All Saints' Day and Other Sermons
by Charles Kingsley · English · Gutenberg #10116 · 646,341 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: All Saints' Day and Other Sermons
Author: Charles Kingsley
Editor: rector of Brington William Harrison
Release date: November 1, 2003 [eBook #10116]
Most recently updated: January 10, 2026
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10116
Credits: Transcribed by David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALL SAINTS' DAY AND OTHER SERMONS ***
ALL SAINTS' DAY AND OTHER SERMONS
"Inheriting the zeal
And from the sanctity of elder times
Not deviating;--a priest, the like of whom
If multiplied, and in their stations set,
Would o'er the bosom of a joyful land
Spread true religion, and her genuine fruits."
The excursion--Book vi.
PREFATORY NOTE {1}
The following Sermons could not be arranged according to any proper
sequence. Those, however, which refer to doctrine and the Church Seasons
will mostly be found at the beginning of the volume, whilst those which
deal with practical subjects are placed at the close.
A few of the Sermons have already appeared in "Good Words;" but by far
the greater number were never prepared by their author for the press.
They were written out very roughly--sometimes at an hour's notice, as
occasion demanded--and were only intended for delivery from the pulpit.
The original MSS. have been adhered to as closely as possible.
It is thought that many to whom the late Rector of Eversley was dear will
welcome the publication of these earnest words, and find them helpful in
the Christian life.
"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith
the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do
follow them."
SERMON I. ALL SAINTS' DAY
Westminster Abbey. November 1, 1874.
Revelation vii. 9-12. "After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude,
which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and
tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white
robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying,
Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.
And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and
the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and
worshipped God, saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and
thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever
and ever. Amen."
To-day is All Saints' Day. On this day we commemorate--and, as far as
our dull minds will let us, contemplate--the saints; the holy ones of
God; the pure and the triumphant--be they who they may, or whence they
may, or where they may. We are not bidden to define and limit their
number. We are expressly told that they are a great multitude, which no
man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues;
and most blessed news that is for all who love God and man. We are not
told, again--and I beg you all to mark this well--that this great
multitude consists merely of those who, according to the popular notion,
have "gone to heaven," as it is called, simply because they have not gone
to hell. Not so, not so! The great multitude whom we commemorate on All
Saints' Day, are SAINTS. They are the holy ones, the heroes and heroines
of mankind, the elect, the aristocracy of grace. These are they who have
kept themselves unspotted from the world. They are the pure who have
washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, which
is the spirit of self-sacrifice. They are those who carry the palm-
branch of triumph, who have come out of great tribulation, who have
dared, and fought, and suffered for God, and truth, and right. Nay,
there are those among them, and many, thank God--weak women, too, among
them--who have resisted unto blood, striving against sin.
And who are easy-going folk like you and me, that we should arrogate to
ourselves a place in that grand company? Not so! What we should do on
All Saints' Day is to place ourselves, with all humility, if but for an
hour, where we can look afar off upon our betters, and see what they are
like, and what they do.
And what are they like, those blessed beings of whom the text speaks?
The Gospel for this day describes them to us; and we may look on that
description as complete, for He who gives it is none other than our Lord
Himself. "Blessed are the poor in spirit; for their's is the kingdom of
heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are
they who hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be
filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed
are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peace-
makers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they
which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for their's is the kingdom
of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you,
and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven."
This is what they are like; and what we, I fear, too many of us, are not
like. But in proportion as we grow like them, by the grace of God, just
so far shall we enter into the communion of saints, and understand the
bliss of that everlasting All Saints' Day which St John saw in heaven.
And what do they do, those blessed beings? Whatever else they do, or do
not do, this we are told they do--they worship. They satisfy, it would
seem, in perfection, that mysterious instinct of devotion--that inborn
craving to look upward and adore, which, let false philosophy say what it
will, proves the most benighted idolater to be a man, and not a brute--a
spirit, and not a merely natural thing.
They have worshipped, and so are blest. They have hungered and thirsted
after righteousness, and now they are filled. They have longed for,
toiled for, it may be died for, the true, the beautiful, and the good;
and now they can gaze upward at the perfect reality of that which they
saw on earth, only as in a glass darkly, dimly, and afar; and can
contemplate the utterly free, the utterly beautiful, and the utterly good
in the character of God and the face of Jesus Christ. They entered while
on earth into the mystery and the glory of self-sacrifice; and now they
find their bliss in gazing on the one perfect and eternal sacrifice, and
rejoicing in the thought that it is the cause and ground of the whole
universe, even the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.
I say not that all things are clear to them. How can they be to any
finite and created being? They, and indeed angels and archangels, must
walk for ever by faith, and not by sight. But if there be mysteries in
the universe still hidden from them, they know who has opened the sealed
book of God's secret counsels, even the Lamb who is the Lion, and the
Lion who is the Lamb; and therefore, if all things are not clear to them,
all things at least are bright, for they can trust that Lamb and His
self-sacrifice. In Him, and through Him, light will conquer darkness,
justice injustice, truth ignorance, order disorder, love hate, till God
be all in all, and pain and sorrow and evil shall have been exterminated
out of a world for which Christ stooped to die. Therefore they worship;
and the very act of worship--understand it well--is that great reward in
heaven which our Lord promised them. Adoration is their very bliss and
life. It must be so. For what keener, what nobler enjoyment for
rational and moral beings, than satisfaction with, and admiration of, a
Being better than themselves? Therefore they worship; and their worship
finds a natural vent in words most fit though few, but all expressing
utter trust and utter satisfaction in the worthiness of God. Therefore
they worship; and by worship enter into communion and harmony not only
with each other, not only with angels and archangels, but with all the
powers of nature, the four beings which are around the throne, and with
every creature which is in heaven and in earth, and under the earth, and
in the sea. For them, likewise, St John heard saying, "Blessing and
glory, and honour, and power, be unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and
to the Lamb for ever and ever."
And why? I think, with all humility, that the key to all these hymns--
whether of angels or of men, or of mere natural things--is the first hymn
of all; the hymn which shows that, however grateful to God for what He
has done for them those are whom the Lamb has redeemed by His blood to
God, out of every kindred, and nation, and tongue; yet, nevertheless, the
hymn of hymns is that which speaks not of gratitude, but of absolute
moral admiration--the hymn which glorifies God, not for that which He is
to man, not for that which He is to the universe, but for that which He
is absolutely and in Himself--that which He was before all worlds, and
would be still, though the whole universe, all created things, and time,
and space, and matter, and every created spirit likewise, should be
annihilated for ever. And what is that?
"Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come."
Ah! what a Gospel lies within those words! A Gospel? Ay, if you will
receive it, the root of all other possible Gospels, and good news for all
created beings. What a Gospel! and what an everlasting fount of comfort!
Surely of those words it is true, "blessed are they who, going through
the vale of misery, find therein a well, and the pools are filled with
water." Know you not what I mean? Happier, perhaps, are you--the young
at least among you--if you do not know. But some of you must know too
well. It is to them I speak. Were you never not merely puzzled--all
thinking men are that--but crushed and sickened at moments by the mystery
of evil? Sickened by the follies, the failures, the ferocities, the
foulnesses of mankind, for ages upon ages past? Sickened by the sins of
the unholy many--sickened, alas! by the imperfections even of the holiest
few? And have you never cried in your hearts with longing, almost with
impatience, Surely, surely, there is an ideal Holy One somewhere, or else
how could have arisen in my mind the conception, however faint, of an
ideal holiness? But where, oh where? Not in the world around, strewed
with unholiness. Not in myself--unholy too, without and within--seeming
to myself sometimes the very worst company of all the bad company I meet,
because it is the only bad company from which I cannot escape. Oh, is
there a Holy One, whom I may contemplate with utter delight? and if so,
where is He? Oh, that I might behold, if but for a moment, His perfect
beauty, even though, as in the fable of Semele of old, the lightning of
His glance were death. Nay, more, has it not happened to some here--to
clergyman, lawyer, physician, perhaps, alas! to some pure-minded, noble-
hearted woman--to be brought in contact perforce with that which truly
sickens them--with some case of human folly, baseness, foulness--which,
however much their soul revolts from it, they must handle, they must toil
over many weeks and months, in hope that that which is crooked may be
made somewhat straight, till their whole soul was distempered, all but
degraded, by the continual sight of sin, till their eyes seemed full of
nothing but the dance of death, and their ears of the gibbering of
madmen, and their nostrils with the odours of the charnel house, and they
longed for one breath of pure air, one gleam of pure light, one strain of
pure music, to wash their spirits clean from those foul elements into
which their duty had thrust them down perforce?
And then, oh then, has there not come to such an one--I know that it has
come--that for which his spirit was athirst, the very breath of pure air,
the very gleam of pure light, the very strain of pure music, for it is
the very music of the spheres, in those same words, "Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come;" and he has
answered, with a flush of keenest joy, Yes. Whatever else is unholy,
there is an Holy One, spotless and undefiled, serene and self-contained.
Whatever else I cannot trust, there is One whom I can trust utterly.
Whatever else I am dissatisfied with, there is One whom I can contemplate
with utter satisfaction, and bathe my stained soul in that eternal fount
of purity. And who is He? Who save the Cause and Maker, and Ruler of
all things, past, present, and to come? Ah, Gospel of all gospels, that
God Himself, the Almighty God, is the eternal and unchangeable
realisation of all that I and all mankind, in our purest and our noblest
moments, have ever dreamed concerning the true, the beautiful, and the
good. Even though He slay me, the unholy, yet will I trust in Him. For
He is Holy, Holy, Holy, and can do nothing to me, or any creature, save
what He OUGHT. For He has created all things, and for His pleasure they
are and were created.
Whosoever has entered, though but for a moment, however faintly,
partially, stupidly, into that thought of thoughts, has entered in so far
into the communion of the elect; and has had his share in the everlasting
All Saints' Day which is in heaven. He has been, though but for a
moment, in harmony with the polity of the Living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem; and with an innumerable company of angels, and the church of
the first-born who are written in heaven; and with the spirits of just
men made perfect, and with all past, present, and to come, in this and in
all other worlds, of whom it is written, "Blessed are the poor in spirit:
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who hunger and
thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the
pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are they who are
persecuted for righteousness' sake: for their's is the kingdom of
heaven." Great indeed is their reward, for it is no less than the very
beatific vision to contemplate and adore. That supreme moral beauty, of
which all earthly beauty, all nature, all art, all poetry, all music, are
but phantoms and parables, hints and hopes, dim reflected rays of the
clear light of that everlasting day, of which it is written--that "the
city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for
the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof."
SERMON II. PREPARATION FOR ADVENT
Westminster Abbey. November 15, 1874.
Amos iv. 12. "Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel."
We read to-day, for the first lesson, parts of the prophecy of Amos.
They are somewhat difficult, here and there, to understand; but
nevertheless Amos is perhaps the grandest of the Hebrew prophets, next to
Isaiah. Rough and homely as his words are, there is a strength, a
majesty, and a terrible earnestness in them, which it is good to listen
to; and specially good now that Advent draws near, and we have to think
of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and what His coming means.
"Prepare to meet thy God," says Amos in the text. Perhaps he will tell
us how to meet our God.
Amos is specially the poor man's prophet, for he was a poor man himself;
not a courtier like Isaiah, or a priest like Jeremiah, or a sage like
Daniel; but a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit in Tekoa, near
Bethlehem, where Amos was born. Yet to this poor man, looking after
sheep and cattle on the downs, and pondering on the wrongs and misery
around, the word of the Lord came, and he knew that God had spoken to
him, and that he must go and speak to men, at the risk of his life, what
God had bidden, against all the nations round and their kings, and
against the king and nobles and priests of Israel, and the king and
nobles and priests of Judah, and tell them that the day of the Lord is at
hand, and that they must prepare to meet their God. And he said what he
felt he must say with a noble freedom, with a true independence such as
the grace of God alone can give. Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, who was
worshipping (absurd as it may seem to us) God and the golden calf at the
same time in King Jeroboam's court, complained loudly, it would seem, of
Amos's plain speaking. How uncourteous to prophesy that Jeroboam should
die by the sword, and Israel be carried captive out of their own land!
Let him go home into his own land of Judah, and prophesy there; but not
prophesy at Bethel, for it was the king's chapel and the king's court.
Amos went, I presume, in fear of his life. But he left noble words
behind him. "I was no prophet," he said to Amaziah, "nor a prophet's
son, but a herdsman, and a gatherer of wild figs. And the Lord took me
as I followed the flock, and said, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel."
And then he turned on that smooth court-priest Amaziah, and pronounced
against him, in the name of the Lord, a curse too terrible to be repeated
here.
Now what was the secret of this inspired herdsman's strength? What
helped him to face priests, nobles, and kings? What did he believe?
What did he preach? He believed and preached the kingdom of God and His
righteousness; the simple but infinite difference between right and
wrong; and the certain doom of wrong, if wrong was persisted in. He
believed in the kingdom of God. He told the kings and the people of all
the nations round, that they had committed cruel and outrageous sins, not
against the Jews merely, but against each other. In the case of Moab,
the culminating crime was an insult to the dead. He had burned the bones
of the king of Edom into lime. In the case of Ammon, it was brutal
cruelty to captive women; but in the cases of Gaza, of Tyre, and of Edom,
it was slave-making and slave-trading invasions of Palestine. "Thus
saith the Lord: For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will
not turn away the punishment thereof; because they carried away captive
the whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom. But I will send a fire
upon the wall of Gaza, which shall devour the palaces thereof."
Yes. Slave-hunting and slave-trading wars--that was and is an iniquity
which the just and merciful Ruler of the earth would not, and will not,
pardon. And honour to those who, as in Africa of late, put down those
foul deeds, wheresoever they are done; who, at the risk of their own
lives, dare free the captives from their chains; and who, if interfered
with in their pious work, dare execute on armed murderers and manstealers
the vengeance of a righteous God. For the Lord God was their King, and
their Judge, whether they knew it or not. And for three transgressions
of theirs, and for four, the Lord would not turn away their punishment,
but would send fire and sword among them, and they should be carried away
captive, as they had carried others away. But to go back. Amos next
turns to his own countrymen--to Judah and Israel, who were then two
separate nations. For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, the
Lord would not turn away their punishment, because they had despised the
law of the Lord, and had not walked in His commandments. Therefore He
would send a fire on Judah, and it should devour the palaces of
Jerusalem. But Amos is most bitter against Israel, against the court of
King Jeroboam at Samaria, and against the rich men of Israel, the bulls
of Bashan, as he calls them. For three transgressions, and for four, the
Lord would not turn away their punishment. And why?
Now see what I meant when I said that Amos believed not only in the
kingdom of God, but in the righteousness of God. It was not merely that
they were worshipping idols--golden calves at Dan, and Bethel, and
Samaria, at the same time that they worshipped the true God. That was
bad, but there was more behind. These men were bad, proud, luxurious,
cruel; they were selling their countrymen for slaves--selling, he says so
twice, as if it was some notorious and special case, an honest man for
silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes. They were lying down on
clothes taken on pledge by every altar. They were breaking the seventh
commandment in an abominable way. They were falsifying weights and
measures, and selling the refuse of the wheat. They stored up the fruits
of violence and robbery in their palaces. They hated him who rebuked
them, and abhorred him that spoke uprightly. They trod upon the poor and
crushed the needy, and then said to their stewards, "Bring wine, and let
us drink." Therefore though they had built houses of hewn stone, they
should not live in them. They had planted pleasant vineyards, but should
not drink of them. And all the while these superstitious and wicked rich
men were talking of the day of the Lord, and hoping that the day of the
Lord would appear.
You, if you have read your Bibles carefully and reverently, must surely
be aware that the day of the Lord, either in the Old Testament or in the
New, does not mean merely the final day of judgment, but any striking
event, any great crisis in the world's history, which throws a divine
light upon that history, and shows to men--at least to those who have
eyes wherewith to see--that verily there is a God who judges the earth in
righteousness, and ministers true judgment among the people;--a God whom
men, and all their institutions, should always be prepared to meet, lest
coming suddenly, He find them sleeping. If you are not aware of this,
the real meaning of a day of the Lord, a day of the Son of Man, let me
entreat you to go and search the Scriptures for yourselves; for in them
ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of the
Lord, of that Eternal Son of whom the second Psalm speaks, in words which
mobs and tyrants, the atheist and the superstitious, are alike willing to
forget.
In the time of Amos, the rich tyrants of Israel seem to have meant by the
day of the Lord some vague hope that, in those dark and threatening
times, God would interfere to save them, if they were attacked by foreign
armies. But woe to you that desire the day of the Lord, says Amos the
herdsman. What do you want with it? You will find it very different
from what you expect. There is a day of the Lord coming, he says,
therefore prepare to meet your God. But you are unprepared, and you will
find the day of the Lord very different from what you expect. It will be
a day in which you will learn the righteousness of God. Because He is
righteous He will not suffer your unrighteousness. Because He is good,
He will not permit you to be bad. The day of the Lord to you will be
darkness and not light, not as you dream deliverance from the invaders,
but ruin by the invaders, from which will be no escape. "As if a man did
flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house and leaned
his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him." There will be no escape
for those wicked men. Though they dug into hell, God's hand would take
them; though they climbed up into heaven, God would fetch them down;
though they hid in the bottom of the sea, God would command the serpent,
and it should bite them. He would sift the house of Israel among all
nations like corn in a sieve, and not a grain should fall to the earth.
And all the sinners among God's people should die by the sword, who say,
"The evil shall not overtake us."
This was Amos's notion of the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
These Israelites would not obey the laws of God's kingdom, and be
righteous and good. But Amos told them, they could not get rid of God's
kingdom. The Lord was King, in spite of them, and they would find it out
to their sorrow. If they would not seek His kingdom and His government,
His government would seek them and find them, and find their evil-doings
out. If they would not seek God's righteousness, His righteousness would
seek them, and execute righteous judgment on them. No wonder that the
Israelites thought Amos a most troublesome and insolent person. No
wonder that the smooth priest Amaziah begged him to begone and talk in
that way somewhere else. He saw plainly enough that either Amos must
leave Samaria, or he must leave it. The two could no more work together
than fire and water. Amos wanted to make men repent of their sins, while
Amaziah wanted only to make them easy in their minds; and no man can do
both at once.
So it was then, my friends, and so it will be till the end of this wicked
world. The way to please men, and be popular, always was, and always
will be, Amaziah's way; to tell men that they may worship God and the
golden calf at the same time, that they may worship God and money,
worship God and follow the ways of this wicked world which suit their
fancy and their interest; to tell them the kingdom of God is not over you
now, Christ is not ruling the world now; that the kingdom of God will
only come, when Christ comes at the last day, and meanwhile, if people
will only believe what they are told, and live tolerably respectable
lives, they may behave in all things else as if there was no God, and no
judgments of God. Seeking the righteousness of God, say these preachers
of Amaziah's school, only means, that if Christ's righteousness is
imputed to you need not be righteous yourselves, but will go to heaven
without having been good men here on earth. That is the comfortable
message which the world delights to hear, and for which the world will
pay a high price to its flatterers.
