest, when thou sendest
trouble on them, is to make them wiser and better men. _And that thou
canst only make them by teaching them more about thyself_.’
SERMON XXI.
SALVATION.
ISAIAH lix. 15, 16.
And the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no
judgment. And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there
was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him, and
his righteousness it sustained him.
THIS text is often held to be a prophecy of the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. I certainly believe that it is a prophecy of his coming, and of
something better still; namely, his continual presence; and a very noble
and deep one, and one from which we may learn a great deal.
We may learn from it what ‘salvation’ really is. What Christ came to
save men from, and how he saves them.
The common notion of salvation now-a-days is this. That salvation is
some arrangement or plan, by which people are to escape hell-fire by
having Christ’s righteousness imputed to them without their being
righteous themselves.
Now, I have nothing to say about that this morning. It may be so; or,
again, it may not; I read a good many things in books every week the
sense of which I cannot understand. At all events it is not the
salvation of which Isaiah speaks here.
For Isaiah tells us very plainly, from _what_ God was going to save these
Jews. Not from hell-fire—nothing is said about it: but simply from their
_sins_. As it is written, ‘Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall
save his people from _their sins_.’
The case is very simple, if you will look at Isaiah’s own words. These
Jews had become thoroughly bad men. They were not ungodly men. They
were very religious, orthodox, devout men. They ‘sought God daily, and
delighted to know his ways, like a nation that did righteousness, and
forsook not the ordinances of their God: they asked of him the ordinances
of justice; they took delight in approaching unto God.’
But unfortunately for them, and for all with whom they had to do, after
they had asked of God the ordinances of justice, they never thought of
doing them; and in spite of all their religion, they were, Isaiah tells
them plainly, rogues and scoundrels, none of whom stood up for justice,
or pleaded for truth, but trusted in vanity, and spoke lies. Their feet
ran to evil, and they made haste to shed innocent blood; the way of peace
they knew not, and they had made themselves crooked paths, speaking
oppression and revolt, and conceiving and uttering words of falsehood; so
that judgment was turned away backward, and justice stood afar off, for
truth was fallen in the street, and equity could not enter. Yea, truth
failed; and he that departed from evil made himself a prey (or as some
render it) was accounted mad.
And this is in the face of all their religion and their church-going.
Verily, my friends, fallen human beings were much the same then as now;
and there are too many in England and elsewhere now who might sit for
that portrait.
But how was the Lord going to save these hypocritical, false, unjust men?
Was he going to say to them, Believe certain doctrines about me, and you
shall escape all punishment for your sins, and my righteousness shall be
imputed to you? We do not read a word of that. We read—not that the
Lord’s righteousness was imputed to these bad men, but that it sustained
the Lord himself.—Ah! there is a depth, if you will receive it—a depth of
hope and comfort—a well-spring of salvation for us and all mankind.
You may be false and dishonest, saith the Lord, but I am honest and true.
Unjust, but I am just; unrighteous, but I am righteous. If men will not
set the world right, then I will, saith the Lord. My righteousness shall
sustain me, and keep me up to my duty, though man may forget his. To me
all power is given in heaven and earth, and I will use my power aright.
If men are bringing themselves and their country, their religion, their
church to ruin by hypocrisy, falsehood, and injustice, as those Jews
were, then the Lord’s arm will bring salvation. He will save them from
their sins by the only possible way—namely, by taking their sins away,
and making those of them who will take his lesson good and righteous men
instead. It may be a very terrible lesson of vengeance and fury, as
Isaiah says. It may unmask many a hypocrite, confound many a politic,
and frustrate many a knavish trick, till the Lord’s salvation may look at
first sight much more like destruction and misery; for his fan is in his
hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather the wheat into
his garner: but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire.
But his purpose is, to _save_—to save his people from their sins, to
purge out of them all hypocrisy, falsehood, injustice, and make of them
honest men, true men, just men—men created anew after his likeness. And
this is the meaning of his salvation; and is the only salvation worth
having, for this life or the life to come.
Oh my friends, let us pray to God, whatsoever else he does for us, to
make honest men of us. For if we be not honest men, we shall surely come
to ruin, and bring all we touch to ruin, past hope of salvation.
Whatsoever denomination or church we belong to, it will be all the same:
we may call ourselves children of Abraham, of the Holy Catholic Church
(which God preserve), or what we will: but when the axe is laid to the
root of the tree, every tree that brings not forth good fruit is hewn
down, and is cast into the fire; and woe to the foolish fowl who have
taken shelter under the branches of it.
And we who are coming to the holy communion this day—let us ask
ourselves, What do we want there? Do we want to be made good men, true,
honest, just? Do we want to be saved from our sins? or merely from the
punishment of them after we die? Do we want to be made sharers in that
everlasting righteousness of Christ, which sustains him, and sustains the
whole world too, and prevents it from becoming a cage of wild beasts,
tearing each other to pieces by war and oppression, falsehood and
injustice? _Then_ we shall get what we want; and more. But if not, then
we shall not get what we want, not discerning that the Lord’s body is a
righteous and just and good body; and his blood a purifying blood, which
purifies not merely from the punishment of our sins, but from our sins
themselves.
And bear in mind, my friends, when times grow evil, and rogues and
hypocrites abound, and all the world seems going wrong, there is one arm
to fall back upon, and one righteousness to fall back upon, which can
never fail you, or the world.—
The arm of the Lord, which brings salvation to him, that he may give it
to all who are faithful and true; which cannot weaken or grow weary, till
it has cast out of his kingdom all which offends, and whosoever loveth or
maketh a lie.—
And the eternal righteousness of the Lord, which will do justice by every
living soul of man, and which will never fail or fade away, because it is
his own property, belonging to his own essence, which if he gave up for a
moment he would give up being God. Yes, God is good, though every man
were bad; God is just, though every man were a rogue; God is true, though
every man were a liar; and as long as that is so, all is safe for you and
me, and the whole world:—_if we will_.
SERMON XXII.
THE BEGINNING AND END OF WISDOM.
PROVERBS ii. 2, 3, 5.
If thou incline thine ear to wisdom, and apply thine heart to
understanding; yea, if thou criest after wisdom, and liftest up thy
voice for understanding; then shalt thou understand the fear of the
Lord, and find the knowledge of God.
WE shall see something curious in the last of these verses, when we
compare it with one in the chapter before. The chapter before says, that
the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That if we wish to be
wise at all, we must _begin_ by fearing God. But this chapter says, that
the fear of the Lord is the _end_ of wisdom too; for it says, that if we
seek earnestly after knowledge and understanding, _then_ we shall
understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.
So, according to Solomon, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom, and the end likewise. It is the starting point from which we are
to set out, and the goal toward which we are to run.
How can that be?
If by wisdom Solomon meant high doctrines, what we call theology and
divinity, it would seem more easy to understand: but he does not mean
that, at least in our sense; for his rules and proverbs about wisdom are
not about divinity and high doctrines, but about plain practical
every-day life; shrewd maxims as to how to behave in this life, so as to
thrive and prosper in it.
And yet again they must be about divinity and theology in some sense.
For what does he say about wisdom in the text? ‘If thou search after
wisdom, thou shalt understand the fear of the Lord;’ and is that all?
No. He says more than that. Thou shalt find, he says, the knowledge of
God. To know God.—What higher theology can there be than that? It is
the end of all divinity, of all religion. It is eternal life itself, to
know God. If a man knows God, he is in heaven there and then, though he
be walking in flesh and blood upon this mortal earth.
How can all this be?
Let us consider the words once again.
Solomon does not say, To understand the fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom, but simply the fear of the Lord is the beginning of it. But
the end of wisdom, he says, is not merely to fear the Lord, but to
understand the fear of the Lord.
This then, I suppose, is his meaning: We are to begin life by fearing
God, without understanding it: as a child obeys his parents without
understanding the reason of their commands.
Therefore, says Solomon to the young man, begin with that—with the
solemn, earnest, industrious, God-fearing frame of mind—without that you
will gain no wisdom. You may be as clever as you will, but if you are
reckless and wild, you will gain no wisdom. If you are violent and
impatient; if you are selfish and self-conceited; if you are weak and
self-indulgent, given up to your own pleasures, your cleverness will be
of no use to you. It will be only hurtful to you and to others. A
clever fool is common enough, and dangerous enough. For he is one who
never sees things as they really are, but as he would like them to be. A
bad man, let him be as clever as he may, is like one in a fever, whose
mind is wandering, who is continually seeing figures and visions, and
mistaking them for actual and real things; and so with all his
cleverness, he lives in a dream, and makes mistake upon mistake, because
he knows not things as they are, and sees nothing by the light of Christ,
who is the light of the world, from whom alone all true understanding
comes.
Begin then with the fear of the Lord. Make up your mind to do what you
are told is right, whether you know the reason of it or not. Take for
granted that your elders know better than you, and have faith in them, in
your teachers, in your Bible, in the words of wise men who have gone
before you: and do right, whatever it costs you.
If you do not always know the reason at first, you will know it in due
time, and get, so Solomon says, to _understand_ the fear of the Lord. In
due time you will see from experience that you are in the path of life.
You will be able to say with St. Paul, I _know_ in whom I have believed;
and with Job, ‘Before I heard of thee, O Lord, with the hearing of the
ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.’
And why? Because, says Solomon, God himself will show you, and teach you
by his Holy Spirit. As our Lord says, ‘The Holy Spirit shall take of
mine, and show it unto you, and lead you into all truth.’ And therefore
Solomon talks of wisdom, who is the Holy Ghost the Comforter, as a person
who teaches men, whose delight is with the sons of men. He speaks of
wisdom as calling to men. He speaks of her as a being who is seeking for
those that seek her, who will teach those who seek after her.
Yes, this, my friends, is, I believe, the secret of life. At least it is
the secret both of Solomon’s teaching, and our Lord’s, and St. Paul’s,
and St. John’s, that true wisdom is not a thing which man finds out for
himself, but which God teaches him. This is the secret of life—to
believe that God is your Father, schooling and training you from your
cradle to your grave; and then to please him and obey him in all things,
lifting up daily your hands and thankful heart, entreating him to purge
the eyes of your soul, and give you the true wisdom, which is to see all
things as they really are, and as God himself sees them. If you do that,
you may believe that God will teach you more and more how to do, in all
the affairs of life, that which is right in his sight, and therefore good
for you. He will teach you more and more to see in all which happens to
you, all which goes on around you, his fatherly love, his patient mercy,
his providential care for all his creatures. He will reward you by
making you more and more partaker of his Holy Spirit and of truth, by
which, seeing everything as it really is, you will at last—if not in this
life, still in the life to come—grow to see God himself, who has made all
things according to his own eternal mind, that they may be a pattern of
his unspeakable glory; and beyond that, who needs to see? For to know
God, and to see God, is eternal life itself.
And this true wisdom, which lies in knowing God, and understanding his
laws, is within the reach of the simplest person here. As I told you,
cleverness without godliness will not give it you; but godliness without
cleverness may.
Therefore let no one say, ‘We are no scholars, nor philosophers, and we
never can be. Are we, then, shut out from this heavenly wisdom?’ God
forbid, my friends. God is no respecter of persons. Only remember one
thing; and by it you, too, may attain to the heavenly wisdom. I said
that the fear of the Lord was the beginning of wisdom. I said that the
fear of the Lord was the end of wisdom. Now let the fear of the Lord be
the middle of wisdom also, and walk in it from youth to old age, and all
will be well.
That is the short way, the royal road to wisdom. To be good and to do
good. To keep the single eye—the eye which does not look two ways at
once, and want to go two ways at once, as too many do who want to serve
God and mammon, and to be good people and bad people too both at once.
But the single eye of the man, who looks straightforward at everything,
and has made up his mind what it ought to do, and will do, so help him
God. As stout old Joshua said, ‘Choose ye whom ye will serve: but as for
me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’ That is the single eye, which
wants simply to know what is right, and do what is right.
And if a man has that he may be a very wise man indeed, though he can
neither read nor write.
It is good for a man, of course, to be able to read, that he may know
what wiser men than he have said: above all, that he may know what his
Bible says. But, even if he cannot read, let him fear God, and set his
heart earnestly to know and do his duty. Let him keep his soul pure, and
his body also (for nothing hinders that heavenly wisdom like loose
living), and he will be wise enough for this world, and for the world to
come likewise.
I tell you, my friends, I have known women, who were neither clever
women, nor learned women, nor anything except good women, whose souls
were pure and full of the Holy Spirit, and who lived lives of prayer, and
sat all day long with Mary at the feet of Jesus.—I have known such women
to have at times a wisdom which all books and all sciences on earth
cannot give. I have known them give opinions on deep matters which
learned and experienced men were glad enough to take. I have known them
have, in a wonderful degree, that wisdom which the Scripture calls
discerning of spirits, being able to see into people’s hearts; knowing at
a glance what they were thinking of, what made them unhappy, how to
manage and comfort them; knowing at a glance whether they were honest or
not, pure-minded or not—a precious and heavenly wisdom, which comes, as I
believe, from none other than the inspiration of the Spirit of Christ,
who is the discerner of the secret thoughts of all hearts: and when I
have seen such people, altogether simple and humble, and yet most wise
and prudent, because they were full of the fear of the Lord, and of the
knowledge of God, I could not but ask—Why should we not be all like them?
My friends, I believe that we may all be more or less like them, if we
will make the fear of the Lord the beginning of our wisdom, and the
middle of our wisdom, and the end of our wisdom.
Nine-tenths of the mistakes we make in life come from forgetting the fear
of God and the law of God, and saying not, I will do what is right: but—I
will do what will profit me; I will do what I like. If we would say to
ourselves manfully instead all our lives through, I will learn the will
of God, and do it, whatsoever it cost me; we should find in our old age
that God’s Holy Spirit was indeed a guide and a comforter, able and
willing to lead us into all truth which was needful for us. We should
find St. Paul had spoken truth, when he said that godliness has the
promise of _this_ life, as well as of that which is to come.
SERMON XXIII.
HUMAN NATURE.
(_Septuagesima Sunday_.)
GENESIS i. 27.
So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he
him; male and female created he them.
ON this Sunday the Church bids us to begin to read the book of Genesis,
and hear how the world was made, and how man was made, and what the world
is, and who man is.
And why?
To prepare us, I think, for Lent, and Passion week, Good Friday, and
Easter day.
For you must know what a thing ought to be, before you can know what it
ought not to be; you must know what health is, before you can know what
disease is; you must know how and why a good man is good, before you can
know how and why a bad man is bad. You must know what man fell from,
before you can know what man has fallen to; and so you must hear of man’s
creation, before you can understand man’s fall.
Now in Lent we lament and humble ourselves for man’s fall. In Passion
week we remember the death and suffering of our blessed Lord, by which he
redeemed us from the fall. On Easter day we give him thanks and glory
for having conquered death and sin, and rising up as the new Adam, of
whom St. Paul writes, ‘As in Adam all died, even so in Christ shall all
be made alive.’
And therefore to prepare us for Lent and Passion week, and Easter day, we
begin this Sunday to read who the first man was, and what he was like
when he came into the world.
Now we all say that man was created good, righteous, innocent, holy. But
do you fancy that man had any goodness or righteousness of his own, so
that he could stand up and say, I am good; I can take care of myself; I
can do what is right in my own strength?
If you fancy so, you fancy wrong. The book of Genesis, and the text,
tell us that it was not so. It tells us that man could not be good by
himself; that the Lord God had to tell him what to do, and what not to
do; that the Lord God visited him and spoke to him: so that he could only
do right by faith: by trusting the Lord, and believing him, and believing
that what the Lord told him was the right thing for him; and it tells us
that he fell for want of faith, by not believing the Lord and not
believing that what the Lord told him was right for him. So he was holy,
and stood safe, only as long as he did not stand alone: but the moment
that he tried to stand alone he fell. So that it was with Adam as it is
with you and me. The just man can only live by faith.
And St. John explains this more fully, when he tells us that the voice of
the Lord, the Word of God whom Adam heard walking among the trees of the
garden, was our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, who was the life of Adam and
all men, and the light of Adam and all men. All death and misery, and
all ignorance and darkness, come at first from forgetting the Lord Jesus
Christ, and forgetting that he is about our path and about our bed, and
spying out all our ways; as St. John says, that Christ’s light is always
shining in the darkness of this world, but the darkness comprehendeth it
not; that he came to his own, but his own received him not; but as many
as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, as he
gave to man at first; for St. Luke says, that Adam was the Son of God.
But a son must depend on his father; and therefore man was sent into the
world to depend on God. So do not fancy that man before he fell could do
without God’s grace, though he cannot now. If man had never fallen, he
would have been just as much in need of God’s grace to keep him from
falling. To deny that is the root of what is called the Pelagian heresy.
Therefore the Church has generally said, and said most truly, that ‘Adam
stood by grace in Paradise;’ and had a ‘supernatural gift;’ and that as
long as he used that gift, he was safe, and only so long.
Now what does supernatural mean?
It means ‘above nature.’
Adam had a human nature: but he wanted something to keep him above that
nature, lest he should die, as all natural things on earth must. Trees
and flowers, birds and beasts, yea, the great earth itself must die, and
have an end in time, because it has had a beginning.
Man had and has still a human nature; the most beautiful, noble, and
perfect nature in the world; high above the highest animals in rank,
beauty, understanding, and feelings. Human nature is made, so the Bible
tells us, in some mysterious way, after the likeness of God; of Christ,
the eternal Son of man, who is in heaven; for the Bible speaks of the
Word or Voice of God as appearing to man in something of a human voice:
reasoning with him as man reasons with man; and feeling toward him human
feelings. That is the doctrine of the Bible; of David and the prophets,
just as much as of Genesis or of St. Paul.
That is a great mystery and a great glory: but that alone could not make
man good, could not even keep him alive.
For God made man for something more noble and blessed than to follow even
his own lofty human nature. God made the animals to follow their natures
each after its kind, and to do each what it liked, without sin. But he
made man to do more than that; to do more than what he _likes_; namely,
to do what he _ought_. God made man to love him, to obey him, to copy
him, by doing God’s will, and living God’s life, lovingly, joyfully, and
of his own free will, as a son follows the father whose will he delights
to do.
All animals God made to live and multiply, each after their kind: and man
likewise: but the animals he made to die again, and fresh generations,
ay, and fresh kinds of animals to take their place, and do their work, as
we know has happened again and again, both before and since man came upon
the earth. But of man the Bible says, that he was not meant to die: that
into him God breathed the breath, or spirit, of life: of that life of men
who is Jesus Christ the Lord; that in Christ man might be the Son of God.
To man he gave the life of the soul, the moral and spiritual life, which
is—to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with his God; the
life which is always tending upward to the source from which it came, and
longing to return to God who gave it, and to find rest in him. For in
God alone, in the assurance of God’s love to us, and in the knowledge
that we are living the life of God, can a man’s spirit find rest. So St.
Augustine found, through so many bitter experiences, when (as he tells
us) he tried to find rest and comfort in all God’s creatures one after
another, and yet never found them till he found God, or rather was found
by God, and illuminated (so he says himself) with that grace which by the
fall he lost.
What then does holy baptism mean? It means that God lifts us up again to
that honour from whence Adam fell. That as Adam lost the honour of being
God’s son, so Jesus Christ restores to us that honour. That as Adam lost
the supernatural grace in which he stood, so God for Christ’s sake freely
gives us back that grace, that we may stand by faith in that Christ, the
Word of God, whom Adam disbelieved and fell away.
Baptism says, You are not true and right men by nature; you are only
fallen men—men in your wrong place: but by grace you become men indeed,
true men; men living as man was meant to live, by faith, which is the
gift of God. For without grace man is like a stream when the fountain
head is stopped; it stops too—lies in foul puddles, decays, and at last
dries up: to keep the stream pure and living and flowing, the fountain
above must flow, and feed it for ever.
And so it is with man. Man is the stream, Christ is the fountain of
life. Parted from him mankind becomes foul and stagnant in sin and
ignorance, and at last dries up and perishes, because there is no life in
them. Joined to him in holy baptism, mankind lives, spreads, grows,
becomes stronger, better, wiser year by year, each generation of his
church teaching the one which comes after, as our Lord says, not only,
‘If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink;’ but also, ‘He that
believeth in me, out of him shall flow rivers of living water.’
Yes, my brethren, if you want to see what man is, you must not look at
the heathens, who are in a state of fallen and corrupt nature, but at
Christians, who are in a state of grace; for they only (those of them, I
mean, who are true to God and themselves), give us any true notion of
what man can be and should be.
Heathendom is the foul and stagnant pool, parted from Christ, the Fount
of life. Christendom, in spite of all its sins and short-comings, is the
stream always fed from the heavenly Fountain. And holy baptism is the
river of the water of life, which St. John saw in the Revelations, clear
as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, the
trees of which are for the healing of the nations. And when that river
shall have spread over the world, there shall be no more curse, but the
throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in the city of God; and the
nations of them that are saved shall grow to glory and blessedness, such
as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of
man to conceive, but God hath prepared for those who love him.
Oh, may God hasten that day! May he accomplish the number of his elect
and hasten his kingdom, and the day when there shall not be a heathen
soul on earth, but all shall know him from the least to the greatest, and
the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth, as the waters cover the
sea!
Then—when all men are brought into the fold of Christ’s holy Church—then
will they be men indeed; men not after nature, but after grace, and the
likeness of Christ, and the stature of perfect men: and then what shall
happen to this earth matters little; no, not if the earth and all the
works therein, beautiful though they be, be burned up; for though this
world perish, man would still have his portion sure in the city of God
which is eternal in the heavens, and before the face of the Son of man
who is in heaven.
Oh, my friends, think of this. Think of what you say when you say, ‘I am
a man.’ Remember that you are claiming for yourselves the very highest
honour—an honour too great to make you proud; an honour so great that, if
you understand it rightly, it must fill you with awe, and trembling, and
the spirit of godly fear, lest, when God has put you up so high, you
should fall shamefully again. For the higher the place, the deeper the
fall; and the greater the honour, the greater the shame of losing it.
But be sure that it was an honour before Adam fell. That ever since
Christ has taken the manhood into God, it is an honour now to be a man.
