heaven which witnesses against us, the merciful and loving Christ is
ascended; that He is ever making intercession for us, a High-priest who
can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; and that He has
received gifts for men, even for His enemies--as we have too often
been--that the Lord God might dwell among us. Yes. He ascended on high
that He might send down His Holy Spirit; and that Spirit is among us,
working patiently and lovingly in many hearts--would that I could say in
all--giving men right judgments; putting good desires into their hearts;
and enabling them to put them into good practice.
The Holy Spirit is the life of England, and of the Church of England, and
of every man, whether he belongs to the Church or not, who loves the
good, and desires to do it, and to see it done. And those in whom the
Holy Spirit dwells, are the salt of England, which keeps it from decay.
They are those who have chosen life and blessing, and found them. Oh may
God increase their number more and more; till all know Him from the least
unto the greatest; and the land be filled with the knowledge of the Lord,
as the waters cover the sea.
And then shall all days be Whit-Sundays; and the Name of the Father be
hallowed indeed, and His kingdom come, and His will be done on earth, as
it is in heaven.
SERMON XXV. THE SILENCE OF FAITH.
PSALM CXXXI.
Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I
exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Surely
I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his
mother: my soul is even as a weaned child. Let Israel hope in the
Lord from henceforth and for ever.
We know not at what period of David's life this psalm was written. We
know not what matters they were which were too high for him to meddle
with; matters about which he had to refrain his soul; to quiet his
feelings; to suspend his judgment; to check his curiosity, and say about
them simply--Trust in the Lord.
We do not know, I say, what these great matters, these mysteries were.
But that concerns us little. Human life, human fortune, human history,
human agony--nay, the whole universe, the more we know of it, is full of
such mysteries. Only the shallow and the conceited are unaware of their
presence. Only the shallow and the conceited pretend to explain them,
and have a Why ready for every How. David was not like them. His was
too great a mind to be high-minded; too deep a heart to have proud looks,
and to pretend, to himself or to others, that he knew the whole counsel
of God.
Solomon his son had the same experience. For him, too, in spite of all
his wisdom, the mystery of Providence was too dark. Though a man
laboured to seek it, yet should he not find it out. All things seemed,
at least, to come alike to all. There was one event to the righteous and
to the wicked; to the clean and to the unclean. Vanity of vanity; all
was vanity. Of making books there was no end, and much study was a
weariness to the flesh. And the conclusion of the whole matter was--Fear
God, and keep His commandments. That--and not to pry into the
unfathomable will of God--was the whole duty of man.
Job, too: what is the moral of the whole book of Job, save that God's
ways are unsearchable, and His paths past finding out? The Lord, be it
remembered, in the closing scene of the book, vouchsafes to Job no
explanation whatsoever of his affliction. Instead of telling him why he
has been so sorely smitten; instead of bidding him even look up and
trust, He silences Job by the mere plea of His own power. Where wast
thou when I laid the foundation of the earth? Declare, if thou hast
understanding. When the morning stars sang together; and all the sons of
God shouted for joy. Shall he that contendeth with The Almighty instruct
Him? He that reproveth God, let him answer.
But, it may be said, these are Old Testament sayings. The Patriarchs and
Prophets had not that full light of knowledge of the mind of God which
the Evangelists and Apostles had. What do the latter, the writers of the
New Testament, say, with that fuller knowledge of God, which they gained
through Jesus Christ our Lord?
My friends--This is not, I trust, by God's great goodness, the last time
that I am to preach in this Abbey. What the Evangelists and Apostles
taught, which the Prophets and Psalmists did not teach, I hope to tell
you, as far as I know, hereafter.
But this I am bound to tell you beforehand--That there are no truer words
in the Articles of the Church of England than those in the VIIth
Article--that the Old Testament is not contrary to the New; for both in
the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by
Christ, the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and man.
Yes. That the Old Testament is not contrary to the New, I believe with
my whole heart and soul. And therefore to those who say that the
Apostles had solved the whole mystery of human life, its sins, its
sorrows, its destinies, I must reply that such is not the case, at least
with the most gifted of all the writers of the New Testament. We may
think fit to claim omniscience for St Paul: but he certainly does not
claim it for himself.
