subjects, but to your individual experience, and has not that good
teacher instructed you in this sad lesson? We tremble to look at
our earthly possessions and employments, lest we should see them
in motion, spreading their wings to fly away! How many are there
already who, in talking of their comforts, are obliged to go back
in their reckoning! Would not this be the language of some of you:
"I had--I had a husband, the sharer of my joys, the soother of my
sorrows; but he is not! I had a wife, a helpmeet for me; but where
is she? I had children to whom I looked up as my support and
staff in the decline of life, while passing down the hill; but I
am bereaved of my children! I had health, and I highly prized its
wealth; but now my emaciated frame, my shriveled system, and the
pains of nature bespeak that comfort fled! I had, or fondly thought
I had, happiness in possession! Then I said with Job, 'I shall die
in my nest!' but ah! an unexpected blast passed over me, and now my
joys are blighted! 'They have fled as a shadow, and continued not.'"
Yes! time promised you much! perhaps it performed a little; but it
can not do any thing for you on which it can grave "eternal." Its
name is mortal, its nature is decay; it was born with man, and when
the generations of men shall cease to exist, it will cease also:
"Time shall be no longer!" We know concerning these that, "All flesh
is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The
grass withereth, and the flower fadeth, but the word of the Lord
endureth forever." Yes! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom; glory
can not corrupt! the crown of glory can not fade! Why? Death will
be destroyed; Christ will put this last enemy under His feet, and
all will then be eternal life! Oh, happy, happy kingdom; nay, thrice
happy he who shall be privileged to be its subject!
3. It is the everlasting kingdom of our own Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. It is His by claim: "Him hath God the Father highly
exalted"; yea, Him hath He appointed to be "the judge of quick and
dead"; for tho by the sufferings of death He was made a little
lower than the angels, yet immediately after His resurrection He
declares that now "All power is given unto him in heaven and in
earth"! The Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son, and He
has now the disposal of the offices and privileges of the empire
among His faithful followers. This is the idea that the penitent
dying thief had on the subject: "Lord, remember me when thou comest
into thy kingdom"; and St. Paul expresses the same when he says to
Timothy in the confidence of faith, "The Lord shall deliver me and
preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom." Oh! how pleasing the thought
to the child of God, that his ruler to all eternity will be his
elder Brother; for He who sanctifieth and they who are sanctified
are all of one; and though He is heir of all things, yet we, as
younger branches of the same heavenly family, shall be joint heirs,
fellow-heirs of the same glorious inheritance. How great will be
our joy to behold Him who humbled Himself for us to death, even the
death of the cross, now exalted God over all, blest for evermore;
and while contemplating Him under the character of our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ, how great the relish which will be given to
that feeling of the redeemed which will constrain them to cry,
"Thou alone art worthy to receive glory, and honor, and power."
II. But the apostle reminds us of the entrance into this kingdom!
1. The entrance into this kingdom is death: "By one man sin entered
into the world, and death by sin:"
"Death, like a narrow sea, divides
That heavenly land from ours!"
"A messenger is sent to bring us to God, but it is the King of
Terrors. We enter the land flowing with milk and honey, but it is
through the valley of the shadow of death." Yet fear not, O thou
child of God! there is no need that thou, through the fear of death,
shouldst be all thy lifetime subject to bondage.
2. No; hear the apostle: the entrance is ministered unto thee!
Death is but His minister; he can not lock his ice-cold hand in
thine till He permit. Our Jesus has the keys of hell and death; and
till He liberates the vassal to bring thee home, not a hair of thy
head can fall to the ground! Fear not, thou worm! He who minds the
sparrows appoints the time for thy removal: fear not; only be thou
always ready, that, whenever the messenger comes to take down the
tabernacle in which thy spirit has long made her abode, thou mayest
be able to exclaim, "Amen! even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly."
Death need have no terrors for thee; he is the vassal of thy Lord,
and, however unwilling to do Him reverence, yet to Him that sits
at God's right hand shall even death pay, if not a joyful, yet a
trembling homage; nay, more:
"To Him shall earth and hell submit,
And every foe shall fall,
Till death expires beneath His feet,
And God is all in all."
