dumb animals, nor like the ungodly and superstitious; because he was
taught by the Spirit of God, and spoke by the Spirit of God. One who saw
no signs and wonders, and yet believed in God--namely, the man who wrote
the 139th Psalm. He needed no prodigies to make him believe. The
thought of his own body, how fearfully and wonderfully it was made, was
enough to make him do that. He looked on the perfect order and law which
ruled over the development of his own organization, and said--"I will
praise Thee. For I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvellous are
Thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. Thine eyes did see my
substance, yet being imperfect; and in Thy Book were all my members
written, which day by day were fashioned, when as yet there was none of
them. How dear are Thy counsels unto me, O God! how great is the sum of
them!"
And I will tell you of another man who needed no signs and wonders to
make him believe--the man, namely, who wrote the 19th Psalm. He looked
upon the perfect order and law of the heavens over his head, and the mere
sight of the sun and moon and stars was enough for him; and he said--"The
heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament sheweth His handy-work.
One day telleth another, and one night certifieth another. There is
neither speech nor language, where their voice is not heard among them."
And I will tell you of yet another man who needed no signs and wonders to
make him believe--namely, the man who wrote the 104th Psalm. He looked
on the perfect order and law of the world about his feet; and said,--"O
Lord, how manifold are Thy works. In wisdom hast Thou made them all: the
earth is full of Thy riches. So is the great and wide sea also, wherein
are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. These all
wait upon Thee, that Thou mayest give them their meat in due season. Thou
givest to them; they gather. Thou openest Thy hand; they are filled with
good. Thou hidest Thy face; they are troubled. Thou takest away their
breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth Thy
breath, they are created; and Thou renewest the face of the earth. The
glory of the Lord shall endure for ever. The Lord shall rejoice in His
works."
My friends, let us all pray to God and to Christ, that They will put into
our hearts the Spirit by which those psalms were written: that They will
take from us the evil heart of unbelief, which must needs have signs and
wonders, and forgets that in God we live and move and have our being. For
are we not all--even the very best of us--apt to tempt our Lord in this
very matter?
When all things go on in a common-place way with us--that is, in this
well-made world, comfortably, easily, prosperously--how apt we all
are--God forgive us--to forget God. How we forget that on Him we depend
for every breath we draw; that Christ is guarding us daily from a hundred
dangers, a hundred sorrows, it may be from a hundred disgraces, of which
we, in our own self-satisfied blindness, never dream. How dull our
prayers become, and how short. We almost think, at times, that there is
no use in praying, for we get all we want without asking for it, in what
we choose to call the course of circumstances and nature.--God forgive
us, indeed.
But when sorrow comes, anxiety, danger, how changed we are all of a
sudden. How gracious we are when pangs come upon us--like the wicked
queen-mother in Jerusalem of old, when the invaders drove her out of her
cedar palace. How we cry to the Lord then, and get us to our God right
humbly. Then, indeed, we feel the need of prayer. Then we try to
wrestle with God, and cry to Him--and what else can we do?--like children
lost in the dark; entreat Him, if there be mercy in Him--as there is, in
spite of all our folly--to grant some special providence, to give us some
answer to our bitter entreaties. If He will but do for us this one
thing, then we will believe indeed. Then we will trust Him, obey Him,
serve Him, as we never did before.
Ah, if there were in Christ any touch of pride or malice! Ah, if there
were in Christ aught but a magnanimity and a generosity altogether
boundless! Ah, if He were to deal with us as we have dealt with Him! Ah,
if He were to deal with us after our sins, and reward us according to our
iniquities!
If He refused to hear us; if He said to us,--You forgot me in your
prosperity, why should I not forget you in your adversity?--What could we
answer? Would that answer not be just? Would it not be deserved,
however terrible? But our hope and trust is, that He will not answer us
so; because He is not our God only, but our Saviour; that He will deal
with us as one who seeks and saves that which is lost, whether it knows
that it is lost or not.
Our hope is, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy; that
because He is man, as well as God, He can be touched with the feeling of
our infirmities; that He knoweth our frame, He remembereth of what we are
made: else the spirit would fail before Him, and the souls which He has
made. So we can have hope, that, though Christ rebuke us, He will yet
hear us, if our prayers are reasonable, and therefore according to His
will. And surely, surely, surely, if our prayers are for the improvement
of any human being; if we are praying that we, or any human being, may be
made better men and truer Christians at last, and saved from the
temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil--oh then, then shall
we not be heard? The Lord may keep us long waiting, as He kept St Monica
of old, when she wept over St Augustine's youthful sins and follies. But
He may answer us, as He answered her by the good bishop--"Be of good
cheer. It is impossible that the son of so many prayers should perish."
And so, though He may shame us, in our inmost heart, by the
rebuke--"Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe"--He will
in the same breath grant our prayer, undeserved though His condescension
be, and say--"Go in peace, thy son liveth."
