God’s kingdom have been neglected through a long life, does Christ
neglect us in the hour of death? Ah, no! He is at the grave, as He was
at the font, at the marriage-bed, at His own holy table in God’s house;
and the body is laid in the ground by Christ’s minister, in the certain
hope of a joyful resurrection. But what—a sure and certain hope for each
and all? The resurrection is a joyful hope—but is it so for all? Only,
too often, a faint, dim longing that clings to the last chance, and dares
not confess to itself how hopeless must be the death of that man or woman
whose life was spent in the kingdom of God, in the midst of blessings
which kings said prophets desired in vain to see, and yet who neglected
them all, never entered into the spirit of them—never loved them—never
lived according to them, but despised and trampled under foot the kingdom
of God from their childhood to their grave, as three-fourths of us do.
Christ came to judge no man, and therefore Christ’s ministers judge no
man, and read the Christian funeral service over all, and pray Christ to
be there, and to remember His blessed promise of raising up the body and
soul to everlasting life. But how can they help fearing that Christ will
not hear them—that after all His offers and gifts in this life have been
despised, He will give nothing after death but death; and that it were
better for the sinful, worldly sham Christian, when lying in his coffin,
if he had never been born? How can those escape who neglect such great
salvation?
Ah, my friends—my friends, take this to heart! Blessed, indeed, are the
eyes which see what you see, and hear what you hear; prophets and kings
have desired to see and hear them, and have not seen or heard! But if
you, cradled among all these despised honours and means of grace, bring
forth no fruit in your lives—shut out from yourselves the thought of your
high calling in Jesus Christ; what shall be your end but ruin? He that
despises Christ, Christ will despise him; and say not to yourselves, as
many do, We are church-goers—we are all safe. I say to you, God is able,
from among the Negro and the wild Irishman—ay, God is able of these
stones to raise up children to the Church of England, while those of you,
the children of the kingdom, who lived in the Church of your fathers, and
never used or loved her, or Christ, her King, shall be cast into outer
darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
SERMON XXIII.
LENTEN THOUGHTS.
HAGGAI, i. 5.
“Now, therefore, thus saith the Lord of Hosts, consider your ways.”
NEXT Wednesday is Ash-Wednesday, the first day of Lent, the season which
our forefathers have appointed for us to consider and mend our ways, and
return, year by year, heart and soul to that Lord and Heavenly Father
from whom we are daily wandering. Now, we all know that we ought to have
repented long ago; we all know that, sinning in many things daily, as we
do, we ought all to repent daily. But that is not enough; we do want,
unless we are wonderfully better than the holy men of old,—we do want, I
say, a particular time in which we may sit down deliberately and look our
own souls steadily in the face, and cast up our accounts with God, and be
thoroughly ashamed and terrified at those accounts when we find, as we
shall, that we cannot answer God one thing in a thousand. It is all very
well to say, I confess and repent of my sins daily, why should I do it
especially in Lent? Very true—Let us see, then, by your altered life and
conduct that you have repented during this Lent, and then it will be time
to talk of repenting every day after Lent. But, in fact, a man might
just as well argue, I say my prayers every day, and God hears them, why
should I say them more on Sundays than any other day? Why? not only
because your forefathers, and the Church of your forefathers, have
advised you, which, though not an imperative reason, is still a strong
one, surely, but because the thing is good, and reasonable, and right in
itself. Because, as they found in their own case, and as you may find in
yours, if you will but think, the hurry and bustle of business is daily
putting repentance and self-examination out of our heads. A man may
think much, and pray much, thank God, in the very midst of his busiest
work, but he is apt to be hurried; he has not set his thoughts especially
on the matters of his soul, and so the soul’s work is not thoroughly
done. Much for which he ought to pray he forgets to pray for. Many sins
and feelings of which he ought to repent slip past him out of sight in
the hurry of life. Much good that might be done is put off and laid by,
often till it is too late. But now here is a regular season in which we
may look back and say to ourselves, ‘How have I been getting on for this
twelvemonth, not in pocket, but in character? not in the appearance of
character in my neighbour’s eyes, but in real character—in the eyes of
God? Am I more manly, or more womanly—more godly, more true, more
humble, above all, more loving, than I was this time last year? What bad
habits have I conquered? What good habits have grown upon me? What
chances of doing good have I let slip? What foolish, unkind things have
I done? My duty to God and my neighbours is so and so, how have I done
it? Above all, this Saviour and King in heaven, in whom I profess to
believe, to whom I have sworn to be loyal and true, and to help His good
cause, the cause of godliness, manliness, and happiness among my
neighbours, in my family, in my own heart,—how have I felt towards Him?
