For the Life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness,
and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father and
was manifested unto us!
WHAT do we mean, when we speak of the Life everlasting?
Do we mean that men’s souls are immortal, and will live for ever after
death, either in happiness or misery?
We must mean more than that. At least we ought to mean more than that,
if we be Christian men. For the Bible tells us, that Christ brought life
and immortality to light. Therefore they must have been in darkness
before Christ’s coming; and men did not know as much about life and
immortality before Christ’s coming as they know—or ought to know—now.
But if we need only believe that we shall live for ever after death in
happiness or misery, then Christ has not brought life and immortality to
light. He has thrown no fresh light upon the matter.
And why? For this simple reason, that the old heathen knew as much as
that before Christ came.
The old Greeks and Romans, and Persians, and our own forefathers before
they became Christians, believed that men’s souls would live for ever
happy or miserable. The Mussulmans, Mahommedans, Turks as they are
called in the Prayer-book, believe as much as that now. They believe
that men’s souls live for ever after death, and go to ‘heaven’ or ‘hell.’
So those words ‘everlasting Life’ must needs mean something more than
that. What do they mean?
First. What does everlasting mean?
It means exactly the same as eternal. The two words are the same: only
everlasting is English, and eternal Latin. But they have the same sense.
Now everlasting and eternal mean something which has neither beginning
nor end. That is certain. The wisest of the heathen knew that: but we
are apt to forget it. We are apt to think a thing may be everlasting,
because it has no end, though it has a beginning. We are careless
thinkers, if we fancy that. God is eternal because he has neither
beginning nor end.
But here come two puzzles.
First. The Athanasian Creed says that there is but one Eternal, that is,
God; and never were truer words written.
But do we not make out two Eternals? For God is one Eternal; and eternal
life is another Eternal. Now which is right; we, or the Athanasian
Creed? I shall hold by the Athanasian Creed, my friends, and ask you to
think again over the matter: thus—If there be but one Eternal, there is
but one way of escaping out of our puzzle, which makes two Eternals; and
that is, to go back to the old doctrine of St. Paul, and St. John, and
the wisest of the Fathers, and say—There is but one Eternal; and
therefore eternal life is in the Eternal God. And it is eternal Life
because it is God’s life; the life which God lives; and it is eternal
just because, and only because, it is the life of God; and eternal death
is nothing but the want of God’s eternal life.
Certainly, whether you think this true or not, St. John thought it true;
for he says so most positively in the text. He says that the Life was
manifested—showed plainly upon earth, and that he had seen it. And he
says that he saw it in a man, whom his eyes had seen, and his hands had
handled. How could that be?
My friends, how else could it be? How can you see life, but by seeing
some one live it? You cannot see a man’s life, unless you see him live
such and such a life, or hear of his living such and such a life, and so
knowing what his life, manners, character, are. And so no one could have
seen God’s life, or known what life God lived, and what character God’s
was, had it not been for the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
was made flesh, and dwelt among us, that by seeing him, the Son, we might
see the Father, whose likeness he was, and is, and ever will be.
But now, says St. John, we know what God’s eternal life is; for we know
what Christ’s life was on earth. And more, we know that it is a life
which men may live; for Christ lived it perfectly and utterly, though He
was a man.
What sort of life, then, is everlasting life?
Who can tell altogether and completely? And yet who cannot tell in part?
Use the common sense, my friends, which God has given to you, and
think;—If eternal life be the life of God, it must be a good life; for
God is good. That is the first, and the most certain thing which we can
say of it. It must be a righteous and just life; a loving and merciful
life; for God is righteous, just, loving, merciful; and more, it must be
an useful life, a life of good works; for God is eternally useful, doing
good to all his creatures, working for ever for the benefit of all which
he has made.
Yes—a life of good works. There is no good life without good works.
When you talk of a man’s life, you mean not only what he feels and
thinks, but what he does. What is in his heart goes for nothing, unless
he brings it out in his actions, as far as he can.
Therefore St. James says, ‘Thou hast faith, and I have works. Shew me
thy faith _without_ thy works,’ (and who can do that?) ‘and I will shew
thee my faith by my works.’
And St. John says, there is no use _saying_ you love. ‘Let us love not
in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth;’ and again—and would to
God that most people who talk so glibly about heaven and hell, and the
ways of getting thither, would recollect this one plain text—‘Little
children, let no man deceive you. He that _doeth_ righteousness is
righteous, even as God is righteous.’ And therefore it is that St. Paul
bids rich men ‘be rich also in noble deeds,’ generous and liberal of
their money to all who want, that they may ‘lay hold of that which is
really life,’ namely, the eternal life of goodness.
And therefore also, my friends, we may be sure that God loves in deed and
in truth: because it is written that God is love.
For if a man loves, he longs to help those whom he loves. It is the very
essence of love, that it cannot be still, cannot be idle, cannot be
satisfied with itself, cannot contain itself, but must go out to do good
to those whom it loves, to seek and to save that which is lost. And
therefore God is perfect love, and his eternal life a life of eternal
love, because he sends his Son eternally to seek and to save that which
is lost.
