Eversley, 1869. Chester Cathedral, 1870.
1st. Peter v. 5. "God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the
humble."
Let me, this evening, say a few words to you on theology, that is, on the
being and character of God. You need not be afraid that I shall use long
or difficult words. Sound theology is simple enough, and I hope that my
words about it will be simple enough for the worst scholar here to
understand.
"God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble." Now, this
saying is an old one. It had been said, in different words, centuries
before St Peter said it. The old prophets and psalmists say it again and
again. The idea of it runs through the whole of the Old Testament, as
anyone must know who has read his Bible with common care. But why should
it be true? What reason is there for it? What is there in the character
of God which makes it reasonable, probable, likely to be true? That God
would give grace to the humble, and reward men for bowing down before His
Majesty, seems not so difficult to understand. But why should God resist
the proud? How does a man's being proud injure God, who is "I AM THAT I
AM;" perfectly self-sufficient, having neither parts nor passions, who
tempteth no man, neither is tempted of any? "Why should God go out of
His way, as it were, to care for such a paltry folly as the pride of an
ignorant, weak, short-sighted creature like man?
Now, let us take care that we do not give a wrong answer to this
question--an answer which too many have given, in their hearts and minds,
though not perhaps in words, and so have fallen into abject and cruel
superstitions, from which may God keep us, and our children after us.
They have said to themselves, God is proud, and has a right to be proud:
and therefore He chooses no one to be proud but Himself. Pride in man
calls out His pride, and makes Him angry. They have thought of God as
some despotic Sultan of the Indies, who is surrounded, not by free men,
but by slaves; who will have those slaves at his beck and nod. In one
word, they have thought of God as a tyrant. They have thought of God,
and, may God forgive them, have talked of God as if He were like
Nebuchadnezzar of old, who, when the three young men refused to obey him,
was filled with rage and fury, and cast them into a burning fiery
furnace. That is some men's God--a God who must be propitiated by
crouching and flattery, lest he should destroy them--a God who holds all
men as his slaves, and therefore hates pride in them. For what has a
slave to do with pride?
But that is not the God of the Bible, my friends, nor the God of Nature
either, the God who made the world and man. For He is not a tyrant, but
a Father. He wishes men not to be His slaves, but His children. And if
He resists the proud, it is because children have no right to be proud.
If He resists the proud, it is in fatherly love, because it is bad for
them to be proud. Not because the proud are injuring God, but because
they are injuring themselves, does God resist them, and bring them low,
and show them what they are, and where they are, that they may repent,
and be converted, and turned back into the right way.
Remember always that God is your Father. This question, like all
questions between God and man, is a question between a father and a
child; and if you see it in any other light, and judge it by any other
rule, you see it and judge it wrongly, and learn nothing about it, or
worse than nothing. If God were really angry with, really hated, the
proud man, or any other man, would He need only to resist him? would He
have to wait till the next life to punish him? My dear friends, if God
really hated you or me, do you not suppose that He would simply destroy
us--get rid of us--abolish us and annihilate us off the face of the
earth, just as we crush a gnat when it bites us?
That God can do; and more--He does it now and then. He will endure with
much long suffering vessels of wrath, fitted to destruction: but a
moment sometimes comes when He will endure them no longer, and He
destroys them with the destruction for which they have fitted themselves.
In them is fulfilled the parable of the rich man, who said to himself,
"Soul, thou hast much good laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat,
drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy
soul shall be required of thee."
But for the most part, thanks to the mercy of our Heavenly Father, we are
not destroyed by our pride and for our pride. We are only chastened, as
a father chastens his child. And that we are chastised for pride, who
does not know? What proverb more common, what proverb more true, than
that after pride comes a fall? Do we not know (if we do not, we shall
know sooner or later) that the surest way to fail in any undertaking is
to set about it in self-will and self-conceit; that the surest way to do
a foolish thing, is to fancy that we are going to do a very wise one;
that the surest way to make ourselves ridiculous in the eyes of our
fellow-men, is to assume airs, and boast, shew ourselves off, and end by
shewing off only our own folly?
Why is it so? Why has God so ordered the world and human nature, that
pride punishes itself? Because, I presume, pride is begotten and born of
a lie, and God hates a lie, because all lies lead to ruin, and this lie
of pride above all. It is as it were the root lie of all lies. The very
lie by which, as old tales tell, Satan fell from heaven, and when he
tried to become a god in his own right, found himself, to his surprise
and disappointment, only a devil. For pride and self-conceit contradict
the original constitution of man and the universe, which is this--that of
God are all things, and in God are all things, and for God are all
things. Man depends on God. Self tells him that he depends on himself.
Man has nothing but what he receives from God. Self tells him that what
he has is his own, and that he has a right to do with it what he likes.
