SERMON I.
THE MYSTERY OF SIN.
ROMANS v. 12.
“By one man sin entered into the world.”
PERHAPS there is no more awful thought than this: that sin is
all around us and within us, and we know not what it is. We are beset by it on
every side: it hangs upon us, hovers about us, casts itself across our path,
hides itself where our next foot step is to fall, searches us through and
through, listens at our heart, floats through all our thoughts, draws our will
under its sway, and ourselves under its dominion; and we do not know what it is.
It is a pestilence that walketh in darkness; nothing stays its advance; it
passes through all barriers, pierces all strongholds; the very air seems to waft
it into our dwellings. Now it is very awful to know this, and yet not to know
what is this malign and deadly power. We read, that in the beginning sin was not
in the world; that “by one man sin entered;” that here it has ever since abode;
that it brought death with it; that “death passed upon all men, for
that all have sinned.”
Thus much,, however, we do know, that it is a
will opposed to the will of God. To make this
more clear, let us consider, that whatsoever or
whencesoever be the origin of sin, its home or
dwelling is the moral nature of God’s creatures. So
far as we can understand, none but moral beings
are capable of sin, because none but moral beings
are responsible; that is, know good from evil, are
on trial, are able to make choice, and are responsible for choosing. In this, we are only saying
that the chief feature, or power, or endowment of
a moral being, is a sense to discern, and a will to
choose; and that, as to choose the good is holiness, so to choose the evil is sin. Consider next,
that a will which chooses the evil is a will opposed
to the will of God. Sin, therefore, is a quality,
or inclination, or posture of the will of God’s creatures, at variance with His own; or, to speak less
exactly, but more simply, it is a will opposed
to His.
St. Paul says, “By one man”—that is, by the wilful act of one
man—“sin entered into the world.” And from this we may draw the following
truths:—
1 . First, that the entering in of sin proves the presence of an Evil Being. We talk of powers, and
qualities, and principles, and oppositions, and the
like; but we are only putting words for realities.
They do not exist apart from beings create or uncreate; they are the attributes
and energies of living spirits. Sin entered in through and by the Evil One; that
is, the Devil. There is working in the world something which is not of God. All
that He made was good; all was holy, and full of life, and immortal. The world
was a manifestation of God, of His wisdom and His goodness; man was an image of
His being and of His will. All was one; all moved in harmony, having one supreme
and universal law. Things are now divided by a twofold movement, and are full of
diversity and opposition, discord and warfare. An Evil One has entered, and spread his enmity throughout the world.
For wise ends, God suffers this rebellion to smoulder
in His kingdom. Though He might have girdled
the world about with the precinct of His own holiness, so that sin should have never entered; though
at a breath of His, even now, all should once more
stretch out its hands without sin unto God; yet, for
some unsearchable purposes of wisdom, He has, by
the entering of the Evil One, permitted the unity
of His works to be troubled, and the harmony of
His creatures to be marred. It is most necessary for us ever to bear in mind the personality of Satan; for we are often wont to speak of sin, as
we do of sicknesses or plagues, as if it were an
impersonal thing; and we thereby lose all distinct
perception of its power, deceitfulness, and malignity. Let us always remember that there is, in
the world, as it were, a new law, opposed to the
law of God; and administered by an Evil Being,
who has entered and gained a hold in God’s creation, and is therefore called “the prince of this
world,”St. John xiv. 30.
“the prince of the power of the air,” “the
spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience.”Eph. ii. 2.
2. Another truth to be learned is, that, by
the entering in of sin, a change passed upon the
world itself. I am not now speaking of physical
evil, such as dissolution and death, and the wasting away of God’s works, and the like; but only
of moral evil. A change passed upon the condition of man. His will revolted, and transferred its
loyalty from God to the Evil One. By casting off
his obedience to God, he lost his government over
himself. So long as he was subject to the Divine
will, he wielded an absolute power over his own
nature. The passions and lusts of the flesh were
then pure affections held in a bond of unity and
subordination. When he rebelled against God, they
rebelled against man; and the bond of their unity
being broken, they warred against each other, and
his will was dragged away into bondage by each
in turn. And by this it came to pass that he lost
his innocence; the presence of God, wherewith
he was encompassed, departed from him, leaving
him naked; fear cast out love; from thankful he
became thankless; the lusts of the flesh soiled his
spiritual being; his will caught the manifold taint
of a world of evil; and through these dark avenues
the wicked one gained a free entrance into his soul.
He lay open to incursion on all sides. There were
as many breaches as there were impure affections.
And thus man’s will became one with the will
of the Evil One; and was so drawn to it as to
move with it; and became a part of the evil
which entered into the world. Thenceforward man
was the representative of the alien and antagonist
power which had broken the unity of God’s kingdom; and his will was bent in a direct opposition
to the will of God. Such, then, as I said before,
is sin.
There are one or two further remarks to be
made on this subject.
And first, that this awful principle of sin has
been ever multiplying itself from the beginning
of the world. It so clave to the life of man, that
as living souls were multiplied, sin in them was
multiplied also. Adam “begat a son in his own
likeness.” And every several will born into this world, is born at variance with God. “That which
is born of the flesh is flesh.”St. John iii. 6.
“The carnal mind
is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the
law of God, neither indeed can be.”Rom. viii. 7.
Every several man contains in him the whole mystery of
the fall, the whole principle of evil. It may be
said, that at the birth of every man sin enters into
the world. All along the line of these six thou
sand years, every one of the countless generations
of mankind bears the full dilated image of the
first fallen man. So was the earth peopled, from
the first-born of Adam to the great family of all
nations and languages and people and tongues,
ever multiplying, ever replenishing itself. As sin,
through the power of death, withers off generation
after generation, so does it by its fearful hold in
the being of man, perpetually reproduce itself.
And here it still abides in God’s world, carrying on
unceasing, universal warfare against Heaven. In
the beginning there was one man at variance with
his Maker. Now there is an untold array of disobedient wills. Even the blessing of fruitfulness,
which God breathed upon the earth, has become
the channel through which the mystery of evil
perpetuates, distributes, and multiplies itself. Such
is the fall of the world, and such by nature are
we ourselves. Well may we stand in awe of our mysterious being, and pray to be delivered “from the body of
this death.”
Another remark is this, that as sin has multi
plied in its extent, so it would seem also to have
become more intense in its character. It is plain,
that in every man born into this world there is the
whole of Adam’s fallen nature. The fault and corruption is in us; so that we are every one
“very
far gone from original righteousness/ and are of
our own nature inclined to evil. We are born out
casts from God’s presence, sullied, alienated, and
opposed. Such we are, I say, by nature: but
we become (except through God’s grace we repent) far worse in act. When the living powers
which are in us become unfolded into energy,
the evil that cleaves to them unfolds with them.
What we were before only in bias or inclination,
we afterwards become in consciousness and will;
what we were only in a leaning, we become after
wards in a habit; and a habit of sin is original
sin full grown, and multiplied both in the manifold kind and energy of evil. It
is plain to all, that (except, as I said, in penitents) the whole life of a man
from birth to death is a deterioration. He is ever becoming worse. Time, opportunity, temptation, are necessary to quicken
and unfold all that lies wrapped up in his birth-sin; and all these are ministered to him day by day. The faults of childhood grow into the sins
of boyhood, and these grow vivid and intense, and
burst out into the manifold guilt of after-life; and
as the heart throws up new lusts continually, so
does the perverted reason complicate itself into
crookedness and cunning. Who does not see that,
except a man day by day grows better, he must
needs grow worse? Even they whose sins do not
grow more open and profligate, are nevertheless
deteriorating. They grow impure in thought and
will, if not in act; or hard, worldly, selfish, and
unthankful; or irreverent and consciously alienated from God; or they live on in the world
without love to God, and every year chills and
deadens them more and more. Now what is
all this but original sin multiplying in kind and
energy, and ever growing more exceeding sinful?
Better were it for us that we had never been born;
or, if born, that we had passed with no more than
the taint of our birth-sin to the tribunal of Christ,
than that we should live on only to become two
fold more the children of hell than before.
And if this be true of individual men, must
it not also be true of all mankind? Must not
the world, in its long life of six thousand years,
have grown worse than it was in the beginning? Has not the birth-sin of the world, so to
speak, unfolded itself into the variety and energy of a fuller and maturer wickedness? I think it
is plain, from reason and from holy Scripture, that
such a process of deterioration has been going on:
that the mystery of evil, no less than the mystery
of godliness, has been strengthening and unfolding
itself. Now we must not be led astray by illustrations. The life of the world is not like, but
analogous to, the life of an individual man. Three
generations of men are not like the yesterday,
to-day, and to-morrow of a single being. We
carry on with us from day to day the whole
moral context of the day gone by. We are to-day
all we were yesterday, and something more. We
have no breaks in our personal identity—no new
beginnings of our moral life. We do not revert
continually to our first original. But all this is
true of the world, and of mankind as a living race.
The mystery of original sin is begun over and over
again with each successive generation. Men grow
up to a certain height of the moral stature, and
are cut down and laid in the earth: their children rise up more or less to the same standard,
within certain limits which are the conditions of
our being and of our probation. The days of our
age are threescore years and ten; though some
men be so strong that they come to fourscore
years. And in this short race every man has his
own beginning and ending of moral life.
All this indeed is very true; but it is no less
certain, that there is a growth and accumulation
of evil which in the life of the world is analogous
to the deterioration of character in an individual
man. What we read in the book of Genesis is
proof enough. We no sooner read that “men
began to multiply upon the face of the earth/
than we also read, “and God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that
every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually; and it repented the Lord
that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved
Him at His heart.”Gen. vi. 5, 6.
Now the whole history of the
Bible shews us a continual unfolding of the sin of
man. To the first act of a disobedient will, were
added the shedding of a brother’s blood, the great
and unexplained fall of “the sons of God,” and
the sins which called down a decree rescinding the
law of creation, and brought the flood upon the
earth. Then through Ham, who was as the original sin of the new world, came again transgression; and Noah sinned, and idolatry filled the
earth, and God gave men up to a reprobate mind.
Then again in Abraham began a new age; and once
more the line of sin reappeared through Abraham,
Jacob, Aaron, Moses, David, even the chief of God’s saints; after a while the people fell into idolatry, and then into unbelief, and crucified the Lord of
Glory. And then, again, began the new creation;
and among the Apostles there was Judas, the fore
runner of sin in the world of the regenerate.
And it was expressly foretold by the Spirit, that
in the latter days there should be perilous times,
and a falling away from God. And what holy
Scripture thus declares to us, we see actually fulfilled. The history of the Catholic Church shews
that there has been a deterioration analogous to
the earlier declensions of mankind. I am not now
speaking of the work of regeneration, which also
has been going on in the midst of this unfolding of
evil. The saints have been each one growing holier;
and the Church has been edified continually, and
is rising towards its perfection. I am speaking not
of the Church, but of the world, and only notice
it lest it should seem to be an objection which has
been overlooked. From all this it is plain that
there have been four great ages of the world; that
is, from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham,
from Abraham to the coming of our Lord, and
from the coming of our Lord to this day. Scripture tells us that in the first
three there was a declension from God. It foretells it of the fourth,
in which we live; and the history of Christendom already shews the partial fulfilment of the
prophecy. From these great facts, let us look to the laws on which they rest. These broad declensions of mankind are the direct and necessary
consequence of the progressive deterioration of the
individual character; the manifold inventiveness
of sin; the universal contagion of moral evil;
the infinite multiplication and refinement in the
forms of disobedience, arising from the interchange
of personal or national corruptions; the accumulating power of tradition, which gathers up and
embodies the characteristic sins of every successive
generation, and creates a new moral world—a world
of wrong and darkness and deceit—into which the
next generation enters at its birth. Sin is born in
us; and we are born into a world of its own creating.
There is hanging between the soul of man and the
realities of God, a veil wrought up of lying visions:
upon it are traced the dazzling forms which allure
the sin that is in him to put itself forth in wilful acts
of evil. Who can doubt that they who were born
in the later times of a declining age,—as, for in
stance, a generation before the flood,—were born
into a darker, more inveterate, and therefore a more
wicked world, than they who followed soon after
the first sin of man? St. Paul, in the first chapter
of his epistle to the Romans, teaches us how the sins
of the heathen world little by little reached their
height; how they began in a shrinking of the heart
from God, and then through pride men fell into ignorance, and through ignorance into the most horrible rebellions against the laws of nature—of laws,
that is, which are written even in the passive and
lower nature of man—instincts obeyed by the beasts
that perish. Idolatry, again, was a sin of slow and
subtle growth. A long course of sin was needed, so
to deaden and blind the heart of man as to make
idolatry possible. Age after age gave in its contribution: there was a sort of tide, an unseen cur
rent, swelled by many feeding streams, which bore
along every generation, as one followed another,
in the same line; so that, besides the original sin
of each man, there was a sinful tradition of man
kind, which excited, and unfolded, and ripened,
and carried it to a maturity and strength which it
would not otherwise attain; and every generation
contributed somewhat to this onward tide, and bequeathed to the next a further measure of declension from God.
It may be objected, that, nevertheless, there has
been an advance both in the moral and intellectual
state of mankind, and that this view, therefore,
cannot be true. To which it may be said, first,
that such an advance would not prove, that the
tendency of sin is not to multiply itself and to grow
more intensely sinful; but that God, in His mercy,
is working even more mightily, counteracting all,
both the original and accumulated powers of evil. And that is most certainly true. “Where sin
abounded, there did grace much more abound.”
But this is not our subject: we are speaking of the
unfolding of the power of sin in the world, which
is no less certain than the gracious unfolding of
the mystery of godliness, which shall overcome and
cast it out at the last. And so, again, it must be
said of the alleged advance of the moral and intellectual state of man. It is certain that in Christendom there is neither the blind idolatry nor the
gross corruptions of the heathen. Be it so; but
there are sins both of the flesh and spirit such
as the heathen never knew. The form may be
changed; the outward grossness may be purged
off. There may be sins having less that is akin
to the unreasonable creatures of God, but a nearer
fellowship with Satan. The personal guilt may be
no less; the opposition of the will to the will of
God may be greater. And this is the true life and
malignity of sin. Adam’s sin had in it little of
grossness, but it was intensely guilty—the more so
because he was fresh from the hand of his Maker:
he was nigh to God, and God held converse with
him. Even so it is with Christendom: the sins of
Christians, though they are refined and reduced to
never so small a measure, are greater and guiltier far
than the sins of Tyre and Sidon. It is Capernaum
that shall be thrust down to hell. Christendom, as Adam was, is new from the hand of God. He is
in the midst of it; He has filled it with the light
of His presence; His mercy, His truth, His Spirit,
are revealed in it. We are near God, and He has
brought us to an awful fellowship with Himself.
As the mystery of godliness has unfolded in the
midst of us, and the light of it has been forced into
the conscience of Christendom, so do even the lesser
sins of men become far guiltier. They are committed against more light, more grace, greater mercies,
louder warnings—in despite of the inward pleadings
and drawings of the Spirit of life. It may be, that
in Christians a common lie is guiltier than the sin
of Achan, and the visions of the imagination than
the sin of David; and if so, then it may be a more
conscious, naked, wilful act of disobedience in Christians to oppose the law of God in the least, than in
the blind unconverted heathen to transgress it in
the greatest. And therefore it may be that a multitude of sins, in deed and in thought, which are
deemed to be consistent with the context of a refined life, are far more intense provocations of the
Divine Majesty, and express a far more resolute
opposition to the Divine will, than the impure idolatries of the Gentiles, or even the backslidings of
the Jews. And, once more, what shall we say of
heresy; that is, obstinate resistance to the light of
truth? And, above all, of infidelity? What must be the intensity of spiritual evil in such a sin!
How pure from all grossness; how keen and disembodied, so to speak, and yet how nearly akin to
Satan! And these are sins, I may say, peculiar to
Christendom—characteristic, above all, of what is
called an enlightened or intellectual age. What
were the heresies of the Docetae, or the Cerinthians, or the Montanists, compared with the scoffing, ribald infidelity which reared itself up in the
bosom of the Church a hundred and fifty years ago?
Even where infidelity did not issue (which was seldom enough) in the lowest sensuality, yet what a
temper of cold, proud resistance—what an energetic
variance of will to the mind of God was there in
the heart of an infidel! What a prodigy in God’s world is a professing atheist! These are fruits not
of the green tree, but of the dry. They were not
put forth in the beginning of the new creation; but
in the latter days, when, according to prophecy,
there have come “scoffers walking after their own
lusts:” when we see on every side the words of St.
Paul coming to pass: “This know also that in the
last days perilous times shall come; for men shall
be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters,
proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers
of God.”2 Tim. ii. 1-4.
One more fact will be enough. If any man
would see the multiplying power and intensity of spiritual evil, let him compare
the unity of the Church in the beginning with the schisms of Christendom now. “The same sin which entered and
destroyed the unity of the whole creation, has reentered and broken up again the restored unity
of the new. But, to leave both the past and the
present, let us remember that the time is not yet
come. The full unfolding of sin has ever been at
the close of the dispensations of God; it has been
at its worst when He was nearest. So, we are
taught, it shall be again. All God’s Word foretells
it; all the face of the world bespeaks the working
out of the prophecy. The day of Christ shall not
come, until there “come a falling away first, and
that wicked be revealed.” The mystery of evil, which
by one man entered into the world, is now teeming with its mightiest birth. Men have sinned long
and sinned greatly against Heaven; but there is a
warfare coming, a strife of man’s will against the
will of God, in the surpassing tumult of which shall
all former disobedience be forgotten. The Evil One
shall be loosed upon the earth, having great wrath, “because he knoweth he hath but a short time.”
And all things are making ready for him: the powers of spiritual wickedness marshalling
themselves in secret, unfolding their legions, and unrolling their banners
around the camp of the saints. Hell is moving itself to meet his coming. And
then shall the sin which by one man entered into the creation of God be at its
full, and the world-long growth and gathering of this awful mystery be accomplished. It shall at last stand forth in the earth,
at the full stature of its hate and daring against
heaven; and by the coming of the Son of Man in
glory shall be cast out for ever.
SERMON II.
CHRISTIANS NEW CREATURES.
2 COR. v. 17.
“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are
passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
SUCH is the change which passes upon Christians
through the power of Christ their Lord: they are
made new creatures. And this deep mystery of
our own renewed being flows out of the mystery of
Christ’s incarnation. He took our manhood and
made it new in Himself, that we might be made new
in Him. He hallowed our manhood, and carried
it up into the presence of His Father as the first
sheaf of the coming harvest, and the first-fruits of
a new creation. And we shall be made new creatures through the same power by which He was
made man—by the overshadowing of the Holy
Ghost. He was born in the flesh, we in the
Spirit: His birth is the symbol of our regeneration, and we shall therefore be conformed to His
likeness. “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.”1 John iii. 1.
In the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit upon
the throne of His kingdom, that is, at the resurrection of the dead and the restitution of all things,
we shall be born again of the earth, as Adam in
the beginning. In the day-spring of the resurrection the dew of our birth shall be of the womb of
the morning.
So much we know generally, and of the future.
But St. Paul says, “If any man be in Christ he
is a new creature.” There is, therefore, a particular and a present sense in which this is true;
and this it concerns us most of all to know. We
will see, then, how it is that we may be said to be
new creatures now; and afterwards we may learn
some useful lessons from it.
1. And, first, we are made new creatures by a
present change working in our moral nature; that
is to say, through our regeneration in holy baptism.
By the love of God electing us to a new birth of
the Spirit, and by the Holy Ghost working through
that visible sacrament, we are translated from wrath
to grace, from the power of darkness to the kingdom of His dear Son. Old things pass away, and
all things become new around the regenerate man.
We look upward to a new heaven; we stand upon a new earth: both are
reconciled; heaven, through the blood-shedding of Christ, is opened to all believers; and earth, healed of the original curse,
is pledged to restore its dead. We are brought
under the shadow of the Cross, within whose do
minion the powers of sin are bound. We receive
that thing which by nature we cannot have—a
baptism not of water only, but of the Holy Ghost.
It does not more become us to search into God’s secret manner of working in holy baptism, than
in the holy eucharist; both are sacraments, both
mysteries, both symbols of the eye, both gifts of
grace to the soul of man. In baptism we are made
new creatures, so that we may grow daily to the
sanctity of angels, or so that we may fall, and hold
our regeneration in unrighteousness,—as angels that
kept not their first estate hold their angelic nature
still in anguish and in warfare against God.
2. But further; Christians are new creatures
by present, ever-growing holiness of life—by the
renewing of their very inmost soul. They are absolutely new creatures—new in the truth of moral
reality: new altogether, but still the same. I will
pass by the grosser kinds of sin, for instance, profligacy of life, mockery of religion, or unbelief, and
take for example two men of opposite characters;
a pure man, whose heart and imagination is
hallowed by the Spirit of Christ; and an impure man, whose thoughts and associations are sullied
and defiled. Or take a watchful, self-denying
man, who brings under his body, and keeps it in
subjection, so as to be ever vigilant, instant in
prayer, thoughtful, fond of solitude and of lonely
converse with God in secret; and compare him
with the heavy, surfeited man—not the gross winebibber or glutton alone, but the man that gives
himself a full range and measure in all things
lawful, and of common life, so as to over-burden
his soul with the cloying of the sated body, and
deaden the keen tact of conscience, and smother
the struggling pulses of his spiritual being. This
is a very common character among people that are
not religious. What can be more contrary, more
altogether several and distinct, than two such
men? Or, to take another instance. We see
some men large-hearted and generous, denying
themselves, almost above measure, that they may
give to the poor and to the work of Christ. They
kindle with every man’s joy, rejoice in his good,
make festival with him for the abounding of his
happiness; they have tears for the broken in
heart, and seem to pass into the place of departed
friends as if they were the same loved spirit in
another guise—they live, as we say, in other men.
And let us compare with such the man who is greedy
of gain; who has an evil eye when his neighbour prospers, is busy and blithe when another is stripped
and smitten. Such men are often seen. They are
men shrewd in the world’s cunning; men of skill
in doubling all the changes of life, and in meeting
its emergencies. They have a sail for every wind;
they are far-sighted and practical; careful of money, but not hard; not absolutely refusing to give,
but giving scantily, as buying themselves off cheaply, yet always strictly within the constituted laws
of right and honour. Or, to take a last and all-comprehending contrast,—look at the penitent sinner, calm and self-collected, of a gentle bearing and
a gentler spirit; shrinking from the approaches of
sin by an unerring and almost unconscious instinct;
weeping for the sins of other men; mourning in
spirit at the recollection of past falls; hating the
passing thoughts of evil which overcloud his soul;
not only confessing before His Father in secret
the sins of every day, but condemning himself
as guilty for the very susceptibility of temptation.
And then look at a man of no great grossness of
life—a sinner of the common sort—hardy, self-trusting, venturous in the midst of evil, unconscious
of its dominion. Evil words and thoughts do not
grieve him; he regards them as unrealities. After
he has sinned greatly, perhaps he is a little grieved;
for a passing moment he is angry and irritable:
but he shrinks the more from God—turns to business—tries to fill his thoughts and wait for to-morrow,
remembering how often a little time has deadened his first remorse, and put back
his old heart into him again. Now, in all these contrasted characters there is one common basis; there is one
common nature—moral and responsible,—a heart,
a conscience, a will. They are individuals of the
same race and family, so alike in kind as to be
one; but so different in character, so diametrically
opposed by the antagonist forces of moral energy,
that no two other things can be more two than
they are. They have no fellowship, no common
language. They are each to the other unintelligible riddles.
And now let us take not two men of two
characters, but the same man at two stages of his
moral life.
If we could compare what the lurking power of
our birth-sin would have made a man, who from
holy baptism has been shielded and sanctified, with
the actual energetic holiness to which the grace of
God has wrought his inmost being, we should understand the deep mystery lying in the words, “If
any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.” But
as we can measure powers only in their effects,
we must take the common case of a man in whom
an after-repentance and change of heart abolishes
his former self. Compare together the earlier and the latter state of the man who was once impure,
and is now chaste; who was luxurious, and is
now mortified in the flesh; who was grasping and
worldly, and now vests the right and disposal of
all he has in Christ his Lord; who was once
dead and impenitent, and is now broken in heart;
though, by the line of identity which runs deeply
through all his life, in boyhood, youth, and man
hood, binding all his years, with all their burden of
good and ill, in one single consciousness; and by
the stern rule of moral responsibility, which rivets
with an iron bond his former self about him to the
last,—though by these laws of our being he is one
and the same man still, yet in all other things he is
so two as light and darkness cannot be more distinct.
And that because two wills bent contrary ways
are, in moral truth, not more two than one which
has had two contrary determinations. It is not in
the multitude of wills that men are so truly several
and divided as in their contrary and conflicting
bias. All the lights of heaven, and all the water-springs of the earth, all the
angels of God, all spirits and souls of the righteous, are but one in the
sameness of their common nature. They are all a perfect unity. It is moral contradiction—moral conflict—the clash of moral antagonists, that makes God
and man to be two, and the race of man as divided
as it is numerous; and so is it in every living soul changed by the grace of God. He was an evil
being, he is a holy one; that is, he was an old,
he is a new creature. Such were Manasseh and
Magdalene; such the apostle Paul; such was even
St. John, once ambitious and fiery, but afterwards
meek and patient, taking the scourge with joy for
his Master’s sake. For he, too, had grown into a
new creature. He had learned things unutterable,
lying on his Master’s bosom; he had there looked
with stedfast gaze into the clear depths of the
Redeemer’s love, and by gazing he had grown into
the likeness of his Lord. Such is the law of our
regeneration; and so must we be ever changing
from old to new. It is a change as searching and
as absolute as can be in the limits of the same
being. When the flesh is subdued to the spirit,
and Satan bruised under our feet, this old world
passes away as a shadow, and the new stands out
as the visible reality from which the shadow fell:
and the whole man grows into a saint. The low
liest and most unlettered man, to whom written
books are mysteries—the tiller of the ground—the toiling craftsman—the weary trader—the poor
mother fostering her children for God—the little
ones whose angels do always behold the face of
their Father in heaven,—all these, by the Spirit
of Christ working in them, are changed into a
saintly newness, and serve with angels, and look into the mystery of God with cherubim, and adore
with the seraphim of glory.
Now, if this is to be a new creature, we may
well stand in awe of our great and holy calling to
be members of Christ. What an awful change has
passed upon each one of us when we knew it not!
How fearful is the relation into which we have been
brought to the spiritual world! how nigh to the
unseen presence of the Word made flesh, and to
the person of the Holy Ghost! How appalling,
then, is this view of our state as Christians! We are
wont to look without reflection on the lives of men
baptised like ourselves, and to think that such high
mysteries cannot be literally understood; that they
must needs be lowered by explanations, so as to
accord with the mingled state of the visible Church;
because we plainly see that the state of baptised
men is, for the most part, very far from the spiritual
condition expressed in these mysterious words.
For instance, what are we to say of sinful Christians? how are they new creatures? how are they
in Christ? and if not in Christ, what is their state?
and what must be their end? Surely, a man may
say, they cannot be new creatures. In them old
things are not passed away; their old sins are
loved as much as ever, their old lusts as much
pampered, their old habits as much indulged. All
their old ways are still about them,—neglect of prayer and of the holy Communion, quick tempers,
biting words, evil thoughts, trifling with sin, impenitent recollections of past wickedness—all these
hang about them, and they are unchanged; and yet,
for all that, they are in Christ: well were it if they
were not so—this, indeed, is their condemnation.
They are members of His body; they have received
that thing which by nature they could not have; they
have resisted God and held His grace in unrighteousness. Simon Magus was not sanctified, but he
was baptised, and his baptism was his condemnation. The profaners of the holy Sacrament of the
Lord’s body and blood at Corinth ate and drank
their own condemnation; holy things turned in
their hands to poison. Well were it had it been
common water, bread, and wine,—but they were
consecrated. We know not what sinning in holy
things may do; nor what tampering with evil may
challenge at God’s hand. Saul sought to witch
craft, and the Lord raised up Samuel to foretell his
death. Balaam tempted the Lord, and an angel
withstood him in the way, and would have slain
him while he knew it not. The sins of men baptised into Christ are worse than the sins of
heathen. The handling of holy things without holiness is an awful mystery of condemnation. Yet all
such men are branches in the vine, though dying
or dead—twice dead, waiting for the sharp sickle and the burning—yet branches still; and in hell,
it may be, the water of baptism shall scorch more
fiercely than the fire that is not quenched, and the
Cross which was drawn upon their foreheads eat
into the soul as if it were graven with a finger of
flame.
Again; we may ask the same question, not
about greater sinners only, but about all Christians.
There is no man that liveth and sinneth not; and
how shall it be said of any living soul beset by sin,
that he is a new creature? Where is the man that
does not feel a conscious oneness with his former
guilty self? Who does not feel within the smiting
of conscience, the vivid recollection of past sins,
with all their colour and aggravation; how he
tempted the temptation, how he courted the sin,
how forgot his resolutions; or how he remembered his prayers, but sinned against them; how
he knew his own peril, but betrayed himself?
Who does not feel himself at times haunted by the
self of other days, which seems to rise up as a spirit
of darkness, and cast a spell upon him, and fix him
with its eye? It fascinates him, so as well nigh to
draw his gaze from Christ. In such a time it is
hard for a man to believe that he is indeed a new
creature. And still the more when the power
of old habits, and the strength of old temptations,
seem for a time to prevail: when, even in the holiest seasons—in prayer and in the holy Eucharist—thoughts once pampered and familiar thrust
themselves unbidden now into the abode where
they were wont to be welcomed before. Some
times we are all but driven to believe; Surely I am
unchanged; old things lie heavily upon me, and
crush the very life of my soul. “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
Let us therefore learn some lessons of encouragement. Unlikely as it may seem, our most confident and cheering hopes will be found to arise out
of the awful reality of our regeneration. It is be
cause we have been born again, that we have reason to be of good courage. You have the tokens
of this change, faint though they be, upon you
now. It is true of you, that in pledge and power
old things are passed away. It is a new thing to
hate what you once loved, to weep over what you
once rejoiced in, to feel what was once unheeded.
What is this but the yearning of the new creature
to burst the bondage of corruption? In you, then,
old things are passed, as the night is passed when
the darkness is driven before the coming day; and new things are come, as the
day is come when the white morning steals up the sky. There may be thronging
clouds and weeping showers before mid-day, but to every penitent man the noon
shall come at last. The gift of a new birth is in you; the earnest is given; and in every one that endureth, He that hath begun the good work will
perfect it until the day of Christ. By one baptism
for the remission of sins your transgressions are
blotted out. They have passed from the book of
God; and all of the former self that cleaves and
clings about you, God shall disentangle and destroy. The past self of a penitent man is, after a
wonderful manner, purged, and his losses, in some
part at least, restored. “I will restore to you
the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer-worm.”Joel ii. 25.
Though, doubtless, not without some tokens of an
inscrutable forfeiture still abiding, they that truly
repent and return to the grace of their regeneration
are made to partake once more of the freshness and fragrancy of heart which is
the inheritance of the sons of God. Be of good cheer, then; the trials and the
buffetings of evil are no more than the churlish days and raving storms which
come between the seed-time and the harvest. The clinging
taint of sins gone by shall ere long be cleansed;
only make sure of your repentance before God, a
repentance that shrinks from a thought of evil as
from the second death; and He will finish His own
work.
And, lastly; live above this world, as partakers of the new creation. He that is “the beginning of
the creation of God” is knitting together in one His
mystical body, making up the number of His elect;
and to this end is He working in each one of us,
cleansing and renewing us after His own image.
All things about us teem with a new perfection.
For a while it must needs be that our eyes are
holden: were they but opened, we should understand that even now are we in the heavenly city.
Its walls stand round about us; and they that were
seen in Dothan walk in its streets of gold. We
know not how nigh are the great realities of the
world unseen; how truly they are here, though we
see them not; how closely and awfully we are related to them by our
regeneration. Therefore be it our care to live under an habitual consciousness
that we are new creatures, striving day by day to disentangle ourselves from the
clinging toils by which this old and fallen world draws us to itself, and having
our “life hid with Christ in God.” And, as a way to this severer life of faith,
live according to the rule of His Church on earth. She bids you to confession,
and prayer, and praise, to thanksgiving, and homage. She bids you to fasts and
festivals, to sorrow and rejoicing. What are all her chants, and oblations, and
solemn assemblies, but the voices, and songs, and gatherings, and
marriage-feastings of the new creation? They are earthly shadows of an heavenly gladness. Brethren, look through them; and, as
through a veil and a parable, you shall see Christ
your Lord, changing old things into new. They
do but slightly veil His unseen presence from the
eye of flesh. To the eye of faith they are as trans
parent as the light of noon. The whole Church is
a sacrament of His presence; and in all parts of
it, the man that seeks Him in purity of heart shall
see Him with open face.
SERMON III.
ON FALLING FROM THE GRACE OF BAPTISM,
ST. LUKE xvii. 32.
“Remember Lot’s wife.”
THIS warning, taken from the familiar history of
the Jews, is a part of our Lord’s answer to those
that asked when the kingdom of God should come.
He warned them that it should come with no out
ward and visible tokens—with few forerunning
signs; and even those such as the faithful alone
should read. “As it was in the days of Noe, so
shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they
were given in marriage, until the day that Noe
entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, also, as it was in the
days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought,
they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same
day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and
brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. In that day, he which shall be
upon the house-top, and his stuff in the house, let
him not come down to take it away; and he that
is in the field, let him likewise not return back.
Remember Lot’s wife.”St. Luke xvii. 26-32.
Now, in thus calling up
to their recollection the judgments of God in old
time, our Lord teaches us to recognise the mysterious movements of His providential order, and
to learn the broad analogies by which they are
controlled. The flood of waters, and the over
throw of Sodom, were forerunning types of judgments yet to come. In the spirit of prophetic
warning He thus foreshewed the overthrow of Jerusalem, and the hair-breadth escape which was then
awaiting them. But all these, including this also,
were no more than types foreshortened, as it were,
one behind the other, of His last coming at the
end of the world. As they were in suddenness and
severity, so, beyond all, shall the last coming be.
As the escape of Lot, and of the remnant who
were faithful in Jerusalem, even so also shall be
the saving of the righteous; for the righteous shall “scarcely be saved.” As the judgment on Lot’s wife, so likewise shall be the doom of apostate
Christians.
And this is the only point we will now dwell
upon. We have in this a warning of a peculiar character; we see in it an example of the just wrath
of God against those who, having been once mercifully delivered, shall afterwards fall back. She was, by a distinguishing
election of God, and by the hands of angels, saved from the overthrow of the
wicked. We, by the same deep counsel of God, have been translated from death to
life. She perished in the very way of safety. Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. Lot’s wife is
an example of those who fall from baptismal grace.
As, for instance, of those who, having been
made partakers of salvation by baptism into the
Church of Christ, fall away from it through the
overmastering power of sin. That a man may fall
finally, and without hope, from grace given, is
broadly written in holy Scripture. Men would
fain have it otherwise; and some beguile themselves by the dream, that they magnify the mercies
of God in contending that the gifts of grace are
indefectible. Let them beware how they offer
strange fire upon God’s altar. God will be served
only of that which His Spirit hath consecrated to
Himself. “When the righteous turneth away
from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity,
and doeth according to all the abominations that
the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his
righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall
he die.”Ezek. xviii. 24.
Again: “If we sin wilfully after we
have received the knowledge of the truth, there
remaineth no more sacrifice for sins; but a certain
fearful looking for of fiery indignation, which shall
devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishment, suppose
ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden
under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the
blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified,
an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the
Spirit of grace?”Heb. x. 26.
And once more: “It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and
have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made
partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the
good word of God, and the powers of the world to
come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again
unto repentance; seeing they crucify unto themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an
open shame. For the earth which drinketh in the
rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth
herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God; but that which beareth
thorns and briars is rejected, and is nigh unto
cursing, whose end is to be burned.”Heb. vi. 4.
Such is the gift of a new birth, held in unrighteousness; and
such the end to which every baptised man, who
lives in wilful and conscious sin, is perpetually
tending. The sins of the flesh and of the spirit
wound his inmost soul with a keen and poisoned
edge; and the wounds rankle inwardly where no
eye but God’s can reach. There are very many
who in the visible relations of life are without reproach, and yet carry within a heart-sin, indulged
in secret, which eats into their whole spiritual life
with a most deadly corruption. They have been
redeemed from death, and predestined to immortality, though they are dying in the very path to
life. Such are the sensual, the unchaste, the intemperate, the proud, the revengeful, and the like.
But we must not narrow this warning to the
grosser kinds of sin. The disobedience of Lot’s wife was not that she went back to Sodom, but
that she looked back. Doubtless she verily thought
that she was pressing on to safety; but her heart
was not right in her. She was disobedient in will,
and in the hankerings and longings of the mind.
The unchanged bent of the heart found expression
in a slight but significant act. She looked back:
and that forbidden gaze betrayed a multitude of
unchastened thoughts, and a world of disobedience.
We must, therefore, apply this same warning
not only to those who, through the power of indulged sin, fall grossly from baptismal grace, but
also to all who, in any way, and for any hindering
cause, fall back from the holiness of life, of which
baptism is both the source and standard. By your
baptism you are pledged to a life of sanctity. The
life of Christ is your example. Your calling is, to
be ever growing in likeness to the Son of God.
Who, then, is there that needs not to remember
Lot’s wife? Who of us is so inflexibly bent to
wards God, as not to be often wavering? whose
face so stedfastly set to Zoar, as never to look
aside—as never to look back? Where is the man
who has so repented of past evil, that he does not
sometimes cast back, in unwary thoughts, a hankering look behind? Who has so gained the mastery of himself, as not to be again overmastered?
Who has so renounced the world, as not to wax
weak at its allurements? Who has so braced himself to the secret discipline of a self-denying life,
as not at times to shrink from the hardness he has
chosen for his portion? Well is it, and better
than we dare hope, if there be none here among
us, who, after renouncing a vain, trifling, self-pleasing life, have again yielded themselves, little
by little, to be led by the gaudy follies of the
world; none whom the opposition of men with
out God, or the jeering banter of supercilious
minds, or the imposing comments of self-important people, have not slackened, if not checked, in their
flight from eternal death. Too surely there are
such among us. The world has a clinging hold;
and gain, and ease, and levity, and the pomps of
life, are cunning baits; and gibes, and laughter,
and the grave mockery of familiar friends, are keen
weapons of offence; and it is no easy task to bear
up against the stream which is ever setting away
from God, and to keep the eye of the soul ever
waking, and to live in conscious fellowship with
the world unseen. It is our natural bias to decline
from God. There is somewhat within us which is
ever slackening its intention, ever rekindling its old
imaginations, ever feeling around for its old sup
ports, ever looking back on its former self. What
we once were cleaves so closely to us, that we
shall never be wholly free till the morning of the
resurrection. The holiness to which our baptism
has pledged us is so pure and high, that we faint at
the greatness of our way. Of the whole body of
baptised men on earth, none are perfect—few are
near perfection—many, it must be feared, are energetically evil. And between these two extremes is
every measure of approach or departure from God;
and on this twofold movement men are perpetually
passing and repassing, in the manifold changes of
their moral state, and in the partial relapses and
recoveries of their spiritual life.
Now, from all this we must learn, first, that
any measure of declension from our baptismal
grace is a measure of that same decline of which
the end is, a hopeless fall from God. I say, it is
a measure of the same movement; as a day is a
measure of a thousand years. It is a state and
inclination of heart which differs from absolute
apostacy not in kind, but only in degree. Surely,
the first symptoms, all slight though they be, of
a pestilence, which is beyond the skill of healing,
must needs be greatly feared. Such are small sins,
slight tamperings with the edge of conscience, half-unwilling returns to forsaken evil, passive re-admission of once-banished faults; all these are the first
beginnings of an impulse and a direction which
leads to a settled determination of the heart from
God. Every day the deposed powers of evil steal
back, and re-assert their dominion: first, a failing,
then faults, then a sin, then a mingled throng of
lesser acts of disobedience—willed, not done, be cause, though longed for, not
as yet ventured on; and so the whole character recoils in all its parts from
God. How often do we see such examples in those who have been brought to better
thoughts by a sharp and threatening sickness, or by a heart breaking cross m
life, or by the edge of a cutting sorrow; and yet afterwards, in the restored
buoyancy of health or heart, have inwardly declined
from the warmth and sincerity of their better resolutions! It may be they were earnest for a long
season, and moved on a higher level, had loftier
aspirations, purer joys, and keener sympathies.
But, after all, by slight relapses, they sunk back,
and grew commonplace, and ended in a low, dull,
dubious life, upon the very boundaries of wilful
disobedience.
We must also learn from this example, that all
such fallings back from our baptismal grace are
great provocations of God’s most righteous severity. The sin of Lot’s wife was not only disobedience, but ingratitude. While Lot lingered, she
was saved by the hand of angels; “the Lord being merciful unto them.”
And we, brethren, who have been taken out of
a dead world to be grafted into the Church of the
living God, how shall not we be held in the bond
of a twofold guilt? Even after many and great
commendations for faith, and patience, and zeal
for His name, He that walketh in the midst of
the golden candlesticks, warned the Church in
Ephesus: “Nevertheless I have somewhat against
thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen,
and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and remove thy candle
stick out of his place, except thou repent.”Rev. ii. 4, 5.
These
are awful words. There are two things which
God hates—backsliding and lukewarmness; and
there are two which He will avenge—an alienated heart, and a will at war with His. Who can
foretell what forfeiture of blessings, what withdrawal of grace, what clouding of the conscience,
what hiding of God’s countenance, what weakness,
what confusion of soul, may be the righteous chastisement of a secret falling away of the heart from
God? Thus even in this life God looks out upon
those that reject Him, and troubles them: and
who knows whereunto these things may grow? “Remember Lot’s wife:” and who hath
said, “If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.”
If these things be so, how shall we hold fast
our stedfastness? There is no other sure way
but only this,—ever to press on to a life of deeper
devotion—to a lowlier repentance, and more earnest prayers—to a more sustained consciousness
of God’s continual presence—and to a keener
watchfulness against the first approaches of temptation. But all that can now be offered in particular
is one or two plain rules by way of caution.
1. First of all, then, beware of remembering past faults without repentance. The recollection of our
sins is safe only when it is a part of our self-chastisement. To look back upon them without shame
and sorrow, is to offend again. God alone can
simply behold evil without contamination; for memory, like a gnawing stream, gathers its tinge from
the soil through which it winds its sullen way.
So is it, above all, with impenitent recollection of
sins once indulged. Our present character imbibes
again the quality of past evil. We soon cease to
fear what we can endure to think upon; and we
soon grow again to behold the lust we once have
served with the same eyes of favour and desire
as when we were its slaves. There arises an interior assent to sins which we dare not outwardly
commit. Past sin becomes present by a renewed
adhesion of the heart; and even though we never
offend again in the same outward form as before,
some new and subtler evil is thrown out from the
stock of our original disobedience.
2. Another thing to beware of is, making excuses for our present faults without trying to
correct them. Nothing so wears down the sharpness
of conscience, and dulls its perception of our actual state, as self-excusing. It is the most certain
way to forfeit all true knowledge of ourselves; it
directly fosters and strengthens the faults we are
attempting to excuse; it weakens the corrective powers of religion, the first and chief of which is
a sincere confession of every swerving of the will
from God. From this there can nothing come but
a declining of heart, and an estrangement of the
sore and irritable mind. And these things draw a
darkness over the conscience, which hides the face
of God. A little while ago, and such men were
warm and forward in religion, now they feel chilled
and backward; for the justified fault is a harboured canker, and the repulsion of an alienated
will thrusts them away from God.
3. And lastly, beware of those particular forms
of temptation which have already once held you
in their power, or sapped your better resolutions.
Every man has his own particular character, and
every character its own particular cast. We have
our characteristic faults and our characteristic
weakness. Sometimes the same sins prevail again
over the same man; sometimes an opposite sin;
sometimes lesser faults, but in a greater multitude;
sometimes fewer, but in a greater intensity. There
can be no general precepts in this matter, any more
than in the healing of the body. Beware of evils
which have once prevailed against you, as knowing
their malignity; beware of those which have never
as yet had dominion, as not knowing what may
be their fearful strength. Beware of a retroverted
heart, and of the glancing aside of the imagination, and of the slack obedience of the will. Angels
hands have been about you from the waters of
holy baptism. Their guidance, unseen, unfelt, has
drawn you again and again from ills which your
hearts had chosen. In seasons of weakness they
have stayed you up; in the hour of wavering they
have kept you from falling. Before is the city
of refuge—the world that lieth in wickedness is
behind. “Escape for thy life: look not behind
thee, neither stay thou in all the plain: escape
to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.”Gen. xix. 17.
“Remember Lot’s wife.”
SERMON IV.
THE MYSTERY OF MAN’S BEING.
PSALM cxxxix. 14.
” I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are Thy
works; and that my soul knoweth right well.”
IN the beginning of this Psalm king David gives
utterance to his wonder and awe at the mystery
of God’s invisible, universal presence. And from
this he turns upon the mystery of his own individual nature. It is with hardly less of awe and
wonder that he muses upon himself. He feels a
consciousness that his own very being is an ineffable work of God—his own body of dust, wrought
after some high type of wisdom and perfection—knit together in a wonderful order—quickened by
an ineffable breath of God—filled with the powers
of life, with the light of reason, and the rule of
conscience—able, by memory and by foresight, to
make present both things past and things to come
to look through visible things, and make unseen
things visible; and that all this should be himself—that all should be so blended into one, as to revolve about his own will, and to be instinct
with his own individual consciousness,—this it
was that made him say, “I am fearfully and
wonderfully made; and that my soul knoweth right well.”
It was from musing after this sort upon God,
that he turned to muse upon himself. It was,
indeed, by pondering upon the mystery of God’s nature, that he learned to stand in awe of the
mysteriousness of his own; by dwelling on the
awful thought of the unseen Being who fills all
things, and quickens all things, he came to understand that he too was a being of a high descent,
a mystery of God’s almighty power, and that in
the wonderful frame of his own bodily form there
dwelt a conscious soul, whose eye was turned
inwardly to gaze upon itself. Now, as this consciousness of what we are follows in a most certain order upon a true knowledge, so far as man
can have it, of what God is, so it is also a condition absolutely necessary to all true religion.
There can be no real fear, or reverence, or seriousness of heart, until a man has come to
understand, at least in some measure, what he is—to
realise his own awful structure and destiny.
We will consider, then, some of the thoughts which press upon
a mind conscious of its own wonderful nature. It perceives in part an evident
likeness, and in part an equally marked unlikeness, to
its Maker.
And, first; we know, by instinct and by revelation, that God has made us in part like to Himself,
that is, immortal. This bodily frame we look upon,
although it is a part of ourselves, is but the least
part; although it is a partaker of Christ’s redemption, it is but the shrine of the redeemed spirit: we
feel that a man’s self is his living soul—the invisible, impalpable spirit, which comprehends all his
being with an universal consciousness, and is itself
comprehended only of God. The body is its subject, its organ, its instrument, its manifestation, its
symbol; it is not itself. All things that affect the
body are external to it, separate from it. The very
life of the body is but a lower energy of the true
life of man, and is also separable and distinct. It
may be quenched, and yet the soul shall live, and
wield higher powers and intenser energies, as unclogged and disenthralled from the burden and the
bondage of its lower life. It has a life in itself,
which, embodied or disembodied, shall live on—outliving not the body alone, but the very world
itself. All things visible shall decay; the heaven
shall pass away like a scroll, the earth shall melt
away under our feet; even now all things are hurrying past us, are dropping piecemeal, are dying
daily: but we shall live for ever. We shall rise on the heaving wreck of material things. All men,
both good and evil, shall live on; all that ever
have lived, live still; all that ever died since Adam,—Abel the righteous, and Enoch that walked with
God, and John that lay on his Master’s bosom,
Balaam that tempted the Lord, Judas that sold his
Redeemer, Herod that mocked the Lord of glory,
the very men that nailed Him to the cross,—all
are living in some unseen abode. In this life they
were a mystery of mortality and immortality knit
in one. They were in their season of trial; and
their day ran out, and their award was fixed, and
the mortal fell off like a loosened shroud, and the
immortal spirit passed onward into the world unseen.
And, in the next place, we learn that our nature stands in a marked contrast to the divine;
that the immortal nature which is within us is of
a mutable kind, susceptible of the most searching
changes. God, who is immortal, is also changeless.
He is “I am that I am,” “the same yesterday,
to-day, and for ever.” In Him “is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” But we, who,
by His almighty power, are made immortal like
Himself, unlike Him, are daily changing. We are
susceptible of forms and characters stamped upon
us from without; of habits and tempers of soul
fixed by energies within. We grow, we decay, we fluctuate, we become what we were not, what we
were we lose again; and yet we must be immortal.
The most fearful and wonderful of mysteries is
man. To be mortal and to be mutable, to be
under the power of change and death, would seem,
like the meeting of kindred imperfections, to be
consistent; that we, who change daily, should
change at last, once for all, from life to death,
from being to annihilation, would seem like the
carrying out of a natural law; and the last change
to be like all other changes, save only in that it is
the greatest and the last. But to be ever changing, and yet to be immortal; that after this changeful life ended, there should be life everlasting, or the
worm that dieth not,—bespeaks some deep counsel
of God, some high destiny of man; something that
is ever fulfilling, ever working out in us, whether
we will or no.
And so, indeed, it is. We are here, upon our
trial, for this end. We are sent into the world,
that, by our own will and choice, we should determine our eternal portion. This is the moral
design and purpose of Him that made us; and
therefore He made us as we are—mutable, that we
may take our mould and character; and immortal,
that we may retain it for ever.
1. Let us consider, then, first, that our immortal being is always changing for good or evil, always becoming better or worse. We came into
this world with a bias of evil on our nature; but
in holy baptism we received a gift which redressed
the balance, and made us free to choose. From
that day we have stood between two contending
powers. On the one side, the world, the flesh,
and the devil; on the other side, the Spirit, the
water, and the blood; the powers of darkness and
of light, of death and of life; the kingdom of Satan
and the Church of Christ; the lust of the flesh, the
lust of the eye, and the pride of life,—the gospel
of salvation, and the holy Sacraments; all these, as
antagonist legions, have contended for us, and cast
in turn their power and their hold upon us, and
we have hung in the poise and vibrated to and
fro, wavering in weakness and wilfulness, a spectacle to men and angels, till,
for good or ill, choice or time has determined the suspense. And this is the key
to all the moral phenomena we see around us. The ten thousand various and
conflicting characters of men are, each several one, nothing more than the shape
and attitude in which they finally issue from this moral conflict. All men are
good or evil, just as they incline determinately to this or that side of this
moral balance; and their determined inclination is their character. All our life
long, and in every stage of it, this process, which we vaguely call the
formation of character, is going on. Our immortal nature is taking
its stamp and colour; we are receiving and imprinting ineffaceable lines and features. As the
will chooses, so the man is. Our will is ourself;
and as it takes up into itself, and, as it were, incorporates with itself, the powers and the bias of
good or ill—such we become.
