near to us, what can I choose more striking than that most solemn act of
Christian communion to which we are called this day? For, what is there
in our mortal life, what joy, what sorrow, what feeling elated or
subdued, which is not in that communion brought near to Christ to
receive his blessing? What is the first and outward thing of which it
reminds us? Is it not that last supper in Jerusalem, in which men,--the
twelve disciples, the first members of our Christian brotherhood,--were
brought into such solemn nearness to God, as seems to have begun the
privileges of heaven upon earth? They were brought near at once to
Christ and to one another: united to one another in him, in that double
bond which, is the perfection at once of our duty and of our happiness.
And so in our communion we, too, draw near to Christ and to each other;
we feel--who is there at that moment, at least, that does not
feel?--what a tie there is to bind each of us to his brother, when we
come to the table of our common Lord. So far, the Lord's Supper is but a
type of what every Christian meeting should be: never should any of us
be gathered together on any occasion of common life, in our families or
with our neighbours; we should sit down to no meal, we should meet in no
company, without having Christ also in the midst of us; without
remembering what we all are to him, and what we each therefore are to
our brethren. But when we further recollect what there is in the Lord's
Supper beyond the mere meeting of Christ and his disciples; what it is
which the bread and the wine commemorate; of what we partake when, as
true Christians, we eat of that bread, and drink of that cup; then we
shall understand that God indeed is brought very near to us; inasmuch,
as he who is a Christian, and partakes sincerely of Christian communion,
is a partaker also of Christ: and as belonging to his body, his living
spiritual body, the universal Church, receives his share of all those
blessings, of all that infinite love which the Father shows continually
to the head of that body, his own well-beloved Son.
Say not then in your hearts, Who can ascend up into heaven, that is, to
bring Christ down? As on this day, when he took our nature upon him, he
came down to abide with us for ever; to abide with, us, even when we
should see him with our eyes no more: for whilst he was on earth he so
took part in all the concerns of life, in all its duties, its sorrows,
and its joys, that memory, when looking back on the past, can fancy him
present still; and then let the liveliest fancy do its work to the
utmost, it cannot go beyond the reality; he is present still, for that
belongs to his almightiness; he is present with us, because he is God;
and we can fancy him with us, because he is man. This is the way to
lessen our distance from God and heaven, by bringing Christ continually
to us on earth: the sky is closed, and shows no sign; all things
continue as they were from the beginning of the world; evil abounds, and
therefore the faith of many waxes cold; but Christ was and is amongst
us; and we need no surer sign than that sign of the prophet
Jonah--Christ crucified and Christ risen--to make us feel that we may
live with God daily upon earth, and doing so, shall live with him for an
eternal life, in a country that cannot pass away.
LECTURE XXIII.
* * * * *
SUNDAY NEXT BEFORE EASTER.
* * * * *
MATTHEW xxvi. 40, 41.
_What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye
enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the
flesh is weak_.
These words, we cannot doubt, have an application to ourselves, and to
all Christians, far beyond the particular occasion on which they were
actually spoken. They are, in fact, the words which Christ addresses
daily to all of us. Every day, when he sees how often we have gone
astray from him, he repeats to us, Could ye not watch with me one hour?
Every day he commands us to watch and pray, that we enter not into
temptation; every day he reminds us, that however willing may be our
spirits, yet our flesh is weak; and that through that weakness, sin
prevails over it, and having triumphed over our flesh, proceeds to
enslave our spirit also.
And as the words are applicable to us every day, so also are they in a
particular manner suitable now, when the season of Lent is so nearly
over, and Easter is so fast approaching. Have we been unable to watch,
with Christ one hour? Already are the good resolutions with which, we,
perhaps, began Lent, broken in many instances; and the impressions, if
any such were made in us, are already weakened. They have been a
burden, which we have shaken off, because the weakness of our nature
found it too heavy to bear. Sad it is to think how often this same
process has been repeated in all time, how often it will be repeated
to the end.
Let us just review what the course of this process has probably been.
