to save life and property, doing things which are altogether heroic. What do you fancy keeps them up to their work? High pay? The amusement and excitement of fires? The vanity of being praised for their courage? My friends, those would be but paltry weak motives, which would not keep a man’s heart calm and his head clear under such responsibility and danger as theirs. No. It is the sense of duty,–the knowledge that they are doing a good and a noble work in saving the lives of human beings and the wealth of the nation,–the knowledge that they are in God’s hands, and that no real evil can happen to him who is doing right,–that to him even death at his post is not a loss, but a gain. In short, faith in God, more or less clear, is what gives those men their strong and quiet courage. God grant that you and I, if ever we have dangerous work to do, may get true courage from the same fountain of ghostly strength.
Now, St Peter’s history is, I think, a special example of this. He was naturally, it seems, a daring man,–a man of great brute courage. So far so good; but he had to be taught, by severe lessons, that his brute courage was not enough,–that he wanted spiritual courage, the courage which came by faith, and that if that failed him, the brute courage would fail too.
He throws himself into the lake, to walk upon the water to Christ; and as soon as he is afraid he begins to sink. The Lord saves him, and tells him why he had sank. Because he had doubted, his faith had failed him. So he found out the weakness of courage without faith. Then, again, he tells our Lord, “Though all men shall be offended of Thee, yet will I never be offended. I am ready to go with Thee both into prison, and to death.” And shortly after, his mere animal courage breaks out again, and does what little it can do, and little enough. He draws sword, single- handed, on the soldiers in the garden, and cuts down a servant of the high priest’s, and perhaps would have flung his life away, desperately and uselessly, had not our Lord restrained him. But when the fit of excitement is past, his animal courage deserts him, and his moral courage too, and he denies his Lord. So he found out that he was like too many,- -full of bodily courage, perhaps, but morally weak. He had to undergo a great change. He had to be converted by the Holy Spirit of God, and strengthened by that Spirit, to have a boldness which no worldly courage can give. Then, when he was strong himself, he was able to strengthen his brethren. Then he was able, ignorant and unlearned man as he was, to stand up before the high priests and rulers of his nation, and to say, simply and firmly, without boasting, without defiance, “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” Yes, my friends, it is the courage which comes by faith which makes truly brave men,–men like St Peter and St John. He who can say, I am right, can say likewise, God is on my side, and I will not fear what man can do to me.
“We will not fear,” said the Psalmist, “though the earth be removed, and though the hills be carried into the midst of the sea.” “The just man, who holds firm to his purpose,” says a wise old heathen, “he will not be shaken from his solid mind by the rage of the mob bidding him do base things or the frowns of the tyrant who persecutes him. Though the world were to crumble to pieces round him, its ruins would strike him without making him tremble.” “Whether it be right,” said Peter and John to the great men and judges of the Jews, “to hearken to God more than to you, judge ye. We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” We cannot but speak what we know to be true.
It was that courage which enabled our forefathers,–and not the great men among them, not the rich, not even the learned, save a few valiant bishops and clergy, but for the most part poor, unlearned, labouring men and women,–to throw off the yoke of Popery, and say, “Reason and Scripture tell us that it is absurd and wrong to worship images and pray to saints,–tell us that your doctrines are not true. And we will say so in spite of the Pope and all his power,–in spite of torture and a fiery death. We cannot palter; we cannot dissemble; we cannot shelter ourselves under half-truths, and make a covenant with lies. ‘Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than to God, judge ye. We cannot but speak the things which we know to be true.'”
So it has been in all ages, and so it will be for ever. Faith, the certainty that a man is right, will give him a courage which will enable him to resist, if need be, the rich ones, the strong ones, the learned ones of the earth. It has made poor unlearned men heroes and deliverers of their countrymen from slavery and ignorance. It has made weak women martyrs and saints. It has enabled men who made great discoveries to face unbelief, ridicule, neglect, poverty; knowing that their worth would be acknowledged at last, their names honoured at last as benefactors by the very men who laughed at them and reviled them. It has made men, shut up in prison for long weary years for doing what was right and saying what was true, endure manfully for the sake of some good cause, and say,- –
“Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage.
If I have freedom in my thought,
And in my love am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.”
Yes; settle it in your hearts, all of you. There is but one thing which you have to fear in earth or heaven,–being untrue to your better selves, and therefore untrue to God. If you will not do the thing you know to be right, and say the thing you know to be true, then indeed you are weak. You are a coward, and sin against God, and suffer the penalty of your cowardice. You desert God, and therefore you cannot expect Him to stand by you.
But if you will do the thing you know to be right, and say the thing you know to be true, then what can harm you? Who will harm you, asks St Peter himself, “if you be followers of that which is good? For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers. But if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye; and be not afraid of those who try to terrify you, neither be troubled, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. Remember that He is just and holy, and a rewarder of all who diligently seek Him. Worship Him in your hearts, and all will be well. For says David again, “Lord, who shall dwell in Thy tabernacle, or who shall rest upon Thy holy hill? Even he that leadeth an uncorrupt life, and doeth the thing which is right, and speaketh the truth from his heart. Whoso doeth these things shall never fall.”
Yes, my friends; there is a tabernacle of God in which, even in this life, He will hide us from the strife of tongues. There is a hill of God on which, even in the midst of labour and anxiety, we may rest both day and night. Even Jesus Christ, the Rock of Ages,–He who is the Righteousness itself, the Truth itself; and whosoever does righteousness and speaks truth dwells in Christ in this life, as well as in the life to come; and Christ will strengthen him by His Holy Spirit to stand in the evil day, if it shall come, and having done all, to stand. My dear friends, if any of you are minded to be good men and women, pray for the Holy Spirit of God. First for the spirit of love to give you good desires; then the spirit of faith, to make you believe deeply in the living God, who rewards every man according to his work; and then for the spirit of strength, to enable you to bring these desires to good effect.
Pray for that spirit, I say; for we all need help. There are too many people in the world–too many, perhaps, among us here–who are not what they ought to be, and what they really wish to be, because they are weak. They see what is right, and admire it; but they have not courage or determination to do it. Most sad and pitiable it is to see how much weakness of heart there is in the world–how little true moral courage. I suppose that the reason is, that there is so little faith; that people do not believe heartily and deeply enough in the absolute necessity of doing right and being honest. They do not believe heartily and deeply enough in God to trust Him to defend and reward them, if they will but be true to Him, and to themselves. And therefore they have no moral courage. They are weak. They are kind, perhaps, and easy; easily led right; but, alas! just as easily led wrong. Their good resolutions are not carried out; their right doctrines not acted up to; and they live pitiful, confused, useless, inconsistent lives; talking about religion, and yet denying the power of religion in their daily lives; playing with holy and noble thoughts and feelings, without giving themselves up to them in earnest, to be led by the Spirit of God, to do all the good works which God has prepared for them to walk in. Pray all of you, then, for the spirit of faith, to believe really in God; and for the spirit of ghostly strength, to obey God honestly. No man ever asked earnestly for that spirit but what he gained it at last. And no man ever gained it but what he found the truth of St Peter’s own words, “Who will harm you if ye be followers of that which is good?”
SERMON XIX. GOOD DAYS
Eversley, 1867. Westminster, Sept. 27, 1872.
1 Peter iii. 8-12. “Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing. For he that will love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it. For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.”
This is one of the texts which is apt to puzzle people who do not read their Bibles carefully enough. They cannot see what the latter part of it has to do with the former.
St. Peter says that we Christians are called that we should inherit a blessing. That means, of course, they say, the blessing of salvation, everlasting life in heaven. But then St. Peter quotes from the 34th Psalm. “For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile.” Now that Psalm, they say, speaks of blessing and happiness in this life. Then why does St. Peter give it as a reason for expecting blessing and happiness in the life to come? And then, they say, to make it fit in, it must be understood spiritually; and what they mean by that, I do not clearly know.
Their notion is, that the promises of the Old Testament are more or less carnal, because they speak of God’s rewarding men in this life; and that the promises of the New Testament are spiritual, because they speak of God’s rewarding men in the next life; and what they mean by that, again, I do not clearly know.
For is not the Old Testament spiritual as well as the New? I trust so, my friends. Is not the Old Testament inspired, and that by the Spirit of God? and if it be inspired by the Spirit, what can it be but spiritual? Therefore, if we want to find the spiritual meaning of Old Testament promises, we need not to alter them to suit any fancies of our own; like those monks of the fourth and succeeding centuries, who saw no sanctity in family or national life; no sanctity in the natural world, and, therefore, were forced to travesty the Hebrew historians, psalmists, and prophets, with all their simple, healthy objective humanity, and politics, and poetry, into metaphorical and subjective, or, as they miscalled them, spiritual meanings, to make the Old Testament mean anything at all. No; if we have any real reverence for the Holy Scriptures, we must take them word for word in their plain meaning, and find the message of God’s Spirit in that plain meaning, instead of trying to put it in for ourselves. Therefore it is that the VII. Article bids us beware of playing with Scripture in this way. It says the Old Testament is not contrary to the New, for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ. Wherefore they are not to be heard who feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises, that is temporary promises, promises which would be fulfilled only in this life, and end and pass away when they died.
But some one will say, how can that be, when so many of the old Hebrews seem to have known nothing about the next life? Moses, for instance, always promises the Children of Israel that if they do right, and obey God, they shall be rewarded in this life, with peace and prosperity, fruitfulness and wealth; but of their being rewarded in the next life he never says one word–which last statement is undeniably true.
Is not then the Old Testament contrary to the New, if the Old Testament teaches men to look for their reward in this life, and the New Testament in the next? No, it is not, my friends. And I think we shall see that it is not, and why it is not, if we will look honestly at this very important text. If we do that we shall see that what St. Peter meant– what the VII. Article means is the only meaning which will make sense of either one or the other; is simply this–that what causes a man to enjoy this life, is the same that will cause him to enjoy the life to come. That what will bring a blessing on him in this life, will bring a blessing on him in the life to come. That what blessed the old Jews, will bless us Christians. That if we refrain our tongue from evil, and our lips from speaking deceit; it we avoid evil and do good; if we seek peace and follow earnestly after it; then shall we enjoy life, and see good days, and inherit a blessing; whether in this life or in the life to come.
And why? Because then we shall be living the one and only everlasting life of goodness, which alone brings blessings; alone gives good days; and is the only life worth living, whether in earth or heaven.
My dear friends, lay this seriously to heart, in these days especially, when people and preachers alike have taken to part earth and heaven, in a fashion which we never find in Holy Scripture. Lay it to heart, I say, and believe that what is right, and therefore good, for the next life, is right, and therefore good, for this. That the next life is not contrary to this life. That the same moral laws hold good in heaven, as on earth. Mark this well; for it must be so, if morality, that is right and goodness, is of the eternal and immutable essence of God. And therefore, mark this well again, there is but one true, real, and right life for rational beings, one only life worth living, and worth living in this world or in any other life, past, present, or to come. And that is the eternal life which was before all worlds, and will be after all are passed away–and that is neither more nor less than a good life; a life of good feelings, good thoughts, good words, good deeds, the life of Christ and of God.
