in which each of us sails, is our own nature and character; what St Paul,
like a truly scientific man, calls our flesh; and what modern scientific
men, and rightly, call our organisation. And the land to which we are
sailing is eternal Life. Shall we make a prosperous voyage? Shall we
fail, or shall we succeed? Shall we founder and drown at sea, and sink
to eternal death? Or shall we, as the clergyman prayed for us when we
were baptized, so pass through the waves of this troublesome world, that
finally we may come to the land of everlasting life? Which shall it be,
my friends? Shall we sink, or shall we swim? Certain is one thing--that
we shall sink, and not swim, if we do not learn and keep the law, and
commandments, and testimonies, and judgments of God, concerning this our
mortal life. If we do not, then we shall go through life, without
knowing how to go through life, ignorantly and blindly; and the end of
that will be failure, and ruin, and death to our souls. If we do not
know and keep the Laws of God, the Laws of God will keep themselves, in
spite of us, and grind us to powder. Do not fancy that you may do wrong
without being punished; and break God's Law, because you are not under
the law, but under grace. You are only under grace, as long as you keep
clear of God's Law. The moment you do wrong you put yourself under the
Law, and the Law will punish you. Suppose that you went into a mill; and
that the owner of that mill was your best friend, even your father. Would
that prevent your being crushed by the machinery, if you got entangled in
it through ignorance or heedlessness? I think not. Even so, though God
be your best of friends, ay, your Father in heaven, that will not prevent
your being injured, it may be ruined, not only by wilful sins, but by
mere folly and ignorance. Therefore your only chance for safety in this
life and for ever, is to learn God's laws and statutes about your life,
that you may pass through it justly, honourably, virtuously,
successfully. And the man who wrote the 119th Psalm knew that, and said,
"Oh that my ways were made so direct, that I might keep thy statutes."
But moreover, you must learn God's commandments. He has laid down
certain commands, certain positive rules which must be kept if you do not
intend to die the eternal death. So says our Lord. "If thou wilt enter
into life, keep the commandments." "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart and soul, and thy neighbour as thyself." There the
ten commandments are, and kept they must be; and if you break one of
them, it will punish you, and you cannot escape. And the man who wrote
the 119th Psalm knew that, and said, "With my whole heart have I sought
thee: oh let me not go wrong out of Thy commandments."
Moreover, you must learn God's testimonies: what He has witnessed and
declared about Himself, and His own character, His power and His
goodness, His severity and His love. And where will you learn that, as
in the Bible? The Bible is full of testimonies of God in Christ about
Himself; who He is, what He does, what He requires; and of testimonies of
holy men of old, concerning God and concerning duty; concerning God's
dealings with their souls, and with other men, and with all the nations
of the old world, and with all nations likewise to the end of time. And
if people will not read and study their Bibles, they cannot expect to
know the way to eternal life. That too the man who wrote the 119th Psalm
knew, and said, "I have had as great delight in Thy testimonies, as in
all manner of riches."
Moreover, you must learn God's judgments; the way in which He rewards and
punishes men. And those too you will learn in the Bible, which is full
of accounts of the just and merciful judgments of God. And you may learn
them too from your own experience in life; from seeing what actually
happens to those whom you know, when they do right things; and what
happens again, when they do wrong things. If any man will open his eyes
to what is going on around him in a single city, or in the mere private
circle of his own kinsfolk and acquaintance; if he will but use his
common sense, and look how righteousness is rewarded, and sin is
punished, all day long, then he might learn enough and to spare about
God's judgments: but men will not. A man will see his neighbour do
wrong, and suffer for it: and then go and do exactly the same thing
himself; as if there were no living God; no judgments of God; as if all
was accident and chance; as if he was to escape scot-free, while his
neighbour next door has brought shame and misery on himself by doing the
same thing. For it was well written of old, "The fool hath said in his
heart--though he is afraid to say it with his lips--There is no God." And
the man who wrote the 119th Psalm knew that, and said, "I remembered
Thine everlasting judgments, O Lord, and received comfort; for I was
horribly afraid for the ungodly who forsake Thy law."