Have I thought about Him more this year than I did last? Do I feel any
more loyalty, respect, love, gratitude to Him than I did? Ay, more, do I
think about Him at all as a living man, much less as my King and Saviour;
or, is all really know about Him the sound of the words Jesus Christ, and
the story about Him in the Apostles’ Creed? Do I really _believe_ and
trust in “Jesus Christ,” or do I not? These are sharp, searching
questions, my friends,—good Lenten food for any man’s soul,—questions
which it is much more easy to ask soberly and answer fairly now when you
look quietly back on the past year, than it is, alas! to answer them day
by day amid all the bustle your business and your families. But you will
answer, ‘This bustle will go on just as much in Lent as ever. Our time
and thoughts will be just as much occupied. We have our livings to get.
We are not fine gentlemen and ladies who can lie by for forty days and do
nothing but read and pray, while their tradesmen and servants are working
for them from morning to night. How then can we give up more time to
religion now than at other times?
This is all true enough; but there is a sound and true answer to it. It
is not so much more _time_ which you are asked to give up to your souls
in Lent, as it is more _heart_. What do I talk of? _Giving up_ more
time to your souls? And yet this is the way we all talk, as if our time
belonged to our bodies, and so we had to rob them of it, to give it up to
our souls,—as if our bodies were ourselves, and our souls were
troublesome burdens, or peevish children hanging at our backs, which
would keep prating and fretting about heaven and hell, and had to be
quieted, and their mouths stopped as quickly and easily as possible, that
we might be rid of them, and get about our true business, our real
duty,—this mighty work of eating and drinking, and amusing ourselves, and
making money. I am afraid—afraid there are too many, who, if they spoke
out their whole hearts, would be quite as content to have no souls, and
no necessity to waste their precious time (as they think) upon religion.
But, my friends, my friends, the day will come when you will see
yourselves in a true light; when your soul will not seem a mere hanger-on
to your body, but you will find out _that you are your soul_. Then there
will be no more forgetting that you have souls, and thrusting them into
the background, to be fed at odd minutes, or left to starve,—no more talk
of _giving up_ time to the care of your souls; your souls will take the
time for themselves then—and the eternity, too; they will be all in all
to you then, perhaps when it is too late!
Well, I want you, just for forty days, to let your souls be all in all to
you now; to make them your first object—your first thought in the
morning, the last thing at night,—your thought at every odd moment in the
day. You need not neglect your business; only for one short forty days
do not make your business your God. We are all too apt to try the
heathen plan, of seeking first every thing else in the world, and letting
the kingdom of God and His righteousness be added to us over and above—or
_not_ as it may happen. Try for once the plan the Lord of heaven and
earth advises, and seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
and see whether every thing else will not be added to you. Again, you
need not be idle a moment more in Lent than at any other time. But I
dare say, that none of you are so full of business that you have not a
free ten minutes in the morning, and ten minutes at night, of which the
best of uses may be made. What do I say? Why, of all men in the world,
farmers and labourers have most time, I think, to themselves; working, as
they do, the greater part of their day in silence and alone; what
opportunities for them to have their souls busy in heaven, while they are
pacing over the fields, ploughing and hoeing! I have read of many, many
labouring men who had found out their opportunities in this way, and used
them so well as to become holy, great, and learned men. One of the most
learned scholars in England at this day was once a village carpenter, who
used, when young, to keep a book open before him on his bench while he
worked, and thus contrived to teach himself, one after the other, Latin,
Greek, and Hebrew. So much time may a man find who _looks_ for time!