It is needful, I say, to bear this in mind just now. People are, as I told you, too apt to say that the Old Testament saints got their rewards in this life, while we shall get them in the next. Do they find that in Scripture? If they will read their Bible they will find that the Old Testament saints were men whom God was training and educating, as He does us, by experience and by suffering. That David, so far from having his reward at once in this life, had his bitter sorrows and trials; that Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Job, all, indeed, of the old prophets, had to be made perfect by suffering, and (as St. Paul says) died in faith NOT having received the promises. So that if they had their reward in this life, it must have been a spiritual reward, the reward of a good conscience, and of the favour of Almighty God. And that is no transitory or passing reward, but enduring as immortality itself. But people do not usually care for that spiritual reward. Their notion of reward and happiness is that they are to have all sorts of pleasures, they know not what, and know not really why. And because they cannot get pleasant things enough to satisfy them in this life, they look forward greedily to getting them in the next life; and meanwhile are discontented with God’s Providence, and talk of God’s good world as if some fiend and not the Lord Jesus Christ was the maker and ruler thereof. Do not misunderstand me. I am no optimist. I know well that things happen in this world which must, which ought to make us sad–so sad that at moments we envy the dead, who are gone home to their rest; real tragedies, real griefs, divine and Christlike griefs, which only loving hearts know–the suffering of those we love, the loss of those we love, and, last and worst, the sin of those we love. Ah! if any of those swords have pierced the heart of any soul here, shall I blame that man, that woman, if they cry at times, “Father, take me home, this earth is no place for me.” Shall I bid them do aught but cling to the feet of Christ and cry, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” Oh, not of such do I speak; not of such sharers of Christ’s unselfish suffering here, that they may be sharers of His unselfish joy hereafter. Not of them do I speak; but of those who only wish to make up for selfish discomforts and disappointments in this life by selfish comforts and satisfaction in the next; and who therefore take up (let me use the honest English word) some maundering form of religion, which, to judge from their own conduct, they usually only half believe; those who seem, on six days of the week, as fond of finery and frivolity as any other gay worldlings, and on the seventh join eagerly in hymns in which (in one case at least) they inform the Almighty God of truth, who will not be mocked, that they lie awake at night, weeping because they cannot die and see “Jerusalem the golden,” and so forth. Or those, again, who for six days in the week are absorbed in making money– honestly if they can, no doubt, but still making money, and living luxuriously on their profits–and on the seventh listen with satisfaction to preachers and hymns which tell them that this world is all a howling wilderness, full of snares and pitfalls; and that in this wretched place the Christian can expect nothing but tribulation and persecution till he “crosses Jordan, and is landed safe on Canaan’s store,” and so forth.
My friends, my friends, as long as a man talks so, blaspheming God’s world–which, when He made it, behold it was all very good–and laying the blame of their own ignorance and peevishness on God who made them, they must expect nothing but tribulation and sorrow. But the tribulation and the sorrow will be their own fault, and not God’s. If religious professors will not take St. Peter’s advice and the Psalmist’s advice; if they will go on coveting and scheming about money, and how they may get money; if they will go on being neither pitiful, courteous, nor forgiving, and hating and maligning whether it be those who differ from them in doctrine, or those who they fancy have injured them, or those who merely are their rivals in the race of life; then they are but too likely to find this world a thorny place, because they themselves raise the thorns; and a disorderly place, because their own tempers and desires are disorderly; and a wilderness, because they themselves have run wild, barbarians at heart, however civilised in dress and outward manners. St. James tells them that of old. “From whence,” he says, “come wars and quarrels among you? Come they not hence, even of the lusts which war in your members? You long, and have not. You fight and war, yet you have not, because you ask not. You ask, and have not. You pray for this and that, and God does not give it you. Because you ask amiss, selfishly to consume it on your lusts.” And then you say, This world is an evil place, full of temptations. What says St. James to that? “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man. But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.”
So it was in the Old Testament times, and so it is in these Christian times. God is good, and God’s world is good; and the evil is not in the world around us, but in our own foolish hearts. If we follow our own foolish hearts, we shall find this world a bad place, as the old Jews found it–whenever they went wrong and sinned against God–because we are breaking its laws, and they will punish us. If we follow the commandments of God, we shall find this world a good place, as the old Jews found it–whenever they went right, and obeyed God–because we shall be obeying its laws, and they will reward us. This is God’s promise alike to the old Jewish fathers and to us Christian men. And this is no transitory or passing promise, but is founded on the eternal and everlasting law of right, by which God has made all worlds, and which He Himself cannot alter, for it springs out of His own essence and His own eternal being. Hear, then, the conclusion of the whole matter: God hath called you that you might inherit a blessing.
He hath made you of a blessed race, created in His own likeness, to whom He hath put all things in subjection, making man a little lower than the angels, that He might crown him with glory and worship: a race so precious in God’s eyes–we know not why–that when mankind had fallen, and seemed ready to perish from their own sin and ignorance, God spared not His only begotten Son, but freely gave Him for us, that the world by Him might be saved. And God hath put you in a blessed place, even His wondrous and fruitful world, which praises God day and night, fulfilling His word; for it continues this day as in the beginning, and He has given it a law which cannot be broken. He has made you citizens of a blessed kingdom, even the kingdom of heaven, into which you were baptised; and has given you the Holy Bible, that you might learn the laws of the kingdom, and live for ever, blessing and blest.
And the Head of this blessed race, the Maker of this blessed world, the King of this blessed kingdom, is the most blessed of all beings, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son, both God and man. He has washed you freely from your sins in His own blood; He has poured out on you freely His renewing Spirit. And He asks you to enter into your inheritance; that you may love your life, and see good days, by living the blessed life, which is the life of self-sacrifice. But not such self-sacrifices as too many have fancied who did not believe that mankind was a blessed race, and this earth a blessed place. He does not ask you to give up wife, child, property, or any of the good things of this life. He only asks you to give up that selfishness which will prevent you enjoying wife, child, or property, or anything else in earth, or in heaven either. He asks you not to give up anything which is AROUND you, for that which cometh from without defileth not a man; but to give up something which is within you, for that which cometh from within, that defileth a man.
He asks you to give up selfishness and all the evil tempers which that selfishness breeds. To give up the tongue which speaks evil of your fellow-men; and the lips which utter deceit; and the brain which imagines cunning; and the heart which quarrels with your neighbour. To give these up and to seek peace, and pursue it by all means reasonable or honourable; peace with all around you, which comes by having first peace with God; next, peace with your own conscience. This is the peace which passeth understanding; for if you have it, men will not be able to understand why you have it. They will see you at peace when men admire you and praise you, and at peace also when they insult you and injure you; at peace when you are prosperous and thriving, and at peace also when you are poor and desolate. And that inward peace of yours will pass their understanding as it will pass your own understanding also. You will know that God sends you the peace, and sends it you the more the more you pray for it: but how He sends it you will not understand; for it springs out of those inner depths of your being which are beyond the narrow range of consciousness, and is spiritual and a mystery, and comes by the inspiration of the holy Spirit of God.
But remember that all your prayers will not get that peace if your heart be tainted with malice and selfishness and covetousness, falsehood and pride and vanity. You must ask God first to root those foul seeds out of your heart, or the seed of His Spirit will not spring up and bear fruit in you to the everlasting life of love and peace and joy in the holy Spirit. But if your heart be purged and cleansed of self, then indeed will the holy Spirit enter in and dwell there; and you will abide in peace, through all the chances and changes of this mortal life, for you will abide in God, who is for ever at peace. And you will inherit a blessing; for you will inherit Christ, your light and your life, who is blessed for ever. And you will love life; for life will be full to you of hope, of work, of duty, of interest, of lessons without number. And you will see good days; for all days will seem good to you, even those which seem to the world bad days of affliction and distress. And so the peace of God will keep you in Jesus Christ, in this life, and in the life to come. Amen.
SERMON XX. GRACE
Eversley. 1856.
St. John i. 16, 17. “Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”
I wish you to mind particularly this word GRACE. You meet it very often in the Bible. You hear often said, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Now, what does this word grace mean? It is really worth your while to know; for if a man or a woman has not grace, they will be very unhappy people, and very disagreeable people also; a torment to themselves, and a torment to their neighbours also; and if they live without grace, they will live but a poor life; if they die without grace, they will come to a very bad end indeed. What, then, does this word mean? Some of you will answer that grace means God’s Holy Spirit, or that it means what God gives to our souls by His Spirit. But what does that mean? What does God’s Spirit give us? What is the grace of Jesus Christ like, and how is it the same as the grace of God’s Spirit?
Now, to know what grace means, we must know what St John and St Paul meant by it, and what the word meant in their time, and what the Ephesians, and Corinthians, and Romans, to whom they wrote, would have understood by this word grace.
Now these heathens, to whom the apostles preached, before they heard the gospel, knew that word grace very well indeed, often used it; and saw it written up in their heathen temples all about them. And they meant by it just what we mean, when we talk of a graceful person, or a graceful tree or flower; and what we mean, too, when we say that any one is gracious; that they do things gracefully, and have a great deal of grace in their way of speaking and behaving. We mean by that that they are handsome, agreeable, amiable, pleasant to look at, and talk to, and deal with. And so these heathens meant, before they were Christians. The Romans used to talk about some one called a Grace. The Greeks called her CHARIS; which is exactly the word which St John and St Paul use, and from it come our words charity and charitable. But more; they used to talk of three Graces: they fancied that they were goddesses–spirits of some kind in the shape of beautiful, and amiable, and innocent maidens, who took delight in going about the world and making people happy and amiable like themselves; and they used to make images of these graces, and pray to them to make them lovely, and happy, and agreeable. And painters and statuaries, too, used to pray to these graces, and ask them to put beautiful fancies into their minds, that they might be able to paint beautiful pictures, and carve beautiful statues. So when St Paul or St John talked to these heathens about grace, or Charis (as the Testament calls it), they knew quite well what the apostles meant.
Did the apostles, then, believe in these three goddesses? Heaven forbid. They came to teach these heathens to turn from those very vanities, and worship the living-God. And so they told them,–You are quite right in thinking that grace comes from heaven, and is God’s gift; that it is God who makes people amiable, cheerful, lovely, and honourable; that it is God who gives happiness and all the joys of life: but which god? Not those three maidens; they are but a dream and fancy. All that is lovely and pleasant in men and women–and our life here, and our everlasting life after death, in this world and in all worlds to come–all comes from Jesus Christ and from Him alone. God has gathered together all things in Him, whether things in heaven or things on earth; and He bestows blessings and graces on all who will ask Him, to each as much as is good for him. He is full of grace–more full of it than all the human beings in the world put together. All the goodness and sweetness, and all the graciousness which you ever saw in all the men and women whom you ever met; all the goodness and sweetness which you ever fancied for yourselves, all put together is not to be compared to Him. For He is the perfect brightness of God’s glory, and the express image of God’s person; and in Him is gathered together all grace, all goodness, all which makes men or angels good, and lovely, and loving. All is in Him, and He gives it freely to all, said the apostles; we know that He speaks truth, we have seen Him; our eyes saw Him, our hands touched Him, and there was a glory about Him such as there never could be about any other person. A glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. A person whom we could not help loving; could not help admiring; could not help trusting; could not help giving ourselves up to–to live for Him, and if need be, die for Him.
