was to the parable of those invited to the supper; in which it had been
related, how a great multitude had been invited, but how one among
them--and the application as well as the fact in human life, require
that this _one_ should be taken only as a specimen of a great
number--had been found unworthy to enjoy the feast prepared for them.
They had not on the wedding garment; they had not done their part to fit
themselves for the offered blessing: therefore they were called, but not
chosen. God had willed to do them good, but they would not; and
therefore, though he had called them at the beginning, he, in the end,
cast them out.
We have to do, then, not with an arbitrary call and an arbitrary choice,
as if God called many in mockery, meaning to choose out of them only a
few, and making his choice independently of any exertion of theirs. The
picture is very different; it is a gracious call to us all, to come and
receive the blessing; it is a reluctant casting out the greatest part of
us, because we would not try to render ourselves fit for it.
I said, that we would take the words of the text in reference to
ourselves, for here, too, it is true, that many are called, but few are
chosen. It is a large number of you, which I see before me; and if we
add to it all those who, within my memory, have sat in the same places
before you, we shall have a number very considerable indeed. All these
have been called; they have been sent here to enjoy the same advantages
with each other; and those advantages have been put within their reach.
They have entered into a great society which, on the one hand, might
raise them forward, or, on the other, depress them. There has been a
sufficient field for emulation: there have been examples and
instructions for good; there have been results of credit and of real
improvement made attainable to them, which might have lasted all their
lives long. To this, they have been all, in their turns, called; and out
of those so called, have all, or nearly all, been chosen? I am not
speaking of those, who, I trust, would be a very small number, to whom
the trial has failed utterly, who could look back on their stay here
with no feelings but those of shame. But would there not be a very large
number, to whom their stay here has been a loss, compared with what it
might have been; who have reaped but a very small part of those
advantages to which they had been at first called? Are there not too
many who must look back on a part, at least, of their time here as
wasted; on the seeds of bad habits sown, which, if conquered by
after-care, yet, for a long time, were injurious to them? Are there not
too many who carry away from here, instead of good notions, to be
ripened and improved, evil notions, to be weeded out and destroyed? Are
there not, in short, a great number who, after having had a great
advantage put within their reach, and purchased for them by their
friends, at a great expense, have made such insufficient use of their
opportunities, to say nothing stronger, as to make it a question
afterwards, whether it might not have been better for them had they
never come here at all?
Thus far I have been speaking of what are called the advantages of this
place in our common language. That argument, which Butler has so nobly
handled, in one of the greatest works in our language, the resemblance,
namely, between the course of things earthly and that of things
spiritual, is one which we should never fail to notice. We can discern
the type, as it were, of the highest truth of our Lord's sayings in the
experience of our common life in worldly things. When he tells us,
speaking of things spiritual, that "many are called, but few are
chosen;" that "whoso hath, to him shall be given; but from him that hath
not shall be taken away even that which he hath,"--although the highest
truth contained in these words be yet, in part, matter of faith, for we
have not yet seen the end of God's dealings with us: yet what we do see,
the evident truth of the words, that is, in respect to God's dealings
with us in the course of his earthly providence, may reasonably assure
us of their truth no less in respect to those dealings of God which as
yet are future. I began, therefore, with reminding you of the truth of
the words of the text with regard to worldly advantages; that even here,
on this small scale, the general law holds good; that more things are
provided for us than we will consent to use; that, in short, "many are
called, but few are chosen."
But it were ill done to limit our view to this: we are called to much
more than worldly advantages; and what if here, too, we add one more
example to confirm our Lord's words, that "many are called, but few
chosen?" Now here, as I said, it is very true that God's choice is as
yet not a matter of sight or of certainty to us; we cannot yet say of
ourselves, or of any other set of living men, that "few are chosen." But
though the full truth is not yet revealed, still, as there is a type of
it in our worldly experience, so there is also a higher type, an
earnest, of it in our spiritual experience: there is a sense, and that a
very true and a very important one, in which we can say already, say
now, actually, in the life that now is; say, even in the early stage of
it, that some are, and some are not, "chosen."
We have all been called, in a Christian sense, inasmuch as we have been
all introduced into Christ's church by Baptism; and a very large
proportion of us have been called again, many of us not very long since,
at our Confirmation. We have been thus called to enter into Christ's
kingdom: we have been called to lead a life of holiness and happiness
from this time forth even for ever. Nothing can be stronger than the
language in which the Scripture speaks of the nature of our high
calling: "All things," says St. Paul to the Corinthians, "all things are
yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Peter, or the world, or life, or
death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours; and ye are
Christ's, and Christ is God's." Now, if this be the prize to which we
are called, who are they who are also chosen to it? In the first and
most complete sense, no doubt, those who have entered into their rest;
who are in no more danger, however slight; with whom the struggle is
altogether past, and the victory securely won. These are entered within
the veil, whither we can as yet penetrate only in hope. But hope, in
its highest degree, differs little from assurance; and even, as we
descend lower and lower, still, where hope is clearly predominant, there
is, if not assurance, yet a great encouragement; and the Scripture,
which delights to carry encouragement to the highest pitch to those who
are following God, allows of our saying of even these that they are
God's chosen. It gives them, as it were, the title beforehand, to make
them feel how doubly miserable it must be not only not to obtain it, but
to forfeit it after it had been already ours. So then, there are senses
in which we may say that some are chosen now; although, strictly
speaking, the term can by us be applied, in its full sense, to those
only who are passed beyond the reach of evil.