But if any man dares to tell his fellow-men what Amos told them, and say,
The kingdom of God is among you, and within you, and over you, whether
you like or not, and you are in it; the Lord is King, be the people never
so unquiet; and all power is given to Him in heaven and earth already;
and at the last great day, when He comes in glory, He will show that He
has been governing the world and the inhabitants thereof all along,
whether they cared to obey Him or not:--if he tell men, that the
righteousness of God means this--to pray for the Spirit of God and of
Christ, that they may be perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect,
and holy as Christ is holy, for without holiness no man shall see the
Lord: if he tell men, that the wrath of God was revealed from heaven at
the fall of man, and has been revealed continuously ever since, against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, that indignation and wrath,
tribulation and anguish will fall upon every soul of man that doeth evil;
and glory, honour, and peace to every man that worketh good:--when a man
dares to preach that, he is no more likely to be popular with the wicked
world (for it is a wicked world) than Amos was popular, or St Paul was
popular, or our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave both to Amos and to St Paul
their messages, was popular. False preachers will dislike that man,
because he wishes to make sinners uneasy, while they wish to make them
easy. Philosophers, falsely so-called, will dislike that man, because he
talks of the kingdom of God, the providence of God, and they are busy--at
least, just now--in telling men that there is no providence and no God--
at least, no living God. The covetous and worldly will dislike that man,
for they believe that the world is governed, not by God, but by money.
Politicians will dislike that man, because they think that not God, but
they, govern the world, by those very politics and knavish tricks, which
we pray God to confound, whenever we sing "God save the Queen." And the
common people--the masses--who ought to hear such a man gladly, for his
words are to them, if they would understand them, a gospel, and good news
of divine hope and deliverance from sin and ignorance, oppression and
misery--the masses, I say, will dislike that man, because he tells them
that God's will is law, and must be obeyed at all risks: and the poor
fools have got into their heads just now that not God's will, but the
will of the people, is law, and that not the eternal likeness of God, but
whatever they happen to decide by the majority of the moment, is right.
And so such a preacher will not be popular with the many. They will
dismiss him, at best, as they might a public singer or lecturer, with
compliments and thanks, and so excuse themselves from doing what he tells
them. And he must look for his sincere hearers in the hearts of those--
and there are such, I verily believe, in this congregation--who have a
true love and a true fear of Christ, their incarnate God--who believe,
indeed, that Christ is their King, and the King of all the earth; who
think that to please Him is the most blessed, as well as the most
profitable, thing which man can do; to displease Him the most horrible,
as well as the most dangerous, thing which man can do; and who,
therefore, try to please Him by becoming like Him, by really renouncing
the world and all its mean and false and selfish ways, and putting on His
new pattern of man, which is created after God's likeness in
righteousness and true holiness. Blessed are they, for of them it is
written, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness, for they shall be filled." Even Christ Himself shall fill
them. Blessed are they, and all that they take in hand, for of them it
is written, "Blessed are all they that fear the Lord, and walk in His
ways. For thou shalt eat the labours of thine hands." "The Lord is
righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works. The Lord is nigh
unto all them that call upon Him, yea, all such as call upon Him
faithfully. He will fulfil the desire of them that fear Him. He also
will hear their cry"--ay, "and will help them."
Happy, ay, blest will such souls be, let the day of the Lord appear when
it will, or how it will. It may appear--the day of the Lord, as it has
appeared again and again in history--in the thunder of some mighty war.
It may appear after some irresistible, though often silent revolution,
whether religious or intellectual, social or political. It will appear
at last, as that great day of days, which will conclude, so we believe,
the drama of human history, and all men shall give account for their own
works. But, however and whenever it shall appear, they at least will
watch its dawning, neither with the selfish assurance of modern
Pharisaism, nor with the abject terror of mediaeval superstition; but
with that manful faith with which he who sang the 98th Psalm saw the day
of the Lord dawn once in the far east, more than two thousand years ago,
and cried with solemn joy, in the glorious words which you have just
heard sung--words which the Church of England has embodied in her daily
evening service, in order, I presume, to show her true children how they
ought to look at days of judgment; and so prepare to meet their God:--
"Show yourselves joyful unto the Lord, all ye lands: sing, rejoice, and
give thanks.
"Let the sea make a noise, and all that therein is: the round world, and
they that dwell therein.
"Let the floods clap their hands, and let the hills be joyful together
before the Lord: for He cometh to judge the earth.
"With righteousness shall He judge the world: and the people with
equity.
"Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
"As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.
Amen."
SERMON III. THE PURIFYING HOPE
Eversley, 1869. Windsor Castle, 1869.
1 John iii. 2. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet
appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we
shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that
hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure."
Let us consider this noble text, and see something, at least, of what it
has to tell us. It is, like all God's messages, all God's laws, ay, like
God's world in which we live and breathe, at once beautiful and awful;
full of life-giving hope; but full, too, of chastening fear. Hope for
the glorious future which it opens to poor human beings like us; fear,
lest so great a promise being left us, we should fall short of it by our
own fault. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us,
that we should be called the sons of God.
There is the root and beginning of all Christianity,--of all true
religion. We are the sons of God, and the infinite, absolute, eternal
Being who made this world, and all worlds, is our Father. We are the
children of God. It is not for us to say who are not God's children.
That is God's concern, not ours. All that we have to do with, is the
awful and blessed fact that we are. We were baptised into God's kingdom,
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Let us
believe the Gospel and good news which baptism brings us, and say each of
us;--Not for our own goodness and deserving; not for our own faith or
assurance; not for anything which we have thought, felt, or done, but
simply out of the free grace and love of God, seeking out us unconscious
infants, we are children of God. "Beloved now are we the sons of God,
and it doth not yet appear what we shall be." It doth not yet appear
what the next life will be like, or what we shall be like in it. That
there will be a next life,--that death does not end all for us, the New
Testament tells us. Yea, our own hearts and reasons tell us. That
sentiment of immortality, that instinct that the death of our body will
not, cannot destroy our souls, or ourselves--all men have had that,
except a few; and it is a question whether they had it not once, and have
only lost it by giving way to their brute animal nature. But be that as
it may, it concerns us, I think, very little. For we at least believe
that we shall live again. That we shall live again in some state or
other, is as certain to our minds as it was to the minds of our
forefathers, even while they were heathens; as certain to us as it is
that we are alive now. But in that future state, what we shall be like,
we know not. St. John says that he did not know; and we certainly have
no more means of knowing than St. John.
Therefore let us not feed our fancies with pictures of what the next
world will be like,--pictures, I say, which are but waking dreams of men,
intruding into those things which they have not seen, vainly puffed up in
their fleshly minds--that is in their animal and mortal brain. Let us be
content with what St. John tells us, which is a matter not for our
brains, but for our hearts; not for our imaginations, but for our
conscience, which is indeed our highest reason. Whatever we do not know
about the next world, this, he says, we do know,--that when God in Christ
shall appear, we shall be like Him. Like God. No more: No: but no
less. To be like God, it appears, is the very end and aim of our being.
That we might be like God, God our Father sent us forth from His eternal
bosom, which is the ground of all life, in heaven and in earth. That we
might be like God, He clothed us in mortal flesh, and sent us into this
world of sense. That we might be like God, He called us, from our
infancy, into His Church. That we might be like God, He gave us the
divine sense of right and wrong; and more, by the inspiration of His holy
spirit, that inward witness, that Light of God, which lightens every man
that cometh into the world, He taught us to love the right and hate the
wrong. That we might be like God, God is educating us from our cradle to
our grave, by every event, even the smallest, which happens to us. That
we might be like God, it is in God that we live, and move, and have our
being; that as the raindrop which falls from heaven, rises again surely,
soon or late, to heaven again; so each soul of man, coming forth from God
at first, should return again to God, as many of them as have eternal
life, having become like to God from whom it came at first. And how
shall we become like God? or rather like Christ who is both God and man?
To become like God the Father,--that is impossible for finite and created
beings as we are. But to become somewhat, at least, like God the Son,
like Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the brightness of His Father's glory,
and the express image of His person, that is not impossible. For He has
revealed Himself as a man, in the soul and body of a man, that our sinful
souls might be made like His pure soul; our sinful bodies like His
glorious body; and that so He might be the first born among many
brethren. And how? "We know that when He appears, we shall be like Him,
for we shall see Him as He is."
For we shall see Him as He is. Herein is a great mystery, and one which
I do not pretend to fathom. Only this I can try to do--to shew how it
may seem possible and reasonable, from what is called analogy, that is by
judging of an unknown thing from a known thing, which is, at least,
something like it. Now do we not all know how apt we are to become like
those whom we see, with whom we spend our hours--and, above all, like
those whom we admire and honour? For good and for evil, alas! For evil-
-for those who associate with evil or frivolous persons are too apt to
catch not only their low tone, but their very manner, their very
expression of face, speaking, and thinking, and acting. Not only do they
become scornful, if they live with scorners; false, if they live with
liars; mean, if they live with covetous men; but they will actually catch
the very look of their faces. The companions of affected, frivolous
people, men or women, grow to look affected frivolous. Indulging in the
same passions, they mould their own countenances and their very walk,
also the very tones of their voice, as well as their dress, into the
likeness of those with whom they associate, nay, of those whose fashions
(as they are called) they know merely by books and pictures. But thank
God, who has put into the hearts of Christian people the tendency towards
God--just in the same way does good company tend to make men good; high-
minded company to make them high-minded; kindly company to make them
kindly; modest company to make them modest; honourable company to make
them honourable; and pure company to make them pure. If the young man or
woman live with such, look up to such as their ideal, that is, the
pattern which they ought to emulate--then, as a fact, the Spirit of God
working in them does mould them into something of the likeness of those
whom they admire and love. I have lived long enough to see more than one
man of real genius stamp his own character, thought, even his very manner
of speaking, for good or for evil, on a whole school or party of his
disciples. It has been said, and truly, I believe, that children cannot
be brought up among beautiful pictures,--I believe, even among any
beautiful sights and sounds,--without the very expression of their faces
becoming more beautiful, purer, gentler, nobler; so that in them are
fulfilled the words of the great and holy Poet concerning the maiden
brought up according to God, and the laws of God--
"And she shall bend her ear
In many a secret place,
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty, born of murmuring sound,
Shall pass into her face."
But if mere human beings can have this "personal influence," as it is
called, over each others' characters, if even inanimate things, if they
be beautiful, can have it--what must be the personal influence of our
Lord Jesus Christ? Of Him, who is the Man of all men, the Son of Man,
the perfect and ideal Man--and more, who is very God of very God; the
Author of all life, power, wisdom, genius, in every human being, whether
they use to good, or abuse to ill, His divine gifts; the Author, too, of
all natural beauty, from the sun over our heads to the flower beneath our
feet? Think of that steadily, accurately, rationally. Think of who
Christ is, and what Christ is--and then think what His personal influence
must be--quite infinite, boundless, miraculous. So that the very
blessedness of heaven will not be merely the sight of our Lord; it will
be the being made holy, and kept holy, by that sight. If only we be fit
for it. For let us ask ourselves the question,--If St John's words come
true of us, if we should see Him as He is, would the sight of His all-
glorious countenance warm us into such life, love, longing for virtue and
usefulness, as we never felt before? Or would it crush us into the very
earth with utter shame and humiliation, full and awful knowledge of how
weak and foolish, sinful and unworthy we were?--as it does to Gerontius
in the poem, when he dreams that, after death, he demanded, rashly and
ambitiously, to see our Lord, and had his wish.
That is the question which every one must try to answer for himself in
fear and trembling, for, he that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself,
even as He is pure. The common sense of men--which is often their
conscience and highest reason--has taught them this, more or less
clearly, in all countries and all ages. There are very few religions
which have not made purifying of some kind a part of their duty. The
very savage, when he enters (as he fancies) the presence of his god, will
wash and adorn himself that he may be fit, poor creature, for meeting the
paltry god which he has invented out of his own brain; and he is right as
far as he goes. The Englishman, when he dresses himself in his best to
go to church, obeys the same reasonable instinct. And, indeed, is not
holy baptism a sign that this instinct is a true one?--that if God be
pure, he who enters the presence of God must purify himself, even as God
is pure? Else why, when each person, whether infant or adult, is
received into Christ's Church, is washing with water, whether by
sprinkling, as now, or, as of old, by immersion, the very sign and
sacrament of his being received into God's kingdom? The instinct, I say,
is reasonable, and has its root in the very heart of man. Whatsoever we
respect and admire we shall also try to copy, if it be only for a time.
If we are going into the presence of a wiser man than ourselves, we shall
surely recollect and summon up what little wisdom or knowledge we may
have; if into the presence of a holier person, we shall try to call up in
ourselves those better and more serious thoughts which we so often
forget, that we may be, even for a few minutes, fit for that good
company. And if we go into the presence of a purer person than
ourselves, we shall surely (unless we be base and brutal) call up our
purest and noblest thoughts, and try to purify ourselves, even as they
are pure. It is true what poets have said again and again, that there
are women whose mere presence, whose mere look, drives all bad thoughts
away--women before whom men dare no more speak, or act, nay, even think,
basely, than they would dare before the angels of God.
But if it be so--and so it is--what must we be, to be fit to appear
before Him who is Purity itself?--before that spotless Christ in whom is
no sin and who knows what is in man; who is quick and piercing as a two-
edged sword, even to the dividing asunder of the joints and marrow, so
that all things are naked and open in the sight of Him with whom we have
to do? What purity can we bring into His presence which will not seem
impure to Him? What wisdom which will not seem folly? What humility
which will not seem self-conceit? What justice which will not seem
unjust? What love which will not seem hardness of heart, in the sight of
Him who charges His angels with folly, and the very heavens are not clean
in His sight? Who loved Him better, and whom did He love better, than St
John? Yet, what befel St John when, in the spirit, he saw Him even
somewhat as He is?--"And I fell at His feet as dead." If St John himself
was struck down with awe, what shall we feel, even the best and purest
among us? All we can do is to cast ourselves, now and for ever, in life,
in death, and in the day of judgment, on His boundless mercy and love--
who stooped from heaven to die for us and cry, God be merciful to me a
sinner.
Therefore, I have many fears for some who are ready enough to talk of
their fulness of hope and their assurance of salvation, and to join in
hymns which express weariness of this life and longings for the joys of
heaven, and prayers that they may depart and be with Christ. If they are
not in earnest in such words they mock God; but if they are in earnest,
some of them, I fear much, tempt God. What if He took them at their
word? What if He gave them their wish? What if they departed and
entered the presence of Christ, only to meet with a worse fate than that
of Gerontius? Only to be overwhelmed with shame and terror, because,
though they have been talking of being with Christ, they have not been
trying to be like Christ; because they have not sought after holiness,
without which no man shall see the Lord; because they have not tried to
purify themselves, even as He is pure; and have, poor, heedless souls,
gone out of the world, with all their sins upon their head, to enter a
place for which they will find themselves utterly unfit, because it is a
place into which nothing can enter which defileth, or committeth
abomination, or maketh a lie, and from which the covetous are specially
excluded; and in which will be fulfilled the parable of the man who came
to the feast, not having on a wedding garment,--Take him, bind him hand
and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness. There shall be wailing
and gnashing of teeth.
Assurance, my friends, may be reasonable enough when it is founded on
repentance and hatred of evil, and love and practice of what is good.
But, again, assurance may be as unreasonable as it is offensive. We
blame a man who has too much assurance about earthly things. Let us
beware that we have not too much assurance about heavenly things. For
our assurance will surely be too great, unreasonable, built upon the
sand, if it be built on mere self-conceit of our own orthodoxy, and our
own privileges, or our own special connection with God.
Meanwhile it has been my comfort to meet with some--would God they were
more numerous--who, instead of talking of their assurance of salvation,
lived in a state of noble self-discontent and holy humility; who could
see nothing but their own faults and failings; who, though they were
holier than others, considered themselves as unholy; though they were
doing more good than others, thought themselves useless; whose standard
of duty was so lofty, that they could think of nothing, but how far they
had failed in reaching it; who measured themselves, not by other men, but
by Christ Himself; and, doing that, had nought to say, save, "God be
merciful to me a sinner." And for such people I have had full assurance,
just because they had no assurance themselves. And I have said in my
heart, These are worthy, just because they think themselves unworthy.
These are fit to appear in the presence of God, just because they believe
themselves unfit. These are they who will cry at the day of judgment, in
wondering humility,--Lord, when saw we Thee hungry, or thirsty, or naked,
or in prison, and visited Thee? And will receive for answer,--"Inasmuch
as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have
done it unto Me." "Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will
make thee ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of thy Lord."
To which end may God of His mercy bring us, and all we love. Amen.
SERMON IV. THE LORD COMING TO HIS TEMPLE
Westminster Abbey. November, 1874.
Malachi iii. 1, 2. "The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His
temple. . . . But who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall
stand when He appeareth? for He is like a refiner's fire, and like
fuller's sope."
We believe that this prophecy was fulfilled at the first coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that it will be fulfilled again, in that
great day when He shall judge the quick and the dead. But it is of
neither of these events I wish to speak to you just now. I wish to speak
of an event which has not (as far as we know) happened; which will
probably never happen; but which is still perfectly possible; and one,
too, which it is good for us to face now and then, and ask ourselves, If
this thing came to pass, what should I think, and what should I do?
I shall touch the question with all reverence and caution. I shall try
to tread lightly, as one who is indeed on hallowed ground. For the
question which I have dared to ask you and myself is none other than
this--If the Lord suddenly came to this temple, or any other in this
land; if He appeared among us, as He did in Judea eighteen hundred years
ago, what should we think of Him? Should we recognise, or should we
reject, our Saviour and our Lord? It is an awful thought, the more we
look at it. But for that very reason it may be the more fit to be asked,
once and for all.
Now, to put this question safely and honestly, we must keep within those
words which I just said--as He appeared in Judea eighteen hundred years
ago. We must limit our fancy to the historic Christ, to the sayings,
doings, character which are handed down to us in the four Gospels; and
ask ourselves nothing but--What should I think if such a personage were
to meet me now? To imagine Him--as has been too often done--as doing
deeds, speaking words, and even worse, entertaining motives, which are
not written in the four Gospels, is as unfair morally, as it is illogical
critically. It creates a phantom, a fictitious character, and calls that
Christ. It makes each writer, each thinker--or rather dreamer--however
shallow his heart and stupid his brain--and all our hearts are but too
shallow, and all our brains too stupid--the measure of a personage so
vast and so unique, that all Christendom for eighteen hundred years has
seen in Him, and we of course hold seen truly, the Incarnate God. No; we
must think of nothing save what is set down in Holy Writ.
And yet, alas! we cannot use in our days, that which eighteen hundred
years ago was the most simple and obvious test of our Lord's
truthfulness, namely His miraculous powers. The folly and sin of man
have robbed us of what is, as it were, one of the natural rights of
reasoning, man. Lying prodigies and juggleries, forged and pretended
miracles, even--oh, shame!--imitations of His most sacred wounds, have,
up to our own time, made all rational men more and more afraid of aught
which seems to savour of the miraculous; till most of us, I think, would
have to ask forgiveness--as I myself should have to ask,--if, tantalized
and insulted again and again by counterfeit miracles, we failed to
recognise real miracles, and Him who performed them. Therefore, for good
or evil, we should be driven back upon that test alone, which, after all,
perhaps, is the most sure as well as the most convincing--the moral test-
-the test of character. What manner of personage would He be did He
condescend to appear among us? Of that, thank God, the Gospels ought to
leave us in no doubt. What acts He might condescend to perform, what
words He might condescend to speak, it is not for such beings as we to
guess. But how He would demean Himself we know; for Holy Writ has told
us how He demeaned Himself in Judea eighteen hundred years ago; and He is
the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and can be only like Himself.