Man knows nothing but what God teaches him. Self tells him that he has
found out everything for himself, and can say what he thinks fit without
fear of God or man. Therefore the proud, self-willed, self-conceited man
must come to harm, like Malvolio in the famous play, merely because he is
in the blackest night of ignorance. He has mistaken who he is, what he
is, where he is. He is fancying himself, as many mad men do, the centre
of the universe; while God is the centre of the universe. He is just as
certain to come to harm as a man would be on board a ship, who should
fancy that he himself, and not the ship, was keeping him afloat, and step
overboard to walk upon the sea. We all know what would happen to that
man. Let us thank God our Father that He not only knows what would
happen to such men: but desires to save them from the consequences of
their own folly, by letting them feel the consequences of their own
folly.
Oh my friends, let us search our hearts, and pray to our Father in Heaven
to take out of them, by whatever painful means, the poisonous root of
pride, self-conceit, self-will. So only shall we be truly strong--truly
wise. So only shall we see what and where we are.
Do we pride ourselves on being something? Shall we pride ourselves on
health and strength? A tile falling off the roof, a little powder and
lead in the hands of a careless child, can blast us out of this world in
a moment--whither, who can tell? What is our cleverness--our strength of
mind? A tiny blood vessel bursting on the brain, will make us in one
moment paralytic, helpless, babblers, and idiots. What is our knowledge
of the world? That of a man, who is forcing his way alone through a
thick and pathless wood, where he has never been before, to a place which
he has never seen. What is our wisdom--What does a wise man say of his?
"So runs my dream; but what am I?
An infant crying in the night;
An infant crying for the light;
And with no language but a cry."
Yes. Our true knowledge is to know our own ignorance. Our true strength
is to know our own weakness. Our true dignity is to confess that we have
no dignity, and are nobody, and nothing in ourselves, and to cast
ourselves down before the Dignity of God, under the shadow of whose
wings, and in the smile of whose countenance, alone, is any created being
safe. Let us cling to our Father in Heaven, as a child, walking in the
night, clings to his father's hand. Let us take refuge on the lowest
step of the throne of Christ our Lord, and humble ourselves under His
mighty hand; and, instead of exalting ourselves in undue time, leave Him
to exalt us again in due time, when the chastisement has told on us, and
patience had her perfect work; casting all our care on Him, who surely
cares for us still, if He cared for us once, enough to die for us on the
cross; caring for God's opinion and not for the opinion of the world.
And then we shall be among the truly humble, to whom God gives grace--
first grace in their own hearts, that they may live gracious lives,
modest and contented, dignified and independent, trusting in God and not
in man; and then, grace in the eyes of their fellow-men, for what is more
graceful, what is more gracious, pleasant to see, pleasant to deal with,
than the humble man, the modest man? I do not mean the cringing man, the
flattering man, the man who apes humility for his own ends, because he
wants to climb high, by pretending to be lowly. He is neither graceful
or gracious. He is only contemptible, and he punishes himself. He
spoils his own game. He defeats his own purpose. For men despise him,
and use him, and throw him away when they have done with him, as they
throw away a dirty worn-out tool.
Not him do I mean by the humble man, the modest man. I mean the man who,
like a good soldier, knows his place and keeps it, knows his duty, and
does it; who expects to be treated as a man should be, with fairness,
consideration, respect, kindness--and God will always treat him so,
whether man does or not: but who, beyond that, does not trouble his mind
with whether he be private or sergeant, lieutenant or colonel, but with
whether he can do his duty as private, his duty as sergeant, his duty as
lieutenant, his duty as colonel; who has learnt the golden lesson, which
so few learn in these struggling, envious, covetous, ambitious days,
namely, to abide in the calling to which he is called, and in whatsoever
state he is, therewith to be content. To be sure that in God's world,
the only safe way to become ruler over many things is to be a good ruler
over a few things; that if he is fit for better work than he is doing
now, God will find that out, sooner and more surely than he, or any man
will, and will set him about it; and that, meanwhile, God has set him
about work which he can do, and that the true wisdom is to do that and do
it well, and so approve himself alike to man and God, humbling himself
under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt him in good time, by
giving him grace and strength to do great things, as He has given him
grace and strength to do small things.
Am I speaking almost to deaf ears? I fear that few here will take my
advice. I fear that many here will have excellent excuses and plain
reasons, why they should not take it. Be it so. They cannot alter
eternal fact. In one word, they cannot alter Theology. They cannot
alter the laws of God. They cannot alter the character of God. And
sooner or later, in this world or in the next, they will find out that
Theology is right: and St Peter is right: that God DOES resist the
proud, that God DOES give grace to the humble.