2. In the next place, consider that this continual change is also a continual approach to, or
departure from God. We are always tending to
God or from God; and this must be by the force
of moral necessity. We are always growing more
or less like Him, and therefore nearer or further
from Him. On these two lines all moral beings
are for ever moving. The holy, the pure-hearted,
and the penitent, have fellowship with angels, and
walk with God, and God dwells in them with a
growing nearness day by day; they are ever more
and more one with Him, and partake more fully
of the Divine nature, and are filled with the will
of God: they abide in God, and God in them;
they are one with Christ, and Christ with them:
they are taken up as it were into the company of
heaven, and, by the ascent of their moral being,
climb upwards to the throne of God. But the
sinful, the impure, and the impenitent, have their
fellowship with fallen angels, and their moral being
is in warfare against God, their will struggling and clashing against His will; they are beset round
about, but they are not dwelt in by His holy presence; the gulf between them and heaven is ever
widening day by day: they are ever departing
from God, and ever sinking downward to the
abyss; and the shadow of the outer darkness al
ready gathers upon their inmost soul. Now this
is the work which rests not, day or night, in the
moral being of mankind. Heaven and hell are
but the ultimate points of these diverging lines
on which all are ever moving. The steady and
changeless rise and fall of the everlasting lights
is not more unerring. It is a moral movement,
measured upon the boundaries of life and death;
a change of nature, which, in the moral world,
is a change of position and of standing before
God,—it brings us nearer or casts us farther from
Him.
3. And this leads us to one more thought: I
mean, that such as we become in this life by the
moral change wrought in our immortal nature,
such we shall be for ever. Our eternal state will
be no more than the carrying out of what we are
now. After this life is over, there will be no new
change—no new beginning—no passing the eternal
gulf between good and evil. He that is unjust
shall be unjust still; he that is filthy shall be filthy
still; he that is righteous shall be righteous still; and he that is holy shall be holy still. The two
diverging lines shall then be at an impassable distance, and they that move upon them, it may be,
shall move onward still, into a brighter glory, or a
darker gloom—to a closer ministry, or a further
banishment from God. For, in very truth, heaven
and hell are not more abodes than characters.
Abodes they are, where shall be gathered all men
and angels, according as the award shall be; but
that which makes the bliss or misery of each is not
less the habit which has here been wrought into
the moral being, and there is made absolute for
good or evil. In this life the holiest will and the
most saintly spirit is clogged and checked by the
swerving and burden of the flesh. All men fall
short of their high purposes; the best of men bear
but little fruit; it ripens slowly and uncertainly,
and often soon decays: but the will which has
here struggled to perfect itself after the example
of our Redeemer, shall there be perfected by His
mighty working. He shall fulfil the work. They
that have yearned to be holy shall be holy with
out blemish; they that have wept for their feeble
services shall there excel in strength—what they
would fain have been, they shall be. Their determination of will, and deliberate choice, and faithful
toiling, shall fix the character of their eternal lot. What through their weakness they could not here
attain, He, of His gracious power, shall make them
to be for ever.
And so, likewise, of evil men. The warning,
and striving, and restraining of the Holy Ghost
shall then be over; and all that in this life kept
back the full outbreak of a sinful will shall be taken
off. The whole power of evil, which lurks pent up
in the hearts of the wicked, shall burst forth into a
flame. The very air they breathe must kindle it.
It may be they shall wonder at themselves, at the
mystery of iniquity which has lain harboured in
them. Their conditions in life so far repressed
and masked them from themselves, that they did
not fully know what they truly were: just as we
often see men, by some outward change, put forth
new and incredible powers of evil, which, before
they were tried, no man could believe them to
possess; and as we all know how the example of
others,—their influence, their presence, the glance
of their eye, and a thousand other outward checks,—will sustain in us a better habit, which, when
they are removed, is altogether lost, and our true
self rises to the surface, and overspreads the
whole character, and puts out its full ungovernable strength. Such, beyond doubt, shall be the
state of those whose will has here conflicted with the will of God. There all check, all mitigation, all
repression, shall be gone; and such as they would
be now, if they dared, they shall be then for ever.
And if these things be so, with how much awe and fear have we
need to deal with ourselves!
First of all, we. must needs learn to keep a continual watch over our hearts. Every change that
passes upon us has an eternal consequence; there
is something ever flowing from it into eternity.
We are never at rest: our moral life is like a running stream; its very condition is change. And
these changes creep on us by such an insensible
approach, that we hardly perceive them till they
have established themselves. They are like the
growth of our stature, or the alteration of our features,—most perceptible in the whole after-effect,
but beyond the subtlest observation to detect in
the manner and the moment of their changes. So,
too, our moral dispositions grow upon us. We
know them by retrospect. They took their first
spring from some unperceived or forgotten incident, they penetrated into our inmost being, and
drew it to their own shape. To pass by the grosser
forms of sin, I would take, for example, a secret
dislike of religion, which often comes from a soft,
self-pleasing temper; or pride, springing from the
accidents of life; or supercilious contempt of the
Church’s warnings, arising from a confidence in our own judgment and opinion. These, being free
from all grossness, and therefore compatible with
all that the world exacts of a man, wind themselves
imperceptibly around many who are otherwise
blameless and upright. But, though free from all
grossness, they are faults capable of great intensity. They stifle the very life of faith, wear out all
reverence, excite a most restless and obstinate dislike of holiness, and turn the whole man aside from
God with a perfect estrangement of heart. They
are sins more deadly for the very reason that they
are spiritual. They dwell in that depth of our
being which is most akin to the immortality of
fallen angels.
Watch, then, over the changes and inclinations
of your will; for every one bears upon eternity.
Every energy lays in another touch upon your
deepening character; every moment fixes its colours with a greater stedfastness. Remember that
you are immortal; realise your own immortality.
Remember it all day long, in all places: live as
men whose every act is ineffaceably recorded,
whose every change may be retained for ever.
And, again; we have need not only to watch,
but to keep up a strong habit of self-control. How
it is that every act we do leaves upon us its impression, we know not; but the scars and the
seams of our bodily frame may warn us of the havoc sin makes in our unseen nature. The cur
rent of our thoughts, the wanderings of our imagination, the tumult of our passions, the flashes of
our temper, all the movements and energies of our
moral being, leave some mark, wither some springing grace, strengthen some struggling fault, decide
some doubtful bias, aggravate some growing proneness, and always leave us other, and worse, than
we were before. This is ever going on. By its
own continual acting, our fearful and wonderful
inward nature is perpetually fixing its own character. It has a power of self-determination, which,
to those who give over watching and self-control,
becomes soon unconscious, and at last involuntary.
How carelessly men treat themselves! They live
as if they had no souls. In their traffic of this life,
they scheme as if they were to live for ever. In
their preparation for death, they trifle as if there
were no life beyond the grave. How easy is all
self-control at the first! if neglected, how all but impossible at last! To most
men, it must have somewhat of sharpness. To the unchastened it is galling and
irksome; but what is this to the remorseful looking back and the fearful
looking on ward of the guilty spirit waiting for the day of doom!
Watch, therefore, and win the mastery over
yourselves. Live so as you would desire to live for ever. Speak and act as if you were now fixing
your eternal state. Be such, that, if your moral
being were now to be precipitated and made eternal, your portion should be. in the kingdom of God.
And commit yourselves to the great movement of
His mysterious providence, by which He is working out the change and transfiguration of His
saints. The vision which the prophet saw by the
river ChebarEzek. i. 4.
—a vision of many wheels and wondrous creatures of God, of a whirlwind, and a light
infolding itself, full of movements seemingly opposed, but absolute in harmony—full of powers angelic and ministering—full of meaning and of mystery; all this is a parable of the Divine presence
working through the complex unity of His Church.
On His Church, as upon the potter’s wheel, He hath
laid our immortal being; and as it revolves, He
shapes us with the unerring pressure of His hand,
and the vessel of wrath rises into a vessel of glory.
It is by His holy word and sacraments, by acts of
homage and adoration, by a life of obedience, and
by a wisely tempered discipline of chastisement and
peace, that He wins and conforms us to Himself.
He is working upon you. That in you which shall
never die is changing daily, is being moulded or
marred, according as you yield to or resist the working of His word and Spirit—is taking the
eternal stamp of good or ill. To our eyes it is the
Church, to our faith it is God Himself, that is
changing us into the likeness of His Son.
SERMON V.
WORLDLY AFFECTIONS DESTRUCTIVE OF
LOVE TO GOD.
1 ST. JOHN ii. 15.
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the
world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
ST. JOHN here tells us that the love of the world
thrusts the love of God out of our hearts. Now,
this love of the world means a love either of things
which are actually sinful, or of things not sinful
in themselves, but hurtful and a hinderance to the
love of God. The first is too plain to need a
word. A love of sin must set a man at war with
God: his whole inner being ranges itself in array
against the Spirit of holiness. The second form
of this truth is somewhat less clear, and far less
thought of; and we will therefore consider it.
There are things, then, in the world, which,
although not actually sinful in themselves, do
nevertheless so check the love of God in us as to stifle and destroy it. For instance, it is lawful for
us to possess wealth and worldly substance; we
may serve God with it, and consecrate it at His
altar; but we cannot love wealth without growing
ostentatious, or soft, or careful, or narrow-hearted; “for the love of money is the root of all evil;
which while some coveted after, they have erred
from the faith, and pierced themselves through with
many sorrows.”1 Tim. vi. 10.
So, again, with friends and what
is called society. It is lawful for us both to have
and to love friends, both to enter into and to enjoy
the pure happiness of living among them; but when
we begin to find loneliness irksome, when we grow
fond of being much in society, we are really trying to forget ourselves, and to get rid of sadder
and better thoughts. The habit of mind which is
formed in us by society is so unlike that in which
we speak with God in solitude, that it seems to
wear out of us the susceptibility of deeper and
higher energies. Much more true is this when to
the love of society is added a fondness for light
pleasures, or a love of power, or a craving after
rank and dignities. And so, once more, lawful as it
is to be thoughtful and circumspect in the ordering
of our life, arid in thankfully enjoying the ease and
happiness which God gives us, we cannot long have
our thoughts on these things without becoming biassed with a sort of proneness to spare and to
indulge ourselves.
Now, it is against such dangers as these that
St. John warns us. They will, by a most subtle
but inevitable effect, stifle the pure and single love
of our hearts towards God; and that in many ways.
For, in the first place, they actually turn away the
affections of the heart from God. He so made our
nature for Himself, that He alone is the lawful and
true object of our supreme and governing love.
Other lawful affections are not contrariant to this,
but contained in it. The love to God presides
over them all; orders, and harmonises, and preserves them in purity and health. But when they
are loved immoderately, or chiefly, or before God,
He is defrauded of so much of His own inalienable
homage. They become to us as other gods, each
one diverting our hearts from its straight and single
direction towards Him alone. It is of our affection that He speaks when He calls Himself “a jealous God.” Love of worldly things, then, plainly
defrauds Him of our loyalty, and checks, if it does
not absolutely thrust our love to Him altogether
out of our hearts.
And, in the next place, it impoverishes, so to
speak, the whole character of the mind. Even the
religious affections which remain undiverted are
weakened and lowered in their quality. They are like the thin fruits of an exhausted soil. The virtue and the fatness of the land have been drawn
off and distributed into so many channels, that
what remains is cold and poor. It is wonderful
how characters of great original earnestness lose
their intensity by entanglement in the lower affections of the world. They spend
their energy on objects both so many in number, and so beneath the care of a
regenerate spirit, that they lose all unity of heart and intention. They are
even conscious to themselves that this is going on, sapping
the foundations of their moral strength. Surely it
is a sign of a poor mind to be greatly moved by
little things; to have much fondness for the most
harmless of this world’s littlenesses; to love them
and God, as it were, in one affection. There is an
evident shallowness about such minds, a want of
power to perceive the measures, and relations, and
magnitude of things. Even their highest energies
are slack and feeble.
Thus much, then, may be said generally. We
will now consider somewhat more closely the particular consequences of this love of the world.
1. It brings a dulness over the whole of a man’s soul. To stand apart from the throng of earthly
things, and to let them hurry by as they will and
whither they will, is the only sure way to calmness and clearness in the spiritual life. It is by living much alone with God, by casting off the
burden of things not needful to the inner life, by
narrowing our toils and our wishes to the necessities of our actual lot, that we become familiar
with the world unseen. Fasting, and prayer, and
a spare life, and plainness, and freedom from the
cumbering offices and possessions of the world,
give to the inner eye and ear a keen and piercing
sense. And what is this but to say that, by such a
discipline the powers of our regenerate life are unfolded and enlarged? But such a life is almost
impossible to the man that moves with the stream
of the world: it carries him away against his will.
The oppressive nearness of the things which throng
upon him from without defrauds him of solitude
with God. They come and thrust themselves between his soul and the realities unseen; they drop
like a veil over the faint outlines of the invisible
world, and hide it from his eyes. They ring too
loudly in his ear, and throw too strong an attraction over his heart, to suffer him to hear and
understand. And the spiritual powers that are in
him grow inert and lose their virtue by the dulness
of inaction. This is most clearly perceptible, not
only in persons of a predominately worldly tone
of mind, but in those who have been, and still are
in some measure, religious; and none know it
better than they. Perhaps the only feeling which long retains its keenness after the religious affections are deadened, is the fearful consciousness
that they can no longer love God as they loved
Him once. They are painfully alive to a sense of
the eager and importunate sympathy, the warm
and clinging fondness which they still have for the
goings on of their worldly life, and the stunned and
senseless heart with which they turn to the thought
of God. When they are on their knees before Him,
even at the foot of the altar, and in the very act
of prayer, they feel in a strange unnatural posture; and are half in doubt whether it were not
better to make no approach to Him at all, than to
draw near with a heart so deaf and dull. Now
to this, and, alas, often far beyond this, are many
blameless and good-hearted people brought at last.
Much trading, or much toiling for advancement, or
much popularity, or much intercourse in the usages
and engagements of society, or the giving up of
much time to the refinements of a soft life,—these,
and many like snares, steal away the quick powers
of the heart, and leave us estranged from God.
And this is the secret of the oppressive weariness
which people who live in the world feel in all holy
duties. The acts of religion, such as reading,
thought, contemplation of the unseen, prayer, self-examination, the fasts and feasts, and offices of the
Church, first seem to lose their savour, and are less delighted in: then they grow irksome, and are
consciously avoided. So it must be. When religion ceases to be a delight, it becomes a yoke.
Serve God we must, either in freedom or in bond
age; if not for love, then for fear. If we love
the world, we shall only fear God. We shall turn
to our profession or our calling, or to society, or to
our pleasures in life, with speed and gladness, but
to God with constrained prayers and reluctant confessions. We shall go to them with distant and
equivocating hearts, and turn from them with a
secret readiness which makes us tremble. How
awfully do people deceive themselves in this mat
ter! We hear them saying, “It does me no harm
to go into the world: I come away, and can go
into my room and pray as usual.” O, surest sign
of a heart half laid asleep! You are not aware
of the change, because it has passed upon you.
Once, in days of livelier faith, you would have wept
over the indevoutness of your present prayers, and
joined them to the confession of your other backslidings; but now your heart is not more earnest
than your prayers, and there is no index to mark
the decline. Even they that lament the loss of
their former earnestness do not half know the real
measure of their loss. The growth of a duller
feeling has the power of masking itself. Little by
little it creeps on, marked by no great changes, much as the dimness of the natural sight, which
must reach to an advanced point before it is detected to be more than a passing film. And so
the inward affections lose all their freshness, and
the pure light of the heart is overcast, and its love
towards God grows cold. The mind is excited,
and its feelings and powers drawn into life and play
on every other side; but in the region which lies
towards God it is bleak and lonely; and the faint
gleams of heavenly love, which must be fed by
insights of the world unseen, flicker and decay
in the unwholesome neighbourhood of worldly
affections.
2. I will notice one more consequence. As we
grow to be attached to the things that are in the
world, there comes over us what I may call a vulnerableness of mind. We lay ourselves open on
just so many sides as we have objects of desire.
We give hostages to this changeful world, and we
are ever either losing them, or trembling lest they
should be wrested from us. What a life of disappointment, and bitterness, and aching fear, and
restless uncertainty, is the life of the ambitious,
and covetous, and self-indulgent! merchants, trading at a thousand hazards; statesmen, climbing
up to slippery places; men of letters, catching at
every breath of fame; men of the world, toiling
to sustain a great appearance,—how anxious, and craving, and sensitive, and impatient of an equal
do they become! How saddened, how ill at ease,
how preyed upon by the fretting of unrest; and
therefore how far from the calm inward shining
of the love of God! Where this is, there is
contentment, and a submissive will, and a glad
consent in our present lot, and a simplicity which
shields itself from the throng of manifold perturbations. But all these hallowed and happy tempers
are frighted away by the writhing and the moaning
of a worldly spirit, chafing against the visitations
which invade or sever its earthly attachments.
But it is not only in this form that the mind is
made vulnerable by a love of the world. It lays
itself open not more to chastisements than to temptations; it gives so many inlets to the suggestions
of evil. Every earthly fondness is an ambush for a
thousand solicitations of the wicked one. Through
these he fills men with pride, vanity, vain-glory,—with ambition and jealous rivalry, with a greedy
mind, with murmuring and discontent, with unthankfulness and mistrust of God. Any affection,
either ill-directed or inordinate, passes into a temptation. It is a lure to the tempter, and a signal
which betrays our weaker side; and as the subtle
infection of evil tempers winds itself into the mind,
the Spirit of the Dove is grieved by an irritable and
unloving spirit. The very affections of the heart recoil sullenly into themselves, and sometimes even
turn against the objects of their immoderate fondness. In this way the love of the world becomes
a cause of very serious deterioration of character.
It soon stifles the love of God; and when that is
gone, and the character has lost its unity, particular features unfold themselves into a fearful
prominence. The chief among its earthly affections
becomes thenceforth its ruling passion; and so predominates over all the rest,
and draws the whole mind to itself, as to stamp the man with the character of a
besetting sin. And this is what we mean, when we call one man purse-proud, and
another ostentatious, or worldly-minded, or selfish, and the like. The world has
eaten its way into his soul, and “the love of the Father is not in him.”
Now, if this is so, what shall we do? If it were possible for
us to begin life over again, and to lay it out upon some definite and carefully
adjusted plan, we might avoid the entanglements of
the world. But almost every one of us already finds
himself fully implicated in the embarrassments of
life, and involved in a multitude of inferior attachments, before he is well aware. What, then, is to
be done? We cannot withdraw ourselves. One
has wealth, another a family, a third rank and
influence, another a large business; and all these bring with them an endless variety of duties and
offices, and usages of custom and courtesy. If a
man is to break through all these, he must needs
go out of this world. All this is very true; but,
at the same time, it is certain that every one of us
might reduce his life to a greater simplicity. In
every position in life there is a great multitude of
unnecessary things which we may readily abandon:
if we were to examine carefully the objects on
which we bestow time and money and thought and
earnestness, we should find many that are purely
artificial. Many things we do only because others
have done them before us; many by mere passive
imitation. We are all over-ready to combine
many characters, or pursuits, or offices together;
to make heavier our own burdens; we learn to
form exaggerated judgments of the worth and importance of things from other men; and all this
gathers into a worldliness of character, and over
spreads our mind, fearfully oppressing the religious
life within us. Now they are happiest who arc
most discharged from contact with the world; who
can sit, like Mary, at the Lord’s feet without distraction. Most peaceful life, to have nothing to
do with the conflicts, or changes, or possessions of
this world: to have enough, and somewhat for
them that lack; and friends, so as not to be desolate, and yet without carefulness! What is there for them to do, but to wait on God, and to look
out for the resurrection? But they are very
few to whom this scarce and solitary lot is given.
The great multitude of men are so interwoven in
the tangled maze of relations and duties, that they
must take the burden with the blessing; and yet
even they would find that they are suffering their
heart to be diverted and impoverished, and their
affections to be dulled and deteriorated, by entanglement with many things from which a little boldness and decision would set them free. All that is
not necessary may be cast off. Our unwariness,
or our own free choice, has encumbered us with
it; and it is in our own hands to undo it again.
And as for all the necessary cares of life, they need involve
us in no dangers. In them, if we be true-hearted, we are safe. The inevitable
relations of our earthly lot are the appointments and declaration of God’s will
to us. It is He that has sur rounded us with them, and there is no danger in His
dispensations. “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man.”
Besides, even though a man were never so deeply implicated with the relations of
life, there is no need that he should suffer them to usurp upon him. He may live
in the midst of them with an unsubdued and single heart; he may meet them
cheerfully, fulfil what they exact of him, but do them no homage; yield to them no mastery over his inward purpose.
He submits to them as to a rule of God’s ordaining; accomplishing day by day his toil, or study,
or professional offices; mixing, too, in life, taking
pleasure in its pure happiness and fond affections,
without fear or doubting, knowing that he is where
God has willed his probation. But the deep movements of his heart are reserved for God. All other
emotions are partial, affecting only a portion of his
spiritual life; but this extends over all, and concentrates all upon itself. It is only towards God
that he turns with a perfect unity of will. And,
besides that the necessary entanglements of our lot
are thus in themselves safe and lawful, God in His
mercy shields the obedient mind from the deteriorating effect of inevitable contact with the world.
When He leads men into positions of great trial,
whether by wealth, or rank, or business, He compensates by larger gifts of grace. The spiritual life
is perpetually replenished by the “powers of the
world to come; “and we find men who are the
most burdened, and even overborne, by the thronging toils of daily life, or lured and solicited by the
splendours of the world, not only holding out
against the secularising action of worldly things,
but even confirmed and elevated to a higher pitch
of devotion. The world not only has no power to
conform them to itself, but it becomes a sort of counter-pressure, which forces them to take shelter
in a secret life of self-renouncement. It keeps
them ever on the watch, by a consciousness that to
relax is to be in peril; and therefore it often hap
pens that none are more dead to the world than
they that have it around them in the largest mea
sure. They have learned its emptiness and its bitterness, and recoil into themselves, as into a silence
where the presence of God is heard. They have
had many struggles with it, and gained many masteries, and suffered many wounds, and they have
become estranged from it, and suspicious of all its
advances and allurements; and have learned that,
whensoever they have leaned upon it, an edge
has pierced them, and that there is no safety but
in God.
From all this, then, it is plain that we can
never charge the worldliness of our hearts upon
our lot in life; for our hinderances are either made
by entanglement in things which are unnecessary,
or, if in necessary things, are made through some
inward fault of our own. Let us therefore no more
pretend to excuse the withholding of our hearts
from God, or the poverty and dulness of our affections, on the plea that the cares and duties of the
world keep us back from a devoted life. Still less
let us persuade ourselves, that the temptations to
which we needlessly expose ourselves are inevitable and appointed of God, or that we can resist their
action. They have already overcome us, as soon
as we suffer them to pass within the precinct of
our daily life. We can still, however, with great
ease, in due season, disentangle ourselves from all
needless hinderances. The rest will be no let to
the love of God. All pure loves may dwell under
its shadow. Only we must not suffer them to
shoot above, and to overcast it; for the love of
God will not grow in the shade of any worldly
affection. Above all, let us pray of Him to shed
abroad in our hearts more and more of His love;
that is, a fuller and deeper sense of His exceeding
love towards us. It is thus He draws our love
upward to Himself. “We love Him because He
first loved us.” The consciousness of this divine
love comes down like a flood of light upon our
darkened hearts, transfiguring all pure love of
God’s creatures with exceeding brightness, making
all the affections of our spiritual life harmonious
and eternal.
SERMON VI.
SALVATION A DIFFICULT WORK.
ST. MATTHEW vii. 13, 14.
“Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate, and broad
is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be
which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which
leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
IN these words our Lord uttered a startling and
awful truth. He declared, that they who make
forfeit of eternal life are many, and they who gain
it few. And the reason He affirmed to be this:
that the way of destruction is broad, and the way
of life narrow. By these words, He designed to
express some great difficulty which lies in the way
of salvation, some barrier which few surmount.
Now one thing is most certain; I mean, that
this difficulty is not of God’s making. He “would
have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”1 Tim. ii. 4.
“I have no pleasure in the
death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.”Ezek. xxxiii. 11.
“God so loved the world,
that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoso
ever believeth in Him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.”St. John iii. 16.
It is not, then, any difficulty
ordained of God; and therefore it is plain that it
must be on man’s part; that it is something in our
own nature, I mean a moral difficulty. And what
this is we will go on to examine.
And, first, strange as it may seem, the difficulty
will be found in the unwillingness of men to be
saved. In holy Scripture this is broadly charged
upon mankind. God asks, as pleading with His
people, “Why will ye die?” And our Lord, weeping over Jerusalem, “How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would
not!”St. Matt. xxiii. 37.
And again, “Ye will not come unto me,
that ye may have life.”St. John v. 40.
And in the parable of
the marriage-feast, a type of eternal life, “They
all with one consent began to make excuse.” It is
manifest that there is in man’s nature a deep and
settled unwillingness, which is the first and great
est barrier to his salvation; an unwillingness not
simply to be saved, that is, to be made everlastingly
blessed this, as a mere end of their desires, all men long after—but an unwillingness to be saved
in the way of salvation which God has ordained.
They would fain enter into the strait gate, if they
could do it without repenting, or denying self, or
crossing their own will, or changing their way of
life. If they might-live on to the very threshold of
His kingdom with an unchastened heart, and then,
without struggle, shed off the unmortified body of
sin and death, and enter new-born into His joy;
if, after a life of self-indulgence, they could inherit
eternal bliss, and so draw out the indolent, self-pleasing luxury of earth into the perfect blessedness of heaven, then, indeed, there would be no
unwillingness; then the way of life should be
broad enough, and many should go in thereat;
and the way of destruction narrow, and there
should be few that find it. But it is the severe
holiness of salvation from which they shrink,
because the carnal mind is enmity against God.
They know that salvation is, the being saved from
sin, from its guilt and from its soil, from the power
with which it rules over us, from the love with
which we cling to it;—in a word, it is the healing
of the soul; the cleansing of its deadly sickness;
the making of the sinful creature a holy being.
From this men shrink by the recoil of their natural
will. They too clearly see that it is from themselves that they must be saved; from what they love and pamper with perpetual license; that they
must renounce what they are, and become what
they are not; that they must absolutely submit
their will to be changed and subdued to His will;—and they are not prepared to put so great a yoke
upon themselves. And, besides this, the thought
of God’s awful and searching presence, all pure, all
holy, is insufferable. They feel the awful contrast
of their own sullied spirits with His spotless sanctity; and they can neither endure to forsake the
sins they doat on, nor dare to draw nigh Him
without repentance. And this unwillingness which
all men have by nature is greatly aggravated by
the habit of their lives. Every act of sin excites it.
Sinful acts, as they multiply into habits, and combine into a settled character, turn a man’s heart
aside from God with a most stedfast alienation.
The power of evil, and the hold of the world, grow
stronger upon such a man. He has more to break
through, more to forsake, more to mortify; and
the effort becomes daily harder and less hopeful.
It is not only sins of the grosser sort, and habitual
familiarity with evil, that determine the will of
man against God. An angry or a sullen temper,
jealousy, fondness for trifles and worldly vanity,
levity, ambition, and the hardness of heart which
is seldom far from a soft, self-pleasing mind,—all
these things foster a secret dislike of the severities of personal religion, and make a man unwilling to
enter in at the strait gate. Nay, even the pure-minded have need to watch; for the world is ever
shedding a silent influence upon us; it deadens the
keen tact of conscience, and entangles us in unseen
toils, and draws the will secretly from God. Many
who are pure from grosser evil may forfeit eternal
life through a slothful indisposition to strive against
their conscious faults. This, then, is one form of
the great moral difficulty which must be overcome
by all who would enter into life.
2. There is yet another, not wholly unlike in
kind, but more subtle, and therefore not less dangerous. Let us suppose a man to have made the
first bold and successful struggle, to have burst
through the bonds and trammels of an evil or a
worldly life, and to have submitted himself to the
merciful severity of God: thenceforward his life
is a perpetual warfare; as before against God, so
now against himself; and that because the reluctance of his natural will is not absolutely changed,
but only held in check. He is willing in the main
to submit to repentance and self-denial, and to the
crossing of his daily choice; or, in a word, to yield
himself up to be saved in the awful way of God’s appointment. But though willing in the main
purpose of his mind, and in the general resolution of
his heart, he is found unwilling in the particular instances which make up his actual salvation. He
is willing to be delivered from all sins, until he is
tempted. Each particular temptation has its lure
and its spell to draw him to a new consent. His
old disease returns upon him in detail. There is
an uncertainty, a weakness, and a wavering about
such men,—a readiness to pass impostures upon
their own conscience: and all these make it hard
for them to win eternal life.
The reasons of this are many. The power of
his old habits is upon him still; and, as the original fault of man’s nature inclines him to evil gene
rally, so they give a man a leaning and proneness
to particular sins. His will is weaker on that side
where it has been wont to yield; he is more vulnerable, more liable to be tempted,—as a constitutional liability to any sickness makes a man
more readily take infection; for his former habits
have laid up a provision for future falls. They
leave in him something upon which temptation may
kindle; in the words of a wise spiritual guide and
bishop of the Church, they are like a taper newly
quenched, which starts again into a flame at the
first approaches of a light. Most unlike to Him
in whom the prince of this world, when he came,
had nothing on which to fasten. On Him temptations fell harmless, as sparks are quenched upon
the surface of a pure fountain.
Once more; in such a man as we speak of,
the new strength of better habits is not as yet confirmed. And here again the power of past evil
reappears. It not only claims a dominion of its
own, but it mars the beginnings of a holier character. It perpetually breaks up the first foundations, unsettling them as soon as they are laid,
baffling our toil, and mocking us by continual defeats. No man knoweth, but God only, what is
the hurt inflicted upon man’s spiritual nature by
familiar consent to evil; what is the deterioration
of the moral being in the scale of His redeemed
creatures. It scathes and deadens the spiritual
sense, and leaves fearful scars and seams on our
inmost soul. It seems to make us less susceptible
of holiness: for by a course of disobedience not only
is the antagonist resistance of the mind increased,
but even its passive powers are diminished. As,
for instance, what is it that hinders the deeper
sorrow of repentance, but a former habit of treating sin with levity? What makes devotion well
nigh impossible, but a past habit of living with
out prayer? What makes it so hard to sustain a
habitual consciousness of God’s presence, but an
early habit of living without that consciousness?
There has come over the spiritual nature an inaptness, and often an antipathy. As in some
men the keenness of the eye and ear is blunted, and the very first laws of harmony and beauty be
come unintelligible, and even irksome; so is it
with holiness, without which no man shall see the
Lord. We squander and abuse the mysterious
powers of our spiritual being, and daily create
around us new obstructions in the way of our salvation, narrowing the path and straitening the gate
by which alone we can enter into life.
But hitherto I have seemed to speak only of
those who, after an evil or worldly life, turn to repentance. And yet this warning is for all. It was
spoken absolutely. To all mankind, as fallen men,
the way of life is not more blessed than it is arduous.
And that for this reason, because “flesh and blood
cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth
corruption inherit incorruption.”1 Cor. xv. 50.
There must pass
on each a deep and searching change. And this
change, though it be wrought in us of God, is
wrought through our striving. It is no easy task
to gird up the energies of our moral nature to a
perpetual struggle. The most watchful feels as
one that strives against the half-conscious drowsiness of an oppressive poison; the purest, as he
that leaves upon driven snow a dark and sullying
touch; the most aspiring, as a man that aims his
shafts from a strained and slackened bow; the
most hopeful of eternal life, as one that toils for a far shore in a rolling and stormy sea. It is a hard
thing to be a Christian. It is a hard thing to keep
ourselves unspotted from the world. It is a hard
thing to force our way, making an armed retreat
into a position of safety; for sin, that great and
manifold mystery of ill, whose root no man hath
ever found, whose goings forth were before the
world was made, and whose legions are unseen,
hovers around with a terrible strength, and still
more terrible craft. It ever hangs upon our skirts,
and harasses our way to life; it waits through every
day, and watches in every hour; it besets all our
paths, and lurks beside all our duties; it mingles
in our toils, and hides in our secret chamber, and
masks itself under our religion, and follows us to
the altar of God. Through all this we have to
win our way to life. “We wrestle not with flesh
and blood”—for then we might endure it, beholding
our enemy and grappling with him face to face,—“but we wrestle against principalities, against
powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this
world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”Ephes. vi. 12.
These throng the way to life, and cast down the
unwary, and overbear the wavering soul, and mar
the beginnings of repentance: therefore are they
who find eternal life but few.
Such, then, is the warning of our Lord. And these are some of the many difficulties which beset
our way to heaven. We are bid to strive. Salvation is not the by-play of our idle hours, when
the mind is wearied with overtoiling for this life,
or cloyed with the oppressive customs of the world.
It demands a manly and a resolute heart, or that
still strength which faith gives to the most feminine and gentle spirit.
Beware, then, of an easy, acquiescing temper,
which lulls you to be secure. What is meant by “wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth
to destruction,” but that a man needs only to follow
his own will; only to let his thoughts, and words,
and lusts wander and run on unchecked, and he
is in as fair a way to perish, as a ship without a
helm, where there is but one haven and a thousand
shoals? By a natural law man leans towards destruction. It may be called the gravitation of a
fallen being; and let a man only be at ease in
himself, and satisfied with what he is, and consent
to the usurping customs of the world, drawing in
the unwholesome breath of refined evil, and letting
his moral inclination run its natural course, without
check or stay, and he will most surely tide onward,
with an easy and gentle motion, down the broad
current of eternal death. Such a man is seldom
strongly tempted. The less marked solicitations
of the tempter are enough. The suggestion of a great sin might rouse his conscience, and scare
him from the toils. We may take this, then, as a
most safe rule, that a feeling of security is a warning
to be suspicious, and that our safety is to feel the
stretch and the energy of a continual strife.
But there is also another thing to remember.
Our blessed Lord did not give this warning to discourage, but to rouse us. He well knew that men
always despise things easy to be done; that they
think what may be done easily may be done at
any time; and that what may be done by a little
effort is often never done at all. And men are ever
ready to believe that it is no hard task to enter into
life; and this, as knowing neither the holiness of
God’s kingdom, nor the sin that is in themselves.
He therefore told them the naked truth, startling,
awful, and unpalatable as it must ever be; and by
this He tried the reality and strength of their intentions. Let no man, therefore, go away cast down.
A consciousness of difficulty is to the true of heart a
spur to efforts, and therefore a pledge of success at
last. Only resolve to win eternal life, and He will
accept your resolution as a pure offering. Measure
your daily life upon your resolve; shun all things
that can betray your stedfastness; cleave to all
that may strengthen or confirm your vow. Only
be true to yourselves; and all help and all succour shall be given you. Twelve legions of angels shall wrestle for you, rather than that one faithful
spirit perish from the way of life. To this end
you were born, and for this cause came you into
the world, that you should inherit the kingdom of
God. Lose this, and all is lost. “For what shall
it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world,
and lose his own soul; or what shall a man give
in exchange for his soul?”
SERMON VII.
A SEVERE LIFE NECESSARY FOR CHRIST’S FOLLOWERS.
ST. LUKE ix. 23.
“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and
take up his cross daily, arid follow me.”
WE read in the Gospels both of St. Matthew and
of St. Mark, that this startling precept was given
at the time when Peter had been sternly rebuked
for his misguided affection for his Lord. It was at
the same time, when in the foresight of His coming
agony, the Lord Jesus began to teach them what
things the Son of man should suffer; and Peter, in
the forwardness and blindness of his heart, “took
Him, and began to rebuke Him, saying, Be it far
from Thee, Lord: this shall not be unto Thee.
But He turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee
behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me:
for thou savourest not the things that be of God,
but those that be of men.” And then, to shew the
breadth of this great law of suffering, and how that the law which reached even unto Him bound also
every living soul that followed Him, He said unto
them all, “If any man will come after me, let him
deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” And thus, by words
between a proverb and a prophecy, He foreshewed them both His own lot and
theirs: He taught them the mysterious order of His unseen kingdom; how that He
and His must all alike suffer, all deny self, all bear the cross. Again and
again, through His whole ministry, He threw out this strange lure to win them
more closely to Himself. It was so He strengthened His followers against the rending asunder of
households and of kindred: it was so He tempered
the over-ready eagerness of some that would follow
Him before they had reckoned up the cost; it was
so He sought to bind the rich young man for ever
to His service, by one more, and that the last and
strongest link. And the same deep truth we trace
throughout the whole texture of His words and
deeds: His own visible self-denial, and the cross
which He daily bore, alike bespoke the lot of all
that would be His. And what His life ever testified,
He here expressly declared. And His words are
both a bidding and a warning: they bid us that
we come after Him; they warn us that we must
deny ourselves; and they teach us that self-denial
is the absolute condition of His service: or, in other words, that without self-denial no man can
be a faithful Christian.
And how universally this great condition has
been fulfilled in all His true servants, is shewn by
the whole history of the Church. The apostles,
martyrs, confessors, bear witness with one voice to
the same mystery of suffering. They testify that
the badges of Christ’s people are sufferings for
Christ’s sake; and even they to whom it was given
to believe in Christ, but not to suffer for Him,
the fellowship of all saints, conspire in the same
awful testimony. They have each one borne the
cross—each in his own unnoticed way; even
though the nighest to them, it may be, knew it
not: in some hidden grief, in some despised affliction, in some thing they burned to utter, but never
dared to speak. Though the form of their affliction was invisible, yet they visibly bore the cross;
and in bearing it, they shewed whose steps they
followed. The character which was upon them
was a legible countersign of their claim to be
His servants. They had about them an integrity
and completeness of the moral life, a fulness and
distinctness of character; standing out from the
world around, and yet dwelling in it; separate, and
yet mingled in it; in contact with it, but unsullied
by its touch; external to it, but guiding and checking its course; moving it, but not borne along with it; though in most things like other men, and
to most eyes undistinguishable among the throng
which gathers in kings palaces, or learned schools,
or busy marts, yet to eyes whose sight is purged
bearing most visible tokens of their Master’s calling. We see in them the mind of Christ; the high
dignity of an austere calmness; a greatness of soul
which the world’s busy fretfulness could seldom
ruffle; a voluntary disentanglement from all the
world counts dearest; a habitual self-mastery in
foregoing honours, gains, and happiness, in choosing hardness, contempt, and isolation. By these
the saints of all ages bear their witness to this
great law of Christ’s regenerate kingdom, that
without self-denial no man can serve Him.
But we must go further. Our Lord does not
only tell us that this shall be so, but that it must be
so. “Whosoever doth not bear his cross and come
after me, cannot be my disciple.” It is not so much
a general fact in the history of Christendom, as an
universal law working out its own fulfilment. It is
no accidental dispensation or arbitrary condition
imposed upon the Church by the will of Him we
serve, but the inevitable law of a deep moral necessity; for it is not more certain that without
holiness no man can serve Him, than that without
self-denial no man can be holy. And so it must
be from the nature of mankind, and the nature of Christ’s service. For what is man’s nature but
sinful flesh? and what His service but a sharp corrective? What is man’s sin but the domination of
self-will? and what is the corrective but its abasement and abolition? What is each several characteristic form of sin, but self-will lusting on every
side, and predominantly in some one direction?
and what is our enfranchisement from sin, but the
quelling of sinful lusts by Christ’s Spirit working
in us through self-denial? No two powers can be
more antagonist than man’s nature and Christ’s service; and the struggle issues, as either power
prevails, in apostacy or in self-denial.
We will take one or two particular proofs of
this moral necessity.
1. In the first place: without crossing and denying ourselves, there can be no purifying of the
moral habits. Without a true compunction and a
tender conscience, purity of heart, and the energy
of a devout mind set free from the thraldom of evil,
no man can have fellowship with Christ; and no
man can have these without self-denial. There
hangs between Him and the soul which is sullied
by permitted lusts, a dark and impenetrable veil.
No holy lights stream through upon it; no softening influence pierces the inner gloom; no invitations from above draw up the sullen mind towards
heaven; no yearnings of heart stretch forth their hands unto God; the whole inmost soul is bent
into a challenging array, or chilled by cold estrangement from God’s holy presence. And so
it must be in every man while his moral habits
are not purified; and, though there may be many
shades, some of a more and some a less pronounced
and settled character, yet there are, after all, only
two main classes. A man must either deny or indulge himself. There is no middle or indifferent
state—for the not denying is indulgence; it is
throwing the reins on the neck of his lusts, though
he may lack boldness to set the spur; it is rather
the want of self-denial, than any conscious and
deliberate purpose of sinning, that solves the case
of most habitual sinners. Positive sins gather and
fester in the untended moral habit before men are
aware that they have so much as gained an entrance. It may be, they never sought the sin;
they were not forward in the temptation; they did
not invite it; they were minded not to indulge it;
it may be, they were somewhat troubled at it—only they did not deny it; and so the plague fastened upon them. Out of these beginnings issue
oftentimes the most settled and deliberate forms of
vice, which either so blind men’s hearts that they
cannot trace Christ’s footsteps, or utterly turn them
back from following Him—sometimes for ever.
2. And so, again, even with those who have for a while followed His call, how often do we see the
fairest promise of a high and elevated life marred
for want of constancy! They had no endurance,
because they had no self-denial. What is more
common than to see men whose earlier years have
been shielded from the grosser contact of evil, or
whose manhood has been, for a season, overcast by
some heavy chastening—such men outwardly consistent, it may be, for years, and yet at last shrinking from hardness, and weary of His correction.
They endure for a while; but in time of temptation, by change of lot, or by some new condition of
life, such as wealth or elevation, or by some sifting
trial, fall away. And what is it but the lack of
self-denial which brings out such moral anomalies
as we daily see? As, for instance, men of excited
sensibility, with hearts impenetrably hard; or with
benevolent impulses, but merciless through self-indulgence; or with devout minds, but soft, and
without fibre enough to wrestle for the truth; or
full of good intentions, but so flexible as to accomplish nothing, so languid as to hold fast by nothing.
A self-sparing temper will make a man not only an
utter contradiction to his Lord, but even to himself.
Only let difficulties gather and hedge him in, and,
though honest in the feeble longings of his heart,
he will compromise himself with petty equivocations, or crooked dealing, just within the verge of self-evident duplicity; or he will explain away
his meaning, and wear down the severe truth of his
principles, and come out of the trial no better than
a worse man would issue from a like temptation.
3. And still further; without self-denial there
can be no real cleaving of the moral nature to the
will of God. I say real, to distinguish between the
passive and seeming attachment of most baptised
men, and the conscious, energetic grasp of will by
which Christ’s true disciples cleave to their Master’s service. The faith of many is no more than
a torpid, immature assent to things they cannot
deny. There is no act of the will in it. They pay
a cheap tribute in the understanding, to buy off the
obedience of their hearts. They know the Gospel
to be logically true; but their moral nature has at
the most a dull, flitting sympathy with the world
unseen. They rather gaze after Christ than follow
Him. And so they linger on through life, dreaming
of self-denial: and are all the harder to be roused,
because they are so invincibly persuaded that their
dream is a reality. And yet, after all, they have
never once stirred themselves to so great an effort
as to make a choice between Christ’s service with
its cross, and a smooth easy path with no crown in
heaven. They have but listened without gainsaying; or lived without great swervings from the first
principles of right. It may be, they have looked on while the Church celebrates her mysteries: they
have been assessors at her worship, and spectators
at her fasts and festivals: at the most, they have
gazed upon the visible form of her rites and sacraments. But all this is external to the
will. They
have chosen nothing, and grasped nothing. They
have been encompassed by a system, but not incorporated with it.
For these, and for many more like reasons, it is
plain that, if any man will be a true follower of his
Lord, and live after the Exemplar to which in his
regeneration he was pledged, he must needs put
this yoke upon himself. “The disciple is not
above his Master.” The whole earthly life of Him
we follow; the whole history of His Church, thick
set with the shining lights of His true servants;
the holiness of our calling; and the sin that dwells
within us,—all alike declare that we must make
choice between self-indulgence and His service. It
is self-evident, and inevitable; and by this law our probation is brought to a
simple but a fearful issue. Either we are now, at this time, denying ourselves,
or we are not Christ’s disciples in that deep inward sense which all but shuts
out the many who by baptism are made His. And that we may as certain whether it
be so with us, we have need to ask:
First, in what do we deny ourselves? It would be very hard for most men to find out what one
thing, in all the manifold actings of their daily life,
they either do or leave undone simply for Christ’s sake. The greater number of men live lives of
mere self-pleasing. They take the full range of
all things not absolutely forbidden. They live ever
on the very verge of license, and within a hair’s-breadth of excess. Such, for instance, as live at
ease with large revenues, and a full fare, and costly
furniture, and a retinue of friends—filling a large
field in the world’s eye. To such men the burden
and the sharpness of the cross are strange, uneasy
thoughts. They feel the antipathy of their whole
inner being to the severe happiness of a Christian
life. They would fain break through the heavy
bonds which weigh upon the sated soul; but the
weariness of the work, and the perpetual recurrence of the toil, is too much for them; and they
sink back with the sluggard’s portion of baffled
wishes and a declining hope.
Again; there are many who fare more hardly—who have fewer offers of this world’s favour,
and accept them sparingly; and they would seem
to be of a self-denying cast: but after all, it is no
more than the self-imposed bondage of an earthly
soul, wearying itself for some mere earthly purpose. Carefulness about money, love of praise,
rivalry, ambition, a reckless and turbulent spirit, a desire to be thought self-denying and severely
religious, will often throw out a character which may
be mistaken for self-denial: and self-denial in one
sense it is. Such men pursue their deliberate aim
with a concentration of powers, and a putting forth
of energies, which might win for them a high place
in God’s kingdom. They will renounce every thing
which can relax the intension of the mind; they
lay out time, toil, substance; they forego ease,
pleasure, the gifts of life and home, to reach some
aim on which the gaze of their heart is fastened.
And yet, after all, it may be no more than a miserly
greediness to amass a fortune, or the lust of power,
or an earthly vanity to make a family, or the love
of some poor proximate end, which shall perish
on this side of the resurrection. And so, perhaps,
with each one of us, it would be hard, after separating off all things which a craving for men’s favourable judgment, respect for our own interest,
the promptings of a more refined regard for self,
produces, to trace out any one thing which we do
or forego simply and altogether for the sake of
Christ. This is all the harder to discern in lives
that are disciplined by the happy order of a system
such as ours. We live in an age which does homage to propriety of conduct. All things around
check and restrain us; all the lesser moralities of
life chasten and throw us in upon ourselves, and bring us so near to the likeness of self-denial, that we may
well seem, even to our own eyes, to be self-denying. And yet, after all, if we
can find nothing less ambiguous by which to verify our claim to be Christ’s true
followers, no seal, or countersign, of that service which has left its visible
impression on all the fellowship of saints—ours must be a fearful
self-deceiving. Surely, if we have no mark upon us which He will own, when “the
sign of the Son of Man” shall be revealed—no imprinted tokens of His sharp
crown, or of His sharper cross—how then shall they know us for His, who shall be
sent to gather His elect from the four winds of heaven?
2. And if we cannot find any thing in which we
deny ourselves already, we must needs resolve on
something in which we may deny ourselves hence
forward. And in resolving, we should remember
that it is a poor self-denial which foregoes only in
expedient or unnecessary things. These are not
the subject-matter of self-denial. It is in things
lawful and innocent, and, it may be, gainful and
honourable, and in keeping with our lot in life,
and such things as the world, by its own measure,
esteems to be necessary things, that we may really
try ourselves: as, for instance, in living more simply than our station in life may prescribe, or our
fortune require; in withdrawing from contests of precedence; in contenting ourselves with a lower
place, and a less portion, than is our acknowledged
due; in living toilsome lives of well-doing, when
we might do well and yet live without toiling;—in
these, or in points of the like kind, we may find
matter for self-denial, and that in many ways. A
man may either deny himself greatly, and once, so
that his whole after-life shall bear the marks of it,—as in giving up some high and luring offer, and
choosing a lowlier and a simpler one; in foregoing
some dearly cherished purpose, that he may be
more absolutely His; in crossing some deep yearning of the heart, that he may have more to lay out
in His service: or he may so order his self-denial
as to make it a daily and continual sacrifice; he
may so mete out his acts as to spread them over a
wider surface, and along a more protracted time;
which is, indeed, like retaining what we have, and
administering it by a continual stewardship, compared with the selling at one cast all that we
possess.
And we must remember that, besides these
universal obligations, which bind Christians in all
ages of the Church, there are also particular and
special reasons binding us more strongly now.
We have need to lay some such yoke upon ourselves, because we have to pass through no persecution for our Lord. We have no rending choice to make, no forfeiture of all things to endure.
We should suffer rather, were we to forsake His
service. All the prescriptions of nearly two thou
sand years, and all the unwritten customs of life,
constrain us to follow Him. We were made His
servants by no will of our own: we may seem to
abide with Him, and yet have no clinging of our
moral nature to His holy fellowship. Our Christianity is indistinguishably blended with the
unconscious habits of our passive life. We have
never been tested, never in peril for our hope’s sake, never forced to choose between suffering and
apostacy. And therefore, under the fairest seeming, there may lurk a fearful, variable temper,
which, in the day of trial, would betray the Lord,
and forfeit the crown of life. We have little opportunity of knowing whether we could endure
hardness, save by putting ourselves upon some
trying rule. Perhaps many live and die unknown
to themselves, fully persuaded that they are what
indeed they are not: many think themselves to be
His, who will not be found among “Christ’s at His
coming.” And there is still a further reason, and
that is, because the Church imposes on her members no private and particular
discipline. Their self-denial, therefore, is the individual act of each. The
framing of our own private order of religion is, for the most part, left to the
individual conscience. And for minds of a devoted cast, it may
be, this is well. It may elicit higher forms of a
more conscious self-oblation. But we have need
to look to it, that what the Church does not
peremptorily require, we do not forget to practise. For the health of the moral character, it
is absolutely necessary that we have some definite rule; and we have no need to strain after
great occasions—for our every-day life abounds
in manifold opportunities of self-discipline: we
shall find them in the hours of prayer, in the
practice of charity, in alms-deeds, in fasting, in
abstinence, in straitening our ease, in abstaining
from lawful, and to ourselves expedient, things for
others sakes, in curbing our pleasures, in bearing
slander, in forgiving injuries, in obeying our superiors, in yielding to our equals, in giving up our
liberty for the good of others, in crossing the daily
intentions of our will. In these inward and hidden
motions of the mind we may keep clear both from
excitement and from eccentricity, and yet live a
life mortified and separate from the world we see,
and in sympathy with the world unseen. And the
man thus purged of self is drawn ever more and
more within the veil; the realities of faith stand
out ever more and more before his eyes in awful
majesty; and he lives no more unto himself, but
unto Christ his Lord. He is ever drawing nearer to His throne; and his shall be a calm lot on
earth, and a high destiny in heaven, even as his
that said, “Henceforth let no man trouble me; for
I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus;”Gal. vi. 17.
and, in
the clear foresight of his departure, when the toil and the cross were almost
ended, “Hence forth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the
Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day.”2 Tim. iv. 8.