But should we know Him merely by His bearing and character? Should we
see in Him an utterly ideal personage--The Son of Man, and therefore, ere
we lost sight of Him once more, the Son of God? Let us think. First,
therefore, we must believe that--as in Judea of old--Christ would meet
men with all consideration and courtesy. He would not break the bruised
reed, nor quench the smoking flax. He would not strive, nor cry, nor let
His voice be heard in the streets. He would not cause any of God's
little ones to offend, to stumble. In plain words, He would not shock
and repel them by any conduct of His. Therefore, as in Judea of old, He
would be careful of, even indulgent to, the usages of society, as long as
they were innocent. He would never outrage the code of manners, however
imperfect, however conventional, which this or any other civilised nation
may have agreed on, to express and keep up respect, self-restraint,
delicacy, of man toward man, of man toward woman, of the young ward the
old, of the living toward the dead. No.
As I said just now, He would never cause, by any act or word of His, one
of God's little ones to stumble and fall away.
I used just now that word MANNERS. Let me beg your very serious
attention to it. I use it, remember, in its true, its ancient--that is,
in its moral and spiritual sense. I use it as the old Greeks, the old
Romans, used their corresponding words; as our wise forefathers used it,
when they said well, that "Manners maketh man;" that manners are at once
the efficient cause of a man's success, and the proof of his deserving to
succeed: the outward and visible sign of whatsoever inward and spiritual
grace, or disgrace, there may be in him. I mean by the word what our
Lord meant when He reproved the pushing and vulgar arrogance of the
Scribes and Pharisees, and laid down the golden rule of all good manners,
"Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and
whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant."
Next, I beg you to remember that all, or almost all, good manners which
we have among us--courtesies, refinements, self-restraint, and mutual
respect--all which raises us, socially and morally, above our forefathers
of fifteen hundred years ago--deep-hearted men, valiant and noble, but
coarse, and arrogant, and quarrelsome--all that, or almost all, we owe to
Christ, to the influence of His example, and to that Bible which
testifies of Him. Yes, the Bible has been for Christendom, in the
cottage as much as in the palace, the school of manners; and the saying
that he who becomes a true Christian becomes a true gentleman, is no
rhetorical boast, but a solid historic fact.
Now imagine Christ to reappear on earth, with that perfect outward beauty
of character--with what Greeks and Romans, and our own ancestors, would
have called those perfect manners--which, if we are to believe the
Gospels, He shewed in Judea of old, which won then so many hearts,
especially of the common people, sounder judges often of true nobility
than many who fancy themselves their betters. Conceive--but which of us
can conceive?--His perfect tenderness, patience, sympathy, graciousness,
and grace, combined with perfect strength, stateliness, even awfulness,
when awe was needed. Remember that, if, again, the Gospels are to be
believed. He alone, of all personages of whom history tells us, solved
in His own words and deeds the most difficult paradox of human character-
-to be at once utterly conscious, and yet utterly unconscious, of self;
to combine with perfect self-sacrifice a perfect self-assertion. Whether
or not His being able to do that proved Him to have been that which He
was, the Son of God, it proves Him at least to have been the Son of Man--
the unique and unapproachable ideal of humanity, utterly inspired by the
Holy Spirit of God.
But again: He condescended, in His teaching of old, to the level of
Jewish, knowledge at that time. We may, therefore, believe that He would
condescend to the level of our modern knowledge; and what would that
involve? It would leave Him, however less than Himself, at least master
of all that the human race has thought or discovered in the last eighteen
hundred years. Think of that. And think again, that if He condescended,
as in Judea of old, to employ that knowledge in teaching men--He who knew
what was in man, and needed not that any should bear witness to Him of
man--He would manifest a knowledge of human nature to which that of a
Shakspeare would be purblind and dull; a knowledge of which the Scripture
nobly says that "The Word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than
any two-edged sword, even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and
of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents
of the heart;" so that all "things are naked and opened unto the eyes of
Him with whom we have to do." And consider that, in the light of that
knowledge, He might adapt himself as perfectly to us of this great city,
as He did to the villagers of Galilee, or to the townsmen of Jerusalem.
Consider, again, that He who spoke as never man yet spake in Jerusalem,
might speak as man never yet spoke on English soil; that He who was
listened to gladly once, because He spake with authority, and not as the
scribes, at second hand, and by rule and precedent, might be listened to
gladly here once more. For He might speak here, not as we poor scribes
can speak at best, but with an authority, originality, earnestness, as
well as an eloquence, which might exercise a fascination, which would be,
to all with whom He came in contact, what Malachi calls it, "a refiner's
fire"--most purifying, though often most painful to the very best; a
fascination which might be to every one who came under its spell a
veritable Judgment and Day of the Lord, shewing each man with fearful
clearness to which side he really inclined at heart in the struggle
between truth and falsehood, good and evil; a fascination, therefore,
equally attractive to those who wished to do right, and intolerable to
those who wished to do wrong.
Consider that last thought. And consider, too, that those to whom the
fascination of such a personage might be so intolerable, that it might
turn to utter hate, would probably be those whose moral sense was so
perverted, that they thought they were doing right when they were doing
wrong, and speaking truth when they were telling lies. It is an awful
thought. But we know that there were such men, and too many, among the
scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem. And human nature is the same in
every age. Be that as it may--however retired His life, He could not
long be hid. He would shortly exercise, almost without attempting it, an
enormous public influence.
But yet, as in Judea of old, would He not be only too successful? Would
He not be at once too liberal for some, and too exacting for others?
Would He not, as in Judea of old, encounter not merely the active envy of
the vain and the ambitious, which would follow one who spoke as never man
spoke; not merely the active malignity of those who wish their fellow-
creatures to be bad and not good; not merely the bigotry of every sect
and party; but that mere restless love of new excitements, and that dull
fear and suspicion of new truths, and even of old truths in new words,
which beset the uneducated of every rank and class, and in no age more
than in our own? And therefore I must ask, in sober sadness, how long
would His influence last? It lasted, we know, in Judea of old, for some
three years. And then--. But I am not going to say that any such
tragedy is possible now. It would be an insult to Him; an insult to the
gracious influences of His Spirit, the gracious teaching of His Church,
to say that of our generation, however unworthy we may be of our high
calling in Christ. And yet, if He had appeared in any country of
Christendom only four hundred years ago, might He not have endured an
even more dreadful death than that of the cross?
But doubtless, no personal harm would happen to Him here. Only there
might come a day, in which, as in Judea of old, "after He had said these
things, many were offended, and walked no more with Him:" when his
hearers and admirers would grow fewer and more few, some through bigotry,
some through envy, some through fickleness, some through cowardice, till
He was left alone with a little knot of earnest disciples; who might
diminish, alas, but too rapidly, when they found at He, as in Judea of
old, did not intend to become the head of a new sect, and to gratify
their ambition and vanity by making them His delegates. And so the
world, the religious world as well as the rest, might let Him go His way,
and vanish from the eyes and minds of men, leaving behind little more
than a regret that one so gifted and so fascinating should have proved--I
hardly like to say the words, and yet they must be said--so unsafe and so
unsound a teacher.
I shall not give now the reasons which have led me, and not in haste, to
this melancholy conclusion. I shall only say that I have come to it,
with pain, and shame, and fear. With shame and fear. For when I ask you
the solemn question, Would you know Christ if He came among you? do I not
ask myself a question which I dare not answer? How can I tell whether I
should recognise, after all, my Saviour and my Lord? How do I know that
if He said (as He but too certainly might), something which clashed
seriously with my preconceived notions of what He ought to say, I should
not be offended, and walk no more with Him? How do I know that if He
said, as in Judea of old, "Will ye too go away?" I should answer with St
Peter, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life,
and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the
living God?" I dare not ask that question of myself. How then dare I
ask it of you? I know not. I can only say, "Lord, I believe: help thou
mine unbelief." I know not. But this I know--that in this or any other
world, if you or I did recognise Him, it would be with utter shame and
terror, unless we had studied and had striven to copy either Himself, or
whatsoever seems to us most like Him. Yes; to study the good, the
beautiful, and the true in Him, and wheresoever else we find it--for all
that is good, beautiful, and true throughout the universe are nought but
rays from Him, the central sun--to obey St. Paul of old, and "whatsoever
things are true, venerable, just, pure, lovely, and of good report--if
there be any virtue and if there be any praise, to think on these
things,"--on these scattered fragmentary sacraments of Him whose number
is not two, nor seven, "but seventy-times seven;" that is the way--I
think, the only way--to be ready to recognise our Saviour, and to prepare
to meet our God; that He may be to us, too, as a refiner's fire, and
refine us--our thoughts, our deeds, our characters throughout.
And I think, too, that this is the way, perhaps the only way, to rid
ourselves of the fancy that we can be accounted righteous before God for
any works or deservings of our own. Those in whom that fancy lingers
must have but a paltry standard of what righteousness is, a mean
conception of moral--that is, spiritual--perfection. But those who look
not inwards, but upwards; not at themselves, but at Christ and all
spiritual perfection--they become more and more painfully aware of their
own imperfections. The beauty of Christ's character shows them the
ugliness of their own. His purity shows them their own foulness. His
love their own hardness. His wisdom their own folly. His strength their
own weakness. The higher their standard rises, the lower falls their
estimate of themselves; till, in utter humiliation and self-distrust,
they seek comfort ere alone it can be found--in FAITH--in utter faith and
trust in that very moral perfection of Christ which shames and dazzles
them, and yet is their only hope. To trust in Him for themselves and all
they love. To trust that, just because Christ is so magnificent, He will
pity, and not despise, our meanness. Just because He is so pure, and
righteous, and true, and lovely, He will appreciate, and not abhor, our
struggles after purity, righteousness, truth, love, however imperfect,
however soiled with failure--and with worse. Just because He is so
unlike us, He will smile graciously upon out feeblest attempts to be like
Him. Just because He has borne the sins and carried the sorrows of
mankind, therefore those who come to Him He will in no wise cast out.
Amen.
SERMON V. ADVENT LESSONS
Westminster Abbey, First Sunday in Advent, 1873.
Romans vii. 22-25. "I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind,
and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this
death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."
This is the first Sunday in Advent. To-day we have prayed that God would
give us grace to put away the works of darkness, and put on us the armour
of light. Next Sunday we shall pray that, by true understanding of the
Scriptures, we may embrace and hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting
life. The Sunday after that the ministers and stewards of God's
mysteries may prepare His way by turning the hearts of the disobedient to
the wisdom of the just--the next, that His grace and mercy may speedily
help and deliver us from the sins which hinder us in running the race set
before us. But I do not think that we shall understand those collects,
or indeed the meaning of Advent itself, or the reason why we keep the
season of Advent year by year, unless we first understand the prayer
which we offered up last Sunday, "Stir up, O Lord, the wills of Thy
faithful people,"--and we shall understand that prayer just in proportion
as we have in us the Spirit of God, or the spirit of the world, which is
the spirit of unbelief.
Worldly people say--and say openly, just now--that this prayer is all a
dream. They say God will not stir up men's wills to do good any more
than to do harm. He leaves men to themselves to get through life as they
can. This Heavenly Father of whom you speak will not give His holy
spirit to those who ask Him. He does not, as one of your Collects says,
put into men's minds good desires--they come to a man entirely from
outside a man, from his early teaching, his youthful impressions, as they
are called now-a-days. He does not either give men grace and power to
put these desires into practice. That depends entirely on the natural
strength of a man's character; and that, again, depends principally on
the state of his brain. So, says the world, if you wish your own
character to improve, you must improve it yourself, for God will not
improve it for you. But, after all, why should you try to improve? why
not be content to be just what you are? you did not make yourself, and
you are not responsible for being merely what God has chosen to make you.
This is what worldly men say, or at least what they believe and act on;
and this is the reason why there is so little improvement in the world,
because men do not ask God to improve their hearts and stir up their
wills. I say, very little improvement. Men talk loudly of the
enlightenment of the age, and the progress of the species, and the spread
of civilisation, and so forth: but when I read old books, and compare
old times with these, I confess I do not see so much of it as all this
hopeful talk would lead me to expect. Men in general have grown more
prudent, more cunning, from long experience. They have found out that
certain sins do not pay--that is, they interfere with people's comfort
and their power of making money, and therefore they prudently avoid them
themselves, and put them down by law in other men's cases. Men have
certainly grown more good-natured, in some countries, in that they
dislike more than their ancestors did, to inflict bodily torture on human
beings; but they are just as ready, or even more ready, to inflict on
those whom they dislike that moral and mental torture which to noble
souls is worse than any bodily pain. As for any real improvement in
human nature--where is it? There is just as much falsehood, cheating,
and covetousness, I believe, in the world as ever there was; just as much
cant and hypocrisy, and perhaps more; just as much envy, hatred, malice
and all uncharitableness. Is not the condition of the masses in many
great cities as degraded and as sad as ever was that of the serfs in the
middle ages? Do not the poor still die by tens of thousands of fevers,
choleras, and other diseases, which we know perfectly how to prevent, and
yet have not the will to prevent? Is not the adulteration of food just
now as scandalous as it is unchecked? The sins and follies of human
nature have been repressed in one direction only to break out another.
And as for open and coarse sin, people complain even now, and I fear with
justice, that there is more drunkenness in England at this moment than
there ever was. So much for our boasted improvement.
Look again at the wars of the world. Five-and-twenty years ago, one used
to be told that the human race was grown too wise to go to war any more,
and that we were to have an advent of universal peace and plenty, and
since then we have seen some seven great wars, the last the most terrible
of all,--and ever since, all the nations of Europe have been watching
each other in distrust and dread, increasing their armaments, working
often night and day at forging improved engines of destruction, wherewith
to kill their fellow-men. Not that I blame that. It is necessary. Yes!
but the hideous thing is, that it should be necessary. Does that state
of things look much like progress of the human race? Can we say that
mankind is much improved, either in wisdom or in love, while all the
nations of Europe are spending millions merely to be ready to fight they
know not whom, they know not why?
No, my good friends, obey the wise man, and clear your minds of cant--
man's pretensions, man's boastfulness, man's power of blinding his own
eyes to plain facts--above all, to the plain fact that he does not
succeed, even in this world of which he fancies himself the master,
because he lives without God in the world. All this saddens, I had
almost said, sickens, a thoughtful man, till he turns away from this
noisy sham improvement of mankind--the wages of sin, which are death, to
St John's account of the true improvement of mankind, the true progress
of the species,--the gift of God which is eternal life. "And I saw a new
heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were
passed away. And I saw the Holy City--New Jerusalem, coming down from
God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I
heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold the tabernacle of God
is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people,
and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe
away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither
sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former
things are passed away."
Does that sound much like a general increase of armaments? or like bills
for the prevention of pestilence, or of drunkenness,--which, even if they
pass, will both probably fail to do the good which they propose? No.
And if this wicked world is to be mended, then God must stir up the wills
of His faithful people, and we must pray without ceasing for ourselves,
and for all for whom we are bound to pray, that He would stir them up.
For what we want is not knowledge; we have enough of that, and too much.
Too much; for knowing so much and doing so little, what an account will
be required of us at the last day!
No. It is the will which we want, in a hundred cases. Take that of
pestilential dwelling-houses in our great towns. Every one knows that
they ought to be made healthy; every one knows that they can be made
healthy. But the will to make them healthy is not here, and they are
left to breed disease and death. And so, as in a hundred instances,
shallow philosophers are proved, by facts, to be mistaken, when they tell
us that man will act up to the best of his knowledge without God's help.
For that is exactly what man does not. What is wrong with the world in
general, is wrong likewise more or less with you and me, and with all
human beings; for after all, the world is made up of human beings; and
the sin of the world is nothing save the sins of each and all human
beings put together; and the world will be renewed and come right again,
just as far and no farther, as each human being is renewed and comes
right. The only sure method, therefore, of setting the world right, is
to begin by setting our own little part of the world right--in a word,
setting ourselves right.
But if we begin to try, that, we find, is just what we cannot do. When a
man begins to hunger and thirst after righteousness, and, discontented
with himself, attempts to improve himself, he soon begins to find a
painful truth in many a word of the Bible and the Prayer Book to which he
gave little heed, as long as he was contented with himself, and with
doing just what pleased him, right or wrong. He soon finds out that he
has no power of himself to help himself, that he is tied and bound with
the burden of his sins, and that he cannot, by reason of his frailty,
stand upright--that he actually is sore let and hindered by his own sins,
from running the race set before him, and doing his duty where God has
put him. All these sayings come home to him as actual facts, most
painful facts, but facts which he cannot deny. He soon finds out the
meaning and the truth of that terrible struggle between the good in him
and the evil in him, of which St Paul speaks so bitterly in the text.
How, when he tries to do good, evil is present with him. How he delights
in the law of God with his inward mind, and yet finds another law in his
body, warring against the law of God, and bringing him into captivity to
the law of sin. How he is crippled by old bad habits, weakened by
cowardice, by laziness, by vanity, by general inability of will, till he
is ready,--disgusted at himself and his own weakness,--to cry, Who shall
deliver me from the body of this death?
Let him but utter that cry honestly. Let him once find out that he wants
something outside himself to help him, to deliver him, to strengthen him,
to stir up his weak will, to give him grace and power to do what he knows
instead of merely admiring it, and leaving it undone. Let a man only
find out that. Let him see that he needs a helper, a deliverer, a
strengthener--in one word, a Saviour--and he will find one. I verily
believe that, sooner or later, the Lord Jesus Christ will reveal to that
man what He revealed to St Paul; that He Himself will deliver him; and
that, like St Paul, after crying "O wretched man that I am, who shall
deliver me from the body of this death?" he will be able to answer
himself, I thank God--God will, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ
will deliver me from the bonds of my sins, Christ will stir up this weak
will of mine, Christ will give me strength and power, faithfully to
fulfil all my good desires, because He Himself has put them into my heart
not to mock me, not to disappoint me--not to make me wretched with the
sight of noble graces and virtues to which I cannot attain, but to fulfil
His work in me. What He has begun in me He will carry on in me. He has
sown the seed in me, and He will make it bear fruit, if only I pray to
Him, day by day, for strength to do what I know I ought to do, and cry
morning and night to Him, the fount of life, Stir up my will, O Lord,
that I may bring forth the fruit of good works, for then by Thee I shall
be plentifully rewarded.
So the man gains hope and heart for himself, and so, if he will but think
rationally and humbly, he may gain hope and heart for this poor sinful
world. For what has come true for him may come true for any man. Who is
he that God should care more for him than for others? Who is he that God
should help him when he prays, more than He will help His whole church if
it will but pray? He says to himself, all this knowledge of what is
right; all these good desires, all these longings after a juster, purer,
nobler, happier state of things; there they are up and down the world
already, though, alas! they have borne little enough fruit as yet. Be it
so. But God put them into my heart. And who save God has put them into
the world's heart? It was God who sowed the seed in me; surely it is God
who has sowed it in other men? And if God has made it bear even the
poorest fruit in me, why should He not make it bear fruit in other men
and in all the world? All they need is that God should stir up their
wills, that they may do the good they know, and attain the blessedness
after which they long.