SERMON XX. THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD.
LUKE XIII. 1-5.
There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans,
whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus
answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were
sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things? I
tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or
those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them,
think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?
I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
This story is often used, it seems to me, for a purpose exactly opposite
to that for which it is told. It is said that because these Galilaeans,
whom Pilate slew, and these eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell,
were no worse than the people round them, that therefore similar
calamities must not be considered judgments and punishments of God; that
it is an offence against Christian charity to say that such sufferers are
the objects of God's anger; that it is an offence against good manners to
introduce the name of God, or the theory of a Divine Providence, in
speaking of historical events. They must be ascribed to certain brute
forces of nature; to certain inevitable laws of history; to the passions
of men, to chance, to fate, to anything and everything: rather than to
the will of God.
No man disagrees more utterly than I do with the latter part of this
language. But I cannot be astonished at its popularity. It cannot be
denied that the theory of a Divine Providence has been much misstated;
that the doctrine of final causes has been much abused; that, in plain
English, God's name has been too often taken in vain, about calamities,
private and public. Rational men of the world, therefore, may be excused
for begging at times not to hear any more of Divine Providence; excused
for doubting the existence of final causes; excused for shrinking,
whenever they hear a preacher begin to interpret the will of God about
this event or that. They dread a repetition of the mistake--to call it
by the very gentlest term--which priests, in all ages, have been but too
ready to commit. For all priesthoods--whether heathen or Christian,
whether calling themselves priests, or merely ministers and
preachers--have been in all ages tempted to talk as if Divine Providence
was exercised solely on their behalf; in favour of their class, their
needs, their health and comfort; as if the thunders of Jove never fell
save when the priesthood needed, I had almost said commanded, them. Thus
they have too often arrogated to themselves a right to define who was
cursed by God, which has too soon, again and again, degenerated into a
right to curse men in God's name; while they have too often taught men to
believe only in a Providence who interfered now and then on behalf of
certain favoured persons, instead of a Providence who rules, always and
everywhere, over all mankind. But men have again and again reversed
their judgments. They have had to say--The facts are against you. You
prophesied destruction to such and such persons; and behold: they have
not been destroyed, but live and thrive. You said that such and such
persons' calamities were a proof of God's anger for their sins. We find
them, on the contrary, to have been innocent and virtuous persons; often
martyrs for truth, for humanity, for God. The facts, we say, are against
you. If there be a Providence, it is not such as you describe. If there
be judgments of God, you have not found out the laws by which He judges:
and rather than believe in your theory of Providence, your theory of
judgments, we will believe in none.
Thus, in age after age, in land after land, has fanaticism and bigotry
brought forth, by a natural revulsion, its usual fruit of unbelief.
But--let men believe or disbelieve as they choose--the warning of the
Psalmist still stands true--"Be wise. Take heed, ye unwise among the
people. He that nurtureth the heathen; it is He that teacheth man
knowledge, shall He not punish?" For as surely as there is a God, so
surely does that God judge the earth; and every individual, family,
institution, and nation on the face thereof; and judge them all in
righteousness by His Son Jesus Christ, whom He hath appointed heir of all
things, and given Him all power in heaven and earth; who reigns and will
reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet.
This is the good news of Advent. And therefore it is well that in
Advent, if we believe that Christ is ruling us, we should look somewhat
into the laws of His kingdom, as far as He has revealed them to us; and
among others, into the law which--as I think--He laid down in the text.
Now I beg you to remark that the text, taken fully and fairly, means the
very opposite to that popular notion of which I spoke in the beginning of
my sermon.
Our Lord does not say--Those Galilaeans were not sinners at all. Their
sins had nothing to do with their death. Those on whom the tower fell
were innocent men. He rather implies the very opposite.
We know nothing of the circumstances of either calamity: but this we
know--That our Lord warned the rest of the Jews, that unless they
repented--that is, changed their mind, and therefore their conduct, they
would all perish in the same way. And we know that that warning was
fulfilled, within forty years, so hideously, and so awfully, that the
destruction of Jerusalem remains, as one of the most terrible cases of
wholesale ruin and horror recorded in history; and--as I believe--a key
to many a calamity before and since. Like the taking of Babylon, the
fall of Rome, and the French Revolution, it stands out in lurid
splendour, as of the nether pit itself, forcing all who believe to say in
fear and trembling--Verily there is a God that judgeth the earth--and a
warning to every man, class, institution, and nation on earth, to set
their houses in order betimes, and bear fruit meet for repentance, lest
the day come when they too shall be weighed in the balance of God's
eternal justice, and found wanting.
But another lesson we may learn from the text, which I wish to impress
earnestly on your minds. These Galilaeans, it seems, were no worse than
the other Galilaeans: yet they were singled out as examples: as warnings
to the rest.
