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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sermons on National Subjects, by Charles Kingsley

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Title: Sermons on National Subjects

Author: Charles Kingsley

Release Date: June, 2005  [EBook #8202]
[This file was first posted on July 1, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SERMONS ON NATIONAL SUBJECTS ***





Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk




SERMONS ON NATIONAL SUBJECTS




I--THE KING OF THE EARTH



FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT.
[Preached in 1849.]

Behold, thy King cometh unto thee.--MATTHEW xxi. 4.

This Sunday is the first of the four Sundays in Advent.  During those
four Sundays, our forefathers have advised us to think seriously of
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ--not that we should neglect to
think of it at all times.  As some of you know, I have preached to
you about it often lately.  Perhaps before the end of Advent you will
all of you, more or less, understand what all that I have said about
the cholera, and public distress, and the sins of this nation, and
the sins of the labouring people has to do with the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ.  But I intend, especially in my next four sermons,
to speak my whole mind to you about this matter as far as God has
shown it to me; taking the Collect, Epistle, and Gospels, for each
Sunday in Advent, and explaining them.  I am sure I cannot do better;
for the more I see of those Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, and the
way in which they are arranged, the more I am astonished and
delighted at the wisdom with which they are chosen, the wise order in
which they follow each other, and fit into each other.  It is very
fit, too, that we should think of our Lord's coming at this season of
the year above all others; because it is the hardest season--the
season of most want, and misery, and discontent, when wages are low,
and work is scarce, and fuel is dear, and frosts are bitter, and
farmers and tradesmen, and gentlemen, too, are at their wits' end to
square their accounts, and pay their way.  Then is the time that the
evils of society come home to us--that our sins, and our sorrows,
which, after all, are the punishment of our sins, stare us in the
face.  Then is the time, if ever, for men's hearts to cry out for a
Saviour, who will deliver them out of their miseries and their sins;
for a Heavenly King who will rule them in righteousness, and do
justice and judgment on the earth, and see that those who are in need
and necessity have right; for a Heavenly Counsellor who will guide
them into all truth--who will teach them what they are, and whither
they are going, and what the Lord requires of them.  I say the hard
days of winter are a fit time to turn men's hearts to Christ their
King--the fittest of all times for a clergyman to get up in his
pulpit, as I do now, and tell his people, as I tell you, that Jesus
Christ your King has not forgotten you--that He is coming speedily to
judge the world, and execute justice and judgment for the meek of the
earth.

Now do not be in a hurry, and fancy from what I have just said, that
I am one of those who think the end of the world is at hand.  It may
be, for aught I know.  "Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, not
even the angels of God, nor the Son, but the Father only."  If you
wish for my own opinion, I believe that what people commonly call the
end of the world, that is, the end of the earth and of mankind on it,
is not at hand at all.  As far as I can judge from Scripture, and
from the history of all nations, the earth is yet young, and mankind
in its infancy.  Five thousand years hence, our descendants may be
looking back on us as foolish barbarians, in comparison with what
they know:  just as we look back upon the ignorance of people a
thousand years ago.  And yet I believe that the end of this world, in
the real Scripture sense of the word "world," is coming very quickly
and very truly--The end of this system of society, of these present
ways in religion, and money-making, and conducting ourselves in all
the affairs of life, which we English people have got into nowadays.
The end of it is coming.  It cannot last much longer; for it is
destroying itself.  It will not last much longer; for Christ and not
the devil is the King of the earth.  As St. Paul said to his people,
so say I to you, "The night is far spent, the day is at hand."

These may seem strange words, but almost every one is saying them, in
his own way.  One large party among religious people in these days is
complaining that Christ has left His Church, and that the cause of
Christianity will be ruined and lost, unless some great change takes
place.  Another large party of religious people say, that the
prophecies are on the point of being all fulfilled that the 1260
days, spoken of by the prophet Daniel, are just coining to an end;
and that Christ is coming with His saints, to reign openly upon earth
for a thousand years.  The wisest philosophers and historians of late
years have been all foretelling a great and tremendous change in
England, and throughout all Europe; and in the meantime,
manufacturers and landlords, tradesmen and farmers, artisans and
labourers, all say, that there MUST be a change and will be a change.
I believe they are all right, every one of them.  They put it in
their words; I think it better to put it in the Scripture words, and
say boldly, "Jesus Christ, the King of the earth, is coming."

But you will ask, "What right have you to stand up and say anything
so surprising?"  My friends, the world is full of surprising things,
and this age above all ages.  It was not sixty years ago, that a
nobleman was laughed at in the House of Lords for saying that he
believed that we should one day see ships go by steam; and now there
are steamers on every sea and ocean in the world.  Who expected
twenty years ago to see the whole face of England covered with these
wonderful railroads?  Who expected on the 22nd of February last year,
that, within a single month, half the nations of Europe, which looked
so quiet and secure, would be shaken from top to bottom with
revolution and bloodshed--kings and princes vanishing one after the
other like a dream--poor men sitting for a day as rulers of kingdoms,
and then hurled down again to make room for other rulers as
unexpected as themselves?  Can anyone consider the last fifty years?--
can anyone consider that one last year, 1848, and then not feel that
we do live in a most strange and awful time? a time for which nothing
is too surprising--a time in which we all ought to be prepared, from
the least to the greatest, to see the greatest horrors and the
greatest blessings come suddenly upon us, like a thief in the night?
So much for Christ's coming being too wonderful a thing to happen
just now.  Still you are right to ask:  "What do you mean by Christ's
being our King? what do you mean by His coming to us?  What reason
have you for supposing that He is coming NOW, rather than at any
other time?  And if He be coming, what are we to do?  What is there
we ought to repent of? what is there we ought to amend?"

Well, my friends--it is just these very questions which I hope and
trust God will help me to answer to you, in my next few sermons--I am
perfectly convinced that we must get them answered and act upon them
speedily.  I am perfectly convinced that if we go on as most of us
are going in England now, the Lord of us all will come in an hour
when we are not aware, and cut us asunder in the deepest and most
real sense, as He came and cut asunder France, Germany, and Austria
only last year, and appoint us our portion with the unbelievers.  And
I believe that our punishment will be seven times as severe as that
of either France, Germany, or Austria, because we have had seven
times their privileges and blessings, seven times their Gospel light
and Christian knowledge, seven times their freedom and justice in
laws and constitution; seven times their wealth, and prosperity, and
means of employing our population.  Much has been given to England,
and of her much will be required.  And if you could only see the
state of mankind over the greatest part of the globe, how infinitely
fewer opportunities they have of knowing God's will than you have,
you would feel that to you, poor and struggling as some of you are--
to you much has been given, and of you much will be required.

Now first, what do I mean by Christ being our king?  I daresay there
are some among you who are inclined to think that, when we talk of
Christ being a king, that the word king means something very
different from its common meaning--and, God knows, that that is true
enough.  Our blessed Lord took care to make people understand that--
how He was not like one of the kings of the nations, how His kingdom
was not of this world.  But yet the Bible tells us again and again
that all good kings, all real kings, are patterns of Christ; and,
therefore, that when we talk of Christ being a king, we mean that He
is a king in everything that a king ought to be; that He fulfils
perfectly all the duties of a king; that He is the pattern which all
kings ought to copy.  Kings have been in all ages too apt to forget
that, and, indeed, so have the people too.  We English have forgotten
most thoroughly in these days, that Christ is our king, or even a
king at all.  We talk of Christ being a "spiritual" king, and then we
say that that merely means that He is king of Christians' hearts.
And when anyone asks what that means, it comes out, that all we mean
is, that Christ has a very great influence over the hearts of
believing Christians--when He can obtain it; or else that it means
that He is king of a very small number of people called the elect,
whom He has chosen out, but that He has absolutely nothing to do with
the whole rest of the world.  And then, when anyone stands up with
the Bible in his hand, and says, in the plain words of Scripture:
"Christ is not only the king of believers, He is the king of the
whole earth; the king of the clouds and the thunder, the king of the
land and the cattle, and the trees, and the corn, and to whomsoever
He will He giveth them.  Christ is not only the king of believers--He
is the king of all--the king of the wicked, of the heathen, of those
who do not believe Him, who never heard of Him.  Christ is not only
the king of a few individual persons, one here and one there in every
parish, but He is the king of every nation.  He is the king of
England, by the grace of God, just as much as Queen Victoria is, and
ten thousand times more."  If any man talks in this way, people
stare--think him an enthusiast--ask him what new doctrine this is,
and call his words unscriptural, just because they come out of
Scripture and not out of men's perversions and twistings of
Scripture.  Nevertheless Christ is King; really and truly King of
Kings and Lord of Lords; and He will make men know it.  What He was,
that He is and ever will be; there is no change in Him; His kingdom
is an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion endureth throughout all
ages, and woe unto those, small or great, who rebel against Him!

But what sort of a king is He?  He is a king of law, and order, and
justice.  He is not selfish, fanciful, self-willed.  He said himself
that He came not to do His own will, but His Father's.  He is a king
of gentleness and meekness too:  but do not mistake that.  There is
no weak indulgence in Him.  A man may be very meek, and yet stern
enough and strong enough.  Moses was the meekest of men, we read, and
yet He made those who rebelled against him feel that he was not to be
trifled with.  Korah, Dathan, and Abiram found that to their cost.
He would not even spare his own brother Aaron, his own sister Miriam,
when they rebelled.  And he was right.  He showed his love by it;
indulgence is not love.  It is no sign of meekness, but only of
cowardice and carelessness, to be afraid to rebuke sin.  Moses knew
that he was doing God's work, that he was appointed to make a great
nation of those slavish besotted Jews, his countrymen; that he was
sent by God with boundless blessings to them; and woe to whoever
hindered him from that.  Because he loved the Jews, therefore he
dared punish those who tempted them to forget the promised land of
Canaan, or break God's covenant, in which lay all their hope.

And such a one is our King, my friends; Jesus Christ the Son of God.
Like Moses, says St. Paul, He is faithful in all His office.
Therefore He is severe as well as gentle.  He was so when on earth.
With the poor, the outcast, the neglected, those on whom men
trampled, who was gentler than the Lord Jesus?  To the proud
Pharisee, the canting Scribe, the cunning Herodian, who was sterner
than the Lord Jesus?  Read that awful 23rd chapter of St. Matthew,
and then see how the Saviour, the lamb dumb before His shearers, He
of whom it was said "He shall not strive nor cry, nor shall His voice
be heard in the streets"--how He could speak when He had occasion. .
. . "Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!"  "Ye serpents,
ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"

My friends, those were the words of our King; of Him in whom was
neither passion nor selfishness; who loved us even to the death, and
endured for us the scourge, the cross, the grave.  And believe me,
such are His words now; though we do not hear Him, the heaven and the
earth hear Him and obey Him.  His message is pardon, mercy,
deliverance to the sorrowful, and the oppressed, and the neglected;
and to the proud, the tyrannical, the self-righteous, the
hypocritical, tribulation and anguish, shame and woe.

Because He is the Saviour, therefore He is a consuming fire to all
those who try to hinder Him from saving men.  Because He is the Son
of God, He will sweep out of His Father's kingdom all who offend, and
whosoever maketh and loveth a lie.  Because He is boundless mercy and
love, therefore He will show no mercy to those who try to stop His
purposes of love.  Because He is the King of men, the enemies of
mankind are His enemies; and He will reign till He has put them all
under His feet.



II--HOLY SCRIPTURE



SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT.

Whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our
example, that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures,
might have hope.--ROMANS xv. 4.

"Whatsoever was written aforetime."  There is no doubt, I think, that
by these words St. Paul means the Bible; that is, the Old Testament,
which was the only part of the Bible already written in his time.
For it is of the Psalms which he is speaking.  He mentions a verse
out of the 69th Psalm, "The reproaches of Him that reproached thee
fell on me;" which, he says, applies to Christ just as much as it did
to David, who wrote it.  Christ, he says, pleased not Himself any
more than David, but suffered willingly and joyfully for God's sake,
because He knew that He was doing God's work.  And we, he goes on to
say, must do the same; do as Christ did; we must not please
ourselves, but every one of us please our brother for his good and
edification; that is, in order to build him up, strengthen him, make
him wiser, better, more comfortable.  For, he says, Christ pleased
not Himself, but like David, lived only to help others; and therefore
this verse out of David's Psalms, "The reproaches of them that
reproached thee fell on me," is a lesson to us; a pattern of what we
ought to feel, and do, and suffer.  "For whatsoever was written
aforetime," all these ancient psalms and prophets, and histories of
men and nations who trusted in God, "were written for our example,
that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have
hope."

Yes, my friends, this is true; and the longer you live a life of
faith and godliness, the longer you read and study that precious Book
of books which God has put so freely into your hands in these days,
the more true you will find it.  And if it was true of the Old
Testament, written before the Lord came down and dwelt among men, how
much more must it be true of the New Testament, which was written
after His coming by apostles and evangelists, who had far fuller
light and knowledge of the Lord than ever David or the old prophets,
even in their happiest moments, had.  Ah, what a treasure you have,
every one of you, in those Bibles of yours, which too many of you
read so little!  From the first chapter of Genesis to the last of
Revelations, it is all written for our example, all profitable for
teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly
furnished for all good works.  Ah! friends, friends, is not this the
reason why so many of you do not read your Bibles, that you do not
wish to be furnished for good works?--do not wish to be men of God,
godly and godlike men, but only to be men of the world, caring only
for money and pleasure?--some of you, alas! not wishing to be men and
women at all, but only a sort of brute beasts with clothes on, given
up to filth and folly, like the animals that perish, or rather worse
than the animals, for they could be no better if they tried, but you
might be.  Oh! what might you not be, what are you not already, if
you but knew it!  Members of Christ, children of God, heirs of the
kingdom of heaven, heirs of a hope undying, pure, that will never
fade away, having a right given you by the promise and oath of
Almighty God himself, to hope for yourselves, for your neighbours,
for this poor distracted world, for ever and ever; a right to believe
that there is an everlasting day of justice, and peace, and happiness
in store for the whole world, and that you, if you will, may have
your share in that glorious sunrise which shall never set again.  You
may have your share in it, each and every one of you; and if you ask
why, go to the Scriptures, and there read the promises of God, the
grounds of your just hope, for all heaven and earth.

First, of hope for yourselves.--I say first for yourselves, not
because a man is right in being selfish, and caring only for his own
soul, but because a man must care for his own soul first, if he ever
intends to care for others; a man must have hope for himself first,
if he is to have hope for others.  He may stop there, and turn his
religion into a selfish superstition, and spend his life in asking
all day long, "Shall I be saved, shall I be damned?" or worse still,
in chuckling over his own good fortune, and saying to himself, "I
shall be saved, whoever else is damned;" but whether he ends there or
not, he must begin there; begin by trying to get himself saved.  For
if he does not know what is right and good for himself, how can he
tell what is right and good for others?  If he wishes to bring his
neighbours out of their sins, he must surely first have been brought
out of his own sins, and so know what forgiveness and sanctification
means.  If he wishes to make others at peace with God, he must first
be at peace with God himself, to know what God's peace is.  If he
wants to teach others their duty, he must first know his own duty,
for all men's duty is one and the same.  If he wishes to have hope
for the world, he must first have hope for himself, for he is in the
world, a part of it, and he must learn what blessings God intends for
him, and they will teach him what blessings God has in store for the
earth.  Faith and hope, like charity, must begin at home.  By
learning the corruption of our own hearts, we learn the corruption of
human nature.  By learning what is the only medicine which can cure
our own sick hearts, we learn what is the only medicine which can
cure human nature.  We learn by our own experience, that God is all-
forgiving love; that His peace shines bright upon the soul which
casts itself utterly on Jesus Christ the Lord for pardon, strength,
and safety; that God's Spirit is ready and able to raise us out of
all our sin, and sottishness, and weakness, and wilfulness, and
selfishness, and renew us into quite new men, different characters
from what we used to be; and so, by having hope for ourselves, we
learn step by step and year by year to have hope for our friends, for
our neighbours, and for the whole world.

For that is another great lesson which the Bible teaches us--hope for
the world.  Men say to us, "This world has always gone on ill, and
will always go on so.  Tyrants and knaves and hypocrites have always
had the power in it; idlers have always had the enjoyment of it;
while the humble, and industrious, and godly, who would not foul
their hands with the wicked ways of the world, have been always
laughed at, neglected, oppressed, persecuted.  The world," they say,
"is very bad, and we cannot live in it without giving way a little to
its badness, and going the old road."

But he who, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, has hope,
can answer "Yes--and yet no."  "Yes--we agree that the world has gone
on badly enough:  perhaps we think the world worse than it thinks
itself; for God's Spirit has taught us to see sin, and shame, and
ruin, in many a thing which the world thinks right and reasonable.
And yet," says the true Christian man, "although we think the world
worse than anyone else thinks it, and are more unhappy than anyone
else about all the sin, and injustice, and misery we see in it, we
have the very strongest faith--we are perfectly certain--we are as
sure as if we saw it coming to pass here before us, that the world
will come right at last.  For the Bible tells us that the Son of God
is the king of the world; that He has been the master and ruler of it
from the beginning.  He, the Bible tells us, condescended to come
down on earth and be born in the likeness of a poor man, and die on
the cross for this poor world of His, that He might take away the
sins of it."  "Behold the Lamb of God," said John the Baptist, "who
takes away the sin of the world."  How dare we, who call ourselves
Christians, we who have been baptized into His name, we who have
tasted of His mercy, we who know the might of His love, the
converting and renewing power of His Spirit--how dare we doubt but
that He WILL take away the sins of the world?  Ay; step by step,
nation by nation, year by year, the Lord shall conquer; love, and
justice, and wisdom shall spread and grow; for He must reign till He
has put all enemies under His feet.  He has promised to take away the
sins of the world, and He is God, and cannot lie.  There is the
Christian's hope:  let him leave infidels to say "The world always
was bad, and it must remain so to the end;" the Christian ought to be
able to answer, "The world was bad, and is bad; but for that very
reason it will NOT remain so to the end:  for the Lord and king of
the earth is boundless love, justice, goodness itself, and He will
thoroughly purge His floor, and cast out of His kingdom all things
that offend, and make in His good time the kingdoms of this world,
the kingdoms of God and of His Christ."

"Ah but," someone may say, "that, if it ever happens at all, will not
happen till we are dead, and what part or lot shall WE have in it? we
who die in the midst of all this sin, and injustice, and distress?"
There again the Bible gives us hope:  "I believe," says the Creed,
"in the resurrection of the flesh."  The Bible teaches us to believe,
that we, each of us, as human beings, men and women, shall have a
share in that glorious day; not merely as ghosts, and disembodied
spirits--of which the Bible, thanks be to God, says little or
nothing, but as real live human beings, with new bodies of our own,
on a new earth, under a new heaven.  "Therefore," says David, "my
flesh shall rest in hope;" not merely my soul, my ghost, but my
flesh.  For the Lord, who not only died, but rose again with His
body, shall raise our bodies, according to the mighty working by
which He subdues all things to Himself; and then the whole manhood of
each of us, body, soul, and spirit, shall have one perfect
consummation and bliss, in His eternal and everlasting glory.--That
is our hope.  If that is not a gospel, and good news from heaven to
poor distressed creatures in hovels, and on sick beds, to people
racked with life-long pain and disease, to people in crowded cities,
who never from week's end to week's end look on the green fields and
bright sky--if that is not good news, and a dayspring of boundless
hope from on high for them, what news can be?

But how are we to get this hope?  The text tells us; through comfort
of the Scriptures; through the strengthening and comforting promises,
and examples, and rules of God's gracious dealings which we find
therein.  Through comfort of the Scriptures, but also through
patience.  Ah, my friends, of that too we must think; we must, as St.
James says, "let patience have her perfect work," or else we shall
not be perfect ourselves.  If we are hasty, self-conceited, covetous,
ready to help ourselves by the first means that come to hand; if we
are full of hard judgments about our neighbours, and doubts about
God's good purpose toward the world; in short, if we are not PATIENT,
the Bible will teach us little or nothing.  It may make us
superstitious, bigoted, fanatical, conceited, pharisaical, but like
Jesus Christ the Lord it will not make us, unless we have patience.

And where are we to get patience?  God knows it is hard in such a
world as this for poor creatures to be patient always.  But faith can
breed patience, though patience cannot breed itself;--and faith in
whom?  Faith in our Father in heaven, even in the Almighty God
Himself.  He calls Himself "the God of Patience and Consolation."
Pray for His Holy Spirit, and He will make you patient; pray for His
Holy Spirit, and He will console and comfort you.  He has promised
That Spirit of His, The Spirit of love, trust, and patience--The
Comforter--to as many as ask Him.  Ask Him now, this day--come to His
holy table this day, and ask Him to make you patient; ask Him to take
all the hastiness, and pride, and ill-temper, and self-will, and
greediness out of you, and to change your wills into the likeness of
His will.  Then your eyes will be opened to understand His law.  Then
you will see in the Scriptures a sure promise of hope and glory and
redemption for yourself and all the world.  Then you will see in the
blessed sacrament of the Lord's body and blood, a sure sign and
warrant, handed down from land to land, and age to age, from year to
year, and from father to son, that these promises shall come true;
that hope shall become fact; that not one of the Lord's words shall
fail, or pass away, till all be fulfilled.



III--THE KINGDOM OF GOD



THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to
preach good tidings to the meek; He has sent me to bind up the
broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening
of the prison to them that are bound.--ISAIAH lxi. 1.

My friends, I do entreat those of you who wish to get any real good
from this sermon, to listen to me carefully all through it.  Not that
I have to complain of you in general for not attending to me.  I
thank God, and thank you, that you do listen to what is said in this
pulpit.  But there are many people who have a bad trick of minding
the preacher carefully enough for a minute or two, and then letting
their wits wander, and think about something else; and then if any
word in the sermon strikes them, waking up suddenly, and thinking
again for a little, and then letting their thoughts run wild again;
and so on.  Whereby it happens that they only recollect a few scraps
of the sermon, a word here, and a sentence there, and get into their
heads all sorts of mistakes and false notions about the preacher's
meaning.

That is not right; that is not worthy of reasonable grown men:  that
is only pardonable in little scatter-brained children.  Men and women
should listen steadily, reverently throughout; so, and so only, will
they be able to judge of the message which the preacher brings them.
Listen to me, therefore, all through this sermon, and may God give
you grace to understand it and lay it to heart, for it is the good
news of the kingdom of God.

You recollect, I hope, that I have often told you, that the Lord
Jesus Christ's words would never pass away; that His prophecies are
continually coming true, and being fulfilled over and over again.
Now this text is not one of His prophecies, but it is a prophecy
about Him; one which He fulfilled, and which He has been fulfilling
again and again.  He is fulfilling it, as I believe, more than ever,
now in these very days.

If you will look at the 61st chapter of Isaiah, you will find this
prophecy; and you will find, too, what will surprise you at first,
that Isaiah was speaking of himself.  He says, "That the Spirit of
the Lord was upon HIM"--Isaiah--"because the Lord had appointed HIM
to preach good tidings to the meek, to bind up the broken-hearted,
and deliverance to the captives, to preach the acceptable year of the
Lord."  Isaiah must have spoken truly about himself.  He could not
have meant to tell a falsehood, to say a thing was true of himself
which was only true of Jesus, who did not come till 800 years
afterwards.  And he did speak the truth:  you cannot read his
prophecies without seeing that the Spirit of the Lord was indeed upon
him; that the words which he spoke must have comforted all those who
were sorrowing for their sins and the sins of the nation in their
time.  We know, for a fact, that his prophecies came true; that the
Jewish captives were delivered and brought back out of Judaea to
Jerusalem again, and that Jerusalem was rebuilt as Isaiah prophesied,
and the Jewish nation raised to far greater holiness, and prosperity,
and happiness than it had ever been in before.  And yet 800 years
afterwards the Lord took those very same words to Himself, and said,
that HE fulfilled them.  He read them aloud once in a Jewish
synagogue, out of the book of the prophet Isaiah; and then told the
congregation, "This day is the Scripture fulfilled in your ears."
And again, as we read in the Gospel for this day, when John the
Baptist sent to ask Him if He was really the Christ, He made use of
another prophecy of Isaiah, and told John's disciples that He WAS the
Christ, because He was fulfilling that prophecy; because He WAS
making the deaf hear, and the blind see, and preaching the gospel to
the poor.  Now, how is that?  Could Isaiah be right in applying those
words to himself, and yet Christ be right in applying them to
Himself?  Can a prophecy be fulfilled twice over?

No doubt it can, my friends, and two hundred times over.  No prophecy
of Scripture is of private interpretation, says St. Peter.  That is,
it does not apply to any one private, particular thing that is to
happen.  Every prophecy of Scripture goes on fulfilling itself more
and more, as time rolls on and the world grows older.  St. Peter
tells us the reason why.  No prophecy of Scripture is of private
interpretation; because it does not come from the will of man, from
any invention or discovery of poor short-sighted human beings, who
can only judge by what they see around them in their own times:  but
holy men of old spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.  And who
is the Holy Spirit?  The Spirit of God; the everlasting Spirit; the
Spirit who cannot change, for He IS God.  The Spirit who searcheth
the deep things of God, and teaches them to men.  And what are the
deep things of God?  They are eternal as God is.  Eternal laws;
everlasting rules which cannot alter.  That is the meaning of it all.
The Spirit of God is the Spirit which teaches men the laws of God;
the unchangeable rules and ordinances by which He governs all heaven
and earth, and men, and nations; the laws which come into force, not
once only, but always; the laws of God which are working round us
now, just as much as they were eighteen hundred years ago, just as
much as they were in Isaiah's time.  Therefore it is, that I said
that these old Jewish prophecies, which were inspired by the Holy
Spirit, are coming true now, and will keep on coming true, time after
time, in their proper place and order, and whensoever the times are
fit for them, even to the end of the world.

But again, we read that the Spirit of God takes of the things of
Christ, and shows them unto us.  And what are the things of Christ?
They must be eternal things, unchangeable things, for Christ is
unchangeable--Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
He is over all, God blessed for ever.  To Him all power is given in
heaven and earth.  He reigns, and He will reign.  Do you think He is
less a Saviour now, than He was when He spoke those things to John's
disciples?  Do you think He is less able to hear and to help than He
was in John's time?  Do you think He used to care about people's
bodies then, but that He only cares about their souls now?  Do you
think that He is less compassionate, and less merciful, as well as
less powerful, than He was when He made the blind see, and the lame
walk, and the deaf hear, in Judaea of old?

Less powerful! less compassionate!  One would have expected that
Christ was MORE powerful, MORE compassionate, if that were possible.
At least one would expect that His power and compassion would show
itself more and more, and make itself felt more and more, year by
year, and age by age; more and more healing disease; more and more
comforting sorrow; more and still more casting out cunning and evil
spirits, till He had put all under His feet.  He Himself said it
should be so.  He always spoke of His own kingdom as a thing which
was to grow and increase by laws of its own, men knew not how, but He
knew.  Like seed cast into the ground, His kingdom was, He said, at
first the smallest of all seeds; but it was to grow, and take root,
and spread into a mighty tree, He said, till the very birds in the
air lodged in the branches of it; and David's words should be
fulfilled, "Thou, Lord, shalt save both man and beast."  And does not
St. Paul speak of His kingdom in the same way, as a kingdom which
should grow? that He was to reign till He had put all enemies under
His feet? that He would deliver at last the whole creation? the earth
on which we stand, the dumb animals around us?  For, as St. Paul
says, the whole creation is groaning in labour-pangs, waiting to be
raised into a higher state.  And it shall be raised.  The whole
creation shall be set free into the glorious liberty of the children
of God.

What does that mean?  How can I tell you?

This I can tell you, that it cannot mean that Jesus Christ was
merciful enough to heal people's bodies at first, but that He has
given up doing it now, and will never do it again.  "Well, but," some
would say, "what does all this come to?  You are merely telling us
what we knew before--that if any of us are cured from disease, or
raised up from a sick bed, it is all the Lord's doing."  If you do
believe that, really, my friends, happy are you!  Many of you, I
think, do believe it.  The poor are more inclined to believe it, I
think, than the rich.  But even in the mouths of the poor one often
hears words which make one suspect that they do NOT believe it.  I am
very much afraid that a great many have got into the trick of saying
that it was God's mercy that they were cured, and that it pleased the
Lord to raise them up from a sick bed, very much as a piece of cant.
They say the words by rote, because they have been accustomed to hear
them said by others, without thinking of the meaning of them; just
as, on the other hand, a great many people curse and swear without
thinking of the awful oaths they use.  Ay, and often enough the very
same persons will say that it was the Lord's mercy they were cured of
their sickness; and then, if they get into a passion, pray the very
same Lord to do that to the bodies and souls of their neighbours
which it is a shame to speak of here.  Out of the same mouth proceed
blessings and cursings:  showing that whether or not they are in
earnest in cursing, they are not earnest in blessing.

Again:  If people really believed that it was the Lord Jesus Christ
who cured their sicknesses for them, they would behave, when they got
well, more as the Lord Jesus Christ would wish them to behave.  They
would show forth their thankfulness not only with their lips, but in
their lives.  You who believe--you who say--that Christ has cured
your sicknesses, show your faith by your works.  Live like those who
are alive again from the dead; who are not your own, but bought with
a price, and bound to work for God with your bodies and your spirits,
which are His--then, and then only, can either God or man believe
you.

Again:  There is a third reason which makes one suspect that people
do not mean what they say about this matter.  I think too many say,
"It has pleased God," merely as an empty form of words, when all they
mean is, "What must be, must, and it cannot be helped."  Else, why do
they say, "It has pleased the Lord to send me sickness?"  What is the
use of saying, "It has pleased the Lord to cure me," when you say in
the same breath, "It has pleased the Lord to make me ill?"  I know
you will say that, "Of course, whatever happens must be the Lord's
will; if it did not please Him it would not happen."  I do not care
for such words; I will have nothing to do with them.  I will neither
entangle you nor myself in those endless disputings and questions
about freewill and necessity, which never yet have come to any
conclusion, and never will, because they are too deep for poor short-
sighted human beings like us.  "To the law and to the testimony," say
I.  I will hold to the words of the Bible; what it says, I will say;
what it does not say I will not say, to please any man's system of
doctrines.  And I say from the Bible that we have no more right to
say, "It has pleased the Lord to make me sick," than, "It has pleased
the Lord to make me a sinner."  Scripture everywhere speaks of
sickness as a real evil and a curse--a breaking of the health, and
order, and strength, and harmony of God's creation.  It speaks of
madmen as possessed with evil spirits; did THAT please God?  The
woman who was bowed with a spirit of infirmity, and could not lift
herself up--did our Lord say that it had pleased God to make her a
wretched cripple?  No; he spoke of her as this daughter of Israel,
whom Satan had bound, and not God, this eighteen years; and that was
His reason for healing her, even on the sabbath-day, because her
disease was not the work of God, but of the cruel, disordering,
destroying evil spirit which is at enmity with God.  That was why
Christ cured her.  And THAT--for this is the point I have been coming
to, step by step--that was the reason why, when John the Baptist sent
to ask if Jesus was the Christ, our Lord answered:  "Go and show John
again those things which ye do see and hear:  the blind receive their
sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear,
the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to
them."

Do not be in a hurry, my friends, and suppose that our Lord meant
merely:  "Tell John what wonderful miracles I am working."  If He had
meant that why would He have put in as the last proof that He was the
Christ, that He was preaching the gospel to the poor?  What wonderful
miracle was there in THAT?  No:  it was as if He had said:  "Go and
tell John that I am the Christ, because I am the great physician, the
healer and deliverer of body and soul:  one who will and can cure the
loathsome diseases, the uselessness, the misery, the ignorance of the
poorest and meanest."  He has proved Himself the Christ by showing
not only His boundless power, but His boundless love and mercy; and
THAT, not only to men's souls, but to their bodies also.  To prove
Himself the Christ by wonderful and astonishing miracles was exactly
what He would not do.  He refused, when the Scribes and Pharisees
came and asked of Him a sign from heaven to prove that He was Christ--
wanting Him, I suppose, to bring some apparition, or fiery comet, or
great voice out of the sky, to astonish them with His power; He told
them peremptorily that He would give them no such thing:  and yet He
said that His mighty works did prove Him to be Christ; He pronounced
woe against Chorazin and Bethsaida for not believing Him on account
of His mighty works:  He told the Scribes and Pharisees that they
ought to believe on Him merely for His works' sake.  And why would
they not believe on Him?  Just because they could not see that God's
power was shown more in healing and delivering sufferers, than in
astonishing and destroying.  They could not see that God's perfect
likeness shone out in Christ--that He was the express image of the
Father, just because He went about doing good, and healing all manner
of sicknesses and all manner of infirmities among the people.  But so
it is, my friends!  Jesus is the Saviour, the deliverer, the great
physician, the healer of soul and body.  Not a pang is felt or a tear
shed on earth, but He sorrows over it.  Not a human being on earth
dies young, but He, as I believe, sorrows over it.  What it is which
prevents Him healing every sickness, soothing every sorrow, wiping
away every tear NOW, we cannot tell.  But this we can tell, that it
is His will that none should perish.  This we CAN tell; that He is
willing as ever to heal the sick, to cleanse the leper, to cast out
devils, to teach the ignorant, to bind up the broken-hearted.  This
we CAN tell; that He will go on doing so more and more, year by year,
and age by age.  This we CAN tell, from Scripture, that Christ is
stronger than the devil.  This we can tell; that Christ, and all good
men, the spirits of just men made perfect, the wise and the great in
God's sight, who have left us their books, their sayings, their
writings, as precious health-giving heirlooms--have been fighting,
and are fighting, and will fight to the end against the devil, and
sin, and oppression, and misery, and disease, and everything which
spoils and darkens the face of God's good earth.  And this we CAN
tell; that they will conquer at the last, because Christ is stronger
than the devil; good is stronger than evil; light is stronger than
darkness; God's Spirit, the giver of life, and health, and order, is
stronger than all the evil customs, and ignorance, and carelessness,
and cruelty, and superstition, which makes miserable the lives and,
as far as we can see, destroys the souls of thousands.  Yes, I say,
Christ's kingdom is a kingdom of health and deliverance for body and
soul; and it will conquer, and it will spread, and it will grow, till
the nations of the world have become the kingdoms of God and of His
Christ.  Christ reigns, and Christ will reign till He has put all His
enemies under His feet; and the last of His enemies which shall be
destroyed is DEATH.  Death is His enemy.  He has conquered death by
rising from the dead.  And the day will come when death will be no
more--when sickness and sorrow shall be unknown, and God shall wipe
away tears from all eyes.  I say it again--never forget it--Christ is
King, and His kingdom is a kingdom of health, and life, and
deliverance from all evil.  It always has been so, from the first
time our Lord cured the leper in Galilee; it will be so to the end of
the world.  And, therefore--to come back to the very place from which
I started at the beginning of my sermon--therefore, whenever one of
the days of the Lord is at hand, whenever God's kingdom makes a great
step forward, this same prophecy in our text is fulfilled in some
striking and wonderful way.  And I say it is fulfilled now in these
days more than it ever has been.  Christ is healing the sick,
cleansing the leper, giving sight to the blind, raising the dead, and
preaching the gospel to the poor, seven times more in these days in
which we live than He did when He walked upon earth in Judaea.

Do you doubt my words?  At all events you confess that the cure of
all diseases comes from Christ.  Then consider, I beseech you, how
many more diseases are cured now than were formerly.  One may say
that the knowledge of medicine is not one hundred years old.
Nothing, my friends, makes me feel more strongly what a wonderful and
blessed time we live in, and how Christ is showing forth mighty works
among us, than this same sudden miraculous improvement in the art of
healing, which has taken place within the memory of man.  Any country
doctor now knows more, thank God, or ought to know, than the greatest
London physicians did two generations ago.  New cures for deafness,
blindness, lameness, every disease that flesh is heir to, are being
discovered year by year.  Oh, my friends! you little know what Christ
is doing among you, for your bodies as well as for your souls.  There
is not a parish in England now in which the poorest as well as the
richest are not cured yearly of diseases, which, if they had lived a
hundred years ago, would have killed them without hope or help.  And
then, when one looks at these great and blessed plans for what is
called sanitary reform, at the sickness and the misery which has been
done away with already by attending to them, even though they have
only just begun to be put in practice--our hearts must be hard indeed
if we do not feel that Christ is revealing to us the gifts of healing
far more bountifully and mercifully than even He did to the first
apostles.

But you will say, perhaps, the dead are not raised in these days.
Oh, my friends! which shows Christ's mercy most, to raise those who
are already dead, or to save those alive who are about to die?  Those
in this church who have read history know as well as I, how in our
forefathers' time people died in England by thousands of diseases
which are scarcely ever deadly now; ay, of diseases which have now
actually vanished out of the land, before the new light of medicine
and of civilisation which Christ has revealed to us in these days.
For one child who lived and grew up in old times, two live and grow
up now.  In London alone there are not half as many deaths in
proportion to the number of people as there were a hundred years ago.
And is not that a mightier work of Christ's power and love than if He
had raised a few dead persons to life?

And now for the last part of our Lord's witness about Himself.  To
the poor the gospel is preached.  Oh! my friends, is not THAT coming
true in our days as it never came true before?  Look back only fifty
years, and consider the difference between the doctrines which were
preached to the poor and the doctrines which are preached to them
now.  Look round you and see how everywhere earnest and godly
ministers have sprung up, of all sects and opinions, as well as of
the Church of England, not only to preach the gospel in the pulpit,
but to carry it to the sick bedside of the lonely cottage, to the
prison, and to those fearful sties, worse than prisons, where in our
great cities the heathen poor live crowded together.  Look at the
teaching which the poor man can get now, compared to what he used to--
the sermons, the Bibles, the tracts, the lending libraries, the
schools--just consider the hundreds of thousands of pounds which are
subscribed every year to educate the children of the poor, and then
say whether Christ is not working a mighty work among us in these
days.  I know that not half as much is done as ought to be done in
that way; not half as much as will be done; and what is done will
have to be done better than it has been done yet; but still, can
anyone in this church who is fifty years old deny that there is a
most enormous and blessed improvement which is growing and spreading
every year?  Can anyone deny that the gospel is preached to the poor
now in a way that it never was before within the memory of man?

Now, recollect that this is an Advent sermon--a sermon which
proclaims to you that Christ is COME; yes, He is come--come never to
leave mankind again!  Christ reigns over the earth, and will reign
for ever.  At certain great and important times in the world's
history, like this present time, times which He Himself calls "days
of the Lord," He shows forth His power, and the mightiness and mercy
of His kingdom, more than at others.  But still He is always with us;
we have no need to run up and down to look for Christ:  to say, Who
shall ascend into heaven to bring Him down?  Who shall descend into
the deep to bring Him up?  For the kingdom of God, as He told us
Himself, is among us, and within us.  Yes, within us.  All these
wonderful improvements and discoveries, all things beneficial to men
which are found out year by year, though they seem to be of men's
invention, are really of Christ's revealing, the fruits of the
kingdom of God within us, of the Spirit of God, who is teaching men,
though they too often will not believe it; though they disclaim God's
Spirit and take all the glory to themselves.  Truly Christ is among
us; and our eyes are held, and we see Him not.  That is our English
sin--the sin of unbelief, the root of every other sin.  Christ works
among us, and we will not own Him.  Truly, Jesus Christ may well say
of us English at this day, There were ten cleansed, but where are the
nine?  How few are there, who return to give glory to God!  Oh,
consider what I say; the kingdom of God is among us now; its
blessings are growing richer, fuller among us every day.  Beware,
lest if we refuse to acknowledge that kingdom and Christ the King of
it, it be taken away from us, and given to some other nation, who
will bring forth the fruits of it, fellow-help and brotherly
kindness, purity and sobriety, and all the fruits of the Spirit of
God.



IV--A PREPARATION FOR CHRISTMAS



FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT.

Rejoice in the Lord always.--PHILIPPIANS iv. 4.

This is the beginning of the Epistle for to-day, the Sunday before
Christmas.  We will try to find out why it was chosen for to-day, and
what lesson we may learn from it.

Now Christmas-time was always a time of rejoicing among many heathen
nations, and long before the Lord Jesus Christ came.  That was
natural and reasonable enough, if you will consider it.  For now the
shortest day is past.  The sun is just beginning to climb higher and
higher in the sky each day, and bring back with him longer sunshine,
and shorter darkness, and spring flowers, and summer crops, and a
whole new year, with new hopes, new work, new lessons, new blessings.
The old year, with all its labours and all its pleasures, and all its
sorrows and all its sins, is dying, all but gone.  It lies behind us,
never to return.  The tears which we shed, we never can shed again.
The mistakes we made, we have a chance of mending in the year to
come.  And so the heathens felt, and rejoiced that another year was
dying, another year going to be born.

And Christmas was a time of rejoicing too, because the farming work
was done.  The last year's crop was housed; the next year's wheat was
sown; the cattle were safe in yard and stall; and men had time to
rest, and draw round the fire in the long winter nights, and make
merry over the earnings of the past year, and the hopes and plans of
the year to come.  And so over all this northern half of the world
Christmas was a merry time.

But the poor heathens did not know the Lord.  They did not know who
to thank for all their Christmas blessings.  And so some used to
thank the earth for the crops, and the sun for coming back again to
lengthen the days, as if the earth and sun moved of themselves.  And
some used to thank false gods and ancient heroes, who, perhaps, never
really lived at all.  And some, perhaps the greater number, thanked
nothing and no one, but just enjoyed themselves, and took no thought,
as too many do now at Christmas-time.  So the world went on,
Christmas after Christmas; and the times of that ignorance, as St.
Paul says, God winked at.  But when the fulness of time was come, He
sent forth His Son, made of a woman, to be the judge and ruler of the
world; and commanded all men everywhere to repent, and turn from all
their vanities to serve the living God, who had made heaven and
earth, and all things in them.

He did not wish them to give up their Christmas mirth.  No:  all
along He had been trying to teach them by it about His love to them.
As St. Paul told them once, God had not left Himself without witness,
in that He gave them rain and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts
with joy and gladness.

God did not wish them, or us, to give up Christmas mirth.  The
apostles did not wish it.  The great men, true followers of the
apostles, who shaped our Prayer-book for us, and sealed it with their
life-blood, did not wish it.  They did not wish farmers, labourers,
servants, masters, to give up one of the old Christmas customs; but
to remember who made Christmas, and its blessings; in short, to
rejoice in The Lord.  Our forefathers had been thanking the wrong
persons for Christmas.  Henceforward we were to thank the right
person, The Lord, and rejoice in Him.  Our forefathers had been
rejoicing in the sun, and moon, and earth; in wise and valiant kings
who had lived ages before; in their own strength, and industry, and
cunning.  Now they were to rejoice in Him who made sun, and moon, and
earth; in Him who sent wise and valiant kings and leaders; in Him who
gives all strength, and industry, and cunning; by whose inspiration
comes all knowledge of agriculture, and manufacture, and all the arts
which raise men above the beasts that perish.  So their Christmas
joys were to go on, year by year while the world lasted:  but they
were to go on rightly, and not wrongly.  Men were to rejoice in The
Lord, and then His blessing would be on them, and the thanks and
praise which they offered Him, He would return with interest, in
fresh blessings for the coming year.

Therefore, I think, this Epistle was chosen for to-day, the Sunday
before Christmas, to show us in whom we are to rejoice; and,
therefore, to show us how we are to rejoice.  For we must not take
the first verse of the Epistle and forget the rest.  That would
neither be wise nor reverent toward St. Paul, who wrote the whole,
and meant the whole to stand together as one discourse; or to the
blessed and holy men who chose it for our lesson on this day.  Let us
go on, then, with the Epistle, line by line, throughout.

"Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice."  As much as
to say, you cannot rejoice too much, you cannot overdo your
happiness, thankfulness, merriment.  You do not know half--no, not
the thousandth part of God's love and mercy to you, and you never
will know.  So do not be afraid of being too happy, or think that you
honour God by wearing a sour face, when He is heaping blessings on
you, and calling on you to smile and sing.  But "let your moderation
be known unto all men."  There is a right and a wrong way of being
merry.  There is a mirth, which is no mirth; whereof it is written,
in the midst of that laughter there is a heaviness, and the end
thereof is death.  Drunkenness, gluttony, indecent words and jests
and actions, these are out of place on Christmas-day, and in the
merriment to which the pure and holy Lord Jesus calls you all.  They
are rejoicing in the flesh and the devil, and not in the Lord at all;
and whosoever indulges in them, and fancies them merriment, is
keeping the devil's Christmas, and not Jesus Christ's.  So let your
moderation be known to all men.  Be MERRY AND WISE.  The fool lets
his mirth master him, and carry him away, till he forgets himself,
and says and does things of which he is ashamed when he gets up next
morning, sick and sad at heart.  The wise man remembers that, let the
occasion be as joyful a one as it may, "the Lord is at hand."
Christ's eye is on him, while he is eating, and drinking, and
laughing.  He is not afraid of Christ's eye, because, though it is
Divine it is a human, loving, smiling eye; rejoicing in the happiness
of His poor, hard-worked brothers here below.  But he remembers that
it is a holy eye, too; an eye which looks with sadness and horror on
anything which is wrong; on all drunkenness, quarrelling, indecency;
and so on in all his merriment, he is still master of himself.  He
remembers that his soul is nobler than his body; that his will must
be stronger than his appetite; and so he keeps himself in check; he
keeps his tongue from evil, and his stomach from sottishness, and
though he may be, and ought to be, the merriest of the whole party,
yet he takes care to let his moderation, his sobriety, be known and
plain to everyone, remembering that the Lord is at hand.

And that man--I will stand surety for him--will be the one who will
rise from his bed next morning, best able to carry out the next verse
of the Epistle, and "be careful for nothing."

Now that is no easy matter here in England; to rich and poor,
Christmas is the time for settling accounts and paying debts.  And
therefore in England, where living is dear, and everyone, more or
less, struggling to pay his way, Christmas is often a very anxious,
disturbing time of year.  Many a family, for all their economy,
cannot clear themselves at the year's end; and though they are able
to forget that now and then, thank God, through great part of the
year, yet they cannot forget it at Christmas.  But, as I said, the
man who at Christmas-time will be most able to be careful for
nothing, will be the man whose moderation has been known to everyone;
for he will, if he has lived the year through in the same temper in
which he has spent Christmas, have been moderate in his expenses; he
will have kept himself from empty show, and pretending to be richer
than he is.  He will have kept himself from throwing away his money
in drink, and kept his daughters from throwing away money in dress,
which is just what too many, in their foolish, godless, indecent
hurry to get rid of their own children off their hands do not do.

And he will be the man who will be in the best humour, and have the
clearest brain, to kneel down when he gets up to his daily work, and
"in everything, by prayer and supplication, make his requests known
to God."  And then, whether he can make both ends meet or not,
whether he can begin next year free from debt or not, still "the
peace of God will keep his heart."  He may be unable to clear
himself, but still he will know that he has a loving and merciful
Father in heaven, who has allowed distress and difficulty to come on
him only as a lesson and an education.  That this distress came
because God chose, and that when God chooses it will go away--and
that till then--considering that the Lord God sent it--it had better
NOT go away.  He will believe that God's gracious promises stand
true--that the Lord will never let those who trust in Him be
confounded and brought to shame--that He will let none of us be
tempted beyond what we are able, but will always with the temptation
make a way for us to escape, that we may be able to bear it.  And so
the peace of God which passes understanding, will keep that man's
mind.  And in whom?  "In Jesus Christ."  Now what did St. Paul mean
by putting in the Lord Jesus Christ's name there? what is the meaning
of "in Jesus Christ"?  This is what it means; it means what
Christmas-day means.  A man may say, "Your sermon promises fine
things, but I am miserable and poor; it promises a holy and noble
rejoicing to everyone, but I am unholy and mean.  It promises peace
from God, and I am sure I am not at peace:  I am always fretting and
quarrelling; I quarrel with my wife, my children, and my neighbours,
and they quarrel with me; and worst of all," says the poor man, "I
quarrel with myself.  I am full of discontented, angry, sulky,
anxious, unhappy thoughts; my heart is dark and sad and restless
within me--would God I were peaceful, but I am not:  look in my face
and see!"

True, my friend, but on Christmas-day the Son of God was born into
the world, a man like you.

"Well," says the poor man, "but what has that to do with my anxiety
and my ill-temper?"

It would take the whole year through, my friend, to show you all that
it has to do with you and your unhappiness.  All the Lessons,
Epistles, and Gospels of the year are set out to show you what it has
to do with you.  But in the meanwhile, before Christmas-day comes,
consider this one thing:  Why are you anxious?  Because you do not
know what is to happen to you?  Then Christmas-day is a witness to
you, that whatsoever happens to you, happens to you by the will and
rule of Jesus Christ, The perfect man; think of that.  THE PERFECT
MAN--who understands men's hearts and wants, and all that is good for
them, and has all the wisdom and power to give us what is good, which
we want ourselves.  And what makes you unhappy, my friends?  Is it
not at heart just this one thing--you are unhappy because you are not
pleased with yourselves?  And you are not pleased with yourselves
because you know you ought not to be pleased with yourselves; and you
know you ought not to be pleased with yourselves, because you know,
in the bottom of your hearts, that God is not pleased with you?  What
cure, what comfort for such thoughts can we find?--This.

The child who was born in a manger on Christmas-day, and grew up in
poverty, and had not where to lay his head, went through all shame
and sorrow to which man is heir.  He, Jesus, the poor child of
Bethlehem, is Lord and King of heaven and earth.  He will feel for
us; He will understand our temptations; He has been poor himself,
that He might feel for the poor; He has been evil spoken of, that He
might feel for those whose tempers are sorely tried.  He bore the
sins and felt the miseries of the whole world, that He might feel for
us when we are wearied with the burden of life, and confounded by the
remembrance of our own sins.

Oh, my friends, consider only Who was born into the world on
Christmas-day; and that thought alone will be enough to fill you with
rejoicing and hope for yourselves and all the world, and with the
peace of God which passes understanding, the peace which the angels
proclaimed to the shepherds on the first Christmas night--"On earth
peace, and good will toward men"--and if God wills us good, my
friend; what matter who wishes us evil?



V--CHRISTMAS-DAY



He made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a
slave.--PHILIPPIANS ii. 7.

On Christmas-day, 1851 years ago, if we had been at Rome, the great
capital city, and mistress of the whole world, we should have seen a
strange sight--strange, and yet pleasant.  All the courts of law were
shut; no war was allowed to be proclaimed, and no criminals punished.
The sorrow and the strife of that great city had stopped, in great
part, for three days, and all people were giving themselves up to
merriment and good cheer--making up quarrels, and giving and
receiving presents from house to house.  And we should have seen,
too, a pleasanter sight than that.  For those three days of
Christmas-time were days of safety and merriment for the poor slaves--
tens of thousands of whom--men, women, and children--the Romans had
brought out of all the countries in the world--many of our
forefathers and mothers among them--and kept them there in cruel
bondage and shame, worked and fed, bought and sold, like beasts, and
not like human beings, not able to call their lives or their bodies
their own, forced to endure any shame or sin which their tyrants
required of them, and liable any moment to be beaten, tortured, or
crucified at the mercy of cruel and foul masters and mistresses.  But
on that Christmas-day, according to an old custom, they were allowed
for once in the whole year to play at being free, to dress in their
masters' and mistresses' clothes, to say what they thought of them
boldly, without fear of punishment, and to eat and drink at their
masters' tables, while their masters and mistresses waited on them.
It was an old custom, that, among the heathen Romans, which their
forefathers, who were wiser and better than they, had handed down to
them.  They had forgotten, perhaps, what it meant:  but still we may
see what it must have meant:  That the old forefathers of the Romans
had intended to remind their children every year by that custom, that
their poor hard-worked slaves were, after all, men and women as much
as their masters; that they had hearts and consciences, and sense in
them, and a right to speak what they thought, as much as their
masters; that they, as much as their masters, could enjoy the good
things of God's earth, from which man's tyranny had shut them out;
and to remind those cruel masters, by making them once every year
wait on their own slaves at table, that they were, after all, equal
in the sight of God, and that it was more noble for those who were
rich, and called themselves gentlemen, to help others, than to make
others slave for them.

I do not mean, of course, that those old heathens understood all this
clearly.  You will see, by the latter part of my sermon, why they
could not understand it clearly.  But there must have been some sort
of dim, confused suspicion in their minds that it was wrong and cruel
to treat human beings like brute beasts, which made them set up that
strange old custom of letting their slaves play at being free once
every Christmas-tide.

But if on this same day, 1851 years ago, instead of being in the
great city of Rome, we had been in the little village of Bethlehem in
Judaea, we might have seen a sight stranger still; a sight which we
could not have fancied had anything to do with that merrymaking of
the slaves at Rome, and yet which had everything to do with it.

We should have seen, in a mean stable, among the oxen and the asses,
a poor maiden, with her newborn baby laid in the manger, for want of
any better cradle, and by her her husband, a poor carpenter, whom all
men thought to be the father of her child. . . .  There, in the
stable, amid the straw, through the cold winter days and nights, in
want of many a comfort which the poorest woman, and the poorest
woman's child would need, they stayed there, that young maiden and
her newborn babe.  That young maiden was the Blessed Virgin Mary, and
that poor baby was the Son of God.  The Son of God, in whose likeness
all men were made at the beginning; the Son of God, who had been
ruling the whole world all along; who brought the Jews out of
slavery, a thousand years before, and destroyed their cruel tyrants
in the Red Sea; the Son of God, who had been all along punishing
cruel tyrants and oppressors, and helping the poor out of misery,
whenever they called on Him.  The Light which lightens every man who
comes into the world, was that poor babe.  It was He who gives men
reason, and conscience, and a tender heart, and delight in what is
good, and shame and uneasiness of mind when they do wrong.  It was He
who had been stirring up, year by year, in those cruel Romans'
hearts, the feeling that there was something wrong in grinding down
their slaves, and put into their minds the notion of giving them
their Christmas rest and freedom.  He had been keeping up that good
old custom for a witness and a warning that all men were equal in His
sight; that all men had a right to liberty of speech and conscience;
a right to some fair share in the good things of the earth, which God
had given to all men freely to enjoy.  But those old Romans would not
take the warning.  They kept up the custom, but they shut their eyes
to the lesson of it.  They went on conquering and oppressing all the
nations of the earth, and making them their slaves.  And now He was
come--He Himself, the true Lord of the earth, the true pattern of
men.  He was come to show men to whom this world belonged:  He was
come to show men in what true power, true nobleness consisted--not in
making others minister to us, but in ministering to them:  He was
come to set a pattern of what a man should be; He was the Son of Man--
THE MAN of all men--and therefore He had come with good news to all
poor slaves, and neglected, hard-worked creatures:  He had come to
tell them that He cared for them; that He could and would deliver
them; that they were God's children, and His brothers, just as much
as their Roman masters; and that He was going to bring a terrible
time upon the earth--"days of the Son of Man," when He would judge
all men, and show who were true men and who were not--such a time as
had never been before, or would be again; when that great Roman
empire, in spite of all its armies, and its cunning, and its riches,
plundered from every nation under heaven, would crumble away and
perish shamefully and miserably off the face of the earth, before
tribes of poor, untaught, savage men, the brothers and countrymen of
those very slaves whom the Romans fancied were so much below them,
that they had a right to treat them like the beasts which perish.

That was the message which that little child lying in the manger
there at Bethlehem, had been sent out from God to preach.  Do you not
see now what it had to do with that strange merrymaking of the poor
slaves in Rome, which I showed you at the beginning of my sermon?

If you do not, I must remind you of the song, which, St. Luke says,
the shepherds in Judaea heard the angels sing, on this night 1851
years ago.  That song tells us the meaning of that babe's coming.
That song tells us what that babe's coming had to do with the poor
slaves of Rome, and with all poor creatures who have suffered and
sorrowed on this earth, before or since.

"Glory to God in the highest," they sang, "and on earth peace, good
will to men."

Glory to God in the highest.  That little babe, lying in the manger
among the cattle, was showing what was the very highest glory of the
great God who had made heaven and earth.  Not to show His power and
His majesty, but to show His condescension and His love.  To stoop,
to condescend, to have mercy, to forgive, that is the highest glory
of God.  That is the noblest, the most Godlike thing for God or man.
And God showed that when He sent down His only-begotten Son--not to
strike the world to atoms with a touch, not to hurl sinners into
everlasting flame, but to be born of a village maiden, to take on
Himself all the shame and weakness and sorrow, to which man is heir,
even to death itself; to make Himself of no reputation, and take on
Himself the form of a slave, and forgive sinners, and heal the sick,
and comfort the outcast and despised, that He might show what God was
like--show forth to men, as a poor maiden's son, the brightness of
God's glory, and the express likeness of His person.

"And on earth peace" they sang.  Men had been quarrelling and
fighting then, and men are quarrelling and fighting now.  That little
babe in the manger was come to show them how and why they were all to
be at peace with each other.  For what causes all the war and
quarrelling in the world, but selfishness?  Selfishness breeds pride,
passion, spite, revenge, covetousness, oppression.  The strong care
for themselves, and try to help themselves at the expense of the
weak, by force and tyranny; the weak care for themselves in their
turn, and try to help themselves at the expense of the strong, by
cunning and cheating.  No one will condescend, give way, sacrifice
his own interest for his neighbour's, and hence come wars between
nations, quarrels in families, spite and grudges between neighbours.
But in the example of that little child of Bethlehem, Jesus Christ
the Lord, God was saying to men, "Acquaint yourselves with Me, and be
at peace."  God is not selfish; it is our selfishness which has made
us unlike God.  God so loved the sinful world, that He gave His only-
begotten Son for it.  Is that an action like ours?  The Son of God so
obeyed His Father, and so loved this world, that He made Himself of
no reputation, and took on Him the likeness of a slave, and became
obedient to death, even to the most fearful and shameful of all
deaths, the death of the cross; not for Himself, but for those who
did not know Him, hated Him, killed Him.  In short, He sacrificed
Himself for us.  That is God's likeness.  Self-sacrifice.  Jesus
Christ, the babe of Bethlehem, proved Himself the Son of God, and the
express likeness of the Father, by sacrificing Himself for us.
Sacrifice yourselves then for each other!  Give up your own pride,
your own selfishness, your own interest for each other, and you will
be all at peace at once.

But the angels sang, "Good will toward men."  Without that their song
would not have been complete.  For we are all ready to say, at such
words as I have been speaking, "Ah! pleasant enough, and pretty
enough, if they were but possible; but they are not possible.  It is
in the nature of man to be selfish.  Men have gone on warring,
grudging, struggling, competing, oppressing, cheating from the
beginning, and they will do so to the end."

Yes, it is not in the NATURE of man to do otherwise.  In as far as
man yields to his nature, and is like the selfish brute beasts, it is
not possible for him to do anything but go on quarrelling, and
competing, and cheating to the last.  But what man's nature cannot
do, God's grace can.  God's good will is toward you.  He loves you,
He wills--and if He wills, what is too hard for Him?--He wills to
raise you out of this selfish, quarrelsome life of sin, into a
loving, brotherly, peaceful life of righteousness.  His spirit, the
spirit of love by which He made and guides all heaven and earth, the
spirit of love in which He gave His only Son for you, the spirit of
love in which His Son Jesus Christ sacrificed Himself for you, and
took on Himself a meaner state than any of you can ever have--the
likeness of a slave--that spirit is promised to you, and ready for
you.  That little baby in the manger at Bethlehem--God sacrificing
Himself for you in the spirit of love--is a sign that that spirit of
love is the spirit of God, and therefore the only right spirit for
you and me, who are men and women made in the image of God.  That
babe in the manger at Bethlehem is a sign to you and me, that God
will freely give us that spirit of love if we ask for it.  For He
would not have set us that example, if He had not meant us to follow
it, and He would not ask us to follow it, if He did not intend to
give us the means of following it.  Therefore, my friends, it is
written, Ask and ye shall receive.  If your heavenly Father spared
not His own Son, but freely gave Him for you, will He not with Him
likewise freely give you all things?  Oh! ask and you shall receive.
However poor, ignorant, sinful you may be, God's promises are ready
for you, signed and sealed by the bread and wine on that table, the
memorial of Jesus, the babe of Bethlehem.  Ask, and you shall
receive!  Comfort from sorrow, peaceful assurance of God's good will
toward you, deliverance from your sins, and a share in the likeness
of Him who on this day made Himself of no reputation, and took on Him
the form of a slave.



VI--TRUE ABSTINENCE



FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT.

I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection.--1 COR. ix. 27.

In the Collect for this day we have just been praying to God, to give
us grace to use such abstinence, that our flesh being subdued to our
spirit, we may follow His godly motions.

Now we ought to have meant something when we said these words.  What
did we mean by them?  Perhaps some of us did not understand them.
They could not be expected to mean anything by them.  But it is a sad
thing, a very sad thing, that people will come to church Sunday after
Sunday, and repeat by rote words which they do not understand, words
by which they therefore mean nothing, and yet never care or try to
understand them.

What are the words there for, except to be understood?  All of you
call people foolish, who submit to have prayers read in their
churches in a foreign language, which none, at least of the poor, can
understand.  But what right have you to call them foolish, if you,
whose Prayer-books are written in English, take no trouble to find
out the meaning of them?  Would to Heaven that you would try to find
out the meaning of the Prayer-book!  Would to Heaven that the day
would come, when anyone in this parish who was puzzled by any
doctrine of religion, or by any text in the Bible, or word in the
Prayer-book, would come confidently to me, and ask me to explain it
to him!  God knows, I should think it an honour and a pleasure, as
well as a duty.  I should think no time better spent than in
answering your questions.  I do beseech you to ask me, every one of
you, when and where you like, any questions about religion which come
into your minds.  Why am I put in this parish, except to teach you?
and how can I teach you better, than by answering your questions?  As
it is, I am disheartened, and all but hopeless, at times, about the
state of this parish, and the work I am trying to do here; because,
though you will come and hear me, thank God, willingly enough, you do
not seem yet to have gained confidence enough in me, or to have
learnt to care sufficiently about the best things, to ask questions
of me about them.  My dear friends, if you wanted to get information
about anything you really cared for, you would ask questions enough.
If you wanted to know some way to a place on earth you would ask it;
why not ask your way to things better than this earth can give?  But
whether or not you will question me I must go on preaching to you,
though whether or not you care to listen is more, alas! than I can
tell.

But listen to me, now, I beseech you, while I try to explain to you
the meaning of the words which you have been just using in this
Collect.  You have asked God to give you grace to use abstinence.
Now what is the meaning of abstinence?  Abstinence means abstaining,
refraining, keeping back of your own will from doing something which
you might do.  Take an example.  When a man for his health's sake, or
his purse's sake, or any other good reason, drinks less liquor than
he might if he chose, he abstains from liquor.  He uses abstinence
about liquor.  There are other things in which a man may abstain.
Indeed, he may abstain from doing anything he likes.  He may abstain
from eating too much; from lying in bed too long; from reading too
much; from taking too much pleasure; from making money; from spending
money; from right things; from wrong things; from things which are
neither right nor wrong; on all these he may use abstinence.  He may
abstain for many reasons; for good ones, or for bad ones.  A miser
will abstain from all sorts of comforts to hoard up money.  A
superstitious man may abstain from comforts, because he thinks God
grudges them to him, or because he thinks God is pleased by the
unhappiness of His creatures, or because he has been taught, poor
wretch, that if he makes himself uncomfortable in this life, he shall
have more comfort, more honour, more reason for pride and self-
glorification, in the life to come.  Or a man may abstain from one
pleasure, just to be able to enjoy another all the more; as some
great gamblers drink nothing but water, in order to keep their heads
clear for cheating.  All these are poor reasons; some of them base,
some of them wicked reasons for abstaining from anything.  Therefore,
abstinence is not a good thing in itself; for if a thing is good in
itself, it can never be wrong.  Love is good in itself, and,
therefore, you cannot love anyone for a bad reason.  Justice is good
in itself, pity is good in itself, and, therefore, you can never be
wrong in being just or pitiful.

But abstinence is not a good thing in itself.  If it were, we should
all be bound to abstain always from everything pleasant, and make
ourselves as miserable and uncomfortable as possible, as some
superstitious persons used to do in old times.  Abstinence is only
good when it is used for a good reason.  If a man abstains from
pleasure himself, to save up for his children; if he abstains from
over eating and over drinking, to keep his mind clear and quiet; if
he abstains from sleep and ease, in order to have time to see his
business properly done; if he abstains from spending money on
himself, in order to spend it for others; if he abstains from any
habit, however harmless or pleasant, because he finds it lead him
towards what is wrong, and put him into temptation; then he does
right; then he is doing God's work; then he may expect God's
blessing; then he is trying to do what we all prayed God to help us
to do, when we said, "Give us grace to use such abstinence;" then he
is doing, more or less, what St. Paul says he did, "Keeping his body
under, and bringing it into subjection."

For, see, the Collect does not say, "Give us grace to use
abstinence," as if abstinence were a good thing in itself, but "to
use such abstinence, that"--to use a certain kind of abstinence, and
that for a certain purpose, and that purpose a good one; such
abstinence that our flesh may be subdued to our spirit; that our
flesh, the animal, bodily nature which is in us, loving ease and
pleasure, may not be our master, but our servant; so that we may not
follow blindly our own appetites, and do just what we like, as brute
beasts which have no understanding.  And our flesh is to be subdued
to our spirit for a certain purpose; not because our flesh is bad,
and our spirit good; not in order that we may puff ourselves up and
admire ourselves, and say, as the philosophers among the heathen
used, "What a strong-minded, sober, self-restraining man I am!  How
fine it is to be able to look down on my neighbours, who cannot help
being fond of enjoying themselves, and cannot help caring for this
world's good things.  I am above all that.  I want nothing, and I
feel nothing, and nothing can make me glad or sorry.  I am master of
my own mind, and own no law but my own will."  The Collect gives us
the true and only reason, for which it is right to subdue our
appetites; which is, that we may keep our minds clear and strong
enough to listen to the voice of God within our hearts and reasons;
to obey the motions of God's Spirit in us; not to make our bodies our
masters, but to live as God's servants.

This is St. Paul's meaning, when he speaks of keeping under his body,
and bringing it into subjection.  The exact word which he uses,
however, is a much stronger one than merely "keeping under;" it means
simply, to beat a man's face black and blue; and his reason for using
such a strong word about the matter is, to show us that he thought no
labour too hard, no training too sharp, which teaches us how to
restrain ourselves, and keep our appetites and passions in manful and
godly control.

Now, a few verses before my text, St. Paul takes an example from
foot-racers.  "These foot-racers," he says, "heathens though they
are, and only trying to win a worthless prize, the petty honour of a
crown of leaves, see what trouble they take; how they exercise their
limbs; how careful and temperate they are in eating and drinking, how
much pain and fatigue they go through to get themselves into perfect
training for a race.  How much more trouble ought we to take to make
ourselves fit to do God's work?  For these foot-racers do all this
only to gain a garland which will wither in a week; but we, to gain a
garland which will never fade away; a garland of holiness, and
righteousness, and purity, and the likeness of Jesus Christ."

The next example of abstinence which St. Paul takes, is from the
prize-fighters, who were very numerous and very famous, in the
country in which the Corinthians lived.  "I fight," he says, "not
like one who beats the air;" that is, not like a man who is only
brandishing his hands and sparring in jest, but like a man who knows
that he has a fight to fight in hard earnest; a terrible lifelong
fight against sin, the world, and the devil; "and, therefore," he
says, "I do as these fighters do."  They, poor savage and brutal
heathens as they are, go through a long and painful training.  Their
very practice is not play; it is grim earnest.  They stand up to
strike, and be struck, and are bruised and disfigured as a matter of
course, in order that they may learn not to flinch from pain, or lose
their tempers, or turn cowards, when they have to fight.  "And so do
I," says St. Paul; "they, poor men, submit to painful and
disagreeable things to make them brave in their paltry battles.  I
submit to painful and disagreeable things, to make me brave in the
great battle which I have to fight against sin, and ignorance, and
heathendom."  "Therefore," he says, in another place, "I take
pleasure in afflictions, in persecutions, in necessities, in
distresses;" and that not because those things were pleasant, they
were just as unpleasant to him as to anyone else; but because they
taught him to bear, taught him to be brave; taught him, in short, to
become a perfect man of God.

This is St. Paul's account of his own training:  in the Epistle for
to-day we have another account of it; a description of the life which
he led, and which he was content to lead--"in much suffering, in
stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watching, in
fastings"--and an account, too, of the temper which he had learnt to
show amid such a life of vexation, and suffering, and shame, and
danger--"approving himself in all things the minister of God, by
pureness, by wisdom, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the spirit of
holiness, by love unfeigned;" "as dying, and behold we live; as
chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as
poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing all
things."--In all things proving himself a true messenger from God, by
being able to dare and to endure for God's sake, what no man ever
would have dared and endured for his own sake.

"But"--someone may say--"St. Paul was an apostle; he had a great work
to do in the world; he had to turn the heathen to God; and it is
likely enough that he required to train himself, and keep strict
watch over all his habits, and ways of thinking and behaving, lest he
should grow selfish, lazy, cowardly, covetous, fond of ease and
amusement.  He had, of course, to lead a life of strange suffering
and danger; and he had therefore to train himself for it.  But what
need have we to do as St. Paul did?"

Just as much need, my good friends, if you could see it.

Which of us has not to lead a life of suffering?  We shall each and
all of us, have our full share of trouble before we die, doubt it
not.

And which of us has not to lead a life of danger?  I do not mean
bodily danger; of that, there is little enough--perhaps too little--
in England now; but of danger to our hearts, minds, characters?  Oh,
my friends, I pity those who do not think themselves in danger every
day of their lives, for the less danger they see around them, the
more danger there is.  There is not only the common danger of
temptation, but over and above it, the worse danger of not knowing
temptation when it comes.  Who will be most likely to walk into pits
and mires upon the moor--the man who knows that they are there around
him, or the man who goes on careless and light of heart, fancying
that it is all smooth ground?  Woe to you, young people, if you fancy
that you are to have no woe!  Danger to you, young people, if you
fancy yourselves in no danger!

"This is sad and dreary news"--some of you may say.  Ay, my friends,
it would be sad and dreary news indeed; and this earth would be a
very sad and dreary place; and life with all its troubles and
temptations, would not be worth having, if it were not for the
blessed news which the Gospel for this day brings us.  That makes up
for all the sadness of the Epistle; that gives us hope; that tells us
of one who has been through life, and through death too, yet without
sin.  That tells us of one who has endured a thousand times more
temptation than we ever shall, a thousand times more trouble than we
ever shall, and yet has conquered it all; and that He who has thus
been through all our temptations, borne all our weaknesses, is our
King, our Saviour, who loves us, who teaches us, who has promised us
His Holy Spirit, to make us like Himself, strong, brave, and patient,
to endure all that man or devil, or our own low animal tempers and
lusts, can do to hurt us.  The Gospel for this day tells us how He
went and was alone in the wilderness with the wild beasts, and yet
trusted in God, His Father and ours, to keep Him safe.  How He went
without food forty days and nights, and yet in His extreme hunger,
refused to do the least self-willed or selfish thing to get Himself
food.  Is that no lesson, no message of hope for the poor man who is
tempted by hunger to steal, or tempted by need to do a mean and
selfish thing, to hear that the Lord Jesus Christ, who bore need and
hunger far worse than his, understands all his temptations, and feels
for him, and pities him, and has promised him God's Spirit to make
him strong, as He himself was?

Is it no comfort to young people who are tempted to vanity, and
display, and self-willed conceited longings, tempted to despise the
advice of their parents and elders, and set up for themselves, and
choose their own way--Is it no good news, I say, for them to hear
that their Lord and Saviour was tempted to it also, and conquered
it?--That He will teach them to answer the temptation as He did, when
He refused even to let angels hold Him over the temple, up between
earth and heaven, for a sign and a wonder to all the Jews, because
God His Father had not bidden Him to do it, and therefore He would
not tempt the Lord His God?

Is it no good news, again, to those who are tempted to do perhaps one
little outward wrong thing, to yield on some small point to the ways
of the world, in order to help themselves on in life, to hear that
their Lord and Saviour conquered that temptation too?--That he
refused all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, when
the devil offered them, because he knew that the devil could not give
them to Him; that all wealth, and power, and glory belonged to God,
and was to be got only by serving Him?

Oh do you all, young people especially, think of this.  As you grow
up and go out into life, you will be tempted in a hundred different
ways, by things which are pleasant--everyone knows that they are
pleasant enough--but wrong.  One will be tempted to be vain of dress;
another to be self-conceited; another to be lazy and idle; another to
be extravagant and roving; another to be over fond of amusement;
another to be over fond of money; another to be over fond of liquor;
another to go wrong, as too many young men and young women do, and
bring themselves, and those with whom they keep company, and whom
they ought, if they really love them, to respect and honour, down
into sin and shame.  You will all be tempted, and you will all be
troubled; one by poverty, one by sickness, one by the burden of a
family, one by being laughed at for trying to do right.  But
remember, oh remember, whenever a temptation comes upon you, that the
blessed Jesus has been through it all, and conquered all, and that
His will is, that you shall be holy and pure like Him, and that,
therefore, if you but ask Him, He will give you strength to keep
pure.  When you are tempted, pray to Him:  the struggle in your own
minds will, no doubt, be very great; it will be very hard work for
you--sin looks so pleasant on the outside!  Poor souls, it is a sad
struggle for you!  Many a poor young fellow, who goes wrong, deserves
rather to be pitied than to be punished.  Well then, if no man else
will pity him, Jesus, the Man of all men, will.  Pray to Him!  Cry
aloud to Him!  Ask Him to make you stout-hearted, patient, really
manful, to fight against temptation.  Ask Him to give you strength of
mind to fight against all bad habits.  Ask Him to open your eyes to
see when you are in danger.  Ask Him to help you to keep out of the
way of temptation.  Ask Him, in short, to give you grace to use such
abstinence that your flesh may be subdued to your spirit.  And then
you will not follow, as the beasts do, just what seems pleasant to
your flesh; no, you will be able to obey Christ's godly motions, that
is, to do, as well as to love, the good desires which He puts into
your hearts.  You will do not merely what is pleasant, but what is
right; you will not be your own slaves, you will be your own masters,
and God's loyal and obedient sons; you will not be, as too many are,
mere animals going about in the shape of men, but truly men at heart,
who are not afraid of pain, poverty, shame, trouble, or death itself,
when they are in the right path, about the work to which God has
called them.

But if you ask Christ to make true men and women of you, you must
believe that He will give you what you ask; if you ask Him to help
you, you must believe that He will and does help you--you must
believe that it is He Himself who has put into your hearts the very
desire of being holy and strong at all; and therefore you must
believe that you can help yourselves.  Help yourselves, and He will
help you.  If you ask for His help, He will give it.  But what is the
use of His giving it, if you do not use it?  To him who has shall be
given, and he shall have more; but from him who has not shall be
taken away even what he seems to have.  Therefore do not merely pray,
but struggle and try YOURSELVES.  Train yourselves as St. Paul did;
train yourselves to keep your temper; train yourselves to bear
unpleasant things for the sake of your duty; train yourselves to keep
out of temptation; train yourselves to be forgiving, gentle, thrifty,
industrious, sober, temperate, cleanly, as modest as little children
in your words, and thoughts, and conduct.  And God, when He sees you
trying to be all this, will help you to be so.  It may be hard to
educate yourselves.  Life is a hard business at best--you will find
it a thousand times harder, though, if you are slaves to your own
fleshly sins.  But the more you struggle against sin, the less hard
you will find it to fight; the more you resist the devil, the more he
will flee from you; the more you try to conquer your own bad
passions, the more God will help you to conquer them; it may be a
hard battle, but it is a sure one.  No fear but that everyone can, if
he will, work out his own salvation, for it is God Himself who works
in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.  All you have to do is
to give yourselves up to Him, to study His laws, to labour as well as
long to keep them, and He will enable you to keep them; He will teach
you in a thousand unexpected ways; He will daily renew and strengthen
your hearts by the working of His Spirit, that you may more and more
know, and love, and do, what is right; and you will go on from
strength to strength, to the height of perfect men, to the likeness
of Jesus Christ the Lord, who conquered all human temptations for
your sake, that He might be a high-priest who can be touched with the
feeling of our infirmities, because He was tempted in all points like
as we are, yet without sin.



VII--GOOD FRIDAY



In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His
presence saved them.  In His love and in His pity He redeemed them;
and He bare them and carried them all the days of old.--ISAIAH lxiii.
9.

On this very day, at this very hour, 1817 years ago, hung one nailed
to a cross; bruised and bleeding, pierced and naked, dying a felon's
death between two thieves; in perfect misery, in utter shame, mocked
and insulted by all the great, the rich, the learned of His nation;
one who had grown up as a man of low birth, believed by all to be a
carpenter's son; without scholarship, money, respectability; even
without a home wherein to lay His head--and here was the end of His
life!  True, He had preached noble words, He had done noble deeds:
but what had they helped Him?  They had not made the rich, the
learned, the respectable, the religious believe on Him; they had not
saved Him from persecution, and insult, and death.  The only mourners
who stood by to weep over His dying agonies were His mother, a poor
countrywoman; a young fisherman; and one who had been a harlot and a
sinner.  There was an end!

Do you know who that Man was?  He was your King; the King of rich and
poor; and He was your King, not in spite of His suffering all that
shame and misery, but just because He suffered it; because He chose
to be poor, and miserable, and despised; because He endured the
cross, despising the shame; because He took upon Himself to fulfil
His Father's will, all ills which flesh is heir to--therefore He is
now your King, the Saviour of the world, the poor man's friend, the
Lord of heaven and earth.  Is He such a King as YOU wish for?

Is He the sort of King you want, my friends?  Does He fulfil your
notions of what the poor man's friend should be?  Do you, in your
hearts, wish He had been somewhat richer, more glorious, more
successful in the world's eyes--a wealthy and prosperous man, like
Solomon of old?  Are any of you ready to say, as the money-blinded
Jews said, when they demanded their true King to be crucified, "We
have no king but Caesar?--Provided the law-makers and the authorities
take care of our interests, and protect our property, and do not make
us pay too many rates and taxes, that is enough for us."  Will you
have no king but Caesar?  Alas! those who say that, find that the law
is but a weak deliverer, too weak to protect them from selfishness,
and covetousness, and decent cruelty; and so Caesar and the law have
to give place to Mammon, the god of money.  Do we not see it in these
very days?  And Mammon is weak, too.  This world is not a shop, men
are not merely money-makers and wages-earners.  There are more things
in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in that sort of philosophy.
Self-interest and covetousness cannot keep society orderly and
peaceful, let sham philosophers say what they will.  And then comes
tyranny, lawlessness, rich and poor staining their hands in each
other's blood, as we saw happen in France two years ago; and so,
after all, Mammon has to give place to Moloch, the fiend of murder
and cruelty; and woe to rich and poor when he reigns over them!  Ay,
woe--woe to rich and poor when they choose anyone for their king but
their real and rightful Lord and Master, Jesus, the poor man,
afflicted in all their afflictions, the Man of sorrows, crucified on
this day.

Is He the kind of King you like?  Make up your minds, my friends--
make up your minds!  For whether you like Him or not, your King He
was, your King He is, your King He will be, blessed be God, for ever.
Blessed be God, indeed!  If He were not our King; if anyone in heaven
or earth was Lord of us, except the Man of sorrows, the Prince of
sufferers, what hope, what comfort would there be?  What a horrible,
black, fathomless riddle this sad, diseased, moaning world would be!
No king would suit us but the Prince of sufferers--Jesus, who has
borne all this world's griefs, and carried all its sorrows--Jesus,
who has Himself smarted under pain and hunger, oppression and insult,
treachery and desertion, who knows them all, feels for them all, and
will right them all, in His own good time.

Believing in Jesus, we can travel on, through one wild parish after
another, upon English soil, and see, as I have done, the labourer who
tills the land worse housed than the horse he drives, worse clothed
than the sheep he shears, worse nourished than the hog he feeds--and
yet not despair:  for the Prince of sufferers is the labourer's
Saviour; He has tasted hunger, and thirst, and weariness, poverty,
oppression, and neglect; the very tramp who wanders houseless on the
moorside is His brother; in his sufferings the Saviour of the world
has shared, when the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had
nests, while the Son of God had not where to lay His head.  He is the
King of the poor, firstborn among many brethren; His tenderness is
Almighty, and for the poor He has prepared deliverance, perhaps in
this world, surely in the world to come--boundless deliverance, out
of the treasures of His boundless love.

Believing in Jesus, we can pass by mines, and factories, and by
dungeons darker and fouler still, in the lanes and alleys of our
great towns and cities, where thousands and tens of thousands of
starving men, and wan women, and children grown old before their
youth, sit toiling and pining in Mammon's prison-house, in worse than
Egyptian bondage, to earn such pay as just keeps the broken heart
within the worn-out body;--ay, we can go through our great cities,
even now, and see the women, whom God intended to be Christian wives
and mothers, the slaves of the rich man's greed by day, the
playthings of his lust by night--and yet not despair; for we can cry,
No! thou proud Mammon, money-making fiend!  These are not thine, but
Christ's; they belong to Him who died on the cross; and though thou
heedest not their sighs, He marks them all, for He has sighed like
them; though there be no pity in thee, there is in Him the pity of a
man, ay, and the indignation of a God!  He treasures up their tears;
He understands their sorrows; His judgment of their guilt is not like
thine, thou Pharisee!  He is their Lord, who said, that to those to
whom little was given, of them shall little be required.  Generation
after generation, they are being made perfect by sufferings, as their
Saviour was before them; and then, woe to thee!  For even as He led
Israel out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and a stretched-out arm, and
signs and wonders, great and terrible, so shall He lead the poor out
of their misery, and make them households like a flock of sheep; even
as He led Israel through the wilderness, tender, forbearing, knowing
whereof they were made, having mercy on all their brutalities, and
idolatries, murmurings, and backslidings, afflicted in all their
afflictions--even while He was punishing them outwardly, as He is
punishing the poor man now--even so shall He lead this people out in
His good time, into a good land and large, a land of wheat and wine,
of milk and honey; a rest which He has prepared for His poor, such as
eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart
of man to conceive.  He can do it; for the Almighty Deliverer is His
name.  He will do it; for His name is Love.  He knows how to do it;
for He has borne the griefs, and carried the sorrows of the poor.

Oh, sad hearts and suffering!  Anxious and weary ones!  Look to the
cross this day!  There hung your king!  The King of sorrowing souls,
and more, the King of sorrows.  Ay, pain and grief, tyranny and
desertion, death and hell, He has faced them one and all, and tried
their strength, and taught them His, and conquered them right
royally!  And, since He hung upon that torturing cross, sorrow is
divine, god-like, as joy itself.  All that man's fallen nature dreads
and despises, God honoured on the cross, and took unto Himself, and
blessed, and consecrated for ever.  And now, blessed are the poor, if
they are poor in heart, as well as purse; for Jesus was poor, and
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are the hungry, if they
hunger for righteousness as well as food; for Jesus hungered, and
they shall be filled.  Blessed are those who mourn, if they mourn not
only for their afflictions, but for their sins, and for the sins they
see around them; for on this day, Jesus mourned for our sins; on this
day He was made sin for us, who knew no sin; and they shall be
comforted.  Blessed are those who are ashamed of themselves, and hate
themselves, and humble themselves before God this day; for on this
day Jesus humbled Himself for us; and they shall be exalted.  Blessed
are the forsaken and the despised.--Did not all men forsake Jesus
this day, in His hour of need? and why not thee, too, thou poor
deserted one?  Shall the disciple be above his Master?  No; everyone
that is perfect, must be like his master.  The deeper, the bitterer
your loneliness, the more are you like Him, who cried upon the cross,
"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"  He knows what that
grief, too, is like.  He feels for thee, at least.  Though all
forsake thee, He is with thee still; and if He be with thee, what
matter who has left thee for a while?  Ay, blessed are those that
weep now, for they shall laugh.  It is those whom the Lord loveth
that He chasteneth.  And because He loves the poor, He brings them
low.  All things are blessed now, but sin; for all things, excepting
sin, are redeemed by the life and death of the Son of God.  Blessed
are wisdom and courage, joy, and health, and beauty, love and
marriage, childhood and manhood, corn and wine, fruits and flowers,
for Christ redeemed them by His life.  And blessed, too, are tears
and shame, blessed are weakness and ugliness, blessed are agony and
sickness, blessed the sad remembrance of our sins, and a broken
heart, and a repentant spirit.  Blessed is death, and blessed the
unknown realms, where souls await the resurrection day, for Christ
redeemed them by His death.  Blessed are all things, weak, as well as
strong.  Blessed are all days, dark, as well as bright, for all are
His, and He is ours; and all are ours, and we are His, for ever.