And then, if the man have a truly human, truly reasonable heart in him--
he feels that he can pray for others as well as for himself. He feels
that he must pray for them, and cry,--Thou alone canst make men strong to
do the right thing, and Thou wilt make them. Stir up their wills, O
Lord! Thou canst not mean that all the good seed which is sown about the
world should die and wither, and bring no fruit to perfection. Surely
Thy word will not return to Thee void, but be like the rain which comes
down from heaven, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater.
Oh, strengthen such as stand, and comfort and help the weak-hearted, and
raise up them that fall, and, finally, beat down Satan and all the powers
of evil under our feet, and pour out thy spirit on all flesh, that so
their Father's name may be hallowed, His kingdom come, His will be done
on earth as it is in heaven. And so will come the one and only true
progress of the human race--which is, that all men should become faithful
and obedient citizens of the holy city, the kingdom of God, which is the
Church of Christ. To which may God in His mercy bring us all, and our
children after us. Amen.
This, then, is the lesson why we are met together this Advent day. We
are met to pray that God would so help us by His grace and mercy that we
may bring forth the fruit of good works, and that when our Lord Jesus
Christ shall come in His glorious majesty to judge the quick and the
dead, we, and our descendants after us, may be found an acceptable people
in His sight.
We are met to pray, in a National Church, for the whole nation of
England, that all orders and degrees therein may, each in his place and
station, help forward the hallowing of God's name, the coming of His
kingdom, the doing of His will on earth. We are met to pray for the
Queen and all that are in authority, that these Advent collects may be
fulfilled in them, and by them, for the good of the whole people; for the
ministers and stewards of Christ's mysteries, that the same collects may
be fulfilled by them and in them, till they turn the hearts of the
disobedient to the wisdom of the just; for the Commons of this nation,
that each man may he delivered, by God's grace and mercy, from the
special sin which besets him in this faithless and worldly generation and
hinders him from running the race of duty which is set before him, and
get strength from God so to live that in that dread day he may meet his
Judge and King, not in tenor and in shame, but in loyalty and in humble
hope.
But more--we are here to worship God in Christ, both God and man. To
confess that without Him we can do nothing, that unless He enlighten our
understandings we are dark, unless He stir up our wills we are powerless
for good. To confess that though we have forgotten Him, yet He has not
forgotten us. That He is the same gracious and generous Giver and
Saviour. That though we deny Him He cannot deny Himself. That He is the
same yesterday, to-day, and for ever as when He came to visit this earth
in great humility. That the Lord is King, though the earth be moved. He
sitteth upon His throne, be the nations never so unquiet. We are here to
declare to ourselves and all men, and the whole universe, that we at
least believe that the heavens and earth are full of His glory. We are
here to declare that, whether or not the kings of the earth are wise
enough, or the judges of it learned enough, to acknowledge Christ for
their king, we at least will worship the Son lest He be angry, and so we
perish from the right way; for if His wrath be kindled, yea but a little,
then blessed are they, and they only, who put their trust in Him. We are
here to join our songs with angels round the throne, and with those pure
and mighty beings who, in some central sanctuary of the universe, cry for
ever, "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."
We do so in ancient words, ancient music, ancient ceremonies, for a token
that Christ's rule and glory is an ancient rule and an eternal glory;
that it is no new discovery of our own, and depends not on our own
passing notions and feelings about it, but is like Christ, the same now
as in the days of our forefathers, the same as it was fifteen hundred
years ago, the same as it has been since the day that He stooped to be
born of the Virgin Mary, the same that it will be till He shall come in
His glory to judge the quick and the dead. Therefore we delight in the
ancient ceremonial, as like as we can make it, to that of the earlier and
purer ages of the Church, when Christianity was still, as it were, fresh
from the hand of its Creator, ere yet it had been debased and defiled by
the idolatrous innovations of the Church of Rome. For so we confess
ourselves bound by links of gratitude to the Apostles, and the successors
of the Apostles, and to all which has been best, purest, and truest in
the ages since. So we confess that we worship the same God-man of whom
Apostles preached, of whom fathers philosophised, and for whom martyrs
died. That we believe, like them, that He alone is King of kings and
Lord of lords; that there is no progress, civilization, or salvation in
this life or the life to come, but through His undeserved mercy and His
strengthening grace; that He has reigned from the creation of the world,
reigns now, and will reign unto that last dread day, when He shall have
put all enemies under His feet, and delivered up the kingdom to God, even
the Father, that God may be all in all. Unto which day may He in His
mercy bring us all through faith and good works: Amen.
SERMON VI. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
Eversley. Quinquagesima Sunday, 1872.
Genesis ix. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6. "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said
unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. . . .
Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you . . . But flesh
with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And
surely your blood of your lives will I require: at the hand of every
beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every
man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's
blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he
man."
This is God's blessing on mankind. This is our charter from God, who
made and rules this earth. This is the end and duty of our mortal life:-
-to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it. But
is that all? Is there no hint in this blessing of God of something more
than our mortal life--something beyond our mortal life? Surely there is.
Those words--"in the image of God made He man," must mean, if they mean
anything, that man can, if he will but be a true man, share the eternal
life of God. But I will not speak of that to-day, but rather of a
question about his mortal life in this world, which is this:--What is the
reason why man has a right over the lives of animals? why he may use them
for his food? and at the same time, what is the reason why he has not the
same right over the lives of his fellow-men? why he may not use them for
food?
It is this--that "in the image of God made He man." Man is made in the
image and likeness of God, therefore he is a sacred creature; a creature,
not merely an animal, and the highest of all animals, only cunninger than
all animals, more highly organised, more delicately formed than all
animals; but something beyond an animal. He is in the likeness of God,
therefore he is consecrated to God. He is the one creature on earth whom
God, so far as we know, is trying to make like Himself. Therefore,
whosoever kills a man, sins not only against that man, nor against
society: he sins against God. And God will require that man's blood at
the hand of him who slays him. But how? At the hand of every beast will
He require it, and at the hand of every man.
What that first part of the law means I cannot tell. How God will
require from the lion, or the crocodile, or the shark, who eats a human
being, the blood of their victims, is more than I can say. But this I
can say--that the feeling, not only of horror and pity, but of real rage
and indignation, with which men see (what God grant you never may see) a
wild beast kill a man, is a witness in man's conscience that the text is
true somehow, though how we know not. I received a letter a few weeks
since from an officer, a very remarkable person, in which he described
his horror and indignation at seeing a friend of his struck down and
eaten by a tiger, and how, when next day he stood over what had been but
the day before a human being, he looked up to heaven, and kept repeating
the words of the text, "in the image of God made He man," in rage and
shame, and almost accusing God for allowing His image to be eaten by a
brute beast. It shook, for the moment, his faith in God's justice and
goodness. That man was young then, and has grown calmer and wiser now,
and has regained a deeper and sounder faith in God. But the shock, he
said, was dreadful to him. He felt that the matter was not merely
painful and pitiable, but that it was a wrong and a crime; and on the
faith of this very text, a wrong and a crime I believe it to be, and one
which God knows how to avenge and to correct when man cannot. Somehow--
for He has ways of which we poor mortals do not dream--at the hand of
every beast will He require the blood of man.
But more; at the hand of every man will He require it. And how? The
text tells us, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be
shed: for in the image of God made He man." Now, I do not doubt but
that the all-seeing God, looking back on what had most probably happened
on this earth already, and looking forward to what would happen, and
happens, alas! too often now, meant to warn men against the awful crime
of cannibalism, of eating their fellow-men as they would eat an animal.
By so doing, they not only treated their fellow-men as beasts, but they
behaved like beasts themselves. They denied that their victim was made
in the likeness of God; they denied that they were made in the likeness
of God; they willingly and deliberately put on the likeness of beasts,
and as beasts they were to perish. Now, this is certain, that savages
who eat men--and alas! there are thousands even now who do so--usually
know in their hearts that they are doing wrong. As soon as their
consciences are the least awakened, they are ashamed of their
cannibalism; they lie about it, try to conceal it; and as soon as God's
grace begins to work on them, it is the very first sin that they give up.
And next, this is certain, that there is a curse upon it. No cannibal
people, so far as I can find, have ever risen or prospered in the world;
and the cannibal peoples now-a-days, and for the last three hundred
years, have been dying out. By their own vices, diseases, and wars, they
perish off the face of the earth, in the midst of comfort and plenty;
and, in spite of all the efforts of missionaries, even their children and
grand-children, after giving up the horrid crime, and becoming
Christians, seem to have no power of living and increasing, but dwindle
away, and perish off the earth. Yes, God's laws work in strange and
subtle ways; so darkly, so slowly, that the ungodly and sinners often
believe that there are no laws of God, and say--"Tush, how should God
perceive it? Is there knowledge in the Most High?" But the laws work,
nevertheless, whether men are aware of them or not. "The mills of God
grind slowly," but sooner or later they grind the sinner to powder.
And now I will leave this hateful subject and go on to another, on which
I am moved to speak once and for all, because it is much in men's minds
just now--I mean what is vulgarly called "capital punishment," the
punishing of murder by death. Now the text, which is the ancient
covenant of God with man, speaks very clearly on this point. "Whosoever
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." Man is made in
the likeness of God. That is the ground of our law about murder, as it
is the ground of all just and merciful law; that gives man his right to
slay the murderer; that makes it his duty to slay the murderer. He has
to be jealous of God's likeness, and to slay, in the name of God, the man
who, by murder, outrages the likeness of God in himself and in his
victim.
You all know that there is now-a-days a strong feeling among some persons
about capital punishment; that there are those who will move heaven and
earth to interfere with the course of justice, and beg off the worst of
murderers, on any grounds, however unreasonable, fanciful, even unfair;
simply because they have a dislike to human beings being hanged. I
believe, from long consideration, that these persons' strange dislike
proceeds from their not believing sufficiently that man is made in the
image of God. And, alas! it proceeds, I fear, in some of them, from not
believing in a God at all--believing, perhaps, in some mere maker of the
world, but not in the living God which Scripture sets forth. For how
else can they say, as I have known some say, that capital punishment is
wrong, because "we have no right to usher a man into the presence of his
Maker."
Into the presence of his Maker! Why, where else is every man, you and I,
heathen and Christian, bad and good, save in the presence of his Maker
already? Do we not live and move and have our being in God? Whither can
we go from His spirit, or whither can we flee from His presence? If we
ascend into heaven, He is there. If we go down to hell He is there also.
And if the law puts a man to death, it does not usher him into the
presence of his Maker, for he is there already. It simply says to him,
"God has judged you on earth, not we. God will judge you in the next
world, not we. All we know is, that you are not fit to live in this
world. All our duty is to send you out of it. Where you will go in the
other world is God's matter, not ours, and the Lord have mercy on your
soul."
And this want of faith in a living God lies at the bottom of another
objection. We are to keep murderers alive in order to convert and
instruct and amend them. The answer is, We shall be most happy to amend
anybody of any fault, however great: but the experience of ages is that
murderers are past mending; that the fact of a man's murdering another is
a plain proof that he has no moral sense, and has become simply a brute
animal Our duty is to punish not to amend, and to say to the murderer,
"If you can be amended; God will amend you, and so have mercy on your
soul. God must amend you, if you are to be amended. If God cannot amend
you, we cannot. If God will not amend you, certainly we cannot force Him
to do so, if we kept you alive for a thousand years." That would seem
reasonable, as well as reverent and faithful to God. But men now-a-days
fancy that they love their fellow creatures far better than God loves
them, and can deal far more wisely and lovingly with them than God is
willing to deal. Of these objections I take little heed. I look on them
as merely loose cant, which does not quite understand the meaning of its
own words, and I trust to sound, hard, English common sense to put them
aside.
But there is another objection to capital punishment, which we must deal
with much more respectfully and tenderly; for it is made by certain good
people, people whom we must honour, though we differ from them, for no
set of people have done more (according to their numbers) for education,
for active charity, and for benevolence, and for peace and good will
among the nations of the earth. And they say, you must not take the life
of a murderer, just because he is made in God's image. Well, I should
have thought that God Himself was the best judge of that. That, if God
truly said that man was made in His image, and said, moreover, as it were
at the same moment, that, therefore, whoso sheds man's blood, by man
shall his blood be shed--our duty was to trust God, to obey God, and to
do our duty against the murderer, however painful to our feelings it
might be. But I believe these good people make their mistake from
forgetting this; that if the murderer be made in God's image and
likeness, so is the man whom he murders; and so also is the jury who
convict him, the judge who condemns him, and the nation (the society of
men) for whom they act.
And this, my dear friends, brings us to the very root of the meaning of
law. Man has sense to make laws (which animals cannot do), just because
he is made in the likeness of God, and has the sense of right and wrong.
Man has the right to enforce laws, to see right done and wrong punished,
just because he is made in the likeness of God. The laws of a country,
as far as they are just and righteous, are the copy of what the men of
that country have found out about right and wrong, and about how much
right they can get done, and how much wrong punished. So, just as the
men of a country are (in spite of all their sins) made in the likeness of
God, so the laws of a country (in spite of all their defects) are a copy
of God's will, as to what men should or should not do. And that, and no
other, is the true reason why the judge or magistrate has authority over
either property, liberty, or life. He is God's servant, the servant of
Christ, who is King of this land and of all lands, and of all
governments, and all kings and rulers of the earth. He sits there in
God's name, to see God's will done, as far as poor fallible human beings
can get it done. And, because he is, not merely as a man, but, by his
special authority, in the likeness of God, who has power over life and
death, therefore he also, as far as his authority goes, has power over
life and death. That is my opinion, and that was the opinion of St.
Paul. For what does he say--and say not (remember always) of Christian
magistrates in a Christian country, but actually of heathen Roman
magistrates? "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For
there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God:
and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." Thus spoke
out the tenderest-hearted, most Christ-like human being, perhaps, who
ever trod this earth, who, in his intense longing to save sinners,
endured a life of misery and danger, and finished it by martyrdom. But
there was no sentimentality, no soft indulgence in him. He knew right
from wrong; common sense from cant; duty from public opinion; and divine
charity from the mere cowardly dislike of witnessing pain, not so much
because it pains the person punished, as because it pains the spectator.
He knew that Christ was King of kings, and what Christ's kingdom was
like. He had discovered the divine and wonderful order of men and
angels. He saw that one part of that order was--"the soul that sinneth,
it shall die."
But some say that capital punishment is inconsistent with the mild
religion of Christ--the religion of mercy and love. "The mild religion
of Christ!" Do these men know of Whom they talk? Do they know that, if
the Bible be true, the God who said, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man
shall his blood be shed," is the very same Being, the very same God, who
was born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate--the very
same Christ who took little children up in His arms and blessed them, the
very same Word of God, too, of whom it is written, that out of His mouth
goeth a two-edged sword, that He may smite the nations, and He shall rule
them with a rod of iron, and He treadeth the wine press of the fierceness
and wrath of Almighty God? These are awful words, but, my dear friends,
I can only ask you if you think them too awful to be true? Do you
believe the Christian religion? Do you believe the Creeds? Do you
believe the Bible? For if you do, then you believe that the Lord Christ,
who was born of the Virgin Mary, and crucified under Pontius Pilate, is
the Maker, the Master, the Ruler of this world, and of all worlds. By
what laws He rules other worlds we know not, save that they are, because
they must be--just and merciful laws. But of the laws by which He rules
this world we do know, by experience, that His laws are of most terrible
and unbending severity, as I have warned you again and again, and shall
warn you, as long as there is a liar or an idler, a drunkard or an
adulteress in this parish.
And if this be so--if Christ be a God of severity as well as a God of
love, a God who punishes sinners as well as a God who forgives penitents-
-what then? We are, He tells us, made in His likeness. Then, according
to His likeness we must behave. We must copy His love, by helping the
poor and afflicted, the weak and the oppressed. But we must copy His
severity, by punishing whenever we have the power, without cowardice or
indulgence, all wilful offenders; and, above all, the man who destroys
God's image in himself, by murdering and destroying the mortal life of a
man made in the image of God. And more; if we be made in the likeness of
God and of Christ, we must remember, morning and night, and all day long,
that most awful and most blessed fact. We must say to ourselves, again
and again, "I am not a mere animal, and like a mere animal I must not
behave; I dare not behave like a mere animal, for I was made in the
likeness of God; and when I was baptised the Spirit of God took
possession of me to restore me to God's likeness, and to call out and
perfect God's likeness in me all my life long. Therefore, I am no mere
animal; and never was intended to be. I am the temple of God; my body
and soul belong to God, and not to my own fancies and passions and lusts,
and whosoever defiles the temple of God, him will God destroy."
Therefore, this is our duty, this is our only hope or safety--to do our
best to keep alive and strong the likeness of God in ourselves; to try to
grow, not more and more mean, and brutal, and carnal, but more and more
noble, and human, and spiritual; to crush down our base passions, our
selfish inclinations, by the help of the Spirit of God, and to think of
and to pray for, whatsoever is like Christ and like God; to pray for a
noble love of what is good and noble, for a noble hate of what is bad;
and whatsoever things are pure and lovely and of good report to think of
these things. And to pray, too, for forgiveness from Christ, and for the
sake of Christ, whenever we have yielded to our low passions, and defiled
the likeness of God in us, and grieved His Spirit, lest at the last day
it be said to us, if not in words yet in acts, which there will be no
mistaking, no escaping,--"I made thee in My likeness in the beginning of
the creation, I redeemed thee into My likeness on the cross, I baptised
thee into My likeness by my Holy Spirit; and what hast thou hast done
with My likeness? Thou hast cast it away, thou hast let it die out in
thee, thou hast lived after the flesh and not after the spirit, and hast
put on the likeness of the carnal man, the likeness of the brute. Thou
hast copied the vanity of the peacock, the silliness of the ape, the
cunning of the fox, the rapacity of the tiger, the sensuality of the
swine; but thou hast not copied God, thy God, who died that thou mightest
live, and be a man. Then, thou hast destroyed God's likeness, for thou
hast destroyed it in thyself. Thou hast slain a man, for thou hast slain
thy own manhood, and art thine own murderer, and thine own blood shall be
required at thy hand. That which thou hast done to God's likeness in
thee, shall be done to that which remains of thee in a second death."
And from that may Christ in His mercy deliver us all. Amen.
SERMON VII. TEMPTATION
Eversley, 1872. Chester Cathedral, 1872.
St Matt. iv. 3. "And when the tempter came to Him, he said, If Thou be
the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread."
Let me say a few words to-day about a solemn subject, namely, Temptation.
I do not mean the temptations of the flesh--the temptations which all men
have to yield to the low animal nature in them, and behave like brutes.
I mean those deeper and more terrible temptations, which our Lord
conquered in that great struggle with evil which is commonly called His
temptation in the wilderness. These were temptations of an evil spirit--
the temptations which entice some men, at least, to behave like devils.