Believing--as I do--that our Lord was always teaching the universal
through the particular, and in each parable, nay in each comment on
passing events, laying down world-wide laws of His own kingdom, enduring
through all time--I presume that this also is one of the laws of the
kingdom of God. And I think that facts--to which after all is the only
safe appeal--prove that it is so; that we see the same law at work around
us every day. I think that pestilences, conflagrations, accidents of any
kind which destroy life wholesale, even earthquakes and storms, are
instances of this law; warnings from God; judgments of God, in the very
strictest sense; by which He tells men, in a voice awful enough to the
few, but merciful and beneficent to the many, to be prudent and wise; to
learn henceforth either not to interfere with the physical laws of His
universe, or to master and to wield them by reason and by science.
I would gladly say more on this point, did time allow: but I had rather
now ask you to consider, whether this same law does not reveal itself
throughout history; in many great national changes, or even calamities;
and in the fall of many an ancient and time-honoured institution. I
believe that the law does reveal itself; and in forms which, rightly
studied, may at once teach us Christian charity, and give us faith and
comfort, as we see that God, however severe, is still just.
I mean this--The more we read, in history, of the fall of great
dynasties, or of the ruin of whole classes, or whole nations, the more we
feel--however much we may acquiesce with the judgment as a whole--sympathy
with the fallen. It is not the worst, but often the best, specimens of a
class or of a system, who are swallowed up by the moral earthquake, which
has been accumulating its forces, perhaps for centuries. Innocent and
estimable on the whole, as persons, they are involved in the ruin which
falls on the system to which they belong. So far from being sinners
above all around them, they are often better people than those around
them. It is as if they were punished, not for being who they were, but
for being what they were.
History is full of such instances; instances of which we say and cannot
help saying--What have they done above all others, that on them above all
others the thunderbolt should fall?
Was Charles the First, for example, the worst, or the best, of the
Stuarts; and Louis the Sixteenth, of the Bourbons? Look, again, at the
fate of Sir Thomas More, Bishop Fisher, and the hapless monks of the
Charterhouse. Were they sinners above all who upheld the Romish system
in England? Were they not rather among the righteous men who ought to
have saved it, if it could have been saved? And yet on them--the purest
and the holiest of their party--and not on hypocrites and profligates,
fell the thunderbolt.
What is the meaning of these things?--for a meaning there must be; and
we, I dare to believe, must be meant to discover it; for we are the
children of God, into whose hearts, because we are human beings and not
mere animals, He has implanted the inextinguishable longing to ascertain
final causes; to seek not merely the means of things, but the reason of
things; to ask not merely How? but Why?
May not the reason be--I speak with all timidity and reverence, as one
who shrinks from pretending to thrust himself into the counsels of the
Almighty--But may not the reason be that God has wished thereby to
condemn not the persons, but the systems? That He has punished them, not
for their private, but for their public faults? It is not the men who
are judged, it is the state of things which they represent; and for that
very reason may not God have made an example, a warning, not of the
worst, but of the very best, specimens of a doomed class or system, which
has been weighed in His balance, and found wanting?
Therefore we need not suppose that these sufferers themselves were the
objects of God's wrath. We may believe that of them, too, stands true
the great Law, "Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and scourgeth every
son whom He receiveth." We may believe that of them, too, stands true St
Paul's great parable in 1 Cor. xii., which, though a parable, is the
expression of a perpetually active law. They have built, it may be, on
the true foundation: but they have built on it wood, hay, stubble,
instead of gold and precious stone. And the fire of God, which burns for
ever against the falsehoods and follies of the world, has tried their
work, and it is burned and lost. But they themselves are saved; yet as
through fire.
Looking at history in this light, we may justify God for many a heavy
blow, and fearful judgment, which seems to the unbeliever a wanton
cruelty of chance or fate; while at the same time we may feel deep
sympathy with--often deep admiration for--many a noble spirit, who has
been defeated, and justly defeated, by those irreversible laws of God's
kingdom, of which it is written--"On whomsoever that stone shall fall, it
will grind him to powder." We may look with reverence, as well as pity,
on many figures in history, such as Sir Thomas More's; on persons who,
placed by no fault of their own in some unnatural and unrighteous
position; involved in some decaying and unworkable system; conscious more
or less of their false position; conscious, too, of coming danger, have
done their best, according to their light, to work like men, before the
night came in which no man could work; to do what of their duty seemed
still plain and possible; and to set right that which would never come
right more: forgetting that, alas, the crooked cannot be made straight,
and that which is wanting cannot be numbered; till the flood came and
swept them away, standing bravely to the last at a post long since
untenable, but still--all honour to them--standing at their post.
