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Title: The Good News of God
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<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p>
<p>Transcribed from the 1887 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price,
email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h1>THE GOOD NEWS OF GOD</h1>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON I. THE BEATIFIC VISION</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>MATTHEW xxii. 27.</p>
<p>Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all
thy soul, and with all thy mind.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But why?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Did it ever strike you, that goodness is not merely <i>a</i> beautiful
thing, but THE beautiful thing - by far the most beautiful thing in
the world; and that badness is not merely <i>an</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But did it never strike you besides, that goodness was one, and everlasting?
Let me explain what I mean.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON II. THE GLORY OF THE CROSS</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>JOHN xvii. 1.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>And what shall we see upon the cross?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>This, my friends, is the glory of God: but this glory never shone
out in its full splendour till it shone upon the cross.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON III. THE LIFE OF GOD</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>1 JOHN i. 2.</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>What do we mean, when we speak of the Life everlasting?</p>
<p>Do we mean that men’s souls are immortal, and will live for
ever after death, either in happiness or misery?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>And why? For this simple reason, that the old heathen knew
as much as that before Christ came.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>So those words ‘everlasting Life’ must needs mean something
more than that. What do they mean?</p>
<p>First. What does everlasting mean?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But here come two puzzles.</p>
<p>First. The Athanasian Creed says that there is but one Eternal,
that is, God; and never were truer words written.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>What sort of life, then, is everlasting life?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Therefore St. James says, ‘Thou hast faith, and I have works.
Shew me thy faith <i>without</i> thy works,’ (and who can do that?)
‘and I will shew thee my faith by my works.’</p>
<p>And St. John says, there is no use <i>saying</i> 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 <i>doeth</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>What I have just said will help you, I think, to understand another
royal text about eternal life.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>not</i>
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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>him</i>
- of God our Father himself, that is enough for us.</p>
<p>And what shall we ask?</p>
<p>Ask - ‘Father, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.’</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>Yes - when we ask God to make us do his will, then indeed we ask
for everlasting life.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON IV. THE SONG OF THE THREE CHILDREN</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>DANIEL iii. 16, 17, 18.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<p>‘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 <i>them</i>,
we will bid them to worship <i>him</i>.’</p>
<p>Now let us spend a few minutes in looking into this hymn, and seeing
what it teaches us.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Do you not understand what I mean? Then think of this:-</p>
<p>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?’</p>
<p>We should not dare; and for two reasons.</p>
<p>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 <i>not</i> 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.</p>
<p>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?’</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>But how can this be? How can not only dumb things, but even
dead things, praise God?</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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 <i>must</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON V. THE ETERNAL GOODNESS</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>MATTHEW xxii. 39.</p>
<p>Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.</p>
<p>Why are wrong things wrong? Why, for instance, is it wrong
to steal?</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>For instance, suppose that God had not forbidden us to steal, would
it be right then to steal, or at least, not wrong?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>For what do we mean when we talk of right, righteousness, goodness?</p>
<p>Many answers have been given to that question.</p>
<p>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 <i>Love</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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 <i>will</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>I say, its own reward.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON VI. WORSHIP</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>ISAIAH i. 12, 13.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>For whom does this text speak of?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>What does Isaiah, then, tell the religious Jews of his day?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>When this you see, pray judge not me<br /> For sin
enough I own.<br />Judge yourselves; mend your lives;<br /> Leave
other folks alone.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>They ought to set him on thinking - Why do I come to church?</p>
<p>Because it is the fashion?</p>
<p>Because I want to hear the preacher?</p>
<p>No - to worship God.</p>
<p>But what is worshipping God?</p>
<p>That must depend entirely my friends, upon who God is.</p>
<p>As I often tell you, most questions - ay, if you will receive it,
all questions - depend upon this one root question, who is God?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>For if God be good, worshipping him must mean praising and admiring
him - adoring him, as we call it - for being good.</p>
<p>And nothing more?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON VII. GOD’S INHERITANCE</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>GAL. iv. 6, 7.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>This is the second good news of Christmas-day.</p>
<p>The first is, that the Son of God became man.</p>
<p>The second is, why he became man. That men might become the
sons of God through him.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>God alone made us His children; God alone can make us behave like