Therefore sigh on, ye sad ones, and rejoice in your own sadness; ache
on, ye suffering ones, and rejoice in your own sorrows.  Rejoice that
you are made free of the holy brotherhood of mourners, that you may
claim your place, too, if you will, among the noble army of martyrs.
Rejoice that you are counted worthy of a fellowship in the sufferings
of the Son of God.  Rejoice and trust on, for after sorrow shall come
joy.  Trust on; for in man's weakness God's strength shall be made
perfect.  Trust on, for death is the gate of life.  Endure on to the
end, and possess your souls in patience for a little while, and that,
perhaps, a very little while.  Death comes swiftly; and more swiftly
still, perhaps, the day of the Lord.  The deeper the sorrow, the
nearer the salvation:


The night is darkest before the dawn;
When the pain is sorest the child is born;
And the day of the Lord is at hand.


Ay, if the worst should come; if neither the laws of your country nor
the benevolence of the righteous were strong enough to defend you; if
one charitable plan after another were to fail; if the labour-market
were getting fuller and fuller, and poverty were spreading wider and
wider, and crime and misery were breeding faster and still faster
every year than education and religion; all hope for the poor seemed
gone and lost, and they were ready to believe the men who tell them
that the land is over-peopled--that there are too many of us, too
many industrious hands, too many cunning brains, too many immortal
souls, too many of God's children upon God's earth, which God the
Father made, and God the Son redeemed, and God the Holy Spirit
teaches:  then the Lord, the Prince of sufferers, He who knows your
every grief, and weeps with you tear for tear, He would come out of
His place to smite the haughty ones, and confound the cunning ones,
and silence the loud ones, and empty the full ones; to judge with
righteousness for the meek of the earth, to hearken to the prayer of
the poor, whose heart he has been preparing, and to help the
fatherless and needy to their right, that the man of the world may be
no more exalted against them.

In that day men will find out a wonder and miracle.  They will see
many that are first last, and many that are last first.  They will
find that there were poor who were the richest after all; the simple
who were wisest, and gentle who were bravest, and weak who were
strongest; that God's ways are not as men's ways, nor God's thoughts
as men's thoughts.  Alas, who shall stand when God does this?  At
least He who will do it is Jesus, who loved us to the death;
boundless love and gentleness, boundless generosity and pity; who was
tempted even as we are, who has felt our every weakness.  In that
thought is utter comfort, that our Judge will be He who died and rose
again, and is praying for us even now, to His Father and our Father.
Therefore fear not, gentle souls, patient souls, pure consciences and
tender hearts.  Fear not, you who are empty and hungry, who walk in
darkness and see no light; for though He fulfil once more, as He has
again and again, the awful prophecy before the text; though He tread
down the people in His anger, and make them drunk in His fury, and
bring their strength to the earth; though kings with their armies may
flee, and the stars which light the earth may fall, and there be
great tribulation, wars, and rumours of wars, and on earth distress
of nations with perplexity--yet it is when the day of His vengeance
is at hand, that the year of His redeemed is come.  And when they see
all these things, let them rejoice and lift up their heads, for their
redemption draweth nigh.

Do you ask how I know this?  Do you ask for a sign, for a token that
these my words are true?  I know that they are true.  But, as for
tokens, I will give you but this one, the sign of that bread and that
wine.  When the Lord shall have delivered His people out of all their
sorrows, they shall eat of that bread and drink of that wine, one and
all, in the kingdom of God.



VIII--EASTER-DAY



If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God--COLOSSIANS iii. 1.

I know no better way of preaching to you the gospel of Easter, the
good news which this day brings to all men, year after year, than by
trying to explain to you the Epistle appointed for this day, which we
have just read.

It begins, "If ye then be risen with Christ."  Now that does not mean
that St. Paul had any doubt whether the Colossians, to whom he was
speaking, were risen with Christ or not.  He does not mean, "I am not
sure whether you are risen or not; but perhaps you are not; but if
you are, you ought to do such and such things."  He does not mean
that.  He was quite sure that these Colossians were risen with
Christ.  He had no doubt of it whatsoever.  If you look at the
chapter before, he says so.  He tells them that they were buried with
Christ in baptism, in which also they were risen with Christ, through
faith of the operation of God, who has raised Him from the dead.

Now what reason had St. Paul to believe that these Colossians were
risen with Jesus Christ?  Because they had given up sin and were
leading holy lives?  That cannot be.  The Epistle for this day says
the very opposite.  It does not say, "You are risen, because you have
left off sinning."  It says, "You must leave off sinning, because you
are risen."  Was it then on account of any experiences, or inward
feeling of theirs?  Not at all.  He says that these Colossians had
been baptized, and that they had believed in God's work of raising
Jesus Christ from the dead, and that therefore they were risen with
Christ.  In one word, they had believed the message of Easter-day,
and therefore they shared in the blessings of Easter-day; as it is
written in another place, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the
Lord Jesus Christ, and believe in thy heart that God has raised Him
from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

Now these seem very wide words, too wide to please most people.  But
there are wider words still in St. Paul's epistles.  He tells us
again and again that God's mercy is a free gift; that He has made to
us a free present of His Son Jesus Christ.  That He has taken away
the effect of all men's sin, and more than that, that men are God's
children; that they have a right to believe that they are so, because
they are so.  For, He says, the free gift of Jesus Christ is not like
Adam's offence.  It is not less than it, narrower than it, as some
folks say.  It is not that by Adam's sin all became sinners, and by
Jesus Christ's salvation an elect few out of them shall be made
righteous.  If you will think a moment, you will see that it cannot
be so.  For Jesus Christ conquered sin and death and the devil.  But
if, as some think, sin and death and the devil have destroyed and
sent to hell by far the greater part of mankind, then they have
conquered Christ, and not Christ them.  Mankind belonged to Christ at
first.  Sin and death and the devil came in and ruined them, and then
Christ came to redeem them; but if all that He has been able to do is
to redeem one out of a thousand, or even nine out of ten, of them,
then the devil has had the best of the battle.  He, and not Christ,
is the conqueror.  If a thief steals all the sheep on your farm, and
all that you can get back from him is a part of the whole flock,
which has had the best of it, you or the thief?  If Christ's
redemption is meant for only a few, or even a great many elect souls
out of all the millions of mankind, which has had the best of it,
Christ, the master of the sheep, or the devil, the robber and
destroyer of them?  Be sure, my friends, Christ is stronger than
that; His love is deeper than that; His redemption is wider than
that.  How strong, how deep, how wide it is, we never shall know.
St. Paul tells us that we never shall know, for it is boundless; but
that we shall go on knowing more and more of its vastness for ever,
finding it deeper, wider, loftier than our most glorious dreams could
ever picture it.  But this, he says, we do know, that we have gained
more than Adam lost.  For if by one man's offence many were made
sinners, much more shall they who receive abundance of grace and of
the gift of righteousness reign in life by one even Jesus Christ.
For, he says, where sin abounded, God's grace and free gift has much
more abounded.  Therefore, 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.  Upon all men,
you see.  There can be no doubt about it.  Upon you and me, and
foreigners, and gipsies, and heathens, and thieves, and harlots--upon
all mankind, let them be as bad or as good, as young or as old, as
they may, the free gift of God has come to justification of life;
they are justified, pardoned, and beloved in the sight of Almighty
God; they have a right and a share to a new life; a different sort of
life from what they are inclined to lead, and do lead, by nature--to
a life which death cannot take away, a life which may grow, and
strengthen, and widen, and blossom, and bear fruit for ever and ever.
They have a share in Christ's resurrection, in the blessing of
Easter-day.  They have a share in Christ, every one of them whether
they claim that share or not.  How far they will be punished for not
claiming it, is a very different matter, of which we know nothing
whatsoever.  And how far the heathen who have never heard of Christ,
or of their share in Him, will be punished, we know not--we are not
meant to know.  But we know that to their own Master they stand or
fall, and that their Master is our Master too, and that He is a just
Master, and requires little of him to whom He gives little; a just
and merciful Master, who loved this sinful world enough to come down
and die for it, while mankind were all rebels and sinners, and has
gone on taking care of it, and improving it, in spite of all its sin
and rebellion ever since, and that is enough for us.

St. Paul knew no more.  It was a mystery, he says, a wonderful and
unfathomable matter, which had been hidden since the foundation of
the world, of which he himself says that he saw only through a glass
darkly; and we cannot expect to have clearer eyes than he.  But this
he seems to have seen, that the Lord, when He rose again, bought a
blessing even for the dumb beasts and the earth on which we live.
For he says, the whole creation is now groaning in the pangs of
labour, being about to bring forth something; and the whole creation
will rise again; how, and when, and into what new state, we cannot
tell.  But St. Paul seems to say that when the Lord shall destroy
death, the last of his enemies, then the whole creation shall be
renewed, and bring forth another earth, nobler and more beautiful
than this one, free from death, and sin, and sorrow, and redeemed
into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

But this, on the other hand, St. Paul did see most clearly, and
preached it to all to whom he spoke, that the ground and reason of
this great and glorious mystery was the thing which happened on the
first Easter-day, namely, the Lord Jesus rising from the dead.  About
that, at least, there was no doubt at all in his mind.  We may see it
by the Easter anthem, which we read this morning, taken out of the
fifteenth chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians:

"Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them
that slept.

"For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of
the dead.

"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."

Now he is not talking here merely of the rising again of our bodies
at the last day.  That was in his mind only the end, and outcome, and
fruit, and perfecting, of men's rising from the dead in this life.
For he tells these same Corinthians, and the Colossians, and others
to whom he wrote, that life, the eternal life which would raise their
bodies at the last day, was even then working in them.

Neither is he speaking only of a few believers.  He says that, owing
to the Lord's rising on this day, all shall be made alive--not merely
all Christians, but all men.  For he does not say, as in Adam all
Christians die, but all men; and so he does not say, all Christians
shall be made alive, but all men.  For here, as in the sixth chapter
of Romans, he is trying to make us understand the likeness between
Adam and Jesus Christ, whom he calls the new Adam.  The first Adam,
he says, was only a living soul, as the savages and heathens are; but
the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, the true pattern of men, is a
quickening, life-giving spirit, to give eternal life to every human
being who will accept His offer, and claim his share and right as a
true man, after the likeness of the new Adam, Jesus Christ.

We then, every one of us who is here to-day, have a right to believe
that we have a share in Christ's eternal life:  that our original
sin, that is, the sinfulness which we inherited from our forefathers,
is all forgiven and forgotten, and that mankind is now redeemed, and
belongs to the second Adam, the true and original head and pattern of
man, Jesus Christ, in whom was no sin; and that because mankind
belongs to him, God is well pleased with them, and reconciled to
them, and looks on them not as a guilty, but as a pardoned and
beloved race of beings.

And we have a right to believe also, that because all power is given
to Christ in heaven and earth, there is given to Him the power of
making men what they ought to be--like His own blessed, and glorious,
and perfect self.  Ask him, and you shall receive; knock at the gate
of His treasure-house, and it shall be opened.  Seek those things
that are above, and you shall find them.  You shall find old bad
habits die out in you, new good habits spring up in you; old
meannesses become weaker, new nobleness and manfulness become
stronger; the old, selfish, covetous, savage, cunning, cowardly,
brutal Adam dying out, the new, loving, brotherly, civilised, wise,
brave, manful Adam growing up in you, day by day, to perfection, till
you are changed from grace to grace, and glory to glory into the
likeness of the Lord of men.

"These are great promises," you may say, "glorious promises; but what
proof have you that they belong to us?  They sound too good to be
true; too great for such poor creatures as we are; give us but some
proof that we have a right to them; give us but a pledge from Jesus
Christ; give us but a sign, an assurance from God, and we may believe
you then."

My friends, I am certain--and the longer I live I am the more
certain--that there is no argument, no pledge, no sign, no assurance,
like the bread and the wine upon that table.  Assurances in our own
hearts and souls are good, but we may be mistaken about them; for,
after all, they are our own thoughts, notions in our own souls, these
inward experiences and assurances; delightful and comforting as they
are at times, yet we cannot trust them--we cannot trust our own
hearts, they are deceitful above all things, who can know them?  Yes:
our own hearts may tell us lies; they may make us fancy that we are
pleasing God, when we are doing the things most hateful to Him.  They
have made thousands fancy so already.  They may make us fancy we are
right in God's sight, when we are utterly wrong.  They have made
thousands fancy so already.  These hearts of ours may make us fancy
that we have spiritual life in us; that we are in a state higher and
nobler than the sinners round us, when all the while our spirits are
dead within us.  They made the Pharisees of old fancy that their
souls were alive, and pure, and religious, when they were dead and
damned within them; and they may make us fancy so too.  No:  we
cannot trust our hearts and inward feelings; but that bread, that
wine, we can trust.  Our inward feelings are a sign from man; that
bread and wine are a sign from God.  Our inward feelings may tell us
what we feel toward God:  that bread, that wine, tell us something
ten thousand times more important; they tell us what God feels
towards us.  And God must love us before we can love Him; God must
pardon us before we can have mercy on ourselves; God must come to us,
and take hold of us, before we can cling to Him; God must change us,
before we can become right; God must give us eternal life in our
hearts before we can feel and enjoy that new life in us.  Then that
bread, that wine, say that God has done all that for us already; they
say:  "God does love you; God has pardoned you; God has come to you;
God is ready and willing to change and convert you; God has given you
eternal life; and this love, this mercy, this coming to find you out
while you are wandering in sin, this change, this eternal life, are
all in His Son Jesus Christ; and that bread, that wine, are the signs
of it.  It is for the sake of Jesus' blood that God has pardoned you,
and that cup is the new covenant in His blood.  Come and drink, and
claim your pardon.  It is simply because Jesus Christ was man, and
you, too, are men and women, wearing the flesh and blood which Christ
wore; eating and drinking as Christ ate and drank, and not for any
works or faith of your own, that God loves you, and has come to you,
and called you into His family.  This is the Gospel, the good news of
Christ's free grace, and pardon, and salvation; and that bread, that
wine, the common food of all men, not merely of the rich, or the
wise, or the pious, but of saints and penitents, rich and poor.
Christians and heathens, alike--that plain, common, every-day bread
and wine--are the signs of it.  Come and take the signs, and claim
your share in God's love, in God's family.  And it is in Jesus
Christ, too, that you have eternal life.  It is because you belong to
Jesus Christ, to mankind, of which He is the head and king, that God
will change you, strengthen your soul to rise above your sins, raise
you up daily more and more out of spiritual death, out of
brutishness, and selfishness, and ignorance, and malice, into an
eternal life of wisdom, and love, and courage, and mercifulness, and
patience, and obedience; a life which shall continue through death,
and beyond death, and raise you up again for ever at the last day,
because you belong to Christ's body, and have been fed with Christ's
eternal life.  And that bread, that wine are the signs of it.  "Take,
eat," said Jesus, "this is my body; drink, this is my blood."  Those
are the signs that God has given you eternal life, and that this life
is in His Son.  What better sign would you have?  There is no
mistaking their message; they can tell you no lies.  And they can,
and will, bring your own Gospel-blessings to your mind, as nothing
else can.  They will make you feel, as nothing else can, that you are
the beloved children of God, heirs of all that your King and Head has
bought for you, when He died, and rose again upon this day.  He gave
you the Lord's Supper for a sign.  Do you think that He did not know
best what the best sign would be?  He said:  "Do this in remembrance
of me."  Do you think that He did not know better than you, and me,
and all men, that if you did do it, it would put you in remembrance
of Him?

Oh! come to His table, this day of all days in the year; and claim
there your share in His body and His blood, to feed the everlasting
life in you; which, though you see it not now, though you feel it not
now, will surely, if you keep it alive in you by daily faith, and
daily repentance, and daily prayer, and daily obedience, raise you
up, body and soul, to reign with Him for ever at the last day.



IV--THE COMFORTER



FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER.

If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I
depart, I will send Him unto you--JOHN xvi. 7.

We are now coming near to two great days, Ascension-day and Whit-
Sunday, which our forefathers have appointed, year by year, to put us
continually in mind of two great works, which the Lord worked out for
us, His most unworthy subjects, and still unworthier brothers.

On Ascension-day He ascended up into Heaven, and received gifts for
men, even for His enemies, that the Lord God might dwell among them;
and on Whit-Sunday, He sent down those gifts.  The Spirit of God came
down to dwell in the hearts of men, to be the right of everyone who
asks for it, white or black, young or old, rich or poor, and never to
leave this earth as long as there is a human being on it.  And
because we are coming near to these two great days, the Prayer-book,
in the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, tries to put us in mind of
those days, and to make us ready to ask for the blessings of which
they are the yearly signs and witnesses.  The Gospel for last Sunday
told us how the Lord told His disciples just before His death, that
for a little while they should not see Him; and again a little while
and they should see Him, because he was going to the Father, and that
they should have great sorrow, but that their sorrow should be turned
into joy.  And the Gospel for to-day goes further still, and tells us
why He was going away--that He might send to them the Comforter, His
Holy Spirit, and that it was expedient--good for them, that He should
go away; for that if He did not, the Comforter would not come to
them.  Now, in these words, I do not doubt He was speaking of
Ascension-day, and of Whit-Sunday; and therefore it is that these
Gospels have been chosen to be read before Ascension-day and Whit-
Sunday; and in proportion as we attend to these Gospels, and take in
the meaning of them, and act accordingly, Ascension-day and Whit-
Sunday will be a blessing and a profit to us; and in proportion as we
neglect them, or forget them, Ascension-day and Whit-Sunday will be
witnesses against our souls at the day of judgment, that the Lord
Himself condescended to buy for us with His own blood, blessings
unspeakable, and offer them freely unto us, in spite of all our sins,
and yet we would have none of them, but preferred our own will to
God's will, and the little which we thought we could get for
ourselves, to the unspeakable treasures which God had promised to
give us, and turned away from the blessings of His kingdom, to our
own foolish pleasure and covetousness, like "the dog to his vomit,
and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire."

I said that God had promised to us an unspeakable treasure:  and so
He has; a treasure that will make the poorest and weakest man among
us, richer than if he had all the wealth gathered from all the
nations of the world, which everyone is admiring now in that Great
Exhibition in London, and stronger than if he had all the wisdom
which produced that wealth.  Let us see now what it is that God has
promised us--and then those to whom God has given ears to hear, and
hearts to understand, will see that large as my words may sound, they
are no larger than the truth.

Christ said, that if He went away, He would send down the Comforter,
the Holy Spirit of God.  The Nicene Creed says, that the Holy Spirit
of God is the Lord and Giver of life; and so He is.  He gives life to
the earth, to the trees, to the flowers, to the dumb animals, to the
bodies and minds of men; all life, all growth, all health, all
strength, all beauty, all order, all help and assistance of one thing
by another, which you see in the world around you, comes from Him.
He is the Lord and Giver of life; in Him, the earth, the sun and
stars, all live and move and have their being.  He is not them, or a
part of them, but He gives life to them.  But to men He is more than
that--for we men ourselves are more than that, and need more.  We
have immortal spirits in us--a reason, a conscience, and a will;
strange rights and duties, strange hopes and fears, of which the
beasts and the plants know nothing.  We have hearts in us which can
love, and feel, and sorrow, and be weak, and sinful, and mistaken;
and therefore we want a Comforter.  And the Lord and Giver of life
has promised to be our Comforter; and the Father and the Son, from
both of whom He proceeds, have promised to send Him to us, to
strengthen and comfort us, and give our spirits life and health, and
knit us together to each other, and to God, in one common bond of
love and fellow-feeling even as He the Spirit knits together the
Father and the Son.

I said that we want a Comforter.  If we consider what that word
Comforter means, we shall see that we do want a Comforter, and that
the only Comforter which can satisfy us for ever and ever, must be
He, the very Spirit of God, the Lord and Giver of life.

Now Comforter means one who gives comfort; so the meaning of it will
depend upon what comfort means.  Our word comfort, comes from two old
Latin words, which mean WITH and TO STRENGTHEN.  And, therefore, a
Comforter means anyone who is with us to strengthen us, and do for us
what we could not do for ourselves.  You will see that this is the
proper meaning of the word, when you remember what bodily things we
call comforts.  You say that a person is comfortable, or lives in
comfort, if he has a comfortable income, a comfortable house,
comfortable clothes, comfortable food, and so on.  Now all these
things, his money, his house, his clothes, his food, are not himself.
They make him stronger and more at ease.  They make his life more
pleasant to him.  But they are not HIM; they are round him, with him,
to strengthen him.  So with a person's mind and feelings; when a man
is in sorrow and trouble, he cannot comfort himself.  His friends
must come to him and comfort him; talk to him, advise him, show their
kind feeling towards him, and in short, be with him to strengthen him
in his afflictions.  And if we require comfort for our bodies, and
for our minds, my friends, how much more do we for our spirits--our
souls, as we call them!  How weak, and ignorant, and self-willed, and
perplexed, and sinful they are--surely our souls require a comforter
far more than our bodies or our minds do!  And to comfort our
spirits, we require a spirit; for we cannot see our own spirits, our
own souls, as we can our bodies.  We cannot even tell by our feelings
what state they are in.  We may deceive ourselves, and we do deceive
ourselves, again and again, and fancy that our souls are strong when
they are weak--that they are simple and truthful when they are full
of deceit and falsehood--that they are loving God when they are only
loving themselves--that they are doing God's will when they are only
doing their own selfish and perverse wills.  No man can take care of
his own spirit, much less give his own spirit life; "no man can
quicken his own soul," says David, that is, no man can give his own
soul life.  And therefore we must have someone beyond ourselves to
give life to our spirits.  We must have someone to teach us the
things that we could never find out for ourselves, someone who will
put into our hearts the good desires that could never come of
themselves.  We must have someone who can change these wills of ours,
and make them love what they hate by nature, and make them hate what
they love by nature.  For by nature we are selfish.  By nature we are
inclined to love ourselves, rather than anyone else; to take care of
ourselves, rather than anyone else.  By nature we are inclined to
follow our own will, rather than God's will, to do our own pleasure,
rather than follow God's commandments, and therefore by nature our
spirits are dead; for selfishness and self-will are SPIRITUAL DEATH.
Spiritual life is love, pity, patience, courage, honesty, truth,
justice, humbleness, industry, self-sacrifice, obedience to God, and
therefore to those whom God sends to teach and guide us.  THAT is
spiritual life.  That is the life of Jesus Christ; His character, His
conduct, was like that--to love, to help, to pity, all around--to
give up Himself even to death--to do His Father's will and not His
own.  That was His life.  Because He was the Son of God He did it.
In proportion as we live like Him, we shall he living like sons of
God.  In proportion as we live like Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our
spirits will be alive.  For he that hath Jesus Christ the Son of God
in him, hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not
life, says St. John.  But who can raise us from the death of sin and
selfishness, to the life of righteousness and love?  Who can change
us into the likeness of Jesus Christ?  Who can even show us what
Jesus Christ's likeness is, and take the things of Christ and show
them to us; so that by seeing what He was, we may see what we should
be?  And who, if we have this life in us, will keep it alive in us,
and be with us to strengthen us?  Who will give us strength to force
the foul and fierce and false thoughts out of our mind, and say, "Get
thee behind me, Satan?"  Who will give our spirits life? and who will
strengthen that life in us?

Can we do it for ourselves?  Oh! my friends, I pity the man who is so
blind and ignorant, who knows so little of himself, upon whom the
lessons which his own mistakes, and sins, and failings should have
taught him, have been so wasted that he fancies that he can teach and
guide himself without any help, and that he can raise his own soul to
life, or keep it alive without assistance.  Can his body do without
its comforts?  Then how can his spirit?  If he left his house, and
threw away his clothes, and refused all help from his fellow-men, and
went and lived in the woods like a wild beast, we should call him a
madman, because he refused the help and comfort to his body which God
has made necessary for him.  But just as great a madman is he who
refuses the help and the strengthening which God has made necessary
for his spirit--just as great a madman is he who fancies that his
soul is any more able than his body is, to live without continual
help.  It is just because man is nobler than the beast that he
requires help.  The fox in the wood needs no house, no fire; he needs
no friends; he needs no comforts, and no comforters, because he is a
beast--because he is meant to live and die selfish and alone;
therefore God has provided him in himself with all things necessary
to keep the poor brute's selfish life in him for a few short years.
But just because man is nobler than that; just because man is not
intended to live selfish and alone; just because his body, and his
mind, and his spirit are beautifully and delicately made, and
intended for all sorts of wonderful purposes, therefore God has
appointed that from the moment he is born to all eternity he cannot
live alone; he cannot support himself; he stands in continual need of
the assistance of all around him, for body, and soul, and spirit; he
needs clothes, which other men must make; houses, which other man
must build; food, which other men must produce; he has to get his
livelihood by working for others, while others get their livelihood
in return by working for him.  As a child he needs his parents to be
his comforters, to take care of him in body and mind.  As he grows up
he needs the care of others; he cannot exist a day without his
fellow-men:  he requires school-masters to educate him; books and
masters to teach him his trade; and when he has learnt it, and
settled himself in life, he requires laws made by other men, perhaps
by men who died hundreds of years before he was born, to secure to
him his rights and property, to secure to him comforts, and to make
him feel comfortable in his station; he needs friends and family to
comfort him in sorrow and in joy, to do for him the thousand things
which he cannot do for himself.  In proportion as he is alone and
friendless he is pitiable and miserable, let him be as rich as
Solomon himself.  From the moment, I say, he is born, he needs
continual comforts and comforters for his body, and mind, and heart.
And then he fancies that, though his body and his mind cannot exist
safely, or grow up healthily, without the continual care and
comforting of his fellow-men, that yet his soul, the part of him
which is at once the most important and the most in danger; the part
of him of which he knows least; the part of him which he understands
least; the part of him of which his body and mind cannot take care,
because it has to take care of them, can live, and grow, and prosper
without any help whatsoever!

And if we cannot strengthen our own souls no man can strengthen them
for us.  No man can raise our bodies to life, much less can he raise
our souls.  The physician himself cannot cure the sicknesses of our
bodies; he can only give us fit medicines, and leave them to cure us
by certain laws of nature, which he did not make, and which he cannot
alter.  And though the physician can, by much learning, understand
men's bodies somewhat, who can understand men's souls?  We cannot
understand our own souls; we do not know what they are, how they
live; whence they come, or whither they go.  We cannot cure them
ourselves, much less can anyone cure them for us.  The only one who
can cure our souls is He that made our souls; the only one who can
give life to our souls is He who gives life to everything.  The only
one who can cure, and strengthen, and comfort our spirits, is He who
understands our spirits, because He himself is the Spirit of all
spirits, the Spirit who searcheth all things, even the deep things of
God; because He is the Spirit of God the Father, who made all heaven
and earth, and of Jesus Christ the Son, who understands the heart of
man, who can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, and
hath been tempted in all things, just as we are, yet without sin.

He is the Comforter which God has promised to our spirits, the only
Comforter who can strengthen our spirits; and if we have Him with us,
if He is strengthening us, if He is leading us, if He is abiding with
us, if He is changing us day by day, more and more into the likeness
of Jesus Christ, are we not, as I said at the beginning of my sermon,
richer than if we possessed all the land of England, stronger than if
we had all the armies of the world at our command?  For what is more
precious than--God Himself?  What is stronger than--God Himself?  The
poorest man in whom God's Spirit dwells is greater than the greatest
king in whom God's Spirit does not dwell.  And so he will find in the
day that he dies.  Then where will riches be, and power?  The rich
man will take none of them away with him when he dieth, neither shall
his pomp follow him.  Naked came he into this world, and naked shall
he return out of it, to go as he came, and carry with him none of the
comforts which he thought in this life the only ones worth having.
But the Spirit of God remains with us for ever; that treasure a man
shall carry out of this world with him, and keep to all eternity.
That friend will never forsake him, for He is the Spirit of Love,
which abideth for ever.  That Comforter will never grow weak, for He
is Himself the very eternal Lord and Giver of Life; and the soul that
is possessed by Him must live, must grow, must become nobler, purer,
freer, stronger, more loving, for ever and ever, as the eternities
roll by.  That is what He will give you, my friends; that is His
treasure; that is the Spirit-life, the true and everlasting life,
which flows from Him as the stream flows from the fountain-head.



X--WHIT-SUNDAY



The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance--against such there
is no law.--GALATIANS v. 22, 23.

In all countries, and in all ages, the world has been full of
complaints of Law and Government.  And one hears the same complaints
in England now.  You hear complaints that the laws favour one party
and one rank more than another, that they are expensive, and harsh,
and unfair, and what not?--But I think, my friends, that for us, and
especially on this Whit-Sunday, it will be much wiser, instead of
complaining of the laws, to complain of ourselves, for needing those
laws.  For what is it that makes laws necessary at all, except man's
sinfulness?  Adam required no laws in the garden of Eden.  We should
require no laws if we were what we ought to be--what God has offered
to make us.  We may see this by looking at the laws themselves, and
considering the purposes for which they were made.  We shall then
see, that, like Moses' Laws of old, the greater part of them have
been added because of transgressions.--In plain English--to prevent
men from doing things which they ought not to do, and which, if they
were in a right state of mind, they would not do.  How many laws are
passed, simply to prevent one man, or one class, from oppressing or
ill-using some other man or class?  What a vast number of them are
passed simply to protect property, or to protect the weak from the
cruel, the ignorant from the cunning!  It is plain that if there was
no cruelty, no cunning, no dishonesty, these laws, at all events,
would not be needed.  Again, one of the great complaints against the
laws and the government, is that they are so expensive, that rates
and taxes are heavy burdens--and doubtless they are:  but what makes
them necessary except men's sin?  If the poor were more justly and
mercifully treated, and if they in their turn were more thrifty and
provident, there would be no need of the expenses of poor rates.  If
there was no love of war and plunder, there would be no need of the
expense of an army.  If there was no crime, there would be no need of
the expense of police and prisons.  The thing is so simple and self-
evident, that it seems almost childish to mention it.  And yet, my
friends, we forget it daily.  We complain of the laws and their
harshness, of taxes and their expensiveness, and we forget all the
while that it is our own selfishness and sinfulness which brings this
expense upon us, which makes it necessary for the law to interfere
and protect us against others, and others against us.  And while we
are complaining of the government for not doing its work somewhat
more cheaply, we are forgetting that if we chose, we might leave
government very little work to do--that every man if he chose, might
be his own law-maker and his own police--that every man if he will,
may lead a life "against which there is no law."

I say again, that it is our own fault, the fault of our sinfulness,
that laws are necessary for us.  In proportion as we are what
Scripture calls "natural men," that is, savage, selfish, divided from
each other, and struggling against each other, each for his own
interest; as long as we are not renewed and changed into new men, so
long will laws, heavy, severe, and burdensome, be necessary for us.
Without them we should be torments to ourselves, to our neighbours,
to our country.  But these laws are only necessary as long as we are
full of selfishness and ungodliness.  The moment we yield ourselves
up to God's law, man's laws are ready enough to leave us alone.
Take, for instance, a common example; as long as anyone is a faithful
husband and a good father, the law does not interfere with his
conduct towards his wife and children.  But it is when he is
unfaithful to them, when he ill-treats them, or deserts them, that
the law interferes with its "Thou shalt not," and compels him to
behave, against his will, in the way in which he ought to have
behaved of his own will.  It was free to the man to have done his
duty by his family, without the law--the moment he neglects his duty,
he becomes amenable to it.

But the law can only force a man's actions:  it cannot change his
heart.  In the instance which I have been just mentioning, the law
can say to a man, "You shall not ill-treat your family; you shall not
leave them to starve."  But the law cannot say to him "You shall love
your family."  The law can only command from a man outward obedience;
the obedience of the heart it cannot enforce.  The law may make a man
do his duty, it cannot make a man LOVE his duty.  And therefore laws
will never set the world right.  They can punish persons after the
wrong is done, and that not certainly nor always:  but they cannot
certainly prevent the wrongs being done.  The law can punish a man
for stealing:  and yet, as we see daily, men steal in the face of
punishment.  Or even if the law, by its severity, makes persons
afraid to commit certain particular crimes, yet still as long as the
sinful heart is left in them unchanged, the sin which is checked in
one direction is sure to break out in another.  Sin, like every other
disease, is sure, when it is driven onwards, to break out at a fresh
point, or fester within some still more deadly, because more hidden
and unsuspected, shape.  The man who dare not be an open sinner for
fear of the law, can be a hypocrite in spite of it.  The man who dare
not steal for fear of the law, can cheat in spite of it.  The selfish
man will find fresh ways of being selfish, the tyrannical man of
being tyrannical, however closely the law may watch him.  He will
discover some means of evading it; and thus the law, after all,
though it may keep down crime, multiplies sin; and by the law, as St.
Paul says, is the knowledge of sin.

What then will do that for this poor world which the law cannot do--
which, as St. Paul tells us, not even the law of God given on Mount
Sinai, holy, just, good as it was, could do, because no law can give
life?  What will give men a new heart and a new spirit, which shall
love its duty and do it willingly, and not by compulsion, everywhere
and always, and not merely just as far as it commanded?  The text
tells us that there is a Spirit, the fruit of which is love, joy,
peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,
temperance; a character such as no laws can give to a man, and which
no law dare punish in a man.  Look at this character as St. Paul sets
it forth--and then think what need would there be of all these
burdensome and expensive laws, if all men were but full of the fruits
of that Spirit which St. Paul describes?

I know what answer will be ready, in some of your minds at least, to
all this.  You will be ready to reply, almost angrily, "Of course if
everyone was perfect, we should need no laws:  but people are not
perfect, and you cannot expect them to be."  My friends, whether or
not WE expect baptized people, living in a Christian country, to be
perfect, God expects them to be perfect; for He has said, by the
mouth of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, "Be ye therefore perfect, as
our Father which is in heaven is perfect."  And He has told us what
being perfect is like; you may read it for yourselves in His sermon
on the Mount; and you may see also that what He commands us to do in
that sermon, from the beginning to the end, is the exact opposite and
contrary of the ways and rules of this world, which, as I have shown,
make burdensome laws necessary to prevent our devouring each other.
Now, do you think that God would have told us to be perfect, if He
knew that it was impossible for us?  Do you think that He, the God of
truth, would have spoken such a cruel mockery against poor sinful
creatures like us, as to command us a duty without giving us the
means of fulfilling it?  Do you think that He did not know ten
thousand times better than I what I have been just telling you, that
laws could not change men's hearts and wills; that commanding a man
to love and like a thing will not make him love and like it; that a
man's heart and spirit must be changed in him from within, and not
merely laws and commandments laid on him from without?  Then why has
He commanded us to love each other, ay, to love our enemies, to bless
those who curse us, to pray for those who use us spitefully?  Do you
think the Lord meant to make hypocrites of us; to tell us to go
about, as some who call themselves religious do go about, with their
lips full of meek, and humble, and simple, and loving words, while
their hearts are full of pride, and spite, and cunning, and hate, and
selfishness, which are all the more deadly for being kept in and
plastered over by a smooth outside?  God forbid!  He tells us to love
each other, only because He has promised us the spirit of love.  He
tells us to be humble, because He can make us humble-hearted.  He
tells us to be honest, because He can make us love and delight in
honesty.  He tells us to refrain ourselves from foul thoughts as well
as from foul actions, because He can take the foul heart out of us,
and give us instead the spirit of purity and holiness.  He tells us
to lead new lives after the new pattern of Himself, because He can
give us new hearts and a new spring of life within us; in short, He
bids us behave as sons of God should behave, because, as He said
Himself, "If we, being evil, know how to give our children what is
good for them, much more will our heavenly Father give His Holy
Spirit to those who ask him."  If you would be perfect, ask your
Father in heaven to make you perfect.  If you feel that your heart is
wrong, ask Him to give you a new and a right heart.  If you feel
yourselves--as you are, whether you feel it or not--too weak, too
ignorant, too selfish, to guide yourselves, ask Him to send His
Spirit to guide you; ask for the Spirit from which comes all love,
all light, all wisdom, all strength of mind.  Ask for that Spirit,
and you SHALL receive it; seek for it, and you shall find it; knock
at the gate of your Father's treasure-house, and it shall be surely
opened to you.

But some of you, perhaps, are saying to yourselves, "How will my
being changed and renewed by the Spirit of God, render the laws less
burdensome, while the crime and sin around me remain unchanged?  It
is others who want to be improved as much, and perhaps more than I
do."  It may be so, my friends; or, again, it may not; those who
fancy that others need God's Spirit more than they do, may be the
very persons who need it really the most; those who say they see, may
be only proving their blindness by so saying; those who fancy that
their souls are rich, and are full of all knowledge, and understand
the whole Bible, and want no further teaching, may be, as they were
in St. John's time, just the ones who are wretched, and miserable,
and poor, and blind, and naked in soul, and do not know it.  But at
all events, if you think others need to be changed by God's Spirit,
PRAY that God's Spirit may change them.  For believe me, unless you
pray for God's Spirit for each other, ay, for the whole world, there
is no use asking for yourselves.  This, I believe, is one of the
reasons, perhaps the chief reason, why the fruits of God's Spirit are
so little seen among us in these days; why our Christianity is become
more and more dead, and hollow, and barren, while expensive and
intricate laws and taxes are becoming more and more necessary every
year; because our religion has become so selfish, because we have
been praying for God's Spirit too little for each other.  Our prayers
have become too selfish.  We have been looking for God's Spirit not
so much as a means to enable us to do good to others, but as some
sort of mysterious charm which was to keep us ourselves from the
punishment of our sins in the next life, or give us a higher place in
heaven; and, therefore, St. James's words have been fulfilled to us,
even in our very prayers for God's Spirit, "Ye ask and have not,
because ye ask amiss, to consume it upon your lusts"--save our
selfish souls from the pains of hell; to give our selfish souls
selfish pleasures and selfish glorification in the world to come:
but not to spread God's kingdom upon earth, not to make us live on
earth such lives as Christ lived; a life of love and self-sacrifice,
and continual labour for the souls of others.  Therefore it is, that
God's Spirit is not poured out upon us in these days; for God's
Spirit is the spirit of love and brotherhood, which delivers a man
from his selfishness; and if we do not desire to be delivered from
our selfishness, we do not desire the Spirit of God, and the Spirit
of God will not be bestowed upon us.  And no man desires to be
delivered from his own selfishness, who in his very prayers, when he
ought to be thinking least about himself alone, is thinking about
himself most of all, and forgetting that he is the member of a
family--that all mankind are his brethren--that he can claim nothing
for himself to which every sinner around him has an equal right--that
nothing is necessary for him, which is not equally necessary for
everyone around him; that he has all the world besides himself to
pray for, and that his prayers for himself will be heard only
according as he prays for all the world beside.  Baptism teaches us
this, when it tells us that our old selfish nature is to be washed
away, and a new character, after the pattern of Christ, is to live
and grow up in us; that from the day we are baptized, to the day of
our death, we should live not for ourselves, but for Jesus, in whom
was no selfishness; when it teaches us that we are not only children
of God, but members of Christ's Family, and heirs of God's kingdom,
and therefore bound to make common cause with all other members of
that Family, to live and labour for the common good of all our
fellow-citizens in that kingdom.  The Lord's prayer teaches us this,
when He tells us to pray, not "My Father," but "Our Father;" not "my
soul be saved," but "Thy kingdom come;" not "give ME," but "give US
our daily bread;" not "forgive ME," but "forgive US our trespasses,"
and that only as we forgive others; not "lead ME not," but "lead US
not into temptation;" not "deliver ME," but "deliver US from evil."
After THAT manner the Lord told us to pray; and, in proportion as we
pray in that manner, asking for nothing for ourselves which we do not
ask for everyone else in the whole world, just so far and no farther
will God HEAR our prayers.  He who asks for God's Spirit for himself
only, and forgets that all the world need it as much as he, is not
asking for God's Spirit at all, and does not know even what God's
Spirit is.  The mystery of Pentecost, too, which came to pass on this
day 1818 years ago, teaches us the same thing also.  Those cloven
tongues of fire, the tokens of God's Spirit, fell not upon one man,
but upon many; not when they were apart from each other, but when
they were together; and what were the fruits of that Spirit in the
Apostles?  Did they remain within that upper room, each priding
himself upon his own gifts, and trying merely to gain heaven for his
own soul?  If they had any such fancies, as they very likely had
before the Spirit fell upon them, they had none such afterwards.  The
Spirit must have taken all such thoughts from them, and given them a
new notion of what it was to be devout and holy:  for instead of
staying in that upper room, they went forth instantly into the public
place to preach in foreign tongues to all the people.  Instead of
keeping themselves apart from each other in silence, and fancying, as
some have done, and some do now, that they pleased God by being
solitary, and melancholy, and selfish--what do we read? the fruit of
God's Spirit was in them; that they and the three thousand souls who
were added to them, on the first day of their preaching, "were all
together, and had all things common, and sold their possessions, and
goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need, and
continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread
from house to house, did eat their bread in gladness and singleness
of heart, praising God and having favour with all the people."  Those
were the fruits of God's Spirit in THEM.  Till we see more of that
sort of life and society in England, we shall not be able to pride
ourselves on having much of God's Spirit among us.

But above all, if anything will teach us that the strength of God's
Spirit is not a strength which we must ask for for ourselves alone;
that the blessings of God's kingdom are blessings which we cannot
have in order to keep them to ourselves, but can only enjoy in as far
as we share them with those around us; if anything, I say, ought to
teach us that lesson, it is the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.  Just
consider a moment, my friends, what a strange thing it is, if we will
think of it, that the Lord's Supper, the most solemn and sacred thing
with which a man can have to do upon earth, is just a thing which he
cannot transact for himself, or by himself.  Not alone in secret, in
his chamber, but, whether he will or not, in the company of others,
not merely in the company of his own private friends, but in the
company of any or everyone, rich or poor, who chooses to kneel beside
him; he goes with others, rich and poor alike, to the Lord's Table,
and there the same bread, and the same wine, is shared among all by
the same priest.  If that means anything, it means this--that rich
and poor alike draw life for their souls from the same well, not for
themselves only, not apart from each other, but all in common, all
together, because they are brothers, members of one family, as the
leaves are members of the same tree; that as the same bread and the
same wine are needed to nourish the bodies of all, the same spirit of
God is needed to nourish the souls of all; and that we cannot have
this spirit, except as members of a body, any more than a man's limb
can have life when it is cut off and parted from him.  This is the
reason, and the only reason, why Protestant clergymen are forbidden,
thank God! to give the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, to any
one person singly.  If a clergyman were to administer the Lord's
Supper, to himself in private, without any congregation to partake
with him, it would not be the Lord's Supper, it would be nothing, and
worse than nothing; it would be a sham and a mockery, and, I believe,
a sin.  I do not believe that Christ would be present, that God's
Spirit would rest on that man.  For our Lord says, that it is where
two or three are gathered together in His name, that He is in the
midst of them.  And it was at a supper, at a feast, where all the
Apostles were met together, that our Lord divided the bread amongst
them, and told them to share the cup amongst themselves, just as a
sign that they were all members of one body--that the welfare of each
of them was bound up in the welfare of all the rest that God's
blessing did not rest upon each singly, but upon all together.  And
it is just because we have forgotten this, my friends--because we
have forgotten that we are all brothers and sisters, children of one
family, members of one body--because in short, we have carried our
selfishness into our very religion, and up to the altar of God, that
we neglect the Lord's Supper as we do.  People neglect the Lord's
Supper because they either do not know or do not like that, of which
the Lord's Supper is the token and warrant.  It is not merely that
they feel themselves unfit for the Lord's Supper, because they are
not in love and charity with all men.  Oh! my dear friends, do not
some of your hearts tell you, that the reason why you stay away from
the Lord's Supper is because you do not WISH to be fit for the Lord's
Supper--because you do not like to be in love and charity with all
men--because you do not wish to be reminded that you are equals in
God's sight, all equally sinful, all equally pardoned--and to see
people whom you dislike or despise, kneeling by your side, and
partaking of the same bread and wine with you, as a token that God
sees no difference between you and them; that God looks upon you all
as brothers, however little brotherly love or fellow-feeling there
may be, alas! between you?  Or, again, do not some of you stay away
from the Lord's Supper, because you see no good in going? because it
seems to make those who go no better than they were before?  Shall I
tell you the reason of that?  Shall I tell you why, as is too true,
too many do come to the Lord's Supper, and so far from being the
better for it, seem only the worse?  Because they come to it in
selfishness.  We have fallen into the same false and unscriptural way
of looking at the Lord's Supper, into which the Papists have.  People
go to the Lord's Supper nowadays too much to get some private good
for their own souls, and it would not matter to many of them, I am
afraid, if not another person in the parish received it, provided
they can get, as they fancy, the same blessing from it.  Thus they
come to it in an utterly false and wrong temper of mind.  Instead of
coming as members of Christ's body, to get from Him life and
strength, to work, in their places, as members of that body, they
come to get something for themselves, as if there was nobody else's
soul in the world to be saved but their own.  Instead of coming to
ask for the Spirit of God to deliver them from their selfishness, and
make them care less about themselves, and more about all around them,
they come to ask for the Spirit of God because they think it will
make themselves higher and happier in heaven.  And of course they do
not get what they come for, because they come for the wrong thing.
Thus those who see them, begin to fancy that the Lord's Supper is
not, after all, so very important for the salvation of their souls;
and not finding in the Bible actually written these words, "Thou
shalt perish everlastingly unless thou take the Lord's Supper," they
end by staying away from it, and utterly neglecting it, they and
their children after them; preferring their own selfishness, to God's
Spirit of love, and saying, like Esau of old, "I am hungry, and I
must live.  I must get on in this selfish world by following its
selfish ways; what is the use of a spirit of love and brotherhood to
me?  If I were to obey the Gospel, and sacrifice my own interest for
those around me, I should starve; what good will my birthright do
me?"

Oh! my friends, I pray God that some of you, at least, may change
your mind.  I pray God that some of you may see at last, that all the
misery and the burdens of this time, spring from one root, which is
selfishness; and that the reason why we are selfish, is because we
have not with us the Spirit of God, which is the spirit of
brotherhood and love.  Let us pray God now, and henceforth, to take
that selfishness out of all our hearts.  Let us pray God now, and
henceforth, to pour upon us, and upon all our countrymen, ay, and
upon the whole world, the spirit of friendship and fellow-feeling,
the spirit which when men have among them, they need no laws to keep
them from supplanting, and oppressing, and devouring each other,
because its fruits are love, cheerfulness, peace, long suffering,
gentleness, goodness, honesty, meekness, temperance Then there will
be no need, my friends, for me to call you to the Supper of the Lord.
You will no more think of staying away from it, than the Apostles
did, when the Spirit was poured out on them.  For what do we read
that they did after the first Whit-Sunday?  That altogether with one
accord, they broke bread daily; that is, partook of the Lord's Supper
every day, from house to house.  They did not need to be told to do
it.  They did it, as I may say, by instinct.  There was no question
or argument about it in their minds.  They had found out that they
were all brothers, with one common cause in joy and sorrow--that they
were all members of one body--that the life of their souls came from
one root and spring, from one Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the
light and the life of men, in whom they were all one, members of each
other; and therefore, they delighted in that Lord's Supper, just
because it brought them together; just because it was a sign and a
token to them that they did belong to each other, that they had one
Lord, one faith, one interest, one common cause for this life, and
for all eternity.  And therefore the blessing of that Lord's Supper
did come to them, and in it they did receive strength to live like
children of God and members of Christ, and brothers to each other and
to all mankind.  They proved by their actions what that Communion
Feast, that Sacrament of Brotherhood, had done for them.  They proved
it by not counting their own lives dear to them, but going forth in
the face of poverty and persecution, and death itself, to preach to
the whole world the good news that Christ was their King.  They
proved it by their conduct to each other when they had all things in
common, and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all,
as every man had need.  They proved it by needing no laws to bind
them to each other from without, because they were bound to each
other from within, by the love which comes down from God, and is the
very bond of peace, and of every virtue which becomes a man.



XI--ASCENSION-DAY



And Jesus led them out as far as to Bethany; and he lifted up his
hands and blessed them.  And it came to pass while he blessed them,
he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.  And they
worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem, with great joy; and were
continually in the temple, praising and blessing God--LUKE xxiv. 50-
53.

On this day it is fit and proper for us--if we have understood, and
enjoyed, and profited by the wonder of the Lord's Ascension into
Heaven--to be in the same state of mind as the Apostles were after
His Ascension:  for what was right for them is right for us and for
all men; the same effects which it produced on them it ought to
produce on us.  And we may know whether we are in the state in which
Christian men ought to be, by seeing how far we are in the same state
of mind as the Apostles were.  Now the text tells us in what state of
mind they were; how that, after the Lord Jesus was parted from them,
and carried up into Heaven, they worshipped Him, and returned to
Jerusalem, with great joy, and were continually in the temple,
praising and blessing God.  It seems at first sight certainly very
strange that they should go back with great joy.  They had just lost
their Teacher, their Master--One who had been more to them than all
friends and fathers could be; One who had taken them, poor simple
fishermen, and changed the whole course of their lives, and taught
them things which He had taught to no one else, and given them a
great and awful work to do--the work of changing the ways and
thoughts and doings of the whole world.  He had sent them out--eleven
unlettered working men--to fight against the sin and the misery of
the whole world.  And He had given them open warning of what they
were to expect; that by it they should win neither credit, nor
riches, nor ease, nor anything else that the world thinks worth
having.  He gave them fair warning that the world would hate them,
and try to crush them.  He told them, as the Gospel for to-day says,
that they should be driven out of the churches; that the religious
people, as well as the irreligious, would be against them; that the
time would come when those who killed them would think that they did
God service; that nothing but labour, and want, and persecution, and
slander, and torture, and death was before them--and now He had gone
away and left them.  He had vanished up into the empty air.  They
were to see His face, and hear His voice no more.  They were to have
no more of His advice, no more of His teaching, no more of His tender
comfortings; they were to be alone in the world--eleven poor working
men, with the whole world against them, and so great a business to do
that they would not have time to get their bread by the labour of
their hands.  Is it not wonderful that they did not sit down in
despair, and say, "What will become of us?"  Is it not wonderful that
they did not give themselves up to grief at losing the Teacher who
was worth all the rest of the world put together?  Is it not
wonderful that they did not go back, each one to his old trade, to
his fishing and to his daily labour, saying, "At all events we must
eat; at all events we must get our livelihood;" and end, as they had
begun, in being mere labouring men, of whom the world would never
have heard a word?  And instead of that we read that they went back
with great joy not to their homes but to Jerusalem, the capital city
of their country, and "were continually in the temple blessing and
praising God."  Well, my friends, and if it is possible for one man
to judge what another man would have done--if it is possible to guess
what we should have done in their case--common-sense must show us
this, that if He was merely their Teacher, they would have either
given themselves up to despair, or gone back, some to their plough,
some to their fishing-nets, and some, like Matthew, to their
counting-houses, and we should never have heard a word of them.  But
if you will look in your Bibles, you will find that they thought Him
much more than a teacher--that they thought Him to be the Lord and
King of the whole world; and you will find that the great joy with
which the disciples went back, after He ascended into heaven, came
from certain very strange words that He had been speaking to them
just before He ascended--words about which they could have but two
opinions:  either they must have thought that they were utter
falsehood, and self-conceit, and blasphemy; and that Jesus, who had
been all along speaking to them such words of wisdom and holiness as
never man spake before, had suddenly changed His whole character at
the last, and become such a sort of person as it is neither fit for
me to speak of, or you to hear me speak of, in God's church, and in
Jesus Christ's hearing, even though it be merely for the sake of
argument; or else they must have thought THIS about His words, that
they were the most joyful and blessed words that ever had been spoken
on the earth; that they were the best of all news; the most complete
of all Gospels for this poor sinful world; that what Jesus had said
about Himself was true; and that as long as it was true, it did not
matter in the least what became of them; it did not matter in the
least what difficulties stood in their way, for they would be certain
to conquer them all; it did not matter in the least how men might
persecute and slander them, for they would be sure to get their
reward; it did not matter in the least how miserable and sinful the
world might be just then, for it was certain to be changed, and
converted, and brought to God, to righteousness, to love, to freedom,
to light, at last.

If you look at the various accounts, in the four gospels, of the
Lord's last words on earth, you will see, surely, what I mean.  Let
us take them one by one.

St. Matthew tells us that, a few days before the Lord's ascension, He
met His disciples on a mountain in Galilee, where he had appointed
them to await him; and there told them, that all power was given to
Him in heaven and earth.  Was not that blessed news--was not that a
gospel?  That all the power in heaven and earth belonged to HIM?  To
Him, who had all His life been doing good?  To Him, in whom there had
never been one single stain of tyranny or selfishness?  To Him, who
had been the friend of publicans and sinners?  To Him, who had
rebuked the very richest, and loved the very poorest?  To him, who
had shown that He had both the power and the will to heal every kind
of sickness and disease?  To Him, who had conquered and driven out,
wherever He met them, all the evil spirits which enslave and torment
poor sinful men?  To Him, who had shown by rising from the dead, that
He was stronger than even death itself?  To Him, who had declared
that He was the Son of God the Father, that the great God who had
made heaven and earth, and all therein, was perfectly pleased and
satisfied with Him, that He was come to do His Father's will, and not
His own; that He was the ancient Lord of the earth, the I AM who was
before Abraham?  And He was now to have all power in heaven and
earth!  Everything which was done right in the world henceforth, was
to be His doing.  The kingdom and rule over the whole universe, was
to be His.  So He said; and His disciples believed Him; and if they
believed Him, how could they but rejoice?  How could they but rejoice
at the glorious thought that He, the son of the village maiden, the
champion of the poor and the suffering, was to have the government of
the world for ever?  That He, who all the while He had been on earth
had showed that He was perfect justice, perfect love, perfect
humanity, was to reign till He had put all His enemies under His
feet?  How could the world but prosper under such a King as that?
How could wickedness triumph, while He, the perfectly righteous one,
was King?  How could misery triumph, while He, the perfectly merciful
one, was King?  How could ignorance triumph, while He, the perfectly
wise one, who had declared that God the Father hid nothing from Him,
was King?  Unless the disciples had been more dull and selfish than
the dumb beasts around them, what could they do but rejoice at that
news?  What matter to them if Jesus were taken out of their sight, as
long as all power was given to Him in heaven and earth?

But He had told them more.  He had told them that they were not to
keep this glorious secret to themselves.  No:  they were to go forth
and preach the gospel of it, the good news of it, to every creature--
to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God.  The good news that God
was the King of men, after all; that cruel tyrants and oppressors,
and conquerors, were not their kings; that neither the storms over
their heads, nor the earth under their feet, nor the clouds and the
rivers whom the heathens used to worship in the hope of persuading
the earth and the weather to be favourable to them, and bless their
harvests, were their kings; that idols of wood and stone, and evil
spirits of lust, and cruelty, and covetousness, were not their kings;
but that God was their King; that He loved them, He pitied them in
spite of all their sins; that He had sent His only begotten Son into
the world to teach them, to live for them--to die for them--to claim
them for His own.  And, therefore, they were to go and baptize all
nations, as a sign that they were to repent, and change, and put away
all their old false and evil heathen life, and rise to a new life,
they and their children after them, as God's children, God's family,
brothers of the Son of God.  And they were to baptize them into a
name; showing that they belonged to those into whose name they were
baptized; into the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy
Spirit.  They were to be baptized into the name of the Father, as a
sign that God was their Father, and they His children.  They were to
be baptized into the name of the Son, as a sign that the Son, Jesus
Christ, was their King and head; and not merely their King and head,
but their Saviour, who had taken away the sin of the world, and
redeemed it for God, with His own most precious blood; and not merely
their Saviour, but their pattern; that they might know that they were
bound to become as far as is possible for mortal man such sons of God
as Jesus himself had been, like Him obedient, pure, forgiving,
brotherly, caring for each other and not for themselves, doing their
heavenly Father's will and not their own.  And they were to baptize
all nations into the name of the Holy Spirit, for a sign that God's
Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, would be with them, to give them
new life, new holiness, new manfulness; to teach, and guide, and
strengthen them for ever.  That was the gospel which they had to
preach.  The good news that the Son of God was the King of men.  That
was the name into which they were to baptize all nations--the name of
children of God, members of Christ, heirs of a heavenly and spiritual
kingdom, which should go on age after age, for ever, growing and
spreading men knew not how, as the grains of mustard-seed, which at
first the least of all seeds, grows up into a great tree, and the
birds of the air come and lodge in the branches of it--to go on, I
say, from age to age, improving, cleansing, and humanising, and
teaching the whole world, till the kingdoms of the earth became the
kingdoms of God and of His Christ.  That was the work which the
Apostles had given them to do.  Do you not see, friends, that unless
those Apostles had been the most selfish of men, unless all they
cared for was their own gain and comfort, they must have rejoiced?
The whole world was to be set right--what matter what happened to
them?  And, therefore, I said at the beginning of my sermon, that a
sure way to know whether our minds were in a right state, was to see
whether we felt about it as the Apostles felt.  The Bible tells us to
rejoice always, to praise and give thanks to God always.  If we
believe what the Apostles believed, we shall be joyful; if we do not,
we shall not be joyful.  If we believe in the words which the Lord
spoke before He ascended on high, we shall be joyful.  If we believe
that all power in heaven and earth is His, we shall be joyful.  If we
believe that the son of the village maiden has ascended up on high,
and received gifts for men, we shall be joyful.  If we believe that,
as our baptism told us, God is our Father, the Son of God our
Saviour, the Spirit of God ready to teach and guide us, we shall be
joyful.  Do you answer me, "But the world goes on so ill; there is so
much sin, and misery, and folly, and cruelty in it; how can we be
joyful?"  I answer:  There was a hundred times as much sin, and
misery, and folly, and cruelty, in the Apostles' time, and yet they
were joyful, and full of gladness, blessing and praising God.  If you
answer, "But we are so slandered, and neglected, and misunderstood,
and hard-worked, and ill-treated; we have no time to enjoy ourselves,
or do the things which we should like best.  How can we be joyful?" I
answer:  So were the Apostles.  They knew that they would be a
hundred times as much slandered, and neglected, and misunderstood, as
you can ever be; that they would have far less time to enjoy
themselves, far less opportunity of doing the things which they liked
best, than you can ever have; they knew that misery, and persecution,
and a shameful death were before them, and yet they were joyful and
full of gladness, blessing and praising God.  And why should you not
be?  For what was true for them is true for you.  They had no
blessing, no hope, but what you have just as good a right to as they
had.  They were joyful, because God was their Father, and God is your
Father.  They were joyful because they and all men belonged to God's
family; and you belong to it.  They were joyful, because God's Spirit
was promised to them, to make them like God; and God's Spirit was
promised to you.  They were joyful, because a poor man was king of
heaven and earth; and that poor man, Jesus Christ, who was born at
Bethlehem, is as much your King now as He was theirs then.  They were
joyful, because the whole world was going to improve under His rule
and government; and the whole world is improving, and will go on
improving for ever.  They were joyful, because Jesus, whom they had
known as a poor, despised, crucified man on earth, had ascended up to
heaven in glory; and if you believe the same, you will be joyful too.
In proportion as you believe the mystery of Ascension-day; if you
believe the words which the Lord spoke before He ascended, you will
have cheerful, joyful, hopeful thoughts about yourselves, and about
the whole world; if you do not, you will be in continual danger of
becoming suspicious and despairing, fancying the world still worse
than it is, fancying that God has neglected and forgotten it,
fancying that the devil is stronger than God, and man's sins wider
than Christ's redemption till you will think it neither worth while
to do right yourselves, nor to make others do right towards you.



XII--THE FOUNT OF SCIENCE



(A Sermon Preached at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, May 4th,
1851, in behalf of the Westminster Hospital.)

When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and received
gifts for men, yea, even for his enemies, that the Lord God might
dwell among them.--PSALM lxviii. 18, and EPHESIANS iv. 8.

If, a thousand years ago, a congregation in this place had been
addressed upon the text which I have chosen, they would have had, I
think, little difficulty in applying its meaning to themselves, and
in mentioning at once innumerable instances of those gifts which the
King of men had received for men, innumerable signs that the Lord God
was really dwelling amongst them.  But amongst those signs, I think,
they would have mentioned several which we are not now generally
accustomed to consider in such a light.  They would have pointed not
merely to the building of churches, the founding of schools, the
spread of peace, the decay of slavery; but to the importation of
foreign literature, the extension of the arts of reading, writing,
painting, architecture, the improvement of agriculture, and the
introduction of new and more successful methods of the cure of
diseases.  They might have expressed themselves on these points in a
way that we consider now puerile and superstitious.  They might have
attributed to the efficacy of prayer, many cures which we now
attribute--shall I say? to no cause whatsoever.  They may have quoted
as an instance of St. Cuthbert's sanctity, rather than of his shrewd
observations, his discovery of a spring of water in the rocky floor
of his cell, and his success in growing barley upon the barren island
where wheat refused to germinate; and we might have smiled at their
superstition, and smiled, too, at their seeing any consequence of
Christianity, any token that the kingdom of God was among them, in
Bishop Wilfred's rescuing the Hampshire Saxons from the horrors of
famine, by teaching them the use of fishing-nets.  But still so they
would have spoken--men of a turn of mind no less keen, shrewd, and
practical than we, their children; and if we had objected to their
so-called superstition that all these improvements in the physical
state of England were only the natural consequences of the
introduction of Roman civilisation by French and Italian
missionaries, they would have smiled at us in their turn, not perhaps
without some astonishment at our stupidity, and asked:  "Do you not
see, too, that THAT is in itself a sign of the kingdom of God--that
these nations who have been for ages selfishly isolated from each
other, except for purposes of conquest and desolation, should be now
teaching each other, helping each other, interchanging more and more,
generation by generation, their arts, their laws, their learning
becoming fused down under the influence of a common Creed, and
loyalty to one common King in Heaven, from their state of savage
jealousy and warfare, into one great Christendom, and family of God?"
And if, my friends, as I think, those forefathers of ours could rise
from their graves this day, they would be inclined to see in our
hospitals, in our railroads, in the achievements of our physical
Science, confirmation of that old superstition of theirs, proofs of
the kingdom of God, realisations of the gifts which Christ received
for men, vaster than any of which they had ever dreamed.  They might
be startled at God's continuing those gifts to us, who hold on many
points a creed so different from theirs.  They might be still more
startled to see in the Great Exhibition of all Nations, which is our
present nine-days' wonder, that those blessings were not restricted
by God even to nominal Christians, but that His love, His teaching,
with regard to matters of civilisation and physical science, were
extended, though more slowly and partially, to the Mahometan and the
Heathen.  And it would be a wholesome lesson to them, to find that
God's grace was wider than their narrow theories; perhaps they may
have learnt it already in the world of spirits.  But of its BEING
God's grace, there would be no doubt in their minds.  They would
claim unhesitatingly, and at once, that great Exhibition established
in a Christian country, as a point of union and brotherhood for all
people, for a sign that God was indeed claiming all the nations of
the world as His own--proving by the most enormous facts that He had
sent down a Pentecost, gifts to men which would raise them not merely
spiritually, but physically and intellectually, beyond anything which
the world had ever seen, and had poured out a spirit among them which
would convert them in the course of ages, gradually, but most surely
and really, from a pandemonium of conquerors and conquered, devourers
and devoured, into a family of fellow-helping brothers, until the
kingdoms of the world became the kingdoms of God and of His Christ.

But I think one thing, if anything, would stagger their simple old
Saxon faith; one thing would make them fearful, as indeed it makes
the preacher this day, that the time of real brotherhood and peace is
still but too far off; and that the achievements of our physical
science, the unity of this great Exhibition, noble as they are, are
still only dim forecastings and prophecies, as it were, of a higher,
nobler reality.  And they would say sadly to us, their children:
"Sons, you ought to be so near to God; He seems to have given you so
much and to have worked among you as He never worked for any nation
under heaven.  How is it that you give the glory to yourselves, and
not to Him?"

For do we give the glory of our scientific discoveries to God, in any
real, honest, and practical sense?  There may be some official and
perfunctory talk of God's blessing on our endeavours; but there seems
to be no real belief in us that God, the inspiration of God, is the
very fount and root of the endeavours themselves; that He teaches us
these great discoveries; that He gives us wisdom to get this wondrous
wealth; that He works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure.
True, we keep up something of the form and tradition of the old talk
about such things; we join in prayer to God to bless our great
Exhibition, but we do not believe--we do not believe, my friends--
that it was God who taught us to conceive, build, and arrange that
Great Exhibition; and our notion of God's blessing it, seems to be
God's absence from it; a hope and trust that God will leave it and us
alone, and not "visit" it or us in it, or "interfere" by any "special
providences," by storms, or lightning, or sickness, or panic, or
conspiracy; a sort of dim feeling that we could manage it all
perfectly well without God, but that as He exists, and has some power
over natural phenomena, which is not very exactly defined, we must
notice His existence over and above our work, lest He should become
angry and "visit" us . . . And this in spite of words which were
spoken by one whose office it was to speak them, as the
representative of the highest and most sacred personage in these
realms; words which deserve to be written in letters of gold on the
high places of this city; in which he spoke of this Exhibition as an
"approach to a more complete fulfilment of the great and sacred
mission which man has to perform in the world;" when he told the
English people that "man's reason being created in the image of God,
he has to discover the laws by which Almighty God governs His
creations, and by making these laws the standard of his action, to
conquer nature to his use, himself a divine instrument;" when he
spoke of "thankfulness to Almighty God for what he has already
GIVEN," as the first feeling which that Exhibition ought to excite in
us; and as the second, "the deep conviction that those blessings can
only be realised in proportion to"--not, as some would have it, the
rivalry and selfish competition--but "in proportion to the HELP which
we are prepared to render to each other; and, therefore, by peace,
love, and ready assistance, not only between individuals, but between
all nations of the earth."  We read those great words; but in the
hearts of how few, alas! to judge from our modern creed on such
matters, must the really important and distinctive points of them
find an echo!  To how few does this whole Exhibition seem to have
been anything but a matter of personal gain or curiosity, for
national aggrandisement, insular self-glorification, and selfish--I
had almost said, treacherous--rivalry with the very foreigners whom
we invited as our guests?

And so, too, with our cures of diseases.  We speak of God's blessing
the means, and God's blessing the cure.  But all we really mean by
blessing them, is permitting them.  Do not our hearts confess that
our notion of His blessing the means, is His leaving the means to
themselves and their own physical laws--leaving, in short, the cure
to us and not preventing our science doing its work, and asserting
His own existence by bringing on some unexpected crisis, or
unfortunate relapse--if, indeed, the old theory that He does bring on
such, be true?

Our old forefathers, on the other hand, used to believe that in
medicine, as in everything else, God taught men all that they knew.
They believed the words of the Wise Man when he said that "the Spirit
of God gives man understanding."  The method by which Solomon
believed himself to have obtained all his physical science and
knowledge of trees, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop which
groweth on the wall, was in their eyes the only possible method.
They believed the words of Isaiah when he said of the tillage and the
rotation of crops in use among the peasants of his country, that
their God instructed them to discretion and taught them; and that
even the various methods of threshing out the various species of
grain came "forth from the Lord of hosts, who is excellent in
counsel, and wonderful in working."

Such a method, you say, seems to you now miraculous.  It did not seem
to our forefathers miraculous that God should teach man; it seemed to
them most simple, most rational, most natural, an utterly every-day
axiom.  They thought it was because so few of the heathen were taught
by God that they were no wiser than they were.  They thought that
since the Son of God had come down and taken our nature upon Him, and
ascended up on high and received gifts for men, that it was now the
right and privilege of every human being who was willing to be taught
of God, as the prophet foretold in those very words; and that baptism
was the very sign and seal of that fact--a sign that for every human
being, whatever his age, sex, rank, intellect, or race, a certain
measure of the teaching of God and of the Spirit of God was ready,
promised, sure as the oath of Him that made heaven and the earth, and
all things therein.  That was Solomon's belief.  We do not find that
it made him a fanatic and an idler, waiting with folded hands for
inspiration to come to him he knew not how nor whence.  His belief
that wisdom was the revelation and gift of God did not prevent him
from seeking her as silver, and searching for her as hid treasures,
from applying his heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning
all things that are done under heaven; and we do not find that it
prevented our forefathers.  Ceadmon's belief that God inspired him
with the poetic faculty, did not make him the less laborious and
careful versifier.  Bishop John's blessing the dumb boy's tongue in
the name of Him whom he believed to be Word of God and the Master of
that poor dumb boy, did not prevent his anticipating some of the
discoveries of our modern wise men, in setting about a most practical
and scientific cure.  Alfred's continual prayers for light and
inspiration made him no less a laborious and thoughtful student of
war and law, of physics, language, and geography.  These old Teutons,
for all these superstitions of theirs, were perhaps as businesslike
and practical in those days as we their children are in these.  But
that did not prevent their believing that unless God showed them a
thing, they could not see it, and thanking Him honestly enough for
the comparative little which He did show them.  But we who enjoy the
accumulated teaching of ages--we to whose researches He is revealing
year by year, almost week by weeks wonders of which they never
dreamed--we whom He has taught to make the lame to walk, the dumb to
speak, the blind to see, to exterminate the pestilence and defy the
thunderbolt, to multiply millionfold the fruits of learning, to
annihilate time and space, to span the heavens, and to weigh the sun--
what madness is this which has come upon us in these last days, to
make us fancy that we, insects of a day, have found out these things
for ourselves, and talk big about the progress of the species, and
the triumphs of intellect, and the all-conquering powers of the human
mind, and give the glory of all this inspiration and revelation, not
to God, but to ourselves?  Let us beware, beware--lest our boundless
pride and self-satisfaction, by some mysterious yet most certain law,
avenge itself--lest like the Assyrian conqueror of old, while we
stand and cry, "Is not this great Babylon which I have built?" our
reason, like his, should reel and fall beneath the narcotic of our
own maddening self-conceit, and while attempting to scale the heavens
we overlook some pitfall at our feet, and fall as learned idiots,
suicidal pedants, to be a degradation, and a hissing, and a shame.

However strongly you may differ from these opinions of our own
forefathers with regard to the ground and cause of physical science,
and the arts of healing, I am sure that the recollection of the
thrice holy ground upon which we stand, beneath the shadow of
venerable piles, witnesses for the creeds, the laws, the liberties,
which those our ancestors have handed down to us, will preserve you
from the temptation of dismissing with hasty contempt their thoughts
upon any subject so important; will make you inclined to listen to
their opinion with affection, if not with reverence; and save,
perhaps, the preacher from a sneer when he declares that the doctrine
of those old Saxon men is, in his belief, not only the most
Scriptural, but the most rational and scientific explanation of the
grounds of all human knowledge.

At least, I shall be able to quote in support of my own opinion a
name from which there can be no appeal in the minds of a congregation
of educated Englishmen--I mean Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, the
spiritual father of the modern science, and, therefore, of the
chemistry and the medicine of the whole civilised world.  If there is
one thing which more than another ought to impress itself on the mind
of a careful student of his works, it is this--that he considered
science as the inspiration of God, and every separate act of
induction by which man arrives at a physical law, as a revelation
from the Maker of those laws; and that the faith which gave him
daring to face the mystery of the universe, and proclaim to men that
they could conquer nature by obeying her, was his deep, living,
practical belief that there was One who had ascended up on high and
led captive in the flesh and spirit of a man those very idols of
sense which had been themselves leading men's minds captive,
enslaving them to the illusions of their own senses, forcing them to
bow down in vague awe and terror before those powers of Nature, which
God had appointed, not to be their tyrants, but their slaves.  I will
not special-plead particulars from his works, wherein I may consider
that he asserts this.  I will rather say boldly that the idea runs
through every line he ever wrote; that unless seen in the light of
that faith, the grounds of his philosophy ought to be as inexplicable
to us, as they would, without it, have been impossible to himself.
As has been well said of him:  "Faith in God as the absolute ground
of all human as well as of all natural laws; the belief that He had
actually made Himself known to His creatures, and that it was
possible for them to have a knowledge of Him, cleared from the
phantasies and idols of their own imaginations and understandings;
this was the necessary foundation of all that great man's mind and
speculations, to whatever point they were tending, and however at
times they might be darkened by too close a familiarity with the
corruptions and meannesses of man, or too passionate an addiction to
the contemplation of Nature.  Nor should it ever be forgotten that he
owed all the clearness and distinctness of his mind to his freedom
from that Pantheism which naturally disposes to a vague admiration
and adoration of Nature, to the belief that it is stronger and nobler
than ourselves; that we are servants, and puppets, and portions of
it, and not its lords and rulers.  If Bacon had in anywise confounded
Nature with God--if he had not entertained the strongest practical
feeling that men were connected with God through One who had taken
upon Him their nature, it is impossible that he could have discovered
that method of dealing with physics which has made a physical science
possible."

No really careful student of his works, but must have perceived this,
however glad, alas! he may have felt at times to thrust the thought
of it from him, and try to think that Francis Bacon's Christianity
was something over and above his philosophy--a religion which he left
behind him at the church-door--or only sprinkled up and down his
works so much of it as should shield him in a bigoted age from the
suspicion of materialism.  A strange theory, and yet one which so
determined is man to see nothing, whether it be in the Bible or in
the Novum Organum, but what each wishes to see, has been deliberately
put forth again and again by men who fancy, forsooth, that the
greatest of English heroes was even such an one as themselves.  One
does not wonder to find among the general characteristics of those
writers who admire Bacon as a materialist, the most utter incapacity
of philosophising on Bacon's method, the very restless conceit, the
hasty generalisation, the hankering after cosmogonic theories, which
Bacon anathematises in every page.  Yes, I repeat it, we owe our
medical and sanitary science to Bacon's philosophy; and Bacon owed
his philosophy to his Christianity.

Oh! it is easy for us, amid the marvels of our great hospitals, now
grown commonplace in our eyes from very custom, to talk of the empire
of mind over matter; for us--who reap the harvest whereof Bacon sowed
the seed.  But consider, how great the faith of that man must have
been, who died in hope, not having received the promises, but seeing
them afar off, and haunted to his dying day with glorious visions of
a time when famine and pestilence should vanish before a scientific
obedience--to use his own expression--to the will of God, revealed in
natural facts.  Thus we can understand how he dared to denounce all
that had gone before him as blind and worthless guides, and to
proclaim himself to the world as the one restorer of true physical
philosophy.  Thus we can understand how he, the cautious and patient
man of the world, dared indulge in those vast dreams of the
scientific triumphs of the future.  Thus we can understand how he
dared hint at the expectation that men would some day even conquer
death itself; because he believed that man had conquered death
already, in the person of its King and Lord--in the flesh of Him who
ascended up on high, and led captivity captive, and received gifts
for men.  The "empire of mind over matter?"  What practical proof had
he of it amid the miserable alternations of empiricism and magic
which made up the pseudo-science of his time; amid the theories and
speculations of mankind, which, as he said, were "but a sort of
madness--useless alike for discovery or for operation."  What right
had he, more than any other man who had gone before him, to believe
that man could conquer and mould to his will the unseen and
tremendous powers which work in every cloud and every flower? that he
could dive into the secret mysteries of his own body, and renew his
youth like the eagle's?  This ground he had for that faith--that he
believed, as he says himself, that he must "begin from God; and that
the pursuit of physical science clearly proceeds from Him, the Author
of good, and Father of light."  This gave him faith to say that in
this as in all other Divine works, the smallest beginnings lead
assuredly to some result, and that the "remark in spiritual matters,
that the kingdom of God cometh without observation, is also found to
be true in every great work of Divine Providence; so that everything
glides on quietly without confusion or noise, and the matter is
achieved before men either think or perceive that it is commenced."
This it was which gave him courage to believe that his own philosophy
might be the actual fulfilment of the prophecy, that in the last days
many should run to and fro, and knowledge should be increased--words
which, like hundreds of others in his works, sound like the
outpourings of an almost blasphemous self-conceit, till we recollect
that he looked on science only as the inspiration of God, and man's
empire over nature only as the consequence of the redemption worked
out for him by Christ, and begin to see in them the expressions of
the deepest and most divine humility.

I doubt not that many here will be far more able than I am
practically to apply the facts which I have been adducing to the
cause of the hospital for which I am pleading.  But there is one
consequence of them to which I must beg leave to draw attention more
particularly, especially at the present era of our nation.  If, then,
these discoveries of science be indeed revelations and inspirations
from God, does it not follow that all classes, even the poorest and
the most ignorant, the most brutal, have an equal right to enjoy the
fruits of them?  Does it not follow that to give to the poor their
share in the blessings which chemical and medical science are working
out for us, is not a matter of charity or benevolence, but of DUTY,
of indefeasible, peremptory, immediate duty?  For consider, my
friends; the Son of God descends on earth, and takes on Him not only
the form, but the very nature, affections, trials, and sorrows of a
man.  He proclaims Himself as the person who has been all along
ruling, guiding, teaching, improving men; the light who lighteth
every man who cometh into the world.  He proclaims Himself by acts of
wondrous power to be the internecine foe and conqueror of every form
of sorrow, slavery, barbarism, weakness, sickness, death itself.  He
proclaims Himself as One who is come to give His life for His sheep--
One who is come to restore to men the likeness in which they were
originally created, the likeness of their Father in Heaven, who
accepteth the person of no man--who causeth His sun to shine on the
evil and on the good, who sendeth His rain on the just and on the
unjust, in whose sight the meanest publican, if his only
consciousness be that of his own baseness and worthlessness, is more
righteous than the most learned, respectable, and self-satisfied
pharisee.  He proclaims Himself the setter-up of a kingdom into which
the publican and the harlot will pass sooner than the rich, the
mighty, and the noble; a kingdom in which all men are to be brothers,
and their bond of union loyalty to One who spared not His own life
for the sheep, who came not to do His own, but the will of the Father
who had sent Him, and who showed by His toil among the poor, the
outcast, the ignorant, and the brutal, what that same will was like.
With His own life-blood He seals this Covenant between God and man.
He offers up His own body as the first-fruits of this great kingdom
of self-sacrifice.  He takes poor fishermen and mechanics, and sends
them forth to acquaint all men with the good news that God is their
King, and to baptize them as subjects of that kingdom, bound to rise
in baptism to a new life, a life of love, and brotherhood, and self-
sacrifice, like His own.  He commands them to call all nations to
that sacred Feast wherein there is neither rich nor poor, but the
same bread and the same wine are offered to the monarch and to the
slave, as signs of their common humanity, their common redemption,
their common interest--signs that they derive their life, their
health, their reason, their every faculty of body, soul, and spirit,
from One who walked the earth as the son of a poor carpenter, who ate
and drank with publicans and sinners.  He sends down His Spirit on
them with gifts of language, eloquence, wisdom, and healing, as mere
earnests and first-fruits; so they said, of that prophecy that He
would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, even upon slaves and
handmaids.  And these poor fishermen feel themselves impelled by a
divine and irresistible impulse to go forth to the ends of the world,
and face persecution, insult, torture, and death--not in order that
they may make themselves lords over mankind, but that they may tell
them that One is their Master, even Jesus Christ, both God and man--
that HE rules the world, and will rule it, and CAN rule it, that in
His sight there is no distinction of race, or rank, or riches,
neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free.  And, as a
fact, their message has prevailed and been believed; and in
proportion as it has prevailed, not merely individual sanctity or
piety, but liberty, law, peace, civilisation, learning, art, science,
the gifts which he bought for men with His blood, have followed in
its train:  while the nations who have not received that message that
God was their King, or having received it have forgotten it, or
perverted it into a superstition and an hypocrisy, have in exactly
that proportion fallen back into barbarism and bloodshed, slavery and
misery.  My friends, if this philosophy of history, this theory of
human progress, or as I should call it, this Gospel of the Kingdom of
God mean anything--does it not mean this? this which our forefathers
believed, dimly and inconsistently perhaps, but still believed it,
else we had not been here this day--that we are not our own, but the
servants of Jesus Christ, and brothers of each other--that the very
constitution and ground-law of this human species which has been
redeemed by Christ, is the self-sacrifice which Christ displayed as
the one perfection of humanity--that all rank, property, learning,
science, are only held by their possessors in trust from that King
who has distributed them to each according as He will, that each
might use them for the good of all, certain--as certain as God's
promise can make man--that if by giving up our own interest for the
interest of others, we seek first the kingdom of God, and the
righteousness between man and man, which we call MERCY, according to
which it is constituted, all other things, health, wealth, peace, and
every other blessing which humanity can desire, shall be added unto
us over and above, as the natural and necessary fruits of a society
founded according to the will of God, and declared in his Son Jesus
Christ, and therefore according to those physical laws, whereof He is
at once the Creator, the Director, and the Revealer?

This was the faith of our forefathers, both laity and clergy--that
the Lord was King, be the people never so unquiet; that men were His
stewards and His pupils only, and not His vicars; that they were
equal in His sight, and not the slaves and tyrants of each other; and
that the help that was done upon earth, He did it all Himself.
Dimly, doubtless, they saw it, and inconsistently:  but they saw it,
and to their faith in that great truth we owe all that has made
England really noble among the nations.  Of the fruits of that faith
every venerable building around us should remind us.  To that faith
in the laity, we owe the abolition of serfdom, the freedom of our
institutions, the laws which provide equal justice between man and
man; to that faith in the clergy, and especially in the monastic
orders, we owe the endowment of our schools and universities, the
improvement of agriculture, the preservation and the spread of all
the liberal arts and sciences, as far as they were then discovered;
so that every one of those abbeys which we now revile so ignorantly,
became a centre of freedom, protection, healing, and civilisation, a
refuge for the oppressed, a well-spring of mercy for the afflicted, a
practical witness to the nation that property and science were not
the private and absolute possession of men, but only held in trust
from God for the benefit of the common weal:  and just in proportion
as in the 14th and 15th centuries those institutions fell from their
first estate, and began to fancy that their wealth and wisdom was
their own, acquired by their own cunning, to be used for their own
aggrandizement, they became an imposture and imbecility, an
abomination and a ruin.  And it was this faith, too, in a still
nobler and clearer form, which at the Reformation inspired the age
which could produce a Ridley, a Latimer, an Elizabeth, a Shakspeare,
a Spenser, a Raleigh, a Bacon, and a Milton; which knit together, in
spite of religious feuds and social wrongs, the nation of England
with a bond which all the powers of hell endeavoured in vain to
break.  Doubtless, there too there was inconsistency enough.
Elizabeth may have mixed up ambitious dynastic dreams with her
intense belief that God had given her her wisdom, her learning, her
mighty will, only to be the servant of His servants and defender of
the faith.  Men like Drake and Raleigh, while they were believing
that God had sent them forth to smite with the sword of the Lord the
devourers of the earth, the destroyers of religion, freedom,
civilisation, and national life, may have been unfaithful to what
they believed their divine mission, and fancied that they might use
their wisdom and valour that God gave them for their selfish ends,
till they committed (as some say) acts of rapacity and cruelty worthy
of the merest buccaneer.  But THAT was not what made them conquer--
that was not what made the wealth and the might of Spain melt away
before their little bands of heroes; but the same old faith, shining
out in all their noblest acts and words, that "the Lord WAS King, and
that the help that was done upon earth, He did it all Himself?"  So
again, Bacon may have fancied, and did fancy in his old age, that he
might use his deep knowledge of mankind for his own selfish ends--
that he might indulge himself in building himself up a name that
might fill all the earth, that he who had done so much for God and
for mankind, might be allowed to do at last somewhat for himself, and
tempted, by a paltry bribe, fall for awhile, as David did before him,
that God, and not he, might have the glory of all his wisdom.  But
then he was less than himself; then he had but lost sight of his
lode-star.  Then he had forgotten, but only for awhile, that he owed
all to the teaching of that God who had given to the young and
obscure advocate the mission of affecting the destinies of nations
yet unborn.