Those, then, we may call chosen, who, having heard their call, have
turned to obey it, and have gone on following it. Those we may call
chosen,--I do not say chosen irrevocably, but chosen now; chosen so that
we may be very thankful to God on their behalf, and they thankful for
themselves,--who, since their Confirmation, or since a period more
remote, have kept God before their face, and tried to do His will. Those
are, in the same way, chosen, who having found in themselves the sin
which did most easily beset them, have struggled with it, and wholly, or
in a great measure, have overcome it. Thus, they are chosen, who, having
lived either in the frequent practice of selfish, extravagance, or of
falsehood, or of idleness, or of excess in eating and drinking, have
turned away from these things, and, for Christ's sake, have renounced
them. They are chosen, I think, in yet a higher sense, who, having found
their besetting sin to be, not so much any one particular fault, as a
general ungodly carelessness, a lightness which for ever hindered them
from serving God, have struggled with this most fatal enemy; and, even
in youth, and health, and happiness, have learnt what it is to be
sober-minded, what it is to think. Now, such as these have, in a manner,
entered into their inheritance; they are not merely called, but chosen.
God and spiritual things are not mere names to them, they are a reality.
Such persons have tasted of the promises; they have known the
pleasure--and what pleasure is comparable to it?--of feeling the bonds
of evil passion or evil habit unwound from about their spirit; they have
learnt what is that glorious liberty of being able to abstain from the
things which we condemn, to do the things which we approve. They have
felt true sense of power succeed to that of weakness. It is a delightful
thing, after a long illness, after long helplessness, when our legs have
been unable to support our weight, when our arms could lift nothing, our
hands grasp nothing, when it was an effort to raise our head from the
pillow, and it tired us even to speak in a whisper,--it is a delightful
thing to feel every member restored to its proper strength; to find that
exercise of limb, of voice, of body, which had been so long a pain,
become now a source of perpetual pleasure. This is delightful; it pays
for many an hour of previous weakness. But it is infinitely more
delightful to feel the change from weakness to strength in our souls; to
feel the languor of selfishness changed for the vigour of benevolence;
to feel thought, hope, faith, love, which before were lying, as it were,
in helplessness, now bounding in vigorous activity; to find the soul,
which had been so long stretched as upon the sick bed of this earth, now
able to stand upright, and looking and moving steadily towards heaven.
These are chosen; and they to whom this description does in no degree
apply, they are not chosen. They are not chosen in any sense, they are
called only. And, now, what is the proportion between the one and the
other; are there as many chosen as there have been many called? Or do
Christ's words apply in our case no less than in others; that though
they who are called are many, yet they who are chosen are few?
This I dare not answer; there is a good as well as an evil which is
unseen to the world at large, unseen even by all but those who watch us
most nearly and most narrowly. All we can say is, that there are too
many, who we must fear are not chosen; there are too few, of whom we can
feel sure that they are. Yet hope is a wiser feeling than its opposite;
it were as wrong as it would be miserable to abandon it. How gladly
would we hope the best things of all those whom we saw this morning at
Christ's holy table! How gladly would we believe of all such, that they
were more than called merely; that they had listened to the call: that
they had obeyed it; that they had already gained some Christian
victories; that they were, in some sense, not called only, but chosen.