And, said the apostles, there was a grace of truth in another of your heathen fancies. You thought that these goddesses, because they were amiable and innocent themselves, liked to make every one amiable, innocent, and happy also. Your conscience, your reason were right there. That is the very nature of grace, not to keep itself to itself, but to spend itself on every one round it, and try to make every one like itself. If a man be good, he will long to make others good; if tender, he will long to make others tender; if gentle, he will long to make others gentle; if cheerful, he will long to make others cheerful; if forgiving, he will long to make others forgiving; if happy, he will long to make others happy. Then said the apostles, only believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, just because He is full of grace, wishes to fill you with grace, ten thousand times better grace than you ever fancied those false goddesses could give you–of His fulness you may all receive, and grace for grace. All the grace of this world comes from Him–health, and youth, and happiness, and all the innocent pleasures of life, and He delights in giving you them. But, over and above that, comes a deeper and nobler grace–spiritual grace, the grace of the immortal soul, which will last on, and make you loving and loveable, pure and true, gracious and generous, honourable and worthy of respect, when the grace of the body is gone, and the eye is grown dim, and the hair is grey, and the limbs, feeble; a grace which will make you gracious in old age, gracious in death, gracious for ever and ever, after the body has crumbled again to its dust. Whatsoever things are honourable, lovely, and of good report; whatsoever tempers of mind make you a comfort to yourselves and all around you; Christ has them all, and He can give you them all, one after the other, till Christ be formed in you, till you come to be perfect men and women, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. Come, then, boldly to His throne of grace, to find mercy, and grace to help you in the time of need.
This was what the apostles taught the heathen, and their words were true. You may see them come true round you every day. For, my friends, just as far as people pray for Christ’s grace, and give themselves up to be led by God’s Spirit, they become full of grace themselves, courteous and civil, loving and amiable, true and honourable–a pleasure to themselves and to all round them. While, on the other hand; all rudeness, all ill- temper, all selfishness, all greediness are just so many sins against the grace of Christ, which grieve the Spirit of God, at the same time that they grieve our neighbours for whom Christ died, and cut us off, as long as we give way to them, from the communion of saints.
Well would it be for married people, if they would but remember this. Well for them, for their own sake and for their children’s. “Heirs together,” St Peter says they are, “of the grace of life.” Think of those words; for in them lies the true secret of happiness. Not in the mere grace of youth, which pleases the fancy at first; that must soon fade; and then comes, too often, coldness between man and wife; neglect, rudeness, ill-temper, because the grace of life is not there–the grace of the inner life, of the immortal soul, which alone makes life pleasant, even tolerable, to two people who are bound together for better or for worse. But yet, unless St Peter be mistaken, the fault in such sad case is on the man’s side. Yes, we must face that truth, we men; and face it like men. If we are unhappy in our marriage it is our own fault. It is the woman who is the weaker, says St Peter, and selfish men are apt to say, “Then it is the woman’s fault, if we are not happy.” St Peter says exactly the opposite. He says,–Because she is the weaker you are the stronger; and therefore it is your fault if she is not what she should be; for you are able to help her, and lead her; you took her to your heart for that very purpose, you swore to cherish her. Because she is the weaker, you can teach her, help her, improve her character, if you will. You have more knowledge of life and the world than she has. Dwell with her according to knowledge, says St Peter; use your experience to set her right if she be wrong; and use your experience and your strength, too, to keep down your own temper and your own selfishness toward her, to bear and forbear, to give and forgive, live and let live. Remember that you are heirs TOGETHER of the grace of life; and if the grace of life is not in you, you cannot expect it to be in her. And what is the grace of life? It must be the grace of Christ. St John says that Christ IS the Life. And what is the grace of Christ? Christ’s grace, Christ’s gracefulness, Christ’s beautiful and noble and loving character–the grace of Christ is Christ’s likeness. Do you ask what will Christ give me? He will give you Himself. He will make you like Himself, partaker of His grace; and what is that? It is this–to be loving, gentle, temperate, courteous, condescending, self-sacrificing. Giving honour to those who are weaker than yourself, just because they are weaker; ready and willing, ay, and counting it an honour to take trouble for other people, to be of use to other people, to give way to other people; and, above all, to the woman who has given herself to you, body and soul. That is the grace of Christ; that is the grace of life; that is what makes life worth having: ay, makes it a foretaste of heaven upon earth; when man and wife are heirs together of the grace of life, of all those tempers which make life graceful and pleasant, giving way to each other in everything which is not wrong; studying each other’s comfort, taking each other’s advice, shutting their eyes to each other’s little failings, and correcting each other’s great failings, not by harsh words, but silently and kindly, by example. And if the man will do that, there is little fear but that the woman will do it also. And so, their prayers are not hindered.
Married people cannot pray, they have no heart to pray, while they are discontented with each other. They feel themselves wrong, and because they are parted from each other, they feel parted from God too; and their selfishness or anger rises as a black wall, not merely between them, but between each of them and God. And so the grace of life is indeed gone away from them, and the whole world looks dark and ugly to them, because it is not bright and cheerful in the light of Christ’s grace, which makes all the world full of sunshine and joy. But it need not be so, friends. It would not be so, if married people would take the advice which the Prayer Book gives them, and come to Holy communion. Would to God, my friends, that all married people would understand what that Holy communion says to them; and come together Sunday after Sunday to that throne of grace, there to receive of Christ’s fulness, and grace upon grace. For that Table says to you: You are heirs together of the grace of life; you are not meant merely to feed together for a few short years, at the same table, on the bread which perishes, but to feed for ever together on the bread which comes down from heaven, even on Christ Himself, the life of the world; to receive life from His life, that you may live together such a life as He lived, and lives still; to receive grace from the fulness of His grace, that you may be full of grace as He is. That Table tells you that because you both must live by the same life of Christ, you must live the same life as each other, and grow more and more like each other year by year; that as you both receive the same grace of Christ, you will become more and more gracious to each other year by year, and both grow together, nearer and dearer to each other, more worthy of each other’s respect, more worthy of each other’s trust, more worthy of each other’s love. And then “till death us do part” may mean what it will. Let death part what of them he can part, the perishing mortal body; he has no power over the soul, or over the body which shall rise to life eternal. Let death do his worst. They belong to Christ who conquered death, and they live by His everlasting life, and their life is hid with Christ in God, where death cannot reach it or find it; and therefore their life and their love, and the grace of it, will last as long as Christ’s life and Christ’s love, and Christ’s grace last- -and that will be for ever and ever.
SERMON XXI. FATHER AND CHILD
Eversley. 1861.
1 Cor. i. 4, 5, 7. “I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ. That in every thing ye are enriched by Him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge . . . So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
This text is a very important one. It ought to teach me how I should treat you. It ought to teach you how you should treat your children. It ought to teach you how God, your heavenly Father, treats you. You see at the first glance how cheerful and hopeful St Paul is about these Corinthians. He is always thanking God, he says, about them, for the grace of God which was given them by Jesus Christ, that in everything they were enriched by Him, in all utterance and in all knowledge. And he has good hope for them. Nay, he seems to be certain about them, that they will persevere, and conquer, and be saved; for Christ Himself will confirm them (that is strengthen them) to the end, that they may be blameless in the way of our Lord Jesus Christ.
If we knew no more of these Corinthians than what these words tell us, we should suppose that they were very great saints, leading holy and irreproachable lives before God and man. But we know that it was not so. That they were going on very ill. That this is the beginning of an epistle in which St Paul is going to rebuke them very severely; and to tell them, that unless they mend, they will surely become reprobates, and be lost after all. He is going to rebuke them for having heresies among them, that is religious parties and religious quarrels–very much as we have now; for being puffed up with spiritual self-conceit; for despising and disparaging him; for loose lives, allowing (in one case) such a crime among them as even the heathen did not allow; for profaning the Lord’s Supper, to such an extent that some seem even to have got drunk at it; for want of charity to each other; for indulging in fanatical excitement; for denying, some of them, the resurrection of the dead; on the whole, for being in so unwholesome a state of mind that he has to warn them solemnly of the fearful example of the old Israelites, who perished in the wilderness for their sins–as they will perish, he hints, unless they mend.
And yet he begins by thanking God for them, by speaking of them, and to them, in this cheerful and hopeful tone.
Does that seem strange? Why should it seem strange, my friends, to us, if we are in the habit of training our children, and rebuking our children, as we ought? If we have to rebuke our children for doing wrong, do we begin by trying to break their hearts? by raking up old offences, by reproaching them with all the wrong they ever did in their lives, and giving them to understand that they are thoroughly bad, and have altogether lost our love, so that we will have nothing more to do with them unless they mend? Or do we begin by making them feel that however grieved we are with them, we love them still; that however wrong they have been, there is right feeling left in them still; and by giving them credit for whatever good there is in them–by appealing to that; calling on them to act up to that; to be true to themselves, and to their better nature; saying, You can do right in one thing–then do right in another–and do right in all? If we do not do this we do wrong; we destroy our children’s self-respect, we make them despair of improving, we make them fancy themselves bad children: that is the very surest plan we can take to make them bad children, by making them reckless.
But if we be wise parents–such parents to our children as St Paul was to his spiritual children, the Corinthians–we shall do by them just what St Paul did by these Corinthians. Before he says one harsh word to them, he will awaken in them faith and love. He will make them trust him and love him, all the more because he knows that through false teaching they do not trust and love him as they used to do. But till they do, he knows that there is no use in rebuking them. Till they trust him and love him, they will not listen to him. And how does he try to bring them round to him? By praising them:–by telling them that he trusts them and loves them, because in spite of all their faults there is something in them worthy to be loved and trusted. He begins by giving them credit for whatever good there is in them. They are rich in all utterance and all knowledge; that is, they are very brilliant and eloquent talkers about spiritual things, and also very deep and subtle thinkers about spiritual things. So far so good. These are great gifts–gifts of Christ, too,– tokens that God’s spirit is with them, and that all they need is to be true to His gracious inspirations. Then, when he has told them that, or rather made them understand that he knows that, and is delighted at it, then he can go on safely and boldly to tell them of their sins also in the plainest and sternest and yet the most tender and fatherly language.
This is very important, my friends. I cannot tell you fully how important I think it, in more ways than one. I am sure that if we took St Paul’s method with our children we should succeed with them far better than we do. And I think, I have thought long, that if we could see that St Paul’s method with those Corinthians was actually the same as God’s method with us, we should have far truer notions of God, and God’s dealings with us; and should reverence and value far more that Holy Catholic Church into which we have been, by God’s infinite mercy, baptized, and wherein we have been educated.
For, and now I entreat you to listen to me carefully, you who have sound heads and earnest hearts, ready and willing to know the truth about God and yourselves, if St Paul looked at the Corinthians in this light, may not God have looked at them in the same light? If St Paul accepted them for the sake of the good which was in them, in spite of all their faults, may not God have accepted them for the sake of the good which was in them, in spite of all their faults? and may not He accept us likewise? I think it must be so. For was not St Paul an inspired apostle? and are not these words of his inspired by the Holy Spirit of God? But if so, then the Spirit of God must have looked at these Corinthians in the same light as St Paul, and therefore God must do likewise, because the Holy Spirit is God. Must it not be so? Can we suppose that God would take one view of these Corinthians, and then inspire St Paul to take another view? What does being inspired mean at all, save having the mind of Christ and of God,–being taught to see men and things as God sees them, to feel for them and think of them as God does? If inspiration does not mean that, what does it mean? Therefore, I think, we have a right to believe that St Paul’s words express the mind of God concerning these Corinthians; that God was pleased with their utterance and their knowledge, and accepted them for that; and that in the same way God is pleased with whatsoever He sees good in us, and accepts us for that. But, remember, not for our own works or deservings any more than these Corinthians. They were, and we are accepted in Christ, and for the merits of Christ. And any good points in us, or in these Corinthians, as St Paul says expressly (here and elsewhere), are not our own, but come from Christ, by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit.
