[_Preached in_ 1849.]
Behold, thy King cometh unto thee.—MATTHEW xxi. 4.
THIS Sunday is the first of the four Sundays in Advent. During those
four Sundays, our forefathers have advised us to think seriously of the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ—not that we should neglect to think of it
at all times. As some of you know, I have preached to you about it often
lately. Perhaps before the end of Advent you will all of you, more or
less, understand what all that I have said about the cholera, and public
distress, and the sins of this nation, and the sins of the labouring
people has to do with the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But I intend,
especially in my next four sermons, to speak my whole mind to you about
this matter as far as God has shown it to me; taking the Collect,
Epistle, and Gospels, for each Sunday in Advent, and explaining them. I
am sure I cannot do better; for the more I see of those Collects,
Epistles, and Gospels, and the way in which they are arranged, the more I
am astonished and delighted at the wisdom with which they are chosen, the
wise order in which they follow each other, and fit into each other. It
is very fit, too, that we should think of our Lord’s coming at this
season of the year above all others; because it is the hardest season—the
season of most want, and misery, and discontent, when wages are low, and
work is scarce, and fuel is dear, and frosts are bitter, and farmers and
tradesmen, and gentlemen, too, are at their wits’ end to square their
accounts, and pay their way. Then is the time that the evils of society
come home to us—that our sins, and our sorrows, which, after all, are the
punishment of our sins, stare us in the face. Then is the time, if ever,
for men’s hearts to cry out for a Saviour, who will deliver them out of
their miseries and their sins; for a Heavenly King who will rule them in
righteousness, and do justice and judgment on the earth, and see that
those who are in need and necessity have right; for a Heavenly Counsellor
who will guide them into all truth—who will teach them what they are, and
whither they are going, and what the Lord requires of them. I say the
hard days of winter are a fit time to turn men’s hearts to Christ their
King—the fittest of all times for a clergyman to get up in his pulpit, as
I do now, and tell his people, as I tell you, that Jesus Christ your King
has not forgotten you—that He is coming speedily to judge the world, and
execute justice and judgment for the meek of the earth.
Now do not be in a hurry, and fancy from what I have just said, that I am
one of those who think the end of the world is at hand. It may be, for
aught I know. “Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, not even the
angels of God, nor the Son, but the Father only.” If you wish for my own
opinion, I believe that what people commonly call the end of the world,
that is, the end of the earth and of mankind on it, is not at hand at
all. As far as I can judge from Scripture, and from the history of all
nations, the earth is yet young, and mankind in its infancy. Five
thousand years hence, our descendants may be looking back on us as
foolish barbarians, in comparison with what they know: just as we look
back upon the ignorance of people a thousand years ago. And yet I
believe that the end of this world, in the real Scripture sense of the
word “world,” is coming very quickly and very truly—The end of this
system of society, of these present ways in religion, and money-making,
and conducting ourselves in all the affairs of life, which we English
people have got into nowadays. The end of it is coming. It cannot last
much longer; for it is destroying itself. It will not last much longer;
for Christ and not the devil is the King of the earth. As St. Paul said
to his people, so say I to you, “The night is far spent, the day is at
hand.”
These may seem strange words, but almost every one is saying them, in his
own way. One large party among religious people in these days is
complaining that Christ has left His Church, and that the cause of
Christianity will be ruined and lost, unless some great change takes
place. Another large party of religious people say, that the prophecies
are on the point of being all fulfilled that the 1260 days, spoken of by
the prophet Daniel, are just coining to an end; and that Christ is coming
with His saints, to reign openly upon earth for a thousand years. The
wisest philosophers and historians of late years have been all
foretelling a great and tremendous change in England, and throughout all
Europe; and in the meantime, manufacturers and landlords, tradesmen and
farmers, artisans and labourers, all say, that there _must_ be a change
and will be a change. I believe they are all right, every one of them.
They put it in their words; I think it better to put it in the Scripture
words, and say boldly, “Jesus Christ, the King of the earth, is coming.”
