Westminster Abbey, First Sunday in Advent, 1873.
Romans vii. 22-25. "I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind,
and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this
death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."
This is the first Sunday in Advent. To-day we have prayed that God would
give us grace to put away the works of darkness, and put on us the armour
of light. Next Sunday we shall pray that, by true understanding of the
Scriptures, we may embrace and hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting
life. The Sunday after that the ministers and stewards of God's
mysteries may prepare His way by turning the hearts of the disobedient to
the wisdom of the just--the next, that His grace and mercy may speedily
help and deliver us from the sins which hinder us in running the race set
before us. But I do not think that we shall understand those collects,
or indeed the meaning of Advent itself, or the reason why we keep the
season of Advent year by year, unless we first understand the prayer
which we offered up last Sunday, "Stir up, O Lord, the wills of Thy
faithful people,"--and we shall understand that prayer just in proportion
as we have in us the Spirit of God, or the spirit of the world, which is
the spirit of unbelief.
Worldly people say--and say openly, just now--that this prayer is all a
dream. They say God will not stir up men's wills to do good any more
than to do harm. He leaves men to themselves to get through life as they
can. This Heavenly Father of whom you speak will not give His holy
spirit to those who ask Him. He does not, as one of your Collects says,
put into men's minds good desires--they come to a man entirely from
outside a man, from his early teaching, his youthful impressions, as they
are called now-a-days. He does not either give men grace and power to
put these desires into practice. That depends entirely on the natural
strength of a man's character; and that, again, depends principally on
the state of his brain. So, says the world, if you wish your own
character to improve, you must improve it yourself, for God will not
improve it for you. But, after all, why should you try to improve? why
not be content to be just what you are? you did not make yourself, and
you are not responsible for being merely what God has chosen to make you.
This is what worldly men say, or at least what they believe and act on;
and this is the reason why there is so little improvement in the world,
because men do not ask God to improve their hearts and stir up their
wills. I say, very little improvement. Men talk loudly of the
enlightenment of the age, and the progress of the species, and the spread
of civilisation, and so forth: but when I read old books, and compare
old times with these, I confess I do not see so much of it as all this
hopeful talk would lead me to expect. Men in general have grown more
prudent, more cunning, from long experience. They have found out that
certain sins do not pay--that is, they interfere with people's comfort
and their power of making money, and therefore they prudently avoid them
themselves, and put them down by law in other men's cases. Men have
certainly grown more good-natured, in some countries, in that they
dislike more than their ancestors did, to inflict bodily torture on human
beings; but they are just as ready, or even more ready, to inflict on
those whom they dislike that moral and mental torture which to noble
souls is worse than any bodily pain. As for any real improvement in
human nature--where is it? There is just as much falsehood, cheating,
and covetousness, I believe, in the world as ever there was; just as much
cant and hypocrisy, and perhaps more; just as much envy, hatred, malice
and all uncharitableness. Is not the condition of the masses in many
great cities as degraded and as sad as ever was that of the serfs in the
middle ages? Do not the poor still die by tens of thousands of fevers,
choleras, and other diseases, which we know perfectly how to prevent, and
yet have not the will to prevent? Is not the adulteration of food just
now as scandalous as it is unchecked? The sins and follies of human
nature have been repressed in one direction only to break out another.
And as for open and coarse sin, people complain even now, and I fear with
justice, that there is more drunkenness in England at this moment than
there ever was. So much for our boasted improvement.
Look again at the wars of the world. Five-and-twenty years ago, one used
to be told that the human race was grown too wise to go to war any more,
and that we were to have an advent of universal peace and plenty, and
since then we have seen some seven great wars, the last the most terrible
of all,--and ever since, all the nations of Europe have been watching
each other in distrust and dread, increasing their armaments, working
often night and day at forging improved engines of destruction, wherewith
to kill their fellow-men. Not that I blame that. It is necessary. Yes!
but the hideous thing is, that it should be necessary. Does that state
of things look much like progress of the human race? Can we say that
mankind is much improved, either in wisdom or in love, while all the
nations of Europe are spending millions merely to be ready to fight they
know not whom, they know not why?
No, my good friends, obey the wise man, and clear your minds of cant--
man's pretensions, man's boastfulness, man's power of blinding his own
eyes to plain facts--above all, to the plain fact that he does not
succeed, even in this world of which he fancies himself the master,
because he lives without God in the world. All this saddens, I had
almost said, sickens, a thoughtful man, till he turns away from this
noisy sham improvement of mankind--the wages of sin, which are death, to
St John's account of the true improvement of mankind, the true progress
of the species,--the gift of God which is eternal life. "And I saw a new
heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were
passed away. And I saw the Holy City--New Jerusalem, coming down from
God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I
heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold the tabernacle of God
is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people,
and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe
away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither
sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former
things are passed away."