When he is vouchsafed a glimpse of the high counsels of God, he exclaims,
as one dazzled--"Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and
knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past
finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been
His counsellor?"--While of himself he speaks in a very different
tone--"Even though he have been," as he says, "caught up into the third
heaven, and heard words unspeakable, which it is not lawful for a man to
utter," yet "he knows," he says, "in part; he prophesies in part; but
when that which is perfect comes, that which is partial shall be done
away." He is as the child to the full-grown man, into which he hopes to
develop in the future life. He "sees as in a glass darkly, but then face
to face." He "knows now in part." Then--but not till then--will he
"know even as he is known." Nay, more. In the ninth chapter of his
Epistle to the Romans, he does not hesitate to push to the utmost that
plea of God's absolute sovereignty which we found in the book of Job.
"He has mercy on whom He will have mercy; and whom He will He hardeneth."
And if any say, "Why doth He then find fault? For who hath resisted His
will?" "Who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed
say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the
potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel to
honour, and another to dishonour?"
What those words may mean, or may not mean, I do not intend to argue now.
I only quote them to shew you that St Paul, just as much as any Old
Testament thinker, believed that there were often mysteries, ay,
tragedies, in the lives, not only of individuals, nor of families, but of
whole races, to which we shortsighted mortals could assign no rational or
moral final cause, but must simply do that which Spinoza forbade us to
do, namely--"In every unknown case, flee unto God;" and say--"It is the
Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good;"--certain of this, which the
Cross and Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ shewed forth as nothing else
in heaven or earth could shew--that the will of God toward man is an
utterly good will; and that therefore what seemeth good to Him, will be
good in act and fact.
It is this faith, and I believe this faith alone, which can enable truly
feeling spirits to keep anything like equanimity, if they dwell long and
earnestly on the miseries of mankind; on sorrow, pain, bereavement; on
the fate of many a widow and orphan; on sudden, premature, and often
agonizing death--but why pain you with a catalogue of ills, which all,
save--thank God--the youngest, know too well?
And it is that want of faith in the will and character of a living God,
which makes, and will always make, infidelity a sad state of mind--a
theory of man and the universe, which contains no gospel or good news for
man.
I do not speak now of atheism, dogmatic, self-satisfied, insolent cynic.
I speak especially to-night of a form of unbelief far more attractive,
which is spreading, I believe, among people often of high intellect,
often of virtuous life, often of great attainments in art, science, or
literature. Such repudiate, and justly, the name of theists: but they
decline, and justly, the name of atheists. They would--the finest and
purest spirits among them--accept only too heartily the whole of the
Psalm which I have chosen for my text, save its ascription and the last
verse. We too--they would say--do not wish to be high-minded, and
dogmatize, and assert, and condemn. We too do not wish to meddle with
matters too high for us, or for any human intellect. We too wish to
refrain ourselves from asserting what--however pleasant--we cannot prove;
and to wean ourselves--however really painful the process--from the milk,
the mere child's food, on which Mother Church has brought up the nations
of Europe for the last 1500 years. But for that very reason, as for
asking us to trust in The Lord, either for this life, or an eternal life
to come, do not ask that of us.
We do not say that there is no God; no Providence of God; no life beyond
the grave: only we say, that we cannot find them. They may exist: or
they may not. But to us; and as we believe to all mankind if they used
their reason aright, they are unthinkable, and therefore unknowable. God
we see not: but this we see--Man, tortured by a thousand ills; and then,
alas, perishing just as the dumb beasts perish. We see death, decay,
pain, sorrow, bereavement, weakness; and these produced, not merely by
laws of nature, in which, however terrible, we could stoically acquiesce;
but worse still, by accident--the sports of seeming chances--and those
often so slight and mean. Man in his fullest power, woman in her highest
usefulness, the victim not merely of the tempest or the thunderstroke,
but of a fallen match, a stumbling horse.
