help believing in it, while we see it working around us, in many a
fearful shape, here, now, in this life? And we believe that it may work
on, in still more fearful shapes, in the life to come. We believe that
as long as a sinner is impenitent, he must be miserable; that if he goes
on impenitent for ever, he must go on making himself miserable--ay, it
may be more and more miserable for ever. Only do not tell us that he
must go on. That his impenitence, and therefore his punishment, is
irremediable, necessary, endless; and thereby destroy the whole purpose,
and we should say, the whole morality, of his punishment. If that
punishment be corrective, our moral sense is not shocked by any severity,
by any duration: but if it is irremediable, it cannot be corrective; and
then, what it is, or why it is, we cannot--or rather dare not--say. We,
too, believe in an eternal fire. But because we believe also the
Athanasian Creed, which tells us that there is but One Eternal, we
believe that that fire must be the fire of God, and therefore, like all
that is in God and of God, good and not evil, a blessing and not a curse.
We believe that that fire is for ever burning, though men are for ever
trying to quench it all day long; and that it has been and will be in
every age burning up all the chaff and stubble of man's inventions; the
folly, the falsehood, the ignorance, the vice of this sinful world; and
we praise God for it; and give thanks to Him for His great glory, that He
is the everlasting and triumphant foe of evil and misery, of whom it is
written, that our God is a consuming fire." Such words are being spoken,
right or wrong.
Such words will bear their fruit, for good or evil. I do not pronounce
how much of them is true or false. It is not my place to dogmatize and
define, where the Church of England, as by law established, has declined
to do so. Neither is it for you to settle these questions. It is rather
a matter for your children. A generation more, it may be, of earnest
thought will be required, ere the true answer has been found. But it is
your duty, if you be educated and thoughtful persons, to face these
questions; to consider seriously what these men would have you
consider--whether you are believing the exact words of the Bible, and the
conclusions of your own reason and moral sense; or whether you are merely
believing that cosmogony elaborated in the cloister, that theory of moral
retribution pardonable in the middle age, which Dante and Milton sang.
But this I do not hesitate to say--That if we of the clergy can find no
other answers to these doubts than those which were reasonable and
popular in an age when men racked women, burned heretics, and believed
that every Mussulman killed in a crusade went straight to Tartarus--then
very serious times are at hand, both for the Christian clergy and for
Christianity itself.
What, then, are we to believe and do? Shall we degenerate into a lazy
scepticism, which believes that everything is a little true, and
everything a little false--in plain words, believes nothing at all? Or
shall we degenerate into faithless fears, and unmanly wailings that the
flood of infidelity is irresistible, and that Christ has left His Church?
We shall do neither, if we believe the text. That tells us of a firm
standing-ground amid the wreck of fashions and opinions. Of a kingdom
which cannot be moved, though the heavens pass away like a scroll, and
the earth be burnt up with fervent heat.
And it tells us that the King of that kingdom is He, who is called Jesus
Christ--the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
An eternal and changeless kingdom, and an eternal and changeless King.
These the Epistle to the Hebrews preaches to all generations.
It does not say that we have an unchangeable cosmogony, an unchangeable
eschatology, an unchangeable theory of moral retribution, an unchangeable
dogmatic system: not to these does it point the Jews, while their own
nation and worship were in their very death-agony, and the world was
rocking and reeling round them, decay and birth going on side by side, in
a chaos such as man had never seen before. Not to these does the Epistle
point the Hebrews: but to the changeless kingdom and to the changeless
King.
My friends, do you really believe in that kingdom, and in that King? Do
you believe that you are now actually in a kingdom of heaven, which
cannot be moved; and that the living, acting, guiding, practical, real
King thereof is Christ who died on the Cross?
These are days in which a preacher is bound to ask his congregation--and
still more to ask himself--whether he really believes in that kingdom,
and in that King; and to bid himself and them, if they have not believed
earnestly enough therein, to repent, in this time of Lent, of that at
least; to repent of having neglected that most cardinal doctrine of
Scripture and of the Christian faith.