Christ has already had one triumph over death; His iron pangs could
not detain the Prince who has "life in himself"; and in His strength
thou shalt triumph, for the power of Christ is promised to rest upon
thee! He has had the same entrance; His footsteps marked the way,
and His cry to thee is, "Follow thou me." "My sheep," says He, "hear
my voice, and they do follow me"; they follow Me gladly, even into
this gloomy vale; and what is the consequence? "They shall never
perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand."
3. It is ministered unto you abundantly. Perhaps the apostle means
that the death of some is distinguished by indulgences and honors
not vouchsafed to all. In the experience of some, the passage
appears difficult; in others it is comparatively easy; they gently
fall asleep in Jesus. But we not only see diversities in the mortal
agony--this would be a small thing.... Some get in with sails full
spread and carrying a rich cargo indeed, while others arrive barely
on a single plank. Some, who have long had their conversation in
heaven, are anxious to be wafted into the celestial haven; while
others, who never sought God till alarmed at the speedy approach of
death, have little confidence,
"And linger shivering on the brink,
And fear to launch away."
This doctrine must have been peculiarly encouraging to the early
converts to whom St. Peter wrote. From the tenor of both of his
epistles it is clear that they were in a state of severe suffering,
and in great danger of apostatizing through fear of persecution. He
reminds them that if they hold fast their professions, an abundant
entrance will be administered unto them. The death of the martyr
is far more glorious than that of the Christian who concealed his
profession through fear of man. Witness the case of Stephen: he
was not ashamed of being a witness for Jesus in the face of the
violent death which awaited him, and which crushed the tabernacle
of his devoted spirit; his Lord reserved the highest display of His
love and of His glory for that awful hour! "Behold!" says he to his
enemies, while gnashing on him with their teeth, "Behold! I see
heaven opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of
God"; then, in the full triumph of faith, he cries out, "Lord Jesus!
receive my spirit!"
But did these things apply merely to the believers to whom St.
Peter originally wrote? No; you are the men to whom they equally
apply; according to your walk and profession of that gospel will be
the entrance which will be ministered unto you. Some of you have
heard, in another of our houses, during the past week, the dangerous
tendency of the spirit of fear, the fear of man. I would you had
all heard that discourse: alas! many who have a name and a place
among us are becoming mere Sabbath-day worshipers in the courts of
the Lord, and lightly esteem the daily means of grace. I believe
this is one cause at least why many are weak and sickly among us in
divine things. The inner man does not make due increase; the world
is stealing a march unawares upon us. May God revive among us the
spirit of our fathers!
These things, then, I say, equally apply to you. Behold the strait,
the royal, the king's highway! Are you afraid of the reproach of
Christ?
"Ashamed of Jesus, that dear Friend,
On whom our hopes of heaven depend?"
How soon would the world be overcome if all who profess that faith
were faithful to it! Wo to the rebellious children who compromise
truth with the world, and in effect deny their Lord and Master! Who
hath required this at their hands? Do they not follow with the crowd
who cry, "Lord, Lord! and yet do not the things which He says"?
Will they have the adoption and the glory? Will they aim at the
honor implied in these words, "Ye are my witnesses?" Will ye indeed
be sons? Then see the path wherein His footsteps shine! The way is
open! see that ye walk therein! The false apostles, the deceitful
workers shall have their reward; the same that those of old had,
the praise and esteem of men; while the faith of those who truly
call Him Father and Lord, and who walk in the light as He is in the
light, who submit, like Him and His true followers, to be counted as
"the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things", shall
be found unto praise, and honor, and glory!
The true Christian does not seek to hide himself in a corner; he
lets his light shine before men, whether they will receive it or
not; and thereby is his Father glorified. Having thus served, by
the will of God, the hour of his departure at length arrives. The
angels beckon him away; Jesus bids him come; and as he departs this
life he looks back with a heavenly smile on surviving friends, and
is enabled to say, "Whither I go, ye know, and the way ye know." An
entrance is ministered unto him abundantly into the everlasting
kingdom of his Lord and Savior.