Do not let the devil or bad men ever tempt you to say, I am only a man,
and therefore you cannot expect me to do right. I am but a man, and
therefore I cannot help being mean, and sinful, and covetous, and
quarrelsome, and foul: for that is the devil’s doctrine, though it is
common enough. I have heard a story of a man in America—where very few,
I am sorry to say, have heard the true doctrine of the Catholic Church,
and therefore do not know really that God made man in his own image, and
redeemed him again into his own image by Jesus Christ—and this man was
rebuked for being a drunkard; and what do you fancy his excuse was?
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘you should remember that there is a great deal of human
nature in a man.’ That was his excuse. He had been so ill-taught by his
Calvinist preachers, that he had learnt to look on human nature as
actually a bad thing; as if the devil, and not God, had made human
nature, and as if Christ had not redeemed human nature. Because he was a
man, he thought he was excused in being a bad man; because he had a human
nature in him, he was to be a drunkard and a brute.
My friends, I trust that you have not so learned Christ. And if you
have, it is from no teaching of your Bible, of your Catechism, or your
Prayer-book; and, I say boldly, from no teaching of mine. The Church
bids you say, Yes; I have a human nature in me; and what nature is that
but the nature which the Son of God took on himself, and redeemed, and
justified it, and glorified it, sitting for ever now in his human nature
at the right hand of God, the Son of man who is in heaven? Yes, I am a
man; and what is it to be a man, but to be the image and glory of God?
What is it to be a man? To belong to that race whose Head is the
co-equal and co-eternal Son of God. True, it is not enough to have only
a human nature which may sin, will sin, must sin, if left to itself a
moment. But you have, unless the Holy Spirit has left you, and your
baptism is of none effect, more than human nature in you: you have divine
grace—that supernatural grace and Spirit of God by which man stood in
Paradise, and by neglecting which he fell.
Obey that Spirit; from him comes every right judgment of your minds,
every good desire of your hearts, every thought and feeling in you which
raises you up, instead of dragging you down; which bids you do your duty,
and live the life of God and Christ, instead of living the mere
death-in-life of selfish pleasure and covetousness. Obey that Spirit,
and be men: men indeed, that you may not come to shame in the day when
Christ the Son of Man shall take account of you, how you have used your
manhood, body, soul, and spirit.
SERMON XXIV.
THE CHARITY OF GOD.
(_Quinquagesima Sunday_.)
LUKE xviii. 31, 32, 33.
All things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man
shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles,
and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: and
they shall scourge him and put him to death; and the third day he
shall rise again.
THIS is a solemn text, a solemn Gospel; but it is not its solemnity which
I wish to speak of this morning, but this—What has it to do with the
Epistle, and with the Collect? The Epistle speaks of Charity; the
Collect bids us pray for the Holy Spirit of Charity. What have they to
do with the Gospel?
Let me try to show you.
The Epistle speaks of God’s eternal charity. The Gospel tells us how
that eternal charity was revealed, and shown plainly in flesh and blood
on earth, in the life and death of Jesus Christ our Lord.
But you may ask, How does the Epistle talk of God’s charity? It bids men
be charitable; but the name of God is never mentioned in it. Not so, my
friends. Look again at the Epistle, and you will see one word which
shows us that this charity, which St. Paul says we must have, is God’s
charity.
For, he says, Charity never faileth; that though prophecies shall fail,
tongues cease, knowledge vanish away, charity shall never fail. Now, if
a thing never fail, it must be eternal. And if it be eternal, it must be
in God. For, as I have reminded you before about other things, the
Athanasian Creed tells us (and never was truer or wiser word written)
there is but one eternal.
But if charity be not in God, there must be two eternals; God must be one
eternal, and charity another eternal; which cannot be. Therefore charity
must be in God, and of God, part of God’s essence and being; and not only
God’s saints, but God himself—suffereth long, and is kind; envieth not,
is not puffed up, seeketh not his own, is not easily provoked, thinketh
no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but in the truth; beareth all things,
believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
So St. Augustine believed, and the greatest fathers of old time. They
believed, and they have taught us to believe, that before all things,
above all things, beneath all things, is the divine charity, the love of
God, infinite as God is infinite, everlasting as God is everlasting; the
charity by which God made all worlds, all men, and all things, that they
might be blest as he is blest, perfect as he is perfect, useful as he is
useful; the charity which is God’s essence and Holy Spirit, which might
be content in itself, because it is perfectly at peace in itself; and yet
_cannot_ be content in itself, just because it is charity and love, and
therefore must be going forth and proceeding everlastingly from the
Father and the Son, upon errands of charity, love, and mercy, rewarding
those whom it finds doing their work in their proper place, and seeking
and saving those who are lost, and out of their proper place.
But what has this to do with the Gospel? Surely, my friends, it is not
difficult to see. In Jesus Christ our Lord, the eternal charity of God
was fully revealed. The veil was taken off it once for all, that men
might see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and know that the
glory of God is charity, and the Spirit of God is love.
There was a veil over that in old times; and the veil comes over it often
enough now. It was difficult in old times to believe that God was
charity; it is difficult sometimes now.
Sad and terrible things happen—Plague and famine, earthquake and war.
All these things have happened in our times. Not two months ago, in
Italy, an earthquake destroyed many thousands of people; and in India,
this summer, things have happened of which I dare not speak, which have
turned the hearts of women to water, and the hearts of men to fire: and
when such things happen, it is difficult for the moment to believe that
God is love, and that he is full of eternal, boundless, untiring charity
toward the creatures whom he has made, and who yet perish so terribly,
suddenly, strangely.
Well, then, we must fall back on the Gospel. We must not be afraid of
the terror of such awful events, but sanctify the Lord God, in our
hearts, and say, Whatever may happen I know that God is love; I know that
his glory is charity; I know that his mercy is over all his works; for I
know that Jesus Christ, who was full of perfect charity, is the express
image of his Father’s person, and the brightness of his Father’s glory.
I know (for the Gospel tells me), that he dared all things, endured all
things, in the depth of his great love, for the sake of sinful men. I
know that when he knew what was going to happen to him; when he knew that
he should be mocked, scourged, crucified, he deliberately, calmly, faced
all that shame, horror, agony, and went up willingly to Jerusalem to
suffer and to die there; because he was full of the Spirit of God, the
spirit of charity and love. I know that he was _so_ full of it, that as
he went up on his fatal journey, with a horrible death staring him in the
face, still, instead of thinking of himself, he was thinking of others,
and could find time to stop and heal the poor blind man by the way side,
who called ‘Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me.’ And in him and
his love will I trust, when there seems nothing else left to trust on
earth.
Oh, my friends, believe this with your whole heart. Whatever happens to
you or to your friends, happens out of the eternal charity of God, who
cannot change, who cannot hate, who can be nothing but what he is and
was, and ever will be—love.
And when St. Paul tells you, as he told you in the Epistle to-day, to
have charity, to try for charity, because it is the most excellent way to
please God, and the eternal virtue, which will abide for ever in heaven,
when all wisdom and learning, even about spiritual things, which men have
had on earth, shall seem to us when we look back such as a child’s
lessons do to a grown man;—when, I say, St. Paul tells you to try after
charity, he tells you to be like God himself; to be perfect even as your
Father in heaven is perfect; to bear and forbear because God does so: to
give and forgive because God does so; to love all because God loves all,
and willeth that none should perish, but that all should come to the
knowledge of the truth.
How he will fulfil that; how he fulfilled it last summer with those poor
souls in India, we know not, and never shall know in this life. Let it
be enough for us that known unto God are all his works from the
foundation of the world, and that his charity embraces the whole
universe.
SERMON XXV.
THE DAYS OF THE WEEK.
JAMES i. 17.
Every good gift, and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh
down from the Father of lights, with whom is neither variableness,
nor shadow of turning.
IT seems an easy thing for us here to say, ‘I believe in God.’ We have
learnt from our childhood that there is but one God. It seems to us
strange and ridiculous that people anywhere should believe in more gods
than one. We never heard of any other doctrine, except in books about
the heathen; and there are perhaps not three people in this church who
ever saw a heathen man, or talked to him.
Yet it is not so easy to learn that there is but one God. Were it not
for the church, and the missionaries who were sent into this part of the
world by the church, now 1200 years ago, we should not know it now. Our
forefathers once worshipped many gods, and not one only God. I do not
mean when they were savages; for I do not believe that they ever were
savages at all: but after they were settled here in England, living in a
simple way, very much as country people live now, and dressing very much
as country people do now, they worshipped many gods.
Now what put that mistake into their minds? It seems so ridiculous to us
now, that we cannot understand at first how it ever arose.
But if we will consider the names of their old gods, we shall understand
it a little better. Now the names of the old English gods you all know.
They are in your mouths every day. The days of the week are named after
them. The old English kept time by weeks, as the old Jews did, and they
named their days after their gods. Why, would take me too much time to
tell: but so it is.
Why, then, did they worship these gods?
First, because man must worship something. Before man fell, he was
created in Christ the image and likeness of God the Father; and therefore
he was created that he might hear his Father’s voice, and do his Father’s
will, as Christ does everlastingly; and after man fell, and lost Christ
and Christ’s likeness, still there was left in his heart some remembrance
of the child’s feeling which the first man had; he felt that he ought to
look up to some one greater than himself, obey some one greater than
himself; that some one greater than himself was watching over him, doing
him good, and perhaps, too, doing him harm and punishing him.
Then these simple men looked up to the heaven above, and round on the
earth beneath, and asked, Who is it who is calling for us? Who is it we
ought to obey and please; who gives us good things? Who may hurt us if
we make him angry?
Then the first thing they saw was the sun. What more beautiful than the
sun? What more beneficent? From the sun came light and heat, the growth
of all living things, ay, the growth of life itself.
The sun, they thought, must surely be a god; so they worshipped the sun,
and called the first day of the week after him—Sunday.
Next the moon. Nothing, except the sun, seemed so grand and beautiful to
them as the moon, and she was their next god, and Monday was named after
her.
Then the wind—what a mysterious, awful, miraculous thing the wind seemed,
always moving, yet no one knew how; with immense power and force, and yet
not to be seen; as our blessed Lord himself said, ‘The wind bloweth where
it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence
it cometh or whither it goeth.’ Then—and this is very curious—they
fancied that the wind was a sort of pattern, or type of the spirit of
man. With them, as with the old Jews and Greeks, the same word which
meant wind, meant also a man’s soul, his spirit; and so they grew to
think that the wind was inhabited by some great spirit, who gave men
spirit, and inspired them to be brave, and to prophesy, and say and do
noble things; and they called him Wodin the Mover, the Inspirer; and
named Wednesday after him.
Next the thunder—what more awful and terrible, and yet so full of good,
than the summer heat and the thunder cloud? So they fancied that the
thunder was a god, and called him Thor—and the dark thunder cloud was
Thor’s frowning eyebrow; and the lightning flash Thor’s hammer, with
which he split the rocks, and melted the winter-ice and drove away the
cold of winter, and made the land ready for tillage. So they worshipped
Thor, and loved him; for they fancied him a brave, kindly, useful god,
who loved to see men working in their fields, and tilling the land
honestly.
Then the spring. That was a wonder to them again—and is it not a wonder
to see all things grow fresh and fair, after the dreary winter cold? So
the spring was a goddess, and they called her Freya, the Free One, the
Cheerful One, and named Friday after her; and she it was, they thought,
who gave them the pleasant spring time, and youth, and love, and
cheerfulness, and rejoiced to see the flowers blossom, and the birds
build their nests, and all young creatures enjoy the life which God had
given them in the pleasant days of spring. And after her Friday is
named.
Then the harvest. The ripening of the grain, that too was a wonder to
them—and should it not be to us?—how the corn and wheat which is put into
the ground and dies should rise again, and then ripen into golden corn?
That too must be the work of some kindly spirit, who loved men; and they
called him Seator, the Setter, the Planter, the God of the seed field and
the harvest, and after him Saturday is named.
And so, instead of worshipping him who made all heaven and earth, they
turned to worship the heaven and the earth itself, like the foolish
Canaanites.
But some may say, ‘This was all very mistaken and foolish: but what harm
was there in it? How did it make them worse men?’
My friends, among these very woodlands here, some thirteen hundred years
ago, you might have come upon one of the places where your forefathers
worshipped Thor and Odin, the thunder and the wind, beneath the shade of
ancient oaks, in the darkest heart of the forest. And there you would
have seen an ugly sight enough.
There was an altar there, with an everlasting fire burning on it; but why
should that altar, and all the ground around be crusted and black with
blood; why should that dark place be like a charnel house or a butcher’s
shambles; why, from all the trees around, should there be hanging the
rotting carcases, not of goats and horses merely, but of _men_,
sacrificed to Thor and Odin, the thunder and the wind? Why that
butchery, why those works of darkness in the dark places of the world?
Because that was the way of pleasing Thor and Odin. To that our
forefathers came. To that all heathens have come, sooner or later. They
fancy gods in their own likeness; and then they make out those gods no
better than, and at last as bad as themselves.
The old English and Danes were fond of Thor and Odin; they fancied them,
as I told you, brave gods, very like themselves: but they themselves were
not always what they ought to be; they had fierce passions, were proud,
revengeful, blood-thirsty; and they thought Thor and Odin must be so too.
And when they looked round them, that seemed too true. The thunder storm
did not merely melt the snow, cool the air, bring refreshing rain; it
sometimes blasted trees, houses, men; that they thought was Thor’s anger.
So of the wind. Sometimes it blew down trees and buildings, sank ships
in the sea. That was Odin’s anger. Sometimes, too, they were not brave
enough; or they were defeated in battle. That was because Thor and Odin
were angry with them, and would not give them courage. How were they to
appease Thor and Odin, and put them into good humour again? By giving
them their revenge, by letting them taste blood; by offering them sheep,
goats, horses in sacrifice: and if that would not do, by offering them
something more precious still, living men.
And so, too often, when the weather was unfavourable, and crops were
blasted by tempest or they were defeated in battle by their enemies,
Thor’s and Odin’s altars were turned into slaughter-places for wretched
human beings—captives taken in war, and sometimes, if the need was very
great, their own children. That was what came of worshipping the heaven
above and the earth around, instead of the true God. Human sacrifices,
butchery, and murder.
English and Danes alike. It went on among them both; across the seas in
their old country, and here in England, till they were made Christians.
There is no doubt about it. I could give you tale on tale which would
make your blood run cold. Then they learnt to throw away those false
gods who quarrelled among themselves, and quarrelled with mankind; gods
who were proud, revengeful, changeable, spiteful; who had variableness in
them, and turned round as their passions led them. Then they learnt to
believe in the one true God, the Father of lights, in whom is neither
variableness nor shadow of turning. Then they learnt that from one God
came every good and perfect gift; that God filled the sun with light;
that God guided the changes of the moon; that God, and not Thor, gave to
men industry and courage; God, and not Wodin, inspired them with the
spirit which bloweth where it listeth, and raised them up above
themselves to speak noble words and do noble deeds; that God, and not
Friga, sent spring time and cheerfulness, and youth and love, and all
that makes earth pleasant; that God, and not Satur, sent the yearly
wonder of the harvest crops, sent rain and fruitful seasons, filling the
earth with food and gladness.
But what was there about this new God, even the true God, which the old
missionaries preached, which won the hearts of our forefathers?
This, my friends, not merely that he was one God and not many, but that
he was a Father of lights, from whom came good gifts, in whom was neither
variableness nor shadow of turning.
Not merely a master, but a Father, who gave good gifts, because he was
good himself; a God whom they could love, because he loved them; a God
whom they could trust and depend on, because there was no variableness in
him, and he could not lose his temper as Thor and Odin did. That was the
God whom their wild, passionate hearts wanted, and they believed in him.
And when they doubted, and asked, ‘How can we be sure that God is
altogether good?—how can we be sure that he is always trustworthy, always
the same?’—Then the missionaries used to point them to the crucifix, the
image of Christ upon his cross, and say, ‘There is the token; there is
what God is to you, what God suffered for you; there is the everlasting
sign that he gives good gifts, even to the best of all gifts, even to his
own self, when it was needed; there is the everlasting sign that in him
is neither darkness, passion, nor change, but that he wills all men to be
saved from their own darkness and passions, and from the ruin which they
bring, and to come to the knowledge of the truth, that they have a Father
in heaven.’
SERMON XXVI.
THE HEAVENLY FATHER.
ACTS xvi. 24–28.
God that made the world, and all that therein is, seeing that he is
Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands . . .
For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also
of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
I TOLD you last Sunday of the meaning of the days of the week; but one
day I left out—namely, Tuesday. I did so on purpose. I wish to speak of
that day by itself in this sermon.
I told you how our forefathers worshipped many gods, by fancying that
various things in the world round them were gods—sun and moon, wind and
thunder, spring and harvest.
But if that seems to you at times wrong and absurd, it seemed so to them
also. They, like all heathens, had at times dreams of one God.
They thought to themselves—All heaven and earth must have had a
beginning, and they cannot have grown out of nothing, for out of nothing
nothing comes. They must have been made in some way. Perhaps they were
made by some _One_.
The more they saw of this wonderful world, and all the order and
contrivance in it, the more sure they were that one mind must have
planned it, one will created it.
But men—they thought—persons, living souls—are not merely made; they are
begotten; they must have a Father, whose sons they are. Perhaps, they
thought, there is somewhere a great Father; a Father of all persons, from
whom all souls come, who was before all things, and all persons, however
great, however ancient they may be. And so, like the Greeks and Romans,
and many other heathen nations, they had dim thoughts of an All-Father,
as they called him; Father of gods and men; the Father of spirits.
They looked round them too, in this world, and saw that everything in it
must die. The tree, though it stood for a thousand years, must decay at
last; the very rocks and mountains crumbled to dust at last: and so they
thought—truly and wisely enough—Everything which we see near us, perishes
at last: why should not everything which we can see, however far off,
however great, perish? Why should not this earth come to an end? Why
should not sun and moon, wind and thunder, spring and harvest, end at
last? And then will not these gods, who are mixed up with the world, and
live in it, and govern it, die too? If the sun perishes, the sun-god
will perish too. If the thunder ceases for ever, then there will be no
more thunder-god. Yes, they thought—and wisely and truly too—everything
which has a beginning must have an end. Everything which is born, must
die. The sun and the earth, wind and thunder, will perish some day; the
gods of sun and earth, wind and thunder, will die some day. And then
what will be left? Will there be nothing and nowhere? That thought was
too horrible. God’s voice in their hearts, the word of the Lord Jesus
Christ, who lights every man who comes into the world, made them feel
that it was horrible, unreasonable; that it could not be.
But it was all dim to them, and uncertain. Of one thing only they were
certain, that death reigned, and that death had passed upon all men, and
things, and even gods. Evil beasts, evil gods, evil passions, were
gnawing at the root of all things. A time would come of nothing but rage
and wickedness, fury and destruction; the gods would fight and be slain,
and earth and heaven would be sent back again into shapeless ruin: and
after that they knew no more, though they longed to know. They dreamed,
I say, at moments of a new and a better world, new men, new gods: but how
were they to come? Who would live when all things died? Was there not
somewhere an All-Father, who had eternal life?
Then they looked round upon the earth, those simple-hearted forefathers
of ours, and said within themselves, Where is the All-Father, if
All-Father there be? Not in this earth; for it will perish. Not in the
sun, moon, or stars, for they will perish too. Where is He who abideth
for ever?
Then they lifted up their eyes and saw, as they thought, beyond sun, and
moon, and stars and all which changes and will change, the clear blue
sky, the boundless firmament of heaven.
That never changed; that was always the same. The clouds and storms
rolled far below it, and all the bustle of this noisy world; but there
the sky was still, as bright and calm as ever. The All-Father must be
there, unchangeable in the unchanging heaven; bright, and pure, and
boundless like the heavens; and like the heavens too, silent, and afar
off.
So they named him after the heaven, Tuith, Tuisco, Divisco—The God who
lives in the clear heaven; and after him Tuesday is called: the day of
Tuisco, the heavenly Father. He was the Father of gods and men; and man
was the son of Tuisco and Hertha—heaven and earth.
That was all they knew; and even that they did not know; they
contradicted themselves and each other about it. After a time they began
to think that Odin, and not Tuisco, was the All-Father; all was dim and
far off to them. They were feeling after him, as St. Paul says he had
intended them to do: but they did not find him. They did not know the
Father, because they did not know Jesus Christ the Son; as it is written,
‘No man cometh to the Father, but through me;’ and, ‘No man hath seen God
at any time; only the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the
Father, he hath declared him.’
Many other heathens had the same thought and the same word; the old
Greeks and Romans, for instance, who many thousand years ago spoke the
same tongue as we did then, called him Zeus or Deus Pater; Jupiter; the
heavenly Father, Father of gods and men; using the same word as our
Tuisco, a little altered. And that same word, changed slightly, means
God now, in Welsh, French, and Italian, and many languages in Europe and
in Asia; and will do so till the end of time.
That, I say, was all they knew of their Father in heaven, till
missionaries came and preached the Gospel to them, and told them what St.
Paul told the Greeks in my text.
Now, what did St. Paul tell the Greeks? He came, we read, to Athens in
Greece, and found the city wholly given to idolatry, worshipping all
manner of false gods, and images of them. And yet they were not content
with their false gods. They felt, as our forefathers felt, that there
must be a greater, better, more mighty, more faithful God than all: and
they thought, ‘We will worship him too: for we are sure that he is,
though we know nothing about him.’ So they set up, beside all the altars
and temples of the false gods ‘To the Unknown God.’ And St. Paul passed
by and saw it; and his heart was stirred within him with pity and
compassion; and he rose up and preached them a sermon—the first and the
best missionary sermon which ever was preached on earth, the model of all
missionary sermons; and said, ‘That God whom you ignorantly worship, Him
I will declare unto you.’
Now, here was a Gospel; here was good news. St. Paul told them—as the
missionaries afterwards told our forefathers—that one, at least, of their
heathen fancies was not wrong. There was a heavenly Father. Mankind was
not an orphan, come into the world he knew not whence, and going, when he
died, he knew not whither. No, man was not an orphan. From God he came;
to God, if he chose, he might return. The heathen poet had spoken truth
when he said, ‘For we are the offspring of God.’