I say again: that the only way to attain eternal life is to know, and
keep, and profit by God's laws, God's commandments, God's testimonies,
God's judgments; and therefore it is that the Psalmists say so often,
that these laws and commandments are Life. Not merely the way to eternal
life; but the Life itself, as it is written in the Prayer-Book, "O God,
whom truly to know is everlasting life."
But some will say, How shall I learn? I am very stupid, and I confess
that freely. And when I have learnt, how shall I act up to my lesson?
For I am very weak; and that I confess freely likewise.
How indeed, my friends? Stupid we are, the cleverest of us; and weak we
are, the strongest of us. And if God left us to find out for ourselves,
and to take care of ourselves, we should not sail far on the voyage of
life without being wrecked; and going down body and soul to hell.
But, blessed be God, He has not left us to ourselves. He has not only
commanded us to learn: He has promised to teach. And--as I said in the
beginning of my Sermon--he who wrote the 119th Psalm knew that well. He
knew that God would teach him and strengthen him; enlightening his dull
understanding, and quickening his dull will; and therefore his Psalm, as
I said, is a prayer, a prayer for teaching, and a prayer for light; and
he cries to God--My soul cleaveth to the dust. I am low-minded, stupid,
and earthly at the best. Oh quicken Thou me; that is--Oh give me
life--more life--according to Thy word.
Thy Word. The Word of God, of whom the Psalmist says--O Lord, Thy Word
endureth for ever in heaven. Even the Word of God, Jesus Christ our
Lord, the Son of Man who is in heaven; and who, because He is in heaven,
both God and man, can and will give us light and life, now and for ever.
And now take home with you this one thought. There is one education
which we must all get; one thing which we must all learn, and learn to
obey, or come to utter shame and ruin, either in this world or the world
to come; and that is the laws, and commandments, and testimonies of
God,--God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; for only by
keeping them can we enter into eternal life. And if we wish to know
them, God himself will teach us them. And if we wish, to keep them, God
himself will give us strength to keep them. Amen.
SERMON XII. THE REASONABLE PRAYER.
PSALM CXIX. 33, 94.
O Lord, teach me Thy statutes, and I shall keep them to the end. I am
Thine, O save me; for I have kept Thy commandments.
Some who heard me last Sunday, both morning and afternoon, may have
remarked an apparent contradiction between my two sermons. I hope they
have done so. For then I shall hope that they are facing one of the most
difficult, and yet most necessary, of all problems; namely the difference
between the Law and the Gospel. In my morning sermon I spoke of the
eternal law of God--how it was unchangeable even as God its author,
rigid, awful, inevitable by every soul of man, and certain, if he kept
it, to lead him into all good, for body, soul, and spirit: but certain,
too, if he broke it, to grind him to powder.
And in the afternoon, I spoke of the Gospel and Free Grace of God--how
that too was unchangeable, even as God its author; full of compassion and
tender mercy, and forgiveness of sins; willing not the death of a sinner;
but rather that he should be converted, and live.
But how are these two statements, both scriptural; both--as I hold from
practical experience, true to the uttermost, and not to be compromised or
explained away--how are they to be reconciled, I say? By these two
texts. By taking them both together, and never one without the other;
and by taking them, also, in the order in which you find them, and
never--as too many do--the second before the first. At least this was
the opinion of the Psalmist. He first seeks God's commandments and
statutes, and prays--Give me understanding and I shall keep Thy law, yea,
I shall keep it with my whole heart. Make me to go in the path of Thy
commandments; for therein is my desire. And then, only then, finding
himself in trouble, anxiety, even in danger of death, he feels he has a
sort of right to cry to God to help him out of his trouble, and prays--I
am Thine, oh save me!
And why? What reason can he give why God should save him? Because, he
says, I have sought Thy commandments.
Now let all rational persons lay this to heart; and consider it well.
There are very few, heathens and savages, as well as Christians, who will
not cry, when they find themselves in trouble--Oh save me. The instinct
of every man is, to cry to some unseen persons or powers to help him. If
he does not cry to the true and good God, he will cry to some false or
bad God; or to some idol, material or intellectual, of his own invention.
