member is _not_ the man who pays his money merely to have a claim for
relief when he himself is sick, and yet grudges every farthing that goes
to help other members. That man is not a good member. He has come into
the club merely to take care of himself, and not to bear others’ burdens.
He may obey the letter of the club-rules by paying in his subscriptions
and by granting relief to sick members, but he does not obey the spirit
of them. If he did, he would be glad to bear his sick neighbour’s burden
with so little trouble to himself. He would, therefore, grant club
relief willingly and cheerfully when it was wanted,—ay, he would thank
God that he had an opportunity of helping his neighbours. He would feel
that all the members of the society were his brothers in a double sense;
first, because they had joined with him to help and support each other in
the society; and, next, that they were his brothers in Christ, who had
been baptised into the same Church of God with himself. And he would,
therefore, delight in supporting them in their sickness, and honouring
them when they died, and in helping their widows and orphans in their
affliction; in short, in bearing his neighbour’s burdens, and so
fulfilling the law of Christ. And do you not see, that if any of you
subscribe to this benefit society in such a spirit as this, that they are
the men to give an answer to the question I asked at first, “Why are you
all here at church to-day?” They come here for the same reason that you
all ought to come, to thank God for having kept them well, and out of the
want of relief for the past year, and to thank Him, too, for having
enabled them to bear their sick neighbours’ burdens. And they come,
also, to pray to God to keep them well and strong for the year to come,
and to raise up those members who are in sickness and distress, that they
may all worship God here together another year, as a company of faithful
friends, helping each other on through this life, and all on the way to
the same heavenly home, where there will be no more poverty, nor sorrow,
nor sickness, nor death, and God shall wipe away tears from all widows
and orphans’ eyes.
And now, my friends, I have tried to put some new and true thoughts into
your head about your club and your business in this church to-day. And I
pray, God grant that you may remember them, and think of this whole
matter as a much more solemn and holy one than you ever did before.
SERMON XXI.
HEAVEN ON EARTH.
1 COR. x. 31.
“Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory
of God.”
THIS is a command from God, my friends, which well worth a few minutes’
consideration this day;—well worth considering, because, though it was
spoken eighteen hundred years ago, yet God has not changed since that
time;—He is just as glorious as ever; and Christian men’s relation to God
has not changed since that time; they still live, and move, and have
their being in God; they are still His children—His beloved; Christ, who
died for us, is still our King; God’s Spirit is still with us, God’s
mercy still saves us: we owe God as much as any people ever did. If it
was ever any one’s duty to shew forth God’s glory, surely it is our duty
too.
Worth considering, indeed, is this command, for though it is in the
Bible, and has been there for eighteen hundred years, it is seldom read,
seldomer understood, and still more seldom put into practice. Men eat
and drink, and do all manner of things, with all their might and main;
but how many of them do they do to the glory of God? No; this is the
fault—the especial curse of our day, that religion does not mean any
longer, as it used, the service of God—the being like God, and shewing
forth God’s glory. No; religion means, nowadays, the art of getting to
heaven when we die, and saving our own miserable, worthless souls, and
getting God’s wages without doing God’s work—as if that was godliness,—as
if that was any thing but selfishness; as if selfishness was any the
better for being everlasting selfishness! If selfishness is evil, my
friends, the sooner we get rid of it the better, instead of mixing it up
as we do with all our thoughts of heaven, and making our own enjoyment
and our own safety the vile root of our hopes for all eternity. And
therefore it is that people have forgotten what God’s glory is. They
seem to think, that God’s highest glory is saving them from hell-fire.
And they talk not of God and of the wondrous majesty of God, but only of
the wonder of God’s having saved them—looking at themselves all the time,
and not at God. We must get rid of this sort of religion, my friends, at
all risks, in order to get rid of all sorts of irreligion, for one is the
father of the other.
It is a wonder, indeed, that we are saved from hell, much more raised to
heaven, such peevish, cowardly, pitiful creatures as the best of us are:
and yet the more we think of it, the less wonder we shall find it. The
more we think of the wonder of all wonders,—God Himself, His majesty, His
power, His wisdom, His love, His pity, His infinite condescension, the
less reason we shall have to be surprised that He has stooped to save us.