But where was the heavenly Father? Far away in the clear sky, in the
highest heaven beyond all suns and stars? Silent and idle, caring for no
one on earth, content in himself, and leaving sinful man to himself to go
to ruin as he chose?
‘No,’ says St. Paul, ‘He is not far off from any one of us; for in him we
live, and move, and have our being.’
Wonderful words! Eighteen hundred years have past since then, and we
have not spelt out half the meaning of them. It is such good news, such
blessed news, and yet such awful news, that we are afraid to believe it
fully. That the Almighty God should be so near us, sinful men; that we,
in spite of all our sins, should live, and move, and have our being in
God. How can it be true?
My friends, it would not be true, if something more was not true. We
should have no right to say, ‘I believe in God the Father Almighty,’
unless we said also, ‘I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.’
St. Paul, after he had told them of a Father in heaven, went on to tell
them of _a man_ whom that Father had sent to judge the world, having
raised him from the dead.—And there his sermon stopped. Those foolish
Greeks laughed at him; they would not receive the news of Jesus Christ
the Son; and therefore they lost the good news of their Father in heaven.
We can guess from St. Paul’s Epistle what he was going on to tell them.
How, by believing in Jesus Christ the Son, and claiming their share in
him, and being baptized into his name, they might become once more God’s
children, and take their place again as new men and true men in Jesus
Christ. But they would not hear his message.
Our forefathers did hear that message, and believed it; they had been
feeling after the heavenly Father, and at last they found him, and
claimed their share in Christ as sons of the heavenly Father; and
therefore we are Christian men this day, baptized into God’s family, and
thriving as God’s family must thrive, as long as it remembers that God
dwelleth not in temples made with hands, and needs nothing from man,
seeing that he gives to all life and breath and all things; and is not
far from any one of us, seeing that in him we live, and move, and have
our being, and are the offspring, the children of God.
Bear that in mind. Bear it in mind, I say, that in God you live, and
move, and have your being. Day and night, going out and coming in, say
to yourselves, ‘I am with God my Father, and God my Father is with me.
There is not a good feeling in my heart, but my heavenly Father has put
it there: ay, I have not a power which he has not given, a thought which
he does not know; even the very hairs of my head are all numbered.
Whither shall I go then from his presence? Whither shall I flee from his
Spirit? For he filleth all things. If my eyes were opened, I should see
at every moment God’s love, God’s power, God’s wisdom, working alike in
sun and moon, in every growing blade and ripening grain, and in the
training and schooling of every human being, and every nation, to whom he
has appointed their times, and the bounds of their habitation, if haply
they may seek after the Lord, and find him in whom they live, and move,
and have their being. Everywhere I should see life going forth to all
created things from God the Father, of whom are all things, and God the
Son, by whom are all things, and God the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver
of that life.’
A little of that glorious sight we may see in this life, if our hearts
and reasons are purified by the Spirit of God, to see God in all things,
and all things in God: and more in that life whereof it is written,
‘Beloved, we are now the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we
shall be: but this we know, that when he appears, we shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is.’ To that life may he in his mercy bring
us all. Amen.
SERMON XXVII.
THE GOOD SHEPHERD.
JOHN x. 11.
I am the good shepherd.
HERE are blessed words. They are not new words. You find words like
these often in the Bible, and even in ancient heathen books. Kings,
priests, prophets, judges, are called shepherds of the people. David is
called the shepherd of Israel. A prophet complains of the shepherds of
Israel who feed themselves, and will not feed the flock.
But the old Hebrew prophets had a vision of a greater and better shepherd
than David, or any earthly king or priest—of a heavenly and almighty
shepherd. ‘The Lord is my shepherd,’ says one; ‘therefore I shall not
want.’ And another says, ‘He shall feed his flock like a shepherd. He
shall gather his lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and
shall gently lead those who are with young.’
This was blessed news; good news for all mankind, if there had been no
more than this. But there is more blessed news still in the text. In
the text, the Lord of whom those old prophets spoke, spoke for himself,
with human voice, upon this earth of ours; and declared that all they had
said was true; and that more still was true.
I am the good shepherd, he says. And then he adds, The good shepherd
giveth his life for the sheep.
Oh, my friends, consider these words. Think what endless depths of
wonder there are in them. Is it not wonderful enough that God should
care for men; should lead them, guide them, feed them, condescend to call
himself their shepherd? Wonderful, indeed; so wonderful, that the old
prophets would never have found it out but by the inspiration of Almighty
God. But what a wider, deeper, nobler, more wonderful blessing, and more
blessed wonder, that the shepherd should give his life for the
sheep;—that the master should give his life for the servant, the good for
the bad, the wise one for the fools, the pure one for the foul, the
loving one for the spiteful, the king for those who had rebelled against
him, the Creator for his creatures. That God should give his life for
man! Truly, says St. John, ‘Herein is love. Not that we loved him: but
that he loved us.’ Herein, indeed, is love. Herein is the beauty of
God, and the glory of God; that he spared nothing, shrank from nothing,
that he might save man. Because the sheep were lost, the good shepherd
would go forth into the rough and dark places of the earth to seek and to
save that which was lost. That was enough. That was a thousand times
more than we had a right to expect. Had he done only that he would have
been for ever glorious, for ever adorable, for ever worthy of the praises
and thanks of heaven and earth, and all that therein is. But that seemed
little in the eyes of Jesus, little to the greatness of his divine love.
He would understand the weakness of his sheep by being weak himself;
understand the sorrows of his sheep, by sorrowing himself; understand the
sins of his sheep, by bearing all their sins; the temptations of his
sheep, by conquering them himself; and lastly, he would understand and
conquer the death of his sheep, by dying himself. Because the sheep must
die, he would die too, that in all things, and to the uttermost, he might
show himself the good shepherd, who shared all sorrow, danger and misery
with his sheep, as if they had been his children, bone of his bone and
flesh of his flesh. In all things he would show himself the good
shepherd, and no hireling, who cared for himself and his own wages. If
the wolf came, he would face the wolf, and though the wolf killed him,
yet would he kill the wolf, that by his death he might destroy death, and
him who had the power of death, that is, the devil. He would go where
the sheep went. He would enter into the sheepfold by the same gate as
they did, and not climb over into the fold some other way, like a thief
and a robber. He would lead them into the fold by the same gate. They
had to go into God’s fold through the gate of death; and therefore he
would go in through it also, and die with his sheep; that he might claim
the gate of death for his own, and declare that it did not belong to the
devil, but to him and his heavenly Father; and then having led his sheep
in through the gate of death, he would lead them out again by the gate of
resurrection, that they might find pasture in the redeemed land of
everlasting life, where can enter neither devil, nor wolf, nor robber,
evil spirit, evil man, or evil thing. This, and more than this, he would
do in the greatness of his love. He would become in all things like his
sheep, that he might show himself the good shepherd. Because they died,
he would die; that so, because he rose, they might rise also.
Oh, my friends, who is sufficient for these things? Not men, not saints,
not angels or archangels can comprehend the love of Christ. How can
they? For Christ is God, and God is love; the root and fountain of all
love which is in you and me, and angels, and all created beings. And
therefore his love is as much greater than ours, or than the love of
angels and archangels, as the whole sun is greater than one ray of
sun-light. Say rather, as much greater and more glorious as the sun is
greater and more glorious than the light which sparkles in the dew-drop
on the grass. The love and goodness and holiness of a saint or an angel
is the light in that dew-drop, borrowed from the sun. The love of God is
the sun himself, which shineth from one part of heaven to the other, and
there is nothing hid from the life-giving heat and light thereof. When
the dew-drop can take in the sun, then can we take in the love of God,
which fills all heaven and earth.
But there is, if possible, better news still behind—‘I am the good
shepherd; and know my sheep, and am known of mine.’
‘I know my sheep.’ Surely some of the words which I have just spoken may
help to explain that to you. ‘I know my sheep.’ Not merely, I know who
are my sheep, and who are not. Of course, the Lord does that. We might
have guessed that for ourselves. What comfort is there in that? No, he
does not say merely, ‘I know _who_ my sheep are; but I know _what_ my
sheep are. I know them; their inmost hearts. I know their sins and
their follies: but I know, too, their longing after good. I know their
temptations, their excuses, their natural weaknesses, their infirmities,
which they brought into the world with them. I know their inmost hearts
for good and for evil. True, I think some of them often miserable, and
poor, and blind, when they fancy themselves strong, and wise, and rich in
grace, and having need of nothing. But I know some of them, too, to be
longing after what is good, to be hungering and thirsting after
righteousness, when they can see nothing but their own sin and weakness,
and are utterly ashamed and tired of themselves, and are ready to lie
down in despair, and give up all struggling after God. I know their
weakness—and of me it is written, ‘I will carry the lambs in mine arms.’
Those who are innocent and inexperienced in the ways of this world, I
will see that they are not led into temptation; and I will gently lead
those that are with young: those who are weary with the burden of their
own thoughts, those who are yearning and labouring after some higher,
better, more free, more orderly, more useful life; those who long to find
out the truth, and to speak it, and give birth to the noble thoughts and
the good plans which they have conceived: I have inspired their good
desires, and I will bring them to good effect; I will gently lead them,’
says the Lord, ‘for I know them better than they know themselves.’
Yes. Christ knows us better than we know ourselves: and better, too,
than we know him. Thanks be to God that it is so. Or the last words of
the text would crush us into despair—‘I know my sheep, and am known of
mine.’
Is it so? We trust that we are Christ’s sheep. We trust that he knows
us: but do we know him? What answer shall we make to that question, Do
you know Christ? I do not mean, Do you know _about_ Christ? You may
know _about_ a person without knowing the person himself when you see
him. I do not mean, Do you know doctrines about Christ? though that is
good and necessary. Nor, Do you know what Christ has done for your soul?
though that is good and necessary also. But, Do you know Christ himself?
You have never seen him. True: but have you never seen any one like
him—even in part? Do you know his likeness when you see it in any of
your neighbours? That is a question worth thinking over. Again—Do you
know what Christ is like? What his character is—what his way of dealing
with your soul, and all souls, is? Are you accustomed to speak to him in
your prayers as to one who can and will hear you; and do you know his
voice when he speaks to you, and puts into your heart good desires, and
longings after what is right and true, and fair and noble, and loving and
patient, as he himself is? Do you know Christ?
Alas! my friends, what a poor answer we can make to that question? How
little do we know Christ?
What would become of us, if he were like us?—If he were one who bargained
with us, and said—‘Unless you know me, I will not take the trouble to
know you. Unless you care for me, you cannot expect me to care for you.’
What would become of us, if God said, ‘As you do to me, so will I do to
you?’
But our only hope lies in this, that in Christ the Lord is no spirit of
bargaining, no pride, no spite, no rendering evil for evil. In this is
our hope; that he is the likeness of his Father’s glory, and the express
image of his person; perfect as his Father is perfect; that like his
Father, he causeth his rain to fall on the evil and the good; and his sun
to shine on the just and on the unjust; and is good to the unthankful and
the evil—to you and me—and knows us, though we know him not; and cares
for us, though we care not for him; and leads us his way, like a good
shepherd, when we fancy in our conceit that we are going in our own way.
This is our hope, that his love is greater than our stupidity; that he
will not tire of us, and our fancies, and our self-will, and our
laziness, in spite of all our peevish tempers, and our mean and fruitless
suspicions of his goodness. No! He will not tire of us, but will seek
us, and save us when we go astray. And some day, somewhere, somehow, he
will open our eyes, and let us see him as he is, and thank him as he
deserves. Some day, when the veil is taken off our eyes, we shall see
like those disciples at Emmaus, that Jesus has been walking with us, and
breaking our bread for us, and blessing us, all our lives long; and that
when our hearts burned within us at noble thoughts, and stories of noble
and righteous men and women, and at the hope that some day good would
conquer evil, and heaven come down on earth, then—so we shall find—God
had been dwelling among men all along—even Jesus, who was dead, and is
alive for evermore, and has the keys of death and hell, and knows his
sheep in this world, and in all worlds, past, present, and to come, and
leads them, and will lead them for ever, and none can pluck them out of
his hand. Amen.
SERMON XXVIII.
DARK TIMES.
1 JOHN iv. 16–18.
We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is
love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day
of judgment; because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no
fear in love but perfect love casteth out fear; because fear hath
torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
HAVE we learnt this lesson? Our reading, and thinking, and praying, have
been in vain, unless they have helped us to believe and know the love
which God has to us. But, indeed, no reading, or thinking, or praying
will teach us that perfectly. God must teach it us himself. It is easy
to say that God is love; easy to say that Christ died for us; easy to say
that God’s Spirit is with us; easy to say all manner of true doctrines,
and run them off our tongues at second-hand; easy for me to stand up here
and preach them to you, just as I find them written in a book. But do I
believe what I say? Do you believe what you say? There is an awful
question. We believe it all now, or think we believe it, while we are
easy and comfortable: but should we have boldness in the day of
judgment?—Should we believe it all, if God visited us, to judge us, and
try us, and pierce asunder the very joints and marrow of our heart with
fearful sorrow and temptation? O Lord, who shall stand in that day?
Suppose, for instance, God were to take away the desire of our eyes, with
a stroke. Suppose we were to lose a wife, a darling child; suppose we
were struck blind, or paralytic; suppose some unspeakable, unbearable
shame fell on us to-morrow: could we say then, God is love, and this
horrible misery is a sign of it? He loves me, for he chastens me? Or
should we say, like Job’s wife, and one of the foolish women, ‘Curse God
and die?’ God knows.
Ah, when that dark day seems coming on us, and bringing some misery which
looks to us beforehand quite unbearable—then how our lip-belief and
book-faith is tried, and burnt up in the fire of God, and in the fire of
our own proud, angry hearts, too! How we struggle and rage at first at
the very thought of the coming misery; and are ready to say, God will not
do this! He cannot—cannot be so unjust, so cruel, as to bring this
misery on me. What have I done to deserve it? Or, if I have deserved
it, what have these innocents done? Why should they be punished for my
sins? After all my prayers, too, and my church-goings, and my tryings to
be good. Is this God’s reward for all my trouble to please him? Then
how vain all our old prayers seem; how empty and dry all ordinances. We
cry, I have cleansed my hands in vain, and in vain washed my heart in
innocency. We have no heart to pray to God. If he has not heard our
past prayers, why should we pray anymore? Let us lie down and die; let
us bear his heavy hand, if we must bear it, sullenly, desperately: but,
as for saying that God is love, or to say that we know the love which God
has for us, we say in our hearts, Let the clergyman talk of that; it is
his business to speak about it; or comfortable, easy people, who are not
watering their pillow with bitter tears all night long. But if they were
in my place (says the unhappy man), they would know a little more of what
poor souls have to go through: they would talk somewhat less freely about
its being a sin to doubt God’s love. He has sent this great misery on
me. How can I tell what more he may not send? How can I help being
afraid of God, and looking up to him with tormenting fear?
Yes, my friends. These are very terrible thoughts—very wrong thoughts
some of them, very foolish thoughts some of them, though pardonable
enough; for God pardons them, as we shall see. But they are real
thoughts. They are what really come into people’s minds every day; and I
am here to talk to you about what is really going on in your soul, and
mine; not to repeat to you doctrines at second-hand out of a book, and
say, There, that is what you have to believe and do; and, if you do not,
you will go to hell: but to speak to you as men of like passions with
myself; as sinning, sorrowing, doubting, struggling human beings; and to
talk to you of what is in my own heart, and will be in your hearts too,
some day, if it has not been already. This is the experience of all
_real_ men, all honest men, who ever struggled to know and to do what is
right. David felt it all. You find it all through those glorious Psalms
of his. He was no comfortable, book-read, second-hand Christian, who had
an answer ready for every trouble, because he had never had any real
trouble at all. David was not one of them. He had to go through a very
rough training—very terrible and fiery trials, year after year; and had
to say, again and again, ‘I am weary of crying; my heart is dry; my heart
faileth me for waiting so long upon my God. All thy billows and storms
are gone over me. Thou hast laid me in a place of darkness, and in the
lowest deep.’—
Not by sitting comfortably reading his book, but by such terrible trials
as that, was David taught to trust God to the uttermost; and to learn
that God’s love was so perfect that he need never dread him, or torment
himself with anxiety lest God should leave him to perish.
Hezekiah felt it, too, good man as he was, when he was sick, and like to
die. And it was not for many a day that he found out the truth about
these dark hours of misery, that by all these things men live, and in all
these things is the life of the Spirit.
And this was Jacob’s experience, too, on that most fearful night of all
his life, when he waited by the ford of Jabbok, expecting that with the
morning light the punishment of his past sins would come on him; and not
only on him, but on all his family, and his innocent children; when he
stood there alone by the dark river, not knowing whether Esau and his
wild Arabs would not sweep off the earth all he had and all he loved; and
knowing, too, that it was his own fault, that he had brought it all upon
them by his own deceit and treachery. Then, when his sins stared him in
the face, and God rose up to judgment against him, he learnt to pray as
he had never prayed before—a prayer too deep for words.
‘And Jacob was left alone: and there wrestled a man with him till the
breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him,
he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh; and the hollow of his thigh was
out of joint as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the
day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, till thou bless me.
And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of that place
Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.’
So it may be with us. So it must be with us, in the dark day when our
faith is really tried by terrible affliction.
We must begin as Jacob did. Plead God’s promises, confess the mercies we
have received already. ‘I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies
which thou hast showed to thy servant.’
Ask for God’s help, as Jacob did: ‘Deliver me, I pray thee, out of the
hand of Esau my brother.’ Plead his written promises, and the covenant
of our baptism, which tell us that we are God’s children, and God our
Father, as Jacob did according to his light—‘And thou saidst, I will
surely do thee good.’
So the proud angry heart will perhaps pass out of us, and we shall set
ourselves more calmly to face the worst, and to try if God’s promises be
indeed true, and God be indeed as he has said, ‘Love.’
But do not be astonished, do not be disheartened, if, when the trouble
comes, there comes with it, as to Jacob, a more terrible struggle far, a
struggle too deep for words; if you find out that fine words and set
prayers are nothing in the hour of need, and that you will not be heard
for your much speaking. Ah! the darkness of that time, which perhaps
goes on for days, for months, all alone between you and God himself.
Clergymen and good people may come in with kind words and true words: but
they give no comfort; your heart is still dark, still full of doubt; you
want God himself to speak to your heart, and tell you that he is love.
And you have no words to pray with at last; you have used them all up;
and you can only cling humbly to God, and hold fast. One moment you feel
like a poor slave clinging to his stern master’s arm, and entreating him
not to kill him outright. The next you feel like a child clinging to its
father, and entreating him to save him from some horrible monster which
is going to devour it: but you have no words to pray with, only sighs,
and tears, and groans; you feel that you know not what to pray for as you
ought, know not what is good for you; dare ask for nothing, lest it
should be the wrong thing. And the longer you struggle, the weaker you
become, as Jacob did, till your very bones seem out of joint, your very
heart broken within you, and life seems not worth having, or death
either.
Only hold fast by God. Only do not despair. Only be sure that God
cannot lie; be sure that he who cared for you from your birth hour cares
for you still; that he who loved you enough to give his own Son for you
hundreds of years before you were born, cannot but love you still; do not
despair, I say; and at last, when you are fallen so low that you can fall
no lower, and so weak that you are past struggling, you may hear through
the darkness of your heart the still small voice of God. Only hold fast,
and let him not go until he bless you, and you shall find with Jacob of
old, that as a prince you have power with God and with man, and have
prevailed. And so God will answer you, as he answered Elijah, at first
out of the whirlwind and the blinding storm: but at last, doubt it not,
with the still small voice which cannot be mistaken, which no earthly ear
can hear, but which is more precious to the broken heart than all which
this world gives, the peace which passes understanding, and yet is the
surest and the only lasting peace.
But what is the secret of this strange awful struggle? Can you or I
change God’s will by any prayers of ours? God forbid that we should, my
friends, even if we could; for his will is a good will to us, and his
name is Love.
Do not be afraid of him. If you do, you are not made perfect in love;
you have not yet learnt perfect the lesson of his great love to you. But
what is the secret of this struggle? Why has any poor soul to wrestle
thus with God who made him, before he can get peace and hope? Why is the
trouble sent him at all? It looks at first sight a strange sort of token
of God’s love, to bring the creatures whom he has made into utter misery.
My friends, these are deep questions. There are plenty of answers for
them ready written: but no answers like the Bible ones, which tell us
that ‘whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth; that these sorrows come on us,
and heaviness, and manifold temptations, in order that the trial of our
faith, being much more precious than that of gold, which perishes though
it be tried with fire, may be found to praise, and honour, and glory at
the appearance of Jesus Christ.’ This is the only answer but it does not
explain the reason. It only gives us hope under it. We do not know that
these dreadful troubles come from God. The Bible tells us ‘that God
tempts no man; that he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the
children of men.’ The Bible speaks at times as if these dark troubles
came from the devil himself; and as if God turned them into good for us
by making them part of our training, part of our education; and so making
some devil’s attempt to ruin us only a great means of our improvement. I
do not know: but this I do know, the troubles are here, and God is love.
At least this is comfortable, that God will let no man be tempted beyond
what he is able: but will with the temptation make a way for us to
escape, that we may be able to bear it. At least this is comfortable,
that our prayers are not needed to change God’s will, because his will is
already that we should be saved; because we are on his side in the battle
against the devil, or the flesh, or the world, or whatever it is which
makes poor souls and bodies miserable, and he on ours: and all we have to
do in our prayers, is to ask advice and orders and strength and courage
from the great Captain of our salvation; that we may fight his battle and
ours aright and to the end. And, my friends, if you be in trouble, if
your heart be brought low within you, remember, only remember, who the
Captain of our salvation is. Who but Jesus who died on the cross—Jesus
who was made perfect by sufferings, Jesus who cried out, ‘My God! my God!
why hast thou forsaken me?’
