but honour and duty. There is many a thing which I would rather die than
do--then you would answer like valiant and righteous folk; and may God
give you grace to keep in the same mind, and to hold your good resolution
to the last. But you, too, will agree that, except doing your duty, life
is the most important thing you have. The mother, when she sacrifices
her life to save her child, shews thereby how valuable she holds the
child's life to be; so valuable that she will give up even her own to
save it.
But did you never consider, again--and a very solemn and awful thought it
is--that this so important thing called life is the thing, above all
other earthly things, of which we know least--ay, of which we know
nothing?
We do not know what death is. We send a shot through a bird, and it
falls dead--that is, lies still, and after a while decays again into the
dust of the earth, and the gases of the air. But what has happened to
it? How does it die? How does it decay? What is this life which is
gone out of it? No man knows. Men of science, by dissecting and making
experiments, which they do with a skill and patience which deserve not
only our belief, but our admiration, will describe to us the phenomena,
or outward appearances, which accompany death, and follow death. But
death itself--for want of what the animal has died--what has gone out of
it--they cannot tell. No man can tell; for that is invisible, and not to
be discovered by the senses. They are therefore forced to explain death
by theories, which may be true, or false: but which are after all not
death itself, but their own thoughts about death put into their own
words. Death no man can see: but only the phenomena and effects of
death; and still more, life no man can see: but only the phenomena and
effects of life.
For if we cannot tell what death is, still more we cannot tell what life
is. How life begins; how it organizes each living thing according to its
kind; and makes it grow; how it gives it the power of feeding on other
things, and keeping up its own body thereby: of this all experiments tell
us as yet nothing. Experiment gives us, here again, the phenomena--the
visible effects. But the causes it sees not, and cannot see.
This is not a matter to be discussed here. But this I say, that
scientific men, in the last generation or two, have learnt, to their
great honour, and to the great good of mankind--everything, or almost
everything, about it--except the thing itself; and that, below all facts,
below all experiments, below all that the eye or brain of man can
discover, lies always a something nameless, invisible, imponderable, yet
seemingly omnipresent and omnipotent; retreating before the man of
science deeper and deeper, the deeper he delves: namely, the life, which
shapes and makes all phenomena, and all facts. Scientific men are
becoming more and more aware of this unknown force, I had almost said,
ready to worship it. More and more the noblest minded of them are
becoming engrossed with that truly miraculous element in nature which is
always escaping them, though they cannot escape it. How should they
escape it? Was it not written of old--Whither shall I go from Thy
presence? and whither shall I flee from Thy Spirit?
What then can we know of this same life, which is so precious in most
men's eyes?
My friends, it was once said--That man's instinct was in all unknown
matters to take refuge in God. The words were meant as a sneer. I, as a
Christian, glory in them; and ask, Where else should man take refuge,
save in God? When man sees anything--as he must see hundreds of
things--which he cannot account for; things mysterious, and seemingly
beyond the power of his mind to explain: what safer, what wiser word can
he say than--This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?
God understands it: though I do not. Be it what it may, it is a work of
God. From God it comes: by God it is ruled and ordered. That at least I
know: and let that be enough for me. And so we may say of life. When we
are awed, and all but terrified, by the unfathomable mystery of life, we
can at least take refuge in God. And if we be wise, we shall take refuge
in God. Whatever we can or cannot know about it, this we know; that it
is the gift of God. So thought the old Jewish Prophets and Psalmists;
and spoke of a breath of God, a vapour, a Spirit of God, which breathed
life into all things. It was but a figure of speech, of course: but if a
better one has yet been found, let the words in which it has been written
or spoken be shewn to me. For to me, at least, they are yet unknown. I
have read, as yet, no wiser words about the matter than those of the old
Jewish sages, who told how, at the making of the world, the Spirit, or
breath, of God moved on the face of the waters, quickening all things to
life; or how God breathed into man's nostrils the breath or spirit of
life, and man became a living soul.
