this day, it could hardly have suited it better. For this day is the
New-year's day of the Christian year; and it is probably for this reason
that the service of the first day of the common year is confined
entirely to the commemoration of our Lord's circumcision, and takes no
notice of the beginning of a new year. It is manifest that it could not
do so without confusion: for the first of January is not the beginning
of the Christian year, but Advent Sunday; the last Sunday of the
Christian year is not Christmas-day, as it would be this year if we
reckoned by the common divisions of time; but it is the last Sunday
after Trinity. Now, then, we are at the beginning of our year; and well
it is that, as our trial is now become shorter by another year, as
another division of our lives has passed away, we should fix our eyes on
that which makes every year so valuable,--the Judgment, for which it
ought to be a preparation. In fact, if we observe, we shall see that
these Sundays in Advent are much more regarded by the Church as the
beginning of a new year, than as a mere prelude to the celebration of
the festival of Christmas. That is, Christmas-day is regarded, so to
speak, in a two-fold light, as representing both the comings of our
Lord, his first coming in the flesh, and his second coming to judgment.
When the day actually arrives, it commemorates our Lord's first coming:
and this is the beginning of the Christian year, historically regarded,
that is, so far as it is a commemoration of the several events of our
Lord's life on earth. But before it comes, it is regarded as
commemorating our Lord's second coming: and wisely, for his first coming
requires now no previous preparation for it; we cannot well put
ourselves into the position of those who lived before Christ appeared.
But our whole life is, or ought to be, a preparation for his second
coming; and it is this state, of which the season of Advent in the
Church services is intended to be the representation.
There is something striking in the season of the natural year at which
we thus celebrate the beginning of another Christian year. It is a true
type of our condition, of the insensible manner in which all the changes
of our lives steal upon us, that nature, at this moment, gives no
outward signs of beginning: it is a period which does not manifest any
striking change in the state of things around us. The Christian Spring
begins ere we have reached the half of the natural winter. Nature is not
bursting into life, but rather preparing itself for a long period of
death. And this is a type of an universal truth, that the signs and
warnings which we must look to, must come from within us, not from
without: that neither sky nor earth, will arouse us from our deadly
slumber, unless we are ourselves aroused already, and more disposed to
make warnings for ourselves than to find them.
If this be true of nature, it is true also of all the efforts of man. As
nature will give no sign, so man cannot. Let the Church do all that she
may; let her keep her solemn anniversaries, and choose out for her
services all such passages of Scripture as may be most fitted to impress
the lesson which she would teach; still we know that these are alike
powerless and unheeded; that unless there be in our own minds something
beforehand disposed to profit by them, they are but the words of
unavailing affection, vainly spoken to the ears of the dead.
Oh that we would remember this, all of us; that there is no voice in
nature, no voice in man, that can really awaken the sleeping soul. That
is the work of a far mightier power, to be sought for with most earnest
prayers for ourselves and for each other: that the Holy Spirit of God
would speak, and would dispose our hearts to hear; that so being
awakened from death and our ears being truly opened, all things outward
may now join in language which we can hear; and nature, and man, life
and death, things present and things to come, may be but the manifold
voices of the Spirit of God, all working for us together for good. Till
this be so, we speak in vain; our words neither reach our own hearts,
nor the hearts of our hearers; they are but recorded in God's book of
judgment, to be brought forward hereafter for the condemnation of
us both.
Yet we must still speak; for the Spirit of God, who alone works in us
effectually, works also secretly; we know not when, nor how, nor where.
But we know, that as the Father worketh hitherto, and the Son worketh
hitherto, so the Holy Spirit worketh hitherto, and is still working
daily. We know that, every year, he creates in thousands of God's people
that work which alone shall abide for ever. We know that in the year
that is just past he has done this; that in the year which is just
beginning he will do it. Have we not here, also, many in whom he has
wrought this work? may we not hope, and surely believe, that there are
many in whom he is even now preparing to work it?
We know not who these are; still less do we know, what were the
occasions which the Holy Spirit so blessed as to work in them his work
of life. But this we know, that we are bound to minister all the
occasions which we can; we must not spare our labour, although it is God
alone who gives the increase. We must speak of life and of death, of
Christ and of judgment, not forgetting that we speak often, and shall
speak, utterly in vain; yet knowing that it is by these very thoughts,
though long unheeded, that God's Spirit does in his own good time awaken
the heart; he takes of the things of Christ and shows them to us; and
then, what was before like a book in a strange language--we saw the
figures, but they conveyed no meaning to our minds--becomes, on a
sudden, instinct with the language of God, which we hear and understand
as readily as if it were our own tongue wherein we were born.
Therefore, we speak and say, that another year has now dawned upon us;
and we would remind you, and remember, ourselves, in what words the
various Scriptures of this day's service point out its inestimable
value. "Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." So says St.