his children.</p>
<p>And therefore St. Paul says, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into
our hearts: by which we cry to God, Our Father.</p>
<p>But some will say, Have we that Spirit?</p>
<p>St. Paul says that you have: and surely he speaks truth.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Son</i>, in all things a lovely, noble, holy
spirit.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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!’</p>
<p>‘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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>And so will come true to us St. Paul’s great words: - If we
be sons, then heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ.</p>
<p>Heirs of God: but what is our inheritance? The same as Christ’s.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON VIII. ‘DE PROFUNDIS’</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>PSALM cxxx. 1.</p>
<p>Out of the deep have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear
my voice.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>He</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>The reason firm, the temperate will,<br />Endurance, foresight, strength
and skill;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>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.</p>
<p>And how shall we learn this? How shall the bottomless pit,
if we fall into it, be but a pathway to the everlasting rock?</p>
<p>David tells us:</p>
<p>‘Out of the deep have I cried unto thee, O Lord.’</p>
<p>He cried to God.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>God took away from him all things, that he might have no one to cry
to but God.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON IX. THE LOVE OF GOD ITS OWN REWARD</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>DEUT. xxx. 19, 20.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Moses here tells the Israelites what will happen to them if they
keep God’s law.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>If they obeyed God, they would have reason to love him.</p>
<p>Now we commonly put this differently.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>For there are two sorts of faith; and one must always, I sometimes
think, come before the other.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>tasted</i> 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.’</p>
<p>And so, by remembering what God <i>has</i> 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.’</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>Oh my dear friends, young people especially - there are many things
which you may long for which you cannot have: much happiness which is
<i>not</i> within your reach. But <i>this</i> you can have, if
you will but long for it: this happiness <i>is</i> 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.’</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON X. THE RACE OF LIFE</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>JOHN i. 26.</p>
<p>There standeth one among you whom ye know not.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>And what are we to do?</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But how shall we make the proper use of our powers?</p>
<p>How shall we keep to our path in life?</p>
<p>How shall we do our duty faithfully?</p>
<p>In short, so as St. Paul puts it - How shall we run our race, so
as not to lose, but to win it?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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. <a name="citation75"></a><a href="#footnote75">{75}</a></p>
<p>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 -</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Sin will hinder you, by dragging you back.</p>
<p>Wickedness will hinder you, by putting you altogether out of the
right road.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>And why?</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But much more if there be not merely sin in us, but wickedness; self-will,
self-conceit, and rebellion.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But all in love, my friends; and all for the man’s good.
Does God <i>like</i> to punish his creatures? <i>like</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>And why?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Will you understand that, and believe that, once for all, my friends?
- That God is not <i>against</i> you, but <i>for</i> you, in the struggles
of life; that he <i>wants</i> you to get through safe; <i>wants</i>
you to succeed; <i>wants</i> you to win; and that therefore he will
help you, and hear your cry.</p>
<p>And therefore when you find yourselves wrong, utterly wrong, do not
cry to this man or that man, ‘Do <i>you</i> 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 <i>him</i> 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, <i>therefore</i> 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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XI. SELF-RESPECT AND SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>PSALM vii. 8.</p>
<p>Give sentence for me, O Lord, according to my righteousness; and
according to the innocency that is in me.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>For, my friends, with the Bible as with everything else, we must
hear both sides of the question, lest we understand neither side.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>This is one misuse of St. John’s doctrine. There is another
and a far worse misuse of it.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Then let us remember, that he who judges us <i>is the Lord.</i></p>
<p>Now is that a thought to be afraid of?</p>
<p>David did not think so, when he had done right. For he says,
in this Psalm, ‘Judge me, O Lord!’</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>That is bravely spoken, and worthy of an honest man, who wishes above
all things to be right, whatsoever it may cost him.</p>
<p>But how did David get courage to ask that?</p>
<p>By knowing God, and who God was.</p>
<p>For this, my friends, is the key to the whole matter - as it is to
all matters - Who is God?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But if you will believe that God is good, and not evil; if you will
believe that the heavenly Father is indeed <i>your</i> 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>its</i> 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 <i>not</i> 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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XII. TRUE REPENTANCE</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>EZEKIEL xviii. 27.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>What, then, does repentance mean?</p>
<p>‘Being sorry for what we have done wrong,’ say some.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But of true repentance, it is written, that he who repents shall
save his soul <i>alive</i>. And how?</p>
<p>The word for repentance in Scripture means simply a change of mind.