I know many people do not think thus. They think of God as looking only at our faults; as extreme to mark what is done amiss; as never content with us; as always crying to men, Yes, you have done this and that well, and yet not quite well, for even in what you have done there are blots and mistakes; but this and that you have not done, and therefore you are still guilty, still under infinite displeasure. And they think that they exalt God’s holiness by such thoughts, and magnify His hatred of sin thereby. And they invent arguments to prove themselves right, such as this: That because God is an infinite being, every sin committed against Him is infinite; and therefore deserves an infinite punishment; which is a juggle of words of which any educated man ought to be ashamed.
I do not know where, in the Bible, they find all this. Certainly not in the writings of St Paul. They seem to me to find it, not in the Bible at all, but in their own hearts, judging that God must be as hard upon His children as they are apt to be upon their own. I know that God is never content with us, or with any man. How can He be? But in what sense is He not content? In the sense in which a hard task-master is not content with his slave, when he flogs him cruelly for the slightest fault? Or in the sense in which a loving father is not content with his child, grieving over him, counselling him, as long as he sees him, even in the slightest matter, doing less well than he might do? Think of that, and when you have thought of it, believe that in this grand text St Paul speaks really by the Spirit of God, and according to the mind of God, and teaches not these old Corinthians merely, but you and your children after you, what is the mind of God concerning you, what is the light in which God looks upon you. For, if you will but think over your own lives, and over the Catechism which you learned in your youth, has not God’s way of dealing with you been just the same as St Paul’s with those Corinthians, teaching you to love and trust Him almost before He taught you the difference between right and wrong? I know that some think otherwise. Many who do not belong to the Church, and many, alas! who profess to belong to the Church, will tell you that God’s method is, first to terrify men by the threats of the law and the sight of their sins and the fear of damnation, and afterwards to reveal to them the gospel and His mercy and salvation in Christ. Now I can only answer that it is not so. Not so in fact. These preachers themselves may do it; but that is no proof that God does it. What God’s plan is can only be known from facts, from experience, from what actually happens; first in God’s kingdom of nature, and next in God’s kingdom of grace, which is the Church. And in the kingdom of nature how does God begin with mankind? What are a child’s first impressions of this life? Does he hear voices from heaven telling little children that they are lost sinners? Does he see lightning come from heaven to strike sinners dead, or earthquakes rise and swallow them up? Nothing of the kind. A child’s first impressions of this life, what are they but pleasure? His mother’s breast, warmth, light, food, play, flowers, and all pleasant things,–by these God educates the child, even of the heathen and the savage:–and why? If haply he may feel after God and find Him, and find that He is a God of love and mercy, a giver of good things, who knows men’s necessities before they ask,–a good and loving God, and not a being such as I will not, I dare not speak of.
I say with the very heathen God deals thus. We have plain Scripture for that. For we have, and thanks be to God that we have, in such times as these, a missionary sermon preached by St Paul to the heathen at Lystra. And in that is not one word concerning these terrors of the law. He says, I preach to you God, whom you ought to have known of yourselves, because He has not left Himself without witness. And what is this witness of which the apostle speaks? Wrath and terror and destruction? Not so, says St Paul. This is His witness, that He has sent you rain and fruitful seasons, filling your heart with food and gladness. His goodness, His bounty,–it is the witness of God and of the character of God. There is wrath and terror enough, says St Paul elsewhere, awaiting those who go on in sin. But then what does he say is their sin? Despising the goodness of God, by which He has been trying to win mankind to love and trust Him, before He threatens and before He punishes at all. So much for the terrors of the law coming before the good news of the gospel in God’s kingdom of nature.
And still less do the terrors of the law come first in God’s kingdom of grace, which is the Church. They did not come first to you or to me, or to any one in His Church who has been taught, as churchmen should be, their Catechism. If any have been, unhappily for them, brought up to learn Catechisms and hymns which do not belong to the Church, and which terrify little children with horrible notions of God’s wrath, and the torments prepared not merely for wicked men, but for unconverted children, and then teach them to say,–
“Can such a wretch as I
Escape this dreadful end?”
so much the worse for them. We, who are Church people, are bound to believe that God speaks to us through the Church books, and that it was His will that we should have been brought up to believe the Catechism. And in that Catechism we heard not one word of these terrors of the law or of God’s wrath hanging over us. We were taught that before we even knew right from wrong, God adopted us freely as His children, freely forgave us our original sin for the sake of Christ’s blood, freely renewed us by His Holy Spirit, freely placed us in His Church;–that we might love Him, because He first loved us; trust Him because He has done all that even God could do to win our trust; and obey Him, because we are boundlessly in debt to Him for boundless mercies. This is God’s method with us in His Church, and what is it but St Paul’s method with these Corinthians?
Believe this, then, you who wish to be Churchmen in spirit and in truth. Believe that St Paul’s conduct is to you a type and pattern of what God does, and what you ought to do. That God’s method of winning you to do right is to make you love Him and trust Him; and that your method of winning your children to do right is to make them love and trust you. Let us remember that if our children are not perfect, they at least inherited their imperfections from us; and if our Father in heaven, from whom we inherit no sin, but only good, have patience with us, shall we not have patience with our children, who owe to us their fallen nature?
Ah! cast thy bread upon the waters,–the bread which even the poorest can give to their children abundantly and without stint,–the bread of charity,–human tenderness, forbearance, hopefulness,–cast that bread upon the waters, and thou shalt find it after many days.
SERMON XXII. GOD IS OUR REFUGE
Westminster Abbey, 1873.
Psalm xlvi. 1. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
This is a noble psalm, full of hope and comfort; and it will be more and more full of hope and comfort, the more faithfully we believe in the incarnation, the passion, the resurrection, and the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. For if we are to give credit to His express words, and to those of every book of the New Testament, and to the opinion of that Church into which we are baptised, then Jesus Christ is none other than the same Jehovah, Lord, and God who brought the Jews out of Egypt, who guided them and governed them through all their history–teaching, judging, rewarding, punishing them and all the nations of the earth. This psalm, therefore, is concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom all power is given in heaven and earth, and who ascended up on high; that He might be as He had been from the beginning, King of kings and Lord of lords, the Master of this world and all the nations in it. This psalm, therefore, is a hymn concerning the kingdom of Christ and of God. It tells us something of the government which Christ has been exercising over the world ever since the beginning of it, and which He is exercising over this world now. It bids us be still, and know that He is God–that He will be exalted among the nations, and will be exalted in the earth, whether men like it or not; but that they ought to like it and rejoice in it, and find comfort in the thought that Christ Jesus is their refuge and their strength–a very present help in trouble–as the old Jew who wrote this psalm found comfort.
When this psalm was written, or what particular events it speaks of, I cannot tell, for I do not think we have any means of finding out. It may have been written in the time of David, or of Solomon, or of Hezekiah. It may possibly have been written much later. It seems to mo probably to refer–but I speak with extreme diffidence–to that Assyrian invasion, and that preservation of Jerusalem, of which we heard in the magnificent first lesson for this morning and this afternoon; when, at the same time that the Assyrians were crushing, one by one, every nation in the East, there was, as the elder Isaiah and Micah tell us plainly, a great volcanic outbreak in the Holy Land. But all this matters very little to us; because events analogous to those of which it speaks have happened not once only, but many times, and will happen often again. And this psalm lays down a rule for judging of such startling and terrible events whenever they happen, and for saying of them, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” It seems from the beginning of the psalm that there had been earthquakes or hurricanes in Judea–more probably earthquakes, which were and are now frequent there. It seems as if the land had been shaken, and cliffs thrown into the sea, which had rolled back in a mighty wave, such as only too often accompanies an earthquake. But the Psalmist knew that that was God’s doing; and therefore he would not fear, though the earth was moved, and though the hills were earned into the very midst of the sea. It seems, moreover, that Jerusalem itself had, as in Hezekiah’s time, not been shaken, or at least seriously injured, by the earthquake. But why? “God is in the midst of her, therefore shall she not be removed.” It seems, also, as if the earthquake or hurricane had been actually a benefit to Jerusalem– which was often then, and has been often since, in want of water–that either fresh springs had broken out, or abundant rain had fallen, as occurs at times in such convulsions of nature. But that, too, was God’s doing on behalf of His chosen city. “The rivers of the flood” had made “glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacle of the most highest.”
Moreover, there seem to have been great disturbances and wars among the nations round. The heathen had made much ado, and the kingdoms had been moved. But whatever their plans were, it was God who had brought them to naught. God had shewed His voice, and the earth melted away; and (we know not how) discomfiture had fallen upon them, and a general peace had followed. “O come hither,” says the Psalmist, “and behold the works of the Lord, what desolations He has made in the earth.” Not a desolation of cruelty and tyranny: but a desolation of mercy and justice; putting down the proud, the aggressive, the ruthless, and helping the meek, the simple, the industrious, and the innocent. It is He, says the Psalmist, who has made wars to cease in all the world, who has broken the bow and snapped the spear in sunder, and burned the chariots in the fire; and so, by the voice of fact, said to these kings and to their armies, if they would but understand it, “Be still, and know that I am God”–that I, not you, will be exalted among the nations–that I, not you, will be exalted in the earth.
Such is the 46th Psalm, one of the noblest utterances of the whole Old Testament. And is it not as true for us now, ay, for all nations and all mankind now, as it was when it was uttered? Is not Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever? Have His words passed away? Did He say in vain, “All power is given unto me in heaven and earth?” Did He say in vain, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world?” I trust not. I trust and I hope that you, or at least some here, believe that Christ is ruling and guiding the world, the church, and every individual soul who trusts in Him toward–
“One far off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves.”
I hope you do have that trust, for your own sakes, for the sake of your own happiness, your own sound peace of mind; for then, and then only, you can afford to be hopeful concerning yourselves, your families, your country, and the whole human race. It must be so. If you believe that He who hung upon the cross for all mankind is your refuge and strength, and the refuge and strength of all mankind, then, amid all the changes and chances of this mortal life, you can afford to be still calm in sudden calamity, patient in long afflictions; for you know that He is God, He is the Lord, He is the Redeemer, He is the King. He knows best. He must be right, whosoever else is wrong. Let Him do what seemeth Him good.
Now I cannot but feel (what wiser and better men than I am feel more deeply), that this old-fashioned faith in the living Christ is dying out among us. That men do not believe as they used to do in the living Lord and in His government, in that perpetual divine providence which the Scriptures call “the kingdom of God.” They have lost faith in Christ’s immediate and personal government of the world and its nations; and, therefore, they are tempted more and more, either to try to misgovern the world themselves, or to fancy that Christ has entrusted His government, as to a substitute and vicar, to an aged priest at Rome. They have lost faith, likewise, in Christ’s immediate government of themselves; their own fortunes, their own characters, and inmost souls; and, therefore, they are tempted either to follow no rule or guidance save their own instincts, passions, fancies; or else, in despair at their own inward anarchy, to commit the keeping of their souls to directors and confessors, instead of to Christ Himself, the Lord of the spirits of all flesh.
