of being cast out of Eden go together; and if any one compares the
description of the second Eden in the Revelation, and recollects how
especially it is there said, that God dwells in the midst of it, and is
its light by day and night, he will see that the banishment from the
first Eden means a banishment from the presence of God. And thus, in the
day that Adam sinned, he died; for he was cast out of Eden immediately,
however long he may have moved about afterwards upon the earth where
God was not. And how very strong to the same point are the words of
Hezekiah's prayer, "The grave cannot praise thee, Death cannot celebrate
thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth;" words
which express completely the feeling that God is not the God of the
dead. This, too, appears to be the sense generally of the expression
used in various parts of the Old Testament, "Thou shalt surely die." It
is, no doubt, left purposely obscure; nor are we ever told, in so many
words, all that is meant by death; but, surely, it always implies a
separation from God, and the being--whatever the notion may extend
to--the being dead to him. Thus, when David had committed his great sin,
and had expressed his repentance for it, Nathan tells him, "The Lord
also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die:" which means, most
expressively, thou shalt not die to God. In one sense, David died, as
all men die; nor was he, by any means, freed from the punishment of his
sin: he was not, in that sense, forgiven; but he was allowed still to
regard God as his God; and, therefore, his punishments were but fatherly
chastisements from God's hand, designed for his profit, that he might be
partaker of God's holiness. And thus although Saul was sentenced to lose
his kingdom, and although he was killed with his sons on Mount Gilboa,
yet I do not think that we find the sentence passed upon him, "Thou
shalt surely die;" and, therefore, we have no right to say that God had
ceased to be his God, although be visited him with severe chastisements,
and would not allow him to hand down to his sons the crown of Israel.
Observe, also, the language of the eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel, where
the expressions occur so often, "He shall surely live," and "He shall
surely die." We have no right to refer these to a mere extension, on the
one hand, or a cutting short, on the other, of the term of earthly
existence. The promise of living long in the land, or, as in Hezekiah's
case, of adding to his days fifteen years, is very different from the
full and unreserved blessing, "Thou shalt surely live." And we know,
undoubtedly, that both the good and the bad to whom Ezekiel spoke, died
alike the natural death of the body. But the peculiar force of the
promise, and of the threat, was, in the one case, Thou shalt belong to
God; in the other, Thou shalt cease to belong to him; although the veil
was not yet drawn up which concealed the full import of those terms,
"belonging to God," and "ceasing to belong to him:" nay, can we venture
to affirm that it is fully drawn aside even now?
I have dwelt on this at some length, because it really seems to place
the common state of the minds of too many amongst us in a light which is
exceedingly awful; for if it be true, as I think the Scripture implies,
that to be dead, and to be without God, are precisely the same thing,
then can it be denied, that the symptoms of death are strongly marked
upon many of us? Are there not many who never think of God, or care
about his service? Are there not many who live, to all appearance, as
unconscious of his existence as we fancy the inferior animals to be? And
is it not quite clear, that to such persons, God cannot be said to be
their God? He may be the God of heaven and earth, the God of the
universe, the God of Christ's church; but he is not their God, for they
feel to have nothing at all to do with him; and, therefore, as he is not
their God, they are, and must be, according to the Scripture, reckoned
among the dead.
But God is the God "of the living." That is, as before, all who are
alive, live unto him; all who live unto him, are alive. "God said, I am
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;" and,
therefore, says our Lord, "Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, are not and
cannot be dead." They cannot be dead, because God owns them: he is not
ashamed to be called their God; therefore, they are not cast out from
him; therefore, by necessity, they live. Wonderful, indeed, is the truth
here implied, in exact agreement, as we have seen, with the general
language of Scripture; that, as she who but touched the hem of Christ's
garment was, in a moment, relieved from her infirmity, so great was the
virtue which went out from him; so they who are not cast out from God,
but have any thing whatever to do with him, feel the virtue of his
gracious presence penetrating their whole nature; because he lives, they
must live also.