But that is no reason why his prayers should be heard. We read of old
heathens at Rome, who prayed to Mercury, the god of money-making--"Da
mihi fallere,"--Help me to cheat my neighbours: while the philosophers,
heathen though they were, laughed, with just contempt, at such men and
their prayers, and asked--Do you suppose that any God, if he be worth
calling a God, will answer such a request as that? Nay, in our own
times, have not the brigands of Naples been in the habit of carrying a
leaden image of St Januarius in their hats, and praying to it to protect
them in their trade of robbery and murder? I leave you to guess what
answer good St Januarius, and much more He who made St Januarius, and all
heaven and earth, was likely to give to such a prayer as that.
So it is not all prayers for help that are heard, or deserve to be heard.
And indeed--I do not wish to be hard, but the truth must be spoken--there
are too many people in the world who pray to God to help them, when they
are in difficulties or in danger, or in fear of death and of hell, but
never pray at any other time, or for any other thing. They pray to be
helped out of what is disagreeable. But they never pray to be made good.
They are not good, and they do not care to become good. All they care
for, is to escape death, or pain, or poverty, or shame, when they see it
staring them in the face: and God knows I do not blame them. We are all
children, and, like children, we cry out when we are hurt; and that is no
sin to us. But that is no part of godliness, not even of mere religion.
But worse--it is still more sad to have to say it, but it is true--most
people's notions of the next world, and of salvation, as they call it,
are just as childish, material, selfish as their notions of this world.
They all wish and pray to be "saved." What do they mean? To be saved
from bodily pain in the next life, and to have bodily pleasure instead.
Pain and pleasure are the only gods which they really worship. They call
the former--hell. They call the latter--heaven. But they know as little
of one as of the other; and their notions of both are equally worthy
of--Shall I say it? Must I say it?--equally worthy of the savage in the
forest. They believe that they must either go to heaven or to hell. They
have, of course, no wish to go to the latter place; for whatever else
there is likely to be there--some of which might not be quite unpleasant
or new to them, such as evil-speaking, lying, and slandering, envy,
hatred, malice and all uncharitableness, bigotry included--there will be
certainly there--they have reason to believe--bodily pain; the thing
which they, being mostly comfortable people, dread most, and avoid most:
contrary, you will remember, to the opinion of the blessed martyrs, who
dreaded bodily pain least, and avoided it least, of all the ills which
could befal them. Wherefore they are, in the sight of God, and of all
true men unto this day--the blessed martyrs.
But these people--and there are too many of them by hundreds of
thousands--do not want to be blessed. They only want to be comfortable
in this world, and in the next. As for blessedness, they do not even
know what it means; and our Lord's seven beatitudes, which begin--"Blessed
are the poor in spirit"--are not at all to their mind; even, alas! alas!
to the mind of many who call themselves religious and orthodox; at least
till they are so explained away, that they shall mean anything, or
nothing, save--I trust I am poor in spirit: and nevertheless I am right,
and everyone who differs from me is wrong.
The plain truth is--when all fine words, whether said in prayers or sung
in hymns, are stript off--that they do not wish to go to hell and pain;
and therefore prefer, very naturally, though not very spiritually, to go
to heaven and pleasure; and so sing of "crossing over Jordan to Canaan's
shore," or of "Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest," and so
forth, without any clear notion of what they mean thereby, save selfish
comfort without end; they really know not what; they really care not
where. And that they may arrive there or at a far better place; and have
their wish, and more than their wish: I for one heartily desire. But
whether they arrive there, or not; and indeed, whether they arrive at
some place infinitely better or infinitely worse, depends on whether they
will give up selfish calculations of loss and gain, selfish choosing
between mere pain and pleasure: and choose this; choose, whatever it may
cost them, between being good and being bad, or even being only half
good; as little good as they can afford to be without the pains of hell
into the bargain.
My friends--What if Christ should answer such people--I do not say that
He does always answer them so, for He is very pitiful, and of tender
mercy;--but what if He were to answer them, Save you? Help you? O
presumptuous mortal, what have you done that Christ should save or help
you? You are afraid of being ruined. Why should you not be ruined? What
good will it be to your fellow-men if you keep your money, instead of
losing it? You are making nothing but a bad use of your money. Why
should Christ help you to keep it, and misuse it still more?