Yes, do not be startled—for it is true, that He has done for sinful men
nothing contrary to Himself, but just what was to be expected from such
unutterable condescension, and pity, and generosity, as God’s is. And so
recollecting this, we shall begin to forget ourselves, and look at God;
and in thinking of Him we shall get beyond mere wondering at Him, and
rise to something higher—to worshipping Him.
Yes, my friends, this is what we must try at if we would be really
godly—to find out what God is—to find out His likeness, His character, as
He is: and has He not shewn us what He is? He who has earnestly read
Christ’s story—he who has understood, and admired, and loved Christ’s
character, and its nobleness and beauty—he who can believe that Jesus
Christ is now, at this minute, raising up his heart to good, guiding his
thoughts to good, he has seen God; for he has seen the Son, who is the
exact likeness of the Father’s glory, in whom dwells all the fulness of
the Godhead in a bodily shape. Remember, he who knows Christ knows
God,—and that knowledge will help us up a noble step farther—it will help
us to shew forth God’s glory. For when we once know what God’s glory is,
we shall see how to make others know it too. We shall know how to _do
God justice_, to set men right as to their notions of God, to give them,
at all events, in our own lives and characters, a pattern of Christ, who
is the Pattern of God; and whatsoever we do we shall be able to do all to
God’s glory.
For what is doing every thing to the glory of God? It is this;—we have
seen what God’s glory is: He is His own glory. As you say of any very
excellent man, you have but to know him to honour him; or of any very
beautiful woman, you have but to see her to love her; so I say of God,
men have but to see and know Him to love and honour Him.
Well, then, my friends, if we call ourselves Christian men, if we believe
that God is our Father, and delight, as on the grounds of common feeling
we ought, to honour our Father, we should try to make every one honour
Him as He deserves. In short, whatever we do we should make it tend to
His glory—make it a lesson to our neighbours, our friends, and our
families. We should preach God’s glory to them day by day, not by
_words_ only, often not by words at all, but by our conduct. Ay, there
is the secret.—If you wish other men to believe a thing, just behave as
if you believed it yourself. Nothing is so infectious as example. If
you wish your neighbours to see what Jesus Christ is like, let them see
what He can make _you_ like. If you wish them to know how God’s love is
ready to save them from their sins, let them see His love save _you_ from
_your_ sins. If you wish them to see God’s tender care in every blessing
and every sorrow they have, why let them see you thanking God for every
sorrow and every blessing you have. I tell you, friends, example is
every thing. One good man,—one man who does not put his religion on once
a-week with his Sunday coat, but wears it for his working dress, and lets
the thought of God grow into him, and through and through him, till every
thing he says and does becomes religious, that man is worth a ton of
sermons—he is a living Gospel—he comes in the spirit and power of
Elias—he is the image of God. And men see his good works, and admire
them in spite of themselves, and see that they are Godlike, and that
God’s grace is no dream, but that the Holy Spirit is still among men, and
that all nobleness and manliness is His gift, His stamp, His picture; and
so they get a glimpse of God again in His saints and heroes, and glorify
their Father who is in heaven.
Would not such a life be a heavenly life? Ay, it would be more, it would
be heaven—heaven on earth: not in versemongering cant, but really. We
should then be sitting, as St. Paul tells us, in heavenly places with
Jesus Christ, and having our conversation in heaven. All the while we
were doing our daily work, following our business, or serving our
country, or sitting at our own firesides with wife and child, we should
be all that time in heaven. Why not? we are in heaven now—if we had but
faith to see it. Oh, get rid of those carnal, heathen notions about
heaven, which tempt men to fancy that, after having misused this
place—God’s earth—for a whole life, they are to fly away when they die,
like swallows in autumn, to another place—they know not where—where they
are to be very happy—they know not why or how, nor do I know either.
Heaven is not a mere _place_, my friends. All places are heaven, if you
will be heavenly in them. Heaven is where God is and Christ is. And
hell is where God is not and Christ is not. The Bible says, no doubt,
there is a place now—somewhere beyond the skies—where Christ especially
shews forth His glory—a heaven of heavens: and for reasons which I cannot
explain, there must be such a place. But, at all events, here is heaven;
for Christ is here and God is here, if we will open our eyes and see
them. And how?—How? Did not Christ Himself say, ‘If a man will love Me,
My Father will love him; and we, My Father and I, will come to him, and
make our abode with him, and we will shew ourselves to him?’ Do those
words mean nothing or something? If they have any meaning, do they not
mean this, that in this life, we can see God—in this life we can have God
and Christ abiding with us? And is not that heaven? Yes, heaven is
where God is. You are in heaven if God is with you, you are in hell if
God is not with you; for where God is not, darkness and a devil are sure
to be.