Now these temptations specially beset religious men--men who are, or
fancy themselves, superior to their fellow-men, more favoured by God, and
with nobler powers, and grander work to do, than the common average of
mankind. But specially, I say, they beset those who are, or fancy
themselves, the children of God. And, therefore, I humbly suppose our
Lord had to endure and to conquer these very temptations because He was
not merely a child of God, but the Son of God--the perfect Man, made in
the perfect likeness of His Father. He had to endure these temptations,
and to conquer them, that He might be able to succour us when we are
tempted, seeing that He was tempted in like manner as we are, yet without
sin.
Now it has been said, and, I think, well said, that what proves our
Lord's three temptations to have been very subtle and dangerous and
terrible, is this--that we cannot see at first sight that they were
temptations at all. The first two do not look to us to be wrong. If our
Lord could make stones into bread to satisfy His hunger, why should He
not do so? If He could prove to the Jews that He was the Son of God,
their divine King and Saviour, by casting Himself down from the pinnacle
of the temple, and being miraculously supported in the air by angels--if
He could do that, why should He not do it? And lastly, the third
temptation looks at first sight so preposterous that it seems silly of
the evil spirit to have hinted at it. To ask any man of piety, much less
the Son of God Himself, to fall down and worship the devil, seems
perfectly absurd--a request not to be listened to for a moment, but put
aside with contempt.
Well, my friends, and the very danger of these spiritual temptations is--
that they do not look like temptations. They do not look ugly, absurd,
wrong, they look pleasant, reasonable, right.
The devil, says the apostle, transforms himself at times into an angel of
light. If so, then he is certainly far more dangerous than if he came as
an angel of darkness and horror. If you met some venomous snake, with
loathsome spots upon his scales, his eyes full of rage and cunning, his
head raised to strike at you, hissing and showing his fangs, there would
be no temptation to have to do with him. You would know that you had to
deal with an evil beast, and must either kill him or escape from him at
once. But if, again, you met, as you may meet in the tropics, a lovely
little coral snake, braided with red and white, its mouth so small that
it seems impossible that it can bite, and so gentle that children may
take it up and play with it, then you might be tempted, as many a poor
child has been ere now, to admire it, fondle it, wreathe it round the
neck for a necklace, or round the arm for a bracelet, till the play goes
one step too far, the snake loses its temper, gives one tiny scratch upon
the lip or finger, and that scratch is certain death. That would be a
temptation indeed; one all the more dangerous because there is, I am
told, another sort of coral snake perfectly harmless, which is so exactly
like the deadly one, that no child, and few grown people, can know them
apart.
Even so it is with our worst temptations. They look sometimes so exactly
like what is good and noble and useful and religious, that we mistake the
evil for the good, and play with it till it stings us, and we find out
too late that the wages of sin are death. Thus religious people, just
because they are religious, are apt to be specially tempted to mistake
evil for good, to do something specially wrong, when they think they are
doing something specially right, and so give occasion to the enemies of
the Lord to blaspheme; till, as a hard and experienced man of the world
once said: "Whenever I hear a man talking of his conscience, I know that
he is going to do something particularly foolish; whenever I hear of a
man talking of his duty, I know that he is going to do something
particularly cruel."
Do I say this to frighten you away from being religious? God forbid.
Better to be religious and to fear and love God, though you were tempted
by all the devils out of the pit, than to be irreligious and a mere
animal, and be tempted only by your own carnal nature, as the animals
are. Better to be tempted, like the hermits of old, and even to fall and
rise again, singing, "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy, when I fall I
shall arise;" than to live the life of the flesh, "like a beast with
lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains." It is the price a man
must pay for hungering and thirsting after righteousness, for longing to
be a child of God in spirit and in truth. "The devil," says a wise man
of old, "does not tempt bad men, because he has got them already; he
tempts good men, because he has NOT got them, and wants to get them."
But how shall we know these temptations? God knows, my friends, better
than I; and I trust that He will teach you to know, according to what
each of you needs to know. But as far as my small experience goes, the
root of them all is pride and self-conceit. Whatsoever thoughts or
feelings tempt us to pride and self-conceit are of the devil, not of God.
The devil is specially the spirit of pride; and, therefore, whatever
tempts you to fancy yourself something different from your fellow-men,
superior to your fellow men, safer than them, more favoured by God than
them, that is a temptation of the spirit of pride. Whatever tempts you
to think that you can do without God's help and God's providence;
whatever tempts you to do anything extraordinary, and show yourself off,
that you may make a figure in the world; and above all, whatever tempts
you to antinomianism, that is, to fancy that God will overlook sins in
you which He will not overlook in other men--all these are temptations
from the spirit of pride. They are temptations like our Lord's
temptations. These temptations came on our Lord more terribly than they
ever can on you and me, just because He was the Son of Man, the perfect
Man, and, therefore, had more real reason for being proud (if such a
thing could be) than any man, or than all men put together. But He
conquered the temptations because He was perfect Man, led by the Spirit
of God; and, therefore, He knew that the only way to be a perfect man was
not to be proud, however powerful, wise, and glorious He might be; but to
submit Himself humbly and utterly, as every man should do, to the will of
His Father in Heaven, from whom alone His greatness came.
Now the spirit of pride cannot understand the beauty of humility, and the
spirit of self-will cannot understand the beauty of obedience; and,
therefore, it is reasonable to suppose the devil could not understand our
Lord. If He be the Son of God, so might Satan argue, He has all the more
reason to be proud; and, therefore, it is all the more easy to tempt Him
into shewing His pride, into proving Himself a conceited, self-willed,
rebellious being--in one word, an evil spirit.
And therefore (as you will see at first sight) the first two temptations
were clearly meant to tempt our Lord to pride; for would they not tempt
you and me to pride? If we could feed ourselves by making bread of
stones, would not that make us proud enough? So proud, I fear, that we
should soon fancy that we could do without God and His providence, and
were masters of nature and all her secrets. If you and I could make the
whole city worship and obey us, by casting ourselves off this cathedral
unhurt, would not that make us proud enough? So proud, I fear, that we
should end in committing some great folly, or great crime in our conceit
and vainglory.
Now, whether our Lord could or could not have done these wonderful deeds,
one thing is plain--that He would not do them; and, therefore, we may
presume that He ought not to have done them. It seems as if He did not
wish to be a wonderful man: but only a perfectly good man, and He would
do nothing to help Himself but what any other man could do. He answered
the evil spirit simply out of Scripture, as any other pious man might
have done. When He was bidden to make the stones into bread, He answers
not as the Eternal Son of God, but simply as a man. "It is written:"--it
is the belief of Moses and the old prophets of my people that man doth
not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God:--as much as to say, If I am to be delivered out of this
need, God will deliver me by some means or other, just as He delivers
other men out of their needs. When He was bidden cast Himself from the
temple, and so save Himself, probably from sorrow, poverty, persecution,
and the death on the cross, He answers out of Scripture as any other Jew
would have done. "It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy
God." He says nothing--this is most important--of His being the eternal
Son of God. He keeps that in the background. There the fact was; but He
veiled the glory of His godhead, that He might assert the rights of His
manhood, and shew that mere man, by the help of the Spirit of God, could
obey God, and keep His commandments.
I say these last words with all diffidence and humility, and trusting
that the Lord will pardon any mistake which I may make about His Divine
Words. I only say them because wiser men than I have often taken the
same view already. Of course there is more, far more, in this wonderful
saying than we can understand, or ever will understand. But this I think
is plain--that our Lord determined to behave as any and every other man
ought to have done in His place; in order to shew all God's children the
example of perfect humility and perfect obedience to God.
But again, the devil asked our Lord to fall down and worship him. Now
how could that be a temptation to pride? Surely that was asking our Lord
to do anything but a proud action, rather the most humiliating and most
base of all actions. My friends, it seems to me that if our Lord had
fallen down and worshipped the evil spirit, He would have given way to
the spirit of pride utterly and boundlessly; and I will tell you why.
The devil wanted our Lord to do evil that good might come. It would have
been a blessing, that all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of man
should be our Lord's,--the very blessing for this poor earth which He
came to buy, and which He bought with His own precious blood. And here
the devil offered Him the very prize for which He came down on earth,
without struggle or difficulty, if He would but do, for one moment, one
wrong thing. What temptation that would be to our Lord as God, I dare
not say. But that to our Lord as Man, it must have been the most
terrible of all temptations, I can well believe: because history shews
us, and, alas! our own experience in modern times shews us, persons
yielding to that temptation perpetually; pious people, benevolent people,
people who long to spread the Bible, to convert sinners, to found
charities, to amend laws, to set the world right in some way or other,
and who fancy that therefore, in carrying out their fine projects, they
have a right to do evil that good may come.
This is a very painful subject; all the more painful just now, because I
sometimes think it is the special sin of this country and this
generation, and that God will bring on us some heavy punishment for it.
But all who know the world in its various phases, and especially what are
called the religious world, and the philanthropic world, and the
political world, know too well that men, not otherwise bad men, will do
things and say things, to carry out some favourite project or movement,
or to support some party, religious or other, which they would (I hope)
be ashamed to say and do for their own private gain. Now what is this,
but worshipping the evil spirit, in order to get power over this world,
that they may (as they fancy) amend it? And what is this but self-
conceit--ruinous, I had almost said, blasphemous? These people think
themselves so certainly in the right, and their plans so absolutely
necessary to the good of the world, that God has given them a special
licence to do what they like in carrying them out; that He will excuse in
them falsehoods and meannesses, even tyranny and violences which He will
excuse in no one else.
Now, is not this self-conceit? What would you think of a servant who
disobeyed you, cheated you, and yet said to himself--No matter, my master
dare not turn me off: I am so useful that he cannot do without me. Even
so in all ages, and now as much as, or more than ever, have men said, We
are so necessary to God and God's cause, that He cannot do without us;
and therefore though He hates sin in everyone else, He will excuse sin in
us, as long as we are about His business.
Therefore, my dear friends, whenever we are tempted to do or say anything
rash, or vain, or mean, because we are the children of God; whenever we
are inclined to be puffed up with spiritual pride, and to fancy that we
may take liberties which other men must not take, because we are the
children of God; let us remember the words of the text, and answer the
tempter, when he says, If thou be the Son of God, do this and that, as
our Lord answered him--"If I be the Child of God, what then? This--that
I must behave as if God were my Father. I must trust my God utterly, and
I must obey Him utterly. I must do no rash or vain thing to tempt God,
even though it looks as if I should have a great success, and do much
good thereby. I must do no mean or base thing, nor give way for a moment
to the wicked ways of this wicked world, even though again it looks as if
I should have a great success, and do much good thereby. In one word, I
must worship my Father in heaven, and Him only must I serve. If He wants
me, He will use me. If He does not want me, He will use some one else.
Who am I, that God cannot govern the world without my help? My business
is to refrain my soul, and keep it low, even as a weaned child, and not
to meddle with matters too high for me. My business is to do the little,
simple, everyday duties which lie nearest me, and be faithful in a few
things; and then, if Christ will, He may make me some day ruler over many
things, and I shall enter into the joy of my Lord, which is the joy of
doing good to my fellow men. But I shall never enter into that by
thrusting myself into Christ's way, with grand schemes and hasty
projects, as if I knew better than He how to make His kingdom come. If I
do, my pride will have a fall. Because I would not be faithful over a
few things, I shall be tempted to be unfaithful over many things; and
instead of entering into the joy of my Lord, I shall be in danger of the
awful judgment pronounced on those who do evil that good may come, who
shall say in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?
and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful
works? And then will He protest unto them--I never knew you. Depart
from me, ye that work iniquity."
Oh, my friends, in all your projects for good, as in all other matters
which come before you in your mortal life, keep innocence and take heed
to the thing that is right. For that, and that alone, shall bring a man
peace at the last.
To which, may God in His mercy bring us all. Amen.
SERMON VIII. MOTHER'S LOVE
Eversley, Second Sunday in Lent, 1872.
St Matthew xv. 22-28. "And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the
same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou
son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he
answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him,
saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and
said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then
came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and
said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to
dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which
fall from their master's table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O
woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her
daughter was made whole from that very hour."
If you want a proof from Scripture that there are two sides to our
blessed Lord's character--that He is a Judge and an Avenger as well as a
Saviour and a Pardoner--that He is infinitely severe as well as
infinitely merciful--that, while we may come boldly to His throne of
grace to find help and mercy in time of need, we must, at the same time,
tremble before His throne of justice--if you want a proof of all this, I
say, then look at the Epistle and the Gospel for this day. Put them side
by side, and compare them, and you will see how perfectly they shew, one
after the other, the two sides.
The Epistle for the day tells men and women that they must lead moral,
pure, and modest lives. It does not advise them to do so. It does not
say, It will be better to do so, more proper and conducive to the good of
society, more likely to bring you to heaven at last. It says, You must,
for it is the commandment of the Lord Jesus, and the will of God. Let no
man encroach on or defraud his brother in the matter, says St Paul; by
which he means, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife. And why?
"Because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have
forewarned you and testified."
My friends, people talk loosely of the Thunder of Sinai and the rigour of
Moses' law, and set them against what they call the gentle voice of the
Gospel, and the mild religion of Christ. Why, here are the Thunders of
Sinai uttered as loud as ever, from the very foot of the Cross of Christ;
and the terrible, "Thou shalt not," of Moses' law, with the curse of God
for a penalty on the sinner, uttered by the Apostle of Faith, and
Freedom, in the name of Christ and of God. St Paul is not afraid to call
Christ an Avenger. How could he be? He believed that it was Christ who
spoke to Moses on Sinai--the very same Christ who prayed for His
murderers, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." And
he knew that Christ was the eternal Son of God, the same yesterday, to-
day, and for ever; that He had not changed since Moses' time, and could
never change; that what He forbade in Moses' time, hated in Moses' time,
and avenged in Moses' time, He would forbid, and hate, and avenge for
ever. And that, therefore, he who despises the warnings of the Law
despises not man merely, but God, who has also given to us His Holy
Spirit to know what is unchangeable, the everlastingly right, from what
is everlastingly wrong. So much for that side of our Lord's character;
so much for sinners who, after their hardness and impenitent hearts,
treasure up for themselves wrath against the day of wrath and revelation
of the righteous judgment of God, in the day when God shall judge the
secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to St Paul's Gospel.
But, when we turn to the Gospel for the day, we see the other side of our
Lord's character, boundless condescension and boundless charity. We see
Him there still a Judge, as He always is and always will be, judging the
secrets of a poor woman's heart, and that woman a heathen. He judges her
openly, in public, before His disciples. But He is a Judge who judges
righteous judgment, and not according to appearances; who is no respecter
of persons; who is perfectly fair, even though the woman be a heathen:
and, instead of condemning her and driving her away, He acquits her, He
grants her prayer, He heals her daughter, even though that daughter was
also a heathen, and one who knew Him not. I say our Lord judged the
woman after He had tried her, as gold is tried in the fire. Why He did
so, we cannot tell. Perhaps He wanted, by the trial, to make her a
better woman, to bring out something noble which lay in her heart unknown
to her, though not to Him who knew what was in man. Perhaps He wished to
shew his disciples, who looked down on her as a heathen dog, that a
heathen, too, could have faith, humility, nobleness, and grace of heart.
Be that as it may, when the poor woman came crying to Him, He answered
her not a word. His disciples besought Him to send her away--and I am
inclined to think that they wished Him to grant her what she asked,
simply to be rid of her. "Send her away," they said, "for she crieth
after us." Our Lord, we learn from St Mark, did not wish to be known in
that place just then. The poor woman, with her crying, was drawing
attention to them, and, perhaps, gathering a crowd. Somewhat noisy and
troublesome, perhaps she was, in her motherly eagerness. But our Lord
was still seemingly stern. He would not listen, it seemed, to His
disciples any more than to the heathen woman. "I am not sent but unto
the lost sheep of the house of Israel." So our Lord said, and (what is
worth remembering) if He said so, what He said was true. He was the King
of the people of Israel, the Royal Prince of David's line; and, as a man,
His duty was only to His own people. And this woman was a Greek, a Syro-
phenician by nation--of a mixed race of people, notoriously low and
profligate, and old enemies of the Jews.
Then, it seems, He went into a house, and would have no man know it.
But, says St Mark, "He could not be hid." The mother's wit found our
Lord out, and the mother's heart urged her on, and, in spite of all His
rebuffs, she seems to have got into the house and worshipped Him. She
"fell at His feet," says St Mark--doubtless bowing her forehead to the
ground, in the fashion of those lands--an honour which was paid, I
believe, only to persons who were royal or divine. So she confessed that
He was a king--perhaps a God come down on earth--and again she cried to
Him. "Lord, help me." And what was our Lord's answer--seemingly more
stern than ever? "Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet
to take the children's bread and cast it unto the dogs." Hard words.
Yes: but all depends on how they were spoken. All depends on our Lord's
look as He spoke them, and, even more, on the tone of His voice. We all
know that two men may use the very same words to us;--and the one shall
speak sneeringly, brutally, and raise in us indignation or despair;
another shall use the same words, but solemnly, tenderly, and raise in us
confidence and hope. And so it may have been--so, I fancy, it must have
been--with the tone of our Lord's voice, with the expression of His face.
Did He speak with a frown, or with something like a smile? There must
have been some tenderness, meaningness, pity in His voice which the quick
woman's wit caught instantly, and the quick mother's heart interpreted as
a sign of hope.
Let Him call her a dog if He would. What matter to a mother to be called
a dog, if she could thereby save her child from a devil? Perhaps she was
little better than a dog. They were a bad people these Syrians, quick-
witted, highly civilised, but vicious, and teaching vice to other
nations, till some of the wisest Romans cursed the day when the Syrians
first spread into Rome, and debauched the sturdy Romans with their new-
fangled, foreign sins. They were a bad people, and, perhaps, she had
been as bad as the rest. But if she were a dog, at least she felt that
the dog had found its Master, and must fawn on Him, if it were but for
the hope of getting something from Him.
And so, in the poor heathen mother's heart, there rose up a whole heaven
of perfect humility, faith, adoration. If she were base and mean, yet
our Lord was great, and wise, and good; and that was all the more reason
why He should be magnanimous, generous, condescending, like a true King,
to the basest and meanest of His subjects. She asked not for money, or
honour, or this world's fine things: but simply for her child's health,
her child's deliverance from some mysterious and degrading illness.
Surely there was no harm in asking for that. It was simply a mother's
prayer, a simply human prayer, which our Lord must grant, if He were
indeed a man of woman born, if He had a mother, and could feel for a
mother, if He had human tenderness, human pity in Him. And so, with her
quick Syrian wit, she answers our Lord with those wonderful words--
perhaps the most pathetic words in the whole Bible--so full of humility,
of reverence, and yet with a certain archness, almost playfulness, in
them, as it were, turning our Lord's words against Him; and, by that very
thing, shewing how utterly she trusted Him,--"Truth, Lord: yet the dogs
eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."
