I say, its own reward.

For what is to be our reward, if we do our duty earnestly, however

imperfectly? ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into

the joy of thy Lord.’

And what is the joy of our Lord? What is the joy of Christ? The joy and

delight which springs for ever in his great heart, from feeling that he

is for ever doing good; from loving all, and living for all; from knowing

that if not all, yet millions on millions are grateful to him, and will

be for ever.

My friends, if you have ever done a kind action; if you have ever helped

any one in distress, or given up a pleasure for the sake of others—do you

not know that that deed gave you a peace, a self-content, a joy for the

moment at least, which nothing in this world could give, or take away?

And if the person whom you helped thanked you; if you felt that you had

made that man your friend; that he trusted you now, looked on you now as

a brother—did not that double the pleasure? I ask you, is there any

pleasure in the world like that of doing good, and being thanked for it?

Then that is the joy of your Lord. That is the joy of Christ rising up

in you, as often as you do good; the love which is in you rejoicing in

itself, because it has found a loving thing to do, and has called out the

love of a human being in return.

Yes, if you will receive it, that is the joy of Christ—the glorious

knowledge that he is doing endless good, and calling out endless love to

himself and to the Father, till the day when he shall give up to his

Father the kingdom which he has won back from sin and death, and God

shall be all in all.

That is the joy of your Lord. If you wish for any different sort of joy

after you die, you must not ask me to tell you of it; for I know nothing

about the matter save what I find written in the Holy Scripture.

SERMON VI.

WORSHIP.

ISAIAH i. 12, 13.

When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your

hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is

an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of

assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn

meeting.

THIS is a very awful text; one of those which terrify us—or at least

ought to terrify us—and set us on asking ourselves seriously and

honestly—‘What do I believe after all? What manner of man am I after

all? What sort of show should I make after all, if the people round me

knew my heart and all my secret thoughts? What sort of show, then, do I

already make, in the sight of Almighty God, who sees every man exactly as

he is?’

I say, such texts as this ought to terrify us. It is good to be

terrified now and then; to be startled, and called to account, and set

thinking, and sobered, as it were, now and then, that we may look at

ourselves honestly anti bravely, and see, if we can, what sort of men we

are.

And therefore, perhaps, it is that this chapter is chosen for the first

Advent Lesson; to prepare us for Christmas; to frighten us somewhat; at

least to set us thinking seriously, and to make us fit to keep Christmas

in spirit and in truth.

For whom does this text speak of?

It speaks of religious people, and of a religious nation; and of a

fearful mistake which they were making, and a fearful danger into which

they had fallen. Now we are religious people, and England is a religious

nation; and therefore we may possibly make the same mistake, and fall

into the same danger, as these old Jews.

I do not say that we have done so; but we may; for human nature is just

the same now as it was then; and therefore it is as well for us to look

round—at least once now and then, and see whether we too are in danger of

falling, while we think that we are standing safe.

What does Isaiah, then, tell the religious Jews of his day?

That their worship of God, their church-going, their sabbaths, and their

appointed feasts were a weariness and an abomination to him. That God

loathed them, and would not listen to the prayers which were made in

them. That the whole matter was a mockery and a lie in his sight.

These are awful words enough—that God should hate and loathe what he

himself had appointed; that what would be, one would think, one of the

most natural and most pleasant sights to a loving Father in

heaven—namely, his own children worshipping, blessing, and praising

him—should be horrible in his sight. There is something very shocking in

that; at least to Church people like us. If we were Dissenters, who go

to chapel chiefly to hear sermons, it would be easy for us to say—‘Of

course, forms and ceremonies and appointed feasts are nothing to begin

with; they are man’s invention at best, and may therefore be easily

enough an abomination to God.’ But we know that they are not so; that

forms and ceremonies and appointed feasts are good things as long as they

have spirit and truth in them; that whether or not they be of man’s

invention, they spring out of the most simple, wholesome wants of our

human nature, which is a good thing and not a bad one, for God made it in

his own likeness, and bestowed it on us. We know, or ought to know, that

appointed feast days, like Christmas, are good and comfortable

ordinances, which cheer our hearts on our way through this world, and

give us something noble and lovely to look forward to month after month;

that they are like landmarks along the road of life, reminding us of what

God has done, and is doing, for us and all mankind. And if you do not

know, I know, that people who throw away ordinances and festivals end, at

least in a generation or two, in throwing away the Gospel truth which

that ordinance or festival reminds us of; just as too many who have

thrown away Good Friday have thrown away the Good Friday good news, that

Christ died for all mankind; and too many who have thrown away Christmas

are throwing away—often without meaning to do so—the Christmas good news,

that Christ really took on himself the whole of our human nature, and

took the manhood into God.

So it is, my friends, and so it will be. For these forms and festivals

are the old landmarks and beacons of the Gospel; and if a man will not

look at the landmarks, then he will lose his way.

Therefore, to Church people like us, it ought to be a shocking thing even

to suspect that God may be saying to us, ‘Your appointed feasts my soul

hateth;’ and it ought to set them seriously thinking how such a thing may

happen, that they may guard against it. For if God be not pleased with

our coming to his house, what right have we in his house at all?

But recollect this, my dear friends, that we are not to use this text to

search and judge others’ faults, but to search and judge our own.

For if a man, hearing this sermon, looks at his neighbour across the

church, and says in his heart, ‘Ay, such a bad one as he is—what right

has he in church?’—then God answers that man, ‘Who art thou who judgest

another? To his own master he standeth or falleth.’ Yes, my friends,

recollect what the old tomb-stone outside says—(and right good doctrine

it is)—and fit it to this sermon.

When this you see, pray judge not me

For sin enough I own.

Judge yourselves; mend your lives;

Leave other folks alone.

But if a man, hearing this sermon, begins to say to himself, Such a man

as I am—so full of faults as I am—what right have I in church? So

selfish—so uncharitable—so worldly—so useless—so unfair (or whatever

other faults the man may feel guilty of)—in one word, so unlike what I

ought to be—so unlike Christ—so unlike God whom I come to worship. How

little I act up to what I believe! how little I really believe what I

have learnt! what right have I in church? What if God were saying the

same of me as he said of those old Jews, ‘Thy church-going, thy coming to

communion, thy Christmas-day, my soul hateth; I am weary to bear it. Who

hath required this at thy hands, to tread my courts?’ People round me

may think me good enough as men go now; but I know myself too well; and I

know that instead of saying with the Pharisee to any man here, ‘I thank

God that I am not as this man or that,’ I ought rather to stand afar off

like the publican, and not lift up so much as my eyes toward heaven,

crying only ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner.’

If a man should think thus, my friends, his thoughts may make him very

serious for awhile; nay, very sad. But they need not make him miserable:

need still less make him despair.

They ought to set him on thinking—Why do I come to church?

Because it is the fashion?

Because I want to hear the preacher?

No—to worship God.

But what is worshipping God?

That must depend entirely my friends, upon who God is.

As I often tell you, most questions—ay, if you will receive it, all

questions—depend upon this one root question, who is God?

But certainly this question of worshipping God must depend upon who God

is. For how he ought to be worshipped depends on what will please him.

And what will please him, depends on what his character is.

If God be, as some fancy, hard and arbitrary, then you must worship him

in a way in which a hard arbitrary person would like to be addressed;

with all crouching, and cringing, and slavish terror.

If God be again, as some fancy, cold, and hard of hearing, then you must

worship him accordingly. You must cry aloud as Baal’s priests did to

catch his notice, and put yourselves to torment (as they did, and as many

a Christian has done since) to move his pity; and you must use

repetitions as the heathen do, and believe that you will be heard for

your much speaking. The Lord Jesus called all such repetitions vain, and

much speaking a fancy: but then, the Lord Jesus spoke to men of a Father

in heaven, a very different God from such as I speak of—and, alas! some

Christian people believe in.

But, my friends, if you believe in your heavenly Father, the good God

whom your Lord Jesus Christ has revealed to you; and if you will consider

that he is good, and consider what that word good means, then you will

not have far to seek before you find what worship means, and how you can

worship him in spirit and in truth.

For if God be good, worshipping him must mean praising and admiring

him—adoring him, as we call it—for being good.

And nothing more?

Certainly much more. Also to ask him to make us good. That, too, must

be a part of worshipping a good God. For the very property of goodness

is, that it wishes to make others good. And if God be good, he must wish

to make us good also.

To adore God, then, for his goodness, and to pray to him to make us good,

is the sum and substance of all wholesome worship.

And for that purpose a man may come to church, and worship God in spirit

and in truth, though he be dissatisfied with himself, and ashamed of

himself; and knows that he is wrong in many things:—provided always that

he wishes to be set right, and made good.

For he may come saying, ‘O God, thou art good, and I am bad; and for that

very reason I come. I come to be made good. I admire thy goodness, and

I long to copy it; but I cannot unless thou help me. Purge me; make me

clean. Cleanse thou me from my secret faults, and give me truth in the

inward parts. Do what thou wilt with me. Train me as thou wilt. Punish

me if it be necessary. Only make me good.’

Then is the man fit indeed to come to church, sins and all:—if he carry

his sins into church not to carry them out again safely and carefully, as

we are all too apt to do, but to cast them down at the foot of Christ’s

cross, in the hope (and no man ever hoped that hope in vain)—that he will

be lightened of that burden, and leave some of them at least behind him.