Now, as the parable of the Sower describes three several sorts of
persons, who never bring forth, fruit; so in the very same persons,
there is at different times something of each of the three characters
there described. We, the very same persons, are at one time hard, at
another careless, and at another over-busy; although, if compared with,
other persons, and in the general form of their characters, some are
hard, and others are careless, and others over-busy; different persons
having different faults predominantly. But even the hardness of the road
side, although God forbid that it should be our prevailing temper, yet
surely it does sometimes exist in too many of us. In common speech, we
talk of a person showing a hard temper, meaning, generally, a hard
temper towards other men. We have done wrong, but being angry when we
are reproved for it, we will not acknowledge it at all, and cheat our
consciences, by dwelling upon the supposed wrong that has been done to
us in some over-severity of reproof or punishment, instead of confessing
and repenting of the original wrong which we ourselves did. But is it
not true, that a hard temper towards man is very often, even
consciously, a hard temper towards God? Does it never happen, that if
conscience presents to us the thought of God, whether as a God of
judgment to terrify us, or as a God of love to melt us, we repel it with
impatience, or with sullenness? Does not the heart sometimes almost
speak aloud the language of blasphemy: Who is God, that I should mind
him? I do not care what may happen, I will not be softened. Do not all
sorts of unbelieving thoughts pass rapidly through the mind at such
moments; first in their less daring form, whispering, as the serpent did
to Eve, that we shall not surely die; that we shall have time to repent
by and by; that God will not be so strict a judge as to condemn us for
such a little; that by some means or other, we shall escape? But then
they come, also, in their bolder form: What do I or any man know about
another world, or God's judgments? may it not be all a fiction, so that
I have, in reality, nothing to fear? In short, under one form or
another, is it not true, that our hearts have sometimes displayed
actually hardness towards God; that the thought of God has been actually
presented to our minds, but that we have turned it aside, and have not
suffered it to make any impression upon us? And thus, we have not only
not watched with Christ according to his command, but have actually told
him that we would not. But this has been in our worst temper, certainly;
it may not have happened,--I trust that it has not happened often. More
commonly, I dare say, the fault has been carelessness. We have gone out
of this place; sacred names have ceased to sound in our ears; sights in
any degree connected with, holy things have been all withdrawn from us.
Other sounds and other sights have been before us, and our minds have
yielded to them altogether. There are minds, indeed, which have no
spring of thought in themselves; which are quiet, and in truth empty,
till some outward objects come to engage them. Take them at a moment
when they are alone, or when there is no very interesting object before
them, and ask them of what they are thinking. If the answer were truly
given, such a mind would say, "Of nothing." Certain images may be
faintly presented to it; it may be that it is not altogether a blank;
yet it could not name anything distinctly. No form had been vivid enough
to produce any corresponding resolution in us; we were, as it were, in a
state between sleeping and waking, with neither thoughts nor dreams
definite enough to affect us. This state finds exactly all that it
desires in the presence or the near hope of outward objects; the mind
lives in its daily pursuits, and companions, and amusements. What
impressions have been once produced are soon worn away; and in a soil so
shallow nothing makes a durable impression: everything can, as it were,
scratch upon its surface, while nothing can strike deeply down within.
Or, again, take the rarer case of those who are over-busy. There are
minds, undoubtedly, which are as incapable of rest as those of the
generality of men are prone to it; there are minds which enter keenly
into everything presented to them by their outward senses, and which,
when their senses cease to supply them, have an inexhaustible source of
thought within, which furnishes them with abundant matter of reflection
or of speculation. To such a mind, doing is most delightful; whether it
be outward doing, or the mere exercise of thought, either supplies alike
the consciousness of power. Where, then, is there room for the less
obtruding things of God? Into that restless water, another and another
image is for ever stepping down, pushing aside and keeping at a distance
the sobering reflections of God and of Christ. Alas! the thorns grow so
vigorously in such a soil, that they altogether choke and kill the seed
of God's word.
So, then, we are either asleep, or, if we are awake, we are not waking
with Christ. On one side, in that garden of Gethsemane were the
disciples sleeping; below, and fast ascending the hill,--not sleeping,
certainly, but with lanterns and torches and weapons,--were those whose
waking was for evil. Where were they who watched with Christ one hour
then,--or where are those who watch with him now?