But if we really believe in that changeless kingdom and in that
changeless King, shall we not--considering who Christ is, the co-equal
and co-eternal Son of God--believe also, that if the heavens and the
earth are being shaken, then Christ Himself may be shaking them? That if
opinions be changing, then Christ Himself may be changing them? That if
new truths are being discovered, Christ Himself may be revealing them?
That if some of those truths seem to contradict those which He has
revealed already, they do not really contradict them? That, as in the
sixteenth century, Christ is burning up the wood and stubble with which
men have built on His foundation, that the pure gold of His truth may
alone be left? It is at least possible; it is probable, if we believe
that Christ is a living, acting King, to whom all power is given in
heaven and earth, and who is actually exercising that power; and
educating Christendom, and through Christendom the whole human race, to a
knowledge of Himself, and through Himself of God their Father in heaven.
Should we not say--We know that Christ has been so doing, for centuries
and for ages? Through Abraham, through Moses, through the prophets,
through the Greeks, through the Romans, and at last through Himself, He
gave men juster and wider views of themselves, of the universe, and of
God. And even then He did not stop. How could He, who said of Himself,
"My Father worketh hitherto, and I work"? How could He, if He be the
same yesterday, to-day, and for ever? Through the Apostles, and
specially through St Paul, He enlarged, while He confirmed, His own
teaching. And did He not do the same in the sixteenth century? Did He
not then sweep from the minds and hearts of half Christendom beliefs
which had been held sacred and indubitable for a thousand years? Why
should He not be doing so now? If it be answered, that the Reformation
of the sixteenth century was only a return to simpler and purer Apostolic
truth--why, again, should it not be so now? Why should He not be
perfecting His work one step more, and sweeping away more of man's
inventions, which are not integral and necessary elements of the one
Catholic faith, but have been left behind, in pardonable human weakness,
by our great Reformers? Great they were, and good: giants on the earth,
while we are but as dwarfs beside them. But, as the hackneyed proverb
says, the dwarf on the giant's shoulders may see further than the giant
himself: and so may we.
Oh! that men would approach new truth in something of that spirit; in the
spirit of reverence and Godly fear, which springs from a living belief in
Christ the living King, which is--as the text tells us--the spirit in
which we can serve God acceptably. Oh! that they would serve God;
waiting reverently and anxiously, as servants standing in the presence of
their Lord, for the slightest sign or hint of His will. Then they would
have grace; by which they would receive new thought with grace;
gracefully, courteously, fairly, charitably, reverently; believing that,
however strange or startling, it may come from Him whose ways are not as
our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts; and that he who fights
against it, may haply be fighting against God.
True, they would receive all new thought with caution, that conservative
spirit, which is the duty of every Christian; which is the peculiar
strength of the Englishman, because it enables him calmly and slowly to
take in the new, without losing the old which his forefathers have
already won for him. So they would be cautious, even anxious, lest in
grasping too greedily at seeming improvements, they let go some precious
knowledge which they had already attained: but they would be on the look
out for improvements; because they would consider themselves, and their
generation, as under a divine education. They would prove all things
fairly and boldly, and hold fast that which is good; all that which is
beautiful, noble, improving and elevating to human souls, minds, or
bodies; all that increases the amount of justice, mercy, knowledge,
refinement; all that lessens the amount of vice, cruelty, ignorance,
barbarism. That at least must come from Christ. That at least must be
the inspiration of the Spirit of God: unless the Pharisees were right
after all when they said, that evil spirits could be cast out by the
prince of the devils.