Does that sound much like a general increase of armaments? or like bills
for the prevention of pestilence, or of drunkenness,--which, even if they
pass, will both probably fail to do the good which they propose? No.
And if this wicked world is to be mended, then God must stir up the wills
of His faithful people, and we must pray without ceasing for ourselves,
and for all for whom we are bound to pray, that He would stir them up.
For what we want is not knowledge; we have enough of that, and too much.
Too much; for knowing so much and doing so little, what an account will
be required of us at the last day!
No. It is the will which we want, in a hundred cases. Take that of
pestilential dwelling-houses in our great towns. Every one knows that
they ought to be made healthy; every one knows that they can be made
healthy. But the will to make them healthy is not here, and they are
left to breed disease and death. And so, as in a hundred instances,
shallow philosophers are proved, by facts, to be mistaken, when they tell
us that man will act up to the best of his knowledge without God's help.
For that is exactly what man does not. What is wrong with the world in
general, is wrong likewise more or less with you and me, and with all
human beings; for after all, the world is made up of human beings; and
the sin of the world is nothing save the sins of each and all human
beings put together; and the world will be renewed and come right again,
just as far and no farther, as each human being is renewed and comes
right. The only sure method, therefore, of setting the world right, is
to begin by setting our own little part of the world right--in a word,
setting ourselves right.
But if we begin to try, that, we find, is just what we cannot do. When a
man begins to hunger and thirst after righteousness, and, discontented
with himself, attempts to improve himself, he soon begins to find a
painful truth in many a word of the Bible and the Prayer Book to which he
gave little heed, as long as he was contented with himself, and with
doing just what pleased him, right or wrong. He soon finds out that he
has no power of himself to help himself, that he is tied and bound with
the burden of his sins, and that he cannot, by reason of his frailty,
stand upright--that he actually is sore let and hindered by his own sins,
from running the race set before him, and doing his duty where God has
put him. All these sayings come home to him as actual facts, most
painful facts, but facts which he cannot deny. He soon finds out the
meaning and the truth of that terrible struggle between the good in him
and the evil in him, of which St Paul speaks so bitterly in the text.
How, when he tries to do good, evil is present with him. How he delights
in the law of God with his inward mind, and yet finds another law in his
body, warring against the law of God, and bringing him into captivity to
the law of sin. How he is crippled by old bad habits, weakened by
cowardice, by laziness, by vanity, by general inability of will, till he
is ready,--disgusted at himself and his own weakness,--to cry, Who shall
deliver me from the body of this death?
Let him but utter that cry honestly. Let him once find out that he wants
something outside himself to help him, to deliver him, to strengthen him,
to stir up his weak will, to give him grace and power to do what he knows
instead of merely admiring it, and leaving it undone. Let a man only
find out that. Let him see that he needs a helper, a deliverer, a
strengthener--in one word, a Saviour--and he will find one. I verily
believe that, sooner or later, the Lord Jesus Christ will reveal to that
man what He revealed to St Paul; that He Himself will deliver him; and
that, like St Paul, after crying "O wretched man that I am, who shall
deliver me from the body of this death?" he will be able to answer
himself, I thank God--God will, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ
will deliver me from the bonds of my sins, Christ will stir up this weak
will of mine, Christ will give me strength and power, faithfully to
fulfil all my good desires, because He Himself has put them into my heart
not to mock me, not to disappoint me--not to make me wretched with the
sight of noble graces and virtues to which I cannot attain, but to fulfil
His work in me. What He has begun in me He will carry on in me. He has
sown the seed in me, and He will make it bear fruit, if only I pray to
Him, day by day, for strength to do what I know I ought to do, and cry
morning and night to Him, the fount of life, Stir up my will, O Lord,
that I may bring forth the fruit of good works, for then by Thee I shall
be plentifully rewarded.
So the man gains hope and heart for himself, and so, if he will but think
rationally and humbly, he may gain hope and heart for this poor sinful
world. For what has come true for him may come true for any man. Who is
he that God should care more for him than for others? Who is he that God
should help him when he prays, more than He will help His whole church if
it will but pray? He says to himself, all this knowledge of what is
right; all these good desires, all these longings after a juster, purer,
nobler, happier state of things; there they are up and down the world
already, though, alas! they have borne little enough fruit as yet. Be it
so. But God put them into my heart. And who save God has put them into
the world's heart? It was God who sowed the seed in me; surely it is God
who has sowed it in other men? And if God has made it bear even the
poorest fruit in me, why should He not make it bear fruit in other men
and in all the world? All they need is that God should stir up their
wills, that they may do the good they know, and attain the blessedness
after which they long.