III. Having considered the state to which we look, and the mode of
our admission, let us consider the condition of it. This is implied
in the word "so." "For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you."
In the preceding part of this chapter, the apostle has pointed out
the meaning of this expression, and in the text merely sums it all
up in that short mode of expression.
The first condition he shows to be, the obtaining like precious
faith with him, through the righteousness of God and our Savior
Jesus Christ. Not a faith which merely assents to the truths of the
gospel record, but a faith which applies the merits of the death
of Christ to expiate my individual guilt; which lays hold on Him
as my sacrifice, and produces, in its exercises, peace with God, a
knowledge of the divine favor, a sense of sin forgiven, and a full
certainty, arising from a divine impression on the heart, made by
the Spirit of God, that I am accepted in the Beloved and made a
child of God.
If those who profess the Gospel of Christ were but half as zealous
in seeking after this enjoyment as they are in discovering
creaturely objections to its attainment, it would be enjoyed by
thousands who at present know nothing of its happy reality. Such
persons, unfortunately for themselves, employ much more assiduity
in searching a vocabulary to find out epithets of reproach to attach
to those who maintain the doctrine than in searching that volume
which declares that "if you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit
of his Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father"; and that "he that
believeth hath the witness in himself." In whatever light a scorner
may view this doctrine now, the time will come when, being found
without the wedding garment, he will be cast into outer darkness.
O sinner! cry to God this day to convince thee of thy need of this
salvation, and then thou wilt be in a condition to receive it:
"Shalt know, shalt feel thy sins forgiven,
Bless'd with this antepast of heaven."
But, besides this, the apostle requires that we then henceforth
preserve consciences void of offense toward God and toward man.
This faith which obtains the forgiveness of sin unites to Christ,
and by this union we are made, as St. Peter declares, "partakers
of the divine nature": and as He who has called you is holy, so
you are to be holy in all manner of conversation. For yours is a
faith which not only casts out sin, but purifies the heart--the
conscience having been once purged by the sprinkling of the blood
of Christ, you are not to suffer guilt to be again contracted; for
the salvation of Christ is not only from the penalty, but from the
very stain of sin; not only from its guilt, but from its pollution;
not only from its condemnation, but from its very "in-being"; "The
blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin"; and "For this purpose
was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of
the devil." You are therefore required by St. Peter, "to escape the
corruption that is in the world through lust," and thus to perfect
holiness in the fear of the Lord!
Finally, live in progressive and practical godliness. Not only
possess, but practise, the virtues of religion; not only practise,
but increase therein, abounding in the work of the Lord! Lead up,
hand in hand, in the same delightful chorus, all the graces which
adorn the Christian character. Having the divine nature, possessing
a new and living principle, let diligent exercise reduce it to
practical holiness; and you will be easily discerned from those
formal hypocrites, whose faith and religion are but a barren and
unfruitful speculation.
To conclude: live to God--live for God--live in God; and let your
moderation be known unto all men--the Lord is at hand: "Therefore
giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue,
knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance,
patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly
kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity."
NEWMAN
GOD'S WILL THE END OF LIFE
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
JOHN HENRY NEWMAN was born in London in 1801. He won high honors at
Oxford, and in 1828 was appointed vicar of the University Church,
St. Mary's, and with Keble and Pusey headed the Oxford Movement.
In the pulpit of St. Mary's he soon showed himself to be a power.
His sermons, exquisite, tho simple in style, chiefly deal with
various phases of personal religion which he illustrated with a
keen spiritual insight, a sympathetic glow, an exalted earnestness
and a breadth of range, unparalleled in English pulpit utterances
before his time. His extreme views on questions of catholicity,
sacerdotalism and the sacraments, as well as his craving for an
infallible authority in matters of faith, shook his confidence in
the Church of England and he went over to Rome in 1845. He was made
Cardinal in 1879 and died in 1890.