Yes, the faith which keeps a man ever face to face with God and with Christ, in the least as well as in the greatest events of life; which says in prosperity and in adversity, in plenty and scarcity, in joy and sorrow, in peace and war,–It is the Lord’s doing, it is the Lord’s sending, and therefore we can trust in the Lord–that faith is growing, I fear, very rare. That faith was more common, I think, a generation or two back, in old-fashioned church people than in any other. It could not help being so; for the good old Prayer-Book upon which they were brought up is more full of that simple and living faith in the Lord, from beginning to end, than any other book on earth except the Bible. It was more common, too, and I suppose always will be, among the poor than among the rich; for the poor soon find out how little they have to depend upon except the Lord and His good providence; while the rich are tempted, and always will be, to depend upon their own wealth and their own power, to trust in uncertain riches, and say, “Soul, take thine ease, thou hast much goods laid up for many years.” It was more common, too, and I suppose always will be, among the old than among the young; for the young are tempted to trust not in the Lord, but in their own health, strength, wit, courage, and to put their hopes, not on God’s Providence, but on the unknown chapter of accidents in the future, most of which will never come to pass; while the old have learned by experience and disappointment the vanity of human riches, the helplessness of human endeavour, the blindness of human foresight, and are content to go where God leads them, and say, “I will go forth in the strength of the Lord God, and will make mention of Thy righteousness only. Thou, O God, hast taught me from my youth up until now: therefore will I tell of Thy wondrous works. Forsake me not, O God, in mine old age, when I am grey-headed; until I have showed Thy strength unto this generation, and Thy power to all them which are yet for to come.”
But, for some reason or other, this generation does not seem to care to see God’s strength; and those that are yet for to come seem likely to believe less and less in God’s power–believe less and less that they are in Christ’s kingdom, and that Christ is ruling over them and all the world. They have not faith in the Living Lord. But they must get back that faith, if they wish to keep that wealth and prosperity after which every one scrambles so greedily now-a-days; for those who forget God are treading, they and their children after them, not, as they fancy, the road to riches–they are treading the road to ruin. So it always was, so it always will be. Yet the majority of mankind will not see it, and the preacher must not expect to be believed when he says it. Nevertheless it is true. Those who forget that they are in Christ’s kingdom, Christ does not go out of His way to punish them. They simply punish themselves. They earn their own ruin by the very laws of human nature. They must find hope in something and strength in something; and if they will not see that God is their hope, they will hope to get rich as fast as possible, and make themselves safe so. If they will not see that God is their strength, they will find strength in cunning, in intrigue, in flattery of the strong and tyranny over the weak, and in making themselves strong so. They want a present help in trouble; and if they will not believe that God is a present help in trouble, they will try to help themselves out of their trouble by begging, lying, swindling, forging, and all those meannesses which fill our newspapers with shameful stories day by day, and which all arise simply out of want of faith in God.
Moreover, it is written, “Be still, and know that I am God.” And if men will not be still, they will not know that He is God. And if they do not know that the gracious Christ is God, they will not be still; and therefore they will grow more and more restless, discontented, envious, violent, irreverent, full of passions which injure their own souls, and sap the very foundations of order and society and civilised life. And what can come out of all these selfish passions, when they are let loose, but that in which selfishness must always end, but that same mistrust and anarchy, ending in that same poverty and wretchedness, under which so many countries of the world now lie, as it were, weltering in the mire. Alas! say rather weltering in their own life-blood–and all because they have forgotten the living God?
Oh, my dear friends, take these words solemnly to heart–for yourselves, and for your children after you. If you wish to prosper on the earth, let God be in all your thoughts. Remember that the Lord is on your right hand; and then, and then alone, will you not be moved, either to terror or to sin, by any of the chances and changes of this mortal life. “Fret not thyself,” says the Psalmist, “else shalt thou be moved to do evil.” And the only way not to fret yourselves is to remember that God is your refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. “He that believeth,” saith the Prophet, “shall not make haste”–not hurry himself into folly and disappointment and shame. Why should you hurry, if you remember that you are in the kingdom of Christ and of God? You cannot hurry God’s Providence, if you would; you ought not, if you could. God MUST know best; God’s Laws MUST work at the right pace, and fulfil His Will in the right way and at the right time. As for what that Will is, we can know from the angels’ song on Christmas Eve, which told us how God’s Will was a good will towards men.
For who is our Lord? Who is our King? Who is our Governor? Who is our Lawgiver? Who is our Guide? Christ, who died for us on Calvary; who rose again for us; who ascended into heaven for us; who sits at God’s right hand for us; who sent down His Holy Spirit at the first Whitsuntide; and sends Him down for ever to us; that by His gracious inspiration we may both perceive and know what we ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same. With such a King over us, how can the world but go right? With such a King over us, what refuge or strength or help in trouble do we need but Him Himself?–His Providence, which is Love, and His Laws, which are Life.
SERMON XXIII. PRIDE AND HUMILITY
Eversley, 1869. Chester Cathedral, 1870.
1st. Peter v. 5. “God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.”
Let me, this evening, say a few words to you on theology, that is, on the being and character of God. You need not be afraid that I shall use long or difficult words. Sound theology is simple enough, and I hope that my words about it will be simple enough for the worst scholar here to understand.
“God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.” Now, this saying is an old one. It had been said, in different words, centuries before St Peter said it. The old prophets and psalmists say it again and again. The idea of it runs through the whole of the Old Testament, as anyone must know who has read his Bible with common care. But why should it be true? What reason is there for it? What is there in the character of God which makes it reasonable, probable, likely to be true? That God would give grace to the humble, and reward men for bowing down before His Majesty, seems not so difficult to understand. But why should God resist the proud? How does a man’s being proud injure God, who is “I AM THAT I AM;” perfectly self-sufficient, having neither parts nor passions, who tempteth no man, neither is tempted of any? “Why should God go out of His way, as it were, to care for such a paltry folly as the pride of an ignorant, weak, short-sighted creature like man?
Now, let us take care that we do not give a wrong answer to this question–an answer which too many have given, in their hearts and minds, though not perhaps in words, and so have fallen into abject and cruel superstitions, from which may God keep us, and our children after us. They have said to themselves, God is proud, and has a right to be proud: and therefore He chooses no one to be proud but Himself. Pride in man calls out His pride, and makes Him angry. They have thought of God as some despotic Sultan of the Indies, who is surrounded, not by free men, but by slaves; who will have those slaves at his beck and nod. In one word, they have thought of God as a tyrant. They have thought of God, and, may God forgive them, have talked of God as if He were like Nebuchadnezzar of old, who, when the three young men refused to obey him, was filled with rage and fury, and cast them into a burning fiery furnace. That is some men’s God–a God who must be propitiated by crouching and flattery, lest he should destroy them–a God who holds all men as his slaves, and therefore hates pride in them. For what has a slave to do with pride?
But that is not the God of the Bible, my friends, nor the God of Nature either, the God who made the world and man. For He is not a tyrant, but a Father. He wishes men not to be His slaves, but His children. And if He resists the proud, it is because children have no right to be proud. If He resists the proud, it is in fatherly love, because it is bad for them to be proud. Not because the proud are injuring God, but because they are injuring themselves, does God resist them, and bring them low, and show them what they are, and where they are, that they may repent, and be converted, and turned back into the right way.
Remember always that God is your Father. This question, like all questions between God and man, is a question between a father and a child; and if you see it in any other light, and judge it by any other rule, you see it and judge it wrongly, and learn nothing about it, or worse than nothing. If God were really angry with, really hated, the proud man, or any other man, would He need only to resist him? would He have to wait till the next life to punish him? My dear friends, if God really hated you or me, do you not suppose that He would simply destroy us–get rid of us–abolish us and annihilate us off the face of the earth, just as we crush a gnat when it bites us?
That God can do; and more–He does it now and then. He will endure with much long suffering vessels of wrath, fitted to destruction: but a moment sometimes comes when He will endure them no longer, and He destroys them with the destruction for which they have fitted themselves. In them is fulfilled the parable of the rich man, who said to himself, “Soul, thou hast much good laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.”
But for the most part, thanks to the mercy of our Heavenly Father, we are not destroyed by our pride and for our pride. We are only chastened, as a father chastens his child. And that we are chastised for pride, who does not know? What proverb more common, what proverb more true, than that after pride comes a fall? Do we not know (if we do not, we shall know sooner or later) that the surest way to fail in any undertaking is to set about it in self-will and self-conceit; that the surest way to do a foolish thing, is to fancy that we are going to do a very wise one; that the surest way to make ourselves ridiculous in the eyes of our fellow-men, is to assume airs, and boast, shew ourselves off, and end by shewing off only our own folly?
Why is it so? Why has God so ordered the world and human nature, that pride punishes itself? Because, I presume, pride is begotten and born of a lie, and God hates a lie, because all lies lead to ruin, and this lie of pride above all. It is as it were the root lie of all lies. The very lie by which, as old tales tell, Satan fell from heaven, and when he tried to become a god in his own right, found himself, to his surprise and disappointment, only a devil. For pride and self-conceit contradict the original constitution of man and the universe, which is this–that of God are all things, and in God are all things, and for God are all things. Man depends on God. Self tells him that he depends on himself. Man has nothing but what he receives from God. Self tells him that what he has is his own, and that he has a right to do with it what he likes. Man knows nothing but what God teaches him. Self tells him that he has found out everything for himself, and can say what he thinks fit without fear of God or man. Therefore the proud, self-willed, self-conceited man must come to harm, like Malvolio in the famous play, merely because he is in the blackest night of ignorance. He has mistaken who he is, what he is, where he is. He is fancying himself, as many mad men do, the centre of the universe; while God is the centre of the universe. He is just as certain to come to harm as a man would be on board a ship, who should fancy that he himself, and not the ship, was keeping him afloat, and step overboard to walk upon the sea. We all know what would happen to that man. Let us thank God our Father that He not only knows what would happen to such men: but desires to save them from the consequences of their own folly, by letting them feel the consequences of their own folly.
Oh my friends, let us search our hearts, and pray to our Father in Heaven to take out of them, by whatever painful means, the poisonous root of pride, self-conceit, self-will. So only shall we be truly strong–truly wise. So only shall we see what and where we are.
Do we pride ourselves on being something? Shall we pride ourselves on health and strength? A tile falling off the roof, a little powder and lead in the hands of a careless child, can blast us out of this world in a moment–whither, who can tell? What is our cleverness–our strength of mind? A tiny blood vessel bursting on the brain, will make us in one moment paralytic, helpless, babblers, and idiots. What is our knowledge of the world? That of a man, who is forcing his way alone through a thick and pathless wood, where he has never been before, to a place which he has never seen. What is our wisdom–What does a wise man say of his?
“So runs my dream; but what am I?
An infant crying in the night;
An infant crying for the light;
And with no language but a cry.”
Yes. Our true knowledge is to know our own ignorance. Our true strength is to know our own weakness. Our true dignity is to confess that we have no dignity, and are nobody, and nothing in ourselves, and to cast ourselves down before the Dignity of God, under the shadow of whose wings, and in the smile of whose countenance, alone, is any created being safe. Let us cling to our Father in Heaven, as a child, walking in the night, clings to his father’s hand. Let us take refuge on the lowest step of the throne of Christ our Lord, and humble ourselves under His mighty hand; and, instead of exalting ourselves in undue time, leave Him to exalt us again in due time, when the chastisement has told on us, and patience had her perfect work; casting all our care on Him, who surely cares for us still, if He cared for us once, enough to die for us on the cross; caring for God’s opinion and not for the opinion of the world. And then we shall be among the truly humble, to whom God gives grace– first grace in their own hearts, that they may live gracious lives, modest and contented, dignified and independent, trusting in God and not in man; and then, grace in the eyes of their fellow-men, for what is more graceful, what is more gracious, pleasant to see, pleasant to deal with, than the humble man, the modest man? I do not mean the cringing man, the flattering man, the man who apes humility for his own ends, because he wants to climb high, by pretending to be lowly. He is neither graceful or gracious. He is only contemptible, and he punishes himself. He spoils his own game. He defeats his own purpose. For men despise him, and use him, and throw him away when they have done with him, as they throw away a dirty worn-out tool.