Behold, then, life and death set before us; not remote, (if a few years
be, indeed, to be called remote,) but even now present before us; even
now suffered or enjoyed. Even now, we are alive unto God, or dead unto
God; and, as we are either the one or the other, so we are, in the
highest possible sense of the terms, alive or dead. In the highest
possible sense of the terms; but who can tell what that highest possible
sense of the terms is? So much has, indeed, been revealed to us, that we
know now that death means a conscious and perpetual death, as life means
a conscious and perpetual life. But greatly, indeed, do we deceive
ourselves, if we fancy that, by having thus much told us, we have also
risen to the infinite heights, or descended to the infinite depths,
contained in those little words, life and death. They are far higher,
and far deeper, than ever thought or fancy of man has reached to. But,
even on the first edge of either, at the visible beginnings of that
infinite ascent or descent, there is surely something which may give us
a foretaste of what is beyond. Even to us in this moral state, even to
you advanced but so short a way on your very earthly journey, life and
death have a meaning: to be dead unto God, or to be alive to him, are
things perceptibly different.
For, let me ask of those who think least of God, who are most separate
from him, and most without him, whether there is not now actually,
perceptibly, in their state, something of the coldness, the loneliness,
the fearfulness of death? I do not ask them whether they are made
unhappy by the fear of God's anger; of course they are not: for they who
fear God are not dead to him, nor he to them. The thought of him gives
them no disquiet at all; this is the very point we start from. But I
would ask them whether they know what it is to feel God's blessing. For
instance: we all of us have our troubles of some sort or other, our
disappointments, if not our sorrows. In these troubles, in these
disappointments,--I care not how small they may be,--have they known
what it is to feel that God's hand is over them; that these little
annoyances are but his fatherly correction; that he is all the time
loving us, and supporting us? In seasons of joy, such, as they taste
very often, have they known what it is to feel that they are tasting the
kindness of their heavenly Father, that their good things come from his
hand, and are but an infinitely slight foretaste of his love? Sickness,
danger,--I know that they come to many of us but rarely; but if we have
known them, or at least sickness, even in its lighter form, if not in
its graver,--have we felt what it is to know that we are in our Father's
hands, that he is with us, and will be with us to the end; that nothing
can hurt those whom he loves? Surely, then, if we have never tasted
anything of this: if in trouble, or in joy, or in sickness, we are left
wholly to ourselves, to bear as we can, and enjoy as we can; if there is
no voice that ever speaks out of the heights and the depths around us,
to give any answer to our own; if we are thus left to ourselves in this
vast world,--there is in this a coldness and a loneliness; and whenever
we come to be, of necessity, driven to be with our own hearts alone, the
coldness and the loneliness must be felt. But consider that the things
which, we see around us cannot remain with us, nor we with them. The
coldness and loneliness of the world, without God, must be felt more and
more as life wears on: in every change of our own state, in every
separation from or loss of a friend, in every more sensible weakness of
our own bodies, in every additional experience of the uncertainty of our
own counsels,--the deathlike feeling will come upon us more and more
strongly: we shall gain more of that fearful knowledge which tells us
that "God is not the God of the dead."
And so, also, the blessed knowledge that he is the God "of the living"
grows upon those who are truly alive. Surely he "is not far from every
one of us." No occasion of life fails to remind those who live unto him,
that he is their God, and that they are his children. On light occasions
or on grave ones, in sorrow and in joy, still the warmth of his love is
spread, as it were, all through the atmosphere of their lives: they for
ever feel his blessing. And if it fills them with joy unspeakable even
now, when they so often feel how little they deserve it; if they delight
still in being with God, and in living to him, let them be sure that
they have in themselves the unerring witness of life eternal: God is the
God of the living, and all who are with him must live.
Hard it is, I well know, to bring this home, in any degree, to the minds
of those who are dead: for it is of the very nature of the dead that
they can hear no words of life. But it has happened that, even whilst
writing what I have just been uttering to you, the news reached me that
one, who two months ago was one of your number, who this very half-year
has shared in all the business and amusements of this place, is passed
already into that state where the meanings of the terms life and death
are become fully revealed. He knows what it is to live unto God, and
what it is to die to him. Those things which are to us unfathomable
mysteries, are to him all plain: and yet but two months ago he might
have thought himself as far from attaining this knowledge as any of us
can do. Wherefore it is clear, that these things, life and death, may
hurry their lesson upon us sooner than we deem of, sooner than we are
prepared to receive it. And that were indeed awful, if, being dead to
God, and yet little feeling it, because of the enjoyments of our worldly
life, those enjoyments were on a sudden to be struck away from us, and
we should find then that to be dead to God was death, indeed, a death
from which there is no waking, and in which there is no sleeping
for ever.