If Christ had to be made perfect by sufferings, much more must we. If he
needed to learn obedience by sorrow, much more must we. If he needed in
the days of his flesh, to make supplication to God his Father with strong
crying and tears, so do we. And if he was heard in that he feared, so, I
trust, we shall be heard likewise. If he needed to taste even the most
horrible misery of all; to feel for a moment that God had forsaken him;
surely we must expect, if we are to be made like him, to have to drink at
least one drop out of his bitter cup. It is very wonderful: but yet it
is full of hope and comfort. Full of hope and comfort to be able, in our
darkest and bitterest sorrow, to look up to heaven, and say, At least
there is one who has been through all this. As Christ was, so are we in
this world; and the disciple cannot be above his master. Yes, we are in
this world as he was, and he was once in this world as we are, he has
been through all this, and more. He knows all this and more. ‘We have a
High Priest above us who can be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities, because he has been tempted in all things like as we are.
yet without sin.’
Yes, my friends. Nothing like one honest look, one honest thought, of
Christ upon his cross. That tells us how much he has been through, how
much he endured, how much he conquered, how much God loved us, who spared
not his only-begotten Son, but freely gave him for us. Dare we doubt
such a God? Dare we murmur against such a God? Dare we lay the blame of
our sorrows on such a God—our Father? No; let us believe the blessed
message of our confirmation, which tells us that it is his Fatherly hand
which is ever over us, and that even though that hand may seem heavy for
awhile, it is the hand of him whose very being and substance is love, who
made the world by love, by love redeemed man, by love sustains him still.
Though we went down into hell, says David, he is there; though we took
the wings of the morning, and fled into the uttermost part of the sea,
yet there his hand would hold us, and his right hand guide us still. It
is holding and guiding every one of us now, through storm as well as
through sunshine, through grief as well as through joy; let us humble
ourselves under that mighty hand, and it will exalt us in due time. He
knows, and must know, when that due time is, and, till then, he is still
love, and his mercy is over all his works.
SERMON XXIX.
GOD’S CREATION.
GENESIS i. 31.
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good.
THIS is good news, and a gospel. The Bible was written to bring good
news, and therefore with good news it begins, and with good news it ends.
But it is not so easy to believe. We want faith to believe; and that
faith will be sometimes sorely tried.
Yes; we want faith. As St. Paul says: ‘Through faith we understand that
the worlds were framed by the word of God; so that things which are seen
were not made of things which appear.’
No one can prove to us that God made the world; yet we must believe it;
and what is more, we _do_ believe it, and are certain of it. But all the
proving and arguments in the world will not make us _certain_ that God
made the world; they will only make us feel that it is probable, that it
is reasonable to think so. What, then, does make us _certain_ that God
made the world?—as certain as if we had seen him make it? _Faith_, which
is stronger than all arguments. Faith, which comes down from heaven to
our hearts, and is the gift of God. Faith, which is the light with which
Jesus Christ lights us. Faith, which comes by the inspiration of God’s
Holy Spirit.
So, again, when we have to believe not only that God made the world, but
that all things which he has made are very good.
So it is, and you must believe it. God is good, the absolute and perfect
good; and from good nothing can come but good: and therefore all which
God has made is good, as he is; and therefore if anything in the world
seems to be bad, one of two things must be true of it.
1. Either it is _not_ bad, though it seems so to us; and God will bring
good out of it in his good time, and justify himself to men, and show us
that he is holy in all his works, and righteous in all his ways.
Or else—If the thing be really bad, then God did not make it. It must be
a disease, a mistake, a failure, of man’s making, or some person’s
making, but not of God’s making. For all that he has made he sees
eternally; and behold, it is very good.
Now, I can say that; and I believe it; and God grant I may never say
anything else. And yet I cannot prove it to you by any argument. But I
believe it; and I dare say many of you believe it (you all must believe
it, before all is over), by something better than any argument. By
faith—faith, which speaks to the very core and root of a man’s heart and
reason, and teaches him things surer and deeper than all sermons and
books, all proofs and arguments.
May God, our Heavenly Father, fill our hearts with his Holy Spirit of
faith, that we may believe utterly in his goodness, and therefore believe
in the goodness of all that he has made.
For at times we shall need that faith very much indeed, not only about
our neighbours, but about ourselves. We shall find it hard to believe
that there is goodness in some of our neighbours; and the better we know
ourselves, we shall find it very difficult to believe that there is
goodness in us.
For surely this is a great puzzle.
‘God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good.’ And
God made you and me. Are we therefore very good? Or were we ever very
good? Here is a great mystery. It would seem as if we must have been
very good if God made us. For God can make nothing bad. Surely not.
For he who makes bad things is a bad maker; he who makes bad houses is a
bad builder; and he who makes bad men is a bad maker of men. But God
cannot be a bad maker; for he is perfect and without fault in all his
works. Yet men are bad.
Yet, on the other hand, if God made us, and the Bible be true, there must
be good in us. When God said, Let that man be; when God first thought of
us, if I may so speak, before the foundation of the world—he thought of
us as good. He created each of us good in his own mind, else he would
not have created us at all. But why were we not good when we came on
earth? Why do we come into this world sinful? Why does God’s thought of
us, God’s purpose about us, seem to have failed? We do not know, and we
need not know. St. Paul tells us that it came by Adam’s fall; that by
Adam’s fall sin entered into the world, and each man, as he came into it,
became sinful. How that was we cannot understand—we need not understand.
Let us believe, and be silent; but let us believe this also, that St.
Paul speaks truth not in this only but in that blessed and glorious news
with which he follows up his sad and bad news. ‘As by the offence of
one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the
righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men to justification of
life.’
Yes; we may say boldly now, Whatever has been; whatever sin I inherited
from Adam; however sinful I came into this world, God looks on me now,
not as I am in Adam, but as I am in Christ. I am in Christ now, baptized
into Christ, a new creature in Christ; to Christ I belong, and not to
Adam at all; and God looks now, not on the old corrupt nature which I
inherited from Adam, but on the new and good grace which God meant for me
from all eternity, which Christ has given me now. It is that good and
new grace in me which God cares for; it is that good and new grace which
God is working on, to strengthen and perfect it, that I may grow in
grace, and in the likeness of Christ, and become at last what God
intended me to be, when he thought of me first before the foundation of
all worlds, and said, ‘Let us make man [not one man, but all men, male
and female] in our image, after our likeness.’
This, again, is a great mystery. Yet our own hearts will tell us, if we
will look at them, that it is true. Are there not, as it were, two
different persons in us, fighting for the mastery? Are we not so
different at different times, that we seem to ourselves, and to our
neighbours, perhaps, to be two different people, according as we give way
to the better nature or to the worse? Even as David—one year living a
heroic and noble life by faith in God, writing Psalms which will live to
the world’s end, and the next committing adultery and murder. Were those
two Davids the same David? Yes; and yet No. The good and noble David
was David when he obeyed the grace of God. The base and foul David was
David when he gave way to his fallen and corrupt nature.
Even so might we be. Even so, in a less degree, are we sometimes so
unlike ourselves, so ashamed of ourselves, so torn asunder with passions
and lusts, delighting in God’s law and all that is good in our hearts,
and yet finding another law in us which makes us slaves at moments to our
basest passions—to anger, fear, spite, covetousness—that when we think of
it we are ready to cry with St. Paul, ‘Oh, wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death?’
Who? Who but he of whom St. Paul tells us, gives the answer in the very
next verse, ‘I thank God, that God himself will, through Jesus Christ our
Lord.’
Oh, my friends, whosoever of you have ever felt angry with yourselves,
discontented with yourselves, ashamed of yourselves (and he that has not
felt so knows no more about himself than a dumb animal does)—you that
have felt so, listen to St. Paul’s glorious news and take comfort. Do
you wish to be right? Do you wish to be what God intended you to be
before all worlds? Do you wish that of you the glorious words may come
true, ‘And God saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good?’
Then believe this. That all which is good in you God has made; and that
he will take care of what he has made, for he loves it; that all which is
bad in you, God has _not_ made, and therefore he will destroy it; for he
hates all that he has not made, and will not suffer it in his world; and
that if you, your heart, your will, are enlisted on the good side, if you
are wishing and trying that the good nature in you should conquer the
bad, then you are on the side of God himself, and God himself is on your
side; and ‘if God be for you, who shall be against you?’ Before all
worlds, from eternity itself, God said, ‘Let us make man in our own
likeness;’ and nothing can hinder God’s word but the man himself. The
word of God comes down, says the prophet, as the rain and the dew from
heaven, and, like the rain and dew, returns not to him void, but prospers
in the thing whereto he sends it; only if the ground be hard and barren,
and determined to bring forth thorns and briars, rather than corn and
fruit, is it cursed, and near to burning; and only if a man loves his
fallen nature better than the noble, just, loving, generous grace of God,
and gives himself willingly up to the likeness of the beasts which
perish, can God’s purpose towards him become of none effect.
Take courage, then. If thou dislikest thy sins, so does God. If thou
art fighting against thy worse feelings, so is God. On thy side is God
who made all, and Christ who died for all, and the Holy Spirit who alone
gives wisdom, purity, nobleness. How canst thou fail when he is on thy
side? On thy side are all spirits of just men made perfect, all wise and
good souls and persons in earth and heaven, all good and wholesome
influences, whether of nature or of grace, of matter or of mind. How
canst thou fail if they are on thy side? God, I say, and all that God
has made, are working together to bring true of thee the word of God—‘And
God saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good.’ Believe, and
endure to the end, and thou shalt be found in Christ at the last day;
and, being in Christ, have thy share at last in the blessing which the
Father pronounces everlastingly on Christ, and on the members of Christ,
‘This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.’ Amen.
SERMON XXX.
TRUE PRUDENCE.
MATTHEW vi. 34.
Take, therefore, no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take
thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the
evil thereof.
LET me say a few words to you on this text. Be not anxious, it tells
you. And why? Because you have to be prudent. In practice, fretting
and anxiety help no man towards prudence. We must all be as prudent and
industrious as we can; agreed. But does fretting make us the least more
prudent? Does anxiety make us the least more industrious? On the
contrary, I know nothing which cripples a man more, and hinders him
working manfully, than anxiety. Look at the worst case of all—at a man
who is melancholy, and fancies that all is going wrong with him, and that
he must be ruined, and has a mind full of all sorts of dark, hopeless,
fancies. Does he work any the more, or try to escape one of these
dangers which he fancies are hanging over him? So far from it, he gives
himself up to them without a struggle; he sits moping, helpless, and
useless, and says, ‘There is no use in struggling. If it will come, it
must come.’ He has lost spirit for work, and lost the mind for work,
too. His mind is so full of these dark fears that he cannot turn it to
laying any prudent plan to escape from the very things which he dreads.
And so, in a less degree, with people who fret and are anxious. They may
be in a great bustle, but they do not get their work done. They run
hither and thither, trying this and that, but leaving everything half
done, to fly off to something else. Or else they spend time unprofitably
in dreaming, and expecting, and complaining, which might be spent
profitably in working. And they are always apt to lose their heads, and
their tempers, just when they need them most; to do in their hurry the
very last things which they ought to have done; to try so many roads that
they choose the wrong road after all, from mere confusion, and run with
open eyes into the very pit which they have been afraid of falling into.
As we say here, they will go all through the wood to cut a straight
stick, and bring out a crooked one at last. My friends, even in a mere
worldly way, the men whom I have seen succeed best in life have always
been cheerful and hopeful men, who went about their business with a smile
on their faces, and took the changes and chances of this mortal life like
men, facing rough and smooth alike as it came, and so found the truth of
the old proverb, that ‘Good times, and bad times, and all times pass
over.’ Of all men, perhaps, who have lived in our days, the most truly
successful was the great Duke of Wellington; and one thing, I believe,
which helped him most to become great, was that he was so wonderfully
free from vain fretting and complaining, free from useless regrets about
the past, from useless anxieties for the future. Though he had for years
on his shoulders a responsibility which might have well broken down the
spirit of any man; though the lives of thousands of brave men, and the
welfare of great kingdoms—ay, humanly speaking, the fate of all
Europe—depended on his using his wisdom in the right place, and one
mistake might have brought ruin and shame on him and on tens of
thousands; yet no one ever saw him anxious, confused, terrified. Though
for many years he was much tried and hampered, and unjustly and foolishly
kept from doing his work as he knew it ought to be down, yet when the
time came for work, his head was always clear, his spirit was always
ready; and therefore he succeeded in the most marvellous way. Solomon
says, ‘Better is he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city.’
Now the Great Duke had learnt in most things to rule his spirit, and
therefore he was able not only to take cities, but to do better still, to
deliver cities,—ay, and whole countries—out of the hand of armies often
far stronger, humanly speaking, than his own.
And for an example of what I mean I will tell you a story of him which I
know to be true. Some one once asked him what his secret was for winning
battles. And he said that he had no secret; that he did not know how to
win battles, and that no man knew. For all, he said, that man could do,
was to look beforehand steadily at all the chances, and lay all possible
plans beforehand: but from the moment the battle began, he said, no
mortal prudence was of use, and no mortal man could know what the end
would be. A thousand new accidents might spring up every hour, and
scatter all his plaits to the winds; and all that man could do was to
comfort himself with the thought that he had done his best, and to trust
in God.
Now, my friends, learn a lesson from this, a lesson for the battle of
life, which every one of us has to fight from our cradle to our grave—the
battle against misery, poverty, misfortune, sickness; the battle against
worse enemies even than they—the battle against our own weak hearts, and
the sins which so easily beset us against laziness, dishonesty,
profligacy, bad tempers, hard-heartedness, deserved disgrace, the
contempt of our neighbours, and just punishment from Almighty God. Take
a lesson, I say, from the Great Duke for the battle of life. Be not
fretful and anxious about the morrow. Face things like men; count the
chances like men; lay your plans like men: but remember, like men, that a
fresh chance may any moment spoil all your plans; remember that there are
thousand dangers round you from which your prudence cannot save you. Do
your best; and then like the Great Duke, comfort yourselves with the
thought that you have done your best; and like him, trust in God.
Remember that God is really and in very truth your Father, and that
without him not a sparrow falls to the ground; and are ye not of more
value than many sparrows, O ye of little faith? Remember that he knows
what you have need of before you ask him; that he gives you all day long
of his own free generosity a thousand things for which you never dream of
asking him; and believe that in all the chances and changes of this life,
in bad luck as well as in good, in failure as well as success, in poverty
as well as wealth, in sickness as well as health, he is giving you and
me, and all mankind good gifts, which we in our ignorance, and our
natural dread of what is unpleasant, should never dream of asking him
for: but which are good for us nevertheless; like him from whom they
come, the Father of lights, from whom comes every good and perfect gift;
who is neither neglectful, capricious, or spiteful, for in him is neither
variableness, nor shadow of turning, but who is always loving unto every
man, and his mercy is over all his works.
Bear this in mind, my friends, in all the troubles of life—that you have
a Father in heaven who knows what you have need of before you ask him,
and your infirmity in asking, and who is wont—is regularly accustomed all
day long—to give you more than either you desire or deserve. And bear it
in mind even more carefully, if you ever become anxious and troubled
about your own soul, and the life to come.
Many people are troubled with such anxieties, and are continually asking,
‘Shall I be saved or not?’ In some this anxiety comes from bad teaching,
and the hearing of false, cruel, and superstitious doctrine. In others
it seems to be mere bodily disease, constitutional weakness and
fearfulness, which prevents their fighting against dark and sad thoughts
when they arise; but in both cases I think that it is the devil himself
who tempts them, the devil himself who takes advantage of their bodily
weakness, or of the false doctrines which they have heard, and begins
whispering in their ears, ‘You have no Father in heaven. God does not
love you. His promises are not meant for you. He does not will your
salvation, but your damnation, and there is no hope for you;’ till the
poor soul falls into what is called religious melancholy, and moping
madness, and despair, and dread of the devil; and often believes that the
devil has got complete power over him, and that he is the slave of Satan
for ever, till, in some cases, the man is even driven to kill himself in
the agony of his despair.
Now, my friends, the true answer to all such dark thoughts is, ‘Your
Heavenly Father knows what you have need of before you ask him; therefore
be not anxious about the morrow, for the morrow shall take care for the
things of itself; sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.’
For in the first place, my friends, the devil was a liar from the
beginning, and therefore the chances are a million to one against his
speaking the truth in any case; and if he tells you that you are going to
be damned, I should take that for a fair sign that you were _not_ going
to be damned, simply because the devil says it, and therefore it _cannot_
be true. No, my friends, the people who have real reason to be afraid
are just those who are not afraid—the self-conceited, self-satisfied
souls; for the devil attacks them too, as he does every one, by their
weakest point, and has his lie ready for them, and whispers, ‘You are all
right; you are safe; you cannot fall; your salvation is sure.’ Or else,
‘You hold the right doctrine; you are orthodox, and perfectly right, and
whoever differs from you must be wrong;’ and so tempts them to vain
confidence and unclean living, or else into pride, hardness of heart,
self-willed and self-conceited quarrelling and slandering and lying for
the sake of their own party in the Church. It is the self-confident ones
who have reason to fear and tremble; for after pride comes a fall. They
have reason to fear, lest while they are crying peace and safety, and
thanking God that they are not as other men are, sudden destruction come
on them; but you anxious, trembling souls, who are terrified at the sight
of your own sins you who feel how weak you are, and ignorant, and
confused, and unworthy to do aught but cry, ‘God be merciful to me a
sinner!’ you are the very ones who have least reason to be afraid, just
because you are most afraid: you are the true penitents over whom your
Father in heaven rejoices; you are those of whom he has said, ‘I am the
High and Holy One who inhabiteth eternity; yet I dwell with him that is
of an humble and contrite heart, to revive the spirit of the humble, and
to comfort the soul of the contrite ones;’ as he will revive and comfort
you, if you will only have faith in God, and take your stand on your
baptism, and from that safe ground defy the devil and all his dark
imaginations, saying, ‘I am God’s child, and God is my father, and
Christ’s blood was shed for me, and the Holy Spirit of God is with me;
and in the strength of my baptism, I will hope against hope; I trust in
the Lord my God, who has called me into this state of salvation, that he
will keep to the end the soul which I have committed to him through Jesus
Christ my Lord.’
Yes. Be not anxious for the morrow, and much more, be not anxious for
the life to come. Your Heavenly Father knew that you had need of
salvation long before you asked him. Eighteen hundred years before you
were born, he sent his Son into the world to die for you; when you were
but an infant he called you to be baptized into his Church, and receive
your share of his Spirit. Long before you thought of him, he thought of
you; long before you loved him, he loved you; and if he so loved you,
that he spared not his only begotten Son, but freely gave him for you,
will he not with that Son freely give you all things? Therefore, fear
not, little flock; it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the
kingdom.
And be not anxious about the morrow; for the morrow shall be anxious
about the things of itself. Be anxious about to-day, if you will; and
‘work out your salvation with fear and trembling;’ for it is God who
works in you to will and to do of his good pleasure; and therefore you
can do right; and therefore, again, it is your own fault if you do not do
right. And yet, for that very reason, be not over anxious; for ‘if God
be with you, who can be against you?’ If God, who is so mighty that he
made all heaven and earth, be on our side, surely stronger is he that is
with you than he that is against you. If God, who so loved you that he
gave his only begotten Son for you, be on your side, surely you have a
friend whom you can trust. ‘What can part you from his love?’ St. Paul
asks you; from God’s love, which is as boundless and eternal as God
himself; nothing can part you from it, but your own sin.
‘But I do sin,’ you say, ‘again and again, and that is what makes me
fearful. I try to do better, but I fall and I fail all day long. I try
not to be covetous and worldly, but poverty tempts me, and I fall; I try
to keep my temper, but people upset me, and I say things of which I am
bitterly ashamed the next minute. Can God love such a one as me?’ My
answer is, If God loved the whole world when it was dead in trespasses
and sins, and _not_ trying to be better, much more will he love you who
are not dead in trespasses and sins, and are trying to be better. If he
were not still helping you; if his Spirit were not with you, you would
care no more to become better than a dog or an ox cares. And if you
fall—why, arise again. Get up, and go on. You may be sorely bruised,
and soiled with your fall, but is that any reason for lying still, and
giving up the struggle cowardly? In the name of Jesus Christ, arise and
walk. He will wash you, and you shall be clean. He will heal you, and
you shall be strong again. What else can a traveller expect who is going
over rough ground in the dark, but to fall and bruise himself, and to
miss his way too many a time: but is that any reason for his sitting down
in the middle of the moor, and saying, ‘I shall never get to my journey’s
end?’ What else can a soldier expect, but wounds, and defeat, too,
often; but is that any reason for his running away, and crying, ‘We shall
never take the place?’ If our brave men at Sebastopol had done so, and
lost heart each time they were beaten back, not only would they have
never taken the place, but the Russians would have driven them long ago
into the sea, and perhaps not a man of them would have escaped. And, be
sure of it, your battle is like theirs. Every one of us has to fight for
the everlasting life of his soul against all the devils of hell, and
there is no use in running away from them; they will come after us
stronger than ever, unless we go to face them. As with our men at
Sebastopol, unless we beat the enemy, the enemy will destroy us; and our
only hope is to fight to-day’s battle like men, in the strength which God
gives us, and trust him to give us strength to fight to-morrow’s battle
too, when it comes. For here again, as it was at Sebastopol, so it is
with our souls. Let our men be as prudent as they might, they never knew
what to-morrow’s battle would be like, or where the enemy might come upon
them; and no more do we. They in general could not see the very enemy
who was close on them; and no more can we see our enemy, near to us
though he is. To-morrow’s temptations may be quite different from
to-day’s. To-day we may be tempted to be dishonest, to-morrow to lose
our tempers, the day afterwards to be vain and conceited, and a hundred
other things. Let the morrow be anxious about the things of itself,
then; and face to-day’s enemy, and do the duty which lies nearest you.
Our brave men did so. They kept themselves watchful, and took all the
precautions they could in a general way, just as we ought to do each in
his own habits and temper; but the great business was, to go steadily on
at their work, and do each day what they could do, instead of giving way
to vain fears and fancies about what they might have to do some day,
which would have only put them out of heart, and confused and distracted
them. And so it came to pass, that as their day so their strength was;
that each day they got forward somewhat, and had strength and courage
left besides to drive back each new assault as it came; and so at last,
after many mistakes and many failures, through sickness and weakness,
thirst and hunger, and every misery except fear which can fall on man,
they conquered suddenly, and beyond their highest hopes:—as every one
will conquer suddenly, and beyond his highest hope, who fights on
manfully under Christ’s banner against sin; against the sin in himself,
and in his neighbours, and in his parish, and faces the devil and his
works wheresoever he may meet them, sure that the devil and his works
must be conquered at the last, because God’s wrath is gone out against
them, and Christ, who executes God’s wrath, will never sheath his sword
till he has put all enemies under his feet, and death be swallowed up in
victory.