Ay, no man, I say, ever hoped that in vain. No man ever yet felt the

burden of his sins really intolerable and unbearable, but what the burden

of his sins was taken off him before all was over, and Christ’s

righteousness given to him instead.

Then a man is fit, not only to come to church, but to come to Holy

Communion on Christmas-day, and all days. For then and there he will

find put into words for him the very deepest sorrows and longings of his

heart. There he may say as heartily as he can (and the more heartily the

better), ‘I acknowledge and bewail my manifold sins and wickedness. The

remembrance of them is grievous unto me; the burden of them is

intolerable:’ but there he will hear Christ promising in return to pardon

and deliver him from all his sins, to confirm and strengthen him in all

goodness. That last is what he ought to want; and if he wants it, he

will surely find it.

He may join there with the whole universe of God in crying, ‘Holy, holy,

holy, Lord God of Hosts, heaven and earth are full of Thy glory:’ and

still in the same breath he may confess again his unworthiness so much as

to gather up the crumbs under God’s table, and cast himself simply and

utterly upon the eternal property of God’s eternal essence, which

is—always to have mercy. But he will hear forthwith Christ’s own

answer—‘If thou art bad, I can and will make thee good. My blood shall

wash away thy sin: my body shall preserve thee, body, soul, and spirit,

to the everlasting life of goodness.’

And so God will bless that man’s communion to him; and bless to him his

keeping of Christmas-day; because out of a true penitent heart and lively

faith he will be offering to the good God the sacrifice of his own bad

self, that God may take it, and make it good; and so will be worshipping

the everlasting and infinite Goodness, in spirit and in truth.

SERMON VII.

GOD’S INHERITANCE.

GAL. iv. 6, 7.

Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into

your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a

servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

THIS is the second good news of Christmas-day.

The first is, that the Son of God became man.

The second is, why he became man. That men might become the sons of God

through him.

Therefore St. Paul says, You are the sons of God. Not—you may be, if you

are very good: but you are, in order that you may become very good. Your

being good does not tell you that you are the sons of God: your baptism

tells you so. Your baptism gives you a right to say, I am the child of

God. How shall I behave then? What ought a child of God to be like?

Now St. Paul, you see, knew well that we could not make ourselves God’s

children by any feelings, fancies, or experiences of our own. But he

knew just as well that we cannot make ourselves behave as God’s children

should, by any thoughts and trying of our own.

God alone made us His children; God alone can make us behave like his

children.

And therefore St. Paul says, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our

hearts: by which we cry to God, Our Father.

But some will say, Have we that Spirit?

St. Paul says that you have: and surely he speaks truth.

Let us search, then, and see where that Spirit is in us. It is a great

and awful honour for sinful men: but I do believe that if we seek, we

shall find that He is not far from any one of us, for in Him we live and

move, and have our being; and all in us which is not ignorance,

falsehood, folly, and filth, comes from Him.

Now the Bible says that this Spirit is the Spirit of God’s Son, the

Spirit of Christ:—and what sort of Spirit is that?

We may see by remembering what sort of a Spirit Christ had when on earth;

for He certainly has the same Spirit now—the Spirit which proceedeth

everlastingly from the Father and from the Son.

And what was that Like? What was Christ Like? What was his Spirit Like?

It was a Spirit of Love, mercy, pity, generosity, usefulness,

unselfishness. A spirit of truth, honour, fearless love of what was

right: a spirit of duty and willing obedience, which made Him rejoice in

doing His Father’s will. In all things the spirit of a perfect _Son_, in

all things a lovely, noble, holy spirit.

And now, my dear friends, is there nothing in you like that? You may

forget it at times, you may disobey it very often: but is there not

something in all your hearts more or less, which makes you love and

admire what is right?

When you hear of a noble action, is there nothing in you which makes you

approve and admire it? Is there nothing in your hearts which makes you

pity those who are in sorrow and long to help them? Nothing which stirs

your heart up when you hear of a man’s nobly doing his duty, and dying

rather than desert his post, or do a wrong or mean thing? Surely there

is—surely there is.

Then, O my dear friends, when those feelings come into your hearts,

rejoice with trembling, as men to whom God has given a great and precious

gift. For they are none other than the Spirit of the Son of God,

striving with your hearts that He may form Christ in you, and raise up

your hearts to cry with full faith to God, ‘My Father which art in

heaven!’

‘Ah but,’ you will say, ‘we like what is right, but we do not always do

it. We like to see pity and mercy: but we are very often proud and

selfish and tyrannical. We like to see justice and honour: but we are

too apt to be mean and unjust ourselves. We like to see other people

doing their duty: but we very often do not do ours.’

Well, my dear friends, perhaps that is true. If it be, confess your sins

like honest men, and they shall be forgiven you. If you can so complain

of yourselves, I am sure I can of myself, ten times more.

But do you not see that this very thing is a sign to you that the good

and noble thoughts in you are not your own but God’s? If they came out

of your own spirits, then you would have no difficulty in obeying them.

But they came out of God’s Spirit; and our sinful and self-willed spirits

are striving against his, and trying to turn away from God’s light. What

can we do then? We can cherish those noble thoughts, those pure and

higher feelings, when they arise. We can welcome them as heavenly

medicine from our heavenly Father. We can resolve not to turn away from

them, even though they make us ashamed. Not to grieve the Spirit of the

Son of God, even though he grieves us (as he ought to do and will do more

and more), by showing us our own weakness and meanness, and how unlike we

are to Christ, the only begotten Son.

If we shut our hearts to those good feelings, they will go away and leave

us. And if they do, we shall neither respect our neighbours, nor respect

ourselves. We shall see no good in our neighbours, but become scornful

and suspicious to them; and if we do that, we shall soon see no good in

ourselves. We shall become discontented with ourselves, more and more

given up to angry thoughts and mean ways, which we hate and despise, all

the while that we go on in them.

And then—mark my words—we shall lose all real feeling of God being our

Father, and we his sons. We shall begin to fancy ourselves his slaves,

and not his children; and God our taskmaster, and not our Father. We

shall dislike the thought of God. We shall long to hide from God. We

shall fall back into slavish terror, and a fearful looking forward to of

judgment and fiery indignation, because we have trampled under foot the

grace of God, the noble, pure, tender, and truly graceful feelings which

God’s Spirit bestowed on us, to fill us with the grace of Christ.

Therefore, my dear friends, never check any good or right feelings in

yourselves, or in your children; for they come from the spirit of the Son

of God himself. But, as St. Paul says, Phil. iv. 3, ‘Finally, brethren,

whatsoever things are honourable, whatsoever things are just, what soever

things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of

good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on

these things’, . . . ‘and the God of peace shall be with you.’ Avoid all

which can make you mean, low, selfish, cruel. Cling to all which can

fill your mind with lofty, kindly, generous, loyal thoughts; and so, in

God’s good time, you will enter into the meaning of those great

words—Abba, Father. The more you give up your hearts to such good

feelings, the more you will understand of God; the more nobleness there

is in you, the more you will see God’s nobleness, God’s justice, God’s

love, God’s true glory. The more you become like God’s Son, the more you

will understand how God can stoop to call himself your Father; and the

more you will understand what a Father, what a perfect Father God is.

And in the world to come, I trust, you will enter into the glorious

liberty of the sons of God—that liberty which comes, as I told you last

Sunday, not from doing your own will, but the will of God; that glory

which comes, not from having anything of your own to pride yourselves

upon, but from being filled with the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus

Christ, by which you shall for ever look up freely, and yet reverently,

to the Almighty God of heaven and earth, and say, ‘Impossible as the

honour seems for man, yet thou, O God, hast said it, and it is true.

Thou, even thou art my Father, and I thy son in Jesus Christ, who became

awhile the Son of man on earth, that I might become for ever the son of

God in heaven.’

And so will come true to us St. Paul’s great words:—If we be sons, then

heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ.

Heirs of God: but what is our inheritance? The same as Christ’s.

And what is Christ’s inheritance? What but God himself?—The knowledge of

our Father in heaven, of his love to us, and of his eternal beauty and

glory, which fills all heavens and all worlds with light and life.

SERMON VIII.

‘DE PROFUNDIS.’

PSALM cxxx. 1.

Out of the deep have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice.

WHAT is this deep of which David speaks so often? He knew it well, for

he had been in it often and long. He was just the sort of man to be in

it often. A man with great good in him, and great evil; with very strong

passions and feelings, dragging him down into the deep, and great light

and understanding to show him the dark secrets of that horrible pit when

he was in it; and with great love of God too, and of order, and justice,

and of all good and beautiful things, to make him feel the horribleness

of that pit where he ought not to be, all the more from its difference,

its contrast, with the beautiful world of light, and order, and

righteousness where he ought to be. Therefore he knew that deep well,

and abhorred it, and he heaps together every ugly name, to try and

express what no man can express, the horror of that place. It is a

horrible pit, mire and clay, where he can find no footing, but sinks all

the deeper for his struggling. It is a place of darkness and of storms,

a shoreless and bottomless sea, where he is drowning, and drowning, while

all God’s waves and billows go over him. It is a place of utter

loneliness, where he sits like a sparrow on the housetop, or a doleful

bird in the desert, while God has put his lovers and friends away from

him, and hid his acquaintance out of his sight, and no man cares for his

soul, and all men seem to him liars, and God himself seems to have

forgotten him and forgotten all the world. It is a dreadful net which

has entangled his feet, a dark prison in which he is set so fast that he

cannot get forth. It is a torturing disgusting disease, which gives his

flesh no health, and his bones no rest, and his wounds are putrid and

corrupt. It is a battle-field after the fight, where he seems to lie

stript among the dead, like those who are wounded and cut away from God’s

hand, and lies groaning in the dust of death, seeing nothing round him

but doleful shapes of destruction and misery, alone in the outer

darkness, while a horrible dread overwhelms him. Yea, it is hell itself,

the pit of hell, the nethermost hell, he says, where God’s wrath burns

like fire, till his tongue cleaves to his gums, and his bones are burnt

up like a firebrand, till he is weary of crying; his throat is dry, his

heart fails him for waiting so long upon his God.