LECTURE XX.
* * * * *
EZEKIEL xiii. 22.
_With lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not
made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not
return from his wicked way, by promising him life_.
The verses which immediately precede this, require explanation, but
perhaps our knowledge is hardly sufficient to enable us to give it
fully. There are allusions to customs,--to fashions rather,--common
amongst the Israelites at the time, which we can now scarcely do more
than guess at; but we may observe, that there was a general practice,
which even God's own prophets were directed often to comply with, of
enforcing what was said in word by some corresponding outward action, in
which the speaker made himself, as it were, a living image of the idea
which he meant to convey. Thus, when Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, was
assuring Ahab, that he should drive the Syrians before him, he made
himself horns of iron, and said, "With these shalt thou push the
Syrians, until thou have consumed them." In the same way, it is imagined
that the false prophetesses spoken of in the text were in the habit of
wearing pillows, or cushions, fastened to their arms, and directed those
who came to consult them to do the same, as a sign of rest and peace;
that they who trusted to them had nothing to fear, but might lie down
and enjoy themselves at their feasts, or in sleep, with entire security.
Or, again, if we connect what is said of the pillows with what
immediately follows about the kerchiefs put upon the head, we may
suppose that both are but parts of a fantastic dress, such as was often
worn by pretended prophets and fortune-tellers, and which they may have
made those wear, also, who came before them. We know that the covering
on the head was, for instance, a part of the ceremonial law of the Roman
augurs, when they began their divinations. But, however this be, the
exact understanding of these particular points is not necessary to our
deriving the lesson of the passage in general. I know that there is
something naturally painful to an active mind in being obliged to
content itself with an indistinct notion, or still more, with no notion
at all, of the meaning of any words presented to it. But, whilst we
should highly value this sensitiveness, as, indeed, few qualities are
more essential in the pursuit of truth, yet we must be careful not to
let our disappointment carry us too far, so as to pass over a whole
passage, or portion, of Scripture, as if in despair, because we cannot
understand every part of it. Much of the supposed obscurity of the
prophets arises from this cause--that we find in them particular
expressions and allusions, which, whether from a, fault in the
translation, or from our imperfect knowledge of the times of which the
prophets speak, and of the language in which they wrote, are certainly
quite unintelligible. But these are only a few expressions, occurring
here and there; and it is a great evil to fancy that their writings, in
general, are not to be understood, because of the difficulty of
particular passages in them. Thus, with the very chapter of which we are
now speaking, the expression to which I have alluded can only be
uncertainly interpreted, yet the lesson of the chapter, as a whole, is
perfectly clear, notwithstanding. The dress, or fashions, or particular
rites, of the false prophets of Jerusalem and their votaries, may offer
no distinct image to our minds; but the evil of their doings, how they
deceived others, and were themselves deceived; the points, that is,
which alone concern us practically, these are set before us plainly.
"With their lies they made the heart of the righteous sad, whom God had
not made sad; and they strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he
should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life." Where the
way of life was broad, they strove to make it narrow; and where it was
narrow, they strove to make it broad: by their solemn and superstitious
lies, they frightened and perplexed the good, while, by their lives of
ungodliness, they emboldened and encouraged the wicked.
It may not, at first sight, seem necessary that these two things should
go together; there might be, it seems, either the fault of making the
heart of the righteous sad, without that of strengthening the hands of
the wicked: or there might be the strengthening of the hands of the
wicked, without making sad the heart of the righteous. And so it
sometimes has been: there has been a wickedness which has not tried to
keep up superstition: there has been a superstition, the supporters of
which have not wilfully encouraged wickedness. Yet, although this has
been so, with respect to the intention of the parties concerned, yet in
their own nature, the tendency of either evil to produce the other is
sure and universal. We cannot exist without some influences of fear and
restraint, on the one hand, and without some indulgence of freedom, on
the other. God has provided for both these wants, so to speak, of our
nature; he has told us whom we should fear, and where we should be
restrained, and where, also, we may be safely in freedom: there is the
fruit forbidden, and the fruit which we may eat freely. But if the
restraint and the liberty be either of them put in the wrong place, the
double evil is sure to follow. Restrained in his lawful liberty,
debarred from the good and wholesome fruit of the garden, man breaks out
into a liberty which is unlawful; he eats of the forbidden fruit, whose
taste is death; or, surfeited with an unholy freedom, and let to run
wild in a space far too vast for his strength to compass, he turns
cravingly for that support to his weariness which a narrowed range would
afford him; and he limits himself on that very quarter in which alone he
might expatiate freely. Superstition, in fact, is the rest of
wickedness, and wickedness is the breaking loose of superstition.