Therefore be not anxious about the morrow. Do to-day’s duty, fight
to-day’s temptation; and do not weaken and distract yourself by looking
forward to things which you cannot see, and could not understand if you
saw them. Enough for you that your Saviour for whom you fight is just
and merciful; for he rewardeth every man according to his work. Enough
for you that he has said, ‘He that is faithful unto death, I will give
him a crown of life.’ Enough for you that if you be faithful over a few
things, he will make you ruler over many things, and bring you into his
joy for evermore.
But as for vain fears, leave them to those who will not believe God’s
message concerning himself—that he is love, and his mercy over all his
works. Leave them for those who deny God’s righteousness, by denying
that he has had pity on this poor fallen world, but has left it to itself
and its sins, without sending any one to save it. And for real fears,
leave them for those who have no fears; for those who think they see, and
yet are blind; who think themselves orthodox and infallible, and beyond
making a mistake, every man his own Pope; who say that they see, and
therefore their sin remaineth; for those who thank God that they are not
as other men are, and who will find the publicans and harlots entering
into the kingdom of heaven before them; and for those who continue in sin
that grace may abound, and call themselves Christians, while they bring
shame on the name of Christ by their own evil lives, by their worldliness
and profligacy, or by their bitterness and quarrelsomeness; who make
religious profession a by-word and a mockery in the mouths of the
ungodly, and cause Christ’s little ones to stumble. Let them be afraid,
if they will; for it were better for them that a millstone were hanged
about their neck, and they were drowned in the midst of the sea. But
those who hate their sins, and long to leave their sins behind; those who
distrust themselves—let them not be anxious about the morrow; for
to-morrow, and to-day, and for ever, the Almighty Father is watching over
them, the Lord Jesus guiding them wisely and tenderly, and the Holy
Spirit inspiring them more and more to do all those good works which God
has prepared for them to walk in, and to conquer in the life-long battle
against sin, the world, and the devil.
SERMON XXXI.
THE PENITENT THIEF.
LUKE xxiii. 42, 43.
And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy
kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day
shalt thou be with me in paradise.
THE story of the penitent thief is a most beautiful and affecting one.
Christians’ hearts, in all times, have clung to it for comfort, not only
for themselves, but for those whom they loved. Indeed, some people think
that we are likely to be too fond of the story. They have been afraid
lest people should build too much on it; lest they should fancy that it
gives them licence to sin, and lead bad lives, all their days, provided
only they repent at last; lest it should countenance too much what is
called a death-bed repentance.
Now, God forbid that I should try to narrow Christ’s Gospel. Who am I,
to settle who shall be saved, and who shall not? When the disciples
asked the Lord Jesus, ‘Are there few that be saved?’ he would not tell
them. And what Christ did not choose to tell, I am not likely to know.
But I must say openly, that I cannot see what the story of the penitent
thief has to do with a death-bed repentance; and for this plain reason,
that the penitent thief did not die in his bed.
On the contrary, he received the due reward of his deeds. He was
crucified; publicly executed, by the most shameful, painful, and
lingering torture; and confessed that it was no more than he deserved.
Therefore, if any man say to himself—and I am afraid that some do say to
themselves—‘I know I am leading a bad life; and I have no mind to mend it
yet; the penitent thief repented at the last, and was forgiven; so I dare
say that I shall be;’ one has a right to answer him—‘Very well; but you
must first put yourself in the penitent thief’s place. Are you willing
to be hanged, or worse than hanged, as a punishment for your sins in this
world? For, till then, the penitent thief would certainly not be on the
same footing as you.’
If a man says to himself, I will go on sinning now, on the chance of
repenting at last, and ‘making my peace with God,’ he is not like the
penitent thief, he is much more like a famous Emperor of Rome, who,
though a Christian in name, put off his baptism till his death-bed,
fancying that by it his sins would be washed away, once and for all, and
made use of the meantime in murdering his eldest son and his nephew, and
committing a thousand follies and cruelties. Whether his death-bed
repentance, purposely put off in order to give him time to sin, was of
any use to him, let your own consciences judge.
Has, then, this story of the penitent thief no comfort for us? God
forbid! Why else was it put into Christ’s Gospel of good news? Surely,
there is comfort in it.
Only let us take the story honestly, and word for word as it stands. So
we may hope to be taught by it what it was meant to teach us.
He was a robber. The word means, not a petty thief, but a robber; and
his being put to such a terrible death shows the same thing. Most
probably he had belonged to one of the bands of robbers which haunted the
mountains of Judea in those days, as they used in old times to haunt the
forests in England, and as they do now in Italy and Spain, and other
waste and wild countries. Some of these robbers would, of course, be
shameless and hardened ruffians; as that robber seems to have been who
insulted our Lord upon the very cross. Others among them would not be
lost to all sense of good. Young men who got into trouble ran away from
home, and joined these robber-bands, and found pleasure in the wild and
dangerous life.
There is a beautiful story told of such a young robber in the life of the
blessed Apostle St. John. A young man at Ephesus who had become a
Christian, and of whom St. John was very fond, got into trouble while St.
John was away, and had to flee for his life into the mountains. There he
joined a band of robbers, and was so daring and desperate that they soon
chose him as their captain. St. John came back, and found the poor lad
gone. St. John had stood at the foot of the cross years before, and
heard his Lord pardon the penitent thief; and he knew how to deal with
such wild souls. And what did he do? Give him up for lost? No! He set
off, old as he was, by himself, straight for the mountains, in spite of
the warnings of his friends that he would be murdered, and that this
young man was the most desperate and bloodthirsty of all the robbers. At
last he found the young robber. And what did the robber do? As soon as
he saw St. John coming—before St. John could speak a word to him, he
turned, and ran away for shame; and old St. John followed him, never
saying a harsh word to him, but only crying after him, ‘My son, my son,
come back to your father!’ and at last he found him, where he was hidden,
and held him by his clothes, and embraced him, and pleaded with him so,
that the poor fellow burst into tears, and let St. John lead him away;
and so that blessed St. John went down again to Ephesus in joy and
triumph, bringing his lost lamb with him.
Now, such a man one can well believe this penitent thief to have been. A
man who, however bad he had been, had never lost the feeling that he was
meant for better things; whose conscience had never died out in him. He
may have been such a man. He _must_ have been such a man. For such
faith as he showed on the cross does not grow up in an hour or a day. I
do not mean the feeling that he deserved his punishment (that might come
to a man very suddenly) but the feeling that Christ was the Lord, and the
King of the Jews. He must have bought that by terrible struggles of
mind, by bitter shame and self-reproach. He had heard, I suppose, of
Christ’s miracles and mercy, of his teaching, of his being the friend of
publicans and sinners, had admired the Lord Jesus, and thought him
excellent and noble. But he could not have done that without the Holy
Spirit of God. It was the Holy Spirit striving with his sinful heart,
which convinced him of Christ’s righteousness. But the Holy Spirit would
have convinced him, too, of his own sin. The more he admired our Lord,
the more he must have despised himself for being unlike our Lord; and,
doubt it not, he had passed many bitter hours, perhaps bitter years,
seeing what was right, and yet doing what was wrong from bad habits or
bad company, before he came to his end upon the gallows-tree. And there
while he hung in torture on the cross, the whole truth came to him at
last. God’s Spirit shone truly on him at last, and divided the light
from the darkness in his poor wretched heart. All the good which had
been in him came out once and for all. Christ’s light had been shining
in the darkness of his heart, and the darkness had been trying to take it
in, and close over it, but it could not; and now the light had conquered
the darkness, and all was clear to him at last. He never despised
himself so much, he never admired Christ so much, as when they hung side
by side in the same condemnation. Side by side they hung, scorned alike,
crucified alike, seemingly come alike to open shame and ruin. And yet he
could see that though he deserved all his misery, that the man who hung
by him not only did not deserve it, but was his Lord, the Lord, the King
of the Jews, and that—of course he knew not how—the cross would not
destroy him; that he would come in his kingdom. How he found out that,
no man can tell; the Spirit of God taught him, the Spirit of God alone,
to see in that crucified man the Lord of glory, and to cast himself
humbly before his love and power, in hope that there might be mercy even
for him—‘Lord, remember me when thou comest to thy kingdom.’ There was
faith indeed, and humility indeed; royal faith and royal humility coming
out in that dying robber. And so, if you ask—How was that robber
justified by his works? How could his going into Paradise be the
receiving of the due reward of the deeds done in his body whether they be
good or evil. I say he _was_ justified by his works. He _did_ receive
the due reward of his deeds. One great and noble deed, even that saying
of his in his dying agony,—that showed that whatever his heart had been,
it was now right with God. He could not only confess God’s justice
against sin in his own punishment, but he could see God’s beauty, God’s
glory, yea, God himself in that man who hung by him, helpless like
himself, scourged like himself, crucified like himself, like himself a
scorn to men. He could know that Christ was Christ, even on the cross,
and know that Christ would conquer yet, and come to his kingdom. That
was indeed a faith in the merits of Christ enough to justify him or any
man alive.
Now what has all this to do with you or me living an easy, comfortable
life in sin here, and hoping to die an easy, comfortable death after all,
and get to heaven by having in a clergyman to read and pray a little with
us; and saying a few words of formal repentance, when perhaps our body
and our mind are so worn out and dulled by illness that we hardly know
what we say? No, my friends, if our hearts be right, we shall not think
of the penitent thief to give us comfort about our own souls; but we
shall think of it and love it, to give us comfort about the souls of many
a man or woman for whom we care.
How many men there are who are going wrong, very wrong; and yet whom we
cannot help liking, even loving! In the midst of all their sins, there
is something in them which will not let us give them up. Perhaps,
kind-heartedness. Perhaps, an honest respect for good men, and for good
and right conduct; loving the better, while they choose the worse.
Perhaps, a real shame and sorrow when they have broken out and done
wrong; and even though we know that they will go and do wrong again, we
cannot help liking them, cannot give them up. Then let us believe that
God will not give them up, any more than he gave up the penitent thief.
If there be something in them that we love, let us believe that God loves
it also; and what is more, that God put it into them, as he did into the
penitent thief; and let us hope (we cannot of course be certain, but we
may hope) that God will take care of it, and make it conquer, as he did
in the penitent thief. Let us hope that God’s light will conquer their
darkness; God’s strength conquer their weakness; God’s peace, their
violence; God’s heavenly grace their earthly passions. Let us hope for
them, I say.
When we hear, as we often hear, people say, ‘What a noble-hearted man
that is after all, and yet he is going to the devil!’ let us remember the
penitent thief and have hope. Who would have seemed to have gone to the
devil more hopelessly than that poor thief when he hung upon the cross?
And yet the devil did not have him. There was in him a seed of good, and
of eternal life, which the devil had not trampled out; and that seed
flowered and bore fruit upon the very cross in noble thoughts and words
and deeds. Why may it not be so with others? True, they may receive the
due reward of their deeds. They may end in shame and misery, like the
penitent thief. Perhaps it may be good for them to do so. If a man will
sow the wind, it may be good for him to reap the whirlwind, and so find
out that sowing the wind will not prosper. The penitent thief did so.
As the proverb is, he sowed the gallows-acorn, poor wretch, and he reaped
the gallows-tree; but that gallows-tree taught him to confess God’s
justice, and his own sin, and so it may teach others.
Yes, let us hope; and when we see some one whom we love, and cannot help
loving, bringing misery on himself by his own folly, let us hope and pray
that the day may come to him when, in the midst of his misery, all that
better nature in him shall come out once and for all, and he shall cry
out of the deep to Christ, ‘I only receive the due reward of my deeds; I
have earned my shame; I have earned my sorrow. Lord, I have deserved it
all. I look back on wasted time and wasted powers. I look round on
ruined health, ruined fortune, ruined hopes, and confess that I deserve
it all. But thou hast endured more than this for me, though thou hast
deserved nothing, and hast done nothing amiss. Thou hast done nothing
amiss by me. Thou hast been fair to me, and given me a fair chance; and
more than that, thou hast endured all for me. For me thou didst suffer;
for me thou hast been crucified; and me thou hast been trying to seek and
to save all through the years of my vanity. Perhaps I have not wearied
out thy love; perhaps I have not conquered thy patience. I will take the
blessed chance. I will still cast myself upon thy love. Lord, I have
deserved all my misery; yet, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy
kingdom.
Oh, my friends, let us hope that that prayer will go up, even out of the
wildest heart, in God’s good time; and that it will not go up in vain.
SERMON XXXII.
THE TEMPER OF CHRIST.
PHILIPPIANS ii. 4.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
WHAT mind? What sort of mind and temper ought to be in us? St. Paul
tells us in this chapter, very plainly and at length, what sort of temper
he means; and how it showed itself in Christ; and how it ought to show
itself in us.
‘All of you,’ he tells us, ‘be like-minded, having the same love; being
of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or
vain-glory: but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than
himself. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the
things of others.’
First, be like-minded, having the same love. Men cannot all be of
exactly the same opinion on every point, simply because their characters
are different; and the old proverb, ‘Many men, many minds,’ will stand
true in one sense to the end of the world. But in another sense it need
not. People may differ in little matters of opinion, without hating and
despising, and speaking ill of each other on these points; they may agree
to differ, and yet keep the same love toward God and toward each other;
they may keep up a kindly feeling toward each other; and they will do so,
if they have in their hearts the same love of God. If we really love
God, and long to do good, and to work for God; if we really love our
neighbours, and wish to help them, then we shall have no heart to
quarrel—indeed, we shall have no time to quarrel—about _how_ the good is
to be done, provided _it is_ done; and we shall remember our Lord’s own
words to St. John, when St. John said, ‘Master, we saw one casting out
devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: wilt thou therefore that we
forbid him?’
And Jesus said, ‘Forbid him _not_.’
‘Forbid him not,’ said Jesus himself. He that hath ears to hear his
Saviour’s words, let him hear.
‘Therefore,’ St. Paul says, ‘let nothing be done through strife or
vain-glory.’ It is a very sad thing to think that the human heart is so
corrupt, that we should be tempted to do good, and to show our piety,
through strife or vain-glory. But so it is. Party spirit, pride, the
wish to show the world how pious we are, the wish to make ourselves out
better and more reverent than our neighbours, too often creep into our
prayers and our worship, and turn our feasts of charity into feasts of
uncharitableness, vanity, ambition.
So it was in St. Paul’s time. Some, he says, preached Christ out of
contention, hoping to add affliction to his bonds. Not that he hated
them for it, or tried to stop them. Any way, he said, Christ was
preached, whether out of party-spirit against him, or out of love to
Christ; any way Christ was preached: and he would and did rejoice in that
thought. Again I say, ‘He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.’
‘Esteem others better than ourselves?’ God forgive us! which of us does
that? Is not one’s first feeling not ‘Others are better than me,’ but ‘I
am as good as my neighbour, and perhaps better too?’ People say it, and
act up to it also, every day. If we would but take St. Paul’s advice,
and be humble; if we would take more for granted that our neighbours have
common sense as well as we, experience as well as we, the wish to do
right as well as we—and perhaps more than we have; and therefore listen
_humbly_ (that is St. Paul’s word, bitter though it may be to our carnal
pride), listen humbly to every one who is in earnest, or speaks of what
he knows and feels! People are better than we fancy, and have more in
them than we fancy; and if they do not show that they have, it is three
times out of four our own fault. Instead of esteeming them better than
ourselves, and asking their advice, and calling out their experience, we
are too in such a hurry to show them that we are better than they, and to
thrust our advice upon them, that we give them no encouragement to speak,
often no time to speak; and so they are silent and think the more, and
remain shut up in themselves, and often pass for stupider people and
worse people than they really are. Because we will not begin by doing
justice to our neighbours, we prevent them doing justice to themselves.
Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of
others. Ah, my friends, if we could but do that heartily and always,
what a different world it would be, and what different people we should
be! If, instead of saying to ourselves, as one is so apt to do, ‘Will
this suit my interest? will this help me?’ we would recollect to say too,
‘Will this suit my neighbours’ interest? Will this harm my neighbours,
though it may help me? For if it hurts them, I will have nothing to do
with it.’
If, again, instead of saying to ourselves, as we are too apt to do, ‘This
is what I like, and done it shall be,’ we would generously and
courteously think more of what other people like; what will please them,
instruct them, comfort them, soften for them the cares of life, and
lighten the burden of mortality—how much happier would not only they be,
but we also!
For this, my friends, is the very likeness of Christ, who pleased not
himself; the very likeness of Christ, who sacrificed himself.
And for this very reason St. Paul puts it the last of all his advices,
because it is the greatest; the summing up of all; the fulfilment of the
whole law, which says, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;’ and
therefore after it he can give no more advice, for there is none better
left to give: but he goes on at once to speak of Christ, who fulfilled
that whole law of love, and more than fulfilled it; for instead of merely
loving his neighbours _as_ he loved himself (which is all God asks of
us), Christ loved his enemies better than himself, and died for them.
So says St. Paul.—‘Look not every man on his own things, but on other
people’s interest and comfort also. Let this mind be in you, which was
also in Christ Jesus.’ What mind? The mind which looks not merely on
its own things, its own interest, its own reputation, its own opinions,
likes, and dislikes, but on those of others, and has learnt to live and
let live.
Yes, this, he says, is the mind of Christ. And this mind, and spirit,
and temper, he showed before all heaven and earth, when, though he was in
the form of God, and therefore, (as some interpret the text) would have
done no robbery, no injustice, by remaining for ever equal with God (that
is, in the co-equal and co-eternal glory which he had with the Father),
yet made himself of no reputation, and took on him the form of a slave,
and was obedient to death, even the death of the cross.
My friends, I beseech you, young and old, rich and poor, remember the
full meaning of these glorious words, and of those which follow them.
‘Wherefore God hath highly exalted him.’ Why? What was it in Christ
which was so precious, so glorious, in the eyes of the Almighty Father,
that no reward seemed too great for him? What but this very spirit of
fellow-feeling and tenderness, charity, self-sacrifice—even the Holy
Spirit of God himself, with which Christ was filled without measure?
Because Christ utterly and perfectly looked not on his own things, but on
the things of others: because he was pity itself, patience itself, love
itself, in the soul and body of a human being; therefore his Father
declared of him, ‘This, this is my well-beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased.’ Therefore it was that he highly exalted him; therefore it was
that he proclaimed him to be worthy of all honour and worship, the most
perfect, lovely, admirable, and adorable of all beings in heaven and
earth; not merely because he showed himself to be light of light, or
wisdom of wisdom, or power of power; but because he showed himself to be
love of love, and therefore very God of very God begotten, whom men and
angels could not reverence, admire, adore, imitate too much, but were to
see in him the perfection of all beauty, all virtue, all greatness, the
likeness of his Father’s glory, and the express image of his person.
And therefore it is a very good and beautiful old custom to bow when the
name of Jesus is mentioned; at least, when it is mentioned for the first
time, or under any very solemn circumstances. It helps to remind us that
he is really our King and Lord. It helps, too, to remind us that he is
actually and really near us, standing by us, looking at us face to face,
though we see him not; and I am willing to say for myself that whenever I
recollect that he is looking at me (alas! that is not a hundredth part
often enough), I cannot help bowing almost without any will of my own.
But, remember, there is no commandment for it. It is just one of those
things on which a Christian is free to do what he likes, and for which
every Christian is forbidden to judge or blame another, according to St.
Paul’s rule, He that observeth the day, to the Lord he observeth it; and
he that observeth it not, to the Lord he observeth it not. Who art thou
that judgest another? To his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea,
and he shall stand, for God is able to make him stand. Beside, the text
says, if we are to take it literally, as we always ought with Scripture,
not that every _head_ shall bow at the name of Jesus, but every knee.
And to kneel down every time we repeat that holy name would be
impossible. While, on the other hand, we _do_ bow our knees, literally
and in earnest, at the name of Jesus every time we kneel down in church,
every time we kneel down to say our prayers. And if any man is content
with that, no one has the least right to blame him.
Besides, my friends, there is, I know too well, a great danger in making
too much of these little outward ceremonies, especially with children and
young people. For the heart of man is just as fond as it ever was of
idolatry, and superstition, and will-worship, and voluntary humility, and
paying tithe of mint, anise, and cummin, while it neglects the weightier
matters of the law, justice, mercy, and judgment: and, therefore, there
is very great danger, if we make too much of these ceremonies, harmless
and even good as many of them may be, of getting to rest in them, and
thinking that God is pleased with them themselves. Whereas, what God
looks at is the heart, the spirit, the soul; and whether it is right or
wrong, proud or humble, hard or loving: and if we think so much of the
outward and visible form, that we forget the inward and spiritual grace,
for which it ought to stand, then we lay a snare for our own souls to
turn them away from the worship of the living God, and break the second
commandment. Much more, if we pride ourselves on being more reverent
than our neighbours in these outward forms, and look down on, and grudge
at, those who do not practise them; for then we turn our humility into
pride, and our reverence to Christ into an insult to him; for the true
way to honour Christ is to copy Christ. No one really honours and
admires Christ’s character who does not copy him; and to esteem ourselves
better than others, to say in our hearts, ‘Stand by, for I am holier than
thou,’ to offend and drive away Christ’s little ones, and wound the
consciences of weak brethren by insisting on things against which they
have a prejudice, is to run exactly counter to Christ and the mind of
Christ, and to be more like the Pharisees than the Lord Jesus. That is
not surely esteeming others better than ourselves: that is not surely
looking not merely on our own things, but also on the things of others;
that is not fulfilling the law of love; that is not following St. Paul’s
example, who gave up, he says, doing many things which he thought right,
because they offended weaker spirits than his own. ‘All things,’ he
says, ‘are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient.’ ‘Ay,’ says
he, ‘I would eat no meat while the world standeth, if it cause my brother
to offend.’