When we consider such sad figures on the page of history, we may have, I
say, all respect for their private virtues. We may accept every excuse
for their public mistakes. And yet we may feel a solemn satisfaction at
their downfall, when we see it to have been necessary for the progress of
mankind, and according to those laws and that will of God and of Christ,
by which alone the human race is ruled. We may look back on old orders
of things with admiration; even with a touch of pardonable, though
sentimental, regret. But we shall not forget that the old order changes,
giving place to the new;
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
And we shall believe, too, if we be wise, that all these things were
written for our example, that we may see, and fear, and be turned to the
Lord, each asking himself solemnly, What is the system on which I am
governing my actions? Is it according to the laws and will of God, as
revealed in facts? Let me discover that in time: lest, when it becomes
bankrupt in God's books, I be involved--I cannot guess how far--in the
common ruin of my compeers.
What is my duty? Let me go and work at it, lest a night come, in which I
cannot work. What fruit am I expected to bring forth? Let me train and
cultivate my mind, heart, whole humanity to bring it forth, lest the
great Husbandman come seeking fruit on me, and find none. And if I see a
man who falls in the battle of life, let me not count him a worse sinner
than myself; but let me judge myself in fear and trembling; lest God
judge me, and I perish in like wise.
SERMON XXI. THE WAR IN HEAVEN.
REV. XIX. 11-16.
And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat
upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth
judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head
were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he
himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his
name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven
followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and
clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he
should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron:
and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty
God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING
OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
Let me ask you to consider seriously this noble passage. It was never
more worth men's while to consider it than now, when various selfish and
sentimental religions--call them rather superstitions--have made men
altogether forget the awful reality of Christ's kingdom; the awful fact
that Christ reigns, and will reign, till He has put all enemies under His
feet.
Who, then, is He of whom the text speaks? Who is this personage, who
appears eternally in heaven as a warrior, with His garments stained with
blood, the leader of armies, smiting the nations, and ruling them with a
rod of iron?
St John tells us that He had one name which none knew save Himself. But
he tells us that He was called Faithful and True; and he tells us, too,
that He had another name which St John did know; and that is, "The Word
of God."
Now who the Word of God is, all are bound to know who call themselves
Christians; even Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary,
crucified under Pontius Pilate, rose again the third day, ascended into
heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God.
He it is who makes everlasting war as King of kings and Lord of lords.
But against what does He make war? His name tells us that. For it
is--Faithful and True; and therefore He makes war against all things and
beings who are unfaithful and false. He Himself is full of chivalry,
full of fidelity; and therefore all that is unchivalrous and treacherous
is hateful in His eyes; and that which He hates, He is both able and
willing to destroy.
Moreover, He makes war in righteousness. And therefore all men and
things which are unrighteous and unjust are on the opposite side to Him;
His enemies, which He will trample under His feet. The only hope for
them, and indeed for all mankind, is that He does make war in
righteousness, and that He Himself is faithful and true, whoever else is
not; that He is always just, always fair, always honourable and
courteous; that He always keeps His word; and governs according to fixed
and certain laws, which men may observe and calculate upon, and shape
their conduct accordingly, sure that Christ's laws will not change for
any soul on earth or in heaven. But, within those honourable and
courteous conditions, He will, as often as He sees fit, smite the
nations, and rule them with a rod of iron; and tread the winepress of the
fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
And if any say--as too many in these luxurious unbelieving days will
say--What words are these? Threatening, terrible, cruel? My answer
is,--The words are not mine. I did not put them into the Bible. I find
them there, and thousands like them, in the New Testament as well as in
the Old, in the Gospels and Epistles as well as in the Revelation of St
John. If you do not like them, your quarrel must be, not with me, but
with the whole Bible, and especially with St John the Apostle, who
said--"Little children, love one another;" and who therefore was likely
to have as much love and pity in his heart as any philanthropic, or
sentimental, or superstitious, or bigoted, personage of modern days.
And if any one say,--But you must mistake the meaning of the text. It
must be understood spiritually. The meek and gentle Jesus, who is
nothing but love and mercy, cannot be such an awful and destroying being
as you would make Him out to be. Then I must answer--That our Lord was
meek and gentle when on earth, and therefore is meek and gentle for ever
and ever, there can be no doubt. "I am meek and lowly of heart," He said
of Himself. But with that meekness and lowliness, and not in
contradiction to it, there was, when He was upon earth, and therefore
there is now and for ever, a burning indignation against all wrong and
falsehood; and especially against that worst form of falsehood--hypocrisy;
and that worst form of hypocrisy--covetousness which shelters itself
under religion.
When our Lord saw men buying and selling in the temple, He made a scourge
of cords, and drove them out, and overthrew the tables of the
money-changers, and said,--"It is written, my Father's house is a house
of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves."
When He faced the Pharisees, who were covetous, He had no meek and gentle
words for them: but, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye
escape the damnation of hell?"