But after all, and above all, believe this—that if your business or your
work does actually give you no time to think about God and your own
souls,—if in the midst of it all you cannot find leisure enough night and
morning to pray earnestly, to read your Bible carefully,—if it so
swallows up your whole thoughts during the day, that you have no
opportunity to recollect yourself, to remember that you are an immortal
being, and that you have a Saviour in heaven, whom you are serving
faithfully, or unfaithfully,—if this work or business of yours will not
give you time enough for that, then it is not God’s business, and ought
not to be yours either.
But you have time,—you have all time. When there is a will there is a
way. Make up your minds that there shall be a will, and pray earnestly
to God to give it you, if it is but for forty days: and in them think
seriously, slowly, solemnly, over your past lives. Examine yourselves
and your doings. Ask yourselves fairly,—‘Am I going forward or back? Am
I living like a child of God, or like a mere machine for making food and
wages? Is my conduct such as the Holy Scripture tells me that it should
be? You will not need to go far for a set of questions, my friends, or
rules by which to examine yourselves. You can hardly open a page of
God’s blessed Book without finding something which stares you in the face
with the question, ‘Do I do thus?’ or, ‘Do I not do thus?’ Take, for
example, the Epistle of this very day. What better test can we have for
trying and weighing our own souls?
What says it? That though we were wise, charitable, eloquent—all that
the greatest of men can be, and yet had not charity—_love_, we are
nothing!—nothing! And how does it describe this necessary,
indispensable, heavenly love? Let us spend the last few minutes of this
sermon in seeing how. And if that description does not prick all our
hearts on more points than one, they are harder than I take them for—far
harder, certainly, than they should be.
This charity, or love, we hear, which each of us ought to have and must
have—“suffers long, and is kind.” What shall we say to that? How many
hasty, revengeful thoughts and feelings have risen in the hearts of most
of us in the last year?—Here is one thought for Lent. “Charity envies
not.”—Have we envied any their riches, their happiness, their good name,
health, and youth?—Another thought for Lent. “Charity boasts not
herself.” Alas! alas! my friends, are not the best of us apt to make
much of the little good we do,—to pride ourselves on the petty kindnesses
we shew,—to be puffed up with easy self-satisfaction, just as charity is
_not_ puffed up?—Another Lenten thought. “Charity does not behave
herself unseemly;” is never proud, noisy, conceited; gives every man’s
opinion a fair, kindly hearing; making allowances for all mistakes. Have
we done so?—Then there is another thought for Lent. “Charity seeks not
her own;” does not stand fiercely and stiffly on her own rights, on the
gratitude due to her. While we—are we not too apt, when we have done a
kindness, to fret and fume, and think ourselves deeply injured, if we do
not get repaid at once with all the humble gratitude we expected? Of
this also we must think. “Charity thinks no evil,” sets down no bad
motives for any one’s conduct, but takes for granted that he means well,
whatever appearances may be; while we (I speak of myself just as much as
of any one), are we not continually apt to be suspicious, jealous, to
take for granted that people mean harm; and even when we find ourselves
mistaken, and that we have cried out before we are hurt, not to consider
it as any sin against our neighbour, whom in reality we have been
silently slandering to ourselves? “Charity rejoices not in iniquity,”
but in the truth, whatever it may be; is never glad to see a high
professor prove a hypocrite, and fall into sin, and shew himself in his
true foul colours; which we, alas! are too apt to think a very pleasant
sight.—Are not these wholesome meditations for Lent? “Charity hopes all
things” of every one, “believes all things,” all good that is told of
every one, “endures all things,” instead of flying off and giving up a
person at the first fault. Are not all these points, which our own
hearts, consciences, common sense, or whatever you like to call it (I
shall call it God’s spirit), tell us are right, true, necessary? And is
there one of us who can say that he has not offended in many, if not in
all these points; and is not that unrighteousness—going out of the right,
straightforward, childlike, loving way of looking at all people? And is
not all unrighteousness sin? And must not all sin be repented of, and
that _as soon as we find it out_? And can we not all find time this Lent
to throw over these sins of ours?—to confess them with shame and
sorrow?—to try like men to shake them off? Oh, my friends! you who are
too busy for forty short days to make your immortal souls your first
business, take care—take care, lest the day shall come when sickness, and
pain, and the terror of death, shall keep you too busy to prepare those
unrepenting, unforgiven, sin-besotted souls of yours for the kingdom of
God.