Paul in the epistle of this day; and how blessed are all those amongst
us who can feel that this is truly said of them! Then, indeed, a new
year's day is a day of rejoicing; we are so much nearer that period when
all care, all anxiety, all painful labour will be for ever ended. But
there is other language of a different sort, which, it may be, will suit
us better. "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have
rebelled against me." "Their land is full of idols; they worship the
work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made;" which
means to us, the work of our own hearts, that which our own fancies and
desires have made. "Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for
fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty." For in the very
temple of God, his Church, all manner of profane thoughts and words and
works are crowded together; the din of covetousness and worldliness is
loud and constant, and will ill abide the day of his coming, who will, a
second time, cast out of his temple all that is unclean. And is there
not also in us that evil heart of unbelief and disobedience which
departs from the living God? are there not here those who are becoming
daily hardened through the deceitfulness of sin? How are they passing
their time in the wilderness, and with what prospects when they come to
the end of it? God said, "I sware in my wrath, that they shall not enter
into my rest." By the way that they came, by the same shall they return;
they shall go back to that bondage from which they were once redeemed,
and from which they will be redeemed again no more for ever.
These are some of the passages of this day's service which speaks to us
at the beginning of this new Christian year. Let me add to all this
language of warning, the language in which God, by his apostle Paul,
answers every one of us, if we ask of him in sincerity of heart, "Lord,
what wilt thou have me to do?" He answers, "The night is far spent, the
day is at hand: let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and
drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and
envying: but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for
the flesh, to fulfil the works thereof." Now, I grant, that this day, of
which the apostle speaks, has never yet shone so brightly, as he had
hoped and imagined; clouds have, up to this hour, continually
overshadowed it. I mean, that the lives of Christians have hindered them
from being the light of the world. It has been a light pale and dim, and
therefore the works of darkness have continued to abound. But admit
this, and what follows? Is it, or can it be, anything else but a more
earnest desire not to be ourselves children of darkness, lest what we
see to have happened in part should happen altogether; namely, that the
day should never shine on us at all? We see that God's promises have
been in part forfeited; we see that Christ's kingdom has not been what
it was prophesied it should be. Is not this a solemn warning, that for
us, too, individually, God's promises may be forfeited? that all we read
in Scripture of light, and life, and glory, and happiness, should really
prove to us words only, and no reality? that whereas the promise of
salvation has been made to us, we should be in the end, not saved, but
lost? If, indeed, God's kingdom were shining around us, in its full
beauty; if every evil thing were driven out of his temple; if we saw
nothing but holy lives and happy, the fruits of his Spirit, truth, and
love, and joy; then we might be less anxious for ourselves; our course
would be far smoother; the very stream would carry us along to the end
of our voyage without our labour: what evil thoughts would not be
withered, and die long ere they could ripen into action, if the very air
which we breathed were of such, keen and heavenly purity! It is because
all this is not so, that we have need of so much watchfulness; it is
because the faults of every one of us make our brethren's task harder;
because there is not one bad or careless person amongst us who is not a
hindrance in his brother's path, and does not oblige him to exert
himself the more. Therefore, because the day is not bright, but
overclouded; because it is but too like the night, and too many use it
as the night for all works of darkness; let us take the more heed that
we do not ourselves so mistake it; let us watch each of us the light
within us, lest, indeed, we should wholly stumble; let us put on the
Lord Jesus Christ. You know how often I have dwelt on this; how often I
have tried to show that Christ is all in all to us; that to put on
Christ, is a truer and fuller expression, by far, than if we had been
told to put on truth, or holiness, or goodness. It includes all these,
with something more, that nothing but itself can give--the sense of
safety, and joy unspeakable, in feeling ourselves sheltered in our
Saviour's arms, and taken even into himself. Assuredly, if we put on the
Lord Jesus Christ, we shall not make provision for the flesh to fulfil
the lusts thereof; such a warning would then be wholly unnecessary. Or,
if we do not like language thus figurative, let us put it, if we will,
into the plainest words that shall express the same meaning; let us call
it praying to Christ, thinking of him, hoping in him, earnestly loving
him; these, at least, are words without a figure, which all can surely
understand. Let us be Christ's this year that is now beginning; be his
servants, be his disciples, be his redeemed in deed; let us live to him,
and for him; setting him before us every day to do his will, and to live
in his blessing. Then, indeed, if it be his pleasure that we should
serve him throughout this year, even to its end, we may repeat, with a
deeper feeling of their truth, the words of St. Paul; we may say, when
next Advent Sunday shall appear, that now is our salvation nearer than
when we became believers.
LECTURE XXII.
* * * * *
CHRISTMAS DAY.
* * * * *
JOHN i. 10.
_He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew
Him not_.