Therefore the sight of so much human woe, without a purpose, and without
a cause, is too much for them: as, without faith in God, it ought to be
too much for us.
And therefore in their poetry and in their prose--and they are masters,
some of them, both of poetry and of prose--there is a weary sadness, a
tender despair, which one must not praise: yet which one cannot watch
without sympathy and affection. For the mystery of human vanity and
vexation of spirit; the mystery which weighed down the soul of David, and
of Solomon, and of him who sang the song of Job, and of St Paul, and of
St Augustine, and all the great Theologians of old time, is to them
nought but utter darkness. For they see not yet, as our great modern
poet says,
Hands
Athwart the darkness, shaping man.
They see not yet athwart the darkness a face, most human yet divine, of
utter sympathy and love; and hear not yet--oh let me say once more not
yet of such fine souls--the only words which can bring true comfort to
one who feels for his fellow-men, amid the terrible chances and changes
of this mortal life--
"Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, and believe also in
Me."
"All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth." "Lo I am with you
even to the end of the world." Oh let us, to whom God has given that
most undeserved grace, by the confession of a true faith to acknowledge
the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty
to worship the Unity--Let us, I say, beseech God that He would give to
them, as well as to us, that comfortable and wholesome faith; and
evermore defend them and us--if it seem good in His gracious sight--from
all adversity.
And surely we need that faith--those of us at least who know what we have
lost--in the face of such a catastrophe as was announced in this Abbey on
this day week; which thrilled this congregation with the awful news--That
one of the most gifted men in Europe; the most eloquent of all our
preachers--the most energetic of all our prelates; the delight of so many
of the most refined and cultivated; the comforter of so many pious souls,
not only by his sermons, not only by his secret counsels, but by those
exquisite Confirmation addresses, to have lost which is a spiritual loss
incalculable--those Confirmation addresses which touched and ennobled the
hearts alike of children and of parents, and made so many spirits, young
and old, indebted to him from thenceforth for ever--That this man, with
his enormous capacity and will for doing his duty like a valiant man, and
doing each duty better than any of us his clergy had ever seen it done
before--with his genius too, now so rare, and yet so needed, for
governing his fellow-men--That he, in the fulness of his power, his
health, his practical example, his practical success, should vanish in a
moment: and that immense natural vitality, that organism of forces so
various and so delicate, just as it was developing to perfection under
long and careful self-education, should be lost for ever to this earth:
leaving England, and her colonies, and indeed all Christendom, so much
the poorer, so much the more weak; and inflicting--forget not that--a
bitter pang on hundreds of loving hearts: and all by reason of the
stumbling of a horse.
And why? Our reason, our conscience, our moral sense; that, by virtue of
which we are not brutes, but men, forces us to ask that question: even if
no answer be found to it in earth or heaven. What was the important
_why_ which lay hid behind that little how?--The means were so paltry:
the effect was so vast--There must have been a final cause, a purpose,
for that death: or the fact would be altogether hideous--a scribble
without a meaning--a skeleton without a soul. Why did he die?
"I became dumb and opened not my mouth; for it was Thy doing."
So says the Burial psalm. So let us say likewise.
"I became dumb:" not with rage, not with despair; but because it was Thy
doing; and therefore it was done well. It was the deed, not of chance,
not of necessity: for had it been, then those who loved him might have
been excused had they cursed chance, cursed necessity, cursed the day in
which they entered a universe so cruel, so capricious. Not so. For it
was the deed of The Father, without whom a sparrow falls not to the
ground; of The Son, who died upon the Cross in the utterness of His
desire to save; of The Holy Ghost, who is the Lord and Giver of life to
all created things.
It was the deed of One who delights in life and not in death; in bliss
and not in woe; in light and not in darkness; in order and not in
anarchy; in good and not in evil. It had a final cause, a meaning, a
purpose: and that purpose is very good. What it is, we know not: and we
need not know. To guess at it would be indeed to meddle with matters too
high for us. So let us be dumb: but dumb not from despair, but from
faith; dumb not like a wretch weary with calling for help which does not
come, but dumb like a child sitting at its mother's feet; and looking up
into her face, and watching her doings; understanding none of them as
yet, but certain that they all are done in Love.