And believe me, my friends, even as it has been with our forefathers,
so it will be with us.  According to our faith will it be unto us,
now as it was of old.  In proportion as we believe that wealth,
science, and civilisation are the work and property of man, in just
that proportion we shall be tempted to keep them selfishly and
exclusively to ourselves.  The man of science will be tempted to hide
his discoveries, though men may be perishing for lack of them, till
he can sell them to the highest bidder; the rich man will be tempted
to purchase them for himself, in order that he may increase his own
comfort and luxury, and feel comparatively lazy and careless about
their application to the welfare of the masses; he will be tempted to
pay an exorbitant price for anything that can increase his personal
convenience, and yet when the question is about improving the supply
of necessaries to the poor, stand haggling about considerations of
profitable investment, excuse himself from doing the duty which lies
nearest to him by visions of distant profit, of which a thousand
unexpected accidents may deprive him after all, and make his boasted
scientific care for the wealth of the nation an excuse for leaving
tens of thousands worse housed and worse fed than his own beasts of
burden.  The poor man will be tempted franctically to oppose his
selfishness and unbelief to the selfishness and unbelief of the rich,
and clutch from him by force the comfort which really belong to
neither of them, in order that he may pride himself in them and
misuse them in his turn; and the clergy will be tempted, as they have
too often been tempted already, to fancy that reason is the enemy,
and not the twin sister of faith; to oppose revelation to science, as
if God's two messages could contradict each other; to widen the
Manichaean distinction between secular and spiritual matters, so
pleasant to the natural atheism of fallen man; to fancy that they
honour God by limiting as much as possible His teaching, His
providence, His wisdom, His love, and His kingdom, and to pretend
that they are defending the creeds of the Catholic Church, by denying
to them any practical or real influence on the economic, political,
and physical welfare of mankind.  But in proportion as we hold to the
old faith of our forefathers concerning science and civilisation, we
shall feel it not only a duty, but a glory and a delight, to make all
men sharers in them; to go out into the streets and lanes of the city
and call in the maimed, and the halt, and the blind, that they may
sit down and take their share of the good things which God has
provided in His kingdom for those who obey Him.  Every new discovery
will be hailed by us as a fresh boon from God to be bestowed by the
rain and the sunshine freely upon us all.  The sight of every
sufferer will make us ready to suspect and to examine ourselves lest
we should be in some indirect way the victim of some neglect or
selfishness of our own.  Every disease will be a sign to us that in
some respect or other, the physical or moral laws of human nature
have been overlooked or broken.  The existence of an unhealthy
locality, the recurrence of an epidemic, will be to us a subject of
public shame and self-reproach.  Men of science will no longer go up
and down entreating mankind in vain to make use of their discoveries;
the sanitary reformer will be no longer like Wisdom crying in the
streets and no man regarding her; and in every ill to which flesh is
heir we shall see an enemy of our King and Lord, and an intruder into
His Kingdom, against which we swore at our baptism to fight with an
inspiring and delicious certainty that God will prosper the right;
that His laws cannot change; that nature, and the disturbances and
poisons, and brute powers thereof, were meant to be the slaves, and
not the tyrants of a race whose head has conquered the grave itself.

This is no speculative dream.  The progress of science is daily
proving it to be an actual truth; proving to us that a large
proportion of diseases--how large a proportion, no man yet dare say--
are preventible by science under the direction of that common justice
and mercy which man owes to man.  The proper cultivation of the soil,
it is now clearly seen, will exterminate fevers and agues, and all
the frightful consequences of malaria.  An attention to those simple
decencies and cleanlinesses of life of which even the wild animals
feel the necessity, will prevent the epidemics of our cities, and all
the frightful train of secondary diseases which follow them, or
supply their place.  The question which is generally more and more
forcing itself on the minds of scientific men is not how many
diseases are, but how few are not, the consequences of man's
ignorance, barbarism, and folly.  The medical man is felt more and
more to be as necessary in health as he is in sickness, to be the
fellow-workman not merely of the clergyman, but of the social
reformer, the political economist, and the statesman; and the first
object of his science to be prevention, and not cure.  But if all
this be true, as true it is, we ought to begin to look on hospitals
as many medical men I doubt not do already, in a sadder though in a
no less important light.  When we remember that the majority of cases
which fill their wards are cases of more or less directly preventible
diseases, the fruits of our social neglect, too often of our neglect
of the sufferers themselves, too often also our neglect of their
parents and forefathers; when we think how many a bitter pang is
engendered and propagated from generation to generation in the
noisome alleys and courts of this metropolis, by foul food, foul
bedrooms, foul air, foul water, by intemperance, the natural and
almost pardonable consequence of want of water, depressing and
degrading employments, and lives spent in such an atmosphere of filth
as our daintier nostrils could not endure a day:  then we should
learn to look upon these hospitals not as acts of charity,
supererogatory benevolences of ours towards those to whom we owe
nothing, but as confessions of sin, and worthy fruits of penitence;
as poor and late and partial compensation for misery which we might
have prevented.  And when again, taking up scientific works, we find
how vast a proportion of the remaining cases of disease are produced
directly or indirectly by the unhealthiness of certain occupations,
so certainly that the scientific man can almost prophesy the average
shortening of life, and the peculiar form of disease, incident to any
given form of city labour--when we find, to quote a single instance,
that a large proportion--one half, as I am informed--of the female
cases in certain hospitals, are those of women-servants suffering
from diseases produced by overwork in household labour, especially by
carrying heavy weights up the steep stairs of our London houses--when
we consider the large proportion of accident cases which are the
result, if not always of neglect in our social arrangements, still of
danger incurred in labouring for us, we shall begin to feel that our
debts towards the poorer classes, for whom this and other hospitals
are instituted, swells and mounts up to a burden which ought to be
and would be intolerable to us, if we had not some such means as this
hospital affords of testifying our contrition for neglect for which
we cannot atone, and of practically claiming in the hospital our
brotherhood with those masses whom we pass by so carelessly in the
workshop and the street.  What matters it that they have undertaken a
life of labour from necessity, and with a full consciousness of the
dangers they incur in it?  For whom have they been labouring, but for
us?  Their handiwork renders our houses luxurious.  We wear the
clothes they make.  We eat the food they produce.  They sit in
darkness and the shadow of death that we may enjoy light and life and
luxury and civilisation.  True, they are free men, in name, not free
though from the iron necessity of crushing toil.  Shall we make their
liberty a cloak for our licentiousness? and because they are our
brothers and not our slaves, answer with Cain, "Am I my brother's
keeper?"  What if we have paid them the wages which they ask?  We do
not feed our beasts of burden only as long as they are in health, and
when they fall sick leave them to cure themselves and starve--and
these are not our beasts of burden; they are members of Christ,
children of God, inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven.  Prove it to
them, then, for they are in bitter danger of forgetting it in these
days.  Prove to them, by helping to cure their maladies, that they
are members of Christ, that they do indeed belong to Him who without
fee or payment freely cured the sick of Judaea in old time.  Prove to
them that they are children of God by treating them as such--as
children of Him without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground,
children of Him whose love is over all His works, children of Him who
defends the widow and the fatherless, and sees that those who are in
need or necessity have right, and who maketh inquiry for the blood of
the innocent.  Prove to them that they are inheritors of the Kingdom
of Heaven, by proving to them first of all that the Kingdom of Heaven
exists, that all, rich and poor alike, are brothers, and One their
Master, He who ascended up on high and led captivity captive, and
received gifts for men, the gifts of healing, the gifts of science,
the gifts of civilisation, the gifts of law, the gifts of order, the
gifts of liberty, the gifts of the spirit of love and brotherhood, of
fellow-feeling and self-sacrifice, of justice and humility, a spirit
fit for a world of redeemed and pardoned men, in which mercy is but
justice, and self-sacrifice the truest self-interest; a world, the
King and Master of which is One who poured out his own life-blood for
the sake of those who hated him, that men should henceforth live not
for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again, and ascended up
on high and received gifts for men, that the Lord God might dwell
among them.

And because all general truths can only be verified in particular
instances, verify your general faith in that Christianity which you
profess in this particular instance, by doing the duty which lies
nearest to you, and GIVING, AS IT IS CALLED, to this hospital for
which I now plead.

Thanks to the spirit and the attainments of the average of English
medical men and chaplains, to praise the management of any hospital
which is under their care, is a needless impertinence.  Do you find
funds, there will be no fear as to their being well employed; and no
fear, alas! either of their services being in full demand, while the
sanitary state of vast streets of South London, lying close to this
hospital, are in a state in which they are, and in which private
cupidity and neglect seem willing to compel them to remain.  It is on
account of its contiguity to these neglected, destitute, and
poisonous localities, that this hospital seems to me especially
valuable.  But though situated in a part of London where its presence
is especially needed, it has not, from various causes which have
arisen from no fault of its own, attracted as much public notice as
some other more magnificent foundations; while it possesses one
feature, peculiar I believe to it, among our London hospitals, which
seems to me to render it especially deserving of support:  I speak of
the ward for incurable patients, in which, instead of ending their
days in the melancholy wards of a workhouse, or amid those
pestilential and crowded dwellings which have perhaps produced their
maladies, and which certainly will aggravate them, they may have
their heavy years of hopeless suffering softened by a continued
supply of constant comforts, and constant medical solicitude, such as
the best-conducted workhouse, or the most laborious staff of parish
surgeons, and district visitors, ay, not even the benevolence and
self-sacrifice of friends and relations, can possibly provide.  I
beseech you, picture to yourselves the amount of mere physical
comfort, not to mention the higher blessings of spiritual teaching
and consolation, accruing to some poor tortured cripple, in the wards
of this hospital; compare it with the very brightest lot possible for
him in the dwellings of the lower, or even of the middle classes of
the metropolis; then recollect that these hospital luxuries, which
would be unattainable by him elsewhere, are but a tithe of those
which you, in his situation, would consider absolute necessaries,
without which a life of suffering, ay, even of health, were
intolerable--and do unto others this day, as you would that others
should do unto you!

I might have taken some other and more popular method of drawing your
attention to this institution.

I might have tried to excite your feelings and sympathies by attempts
at pathetic or picturesque descriptions of suffering.  But the
minister of a just God is bound to proclaim that God demands not
SENTIMENT, but JUSTICE.  The Bible knows nothing of the "religious
sentiments and emotions," whereof we hear so much talk nowadays.  It
speaks of DUTY.  "Beloved, if God so loved us, we OUGHT to love one
another."

I might also have attempted to flatter you into giving, by
representing this as a "GOOD WORK," a work of charity and piety, well
pleasing to God; a sort of work of Protestant supererogation, fruits
of faith which we may show, if we like, up to a certain not very
clearly defined point of benevolence, but the absence of which
probably will not seriously affect our eternal salvation, still less
our right to call ourselves orthodox, Protestants, churchmen, worthy,
kind-hearted, respectable, blameless.  The Bible knows nothing of
such a religion; it neither coaxes nor flatters, it COMMANDS.  It
demands mercy, because mercy is justice; and declares with what
measure we mete to others, it shall be surely measured to us again.
If therefore my words shall seem to some here, to be not so much a
humble request as a peremptory demand, I cannot help it.  I have
pleaded the cause of this hospital on the only solid ground of which
I am aware, for doing anything but evil to everyone around us who is
not a private friend, or a member of one's own family.  I ask you to
help the poor to their share in the gifts which Christ received for
men, because they are His gifts, and neither ours nor any man's.
Among these venerable buildings, the signs and witnesses of the
Kingdom of God, and the blessings of that Kingdom which for a
thousand years have been spreading and growing among us--I ask it of
you as citizens of that Kingdom.  Prove your brotherhood to the poor
by restoring to them a portion of that wealth which, without their
labour, you could never have possessed.  Prove your brotherhood to
them in a thousand ways--in every way--in this way, because at this
moment it happens to be the nearest and the most immediate, and
because the necessity for it is nearer, more immediate, to judge by
the signs of the times, and most of all by their self-satisfied
unconsciousness of danger, their loud and shallow self-glorification,
than ever it was before.  Work while it is called to-day, lest the
night come wherein no man can work, but only take his wages.

Again I say, I may seem to some here to have pleaded the cause of
this hospital in too harsh and peremptory a tone. . . .  And yet I
have a ground of hope, in the English love of simple justice, in the
noble instances of benevolence and self-sacrifice among the wealthy
and educated, which are, thank God! increasing in number daily, as
the need of them increases--in these, I say, I have a ground of hope
that there are many here to-day who would sooner hear the language of
truth than of flattery; who will be more strongly moved toward a
righteous deed by being told that it is their duty toward God, their
country, and their fellow-citizens, than by any sentimental baits for
personal sympathy, or for the love of Pharisaic ostentation.



XIII--FIRST SERMON ON THE CHOLERA



(Sunday Morning, September 27th, 1849.)

God's judgments are from above, out of the sight of the wicked.--
PSALM X. 5.

We have just been praying to God to remove from us the cholera, which
we call a judgment of God, a chastisement; and God knows we have need
enough to do so.  But we can hardly expect God to withdraw His
chastisement unless we correct the sins for which He chastised us,
and therefore unless we find out what particular sins have brought
the evil on us.  For it is mere cant and hypocrisy, my friends, to
tell God, in a general way, that we believe He is punishing us for
our sins, and then to avoid carefully confessing any particular sin,
and to get angry with anyone who tells us boldly WHICH sin God is
punishing us for.  But so goes the world.  Everyone is ready to say,
"Oh! yes, we are all great sinners, miserable sinners!" and then if
you charge them with any particular sin, they bridle up and deny THAT
sin fiercely enough, and all sins one by one, confessing themselves
great sinners, and yet saying that they don't know what sins they
have committed.  No man really believes himself a sinner, no man
really confesses his sins, but the man who can honestly put his
finger on THIS sin or THAT sin which he has committed, and is not
afraid to confess to God, "THIS sin and THAT sin have I done--THIS
bad habit and THAT bad habit have I cherished within me."  Therefore,
I say, it is no use for us Englishmen to dream that we can flatter
and persuade the great God of Heaven and earth into taking away the
cholera from us, unless we find out and confess openly what we have
done to bring on the cholera, and unless we repent and bring forth
fruits worthy of repentance, by amending our habits on that point,
and doing everything for the future which shall not bring on the
cholera, but keep it off.

Do not let us believe this time, my friends, in the pitiable,
insincere way in which all England believed when the cholera was here
sixteen years ago.  When they saw human beings dying by thousands,
they all got frightened, and proclaimed a Fast and confessed their
sins and promised repentance in a general way.  But did they repent
of and confess those sins which had caused the cholera?  Did they
repent of and confess the covetousness, the tyranny, the
carelessness, which in most great towns, and in too many villages
also, forces the poor to lodge in undrained stifling hovels, unfit
for hogs, amid vapours and smells which send forth on every breath
the seeds of rickets and consumption, typhus and scarlet fever, and
worse and last of all, the cholera?  Did they repent of their sin in
that?  Not they.  Did they repent of the carelessness and laziness
and covetousness which sends meat and fish up to all our large towns
in a half-putrid state; which fills every corner of London and the
great cities with slaughter-houses, over-crowded graveyards,
undrained sewers?  Not they.  To confess their sins in a general way
cost them a few words; to confess and repent of the real particular
sins in themselves, was a very different matter; to amend them would
have touched vested interests, would have cost money, the
Englishman's god; it would have required self-sacrifice of pocket, as
well as of time.  It would have required manful fighting against the
prejudices, the ignorance, the self-conceit, the laziness, the
covetousness of the wicked world.  So they could not afford to repent
and amend of all THAT.  And when those great and good men, the
Sanitary Commissioners, proved to all England fifteen years ago, that
cholera always appeared where fever had appeared, and that both fever
and cholera always cling exclusively to those places where there was
bad food, bad air, crowded bedrooms, bad drainage and filth--that
such were the laws of God and Nature, and always had been; they took
no notice of it, because it was the poor rather than the rich who
suffered from those causes.  So the filth of our great cities was
left to ferment in poisonous cesspools, foul ditches and marshes and
muds, such as those now killing people by hundreds in the
neighbourhood of Plymouth; for one house or sewer that was improved,
a hundred more were left just as they were in the first cholera; as
soon as the panic of superstitious fear was past, carelessness and
indolence returned.  Men went back, the covetous man to his
covetousness, and the idler to his idleness.  And behold! sixteen
years are past, and the cholera is as bad as ever among us.

But you will say, perhaps, it is presumptuous to say that Englishmen
have brought the cholera on themselves, that it is God's judgment,
and that we cannot explain His inscrutable Providence.  Ah! my
friends, that is a poor excuse and a common one, for leaving a great
many sins as they are!  When people do not wish to do God's will, it
is a very pleasant thing to talk about God's will as something so
very deep and unfathomable, that poor human beings cannot be expected
to find it out.  It is an old excuse, and a great favourite with
Satan, I have no doubt.  Why cannot people find out God's will?--
Because they do not LIKE to find it out, lest it should shame them
and condemn them, and cost them pleasure or money--because their eyes
are blinded with covetousness and selfishness, so that they cannot
see God's will, even when they DO look for it, and then they go and
cant about God's judgments; while those judgments, as the text says,
are far above out of their mammon-blinded and prejudice-blinded
sight.  What do they mean by that word?  Come now, my friends! let us
face the question like men.  What do you mean really when you call
the cholera, or fever, or affliction at all, God's judgment?  Do you
merely mean that God is punishing you, you don't know for what, and
you can't find out for what? but that all which He expects of you is
to bear it patiently, and then go and do afterwards just what you did
before?  Dare anyone say that who believes that God is a God of
justice, much less a God of love?  What would you think of a father
who punished his children, and then left them to find out as they
could what they were punished for?  And yet that is the way people
talk of pestilence and of great afflictions, public and private.
They are not ashamed to accuse God of a cruelty and an injustice
which they would be ashamed to confess themselves!  How can men, even
religious men often, be so blasphemous?  Mainly, I think, because
they do not really believe in God at all, they only believe about
Him--they believe that they ought to believe in Him.  They have no
living personal faith in God or Christ; they do not know God; they do
not know God's character, and what to believe of Him, and what to
expect of Him; or what they ought to say of Him; because they do not
know, they have not studied, they have not loved the character of
Christ, who is the express image and likeness of God.  Therefore
God's judgments are far away out of their sight; therefore they make
themselves a God in their own image and after their own likeness,
lazy, capricious, revengeful; therefore they are not afraid or
ashamed to say that God sends pestilence into a country without
showing that country why it is sent.  But another great reason, I
believe, why God's judgments in this and other matters are far above
out of our sight, is the careless, insincere way of using words which
we English have got into, even on the most holy and awful matters.  I
suppose there never was a nation in the world so diseased through and
through with the spirit of cant, as we English are now:  except
perhaps the old Jews, at the time of our Lord's coming.  You hear men
talking as if they thought God did not understand English, because
they cling superstitiously to the letter of the Bible in proportion
as they lose its spirit.  You hear men taking words into their mouths
which might make angels weep and devils tremble, with a coolness and
oily, smooth carelessness which shows you that they do not feel the
force of what they are saying.  You hear them using the words of
Scripture, which are in themselves stricter and deeper than all the
books of philosophy in the world, in such a loose unscriptural way,
that they make them mean anything or nothing.  They use the words
like parrots, by rote, just because their forefathers used them
before them.  They will tell you that cholera is a judgment for our
sins, "in a sense," but if you ask them for what sins, or in what
sense, they fly off from that HOME question, and begin mumbling
commonplaces about the inscrutable decrees of Providence, and so on.
It is most sad, all this; and most fearful also.

Therefore, I asked you, my friends, what is the meaning of that word
judgment?  In common talk, people use it rightly enough, but when
they begin to talk of God's judgments, they speak as if it merely
meant punishments.  Now judgment and punishment are two things.  When
a judge gives judgment, he either acquits or condemns the accused
person; he gives the case for the plaintiff, or for the defendant:
the punishment of the guilty person, if he be guilty, is a separate
thing, pronounced and inflicted afterwards.  His judgment, I say, is
his OPINION about the person's guilt, and even so God's judgments are
the expression of His opinion about our guilt.  But there is this
difference between man and God in this matter--a human judge gives
his opinion in words, God gives His in events:  therefore there is no
harm for a human judge when he has told a person why he must punish,
to punish him in some way that has nothing to do with his crime--for
instance, to send a man to prison because he steals, though it would
be far better if criminals could be punished in kind, and if the man
who stole could be forced either to make restitution, or work out the
price of what he stole in hard labour.  For this is God's plan--God
always pays sinners back in kind, that He may not merely punish them,
but CORRECT them; so that by the kind of their punishment, they may
know the kind of their sin.  God punishes us, as I have often told
you, not by His caprice, but by His laws.  He does not BREAK HIS LAWS
to harm us; the laws themselves harm us, when we break them and get
in their way.  It is always so, you will find, with great national
afflictions.  I believe, when we know more of God and His laws, we
shall find it true even in our smallest private sorrows.  God is
unchangeable; He does not lose His temper, as heathens and
superstitious men fancy, to punish us.  He does not change His order
to punish us.  WE break His order, and the order goes on in spite of
us and crushes us:  and so we get God's judgment, God's opinion of
our breaking His laws.  You will find it so almost always in history.
If a nation is laid waste by war, it is generally their own fault.
They have sinned against the law which God has appointed for nations.
They have lost courage and prudence, and trust in God, and fellow-
feeling and unity, and they have become cowardly and selfish and
split up into parties, and so they are easily conquered by their own
fault, as the Bible tells us the Jews were by the Chaldeans; and
their ruin is God's judgment, God's opinion plainly expressed of what
He thinks of them for having become cowardly and selfish, and
factious and disinterested.  So it is with famine again.  Famines
come by a nation's own fault--they are God's plainly spoken opinion
of what HE thinks of breaking His laws of industry and thrift, by
improvidence and bad farming.  So when a nation becomes poor and
bankrupt, it is its own fault; that nation has broken the laws of
political economy which God has appointed for nations, and its ruin
is God's judgment, God's plain-spoken opinion again of the sins of
extravagance, idleness, and reckless speculation.

So with pestilence and cholera.  They come only because we break
God's laws; as the wise poet well says:


Voices from the depths OF NATURE borne
Which vengeance on the guilty head proclaim.


--"Of nature;" of the order and constitution which God has made for
this world we live in, and which if we break them, though God in his
mercy so orders the world that punishment comes but seldom even to
our worst offences, yet surely do bring punishment sooner or later if
broken, in the common course of nature.  Yes, my friends, as surely
and naturally as drunkenness punishes itself by a shaking hand and a
bloated body, so does filth avenge itself by pestilence.  Fever and
cholera, as you would expect them to be, are the expression of God's
judgment, God's opinion, God's handwriting on the wall against us for
our sins of filth and laziness, foul air, foul food, foul drains,
foul bedrooms.  Where they are, there is cholera.  Where they are
not, there is none, and will be none, because they who do not break
God's laws, God's laws will not break them.  Oh! do not think me
harsh, my friends; God knows it is no pleasant thing to have to speak
bitter and upbraiding words; but when one travels about this noble
land of England, and sees what a blessed place it might be, if we
would only do God's will, and what a miserable place it is just
because we will not do God's will, it is enough to make one's soul
boil over with sorrow and indignation; and then when one considers
that other men's faults are one's own fault too, that one has been
adding to the heap of sins by one's own laziness, cowardice,
ignorance, it is enough to break one's heart--to make one cry with
St. Paul, "Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the
body of this death?"  Ay, my friends, the state of things in England
now is enough to drive an earnest man to despair, if one did not know
that all our distresses, and this cholera, like the rest, are indeed
GOD'S judgments; the judgments and expressed opinions, not of a
capricious tyrant, but of a righteous and loving Father, who chastens
us just because He loves us, and afflicts us only to teach us His
will, which alone is life and happiness.  Therefore we may believe
that this very cholera is meant to be a blessing; that if we will
take the lesson it brings, it will be a blessing to England.  God
grant that all ranks may take the lesson--that the rich may amend
their idleness and neglect, and the poor amend their dirt and stupid
ignorance; then our children will have cause to thank God for the
cholera, if it teaches us that cleanliness is indeed next to
holiness, if it teaches us, rich and poor, to make the workman's home
what it ought to be.  And believe me, my friends, that day will
surely come; and these distresses, sad as they are for the time, are
only helping to hasten it--the day when the words of the Hebrew
prophets shall be fulfilled, where they speak of a state of comfort
and prosperity, and civilisation, such as men had never reached in
their time--how the wilderness shall blossom like the rose, and there
shall be heaps of corn high on the mountain-tops, and the cities
shall be green as grass on the earth, instead of being the smoky,
stifling hot-beds of disease which they are now--and how from the
city of God streams shall flow for the healing of the nations:
strange words, those, and dim; too deep to be explained by any one
meaning, or many meanings, such as our small minds can give them; but
full of blessed cheering hope.  For of whatever they speak, they
speak at least of this--of a time when all sorrow and sighing shall
be done away, when science and civilisation shall go hand in hand
with godliness--when God shall indeed dwell in the hearts of men, and
His kingdom shall be fulfilled among them, when "His ways shall be
known upon earth at last, and His saving health among all nations"--
of a time when all shall know Him, from the least unto the greatest,
and be indeed His children, doing no sin, because they will have
given up themselves, their selfishness and cruelty and covetousness,
and stupidity and laziness, to be changed and renewed into God's
likeness.  Then all these distresses and pestilences, which, as I
have shown you, come from breaking the will of God, will have passed
away like ugly dreams, and all the earth shall be blessed, because
all the earth shall at last be fulfilling the words of the Lord's
Prayer, and God's will shall be done on earth, even as it is done in
heaven.  Oh! my friends, have hope.  Do you think Christ would have
bid us pray for what would never happen?  Would He have bid us all to
pray that God's will might be done unless He had known surely that
God's will would one day be done by men on earth below even as it is
done in heaven?



XIV--SECOND SERMON ON THE CHOLERA



Visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children.--EXODUS xx. 5.

In my sermon last Sunday I said plainly that cholera, fever, and many
more diseases were man's own fault, and that they were God's
judgments just because they were man's own fault, because they were
God's plainspoken opinion of the sin of filth and of habits of living
unfit for civilised Christian men.

But there is an objection which may arise in some of your minds, and
if it has not risen in YOUR minds, still it has in other people's
often enough; and therefore I will state it plainly, and answer it as
far as God shall give me wisdom.  For it is well to get to the root
of all matters, and of this matter of Pestilence among others; for if
we do believe this Pestilence to be God's judgment, then it is a
spiritual matter most proper to be spoken of in a place like this
church, where men come as spiritual beings to hear that which is
profitable for their souls.  And it IS profitable for their souls to
consider this matter; for it has to do, as I see more and more daily,
with the very deepest truths of the Gospel; and accordingly as we
believe the Gospel, and believe really that Jesus Christ is our
Saviour and our King, the New Adam, the firstborn among many
brethren, who has come down to proclaim to us that we are all
brothers in Him--in proportion as we believe THAT, I say, shall we
act upon this very matter of public cleanliness.

The objection which I mean is this:  people say it is very hard and
unfair to talk of cholera or fever being people's own fault, when you
see persons who are not themselves dirty, and innocent little
children, who if they are dirty are only so because they are brought
up so, catch the infection and die of it.  You cannot say it is their
fault.  Very true.  I did not say it was their fault.  I did not say
that each particular person takes the infection by his own fault,
though I do say that nine out of ten do.  And as for little children,
of course it is not their fault.  But, my friends, it must be
someone's fault.  No one will say that the world is so ill made that
these horrible diseases must come in spite of all man's care.  If it
was so, plagues, pestilences, and infectious fevers would be just as
common now in England, and just as deadly as they were in old times;
whereas there is not one infectious fever now in England for ten that
there used to be five hundred years ago.  In ancient times fevers,
agues, plague, smallpox, and other diseases, whose very names we
cannot now understand, so completely are they passed away, swept
England from one end to the other every few years, killing five
people where they now kill one.  Those diseases, as I said, have many
of them now died out entirely; and those which remain are becoming
less and less dangerous every year.  And why?  Simply because people
are becoming more cleanly and civilised in their habits of living;
because they are tilling and draining the land every year more and
more, instead of leaving it to breed disease, as all uncultivated
land does.  It is not merely that doctors are becoming wiser:  we
ourselves are becoming more reasonable in our way of living.  For
instance, in large districts both of Scotland and of the English
fens, where fever and ague filled the country and swept off hundreds
every spring and fall thirty years ago, fever and ague are now almost
unknown, simply because the marshes have all been drained in the
meantime.  So you see that people can prevent these disorders, and
therefore it must be someone's fault if they come.  Now, whose fault
is it?  You dare not lay the blame on God.  And yet you do lay the
fault on God if you say that it is no MAN'S fault that children die
of fever.  But I know what the answer to that will be:  "We do not
accuse God--it is the fault of the fall, Adam's curse which brought
death and disease into the world."  That is a common answer, and the
very one I want to hear.  What? is it just to say, as many do, that
all the diseases which ever tormented poor little innocent children
all over the world, came from Adam's sinning six thousand years ago,
and yet that it is unfair to say that one little child's fever came
from his parents' keeping a filthy house a month ago?  That is
swallowing a camel and straining at a gnat--that God should be just
in punishing all mankind for Adam's sin, and yet unjust in punishing
one little child for its parents' sin.  If the one is just the other
must be just too, I think.  If you believe the one, why not believe
the other?  Why?  Because Adam's curse and "original" sin, as people
call it, is a good and pleasant excuse for laying our sins and
miseries at Adam's door; but the same rule is not so pleasant in the
case of filth and fever, when it lays other people's miseries at our
door.

I believe that all the misery in the world sprung from Adam's
disobedience and falling from God.  "By one man sin entered the
world, and death by sin, and so death passed on all men, even on
those who had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression."
So says the Bible, and I believe it says so truly.  For this is the
law of the earth, God's law which He proclaimed in the text.  He does
visit the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and
fourth generation of those who hate Him.  It is so.  You see it
around you daily.  No one can deny it.  Just as death and misery
entered into the world by one man, so we see death and misery
entering into many a family.  A man or woman is a drunkard, or a
rogue, or a swearer:  how often their children grow up like them!  We
have all seen that, God knows, in this very parish.  How much more in
great cities, where boys and girls by thousands--oh, shame that it
should be so in a Christian land!--grow up thieves from the breast,
and harlots from the cradle.  And why?  Why are there, as they say,
and I am afraid say too truly, in London alone upwards of 10,000
children under sixteen who live by theft and harlotry?  Because the
parents of these children are as bad as themselves--drunkards,
thieves, and worse--and they bring up their children to follow their
crimes.  If that is not the fathers' sins being visited on the
children, what is?

How often, again, when we see a wild young man, we say, and justly:
"Poor fellow! there are great excuses for him, he has been so badly
brought up."  True, but his wildness will ruin him all the same,
whether it be his father's fault or his own that he became wild.  If
he drinks he will ruin his health; if he squanders his money he will
grow poor.  God's laws cannot stop for him; he is breaking them, and
they will avenge themselves on him.  You see the same thing
everywhere.  A man fools away his money, and his innocent children
suffer for it.  A man ruins his health by debauchery, or a woman hers
by laziness or vanity or self-indulgence, and her children grow up
weakly and inherit their parents' unhealthiness.  How often again, do
we see passionate parents have passionate children, stupid parents
stupid children, mean and lying parents mean and lying children;
above all, ignorant and dirty parents have ignorant and dirty
children.  How can they help being so?  They cannot keep themselves
clean by instinct; they cannot learn without being taught:  and so
they suffer for their parents' faults.  But what is all this except
God's visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children?  Look again
at a whole parish; how far the neglect or the wickedness of one man
may make a whole estate miserable.  There is one parish in this very
union, and the curse of the whole union it is, which will show us
that fearfully enough.  See, too, how often when a good and generous
young man comes into his estate, he finds it so crippled with debts
and mortgages by his forefathers' extravagance, that he cannot do the
good he would to his tenants, he cannot fulfil his duty as landlord
where God has placed him, and so he and the whole estate must suffer
for the follies of generations past.  If that is not God visiting the
sins of the fathers on the children, what is it?

Look again at a whole nation; the rulers of two countries quarrel, or
pretend to quarrel, and go to war--and some here know what war is--
just because there is some old grudge of a hundred years standing
between two countries, or because rulers of whose names the country
people, perhaps, never heard, have chosen to fall out, or because
their forefathers by cowardice, or laziness, or division, or some
other sin, have made the country too weak to defend itself; and for
that poor people's property is destroyed, and little infants
butchered, and innocent women suffer unspeakable shame.  If that is
not God visiting the sins of the fathers on the children, what is it?

It is very awful, but so it is.  It is the law of this earth, the law
of human kind, that the innocent often suffer for other's faults,
just as you see them doing in cholera, fever, ague, smallpox, and
other diseases which man can prevent if he chooses to take the
trouble.  There it is.  We cannot alter it.  Those who will may call
God unjust for it.  Let them first see, whether He is not only most
just, but most merciful in making the world so, and no other way.  I
do not merely mean that whatever God does must be right.  That is
true, but it is a poor way of getting over the difficulty.  God has
taught us what is right and wrong, and He will be judged by His own
rules.  As Abraham said to Him when Sodom was to be destroyed:  "That
be far from Thee, to punish the righteous with the wicked.  Shall not
the Judge of all the earth do right?"  Abraham knew what was right,
and he expected God not to break that law of right.  And we may
expect the same of God.  And I may be able, I hope, in my sermon next
Sunday, to show you that in this matter God does break the law of
right.  Nevertheless, in the meantime, this is His way of dealing
with men.  When Sodom was destroyed He brought righteous Lot out of
it.  But Sodom was destroyed, and in it many a little infant who had
never known sin.  And just so when Lisbon was swallowed up by an
earthquake, ninety years ago, the little children perished as well as
the grown people--just as in the Irish famine fever last year, many a
doctor and Roman Catholic priest, and Protestant clergyman, caught
the fever and died while they were piously attending on the sick.
They were acting like righteous men doing their duty at their posts;
but God's laws could not turn aside for them.  Improvidence, and
misrule, which had been working and growing for hundreds of years,
had at last brought the famine fever, and even the righteous must
perish by it.  They had their sins, no doubt, as we all have; but
then they were doing God's work bravely and honestly enough, yet the
fever could not spare them any more than it could spare the children
of the filthy parents, though they had not kept pigsties under their
windows, nor cesspools at their doors.  It could not spare them any
more than it can spare the tenants of the negligent or covetous
house-owner, because it is his fault and not theirs that his houses
are undrained, overcrowded, destitute--as whole streets in many large
towns are--of the commonest decencies of life.  It may be the
landlord's fault, but the tenants suffer.  God visits the sins of the
fathers upon the children, and landlords ought to be fathers to their
tenants, and must become fathers to them some day, and that soon,
unless they intend that the Lord should visit on them all their sins,
and their forefathers' also, even unto the third and fourth
generation.

For do not fancy that because the innocent suffer with the guilty
that therefore the guilty escape.  Seldom do they escape in this
world, and in the world to come never.  The landlord who, as too many
do, neglects his cottages till they become man-sties, to breed
pauperism and disease--the parents whose carelessness and dirt poison
their children and neighbours into typhus and cholera--their
brother's blood will cry against them out of the ground.  It will be
required at their hands sooner or later, by Him who beholds iniquity
and wrong, and who will not be satisfied in the day of His vengeance
by Cain's old answer, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

We are every one of us our brother's keeper; and if we do not choose
to confess that, God will prove it to us in a way that we cannot
mistake.  A wise man tells a story of a poor Irish widow who came to
Liverpool and no one would take her in or have mercy on her, till,
from starvation and bad lodging, as the doctor said, she caught
typhus fever, and not only died herself, but gave the infection to
the whole street, and seventeen persons died of it.  "See," says the
wise man, "the poor Irish widow was the Liverpool people's sister
after all.  She was of the same flesh and blood as they.  The fever
that killed her killed them, but they would not confess that they
were her brothers.  They shut their doors upon her, and so there was
no way left for her to prove her relationship, but by killing
seventeen of them with fever."  A grim jest that, but a true one,
like Elijah's jest to the Baal priests on Carmel.  A true one, I say,
and one that we have all need to lay to heart.

And I do earnestly trust in you that you will lay it to heart.  We
have had our fair warning here.  We have had God's judgment about our
cleanliness; His plain spoken opinion about the sanitary state of
this parish.  We deserve the fever, I am afraid; not a house in which
it has appeared but has had some glaring neglect of common
cleanliness about it; and if we do not take the warning God will
surely some day repeat it.  It will repeat itself by the necessary
laws of nature; and we shall have the fever among us again, just as
the cholera has reappeared in the very towns, and the very streets,
where it was seventeen years ago, wherever they have not repented of
and amended their filth and negligence.  And I say openly, that those
who have escaped this time may not escape next.  God has made
examples, and by no means always of the worst cottages.  God's plan
is to take one and leave another by way of warning.  "It is expedient
that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation
perish not" is a great and a sound law, and we must profit by it.  So
let not those who have escaped the fever fancy that they must needs
be without fault.  "Think ye that those sixteen on whom the tower of
Siloam fell and slew them, were sinners above all those that dwelt at
Jerusalem?  I say unto you, Nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all
likewise perish."

And I say again, as I said last Sunday, that this is a spiritual
question, a Gospel sermon; for by your conduct in this matter will
your faith in the Gospel be proved.  If you really believe that Jesus
Christ came down from heaven and sacrificed Himself for you, you will
be ready to sacrifice yourselves in this matter for those for whom He
died; to sacrifice, without stint, your thought, your time, your
money, and your labour.  If you really believe that He is the sworn
enemy of all misery and disease, you will show yourselves too the
sworn enemies of everything that causes misery and disease, and work
together like men to put all pestilential filth and damp out of this
parish.  If you really believe that you are all brothers, equal in
the sight of God and Christ, you will do all you can to save your
brothers from sickness and the miseries which follow it.  If you
really believe that your children are God's children, that at baptism
God declares your little ones to be His, you will be ready to take
any care or trouble, however new or strange it may seem, to keep your
children safe from all foul smells, foul food, foul water, and foul
air, that they may grow up healthy, hearty, and cleanly, fit to serve
God as christened, free, and civilised Englishmen should in this
great and awful time, the most wonderful time that the earth has ever
seen, into which it has pleased God of His great mercy to let us all
be born.



XV--THIRD SERMON ON THE CHOLERA



I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the
Fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of
them that hate me.--EXODUS xx. 6.

Many of you were perhaps surprised and puzzled by my saying in my
last sermon that God's visiting the sins of the fathers on the
children, and letting the innocent suffer for the guilty, was a
blessing and not a curse--a sign of man's honour and redemption, not
of his shame and ruin.  But the more I have thought of those words,
the more glad I am that I spoke them boldly, the more true I find
them to be.

I say that there is in them the very deepest and surest ground for
hope.  "Yes," some of you may say, "to be sure when we see the
innocent suffering for the guilty, it is a plain proof that another
world must come some day, in which all that unfairness shall be set
right."  Well, my friends, it does prove that, but I should be very
sorry if it did not prove a great deal more than that--this suffering
of the innocent for the guilty.  I have no heart to talk to you about
the next life, unless I can give you some comfort, some reason for
trusting in God in this life.  I never saw much good come of it.  I
never found it do my own soul any good, to be told:  "THIS life and
THIS world in which you now live are given up irremediably to misrule
and deceit, poverty and pestilence, death and the devil.  You cannot
expect to set this world right--you must look to the next world.
Everything will be set right there."  That sounds fine and resigned;
and there seems to be a great deal of trust in God in it; but, as I
think, there is little or none; and I say so from the fruits I see it
bear.  If people believe that this world is the devil's world, and
only the next world God's, they are easily tempted to say:  "Very
well, then, we must serve the devil in this world, and God in the
next.  We must, of course, take great care to get our souls saved
when we die, that we may go to heaven and live for ever and ever; but
as to this world and this life, why, we must follow the ways of the
world.  It is not our fault that they have nothing to do with God.
It is not our fault that society and the world are all rotten and
accursed; we found them so when we were born, and we must make the
best of a bad matter and sail as the world does, and be covetous and
mean and anxious--how can we help it?--and stand on our own rights,
and take care of number one; and even do what is not quite right now
and then--for how can we help it?--or how else shall we get on in
this poor lost, fallen, sinful world!"

And so it comes, my friends, that you see people professing--ay, and
believing, Gospel doctrines, and struggling and reading, and, as they
fancy, praying, morning, noon, and night, to get their own souls
saved--who yet, if you are to judge by their conduct, are little
better than rogues and heathens; whose only law of life seems to be
the fear of what people will say of them; who, like Balaam the son of
Bosor, are trying daily to serve the devil without God finding it
out, worshipping the evil spirit, as that evil spirit wanted our
blessed Lord to do, because they believed his lie, which Christ
denied--that the glory of this world belongs to the evil one; and
then comforting themselves like Balaam their father, in the hope that
they shall die the death of the righteous, and their last end be like
his.

Now I say my friends that this is a lie, and comes from the father of
lies, who tempts every man, as he tempted our Lord, to believe that
the power and glory of this world are his, that man's flesh and body,
if not his soul, belongs to him.  I say, it is no such thing.  The
world is God's world.  Man is God's creature, made in God's image,
and not in that of a beast or a devil.  The kingdom, the power, and
the glory, ARE God's now.  You say so every day in the Lord's Prayer--
believe it.  St. James tells you not to curse men, because they are
made in the likeness of God now--not WILL be made in God's likeness
after they die.  Believe that; do not be afraid of it, strange as it
may seem to understand.  It is in the Bible, and you profess to
believe that what is in the Bible is true.  And I say that this
suffering of the innocent for the guilty is a proof of that.  If man
was not made so that the innocent could suffer for the guilty, he
could not have been redeemed at all, for there would have been no use
or meaning in Christ's dying for us, the just for the unjust.  And
more, if the innocent could not suffer for the guilty we should be
like the beasts that perish.

Now, why?  Because just in proportion as any creature is low--I mean
in the scale of life--just in that proportion it does without its
fellow-creatures, it lives by itself and cares for no other of its
kind.  A vegetable is a meaner thing than an animal, and one great
sign of its being meaner is, that vegetables cannot do each other any
good--cannot help each other--cannot even hurt each other, except in
a mere mechanical way, by overgrowing each other or robbing each
other's roots; but what would it matter to a tree if all the other
trees in the world were to die?  So with wild animals.  What matters
it to a bird or a beast, whether other birds and beasts are ill off
or well off, wise or stupid?  Each one takes care of itself--each one
shifts for itself.  But you will say "Bees help each other and depend
upon each other for life and death."  True, and for that very reason
we look upon bees as being more wise and more wonderful than almost
any animals, just because they are so much like us human beings in
depending on each other.  You will say again, that among dogs, a
riotous hound will lead a whole pack wrong--a staunch and well-broken
hound will keep a whole pack right; and that dogs do depend upon each
other in very wonderful ways.  Most true, but that only proves more
completely what I want to get at.  It is the TAME dog, which man has
taken and broken in, and made to partake more or less of man's wisdom
and cunning, who depends on his fellow-dogs.  The wild dogs in
foreign countries, on the other hand, are just as selfish, living
every one for himself, as so many foxes might be.  And you find this
same rule holding as you rise.  The more a man is like a wild animal,
the more of a SAVAGE he is, so much more he depends on himself, and
not on others--in short, the less civilised he is; for civilised
means being a citizen, and learning to live in cities, and to help
and depend upon each other.  And our common English word "civil"
comes from the same root.  A man is "civil" who feels that he depends
upon his neighbours, and his neighbours on him; that they are his
fellow-citizens, and that he owes them a duty and a friendship.  And,
therefore, a man is truly and sincerely civil, just in proportion as
he is civilised; in proportion as he is a good citizen, a good
Christian--in one word, a GOOD MAN.

Ay, that is what I want to come to, my friends--that word MAN, and
what it means.  The law of man's life, the constitution and order on
which, and on no other, God has made man, is THIS--to depend upon his
fellow-men, to be their brothers, in flesh and in spirit; for we are
brothers to each other.  God made of one blood all nations to dwell
on the face of the earth.  The same food will feed us all alike.  The
same cholera will kill us all alike.  And we can give the cholera to
each other; we can give each other the infection, not merely by our
touch and breath, for diseased beasts can do that, but by housing our
families and our tenants badly, feeding them badly, draining the land
around them badly.  This is the secret of the innocent suffering for
the guilty, in pestilences, and famines, and disorders, which are
handed down from father to child, that we are all of the same blood.
This is the reason why Adam's sin infected our whole race.  Adam
died, and through him all his children have received a certain
property of sinfulness and of dying, just as one bee transmits to all
his children and future generations the property of making honey, or
a lion transmits to all its future generations the property of being
a beast of prey.  For by sinning and cutting himself off from God
Adam gave way to the lower part of him, his flesh, his animal nature,
and therefore he died as other animals do.  And we his children, who
all of us give way to our flesh, to our animal nature, every hour,
alas! we die too.  And in proportion as we give way to our animal
natures we are liable to die; and the less we give way to our animal
natures, the less we are liable to die.  We have all sinned; we have
all become fleshly animal creatures more or less; and therefore we
must all die sooner or later.  But in proportion as we become
Christians, in proportion as we become civilised, in short, in
proportion as we become true men, and conquer and keep in order this
flesh of ours, and this earth around us, by the teaching of God's
spirit, as we were meant to do, just so far will length of life
increase and population increase.  For while people are savages, that
is, while they give themselves up utterly to their own fleshly lusts,
and become mere animals like the wild Indians, they cannot increase
in number.  They are exposed, by their own lusts and ignorance and
laziness, to every sort of disease; they turn themselves into beasts
of prey, and are continually fighting and destroying each other, so
that they, seldom or never increase in numbers, and by war,
drunkenness, smallpox, fevers, and other diseases too horrible to
mention, the fruit of their own lusts, whole tribes of them are swept
utterly off the face of the earth.  And why?  They are like the
beasts, and like the beasts they perish.  Whereas, just in proportion
as any nation lives according to the spirit and not according to the
flesh; in proportion as it conquers its own fleshly appetites which
tempt it to mere laziness, pleasure, and ignorance, and lives
according to the spirit in industry, cleanliness, chaste marriage,
and knowledge, earthly and heavenly, the length of life and the
number of the population begin to increase at once, just as they are
doing, thank God! in England now; because Englishmen are learning
more and more that this earth is God's earth, and that He works it by
righteous and infallible laws, and has put them on it to till it and
subdue it; that civilisation and industry are the cause of Christ and
of God; and that without them His kingdom will not come, neither will
His will be done on earth.

But now comes a very important question.  The beasts are none the
worse for giving way to their flesh and being mere animals.  They
increase and multiply and are happy enough; whereas men, if they give
way to their flesh and become animals, become fewer and weaker, and
stupider, and viler, and more miserable, generation after generation.
Why?  Because the animals are meant to be animals, and men are not.
Men are meant to be men, and conquer their animal nature by the
strength which God gives to their spirits.  And as long as they do
not do so; as long as they remain savage, sottish, ignorant, they are
living in a lie, in a diseased wrong state, just as God did NOT mean
them to live; and therefore they perish; therefore these fevers, and
agues, and choleras, war, starvation, tyranny, and all the ills which
flesh is heir to, crush them down.  Therefore they are at the mercy
of the earth beneath their feet, and the skies above their head; at
the mercy of rain and cold; at the mercy of each other's selfishness,
laziness, stupidity, cruelty; in short, at the mercy of the brute
material earth, and their own fleshly lusts and the fleshly lusts of
others, because they love to walk after the flesh and not after the
spirit--because they like the likeness of the old Adam who is of the
earth earthy, better than that of the new Adam who is the Lord from
heaven--because they like to be animals, when Christ has made them in
his own image, and redeemed them with His own blood, and taught them
with His own example, and made them men.  He who will be a man, let
him believe that he is redeemed by Christ, and must be like Christ in
everything he says and does.  If he would carry that out, if he would
live perfectly by faith in God, if he would do God's will utterly and
in all things he would soon find that those glorious old words still
stood true:  "Thou shalt not be afraid of the arrow by night, nor of
the pestilence which walketh in the noonday; a thousand shall fall at
thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come
nigh thee."  For such a man would know how to defend himself against
evil; God would teach him not only to defend himself, but to defend
those around him.  He would be like his Lord and Master, a fountain
of wisdom and healing and safety to all his neighbours.  We might any
one of us be that.  It is everyone's fault more or less that he is
not.  Each of us who is educated, civilised, converted to the
knowledge and love of God, it is his sin and shame that he is NOT
that.  Above all, it is the clergyman's sin and shame that he is not.
Ay, believe me, when I blame you, I blame myself ten thousand times
more.  I believe there is many a sin and sorrow from which I might
have saved you here, if I had dealt with you more as a man should
deal who believes that you and I are brothers, made in the same image
of God, redeemed by the same blood of Christ.  And I believe that I
shall be punished for every neglect of you for which I have been ever
guilty.  I believe it, and I thank God for it; for I do not see how a
clergyman, or anyone else, can learn his duty, except by God's
judging him, and punishing him, and setting his sins before his face.

Yes, my friends, it is good for us to be afflicted, good for us to
suffer anything that will teach us this great truth, that we are our
brother's keepers; that we are all one family, and that where one of
the members suffers, all the other members suffer with it; and that
if one of the members has cause to rejoice, all the others will have
cause to rejoice with it.  A blessed thing to know, is that--though
whether we know it or not, we shall find it true.  If we give way to
our animal nature, and try to live as the beasts do, each one caring
for his own selfish pleasure--still we shall find out that we cannot
do it.  We shall find out, as those Liverpool people did with the
Irish widow, that our fellow-men ARE our brothers--that what hurts
them will be sure in some strange indirect way to hurt us.  Our
brothers here have had the fever, and we have escaped; but we have
felt the fruits of it, in our purses--in fear, and anxiety, and
distress, and trouble--we have found out that they could not have the
fever without our suffering for it, more or less.  You see we are one
family, we men and women; and our relationship will assert itself in
spite of our forgetfulness and our selfishness.  How much better to
claim our brotherhood with each other, and to act upon it--to live as
brothers indeed.  That would be to make it a blessing, and not a
curse; for as I said before, just because it is in our power to
injure each other, therefore it is in our power to help each other.
God has bound us together for good and for evil, for better for
worse.  Oh! let it be henceforward in this parish for better, and not
for worse.  Oh! every one of you, whether you be rich or poor, farmer
or labourer, man or woman, do not be ashamed to own yourselves to be
brothers and sisters, members of one family, which as it all fell
together in the old Adam, so it has all risen together in the new
Adam, Jesus Christ.  There is no respect of persons with God.  We are
all equal in His sight.  He knows no difference among men, except the
difference which God's Spirit gives, in proportion as a man listens
to the teaching of that Spirit--rank in godliness and true manhood.
Oh! believe that--believe that because you owe an infinite debt to
Christ and to God--His Father and your Father--therefore you owe an
infinite debt to your neighbours, members of Christ and children of
God just as you are--a debt of love, help, care, which you CAN, pay,
just because you are members of one family; for because you are
members of one family, for that very reason every good deed you do
for a neighbour does not stop with that neighbour, but goes on
breeding and spreading, and growing and growing, for aught we know,
for ever.  Just as each selfish act we do, each bitter word we speak,
each foul example we set, may go on spreading from mouth to mouth,
from heart to heart, from parent to child, till we may injure
generations yet unborn; so each noble and self-sacrificing deed we
do, each wise and loving word we speak, each example we set of
industry and courage, of faith in God and care for men, may and will
spread on from heart to heart, and mouth to mouth, and teach others
to do and be the like; till people miles away, who never heard of our
names, may have cause to bless us for ever and ever.  This is one and
only one of the glorious fruits of our being one family.  This is one
and only one of the reasons which make me say that it was a good
thing mankind was so made that the innocent suffer for the guilty.
For just as the innocent are injured by the guilty in this world,
even so are the guilty preserved, and converted, and brought back
again by the innocent.  Just as the sins of the fathers are visited
on the children, so is the righteousness of the fathers a blessing to
the children; else, says St. Paul, our children would be unclean, but
now they are holy.  For the promises of God are not only to us, but
to our children, even to as many as the Lord our God shall call.  And
thus each generation, by growing in virtue and wisdom and the
knowledge of God, will help forward all the generations which follow
it to fuller light and peace and safety; and each parent in trying to
live like a Christian man himself, will make it easier for his
children to live like Christians after him.  And this rule applies
even in the things which we are too apt to fancy unimportant--every
house kept really clean, every family brought up in habits of
neatness and order, every acre of foul land drained, every new
improvement in agriculture and manufactures or medicine, is a clear
gain to all mankind, a good example set which is sure sooner or later
to find followers, perhaps among generations yet unborn, and in
countries of which we never heard the name.

Was I not right then in saying that this earth is not the devil's
earth at all, but a right good earth, of God's making and ruling,
wherein no good deed will perish fruitless, but every man's works
will follow him--a right good earth, governed by a righteous Father,
who, as the psalm says "is merciful," just "because He rewards every
man according to his work."



XVI--ON THE DAY OF THANKSGIVING



(Nov. 15th, 1849.)

God hath visited his people.--LUKE vii. 16.

We are assembled this day to thank God solemnly for the passing away
of the cholera from England; and we must surely not forget to thank
Him at the same time for the passing away of the fever, which has
caused so much expense, sorrow, and death among us.  Now I wish to
say a very few words to you on this same matter, to show you not only
how to be thankful to God, but what to be thankful for.  You may say:
It is easy enough for us to know what to thank God for in this case.
We come to thank Him, as we have just said in the public prayers, for
having withdrawn this heavy visitation from us.  If so, my friends,
what we shall thank Him for depends on what we mean by talking of a
visitation from God.

Now I do not know what people may think in this parish, but I suspect
that very many all over England do NOT know what to thank God for
just now; and are altogether thanking him for the wrong thing--for a
thing which, very happily for them, He has NOT done for them, and
which, if He had done it for them, would have been worse for them
than all the evil which ever happened to them from their youth up
until now.  To be plain then, many, I am afraid, are thanking God for
having gone away and left them.  While the cholera was here, they
said that God was visiting them; and now that the cholera is over,
they consider that God's visit is over too, and are joyful and light
of heart thereat.  If God's visit is over, my friends, and He is gone
away from us; if He is not just as near us now as He was in the
height of the cholera, the best thing we can do is to turn to Him
with fasting, and weeping, and mourning, and roll ourselves in the
dust, and instead of thanking our Father for going away, pray to Him,
of his infinite mercy, to condescend to come back again and visit us,
even though, as superstitious and ignorant men believe, God's
visiting us were sure to bring cholera, or plague, or pestilence, or
famine, or some other misery.  For I read, that in His presence is
life and not death--at His right hand is fulness of joy, and not
tribulation and mourning and woe; but if not, it were better to be
with God in everlasting agony, than to be in everlasting happiness
without God.

Here is a strange confusion--people talking one moment like St. Paul
himself, desiring to be with Christ and God for ever, and then in the
same breath talking like the Gadarenes of old, when, after Christ had
visited them, and judged their sins by driving their unlawful herd of
swine into the sea, they answered by beseeching Him to depart out of
their coasts.

Why is this confusion?--Because people do not take the trouble to
read their Bibles; because they bring their own loose, careless, cant
notions with them when they open their Bibles, and settle beforehand
what the Bible is to tell them, and then pick and twist texts till
they make them mean just what they like and no more.  There is no
folly, or filth, or tyranny, or blasphemy, which men have not
defended out of the Bible by twisting it in this way.  The Bible is
better written than that, my friends.  He that runs may read, if he
has sense to read.  The wayfaring man, though simple, shall make no
such mistake therein, if he has God's Spirit in him--the spirit of
faith, which believes that the Bible is God's message to men--the
humble spirit, which is willing to listen to that message, however
strange or new it may seem to him--the earnest spirit, which reads
the Bible really to know what a man shall do to be saved.  Look at
your Bibles thus, my friends, about this matter.  Read all the texts
which speak of God's visiting and God's visitation, and you will find
all the confusion and strangeness vanish away.  For see!  The Bible
talks of the Lord visiting people in His wrath--visiting them for
their sins--visiting them with sore plagues and punishments, about
forty times.  But the Bible speaks very nearly as often of God's
visiting people to bring them blessings and not punishments.  The
Bible says God visited Sarah and Hannah to give them what they most
desired--children.  God visited the people of Israel in Egypt to
deliver them out of slavery.  In the book of Ruth we read how the
Lord visited His people in giving them bread.  The Psalmist, in the
captivity at Babylon, PRAYS God to visit him with His salvation.  The
prophet Jeremiah says that it was a sign of God's anger against the
Jews that He had not visited them; and the prophets promised again
and again to their countrymen, how, after their seventy years'
captivity in Babylon, the Lord would visit them, and what for?--To
bring them back into their own land with joy, and heap them with
every blessing--peace and wealth, freedom and righteousness.  So it
is in the New Testament too.  Zacharias praised God:  "Blessed be the
Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people;
through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day-spring from on
high hath visited us."  And that was the reason why I chose Luke vii.
16, for my text--only because it is an example of the same thing.
The people, it says, praised God, saying:  "A great Prophet is risen
up among us, and God hath visited His people."  And in the 14th of
Acts we read how God visited the Gentiles, not to punish them, but to
take out of them a people for His name, namely, Cornelius and his
household.  And lastly, St. Peter tells Christian people to glorify
God in the day of visitation, as I tell you now--whether His
visitation comes in the shape of cholera, or fever, or agricultural
distress; or whether it comes in the shape of sanitary reform, and
plenty of work, and activity in commerce; whether it seems to you
good or evil, glorify God for it.  Thank Him for it.  Bless Him for
it.  Whether His visitation brings joy or sorrow, it surely brings a
blessing with it.  Whether God visits in wrath or in love, still God
visits.  God shows that He lives; God shows us that He has not
forgotten us; God shows us that He is near us.  Christ shows us that
His words are true:  "Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the
world."

That is a hard lesson to learn and practise, though not a very
difficult one to understand.  I will try now to make you understand
it--God alone can teach you to practise it.  I pray and hope, and I
believe too, that He will--that these very hard times are meant to
teach people REALLY to believe in God and Jesus Christ, and that they
WILL teach people.  God knows we need, and thanks be to Him that He
DOES know that we need, to be taught to believe in Him.  Nothing
shows it to me more plainly than the way we talk about God's
visitations, as if God was usually away from us, and came to us only
just now and then--only on extraordinary occasions.  People have
gross, heathen, fleshly, materialist notions of God's visitations, as
if He was some great earthly king who now and then made a journey
about his dominions from place to place, rewarding some and punishing
others.  God is not in any place, my friends.  God is a Spirit.  The
heaven and the heaven of heavens could not contain Him if He wanted a
place to be in, as, glory be to His name, He does not.  If He is near
us or far from us, it is not that He is near or far from our bodies,
as the Queen might be nearer to us in London than in Scotland, which
is most people's notion of God's nearness.  He is near, not our
bodies, but our spirits, our souls, our hearts, our thoughts--as it
is written, "The kingdom of God is WITHIN you."  Do not fancy that
when the cholera was in India, God was nearer India than He was to
England, and that as the cholera crawled nearer and nearer, God came
nearer and nearer too; and that now the cholera is gone away
somewhere or other, God is gone away somewhere or other too, to leave
us to our own inventions.  God forbid a thousand times!  As St. Paul
says:  "He is not far from any one of us."  "In Him we live and move
and have our being," cholera or none.  Do you think Christ, the King
of the earth, is gone away either--that while things go on rightly,
and governments, and clergy, and people do right, Christ is there
then, filling them all with His Spirit and guiding them all to their
duty; but that when evil times come, and rulers are idle, and clergy
dumb dogs, and the rich tyrannous, and the poor profligate, and men
are crying for work and cannot get it, and every man's hand is
against his fellow, and no one knows what to do or think; and on
earth is distress of nations with perplexity, men's hearts failing
them for fear, and for dread of those things which are coming on the
earth--do you think that in such times as those, Christ is the least
farther off from us than He was at the best of times?--The least
farther off from us now than He was from the apostles at the first
Whitsuntide?  God forbid!--God forbid a thousand times!  He has
promised Himself, He that is faithful and true, He that will never
deny Himself, though men deny Him, and say He is not here, because
their eyes are blinded with love of the world, and covetousness and
bigotry, and dread lest He, their Master, should come and find them
beating the men-servants and maid-servants, and eating and drinking
with the drunken in the high places of the earth, and saying:  "Tush!
God hath forgotten it"--ay, though men have forgotten Him thus, and--
worse than thus, yet He hath said it--"Lo, I am with you alway, even
unto the end of the world."  Why, evil times are the very times of
which Christ used to speak as the "days of the Lord," and the "days
of the Son of man."  Times when we hear of wars and rumours of wars,
and on earth distress of nations with perplexity--what does He tell
men to do in them?  To go whining about, and say that Christ has left
His Church?  No!  "Then," He says, "when all these things come to
pass, then rejoice and lift up your heads, for your redemption
draweth nigh."

And yet the Scripture does most certainly speak of the Lord's coming
out of His place to visit--of the Son of Man coming, and not coming
to men--of His visiting us at one time and not at another.  How does
that agree with what I have just said?  My dear friends, we shall see
that it agrees perfectly with what I have said, if we will only just
remember that we are not beasts, but men.  It may seem a strange
thing to have to remind people of, but it is just what they are
always forgetting.  My friends, we are not animals, we are not
spiders to do nothing but spin, or birds only to build nests for
ourselves, much less swine to do nothing but dig after roots and
fruits, and get what we can out of the clods of the ground.  We are
the children of the Most High God; we have immortal souls within us;
nay, more, we are our souls:  our bodies are our husk--our shell--our
clothes--our house--changing day by day, and year by year upon us,
one day to drop off us till the Resurrection.  But WE are our SOULS,
and when God visits, it is our souls He visits, not merely our
bodies.  There is the whole secret.  People forget God, and therefore
they are glad to fancy that He has forgotten them, and has nothing to
do with this world of His which they are misusing for their own
selfish ends; and then God in His mercy visits them.  He knocks at
the door of their hearts, saying:  "See!  I was close to you all the
while."  He forces them to see Him and to confess that He is there
whether they choose or not.  God is not away from the world.  He is
away from people's hearts, because He has given people free wills,
and with free wills the power of keeping Him out of their hearts or
letting Him in.  And when God visits He forces Himself on our
attention.  He knocks at the door of our hard hearts so loudly and
sharply that He forces all to confess that He is there--all who are
not utterly reprobate and spiritually dead.  In blessings as well as
in curses, God knocks at our hearts.  By sudden good fortune, as well
as by sudden mishap; by a great deliverance from enemies, by an
abundant harvest, as well as by famine and pestilence.  Therefore
this cholera has been a true visitation of God.  The poor had fancied
that they might be as dirty, the rich had fancied that they might be
as careless, as they chose; in short, that they might break God's
laws of cleanliness and brotherly care without His troubling Himself
about the matter.  And lo! He has visited us; and shown us that He
does care about the matter by taking it into His own hands with a
vengeance.  He who cannot see God's hand in the cholera must be as
blind--as blind as who?--as blind as he that cannot see God's hand
when there is no cholera; as blind as he who cannot see God's hand in
every meal he eats, and every breath he draws; for that man is stone
blind--he can be no blinder.  The cholera came; everyone ought to see
that it did not come by blind chance, but by the will of some wise
and righteous Person; for in the first place God gave us fair
warning.  The cholera came from India at a steady pace.  We knew to a
month when it would arrive here.  And it came, too, by no blind
necessity, as if it was forced to take people whether it liked or
not.  Just as it was in the fever here, so it was in the cholera,
"One shall be taken and another left."  It took one of a street and
left another; took one person in a family and left another:  it took
the rich man who fancied he was safe, as well as the poor man who did
not care whether he was safe or not.  The respectable man walking
home to his comfortable house, passed by some untrapped drain, and
then poisonous gas struck him and he died.  The rich physician who
had been curing others, could not save himself from the poison of the
crowded graveyard which had been allowed to remain at the back of his
house.  By all sorts of strange and unfathomable judgments the
cholera showed itself to be working, not by a blind necessity, but at
the will of a thinking Person, of a living God, whose ways are not as
our own ways, and His paths are in the great deep.  And yet the
cholera showed--and this is what I want to make you feel--that it was
working at the will of the same God in whom we live and move and have
our being, who sends the food we eat, the water in which we wash, the
air we breathe, and who has ordained for all these things natural
laws, according to which they work, and which He never breaks, nor
allows us to break them.  For every case of cholera could be traced
to some breaking of these laws--foul air--foul food--foul water, or
careless and dirty contact with infected persons; so that by this God
showed that He and not chance ruled the world, and that he was indeed
the living and willing God.  He showed at the same time that He was
the wise God of order and of law; and that gas and earth, wind and
vapour, fulfil His word, without His having to break His laws, or
visit us by moving, as people fancy, out of a Heaven where He was,
down to an earth, where He was not.

But, lastly, remember what I told you before, that the cholera being
a visitation means that God, by it, has been visiting our hearts,
knocking loudly at them that He may awaken us, and teach us a lesson.
And be sure that in the cholera, and this our own parish fever, there
is a lesson for each and every one of us if we will learn it.  To the
simple poor man, first and foremost, God means by the cholera to
teach the simple lesson of cleanliness; to the house-owner He means
to teach that each man is his brother's keeper, and responsible for
his property not being a nest of disease; to rulers it is intended to
teach the lesson that God's laws cannot be put off to suit their
laziness, cowardice, or party squabbles.  But beside that, to each
person, be sure such a visitation as this brings some private lesson.
Perhaps it has taught many a widow that she has a Friend stronger and
more loving than even the husband whom she has lost by the
pestilence--the God of the widow and the fatherless.  Perhaps it has
taught many a strong man not to trust in his strength and his youth,
but in the God who gave them to him.  Perhaps it has taught many a
man, too, who has expected public authorities to do everything for
him, "not to put his trust in princes, nor in any child of man, for
there is no help in them," but to hear God's advice, "Help thyself
and God will help thee."  Perhaps it has stirred up many a benevolent
man to find out fresh means for rooting out the miseries of society.
Perhaps it has taught many a philosopher new deep truths about the
laws of God's world, which may enable him to enlighten and comfort
ages yet unborn.  Perhaps it has awakened many a slumbering heart,
and brought many a careless sinner (for the first time in his life)
face to face with God and his own sins.  God's judgments are
manifold; they are meant to work in different ways on different
hearts.  But oh! believe and be sure that they are meant to work upon
all hearts--that they are not the punishments of a capricious tyrant,
but the rod of a loving Father, who is trying to drive us home into
His fold, when gentle entreaties and kind deeds have failed to allure
us home.  Oh my friends! if you wish really to thank God for having
preserved you from these pestilences, show your thankfulness by
learning the lesson which they bring.  God's love has spoken of each
and every one of us in the cholera.  Be sure He has spoken so harshly
only because a gentler tone of voice would have had no effect upon
us.  Thank Him for His severity.  Thank Him for the cholera, the
fever.  Thank Him for anything which will awaken us to hear the Word
of the Lord.  But till you have learnt the lessons which these
visitations are meant to teach you, there is no use thanking Him for
taking them away.  And therefore I beseech you solemnly, each and
all, before you leave this church, now to pray to God to show you
what lesson He means to teach you by this past awful visitation, and
also by sparing you and me who are here present, not merely from
cholera and fever, but from a thousand mishaps and evils, which we
have deserved, and from which only His goodness has kept us.  Oh may
God stir up your hearts to ask advice of Him this day! and may He in
His great mercy so teach us all His will on this day of joy, that we
may not need to have it taught us hereafter on some day of sorrow.



XVII--THE COVENANT



The Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his own
possession.  For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is
above all gods.  Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven
and earth, and in the sea, and in all deep places.--PSALM cxxxv. 4,
5, 6.

Were you ever puzzled to find out why the Psalms are read every
Sunday in Church, more read, indeed, than any other part of the
Bible?  If any of you say, No, I shall not think you the wiser.  It
is very easy not to be puzzled with a deep matter, if one never
thinks about it at all.  But when a man sets his mind to work
seriously, to try to understand what he hears and sees around him,
then he will be puzzled, and no shame to him; for he will find things
every day of his life which will require years of thought to
understand, ay, things which, though we see and know that they are
true, and can use and profit by them, we can never understand at all,
at least in this life.

But I do not think that God meant it to be so with these Psalms.  He
meant the Bible for a poor man's book:  and therefore the men who
wrote the Bible were almost all of them poor men, at least at one
time or other of their life; and therefore we may expect that they
would write as poor men would write, and such things as poor men may
understand, if they are fairly and simply explained.  Therefore I do
not think you need be puzzled long to find out why these Psalms are
read every Sunday.  For the men who wrote them had God's spirit with
them; and God's spirit is the spirit in which God made and governs
this world, and just as God cannot change, so God's spirit cannot
change; and therefore the rules and laws according to which the world
runs on cannot change; and therefore these rules about God's
government of the world, which God's spirit taught the old Hebrew
Psalmists, are the very same rules by which He governs it now; and
therefore all the rules in these Psalms, making allowance for the
difference of circumstances, have just as much to do with France, and
Germany, and England now, as they had with the Jews, and the
Canaanites, and the Babylonians then.

St. Paul tells us so.  He tells us that all that happened to the old
Jews was written as an example to Christians, to the intent that they
might not sin as the Jews did, and so (God's laws and ways being the
same now as then) be punished as the Jews were.  Moreover, St. Paul
says, that Christians now are just as much God's chosen people as the
Jews were.  God told the Jews that they were to be a nation of kings
and priests to Him.  And St. John opens the Revelations by saying:
"Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood,
and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father, to Him be
glory."  St. Paul tells the Ephesians, who had not a drop of Jewish
blood in their veins, that through Jesus Christ both Jews and
Gentiles had "access by one Spirit unto the Father.  Now, therefore,"
he goes on, "ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-
citizens with the saints, and of the household of God."  In fact, he
tells the Christians of every country to which he writes, that all
the promises which God made to the Jews belonged to them just as
much, that there was no more any difference between Jew and Gentile,
that the Lord Jesus Christ was just as really among them, and with
them, ruling and helping each people in their own country, as He was
in Jerusalem when Isaiah saw His glory filling the Temple, and when
Zion was called the place of His inheritance.  Indeed, the Lord Jesus
said the same thing Himself, for He said that all power was given to
Him in heaven and earth; that He was with His churches (that is, with
all companies of Christian people, such as England) even to the end
of the world; that wherever two or three were gathered together in
His name, He would be in the midst of them; and if those blessed
words and good news be true, we Englishmen have a right to believe
firmly that we belong to Him just as much as the old Jews did; and
when we read these Psalms, to take every word of their good news--and
their warnings also--to ourselves, and to our own land of England.
And when we read in the text, that the Lord chose Jacob unto Himself
and Israel for His own possession, we have a right to say:  "And the
Lord has chosen also England unto himself, and this favoured land of
Britain for his own possession."  When we say in the Psalm:  "The
Lord did what He pleased in heaven, and earth, and sea," to educate
and deliver the people of the Jews, we have a right to say just as
boldly:  "And so He has done for England, for us, and for our
forefathers."

This then is the reason, the chief reason, why these Psalms are
appointed to be read every Sunday in church, and every morning and
evening where there is daily service--to teach us that the Lord takes
care not only of one man's soul here, and another woman's soul there,
but of the whole country of England; of its wars and its peace; of
its laws and government, its progress and its afflictions; of all, in
short, that happens to it as a nation, as one body of men, which it
is.  It must be so, my good friends, else we should be worse off than
the old Jews, and not better off, as all the New Testament solemnly
assures us a thousand times over that we are.

For in the covenant which God made with the Jews, and in the strange
events, good and bad, which He caused to happen to their nation, not
only the great saints among them were taken care of, but all classes,
and all characters, good and bad, even those who had not wisdom or
spiritual life enough to seek God for themselves, still had their
share in the good laws, in the teaching and guiding, and in the
national blessings which He sent on the whole nation.  They had a
chance given them of rising, and improving, and prospering, as the
rest of their countrymen rose, and improved, and prospered.  And when
the Lord came to visit Judaea in flesh and blood, we find that He
went on the same method.  He did not merely go to such men as Philip
and Nathaniel, to the holy and elect ones among the Jews, but to the
whole people; to the LOST sheep, as well as to those who were not
lost.  He did not part the good from the bad before he healed their
sicknesses, and fed them with the loaves and fishes.  It was enough
for Him that they were Jews, citizens of the Jewish nation.  God's
promises belonged not to one Jew or another, but to the Jewish
nation; and even the ignorant and the sinful had a share in the
blessings of the covenant, great or small in proportion as they chose
to live as Jews ought, or to forget and deny that they belonged to
God's people.

Now, surely the Lord cannot be less merciful now than He was then.
He cannot care less for poor orphans, and paupers, and wild untaught
creatures, in England now, than he cared for them in Judaea of old.
And we see that in fact He does not.  For as the wealth of England
improves, and the laws improve, and the knowledge of God improves,
the condition of all sorts of poor creatures improves too, though
they had no share in bringing about the good change.  But we are all
members of one body, from the Queen on her throne to the tramper
under the hedge; and as St. Paul says:  "If one member suffers, all
the members suffer with it, and if one member rejoices, all the
others" sooner or later "rejoice with it."  For we, too, are one of
the Lord's nations.  He has made us one body, with one common
language, common laws, common interest, common religion for all; and
what He does for one of us He does for all.  He orders all that
happens to us; whether it be war or peace, prosperity or dearth, He
orders it all; and He orders things so that they shall work for the
good, not merely of a few, but of as many as possible--not merely for
His elect, but for those who know Him not.  As He has been from the
beginning, when He heaped blessings on the stiff-necked and
backsliding Israelites--as He was when He endured the cross for a
world lying not in obedience, but in wickedness; so is He now; the
perfect likeness of His father, who is no respecter of persons, but
causes "His sun to shine alike on the evil on the good, and His rain
to fall on the just and on the unjust."

But now, there is one thing against which I have to warn you most
solemnly, and especially in such days as these.  You may believe my
words to your own ruin, or to your own salvation.  They are "the
Gospel," "the good news of the Kingdom of God"--that is, the good
news that God has condescended to become our King, to govern and
guide us, to order all things for our good.  But as St. Paul says,
the Gospel may be a savour of death unto death, as well as a savour
of life unto life.  And I will tell you now; that you have only to do
what the Jews just before the coming of our Lord did, and give way to
the same thoughts as they, and then, like them, it were better for
you that you had never heard of God, and been like the savages, to
whom little or no sin is imputed, because they are all but without
law.  How is this?

As I said before--take your covenant privileges as the Pharisees took
theirs, and they will turn you into devils while you are fancying
yourselves God's especial favourites.  Now this was what happened to
the Pharisees:  they could not help knowing that God had shown
especial favour to them; and that He had taught them more about God
than He had taught the heathen.  But instead of feeling all the more
humble and thankful for this, and of remembering day and night that
because much had been given to them much would be required of them,
they thought more about the honour and glory which God had put on
them.  They forgot what God had declared, namely, that it was not for
their own goodness that He had taught them, for that they were in
themselves not a whit better than the heathen around them.  They
forgot that the reason why He taught them was, that they were to do
His work on earth, by witnessing for His name, and telling the
heathen that God was their Lord, as well as Lord of the Jews.  Now
David, and the old Psalmists and Prophets, did not forget this.
Their cry is:  "Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King."
"Worship the Son of God, ye kings of the earth, and make your peace
with Him lest He be angry."  "It was in vain," he told the heathen
kings, "to try to cast away God's government from them, and break His
bonds from off them," for "the Lord was King, let the nations be
never so unquiet."

But the Jews gradually forgot this, and their daily boast was, that
God had nothing to do with the heathen; that He did not care for
them, and actually hated them; that they, as it were, had the true
God all to themselves for their own private property; and that He had
neither love nor mercy, except for them and their proselytes, that
is, the few heathens whom they could persuade and entice not to
worship the true God after the customs of their own country--that
would not have suited the Jews' bigotry and pride--but to turn Jews,
and forget their own people among whom they were born, and ape them
in everything.  And so, as our Lord told them, after compassing sea
and land to make one of these proselytes, they only made him after
all twice as much the child of hell as themselves.  For they could
not teach the heathen anything worth knowing about God, when they had
forgotten themselves what God was like.  They could tell them that
there was one God, and not two--but what was the use of that?  As St.
James says, the devils believe as much as that, and yet the knowledge
does not make them holy, but only increases their fear and despair.
And so with these Pharisees.  They had forgotten that God was love.
They had forgotten that God was merciful.  They had forgotten that
God was just.  And therefore, while they were talking of God and
pretending to worship God, they knew nothing of God, and they did not
do God's will, and act like God; for (as we find from the Gospels)
they were unjust, tyrannous, proud, conceited, covetous themselves;
and while they were looking down on the poor heathens, these very
heathens, the Lord told them, would rise up in judgment against them:
for they, knowing little, acted up to the light which they had,
better than the Pharisees who knew so much.  And so it will be with
us, my friends, if we fancy that God's great favours to us are a
reason for our priding ourselves on them, and despising papists and
foreigners instead of remembering that just because God has given us
so much, He will require more of us.  It is true, we do know more of
the Gospel than the papists, how, though they believe in Jesus
Christ, worship the Virgin Mary and the Saints, and idols of wood and
stone.  But if they, who know so little of God's will, yet act
faithfully up to what they do know, will they not rise up in judgment
against us, who know so much more, if we act worse than they?
Instead of despising them, we had better despise ourselves.  Instead
of fancying that God's love is not over them, and so sinning against
God's Holy Spirit by denying and despising the fruits of God's Holy
Spirit in them, we had much better, we Protestants, be repenting of
our own sins.  We had better pray God to open our eyes to our own
want of faith, and want of love, and want of honesty, and want of
cleanly and chaste lives; lest God in His anger should let us go on
in our evil path, till we fall into the deep darkness of mind of the
Pharisees of old.  For then while we were boasting of England as the
most Christian nation in the world, we might become the most
unchristian, because the most unlike Christ; the most wanting in love
and fellow-feeling, and self-sacrifice, and honour, and justice, and
honesty; wanting, in short, in the fruits of the Spirit.  And without
them there is no use crying:  "We are God's chosen people, He Has put
His name among us, we alone hate idols, we alone have the pure word
of God, and the pure sacraments, and the pure doctrine;" for God may
answer us, as he answered the Jews of old:  "Think not to say within
yourselves, We have Abraham for our father:  Verily, I say unto you,
God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham."  . . .
"The Kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation
bringing forth the fruits thereof."  Oh! my friends, let us pray, one
and all, that God will come and help us, and with great might succour
us, "that whereas through our sins and wickedness we are sore let and
hindered in running the race set before us, God's bountiful grace and
mercy may speedily help and deliver us," and enable us to live
faithfully up to the glorious privileges which He has bestowed on us,
in calling us "members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of
the Kingdom of Heaven;" in giving us His Bible, in allowing us to be
born into this favoured land of England, in preserving us to this
day, in spite of all that we have thought, and said, and done,
unworthy of the name of Christians and Englishmen.

And then we may be certain that God will also fulfil to us the
glorious promises which we find in another Psalm:  "If thy children
will keep my covenant and my testimonies, which I shall learn them,
this land shall be my rest for ever.  Here will I dwell, for I have a
delight therein.  I will bless her victuals with increase, and
satisfy her poor with bread.  I will deck her priests with health,
and her holy people shall rejoice and sing."



XVIII--NATIONAL REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS



And that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all; that ye
say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to
serve wood and stone.  As I live, saith the Lord God, surely with a
mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out,
will I rule over you. . . .  And ye shall know that I am the Lord.--
EZEKIEL xx. 32, 33, 38.

A father has two ways of showing his love to his child--by caressing
it and by punishing it.  His very anger may be a sign of his love,
and ought to be.  Just because he loves his child, just because the
thing he longs most to see is that his child should grow up good,
therefore he must be, and ought to be, angry with it when it does
wrong.  Therefore anger against sin is a part of God's likeness in
us; and he who does not hate sin is not like God.  For if sin is the
worst evil--perhaps the only real evil in the world--and the end of
all sin is death and misery, then to indulge people in sin is to show
them the very worst of cruelty.

To sit by and see iniquity going on without trying to stop it, is
mere laziness.  The parent, when his child does wrong, does not show
his love to the child by indulging it, all he shows is, that he
himself is carnal and fleshly; that he does not like to take the
trouble of punishing it, or does not like to give himself the pain of
punishing it; that, in short, he had sooner let his child grow up in
bad habits, which must lead to its misery and ruin for years and
years, if not for ever, than make himself uncomfortable by seeing it
uncomfortable for a few minutes.  That is not love, but selfishness.
True love is as determined to punish the sin as it is to forgive the
sinner.  Therefore, St. Paul tells us, that we can be angry without
sinning; that is that there is an anger which comes from hatred of
sin and love to the sinner.  Therefore, Solomon tells us to punish
our children when they do wrong, and not to hold our hands for their
crying.  It is better for them that they should cry a little now,
than have long years of shame and sorrow hereafter.  Therefore, in
all countries which are properly governed, the law punishes in the
name of God those who break the laws of God, and punishes them even
with death, for certain crimes; because it is expedient that one man
die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.

And this is God's way of dealing with each and every one of us.  This
is God's way of dealing with Christian nations, just as it was His
way of dealing with the Jews of old.  He never allowed the Jews to
prosper in sin.  He punished them at once, and sternly, whenever they
rebelled against Him; not because He hated them, but because He loved
them.  His love to them showed itself whenever they went well with
Him, in triumphs and blessings; and when they rebelled against Him,
and broke His laws, He showed that very same love to them in plague,
and war, and famine, and a mighty hand, and fury poured out.  His
love had not changed--they had changed; and now the best and only way
of showing His love to them, was by making them feel His anger; and
the best and only way of being merciful to them, was to show them no
indulgence.