SERMON VIII.
CHRIST OUR ONLY REST.
ST. MATTHEW xi. 28-30.
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;
for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my
yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
WITH these gracious promises our blessed Lord
drew to Him the people who were toiling and struggling with the burdens of this saddened and sinful
world. He saw not only sinners, but many a good
man wearying himself in vain.
Among those to whom He spoke, He saw besides
those that were heavy laden with their own sins,
many who were burdened with evil traditions and
unmeaning customs; who were fainting under the
yoke which had been laid upon them as a school
master to bring them unto Christ. He promised
them rest, if they would come, and learn, and take
on them His yoke, i.e. if they would obey and
follow Him, if they would believe and be like Him.
Many there were, as Andrew and Levi, who gave up their former ways., and all that they had, and
made the trial, and found the promise true. They
found rest in forgiveness and a quiet mind, in a
heart chastened into a holy calm, and in the hope
of their Master’s kingdom. Now what He promised
them when He was seen of men on earth, He
has both promised and fulfilled ever since from
heaven. He has ever been in the world by His
unseen Spirit—pleading, drawing, persuading men
to take His easy yoke. This He has done by His
Church in the world. Among all nations He has
gone, offering rest to every weary soul. Who can
tell what has ever been the ineffable yearning of
the heathen world; what tumultuous cries of spiritual sorrow have been heard in the ears of God?
There has ever been the voice of conscience, and the
sting of guilt, and the fears of defenceless purity,
and the remorse of conscious sin. Without a doubt,
among the myriads of eternal beings who thronged
the face of the earth at Christ’s coming, there were
tens of thousands who felt higher and purer aspirations, who sighed and strove for light and truth in
the dark and stifling bondage of heathenism. And
to these, in due season, Christ in His Church went
preaching, as “to spirits in prison,” bringing the
balm of meekness, and the peace of a lowly heart.
When they heard Him, they were drawn to Him
by an irresistible persuasion. They had found what they darkly longed for—and all the wants and miseries of their
being clung to His healing touch. They were “refreshed with the multitude of
peace.”
And not only so, but within the Church itself,
and to this day, Christ ever calls, in these soft, persuasive words, “Come unto me, all ye that are
weary and heavy laden.” It is not only among
the unregenerate spirits of men, but among those
also who have been born again by His gracious
working, that He finds toiling and burdened hearts.
As He stands in the midst of His Church, and be
holds our daily life, and all the hurrying to and fro
of weary and restless spirits, He sees and pities our
blind infirmities: for many are His by baptism,
who have never learnt of Him; many know Him
in word, who have never borne His yoke; many
have seemed to draw nigh, who have found no
rest unto their souls.
For instance, He sees among us the very same
kinds of men as among the Jews—sinners “laden
with sins”—men conscious of guilt, hating the sin
for its after-agonies, but yielding to its momentary
bait. The throes and torments of Christian men are
worse even than the terrors of the heathen or the
Jew. For Christians know of life and immortality:
to them Tophet and Gehenna are no parables, but
well-known and horrible realities. No tongue of
man can tell the scourge, and fear, and suffocating burden of guilt seen in the light of an illuminated conscience. And this is all around us,
among baptised men. It is the cause of their
stubbornness in sin, because it is the root of their
despair.
But, besides these, there are men of a worldly
heart, who weary themselves day and night in the
round of gain or selfishness, “lading themselves
with thick clay;” early and late full of care—with furrowed brows and withered
hearts; wearing a false cheerfulness, being sick in their inmost soul. This
world fairly frets such a man’s heart through and through; to him the world is
overgrown, and all its cares are swollen to an unnatural greatness. He has no
sight of the world unseen, to check and balance the visible world; and therefore
this world is all things to him. Hence come foolish choices, and inordinate
cravings, and bitter disappointments. I am not speaking of men who are so greedy
of gold as to pass into a proverb; but of a common sample of men, whose aim in
life is to gain no more than an ordinary measure of wealth, or to rise, as they
say, to becoming places of dignity and power. If you could read the inner life
of such men, you would find their minds wound up to an incessant and unrelieved
stretch, which is ever at the highest pitch. At last it makes them weary of
themselves, and they break down in bitterness or imbecility. There is also all the aching
of disappointment, and the irritation of rivalry,
and the fear of miscarriage, and the foresight of
unpitied falls; and well is it if there be not also the hidden smouldering of an
angry jealousy, and the wincing soreness, which ambitious and envious minds feel
at the very name of a successful neighbour. What burden heavier than this dead
world bound about the heart of man? what yoke more galling than a restless,
craving spirit?
And, once more; there are others who are not
less truly labouring in vain, though they know it
not: I mean, those that are making happiness their
aim in life. There are many who ply this unprofitable, disappointing trade. I am not speaking of
sensualists, or empty-hearted followers of this vain
glorious world; but of grave and thoughtful people, whose theory of life is the pursuit of individual
happiness. They look forward, as a matter of
course, to certain great acts and stages of life, as to
things predetermined by a customary law. Oftentimes, indeed, their aims and desires are very reasonable; sometimes sadly commonplace. They
choose out, for instance, some of life’s purer fountains, running through a broken cistern, at which
to slake their thirst to be happy. There is some
thing lacking—something without which their being
is not full. They take, it may be, many ways of meeting this craving of their hearts; but diverse as
are their schemes, their aim is all one—they have
a predominant desire to be happy, and to choose
their own happiness; and therefore they are full
of disappointments, perpetually wounded on some
side, which they have laid bare to the arrows of
life. The treacherous reed is ever running up into
the hand that leans on it. They are ever giving
hostages, as it were, to this changeful world, and
ever losing their dearest pledges; and so they toil
on, trying to rear up a happiness around them,
which is ever dropping piecemeal, and, at last, is
swept away by some chastening stroke; and then,
no wiser than before, they set themselves, with a
bruised and chafing heart, to weave the same entanglements again.
From what has been said, it follows plainly:
First, that all our unrest and weariness is in
and of ourselves. It is either the slavery of some
tyrannous sin, or the scourge of an impenitent
memory, or the indulgence of some fretful, implacable temper, or some self-flattering and sensitive
vanity, some repining discontent at what we are,
or some impotent straining after what God has not
willed us to be, or some hungering for an earthly
happiness, with all the chill and faintness of heart
which arises from the ever-present consciousness
that what we crave for, even though we had it, would fail to satisfy; besides all these, the weary
recurrence of night and day, laboriously spent in
toiling on towards an end they never reach,—these, I say, and only these, or such-like, make men
weary and desolate. If they would only burst
through this thraldom of indulged faults, or break
the spell of this cheating, benumbing world, they
should soon find rest to their souls. But so long
as they run on in the ring of evil or vain desires,
God will not give them rest; nay, should He give
it, they would soon barter it away for some exciting pleasure.
Once more; we may learn that it is only in
Him that we can find rest; that is, it is only by
learning of Him, yielding ourselves up to Him, and
living for Him, that we can find release from the
causes of our disquiet, or rest for the deep cravings
of an immortal being.
The main and original fault in all our toiling
after rest is this: we forget that peace with God,
and the purification of our own nature, is the absolute condition to our ever reaching it. Here men
stumble on the very threshold; and here it is that
Christ will have us make the first step. “Take my
yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek
and lowly in heart.” The first step to rest is, to
have forgiveness in the blood-shedding of Christ,
and to have His mind renewed in us. It is thus hat we are delivered from ourselves. Even though
men should gain all they labour after, yet, with
out this, happiness would be as far off as ever; it
would fly before them as the horizon, which they are
ever following after, but never reach. In the very
midst of success, the bitterness of the fallen nature
would rise to the surface, and taint all the joy.
How uneasily does a cheerful look sit upon the face
of the happiest worldly man! how soon it fades, and
the settled aspect of uncertainty return and over
cast his brow! There is a worm that dieth not at
the root of all—a “sorrow of the world,” which “worketh death.” It is only the virtue that goes
out from Christ that can disinfect us of our natural
sadness. Nothing but a devout life of repentance
and self-discipline at the foot of His cross can avail
to free us from ourselves. Seek, then, forgiveness,
and the gift of a broken heart. Ask of Him the
words of peace—“Thy sins be forgiven thee;” and
the words of purity—“I will; be thou clean.” He
will lay on you that sweet yoke, of which He spake
in the mountain of beatitudes: Blessed are the
poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the hungry
and thirsty for righteousness, the merciful, the poor,
the peacemakers, the persecuted. He will change
your inward soul by His purifying breath. As you
fall down before Him, He will lift upon you the
light of His countenance, which transfigures all on whom it falls into the likeness of Himself. Be sure
that in Him only can the deep cravings of our immortal being find enough. He has so made man’s heart for Himself, that it is restless ever until it
finds rest in Him.St. Augustine’s Confessions.
This is the master-key to all earthly disappointments. Men choose a false, cheating happiness, in
the stead of a true. They choose things which have
nothing akin to their immortal nature. All earthly
things are too lifeless and dull for the tact of spiritual beings. Something higher and purer, more
intimate and searching, is needed for a regenerate
man: or only a part, and that the lower, of his
reasonable being is affected by the fullest earthly
happiness; and when men have chosen even the
best of earthly things, the purest and highest,—such as intellectual employments, or domestic happiness,—they find it variable and fleeting. It wears
dull, or soon changes to a cloyed satiety. There
is an ever-springing care, and a thrilling anxiety,
which pierces through all such happiness at its
best. Even when God is not forgotten, it is not
enough; and without Him it is all an exciting and
empty dream. O that men would learn of the
Psalmist! “Delight thyself in the Lord; and He
shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”Psalm xxxvii. 4.
It is not for man to choose happiness as the end of life—but God: to delight in God, and then none of
his desires shall fail. As they are all laid up in
God, so he has them all fulfilled. If it be good
for him to be happy, he shall have happiness; if
not, it is happiness to him to lack what God in
love withholds.
But God would have all men happy. As He
has no pleasure in the death of a sinner, so has He
none in his sadness. He would have you to be
happy, but not in your way. The time and the
manner He reserves in His own power. Happiness
is not a thing inherited by the rich alone—the poorest may better have it; nor is it only for them
that have many and dear friends about them—the
loneliest may have it in a deeper though a severer
measure; for happiness is an inward boon; it is
shed abroad secretly in the heart by the love of
Christ. They that have chosen Him above all
others have chosen well. He is enough, though
they hardly feel it; though their affections crave
about, like a flickering flame, for nearer and palpable things. Therefore let us choose boldly. Some
choice you must have. Even the most wavering
have a preference, which to them is equal to a
choice. A thousand other forms beckon to us with
promises of rest; but only He can give it. Choose
rather to sit at His feet than to be at ease, or rich, or high, or prosperous, or full of bright earthly
hopes. Yea, choose rather to sit in loneliness before
Him, than to dwell in the happiest throng, where
He holds the second place. Life is very short; and
the world to come already dawns upon us. Brethren,
choose boldly a life devoted to Christ. Be His
above all; be His only. Hear the Church saying, “My beloved is mine, and I am His.” The world
holds you but by a thread; you may snap it in
twain, and in the settled though hidden purpose of
your soul take on you His yoke for ever.
And having chosen boldly, make good your
choice with perseverance. Many a time your heart
will hanker for what it once promised itself to possess. Many a time you will almost fear to walk
alone in the way “which is desert.” It will seem
strange, singular, and solitary. It may be, you will
have seasons of a faint will—at times all but consent to revoke your choice, and unbind your resolution. But this is not your trial only. It is common to all who devote themselves greatly. Only
be stedfast, and you shall breathe more freely,
and poise yourselves more steadily on the heaving
flood of this unstable world. The more devoted
you are to Him, the more absolutely free shall you
be from all perturbations—the safer, the stronger,
the happier. True, a devoted life is a severe one.
But there is a severity in the perfection of bliss. It is severe because perfect, as God is awful in His
perfection. Fear not to give up what the world
counts dearest, that you may wear His yoke in
secret. Live in lowly well-doing; in works of
alms and prayer, of charity and spiritual mercy.
Better to be so under a vow to Him, than to be
free to choose this world’s alluring hopes. Brethren,
are you happy now? If not, why not? Why,
but because you are hankering after something on
a lower level of devotion. Something below Christ
is your aim in life. You are restless because you
have not reached it; or now that you have it in
your hands, you find it cannot satisfy your heart.
“Martha, Martha, thou art careful and cumbered about many things. But one thing is needful;
and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her.”Luke x. 41, 42.
SERMON IX.
THE DANGER OF MISTAKING KNOWLEDGE FOR OBEDIENCE.
ST. JAMES i. 22, 23, 24.
“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving
your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and
not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face
in a glass: for he beholdeth himself and goeth his way, and straightway
forgetteth what manner of man he was.”
ST. JAMES is here warning the great body of the
Church against a very common and subtle temptation; that is, the substituting of Christian knowledge for Christian obedience.
The Gospel had in it such an overwhelming
power of speculative and moral truth as to subdue
a mixed multitude of men to a sort of professed
allegiance to the mysteries of God. It came into
the world as a veiled light of transcendent brightness, revealing the mystery of the Godhead, and
the condition of mankind; resolving the doubts of
the wise, and unravelling the perplexities of the
unlearned; it laid open the secrets of the unseen world, and put a continuous meaning into the
great movements of the world we see; it made
man to know and to feel that he is a fallen and
sinful being, and that God, of His great love, has
pledged to him the forgiveness of his sins. And
thus, as it declared the character of God, and the
standing of man before Him, and the mysteries of
life and death, and hell and heaven, it silenced the
disputations of contending schools, and won men to
itself by the yearnings of their hearts, and the convictions of their understanding, and the judgments
of conscience, and a miraculous consent of will; it
held up each man to himself, as in a mirror of
supernatural truth, revealing depths of evil which
men knew not before; and thus there was gathered
round the Gospel a mixed and numberless multitude of all kinds and character of life; from the
holiest to the least purified, from the man who is
sanctified beyond the measure of his knowledge, to
the man whose knowledge was as full as his life
was unholy.
Now this is the sin and the danger against
which St. James warns them; against the sin, that
is, of having knowledge without obedience, and the
danger of hearing without doing the word of God.
He tells them that all such knowledge is in vain,
nay worse than in vain. And this is what we will
more fully consider.
1. In the first place, we must remember that
this knowledge without obedience ends in nothing.
It is, as St. James says, like a man who looks at
his own face in a glass. For the time he has the
clearest perception of his own countenance; every
line and feature; even the lightest expression, is
visible, and, by the mysteriously retentive power
of the mind, he holds it for a while in what we call
the mind’s eye: but when he has gone his way, the
whole image fades, and the vividness of other objects overpowers it, so that he becomes habitually
more familiar with the aspect of all other things
than with his own natural face. Nothing can
better express the shallowness and fleetingness of
knowledge without obedience. For the time it is
vivid and exact, but it passes off in nothing—no
resolution recorded in the conscience, or, if recorded, none maintained; no change of life, no
thing done, or left undone, for the sake of the
truth which is shadowed upon the understanding.
And this is the folly which our Lord rebukes in the
parable of the man that built his house upon the
sand. He was not comparing the solidity of doctrinal foundations; but exhibiting the folly and
disappointment of knowledge without obedience. “Every one that heareth these sayings of mine,
and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish
man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the
winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell,
and great was the fall of it.”St. Matthew vii. 26, 27.
2. But it must also be considered that knowing
without obeying is worse than in vain. It inflicts
a deep and lasting injury upon the powers of our
spiritual nature. Even in the hardest of men, a
knowledge of Christianity produces an effect upon
the conscience and the heart. It excites in a man
certain convictions and emotions, and these are
mysterious gifts of God; they are the first movements of the moral powers that are within us, the
first impulses to set us in motion towards God.
It is by these inward strivings that knowledge
brings a man to repentance and to eternal life.
But they are only movements and impulses—means
to a further end, and good in so far as they attain
that end. In their own nature they are most transitory: they can be prolonged only by issuing in
obedience, and thereby settling into principle; or,
if they issue in nothing, by keeping up a perpetual
succession of the same excitements. Now here
is the peril of habitually listening to truths which
we habitually disobey. Every time we hear them,
they goad the conscience, and stir the heart; but
every time with a lessened force, and, as it were,
with a blunter edge;—not, indeed, that they can lose aught of their own power and keenness, but
because the often-excited mind grows languid and
dull; its senses, often acted on, are deadened; the
passive powers of the mind wear out, as the ear
seems to lose all hearing of familiar sounds, or
as a pampered palate is vitiated and its functions
destroyed. So is it with men who from their
baptism have been familiar with the mysteries of
Christ. In childhood, boyhood, manhood, the
same sounds of warning, and promise, and persuasion, the same hopes and fears, have fallen on
a heedless ear, and a still more heedless heart:
they have lost their power over the man; he has
acquired a settled habit of hearing without doing.
The whole force of habit—that strange mockery
of nature—has reinforced his original reluctance
to obey; and long familiarity with truth makes it
all the harder to recognise,—as the faces of those
we most intimately know are often less distinct in
our memory than those we have seen but seldom,
and therefore noted all the more exactly.
3. But there is a yet further danger still; for
knowledge without obedience is an arch-deceiver
of mankind. “Be ye doers of the word, and not
hearers only, deceiving your own selves”—deceiving, i.e. as if you were any the nearer heaven for a
cold, barren consciousness that the Gospel is the
word of God, or a clear intellectual perception of its several doctrines. Nay, it deceives a man into
the belief that he really is what he so clearly knows
he ought to be; that he is really moving onward in
the path which he so clearly knows he must walk
in, if he would inherit the kingdom of God. It is
a wonderful imposture men pass upon themselves.
One would think, the clearer a man’s knowledge of
what he ought to do and be, the clearer would be
his perception of the vast moral distance between
that high standard and his actual state. But, no.
The heart is a busy mocker of the conscience: it
borrows of the understanding and of the imagination visions and shadows of eternal truth, and it
flatters the conscience into a pleasant belief that
such are its own spontaneous dictates and intentions; it cheats it into appropriating, as its own
moral character, the mere shadows which lie on
the surface of the intellect. And from this comes
the ready and exact profession of religion which is
often found in the mouth even of irreligious men:
they know so well what a holy character ought to
be, that they are able exactly to describe it. They
can sketch out all its outline, and fill in its detail,
and colour it, by what we should call the merely
imaginative or graphic powers of the mind. And
as the most undisguised fictions often move our
lower feelings as deeply as truth itself, emotions
come in to help the cheat, and a man really kindles at his own vivid descriptions; but he deceives
others less than he deceives himself. When he
speaks of the love of God, or the passion of Christ,
or the heavenly Jerusalem, or the crowns of martyrs, and the holiness of saints, and the happiness
of a Christian life, the topics grow upon him, and
he moves himself, much as he might by some pathetic tale, and his emotions flatter him into the
belief that he is a man of religious feelings; and
then how can he doubt that his heart is religious
too? So we mock ourselves, and Satan ensnares
us. We draw a haze, as it were, over the clear
eye of the conscience, by the warmth of kindled
emotions; and the outlines of our slighted knowledge are verily taken for the realities of a holy life.
This will be found to be the true key of many
characters. We see men who know every thing
a Christian has need to know to his soul’s health,
and yet are as little like Christians in their daily
habit of life, as if they had never reached beyond
the moral philosophy of heathen schools. But
nothing would make them believe it;—they have
deceived their own selves. Again; there are men
who can never speak of religious truth without
emotion, and sometimes not without tears; and
yet, though their knowledge has so much of fervour as to make them weep, it has not power
enough to make them deny a lust. Ay, brethren, it will be found with most of us, that we verily
believe ourselves to be better than we are. It is a
pleasant flattery, and a quiet self-indulgence, which
winds itself through our minds, and soothes them
when we are ill at ease. We overrate what we do
well; we wink at what we do amiss. We comfort
ourselves that we know better, and shall therefore
do better another time. We fall back on our
better knowledge, as a makeweight against our
worse practice, and as a pledge of future improvement, forgetting that it aggravates our present
faults.
4. And this brings us to another thought: this
knowing and disobeying it is that makes so heavy
and awful the responsibilities of Christians. The
servant that knew his Lord’s will, and did it not,
shall be beaten with many stripes; but the servant
who knew not his Lord’s will, and did not make
ready, shall be beaten with few stripes. It is a
good plea and a prevailing, to say, “Lord, I knew
not that it was Thy will.” Even Saul was for
given, albeit he persecuted the Church of God. “I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in
unbelief.” But knowledge is a great and awful
gift: it makes a man partaker of the mind of God;
it communes with him of the eternal will, and reveals to him the royal law of God’s kingdom. A
man cannot know and slight these things without grievous and fearful sin. “It is better not to have
known the way of righteousness, than after they
have known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.” To hold this knowledge in unrighteousness, to imprison it in the
stifling hold of an impure, a proud, or a rebellious
heart, is a most appalling insult against the majesty
of the God of truth.
For whom were the heaviest words of doom
reserved by our most patient and gentle Lord, but
for those that had known Him, but not obeyed? “Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in
Tyre and Sidon which have been done in you,
they had a great while ago repented, sitting in
sackcloth and ashes: but it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for
you. And thou, Capernaum, who art exalted to
heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell.”St. Luke x. 13-15.
What was this but the recoil of truth upon the
soul that had slighted its warning voice? “Whosoever shall fall upon this stone shall be broken;
but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him
to powder.”Ibid. xx. 18.
These, then, are some of the many reasons
why we have need to watch against this subtle
temptation. It is a vain and hurtful thing, full of deceit and danger, to hear and not to do, to know
and not to obey, the Gospel; and it is a temptation to which the Church, though exposed at all
times, is most especially liable when the means of
knowledge are greatly multiplied, and the bonds of
discipline are greatly relaxed;—and such a state
of the Church is ours now, at this day. From baptism to the end of life, you have God’s holy word,
and the holy sacraments, the fasts and festivals,
and all the sacred admonitions of things old and
new, to force a knowledge of religion even upon
the unwilling mind. It is as the light of heaven,
which we cannot choose but see, though we may
wilfully shut our eyes. In such a state, the danger of living far behind the light we have is in
finitely great; especially as our rule of self-discipline is chiefly made by each man for himself;
and the custom of the world, which is unchangeably at variance with the mind and Church of God,
bears heavily upon us. We have to breast it and
to stem it, and are perpetually carried by it away
from our resolutions. But these are perilous declensions, making great havoc in the inward
character of the mind.
Steadily resolve, therefore, to live up to the
light you possess. There is an unity, a sameness,
and a strength about a consistent character. The
light you already have is great, and great therefore must be your obedience; and remember that to
linger behind, or to follow afar off, is as if you
should suffer your guide to outstrip you in the
night-season. You hold your present knowledge
on the tenure of obedience: to disobey it, is to
dim its brightness, and yet to deepen your responsibility; for we shall answer even less heavily for
what we still have than for what we have lost.
These are fearful words: “They received not the
love of the truth, that they might be saved. And
for this cause God shall send them strong delusion,
that they should believe a lie: that they all might
be damned who believed not the truth, but had
pleasure in unrighteousness.”2 Thess. ii. 10-12.
But though for the most part your knowledge is great, there
are some who feel or believe their own light to be small. It is not in the
greatness of the light, but in the closeness with which we follow it, that we
shall find safety. “Thy word is a light unto my feet, and a lantern to my path.”
It is the clear dictate of conscience, enlightened by even a single ray of
truth, guiding the details of a Christian’s daily life, that will bring him to
heaven. Therefore, once more, let us learn not to delay to follow with readiness
the guidance of right knowledge. If it do but beckon or point you in the way of
obedience, follow without lingering. The first penetrating conviction, and the
kindled emotion, and the momentary willingness
which raises the eyes of obedient hearts to higher
and holier paths, and dislodges even a stubborn
mind from its most settled purpose, these are
sent as the first impulses to launch you in an
heavenward course. Do not slight them: beware
how you stifle them. They are as fleeting as the
memory of a reflected image. It may be you
have them now: if lost, it may be you shall have
them never again.
SERMON X.
OBEDIENCE THE ONLY REALITY.
1 ST. JOHN ii. 17.
“The world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that
doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”
IT may seem perhaps a hard saying, that in this
majestic and dazzling world there is only one imperishable reality, and that, a thing most hidden
and despised—I mean, a will obedient to the will
of God. Yet nothing is more certain. It is plain
that nothing is truly real which is not eternal. In
a certain sense, all things, the most shadowy and
fleeting,—the frosts, and dews, and mists of heaven,—are real; every light which falls from the
upper air, every reflection of its brightness towards
heaven again, is a reality. It is a creature of God;
and is here in His world, fulfilling His will. But
these things we are wont to take as symbols and
parables of unreality, and that because they are
changeful and transitory. It is clear, then, that
when we speak of realities, we mean things that have in them the germ of an abiding life. Things
which pass away at last, how long soever they may
seem to tarry with us, we call forms and appearances. They have no intrinsic being; for a time
they are, and then they are not. Their very being
was an accident; they were shadows of a reality,
cast for a time into the world, and then withdrawn.
In strictness of speech, we can call nothing real
which is not eternal. Now it is in this sense that
I have said, the only reality in the world is a will
obedient to the will of God: and this we will consider more at large.
1. First of all, it is plain that the only reality
in this visible world is man. “The earth, and all
the works that are therein, shall be burned up.”2 St. Pet. iii. 10.
Whatsoever may lie hid in these awful words, it is
clear that they declare this world to be transitory,
and its end determined. Of all things that have
life without a reasonable soul, we know no more
than that they perish. All visible things are ever
changing; material forms passing into new combinations, shifting their sameness with their shapes:
all things around us, and above us, and beneath,
are full of change; they heave, and mingle, and
resolve, and pass off by some mysterious law of
intercommunication, and by that law declare that
they are not eternal. In like manner, all the works of men, all the arts of life, are no more than
the impressions and characters left by the spirit of
man, while subject to the conditions of an earthly
state. Kingdoms, and polities, and laws, and armies, and mechanical powers, and the achievements of wisdom, and wit, and might, and the infinite maze of human action, from the beginning to
the ending of the world’s history,—what are they
all, under the providence of God, but so many
fleeting and broken shadows, cast from the ever-varying postures of man’s restless spirit? They
are all in time and of time, and with time shall
pass away, save only their accumulated results, of
which we shall have to speak hereafter. Such,
for instance, were the empires of Nimrod and
Nebuchadnezzar, of Persia and Greece; or let us
take, as an example, the great empire of Rome.
For well nigh two thousand years what a sleepless
movement of human life swarmed round that wonderful centre of the world! how it expanded itself
from a point to be the girdle of the whole earth!
how that same teeming power of thought and
action wrought itself inwardly into a wondrous
polity of ordered and civilised life, and outwardly,
through fleets and legions, into an irresistible force,
breaking in pieces, and fusing, and recasting the
world into its own mould! And so it wrought on
from century to century, as if it would never wax old; and men, from this, were beguiled to call it
the Eternal City. And it bid fair to be coeval
with the world. And yet of all that majestic
phenomenon, what shall remain, when the fashion
of this world hath passed away, but the isolated
individual souls which in this world were lost in
its mighty life? The whole is gone by, like a
stately and stupendous pageant, and its mighty
frame resolved again into its original dust. No
thing survives but the mass of human life; and
that not blended as before, but each one as several
and apart as if none lived before God but he only.
And so of all the course and history of the world;
all is either past or passing away; nothing remains
but the record of human life in the book of the
Eternal, and the stream of undying spirits which
is ever issuing from among us into the world unseen. And thus it is that all that is real in the
world is ever passing out of it; tarrying for a while
in the midst of shadows and reflections, and then,
as it were, melting out of sight.
2. Again; as the only reality in the world is
man, so the only reality in man is his spiritual life.
By this I do not exclude his animal being, but expressly include it, as the less is included in the
greater. In like manner as, when we speak of a
spiritual body, we mean not a spirit only, but a
body under the conditions of the spirit; so by the spiritual life is meant the living man made new by
the power of the Holy Ghost. Before his regeneration through the Spirit, he was dead in the flesh;
he was a part of this dying world, which is ever
passing away; unknown changes awaited him; and
after the last visible change, there was no destiny
revealed. We know not all that the doom, “Thou
shalt surely die,” may mean in the state of the
dead. But the regenerate man is translated from
death to life; he is made partaker of immortality,
and is again eternal. I am speaking, then, of that
spiritual life which is in all that are born again; and
I say that this alone is intrinsically eternal, forasmuch as it is an awful gift of the Divine Presence,
and is the one only, and true, and abiding reality.
Now the truth of this will be made to appear,
if we consider the following points. First, that
of what is called the life of man—that is, of his
living acts and energies—the greatest part is altogether separable from his spiritual life, and is therefore altogether transient and perishing: such, for
instance, as all his endless, ever-returning toil for
the sustentation of this bodily life; all the homage which we are compelled to pay to the conditions of our earthly state, and the wants of our
fallen manhood. It matters not what is the particular form of all this toiling: whether a man be a
tiller of the earth, or a keeper of flocks, or a merchant, or a pleader, or an orator, or a maker of
laws, he is laboriously serving the necessities of our
earthly condition; and though a faithful man may turn any or all of these
callings into a service of spiritual obedience, yet they may be, each one, and
are, for the most part, all of them, fulfilled without a thought of the inner
life, by the almost mechanical powers of the reason and the will. Now all this,
which makes up the greatest part of the life of most men, is little better than
mere contact with this perishing world. Except when incorporated with the
spiritual life, it has no admixture of permanence, and, in the sense we have
defined, of reality. It is a mere shadow, transient and fleeting. All the sweat
of the brow, all the bold enterprises, all the skilful address, all the kindling
oratory, all the science of government, and all the toil by which these were
earned, and all the wealth or greatness by which they are waited on,—where are
they all when a man comes to die, or when he must fall down before God to
confess a sin? They are as utterly abolished as if they were all acted in a
masque, or done in a former life. How strangely, how awfully external and unreal
do all these things appear, when we are on our knees beneath the Eternal Eye!
And so, again, to take another instance: even
that which seems above all to enter into the very deep of our spiritual life,—I mean the cultivation
of mind, refinement, the excitement of intellectual
powers, the acquirement of learning and science,
which things seem to us to give the distinguishing
mould and cast to the characters of men,—how
altogether separable are these things also from the
spiritual being! They are often found in men of
the unholiest passions. The railing scoffer, the
most impure sensualist, the man in whom the spiritual life seems absolutely quenched, oftentimes
far more largely possesses these manifold gifts of
our intellectual nature than the most devoted of
God’s servants. They are but partial developments of his reasonable life; altogether unsanctified; in no way related to the spiritual being;
earthly, and therefore but shadows of the eternal
gifts of the hallowed and illuminated reason. Now
most men of learning and self-cultivation, if they
would but look closely and truly into themselves,
would be awe-struck to see how little unity there is
between their intellectual and their spiritual powers;
how unreal is all they are living in, and, unless taken
up into the spiritual life, and thereby consecrated,
how hollow and perishable is all the toil and fret
of their daily labour. If any proof of this were
wanting, we need only see such men in times of
sorrow, or fear, or anxiety, or pain—above all, in
a season of death. It seems, then, as if all but a tithe of their whole being were suddenly abolished:
all their powers, and energies, and acquirements,
are as remote and alien from their present needs, as
so many broad acres, or stately houses, or costly
retinues. They all alike seem splendid unrealities,
which have done little more than dazzle and draw
off the eyes of the inner spirit from that which
alone is eternal.
And, besides this, remember that nothing of all
we have and are in this world, save only our spiritual life, and that which is impressed upon it and
blended with it, shall we carry into the world unseen. Even as we said of this world’s entangled
history, so is it of the life of each several man.
Though all things shall be remembered in the
judgment, and though all that he has ever done or
spoken shall have left some stamp for good or ill
upon his immortal spirit, yet what a putting-off of
this lower life shall there be at that day! “Every
man’s work shall be made manifest; for the day
shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire;
and the fire shall try every man’s work, of what
sort it is. If any man’s work abide, which he hath
built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any
man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss; but
he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.”1 Cor. iii. 13, 14, 15.
Of
all the unnumbered goings on of this busy life, of all its deeds, and achievements, and possessions,
how small a remainder shall be found after that
fiery trial has done its work! how shall the “wood,
hay, and stubble,” and all the unrealities of act,
and word, and thought, and self-persuasion, and
empty imagination, and conventional formalities,
and personal observances, be burned up; and no
thing abide that searching test but the powers of
our spiritual life! And of all the regenerate to
whom that high gift was given, none shall pass
through that piercing trial into God’s kingdom but
only they in whom there shall be found a will obedient to the will of God. They that have held a
regenerate nature in disobedience are condemned
already with the world, and must perish with the
world—“for the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the
will of God abideth for ever.”
From what has been said, let this one broad
inference suffice, that the aim of our life ought to
be to partake of this eternal obedience. Nothing
else is worth our living for. We have been each
one of us born again. Obedient or disobedient we
must be, real or unreal, imperishable or perishing.
And therefore our first care must needs be, to
watch against whatsoever may turn the obedience
of our will away from God. Of the commission of
actual sin I need say nothing; I am speaking only of those in whom the regenerate will so far prevails
as to make them, in the main, obey the will of God.
The temptations which keep alive the disobedience of the will are such as these; strong desires
after any aim in life, worldly foresight, long-drawn
schemes of action, over-carefulness in the work of
our calling, the indulgence of choosing and wishing
for the future, a soft life, love of ease, and the like:
now all these strengthen the action of our own
will, and make us impatient of a cross. If events
fall out otherwise than we desire, we grow rest
less and repining; or if we do not carry ourselves
in open variance to the will of God, we submit with
sullenness and a chafing heart. All this is because
we have willed things in some other way; we have
been forecasting, and taking counsel of our own
wishes, and measuring things by their supposed
bearing upon ourselves; and our will has become
so imperious in its choice, that we forget the sovereignty of God in His own world. Now, we are all
tempted to this fault by nature; and even after we
have so far yielded ourselves as to obey His laws
in the main tenour of our life, there lingers behind
a strong root of spiritual disobedience in the heart;
and we are ever exciting and stimulating it in secret.
Our calling in life presents a thousand subtle provocations to awaken and sustain the independent
life of our will. And this explains our bitter disappointments, immoderate griefs, irritable tempers,
jealous feelings. We have been imposing laws on
the course of our destinies, taking the rule of God’s kingdom out of His hands, and surrounding
ourselves with an unreal world of hopes, and fears,
and choices, and yearnings of our own; and God
has touched it with His hand, and it has started
asunder and crumbled away. These states of our
interior life are very insidious. There is perhaps
hardly any man who is so wholly free from them,
as to be altogether real and simple. For the most
part, men choose, in thought, what they like best,
and then will that it should come to pass, and then
persuade themselves that it is to be so, and live in
the persuasion, and “walk in a vain shadow, and
disquiet themselves in vain.” They are out of harmony with the movement of the Divine will, and
become hollow and visionary. And that, too, in the
most commonplace manner of life. The most unimaginative, unpoetical, matter-of-fact men are often
just as unreal as the most heated and romantic—only in another way; as, for instance, they wear out
a whole life with a concentration of every thought
which is awful and saddening, in straining after
some object—such as high place, or great wealth,
or hereditary name, which for them is as remote
and unreal as the philosopher’s stone, or the elixir
of life. In truth, whatsoever lies on either side of the lines, or beyond the limits, which the will of
God has drawn about our lot in this world, is for
us as if it did not exist; and all our thoughts, aims,
hankerings, and toil after it, are mere unrealities,
and must come to nothing. Most certain it is,
that in every man there will be found a large admixture of this labour in vain; and perhaps the
largest measure of our earnestness, and energy,
and of the powers of life, are simply thrown away.
Now, the first check upon this is, to understand
what God wills us to be; and then to abandon
every thing else, as if it did not so much as exist in
the world. What we are, is a revelation of His
will towards us. Our lot is a reality; the works of
our calling, so long as they are done as a service
of obedience, are real. Within these bounds there
is nothing which does not bear upon eternity.
And this teaches us that we must do more than
only watch against the allurements of our own will.
Obedience to the will of God is a work of direct
and simple consciousness. It is to be wrought in
us by its own self-confirming power. It is by doing
the will of God; by recognising it in all the changes
of life; by reading in the course of this troubled
world the expression of the Divine mind; by bowing ourselves down before it, under whatsoever
guise it may reveal itself; by yielding ourselves
in gladness of mind both to do and suffer it, counting it a holy discipline, and a loving correction of our own wilfulness, and by praying Him
never to stay His hand till the mind of self be abolished from our regenerate being;—by these means
it is that we are changed from the shadows of a
fleeting life to the abiding realities of the eternal
world, being made partakers of the will of God.
But to such a life of submission much self-discipline is needed. We cannot pass to it at
once, but approach it only by the laws of a slow-advancing growth. These are days very adverse
to the subjugation of the individual will. They
are too external and stimulating. Even our religious life is drawn into the whirl and fever of an
endless activity. But, in the service of God, there
must be something behind a life of action; there
must be the stationary energies of a devout spirit.
Our life is too continually outward, and visible,
and pent up in the throng of men. We are not
enough at large and alone with God. And hence
it strangely comes to pass, that we deem visible
things to be real, and invisible things to be imaginary; we look upon the kingdoms of the earth,
and worldly powers, and the acts of law and legislation, and the business of traders and merchants,
as realities; but the Church and the priesthood,
and offices of worship, and daily homage, and
chants, and the offering of eucharists, and a life of contemplation, as economies and shadows. But
these alone are the shrine of an abiding life. This
pompous, wise, stately world must have its day,
and then be dissolved, “as a dream when one
awaketh.” We live in the midst of it, till it bewilders and stuns us, and we do it homage; and when
we turn from it to unseen things, they are too subtle
and too pure for our deadened sense. There is
no cure for this, but to be more alone with God.
Solitude and silence are full of reality. We must
draw more into our own hearts, and converse more
with Him. Never do we so put off the paint and
masquerade of life, as when we are alone under
the Eye which seeth in secret. A man must be
either very bold, or very blind, that will still keep
up the play and artifice of his common bearing. I
do not speak of hypocrites. There is no man that
is not in some measure twofold; and that simply
because there is no man who is willing to be known
by his fellow-men as he knows himself, and as none
knows him beside, but God only. We see only a
part of each other, but God sees all. Our partial
view is, if not mingled with untruth, yet misleading, because imperfect; we know only half the
riddle, and we are led astray in guessing at the
rest. But “all things are naked and opened unto
the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” Our
very helplessness makes us real. His eye holds in check the duplicities of our being; and by the
habitual restraints of solitude with God they are
weakened and overcome. In the world, all day
long, there is an influence playing upon us, which
draws our characters to the surface, and there fixes
them, leaving our hearts hollow and inactive. The
works of our calling, even the most sacred offices,
have a tendency to become an unconscious facility,
and to sever themselves from the powers of the
will. The next move is, to withdraw themselves
from the region of the conscience. Now, nothing
but self-discipline in secret can keep up the integrity of our whole nature. And the more difficult
this is, by reason of a man’s overburdened life of
daily business, the more absolutely needful is it for
his safety. Fearful thought! we were born alone,
and alone we must die; and yet through all our
life, we, as it were, flee from loneliness, which is
alike the beginning and the ending of our earthly
transit! Does not this seem to say, that we are
never at ease but when we can lose the consciousness of what we are, in the noise and show of the
world? All that we can do, when we find ourselves
grown artificial and excited, is to go apart, where
none but God sees us, and fall down as dust and
nothingness before Him, and plead with Him against
ourselves, and pray Him to abolish in us all that is
not real and eternal.
We have the more need of this sacred discipline
of self, because we have few aids and helps of a
secondary sort. They are not many who have
the blessing of being subject to any proximate superior; to any rule out of themselves, by which
the detail of their life is ordered. More is there
by thrown upon the energy of the individual will.
The need of some imposed discipline, which shall
bear upon the actings of our inner nature, is wonderfully attested by the yearnings of thoughtful
men at this time: on every side we hear them
painfully striving to free themselves from the
bondage of unmeaning and artificial habits, and
to find some basis on which they may rest the full
weight of their living powers. This has grown
upon them, more and more, ever since the current
of the world turned aside from the path of the
Catholic Church. The more energetic, dominant,
and mighty, the more learned, toilsome, and self-trusting it has become, the more hollow is it and
untrue. “The world passeth away, and the lust
thereof.” It is confounded at its own perpetual
changes: it sees that none of its schemes abide; that it daily grows more weary
of tolling, and more transient in its toils. And why, but because it has
divorced itself from the Church of the living God, and is resolving again into
the incoherencies of its fallen state? All men are conscious of this: even they that cannot explain the cause. They
feel, when they are busied in the world, that there
is something empty, something which mocks and
wearies them: they feel that the leaning of their
worldly toil is away from God; that they are
moving in another direction; that their returns
to Him are by a sensible effort, and, as it were,
against a stream. They feel, too, that their daily
life is a hinderance to a life of devotion. It is distracting and importunate; it exacts too much ser
vice, and repays with a perpetual weariness. All
the day long they are conscious that they have
fallen under the dominion of a power which is
not at one with God. They crave after something
through which they may submit themselves to the
realities of the eternal world. And for this end
was the visible Church ordained. To meet the
yearnings of our baffled hearts, it stands in the
earth as a symbol of the Everlasting; under the
veil of its material sacraments are the powers of an
endless life; its unity and its order are the expressions of heavenly things; its worship, of an eternal
homage. Blessed are they that dwell within its hallowed precinct, shielded from the lures and spells
of the world, living in plainness, even in poverty;
hid from the gaze of men, in solitude and silence
walking with God.
SERMON XI.
THE LIFE OF CHRIST THE ONLY TRUE IDEA OF
SELF-DEVOTION.
PHILIPPIANS ii. 21.
“All seek their own, not the things which
are Jesus Christ’s.”
THERE is something peculiarly touching in the saddened tone of these few words, in which St. Paul
glances at the slackness of his fellow-labourers.
It must have been a cross almost too heavy to
bear without complaining, when from his prison-house at Rome he saw his brethren in Christ
drawing off, one by one, from the hardness of their
Master’s service. It must have been a provocation
almost beyond endurance to see, day by day, tokens
of a faint heart and a selfish purpose coming out in
the words and acts of those on whom he most depended. It added to his bondage the worst form
of desolation—the loneliness of a high, unbroken
spirit in the throng of shrinking and inconstant
men. He had before now seen, in faithless and
fearful Christians, open apostacy and undisguised abandonment of Christ and His Gospel. But
keenly as that must have entered into his soul, he
had in this to endure a still sharper trial. It was
this that pierced him to the quick: for they of
whom he here writes were not open apostates.
They were not men who fell from the body of the
Church, and were severed wholly from his fellowship; but men openly professing faith in Christ,
keeping up with him the same outward relation as
partakers in the same labour of love, and yet failing him in the moment of danger, in the very pinch
of severe trial. Such, for instance, was Demas;
who is often, but by mistake, supposed to have been
an apostate from the faith: he did not renounce
his Christianity, but fell back from the hardships
of an apostle’s life. “Demas hath forsaken”—not
Christ nor the Gospel—but “me, having loved
this present world.”2 Tim. iv. 10.
He had no like zeal or self-devotion with St. Paul: they were unequally yoked
together. Demas was hurried, beyond his own
choice, into dangers and toils; he found St. Paul
a perilous companion; he loved the Gospel, but
not less he loved his own life and ease; and he fell
back, from an apostle’s standing, to be an ordinary
Christian.
This is probably a fair example of what St. Paul
intended, when he told the Philippians, that he must needs detach Timothy, and send him unto
them; for “I have no man like-minded, who will
naturally care for your state: for all seek their
own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.”
We see, then, what he would express. It was the
state of men in whom the first fervours of conversion had subsided. In an hour of ready zeal, they
had forsaken all, and undertaken an apostle’s work.
It may be they were, for a long season, forward and
stedfast, foregoing much, and enduring more; but
at the last they grew weary of the monotonous
hardship of preaching and suffering. And first, it
may be, they began to spare themselves, and to use
trifling evasions, or to keep unseasonable silence,
and secretly to long for their discharge from a service now grown irksome. And this hidden disloyalty of the heart shewed itself in low views of what
was possible in Christ’s service, and in overrating difficulties, in
discouraging views, in untimely objections, and in expostulations at the very moment of action. In some of these ways they
betrayed the disappointing truth, that self-regard
had mastered them, and that love of self out
weighed their love of Christ. There was a counterattraction overcoming the constraining love of their
Lord. This, then, is the heart-sin of which St.
Paul writes: it is a refined selfishness, so plausibly
defended, so strongly entrenched in reasonable pleadings, as to leave him no more to do than to
expostulate and to be silent; to give them a fair
opening to do high service for their Master; and
then to pass them by, and choose some worthier
and bolder men.
And here we see one of the worst antagonists
of the Church of Christ,—a fair profession of Christianity with a predominant regard of self. The
deepest wounds have been given, not so much by
the sword of persecution, or by the grosser forms
of sin, as by the overmastering powers of self-regard. Every body will admit that this is true, at
the first hearing; but few really know the subtle
insinuations and the full extent of this spiritual
disease.
The peculiar danger of this fault may be seen by the following
remarks:—
1. It may consist with all that the Church requires of her people as a condition to communion
in her fullest privileges. A man may be under the
dominion of this paralysing fault, and yet really
live in many ways a Christian life. A man may
live a pure life, and blameless; he may be benevolent, and do many works of charity; he may be
very systematic in his religious duties; and have
no little zeal in works of a directly religious character; and yet, after all, it shall be not more true
of Demas than of such a man, that he loves this present world, that he habitually and deliberately
seeks his “own, and not the things that are Jesus
Christ’s.” For all the tokens of Christian life that
I have spoken of, fall within the limit at which a
man’s self-regard is put on trial. There is a large
field of commonplace Christian duty, in which a
man may toil without so much as ever once be
coming aware that there is an irreconcilable variance between a governing regard to his own interests, and a faithful discharge of Christ’s service;
that there is a clashing point, where one or other
must give way. A very large part of Christianity is
directly favourable to a man’s worldly interests:—all that goes to the establishing of a fair reputation,
and to the conciliation of good will, is full of solid
advantage; self-regard and self-respect urgently
prescribe to a man such a habit of life as shall be
in accordance with the outward example of Christ’s true servants.
Nay, even more, a man’s own happiness is
advanced by a Christian temper of mind; and
thus far the service of Christ is oftentimes one of
the chiefest and most refined means of cherishing
himself.
Habits of devotional thought, and the hopes of an inheritance
in light, kindle and sustain his interior life and peace; and in this way he makes
the service of Christ minister directly to the self-regard which governs all his actions. Like education, or intellectual excitement, and other refined
energies of the reason and moral habit, it becomes
distinctly subservient to his predominant aim.
2. But, on the other hand, this habit of mind, while it
satisfies the external demands of the Church, and ministers to the inward
happiness of the mind, absolutely extinguishes all that ever produced any great work in Christ’s service. It stunts
the whole spirit at the standard of self; and makes
all a man’s thoughts and powers minister and submit themselves to his own aim and purpose. It
makes a man live in himself and for himself, and
bound himself about by his own horizon. He will
be devoted and earnest just so far as he may with
out trenching upon the comfort of his own life.
He will pray, and fast, and give alms, and witness
for the truth, just so far, and just so long, as shall
involve him in no austerity, or weariness, or self-denial, or loss of popularity. All that goes beyond
this measure will be to him excessive, unnecessary,
gratuitous; the boundaries of his own practice are
fixed, he believes, at the ultimate point, and so
become absolute; the aims which rise above or lie beyond his practice are
visionary and impossible. Most desirable, he will admit—and would to God we
lived in days when they could be accomplished—but he deliberately thinks that
times are changed; and what our fathers might reasonably do, we may
as reasonably forbear. They did great works, bore
great self-denials, made great sacrifices; but then
it was the custom of their day—society did not
require of them many things which it exacts of
us. And who would set himself against society?
Who would affect strangeness and singularity? Who
would live below his means in life, or not keep pace
with others of his own rank and standing?—No,
brethren, not to evangelize mankind, would such
a man offend the fastidious feelings of society, or
break the self-constituted proprieties of a perishing
world; no, not for an Apostle’s crown, nor for the
love of Christ his Lord, would such a man say to
himself, No change of times, customs, or conventional rule, can absolve me from the unchangeable
law of self-devotion. No such man would say this,
and act upon it. He stands well with the world;
he is not censured by the Church;—what more is
necessary? Surely for him it must be gratuitous
and ostentatious to take a rule and standard of his
own above other men. Besides, it would offend
them; it would be a rebuke to them; it would
alienate them from him, and neutralise his influence for good: a man forfeits the effect of good
example by going too far.—So men tamper with
the edge of conscience, and turn its keenness.
Even they that have higher yearnings, and pulses that beat for nobler deeds, sink back acquiescingly
under the burdensome traditions of our easy life.
Little by little their sympathies with high aspiring
minds are blunted; every thing that goes beyond
their own habit is over-much; every thing that
would by consequence break in upon some part
of their blameless easy course is impossible. Oh,
none are so hard to rouse to great works of faith
as they. If we should plead with a Magdalene out
of whom have been cast seven devils, or a Peter
that hath thrice denied his Lord, or a Paul who
hath made havoc of the Church,—there is material for a substantive and vivid character, there is
energy for a life above the world. Conformed to
the likeness of their Lord, the examples of all living
men are no more to them than the gaudy shifting
clouds of an evening sky; moving along the path of
the cross, all the soft and silken customs of life are
as threads of idle gossamer. There is about them
a moral weight, and an onward force, and a clear
definite outline of character, before which every
thing gives way. They hurry all before them, as by
the spell of absolute dominion. They have about
them a dignity borrowed from the grandeur of the
end for which they live. Poverty and plainness,
solitude and a self-denying life, in them no man
dares despise; nay, all men feel that these harder
features are more in keeping with the loftiness of their moral choice, than the nice proprieties or the
effeminate exactness of the world.
And yet, is it not most true that such characters as these we deem rather to be gazed after than
followed; as objects rather to admire than to imitate? Do we not deal with each other, ay, and
with our own consciences, as if the devotion of the
Apostles were as miraculous as the casting out of
devils? Do we not look along the lines of holy
men, who, through the darkest ages of the Church,
shine with unearthly splendour, and speak of them
as we do of strange fires which move on no discoverable laws; wild and eccentric lights, of most
commanding grandeur, but perilous to follow? And
what do we thereby confess, but that the Divine
laws, which ordered that spiritual world, are but
feebly felt and faintly understood by us; that the
powers of some lower system have absorbed us in
their circuits; and that we are hurried along by some inferior forces, which
bear us visibly away from their luminous paths and destinies, we know not
whither, nor why?
And yet the reason is not mysterious. We need call up no seer
to unravel the secret. It is simply this, “all seek their own, and not the
things that are Jesus Christ’s.”
1. First of all; few of us have any clear view
of Christ’s service projected before our minds, to which all our living powers are bent. There is a
want of external reality in all our views of religion.