And in the same temper does that true philosopher and truly inspired
Psalmist, who wrote the 139th Psalm, speak of the Spirit or breath of
God. He considers his own body: how fearfully and wonderfully it is
made; how God did see his substance, yet being imperfect; and in God's
book were all his members written, which day by day were fashioned, while
as yet there was none of them. "Thou," he says, "O God, hast fashioned
me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too
wonderful and excellent for me; I cannot attain to it." "But," he says
to himself, "there is One Who has attained to it; Who does know; for He
has done it all, and is doing it still: and that is God and the Spirit of
God. Whither"--he asks--"shall I go then from God's Spirit? Whither
shall I flee from God's presence?" And so he sees by faith--and by the
highest reason likewise--The Spirit of God, as a living, thinking, acting
being, who quickens and shapes, and orders, not his mortal body merely,
but all things; giving life, law, and form to all created things, from
the heights of heaven to the depths of hell; and ready to lead him and
hold him, if he took the wings of the morning and fled into the uttermost
parts of the sea.
And so speaks again he who wrote the 104th Psalm, and the text which I
have chosen. To him, too, the mystery of death, and still more the
mystery of life, could be explained only by faith in God, and in the
Spirit of God. If things died, it was because God took away their
breath, and therefore they returned to their dust. And if things lived,
it was because the Spirit of God, breathed forth, and proceeding, from
God, gave them life. He pictured to himself, I dare to fancy, what we
may picture to ourselves--for such places have often been, and are now,
in this world--some new and barren land, even as the very gravel on which
we stand was once, just risen from the icy sea, all waste and lifeless,
without a growing weed, an insect, even a moss. Then, gradually, seeds
float thither across the sea, or are wafted by the winds, and grow; and
after them come insects; then birds; then trees grow up; and larger
animals arrive to feed beneath their shade; till the once barren land has
become fertile and rich with life, and the face of the earth is renewed.
But by what? "God," says the Psalmist, "has renewed the face of the
earth." True, the seeds, the animals came by natural causes: but who was
the Cause of those causes? Who sent the things thither, save God? And
who gave them life? Who kept the life in floating seeds, in flying
spores? Who made that life, when they reached the barren shore, grow and
thrive in each after their kind? Who, but the Spirit of God, the Lord
and Giver of life? God let His Spirit proceed and go forth from Himself
upon them; and they were made; and so He renewed the face of the earth.
That, my good friends, is not only according to Scripture, but according
to true philosophy. Men are slow to believe it now: and no wonder. They
have been always slow to believe in the living God; and have made
themselves instead dead gods--if not of wood and stone, still out of
their own thoughts and imaginations; and talk of laws of nature, and long
abstractions ending in ation and ality, like that "Evolution" with which
so many are in love just now; and worship them as gods; mere words, the
work of their own brains, though not of their own hands--even though they
be--as many of them are--Evolution, I hold, among the rest--true and fair
approximations to actual laws of God. But before them, and behind them,
and above them and below them, lives the Author of Evolution, and of
everything else. For God lives, and reigns, and works for ever. The
Spirit of God proceedeth from the Father and the Son, giving, evolving,
and ruling the life of all created things; and what we call nature, and
this world, and the whole universe, is an unfathomable mystery, and a
perpetual miracle, The one Author and Ruler of which is the ever-blessed
Trinity, of whom it is written--"The glorious majesty of the Lord shall
endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in His works."
I believe, therefore, that the Psalmist in the text is speaking, not
merely sound doctrine but sound philosophy. I believe that the simplest
and the most rational account of the mystery of life is that which is
given by the Christian faith; and that the Nicene Creed speaks truth and
fact, when it bids us call the Holy Spirit of God the Lord and Giver of
life.
That this is according to the orthodox Catholic Faith there is no doubt.
Many mistakes were made on this matter, in the early times of the Church,
even by most learned and holy divines; as was to be expected, considering
the mysteriousness of the subject. They were inclined, often, to what is
called Pantheism--that is, to fancy that all living things are parts of
God; that God's Spirit is in them, as our soul is in our body, or as heat
is in a heated matter; and to speak of God's Spirit as the soul and life
of the world.