Now the wish of the Jews all along, and especially in Ezekiel's time,
was to be like the heathen--like the nations round them.  They said
to themselves:  "These heathen worship idols, and yet prosper very
well.  Their having gods of wood and stone, and their indulging their
passions, and being profligate and filthy, covetous, unjust, and
tyrannical, does not prevent their being just as happy as we are--ay,
and a great deal happier.  They have no strict law of Moses, as we
have threatening us and keeping us in awe, and making us
uncomfortable, and telling us at every turn, 'Thou shalt not do this
pleasant thing, and thou shalt not do that pleasant thing.'  And yet
God does not punish them, as Moses' law says He will punish us.
These Assyrians and Babylonians above all--they are stronger than we,
and richer, and better clothed, and cleverer; they have horses and
chariots, and all sorts of luxuries and comforts which we Jews cannot
get.  Instead of being like us, in continual trouble from
earthquakes, and drought, and famine, and war, attacked, plundered by
all the nations round us, one after another, they go on conquering,
and spreading, and succeeding in all they lay their hand to.  Look at
Babylon," said these foolish Jews, perhaps, to themselves; "a few
generations ago it was nothing of a city, and now it is the greatest,
richest, and strongest nation in the whole world.  God has not
punished it for worshipping gods of wood and stone, why should He
punish us?  These Babylonians have prospered well enough with their
gods, why should not we?  Perhaps it is these very gods of wood and
stone who have helped them to become so great.  Why should they not
help us?  We will worship them, then, and pray to them.  We will not
give up worshipping our own God, of course, lest we should offend
Him; but we will worship Him and the Babylonian idols at the same
time; then we shall be sure to be right if we have Jehovah and the
idols both on our side."  So said the Jews to themselves.  But what
did Ezekiel answer them?  "Not so, my foolish countrymen," said he,
"God will not have it so.  He has taught you that these Babylonian
idols are nothing and cannot help you; He has taught you that He can
and will help you, that He can and will be everything to you; He has
taught you that He alone is God, who made heaven and earth, who
orders all things therein, who alone gives any people power to get
wealth; and He will not have you go back and fall from that for any
appearances or arguments whatsoever, because it is true.  He has
chosen you to witness to these heathen about Him, to declare His name
to them, that they may give up their idols and serve the true God, in
whom alone is strength.  He chose you to be these heathens' teachers,
and He will not let you become their scholars.  He meant the heathen
to copy you, and He will not let you copy them.  If He does, in His
love and mercy, let these poor heathen prosper in spite of their
idols, what is that to you?  It is still the Lord who makes them
prosper, and not the idols, whether they know it or not.  They know
no better, and He will not impute sin to them where He has given them
no law.  But you do know better; by a thousand mighty signs and
wonders and deliverances, the Lord has been teaching you ever since
you came up through the Red Sea, that He is all-sufficient for you,
that all power is His in heaven and earth.  He has promised to you,
and sworn to you by Himself, that if you keep His law and walk in His
commandments, you shall want no manner of good thing; that you shall
have no cause to envy these heathen their riches and prosperity, for
the Lord will bless you in house and land, by day and night, at home
and abroad, with every blessing that a nation can desire.  Moses' law
tells you this, God's prophets have been telling you this, God's
wonderful dealings with you have been telling you this, that the Lord
God is enough for you.  And if you, who are meant to be a nation of
kings and priests to God, to teach all nations and serve solely Him,
fancy that you will be allowed to throw away the high honour which
God has put upon you, and lower yourselves to the follies and sins of
these heathen round you, you are mistaken.  You were meant to be
above such folly, you can be above it; and you shall not prosper by
serving God and idols at once; you shall not even prosper by serving
idols alone.  God will visit you with a mighty hand, and with fury
poured out, and you shall know that He is the Lord."

Well, my friends, and what has this to do with us?  This it has to do
with us--that if God taught the Jews about Himself, He has taught us
still more.  If he has shown signs and wonders of His love, and
wrought mightily for the Jews, He has wrought far more mightily for
us; for He spared not His own Son, but gave Him freely for us.  If He
promised to teach the Jews, He has promised still more to teach us;
for He has promised His Holy Spirit freely to young and old, rich and
poor, to as many as ask Him, to guide us into all truth.  If he
expected the Jews to set an example to all the nations around, He
expects us to do so still more.  And if He punished the Jews, and
drove them back again by shame, and affliction, and disappointment,
whenever they went after other gods, and tried to be like the heathen
around, and despised their high calling, and their high privileges,
He will punish us, and drive us back again still more fiercely, and
still more swiftly.  God has called us to be a nation of Christians,
and He will not let us be a nation of heathens.  We are longing to do
in these days very much as the Jews did of old; we are all too apt to
say to ourselves:  "Of course we must love God, or He might be angry
with us; and besides, how else should we get our souls saved?  But
the old heathen nations, and a great many nations now, and a great
many rich and comfortable people in England now, too, get on very
well without God, by just worshipping selfishness, and money, and
worldly cunning, and why should not we do the same?--why should we
not worship God and Mammon at once, and serve God on Sundays, and the
selfish ways of the world all the week?  Surely then we should be
doubly safe; we should have God and the world on our side both at
once."

Now, my friends, God will not allow us to succeed on that plan.  We
are members of His Church, whose head is Jesus, who gave Himself for
sinners; whose members are all brothers of His Church, which is held
together by self-sacrifice and fellow-help.  If we try to be like the
heathens, and fancy that we can succeed by selfishness, and cunning,
and covetousness, God will not let us fall from the honour which He
has put on us, and trample our blessings under foot.  He will bring
our plans to nought.  Whomsoever he may let prosper in sin, He will
not let those who have heard the message prosper in it.  Whatever
nation He may let become great by covetousness, and selfish competing
and struggling of man against man, He will not let England grow great
by it.  He loves her too well to let her fall so, and cast away her
high honour of being a Christian nation.  By great and sore
afflictions, by bringing our cleverest plans to nothing, He will
teach us that we cannot worship God and Mammon at once; that the sure
riches, either for a man or for a nation, are not money, but
righteousness love, justice, wisdom; that this new idol of selfish
competition which men worship nowadays, and fancy that it is the
secret cause of all plenty, and cheapness, and civilisation, has no
place in the church of Jesus Christ, who gave up His own life for
those who hated Him, and came not to do His own will, but the will of
His Father; not to enable men to go to heaven after a life of
selfishness here; but by the power of His Spirit--the spirit of love
and fellowship to sweep all selfishness off the face of God's good
earth.  By sore trials and afflictions will God in His mercy teach
this to England, and to every man in England who is deluded into
fancying that he can serve God, and selfishness at once, till we
learn once more, as our forefathers did of old, that He is the Lord.
Because we are His children God will chasten us; because He receives
us, He will scourge us back to Him; because He has prepared for us
things such as eye hath not seen, He will not let us fill our bellies
with the husks which the swine eat, and like the dumb beasts, snarl
and struggle one against the other for a place at His table, as if it
were not wide enough for all His creatures, and for ten times as many
more, forgetting that He is the giver, and fancying that we are to be
the takers, and spoiling the gift itself in our hurry to snatch it
out of our neighbours' hands.  In one word, God will not give us
false prosperity, as the children of the world, the flesh, and the
devil, because he wishes to give us real prosperity as the sons of
God, in the kingdom of his Son Jesus Christ, who died on the cross
for us.



XIX--THE DELIVERANCE OF JERUSALEM



And it came to pass that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in
the camp of the Assyrians an hundred and eighty five thousand:  and
when they arose in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.--
2 KINGS xix. 35.

You heard read in the first lesson last Sunday afternoon, the threats
of the king of Assyria against Jerusalem, and his defiance of the
true Lord whose temple stood there.  In the first lesson for this
morning's service, you heard of king Hezekiah's fear and perplexity;
of the Lord's answer to him by Isaiah, and of the great and wonderful
destruction of the Assyrian army, of which my text tells you.  Of
course you have a right to ask:  "This which happened in a foreign
country more than two thousand years ago, what has it to do with us?"
And, of course, my preaching about it will be of no use whatsoever,
unless I can show you what it has to do with us; what lesson we
English here, in the year 1851, are to draw, from the help which God
sent the Jews.

But to find out that, we must hear the whole story.  Before we can
find out why God drove the Assyrians out of Judaea, we must find out,
it seems to me, why He sent them, or allowed them to come into
Judaea; and to find out that, we must first see how the Jews were
behaving in those times, and what sort of state their country was in;
and we must find out, too, what sort of a man this great king of
Assyria was, and what sort of thoughts were in his heart.

Now, by the favour of God, we can find out this.  You will see, in
the first thirty-seven chapters of Isaiah's prophecies, a full
account of the ways of the Jews in that time, and the reasons why God
allowed so fearful a danger to come upon them.  The whole first
thirty-five chapters belong to each other, and are, so to speak, a
spiritual history of the Jews, and the Assyrians, and all the nations
round them, for many years.  A spiritual history--that is, not merely
a history of what they did, but of what they were, what was in their
inmost hearts, and thoughts, and spirits; a spiritual history--that
is, not merely of what they thought they were doing, but of what God
saw that they were doing--a history of God's mind about them all.
Isaiah had God's spirit on him; and so he saw what was going on round
him in the same light in which God saw it, and hated it, or praised
it, only according as it was good, and according to the good Spirit
of God, or bad, and contrary to that Spirit.  So Isaiah's history of
his own nation, and the nations around him, was very unlike what they
would have written for themselves; just as I am afraid he would write
a very different history of England now, from what we should write,
if we were set to do it.  Now what Isaiah thought of the doings of
his countrymen, the Jews, I must tell you in another sermon, next
Sunday.  It will be enough this morning to speak of the king of
Assyria.

These kings of Assyria thought themselves the greatest and strongest
beings in the world; they thought that their might was right, and
that they might conquer, and ravage, and plunder and oppress every
country round them for thousands of miles, without being punished.
They thought that they could overcome the true God of Judaea, as they
had conquered the empty idols and false gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and
Iva.  But Isaiah saw that they were wrong.  He told his countrymen:
"These Assyrian kings are strong, but there is a stronger King than
they, Jehovah the Lord of all the earth.  It is He who sent them to
punish nation after nation, Sennacherib is the rod of Jehovah's
anger; but he is a fool after all; for all his cunning, for all his
armies, he is a fool rushing on his ruin.  He may take Tyre,
Damascus, Babylon, Egypt itself, and cast their gods into the fire,
for they are no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone;
but let him once try his strength against the real living God; let
the axe once begin to boast itself against Him that hews therewith;
and he will find out that there is one stronger than he, one who has
been using him as a 'tool, and who will crush him like a moth the
moment he rebels.  His father destroyed Samaria and her idols, but he
shall not destroy Jerusalem.  He may ravage Ephraim, and punish the
gluttony and drunkenness, and oppression of the great landlords of
Bashan; he may bring misery and desolation through the length and
breadth of the land:  there is reason, and reason but too good for
that:  but Jerusalem, the place where God's honour dwells, the temple
without idols, which is the sign that Jehovah is a living God,
against it he shall not cast up a bank, or shoot an arrow into it.'
"I know," said Isaiah, "what he is saying of himself, this proud king
of Assyria:  but this is what God says of him, that he is only a
puppet, a tool in the hand of God, to punish these wicked nations
whom he is conquering one by one, and us Jews among the rest.  He,
this proud king of Assyria, thinks that he is the chosen favourite of
the sun, and the moon, and the stars, whom, in his folly, he worships
as gods.  He will find out who is the real Lord of the earth; he will
find out that this great world is ruled by that very God of Israel
whom he despises.  He will find that there is something in this
earth, of which he fancies himself lord and master, which is too
strong for him, which will obey God, and not him.  God rules the
earth, and God rules Tophet, and the great fire-kingdoms which boil
and blaze for ever in the bowels of the earth, and burst up from time
to time in earthquakes and burning mountains; and God has ordained
that they shall conquer this proud king of Assyria, though we Jews
are too weak and cowardly, and split up into parties by our
wickedness, to make a stand against him." . . .

This great eruption or breaking out of burning mountains, which would
destroy the king of Assyria's army, was to happen, Isaiah says, close
to Jerusalem, nay, it was to shake Jerusalem itself.  Jerusalem was
to be brought to great misery by everlasting burnings, as well as by
being besieged by the Assyrians; and yet the very shaking of the
earth and eruption of fire which was nearly to destroy it, was to be
the cause of its deliverance.  So Isaiah prophesied, and we cannot
doubt his words came true.  For this may explain to us the way in
which the king of Assyria's army was destroyed.  The text says, that
when they encamped near Jerusalem the messenger of the Lord went out,
and slew in one night one hundred and eighty thousand of them, who
were all found dead in the morning.  How they were killed we cannot
exactly tell, most likely by a stream of poisonous vapour, such as
often comes forth out of the ground during earthquakes and eruptions
of burning mountains, and kills all men and animals who breathe it.
That this was the way that this great army was destroyed, I have
little doubt, not only on account of what Isaiah says in his
prophecies of God's "sending a blast" upon the king of Assyria, but
because it was just like the old lesson which God had been teaching
the Jews all along, that the earth and all in it was His property,
and obeyed Him.  For what could teach them that more strongly than to
see that the earthquakes and burning mountains, of all things on
earth the most awful and most murderous, the very things against
which man has no defence, obeyed God; burst forth when He chose, and
did His work as He willed?  For man can conquer almost everything in
the world except these burning mountains and earthquakes.  He can
sail over the raging sea in his ships; he can till the most barren
soils; he can provide against famine, rain, and cold, ay, against the
thunder itself:  but the earthquakes alone are too strong for him.
Against them no cunning or strength of man is of any use.  Without
warning, they make the solid ground under his feet heave, and reel,
and sink, hurling down whole towns in a moment, and burying the
inhabitants under the ruins, as an earthquake did in Italy only a
month ago.  Or they pour forth streams of fire, clouds of dust,
brimstone, and poisonous vapour, destroying for miles around the
woods and crops, farms and cities, and burying them deep in ashes, as
they have done again and again, both in Italy and Iceland, and in
South America, even during the last few years.  How can man stand
against them?  What greater warning or lesson to him than they, that
God is stronger than man; that the earth is not man's property, and
will not obey him, but only the God who made it?  Now that was just
what God intended to teach the Jews all along; that the earth and
heaven belonged to Him and obeyed Him; that they were not to worship
the sun and stars, as the Assyrians and Canaanites did, nor the earth
and the rivers as the Egyptians did:  but to worship the God who made
sun and stars, earth and rivers, and to put their trust in Him to
guide all heaven and earth aright; and to make all things, sun,
earth, and weather, ay, and the very burning mountains and
earthquakes, work together for good for them if they loved God.
Therefore it was that God gave His law to Moses on the burning
mountain of Sinai, amid thunders, and lightnings, and earthquakes, to
show them that the lightnings and the mountains obeyed Him.
Therefore it was that the earthquake opened the ground and swallowed
up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, who rebelled against Moses.  Therefore
it was that God once used an earthquake and eruption to preserve
David from his enemies, as we read in the eighteenth Psalm.  And all
through David's Psalms we find how well he had learnt this great
lesson which God had taught him.  Again and again we find verses
which show that he knew well enough who was the Lord of all the
earth.

In Isaiah's time, it seems, God taught the Jews once more the same
thing.  He taught them, and the proud king of Assyria, once and for
all, that He was indeed the Lord--Lord of all nations, and King of
kings, and also Lord of the earth, and all that therein is.  He
taught it to the poor oppressed Jews by that miraculous deliverance.
He taught it to the cruel invading king by that miraculous
destruction.  Just in the height of his glory, after he had conquered
almost every nation in the east, and overcome the whole of Judaea,
except that one small city of Jerusalem, Sennacherib's great army was
swept away, he neither knew how nor why, in a single night, and
utterly disheartened and abashed, he returned to his own land; and
even there he found that the God of Israel had followed him--that the
idols whom he worshipped could not save him from the wrath of that
God to whom Assyria, just as much as Jerusalem, belonged.  For as he
was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, his two sons smote
him with the sword, and there was an end of all his pride and
conquests. . . . Now Nisroch was the name of a star--the star which
we call the planet Saturn; and the Assyrians fancied in their folly,
that whosoever worshipped any particular star, that star would
protect and help him. . . .  But, alas for the king of Assyria, there
was One above who had made the stars, and from whose vengeance the
stars could not save him; and so even while he was worshipping, and
praying to, this favourite star of his which could not hear him, he
fell dead, a murdered man, and found out too late how true were the
great words of Isaiah when he prophesied against him.

Yes, my friends, this is the lesson which the Jews had to learn, and
which the king of Assyria had to learn, and which we have to learn
also; and which God will, in His great mercy, teach us over and over
again by bitter trials whensoever we forget it; that The Lord is
King; that He is near us, living for ever, all-wise, all-powerful,
all-loving; that those who really trust in Him shall never be
confounded; that those who trust in themselves are trying their
paltry strength against the God who made heaven and earth, and will
surely find out their own weakness, just when they fancy themselves
most successful.  So it was in Hezekiah's time; so it is now, hard as
it may be to us to believe it.  The Lord Jehovah, Jesus Christ, who
saved Jerusalem from the Assyrians, He still is King, let the earth
be never so unquiet.  And all men, or governments, or doctrines, or
ways of thinking and behaving, which are contrary to His will, or
even pretend that they can do without Him, will as surely come to
nought as that great and terrible king of Assyria.  Though man be too
weak to put them down, Christ is not.  Though man neglect to put them
down, Christ will not.  If man dare not fight on the Lord's side
against sin and evil, the Lord's earth will fight for Him.  Storm and
tempest, blight and famine, earthquakes and burning mountains, will
do His work, if nothing else will.  As He said Himself, if man stops
praising Him, the very stones will cry out, and own Him as their
King.  Not that the blessed Lord is proud, or selfish, or revengeful;
God forbid!  He is boundless pity, and love, and mercy.  But it is
just because He is perfect love and pity that He hates sin, which
makes all the misery upon earth.  He hates it, and he fights against
it for ever; lovingly at first, that He may lead sinners to
repentance; for He wills the death of none, but rather that all
should come to repentance.  But if a man will not turn, He will whet
his sword; and then woe to the sinner.  Let him be as great as the
king of Assyria, he must down.  For the Lord will have none guide His
world but Himself, because none but He will ever guide it on the
right path.  Yes--but what a glorious thought, that He will guide it,
and us, on that right path.  Oh blessed news for all who are in
sorrow and perplexity!  Whatsoever it is that ails you--and who is
there, young or old, rich or poor, who has not their secret ailments
at heart?--whatsoever ails you, whatsoever terrifies you, whatsoever
tempts you, trust in the same Lord who delivered Jerusalem from the
Assyrians, and He will deliver you.  He will never suffer you to be
tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation also
make a way for you to escape, that you may be able to bear it.  This
has been His loving way from the beginning, and this will be His way
until the day when He wipes away tears from all eyes.



XX--PROFESSION AND PRACTICE



Though they say, "The Lord liveth," surely they swear falsely.--
JEREMIAH v. 2.

I spoke last Sunday morning of the wonderful way in which the Lord
delivered the Jews from the Assyrian army, and I promised to try and
explain to you this morning, the reason why the Lord allowed the
Assyrians to come into Judaea, and ravage the whole country except
the one small city of Jerusalem.

My text is taken from the first lesson, from the book of the prophet
Jeremiah.  And it, I think, will explain the reason to us.

For though Jeremiah lived more than a hundred years after Isaiah, yet
he had much the same message from God to give, and much the same sins
round him to rebuke.  For the Jews were always, as the Bible calls
them, "a backsliding people;" and, as the years ran on, and they
began to forget their great deliverance from the Assyrians, they slid
back into the very same wrong state of mind in which they were in
Isaiah's time, and for which God punished them by that terrible
invasion.

Now, what was this?

One very remarkable thing strikes us at once.  That when the
Assyrians came into Judaea, the Jews were NOT given up to worshipping
false gods.  On the contrary, we find, both from the book of Kings
and the book of Chronicles, that a great reform in religion had taken
place among them a few years before.  Their king Hezekiah, in the
very first year of his reign, removed the high places, and cut down
the groves (which are said to have been carved idols meant to
represent the stars of heaven), and even broke in pieces the brazen
serpent which Moses had made, because the Jews had begun to worship
it for an idol.  He trusted in the Lord God, and obeyed Him, more
than any king of Judah.  He restored the worship of the true God in
the temple, according to the law of Moses, with such pomp and glory
as had never been seen since Solomon's time.  And not only did he
turn to the true God, but his people also.  From the account which we
find in Chronicles, they seemed to have joined him in the good work.
They offered sin-offerings as a token of the wickedness of which they
have been guilty, in leaving the true God for idols; and all other
kinds of offerings freely and willingly.  "And Hezekiah rejoiced, and
all the people that God had prepared the people.  Moreover, Hezekiah
called all the men in Judaea up to Jerusalem, to keep the passover
according to the law of Moses," which they had neglected to do for
many years, and the people answered his call and "came, and kept the
feast at Jerusalem seven days, with joy and great gladness, offering
peace-offerings, and making confession to the God of their fathers.
So there was great joy in Jerusalem; for since the time of Solomon
there was not the like in Jerusalem.  Then the priests and the
Levites arose, and blessed the people, and their voice was heard, and
their prayer came up to the Lord's holy dwelling, even to heaven."
And when it was all finished, the people went out of their own
accord, and destroyed utterly all the idols, and high places, and
altars throughout the land, and returned to their houses in peace.

Now does not all this sound very satisfactory and excellent?  What
better state of mind could people be in?  What a wonderful reform,
and spread of true religion!  The only thing like it, that we know,
is the wonderful reform and spread of religion in England in the last
sixty years, after all the ungodliness and wickedness that went on
from the year 1660 to the time of the French war; the building of
churches, the founding of schools, the spread of Bibles, and tracts,
and the wonderful increase of gospel preachers, so that every old man
will tell you, that religion is talked about and written about now, a
thousand times more than when he was a boy.  Indeed, unless a man
makes a profession of some sort of religion or other, nowadays, he
can hardly hope to rise in the world, so religious are we English
become.

Now let us hear what Isaiah thought of all that wonderful spread of
true religion in his time; and then, perhaps, we may see what he
would think of ours now, if he were alive.  His opinion is sure to be
the right one.  His rules can never fail, for he was an inspired
prophet, and saw things as they are, as God sees them; and therefore
his rules will hold good for ever.  Let us see what they were.

The first chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah is called "The
vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and
Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah."  Now
this is one prophecy by itself, in the shape of a poem; for in the
old Hebrew it is written in regular verses.  The second chapter
begins with another heading, and is the beginning of a different
poem; so that this first chapter is, as it were, a summing up of all
that he is going to say afterwards; a short account of the state of
the Jews for more than forty years.  And what is more, this first
chapter of Isaiah must have been written in the reign of Hezekiah, in
those very religious days of which I was just speaking; for it says
that the country was desolate, and Jerusalem alone left.  And this
never happened during Isaiah's lifetime, till the fourteenth year of
Hezekiah, that is, till this great spread of the true religion had
been going on for thirteen years.  Now what was Isaiah's vision?
What did he, being taught by God's Spirit, SEE was God's opinion of
these religious Jews?  Listen, my friends, and take it solemnly to
heart!

"Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law
of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.  To what purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord:  I am full of the burnt
offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts:  and I delight not in
the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats.  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.  Your new moons
and your appointed feasts my soul hateth:  they are a trouble unto
me; I am weary to bear them.  And when ye spread forth your hands, I
will hide my eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will
not hear:  your hands are full of blood.  Wash you, make you clean;
put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do
evil; learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge
the fatherless, plead for the widow. . . .  How is the faithful city
become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in
it; but now murderers.  Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed
with water; thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves;
every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards:  they judge not
the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.
Therefore, saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty one of
Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine
enemies." . . .

Again, I say, my friends, listen to it, and take it solemnly to
heart!  That is God's opinion of religion, even the truest and
soundest in worship and doctrine, when it is without godliness,
without holiness; when it goes in hand with injustice, and
covetousness, and falsehood, and cheating, and oppression, and
neglect of the poor, and keeping company with the wicked, because it
is profitable; in short, when it is like too much of the religion
which we see around us in the world at this day.

Yes--it was of no use holding to the letter of the law while they
forgot its spirit.  God had commanded church-going, and woe to those,
then or now, who neglect it.  Yet the Lord asks, "Who hath required
this at your hands, to tread my courts?". . .  He had commanded the
Sabbath-day to be kept holy; and woe to those, then or now, who
neglect it.  Yet He says, "Your Sabbaths I cannot away with; it is
iniquity, even the solemn meeting."  The Lord had appointed feasts:
and yet He says that His soul hated them; they were a trouble to Him;
He was weary to bear them.  The Lord had commanded prayer; and woe to
those, then or now, in England, as in Judaea, who neglect to pray.
And yet He says:  "When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine
eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear."  And
why?--He himself condescends to tell them the reason, which they
ought to have known for themselves:  "Because," He says, "your hands
are full of blood."  This was the reason why all their religiousness,
and orthodoxy, and church-going, and praying, was only disgusting to
God; because there was no righteousness with it.  Their faith was
only a dead, rotten, sham faith, for it brought forth no fruits of
justice and love; and their religion was only hypocrisy, for it did
not make them holy.  No doubt they thought themselves pious and
sincere enough; no doubt they thought that they were pleasing God
perfectly, and giving Him all that He could fairly ask of them; no
doubt they were fiercely offended at Isaiah's message to them; no
doubt they could not understand what he meant by calling them a
hypocritical nation, a second Sodom and Gomorrah, while they were
destroying idols, and keeping the law of Moses, and worshipping God
more earnestly than He had been worshipped since Solomon's time.  But
so it was.  That was the message of God to them; that was the vision
of Isaiah concerning them; that there was no soundness in the whole
of the nation, "from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head,
nothing but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores"--that is, that
the whole heart and conscience, and ways of thinking, were utterly
rotten, and abominable in the sight of God, even while they were
holding the true doctrines about them, and keeping up the pure
worship of Him.  This, says the Lord, is not the way to please me.
"He hath showed thee, oh man, what is good.  And what doth the Lord
require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with thy God?"  To do justly, to love mercy, and then to walk
humbly, sure that when you seem to have done all your duty, you have
left only too much of it undone; even as St. Paul felt when he said,
that though he knew nothing against himself; though he could not
recollect a single thing in which he had failed of his duty to the
Corinthians, yet that did not justify him.  "For he that judgeth me,"
he says, "is the Lord."  He sees deeper than I can; and He, alas! may
take a very different view of my conduct from what I do; and this
life of mine, which looks to me, from my ignorance, so spotless and
perfect, may be, in His eyes, full of sins, and weakness, and
neglects, and shameful follies.  "To walk humbly with God."  Not to
believe that because you read the Bible, and have heard the gospel,
and are sharp at finding out false doctrine in preachers, and belong
to the Church of England, that therefore you know all about God, and
can look down upon poor papists, and heathens, and say:  "This
people, which knoweth not the law, is accursed:  but WE are
enlightened, we understand the whole Bible, we know everything about
God's will, and man's duty; and whosoever differs from us, or
pretends to teach us anything new about God, must be wrong."  Not to
do so, my friends, but to believe what St. Paul tells us solemnly,
"That if any man think that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet
as he ought to know"--to believe that the Great God, and the will of
God, and the love of God, and the mystery of Redemption, and the
treasures of wisdom which are in His Bible, are, as St. Paul told
you, boundless, like a living well, which can never be fathomed, or
drawn dry, but fills again with fresh water as fast as you draw from
it.  That is walking humbly with God; and those who do not do so, but
like the Pharisees of old, believe that they have all knowledge, and
can understand all the mysteries of the Bible, and go through the
world, despising and cursing all parties but their own--let them
beware, lest the Lord be saying of them, as He said of the church of
Sardis, of old:  "Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods,
and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."

How is this?  What is this strange thing, without which even the true
knowledge of doctrine is of no use; which, if a man, or a nation has
not, he is poor, and blind, and wretched, and naked in soul, in spite
of all his religion?  Isaiah will tell us--What did he say to the
Jews in his day?

"Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from
before my eyes.  Do justice to the fatherless, and relieve the
widow!"  "Do that," says the Lord, "and then your repentance will be
sincere.  Church building and church going are well--but they are not
repentance--churches are not souls.  I ask you for your hearts, and
you give me fine stones and fine words.  I want souls--I want YOUR
souls--I want you to turn to me.  And what am I? saith the Lord.  I
am justice, I am love, I am the God of the oppressed, the fatherless,
the widow.--That is my character.  Turn to justice, turn to love,
turn to mercy; long to be made just, and loving, and merciful; see
that your sin has been just this, and nothing else, that you have
been unjust, unloving, unmerciful.  Repent for your neglect and
cruelty, and repent in dust and ashes, when you see what wretched
hypocrites you really are.  And then, my boundless mercy and pardon
shall be open to you.  As you wish to be to me, so will I be to you;
if you wish to become merciful, you shall taste my mercy; if you wish
to become loving to others, you shall find that I love you; if you
wish to become just, you shall find that I am just, just to deal by
you as you deal by others; faithful and just to forgive you your
sins, and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.  And then, all
shall be forgiven and forgotten; "though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be white as snow:  though they be red like crimson, they
shall be as wool."

Surely, my friends, these things are worth taking to heart; for this
is the sin which most destroys all men and nations--high religious
profession with an ungodly, covetous, and selfish life.  It is the
worst and most dangerous of all sins; for it is like a disease which
eats out the heart and life without giving pain; so that the sick man
never suspects that anything is the matter with him, till he finds
himself, to his astonishment, at the point of death.  So it was with
the Jews, three times in their history.  In the time of Isaiah, under
King Hezekiah; in the time of Jeremiah, under King Josiah; and last
and worst of all, in the time of Jesus Christ.  At each of these
three times the Jews were high religious professors, and yet at each
of these three times they were abominable before God, and on the
brink of ruin.  In Isaiah's time their eyes seemed to have been
opened at last to their own sins.  Their fearful danger, and
wonderful deliverance from the Assyrians of which you heard last
Sunday, seem to have done that for them; as God intended it should.
During the latter part of Hezekiah's reign they seemed to have turned
to God with their hearts, and not with their lips only; and Isaiah
can find no words to express the delight which the blessed change
gives him.  Nevertheless, they soon fell back again into idolatry;
and then there was another outward lip-reformation under the good
King Josiah; and Jeremiah had to give them exactly the same warning
which Isaiah had given them nearly a hundred years before.  But that
time, alas! they would not take the warning; and then all the evil
which had been prophesied against them came on them.  From
hypocritical profession, they fell back again into their old
idolatry; their covetousness, selfishness, party-quarrels, and
profligate lives made them too weak and rotten to stand against
Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, when he attacked them; and Jerusalem
was miserably destroyed, the temple burnt, and the Jews carried
captives to Babylon.  There they repented in bitter sorrow and
slavery; and God allowed them after seventy years to return to their
own land.  Then at first they seemed to be a really converted people,
and to be worshipping God in spirit and in truth.  They never again
fell back into the idolatry of the heathen.  So far from it, they
became the greatest possible haters of it; they went on keeping the
law of God with the utmost possible strictness, even to the day when
the Lord Jesus appeared among them.  Their religious people, the
Scribes and Pharisees, were the most strict, moral, devout people of
the whole world.  They worshipped the very words and letters of the
Bible; their thoughts seemed filled with nothing but God and the
service of God:  and yet the Lord Jesus told them that they were in a
worse state, greater sinners in the sight of God, than they had ever
been; that they, who hated idolatry, were filling up the measure of
their idolatrous forefathers' iniquity; that the guilt of all the
righteous blood shed on earth was to fall on them; that they were a
race of serpents, a generation of vipers; and that even He did not
see how they could escape the damnation of hell.  And they proved how
true His words were, by crucifying the very Lord of whom their much-
prized Scriptures bore witness, whom they pretended to worship day
and night continually; and received the just reward of their deeds in
forty years of sedition, bloodshed, and misery, which ended by the
Romans coming and sweeping the nation of the Jews from off the face
of the earth.

So much for profession without practice.  So much for true doctrine
with dishonest and unholy lives.  So much for outward respectability
with inward sinfulness.  So much for hating idolatry, while all the
while men's hearts are far from God!

Oh! my friends, let us all search our hearts carefully in these times
of high profession and low practice; lest we be adding our drop of
hypocrisy to the great flood of it which now stifles this land of
England, and so fall into the same condemnation as the Jews of old,
in spite of far nobler examples, brighter and wider light, and more
wonderful and bounteous blessings.



XXI--THE UNFAITHFUL SERVANT



But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his
coming; and shall begin to beat the men servants and the maid
servants, and to eat and drink and to be drunken; the lord of that
servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an
hour when he is not aware, and will cut him asunder, and will appoint
him his portion with the unbelievers.--LUKE xii. 45, 46.

But why with the unbelievers?  The man had not disbelieved that he
had any Lord at all; he had only believed that his Lord delayed his
coming.  And why was he to be put with those who do not believe in
him at all?  This is a very fearful question, friends, for us, when
we think how it is the fashion among us now, to believe that our Lord
delays His coming.--And surely most of us do believe that?  For is it
not our notion that, when the Lord Jesus ascended up to heaven, He
went away a great distance off, perhaps millions of miles beyond the
stars; and that He will not come back again till the last--which, for
aught we know, and as we rather expect, may not happen for hundreds
or thousands of years to come?  Is not that most people's notion,
rich as well as poor?  And if that is not believing that our Lord
delays His coming, what is?

But, you may answer, the Creed says plainly, that He ascended into
heaven and sits at the right hand of God.  Ah! my friends, those
great words of the Creed which you take into your lips every Sunday,
mean the very opposite to what most people fancy.  They do not say,
"The Lord Jesus has left this poor earth to itself and its misery:"
but they say, "Lo, He is with you, even to the end of the world."
True, He is ascended into heaven.  And how far off is heaven?--for so
far off is the Lord Jesus, and no farther.  Not so far off, my
friends, after all, if you knew where to find it.  Truly said the
great and good poet, now gone home to his reward:


Heaven lies about us in our infancy.


And if we lose sight of it as we grow up to be men and women, it is
not because heaven goes farther off, but because we grow less
heavenly.  Even now, so close is heaven to us, that any one of us
might enter into heaven this moment, without stirring from his seat.
One real cry from the depths of your heart--"Father, forgive thy
sinful child!"--one real feeling of your own worthlessness, and
weakness, and emptiness, and of God's righteousness, and love, and
mercy, ready for you--and you are in heaven there and then, as near
the feet of the blessed Lord Jesus, as Mary Magdalen was, when she
tried to clasp them in the garden.  I am serious, my friends; I am
not given to talk fine figures of poetry; I am talking sober,
straightforward, literal truth.  And the Lord sits at God's right
hand too? you believe that?  Then how far off is God?--for as far off
as God is, so far off is the Lord Jesus, and no farther.  What says
St. Paul?  That "God is not far off from any one of us--for in Him we
live, and move, and have our being" . . . IN Him . . . .  How far off
is that?  And is not God everywhere, if indeed we can say that He is
any where?  Then the Lord Jesus, who is at God's right hand, is
everywhere also--here, now, with us this day.  One would have thought
that there was no need to prove that by argument, considering that
His own blessed lips told us:  "Lo, I am with you, even to the end of
the world;" and again:  "Wheresoever two or three are gathered
together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."  And this is
the Lord whom people fancy is gone away far above the stars, till the
end of time!  Oh, my friends, rather bow your heads before Him here
this moment.  For here He is among us now, listening to every thought
of our poor sinful hearts. . . .  He is where God is--God IN whom we
live, and move, and have our being--and that is everywhere.  Do you
wish Him to be any nearer, my friends?  Or do you--do you--take care
what your hearts answer, for He is watching them--do you in the depth
of your hearts wish that He were a little farther off?  Does the
notion of His being here on this earth, watching and interfering (as
we call it nowadays in our atheism) with us and everything, seem
unpleasant and burdensome?  Is it more comfortable to you to think
that He is away far up beyond the stars?  Do you feel the lighter and
freer for fancying that He will not visit the earth for many a year
to come?  In short, is it in your HEARTS that you are saying, The
Lord delays His coming?

That is a very important question.  For mind, a pious man might be,
as many a pious man has been in these days, deceived by bad teaching
into the notion that Jesus Christ was gone far away.  But if he were
a truly pious man, if he truly loved the Lord, that would be a
painful thought--as I should have fancied, an unbearable thought--to
him, when he looked out upon this poor miserable, confused world.  He
would be crying night and day:  "Oh, that thou wouldest rend the
heavens and come down!"  He would be in an agony of pity for this
poor deserted earth, and of longing for the Saviour of it to come
back and save it.  He would never have a moment's peace of mind till
he had either seen the Lord come back again in His glory, or till he
had found out--what I am sure the blessed Lord would teach him as a
reward for his love--that it was all a dream and a nightmare, and
that the Lord of the earth was in the earth, and close to him, all
along; only that his weak eyes were held so that he did not know the
Lord and the Lord's works when he saw them.

But that was not the temper of this servant in the Lord's parable.  I
am afraid it is by no means the temper of many of us nowadays.  The
servant said IN HIS HEART, that his master would be long away.  It
was his heart put the thought into his head.  He took to the notion
HEARTILY, as we say, because he was glad to believe it was true; glad
to think that his master would not come to "interfere" with him; and
that in the meantime he might be lord and master himself, and treat
everyone in the house as if he himself was the owner of it, and
tyrannise over his fellow-servants, and enjoy himself in luxury and
good living.  So says David of the fool:  "The fool hath said in his
heart, there is no God;" his heart puts that thought into his head.
He wishes to believe that there is no God; and when there is a will
there is a way; and he soon finds out reasons and arguments enough to
prove what he is so very anxious to prove.

Now, my friends, I am afraid that there is not so much difference as
people fancy, between the fool who says in his heart, "There is no
God," and the fool who says in his heart, "My master delays His
coming."--"God has left the world to us, and we must shift for
ourselves in it."  The man who likes to be what St. Paul calls
"without God in the world," is he so very much wiser than the man who
likes to have no God at all?  St. James did not think so; for what
does he say:  "Thou believest that there is one God?  Thou doest
well--the devils also believe and tremble."  They know as much as
that; but it does them no good--only increases their fear.  "But wilt
thou know, oh! vain man, that faith without works," believing without
doing, "is dead?"  And are not too many, as I said just now, afraid
of the thought of God; so afraid of it that they wish to allow the
Son of God as little share as possible in the management of this
world?  Have not too many a belief without works; a mere belief that
there is one God and not two, which hardly, from one year's end to
another, makes them do one single thing which they would not have
done if they had believed that there was no God at all?  Fear of the
law, fear of the policeman, fear of losing their work or their
custom; fear of losing their neighbour's good word--that is what
keeps most people from breaking loose.  There is not much of the fear
of God in that, or the love of God either as far as I can see.  They
go through life as if they had made a covenant with God, that He
should have his own way in the world to come, if He would only let
them have their way in this world.  Oh! my friends, my friends, do
you think God is God of the next world and not of this also?  Do you
think the kingdom, and the power, and the glory will be His a great
many hundreds of years hence, in what you call heaven; and will not
see what every page of Scripture tells you, what you yourself say
every time you repeat the Lord's Prayer, that the Kingdom, and the
Power and the Glory are His now, here in this life, and that He has
committed all things to His Son Jesus Christ and given the power into
His hand, that He may rule this earth in righteousness now, here, in
this life, and conquer back for God one by one, if it be possible,
every creature upon earth?  So says the Bible--and people profess
nowadays to believe their Bibles.  My friends, too many, nowadays,
while they profess very loudly to believe what the Bible says, only
believe what their favourite teachers tell them that the Bible says.
If they really read their Bibles for themselves, and took God at His
word, there would be less tyrannising of one man over another, less
grinding down of men by masters, and of men by each other--for the
poor are often very hard on each other in England, now, my friends--
very envious and spiteful, and slanderous about each other.  They say
that dog won't eat dog--yet how many a poor man grudges and supplants
his neighbour, and tries to get into his place and beat him down in
his wages?  And there are those who call themselves learned men, who
tell the poor that that is God's will, and the way by which God
intends them to prosper.  If those men believed their Bibles, they
would be repenting in sackcloth and ashes for having preached such a
devil's sermon to God's children.  If men really read their Bibles,
there would be less eating and drinking with the drunken; less
idleness and luxury among the rich; less fancying that a man has a
right to do what he likes with his own, because all men would know
that they were only the Lord's stewards, bound to give an account to
him of the good which they had done with what he has lent them.
There would be fewer parents fancying that they can tyrannise over
their children, bringing them up as heathens for the sake of the few
pence they earn; using bad language, and doing shameful things before
them, which they dared not do if they recollected that the Lord was
looking on; beating and scolding them as if they were brutes or
slaves, to save themselves the trouble of teaching them gently what
the poor little creatures cannot know without being taught:  and most
shameful of all, robbing the poor children of their little earnings
to spend it themselves in drunkenness.  Ah, blessed Lord! if people
did but know how near Thou wert to them, all that would vanish out of
England, as the night clouds vanish away before the sun!

And He is near, my friends:  He is watching; He is governing; He is
at hand:  and in this life or in the life to come, forget Him as we
choose, He will make us know plain enough, and without any doubt
whatsoever, that He is the Lord.

He has fulfilled this awful parable of his about the unfaithful
servant already; many a time, against many a man, many a great king,
and prince, and nation; and he will fulfil it against each and every
man, from the nobleman in his castle to the labourer in his cottage,
who says in his heart, "My Lord delays his coming," and begins to
tyrannise over those who are weaker than himself, and to enjoy
himself as he likes, and forget that he is not his own, but bought
with the price of Christ's blood, and bound to work for Christ's
kingdom and glory.

So he punished the popes of Rome, three hundred years ago.  When all
the nations in Europe were listening to them and obeying them, and
they had put into their hands by God a greater power of doing good
than He ever gave to any human being before or since, what did they
do?  Instead of using their power for Christ, they used it for
themselves.  Instead of preaching to all nations the good news that
Christ the Son of God was their King, they said:  "I, the pope, am
your king.  Christ is gone far away into heaven, and has committed
all power on earth to us; we are Christ's vicars; we are in Christ's
place; He has entrusted to our keeping all the treasures of His
merits and His grace, and no one can get any blessing from Christ,
unless we choose to give it him."  So they said in their hearts just
what the foolish servant in the parable said:  and fancying that they
were lords and masters, naturally enough went on to behave as such;
to beat the men-servants and maid-servants, that is, to oppress and
tyrannise over the bodies and minds and consciences of men, and women
too, God knows; and to eat and drink with the drunken, to live in
riot and debauchery.  But the Lord was not so far off as those
foolish popes fancied.  And in an hour when they were not aware, He
came and cut them asunder.  He snatched from them one-half of the
nations of Europe, and England among the rest; He punished them by
doubt, ignorance, confusion, and utter blindness, and appointed them
their portion among the unbelievers in such terrible earnest, that to
this very day, to judge by the things which they say and do, it is
difficult to persuade ourselves that the popes really believe in any
God at all.

So He did, only three years ago, to many kings and princes on the
Continent. {217}  They professed to be Christians; but they had
forgotten that they were Christ's stewards, that all their power came
from Him, and that he had given it them only to use for the good of
their subjects.  And they too went on saying:   "The Lord delays His
coming, we are rulers in this world, and God is ruler in the world to
come."  So they, too, oppressed their subjects, and lived in ease on
what they wrung out of the poor wretches below them.  But the Lord
was nearer them, too, than they fancied; and all at once--as they
were fancying themselves all safe and prosperous, and saying, "We are
those who ought to speak, who is Lord over us?"--their fool's
paradise crumbled from under their feet.  A few paltry mobs of
foolish starving people, without weapons, without leaders, without
good counsel to guide them, rose against them.  And what did they do?
They might have crushed down the rebels most of them, in a week, if
they had had courage.  And in the only country where the rebels were
really strong, that is, in Austria, all might have been quiet again
at once, if the king had only had the heart to do common justice, and
keep his own solemn oaths.  But no--the terror of the Lord came upon
them.  He most truly cut them in sunder.  They were every man of a
different mind, and none of them in the same mind a day together;
they became utterly conscience-stricken, terrified, perplexed, at
their wit's end, not having courage or determination to do anything,
or even to do nothing, and fled shamefully away one after another, to
their everlasting disgrace.  And those of them who have got back
their power since are showing sadly enough, by their obstinate folly
and wickedness, that the Lord has appointed them their portion with
the unbelievers, and left them to fill up the measure of their
iniquity, and drink deep the cup of wrath which is in His hand, full
and mixed for those who forget God.

Oh! my friends, let us lay these things solemnly to heart.  Do not
fancy that the Lord will punish the wicked great, and forget the
wicked small.  In His sight there is neither great nor small; all are
small enough for Him to crush like the moth; and all are too great to
be overlooked, or forgotten by Him, without whom not a sparrow falls
to the ground.  Again I say, my friends, let us lay His parable to
heart.  Let us who have property, and station, and education, never
forget who has given it us, and for whom we must use it.  Let us
never forget that to whom much is given, of them will much be
required.  Let us pray to the Lord daily to write upon our inmost
hearts those solemn words:  "Who made thee to differ from another;
and what hast thou which thou didst not receive?"  Let us look on our
servants, our labourers, on every human being over whom we have any
influence, as weaker brothers whom God has commanded us to help,
teach, and guide in body, mind, and spirit, not that we may make them
our slaves, but make them free, manful, self-helping, and in due time
independent of us and of everyone except God.

And you young people, who have no authority over anyone, but over
your own bodies; to whom the Lord has given little or nothing to
manage and take care of except your own health and strength--do not
let the devil tempt you to believe that that health and strength is
your own property, to do what you like with.  It belongs to the Lord
who died for you, and He will require an account from you how you
have used it.  Do not let the devil tempt you to believe that the
Lord delays His coming to you--that you may do what you like now, in
the prime of your years, and that it will be time enough to think
about God and religion when God visits you with cares, and sickness,
and old age.  That is the fancy of too many; but it will surely turn
out to be a mistake.  Those who misuse their youth, and health, and
strength, in tyrannising over those who are weaker than themselves,
and laughing at those who are not as clever as themselves, and eating
and drinking with the drunken--the Lord will come to them in an hour
when they are not aware, and cut them asunder, in some way or other,
by loss of work, or poverty, or sickness, or doubt and confusion, and
bitter shame and perplexity of mind; till they find out, poor things,
that they have been living like the unbelievers all their youth,
without God in the world, while God's love and God's teaching, and
God's happiness was ready for them; and have to go back again to
their Father and their Lord, and cry:  "Father, we have sinned
against heaven and before Thee, and are no more worthy to be called
Thy children!"  Oh, you who have been fancying that the Lord was gone
far away, and that you had a right to do what you liked with the
powers which He has given you, go back to Him, now at once, and
confess that you, and all belonging to you, belong to Him, and ask
Him to teach you how to use it aright.  Ask Him to teach you how to
please Him with it, and not yourselves only.  Ask Him to teach you
how to do good to all around you, and not merely to do what you like.
Ask Him to show you how to do your duty to Him, and to your
neighbours, for whom He died on the cross, in that station of life to
which He has called you.  Ask Him to show you how to use your
property, your knowledge, your business, your strength, your health,
so that you may be a blessing and a help to those whom He blesses and
helps, and who, He wishes, should bless and help each other.  Go back
to Him at once, my friends.  You will not have far to go, seeing that
He is now even among us here hearing my clumsy words; and I do hope,
and trust, and pray, bringing them home to some of your hearts with
that spirit and power of His, which is like a two-edged sword,
piercing to the very depths of a man's heart, and showing him how
ugly it is--and how noble the Lord will make it, if he will but
repent and pray to Him who never cast out any that came to Him.



XXII--THE WAY TO WEALTH



Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is
near:  let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his
thoughts and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy
upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.--ISAIAH lv.
6, 7.

Some of you, surely, while the first lesson was being read this
morning, must have felt the beauty of it; and if you were thoughtful,
perplexed, weary, sad at heart, perhaps you felt that it was more
than beautiful--that it was full of comfort.  And so it should be
full of comfort to you, my friends.  God meant it to give you
comfort.  For though it was written and spoken by a man of like
passions with ourselves, it was just as truly written and spoken by
God, who made heaven and earth.  It is true and everlasting, the
message which it brings, and like all true and everlasting words, it
is the voice of God who cannot change; who makes no difference
between Jew and Gentile, between us in England here, and nations
which perished hundreds of years ago.

And what is its message?  What was God's word to the old Jews, among
all their sin, and sorrow, and labour?

Is it the message of a stern judge, saying:  "Pay me that thou owest,
to the uttermost farthing; and if you cannot do that, fret and
torment yourselves in shame and terror here on earth, for all your
sins, if, possibly, you may chance to change my mind, and find
forgiveness at the last day?"

Is it the message of a proud tyrant, saying:  "If you are miserable,
and fallen, and sinful, what is that to me?  I am perfect, blest,
contented with myself, alone in my glory, far away beyond the sight
of men, beyond the sun and stars--what are you worms of earth to me?"

Or is it the voice of a loving Father, calling to his self-willed
children who have gone proudly and boldly away from their Father's
house, and thrown off their Father's government, and said in their
conceit:  "We are men.  Do not we know good and evil?  Do we not know
what is our interest?  Cannot we judge for ourselves, and shift for
ourselves, and take care of ourselves?  Why are we to be barred from
pleasant things here, and profitable things there?  We will be our
own masters."

To self-willed children who have said thus, and done thus in their
foolish hearts, and have found all their conceit, and shrewdness,
only lead them into sorrow, and perplexity, and distress.--Who have
found that with all their cleverness they could not get the very good
things for which they left their Father's house; or if they get them,
find no enjoyment in them, but only discontent, and shame, and
danger, and a sad self-accusing heart--spending their money for that
which does not feed them after all, and labouring hard for things
which do not satisfy them; always longing for something more--always
finding the pleasure, or the profit, or the honour which a little way
off looked so fine, looked quite ugly and worthless, when they come
up to it and get hold of it--finding all things full of labour; the
eye never satisfied with seeing, or the ear with hearing; the same
thing coming over and over again.  Each young man starting with gay
hopes, as if he were the first man that ever was born, and he was
going to do out of hand such fine things as man never did before, and
make his own fortune, and set the world to right at once; and then as
he grows older, falling into the same weary ruts as his forefathers
went dragging on it, every fresh year bringing its own labour and its
own sorrow; and dying like them, taking nothing away with him of all
he has earned, and crying with his last breath:  "That which is
crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be
numbered.  What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh
under the sun, for all is vanity and vexation of spirit?"

To self-willed children, who have tried their own way ever since they
were born, they and their fathers before them, and found it go round
in a ring and leave them just where they started in heart and soul,
and, on their death-beds, in purse and power also--

To such struggling, dissatisfied beings--such as nine-tenths of the
men and women on this earth, alas! are still--comes the word of this
loving Father:

"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters! and he that
hath no money, come, buy and eat.  Yea, come, buy wine and milk
without money, and without price."  Why do you fancy that money can
give you all you want?  Why this labouring and straining after money,
as if it was God, as if it made heaven and earth, and all therein?
Is money a God? or money's worth? "I am God," saith the Lord, "and
beside me there is none else.  It is I who give, and not money.  It
is I who save men, and not money.  And I do save, and I do give
freely to all.  Come, and try my mercy, and see if my word be not
true."

This struggling and snarling, like dogs over a bone--what profit
comes of it? are you happier? are you wiser? are you better? are you
more at peace with your neighbours; more at peace with your own
hearts and consciences?  If you are, money has not made you so, nor
plotting, and scraping, and struggling, and pushing your neighbour
down, that you may rise a few inches on his shoulders.  No.  Hear
what the voice of your Father says is the true way to wealth and
comfort, after which you all struggle and labour so hard in vain.--
"Hearken diligently unto me, and you shall eat that which is good,
and your soul shall delight itself in fatness.  Incline your ear and
come unto me.  Hear, and your soul shall live.  And I will make an
everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies," or rather "the
faithful oath which I sware unto David?"  And what is this faithful
oath which God sware to David.--"Of the fruit of thy body, I will set
on thy seat."  A promise of a righteous king who should arise in
David's family.  How far David understood the full meaning of that
glorious promise we cannot tell.  He thought most probably, at first,
that Solomon, his son, was to be the king who would fulfil it.  But
all through many of his psalms, there are deep and great words about
some nobler and more perfect king than Solomon--about one who, as
Isaiah says here, would perfectly witness to the people that God was
their King; one who would be a perfect leader and commander of the
people; a holy one of Israel, who would sit on God's right hand; to
hear the good news of whom, the Jews would call nations whom they
then did not know of, and for whose sake nations who did not know
them would run to them.  And dimly David did see this, that God would
raise up a true Christ, that is, one truly anointed by God, chosen
and sent out by God, to sit on his throne, and be perfectly what
David was only in part; a King made perfect by suffering, a King of
poor men, a King who bore the sins and carried the iniquities of all
His people, from the highest to the lowest.  We know who that was.
We know clearly what David only knew dimly, what Isaiah only knew a
little more clearly.  We know who was born of the Virgin Mary,
crucified under Pontius Pilate, ascended into heaven, and now sits at
the right hand of God, ever praying for us, ruling the world in
righteousness, Jesus the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, to whom all
power is given in heaven and earth.

But Isaiah, though he knew Him only dimly, still knew Him.  He did
not know that the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, would take on Himself
the form of a poor man, and be called the son of the carpenter.  Such
boundless love and condescension in the Son of God he never could
have fancied for himself, and God had not chosen to reveal it to him;
or to anyone else in those days.  But this he did see, that the Lord
Jesus, He whom he calls the Holy One of Israel, was near the Jews in
his time; that He was watching over them, mourning over their sins,
arguing with them, and calling them to return to Him with most human
love and tenderness, as a husband to the woman whom he loves in spite
of her unfaithfulness to him.  As he says to his sinful and
distressed country in the chapter before this:  "Thy Maker is thy
husband:  the Lord of Hosts is His name, and thy Redeemer is the Holy
One of Israel, the Lord of the whole earth shall He be called.  For
the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit.
For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will
I gather thee.  In a little anger I hid my face from thee for a
moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee,
saith the Lord thy Redeemer."

This, then, Isaiah knew--that the heart of the Holy Lord pitied and
yearned after those poor sinful Jews, as a husband's after a foolish
and sinful wife.  And how much more should we believe the same, how
much more should we believe that His heart pities and yearns for all
foolish and sinful people here in England now!  We who know a
thousand times more than Isaiah knew of His love, His pity, His
condescension, which led Him to sacrifice Himself upon the cross for
us?  Surely, surely, if Isaiah had a right to say to those Jews,
"Seek the Lord while He may be found," I have a thousand times as
much right to say it to you.  If Isaiah had a right to say to those
Jews, "Let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his
thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy
upon him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon," then I have
a right to say it to you.

Free mercy, utter pardon, pardon for all, even for the worst.  And
what is the argument which Isaiah uses to make his countrymen repent?
Is it "Repent, or you shall be damned:  Repent because God's wrath
and curse is against you.  The Lord hates you and despises you, and
you must crawl to His feet like beaten hounds, and entreat Him not to
strike you into hell as He intends"?  Not so; it was because God
loved the Jews, that they were to repent.  It is because God loves
you that you must repent.  "Incline your ear," saith the Lord, "and
come unto me, hear, and your soul shall live; and you shall eat that
which is good, and your soul shall delight itself in fatness."  Yes,
God is love.  God's delight and glory is to give; in spite of all our
sins He gives and gives, sending rain and fruitful seasons to just
and unjust, to fill their hearts with joy and gladness; and all the
while men fancy that it is not God that gives, but they who take.
God has not left Himself, as St. Paul says, without a witness; every
fruitful shower and quickening gleam of sunshine cries to us--See!
God is love:  He is the giver.  And men will not hear that voice.
They say in their hearts, "The Lord is far away above the skies; He
does not care for us:  we must help ourselves, each man to what he
can get off this earth; nay, even, when we are hard put to it for a
living, we must break God's laws to keep ourselves alive, and so
steal from God's table the very good things which He offers us
freely."

But some will say:  "He does not give freely; we must work and
struggle.  Why do you mock poor hard-worked creatures with such words
as these?"

Ask that question of God, my friends, and not of me.  Isaiah said
that those who hearkened to God diligently should eat what is good.
The Lord Jesus Christ Himself said the same--that if we seek first
the kingdom of God and His justice, all other things should be added
to them.  He did not mean us to be idle, God forbid! but this He
meant, that if we, each in his business and calling, put steadily
before ourselves what is right, what God would wish us, His subjects,
to be in His Kingdom--if instead of making our first thought in every
business we take in hand, "What will suit my interest best, what will
raise most money, what will give me most pleasure?" we said to
ourselves all day long, "What will be most right, and just, and
merciful for us to do; what will be most pleasing to a God who is
love and justice itself? what will do most good to my neighbour as
well as myself?" then all things would go well with us.  Then we
should be prosperous and joyful.  Then our plans would succeed and
our labour bring forth real profit to us, because they would be
according to the will of God:  we should be fellow-workers with Jesus
Christ in the great work of doing good to this poor distracted world,
and His help and blessing would be with us.

And if you ask me, how can this come to pass, I must answer, as
Isaiah does in this same chapter:  "The Lord's ways are not as our
ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts, but higher than ours, as the
heavens are above the earth."  But if we do turn to God, and repent
each man of us of his selfishness, his unfaithfulness, his hard-
heartedness, his covetousness, his self-will, his ungodliness--then
God's blessing, as Isaiah says, will come down on us, and spring up
among us, we know not how or whence, like the rain and snow, which
comes down from heaven and waters the earth, and makes it bud and
bring forth to give seed to the sower and bread to the eater.  So
shall be the Lord's word, which goes out of His mouth; it will not
return to Him void, but will accomplish what He pleases, and prosper
in that whereto He sends it.  He will teach us and guide us in the
right way.  He will put His word into the mouths of true teachers to
show us our duty.  He will pour out His spirit upon us, to make us
love our duty.  In one way and another, we know not how, we shall be
taught what is good for England, good for each parish, good for each
family.  And wealth, peace, and prosperity for rich and poor will be
the fruit of obeying the word of God, and giving up our hearts to be
led by His spirit.  As it was to be in Judaea, of old, if they
repented, so will it be with us.  They should go forth with joy and
do their work in peace.  The hills should break before them into
singing, and all the trees of the field should clap their hands;
instead of thorns should come up timber-trees:  instead of briers,
garden-shrubs.  The whole cultivation of the country was to improve,
and be to the Lord for a name, and a sign for ever that the true way
to wealth and prosperity is the way of God, justice, mercy to each
other, and obedience to the will of Him who made heaven and earth,
trees and fruitful fields, rain and sunshine, and gives the blessings
of them freely to His children of mankind, in proportion as they look
up to Him as a loving Father, and return to him day by day, with
childlike repentance, and full desire to amend their lives according
to His holy word.



XXIII--THE LOVE OF CHRIST



For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that
if one died for all, then were all dead.  And that He died for all,
that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but
unto Him which died for them, and rose again.--2 COR. v. 14, 15.

What is the use of sermons?--what is the use of books?  Here are
hundreds and thousands of people hearing weekly and daily what is
right, and how many DO what is right?--much less LOVE what is right?
What can be the reason of this, that men should know the better and
choose the worse?  What motive can one find out?--what reason or
argument can one put before people, to make them do their duty?  How
can one stir them up to conquer themselves; to conquer their own love
of pleasure, laziness, cowardice, conceit, above all their own
selfishness, and do simply what is right, morning, noon, and night?
That is a question worth asking and considering, for there ought to
be some use in sermons and in books; and there ought to be some use
in every one of us too.  Woe to the man who is of no use!  The Lord
have mercy on his soul; for he needs it!  It is, indeed, worth his
while to take any trouble which will teach him a motive for being
useful; in plain words, stir him up to do his duty, to do his rights;
for a man's rights are not, as the world thinks, what is right others
should do to him, but what is right he should do to others.  Our duty
is our right, the only thing which is right for us.  What motive will
constrain us, that is, bind us, and force us to do that?

Will self-interest?  Will a man do right because you tell him it is
his interest, it will pay him to do it?  Look round you and see.--The
drunkard knows that drinking will ruin him, and yet he gets drunk.
The spendthrift knows that extravagance will ruin him, and yet he
throws away his money still.  The idler knows that he is wasting his
only chance for all eternity, and yet he puts the thought out of his
head, and goes on idling.  The cheat knows that he is in danger of
being almost certainly found out sooner or later; he knows too that
he is burdening his own conscience with the curse of inward shame and
self-contempt; and yet he goes on cheating.  The hard master knows,
or ought to know (for there is quite enough to prove it to him) that
it would pay him better in the long run to be more merciful, and less
covetous; that by grinding those whom he employs down to the last
farthing, he degrades them till they become burdens on him and curses
to him; that what he gains by high prices, he will lose in the long
run by bad debts; that what he saves in low wages, he will pay in
extra poor-rates; and that even if he does make money out of the
flesh and bones of those beneath him, that money ill gotten is sure
to be ill spent, that there is a curse on it, that it brings a curse
in the gnawing of a man's own conscience, and a curse too in the way
it flows away from his family as fast as it flowed to them.  "He that
by usury and unjust gain increases his wealth, shall gather for him
that will pity the poor."  So said Solomon of old.  And men who
worship Mammon find it come true daily, and see that, taking all
things together, a man's life does not consist in the abundance of
the things which he possesses, and that those who make such haste to
be rich, fall, as the apostle says, "into temptation and a snare, and
pierce themselves through with many sorrows."  Such a man sees his
neighbours making money, and making themselves more unhappy, anxious,
discontented by it; he sees, in short, that it is not his interest to
do nothing but make money and save money:  and yet in spite of that,
he thinks of nothing else.  Self-interest cannot keep him from that
sin.  I do not believe that self-interest ever kept any man from any
SIN, though it may keep him from many an imprudence.  Self-interest
may make many a man respectable, but whom did it ever make good?  You
may as well make house-walls of paper, or take a rush for a walking-
stick, as take self-interest to keep you upright, or even prudent.
The first shake--and the rush bends, and the paper wall breaks, and a
man's selfish prudence is blown to the winds.  Let pleasure tempt
him, or ambition, or the lust of making money by speculation; let him
take a spite against anyone; let him get into a passion; let his
pride be hurt; and he will do the maddest things, which he knows to
be entirely contrary to his own interest, just to gratify the fancy
of the moment.  Those who call themselves philosophers, and fancy
that men's self-interest, if they can only feel it strong enough,
would make all men just and merciful to each other, know as little of
human nature as they do of God or the devil.

What WILL make a man to do his duty?  Will the hope of heaven?  That
depends very much upon what you mean by heaven.  But what people
commonly mean by going to heaven, is--not going to hell.  They
believe that they must go to either one place or the other.  They
would much sooner of course stay on earth for ever, because their
treasure is here, and their heart too.  But that cannot be, and as
they have no wish to go to hell, they take up with heaven instead, by
way of making the best of a bad matter.

I ask you solemnly, my friends, each one of you, which would you
sooner do--stay here on earth, or go to heaven?  You need not answer
ME.  I am afraid many of you would not dare answer me as you really
felt, because you would be ashamed of not liking to go to heaven.
But answer God.  Answer yourselves in the sight of God.  When you
keep yourselves back from doing a wrong thing, because you know it is
wrong, is it for love of heaven, or for mere fear of being punished
in hell?  Some of you will answer boldly at once:  "For neither one
nor the other; when we keep from wrong, it is because we hate and
despise what is wrong:  when we do right it is because it is right
and we ought to do it.  We can't explain it, but there is something
in us which tells us we ought to do right."  Very good, my friends, I
shall have a word to say to you presently; but in the meantime there
are some others who have been saying to themselves:  "Well, I know we
do right because we are afraid of being punished if we do not do it,
but what of that? at all events we get the right thing done, and
leave the wrong thing undone, and what more do you want?  Why torment
us with disagreeable questions as to WHY we do it?"

Now, my friends, to make the matter simpler, I will take you at your
words, for the sake of argument.  Suppose you do avoid sin from the
fear of hell, does that make what you do RIGHT?  Does that make YOU
right?  Does that make your heart right?  It is a great blessing to a
man's neighbours, certainly, if he is kept from doing wrong any how--
by the fear of hell, or fear of jail, or fear of shame, or fear of
ghosts if you like, or any other cowardly and foolish motive--a great
blessing to a man's neighbours:  but no blessing, that I can see, to
the man himself.  He is just the same; his heart is not changed; his
heart is no more right in the sight of God, or in the sight of any
man of common sense either, than it would be if he did the wrong
thing, which he loves and dare not do.  You feel that yourselves
about other people.  You will say "That man has a bad heart, for all
his respectable outside.  He would be a rogue if he dared, and
therefore he IS a rogue."  Just so, I say, my friends, take care lest
God should say of you, "He would be a sinner if he dared, and
therefore he is a sinner.

How can the hope of heaven, or the fear of hell, make a man do right?
The right thing, the true thing for a man, is to be loving, and do
loving things; and can fear of hell do that, or hope of heaven
either?  Can a man make himself affectionate to his children because
he fancies he shall be punished if he is not so, and rewarded if he
is so?  Will the hope of heaven send men out to feed the hungry, to
clothe the naked, visit the sick, preach the gospel to the poor?--The
Papists say it will.  I say it will not.  I believe that even in
those who do these things from hope of heaven and fear of hell, there
is some holier, nobler, more spiritual motive, than such everlasting
selfishness, such perfect hypocrisy, as to do loving works for
others, for the sake of one's own self-love.

What feeling then is there left which will bind a man to do good, not
once in a way, but always and habitually? to do good, not only to
himself, but to all around him?  I know but of one, my friends, and
that is Love.  There are many sides to love--admiration, reverence,
gratitude, pity, affection--they are all different shapes of that one
great spirit of love.  Surely all of you have felt its power more or
less; how wonderfully it can conquer a man's whole heart, change his
whole conduct.  For love of a woman; for pity to those in distress;
for admiration for anyone who is nobler and wiser than himself; for
gratitude to one who has done him kindness; for loyalty to one to
whom he feels he owes a service--a man will dare to do things, and
suffer things, which no self-interest or fear in the world could have
brought him to.  Do you not know it yourselves?  Is it not fondness
for your wives and children, that will make you slave and stint
yourselves of pleasure more than any hope of gain could ever do?  But
there is no one human being, my friends, whom we can meet among us
now, for whom we can feel all these different sorts of love?  Surely
not:  and yet there must be One Person somewhere for whom God intends
us to feel them all at once; or else He would not have given all
these powers to us, and made them all different branches of one great
root of love.  There must be One Person somewhere, who can call out
the whole love in us--all our gratitude; all our pity; all our
admiration; all our loyalty; all our brotherly affection.  AND THERE
IS ONE, my friends.  One who has done for us more than ever husband
or father, wife or brother, can do to call out our gratitude.  One
who has suffered for us more than the saddest wretch upon this earth
can suffer, to call out our pity.  One who is nobler, purer, more
lovely in character than all others who ever trod this earth, to call
out our admiration.  One who is wiser, mightier than all rulers and
philosophers, to call out all our reverence.  One who is tenderer,
more gentle, more feeling-hearted, than the kindest woman who ever
sat by a sick bed, to call out all our love.  Of whom can I be
speaking?  Of whom but of Jesus; He who for us stooped out of the
heaven of heavens; for us left His eternal glory in the bosom of the
Father; for us took upon Him the form of a servant, and was born of a
village maiden, and was called the son of a carpenter; for us
wandered this earth for thirty years in sorrow and shame; for us gave
His back to the scourge, and His face to shameful spitting; for us
hung upon the cross and died the death of the felon and the slave.
Oh! my friends, if that story will not call out our love, what will?
If we cannot admire Christ, whom can we admire?  If we cannot be
grateful to Christ, to whom can we be grateful?  If we cannot pity
Christ, whom can we pity?  If we cannot feel bound in honour to live
for Christ, to work for Christ, to delight in talking of Christ,
thinking of Christ, to glory in doing Christ's commandments to the
very smallest point, to feel no sacrifice too great, no trouble too
petty, if we can please Christ by it and help forward Christ's
kingdom upon earth--if we cannot feel bound in honour to do that for
Christ, what honour is there in us?  Again, I say, if we cannot love
Christ, whom can we love?  If the remembrance of what He has worked
for us will not stir us up to work for Him, what will stir us up?

I say it again, we are bound by every tie, by every feeling that can
bind man to man, to devote ourselves to Christ, the Man of all men.
I say this is no dream or fancy, it is an actual fact which thousands
and hundreds of thousands on this earth have felt.  Nothing but love
to Christ, nothing but loving Him because He first loved us, can
constrain and force a man as with a mighty feeling which he cannot
resist, to labour day and night for Christ's sake, and therefore for
the sake of God the Father of Christ.  What else do you suppose it
was which could have stirred up the apostles--above all, that wise,
learned, high-born, prosperous man, St. Paul, to leave house and
home, and wander in daily danger of his life?  What does St. Paul say
himself?  "The love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge,
and if one died for all then were all dead, and that He died for all,
that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but
unto Him who died for them."  And what else could have kept St. Paul
through all that labour and sorrow of his own choosing, of which he
speaks in the chapter before?--"We are troubled on every side, yet
not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but
not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in
the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus
might be made manifest in our body; for we which live are alway
delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus
might be made manifest in our body."

We may say that St. Paul was an exceedingly benevolent man, and THAT
made him do it; or that he had found out certain new truths and
opinions which delighted him very much, and therefore he did it.  But
St. Paul gives no such account of himself:  and we have no right to
take anyone's account but his own.  He knew his own heart best.  He
does not say that he came to preach a scheme of redemption, or
opinions about Christ.  He says he came to preach nothing but Christ
Himself--Christ crucified--to tell people about the Lord he loved,
about the Lord who loved him, certain that when they had heard the
plain story of Him, their hearts, if they were simple, and true, and
loving, would leap up in answer to his words, and find out, as by
instinct, what Christ had done for them, what they were to do for
Christ.  Ay, I believe, my friends--indeed I am certain--from my own
reading, that in every age and country, just in proportion as men
have loved Christ personally as a man would love another man, just in
that proportion have they loved their neighbours, worked for their
neighbours, sacrificed their time, their pleasure, their money, to do
good to all, for the sake of Him who commanded:  "If ye love ME, keep
my commandments; and my commandment is this, that ye should love one
another as I have loved you."  That is the only sure motive.  All
other motives for doing good or being good, will fail in one case or
another case, because they do not take possession of a man's whole
heart, but only of some part of his heart.  Love--love to Christ, can
alone sweep away a man's whole heart and soul with it, and renew it,
and transfigure it, and make it strong instead of weak, pure instead
of foul, gentle instead of fierce, brave instead of being vain and
cowardly, and fearing what everyone will say of him.  Only love for
Christ, who loved all men unto the death, will make us love all men
too:  not only one here and there who may agree with us or help us;
but those who hate us, those who misunderstand us, those who thwart
us, ay, even those who disobey and slight not only us, but Jesus
Christ Himself.  THAT is the hardest lesson of all to learn; but
thousands have learnt it; everyone ought to learn it.  In proportion
as a man loves Christ, he will learn to love those who do not love
Christ.  For Christ loves them whether they know it or not; Christ
died for them whether they believe it or not; and we must love them
because our Saviour loves them.

Oh! my friends, why do so few love Christ?  Why do so few live as
those who are not their own, but bought with the price of His
precious blood and bound to devote themselves, body and soul, to His
cause?  Why do so many struggle against their sins, while yet they
cannot break off those sins, but go struggling and sinning on, hating
their sins and yet unable to break through their sins, like birds
beating themselves to death against the wires of their cage?  Why?
Because they do not know Christ.  And how can they know Him, unless
they read their Bibles with simple, childlike hearts, determined to
let the Bible tell its own story:  believing that those who walked
with Christ on earth, must know best what He was like?  Why?  Because
they will not ask Christ to come and show Himself to them, and make
them see Him, and love Him, and admire Him, whether they will or not.
Oh! remember, if Christ be the Son of God, the Lord of heaven and
earth, we cannot go to Him, poor, weak, ignorant creatures as we are.
We cannot ascend up into heaven to bring Christ down.  He must come
down out of His own great love and condescension, and dwell in our
hearts as He has promised to do, if we do but love Him.  He must come
down and show Himself to us.  Oh! read your Bibles--read the story of
Christ, and if that does not stir up in you some love for Him, you
must have hearts of stone, not flesh and blood.  And then go to Him;
pray to Him, whether you believe in Him altogether or not, upon the
mere chance of His being able to hear you and help you.  You would
not throw away a chance on earth; will you throw away such a chance
in heaven as having the Son of God to help you?  Oh, cry to Him; say
out of the depths of your heart:  "Thou most blessed and glorious
Being who ever walked this earth, who hast gone blameless through all
sorrow and temptation that man can feel; if Thou dost love anyone, if
Thou canst hear anyone, hear me!  If thou canst not help me, no one
can.  I have a hundred puzzling questions which I cannot answer for
myself, a hundred temptations which I cannot conquer for myself, a
hundred bad habits which I cannot shake off of myself; and they tell
me that Thou canst teach me, Thou canst guide me, Thou canst
strengthen me, Thou canst take out of my heart this shame and gnawing
of an evil conscience.  If Thou be the Son of God, make me clean!  If
it be true that Thou lovest all men, show Thy love to me!  If it be
true that Thou canst teach all men, teach me!  If it be true that
Thou canst help all men, help my unbelief, for if Thou dost not,
there is no help for me in heaven or earth!"  You, who are sinful,
distracted, puzzled, broken-hearted, cry to Christ in that way, if
you have no better way, and see if He does not hear you.  He is not
one to break the bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax.  He will
hear you, for He has heard all who have ever called on Him.  Cry to
Him from the bottom of your hearts.  Tell Him that you do NOT love
Him, and that yet you LONG to love Him.  And see if you do not find
it true that those who come to Christ, He will in no wise cast out.
He may not seem to answer you the first time, or the tenth time, or
for years; for Christ has His own deep, loving, wise ways of teaching
each man, and for each man a different way.  But try to learn all you
can of Him.  Try to know Him.  Pray to know, and understand Him, and
love Him.  And sooner or later you will find His words come true, "If
a man love me, I and my Father will come to him, and take up our
abode with him."  And then you will feel arise in you a hungering and
a thirsting after righteousness, a spirit of love, and a desire of
doing good, which will carry you up and on, above all that man can
say or do against you--above all the laziness, and wilfulness, and
selfishness, and cowardice which dwells in the heart of everyone.
You will be able to trample it all under foot for the sake of being
good and doing good, in the strength of that one glorious thought,
"Christ lived and died for me, and, so help me God, I will live and
die for Christ."



XXIV--DAVID'S VICTORY



Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield:
but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of armies, the God of
Israel, whom thou hast defied.--1 SAMUEL xvii. 45.

We have been reading to-day the story of David's victory over the
Philistine giant, Goliath.  Now I think the whole history of David
may teach us more about the meaning of the Old Testament, and how it
applies to us, than the history of any other single character.  David
was the great hero of the Jews; the greatest, in spite of great sins
and follies, that has ever been among them; in every point the king
after God's own heart.  Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself did not disdain
to be called especially the Son of David.  David was the author, too,
of those wonderful psalms which are now in the mouths and the hearts
of Christian people all over the world; and will last, as I believe,
till the world's end, giving out fresh depths of meaning and
spiritual experience.

But to understand David's history, we must go back a little through
the lessons which have been read in church the last few Sundays.  We
find in the eighth and in the twelfth chapters of this same book of
Samuel, that the Jews asked Samuel for a king--for a king like the
nations round them.  Samuel consulted God, and by God's command chose
Saul to be their king; at the same time warning them that in asking
for a king they had committed a great and fearful sin, for "the Lord
their God was their king."  And the Lord said unto Samuel, that in
asking for a king they had rejected God from reigning over them.  Now
what was this sin which the Jews committed? for the mere having a
king cannot be wrong in itself; else God would not have anointed Saul
and David kings, and blessed David and Solomon; much less would He
have allowed the greater number of Christian nations to remain
governed by kings unto this day, if a king had been a wrong thing in
itself.  I think if we look carefully at the words of the story we
shall see what this great sin of the Jews was.  In the first place,
they asked Samuel to give them a king--not God.  This was a sin, I
think; but it was only the fruit of a deeper sin--a wrong way of
looking at the whole question of kings and government.  And that
deeper sin was this:  they were a free people, and they wanted to
become slaves.  God had made them a free people; He had brought them
up out of the land of Egypt, out of slavery to Pharaoh.  He had given
them a free constitution.  He had given them laws to secure safety,
and liberty, and equal justice to rich and poor, for themselves,
their property, their children; to defend them from oppression, and
over-taxation, and all the miseries of misgovernment.  And now they
were going to trample under foot God's inestimable gift of liberty.
They wanted a king like the nations round them, they said.  They did
not see that it was just their glory NOT to be like the nations round
them in that.  We who live in a free country do not see the vast and
inestimable difference between the Jews and the other nations.  The
Jews were then, perhaps, so far as I can make out, the only free
people on the face of the earth.  The nations round them were like
the nations in the East, now governed by tyrants, without law or
parliament, at the mercy of the will, the fancy, the lust, the
ambition, and the cruelty of their despotic kings.  In fact, they
were as the Eastern people now are--slaves governed by tyrants.
Samuel warned the Jews that it would be just the same with them; that
neither their property, their families, nor their liberty would be
safe under the despots for whom they wished.  And yet, in spite of
that warning, they would have a king.  And why?  Because they did not
like the trouble of being free.  They did not like the responsibility
and the labour of taking care of themselves, and asking counsel of
God as to how they were to govern themselves.  So they were ready to
sell themselves to a tyrant, that he might fight for them, and judge
for them, and take care of them, while they just ate and drank, and
made money, and lived like slaves, careless of what happened to them
or their country, provided they could get food, and clothes, and
money enough.  And as long as they got that, if you will remark, they
were utterly careless as to what sort of king they had.  They said
not one word to Samuel about how much power their king was to have.
They made not the slightest inquiry as to whether Saul was wise or
foolish, good or bad.  They did not ask God's counsel, or trouble
themselves about God; so they proved themselves unworthy of being
free.  They turned, like a dog to his vomit, and the sow to her
wallowing in the mire, cowardly back again into slavery; and God gave
them what they asked for.  He gave them the sort of king they wanted;
and bitterly they found out their mistake during several hundred
years of continually increasing slavery and misery.

There is a deep lesson for us, my friends, in all this.  And that is,
that God's gifts are not fit for us, unless we are more or less fit
for them.  That to him that makes use of what he has, more shall be
given; but from him who does not, will be taken away even what he
has.  And so even the inestimable gift of freedom is no use unless
men have free hearts in them.  God sets a man free from his sins by
faith in Jesus Christ; but unless that man uses His grace, unless he
desires to be free inwardly as well as outwardly--to be free not only
from the punishment of his sins, but from the sins themselves; unless
he is willing to accept God's offer of freedom, and go boldly to the
throne of grace, and there plead his cause with his heavenly Father
face to face, without looking to any priest, or saint, or other third
person to plead for him; if, in short, a man has not a free spirit in
him, the grace of God will become of no effect in him, and he will
receive the spirit of bondage (of slavery, that is), again to fear.
Perhaps he will fall back more or less into popery and half-popish
superstitions; perhaps, as we see daily round us, he will fall back
again into antinomianism, into the slavery of those very sins from
which God once delivered him.  And just the same is it with a nation.
When God has given a nation freedom, then, unless there be a free
heart in the people and true independence, which is dependence on God
and not on man; unless there be a spirit of justice, mercy, truth,
trust of God in them, their freedom will be of no effect; they will
only fall back into slavery, to be oppressed by fresh tyrants.

So it was with the great Spanish colonies in South America a few
years ago.  God gave them freedom from the tyranny of Spain; but what
advantage was it to them?  Because there was no righteousness in
them; because they were a cowardly, profligate, false, and cruel
people, therefore they only became the slaves of their own lusts;
they turned God's great grace of freedom into licentiousness, and
have been ever since doing nothing but cutting each other's throats;
every man's hand against his own brother; the slaves of tyrants far
more cruel than those from whom they had escaped.

Look at the French people, too.  Three times in the last sixty years
has God delivered them from evil rulers, and given them a chance of
freedom; and three times have they fallen back into fresh slavery.
And why?  Because they will not be righteous; because they will be
proud, boastful, lustful, godless, cruel, making a lie and loving it.
God help them!  We are not here to judge them, but to take warning
ourselves.  Now there is no use in boasting of our English freedom,
unless we have free and righteous hearts in us; for it is not
constitutions, and parliaments, and charters which make a nation
free; they are only the shell, the outside of freedom.  True freedom
is of the heart and spirit, and comes down from above, from the
Spirit of God; for where the Spirit of God is, there is liberty, and
there only.  Oh, every one of you! high and low, rich and poor, pray
and struggle to get your own hearts free; free from the sins which
beset us Englishmen in these days; free from pride, prejudice, and
envy; free from selfishness and covetousness; free from unchastity
and drunkenness; free from the conceit that England is safe, while
all the rest of the world is shaking.  Be sure that the spirit of
freedom, like every other good and perfect gift, is from above, and
comes down from God, the Father of lights; and that to keep that
spirit with us, we must keep ourselves worthy of it, and not expect
to remain free if we indulge ourselves in mean and slavish sins.

So the Jews got the king they wanted--a king to look at and be proud
of.  Saul was, we read, a head taller than all the rest of the
people, and very handsome to look at.  And he was brave enough, too,
in mere fighting, when he was awakened and stirred up to act now and
then; but there was no wisdom in him; no real trust in God in him.
He took God for an idol, like the heathens' false gods, which had to
be pleased and kept in good humour by the smell of burnt sacrifices;
and not for a living, righteous Person, who had to be obeyed.  We
read of Saul's misconduct in these respects, in the thirteenth and
fifteenth chapters of the First Book of Samuel.  That was only the
beginning of his wickedness.  The worst points in his character, as I
shall show in my next sermon, came out afterwards.  But still, his
disobedience was enough to make God cast him off, and leave him to go
his own way to ruin.

But God was not going to cast off His people whom He loved.  He deals
not with mankind after their sins, neither rewards them according to
their iniquities; and so he chose out for them a king after His own
heart--a true king of God's making, not a mere sham one of man's
making.  You may think it strange why God should have given them a
second king; why, as soon as Saul died, He did not let them return
back to their old freedom.  But that is not God's way.  He brings
good out of evil in His great mercy.  But it is always by strange
winding paths.  His ways are not as our ways.  First, God gives man
what is perfectly proper for him at that time; sets man in his right
place; and then when man falls from that, God brings him, not back to
the place from which he fell, but on forward into something far
higher and better than what he fell from.  He put Adam into Paradise.
Adam fell from it, and God made use of the fall to bring him into a
state far better than Paradise--into the kingdom of God--into
everlasting life--into the likeness of Christ, the new Adam, who is a
quickening, life-giving spirit, while the old Adam was, at best, only
a living soul.

So with the church of Christian men.  After the apostles' time, and
even during the apostles' time, as we read from the Epistle to the
Galatians, they fell away, step by step, from the liberty of the
gospel, till they sunk entirely into popish superstition.  And yet
God brought good out of that evil.  He made that very popery a means
of bringing them back at the Reformation into clearer light than any
of the first Christians ever had had.  He is going on step by step
still, bringing Christians into a clearer knowledge of the gospel
than even the Reformers had.

And so with the Jews.  They fell from their liberty and chose a king.
And yet God made use of those kings of theirs, of David, of Solomon,
of Josiah, and Hezekiah, to teach them more and more about Himself
and His law, and to teach all nations, by their example, what a
nation should be, and how He deals with one.