HOW gently, yet how earnestly, does he call upon us to "watch and pray,
lest we enter into temptation." To watch and to pray: for of all those
around him some were sleeping, and none were praying; so that they who
watched were not watching with him, but against him. In our careless
state of mind the call to us is to watch; in our over-busy state the
call to us is to pray; in our hard state there is equal need for both.
And even in our best moods, when we are not hard, nor careless, nor
over-busy, when we are at once sober and earnest and gentle, then not
least does Christ call upon us to watch and to pray, that we may retain
that than which else no gleam of April sunshine was ever more fleeting;
that we may perfect that which else is of the earth, earthly, and when
we lie down in the dust will wither and come to dust also.
Jesus Christ brought life and immortality, it is said, to light through
the gospel. He brought life and immortality to light:--is this indeed
true as far as we are concerned? What do we think would be the
difference in this point between many of us--who will dare say how
many?--and a school, I will not say of Jewish, but even of Greek or
Roman or Egyptian boys, eighteen hundred, or twenty-four hundred, or
three or four thousand years ago? Compare us at our worship with them,
and then, I grant, the difference would appear enormous. We have no
images, making the glory of the incorruptible God like to corruptible
man; we have no vain stream of incense; no shedding of the blood of
bulls and calves in sacrifice: the hymns which are sung here are not
vain repetitions or impious fables, which gave no word of answer to
those questions which it most concerns mankind to know. Here, indeed,
Jesus Christ is truly set forth, crucified among us; here life and
immortality are brought to light. But follow us out of this place,--to
our respective pursuits and amusements, to our social meetings, or our
times of solitary thought,--and wherein do we seem to see life and
immortality more brightly revealed than to those heathen schools of old?
Do we enjoy any worldly good less keenly, or less shrink from any
worldly evil? Death, which to the heathen view was the end of all
things, is to us (so our language goes) the gate of life. Do we think of
it with more hope and less fear than the heathen did? Christ has risen,
and has reconciled us to God. Is God more to us?--God now revealed to us
as our reconciled Father--do we oftener think of him, do we love him
better, than he was thought of and loved in those heathen schools, which
had Homer's poetry for their only gospel? We talk of light, of
revelation, of the knowledge of God, while verily and really we are
walking, not in light, but in darkness: not in knowledge of God, but in
blindness and hardness of heart.
"The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." How great is the
loving-kindness of these words,--how gently does Christ bear with the
weakness of his disciples! But this thought may be the most blessed or
the most dangerous thought in the world; the most blessed if it touches
us with love, the most dangerous if it emboldens us in sin. He is full
of loving-kindness, full of long-suffering; for days, and weeks, and
months, and years he bears with us: we grieve him, and he entreats; we
crucify him afresh, yet he will not come down from the cross in power
and majesty; he endures and spares. So it is for days, and months, and
years; for some years it may be to most of us,--for many years to some
of the youngest. There may be some here who may go on grieving Christ,
and crucifying him afresh, for as much as seventy years; and he will
bear with them all that time, and his sun will daily shine upon them,
and his creatures and his word will minister to their pleasure; and he
himself will say nothing to them but to entreat them to turn and be
saved. This may last, I say, to some amongst us for seventy years; to
others it may last fifty; to many of us it may last for forty, or for
thirty; none of us, perhaps, are so old but that it may last with us
twenty, or at the least ten. Such is the prospect before us, if we like
it: not to be depended upon with certainty, it is true, but yet to be
regarded as probable. But as these ten, or twenty, or fifty, or seventy
years pass on, Christ will still spare us, but his voice of entreaty
will be less often heard; the distance between him and us will be
consciously wider. From one place after another where we once used
sometimes to see him, he will have departed; year after year some object
which used once to catch the light from heaven, will have become
overgrown, and will lie constantly in gloom; year after year the world
will become to us more entirely devoid of God. If sorrow, or some
softening joy ever turns our minds towards Christ, we shall be startled
at perceiving there is something which keeps us from him, that we cannot
earnestly believe in him; that if we speak of loving him, our hearts,
which can still love earthly things, feel that the words are but
mockery. Alas, alas! the increased weakness of our flesh, has destroyed
all the power of our spirit, and almost all its willingness: it is bound
with chains which it cannot break, and, indeed, scarcely desires to
break. Redemption, Salvation, Victory,--what words are these when
applied to that enslaved, that lost, that utterly overthrown and
vanquished soul, which sin is leading in triumph now, and which will
speedily be given over to walk for ever as a captive in the eternal
triumph of death!