Those were the beautiful words--more beautiful to me than whole volumes
of poetry--which our Lord had as it were crushed out of the woman's
heart. Doubtless, He knew all the while that they were in her heart,
though not as yet shaped into words. Doubtless, He was trying her, to
shew His disciples--and all Christians who should ever read the Bible--
what was in her heart, what she was capable of saying when it came to the
point. So He tried her, and judged her, and acquitted her. Out of the
abundance of her heart her mouth had spoken. By her words she was
justified. By those few words she proved her utter faith in our Lord's
power and goodness--perhaps her faith in His godhead. By those words she
proved the gentleness and humility, the graciousness and gracefulness of
her own character. By those words she proved, too,--and oh, you that are
mothers, is that nothing?--the perfect disinterestedness of her mother's
love. And so she conquered--as the blessed Lord loves to be conquered--
as all noble souls who are like their blessed Lord, love to be conquered-
-by the prayer of faith, of humility, of confidence, of earnestness, and
she had her reward. "O woman," said He, the Maker of all heaven and
earth, "great is thy faith. For this saying go thy way. Be it unto thee
even as thou wilt. The devil is gone out of thy daughter." She went,
full of faith; and when she was come to her house, she found the devil
gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed.
One word more, and I have done. I do not think that any one who really
took in the full meaning of this beautiful story, would ever care to pray
to Saints, or to the Blessed Virgin, for help; fancying that they, and
specially the Blessed Virgin, being a woman, are more humane than our
Lord, and can feel more quickly, if not more keenly, for poor creatures
in distress. We are not here to judge these people, or any people. To
their own master they stand or fall. But for the honour of our Lord, we
may say, Does not this story shew that the Lord is humane enough, tender
enough, to satisfy all mankind? Does not this story shew that even if He
seem silent at first, and does not grant our prayers, yet still He may be
keeping us waiting, as He kept this heathen woman, only that He may be
gracious to us at last? Does not this story shew us especially that our
Lord can feel for mothers and with mothers; that He actually allowed
Himself to be won over--if I may use such a word in all reverence--by the
wit and grace of a mother pleading for her child? Was it not so? "O
woman, great is thy faith. For this saying go thy way. Be it unto thee
even as thou wilt." Ah! are not those gracious words a comfort to every
mother, bidding her, in the Lord's own name, to come boldly where
mothers--of all human beings--have oftenest need to come, to the throne
of Christ's grace, to find mercy, and grace to help in time of need?
Yes, my friends, such is our Lord, and such is our God. Infinite in
severity to the scornful, the proud, the disobedient: infinite in
tenderness to the earnest, the humble, the obedient. Let us come to Him,
earnest, humble, obedient, and we shall find Him, indeed, a refuge of the
soul and body in spirit and in truth.
Thou, O Lord, art all I want.
All and more in thee I find. Amen.
SERMON IX. GOOD FRIDAY
Eversley, 1856.
St. Luke xxiv. 5, 6. "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not
here, but is risen."
This is a very solemn day; for on this day the Lord Jesus Christ was
crucified. The question for us is, how ought we to keep it? that is,
what sort of thoughts ought to be in our minds upon this day? Now, many
most excellent and pious persons, and most pious books, seem to think
that we ought to-day to think as much as possible of the sufferings of
our Blessed Lord; and because we cannot, of course, understand or imagine
the sufferings of His Spirit, to think of what we can, that is, His
bodily sufferings. They, therefore, seem to wish to fill our minds with
the most painful pictures of agony, and shame, and death, and sorrow; and
not only with our Lord's sorrows, but with those of His Blessed Mother,
and of the disciples, and the holy women who stood by His cross; they
wish to stir us up to pity and horror, and to bring before us the saddest
parts of Holy Scripture, such as the Lamentations of Jeremiah; as well as
dwell at great length upon very painful details, which may be all quite
true, but of which Scripture says nothing; as so to make this day a day
of darkness, and sorrow, and horror, just such as it would have been to
us if we had stood by Christ's cross, like these holy women, without
expecting Him to rise again, and believing that all was over--that all
hope of Israel's being redeemed was gone, and that the wicked Jews had
really conquered that perfectly good, and admirable Saviour, and put Him
out of the world for ever.
Now, I judge no man; to his own master he standeth or falleth; yea, and
he shall stand, for God is able to make him stand. But it does seem to
me that these good people are seeking the living among the dead, and
forgetting that Christ is neither on the cross nor in the tomb, but that
He is risen; and it seems to me better to bid you follow to-day the Bible
and the Church Service, and to think of what they tell you to think of.
Now the Bible, it is most remarkable, never enlarges anywhere upon even
the bodily sufferings of our dear and blessed Lord. The evangelists keep
a silence on that point which is most lofty, dignified, and delicate.
What sad and dreadful things might not St. John, the beloved apostle as
he was, have said, if he had chosen, about what he saw and what he felt,
as he stood by that cross on Calvary--words which would have stirred to
pity the most cruel, and drawn tears from a heart of stone? And yet all
he says is, "They crucified Him, and two other with him, on either side
one, and Jesus in the midst." He passes it over, as it were, as a thing
which he ought not to dwell on; and why should we put words into St.
John's mouth which he did not think fit to put into his own? He wrote by
the Spirit of God; and therefore he knew best what to say, and what not
to say. Why should we try and say anything more for him? Scripture is
perfect. Let us be content with it. The apostles, too, in their
Epistles, never dwell on Christ's sufferings. I entreat you to remark
this. They never mention His death except in words of cheerfulness and
triumph. They seem so full of the glorious fruits of His death, that
they have, as it were, no time to speak of the death itself. "Who, for
the joy which was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame,
and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." That is the
apostles' key-note. For God's sake let it be ours too, unless we fancy
that we can improve on Scripture, or that we can feel more for our Lord
than St. Paul did. In the Lessons, the Psalms, the Epistle, and Gospel
for this day, you find just the same spirit. All except one Psalm are
songs of hope, joy, deliverance, triumph. The Collects for this day,
which are particularly remarkable, being three in number, and evidently
meant to teach us the key-note of Good Friday, make no mention of our
Lord's sufferings, save to say that He was CONTENTED, "contented to be
betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death
upon the cross," but are full of prayers that the glorious fruits of His
death may be fulfilled, not only in us and all Christians, but in the
very heathen who have not known Him; drawing us away, as it were, from
looking too closely upon the cross itself, lest we should forget what the
cross meant, what the cross conquered, what the cross gained, for us and
mankind.
Surely, this was not done without a reason. And I cannot but think the
reason was to keep us from seeking the living among the dead; to keep us
from knowing Christ any longer after the flesh, and spending tears and
emotions over His bodily sufferings; to keep us from thinking and
sorrowing too much over the dead Christ, lest we should forget, as some
do, that He is alive for evermore; and while they weep over the dead
Christ or the crucifix, go to the blessed Virgin and the saints to do for
them all that the living Christ is longing to do for them, if they would
but go straight to Him to whom all power is given in heaven and earth;
whom St John saw, no longer hanging on the accursed tree, but with His
hair as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire, and His voice
like the sound of many waters, and His countenance as the sun when he
shineth in his strength, saying unto him, "Fear not, I am the first and
the last; I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for
evermore." This is what Christ is now. In this shape He is looking at
us now. In this shape He is hearing me speak. In this shape He is
watching every feeling of your hearts, discerning your most secret
intents, seeing through and through the thoughts which you would confess
to no human being, hardly even to yourselves. This is He, a living
Christ, an almighty Christ, an all-seeing Christ, and yet a most patient
and loving Christ. He needs not our pity; but our gratitude, our
obedience, our worship. Why seek Him among the dead? He is not there,
He is risen! He is not there, He is here! Bow yourselves before Him
now; for He is in the midst of you; and those eyes of His, more piercing
than the mid-day sunbeams, are upon you, and your hearts, and your
thoughts, and upon mine also. God have mercy upon me a sinner.
Yes, my friends, why seek the living among the dead? He is not there,
but here. We may try to put ourselves in the place of the disciples and
the Virgin Mary, as they stood by Jesus' cross; but we cannot do it, for
they saw Him on the cross, and thought that He was lost to them for ever;
they saw Him die, and gave up all hope of His rising again. And we know
that Christ is not lost to us for ever. We know Christ is not on the
cross, but at the right hand of God in bliss and glory unspeakable. We
may be told to watch with the three Maries at the tomb of Christ: but we
cannot do as they did, for they thought that all was over, and brought
sweet spices to embalm His body, which they thought was in the tomb; and
we know that all was not over, that His body is not in the tomb, that the
grave could not hold Him, that His body is ascended into heaven; that
instead of His body needing spices to embalm it, it is His body which
embalms all heaven and earth, and is the very life of the world, and food
which preserves our souls and bodies to everlasting life. We are not in
the place of those blessed women; God has not put us in their place, and
we cannot put ourselves into their place; and if we could and did, by any
imaginations of our own, we should only tell ourselves a lie. Good
Friday was to them indeed a day of darkness, horror, disappointment, all
but despair; because Easter Day had not yet come, and Christ had not yet
risen. But Good Friday cannot be a day of darkness to us, because Christ
has risen, and we know it, and cannot forget it; we cannot forget that
Easter dawn, when the Sun of Righteousness arose, never to set again.
Has not the light of that Resurrection morning filled with glory the
cross and the grave, yea the very agony in the Garden, and hell itself,
which Christ harrowed for us? Has it not risen a light to lighten the
Gentiles, a joy to angels and archangels, and saints, and all the elect
of God; ay, to the whole universe of God, so that the very stars in their
courses, the trees as they bud each spring, yea, the very birds upon the
bough, are singing for ever, in the ears of those who have ears to hear,
"Christ is risen?" And shall we, under pretence of honouring Christ and
of bestowing on Him a pity which He needs least of all, try to spend Good
Friday and Passion Week in forgetting Easter Day; try to think of
Christ's death as we should if He had not risen, and try to make out
ourselves and the world infinitely worse off than we really know that we
are? Christ has died, but He has risen again; and we must not think of
one without the other. Heavenly things are too important, too true, too
real--Christ is too near us, and too loving to us, too earnest about our
salvation, for us to spend our thoughts on any such attempts (however
reverently meant) at imaginative play-acting in our own minds about His
hanging on His cross, while we know that He is not on His cross; and
about watching by His tomb, when we know that He is not in His tomb. Let
us thank Him, bless Him, serve Him, die for Him, if need be, in return
for all He endured for us: but let us keep our sorrow and our pity, and
our tears, for our own daily sins--we have enough of them to employ all
our sorrow, and more;--and not in voluntary humility and will-worship,
against which St Paul warns us, lose sight of our real Christ, of Him who
was dead and is alive for evermore, and dwells in us by faith; now and
for ever, amen; and hath the keys of death and hell, and has opened them
for us, and for our fathers before us, and for our children after us, and
for nations yet unborn.
True, this is a solemn day, for on it the Son of God fought such a fight,
that He could only win it at the price of His own life's blood; and a
humiliating day, for our sins helped to nail Him on the cross--and
therefore a day of humiliation and of humility. Proud, self-willed
thoughts are surely out of place to-day (and what day are they in place?)
On this day God agonised for man: but it is a day of triumph and
deliverance; and we must go home as men who have stood by and seen a
fearful fight--a fight which makes the blood of him who watches it run
cold; but we have seen, too, a glorious victory--such a victory as never
was won on earth before or since; and we therefore must think cheerfully
of the battle, for the sake of the victory that was won; and remember
that on this day death was indeed swallowed up in victory--because death
was the victory itself.
The question on which the fate of the whole world depended was, whether
Christ dare die; and He dared die. Whether Christ would endure to the
end; and He did endure. Whether He would utterly drink the cup which His
Father had given Him; and He drank it to the dregs; and so by His very
agony He showed Himself noble, beautiful, glorious, adorable, beyond all
that words can express. And so the cross was His throne of glory; the
prints of the nails in His hands and feet were the very tokens of His
triumph; His very sorrows were His bliss; and those last words, "It is
finished," were no cry of despair, but a trumpet-call of triumph, which
rang from the highest heaven to the lowest hell, proclaiming to all
created things, that the very fountain of life, by dying, had conquered
death, that good had conquered evil, love had conquered selfishness, God
had conquered man, and all the enemies of man; and that He who died was
the first begotten from the dead, and the King of all the princes of the
earth, who was going to fulfil, more and more, as the years and the ages
rolled on, the glorious prayer which we have prayed this day, graciously
to behold that family for whom He had been contented to die; and wisely
and orderly to call each man to a vocation and a ministry, in which he
might duly serve God and be a blessing to all around him, by the
inspiration of Christ's Holy Spirit; and to have mercy, in His own good
time, upon all Jews, Turks, heathens, and infidels, and bring them home
to His flock, that they may be saved, and made one fold under one
Shepherd--Him who was dead and is alive for evermore.
Therefore, my dear friends, if we wish to keep Good Friday in spirit and
in truth, we cannot do so better than by trying to carry out the very end
for which Christ died on this day; and doing our part, small though it
be, toward bringing those poor heathens home into Christ's fold, and
teaching them the gospel and good news that for them, too, Christ died,
and over them, too, Christ reigns alive for evermore; and bringing them
home into His flock, that they, too, may find a place in His great
family, and have their calling and ministry appointed to them among the
nations of those who are saved and walk in the light of God and of the
Lamb.
I have refrained till now from speaking to you much about missionaries,
and the duty which lies on us all of helping missions. It seemed to me
that I must first teach you to understand these first and second collects
before I went on. to the third; that I must first teach you that you
belonged to Christ's family, and that He had called each of you, and
appointed each of you to some order and degree in His Holy Church. But
now, if indeed you have learnt that--if my preaching here for fourteen
years has had any effect to teach you who and what you are, and what your
duty is, let me entreat you to go on, and take the lesson of that third
collect, and think of those poor Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics, who
still--many a million of them--sit, or rather wander, and fall, and lie,
miserably wallowing in darkness and the shadow of death, and think
whether you cannot do something toward helping them. What you can do,
and how it is to be done, I will tell you hereafter; and, by God's grace,
I hope to see men of God in this pulpit, who having been missionaries
themselves, can tell you better than I, what remains to be done, and how
you can help to do it. But take home this one thought with you, this
Good Friday,--Christ, who liveth and was dead, and behold He is alive for
evermore, if He be indeed precious to you, if you indeed feel for His
sufferings, if you indeed believe that what He bought by those sufferings
was a right to all the souls on earth, then do what you can toward
repaying Him for His sufferings, by seeing of the travail of His soul,
and being satisfied. All the reward He asks, or ever asked, is the
hearts of sinners, that He may convert them; the souls of sinners, that
He may save them; and they belong to Him already, for He bought them this
day with His own most precious blood. Do something, then, toward helping
Christ to His own.
SERMON X. THE IMAGE OF THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY
Eversley, Easter Day, 1871.
1 Cor. xv. 49. "As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also
bear the image of the heavenly."
This season of Easter is the most joyful of all the year. It is the most
comfortable time, in the true old sense of that word; for it is the
season which ought to comfort us most--that is, it gives us strength;
strength to live like men, and strength to die like men, when our time
comes. Strength to live like men. Strength to fight against the
temptation which Solomon felt when he said: "I have seen all the works
which are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity and vexation of
spirit. For what has a man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his
heart, wherein he has laboured under the sun? For all his days are
sorrow, and his travail grief. Yea, his heart taketh not rest in the
night. This also is vanity. For that which befalleth the sons of men
befalleth beasts: as the one dieth, so dieth the other: yea, they have
all one breath: so that a man has no pre-eminence over a beast; for all
is vanity. All go to one place: all are of the dust, and all turn to
dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that it goeth upward, and the
spirit of the beast that it goeth downward to the earth?" So thought
Solomon in his temptation, and made up his mind that there was nothing
better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and make his soul
enjoy good in his labour.
So thought Solomon, in spite of all his wisdom, because he had not heard
the good news of Easter day. And so think many now, who are called wise
men and philosophers; because they, alas! for them, will not believe the
good news of Easter day.
But what says Easter day? Easter day says, Man has pre-eminence over a
beast. The man is redeemed from the death of the beasts by Christ, who
rose on Easter day. Easter day says, Wherever the spirit of the beast
goes, wherever the spirit of the brutal and the wicked man goes, the
spirit of the true Christian goes upward, to Christ, who bought it with
His precious blood. Easter day says, The body may turn to the dust from
which it was taken, but the spirit lives for ever before God, who shall
give it another body, as it shall please Him, as He gives to every seed
its own body. And, therefore, Easter day says, There is something better
for a man than to eat and drink and enjoy himself, for to-morrow he may
die, and all be over; and that something is, to labour not merely for the
meat which perishes with the perishing body, but to labour after the
fruits of the spirit--love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. These the life of the body does
not give us; and these the death of the body not take away from us; for
they are spiritual and heavenly, eternal and divine; and he who has them
cannot die for ever. And therefore, we may comfort ourselves in all our
labour, if only we labour at the one useful work on earth, to be good,
and to do good, and to make others good likewise.
True it is, as St. Paul says, that if in this life only we have hope in
Christ we are of all men most miserable. For we do not care to be of the
earth, earthy: we long to be of the heaven, heavenly. We do not care to
spend our time in eating and drinking, mean covetousness, ambition, and
the base pleasures of the flesh: we long after high and noble things,
which we cannot get on earth, or at best only in fragments, and at rare
moments; after the holiness and the blessedness of ourselves and our
fellow-creatures. But we have hope in Christ for the next life as well
as for this. Hope that in the next life He will give us power to
succeed, where we failed here; that He will enable us to be good and to
do good, and, if not to make others good (for there, we trust, all will
be good together), to enjoy the fulness of that pleasure for which we
have been longing on earth--the pleasure of seeing others good, as Christ
is good and perfect, as their Father in heaven is perfect.
To be good ourselves, and to live for ever in good company--ah my
friends, that is true bliss. If we cannot reach that after death, it
were better for us that death should make an end of us, and that when our
body decays in the grave we should be annihilated, and become nothing for
ever.
But Easter day says to us, If you labour to create good company in this
life, by trying to make other people round you good, you shall enjoy for
ever in the next world the good company which you have helped to make.
If you labour to make yourself good in this life, you shall enjoy the
fruit of your labour in the next life by being good, and, therefore,
blessed for ever. Easter day says, Your labour is not vanity and
vexation of spirit. It is solid work, which shall receive solid pay from
God hereafter. Easter day is a pledge--I may say a sacrament--from God
to us, that He will righteously reward all righteous work; and that,
therefore, it is worth any man's while to labour, to suffer, if need be
even to die, in trying to be good, noble, useful, self-sacrificing, as
Christ toiled and suffered and died and sacrificed Himself to do good.
For then he will share Christ's reward, as he has shared Christ's labour,
and be rewarded, as Christ was, by resurrection to eternal life.
And so Easter day should give us strength to live like men--the only
truly manly, truly human life; the life of being good and doing good.
And strength to die. Men are afraid of dying, principally, I believe,
because they fear the unknown. It is not that they are afraid of the
pain of dying. It is not that they are afraid of going to hell; for in
all my experience, at least, I have met with but one person who thought
that he was going to hell. Neither is it that they are afraid of not
going to heaven. Their expectation almost always is, that they are going
thither. But they do not care much to go to heaven. They are willing
enough to go there, because they know that they must go somewhere. But
their notions of what heaven will be like are by no means clear. They
have sung rapturous hymns in church or chapel about the heavenly
Jerusalem, and passing Jordan safe to Canaan's shore, with no very clear
notion of what the words meant--and small blame to them.