But this is exactly what the Nicene Creed does not do. It does not say
that the Holy Spirit is life: but that He is the Lord and Giver of life--a
seemingly small difference in words: but a most vast and important
difference in meaning and in truth.
The true doctrine, it seems to me, is laid down most clearly by the
famous bishop, Cyril of Alexandria; who, whatever personal faults he
had--and they were many--had doubtless dialectic intellect enough for
this, and even deeper questions. And he says--"The Holy Spirit moves all
things that are moved; and holds together, and animates, and makes alive,
the whole universe. Nor is He another Nature different from the Father
and the Son: but as He is in us; of the same nature and the same essence
as they." And so says another divine, Eneas of Gaza--"The Father, with
the Son, sends forth the Holy Spirit; and inspiring with this Spirit all
things, beyond sense and of sense--invisible and visible--fills them with
power, and holds them together, and draws them to Himself." And he prays
thus to the Holy Spirit a prayer which is to my mind as noble as it is
true--"O Holy Spirit, by whom God inspires, and holds together, and
preserves all things, and leads them to perfection." I quote such words
to shew you that I am not giving you new fancies of my own: but simply
what I believe to be the ancient, orthodox and honest meaning of that
same Nicene Creed, which you just new heard; where it says that the Holy
Spirit is the Lord and Giver of life; and the meaning of the 104th Psalm
also, where it says--"Thou lettest Thy breath--Thy Spirit--go forth, and
they shall be made, and Thou shall renew the face of the earth."
And now--if anyone shall say--This may be all very true. But what is it
to me? You are talking about nature; about animals and plants, and lands
and seas. What I come to church to hear of, is about my own soul--
I should answer such a man--My good friend, you come to church to hear
about God as well as about what you call your soul. And any sound
knowledge which you can learn about God, must be--believe me--of use to
your immortal soul. For if you have wrong notions concerning God: how
can you avoid having wrong notions concerning your soul, which lives and
moves and has its being in God?
But look at it thus. At least I have been speaking of the works of God.
And are not you, too, a work of God? The Lord shall rejoice in His
works, even to the tiniest gnat that dances in the sun. Is the Lord
rejoicing in you? I have said--Whither shall a man go from God's
presence? Are you forgetting or remembering God's presence? And--Whither
shall a man flee from God's Spirit? Are you, O man, fleeing from God's
Spirit, and forgetting His gracious inspirations; all pure and holy, and
noble, and just and lovely and truly human, thoughts, in the whirl of
pleasure, or covetousness, or ambition, or actual sin? If so, look at
the tiniest gnat which dances in the air, the meanest flower beneath your
feet; and be ashamed, and fear, and tremble before the Living God, and
before His Spirit. For the gnat and the flower are doing their duty, and
pleasing the Holy Spirit of God; and you are not doing your duty, and are
grieving the Holy Spirit of God. For simply: because that Spirit is the
Spirit of God, He is a Holy Spirit, who tries to make you--O man and not
animal--holy; a moral, and spiritual, and good being. Because you are a
moral and spiritual being, God's Spirit exercises over you a moral power
which He does not exercise over the plants and animals. He works not
merely on your body and your brain: but on your heart and immortal soul.
But if you choose to be immoral, when He is trying to keep you moral; if
you choose to be carnal like the brutes, while He is trying to make you
spiritual, like Jesus Christ, from whom He proceeds: then, oh then,
tremble, and beware, and be ashamed before the very flowers which grow in
your own garden-bed; for they fulfil the law which God has given them.
They are what they ought to be, each after its kind. But you are not
what you ought to be, after your kind; which is a good man, or a good
woman, or a good child.
Oh beware lest the Lord should fulfil in you the awful words of this
Psalm; lest He should hide His face from you, and you be troubled; and
lest when He takes away your breath you should die, and turn again to
your dust; and find, too late, that the wages of sin are death--death not
merely of the body, but of the soul. Rather repent, and amend, and
remember that most blessed, and yet most awful fact--that God's Spirit is
with you from your baptism until now, putting into your heart good
desires, and ready to enable you--if you will--to bring those good
desires to good effect: instead of leaving them only as good intentions,
with which, says the too true proverb, hell is paved.