SERMON XXVI. GOD AND MAMMON.
MATTHEW VI. 24.
Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.
This is part of the Gospel for this Sunday; and a specially fit text for
this day, which happens to be St Matthew's Day.
On this day we commemorate one who made up his mind, once and for all,
that whoever could serve God and money at once, he could not: and who
therefore threw up all his prospects in life--which were those of a
peculiarly lucrative profession, that of a farmer of Roman taxes--in
order to become the wandering disciple of a reputed carpenter's son. He
became, it is true, in due time, an Apostle, an Evangelist, and a Martyr;
and if posthumous fame be worth the ambition of any man, Matthew the
publican--Saint Matthew as we call him--has his share thereof, because he
discovered, like a wise man, that he could not serve God and money; and
therefore, when Jesus saw him sitting at the receipt of custom, and bade
him "Follow Me," he rose up, and left his money-bags, and followed Him,
whom he afterwards discovered to be no less than God made man. "Ye
cannot serve God and Mammon." It is very difficult to make men believe
these words. So difficult, that our Lord Himself could not make the Jews
believe them, especially the rich and comfortable religious people among
them. When He told them that they could not serve two masters; that they
could not worship God and money at the same time, the Pharisees, who were
covetous, derided Him. They laughed to scorn the notion that they could
not be very religious, and respectable, and so forth, and yet set their
hearts on making money all the while. They thought that they could have
their treasure on earth and in heaven also; and they went their way, in
spite of our Lord's warnings; and made money, honestly no doubt, if they
could, but if not, why then dishonestly; for money must be made, at all
risks.
St Paul warned them, by his disciple Timothy, of their danger. He told
them that the love of money is the root of all evil; and that those who
will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and
hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
St James warned them even more sternly; and told the rich men among the
Jews of his day to weep and howl for the miseries which were coming on
them. They had heaped up treasure for the last days, when it would be of
no use to them. They were fattening their hearts--he told them--against
a day of slaughter.
But they listened to St Paul and St James no more than they did to our
Lord. After the fall of Jerusalem, even more than before, they became
the money-makers and the money-lenders of the whole world. And what
befel them? Their wealth stirred up the envy and the suspicion of the
Gentiles. They were persecuted, robbed, slaughtered, again and again for
the sake of their money. And yet they would not give up their ruinous
passion. Throughout all the middle ages, here in England, just as much
as on the Continent, they lent money at exorbitant interest; and then
their debtors, to escape payment, turned on them for not being
Christians; accused them of poisoning the wells, and what not; massacred
them, burnt them alive, and committed the most horrible atrocities;
fulfilling the warnings of our Lord and His Apostles, only too terribly
and brutally, again and again.
Do I say this to make any man dislike or despise the Jews? God forbid.
The Jews have noble qualities in them, by which they have prospered, and
for the sake of which--as I believe--God's blessing rests on them to this
day. They have prospered: not by their love of money, not even by their
extraordinary courage, persistence, and intellectual power; but by their
keeping two at least of the commandments, as no other people on earth has
kept them. They have kept the second commandment; and hated idolatry,
and any approach to it, with a stern and noble hatred, which would God
that all who call themselves Christians would imitate. They have kept,
likewise, the fifth commandment; and have honoured their parents, as no
other people on earth have done, except it may be the Chinese, who
prosper still, in spite of many sins. Their family affections are so
intense, their family life is so pure and sound, that they put to shame
too many Christians; and where the family life is sound, the heart of a
people is sure to be sound likewise; and all will come right with them at
last: and meanwhile the days of the Jews will be long in whatsoever land
the Lord their God shall give them, till the day of which St Paul
prophesied, when the veil shall be taken off their hearts, and they shall
acknowledge that Christ, whom their forefathers crucified in their
blindness, for their King, and Lord, and God; and so all Israel shall be
saved. Amen. Amen.