Not him do I mean by the humble man, the modest man. I mean the man who, like a good soldier, knows his place and keeps it, knows his duty, and does it; who expects to be treated as a man should be, with fairness, consideration, respect, kindness–and God will always treat him so, whether man does or not: but who, beyond that, does not trouble his mind with whether he be private or sergeant, lieutenant or colonel, but with whether he can do his duty as private, his duty as sergeant, his duty as lieutenant, his duty as colonel; who has learnt the golden lesson, which so few learn in these struggling, envious, covetous, ambitious days, namely, to abide in the calling to which he is called, and in whatsoever state he is, therewith to be content. To be sure that in God’s world, the only safe way to become ruler over many things is to be a good ruler over a few things; that if he is fit for better work than he is doing now, God will find that out, sooner and more surely than he, or any man will, and will set him about it; and that, meanwhile, God has set him about work which he can do, and that the true wisdom is to do that and do it well, and so approve himself alike to man and God, humbling himself under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt him in good time, by giving him grace and strength to do great things, as He has given him grace and strength to do small things.
Am I speaking almost to deaf ears? I fear that few here will take my advice. I fear that many here will have excellent excuses and plain reasons, why they should not take it. Be it so. They cannot alter eternal fact. In one word, they cannot alter Theology. They cannot alter the laws of God. They cannot alter the character of God. And sooner or later, in this world or in the next, they will find out that Theology is right: and St Peter is right: that God DOES resist the proud, that God DOES give grace to the humble.
SERMON XXIV. WORSHIP
Eversley, September 4, 1870.
Revelation xi. 16, 17. “And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.”
My dear friends,–I wish to speak a few plain words to you this morning, on a matter which has been on my mind ever since I returned from Chester, namely,–The duty of the congregation to make the responses in Church.
Now I am not going to scold–even to blame. To do so would be not only unjust, but ungrateful in me, to a congregation which is as attentive and as reverent as you are. Indeed, I am the only person to blame, for I ought to have spoken on the subject long ago.
As it is, coming fresh from Chester, and accustomed to hear congregations, in that city and in the country round, reading the responses aloud throughout the service with earnestness, and reverence, I was painfully struck by the silence in this church. I had before grown so accustomed to it that I did not perceive it, just as one grows accustomed to a great many things which ought not to be, till one forgets that, however usual they may be, wrong they are, and ought to be amended.
Now, it is always best to begin at the root of a matter. So to begin at the root of this. Why do we come to church at all?
Some will say, to hear the sermon. That is often too true. Some folks do come to church to hear a man get up and preach, just as they go to a concert to hear a man get up and sing, to amuse and interest them for half-an-hour. Some go to hear sermons, doubtless, in order that they may learn from them. But are there not, especially in these days of cheap printing, books of devotion, tracts, sermons, printed, which contain better preaching than any which they are likely to hear in church? If TEACHING is all that they come to church for, they can get that in plenty at home. Moreover, nine people out of ten who come to church need no teaching at all. They know already, just as well as the preacher, what is right and what is wrong; they know their duty; they know how to do it. And if they do not intend to do it, all the talking in the world (as far as I have seen) will not make them do it. Moreover, if the teaching in the sermon be what we come to church for, why have we prayer-books full of prayers, thanksgivings, psalms, and so forth, which are not sermons at all? What is the use of the service, as we call it, if the sermon is the only or even the principal object for which we come? I trust there are many of you here who agree with me so fully, that you would come regularly to church, as I should, even if there were no sermon, knowing that God preaches to every man, in the depths of his own heart and conscience, far more solemn and startling sermons than any mortal man can utter.
Others will answer that they come to church to say their prayers. Well: that is a wiser answer than the last. But if that be all, why can they not say their prayers at home? God is everywhere. God is all-seeing, all-hearing, about our path and about our bed, and spying out all our ways. Is He not as ready to hear in the field, and in the workshop and in the bed-chamber, as in the church? “When thou prayest,” says our Lord, “enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” Those are not my words, they are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself; and none can gainsay them. None dare take from them or add to them; and our coming to church, therefore, must be for more reasons than for the mere saying of our prayers.
Others will answer–very many, indeed, will answer–we come to church because–because, we hardly know why, but because we ought to come to church.
Some may call that a silly answer, only fit for children: but I do not think so. It seems to me a very rational answer: perhaps a very reverent and godly answer. A man comes to church for reasons which he cannot explain to himself: just so–and many of the deepest and best feelings of our hearts, are just those that we cannot explain to ourselves, though we believe in them, would fight for them, die for them. The man who frankly confesses that he does not quite know why he comes to church is most likely to know at last why he does come; most likely to understand the answer which Scripture gives to the question why we come to church. And what answer is that? Strange to say, one which people now-a-days, with their Bibles in their hands, have almost forgotten. We come to church, according to the Bible, to worship God.
To worship. Think awhile what that ancient and deep and noble word signifies. So ancient is it, that man learnt to worship even before he learnt to till the ground. So deep, that even to this day no man altogether understands what worshipping means. So noble, that the noblest souls on earth delight most in worshipping; that the angels, and archangels, and the spirits of just men made perfect, find no nobler occupation, no higher enjoyment, in the heavenly world than worshipping for ever Him whose glory fills all earth and heaven. To worship. That power of worship, that longing to worship, that instinct that it is his duty to worship something, is–if you will receive it–the true distinction between men and brutes. Philosophers have tried to define man as this sort of animal and that sort of animal. The only sound definition is this: man is THE one animal who worships; and he worships, just because he is NOT merely an animal, but a man, with an immortal soul within him. Just in as far as man sinks down again to the level of the brute–whether in some savage island of the South Seas, or in some equally savage alley of our own great cities–God forgive us that such human brutes should exist here in Christian England–just so far he feels no need to worship. He thinks of no unseen God or powers above him. He cares for nothing but what his five senses tell him of; he feels no need to go to church and worship. Just in as far as a man rises to the true standard of a man; just in as far as his heart and his mind are truly cultivated, truly developed, just so far does he become more and more aware of an unseen world about him; more and more aware that in God he lives and moves and has his being–and so much the more he feels the longing and the duty to worship that unseen God on whom he and the whole universe depend.
I know what seeming exceptions there are to this rule, especially in these days. But I say that they are only seeming exceptions. I never knew yet (and I have known many of them) a virtuous and high-minded unbeliever: but what there was in him the instinct of worshipping–the longing to worship–he knew not what, the spirit of reverence, which confesses its own ignorance and weakness, and is ready to set up, like the Athenians of old, an altar–in the heart at least–to the unknown God.
But how to worship Him? The word itself, if we consider what it means, will tell us that. Worship, without doubt, is the same word as worth- ship. It signifies the worth of Him whom we worship, that He is worthy,- -a worthy God, not merely because of what He has done, but because of what He is worth in Himself. Good, excellent, and perfect in Himself, and therefore to be admired, praised, reverenced, adored, worshipped– even if He had never done a kindness to you or to any human being. Remember this last truth. For true it is; and we remember it too little. Of course we know that God is good; first and mainly by His goodness to us. Because He is good enough to give us life and breath and all things, we conclude that He is a good being. Because He is good enough to have not spared His only begotten Son, but freely given Him for us, when we were still sinners and rebels, we conclude Him to be the best of all beings, a being of boundless goodness. But it is because God is so perfectly and gloriously good in Himself, and not merely because He has done US kindnesses, yea, heaped us with undeserved benefits, that we are to worship Him. For His kindnesses we owe Him gratitude, and gratitude without end. But for His excellent and glorious goodness, we owe Him worship, and worship without end.
There are some hearts, surely, among you here who know what I mean: some here who have felt reverence and admiration for some great and good human being, and who have felt, too, that that reverence and admiration is one of the most elevating and unselfish of all feelings, and quite distinct from any gratitude, however just, for favours done; who can say, in their hearts, of some noble human being: “If he never did me a kindness, never spoke to me, never knew of my existence, I should honour him and love him just the same, for the noble and good personage that he is, irrespective of little me, and my paltry wants.” Then, even such ought to be our feeling toward God, our worship of God. Even so should we adore Him who alone is worthy of glory, and honour, and praise, and thanksgiving, because He is good, and beautiful, and wise Himself, and the cause and source of all goodness, and beauty, and wisdom, in all created beings, and in the whole universe, past, present, and to come. Consider, I beseech you, those glimpses of the Eternal Worship in heaven which St John gives us in the Book of Revelation–How he saw the elders fall down before Him who sat upon the throne, and worship Him that liveth for ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying: “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power; for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.”
Consider that–Those blessed spirits of just men made perfect, confessing that they are nothing, but that Christ is all; that they have nothing, but that they owe all to Christ; and declaring Him worthy–not merely for any special mercies and kindnesses to themselves, not even for that crowning mercy of His incarnation, His death, His redemption; even that seems to have vanished from their minds at the sight of Him as He is. They glorify Him and worship Him simply for what He is in Himself, for what He would have been even if–which God forbid–He had never stooped from heaven to live and die on earth–for what He is and was and will be through eternity, the Creator and the Ruler, who has made all things, and for whose pleasure they are and were created. Consider that one text. The more I consider it, the more awful and yet most blessed depths of teaching do I find therein: and consider this text also, another glimpse of the worship which is in heaven.
“I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, singing Alleluia; salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God; for true and righteous are His judgments.” What the special judgment was, for which these blessed souls worshipped God, I shall not argue here. It is enough for us that they worshipped God, as we should worship Him, because His judgments were righteous and true, were like Himself, proved Him to be what He was, worthy in Himself, because He is righteous and true. And consider then, again–the text. Before Him, the righteous and true Being who has created all things for His pleasure, and therefore has made them wisely and well; before Him who reigns, and will reign till He has put all His enemies under His foot; before Him, I say, bow down yourselves, and find true nobleness in confessing your own paltriness, true strength in confessing your own weakness, true wisdom in confessing your own ignorance, true holiness in confessing your own sins.