But now let us see what this true king, David, was like, whom God
chose, that He might raise, by his means, the Jews higher than they
ever yet had been, even in their days of freedom.  Now remark, in the
first place, that David was not the son of any very great man.  His
father seems to have been only a yeoman.  He was not bred up in
courts.  We find that when Samuel was sent to anoint David king, he
was out keeping his father's sheep in the field.  And though, no
doubt, he had shown signs of being a very remarkable youth from the
first, yet his father thought so little of him, that he was going to
pass him over, and caused all his seven elder sons to pass before
Samuel for his choice first, though there seems to have been nothing
particular in them, except that some of them were fine men and brave
soldiers.  So David seems to have been overlooked, and thought but
little of in his youth--and a very good thing for him.  It is a good
thing for a young man to bear the yoke in his youth, that he may be
kept humble and low; that he may learn to trust in God, and not in
his own wit.  And even when Samuel anointed David, he anointed him
privately.  His brothers did not know what a great honour was in
store for him; for we find, in the lesson which we have just read,
that when David came down to the camp, his elder brother spoke
contemptuously to him, and treated him as a child.  "I know thy
pride," he said, "and the naughtiness of thy heart.  Thou art come
down to see the battle."  While David answers humbly enough:  "What
have I done? is there not a cause?" feeling that there was more in
him than his brother gave him credit for; though he dare not tell his
brother, hardly, perhaps, dare believe himself, what great things God
had prepared for him.  So it is yet--a prophet has no honour in his
own country.  How many a noble-hearted man there is, who is looked
down upon by those round him!  How many a one is despised for a
dreamer, or for a Methodist, by shallow worldly people, who in God's
sight is of very great price!  But God sees not as man sees.  He
makes use of the weak people of this world to confound the strong.
He sends about His errands not many noble, not many mighty; but the
poor man, rich in faith, like David.  He puts down the mighty from
their seat, and exalts the humble and meek.  He takes the beggar from
the dunghill, that He may set him among the princes of His people.
So He has been doing in all ages.  So He will do even now, in some
measure, with everyone like David, let him be as low as he will in
the opinion of this foolish world, who yet puts his trust utterly in
God, and goes about all his work, as David did, in the name of the
Lord of hosts.  Oh! if a poor man feels that God has given him wit
and wisdom--feels in him the desire to rise and better himself in
life, let him be sure that the only way to rise is David's plan--to
keep humble and quiet till God shall lift him up, trusting in God's
righteousness and love to raise him, and deliver him, and put him in
that station, be it high or low, in which he will be best able to do
God's work, or serve God's glory.

And now for the chapter from which the text is taken, which relates
to us David's first great public triumph--his victory over Goliath
the giant.  I will not repeat it to you, because everyone here who
has ears to hear or a heart to feel ought to have been struck with
every word in that glorious story.  All I will try to do is, to show
you how the working of God's Spirit comes out in David in every
action of his on that glorious day.  We saw just now David's
humbleness and gentleness, the fruits of God's Spirit in him, in his
answer to his proud and harsh brother.  Look next at David's spirit
of trust in God, which, indeed, is the key to his whole life; that is
the reason why he was the man after God's own heart--not for any
virtues of his own, but for his unshaken continual faith in God.
David saw in an instant why the Israelites were so afraid of the
giant; because they had no faith in God.  They forgot that they were
the armies of the living God.  David did not:  "Who is this
uncircumcised, that he shall defy the armies of the living God?"  And
therefore, when Saul tried to dissuade him from attacking the
Philistine, his answer is still the same--full of faith in God.  He
knew well enough what a fearful undertaking it was to fight with this
giant, nearly ten feet high, armed from head to foot with mail, which
perhaps no sword or spear which he could use could pierce.  It was no
wonder, humanly speaking, that all the Jews fled from him--that his
being there stopped the whole battle.  In these days, fifty such men
would make no difference in a battle; bullets and cannon-shot would
mow down them like other men:  but in those old times, before
firearms were invented, when all battles were hand-to-hand fights,
and depended so much on each man's strength and courage, that one
champion would often decide the victory for a whole army, the amount
of courage which was required in David is past our understanding; at
least we may say, David would not have had it but for his trust in
God, but for his feeling that he was on God's side, and Goliath on
the devil's side, unjustly invading his country in self-conceit, and
cruelty, and lawlessness.  Therefore he tells Saul of his victory
over the lion and the bear.  You see again, here, the Spirit of God
showing in his MODESTY.  He does not boast or talk of his strength
and courage in killing the lion and the bear; for he knew that that
strength and courage came from God, not from himself; therefore he
says that the Lord DELIVERED HIM from them.  He knew that he had been
only doing his duty in facing them when they attacked his father's
sheep, and that it was God's mercy which had protected him in doing
his duty.  He felt now, that if no one else would face this brutal
giant, it was HIS duty, poor, simple, weak youth as he was, and
therefore he trusted in God to bring him safe through this danger
also.  But look again how the Spirit of God shows in his prudence.
He would not use Saul's armour, good as it might be, because he was
not accustomed to it.  He would use his own experience, and fight
with the weapons to which he had been accustomed--a sling and stone.
You see he was none of those presumptuous and fanatical dreamers who
tempt God by fancying that He is to go out of His way to work
miracles for them.  He used all the proper and prudent means to kill
the giant, and trusted to God to bless them.  If he had been
presumptuous, he might have taken the first stone that came to hand,
or taken only one, or taken none at all, and expected the giant to
fall down dead by a miracle.  But no; he CHOOSES FIVE SMOOTH stones
out of the brook.  He tried to get the best that he could, and have
more ready if his first shot failed.  He showed no distrust of God in
that; for he trusted in God to keep him cool, and steady, and
courageous in the fight, and that, he knew, God alone could do.  The
only place, perhaps, where he could strike Goliath to hurt him was on
the face, because every other part of him was covered in metal
armour.  And he knew that, in such danger as he was, God's Spirit
only could keep his eye clear and his hand steady for such a
desperate chance as hitting that one place.

So he went; and as he went his courage rose higher and higher; for
unto him that hath shall more be given; and so he began to boast too--
but not of himself, like the giant.  He boasted of the living God,
who was with him.  He ran boldly up to the Philistine, and at the
first throw, struck on the forehead, and felled him dead.

So it is; many a time the very blessing which we expect to get only
with great difficulty, God gives us at our first trial, to show that
He is the Giver, to cheer up our poor doubting hearts, and show us
that He is able, and willing too, to give exceeding abundantly more
than we can ask or think.

So David triumphed:  and yet that triumph was only the beginning of
his troubles.  Sad and weary years had he to struggle on before he
gained the kingdom which God had promised him.  So it is often with
God's elect.  He gives them blessings at first, to show them that He
is really with them; and then He lets them be evil-entreated by
tyrants, and suffer persecution, and wander out of the way in the
wilderness, that they may be made perfect by suffering, and purified,
as gold is in the refiner's fire, from all selfishness, conceit,
ambition, cowardliness, till they learn to trust God utterly, to know
their own weakness, and His strength, and to work only for Him,
careless what becomes of their own poor worthless selves, provided
they can help His kingdom to come, and get His will to be done on
earth as it is in heaven.

And now, my friends, surely there is a lesson in all this for you.
Do you wish to rise like David?  Of course not one in ten thousand
can rise as high, but we may all rise somewhat, if not in rank, yet
still, what is far better, in spirit, in wisdom, in usefulness, in
manfulness.  Do you wish to rise so? then follow David's example.  Be
truly brave, be truly modest, and in order to be truly brave and
truly modest, that is, be truly manly, be truly godly.  Trust in God;
trust in God; that is the key to all greatness.  Courage, modesty,
truth, honesty, and gentleness; all things, which are noble, lovely,
and of good report; all things, in short, which will make you men
after God's own heart, are all only the different fruits of that one
blessed life-giving root--FAITH IN GOD.



XXV--DAVID'S EDUCATION



Made perfect through sufferings.--HEBREWS ii. 10.

That is my text; and a very fit one for another sermon about David,
the king after God's own heart.  And a very fit one too, for any
sermon preached to people living in this world now or at any time.
"A melancholy text," you will say.  But what if it be melancholy?
That is not the fault of me, the preacher.  The preacher did not make
suffering, did not make disappointment, doubt, ignorance, mistakes,
oppression, poverty, sickness.  There they are, whether we like it or
not.  You have only to go on to the common here, or any other common
or town in England, to see too much of them--enough to break one's
heart if--, but I will not hurry on too fast in what I have to say.
What I want to make you recollect is, that misery is here round us,
IN us.  A great deal which we bring on ourselves; and a great deal
more misery which we do not, as far as we can see, bring on
ourselves; but which comes, nevertheless, and lets us know plainly
enough that it is close to us.  Every man and woman of us have their
sorrows.  There is no use shutting our eyes just when we ourselves
happen to feel tolerably easy, and saying, as too many do, "I don't
see so very much sorrow; I am happy enough!"  Are you, friend, happy
enough?  So much the worse for you, perhaps.  But at all events your
neighbours are not happy enough; most of them are only too miserable.
It is a sad world.  A sad world, and full of tears.  It is.  And you
must not be angry with the preacher for reminding you of what is.

True; you would have a right to quarrel with the preacher or anyone
else who made you sorrowful with the thoughts of the sorrow round
you, and then gave you no explanation of it--told you of no use, no
blessing in it, no deliverance from it.  That would be enough to
break any man's heart, if all the preacher could say was:  "This
wretchedness, and sickness, and death, must go on as long as the
world lasts, and yet it does no good, for God or man."  That thought
would drive any feeling man to despair, tempt him to lie down and
die, tempt him to fancy that God was not God at all, not the God
whose name is Love, not the God who is our Father, but only a cruel
taskmaster, and Lord of a miserable hell on earth, where men and
women, and worst of all, little children, were tortured daily by tens
of thousands without reason, or use, or hope of deliverance, except
in a future world, where not one in ten of them will be saved and
happy.  That is many people's notion of the world--religious people's
even.  How they can believe, in the face of such notions, "that God
is love;" how they can help going mad with pity, if that is all the
hope they have for poor human beings, is more than I can tell.  Not
that I judge them--to their own master they stand or fall:  but this
I do say, that if the preacher has no better hope to give you about
this poor earth, then I cannot tell what right he has to call himself
a preacher of the gospel--that is, a preacher of good news; then I do
not know what Jesus Christ's dying to take away the sins of the world
means; then I do not know what the kingdom of God means; then I do
not know why the Lord taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will
be done on earth, as it is in heaven," if the only way in which that
can be brought about is by His sending ninety-nine hundredths of
mankind to endless torture, over and above all the lesser misery
which they have suffered in this life.  What will be the end of the
greater part of mankind we do not know; we were not intended to know.
God is love, and God is justice, and His justice is utterly loving,
as well as His love utterly just; so we may very safely leave the
world in the hands of Him who made the world, and be sure that the
Judge of all the earth will do right, and that what is right is
certain never to be cruel, but rather merciful.  But to every one of
you who are here now, a preacher has a right, ay, and a bounden duty,
to say much more than that.  He is bound to tell you good news,
because God has called you into His church, and sent you here this
day, to hear good news.  He has a right to tell you, as I tell you
now, that, strange as it may seem, whatsoever sufferings you endure
are sent to make you perfect, even as your Father in heaven is
perfect; even as the blessed Lord, whom may you all love, and trust,
and worship, for ever and ever, was made perfect by sufferings, even
though He was the sinless Son of God.  Consider that.  "It behoved
Him," says St. Paul, "the Captain of our salvation, to be made
perfect through sufferings."  And why?  "Because," answers St. Paul,
"it was proper for Him to be made in all things like His brothers"--
like us, the children of God--"that He might be a faithful and
merciful high priest;" for, just "because He has suffered being
tempted, He is able to succour us who are tempted."  A strange text,
but one which, I think, this very history of David's troubles will
help us to understand.  For it was by suffering, long and bitter,
that God trained up David to be a true king, a king over the Jews,
"after God's own heart."

You all know, I hope, something at least of David's psalms.  Many of
them, seven of them at least, were written during David's wanderings
in the mountains, when Saul was persecuting him to kill him, day
after day, month after month, as you may read in the First Book of
Samuel, from chapters xix. to xxviii.  Bitter enough these troubles
of David would have been to any man, but what must have made them
especially bitter and confusing to him was, that they all arose out
of his righteousness.  Because he had conquered the giant, Saul
envied him--broke his promise of giving David his daughter Merab--put
his life into extreme danger from the Philistines, before he would
give him his second daughter Michal; the more he saw that the Lord
was with David, and that the young man won respect and admiration by
behaving himself wisely, the more afraid of him Saul was; again and
again he tried to kill him; as David was sitting harmless in Saul's
house, soothing the poor madman by the music of his harp, Saul tries
to stab him unawares; and not content with that proceeds deliberately
to hunt him down, from town to town, and wilderness to wilderness;
sends soldiers after him to murder him; at last goes out after him
himself with his guards.  Was not all this enough to try David's
faith?  Hardly any man, I suppose, since the world was made, had
found righteousness pay him less; no man was ever more tempted to
turn round and do evil, since doing good only brought him deeper and
deeper into the mire.  But no, we know that he did not lose his trust
in God; for we have seven psalms, at least, which he wrote during
these very wanderings of his; the fifty-second, when Doeg had
betrayed him to Saul; the fifty-fourth, when Ziphim betrayed him; the
fifty-sixth, when the Philistines took him in Gath; the fifty-
seventh, "when he fled from Saul in the cave;" the fifty-ninth, "when
they watched the house to kill him;" the sixty-third, "when he was in
the wilderness of Judah;" the thirty-fourth, "when he was driven away
by Abimelech;" and several more which appear to have been written
about the same time.

Now, what strikes us first, or ought to strike us, in these psalms,
is David's utter faith in God.  I do not mean to say that David had
not his sad days, when he gave himself up for lost, and when God
seemed to have forsaken him, and forgotten his promise.  He was a man
of like passions with ourselves; and therefore he was, as we should
have been, terrified and faint-hearted at times.  But exactly what
God was teaching and training him to be, was not to be fainthearted--
not to be terrified.  He began in his youth by trusting God.  That
made him the man after God's own heart, just as it was the want of
trust in God which made Saul not the man after God's own heart, and
lost him his kingdom.  In all those wanderings and dangers of David's
in the wilderness, God was training, and educating, and strengthening
David's faith according to His great law:  To whomsoever hath shall
be given, and he shall have more abundantly; but from him that hath
not, shall be taken away even that which he seems to have.  And the
first great fruit of David's firm trust in God was his patience.

He learned to wait God's time, and take God's way, and be sure that
the same God who had promised that he should be king, would make him
king when he saw fit.  He knew, as he says himself, that the Strength
of Israel could not lie or repent.  He had sworn that He would not
fail David.  And he learned that God had sworn by His holiness.  He
was a holy, just, righteous God; and David and David's country now
were safe in His hands.  It was his firm trust in God which gave him
strength of mind to use no unfair means to right himself.  Twice
Saul, his enemy, was in his power.  What a temptation to him to kill
Saul, rid himself of his tormentor, and perhaps get the kingdom at
once!  But no.  He felt:  "This Saul is a wicked, devil-tormented
murderer, a cruel tyrant and oppressor; but the same God who chose me
to be king next, chose him to be king now.  He is the Lord's
anointed.  God put him where he is, and leaves him there for some
good purpose; and when God has done with him, God will take him away,
and free this poor oppressed people; and in the meantime, I, as a
private man, have no right to touch him.  I must not do evil that
good may come.  If I am to be a true king, a true man at all
hereafter, I must keep true now; if I am to be a righteous lawgiver
hereafter, I must respect and obey law myself now.  The Lord be judge
between me and Saul; for He is Judge, and He will right me better
than I can ever right myself."  And thus did trust in God bring out
in David that true respect for law, without which a king, let him be
as kind-hearted as he will, is but too likely to become at last a
tyrant and an oppressor.

But another thing which strikes any thinking man in David's psalms,
is his strong feeling for the poor, and the afflicted, and the
oppressed.  That is what makes the Psalms, above all, the poor man's
book, the afflicted man's book.  But how did he get that fellow-
feeling for the fallen?  By having fallen himself, and tasted
affliction and oppression.  That was how he was educated to be a true
king.  That was how he became a picture and pattern--a "type," as
some call it, of Jesus Christ, the man of sorrows.  That is why so
many of David's psalms apply so well to the Lord; why the Lord
fulfilled those psalms when He was on earth.  David was truly a man
of sorrows; for he had not only the burden of his own sorrows to
bear, but that of many others.  His parents had to escape, and to be
placed in safety at the court of a heathen prince.  His friend
Abimelech the priest, because he gave David bread when he was
starving, and Goliath's sword--which, after all, was David's own--was
murdered by Saul's hired ruffians, at Saul's command, and with him
his whole family, and all the priests of the town, with their wives
and children, even to the baby at the breast.  And when David was in
the mountains, everyone who was distressed, and in debt, and
discontented, gathered themselves to him, and he became their
captain; so that he had on him all the responsibility, care, and
anxiety of managing all those wild, starving men, many of them,
perhaps, reckless and wicked men, ready every day to quarrel among
themselves, or to break out in open riot and robbery against the
people who had oppressed them; for--(and this, too, we may see from
David's psalms, was not the smallest part of his anxiety)--the nation
of the Jews seems to have been in a very wretched state in David's
time.  The poor seem in general to have lost their land, and to have
become all but slaves to rich nobles, who were grinding them down,
not only by luxury and covetousness, but often by open robbery and
bloodshed.  The sight of the misrule and misery, as well as of the
bloody and ruinous border inroads which were kept up by the
Philistines and other neighbouring tribes, seems for years to have
been the uppermost, as well as the deepest thought in David's mind,
if we may judge from those psalms of his, of which this is the key-
note; and it was not likely to make him care and feel less about all
that misery when he remembered (as we see from his psalms he
remembered daily) that God had set him, the wandering outlaw, no less
a task than to mend it all; to put down all that oppression, to raise
up that degradation, to train all that cowardice into self-respect
and valour, to knit into one united nation, bound together by fellow-
feeling and common faith in God, that mob of fierce, and greedy, and
(hardest task of all, as he himself felt) utterly deceitful men.  No
wonder that his psalms begin often enough with sadness, even though
they may end in hope and trust.  He had a work around him and before
him which ought to have made his heart sad, which was a great part of
his appointed education, and helped to make him perfect by
sufferings.

And so, upon the bare hill-side, in woods and caves of the earth, in
cold and hunger, in weariness and dread of death, did David learn to
be the poor man's king, the poor man's poet, the singer of those
psalms which shall endure as long as the world endures, and be the
comfort and the utterance of all sad hearts for evermore.  Agony it
was, deep and bitter, and for the moment more hopeless than the grave
itself, which crushed out of the very depths of his heart that most
awful and yet most blessed psalm, the twenty-second, which we read in
church every Good Friday.  The "Hind of the Morning" is its title;
some mournful air to which David sang it, giving, perhaps, the notion
of a timorous deer roused in the morning by the hunters and the
hounds.  We read that psalm on Good Friday, and all say that our Lord
Jesus Christ fulfilled it.  What do we mean hereby?

We mean hereby, that we believe that our Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled
all sorrows which man can taste.  He filled the cup of misery to the
brim, and drained it to the dregs.  He was afflicted in all David's
afflictions, in the afflictions of all mankind.  He bare all their
sicknesses, and carried all their infirmities; and therefore we read
this psalm upon Good Friday, upon the day in which He tasted death
for every man, and went down into the lowest depths of terror, and
shame, and agony, and death; and, worst of all, into the feeling that
God had forsaken Him, that there was no help or hope for Him in
heaven, as well as earth--no care or love in the great God, whose Son
He was--went down, in a word, into hell; that hell whereof David and
Heman, and Hezekiah after them, had said, "Shall the dust give thanks
unto thee? and shall it declare thy truth?"--"Thou wilt not leave my
soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to see
corruption."--"My life draweth nigh unto hell. . .  I am like one
stript among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom
thou rememberest no more; and they are cut off from thy hand. . . .
Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? and shall the dead arise and
praise thee?  Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy
righteousness in the land of destruction?"--"For the grave cannot
praise thee; death cannot celebrate thee:  they that go down to the
pit cannot hope for thy truth."

Even into that lowest darkness, where man feels, even for one moment,
that God is nothing to him, and he is nothing to God--even into that
Jesus condescended to go down for us.  That worst of all temptations,
of which David only tasted a drop when he cried out, "My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me?"  Jesus drained to the very dregs for us.--
He went down into hell for us, and conquered hell and death, and the
darkness of the unknown world, and rose again glorious from them,
that He might teach us not to fear death and hell; that He might know
how to comfort us in the hour of death:  and in the day of judgment,
when on our sick bed, or in some bitter shame and trouble, the lying
devil is telling us that we are damned and lost, and forsaken by God,
and every sin we ever did rises up and stares us in the face.

Truly He is a king!--a king for rich and poor, young and old,
Englishmen and negro; all alike He knows them, He feels for them, He
has tasted sorrow for them, far more than David did for those poor,
oppressed, sinful Jews of his.  Read those Psalms of David; for they
speak not only of David, now long since dead and gone, but of the
blessed Jesus, who lives and reigns over us now at this very moment.
Read them, for they are inspired; the honest words of a servant of
God crying out to the same God, the same Saviour and Deliverer as we
have.  And His love has not changed.  His arm is not shortened that
He cannot save.  Your words need not change.  The words of those
psalms in which David prayed, in them you and I may pray.  Right out
of the depths of his poor distracted heart they came.  Let them come
out of our hearts too.  They belong to us more than even they did to
the Jews, for whom David wrote them--more than even they did to David
himself; for Jesus has fulfilled them--filled them full--given them
boundlessly more meaning than ever they had before, and given us more
hope in using them than ever David had:  for now that love and
righteousness of God, in which David only trusted beforehand, has
come down and walked on this earth in the shape of a poor man, Jesus
Christ, the Son of the maiden of Bethlehem.

Oh, you who are afflicted, pray to God in those psalms; not merely in
the words of them, but in the spirit of them.  And to do that, you
must get from God the spirit in which David wrote them--the Spirit of
God.  Pray for that Spirit; for the spirit of patience, which made
David wait God's good time to right him, instead of trying, as too
many do, to right himself by wrong means; for the spirit of love,
which taught David to return good for evil; for the spirit of fellow-
feeling, which taught David to care for others as well as himself;
and in that spirit of love, do you pray for others while you are
praying for yourself.  Pray for that Spirit which taught David to
help and comfort those who were weaker than himself, that you in your
time may be able and willing to comfort and help those who are weaker
than yourselves.  And above all, pray for the Spirit of faith, which
made David certain that oppression and wrong-doing could not stand;
that the day must surely come when God would judge the world
righteously, and hear the cry of the afflicted, and deliver the
outcast and poor, that the man of the world might be no more exalted
against them.  Pray, in short, for the Spirit of Christ; and then be
sure He will hear your prayers, and answer them, and show Himself a
better friend, and a truer King to you, than ever David showed
himself to those poor Jews of old.  He will deliver you out of all
your troubles--if not in this life, yet surely in the life to come;
and though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, yet
the peace of God shall keep your hearts and minds in Him who loved
you, and gave Himself for you, that you might inherit all heaven and
earth in Him.



XXVI--THE VALUE OF LAW



Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers.  For there is no
power but of God.  The powers that be are ordained of God.--ROMANS
xiii. 1.

What is the difference between a civilised man and a savage?  You
will say:  A civilised man can read and write; he has books and
education; he knows how to make numberless things which makes his
life comfortable to him.  He can get wealth, and build great towns,
sink mines, sail the sea in ships, spread himself over the face of
the earth, or bring home all its treasures, while the savages remain
poor, and naked, and miserable, and ignorant, fixed to the land in
which they chance to have been born.

True:  but we must go a little deeper still.  Why does the savage
remain poor and wretched, while the civilised people become richer
and more prosperous?  Why, for instance, do the poor savage gipsies
never grow more comfortable or wiser--each generation of them
remaining just as low as their forefathers were, or, indeed, getting
lower and fewer? for the gipsies, like all savages, are becoming
fewer and fewer year by year, while, on the other hand, we English
increase in numbers, and in wealth, and knowledge; and fresh
inventions are found out year by year, which give fresh employment
and make life more safe and more pleasant.

This is the reason:  That the English have laws and obey them, and
the gipsies have none.  This is the whole secret.  This is why
savages remain poor and miserable, that each man does what he likes
without law.  This is why civilised nations like England thrive and
prosper, because they have laws and obey them, and every man does not
do what he likes, but what the law likes.  Laws are made not for the
good of one person here, or the other person there, but for the good
of all; and, therefore, the very notion of a civilised country is, a
country in which people cannot do what they like with their own, as
the savages do.  "Not do what he likes with his own?"  Certainly not;
no one can or does.  If you have property, you cannot spend it all as
you like.  You have to pay a part of it to the government, that is,
into the common stock, for the common good, in the shape of rates and
taxes, before you can spend any of it on yourself.  If you take
wages, you cannot spend them all upon yourself and do what you like
with them.  If you do not support your wife and family out of them,
the law will punish you.  You cannot do what you like with your own
gun, for you may not shoot your neighbour's cattle or game with it.
You cannot do what you like with your own hands, for the law forbids
you to steal with them.  You cannot do what you like with your own
feet, for the law will punish you for trespassing on your neighbour's
ground without his leave.  In short, you can only do with your own
what will not hurt your neighbour, in such matters as the law can
take care of.  And more, in any great necessity the law may actually
hurt you for the good of the nation at large.  The law may compel you
to sell your land, to your own injury, if it is wanted for a
railroad.  The law may compel you, as it did fifty years ago, to
serve as a soldier in the militia, to your own injury, if there is a
fear of foreign invasion; so that the law is above each and all of
us.  Our own wills are not our masters.  No man is his own master.
The law is the master of each and all of us, and if we will not obey
it willingly, it can make us obey unwillingly.

Can make us?  Ay, but ought it to make us?  Is it right that the law
should over-ride our own free wills, and prevent our doing what we
like with our own?

It is right--absolutely right.  St. Paul tells us what gives law this
authority:  "There is no power but of God.  The powers that be are
ordained of God."  And he tells us also why this authority is given
to the law.  "Rulers," he says, "are not a terror to good works, but
to evil.  Wilt thou then not be afraid of those who administer the
law?  Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise from them,
for they are God's ministers to thee for good."

For good, you see.  For the good of mankind it was, that God put into
their hearts and reasons, that notion of making laws, and appointing
kings and magistrates to see that those laws are obeyed.  For our
good.  For without law no man's life, or family, or property would be
safe.  Every man's private selfishness, and greediness, and anger,
would struggle without check to have its way, and there would be no
bar or curb to keep each and every man from injuring each and every
man else; so the strong would devour the weak, and then tear each
other in pieces afterwards.  So it is among the savages.  They have
little or no property, for they have no laws to protect property; and
therefore every man expects his neighbour to steal from him, and
finds it his shortest plan to steal from his neighbour, instead of
settling down to sow corn which he will have no chance of eating, or
build houses which may be taken from him at night by some more strong
and cunning savage.  There is no law among savages to protect women
and children against the men, and therefore the women are treated
worse than beasts, and the children murdered to save the trouble of
rearing them.  Every man's hand is against his neighbour.  No one
feels himself safe, and therefore no one thinks it worth while to lay
up for the morrow.  No one expects justice and mercy to be done to
him, and therefore no one thinks it worth while to do justice and
mercy to others.  And thus they live in continual fear and
quarrelling, feeding like wild animals on game or roots, often, when
they have bad luck in their hunting, on offal which our dogs would
refuse, and dwindle away and become fewer and wretcheder year by
year; in this way do the savages in New South Wales live to this day,
for want of law.

It is for our good, then, that God has put into the heart of man to
make laws, and to obey them as sacred and divine things.  For our
good, in order to save us from sinking down into the same state of
poverty and misery in which the savages are.  For our good, because
we are fallen creatures, with selfish and corrupt wills, continually
apt to break loose, and please ourselves at the expense of our
neighbours.  For our good, because, however fallen we are, we are
still brothers, members of God's family, bound to each other by duty
and relationship, if not by love.

Just as in a family, if parents, brothers, and sisters will not do
their duty to each other lovingly and of their free will, the law
interferes, and the custom of the country interferes, and the opinion
of neighbours interferes, and says:  "You may not love your parents:
but you have no right to leave them to starve."  "You may not love
your brothers:  but if you try to injure and slander them, you are
doing an unnatural and hateful thing, abhorred by God and man, and
you must expect us to treat you accordingly, as a wild beast who does
not feel the common laws of nature and right and wrong."  So with the
law of the land.  The law is meant to remind us more or less that we
are brothers, members of one body; that we owe a duty to each other;
that we are all equal in God's sight, who is no respecter of persons,
or of rank, or of riches, any more than the law is when it punishes
the greatest nobleman as severely as the poorest labourer.  The law
is meant to remind us that God is just; that when we injure each
other, we sin against God; that God's rule and law is, that each
transgression should receive its just reward, and that, therefore,
because man is made in the likeness of God, man is bound, as far as
he can, to visit every offence with due and proportionate punishment.
And the law punishes, as St. Paul says, in God's name, and for God's
sake.  The magistrate is a witness for God's righteous government of
the world, the minister of God's vengeance against evil-doers, to
remind all continually that evil-doing has no place, and cannot
prosper, and must not be allowed, upon this God's earth whereon we
live.

But what if the laws are unfair, and punish only some sorts of evil-
doers and not others?  What if they are like spiders' webs, which
catch the little flies, and let the great wasps break through?  What
if they punish poor and weak offenders, and let the rich and powerful
sinners escape?  "Obey them still," says St. Paul.  In his time and
country the laws were as unfair in that way as laws ever were, and
yet he tells Christians to obey them for conscience's sake.  Thank
God that they do punish weak offenders.  Pray God that the time may
come when they may be strong enough to punish great offenders also.
But, in the meantime, see that they have not to punish you.  As far
as the laws go, they are right and good.  As far as they keep down
any sort of wrong-doing whatsoever, they are God's ordinances, and
you must obey them for God's sake.

But what if the laws are not only unfair and partial, but also unjust
and wrong?  Are we to obey them then?  Obey them still, says St.
Paul.  Of course, if they command you to do a clearly wrong thing;
if, for instance, the law commanded you to worship idols, or to
commit adultery, there is no question then; such laws cannot be God's
ordinance.  The laws can only be God's ordinance as far as they agree
with what we know of God's will written in our hearts, and written in
His holy Bible.  Then a man must resist the law to the death, if need
be, as the old martyrs did, dying as witnesses for God's righteous
and eternal law, against man's false and unrighteous law.  It is a
very difficult thing, no doubt, to tell where to draw the line in
such matters.  But we, thank God, here in England now, have no need
to puzzle our heads with such questions.  Every man's conscience is
free here, and he has full liberty to worship God as he thinks best,
provided that by so doing he does not interfere with his neighbour's
character, or property, or comfort.  There is no single law in
England now, that I know of, which a man has any need to refuse to
obey, let his conscience be as tender as it may.  And as for laws
which we think hurtful to the country, or hurtful to any particular
class in the country, our thinking them hurtful is no reason that we
should not obey them.  As long as they are law, they are God's
ordinance, and we have no right to break them.  They may be useful
after all.  Or even if they are hurtful in some way, still God may be
bringing good out of them in some other way, of which we little
dream, as He has often done out of laws and customs which seem at
first sight most foolish and hurtful, and yet which He endured and
winked at, for the sake of bringing good out of evil.  At all events,
whatsoever laws are here in England, are made by the men whom we
English have chosen, as the men most fit and wise to make them, and
we are bound to abide by them.  If Parliament is not wise enough to
make perfectly good laws, that is no one's fault but our own; for if
we were wise, we should choose wise law-makers, and we must be filled
with the fruit of our own devices.  As long as these laws have been
made and passed, by Commons, Lords, and Queen, according to the
ancient forms and constitution which God has taught our forefathers
from time to time for more than a thousand years, and which have had
God's blessing and favour on them, and made us, from the least of all
nations, the greatest nation on the earth; in short, as long as those
laws are made according to law, so long we are bound to believe them
to be God's ordinance, and obey them.  But understand; that is no
reason why we should not try to get them improved; for when they are
changed and done away according to the same law which made them, that
will be a sign that they are God's ordinances no longer; that God
thinks we have no more need for them, and does not require us to keep
them.  But as long as any law is what St. Paul calls "the powers that
be," obeyed it must be, not only for wrath, but for conscience's
sake.

That is a very important part of the matter.  Obey the law, St. Paul
says, not only for wrath, that is, not only for fear of punishment,
but for conscience's sake.  Even if you do not expect to be punished;
even if you think no one will ever find out that you have broken the
law, remember it is God's ordinance.  He sees you.  Do not hurt your
own conscience, and deaden your own sense of right and wrong, by
breaking the least or the most unjust law in the slightest point.

For instance:  some people think the income-tax is very unfair; and
therefore they think there is no harm in cheating the revenue a
little, by making out their income less than it is.  Others, again,
think the laws against smuggling unjust and harsh; and therefore they
see no harm in trying to avoid paying duty on goods which they bring
home, whenever they have an opportunity, or buying cheap goods, which
they must know from their price are smuggled.  Others, again, think
the game laws are unfair, and therefore see no harm in going out
shooting on their own lands without a licence; while many see no
harm, or say they see no harm, in poaching on other people's grounds,
and killing game contrary to law wherever they can.  That it is wrong
to break the law in these two first cases, you all know in your own
hearts.  On the matter of poaching, some of you, I know, have many
very mistaken notions.  But, my friends, I ask you only to look at
the sin and misery which poaching causes, if you want to see that
those who break the law do indeed break the ordinance of God, and
that God's laws avenge themselves.  Look at the idleness, the
untidiness, the deceit, the bad company, the drunkenness, the misery
and sin, to man, woman, and child, which that same poaching brings
about, and then see how one little sin brings on many great ones; how
a man, by despising the authority of law, and fancying that he does
no harm in disobeying the laws, from his own fancy about poaching
being no harm, falls into temptation and a snare, and pierces himself
through with many sorrows.  My young friends, believe my words.
Avoid poaching, even once in a way.  The beginning of sin is like the
letting out of water; no one can tell where it will stop.  He who
breaks the law in little things will be tempted to go on and break it
in greater and greater things.  He who begins by breaking man's law,
which is the pattern of God's law, will be tempted to go on and break
God's law also.  Is it not so?  There is no use telling me, "The game
is no one's; there is no harm in taking it."  Light words of that
kind will not do to answer God with.  You know there is harm in
taking it; for you know, as well as I do, that you cannot go after
game without neglecting your work to get it; or without going to the
worst of public-houses, among the worst of company, to sell it.  You
know, as well as I do, that hand in hand with poaching go lying, and
idling, and sneaking, and fear, and boasting, and swearing, and
drinking, and the company of bad men and bad women.  And then you say
there is no harm in poaching.  Do you suppose that I do not know, as
well as any one of you here, what goes to the snaring of a hare, and
the selling of a hare, and the spending of the ill-got price of a
hare?  My dear young men, I know that poaching, like many other sins,
is tempting:  but God has told us to flee from temptation--to resist
the devil, and he will flee from us.  If we are to give up ourselves
without a struggle to every pleasant thing which tempts us, we shall
soon be at the devil's door.  We were sent into the world to fight
against temptation and to conquer it.  We were sent into the world to
do what God likes, not what we like; and therefore we were sent into
the world to obey the laws of the land wherein we live, be they
better or worse; because if we break one law because we don't like
it, our neighbour may break another because he don't like that, and
so forth; till there is neither law, nor peace, nor safety, but every
man doing what is right in his own eyes, which is sure to end by
every man's doing what is right in the devil's eyes.  We were sent
into the world to live as brothers, under laws which make us give up
our own wills and selfish lusts for the common good.  And if we find
it difficult to keep the laws, if we are tempted to break the laws,
God has promised His Spirit to those who ask Him.  God has promised
His Spirit to us.  If we pray for that Spirit night and morning, He
will make it easy for us to keep the laws.  He will make us what our
Lord was before us, humble, patient, loving, manful and strong enough
to restrain our fancies and appetites, and to give up our wills for
the good of our neighbours, anxious and careful to avoid all
appearance of evil, trusting that because God is just, and God is
King, all laws which are not wicked are His ordinance, and therefore
being obedient to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, even as
Jesus Christ Himself was, who, though He was Lord of all, paid taxes
and tribute money to the Roman government, like the rest of the Jews,
and kept the law of Moses perfectly, and was baptised with John's
baptism, to show that in all just and reasonable things we are to
obey the laws and customs of our forefathers, in the country to which
it has pleased the Lord that we should belong.



XXVII--THE SOURCE OF LAW



Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers.  For there is no
power but of God.  The powers that be are ordained of God.--ROMANS
xiii. 1.

In this chapter, which we read for the second lesson for this
afternoon's service, St. Paul gives good advice to the Romans, and
equally good advice to us.

Of course what he says must be equally good for us, and for all
people, at all times, in all countries, as long as time shall last;
because St. Paul spoke by the Spirit of God, who is God eternal, and
therefore cannot change His mind, but lays down, by the mouth of His
apostles and prophets, the everlasting laws of right and wrong, which
are always equally good for all.

But there is something in this lesson which makes it especially
useful to us; because we English are in some very important matters
very like the Romans to whom St. Paul wrote; though in others, thanks
to Almighty God, we are still very unlike them.

Now, these old Romans, as I have often told you, had risen to be the
greatest and mightiest people in the world, and to conquer many
foreign countries, and set up colonies of Romans in them, very much
as the English have done in India, and North America, and Australia:
so that the little country of Italy, with its one great city of Rome,
was mistress of vast lands far beyond the seas, ten times as large as
itself, just as this little England is.

But it is not so much this which I have to speak to you about now, as
how this Rome became so great; for it was at first nothing but a poor
little country town, without money, armies, trade, or any of those
things which shallow-minded people fancy are the great strength of a
nation.  True, all those things are good; but they are useless and
hurtful--and, what is more, they cannot be got--without something
better than them; something which you cannot see nor handle;
something spiritual, which is the life and heart of a country or
nation, and without which it can never become great.  This the old
Romans had; and it made them become great.  This we English have had
for now fifteen hundred years; even when our forefathers were
heathens, like the Romans, before we came into this good land of
England, while we were poor and simple people, living in the barren
moors of Germany, and the snowy mountains of Norway; even then we had
this wonderful charm, by which nations are sure to become great and
powerful at last; and in proportion as we have remembered and acted
upon it, we English have thriven and spread; and whenever we have
forgotten it and broken it, we have fallen into distress, and
poverty, and shame, over the whole land.

Now, what is this wonderful charm which made the old Romans and we
English great, which is stronger than money, and armies, and trade,
and all the things which we can see and handle?

St. Paul tells us in the text:  "Let every soul be subject to the
higher powers.  For there is no power but of God.  The powers that be
are ordained of God."

To respect the law; to believe that God wills men to live according
to law; and that He will teach men right and good laws; that
magistrates who enforce the laws are God's ministers, God's officers
and servants; that to break the laws is to sin against God;--that is
the charm which worked such wonders, and will work them to the end of
time.

So you see it was a very proper thing for St. Paul, when he wrote to
these Romans after they became Christians, to speak to them as he
does in this chapter.  They might have fancied, and many did fancy,
that because they were Jesus Christ's servants now, they need not
obey their heathen rulers and laws any more.  But St. Paul says:
"No; Jesus Christ's being King of Kings, is only the strongest
possible reason for your obeying these heathen rulers.  For if He is
King of all the earth, He is King of Rome also, and of all her
colonies; and therefore you may be sure that He would not leave these
Roman rulers, and laws here if He did not think it right and fitting.
If Jesus Christ is Lord of lords He is Lord of these Roman rulers,
and they are His ministers and stewards; and you must obey them, and
pay taxes to them for conscience's sake, as unto the Lord, and not
unto man."

So you see that St. Paul gave these Roman Christians no new
commandment on these matters; nothing different from what their old
heathen forefathers had believed.  For the law which he mentions in
verse 9, "Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal," etc., had been
for centuries past part of the old Roman law, as well as of Moses'
law.

Those old heathen Romans believed, and rightly, that all law and
order came from the great God of gods, whom they called in their
tongue Jupiter, that is, the Heavenly Father.  They believed that He
would bless those who kept the laws; who kept their oaths and
agreements, and the laws about government, about marriage, about
property, about inheritance; and that He would surely punish those
who broke the laws, who defrauded their neighbours of their rights,
who swore falsely against their neighbour, or broke their agreements,
who were unfaithful to their wives and husbands, or in any way
offended against justice between man and man.  And they believed too,
and rightly, that as long as they kept the laws, and lived justly and
orderly by them, the great Heavenly Father would protect and prosper
their town of Rome, and make it grow great and powerful, because they
were living as He would have men live; not doing each what was right
in the sight of his own eyes, but conquering their own selfish wills
and private fancies, for the sake of their neighbour's good, and the
good of his country, that they might all help and trust each other,
as fellow-citizens of one nation.

Only St. Paul had told them:  Your forefathers were right in fancying
that law and right came from the great God of gods:  but they knew
hardly anything, or rather, in time they forgot almost everything,
about that Heavenly Father.  In their ignorance they mixed up the
belief in the one great almighty and good God, which dwells in the
hearts of all men, with filthy fables and superstitions till they
came to fancy that there were many gods and not one, and that these
many gods were sinful, foul, proud, and cruel, as fallen men.  But
you have been brought back to the knowledge of the one true, and
righteous, and loving God, which your forefathers lost.  He has
revealed and shown Himself, and what He is like, in His Son Jesus
Christ.  He is love, and wisdom, and justice, and order itself; and,
therefore, you must be sure, even more sure than your old heathen
forefathers, that He cares for a nation being at peace and unity
within itself, governed by wise laws, doing justice between man and
man, and keeping order throughout all its business, that every man
may do his work and enjoy his wages without hindrance, or confusion,
or fear, or robbery and oppression from those who are stronger than
he.

And so St. Paul says to them:  "You must believe that power and law
come from God, far more firmly and clearly than ever your heathen
forefathers did."

Now that St. Paul was right in this we may see from the Old
Testament.  In the first lesson for this afternoon's service, we read
how Jeremiah was sent with the most awful warnings to the king, and
the queen, and the crown prince of his country.  And why?  Because
they had broken the laws; because, in a word, they had been
unfaithful stewards and ministers of the Lord God, who had given them
their power and kingdom, and would demand a strict account of all
which He had committed to their charge.  But in the same book of the
prophet Jeremiah we read more than this; we read exactly what St.
Paul says about the heathen Roman governors:  for the Lord God, who
is the Lord Jesus Christ, sent Jeremiah with a message to all the
heathen kings round about, to tell them that He was their Lord and
Master, that He had given them their power, heathens as they were,
because it seemed fit to Him, and that now, for their sins, He was
going to deliver them over into the hand of another heathen, His
servant Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; and that whosoever would not
serve Nebuchadnezzar, the Lord God would punish him with sword, and
famine, and pestilence till he had consumed them.  And the first four
chapters of the book of Daniel, noble and wonderful as they are, seem
to me to have been put into the Bible simply to teach us this one
thing, that heathen rulers, as well as Christians, are the Lord's
servants, and that their power is ordained by God.  For these
chapters are entirely made up of the history, how God, by His prophet
Daniel, taught the heathen king Nebuchadnezzar that he was God's
minister and steward.  And the latter part of the book of Daniel is
the account of his teaching the same thing to another heathen, Cyrus
the great and good king of Persia.  And here St. Paul teaches the
Christian Romans just the same thing about their heathen governors
and heathen laws, that they are the ministers and the ordinance of
God.

Now, our own English forefathers, as I said before, believed this
same thing; and if I had time, I could show you, I think, plainly
enough from God's dealings with England, how He has blest and
prospered us whensoever we have acted up to it.  But whether we have
believed it or not, there is enough in our English laws, and in our
English Prayer Book too, to witness for it and remind us of it.

The very title which we give the Queen, "Queen by the grace of God;"
the solemn prayers for her when she is crowned and anointed, not in
her own palace, or in the House of Parliament, but in the Church of
God at Westminster; the prayers which we have just offered up for the
Queen, for the government, and for the magistrates--these are all so
many signs and tokens to us that they are God's stewards, called to
do God's work, and that we must pray for God's grace to help them to
fulfil their calling.  And are not those ten commandments which stand
in every church, a witness of the same thing?  They are the very root
of all law whatsoever.  And more, the solemn oath which a witness
takes in the court of justice, what is it but a sign of the same
thing, that our forefathers, who appointed these forms, believed that
law and justice were holy things, and that he who goes into a court
of law goes into the presence of God Himself, and confesses, when he
promises to speak the truth, so help him God, that God is the
protector and the avenger of law and justice?

But some people, and especially young and light-hearted persons, are
ready to say:  "Obey the powers that be, whosoever they may be, good
or bad, and believe that to break their laws is to sin against God?
We might as well be slaves at once.  A man has a right to his own
opinion; and if he does not think a law good, how can he be bound to
obey it?"

You will often hear such words as those when you go out into the
world, into great towns, where men meet together much.  Let me give
you, young people, a little advice about that beforehand; for, fine
as it sounds, it is hollow and false at root.

If you wish to be really free, and to do what you like, like what is
right; and do that, says St. Paul, and then the law will not
interfere with you:  "For rulers are not a terror to good works, but
to the evil.  Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power?  Do that
which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:  for he is the
minister of God to thee for good.  But if thou do that which is evil,
be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain:  for he is the
minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth
evil."  And then he sums up what doing right is, in one short
sentence:  "Love thy neighbour as thyself; for love is the fulfilling
of the law."  All that the laws want to make you do, is to behave
like men who do love their neighbours as themselves, and therefore do
them no harm--to behave like men who are ready to give up their own
private wills and pleasures, and even their own private property, if
wanted, for the good of their neighbours and their country.
Therefore the law calls on you to pay rates and taxes, which are to
be spent for the good of the nation at large.  And if you love your
neighbour as yourself, and have the good of everyone round you at
heart, you will no more grudge paying rates and taxes for their
benefit than you will grudge spending money to support and educate
your own children.  And so you will be free, free to do what you
like, because you like, from the fear and love of God, to do those
right things which the law is set to make you do.

But some may say:  "That is not what we mean by being free.  We mean
having a share in choosing Members of Parliament, and so in making
the laws and governing the country.  When people can do that the
country is a free country."

Well, my friends, and it is a strange thing, or rather not a strange
thing, if we will but study our Bibles, that a country cannot be free
in that way, unless the people of it do really believe that the
powers that be are ordained of God.  Instead of that faith making the
old Romans slavish, or careless what laws were made, or how they were
governed, as some fancy it would make a people, they were as free a
people, and freer almost than we English now.  They chose their own
magistrates, and they made their own laws, and prospered by so doing.
And why?  Because they believed that laws came from God; and,
therefore, they not only obeyed the laws when they were made, but
they had heart and spirit to help to make them, because they trusted
that The Heavenly Father, who loved justice, would teach them to be
just, and that The God who protected laws and punished law-breakers,
would put into their minds how to make the laws well; and so they
were not afraid to govern themselves, because they believed that God
would enable them to govern themselves well, and therefore they were
free.  And so far from their having a slavish spirit in them, they
were the most bold and independent people of the whole earth.  Their
soldiers conquered almost every nation against whom they fought,
because they always obeyed their officers dutifully and faithfully,
believing that it was their duty to God to obey, and to die, if need
was, for their country.  Old history is full of tales, which will
never be forgotten, I trust, till the world's end, of the noble deeds
of their men, ay, and even of their women, who counted their own
lives worthless in comparison with the good of their country, and
died in torments rather than break the laws, or do what they knew
would injure the people to whom they belonged.

And so with us English.  For hundreds of years we have been growing
more and more free, and more and more well-governed, simply because
we have been acting on St. Paul's doctrine--obeying the powers that
be, because they are ordained by God.  It is the Englishman's respect
for law, as a sacred thing, which he dare not break, which has made
him, sooner or later, respected and powerful wherever he goes to
settle in foreign lands; because foreigners can trust us to be just,
and to keep our promises, and to abide by the laws which we have laid
down.  It is the English respect for law, as a sacred thing, which
has made our armies among the bravest and the most successful on
earth; because they know how to obey their officers, and are
therefore able to fight and to endure as men should do.  And as long
as we hold to that belief we shall prosper at home and abroad, and
become more and more free, and more and more strong; because we shall
be united, helping each other, trusting each other, knowing what to
expect of each other, because we all honour and obey the same laws.

And, on the other hand, have we not close to us, in France, a fearful
sign and proof from God that without the fear of God no people can be
free?  Three times in the last sixty years have the French risen up
against evil rulers, and driven them out.  And have they been the
better for it?  They are at this very moment in utter slavery to a
ruler more lawless than ever oppressed them before.  And why?
Because they did not believe that law came from God, and that the
powers that be are ordained by Him.  Therefore, whenever they were
oppressed, they did not try to right themselves by lawful ways,
according to the old English God-fearing custom, but to break down
the old law by riot and bloodshed, and then to set up new laws of
their own.  But those new laws would never stand.  They made them,
but they would not obey them when they were made, and they could not
make others obey them; because they had no real reverence for law,
and did not believe that law came from God, or that His Spirit would
give them understanding to make good laws.  They talked loud about
the power and rights of the people, and that whatever the people
willed was right:  but they said nothing about the power and rights
of the Lord God; they forgot that it is only what God has willed from
everlasting that is right; and so they made laws in the strength of
their own hearts, according to what was right in the sight of their
own eyes, to please themselves.  How could they respect the laws,
when the laws were only copies of their own selfish fancies?  So,
because they made them to please themselves, they soon broke them to
please themselves.  And so came more lawlessness and riot, and
confusion worse confounded, till, of course, the strongest, and
cunningest, and most shameless got the upper hand; and they were
plunged, poor creatures! into the same pit of misery out of which
they had been trying to deliver themselves in their own strength, for
a sign and an example that the Lord is King, and not man at all, and
that the fear of the Lord is the only beginning of wisdom.

And very much the same sad fate had happened to the Romans a little
before St. Paul's time.  They gave up their ancient respect for law;
they broke the laws, and ran into all kinds of violence, and riot,
and filthy sin; and therefore God took away their freedom from them,
because they were not fit for it, and delivered them over into the
hand of one cruel tyrant after another; and perhaps the cruellest of
them all was the man who was emperor of Rome in St. Paul's time.
Therefore it was that St. Paul says to them:  Love each other, and
obey the laws, "knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake
out of sleep."

As much as to say:  "Your souls have fallen asleep; you have been in
a dark night, not seeing that God would avenge you of all these sins
of yours; that God's eye was on them:  you have fallen asleep and
forgotten your forefathers' belief, that God loves law, and order,
and justice, and will punish those who break through them.  But now
the Lord Jesus, the light of the world, is come to awaken you, and to
open your eyes to see the truth about this, and to show you that you
are in God's kingdom, and that God commands you to repent, and to
obey Him, and do justly and righteously.  Therefore awake out of your
sleep; give up the works of darkness, those mean and wicked habits
which were contrary to the good old laws of your forefathers, and
which you were at heart ashamed of, and tried to hide even while you
indulged in them.  Open your eyes, and see that God is near you, your
Judge, your King, seeing through and through your souls, keen and
sharp to discern the secret thoughts and intents of the heart, so
that all things are naked and open in the sight of Him with whom we
have to do."

And so I may say to you, my friends, it is high time for us to awake
out of sleep.  The people in England, religious as well as others,
have fallen asleep of late years too much about this matter.  They
have forgotten that God is King, that magistrates are God's
ministers.  They talk as if laws were meant to be only the device of
man's will, to serve men's private interests and selfishness; and
therefore they have lost very much of their respect for law, and
their care to make good laws for the future.  And it is high time for
us, while all the nations of Europe are tottering and crumbling round
us, to awake out of sleep on this matter.  We must open our eyes and
see where we are.  For we are in God's kingdom.  God's Bible, God's
churches, God's commandments, and all the solemn old law forms of
England witness to us that God is King, set in the throne which
judges right; that order and justice, fellow-feeling and public
spirit, are His gifts, His likeness, on which He looks down with
loving care and protection; and that if we forget that, and begin to
fancy that law stands merely by the will of the many, or by the will
of the stronger, or even by the will of the wiser--by any will of man
in short; we shall end by neither being able to make just laws any
more, nor to obey those which we have, by the blessing of God,
already.



XXVIII--THE EDUCATION OF A HEATHEN



Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise, and extol, and honour the King of
heaven, all whose works are truth, and His ways judgment; and those
that walk in pride He is able to abase.--DANIEL iv. 37.

We read for the first lesson to-day two chapters out of the book of
Daniel.  Those who love to study their Bibles, have read often, of
course, not only these two chapters, but the whole book.

And I would advise all of you who wish to understand God's dealings
with mankind, to study this book of Daniel, and especially at this
present time.

I do not wish you to study it merely on account of those prophecies
in it, which many wise and good men think foretell the dates of our
Lord's first and second comings, and of the end of the world.  I am
not skilled, my friends, in that kind of wisdom.  I cannot tell you
what God will do hereafter.  But I think that the book of Daniel like
the other prophets, tells us what God is always doing on earth, and
so gives us certain and eternal rules by which we may understand
strange and terrible events, wars, distress of nations, the fall of
great men, and the suffering of innocent men, when we see them
happen, as we may see any day--perhaps very soon indeed.

The great lesson, I think, that this book of Daniel teaches us is,
that God is not the Lord of the Jews only, or of Christians only, but
of the whole earth; that the heathens are under His moral law and
government, as well as we; and that, as St. Peter says, God is no
respecter of persons:  but in every nation, he that feareth God, and
worketh righteousness, is accepted of him.  For the history of
Nebuchadnezzar seems to me to be the history of God's educating a
heathen and an idolater to know Him.  And we must always remember,
that as far as we can see, it was because Nebuchadnezzar was faithful
to the light which he had, that God gave him more.  Of course he had
his sins; the Bible tells us what they were; just the sins which one
would expect of a man brought up a heathen and an idolater; of one
who was a great conqueror, and had gained many bloody battles, and
learned to hold men's lives very cheap; of one who was an absolute
emperor, with no law but his own will, furious at any contradiction;
of a man of wonderful power of mind--confident in himself, his own
power, his own cunning.  But he seems not to have been a bad man,
considering his advantages.  The Bible never speaks harshly of him,
though he carried away the Jews captive to Babylon.  In all that
fearful war, Nebuchadnezzar was in the right, and the Jews in the
wrong; so at least Jeremiah the prophet declared.  Nebuchadnezzar
saved and respected Jeremiah; and Daniel seems to have regarded the
great conqueror with real respect and affection.  When Daniel says to
him, "O king, live for ever," and tells him that he is the head of
gold, and prays that his fearful dream may come true of his enemies
and not of him, I cannot believe that the prophet was using mere
empty phrases of court-flattery.  He really felt, I doubt not, that
Nebuchadnezzar was a great and good king, as kings went then, and his
government a gain (as it easily might be) to the nations whom he had
conquered, and that it was good that he should reign as long as
possible.

And we may well believe Daniel's interest in this great king, when we
consider how teachable Nebuchadnezzar showed himself under God's
education of him, so proving that there was in him the honest and
good heart, which, when The Word is sown in it, will bring forth
fruit, thirty-fold or a hundred-fold, according to the talents which
God has bestowed on each man.

This first lesson we read in the first chapter of Daniel.  He dreamt
a dream.  He felt that it was a very wonderful one:  but he forgot
what it was.  None of the magicians of Babylon could tell him.  A
young Jew, named Daniel, told him the dream and its meaning, and
declared at the same time that he had found it out by no wisdom of
his own, but God had revealed it to him.  Nebuchadnezzar learned his
lesson, and confessed Daniel's God to be a God of gods and a Lord of
kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing that Daniel could reveal
that secret; and forthwith, like a wise prince, advanced Daniel and
his companions to places of the highest authority and trust.

But Nebuchadnezzar required another lesson.  He had learned that the
God of the Jews was wiser than all the planets and heavenly lords and
gods whom the Babylonian magicians consulted; he had not learned that
that same God of the Jews was the Creator and Lord of heaven and
earth.  He had learned that the God of heaven favoured him, and had
helped him toward his power and glory; but he thought that for that
very reason the power and glory were his own--that he had a right
over the souls and consciences of his subjects, and might make them
worship what he liked, and how he liked.

Three Jews, whom he had set over the affairs of Babylon, refused to
worship the golden image which he had set up, and were cast into a
fiery furnace, and forthwith miraculously delivered, and beheld by
Nebuchadnezzar walking unhurt and loose in the midst of the furnace,
and with them a fourth, whose form was like the form of the Son of
God.

So Nebuchadnezzar was taught that this God of the Jews was the Lord
of men's souls and consciences; that they were to obey God rather
than man.  So he was taught that the God of the Jews was no mere star
or heavenly influence who could help men's fortunes, or bestow on
them a certain fixed destiny; but a living person, the Lord and
Master of the fire, and of all the powers of the earth, who could
change and stop those powers at His will, to deliver those who
trusted in Him and obeyed Him.

And this lesson, too, Nebuchadnezzar learned.  He confessed his
mistake upon the spot, just in the way in which we should have
expected a great Eastern king to do, though not in the most
enlightened or merciful way.  He "blessed the God of Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent His angel, and delivered His
servants who trusted in Him.  Therefore I make a decree, that every
people, nation, and language, which speak anything amiss against the
God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and
their houses be made a dunghill:  because there is no other God that
can deliver after this sort."

But there was still one deep mistake lying in the great king's heart
which required to be rooted out.  He had learnt that Jehovah, the God
of the Jews, was a revealer of secrets, a master of the fire, a
deliverer of those who trusted in Him, a living personal Lord, wise,
just, and faithful, very different from any of his star gods or
idols.  But he looked upon Jehovah only as the God of the Jews, as
Daniel's God.  He had not yet learnt that God was HIS God as well as
Daniel's; that Jehovah was very near his heart and mind, and had been
near him all his life; that from Jehovah came all his wisdom, his
strength of mind, his success, and all which made him differ, not
only from his fellow-men, but from the beast; that Jehovah, in a
word, was the light and the life of the world, who fills all things
and by whom all things consist, deserted by whose inward light, even
for a moment, man becomes as one of the beasts which perish.  In his
own eyes Nebuchadnezzar was still the great self-dependent, self-
sufficing conqueror, wiser and stronger than all the men around him.
He thought, most probably, that on account of his wisdom, and
courage, and royalty of soul, the God of heaven had become fond of
him and favoured him.  In short, he was swollen with pride.

God sent him again a strange dream, which made him troubled and
afraid.  He told it to his old counsellor Daniel; and Daniel, at the
danger of his life, interpreted it for him; and a very awful meaning
it had.  A fearful and shameful downfall was to come upon the king;
no less than the loss of his reason, and with it, of his throne.  But
whether this came to pass or not, depended, like all God's
everlasting promises and threats, on Nebuchadnezzar's own behaviour.
If he repented, and broke off his sins by righteousness, and his
iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, there was good reason to
hope that so his tranquillity might be lengthened.

But the lesson was too hard for the proud conqueror; he did not take
the warning.  He could not believe that the Most High ruled in the
kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will.  He still
fancied that he, and such as he, were the lords of the world, and
took from others by their own power and cunning whatsoever they
would.  He does not seem to have been angry, however, with Daniel for
his plain speaking.  Most Eastern kings like Nebuchadnezzar would
have put Daniel to a cruel death on the spot as the bearer of evil
news, speaking blasphemy against the king; and no one in those times
and countries would have considered him wicked and cruel for so
doing; but Nebuchadnezzar seems to have learnt too much already so to
give way to his passion.

Yet, as I said before, he had not learned enough to take God's
warning.  The lesson that he was nothing, and that God is all in all,
was too hard for him.  And, alas! my friends, for whom of us is it
not a hard lesson?  And yet it is the golden lesson, the first and
the last which man has to learn on earth, ay, and through all
eternity:  "I am nothing; God is all in all."  All in us which is
worth calling anything; all in us which is worth having, or worth
being; all in us which is not disobedience and shortcoming, failure
and mistake, ignorance and madness, filthiness and fierceness, as of
the beasts which perish; all strength in us, all understanding, all
prudence, all right-mindedness, all purity, all justice, all love;
all in us which is worth living for, all in us which is really alive,
and not mere death in life, the death of sin and the darkness of the
pit--all is from God the Father of lights, and from Jesus Christ the
life and the light, who lighteth every man who cometh into the world,
shining for ever in the darkness of our spirits, though that
darkness, alas! too often cannot comprehend, and embrace, and confess
Him who is striving to awake it from the dead and give it light.
Hardest of all lessons!  Most blessed of all lessons!  So blessed,
that if we will not let God teach it us in any other way, it would be
good and advantageous to us for Him to teach it us as He taught it to
Nebuchadnezzar--good for us to become with him for awhile like the
beasts that perish, that we might learn with him to lift up our eyes
to heaven, and so have our understandings return to us, and learn to
bless the Most High, and not our own wit, and cunning, and prudence;
and praise and honour Him that liveth for ever, instead of praising
and honouring our own pitiful paltry selves, who are in death in the
midst of life, who come up and are cut down like the flower, and
never continue in one stay.

"All this came upon the King Nebuchadnezzar."  It seems that after he
or his father had destroyed the old Babylon, the downfall of which
Isaiah had prophesied, he built a great city, after the fashion of
Eastern conquerors, near the ruins of the old one; and "at the end of
twelve months he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon.  The
king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built
for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the
honour of my majesty?  While the word was in the king's mouth, there
fell a voice from heaven, saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it
is spoken, The kingdom is departed from thee.  And they shall drive
thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the
field:  they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times
shall pass over thee, until thou know that the Most High ruleth in
the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will.  The same
hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar."

What a lesson!  The great conqueror of all the East now a brutal
madman, hateful and disgusting to all around him--a beast feeding
among the beasts:  and yet a cheap price--a cheap price--to pay for
this golden lesson.

Seven times past over him in his madness.  What those seven times
were we do not know.  They may have been actual years:  or they may
have been, as I am inclined to think, changes in his own soul and
state of mind.  But, at the end of the days, the truth dawned on him.
He began to see what it all meant.  He saw what he was, and why he
was so; and he lifted up his eyes to heaven; and from that moment his
madness past.  He lifted up his eyes to heaven.  That is no mere
figure of speech:  it is an actual truth.  Most madmen, if you watch
them, have that down look, or rather that inward look, as if their
eyes were fixed only on their own fancies.  They are thinking only of
themselves, poor creatures--of their own selfish and private
suspicions and wrongs--of their own selfish superstitious dreams
about heaven or hell--of their own selfish vanity and ambition--
sometimes of their own frantic self-conceit, or of their selfish
lusts and desires--of themselves, in short.  They have lost the one
Divine light of reason, and conscience, and love, which binds men to
each other, and are parted for a while from God and from their kind--
alone in their own darkness.  So was Nebuchadnezzar.

At last he looked up, as men do when they pray; up from himself to
One greater than himself; up from the earth to heaven; up from the
natural things which we do see, which are temporal and born to die,
to moral and spiritual things which we do not see, which are real and
eternal in the heavens; up from his own lonely darkness, looking for
the light and the guidance of God; for now he began to see that all
the light which he had ever had, all his wisdom, and understanding,
and strength of will, had come from God, however he might have
misused them for his own selfish ambition; that it was because God
had taken from him His light, who is the Word of God, that he had
become a beast.  And then his reason returned to him, and he became
again a man, a rational being, made, howsoever fallen and sinful, in
the likeness of God; then he blessed and praised God.  It was not
merely that he confessed that God was strong, and he weak; righteous,
and he sinful; wise, and he foolish; but he blessed and praised God;
he felt and confessed that God had done him a great benefit, and
taught him a great lesson--that God had taught him what he was in
himself and without God, that he might see what he was with God in
its true light, and honour and obey Him from whom his reason and
understanding, as well as his power and glory, came, that so it might
be fulfilled which the prophet says:  "Let not the wise man glory in
his wisdom, nor the mighty man in his might, nor the rich man in his
riches:  but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he
understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise
loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness IN THE EARTH; for in
these things I delight, saith the Lord."

And so was Nebuchadnezzar's soul brought to utter, in his own way,
the very same glorious song which, or something like it, is said to
have been sung by the three men whom, years before, he had seen
delivered from the fiery furnace, which calls on all the works of the
Lord, angels and heaven, sun and stars, seas and winds, mountains and
hills, fowls and cattle, priests and laymen, spirits and souls of the
righteous, to bless the Lord, praise Him, and magnify Him for ever.

And so ends Nebuchadnezzar's history.  We read no more of him.  He
had learnt the golden lesson.  May God grant that we may learn it
also!

But who tells the story of his madness?  He himself.  The whole
account is in the man's own words.  It seems to be some public letter
or proclamation, which he either sent round his empire, or commanded
to be laid up among his records; having, as it seems, set Daniel to
write it down from his mouth.  This one fact, I think, justifies me
in all that I have said about Nebuchadnezzar's nobleness, and
Daniel's affection for him.  He does not try to smooth things over;
to pretend that he has not been mad; to find excuses for himself; to
lay any blame on any human being.  He repents openly, confesses
openly.  Shameful as it may be to him, he tells the whole story.  He
confesses that he had fair warning, that all was his own fault.  He
justifies God utterly.  My friends, we may read, thank God, many
noble, and brave, and righteous speeches of kings and great men:  but
never have I read one so noble, so brave, so righteous as this of the
great king of Babylon.

And therefore it is; because this letter of his, in the fourth
chapter of the book of Daniel, is indeed full of the eternal Holy
Spirit of God; therefore it is, I say, that it forms part of the
Bible, part of holy scripture to this day,--a greater honour to
Nebuchadnezzar than all his kingdom; for what greater honour than to
have been inspired to write one chapter, yea, one sentence, of the
Book of Books?

My friends, every one of you here is in God's school-house, under
God's teaching, far more than Nebuchadnezzar was.  You are baptised
men, knowing that blessed name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which
Nebuchadnezzar only saw dimly, and afar off.  Jesus Christ, the Word
of God, is striving with your hearts, giving to them whatsoever light
and life they have.  You have been taught from childhood to look up
to Him as your King and Deliverer; to His Father as your Father, to
His Holy Spirit as your Inspirer.  Take heed how you listen to His
voice within your hearts.  Take heed how you learn God's lessons; for
God is surely educating you, and teaching you far more than He taught
the king of Babylon in old time.  As you learn or despise these
lessons of God's, will be your happiness or your misery now and for
ever.  Unto the king of Babylon little was given, and of him was
little required.  To you and me much has been given; of you and me
will much be required.



XXIX--JEREMIAH'S CALLING



Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a
righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall
execute judgment and justice in the earth.--JEREMIAH xxiii. 5.

At the time when Jeremiah the prophet spoke those words to the Jews,
nothing seemed more unlikely than that they would ever come true.
The whole Jewish nation was falling to pieces from its own sins.
Brutish and filthy idolatry in high and low--oppression, violence,
and luxury among the court and the nobility--shame, and poverty, and
ignorance among the lower classes--idleness and quackery among the
priesthood--and as kings over all, one fool and profligate after
another, set on the throne by a foreign conqueror, and pulled down
again by him at his pleasure.  Ten out of the twelve tribes of Israel
had been carried off captive, young and old, into a distant land.
The small portion of country which still remained inhabited round
Jerusalem, had been overrun again and again by cruel armies of
heathens.  Without Jerusalem was waste and ruins, bloodshed and
wretchedness; within every kind of iniquity and lies, division and
confusion.  If ever there was a miserable and contemptible people
upon the face of the earth, it was the Jewish nation in Jeremiah's
time.  Jeremiah makes no secret of it.  His prophecies are full of
it--full of lamentation and shame:  "Oh that my head were a fountain
of tears, to weep for the sins of my people!"  He feels that God has
sent him to rebuke those sins, to warn and prophesy to his fellow-
countrymen the certain ruin into which they are rushing headlong; and
he speaks God's message boldly.  From the poor idol-ridden labourer,
offering cakes to the Queen of Heaven to coax her into sending him a
good harvest, to the tyrant king who had built his palace of cedar
and painted it with vermilion, he had a bitter word for every man.
The lying priest tried to silence him; and Jeremiah answered him,
that his wife should be a harlot in the city, and his children sold
for slaves.  The king tried to flatter him into being quiet; and he
told him in return, that he should be buried with the burial of an
ass, dragged out and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.  The
luxurious queen, who made her nest in the cedars, would be ashamed
and confounded, he said, for her wickedness.  The crown prince was a
despised broken idol--a vessel in which was no pleasure; he should be
cast out, he and his children, into slavery in a land which he knew
not.  The whole royal family, he said, would perish; none of them
should ever again prosper or sit upon the throne of David.  This was
his message; shame and confusion, woe and ruin, to high and low;
every human being he passed in the street was a doomed man.  For the
day of the Lord was at hand, and who should be able to escape it?

A sad calling, truly, to have to work at; and all the more sad
because Jeremiah had no pride, no steadfast opinion of his own
excellence to keep him up.  He hates his calling of prophet.  At the
very moment he is foretelling woe, he prays God that his prophecy may
not come true; he tries every method to prevent its coming true, by
entreating his countrymen to repent.  There runs through all his
awful words a vein of tenderness, and pity, and love unspeakable,
which to me is the one great mark of a true prophet; a sign that
Jeremiah spoke by the Spirit of God; a sign that too many writers
nowadays do not speak by the Spirit of God.  If they rebuke the rich
and powerful, they do it generally in a very different spirit from
Jeremiah's--in a spirit of bitterness and insolence, not very easy to
describe, but easy enough to perceive.  They seem to rejoice in evil,
to delight in finding fault, to be sorry, and not glad, when their
prophecies of evil turn out false; to try to set one class against
another, one party against another, as if we were not miserably
enough split up already by class interests and party spirit.  They
are glad enough to rebuke the wicked great; but not to their face,
not to their own danger and hurt like Jeremiah.  Their plan is to
accuse the rich to the poor, on their own platform, or in their own
newspaper, where they are safe; and, moreover, to make a very fair
profit thereby; to say behind the back of authorities that which they
dare not say to their face, and which they soon give up saying when
they have worked their own way into office; and meanwhile take mighty
credit to themselves for seeing that there is wrong and misery in the
world; as if the spirits in hell should fancy themselves righteous,
because they hated the devil!  No, my friends, Jeremiah was of a very
different spirit from that.  If he ever was tempted to it when he was
young, and began to fancy himself a very grand person, who had a
right to look down on his neighbours, because God had called him and
set him apart to be a prophet from his mother's womb, and revealed to
him the doom of nations, and the secrets of His providence--if he
ever fancied that in his heart, God led him through such an education
as took all the pride out of him, sternly and bitterly enough.  He
was commissioned to go and speak terrible words, to curse kings and
nobles in the name of the Lord:  but he was taught, too, that it was
not a pleasant calling, or one which was likely to pay him in this
life.  His fellow-villagers plotted against his life.  His wife
deserted him.  The nobles threw him into a dungeon, into a well full
of mire, whence he had to be drawn up again with ropes to save his
life.  He was beaten, all but starved, kept for years in prison.  He
had neither child nor friend.  He had his share of all the miseries
of the siege of Jerusalem, and all the horrors of its storm; and when
he was set free by Nebuchadnezzar, and clung to his ruined home, to
see if any good could still be done to the remnant of his countrymen,
he was violently carried off into a heathen land, and at last stoned
to death, by those very countrymen of his whom he had been trying for
years to save.  In everything, and by everything, he was taught that
he was still a Jew, a brother to his sinful brothers; that their
sorrows were his sorrows, their shame his shame, their ruin his ruin.
In all their afflictions he was afflicted, even as his Lord was after
him.

He struggled, we find, again and again against this strange and sad
calling of a prophet.  He cried out in bitter agony that God had
deceived him; had induced him to become a prophet, and then repaid
him for speaking God's message with nothing but disappointment and
misery.  And yet he felt he must speak; God, he said, was stronger
than he was, and forced him to it.  He said:  "I will speak no more
words in His name; but the Word of the Lord was as fire within his
bones, and would not let him rest;" and so, in spite of himself, he
told the truth, and suffered for it; and hated to have to tell it,
and pitied and loved the very country which he rebuked till he cursed
"the day in which he saw the light, and the hour in which it was said
to his father, there is a man-child born."  You who fancy that it is
a fine thing, and a paying profession, to be a preacher of
righteousness and a rebuker of sin, look at Jeremiah, and judge!  For
as surely as you or any other man is sent by God to do Jeremiah's
work, so surely he must expect Jeremiah's wages.

Do you think, then, that Jeremiah was a man only to be pitied?
Pitiable he was indeed, and sad.  There was One hung on a cross
eighteen hundred years ago, more pitiable still:  and yet He is the
Lord of heaven and earth.  Yes; Jeremiah had a sad life to live, and
a sad task to work out; and yet, my friends, was not that a cheap
price to pay for the honour and glory of being taught by God's
Spirit, and of speaking God's words?  I do not mean the mere honour
of having his fame and name spread over all Christ's kingdom; the
honour of having his writings read and respected by the wisest and
the holiest to the end of time; that mere earthly fame is but a
slight matter.  I mean the real honour, the real glory, of knowing
what was utterly right and true, and therefore of knowing Him who is
utterly right and true; of knowing God; of knowing what God's
character is:  that he is a living God, and not a dead one; a God who
is near and not absent at all, loving and merciful, just and
righteous, strong and mighty to save.  Ay, my friends, this is the
lesson which God taught Jeremiah; to know the Lord of heaven and
earth, and to see His hand, His rule, in all that was happening to
his fellow-countrymen, and himself; to know that from the beginning
the Lord, the Saviour-God, Jehovah, the messenger of the covenant, He
who brought up the Jews out of Egypt, was the wise and just and
loving King of the Jews, and of all the nations upon earth; and that
some day or other He must and would conquer all the sinfulness, and
misery, and tyranny, and idolatry in the world, and show Himself
openly to men, and fulfil all the piteous longings after a just and
good king which poor wretches had ever felt, and all the glorious
promises of a just and good king which God had made to the wise men
of old time; and, therefore, in the midst of shame and persecution,
despair and ruin, Jeremiah could rejoice.  Jehoiakim, the wicked
king, and all his royal house, might be driven out into slavery;
Jerusalem might become a heap of ruins and corpses; the fair land of
Judaea, and the village where he was bred, might become thorns, and
thistles, and heaps of stones; the vineyard which he loved, the
little estate at Anathoth which had belonged to him, might be trodden
down by the stranger, and he himself die in a foreign land; around
him might be nothing but sin and decay, before him nothing but
despair and ruin:  yet still there was hope, joy, everlasting
certainty for that poor, childless, captive old man; for he had found
out that the Lord still lived, the Lord still reigned.  He could not
lie; he could not forget his people.  Could a mother forget her
sucking child?  No.  When the Jews turned to Him, He would still have
mercy.  His punishment of them was a sign that he still cared for
them.  If He had forgotten them, He would have let them go on
triumphant in their iniquity.  No.  All these afflictions were meant
to chasten them, teach them, bring them back to Him.  It would be
good for them, an actual blessing to them, to be taken away into
captivity in Babylon.  It might be hard to believe, but it must be
true.  The Lord of Israel, the Saviour-God, who had been caring for
them so long, rising up early and sending His prophets to them,
pleading with them as a father with his child, He would have mercy;
He would teach them, in sorrow and slavery, the lesson they were too
rebellious and hard-hearted to learn in prosperity and freedom:  that
the Lord was their righteousness, and that there was no other name
under heaven which could save them from the plague, and from the
famine, from the swords of the Chaldeans, or from the division, and
oppression, and brutishness, and manifold wickedness, which was their
ruin.  And then Jeremiah saw and felt--how we cannot tell--but there
his words, the words of this text, stand to this day, to show that he
did see and feel it, that some day or other, in God's good time, the
Jews would have a true King--a very different king from Jehoiakim the
tyrant--a son of David in a very different sense from what Jehoiakim
was; that He would come, and must come, sooner or later, The unseen
King, who had all along been governing Jews and heathens, and telling
his prophets that Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus, the Chaldee and the
Persian, were his servants as well as they, and that all the nations
of the earth could do but what he chose.  "Behold the days come,
saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and
a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute justice and
judgment on the earth."

This was the blessed knowledge which God gave Jeremiah in return for
all the misery he had to endure in warning his countrymen of their
sins.  And this same blessed knowledge, the knowledge that the earth
is the Lord's, that to Jesus Christ is given, as He said Himself, all
power in heaven and earth, and that He is reigning, and must reign,
and conquer, and triumph till He has put all His enemies under His
feet, God will surely give to everyone, high or low, who follows
Jeremiah's example, who boldly and faithfully warns the sinner of his
way, who rebukes the wickedness which he sees around him:  only he
must do it in the spirit of Jeremiah.  He must not be insolent to the
insolent, or proud to the proud.  He must not be puffed up, and fancy
that because he sees the evil of sin, and the certain ruin which is
the fruit of it, that he is therefore to keep apart from his fellow-
countrymen, and despise them in Pharisaic pride.  No.  The truly
Christian man, the man who, like Jeremiah, has the Spirit of God in
him, will feel the most intense pity and tenderness of sinners.  He
will not only rebuke the sins of his people, but mourn for them; he
will be afflicted in all their affliction.  However harshly he may
have to speak, he will never forget that they are his countrymen, his
brothers, children of the same Father, to be judged by the same Lord.
He will feel with shame and fear that he has in himself the root of
the very same sins which he sees working death around him--that if
others are covetous, he might be so too--if they be profligate, and
deceitful, and hypocritical, without God in the world, he might be so
too.  And he must feel not only that he might be as bad as his
neighbours, but that he actually would be, if God withdrew His Spirit
from him for a moment, and allowed him to forget the only faith which
saves him from sin, loyalty to his unseen Saviour, the righteous King
of kings.  Therefore he will not only rebuke his sinful neighbours;
but he will tell them, as Jeremiah told his countrymen, that all
their sin and misery proceed from this one thing, that they have
forgotten that the Lord is their King.  He will pray daily for them,
that the Lord their King may show Himself to their hearts and
thoughts, and teach them all that He has done for them, and is doing
for them; and may convert them to Himself that they may be truly His
people, and His way may be known upon earth, His saving health among
all nations.



XXX--THE PERFECT KING



Tell ye the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy King cometh to thee, meek,
and sitting upon an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass.--MATTHEW
xxi. 5.

You all know that this Sunday is called the First Sunday in Advent.
You all know, I hope, that Advent means coming, and that these four
Sundays before Christmas, as I have often told you, are called Advent
Sundays, because upon them we are called to consider the coming of
our King and Saviour Jesus Christ.  If you will look at the Collects,
Epistles, and Gospels for these next four Sundays, you will see at
once that they all bear upon our Lord's coming.  The Gospels tell us
of the prophecies about Christ which He fulfilled when He came.  The
Epistles tell us what sort of men we ought to be, both clergy and
people, because He has come and will come again.  The Collects pray
that the Spirit of God would make us fit to live and die in a world
into which Christ has come, and in which He is ruling now, and to
which He will come again.  The text which I have taken this morning,
you just heard in this Sunday's Gospel.  St. Matthew tells you that
Jesus Christ fulfilled it by riding into Jerusalem in state upon an
ass's colt; and St. Matthew surely speaks truth.  Let us consider
what the prophecy is, and how Jesus Christ fulfilled it.  Then we
shall see and believe from the Epistle what effect the knowledge of
it ought to have upon our own souls, and hearts, and daily conduct.

Now this prophecy, "Behold, thy king cometh unto thee," etc., you
will find in your Bibles, in the ninth verse of the ninth chapter of
the book of Zechariah.  But I do not think that Zechariah wrote it.
St. Matthew does not say he wrote it; he merely calls it that which
was spoken by the prophet, without mentioning his name.  Provided it
is an inspired word from God, which it is, it perhaps does not matter
to us so much who wrote it:  but I think it was written by the
prophet Jeremiah, perhaps in the beginning of the reign of the good
king Josiah; for the chapter in which this text is, and the two or
three chapters which follow, are not at all like the rest of
Zechariah's writings, but exactly like Jeremiah's.  They certainly
seem to speak of things which did not happen in Zechariah's time, but
in the time of Jeremiah, nearly ninety years before.  And, above all,
St. Matthew himself seems plainly to have thought that some part, at
least, of those chapters was Jeremiah's writing; for in the twenty-
seventh chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, and in the ninth verse, you
will find a prophecy about the potter's field, which St. Matthew says
was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet.  Now, those words are not in the
book of Jeremiah as it stands in our Bibles:  but they are in the
book of Zechariah, in the eleventh chapter, twelfth and thirteenth
verses, coming shortly after my text, and making a part of the same
prophecy.  This has puzzled Christians very much, because it seemed
as if St. Matthew has made a mistake, and miscalled Zechariah
Jeremiah.  But I believe firmly that, as we are bound to expect, St.
Matthew made no mistake whatsoever, and that Jeremiah did write that
prophecy as St. Matthew said, and the two chapters before it, and
perhaps the two after it, and that they were probably kept and
preserved by Zechariah during the troublous times of the Babylonish
captivity, and at last copied by Nehemiah into Zechariah's book of
prophecy, where they stand now; and I think it is a comfort to know
this, and to find that the evangelist St. Matthew has not made a
mistake, but knew the Scriptures better than we do.

But I think Jeremiah having written this prophecy in my text, which I
believe he did, is also very important, because it will show us what
the prophet meant when he spoke it, and how it was fulfilled in his
time; and the better we understand that, the better we shall
understand how our blessed Lord fulfilled it afterwards.

Now, when Jeremiah was a young man, the Jews and their king Amon were
in a state of most abominable wickedness.  They were worshipping
every sort of idol and false god.  And the Bible, the book of God's
law, was utterly unknown amongst them; so that Josiah the king, who
succeeded Amon, had never seen or heard the book of the law of Moses,
which makes part of our Old Testament, till he had reigned eighteen
years, as you will find if you refer to 2 Kings xxii. 3.  But this
Josiah was a gentle and just prince, and finding the book of the law
of God, and seeing the abominable forgetfulness and idolatry into
which his people had fallen, utterly breaking the covenant which God
had made with their forefathers when he brought them up out of Egypt--
when he found the book of the law, I say, and all that he and his
people should have done and had not done, and the awful curses which
God threatened in that book against those who broke His law, "he
humbled himself before God, because his heart was tender, and turned
to the Lord, as no king before him had ever turned," says the
scripture, "with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all
his might; so that there was no such king before him, or either after
him."  The history of the great reformation which this great and good
king worked, you may read at length in 2 Kings xxii. xxiii. and 2
Chron. xxxiv. xxxv. which I advise you all to read.

And it appears to me that this prophecy in the text first applies to
the gentle and holy king Josiah, the first true and good king the
Jews had had for years, and the best they were ever to have till
Christ came Himself; and that it speaks of Josiah coming to Jerusalem
to restore the worship of God, not with pomp and show, like the
wicked kings both before and after him, but in meekness and
humbleness of heart, for all the sins of his people, as the
prophetess said of him in 2 Kings xxii. 19, "that his heart was
tender and humble before the Lord;" neither coming with chariots and
guards, like a king and conqueror, but riding upon an ass's colt; for
that was, in those countries, the ancient sign of a man's being a man
of peace, and not of war; a magistrate and lawgiver, and not a
soldier and a conqueror.  Various places of holy scripture show us
that this was the meaning of riding upon an ass in Judaea, just as it
is in Eastern countries now.