They are self-contemplative and limited. We do
not look out of ourselves to Him. The secret of
that stupendous self-devotion which the saints of
Christ in all ages have manifested in the world is
simply this: they set up the life of Christ their
Lord before them. They believed it to be the only
spiritual reality the world ever saw, and that all
other patterns of life were cheats and shadows;
from it they drew all maxims and rules of living;
by it they tried all customs of mankind; what
combined with it, they held fast; what clashed
with it, they trampled under foot; they gazed upon
it, and grew towards it; they fell down before
it, and worshipped it; and when they arose, and
turned from it upon the world, they knew not that
they reflected its borrowed glory. They knew not
why men followed them, and yet shrunk from
them; why they resisted them, and yet gave way
before them; and they were troubled, and went
and hid themselves, and did their works in secret,
and bade no man speak of them; and yet their
words and deeds came abroad, and kindled others
to a like devotion.
This, then, is the main reason why in these
days we see so few great examples of bold and
masculine devotion. Men have lost sight of the living type of self-sacrifice, and with that type they
have lost their energy of will. Lower views insure
lesser powers.
2. And the natural consequence of this must be,
that all the customs of life, the habits of the world,
the particular traditions of family and individual
character, and all the current maxims and unwritten laws of society, maintain so tyrannous a hold
even over good minds (for of such only, not of the
coarsely selfish, or the grossly self-indulgent, am
I speaking), that high and generous tempers are
chilled into inaction, and so miserably depressed, as
to move along the dreary level of an over-circumspect and self-regarding life. They are predestined
by the usurping fatality of the world to grow rich,
or to make a family, or to perpetuate a fortune, or
to spend an income ostentatiously, or to maintain
the laborious courtesies of life; they are in a bond
age from which there is no escape. Oh, what
high spirits are dwarfed, what heavenly aspirations
beaten back to earth, what deep yearnings of love
are crushed and stifled, for want of the free air of
heaven, and the bold action of a devoted life!
They are forced to seek their own, until a refined
selfishness returns upon their regenerate nature
with all the tainting, stupifying power of its original
sin. And they grow over-prudent and wary, shrinking within the narrowest lines, always on the safer side, hazarding nothing, measuring by the scale of
their own feebleness what is possible to be done for
Christ in His own kingdom. And thus the glow
of early religion is chilled down into the torpor of
after-life: and hence come isolating forms of opinion and practice, “even in religion; and over-development of peculiarities in the individual character,
and the obscuration of that common type of Christian life which knits men insensibly in one. Hence,
too, arise schisms of sympathy within the Church;
and disappointing slackness, even in good men;
jealousy of private rights in things most sacred; the
reappearance of unequal ranks, in the very sanctuary of God; irregular and conflicting schemes
of well-doing, even when we do our best; decline
of missionary zeal, of eucharistical charity; and, as
a consequence of all this, the contraction and palsy
of the Church itself. Oh, that we did but know
the freedom and the happiness of a life above the
world! They whose names are splendid with the
most hallowed light have in their day moved along
all paths of life. Among the saints of Christendom
are men of toil and trade, the craftsman, and the
merchant, the pleader, the man of letters, orators,
lawgivers, warriors and leaders of mighty hosts,
princes, and queens, and emperors. In all ranks,
and all orbits of the civil state, men mortified in
soul, as the holy Paul, have lived unto Christ their Lord. None so fulfilled the offices and tasks of life
as they—because they were above them all. They
descended to them, and discharged them with an
ease and grace which nothing but an absolute extinction of self can give. None so wise, so courteous, so beloved as they; none richer nor more
prosperous; none more faithful in their stewardship
of this world’s wealth; none bequeathed costlier
heir-looms to their children’s children: and that
because they sought not their own, but the things
that were Jesus Christ’s. Brethren, here is the
key of this great spiritual parable: ask of God the
mind of Jesus Christ; for “He pleased not Himself.” Learn to do, to give up, to give away, as He
did. Live as men whose “life is hid with Christ in
God.” “Let your conversation be in heaven.”
Try every thing, measure every thing, check every
thing, by the governing law of Christ’s example.
Seek first what is His; and He will take care for
what is your own.
SERMON XII.
THE REWARDS OF THE NEW CREATION.
ST. MATTHEW xix. 27, 28, 29.
“Then answered Peter and said unto Him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed Thee; what shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto
them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration
when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon
twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath
forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or
children, or lands for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundred-fold, and shall
inherit everlasting life.”
IN these words we have a most gracious promise
of the full and sure reward with which our Lord
Jesus Christ will overpay all His true servants
in the kingdom of the resurrection. They were
drawn from Him by the shrinking back of the rich
young man who had sought to enter into the kingdom of God. He had so lived from his youth up
as to be not far from it; but in the last deciding
trial he was found wanting. One thing he lacked,
and that one thing was in what we should call his characteristic failing: he was rich, and he could
not forsake all for Christ. He wanted nerve and
faith enough to strike through the last bond which
bound down his soul to earth; and this one thing
wanting lost him all things. St. Peter then, who
was standing by, and had heard and seen what had
passed, took occasion to say, “Lo, we have left all
and followed Thee; what shall we have therefore?”
And our Lord promised a repayment, an over
payment, an hundred-fold; and, as we read in
St. Mark, He said, “now in this time;”St. Mark x. 30.
and in
St. Luke, “in this present time, and in the world
to come everlasting life.”St. Luke xviii. 30.
First, then, our Lord meant that He would
repay them for all things they gave up for His
sake, in this world, after His resurrection. They
who followed Him had been gathered out from
Galilee and Judea, from Bethsaida and Jerusalem,
one by one; and each several one had to make
the same deliberate act of self-renunciation. They
had to forsake all that earth holds dearest; not
traffic, and gain, and ease alone, but the love of
friends, and all that we gather together in our
thoughts of home. All that was once fullest of
life became to them as dead; all in the life of
which they were wont to live was thenceforth as
if it had never been: their choice of Christ for their Lord, and His kingdom for their portion, was
a sharp and severing vow, which left them solitary
in the throng of men who were friends before.
Such they made themselves for His sake before
He suffered, and therefore He pledged His truth to
them, that they should find again what they had
lost for His service, after He was risen from the
dead. And He made them the patriarchs of the “Israel of God;” they were made pastors and
princes, fathers and bishops, ruling, from their
apostolic thrones, the twelve mystical tribes of
God’s elect. The whole Church was their ghostly
family: they had sons, and brethren, and sisters,
in all lands. All the whole earth was their home.
All things were theirs, for “they had all things
common.” So was His word fulfilled in the communion of saints. Even in this present time it was
fulfilled, albeit with persecution: even when the
powers of hell hung heaviest upon them, and shut
them in on every side, what man can tell the hidden
joy, the unutterable gladness, of His holy Church?
When most likened in suffering to the passion of
their Lord, there was, ever deep and full, a river
of holy calm, making glad the city of God. And
so unto this day, His most sure promise has had a
like fulfilment. Never any man forsook any thing
for his Master’s sake, but even in this life he hath
found it in some unlooked-for compensation; not, it may be, alike in kind, but full of as deep a joy.
The manifold wisdom of His eternal love attempers
to His servants all their earthly being. Though
their lot be most various, and most adverse to their
self-choosing hopes, though it be ever changing,
yet in every change it brings out some unknown
and larger outline of ever-new reward for all they
have forsaken in His service.
But there is yet a further and deeper fulfilment
of this promise still to come.
Our Lord intended also, that He would reward
them in His kingdom, after their own resurrection; that is, when the number of the regenerate
is accomplished, and the end is come, and the
new heaven and new earth are revealed. “In the
regeneration” or restitution of all things, when He “shall sit on the throne of His glory,” then shall
their reward be likewise made perfect. At that
day, when the heavenly Jerusalem shall appear,
and the fellowship of saints be gathered from the
four winds of heaven, in that unnumbered company shall all the bonds and affections of all holy
spirits be made eternal, and they shall receive an
hundred-fold; brethren and sisters, and father and
mother, and wife and children. What is here
given in part, shall be there given in its fulness;
and then shall be perfected the sympathy of all
members of Christ’s body mystical, perpetuating all that earth has known of purity, and transfiguring all that is eternal with surpassing glory.
We see, then, in this promise, these great laws
of Christ’s kingdom. First, that there shall be a
manifold reward for those who shall in any way
forego any thing for Christ’s sake, for all they do or
suffer for His name—a reward, observe, not earned,
but given; not wages, but a free gift. Once for all,
let this be said: there is no connexion of idea between our meriting and His
rewarding. The one
is as much denied as the other is promised in holy
Scripture. And, secondly, that there shall be a
larger and distinguishing reward for those that have
forsaken most for His service. There is promised
in holy Writ, “the brightness of the firmament,”
and the shining “as the stars for ever and ever;”
there is “the righteous man’s reward,” and “the
prophet’s reward;” there is a “right hand” and a “left hand” in His kingdom. Again: as are the
orders of unseen spirits, so are the orders of saints.
All are not angels, nor archangels, nor spirits of
knowledge, nor spirits of love; nor have all the
same degree, nor the same heavenly ministry, nor
the same near approach to the Eternal throne;
and so, doubtless, in the company of saints: as on
earth, so in heaven there shall be patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, saints of all measures of
glory, though all shall be absolutely blessed, and the principle of order shall be doubtless this: As
it is the strength and energy of love to Christ that
makes one man to differ from another here in this
life, so without doubt the same shall there fix the
rule and order of His kingdom. As some men are
now holier, so shall some be then more glorious;
as some are now more like their Lord, so shall
some be then nearer to Him: all shall walk in
white, but some shall be of a more dazzling splendour; all shall be crowned with gold, but some
shall cast brighter rays.
Such is the meaning of this promise. See, then,
brethren, whether you have a share in it. What
shall they have who forego nothing, or but little
for His sake? Must we then, in any sense, measure
our share by our self-denials? This would be a
fearful issue to which to bring our confident hopes.
And yet most true it is, for He Himself has spoken
it: “If any man come to me, and hate not his
father, and mother, and wife, and children, and
brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he
cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not
bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my
disciple.”St. Luke xiv. 26.
Let us see, then:
1. First, what we are now giving up for His
sake; what we are laying up in the kingdom of
the resurrection. Where does your daily life exhibit any token of His cross? How should we be
different, if He had never risen from the dead?
Take away all that is exacted of us by fear of
reproof, or interest, or love of reputation, or self-respect, or the customs of life, and the established
order of our home, and the rules and maxims by
which society is refined; and then what one thing would be found remaining? How different is the
self-same act in two different men, when one man
acts for some of these lower motives, and the
other for the hope of the resurrection! Be not
content, therefore, until you have searched out
and found that the aim of your heart is single:
this is what we have to ascertain. What are we
casting on the water, that we may find it on the
river of life? What power or effect has the kingdom of the resurrection on the works of every day;
on that thronging multitude of thoughts and feelings and moral acts, which shape themselves, as
the will inclines, into toil, and business, and study,
and pleasure, and ease, and prayer? How are
these affected by the promise of our Master?
What token do they bear which bespeaks a yearning hope of His exceeding great reward? Do
not our hearts witness against themselves, that all
these daily actings of life are chiefly done for our
own gain or pleasure? It is very hard to unravel motives—to separate the interweaving of higher
and lower purposes, and to ascertain in what mea
sure they each severally determine our will and
practice. It is an ominous thing when a man’s interest is found always to fall in with his religion;
when the bias of his common life is exactly coincident with his better aims; when the many things
he seems to do, or to leave undone, for Christ’s sake, would be done or left undone also for other
reasons; when the doing them or leaving them
undone always turns to his advantage. I do not
say, that he must therefore be necessarily acting
on the inferior motive; far from it. Such is the
manifold perfection of Christ’s service, that it will
be found to take up into itself all good reasons of
moral action, and often to be, even in a worldly
sense, the best, safest, and most expedient way of
life. But we have need to examine ourselves, and
see whether the lower aims of our mind be not the
more fixed and stedier, and therefore the real and
dominant, though secret, reason of our habitual
line of acting.
And next, consider in what you may forsake
something for His service. I do not speak of sins
which if a man do not forsake, he shall surely
perish; for if he break them off, they are not for
gone for his Lord’s sake, but for his own. An
horrible dread of eternal death, and the gnawing of a selfish fear, make men first break off their
sins. But that is not self-denial; nor are sins
the matter in which to shew the entireness of our
devotion.
Nor, again, is it in foregoing the needless superfluities of a luxurious life. They that give up only
what they care not to retain, make but poor oblations. Rich and easy people seldom reach the
point of real self-denial. It is in things lawful,
and, as the world deems, necessary, but, in the
severe judgment of a devoted mind, tending to relax the tone of our obedience, that we may prove
the singleness of our purpose. For instance, in
things harmless in themselves, but inexpedient for
our own sake or for others; in narrowing the freedom we might ourselves enjoy, lest any other for
whom Christ died should be misled by our example; in leaving unsaid and undone many things
which may tend to irritation or questioning in uninstructed or prejudiced minds. Moreover, it is
not only for the safety of others, but of ourselves,
that we must needs limit our use even of lawful
things. He is in great peril of judgment who
never foregoes any thing that he might lawfully
enjoy. He that lives on a dubious boundary-line,
trusting his own stedfastness, is ever ready to slip
over into a transgression. More men perish by
exceeding in the measure of lawful things than in deliberate commission of things forbidden. It is a
perilous footing on the giddy edge of a precipice.
Again; a man may deny himself in things held by
the world to be eligible and good, such as by custom are almost forced upon us, and in themselves
are full of promise, and, it may be, of enjoyment,
and yet are cumbrous, and hinder the devoting of
ourselves to Christ. There was nothing of evil in
Martha’s life; but Mary’s was the higher and more
hallowed. Martha was careful about many things,
yet all these things were innocent; Mary about
only one, and that alone was needful. There is
nothing evil in the possession of lands and riches,
yet they bring much toil of heart, and over-burdening of care. They defraud a man of much of
himself, and make him pay tribute of more than half
of all his hopes, and fears, and thoughts, and hours
of day and night—half, that is, of his whole earthly being; and, it may be, poverty in the world
to come, as the cost or tax at which he buys the
trouble of being rich. The very thought of being
contented at any point short of the utmost gain,
is lost from among men. They have no horizon
to their aims for this world; and therefore “they
have their reward.” It is a poor, palpable, proximate reward here on earth. The
aim of most men falls short and terminates in something on this side of the
resurrection; some phantasy of earthly happiness. It may be, then, that each one of us may
find something which he may forego for the sake
of the world to come; some possession, or purpose
of life, or wish of heart; some of the permitted
self-indulgences common to his rank and fortune:
and this foregone., for the sake of living a life of
larger charity, or of more abstracted devotion, that
is, for the sake of making charity or devotion the
great and governing aim of the whole life, and all
other things as means and opportunities to it, shall
not be forgotten where all self-denials are remembered: and so shall you have your lot with him
who said, “Behold, we have left all things; what
shall we have therefore?”
Remember, then, brethren, that in all these
acts of self-restriction there must be the sincere in
tent to do it for Christ’s sake; otherwise our acts
are like inarticulate sounds, without emphasis or
meaning. Many men seem to live a mortified life,
and, as far as mere self-restraint, really do so, and
yet not for Christ’s sake, but for some earthly end.
Doubtless the rich young man denied himself for
his great, possessions. None forsake and forfeit
more than “they that will be rich.” But we know
that the severest life without a conscious choice, is
less than the least acts of self-impoverishment with
a clear and single aim of foregoing something, that
we may find it in His kingdom. Peter’s worldly all was a boat and a net; and the alabaster box of
ointment had a great testimony of acceptance, be
cause she had “done what she could.” They are
oftentimes the little ministries of love that shew
most devotion, and most intimate resolution of
heart. And remember also, that, having chosen
deliberately, a man must act boldly, not looking
back. Half our difficulty in doing any thing worthy
of our high calling, is the shrinking anticipation
of its possible after-consequences. But if Peter
had tarried, and cast up all that was to come, the
poverty, and wandering, and solitude, and lonely
old age, the outcast life, and chance of a fearful
death, it may be he would have been neither an
Apostle nor a Christian.
And, once more; whereinsoever you resolve to forsake any thing
for Christ’s service, bear the trial patiently, and wait for the end. There must
be some irksomeness, nay, some galling edge, some burden in our yoke, or we have
need to look well lest we be carrying a mere mocking shadow of His cross. Be not
afraid though your life be deemed singular and solitary; His was so; and theirs
who at any time have followed Him, each in his way and kind, has been so
likewise. When He promises you an hundred-fold, be not content with thirty-fold,
nor with sixty-fold. You would be happy to have any reward in His blissful
kingdom; but be not therefore slack in striving for it.
True, He does not offer you the crowns of apostles; but He offers you more than you can ask
or think, more than we are ever reaching after.
Every day we might attain we know not what; every day, it may- be, loses or wins
something of the brightness of the resurrection. All we do or leave undone has
its counterpart in the unseen world. And what then is life, and what is the
world, to that day, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of His glory?
Forsake all, rather than forfeit your reward,
rather than be set far off from Him when He
cometh in to order the guests that are bidden to
the marriage-supper of the Lamb.
SERMON XIII
GOD’S KINGDOM INVISIBLE.
ST. LUKE xvii. 20, 21.
“And when He was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, He answered them and said, The
kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall
they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”
THE state of the Jews at that time affords to
the Church of Christ an awful example of inward
blindness in the full light of God’s revelation.
They were looking out for the coming of Christ’s kingdom; but they knew not for
what they were
watching. God had told them that Messiah should
come; but they had formed for themselves a low
and earthly idea of His character and His kingdom.
They verily thought that He would make His entry
among them with the sound of the trumpet and
the banners of the tribe of Judah; with the pomp
of kingly splendour, and a royal train of chariots
and horses, as their kings of old came “riding
through the gates of Jerusalem.” Doubtless they
thought that all men would know by the tokens and the heralds, and by the very majesty of its
coming, when the kingdom of God should appear.
So they dreamed and wandered in the blindness of
their hearts. An obstinate prepossession had filled
them with the thoughts and images of earth, and
all the prophets of God could not purge this film
from their inward sight. They looked out every
way for the signs of His coming; but the signs they
looked for came not; or came and spake other
things, and mocked their expectation, and darkened their foolish hearts the more, and lulled them
into security, at the time when of a truth the kingdom of God was come upon them. Before so much
as a stray thought of foreboding arose in their
hearts, whilst their eyes were all turned another
way, it came upon them like a thief; suddenly
and in silence it came, no man seeing it; without
visible token; without the warning of a prophet;
without the sound of a footfall: it was among
them, and they knew it not; it was within them,
and they knew not that it was of God. The kingdom came in the coming of the King Himself, as
the day comes in the sun’s rising. While men slept,
Christ was born: a poor child and unheeded of
men, none knew of His coming but His lowly mother and Joseph, and a few shepherds: to the rest
He was as any other child; as one of the many
who are born in sorrow, and die in silence. The ten thousands of Israel, the scribes and the Pharisees, the elders and the chief priests, even the very
courses that ministered day and night in God’s temple, were taken in the snare. God’s kingdom
was above, and around, and within them; it embraced, and pervaded, and searched them through
and through; and they knew it not.
And as was its coming, so was its course. He
grew up at Nazareth, a child among children, obedient to His parents: though His mother pondered
many things of Him in her heart, other men saw in
Him no more than the aspect and the actings of a
child. Many an eye beheld Him then which shall
behold Him no more. Many gazed on Him, as we
gaze on a thoughtful child, and saw no gleaming
rays of the mystery which lay hid within. So, too,
He began His Father’s work, going about on foot,
unknown and outcast, with a few who followed Him.
He wrought miracles; but the prophets had wrought
them too, and yet the kingdom of God came not
with them. So He died; not as a king, but as a
malefactor, and as a common malefactor—one of
the many who, from time to time, were seen hanging on the cross. So He rose again at daybreak,
when few were by. By their own falsehood they
broke, so far as they were concerned, the force of
this mighty sign, saying, “His disciples came by
night, and stole Him away while we slept.” He passed, for forty days, to and fro in Jerusalem and
in Galilee, on the mountain and by the sea; seen
of His own, but not of all the people. And at the
last, when He had led them out unto Bethany,
away from the haunts of men, “He was taken up
from them into heaven, and a cloud received Him
out of their sight.” Such was the coming of that
kingdom, for which not Israel alone was waiting,
but the whole creation travailed together with tumultuous groaning; and by this manner of its
coming God put them on their trial, whether they
had eyes to see the shadow of His hand, and ears
to hear His voice.
So, in like manner, the kingdom of God came
upon the world at large. While all mankind was
full of its own gross imaginations, bowing down to
the power of evil, and shaping from the creatures
of God’s hand blind mockeries of Himself; while
men sealed their own moral debasement, by making
the natures they adored a transcript of their own;
there was a preparation going on, there was that
unheeded fellowship, in an upper chamber, brooding over great and unimaginable things. They
were men of whom the world knew nothing, but
they had seen mysteries; they were not read in
learned schools, but they had mused on the sea of
Galilee; they had seen the feet of God upon its
heaving flood, and heard His word rebuke the rudeness of the storm. To them the unseen world
stood out in visible reality; heaven had revealed
its wisdom; hell had given up its secret; death
had betrayed his own overthrow; and the grave
spread open as a homeward path, kindling in the
light of life. All this they knew; for they had seen
God, and He had shewed them these things. He
had filled them with the might of heaven, against
which no power of earth could strive. They had
in them the omnipotence of truth—of God made
flesh, crucified for the life of the world.
And thus they went forth, twelve unnoticeable
men; but they had in them a secret which was
mighty to move the world. They went, scattered
abroad into all lands, two by two, speaking grave
words, of things past and things to come, pouring
a little water on willing listeners, and giving to
them bread and wine, with prayer and benediction.
Such was God’s kingdom. Wheresoever they went,
it went likewise—strange and silent. Every where
they had the mastery; and yet there was no “cry,
as of them that strive.” Every where they were
more than conquerors; yet the kings and kingdoms of the earth did not fall before them. All
these stood visibly as before, but the unclean spirit
was cast out of them. They were clothed with a
mightier dignity, quickened with new life from an
unseen spring, and governed by an energy which is of God. While kings warred, and sophists wrangled, and the goings-on of life tided onward as
before, the kingdom of God came and stood in the
midst, even as He came that night, when the doors
were shut, silent and sudden, breathing peace. Its
coming was not noised in the market-place; it was
not announced in the palace of the Caesars. As at
the first, so always, it came without observation;
a kingdom invisible, internal, dwelling in men’s hearts, knitting them in holy brotherhood, blending them in one with the power and stillness of
light. Even so hath been, and still is, the kingdom
of God among us—from that day, and in all the
world—in this land, and at this hour. There are
about us the visible structures which enshrine its
presence, the outward tokens of God’s service, and
the loud schemings of men who, under the name of
the Church, would serve themselves of the Church
as a contrivance for civilising mankind; but they
are not God’s kingdom. There is, under the badge
of religion, a strife and struggle for mastery among
men that bear the sacred name which the saints
first bore at Antioch; but God’s kingdom is not in
their heady tumult: there are the visible hurryings
to and fro of a worldly Jehu-like zeal for the Lord;
and there are the plottings of earthly Christians—for men may plot for Christ’s Church, as well as
against it. The same earthly and faithless temper of mind which sometimes resists God’s will may also
insinuate itself into His service. Men may think,
and do think, to spread His kingdom by the stir
and noise of popular excitement; but God’s kingdom, like God Himself, when He communed with
His prophet on the mountain-height, is not in the
boisterous and fleeting forms of earthly power. As
its coming and its course, so is its character. It is
not in any of these: but verily it is in the midst
of us; in the still small voice of the holy Catholic
faith; in the voiceless teaching of Christ’s holy
sacraments, through which mysteries of the world
unseen look in upon us; in the faithful witness of
the Apostles of Christ, who, through their ghostly
lineage, live among us still. The same men, who
from the upper-chamber went forth to win the
world, are here: their gaze is upon us, and their
voices speak to us. Prophets, Apostles, martyrs,
and the King of martyrs, are with us to this day.
Since the veil of the temple was rent in twain,
heaven and earth are laid in one: all that heaven
holds in glory is with us; all that earth ever held
of God is on our side; all saints perfected, all holy
teachers, all servants of our God; all the spirit and
the sympathy of the whole mystical body of our
Lord; all the Church invisible, the unseen presence of the Word made flesh, the fellowship of
the Holy Ghost, the power of the ever-blessed Trinity,—all are in the midst of us, and about us,
and all these are God’s kingdom, of which we are
heirs and servants.
Such is its true character, ghostly and inward.
It has its seat in the hearts of men, in their moral
habits, in their thoughts, actings, and affections,
in the form and the bias of their moral being;
the visible forms we see are but the shadow of the
reality; God’s kingdom is the obedience of the unseen spirit of man to the unseen Lord of all. We
see, then, what it is, and we see how we may fall
into a fault like that of the Jews, by transmuting
the true idea of its spiritual character into the base
alloy of earthly notions.
If, therefore, we look for Christ’s kingdom
among the popular theories of political and religious speculators, we shall look for the living
among the dead. We have great need to guard
against this danger; for the popular opinion of this
day, whether in politics or religion, leads to an
earthly conception of the Church, as of a thing
subject to the senses and understanding of man.
There is a sort of under-current perpetually drawing men away towards these errors. They either
think that God’s kingdom is, if not in itself secular,
yet to be promoted chiefly by secular measures.
This is a common form of religious Erastianism, of
which we see many examples. Even good people have it: and worse people use it as a bait to draw
better men into ensnaring toils, promising political
advantage, increased efficiency, immediate results,
apparent popularity, general co-operation—silver
sounds, the bartering price, to bribe them from
their stedfast hold of the broad rule of God’s mysterious kingdom.
A second danger to which men are now tending
is, to think that God’s kingdom is to be spread by
visible excitement of people’s minds. The whole
scheme of modern religion is visible motion; all its
machinery is on the surface, all its momentum is
from without. The springs of all power, if secret,
are mistrusted; they must be laid bare for the
childish curiosity of minds that cannot believe any
thing to be going on unless they see its working,
and understand how its results are brought about.
This runs through almost all the movements by
which men fancy the Gospel is to be propagated at
home or abroad, and through all the means taken
to impress it on individual minds. We are fallen
upon a mechanical age, and men are blindly putting mechanical and material inventions in the place
of moral power. This runs through both our popular religion and our popular education;
e.g. the
attempt to do by stimulating books what can only
be done by the moral action of the Church of Christ,
and the endeavour to effect upon masses of moral beings by outward systems the work which can
alone be done by the inward power of regeneration
and the presence of the Holy Ghost. Much that
is called efficient management of schools, and the
like, may be little better than this. There has been,
from the beginning of the Gospel, an inwardness,
and an invisibleness, about all great movements of
Christ’s Church, which ought to abash the hasty,
talkative zeal of men into a reverent silence.
Knowing, then, the character of God’s kingdom, we shall know both how to keep ourselves
from these delusive schemes, and how to spread
it on the earth.
We shall know, first, that the way to spread it
is, to have it ruling in ourselves, to have our own
spirits brought into harmony with its secret workings. It is by the still strength of a holy character
that we must leave the stamp of God upon the
world. As they in the beginning went out from
Judea into all the earth, trusting in God, counting
themselves nothing, and their mission every thing;
measuring themselves, and all the actions and energies of body and mind, by the faith which Christ
had charged them to deliver, and counting only
those labours to be God’s service which fell within
the limits of the truth, and all toil but unprofitable
waste of life—nay, even as a very scattering of the
Lord’s harvest—which swerved from this rule of His ordaining; so we, believing and living in the
faith of our baptism, and bending all our thoughts
to be what He would have us, shall best spread
His kingdom in an evil and revolting world, when
we carry most of its heavenly character impressed
upon ourselves.
And by knowing the character of His kingdom,
we shall know, too, how to make that character our
own; that is, chiefly, by a life of inward holiness. We
know that it is an unseen kingdom; that, although
Christ’s Church is visible, as God was visible in
Christ, yet it is also an unseen, because an inward,
power, even as life is unseen which is in man.
The visible Church is the symbol of Christ’s presence, as the water of baptism is the symbol of a
new birth, and the holy bread and wine the symbol
of Christ’s body and blood. We partake of baptism, that we may partake of the Church; our new
birth is an engrafting into salvation, through the
blood-shedding of Christ. As we may partake of
the water of baptism, or the bread and wine of the
holy eucharist, and yet have no part in the saving
grace they bear to man, so may we partake of the
holy Catholic Church, which to the eyes of faith
is visible in all lands under heaven, and yet have
no fellowship with the saints of Christ, seen or
unseen—with that mystical body of Christ, which
is the company of all faithful people-with the Church of the first-born, whose names are written
in heaven. We must seek to have the inward life
of the Church in ourselves: it is not by loud profession of the faith, nor by headlong zeal for truth,
nor by eager controversies against error, nor by
excited devotions; but by a silent and even life of
faith and purity, by a patient following of Christ’s holy footsteps, by a mastery of temper, by mortifying self, by a steady gaze on His mysterious passion, by being, and praying Him to make us, like
Himself, that we shall bear within us the kingdom
and the presence of God.
And to sustain this character within us at all
times, we must remember that God’s kingdom is at
all times present with us.
It is upon us, and we cannot flee from it: whether we will or no, it encompasses us about; whether we remember it or no, it is ever proving us.
We may be forgetful of its nearness, but it will not
depart from us. We may fall into a like fault
with the Jews of old, and look out for Christ’s coming when He is already with us;—even as some
look about for their regeneration, being regenerate
already, because they have not faith enough to believe the mystery of holy baptism. So, again, men
are ever beguiling themselves with the dream that
they shall one day be what they are not now: they
balance their present consciousness of a low worldly life, and of a mind heavy and dull to spiritual things,
with the lazy thought that some day God will bring
home to them in power the realities of faith in
Christ. So men dream away their lives in pleasures, sloth, trade, or study. Who is there that
has not at some time secretly indulged this soothing flattery, that the staid gravity of age, when
youth is quelled, or the leisure of retirement, when
the fret of busy life is over, or, it may be, the in
evitable pains and griefs which are man’s inheritance, shall one day break up in his heart the now-sealed fountains of repentance, and make, at last,
his religion a reality? Who has not allayed the
uneasy consciousness of a meagre religion with the
hope of a future change? Who has not thus been
mocked by the enemy of man? Who has not
listened, all too readily, to him who would cheat
us of the hour that is, and of all the spiritual earnings which faith makes day by day in God’s service,
stealing from us the present hour, and leaving us a
lie in exchange? And yet, this present hour is all
we have. To-morrow must be to-day before we
can use it: and day after day we squander in the
hope of a to-morrow; but to-morrow shall be stolen
away too, as to-day and yesterday. It is now we
must be penitent, now we must be holy; this hour
has its duty, which cannot be done the next.
There is no new coming of God with observation, to make the Gospel mightier over our stubborn
hearts, or to bid His sacraments renew the unwilling and indolent soul. The grace of the holy
eucharist that was given this morning, if lost, is
lost for ever. To-morrow may bring its own opportunities, but will not restore to-day’s. The convictions of this hour, if unheeded, will never come
back. God may send others, but these will be
gone for ever. Even now, while I am speaking, the
kingdom of God is within your inmost being: it is
in every righteous man that serves God in purity
of heart; in every penitent man who sorrows for
the wreck to which by sin he has brought himself;
in every repenting man who, though still wavering
in the poise, yet inclines towards God; in every
worldly man who feels within the visitings and
promptings of a will and a power above his daily
life; in every man who still trembles in himself at
the thought of God: so nigh. God’s kingdom was
very nigh to him who trembled at the judgment to
come. Felix trembled once; we nowhere read
that he trembled again. “Behold, I stand at the
door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to
him, and sup with him, and he with me.”
SERMON XIV.
THE DAILY SERVICE A LAW IN GOD’S KINGDOM.
ACTS ii. 46, 47.
“And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and
breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with
gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having
favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the Church
daily such as should be saved/
WE here read the very remarkable fact, that the
Apostles and the whole Church of Christ still continued,, after the day of Pentecost, to attend the
daily service of the temple. It must be remembered, that at this time not only was the whole
mystery of our Lord’s passion already completed
and revealed; not only had He risen and given
authority to His Apostles to gather out His Church
by the sacrament of baptism; but He had also shed
abroad on them the fulness of the Holy Ghost, and
they had actually begun to gather together the
members of His mystical body. In the words
which go before those I have read to you, we are told that three thousand souls had been baptised
into the Church; that this body of the faithful “continued stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine
and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in
prayers;” that they “had all things common:”
and yet of this definite, organised, isolated body,
a Church fully formed, and conscious of its own
personality, we read that “they continued daily in
the temple.” Surely nothing can more strikingly
shew that the Apostles and first Christians knew
themselves to be still bound by the primary laws
of faith to worship God in public every day. The
truth is this: God had commanded daily worship
to His elder Church: morning and evening the
sacrifice was offered to Him in the temple. So
long as His elder Church was still on trial, and,
though guilty of Christ’s blood, not yet cast off,
the daily service was still accepted in its ancient
line. The Apostles, with the full light of the
Gospel, continued to partake of it. There was
nothing contrariant between God’s elder and later
dispensation. They both worshipped Him in His
temple, and offered the eucharistical sacrifice in
their upper chambers. The time was not yet
come when the daily sacrifice should be taken
from the elder, and given to the Catholic Church.
Until this time came, the Church of Christ daily
served God in the courts of the sanctuary on Mount Zion. When the time came that Jerusalem
should be overthrown, and the Divine Presence
forsake His temple, the daily service passed to the
altars of the Catholic Church. The daily worship
of the Apostolic Church was the daily service of
the Jewish, taken up, continued, illuminated, and
transfigured with the glory of the Gospel. It was
the same daily service which Aaron offered fifteen
hundred years before, filled with spirit and truth.
And so we find from the earliest dawn of the
Church of Christ, that the daily service was an
universal law, lying at the very root of its spiritual
life. We find even the very same hours of nine
and three o’clock, the times of the morning and
evening sacrifice, continued. The Church knew
that the daily service was an heritage for ever; that
the Jews had made forfeit of this blessed heir-loom,
and that they in their stead had received it. Now,
from what I have said, it is plain that the daily
public worship of God is an absolute law, binding
the Church of God at all times; that we are bound
to observe and hand it on as much as were Moses
and Aaron, or Eli, or Josedeck the high-priest;
that the Apostles daily worshipped God in the
temple, and all Christians received it as a primary,
self-evident, or, as we are wont to say, axiomatic
law of the Church, that public worship should be
daily paid to the Most High.
It would be very easy to go on, and to give
a multitude of other proofs, both in the words of
holy writ, and from the facts and usages of the
universal Church; but I have said enough—first,
because it is a fact not denied, that the Catholic
Church always from the beginning has daily worshipped God in public; and next, because the duty
of excusing or justifying their neglect lies upon
those who have departed from the unbroken, universal law of the Church for more than three thou
sand years. I shall not therefore offer any more
affirmative proofs; nor shall I add any arguments
of a controversial sort to refute commonplace objectors. I am speaking not to gainsayers, but to
men of good will. My aim now is to say what
may assist those who are willing to be persuaded;
but feel themselves beset by plausible objections.
As for mere gainsayers, they must be dealt with
apart. Charity forbids my classing with them the
earnest but perplexed minds of whom I speak. I
will therefore take and consider a few of the most
specious objections which weigh with serious people.
1. As, for instance, it is often said that the daily
service is unnecessary now, because of the prevalence of family prayer. There are many strange
mistakes in this. First, it assumes that the fathers
and masters of families in times past did not worship God in their households, as much as people do now; which is a mere assumption, having no
grounds but the fancy of the speaker, and is, more
over, contrary to the recorded facts of history. It
is perfectly plain that family religion was a prominent feature of the Jewish dispensation, in which
the daily service of God was made so absolute and
binding. Indeed, this was grafted on the house
hold worship of the patriarchs. Also the paschal
supper was a household service; all the daily life
of the Jews, in every family relation, was full of
worship; all through the Old Testament history
we have ever emerging tokens of family religion.
We find Joshua saying, “as for me and my house,
we will serve the Lord;” and such was the rule
of every faithful Israelite. The hundred and first
Psalm is the very mind of a faithful head of a consecrated household. The same we find running
into the New Testament; even among proselytes.
Of Cornelius, we are told that he was “a devout
man, and one who feared God with all his house;”
special mention is made of his communicating the
vision of the angel to “two of his household servants, and a devout soldier of them that waited on
him continually:”Acts x. 2, and 7, 8.
and so, throughout the apostolic
writings, household religion is broadly recorded.
Very little can they know of the history of the
faithful, who in all ages of the Church have most stedfastly waited on God in His daily worship, if
they imagine that their households were without
God in the world. The private lives of all great
saints shew that none so consecrated their homes
as they did. In the great examples of the English Church in modern days, we have direct evidence of this.See the lives of Hammond, Nicholas Ferrar, &c.
Everybody knows that in the last
century, when Christianity in this land seems to
have grown both cold and dark almost to extinction, family prayer, no less than the daily service,
had well nigh perished. By God’s mercy we have
been brought back again to a consciousness of
our decline; but it is only the vain self-flattery of
the day to talk as if we had less need now of the
daily service, because, forsooth, people have begun
to hallow again their desecrated homes. The objection is false in its facts. They of old who
worshipped God daily in His Church, worshipped Him,
far more than we, day by day, in their own house
holds. And we painfully overstate the extent to
which family worship has been restored. At the
most, it is to be found in the houses of the educated, and of some others among the less instructed
but more devout of our people. But in the homes
of the millions of our population, family worship is
still unknown. There is something almost hard
hearted in the narrow-minded, short-sighted way in which people use this objection, as if the few
thousand households of the richer, or more leisurely,
or more educated, or more religious, were all the
Church had to care, and to provide, and to think,
and to act for. People get into a way of thinking
of themselves, and of the little horizon of their own
consciousness, as if it were the whole Church of
God. They are truly charitable towards all who
come in contact with them; but of the wide rough
world which howls round their little precinct they
are unconscious altogether. But not for them only,
her more favoured children, must the Church provide, but for the hundreds of thousands of house
holds in which, through the sin of master or mistress, or father or mother, the voice of worship is
never heard; that is, for the great bulk of the
Church. The Church must open a shelter for the
desolate, and dress an altar for those whose lot is
cast in households where God is unknown. Therefore, even in this view, the objection rests on false
assumptions. Nay, it turns against itself; for if
family prayer were never so full an equivalent, as
indeed it is not in any way, for the daily service
of the Church, how few households possess that
equivalent! The very objection would shew the
necessity of a daily service for all the rest; that is,
for the great bulk of the Church. But, in truth,
we are reasoning on a false basis. Family worship is in no sense a substitute for public; and the objector, to be consistent, must extend the argument
even to the Sunday, and abolish public worship
altogether. Does not this shew that the whole
is a confusion of things broadly distinct? Public
worship is the perfection of all worship. Personal
worship was in the world before the worship of a
family, and the united worship of families is the
worship of the Church. The private prayers of
each member in the house does not discharge him
from the duty of joining in the worship of the
family; neither does the worship of the family
discharge the household from the duty of joining
in the daily worship of the Church. The daily ser
vice of the Jews was grafted on the household worship of the patriarchs, or, rather, it was developed
out of it; in the public worship of the tribes of
Israel the household worship of Abraham rose to
its perfection: and the same is the daily service of
the parish church to the family prayers of every
household; these unite men, the other unites families; and such, too, is the daily worship of the universal Church as conceived apart from its several
altars, to the worship of all its spiritual families,
each under its spiritual head. In a word, there is
a personality in the individual man, in the family,
and in the Church; and each of these personalities
is so related to God as to demand a daily acknowledgment. It is by this means that the visible and
conscious unity of the Church is maintained. And
it is a remarkable and instructive fact, that, while
the Catholic Churches in the East and in the West,
from the beginning to this hour, have retained their
daily service, they have—in the midst of whatsoever
corruption in doctrine and practice may be other
wise alleged against them—nevertheless retained
also a visible and conscious unity: while certain
portions of the Western Church, which in the last
three centuries have abandoned the daily service,
have lost their visible and conscious unity. They
broke the bond, and trod under foot the symbol of
unity, which is perpetual visible worship. And the
end of this we see. Unity departed first, and truth
followed speedily. The daily sacrifice was taken
away, and they were broken up; and Churches fell
into fragments—into congregations, ever changing, ever resolving themselves into new forms, ever
wasting away, gathering round new centres, multiplying, and yet diminishing; they had let the
embers on the altar die out untended, and then
they sought to rekindle a sacred fire on their own
hearth-stone; but the unity, and with the unity
the energy, of spiritual life was gone, or it lingered
first in families, and then in members of a family,
and the chill of the neglected sanctuary spread
through the family into the secret chamber; and men’s prayers in their own closets waxed faint and
cold. Now this has been our state; and from this
we are slowly recovering, anxiously chafing our
numbed limbs to life. God be thanked that prayer
has grown stronger in secret; that it is passing
out of the closet into the family; but God forbid
it should ever stay until it has passed out of the
family into the sanctuary again. This is the end
to which God’s mercy is leading us once more, as
He led His servants of old. Ours is a sadder case.
Theirs was the steady growth of the first design of
God to its full perfection; ours a slow recovery
from a perilous decline. Let us beware how we
linger by the way, and think the reconsecrating of
our homes is all. We have yet to regain the visibleness and consciousness of unity; yet to learn
that, though private worship is meetest for our unuttered complainings, and family worship for our
earthlier brotherhood, public worship is the bond
of our spiritual fellowship, the most perfect work
of redeemed man, the highest energy of the new-born soul, and nearest to the bliss of heaven.
2. Another common objection is, that the daily
service of the Church is unprofitable, because so
few are able to attend it. Of the ability I will
speak hereafter; at present we will take for granted that only few can attend. Certainly too many
there cannot be. The more, the more blessed. But why should any be defrauded of a blessing
because others deprive themselves of it? Daily
service is either a blessing, or it is not. If any
man will undertake to shew that it is no blessing,
in God’s name let him speak out, or else for ever
hereafter hold his peace. We have yet to see the
man who will undertake this task. But if it be a
blessing, why should any be defrauded of it; and
they, too, for the most part, such as stand in most
need of it? Why should Simeon and Anna be
thrust back from the gate that is “called beautiful,”
because others see “no comeliness “in it “that
they should desire “it? What is it that men, and
sometimes good men, would say, when they talk
of the profitableness or unprofitableness of this or
that in religion? In what company of the merchants of Midian were they so nurtured as to be
unconscious of the bartering, selfish, unhallowed
temper which breathes through such a word? Is
it not fearfully like to his words who asked, “Doth
Job serve God for naught?” Alas! we are cast
upon an age of merchandise. All our life savours
of it. Our theology draws its parallels from it.
Our sanctuaries are built by its schemes. Our very
hearts buy and sell in the temple; whereby we
may know that He is not far off who, with a scourge
of cords, once cleansed His Father’s house: and “who may abide the day of His coming, or who shall stand when He appeareth?” God forbid we
should come to this place only because it is profitable to us! We worship God because it is an
homage due to Him. What is right is always profitable; but woe to the man that does right only
that he may be profited! Honesty is the best
policy; but he is no honest man who pays his just
debts only that he may be a gainer. He is no
better than a sordid, unprincipled man, who would
just as lief defraud his creditors as pay them, if
only the balance of profit lay on that side. Even
the heathen of old were wiser than our philosophers now-a-days. We are gravely told that the
expedient will always be found to be the right.
Most true; but conscience is man’s guide in moral
actions; and it is not conscience, but calculation, which judges of the
expedient. Let a man do right, and he will infallibly do what is expedient. God
has given him a moral sight to discern the right as the test and as the
including form of true expediency: to invert the order of our moral and
reasonable constitution, is like pretending to judge of tastes by the smell or
the hearing. For once that we may be right, we shall mistake a thousand times.
And so in the holiest things; we have no test of what is profitable but what is
right. We have no warrant to use the word, except in speaking of what it is our
duty to do. St. Paul says, “I profited in the Jews
religion above many my equals,”Gal. i. 14.
and that
was in the way I speak of, i.e. exact conformity to the rule of duty. There is
no form of evil, heresy and schism included, into which a man who, instead of
what is ordered, makes what is profitable his test in religion, is not likely
to fall. And now to take up once more our subject:
The daily worship of God in public is a visible
act of homage due to Him as the Creator and
Preserver of the world, and as the Redeemer and
Sanctifier of the Church. It is a solemn approach
and address to the Majesty unseen. The seraphim veil their faces before Him on high; the
cherubim adore in the glory of His presence; arch
angels and angels cry aloud; the heavens, and all
the powers therein, night and day worship the
Lord of Hosts; the holy Church throughout all
the world evermore in matins and evensong doth
acknowledge and confess the living and true God:
it is a visible creed, uttered in symbol, set forth in
oblations, chants, and bended knees; it is the new
born life, reaching out its hands unto the Great
Father, deep calling unto deep; the one baptism,
calling upon the regeneration of all things; the
new creation of God, manifesting itself to the eye
of flesh in the midst of this wrongful and turbulent
world. This is the meaning which angels read in the daily worship of the Church on earth. Let
us read no less. Even though nothing else could
be said for the daily public service of God in His
Church, let this suffice. Whether it be profitable
or no to pay God His due homage, if any doubt
now, he shall know in the morning of the resurrection. It is plain, then, that though there be
never so few in His house, this homage is both due
and acceptable in His sight. He has been before
hand with our objections, and has said, “Where
two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them;” to every, the
smallest, gathering of His one Church He has
pledged His presence. And their homage is no
less acceptable than the worship of the heavenly
companies whom no man can number, whose songs
are as the voice of many waters. To object on
the score of the smallness of the congregation, is
a direct slight of our Lord’s promise, and an unintended confession that men have forgotten the
whole theory of worship, which is homage paid to
the unseen presence of God.
And, besides this, it is manifest that the duty of worshipping
God day by day rests upon the same ground as the obedience of faith. How
incongruous is it for those who so jealously contend that the works of faith
are a free service, to talk of profitableness, as if that were the test of
public worship! The whole life of faith is a free service—as it
were, a perpetual eucharist: “Christ our Passover
is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast.”
And how intimately does this harmonise with all
that has been said of the daily homage due to
God! From the rising to the going down of the
sun, the Church redeemed from the gates of hell
offers her daily eucharist; not asking, How shall
this profit me? but ever saying, “It is very meet,
right, and our bounden duty, that we should at
all times and in all places give thanks unto Thee,
O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God.”
By this, again, that is by the whole idea and spirit
of a life of faith, the low calculations of profit are
excluded from the subject of the daily service.
But that it may not seem as if the objection
had the lightest weight, I will say that the highest
and most real profit of the Christian is, after all, to
be found in the daily worship of Almighty God. I
might content myself with saying, it must be so,
because it is a homage and an eucharistical offering due to God our Redeemer. But I will explain
what I mean more fully. In the daily service of
the Church, we are brought more sensibly under
the shadow of the unseen world than at any other
time. Though we may have livelier feelings at
other times of prayer, certainly never have we so
great a sense of awe and reverence as in the house of God. It thereby sustains, by a perpetual help,
the ever-fainting faith of our hearts: it keeps a
daily check upon this visible world, which is always
growing up about us and closing us in on every
side. First, then, it is a witness for the unseen
world. Next, it strengthens the habits of devotion.
Let any one who has kept a watch upon himself
say, whether it is not most certain that at no time
is his mind more fenced from distraction, and more
drawn towards the object of worship, by the out
ward admonitions of the eye and ear, than in the
church. And this passes into all the acts of divine service,—into the confessions, prayers, praises,
thanksgivings. Again; there is a direct incitement
to devotion in the consciousness of united worship.
So it was ordained by the constitution of man’s heart; and this natural feeling is the bond of the
communion of saints. Man was as little made to
worship alone, as to live alone: united homage is
the destined bliss of man. And, once more; there
are special promises made to united prayer: Christ
has promised to be in the midst of us, and to grant
what we ask with one accord. We cannot limit
this blessing: no man can say how great it may
be. And shall any man say that this is not profitable? or that all this is not necessary for every redeemed soul of man? or that daily worship is a
duty less binding, and a blessing less to be longed for, in a parish where there are only two or three
who come to share it, than in a parish where there
are two or three thousand? Duties and blessings
are no more to be determined by numbers than are
the gifts of the Holy Ghost to be purchased with
money. Wheresoever there is a church, an altar,
and a priest, there God looks for His daily homage,
and there He will hallow, by large gifts of daily
benediction, the souls of the two or three who
wait upon Him. “They that wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength.” All the services and
sacraments of Christ are as necessary for the sanctification of one soul as of the whole Church on
earth.
3. Again; it is sometimes said, that the pastors
of the Church have no time for daily service; that
if they were every day in the church, they would
have less time to give to visiting their people,
managing their schools, and the like. It is considerate in people to allege these reasons for them,
though assuredly they would not allege them for
themselves. And that because they know that the
Church strictly commands “all priests and deacons” to “say daily the morning and evening
prayer, either privately or openly, not being let
by sickness or some other urgent cause;” and
also, that “the curate that ministereth in every
parish church or chapel, being at home, and not being otherwise reasonably hindered, shall say the
same in the parish church or chapel where he
ministereth, and shall cause a bell to be tolled
thereunto, a convenient time before he begin, that
the people may come to hear God’s word, and to
pray with him;”Preface to Book of Common Prayer.
and also that the Church, in the
Ordination Service, places the ministering in the
church foremost among the offices of the priest
hood. So far from diverting their time, it would
give it a fixedness and regularity which would wonderfully extend their pastoral usefulness. Every
day, at a certain hour, their people would know
where to find them, for counsel, or consolation, or
help of any kind. Nothing would more assist them
in their office, than a habit formed in their people,
of coming to seek them in the place where the
parish priest is daily known to stand ministering
in the order of his office. They are now too often
compelled to act in an obstructed and unheeded
way, as a mere visitor or reader in the cottages of
their people; and they that have most tried it will
best know how hard it is to win their thoughts from
the crowd of household-work which lies around
them. What we want is, to stir our people to
some more direct, personal, energetic acts of religion, than the passive listening to a sermon, either
in church or out of it. The act of coming to the house of God, and praying, is such an act; but of
this part of the subject we are not speaking now.
The clergy of the Church would be greatly furthered in their pastoral work, by a disposition in
their people to join them in daily worship. It
would restore, also, to their office its true but most
forgotten character, and bring down unknown blessings upon their ministry.