Be these things as they may, one comfort it will give us, to believe
firmly and actively in the changeless kingdom, and in the changeless
King. It will give us calm, patience, faith and hope, though the heavens
and the earth be shaken around us. For then we shall see that the
Kingdom, of which we are citizens, is a kingdom of light, and not of
darkness; of truth, and not of falsehood; of freedom, and not of slavery;
of bounty and mercy, and not of wrath and fear; that we live and move and
have our being not in a "Deus quidam deceptor" who grudges his children
wisdom, but in a Father of Light, from whom comes every good and perfect
gift; who willeth that all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge
of the truth. In His kingdom we are; and in the King whom He has set
over it we can have the most perfect trust. For us that King stooped
from heaven to earth; for us He was born, for us He toiled, for us He
suffered, for us He died, for us He rose, for us He sits for ever at
God's right hand. And can we not trust Him? Let Him do what He will.
Let Him lead us whither He will. Wheresoever He leads must be the way of
truth and life. Whatsoever He does, must be in harmony with that
infinite love which He displayed for us upon the Cross. Whatsoever He
does, must be in harmony with that eternal purpose by which He reveals to
men God their Father. Therefore, though the heaven and the earth be
shaken around us, we will trust in Him. For we know that He is the same
yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and that His will and promise is, to
lead those who trust in Him into all truth.
SERMON IX. THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
LUKE XXI. 29-33.
And Jesus spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the
trees; when they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves
that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these
things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.
Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all
be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall
not pass away.
The question which naturally suggests itself when we hear these words,
is--When were these things to take place?
If we heard one whom we regarded as at least a person of perfect virtue,
truthfulness, and earnestness, foretell that the city in which we now
stand should be destroyed. If he told us, that when we saw it
encompassed with armies, we were to know that its desolation was at hand.
If he told us that then those who were in the surrounding country were to
flee to the mountains, and those in the city to come out of it. If he
pronounced woe in that day on mothers and weak women who could not
escape. If he told us, nevertheless, that when these things came to pass
we were to rejoice and lift up our heads, for our redemption was drawing
nigh. If he told us to look at the trees in spring; for, as surely as
their budding was a sign that summer was nigh, so was the coming to pass
of these terrible woes a sign that something was nigh, which he called
the Kingdom of God. If he told us, with a solemn asseveration, that this
generation should not pass away till all had happened. If he went on to
warn us against profligacy, frivolity, worldliness, lest that day should
come upon us unaware. If he bade us keep awake always, that we might be
found worthy to escape all that was coming, and to stand before Him, The
Son of Man. If he used throughout his address the second person,
speaking to us, but never mentioning our descendants; giving the signs,
the warnings, the counsels to us only, should we not, even if he had not
solemnly told us that the present generation should not pass away till
all was fulfilled--should we not, I say, suppose naturally that he spoke
of events which in his opinion our own eyes would see; which would, in
his opinion, occur during our lifetime?
Whether he were right in his expectation, or wrong, still it would be
clear that such was his expectation; that he considered the danger as
imminent, the warning as addressed personally to us who heard him speak.
We should leave his presence with that impression, in fear and anxiety.
But if we afterwards discovered that our fear and anxiety were
superfluous; that the events of which he spoke--the most awful and
wonderful of them at least--were not to occur for many centuries to come;
that, even if some calamity were imminent, the immediate future and the
very distant future were so intermingled in his discourse, that it would
require the labours of commentator after commentator, for many hundred
years, to disentangle them, and that their labours would be in vain; that
the coming of the Son of Man, and of the Kingdom of God, of which he had
spoken, were to be referred to a time thousands of years hence; though we
were told in the same breath to look to the fig-tree and all the trees as
a sign that it was coming immediately, and that our own generation would
not pass away before all had taken place:--would not such a discovery
raise in us thoughts and feelings neither wholesome for us nor honourable
to the prophet?
I cannot think otherwise. We may be aware of the difficulties which
beset this, and any other, interpretation of our Lord's prophecies in
Matthew, Mark, and Luke: we may have the deepest respect for those
learned and pious divines who from time to time have tried to part the
prophecies relating to the fall of Jerusalem from those relating to the
end of the world and the day of Judgment. Yet, in the face of such a
passage as the text, especially when we cannot agree with those who would
make this "generation" mean this "race" or "nation," we may--we have a
right to--decline to separate the two sets of passages. We have a right
to say,--He who spake as man never spake, and therefore knew the force of
words; He who knew what was in man--and therefore what effect His words
would produce on His hearers--did deliver a discourse--indeed, many
discourses--which asserted, as far as plain words could be understood by
plain men, that the Kingdom of God was at hand; and that the coming of
the Son of Man would take place before that generation passed away.