But some may say, How then is this a prophecy?  It merely tells us
what good king Josiah was, and what every king ought to be.  Well, my
friends, that is just what makes it a prophecy.  If it tells you what
ought to be, it tells you what will be.  Yes, never forget that;
whatever ought to be, surely will be; as surely as this is God's
earth and Christ's kingdom, and not the devil's.

Now, it does not matter in the least whether the prophet, when he
spoke these words, knew that they would apply to the Lord Jesus
Christ.  We have no need whatsoever to suppose that he did:  for
scripture gives us no hint or warrant that he did; and if we have any
real or honest reverence for scripture, we shall be careful to let it
tell its own story, and believe that it contains all things necessary
for salvation, without our patching our own notions into it over and
above.  Wise men are generally agreed that those old prophets did
not, for the most part, comprehend the full meaning of their own
words.  Not that they were mere puppets and mouthpieces, speaking
what to them was nonsense--God forbid!--But that just because they
did thoroughly understand what was going on round them, and see
things as God saw them, just because they had God's Eternal Spirit
with them, therefore they spoke great and eternal words, which will
be true for ever, and will go on for ever fulfilling themselves for
more and more.  For in proportion as any man's words are true, and
wide, and deep, they are truer, and wider, and deeper than that man
thinks, and will apply to a thousand matters of which he never
dreamt.  And so in all true and righteous speech, as in the speeches
of the prophets of old, the glory is not man's who speaks them, but
God's who reveals them, and who fulfils them again and again.

It is true, then, that this text describes what every king should be--
gentle and humble, a merciful and righteous lawgiver, not a self-
willed and capricious tyrant.  But Josiah could not fulfil that.  He
was a good king:  but he could not be a perfect one; for he was but a
poor, sinful, weak, and inconsistent man, as we are.  But those words
being inspired by the Holy Spirit, must be fulfilled.  There ought to
be a perfect king, perfectly gentle and humble, having a perfect
salvation, a perfect lawgiver; and therefore there must be such a
king; and therefore St. Matthew tells us there came at last a perfect
king--one who fulfilled perfectly the prophet's words--one who was
not made king of Jerusalem, but was her King from the beginning; for
that is the full meaning of "Thy King cometh to thee."  To Jerusalem
He came, riding on the ass's colt, like the peaceful and fatherly
judges of old time, for a sign to the poor souls round Him, who had
no lawgivers but the proud and fierce Scribes and Pharisees, no king
but the cruel and godless Caesar, and his oppressive and extortionate
officers and troops.  Meek and lowly He came; and for once the people
saw that He was the true Son of David--a man and king, like him,
after God's own heart.  For once they felt that He had come in the
name of the Lord the old Deliverer who brought them out of the land
of Egypt, and made them into a nation, and loved and pitied them
still, in spite of all their sins, and remembered His covenant, which
they had forgotten.  And before that humble man, the Son of the
village maiden, they cried:  "Hosanna to the Son of David.  Blessed
is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.  Hosanna in the Highest."

And do you think He came, the true and perfect King, only to go away
again and leave this world as it was before, without a law, a ruler,
a heavenly kingdom?  God forbid!  Jesus is the same yesterday, to-
day, and for ever.  What He was then, when He rode in triumph into
Jerusalem, that is He now to us this day--a king, meek and lowly, and
having salvation; the head and founder of a kingdom which can never
be moved, a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is
God.  To that kingdom this land of England now belongs.  Into it we,
as Englishmen, have been christened.  And the unchristened, though
they know not of it, belong to it as well.  What God's will, what
Christ's mercies may be to them, we know not.  That He has mercy for
them, if their ignorance is not their own fault, we doubt not;
perhaps, even if their ignorance be their own fault, we need not
doubt that He has mercy for them, considering the mercy which He has
shown to us, who deserved no more than they.  But His will to us we
do know; and His will is this--our holiness.  For He came not only to
assert His own power, to redeem his own world, but to set His people,
the children of men, an example, that they should follow in His
steps.  Herein, too, He is the perfect king.  He leads His subjects,
He sets a perfect example to His subjects, and more, He inspires them
with the power of following that example, as, if you will think, a
perfect ruler ought to be able to do.  Josiah set the Jews an
example, but he could not make them follow it.  They turned to God at
the bidding of their good king, with their lips, in their outward
conduct; but their hearts were still far from Him.  Jeremiah
complains bitterly of this in the beginning of his prophecies.  He
complains that Josiah's reformation was after all empty, hollow,
hypocritical, a change on the surface only, while the wicked root was
left.  They had healed, he said, the hurt of the daughter of his
people slightly, crying, "Peace, peace, when there was no peace."
But Jesus, the perfect King, is King of men's spirits as well as of
their bodies.  He can turn the heart, He can renew the soul.  None so
ignorant, none so sinful, none so crushed down with evil habits, but
the Lord will and can forgive him, raise him up, enlighten him,
strengthen him, if he will but claim his share in his King's mercy,
his citizenship in the heavenly kingdom, and so put himself in tune
again with himself, and with heaven, and earth, and all therein.

Keeping in mind these things, that Jesus, because He is our perfect
King, is both the example and the inspirer of our souls and
characters, we may look without fear at the epistle for the day,
where it calls on us to be very different persons from what we are,
and declares to us our duty as subjects of Him who is meek and lowly,
just and having salvation.  It is no superstitious, slavish message,
saying:  "You have lost Christ's mercy and Christ's kingdom; you must
buy it back again by sacrifices, and tears, and hard penances, or
great alms-deeds and works of mercy."  No.  It simply says:  "You
belong to Christ already, give up your hearts to Him and follow His
example.  If He is perfect, His is the example to follow; if he is
perfect, His commandments must be perfect, fit for all places, all
times, all employments; if He is the King of heaven and earth, His
commandments must be in tune with heaven and earth, with the laws of
nature, the true laws of society and trade, with the constitution,
and business, and duty, and happiness of all mankind, and for ever
obey Him."

Owe no man anything save love, for He owed no man anything.  He gave
up all, even His own rights, for a time, for His subjects.  Will you
pretend to follow Him while you hold back from your brothers and
fellow-servants their just due?  One debt you must always owe; one
debt will grow the more you pay it, and become more delightful to
owe, the greater and heavier you feel it to be, and that is love;
love to all around you, for all around you are your brothers and
sisters; all around you are the beloved subjects of your King and
Saviour.  Love them as you love yourself, and then you cannot harm
them, you cannot tyrannise over them, you cannot wish to rise by
scrambling up on their shoulders, taking the bread out of their
mouths, making your profit out of their weakness and their need.
This, St. Paul says, was the duty of men in his time, because the
night of heathendom was far spent, the day of Christianity and the
Church was at hand.  Much more is it our duty now--our duty, who have
been born in the full sunshine of Christianity, christened into His
church as children, we and our fathers before us, for generations, of
the kingdom of God.  Ay, my friends, these words, that kingdom, that
King, witness this day against this land of England.  Not merely
against popery, the mote which we are trying to take out of the
foreigner's eye, but against Mammon, the beam which we are
overlooking in our own.  Owe no man anything save love.  "Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself."  That is the law of your King, who
loved not Himself or His own profit, His own glory, but gave Himself
even to death for those who had forgotten Him and rebelled against
Him.  That law witnesses against selfishness and idleness in rich and
poor.  It witnesses against the employer who grinds down his workmen;
who, as the world tells him he has a right to do, takes advantage of
their numbers, their ignorance, their low and reckless habits, to
rise upon their fall, and grow rich out of their poverty.  It
witnesses against the tradesman who tries to draw away his
neighbour's custom.  It witnesses against the working man who spends
in the alehouse the wages which might support and raise his children,
and then falls back recklessly and dishonestly on the parish rates
and the alms of the charitable.  Against them all this law witnesses.
These things are unfit for the kingdom of Christ, contrary to the
laws and constitution thereof, hateful to the King thereof; and if a
nation will not amend these abominations, the King will arise out of
His place, and with sore judgments and terrible He will visit His
land and purify His temple, saying:  "My Father's house should be a
house of prayer, and ye have made it a den of thieves."  Ay, woe to
any soul, or to any nation, which, instead of putting on the Lord
Jesus Christ, copying His example, obeying His laws, and living
worthy of His kingdom, not only in the church, but in the market, the
shop, the senate, or the palace, give themselves up to covetousness,
which is idolatry; and care only to make provision for the flesh, to
fulfil the lusts thereof.  Woe to them; for, let them be what they
will, their King cannot change.  He is still meek and lowly; He is
still just and having salvation; and He will purge out of His kingdom
all that is not like Himself, the unchaste and the idle, the unjust
and the unmerciful, and the covetous man, who is an idolater, says
the scripture, though he may call himself seven times a Protestant,
and rail at the Pope in public meetings, while he justifies
greediness and tyranny by glib words about the necessities of
business and the laws of trade, and by philosophy falsely so called,
which cometh not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.  Such
a man loves and makes a lie, and the Lord of truth will surely send
him to his own place.



XXXI--GOD'S WARNINGS



It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I
purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil
way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.--JEREMIAH
xxxvi. 3.

The first lesson for this evening's service tells us of the
wickedness of Jehoiakim, king of Judah.  How, when Jeremiah's
prophecies against the sins of Jehoiakim and his people were read
before him, he cut the roll with a penknife, and threw it into the
fire.  Now, we must not look on this story as one which, because it
happened among the Jews many hundred years ago, has nothing to do
with us; for, as I continually remind you, the history of the Jews,
and the whole Old Testament, is the history of God's dealings with
man--the account of God's plan of governing this world.  Now, God
cannot change; but is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and
therefore His plan of government cannot change:  but if men do as
those did of whom we read in the Old Testament, God will surely deal
with them as He dealt with the men of the Old Testament.  This St.
Paul tells us most plainly in the tenth chapter of 1 Corinthians,
where he says that the whole history of the Jews was written for our
example--that is for the example of those Christian Corinthians, who
were not Jews at all, but Gentiles as we are; and therefore for our
example also.

He tells them, that it was Christ Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, who
fed and guided the old Jews in the wilderness, and that the Lord will
deal with us exactly as He dealt with the old Jews.

Therefore it is a great and fearful mistake, to suppose that because
the Jews were a peculiar people and God's chosen nation, that
therefore the Lord's way of governing them is in any wise different
from His way of governing us English at this very day; for that fancy
is contrary to the express words of Holy Scripture, in a hundred
different places; it is contrary to the whole spirit of our Prayer
Book, which is written all through on the belief that the Lord deals
with us just as He did with the Jewish nation, and which will not
even make sense if it be understood in any other way; and besides, it
is most dangerous to the souls and consciences of men.  It is most
dangerous for us to fancy that God can change; for if God can change,
right and wrong can change; for right is the will of God, and wrong
is what is against His will; and if we once let into our hearts the
notion that God can change His laws of right, our consciences will
become daily dimmer and more confused about right and wrong, till we
fall, as too many do, under the prophet's curse, "Woe to them who
call good evil, and evil good; who put sweet for bitter, and bitter
for sweet," and fancy, like Ezekiel's Jews, that God's ways are
unequal; that is, unlike each other, changeable, arbitrary, and
capricious, doing one thing at one time, and another at another.  No.
It is sinful man who is changeable; it is sinful man who is
arbitrary.  But The Lord is not a man, that He should lie or repent;
for He is the only-begotten Son, and therefore the express likeness,
of The Everlasting Father, in whom is no variableness, nor shadow of
turning.

But some may say, Is not that a gloomy and terrible notion of God,
that He cannot change His purpose?  Is not that as much as to say
that there is a dark necessity hanging over each of us; that a man
must just be what God chooses, and do just what He has ordained to
do, and go to everlasting happiness or misery exactly as God has
foreordained from all eternity, so that there is no use trying to do
right, or not to do wrong?  If I am to be saved, say such people, I
shall be saved whether I try or not; and if I am to be damned, I
shall be damned whether I try or not.  I am in God's hands like clay
in the hands of the potter; and what I am like is therefore God's
business, and not mine.

No, my friends, the very texts in the Bible which tell us that God
cannot change or repent, tell us what it is that He cannot change in--
in showing loving-kindness and tender mercy, long-suffering, and
repenting of the evil.  Whatsoever else He cannot repent of, He
cannot repent of repenting of the evil.

It is true, we are in His hand as clay in the hand of the potter.
But it is a sad misreading of scripture to make that mean that we are
to sit with our hands folded, careless about our own way and conduct;
still less that we are to give ourselves up to despair, because we
have sinned against God; for what is the very verse which follows
after that?  Listen.  "O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as
this potter? saith the Lord.  Behold, as the clay is in the hand of
the potter, so are ye in my hand, O house of Israel.  At what instant
I shall speak concerning a kingdom, to pull down and destroy it; if
that nation against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I
will repent of the evil which I thought to do to them.  And at what
instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom,
to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not
my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would
benefit them."

So that the lesson which we are to draw from the parable of the
potter's clay is just the exact opposite which some men draw.  Not
that God's decrees are absolute:  but that they are conditional, and
depend on our good or evil conduct.  Not that His election or His
reprobation are unalterable, but that they alter "at that instant" at
which man alters.  Not that His grace and will are irresistible, as
the foolish man against whom St. Paul argues fancies:  but that we
can resist God's will, and that our destruction comes only by
resisting His will; in short, that God's will is no brute material
necessity and fate, but the will of a living, loving Father.

And the very same lesson is taught us in Ezek. xviii., of which I
spoke just now; for if we read that chapter we shall find that the
Jews had a false notion of God that He had changed His character, and
had become in their time unmerciful and unjust.  They fancied that
God was, if I may so speak, obstinate--that if His anger had once
arisen, there was no turning it away, but that He would go on without
pity, punishing the innocent children for their father's sin; and
therefore they fancied God's ways were unfair, self-willed, and
arbitrary, without any care of what sort of person He afflicted;
punishing the righteous as well as the wicked, after He had promised
in His law to reward the righteous and punish the wicked.  They
fancied that His way of governing the world had changed, and that He
did not in their days make a difference between the bad and the good.
Therefore Ezekiel says to them:  "When the righteous man turneth away
from his righteousness, he shall die."  "When the wicked man turneth
away from his wickedness, he shall live."  "Have I any pleasure at
all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God, and not that he
should return from his ways, and live?"

This, then, is the good news, that God is love; love when He
punishes, and love when He forgives; very pitiful, and full of long-
suffering and tender mercy and repenting Him, never of the good, but
only of the evil which He threatens.

Both Jeremiah, therefore, and Ezekiel, give us the same lesson.  God
does not change, and therefore He never changes His mercy and His
justice:  for He is merciful because He is just.  If we confess our
sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.  That is His
everlasting law, and has been from the beginning:  Punishment, sure
and certain, for those who do not repent; and free forgiveness, sure
and certain also, for those who do repent.

So He spoke to Jeremiah in the time of Jehoiakim:  "It may be that
the house of Judah will hear all the evil that I purpose to do to
them; that I may forgive them their iniquity and their sin."  The
Lord, you see, wishes to forgive--longs to forgive.  His heart yearns
over sinful men as a father's over his rebellious child.  But if they
will still rebel, if they will still turn their wicked wills away
from Him, He must punish.  Why we know not; but He knows.  Punish He
must, unless we repent--unless we turn our wills toward His will.
And woe to the stiff-necked and stout-hearted man who, like the
wicked king Jehoiakim, sets his face like a flint against God's
warnings.  How many, how many behave for years, Sunday after Sunday,
just as king Jehoiakim did!  When he heard that God had threatened
him with ruin for his sins, he heard also that God offered him free
pardon if he would repent.  Jeremiah gave him free choice to be saved
or to be ruined; but his heart and will were hardened.  Hearing that
he was wrong only made him angry.  His pride and self-will were hurt
by being told that he must change and alter his ways.  He had chosen
his way, and he would keep to it; and he cared nothing for God's
offers of forgiveness, because he could not be forgiven unless he did
what he was too proud to do, confess himself to be in the wrong, and
openly alter his conduct.  And how many, as I first said, are like
him!  They come to church; they hear God's warnings and threats
against their evil ways; they hear God's offers of free pardon and
forgiveness; but being told that they are in the wrong makes them too
angry to care for God's offers of pardon.  Pride stops their cars.
They have chosen their own way, and they will keep it.  They would
not object to be forgiven, if they might be forgiven without
repenting.  But they do not like to confess themselves in the wrong.
They do not like to face their foolish companions' remarks and sneers
about their changed ways.  They do not like even good people to say
of them:  "You see now that you were in the wrong after all; for you
have altered your mind and your doings yourself, as we told you you
would have to do."  No; anything sooner than confess themselves in
the wrong; and so they turn their backs on God's mercy, for the sake
of their own carnal pride and self-will.

But, of course, they want an excuse for doing that; and when a man
wants an excuse, the devil will soon fit him with a good one.  Then,
perhaps, the foolish sinner behaves as Jehoiakim did.  He tries to
forget God's message in the man who brings it.  He grows angry with
the preacher, or goes out and laughs at the preacher when service is
over, as if it was the preacher's fault that God had declared what he
has; as if it was the preacher's doing that God has revealed His
anger against all sin and unrighteousness.  So he acts like
Jehoiakim, who tried to take Jeremiah the prophet and punish HIM, for
what not he but the Lord God had declared.  Nay, they will often
peevishly hate the very sight of a good book, because it reminds them
of the sins of which they do not choose to be reminded, just as the
young king Jehoiakim was childish enough to vent his spite on
Jeremiah's book of prophecies, by cutting the roll on which it was
written with a penknife, and throwing it into the fire.  So do
sinners who are angry with the preacher who warns them, or hate the
sight of good books.  But let such foolish and wilful sinners, such
full-grown children--for, after all, they are no better--hear the
word of the Lord which came to Jehoiakim:  "As it is written, he that
despiseth Me shall be despised, saith the Lord."  And let them not
fancy that their shutting their ears will shut the preacher's mouth,
still less shut up God's everlasting laws of punishment for sin.  No.
God's word stands true, and it will happen to them as it did to
Jehoiakim.  His burning Jeremiah's book did not rid him of the book,
or save him from the woe and ruin which was prophesied in it; for we
have Jeremiah's book here in our Bibles to this day, as a sign and a
warning of what happens to men, be they young or old, be they kings
or labouring men, who fight against God.  Jeremiah's words were not
lost after all; they were all re-written, and there were added to
them also many more like words; for Jehoiakim, by refusing the Lord's
offer of pardon, had added to his sins, and therefore the Lord added
to his punishment.

Perhaps, again, the devil finds the wilful sinner another excuse, and
the man says to himself, as the Jews did in Ezekiel's time:  "The
fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on
edge.  It is not my own fault that I am living a bad life, but other
people's.  My parents ought to have brought me up better.  I have had
no chance.  My companions taught me too much harm.  I have too much
trouble to get my living; or, I was born with a bad temper; or, I
can't help running after pleasure.  Why did God make me the sort of
man I am, and put me where I am?  God is hard upon me; He is unfair
to me.  His ways are unequal; He expects as much of me as He does of
people who have more opportunities.  He threatens to punish me for
other people's sins."

And then comes another and a darker temptation over the man, and the
devil whispers to him such thoughts as these:  "God does not care for
me; God hates me.  Luck, and everything else is against me.  There
seems to be some curse upon me.  Why should I change?  Let God change
first to me, and then I will change toward Him.  But God will not
change; He is determined to have no mercy on me.  I can see that; for
everything goes wrong with me.  Then what use in my repenting?  I
will just go my own way, and what must be must.  There is no
resisting God's will.  If I am to be saved, I shall be; if I am to be
damned, I shall be.  I will put all melancholy thoughts out of my
head, and go and enjoy myself and forget all.  At all events, it
won't last long:  'Let me eat and drink, for to-morrow I die.'"

Oh, my dear friends, have not some of you sometimes had such
thoughts?  Then hear the word of the Lord to you:  "When--whensoever--
whensoever 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."  "Have I any pleasure in the death of him that
dieth? saith the Lord, and not rather that he should be converted,
and live?"  True, most true, that the Lord is unchangeable:  but it
is in love and mercy.  True, that God's will and law cannot alter:
but what is God's will and law?  The soul that sinneth, it shall die?
Yes.  But also, the soul that turneth away from its sin, it shall
live.  Never believe the devil when he tells you that God hates you.
Never believe him when he tells you that God has been too hard on
you, and put you into such temptation, or ignorance, or poverty, or
anything else, that you cannot mend.  No.  That font there will give
the devil the lie.  That font says:  "Be you poor, tempted, ignorant,
stupid, be you what you will, you are God's child--your Father's love
is over you, His mercy is ready for you."  You feel too weak to
change; ask God's Spirit, and He will give you a strength of mind you
never felt before.  You feel too proud to change; ask God's Spirit,
and He will humble your proud heart, and soften your hard heart; and
you will find to your surprise, that when your pride is gone, when
you are utterly ashamed of yourself, and see your sins in their true
blackness, and feel not worthy to look up to God, that then, instead
of pride, will come a nobler, holier, manlier feeling--self-respect,
and a clear conscience, and the thought that, weak and sinful as you
are, you are in the right way; that God, and the angels of God, are
smiling on you; that you are in tune again with all heaven and earth,
because you are what God wills you to be--not His proud, peevish,
self-willed child, fancying yourself strong enough to go alone, when
in reality you are the slave of your own passions and appetites, and
the plaything of the devil:  but His loving, loyal son, strong in the
strength which God gives you, and able to do what you will, because
what you will God wills also.



XXXII--PHARAOH'S HEART



And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people
go.--Exodus ix. 17.

What lesson, now, can we draw from this story?  One, at least, and a
very important one.  What effect did all these signs and wonders of
God's sending, have upon Pharaoh and his servants?  Did they make
them better men or worse men?  We read that they made them worse men;
that they helped to harden their hearts.  We read that the Lord
hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of
Israel go.  Now, how did the Lord do that?  He did not wish and mean
to make Pharaoh more hard-hearted, more wicked.  That is impossible.
God, who is all goodness and love, never can wish to make any human
being one atom worse than he is.  He who so loved the world that He
came down on earth to die for sinners, and take away the sins of the
world, would never make any human being a greater sinner than he was
before.  That is impossible, and horrible to think of.  Therefore,
when we read that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, we must be
certain that that was Pharaoh's own fault; and so, we read, it was
Pharaoh's own fault.  The Lord did not bring all these plagues on
Egypt without giving Pharaoh fair warning.  Before each plague, He
sent Moses to tell Pharaoh that the plague was coming.  The Lord told
Pharaoh that He was his Master, and the Master and Lord of the whole
earth; that the children of Israel belonged to Him, and the Egyptians
too; that the river, light and darkness, the weather, the crops, and
the insects, and the locusts belonged to Him; that all diseases which
afflict man and beast were in His power.  And the Lord proved that
His words were true, in a way Pharaoh could not mistake, by changing
the river into blood, and sending darkness, and hailstones, and
plagues of lice and flies, and at last by killing the firstborn of
all the Egyptians.  The Lord gave Pharaoh every chance; He
condescended to argue with him as one man would with another, and
proved His word to be true, and proved that He had a right to command
Pharaoh.  And therefore, I say, if Pharaoh's heart was hardened, it
was his own fault, for the Lord was plainly trying to soften it, and
to bring him to reason.  And the Bible says distinctly that it was
Pharaoh's own fault.  For it says that Pharaoh hardened his own
heart, he and his servants, and therefore they would not let the
children of Israel go.  Now how could Pharaoh harden his own heart,
and yet the Lord harden it at the same time?

Just in the same way, my friends, as too many of us are apt to make
the Lord harden our hearts by hardening them ourselves, and to make,
as Pharaoh did, the very things which the Lord sends to soften us,
the causes of our becoming more stubborn; the very things which the
Lord sends to bring us to reason, the means of our becoming more mad
and foolish.  Believe me, my friends, this is no old story with which
we have nothing to do.  What happened to Pharaoh's heart may happen
to yours, or mine, or any man's.  Alas! alas! it does happen to many
a man's and woman's heart every day--and may the Lord have mercy on
them before it be too late,--and yet how can the Lord have mercy on
those who will not let Him have mercy on them?

What do I mean?  This is what I mean, my friends; Oh, listen to it,
and take it solemnly to heart, you who are living still in sin; take
it to heart, lest you, like Pharaoh, die in your sins, and your
latter end will be worse than your beginning.

Suppose a man to be going on in some sinful habit; cheating his
neighbours, grinding his labourers, or getting tipsy, or living with
a woman without being married to her.  He comes to church, and there
he hears the word of the Lord, by the Bible, or in sermons, telling
him that God commands him to give up his sin, that God will certainly
punish him if he does not repent and amend.  God sends that message
to him in love and mercy, to soften his heart by the terrors of the
law, and turn him from his sin.  But what does the man feel?  He
feels angry and provoked; angry with the preacher; ay, angry with the
Bible itself, with God's words.  For he hates to hear the words which
tell him of his sin; he wishes they were not in the Bible; he longs
to stop the preacher's mouth; and, as he cannot do that, he dislikes
going to church.  He says:  "I cannot, and what is more, I will not,
give up my sinful ways, and therefore I shall not go to church to be
told of them."  So he stops away from church, and goes on in his
sins.  So that man's heart is hardened, just as Pharaoh's was.  Yet
the Lord has come and spoken to that sinful man in loving warnings:
though all the effect it has had is that the Lord's message has made
him worse than he was before, more stubborn, more godless, more
unwilling to hear what is good.  But men may fall into a still worse
state of mind.  They may determine to set the Lord at naught; to hear
Him speaking to their conscience, and know that He is right and they
wrong, and yet quietly put the good thoughts and feelings out of
their way, and go in the course which they know to be the worst.  How
many a man in business or the world says to himself, ay, and in his
better moments will say to his friend:  "Ah, yes, if one could but be
what one would wish to be. . . .  What one's mother used to say one
might be. . . .  But for such a world as this, the gospel ideal is
somewhat too fine and unpractical.  One has one's business to carry
on, or one's family to provide for, or one's party in politics to
serve; one must obey the laws of trade, the usages of society, the
interests of one's class;" and so forth.  And so an excuse is found
for every sin, by those who know in their hearts that they are
sinning; for every sin; and among others, too often, for that sin of
Pharaoh's, of "NOT LETTING THE PEOPLE GO."

And how many, my friends, when they come to church, harden their
hearts in the same quiet, almost good-humoured way, not caring enough
for God's message to be even angry with it, and take the preacher's
warnings as they would a shower of rain, as something unpleasant
which cannot be helped; and which, therefore, they must sit out
patiently, and think about it as little as possible?  And when the
sermon is over, they take their hats and go out into the churchyard,
and begin talking about something else as quickly as possible, to
drive the unpleasant thoughts, if there are a few left, out of their
heads.  And thus they let the Lord's message to them harden their
hearts.  For it does harden them, my friends, if it be taken in this
temper.  Every time anyone sits through the service or the sermon in
this stupid and careless mood, he dulls and deadens his soul, till at
last he is able coolly to sit through the most awful warnings of
God's judgment, the most tender entreaties of God's love, as if he
were a brute animal without understanding.  Ay, he is able to make
the responses to the commandments, and join in the psalms, and so
with his own mouth, before the whole congregation, confess that God's
curse is on his doings, with no more sense or care of what the words
mean, and of what a sentence he is pronouncing against himself, than
if he were a parrot taught to speak by rote words which he does not
understand.  And so that man, by hardening his own heart, makes the
Lord harden it for him.

But there is a third way, and a worse way still, in which people's
hearts are hardened by the Lord's speaking to them.  A man is warned
of his sins by the preacher; and he says to himself:  "If the
minister thinks that he is going to frighten me away from church, he
is very much mistaken.  He may go his way, and I shall go mine.  Let
him preach at me as much as he will; I shall go to church all the
more for that, to show him that I am not afraid."  And so the Lord's
warnings harden his heart, and provoke him to set his face like a
flint, and become all the more proud and stubborn.

Now, young people, I speak openly to you as man to man.  Will you
tell me that this was not the very way in which some of you took my
sermon last Sunday afternoon, in which I warned you of the misery
which your sinful lives would bring upon you?  Was there not more
than one of you, who, as soon as he got outside the church, began
laughing and swaggering, and said to the lad next him:  "Well, he
gave it us well in his sermon this afternoon, did he not?  But I
don't care; do you?"

To which the other foolish fellow answered:  "Not I.  It is his
business to talk like that; he is paid for it, and I suppose he likes
it.  So if he does what he likes, we shall do what we like.  Come
along."  And at that all the other foolish fellows round burst out
laughing, as if the poor lad had said a very clever thing; and they
all went off together, having their hearts hardened by the Lord's
warning to them, as Pharaoh's was.

And they showed, I am afraid, that very evening that their hearts
were hardened.  For out of a sort of spite and stubbornness they took
a delight in doing what was wrong, just because they had been told
that it was wrong, and because they were determined to show that they
would not be frightened or turned from what they chose.

And all the while they knew that it was wrong, did those poor foolish
lads.  If you had asked one of them openly, "Do you not know that God
has forbidden you to do this?" they would have either been forced to
say, "Yes," or else they would have tried to laugh the matter off, or
perhaps held their tongues and looked silly, or perhaps again
answered insolently; showing by each and all of these ways of taking
it, that the Lord's message had come home to their consciences, and
convinced them of their sin, though they were determined not to own
it or obey it.  And the way they would have put the matter by and
excused themselves to themselves would have been just the way in
which Pharaoh did it.  They would have tried to forget that the Lord
had warned them, and tried to make out to themselves that it was all
the preacher's doing, and to make it a personal quarrel between him
and them.  Just so Pharaoh did when he hardened his heart.  He made
the Lord's message a ground for hating and threatening Moses and
Aaron, as if it was any fault of theirs.  He knew in his heart that
the Lord had sent them; but he tried to forget that, and drove them
out from his presence, and told them that if they dared to appear
before him again they should surely die.  And just so, my friends,
people will be angry with the preacher for telling them unpleasant
truths, as if it was any more pleasure to him to speak than for them
to hear.  Oh, why will you forget that the words which I speak from
this pulpit are not my words, but God's?  It is not I who warn you of
what you are bringing on yourselves by your sins, it is God Himself.
There it is written in His Bible--judge for yourselves.  Read your
Bibles for yourselves, and you will see that I am not speaking my own
thoughts and words.  And as for being angry with me for telling you
truth, read the ordination service which is read whenever a clergyman
is ordained, and judge for yourselves.  What is a clergyman sent into
the world for at all, but to say to you what I am saying now?  What
should I be but a hypocrite and a traitor to the blessed Lord who
died for me, and saved me from my sins, and ordained me to preach to
sinners, that they too may be saved from their sins,--what should I
be but a traitor to Him, if I did not say to you, whenever I see you
going wrong:

"O come, let us worship, and fall down and kneel before the Lord our
Maker.

"For He is the Lord our God; and we are the people of His pasture,
and the sheep of His hand.

"To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts,

"Lest He sware in His wrath that you shall not enter into His rest!"

And now, my friends, I will tell you what will happen to you.  You
see that I know something, without having been told of what has been
going on in your hearts.  I beseech you, believe me when I tell you
what will go on in them.  God will chastise you for your sins.  He
will; just because He loves you, and does not hate you; just because
you are His children, and not dumb animals born to perish.  Troubles
will come upon you as you grow older.  Of what sort they will be I
cannot tell; but that they will come, I can tell full well.  And when
the Lord sends trouble to you, shall it harden your hearts or soften
them?  It depends on you, altogether on you, whether the Lord hardens
your hearts by sending those sorrows, or whether He softens and turns
them and brings them back to the only right place for them--home to
Him.  But your trouble may only harden your heart all the more.  The
sorrows and sore judgments which the Lord sent Pharaoh only hardened
his heart.  It all depends upon the way in which you take these
troubles, my friends.  And that not so much when they come as after
they come.  Almost all, let their hearts be right with God or not,
seem to take sorrow as they ought, while the sorrow is on them.
Pharaoh did so too.  He said to Moses and Aaron:  "I have sinned this
time.  The Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked.
Entreat the Lord that there be no more mighty thunderings and hail;
and I will let you go."  What could be more right or better spoken?
Was not Pharaoh in a proper state of mind then?  Was not his heart
humbled, and his will resigned to God?  Moses thought not.  For while
he promised Pharaoh to pray that the storm might pass over, yet he
warned him:  "But as for thee and thy servants, I know that ye will
not yet fear the Lord your God."  And so it happened; for, "when
Pharaoh saw that the rain, and hail, and thunder had ceased, he
sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants.
Neither would he let the children of Israel go." . . .  And so, alas!
it happens to many a man and woman nowadays.  They find themselves on
a sick-bed.  They are in fear of death, in fear of poverty, in fear
of shame and punishment for their misdeeds.  And then they say:  "It
is God's judgment.  I have been very wicked.  I know God is punishing
me.  Oh, if God will but raise me up off this sick-bed; if He will
but help me out of this trouble, I will give up all my wicked ways.
I will repent and amend."  So said Pharaoh; and yet, as soon as he
was safe out of his distress, he hardened his heart.  And so does
many a man and woman, who, when they get safe through their troubles,
never give up one of their sins, any more than Pharaoh did.  They
really believe that God has punished them.  They really intend to
amend, while they are in the trouble:  but as soon as they are out of
it, they try to persuade themselves that it was not God who sent the
sorrow, that it came "by accident," or that "people must have trouble
in this life," or that "if they had taken better care, they might
have prevented it."--All of them excuses to themselves for forgetting
God in the matter, and, therefore, for forgetting what they promised
to God in trouble; and so, after all, they go on just as they went on
before.  And yet not as they went on before.  For every such sin
hardens their hearts; every such sin makes them less able to see
God's hand in what happens to them; every such sin makes them more
bold and confident in disobeying God, and saying to themselves:
"After all, why should I be so frightened when I am in trouble, and
make such promises to amend my life?  For the trouble goes away,
whether I mend my life or not; and nothing happens to me; God does
not punish me for not keeping my promises to Him.  I may as well go
on in my own way, for I seem not the worse off in body or in purse
for so doing."  Thus do people harden their hearts after each
trouble, as Pharaoh did; so that you will see people, by one
affliction after another, one loss after another, all their lives
through, warned by God that sin will not prosper them; and confessing
that their sins have brought God's punishment on them:  and yet going
on steadily in the very sins which have brought on their troubles,
and gaining besides, as time runs on, a heart more and more hardened.
And why?

Because they, like Pharaoh, love to have their own way.  They will
not submit to God, and do what He bids them, and believe that what He
bids them must be right--good for them, and for all around them.

They promised to mend.  But they promised as Pharaoh did.  "If God
will take away this trouble, then I will mend"--meaning, though they
do not dare to say it:  "And if God will not take away this trouble,
of course He cannot expect me to mend."  In plain English--If God
will not act toward them as they like, then they will not act toward
Him as He likes.  My friends, God does not need us to bargain with
Him.  We must obey Him whether we like it or not; whether it seems to
pay us or not; whether He takes our trouble off us or not; we must
obey, for He is the Lord; and if we will not obey, He will prove His
power on us, as He did on Pharaoh, by showing plainly what is the end
of those who resist His will.

What, then, are we to do when our sins bring us, as they certainly
will some day bring us, into trouble?

What we ought to have done at first, my friends.  What we ought to
have done in the wild days of youth, and so have saved ourselves many
a dark day, many a sleepless night, many a bitter shame and
heartache.  To open our eyes, and see that the only thing for men and
women, whom God has made, is to obey the God who has made them.  He
is the Lord.  He has made us.  He will have us do one thing.  How can
we hope to prosper by doing anything else?  It is ill fighting
against God.  Which is the stronger, my friends, you or God?  Make up
your minds on that.  It surely will not take you long.

But someone may say:  "I do wish and long to obey God; but I am so
weak, and my sins have so entangled me with bad company, or debts,
or--, or--."  We all know, alas! into what a net everyone who gives
way to sin gets his feet:  "And therefore I cannot obey God.  I long
to do so.  I feel, I know, when I look back, that all my sin, and
shame, and unhappiness, come from being proud and self-willed, and
determined to have my own way, and do what I choose.  But I cannot
mend."  Do not despair, poor soul!  I had a thousand times sooner
hear you say you cannot mend, than that you can.  For those who say
they can mend, are apt to say:  "I can mend; and therefore I shall
mend when I choose, and no sooner."  But those who really feel they
cannot mend--those who are really weary and worn out with the burden
of their sins--those who are really tired out with their own
wilfulness, and feel ready to lie down and die, like a spent horse,
and say:  "God, take me away, no matter to what place; I am not fit
to live here on earth, a shame and a torment to myself day and
night"--those who are in that state of mind, are very near--very near
finding out glorious news.

Those who cannot mend themselves and know it, God will mend.  God
will mend your lives for you.  He knows as well as you what you have
to struggle against; ay, a thousand times better.  He knows--what
does He not know?  Pray to Him, and try what He does not know.  Cry
to Him to rid you of your bad companions; He will find a way of doing
it.  Cry to Him to bring you out of the temptations you feel too
strong for you; He will find a way for doing it.  Cry to Him to teach
you what you ought to do, and He will send someone, and that the
right person, doubt it not, to teach you in His own good time.  Above
all, cry and pray to Him to conquer the pride, and self-conceit, and
wilfulness in your heart; to take the hard proud heart of stone out
of you, and give you instead a heart of flesh, loving, and tender,
and kindly to every human creature; and He will do it.  Cry to Him to
make your will like His own will, that you may love what He loves,
and hate what He hates, and do what He wishes you to do.  And then
you will surely find my words come true:  "Those who long to mend,
and yet know that they cannot mend themselves, let them but pray, and
God will mend them."



XXXIII--THE RED SEA TRIUMPH



Preached Easter-day Morning, 1852.

This is a night to be much observed unto the Lord, for bringing the
children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.--EXODUS xii. 42.

You all, my friends, know what is the meaning of Easter-day--that it
is the Day on which The Lord rose again from the dead.  You must have
seen that most of the special services for this day, the Collect,
Epistle, and Gospel, and the second lessons, both morning and
evening, reminded you of Christ's rising again; and so did the proper
Psalms for this day, though it may seem at first sight more difficult
to see what they have to do with the Lord's rising again.

Now the first lessons, both for the morning and evening services,
were also meant to remind us of the very same thing, though it may
seem even more difficult still, at first sight, to understand how
they do so.

Let us see what these two first lessons are about.  The morning one
was from the twelfth chapter of Exodus, and told us what the Passover
was, and what it meant.  The first lesson for this afternoon was the
fourteenth chapter of Exodus.  Surely you must remember it.  Surely
the most careless of you must have listened to that glorious story,
how the Jews went through the Red Sea as if it had been dry land,
while Pharaoh and the Egyptian army, trying to follow them, were
overwhelmed in the water.  Surely you cannot have heard how the poor
Jews looked back from the farther shore, and hardly believed their
own eyes for joy and wonder, when they saw their proud masters swept
away for ever, and themselves safe and free out of the hateful land
where they had been slaves for hundreds of years.  You cannot surely,
my friends, have heard that glorious story, and forgotten it again
already.  I hope not; for God knows, that tale of the Jews coming
safe through the Red Sea has a deep and blessed meaning enough for
you, if you could but see it.

But some of you may be saying to yourselves:  "No doubt it is a very
noble story; and a man cannot help rejoicing at the poor Jews'
escape, and at the downfall of those cruel Egyptians.  It is a
pleasant thought, no doubt, that if it were but for that once, God
interfered to help poor suffering creatures, and rid them of their
tyrants.  But what has that to do with Easter Day and Christ's rising
again?"

I will try to show you, my friends.  The Jews' Passover is the same
as our Easter-day, as you know already.  But they are not merely
alike in being kept on the same day.  They are alike because they are
both of them remembrances and tokens of the Lord Jesus Christ's
delivering men out of misery and slavery.  For never forget--though,
indeed, in these strange times, I ought rather to say, I beseech you
to read your Bibles and see--that it was Jesus Christ Himself who
brought the Jews out of Egypt.  St. Paul tells us so positively,
again and again.  In 1 Cor. x. 4 he tells us that it was Christ who
followed them through the wilderness.  In verse 9 of the same
chapter, he says that it was Christ Himself whom they tempted in the
wilderness.  He was the Angel of the Covenant who went with them.  He
was the God of Israel whom the elders of the Jews saw, a few weeks
afterwards, on Mount Sinai, and under His feet a pavement like a
sapphire stone.  True, the Lord did not take flesh upon Him till
nearly two thousand years after.  But from the very beginning of all
things, while He was in the bosom of the Father, He was the King of
men.  Man was made in His image, and therefore in the image of the
Father, whose perfect likeness He is--"the brightness of His glory,
and the express image of His person."  It was He who took care of
men, guided and taught them, and delivered them out of misery, from
the very beginning of the world.  St. Paul says the same thing, in
many different ways, all through the epistle to the Hebrews.  He
says, for instance, that Moses, when he fled from Pharaoh's court in
Egypt, esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the
treasures of Egypt; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.
The Lord said the same thing of Himself.  He said openly that He was
the person who is called, all through the Old Testament, "The Lord."
He asked the Pharisees:  "What think ye of Christ? whose son is He?
They say unto Him, David's son.  Christ answered, How then does David
in spirit call him Lord, saying, the Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou
on my right hand until I make thy foes thy footstool?"  So did Christ
declare, that He Himself, who was standing there before them, was the
Lord of David, who had died hundreds of years before.  He told them
again that their father Abraham rejoiced to see His day, and saw it
and was glad; and when they answered, in anger and astonishment,
"Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?"
Jesus said, "Verily I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am."  I am.
The Jews had no doubt whom He meant; and we ought to have none
either.  For that was the very name by which God had told Moses to
call Him, when he was sent to the Jews:  "Thou shalt say unto them, I
AM hath sent me to you."  The Jews, I say, had no doubt who Jesus
said that He was; that He meant them to understand, once and for all,
that He whom they called the carpenter's son of Nazareth, was the
Lord God who brought their forefathers up out of the land of Egypt,
on the night of the first Passover.  So they, to show how reverent
and orthodox they were, and how they honoured the name of God, took
up stones to stone Him--as many a man, who fancies himself orthodox
and reverent, would now, if he dared, stone the preachers who declare
that the Lord Jesus Christ is not changed since then; that He is as
able and as willing as ever to deliver the poor from those who grind
them down, and that He will deliver them, whenever they cry to Him,
with a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm, and that Easter-day is as
much a sign of that to us as the Passover was for the Jews of old.

But, my friends, if Christ the Lord showed His love and power in
behalf of poor oppressed wretches on that first Passover, surely He
showed it a thousand times more on that first Easter-day.  His great
love helped the Jews out of slavery; and that same great love of His
at this Easter-tide, moved Him to die and rise again for the sins of
the whole world.  In that first Passover He delivered only one
people.  On the first Easter He delivered all mankind.  The Jews were
under cruel tyrants in the land of Egypt.  So were all mankind over
the world, when Jesus came.  The Jews in Egypt were slaves to worse
things than the whip of their task-masters; they had slaves' hearts,
as well as slaves' bodies.  They were kept down not only by the
Egyptians, but by their own ignorance, and idolatry, and selfish
division, and foul sins.  They were spiritually dead--without a
noble, pure, manful feeling left in them.  Their history makes no
secret of that.  The Bible seems to take every care to let us see
into what a miserable and brutal state they had fallen.  Christ sent
Moses to raise them out of that death; to take them through the Red
Sea, as a sign that all that was washed away, to be forgiven of God
and forgotten by them, and that from the moment they landed, a free
people, on the farther shore, they were to consider all their old
life past and a new one begun.  So they were baptized unto Moses in
the cloud and in the sea, as St. Paul says.  And now all was to be
new.  They had been fancying that they belonged to the Egyptians.
Now they had found out, and had it proved to them by signs and
wonders which they could not mistake, that they belonged to the Lord.
They had been brutal sinners.  The Lord began to teach them that they
were to rise above their own appetites and passions.  They had been
worshipping only what they could see and handle.  The Lord began to
teach them to worship Him--a person whom they could not see, though
He was always near them, and watching over them.  They had been
living without independence, fellow-feeling, the sense of duty, or
love of order.  The Lord began to teach them to care for each other,
to help each other, to know that they had a duty to perform towards
each other, for which they were accountable to Him.  They had owned
no master except the Egyptians, whom they feared and obeyed
unwillingly.  The Lord began to teach them to obey Him loyally, from
trust, and gratitude, and love.  They had been willing to remain
sinners, and brutes, and slaves, provided they could get enough to
eat and drink.  The Lord began to teach them that His favour, His
protection, were better than the flesh-pots of Egypt, and that He was
able to feed them where it seemed impossible to men; to teach them
that "man does not live by bread alone--cheap or dear, my friends--
not by bread alone, but by EVERY word that proceeds out of the mouth
of God, does man live."  That was the meaning of their being baptized
in the cloud and in the sea.  That was the meaning, and only a very
small part of the meaning, of their Passover.  Would you not think,
my friends, that I had been speaking rather of our own Baptism, and
of our own Supper of the Lord, to which you have been all called to-
day, and that I had been telling you the meaning of them?

For when Jesus, the Lord, and King, and Head of mankind, died and
rose again, He took away the sin of the world.  He was the true
Passover, the Lamb without spot, slain, as the scripture tells us,
for the sins of the whole world.  In the Jews' Passover, when the
angel saw the lamb's blood on the door of the house, he passed by,
and spared everyone in it.  So now.  The blood of Jesus, the Lamb of
God, is upon us; and for His sake, God is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

But the Lord rose again this day.  And when He, the Lord, the King,
and Head of all men, rose, all men rose in Him.  "As in Adam all
die," says St. Paul, "even so in Christ shall all be made alive."

Baptism is a sign of that to us, as the going through the Red Sea,
and being baptized to Moses in it, was to the Jews.  The passing of
the Red Sea said to the Jews:  "You have passed now out of your old
miserable state of slavery into freedom.  The sins which you
committed there are blotted out.  You are taken into covenant with
God.  You are now God's people, and nothing can lose you this love
and care, except your own sins, your own unfaithfulness to Him, your
own wilful falling back into the slavish and brutal state from which
He has delivered you."

And just so, baptism says to us:  "Your sins are forgiven you.  You
are taken into covenant with God.  You are God's people, God's
family.  You must forget and cast away the old Adam, the old slavish
and savage pattern of man, which your Lord died to abolish, the guilt
of which He bore for you on His cross; and you must rise to the new
Adam, the new pattern of man, which is created after God in
righteousness and true holiness, which the Lord showed forth in His
life, and death, and rising again.  For now God looks on you not as a
guilty and condemned race of beings, but as a redeemed race, His
children, for the sake of Jesus Christ the Lamb of God, who takes
away the sins of the world.  You have a right to believe that, as
human beings, you are dead with Christ to the old Adam, the old
sinful, brutal pattern of man.  Baptism is the sign of it to you.
Every child, let it or its parents be who they may, is freely
baptized as a sign that all that old pattern of man is washed away,
that they can and must have nothing to do with it hence-forward, that
it is dead and buried, and they must flee from it and forget it, as
they would a corpse.

And the Lord's Supper also is a sign to us that, as human beings, we
are risen with Christ, to a new life.  A new life is our birthright.
We have a right to live a new life.  We have a duty to live a new
life.  We have a power, if we will, to live a new life; such a life
as we never could live if we were left to ourselves; a noble, just,
godly, manful, Christlike, Godlike life, bred and nourished in us by
the Spirit of Christ.  That is our right; for we belong to Him who
lived that life Himself, and bought us our share in it with His own
death and resurrection.  That is our duty; for if we share the Lord's
blessings, it can only be in order that we may become like the Lord.
Do you fancy that He died to leave us all no better than we are?  His
death would have had very little effect if that was all.  No, says
St. Paul; if you have a share in Christ, prove that you believe in
your own share by becoming like Christ.  You belong to His kingdom,
and you must live as His subjects.  He has bought for you a new and
eternal life, and you must use that life.  "If ye then be risen with
Christ, seek those things that are above."  . . .  And what are they?
Love, peace, gentleness, mercy, pity, truth, faithfulness, justice,
patience, courage, order, industry, duty, obedience. . . .  All, in
short, which is like Jesus Christ.  For these are heavenly things.
These are above, where Christ sits at God's right hand.  These are
the likeness of God.  That is God's character.  Let it be your
character likewise.

But again; if it is our right and our duty to be like that, it is
also in our power.  God would not have commanded us to be, what He
had not given us the power to be.  He would not have told us to seek
those things which are above, if He had not intended us to find them.
Wherefore it is written:  "Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye
shall find; for if ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to
your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give His Holy
Spirit to those who ask him?"

This is the meaning of that text; namely, that God will give us the
power of living this new and risen life, which we are bound to live.
This is one of the gifts for men, which the scripture tells us that
Christ received when He rose from the dead, and ascended up on high.
This is one of the powers of which He spoke, when after His
resurrection He said, "That all power was given to Him in heaven and
earth."  The Lord's Supper is at once a sign of who will give us that
gift, and a sign that He will indeed give it us.  The Lord's Supper
is the pledge and token to us that we all have a share in the
likeness of Christ, the true pattern of man; and that if we come and
claim our share, He will surely bestow it on us.  He will renew, and
change, and purify our hearts and characters in us, day by day, into
the likeness of Himself.  He who is the eternal life of men will
nourish us, body, soul, and spirit, with that everlasting life of
His, even as our bodies are nourished by that bread and wine.  And if
you ask me how?  When you can tell me why a wheat grain cannot
produce an oak, or an acorn a wheat plant; when you can tell me why
our bodies are, each of them, the very same bodies which they were
ten years ago, though every atom of flesh, and blood, and bone in
them has been changed; when, in short, you, or any other living man,
can tell me the meaning of those three words, body, life, and growth,
then it will be time to ask that question.  In the meantime let us
believe that He who does such wonders in the life and growth of every
blade of grass, can and will do far greater wonders for the life and
growth of us, immortal beings, made in His own likeness, redeemed by
His blood, and so believe, and thank, and obey, and wait till another
and a nobler life to understand.  And if we never understand at all--
what matter, provided the thing be true?


XXXIV--CHRISTMAS-DAY



For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the
government shall be on His shoulder:  and His name shall be called
Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Father of an Everlasting
age, The Prince of Peace.  Of the increase of His government and
peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his
kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with
justice henceforth even forever.--ISAIAH ix. 6, 7.

In the time when the prophet Isaiah wrote this prophecy, everything
round him was exactly opposite to his words.  The king of Judaea, the
prophet's country, was not reigning in righteousness.  He was an
unrighteous and wicked governor.  The princes and great men were not
ruling in judgment.  They were unjust and covetous; they took bribes,
and sold justice for money.  They were oppressors, grinding down the
poor, and defrauding those below them.  So that the weak, and poor,
and needy had no one to right them, no one to take their part.  There
was no man to feel for them, and defend them, and be a hiding-place
and a covert for them from their cruel tyrants; no man to comfort and
refresh them as rivers of water refresh a dry place, or the shadow of
a great rock comforts the sunburnt traveller in the weary deserts.

Neither were these very poor oppressed people of the Jews in a right
state of mind.  They were ignorant and stupid, given to worship false
gods.  They had eyes, and yet could not use them to see that, as the
psalm told us this morning, the heavens declared the glory of God,
and the firmament showed His handiwork.  They were worshipping the
sun, and moon, and stars, in stead of the Lord God who made them.
They were brutish too, and would not listen to teaching.  They had
ears, and yet would not hearken with them to God's prophets.  They
were rash, too, living from hand to mouth, discontented, and violent,
as ignorant poor people will be in evil times.  And they were
stammerers--not with their tongue, but with their minds and thoughts.
They were miserable; but they could not tell why.  They were full of
discontent and longings; but they could not put them into words.
They did not know how to pray, how to open their hearts to God or to
man.  They knew of no one who could understand them and their
sorrows; they could not understand them themselves, much less put
them into words.  They were altogether confused and stupefied; just
in the same state, in a word, as the poor negro slaves in America,
and the heathens ay, and the Christians too, are in, in all the
countries of the world which do not know the good news of Christmas-
day or have forgotten it and disobeyed it.

But Isaiah had God's Spirit with him; the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of
holiness, righteousness, justice.  And that Holy Spirit convinced him
of sin, and of righteousness and of judgment, as He convinces every
man who gives himself up humbly to God's teaching.

First, the Spirit convinced Isaiah of sin.  He made him feel that the
state of his country was wrong.  And He made him feel why it was
wrong; namely, because the men in it were wrong; because they were
thinking wrong notions, feeling wrong feelings, doing wrong things;
and that wrong was sin; and that sin was falling short of being what
a man was made, and what every man ought to be, namely, the likeness
and glory of God; and that so his countrymen the Jews, one and all,
had sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Next, He convinced Isaiah of righteousness.  He made Isaiah feel and
be sure that God was righteous; that God was no unjust Lord, like the
wicked king of the Jews; that such evil doings as are going on were
hateful to Him; that all that covetousness, oppression, taking of
bribes, drunkenness, deceit, ignorance, stupid rashness and folly, of
which the land was full, were hateful to God.  He must hate them, for
He was a righteous and a good God.  They ought not to be there.  For
man, every man from the king on his throne to the poor labourer in
the field, was meant to be righteous and good as God is.  "But how
will it be altered?" thought Isaiah to himself.  "What hope for this
poor miserable sinful world?  People are meant to be righteous and
good:  but who will make them so?  The king and his princes are meant
to be righteous and good, but who will set them a pattern?  When will
there be a really good king, who will be an example to all in
authority; who will teach men to do right, and compel and force them
not to do wrong?"

And then the Holy Spirit of God answered that anxious question of
Isaiah's, and convinced him of judgment.

Yes, he felt sure; he did not know why he felt so sure:  but he did
feel sure; God's Spirit in his heart made him feel sure, that in some
way or other, some day or other, the Lord God would come to judgment,
to judge the wicked princes and rulers of this world, and cast them
out.  It must be so.  God was a righteous God.  He would not endure
these unrighteous doings for ever.  He was not careless about this
poor sinful world, and about all the sinful down-trodden ignorant
men, and women, and children in it.  He would take the matter into
His own hands.  He would show that He was Lord and Master.  If kings
would not reign in righteousness, He would come and reign in
righteousness Himself.  He would appoint princes under Him, who would
rule in judgment.  And He would show men what true righteousness was;
what the pattern of a true ruler was; namely, to be able to feel for
the poor, and the afflicted, and the needy, to understand the wants,
and sorrows, and doubts, and fears of the lowest and the meanest; in
short, to be a man, a true, perfect man, with a man's heart, a man's
pity, a man's fellow-feeling in Him.  Yes.  The Lord God would show
Himself.  He would set His righteous King to govern.  And yet Isaiah
did not know how, but he saw plainly that it must be so, that same
righteous King, who was to set the world right, would be a MAN.  It
would be a man who was to be a hiding-place from the storm and a
covert from the tempest.  A man who would understand man, and teach
men their duty.

Then the eyes of the blind would see, and the ears of those who heard
should hearken; for they would hear a loving human voice, the voice
of One who knew what was in man, who could tell them just what they
wanted to know, and put His teaching into the shape in which it would
sink most easily and deeply into their hearts.  And then the hearts
of the rash would understand knowledge; and the tongue of the
stammerers would speak plainly.  There will be no more confused cries
from poor ignorant brutish oppressed people, like the cries of dumb
beasts in pain; for He who was coming would give them words to utter
their sorrows in.  He would teach them how to speak to man and God.
He would teach them how to pray, and when they prayed to say, "Our
Father which art in heaven."

Then the vile person would be no more called bountiful, or the churl
called liberal:  flattery and cringing to the evil great would be at
an end.  The people would have sense to see the truth about right and
wrong, and courage to speak it.  Men would then be held for what they
really were, and honoured and despised according to their true
merits.  Yes, said Isaiah, we shall be delivered from our wicked king
and princes, from the heathen Assyrian armies, who fancy that they
are going to sweep us out of our own land with fire and sword; from
our own sins, and ignorance, and infidelity, and rashness.  We shall
be delivered from them all, for The righteous King is coming.  Nay,
He is here already, if we could but see.  His goings-forth have been
from everlasting.  He is ruling us now--this wondrous Child, this Son
of God.  Unto us a Child is born already, unto us a Son is given
already.  But one day or other He will be revealed, and made
manifest, and shown to men as a man; and then all the people shall
know who He is; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor,
the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Ah, my friends, Isaiah saw all this but dimly and afar off.  He saw
as through a glass darkly.  He perhaps thought at times--indeed we
can have little doubt that he thought--that the good young Prince
Hezekiah, "The might of God," as his name means, who was growing up
in his day to be a deliverer and a righteous king over the Jews, was
to set the world right.  No doubt he had Hezekiah in his mind when he
said that a Child was born to the Jews, and a Son given to them; just
as, of course, he meant his own son, who was born to him by the
virgin prophetess, when he called his name Emmanuel, that is to say,
God with us.  But he felt that there was more in both things than
that.  He felt that his young wife's conceiving and bearing a son,
was a sign to him that some day or other a more blessed virgin would
conceive and bear a mightier Son.  And so he felt that whether or not
Hezekiah delivered the Jews from their sin, and misery, and
ignorance, God Himself would deliver them.  He knew, by the Spirit of
God, that his prophecy would come true, and remain true for ever.
And so he died in faith, not having received the promises, God having
prepared some better King for us, and having fulfilled the words of
His prophet in a way of which, as far as we can see, he never
dreamed.

Yes.  Hezekiah failed to save the nation of the Jews.  Instead of
being the "father of an everlasting age," and having "no end of his
family on the throne of David," his great-grandchildren and the whole
nation of the Jews were swept away into captivity by the Babylonians,
and no man of his house, as Jeremiah prophesied, has ever since
prospered or sat on the throne of David.  But still Isaiah's prophecy
was true.  True for us who are assembled here this day.

For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; even the Babe of
Bethlehem, Jesus Christ the Lord.  The government shall indeed be
upon His shoulder; for it has been there always.  For the Father has
committed all things to the Son, that he may be King of kings and
Lord of lords for ever.  His name is indeed Wonderful; for what more
wondrous thing was ever seen in heaven or in earth, than that great
love with which He loved us?  He is not merely called "The might of
God," as Hezekiah was,--for a sign and a prophecy; for He is the
mighty God Himself.  He is indeed the Counsellor; for He is the light
who lighteth every man who comes into the world.  He is "the Father
of an everlasting age."  There were hopes that Hezekiah would be so;
that he would raise the nation of the Jews again to a reform from
which it would never fall away:  but these hopes were disappointed;
and the only one who fulfilled the prophecy is He who has founded His
Church for ever on the rock of everlasting ages, and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it.  Hezekiah was to be the prince of
peace for a few short years only.  But the Child who is born to us,
the Son who is given to us, is He who gave eternal peace to all who
will accept it; peace which this world can neither give nor take
away; and who will make that peace grow and spread over the whole
earth, till men shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their
spears into pruning-hooks, and the nations shall not learn war any
more.  Of the increase of His government and of His peace there shall
be no end, till the earth be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as
the waters cover the sea, and the spirit of God be poured out on all
flesh, to teach kings to reign in righteousness, after the pattern of
the King of kings, the Babe of Bethlehem; to make the rich and
powerful do justice, to teach the ignorant, to give the rich wisdom,
to free the oppressed, to comfort the afflicted, to proclaim to all
mankind the good news of Christmas Day, the good news that there was
a man born into the world on this day who will be a hiding-place from
the storm, a covert from the tempest, like rivers of water in a dry
place, like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land; even the man
Christ Jesus, who is able and willing to save to the uttermost those
who come to God through Him, seeing that he has been tempted in all
things like as we are, yet without sin.

Yes, my friends, on that holy table stands the everlasting sign that
Isaiah's prophecy has been fulfilled to the uttermost.  That bread
and that wine declare to us, that to us a Child is born, to us a Son
is given.  They declare to us, in a word, that on this blessed day
God was made man, and dwelt among men, and we beheld His glory, the
glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Oh, come to that table this day, and there claim your share in the
most precious body and blood of the Divine Child of Bethlehem.  Come
and ask Him to pour out on you His Spirit, the Spirit which He poured
on Hezekiah of old, "that he might fulfil his own name and live in
the might of God."  So will you live in the might of God.  So you
will be able to govern yourselves, and your own appetites, in
righteousness and freedom, and rule your own households, or
whatsoever God has set you to do, in judgment.  So you will see
things in their true light, as God sees them, and be ready and
willing to hear good advice, and understand your way in this life,
and be able to speak your hearts out in prayer to God, as to a loving
and merciful Father.  And in all your afflictions, let them be what
they will, you will have a comfort, and a sure hope, and a wellspring
of peace, and a hiding-place from the tempest, even The Man Christ
Jesus, who said:  "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you;
let not your heart be troubled, neither be ye afraid."  The Man
Christ Jesus, at whose birth the angels sang:  "Glory to God in the
Highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men."

Now to Him who on this day was born of the blessed virgin, man of the
substance of His mother, yet God the Son of God, be ascribed, with
the Father and the Spirit, all power, glory, majesty, and dominion,
both now and for ever.  Amen.



XXXV--NEW YEAR'S DAY



(1853.)

But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and He that
formed thee, O Israel, Fear not:  for I have redeemed thee, I have
called thee by thy name; thou art mine.  When thou passest through
the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall
not overflow thee:  when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt
not be burnt; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.  For I am the
Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour:  I gave Egypt for
thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.  Since thou wast precious in
my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee:
therefore will I give men for thee, and peoples for thy life.--ISAIAH
xliii. 1-4.

The New Year has now begun; and I am bound to wish you all a happy
New Year.  But I am sent here to do more than that; to teach you how
you may make your own New Year a happy one; or, if not altogether a
happy one--for sorrows may and must come in their turn--yet still
something better than a happy year, namely, a blessed year; a year on
which you will be able to look back this day twelvemonths, and thank
God for it; thank God for the tears which you have shed in it, as
well as for the joy which you have felt; thank God for the dark days
as well as for the light; thank God for what you have lost, as well
as what you have found; and be able to say, "Well, this last year, if
it has not been a happy year for me, at least it has been a blessed
one for me.  It has left me a stronger, soberer, wiser, godlier,
better man than it found me."

How, then, can you make the New Year a blessed one for yourselves?  I
know but one way, my friends.  The ancient way.  The Bible way.  The
way by which Abraham, and Jacob, and David, and all the holy men of
old, and all the saints, and martyrs, and righteous and godly among
men, made their lives blessed among themselves, in spite of sorrow,
and misfortune, and distress, and persecution, and torture, and death
itself; the one only old way of being blessed, which was from the
beginning, and will last for ever and ever, through all worlds and
eternities; the way of the old saints, which St. Paul sets forth in
the eleventh chapter of the Hebrews; and that is, FAITH.  Faith,
which is the substance of what we hope for, the evidence of things
not seen.  Faith, of which it is written, that the just shall live by
his faith.

But how can faith give you a blessed New Year?  In the same way in
which it gave the old saints blessed years all their lives through,
and is giving them a blessed eternity now and for ever before the
face of the Lord Jesus Christ, to which may God in His mercy bring us
all likewise.

They trusted in God.  They had faith, not in themselves, like too
many; not in their own good works, like too many; not in their own
faith, in their own frames, and feelings, and assurances, like too
many; but they had faith in God.  It was faith in God which made one
of them, the great prophet Isaiah, write the glorious words which I
have chosen for my text this day, to show his countrymen the Jews,
even while they were in the very lowest depths of shame, and poverty,
and misfortune, that God had not forgotten them; that for those who
trusted in Him, a blessed time was surely coming.

And it was faith in God, too, which put it into the minds of the good
men who choose these Sunday lessons out of the Bible, to appoint such
chapters as these to be read year by year, at the coming in of the
new year, for ever.  Faith in God, I say, put that into their minds.
For those good men trusted in God, that He would not change; that
hundreds and thousands of years would make no difference in His love;
that the promises made by His Holy Spirit to Isaiah the prophet would
stand true for ever and ever.  And they trusted in God, too, that
what He had spoken by the mouth of His holy apostles was true; that
after the blessed Lord came down on earth, there was to be no
difference between Jews and Gentiles; that the great and precious
promises made by God to the Jews were made also to all the nations of
the earth; that all things written in the Old Testament, from the
first chapter of Genesis to the last of Malachi, were written not for
the Jews only, but for English, French, Italians, Germans, Russians--
for all the nations of the world; that we English were God's people
now, just as much, ay, far more, than the old Jews were, and that,
therefore, the Old Testament promises, as well as the New Testament
ones, were part of our inheritance as members of Christ's Church.
And therefore they appointed Old Testament lessons to be read in
church, to show us English what our privileges were, what God's
covenant and promise to us were.  We, as much as the Jews, are called
by the name of the Lord who created us.  Were we not baptised into
His name at that font?  Has He not loved us?  Has He not heaped us
English, for hundreds of years past, with blessings such as He never
bestowed on any nation?  Has He not given men for us, and nations for
our life?  While all the nations of the world have been at war,
slaying and being slain, has He not kept this fair land of England
free and safe from foreign invaders for more than eight hundred
years?  Since the world was made, perhaps, such a thing was never
heard of, such a mercy shown to any nation; that a great and rich
country like this should be preserved for eight hundred years from
invasion of foreign armies, and all the horrors and miseries of war,
which have swept, from time to time, every other nation in the world
with the besom of desolation.

Ay, and but sixty years ago, in the time of the French war, when
almost every other nation in Europe was made desolate with fire, and
sword, and war, did not God preserve this land of England, as He
never preserved country before, from all the miseries which were
sweeping over other nations?  Oh, strange and wonderful mercy of God,
that at the very time that the gospel was dying out all over Europe,
it was being lighted again in England; and that while the knowledge
of God was failing elsewhere, it was increasing here!  Oh, strange
and wonderful mercy of God, who has given to us English, now for one
hundred and sixty years and more, those very equal laws, and freedom,
and rights of conscience, for which so many other nations of Europe
are still crying and struggling in vain, amid slavery, and
oppression, and injustice, and heavy burdens, such as we here in
England should not endure a week!  Oh, strange and wonderful mercy of
God, who but three years ago, when all the other nations of Europe
were shaken with wars, and riots, and seditions, every man's hand
against his neighbour, kept this land of England in perfect peace and
quiet by those just laws and government, proving to us the truth of
His own promises, that those who seek peace by righteous dealings,
shall find it, and that, as Isaiah says, the fruit of justice is
quietness and assurance for ever!  And last, but not least, my
friends, is it not a sign, a sign not to be mistaken, of God's good-
will and mercy to us, that now, at this very time of all others, when
almost every country in Europe is going to wrack and ruin through the
folly and wickedness of their kings and rulers, He should have given
us here in England a Queen who is a pattern of goodness and purity,
in ruling not only the nation, but her own household, to every wife
and mother, from the highest to the lowest; and a Prince whose whole
heart seems set on doing good, and on helping the poor, and improving
the condition of the labourers?  My friends, I say that we are
unthankful and unfaithful.  We do not thank God a hundredth part
enough for the blessings which He has given us.  We do not trust Him
a hundredth part enough for the blessings which He has in store for
us.  If some of us here could but see and feel for a single month how
people are off abroad; if they could change places with a French, an
Italian, a Russian labourer, it would teach them a lesson about God's
goodness to England which they would not soon forget.  May God grant
that we may never have to learn that lesson in that way!  God grant
that we may never, to cure us of our unthankfulness and want of
faith, and godless and unmanly grumbling and complaining, be brought,
for a single week, into the same state as some hundred millions of
our fellow-creatures are in foreign parts!  Oh, my friends, let us
thank God for the mercies of the past year!  Most truly He has
fulfilled to England his promise given by the mouth of the prophet
Isaiah:  "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee;
and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.  For I am the
Lord thy God, the Holy One, thy Saviour.  Thou hast been precious in
my sight, and I have loved thee:  therefore will I give men for thee,
and peoples for thy life."

Away, then, with discontent and anxiety for the coming year.  Or
rather, let us be only discontented with ourselves.  Let us only be
anxious about our own conduct.  God cannot change.  If anything goes
wrong, it will be not because He has left us, but because we have
left Him.  Is it not written that all things work together for good
to those who love God?  Then if things do not work together for good
in this coming year, it will be because we do not love God.  Do not
let us say, "I am righteous, but my neighbours are wicked, and
therefore I must be miserable;" neither let us lay the blame of our
misfortunes on our rulers; let us lay it on ourselves.

What was the word of the Lord to the Jews in a like case:  "What
means this proverb which you take up, saying, The fathers have eaten
sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge?  It is not so,
O house of Israel.  The son shall not die for the iniquity of his
father, nor the father for the iniquity of the son.  The soul that
sinneth, it shall die, saith the Lord."

Oh, my friends, take this to heart solemnly, in the year to come.
Our troubles, more of them at least than we fancy, are our own fault,
and not our neighbours', or the government's, or anyone's else.  And
those which are not our own fault directly are so in this way, that
they are sent as sharp and wholesome lessons to us; and if we were
what we ought to be, we should not want those lessons.  Do not fancy
that that is a sad and doleful thought to begin the new year with.
God forbid!  It would be doleful and sad indeed if any one of us, in
spite of all his right-doing, might be plunged into any hopeless
misery, through the fault of other people, over whom he has no
control.  But thanks be to the Lord, it is not so.  We are His
children, and He cares for each and every one of us separately.  Each
and every one of us has to answer for himself alone, face to face
with his God, day by day; every man must bear his own burden; and to
every one of us who love God, all things will work together for good.
It is, and was, and always will be, as Abraham well knew, far from
God to punish the righteous with the wicked.  The Judge of all the
earth will do right.  None of us who repents and turns from the sins
he sees round him and in him; none of us who prays for the light and
guiding of God's Spirit; none of us who struggles day by day to keep
himself unspotted from this evil world, and live as God's son,
without scandal or ill-name in the midst of a sinful and perverse
generation; none of us who does that, but God's blessing will rest on
him.  What ruins others will only teach and strengthen him; what
brings others to shame, will only bring him to honour, and make his
righteousness plain to be seen by all, that God may be glorified in
His people.  Let the coming year be what it may; to the holy, the
humble, the upright, the godly, it will be a blessed year, fulfilling
the blessed promises of the Lord, that those who trust in Him shall
never be confounded.

Oh, my friends, consider but this one thing, that the Almighty God,
who made all heaven and earth, has bid us trust in Him.  And when He
bids us, is it not a sin, an insult to Him, not to trust Him--not to
believe His words to us?  "Put thou thy trust in the Lord, and be
doing good; dwell in the land," working where He has set thee, "and
verily thou shalt be fed."  "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror
by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day.  A thousand shall
fall by thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand:  but it shall
not come nigh thee.  Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see
the reward of the wicked.  Because thou hast made the Lord thy
refuge, no plague shall come nigh thy dwelling.  Thou shalt call upon
me, I will answer thee.  Because thou hast set thy love on me, I will
deliver thee; with long life will I satisfy thee, and show thee my
salvation."

My friends, these words are in the book of Psalms.  Either they are
the most cruel words that ever were spoken on earth to tempt poor
wretches into vain security and fearful disappointment, or they are--
what are they?--the sure and everlasting promise of our Father in
heaven to us His children.  We have only to ask for them, and we
shall receive them; to claim them, and they will be fulfilled to us.
"For He who spared not His own Son, but freely gave Him for us, will
He not with Him likewise freely give us all things," and make, by His
fatherly care, and providence, and education, all our new years
blessed new years, whether or not they are happy ones?



XXXVI--THE DELUGE



My spirit shall not always strive with man.--GENESIS vi. 3.

Last Sunday we read in the first lesson of the fall.  This Sunday we
read of the flood, the first-fruits of the fall.

It is an awful and a fearful story.  And yet, if we will look at it
by faith in God, it is a most cheerful and hopeful story--a gospel--a
good news of salvation--like every other word in the Bible, from
beginning to end.  Ay, and to my mind, the most hopeful words of all
in it, are the very ones which at first sight look most terrible, the
words with which my text begins:  "And the Lord said, My Spirit shall
not always strive with man."

For is it not good news--the good news of all news--the news which
every poor soul who is hungering and thirsting after righteousness,
longs to hear; and when they hear it, feel it to be the good news--
the only news which can give comfort to fallen and sorrowful men,
tied and bound with the chain of their sins, that God's Spirit does
strive at all with man?  That God is looking after men?  That God is
yearning over sinners, as the heart of a father yearns over his
rebellious child, as the heart of a faithful and loving husband
yearns after an unfaithful wife?  That God does not take a disgust at
us for all our unworthiness, but wills that none should perish, but
that all should come to repentance?  Oh joyful news!  Man may be, as
the text says that he was in the time of Noah, so low fallen that he
is but flesh like the brutes that perish; the imaginations of his
heart may be only evil continually; his spirit may be dead within
him, given up to all low and fleshly appetites and passions, anger,
and greediness, and filth; and yet the pure and holy Spirit of God
condescends to strive and struggle with him, to convince him of sin,
and make him discontented and ashamed at his own brutishness, and
shake and terrify his soul with the wholesome thought:  "I am a
sinner--I am wrong--I am living such a life as God never meant me to
live--I am not what I ought to be--I have fallen short of what God
intended me to be.  Surely some evil will come to me from this."
Then the Holy Spirit convinces man of righteousness.  He shows man
that what he has fallen short of is the glory of God; that man was
meant to be, as St. Paul says, the likeness and glory of God; to show
forth God's glory, and beauty, and righteousness, and love in his own
daily life; as a looking-glass, though it is not the sun, still gives
an image and likeness of the sun, when the sun shines on it, and
shows forth the glory of the sunbeams which are reflected on it.

And then, the Holy Spirit convinces man of judgment.  He shows man
that God cannot suffer men, or angels, or any other rational spirits
and immortal souls, to be unlike Himself; that because He is the only
and perfect good, whatsoever is unlike Him must be bad; because He is
the only and perfect love, who wills blessings and good to all,
whatsoever is unlike Him must be unloving, hating, and hateful--a
curse and evil to all around it; because He is the only perfect Maker
and Preserver, whatsoever is unlike Him must be in its very nature
hurtful, destroying, deadly--a disease which injures this good world,
and which He will therefore cut out, burn up, destroy in some way or
other, if it will not submit to be cured.  For this, my friends, is
the meaning of God's judgments on sinners; this is why He sent a
flood to drown the world of the ungodly; this is why He destroyed
Sodom and Gomorrah; this is why He swept away the nations of Canaan;
this is why He destroyed Jerusalem, His own beloved city, and
scattered the Jews over the face of the whole earth unto this day;
this is why He destroyed heathen Rome of old, and why He has
destroyed, from time to time, in every age and country, great nations
and mighty cities by earthquake, and famine, and pestilence, and the
sword; because He knows that sin is ruin and misery to all; that it
is a disease which spreads by infection among fallen men; and that He
must cut off the corrupt nation for the sake of preserving mankind,
as the surgeon cuts off a diseased limb, that his patient's whole
body may not die.  But the surgeon will not cut off the limb as long
as there is a chance of saving it:  he will not cut it off till it is
mortified and dead, and certain to infect the whole body with the
same death, or till it is so inflamed that it will inflame the whole
body also, and burn up the patient's life with fever.  Till then he
tends it in hope; tries by all means to cure it.  And so does the
Lord, the Lord Jesus, the great Physician, whom His Father has
appointed to heal and cure this poor fallen world.  As long as there
is hope of curing any man, any nation, any generation of men, so long
will his Spirit strive lovingly and hopefully with man.  For see the
blessed words of the text:  "My Spirit shall not always strive with
man.  This must end.  This must end at some time or other.  This
battle between my Spirit and the wicked and perverse wills of these
sinners; this battle between the love and the justice and the purity
which I am trying to teach them, and the corruption and the violence
with which they are filling the earth."  But there is no passion in
the Lord, no spite, no sudden rage, like the brute passionate anger
of weak man.  Our anger, if we are not under the guiding of God's
Spirit, conquers our wills, carries us away, makes us say and do on
the moment--God forgive us for it--whatsoever our passion prompts us.
The Lord's anger does not conquer Him.  It does not conquer His
patience, His love, His steadfast will for the good of all.  Even
when it shows itself in the flood and the earthquake; even though it
break up the fountains of the great deep, and destroy from off the
earth both man and beast, yet it is, and was, and ever will be, the
anger of The Lamb--a patient, a merciful, and a loving anger.

Therefore the Lord says:  "Yet his days shall be one hundred and
twenty years."  One hundred and twenty years more he would endure
those corrupt and violent sinners, in the hope of correcting them.
One hundred and twenty years more would God's Spirit strive with men.
One hundred and twenty years more the long-suffering of God, as St.
Peter says, would wait, if by any means they would turn and repent.
Oh, wonderful love and condescension of God!  God waits for man!  The
Holy One waits for the unholy!  The Creator waits for the work of His
own hands!  The wrathful God, who repents that He has made man upon
the earth, waits one hundred and twenty years for the very creatures
whom He repents having made!  Does this seem strange to us--unlike
our notions of God?  If it is strange to us, my friends, its being
strange is only a proof of how far we have fallen from the likeness
of God, wherein man was originally created.  If we were more like
God, then the accounts of God's long-suffering, and mercy, and
repentance, which we read in the Bible, would not be so strange to
us.  We should understand what God declares of Himself, by seeing the
same feelings working in ourselves, which He declares to be working
in Himself.  And if we were more righteous and more loving, we should
understand more how God's will was a loving and a righteous will; how
His justice was His mercy, and His mercy His justice, instead of
dividing His substance, who is one God, by fancying that His mercy
and His justice are two different attributes, which are at times
contrary the one to the other.

We read nothing here about God's absolute purposes, and fixed
decrees, whereof men talk so often, making a god in their own fallen
image, after their own fallen likeness.  The Lord, the Word of God,
of whom the Bible tells us, does not think it beneath his dignity to
say:  "It repenteth me that I have made man."  Different, truly, from
that false god which man makes in his own image.  Man is proud, and
he fancies that God is proud; man is self-willed and selfish, and he
fancies that God is self-willed and selfish; man is arbitrary and
obstinate, and determined to have his own way just because it is his
own way; and then he fancies that God is arbitrary and obstinate, and
determines to have His own way and will, just because it is His own
way and will.  But wilt thou know, oh vain man, why God will have His
own way and will?  Because His way is a good way, and His will a
loving will; because the Lord knows that His way is the only path of
life, and joy, and blessing to man and beast, yes, and to the very
hairs of our head, which are all numbered, and to the sparrows,
whereof not one falls to the ground without our Father's knowledge;
because His will is a loving will, which wills that none should
perish, but that all should come and be saved in body, soul, and
spirit.  He will have His own will done, not because it is His own
will, but because it is good, good for men.  And if men will change
and repent, then will He change and repent also.  If man will resist
the striving of God's Spirit with him, then will the Lord say:  "It
repenteth me that I have made that man."  But if a man will repent
him of the evil, then God will repent Him of the evil also.  If a man
will let God's Spirit convince him, and will open his ears and hear,
and open his eyes and see, and open his heart to take in the loving
thoughts and the right thoughts, and the penitent and humble
thoughts, which do come to him--you know they do come to you all at
times--then the Lord will repent also, as he repents, and repent
concerning the evil which He has declared concerning that man.  So
said the Lord, who cannot change, the same yesterday, to-day, and for
ever, the same now that He was in the days of the flood, to Jeremiah
the prophet, when He moved him to go down to the potter's house, and
watch him there at his work.

And the potter made a vessel--something which would be useful and
good for a certain purpose--but the clay was marred in the hand of
the potter.  He was good and skilful; but there was a fault in the
clay.  What did he do?  Throw the clay away as useless?  No.  He made
it again another vessel.  He was determined to make, not anything,
but something useful and good.  And if the clay, being faulty, failed
him once, he would try again.  He would change his purpose and plan,
but not his right will to make good and useful vessels; them he WOULD
make, if not by one way, then by another.  And Jeremiah watched him;
and as he watched, the Spirit of the Lord came on him, and taught him
that that poor potter's way of working with his clay, was a pattern
and likeness of the Lord's work on earth.  Oh shame, that this great
parable should have been twisted by men to make out that God is an
arbitrary tyrant, who works by a brute necessity!  It taught Jeremiah
the very opposite.  It taught him what it ought to teach us, that God
does change, because man changes, that God's steadfast will is the
good of men, and therefore because men change their weak self-willed
course, and fall, and seek out many inventions, therefore God changes
to follow them, like a good shepherd, tracking and following the lost
and wandering sheep up and down, right and left, over hill and dale,
if by any means He may find him, and bring him home on His shoulders
to the fold, calling upon the angels of God:  "Rejoice with me, for I
have found my sheep which I had lost."

This is the likeness of God.  The good and loving will of a Father
following his wandering children.  The likeness of a loving Father
repenting that He hath brought into the world sinful children, to be
a misery to themselves and all around them, and yet for the same
reason loving those children, striving with their wicked wills to the
very last, giving them one last chance and time for repentance; as
the Lord did to those evil men of the old world, sending to them
Noah, a preacher of righteousness, if by any means they would turn
from their sins and be saved.  Ay, not only preaching to their ears
by Noah, but to their hearts by His Spirit; as St. Peter tells us, He
Himself, Christ the Lord, went Himself by His Spirit to those very
sinners before the flood, and strove to bring them to their reason
again.  By His Spirit; by the very same one and only Holy Spirit of
God, St. Peter says, by which Christ Himself was raised from the
dead, did He try to raise the souls of those sinners before the
flood, from the death of sin to the life of righteousness:  but they
would not.  They were disobedient.  Their wills resisted His will to
the last; and then the flood came, and swept them all away.

And so the first work of the heavenly Workman was marred in the
making by no fault of His, but by the fault of what He made.  He made
men persons, rational beings with wills, that they might be willingly
like Him:  but they used those wills to be unlike Him, to rebel
against Him, and to fill the earth with violence and corruption.  And
so, for the good of all mankind to come, He had to sweep them all
away.  But of that same sinful clay He made another vessel, as it
seemed good to Him; even Noah and his Sons, whom He saved that He
might carry on the race of the Sons of God unto this day.

And after that again, my friends, in a day more dark and evil still,
when the earth was again corrupt before God, and filled with
violence; when all flesh had corrupted His way upon the earth, so
that, as St. Paul said of them, there was none that did good, no not
one:  then the same Lord, when He saw that all the world lay in
wickedness, and that the clay of human-kind was marred in the hands
of the potter, then did He cast away that clay as reprobate and
useless, and destroy mankind off the face of the earth?  Not so.
Then, when there was none to help, His own arm brought salvation, and
His own righteousness sustained Him; He trod the wine-press alone,
and of the people there was none with Him.  His own righteousness
sustained Him.  His perfectly good and righteous will never failed
Him for a moment; man He would save, and man He saved.  If none else
could do it, He would do it Himself.  He would bring salvation with
His own arm.  He would fulfil His Father's will, which is that none
should perish; He would be made flesh, and dwell among men, that man
might behold the likeness of God the Father, full of grace and truth,
and see what they were meant to be.  Then, in Him, in Jesus who wept
over Jerusalem, was fully revealed and shown the likeness and glory
of the Lord; the Lord in whose image man was made; who walked and
spoke with Adam in the garden; who was not ashamed to say that it
repented Him that He had made man; whom Ezekiel saw upon His throne,
and as it were upon the throne the appearance of the likeness of a
man; whom Daniel saw, and knew him to be the Son of Man.  Not a man,
then, of flesh and blood; but the Eternal Word of God, in whose image
man was made, who could be loving and merciful, long-suffering and
repenting Him of the evil, but never of the good.  He came, and He
swept away, as He had told the Apostles that He would do, by such
afflictions as man had never seen since the beginning of the world
until then, that Roman world with all its devilish systems and
maxims, whereby the nations were kept down in slavery and sin; and He
founded a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwell righteousness,
even this Holy Catholic Church, to which we all belong this day.