But this we may say; that hope which we so long to entertain, that hope
too happy to be at once indulged in, you may authorize us to feel it;
you may convert it into confidence. Do you ask how? By going on steadily
in good, by advancing from good to better, by not letting impressions
fade with time. Now, with many of you, your confirmation is little more
than three months distant; when we next meet at Christ's table, it will
have passed by nearly half-a-year. It may be, that, in that added
interval, it will have lost much of its force; that, from various
causes, evil may have abounded in you more than good; that then shame,
or a willing surrender of yourselves to carelessness, will keep away
from Christ's Communion, many who have this day joined in it. But, if
this were not to be so; if those, whom we have seen with joy this day
communicating with us in the pledges of Christian fellowship, should
continue to do so steadily; if, in the meantime, traits shall appear in
you in other things that our hope was well founded; if the hatred of
evil and the love of good were to be clearly manifest in you; if by
signs not to be mistaken by those who watch earnestly for them, we might
be assured that your part was taken, that you were striving with us in
that service of our common Master, in which we would fain live and die;
if evil was clearly lessened among us--not laughed at, but discouraged
and put down; if instead of those turning away, who have now been with
us at Christ's table, others, who have now turned away, should then be
added to the number; then we should say, not doubtingly, that you were
chosen: that you had tasted of the good things of Christ; that the good
work of God was clearly begun in you. We might not, indeed, be without
care, either for you or for ourselves: God forbid, that, in that sense,
any of us should deem that we were chosen, until the grave has put us
beyond temptation. But how happy were it to think of you as Christ's
chosen, in that sense which should be a constant encouragement to us
all: to think of you as going on towards God; to think of you as living
to him daily; to think of you as on his side against all his enemies; to
think of you as led by his Spirit, as living members of his holy and
glorious Church,--militant now, in heaven triumphant!
LECTURE XV.
* * * * *
LUKE xi. 25.
_When he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished_.
JOHN v. 42.
_I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you_.
These passages, of which the first is taken from the gospel of this
morning's service, the other from the second lesson, differ in words,
but their meaning is very nearly the same. The house which was empty,
swept and garnished, was especially one empty of the love of God.
Whatever evil there may not have been in it; whatever good there may
have been in those of whom Christ spoke in the second passage: yet it
and they agreed in this; one thing they had not, which alone was worth,
all the rest besides; they had not the love of God.
And so it is still; many are the faults which we have not; many are the
good qualities which we have; but the life is wanting. What is so rare
as to find one who is not indifferent to God? What so rare, even rarer
than the other, as to find one who actually loves him?
Therefore it is that those who go in at the broad gate of destruction
are many, and those who go in at the narrow gate of life are few. For
destruction and life are but other terms for indifference to God on the
one hand, and love to him on the other. All who are indifferent to him,
die; a painless death of mere extinction, if, like the brute creation,
they have never been made capable of loving him; or a living death of
perpetual misery, if, like evil spirits and evil men, they might have
loved him and would not. And so all who love him, live a life, from
first to last, without sin and sorrow, if, like the holy angels, they
have loved him always; a life partaking at first of death, but
brightening more and more unto the perfect day, if, like Christians,
they were born in sin, but had been redeemed and sanctified to
righteousness.
Whoever has watched human character, whether in the young or the old,
must be well aware of the truth of this: he will know that the value of
any character is in proportion to the existence or to the absence of
this feeling, or rather, I should say, this principle. An exception may,
perhaps, be made for a small, a very small number of fanatics; an
apparent exception likewise exists in the case of many who seem to be
religious, but who really are not so. The few exceptions of the former
case are so very few, that we need not now stop to consider them, nor to
inquire how far even these would be exceptions if we could read the
heart as God reads it. The seeming exceptions being cases either of
hypocrisy, or of very common self-deceit, we need not regard either; for
they are, of course, no real objection to the truth of the general
statement. It remains true, then, generally, that the value of any
character is in proportion to the existence, or to the absence, in it of
the love of God.
But is there not another exception to be made for the case of children,
and of very young persons? Are they capable of loving God? and are not
their earthly relations, their parents especially, put to them, as it
were, in the place of God, as objects of trust, of love, of honour, of
obedience, till their minds can open to comprehend the love of their
Father who is in heaven? And does not the Scripture itself, in the few
places in which it seems directly to address children, content itself
with directing them to obey and honour their parents? Some notions of
this sort are allowed, I believe, to serve sometimes as an excuse, when
young persons are blamed for being utterly wanting in a sense of duty
to God.
The passages which direct children to obey their parents, are of the
same kind with those, directing slaves to obey their masters, and
masters to be kind to their slaves; like those, also, which John the
Baptist addressed to the soldiers and publicans: in none of all which
there is any command to love God, but merely a command to fulfil that
particular duty which most arose out of the particular relation, or
calling of the persons addressed. In fact, when parents are addressed,
they are directed only to do their duties to their children, just as
children are directed to do theirs to their parents; in both cases
alike, the common duty of parents and children to God is not dwelt upon,
because that is a duty which does not belong to them as parents, or as
children, but as human beings; and as such, it belongs to all alike. In
fact, the very language of St. Paul's command to children implies this;
for he says, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is
right:" right, that is, in the sight of God: so that the very reason for
which children are to discharge their earthly duties is, because that
earthly duty is commanded by, or involved in, their heavenly duty; if
they do not do it, they will not please God. But it is manifest that, in
this respect, there is for all of us one only law, so soon as we are
able to understand it. The moment that a child becomes capable of
understanding anything about God and Christ,--and how early that is,
every parent can testify,--that moment the duty to love God and Christ
begins. It were absurd to say, that this duty has not begun at the age
of boyhood. A boy is able to understand the force of religious motives,
as well as he can that of earthly motives: he cannot understand either,
perhaps, so well as he will hereafter; but he understands both enough,
for the purposes of his salvation; enough, to condemn him before God, if
he neglects them; enough to make him derive the greatest benefit from
faithfully observing them.