And that all His disciples, and St Paul as much as any, put that meaning
upon His words, is a matter of fact and of history, to be seen plainly in
Holy Scripture.
But, while the text compels us to believe that the destruction of
Jerusalem by the Romans was a coming of the Son of Man--a manifestation
of the Kingdom of God--a day of Judgment, in the strictest and most awful
sense; yet we are not compelled to limit the meaning of the text to the
destruction of Jerusalem.
No prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation. Prophets,
apostles--how much more our Lord Himself--do not merely indulge in
presages; they lay down laws--laws moral, spiritual, eternal--which have
been fulfilling themselves from the beginning; which are fulfilling
themselves now; which will go on fulfilling themselves to the end of
time.
So said our Lord Jesus of His own prophecies concerning the destruction
of Jerusalem. It was but one example--a most awful one--of the laws of
His kingdom. Not in Judaea only, but wherever the carcase was, there
would the eagles be gathered together. In the moral, as in the physical
word, there were beasts of prey--the scavengers of God--ready to devour
out of His kingdom nations, institutions, opinions, which had become
dead, and decayed, and ready to infect the air. Many a time since the
Roman eagles flocked to Jerusalem has that prophecy been fulfilled; and
many a time will it be fulfilled once more, and yet once more.
And what else, if we look at them carefully and reverently, is the
meaning of the words in this my text, "Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but My words shall not pass away"?
Shall we translate this,--Heaven and earth shall not come true: but My
words shall come true? By so doing we may put some little meaning into
the latter half of the verse; but none into the former. Surely there is
a deeper meaning in the words than that of merely coming true. Surely
they mean that His words are eternal, perpetual; for ever present,
possible, imminent; for ever coming true. So, indeed, they would not
pass away. So they would be like the heavens and the earth, and the laws
thereof; like heat, gravitation, electricity, what not--always here,
always working, always asserting themselves--with this difference, that
when the physical laws of the heavens and the earth, which began in time,
in time have perished, the spiritual laws of God's kingdom, of Christ's
moral government of moral beings, shall endure for ever and for ever,
eternal as that God whose essence they reflect.
Therefore I mean nothing less than that the great and final day of
Judgment is past; or that we are not to look for that second coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ which, as our forefathers taught us to hope, shall
set right all the wrong of this diseased world.
God forbid! For most miserable were the world, most miserable were
mankind, if all that our Lord prophesied had happened, once and for all,
at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies. But most miserable,
also, would this world be, and most miserable would be mankind, if these
words were not to be fulfilled till some future Last Day, and day of
Judgment, for which the Church has now been waiting for more than
eighteen centuries--and, as far as we can judge, may wait for as many
centuries more. Most miserable, if the Son of Man has never come since
He ascended into heaven from Olivet. Most miserable, if the kingdom of
God has never been at hand, since He gave that one short gleam of hope to
men in Judaea long ago. Most miserable, if there be no kingdom of God
among us even now: in one word, if God and Christ be not our King; but
the devil, as some fancy; or Man himself, as others fancy, be the only
king of this world and of its destinies; if there be no order in this mad
world, save what man invents; no justice, save what he executes; no law,
save what he finds convenient to lay upon himself for the protection of
his person and property. Most miserable, if the human race have no
guide, save its own instincts and tendencies; no history, save that of
its own greed, ignorance and crime, varied only by fruitless struggles
after a happiness to which it never attains. Most miserable world, and
miserable man, if that be true after all which to the old Hebrew prophet
seemed incredible and horrible--if God does look on while men deal
treacherously, and does hold His peace when the wicked devours the man
who is more righteous than he; and has made men as the fishes of the sea,
as the creeping things that have no ruler over them.