You are afraid of death. You do not wish to die. But why should you not
die? Why should Christ save you from death? Of what use is your life to
Christ, or to any human being? If you are living a bad life, your life
is a bad thing, and does harm not only to yourself, but to your
neighbours. Why should Christ keep you alive to hurt and corrupt your
neighbours, and to set a bad example to your children? If you are not
doing your duty where Christ has put you, you are of no use, a cumberer
of the ground. What reason can you shew why He should not take you away,
and put some one in your place who _will_ do his duty? You are afraid of
being lost--why should you _not_ be lost? You are offensive, and an
injury to the universe. You are an actual nuisance on Christ's earth and
in Christ's Kingdom. Why should He not--as He has sworn--cast out of His
Kingdom all things which offend, and you among the rest? Why should He
not get rid of you, as you get rid of vermin, as you get rid of weeds;
and cast you into the fire, to be burned up with all evil things? Answer
that: before you ask Christ to save you, and deliver you from danger, and
from death, and from the hell which you so much--and perhaps so
justly--fear.
And how that question is to be answered, I cannot see.
Certainly the selfish man cannot answer it. The idle man cannot answer
it. The profligate man cannot answer it. They are doing nothing for
Christ; or for their neighbours, or for the human race; and they cannot
expect Christ to do anything for them.
The only men who can answer it; the only men, it seems to me, who can
have any hope of their prayers being heard, are those who, like the
Psalmist, are trying to do something for Christ, and their neighbours,
and the human race; who are, in a word, trying to be good. Those, I
mean, who have already prayed, earnestly and often, the first prayer,
"Teach me, O Lord, Thy statutes, and I shall keep them to the end." They
have--not a right: no one has a right against Christ, no, not the angels
and archangels in heaven--not a right, but a hope, through Christ's most
precious and undeserved promises, that their prayers will be heard; and
that Christ will save them from destruction, because they are, at least,
likely to become worth saving; because they are likely to be of use in
Christ's world, and to do some little work in Christ's kingdom.
They are God's: they are soldiers in Christ's army. They are labourers
in Christ's garden. They are on God's side in the battle of life, which
is the battle of Christ and of all good men, against evil, against sin
and ignorance, and the numberless miseries which sin and ignorance
produce. They are not the profligate; they are not the selfish, the
idle; they are not the frivolous, the insolent; they are not the wilfully
ignorant who do not care to learn, and do not even--so brutish are
they--think that there is anything worth learning in the world, save how
to turn sixpence into a shilling, and then spend it on themselves. Not
such are those who may hope to have their prayers heard, because they are
worth hearing, and worth helping. But they are the people who say to
themselves, not once in their lives, not once a week on Sundays, but
every day and all day long--I must be good; I will be good. I must be of
use; I must be doing some work for God; and therefore I must learn. I
must learn God's laws, and statutes, and commandments, about my station,
and calling, and business in life. Else how can I do it aright? I dare
no more be ignorant, than I dare be idle. I must learn. But how shall I
learn? Stupid I am, and ignorant, and the more I try to learn, the more
I discover how stupid I am. The more I do actually learn, the more I
discover how ignorant I am. There is so much to be learned; and how to
learn it passes my understanding. Who will teach me? How shall I get
understanding? How shall I get knowledge? And if I get them, how shall
I be sure that they are true understanding, and true knowledge? Mad
people have understanding enough; and so have some who are not mad, but
merely fools. Wit enough they have, active and rapid brains: but their
understanding is of no use, for it is only misunderstanding; and
therefore the more clever they are, the more foolish they are, and the
more dangerous to themselves and their fellow-creatures. Knowledge,
too--how shall I be sure that my knowledge, if I get it, is true
knowledge, and not false knowledge, knowledge which is not really
according to facts? I see too many who have knowledge for which I care
little enough. Some know a thousand things which are of no use to them,
or to any human being. Others know a thousand things: but know them in a
shallow, inaccurate fashion; and so cannot make use of them for any
practical purpose. Others know a thousand things: but know them all in a
prejudiced and one-sided fashion; till they see things not as things are,
but as they are not, and as they never will be; and therefore their
knowledge, instead of leading them, misleads them, and they misjudge
facts, misjudge men, and earth, and heaven, just as much as the man who
should misjudge the sunlight of heaven and fancy it to be green or blue,
because he looked at it through a green or blue glass. How then shall I
get true knowledge? Knowledge which will be really useful, really worth
knowing? Knowledge which I shall know accurately, and practically too,
so that I can use it in daily life, for myself and my fellow-men?