To change one’s mind is, in Scripture words, to repent.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
be 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
<i>gate</i> 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>that</i> 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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>repentance</i>.
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 <i>keep</i> 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 <i>feel</i> 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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>God, I say, will judge righteous judgment, and take us as we are.</p>
<p>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 <i>not</i>
give up his sins, the dark score <i>does</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XIII. THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>(<i>Twelfth Sunday after Trinity</i>.)</p>
<p>II COR. iii. 6.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>not</i> extreme to mark what is done amiss;
for if he were, who could abide it?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>The Father.</i></p>
<p>But this leads us to the Epistle.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But some may ask, ‘What life?’</p>
<p>The Gospel answers that, and says, ‘All life.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>Do you not see yet, my friends? Then I will tell you.</p>
<p>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 <i>must</i> do this,
you <i>must</i> feel that, you <i>must</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>For such preaching as that does kill.</p>
<p>It kills three things.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>But I will tell you how I can be an able minister of the New Testament,
and of the Spirit who gives life.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>This all-good heavenly Father I preach to you, and I say to you,
Trust <i>him.</i></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>This all-good Spirit of life I preach to you; and I say to you, Trust
<i>him.</i></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>This all-good Son of God I preach to you, and I say to you, Trust
<i>him</i>, 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.</p>
<p>Oh! when will people understand that - that God has not made laws
out of any arbitrariness, but for our good? - That his commandments
are <i>Life</i>? 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>grace</i>, 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.’</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XIV. HEROES AND HEROINES<br />(<i>Whitsunday</i>.)</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>PSALM xxxii. 8.</p>
<p>I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go:
I will guide thee with mine eye.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But God fulfilled this promise utterly and completely on the first
Whitsuntide, when the Holy Spirit came down on the apostles.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>We get what the apostles got, and neither more nor less; though not
in the same shape as they did.</p>
<p>God called them to do a work: God calls us, each of us, to do some
work.</p>
<p>God gave them the Holy Spirit to make them able to do their work.
God gives <i>us</i> the Holy Spirit, to make us able to do <i>our</i>
work, whatsoever that may be.</p>
<p>As their day, so their strength was: as our day is, so our strength
shall be.</p>
<p>For instance. -</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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>I</i> have no strength to stand in the evil day.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>A time will come to that man, when, finding no help in himself, no
help in man, he will go for help to God.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>And again they are right, too; more right than they think in calling
that man a hero, or that woman a heroine.</p>
<p>For what is the old meaning, the true meaning of a hero or a heroine?</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
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<h2>SERMON XV. THE MEASURE OF THE CROSS</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>EPHESIANS iii. 18, 19.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Now of what is the cross a token?</p>
<p>Of the love of Christ, which is the love of God.</p>
<p>But of what kind of love?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>And that is the breadth of Christ’s cross.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>And that is the height of the cross of Christ.</p>
<p>And how deep is the cross of Christ?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>that</i> is the
depth of the cross of Christ.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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 -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Nothing in my hand I bring,<br />Simply to the cross I cling -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>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.’</p>
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<h2>SERMON XVI. THE PURE IN HEART</h2>
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<p>TITUS i. 15.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>And that is, simply, self.</p>
<p>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 <i>you</i> want, what <i>you</i>
like, what respect people ought to pay <i>you</i>, what people think
of <i>you</i>: 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
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<h2>SERMON XVII. MUSIC<br />(<i>Christmas Day</i>.)</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>LUKE ii. 13, 14.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>right</i>, which always is, and
always will be, the most beautiful thing) is singing.</p>
<p>Now, why do we all enjoy music? Because it sounds sweet.