Yes, my friends, this is our gospel, our good news, that there is a
God whose Spirit strives with sinners to change them into His own
likeness.  A God who is no dark, obstinate, inexorable Fate, whose
arbitrary decrees must come to pass; but a loving and merciful God,
long-suffering, and who repenteth Him of the evil; who repents Him of
the evil which is in man, and hates it, and has sworn to Himself to
fight against it, till He has put all enemies under His foot, and
cast out of His kingdom all things which offend.  Who repents Him of
the evil in man:  but who will never again repent Him of having made
man, for then He would repent of having become man; He would repent
of having been conceived of the Holy Ghost; He would repent of having
been born of the Virgin Mary; He would repent of having been
crucified, dead, and buried; He would repent of having risen from the
dead, and ascended up into heaven in His man's body, and soul, and
spirit; He would repent of sitting on the right hand of God; He would
repent of coming to judge the quick and the dead; He would repent of
having done His Father's will on earth, even as He did it from all
eternity in the bosom of the Father.  For He is a man; and even as
the reasonable soul and body are one man, so God and man are one
Christ.  As man, He did His Father's will in Judaea of old; as man,
He will judge the world; as man He rules it now; as man, St. John saw
Him fifty years after He ascended to heaven, and His eyes were like a
flame of fire, and His hair like fine wool, and He was girt under the
bosom with a golden girdle, and His voice was like the sound of many
waters; as man, He said:  "Fear not:  I am the first and the last; I
am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for
evermore, Amen; and have the keys of death and hell."  Yes.  This is
the gospel, the good news for fallen man, that there is a Man in the
midst of the throne of God, to whom all power is given in heaven and
earth; that the fate of the world, and all that is therein--the fate
of suns and stars--the fate of kings and nations--the fate of every
publican and harlot, and heathen and outcast--the fate of all who are
in death and hell, depends alike upon the sacred heart of Jesus; the
heart which groaned at the tomb of Lazarus His friend; the heart
which wept over Jerusalem; the heart which said to the blessed
Magdalene, the woman who was a sinner:  "Go in peace; thy sins are
forgiven thee;" the heart which now yearns after every sinful and
wandering soul in His church, and all over the earth of God, crying
to you all:  "Why will ye die?  Have I any pleasure in the death of
him that dieth, saith the Lord, and not rather that he should turn
from his wickedness and live?  Come unto me, all ye that are weary
and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."  Oh, my friends,
wonderful as my words are--as wonderful to me who speak them as they
can be to you who hear them--yet they are true.  True; for on that
table stand the bread and wine whereof He Himself said, standing upon
this very earth which He Himself had made:  "This is my body which is
given for you; this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which I will
give for the life of the world."



XXXVII--THE KINGDOM OF GOD



The kingdom of God is within you.--LUKE xvii. 21.

These words are in the second lesson for this morning's service.  Let
us think a little about them.

What they mean must depend on what the kingdom of God means; for that
is the one thing about which they speak.

Now, the kingdom of God is very often spoken of in the New Testament.
Indeed, it is the thing it speaks of above all others.  It was the
thing which our Lord went about preaching.  It was the thing of which
He spoke in His parables, likening the kingdom of God first to one
thing, then to another, that He might make men understand what it was
like.

Now, it is worth remarking that we--I mean even religious people--
speak very little about the kingdom of God nowadays.  One hears less
about it than about any other words, almost, which stand in the New
Testament.  Both in sermons and in religious books, and in the talk
of godly people, one hears the kingdom of God spoken of very seldom.
One hears words about the Church, which are very good and true; but
very little, if anything, about the kingdom of God, though both St.
Paul, and St. John, and the blessed Lord Himself, speak of the two
together, as if they could not be parted; as if one could not think
of the one without thinking of the other.  And we hear words about
the gospel, too, some of them very good and true, and others, I am
sorry to say, very bad and false:  but, true or false, they are not
often joined now in men's minds, or mouths, or books, with the
kingdom of God.  But the New Testament joins them almost always.  It
says that gospel must be good news.  Therefore the gospel must be
good news about something.  But about what?  We hear all manner of
answers nowadays; but we hear the right one very seldom.  People talk
of the gospel as if it only meant the good news that one man can be
saved here, and another man can be saved there.  And that is good
news, certainly.  It is good and blessed news to hear that any one
poor sinner can be saved from sin, and from the wages of sin.  But
the holy scriptures, when they talk of the gospel, call it the gospel
of the kingdom of God.  And I think it best and wisest to call it
oftenest, what the holy scripture calls it oftenest, and to try and
understand, first of all, what that means, what the good news of the
kingdom of God is:  and to understand that, we must first understand
what the kingdom of God is.

But some may answer, holy scripture speaks of the gospel of
salvation.  True, it does, once or twice.  But what does that show?
Is that a different gospel from the gospel of the kingdom of God?
Are there two gospels?  Surely not.  Else why would holy scripture
speak so often of "the gospel"--"the good news," by itself, without
any word after to show what it was about?  It says often simply "the
gospel;" because there is but one gospel; and, as St. Paul says, if
any man or angel preach any other than that one, "Let him be
anathema."

Therefore the gospel of salvation must be the same as the gospel of
the kingdom of God; and, therefore, it seems to me, that salvation
and the kingdom of God must be one and the same thing.

Now, do you think so?  When I say "The kingdom of God is salvation,"
do you think it is?  Have you even any clear notion of what I mean
when I say it?  Some of you have not, I am afraid; you cannot see at
first sight what salvation and the kingdom of God have to do with
each other.  And why?  You think salvation means being saved from
hell, and going to heaven, when you die.  And so it does:  but I
trust in God and in God's holy scripture, that it means a great deal
more; for I think it means being unfit for hell, and fit for heaven,
before we die.  At least, so says the Church Catechism, which teaches
every little child to thank his Heavenly Father for having brought
him into such a state of salvation in this life, even while he is
young.  Thanks be to The Spirit of God which taught our fore-fathers
to put these precious words into the Church Catechism, to guard us
against falling into the very same mistake as the Pharisees of old
fell into, when they asked our Lord when the kingdom of God was to
come.  And, believe me, it is easy enough and common enough to fall
into the same mistake.

For what was their mistake?  They fancied that the kingdom of God was
not yet come.  And do not most of you think the same?  They did not
deny, of course, that God was almighty, and could rule and govern all
mankind if He chose so to do.  But they did not believe that He was
ruling and governing all mankind then, because they did not know what
His rule and government were like.  Now, St. Paul tells us what God's
kingdom is like.  The kingdom of God, he says, is righteousness, and
peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.  So wherever there is
righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, there the
kingdom of God is.  But His kingdom over what?  Over dumb animals, or
over men?  Over men, certainly; for dumb animals cannot have
righteousness, or joy in the Holy Spirit.  But over what part of a
man?  Over his body or over his spirit, as we call it nowadays?  Over
his spirit, certainly; for it is only our spirits which can be
righteous, or peaceful, or joyful in God's Spirit.  Therefore God's
kingdom, of which St. Paul speaks, is a kingdom, a government over
the souls, the spirits of men.  Now, are our spirits the inward part
of us, or our bodies?  Our spirits, certainly.  We all say, and say
rightly, that our bodies are the outward part of us, and that our
spirits are within us.  Now, do you not see how that agrees exactly
with the blessed Lord's saying in the text, "Behold, the kingdom of
God is within you"--that is, in your spirits, because it is
righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit; and these are
things which only our souls, not our bodies at all, can have.

But these Pharisees were not righteous; they were wicked and
hypocritical men.  Was the kingdom of God within them?  The blessed
Lord said plainly that it was.  He said not, "The kingdom of God is
within some people's hearts;" or, "The kingdom of God is within the
hearts of believers;" or, "The kingdom of God might be within you if
you liked."  But He said that the kingdom of God was then and there
within the hearts of those wicked and unbelieving Pharisees.

Now, how could that be?  In the same way that some time before that,
as St. Luke tells us, the power of the Lord was present to heal those
same Pharisees; and they were for the time amazed, and glorified God,
and were filled with fear at His mighty works; but not healed.  Their
souls were not cured of their sin and folly by any means; for we find
in the very next chapter, that because Jesus cured a palsied man on
the Sabbath-day they were filled with madness, and consulted together
how to kill Him.

For, my friends, as it was with them, so it is with us.  God's
kingdom is within every one of us; but it may make us worse, as well
as make us better.  It may fill us with righteousness, and peace, and
joy in the Holy Spirit; or it may fill us, as it filled the
Pharisees, with madness, and hatred of religion and of goodness; as
it is written, that the gospel may be a savour of death unto death to
us, as well as a savour of life unto life.  And it depends on us
which it shall be.

This is what I mean:  God's kingdom is within each of us.  God is the
King of our hearts and souls; our baptism tells us so; and it tells
us truly.  And because God is the King of each of our hearts, He
comes everlastingly to take possession of our hearts, and continues
claiming our souls for His own.  He speaks in our hearts day and
night; whenever we have a good thought, He speaks in our hearts, and
says to us:  "I am the King of your spirit.  It must obey me.  I put
this good thought into your hearts, and you are bound to follow that
good thought, because it is a law of my kingdom."  Or again, God
speaks in our hearts, and says to us:  "You have done this wrong
thing.  You know that it is wrong.  You know that it is an offence
against my law.  Why have you rebelled against me?"  Or again, when
we see anyone do a good, a loving, or a noble action; or when we read
of the lives of good and noble men and women; above all, when we read
or hear of the character and doings of the blessed Lord Jesus, then
and there God speaks in our hearts, and stirs us up to love and
admire these noble and blessed examples, and says to us:  "That is
right.  That is beautiful.  That is what men should do.  That is what
you should do.  Why are you not like that man?  Why are you not like
my saints?  Why are you not like me, the Lord Jesus Christ?"

You all surely know what I mean.  You know that I do not mean that
you hear a voice speaking to your ears, but that thoughts and
feelings come into your heart, without you putting them there:  ay,
often enough, in spite of your trying to drive them away.  Now, those
right thoughts are the kingdom of God within you.  They are the voice
of the Lord Jesus Christ speaking by His Holy Spirit to your spirit,
and telling you that He is your King, and that you ought to obey Him;
and that obeying Him means being righteous and good, as He is
righteous and good; and calling on you to give up your own wills and
fancies, and to do His will, and let Him make you holy, even as He is
holy.  That, I say, is the kingdom of God showing itself within you,
telling you that God is your King, and telling you how to obey Him.

But what if a man will not hear that voice?  What if a man rebels
proudly against the good thoughts that rise in his mind, and tries to
forget them, and grows angry with them, angry with the preacher, the
Church Service, the Bible itself, because they WILL go on reminding
him of what he knows in his heart to be right?  What if those good
thoughts only make him the more stubborn and determined to do his own
pleasure, and follow his own interests, and do his own will?

Do you not see that to that man God's kingdom over his heart is a
savour of death unto death--that his finding out that God is his Lord
only makes him more rebellious--that God's Spirit striving with his
heart to bring it right, only stirs up his stubbornness and self-
will, and makes him go the more obstinately wrong?

Oh, my friends, this is a fearful thought!  That man can become worse
by God's loving desire to make him better!  But so it is.  So it was
with Pharaoh of old.  All God's pleading with him by the message of
Moses and Aaron, by the mighty plagues which God sent on Egypt, only
hardened Pharaoh's heart.  The Lord God spoke to him, and his message
only lashed Pharaoh's proud and wicked will into greater fury and
rebellion, as a vicious horse becomes the more unmanageable the more
you punish it.  Therefore, it is said plainly in scripture, that THE
LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart; not as some fancy, that the Lord's
will was to make Pharaoh hard-hearted and wicked.  God forbid.  The
Lord is the fountain of good only, and not He, but we and the devil,
make evil.  But the more the Lord pleaded with Pharaoh, and tried to
bend his will, the more self-willed he became.  The more the Lord
showed Pharaoh that the Lord was King, the more he hated the kingdom
and will of God, the more he determined to be king himself, and to
obey no law but his own wicked fancies and pleasures, and asked:
"Who is the Lord, that I should obey Him?"

And so it was with the Pharisees.  When they found out that the
kingdom of God was within them, that God was the King of their hearts
and minds, and was trying to change their feelings and alter their
opinions, it only maddened them.  They were determined not to change.
They were determined not to confess that they had been wrong, and had
mistaken the meaning of holy scripture.  They were too proud to
confess what Jesus told them, that they were no better than the poor
ignorant common people whom they despised.  And yet they knew in
their hearts that He was right.  When the Lord told them the parable
of the vineyard, they answered, "God forbid!" they felt at once that
the parable had to do with them--that they were the wicked husbandmen
on whom He said their master would take vengeance:  but that only
maddened them the more, till they ended by crucifying the Lord of
Glory, upon a pretence which they knew was a false and lying one; and
when Judas Iscariot said, "I have betrayed the innocent blood," they
did not deny that the Lord Jesus was innocent; all they answered was,
"What is that to us?"  They were determined to have their own way
whether He was innocent or not.  They had seen God's likeness.  They
had seen what God was like, by seeing the conduct of His only
begotten Son Jesus Christ.  And when they saw God's likeness they
hated it, because it was not like themselves.  And the more God
strove with their hearts, and tried to make them obey Him, the more,
in short, they felt His kingdom within them, the more they hated that
kingdom of God within them, because it reproved them, and convinced
them of sin.  Oh, my friends, young people especially, beware; beware
lest you fall into the same miserable state of mind.  The kingdom of
God is within you.  The Holy Spirit, by which you were regenerate in
holy baptism, is stirring and pleading with your hearts, making you
happy when you do right, unhappy when you do wrong.  Oh, listen to
those good thoughts and feelings within you!  Never fancy that they
are your own thoughts and feelings:  else you will fancy that you can
put them away and take them back again when you choose to change and
become religious.  Do not let the devil deceive you into that notion.
These good thoughts and feelings are the Spirit of God.  They are the
signs that the kingdom of God is within you; that God is King and
Master of your hearts and minds; and that you cannot keep Him out of
them:  but that He can enter into them when He likes, and put right
thoughts into them.  But though you cannot prevent God and His
kingdom entering into you, you can refuse to enter into it.  Alas!
alas! how many of you shut your ears to God's voice:  try to drive
God's Spirit out of your own hearts; try to forget what is right,
because it is unpleasant to remember it, and say to yourselves, "I
will have my own way.  I will try and forget what the clergyman said
in his sermon, or what I learnt at school.  I am grown up now, and I
will do what I like."  Oh, my friends, is it a wise or a hopeful
battle to fight against the living God?  Grieve not the Holy Spirit
of God, whereby ye are sealed to the day of redemption, lest He go
away from you and leave you to yourselves, spiritually dead, twice
dead, plucked up by the roots, whose end is to be burned.  Grieve Him
not, lest He depart, and with Him both the Father and the Son.  And
then you will not know right from wrong, because God the Holy Spirit,
the Spirit of right, has left you.  You will not know what a man
ought to be or do, because the Son of Man, the perfect likeness of
God, and therefore the pattern of man, has left you.  You will not
know that God the Father is your Father, but only fancy him a stern
taskmaster, reaping where He has not sown, and requiring of you more
than you are bound to pay, because God the Father has left you.

You may, indeed, keep out ugly thoughts for a time.  You may go on
wantonly in sin, and worldliness, and self-will.  And then, by way of
falling deeper still, you may take up with some false sort of
religion, which makes people fancy that they know God, and are one of
His elect, while in works they deny Him, and their sinful heart is
unchanged.  Then your mouth indeed may be full of second-hand talk
about the gospel.  But what gospel?  I call that a devil's gospel,
and not God's gospel, which makes men fancy that they may continue in
sin that grace may abound.  I call any grace which leaves men in
their sins the devil's grace, and not God's grace.  Certainly it is
not the gospel of the kingdom of God; for if it was, it would produce
in men the fruits of that kingdom, righteousness, and peace, and joy
in the Holy Spirit, instead of the fruits which we see too often,
bigotry and self-conceit, bitterness, evil-speaking, and hard
judgments, and joy in a most unholy and damnable spirit, not to
mention covetousness and deceitfulness, or even in some cases
wantonness and lust.  And yet such men will often fancy that they
belong especially to God, and doubt whether He will have mercy on any
who do not exactly agree with them; while in reality God and His
kingdom have utterly left their hearts, and they are as blind and
dark as the beasts which perish.  May God preserve us from that
second death which comes on sinners, when, after a sinful youth,
their terrified souls begin to cry out in fear at the sight of their
sins; and they, instead of casting away their sins, keep their sins,
or change old sins for more respectable and safe new ones, and drug
their souls with false doctrines, as foolish nurses quiet children's
crying by giving them poisonous medicines.  I know men who have
fallen, I really fear at times, into that state of mind, and are like
those Pharisees of whom our Lord said:  "Ye serpents, ye generation
of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"  Even for them
it is not too late:  but, let them recollect, if the kingdom of God
is within them, if they have any feelings of right and wrong left in
them, that their covetousness, and lying, and slandering, and
conceit, is fighting against God; that these are just what God
desires to cast out of them; and that unless they give up their
hearts to God, and let Him cast out their sins, and be converted, and
become like little children, gentle, humble, teachable, friendly, and
kind-hearted, obedient to their heavenly Father, God will cast them
out of His kingdom among the things which offend, and bring a bad
name on religion; among those very profligate and open sinners whom
they are so ready to despise and curse.



XXXVIII--THE LIGHT



But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light:  for
whatsoever doth make manifest is light.  Wherefore He saith, Awake
thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give
thee light.--EPHESIANS v. 13, 14.

St. Paul has been telling the Ephesians who they are; that they are
God's dear children.  To whom they belong; to Christ who has given
Himself for them.  What they ought to do; to follow God's likeness,
and live in love.  That they are light in the Lord; and are to walk
as children of the light; and have no fellowship with the unfruitful
works of darkness, but rather reprove them.  As much as to say:  Do
not believe those who tell you that there is no harm in young people
going wrong together before marriage, provided they intend to marry
after all.  Do not believe those who tell you that there is no harm
in filthy words, provided you do not do filthy things; and no harm in
swearing, provided you do not mean the curses which you speak.  Do
not believe those who tell you there is no harm in poaching another
man's game, provided you do not steal his poultry, or anything except
his game.  Do not believe those who tell you that there is no harm in
being covetous, provided you do not actually cheat your neighbours;
and that the sin lies, not in being covetous at all, but in being
more covetous than the law will let you be.

Do not believe those who say to you that you may keep dark thoughts,
spite, suspicion, envy, cunning, covetousness in your hearts day
after day, year after year, provided you do not openly act on them so
as to do your neighbours any great and notorious injury.

Plenty of people will tell you so, and try to deceive you with vain
words, and give you arguments, and texts of scripture perhaps, to
prove that sin is not sin, and that the children of light may do the
works of darkness.  But do not believe them, says St. Paul.  They are
deceivers, and their words are vain.  These are the very things which
bring down God's wrath on His disobedient children.  These are the
bad ways which make young people, when they are married, despise, and
distrust, and quarrel with each other, and live miserable lives
together, as children of wrath, peevish, and wrathful, and
discontented with each other, because they feel that God is angry
with them, just as Adam in the garden, when he felt that he had
sinned, and that God was wroth with him, laid the blame on his wife,
and accused her, whom he ought to have loved, and protected, and
excused.

These are the bad ways which make people ashamed when they meet a
good and a respectable person, make them afraid of being overheard,
afraid of being found out, fond of haunting low and out-of-the-way
places where they will not be seen; fond of prowling and lurching out
at night after their own sinful pleasures, because the darkness hides
them from their neighbours, and seems to hide them from themselves,
though it cannot hide them from God.  These are the sins which make
men silent, cunning, dark, sour, double-tongued, afraid to look
anyone full in the face, unwilling to make friends, afraid of opening
their minds to anyone, because they have something on their minds
which they dare not tell their neighbours, which they dare not even
tell themselves, but think about as little as they can help.  Do you
not know what I mean?  Do you not often see it in others?  Have you
never felt it in yourselves when you have done wrong, that dark
feeling within which shows itself in dark looks?  You talk of a
"dark-looking man," or a "dark sort of person;" and you mean, do you
not, a man whom you cannot make out, who does not wish you to make
him out; who keeps his thoughts and his feelings to himself, and is
never frank or free, except with bad companions, when the world
cannot see him; who goes about hanging down his head, and looking out
of the corners of his eyes, as if he were afraid of the very
sunshine--afraid of the light.  We know that such a man has something
dark on his mind.  We call him a "dark sort of man."  And we are
right.  We say of him what St. Paul says of him in this very epistle,
when he says, that sin is darkness, and sinful works the deeds of
darkness; and that goodness, and righteousness, and truth, are light,
the very light of God and the Spirit of God.  Our reason, our common
sense, which is given us by God's Spirit, the Spirit of light, makes
us use the right words, the same words as St. Paul does, and call sin
darkness.

But rather reprove these dark works, says St Paul; that is, look at
them, and see that they are utterly worthless and damnable.  And how?
"All things that are reproved," he says, "are made manifest by the
light.  For whatsoever makes manifest is light."  Whatsoever makes
manifest, that is, makes plain and clear.  Whatsoever makes you see
anything or person in heaven or earth as it really is; whatsoever
makes you understand more about anything; whatsoever shows you more
what you are, where you are, what you ought to do; whatsoever teaches
you any single hint about your duty to God, or man, or the dumb
beasts which you tend, or the soil which you till, or the business
and line of life which you ought to follow; whatsoever shows you the
right and the wrong in any matter, the truth and the falsehood in any
matter, the prudent course and the imprudent course in any matter; in
a word, whatsoever makes your mind more clear about any single thing
in heaven or earth, is light.  For, mind, St. Paul does not say,
whatsoever is light makes things plain; but whatsoever makes things
plain is light.  That is saying a great deal more, thank God; for if
he had said, whatsoever is light makes things clear, we should have
been puzzled to know what was light; we should have been tempted to
settle for ourselves what was light.  And, God knows, people in all
ages, and people of all religions, Christians as well as heathens,
have been tempted to say so, and to misread this text, till they
said:  "Whatsoever agrees with our doctrine is light, of course, but
all other teaching is darkness, and comes from the devil;" and so
they oftentimes blasphemed against God's Holy Spirit by calling good
actions bad ones, just because they were done by people who did not
agree with them, and fell into the same sin as the Pharisees of old,
who said that the Lord cast out devils by Beelzebub the prince of the
devils.

But St. Paul says, whatsoever makes anything clearer to you, is
light.  There is the gospel, and there is the good news of salvation
again, coming out, as it does all through St. Paul's epistles, at
every turn, just where poor, sinful, dark man least expects it.  For,
what does St. Paul say in the very next verse?  "Wherefore," he says,
"arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."  "Christ
shall give thee light!"  Oh blessed news!  CHRIST gives us the light,
and therefore we need not be afraid of it, but trust it, and welcome
it.  And Christ GIVES us the light, therefore we have not to hunt and
search after it; for He will give it us.  Let us think over these two
matters, and see whether there is not a gospel and good news in them
for all wretched, ignorant, sinful, dark souls, just as much as for
those who are learned and wise, or bright and full of peace.

Christ gives us the light.  This agrees with what St. John says, that
"He is the light who lights every man who comes into the world."  And
it agrees also with what St. James says:  "Be not deceived, my
beloved brethren.  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from
above, and cometh down from God, the Father of lights, with whom is
no variableness, nor shadow of turning."  And it agrees also with
what the prophet says, that it is the Spirit of God which gives man
understanding.  And it agrees also with what the Lord Himself
promised us when He was on earth, that He would send down on us the
Spirit of God--the Spirit which proceeds alike from Him and from His
Father, to guide us into all truth.  Ay, my friends, if we really
believe this, what a solemn and important thing education would seem
to us!  If we really believed that all light, all true understanding
of any matter, came from the Lord Jesus Christ:  and if we remember
what the Lord Jesus' character was; how He came to do good to all; to
teach not merely the rich and powerful, but the poor, the ignorant,
the outcast, the sinful:  should we not say to ourselves, then:  "If
knowledge comes from Christ, who never kept anything to Himself, how
dare we keep knowledge to ourselves?  If it comes from Him who gave
Himself freely for all, surely He means that knowledge should be
given freely to all.  If He and His Father, and our Father, will that
all should come to the knowledge of the truth, how dare we keep the
truth from anyone?"  So we should feel it the will of our heavenly
Father, the solemn command of our blessed Saviour, that our children,
and not only they, but every soul around us, young and old, should be
educated in the best possible way, and in any way whatsoever, rather
than in none at all.  The education of the poor would be, in our
eyes, the most sacred duty.  A school would be, in our eyes, as
necessary and almost as sacred a thing as a church.  And to neglect
sending our children to school, or to leave our servants or work-
people in ignorance, would seem to us an awful sin against the Father
of lights; a rebellion against the Lord Jesus, who lights every man
who comes into the world, and against our Father in heaven, who
willeth not that one of these little ones should perish.

And this is made still more plain and certain by the next word in the
text:  "Christ shall GIVE thee light:" not sell thee light, or allow
thee to find light after great struggles, and weary years of study:
but, GIVE thee light.  Give it thee of His free grace and generosity.
We might have expected that, merely from remembering to whom the
light belongs.  The mere fact that light belongs to the Lord Jesus
Christ, who is the express likeness of His Father, might have made us
sure that He would give His light freely to the unthankful and to the
evil, just as His Father makes His sun to shine alike on the evil and
on the good.  Therefore this text does not leave us to find out the
good news for ourselves.  It declares to us plainly that He will give
it us, as freely as He gives us all things richly to enjoy.

But, someone will say:  You surely cannot mean that we shall have
understanding without study?

You cannot mean that we are to become wise without careful thought,
or that we are to understand books without learning to read?  Of
course not, my friends.  The text does not say:  "Christ will give
thee eyes; Christ will give thee sense:" but, "Christ will give thee
light." . . .  Do you not see the difference?  Of what use would your
eyes be without light?  And of what use would light be if your eyes
were shut, and you asleep?  In darkness you cannot see.  Your eyes
are there, as good as ever; the world is there, as fair as ever:  but
you cannot see it, because there is no light.  You can only feel it,
by groping about with your hands, and laying hold of whatsoever
happens to be nearest you.  And do you think that though your bodily
eyes cannot see, unless God puts His light in the sky, to shine on
everything, and show it you, yet your minds and souls can see without
any light from God?  Not so, my friends.  What the sun is to this
earth, that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, is to the spirit--
that is, the reason and conscience--of every man who comes into the
world.  Now, the good news of holy baptism is, that the light is
here; that God's Spirit is with us, to teach us the truth about
everything, that we may see it in its true light, as it is, as God
sees it; that the day-spring from on high has visited us, to give
light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to
guide our feet into the way of peace; and that we are children of the
light and of the day.  But what if those who sit in darkness like the
darkness; and wilfully shut their eyes tight that they may not see
the day-spring from on high, and the light which God has sent into
the world?  Then the light will not profit them, but they will walk
on still in darkness, not knowing whither they are going.

But some may say, wicked men are very wise; although they rebel
against God's Spirit, and do not even believe in God's Spirit, but
say that man's mind can find out everything for itself, without God's
help, yet they are very wise.  Are they?  The Bible tells us again
and again that the wisdom of such men is folly; that God takes such
wise men in their own craftiness.  And the Bible speaks truth.  If
there is one thing of which I am more certain than another, my
friends, it is that, just in proportion as a man is bad, just in
proportion as he does not believe in a good Spirit of God who wills
to teach him, and gives him light, he is a fool.  If there is one
thing more than another which such men's books have taught me, it is
that they are in darkness, when they fancy they are in the brightest
light; that they make the greatest mistakes when they intend to say
the cleverest things; and when they least fancy it, fall into
nonsense and absurdities, not merely on matters of religion, but on
points which they profess to have studied, and in cases where, by
their own showing, they ought to have known better.  But our business
is rather with ourselves.  Our business, in this time of Lent, is to
see whether we have been shutting our eyes; whether we have been
walking in darkness, while God's light is all around us.  And how
shall we know that?  Let St. John tell us:  "He that saith he is in
the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness until now, and
knoweth not whither he goeth, because darkness has blinded his eyes."
Hating our brother.  Covetousness, which is indeed hating our
brother, for it teaches us to prefer our good to our neighbour's
good, to fatten ourselves at our neighbour's expense, to get his
work, his custom, his money, away from him to ourselves; bigotry,
which makes men hate and despise those who differ from them in
religion; spite and malice against those who have injured us;
suspicions and dark distrust of our neighbours, and of mankind in
general; selfishness, which sets us always standing on our own
rights, makes us always ready to take offence, always ready to think
that people mean to insult us or injure us, and makes us moody, dark,
peevish, always thinking about ourselves, and our plans, or our own
pleasures, shut up as it were within ourselves--all these sins, in
proportion as anyone gives way to them, darken the eyes of a man's
soul.  They really and actually make him more stupid, less able to
understand his neighbours' hearts and minds, less able to take a
reasonable view of any matter or question whatsoever.  You may not
believe me.  But so it is.  I know it by experience to be true.  I
warn you that you will find it true one day; that all spite, passion,
prejudice, suspicion, hard judgments, contempt, self-conceit, blind a
man's reason, and heart, and soul, and make him stumble and fall into
mistakes, even in worldly matters, just as surely as shutting our
eyes makes us stumble in broad daylight.  He who gives way to such
passions is asleep, while he fancies himself broad awake.  His life
is a dream; and like a dreamer, he sees nothing really, only
appearances, fancies, pictures of things in his own selfish brain.
Therefore it is written:  "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from
the dead, and Christ shall give thee life."  You may say:  Can I
awaken myself?  Perhaps not, unless someone calls you.  And therefore
Christ calls on you to awake.  He says by my mouth:  Awake, thou
sleeper, and I will give thee light; awake, thou dreamer, who
fanciest that the sinful works of darkness can give thee any real
profit, any real pleasure; awake, thou sleep-walker, who art going
about the world in a dream, groping thy way on from day to day and
year to year, only kept from fall and ruin by God's guiding and
preserving mercy.  Open thine eyes, and let in the great eternal
loving light, wherein God beholds everything which He has made, and
behold it is very good.  Open thine eyes, for it is day.  The light
is here if thou wilt but use it.  "I will guide thee," saith the
Lord, "and inform thee with mine eye, and teach thee in the way
wherein thou shalt go."  Only believe in the light.  Believe that all
knowledge comes from God.  Expect and trust that He will give thee
knowledge.  Pray to Him boldly to give thee knowledge, because thou
art sure that He wishes thee to have knowledge.  He wishes thee to
know thy duty.  He wishes thee to see everything as He sees it.  "If
any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally
and upbraideth not, and he shall receive it."  And when thou hast
prayed for knowledge, expect it to come; as it is written:  When thou
prayest for anything, believe that thou wilt receive it, and thou
wilt receive it.  If thou dost not believe that thou wilt have it, of
course thou wilt not have it.  And why?  Because thou wilt pass by it
without seeing it.  It will be there ready for thee in thy daily
walks; Wisdom will cry to thee at the head of every street; God will
not deny Himself or break His promise:  but thou wilt go past the
place where wisdom is, and miss the lessons which God is strewing in
thy path, because thou art not looking for them.  Wisdom is here, my
friends, and understanding is here, and the Spirit of God is here, if
our eyes were but open to see them.  Oh my friends, of all the sins
of which we have to repent in this time of Lent, none ought to give
us more solemn and bitter thoughts of shame than the way in which we
overlook the teaching of God's Spirit, and shut our eyes to His
light, times without number, every day of our lives.  My friends, if
our hearts were what they ought to be, if we had humble, loving,
trustful hearts, full of faith and hope in God's promise to lead us
into all truth, I believe that every joy and every sorrow which
befell us, every book which we opened, every walk which we took upon
the face of God's earth, ay, every human face into which we looked,
would teach us some lesson, whereby we should be wiser, better, more
aware of where we are and what God requires of us as human beings,
neighbours, citizens, subjects, members of His church.  All things
would be clear to us; for we should see them in the light of God's
Spirit.  All things would look bright to us, for we should see them
in the light of God's love.  All things would work together for good
to us, for we should understand each thing as it came before us, and
know what it was, and what God meant it for, and how we were to use
it.  And knowing and seeing what was right, we should see how
beautiful it was, and love it, and take delight in doing it, and so
we should walk in the light.  Dark thoughts would pass away from our
minds, dark feelings from our hearts, dark looks from our faces.  We
should look our neighbours cheerfully and boldly in the face; for our
consciences would be clear of any ill-will or meanness toward them.
We should look cheerfully and boldly up to God our Father; for we
should know that He was with us, guiding and teaching us, well-
pleased with all our endeavours to see things as He sees them, and to
live and work on earth after His image, and in His likeness.  We
should look out cheerfully and boldly on the world around us, trying
to get knowledge from everything we see, expecting the light, and
welcoming it, and trusting it, because we know that it comes from Him
who is true and cannot lie, Him who is love and cannot injure, Him
who is righteous and cannot lead us into temptation:  Jesus Christ,
the Light who lighteth every man that cometh into the world.



XXXIX--THE UNPARDONABLE SIN



Wherefore I say unto you:  All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be
forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall
not be forgiven unto men.  And whosoever speaketh a word against the
Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh a word
against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this
world, or in the world to come.--MATTHEW xii. 31, 32.

These awful words were the Lord's answer to the Pharisees, when they
said of Him:  "He casts out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the
devils."

What was it now which made this speech of the Pharisees so terrible a
sin, past all forgiveness?

Of course we all feel that they were very sinful; we shrink with
horror from their words as we read them.  But why ought they to have
done the same?  We know, thank God, who Jesus Christ was.  But they
did not; at that time, when He was first beginning to preach, they
hardly could have known.  And mind, we must not say:  "They ought to
have known that He was the Son of God by His having the POWER of
casting out devils;" for the Lord Himself says that the sons of these
Pharisees used to cast them out also, or that the Pharisees believed
that they did; and only asks them:  "Why do you say of my casting out
devils, what you will not say of your sons' casting them out?"  Pray
bear this in mind; for if you do not--if you keep in your mind the
vulgar and unscriptural notion that the Pharisees' sin was not being
convinced by the great power of Christ's miracles, you will never
understand this story, and you will be very likely to get rid of it
altogether as speaking of a sin which does not concern you, and a sin
which you cannot commit.  Now, if the Pharisees did not know that
Jesus was the Son of God, the Maker and King of the world, as we do,
why were they so awfully wicked in saying that He cast out devils by
the prince of the devils?  Was it anything more than a mistake of
theirs?  Was it as wicked as crucifying the Lord?  Could it be a
worse sin to make that one mistake, than to murder the Lord Himself?
And yet it must have been a worse sin.  For the Lord prayed for his
murderers:  "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
And these Pharisees, they knew not what they did:  and yet the Lord,
far from praying for them, told them that even He did not see how
such serpents, such a generation of vipers, could escape the
damnation of hell.

It is worth our while to think over this question, and try and find
out what made the Pharisees' sin so great.  And to do that, it will
be wiser for us, first, to find out what the Pharisees' sin was; lest
we should sit here this morning, and think them the most wicked
wretches who ever trod the earth; and then go away, and before a week
is over, commit ourselves the very same sin, or one so fearfully like
it, that if other people can see a difference between them, I confess
I cannot.  And to commit such a sin, my good friends, is a far easier
thing to do than some people fancy, especially here in England now.

Now, the worst part of the Pharisees' sin was not, as we are too apt
to fancy, their insulting the Lord:  but their insulting the Holy
Spirit.  For what does the Lord Himself say?  That all manner of
blasphemy as well as sin should be forgiven; that whosever spoke a
word against Him, the Son of Man, should be forgiven:  but that the
unpardonable part of their offence was, that they had blasphemed the
Holy Spirit.

And who is the Holy Spirit?  The Spirit of holiness.  And what is
holiness?  What are the fruits of holiness?  For, as the Lord told
the Pharisees on this very occasion, the tree is known by its fruit.
What says St. Paul?  The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance.  Those
who do not show these fruits have not God's Spirit in them.  Those
who are hard, unloving, proud, quarrelsome, peevish, suspicious,
ready to impute bad motives to their neighbours, have not God's
Spirit in them.  Those who do show these fruits; who are gentle,
forgiving, kind-hearted, ready to do good to others, and believe good
of others, have God's Spirit in them.  For these are good fruits,
which, as our Lord tells us, can only spring from a good root.  Those
who have the fruit must have the root, let their doctrines be what
they may.  Those who have not the fruit cannot have the root, let
their doctrines be what they may.

That is the plain truth; and it is high time for preachers to
proclaim it boldly, and take the consequences from the Scribes and
Pharisees of this generation.  That is the plain truth.  Let
doctrines be what they will, the tree is known by its fruit.  The man
who does wrong things is bad, and the man who does right things is
good.  It is a simple thing to have to say, but very few believe it
in these days.  Most fancy that the men who can talk most neatly and
correctly about certain religious doctrines are good, and that those
who cannot are bad.  That is no new notion.  Some people thought so
in St. John's time; and what did he say of them?  "Little children,
let no man deceive you; it is he that doeth righteousness who is
righteous, even as God is righteous."  And again:  "He who says, I
know God, and keeps not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is
not in him."  St. John was the apostle of love.  He was always
preaching the love of God to men, and entreating men to love one
another.  His own heart was overflowing with love.  Yet when it came
to such a question as that; when it came to people's pretending to be
religious and orthodox, and yet neither obeying God nor loving their
neighbours, he could speak sternly and plainly enough.  He does not
say:  "My dear friends, I am sorry to have to differ from you, but I
am afraid you are mistaken;" he says:  "You are liars, and there is
no truth in you."

Now this was just what the Pharisees had forgotten.  They had got to
think, as too many have nowadays, that the sign of a man's having
God's Spirit in him, was his agreeing with them in doctrine.  But if
he did not agree with them; if he would not say the words which they
said, and did not belong to their party, and side with them in
despising every one who differed from them, it was no matter to them,
as they proved by their opinion of Jesus Himself, how good he might
be, or how much good he might do; how loving, gentle, patient,
benevolent, helping, and caring for poor people; in short, how like
God he was; all that went for nothing if he was not of their party.
For they had forgotten what God was like.  They forgot that God was
love and mercy itself, and that all love and mercy must come from
God; and, that, therefore, no one, let his creed or his doctrine be
what it might, could possibly do a loving or merciful thing, but by
the grace and inspiration of God, the Father of mercies.  And yet
their own prophets of the Old Testament had told them so, when they
ascribed the good deeds of heathens to the inspiration of God, just
as much as the good deeds of Jews, and agreed, as they do in many a
text, with what St. James, himself a Jew, said afterwards:  "Be not
deceived; every good gift, and every perfect gift is from above, and
cometh down from the Father of lights."  But the Pharisees, like too
many nowadays, did not think so.  They thought that good and perfect
gifts might some of them very well come from below, from the father
of darkness and cruelty.  They saw the Lord Jesus Christ doing good
things; driving out evil, and delivering men from the power of it;
healing the sick, cleansing the leper, curing the mad, preaching the
gospel to the poor:  and yet they saw in that no proof that God's
Spirit was working in Him.  Of course, if He had been one of their
own party, and had held the same doctrines as they held, they would
have praised Him loudly enough, and held Him up as a great saint of
their school, and boasted of all His good deeds as proofs of how good
their party was, and how its doctrines came from God.  But as long as
He was not one of them, His good works went for nothing.  They could
not see God's likeness in that loving and merciful character.  All
His charity and benevolence made them only hate Him the more, because
it made them the more afraid that He would draw the people away from
them.  "And of course," they said to themselves, "whosoever draws
people away from us, must be on the devil's side.  We know all God's
law and will.  No one on earth has anything to teach us.  And
therefore, as for any one who differs from us, if he cast out devils,
it must be because the devil is helping him, for his own purposes, to
do it."

In one word, then, the sin of these Pharisees, the unpardonable sin,
which ruins all who give themselves up to it, was bigotry; calling
right wrong, because it did not suit their party prejudices to call
it right.  They were fancying themselves very religious and pious,
and all the while they did not know right when they saw it; and when
the Lord came doing right, they called it wrong, because He did not
agree with their doctrines.  They fancied they were the only people
on earth who knew how to worship God perfectly; and yet while they
pretended to worship Him, they did not know what He was like.  The
Lord Jesus came down, the perfect likeness of God's glory, and the
express pattern of His character, helping, and healing, and
delivering the souls and bodies of all poor wretches whom He met; and
these Pharisees could not see God's Spirit in that; and because it
was certainly not their own spirit, called it the spirit of a devil,
and blasphemed against the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Right and Love.

This was bigotry, the flower and crown of all sins into which man can
fall; the worst of all sins, because a man may keep from every other
sin with all his might and main, as the Pharisees did, and yet be led
by bigotry into almost every one of them without knowing it; into
harsh and uncharitable judgment; into anger, clamour, and railing;
into misrepresentation and slander; and fancying that the God of
truth needs the help of their lying; perhaps, as has often happened,
alas! already, into devilish cruelty to the souls and bodies of men.
The worst of all sins; because a man who has given up his heart to
bigotry can have no forgiveness.  He cannot; for how can a man be
forgiven unless he repent? and how can a bigot repent? how can he
confess himself in the wrong, while he fancies himself infallibly in
the right?  As the Lord said to these very Pharisees:  "If ye had
been blind, ye had had no sin:  but now ye say We see; therefore your
sin remaineth."

How can the bigot repent? for repenting is turning to God; and how
can a man turn to God who does not know where to look for God, who
does not know who God is, who mistakes the devil for God, and fancies
the all-loving Father to be a taskmaster, and a tyrant, and an
accuser, and a respecter of persons, without mercy or care for
ninety-nine hundredths of the souls which He has made?  How can he
find God?  He does not know whom to look for.

How can the bigot repent? for to repent means to turn from wrong to
right; and he has lost the very notion of right and wrong, in the
midst of all his religion and his fine doctrines.  He fancies that
right does not mean love, mercy, goodness, patience, but notions like
his own; and that wrong does not mean hatred, and evil-speaking, and
suspicion, and uncharitableness, and slander, and lying, but notions
unlike his own.  What he agrees with he thinks is heavenly, and what
he disagrees with is of hell.  He has made his own god for himself
out of himself.  His own prejudices are his god, and he worships them
right worthily; and if the Lord were to come down on earth again, and
would not say the words which he is accustomed to say, it would go
hard but he would crucify the Lord again, as the Pharisees did of
old.

My friends, there is too much of this bigotry, this blasphemy against
God's Spirit, abroad in England now.  May God keep us all from it!
Pray to Him night and day, to give you His Spirit, that you may not
only be loving, charitable, full of good works yourselves, but may be
ready to praise and enjoy a good, and loving, and merciful action,
whosoever does it, whether he be of your religion or not; for nothing
good is done by any living man without the grace of Christ, and the
inspiration of the Spirit of God, the Father of lights, from whom
comes down every good and perfect gift.  And whosoever tries to
escape from that great truth, when he sees a man whose doctrines are
wrong doing a right act, by imputing bad motives to him, or saying:
"His actions must be evil, however good they may look, because his
doctrines are wrong,"--that man is running the risk of committing the
very same sin as the Pharisees, and blaspheming against the Holy
Spirit, by calling good evil.  And be sure, my friends, that
whosoever indulges, even in little matters, in hard judgments, and
suspicions, and hasty sneers, and loud railing, against men who
differ from him in religion, or politics, or in anything else, is
deadening his own sense of right and wrong, and sowing the seeds of
that same state of mind, which, as the Lord told the Pharisees, is
utterly the worst into which any human being can fall.



XL--THE SPIRIT OF BONDAGE



For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye
have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father.--
ROMANS viii. 15.

Some of you here may not understand this text at all.  Some of you,
perhaps, may misunderstand it; for it is not an easy one.  Let us,
then, begin, by finding out the meaning of each word in it; and, let
us first see what is the meaning of the spirit of bondage unto fear.
Bondage means slavery; and the spirit of bondage means the spirit
which makes men look up to God as slaves do to their taskmaster.
Now, a slave obeys his master from fear only; not from love or
gratitude.  He knows that his master is stronger than he is, and he
dreads being beaten and punished by him; and therefore, he obeys him
only by compulsion, not of his own good will.  This is the spirit of
bondage; the slavish, superstitious spirit in religion, into which
all men fall, in proportion as they are mean, and sinful, and carnal,
fond of indulging themselves, and bearing no love to God or right
things.  They know that God is stronger than they; they are afraid
that God will take away comforts from them if they offend Him; they
have been taught that He will cast them into endless torment if they
offend Him; and, therefore, they are afraid to do wrong.  They love
what is wrong, and would like to do it; but they dare not, for fear
of God's punishment.  They do not really fear God; they only fear
punishment, misfortune, death, and hell.  That is better, perhaps,
than no religion at all.  But it is not the faith which WE ought to
have.

In this way the old heathens lived:  loving sin and not holiness, and
yet continually tormented with the fear of being punished for the
very sins which they loved; looking up to God as a stern taskmaster;
fancying Him as proud, and selfish, and revengeful as themselves;
trying one day to quiet that wrath of His which they knew they
deserved, by all sorts of flatteries and sacrifices to Him; and the
next day trying to fancy that He was as sinful as themselves, and was
well-pleased to see them sinful too.  And yet they could not keep
that lie in their hearts; God's light, which lights every man who
comes into the world, was too bright for them, and shone into their
consciences, and showed them that the wages of sin was death.  The
law of God, St. Paul tells us, was written in their hearts; and how
much soever, poor creatures, they might try to blot it out and forget
it, yet it would rise up in judgment against them, day by day, night
by night, convincing them of sin.  So they in their terror sold
themselves to false priests, who pretended to know of plans for
helping them to escape from this angry God, and gave themselves up to
superstitions, till they even sacrificed their sons and their
daughters to devils, in some sort of confused hope of buying
themselves off from misery and ruin.

And in the same way the Jews lived, for the most part, before the
Lord Jesus came in the flesh of man.  Not so viciously and wickedly,
of course, because the law of Moses was holy, and just, and good; the
law which the Lord Himself had given them, because it was the best
for them then; because they were too sinful, and slavish, and stupid,
for anything better.  But, as St. Paul says, Moses's law could not
give them life, any more than any other law can.  That is, it could
not make them righteous and good; it could not change their hearts
and lives; it could only keep them from outward wrong-doing by
threats and promises, saying:  "Thou shalt not."  It could, at best,
only show them how sinful their own hearts were; how little they
loved what God commanded; how little they desired what He promised;
and so it made them feel more and more that they were guilty,
unworthy to look up to a holy God, deserving His anger and
punishment, worthy to die for their sins; and thus by the law came
the knowledge of sin, a deeper feeling of guilt, and shame, and
slavish dread of God, as St. Paul sets forth, with wonderful wisdom,
in the seventh chapter of Romans.

Now, let us consider the latter half of the text.  "But ye have
received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father."

What is this adoption?  St. Paul tells us in the beginning of the
fourth chapter of his epistle to the Galatians.  He says:  As long as
a man's heir is a child, and under age, there is no difference in law
between him and a slave.  He is his father's property.  He must obey
his father, whether he chooses or not; and he is under tutors and
governors, until the time appointed by his father; that is, until he
comes of age, as we call it.  Then he becomes his own master.  He can
inherit and possess property of his own after that.  And from that
time forth the law does not bind him to obey his father; if he obeys
him it is of his own free will, because he loves, and trusts, and
reverences his father.

Now, St. Paul says, this is the case with us.  When we were infants,
we were in bondage under the elements of the world; kept straight, as
children are, by rules which they cannot understand, by the fear of
punishment which they cannot escape, with no more power to resist
their father than slaves have to resist their master.  But when the
fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman,
born under a law, that He might redeem those who were under a law,
that we might receive the adoption of sons.

As much as to say:  You were God's CHILDREN all along:  but now you
are more; you are God's sons.  You have arrived at man's estate; you
are men in body and in mind; you are to be men in spirit, men in
life.  You are to look up to the great God who made heaven and earth,
and know, glorious thought! that He is as truly your Father as the
men whose earthly sons you call yourselves.  And if you do this, He
will give you the Spirit of adoption, and you shall be able to call
Him Father with your hearts, as well as with your lips; you shall
know and feel that He is your Father; that He has been loving,
watching, educating, leading you home to Him all the while that you
were wandering in ignorance of Him, in childish self-will, and
greediness after pleasure and amusement.  He will give you His Spirit
to make you behave like His sons, to obey Him of your own free will,
from love, and gratitude, and honour, and filial reverence.  He will
make you love what He loves, and hate what He hates.  He will give
you clear consciences and free hearts, to fear nothing on earth or in
heaven, but the shame and ingratitude of disobeying your Father.

The Spirit of adoption, by which you look up to God as your Father,
is your right.  He has given it to you, and nothing but your own want
of faith, and wilful turning back to cowardly superstition, and to
the wilful sins which go before superstition, and come after it, can
take it from you.  So said St. Paul to the Romans and the Galatians,
and so I have a right, ay, and a bounden duty, to say to every man
and woman in this church this day.

For, my dear friends, if you ask me, what has this to do with us?
Has it not everything to do with us?  Whether we are leading good
lives, or middling lives, or utterly bad worthless lives, has it not
everything to do with us?  Who is there here who has not at times
said to himself:  "God so holy, and pure, and glorious; while I am so
unjust, and unclean, and mean!  And God so great and powerful; while
I am so small and weak!  What shall I do?  Does not God hate and
despise me?  Will He not take from me all which I love best?  Will He
not hurl me into endless torment when I die?  How can I escape from
Him?  Wretched man that I am, I cannot escape from Him!  How, then,
can I turn away His hate?  How can I make Him change His mind?  How
can I soothe Him and appease Him?  What shall I do to escape hell-
fire?"

Did you ever have such thoughts?  But, did you find those thoughts,
that slavish terror of God's wrath, that dread of hell, made you any
BETTER men?  I never did.  I never saw them make any human being
better.  Unless you go beyond them--as far beyond them as heaven is
beyond hell, as far above them as a free son is above a miserable
crouching slave, they will do you more harm than good.  For this is
all that I have seen come of them:  That all this spirit of bondage,
this slavish terror, instead of bringing a man nearer to God, only
drove him further from God.  It did not make him hate what was wrong;
it only made him dread the punishment of it.  And then, when the
first burst of fear cooled down, he began to say to himself:  "I can
never atone for my sins.  I can never win back God to love me.  What
is done, is done.  If I cannot escape punishment, let me be at least
as happy as I can while it lasts.  If it does not come to-day, it
will come to-morrow.  Let me alone, thou tormenting conscience.  Let
me eat and drink, for to-morrow I die!"  And so back rushed the poor
creature into all his wrong-doing again, and fell most probably
deeper than ever into the mire, because a certain feeling of
desperation and defiance rose up in him, till he began to fancy that
his terror was all a dream--a foolish accidental rising up of old
superstitious words which he learnt from his mother or his nurse; and
he tried to forget it all, and did forget it--God help him!--and his
latter end was worse than his first.

How then shall a man escape shame and misery, and an evil conscience,
and rise out of these sins of his?  For do it he must.  The wages of
sin is death--death to body and soul; and from sin he must escape.

There is but one way, my friends.  There never was but one way.
Believe the text, and therefore believe the warrant of your Baptism.
Believe the message of your Confirmation.

Your baptism says to you, God does NOT hate you, be you the greatest
sinner on earth.  He does not hate you.  He loves you; for you are
His child.  He hateth nothing that He hath made.  He willeth not the
death of a sinner, but that ALL should come to be saved.  And your
baptism is the sign of that to you.  But God hates everything that He
has not made; for everything which He has not made is bad; and He has
made all things but sin; and therefore He hates sin, and, loving you,
wishes to raise you out of sin; and baptism is the sign of that also.
Man was made originally in the image and likeness of God, and of
Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, the express image of God the Father;
and therefore everything which is sinful is unmanly, and everything
which is truly manful, and worthy of a man, is like Jesus Christ; and
God's will is, that you should rise out of all these unmanly sins, to
a truly manful life--a life like the life of Jesus Christ, the Son of
Man.  And baptism is God's sign of this also.  That is the meaning of
the words in the Baptism Service which tell you that you were
baptised into Jesus Christ, that you might put off the old man--the
sinful, slavish, selfish, unmanly pattern of life, which we all lead
by nature; and put on the new man--the holy and noble, righteous and
loving pattern of life, which is the likeness of the Lord Jesus.
That is the message of your baptism to you; that you are God's
children, and that God's will and wish is that you should grow up to
become His SONS, to serve Him lovingly, trustingly, manfully; and
that He can and will give you power to do so--ay, that He has given
you that power already, if you will but claim it and use it.  But you
must claim it and use it, because you are meant not merely to be
God's wilful, ignorant, selfish children, obeying Him from mere fear
of the rod; but to be His willing, loving, loyal sons.  And that is
the message which Confirmation brings you.  Baptism says:  You are
God's child, whether you know it or not.  Confirmation says:  Yes;
but now you are to know it, and to claim your rights as His sons, of
full age, reasonable and self-governing.

Baptism says:  You are regenerated and born from above, by water and
the Holy Spirit.  Confirmation answers:  True, most true; but there
is no use in a child's being born, if it never comes to man's estate,
but remains a stunted idiot.

Baptism says:  You may and ought to become more or less such a man as
the Lord Jesus was.  Confirmation says:  You can become such; for you
are no longer children; you are grown to man's estate in body, you
can grow to man's estate in soul if you will.  God's Spirit is with
you, to show you all things in their true light; to teach you to
value them or despise them as you ought; to teach you to love what He
loves, and hate what He hates.  God wishes you no longer to be merely
His children, obeying Him you know not why; still less His slaves,
obeying Him from mere brute coward fear, and then breaking loose the
moment that you forget Him, and fancy that His eye is not on you:
but He wishes you to be His sons; to claim the right and the power
which He has given you to trample your sins under foot; to rise up by
the strength which God your Father will surely give to those who ask
Him; and so to be new men, free men, true men, who do look boldly up
to God, knowing that, however wicked they may have been, and however
weak they are still, God's love belongs to them, God's help belongs
to them, and that those who trust in Him shall never be confounded,
but shall go on from strength to strength to the measure of the
stature of a perfect man, to the noble likeness of the Lord Jesus
Christ Himself.

For this is the message of the blessed sacrament of the body and
blood of Christ, to which you have been all called this day.  That
sacrament tells you that in spite of all your daily sins and
failings, you can still look up to God as your Father; to the Lord
Jesus Christ as your life; to the Holy Spirit as your guide and your
inspirer; that though you be prodigal sons, your Father's house is
still open to you, your Father's eternal love ready to meet you afar
off, the moment that you cry from your heart:  "Father, I have
sinned;" and that you must be converted and turn back to God your
Father, not merely once for all at Confirmation, or at any other
time, but weekly, daily, hourly, as often as you forget and disobey
Him; and that he will receive you.  This is the message of the
blessed sacrament, that though you cannot come there trusting in your
own righteousness, you can come trusting in His manifold and great
mercies; that though you are not worthy so much as to gather up the
crumbs under His table, yet He is the same Lord whose property is
ever to have mercy; that He will, as surely as He has appointed that
sign of the bread and wine, grant you so to eat and drink that
spiritual flesh and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the life
of the world, that your sinful bodies may be made clean by His body,
and your souls washed in His most precious blood, and that you may
dwell in Him, and He in you, for ever.



XLI--THE FALL



As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so
death passed on all men, for that all have sinned.--ROMANS v. 12.

We have been reading the history of Adam's fall.  With that fall we
have all to do; for we all feel the fruits of it in the sinful
corruptions which we bring into the world with us.  And more, every
fall which we have is like Adam's fall:  every time we fall into
wilful sin, we do what Adam did, and act over again, each of us many
times in our lives, that which he first acted in the garden of
Paradise.  At least, all mankind suffer for something.  Look at the
sickness, death, bloodshed, oppression, spite, and cruelty, with
which the world is so full now, of which it has been full, as we know
but too well from history, ever since Adam's time.  The world is full
of misery, there is no denying that.  How did that come?  It must
have come somehow.  There must be some reason for all this sorrow.
The Bible tells us a reason for it.  If anyone does not like the
Bible reason, he is bound to find a better reason.  But what if the
Bible reason, the story of Adam's fall, be the only rational and
sensible explanation which ever has been, or ever will be given, of
the way in which death and misery came among men?

Some people will say:  What puzzle is there in it?  All animals die,
why should not man?  All animals fight and devour each other, why
should not man do so too?  But why need we suppose that man is
fallen?  Why should he not have been meant by nature to be just what
he is?  Some scholars who fancy themselves wise, and think that they
know better than the Bible, will say that now, and pride themselves
on having said a very fine thing; ignorant men, too, often are led
into the same mistake, and are willing enough to say:  "What if we
are brutish, and savage, and ignorant, and spiteful, indulging
ourselves, hating and quarrelling with each other?  God made us what
we are, and we cannot help it."  But there is a voice in the heart of
every man, and just in proportion as a man is a man, and not a beast
and a savage, that voice cries in his heart more loudly:  No; God did
not make you what you are.  You are not meant to be what you are, but
something better.  You are not meant to fight and devour each other
as the animals do; for you are meant to be better than they.  You are
not meant to die as the animals do; for you feel something in you
which cannot die, which hates death.  You may try to be a mere savage
and a beast, but you cannot be content to be so.  And yet you feel
ready to fall lower, and get more and more brutish.  What can be the
reason?  There must be something wrong about men, something diseased
and corrupt in them, or they would not have this continual discontent
with themselves for being no better than they are; this continual
hankering and longing after some happiness, some knowledge, some good
and noble state which they do not see round them, and never have felt
in themselves.  Man must have fallen, fallen from some good and right
state into which he was put at first, and for which he is hankering
and craving now.  There must be an original sin in him; that is, a
sin belonging to his origin, his race, his breed, as we say, which
has been handed down from father to son; an original sin as the
church calls it.  And I believe firmly that the heart of man, even
among savages, bears witness to the truth of that doctrine, and
confesses that we are fallen beings, let false philosophers try as
they will to persuade us that we are not.

Then, again, there are another set of people, principally easy, well-
to-do, respectable people, who run into another mistake, the same
into which the Pelagians did in old time.  They think:  "Man is not
fallen.  Every man is born into the world quite good enough, if he
chose to remain good.  Every man can keep God's laws if he likes, or
at all events keep them well enough."  As for his having a sinful
nature which he got from Adam, they do not believe that really,
though often they might not like to say so openly.  They think:
"Adam fell, and he was punished; and if I fall I shall be punished;
but Adam's sin is nothing to me, and has not hurt me.  I can be just
as good and right as Adam was, if I like."  That is a comfortable
doctrine enough for easy-going well-to-do folks, who have but few
trials, and few temptations, and who love little because little has
been forgiven them.  But what comfort is there in that for poor
sinners, who feel sinful and base passions dragging them down, and
making them brutish and miserable, and yet feel that they cannot
conquer their sins of themselves, cannot help doing wrong, all the
while they know that it is wrong?  They feel that they have something
more in them than a will and power to do what they choose.  They feel
that they have a sinful nature which keeps their will and reason in
slavery, and makes sin a hard bondage, a miserable prison-house, from
which they cannot escape.  In short, they feel and know that they are
fallen.  Small comfort, too, to every thinking man, who looks upon
the great nations of savages, which have lived, and live still, upon
God's earth, and sees how, so far from being able to do right if they
choose, they go on from father to son, generation after generation,
doing wrong, more and more, whether they like or not; how they become
more and more children of wrath, given up to fierce wars, and cruel
revenge, and violent passions, all their thought, and talk, and
study, being to kill and to fight; how they become more and more
children of darkness, forgetting more and more the laws of right and
wrong, becoming stupid and ignorant, until they lose the very
knowledge of how to provide themselves with houses, clothes, fire, or
even to till the ground, and end in feeding on roots and garbage,
like the beasts which perish.  And how, too, long before they fall
into that state, death works in them.  How, the lower they fall, and
the more they yield to their original sin and their corrupt nature,
they die out.  By wars with each other; by murdering their own
children, to avoid the trouble of rearing them; by diseases which
they know not how to cure, and which they too often bring on
themselves by their own brutishness; by bad food, and exposure to the
weather, they die out, and perish off the face of the earth,
fulfilling the Lord's words to Adam:  "Thou shalt surely die."  I do
not say that their souls go to hell.  The Bible tells us nothing of
where they go to.  God's mercy is boundless.  And the Bible tells us
that sin is not imputed where there is no law, as there is none among
them.  So we may have hope for them, and leave them in God's hand.
But what can we hope for them who are utterly dead in trespasses and
sins?  Well for them, if, having fallen to the likeness of the
brutes, they perish with the brutes.  I fancy if you, as some may,
ever go to Australia, and there see the wretched black people, who
are dying out there, faster and faster, year by year, after having
fallen lower than the brutes, then you will understand what original
sin may bring a man to, what it would have brought us to, had not God
in His mercy raised us and our forefathers up from that fearful down-
hill course, when we were on it fifteen hundred years ago.

And another thing which shows that these poor savages are not as God
intended them to be, but are falling, generation after generation, by
the working of original sin, is, that they, almost all of them, show
signs of having been better off long ago.  Many, like the South Sea
Islanders, have curious arts remaining among them in spite of their
brutish ignorance, which they could only have learned when they were
far more clever and civilised than they are now.  And almost all of
them have some sad remembrance, handed down from father to son, kept
up in songs and foolish tales, of having been richer, and more
prosperous, and more numerous, a long while ago.  They will confess
to you, if you ask them, that they are worse than their fathers--that
they are going down, dying out--that the gods are angry with them, as
they say.  The Lord have mercy upon them!  But what is, to my mind,
the most awful part of the matter remains yet to be told--and it is
this:  That man may actually fall by original sin too low to receive
the gospel of Jesus Christ, and be recovered again by it.  For the
negroes of Africa and the West Indies, though they have fallen very
low, have not fallen too low for the gospel.  They have still
understanding left to take it in, and conscience, and sense of right
and wrong enough left to embrace it; thousands of them do embrace it,
and are received unto righteousness, and lead such lives as would
shame many a white Englishman, born and bred under the gospel.

But the black people in Australia, who are exactly of the same race
as the African negroes, cannot take in the gospel.  They seem to have
become too stupid to understand it; they seem to have lost the sense
of sin and of righteousness too completely to care about it.  All
attempts to bring them to a knowledge of the true God have as yet
failed utterly.  God's grace is all-powerful; He is no respecter of
persons; and He may yet, by some great act of His wisdom, quicken the
dead souls of these poor brutes in human shape.  But, as far as we
can see, there is no hope for them:  but, like the Canaanites of old,
they must perish off the face of the earth, as brute beasts.

I have said so much to show you that man is fallen; that there is
original sin, an inclination to sin and fall, sink down lower and
lower, in man.  Now comes the question:  What is this fall of man?  I
said that the Bible tells us rationally enough.  And I have also made
use several times of words, which may have hinted to some of you
already what Adam's fall was.  I have spoken of the likeness of the
beasts, and of men becoming like beasts by original sin.  And this is
why I said it.

If you want to understand what Adam's fall was, you must understand
what he fell from, and what he fell to.  That is plain.

Now, the Bible tells us, that he fell from God's grace to nature.

What is nature?  Nature means what is born, and lives, and dies, and
is parted and broken up, that the parts of it may go into some new
shape, and be born and live, and die again.  So the plants, trees,
beasts, are a part of nature.  They are born, live, die; and then
that which was them goes into the earth, or into the stomachs of
other animals, and becomes in time part of that animal, or part of
the tree or flower, which grows in the soil into which it has fallen.
So the flesh of a dead animal may become a grain of wheat, and that
grain of wheat again may become part of the body of an animal.  You
all see this every time you manure a field, or grow a crop.  Nature
is, then, that which lives to die, and dies to live again in some
fresh shape.  And, in the first chapter of Genesis, you read of God
creating nature--earth, and water, and light, and the heavens, and
the plants and animals each after their kind, born to die and change,
made of dust, and returning to the dust again.  But after that we
read very different words; we read that when God created man, He
said:

"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and
over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth."  He was made in God's likeness;
therefore he could only be right in as far as he was like God.  And
he could not be like God if he did not will what God willed, and wish
what God wished.  He was to live by faith in God; he was justified by
faith in God, and by that only.

Never fancy that Adam had any righteousness of his own, any goodness
of which he could say:  "This is mine, part of me; I may pride myself
on it."  God forbid.  His righteousness consisted, as ours must, in
looking up to God, trusting Him utterly, believing that he was to do
God's will, and not his own.  His spirit, his soul, as we call it,
was given to him for that purpose, and for none other, that it might
trust in God and obey God, as a child does his father.  He had a free
will; but he was to use that will as we must use our wills, by giving
up our will to God's will, by clinging with our whole hearts and
souls to God.

Adam fell.  He let himself be tempted by a beast, by the serpent.
How, we cannot tell:  but so we read.  He took the counsel of a brute
animal, and not of God.  He chose between God and the serpent, and he
chose wrong.  He wanted to be something in himself; to have a
knowledge and power of his own, to use it as he chose.  He was not
content to be in God's likeness; he wanted to be as a god himself.
And so he threw away his faith in God, and disobeyed Him.  And
instead of becoming a god, as he expected, he became an animal; he
put on the likeness of the brutes, who cannot look up to God in trust
and love, who do not know God, do not obey Him, but follow their own
lusts and fancies, as they may happen to take them.  Whether the
change came on him all at once, the Bible does not say:  but it did
come on him; for from him it has been handed down to all his children
even to this day.  Then was fulfilled against him the sentence, In
the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.  Not that he died
that moment; but death began to work in him.  He became like the
branch of a tree cut off from the stem, which may not wither at the
instant it is cut off, but it is yet dead, as we find out by its soon
decaying.  He had come down from being a son of God, and he had taken
his place in nature, among the things which grow only to die; and
death began to work in him, and in his children after him.  He handed
down his nature to his children as the animals do; his children
inherited his faults, his weaknesses, his diseases, the seed of death
which was in him, just as the animals pass down to their breed, their
defects, and diseases, and certainty of dying after their appointed
life is past.

For this, my friends, is the lesson which Adam's fall teaches us,
that in God alone is the life of immortal souls, whether of men, or
of angels, or of archangels; and in God alone is righteousness; in
God alone is every good thing, and all good in men or angels comes
from Him, and is only His pattern, His likeness; and that the moment
either man or angel sets up his will against God's, he falls into
sin, a lie, and death.  That He has given us reasonable souls for
that one purpose, that with our souls we may look up to Him, with our
souls we may cling to Him, with our souls we may trust in Him, with
our souls we may understand His will, and see that it is a good, and
a right, and a loving will, and delight in it, and obey it, and find
all our delight and glory, even as the Lord Jesus, the Son of Man,
the New Adam, did, in doing not our own will, but the will of our
Father.

For, as St. Augustine says, man may live in two ways, either
according to himself, or according to God; by self-will or by faith.
He may determine to do his own will or to do God's will, to be his
own master or to let God be his master, to seek his own glory, and
try to be something fine and grand in himself:  or he may seek God's
glory and obey Him, believing that what God commands is the only good
for him, what makes God to be honoured in the eyes of his neighbours
is the only real honour for him.

But, says St. Augustine, if he tries to live according to himself, he
falls into misery, because he was meant to live according to God.  So
he puts himself into a lie, into a false and wrong state; and because
he has cut himself off from God he falls below what a man should be;
and puts on more and more of the likeness of the beast, and is more
and more the slave of his own lusts, and passions, and fancies, as
the dumb animals are.  And, as St. Paul says, the animal man, the
carnal man, understands not the things of God.  And we need no one to
tell us that this is the state of nature which we bring into the
world with us.  We feel it; from our very childhood, from the
earliest time we can recollect, have we not had the longing to do
what we liked? to please ourselves, to pride ourselves on ourselves,
to set up our own wills against our parents, against what we learnt
out of the Bible?  Ay, has not this wilful will of ours been so
strong, that often we would long after a thing, we would determine to
have it, only because we were forbidden to have it; we might not care
about the thing when we had it, but we would have our own way just
because it was our own way.  In short, like Adam, we would be as
gods, knowing good and evil, and choosing for ourselves what we
should call good and what we shall call evil.  And, my dear friends,
consider:  did not every wrong that we ever did come from this one
root of all sin--determining to have our own way?  That root-sin of
self-will first brought death and misery among mankind; that sin of
self-will keeps it up still:  that sin of self-will it is which
hinders sinners from giving themselves up to God; and that sin must
be broken through, or religion is a mockery and a dream.

Oh my friends, say to yourselves once for all, I was made in God's
likeness; and therefore His will, and not my own, I must do.  I have
no wisdom of my own, no strength of mind of my own, no goodness of my
own, no lovingness of my own.  God has them all; God, who is wisdom,
strength, goodness, love; and I have none.  And then, when the
fearful thought comes over you:  "I have no goodness, and I cannot
have any.  I cannot do right.  There is no use struggling and trying
to be better.  My passions, my lusts, my fancies are too strong for
me.  If I am brutish and low, brutish and low I must remain.  If I
have fallen in Adam, I must lie in the mire till I die--"

Then, then, my friends, answer yourselves:  "No!  Not so.  Man fell
in the first Adam:  but man rose again in the second Adam, the Lord
Jesus Christ.  I belong no more to the old Adam, who fell in
Paradise.  I belong to the New Adam, who was conceived without sin,
and born of a pure virgin, who lived by perfect faith, in perfect
obedience, doing His Father's will only, even to the death upon the
cross, wherein He took away the sins of the whole world.  And now for
His sake my original sin, my fallen, brutish nature, is forgiven me.
God does not hate me for it.  He loves me, because I belong to His
Son.  My baptism is a witness and a warrant, a sign and a covenant
between me and God, that I belong not to old Adam of Paradise, but to
the Lord Jesus Christ, who sits at God's right hand.  The cross which
was signed on my forehead when I was baptised is God's sign to me
that I am to sacrifice myself and give up my own will to do God's
will, even as the Lord Jesus did when He gave Himself to die, because
it was His Father's will.  And because I belong to Jesus Christ,
because God has called me to be His child, therefore He will help me.
He will help me to conquer this low, brutish nature of mine.  He will
put His Spirit into me, the Spirit of His Son Jesus Christ, that I
may trust Him, cry to Him, My Father! that I may love Him; understand
His will, and see how good, and noble, and beautiful, and full of
peace and comfort it is; delight in obeying Him; glory in sacrificing
my own fancies and pleasures for His sake; and find my only honour,
my only happiness, in doing His will on earth as saints and angels do
it in heaven.



XLII--GOD'S COVENANTS



I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a
covenant between me and the earth.--GENESIS ix. 13.

The text says that God made a covenant with Noah, and with his seed
after him--that is, with all mankind; with us who sit here, and our
children after us, and with all human beings who will ever live upon
the face of the earth.  God made a covenant with them.  Now, what is
a covenant?  We say that two men make a covenant with each other when
they make a bargain, an agreement; in this way:  If you will do this
thing, then I will do that; but if you will not do this thing, I will
not do that.  If you do not keep to our agreement, I am free of it.
If I do not do my part of the agreement, you are free.  Is not that
what we call a covenant--a bargain between two parties, which, if
either party breaks it, becomes null and void, and binds neither?
Let us see whether God's covenants with man are of this kind.

Does God say to Noah:  "If you and your children are righteous, I
will look upon the rainbow, and remember my covenant:  but if you and
your children are unrighteous, I will not look on the rainbow, and I
will break my covenant because you have broken it?"  We read no such
words; God made no conditions with Noah and his sons.  Whether they
forgot the covenant or not, God would remember it.  It was a covenant
of free grace, even as all God's covenants are.  Not a bargain, but a
promise.  "By Myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, that I will not
fail David."  By Himself He sware to Abraham:  "Surely blessing I
will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee."  That is the
form of God's covenants.  God swears by Himself--by God who cannot
change.  If God can change, then His covenant can change.  If God can
fail Himself, then can He fail His covenant to which He has sworn by
Himself.  If it had been a mere bargain, like men's bargains, and not
a promise out of His absolute love, His free grace, His boundless
mercy, would He have sworn by Himself?  Nay, rather, He would have
sworn by Abraham:  "By thy obedience or disobedience I swear to bless
thee or curse thee."  But He swore by Himself, the absolute, the
unchangeable, the Giver whose name is Love.

Consider now the token of the covenant which God gave to Noah.  It
was the rainbow.  What is the rainbow?  Sunlight turned back to our
eye, through drops of falling rain.  What sign could be more simple?
And yet what sign could be more perfect?  Noah's sons would fear that
another flood was coming, perhaps flood after flood.  The token of
the rainbow said to them, No.  Floods and rain are not to be the
custom of this earth.  Sunshine is to be the custom of it.  Do not
fear the clouds and storm and rain; look at the bow in the cloud, in
the very rain itself.  That is a sign that the sun, though you cannot
see it, is shining still.  That up above, beyond the cloud, is still
sunlight, and warmth, and cloudless blue sky.  Believe in God's
covenant.  Believe that the sun will conquer the clouds, warmth will
conquer cold, calm will conquer storm, fair will conquer foul, light
will conquer darkness, joy will conquer sorrow, life conquer death,
love conquer destruction and the devouring floods; because God is
light, God is love, God is life, God is peace and joy eternal and
without change, and labours to give life, and joy, and peace, to man
and beast and all created things.  This was the meaning of the
rainbow.  Not a sudden or strange token, a miracle, as men call it,
like as some voice out of the sky, or fiery comet, might have been;
but a regular, orderly, and natural sign, to witness that God is a
God of order.  Whenever there was a rainy day there might be a
rainbow.  It came by the same laws by which everything else comes in
the world.  It was a witness that God who made the world is the
friend and preserver of man; that His promises are like the
everlasting sunshine which is above the clouds, without spot or
fading, without variableness or shadow of turning.

And do you fancy, my friends, that the new covenant, the covenant
which God made with all mankind in the blood of His only-begotten
Son, is narrower or weaker than the covenant which He made with Noah,
Abraham, and David?  He asked no conditions from them.  Do you think
He asks them from us?  He called them by free grace.  Do you think He
calls us by anything less?  He swore by Himself to them.  How much
more has He sworn by Himself to us?  He who was born, and died, and
rose again for us, who now sits at the right hand of the Father, very
Man of the substance of a human mother, yet very God of very God
begotten.

His covenants of old stood true and faithful, however disobedient and
unfaithful men might be; as it is written:  "I have sworn once for
all by my holiness, that I will not fail David."  And those words,
the New Testament declares to us, again and again, are true of the
new covenant, and fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, into whose name
we are baptized.  Yes; into whose name we are baptized.  There is the
sign of the new covenant; of a covenant of free grace.  Therefore we
can bring our children to be baptized as we were baptized ourselves,
before they have done either good or evil, for a sign that God's love
is over them, God's kingdom is their inheritance, God's love their
everlasting portion.

But we may fall from grace; and then what good will our baptism be to
us?  We shall be lost, just as if we had never been baptized.

My friends, if, though the sun was shining in the sky, you shut your
eyes close, and kept out the light, what use would the sunlight be to
you?  You would stumble, and fall, and come to harm, as certainly as
in the darkest night.  But would the sun go out of the sky, my
friends, because you were unwise enough to shut your eyes to it?  The
sun would still be there, shining as bright as ever.  You would have
only to be reasonable and to open your eyes, and you would see your
way again as well as ever.

So it is with holy baptism.  In it we were made members of Christ,
children of God, inheritors of the kingdom of heaven.  God's love is
above us and around us, like a warm, bright, life-giving sun.  We may
shut our eyes to it, but it is there still.  We may disbelieve our
baptism covenant, but it is true still.  We are children of God; and
nothing that we can do, no sin, no unfaithfulness of ours, can make
us anything else.  We can no more become not God's children, than a
child can become not his own father's son.  But this we can do by
sinning, by disbelieving that we are God's children, by behaving as
the devil's children when we are God's; we can believe ourselves not
God's children when we are; we can try to be what we are not; we can
enter into a lie, and into the misery to which all lies lead; we can
walk in darkness, and stumble, and fall, when all the while we are
children of the light, and have only to open our eyes to walk in the
light.  Ay, we can shut our eyes to the light so long, that at last
we forget that there is any light at all; and that is the gate of
hell.  We may wrap ourselves up in our selfishness, in selfish
pleasures, selfish cunning, selfish covetousness, and selfish pride,
till we forget that there is anything better for us than selfishness,
till we forget that God is love, and that we His children are meant
to be loving even as He is loving; and that also is the gate of hell.
And worst and darkest of all, when in that stupid, sinful, loveless
state of mind, God's loving Spirit still strives and pleads with us,
and tries to awaken us, and terrify us with the sight of the
everlasting misery and ruin into which we have thrown ourselves, we
may turn those pleadings of God's Spirit, by our own evil wills, into
a darker curse than all which have gone before.  We may refuse to
believe that God is love, and fancy Him as hard, and cruel, and
proud, and spiteful, and unloving as we ourselves are.  We may
refuse, though Scripture, Prayer-book, sacraments, preachers, assure
us of it, that God is our Father still; and deny His covenant of
baptism, and blaspheme His holy name, by fancying Him our tyrant and
taskmaster, who hates us, and willeth the death of a sinner, and has
pleasure in the death of him that dieth.  And then we may behave
according to the lie which we ourselves have invented, and all sorts
of inventions of our own to escape God's wrath, when, in reality, it
is He who is wishing to turn His wrath away from us; and to win back
His favour, when, in reality, it is not we who are out of favour with
Him, but He who is out of favour with us, who dread Him and shrink
from Him; we may try to deliver ourselves from Him, when all the
while it is He, the very God whom we are dreading and flying from,
who alone is able and willing to deliver us; and with all our fears,
and self-tormentings, and faithless terrors, and blasphemings of God
by fancying Him the very opposite to what He has declared Himself, we
shall get no peace of conscience, no deliverance from sins, or from
the fear of punishment, but only a fearful and fiery looking forward
to judgment, which is hell.  That is superstition; hell on earth;
when men have so utterly forgotten the likeness of God, which He
manifested in His Son Jesus Christ, that they look on Him as a stern
and dreadful taskmaster, a tyrant, and not a deliverer.  Hell on
earth, which may and must lead to hell hereafter; a hell of fear, and
doubt, and hatred of Him who is all lovely; the hell whereof it is
written, that its worst torment is being cast out from the sight of
God:  unless the hapless sinner opens his eye and believes the
covenant of his baptism, and sees that God cannot lie, God cannot
change, cannot break His covenant, cannot alter His love; that though
he have left his Father's house, and wandered into far countries, and
wasted his Father's substance in riotous living, he is still his
Father's son, his Father's house is still where it was from the
beginning, his Father's heart still what it was from the beginning;
and so arises and goes back to his Father's house, confessing that he
is no more worthy to be called His son, willing to be only as one of
His hired servants; and then--sees not the stern countenance, the
cruel punishments which he dreaded:  but--"While he was yet afar off,
his Father saw him, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him!"

And if, in our sins, our only hope of comfort, and peace, and
strength, lies in remembering our baptismal covenant, and being sure
and certain that though we have changed, God has not; that though we
are dark, God's love shines bright and clear for ever, how much more
when the dark day of affliction comes?  Why should I speak of this
and that affliction?  Each heart knows its own bitterness; each soul
has its own sorrow; each man's life has its dark days of storm and
tempest, when all his joys seem flown away by some sudden blast of
ill-fortune, and the desire of his eyes is taken from him, and all
his hopes and plans, all which he intended to do or to enjoy, are hid
with blinding mist, so that he cannot see his way before him, and
knows not whither to go, and whither to flee for help; when faith in
God seems broken up for the moment, when he feels no strength, no
will, no purpose, and knows not what to determine, what to do, what
to believe, what to care for; when the very earth seems reeling under
his feet, and the fountains of the abyss are broken up:  then let him
think of God's covenant, and take heart; let him think of his
baptism, and be at peace.  Is the sun's warmth perished out of the
sky, because the storm is cold with hail and bitter winds?  Is God's
love changed, because we cannot feel it in our trouble?  Is the sun's
light perished out of the sky, because the world is black with cloud
and mist?  Has God forgotten to give light to suffering souls,
because we cannot see our way for a few short days of perplexity?

For this is the gospel, this is the message which we have received
from God, to preach to every sad and desolate heart on earth, that
God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.  That God is love,
and in Him there is no cruelty at all.  That God is one, and in Him
there is no change at all.  And therefore, we all, the most ignorant
of us as well as the wisest, the most sinful of us as well as the
holiest, the saddest and most wretched of us as well as the happiest,
have a right to join in that Litany which is offered up here thrice
every week during the time of Lent, and to call upon God to deliver
us and all mankind, not merely because we wish to be delivered from
evil, but because God wishes to deliver us from evil.  If we pray
that Litany in any dark dread of God, in doubt of His love and
goodwill towards us, like terrified slaves crying out to a hard
taskmaster, and entreating him not to torment them, we do not pray
that Litany aright; we do not pray it at all.  For it asks God not to
leave us alone, but to come to us; not to stop punishing us, but
actually Himself to deliver us, to defend us, to set us free.
Therefore it begins by calling on God the Father, because He is our
Father; on God the Son, because He has already redeemed and bought us
for His own; on God the Holy Spirit, because He has been striving
with our wilful hearts from our youth up till now, lovingly desiring
to teach us, to change us, to sanctify us.  Therefore it calls on the
holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three Persons and one God,
because the Son does not love us better than the Father does, or than
the Holy Spirit does, but in the life and death of the Man Christ
Jesus, whom we call on to deliver us by His birth, His baptism, His
death, His resurrection, by all that His manhood did and suffered
here on earth, in His life and death, I say, were shown forth bodily
the glory, and condescension, and love, and goodwill of the fulness
of the Godhead, of all three Persons of the one and undivided
Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  Therefore we may pray boldly
to Him to spare us, because we know that we are already His people,
already redeemed with his most precious blood, already declared by
holy baptism to be bound to Him in an everlasting covenant.
Therefore we may pray boldly to Him not to be angry with us for ever,
because we know that He desires to bless us for ever, if we will only
let Him; if we will only let His love have free course, and not shut
our hearts to it, and turn our backs upon it.  Therefore we can ask
Him to deliver us in all time of our tribulation and misery; in all
time of the still more dangerous temptations which wealth and
prosperity bring with them; in the hour of death, whether of our own
death or the death of those we love; in the day of judgment, whereof
it is written:  "It is God who justifieth us, who is he that
condemneth?  It is Christ who died, yea rather who is risen again,
who even now maketh intercession for us."  To that boundless love of
God which He showed forth in the life of Christ Jesus; to that utter
and perfect will to deliver us, which God showed forth in the death
of Christ Jesus, when the Father spared not His only-begotten Son,
but freely gave Him for us; to that boundless love we may trust
ourselves, our fortunes, our families, our bodies, our souls, the
souls of those we love.  Trusting in that great love, we may pray in
that Litany for deliverance; to be delivered from distress and
accidents, from all sins which drag us down, and make us miserable,
ashamed, confused, terrified, selfish, hateful, and hating each
other.  We may pray to be delivered from evil, because God is
righteousness, and hates evil.  We may pray to be delivered from our
sins, because God is righteousness, and hates our sins.  We may pray
for the Queen, her ministers, her parliament, because God's love and
care is over them; for all orders and ranks of men, whether laymen or
clergymen, high or low, in God's holy church; for all who are
afflicted and desolate; for all who are wandering in ignorance, and
mistakes, and sin; ay, for all mankind, for God loves them all, the
Son of God has bought them all with His most precious blood.  And
however dark, and sad, and sinful the world may seem around us;
however dark, and sad, and sinful our own hearts may be within us, we
may find comfort in that Litany, and pour out in it our sorrows and
our fears, if we begin only as it begins, with the thought of God who
is righteousness, God who is love, God who is the Deliverer.  And
then, as the rainbow reflects the sunbeams for a sign and token that
the sun is shining, though we see it not; so will that blessed
Litany, with its sacred name of God, its calls to Him who was born of
the Virgin Mary, and crucified under Pontius Pilate; its entreaties
to God to deliver us, because He is a deliverer; to hear us, and send
us good, because He is a good Lord Himself; its remembrances of the
noble works which God did in our fathers' days, and in the old time
before them; its noble declaration that God does not despise the
sighing of a contrite heart, nor the desire of a humble spirit, and
that it is the very glory of His name to turn from us those evils
which we most justly have deserved--that Litany, I say, will be like
a rainbow declaring to our dark and stormy hearts that the sun is
shining still above the clouds; that over and above us, and all
mankind, and all the changes and chances of this mortal life, is the
still bright sunshine, the life-giving warmth of the Sun of
Righteousness, the absolute eternal love of our Father who is in
heaven, who, as he has declared by the mouth of His only-begotten
Son, is perfect in this, that He does not deal with us after our
sins, nor reward us according to our iniquities, but is good to the
unthankful and the evil, sending His rain alike upon the just and on
the unjust, and making His sun to shine alike upon the evil and the
good.