Knowledge, too, which shall be clear knowledge, not warped or coloured by
my own fancies, passions, prejudices, but pure, and calm, and sound;
Siccum Lumen, "Dry Light," as the greatest of English Philosophers called
it of old?
To all such, who long for light, that by the light they may see to live
the life, God answers, through His only-begotten Son, The Word who
endureth for ever in heaven:--
"Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall
be opened to you. For if ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to
your children, much more will your heavenly Father give His Holy Spirit
to those who ask Him."
Yes, ask for that Holy Spirit of God, that He may lead you into all
truth; into all truth, that is, which is necessary for you to know, in
order to see your way through the world, and through your duty in the
world. Ask for that Holy Spirit; that He may give you eyes to see things
as they are, and courage to feel things as they are, and to do your work
in them, and by them, whether they be pleasant or unpleasant, prosperous
or adverse. Ask Him; and He will give you true knowledge to know what a
serious position you are in, what a serious thing life is, death is,
judgment is, eternity is; that you may be no trifler nor idler, nor mere
scraper together of gain which you must leave behind you when you die:
but a truly serious man, seriously intent on your duty; seriously intent
on working God's work in the place and station to which He has called
you, before the night comes in which no man can work.
If a man is doing that; if he is earnestly trying to learn what is true,
in order that he may do what is right; then he has--I do not say a
right--but at least a reason, or a shadow of reason, when he cries to God
in his trouble--
"I am Thine, oh save me, for I have sought thy commandments."
"I am Thine." Not merely God's creature: the very birds, and bees, and
flowers are that; and do their duty far better than I--God forgive me--do
mine.
"I am Thine." Not merely God's child: the sinners and the thoughtless
are that, though--God help them--they care not for Him, nor for His laws,
nor for themselves and their glorious inheritance as children of God.
And I too am God's child: but I trust that I am more. I am God's school-
child. O Lord Jesus Christ, I claim Thy help as my schoolmaster, as well
as my Lord and Saviour. I am the least of Thy school-children; and it
may be the most ignorant and most stupid. I do not pretend to be a
scholar, a divine, a philosopher, a saint. I am a very weak, foolish,
insufficient personage; sitting on the lowest form in Thy great school-
house, which is the whole world; and trying to spell out the mere letters
of Thy alphabet, in hope that hereafter I may be able to make out whole
words, and whole sentences, of Thy commandments, and having learnt them,
do them. For if Thou wilt but teach me Thy statutes, O Lord, then I will
try to keep them to the end. For I long to be on Thy side, and about Thy
work. I long to help--if it be ever so little--in making myself better,
and my neighbours better. I long to be useful, and not useless; a
benefit, and not a nuisance; a fruit-bearing tree, and not a noxious
weed, in Thy garden; and therefore I hope that Thou wilt not cut me down,
nor root me up, nor let foul creatures trample me under foot. Have mercy
on me, O Lord, in my trouble, for the sake of the truth which I long to
learn, and for the good which I long to do. Poor little weak plant
though I may be, I am still a plant of Thy planting, which is doing its
best to grow, and flower, and bear fruit to eternal life; and Thou wilt
not despise the work of Thine own hands, O Lord, who died that I might
live? Thou wilt not let me perish? I have stuck unto Thy testimonies: O
Lord, confound me not.
Therefore remember this. If you wish to have reasonable hope when you
have to pray--"Lord, save me:" pray first, and pray continually--"Teach
me, O Lord, Thy statutes, and I will keep them to the end."
SERMON XIII. THE ONE ESCAPE.
PSALM CXIX. 67.
Before I was troubled, I went wrong: but now have I kept Thy Word.
Let me speak this afternoon once more about the 119th Psalm, and the man
who wrote it.
And first: he was certainly of a different opinion from nine persons out
of ten, I fear from ninety-nine out of a hundred, of every country, every
age, and every religion.
For, he says--Before I was troubled, I went wrong: but now have I kept
Thy Word. Whereas nine people out of ten would say to God, if they
dared--Before I was troubled, I kept Thy Word. But now that I am
troubled; of course I cannot help going wrong.
He makes his troubles a reason for doing right. They make their troubles
an excuse for doing wrong.