But <i>why</i> does it sound sweet?</p>
<p>That is a mystery known only to God.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>In this is a great mystery. I will try to explain what little
of it I seem to see.</p>
<p>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
<i>music</i>; 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>What though no human voice or sound<br />Amid their radiant orbs
be found?<br />To Reason’s ear they all rejoice,<br />And utter
forth a glorious voice;<br />For ever singing as they shine,<br />The
hand that made us is divine.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XVIII. THE CHRIST CHILD<br />(<i>Christmas Day</i>.)</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>LUKE ii. 7.</p>
<p>And she brought forth her first-born Son, and wrapt him in swaddling
clothes, and laid him in a manger.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>‘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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>And that was not a false fancy either. St. John saw the Lord
so.</p>
<p>‘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.’</p>
<p>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 <i>whole</i>
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. <a name="citation151"></a><a href="#footnote151">{151}</a></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>all</i> 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.’</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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, <i>your</i> Lord, <i>your</i> pattern, <i>your</i> 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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XIX. CHRIST’S BOYHOOD</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>LUKE ii. 52.</p>
<p>And Jesus increased in wisdom, and in stature, and in favour both
with God and man.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Now it is not so easy to believe that as it may seem. It is
not so easy to believe.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>It tells us that Jesus grew just as a human child grows, in body,
soul, and spirit.</p>
<p>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 <i>went</i>
back with them, it is expressly said, and was subject to them.</p>
<p>Now, I do not pretend to explain <i>why</i> our Lord stayed behind
in the temple.</p>
<p>I cannot explain (who can?) the why and wherefore of what I see people
do in common daily life.</p>
<p>How much less can one explain why our Lord did this and that, who
was both man and God.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>he</i> 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 <i>man</i>, 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.</p>
<p>Therefore - and do listen to this, children and young people - if
you wish really to think what Christ has to do with <i>you</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>And then, if trouble, or sickness, or death come among you - and
you all know how sickness and death <i>have</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XX. THE LOCUST-SWARMS</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>JOEL ii. 12, 13.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>I think I can explain what it means best by going back to the chapter
before it.</p>
<p>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; <a name="citation162"></a><a href="#footnote162">{162}</a>
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.</p>
<p>But what has all this to do with us? There have never, as far
as we know, been any locusts in England.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>How, then, was Joel right in saying that God sent the locusts?</p>
<p>In this way, my friends.</p>
<p>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 <i>me</i>. 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: <i>and that
he can only do by teaching us more about himself.</i></p>
<p>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 <i>the Lord</i>; 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Or, Ammon, the Lord of the sheep, is angry, and he has destroyed
your flocks and herds.</p>
<p>But one thing we know he would have said - These angry gods want
<i>blood</i>. 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.</p>
<p>We <i>know</i> this. We know that the heathen, whenever they
were in trouble, took to human sacrifices.</p>
<p>The Canaanites - and the Jews when they fell into idolatry - used
to burn their children in the fire to Moloch.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
-</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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. <i>And that thou canst only make them by teaching them more
about thyself</i>.’</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XXI. SALVATION</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>ISAIAH lix. 15, 16.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>We may learn from it what ‘salvation’ really is.
What Christ came to save men from, and how he saves them.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>For Isaiah tells us very plainly, from <i>what</i> God was going
to save these Jews. Not from hell-fire - nothing is said about
it: but simply from their <i>sins</i>. As it is written, ‘Thou
shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from <i>their
sins</i>.’</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But his purpose is, to <i>save</i> - 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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? <i>Then</i> 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.</p>
<p>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. -</p>
<p>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. -</p>
<p>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:<i>- if we will.</i></p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XXII. THE BEGINNING AND END OF WISDOM</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>PROVERBS ii. 2, 3, 5.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>begin</i> by fearing God.