Yes. A dark and strange place is that same deep pit of God—if, indeed,

it be God’s and God made it. Perhaps God did not make it. For God saw

everything that he had made, and behold it was very good: and that pit

cannot be very good; for all good things are orderly, and in shape; and

in that pit is no shape, no order, nothing but contradiction and

confusion. When a man is in that pit, it will seem to him as if he were

alone in the world, and longing above all things for company; and yet he

will hate to have any one to speak to him, and wrap himself up in himself

to brood over his own misery. When he is in that pit he shall be so

blind that he can see nothing, though his eyes be open in broad noon-day.

When he is in that pit he will hate the thing which he loves most, and

love the thing which he hates most. When he is in that pit he will long

to die, and yet cling to life desperately, and be horribly afraid of

dying. When he is in that pit it will seem to him that God is awfully,

horribly near him, and he will try to hide from God, try to escape from

under God’s hand: and yet all the while that God seems so dreadfully near

him, God will seem further off from him than ever, millions and millions

of miles away, parted from him by walls of iron, and a great gulf which

he can never pass. There is nothing but contradiction in that pit: the

man who is in it is of two minds about himself, and his kin and

neighbours, and all heaven and earth; and knows not where to turn, or

what to think, or even where he is at all.

For the food which he gets in that deep pit is very hunger of soul, and

rage, and vain desires. And the ground which he stands on in that deep

is a bottomless quagmire, and doubt, and change, and shapeless dread.

And the air which he breathes in that deep is the very fire of God, which

burns up everlastingly all the chalk and dross of the world.

I said that that deep was not merely the deep of affliction. No: for you

may see men with every comfort which wealth and home can give, who are

tormented day and night in that deep pit in the midst of all their

prosperity, calling for a drop of water to cool their tongue, and finding

none. And you may see poor creatures dying in agony on lonely sick beds,

who are not in that pit at all, but in that better place whereof it is

written, ‘Blessed are they who, going through the vale of misery, use it

for a well, and the pools are filled with water;’ and again, ‘If any man

thirst, let him come to me, and drink;’ and ‘the water that I shall give

him shall be in him a well of water, springing up to everlasting life.’

No—that deep pit is a far worse place; an utterly bad place; and yet it

may be good for a man to have fallen into it; and, strangely enough, if

he do fall in, the lower he sinks in it, the better for him at last.

That is another strange contradiction in that pit, which David found,

that though it was a bottomless pit, the deeper he sank in it, the more

likely he was to find his feet set on a rock; the further down in the

nethermost hell he was, the nearer he was to being delivered from the

nethermost hell.

Of course, if he had staid in that pit, he must have died, body and soul.

No mortal man, or immortal soul could endure it long. No immortal soul

could; for he would lose all hope, all faith in God, all feeling of there

being anything like justice and order in the world, all hope for himself,

or for mankind, lying so in that living grave where no man can see God’s

righteousness, or his faithfulness in that land where all things are

forgotten.

And his mere mortal body could not stand it. The misery and terror and

confusion of his soul would soon wear out his body, and he would die, as

I have seen men actually die, when their souls have been left in that

deep somewhat too long; shrink together into dark melancholy, and pine

away, and die. And I have seen sweet young creatures too, whom God for

some purpose of his own (which must be good and loving, for _He_ did it)

has let fall awhile into that deep of darkness; and then in compassion to

their youth, and tenderness, and innocence, has lifted them gently out

again, and set their weary feet upon the everlasting Rock, which is

Christ; and has filled them with the light of his countenance, and joy

and peace in believing; and has led them by green pastures and made them

rest by the waters of comfort; and yet, though their souls were healed,

their bodies were not. That fearful struggle has been too much for frail

humanity, and they have drooped, and faded, and gone peacefully after a

while home to their God, as a fair flower withers if the fire has but

once past over it.

But some I have seen, men and women, who have arisen, like David, out of

that strange deep, all the stronger for their fall; and have found out

another strange contradiction about that deep, and the fire of God which

burns below in it. For that fire hardens a man and softens him at the

same time; and he comes out of it hardened to that hardness of which it

is written, ‘Do thou endure hardness like a good soldier of Jesus

Christ;’ and again, ‘I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith, I

have finished my course:’ yet softened to that softness of which it is

written, ‘Be ye tenderhearted, compassionate, forgiving one another, even

as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you;’—and again, ‘We have a High

Priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, seeing

that he has been tempted in all things like as we are, yet without sin.’

Happy, thrice happy are they who have thus walked through the valley of

the shadow of death, and found it the path which leads to everlasting

life. Happy are they who have thus writhed awhile in the fierce fire of

God, and have had burnt out of them the chaff and dross, and all which

offends, and makes them vain, light, and yet makes them dull, drags them

down at the same time; till only the pure gold of God’s righteousness is

left, seven times tried in the fire, incorruptible, and precious in the

sight of God and man. Such people need not regret—they will not

regret—all that they have gone through. It has made them brave, made

them sober, made them patient. It has given them

The reason firm, the temperate will,

Endurance, foresight, strength and skill;

and so has shaped them into the likeness of Christ, who was made perfect

by suffering; and though he were a Son, yet in the days of his flesh,

made strong supplication and crying with tears to his Father, and was

heard in that he feared; and so, though he died on the cross and

descended into hell, yet triumphed over death and hell, by dying and by

descending; and conquered them by submitting to them. And yet they have

been softened in that fierce furnace of God’s wrath, into another

likeness of Christ—which after all is still the same; the character which

he showed when he wept by the grave of Lazarus, and over the sinful city

of Jerusalem; which he showed when his heart yearned over the perishing

multitude, and over the leper, and the palsied man, and the maniac

possessed with devils; the character which he showed when he said to the

woman taken in adultery, ‘Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more;’

which he showed when he said to the sinful Magdalene, who washed his feet

with tears, and wiped them with her hair, ‘her sins, which are many, are

forgiven; for she loved much;’ the likeness which he showed in his very

death agony upon the torturing cross, when he prayed for his murderers,

‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ This is the

character which man may get in that dark deep.—To feel for all, and feel

with all; to rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who

weep; to understand people’s trials, and make allowances for their

temptations; to put oneself in their place, till we see with their eyes,

and feel with their hearts, till we judge no man, and have hope for all;

to be fair, and patient, and tender with every one we meet; to despise no

one, despair of no one, because Christ despises none, and despairs of

none; to look upon every one we meet with love, almost with pity, as

people who either have been down into the deep of horror, or may go down

into it any day; to see our own sins in other people’s sins, and know

that we might do what they do, and feel as they feel, any moment, did God

desert us; to give and forgive, to live and let live, even as Christ

gives to us, and forgives us, and lives for us, and lets us live, in

spite of all our sins.

And how shall we learn this? How shall the bottomless pit, if we fall

into it, be but a pathway to the everlasting rock?

David tells us:

‘Out of the deep have I cried unto thee, O Lord.’

He cried to God.

Not to himself, his own learning, talents, wealth, prudence, to pull him

out of that pit. Not to princes, nobles, and great men. Not to

doctrines, books, church-goings. Not to the dearest friend he had on

earth; for they had forsaken him, could not understand him, thought him

perhaps beside himself. Not to his own good works, almsgivings,

church-goings, church-buildings. Not to his own experiences, faith’s

assurances, frames or feelings. The matter was too terrible to be

plastered over in that way, or in any way. He was face to face with God

alone, in utter weakness, in utter nakedness of soul, He cried to God

himself. There was the lesson.

God took away from him all things, that he might have no one to cry to

but God.

God took him up, and cast him down: and there he sat all alone,

astonished and confounded, like Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, when she

sat alone upon the parching rock. Like Rizpah, he watched the dead

corpses of all his hopes and plans, all for which he had lived, and which

made life worth having, withering away there by his side. But it was

told David what Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, had done. And it is told

to one greater than David, even to Jesus Christ, the Son of David, what

the poor soul does when it sits alone in its despair. Or rather it need

not be told him; for he sees all, weeps over all, will comfort all: and

it shall be to that poor soul as it was to poor deserted Hagar in the

sandy desert, when the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast her

child—the only thing she had left—under one of the shrubs and hurried

away; for she said, ‘Let me not see the child die.’ And the angel of the

Lord called to her out of heaven, saying, ‘The Lord hath heard the voice

of the lad where he is;’ and God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of

water.