So will be fulfilled in you the blessed words of the next verse--When
Thou lettest Thy Spirit go forth, they shall be made; and Thou shalt
renew the face of the earth--words which St Augustine of old applied to
the work of God's Spirit on the souls of men.
For well it is with us--as St Augustine says--when God takes away from us
our own spirit, the spirit of pride and self-will and self-righteousness;
and we see that we are but dust and ashes; worse than the animals, in
that we have sinned, and they have not. Confess--he says--thy weakness
and thy dust: and then listen to what follows:--Thou shalt take away from
them their own spirit; but Thou shalt send forth Thy Spirit on them, and
they shall be made and created anew. As the Apostle says, "We are God's
own workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works." And so--he
says--God will indeed renew the face of the earth with converted and
renewed men, who confess that they are not righteous in themselves, but
made righteous by the grace of the Spirit of God; and so the Lord shall
rejoice in His works; you will be indeed His work, and He will rejoice in
you.
Yes. God will indeed rejoice in us, if we obey the godly inspirations of
His Spirit. But again, we shall rejoice in God; if we be but led by His
Spirit into all truth, and thence into all righteousness. Then we shall
be in harmony with God, and with the whole universe of God. We shall
have our share in that perpetual worship which is celebrated throughout
the universe by all creatures, rational and irrational, who are obeying
the laws of their being; the laws of the Spirit of God, the Lord and
Giver of life. We shall take our part in that perpetual Hymn which calls
on all the works of the Lord, from angels and powers, sun and stars,
winds and seasons, seas and floods, trees and flowers, beasts and cattle,
to the children of men, and the servants of the Lord, and the spirits and
souls of the righteous, and the holy and humble men of heart--"O all ye
works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for
ever."
SERMON XVIII. DEATH.
PSALM CIV. 20, 21.
Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the
forest do creep forth. The lions roar after their prey, and seek
their meat from God.
Let me say a few words on this text. It is one which has been a comfort
to me again and again. It is one which, if rightly understood, ought to
give comfort to pitiful and tender-hearted persons.
Have you never been touched by, never been even shocked by, the mystery
of pain and death? I do not speak now of pain and death among human
beings: but only of that pain and death among the dumb and irrational
creatures, which from one point of view is more pitiful than pain and
death among human beings.
For pain, suffering, and death, we know, may be of use to human beings.
It may make them happier and better in this life, or in the life to come;
if they are the Christians which they ought to be. But of what use can
suffering and death be to dumb animals? How can it make them better in
this life, and happier in the life to come? It seems, in the case of
animals, to be only so much superfluous misery thrown away. Would to God
that people would remember that, when they unnecessarily torment dumb
creatures, and then excuse themselves by saying--Oh, they are not human
beings; they are not Christians; and therefore it does not matter so
much. I should have thought that therefore it mattered all the more: and
that just because dumb animals have, as far as we know, only this mortal
life, therefore we should allow them the fuller enjoyment of their brief
mortality.
And yet, how much suffering, how much violent death, there is among
animals. How much? The world is full of it, and has been full of it for
ages. I dare to say, that of the millions on millions of living
creatures in the earth, the air, the sea, full one-half live by eating
each other. In the sea, indeed, almost every kind of creature feeds on
some other creature: and what an amount of pain, of terror, of violent
death that means, or seems to mean!
We here, in a cultivated country, are slow to take in this thought. We
have not here, as in India, Africa, America, lion and tiger, bear and
wolf, jaguar and puma, perpetually prowling round the farms, and taking
their tithe of our sheep and cattle. We have never heard, as the
Psalmist had, the roar of the lion round the village at night, or seen
all the animals, down to the very dogs, crowding together in terror,
knowing but too well what that roar meant. If we had; and had been like
the Psalmist, thoughtful men: then it would have been a very solemn
question to us--From whom the lion was asking for his nightly meal;
whether from God, or from some devil as cruel as himself?