And meanwhile, who are we that we should complain of the Jews now, or the
Jews of our Lord's time, for being too fond of money? Is anything more
certain, than that we English are becoming given up, more and more, to
the passion for making money at all risks, and by all means fair or foul?
Our covetousness is--alas! that it should be so--become a by-word among
foreign nations; while our old English commercial honesty--which was once
our strength, and protected us from, and all but atoned for, our
covetousness--is going fast; and leaving us, feared indeed for our power;
but suspected for our chicanery; and odious for our arrogance.
And it is most sad, but most certain, that we are like those Pharisees of
old in this also, that we too have made up our mind that we can serve God
and Mammon at once; that the very classes among us who are most utterly
given up to money-making, are the very classes which, in all
denominations, make the loudest religious profession; that our churches
and chapels are crowded on Sundays by people whose souls are set, the
whole week through, upon gain and nothing but gain; who pretend to
reverence Scripture, while they despise the warning of Scripture, that
the love of money is the root of all evil.
Have we not seen in our own days persons of the highest religious
profession, whose names were the foremost on every charitable
subscription list, so devoured by this mad love for money for its own
sake, that though they had already more money than they could spend, or
enjoy in any way soever, save by saying to themselves--I have got it, I
have got it--they must needs, in the mere lust for becoming richer still,
ruin themselves and others by frantic speculations? Have we not seen--but
why should I defile myself, and you, and this holy place by telling you
what I have seen; and what I hope, and hope alas! in vain, that I shall
never see again, among those who must needs serve God and Mammon? Has
not the love of money become such a chronic disease among us, that we can
actually calculate, now, when the disease will come to a head; and
relieve itself for a while: though alas! only for a while?
About every eleven years, I am informed, we are to expect a commercial
crisis; panics, bankruptcies, and misery and ruin to hundreds; a sort of
terrible but beneficent thunderstorm, which clears the foul atmosphere of
our commercial system at the expense, alas! not merely of the guilty, but
of the innocent; involving the widow and the orphan, the poor and the
simple, in the same fate as the rich and powerful whom they have trusted
to their own ruin. And yet we boast of our civilization and of our
Christianity; and hardly one, here and there, lays the lesson to heart,
but each man, like a moth about a candle, unwarned by the fate of his
fellows, fancies that he at least can flutter round the flames and not be
burned; that whoever else cannot serve God and Mammon, he can do it; and
holds, by virtue of his superior prudence, a special dispensation from
the plain warnings of Holy Scripture.
But every reasonable man knows what advantages money, and nothing but
money, will obtain, not only for a man himself but for his children; and
answers me--If I wish to rise in life, if I wish my children to rise in
life, how can I do it, without making money?
God forbid that I should check an honourable ambition, and a desire to
rise in life. We all ought to rise in life, and to rise far higher than
most of us are likely to rise. But I ask you to consider very seriously
what you mean by rising in life.
Do you mean by rising in life, merely becoming a richer man; living in a
larger house, eating, drinking, clothing, better; having more servants,
carriages, plate? Is that to be the highest triumph of all your labours?
Is that your notion of rising in life? If it is, you are not singular in
your notion. There are thousands who call themselves civilized and
Christians, and yet have no higher notion of what man's highest good may
be. But do you mean by rising in life, simply becoming a nobler, because
a better man? For if you mean that latter, I seriously advise you to
hearken to what the Creator and Governor of all heaven and earth, Jesus
Christ our Lord, has told you on that matter, when He said--"Seek ye
first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things
shall be added unto you."
Seek ye first the kingdom of God. Alas! this money-making generation
talks a great deal about religion and saving their souls, being quite
indifferent to the serious question--whether their souls are worth saving
or not: but as for the kingdom of God, of which our Lord and His Apostles
speak so often, they have forgotten altogether what it is. They talk
too, a great deal, about the righteousness of Christ: but they have
forgotten also what the righteousness of Christ, which is also the
righteousness of God, is like.