No, my dear friends, let us rather, in this coming Passion week, take the
lesson which the services of the Church give us in this Epistle. Let us
keep Passion week really and in spirit, by remembering that it means the
week of suffering, in which Christ, instead of pleasing himself,
conquered himself, and gave up himself, and let wicked men do with him
whatsoever they would. Let us honour the holy name of Jesus in spirit
and in truth, and bend not merely our necks or our knees, when we hear
his name, but bend those stiff necks of our souls, and those stubborn
knees of our hearts; let us conquer our self-will, self-opinion,
self-conceit, self-interest, and take his yoke upon us, for he is meek
and lowly of heart. This is the Passion week which he has chosen;—to
distrust ourselves, and our own opinions, likings and fancies. This is
the repentance, and this is the humiliation which he has chosen;—to
entreat him (now and at once, lest by pride we give place to the devil,
and fall while we think we stand) to forgive us every hard, and proud,
and conceited, and self-willed thought, and word, and deed, to which we
have given way since we were born; to pray to him for really new hearts,
really tender hearts, really humble hearts, really broken and contrite
hearts; to look at his beautiful tenderness, patience, sympathy,
understanding, generosity, self-sacrifice; and then to look at ourselves,
and be shocked, and ashamed, and confounded, at the difference between
ourselves and him; and so really to honour the name of Jesus, who humbled
himself, even to the death upon the cross.
I am not judging you, my friends; I am judging myself lest God judge me;
and telling you how to judge yourselves, lest God judge you. Believe me,
if you will but take his yoke on you, you will find it an easy yoke and a
light burden; you will find yourselves happier, your duty simpler, your
prospects clearer, your path through life smoother, your character higher
and more amiable in the eyes of all, and you yourselves holy and fit to
share on Easter day in the precious body and blood of him who gave
himself up to death that he might draw all men to himself; and so draw
them all to each other, as children of one common Father, and brothers of
Jesus Christ your Lord.
SERMON XXXIII.
THE FRIEND OF SINNERS.
(_Preached in London_.)
MARK ii. 15, 16.
And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many
publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples:
for there were many, and they followed him. And when the scribes and
Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners they said onto his
disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and
sinners?
WE cannot wonder at the scribes and Pharisees asking this question. I
think that we should most of us ask the same question now, if we saw the
Lord Jesus, or even if we saw any very good or venerable man, going out
of his way to eat and drink with publicans and sinners. We should be
inclined to say, as the scribes and Pharisees no doubt said, Why go out
of his way to make fellowship with them? to eat and drink with them? He
might have taught them, preached to them, warned them of God’s wrath
against their sins when he could find them out in the street. Or, even
if he could not do that, if he could not find them all together without
going into their house, why sit down and eat and drink? Why not say,
No—I am not going to join with you in that? I am come on a much more
solemn and important errand than eating. I have no time to eat. I must
preach to you, ere it be too late. And you would have no appetite to
eat, if you knew the terrible danger in which your souls are. Besides,
however anxious for your souls I am, you cannot expect me to treat you as
friends, to make companions of you, and accept your hospitality, while
you are living these bad lives. I shall always feel pity and sorrow for
you: but I cannot be a table companion with you, till you begin to lead
very different lives.
Now if the scribes and Pharisees had said that, should we have thought
them very unreasonable? For whatsoever kinds of sinners the sinners
were, these publicans were the very worst and lowest of company. They
were not innkeepers, as the word means now; they were a kind of
tax-gatherers: but not like ours in England. For first, these taxes were
not taken by the Jewish government, but by the Romans—heathen foreigners
who had conquered them, and kept them down by soldiery quartered in their
country. So that these publicans, who gathered taxes and tribute for the
heathen Cæsar of Rome from their own countrymen, were traitors to their
country, in league with their foreign tyrants, as it were devouring their
own flesh and blood; and all the Jews looked on them (and really no
wonder) with hatred and contempt. Beside, these publicans did not merely
gather the taxes, as they do in free England; they farmed them,
compounded for them with the Roman emperor; that is, they had each to
bring in to the Romans a stated sum of money, each out of his own
district, and to make their own profit out of the bargain by grinding out
of the poor Jews all they could over and above; and most probably calling
in the soldiery to help them if people would not pay. So this was a
trade, as you may easily see, which could only prosper by all kinds of
petty extortion, cruelty, and meanness; and, no doubt, these publicans
were devourers of the poor, and as unjust and hard-hearted men as one
could be. As for those ‘sinners’ who are so often mentioned with them, I
suppose this is what the word means. These publicans making their money
ill, spent it ill also, in a low profligate way, with the worst of women
and of men. Moreover, all the other Jews shunned them, and would not eat
or keep company with them; so they hung all together, and made company
for themselves with bad people, who were fallen too low to be ashamed of
them. The publicans and harlots are often mentioned together; and, I
doubt not, they were often eating and drinking together, God help them!
And God did help them. The Son of God came and ate and drank with them.
No doubt, he heard many words among them which pained his ears, saw many
faces which shocked his eyes; faces of women who had lost all shame;
faces of men hardened by cruelty, and greediness, and cunning, till God’s
image had been changed into the likeness of the fox and the serpent; and,
worst of all, the greatest pain to him of all, he could see into their
hearts, their immortal souls, and see all the foulness within them, all
the meanness, all the hardness, all the unbelief in anything good or
true. And yet he ate and drank with them. Make merry with them he could
not: who could be merry in such company? but he certainly so behaved to
them that they were glad to have him among them, though he was so unlike
them in thought, and word, and look, and action.
And why? Because, though he was so unlike them in many things, he was
like them at least in one thing. If he could do nothing else in common
with them, he could at least eat and drink as they did, and eat and drink
with them too. Yes. He was the Son of man, the man of all men, and what
he wanted to make them understand was, that, fallen as low as they were,
they were men and women still, who were made at first in God’s likeness,
and who could be redeemed back into God’s likeness again.
The only way to do that was to begin with them in the very simplest way;
to meet them on common human ground; to make them feel that, simply
because they were men and women, he felt for them; that, simply because
they were men and women, he loved them; that, simply because they were
men and women, he could not turn his back upon them, for the sake of his
Father and their Father in heaven. If he had left those poor wretches to
themselves; if he had even merely kept apart from their common every-day
life, and preached to them, they would never have felt that there was
still hope for them, simply because they were men and women. They would
have said in their hearts, ‘See; he will talk to us: but he looks down on
us all the time. We are fallen so low, we cannot rise; we cannot mend.
What is there in us that can mend? We are nothing but brutes, perhaps;
then brutes we must remain. Heaven is for people like him, perhaps; but
not for such as us. We are cut off from men. We have no brothers upon
earth, no Father in heaven.’ ‘Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
die.’
Yes; they would have said this; for people like them will say it too
often now, here in Christian England.
But when our Lord came to them, ate and drank with them, talked with them
in a homely and simple way (for our Lord’s words are always simple and
homely, grand and deep and wonderful as they are), then do you not see
how _self-respect_ would begin to rise in those poor sinners’ hearts?
Not that they would say, ‘We are better men than we thought we were.’
No; perhaps his kindness would make them all the more ashamed of
themselves, and convince them of sin all the more deeply; for nothing,
nothing melts the sinner’s hard, proud heart, like a few unexpected words
of kindness—ay, even a cordial shake of the hand from any one who he
fancies looks down on him. To find a loving brother, where he expected
only a threatening schoolmaster—that breaks the sinner’s heart; and most
of all when he finds that brother in Jesus his Saviour. That—the sight
of God’s boundless love to sinners, as it is revealed in the loving face
of Jesus Christ our Lord—that, and that alone, breeds in the sinner the
broken and the contrite heart which is in the sight of God of great
price. And so, those publicans and sinners would not have begun to say,
We are better than we thought: but, We can become better than we thought.
He must see something in us which makes him care for us. Perhaps God may
see something in us to care for. He does not turn his back on us.
Perhaps God may not. He must have some hope of us. May we not have hope
of ourselves? Surely there is a chance for us yet. Oh! if there were!
We are miserable now in the midst of our drunkenness, and our
covetousness, and our riotous pleasures. We are ashamed of ourselves:
and our countrymen are ashamed of us: and though we try to brazen it off
by impudence, we carry heavy hearts under bold foreheads. Oh, that we
could be different! Oh, that we could be even like what we were when we
were little children! Perhaps we may be yet. For he treats us as if we
were men and women still, his brothers and sisters still. He thinks that
we are not quite brute animals yet, it seems. Perhaps we are not;
perhaps there is life in us yet, which may grow up to a new and better
way of living. What shall we do to be saved?
O blessed charity, bond of peace and of all virtues; of brotherhood and
fellow-feeling between man and man, as children of one common Father.
Ay, bond of all virtues—of generosity and of justice, of counsel and of
understanding. Charity, unknown on earth before the coming of the Son of
man, who was content to be called gluttonous and a wine-bibber, because
he was the friend of publicans and sinners!
My friends, let us try to follow his steps; let us remember all day long
what it is to be _men_; that it is to have every one whom we meet for our
brother in the sight of God; that it is this, never to meet any one,
however bad he may be, for whom we cannot say, ‘Christ died for that man,
and Christ cares for him still. He is precious in God’s eyes; he shall
be precious in mine also.’ Let us take the counsel of the Gospel for
this day, and love one another, not in word merely—in doctrine, but in
deed and in truth, really and actually; in our every-day lives and
behaviour, words, looks—in all of them let us be cordial, feeling,
pitiful, patient, courteous. Masters with your workmen, teachers with
your pupils, parents with your children, be cordial, and kind, and
patient; respect every one, whether below you or not in the world’s eyes.
Never do a thing to any human being which may lessen his self-respect;
which may make him think that you look down upon him, and so make him
look down upon himself in awkwardness and shyness; or else may make him
start off from you, angry and proud, saying, ‘I am as good as you; and if
you keep apart from me, I will from you; if you can do without me, I can
do without you. I want none of your condescension.’ It is _not_ so.
You cannot do without each other. We can none of us do without the
other; do not let us make any one fancy that he can, and tempt him to
wrap himself up in pride and surliness, cutting himself off from the
communion of saints, and the blessing of being a man among men.
And if any of you have a neighbour, or a relation fallen into sin, even
into utter shame;—oh, for the sake of Him who ate and drank with
publicans and sinners, never cast them off, never trample on them, never
turn your back upon them. They are miserable enough already, doubt it
not. Do not add one drop to their cup of bitterness. They are ashamed
of themselves already, doubt it not. Do not you destroy in them what
small grain of self-respect still remains. You fancy they are not so.
They seem to you brazen-faced, proud, impenitent. So did the publicans
and harlots seem to those proud, blind Pharisees. Those pompous,
self-righteous fools did not know what terrible struggles were going on
in those poor sin-tormented hearts. Their pride had blinded them, while
they were saying all along, ‘It is we alone who see. This people, which
knoweth not the law, is accursed.’ Then came the Lord Jesus, the Son of
man, who knew what was in man; and he spoke to them gently, cordially,
humanly; and they heard him, and justified God, and were baptized,
confessing their sins; and so, as he said himself, the publicans and
harlots went into the kingdom of God before those proud, self-conceited
Pharisees.
Therefore, I say, never hurt any one’s self-respect. Never trample on
any soul, though it may be lying in the veriest mire; for that last spark
of self-respect is as its only hope, its only chance; the last seed of a
new and better life; the voice of God which still whispers to it, ‘You
are not what you ought to be, and you are not what you can be. You are
still God’s child, still an immortal soul: you may rise yet, and fight a
good fight yet, and conquer yet, and be a man once more, after the
likeness of God who made you, and Christ who died for you!’ Oh, why
crush that voice in any heart? If you do, the poor creature is lost, and
lies where he or she falls, and never tries to rise again. Rather bear
and forbear; hope all things, believe all things, endure all things; so
you will, as St. John tells you in the Epistle, know that you are of the
truth, in the true and right road, and will assure your hearts before
God. For this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of
his Son Jesus Christ, and believe really that he is now what he always
was, the friend of publicans and sinners, and love one another as he gave
us commandment. That was Christ’s spirit; the fairest, the noblest
spirit upon earth; the spirit of God whose mercy is over all his works;
and hereby shall we know that Christ abideth in us, by his having given
us the same spirit of pity, charity, fellow-feeling and love for every
human being round us.
And now, I will also give you one lesson to carry home with you—a lesson
which if we all could really believe and obey, the world would begin to
mend from to-morrow, and every other good work on earth would prosper and
multiply tenfold, a hundredfold—ay, beyond all our fairest dreams. And
my lesson is this. When you go out from this church into those crowded
streets, remember that there is not a soul in them who is not as precious
in God’s eyes as you are; not a little dirty ragged child whom Jesus,
were he again on earth, would not take up in his arms and bless; not a
publican or a harlot with whom, if they but asked him, he would not eat
and drink—now, here, in London on this Sunday, the 8th of June, 1856, as
certainly as he did in Jewry beyond the seas, eighteen hundred years ago.
Therefore do to all who are in want of your help as Jesus would do to
them if he were here; as Jesus is doing to them already: for he is here
among us now, and for ever seeking and saving that which was lost; and
all we have to do is to believe that, and work on, sure that he is
working at our head, and that though we cannot see him, he sees us; and
then all will prosper at last, for this brave old earth whereon we are
living now, and for that far braver new heaven and new earth whereon we
shall live hereafter.
SERMON XXXIV.
THE SEA OF GLASS.
(_Trinity Sunday_.)
REVELATION iv. 9, 10, 11.
And when those beasts give glory, and honour, and thanks to him that
sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the four and twenty
elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him
that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the
throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and
honour, and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy
pleasure they are and were created.
THE Church bids us read this morning the first chapter of Genesis, which
tells us of the creation of the world. Not merely on account of that
most important text, which, according to some divines, seems to speak of
the ever-blessed Trinity, and brings in God as saying, ‘Let _us_ make man
in _our_ image;’ not, Let me make man in my image; but, Let _us_, in
_our_ image.—Not merely for this reason is Gen. i. a fit lesson for
Trinity Sunday: but because it tells us of the whole world, and all that
is therein, and who made it, and how. It does not tell us why God made
the world; but the Revelations do, and the text does. And therefore
perhaps it is a good thing for us that Trinity Sunday comes always in the
sweet spring time, when all nature is breaking out into new life, when
leaves are budding, flowers blossoming, birds building, and countless
insects springing up to their short and happy life. This wonderful world
in which we live has awakened again from its winter’s sleep. How are we
to think of it, and of all the strange and beautiful things in it?
Trinity Sunday tells us; for Trinity Sunday bids us think of and believe
a matter which we cannot understand—a glorious and unspeakable God, who
is at the same time One and Three. We cannot understand that. No more
can we understand anything else. We cannot understand how the grass
grows beneath our feet. We cannot understand how the egg becomes a bird.
We cannot understand how the butterfly is the very same creature which
last autumn was a crawling caterpillar. We cannot understand how an atom
of our food is changed within our bodies into a drop of living blood. We
cannot understand how this mortal life of ours depends on that same
blood. We do not know even what life is. We do not know what our own
souls are. We do not know what our own bodies are. We know nothing. We
know no more about ourselves and this wonderful world than we do of the
mystery of the ever-blessed Trinity. That, of course, is the greatest
wonder of all. For, as I shall try to show you presently, God himself
must be more wonderful than all things which he has made. But all that
he has made is wonderful; and all that we can say of it is, to take up
the heavenly hymn which this chapter in the Revelations puts into our
mouths, and join with the elders of heaven, and all the powers of nature,
in saying, ‘Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and
power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are
and were created.’
Let us do this. Let us open our eyes, and see honestly what a wonderful
world we live in; and go about all our days in wonder and humbleness of
heart, confessing that we know nothing, and that we cannot know;
confessing that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and that our soul
knows right well; but that beyond we know nothing; though God knows all;
for in his book were all our members written, which day by day were
fashioned, while as yet there were none of them. ‘How great are thy
counsels, O God! they are more than I am able to express,’ said David of
old, who knew not a tenth part of the natural wonders which we know;
‘more in number than the hairs of my head, if I were to speak of them.’
This will keep us from that proud and yet shallow temper of mind which
people are apt to fall into, especially young men who are clever and
self-educated, and those who live in great towns, and so lose the sight
of the wonderful works of God in the fields and woods, and see hardly
anything but what man has made; and therefore forget how weak and
ignorant even the wisest man is, and how little he understands of this
great and glorious world.
Such people are apt to fancy men are clever enough to understand
anything. Then they say, ‘Why am I to believe anything I cannot
understand?’ And then they laugh at the mysteries of faith, and say,
‘Three Persons in one God! I cannot understand that! Why am I expected
to believe it?’
Now, here is the plain answer to such unwise speech (for unwise it is,
let it be dressed up in all fine long words, and show of wisdom), whether
the doctrine be true or not, your not understanding the matter is no
reason against it. Here is the answer: ‘You _do_ believe all day long a
hundred things which you do not understand; which quite surpass your
reason. You believe that you are alive: but you do not understand how
you live. You believe that, though you are made up of so many different
faculties and powers, you are one person: but you cannot understand how.
You believe that though your body and your mind too have gone through so
many changes since you were born, yet you are still one and the same
person, and nobody else but yourself; but you cannot understand that
either. You know it is so; but how and why it is so, you cannot explain;
and the greatest philosopher would not be foolish enough to try to
explain; because, if he is a really great scholar, he knows that it
cannot be explained. You lift your hand to your head: but how you do it,
neither you nor any mortal man knows; and true philosophers tell you that
we shall probably never know. True philosophers tell you that in the
simplest movement of your body, in the growth of the meanest blade of
grass, let them examine it with the microscope, let them think over it
till their brains are weary, there is always some mystery, some wonder
over and above, which neither their glasses nor their brains can explain,
or even find and see, much less give a name to. They know that there is
more in the matter, in the simplest matter, than man can find out; and
they are content to leave the wonder in the hands of God who made it; and
when they have found out all they can, confess, that the more they know,
the less they find they know.
I tell you frankly, my friends, if you were to see through the microscope
a few of the wonderful things which are going on round you now in every
leaf, and every gnat which dances in the sunbeam; if you were to learn
even the very little which is known about them, you would see wonders
which would surpass your powers of reasoning, just as much as that far
greater wonder of the ever-blessed Trinity; things which you would not
believe, if your own eyes did not show them you.
And what if it be strange? What is there to surprise us in that? If the
world be so wonderful, how much more wonderful must that great God be who
made the world, and keeps it always living? If the smallest blade of
grass be past our understanding, how much more past our understanding
must be the Absolute, Eternal, Almighty God? Do you not see that common
sense and reason lead us to expect that God should be the most wonderful
of all beings and things; that there must be some mystery and wonder in
him which is greater than all mysteries and wonders upon earth, just as
much as _he_ is greater than all heaven and earth? Which must be most
wonderful, the maker or the thing made? Thou art man, made in the
likeness of God. Thou canst not understand thyself. How much less canst
thou understand God, in whose likeness thou art made!
For my part, instead of keeping people from learning, lest they should
grow proud, and despise the mysteries of faith, I would make them learn,
and entreat them to learn, and look seriously and patiently at all the
wonderful things which are going on round them all day long; for I am
sure that they would be so much astonished with what they saw on earth,
that they would not be astonished, much less staggered, at anything they
heard of in heaven; and least of all astonished at being told that the
name of Almighty God was too deep for the little brain of mortal man; and
that they would learn more and more to take humbly, like little children,
every hint which the experience of wise and good men of old time gives us
of the everlasting mystery of mysteries, the glory of the Triune God,
which St. John saw in the spirit.
And what did St. John see? Something beyond even an apostle’s
understanding. Something which he could only see himself dimly, and
describe to us in figures and pictures, as it were, to help us to imagine
that great wonder.
He was in the spirit, he says, when he saw it. That is, he did not see
it with his bodily eyes, but with his soul, his heart and mind. Not with
his bodily eyes (for no man hath seen God at any time), but with his
mind’s eye, which God had enlightened by his Holy Spirit.
He sees a throne in heaven, and one sitting on it, bright and pure as
richest precious stone; and round his throne a rainbow like an emerald,
the sign to us of hope, and faithfulness, mercy and truth, which he
himself appointed after the flood, to comfort the fearful hearts of men.
Around him are elders crowned; men like ourselves, but men who have
fought the good fight, and conquered, and are now at rest; pure, as their
white garments tell us; and victorious, as their golden crowns tell us.
And from the throne come thunderings, and lightnings, and voices, as they
did when he spoke to the Jews of old—signs of his terrible power, as
judge, and lawgiver, and avenger of all the wrong which is done on earth.
And there are there, too, seven burning lamps, the seven spirits of God,
which give light and life to all created things, and most of all to
righteous hearts. And before the throne is a sea of glass; the same sea
which St. John saw in another vision, with us human beings standing on
it, and behold it was mingled with fire;—the sea of time, and space, and
mortal life, on which we all have our little day; the brittle and
dangerous sea of earthly life; for it may crack any moment beneath our
feet, and drop us into eternity, and the nether fire, unless we have his
hand holding us, who conquered time, and life, and death, and hell
itself.
It seems to us to be a great thing now, time, and space, and the world;
and yet it looked small enough to St. John, as it lies in heaven, before
the throne of Christ; and he passes it by in a few words. For what are
all suns and stars, and what are all ages and generations, and millions
and millions of years, compared with eternity; with God’s eternal heaven,
and God whom not even heaven can contain?—One drop of water in comparison
with all the rain clouds of the western sea.
But there is one comfort for us in St. John’s vision; that brittle, and
uncertain, and dangerous as life may be, yet it is before the throne of
God, and before the feet of Christ. St. John saw it lying there in
heaven, for a sign that in God we live, and move, and have our being.
Let us be content, and hope on, and trust on; for God is with us, and we
with God.
But St. John saw another wonder. Four beasts—one like a man, one like a
calf, one like an eagle, one like a lion, with six wings each.