But when they think of actually dying, they feel as if to go into the
next world was to be turned out into the dark night, into an unknown
land, away from house and home, and all they have known, and all they
have loved; and they are ready to say with the good old heathen emperor,
when he lay a-dying--
"Little soul of mine, wandering, kindly,
Companion and guest of my body;
Into what place art thou now departing,
Shivering, naked, and pale?"
And so they shrink from death. They must shrink from death, unless they
will believe with their whole hearts the good news of Easter day. The
more thoughtful and clever they are, the more they will shrink from
death, and dread the thought of losing their bodies. They have always
had bodies here on earth. They only know themselves as souls embodied,
living in bodies; and they cannot think of themselves in the next world
with any comfort, if they may not think of themselves as having bodies.
And the more loving and affectionate they are, the more they will shrink
from death, unless they believe with their whole hearts the good news of
Easter day. For those whom they have loved on earth have bodies.
Through their bodies--through their voices, their looks, their actions,
they have known them, and thus they have loved them; and if their beloved
ones are to have no bodies in the world to come, how shall they see them?
how shall they know them? how shall they converse with them? It seems to
them in that case neither they, nor those they love, would be the same
persons in the world to come they are here; and that thought is lonely
and dreadful, till they accept the good news of Easter day, the thrice
blessed words of St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, which they
hear at the burial of those whom they love and lose. Oh, blessed news
for us, and for those we love; those without whose company the world to
come would be lonely and cheerless to us. For now we can say, Tell me
not that as the beast dies, so dies the man. Tell me not that as Adam
died because of sin, so must I die, and all I love. Tell me not that it
is the universal law of nature that all things born in time must die in
time; and that every human being, animal, and plant carries in itself
from its beginning to its end a law of death, the seed of its own
destruction. I know all that; but I care little for it, because I know
more than that. I know that the man's body dies as the beast's body
dies; but I know that the body is not the man, but only the husk, the
shell of the man; that the true man, the true woman, lives on after the
loss of his mortal body; and that there is an eternal law of life, which
conquers the law of death; and by that law a fresh body will grow up
round the true man, the immortal spirit, and will be as fit--ay, far
fitter--to do his work, than this poor mortal body which has turned to
death on earth. Tell me not that because I am descended from a mortal
and sinful old Adam, of whom it is written that he was of the earth,
earthly, therefore my soul is a part of my body, and dies when my body
dies. I belong not to the old Adam, but to the new Adam--the new Head of
men, who is the Lord from heaven, the author of eternal life to all who
obey Him. Do not tell me that I have nothing in me but the likeness of
the old Adam, for that seems to me and to St. Paul nothing but the
likeness of the fallen savage and the brute in human form. I know I have
more in me--infinitely more--than that. What may be in store for the
savage, the brutal, the wicked, is God's concern, not mine. But what is
in store for me I know--that as I have borne the image of the earthly, so
shall I bear the image of the heavenly, if only the Spirit of Christ, the
new Adam, be in me. For if Christ be in us, "the body is dead because of
sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." And if the Spirit
of Him which raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in us, He that raised up
Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies by His Spirit
that dwelleth in us. How He will do it I know not; neither do I care to
know. When He will do it I know not; but it will be when it ought to be;
and that is enough for me. That He can do it I know, for He is the Maker
of the universe, and to Him all power is given in heaven and earth; and
as for its being strange, wonderful, past understanding, that matters
little to me. That will be but one wonder more in a world where all is
wonderful--one more mystery in an utterly mysterious universe.
And so, as Easter day has given us strength to live, let Easter day, too,
give us strength to die.
SERMON XI. EASTER DAY
Chester Cathedral. 1870.
St John xii. 24, 25. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of
wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he
that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal."
This is our Lord's own parable. In it He tells us that His death, His
resurrection, His ascension, is a mystery which we may believe, not only
because the Bible tells us of it, but because it is reasonable, and
according to the laws of His universe; a fulfilment, rather say the
highest fulfilment, of one of those laws which runs through the world of
nature, and through the spiritual and heavenly world likewise. "Except a
corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone;"--barren,
useless, and truly dead to the rest of the world around it, because it is
shut up in itself, and its hidden life, with all its wondrous powers of
growth and fertility, remains undeveloped, and will remain so, till it
decays away, a worthless thing, into worthless dust. But if it be buried
in the earth a while, then the rich life which lay hid in it is called
out by that seeming death, and it sprouts, tillers, and flowers, and
ripens its grain--forty-fold, sixty-fold, an hundred-fold; and so it
shows God's mind and will concerning it. It shows what is really in it,
and develops the full capabilities of its being. Even so, says our Lord,
would His death, His resurrection, His ascension be.
He speaks of His own resurrection and ascension; yes, but He speaks first
of His own death. Before the corn can bring forth fruit, and show what
is in it, fulfilling the law of its being, it must fall into the ground
and die. Before our Lord could fulfil the prophecy, "Thou wilt not leave
my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see
corruption," He must fulfil the darker prophecy of that awful 88th Psalm,
the only one of all the psalms which ends in sorrow, in all but despair,
"My soul is full of trouble, and my life draweth nigh unto hell. I am
counted as one of them that go down into the pit: and I have been even
as a man that hath no strength. Free among the dead, like unto them that
are wounded and lie in the grave, who are out of remembrance, and are cut
away from thy hand." So it was to be. So, we may believe, it needed to
be. Christ must suffer before He entered into His glory. He must die,
before He could rise. He must descend into hell, before He ascended into
heaven. For this is the law of God's kingdom. Without a Good Friday,
there can be no Easter Day. Without self-sacrifice, there can be no
blessedness, neither in earth nor in heaven. He that loveth his life
will lose it. He that hateth his life in this paltry, selfish,
luxurious, hypocritical world, shall keep it to life eternal. Our Lord
Jesus Christ fulfilled that law; because it is the law, the law not of
Moses, but of the kingdom of heaven, and must be fulfilled by him who
would fulfil all righteousness, and be perfect, even as his Father in
heaven is perfect.
Bear this in mind, I pray you, and whenever you think of our Lord's
resurrection and ascension, remember always that the background to His
triumph is--a tomb. Remember that it is the triumph over suffering; a
triumph of One who still bears the prints of the nails in His hands and
in His feet, and the wound of the spear in His side; like many a poor
soul who has followed Him triumphant at last, and yet scarred, and only
not maimed in the hard battle of life. Remember for ever the adorable
wounds of Christ. Remember for ever that St John saw in the midst of the
throne of God the likeness of a lamb, as it had been slain. For so alone
you will learn what our Lord's resurrection and ascension are to all who
have to suffer and to toil on earth. For if our Lord's triumph had had
no suffering before it,--if He had conquered as the Hindoos represent
their gods as conquering their enemies, without effort, without pain,
destroying them, with careless ease, by lightnings, hurled by a hundred
hands and aided by innumerable armies of spirits,--what would such a
triumph have been to us? What comfort, what example to us here
struggling, often sinning, in this piecemeal world? We want--and blessed
be God, we have--a Captain of our salvation, who has been made perfect by
sufferings. We want--and blessed be God, we have--an High Priest who can
be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, because He has been
tempted in all things like as we are, yet without sin. We want--and
blessed be God, we have--a King who was glorified by suffering, that, if
we are ever called on to sacrifice ourselves, we may hope, by suffering,
to share His glory. And when we have remembered this, and fixed it in
our minds, we may go on safely to think of His glory, and see that (as I
said at first) His resurrection and ascension satisfy our consciences,--
satisfy that highest reason and moral sense within us, which is none
other than the voice of the Holy Spirit of God.
For see. Our Lord proved Himself to be the perfectly righteous Being, by
His very passion. He proved it by being righteous utterly against His
own interest; by enduring shame, torment, death, for righteousness' sake.
But we feel that our Lord's history could not, must not, end there. Our
conscience, which is our highest reason, shrinks from that thought. If
our Lord had died and never risen, then would His history be full of
nothing but despair to all who long to copy Him and do right at all
costs. Our consciences demand that God should be just. We say with
Abraham, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Shall not He,
who suffered without hope of reward, have His reward nevertheless? Shall
not He who cried, "My God! my God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?" be
justified by having it proved to all the world that God had not forsaken
Him? But we surely cannot be more just than God. If we expect God to do
right, we shall surely "find that He has done right, and more right than
we could expect or dream. Therefore we may believe--I say that we must
believe, if we be truly reasonable beings--what the Bible tells us; that
Christ, who suffered more than all, was rewarded more than all; that
Christ, who humbled Himself more than all, was exalted more than all; and
that His resurrection and ascension, as St Paul tells us again and again,
was meant to show men this,--to show them that God the Father has been
infinitely just to the infinite merits of God the Son, Jesus Christ our
Lord,--to justify our Lord to all mankind by His triumph over death and
hell, and in justifying Him to justify His Father and our Father, his God
and our God.
And what is true of Christ must be true of us, the members of Christ. He
is entered into His rest, and you desire to enter into it likewise. You
have a right to desire it, for it is written, "There remaineth a rest for
the people of God." Remember, then, that true rest can only be attained
as He attained it, through labour. You desire to be glorified with
Christ. Remember that true glory can only be attained in earth or heaven
through self-sacrifice. Whosoever will save his life shall lose it;
whosoever will lose his life shall save it. If that eternal moral law
held good enough for the sinless Christ, who, though He were a son, yet
learned obedience by the things which He suffered, how much more must it
hold good of you and me and all moral and rational beings,--yea, for the
very angels in heaven. They have not sinned. That we know; and we do
not know; and I presume cannot know, that they have ever suffered. But
this at least we know, that they have submitted. They have obeyed and
have given up their own wills to be the ministers of God's will. In them
is neither self-will nor selfishness; and therefore by faith, that is, by
trust and loyalty, they stand. And so, by consenting to lose their
individual life of selfishness, they have saved their eternal life in
God, the life of blessedness and holiness; just as all evil spirits have
lost their eternal life by trying to save their selfish life, and be
something in themselves and of themselves without respect to God.
This is a great mystery; indeed, it is the mystery of the eternal,
divine, and blessed life, to which God of His mercy bring us all. And
therefore Good Friday, Easter Day, Ascension Day, are set as great lights
in the firmament of the spiritual year,--to remind us that we are not
animals, born to do what we like, and fulfil the sinful lusts of the
flesh, the ways whereof are death; but that we are moral and rational
beings, members of Christ, children of God, inheritors of the kingdom of
heaven; and that, therefore, I say it again, like Christ our Lord, we
must die in order to live, stoop in order to conquer. They remind us
that honour must grow out of humility; that freedom must grow out of
discipline; that sure conquest must be born of heavy struggles; righteous
joy out of righteous sorrow; pure laughter out of pure tears; true
strength out of the true knowledge of our own weakness; sound peace of
mind out of sound contrition; and that the heart which has a right to
cry, "The Lord is on my side, I will not fear what man doeth unto me,"
must be born out of the heart which has cried, "God be merciful to me a
sinner!" They remind us that in all things, as says our Lord, there
cannot be joy, because a man is born into the world, unless there first
be sorrow, because the hour of birth is come; and that he who would be
planted into the likeness of Christ's resurrection, must, like the corn
of wheat, be first planted into the likeness of His death, and die to sin
and self, that he may live to righteousness and to God; and, like the
corn of wheat, become truly living, truly strong, truly rich, truly
useful, and develop the hidden capabilities of his being, fulfilling the
mind and will of God concerning him. Again, I say, this is a great
mystery. But again, I say, this is the law, not Moses' law, but the
Gospel law;--the law of liberty, by which a man becomes truly free,
because he has trampled under foot the passions of his own selfish flesh,
till his immortal spirit can ascend free into the light of God, and into
the love of God, and into the beneficence of God. My dear friends,
remember these words, for they are true. Remember that St Paul always
couples with the resurrection and ascension of our bodies in the next
life the resurrection and ascension of our souls in this life; for
without that, the resurrection of our bodies would be but a resurrection
to fresh sin, and therefore to fresh misery and ruin. Remember his great
words about that moral resurrection and ascension of our wills, our
hearts, our characters, our actions. "God," he says, "who is rich in
mercy, for His great love, wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead
in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace are ye saved;)
and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus."
And what are those heavenly places? And what is our duty in them? Let
St Paul himself answer. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those
things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God."
And what are they? Let St Paul answer once more; who should know better
than he, save Christ alone? "Whatsoever things are true, honest, just,
pure, lovely, of good report. If there be any virtue, and if there be
any praise, think on these things."
Yes, think of these things,--and, thinking of them, ask the Holy Spirit
of God to inspire you, and make a Whitsuntide in your hearts, even as He
has made, I trust, a Good Friday and an Eastertide and an Ascension Day;
that so, knowing these things, you may be blessed in doing them; that so-
-and so only--may be fulfilled in you and me or any rational being, those
blessed promises which were fulfilled in Christ our Lord. "They that sow
in tears shall reap in joy." "He that now goeth on his way weeping, and
beareth forth good seed, shall doubtless come again with joy, and bring
his sheaves with him." "Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee, in
whose heart are Thy ways; who going through the vale of misery, use it
for a well, and the pools are filled with water. They will go from
strength to strength: and unto the God of gods appeareth every one of
them in Sion." To which may God in His great mercy bring us all. Amen.
SERMON XII. PRESENCE IN ABSENCE
Eversley, third Sunday after Easter. 1862.
St John xvi. 16. "A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a
little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father."
Divines differ, and, perhaps, have always differed, about the meaning of
these words. Some think that our Lord speaks in them of His death and
resurrection. Others that He speaks of His ascension and coming again in
glory. I cannot decide which is right. I dare not decide. It is a very
solemn thing--too solemn for me--to say of any words of our Lord's they
mean exactly this or that, and no more. For if wise men's words have (as
they often have) more meanings than one, and yet all true, then surely
the words of Jesus, the Son of God, who spake as never man spake--His
words, I say, may have many meanings; yea, meanings without end, meanings
which we shall never fully understand, perhaps even in heaven, and yet
all alike true.
But I think it is certain that most of the early Christians understood
these words of our Lord's ascension and coming again in glory. They
believed that He was coming again in a very little while during their own
life-time, in a few months or years, to make an end of the world and to
judge the quick and the dead. And as they waited for His coming, one
generation after another, and yet He did not come, a sadness fell upon
them. Christ seemed to have left the world. The little while that He
had promised to be away seemed to have become a very long while.
Hundreds of years passed, and yet Christ did not come in glory. And, as
I said, a sadness fell on all the Church. Surely, they said, this is the
time of which Christ said we were to weep and lament till we saw Him
again--this is the time of which He said that the bridegroom should be
taken from us, and we should fast in those days. And they did fast, and
weep, and lament; and their religion became a very sad and melancholy
one--most sad in those who were most holy, and loved their Lord best, and
longed most for His coming in glory.
What happened after that again I could tell you, but we have nothing to
do with it to-day. We will rather go back, and see what the Lord's
disciples thought He meant when He said,--"A little while, and ye shall
not see me; and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go
to the Father." One would think, surely, that they must have taken those
words to mean His death and resurrection. They heard Him speak them on
the very night that He was betrayed. They saw Him taken from them that
very night. In horror and agony they saw Him mocked and scourged,
crucified, dead, and buried, as they thought for ever, and the world
around rejoicing over His death. Surely they wept and lamented then.
Surely they thought that He had gone away and left them then.
And the third day, beyond all hope or expectation, they beheld Him alive
again, unchanged, perfect, and glorious--as near them and as faithful to
them as ever. Surely that was seeing Him again after a little while.
Surely then their sorrow was turned to joy. Surely then a man, the man
of all men, was born into the world a second time, and in them was
fulfilled our Lord's most exquisite parable--most human and yet most
divine--of the mother remembering no more her anguish for joy that a man
is born into the world.
I think, too, that we may see, by the disciples' conduct, that they took
these words of the text to speak of Christ's death and resurrection. For
when He ascended to heaven out of their sight, did they consider that was
seeing Him no more? Did they think that He had gone away and left them?
Did they, therefore, as would have been natural, weep and lament? On the
contrary, we are told expressly by St Luke that they "returned to
Jerusalem with great joy; and were continually in the temple," not
weeping and lamenting, but praising and blessing God. Plainly they did
not consider that Christ was parted from them when He ascended into
heaven. He had been training them during the forty days between Easter
Day and Ascension Day to think of Him as continually near them, whether
they saw Him or not. Suddenly He came and went again. Mysteriously He
appeared and disappeared. He showed them that though they saw not Him,
He saw them, heard their words, knew the thoughts and intents of their
hearts. He was always near them they felt; with them to the end of the
world, whether in sight or out of sight. And when they saw Him ascend
into heaven, it seemed to them no separation, no calamity, no change in
His relation to them. He was gone to heaven. Surely He had been in
heaven during those forty days, whenever they had not seen Him. He had
gone to the Father. Might He not have been with the Father during those
forty days, whenever they had not seen Him? Nay; was He not always in
heaven? Was not heaven very near them? Did not Christ bring heaven with
Him whithersoever He went? Was He not always with the Father, the Father
who fills all things, in whom all created things live, and move, and have
their being? How could they have thought otherwise about our Lord, when
almost His last words to them were not, Lo, I leave you alone, but, "Lo,
I am with you alway, even to the end of the world."
My friends, these may seem deep words to some--doubtless they are, for
they are the words of the Bible--so deep that plain, unlearned people can
make no use of them, and draw no lesson from them. I do not think so. I
think it is of endless use and endless importance to you how you think
about Christ; and, therefore, how you think about these forty days
between our Lord's resurrection and ascension. You may think of our Lord
in two ways. You may think of Him as having gone very far away, millions
of millions of miles into the sky, and not to return till the last day,--
and then, I do not say that you will weep and lament. There are not many
who have that notion about our Lord, and yet love Him enough to weep and
lament at the thought of His having gone away. But your religion, when
it wakes up in you, will be a melancholy and terrifying one. I say, when
it wakes up in you--for you will be tempted continually to let it go to
sleep. There will come over you the feeling--God forgive us, does it not
come over us all but too often?--Christ is far away. Does He see me?
Does He hear me? Will He find me out? Does it matter very much what I
say and do now, provided I make my peace with Him before I die? And so
will come over you not merely a carelessness about religious duties,
about prayer, reading, church-going, but worse still, a carelessness
about right and wrong. You will be in danger of caring little about
controlling your passions, about speaking the truth, about being just and
merciful to your fellow-men. And then, when your conscience wakes you up
at times, and cries, Prepare to meet thy God! you will be terrified and
anxious at the thought of judgment, and shrink from the thought of
Christ's seeing you. My friends, that is a fearful state, though a very
common one. What is it but a foretaste of that dreadful terror in which
those who would not see in Christ their Lord and Saviour will call on the
mountains to fall on them, and the hills to cover them, from Him that
sitteth on the throne, and from the anger of the Lamb?