XLIII--THE MYSTERY OF GODLINESS



Great is the mystery of godliness:  God was manifest in the flesh,
justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached to the Gentiles,
believed on in the world, received up into glory.--1 TIMOTHY iii. 16.

St. Paul here sums up in one verse the whole of Christian truth.  He
gives us in a few words what he says is the great mystery of
godliness.

Now, men had been inventing for themselves all kinds of mysteries of
godliness; all sorts of mysterious and wonderful notions about God;
all sorts of mysterious and strange ceremonies, and ways of pleasing
God, or turning away His anger.

And Christian men are apt to do so also, as well as those old
heathens.  They feel that they are very mysterious and wonderful
beings themselves, simply because they are men.  They say to
themselves:  "How strange that I should have a body of flesh and
blood, and appetites and passions, like the animals, and yet that I
should have an immortal spirit in me.  How strange this notion of
duty which I have, and which the other animals have not; this notion
of its being right to do some things, and wrong to do others!  From
whence did that notion come?  And again, this strange notion which I
have, and cannot help having, that I ought to be like God:  and yet I
do not know what God is like.  From whence did that notion come?"

Again:  "I fancy that God ought to be good.  But how do I know that
He really is good?  I see the world full of injustice, and misery,
and death.  How do I know that this is not God's doing, God's fault
in some way?"

Again, says a man to himself:  "I have a fair right to believe that
mankind are not the only persons in the universe--that there are
other beings beside God whom I cannot see.  I call them angels.  I
hardly know what I mean by that.  The really important question about
them to me is:  Will they do me harm?  Can they do me good?  Are they
stronger than I?--Ought I not to fear them, to try to please them, to
keep them favourable to me?"

Again, he asks:  "Does God care whether I know what is right?  Does
God care to teach me about Himself?  Is God desirous that I should do
my duty?  For if He does not care about my being good, why should I
care about it?"

Again, he asks:  "But if I knew my duty, might I not find it
something too far-fetched, too difficult, for poor simple folk to do:
so that I should be forced to leave a right life to great scholars,
and to rich people, or to people of a very devout delicate temper of
mind, who have a natural turn that way?"

And last of all:  "Even if I did struggle to do right; even if I gave
up everything for the sake of doing right; how do I know that it will
profit me to do so?  I shall die as every man dies, and then what
will become of me?  Shall I be a man still, or only--horrible
thought!--some sort of empty ghost, a spirit without body, of which I
dream, and shudder while I dream of it?"

Men in all ages, heathens and Christians, have been puzzled by such
thoughts as these, as soon as they began to feel that there was a
world which they could not see, as well as a world which they could
see; a spiritual world, wherein God the Spirit, and their own
spirits, and spiritual things, such as right, wrong, duty, reason,
love, dwell for ever; and a strange hidden duty on all men to obey
that unseen God, and the laws of that spiritual world; in short a
mystery of godliness.

Then they have tried to answer these questions for themselves; and
have run thereby into all manner of follies and superstitions, and
often, too, into devilish cruelties, in the hope of pleasing God
according to some mystery of godliness of their own invention.

But to each of these puzzles St. Paul gives an answer in the text.
Let us take them each in its order, and you will see what I mean.

The first puzzle was:  How is it that while I am like the animals in
some things, and yet feel as if I ought to be, and can be, like God
in other things?  How is it that I feel two powers in me; one
dragging me downward to make me lower than the beasts, the other
lifting me upwards--I dare not think whither?  It seems to me to be
my body, my bodily appetites and tempers which drag me down.  Is my
body me, part of me, or a thing I should be ashamed of, and long to
be rid of?  I fancy that I can be like God.  But can my body be like
God?  Must I not crush it, neglect it, get rid of it before I can
follow the good instinct which draws me upward?

To which St. Paul told Timothy to answer:  God was manifest in the
flesh.  God sent down His only-begotten Son, co-equal and co-eternal
with Himself, very God of very God, the very same person who had been
putting into men's minds those two notions of which we spoke, that
there is a right and a wrong, and that men ought to be like God; Him
the Father sent into the world that He might be born, and live, and
die, and rise again, as a man; that so men might see from His
example, manifestly and plainly, what God was like, and what man
ought to be like.  And so Jesus Christ was God, manifested in the
flesh.

Now we do know what God is like.  We know that He is so like man,
that He can take upon Him man's flesh and blood without changing, or
lowering, or defiling Himself.  That proves that man must have been
originally made in God's likeness; that man's being fallen, means
man's falling from the likeness of God, and taking up instead with
the likeness of the brutes which perish; that the fault cannot be in
our bodies, but in our spirits which have yielded to our bodies, and
become their slaves instead of their masters, as Christ's Spirit was
master of His body.  But the Son of God, by being born and living as
a man, showed us that we are not fallen past hope, not fallen so low
that we cannot rise again.  He showed that though mankind are sinful,
yet they need not be sinful; for He was a man as exactly, and
perfectly, and entirely as we are, and yet in Him was no sin.  So He
showed that brutishness and sinfulness is not our proper state, but
our disease and our fall; and a disease of which we can be cured, a
fall out of which we can rise and be renewed into the true and real
pattern of mankind, the new Adam, Jesus the sinless Son of Man and
Son of God.

The next question, I said, that rose in men's mind was:  "How do I
know that God is good, as I fancy sometimes that He must be?  I see
the world full of sin, and injustice, and misery, and death.  Perhaps
that is God's doing, God's fault."  That is a common puzzle enough,
and a sad and fearful one.  The sin and the misery and the death are
here.  If God did not bring it here, yet why did He let it come here?
He could have stopped if He would, and kept out all this
wretchedness:  why did He not?  Was He just or loving in letting sin
into the world?

To all which St. Paul answers:  "God was justified in the Spirit."

You do not see what that has to do with it?  Then let me show you.

To be justified means to be shown and proved to be just, righteous.
Now what justified God to man was the Spirit of God, as He showed
Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ.  For when God became man and dwelt
among men, what sort of works were His?  What was His conduct, His
character; of what sort of spirit did He show Himself to be?  He
went, we read, doing good, for God was with Him.  Not of His own
will, but to do His Father's will, and because He was filled without
measure by the Spirit of God, He did good, He healed the sick, He
rebuked the proud and self-conceited hypocrite, He proclaimed pardon
and mercy to the broken-hearted sinner, wearied and worn out by the
burden of his sins.  Thus, in every action of His life, He was
fighting against evil and misery, and conquering it; and so showing
that God hates evil and misery, and that the evil and the misery in
the world are here against God's will.  Strange as it may seem to
have to say it, so it is.  Jesus Christ showed that howsoever sin and
sorrow came into the world, it is God's will and purpose to root them
out of the world, and that He is righteous, He is loving, He is
merciful, He does and will fight against evil, for those who are
crushed by it; and help poor sufferers always when they call upon
Him, and often, often, of His most undeserved condescension and free
grace, when they are forgetting and disobeying Him.  And so by the
good, and loving, and just spirit which Jesus showed, God was
justified before men, and showed to be a God of goodness and justice.

The next puzzle, I said, was about angels and spirits, whether we
need to pray to them to help us, and not to hurt us.  St. Paul
answers:  God, when He was manifested in the flesh of a man, was seen
by these angels.  And that is enough for us.  They saw the Lord God
condescend to be born in a stable, to live as a poor man, to die on
the cross.  They saw that His will to man was love.  And they do His
will.  And therefore they love men, they help men, they minister to
men, because they follow the Lord's example, and do the will of their
Father in Heaven, even as we ought to do it on earth.  Therefore we
have no need to fear them, for they love us already.  And, on the
other hand, we have no need to pray to them to help us, for they know
already that it is their duty to help us.  They know that the Son of
God has put on us a higher honour than He ever put on them; for He
took not on Him the nature of angels, He took on Him the nature of
man; and thus, though man was made a little lower than the angels,
yet by Christ's taking man's nature, man is crowned with a glory and
honour higher than the angels.  Know ye not, says St. Paul, that we
shall judge angels?  And the angels, as they told St. John, are our
fellow-servants, not our masters; and they know that; for they saw
the Son of God doing utterly His Father's will, and therefore they
know that their duty is to do their Father's will also; not to do
their own wills, and set themselves up as our masters, to be pleaded
with by us.  They saw the Son of God take our nature on Him, when
they sang to the shepherds on the first Christmas night:  "Peace on
earth, and good-will toward men;" and therefore they look on us with
love and honour, because we wear the human nature which Christ their
Master wore, and are partakers of the Holy Spirit of God, even as
they are.  For no angel or archangel could do a right thing, any more
than we, except by the Holy Spirit of God.  And that Holy Spirit is
bestowed on the poorest man who asks for it, as freely as upon the
highest of the heavenly host.

And this leads us on to the next puzzle of which I spoke:  Men were
apt, and are apt now, to say to themselves:  Does God care whether I
know what is right?  Does God care to teach me about Himself?  Is God
desirous that I should do my duty?  For if He does not care about my
being good, why should I care about it?

To this St. Paul answers:  "God, who was manifest in the flesh, was
preached to the Gentiles."

God does care that men should know about God; for He loves them.  He
yearns after them as a father after his children, and He knows that
to know God, to know the truth about God, is the beginning of all
wisdom, the root of all safety and honour and happiness.  He willeth
not that any should perish, but that all should come to the knowledge
of the truth.  And, therefore, when the Son of God died for our sins,
He did not stop at that great deed of love; but He ordained Apostles,
and put upon them especially and above all men, His Holy Spirit, that
they might go and preach to all nations the good news that God had
become flesh, and dwelt among men, and borne their sorrows and
infirmities, and to baptize them into the very name of God itself,
into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost;
that so, instead of fancying now that God did not care for them, they
might be sure that God so longed to teach them, that He called every
child, even from its cradle, to come into His kingdom, and be taught
the whole mystery of godliness.

The next puzzle I mentioned was:  "But this right life, this mystery
of godliness, is it not something very strange and difficult, and
past the understanding of simple men who are not extraordinarily
clever and learned scholars or deep philosophers?"  To that St. Paul
answers:  No.  It is not past any man.  It is not too deep or too
difficult for the simplest, the most unlearned countryman.  For, says
St. Paul in the text, we Apostles have had proof of that; we have
tried it; we Apostles preached the mystery of godliness, and it was
believed on in the world.  People of the world, plain working men and
women going about their worldly business, who had no time to be great
readers, or great thinkers, or to shut themselves up in monasteries
to meditate on heavenly things, but had to live and work in the
commonplace, busy, workday world--they believed our message.  We
Apostles told them that the Son of God had showed Himself in the
likeness of man, and called on every man to repent, and to be such a
man as He was.  And worldly people believed us, and tried, and found
that without giving up their worldly work, or deserting the station
in which God had put them, they could live godlike lives, and become
the sons of God without rebuke.  They saw that scholarship was not
wanted, leisure was not wanted, but only the humble heart which
hungers and thirsts after righteousness.  About their daily work, by
their cottage firesides, among their poor neighbours, the Spirit of
Almighty God gave them strength to live as Jesus their pattern lived;
He filled them with all holy, pure, noble, brave, loving thoughts and
feelings, fit for angels and archangels.  He enabled them to rise out
of their sins, to trample their temptations under foot, to leave
their old low brutish sinful way of life behind them, and become new
men, and persevere in every word, and thought, and action, in virtues
such as the greatest heathen sages could not copy; ay, even to shed
their life-blood freely and boldly in martyrdom, for the sake of God
and the truth of God.  They, these plain simple people, living in the
world, could still live the life of God, and die like heroes for the
sake of God.

And this again brings us to the last puzzle of which I spoke:  "But
what became of those holy and godlike people when they died?  What
reward did they receive for all they had done, and given up, and
suffered?  What will become of us after we die?  What will the next
world be like?  What is heaven like?  Shall I be able to enjoy it?
Shall I be a man there, or only a ghost, a spirit without a body?"

To this St. Paul answers:  That Christ, the Son of God, after He was
manifested in the flesh, was received up into glory.  He does not
tell us what heaven is like; for though he had been caught up into
the third heaven, yet what he saw there, he says, was unspeakable.
He neither ought to tell, or could tell, what he saw.  Neither does
St. Paul tell us what the next life will be like; for as far as we
can find, God had not told him.  All he says is:  The man Christ
Jesus, who walked this earth like other men, was received up into
glory; and He did not leave His man's mind, His man's heart, even His
man's body, behind Him.  He carried up into heaven with Him His whole
manhood, spirit, soul, and body, even to the print of the nails in
His hands and in His most holy feet, and the wound of the spear in
His most holy side.  And that is enough for us.  Because the man
Christ Jesus is in heaven, we as men may ascend to heaven.  Where He
is we shall be.  And what He is, in as far as He is man, we shall be.
What we shall be we know not; but this we know, that we shall be like
Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  And He is a man still; for it is
written:  "There is one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ
Jesus."  And He will be a man at the day of judgment; for it is
written that:  "God hath ordained a day in which He will judge the
world by a man whom He hath chosen."  And He will be a man for ever;
for it is written:  "This man abideth for ever."  And He Himself said
to His disciples:  "I will not drink of this fruit of the vine, till
I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father."  And again He
declared, even when he was on earth, that He was the Son of Man who
is in heaven.  And in heaven nothing can grow less.  But if Christ
were not man for ever as well as God, He would become less; for He is
now God and man also at once; but if He laid down His manhood, and so
became not man any more, but God only, He would become less, which is
not to be believed of Him of whom it is written:  That Jesus Christ
is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.  For, as the Athanasian
creed teaches us, He is not God alone, nor man alone, but God and man
is one Christ; and therefore, when St. John declares that Christ
shall reign for ever and ever, he declares that He shall reign not
only as God, but as man also.  Therefore whatever we do not know
about the next life, we know this, that we shall be men there; not
sinful, weak, and mortal, as we are here, but holy, strong, immortal,
after the likeness of our Lord, the firstborn from the dead, who has
ascended up on high and raised our human nature to the heaven of
heavens, and is gone to prepare a place for us, into which we too
shall enter in that day when He shall change these mortal and fallen
bodies which we now wear, the bodies of our humiliation, the bodies
by wearing which we are now a little lower than the angels; them the
Lord will change, that they may be made like unto His glorious body,
according to the mighty working whereby He subdueth all things unto
Himself, that we may see Him face to face, and dwell with Him in the
glory of God the Father for ever.

Oh my friends, who is sufficient for these things?  What shall we say
of man?  Is he not indeed fearfully and wonderfully made?  Here we
are, weak creatures, more liable to disease and death than the dumb
beasts round us; full of poverty, and adversity, and longings which
are never satisfied; our minds full of mistakes, our hearts full of
false conceit, full of spite and folly, struggles, murmurings,
quarrellings; our consciences full of the remembrance of sins without
number.  The greatest of all heathen poets said, that there was not a
more miserable and pitiable animal upon the earth than man.  He knew
no better.  He could not know better.  How could he, when God had not
yet been manifest in the flesh?  How could he dream that the Lord God
would condescend to be made flesh, and dwell among us, and show man
His glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of
grace and truth--how could he dream that?  And more than all, how
could he dream that God, instead of throwing away our human nature
when He rose again, as if it was too great a degradation for Him to
be a man one moment more, should condescend to take up His human
nature, His man's body, soul, and spirit, with Him into everlasting
glory, that He might feed with it for ever the bodies and souls of
those who trust in Him, so as to make them fit for us at the last
day, to share in His everlasting life?  The old heathen poet knew as
well as you or I that there was an everlasting life beyond the grave;
that men's souls were immortal, and could not die:  but the thought
of it was all dark, and dreary, and uncertain to him and to all
mankind, till the Son of God brought life and immortality to light,
when He was manifest in the flesh.

Wonderful mystery of godliness!  Wonderful love of God to man!
Wonderful condescension of God to man!  Still more wonderful patience
of God to man!

Oh you who live still in sin, when the Son of God died and rose again
to make you righteous; you who defile your bodies with sins worse
than the brutes, when the Son of God offers to raise those bodies of
yours to be equal with the angels; how shall you escape if you
neglect so great salvation; if you despise this unspeakable love; if
you trample under foot, like swine, the everlasting glory and
happiness which God offers you freely, without fee or price, for the
sake of His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who died to buy them for
you?



XLIV--THE WORK OF GOD'S SPIRIT



If I go not away, the comforter will not come unto you; but if I
depart, I will send Him unto you.  And when He is come, He will
reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:  of
sin, because they believe not on me:  of righteousness, because I go
to my Father, and ye see me no more:  of judgment, because the prince
of this world is judged.--JOHN xvi. 7-11.

I no not pretend to be able to explain to you the whole meaning of
this text, or even more than a very small part of it.  For it speaks
of God; of God the Holy Spirit.  And God is boundless; and,
therefore, every text which speaks of God is boundless too, as God
is.  No man can ever see the whole meaning of it, or do more than
understand dimly a little of its truth.  But what we can see, we must
think over and make use of.  What can we see, now, from this text?
First, we may see that the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, the
Comforter, is a person.  Not a mere thing, or a state of our own
hearts, or a feeling in us, or a power, like the powers and laws by
which the trees and plants grow, and the sun and moon move in their
courses; but a person, just as each of us is a person.  He, the Holy
Spirit, gives life to trees and plants, sun and moon:  but He is not
their life.  He gives them their life; and, therefore, that life of
theirs is not He, or He could not give it; for you can only give
something which is not you.

The Scripture speaks of the Holy Spirit, not as it, but as He; as a
person, and not as a thing; as a person who can speak to men's souls,
guide and teach them.

"When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all
truth; for He shall not speak of Himself."

But we may see also that the Holy Spirit is neither God the Father,
nor the Lord Jesus Christ.  For the Lord speaks of Him, the Holy
Spirit, as a different person either from Him or from the Father.
"The Spirit," He says, "shall glorify me; for He shall receive of
mine, and shall show it unto you."

But we may see also that there is no difference in will, or opinion,
or love, between the Holy Spirit and the Father and the Son.  For the
Spirit does not speak of Himself; there is no self-will in Him.
There is not one will of the Father, and another of the Son, and
another of the Holy Ghost; or, one love of the Father, another love
of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost; or, one righteousness of
the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Ghost:  or, one
mercy and grace of the Father, another of the Son, another of the
Holy Ghost.  For then there would be three Gods and three Lords; and
the substance of God would be divided.  But they have all one will,
and one love, and one righteousness, and one mercy.  And such as the
Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost.

And remember always, that the Holy Spirit is very and indeed God.
For He is the Spirit of holiness itself, of righteousness itself, of
goodness itself, of love itself, of truth itself; and, therefore, He
is the Spirit of God, who is the perfect holiness, and righteousness,
and truth, and love.  All other holiness, and righteousness, and
truth, and love, are only pictures and patterns of God, just as the
sun's reflection in water, or in a glass, is a picture and pattern of
the sun.  As the Epistle for to-day tells us:  "Every good gift and
every perfect is from above, and cometh down from the Father of
lights."

But the Spirit of God must be God.  For else what do the words mean?
Is not the spirit of a man, a man?  Is not your spirit, what you call
your soul, you?  Is not your soul you, just as much as your body is
you; ay, a hundred times more?  Just so, the Spirit of God is God,
God Himself; and the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy
Ghost, is all one, the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.

This, then, is the glorious promise made to you, and to me, and to
all who believe and are baptized into the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit; that that Spirit will come to us, and take
charge of our spirits, and work in them, and teach them.  We cannot
see Him with our eyes, or hear Him with our ears; we cannot even feel
Him at work in our hearts and thoughts.  For He is a Spirit; and His
likeness, the thing in this world which is a pattern of Him, is the
wind; as indeed the name Spirit means.  You cannot see the wind, you
cannot even really feel the wind or hear it:  you only know it by its
effects, by what it does:  by the noise among the branches, the force
against your faces, the bending boughs, and flying dust.  The Spirit
bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but
canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth; even so is
every one who is born of the Spirit.  On him the Spirit of God will
work unseen, and unfelt, only to be discovered by the change which He
makes in the man's heart and thoughts; and first by the way in which
He convinces him of sin, because men believe not on Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit shows men that the sins of the world, the sin of all
sins, the sin which is the root of all other sins, is not believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ; that it was because they would not believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, that they had been falling into every other
sort of sin.

But you may say:  "How could they believe on Him before He came, and
was born in Judaea of the Virgin Mary?  How could they believe on Him
when He was not there?"  Ah! my friends, who told you that the Lord
Jesus Christ was not there in the world all along?  Not the Bible,
certainly.  For the Bible tells us that He is the Light who lights
every man who cometh into the world; that from Him came, and have
come, all the right thoughts and feelings which ever arose in the
heart of every human being.  The Bible tells us that when God created
the world, He was daily rejoicing in the habitable parts of the
earth, and His delights were with the sons of men.  The Bible tells
us that He was in the world, and the world knew Him not; that all
along, through the dark times of heathendom, the Lord Jesus Christ
was a light shining in darkness, which the darkness could not close
round, and hide and quench.

Not merely to the Jews, but to all heathens who hungered and thirsted
after righteousness, did the Lord Jesus show something of His truth;
as it is written, God is no acceptor of persons; that is, no shower
of partiality, or unjust favour:  but in every nation, he that
feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him.

But at the time that the Lord Jesus sent down His Holy Spirit, men
were not working righteousness.  There was not one who did good, no
not one.  For men had forgotten what righteousness was like, what a
righteous man ought to do and be.  Men are ready to forget it every
day.  You and I are ready to forget it, and invent some false
righteousness of our own, not like Jesus Christ, but like what we in
our private fancies think is most graceful, or most agreeable, or
most easy; or most grand, and far-fetched, and difficult.  But the
Holy Spirit came to convince men of righteousness; to show them what
true righteousness was like.

And how?  In the same way that He must convince us of righteousness,
if we are ever to know what righteousness is, or are ever to be
righteous ourselves.  He must show us goodness; or we shall never see
it, or receive it, or copy it.

And where is this righteousness, this perfect goodness of which the
Holy Spirit will convince us?  Where, but in the Lord Jesus Christ?
In the Lord Jesus's character, the Lord Jesus's good works; His love,
His patience, His perfect obedience, His life, His death.  The Holy
Spirit, if we give up our hearts to be taught by Him, will make us
believe, and be sure, and feel in our very inmost hearts, how noble,
how beautiful, how holy, how perfectly Godlike, was He who was born
of a poor virgin, who walked this earth for thirty-three years in
toil and sorrow, who gave His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to
them that plucked off the hair, and hid not His face from shame and
spitting, who died upon a cross between two thieves.  And the Holy
Spirit will convince us of righteousness, by making us feel what the
Lord Jesus's righteousness consisted in; what was the root of all His
goodness and holiness, namely His perfect obedience to His Father and
our Father in heaven.  That is the righteousness, which is not our
own, but God's; the righteousness which comes by faith; not to trust
in ourselves, but in God; not to please ourselves, but God; not to do
our own will, but God's will.  That is the righteousness of Jesus
Christ, which God set His seal on and approved, when He exalted Him
far above all principality and powers, and set Him at His own right
hand for a sign to all men, and angels, and archangels; that
righteousness means to trust and to obey God even to the death.

3.  Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.

This may seem a puzzling speech at first.  We shall understand it
best, I think, by considering who the prince of this world was in our
Lord's time, and what he was like.  A little before our Lord's time
the Roman emperor had conquered almost the whole world which was then
known, and kept all nations in slavery, careless about their doing
right, provided they obeyed him and paid him tribute; nay, forcing
them and tempting them into all brutal and foul sin and ignorance,
that he might keep up his own power over man.

But now the Lord of all the earth, and the Prince of men's hearts and
thoughts, was come to visit that poor enslaved and sinful world.  He
came; the princes of this world knew Him not, and crucified the Lord
of Glory.  They crucified the righteous and the just One; and so they
were judged.  They judged themselves; they condemned themselves.  For
they showed that what they admired and what they wanted was not
righteousness and love, but wealth and power.  They showed that no
doing of good, no healing of the sick, or giving of sight to the
blind, or preaching the gospel to the poor, no holiness, no love, not
the perfect likeness of God's own goodness, which shone forth in the
spotless Jesus, was anything to them; was any reason why they should
not put Him to death with the most cruel torments, because they were
afraid of His taking away their power.  He said He was a King; and
therefore they crucified Him, lest His kingdom should interfere with
theirs; and for the same reason these same Roman emperors and their
magistrates, for hundreds of years afterwards, persecuted the
Christians, and hunted them down like wild beasts, and put them to
death by all horrible tortures, for the same reason that Cain slew
Abel; became his brother's deeds were righteous, and his own wicked.

So these Roman emperors, and their magistrates and generals were
judged.  They had shown what was in their evil hearts.  They had been
tried in God's balances, and found wanting.  The sentence of the Lord
God had gone forth against them.  The man Christ Jesus, whom they
rejected, God accepted, and raised to His own right hand.  They
crucified Him; but God gave Him all power in heaven and earth:  and
the Lord Jesus used His power; yea, and uses it still.  He gave His
saints and martyrs strength to defy those Roman tyrants, and to
witness to all the earth that the righteous Son of God was the King
of heaven and earth, and that the princes of this world, who wished
to break His yoke off their necks, and crush all nations to powder
for their own pleasure, and fatten themselves upon the plunder of all
the earth, would surely come to naught, as it is written in the
second Psalm:  "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers
take counsel together, against the Lord and His Anointed.  Yet have I
set my King upon my holy hill of Zion.  Thou shalt break them with a
rod of iron:  thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."

And they did come to naught.  That great Roman empire rotted away
miserably after years of such distress as had never been seen on the
earth before; and the emperors came, one after another, to shameful
or dreadful deaths.  And all the while the gospel spread, and the
Church grew, till all the kingdoms of the Roman empire had become the
kingdoms of God and of His Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit
working in men's hearts, and showing them, as our Lord said He would,
that Jesus of Nazareth was both Lord and King.  And so was fulfilled
the Lord's words in the gospel for to-day:  "The Holy Spirit shall
glorify me, for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.
All things that the Father hath are mine; therefore said I that He
should take of mine, and show it unto you."

Oh my friends, pray for yourselves, and join me while I pray for you,
that the holy and righteous Spirit of God may convince you, and me,
and all mankind, more and more, day by day, of sin, of righteousness,
and of judgment.

Pray to that Holy Spirit to convince you of sin day by day,
whensoever you do the least wrong thing.  Pray to Him to keep your
consciences tender and quick, that you may feel instantly, and lament
deeply, every wrong thing you do.

Pray to Him to give you, every time you do wrong, that godly sorrow
which brings peace and health, that heart-repentance never to be
repented of.  Pray to Him to convince you more and more, as you grow
older, that all sin comes from not believing in Jesus Christ, not
believing that He is near you, with you, in you, putting into your
hearts all right thoughts and good desires, and willing, if you will,
to help you to put those thoughts and desires into good practice.

Pray to the Holy Spirit to convince you more and more of
righteousness; to make you see what righteousness is; that it is the
very character and likeness of God the Father, because it is the
character and likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the
brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of His
person.  Pray to Him to make you see the beauty of holiness:  how
fair, and noble, and glorious a thing goodness is; how truly Solomon
says:  "that all the things that may be desired are not to be
compared to it."

Pray to the Holy Spirit to convince you more and more of judgment,
and to make you sure that the Lord is King, a righteous Judge, of
purer eyes than to behold iniquity, whose fan is in His hand, who
thoroughly purges His floor, who comes quickly, and His reward is
with Him, and who surely casts out of His kingdom, sooner or later,
all things that offend, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.  Pray
to Him to make you sure by faith, though you cannot see it, that the
prince of this world is judged; that evil doing, oppression, tyranny,
injustice, cheating, neglect of man by man, cannot and will not
prosper upon the face of God's earth; for the everlasting sentence
and wrath of God is revealed forth every moment against all
unrighteousness of men, which He will surely punish, yea, and does
hourly punish by Him by whom He judges the world, Jesus Christ, the
Lord, who is exalted high above all principalities and powers, and
has all power given to Him in heaven and earth, which He uses, as He
used it in Judaea of old, utterly and always for the good of all
mankind, whom He hath redeemed with His most precious blood.



XLV--THE GOSPEL



Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached
unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which
also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you,
unless ye have believed in vain:  for I delivered unto you first of
all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins
according to the scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose
again the third day according to the scriptures.--1 CORINTHIANS xv.
1-4.

This is St. Paul's account of the gospel; the good news which he
preached to the sinful and profligate Corinthians, when they were
sunk lower than the beasts which perish.  And because they believed
this good news, he said, they were saved then and there, and would be
safe only as long as they believed that good news, and kept it in
their memories.  Now, from what did this good news save them?  From
their sins.  There was something in St. Paul's good news which made
them hate their sins, and repent of them, and throw them away, and
rise up to be new men and women, living new lives in godliness and
purity and justice, such as they had never lived before.  Now mind,
it was not bad news which made the Corinthians repent of their sins;
it was good news.  It was not that St. Paul told them that God was
going to cast them into endless torment for their sins, and that
therefore they were terrified and afraid, and so repented.  Doubtless
St. Paul told them, as he told other heathens, that the wrath of God
was revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness; that
tribulation and anguish was laid up in store for every soul of man
who worketh evil.  But still, St. Paul says plainly here, that what
saved the Corinthians was not that or any other fearful and
terrifying news, but a gospel--good news.  And he says that this good
news did not merely, as some would wish it to do, make them
comfortable in their minds while they went on in their old wicked
ways.  No.  He says that it made them stand.  That is, made them
upright, strong-minded, righteous, self-restraining people; and that
they were saved by it from those sins which had been dragging them
down, and keeping them diseased in soul, weak, miserable, the slaves
of their own passions and foul pleasures.

What wonderful good news was this, then, which could work so strange
a change in these poor heathens, and how could it change them?

Let us see, first, what it was.

"That Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, and that
He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the
scriptures; and that He was seen of Peter, then of the twelve; after
that He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the
greater part remained unto this day, but some are fallen asleep.
After that He was seen of James, then of all the Apostles.  And last
of all He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time."

You see here, that St. Paul, for some good reason, says much more
about the Lord's rising again than even about His most precious death
and passion on the cross, while about His ascending into heaven he
says nothing.  And you will find in the New Testament that the
Apostles often did the same.  They spoke of the Lord rising again as
if that was the great wonder, the great glory, the great good news;
and as if His most precious death was not perfect without that.  They
said that the especial office for which the Lord had ordained them,
was to be witnesses of His resurrection.  They said that the Lord
rose again for our justification.  They said:  "If thou shalt confess
with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that
God has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."  Here again,
just as in the text, believing in the Lord's resurrection is made the
great article of faith.  Why is this?  Because that last verse which
I quoted may tell us, if we consider it carefully.

What does confessing the Lord Jesus with our mouth mean?  It means
what we ought to mean when we say, in the Apostles' Creed, I believe
in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.  Not merely, I believe that
there is an only Son of God:  but I believe in a certain man, with a
certain character, who is that only Son of God.

And what, you will ask, does that mean?

To know that, I fear, we must go back many many hundred years, to the
times when the old martyrs confessed the Lord Jesus Christ before the
heathen.  Those were times in which it was not enough to say the
Apostles' Creed in church.  Men, ay, and tender women, and little
children, had to stand by it through terror and shame, and to die in
torments unspeakable, because they chose to say:  "I believe in Jesus
Christ, our Lord."  Now, what was it which made the heathen hate and
persecute and torture, and murder them for saying that?  What was
there in those plain words of the Apostles' Creed which made the
great heathen emperors of Rome, and their officers and judges hunt
the Christians down like wild beasts for 300 years, and declare that
they were not fit to live?  I will tell you.  When the Christians
were brought before the emperor's judges for being Christians, they
did not merely say:  "I believe that Jesus Christ's blood will save
my soul after death."  They said that:  but they said a great deal
more than that.  If that had been all that the Christians said, the
judge would have answered:  "What care I for your souls, or for your
notions about what will happen to them when you are dead?  Go your
way.  You may be of what religion you like, and talk and think about
your own souls as much as you like, provided you do not trouble the
Roman emperor's power."  But the heathen judge did not make that
answer; because he knew well enough that what the Christians believed
was not a mere religion about what would happen to their souls after
death; but something which, if it gained ground, would utterly
destroy the Roman emperor's power.  He used generally to say to the
Christians only this:  "Will you burn those few grains of incense in
honour of the emperor of Rome?"  And he knew, and the Christians knew
well enough, that those words meant:  "Will you confess with your
mouth the emperor of Rome?  Will you confess that he is the only lord
and king of this whole earth, and of your bodies and souls, and that
there is no power or authority but of him, for the gods have
delivered all things into his hands?"  And then came out what
confessing the Lord Jesus really means.  For the Christians used to
answer:  "No.  The emperor of Rome is the lord and master of our
bodies, and we will obey his laws so far as we can without doing
wrong:  but we cannot obey them when they are contrary to the laws of
our Lord and Master Jesus Christ.  For the Lord Jesus Christ, who was
crucified and rose again the third day, He, and not the emperor of
Rome at all, is the Lord and King of the whole earth, and of our
bodies and souls; and we must obey Him before we obey anyone else.
Power and authority come not from the emperor of Rome, but from the
Lord Jesus Christ; and the emperor is only His servant and steward,
and must obey Him just as much as we, or the Lord will punish him as
surely and easily as He will the meanest slave.  For God has
delivered all things, and the emperor of Rome among the rest, into
the hand of His Son Jesus Christ, who sits a King over all, God
blessed for ever."  That was confessing Christ.

And to that the heathen judges used to make but one answer--for there
was but one to make.  Those heathen judges' guilty consciences, as
well as their worldly cunning, told them plainly enough exactly what
St. Paul told the Christians; that those Christians, by confessing
Christ, were not fighting against flesh and blood, and setting up
their selfish interests against other people's selfish interests:
but that the battle they were fighting was a much deeper and more
terrible one; that by saying that One who had walked the earth as a
poor man, and yet a perfectly righteous and loving man, doing nothing
but good, and sacrificing Himself utterly for poor fallen creatures,
they were fighting against the whole state of things all over the
world; against the government, and principles, and religion of that
whole unjust and tyrannical Roman empire, and all its rulers, and
generals, and judges; against principalities, against powers, against
the world-rulers of the darkness of those times; against spiritual
wickedness in heavenly things.  For if Jesus Christ's life was the
right life, those rulers must be utterly wrong; for it was exactly
opposite to His.

If Jesus Christ was really the Governor of the earth, there was no
hope for them; for their way of governing was exactly opposite to
His.  So as I say, they made but one answer; because there was but
one to make:  "You say that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of
lords.  I say the emperor of Rome is.  You say you must obey Christ
first, and the emperor of Rome afterwards.  I say that you must obey
the emperor first, and Christ afterwards.  At all events, if you do
not, you have no right on this earth of the emperor's; either the
emperor's power must fall, or your notion about Jesus Christ's power
must.  And we will see whether your heavenly King of whom you talk
can deliver you out of the emperor's hand."  And then came the
scourge, and the red-hot iron, and the wild beasts, and the cross,
and all devilish tortures which man's evil will could invent, brought
to bear without shame or mercy upon aged men, and tender girls, and
even little children, just to make them say that the earth belonged
to the emperor, and not to Jesus Christ.  Those who died bravely
under those tortures without denying Christ were called martyrs,
which means witnesses--people who bore witness before God and man
that Jesus Christ was King and Lord.  Those who did not die under the
tortures, but escaped after all, were called confessors--people who
had confessed with their mouths that Jesus Christ was King and Lord,
in spite of their terror and agony. . . .  That was what confessing
Jesus Christ meant in the old times.  And that was what it ought to
mean now, even though there is no persecution or torture for
Christians in these happier times.

And now, we may see perhaps why St. Paul spoke so much of our Lord's
rising again as the most important part of the gospel.

Because he wanted Christians to believe, not merely in a Christ who
once died, but in Him who died and is alive for evermore; in a Christ
who rose again, body, soul, and spirit, and sat at God's right hand,
praying for poor creatures when they were tempted, and persecuted,
and tormented for righteousness' sake.  St. Paul knew well that such
fearful times as those of which I have been speaking were coming on
the people to whom he wrote.  And he knew equally well that the only
thought which could save them, when the heathen judges commanded them
to deny the Lord Jesus, was the thought that He was really risen.
The only thought which could make them bold enough to face all the
horrors of death, was the thought that the Lord Jesus had not merely
tasted death, but conquered it, and risen again from it.  And
therefore it is that St. Paul speaks so often of Christ's
resurrection, and that in the text he takes so much pains to prove
that Christ had really risen, by telling them how many persons, well
known to him who wrote to them, had seen the Lord Jesus Christ after
He rose, and talked with Him, and were sure that He was the very same
person still, with the same countenance, and body, and soul, and
spirit, as He had when He was nailed to the cross, and laid in the
sepulchre.

What a thought for a poor creature in the last agony of fear and
shame, expecting presently to be torn in pieces, or burnt alive:
"Death, this horrible death, cannot conquer me, weak and fearful as I
am; for my Lord and Master, for whom I am going to suffer, has
conquered death, and He will not let it conquer me.  He is stronger
than death and hell, and He will not suffer me at my last hour for
any pains of death to fall from Him.  He is King of heaven and earth,
and He will take care of His own!"  What a comfortable thought to be
able to say:  "Ay, I am torn from wife and child, and all which I
love on earth.  But not for ever, not for ever.  For Christ rose from
the dead.  And I who belong to Christ, shall rise as He did.  This
poor flesh of mine may be burnt in flames, devoured by ravenous
beasts.  What matter?  Christ the King of men, has risen from the
dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept.  That same
Spirit of His, which brought back His body from the grave and hell,
will bring our bodies also from the grave and hell, to a nobler,
happier life with Him in glory unspeakable.  Christ is risen, and I
shall rise with Him at the last day.  Christ sits at God's right
hand, watching me, pitying me, and blessing me, holding out to me a
crown of glory which shall never fade away!"  That was the thought
which gave Stephen courage to confess the Lord Jesus Christ, amid to
die in peace and the murderous blows of the Jews.  For by faith he
saw, as he said, the heavens opened, and Jesus sitting at the right
hand of God.  He knew that his Lord was risen, and that He would hear
his dying cry:  "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."

And so with us, my friends; we have no martyrdom to go through, thank
God; but it is just as true of us as it was of the blessed martyrs
and confessors, that there is no other name under heaven by which we
can be saved but the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Saved; not only
from hell, but from sin, from giving way to temptation, from denying
Christ.  Oh, pray for faith.  Pray for faith.  Pray to be able really
to confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus.  Pray to believe with your
hearts that God has raised Him from the dead.  Then when you are
tempted to do wrong, you, like Stephen, will see, not with your
bodily eyes, but by faith, the Lord Jesus sitting at God's right
hand, and be able to say to Him:  "Lord Jesus, who hast conquered all
temptation, help me to conquer this.  Thine eye is on me; how can I
do this great wickedness and sin against Thee?"  When you are in
terror, and trouble, and affliction, and know not where to turn, that
same blessed thought--"Christ is risen from the dead"--will be a
shield and a strength to you which no other thought can give.  "My
Lord is risen; He is here still--a man, with His man's body, and His
man's spirit--His man's love and tenderness; He has taken them all up
to heaven with Him.  He is a man still, though He is very God of very
God.  He rose from the dead as a man, and therefore He can understand
me, and feel for me still, now, here in England in this very year,
1852, just as much as He could when He was walking upon earth in
Judaea of old."

Ay, and in the black jaws of death, when this world is vanishing from
our eyes, and we are going we know not whither, leaving behind us all
we know, and love, and understand; then that thought of all thoughts--
"Christ is risen from the dead"--is the only one which will save us
from dark sad thoughts, from fear and despair, or from stupid
carelessness, and the death of a brute beast, such as too many die.
"Christ is risen and I shall rise.  Christ has conquered death for
Himself, and He will conquer it for me.  Christ took His man's body
and soul with Him from the tomb to God's right hand, and He will
raise my man's body and soul at the last day, that I may be with Him
for ever, and see Him where He is."  In life and in death this is the
only thing which shall save us from sin, from terror, and from the
dread of death; the same good news which St. Paul preached to the
Corinthians; the same good news which made St. Stephen, and the
martyrs and confessors of old brave to endure all misery for the sake
of the good and blessed news, that God had raised His Son Jesus from
the dead.



XLVI--GOD'S WAY WITH MAN



And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have wrought with you
for my name's sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according
to your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord God.--
EZEKIEL xx. 44.

In this chapter the prophet Ezekiel argues with his sinful and
rebellious countrymen, and puts them in mind of all that God has done
for them and with them, from the time when He brought them out of
Egypt to that day.

And now comes the old question, What has this to do with us!  St.
Paul tells us that all things which happened to the old Jews happened
for our example.  What example can we learn from this chapter?

This, I think, we may learn:  Is not the way in which God taught
these Jews the same way in which He teaches many a man--perhaps every
man?  Which of us, when we were young, has not had his teaching from
God?  The old Catechism which our mothers taught us, was not that a
word from God Himself to us?  The voice of conscience, which made us
happy when we had done right, and uneasy and ashamed when we had gone
wrong; was not that a word from God to us?  Yes, my friends, those
child's feelings of ours about right and wrong, were none other than
the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, the Light which
lightens every man who comes into the world.  I tell you, every right
thought and wish, every longing to be better than you were, which
ever came into any one of your hearts, came from Him, the Lord Jesus.
It was His word, His voice, His Spirit, speaking to your spirit, just
as really as He spoke to His prophet Ezekiel, of whom we have been
reading.  Think of that.  Recollect, never, never forget, that all
your good thoughts and feelings are not your own, not your own at
all, but the Lord's; that without His light your hearts are nothing
but darkness, blind ignorance, and blind selfishness, and blind
passions and lusts; that it is He, he Himself, who has been fighting
against the darkness in you all your life long.  Oh think, then, what
your sin has been in putting aside those good thoughts and longings!
You were turning your back, you were shutting your doors to the Lord
God Himself, very God of very God begotten, by whom all things were
made.  The Creator came to visit His creature, and His creature shut
Him out.  The Almighty God pleaded with mortal man, and mortal man
bade God go, and come back at a more convenient season!  A voice in
your heart seemed to say:  "Oh, if I could but be a better man!  How
I wish that I could but give up these bad habits, and mend!  I hate
and despise myself for being so bad."  And then you fancied that that
voice was your own voice, that those good thoughts were your own
thoughts.  If you had really known whose they were; if you had really
known, as the Bible tells you, that they were the Word of the Lord,
the only-begotten Son of the Father, speaking to your heart, I hardly
think that you would have been so ready to say yourself:  "Well,
then, I will mend; but not just now:  some day or other; somehow or
other, I hope, I shall be a better man.  It will be time enough to
make my peace with God when I am growing old."  You would not have
dared to thrust away the good thoughts, and keep them waiting, while
you took your pleasure in a few more years' sin; if you had guessed
WHOM you were thrusting away; if you had guessed whom you were
keeping waiting.

And, my good friends, has not God been saying to us many a time from
our youth up, as He did to the Jews of old:  "Do not walk in the
statutes of your fathers, nor defile yourselves with their idols?"
Do you ask me how?  Why, thus.  Have you never said to yourself:
"How ill my father prospered, because he would do wrong!"  Or, again:
"See how evil doing brings its own punishment.  There is so and so
growing rich, by his cheating and his covetousness, and yet, for all
his money, I would not change places with him.  God forbid that I
should have on my mind what he has on his mind!" Why should I make a
long story of so simple a matter?  Which of us has not felt at times
that thought?  How much misery has come in this very parish from the
ill-doing of the generation who are gone to their account, and from
the ill-training which they gave their children?

And what was that but the Word of the Lord Himself speaking to our
hearts, and saying to us:  "Do not defile yourselves with their
idols; do not hurt your souls by hunting after the things which they
loved better than they loved Me:  money, pleasure, drink, fighting,
smuggling, poaching, wantonness, and lust; I am the Lord your God?"

And yet, young people will not listen to that warning voice of God.
They see other people, even their own fathers and mothers, punished
for their sins; perhaps made poor by their sins, perhaps made
unhealthy by their sins, perhaps made miserable and ill-tempered by
their sins:  and yet they go and fall into, or rather walk open-eyed
into, the very same sins which made their parents wretched.  Oh, how
many a young person sees their home made a complete hell on earth by
ungodliness, and the ill-temper and selfishness which come from
ungodliness; and, then, as soon as they have a home of their own, set
to work to make their own family as miserable as their father's was
before them.

But people say often:  "How could we help it?  We had no chance; we
were brought up in bad ways; we had a bad example set us; how can you
expect us to be better than our fathers and mothers, and our elder
brothers and sisters?  If we had had a fair chance, we might have
been different:  but we had none; and we could not help going the bad
way, for we were set in it the day we were born."

Well, my dear friends, God shall judge you, not I.  If little is
given to a man little is required of him.  But not nothing at all;
because more than nothing was given him.  A little is given to every
man; and, therefore, a little is required of every man.  And so, he
who knew not his Master's will shall be beaten with few stripes.  But
he will be beaten with some stripes, because he ought to have known
something, at least of his Master's will.  If you were dumb animals,
which can only follow their own lusts and passions, and must be what
nature has made them, then your excuse would be good enough; but your
excuse is not good now, just because you are men and women, and not
dumb beasts, and, therefore, can rise above your natures, and conquer
your lusts and passions, as they cannot, and can do what you do not
like, because, though you dislike it, you know that it is right.
And, therefore, God does not take that excuse which sinners make,
that they have had no teaching.  But what does he do to them?

Suppose, now, that you had a dog which would not be taught, or broken
in, or cured of biting, or made useful, or bearable in any way, what
would you do to that dog?  I suppose that you would kill it; you
would say:  "It is an ill-conditioned animal, and there is no making
it any better; so the only thing is to put it out of the way, and not
let it eat food which might be better spent."  Now, does God deal so
with sinners?  When young people rush headlong into sin, and become a
nuisance to themselves and their neighbours, does God kill them at
once, that better men may step into their place?  No.  And why?  Just
because they are not dumb animals, which cannot be made better, but
God's children, who can be made better.  If there were really no hope
of a sinner repenting and amending, I think God would not leave him
long alive to cumber the ground.  But there is hope for every one;
because God the Father loves all; the loving heart of the Lord Jesus
Christ yearns after all; the Holy Spirit, which proceeds from the
Father and the Son, strives with the hearts of all; therefore God, in
His patience and tender mercy, tries to bring his foolish children to
their senses.  And how?  Often in the very same way, in which Ezekiel
says He tried to bring the Jews to their senses, by letting them go
on in the road of sin, till they see what an ugly pit that same road
ends in.  If your child would not believe you when you warned and
assured him that the fire would burn him, would it not be the very
best way of bringing him to his senses, to tell him:  "Very well; go
your own way; put your hand into the fire, and see what comes of it;
you will not believe me; you will believe your own feelings, when
your hand is burnt."  So did the Lord to those rebellious Jews when
they would go after their fathers' sins.  He gave them statutes which
were not good, and judgments by which they could not live, to the end
that they might know that He was the Lord.  God did not make them
commit any sins.  God forbid!  He only took away His Spirit, His
light and teaching, from them, and let them go on in the light of
their own foolish and bewildered hearts, till their sin bred misery
and shame to them, and they were filled with the fruit of their own
devices.  Then, after all their wealth was gone, and their land was
wasted by cruel enemies, and they themselves were carried away
captive into Babylon, they began to awake, and say to themselves:
"We were wrong after all, and the Lord was right.  He knew what was
really good for us better than we did.  We thought that we could do
without Him, disobey Him.  But He is the Lord after all.  He has been
too strong for us; He has punished us.  If we had listened to His
warnings years ago, we might have been saved all this misery."

Ah, how many a poor foolish creature, in misery and shame, with a
guilty conscience and a sad heart, sits down, like the prodigal son,
among the swinish bad company into which his sins have brought him,
longing to fill his belly with the husks which the swine eat! but he
cannot.  He tries to forget his sorrow by drinking, by bad company,
by gambling, by gossiping, like the fools around him:  but he cannot.
He finds no more pleasure in sin.  He is sick and tired of it.  He
has had enough of it and too much.  He is miserable, and he hardly
knows why.  But miserable he is.  There is a longing, and craving,
and hunger at his heart after something better; at least after
something different.  Then he begins to remember his heavenly
Father's house.  Old words which he learnt at his mother's knee, good
old words out of his Catechism and his Bible, start up strangely in
his mind.  He had forgotten them, laughed at them, perhaps, in his
wild days.  But now they come up, he does not know where from, like
beautiful ghosts gliding in.  And he is ashamed of them; they
reproach him, the dear old lessons; and yet they seem pleasant to
him, though they make him blush.  And at last he says to himself:
"Would God that I were a little child again; once more an innocent
little child at my mother's knee!  I thought myself clever and
cunning.  I thought I could go my own way and enjoy myself.  But I
cannot.  Perhaps I have been a fool; and the old Sunday books were
right after all.  At least I am miserable.  I thought I was my own
master.  But perhaps He about whom I used to read in the Sunday books
is my Master after all.  At least I am not my own master; I am a
slave.  Perhaps I have been fighting against Him, against the Lord
God, all this time, and now He has shown me that He is the stronger
of the two. . . .  And so the poor man learns in trouble and shame to
know, like the Jews of old, who is the Lord.

And when the Lord has drawn a man thus far, does He stop?  Not so.
He does not leave His work half done.  If the work is half done, it
is that we stop, not that He stops.  Whosoever comes to Him,
howsoever confusedly, or clumsily, or even lazily they may come, He
will in no wise cast out.  He may afflict them still more to cure
that confusion and laziness; but He is a physician who never sends a
willing patient away, or keeps him waiting for a single hour.

How then does the Lord deal with such a man?  Does He drive him
further?  Not if he will go without being driven.  You would call it
cruel to drive a beast on with blows, when it was willing to be led
peaceably.  And be sure God is not more cruel than man.  As soon as
we are willing to be led, He will take His rod off from us, and lead
us tenderly enough.  For I have known God do this to a man, and a
sinful man as ever trod this earth.  I have known such a man brought
into utter misery and shame of heart, and heavy affliction in outward
matters, till his spirit was utterly broken, and he was ready to say:
"I am a beast and a fool.  I am not worth the bread I eat.  Let me
lie down and die."  And then, when the Lord had driven that man so
far, I have seen, I who speak to you now, how the Lord turned and
looked on that man as he turned and looked on Peter, and brought his
poor soul to life again, as He brought Peter's, by a loving smile,
and not an angry frown.  I have seen the Lord heap that man with all
manner of unexpected blessings, and pay him back sevenfold for all
his affliction, and raise him up, body and soul, and satisfy him with
good things, so that his youth was renewed like the eagle's.  And so
the man's conversion to God, though it was begun by God's
chastisements and afflictions, was brought to perfection by God's
mercy and bounty; and it happened to that man, as Ezekiel prophesied
that it would happen to the Jews, that not fear and dread, but
honour, gratitude, and that noble shame of which no man need be
ashamed, brought him home to God at last.  "And you shall remember
your ways, and all your doings wherein ye have been defiled:  and you
shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all the evils which you
have committed.  And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have
wrought with you for my name's sake, not according to your wicked
ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O house of Israel, saith
the Lord God."

You see that God's mercy to them would not make them conceited or
careless.  It would increase their shame and confusion when they
found out what sort of a Lord He was against whom they had been
rebellious; long-suffering and of tender mercy, returning good for
evil to His disobedient children.  That feeling would awake in them
more shame and more confusion than ever:  but it would be a noble
shame, a happy confusion, and tears of joy and gratitude, not of
bitterness.  Such a shame, such a confusion, such tears, as the
blessed Magdalene's when she knelt at the Lord's feet, and found
that, instead of bating her and thrusting her away for all her sins,
He told her to go in peace, pardoned and happy.  Then she knew the
Lord; she found out His character--His name; for she found out that
His name was love.  Oh, my friends, this is the great secret; the
only knowledge worth living for, because it is the only knowledge
which will enable you to live worthily--to know the Lord.  That
knowledge will enable you to live a life which will last, and grow,
and prosper for ever, beyond the grave, and death, and judgment, and
eternities of eternities.  As the Lord Himself said, when He was upon
earth, "This is eternal life, to know Thee, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."  Therefore there is no use my
warning you against sin, and telling you, do not do this, and do not
do that, unless I tell you at the same time who is the Lord.  For
till you know that The Good God is the Lord, you will have no real,
sound, heartfelt reason for giving up your sins; and what is more,
you will not be able to give them up.  You may alter your sort of
sins from fear of this and that; but the root of sin will be there
still; and if it cannot bear one sort of fruit it will bear another.
If you dare not drink or riot, you may become covetous and griping;
if you dare not give way to young men's sins, you will take to old
men's sins instead; if you dare not commit open sins you will commit
secret ones in your thoughts.  Sin is much too stout a plant to be
kept from bearing some sort of fruit.  As long as it is not rooted up
the root will breed death in you of some sort or other; and the only
feeling which can root up sin is to know that Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, is your Lord, and that your Lord condescended to die upon the
cross for you; that you must be the Lord's, and are not your own, but
bought with the price of His most precious blood, that you may
glorify God with your body and your soul, which are His.

Just so, the blessed St. Augustine found that he could never conquer
his own sins by arguing with himself, or by any other means, till he
got to know God, and to see that God was the Lord.  And when his
spirit was utterly broken; when he saw himself, in spite of all his
wonderful cleverness and learning, to have been a fool and blind all
along, though people round him were flattering him, and running after
him to hear his learning; then the old words which he learnt at his
mother's knee came up in his mind, and he knew that God was the Lord
after all, and that God had been watching him, guiding him, letting
him go wrong only to show him the folly of going wrong, caring for
him even when He left him to himself and his sins, and the sad ways
of his sins; bearing with him, pleading with his conscience, alluring
him back to the only true happiness, as a loving father with a
rebellious and self-willed child.  And then, when St. Augustine had
found out at last that God was his Lord, who had been taking the
charge of him all through his heathen youth, he became a changed man.
He was able to conquer his sins; for God conquered them for him.  He
was able to give up the profligate life which he had been leading;
not from fear of punishment, but from the Spirit of God--the spirit
of gratitude, honour, trust, and love toward God, which made him
abide in God, and God abide in him.  To that blessed state may God of
His great mercy bring us all.  To it He will bring us all unless we
rebel and set up our foolish and selfish will against His loving and
wise will.  And if He does bring us to it, it is little matter
whether He brings us to it through joy or through sorrow, through
honour or through shame, through the garden of Eden, or through the
valley of the shadow of death.  For, my dear friends, what matter how
bitter the medicine is, if it does but save our lives?



XLVII--THE MARRIAGE AT CANA



There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was
there.  And both Jesus was called, and His disciples, to the
marriage.--JOHN ii. 1, 2.

It is, I think, in the first place, an important, as well as a
pleasant thing, to know that the Lord's glory, as St. Paul says, was
first shown forth at a wedding, at a feast.  Not at a time of sorrow,
but of joy.  Not about some strange affliction or disease, such as is
the lot of very few, but about a marriage, that which happens in the
ordinary lot of all mankind.  Not in any fearful judgment or
destruction of sinners, but in blessing wedlock, by which, whether
among saints or sinners, mankind is increased.  Not by helping some
great philosopher to think more deeply, or some great saint to
perform more wonderful acts of holiness, but in giving the simple
pleasure of wine to simple commonplace people, of whom we neither
read that they were rich or righteous.  We do not even read whether
the master of the feast ever found out that Jesus had worked a
miracle, or whether any of the company ever believed in Him, on the
strength of that miracle, except His mother and the disciples, and
the servants, who were probably the poor slaves of people in a low or
middling class of life.  But that is the way of the Lord.  He is no
respecter of persons.  Rich and poor are alike in His sight; and the
poor need Him most, and therefore He began his work with the poor in
Cana, as He did in St. James's time, when the poor of this world were
rich in faith, and the rich of this world were oppressors and
taskmasters.  So He does in every age.  Though no one else cares for
the poor, He cares for them.  With their hearts He begins His work,
even as He did in England sixty years ago, by the preaching of
Whitfield and Wesley.  Do you wish to know if anything is the Lord's
work?  See if it is a work among the poor.  Do you wish to know
whether any preaching is the true gospel of the Lord?  See whether it
is a gospel, a good news to the poor.  I know no other test than
that.  By doing that, by preaching the gospel to the poor, by working
miracles for the poor, He has showed forth His glory, and proved
Himself the true, and just, and loving Lord of all.

But again, the Lord is a giver, and not a taskmaster.  He does not
demand from us:  He gives to us.  He had been giving from the
foundation of the world.  Corn and wine, rain and sunshine, and
fruitful seasons had been his sending.  And now He was come to show
it.  He was come to show men who it was who had been filling their
heart with joy and gladness; who had been bringing out of the earth
and air, by His unseen chemistry, the wine which maketh glad the
heart of man.  In every grape that hangs upon the vine, water is
changed into wine, as the sap ripens into rich juice.  He had been
doing that all along in every vineyard and orchard; and that was His
glory.  Now He was come to prove that; to draw back the veil of
custom and carnal sense, and manifest Himself.  Men had seen the
grapes ripen on the tree; and they were tempted to say, as every one
of us is tempted now:  "It is the sun and the air, the nature of the
vine, and the nature of the climate, which makes the wine."  Jesus
comes and answers:  "Not so.  I make the wine; I have been making it
all along.  The vines, the sun, the weather, are only my tools
wherewith I worked, turning rain and sap into wine; and I am greater
than they; I made them; I do not depend on them; I can make wine from
water without vines or sunshine.  Behold, and drink, and see my glory
WITHOUT the vineyard, since you had forgotten how to see it IN the
vineyard!  For I am now, even as I was in Paradise, The Word of the
Lord God; and now, even as in Paradise, I walk among the trees of the
garden, and they know me and obey me, though the world knows me not.
I have been all along in the world, and the world knows me not.  Know
me now, lest you lose the knowledge of me for ever!"

Those of the Jews who received that message, as the disciples did,
found out their ancient Lord, and clung to Him, and know now, in the
world of spirits, that His message was indeed a true one.  Those who
did not, lost sight of Him; to this day their eyes are blinded; to
this day they have utterly forgotten that they have a Lord and Ruler,
who is the Word and Son of God.  Their faith is no more like the
faith of David than their understanding of the Scriptures is like
his.  The Bible is a dead letter to them.  The kingdom and government
of God is forgotten by them.  Of all God-worshipping people in the
world, the Jews are the least godly, the most given up to the worship
of this world, and the things which they can see, and taste, and
handle, and, therefore, to covetousness, cheating, lying, tyranny,
and all the sins which spring from forgetting that this world belongs
to the Lord and that He rules and guides it, that its blessings are
His gifts, and we His stewards, to use them for the good of all.  May
God help, and forgive, and convert them!  Doubt not that He will do
so in His good time.  But let us beware, my friends, lest we fall
into the same sin.  Do not fancy that we are not in just the same
danger.  It would be a cowardly thing of a preacher to call Jews, or
heathens, or any other absent persons hard names, unless their
mistakes and their sins were such as his own people wanted warnings
against, ay, perhaps, had the very root of them in their hearts
already.  And we have the root of the Jews' sin in our own hearts.
Why is this one miracle read in our churches to this day, if we do
not stand just as much in need of the lesson as those for whom it was
first worked?  We, as well as they, are in danger of forgetting who
it is that sends us corn and wine, and fruitful seasons, love and
marriage, and all the blessings of this life.  We, as well as the
Jews, are continually fancying that these outward earthly things, as
we call them in our shallow carnal conceits, have nothing to do with
Jesus or His kingdom, but that we may compete, and scrape, even cheat
and lie to get them, and when we have them, misuse them selfishly, as
if they belonged to no one but ourselves, as if we had no duty to
perform about them, as if we owed God no service for them.

And again, we are, just as much as the Jews were, in danger of
spiritual pride; in danger of fancying that because we are religious,
and have, or fancy we have, deep experiences and beautiful thoughts
about God and Christ and our own souls, therefore we can afford to
despise those who do not know as much as ourselves; to despise the
common pleasures and petty sorrows of poor creatures, whose souls and
bodies are grovelling in the dust, busied with the cares of this
world, at their wits' end to get their daily bread; to despise the
merriment of young people, the play of children, and all those
everyday happinesses which, though we may turn from them with a
sneer, are precious in the sight of Him who made heaven and earth.
All such proud thoughts, all such contempt of those who do not seem
as spiritual as we fancy ourselves, is evil.  It is from the devil,
and not from God.  It is the same vile spirit which made the
Pharisees of old say:  "This people--these poor worldly drudging
wretches--who know not the law, are accursed."  And mind, this is not
a sin of rich, and learned, and highborn men only.  They may be more
tempted to it than others; but poor men, when they become, by the
grace of God, wiser, more spiritual, more holy than others, are
tempted, just as much as the rich, to despise their poor neighbours
to whom God has not given the same light as themselves; and surely in
them it shows ugliest of all.  A learned and high-born man may be
excused for looking down upon the sinful poor, because he does not
understand their temptations, because he never has been ignorant and
struggling as they are.  But a poor man who despises the poor--he has
no excuse.  He ought above all men to feel for them, for he has been
tempted even as they are.  He knows their sorrows; he has been
through their dark valley of bad food, bad lodging, want of work,
want of teaching, low cares which drag the soul to earth.  Surely a
poor man who has tasted God's love and Christ's light, ought, above
all others, instead of turning his back on his class, to pity them,
to make common cause with them, to teach them, guide them, comfort
them, in a way no rich man can.  Yes; after all, it is the poor must
help the poor; the poor must comfort the poor; the poor must teach
and convert the poor.

See, in the epistle for this day, St. Paul makes no distinction
between rich and poor.  This epistle is joined with the gospel for
the day, to show us what ought to be the conduct of Christians, who
believe in the miracle of Cana; what men should do who believe that
they have a Lord in heaven, by whose command suns shine, fruits
ripen, men enjoy the blessings of harvest, of marriage, of the
comforts which the heathen and the savage, as well as the Christian
man, partake; what men should do who believe that they have a Lord in
heaven who entered into the common joys and sorrows of lowly men, who
was once Himself a poor villager, who ate with publicans and sinners,
who condescended to join in a wedding feast, and increase the mere
animal enjoyment of the guests.  And what is St. Paul's command to
poor as well as rich?  Read the epistle for this day and see.

You see at once that this epistle is written in the same spirit as
our Lord's words:  by God's Spirit, in short; the Spirit which
brought the Lord Jesus so condescendingly to the wedding feast; the
Spirit which made Him care so heartily for the common pleasures of
those around Him.  My friends, these are not commands to one class,
but to all.  Poor as well as rich may show mercy with cheerfulness,
and love without dissimulation.  Poor as well as rich may minister to
others with earnestness, and condescend to those of low estate.  Not
a word in this whole epistle which does not apply equally to every
rank, and sex, and age.

Neither are these commands to each of us by ourselves, but to all of
us together, as members of a family.  If you will look through them
they are not things to be done to ourselves, but to our neighbours;
not experiences to be felt about our own souls:  but rules of conduct
to our fellow-men.  They are all different branches and flowers from
that one root:  "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

Do we live thus, rich or poor?  Can we look each other in the face
this afternoon and say, each man to his neighbour:  "I have behaved
like a brother to you.  I have rejoiced at your good fortune, and
grieved at your sorrow.  I have preferred you to myself.  I have
loved you without dissimulation.  I have been earnest in my place and
duty in the parish for the sake of the common good of all.  I have
condescended to those of lower rank than myself.  I have--"  Ah, my
dear friends, I had better not go on with the list.  God forgive us
all!  The less we try to justify ourselves on this score the better.
Some of us do indeed try to behave like brothers and sisters to their
neighbours; but how few of us; and those few how little!  And yet we
are brothers.  We are members of one family, sons of one Father,
joint-heirs with one Lord, the poor Man who sat eating and drinking
at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, and mixed freely in the joys
and the sorrows of the poorest and meanest.  Joint-heirs with Christ;
yet how unlike Him!  My friends, we need to repent and amend our
ways; we need to confess, every one of us, rich and poor, the pride,
the selfishness, the carelessness about each other, which keeps us so
much apart, knowing so little of each other, feeling so little for
each other.  Oh confess this sin to God, every one of you.  Those who
have behaved most like brothers, will be most ready to confess how
little they have behaved like brothers.  Confess:  "Father, I have
sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be
called thy son, for I have not loved, cared for, helped my brothers
and sisters round, who are just as much thy children as I am."  Pray
for the spirit of Jesus, the spirit of condescension, love, fellow-
feeling; that spirit which rejoices simply and heartily with those
who are happy, and feels for another's sorrows as if they were its
own.  Pray for it; for till it comes, there will be no peace on
earth.  Pray for it; for when it comes and takes possession of your
hearts, and you all really love and live like brothers, children of
one Father, the kingdom of God will be come indeed, and His will be
done on earth as it is in heaven.



XLVIII--PARABLE OF THE LOWEST PLACE



And He put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when He marked
how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them, when thou art
bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room,
lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; and he that
bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou
begin with shame to take the lowest room.  But when thou art bidden,
go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee
cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher:  then shalt thou
have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.  For
whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth
himself shall be exalted.--LUKE xiv. 7-11.

We heard in the gospel for to-day how the Lord Jesus put forth a
parable to those who were invited to a dinner with Him at the
Pharisee's house.  A parable means an example of any rules or laws; a
story about some rule, by hearing which people may see how the rule
works in practice, and understand it.  Now, our Lord's parables were
about the kingdom of God.  They were examples of the rules and laws
by which the kingdom of God is governed and carried on.  Therefore He
begins many of His parables by saying, The kingdom of God is like
something--something which people see daily, and understand more or
less.  "The kingdom of God is like a field;" "The kingdom of God is
like a net;" "The kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed;"
and so forth.  And even where He did not begin one of His parables by
speaking of the kingdom of God, we may be still certain that it has
to do with the kingdom of God.  For the one great reason why the Lord
was made flesh and dwelt among us, was to preach the kingdom of God,
His Father and our Father, and to prove to men that God was their
King, even at the price of his most precious blood.  And, therefore,
everything which He ever did, and everything which He ever spoke, had
to do with this one great work of His.  This parable, therefore,
which you heard read in the gospel for to-day, has to do with the
kingdom of God, and is an example of the laws of it.

Now, what is the kingdom of God?  It is worth our while to consider.
For at baptism we were declared members of the kingdom of God; we
were to renounce the world, and to live according to the kingdom of
God.  The kingdom of God is simply the way in which God governs men;
and the world is the way in which men try to manage without God's
help or leave.  That is the difference between them; and a most awful
difference it is.  Men fancy that they can get on well enough without
God; that the ways of the world are very reasonable, and useful, and
profitable, and quite good enough to live by, if not to die by.  But
all the while God is King, let them fancy what they like; and this
earth, and everything on it, from the king on his throne to the gnat
in the sunbeam, is under His government, and must obey His laws or
die.  We are in God's kingdom, my good friends, every one of us,
whether we like it or not, and we shall be there for ever and ever.
And our business is, therefore, simply to find out what are the laws
of that kingdom, and obey those laws as speedily as possible, and
live for ever thereby, lest, if we break them, and get in their way,
they should grind us to powder.

Now, here is one of the laws of God's kingdom:  "Whosoever exalteth
himself shall be abased; and whosoever abaseth himself shall be
exalted."  That is, whosoever, in any way whatsoever, sets himself
up, will be pulled down again:  while he who is contented to keep
low, and think little of himself, will be raised up and set on high.
Now the world's rule is the exact opposite of this.  The world says,
Every man for himself.  The way of the world is to struggle and
strive for the highest place; to be a pushing man, and a rising man,
and a man who will stand stiffly by his rights, and give his enemy as
good as he brings, and beat his neighbour out of the market, and show
off himself to the best advantage, and try to make the most of
whatever wit or money he has to look well in the world, that people
may look up to him and flatter him and obey him; and so the world has
no objection to people's pretending to be better than they are.
Every man must do the best he can for himself, the world says, and
never mind his neighbours:  they must take care of themselves; and if
they are foolish enough to be taken in, so much the worse for them.
So the world thinks that there is no harm in a man, when he has
anything to sell, making it out better than it really is, and hiding
the fault in it as far as he can.  When a tradesman or manufacturer
sends about "puffs" of his goods, and pretends that they are better
and cheaper than other people's, just to get custom by it, the world
does not call that what it is--boasting and lying.  It says:  "Of
course a man must do the best he can for himself.  If a man does not
praise himself, nobody else will praise him; he cannot expect his
neighbours to take him for better than his own words."  So again, if
a man wants a place or situation, the world thinks it no harm if he
gives the most showy character of himself, and gets his friends to
say all the good of him they can, and a great deal more, and to say
none of the harm--in short, to make himself out a much better, or
shrewder, or worthier man than he really is.  The world does not call
that either what it is--boasting, and lying, and thrusting oneself
into callings to which God has not called us.  The world says:  "Of
course a man must turn his best side outwards.  You cannot expect a
man to tell tales on himself."

And, my friends, the world would be quite right, and reasonable, and
prudent, in telling us to push, and boast, and lie, and puff
ourselves and our goods, if it were not for one thing which the
foolish blind world is always forgetting, and that is, that there is
a God who judges the earth.  If God were not our King; if He took no
care of us men and our doings; if mankind had it all their own way on
earth, and were forced to shift for themselves without any laws of
God to guide them, then the best thing every man could do would be to
fight for himself; to get all he could for himself, and leave as
little as he could for his neighbours; to make himself out as great,
and wise, and strong, as he could, and try to make his neighbours buy
him at his own price.  That would be the best plan for every man, if
God was not King; and therefore the world says that that is the best
plan for every man, because the world does not believe that God is
King, and hates the notion that God is King, and laughs at and
persecutes, as Jesus Christ said it would, those who preach the
kingdom of God, and tell men, as I tell you in God's name:  "You were
not made to be selfish; you were not meant to rise in the world by
boasting and pushing down and deceiving your neighbours.  For you are
subjects of God's kingdom; and to do so is to break his laws, and to
put yourselves under His curse; and however worldly-wise all this
selfishness and boasting may seem, it is sin, whose wages are death
and ruin."

For, my friends, let the world try to forget God as it will, He does
not forget the world.  Let men try to make rules and laws for
themselves, rules about religion, rules about government, rules about
trade, rules about morals and what they fancy is just and fair; let
them make as many rules as they like, they are only wasting their
time; for God has made His rules already, and revealed them to us in
the Bible, and told us that the earth and mankind are governed in His
way, and not in ours, and that He will not alter His everlasting
rules to suit our new ones.  As David says:  "Let the people be never
so unquiet, still the Lord is King."

Ah, my friends, it is very easy to say all this, but it is not so
easy to believe it.  Every one, every respectable person at least, is
ready enough to talk about God, and God's will, and so forth.  But
when it comes to practice; when it comes to doing God's will, and not
our own; when it comes to obeying His direct and plain commands, and
not the fashions and maxims which men have invented for themselves;
when it comes to giving up what we long for, because He has said that
if we try after it in our own way, and not in His, we shall never
have it at all, then comes the trial; then comes the time to see
whether we believe that God is the King of the earth or not; then
comes the time to see whether we have renounced the world, and
determined to live as God's sons in God's kingdom, or whether our
religion is some form of words, or way of thinking and feeling which
we hope may save our souls from hell, but which has nothing to do
with our daily life and conduct, and leaves us just as worldly as any
heathen, in all our dealings with our fellow-men, from Monday morning
to Saturday night.  Then comes the time to try our faith in God.

And then, alas! it comes out, in these evil, and godless, and
hypocritical times in which we live, that many a man who fancies
himself religious, and respectable, and blameless, and what not, no
more really believes that he is living in God's kingdom than the
heathen do.  And if you ask him, you will find out most probably that
he fancies that God's kingdom is not on earth now, but that it will
be on earth some day.  A cunning delusion of the devil, that, my
friends!  To make us go his way while we fancy that we are going our
own way.  To make us say to ourselves:  "Ah! it is very unfortunate
that God is not King of the earth now.  Of course He will be after
the resurrection, in the new heaven and the new earth, where there
will be no sin.  But He is not King now; this world is given over to
sin and the devil, so fallen and ruined and corrupt that--that--that,
in short, we cannot be expected to behave like God's children in it,
but must just follow the ways of the world, and live by ambition, and
selfishness, and cunning, and boasting, and competing in this life; a
life of love, and justice, and humbleness, and fellow-help, and
mercy, and self-sacrifice is impossible in such a world as this; we
cannot live like angels, till we get to heaven!"  So say nine people
out of ten; the devil deceiving them, and their own hearts, alas!
being but too glad to catch at the excuse for sin which the devil
gives them, when he tells them that this present earth is not God's
kingdom; and so they go and act accordingly, selfish, grudging,
pushing, boastful, every man's hand against his neighbour and for
himself, till they succeed too often in making this earth as
fearfully like the devil's kingdom as it is possible for God's
kingdom to be made.

But what, some may ask, has all this to do with the text that he who
sets himself up shall be brought low, he who keeps himself low shall
be set up?  What has it to do with the text?  It has everything to do
with the text.  If people really believed that they were God's
subjects and children in God's kingdom, they would not need to ask
that question long.

If God is really the King of the earth, there can be no use in anyone
setting up himself.  If God is really the King of the earth, those
who set up themselves must be certain to be brought down from their
high thoughts and high assumptions sooner or later.  For if God is
really the King of the earth, He must be the one to set people up,
and not they themselves.  Look again at the parable.  The man who
asks the guests to dine with him has surely a right to place each of
them where he likes.  The house is his, the dinner is his.  He has a
right to invite whom he likes; and he has a right to settle where
they shall sit.  If they choose their own places--if any guest takes
upon himself to seat himself at the head of the table, because he
thinks it his right, he offends against all rules of right feeling
and propriety toward the man who has invited him.  All he has a right
to expect is, that his host will not put him in the wrong place, that
he will settle all places at his table according to people's real
rank and deserts, and as our Testaments say, put "the worthiest man
in the highest room."  And if people really believed in God, which
very few do, they would surely expect no less of God.  What
gentleman, farmer, or labourer is there, with common sense and good
feeling, who would not show most respect to the most respectable
persons who came into his house, and send his best and trustiest
workmen about his most important errands?  True, he might make
mistakes, and worse.  Being a weak man, he might be tempted to put
the rich sinner in a higher place than the poor saint:  or he might,
from private fancy, be blinded about his workmen's characters, and so
send a worse man, because he was his favourite, to do what another
man whom he did not fancy as well might do a great deal better.  But
you cannot suspect God of that.  He is no respecter of persons--
whether a man be rich or poor, no matter to God:  all which He
inquires into is--Is he righteous or unrighteous, wise or foolish,
able to do his work or unable?  And God can make no mistakes about
people's characters.  As St. Paul says of the Lord Jesus:  "The Word
of God is sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing through to the
dividing of the very joints and marrow, so that all things are naked
and open in the sight of Him with whom we have to do."  There is no
blinding God, no hiding from God, no cheating God, just as there is
no flattering God.  He knows what each and every one of us is fit
for.  He knows what each and every one of us is worth; and what is
more, He knows what we ought to know, that each and every one of us
is worth nothing without Him.  Therefore there is no use pretending
to be better than we are.  God knows just how good we are, and will
reward us, even in this life only according as we deserve, in spite
of all our boasting.  There is no use pretending to be wiser than we
are.  For all the wisdom we have comes from God; and if we pretend to
have more than we have, and by that greatest act of folly, show that
we have no wisdom at all, He will take from us even what we have, and
make all our cunning plans come to nothing, and prove us fools, just
when we fancy ourselves most clever.  There is no use being ambitious
and pushing, and trying to scramble up on our neighbours' shoulders.
For we were not sent into this world to do what we like, but what God
likes; not to work for ourselves, but to work for God; and God knows
exactly how much good each of us can do, and what is the best place
for us to do it in, and how to teach and enable us to do it; and if
we choose to be taught, He will teach us; and if we choose to go His
way, and do His work, He will help us to it.  But if we will not have
his way, He will not let us have our own way--not at first, at least.
He will bring our plans to nothing, and let us make fools of
ourselves, and bring in sudden accidents of which we never dreamed,
just to show us that we are not our own masters, and cannot cut out
our own roads through life.  And if we take His lesson, and go to Him
to teach and strengthen us--well:  and if not--then perhaps--which is
the most awful misery which can happen to any man in earth--God may
give up teaching us during this life, and let us have our own way,
and be filled with the fruit of our own devices; from which worst of
punishments may He in His mercy, save you, and me, and all belonging
to us, in this life and in the life to come.

But some of you may say:  "We understand the first half of the text
very well, and like it very well; we all think it just that those who
set themselves up should have a fall, and we are very glad to see
them have a fall:  but we do not see why he who abases himself should
have any right to be exalted."  Ah, my friends, it is much easier,
and needs much less knowledge of God, and much less of the likeness
of Christ, to see what is wrong, than to see what is right.  Every
man knows when a bone is broken, but it is not every one who can set
it again.  Nevertheless, there is a sort of left-handed reason in
that argument.  For a man has no more right to make himself out worse
than he is, than he has to make himself out better than he is.  A man
should confess to being just what he is, neither more nor less.
Nevertheless, he who humbles himself shall be exalted.

Of course I do not mean those who, like some I know, make a fawning
humble way of talking a cloak for their own self-conceit; who call
themselves miserable sinners all the time that they are fancying that
they are almost the only people in the world who are sure of being
saved, whatever they do; who, as some do, actually pride themselves
on their own convictions of sin, and glory in their own shame, and
despise those who will not slander themselves as they do.

They are equally hateful to God and to God's enemies.  If you and I
are disgusted at such hypocritical self-conceit, be sure the Lord
Jesus is far more pained at it than we are; for as a wise man says:
"The devil's darling sin is the pride that apes humility."

But let a man really be convinced of sin; let a man really believe in
the Lord Jesus Christ's atonement; let a man really believe in the
Holy Spirit; and that man will have little need to ask why he should
humble himself more than he deserves, and little wish to boast of
himself, and push himself forward, and get praise, or riches, or
power in the world.  For that man would say to himself:  "I, sinner
as I am; I, who know that I do so many wrong things daily; things so
wrong that it required the blood of the Son of God to wash out the
guilt of them--who am I to set myself up?  I cannot be faithful in a
little--why should I try to be ruler over much?  I cannot use
properly the blessings and the power which God does give me--must I
not take for granted that, if I had more riches, more power, I should
use them still worse?  I know well enough of a thousand sins, and
weaknesses and ignorances in myself which my neighbours never see.  I
believe, therefore, my neighbours have much too good an opinion of
me, and not too bad a one; and therefore I am not going to boast or
puff myself to them.  I can only thank God they do not see the inside
of this foolish heart of mine as well as He does!  In short, I am not
going to set myself up, and try to get a higher place among men than
I have already, because I am certain that I have already a ten times
better one than I deserve."

Or again, if a man really believed in the Holy Ghost, which is much
the same as really believing in the kingdom of God; if he really
believed that God was the King and Master of his heart and soul; if
he really believed that everything good, and right, and wise in him
came from God's Holy Spirit, and that everything wrong and foolish in
him came from himself and the devil; then he would surely say to
himself:  "Who am I to try to set myself up above my neighbours, and
get power over them; what have I that I did not receive?  Whatever
money, or station, or cleverness, or power of mind I have, God has
given me, and without Him I should be nothing.  Therefore, He only
gave me these talents to use for Him, and if I use them for my own
ends, I shall be misusing them, and trying to rob God of His own.  I
am His child, His subject, His steward; He has put me just in that
place in His earth which is most fit for me, and my business is, not
to try to desert my post, and to wander out of the place here He has
put me, but to see that I do the duty which lies nearest me, so that
I shall be able to give an account to Him.  It is only if I am
faithful in a few things, that I can expect God to make me ruler over
many things."  Ah, my friends, if we could but see ourselves, not as
we fancy we are, nor as others fancy we are, but just as we really
are, then, instead of pushing, and boasting, and standing stiffly by
our rights, and fancying that God and man are unjust to us, we should
be crying out all day long with the prodigal son:  "Father, I have
sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be
called thy son."  We should say with St. Paul--who, after all,
remember, was the wisest, and most learned, and noblest-hearted of
all the Apostles--that we are at best the chief of sinners.  We
should feel like the dear and blessed Magdalene of old, the pattern
for ever of all true penitents, that it was quite honour enough to be
allowed to wash Christ's feet with our tears, while every one round
us sneered at us and looked down upon us--as, after all, we deserve.
And so, believe me, we should be exalted.  It would pay us, if
payment is what we want.  For so we should be in a more right, more
true, more healthy, more wise, more powerful state of mind; more like
Jesus Christ, and therefore more likely to be sent to do Christ's
work, and share Christ's reward.  For this is the great law of the
kingdom of God in which we live, that man is nothing, and God is
everything; and that we are strong and wise, and something, only when
we find out that we are weak and foolish, and nothing, and go to our
Father in heaven for strength, and wisdom, and spiritual eternal
life.  And then we find out how true it is that he who humbles
himself, as he deserves, will be raised up; how he who loses his life
will save it; how blessed are the poor in spirit, those who feel that
they have nothing but what God chooses to give them; for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven!  How blessed are those who hunger and thirst
after righteousness; who feel that they are not doing right, and yet
cannot rest till they do right; for they shall be filled!  How
blessed are the meek, who do not set up themselves, or try to fight
their own battles, and compete with their neighbours in the great
scramble and struggle of this world; for they--just the last persons
whom the world would expect to do it--shall inherit the earth!
Choose, my friends, choose!  The world says:  "Push upwards, praise
yourself, help yourself, put your best side outwards."  The great God
who made heaven and earth says:  "Know that you are weak, and
foolish, and sinful in yourself.  Know that whatever wisdom you have,
I the Lord lent you; and I the Lord expect the interest of my loan.
Know that you are my child in my Kingdom.  Stay where I have put you,
and when I want you for something better, I will call you; and if you
try to rise without my calling you, I will only drive you back again.
So the only way to be ruler over much, is first to be faithful in a
little.  My friends, which of the two do you think is likely to know
best, man or God?



Footnotes:

{217}  In 1848-49.




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