And then, if the man have a truly human, truly reasonable heart in him--
he feels that he can pray for others as well as for himself. He feels
that he must pray for them, and cry,--Thou alone canst make men strong to
do the right thing, and Thou wilt make them. Stir up their wills, O
Lord! Thou canst not mean that all the good seed which is sown about the
world should die and wither, and bring no fruit to perfection. Surely
Thy word will not return to Thee void, but be like the rain which comes
down from heaven, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater.
Oh, strengthen such as stand, and comfort and help the weak-hearted, and
raise up them that fall, and, finally, beat down Satan and all the powers
of evil under our feet, and pour out thy spirit on all flesh, that so
their Father's name may be hallowed, His kingdom come, His will be done
on earth as it is in heaven. And so will come the one and only true
progress of the human race--which is, that all men should become faithful
and obedient citizens of the holy city, the kingdom of God, which is the
Church of Christ. To which may God in His mercy bring us all, and our
children after us. Amen.
This, then, is the lesson why we are met together this Advent day. We
are met to pray that God would so help us by His grace and mercy that we
may bring forth the fruit of good works, and that when our Lord Jesus
Christ shall come in His glorious majesty to judge the quick and the
dead, we, and our descendants after us, may be found an acceptable people
in His sight.
We are met to pray, in a National Church, for the whole nation of
England, that all orders and degrees therein may, each in his place and
station, help forward the hallowing of God's name, the coming of His
kingdom, the doing of His will on earth. We are met to pray for the
Queen and all that are in authority, that these Advent collects may be
fulfilled in them, and by them, for the good of the whole people; for the
ministers and stewards of Christ's mysteries, that the same collects may
be fulfilled by them and in them, till they turn the hearts of the
disobedient to the wisdom of the just; for the Commons of this nation,
that each man may he delivered, by God's grace and mercy, from the
special sin which besets him in this faithless and worldly generation and
hinders him from running the race of duty which is set before him, and
get strength from God so to live that in that dread day he may meet his
Judge and King, not in tenor and in shame, but in loyalty and in humble
hope.
But more--we are here to worship God in Christ, both God and man. To
confess that without Him we can do nothing, that unless He enlighten our
understandings we are dark, unless He stir up our wills we are powerless
for good. To confess that though we have forgotten Him, yet He has not
forgotten us. That He is the same gracious and generous Giver and
Saviour. That though we deny Him He cannot deny Himself. That He is the
same yesterday, to-day, and for ever as when He came to visit this earth
in great humility. That the Lord is King, though the earth be moved. He
sitteth upon His throne, be the nations never so unquiet. We are here to
declare to ourselves and all men, and the whole universe, that we at
least believe that the heavens and earth are full of His glory. We are
here to declare that, whether or not the kings of the earth are wise
enough, or the judges of it learned enough, to acknowledge Christ for
their king, we at least will worship the Son lest He be angry, and so we
perish from the right way; for if His wrath be kindled, yea but a little,
then blessed are they, and they only, who put their trust in Him. We are
here to join our songs with angels round the throne, and with those pure
and mighty beings who, in some central sanctuary of the universe, cry for
ever, "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power:
for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were
created."
We do so in ancient words, ancient music, ancient ceremonies, for a token
that Christ's rule and glory is an ancient rule and an eternal glory;
that it is no new discovery of our own, and depends not on our own
passing notions and feelings about it, but is like Christ, the same now
as in the days of our forefathers, the same as it was fifteen hundred
years ago, the same as it has been since the day that He stooped to be
born of the Virgin Mary, the same that it will be till He shall come in
His glory to judge the quick and the dead. Therefore we delight in the
ancient ceremonial, as like as we can make it, to that of the earlier and
purer ages of the Church, when Christianity was still, as it were, fresh
from the hand of its Creator, ere yet it had been debased and defiled by
the idolatrous innovations of the Church of Rome. For so we confess
ourselves bound by links of gratitude to the Apostles, and the successors
of the Apostles, and to all which has been best, purest, and truest in
the ages since. So we confess that we worship the same God-man of whom
Apostles preached, of whom fathers philosophised, and for whom martyrs
died. That we believe, like them, that He alone is King of kings and
Lord of lords; that there is no progress, civilization, or salvation in
this life or the life to come, but through His undeserved mercy and His
strengthening grace; that He has reigned from the creation of the world,
reigns now, and will reign unto that last dread day, when He shall have
put all enemies under His feet, and delivered up the kingdom to God, even
the Father, that God may be all in all. Unto which day may He in His
mercy bring us all through faith and good works: Amen.