It shall be with that poor soul as it was with Moses, when he went up

alone into the mount of God, and fasted forty days and forty nights amid

the earthquake and the thunderstorm, and the rocks which melted before

the Lord. And behold, when it was past, he talked face to face with God,

as a man talketh with his friend, and his countenance shone with heavenly

light, when he came down triumphant out of the mount of God.

So shall it be with every soul of man who, being in the deep, cries out

of that deep to God, whether in bloody India or in peaceful England. For

He with whom we have to do is not a tyrant, but a Father; not a

taskmaster, but a Giver and a Redeemer. We may ask him freely, as David

does, to consider our complaint, because he will consider it well, and

understand it, and do it justice. He is not extreme to mark what is done

amiss, and therefore we can abide his judgments. There is mercy with

him, and therefore it is worth while to fear him. He waits for us year

after year, with patience which cannot tire; therefore it is but fair

that we should wait a while for him. With him is plenteous redemption,

and therefore redemption enough for us, and for those likewise whom we

love. He will redeem us from all our sins: and what do we need more? He

will make us perfect, even as our Father in heaven is perfect. Let him

then, if he must, make us perfect by sufferings. By sufferings Christ

was made perfect; and what was the best path for Jesus Christ is surely

good enough for us, even though it be a rough and a thorny one. Let us

lie still beneath God’s hand; for though his hand be heavy upon us, it is

strong and safe beneath us too; and none can pluck us out of his hand,

for in him we live and move and have our being; and though we go down

into hell with David, with David we shall find God there, and find, with

David, that he will not leave our souls in hell, or suffer his holy ones

to see corruption. Yes; have faith in God. Nothing in thee which he has

made shall see corruption; for it is a thought of God’s, and no thought

of his can perish. Nothing shall be purged out of thee but thy disease;

nothing shall be burnt out of thee but thy dross; and that in thee shall

be saved, and live to all eternity, of which God said at the beginning,

Let us make man in our own image. Yes. Have faith in God; and say to

him once for all, ‘Though thou slay me, yet will I love thee; for thou

lovedst me in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world.’

SERMON IX.

THE LOVE OF GOD ITS OWN REWARD.

DEUT. xxx. 19, 20.

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have

set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose

life that both thou and thy seed may live; that thou mayest love the

Lord thy God, and that thou mayest cleave unto him, for he is thy

life and the length of thy days, that thou mayest dwell in the land

which the Lord God sware unto thy fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

to give them.

I SPOKE to you last Sunday on this text. But there is something more in

it, which I had not time to speak of then.

Moses here tells the Israelites what will happen to them if they keep

God’s law.

They will love God. That was to be their reward. They were to have

other rewards beside. Beside loving God, it would be well with them and

their children, and they would live long in the land which God had given

them. But their first reward, their great reward, would be that they

would love God.

If they obeyed God, they would have reason to love him.

Now we commonly put this differently.

We say, If you love God, you will obey him; which is quite true. But

what Moses says is truer still, and deeper still. Moses says, If you

obey God, you will love him.

Again we say, If you love God, God will reward you; which is true; though

not always true in this life. But Moses says a truer and deeper thing.

Moses says that loving God is our reward; that the greatest reward, the

greatest blessing which a man can have, is this—that the man should love

God. Now does this seem strange? It is not strange, nevertheless.

For there are two sorts of faith; and one must always, I sometimes think,

come before the other.

The first is implicit faith—blind faith—the sort of faith a child has in

what its parents tell it. A child, we know, believes its parents

blindly, even though it does not understand what they tell it. It takes

for granted that they are right.

The second is experimental faith—the faith which comes from experience

and reason, when a man looks back upon his life, and on God’s dealings

with him; and then sees from experience what reason he has for trusting

and loving God, who has helped him onward through so many chances and

changes for so many years.

Now some people cry out against blind implicit faith, as if it was

childish and unreasonable. But I cannot. I think every one learns to

love his neighbour, very much as Moses told the Jews they would learn to

love God; namely, by trusting them somewhat blindly at first.

Is it not so? Is it not so always with young people, when they begin to

be fond of each other? They trust each other, they do not know why, or

how. Before they are married, they have little or no experience of each

other; of each other’s tempers and characters: and yet they trust each

other, and say in their hearts, ‘He can never be false to me;’ and are

ready to put their honour and fortunes into each other’s hands, to live

together for better for worse, till death them part. It is a blind faith

in each other, that, and those who will may laugh at it, and call it the

folly and rashness of youth. I do not believe that God laughs at it:

that God calls it folly and rashness. It surely comes from God.

For there is something in each of them worth trusting, worth loving.

True, they may be disappointed in each other; but they need not be. If

they are true to themselves; if they will listen to the better voice

within, and be true to their own better feelings, all will be well, and

they will find after marriage that they did not do a rash and a foolish

thing, when they gave up themselves to each other, and cast in their lot

together blindly to live and die.

And then, after that first blind faith and love in each other which they

had before marriage, will come, as the years roll by, a deeper, sounder

faith and love from experience.—An experience of which I shall not talk

here; for those who have not felt it for themselves would not know what I

mean; and those who have felt it need no clumsy words of mine to describe

it to them.

Now, my dear friends, this is one of the things by which marriage is

consecrated to an excellent mystery, as the Prayer-book says. This is

one of the things in which marriage is a pattern and picture of the

spiritual union which is between Christ and his Church.

First, as I said, comes blind faith. A young person, setting out in

life, has little experience of God’s love; he has little to make him sure

that the way of life, and honour, and peace, is to obey God’s laws. But

he is told so. His Bible tells him so. Wiser and older people than he

tell him so, and God himself tells him so. God himself makes up in the

young person’s heart a desire after goodness.

Then he takes it for granted blindly. He says to himself, I can but try.

They tell me to taste and see whether the Lord is gracious. I will

taste. They tell me that the way of his commandments is the way to make

life worth loving, and to see good days. I will try. And so the years

go by. The young person has grown middle-aged, old. He or she has been

through many trials, many disappointments; perhaps more than one bitter

loss. But if they have held fast by God; if they have tried, however

clumsily, to keep God’s law, and walk in God’s way, then there will have

grown up in them a trust in God, and a love for God, deeper and broader

far than any which they had in youth; a love grounded on experience.

They can point back to so many blessings which the Lord gave them

unexpectedly; to so many sorrows which the Lord gave them strength to

bear, though they seemed at first sight past bearing; to so many

disappointments which seemed ill luck at the time, and yet which turned

out good for them in the end. And so comes a deep, reasonable love to

their Heavenly Father. Now they have _tasted_ that the Lord is gracious.

Now they can say, with the Samaritans, ‘Now we believe, not because of

thy saying, but because we have heard him ourselves, and know that this

is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.’ And when sadness and

affliction come on them, as it must come, they can look back, and so get

strength to look forward. They can say with David, ‘I will go on in the

strength of the Lord God. I will make mention only of his righteousness.

Oh my God, thou hast taught me from my youth up until now; hitherto have

I declared thy wondrous works. Now also, when I am old and grey-headed,

oh Lord, forsake me not, till I have showed thy strength unto this

generation, and thy power to those whom I leave behind me.’

And so, by remembering what God _has_ been to them, they can face what is

coming. ‘They will not be afraid of evil tidings,’ as David says; ‘for

their heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.’

And when old age comes, and brings weakness and sickness, and low

spirits, still they have comfort. They can say with David again, ‘I have

been young, and now am old, but never saw I the righteous forsaken, nor

his seed begging their bread.’

Oh my dear friends, young people especially—there are many things which

you may long for which you cannot have: much happiness which is _not_

within your reach. But _this_ you can have, if you will but long for it:

this happiness _is_ within your reach, if you will but put out your hand

and take it.—The everlasting unfailing comfort of loving God, and of

knowing that God loves you. Oh choose that now at once. Choose God’s

ways which are pleasantness, and God’s paths which are peace; and then in

your old age, whether you become rich or poor, whether you are left

alone, or go down to your grave in peace with children and grandchildren

to close your eyes, you will still have the one great reward, the true

reward, the everlasting reward which Moses promised the old Israelites.

You will have reason to love God, who has carried you safe through life,

and will carry you safe through death, and to say with all his saints and

martyrs, ‘Many things I know not; and many things I have lost: but this I

know.—I know in whom I have believed; and this I cannot lose; even God

himself, whose name is faithful and true.’

SERMON X.

THE RACE OF LIFE.

JOHN i. 26.

There standeth one among you whom ye know not.

THIS is a solemn text. It warns us, and yet it comforts us. It tells us

that there is a person standing among us so great, that John the Baptist,

the greatest of the prophets, was not worthy to unloose his shoes’

latchet.

Some of you know who he is. Some of you, perhaps, do not. If you know

him, you will be glad to be reminded of him to-day. If you do not know

him, I will tell you who he is.

Only bear this in mind, that whether you know him or not, he is standing

among us. We have not driven him away, and cannot drive him away. Our

not seeing him will not prevent his seeing us. He is always near us;

ready, if we ask him, as the Collect bids us, to ‘come among us, and with

great might succour us.’

For, my friends, this is the meaning of the text, as far as it has to do

with us. The noble Collect for to-day tells this, and explains to us

what we are to think of the Epistle and the Gospel.