SERMON XXIV.
ON BOOKS.
JOHN, i. 1.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God.”
I DO not pretend to be able to explain this text to you, for no man can
comprehend it but He of whom it speaks, Jesus Christ, the Word of God.
But I can, by God’s grace, put before you some of the awful and glorious
truths of which it gives us a sight, and may Christ direct you, who is
_the_ Word, and grant me words to bring the matter home to you, so as to
make some of you, at least, ask yourselves the golden question, ‘If this
is true, what must we _do_ to be saved?’
The text says that the Word was from the beginning with God,—ay, God
Himself: who the Word is, there is no doubt from the rest of the chapter,
which you heard read this morning. But why is Christ called the Word of
all words—the Word of God? Let us look at this. Is not Christ _the
man_, the head and pattern of all men who are what men ought to be? And
did He not tell men that He is _the_ Life? That all life is given by Him
and out of Him? And does not St. John tell us that Christ the Life is
the light of men,—the true light which lighteth every man who cometh into
the world?
Remember this, and then think again,—what is it which makes men different
from all other living things we know of? Is it not speech—the power of
words? The beasts may make each other understand many things, but they
have no speech. These glorious things—words—are man’s right alone, part
of the image of the Son of God—the Word of God, in which man was created.
If men would but think what a noble thing it is merely to be able to
speak in words, to think in words, to write in words! Without words, we
should know no more of each other’s hearts and thoughts than the dog
knows of his fellow dog;—without words to think in; for if you will
consider, you always think to yourself in _words_, though you do not
speak them aloud; and without them all our thoughts would be mere blind
longings, feelings which we could not understand our own selves. Without
words to write in, we could not know what our forefathers did;—we could
not let our children after us know what to do. But, now, books—the
written word of man—are precious heirlooms from one generation to
another, training us, encouraging us, teaching us, by the words and
thoughts of men, whose bodies are crumbled into dust ages ago, but whose
words—the power of uttering themselves, which they got from the Son of
God—still live, and bear fruit in our hearts, and in the hearts of our
children after us, till the last day!
But where did these words—this power of uttering our thoughts, come from?
Do you fancy that men first, began like brute beasts or babies, with
strange cries and mutterings, and so gradually found out words for
themselves? Not they; the beasts have been on the earth as long as man;
and yet they can no more speak than they could when God created Adam: but
Adam, we find, could speak at once. God spoke to Adam the moment he was
made, and Adam understood Him; so he knew the power and the meaning of
words. Who gave him that power? Who but Jehovah—Jesus—the Word of God,
who imparted to him the word of speech and the light of reason? Without
them what use would there have been in saying to him, “Thou shalt not eat
of the tree of knowledge?” Without them what would there have been in
God’s bringing to him all the animals to see what he would call them,
unless He had first given Adam the power of understanding words, and
thinking of words, and speaking words? This was the glorious gift of
Christ—the Voice or Word of the Lord God, as we read in the second
chapter of Genesis, whom Adam heard another time with fear and
terror,—“The voice of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the
day.”—A text and a story strange enough, till we find in the first
chapter of St. John the explanation of it, telling us that the Word was
in the beginning with God—very God, and that He was the light which
lighteth every man who cometh into the world. So Christ is the light
which lighteth every man who cometh into the world. How are we to
understand that, when there are so many who live and die heathens or
reprobates,—some who never hear of Christ,—some, alas! in Christian
lands, who are dead to every doctrine or motive of Christianity? yet the
Bible says that Christ lights _every man_ who comes into the world.
Difficult to understand at first sight, yet most true, and simple too, at
bottom.
For how is every one, whether heathen or Christian, child or man,
enlightened or taught, to live and behave? Is it not by the words of
those round him, by the words he reads in books, by the thoughts which he
thinks out and puts into shape for himself? All this is the light which
every human being has his share of. And has not every man, too, the
light of reason and good feeling, more or less, to tell him whether each
thing is right or wrong, noble or mean, ugly or beautiful? This is
another way by which the light which lighteth every man works. And St.