There was a great poet once—Dante by name—who described most truly and
wonderfully, in his own way, heaven and hell, for, indeed, he had been in
both. He had known sin and shame, and doubt and darkness and despair,
which is hell. And after long years of misery, he had got to know love
and hope, and holiness and nobleness, and the love of Christ and the
peace of God, which is heaven. And so well did he speak of them, that
the ignorant people used to point after him with awe in the streets, and
whisper, There is the man who has been in hell. Whereon some one made
these lines on him:—
“Thou hast seen hell and heaven? Why not? since heaven and hell
Within the struggling soul of every mortal dwell.”
Think of that!—thou—and thou—and thou!—for in thee, at this moment, is
either heaven or hell: and which of them? Ask thyself—ask thyself,
friend. If thou art not in heaven in this life, thou wilt never be in
heaven in the life to come. At death, says the wise man, each thing
returns into its own element, into the ground of its life; the light into
the light, and the darkness into the darkness. As the tree falls so it
lies. My friends, who call yourselves enlightened Christian folk, do you
suppose that you can lead a mean, worldly, covetous, spiteful life here,
and then the moment your soul leaves the body that you are to be changed
into the very opposite character, into angels and saints, as fairy tales
tell of beasts changed into men? If a beast can be changed into a man,
then death can change the sinner into a saint,—but not else. If a beast
would enjoy being a man, then a sinner would enjoy being in heaven, but
not else. A sinful, worldly man enjoy being in heaven? Does a fish
enjoy being on dry land? The sinner would long to be back in this world
again. Why, what is the employment of spirits in heaven, according to
the Bible (for that is the point to which I have been trying to lead you
round again)? What but glorifying God? Not _trying_ only to do every
thing to God’s glory, but actually succeeding in _doing_ it—basking in
the sunshine of His smile, delighting to feel themselves as nothing
before His glorious majesty, meditating on the beauty of His love,
filling themselves with the sight of His power, searching out the
treasures of His wisdom, and finding God in all and all in God—their
whole eternity one act of worship, one hymn of praise. Are there not
some among us who will have had but little practice at that work? Those
who have done nothing for God’s glory here, how do they expect to be able
to do every thing for God’s glory hereafter? (Those who will not take
the trouble of merely standing up at the psalms, like the rest of their
neighbours, even if they cannot sing with their voices God’s praises in
this church, how will they like singing God’s praises through eternity?)
No; be sure that the only people who will be fit for heaven, who will
like heaven even, are those who have been in heaven in this life,—the
only people who will be able to do every thing to God’s glory in the new
heavens and new earth, are those who have been trying honestly to do all
to His glory in this heaven and this earth.
Think over, in the meantime, what I have said this day; consider it, and
you will have enough to think of, and pray over too, till we meet here
again.
SERMON XXII.
NATIONAL PRIVILEGES.
LUKE, x. 23.
“Blessed are the eyes which see the things which ye see: for I tell
you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things
which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which
ye hear, and have not heard them.”
THIS is a noble text, my friends—and yet an awful one, for if it does not
increase our religion, it will certainly increase our condemnation. It
tells us that we, even the meanest among us, are more favoured by God
than the kings, and judges, and conquerors of the old world, of whom we
read this afternoon in the first lesson; that we have more light and
knowledge of God than even the prophets David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and
Ezekiel, to whom God’s glory appeared in visible shape. It tells us that
we see things which they longed to see, and could not; that words are
spoken to us for which their ears longed in vain; that they, though they
died in hope, yet received not the promises, God having provided some
better things for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.
Now, what was this which they longed for, and had not, and yet we have?
It was this,—a Saviour and a Saviour’s kingdom. All wise and holy hearts
for ages—as well heathens as Jews—had had this longing. They wanted a
Saviour,—one who should free them from sin and conquer evil,—one who
should explain to them all the doubt and contradiction and misery of the
world, and give them some means of being freed from it,—one who should
set them the perfect pattern of what a man should be, and join earth and
heaven, and make godliness part of man’s daily life. They longed for a
Saviour, and for a heavenly kingdom also. They saw that all the laws in
the world could never make men good; that one half of men broke them, and
the other half only obeyed them unwillingly through slavish fear, loving
the sin they dared not do. That men got worse and worse as time rolled
on. That kings, instead of being shepherds of their people, were only
wolves and tyrants to keep them in ignorance and misery. That priests
only taught the people lies, and fattened themselves at their expense.