And not alone merely, each in your own chamber, or in your own heart. That is the place for private confessions of sin, for private prayers for help; for all the secrets which we dare not, and need not tell to any human being. They indeed are not out of place here in church. Those who composed our Prayer Book felt that, and have filled our services, the Litany especially, with prayers in which each of us can offer up his own troubles to God, if he but remember that he is offering up to God his neighbour’s troubles also, and the troubles of all mankind. For this is the reason why we pray together in church; why all men, in all ages, heathen as well as Christian, have had the instinct of assembling together for public worship. They may have fancied often that their deity dwelt in one special spot, and that they must go thither to find him. They may have fancied that he or she dwelt in some particular image, and that they must visit, and pray to that particular image, if they wished their prayers to be heard. All this, however, have men done in their foolishness; but beneath that foolishness there have been always more rational ideas, sounder notions. They felt that it was God who had made them into families, and therefore whole families met together to worship in common Him of whom every family in heaven and earth is named. That God had formed them into societies whether into tribes, as of old, or into parishes, as here now; and therefore whole parishes came together to worship God, whose laws they were bound to obey in their parochial society. They felt that it was God who had made them into Nations (as the psalm says which we repeat every Sunday morning), and not they themselves; and therefore they conceived the grand idea of National churches, in which the whole nation should, if possible, worship Sunday after Sunday, at the same time, and in the same words, that God to whom they owed their order, their freedom, their strength, their safety, their National unity and life. And not in silence merely. These blessed souls in heaven are not silent. They in heaven follow out the human instinct which they had on earth, which all men (when they recollect themselves, will have), when they feel a thing deeply, when they believe a thing strongly, to speak it–to speak it aloud. They do not fancy in heaven, as the priests of Baal did on earth, that they must cry aloud, or God could not hear them. They do not fancy, as the heathen do, that they must make vain repetitions, and say the same words over and over again by rote, because they will be heard for their much speaking; neither need you and I. But yet they spoke aloud, because out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh; and so should you and I.
And this brings me to the special object of my sermon. I have told you what (as it seems to me) Worship means; why we worship; why we worship together; and why we ought to worship aloud. Believe me, this last is your duty just as much as mine. The services of the Church of England are so constructed that the whole congregation may take part in them, that they may answer aloud in the responses, that they may say Amen at the end of each prayer, just as they read or chant aloud the alternate verses of the Psalms. The minister does not say prayers for them, but with them. He is only their leader, their guide. And if they are not to join in with their voices, there is really no reason why he should use his voice, why he should not say the prayers in silence and to himself, if the congregation are to say Amen in silence and to themselves. Each person in the congregation ought to join aloud, first for the sake of his neighbours, and then for his own sake.
For the sake of his neighbours: for to hear each other’s voices stirs up earnestness, stirs up attention, keeps off laziness, inattention, and by a wholesome infection, makes all the congregation of one mind, as they are of one speech, in glorifying God. And for his own sake, too. For, believe me, when a man utters the responses aloud, he awakens his own thoughts and his own feelings, too. He speaks to himself, and he hears himself remind himself of God, and of his duty to God, and acknowledge himself openly (as in confirmation) bound to believe and do what he, by his own confession, has assented unto.
Believe me, my dear friends, this is no mere theory. It is to me a matter of fact and experience. I cannot, I have long found, keep my attention steady during a service, if I do not make the responses aloud;- -if I do not join in with my voice, I find my thoughts wandering; and I am bound to suppose that the case is the same with you. Do not, therefore, think me impertinent or interfering, if I ask you all to take your due share in worshipping God in this church with your voices, as well as with your hearts. Let these services be more lively, more earnest, more useful to us all than they have been, by making them more a worship of the whole congregation, and not of the minister alone. I have read of a great church in the East, in days long, long ago, in which the responses of the vast congregation were so unanimous, so loud, that they sounded (says the old writer) like a clap of thunder. That is too much to expect in our little country church: but at least, I beg you, take such an open part in the responses, that you shall all feel that you are really worshipping together the same God and Christ, with the same heart and mind; and that if a stranger shall come in, he may say in his heart: Here are people who are in earnest, who know what they are about, and are not ashamed of trying to do it; people who evidently mean what they say, and therefore say what they mean.
SERMON XXV. THE PEACE OF GOD
Baltimore, U.S., 1874. Westminster Abbey. November 8, 1874.
Colossians. iii 15. “Let the peace of God rule in your hearts.”
The peace of God. That is what the priest will invoke for you all, when you leave this abbey. Do you know what it is? Whether you do or not, let me tell you in a few words, what I seem to myself to have learned concerning that peace. What it is? how we can obtain it? and why so many do not obtain it, and are, therefore, not at peace?
It is worth while to do so. For these are not peaceful times. The peace of God is rare among us. Some say that it is rarer than it was. I know not how that may be; but I see all manner of causes at work around us which should make it rare. We live faster than our forefathers. We hurry, we bustle, we travel, we are eager for daily, almost for hourly news from every quarter, as if the world could not get on without us, or we without knowing a hundred facts which merely satisfy the curiosity of the moment; and as if the great God could not take excellent care of us all meanwhile. We are eager, too, to get money, and get more money still–piercing ourselves through too often, as the Apostle warned us– with many sorrows, and falling into foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. We are luxurious–more and more fond of show; more apt to live up to our incomes, and probably a little beyond; more and more craving for this or that gew-gaw, especially in dress and ornament, which if our neighbour has, we must have too, or we shall be mortified, envious. Nay, so strong is this temper of rivalry, of allowing no superiors, grown in us, that we have made now-a-days a god of what used to be considered the basest of all vices–the vice of envy– and dignify it with the names of equality and independence. Men in this temper of mind cannot be at peace. They are not content; they cannot be content.
But with what are they not content? That is a question worth asking. For there is a discontent (as I have told you ere now) which is noble, manful, heroic, and divine. Just as there is a discontent which is base, mean, unmanly, earthly–sometimes devilish. There is a discontent which is certain, sooner or later, to bring with it the peace of God. There is a discontent which drives the peace of God away, for ever and a day. And the noble and peace-bringing discontent is to be discontented with ourselves, as very few are. And the mean peace-destroying discontent is to be discontented with things around us, as too many are. Now, my friends, I cannot see into your hearts; and I ought not to see. For if I saw, I should be tempted to judge; and if I judged, I should most certainly judge rashly, shallowly, and altogether wrong. Therefore examine yourselves, and judge yourselves in this matter. Ask yourselves each, Am I at peace? And if not, then apply to yourselves the rule of old Epictetus, the heroic slave, who, heathen though he was, sought God, and the peace of God, and found them, doubt it not, long, long ago. Ask yourselves with Epictetus, Am I discontented with things which are in my own power, or with things which are not in my own power?–that is, discontented with myself, or with things which are not myself? Am I discontented with myself, or with things about me, and outside of me? Consider this last question well, if you wish to be true Christians, true philosophers, and, indeed, true men and women.
But what is it that troubles you? What is it you want altered? On what have you set your heart and affections? Is it something outside you?– something which is NOT you yourself? If so, there is no use in tormenting your soul about it; for it is not in your own power, and you will never alter it to your liking; and more, you need not alter it, for you are not responsible for it. God sends it as it is, for better, for worse, and you must make up your mind to what God sends. Do I mean that we are to submit slavishly to circumstances, like dumb animals? Heaven forbid. We are not, like Epictetus, slaves, but free men. And we are made in God’s image, and have each our spark, however dim, of that creative genius, that power of creating or of altering circumstances, by which God made all worlds; and to use that, is of our very birthright, or what would all education, progress, civilisation be, save rebellion against God? But when we have done our utmost, how little shall we have done! Canst thou,–asks our Lord, looking with loving sadness on the hurry and the struggle of the human anthill–canst thou by taking thought add one cubit to thy stature? Why, is there a wise man or woman in this abbey, past fifty years of age, who does not know that, in spite of all their toil and struggle, they have gone not whither they willed, but whither God willed? Have they not found out that for one circumstance of their lives which they could alter, there have been twenty which they could not, some born with them, some forced on them by an overruling Providence, irresistible indeed–but, as I hold, most loving and most fatherly, though often severe–even to agony–but irresistible still– till what they have really gained by fighting circumstance, however valiantly, has been the MORAL gain, the gain in character?–the power to live the heroic life, which
“Is not as idle ore,
But heated hot with burning fears,
And bathed in baths of hissing tears, And batter’d, with the shocks of doom,
To shape and use.”
Ah! if a man be learning that lesson, which is the primer of eternal life, then I hardly pity him, though I see him from youth to age tearing with weak hands at the gates of brass, and beating his soul’s wings to pieces against the bars of the iron cage. But, alas! the majority of mankind tear at the gates of brass, and beat against the iron cage, with no such good purpose, and therefore with no such good result. They fight with circumstances, not that they may become better themselves, not that they may right the wrongs or elevate the souls of their fellow-men, not even that they may fulfil the sacred duty of maintaining, and educating, and providing for the children whom they have brought into the world, and for whom they are responsible alike to God and to man; but simply because circumstances are disagreeable to them; because the things around them do not satisfy their covetousness, their luxury, their ambition, their vanity. And therefore the majority of mankind want to be, and to do, and to have a hundred things which are not in their own power, and of which they have no proof that God intends to give them; no proof either that if they had them, they would make right use of them, and certainly no proof at all that if they had them they would find peace. They war and fight, and have not, because they ask not. They ask, and have not, because they ask amiss, to consume it on their lusts; and so they spend their lives without peace, longing, struggling for things outside them, the greater part of which they do not get, because the getting them is not in their own power, and which if they got they could not keep, for they can carry nothing away with them when they die, neither can their pomp follow them. And therefore does man walk in a vain shadow, and disquiet himself in vain, looking for peace where it is not to be found–in everything and anything save in his own heart, in duty, and in God.
But happy are they who are discontented with the divine discontent, discontented with themselves. Happy are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, that they may become righteous and good men. Happy are they who have set their hearts on the one thing which is in their own power–being better than they are, and doing better than they do. Happy are they who long and labour after the true riches, which neither mobs nor tyrants, man nor devil, prosperity nor adversity, or any chance or change of mortal life, can take from them–the true and eternal wealth, which is the Spirit of God. The man, I say, who has set his heart on being good, has set his heart on the one thing which is in his own power; the one thing which depends wholly and solely on his own will; the one thing which he can have if he chooses, for it is written, “If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” Moreover, he has set his heart on the one thing which cannot be taken from him. God will not take it from him; and man, and fortune, and misfortune, cannot take it from him. Poverty, misery, disease, death itself, cannot make him a worse man, cannot make him less just, less true, less pure, less charitable, less high-minded, less like Christ, and less like God.
Therefore he is at peace, for he is, as it were, intrenched in an impregnable fortress, against all men and all evil influences. And that castle is his own soul. And the keeper of that castle is none other than Almighty God, Jesus Christ our Lord, to whose keeping he has committed his soul, as unto a faithful and merciful Saviour, able to keep to the uttermost that which is committed to Him in faith and holiness.
Therefore that man is at peace with himself, for his conscience tells him that he is, if not doing his best, yet trying to do his best, better and better day by day. He is at peace with all the world; for most men are longing and quarrelling for pleasant things outside them, for which he does not greatly care, while he is longing and striving for good things inside him in his own heart and soul; and so the world goes one way, and he another, and their desires do not interfere with each other.
But, more, that man is at peace with God. He is at peace with God the Father; for he is behaving as the Father wishes His children to behave. He is at peace with God the Son; for he is trying to do that which God the Son did when He came not to do His own will, but His Father’s; not to grasp at anything for himself, but simply to sacrifice himself for duty, for the good of man. And he is at peace with God the Holy Spirit; for he is obeying the gracious inspirations of that Spirit, and growing a better man day by day. And so the peace of God keeps that man’s heart free from vain desires and angry passions, and his mind from those false and foolish judgments which make the world think things important which are quite unimportant; and, again, fancy things unimportant which are more important to them than the riches of the whole world.
My dear friends, take my words home with you, and if you wish for the only true and sound peace, which is the peace of God, do your duty. Try to be as good as you can, each in his station in life. So help you God.