4. I will notice only one more objection. It
is said, that the habits of life are so changed as
to make daily service impossible. And certainly,
when we see that from sunrise to sunset the working-man is at his labour; the mechanic or manufacturer twelve or sixteen hours a day at his furnace or his loom; the man of business, the lawyer,
the trader, from nine or ten in the morning to five
or six in the evening, ever toiling; the man of the
world, even still more laboriously, and without relaxation, bound down to the round of courtesies,
and engagements, and usages of life,—we may well
confess that the habits of life are changed—but
for the worse. Once the world waited upon the
Church, and took its hours and seasons from the
hours and seasons of God’s worship; His service
went first in the cycle of all the goings-on of life:
but now all is reversed. The Church must wait
upon the world. Worship is thrust aside; is pent
up in one day of the seven; is narrowed to one service in that one day. The poor working-man
wrings a scant livelihood out of an over-laboured
week. Six whole days are his earthly master’s share: one is all he has for God and his own
soul. Far worse is it with the poor sicklied workman in the manufactory; and hence comes a sour
and restless discontent. Life is an uncheered,
grating toil, which jars and galls the whole man
in soul and body. Life has for them few gleams,
little or nothing of gladness or of freedom: even
wife and children, which make the natural heart to
spring, give to a wearied and saddened people but
little happiness. In them they see their own toil-worn life, as if it would never end, beginning over
again. So, too, with the learned professions, and
with rich traders, and men of commerce; they
are ever complaining of an unrelieved pressure of
daily toil. Many men fairly break down in body
or mind, under the stress of life. Of those who
cannot wait on God daily, because they are so
over-laboured in doing the nothingnesses of society,
I need hardly speak; and yet these are the habits
of life which are pleaded in bar of the daily worship
of God. Times and habits are changed; indeed,
and miserably for the worse: changed so that all
men are crying out for rest, and for release from
an oppressive burden; so that the great adversary of God’s Church has prevailed, through these changes, to turn God’s house to a desolation, and
to make fast its porches against our endeavours to
return. Well were it if this merely external hinderance were all he had raised between us and the
daily homage of the Church. Perhaps at no time
was the moral disposition of man so alienated from
daily public prayer. We have not only lost this
great axiom of the Church, but the very intuition
to perceive it. It has become a matter of inquiry,
and doubt, and argument. It is faintly affirmed,
and vehemently gainsayed. Be it then ever remembered, that the daily service of the Apostolic
Church was grafted on the daily service of the
Jewish. The whole body of the first Christians
assumed it as a law in God’s Church for ever.
Men have now abandoned it as a body; and its
hold, even over individual minds, is comparatively
faint. The best are unconscious how awful a silence there is between God and a Church which
does Him homage only one day in seven: and
in this silence must grow up a still more awful
strangeness; and the Church have fewer tokens
of the Divine presence, and fainter reflections of
His imparted sanctity.
Now it is most certain, that the habits of life
are not so absolute, but that a little firmness would
soon throw them again into a better order. Let us
only resolve to “seek first the kingdom of God;” to take the cycle and the seasons of the Church
as our governing rule, and to make our lives bend
to its appointments. When once the Church has
restored the solemn days of fast and festival, and
the stated hours of daily prayer, there will be an
order marked out for all men of good will to follow. And, at the last, we shall once more see this
fretful, busy world checked, and for a while cast
out, by the presence of the world unseen. Its bur
den will be sensibly lessened; and the hearts of
men will have some shelter, and rest to turn to,
in the dry and glaring turmoil of life.
Then among us, as of old, men may go up in
secret to the house of prayer, to make their sin-offerings, and their peace-offerings, and their offerings of thanks. No sun should then go down on
sins unconfessed, or blessings unacknowledged;
and if any be truly hindered, still in their own
home, or by the way-side, or in crowded marts,
or in busy cities, or in the fields,—when the bell
is heard afar off, or the known hour of prayer is
come, they may say with us the confession and
the Lord’s prayer; and though far from us on
earth may meet us in the court of heaven.
SERMON XV.
THE HIDDEN LIFE.
COLOSSIANS iii. 3.
“Your life is hid with Christ in God.”
BY the sacrament of holy baptism we were both
buried and raised with Christ; both in symbol and
in power we were made partakers “of a death unto
sin, and a new birth unto righteousness.” Our present life, therefore, is as the life of our Lord after
His resurrection, spiritual and immortal. We have
no more to do with the world than if we were
dead. We are even, as it were, ascended with Him.
St. Paul tells the Ephesians that God hath “raised
us up together” with Him, “and made us sit in
heavenly places;” and the Philippians, that “our
conversation is in heaven;” and here he says, “seek those things which are above, where Christ
sitteth at the right hand of God;” for, as to all this
world, and the works that are therein, “ye are
dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”
Now consider what it is St. Paul says: he tells us that our life is hid; that there is a depth and a
mystery about our life. Now this signifies;—
First, That the origin or source of our spiritual
life is hidden. We derive it from Christ, and He is
hid in the unseen world, in the glory of God; and
yet our life is hardly so much any thing received
from Christ, as a oneness with Christ. He is our
life. We are so made partakers of Him, that He
said, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” As St.
Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” This
is no mere parable or figure. By our birth into
this world the first Adam lived in us. We have
his nature, and the stamp of his disobedience. His
fallen manhood was in us. By our second birth in
holy baptism we are made partakers of the second
Adam, and of His raised and glorified manhood;
all His mystical body is united to Him, so as with
their Head to make but one person. All members
of His body are so one with Him that they live in
Him, and He in them. There is one life, filling
and quickening all; and that one life has its origin and source in the unseen
world from Christ, who is “hid in God.”
In the next place, St. Paul’s words mean that the habitual
course and tenour of our spiritual life is hidden and secret from the world.
This may seem, at first sight, contrary to our Lord’s command, “Let your light so shine before men that
they may see your good works;” and to all the
multitude of precepts respecting the power of a
holy example. But it is not so. The holiness of
the saints cannot fail to be seen. It breaks out by
its own strength, and shines around them. If they
would, they could not hide it. Even their shrinking from the gaze of the world turns into a bright
grace of lowliness, and betrays itself by the act of
concealment. But St. Paul is not speaking of this
outward manifestation of the spiritual life; but of
its powers, and energies, and habitual inward actings. There is a world of life between a Christian
and Christ his unseen Lord, which the eye of man
never beholds. The whole life of interior repentance, the lonely and ever-repeated confessions of
his sins, the indignant scrutiny of his own hidden
thoughts, the tears which are laid up in the vial of
God, and the sighs which are noted in His book;
all the energies of faith, and the breathings of
prayer, and the groanings which cannot be uttered,
and the awful converse of the heart with God, and
the struggles of the will, and the kindlings of hope
and love, and all the host of living thoughts which
pass to and fro between the spirit of a redeemed
man and the Lord of his redemption;—all these,
I say, make up a hidden life which the world can
neither see nor scan. And this has been ever going on, more or less, in each one of us, from our baptism. And how wonderfully is all this, from time
to time, excited and complicated by the changes
and chances of life—by seasons of joy and sorrow!
They who best know each other’s hearts, how little
do they truly understand what a vast realm of spiritual life lies hid in each one of us! how it reaches
upward to heaven in height, and downward to the
deep beneath; how it touches the eternal bounds
of good and ill! And all this is in each one with
whom we daily speak, whom we love, and well-nigh live for. We see them smile, or look cast
down, or hang in doubt, or fix their resolution,
and speak promptly, and then muse on what they
have done: and we kneel by them, and worship
God, and feed on the same eucharist, and have the
same hopes, and fears, and prayers: and yet how
little do we truly know them! what a fine illuminated edge, as it were, of their spirits it is that we
have beheld, and our love has fastened on! The
full breadth of it shines inwardly, and is turned
on the unseen world alone. How all the history
of mankind shews this strange truth! Take Enoch
for an example, He lived in the midst of men,
and saw all their doings, and they looked upon his
daily life; and he was the father of Methuselah,
and of sons and daughters. He was not unlike
any other man that feared the Lord. But what a secret lay hid in him! “Enoch walked with God:
and he was not; for God took him.”Genesis v. 24.
And so, at
all times, between God and His true servants there
has been a hidden and most intimate fellowship.
The saints of Christendom are as a line of unintelligible characters. The world sees them, knows
that they do not belong to it, that they are above
it, that they have a strange intercourse with things
unseen; it chafes at them, mocks them, hates
them, but fears them. It may slay, but it cannot
scorn them. There is something too real, majestic, and awful for the world to dare any thing but
their death. So it was with St. Paul, and with
all prophets and martyrs, and with all the great
names in the story of the Church. They have,
as it were, a twofold being, or two sides to their
life: the one written by the world, all confusion
and perplexity; the other recorded by the Church,
full of unity and light. And yet neither the world
nor the Church can give the full outline, for their “life was hid with Christ in God.”
We must wait until they “shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”
Let us now follow out some of the consequences
of this truth. It is evident that there are great diversities of character among Christians; diversities
of a remarkable sort—some only in degree, some
almost in kind. Between those who live purely,
and in the fear of God, there is often great and
visible difference, and yet, at the same time, a
predominant likeness and a true fellowship. But
between those who live in habitual devotion, and
those who live a blameless life (for 1 am not speaking of sinners), without the living marks of faith,
there is a difference so sensible and deep, as to
make them almost incomprehensible to each other.
Now the true key of this difficulty is to be found
in these words of St. Paul. All alike have been
made partakers of the one hidden source of life, by
baptism into Christ, which, like the breath of our
nostrils, is a gift of God, passively received into
their being: but in the energy and habit of their
living powers, as distinguished from the gift of spiritual life, they differ so greatly, that some so live
in the world which is here visible, as hardly to live
at all in the world unseen; some so habitually
dwell in the hidden world, as to have but little
part in this; and all the rest vary in their character, in the measure in which things seen or unseen
govern and control their life. For instance, Christians whom we call worldly are of the first sort.
The field of their whole life lies on this side of
the veil which hides from us the unseen. There
is no indulged evil about them; their morals are
pure; they are kind; they seldom speak harshly of any one; they
are careful and exact in their calling; prudent, foreseeing; discreet advisers
on a large range of subjects in morals and politics; they seem to have scanned
thoroughly this world which has importuned their attention; and they will go
with you round the whole horizon of this visible common-place life; but when you
come to the point where things seen blend with the unseen, they, as it were,
vanish at once. They are gone; and you feel as if you were alone, by yourself,
speaking aloud. It is not at all that they reject or make light of the objects
of faith; but they do not see them: the faculty of perception lies in them
undeveloped, as the sense of harmony in an untutored ear. It is simply a state
of privation of senses: the hidden powers of hearing and sight are in them, but
have never been roused into consciousness. We see this much more painfully in
people that love the pleasures of life. The easy, acquiescent habit which grows
over such minds, seems to make them incapable of steady and serious thought.
Self -pleasing, even in its purest and most refined forms, is highly deadening
to the keenness of the inward life; and it is remarkable that such persons are
often full of religious emotions and religious conversation. Sensibility, or a
quickness of superficial feeling, is the exact part of their
mind that is most unfolded and excited by their common life; and a desire to maintain a good tone
and standard in judging of passing events, compels
them to form a habit of talking religiously. But
both the feelings and the words pass off into mere
unrealities; they come from no depth of the spiritual
life; they are uttered by no conscious energy of
the will; they are out of proportion with the character, being high and deep enough for the utterance of saints. In them it is simply artificial;
mere pictures of the fancy, and simulation of the
active intellect. Now such people follow the order
of the Church, much as they yield to the order of
the world. Acquiescence is their habit: they at
tend fast and festival; they gaze on ceremonies and
sacraments—but they see only the outside. They
cannot penetrate within; their inward sight is
blindfold. And so they live on, year by year, the
exterior habits of the mind knitting more closely,
and indurating more and more the susceptibility
of their interior life. The gift of regeneration lies
in them, living indeed, but without a pulse of life.
Theirs is a visible, external life, acted on from
without—not thrown out from within. They are a part of this material world, and
move along with it, and are conformed to it. Doubtless, even in such persons
there are many thoughts and movements of the soul towards what is to come here
after; but these are instincts of the heart and conscience, almost involuntary and irresponsible. The
greater part of all their conscious, voluntary, responsible life is turned to this visible world; their
hidden life is so deaf, and blind, and lifeless, that
they may be truly said to have little more than the
gift which they passively received in holy baptism.
In direct contrast to these people that I have
spoken of, are they who so live in the world unseen as to have but little part in this life: such,
for instance, as those whose characters have been
moulded, by the virtues of truth and grace, upon
the laws and worship of the Church; whose spiritual nature has been unfolded either by a steady
growth from the waters of baptism, or by the after-work of a thorough and searching change. We
find in them a purity and dignity of mind, a refinement and elevation, a free play in all the powers
of their spiritual being, and a quickness to penetrate into the mind of symbols and mysteries,
which is altogether wonderful. Every one is conscious of it but themselves. To them it is as unperceived, by any reflection, as health or sight.
They go on unknown to themselves, living a life
above the world, which makes us wonder at them.
They are ever putting forth more and more of
power, and unfolding faculties so altogether new,
so manifold, and so adequate to every season of
great trial, whether in action or endurance, that we seem never to have known them before. They
hardly look to us like the same men; and the
more energy of will and reason, the more of sanctity and wisdom, they unfold to us, the more we
feel persuaded that there is an inexhaustible depth
behind, a source somewhere out of sight, from
which they are perpetually drawing in new powers
of life. In all their judgments of moral character,
their counsels of action, their foresight, schemes,
and cautions, there is a piercing strength, and a
clear wisdom, so unperceived before they uttered
it, but so self-evident when spoken, that we are
fain to hear in silence. About all their actions in
life there is a plainness and a power, a calmness,
a grace, and a greatness, which makes us feel that
they move on some higher path than we, and are
numbered in a higher fellowship. And so in truth
it is. Their “life is hid with Christ in God;” their “fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son
Jesus Christ.” Their visible exterior life in this
world is but the lesser and lower portion of their
being. They come down, as it were, from the
source and sanctuary of their hidden life, to mix
in the goings-on of this world. The wonderful
light and irradiation which breaks out on all sides
of their character is no less than this, the mind
of Christ shining out through their renewed man
hood. They are channels by which it streams forth into this fallen world. Year by year they
have less of this visible life about them; they
seem to put off its mortality before the time.
They are more and more drawn within the veil.
They come out seldomer into this turbulent state; their dwelling is, in prayer
and silence, “with Christ in God.”
These, then, are the two extremes on either
side; and the number of each is few. The greater
part of men are to be found between these two
decided characters; under the absolute predominance of neither the visible nor the invisible world;
but wavering between both, balancing in an ever-varying poise, inclining now to the one, now to
the other side. And this is the key to all the
vacillation and inconsistency of men otherwise
good. They are better in aim than in act; in
conviction than in resolution; and their will is
dragged to and fro. Hence we find people apparently of a worldly mind doing acts of decided
faith; and people of a religious character commit
ting acts of mere secularity. This is according as
either bias of the will prevails in turn; they have
a sympathy with both worlds, and both still keep
a hold upon them. Again; we see people more
decided than the last, who have ventured, as it
were, a little way into the world unseen; and then have grown afraid: they feel
lonely and disquieted; they see others hang back and leave them to go
alone; and they fear to go on. Such persons have a
deep conviction of the reality of the life of faith, and
a high perception of the blessedness of living under
the shadow of God’s throne; they have at times
felt His unseen hand drawing them within the folds
of His presence, and have been conscious that
awful lights have fallen upon their hearts. And
yet it seems to them, that if they would follow His
leading, they must “needs go out of the world;”
that they must make great sacrifices; give up
many pleasant dreams for the future; forego much
they have been toiling after. Such is the state of
most men—neither one thing nor the other; lacking boldness to go onward or backward; lacking
devotion to be wholly devout, and yet having so
much that they could never be happy again with
out it. They have a great measure of real seriousness, and of clear insight into the hidden meaning
of the Church and its mysteries. And yet this
is not the predominant feature of their character.
Their visible calling imposes its laws on their
whole life: they are first traders, or students, or
statesmen, or husbands, or fathers, and then subordinately they are Christians. Their faith is kept
in check by the prescriptive rights, as it were, of
their worldly calling, which stamps a governing
character on their life, limiting the play of faith in the unseen within certain arbitrary bounds of
prudence, or moderation, or established usage, arid
the like. Now between such men and the invisible world there is, indeed, a certain kind and mea
sure of intercourse; but it is sadly darkened and
thwarted. They are forced to pay homage first to
this world; and their allegiance to the other is but
secondary and conditional.
There are two further remarks I would make
on what has been said: and, first, that there is no
lot, nor calling in life (if only it be a lawful one) in
which a man may not so live as that his life shall
be “hid with Christ in God.” It is not only prophets and apostles, or monastic orders, or priests
waiting at the altar, who may so stand aloof from
this world: it is within the power of all men, be
their station never so public, be their calling in life
never so full of toil. We need not withdraw from
the eyes of men to pass into the world unseen.
We are not any the more within the veil because
we are hid from the sight of men. We may be in
a wilderness, and yet shut out from the invisible
world; we may be in kings courts and crowded
cities, and yet be “hid with Christ in God.” The
avenues stand open every where alike; but it is
the heart that must enter in. If we have a strong,
self-collected faith, it matters not where we are;—all visible things grow transparent, and unseen things shine through upon us. We walk as in an
illuminated cloud, which softens, but cannot hide
what is before our eyes. And that, too, not in
acts of devotion and in hallowed shrines alone, but
every where. In our chamber, in our household,
by the way-side, in the scene of our public duties,
at all seasons, all day long, the whole vision of the
hidden world hangs before the eye of the wakeful
spirit. Therefore let no man plead, in behalf of
his sightless, inactive faith, that he is baffled by his
lot in life, his duties, his round of labour, the distractions of society, and the like. If in any thing
he is consenting to the neighbourhood and contact
of evil, then his plea is true; but if his lot in life is
that which God has chosen for him, it is nothing
less than charging his hinderances on God. From
every lawful state in life there is a direct and open
way into the world unseen.
The last remark I will make is, that we must
be ever moving one way or the other, either to or
from the source of our hidden life. To hold an
equipoise between the seen and the unseen is impossible. Our inward being is ever changeful and
fluctuating; and as it gains or loses its sympathy
with the realities of faith, so it will either rise or
fall in the scale of spiritual life. We are always
tending to one of the two extremes: the inward
must subdue the outward to itself, or the outward will stifle the inward life. Let us, therefore, make
our choice, and let us choose wisely. Most pure is
the happiness which may be ours, if only we will;
a bliss without a shade of sorrow. There are no
thorns now in the hidden life of Christ; no chill,
no blemish in its gladness. All things, even the
best, below God, have a canker somewhere, and
the taint of a fallen world is on them. Not so the
life which is with Christ in God. It is as peaceful
as it is pure; high above the reach of all perturbations. They that live in Him have their dwelling
in God; they look out of Him as out of an everlasting shelter; and look down on the wide weltering sea of this world’s troubled life. Let us
pray of Him to draw us within the veil; to make
us forgotten among men; to gather up all our life into Himself: that “when
Christ, who is our life, shall appear,” we may “appear with Him in glory.”
SERMON XVI.
SINS OF INFIRMITY.
ST. MATTHEW xxvi. 41.
“Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the
spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
THESE words of our Lord in the garden, when He
came from His agony and found the apostles asleep,
are very sorrowful and touching. They shew an
ineffable depth of tenderness and compassion. He
uttered neither reproach nor complaint at their
unseasonable slumber; but only, “What, could ye
not watch with me one hour?” and He turned
away all thought from Himself to them; and, for
their own sakes, bade them “watch and pray,” for
that their trial was at hand. Now in this we have
a wonderful example of the love of Christ. How
far otherwise we should act in such a case, we all
well know. When any seem to us to be less keenly
awake to the trial we may happen to be undergoing,
we are above measure excited, as if some great
wrong were done to us. There is nothing we resent so much as the collected manner of those who are
about us in our afflictions. If they still seem the
same when we are so changed—even if they can
still be natural, feel common interests, and take
their wonted rest, we feel exceedingly aggrieved,
and almost forget our other trial, in the kindling
of a sort of resentment. We have here, then, a
wonderful pattern of gentleness and forgetfulness
of self; for if ever there was a season of sorrow to
any born of woman, it was the hour of agony in
the garden. It seems strange to us how His disciples could have slept at such a time. They had
but then left the upper chamber, where they had
seen and heard all the sad words and acts of that
last passover; they had heard Him saying, “With desire I have desired to eat
this passover with you before I suffer;” and little as they understood the full
meaning of that mystery of sorrow, yet from His way of speaking they must have
felt overcast by the belief that some trial, greater than any before, was near
at hand. Moreover, they had seen Him “troubled in spirit,” and heard Him say, “one of you shall betray me.”St. John xiii. 21.
And, besides this, His parting words to them
when He went away from them a stone’s cast in the garden, were enough, we should
have thought, to keep us waking: “Then saith He unto them, My soul is exceeding
sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and
watch with me.”St. Matt. xxvi. 38.
And with all these things full
upon them, it would have seemed that they, least
of all, could have fallen asleep—they, the favoured
three—Peter who loved his Master with so earnest
and warm a love, and James who was counted worthy to be the companion of Peter, and the disciple
who an hour before had lain on His breast at sup
per. In St. Luke’s Gospel we read that they were “sleeping for sorrow.”St. Luke xxii. 45.
And this secret cause of
their heaviness, it may be, the evangelist learned
of some one who well knew what passed on that
awful night. Who can doubt but that they sadly
told all their infirmities? St. Matthew (and St.
Mark also) say that “their eyes were heavy.”St. Matt. xxvi. 43.
And they that have entered into the depths of sorrow know well how nearly akin to slumber is the
languor and amazement of unutterable grief; how
the “sight faileth for looking upward,” and the
eyes, which gaze fixedly and see nothing, close for
very emptiness. But none knew this better than
He, the Man of Sorrows, when He spoke these
few words of mild upbraiding. It was at that hour
they had most need to watch, as being by sorrow
least able to stand against temptation. Theirs, then, is an example of an almost blameless infirmity; and yet, though hardly to be blamed, it was
not the less beset with danger. And here we have
a great warning, and a no less consolation: a great
warning, indeed; for if they slumbered at such an
hour, how may we not fear that our temptations
will often fall upon us unawares? And yet, for our
consolation, we see how gently He bare with them;
and He will surely be no more severe with us. In
truth, He made their defence for them; His very
warning taught them how to plead with Him; and
by teaching it, He acknowledged the truth of the
plea: “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is
weak.” Let us consider these words.
And, first, we must observe, that by “the spirit” is to be understood what we call the heart or
will, illuminated by the grace of God; as where
St. Paul says, “the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the
flesh;”Gal. v. 17.
and where he
prays for the Thessalonians, that their “whole
spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless;”1 Thess. v. 23.
and again, “the Spirit itself beareth witness with
our spirit, that we are the children of God.”Rom. viii. 16.
And
next, by “the flesh” is to be understood our fallen
manhood, with its affections and lusts, so far as
they still remain even in the regenerate. Now
before our regeneration we are under the power of the flesh; then there is no willingness to serve
God aright: after our regeneration, the flesh is
put under the dominion of the Spirit. St. Paul
speaks not as an Apostle endowed above other
men, but as one born again of the Spirit, when he
says, “I can do all things through Christ, which
strengtheneth me.”Phil. iv. 13.
Such, I say, is the state of
the regenerate. They “can do all things;” but,
alas, they do not. The flesh has no more dominion, except we willingly re-invest it with its sovereignty. We may still betray ourselves to it again,
and become twofold more enslaved to it than before; and short of this, even though we no more
yield to it a dominion over us, yet it is to us “a
sore let and hinderance in running the race that is
set before us.” When it cannot overcome, yet it
still can sap and weaken; or, in other words, it
is a weakness in itself; for, under the governing
power of the Spirit, our regenerate manhood be
comes a servant of God; it is once more consecrated to God’s service; but having been stripped
and wounded by the powers of sin, and left as it
were dead, even after its rising again through holy
baptism, it is weak and failing: and therefore we
find such paradoxes in the lives of true Christians.
They are ever willing, and purposing, and desiring,
and yearning, and beginning well; and even more than this, we see them growing in grace and spiritual strength; and yet we find them also failing
and falling short, ever trying to reach some far
mark, but not attaining it—purposing great things,
and hardly accomplishing little things. Such, in
deed, for at least a large part of their earthly life,
is the state of most baptised people: and that not
because they are under any subduing dominion of
indwelling sin, as some would have us believe, who
expound St. Paul’s description of his state before
his regeneration as if he were speaking of himself
after he had been born again through the grace of
Christ; but because “the flesh is weak,”—that is,
their whole nature, though made new of the Spirit,
is still feeble, and soon exhausted, and ready to
slumber, and easily cast down. And this is what
St. Paul means when he says, “the flesh lusteth
against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh;
and these are contrary the one to the other: so
that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”Gal. v. 17.
He
is speaking, not of two natures, but of one—of one
fallen but regenerate manhood, in which linger still
the susceptibilities of evil, besetting and weakening
the renewed heart and will by many sore and
stubborn hinderances. Such, then, is the state of
good men, of whom it may be truly said, that the “spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Now we may take one or two particular examples of this
truth.
1. For instance, we may trace the weakness of
our nature in the great fluctuations of our inner
state. I do not mean in such as end in a falling
away from baptismal grace, or under the mastery
of any grievous sin. These are examples rather of
the strength of the flesh in its own hereditary rebellion against God, than of the weakness of our
regenerate nature. I am speaking now of such
variations as fall within the limits of a life in the
main obedient to the faith. No one can have care
fully watched over himself, without perceiving how
different he is at different times. Let him compare the trembling exactness of his obedience, his
prolonged and earnest prayers, his subdued and
yielding temper, in a time of sorrow or great fear;
or, again, the depth of his self-accusation and repentance, and the watchful abhorrence with which
he repelled the approaches of evil thoughts in a time
of severe sickness, or in a season of great spiritual
blessings; let him compare such state with his
condition, it may be, some few years after, when
change of position in life, or mere toil, or elevation,
or accession of wealth, has come upon him. Though
he is still in the fear of God, he is a changed man.
It is difficult, perhaps, to see exactly what is the
change. It may be, though he feels it himself, he could not tell what it is; only that he is more self-possessed, less vivid in faith, less susceptible of
impressions—that he retains them less steadily, and
has lost, as it were, the quickness and flexibility of
his mind. Now there can be no doubt that all the
while he has been sincere in his desires to serve
God; but, either by the withdrawal of the out
ward discipline under which he was once brought
nearer to the unseen world, or by weariness in
well-doing, and the fretting of little daily counteractions, he has given way, and declined from
his former and more devoted state. Of course such
persons are in great danger of being overthrown
by the direct assault of sins coming upon them
suddenly, as St. Peter was, a few hours after our
Lord warned him in the garden. It is more likely
than not that such falls do mingle in from time to
time; and though really sorrowed over, yet leave
behind a deadening effect, which is not enough
noted at the time, and shews itself afterwards only
indistinctly in effects, or as one among many causes
of declension.
2. We may take as another example of this
weakness, the speedy fading away of good impressions even in those that live lives of real devotion.
In the first place, it seems true that the mind can
not without a strain be ever at one pitch. Like
the power of sight, it must have its intervals of intension and remission. It seems by some law of
its inscrutable nature, to need to be unbent; and
therefore, after fixed contemplation of the unseen
world, or prayer of greater length, or after a day
of fasting, it may be that the conditions of our
nature require that it should be relaxed. And this
may be called, in one sense, the weakness of the
flesh. For of the ministering angels who excel in
strength, and of the spirits of the just made perfect, we are told, that they rest not day or night
from their heavenly adoration. In them there is
nothing of earth, and therefore nothing of infirmity. They mount up as eagles, with ever-renewing strength. In one sense, then, it may be said
that, owing to the weakness of the flesh, our adoration is but a faint and broken reflection of theirs.
But this is not the sense with which we have now
to do. This is the inevitable, blameless infirmity
of fallen man. We are speaking of something further; something which, if we will, is within the
limits of our strength; and therefore, if we will not, is worthy of blame. For
instance, it is a sad thought when we reflect for how short a time we retain the
posture of mind which was wrought in us by our last day of fasting, or our last
act of self-examination. For a time, we were bowed under the Eternal Will, and
awed by a sense of God’s nearness, and a sight of our own sullied hearts: for a time, all the faults of our inferior nature were
so held in check, that we seemed to be set free
from their oppression; our better self rose to the
surface, and maintained its ascendency; we were
drawn into harmony with the secret order of His
spiritual kingdom; all things, even the most adverse and chastening, seemed to us to be good;
we were willing to be disposed of by Him, though
it should cost us all we had been longing for in
life. Again, in times of great affliction, when by acts
of self-humiliation, and pondering over the tokens
of His purpose, we have brought ourselves to a
calm submissive state, so as to feel, as well as
know, that if we had chosen for ourselves, we
should have chosen amiss, and that our piercing
sorrows are the last hope of breaking us into obedience, the necessary means of winning for us a
crown in heaven;—it is sad to see how quickly
these pure and blessed thoughts, with their fresh
and vivid feelings, are blown away like the morning dew. So great is the change, that we seem to
be other men. Our lighter thoughts fritter away
our humiliation; lofty and self-trusting impulses
belie our acts of lowliness, and seem to turn our
very prayers into an unreal and intrusive profession; we grow restless, self-guiding, wilful; we
take up again a self-confident tone, and lose our
seat among those that are poor in spirit; or we grow fretful, and retract our acquiescence in God’s chastisement, and in anguish of heart forfeit the
blessing which should have abased and sanctified
us. In like manner, when, by a great struggle
against ourselves, we have overcome any evil temper of the mind, by which, for a season, we have
been mysteriously buffeted, though for a time it
seem to lie dead within us, it comes back upon us
unawares, and takes possession of the whole mind
before it betrays its return. All at once we find
ourselves within its grasp; and all the strife is to
be fought over again. And we feel wearied out,
and to have no more spirit in us; as if, in St. Paul’s words, “sin revived, and”
we “died.”
They that have watched themselves narrowly,
know by what subtle and imperceptible movements
of the mind we thus sink away from our better
dispositions; and how all the while that we are
desiring to hold our state unchanged, our highly
wrought impressions are passing off. Not only do
things without slacken and draw us down,—such
as superficial talking, many companions, differences of opinion, eager discussion, unconsidered
assertions, words not weighed, and the like,—but
it seems as if the mind were ever shedding its
own better energies by a sort of radiation; as if
they were ever escaping, and leaving us chilled
and downcast. We find ourselves indevout, unhumbled, unhappy. Here, then, is another example of a willing spirit burdened by the weakness
of our fallen nature. We have hardly come out
of our keenest vigil before we are overcome with
slumber.
3. I will take only one more example, and then
bring this subject to an end with one or two
remarks. This same weakness which besets our
imperfect nature, is the reason why we fall so far
short, in effect, of our aims and resolutions, and,
in a word, of the whole law and measure of obedience. By the gift of regeneration, and by the
powers of the sanctified and illuminated reason,
we are able to perceive in some sort the idea of
holiness as it exists in the Eternal Mind. In will
and desire we choose it for our law of life. But
the powers and energies of our fallen nature,
even though regenerate, are too small for our aspirations. In desire we can reach to a sinless
perfection of being, but in deed our purest and
most elevated obedience is mingled and imperfect.
This at the best; for the most part there is a sad
intermingling of a baser alloy. How much of self,
and sloth, and of our characteristic faults, and of
secondary aims lying just below the horizon of our
visible acts, is there to be found in our works of
charity, our alms-deeds, our fasts, our prayers, our
confessions, even at the steps of the altar! We are always resolving on more than we keep,
purposing more than we do, feeling less than we say;
projecting before our eyes a more perfect pattern
than we ever attain; and that not only when we
propose to ourselves the example of our Lord,
whom none can follow in this world “whither
soever He goeth,” but even of men beset like ourselves, as His saints asleep, or His servants yet
living on earth. After all, ours is a poor, flagging,
swerving, laggard obedience at the best. Yet we
are not only willing, but earnestly desiring, striving,
and praying Him to raise us to a higher measure
of obedience; and, nevertheless, ever finding our
will baffled, and our acts most imperfect. I will
give one instance, and then pass on. Let us take
the whole branch of our personal religion which is
expressed in the words “discipline” and “devotion.”
With our whole soul we purpose to fast, pray,
watch, meditate, deny ourselves; and yet, when
we look back on our habits hitherto, we shall
find that we have been consciously failing, leaving
things undone, coming short of our rules, changing
them, seemingly for fair excuses, but really to relieve the weakness of our imperfect nature. Com
pare the end of Lent with its beginning, or the
evening of a fast-day with the morning; set side
by side your resolutions and your fulfilments, your rules and your acts; and who shall go uncondemned?
In all this, then, we see the tokens of the fall,
which are still upon the regenerate. Only One
was ever “tempted like as we are, yet without
sin.” Though He bore our manhood with its sin
less infirmities, yet He hallowed and endowed it
with transcendent strength. We by our regeneration are made partakers of that same hallowed
nature, not in perfection, but in imperfection; not
in its fulness, but in a measure. It is in us, but
made subject to the laws which control our humanity and our probation. Such is the King of saints
in the midst of His brethren: He shining with full
orb through heaven and earth; they in partial reflections, sometimes obscured, sometimes breaking
forth, waxing and waning, yet, on the whole, ever
shining “more and more unto the perfect day.”
We have received this great gift of God, that our “spirit is willing.” There is no surer sign that we
are members of His mystical body, through which
the Will that moves heaven and earth, and gives
laws to angels, and leads the morning stars, and
out of darkness brings light, out of discord harmony, pours itself abroad, fills all the regenerate,
and unites them to Himself.
In the first place, therefore, do not be out of heart at the ever-present consciousness of the
weakness of your mortal nature. It is well known,
and better understood, and more closely scanned
by Him to whose perfection you are mystically
united. If we were not fallen men, what need
were there that the Word should be made flesh,
and God become man, taking up the weakness of
our manhood into the power of His Godhead? It
is the very condition of the regenerate, and the
law which governs the knitting together of His
mystical body, and the educing of a new creation
out of the old, that it should be gradual; imperfection passing into perfection; death being slowly
swallowed up of life, sin through long striving cast
forth by holiness. Moreover, we know not what
mysterious purpose in the spiritual world may be
fulfilled even in our weakness; nor how the glory
of the Son of God, and the abasement of sin, may
be perfected in our infirmity. It was not all fulfilled when in His sinless and perfect manhood He
bruised Satan under His feet: He will do more,
and bruise him day by day under the feet of our
weak and imperfect nature. What St. Paul said
of the apostolic grace is true also of our regeneration: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the excellency of the power may be of God,
and not of us.”2 Cor. iv. 7.
And the abasement of the powers
of evil is the more absolute in this, that the weakest in God’s kingdom is
stronger than they. This, it may be, besides his own humiliation, was the hid
den meaning of St. Paul’s long buffeting with the messenger of Satan: “For this
thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And He said unto
me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in
weakness.”2 Cor. xii. 8, 9.
And, once more; as there seems to be some
great purpose in the permission of our weakness,
so does there also appear to be as deep a design in
permitting the infirmities of the saints to cleave so
long and closely about them. They are ever crying to be delivered “from the body of this death,”
to be set free from the harassing of indwelling
evils, and to be healed of the very susceptibility
of temptation. The prayer of the saints has ever
been, to be “endued with much strength,” to be
made like to the One who was without sin. They
have been going about seeking rest, crying, “‘Purge
me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and
I shall be whiter than snow.’ Cast out of me the
unclean spirit, for I am grievously vexed with the
tyranny of this self, which of a child hath tormented me. Lord, how long wilt Thou not speak
the word, and heal me?”
At first sight we might be tempted to think
that, as “the will of God” is “our sanctification,”
we could not be too speedily delivered from the
infirmities of the flesh. But in this we should
overlook one great reality in our present state.
We must be made partakers of the humiliation of
Christ; and therefore we are left girded about with
the burden of our fallen nature. It is by learning
the depth of our fall, and of the evil that dwells
in us, that we are to be fully abased. We must “drink of the brook in the way” or ever He will “lift
up” our “head.” Therefore God suffers weaknesses
and infirmities to cling about His holiest servants,
even as He suffers them to bear a dissolving body
to the last. Great is the mystery of our humiliation; even sin, for which we are abased, is over
ruled to perfect our abasement; and, besides this,
our faults and weaknesses are left about us for our
purification. The cleansing of spiritual evil is a
deep and searching work. It is not as the bleaching of a soiled garment, which is dead and passive
in the fuller’s hand. It is wrought by the energy
and repulsion of a holy will, conscious and invincible in its warfare against itself. The pains of in
dwelling evil are, it may be, an absolute condition
to the perfection of holiness in a fallen being. Of
those blessed and holy spirits, which have ever
kept their first estate, and are the nearest types of the unchangeable and Holy One, we know no
thing. But for the restoration of us, fallen, and
alienated, and redeemed, and born again, not a
re-moulding as of dead and passive matter, but
the living and intense action of a moral nature,
seems ordained by the eternal laws of will and
being. Our weakness and faults, therefore, are
left to abide in us, that we may learn the perfection of hating what God abhors. They are as a
purifying fire, which eats through us with a sleep
less pain and an anguish which cleanses the soul.
When God shews to us the inner depths of our
spiritual being, leading us, as He led His prophet
of old, through chambers hallowed to Himself, but
defiled by secret abominations, He reveals to us a
mystery of fear and sorrow which has nothing like
it on this side of the grave. Nevertheless, let us
pray of Him to shew us all. If we would be safe,
we must know the worst. And this will teach us
to lay our hand upon our mouth, when we are
tempted to cry, “How long, O Lord?” and turn
us from the rising wish “to be unclothed,” and to
be delivered from ourselves; because it may be
that we blindly desire the shortening of our purification, with we know not what loss of glory in His
kingdom. Better is it to bear about the cross of
our own fallen hearts until it has wrought in us
His cleansing work. Shrink from no sorrow, so it be purifying. Our soils and our sins lie so deep,
they must needs be long in the refiner’s fire. Pray
rather that, if need be, you may be tried seven
times, so that all may be clean purged out.
SERMON XVII.
SELF-OBLATION THE TRUE IDEA OF OBEDIENCE.
HEBREWS ix. 13, 14.
For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer
sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:
how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the
eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your
conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”
THROUGHOUT the New Testament we are taught
that bur sins are forgiven through the blood-shed
ding of Christ; and in this epistle St. Paul shews
to the Hebrew Christians how this great truth was
shadowed forth in the symbolical sacrifices of the
law; and how, in the self-oblation of Jesus Christ,
the one true and only atoning sacrifice was offered
up to God. The offerings of the law purified the
flesh: the typical oblations put away ceremonial
uncleanness. They could not cleanse the guilt of
the conscience; they could not put away sin. For
this there was needed some great spiritual reality—something having relation to the secret laws of God’s eternal kingdom, to the nature of holiness and of sin,
and to the inscrutable mystery of the will, and of our reasonable being. And
this was offered up by Jesus Christ, “who through the eternal Spirit offered
Himself without spot to God.”
Now we will inquire somewhat more closely
into this truth; not, indeed, that we are required
to know how this mysterious sacrifice avails for
our atonement. They that were healed by His
word, or by touching the hem of His garment, or
by the clay, were healed by a simple belief that
there was virtue in Him to make them whole:
what it was, and how it wrought, they knew not.
So with the great oblation whereby our sins are
expiated. The multitude of unlearned Christians,
in all ages of the Church, have lived and died by
faith in the blood-shedding of the Son of God,
knowing nothing save that “the blood of Jesus
Christ cleanseth us from all sin.” And the most
illuminated of the saints have known little more of
that transcendent mystery. Blessed be God, it is
but a little learning we need have to enter into His
kingdom; and that knowledge is rather in the will
than in the understanding, and is rather gained by
a quiet shining of the mind of Christ in a clear
conscience than by the skill and keenness of intellectual powers. Still there are depths into which we may see far enough to learn great truths; and
those not as images of the mind only, but as great
laws of life and action. We will therefore consider
further, what we are taught in holy writ respecting
the nature of the one great sacrifice.
St. Paul here tells us that Christ “offered up
Himself.” From which we may learn—First, that
the act of offering was His own act; and next, that
the oblation was Himself. He was both priest and
sacrifice; or, in a word, the atoning oblation was
His perfect obedience, both in life and in death,
to the will of His Father. And this St. Paul tells
us in the next chapter: “Sacrifice and offering
Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared
me: in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou
hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come
(in the volume of the book it is written of me)
to do Thy will, O God!”Hebrews x. 5-7.
From which we learn
that the mystery of atonement began from the first
act of humiliation, when He laid aside His glory,
and was made in the likeness of men. It contains,
therefore, His incarnation, His life of earthly obedience, His spiritual and bodily sufferings, His
death and resurrection from the dead. Through
out the whole of this lengthened course, He was
ever fulfilling His own prophecy—“Lo, I come to
do Thy will, O God!” In childhood, youth and
manhood; in the acts and sufferings of His humanity; in all that He did for sinners, and all that
He endured at their hands; in His baptism, fasting, and temptation; in His whole obedience unto
death, as well as in His death itself,—the great
mastery over sin was ever accomplishing. All
these were so many manifestations of the perfect
obedience of the will of Jesus Christ, and therefore so many masteries over the sin which has
troubled the creation of God. And this is St.
Paul’s meaning when he says, “As by the offence
of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one, the free
gift came upon all men unto justification of life:
for as by one man’s disobedience many were made
sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be
made righteous.”Rom. v. 18, 19.
Now it is important to look at this mystery in
its fullest breadth, to correct the partial, and, in so
far as they are partial, the imperfect, views which
are often taken of it. There is contained in the
dominion of sin a fearful power of death, which
could no way be overcome but by the dying of
the Son of God; as St. Paul says—“By death He
destroyed him that had the power of death, that
is, the devil:” our redemption is “by means of
death;” our reconciliation “in the body of His flesh through
death:” “Christ died for the ungodly:” He “died for our sins according to the Scriptures.”Heb. ii. 14, and ix. 15. Col. i. 22.
Rom. v. 6. 1 Cor. xv. 3.
What death is, by what link it is indissolubly bound
to sin, how the death of Jesus Christ broke that
link, we know not. We know that it did so:
but we know that He destroyed not death only,
but sin also; and the victory over sin was wrought
through a whole life, of which His death was the
consummation. He overcame sin by His holiness,
by perfect and perpetual obedience, by a spotless
life, by His mastery in the wilderness, by His agony
in the garden. There was a mysterious warfare
ever going on, of which the cross was the last act,
forasmuch as He “resisted unto blood, striving
against sin.”Heb. xii. 4.
His whole life was a part of the
one sacrifice which, through the eternal Spirit, He
offered to His Father; namely, the reasonable and
spiritual sacrifice of a crucified will. It is import
ant to keep this in mind, lest we fail to perceive
the real nature of sin, and its true seat and energy,
and thereby lose the insights which are given to us
into the mystery of our justification, and the law
of our justified state.
Let us, then, consider one or two truths which
follow from what has been said.
And, first; we may learn into what relation towards God the Church has been brought by the
atonement of Christ. The whole mystical body
is offered up to the Father, as “a kind of first-fruits of His creatures.”James i. 18.
Whatsoever was fulfilled
by the Head is partaken of by the body. He was
an oblation, and- the Church is offered up in Him.
He “loved the Church, and gave Himself for it;
that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the
washing of water by the word; that He might
present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it
should be holy and without blemish.”Eph. v. 25-27.
“And you,
that were sometime alienated and enemies in your
mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to
present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight.”Col. i. 22.
The Church is gathered out
of the world, and offered up to God: it is made
partaker of the atonement of Christ, of the self-oblation of the Word made flesh. By union with
Christ, the Church is so one with Him as to be
one mystical person in body, soul, and spirit. It is
in Him that we are beheld by the Father; being “accepted in the Beloved.” Even now the Church
is crucified, buried, raised and exalted to sit with
Christ in heavenly places. In the same act of self-oblation He comprehended us, and offered us in Himself. And in this is our justification; namely, in
our relation, as “a living sacrifice/ to God through
Christ, for whose sake we, all fallen though we be,
are accounted righteous in the court of heaven.
The next truth we may learn is, the nature of
the holy sacraments. Under one aspect they are
gifts of spiritual grace from God to us; under an
other they are acts of self-oblation on our part to
God. He of His sovereign will bestows on us gifts
which we, trusting in His promises, offer ourselves
passively to receive. As, for instance, in the baptism of adults, the candidate came, and after renouncing Satan and his kingdom, made oblation of
himself, by profession of the creed, to the holy
Trinity. In like manner, and even more expressively, are children dedicated to God by the office
and ministry of the Church: they that bear them
in their arms, and lend them speech and understanding, express a twofold act of oblation, both
on the part of the parents, who thereby consecrate
their offspring to God, and on the part of the child,
who, through the compassion of God, is accepted
as if he consciously offered up himself. And so
likewise, in a more express and visible manner, in
the sacrament of the blessed eucharist; with the “creatures of bread and wine” we offer up
“ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable,
holy, and lively sacrifice unto” God. The whole order of the sacraments is expressive of self-oblation, by which we offer ourselves to God, through
the atoning sacrifice of our unseen Head. They are
the emphatic expressions and the efficient means
of realising the great mystery of atonement in us.
How important., is this view of the holy sacraments, every one will at once understand, who
remembers the low and shallow views which are
unhappily too widely spread abroad in these latter
days of the Church. It is denied that under the
Gospel there are any sacrifices. They are looked
upon as carnal, legal, unevangelical rites, which
were abrogated at the coming of Christ. It is
said, “the Church of Christ has neither sacrifices
nor priesthood; the Jewish sacrifices and priest
hood were types of Christ and His oblation of
Himself; He being come, and His oblation perfected, these types are gone, and the antitype
is in heaven.” Now here, as usual, there is a
great truth only half uttered. The Jewish temple, priesthood, altar, and sacrifice, were shadows
of Christ. Be it so. But St. Peter tells us that
we are “a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to
offer up spiritual sacrifices.”St. Peter ii. 5.
“Yes,” it is answered; “but that is to be understood spiritually.” To which I reply, that spiritual things
are not figures, but realities; that the Jewish temple, and priesthood, and altar, and sacrifices, were types and shadows, and unrealities,
because they were not spiritual; and that the
Church, and priesthood, and altar, and sacrifices
of Christians, are not only types, as indeed they
are, of heavenly things, but antitypes; not shadows, but substances; not figures, but realities,—for this very cause, because they are spiritual; that
is, ordinances and acts ordained and wrought in us
by the eternal Spirit, through whom Jesus Christ “offered Himself without spot unto God.” What
a strange inversion of God’s economies,—what a
going back into the bondage of legality and Judaism, it is, to look upon the blood of bulls and of
goats as real sacrifices, and on the self-oblation
of the Church in the holy eucharist, through the
atonement of Christ, as no sacrifice at all! As if
sacrifices must of necessity be not only in part,
but altogether, material; as if theirs were any
thing more than sacrifices in a shadow, while ours
are “in spirit and in truth.” Is it not very likely
that this shallow doctrine arises, as I have suggested, from the partial and imperfect view commonly taken of the one great oblation? They
that dwell chiefly on the last act of suffering in the
flesh, seem naturally to fall into a lifeless and material conception of all sacrifices, whatsoever they
be. They dwell on the external and material part only; forgetting that this is, so to speak, the out
ward and visible sign of the oblation; a part in
deed, but the body or vehicle of the sacrifice, which
has an inward reality in the spiritual act, and may
be called the soul of oblation. Such, for instance,
is the sacrifice of the eucharist; for sacrifices are
akin to sacraments, and are of a twofold nature;
are partly material and partly spiritual, partly seen
and partly unseen. And therefore the faithful in
early times, in the very act of offering up the living
sacrifice of themselves, saw in the bread and wine
of the holy eucharist an expressive symbol of self-oblation, and a fulfilment of the prophet’s words:
“From the rising of the sun even unto the going
down of the same, my name shall be great among
the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be
offered unto my name, and a pure offering.”Mal. i. 11.
I will now draw one or two inferences of a
practical kind from what has been said, and then
conclude.
1. We may learn from this view of the great act of atonement,
what is the nature of the faith by which we become partakers of it, or, in other
words, by which we are justified. Plainly it is not a faith which indolently
terminates in a belief that Christ died for us; or which intrusively assumes to
itself the office of applying to its own needs the justifying grace of the atonement. “It
is God that justifieth.”Rom. viii. 33.
All that faith does at the
outset, in man’s justification, is to receive God’s sovereign gift. By our baptism we were grafted
into the mystical body of Christ, which is justified
through His oblation of Himself; that is, we were
accounted righteous in Him—we were justified.
By faith we hold fast the gift which we have received; and justifying faith conforms us to the
self-sacrifice of Christ. Therefore St. Paul says, “I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service.”Rom. xii. 1.
And this is the meaning of his words, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live;
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life
which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith
of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me:”Gal. ii. 20.
and also of other like passages,
where he speaks of our being made partakers of
the cross of Christ. Justifying faith, then, is the
trust of a willing heart, offered up in obedience
to God: it is His will working in us, knitting us
to Himself. Perhaps in no way is the danger of
a merely speculative or passive faith more exhibited than in this view; and nothing is more
certain than that many, who are far removed from antinomianism in doctrine, and even hold it
in abhorrence, are in danger of acquiescing in a
merely passive faith: such persons, I mean, as
those whose lives are pure, but without self-denial;
who are of a religious mind, but at peace with the
world; who hold correct doctrine, but live lives
out of all analogy with the realities of the cross.
The faith of such persons may be called merely
passive; because, while it fails to constrain them to
acts of self-oblation, after the example of Christ’s living sacrifice, it rests itself upon a knowledge
that His dying on the cross was an offering in
their behalf. And hence it is we find oftentimes
the most strongly expressed reliance on the death
of Christ in persons of a very unmortified habit of
life. Men of a self-indulging character, who live
in ease and softness, taking their fill of the world’s good things—of its wealth, popularity, and honours—who love high places, and delicate society, and
refined pleasures, are often heard to speak with
a confidence and a self-possession of the justifying
power of a faith which would seem to be in no
way distinguishable from a knowledge that Christ
died for us, and a self-persuasion that, by an act
of their own minds, they apply His death to their
own justification. Again; it is a dubious and untrusty faith, (howsoever clear be the knowledge
that Christ’s death is our atonement), which is reconcileable with an ambitious life, or with a joy
at succeeding or being elevated in the world, or
with a watchfulness for opportunities and occasions of advancement. It is hard to believe that
such men are free from strong choices, and purposes framed according to the bias of their own
will, or that they are dead to the world, and par
takers of the self-denial of Christ. We have need
of much misgiving, when we can bear to be followed, caressed, and listened to by the world from
which we are redeemed. Our faith, if we would
endure unto the end, must be stern, unyielding,
and severe. It must bear the impress of His passion, and make us seek the signs of our justification in the sharper tokens of His cross.
2. The next inference I will draw is this; we
may thus learn what is the true point of sight from
which to look at all the trials of life. We hear
people perpetually lamenting, uttering passionate
expressions of grief at visitations which, they say,
have come on them unlocked for, and stunned
them by their suddenness: one has lost his possessions, another his health, another his powers of
sight or hearing, another “the desire of his eyes,”
parents, children, husbands, wives, friends; each
sorrowing for their own, and all alike viewing their
affliction from the narrow point of their own isolated being: they seem to be hostile invasions of their peace; mutilations of the integrity of their
lot; untimely disruptions of their fondest ties, and
the like. Much as we speak of violent deviations
of nature from her laws, and of the mysterious
agencies of devastating powers; so we talk of the
destruction of a -fortune, the breaking up of our
happiness, the wreck of our hopes. Now all this
loose and faithless language arises from our not
recognising the great law to which all these are to
be referred. It is no more than this: that God
is disposing of what has been offered up to Him
in sacrifice: as, for instance, when a father or
mother bewails the taking away of a child, have
they not forgotten that he was not their own?