John tells us in the text, that he who works in this way,—he who gives us
the power of understanding, and thinking, and judging, and speaking, is
the very same Word of God who was made flesh, and dwelt among men, and
died on the Cross for us; “the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of
the world!”
He is the Word of God—by Him God has spoken to man in all ages. He
taught Adam,—He spoke to Abraham as a man speaketh with his friend. It
was He Jehovah, whom we call Jesus, whom Moses and the seventy elders
saw—saw with their bodily eyes on Mount Sinai, who spoke to them with
human voice from amid the lightning and the rainbow. It must have been
only He, the Word, by whom God the Father utters Himself to man, for no
man hath seen God at any time; only the Word, the only-begotten Son, who
is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. And who put into
the mouth of David those glorious Psalms—the songs in which all true men
for three thousand years have found the very things they longed to speak
themselves and could not? Who but Christ the Word of God, the Lord, as
David calls Him, put a new song into the mouth of His holy poet,—the
sweet singer of Israel? Who spake by the prophets, again? What do they
say themselves?—“The Word of the Lord came to me, saying.” And then,
when the Spirit of God stirred them up, the Word of God gave them speech,
and they said the sayings which shall never pass away till all be
fulfilled. And who was it who, when He was upon earth, spake as never
man spake,—whose words were the simplest, and yet the deepest,—the
tenderest, and yet the most awful, which ever broke the blessed silence
upon this earth,—whose words, now to this day, come home to men’s hearts,
stirring them up to the very roots, piercing through the marrow of men’s
souls,—whose but Christ’s, the Word, who was made flesh and dwelt among
us, full of grace and truth? And who since then, do you think, has it
been who has given to all wise and holy poets, philosophers, and
preachers, the power to speak and write the wonderful truths which, by
God’s grace, they thought out for themselves and for all mankind,—who
gave them utterance?—who but Christ, the Lord of men’s spirits, the Word
of God, who promised to give to all His true disciples a mouth and
wisdom, which their enemies should not be able to gainsay or resist?
Well, my friends, ought not the knowledge of this to make us better and
wiser? Ought it not to make us esteem, and reverence, and use many
things of which we are apt to think too lightly? How it should make us
reverence the Bible, the written word of God’s saints and prophets, of
God’s apostles, of Christ, the Word Himself? Oh, that men would use that
treasure of the Bible as it deserves;—oh, that they would believe from
their hearts, that whatever is said there is truly said, that whatever is
said there is said to them, that whatever names things are called there
are called by their right names. Then men would no longer call the vile
person beautiful, or call pride and vanity honour, or covetousness
respectability, or call sin worldly wisdom; but they would call things as
Christ calls them—they would try to copy Christ’s thoughts and Christ’s
teaching; and instead of looking for instruction and comfort to lying
opinions and false worldly cunning, they would find their only advice in
the blessed teaching, and their only comfort in the gracious promises, of
the word of the Book of Life.
Again, how these thoughts ought to make us reverence all books.
Consider! except a living man, there is nothing more wonderful than a
book!—a message to us from the dead—from human souls whom we never saw,
who lived, perhaps, thousands of miles away; and yet these, in those
little sheets of paper, speak to us, amuse us, terrify us, teach us,
comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers.
Why is it that neither angels, nor saints, nor evil spirits, appear to
men now to speak to them as they did of old? Why, but because we have
_books_, by which Christ’s messengers, and the devil’s messengers too,
can tell what they will to thousands of human beings at the same moment,
year after year, all the world over! I say, we ought to reverence books,
to look at them as awful and mighty things. If they are good and true,
whether they are about religion or politics, farming, trade, or medicine,
they are the message of Christ, the Maker of all things, the Teacher of
all truth, which He has put into the heart of some man to speak, that he
may tell us what is good for our spirits, for our bodies, and for our
country.
And at the last day, be sure of it, we shall have to render an account—a
strict account, of the books which we have read, and of the way in which
we have obeyed what we read, just as if we had had so many prophets or
angels sent to us.