That, in short, as David said, men would not learn, or understand, and
all the foundations of the earth, the grounds and principles of society,
politics and religion, were out of course, and the devil very truly the
king of this lower world; so they longed for a heavenly kingdom—a kingdom
of God, one in which men should obey God for love, and not for fear, and
man for God’s sake; a spiritual kingdom—a kingdom whose laws should be
written in men’s hearts and spirits, and be their delight and glory, not
their dread. They longed for a King of kings, who should teach all kings
and magistrates to rule in love and wisdom. They longed for a
High-priest, who should teach all priests to explain the wonder and the
glory that there is in every living man, and in heaven and earth, and all
that therein lies, and lead men’s hearts into love, and purity, and noble
thoughts and deeds. They longed, in short, for a kingdom of God, a
golden age, a regeneration of the world, as they called it, and rightly.
Of course, the Jewish prophets saw most clearly how this would be brought
about, and how utterly necessary a Saviour and His kingdom was to save
mankind from utter ruin. They, I say, saw this best. But still all the
wise and pious heathens, each according to his measure of light, saw the
same necessity, or else were restless and miserable, because they could
not see it. So that in all ages of the world, in a thousand different
shapes, there was rising up to heaven a mournful, earnest prayer,—“Thy
kingdom come!”
And now this kingdom is come, and the King of it, the Saviour of men, is
Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Long men prayed, and long men waited, and
at last, in the fulness of God’s good time, just when the night seemed
darkest, and under the abominations of the Roman Empire, religion,
honesty, and common decency, seemed to have died out, the Sun of
Righteousness rose on the dead and rotten world, to bring life and
immortality to light. God sent forth His Son made of a woman, not to
condemn the world, but that the world, through Him, might be saved. He
sent Him to be our Saviour, to die on the cross for our sins and our
children’s, that all our guilt might be washed away, and we might come
boldly to the throne of grace, with our hearts sprinkled from an evil
conscience, and our bodies washed in the waters of baptism. He sent Him
to be our Teacher in the perfect law of love, our pattern in every thing
which a man should be, and is not. He sent Him to conquer death by
rising from the dead, that He might have power to raise us also to life
and immortality. He sent Him to fill men with His Spirit, the Spirit of
reason and truth, the Spirit of love and courage, that he might know the
will of God, and do it as our Saviour did before us. He sent Him to
found a Church, to join all men into one brotherhood, one kingdom of God,
whose rulers are kings and parliaments, whose ministers are the clergy,
whose prophets are all poets and philosophers, authors and preachers, who
are true to their own calling; whose signs and tokens are the sacraments;
a kingdom which should never be moved, but should go on for ever, drawing
into all honest and true hearts, and preserving them ever for Christ
their Lord.
And that we might not doubt that we, too, belonged to this kingdom, He
has placed in this land His ministers and teachers, Christ’s sacraments,
Christ’s churches in every parish in the land, Christ’s Bible, or the
means of attaining the Bible, in every house and every cottage; that from
our cradle to our grave we might see that we belonged, as sworn servants
and faithful children, to the great Father in heaven and Jesus Christ,
the King of the earth.
Thus, my friends, all that all men have longed for we possess; we want no
more, and we shall have no more. If, under the present state of things,
we cannot be holy, we shall never be holy. If we cannot use our right in
this kingdom of Christ, how can we become citizens of God’s everlasting
kingdom, when Christ shall have delivered up the dominion to His Father,
and God shall be all in all? God has done all for us that God will do.
He has given us His Son for a Saviour, and a Church in which and by which
to worship that Saviour; and what more would we have? Alas! my friends,
have we yet used fairly what God has given us? and if not, how terrible
will be our guilt! “How shall we escape if we neglect so great
salvation?” And yet how many do neglect—how few live as if they were
citizens of Christ’s kingdom! It seems as if God had been too good to
us, and heaped us so heavily with blessings, that we were tired of them,
and despised them as common things. Common things? They are the very
things, as I said, which the great and the wise in all ages have longed
for and prayed for, and yet never found! Surely, surely, God may well
say to us, “What could have been done unto my vineyard which has not been
done to it?” What, indeed? I wish I could take some of you into a
heathen country for a single week, that you might see what it is not to
know of a Saviour—not to be members of His Church, as we are. Why, we
here in England are in the very garden of the Lord. We have but to
stretch out our hand to the tree of life, and eat and live for ever.