Not one word of what I have said is raised beyond the simplest
expression of truth; this is our portion if we will not watch with
Christ. We know how often we have failed to do so, either sleeping in
carelessness, or being busy and wakeful, but not with him or for him.
Still he calls us to watch and pray, lest we enter into temptation; to
mark our lives and actions; to mark them often; to see whether we have
done well or ill in the month past, or in the week past, or in the day
past; to consider whether we are better than we were, or worse; whether
we think Christ loves us better, or worse; whether we are more or less
cold towards him. I know not what else can be called watching with
Christ than such a looking into ourselves as we are in his sight. It is
very hard to be done;--yes, it is hard--harder than anything probably
which we ever attempted before; and, therefore, we must pray withal for
his help, whose strength is perfected in our weakness. And if it be so
hard, and we have need so greatly to pray for God's help, should we not
all also be anxious to help one another? And knowing, as we do from our
own consciences, how difficult it is to watch with Christ, and how
thankful we should be to any one who were to make it easier to us,
should we not be sure that our neighbour is in like case with ourselves;
that our help may be as useful to him as we feel that his would be to
us? This is our bounden duty of love towards one another; what then
should be said of us if we not only neglect this duty, but do the very
contrary to it; if we actually help the evil in our brother's heart to
destroy him more entirely; if we will not watch with Christ ourselves,
and strive to prevent others from doing so?
LECTURE XXIV.
* * * * *
GOOD FRIDAY.
* * * * *
ROMANS v. 8.
_God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us_.
We all remember the story in the Gospel, of the different treatment
which our Lord met with in the same house, from the Pharisee, who had
invited him into it, and from the woman who came in and knelt at his
feet, and kissed them, and bathed them with her tears. Our Lord
accounted for the difference in these words, "To whom little is
forgiven, the same loveth little;" which means to speak of the sense or
feeling in the person's own mind, "He who feels that little is or needs
to be forgiven him, he also loves little." And this same difference
which existed toward him when he was present on earth, exists no less
now, whenever he is brought before our thoughts. The same sort of
persons who saw him with indifference, think of him also with
indifference; they who saw him with love, think of him also with love.
There is no art, no power in the world, which can give an interest to
words spoken concerning him, for those who feel that little is and that
little needs to be forgiven them, or to those who never consider about
their being forgiven at all. To such, this day, with its services, what
they hear from the Scriptures, or what they hear from men, must be
alike a matter of indifference: it is not possible that it should be
otherwise. Yet, God forbid that we should design what we are saying this
day only for a certain few of our congregation, as if the rest neither
would nor could be interested in it. So long as any one is careless, he
cannot, it is true, be interested about the things of Christ; but who
can say at what moment, through God's grace, he may cease to be
careless? Is it too much to say, that scarcely a service is performed in
any congregation in the land, which does not awaken an interest in some
one who before was indifferent? I do rot say a deep interest, nor a
lasting one, but an interest; there is a thought, a heeding, an
inclination of the mind to listen, created probably by the Church
services in some one or other, every time that they are performed. As we
never can know in whom this may be so created, as all have great need
that it should be created, as all are deeply concerned whether they feel
that they are so or no, so we speak to all alike; and if the language
does pass over their ears like an unknown or indistinct sound, the fault
and the loss are theirs; but the Church has borne her witness, and has
so far done her duty.
But again, for ears not careless, but most interested; for hearts to
whom Christ is more than all in the world besides; for minds, before
whom the wisdom of the gospel is ever growing, rising to a loftier
height, and striking downwards to a depth more profound,--yet without
end in its height or its depth; is there not, also, a difficulty in
speaking to them of that great thing which the Church celebrates to-day?