NEWMAN
1801-1890
GOD'S WILL THE END OF LIFE
_I came down from heaven not to do mine own will but the will of him
that sent me._--John vi., 38.
I am going to ask you a question, my dear brethren, so trite, and
therefore so uninteresting at first sight, that you may wonder why
I put it, and may object that it will be difficult to fix the mind
on it, and may anticipate that nothing profitable can be made of it.
It is this: "Why were you sent into the world?" Yet, after all, it
is perhaps a thought more obvious than it is common, more easy than
it is familiar; I mean it ought to come into your minds, but it does
not, and you never had more than a distant acquaintance with it,
tho that sort of acquaintance with it you have had for many years.
Nay, once or twice, perhaps you have been thrown across the thought
somewhat intimately, for a short season, but this was an accident
which did not last. There are those who recollect the first time,
as it would seem, when it came home to them. They were but little
children, and they were by themselves, and they spontaneously asked
themselves, or rather God spake in them, "Why am I here? how came
I here? who brought me here? What am I to do here?" Perhaps it was
the first act of reason, the beginning of their real responsibility,
the commencement of their trial; perhaps from that day they may date
their capacity, their awful power, of choosing between good and
evil, and of committing mortal sin. And so, as life goes on, the
thought comes vividly, from time to time, for a short season across
their conscience; whether in illness, or in some anxiety, or at some
season of solitude, or on hearing some preacher, or reading some
religious work. A vivid feeling comes over them of the vanity and
unprofitableness of the world, and then the question recurs, "Why
then am I sent into it?"
And a great contrast indeed does this vain, unprofitable, yet
overbearing world present with such a question as that. It seems
out of place to ask such a question in so magnificent, so imposing
a presence, as that of the great Babylon. The world professes to
supply all that we need, as if we were sent into it for the sake
of being sent here, and for nothing beyond the sending. It is a
great favor to have an introduction to this august world. This is
to be our exposition, forsooth, of the mystery of life. Every man
is doing his own will here, seeking his own pleasure, pursuing his
own ends; that is why he was brought into existence. Go abroad
into the streets of the populous city, contemplate the continuous
outpouring there of human energy, and the countless varieties
of human character, and be satisfied! The ways are thronged,
carriage-way and pavement; multitudes are hurrying to and fro, each
on his own errand, or are loitering about from listlessness, or from
want of work, or have come forth into the public concourse, to see
and to be seen, for amusement or for display, or on the excuse of
business. The carriages of the wealthy mingle with the slow wains
laden with provisions or merchandise, the productions of art or the
demands of luxury. The streets are lined with shops, open and gay,
inviting customers, and widen now and then into some spacious square
or place, with lofty masses of brickwork or of stone, gleaming in
the fitful sunbeam, and surrounded or fronted with what simulates
a garden's foliage. Follow them in another direction, and you
find the whole groundstead covered with large buildings, planted
thickly up and down, the homes of the mechanical arts. The air is
filled, below, with a ceaseless, importunate, monotonous din, which
penetrates even to your innermost chamber, and rings in your ears
even when you are not conscious of it; and overhead, with a canopy
of smoke, shrouding God's day from the realms of obstinate, sullen
toil. This is the end of man!