But, however true this may be, are we concerned in it? First of all,
when we find an evil dwelt upon often in the Prophets, and find it dwelt
upon again by our Lord and his Apostles with no less earnestness, there
is, at least, a strong presumption, that an evil of this sort is nothing
local or passing, but that it is fixed in man's nature, and is apt to
grow up in all times, and in all countries. Now, the double evil spoken
of in the text, occurs again in the gospel; there we find men spoken of,
who, in like manner, insisted upon what was trifling, and were careless
of what was important; and in the epistles, we find, again, the same
characters holding up as righteous others than those who worked
righteousness: men, who spoke lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience
seared with a hot iron. We may presume, therefore, that this evil is of
an enduring character; but if we look back to the history of the
Christian Church, or look around us, the presumption becomes the sad
conviction of experience.
Nor is the evil merely one which exists in the country at large; a thing
which might be fully dwelt upon any where but here. On the contrary, I
hardly know of an age more exposed to it than youth. There exist in
youth, in a very high degree, those opposite feelings of our nature,
which I have before spoken of; a tendency to respect, to follow, to be
led, on the one hand; and on the other, a lively desire for independence
and freedom. These feelings often exist in the greatest strength in the
same individual; and when they are not each turned in their proper
direction, ruin is the consequence. Nothing is more common than to see
great narrowness of mind, great prejudices, and great disorderliness of
conduct, united in the same person. Nothing is more common than to see
the same mind utterly prostrated before some idol of its own, and
supporting that idol with the most furious zeal, and at the same time
utterly rebellious to Christ, and rejecting with scorn the enlightening,
the purifying, and the loving influences of Christ's Spirit.
The idols of various minds are infinitely various, some seducing the
loftiest natures and some the vilest. But of this we may be sure, that
every one of us has a tendency to some one idol or other, if not to
many; and our business is especially each to watch, ourselves, lest we
be enslaved to our peculiar idol. I will now, however, speak of those
which, tempt the highest minds; which, by their show of sacredness and
excellence, make us fancy, that while following them we are following
Christ. And let none be surprised, if I rank among idols many things,
which, in themselves and in their proper use and order, are indeed to be
loved and reverenced. It was most right to respect the Apostle Peter,
and listen to his word; but that great Apostle would have been ruin to
Cornelius, and not salvation, if he had suffered him, without reproof,
to fall down before him, and render to him the service due to Christ
alone. How many good and pious feelings must have been awakened from age
to age in many minds, at the sight of the brazen serpent on the pole,
the memorial of their fathers' deliverance in the wilderness! But when
this awakening, this solemn memorial was corrupted into an idol, when
men bowed down before it in superstition, it was the part of true piety
to do as Hezekiah did, to dash it, notwithstanding all its solemn
associations, into a thousand pieces.
Thus things good, things noble, things sacred, may all become idols. To
some minds truth is an idol, to others justice, to others charity or
benevolence; and others are beguiled by objects of a different sort of
sacredness: some have made Christ's mother their idol; some, Christ's
servants; some, again, Christ's sacraments, and Christ's own body, the
Church. If these may all be idols, where can we find a name so holy, as
that we may surrender up our whole souls to it; before which obedience,
reverence, without measure, intense humility, most unreserved adoration,
may all be duly rendered. One name there is, and one only; one alone in
heaven and in earth; not truth, not justice, not benevolence, not
Christ's mother, not his holiest servants, not his blessed sacraments,
not his very mystical body, but Himself only, who died for us and rose
again, Jesus Christ, both God and Man.