The Epistle tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ is at hand, and that

therefore we are to fret about nothing, but make our requests known to

him. The Gospel tells us that he stands among us. The Collect tells us

what we are to do, because he is at hand, because he stands among us.

And what are we to do?

Recollect my friends, what John the Baptist said, according to St.

Matthew, after the words in the text—‘He shall baptize you with the Holy

Ghost, and with fire.’

The Collect asks him to do that—the first half of it at least. To

baptize us with the Holy Ghost, lest he should need to baptize us with

fire.

For the Collect says, we have all a race to run. We have all a journey

to make through life. We have all so to get through this world, that we

shall inherit the world to come; so to pass through the things of time

(as one of the Collects says) that we finally lose not the things

eternal. God has given each of us our powers and character, marked out

for each of us our path in life, set each of us our duty to do.

But how shall we make the proper use of our powers?

How shall we keep to our path in life?

How shall we do our duty faithfully?

In short, so as St. Paul puts it—How shall we run our race, so as not to

lose, but to win it?

For the Collect says—and we ought to have found it out for ourselves

before now—Our sins and wickedness hinder us sorely in running the race

which is set before us.

Our sins and wickedness. The Collect speaks of these as two different

things; and I believe rightly, for the New Testament speaks of them as

two different things. Sin, in the New Testament, means strictly what we

call “failings,” “defects” a missing the mark, a falling short; as it is

written—All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God, that is, of

the likeness of a perfect man. {75}

Thus, stupidity, laziness, cowardice, bad temper, greediness after

pleasure—these are strictly speaking what the New Testament calls sins.

Wickedness—iniquity—seem to be harder words, and to mean worse offences.

They mean the evil things which a man does, not out of the weakness of

his mortal nature, but out of his own wicked will, and what the Bible

calls the naughtiness of his heart. So wickedness means, not merely open

crimes which are punishable by the law, but all which comes out of a

man’s own wilfulness and perverseness—injustice (which is the first

meaning of iniquity), cunning, falsehood, covetousness, pride,

self-conceit, tyranny, cruelty—these seem to be what the Scripture calls

wickedness. Of course one cannot draw the line exactly, in any matters

so puzzling as questions about our own souls must always be: but on the

whole. I think you will find this rule not far wrong—

That all which comes from the weakness of a man’s soul, is sin: all which

comes from abusing its strength, is wickedness. All which drags a man

down, and makes him more like a brute animal, is sin: all which puffs him

up, and makes him more like a devil, is wickedness. It is as well to

bear this in mind, because a man may have a great horror of sin, and be

hard enough, and too hard upon poor sinners; and yet all the time he may

be thoroughly, and to his heart’s core, a wicked man. The Pharisees of

old were so. So they are now. Take you care that you be not like to

them. Keep clear of sin: but keep clear of wickedness likewise.

For, says the Collect, both will hinder you in your race: perhaps cause

you to break down in it, and never reach the goal at all.

Sin will hinder you, by dragging you back.

Wickedness will hinder you, by putting you altogether out of the right

road.

If a man be laden with sins; stupid, lazy, careless, over fond of

pleasure;—much more, if he be given up to enjoying himself in bad ways,

about which we all know too well—then he is like a man who starts in a

race, weak, crippled, over-weighted, or not caring whether he wins or

loses; and who therefore lags behind, or grows tired, or looks round, and

wants to stop and amuse himself, instead of pushing on stoutly and

bravely. And therefore St. Paul bids us lay aside every weight (that is

every bad habit which makes us lazy and careless), and the sin which does

so easily beset us, and run with patience our appointed race, looking to

Jesus, the author of our faith—who stands by to give us faith,

confidence, courage to go on—Jesus, who has compassion on those who are

ignorant, and out of the way by no wilfulness of their own; who can be

touched with the feeling of our infirmities; who can help us, can deliver

us, and who will do what he can, and do all he can.

He can and will strengthen us, freshen us, encourage us, inspirit us, by

giving us his Holy Spirit, that we may have spirit and power to run our

race, day by day, and tide by tide. And so, if he sees us weak and

fainting over our work, he will baptize us with the Holy Ghost.

And yet there are times when he will baptize a sinner not only with the

Holy Ghost, but with fire—I am still speaking, mind, of a sinner, not of

a wicked man.

And when? When he sees the man sitting down by the roadside to play,

with no intention of moving on. I do not say—if he sees the man sitting

down to play at all. God forbid! How can a man run his life-long

race—how can he even keep up for a week, a day, at doing his best at the

full stretch of his power, without stopping to take breath? I cannot,

God knows. If any man can—be it so. Some are stronger than others: but

be sure of this; that God counts it no sin in a man to stop and take

breath. ‘Press forward toward the mark of your high calling,’ St. Paul

says: but he does not forbid a man to refresh and amuse himself

harmlessly and rationally, from time to time, with all the pleasant

things which God has put into this world. They do refresh us, and they

do amuse us, these pleasant things. And God made them, and put them

here. Surely he put them here to refresh and amuse us. He did not

surely put them here to trap us, and snare us, and tempt us not to run

the very race which he himself has set before us? No, no, my friends.

He made pleasant things to please us, amusing things to amuse us. Every

good gift comes from him.

But if a man thinks of nothing but amusing himself, he is like a horse

who stands still in the middle of a journey, and begins feeding. Let him

do his day’s journey, and feed afterwards; and so get strength for his

next day’s work. But if he will stand still, and feed; if he will forget

that he has any work at all to do; then we shall punish him, to make him

go on. And so will God do with us. He will strike us then; and sharply

too. Much more, if a man gives himself up to sinful pleasure; if he

gives himself up to a loose and profligate life, and, like many a young

man, wastes his substance in riotous living, and devours his heavenly

Father’s gifts with harlots—then God will strike that man; and all the

more sharply the more worth and power there is in the man. The more God

has given the man, the sharper will be God’s stroke, if he deserves it.

And why?

Ask yourselves. Suppose that your horse had plunged into a deep ditch,

and was lying there in mire and thorns; would you not strike him, and

sharply too, to make him put out his whole strength, and rise, and by one

great struggle clear himself?

Of course you would: and the more spirited, the more powerful the animal

was, the sharper you would be with him, because the more sure you would

be that he could answer to your call if he chose.

Even so does God with us. If he sees us lying down; forgetting utterly

that we have any work or duty to do; and wallowing in the mire of fleshly

lusts, and thorns of worldly cares, then he will strike; and all the more

sharply, the more real worth or power there is in us; that he may rouse

us, and force us to exert ourselves and by one great struggle, like the

mired horse, clear ourselves out of the sin which besets us, and holds us

down, and leap, as it were, once and for all, out of the death of sin,

into the life of righteousness.

But much more if there be not merely sin in us, but wickedness;

self-will, self-conceit, and rebellion.

For see, my friends. If we were training a young animal, how should we

treat it? If it were merely weak, we should strengthen and exercise it.

If it were merely ignorant, we should teach it. If it were lazy, we

should begin to punish it; but gently, that it might still have

confidence, faith in us, and pleasure in its work.

But if we found wickedness in it—vice, as we rightly call it—if it became

restive, that is, rebellious and self-willed, then we should punish it

indeed. Seldom, perhaps, but very sharply; that it might see clearly

that we were the stronger, and that rebellion was of no use at all.

And so does the Lord with us, my friends. If we will not go his way by

kindness, he will make us go by severity.

First, when we are christened, and after that day by day, if we ask

him—and often when we ask him not—he gives us the gentle baptism of his

Holy Spirit, freshening, strengthening, encouraging, inspiriting. But if

we will not go on well for that; if we will rebel, and try our own way,

and rush out of God’s road after this and that, in pride and self-will,

as if we were our own masters; then, my friends—then will God baptize us

with fire, and strike with a blow which goes nigh to cut a man in two.

Very seldom he strikes; for he is pitiful, and of tender mercy: but with

a rod as of fire, of which it is written, that it is sharper than a

two-edged sword, and pierces through the joints and marrow. Very seldom:

but very sharply, that there may be no mistake about what the blow means,

and that the man may know, however cunning, or proud, or self-righteous

he may be, that God is the Lord, God is his Master, and will be obeyed;

and woe to him, if he obey him not. And what can a man do then, but

writhe in the bitterness of his soul, and get back into God’s highway as

fast as he can, in fear and trembling lest the next blow cut him in

asunder? And so, by the bitterness of disappointment, or bereavement, or

sickness, or poverty, or worst of all, of shame, will the Lord baptize

the man with fire.

But all in love, my friends; and all for the man’s good. Does God _like_

to punish his creatures? _like_ to torment them? Some think that he

does, and say that he finds what they call ‘satisfaction’ in punishing.

I think that they mistake the devil for God. No, my friends; what does

he say himself? ‘Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked; and not

rather that he should turn from his ways, and live?’ Surely he has not.

If he had, do you think that he would have sent us into this world at

all? I do not. And I trust and hope that you will not. Believe that

even when he cuts us to the heart’s core, and baptizes us with fire, he

does it only out of his eternal love, that he may help and deliver us all

the more speedily.

For God’s sake—for Christ’s sake—for your own sake—keep that in mind,

that Christ’s will, and therefore God’s will, is to help and deliver us;

that he stands by us, and comes among us, for that very purpose.