But even here the same slaughter of animals by animals goes on. The hawk
feeds on the small birds, the small birds on the insects, the insects,
many of them, on each other. Even our most delicate and seemingly
harmless songsters, like the nightingale, feed entirely on living
creatures--each one of which, however small, has cost God as much
pains--if I may so speak in all reverence--to make as the nightingale
itself; and thus, from the top to the bottom of creation, is one chain of
destruction, and pain, and death.
What is the meaning of it all? Ought it to be so, or ought it not? Is
it God's will and law, or is it not? That is a solemn question; and one
which has tried many a thoughtful, and tender, and virtuous soul ere now,
both Christian and heathen; and has driven them to find strange answers
to it, which have been, often enough, not according to Scripture, or to
the Catholic Faith.
Some used to say, in old times; and they may say again--This world, so
full of pain and death, is a very ill-made world. We will not believe
that it was made by the good God. It must have been made by some evil
being, or at least by some stupid and clumsy being--the Demiurgus, they
called him--or the world-maker--some inferior God, whom the good God
would conquer and depose, and so do away with pain, and misery, and
death. A pardonable mistake: but, as we are bound to believe, a mistake
nevertheless.
Others, again, good Christians and good men likewise, have invented
another answer to the mystery--like that which Milton gives in his
'Paradise Lost.' They have said--Before Adam fell there was no pain or
death in the world. It was only after Adam's fall that the animals began
to destroy and devour each other. Ever since then there has been a curse
on the earth, and this is one of the fruits thereof.
Now I say distinctly, as I have said elsewhere, that we are not bound to
believe this or anything like it. The book of Genesis does not say that
the animals began to devour each other at Adam's fall. It does not even
say that the ground is cursed for man's sake now, much less the animals.
For we read in Genesis ix. 21--"And the Lord said, I will not any more
curse the ground for man's sake." Neither do the Psalmists and Prophets
give the least hint of any such doctrine. Surely, if we found it
anywhere, we should find it in this very 104th Psalm, and somewhere near
the very verse which I have taken for my text. But this Psalm gives no
hint of it. So far from saying that God has cursed His own works, or
looks on them as cursed: it says--"The Lord shall rejoice in His works."
Others will tell us that St Paul has said so, where he says that "by one
man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." But I must very
humbly, but very firmly, demur to that. St Paul shews that when he
speaks of the world he means the world of men; for he goes on to say,
"And so death passed upon all men, in that all have sinned." By
mentioning men, he excludes the animals; he excludes all who have not
sinned: according to a sound rule of logic which lawyers know well. What
St Paul meant, I believe, is most probably this: that Adam, by sinning,
lost his heavenly birthright; and put on the carnal and fleshly likeness
of the animals, instead of the likeness of God in which he was created;
and therefore, sowing to the flesh, of the flesh reaped corruption; and
became subject to death even as the dumb beasts are.
Be that as it may, we know--as certainly as we can know anything from the
use of our own eyes and common sense--that long ages before Adam, long
ages before men existed on this earth, the animals destroyed and ate each
other, even as they are doing now. We know that ages ago, in old worlds,
long before this present world in which we live, the seas swarmed with
sharks and other monsters, who not only died as animals do now, but who
did devour--for there is actual proof of it--other living creatures; and
that the same process went on on the land likewise. The rocks and soils,
for miles beneath our feet, are one vast graveyard, full of the skeletons
of creatures, almost all unlike any living now, who, long before the days
of Adam, and still more before the days of Noah, lived and died,
generation after generation; and sought their meat--from whom--if not
from God?
Yes, that last is the answer--the only answer which can give a thoughtful
and tender-hearted soul comfort, at the sight of so much pain and death
on earth--In every unknown question, to take refuge in God. And that is
the answer which the inspired Psalmist gives, in the 104th Psalm--"The
lions roaring after their prey do seek their meat from God." And if they
seek it from God, all must be right: we know not how; but He who made
them knows.