But this chapter says, that the fear of the Lord is the <i>end</i> of
wisdom too; for it says, that if we seek earnestly after knowledge and
understanding, <i>then</i> we shall understand the fear of the Lord,
and find the knowledge of God.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>How can that be?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>How can all this be?</p>
<p>Let us consider the words once again.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>If you do not always know the reason at first, you will know it in
due time, and get, so Solomon says, to <i>understand</i> 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
<i>know</i> 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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>And if a man has that he may be a very wise man indeed, though he
can neither read nor write.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>this</i> life, as well
as of that which is to come.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XXIII. HUMAN NATURE<br />(<i>Septuagesima Sunday</i>.)</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>GENESIS i. 27.</p>
<p>So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created
he him; male and female created he them.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>And why?</p>
<p>To prepare us, I think, for Lent, and Passion week, Good Friday,
and Easter day.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Now what does supernatural mean?</p>
<p>It means ‘above nature.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>That is a great mystery and a great glory: but that alone could not
make man good, could not even keep him alive.</p>
<p>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 <i>likes</i>; namely, to do what he <i>ought</i>. 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XXIV. THE CHARITY OF GOD</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>(<i>Quinquagesima Sunday</i>.)</p>
<p>LUKE xviii. 31, 32, 33.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>Let me try to show you.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>cannot</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>so</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XXV. THE DAYS OF THE WEEK</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>JAMES i. 17.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Why, then, did they worship these gods?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>men</i>, 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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But what was there about this new God, even the true God, which the
old missionaries preached, which won the hearts of our forefathers?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
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<h2>SERMON XXVI. THE HEAVENLY FATHER</h2>
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<p>ACTS xvi. 24-28.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>One</i>.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>‘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.’</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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 <i>a man</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
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<h2>SERMON XXVII. THE GOOD SHEPHERD</h2>
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<p>JOHN x. 11.</p>
<p>I am the good shepherd.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>I am the good shepherd, he says. And then he adds, The good
shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But there is, if possible, better news still behind - ‘I am
the good shepherd; and know my sheep, and am known of mine.’</p>
<p>‘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 <i>who</i> my sheep are; but I know
<i>what</i> 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.’</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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 <i>about</i> Christ? You may know <i>about</i> 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?</p>
<p>Alas! my friends, what a poor answer we can make to that question?
How little do we know Christ?</p>
<p>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?’</p>
<p>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.</p>
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<h2>SERMON XXVIII. DARK TIMES</h2>
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<p>1 JOHN iv. 16-18.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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 <i>real</i> 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.’ -</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>‘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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?’</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XXIX. GOD’S CREATION</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>GENESIS i. 31.</p>
<p>And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But it is not so easy to believe. We want faith to believe;
and that faith will be sometimes sorely tried.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>No one can prove to us that God made the world; yet we must believe
it; and what is more, we <i>do</i> believe it, and are certain of it.
But all the proving and arguments in the world will not make us <i>certain</i>
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 <i>certain</i>
that God made the world? - as certain as if we had seen him make it?
<i>Faith</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>1. Either it is <i>not</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>For surely this is a great puzzle.</p>
<p>‘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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?’</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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?’</p>
<p>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 <i>not</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XXX. TRUE PRUDENCE</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>MATTHEW vi. 34.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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 <i>not</i>
going to be damned, simply because the devil says it, and therefore
it <i>cannot</i> 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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>‘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 <i>not</i>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
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<h2>SERMON XXXI. THE PENITENT THIEF</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>LUKE xxiii. 42, 43.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>must</i>
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 <i>was</i> justified by his works. He <i>did</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XXXII. THE TEMPER OF CHRIST</h2>
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<p>PHILIPPIANS ii. 4.</p>
<p>Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>‘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.’</p>
<p>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 <i>how</i> the good is to be
done, provided <i>it is</i> 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?’</p>
<p>And Jesus said, ‘Forbid him <i>not</i>.’</p>
<p>‘Forbid him not,’ said Jesus himself. He that hath
ears to hear his Saviour’s words, let him hear.</p>
<p>‘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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>‘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 <i>humbly</i> (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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>For this, my friends, is the very likeness of Christ, who pleased