Consider St. Paul’s parable, in which he talks of us as men running a

race, and of Christ as the judge who looks on to see how we run. But for

what purpose does Christ look on? To catch us out, as we say? To mark

down every fault of ours, and punish wherever he has an opportunity or a

reason? Does he stand there spying, frowning, fault-finding, accusing

every man in his turn, extreme to watch what is done amiss? If an

earthly judge did that, we should call him—what he would be—an

ill-conditioned man. But dare we fancy anything ill-conditioned in God?

God forbid! His conditions are altogether good, and his will a good will

to men; and therefore, say the Epistle and the Collect, we ought not to

be terrified, but to rejoice, at the thought that the Lord is looking on.

However badly we are running our race, yet if we are trying to move

forward at all, we ought to rejoice that God in Christ is looking on.

And why?

Why? Because he is looking on, not to torment, but to help. Because he

loves us better than we love ourselves. Because he is more anxious for

us to get safely through this world than we are ourselves.

Will you understand that, and believe that, once for all, my

friends?—That God is not _against_ you, but _for_ you, in the struggles

of life; that he _wants_ you to get through safe; _wants_ you to succeed;

_wants_ you to win; and that therefore he will help you, and hear your

cry.

And therefore when you find yourselves wrong, utterly wrong, do not cry

to this man or that man, ‘Do _you_ help me; do you set me a little more

right, before God comes and finds me in the wrong, and punishes me.’ Cry

to God himself, to Christ himself; ask _him_ to lift you up, ask him to

set you right. Do not be like St. Peter before his conversion, and cry,

‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord; wait a little, till I

have risen up, and washed off my stains, and made myself somewhat fit to

be seen.’—No. Cry, ‘Come quickly, O Lord—at once, just because I am a

sinful man; just because I am sore let and hindered in running my race by

my own sins and wickedness; because I am lazy and stupid; because I am

perverse and vicious, _therefore_ raise up thy power, and come to me, thy

miserable creature, thy lost child, and with thy great might succour me.

Lift me up for I have fallen very low; deliver me, for I have plunged out

of thy sound and safe highway into deep mire, where no ground is. Help

myself I cannot, and if thou help me not, I am undone.’

Do so. Pray so. Let your sins and wickedness be to you not a reason for

hiding from Christ who stands by; but a reason, the reason of all

reasons, for crying to Christ who stands by.

And then, whether he deliver you by kind means or by sharp ones, deliver

you he will; and set your feet on firm ground, and order your goings,

that you may run with patience the race which is set before you along the

road of life, and the pathway of God’s commandments, wherein there is no

death.

This, my friends, is one of the meanings of Advent. This is the meaning

of the Collect, the Epistle, and the Gospel.—That God in Christ stands by

us, ready to help and deliver us; and that if we cry to him even out of

the lowest depth, he will hear our voice. And that then, when he has

once put us into the right road again, and sees us going bravely along it

to the best of the power which he has given us, he will fulfil to us his

eternal promise, ‘Thy sins—and not only thy sins, but thine iniquities—I

will remember no more.’

SERMON XI.

SELF-RESPECT AND SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS.

PSALM vii. 8.

Give sentence for me, O Lord, according to my righteousness; and

according to the innocency that is in me.

IS this speech self-righteous? If so, it is a bad speech; for

self-righteousness is a bad temper of mind; there are few worse. If we

say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in

us. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our

sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have

not sinned, we make him a liar.

This is plain enough; and true as God is true. But there is another

temper of mind which is right in its way; and which is not

self-righteousness, though it may look like it at first sight. I mean

the temper of Job, when his friends were trying to prove to him that he

must be a bad man, and to make him accuse himself of all sorts of sins

which he had not committed; and he answered that he would utter no

deceit, and tell no lies about himself. ‘Till I die I will not remove

mine integrity from me; my righteousness I will hold fast, and will not

let it go; my heart shall not reproach me as long as I live.’ I have, on

the whole, tried to be a good man, and I will not make myself out a bad

one.

For, my friends, with the Bible as with everything else, we must hear

both sides of the question, lest we understand neither side.

We may misuse St. John’s doctrine, that if we say we have no sin, we

deceive ourselves. We may deceive ourselves in the very opposite way.

In the first place, some people, having learnt that it is right to

confess their sins, try to have as many sins as possible to confess. I

do not mean that they commit the sins, but that they try to fancy they

have committed them. This is very common now, and has been for many

hundred years, especially among young women and lads who are of a weakly

melancholy temper, or who have suffered some great disappointment. They

are fond of accusing themselves; of making little faults into great ones;

of racking their memories to find themselves out in the wrong; of taking

the darkest possible view of themselves, and of what is going to happen

to them. They forget that Solomon, the wise, when he says, ‘Be not

over-much wicked; neither be thou foolish—why shouldst thou die before

thy time?’—says also, ‘Be not righteous over-much; neither make thyself

over-wise. Why shouldst thou destroy thyself?’

For such people do destroy themselves. I have seen them kill their own

bodies, and die early, by this folly. And I have seen them kill their

own souls, too, and enter into strong delusions, till they believe a lie,

and many lies, from which one had hoped that the Bible would have

delivered any and every man.

One cannot be angry with such people. One can only pity them, and pity

them all the more, when one finds them generally the most innocent, the

very persons who have least to confess. One can but pity them, when one

sees them applying to themselves God’s warnings against sins of which

they never even heard the names, and fancying that God speaks to them, as

St. Paul says that he did to the old heathen Romans, when they were

steeped up to the lips in every crime.

No—one can do more than pity them. One can pray for them that they may

learn to know God, and who he is: and by knowing him, may be delivered

out of the hands of cunning and cruel teachers, who make a market of

their melancholy, and hide from them the truth about God, lest the truth

should make them free, while their teachers wish to keep them slaves.

This is one misuse of St. John’s doctrine. There is another and a far

worse misuse of it.

A man may be proud of confessing his sins; may become self-righteous and

conceited, according to the number of the sins which he confesses.

So deceitful is this same human heart of ours, that so it is I have seen

people quite proud of calling themselves miserable sinners. I say, proud

of it. For if they had really felt themselves miserable sinners, they

would have said less about their own feelings. If a man really feels

what sin is—if he feels what a miserable, pitiful, mean thing it is to be

doing wrong when one knows better, to be the slave of one’s own tempers,

passions, appetites—oh, if man or woman ever knew the exceeding

sinfulness of sin, he would hide his own shame in the depths of his

heart, and tell it to God alone, or at most to none on earth save the

holiest, the wisest, the trustiest, the nearest and the dearest.

But when one hears a man always talking about his own sinfulness, one

suspects—and from experience one has only too much reason to suspect—that

he is simply saying in a civil way, ‘I am a better man than you; for I

talk about my sinfulness, and you do not.’

For if you answer such a man, as old Job or David would have done, ‘I

will not confess what I have not felt. I have tried and am trying to be

an upright, respectable, sober, right-living man. Let God judge me

according to the innocency that is in me. I know that I am not perfect:

no man is that: but I will not cant; I will not be a hypocrite; and if I

accuse myself of sins which I have not committed, it seems to me that I

shall be mocking God, and deceiving myself. I will trust to God to judge

me fairly, to balance between the good and the evil which is in me, and

deal with me accordingly.’

If you speak in that way, the other man will answer you plainly enough,

‘Ah! you are utterly benighted. You are building on legality and

morality. You have not yet learnt the first principles of the Gospel.’

And with these, and other words, will give you to understand this—That he

thinks he is going to heaven, and you are going to hell.

Now, my dear friends, you are partly right, and he is partly right. St.

Paul will show you where you are right and where he is right. He does

so, I think, in a certain noble text of his in which he says, ‘I judge

not mine own self; for I know nothing against myself, yet am I not hereby

justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord.’

Now remember that no man was less self-righteous than St. Paul. No man

ever saw more clearly the sinfulness of sin. No man ever put into words

so strongly the struggle between good and evil which goes on in the human

heart. In one place, even, when speaking of his former life, he calls

himself the chief of sinners. Yet St. Paul, when he had done his duty,

knew that he had done it, and was not afraid to say—as no honest and

upright man need be afraid to say—‘I know nothing against myself.’ For

if you have done right, my friend, it is God who has helped you to do it;

and it is difficult to see how you can honour God, by pretending instead

that he has left you to do wrong.

This, then, seems to be the rule. If you have done wrong, be not afraid

to confess it. If you have done right, be not afraid to confess that

either. And meanwhile keep up your self-respect. Try to do your duty.

Try to keep your honour bright. Let no man be able to say that he is the

worse for you. Still more let no woman be able to say that she is the

worse for you; for if you treat another man’s daughter as you would not

let him treat yours, where is your honour then, or your clear conscience?

What cares man, what cares God, for your professions of uprightness and

respectability, if you take good care to behave well to men, who can

defend themselves, and take no care to behave well to a poor girl, who

cannot defend herself? Recollect that when Job stood up for his own

integrity, and would not give up his belief that he was a righteous man,

he took care to justify himself in this matter, as well as on others. ‘I

made a covenant with mine eyes,’ he says; ‘why then should I think upon a

maid? If mine heart have been deceived by a woman; or if I have laid

wait at my neighbour’s door;’ ‘Then,’ he says in words too strong for me

to repeat, ‘let others do to my wife as I have done to theirs.’