This, then, is eternal life; a life of everlasting love showing itself in
everlasting good works; and whosoever lives that life, he lives the life
of God, and hath eternal life.
What I have just said will help you, I think, to understand another royal
text about eternal life.
For now’ we may understand why it is written, that this is life eternal,
to know the true and only God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. For if
eternal life be God’s life, we must know God, and God’s character, to
know what eternal life is like: and if no man has seen God at any time,
and God’s life can only be seen in the life of Christ, then we must know
Christ, and Christ’s life, to know God and God’s life; that the saying
may be fulfilled in us, God hath given to us eternal life, and this life
is in his Son.
One other royal text, did I say? We may understand many, perhaps all,
the texts which speak of life, and eternal life, if we will look at them
in this way. We may see why St. Paul says that to be spiritually minded
is life; and that the life of Jesus may be manifested in men: and how the
sin of the old heathen lay in this, that they were alienated from the
life of God. We may understand how Christ’s commandment is everlasting
life; how the water which he gives, can spring up within a man’s heart to
everlasting life—all such texts we may, and shall, understand more and
more, if we will bear in mind that everlasting life is the life of God
and of Christ, a life of love; a life of perfect, active,
self-sacrificing goodness, which is the one only true life for all
rational beings, whether on earth or in heaven.
In heaven, my friends, as well as on earth. Form your own notions, as
you will, about angels, and saints in heaven, for every one must have
some notions about them, and try to picture to himself what the souls of
those whom he has loved and lost are doing in the other world: but bear
this in mind: that if the saints in heaven live the everlasting life,
they must be living a life of usefulness, of love and of good works.
And here I must say, friends, that however much the Roman Catholics may
be wrong on many points, they have remembered one thing about the life
everlasting, which we are too apt to forget; and that is, that
everlasting life cannot be a selfish, idle life, spent only in being
happy oneself. They believe that the saints in heaven are _not_ idle;
that they are eternally helping mankind; doing all sorts of good offices
for those souls who need them; that, as St. Paul says of the angels, they
are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to those who are heirs of
salvation. And I cannot see why they should not be right. For if the
saints’ delight was to do good on earth, much more will it be to do good
in heaven. If they helped poor sufferers, if they taught the ignorant,
if they comforted the afflicted, here on earth, much more will they be
able, much more will they be willing, to help, comfort, teach them, now
that they are in the full power, the full freedom, the full love and zeal
of the everlasting life. If their hearts were warmed and softened by the
fire of God’s love here, how much more there! If they lived God’s life
of love here, how much more there, before the throne of God, and the face
of Christ!
But if any one shall say, that the souls of good men in heaven cannot
help us who are here on earth, I answer, When did they ascend into
heaven, to find out that? If they had ever been there, friends, be sure
they would have had better news to bring home than this—that those whom
we have honoured and loved on earth have lost the power which they used
to have, of comforting us who are struggling here below. That notion
springs altogether out of a superstitious fancy that heaven is a great
many millions of miles away from this earth—which fancy, wherever men get
it from, they certainly do not get it from the Bible. Moreover it seems
to me, that if the saints in heaven cannot help men, then they cannot be
happy in heaven. Cannot be happy? Ay, must be miserable. For what
greater misery for really good men, than to see things going wrong, and
not to be able to mend them; to see poor creatures suffering, and not to
be able to comfort them? No, my friends, we will believe—what every one
who loves a beloved friend comes sooner or later to believe—that those
whom we have honoured and loved, though taken from our eyes, are near to
our spirits; that they still fight for us, under the banner of their
Master Christ, and still work for us, by virtue of his life of love,
which they live in him and by him for ever.
Pray to them, indeed, we need not, as if they would help us out of any
self-will of their own. There, I think, the Roman Catholics are wrong.
They pray to the saints as if the saints had wills of their own, and
fancies of their own, and were respecters of persons; and could have
favourites, and grant private favours to those who especially admired and
(I fear I must say it) flattered them. But why should we do that? That
is to lower God’s saints in our own eyes. For if we believe that they
are made perfect, and like perfectly the everlasting life, then we must
believe that there is no self-will in them: but that they do God’s will,
and not their own, and go on God’s errands, and not their own; that he,
and not their own liking, sends them whithersoever he wills; and that if
we ask of _him_—of God our Father himself, that is enough for us.
And what shall we ask?
Ask—‘Father, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.’
For in asking that, we ask for the best of all things. We ask for the
happiness, the power, the glory of saints and angels. We ask to be put
into tune with God’s whole universe, from the meanest flower beneath our
feet, to the most glorious spirit whom God ever created. We ask for the
one everlasting life which can never die, fail, change, or disappoint:
yea, for the everlasting life which Christ the only begotten Son lives
from eternity to eternity, for ever saying to his Father, ‘Thy will be
done.’
Yes—when we ask God to make us do his will, then indeed we ask for
everlasting life.
Does that seem little? Would you rather ask for all manner of pleasant
things, if not in this life, at least in the life to come?