When we use ourselves, or hear others use, the term "mystery," as
applied to things belonging to the gospel, we should do well to consider
what is meant by it. For our common notion of the word mystery is of
something dark; whereas Christ and his gospel are continually spoken of
as being, above all other things, light. Then come others, and say,
"Light and darkness cannot go together: what you call the mysteries of
Christianity are no part of it, but the fond inventions of man:
Christianity is all simple and clear:" and thus they strike away some of
the very greatest truths which God has revealed to us. Thus they deal in
particular with the great truth declared in the text, that He who made
the world visited it in the likeness of man. Now, if this truth were a
mystery, in the common notion of that term; if it were a thing full of
darkness, defying our minds to understand it, or to draw any good from
it; then, indeed, it would be of little consequence whether we received
it or no. It is because it is a mystery in a very different sense, in
the sense in which the word is used commonly in the Scriptures; that
is, a thing which was a secret, but which God has been pleased to
reveal, and to reveal for our benefit, that therefore the loss of it
would be the loss of a real blessing, a loss at once of light
and comfort.
But we must go a little further, and explain from what this sad
confusion in the use of the term "mystery" has arisen. There are many
things relating to ourselves and to things around us, which by nature we
cannot understand; and of God we can scarcely understand anything. Now,
while the gospel has revealed much that we did not know before, it yet
has not revealed everything: of God, in particular, it has given us much
most precious knowledge, yet it has not removed all the veil. It has
furnished us with a glass, indeed, to use the apostle's comparison; but
the glass, although, a great help, although reflecting a likeness of
what, without it, we could not see at all, is yet a dark and imperfect
manner of seeing, compared with, the seeing face to face. So, when the
gospel tells us that He who made the world visited it in our nature, it
does not indeed enable us yet fully to conceive what He is who made us,
and then became as one of us; there is still left around the name of God
that light inaccessible which is to our imperfections darkness; and so
far as we cannot understand or conceive rightly of God, so far it is
true that we cannot understand all that is conveyed in the expression
that God was in the world dwelling among us. Yet it is still most true
that by the revelation thus made to us we have gained immensely. God, as
he is in himself, we cannot understand; but Jesus Christ we can. When we
are told to love God, if we look to the life and death of Christ, we can
understand and feel how truly he deserves our love; when we are told to
be perfect as God is perfect, we have the image of this perfection so
truly set before us in his Son Jesus, that it may be well said, "Whoso
hath seen Him hath seen the Father;" and why, then, should we ask with
Philip, that "He should show us the Father?"
What, then, the festival of Christmas presents to us, as distinct from
that of Easter, is generally the revelation of God in the flesh. True it
is, that we may make it, if we will, the same as Easter: that is, we may
celebrate it as the birth of our Saviour, of him who died and rose again
for us; but then we only celebrate our Lord's birth with reference to
his death and resurrection: that is, we make Christmas to be Easter
under another name. And so everything relating to our Lord may be made
to refer to his death and resurrection; for in them consists our
redemption, and for that reason Easter has ever been considered as the
great festival of the Christian year. But yet apart from this, Christmas
has something peculiarly its own: namely, as I said before, the
revelation of God in the flesh, not only to make atonement for our
sins,--which is the peculiar subject of the celebration of the season of
Easter,--but to give us notions of God at once distinct and lively; to
enable us to have One in the invisible world, whom we could conceive of
as distinctly as of a mere man, yet whom we might love with all our
hearts, and trust with all our hearts, and yet be guilty of no idolatry.
It is not, then, only as the beginning of an earthly life of little more
than thirty years, that we may celebrate the day of our Lord's birth in
the flesh. His own words express what this day has brought to us:
"Henceforth shall ye see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending
and descending upon the Son of man." The words here, like so many of our
Lord's, are expressed in a parable; but their meaning is not the less
clear. They allude evidently to Jacob's vision, to the ladder reaching
from earth to heaven, on which the angels were ascending and descending
continually. But this vision is itself a parable; showing, under the
figure of the ladder reaching from earth to heaven, and the angels going
up and down on it, a free communication, as it were, between God and
man, heaven brought nearer to earth, and heavenly things made more
familiar. Now, this is done, in a manner, by every revelation from God;
most of all, by the revelation of his Son. Nor is it only by his Spirit
that Christ communicates with us even now; though, he is ascended again
into heaven, yet the benefits of his having become man, over and above
those of his dying and rising again for us, have not yet passed away. It
is still the man Christ Jesus who brings heaven near to earth, and earth
near to heaven.