Avoid this sin, and all sins. Let no man be able to say that you have

defrauded him, that you have tyrannized over him; that you have neglected

to do your duty by him. Let no man be able to say that you have rewarded

him evil for evil. If possible, let him not be able to say that you have

even lost your temper with him. Be generous; be forgiving. If you have

an opportunity, be like David, and help him who without a cause is your

enemy; and then you will have a right to say, like David, ‘Give sentence

with me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, and according to the

cleanness of my hands in thy sight.’

True—that will not justify you. In God’s sight shall no man living be

justified, if justification is to come by having no faults. What man is

there who lives, and sins not? Who is there among us, but knows that he

is not the man he might be? Who does not know, that even if he seldom

does what he ought not, he too often leaves undone what he ought? And

more than that—none of us but does many a really wrong thing of which he

never knows, at least in this life. None of us but are blind, more or

less, to our own faults; and often blind—God forgive us!—to our very

worst faults.

Then let us remember, that he who judges us _is the Lord_.

Now is that a thought to be afraid of?

David did not think so, when he had done right. For he says, in this

Psalm, ‘Judge me, O Lord!’

And when he has done wrong, he thinks so still less; for then he asks God

all the more earnestly, not only to judge him, but to correct him

likewise. ‘Purge me,’ he says, ‘and I shall be clean. Cleanse thou me

from my secret faults, and make me to understand wisdom secretly. For

thou requirest truth in the inward parts.’

That is bravely spoken, and worthy of an honest man, who wishes above all

things to be right, whatsoever it may cost him.

But how did David get courage to ask that?

By knowing God, and who God was.

For this, my friends, is the key to the whole matter—as it is to all

matters—Who is God?

If you believe God to be a hard task-master, and a cruel being, extreme

to mark what is done amiss, an accuser like the devil, instead of a

forgiver and a Saviour, as he really is;—then you will begin judging

yourself wrongly and clumsily, instead of asking God to judge you wisely

and well.

You will break both of the golden rules which St. Anthony, the famous

hermit, used to give to his scholars.—‘Regret not that which is past; and

trust not in thine own righteousness.’ For you will lose time, and lose

heart, in fretting over old sins and follies, instead of confessing them

once and for all to God, and going boldly to his throne of grace to find

mercy and grace to help you in the time of need; that you may try again

and do better for the future. And so it will be true of you—I am sure I

have seen it come true of many a poor soul—what David found, before he

found out the goodness of God’s free pardon:—‘While I held my tongue, my

bones waxed old through my daily complaining. For thy hand was heavy

upon me night and day; my moisture was like the drought in summer.’

And all that while (such contradictory creatures are we all), you may be

breaking St. Anthony’s other golden rule, and trusting in your own

righteousness.

You will begin trying to cleanse yourself from little outside faults, and

fancying that that is all you have to do, instead of asking God to

cleanse you from your secret faults, from the deep inward faults which he

alone can see; forgetting that they are the root, and the outside faults

only the fruit. And so you will be like a foolish sick man, who is

afraid of the doctor, and therefore tries to physic himself. But what

does he do? Only tamper and peddle with the outside symptoms of his

complaint, instead of going to the physician, that he may find out and

cure the complaint itself. Many a man has killed his own body in that

way; and many a man more, I fear, has killed his own soul, because he was

afraid of going to the Great Physician.

But if you will believe that God is good, and not evil; if you will

believe that the heavenly Father is indeed _your_ Father; if you will

believe that the Lord Jesus Christ really loves you, really died to save

you, really wishes to deliver you from your sins, and make you what you

ought to be, and what you can be: then you will have heart to do your

duty; because you will be sure that God helps you to do your duty. You

will have heart to fight bravely against your bad habits, instead of

fretting cowardly over them; because you know that God is fighting

against them for you. You will not, on the other hand, trust in your own

righteousness; because you will soon learn that you have no righteousness

of your own: but that all the good in you comes from God, who works in

you to will and to do of his good pleasure.

And when you examine yourself, and think over your own life and

character, as every man ought to do, especially in Advent and Lent, you

will have heart to say, ‘O God, thou knowest how far I am right, and how

far wrong. I leave myself in thy hand, certain that thou wilt deal

fairly, justly, lovingly with me, as a Father with his son. I do not

pretend to be better than I am: neither will I pretend to be worse than I

am. Truly, I know nothing about it. I, ignorant human being that I am,

can never fully know how far I am right, and how far wrong. I find light

and darkness fighting together in my heart, and I cannot divide between

them. But thou canst. Thou knowest. Thou hast made me; thou lovest me;

thou hast sent thy Son into the world to make me what I ought to be; and

therefore I believe that he will make me what I ought to be. Thou

willest not that I should perish, but come to the knowledge of the truth:

and therefore I believe that I shall not perish, but come to the

knowledge of the truth about thee, about my own character, my own duty,

about everything which it is needful for me to know. And therefore I

will go boldly on, doing my duty as well as I can, though not perfectly,

day by day; and asking thee day by day to feed my soul with its daily

bread. Thou feedest my soul with _its_ daily bread. How much more then

wilt thou feed my mind and my heart, more precious by far than my body?

Yes, I will trust thee for soul and for body alike; and if I need

correcting for my sins, I am sure at least of this, that the worst thing

that can happen to me or any man, is to do wrong and _not_ to be

corrected; and the best thing is to be set right, even by hard blows, as

often as I stray out of the way. And therefore I will take my punishment

quietly and manfully, and try to thank thee for it, as I ought; for I

know that thou wilt not punish me beyond what I deserve, but far below

what I deserve; and that thou wilt punish me only to bring me to myself,

and to correct me, and purge me, and strengthen me. For this I

believe—on the warrant of thine own word I believe it—undeserved as the

honour is, that thou art my Father, and lovest me; and dost not afflict

any man willingly, or grieve the children of men out of passion or out of

spite; and that thou willest not that I should be damned, nor any man;

but willest have all men saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth.

SERMON XII.

TRUE REPENTANCE.

EZEKIEL xviii. 27.

When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness which he hath

committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save

his soul alive.

WE hear a great deal about repentance, and how necessary it is for a man

to repent of his sins; for unless a man repent, he cannot be forgiven.

But do we all of us really know what repentance means?

I sometimes fear not. I sometimes fear, that though this text stands at

the opening of the Church service, and though people hear it as often as

any text in the whole Bible, yet they have not really learnt the lesson

which God sends them by it.

What, then, does repentance mean?

‘Being sorry for what we have done wrong,’ say some.

But is that all? I suppose there are few wicked things done upon earth,

for which the doers of them are not sorry, sooner or later. A man does a

wrong thing, and his conscience pricks him, and makes him uneasy, and he

says in his heart, ‘I wish after all I had left that alone.’ But the

next time he is tempted to do the same thing, he does it, and is ashamed

of himself afterwards again: but that is not repentance. I suppose that

there have been few murders committed in the world, after which sooner or

later the murderer did not say in his heart—‘Ah, that that man were alive

and well again!’ But that is not repentance.

For aught I can tell, the very devil is sorry for his sin;—discontented,

angry with himself, ashamed of himself for being a devil. He may be so

to all eternity, and yet never repent. For the dark uneasy feeling which

comes over every man sooner or later, after doing wrong, is not

repentance; it is remorse; the most horrible and miserable of all

feelings, when it comes upon a man in its full strength; the feeling of

hating oneself, being at war with oneself, and with all the world, and

with God who made it.

But that will save no man’s soul alive. Repentance will save any and

every soul alive, then and there: but remorse will not. Remorse may only

kill him. Kill his body, by making him, as many a poor creature has

done, put an end to himself in sheer despair: and kill his soul at least,

by making him say in his heart, ‘Well, if bad I am, bad I must be. I

hate myself, and God hates me also. All I can do is, to forget my

unhappiness if I can, in business, in pleasure, in drink, and drive

remorse out of my head;’ and often a man succeeds in so doing. The first

time he does a wrong thing, he feels sorry and ashamed after it. Then he

takes courage after awhile, and does it again; and feels less sorrow and

shame; and so again and again, till the sin becomes easier and easier to

him, and his conscience grows more and more dull; till at last perhaps,

the feeling of its being wrong quite dies within—and that is the death of

his soul.

But of true repentance, it is written, that he who repents shall save his

soul _alive_. And how?

The word for repentance in Scripture means simply a change of mind. To

change one’s mind is, in Scripture words, to repent.

Now if a man changes his mind, he changes his conduct also. If you set

out to go to a place and change your mind, then you do not go there. If

as you go on, you begin to have doubts about its being right to go, or to

be sorry that you are going, and still walk on in the same road, however

slowly or unwillingly, that is not changing your mind about going. If

you do change your mind, you will change your steps. You will turn back,

or turn off, and go some other road.

This may seem too simple to talk of. But if it be, why do not people act

upon it? If a man finds that in his way through life he is on the wrong

road, the road which leads to shame, and sorrow, and death and hell, why

will he confess that he is on the wrong road, and say that he is very

sorry (as perhaps he really may be) that he is going wrong, and yet go

on, and persevere on the wrong path? At least, as long as he keeps on

the road which leads to ruin, he has not changed his mind, or repented at

all. He may find the road unpleasant, full of thorns, and briars, and

pit-falls; for believe me, however broad the road is which leads to

destruction, it is only the _gate_ of it which is easy and comfortable;

it soon gets darker and rougher, that road of sin; and the further you

walk along it, the uglier and more wretched a road it is: but all the

misery which it gives to a man is only useless remorse, unless he fairly

repents, and turns out of that road into the path which leads to life.