From our cradle to our grave, Christ the King is ready to guide, to
teach, to comfort, to deliver us. When we are born, we are christened in
His name, made members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors by hope
of the kingdom of heaven. Is that nothing? It is, alas! nothing in the
eyes of most parents! As we grow older, are we not taught who we
are—taught call God our Father—taught about Jesus Christ, who He is, and
what He is? Is that, too, nothing? Alas! that knowledge is generally a
mere meaningless school-lesson, cared for neither by child nor by man.
At confirmation, again, we solemnly declare that we belong to Christ’s
kingdom, and that we will live as His subjects, and His alone. And we
are brought to His bishops, to be received as free, reasonable, Christian
people, to claim our citizenship in the kingdom of God. Is that nothing?
Yet that, too, is nothing with three-fourths of us. Nothing? Hear me,
young people—as I have often told you—you are ready enough to excuse
yourselves from your confirmation vows, by saying you were not taught to
understand them—were not taught how to put them into practice. That may
be true, or it may not; your sin is just the same. No one with any
common honesty or common sense could answer as you have to the bishop’s
questions at confirmation, without knowing that you did make a promise,
and knowing well enough what you promised—and you who carried to
confirmation a careless heart and a lying tongue, have only yourselves to
blame for it!—But to proceed. Is not Christ present, or ready to be
present, with us? Sunday after Sunday, for years, have not the churches
been opened all around us, inviting us to enter and worship Christ,
knowing that where two or three are gathered together, there is Christ in
the midst of them. Is that nothing? This Creed—these Lessons—these
prayers, which Sunday after Sunday you have used;—are they nothing? Are
they not all proofs that the kingdom of God is come to you, and means
whereby you can behave like children of the kingdom? And not on Sundays
alone. Have we not been taught daily, in our own houses, in our own
hearts, in all danger, and trouble, and temptation, to pray to Jesus
Christ, our King, knowing that He will hear and save all them that put
their trust in Him?
Is that nothing? On our happy marriage morn, too, was it not in God’s
house, before Christ’s minister, in Christ’s name, that we were married?
Surely the kingdom of God is come to us, when our wedlock, as well as our
souls and bodies, is holy to the Lord. Is that nothing? How few think
of their marriage-joys as holy things—an ordinance of Christ’s kingdom,
which He delights in and blesses with His presence and His special smile,
seeing that it is the noblest and the purest of all things on earth—the
picture of the great mystery which shall be the bridal of all bridals,
the marriage of Christ and His Church! People do not, nowadays, believe
in marriage as a part of their religion; and so, according to their want
of faith it happens to them; their marriage is not holy, and the love and
joy of their youth wither into a peevish, careless, lonely old age;—and
yet over their heads these words were said, “They are man and wife
together, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost!” comes of not believing in Christ’s presence and Christ’s favour;
of not believing, in short, in what the Creed truly calls the Holy
Catholic Church. Neither after that does Christ leave us. Every time a
woman is churched, is not that meant to be a sign of thankfulness to
Christ, the great Physician, to whom she owes her life and health once
more? Then, season after season, is the sacrament of Christ’s body and
blood offered you. Is that no sign that Christ is here among us? Ah!
blessed are the eyes which see that—blessed are the ears which hear those
words, “Take, eat; this is My body which is given for you.” Truly, if
that honour—that blessing—is so vast, the love and the condescension of
Christ, the Lamb of God, so unutterable, that prophets and kings,
whatever they believed, never could have desired, never could have
imagined, that the Son of God should offer to the sons of men, year after
year, in their little parish churches, His most precious body, His most
precious blood. And another thing, too, those prophets and kings would
never have imagined,—that when Christ, in those churches, offers His body
and His blood, nine-tenths of the congregation, calling themselves
Christians, should quietly walk out, and go home, and leave the
sacraments of Christ’s body and Christ’s blood behind as a useless and
unnecessary matter! That, indeed, the old prophets and kings never saw,
and never expected to see—but so it is. Christ is among us, and our eyes
are holden, and we know Him not.