Or stay at home, and take up one of those daily prints, which
are so true a picture of the world; look down the columns of
advertisements, and you will see the catalog of pursuits, projects,
aims, anxieties, amusements, indulgences which occupy the mind of
man. He plays many parts: here he has goods to sell, there he wants
employment; there again he seeks to borrow money, here he offers you
houses, great seats or small tenements; he has food for the million,
and luxuries for the wealthy, and sovereign medicines for the
credulous, and books, new and cheap, for the inquisitive. Pass on
to the news of the day, and you will learn what great men are doing
at home and abroad: you will read of wars and rumors of wars; of
debates in the legislature; of rising men, and old statesmen going
off the scene; of political contests in this city or that country;
of the collision of rival interests. You will read of the money
market, and the provision market, and the market for metals; of the
state of trade, the call for manufactures, news of ships arrived
in port, of accidents at sea, of exports and imports, of gains and
losses, of frauds and their detection. Go forward, and you arrive at
discoveries in art and science, discoveries (so-called) in religion,
the court and royalty, the entertainments of the great, places of
amusement, strange trials, offenses, accidents, escapes, exploits,
experiments, contests, ventures. Oh, this curious restless,
clamorous, panting being, which we call life!--and is there to be
no end to all this? Is there no object in it? It never has an end,
it is forsooth its own object!
And now, once more, my brethren, put aside what you see and what
you read of the world, and try to penetrate into the hearts, and to
reach the ideas and the feelings of those who constitute it; look
into them as closely as you can; enter into their houses and private
rooms; strike at random through the streets and lanes: take as they
come, palace and hovel, office or factory, and what will you find?
Listen to their words, witness, alas! their works; you will find in
the main the same lawless thoughts, the same unrestrained desires,
the same ungoverned passions, the same earthly opinions, the same
wilful deeds, in high and low, learned and unlearned; you will find
them all to be living for the sake of living; they one and all seem
to tell you, "We are our own center, our own end." Why are they
toiling? why are they scheming? for what are they living? "We live
to please ourselves; life is worthless except we have our own way;
we are not sent here at all, but we find ourselves here, and we are
but slaves unless we can think what we will, believe what we will,
love what we will, hate what we will, do what we will. We detest
interference on the part of God or man. We do not bargain to be rich
or to be great; but we do bargain, whether rich or poor, high or
low, to live for ourselves, to live for the lust of the moment, or,
according to the doctrine of the hour, thinking of the future and
the unseen just as much or as little as we please."
Oh, my brethren, is it not a shocking thought, but who can deny its
truth? The multitude of men are living without any aim beyond this
visible scene; they may from time to time use religious words, or
they may profess a communion or a worship, as a matter of course,
or of expedience, or of duty, but, if there was sincerity in such
profession, the course of the world could not run as it does. What
a contrast is all this to the end of life, as it is set before us
in our most holy faith! If there was one among the sons of men, who
might allowably have taken his pleasure, and have done his own will
here below, surely it was He who came down on earth from the bosom
of the Father, and who was so pure and spotless in that human nature
which He put on Him, that He could have no human purpose or aim
inconsistent with the will of His Father. Yet He, the Son of God,
the Eternal Word, came, not to do His own will, but His who sent
Him, as you know very well is told us again and again in Scripture.
Thus the Prophet in the Psalter, speaking in His person, says, "Lo,
I come to do thy will, O God." And He says in the Prophet Isaiah,
"The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I do not resist; I have
not gone back." And in the gospel, when He hath come on earth,
"My food is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his
work." Hence, too, in His agony, He cried out, "Not my will, but
thine, be done;" and St. Paul, in like manner, says, that "Christ
pleased not himself;" and elsewhere, that, "tho he was God's Son,
yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered." Surely
so it was; as being indeed the eternal coequal Son, His will was
one and the same with the Father's will, and He had no submission
of will to make; but He chose to take on Him man's nature and the
will of that nature; he chose to take on Him affections, feelings,
and inclinations proper to man, a will innocent indeed and good,
but still a man's will, distinct from God's will; a will, which,
had it acted simply according to what was pleasing to its nature,
would, when pain and toil were to be endured, have held back from an
active cooperation with the will of God. But, tho He took on Himself
the nature of man, He took not on Him that selfishness, with which
fallen man wraps himself round, but in all things He devoted Himself
as a ready sacrifice to His Father. He came on earth, not to take
His pleasure, not to follow His taste, not for the mere exercise
of human affection, but simply to glorify His Father and to do His
will. He came charged with a mission, deputed for a work; He looked
not to the right nor to the left, He thought not of Himself, He
offered Himself up to God.