Now the one great business of foolish man in all times has been to save

his soul (as he calls it) without doing right; to go to heaven (as he

calls it) without walking the road which leads to heaven. It is a folly

and a dream. For no man can get to heaven, unless he be heavenly; and

being heavenly is simply being good, and neither more or less. And sin

is death, and no man can save his soul alive, while it is dead in sin.

Still men have been trying to do it in all ages and countries; and as

soon as one plan has failed, they have tried some new one; and have

invented some false repentance which was to serve instead of the true

one. The old Jews seem to have thought that the repentance which God

required was burnt-offerings and sacrifices: that if they could only

offer bullocks and goats enough on God’s altar, he would forgive them

their sins. But David, and Isaiah after him, and Ezekiel after him,

found out that _that_ was but a dream; that that sort of repentance would

save no man’s soul; that God did not require burnt-offerings and

sacrifice for sin: but simply that a man should do right and not wrong.

‘When ye come before me,’ saith the Lord, ‘who has required this at your

hand, to tread my courts?’ They were to bring no more vain offerings:

but to put away the evil of their doings; to cease to do evil, to learn

to do well; to seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless,

plead for the widow; and then, and then only, though their sins were as

scarlet, they should be white as snow. For God would take them for what

they were—as good, if they were good; as bad, if they were bad. And this

agrees exactly with the text. ‘When the wicked man turneth away from his

wickedness which he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and

right, he shall save his soul alive.’

The Papists again, thought that the repentance which God required, was

for a man to punish himself bitterly for his sins; to starve and torture

himself, to give up all that makes life pleasant, and so to atone. And

good and pious men and women, with a real hatred and horror of sin, tried

this: but they found that making themselves miserable took away their

sins no more than burnt-offerings and sacrifices would do it. Their

consciences were not relieved; they gained no feeling of comfort, no

assurance of God’s love. Then they said, ‘I have not punished myself

enough. I have not made myself miserable enough. I will try whether

more torture and misery will not wipe out my sins.’ And so they tried

again, and failed again, and then tried harder still, till many a noble

man and woman in old times killed themselves piecemeal by slow torments,

in trying to atone for their sins, and wash out in their own blood what

was already washed out in the blood of Jesus Christ. But on the whole,

that was found to be a failure. And now the great mass of the Papists

have fallen back on the wretched notion that repentance merely means

confessing their sins to a priest, and receiving absolution from him, and

doing some little penance too childish to speak of here.

But is there no false repentance among us English, too, my friends? No

paltry substitute for the only true repentance which God will accept,

which is, turning round and doing right? How many there are, who feel—‘I

am very wrong. I am very sinful. I am on the road to hell. I am

quarrelling and losing my temper, and using bad language.—Or—I am

cheating my neighbour. Or—I am living in adultery and drunkenness: I

must repent before it is too late.’ But what do they mean by repenting?

Coming as often as they can to church or chapel, and reading all the

religious books which they can get hold of: till they come, from often

reading and hearing about the Gospel promises, to some confused notion

that their sins are washed away in Christ’s blood; or perhaps, on the

strength of some violent feelings, believe that they are converted all on

a sudden, and clothed with the robe of Christ’s righteousness, and

renewed by God’s Spirit, and that now they belong to the number of

believers, and are among God’s elect.

Now, my dear friends, I complain of no one going to hear all the good

they can; I complain of no one reading all the religious books they can:

but I think—and more, I know—that hearing sermons and reading tracts may

be, and is often, turned into a complete snare of the devil by people who

do not wish to give up their sins and do right, but only want to be

comfortable in their sins.

Hear sermons if you will; read good books if you will: but bear in mind,

that you know already quite enough to lead you to _repentance_. You need

neither book nor sermon to teach you those ten commandments which hang

here over the communion table: all that books and tracts and sermons can

do is to teach you how to _keep_ those commandments in spirit and in

truth: but I am sure I have seen people read books, and run about to

sermons, in order to enable them to forget those ten commandments; in

order to find excuses for not keeping them; and to find doctrines which

tell them, that because Christ has done all, they need do nothing;—only

_feel_ a little thankfulness, and a little sorrow for sin, and a little

liking to hear about religion: and call that repentance, and conversion,

and the renewal of the Holy Spirit.

Now, my dear friends, let me ask you as reasonable beings, Do you think

that hearing me or any man preach, can save your souls alive? Do you

think that sitting over a book for an hour a day, or all day long, will

save your souls alive? Do you think that your sins are washed away in

Christ’s blood, when they are there still, and you are committing them?

Would they be here, and you doing them, if they were put away? Do you

think that your sins can be put away out of God’s sight, if they are not

even put out of your own sight? If you are doing wrong, do you think

that God will treat you as if you were doing right? Cannot God see in

you what you see in yourselves? Do you think a man can be clothed in

Christ’s righteousness at the very same time that he is clothed in his

own unrighteousness? Can he be good and bad at once? Do you think a man

can be converted—that is turned round—when he is going on his old road

the whole week? Do you think that a man has repented—that is, changed

his mind—when he is in just the same mind as ever as to how he shall

behave to his family, his customers, and everybody with whom he has to

do? Do you think that a man is renewed by God’s Spirit, when except for

a few religious phrases, and a little more outside respectability, he is

just the old man, the same character at heart he ever was? Do you think

that there is any use in a man’s belonging to the number of believers, if

he does not do what he believes; or any use in thinking that God has

elected and chosen him, when he chooses not to do what God has chosen

that every man must do, or die?

Be not deceived. God is not mocked. What a man sows, that shall he

reap. Let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous,

even as Christ is righteous, and no one else.

He who tries to do as Christ did, and he only, has Christ’s righteousness

imputed to him, because he is trying to do what Christ did, that which is

lawful and right. He who does righteousness, and he only, has truly

repented, changed his mind about what he should do, and turned away from

his wickedness which he has committed, and is now doing that which is

lawful and right. He who does righteousness, and he only, shall save his

soul alive: not by feeling this thing, or believing about that thing, but

by doing that which is lawful and right.

We must face it, my dear friends. We cannot deceive God: and God will

certainly not deceive himself. He sees us as we are, and takes us for

what we are. What is right in us, he accepts for the salvation of Jesus

Christ, in whom we are created unto good works. What is wrong in us, he

will assuredly punish, and give us the exact reward of the deeds done in

the body, whether they be good or evil. Every work of ours shall come

into judgment, unless it be repented of, and put away by the only true

repentance—not doing the thing any more.

God, I say, will judge righteous judgment, and take us as we are.

For the sake of Jesus the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,

there is full, free, and perfect forgiveness for every sin, when we give

it up. As soon as a man turns round, and, instead of doing wrong, tries

to do right, he need be under no manner of fear or terror any more. He

is taken back into his Father’s house as freely and graciously as the

prodigal son in the parable was. Whatsoever dark score there was against

him in God’s books is wiped out there and then, and he starts clear, a

new man, with a fresh chance of life. And whosoever tells him that the

score is not wiped out, lies, and contradicts flatly God’s holy word.

But as long as a man does _not_ give up his sins, the dark score _does_

stand against him in God’s books; and no praying, reading, devoutness of

any kind will wipe it out; and as long as he sins, he is still in his

sins, and his sins will be his ruin. Whosoever tells him that they are

wiped out, he too lies, and contradicts flatly God’s holy word.

For God is just, and true; and therefore God takes us for what we are,

and will do so to all eternity; and you will find it so, my dearest

friends. In spite of all doctrines which men have invented, and then

pretended to find in the Bible, to drug men’s consciences, and confuse

God’s clear light in their hearts, you will find, now and for ever, that

if you do right you will be happy even in the midst of sorrow; if you do

wrong, you will be miserable even in the midst of pleasure. Oh believe

this, my dear friends, and do not rashly count on some sudden magical

change happening to you as soon as you die to make you fit for heaven.

There is not one word in the Bible which gives us reason to suppose that

we shall not be in the next world the same persons which we have made

ourselves in this world. If we are unjust here, we shall, for aught we

know, or can know, try to be unjust there; if we be filthy here, we shall

be so there; if we be proud here, we shall be so there; if we be selfish

here, we shall be so there. What we sow here, we shall reap there. And

it is good for us to know this, and face this. Anything is good for us,

however unpleasant it may be, which drives us from the only real misery,

which is sin and selfishness, to the only true happiness, which is the

everlasting life of Christ; a pure, loving, just, generous, useful life

of goodness, which is the righteousness of Christ, and the glory of

Christ, and which will be our righteousness and our glory also for ever:

but only if we live it; only if we be useful as Christ was, generous as

Christ was, just as Christ was, gentle as Christ was, pure as Christ was,

loving as Christ was, and so put on Christ, not in name and in word, but

in spirit and in truth, that having worn Christ’s likeness in this world,

we may share his victory over all evil in the life to come.

SERMON XIII.

THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT.

(_Twelfth Sunday after Trinity_.)