Did they not offer him at the font? Did not God
promise to receive their oblation? What has He
done more than take them at their word? They
prayed that He would make their child to be His “own child by adoption:” and He has not only
heard, but fulfilled their prayer. Have they not
perpetually, since that day, asked for him the kingdom of heaven, even as the mother of Zebedee’s children came and besought that her two sons
might sit, the one on His right hand, and the other
on His left, in His kingdom? And, like them, they
knew not what they asked: they were desiring a
high blessing, awful in its height; for which, if
granted, they may have to go sorrowing because God. has heard their prayer, and a sword has
pierced through their own soul also. In an especial manner this seems true of the death of infants.
They were offered up to Him, and He took them
to Himself. So that they be His, who dare lament
that He has chosen the place where they shall
stand and minister before Him? Little, it may be,
the glad mother thought, as she stood beside the
font, what she was then doing; little did she fore
cast what was to come, or read the meaning of
her own acts and prayers. And so, likewise, when
any true servants of Christ are taken away, what
is it but a token of His favourable acceptance
of their self-oblation? They have been His from
baptism, and He has granted them a long season
of tarrying in this outer court of His temple. But
now, at length, the time is come; and when we
see them “bow the head, and give up the ghost,”
is it not our slowness of heart that makes even our
eyes also to be holden, so as not to see who is
standing nigh, conforming them to His own great
sacrifice? While they were with us, they were
not ours, but His: they were permitted to abide
with us, and to gladden our hearts awhile; but
they were living sacrifices, and ever at the point of
being caught up to heaven.
And so, lastly, in all that befalls ourselves, we
too are not our own, but His; all that we call ours is His; and when He takes it from us—first one
loved treasure, then another, till He makes us
poor, and naked, and solitary let us not sorrow
that we are stripped of all we love, but rather rejoice for that God accepts us: let us not think that
we are left here, as it were, unseasonably alone,
but remember that, by our bereavements, we are in
part translated to the world unseen. He is calling
us away, and sending on our treasures. The great
law of sacrifice is embracing us, and must have its
perfect work. Like Him, we must be made “perfect through suffering.” Let us pray Him, therefore, to shed abroad in us the mind that was in
Christ; that, our will being crucified, we may
offer up ourselves to be disposed of as He sees
best, whether for joy or sorrow, blessing or chastisement; to be high, or low; to be slighted, or
esteemed; to be full, or to suffer need; to have
many friends, or to dwell in a lonely home; to be
passed by, or called to serve Him and His kingdom
in our own land, or among people of a strange
tongue; to be, to go, to do, to suffer, even as He
wills, even as He ordains, even as Christ endured, “who, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself
without spot to God.” Amen.
SERMON XVIII.
THE SPIRITUAL CROSS.
ST. MATTHEW xxvii. 46.
“About the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying-,
Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God,
why hast Thou forsaken me?”
I HAVE chosen these awful words, spoken in our
Lord’s last agony, that we may have, by the help
of the Eternal Spirit through whom He offered
Himself to God, a fuller and truer understanding
of the depth of His bitter passion. The feelings of
our lower nature so strongly draw us to dwell on
the crucifixion which He suffered in the flesh, that
we think too little of the mystery of His spiritual
agony. And yet the pains He suffered in the body
are but faint tokens of the agony He suffered in
the soul. The torment of the fleshly crucifixion,
unutterably great as it was, lasted for a few hours
only, and for once; but His spiritual agony was at
all times throughout His ministry on earth. He
suffered day by day. His last sufferings in the
flesh were not endured alone: they were shared by two men like ourselves, and their fleshly pangs
outlasted His. But He was suffering a twofold
crucifixion. His cross was, as it were, a sacrament
of sorrows, having an outward and an inward anguish. Our eyes fasten on the material cross, the
outward and earthlier, the more human portion of
His sufferings: but His intenser agonies were all
within; his keenest anguish was the spiritual cross:
and this is what we will now for a while consider.
In these words of the twenty-second Psalm, it
is plain that He spoke of more than His agonising
death. They were no doubt in part wrung from
Him by the torment of His wounded body; but
they have a deeper meaning. This forsaking was
manifestly one of a more awful and oppressive
kind. Of such a holy mystery it is hard to speak
without seeming to be guilty of an over-boldness,
which makes our thoughts sound like irreverence:
it is a depth rather to be mused over than to be
spoken of: so that when we hear our own thoughts
aloud, they seem almost more than we designed to
venture on.
Let us, then, consider the nature of His spiritual cross. It
was the being brought under all the conditions of a sinner, though Himself
without sin. Sin tried upon Him all its powers; first to lure, afterwards to
destroy. As, for instance:
1. He was tempted by direct suggestions of evil. We read that He “was led up of the Spirit into
the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” It was
a foremost part of His warfare with the powers of
spiritual wickedness. All before Him had sinned.
Satan had won his masteries over all. The first
man Adam, the patriarchs, prophets, and saints,
all God’s earthly servants in their day had sinned.
Hitherto the prince of this world had triumphed,
carrying all before him. But now was manifested
one more servant of God, with whom the whole
contest lay. He was brought into the world as
the leader and prince of saints; and all powers of
evil thronged about Him. How far the true mystery of His person was known, is not revealed to
us: but we find the tempter saying, “If thou be
the Son of God,” plainly shewing that he knew at
least the name of Jesus. Be this as it may, all
powers of evil gathered upon Him, and strove with
Him. He was assailed with a temptation to mistrust His heavenly Father, to be vainly confident
of God’s protection, to forego His own allegiance
and homage for a mighty bribe. All these suggestions of evil were made to pass
vividly before His spiritual consciousness; and who shall conceive the pangs of
such a trial? The lures of sin are hateful just in the measure of the holiness
of him that is tempted. A sinner has no distress in the worst solicitations of
evil; even though resisted, it is not the solicitation, but the
self-denial that grieves and galls him. A holy man has bitterness in his very
soul at the consciousness of being tempted, and, in resisting, is refreshed by a
sense of mastery; but the conception of evil in his heart is full of shame and sorrow. And so to the end of life; as men grow in
holiness, they grow in a keen sensitiveness of soul which makes temptation all
but intolerable. But with the Holy One, who can express the affliction of being
the direct subject of temptation? To hate evil as God hates it, and to be
tempted as man is tempted, is a humiliation and a sorrow, as of iron entering
into the soul. Surely all the after-assaults of spiritual wickedness to destroy His life were as nothing, compared to the
awful mystery of being addressed by the allurements of sin. These approaches of the wicked
one were made to the will of the Son of God, with
the design of withdrawing the consent of His pure
soul from His heavenly Father. They were a
thousand-fold more hateful and harrowing than the
falsehood of His suborned accusers, or the scourging of His sinless flesh.
2. Again; He suffered a perpetual unmingled
sorrow for the sins of men. All the day long He
was the mark of their gainsaying and contradiction. Every form of falsehood, unfair dealing, misinterpretation, insidious address, malignant slander, were heaped upon Him. All around Him He be
held a conscious resistance of the light of truth.
Very keen is the suffering of false construction
from deaf and prejudiced hearts. We know little
of it; but that little is enough. There is an unreasonableness about minds heated into opposition
which nothing can allay; and minds otherwise not
corrupt pass on into obstinate and sinful perversity.
All this He suffered so as never man endured before. The lawyers stood up and questioned, tempting Him; the Pharisees and Herodians sought to
entangle Him in his talk: others watched His
words, that they might find wherein to accuse
Him. They gave to His words such refined perversions of meaning, as are manifold more cutting
than the blackest falsehood. Slander is characteristically devilish. They reviled Him for the
works which they could not deny. “He casteth
out devils by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.” “Say we not well, that thou art a Samaritan, and
hast a devil?” We can conceive very little of this
bitter sorrow; for in Him it was dashed with a
far bitterer taste, of which we can know still less.
The sorest and most hateful part of this contradiction was the ingratitude of man. With the full
foresight of all He should suffer for their sakes,
and the consciousness that all He then suffered
was for their salvation, He bore at their hands all manner of wrong and subtilty. And to this sense
of their ingratitude was joined a knowledge of
their self-destruction. Sad and woful sight in the
eyes of Him by whom all things were made, to
see mankind, God’s chiefest creature in this visible
world, marred from its original holiness, “earthly,
sensual, devilish.” To Him the depths of this
alienation were ever open; He saw the world of
enmity against God which had entered the soul of
man. And doubtless as He read the whole out
line of the fall, in each sinner that reviled, or lay
in wait to ensnare Him, so did He look on to the
working out of the mystery of iniquity in the new
creation of God. “Have I not chosen you twelve?
and one of you is a devil.” Surely the sin of Judas
sat upon His heart before that last hour, when He
said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto
death.” He carried about with Him the daily bur
den of the foreseen sins of His enemies and of His
friends. All the awful guilt of His last passion, the
betrayal, the false judgment, the impious mockery,
the scourge, the cross, the self-accursing cry of
God’s apostate people, were all foretasted; and
surely the forsaking of His Apostles, and the denial
of Peter, were not veiled from His sight. And He
that afterwards, in the isle of Patmos, unfolded before the eyes of St. John the stream of the world’s history, and the fortunes of His Church in the world, daily foresaw all things that should come
hereafter. The sin of the world, and, worse than
all, the sin of His Church, lay heavily upon Him
day by day. Shall we not believe that the schisms,
and strife, and mutual conflict of Churches, the
dying out of light, the darkening of truth, the
growth of false traditions, the falling away of the
latter times, and all the chequered train of these
eighteen hundred years, were all before His sight
in whom dwelt “all the fulness of the Godhead
bodily?” Sin in all its mysteries of origin, and
depth, and breadth, and all its masteries, even to
the end of the world, were spread before Him who
was, by peculiar title, “the Man of Sorrows,” “the Lamb that taketh away the sin of the world.”
And as He said to the women that bewailed Him,
when He was led away to Calvary, “Daughters of
Jerusalem, weep not for me; but weep for yourselves and for your children. For, behold, the days
are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed
are the barren, and the wombs that never bare,
and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall
they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us;
and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these
things in the green tree, what shall be done in the
dry?”St. Luke xxiii. 28-31.
—so doubtless the destinies of His Church
on earth stood like a lowering horizon behind the mount of crucifixion. The rents and wounds of
His mystical body already pierced His spirit; and
the false kiss which the world should give, to the
betrayal of His Church; and the afflictions of His
saints, and the tyranny of the strong, and the pampered self-pleasing of soft spirits, and the plagues
of worldliness, and the foreseen apostacy of the
latter days,—all these dwelt heavily on Him to
whom all things to come are as things that are.
3. And, once more; He suffered, throughout
we know not how large a portion of His whole life,
the natural fear of death and of His coming agony.
It is strange that, while we dwell chiefly on the
thought of His fleshly crucifixion, we so hastily
pass by these natural affections of our manhood
wherewith He was encompassed. In His lifetime
we forget His fleshly nature in His spiritual; at
His death we forget His spiritual in His fleshly.
Now it is plain that his whole life, so far as revealed to us in the Gospel, was full of a sad and
afflicting foresight of the cup which His Father
should give Him: therefore He was wont to say, “Mine hour is not yet come;” and therefore He
spoke of “the sign of the prophet Jonas;” and of
His lifting up. The fear of death is one of the
sinless infirmities of our manhood; and this He
bare no less than thirst or hunger. We know
with what a piercing strength the first glimpses of a coming sorrow shoot in upon us: how they
chequer our whole life, and overshadow all things;
how sad thoughts glance off from all we do, or say,
or listen to; how the mind converts every thing
into its own feeling and master-thought. Even the
smallest things in life have great capacities of sorrow, and hold great measures of sadness. It is not
only on the greater and more set occasions that
our afflictions overwhelm us. Perhaps our keenest
sufferings are in sudden recollections, remote associations, indirect hints, words, tones, little acts of
unconscious friends. And even so it was with Him.
It was not only when Moses and Elias, in the
mount of the transfiguration, alloyed the brightness
of His glory by speaking of “the decease which
He should accomplish at Jerusalem,” but in all
the lesser events of life His coming agony rose up
before Him. When a lowly woman anointed Him
with ointment, He saw in it the preparations of the
grave: “She hath anointed my body to the burying.” The very spikenard had in it the savour of
death. “Are ye able to drink of the cup that I
shall drink of, and to be baptised with the baptism
that I am baptised with?” “I have a baptism to
be baptised withal, and how am I straitened till it
be accomplished!” And, as the time drew nigh,
this sinless shrinking of our manhood from the
agonies of His passion was more clearly manifested. He grew, if I may so speak, fuller of the thought,
and began to teach His disciples how many things
He must suffer;St. Matt. xvi. 21, and xx. 18, 19.
foretelling every step of His last
afflictions, from His betrayal to His cross: and
when the hour was come, He was straitened with
a sinless impatience for its accomplishment; and
He bade the traitor to do his work with a friendly
speed: “What thou doest do quickly:” and after
wards in the garden, when He had said, “My soul
is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death,”St. Matt. xxvi. 38.
who shall
venture to imagine what were His hidden agonies;
what it was that thrice wrung from Him, even after
the act of self-oblation, “Father, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me;” what visions, it may be,
of the cup and of the cross were held out to Him;
how He wrestled, until by a direct consent, and
choice of the will, He drank it, in foretaste, to
the dregs? As yet His fleshly crucifixion had not
begun. It was His spiritual cross; the sharp inward wounding of the soul, that crucified even
the body before its time, and impressed its passion
upon His earthlier nature. “His sweat was as
it were great drops of blood falling down to the
ground.”St. Luke xxii. 44.
4. And, as the chief of all His sorrows, He
suffered we know not what darkness of soul upon the cross. True it is, that the Holy One of God,
even when most beset by afflictions from without,,
was calm and illuminated within. The rays of His
Father’s face shone secretly in upon Him. To Him,
as to all saints of God, all the avenues of heaven
were open. The pure lights and soft dews of His
Father’s kingdom were His continual refreshment.
It was not for His own sake that He endured a
darkness of soul; neither for His own sake did He
hunger, or thirst, or become man, or die: so, like
wise, whatsoever mysterious desolation of heart
came upon Him, He endured as the Saviour of
sinners. He was “made sin for us.” He was made
to know the wages of sin, even as sinners must
needs know it; and desolation of soul, and the
forsaking of the light of God’s countenance, is our
portion in the lot of sinners: and this He suffered
even as He suffered the scourge and the crown of
thorns. It may be that, as soul and body were
afterwards separated, so the shining of His Father’s face was for a time concealed. He learned the
full misery of fallen man. Of all His passion we
know but a little part: His “unknown sufferings” were beyond them all: of them we can know
nothing. We can gather them only from His own
words, few and broken, when He was passing
through His hidden agonies: “If it be possible,”
and “Why hast Thou forsaken me?” But, what death is: what shall be after death: what, in the
hour of passing, is the world which lies between
the sinner’s soul and God: to what mysterious
nearness of conformity to the doom of a transgressor He humbled Himself for our redemption
from death and hell, is not revealed: all this,
whatsoever it be, He suffered: but we are speaking of what we know not.
This, then, is a dim outline of His spiritual
cross. The visible sufferings on Calvary were the
filling up of His afflictions, and the symbol or
revelation of His hidden agonies: and it was in
these that the full mastery over sin was chiefly
won. The body, though a partaker both in sin
and death, is not the chief either in the transgression or the penalty, but the spirit of man. It
was on his spiritual nature that God’s image was
stamped in the beginning; and through the power
of that spiritual being he became a rebel against
God. The soul was the seat of the rebellion;
there it was that the powers of spiritual wickedness erected their dominion; and in that same
region of His being, the Man who alone was without
sin, suffered all the penalty which sin had drawn
upon the world. In a word, what pain is to the
body, sorrow is to the soul; and the scourge, the
crown of thorns, and the cross, are, as it were,
a parable of bitterness, anguish, and affliction.
Now from all this we may understand what
that cross is of which all must be partakers: not
the visible material cross, but that which is more
real than the reality of fleshly crucifixion. It is
not so much by sufferings in the body as in the
spirit, that we are likened to Him. The railing
thief was more nearly conformed to His visible
passion than all, save one or two, in all the multitude of saints. Yet, though conformed to Him in
the flesh, he was not likened to Him in spirit. St.
John and the blessed Virgin did not suffer indeed
in the flesh, yet were they truly nailed with Him
upon His cross. So in all ages of the Church, kings
and princes, no less than bishops and pastors of
His flock, not only in sackcloth and solitude, but
in soft clothing and in the throng of royal courts,
have borne the marks of the Lord Jesus, and
shared the reality of His passion. Weak women
too, moving in silence and a veil, unseen of the
world, and never breathed on by its rough oppositions, have both carried their cross with Him, and
on it hung beside Him. They have died with Him
in will, and in sacrifice of self; in mortifying the
choices and affections of their earthlier nature;
in a glad forsaking of bright hopes and fair promises in life, sitting at His feet without distraction,
and bearing withal a burden of many sorrows,
partly the awful tokens of their Master’s love, and partly laid upon them by the wrong and enmity
of the world. Among many samples, let this one
suffice. We read in the life of one to whom was
meted out a death-sickness of uncommon anguish,
that as she drew near the end, for a long season
she was uncheered by the divine consolations which
were the wonted stay of her soul. She complained
in sadness to her spiritual guide of this strange and
appalling desolation, until she learned to read in it
the gift of a higher measure of conformity to Him,
who in His last passion cried aloud, “My God, my
God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” In like manner there is many a sorrow fearfully hidden from
the world’s hard gaze, many an overlooked affliction, many a piercing of heart by the lesser sharpnesses of our common griefs, which not the less,
when borne in silence for God, make the mourning
spirit to partake of His mysterious cross.
There is one more truth that we may learn
from what has been said. I mean, what necessity
there is that all should thus be crucified with Him.
Sin is an inward and unseen malady: though manifested in act, its origin and being is in the spirit. “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts;” therefore its overthrow must be by an inward mastery:
and this is to be won only by suffering the buffetings of sin, rather than yield to its dominion. The
strife is within a man. It is by a patient wrestling with temptation; by a steady rule over our own
temper; by a life of high and severe fellowship
with Christ, that we must be likened to Him.
There is no smoother, no other way of eternal life.
Let this be a warning to all sinful and shallow Christians; to all easy, formal, exterior minds; and to
the worldly, self-sparing, and light-hearted. They
that have no fellowship with the Man of Sorrows
have no share of His cross, no promise of His
crown. Let this be also a consolation for all the
blessed company of the sorrowful; for all who,
with a pricked or broken heart, are moving upward
against the stream of this visible world, which bears
down in a heavy tide away from God. They must
be buffeted by it, or be borne along with it. But
all this is likening them to the Lord of sufferings,
and making them partakers of His sorrow. In a
little time all will be over. It is sharp and piercing, but it cleanses and purifies; it moulds and
draws the spirit into the form of the Son of God;
it puts in the sharper lines and the deeper colouring; it is as the shadow of His crown of thorns.
Blessed are they that have entered into the company of mourners: life has nothing more for them
either to hope or fear; they linger on in this visible
world, but their true life is in the world unseen.
Blessed lot! how calm, how even, how unmoved!
all has been suffered: they are “afraid of no evil tidings,” of no new and sudden strokes; all is
known. No joy nor sorrow now can shake them
from their rest. They are of his fellowship who
said, “Henceforth let no man trouble me; for I
bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.”Gal. vi. 17.
SERMON XIX.
THE HIDDEN POWER OF CHRIST’S PASSION.
ST. JOHN xii. 32.
“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men
unto me.”
OUR blessed Lord here reveals the great end of
all His holy passion. He was lifted up from the
earth, nailed upon the tree, that He might draw
all men from all nations, both Jews and Gentiles,
to Himself. By His precious blood-shedding, He
took away the sin of the world: and by the mighty
virtues of that one great sacrifice, He has been
gathering together again in one body the children
of God who are scattered abroad.
First, then, in these words He foretells the
gathering out and knitting together of His mystical body, which is the Church. From the time
of His ascension into heaven, and the shedding
abroad of the Holy Ghost, He has been working
unseen upon the spirits of mankind; He has been
drawing together the living stones of His spiritual house; by the apostolic priesthood, by preaching,
by His holy sacraments, by the interweaving of His
providential government with the working of man’s will, and by all the wonderful mutations of two
thousand years; by the movements of the reason of
man, and by what men call the civilisation of the
world; by the rise and fall of empires, and the
organised system of human polities. He has thus
been working out this great all-comprehending
aim—the perfection of His Church. First He
drew a remnant of the Jews to the foot of His
mystical cross; then to them he drew the Gen
tiles, first proselytes, then they that before were “strangers from the covenants of promise:” laying
thereby in all the world the first foundations of the
Catholic Church: and then into that same area
He drew people unknown before by name; and,
as they entered into the holy precinct, they put
off their old natures—they came in as conquerors,
and then dwelt in it as conquered. They were
taken in a snare, and were subdued by the power
they had seemed to overthrow. And thenceforward in all ages of the Church, He
has wrought, through the sacramental power of its visible polity, upon the
multitude of nations, drawing them together into the bond of peace; drawing them up
ward to higher movements of spiritual life; building up His temple, not only in the majesty of its lofty stature, but in the glory and perfection of its
parts. There has been not a change, but a growth:
as the springing or unfolding of a stately tree; a
growth, not only of bulk, but of beauty; ever
opening itself to the drawings and invitations of a
gentle sky: so His mystical body has grown from childhood to youth and manhood,
throwing out new powers of illuminated reason and of regenerate will, ever
advancing “unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ.”
But this subject is too large for our present
thoughts; and therefore I will not follow any
further the mysterious economy by which He,
through His Church, draws nations to Himself,
and the whole body of His people to perfection.
We will confine our thoughts to a more particular
form of this great work of mercy; I mean, the
way in which, in His Church, He draws men one
by one unto Himself. Christ is in the midst of
His Church. His eye and His hand have been
upon us from the hour of our baptism. He is ever
drawing us by His unseen virtues: we are all
around Him, some nearer, some further off; some
approaching, some receding from Him. There is
a work going on, of which the day of judgment is
only the end and summing up. There is between
those that follow and those that resist His drawings, a real separation even now. “His fan is in His hand; and He will throughly purge His floor,
and gather the wheat into His garner, but He will
burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” With
those, however, that resent His gracious drawings
I have nothing now to do. Let us speak only of
those who are approaching, be it never so slowly
and far off, the foot of the spiritual cross; and of
these I pass by penitents, and the first and imperfect forms of a character under the power of its
second regeneration, as repentance was wont to be
called; because in His sight we are all penitents,
and because the degrees of such characters are in
finite, and because they will be ultimately included
in the more general forms, of which we shall speak
hereafter.
He is, I say, in the midst of His Church, and
we are ranged around Him in many measures of
approach, as if we were in the many courts or
precincts which surround His eternal throne.
First, and farthest off, among the better kind
are blameless and amiable people; against whom
no greater charge can be laid, than that they are
harmless unemphatic Christians; there is nothing
high or deep about them—nothing that has any
meaning below the surface of their life. They
have no great measure of devotion, and of contemplation still less; they want awe and reverence,
because they lack a consciousness of things unseen. And hence their characters are shallow and disappointing: they raise, and dash, your hopes of
them in turn: they fall short both of your expectations and of their own resolutions. It seems as if
their nature were incapable of taking a sharp and
true impression. They mix in the world, and are
highly esteemed, because they are amiable; but
no man is awed by them; for, after all, they are
poor characters. Now even such as these are
ever drawing nearer to Him; but their slight retrogressions are so many, and their advance so slow,
that it is imperceptible. By measuring together
large periods of their life, the change may be detected: on a death-bed it is perhaps seen more
plainly. But there is an original fault about them,
in some region of their spiritual life; something
which retards their advance, and ever keeps them
back. Of such men it is hard to know what we
shall say.
Again; there are those who, to all that I have
described, add further, an inward conformity in
many lesser features to the mind of Christ. They
have feeling and zeal, and are visibly and sensibly
religious; so much so, as to bear at least a shadow
of the cross for His name’s sake. They love the
meditative parts of religion, the poetry and imagery
of faith, and the consolations of Christianity. They
have, unawares, gone so deep into religion, that they cannot go back. They cannot do without it;
and onward they must go. Yet they are not near
enough to Him to be at rest. Still they are afraid
of going too near, and trusting Him wholly. There
is much in them which would be precipitated,, as it
were, by a closer approach to Him; and they are
not yet willing to forego it. Nevertheless, they
often pray for this; and are convinced that He,
and He only, is enough so to fill all their heart,
that if they had His presence, they should want
nothing more. Such men are good Christians, but
hardly saints; for that word has a deeper sense
than they as yet can bear. There are too many
reserved affections, and hopes, and wishes, yet
clinging to them. But He will not let them rest
where they are; unless, indeed, they wilfully go
back from Him. He was lifted up from the earth
for this very cause, that He might draw them still
onward, nearer to Himself. He loves them too
well to let them linger afar off; and therefore we
find such people ever passing on, one by one, often
unwillingly and with half a heart, drawing near
as by the compulsion of angels’ hands, until they
enter another circle of approach to Him. There
is a higher fellowship, to which they are destined.
For there are those who are the true elect;
the elect of the elect; the Christians indeed; the
chosen ones, with whom is “the white stone,” and “the hidden manna,” and “the secret of the Lord,”
and the “new name which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it.” On them the voice of
Christ fell in childhood; or in riper years, it may
be in the threshold of life, or in after-life, under
some cloud and chill of heart; and they heard it,
and were for a long while amazed, as Samuel, at
the thrilling sound, knowing neither who spake,
nor what to answer. Yet it pierced their heart,
and they felt it could not stop there. Why, they
knew not: but they knew within themselves that
they could never have peace till they had heard
that voice again. They feel that they must hear
it more closely and more clearly, and know the
meaning of the voice. Afterwards, at strange and
unlooked-for times, they have caught, little by
little, the will of Him that spake: more, as it
were, from the meaning of the tone, than from any
articulate words. And they have followed Him
in silence, not knowing whither, saying deeply to
themselves, I must go on. And they have felt a
change passing on them, as from a chill to warmth,
like men coming up out of a grave into the noon
day sun. And this mild guiding power has drawn
them from faults, and from weaknesses, and from
vain hankerings, and from the world: and they have
begun, as it were, to live anew—more thoughtfully, but more happily; and they verily thought the work was done. Alas for them! the greatest work
was yet to be begun. They were still living in
themselves: self, with its hopes, and promises, and
dreams, had still hold of them; but He had begun
to fulfil their prayers. They had asked for contrition, and He sent them sorrow; they had asked for
purity, and He sent them a thrilling anguish; they
had asked to be meek, and He had broken their
heart; they had asked to be dead to the world, and
He slew all their living hopes; they had asked to
be made like unto Him, and He began to make
them “perfect through sufferings;” they had asked
to lay hold of His cross, and when He reached it
out to them, it wounded their hands; they had
asked, they knew not what, nor how, but He had
taken them at their word, and granted all their
petitions. They were hardly willing to follow on
so far, or to draw so nigh to Him. They had upon
them an awe and a fear, as Jacob at Bethel, and
as Eliphaz in the night-visions; or as the apostles, when they “thought that they had seen a
spirit,” and “knew not that it was Jesus.” They
were not ready to give up so much, to make so
great a surrender of self, to forego so many things
which He permits others to enjoy, which they take
as a matter of course, almost of necessity. The
change in life was too searching and too deep.
They felt in a perplexity. If they should draw back, they could never be happy again; and yet
they feared His nearness. They could almost pray
Him to depart from them, or to hide His awfulness.
They find it easier to obey Him than to suffer; to
do than to give up; to bear the cross than to hang
upon it. They have found His service growing
year by year more blessed, but more awful; dearer
to them, but more searching; more full of heaven,
but more exacting. Little did they know to what
they pledged themselves, when, in that first season
of awe, they arose and followed His voice. But
now they cannot go back; for they are too near to
the unseen cross, and its virtues have pierced too
deeply within them. Day by day they are giving
up their old waking dreams; things they have pictured out, and acted over, in their imaginations and
their hopes; one by one they let them go, with
saddened but willing hearts. They feel as if they
had fallen under some irresistible attraction, which
is hurrying them into the world unseen: and so in
truth it is; He is fulfilling to them His promise, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw
all men unto me.” Their turn is come at last: that
is all. Before, they had only heard of the mystery;
now, they feel it. He has fastened on them His
look of love, even as on Peter and on Mary; and
they cannot choose but follow, and in following
Him altogether forget both themselves and all their visions of life. Little by little, from time to time,
by fleeting gleams, the mystery of His spiritual
cross shines out upon them. They behold Him
high and lifted up, and the glory which rays forth
from the wounds of His holy passion; and as they
gaze upon it, they adore, and are changed into
His likeness; and His mind shines out through
them, for He dwells in them. They live alone
with Him, in high and unspeakable fellowship;
willing and glad to lack what others over-enjoy;
to be unlike all, so that they are only like to Him.
Such were the apostles; such in all ages were they
who now follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.
Had they chosen for themselves, or their friends
for them, they would have chosen otherwise. They
would have been brighter here, but less glorious
in His kingdom; they would have had Lot’s portion, not Abraham s; would have been full of
happiness and of anxieties, of lower blessings and
heavier burdens. If they had halted any where;
if He had taken off His hand, and let them hang
back, as they often yearned to do, what would
they not have lost; what forfeits in the morning
of the resurrection! But He stayed them up even
against themselves. Many a time their “foot had
well nigh slipped;” but He in His mercy held them
up. And now, even in this life, they know that
all He did was done well; that it was good for them to stand alone with Him upon the mountain and in the cloud; and that not their own will,
but His was done in them.
This, then, is the work which He has been doing with each one
of you. Little as you may know it, your whole life, from baptism to this day, is
a parable of which this is the key. Even with the sinful, and the enemies of His
cross, He has been dealing in tenderness and long-suffering. He has been
striving to draw them to His cross, while they have been wrestling against Him.
Fearful thought, that a man should be in open warfare against the will and work
of Christ, baffling by a stubborn heart the great mystery of His passion! “Woe
unto him that striveth with his Maker: let the potsherd strive with the potsherd
of the earth;”Isaiah xlv. 9.
but woe thrice told to him that striveth with his
Saviour: “He that falleth on this stone shall be
broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will
grind him to powder.”St. Matt. xxi. 44.
All of you has He been drawing; and if you
look back, you can see the links in the chain by
which He has drawn you until now. A word, a
thought, a chance, a sickness, a sorrow, a burden
of sadness in the day-time, or a dream of the past in
the night-season, alone, or in the throng of men, in
your chamber, or at the altar, something pierced deep into your soul, and there abode; and you
carried it about like a barbed arrow, which no
hand could draw but the same that launched it.
And then He has led you, little by little, with
gentle steps, hiding the full length of the way that
you must tread, lest you should start aside in fear,
and faint for weariness. And as it has been, so
it must be: onward you must go: He will not
leave you here: there is yet in store for you more
contrition, more devotion, more delight in Him.
A few years hence, and you will see how true
these words are. If by that time you have not
forsaken Him, you will be nearer still, walking in
strange, it may be solitary paths, in ways that are “called desert;” but knowing Him, as now you
know Him not, with a fulness of knowledge, and
a bowing of heart, and a holy self-renouncement,
and a joy that you are altogether His. What now
seems too much, shall then seem all too little;
what too nigh, not nigh enough to His awful cross.
How our thoughts change! A few years ago, and
you would have thought your present state excessive and severe; you would have shrunk from it
then, as at this time you shrink from the here
after. But now you look back, and know that
all was well. In all your past life you would not
have one grief the less, or one joy the more. It is
all well; though, when it happened, you knew it not. “What I do, thou knowest not now; but
thou shalt know hereafter.” Therefore shun all
things which may hinder your approach to Him:
follow His drawings with a free and willing heart.
Though restless and perplexed at first, yield to His
mysterious will; even as Peter, who first strove
with Him, and then said, “Lord, not my feet only,
but also my hands and my head.”St. John xiii. 7 and 9.
Wait for the
end. Men mar their whole destiny in life by prescribing to God’s providence. They either thwart
it by outrunning it, or hinder it by hanging back.
What we are to be He has determined, and in due
time will reveal it. Your place, your crown, your
ministry, in His unseen kingdom, are all marked
out for you. He is drawing you towards your
everlasting portion. At that day, when He shall
have brought unto Mount Sion the last of His redeemed flock, and every lost sheep shall “pass
under the hand of him that telleth them;” when
the mystical number shall be full; and all the saints
of God, from Abel the righteous to the last that
shall be quick on earth at His coming, shall be
gathered round the Lamb that was slain, then shall
we know what He is now doing with us under a
veil and in silence. We shall no more follow Him
unseen; but behold Him face to face.
SERMON XX.
SUFFERING THE SCHOOL OF OBEDIENCE,
HEBREWS v. 8.
“Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things
which He suffered.”
ALTHOUGH we are taught that the godhead and
manhood were so united in the person of our
blessed Lord as to be absolutely one, there yet
remains unrevealed a wonderful mystery respecting the conditions of His human nature; as, for
instance, where He said of His second coming, “Of that day and that hour knoweth no man;
no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.”St. Mark xiii. 32.
How
did He not know? How should any thing be hidden from “the Son of Man, which is
in heaven?”St. John iii. 13.
All that we can say is, that in these words He declared to us that
the mystery of His incarnation was in some way ordered by the laws and
conditions of our manhood. We have another example of this kind in the text: St. Paul here tells us that Christ Himself “learned obedience
by the things which He suffered.”
And, first, this may be understood of the passive nature which, by taking upon Himself our
humanity, He assumed into His divine person.
As God He was impassible, immortal, incapable
of being tempted by evil; infinite, and therefore
unchangeable: neither growth, nor weariness, nor
faintness, nor thirst, nor hunger, could reach the
Eternal. He was above the conditions of a creature; but by the mystery of His incarnation, what
things before could not reach or fasten upon His
divine nature, were admitted to His manhood. He,
therefore, took on Him our flesh and blood, that
He might come under the dominion of suffering
and mortality, of spiritual warfare and bodily infirmities. As He assumed the passive conditions of
humanity, so He partook of the susceptibilities of its
several ages. And therefore we read that “Jesus
increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with
God and man.”St. Luke ii. 52.
And these words are no mere economy or condescension, as when we read of God’s repenting, or awaking, or plucking His right hand
out of His bosom; but deep mysterious realities,
as plainly to be taken and understood as the Word
being made flesh, and weeping at the grave of Lazarus, and being nailed upon the cross. Such was the humiliation of the Eternal Son. He was
made man, not only to suffer, but to learn; He
assumed the imperfections of His creatures, and “compassed” Himself “with infirmity;” that, as
before there was nothing in Godhead which was
not in Him, so -afterward there was nothing in
manhood, sin only excepted, of which He did not
partake. It is plain, then, that He “learned obedience” in the very truth of our nature, even as we
learn it; that is, by measure and degrees, and by
discipline, and in time.
And this brings us to one more truth. There
are different ways both of knowing and of learning.
A large part of our knowledge is either intuitive
and ideal, residing in the pure reason; or speculative, that is, gathered by deduction and mental
inference: and this is one kind of knowledge, and
one way of learning. Another kind is learned by
what we call life; by experience, personal trial,
entanglement with events, struggles in doing and
suffering: and what we learn in this way, we
know with a depth and familiarity far beyond all
other knowledge; it is a part of our living energies and powers, and dwells in
our very being. Not only is its stamp imprinted on us, but it so passes into us
as to blend with our whole inner nature. We are what we have done and suffered.
And this is what we commonly call “experience.” Now, if we consider that the impassible Word took
on Him our passible nature, we shall see in what
sense even He “learned obedience by the things
that He suffered.” As there is a difference in kind
between the knowledge we possess of those things
which we have, and those things which we have
not, learned by experience; so the same is true also
of His perfect manhood; and more visibly true of
the knowledge of an omniscient impassible Being
compared with the experience of suffering humanity. It is a mode and kind of knowledge
which could not otherwise consist with the perfections of the Godhead.
He made trial, then, in a passible nature, of human suffering.
He learned, by actual partaking of sorrow, what is the power of sin over
mankind. Into His pure manhood the guilt of sin could no more enter than into
His eternal Godhead: but the sinless infirmities of our fallen state, and its
large capacities of agony, He took; and, girded about with them, He offered
Himself to the strife of evil. He obeyed, in that He stood in the place of a
sufferer. And in it He learned in very deed, by feeling and tasting, the
nakedness and the bitterness of the fall of man. What was impossible to the
Godhead, He as man endured in the wilderness, suffering the suggestions and
solicitations of the Evil One; so likewise in the garden, He passed through an agony which cannot
be uttered; there lay on Him a crushing burden
of fleshly and spiritual woes, the like of which
never man yet bare. In the betrayal, and in the
judgment before Annas, and Caiaphas, and Herod,
and Pilate, and by the way-side, and in the ascent
of Calvary, and upon the cross, He learned a mystery of suffering, of pangs and agony, such as no
son of man had ever known. Into all this the
Eternal Word entered, through His passive nature
as man. Strange words, yet most true, though so
awful to the ear as almost to make us fear to speak
them. He that suffered the rack of the spiritual
cross, and the unutterable torments of bodily pain,
was God. He to whom all mysteries lie open as
the light of noon, learned, by the things which
He suffered, what as God He could never taste.
Through that life, short in days, but in sorrows
above all measure long, through humiliation, and
peril, and contempt, and cold, and fasting, and
weariness, and thirst, and hunger, and faintness,
and ingratitude, and contradiction of sinners, and
treachery, and false-witness, and unjust condemnation, and buffetting, and spitting, and mockery,
and the smiting of the reed, and the crown of
thorns, and the vinegar and gall, and the rending
cross, and the hiding of His Father’s face,—He
the Eternal, the Word of God, the everlasting Son of the Father, learned the mystery of suffering.
What, then, was it that He learned? St. Paul
says, obedience: that is, by trial, and discipline, and
self-denial, He took the will of His Father for His
own. All the assaults of the tempter, whether by
allurement or by opposition, could not move Him
from His loyalty; all the long lingering daily toil,
and all the piercing agonies of His passion, could
not withdraw so much as a thought of His heart
from His Father’s will. Even though He, the
great and true Melchisedec, “in the days of His
flesh,” made oblationπροσενέγκας.
of “prayers and supplications,
with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was
able to save Him from death, and was heard in
that He feared;”Heb. v. 7.
yet the prayer of His heart was, “not My will, but Thine be done;” and He was
heard, yet not so that the cup should pass, but
that His will should yield to His Father’s, and
become one with it. This, then, He learned even
as we: as He hungered like us, and wept like us,
so, by trial and discipline, He learned to bear the
sufferings of our nature. All through His humiliation, He was realising, by actual energy and
patience, the pledge He gave of old: “Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.”
And in thus learning obedience, He learned
also to enter by sympathy into the sorrows of those that suffer: “We have not an high priest
which cannot be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as
we are, yet without sin.”Heb. iv. 15.
For in that “He Himself
hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour
them that are tempted.”Heb. ii. 18.
All divine as He was
before, and therefore infinite in love and pity,
He has yet condescended further to our fallen
state, and interposed, between His eternal mercies
and our imperfect being, the tender sympathy of
His own crucified humanity; as if it were not
enough that He should pity us “like as a father
pitieth his children,” but that He must feel with
us in our sorrows even as one of ourselves. And
for this cause He suffered, that He might learn
to sympathise with those that suffer through
obedience. He has made full trial of all; there
is no posture of the afflicted soul with which He
is not familiar; no measure of bodily or spiritual
sorrow which, “in the days of His flesh,” He
endured not to the uttermost; and what He endured in the weakness of humanity, passed into
the depths of His divine compassion.
Though He was God, yet was there something
still to be learned for our sakes; though He was
a Son, yet were there deeper mysteries of obedience which He must needs learn through suffering. All holy even as man, altogether obedient to His
Father’s will, yet, by some law which governs the
realities of the spiritual world, there were deep
things lying hid in the nature of sorrow and pain,
and in the energy and patience of the will, which
were yet to be learned by warfare and by agony;
and for this end He was made flesh, and bowed
Himself to the cross of our humiliation; and was
made not only like us, but one with us; so that
it was our mingled and sensitive being which in
Him suffered, and was taught and disciplined in
the relation of a creature to his God, and of a sinner to his righteous Judge.
Now there is one broad and obvious truth flowing from what has been said: namely, that suffering is the school or discipline of obedience. In
His wisdom and power, God has laid even upon
sorrow the destiny of fulfilling His purposes of
mercy. In the beginning, sorrow was the wages
of sin, penal and working death; by the law of
Christ’s redemption it is become a discipline of
cleansing and perfection. God permits it still to
abide in His kingdom, but He has reduced it to
subjection. It is now changed to be a minister,
not more of His severity than of His mercy. To
the impenitent, and such as will not obey the truth,
it is still, as ever, a dark and crushing penalty: to
the contrite and obedient, it is as the refiner’s fire, keen and searching, purging out the soils, and perfecting the renewal of our spiritual nature. It is
the discipline of saints, and the safest, though the
austerest, school of sanctity; and that because suffering, or, as we are wont to say, trial, turns our
knowledge into reality. God has many ways of
teaching us; and from our childhood we are ever
learning, from parents, and teachers, and sermons,
and books; from the holy Scriptures and the
sacraments of the Church, and from the changes
and chances of the world: all these form the habit
of obedience in faithful minds. But a season of
suffering is beyond them all. When pain searches
into the body or the spirit, we feel as if we had
awoke up to know that we had learned nothing
really until then. There is laid upon us a mighty
hand, from whose shadow we cannot flee. All
general truths teem with a particular meaning, and
speak to us with a piercing emphasis. God is come
nigh to us, and is dealing with us at last, one by
one. It is our turn now; and we feel as if we saw
the tokens of His presence shaping themselves for a
moment to our sight, and then withdrawing themselves again; coming and going in an awful way,
as if to gaze upon us, and search out our very
thoughts: we feel as if the prophet’s words were
in some way true of ourselves: “In the year that
king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and His train filled the
temple.”Isaiah vi. 1.
Something is before the eye of the soul;
what it is as yet we cannot clearly see: but we are
conscious that we are brought in contact with the
order of the eternal world; and that God has turned
His hand upon us, to make us meet for His kingdom; that henceforward it is most likely that our
trials will follow quickly, one upon another; and
that there is no other rest in store for us until we
put off this body, and pass into the realities of the
world unseen. Such are the effects wrought by
sorrows, sicknesses, bodily pains, anxieties, and the
like. They seem to take away the imaginative
and visionary parts of our life, and to turn it into
a severe and impressive reality: they make all our
past life appear as a mere day-dream, as if we had
never been in earnest till now. We have heard
of submission, and resignation, and giving up of
our own will; but it has been as yet little more
than hearsay. At last we find these things required at our hands. We must give more than
words now: God is exacting realities. And then
there comes down upon the mind, as it were, a full
stream of words and sayings, which we have heard
or read in time past, and only half understood, and
well nigh forgotten. They have lain pent up in
the hidden recesses of our memory, not altogether forgotten, and yet hardly remembered: like dormant truths, which lie in the reason of children,
ready to start into vivid life when wisely touched,
and yet sometimes never elicited, and therefore
never known; so the things which we understand
not when we first hear or read, rise up as lights “in
the day of visitation;” half-truths unfold their full
outline; scattered truths draw together into an
expressive context; and we seem to hear a voice
saying, “Why would you not understand this before? Why make all this necessary? It is not
spoken out more plainly now than it was years
ago; but you would not understand.” Equally
true this is, also, of all bright and blessed truths:
they also are quickened with a living energy. The
promises of heaven, and the times of refreshing,
and the rest of the saints, and the love of God,
and the presence of Christ, which we have so long
thought of, and talked about, and felt after, and yet
never seemed to grasp,—all these likewise become
realities. They seem to gather round us, and
shed sensible influences of peace upon our suffering hearts: and this is what we mean when we
say, “I have long known these things to be true,
but now I feel them to be true.” As Job, after his
trial, said, “I have heard of Thee by the hearing
of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee.” He had
learned obedience through suffering.
And, in the next place, sufferings so put our
faith on trial as to strengthen and confirm it.
They develop what was lying hid in us, unknown
even to ourselves. And therefore we often see
persons, who have shewn no very great tokens of
high devotion, come out, under the pressure of
trials, into a most elevated bearing. This is especially true of sickness and affliction. Not only are
persons of a holy life made to shine with a more
radiant brightness, but common Christians, of no
note or visibleness, are changed to a saintly character. They wrestle with their trial, as the patriarch with his unknown companion, and will not
let it go without a blessing; and thereby the gifts
which lie enwrapped in a regenerate nature are unfolded into life and energy. Perhaps almost every
one is able, in looking back on his life past, to fix
on the seasons which gave his character some new
and determinate cast. He can look back, perhaps,
and say, “Until such a time I lived without real thoughts of God; and then such a sickness gave
my mind a startling check; and after that I lived
inconsistently, between right conviction and unamended habits, until such an anxiety spurred me
to take a decided line; but even then I had only
selfish thoughts for my own salvation, without care
for others, until another trial came; and then, too,
I remember that, for a long time, I had only the active and exciting parts of obedience, I had none of the
passive features of faith, no meekness nor patience under wrong or slights, nor
willingness to be overlooked and forgotten, and to die to the world, until a
great sorrow came, and changed the whole current of my will. There have been
stages and resting places in my course; and I have moved at an uneven pace,
sometimes faster and sometimes slower, according, as I see now, to the trials
which came upon me; and all the deeper and more decided changes of my character are dated from the
heavier and sharper visitations of suffering. How
little did I once know of what I see now with a
clear insight! What I used hardly to reason out,
is now an intuition. Had I been left to myself, I
should have known none of these things. They
would have continued to be as shadowy and unreal
as they were in childhood, and all my character
would have been straitened and stunted. I have
been almost passive, while He has been working
out His will in me: He has chosen, and gone before me, and guided me by the rod of His chastisement. Little as I know even now, yet all I know
I have been taught by trials: I have learned obedience by the things which I have suffered.” Now, I
say, perhaps every man will be able to trace out a
coincidence between these words and some part at
least of his past life; and what does this shew, but the fact that God has been teaching him through
the discipline of trials; making him to realise his knowledge, and unfolding his
character into form and energy?
Once more: nothing so likens us to the example of Christ as suffering. It seems to be an
inevitable law, arising out of the fall of the old,
and the perfecting of the new creation—first, that
the second Adam should be a “Man of sorrows;”
and next, that we should be conformed to Him in
this aspect of His perfection: “it became Him
for whom are all things, and by whom are all
things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make
the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”Heb. ii. 10.
And it is not more in relation to sanctity than to sufferings, that St. Paul says that we
were predestinated “to be conformed to the image
of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among
many brethren.”Rom. viii. 29.
And therefore, in another place,
he asks, “What son is he whom the father chasteneth not?” and argues that to be free from chastisement is an awful exemption, rather to be feared
than coveted, as clouding the bright, though keen
tokens of sonship, which are seen in those that
suffer. There is a breadth and universality in this
reasoning, which seems to force upon us the conviction, that no true member of His body who was made perfect through sufferings, shall pass out of
life without at some time drinking of the cup that
He drank of, and being baptised with the baptism
that He was baptised with. And, indeed, if we
look into the lives of His saints, we shall see that
this is simply true. All that suffer are not therefore saints; alas! far from it, for many surfer with
out the fruits of sanctity; but all saints at some
time, and in some way and measure, have entered
into the mystery of suffering. And this throws
light on a very perplexing thought in which we
sometimes entangle ourselves: I mean, on the
wonderful fact that oftentimes the same persons
are as visibly marked by sorrows as by sanctity.
We often see the holiest of Christ’s servants afflicted with a depth and multiplication of sufferings
beyond other men. They seem never to pass out
of the shadow of affliction; no sooner is one gone
off than another has come up; “the clouds return
after the rain;” sorrow gathers into sorrow; sickness gives way before sickness; fears are thrust
out by fears; anxieties are only lost in anxieties;
they seem to be a mark for all the storms and
arrows of adversity; the world esteems them to be “stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted;” even
religious people are perplexed at their trials. When
we see eminently holy persons suddenly bereaved,
or suffering sharp bodily anguish, and their trials long drawn out, or multiplied by succession, we
often say, How strange and dark is this dispensation! who would have thought that one so pure,
so patient, and resigned, should have been so
visited and overwhelmed by strokes? If they had
been slack, or lukewarm, or backward, or self-willed, or entangled in worldly affections, we could
better read the meaning of this mysterious trial;
but who more earnest and useful in all good works;
who so advanced in holiness, so near to the kingdom of heaven, as they?—And yet all this shews
how shallow and blind our faith is; for we know
little even of those we know best; we readily
overrate their character; at all events, they are
far otherwise in the esteem of God than in our
judgment: our thoughts are not His thoughts; we
set up a poor, dim, depressed standard of perfection; and we should miserably defraud even those
we love most, if it were in our power to mete out
their trials by our measures: we little know what
God is doing, and how can we know the way? and
we often think that the sorrows of the saints are
sent for their punishment, when they are sent for
their perfection. Either way we are greatly ignorant. They may need far more of purification
than we think; they may be suffering for an end
higher than purification; for some end which includes purification, and unknown mysteries besides. We forget that Christ suffered, and why; and how
He learned obedience, and what that obedience
was. He was all-pure; suffering could find no
more to cleanse than sin could find to fasten
upon. The prince of this world “had nothing” in
Him; yet whose-sorrow was like unto His sorrow, “wherewith the Lord afflicted” Him
“in the day
of His fierce anger?” and that, great as the mystery must ever be, not only and altogether as a
vicarious suffering, but that in the truth of our
manhood He might learn “obedience by the things
that He suffered.” He was made “perfect” by sufferings; and that “perfection,” whatsoever it be,
has an ineffable depth of meaning. It was not
only a sacerdotal perfection by consecration to the
priesthood of Melchisedec, but something of which
that was the formal expression and manifestation;
a great spiritual reality, a perfection of holiness,
knowledge, obedience, will, and sympathy; this
was the perfection in truth and spirit of “the one
Mediator between God and man, the man Christ
Jesus.” And of this perfection, after the measures
of a creature, and the proportions of our mere
manhood, are the saints made to partake; they
are purified, that they may be made perfect. And
therefore the sorrows of the holiest minds are the
nearest approaches to the mind of Christ, and are
full of a meaning which is dark to us only from its exceeding brightness. Our weak faith, which can
read the earthlier teaching of affliction, goes blind
when it follows the mystery of sorrow upward to
the perfection of Christ. We know not what things
they learn,—things which it is riot lawful for a man
to utter; and therefore their words are often to our
ears incoherent, and we are ready to say, “What
is this that he saith? . . . we cannot tell what he
saith.” It may be, that suffering plants the mind
of man at a point of sight in the spiritual world,
from which things altogether hidden from us who
stand by and see his afflictions, and until then even
from himself, become visible; such, for instance, as
the nature of evil, of temptation, of disobedience,
of the fall of man, of our birth-sin, of death, of the
striving of the Holy Ghost with the unholy in the
mystical body of Christ, of responsibility, and of
a crucified will: such also, as the counterpart of
these realities, the nature of regeneration, and of
Christ’s presence in the Church and holy sacraments and in the heart of the faithful, and the
beauty of holiness, the resurrection of the body,
the bliss of heaven, and the like. Now it must be
remembered, that all these things we know from
childhood; but suffering may be the necessary
condition to our feeling them. If we would learn
these things, it may be, we have need to be made
like to our Lord, not only in His purity, but in His passion; for they are learned not so much by
being presented to our minds, as by the posture
of the will, and the attitude of the spiritual being,
wrought through the discipline of suffering. We
must be changed, before even what we see will
be seen, or what we know will be known, aright.