What those living creatures mean, I can hardly tell you. Some wise and
learned men say they mean the four Evangelists: but, though there is much
to be said for it, I hardly think that; for St. John, who saw them, was
one of the four Evangelists himself. Others think they mean great and
glorious archangels; and that may be so. But certainly the Bible always
speaks of angels as shaped like men, like human beings, only more
beautiful and glorious. The two angels, for instance, who appeared to
the three men at our Lord’s tomb, are plainly called in one place, young
men. I think, rather, that these four living creatures mean the powers
and talents which God has given to men, that they may replenish the
earth, and subdue it. For we read of these same living creatures in the
book of the prophet Ezekiel; and we see them also on those ancient
Assyrian sculptures which are now in the British Museum; and we have good
reason to think that is what they mean there. The creature with the
man’s head means reason; the beast with the lion’s head, kingly power and
government; with the eagle’s head, and his piercing eye, prudence and
foresight; with the ox’s head, labour, and cultivation of the earth, and
successful industry. But whatsoever those living creatures mean, it is
more important to see what they do. They give glory, and honour, and
thanks to him who sits upon the throne. They confess that all power, all
wisdom, all prudence, all success in men or angels, in earth or heaven,
comes from God, and is God’s gift, of which he will require a strict
account; for he is Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty; and all things
are of him, and by him, and for him, for ever and ever.
But who is he who sits upon the throne? Who but the Lord Jesus Christ?
Who but the Babe of Bethlehem? Who but the Friend of publicans and
sinners? Who but he who went about doing good to suffering mortal man?
Who but he who died on the cross? Who but he on whose bosom St. John
leaned at supper, and now saw him highly exalted, having a name above
every name?
Oh, blest St. John, to see that sight! To see his dear Master in his
glory, after having seen him in his humiliation! God grant us so to
follow in St. John’s steps, that we may see the same sight, unworthy
though we are, in God’s good time.
And where is God the Father? Yes, where? The heaven, and the heaven of
heavens, cannot contain him, whom no man hath seen, or can see; who
dwells in the light, whom no man can approach unto. Only the only
begotten Son, who dwells in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared
him, and shown to men in his own perfect loveliness and goodness, what
their heavenly Father is. That was enough for St. John; let it be enough
for us. He who has seen Christ has seen the Father, as far as any
created being can see him. The Son Christ is merciful: therefore the
Father is merciful. The Son is just: therefore the Father is just. The
Son is faithful and true: therefore the Father is faithful and true. The
Son is almighty to save: therefore the Father is almighty to save. Let
that be enough for you and me.
But where is the Holy Spirit? There is no _where_ for spirits. All that
we can say is, that the Holy Spirit is proceeding for ever from the
Father and the Son; going forth for ever, to bring light and life,
righteousness and love, to all worlds, and to all hearts who will receive
him. The lamps of fire which St. John saw, the dove which came down at
Christ’s baptism, the cloven tongues of fire which sat on the
Apostles—these were signs and tokens of the Spirit; but they were not the
Spirit itself. Of him it is written, ‘He bloweth where he listeth, and
thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence he cometh or
whither he goeth.’
It is enough for us that he is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Holy
Father, and of the Holy Son; like them eternal, like them
incomprehensible, like them almighty, like them all-wise, all-just,
all-loving, merciful, faithful, and true for ever.
This is what St. John saw—Christ the crucified, Christ the Babe of
Bethlehem, in the glory which he had before all worlds, and shall have
for ever; with all the powers of this wondrous world crying to him for
ever, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to
come; and the souls of just men made perfect answering those mystic
animals, and joining their hymns of praise to the hymn which goes up for
ever from sun and stars, from earth and sea,—when they find out the
deepest of all wisdom—the lesson which all the wonders of this earth, and
all which ever has happened, or will happen, in space and time, is meant
to teach us:—
‘Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power; for
Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were
created.’
This is all that I can tell you. It may be a very little: but is it not
enough? What says Solomon the wise? ‘Knowest thou how the bones grow in
the womb?’ Not thou. How, then, wilt thou know God, who made all
things? Thou art fearfully and wonderfully made, though thou art but a
poor mortal man. And is not God more fearfully and wonderfully made than
thou art? It is a strange thing, and a mystery, how we ever got into
this world: a stranger thing still to me, how we shall ever get out of
this world again. Yet they are common things enough—birth and death.
‘Every moment dies a man, every moment one is born:’ and yet you do not
know what is the meaning of birth or death either: and I do not know; and
no man knows. How, then, can we know the mystery of God, in whose hand
are the issues of life and death?—God to whom all live for ever, living
and dead, born and unborn, in heaven and in hell?
So it is in small things as well as great, in great as well as small; and
so it ever will be. ‘All things begin in some wonder, and in some wonder
all things end,’ said Saint Augustine, wisest in his day of all mortal
men; and all that great scholars have discovered since prove more and
more that Saint Augustine’s words were true, and that the wisest are
only, as a great philosopher once said, and one, too, who discovered more
of God’s works than any man for many a hundred years, even Sir Isaac
Newton himself: ‘The wisest of us is but like a child picking up a few
shells and pebbles on the shore of a boundless sea.’
The shells and pebbles are the little scraps of knowledge which God
vouchsafes to us, his sinful children; knowledge, of which at best St.
Paul says, that we know only in part, and prophesy in part, and think as
children; and that knowledge shall vanish away, and tongues shall cease,
and prophecies shall fail.
And the boundless sea is the great ocean of time—of God’s created
universe, above which his Spirit broods over, perfect in love, and
wisdom, and almighty power, as at the beginning, moving above the face of
the waters of time, giving life to all things, for ever blessing, and for
ever blest.
God grant us all to see the day when we shall have passed safely across
that sea of time, up to the sure land of eternity; and shall no more
think as children, or know in part; but shall see God face to face, and
know him even as we are known; and find him, the nearer we draw to him,
more wonderful, and more glorious, and more good than ever;—‘Holy, Holy,
Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.’ And
meanwhile, take comfort, and recollect however little you and I may know,
God knows: he knows himself, and you, and me, and all things; and his
mercy is over all his works.
SERMON XXXV.
A GOD IN PAIN.
(_Good Friday_.)
HEBREWS ii. 9, 50.
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the
suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the
grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became him,
for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many
sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect
through sufferings.
WHAT are we met together to think of this day? God in pain: God
sorrowing; God dying for man, as far as God could die. Now it is
this;—the blessed news that God suffered pain, God sorrowed, God died, as
far as God could die—which makes the Gospel different from all other
religions in the world; and it is this, too, which makes the Gospel so
strong to conquer men’s hearts, and soften them, and bring them back to
God and righteousness in a way no other religion ever has done. It is
the good news of this good day, well called Good Friday, which wins souls
to Christ, and will win them as long as men are men.
The heathen, you will find, always thought of their gods as happy. The
gods, they thought, always abide in bliss, far above all the chances and
changes of mortal life; always young, strong, beautiful, needing no help,
needing no pity; and therefore, my friends, never calling out our love.
The heathens never _loved_ their gods: they admired them, thanked them
when they thought they helped them; or they were afraid of them when they
thought they were offended.
But as far as I can find, they never really loved their gods. Love to
God was a new feeling, which first came into the world with the good news
that God had suffered and that God had died upon the cross. That was a
God to be loved, indeed; and all good hearts loved him, and will love him
still.
For you cannot really love any one who is quite different from you; who
has never been through what you have. You do not think that he can
understand you; you expect him to despise you, laugh at you. You say, as
I have heard a poor woman say of a rich one, ‘How can she feel for me?
She does not know what poor people go through.’
Now it is just that feeling which mankind had about God till Christ died.
God, or the gods, were beautiful, strong, happy, self-sufficient, up in
the skies; and men on earth were full of sorrow and trouble, disease,
accidents, death; and sin, too; quarrelling and killing, hateful and
hating each other. How could the gods love men? And then men had a
sense of sin; they felt they were doing wrong. Surely the gods hated
them for doing wrong. Surely all the sorrows and troubles which came on
them were punishments for doing wrong. How miserable they were! But the
gods sat happy up in heaven, and cared not for them. Or, if the gods did
care, they cared only for special favourites. If any man was very good,
or strong, or handsome, or clever, or rich, or prosperous, the gods cared
for him—he was a favourite. But what did they care for poor, ugly,
deformed, unfortunate, foolish wretches? Surely the gods despised them,
and had sent them into the world to be miserable. There was no sympathy,
no fellow-feeling between gods and men. The gods did not love men as
men. Why should men love them? And so men did not love them.
And as there was no love to God before Good Friday, so there was no love
to men.
If God despised the poor, the deformed, the helpless, the ignorant, the
crazy, why should not man? If God was hard on them, why should not man
oppress and ill-use them? And so you will find that there was no charity
in the world.
Among some of the Eastern nations—the Hindoos, for instance—when they
were much better men than now, charity did spring up for a while here and
there, in a very beautiful shape; but among Greeks and Romans there was
simply no charity; and you will find little or none among the Jews
themselves.
The Pharisees gave alms to save their own souls, and feed their own pride
of being good; but had no charity—‘This people, who knoweth not the law,
is accursed.’ As for poor, diseased people, they were born in sin:
either they or their parents had sinned. We may see that the poor of
Judea, as well as Galilee, were in a miserable, neglected, despised
state; and the worst thing that the Pharisees could say of our Lord Jesus
was, that he ate and drank with publicans and sinners. Because there was
no love to God, there was no love to man. There was a great gulf fixed
between every man and his neighbour.
But Christ came; God came; and became man. And with the blood of his
cross was bridged over for ever the gulf between God and man, and the
gulf between man and man.
Good Friday showed that there was sympathy, there was fellow-feeling
between God and man; that God would do all for man, endure all for man;
that God so desired to make man like God, that he would stoop to be made
like man. There was nothing God would not do to justify himself to man,
to show men that he did care for them, that he did love the creatures
whom he had made. Yes; God had not forgotten man; God had not made man
in vain. God had not sent man into the world to be wicked and miserable
here, and to perish for ever hereafter. Wickedness and misery were here;
but God had not put them here, and he would not leave them here. He
would conquer them by enduring them. Sin and misery tormented men; then
they should torment the Son of God too. Sin and misery killed men; then
they should kill the Son of God, too: he would taste death for every man,
that men might live by him. He would be made perfect by sufferings: not
made perfectly good (for that he was already), but perfectly able to feel
for men, to understand them, to help them; because he had been tempted in
all things like as they.
And so on Good Friday did God bridge over the gulf between God and men.
No man can say now, Why has God sent man into the world to be miserable,
while he is happy? For God in Christ was miserable once. No man can
say, God makes me go through pain, and torture, and death, while he goes
through none of such things: for God in Christ endured pain, torture,
death, to the uttermost. And so God is a being which man can love,
admire, have fellow-feeling for; cling to God with all the noble feelings
of his heart, with admiration, gratitude, and tenderness, even on this
day with pity.—As Christ himself said, ‘When I am lifted up, I will draw
all men to me.’
And no man can say now, What has God to do with sufferers—sick, weak,
deformed wretches? If he had cared for them, would he have made them
thus? For we can answer, However sick, or weak they may be, God in
Christ has been as weak as they. God has shared their sufferings, and
has been made perfect by sufferings, that they might be made perfect
also. God has sanctified suffering, pain, and sorrow upon his cross, and
made them holy; as holy as health, and strength, and happiness are. And
so on Good Friday God bridged over the gulf between man and man. He has
shown that God is charity and love; and that the way to live for ever in
God is to live for ever in that charity and love to all mankind which God
showed this day upon the cross.
And, therefore, all _charity_ is rightly called _Christian_ charity; for
it is Christ, and the news of Good Friday, which first taught men to have
charity; to look on the poor, the afflicted, the weak, the orphan, with
love, pity, respect. By the sight of a suffering and dying God, God has
touched the hearts of men, that they might learn to love and respect
suffering and dying men; and in the face of every mourner, see the face
of Christ, who died for them. Because Christ the sufferer is their elder
brother, all sufferers are their brothers likewise. Because Christ
tasted pain, shame, misery, death for all men, therefore we are bound
this day to pray for all men, that they may have their share in the
blessings of Christ’s death; not to look on them any longer as aliens,
strangers, enemies, parted from us and each other and God; but whether
wise or foolish, sick or well, happy or unhappy, alive or dead, as
brothers. We are bound to pray for his Holy Church as one family of
brothers; for all ranks of men in it, that each of them may learn to give
up their own will and pleasure for the sake of doing their duty in their
calling, as Christ did; to pray for Jews, Turks, Heathens, and Infidels;
as for God’s lost children, and our lost brothers, that God would bring
them home to his flock, and touch their hearts by the news of his
sufferings for them; that they may taste the inestimable comfort of
knowing that God so loved them as to suffer, to groan, to die for them
and all mankind.
SERMON XXXVI.
ON THE FALL.
(_Sexagesima Sunday_.)
GENESIS iii. 12.
And the man said, The woman, whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave
me of the tree, and I did eat.
THIS morning we read the history of Adam’s fall in the first Lesson. Now
does this story seem strange to you, my friends? Do you say to
yourselves, If I had been in Adam’s place, I should never have been so
foolish as Adam was? If you do say so, you cannot have looked at the
story carefully enough. For if you do look at it carefully, I believe
you will find enough in it to show you that it is a very _natural_ story,
that we have the same nature in us that Adam had; that we are indeed
Adam’s children; and that the Bible speaks truth when it says, ‘Adam
begat a son after his own likeness.’
Now, let us see how Adam fell, and what he did when he fell.
Adam, we find, was not content to be in the image of God. He wanted, he
and his wife, to be as gods, knowing good and evil. Now do, I beseech
you, think a moment carefully, and see what that means.
Adam was not content to be in the likeness of God; to copy God by obeying
God. He wanted to be a little god himself; to know what was good for
him, and what was evil for him; whereas God had told him, as it were, You
do _not_ know what is good for you, and what is evil for you. I know;
and I tell you to obey me; not to eat of a certain tree in the garden.
But pride and self-will rose up in Adam’s heart. He wanted to show that
he _did_ know what was good for him. He wanted to be independent, and
show that he could do what he liked, and take care of himself; and so he
ate the fruit which he was forbidden to eat, partly because it was fair
and well-tasted, but still more to show his own independence.
Now, surely this is natural enough. Have we not all done the very same
thing in our time, nay, over and over again? When we were children, were
we never forbidden to do something which we wished to do? Were we never
forbidden, just as Adam was, to take an apple—something pleasant to the
eye, and good for food? And did we not long for it, and determine to
have it all the more, because it was forbidden, just as Adam and Eve did;
so that we wished for it much more than we should if our parents had
given it to us? Did we not in our hearts accuse our parents of grudging
it to us, and listen to the voice of the tempter, as Eve did, when the
serpent tried to make out that God was niggardly to her, and envious of
her, and did not want her to be wise, lest she should be too like God?
Have we not said in our heart, Why should my father grudge me that nice
thing when he takes it himself?
He wants to keep it all to himself. Why should not I have a share of it?
He says it will hurt me. How does he know that? It does not hurt him.
I must be the best judge of whether it will hurt me. I do not believe
that it will: but at least it is but fair that I should try. I will try
for myself. I will run the chance. Why should I be kept like a baby, as
if I had no sense or will of my own? I will know the right and the wrong
of it for myself. I will know the good and evil of it myself.
Have we not said that, every one of us, in our hearts, when we were
young?—And is not that just what the Bible says Adam and Eve said?
And then, because we were Adam’s children, with his fallen nature in us,
and original sin, which we inherited from him, we could not help longing
more and more after what our parents had forbidden; we could think,
perhaps, of nothing else; cared for no pleasure, no pay, because we could
not get that one thing which our parents had told us not to touch. And
at last we fell, and sinned, and took the thing on the sly.
And then?
Did it not happen to us, as it did to Adam, that a feeling of shame and
guiltiness came over us at once? Yes; of shame. We intended to feed our
own pride: but instead of pride came shame and fear too; so instead of
rising, we had fallen and felt that we had fallen. Just so it was with
Adam. Instead of feeling all the prouder and grander when he had sinned,
he became ashamed of himself at once, he hardly knew why. We had
intended to set ourselves up against our parents; but instead, we became
afraid of them. We were always fancying that they would find us out. We
were afraid of looking them in the face. Just so it was with Adam. He
heard the word of the Lord God, Jesus Christ, walking in the garden. Did
he go to meet him; thank him for that pleasant life, pleasant earth, for
the mere blessing of existence? No. He hid himself among the trees of
the garden. But why hide himself? Even if he had given up being
thankful to God; even if he had learned from the devil to believe that
God grudged him, envied him, had deceived him, about that fruit, why run
away and hide? He wanted to be as God, wise, knowing good and evil for
himself. Why did he not stand out boldly when he heard the voice of the
Lord God and say, I am wise now; I am as a God now, knowing good and
evil; I am no longer to be led like a child, and kept strictly by rules
which I do not understand; I have a right to judge for myself, and choose
for myself; and I have done it, and you have no right to complain of me?
Perhaps Adam had intended, when he ate the fruit, to stand up for
himself, with some such fine words; as children intend when they disobey.
But when it came to the point, away went all Adam’s self-confidence, all
Adam’s pride, all Adam’s fine notions of what he had a right to do; and
he hides himself miserably, like a naughty and disobedient child. And
then, like a mean and cowardly one, when he is called out and forced to
answer for himself, he begins to make pitiful excuses. He has not a word
to say for himself. He throws the blame on his wife; it was all the
woman’s fault now—indeed, God’s fault. ‘The woman whom thou gavest to be
with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.’
My dear friends, if we want a proof that the Bible is a true, divine,
inspired book, we need go no further than this one story. For, my
friends, have we never said the same? When we felt that we had done
wrong; when the voice of God and of Christ in our hearts was rebuking us
and convincing us of sin, have we never tried to shift the blame off our
own shoulders, and lay it on God himself, and the blessings which he has
given us? on one’s wife—on one’s family—on money—on one’s youth, and
health, and high spirits?—in a word, on the good things which God has
given us?
Ah, my friends, we are indeed Adam’s children; and have learned his
lesson, and inherited his nature only too fearfully well. For what Adam
did but once, we have done a hundred times; and the mean excuse which
Adam made but once, we make again and again.
But the loving Lord has patience with us, as he had with Adam, and does
not take us at our word. He did not say to Adam, You lay the blame upon
your wife; then I will take her from you, and you shall see then where
the blame lies. Ungrateful to me! you shall live henceforth alone. And
he does not say to us, You make all the blessings which I have given you
an excuse for sinning! Then I will take them from you, and leave you
miserable, and pour out my wrath upon you to the uttermost!
Not so. Our God is not such a God as that. He is full of compassion and
long-suffering, and of tender mercy. He knows our frame, and remembers
that we are but dust. He sends us out into the world, as he sent Adam,
to learn experience by hard lessons; to eat our bread in the sweat of our
brow, till we have found out our own weakness and ignorance, and have
learned that we cannot stand alone, that pride and self-dependence will
only lead us to guilt, and misery, and shame, and meanness; and that
there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved from them,
but only the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the woman’s seed, who, so God promised, was to bruise the head of
the serpent. And he has bruised it. He is the woman’s seed—a man, as we
are men, with a human nature, but one without spot of sin, to make us
free from sin.
Let us look up to him as often as we find our nature dragging us down,
making us proud and self-willed, greedy and discontented, longing after
this and that. Let us trust in him, ask him, for his grace day by day;
ask him to shape and change us into his likeness, that we may become
daily more and more free; free from sin; free from this miserable longing
after one thing and another; free from our bad habits, and the sin which
does so easily beset us; free from guilty fear, and coward dread of God.
Let us ask him, I say, to change, and purify, and renew us day by day,
till we come to his likeness; to the stature of perfect men, free men,
men who are not slaves to their own nature, slaves to their own pride,
slaves to their own vanity, slaves of their own bad tempers, slaves to
their own greediness and foul lusts: but free, as the Lord Christ was
free; able to keep their bodies in subjection, and rise above nature by
the eternal grace of God; able to use this world without abusing it; able
to thank God for all the _blessings_ of this life, and learn from them
precious lessons; able to thank God for all the _sorrows_ of this life,
and learn from them wholesome discipline: but yet able to rise above them
all, and say, ‘As long as I hold fast to Christ the King of men, this
world cannot harm me. My life, my real human life, does not depend on my
being comfortable or uncomfortable here below for a few short years. My
real life is hid in God with Jesus Christ, who, after he had redeemed
human nature by his perfect obedience, and washed it pure again in the
blood of his cross, for ever sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on
high; that so, being lifted up, he might draw all men unto himself—even
as many as will come to him, that they may have eternal life.
SERMON XXXVII.
THE WORTHY COMMUNICANT.
LUKE xviii. 14.
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the
other.
WHICH of these two men was the more fit to come to the Communion? Most
of you will answer, The publican: for he was more justified, our Lord
himself says, than the Pharisee. True: but would you have said so of
your own accord, if the Lord had not said so? Which of the two men do
you really think was the better man, the Pharisee or the publican? Which
of the two do you think had his soul in the safer state? Which of the
two would you rather be, if you were going to die? Which of the two
would you rather be, if you were going to the Communion? For mind, one
could not have _refused_ the Pharisee, if he had come to the Communion.
He was in no open sin: I may say, no outward sin at all. You must not
fancy that he was a hypocrite, in the sense in which we usually employ
that word. I mean, he was not a man who was leading a wicked life
secretly, while he kept up a show of religion. He was really a religious
man in his own way, scrupulous, and over-scrupulous to perform every duty
to the letter. He went to his church to worship; and he was no
lip-worshipper, repeating a form of words by rote, but prayed there
honestly, concerning the things which were in his heart. He did not say,
either, that he had made himself good. If he was wrong on some points,
he was not on that. He knew where his goodness, such as it was, came
from. ‘God, I thank thee,’ he says, ‘that I am what I am.’ What have we
in this man? one would ask at first sight. What reason for him to stay
away from the Sacrament? He would not have thought himself that there
was any reason. He would, probably, have thought—‘If I am not fit, who
is? Repent me truly of my former sins? Certainly. If I have done the
least harm to any one, I shall be happy to restore it fourfold. If I
have neglected one, the least of God’s services, I shall be only too glad
to keep it all the more strictly for the future.
‘Intend to lead a new life? I am leading one, and trying to lead one
more and more every day. I shall be thankful to any one who will show me
any new service which I can offer to God, any new act of reverence, any
new duty.