Oh, my friends, consider this. We were not put into this world to get
pleasant things; and we shall not be put into the next world, as it seems
to me, to get pleasant things. We were put into this world to do God’s
will. And we shall be put (I believe) into the next world for the very
same purpose—to do God’s will; and if we do that, we shall find pleasure
enough in doing it. I do not doubt that in the next world all manner of
harmless pleasure will come to us likewise; because that will be, we
hope, a perfect and a just world, not a piecemeal, confused, often unjust
world, like this: but pleasant things will come to us in the next life,
only in proportion as we shall be doing God’s will in the next life; and
we shall be happy and blessed, only because we shall be living that
eternal life of which I have been preaching to you all along, the life
which Christ lives and has lived and will live for ever, saying to the
Eternal Father—I come to do thy will—not my will but thine be done.
Oh! may God give to us all his Spirit; the Spirit by which Christ did his
Father’s will, and lived his Father’s life in the soul and body of a
mortal man, that we may live here a life of obedience and of good works,
which is the only true and living life of faith; and that when we die it
may be said of us—‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; for they
rest from their labours, and their works do follow them.’
They rest from their labours. All their struggles, disappointments,
failures, backslidings, which made them unhappy here, because they could
not perfectly do the will of God, are past and over for ever. But their
works follow them. The good which they did on earth—that is not past and
over. It cannot die. It lives and grows for ever, following on in their
path long after they are dead, and bearing fruit unto everlasting life,
not only in them, but in men whom they never saw, and in generations yet
unborn.
SERMON IV.
THE SONG OF THE THREE CHILDREN.
DANIEL iii. 16, 17, 18.
O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the
burning fiery furnace; and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O
king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not
serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
WE read this morning, instead of the Te Deum, the Song of the Three
Children, beginning, ‘Oh all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord:
praise him, and magnify him for ever.’ It was proper to do so: because
the Ananias, Azarias, and Misael mentioned in it, are the same as the
Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, whose story we heard in the first
lesson; and because some of the old Jews held that this noble hymn was
composed by them, and sung by them in the burning fiery furnace,
wherefore it has been called ‘The Song of the Three Children;’ for child,
in old English, meant a young man.
Be that as it may, it is a glorious hymn, worthy of the Church of God,
worthy of those three young men, worthy of all the noble army of martyrs;
and if the three young men did not actually use the very words of it,
still it was what they believed; and, because they believed it, they had
courage to tell Nebuchadnezzar that they were not careful to answer
him—had no manner of doubt or anxiety whatsoever as to what they were to
say, when he called on them to worship his gods. For his gods, we know,
were the sun, moon, and planets, and the angels who (as the Chaldeans
believed) ruled over the heavenly bodies; and that image of gold is
supposed, by some learned men, to have been probably a sign or picture of
the wondrous power of life and growth which there is in all earthly
things—and that a sign of which I need not speak, or you hear. So that
the meaning of this Song of the Three Children is simply this:
‘You bid us worship the things about us, which we see with our bodily
eyes. We answer, that we know the one true God, who made all these
things; and that, therefore, instead of worshipping _them_, we will bid
them to worship _him_.’
Now let us spend a few minutes in looking into this hymn, and seeing what
it teaches us.
You see at once, that it says that the one God, and not many gods, made
all things: much more, that things did not make themselves, or grow up of
their own accord, by any virtue or life of their own.
But it says more. It calls upon all things which God has made, to bless
him, praise him, and magnify him for ever. This is much more than merely
saying, ‘One God made the world.’ For this is saying something about
God’s character; declaring what this one God is like.
For when you bless a person—(I do not mean when you pray God to bless
him—that is a different thing)—when you bless any one, I say, you bless
him because he is blessed, and has done blessed things: because he has
shown himself good, generous, merciful, useful. You praise a person
because he is praiseworthy, noble, and admirable. You magnify a
person—that is, speak of him to every one, and everywhere, in the highest
terms—because you think that every one ought to know how good and great
he is. And, therefore, when the hymn says, ‘Bless God, praise him, and
magnify him for ever,’ it does not merely confess God’s power. No. It
confesses, too, God’s wisdom, goodness, beauty, love, and calls on all
heaven and earth to admire him, the alone admirable, and adore him, the
alone adorable.
For this is really to believe in God. Not merely to believe that there
is a God, but to know what God is like, and to know that He is worthy to
be believed in; worthy to be trusted, honoured, loved with heart and mind
and soul, because we know that He is worthy of our love.
And this, we have a right to say, these three young men did, or whosoever
wrote this hymn; and that as a reward for their faith in God, there was
granted to them that deep insight into the meaning of the world about
them, which shines out through every verse of this hymn.
Deep? I tell you, my friends, that this hymn is so deep, that it is too
deep for the shallow brains of which the world is full now-a-days, who
fancy that they know all about heaven and earth, just because they happen
to have been born now, and not two hundred years ago. To such this old
hymn means nothing; it is in their eyes merely an old-fashioned figure of
speech to call on sun and stars, green herb and creeping thing, to praise
and bless God. Nevertheless, the old hymn stands in our prayer-books, as
a precious heir-loom to our children; and long may it stand. Though we
may forget its meaning, yet perhaps our children after us will recollect
it once more, and say with their hearts, what we now, I fear, only say
with our lips and should not say at all, if it was not put into our
months by the Prayer-book.