And, it may be, that anguish of soul, or pain of
body, is that which alone can transfigure our inward being. And this throws light upon the whole
subject of fasting, and self-affliction, and of the
ascetic life, which are but lesser forms of the discipline of sorrow: but of this we cannot now
speak. I will only add, that if we ponder on the
incomprehensible nature of pain, mental and bodily; of its invisibleness, its vividness, its exceeding sharpness and
penetrating omnipresence in our whole being, of its inscrutable origin, and the
in dissoluble link which binds it to sin; and, lastly, of its mysterious
relation to the passion and perfection of our Lord,—we shall see reason to believe
that a power so near and awful has many energies,
and fulfils many designs in God’s kingdom secret
from us.
And therefore, when we look at the sufferings
of pure and holy minds, let us rather stand in awe,
as being called to behold, as it were, a shadow of
our Redeemer’s sorrows. The holier they are that
suffer, the higher is the end for which they are afflicted. It may be, they are learning inscrutable
things of the same order with those which the
apostle saw in ecstacy. Even with bleeding hearts
and deep-drawn prayers for their consolation, let
us try to believe that God is endowing them with
surpassing tokens of love, and with pledges of exceeding glory.
And for ourselves, let us be sure, when we
suffer, that for chastisement and for purification
we need more a thousand-fold than all He lays
upon us. The heaviest and the sharpest of our
sorrows is only just enough to heal us: “He doth
not willingly afflict.” If any thing short of our
present trial would have wrought His purpose of
love to us, He would have sent the lighter, and
kept back the heavier; He would have drawn over
our hearts a smooth rod of warning, and not a
sharp edge of correction. But nothing short of
what we have would do; any thing less, perhaps,
would have been a shadow of eternal misery, woe
without repentance. Let us remember, too, that
sufferings do not sanctify: they are only the sea
sons of sanctification; their end will be for good or
ill, as we bear and as we use them; they are no
more than times of invitation to diligent toil, like
the softness of the earth after a keen and penetrating shower. They hold in
check, for a time, our spiritual faults, and prepare our hearts to receive and to retain deeper and sharper impressions
of the likeness of our Lord. Let us count them
precious, blessed seasons, though dim and over
cast; seasons of promise and of springing freshness; tokens of His nearness and purpose to
cleanse us for His own. “Blessed are ye that
weep now.” He that is greatly tried, if he be
learning obedience, is not far from the kingdom
of God. Our heavenly Father is perfecting the
work He began in holy baptism; laying in the
last touches with His wise and gentle hand. He
that perfected His own Son through sufferings,
has brought many sons to glory by the same
rough road, even by the “way that is desert.”
He is now bringing you home to Himself. Do
not shrink because the path is broken and solitary, for the way is short, and the end is blessed.
SERMON XXI.
THE SLEEP OF THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED.
1 THESS. iv. 13, 14.
“I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning
them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope. For
if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in
Jesus will God bring with Him.”
ONE great miracle in the new creation of God is
this, that death is changed to sleep; and therefore
in the writings of the New Testament we do not
read of the “death” of the saints. “Our friend
Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him
out of sleep.”St. John xi. 11.
The “bodies of saints which slept
arose.”St. Matt. xxvii. 52.
“We shall not all sleep, but we shall all
be changed.”1 Cor. xv. 51.
“David, after he had served his own
generation by the will of God, fell on sleep;”Acts xiii. 36.
even
in the pelting of the bloody storm, the holy Stephen “fell asleep.”Acts vii. 60.
And therefore St. Paul in the text speaks of the saints unseen as of those that “sleep in Jesus;” and Christians were wont to call
their burial-grounds cemeteries, or sleeping-places,
where they laid up their beloved ones to sleep on
and take their rest. Let us, therefore, see why we
should thus speak of those whom we call the dead.
First, it is because we know that they shall
awake up again. What sleep is to waking, death
is to the resurrection. It is only a prelude, a
transitory state, ushering in a mighter power of
life; therefore death is called sleep, to shew that
it has a fixed end coming. Much as the heathen
felt after this, and mused, and boded, yet, after all,
death and the world of the dead was to them a
dreary night. They saw men going down into the
dust, but they saw none come back again: they
had heard no whispers of the resurrection of the
body. If the disembodied spirit should live on,
that was all they could attain unto; but even this
was clouded and dim. And their poets were wont
to bewail the fleetingness of life, and the unknown
condition of the dead. They were wont to say: “Alas, alas, the mallows and the fresh herbs of
the field, when they die, return again to life, and
spring another year; but we, the great, the mighty,
the wise, when once we die, and are laid in the
hollow earth, we sleep a long, an endless, and unbroken sleep!” Even the Jews but dimly saw the coming shadows of the resurrection. Death was
too high, too mighty, and too absolute; they saw
and felt his dominion. Of his overthrow they had
both promise and prophecy; but as yet he seemed
too tyrannously strong to pass away into a transitory sleep. It was for the Gospel to reveal this
mystery by the miracle of Christ’s resurrection.
It was revealed in act; and now death is destroyed.
It is a kindly soothing rest to the wearied and
world-worn spirit; and there is a fixed end to its
duration. There is a waking nigh at hand; so that
the grave is little more than the longest night’s sleep in the life of an undying soul.
Again; death is changed to sleep, because they
whom men call dead do really live unto God. They
were dead while they lived this dying life on earth,
and dead when they were in the last avenues of
death. But after they had once died, death had
no more dominion: they escaped as a “bird out of
the snare of the fowler; the snare” was “broken,”
and they were delivered. It may sound strange to
unbelieving ears to say, that we are dead while we
live, and alive when we die. But so it is. Life does
not hang on matter, nor on the organisation of
matter. It is not as the harmony which rings out
of a cunning instrument; but it is a breath, a spirit,
a ray of the eternal being, pure, immaterial, above
all grosser compounds, simple and indissoluble. In the body it is allayed and tempered with weakness,
shrouded about with obstructions; its faculties pent
up by a bounded organisation, and its energies repressed by “the body of this death.” It is life subjected to the conditions of mortality. But, once
dead, once dissolved, and the unclothed spirit is
beyond the affections of decay. There is no weakness, nor weariness, nor wasting away, nor wandering of the burdened spirit; it is disenthralled,
and lives its own life, unmingled and buoyant.
When the coil of this body is loosed, death has
done all, and his power is spent: thenceforth
and for ever the sleeping soul lives mightily unto
God.
And, once more; those whom the world calls
dead are sleeping, because they are taking their
rest. “I heard a voice from heaven saying unto
me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the
Lord from henceforth. Even so, saith the Spirit;
for they rest from their labours.” Not as the heretics of old vainly and coldly dreamed, as if they
slept without thought or stir of consciousness from
the hour of death to the morning of the resurrection. Their rest is not the rest of a stone, cold
and lifeless; but of wearied humanity. They rest
from their labours; they have no more persecution, nor stoning, nor scourging, nor crucifying; no
more martyrdoms by fire, or the wheel, or barbed shafts; they have no more false-witness, nor cut
ting tongues; no more bitterness of heart, nor iron
entering into the soul; no more burdens of wrong,
nor amazement, nor perplexity. Never again shall
they weep for unkindness, and disappointment, and
withered hopes, and desolation of heart. All is
over now: they have passed under the share. The
ploughers ploughed upon their back, and made long
furrows; but it is all over, never to begin again.
They rest, too, from the weight of “the body of
our humiliation”—from its sufferings and pains.
Their last sickness is over. They shall never
again bear the tokens of coming dissolution: no
more the hollow eye, and the sharp lines of distress, and the hues of fading loveliness. Now is
their weariness changed into refreshment; their
weakness into excellence of strength; their wasting into a spirit ever new; their broken words into
the perfection of praise; their weeping into a chant
of bliss. And not only so, but they rest also from
their warfare against sin, against all its strength,
and subtilties, and snares. Satan can tempt no
more, the world cannot lure, self cannot betray:
they have wrestled out the strife with the unseen
powers of the wicked one, and they have won the
mastery: there is no more inward struggle, no
sliding back again, no swerving aside, no danger
of falling: they have gained the shore of eternal peace. Above all, they rest from the bufferings of
evil in themselves. It is not persecution, nor oppression, nor the rage of Satan, nor the thronging
assaults of temptation, that so afflict a holy man,
as the consciousness that evil dwells in his own
inmost soul. It is the clinging power of spiritual
evil that sullies his whole being: it seems to run
through him in every part; it cleaves to every
movement of his life; his living powers are burdened and biassed by its grasp. Evil tempers in
sudden flashes, unholy thoughts shooting across
the soul, and kindling fires in the imagination,
thoughts of self in holiest seasons, consciousness
of self in holiest acts, indevoutness of spirit, earthliness of heart, dull musing heaviness in the life of
God,—all these burden even the highest saint with
an oppressive weight. He feels always the stretch
and tension of his spiritual frame, as a man that is
weary and breathless grappling with a foe whom,
if he would live, he must hold powerless to the
earth. But from all this, too, they rest. The
sin that dwelt in them died, when through death
they began to live. The unimpeded soul puts
forth its new-born life, as a tree in a kindly soil invited by a gentle sky: all that checked it is passed
away; all that draws it into ripeness bathes it with
fostering power. Then, at last, shall the bride
hear the Bridegroom’s voice: “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away; for, lo, the winter is
past, the rain is over and gone.”Song of Solomon ii. 10, 11.
The Refiner
shall perfect His work upon them, cleansing them
seven-fold, even as gold seven times tried; and all
the taint and bias of their spiritual being shall be
detached and corrected; till, by direct and intense
vision,—not as now in a glass darkly, but then
face to face,—they shall become pure even as
He is pure. Hidden as is the condition of their
sleep, may we not believe that they remember us?
How much of all that they were must they forfeit,
if they lose both memory and love! Shall we
think that we can remember Bethel, and Gibeon,
and the Valley of Ajalon, and Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives; but that
Jacob, and Joshua, and David, and the beloved disciple, remember them not? Or
shall the lifeless dust that their feet stood upon be remembered, and the living
spirits, who there dwelt with them, be clean forgotten? Surely we may believe
that they who live unto God, live in the unfolded sameness of personal identity,
replenished with charity, and filled with a holy light; reaching backward in
spirit into this world of warfare, and onward in blissful expectation to the day
of Christ’s coming: and in that holy waiting adore, as the brightness of
paradise ever waxes unto the perfect day, when the noontide of God’s kingdom “shall be as the light of
seven days,” and shall stand for ever in a meridian
splendour. He hath made His rest to be “glorious;” and there is He gathering in His jewels.
There is the multitude of saints, waiting and worshipping: Abel is there, and Isaiah, and Rachel
who would not be comforted, and the sonless
widow, and Mary Magdalene, and all martyrs, and
all the holy ones of God. They wore out with
patience the years of this toilsome life; and they
are resting now. They “sleep in Jesus.” Theirs
is a bliss only less perfect than the glory of His
kingdom when the new creation shall be accomplished.
For these reasons, then, death is changed to
sleep: so that it becomes a pledge of rest, and a
prophecy of the resurrection.
And now consider shortly a few thoughts which
follow from what has been said.
And, first; we ought to mourn rather for the
living than for the dead. For these six thousand
years the whole earth has been full of wailing for
the dead. And it was well for the heathen man,
when he beheld the body of death, to bewail in
passionate complaint the change and decay of his
beloved ones. But not for us, who dwell in the
new creation. If we needs must weep, then let us
not weep for the dead, for they are at rest; but let us weep for the living, for they have yet to die,—and death is terrible. For, after all, death is a
strange and awful thing, alien from a living spirit.
It is a thing of fear; full of confused throes, and
perturbations, and of shadows cast from the powers
of evil. The dissolving of the bands of the flesh
is a dark and fearful change, against which nature
struggles, and in struggling suffers agony. And
the passing of the soul is awful even to the saints.
Who can so much as imagine the faintest thought
of that fearful going forth of the houseless spirit
into the wide world unseen; or of the first sights
and sounds which shall throng upon its vivid consciousness? What are all the terrors of the night-season compared with that hour of fear?
“In
thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep
sleep falleth on men, fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then
a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my
flesh stood up: it stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine
eyes, there was silence, and I heard a voice, saying, Shall mortal man be more just than God?
Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?” But
what is this to the passing of the soul into the
piercing eyesight of our Judge? Wherefore let
no man weep for the dead: that awful change for
them is over. For this end we came into the world. They have fulfilled their task; ours tarrieth. Almost we are ready to say, Would it were
over!—O fearful death! It has a lure which
thrills in all my soul, and seems to draw me to
itself; it fixes me by the fascination of its eye.
Death is coming- towards me. I must one day
die, and “how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” Blessed and happy dead! great and
mighty dead! In them the work of the new creation is well nigh accomplished. What feebly stirs
in us, in them is well nigh full. They have passed
within the veil, and there remaineth only one more
change for them—a change full of a foreseen, fore
tasted bliss. How calm, how pure, how sainted,
are they now! A few short years ago, and they
were almost as weak and poor as we: burdened
with the dying body we now bear about; harassed
by temptations, often overcome, weeping in bitterness of soul, struggling, with faithful though fearful
hearts, towards that dark shadow from which they
shrank as we shrink now.
And, lastly: in very truth, it is life, rather than
death, that we ought to fear. For life, and all that
it contains,—thought, and speech, and deed, and
will,—is a deeper and more awful mystery. In
life is the warfare of good and ill; in life is the “hour and the power of darkness,” the lures and
the assaults of the wicked one. Here is no rest, no shelter, no safety. What a charge, what a stewardship, is this little fleeting, squandered life of
man! In every hour of it we are changing for
good or ill; ever growing better or worse, nearer
or farther from God, nearer to heaven or to hell.
Surely, life, with all its powers, capacities, probation, and responsibility, is a thing to tremble at.
And yet we are in the midst of it; and the world
is moving on around us, and we are caught and
drawn along in its movements, and all our life is
gathering itself up for one great cast; and few
men know for what. Their life is lived for them.
Powers from without shape their character and fix
their doom, and they are dragged along in a bond
age of custom, which their fearless trifling with life
has made to be irresistible. And who shall not
fear the changes and chances of this mortal life?
Who, even the most resolved? Between this hour
and the hour of death, who can foresee what may
befall us? what unknown swervings, what stumblings, what falls? Who shall promise himself the
gift of perseverance? Who can but fear his own
heart’s treachery? Who but tremble at the awful
words uttered by the Church as often as she buries
her dead out of her sight—words not less of warning than of prayer, words of depth unutterable: “O holy and most merciful Saviour, suffer us not
at our last hour for any pains of death to fall from Thee.” Wherefore let us fear life, and we shall
not be afraid to die. For in the new creation of
God death walks harmless. Christ hath plucked
out the sting; and “the sucking child shall play
on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall
put his hand on the cockatrice’s den.” All is
healed by Him who hath given His own flesh “for
the life of the world.” Therefore, when at last it
comes nigh, we shall behold its darkness pierced
every way by rays of a living light, and the gloom
of its dread presence softened with the radiance of
eternal peace. Even though our last passage be
fearful to the flesh, though we be called to follow
through the fire of a bodily anguish, still in the
midst of all, and with we know not as yet what
gracious visitations to allay our closing struggle,—even as they had of old, who bare witness from the
torture and the flame,—we shall fall asleep. Let
us therefore be much in thought with them that
are at rest. They await our coming; for without
us they shall “not be made perfect.” Let us
therefore remember, and love, and follow them; that when our last change is
over, we, with them, may “sleep in Jesus.”
SERMON XXII.
THE COMMEMORATION OF THE FAITHFUL
DEPARTED.
1 COR. xv. 51.
“We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be
changed.”
IT is plain from the writings of St. Paul, that even
the apostles of our Lord did not know but that
their Master’s coming might be in their own life
time. He had, for the secret ends of His divine
wisdom, left the day of His return unknown, that
they might never give over watching. With them
the strange thing was, not that He should be so
near at hand, but that He should tarry so long.
But time ran on. Some were called away from
their earthly vigil: they began one by one to fall
asleep: they whose eyes were dim with age, and
the martyrs who were early bid to follow their
Lord unseen: and as the time still lingered, and
the storm fell upon the Church, the visible fellowship of saints grew thin, and apostles, evangelists,
bishops, and holy brethren, fell asleep one by one. But the Church neither forgot them, nor deemed
that they were severed from her fellowship. The
communion of saints was a part of their baptismal
faith; and though hid from her eyes, she knew
they were nigh in spirit. And she fostered them
in memory, and wrote their names in her book;
and whensoever the saints, that were still left on
earth to watch for the Lord, met together in the
communion of the holy eucharist, she read aloud
their names, as bidding them to their wonted
place in her choir. She commemorated them with
thanksgivings, and commended them to God’s keeping as her precious treasures.
Now this was done, first of all, out of love to
them and to their image. She fondly cherished
every remembrance of their words and deeds, of
their gentleness and purity: she rejoiced over
them with a sorrowful gladness, as a mother musing over departed children: she could no longer
behold them, and break bread with them; but
she could prolong their presence by the vivid recollection of their beloved image, and by the consciousness of an united adoration: she knew that
while she tarried praying without, they were but
within the precinct of an inner court, nearer to the
eternal throne.
And next, she commemorated them in faith,
to keep up the conscious unity of the Church. They were not severed, but only out of sight.
The communion of saints was still one. Nothing
was changed but the visible relations of an earthly life: all the unseen relations of love and fond
attachment still remained, nay, were knit more
closely; for they that were yet watching had an
intenser love, softened and purified by sorrow;
and they that slept were filled with the love of
God. The unity of the saints on earth with the
Church unseen is the closest bond of all. Hell
has no power over it; sin cannot blight it; schism
cannot rend it; death itself can but knit it more
strongly. Nothing was changed but the relation
of sight; like as when the head of a far-stretching
procession, winding through a broken hollow land,
hides itself in some bending vale: it is still all one;
all advancing together; they that are farthest on
ward in the way are conscious of their lengthened
following; they that linger with the last are drawn
forward, as it were, by the attraction of the advancing multitude. Even so they knew themselves
to be ever moving on; they were ever pressing on
beyond the bounds of this material world. They
knew the life of the Church to be one, and indivisible; that seen or unseen, there was but one
energy of spiritual being, in which all were united;
that all were nourished by the same hidden manna,
and slaked their thirst in the same waters of life. They were one in the personality of Christ’s mystical body; and all their acts of love and adoration
were shared in full by each several member.
Again; they commemorated their sleeping brethren in faith, that they might give God the glory of
their salvation from this evil world. They ceased
not to render the sacrifice of thanks to Him for His
accomplished mercy in forgiving them their many
sins. They remembered what they had been at
the first; how from blind Judaism, or blinder heathenism, or a proud philosophy, or from a sensual
life, God had translated them “into the kingdom
of His dear Son;” how He had made them new
creatures. They did not forget John Baptist, and
the ever-blessed Virgin, and John the beloved disciple, and Mary Magdalene, and Saul the persecutor,
and those vessels of grace in whom was reflected the fulness of God’s pardoning
mercy. In the commemoration of the saints, they shewed forth the manifold grace
of Christ, and the manifold fruits of His mysterious passion; and thus, while
they lovingly cherished their memories, they also, and above all, glorified the
King of Saints. But they had also another design in this act of commemoration;
namely, to stir up the faithful in their warfare by the deeds of the saints in
rest. Well did they know that nothing preaches like example. The day was not
come when men should undertake by words and lifeless signs alone to win souls
for Christ. They knew that words are as weak as
deeds are almighty; that Moses was slow of tongue,
and that some deemed even the speech of Paul
contemptible; that deeds carry all before them.
Therefore they unrolled, year after year, and feast
after feast, the catalogue of saints, and read aloud
their warfare and their victory; thereby to embolden with a holy daring the Church militant
on earth; to put a new heart and a new life into
the weary and the wavering; to shew what is possible, what is easy, for regenerate man to do; to
provoke us to a manlier faith by desire for a crown
like theirs, and by shame at a life like our own.
I have now stated generally the intention of the
Church in keeping up the memory of her sleeping
members. It arose naturally, and by the unconscious promptings of love and faith. The perpetual commemoration of the saints fulfilled, even
in the ages of the most enkindled charity and of
the keenest faith, high and significant offices in
the witness of the Church. But most of all is it
of moment now, in days when faith is faint, and
the love of many hath waxed cold. We will, then,
consider awhile, of what especial moment is this
affectionate commemoration in feasts and eucharists
to the Church of these latter times.
And, first of all, it is a witness against what
I may call the Sadduceeism of Christianity. It is
strange enough that faith and love should have
waxed so chill and dead among the Jews of old,
that any should have arisen to deny the resurrection, and the very being of angels and of spirits;
but stranger far -that Christians should be sunk so
low in cold, unfeeling torpor, as to live forgetful of
the world unseen. Alas, how awful is the chastisement which follows on irreverent handling of holy
things! Our forefathers too boldly ventured in
within the veil, and troubled the sleep of the saints
with importunate invocations; and thrust upon the
followers of Him, who sought to hide Himself when
men would have come to make Him a king, offices
and dignities in God’s kingdom, of which the prerogative is God’s only. And from their first bold
step they passed on to a prying curiosity into the
secrets of God’s hidden world; and must needs
mete out the measures and conditions of the holy
and unholy dead, and leave little known to God
alone, but know all things, even beyond His revelations, and before His time: and in the realms of
the unseen they grew bewildered, and thought they
saw horrible phantoms, which mocked them into a
belief of their own fevered imaginations. And on
these they built up a lying doctrine, and beguiled
men by a still more lying practice, and turned the
unseen world into a fable, and the commemoration of the saints into a snare. And from this, by a not
unnatural recoil, what they over-fondly doated on,
we have coldly forgotten. The superstition of ages
past has recoiled into the Sadduceeism of to-day.
I am not speaking of free-thinkers, but of good
and earnest people. They so overlook the time
between death and resurrection, as virtually to
shut it out of their belief: they make it almost a
test of sound doctrine to leave out all teaching of
the unseen state. With the entire book of the
Apocalypse before their eyes, of which (except the
last two chapters) the whole relates to the lifetime
of this visible world, and the parallel state of waiting and adoration in the world invisible, they think
a cold reserve the surest token of illuminated faith.
Not, indeed, when sorrow breaks upon them, and
loved ones pass into the paradise of God: then nature, and truth, and love, are too strong for them:
and the instincts and affections of their new-born
hearts, long pent up in a forced and unnatural constraint, come down in full tide upon them, and
carry them over the narrow barriers of their unsympathising theology. A riven heart is the best
expositor of God’s teaching about the saints asleep.
Few have ever sorrowed, and missed learning mysteries of consolation. Sometimes,
alas, this is not so. The habitual unconsciousness of an unseen world, in which
even good men have been content to live, so insensibly deadens the quickness of
the spiritual perceptions, that the heaviest sorrow
leaves upon their hearts but a shallow and short
lived impress of the intermediate state. For a
while their affections follow the departing spirit;
and it may be they think their hearts will never
return to this rough world, but dwell within the
veil for ever. In a little time the first visions of
the realities unseen, be they never so vivid, begin
to fade into a colder light; and realities soften off
into shadows, and shadows melt into films, and
from films they draw themselves into motes; and
this world and all its going-on of life, and the hurryings to and fro of every day, and the emptiness
of home, and the loneliness of night, and the returning sadness of the morrow, so throng about
a man, and first lower upon him, and then settle
heavily upon him, that many give back from their
first feelings, and unbind their resolutions, and
shrink from the severe life of walking alone on
the brink of the world unseen. The end of this
is, that they become again, for the most part,
what they were before: humbler, and it may be,
more softened, more tender; on the whole, more
religious,—but still entangled in the near and sensible things of this earthly life. And thus, it may
be, they make forfeit of hidden blessings which
God has tendered to them. They choose again a full home, rather than an empty one, fellowship
rather than loneliness, a lower rather than a higher
level in the life of God.
But though this may be found even in better
men, the full Sadduceeism of the day is to be seen
in the great mass of less earnest minds. It is not
too much to say, that in a little while they have for
gotten the dead. Of course there are exceptions:
warm hearts will always cling, by an involuntary
and almost unconscious fondness, to the memory
of the departed. But here is the very difference:
it is to their memory, not to their fellowship; to
what they were, not to what they are. They look
back on them, and remember their poor struggling
humanity, their life of earth, their body of humiliation; all their endearing images are of early days,
and gleams of transient happiness, and soft smiles,
and softer tears, and the smooth cheek, and the
full eye of this life’s painted fairness; so that, after
all, it is an embodied image, a dream of the earth,
that such fond hearts still dwell upon. O that
they had learned a higher and holier lore! Their
loved ones are still the same, and yet are not what
they were: they have passed from the humiliation
of the body to the majesty of the spirit. The
weakness, and the littleness, and the abasement of
life, are gone; they are now excellent in strength,
full of heavenly light, ardent with love, above fallen humanity, akin to angels. And it is we that pity
the dead, call them poor, and shed tears over their
coil of dust, which they put off at their exaltation.
The living pity the dead? horrible pride! blind
folly! while it may be they muse sadly and lovingly
on us, and on our. burdened and fretful life.
Most earthly are the thoughts respecting the
sleeping saints even in better minds: as for the rest
of men, they soon forget them. When they have
buried their dead out of their sight, the unseen
world closes up with the mouth of the grave; and
they turn back to their homes, and muse in sadness
how they may begin to weave the same web over
again, and make a new cast for happiness, and be
gin life afresh. It makes one’s blood run cold to
hear some people talk of the departed. And why
is all this? What should put so unnatural a force
upon the very instincts of the heart, but the cold
tradition of a Christian Sadduceeism? Against
this, then, the commemoration of the Church is a
direct and wholesome witness.
Another most excellent benefit of this commemoration is, its tendency to heal the schisms of
the visible Church. No particular branch of the
visible body can be in energetic unity with the
fellowship of other Churches, so long as its fellowship with the Church unseen is suspended. This
contact with the invisible is the life of the visible Church: when once the bond of faith and love
with this is loosened, the bond of visible unity also
is well nigh dissolved. In all the contests of the
Church on earth, all her members, be they never
so much divided (unless by heresy or schism),
still hold communion in the court of heaven.
They all find a common head in the King, and a
common fellowship in the communion of saints.
Their hearts make, as it were, a silent appeal from
each other’s misunderstandings to that world where
all things are fully understood. In the glorious
company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of
the prophets, the noble army of martyrs, the holy
Church throughout all the world is one. The
eastern and the western are one in Athanasius
and Cyprian, in Basil and Augustine; and in the
lines of holy bishops, and the companies of blessed saints long ago fallen
asleep, the Churches of the west are one. Schisms are half healed when hearts
are chafed into love towards one common object; even as alienated sons meet and
embrace in their love to one fond mother. And as the saints of Christendom are
the unearthly bond even of divided Churches, so is the hallowed ancestry of each
particular Church a bond of unity to its several members. Men are already half
reconciled when they have agreed to honour one and the same spiritual lineage.
It calls them out of themselves, and corrects the lordliness and pride of the
individual will. O how infinitely mean appears all
our fretfulness and littleness, which we would fain
impose on others, and on ourselves, as zeal for
truth, and jealousy for the glory of God! If they
that sleep could read to us out of the book of their
earthly life, how should we burn for shame at the
poverty of our own! Therefore the Church commemorates their earthly warfare, that we may go
forth out of ourselves in a reverent love for those
whose sanctity abashes our inflated self-esteem.
She bids us remember that, in comparison with her
mighty dead, we are but worms; that the Church
is not ours to rend and set in array, nor to patronise, and irreverently praise; that we are but one
of a flowing tide of generations—one only—and
that neither the wisest nor the best. Better were
it for us to stand in awe at our own littleness.
We are but a handful of restless, fretful, self-exalting children in the sight of the Church unseen.
Therefore, year by year, let us reverently commemorate their names, remembering what they
were, but stedfastly gazing at what they are. Their
very words are still ringing in our ears: of some
the beloved image too is full before us. Let us
live as they would bid us, could they still speak:
let us fulfil their known behests, following in their
steps, filling up the works that they began, carrying on their hallowed offices now bequeathed to our
care: let us be like them in deadness to sin, and
unceasing homage to our unseen Lord. As we
grow holier, we grow nearer to them: to be like
them is to be with them: even now they are not
far from us, we know not how nigh. As yet, for a
time, the veil is drawn. We shall know all at His
coming. It may be, we shall say—What! so near,
and we could not see you? At times we could
almost fancy we were not alone; but when we
strained our sight, we saw nothing; when we listened, all was still.
SERMON XXIII.
THE WAITING OF THE INVISIBLE CHURCH.
REV. vi. 9, 10, 11.
“And when He had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar
the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for
the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud
voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou
not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the
earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto
them, that they should rest yet for a little season until their fellow-servants
also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be
fulfilled.”
THESE are the sights and sounds which St. John
saw and heard in heaven, when the Lamb had
opened the fifth of the seven seals which made fast
the awful book. He saw an altar, and under it
the souls of Christ’s faithful servants who had been
slain for His sake. And they were weary of waiting for the day when God should judge the earth.
They were at rest, and yet there was a rising of
desire for the end: “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and
avenge our blood?” They were impatient, not so much for their own
wrongs as for the glory of God. They were
weary that sin should so long war against the
majesty of heaven; that God’s world should so
long be torn by the rending strife of spiritual evil.
They had, in their lifetime, made full trial of its
tyranny and hate; and the long train of remembered wrongs heaped on them for their loyalty to
Heaven kindled a fire in their souls. But the time
was not yet come. Very awful was the answer
to their cry. “White robes were given unto every
one of them;” some larger visitations of His sustaining grace: they were refreshed in their weariness by some mysterious gift; and it was said unto
them—no need to say who it was that bade them
tarry; for who but He could stay their yearnings?—it was said unto them, “that they should rest
yet for a little season.” God had a work yet to
do. Their fellow-servants must needs be slain as
they were; and all must be fulfilled. Then should
the end come.
Now there is one point in this to which we will
direct our thoughts: I mean, the light it throws
upon the great mystery of Christ’s second coming.
We may gather with all certainty from this wonderful revelation of the inner mysteries of the
heavenly court, first, that God has a fixed time for the
end of the world. This we know from our Lord’s words while He was yet on earth. While He declared the secrecy of that time to be such that it
was hidden from all, both men and angels, yet He
specially added, that it was a time fixed and known
to the Father. I do not mean simply known as all
things must be known to an all-knowing God, but
foreseen and fore-determined in the secrets of His
hidden wisdom. And this leads on to another truth
revealed in the same vision; namely, that God has
fixed that time according to the measures of the
work which He has to finish: even as Christ had
a work to finish on earth; so that we read, again
and again, that His “hour was not yet come.” In
like manner now in heaven, He has a definite fore
seen scheme for the administration of His mediatorial kingdom; and according to the accomplishing of this work, will be the time of His coming.
So much in a general way. But in this passage we
have somewhat more specific and detailed.
1. He has shadowed out to us the nature of the
work that He has to do before the end come; that
is, to make up a certain number whom God has
foreseen and predestinated to life eternal. This
we read throughout Holy Writ. “They shall be
mine in that day when I make up my jewels,”Mal. iii. 17.
the Lord has said by the prophet Malachi. Then
shall the angels “gather together His elect from the four winds.”St. Matt. xxiv. 31.
And, to take only one more
passage, the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the
Hebrews shews us how God has ever been gathering out His chosen ones, from righteous Abel to
this day. After running down the list of the faithful, St. Paul adds, “These all died in faith, not
having received the promises, but having seen them
afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced
them.” And, again, “God having provided some
better thing for us, that they without us should
not be made perfect.”Heb. xi. 13 and 40.
Abel waited for Enoch,
and Enoch for Abraham, and Abraham for Moses,
and Moses for Paul; and so all holy men, bishops,
and pastors, and saints, along the whole line of this
world’s history, have waited for us; and we shall
wait, it may be, for others yet to come. God is
gathering out a mystical number—the hundred and
forty and four thousand, which is a symbol of all
numbers innumerable—of the twelve tribes of the
Israel of God; and He has been gathering them out
one by one, from an age or a generation, from a
people, a family, or a household, taking one, and
leaving another, in the inscrutable mystery of His
choice. Whether this secret number be measured
by the fall of angels, as some of old were wont to
believe; whether the companies of angelic ministers shall be filled up by the redeemed of mankind,—we know not, but we know certainly that until
the foreseen number is completed, the course of
this turbulent world shall still run on. This, then,
in general, is the nature and direction of the mystery of this seemingly entangled world. Out of the
midst of it He is. drawing the children of the regeneration, knitting them in one fellowship, in part
still visible, in part out of sight. When the Son of
God passed into the heavens, He began to draw
after Him a glorious train of saints, like as the
departing sun seems to draw after him the lights
which reflect his own splendour, till the night starts
out full of silver stars. So shine the saints in an
evil world; rising and falling above the boundaries
of earth in stedfast and silent course, till all are
lost in the brightness of the morning: and so shall
the firmament of the Church break forth with the
glory of the resurrection. But now, for a while, it
tarries. Some saints are yet in the mid-heaven,
and some are yet to rise upon the world; and,
until all is fulfilled, the desire of the Church unseen is stayed with the “white robes,” and the
sound of the Bridegroom’s voice.
Again; in this gathering out of the mystical body of His Son,
God is carrying on the probation of mankind. In the inscrutable secrets of His
providential government, He is so ordering the strife of the seed of the woman
with the seed of the serpent, of the Church with the world, as to fulfil the
manifold purposes of love and of long-suffering.
And, first, we see that this long-permitted strife
is ordained for the perfecting of His saints.
That holy fellowship is not more perfect in the
integrity of its number, than in its absolute perfection of holiness. And the prolonged duration of
this world is a school of discipline, to liken them
to their perfect Lord. The powers of evil which
are arrayed against the Majesty of heaven, are
so overruled by the Almighty will as to work out
unwittingly His high behest. The continual strife
of spiritual good and evil is a mystery, of which
we know only the outskirts. It has one end in the
mystery of the fall, and the other in the mystery
of the atonement: we know not what are the
effects in the world unseen of this never-ending
warfare. It is in some way related to the mystery
of the cross; not, indeed, as propitiatory, which
nothing can be, but as a carrying out and consequence of that great overthrow of evil in which
the Conqueror was bruised by the foe He crushed.
Therefore we find St. Paul speaking of filling up
that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in
his flesh;Col. i. 24.
and of the apostles he says, that they
were set forth last, as it were, appointed unto
death, “a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men:”1 Cor. iv. 9.
and “that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be
known, by the Church, the manifold wisdom of
God.”Ephes. iii. 10.
It would seem, then, that this relentless
strife between the seed of the serpent and the
body of Christ is fulfilling some unrevealed design of God in the world unseen; that even the
spirits of heaven, the elect angels, look on as
learners upon this sleepless war. We are greatly
ignorant what may be the place of this world in
the universal scheme of God’s creatures; what we
think to be a great and final end, may be only a
subordinate means to some transcendent purpose.
And thus much is plainly revealed to us, that the
trial of the Church and the probation of the world
shall run on till the purpose of the Divine wisdom is fulfilled. And this was the key of the
strange earthly lot of those who had trial of cruel
mockings and scourgings, of bonds and imprisonment; who were stoned, were sawn asunder, were
tempted, were slain with the sword; who wandered
about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented; of whom the world was
not worthy. When they and their cause seemed
lost for ever, then were they more than conquerors;
even as Christ then overcame when He was crucified. In each one of them He overcame again.When they suffered most, they most mightily triumphed over the serpent. Let us remember, that
not martyrs only are perfected through sufferings.
They, indeed, are made glorious by a share of His
sufferings in the flesh: but of His sorrow and self-denial all saints are partakers. The world is still
the same; bitter, treacherous, and full of enmity
against God. The law, that every man that will
live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution,
is still unrepealed in this fallen earth. Every faithful man will have the grace-tokens of the cross
upon his inmost soul. By temptation, by wrest
ling against evil, by crucifixion of self, by wrongs
and snares from without, by sorrow and afflictions
from above, every brother of the First-born in the
family of man will bear His likeness, and be perfected by the keen edge of pain. By this long-drawn and weary strife, our patience, meekness,
faith, perseverance, boldness, and loyalty to Christ,
are ever tried; and by trial made perfect.
And this mysterious work, as it has an aspect
of love towards the saints, so it has an aspect of
long-suffering towards sinners. It is thus that God
gives them a full season for repentance. Christ
delays His return, and tarries in the heavens; and
scoffers have asked, Where is the promise of His
coming? “But the Lord is not slack concerning
His promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any
should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”2 Pet. iii. 9.
He lets the life of man run on through
all its stages, from childhood to old age. He gives
all things for our salvation, warnings, blessings,
chastisements, sorrows, sicknesses, words of fire,
and sacraments of love; He stays His hand, and
leaves the sinner without excuse, that at the winding up of this weary life, “every mouth may be
stopped, and all the world become guilty before
God.” What shall men say at that day? All the
mysteries of truth and grace were ever near them;
they lacked neither knowledge nor strength. They
had a long life chequered with the tokens of His
hand; sharp sicknesses, sudden accidents, desolating sorrows, slow death-beds, all speaking clearly
and piercingly to the dull ear on which the words
of grace had fallen in vain. They lacked nothing
which could awaken the soul of man. The whole
order of mysteries in His Church and in His providence worked together, interweaving their powers,
and bringing them to bear, as one manifold divine
influence, upon the hearts of the unawakened; if
any thing were still lacking, it was that they lacked
the will.
Such is this wonderful work of unwearied love.
And all the while His Church is crying out, “How long, O Lord, holy and true?” the saints unseen
waiting and longing for their perfect bliss; the
saints on earth crying, day by day, “Thy kingdom
come:” day by day, from all lands, throughout the
whole Church, this cry goes up into the ears of the
Lord of Sabaoth: “the whole creation groaneth
and travaileth in pain together:” all things would
hasten the coming end: heaven is well nigh weary,
and earth sick, for bearing the burden of sin and
wrong: and yet Christ tarries. We must rest yet “for a little season;” and then, so soon as the sinner’s day is done, and the saints are tried, and the
foreseen number full, the end shall come; and time
shall be no longer.
And now, from all this, we see what ought to
be the master-aim of our lives: that is, to make
sure of our fellowship in that mystical number.
We see that it is not enough that we belong to the
one visible Church. Many partake of the visible
unity who in the invisible have no portion. The
Church is like a sacrament, having both its out
ward and inward parts. The true Church has
both a body and a soul: the body is that one,
uniform, organised, universal polity, of which the
succession of the apostles is the essential first condition: the soul is that inward unity of energetic
faith, hope, and charity, which knits all saints, from
the highest to the lowest, in one spiritual family. These are the fruits, or result, of the visible unity;
as the likeness of Christ is the effect of the holy
sacraments in the faithful receiver. The visible
unity is a sacramental means to the formation of
this fellowship of sanctity. All regenerate men
are saints in capability, but these are saints in fact.
The former may be, the latter are, conformed to
Christ’s likeness. The difference is the same as
between a moral nature and a moral habit: the
nature may be passive, or be perverted; the habit
must be developed by energy, and sustained by the
powers of moral life. There is therefore no difficulty in testing ourselves. Every man can tell
whether his life is energetically pure and holy or
not. With the saints of old, martyrdom was the
test, or saintliness of life, by which they bore martyrdom in the will, though they were never crowned with it in the body. And we, too, have no need
to be doubtful of our state. The sure sign is the
likeness of Christ growing in our hearts, waxing
ever brighter from childhood, in boyhood, youth,
and riper years; ever shining out more clearly as
He draws nearer. This is His own countersign.
Plainly the sinful, the slothful, the double-minded,
the worldly, that is, all who, under the strong
assimilating power of the world, are growing into
its likeness, are aliens from the soul of the one
Church, and are as yet severed from the mystical number which He is gathering out. It is true that
we cannot draw any line so strongly marked as
to cut off with absolute and visible certainty those
who do, and those who do not, belong to that unseen fellowship. As there is twilight between noon
and midnight, so are there infinite gradations of
character: and yet this is certain, that no man
that is not either freed from the power of sin, or
repenting of his sin-soiled state, has any warrant
to believe himself of that number. Many, indeed,
there are of most imperfect sanctity; namely,
those who are puffed up with vanity and ambition, and love of the pomps of life, its honour,
power, high bearing, great friendships, and the
like; and likewise those who are opinionated and
self-confident, fond of controversy, and prone to
a controversial temper; or again, tinged with self-complacency, and addicted to a self-sparing, soft,
relaxed religion, which clings to the alluring, but
shrinks with dislike from the severer precepts of
the faith. Now all these, and the infinite shades of
character contained in them, or related to them,
may belong to the unseen fellowship; but their title
to it is ambiguous, and their end doubtful. For all
such the way is, not to strain after a high-toned
devotion, till they have laid the deep basis of a thorough repentance. Their chief danger is, the weakness of an unnatural growth, which has got above its healthy powers. The imagination and the intellect have simulated the forms of faith and sanctity,
and they are in danger of persuading themselves
that they really are what they are so well able
to delineate. Repentance is the threshold of the
invisible sanctuary where the saints are gathering,
and here they must fall down before they think
to enter. None but they that have either a pure
or a broken heart shall see God.
Be careful, therefore, above all things, to commit yourselves to the great movement of God’s providence in His Church, by which He is drawing His faithful within the curtains of His pavilion.
Be not content to stand without, albeit in the precinct of the visible Church: there are more that
gaze upon the outward ritual in which the earthly
Church pays homage to her Lord, than enter into
its mind and mystery. Pray Him to give you the
white robes of sanctity and fellowship with the
saints unseen, that you may wait in patience, lying
under the altar, dead with Christ. Let daily worship, and the ever-returning sacrifice of the holy
eucharist, be your life and food. We are fallen on
an evil age; an age of bitterness and wrong, and
deaf inexorable slander, accusation, and strife, and
separation. Martyrdom, and all its high and stir
ring fears, is gone, and the wearisome harassing
of a petty warfare has fastened on the Church. We are fallen on an age in which the chief zeal for
truth is, that men have not so absolutely ceased to
care for it, as to keep from quarrelling about it.
Almost are we tempted to cry out, Would that a
season of stern trial might sift the Church of all
shallow, petulant, self-loving, boastful men, that
the true and loyal hearts might be made manifest,
and, by one decisive trial, short as it is sharp, win
their crown of life. But not so; God has willed
otherwise. We must wait, and not be weary; we
must bear all the fretfulness and provocation of
earthly tempers and false tongues for a little sea
son. Meanwhile, the perpetual worship of our unseen Master, and the communion of hidden saints,
and the fellowship of the invisible Church, must be
our strength and stay.
And see, also, how broad a light this throws
on our duties towards all around us. The first
debt we owe them is, to endeavour by all means to
draw them into the same blessed fellowship. We
owe this to every member of Christ’s visible Church,
but, above all, to such as are bound to us by ties
of an especial nearness, whether by blood or by
the benediction of the Church. There is no other
lasting basis of friendship or affection but this
only, that our spirits be knit in the unseen unity
of the saints. All else is mere falsehood. “Two
men shall be working in the field; the one shall be taken, and the
other left;” so shall all fellowships be cut asunder but those that meet in God.
In the choice of friends, in all great changes and casts in life, let this be
your rule. Such is the mysterious action and re-action of moral beings on each
other, that no one can say what may be the end of an ill-chosen fellowship.
“What knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest
thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?”1 Cor. vii. 16.
On one side or the
other the power of assimilation must prevail. How
often has the earthlier mind drawn away a high
and ripening spirit from the fellowship of saints!
And O fearful fall which draws others in its ruin!
Watch, then, and pray, that you may not only
enter into the mystical sanctuary of saints, and go
no more out, but gather in also all your loved
ones, that there be no parting any more. Though
God tarries, yet all things hasten on. Day by day
we are nearer our last change. The unseen
Church is crying “How long?” the Church in war
fare ceases not continually to pray for the consummation of the elect. And albeit so short, yet
this fleeting life to them is as a long and lingering
night, which holds off a blessed morrow. Though
the time be not yet, nevertheless there are tokens
of changes coming on the earth. The shadows are lengthening out, and the day of its toilsome
life is well nigh spent. Oh, when He comes, and
the dead are judged, and the names of those that
have overcome, which are written in the Lamb’s book of life, are read one by one in our ears, how
shall our hearts thrill to bursting, while we hear
prophets, apostles, martyrs, and saints, bid “come
up hither;” and all our loved ones, a friend, a
sister, a husband, each in turn called out, and clad
in white robes for the marriage-feast! What if we
should be left out at last? What if our name be
“not found written in the book of life?”Rev. xx. 15.
“Enter
not into judgment with Thy servant, O Lord; for in Thy sight shall no man living
be justified.”
SERMON XXIV.
THE WAITING OF THE VISIBLE CHURCH.
1 COR. vii. 29, 30, 31.
“This I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both
they that have wives be as though they had none; and they
that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice,
as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though
they possessed not; and they that use this world, as not
abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away.”
AFTER St. Paul had given to the Church in Corinth
many counsels of wisdom and perfection, he brings
all his teaching to this end: “Brethren, the time
is short.” Life is fleeting, and Christ is coming.
In whatsoever state ye be, “the Lord is at hand.”
The apostles had been taught, by the parables of
their Master, to look for Him at any time, as servants for their lord, and virgins for the bridegroom.
The angels of His Father, who had received Him
with glory into heaven, had bid them look for His
coming even as He went away. And therefore
they were for ever saying, “We shall not all sleep;” “We which are alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent those that are asleep;
for the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we
which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord
in the air.”1 Thess. iv. 15-17.
Again, “The night is far spent, the
day is at hand.”Rom. xiii. 12.
“The end of all things is at
hand; be ye therefore sober, and watch unto
prayer.”1 St. Pet. iv. 7.
And this habitual expectation chastened
and subdued their hearts with awe and gladness;
with a faith full of joy, and yet of fear. Their Lord
was taken from them; but He was coming again;
and the Church of Christ was as a family that had
received one great visitation, and is waiting for
another. At such a time, all thoughts are absorbed
into one; all feelings, all cares, all forecastings;
and that one thought and feeling is too great for
words. All levity is repressed; all common and
unnecessary things suspended; only necessary du
ties are tolerable, and they are done in an uncommon way. There is a check upon the mind, and a
limit to all its movements. And men go about the
business of life with a calm and sedate carriage, and
meet each other with graver looks; for the one
habitual master-thought of their hearts is, the
greatness and nearness of God.
And so it was that the Christians of early days did all things in the Lord: their buying and selling,
marrying and giving in marriage, their weepings and
rejoicings, were all measured, and checked, and subdued by the remembrance that “the time is short.”
They so lived as they would desire to be found by
Him at His coming. There was a twofold process
ever going on within them,—the energy of daily
life, and the fixed contemplation of Christ’s advent.
Nevertheless, “they were not slothful in business,”
but “fervent in spirit;” and for this reason, because
they were “serving the Lord:” and yet there was
in them a thought which was the centre of all their
actings, and gave a steadiness and balance to all
their daily life. The ever-present consciousness of
their Master’s nearness was as some deep under
tone which runs through a strain of music, and
gives it a staid and solemn spirit.
But if a man should enter the same household
once in the hour of its first visitation, and again
after a few years or months are gone, how would
he find it changed! He would find it, as men say,
calmed down, and grown more natural; become
itself again, that is, in truth, become common
place, having reverted, like a spring released from
some antagonist pressure. The truth is, they that
were so visited were, for a time, above and better
than themselves; and while their trial lasted, they
were sustained on a higher level; but now they are only as they were before; as a man makes an effort, or strains his eyesight for a moment, and then
relaxes again. For all things draw us back to our
former habits: we are soon recast into old shapes,
and led back into old ways. For a time, while the
shadow of God’s hand was upon our heads, we resisted the power and attraction of the world; but
what we were was only a condition, not a character. It was not the man, but his circumstances,
and his outward state, that were changed; as a
person may change his vesture, or his countenance,
by choice, or sympathy, or any accidental cause.
Day by day he becomes bolder and more self-possessed, more intent and concentrated upon things
below God and heaven: every object around him
grows larger and distincter, and the visible light in
which he once saw its just proportions fades from
his sight; and the thought of God which dwelt
within him goes up, like the glory in the prophet’s vision,Ezek. x. 4.
from the threshold of the house, as if to
depart from it. All men have made trial of this at
some time, and know that the effect of a visitation
is strangely evanescent. The checked character
comes out once more, and each man is his own
unrestrained self again; and he throws himself
wholly into his trade or his business, into his grief
or his joy, into the long-drawn aims of his ambition, or the listless languor of his worldly life. In
this and for this he lives. Things near at hand again
bind round and overgrow his heart, and make it
a part of themselves. He has no other energy of
hope or fear; he neither looks nor waits for any
thing beyond. The future has no power over him.
It is too dim, too far off, and too unsubstantial, to
counterpoise the gain of to-day, or the pleasure of
to-morrow.
And so, after a season of higher thoughts, the
whole tone of the mind is let down and weakened;
and a second visitation would come with the suddenness of the first, and find us as before. Such
has been, and such still is, the state of Christ’s Church and household; it has left off to watch
for the signs of His coming. One by one His servants have fallen asleep, while the Lord seemed to
linger. Here and there, indeed, in the great multitude of churches and Christians, some have waited
as men that had nothing to do in the world but to
prepare for His appearing, weeping as though they
wept not, and rejoicing as though they joyed not,
as if the earth were floating under their feet, and
the “white cloud”Rev. xiv. 14.
ready to appear in heaven. But the
mass of Christians have been otherwise minded. The visible body has slumbered:
and from that day began a decline of the high and devoted temper of faith; men left their first love; and one
by one fell away from the “breaking of bread/ in
which we shew forth the Lord’s death till He come.
While men watched for Him, this token was in
some churches daily offered, in all weekly; but
they began to forsake their testimony: and with
this decline of diligent waiting upon God, declined
also the ever-ready spirit of a Christian life. The
power of the apostolic example seemed to have
spent itself in the first generations, and men grew
up into an earthly, commonplace habit of life.