It has been well said by Augustine, that babes in Christ should so think
of the Son of man as not to lose sight of the Son of God; that more
advanced Christians should so think of the Son of God as not to lose
sight of the Son of man. Augustine well understood how the thought of
the Son of man is fitted to our weakness; and that the best and most
advanced of us in this mortal life are never so strong as to be able to
do without it. Have we ever tried this with our children? We tell them
that God made them, and takes care of them, and loves them, and hears
their prayers, and knows what is in their hearts, and cannot bear what
is evil. These are such notions of God as a child requires, and can
understand. But, if we join with them some of those other notions which
belong to God as he is in himself; that he is a Spirit, not to be seen,
not to be conceived of as in any one place, or in any one form; what do
we but embarrass our child's mind, and lessen that sense of near and
dear relation to God which, our earlier accounts of God had given him?
Yet we must teach him something of this sort, if we would prevent him
from forming unworthy notions of God, such as have been the beginning
of all idolatry. Here, then, is the blessing of the revelation of God in
Christ. All that he can understand of God, or love in him, or fear in
him--that is to be found in Christ. Christ made him, takes care of him,
can hear his prayers, can read his little heart, loves him tenderly; yet
cannot bear what is evil, and will strictly judge him at the last day.
But what we must teach when we speak of God, yet which has a tendency to
lessen the liveliness of our impressions of him, this has no place when
we speak of Christ. Christ has a body, incorruptible and glorified
indeed, such as they who are Christ's shall also wear at his coming, yet
still a body. Christ is not to be seen, indeed, for the clouds have
received him out of our sight: yet he may be conceived of as in one
place--at the right hand of God; as in one certain and well-known
form--the form of the Son of man. Yet let us observe again, and be
thankful for the perfect wisdom of God. Even while presenting to us God
in Christ; that is to say, God with all those attributes which we can
understand, and fear, and love; and without those which, throw us, as it
were, to an infinite distance, overwhelming our minds, and baffling all
our conceptions; even then the utmost care is taken to make us remember
that God in himself is really that infinite and incomprehensible Being
to whom we cannot, in our present state, approach; that even his
manifestation of himself in Christ Jesus, is one less perfect than we
shall be permitted to see hereafter; that Christ stands at the right
hand of the Majesty on high; that he has received from the Father all
his kingdom and his glory; finally, that the Father is greater than he,
inasmuch as any other nature added to the pure and perfect essence of
God, must, in a certain measure, if I may venture so to speak, be a
coming down to a lower point, from the very and unmixed Divinity.
I have purposely mentioned this last circumstance, although it is not
the view that I wish particularly to take to-day, because such passages
as that which I quoted, where Christ tells his disciples that his Father
was greater than he, and many others of the same sort, throughout the
New Testament, are sometimes apt to embarrass and perplex us, if we do
not consider their peculiar object. It was very necessary, especially at
a time when men were so accustomed to worship their highest gods under
the form of men, that whilst the gospel was itself holding out the man
Christ Jesus as the object of religious faith, and fear, and love, and
teaching that all power was given to him, in heaven and in earth,--it
should, also, guard us against supposing that it meant to represent God
as, in himself, wearing a human form, or having a nature partaking of
our infirmities; and, therefore, it always speaks of there being
something in God higher, and more perfect, than could possibly be
revealed to man; and for this eternal and infinite, and inconceivable
Being, it claims the reserve of our highest thoughts, or, rather, it
commands us to believe, that they who shall hereafter see God face to
face, shall be allowed to see something still greater than is now
revealed to us, even in him who is the express image of God, and the
brightness of his glory.
But, now, to return to what I was dwelling on before. It is not only for
children, that the revelation of God in Christ is so valuable; it is
fitted to the wants of us all, at all times, and under all
circumstances. Say, that we are in joy; say, that we are enjoying some
of the festivities of this season. It is quite plain, that, at whatever
moment the thought of God is unwelcome to us, that moment is one of sin
or unbelief: yet, how can we dare to mix up the notion of the most high
God with any earthly merriment, or festivity? Then, if we think of him
who was present at the marriage in Cana of Galilee, and who worked a
miracle for no other object than to increase the enjoyment of that
marriage supper, do we not feel how the highest thoughts may be joined
with the most common occasions? how we may bring Christ home with, us to
our social meetings, to bless us, and to sanctify them? Imagine him in
our feasts as he was in Cana:--we may do it without profaneness; being
sure, from that example, that he condemns not innocent mirth; that it is
not merely because there is a feast, or because friends and neighbours
are gathered together, that Christ cannot, therefore, be in the midst of
us. This alone does not drive him away; but, oh consider, with what ears
would he have listened to any words of unkindness, of profaneness, or of
impurity! with what eyes would he have viewed any intemperance, or
revelling; any such, immoderate yielding up of the night to pleasure,
that a less portion of the next day can be given to duty and to God!
Even as he would have heard or seen such things in Cana of Galilee, so
does he hear and see them amongst us; the same gracious eye of love is
on our moderate and permitted enjoyments; the same turning away from,
the same firm and just displeasure at every word or deed which turns
pleasure into sin.