But, again: you may think of Christ as His truest servants, though they
might have been long in darkness, in all ages and countries have thought
of Him, sooner or later. And they thought of Him, as the disciples did;
as of One who was about their path and about their bed, and spying out
all their ways; as One who was in heaven, but who, for that very reason,
was bringing heaven down to earth continually in the gracious
inspirations of His Holy Spirit; as One who brought heaven down to them
as often as He visited their hearts and comforted them with sweet
assurance of His love, His faithfulness, His power--as God grant that He
may comfort those of you who need comfort. And that thought, that Christ
was always with them, even to the end of the world, sobered and steadied
them, and yet refreshed and comforted them. It sobered them. What else
could it do? Does it not sober us to see even a picture of Christ
crucified? How must it have sobered them to carry, as good St Ignatius
used to say of himself, Christ crucified in his heart. A man to whom
Christ, as it were, showed perpetually His most blessed wounds, and said,
Behold what I have endured--how dare he give way to his passion? How
dare he be covetous, ambitious, revengeful, false? And yet it cheered
and comforted them. How could it do otherwise, to know all day long that
He who was wounded for their iniquities, and by whose stripes they were
healed, was near them day and night, watching over them as a father over
his child, saying to them,--"Fear not, I am He that was dead, and am
alive for evermore, and I hold the keys of death and hell. Though thou
walkest through the fires, I will be with thee. I will never leave thee
nor forsake thee." Yes, my friends, if you wish your life--and therefore
your religion, which ought to be the very life of your life--to be at
once sober and cheerful, full of earnestness and full of hope, believe
our Lord's words which He spoke during these very forty days,--"Lo, I am
with you alway, even to the end of the world." Believe that heaven has
not taken Him away from you, but brought Him nearer to you; and that He
has ascended up on high, not that He, in whom alone is life, might empty
this earth of His presence, but that He might fill all things, not this
earth only, but all worlds, past, present, and to come. Believe that
wherever two or three are gathered together in Christ's name, there He is
in the midst of them; that the holy communion is the sign of His
perpetual presence; and that when you kneel to receive the bread and
wine, Christ is as near you--spiritually, indeed, and invisibly, but
really and truly--as near you as those who are kneeling by your side.
And if it be so with Christ, then it is so with those who are Christ's,
with those whom we love. It is the Christ in them which we love; and
that Christ in them is their hope of glory; and that glory is the glory
of Christ. They are partakers of His death, therefore they are partakers
of His resurrection. Let us believe that blessed news in all its
fulness, and be at peace. A little while and we see them; and again a
little while and we do not see them. But why? Because they are gone to
the Father, to the source and fount of all life and power, all light and
love, that they may gain life from His life, power from His power, light
from His light, love from His love--and surely not for nought?
Surely not for nought, my friends. For if they were like Christ on
earth, and did not use their powers for themselves alone, if they are to
be like Christ when they shall see Him as He is, then, more surely, will
they not use their powers for themselves, but, as Christ uses His, for
those they love.
Surely, like Christ, they may come and go, even now, unseen. Like
Christ, they may breathe upon our restless hearts and say, Peace be unto
you--and not in vain. For what they did for us when they were on earth
they can more fully do now that they are in heaven. They may seem to
have left us, and we, like the disciples, may weep and lament. But the
day will come when the veil shall be taken from our eyes, and we shall
see them as they are, with Christ, and in Christ for ever; and remember
no more our anguish for joy that a man is born into the world, that
another human being has entered that one true, real, and eternal world,
wherein is neither disease, disorder, change, decay, nor death, for it is
none other than the Bosom of the Father.
SERMON XIII. ASCENSION DAY
Eversley. Chester Cathedral. 1872.
St John viii. 58. "Before Abraham was, I am."
Let us consider these words awhile. They are most fit for our thoughts
on this glorious day, on which the Lord Jesus ascended to His Father, and
to our Father, to His God, and to our God, that He might be glorified
with the glory which He had with the Father before the making of the
world. For it is clear that we shall better understand Ascension Day,
just as we shall better understand Christmas or Eastertide, the better we
understand Who it was who was born at Christmas, suffered and rose at
Eastertide, and, as on this day, ascended into heaven. Who, then, was He
whose ascent we celebrate? What was that glory which, as far as we can
judge of divine things, He resumed as on this day?
Let us think a few minutes, with all humility, not rashly intruding
ourselves into the things we have not seen, or meddling with divine
matters which are too hard for us, but taking our Lord's words simply as
they stand, and where we do not understand them, believing them
nevertheless.
Now it is clear that the book of Exodus and our Lord's words speak of the
same person. The Old Testament tells of a personage who appeared to
Moses in the wilderness, and who called Himself "the Lord God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob." But this personage also calls Himself "I AM." "I AM
THAT I AM:" "and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of
Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."
In the New Testament we read of a personage who calls Himself the Son of
God, is continually called the Lord, and who tells His disciples to call
Him by that name without reproving them, though they and He knew well
what it meant--that it meant no less than this, that He, Jesus of
Nazareth, poor mortal man as He seemed, was still the Lord, the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I do not say that the disciples saw that at
first, clearly or fully, till after our Lord's resurrection. But there
was one moment shortly before His death, when they could have had no
doubt who He assumed Himself to be. For the unbelieving Jews had no
doubt, and considered Him a blasphemer; and these were His awful and
wonderful words,--I do not pretend to understand them--I take them simply
as I find them, and believe and adore. "Your father Abraham rejoiced to
see my day, and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto Him,
Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham?" One
cannot blame them for asking that question, for Abraham had been dead
then nearly two thousand years. But what is our Lord's solemn answer?
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am."
"I Am." The same name by which our Lord God had revealed Himself to
Moses in the wilderness, some sixteen hundred years before. If these
words were true,--and the Lord prefaces them with Verily, verily, Amen,
Amen, which was as solemn an asseveration as any oath could be--then the
Lord Jesus Christ is none other than the God of Abraham, the God of
Moses, the God of the Jews, the God of the whole universe, past, present,
and to come.
Let us think awhile over this wonder of all wonders. The more we think
over it, we shall find it not only the wonder of all wonders, but the
good news of all good news.
The deepest and soundest philosophers will tell us that there must be an
"I Am." That is, as they would say, a self-existent Being; neither made
nor created, but who has made and created all things; who is without
parts and passions, and is incomprehensible, that is cannot be
comprehended, limited, made smaller or weaker, or acted on in any way by
any of the things that He has made. So that this self-existing Being
whom we call God, would be exactly what He is now, if the whole universe,
sun, moon, and stars, were destroyed this moment; and would be exactly
what He is now, if there had never been any universe at all, or any thing
or being except His own perfect and self-existent Self. For He lives and
moves and has His being in nothing. But all things live and move and
have their being in Him. He was before all things, and by Him all things
consist. And this is the Catholic Faith; and not only that, this is
according to sound and right reason. But more: the soundest
philosophers will tell you that God must be not merely a self-existent
Being, but the "I Am:" that if God is a Spirit, and not merely a name for
some powers and laws of brute nature and matter, He must be able to say
to Himself, "I Am:" that He must know Himself, that He must be conscious
of Himself, of who and what He is, as you and I are conscious of
ourselves, and more or less of who and what we are. And this, also, I
believe to be true, and rational, and necessary to the Catholic Faith.
But they will tell you again--and this, too, is surely true--that I Am
must be the very name of God, because God alone can say perfectly, "I
Am," and no more. You and I dare not, if we think accurately, say of
ourselves, "I am." We may say, I am this or that; I am a man; I am an
Englishman; but we must not say, "I am;" that is, "I exist of myself."
We must say--not I am; but I become, or have become; I was made; I was
created; I am growing, changing; I depend for my very existence on God
and God's will, and if He willed, I should be nothing and nowhere in a
moment. God alone can say, I Am, and there is none beside Me, and never
has, nor can be. I exist, absolutely, and simply; because I choose to
exist, and get life from nothing; for I Am the Life, and give life to all
things. But you may say, What is all this to us? It is very difficult
to understand, and dreary, and even awful. Why should we care for it,
even if it be true? Yes, my friends; philosophy may be true, and yet be
dreary, and awful, and have no gospel and good news in it at all. I
believe it never can have; that only in Revelation, and in the Revelation
of our Lord Jesus Christ, can poor human beings find any gospel and good
news at all. And sure I am, that that is an awful thought, a dreary
thought, a crushing thought, which makes a man feel as small, and
worthless, and helpless, and hopeless, as a grain of dust, or a mote in
the sunbeam--that thought of God for ever contained in Himself, and
saying for ever to Himself, "I Am, and there is none beside Me."
But the Gospel, the good news of the Old Testament, the Gospel, the good
news of the New Testament, is the Revelation of God and God's ways, which
began on Christmas Day, and finished on Ascension Day: and what is that?
What but this? That God does not merely say to Himself in Majesty, "I
Am;" but that He goes out of Himself in Love, and says to men, "I Am."
That He is a God who has spoken to poor human beings, and told them who
He was; and that He, the I Am, the self-existent One, the Cause of life,
of all things, even the Maker and Ruler of the Universe, can stoop to
man--and not merely to perfect men, righteous men, holy men, wise men,
but to the enslaved, the sinful, the brutish--that He may deliver them,
and teach them, and raise them from the death of sin, to His own life of
righteousness.
Do you not see the difference, the infinite difference, and the good news
in that? Do you not see a whole heaven of new hope and new duty is
opened to mankind in that one fact--God has spoken to man. He, the I Am,
the Self-Existent, who needs no one, and no thing, has turned aside, as
it were, and stooped from the throne of heaven, again and again, during
thousands of years, to say to you, and me, and millions of mankind, I Am
your God. How do you prosper?--what do you need?--what are you doing?--
for if you are doing justice to yourself and your fellow-men, then fear
not that I shall be just to you.
And more. When that I Am, the self-existent God, could not set sinful
men right by saying this, then did He stoop once more from the throne of
the heavens to do that infinite deed of love, of which it is written,
that He who called Himself "I Am," the God of Abraham, was conceived of
the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate,
rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven,--that He might send
down the Spirit of the "I Am," the Holy Spirit who proceedeth from the
Father and the Son, upon all who ask Him; that they may be holy as God is
holy, and perfect as God is perfect. Yes, my dear friends, remember
that, and live in the light of that; the gospel of good news of the
Incarnation of Jesus Christ, very God of very God begotten. Know that
God has spoken to you as He spoke to Abraham, and said,--I am the
Almighty God, walk before Me, and be thou perfect. Know that He has
spoken to you as He spoke to Moses, saying,--I am the Lord thy God, who
have brought you, and your fathers before you, out of the spiritual Egypt
of heathendom, and ignorance, sin, and wickedness, into the knowledge of
the one, true, and righteous God. But know more, that He has spoken to
you by the mouth of Jesus Christ, saying,--I am He that died in the form
of mortal man upon the cross for you. And, behold, I am alive for
evermore; and to me all power is given in heaven and earth.
Yes, my friends, let us lay to heart, even upon this joyful day, the
awful warnings of the Epistle to the Hebrews,--God, the I Am, has spoken
to us; God, the I Am, is speaking to us now. See that you refuse not Him
that speaketh; for if they escaped not who refused Moses that spake on
earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from Him that
speaketh from heaven; wherefore follow peace with all men, and holiness,
without which no man shall see the Lord, and have grace, whereby we may
serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a
consuming fire. To those who disobey Him, eternal wrath; to those who
love Him, eternal love.
Yes, my friends. Let us believe that, and live in the light of that,
with reverence and godly fear, all the year round. But let us specially
to-day, as far as our dull feelings and poor imaginations will allow us;
let us, I say, adore the ascended Saviour, who rules for ever, a Man in
the midst of the throne of the universe, and that Man--oh, wonder of
wonders!--slain for us; and let us say with St Paul of old, with all our
hearts and minds and souls:--Now to the King of the Ages, immortal,
invisible, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be honour and glory, for
ever and ever. Amen!
SERMON XIV. THE COMFORTER
Eversley. Sunday after Ascension Day. 1868.
St John xv. 26. "When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you
from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the
Father, he shall testify of me."
Some writers, especially when they are writing hymns, have fallen now-a-
days into a habit of writing of the Holy Spirit of God, in a tone of
which I dare not say that it is wrong or untrue; but of which I must say,
that it is one-sided. And if there are two sides to a matter, it must do
us harm to look at only one of them. And I think that it does people
harm to hear the Holy Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter,
spoken of in terms, not of reverence, but of endearment. For consider:
He is the
"Creator-Spirit, by whose aid
The world's foundations first were laid,"
the life-giving Spirit of whom it is written, Thou sendest forth Thy
Spirit, and things live, and Thou renewest the face of the earth.
But He is the destroying Spirit too; who can, when He will, produce not
merely life, but death; who can, and does send earthquakes, storm, and
pestilence; of whom Isaiah writes--"All flesh is as grass, and all the
goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth,
the flower fadeth; because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it." I
think it does people harm to hear this awful and almighty being, I say,
spoken of merely as the "sweet Spirit," and "gentle dove"--words which
are true, but only true, if we remember other truths, equally true of
Him, concerning whom they are spoken. The Spirit of God, it seems to me,
is too majestic a being to be talked of hastily as "sweet." Words may be
true, and yet it may not be always quite reverent to use them. An
earthly sovereign may be full of all human sweetness and tenderness, yet
we should not dare to address him as "sweet."
But, indeed, some of this talk about the Holy Spirit is not warranted by
Scripture at all. In one of the hymns, for instance, in our hymn-book--
an excellent hymn in other respects, there is a line which speaks of the
Holy Spirit as possessing "The brooding of the gentle dove."
Now, this line is really little but pretty sentiment, made up of false
uses of Scripture. The Scripture speaks once of the Holy Spirit of God
brooding like a bird over its nest. But where? In one of the most
mysterious, awful, and important of all texts. "And the earth was
without form and void. And the Spirit of God moved (brooded) over the
face of the deep." What has this--the magnificent picture of the Life-
giving Spirit brooding over the dead world, to bring it into life again,
and create from it sea and land, heat and fire, and cattle and creeping
things after their kind, and at last man himself, the flower and crown of
things;--what has that to do with the brooding of a gentle dove?
But the Holy Spirit is spoken of in Scripture under the likeness of a
dove? True, and here is another confusion. The Dove is not the emblem
of gentleness in the Bible: but the Lamb. The dove is the emblem of
something else, pure and holy, but not of gentleness; and therefore the
Holy Spirit is not spoken of in Scripture as brooding as a gentle dove;
but very differently, as it seems to me. St Matthew and St John say,
that at our Lord's baptism the Holy Spirit was seen, not brooding, but
descending from heaven as a dove. To any one who knows anything of
doves, who will merely go out into the field or the farm-yard and look at
them, and who will use his own eyes, that figure is striking enough, and
grand enough. It is the swiftness of the dove, and not its fancied
gentleness that is spoken of. The dove appearing, as you may see it
again and again, like a speck in the far off sky, rushing down with a
swiftness which outstrips the very eagle; returning surely to the very
spot from which it set forth, though it may have flown over hundreds of
miles of land, and through the very clouds of heaven. It is the sky-
cleaving force and swiftness, the unerring instinct of the dove, and not
a sentimental gentleness to which Scripture likens that Holy Spirit,
which like the rushing mighty wind bloweth whither it listeth, and thou
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or
whither it goeth;--that Holy Spirit who, when He fell on the apostles,
fell in tongues of fire, and shook all the house where they were sitting;
that Holy Spirit of whom one of the wisest Christians who ever lived, who
knew well enough the work of the Spirit, arguing just as I am now against
the fancy of associating the Holy Spirit merely with pretty thoughts of
our own, and pleasant feelings of our own, and sentimental raptures of
our own, said, "Wouldst thou know the manner of spiritual converse? Of
the way in which the Spirit of God works in man? Then it is this: He
hath taken me up and dashed me down. Like a lion, I look, that He will
break all my bones. From morning till evening, Thou wilt make an end of
me."
But people are apt to forget this. And therefore they fall into two
mistakes. They think of the Holy Spirit as only a gentle, and what they
call a dove-like being; and they forget what a powerful, awful, literally
formidable being He is. They lose respect for the Holy Spirit. They
trifle with Him; and while they sing hymns about His gentleness and
sweetness, they do things which grieve and shock Him; forgetting the
awful warning which He, at the very outset of the Christian Church, gave
against such taking of liberties with God the Holy Ghost:--how Ananias
and Sapphira thought that the Holy Spirit was One whom they might honour
with their lips, and more, with their outward actions, but who did not
require truth in the inward parts, and did not care for their telling a
slight falsehood that they might appear more generous than they really
were in the eyes of men; and how the answer of the Holy Spirit of God was
that He struck them both dead there and then for a warning to all such
triflers, till the end of time.
Another mistake which really pious and good people commit, is, that they
think the Holy Spirit of God to be merely, or little beside, certain
pleasant frames, and feelings, and comfortable assurances, in their own
minds. They do not know that these pleasant frames and feelings really
depend principally on their own health: and, then, when they get out of
health, or when their brain is overworked, and the pleasant feelings go,
they are terrified and disheartened, and complain of spiritual dryness,
and cry out that God's Spirit has deserted them, and are afraid that God
is angry with them, or even that they have committed the unpardonable
sin: not knowing that God is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of
man that He should repent; that God is as near them in the darkness as in
the light; that whatever their own health, or their own feelings may be,
yet still in God they live, and move, and have their being; that to God's
Spirit they owe all which raises them above the dumb animals; that
nothing can separate them from the love of Him who promised that He would
not leave us comfortless, but send to us His Holy Ghost to comfort us,
and exalt us to the same place whither He has gone before.
Now, why do I say all this? To take away comfort from you? To make you
fear and dread the Spirit of God? God forbid! Who am I, to take away
comfort from any human being! I say it to give yon true comfort, to make
you trust and love the Holy Spirit utterly, to know Him--His strength and
His wisdom as well as His tenderness and gentleness.
You know that afflictions do come--terrible bereavements, sorrows sad and
strange. My sermon does not make them come. There they are, God help us
all, and too many of them, in this world. But from whom do they come?
Who is Lord of life and death? Who is Lord of joy and sorrow? Is not
that the question of all questions? And is not the answer the most
essential of all answers? It is the Holy Spirit of God; the Spirit who
proceedeth from the Father and the Son; the Spirit of the Father who so
loved the world that He spared not His only begotten Son; the Spirit of
the Son who so loved the world, that He stooped to die for it upon the
Cross; the Spirit who is promised to lead you into all truth, that you
may know God, and in the knowledge of Him find everlasting life; the
Spirit who is the Comforter, and says, I have seen thy ways and will heal
thee, I will lead thee also, and restore comforts to thee and to thy
mourners. I speak peace to him that is near, and to him that is far off,
saith the Lord; and I will heal him. Is it not the most blessed news,
that He who takes away, is the very same as He who gives? That He who
afflicts is the very same as He who comforts? That He of whom it is
written that, "as a lion, so will He break all my bones; from day even to
night wilt Thou make an end of me;" is the same as He of whom it is
written, "He shall gather the lambs in His arms, and carry them, and
shall gently lead those that are with young;" and, again, "as a beast
goeth down into the valley, so the Spirit of the Lord caused him to
rest?" That He of whom it is written, "Our God is a consuming fire," is
the same as He who has said, "When thou walkest through the fire, thou
shalt not be burned?" That He who brings us into "the valley of the
shadow of death," is the same as He of whom it is said, "Thy rod and Thy
staff the
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