‘I must go in love and charity with all men? I do so. I have not a
grudge against any human being. Of course, I know the world too well to
be satisfied with it. I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that millions
are living very sinful, shocking lives—extortioners, unjust, adulterers;
and that three people out of four are going straight to hell. I pity
them, and forgive them any wrong which they have done to me. What more
can I do?’
This is what the Pharisee would have said. Is this man fit to come to
the Communion? At least he himself thinks so.
On the other hand, was the publican fit? That is a serious question; one
which we cannot answer, without knowing more about him than our Lord has
chosen to tell us. Many a person is ready enough, in these days, to cry
‘God be merciful to me a sinner!’ who is fit, I fear, neither to come to
the Communion, nor to stay away either.
It was not so, I suppose, with the old Jews in our Lord’s time. The
Pharisees then were hard legalists, who stood all on works; and,
therefore, if a man broke off from them, and threw himself on God’s grace
and mercy, he did it in a simple, honest, effectual way, like this
publican.
But now, I am sorry to say, our Pharisees have contrived to make
themselves as proud and self-righteous about their own faith and
repentance, as the Jewish Pharisees did about their own works and
observances; and there has risen up in England and elsewhere a very ugly
new hypocrisy. People now-a-days are too apt to pride themselves on
their own convictions of sin, and their own repentance, till they trust
in their repentance to save them, and not in Christ, just as the Pharisee
trusted in his works to save him, and not in Christ; and when they pray,
I cannot help fearing (for I am sure many of their religious books teach
them it) that they pray very much like that Pharisee, ‘God, I thank thee
that I am not as other men are, carnal, unconverted, unconvinced of sin,
nor even as that plain, moral, respectable man. I am convinced of sin; I
am converted; I have the right frames, and the right feelings, and the
right experiences.’ Oh, of all the cunning snares of the devil, that I
think is the cunningest. Well says the old proverb—‘The devil is old,
and therefore he knows many things.’
In old times he made men trust in their own righteousness: and that was
snare enough; now he has learnt how to make men actually trust in their
own sinfulness, and so turn the grace of God into a cloak of pride, and
contempt of their fellow-creatures.
My friends, do you think that if the publican, after he had said, ‘God be
merciful to me a sinner!’ had said to himself, ‘There—how beautifully I
have repented—how honest I have been to God—I am all right now’—he would
have gone down to his house justified at all? Not he. No more will you
and I, my friends. If we have sinned, what should we be but ashamed of
it? Ay, utterly ashamed. And if we really know what sin is—if we really
see the sinfulness of sin—if we really see ourselves as God sees us—we
shall be too much shocked at the sight of our own hearts to have time to
boast of our being able to see our own hearts. We shall be too full of
loathing and hatred for our sins, too full of longing to get rid of our
sins, and to become righteous and holy, even as God is righteous and
holy, to give way to any pride in our own frames and feelings; and,
instead of thinking ourselves better men than our neighbours because we
see our sins, and fancy they do not see theirs, we shall be almost ready
to think ourselves worse than our neighbours, to think that they cannot
have so much to repent of as we; and as we grow in grace, we shall see
more and more sin in ourselves, till we actually fancy at times that no
one can be as bad as we are, and in lowliness of mind esteem others
better than ourselves. We may carry that too far, too. Certainly there
is no use in accusing ourselves of sins which we have not committed; we
have all quite enough real sins to answer for without inventing more.
But still that is a better frame of mind than the other; for no man can
be too humble, while any man can be too proud.
But let us all ask God to open our eyes, that we may see ourselves just
as we are, let our sins be many or few. Let us ask God to convince us
really of sin by his Holy Spirit, and show us what sin is, and its
exceeding sinfulness; how ugly and foul sin is, how foolish and absurd,
how mean and ungrateful toward that good God who wishes us nothing but
good, and wishes us, therefore, to be good, because goodness is the only
path to life and happiness; and then we shall be so ashamed of ourselves,
so afraid of our own weakness, so shocked at the difference between
ourselves and the spotless Lord Jesus, that we shall have no time to
despise others, no time to admire our own frames, and feelings, and
repentances. All we shall think of is our own sinfulness, and God’s
mercy; and we shall come eagerly, if not boldly, to the throne of grace,
to find grace and mercy to help us in the time of need; crying, ‘Purge
thou me, O Lord, or I shall never be pure; wash thou me, and then alone
shall I be clean. For thou requirest, not frames or feelings, not pride
and self-conceit, but truth in the inward parts; and wilt make me to
understand wisdom secretly.’
Then, indeed, we shall be fit to come to the Holy Communion; for then we
shall be so ashamed of ourselves that we shall truly repent of our
sins—so ashamed of ourselves that we shall long and determine to lead a
new life—so ashamed of ourselves that we shall have no heart to look down
on any of our neighbours, or pass hard judgments on them, but be in love
and charity with all men; and so, in spite of all our past sins, come to
partake worthily of the body and blood of Him who died for our sins,
whose blood will wash them out of our hearts, whose body will strengthen
and refresh us, body and soul, to a new and everlasting life of
humbleness and thankfulness, honesty and justice, usefulness and love.
SERMON XXXVIII.
OUR DESERTS.
LUKE vi. 36–38.
Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge
not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be
condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. Give, and it shall be
given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and
running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same
measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again.
ONE often hears complaints against this world, and against mankind; one
hears it said that people are unjust, unfair, cruel; that in this world
no man can expect to get what he deserves. And, of course, there are
great excuses for saying so. There are bad men in the world in plenty,
who do villanous and cruel things enough; and besides, there is a great
deal of dreadful misery in the world, which does not seem to come through
any fault of the poor creatures who suffer it; misery of which we can
only say, ‘Neither did this man sin, nor his parents: but that the glory
of God may be made manifest in him.’
But still our Lord tells us in the text, that, on the whole, there is
order lying under all the disorder, justice under all the injustice,
right under all the wrong; and that on the whole we get what we deserve.
‘Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not,
and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned:
forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. Give, and it shall be given unto you;
good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall
men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal,
it shall be measured to you again.’
Of course, as I said just now, it is not always so. None knew that
better than the blessed Lord: else why did he come to seek and save that
which was lost? But still the more we look into our own lives, the more
we shall find our Lord’s words true; the more we shall find that on the
whole, in the long run, men will be just and fair to us, and give us,
sooner or later, what we deserve.
Now, to deserve a thing, properly means to serve for it, to work for it
and earn it, as a natural consequence. If a man puts his hand into the
fire, he _deserves_ to burn it, because it is the nature of fire to burn,
and therefore it burns him, and so he gets his deserts; and if a man does
wrong, he deserves to be unhappy, because it is the nature of sin to make
the sinner unhappy, and so he gets his deserts. God has not to go out of
his way to punish sin; sin punishes itself; and so if a man does right,
he becomes in the long run happy. God has not to go out of his way to
reward him and make him happy; his own good deeds make him happy; he
earns happiness in the comfort of a good conscience, and the love and
respect of those about him; and so he gets his deserts. For our Lord
says, ‘People in the long run will treat you as you treat them. If they
feel and see by experience that you are loving and kind to them, they
will be loving and kind to you; as you do to them, they will, in the long
run, do to you.’ They may mistake you at first, even dislike you at
first. Did they not mistake, hate, crucify the Lord himself? and yet his
own rule came true of him. A few crucified him; but now all civilized
nations worship him as God. Be sure, then, that his rule will come true
of you, though not at first, yet in God’s good time. Therefore hold
still in the Lord, and abide patiently; and he shall make thy
righteousness as clear as the light, and thy just dealing as the
noon-day.
Now this is a very blessed and comfortable thought. Would to God that
all of us, young people especially, would lay it to heart. How are we to
get comfortably through this life? Or, if we are to have sorrows (as we
all must), how can we make those sorrows as light as possible? How can
we make friends who will comfort us in those sorrows, instead of leaving
us to bear our burden alone, and turning their backs on us just when our
poor hearts are longing for a kind look and a kind word from our
neighbours? Our Lord tells us now. The same measure that you mete
withal, it shall be measured to you again.
There is his plan. It is a very simple one. It goes on the same
principle as ‘He that saveth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth
his life shall save it.’ If we are selfish, and take care only of
ourselves, the day will come when our neighbours will leave us alone in
our selfishness to shift for ourselves. If we set out determining
through life to care about other people rather than ourselves, then they
will care for themselves more than for us, and measure their love to us
by our measure of love to them. But if we care for others, they will
learn to care for us; if we befriend others, they will befriend us. If
we show forth the Spirit of God to them, in kindliness, generosity,
patience, self-sacrifice, the day will surely come when we shall find
that the Spirit of God is in our neighbours as well as in ourselves; that
on the whole they will be just to us, and pay us what we have deserved
and earned. Blessed and comfortable thought, that no kind word, kind
action, not even the cup of cold water given in Christ’s name, can lose
its reward. Blessed thought, that after all our neighbours are our
brothers, and that if we remember that steadily, and treat them as
brothers now, they will recollect it too some day, and treat us as
brothers in return. Blessed thought, that there is in the heart of every
man a spark of God’s light, a grain of God’s justice, which may grow up
in him hereafter, and bear good fruit to eternal life.
Yes; it is a pleasant thing to find men better than we fancied them. A
pleasant thing; for first, it makes us love them the more, and there is
nothing so pleasant as loving. And more; it does this—it makes us more
inclined to trust God’s justice. We say to ourselves, Men are, we find,
really more just and fair than they seem to us at times; surely God must
be more just and fair than he seems to us at times. For there are times
when it does seem a hard thing to believe that God is just; times when
the devil tempts poor suffering creatures sorely, and tries to make them
doubt their heavenly Father, and say with David, What am I the better for
having done right? Surely in vain have I cleansed my heart; in vain have
I washed my hands in innocency. All the day long have I been punished,
and chastened every morning. Yes; when some poor woman, working in the
field, with all the cares of a family on her, looks up at great people in
their carriages, she is tempted, she must be tempted to say at times,
‘Why am I to be so much worse off than they? Is God just in making me so
poor and them so rich?’ It is a foolish thought. I do believe it is a
temptation of the devil, a deceit of the devil; for rich people are not
really one whit happier or lighter-hearted than poor ones, and all the
devil wishes is to make poor people envy their neighbours, and mistrust
God. But still one cannot wonder at their faith failing them at times.
I do not judge them, still less condemn them; for the text forbids me.
Or again, when some poor creature, crippled from his youth, looks upon
others strong and active, cheerful and happy. Think of a deformed child
watching healthy children at play; and then think, must it not be hard at
times for that child not to repine, and cry to God, ‘Why hast thou made
me thus?’
Yes. I will not go on giving fresh instances. The world is but too full
of them.
But when such thoughts trouble us, here is one comfort—ay, here is our
only comfort—God must be more just than man. Whatsoever appearances may
seem to make against it, he must be. For where did all the justice in
the world come from, but from God? Who put the feeling of justice into
every man’s heart, but God himself? He is the glorious sun, perfectly
bright, perfectly pure; and all the other goodness in the world is but
rays and beams of light sent forth from his great light. So we may be
certain that God is not only as just as man, but millions of times _more_
just; more just, and righteous, and good than all the just men on earth
put together. We can believe that. We must believe it. Thousands have
believed it already. Thousands of holy sufferers, in prisons and on
scaffolds, in poverty and destitution, on sick-beds of lingering torture,
have believed still that God was just and righteous in all his dealings
with them; and have cried in the hour of their bitterest agony, ‘Though
thou slay me, O Lord, yet will I trust in thee!’
Yes. God is just. He has revealed that in the person of his Son Jesus
Christ. There is God’s likeness. There is proof enough that God is not
one who afflicts willingly, or grieves the children of men out of any
neglect or spite, or respecteth one person more than another. It may
seem hard to be sure of that: unless we believe that Jesus is the Christ,
the co-equal and co-eternal Son of the Father, we never shall be sure of
it. Believing in the message of the ever-blessed Trinity, we shall be
sure; for we shall be sure that, ‘Such as the Father is, such is the Son,
and such is the Holy Ghost’—perfect love, perfect justice, perfect mercy;
and therefore we can be sure that in the world beyond the grave the
balance will be made even, again, and for ever; and every mourner be
comforted, and every sufferer be refreshed, and every one receive his due
reward—if they will only now in this life take the lesson of the text,
‘Judge not, and you shall not be judged: condemn not, and you shall not
be condemned: forgive, and you shall be forgiven; for if you forgive
every one his brother their trespasses, in like wise will your heavenly
Father forgive you.’ Do that; and then you will get your _deserts_ in
the life to come, and by forgiving, and helping, and blessing others,
_deserve_ to be forgiven, and comforted, and blessed yourselves, for the
sake of that Saviour who is day and night presenting all your good works
to his Father and your Father, as a precious and fragrant offering—a
sacrifice with which the God of love is well pleased, because it is, like
himself, made up of love.
SERMON XXXIX.
THE LOFTINESS OF GOD.
ISAIAH lvii. 15.
For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose
name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place; with him also that
is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the
humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
THIS is a grand text; one of the grandest in the whole Old Testament; one
of those the nearest to the spirit of the New. It is full of Gospel—of
good news: but it is not the whole Gospel. It does not tell us the whole
character of God. We can only get that in the New. We can get it there;
we can get it in that most awful and glorious chapter which we read for
the second lesson—the twenty-seventh chapter of St. Matthew. Seen in the
light of that—seen in the light of Christ’s cross and what it tells us,
all is clear, and all is bright, and all is full of good news—at least to
those who are humble and contrite, crushed down by sorrow, and by the
feeling of their own infirmities.
But what does the text tell us?
Of a high and lofty One, who inhabits eternity.
Of a lofty God, Almighty, incomprehensible; so far above us, so different
from us, that we cannot picture him to ourselves; of a glory and majesty
utterly beyond all human fancy or imagination.
Of a holy God, in whom is no sin, nor taint of sin; who is of purer eyes
than to behold iniquity; who is so perfect, that he cannot be content
with anything which is not as perfect as himself; who looks with horror
and disgust on evil of every shape; who cannot endure it, will at last
destroy it.
Of a God who abides in eternity—who cannot change—cannot alter his own
decrees and laws, because his decrees and laws are right and necessary,
and proceed out of his own character. If he has said a thing, that thing
must be; because it is the thing which ought to be.
How, then, shall we think of this lofty, holy, unchangeable God—we who
are low, unholy, changing with every wind that blows?
Shall we say, ‘He is so far above us, that he cannot feel for us? He is
so holy that he must hate us, and will our punishment, and our damnation
for all our sins?’
‘He is eternal, and cannot change his will; and, therefore, if he wills
us to perish, perish we must.’
We may think so of God, and dread God, and cry ‘Whither shall I flee from
thy Spirit, and whither shall I go from thy presence?’ We may call to
the mountains to fall on us, and to the hills to cover us, till we try to
forget at all risks the thought of God: and if we do not, there are
plenty who will do it for us. The devil, who slanders and curses God to
men, and men to God, and to each other—he will talk to us of God in this
way.
And men who preach the devil’s doctrine, will talk to us likewise, and
say, ‘Yes, God is very dreadful, and very angry with you. God certainly
intends to damn you. But _I_ have a plan for delivering you out of God’s
hands; _I_ know what you must do to be saved from God—join _my_ sect or
party, and believe and work with me, and then you will escape God.’
But, after all, would it not be wiser, my friends, to hold your own
tongues, and let God himself speak?
If he had not spoken in the first place, what should we have known of
him? Can man by searching find out God? We should not have known that
there was a high and lofty One, who inhabits eternity, if he had not told
us. Had we not better hear the rest of his message, and let God finish
his own character of himself?
And what does he say?
‘I dwell—I, the high and lofty One, who inhabit eternity—with him also,
who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the
humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.’
Oh, my friends, is not this news? good news and unexpected news, perhaps,
but still as true as what went before it? God hath said the one, and we
believe it: and now he says the other; and shall we not believe it too?
Come, then, thou humble soul; thou crushed and contrite soul; thou who
fearest that thou art not worthy of God’s care; thou from whom God has
taken so much, that thou fearest that he will take all—come and hear the
Lord’s message to thee—God’s own message; no devil’s message, or man’s
message, but God’s own.
‘I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth; for then
the spirit would fail before me, and the souls which I have made. I have
seen thy ways, and will heal thee. I will lead thee, also, and restore
comforts to thee and to thy mourners. I create the fruit of the lips. I
give men cause to thank me, and delight in giving. Peace, peace to him
that is near, and to him that is far off, saith the Lord. If thou art
near me, thou art safe; for if I were to take all else from thee, I
should not take myself from thee. Though thou walkest through the valley
of the shadow of death, I will be with thee. And if thou art far off
from me, wandering in folly and sin, I cry peace to thee still. Why
should I wish to be at war with any of my creatures? saith the Lord. My
will is, that thou shouldst be at peace. I am at peace myself, and I
wish to make all my creatures at peace also, and thee among the rest. I
am whole and perfect myself, and I wish to heal all my creatures, and
make them whole and perfect also, and thee among the rest.
‘But the wicked? Ay, this is their very misery, that there is no peace
to them. I want them to enter into my peace, and they will not. I am at
peace with them, saith the Lord. I owe them no grudge, poor wretches.
But they will not be at peace with themselves. They are like the
troubled sea, which casts up mire and dirt, and fouls itself. I cast up
no mire nor dirt. I foul nothing. I tempt no man. I, the good God,
create no evil. If the troubled sea fouls itself, so do the wicked make
themselves miserable, and punish themselves by their own lusts, which war
in their members. But they cannot alter _me_, saith the Lord; they
cannot change my temper, my character, my everlasting name. I am that I
am, who inhabit eternity; and no creature, and no creature’s sin, can
make me other than I am.
And what is that? What is the name, what is the character, what is the
temper of him who inhabits eternity? Look on the cross, and see.
The cross, at least, will tell you what kind of a God your God is. A
good God; a God of love; a God of boundless forbearance and
long-suffering. Good God! The folly and madness of men’s hearts, who
look on God dying on the cross for them, and begin forthwith puzzling
their brains as to _how_ he died for them; how Christ’s blood washes away
their sins; how it is applied, and to whom; puzzling their brains with
theories of the atonement, and with predestination, and satisfaction, and
forensic justification, and particular redemption, and long words which
(four out of five of them) are not in the Bible, but are spun out of
men’s own minds, as spiders’ webs are from spiders—and, like them, mostly
fit to hamper poor harmless flies.
How Christ’s death takes away thy sins, thou wilt never know on
earth—perhaps not in heaven. It is a mystery which thou must believe and
adore. But why he died, thou canst see at the first glance—if thou hast
a human heart, and wilt look at what God means thee to look at—Christ
upon his cross. He died because he was _love_—love itself—love
boundless, unconquerable, unchangeable—love which inhabits eternity, and
therefore could not be hardened or foiled by any sin or rebellion of man,
but must love men still; must go out to seek and save them; must dare,
suffer any misery, shame, death itself, for their sake; just because it
is absolute and perfect love, which inhabits eternity.
Look at that—look at the sight of God’s character, which the cross gives
thee; and then, instead of being terrified at God’s will and decree being
unchangeable and eternal, it will be the greatest possible comfort to
thee that God’s will is unchangeable and eternal, because thou wilt see
from the cross that it is a _good_ will—a will of mercy, forbearance,
long-suffering towards thee and all mankind, eternal in the heavens as
God himself.
Then let those be afraid who are not afraid; and let those who are
afraid, take heart. Let those who think they stand, take heed lest they
fall. Let those who think they see, take care that they be not blind.
Let those be afraid who fancy themselves right and above all mistakes,
lest they should be full of ugly sins when they fancy themselves most
religious and devout. Let those be afraid who are fond of advising
others, lest they should be in more need of their own medicine than their
patients are. Let those fear who pride themselves on their cunning, lest
with all their cunning they only lead themselves into their own trap.
But those who are afraid, let them take heart. For what says the high
and holy One, who inhabits eternity? ‘I dwell with him that is of a
humble and contrite heart, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to
revive the heart of the contrite ones.’
Let them take heart. Do you feel that you have lost your way in life?
Then God himself will show you your way. Are you utterly helpless, worn
out, body and soul? Then God’s eternal love is ready and willing to help
you up, and revive you. Are you wearied with doubts and terrors? Then
God’s eternal light is ready to show you your way; God’s eternal peace
ready to give you peace. Do you feel yourself full of sins and faults?
Then take heart; for God’s unchangeable will is, to take away those sins
and purge you from those faults.
Are you tormented as Job was, over and above all your sorrows, by
mistaken kindness, and comforters in whom is no comfort; who break the
bruised reed and quench the smoking flax; who tell you that you must be
wicked, and God must be angry with you, or all this would not have come
upon you? Job’s comforters did so, and spoke very righteous-sounding
words, and took great pains to justify God and to break poor Job’s heart,
and made him say many wild and foolish words in answer, for which he was
sorry afterwards; but after all, the Lord’s answer was, ‘My wrath is
kindled against you three, for you have not spoken of me the thing which
was right, as my servant Job hath. Therefore my servant Job shall pray
for you, for him will I accept;’ as he will accept every humble and
contrite soul who clings, amid all its doubts, and fears, and sorrows, to
the faith that God is just and not unjust, merciful and not cruel,
condescending and not proud—that his will is a good will, and not a bad
will—that he hateth nothing that he hath made, and willeth the death of
no man; and in that faith casts itself down like Job, in dust and ashes
before the majesty of God, content not to understand his ways and its own
sorrows; but simply submitting itself and resigning itself to the good
will of that God who so loved the world that he spared not his only
begotten Son, but freely gave him for us.
FOOTNOTES
{75} Compare Rom. iii. 23 with I Cor. xi. 7. Let me entreat all young
students to consider carefully and honestly the radical meaning of the
words αμαρτια and αμαρτανειν. It will explain to them many seemingly
dark passages of St. Paul, and perhaps deliver them from more than one
really dark superstition.
{151} I do not quote the Crishna Legends, because they seem to be of
post-Christian date; and also worthless from the notion of a real human
babe being utterly lost in the ascription to Crishna of unlimited magical
powers.
{162} See, as a counterpart to every detail of Joel’s, the admirable
description of locust-swarms in Kohl’s _Russia_.
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