Take an example from the soldier on the march; and if you do that, you will all understand what I mean. The bad soldier has no peace, just because he troubles himself about things outside himself, and not in his own power. “Will the officers lead us right?” That is not in his power. Let him go where the officers lead him, and do his own duty. “Will he get food enough, water enough, care enough, if he is wounded?” I hope and trust in God he will; but that is not in his own power. Let him take that, too, as it comes, and do his duty. “Will he be praised, rewarded, mentioned in the newspapers, if he fights well?” That, too, is not in his own power. Let him take that, too, as it comes, and do his duty; and so of everything else. If the soldier on the march torments himself with these matters which are not in his own power, he is the man who will be troublesome and mutinous in time of peace, and in time of war will be the first to run away. He will tell you, “A man must have justice done him; a man must see fair play for himself; a man must think of himself.” Poor fool! He is not thinking of himself all the while, but of a number of things which are outside him, circumstances which stand round him, and outside him, and are not himself at all. Because he thinks of them–the things outside him–he is a coward or a mutineer, while he fancies he is taking care of himself–as it is written, “Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it.”
But if the man will really think of himself, of that which is inside him, of his own character, his own honour, his own duty–then he will say, Well fed or ill fed, well led or ill led, praised and covered with medals, or neglected and forgotten, and dying in a ditch, I, by myself I, am the same man, and I have the same work to do. I have to be–myself, and I have to do–my duty. So help me God. And therefore, so help me God, I will be discontented with no person or thing, save only with myself; and I will be discontented with myself, not when I have left undone something extraordinary, which I know I could not have done, but only when I have left undone something ordinary, some plain duty which I know I could have done, had I asked God to help me to do it. Then in that soldier would be fulfilled–has been fulfilled, thank God, a thousand times, by men who lie in this abbey, and by men, too, of whom we never heard, “whose graves are scattered far and wide, by mount, by stream, by sea,”–in him would be fulfilled, I say, the words, “He that will lose his life shall save it.” Then would he have in his heart, and in his mind likewise, a peace which victory and safety cannot give, and which defeat, and wounds, ay, death itself, can never take away.
And are not you, too, soldiers–soldiers of Jesus Christ? Then even as that good soldier, you may be at peace, through all the battles, victories, defeats of mortal life, if you will be discontented with nothing save yourselves, and vow, in spirit and in truth, the one oath which is no blasphemy, but an act of faith, and an act of prayer, and a confession of the true theology–So help me God. For then God will help you. Neither you nor I know how; and I am sure neither you nor I know why–save that God is utterly good. God, I say, will help you, by His Holy Spirit the Comforter, to do your duty, and to be at peace. And then the peace of God will rule in your hearts and make you kings to God. For He will enable YOU each to rule, serene, though weary, over a kingdom– or, alas! rather a mob, the most unruly, the most unreasonable, the most unstable, and often the most fierce, which you are like to meet on earth. To rule, I say, over a mob, of which you each must needs be king or slave, according as you choose. And what is that mob? What but your own faculties, your own emotions, your own passions–in one word, your own selves? Yes, with the peace of God ruling in your hearts, you will be able to become what without it you will never be–and that is–masters of yourselves.
SERMON XXVI. SINS OF PARENTS VISITED
Eversley. 19th Sunday after Trinity, 1868.
Ezekiel xviii. 1-4. “The word of the Lord came unto me again, saying, What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.”
This is a precious chapter, and a comfortable chapter likewise, for it helps us to clear up a puzzle which has tormented the minds of men in all ages whenever they have thought of God, and of whether God meant them well, or meant them ill.
For all men have been tempted. We are tempted at times to say,–The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. That is, we are punished not for what we have done wrong, but for what our fathers did wrong. One man says,–My forefathers squandered their money, and I am punished by being poor. Or, my forefathers ruined their constitutions, and, therefore, I am weakly and sickly. My forefathers were ignorant and reckless, and, therefore, I was brought up ignorant, and in all sorts of temptation. And so men complain of their ill-luck and bad chance, as they call it, till they complain of God, and say, as the Jews said in Ezekiel’s time, God’s ways are unequal–partial–unfair. He is a respecter of persons. He has not the same rule for all men. He starts men unequally in the race of life–some heavily weighted with their father’s sins and misfortunes, some helped in every way by their father’s virtue and good fortune–and then He expects them all to run alike. God is not just and equal. And then some go on,–men who think themselves philosophers, but are none–to say things concerning God of which I shall say nothing here, lest I put into your minds foolish thoughts, which had best be kept out of them.
But, some of you may say, Is it not so after all? Is it not true? Is not God harder on some than on others? Does not God punish men every day for their father’s sins? Does He not say in the Second Commandment that He will do so, and visit the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation; and how can you make that agree with what Ezekiel says,–“The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.” My dear friends, I know that this is a puzzle, and always has been one. Like the old puzzle of God’s foreknowledge and our free will, which seem to contradict each other. Like the puzzle that we must help ourselves, and yet that God must help us, which seem to contradict each other. So with this. I believe of it, as of the two others I just mentioned, that there is no real contradiction between the two cases; and that some-when, somehow, somewhere, in the world to come, we shall see them clearly reconciled; and justify God in all His dealings, and glorify Him in all His ways. But surely already, here, now, we may see our way somewhat into the depths of this mystery. For Christ has come to give us light, and in His light we may see light, even into this dark matter.
For see: God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation–but of whom?–of them that hate Him. Now, by those who hate God is meant, those who break His commandments, and are bad men. If so, then, I say that God is not only just but merciful, in visiting the sins of the fathers on the children.
For, consider two cases. Suppose these bad men, from father to son, and from son to grandson, go on in the same evil ways, and are incorrigible. Then is not God merciful to the world in punishing them, even in destroying them out of the world, where they only do harm? The world does not want fools, it wants wise men. The world does not want bad men, it wants good men; and we ought to thank God, if, by His eternal laws, He gets rid of bad men for us; and, as the saying is, civilizes them off the face of the earth in the third or fourth generation. And God does so. If a family, or a class, or a whole nation becomes incorrigibly profligate, foolish, base, in three or four generations they will either die out or vanish. They will sink to the bottom of society, and become miserably poor, weak, and of no influence, and so unable to do harm to any but themselves. Whole families will sink thus, I have seen it; you may have seen it. Whole nations will sink thus; as the Jews sank in Ezekiel’s time, and again in our Lord’s time; and be conquered, trampled on, counted for nothing, because they were worth nothing.
But now suppose, again, that the children, when their father’s sins are visited on them, are NOT incorrigible. Suppose they are like the wise son of whom Ezekiel speaks, in the 14th verse, who seeth all his father’s sins, and considereth, and doeth not such like–then has not God been merciful and kind to him in visiting his father’s sins on him? He has. God is justified therein. His eternal laws of natural retribution, severe as they are, have worked in love and in mercy, if they have taught the young man the ruinousness, the deadliness of sin. Have the father’s sins made the son poor? Then he learns not to make his children poor by his sin. Have his father’s sins made him unhealthy? Then he learns not to injure his children’s health. Have his father’s sins kept him ignorant, or in anywise hindered his rise in life? Then he learns the value of a good education, and, perhaps, stints himself to give his children advantages which he had not himself–and, as sure as he does so, the family begins to rise again after its fall. This is no fancy, it is fact. You may see it. I have seen it, thank God. How some of the purest and noblest women, some of the ablest and most right-minded men, will spring from families, will be reared in households, where everything was against them–where there was everything to make them profligate, false, reckless, in a word–bad–except the grace of God, which was trying to make them good, and succeeded in making them good; and how, though they have felt the punishment of their parents’ sins upon them in many ways during their whole life, yet that has been to them not a mere punishment, but a chastisement, a purifying medicine, a cross to be borne, which only stirred them up to greater watchfulness against sin, to greater earnestness in educating their children, to greater activity and energy in doing right, and giving their children the advantages which they had not themselves. And so were fulfilled in them two laws of God. The one which Ezekiel lays down–that the bad man’s son who executes God’s judgments and walks in God’s statutes shall not die for the iniquity of his father, but surely live; and the other law which Moses lays down–that God shews mercy unto thousands of generations, as I believe it means–that is, to son after father, and son after father again, without end–as long as they love Him and keep His commandments.
I do not, therefore, see that there is any real contradiction between what Moses says in the second commandment and what Ezekiel says in this chapter. They are but two different sides of the same truth; and Moses is shewing the Jews one side, because they needed most to be taught that in his time, and Ezekiel showing them the other, because that was the teaching which they needed most then. For they were fancying themselves, in their calamities, the victims of some blind and cruel fate, and had forgotten that, when God said that He visited the sins of the fathers on the children, He qualified it by saying, “of them that hate Me.”
Therefore, be hopeful about yourselves, and hopeful about your children after you. If any one here feels–I am fallen very low in the world– here all has been so much against me–my parents were the ruin of me–Let him remember this one word of Ezekiel. “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?” Let him turn from his father’s evil ways, and do that which is lawful and right, and then he can say with the Prophet, in answer to all the strokes of fortune and the miseries of circumstance, “Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall I shall arise.” Provided he will remember that God requires of all men something, which is, to be as good as they can be; then he may remember also that our Lord Himself says, “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required;” implying that to whom little is given, of him will little be required. God’s ways are not unequal. He has one equal, fair, and just rule for every human being; and that is perfect understanding, perfect sympathy, perfect good will, and therefore perfect justice and perfect love.
And if any one of you answers in his heart–these are good words, and all very well: but they come too late. I am too far gone. I ate the sour grapes in my youth, and my teeth must be on edge for ever and ever. I have been a bad man, or I have been a foolish woman too many years to mend now. I am down, and down I must be. I have made my bed, and I must lie on it, and die on it too. Oh my dear brother or sister in Christ, whoever you are who says that, unsay it again for it is not true. Ezekiel tells you that it is not true, and one greater than Ezekiel, Jesus Christ, your Saviour, your Lord, your God, tells you it is not true.
For what happens, by God’s eternal and unchangeable laws of retribution, to a whole nation, or a whole family, may happen to you–to each individual man. They fall by sin; they rise again by repentance and amendment. They may rise punished by their sins, and punished for a long time, heavily weighted by the consequences of their own folly, and heavily weighted for a long time. But they rise–they enter into their new life weak and wounded, from their own fault. But they enter in. And from that day things begin to mend–the weather begins to clear, the soil begins to yield again–punishment gradually ceases when it has done its work, the weight lightens, the wounds heal, the weakness strengthens, and by God’s grace within them, and by God’s providence outside them, they are made men of again, and saved. So you will surely find it in the experience of life.
No doubt in general, in most cases,
The child is father of the man
for good and evil. A pious and virtuous youth helps, by sure laws of God, towards a pious and virtuous old age. And on the other hand, an ungodly and profligate youth leads, by the same laws, toward an ungodly and profligate old age. That is the law. But there is another law which may stop that law–just as the stone falls to the ground by the natural law of weight, and yet you may stop that law by using the law of bodily strength, and holding it up in your hand. And what is the gracious law which will save you from the terrible law which will make you go on from worse to worse?
It is this,–“when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.” It is not said that his soul shall come in a moment to perfect health and strength. No. There are old bad habits to be got rid of, old ties to be broken, old debts (often worse debts than any money debts) to be paid. But he shall save his soul alive. His soul shall not die of its disease. It shall be saved. It shall come to life, and gradually mend and be cured, and grow from strength to strength, as a sick man mends day by day after a deadly illness, slowly it may be, but surely:–for how can you fail of being cured if your physician is none other than Jesus Christ your Lord and your God?