And what can have been the purpose with which the only particular of our
Lord's early life has been handed down to us, if it were not to direct
our attention to this special truth, that our youth, no less than our
riper age, belongs to God? "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's
business?" were words spoken by our Lord when he was no more than twelve
years old. At twelve years old, he thought of preparing himself for the
duties of his after-life; and of preparing himself for them, because
they were God's will. He was to be about his Father's business. This is
Christ's example for the young; this, and scarcely anything more than
this, is recorded of his early years. Those are not like Christ who, at
that same age, or even older, never think at all of the business of
their future lives, still less would think of it, not as the means of
their own maintenance or advancement, but as the duty which they owe
to God.
Such as these are the very persons whose hearts are like the house in
the parable, empty, swept, and garnished. The house so described in the
parable is one out of which an evil spirit has just departed. In case of
the young, the evil spirit in this sense, that is, as representing some
one particular favourite sin, may perhaps have never entered it. That
empty, swept, and garnished house, how like is it to what I have seen,
to what I am seeing so continually, when a boy comes here with much
still remaining of the innocence of childhood! Evil spirit, in the sense
of any one particular vice, there is none to be found in that heart, nor
has there been any ever. It is empty, swept, and garnished: there is the
absence of evil; there are the various faculties, the furniture, as they
may be called, of the house of our spirits, which the spirit uses either
for evil or for good. There is innocence, then; there is, also, the
promise of power. God hath richly endowed the earthly house of our
tabernacle: various and wonderful is the furniture of body and mind with
which it is supplied. How can we help admiring that open and cheerful
brow which, as yet, no care or sin has furrowed; those light and active
limbs, full of health and vigour; the eye so quick; the ear so undulled;
the memory so ready; the young curiosity so eager to take in new
knowledge; the young feelings, not yet spoiled by over-excitement, ready
to admire, ready to love? There is the house, the house of God's
building, the house which must abide for ever; but where is the spirit
to inhabit it? Evil spirit there is none: is it, then, possessed by the
Spirit of God? Has the fire from heaven as yet descended upon that
house,--the living sign of God's presence, which alone can convert the
house of perishable clay into the everlasting temple?
Can that blessed Spirit of God be indeed there, and yet no sign of his
presence be manifest? It may be so, or to speak more truly, it might
have been supposed to be so, if God's word had not declared the
contrary. What God's secret workings are; in how many ways, to us
inscrutable, he may pervade all nature; in how many cases he may be near
us, and we know it not; may, perhaps, be amongst those real mysteries,
those truths revealed to none, nor to be revealed; those yet uncleared
forests, so to speak, of the world of nature, into which the light of
grace has not been permitted to penetrate. But all such mysteries are to
us as if they did not exist at all: we have nothing to do with them. God
has told us nothing of his unseen and undiscernible presence; when and
where he is so present, he is to us as if he were not present at all.
God was in the wilderness of Horeb before the bush was kindled; but he
was not there for Moses. God, in some sense discernible, it may be, to
other beings, may be in that house which, to us is empty; but God, our
own God, the Holy Spirit, into whose service we were baptized, where he
is, the house is not empty to us, but full of light. Invisible in
himself, the signs of his presence are most visible: where no works, no
fruits of the Holy Spirit are to be discerned, there, according to our
Lord's express declaration, there the Holy Spirit is not.
But the light which declares his presence may indeed be a little spark;
just to be seen, and no more. It may show that he has not abandoned all
his right to the house of our tabernacle as yet; that he would desire to
possess us fully. Such a little spark, such an evidence of the Holy
Spirit's presence, is to be found in the outward profession of
Christianity. They who call Jesus Lord, do it by the Holy Ghost; and,
therefore, it is quite true in this sense, that in every baptized
Christian, who has not utterly apostatized, there is that faint sign of
the Holy Spirit's still having a claim upon him; he is not yet utterly
cast off. This is true; but it is not to our present purpose; such a
feeble sign is a sign of God's yet unwearied mercy, but no sign of our
salvation. The presence with which the parable is concerned, is a far
more effectual presence than this; the house in which there is no more
than such a faint sign of a divine inhabitant, is, in the language of
the parable, empty. To no purpose of our salvation is the Spirit of God
present in the house, when the light of his presence does not flash
forth from every part of it, when it is not manifest, not only that he
has not quite cast it off to go to ruin, but that he has been pleased to
make it his temple.