Then came debate and strife of words, vain doc
trines spun out by the subtle, and true doctrines
gainsayed by the unbelieving: and the simple faith
of Christ crucified, in which “the wayfaring man,
though a fool, shall not err,” has been overlaid by
snares of words, and beset by learned fancies; and
the poor of Christ have been bewildered by their
very teachers, and Satan hath beguiled them both;
and the Church, which left off to dwell on the one
thing needful, hath doated on a multitude of fables.
Satan laid snares in every doctrine and in every
mystery: the memory of the saints, the sleep of the
faithful dead, the food of life, and the altar of God,
became his lurking-places. The Church, against
which he could not prevail, he used as an ambush.
And under this temptation, even the self-denying fainted; and a love of worldly ease, and pomp, and wealth, filled the disciples of the fishermen of
Galilee; and they grew weary of waiting for their
Master’s kingdom, and would fain bring it about
before its time by a cunning of their own. And
in His name they claimed dominion, and subdued
kingdoms, and wrought unrighteousness, and gave
away the thrones of kings, and taught the world
rebellion; and Christendom split asunder in the
midst; and the heirs of the blessing cursed each
other from the seats of Christ. Wars broke out
between churches; and they that should have untaught men the arts of war armed nation against
nation; and Christian kings made the sacred cross
a sign of bloodshed, and filled the world with
tumult, and their own kingdoms with confusion.
And in all this din of the great and mighty, the
still small voice of truth was drowned, or pent up
into cloisters; and private men were overcome
with a devoted, immoderate love of worldly things,
and began to plant and build; and the days of
Noe came back again, which is the forerunning
sign of the last times. Even the best grew heavy
and tame, and left little or no stamp of God upon
the world; but drank of its spirit, and loitered
securely in its ways. They lost the vividness of
faith, and learned an easy acquiescence in a lower
standard, and were content to move along upon a
lower level; though in the main Christian, they were not heavenly but earthly minded. Like Lot,
they lifted up their eyes, and saw the plain “fruitful and well watered;” and first pitched their tent,
and then built them an abode.
Such is now the every-day Christianity which
we have inherited, and such our inconsistent state.
Though we are ever saying, “He shall come again
in glory to judge both the quick and the dead;”
though we shew forth the Lord’s death in the consecrated bread and wine; yet men are swallowed up
in this mortal life. Fathers are mere fathers; husbands mere husbands; mourners are overwhelmed
with grief; they that rejoice are excessive in their
gladness. The man of science has few thoughts
for a world unseen; the man of business no leisure; the calculator lives in his reckonings, the
buyer in his bargain; the seller has no care beyond his price; the statesman is centred in his
schemes, and his whole being terminates in his
line of policy. Most men are just what they are
in this life; and never rise above it, nor look out
beyond it. No purpose of their heart is controlled
and checked by the thought of the day of Christ.
They know that it must come; and deceive themselves into thinking that they are swayed by the
expectation; but they neither do nor leave undone any thing that they would not do or leave
undone, though He should never come again. And even more thoughtful men silently prescribe
a course for the providence of God; for where is
there one who so feels himself uncertain of what
shall be, as to say with St. Paul, “we shall not
all sleep?” Men speak as if the apostle were
mistaken, and themselves better taught. We all
expect to live, and then in due time to die; and
that Israel must be first grafted into Christ, and
His kingdom be made universal, that there is
much to be done before He can come again; and
that whosoever shall be quick on earth at His
appearing, yet surely we shall not. Both they
that slight the prophecies of Christ, and they that
over-wisely expound them, alike fall into the same
snare; they would make some reckoning about
that day and hour, of which no man knoweth—not even God’s angels,—but the Father only.
Surely it is as much a fault to say, It cannot be
yet, as to say, It shall be at such time. Who can
say when it shall be? Who dares to tell us when
it shall not be? Uncertainty is the very condition of
waiting, and the spur of expectation. All we know
is, that Christ has not told us when He will come;
but He has said, “Be ye also ready; for in such
an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.”
Let us, then, draw some rules from what has
been said, by which to bring this truth to bear on
our own conduct.
1. First, let us learn not to go out of our lot
and character in life, but to live above it. What
and where we are, is God’s appointment. It is He
who makes us to joy or weep, to have or to lose.
We have a work to do for Him; and it is just that
work which lies before us in our daily life. It is
only the restless impatience of self-will that drives
a man to throw himself into new and strange positions, other than God has ordered. There is no
state or office (not being in itself sinful) in all the
complex bearings of a Christian commonwealth,
which may not, by the spirit of obedience, be sanctified to God; and every state has a becoming character, which we are bidden to realise in ourselves.
But this character must begin and end in God;
must take its rise in His will, and terminate in His
glory. It is not simply by weeping or rejoicing,
buying or selling, abounding or suffering want,
that we are what we are; but by doing and suffering all things as He would have us to do and suffer them. To affect contempt for all these natural
states and actions of life, with the plea that we live
for God, is mere affectation and contempt of God’s own ordinance: to live without habitual thought
of God, and of the day of Christ’s appearing, with
the plea that we are controlled by the outward
accidents of life, is mere self-deceit, and abandonment of God Himself. And yet to these two extreme faults almost all minds are continually
tending: either to what is singular and ostentatious
in religion, so ending in excitement, and often in
declension; or to what is worldly and sullen, and,
from a neglect of religion, ending in slighting and
despising it. -
2. To check these two extremes, then, let us
strive to live as we would desire to be found by
Him at His coming.
Who can bear the thought of being taken unawares in the madness of a sinful life, in secret
vice, or in undisguised folly; or with a temper
unrestrained, or puffed up with self-esteem, or
wavering at every gust of fashion, or fettered by
false customs, or over-careful about money, or
fretful in a low estate, or murmuring in affliction,
or dreaming away this short life in the unrealities of empty self-indulgence, or forgetful of God
amidst the abundance of His chiefest blessings?
Let us strive, then, to put off these things with a
steady boldness, and, if need be, with a severe self-restraint. The trader, or the man of letters, or of
a learned profession, or of a full and easy habit
of life,—each must needs look into his own state.
There is a characteristic temptation which besets
every state—so subtle and insensible, that it is like the ill habits of gait
and manner, which, being formed unconsciously, become hardly distinguishable from our natural action, and yet produce some
ill effects at last. Who is there that would not
dread to be found at that day with a buried talent
and an untrimmed lamp; with a sleepy conscience,
or a shallow repentance, or a half-converted heart?
Alas for the half-penitent, half-changed man, almost
a Christian, and almost saved! It must not be so
with us. At any cost, we must win eternal life.
It is by living in our plain path of duty, but with
an habitual remembrance of His coming; by .using
the world as we use our daily food, not so much
from choice as from necessity, and yet with no unthankful sullenness, but with gladness and singleness of heart; by being ever ready, both for the
duties of the day, and for the coming hour of
judgment,—by this twofold discipline of self is the
Christian man so prepared, that the day of Christ
can neither come too late nor too soon for him.
3. Surely, then, we have need to lose no time;
for “the time is short.” If we dare not say, the
time is not yet, how dare we live as if that were
true which we dare not say? We shall lose no
thing by being ever ready, and by living—if I may
so speak, as men say of things they cannot calculate or control—on the chance. In the concerns
of this life, the lightest overpoise of probability
determines our strongest resolutions. Who would
tarry under a loosened arch? who would go upon a doubtful bridge? nay, even though the chances
were in favour of escaping;—but the lightest probability would fix our resolve as surely as the
greatest. And yet the certain warning, if we could
have it, that we should die this day ten years,
would move us more deeply than the uncertain
chance whether we shall not die to-night. Brethren, we have a large stewardship to account for—a tale of many years, with all the manifold workings
of thought and life: our lot, our character, and
every particular of what we are; all our opportunities, and all the gifts of God,—all this reckoning must be rendered at His coming. And we
have a sharp warfare to maintain against ourselves,
against the strong will that wrestles against conscience: we have a trying struggle to endure, that
we may enter in at the narrow gate. And the
time for this great mastery is wearing away, and
the day of our probation is well nigh spent. To
a man that looks for Christ’s coming, how utterly
worthless are all things that can perish! How
awful is that which is alone imperishable! All
things about us shall be abolished. The solid
earth shall melt, and the canopy of heaven shall
be rolled away: but there is one thing which can
not die; one thing which will cleave and cling to
us for ever; which we brought with us into the
world; which, whether we will or no, we must carry out; which, for good or for evil, haunts
every man at all times, abroad and at home, in
the busy throng of men, or in the dead stillness
of solitude; which shall be with us in the hour of
death, and stand by us in the day of judgment;—each man’s own imperishable self; the immortal
spirit of life which, with all its capacities of good
or ill, in the beginning came from God, and, with
the stamp it has here taken, must return to God
again.Eccles. xii. 7.
Therefore, brethren, make sure your standing
in His sight, and all things shall fall into their
place; all parts of a Christian’s life are in harmony,—time with eternity; his own soul with
God. You will not joy the less, nor weep the
more; the happiness of your home will not be
clouded, nor the burden of your sorrow be freighted
with a heavier load. No; to the true Christian
the cares of life shall be an easy, tolerable yoke,
and all the joys of his heart shall be deeper and
more lasting. If we take all things as from God,
and behold all things as in the light of the brightness of His coming, all shall be well. In a little
while all will be unravelled, and the snares and
bonds of life be broken, and we shall be where no
man can be entangled, or offend, or fall any more.
A little while, and the veil which hangs between heaven and earth shall be rent in twain from the
top to the bottom; and all that you have here
held of God and for God you shall carry with
you into the holy place; and all that is gone
before you shall be found perfect, at the feet of
our great High Priest, who standeth before the
eternal throne.
SERMON XXV.
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY.
ST. LUKE xxiv. 39.
“Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me,
and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.”
WHILE the apostles and the two disciples who
had returned from Emmaus were speaking together of the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,
He came and stood in the midst. They were “affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a
spirit. And He said unto them, Why are ye
troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your
hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is
I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not
flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” He assured
them that He was the same Lord with whom they
had so long conversed; that He was no bodiless
spirit, but the same man Jesus Christ.
From this we see that the very body which He took of the
blessed Virgin, in which He “increased in wisdom and in stature/ which was also
nailed upon the cross, was likewise raised from the
dead. It was not another body like it, nor a mere
appearance of His incarnate form; but the very
same substantial and palpable frame which they
were bidden to handle and see, in which He did “eat and drink” with them “after He rose from
the dead.” It was a body capable of all the energies of life, susceptible of all the perfect affections
of our manhood, but impassible and deathless: for
it was no longer a mortal body, but an immortal;
and yet it was a body still: as the “natural,” or
animal body, of which St. Paul speaks, is a true
body, not a disembodied life, so the “spiritual
body” is a body, not a disembodied spirit. Therefore he says, “It is sown a natural body; it is
raised a spiritual body: there is a natural body,
and there is a spiritual body.”1 Cor. xv. 44.
Either way, both
before and after the resurrection, it is a true body.
So here it was the same in all its identity; only a
change had passed upon it: death had “no more
dominion over” it: “Christ being raised from the
dead dieth no more.” His manhood was thence
forward under the powers of “the spirit of life;”
and in that human form He passed the closed
doors, vanished out of the sight of Cleopas, and
afterwards ascended into heaven.
Now from this we may learn, in some measure,
what shall be the resurrection of the flesh. We
are told plainly, that it shall be the very same body
we now dwell in, once more reorganised; purged
of its earthly taint, and raised to the conditions of a
spiritual life. To all questionings about the manner of this mystery, St. Paul answers, “Thou fool,
that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it
die: and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not
that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may
chance of wheat, or of some other grain: but God
giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to
every seed his own body.”1 Cor. xv. 36-38.
St. Paul does not
more intend to silence a disputatious objector by a
natural mystery, than to assert that the great laws
of the natural world have their counterpart in the
spiritual; that our dissolution is in order to our
resurrection; and that the body which is buried
is the seed and principle of the body which shall
be raised. The ear of corn is not more contained
in the seed than the spiritual body in the natural:
in both there is identity of being, and development
from weak beginnings to more perfect forms of
life. It is therefore as plainly and as strictly true
to say, that this very body shall rise again, as that
this very seed shall spring into an ear; and that
the glorified flesh of the saints is the very same they bore in suffering and death, as that the harvest of autumn is the very seed of spring. Of the
mysterious changes and revolutions which fill up
the interval between these two conditions of being,
we know nothing; but there is a line of identity so
running from each into the other as to make both
one. Such, then, is the resurrection of the flesh.
There are some truths flowing from this doc
trine, which we will now go on to consider.
1. We may learn, first, that the resurrection
will be the restoration of the whole man, in spirit,
and soul, and body; a restoration of all in which
consists the integrity of our nature and the identity
of our person. And this is emphatically the hope
of the gospel. The light of nature could not shew
this mystery. The heathen reached only to the
immortality of the soul; and even that they saw
but dimly, and often doubted. The sting of guilt,
and the foreboding of conscience; the sense that
the scheme of justice in this visible world is imperfect; and the instinct which feels after a retribution
yet to come,—gave them some momentary insights
into the world beyond the grave. They believed
that there was a perfect justice somewhere above
this wrongful world; and they could not but believe that, at some time, the inequalities of good
and evil should be redressed; and they foreboded
that the thinking, turbulent thing, which each man calls himself, must needs live on; their very hopes
and fears prophesied of an hereafter. But for the
body they knew not what to teach. They saw
sickness fretting it away; old age bowing it down;
death turning it into dust; the powers of nature
taking it up into themselves; all that they saw
looked on to dissolution: but that this corruptible
and dissolving frame should ever be reorganised,
nothing they saw and reasoned upon seemed to
imply. They thought, therefore, that the world
unseen should be peopled by spirits—a visionary
world of bodiless shades—each still bearing his
name and character, but so changed as to retain
rather the likeness than the sameness of their
former being.
It would seem, too, that even the elder Church
saw this mystery in broken and uncertain lights.
They knew, indeed, that some had never died;
that some had passed in the body into an unknown
state in the world unseen. Enoch and Elijah
might teach them of the immortality of the flesh.
They might also gather some thoughts of a resurrection from the remembrance of those who, having
died, awoke again, and returned to the quick on
earth, before they saw corruption: but that a body,
once turned into dust, should be knit again in its
former unity, that its perfect organisation should
be again restored, they had neither seen nor imagined; unless, indeed, we may believe that, here
and there, a seer, illuminated above his fellows,
saw the approach of greater things than even he
himself conceived; as, for instance, Job, who in
a twofold sense might say, “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the lat
ter day upon the earth; and though, after my
skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh
shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and
mine eyes shall behold, and not another.”Job xix. 27.
And
so, it may be, the Lord led onward His prophet’s thoughts, when, in the valley of dry bones, He
asked, “Son of man, can these bones live?”Ezek. xxxvii. 3.
And
Daniel, we may believe, foresaw some great mystery, when he said, “Many of them that sleep in
the dust of the earth shall awake:”Dan. xii. 2.
and Isaiah,
when he said, “Thy dead men shall live, together
with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and
sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the
dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the
dead.”Isaiah xxvi. 19.
Without doubt, they saw as it were the
refracted light of the coming mystery; but in some
sense their eyes were holden, while they ministered to us greater things than they themselves
conceived: for St. Paul declares that “life and
immortality” are “brought to light through the Gospel.”2 Tim. i. 10.
It may be that we do not see more
than they saw; but that what at best they saw
dimly, we see with clearness of sight: and now
every baptised child knows what sages doubtfully
foreboded, and even prophets saw beneath a veil.
Every Christian child knows that as Christ rose
from the dead, in like manner shall we rise again,
in all the fulness and sameness of our nature and
our person; that we shall be at that day what we
are now, save only that “mortality” shall be “swallowed up of life.” And yet when I say, every Christian child
knows this, I do not mean, that any, even
the wisest of the saints, can penetrate into the depths
of the mystery. What inconceivable meaning may
lie in the words, “In the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die;” or in the promise
that “there shall be no more death,” so that death
shall have “no dominion over” us: what mysterious change passed upon the father of us all in
the day of the transgression, what cold, dissolving
poison ran through his mortal body; or what
quickening virtue, in the morning of the resurrection, shall once more restore our earthly frame,
and knit again in one the dust we once inhabited,
we know not. Life and death are alike beyond
our grasp: all we know is, that as we die, so shall
we rise; and that as we are here subject to the powers of dissolution, so we shall there be death
less as the angels of God.
And as the resurrection is the perfect restoration of each several man, so shall it be of all man
kind. They shall be as if they had never died.
All the great stream of human life, issuing from
the first living soul, and ever swelling itself by
the multiplication of individual being, and the in
crease of people and nations from age to age; all
that have ever lived from the beginning, both the
evil and the good; the righteous Abel, the first of
saints that slept, and all they who have been gathered to the same paradise; and the first man,
whosoever he be, that died in his sins, and all
that have gone into the same abode of sorrow—all shall be raised to life, and all shall be immortal.
The wicked shall be once more clothed in flesh
and blood—even in that very same in which they
sinned and died; but there shall have passed a
change upon them, and they shall be endowed with
capacities of suffering and a sense of agony which
surpass the imaginations of our hearts. And in
that awful nature they shall be for ever deathless: “In those days shall men seek death, and shall not
find it, and shall desire to die, and death shall flee
from them,”Rev. ix. 6.
Being itself shall become an intolerable
anguish; much more when compassed about again with all the memorials and instruments of
sin, with those very members wherewith they did
despite unto the Spirit of grace. And so, likewise,
shall it be with the holy dead: they shall be clothed
with their hallowed flesh, but in a transfigured
purity, the body of their humiliation being changed
into the likeness of the body of His glory;Phil. iii. 21.
each
in his measure, but all perfect; even as “there is
one glory of the sun, and another glory of the
moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory: so also is
the resurrection of the dead.”1 Cor. xv. 41, 42.
All shall rise, “every man in his own order:” “the dead in
Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and
remain shall be caught up together with them.”1 Thess. iv. 16, 17.
First the children of the kingdom, then the children of the wicked one,—multitudes that no man
can number: two mighty companies, in one great
family, gathered on the right hand and on the left
of the Son of Man.
2. Now from what has been said, there is another truth which follows by an inference so direct
as to be self-evident; and yet it is sometimes questioned. It is plain, then, that among those that
are raised from the dead, there shall be a perfect
recognition; and that not limited to the blessed, but, like the resurrection itself, comprehending the
wicked also. It follows inseparably from the idea
of personal identity, and the law of individual responsibility, that it should be so. Awful as the
thought must be, we may not doubt that even in
the outer darkness, they that have sinned together shall be conscious of their common anguish:
and they that have here tempted their fellows in
condemnation shall look in horror on the prey
they have destroyed; and all the long-drawn consequences of their evil life shall be unfolded to
their sight, in the misery of those that have fallen
by their guilt: and in the kingdom of sorrow and
spiritual wickedness, remorse, and revenge, and
hate, and horror, and despair, and the implacable
strife of wills that on earth consented to do evil,
shall kindle and multiply the torment of lost souls;
each one reflecting another’s agony, and making
more intense the piercing energy of pain. But
this is not the part of the subject that people are
wont to doubt of. It seems in harmony with the
laws of eternal right, that mutual recognition in
the abodes of misery, and conscious privation of
bliss, and of the fellowship of blessed souls known
here, but parted from them hereafter, should enter
into the portion of the reprobate. The difficulties
all arise on the other side; and these we will now
consider. Some people out of a coldness of heart, and many out of a hoping timidity, as fondly desiring what they hardly dare to hope, often ask, “Is
it not too blessed to be true? Can it be? Shall
we indeed know again all whom we have loved
here?” Surely it must be so. How else shall we
be then what we are now, if one-half of all our
conscious being shall be annihilated? If memory,
and knowledge, and love be so dim and overcast,
as that we shall not remember, and know, and love
with all the absolute fulness and identity of our
present being, how shall we be perfect? This
would be a retrogression in the order of intelligences, not an exaltation; a straitening, not an
unfolding, of our spiritual life. But it is sometimes
argued—“If we shall recognise all those whom
we meet again, shall we not also remember those
whom we miss from that blessed company? Will
not the consciousness that some are wanting there
embitter even the bliss of heaven? Will the fellowship of some we love fill the heart which yearns
for those that appear not in glory? Will there not
be even in heaven ‘a voice heard’ as in Ramah; ‘Rachel mourning for her children.’ and refusing
‘to be comforted for her children,’ because they
are not?” These are hard reasonings, and too entangled that we should unravel them. But there
are other, and those not less difficulties in the
works of God; and yet the apostle thought them no hinderance to the mysteries of truth, nor any
signs of wisdom in those that started them. Some
before now have asked, “How are the dead raised
up, and with what body do they come?” We
therefore need not go far to put these questionings
to silence. But, after all, they are doubts which
not only oppose themselves in the attitude of objections, but shape themselves into fears; they
thrust their way unbidden into shrinking minds,
that would fain believe them false. What shall
we say, then? God has not drawn up the veil,
and we cannot pierce its folds. W^e may give, in
deed, some sort of answer; but we cannot allay
the unrest which these misgivings breathe into our
minds. Let us, however, consider that God recognises all, both them that are saved, and them that
perish; He loves them beyond all love of ours, and
His bliss is perfect: in heaven we are made par
takers as of His will, so of His bliss; and both in
us shall be perfect too. This must be answer
enough for the understanding; and until we “know
even as we are known,” faith must make answer to
our hearts.
But these were no doubtful questions in times
of a livelier faith. “Shall there not be, beloved,”
asked St. Austin, in preaching on the resurrection, “shall there not be a recognition of us all? Do
ye think that ye shall recognise me then because ye know me now, and that ye shall not know my
father whom ye have not known here, or the
bishop who years ago ruled over this Church? Ye
shall know all. They who shall be there, shall not
therefore recognise each other because they shall
behold his face; the mutual recognition of that
place shall come from a higher knowledge. All
shall see then, and much more excellently, as prophets here are wont to see. They shall see with
a divine vision, when all shall be full of God.”S. August. serm. in dieb. Pasch. ccxliii. 6.
So
they believed of old, and so may we stedfastly
believe now. All the saints of God shall have a
transcendent and intuitive knowledge, not sought
out of the memory, nor gathered from experience,
nor drawn from reasonings, but by insights, and
consciousness, and beatific vision. Shall we not
know angels; Gabriel, who was sent of God to Nazareth; and him, too, whose name was “secret?”Judges xiii. 18.
And shall we know the angels, and not know the
saints of God? Shall we know the angel Gabriel,
and not know the faithful Abraham? Shall we
not behold patriarchs and prophets, and apostles
and martyrs, Enoch and Moses, and John Baptist
and the Blessed Virgin? Shall these be to us (to
speak like heathen men) as nameless spirits and
unknown shades; or shall they not be revealed in all the fulness of that mysterious individual perfection which we now by faith believe and celebrate? Yes, of a truth, they that have come from “the east and the west” to “sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of
heaven,” shall not fail to know them in that day.
Surely we shall say, “Lo, there is he that never
saw death; and there, the ‘man greatly beloved;’ and there, she that sat at the feet of Jesus, and
the woman that stood behind Him weeping; and
the disciple that lay on His bosom at that last sad
supper; and there is he that thrice denied his
Lord, and then wept bitterly; and there is the
glorious apostle through whose preaching and martyrdom we ‘sinners of the Gentiles’ were bidden
to the marriage-supper of the Lamb; and there
are they that in the first age trod the purple path
to a palm and crown; and they that, age aft^r
age, followed the Lamb in sanctity and pureness:
I have heard of them by hearsay, but now I see
them each one face to face, as though I had lived
and conversed with them in the days of the flesh.”
And if we shall know them whom we have not seen,
how shall we not know them whom we have. seen?
Shall we recognise the objects of our faith, and not
know the objects of our love? Shall we know
those of whose presence our imaginations have
wrought in vain to shape so much as an outline, and not know those
with whom we have here companied through the long years of our earthly sojourn;
whose form, and bearing, and speaking looks, and every visible movement, are interwoven
with our very consciousness; who are so knit to us
as to be all but our very selves? Such, indeed,
is the hope of the Gospel, and the faith of the
Catholic Church. Let no man defraud you of
your joy. When any would try you with a doubt,
make answer, “I believe . . . in the communion of
saints . . . the resurrection of the body.” Say what
you will, we are fools, and ye are wise; but, wise
or foolish, this I know, we shall meet again even
as we parted: yet not altogether; there shall be
no more tokens of the fall, no more lines of sorrow, no more furrows of tears, no more distress,
no more changes, no more fading, no more death; but all shall be fair, and
radiant, and full of life, as in Him that said, “Behold . . . that it is I
myself.”
There are one or two further remarks to be
made on this doctrine, and with them I will conclude.
And first; it throws a great light upon the
true doctrine of what the Church is. We are so
inclined to take a shallow and external view of it^
and to limit its character and office to this world,
and to the successions of time, that we miss the real nature of the visible Church. It is not a form
or piece of mechanism, moulded by the human
will, or put together for the uses and expedients of
men and nations; but a mystery, partaking of a
sacramental character, framed and ordained by God
Himself. In a word, the Church is the root of the
new creation, which shall be raised in its fulness
at the last day; it is in part earthly, in part heavenly; it is both fleshly and spiritual, visible and
invisible, mortal and immortal; “there is one
body and one spirit.” And it is ever putting off
its mortal shroud, casting its sere leaves upon the
earth, and withdrawing its vitality into its hidden
source. As the saints fall asleep one by one, the “dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit
returns unto God that gave it.” And these two
miracles are ever working; the bodies of the saints
are dying daily, their spirits changing to the likeness of their Lord. The earth is sowing with holy
dust; and the world unseen replenishing with the
souls of the righteous. The Church is, in very
truth, the kingdom of the resurrection; which in
its secret beginnings is being “fashioned beneath
in the earth:” and though it pass through miraculous changes, yet it is one and the same Church
still, even as He was the same Christ both before
and after He rose from the dead; not two, but one
only; first mortal, afterwards immortal. So also is the spouse of Christ one and the same, both
now and hereafter; now imperfect, ever changing,
outwardly decaying, inwardly transfigured; here
after perfect, changeless, glorious, and eternal.
And even now already, in the clear foresight of
the Everlasting, to whom all things are present in
their fulness, it is complete in Christ. But to us
who see only in part, and by broken aspects, and
on the outer surface, it is imperfect, and to come;
but flowing on, and continually unfolding itself
from age to age. Such, then, is the Church.
And, lastly; we may learn what is the nature
of the holy sacraments. Baptism is our first engrafting into the kingdom of the resurrection. We
are thereby translated from the old creation to
the new; from the powers of death to life. Our
whole nature, in body, soul, and spirit, is made to
partake of the resurrection of Christ, by the secret
working of the same Spirit which raised Him from
the dead. The nature which saw no corruption
is the principle of an incorruptible life in us; so
that it may be said of us, that we are “risen with
Christ;” and that not only in figure, but in spirit;
not only in pledge, but by unity with Him, who
Himself is “the resurrection and the life.” And
so, in like manner, the holy eucharist is the food
of our risen life, the hidden manna, the bread of
the resurrection. In it we feed on Him who is the power of immortality; we are made partakers
of the glorified manhood of the second Adam,
bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh;Eph. v. 30.
and, being “joined to the Lord,” we are
“one spirit.”
Therefore, brethren, as men baptised into
Christ, and nourished with the living bread, you
have been brought under the powers of the world
unseen. The virtue of a holy resurrection is in
your mortal bodies; the beginnings of the spiritual
body are within you: cherish the gift you have
received; beware how you wound or soil the holy
thing “which by nature you could not have;”
for immortality is a perilous endowment: whether
in sorrow or in bliss, we must be deathless. And
this our eternal destiny is now hanging in the
balance. What more awful thought can the heart
of man conceive than the fall of a regenerate spirit? what more fearful than the first movement
towards declension? “for it is impossible for those
who were once enlightened, and have tasted of
the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of
the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word
of God, and the powers of the world to come, if
they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance.”Heb. vi. 4-6.
The body with which we are clothed
must either be quickened in holiness with our
spirit, or it will turn back again toward the second death, and through it our spirit also become “twice dead.” In the faithful it is kept under,
and held in check by “the powers of the world
to come;” but in the faithless it is a haunt of
impurity, and a minister of sin and hell. Let us
watch against the carnal mind; for though it be
thrust down from its dominion, yet the infection
of our nature abides still in the regenerate. The
immortality which is in us may yet become “earthly, sensual, devilish.” We may yet be
doomed to an unhallowed resurrection, and to
an endless life “where the worm dieth not, and
the fire is not quenched.” But it is also a blessed
thought, that there is a change awaiting us. After all our toiling and self-chastisement, there still
remains with us a fast-cleaving and mysterious
evil; and a deep consciousness is ever telling us
that, do what we may, we must bear the grave-clothes of the fall till the morning of the resurrection; that we must suffer under the load of
an imperfect nature, until God shall resolve our
sullied manhood into its original dust, and gather
it up once more in a restored purity. The hope
of the resurrection is the stay of our souls when
they are wearied and baffled in striving against the
disobedience of our passive nature. At that day
we shall be delivered from the self which we abhor,
and be all pure as the angels of God. O healing and kindly death, which shall refine our mortal
flesh to a spiritual body, and make our lower
nature chime with the Eternal will in faultless
harmony! Let us, then, as they that in pledge
and promise are risen with Christ, so live in sympathy with the ..world to come, that death, and
the resurrection of the dead, may be not so much
a change in our earthly life as the crown of its
perfection. Let us so live that our earthly course
may run on into eternity, and be itself eternal.
Let us never doubt, because we see no visible
tokens to bespeak the virtue which is passing on
us. The Church itself is but a fellowship of men
that shall die; but yet she is “all glorious within.”
Wait till the morning of the new creation, and
then shall all be revealed; and the body, which
now shrouds the spirit, shall be as clear as the
noon-day light; and then shall be seen openly
what now is shrined within; and “the righteous shine forth as the sun in the
kingdom of their Father.”St. Matt. xiii. 43.
SERMON XXVI.
THE GLORY OF THE RIGHTEOUS.
ST. MATTHEW xiii. 43.
“Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the
kingdom of their Father.”
IT is plain that these words are spoken of the
end of the world, and of the condition of the
righteous in God’s eternal kingdom. The purpose for which Christ came into the world was, “to bring in everlasting righteousness.” All other
gifts and distributions of grace, mercy, and forgiveness, are but parts of this one great and perfect gift. It was for righteousness that the whole
creation groaned and travailed together: wrong,
and falsehood, and violence, and impurity, and
darkness, and the torment of an evil heart, in one
word, unrighteousness, was both the sin and the
misery of mankind.
So also, in one word, the redemption of man
through the blood-shedding of Christ is the restoration of righteousness to the world. Noah was
the “heir of the righteousness which is by faith.”Heb. xi. 7.
The prophecy of the Gospel was, that “righteousness” should “look down from heaven;”Ps.
lxxxv. 11.
and
again we read, “Drop down, ye heavens, from
above, and let the skies pour down righteousness;
let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together:”Isaiah xlv. 8.
“Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in
mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time
to seek the Lord, till He come and rain righteousness upon you.”Hosea x. 12.
And therefore, when the “Sun
of righteousness”Mal. iv. 2.
arose upon the earth, “the
ministration of righteousness”2 Cor. iii. 9.
was brought into
the world, “that as sin hath reigned unto death,
even so might grace reign, through righteousness,
unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord.”Rom. v. 21.
And to this end we have received the “gift of
righteousness,”Rom. v. 17.
which though perfect in itself,
is not yet made perfect in us, but is ordered by
the laws and measures of growth, and slow advancement; and therefore the whole mystical body
of Christ, which is so made one with Him, that
He is made “righteousness” unto us, is still waiting “for the hope of righteousness by faith.”Gal. v. 5.
All
the regenerate are brought, by the working of His grace, into a relation to the perfect righteousness
of His person and His kingdom; and they that
are of faith shall partake in fulness what they
now have only in pledge. “The path of the just,”
or “righteous,” “is as the shining light, which
shineth more and more unto the perfect day; “and “at His coming and His kingdom” they shall
be “arrayed in fine linen, clean and white,” which
is “the righteousness of saints.”Rev. xix. 8.
Such is the
meaning of our Lord’s words: “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun.”
From which we may learn:—
In the first place, that righteousness is a gift
which lies hid in us here in this earthly life; and
that, partly because it is a thing in its very nature
spiritual and inward, dwelling in the soul of man;
and partly because it is concealed by the imperfections of our being, by the decay of our bodily
frame, and the like. In this life it is so disguised,
so shrouded in our mortality, and so mixed up
with the changes and conditions of this world,
that the gift of righteousness is rather an object
of faith than of sight. We do, indeed, at all times
see the tokens of its presence; but what we behold,
and all that is indicated by the tokens we see, is
but a very small measure of that abounding grace
of righteousness which, like leaven in the mass, is hid in the world, for the restoration of mankind to
eternal life. For instance, we are delivered from
the power of death, and yet we must die; we are
made righteous, and yet we are alloyed with imperfections. The very fact of death is full of mystery. We are delivered from death by dying; and,
though redeemed from it, we must fall under its
power. It is upon us at all times; all pains, and
sicknesses, and gnawing diseases, and deadly humours which through life gather in us,—all these
are death. All our life long we are in death; in
very truth, we are dead while we live; for all the
sufferings of the flesh are the shadows and the
forerunners and the workings of death in us; all
the bodily ills which fasten and prey upon mankind
are laws of the kingdom of death. And so it has
pleased God to ordain that even the righteous shall
die; that they shall be bowed and bent with ills of
the flesh, scathed and withered up by the powers
of the visible world, by cold and heat, and pestilence, and famine, and the like; that their earthly
nature shall be as it were warred upon, and beat
down, and brought into bondage by the strife of
matter. The earthly bodies of the holiest are
oftentimes “marred more than any man” by sharp
pains, and lingering anguish, and fearful forms of
fleshly evil; or if not so afflicted, yet we see the
faculties of nature decay, the sight wax dim, and the ear heavy, and the whole man grow weak and
weary, and spent with bearing the burden and the
load of a sinking body. And not only so, but even
the powers which are most closely allied to the
soul, which seem to inhere in the spiritual life,
they too give way, or are hidden; as if they retired
from manifestation and outward exercise, all the
organs through which they were wont to act being
blunted, and withdrew themselves into the depth
of our secret immortality: “In the day when the
keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong
men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease
because they are few, and those that look out of
the windows be darkened, and the doors shall be
shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding
is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird,
and all the daughters of music shall be brought
low; also when they shall be afraid of that which
is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the
almond-tree shall nourish, and the grasshopper
shall be a burden, and desire shall fail:”Eccles. xii. 3-5.
then it
comes to pass, that the wisest of men turns again
to the wandering of a child; the most piercing
reason is as dull as if it were worn away; the
memory is misleading and confused; and all the
intellectual powers seem to be suspended and concealed.
But there is a greater mystery still. The decay of the flesh, and of the intellectual powers,
which put themselves forth through the flesh and
hold converse with this visible world, is a wonderful token of the fall, and a mark of humiliation
left still upon the redeemed; yet all these powers
and energies are external to the spiritual life, and
abide rather at its circumference than in its centre; and therefore, though it must ever be an
awful sight to behold even the righteous wasting
away by natural decline, and, year by year, becoming dead, and bereft of the powers of our bodily
and intellectual nature, yet it is in harmony with
the laws which order all things. It is a sight full
of deep and sorrowful thoughts, to see a man once
endowed with strength, and wisdom, and knowledge, and skill, and power of speech, and with unbending firmness, whose whole life seemed to be
taken up into one energy of righteousness, year by
year passing off, unknown to himself, into lower
and feebler movements, and at last so changed and
clouded as to outlive his very self. And yet there
are around us things which speak, as in a parable,
of such decays. All the changes of nature—the
falling of sapless branches, and the gathering clouds
which hide the light of heaven—are so many mute
witnesses, that there is none changeless and abiding but God alone; and that the powers of life are
secret, often hid, without manifestation or a visible
presence.
But there is a mystery of humiliation even
greater than this, into which, also, the righteous
are permitted to enter. It is most certain that
they partake, moreover, of what may be called the
spiritual decays of old age. Sometimes, indeed,
the righteous depart like Moses, the servant of the
Lord, who “was an hundred and twenty years old
when he died,” and yet “his eye was not dim, nor his
natural force abated:” but if we look at Jacob, and
Eli, and David, and Solomon, and many more, and
at many also of whom we read in the history of the
Church, or whom we ourselves see around us, we
shall discern that the decays of nature are felt also
in the habits and powers of the spiritual life; and
the moral failings which beset old age gather even
about those in whom is the gift of righteousness.
We see them, for instance, more or less under what
may be called the powers of dissolution. Even the
best of men, when they grow old, become credulous,
and irresolute, and of a weak will, and feeble in
self-control, and are quickly kindled, and haunted
by false fears and fanciful suspicions, and break
out into little eccentricities, and are sensitive if
remarked upon, or resisted, or advised.
And these little mists rise up and draw a haze
over the brightness of the spirit. Without doubt,
the righteous, who have made provision by self-discipline, and subjugation of temper, in the time
of strength, have a great and visible advantage
over all others-, yet it is not to be denied that
even they, when they come under decay, enter into
the shadows of our human infirmity.
But I have thus far spoken only of the partial and casual obscurations which the righteous
suffer at certain seasons and in certain states of
life: it is also most evident, however, that all the
righteous are, here in this life, as it were, under a
cloud. It is true of every man living in the power
of his regeneration, that he is for the most part
hid from sight. The weakness of his nature, even
though regenerate, baffles and dims the light which
is struggling outward from within. This is the very
condition of his sanctification: for the thing which
by nature he could not have, is working mightily,
subduing all things to itself; “but we see not yet
all things put under” it. As is Christ’s kingdom in
the world, so is the beginning of righteousness in
each several man. It has a deep root, striking out
on every side, putting forth new energies, changing things inwardly into its own likeness, revealing
itself outwardly by signs, and tokens, and a visible
form, but is itself hidden and invisible. So far as the eye of the world reaches, the holy Catholic
Church is no more than any other visible polity,
and not the richest, nor strongest, nor, in an
earthly sense, the most politic or prosperous. On
the whole, though it is evidently something that
has its own character and its own meaning, and
is fulfilling some definite aim, whatsoever that aim
be—and the world little knows or cares—still it
has no overwhelming proofs of sanctity, no obtrusive tokens of a hidden life. Though it be both
holy and visible, yet there is an inwardness and a
retirement about it, even in its visibleness; and
what is this but to say, that it is perfection dwelling in an imperfect form; eternity in time; heaven
in earth; infinity in the finite; a shadow of its
mysterious Head, in whom “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily?” And therefore the
Church has seemed, at times, to wane and to wax
dim, and, at times, to grow dark outwardly; at
the best it has exhibited to the world but a chequered light; rather a promise than a full orb of
brightness.
So has it ever been, and ever shall be, with
the righteous. They look like other men; they
have the same wants, the same toils, the same
gains and losses, the same sicknesses and decays,
the same besetting infirmities of a fallen nature;
though there be something in them which often makes itself felt from within, and seems to be at the point of
shewing itself openly to the world, yet it still lies under a veil. The light of
the righteous does indeed “shine before men,” but not in all its fulness: enough
to bespeak the gift that is in them, but not to unfold its breadth and glory.
Men can see that they are in some way higher than themselves; that “greater is
He that is in” them “than he that is in the world:” but they cannot put together
the characters that are impressed upon them, and read their meaning; just as men
can tell that a secret cipher is a written language, though they cannot unravel
what it says. Therefore the world, in all ages, has ever either blackened and
maligned the righteous, or, at least, has distorted and deformed their character
and actions. Nay, even more, the righteous themselves know but in part; they
are too weak of sight to behold all that God is doing within them; they know
that they have received a great gift from Him; that they have powers, and
capacities, and sympathies, and an energy derived from the Infinite and Eternal;
that wisdom, and love, and mercy, and purity, have no measure or limit, except the nature in which they dwell; as the powers
of seeing or of knowing are limited only by the
organisation of the body, and the conditions by
which we attain to knowledge: and yet, with this teeming consciousness, the secret of their regeneration is not half known, even by themselves; they
cannot comprehend it, because they are comprehended by it, as a thing that is greater than they;
and in it they have their being; and nevertheless,
as, on the one side, they are baffled by the greatness of the gift, so, on the other, are they straitened by the littleness of their own finite capacities.
They feel themselves beset by earthly tempers, and
narrow thoughts, and shadows which fall inwardly
upon their hearts, and to their own eyes they seem
to be of a dim and earthly nature; they know of
themselves far more evil than good; the visible
and prominent points of their own character are
the darker lines, and the gloomier spots, which lie
upon the surface; in their own sight they have
no brightness, or, at the best, a pale sickly light,
often overcast; and they ask, “Can this be the
gift of righteousness? Can this swerving will, and
faint striving, and ready yielding, and often slumbering, and all this throng of hasty tempers, and
high thoughts, and unchastened imaginations, can all this dwell in the soul of
the righteous? Am I not passing a cheat upon myself, counting myself to be what
I am not?” And how must all this perplexity be multiplied when a righteous man
falls, be it never so little, from his obedience; when to the abiding sense of
inward evil is added the consciousness of fresh trangressions! What a mystery
is the life of David, the man after God’s own heart! how clouded and obscured,
and that not by false tongues, but by his own evil deeds!
Now, from all this we may see what is the hiddenness of our
spiritual life—how little it is perceived and understood by others—how imperfectly
it is apprehended even by ourselves—how it may
be for a time, as it were, altogether hidden from
our own eyes; and yet we feel within us some
thing which prophesies of our lot in God’s kingdom, and foretels the perfection of our being here
after; we feel something which pledges to us that
we shall not fall back again to the dominion of
unrighteousness; something which assures us that
we shall not be for ever bounded by the limits of
imperfection: we feel yearnings, and aspirations,
and breathing hopes, and conscious energies, which
reach after a larger sphere of being. And so it
shall be; for “the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of
their Father.”
We learn, then, in the next place, that this gift
of righteousness, which now lies hid in us, shall
hereafter be unfolded in its perfection in the kingdom of God: that is to say, when all things are
fulfilled, and the end is come, and the righteous
shall have passed through all the changes which
lie between the decay of our mortal bodies and our perfect renewal in the image of God; that is, at
the resurrection, when the whole man, in body,
soul, and spirit, shall be raised from the dead, “then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun.”
By “the kingdom of their Father,” therefore, is
meant the kingdom of the resurrection. Then
shall all that here lay hid in them be unfolded;
all shall be perfect, and enlarged to an ineffable
perfection. The very body shall become a vessel
of glory, being made like to the glorious body of
the second Adam; of whom, even in the days of
His flesh, we read, in His one only season of transient brightness, that “His raiment was white and
glistering,” “white as the light,” “exceeding white
as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them;” “and His face did shine as the sun:” so with our
flesh; “it is sown in weakness, it is raised in
power; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in
glory.” The body in which we have groaned “being burdened,” in which we have often fainted
and fallen back from “the law of the Spirit of life,”
in which we have been bowed down to earth with
blindness, and deafness, and deadness of powers
and sense,—even that same earthly frame shall be
full of life, and penetrated with the light of heaven.
There shall be in it no more any law warring
against the law of the Spirit; no division of the
man against himself; no strife in the being of the righteous: but the glorious body shall be the glad
minister of a holy will, and quickened by the pervading unity of the glorified spirit. And we know
that “they which shall be accounted worthy to
obtain that world, and the resurrection from the
dead,” cannot “die any more; for they are equal
to the angels, and are the children of God, being
the children of the resurrection.”St. Luke xx. 35, 36.
Nay, more;
we shall bear the likeness of the Son of God, of
whom we read, when He appeared to St. John,
that “His countenance was as the sun shineth in
his strength.”Rev. i. 16.
And yet the glory of the body would seem to
be chiefly but the manifestation of the glory of the
spirit. Then shall our regeneration be fulfilled: “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as
He is.” What this mysterious likeness may mean,
it is not for us too curiously to inquire. Certainly,
we know that every saint while on earth has had
impressed upon him by the hand of God his own
definite character; and yet all have been likened
to their Lord. All their several features of distinctness were comprehended in the perfect mind
of Christ. They were all conformed to Him; they
were all knit in unity together, by their universal
likeness to one common pattern; and so shall they
doubtless be hereafter, when the faint beginnings of perfection shall be unfolded in the fulness of
God’s kingdom. All the bonds and fetters of imperfection, all the heavy burden of earth and sinfulness, and all that checked or thwarted the energies of their regenerate spirit,—shall be abolished;
and all that was in them of heaven and of God—all
holy affections, and pure thoughts, and righteous
intentions,—shall break forth into the perfection
of glory. All that Noah, Daniel, and Job, or
David, and Paul, and John, sought and strove to
be, by self-chastisement, and prayer, and righteousness of life, such they shall be at “the manifestation of the sons of God.” We see now in those
around us, that each one has some characteristic
feature: in the mind of one we see a deep wisdom;
of another, a saintly meekness; of another, an angelic contemplation; of another, a burning charity;—each one being a law, a pattern to himself. We
see, too, that this characteristic feature is ever
corning out into a fuller shape, drawing towards
its own perfect idea. So may we believe that, in
the kingdom of the resurrection, all the gifts of
God, all graces of the heart, and all endowments
of the sanctified reason, shall then be made perfect: without doubt all that constitutes the mysterious individuality of each several man; all the
inscrutable features by which his spiritual being is
distinguished, without being opposed to, or divided from, the spirits of other men, shall be perpetuated
hereafter; and then shall all differences be harmonised in the perfection of bliss, as all hues are
blended in the unity of light. Sacraments, and prophecies, and signs, and all economies of grace, and
shadows of truth, shall all have passed away; and
this busy world, and all the works of it, shall be
burned up; and all worldly sciences shall be abolished, and all false theories of truth, and all false
hood which is interwoven with the truth, and all
vain and unprofitable learning, shall be no more.
And yet must we not believe, that as all that we
have here received of grace, so also all that we
have received of truth, shall be perfected and made
eternal? All the mysteries of the Divine Mind,
of which we have here partaken, shall surely still
abide in the illuminated spirit. In the many orders
and ranks of the blessed there shall be an ascent
and scale of being. All the powers and endowments of the individual mind, and of all its contemplative energies, and all the characters and forms
which truth has impressed upon the sons of wisdom
in this life, shall doubtless then be carried onward
to the fulness of knowledge; all shall be full of
light, and yet all shall not be of an equal measure;
all shall be admitted to the beatific vision, but some
shall behold with a more piercing gaze; as it is
here, so shall it be there. Manifold and inexhaustible variety is
one of the tokens of the Divine Mind upon His visible works. It may be, that
were all alike, it would be as the dull sound of one change less tone, without
fall or harmony. As height, and breadth, and depth, and order, and degrees, and
multitude, and unity, are laws of God’s kingdom, so also is harmony, which is
the unity of things various and manifold; and so, when “the righteous shine
forth as the sun,” all the individual perfection which has lain hid in the
saints shall issue forth and blend into the eternal light. On the twelve gates
of the heavenly Jerusalem are “the names of the twelve tribes of the children of
Israel;”Rev. xxi. 14, 16; ii. 17.
on the
twelve foundations “the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb;” the hundred and forty and four
thousand were sealed each one in the name of his
tribe; to him that overcometh shall be given “a
white stone, and in the stone a new name written,
which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.”
Each one several and distinct, even as here, so
shall he be there; each one shining forth in his
own blessedness; and yet the song of the redeemed,
the everlasting chant of “all nations, and kindred,
and people, and tongues,” is but one; their voices
without number, yet but one accordant hymn; so
shall all perfection, and all righteousness, and all
bliss, and all thanksgiving, be perfect in every saint, and united in one heavenly glory, which shall encompass the righteous.
O wonderful and blessed thought, that the gift
which is in us shall one day have the mastery
over all obstructions; that all sins, and faults, and
weaknesses, and ignorance, and all decay and wandering, and all the clouds which rest upon mortality, and all the hinderances of the world and of
the flesh, shall be taken away; and that we shall
be ripened into a mysterious perfection of the spiritual being! Blessed thought, and full of freshness and calm to the weary and heavy-laden, one
day all their oppressions shall be rolled back from
them, and they shall “shine forth as the sun!”
Let us beware how we judge one another. Who
knows what may lie hid in the man whom we
slight and cast out as of no esteem? who can say
how he may outshine his fellows in the kingdom
of the resurrection? “We fools accounted his life
madness, and his end to be without honour: how
is he numbered with the children of God, and his
lot is among the saints! Therefore have we erred
from the way of truth, and the light of righteousness hath not shined unto us, and the sun of righteousness rose not upon us.”Wisdom v. 4-6.
Wonderful and over
whelming, to behold at that day the resurrection
of the righteous, each one shining forth in his own distinguishable splendour! “Then shall we know
even as also we are known;” and there shall be
strange overrulings of our blind judgments. “Many
that are first shall be last, and the last shall be
first.” The poor man thou despisedst an hour ago
shall sit higher than thou at the marriage-supper
of the Lamb. And the simple and unlearned, and
the lowly and slow of speech, whom the learned,
and eloquent, and lofty, and prosperous, have contemned as mean and foolish, shall be arrayed in
exceeding brightness,, before which they shall be
dim and naked. Let us also beware how we give
much care or thought to any thing but to the
perfecting of our hidden life. What else is worth
living for? What else shall endure at Christ’s coming? Most awful and searching day, when
“the light of the moon shall be as the light of the
sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold,
as the light of seven days!” Let us therefore live
ever waiting for that hour. What matter though
we be poor, slighted, slandered, forgotten, moving
in the shadows of the world,, so that we attain unto
a glorious resurrection? O most glad hour, when
it shall dawn towards the first day of the everlasting week; when there shall be a making ready in
the heaven above and in the earth beneath; when
legions of angels shall gather around the Sun of
righteousness, and all orders and hosts of heaven shall know that the time for “the manifestation of
the sons of God” is come! What joy shall there
be at that hour in the world unseen! and what a
thrill, as of a penetrating light, shall run through
the dust where the saints are sleeping! When was
there ever such a day-spring since the time when “God said, Let there be light, and there was light?”
He shall come, and all His shining ones; ten
thousand times ten thousand, whose countenances
are “like lightning,” and their “raiment white as
snow;” all the heavenly court,—angels, archangels,
cherubim and seraphim,—clad in unimaginable
splendours; and the righteous shall arise from the
grave, and the earth shall be lightened with their
glory; they shall stretch forth their hands to meet
Him, and bow themselves before the brightness of
His coming. O blessed hour, after all the sorrows,
and wrongs, and falsehoods, and darkness, and
burdens of life, to see Him face to face; to be
made sinless; to shine with an exceeding strength;
to be as the light, in which there “is no darkness
at all!” Be this our hope, our chiefest toil, our
almost only prayer.
THE END.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY LEVEY, ROBSON, AND FRANKLYN,
Great New Street, Fetter Lane.