He is truth, and he is righteousness, and he is love; he gives his grace
to his sacraments, and his manifold gifts to his Church; whoever hath
him hath all things; but if we do not take heed, whenever we turn our
mind to any other object, we shall make it an idol and lose him. Take
him in all his fulness, not as God merely, not as man merely; not in his
life on earth only, not in his death only, not in his exaltation at
God's right hand only; but in all his fulness, the Christ of God, God
and Man, our Prophet, our Priest, our King and Lord, redeeming us by his
blood, sanctifying us by his Spirit; and then worship him and love him
with all the heart, and with, all the soul, and with all the strength;
and we shall see how all evil will be barred, and all good will abound.
No man who worships Christ alone, can be a fanatic, nor yet can be a
more philosopher; he cannot be bigoted, nor yet can he be indifferent;
he cannot be so the slave of what be calls amiable feelings as to cast
truth and justice behind him; nor yet can he so pursue truth and justice
as to lose sight of humbler and softer feelings, self-abasement,
reverence, devotion. There is no evil tendency in the nature of any one
of us, which has not its cure in the true worship of Christ our Saviour.
Let us look into our hearts, and consider their besetting faults. Are we
indolent, or are we active; are we enthusiastic, or are we cold; zealous
or indifferent, devout or reasonable; whatever the inclination, or bias
of our nature be, if we follow its kindred idol, it will be magnified
and grow on to our ruin; if we worship Christ, it will be pruned and
chastened, and made to grow up with opposite tendencies, all alike
tempered, none destroyed; none overgrowing the garden, but all filling
it with their several fruits; so that it shall be, indeed, the garden of
the Lord, and the Spirit of the Lord shall dwell in the midst of it.
And who shall dare to make sad the heart of him who is thus drinking
daily of the well-spring of righteousness, by telling him that he is not
yet saved, nor can be, unless he will come and bow down before his idol?
And if, rather than do so, he break the idol in pieces, who shall dare
to call him profane, or cold in love to his Lord, when it was in his
very jealousy for his Lord, and in his full purpose to worship him
alone, that he threw down all that exalted itself above its due
proportion against him? And if a man be not so worshipping Christ only,
who shall dare to encourage him in his evil way, by magnifying the
sacredness of his idol, and ascribing to it that healing virtue which
belongs to Christ alone?
What has been here said might bear to be followed up at far greater
length than the present occasion will admit of. But the main point is
one, I think, of no small importance, that all fanaticism and
superstition on the one hand, and all unbelief and coldness of heart on
the other, arise from what is in fact idolatry,--the putting some other
object, whether it be called a religious or moral one,--and an object
often in itself very excellent,--in the place of Christ himself, as set
forth to us fully in the Scriptures. And as no idol can stand in
Christ's place, or in any way save us, so whoever worships Christ truly
is preserved from all idols and has life eternal. And if any one demand
of him further, that he should worship his idol, and tells him that he
is not safe if he does not; his answer will be rather that he will
perish if he does; that he is safe, fully safe, and only safe, so long
as he clings to Christ alone; and that to make anything else necessary
to his safety, is not only to minister to superstition, but to
ungodliness also; not only to lay on us a yoke which neither our fathers
nor we were able to bear; but, by the very act of laying this
unchristian yoke upon us, to tear from us the easy yoke and light burden
of Christ himself, our Lord and our life.
LECTURE XXI.
* * * * *
ADVENT SUNDAY.
* * * * *
HEBREWS in. 16.
_For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came
out of Egypt by Moses_.
I take this verse as my text, rather than those which immediately go
before or follow it, because it affords one of the most serious
instances of mistranslation that are to be met with in the whole New
Testament. For the true translation of the words is this: "For who were
they who, when they had heard, did provoke? nay, were they not all who
came out of Egypt through Moses?" And then it goes on--"And with whom
was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose
carcases fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should
not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?" I call this a
serious mistranslation, because it lessens the force of the writer's
comparison. So far from meaning to say that "some, but not all did
provoke," he lays a stress on the universality of the evil: it was not
only a few, but the whole people who came out of Egypt, with only the
two individual exceptions of Caleb and Joshua. All the rest who were
grown up when they came out of Egypt did provoke God; and the carcases
of that whole generation, fell in the wilderness.