not himself; the very likeness of Christ, who sacrificed himself.</p>
<p>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 <i>as</i> he loved himself (which is
all God asks of us), Christ loved his enemies better than himself, and
died for them.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>‘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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>head</i> 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 <i>do</i>
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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XXXIII. THE FRIEND OF SINNERS</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>(<i>Preached in London</i>.)</p>
<p>MARK ii. 15, 16.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>Yes; they would have said this; for people like them will say it
too often now, here in Christian England.</p>
<p>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 <i>self-respect</i> 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?</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>My friends, let us try to follow his steps; let us remember all day
long what it is to be <i>men</i>; 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 <i>not</i>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XXXIV. THE SEA OF GLASS</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>(<i>Trinity Sunday</i>.)</p>
<p>REVELATION iv. 9, 10, 11.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<i>us</i> make man in <i>our</i> image;’ not, Let me make man
in my image; but, Let <i>us</i>, in <i>our</i> 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.’</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?’</p>
<p>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 <i>do</i>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>he</i> 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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But where is the Holy Spirit? There is no <i>where</i> 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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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</p>
<p>‘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.’</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XXXV. A GOD IN PAIN</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>(<i>Good Friday</i>.)</p>
<p>HEBREWS ii. 9, 50.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>loved</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>Now it is just that feeling which mankind had about God till Christ
died.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>And as there was no love to God before Good Friday, so there was
no love to men.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>And, therefore, all <i>charity</i> is rightly called <i>Christian</i>
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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SERMON XXXVI. ON THE FALL</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>(<i>Sexagesima Sunday</i>.)</p>
<p>GENESIS iii. 12.</p>
<p>And the man said, The woman, whom thou gavest to be with me, she
gave me of the tree, and I did eat.</p>
<p>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 <i>natural</i> 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.’</p>
<p>Now, let us see how Adam fell, and what he did when he fell.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>not</i> 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.</p>
<p>But pride and self-will rose up in Adam’s heart. He wanted
to show that he <i>did</i> 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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>Have we not said in our heart, Why should my father grudge me that
nice thing when he takes it himself?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>And then?</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>blessings</i>
of this life, and learn from them precious lessons; able to thank God
for all the <i>sorrows</i> 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.</p>
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<h2>SERMON XXXVII. THE WORTHY COMMUNICANT</h2>
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<p>LUKE xviii. 14.</p>
<p>I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than
the other.</p>
<p>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 <i>refused</i>
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.</p>
<p>‘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.</p>
<p>‘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?’</p>
<p>This is what the Pharisee would have said. Is this man fit
to come to the Communion? At least he himself thinks so.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
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<h2>SERMON XXXVIII. OUR DESERTS</h2>
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<p>LUKE vi. 36-38.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>deserves</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?’</p>
<p>Yes. I will not go on giving fresh instances. The world
is but too full of them.</p>
<p>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 <i>more</i> 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!’</p>
<p>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 <i>deserts</i> in the life to come, and by forgiving,
and helping, and blessing others, <i>deserve</i> 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.</p>
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<h2>SERMON XXXIX. THE LOFTINESS OF GOD</h2>
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<p>ISAIAH lvii. 15.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>But what does the text tell us?</p>
<p>Of a high and lofty One, who inhabits eternity.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>How, then, shall we think of this lofty, holy, unchangeable God -
we who are low, unholy, changing with every wind that blows?</p>
<p>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?’</p>
<p>‘He is eternal, and cannot change his will; and, therefore,
if he wills us to perish, perish we must.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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>I</i> have a plan for
delivering you out of God’s hands; <i>I</i> know what you must
do to be saved from God - join <i>my</i> sect or party, and believe
and work with me, and then you will escape God.’</p>
<p>But, after all, would it not be wiser, my friends, to hold your own
tongues, and let God himself speak?</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>And what does he say?</p>
<p>‘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.’</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>‘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.</p>
<p>‘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 <i>me</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>how</i> 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.</p>
<p>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
<i>love</i> - 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>good</i> will -
a will of mercy, forbearance, long-suffering towards thee and all mankind,
eternal in the heavens as God himself.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Footnotes:</p>
<p><a name="footnote75"></a><a href="#citation75">{75}</a> 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.</p>
<p><a name="footnote151"></a><a href="#citation151">{151}</a>
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.</p>
<p><a name="footnote162"></a><a href="#citation162">{162}</a>
See, as a counterpart to every detail of Joel’s, the admirable
description of locust-swarms in Kohl’s <i>Russia</i>.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE GOOD NEWS OF GOD ***</p>
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