I said--Most miserable, in that case, was the world and man. I did not
say that they would consider themselves miserable. I did not say that
they would think it a Gospel, and good news, that Christ was their King,
and that His Kingdom was always at hand. They never thought that good
news. When the prophets told them of it, they stoned them. When the
Lord Himself told them, they crucified Him. Worldly men dislike the
message now, probably, as much as they ever did. But they escape from
it, either by treating it as a self-evident commonplace which no
Christian denies, and therefore no Christian need think of; or by smiling
at it as an exploded superstition, at least as a "Semitic" form of
thought, with which we have nothing to do. They confound it, often I
fear purposely, with those fancied miraculous interpositions, those
paltry special providences, which fanatics in all ages have believed to
be worked for their own special behoof. Altogether they dislike, and
express very openly their dislike, of the least allusion to a Divine
Providence "interfering," as they strangely term it, with them and their
affairs.
And they are wise, doubtless, in their generation. The news that Christ
is the King of men and of the world must be unpleasant, even offensive,
to too many, both of those who fancy that they are managing this world,
and of those who fancy that they could manage the world still better, if
they only had their rights. It must be unpleasant to be told that they
are not managing the world, and cannot manage it: that it is being
managed and ruled by an unseen King, whose ways are far above their ways,
and His thoughts above their thoughts.
For then: Prudence might demand of them, that they should find out what
are that King's ways, thoughts and laws, and obey them--an enquiry so
troublesome, that many very highly educated persons consider it, now-a-
days, quite impossible; and tell us that, for practical purposes, God's
laws can neither be discovered, nor obeyed.
Moreover, their scheme of this world is one which would work--so they
fancy--just as well if there was no God. Unpleasant therefore it must be
for them to hear, not merely that there is a God, but that He has His own
scheme of the world; and that it is working, whether they like or not;
that God, and not they, is making history; God, and not they, appointing
the bounds and the times of nations; God, and not they, or any man or
men, distributing good and evil among mankind.
They do not object, of course, to the existence of a God. They only
object to His being what the Hebrew prophets called Him--a living God; a
God who executes justice and judgment by His Son Jesus Christ, to whom He
has committed all power both in heaven and earth. They are ready
sometimes to allow even that, provided they may relegate it into the
past, or into the future. They are ready to allow that God and Christ
exerted power over men at the first Advent 1800 years ago, and that they
will exert power over men at the second Advent--none knows how long
hence. But that God and Christ are exerting power now--in an
ever-present and perpetual Advent--in this nineteenth century just as
much as in any century before or since--that they had rather not believe.
Their creed is, that though heaven and earth have not passed away; though
the laws of nature are working for ever as at the beginning: yet Christ's
words have passed away, and fallen into abeyance for many centuries past,
to remain in abeyance for many centuries to come.
In one word--while they believe more or less in a past God, and a future
God, yet as to the existence of a present God, in any practical and real
sense--they believe--how little, I dare not say.
Whether this generation will awaken out of that sleep of practical
Atheism, which is creeping on them more and more, who can tell? That
they are uneasy in the sleep, there are many signs. For in their sleep
dreams come of another world, of which their five senses tell them
nought. Then do some fly to mediaeval superstitions, which give them at
least elaborate and agreeable substitutes for a living God. Some fly to
impostors, who pretend by juggling tricks to put them in communication
with that unseen world which they have so long denied. Some, again, play
with unfulfilled prophecy; and fancy that it is for them, though it was
not for the apostles, to know the times and seasons which the Father has
put in His own power, and the day and hour of which no man knoweth, no
not the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.
Better that, than that they should believe that there is nothing, and
never will be anything, in the world, beyond what their five senses can
apprehend.
But whether they awake or not out of their sleep, their blindness does
not alter the eternal fact, whether men believe it or not. That is true
what the Psalmist said of old: "The Lord is King, be the people never so
impatient. He sitteth upon His throne, though the earth be never so
unquiet."