Is there no difficulty in awakening their interest, or rather how can we
escape even from wearying or repelling them, when their own affections
and deep thoughts must find all words of man, whether of themselves or
others, infinitely unworthy to express either the one or the other? To
such, then, the words of the preacher may be no more than music without
any words at all; which does but serve to lead and accompany our own
thoughts, without distinctly suggesting any thoughts of another to
interrupt the workings of our own minds. We would speak of Christ's
death; most good it is for us and for you to think upon it; so far as
our words suit the current of your own thoughts, use them and listen to
them; so far as they are a too unworthy expression of what we ought to
think and feel, follow your own reflections, and let the words neither
offend you nor distract you.
I would endeavour just to touch, upon some of the purposes for which the
Scripture tells us that Christ died, and for which his death was
declared to be the great object of our faith. This done in the simplest
and fewest words will best show the infinite greatness of the subject;
and how truly it is, so to speak, the central point of Christianity.
First of all, Christ died as a proper sacrifice for sin; as a sacrifice,
the virtue of which, is altogether distinct from our knowledge of it, or
from any effect which it has a tendency to produce on our own minds. We
are forgiven for his sake; we are acquitted through his death, and
through faith in his blood. What a view does this open, partially,
indeed,--for what mortal eye can reach to the end of it?--of the evil of
sin, and of God's love! of what God's justice required, and of what
God's love fulfilled! This great sacrifice was made once, but it will
not be made again; for those who despise this there remains no more
offering for sin, but their sin abideth with them for ever.
Secondly, Christ's death is revealed to us as a motive capable of
overcoming all temptations to evil. "How much more shall the blood of
Christ purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"
"He suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us
to God;" that is, that a consideration of what Christ's death declares
to us should have power to melt the hardest heart, and to sober the
lightest: that, when we think of Christ dying, dying for us, and so
purchasing for us the forgiveness of sins, and everlasting life, such a
love, and such a prospect of peace with God, and of glory, should in the
highest degree soften and enkindle us; and from love for him, and
confidence of hope through the prospect which he has given us, we should
be able to overcome all temptations. "I am persuaded," says St. Paul,
"that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of
God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Thirdly, Christ suffered for as, leaving us an example that we should
follow his steps. He left us an example of all meekness, and patience,
and humility; he left us an example of perfect submission to God's will;
he left us an infinite comfort by letting us feel when we are in any
trouble, or pain, or affliction, that he was troubled too; that he knew
pain, and endured affliction. Above all, in that hour which must come to
all of us, he has left us the greatest of all supports;--for he endured
to die; and we may enter with less fear into the darkness of the grave,
for even there Christ has been for our sakes, and arose from out of it a
conqueror.
Fourthly, Christ died that he might gather together in one the children
of God that were scattered abroad; he died to purchase to himself his
universal Church. So it is said in the Scriptures: and on this
particular purpose of his death, it may not be amiss to dwell, for none
so needs to be held in remembrance. Many there are, and ever have been,
who have rested their whole hope towards God on his sacrifice; many who
have learnt from his cross to overcome sin; from his resurrection to
overcome the world; many who, amidst all the troubles of life, and in
the hour of death, have been supported by the thought of his example.
But where is his universal Church? where the company of God's children
gathered together into one? where is the city set upon the hill, that
cannot be hid? where is the visible kingdom of God, where all its people
are striving under one Divine Head, against sin, the world, and the
devil? This is the sign which we look for and cannot find; this is the
fulfilment of the prophecies for which we seem destined to wait in vain.
And what if, on the contrary, that which is called the Church act rather
the part of the world; if our worst foes be truly those of our own
household: if they who should have been for our help, be rather an
occasion of falling: if one of our greatest difficulties in following
Christ steadily, arise from the total want of encouragement, yea, often
from the direct opposition of those who are themselves pledged to follow
him to the death; if that Church, which was to have been the clearest
sign to the world of the truth of Christ's gospel, be now, in many
respects, rather a stumbling-block to the adversary and unbeliever, so
that the name of God is through us blasphemed among the heathen, rather
than glorified; may we not humble ourselves before God in sorrow and in
shame? and must we not confess, that through our sin, and the sin of our
fathers, Christ, in respect of this one purpose of his death, has as yet
died in vain?