But you will ask, “What right have you to stand up and say anything so
surprising?” My friends, the world is full of surprising things, and
this age above all ages. It was not sixty years ago, that a nobleman was
laughed at in the House of Lords for saying that he believed that we
should one day see ships go by steam; and now there are steamers on every
sea and ocean in the world. Who expected twenty years ago to see the
whole face of England covered with these wonderful railroads? Who
expected on the 22nd of February last year, that, within a single month,
half the nations of Europe, which looked so quiet and secure, would be
shaken from top to bottom with revolution and bloodshed—kings and princes
vanishing one after the other like a dream—poor men sitting for a day as
rulers of kingdoms, and then hurled down again to make room for other
rulers as unexpected as themselves? Can anyone consider the last fifty
years?—can anyone consider that one last year, 1848, and then not feel
that we do live in a most strange and awful time? a time for which
nothing is too surprising—a time in which we all ought to be prepared,
from the least to the greatest, to see the greatest horrors and the
greatest blessings come suddenly upon us, like a thief in the night? So
much for Christ’s coming being too wonderful a thing to happen just now.
Still you are right to ask: “What do you mean by Christ’s being our King?
what do you mean by His coming to us? What reason have you for supposing
that He is coming _now_, rather than at any other time? And if He be
coming, what are we to do? What is there we ought to repent of? what is
there we ought to amend?”
Well, my friends—it is just these very questions which I hope and trust
God will help me to answer to you, in my next few sermons—I am perfectly
convinced that we must get them answered and act upon them speedily. I
am perfectly convinced that if we go on as most of us are going in
England now, the Lord of us all will come in an hour when we are not
aware, and cut us asunder in the deepest and most real sense, as He came
and cut asunder France, Germany, and Austria only last year, and appoint
us our portion with the unbelievers. And I believe that our punishment
will be seven times as severe as that of either France, Germany, or
Austria, because we have had seven times their privileges and blessings,
seven times their Gospel light and Christian knowledge, seven times their
freedom and justice in laws and constitution; seven times their wealth,
and prosperity, and means of employing our population. Much has been
given to England, and of her much will be required. And if you could
only see the state of mankind over the greatest part of the globe, how
infinitely fewer opportunities they have of knowing God’s will than you
have, you would feel that to you, poor and struggling as some of you
are—to you much has been given, and of you much will be required.
Now first, what do I mean by Christ being our king? I daresay there are
some among you who are inclined to think that, when we talk of Christ
being a king, that the word king means something very different from its
common meaning—and, God knows, that that is true enough. Our blessed
Lord took care to make people understand that—how He was not like one of
the kings of the nations, how His kingdom was not of this world. But yet
the Bible tells us again and again that all good kings, all real kings,
are patterns of Christ; and, therefore, that when we talk of Christ being
a king, we mean that He is a king in everything that a king ought to be;
that He fulfils perfectly all the duties of a king; that He is the
pattern which all kings ought to copy. Kings have been in all ages too
apt to forget that, and, indeed, so have the people too. We English have
forgotten most thoroughly in these days, that Christ is our king, or even
a king at all. We talk of Christ being a “spiritual” king, and then we
say that that merely means that He is king of Christians’ hearts. And
when anyone asks what that means, it comes out, that all we mean is, that
Christ has a very great influence over the hearts of believing
Christians—when He can obtain it; or else that it means that He is king
of a very small number of people called the elect, whom He has chosen
out, but that He has absolutely nothing to do with the whole rest of the
world. And then, when anyone stands up with the Bible in his hand, and
says, in the plain words of Scripture: “Christ is not only the king of
believers, He is the king of the whole earth; the king of the clouds and
the thunder, the king of the land and the cattle, and the trees, and the
corn, and to whomsoever He will He giveth them. Christ is not only the
king of believers—He is the king of all—the king of the wicked, of the
heathen, of those who do not believe Him, who never heard of Him. Christ
is not only the king of a few individual persons, one here and one there
in every parish, but He is the king of every nation. He is the king of
England, by the grace of God, just as much as Queen Victoria is, and ten
thousand times more.” If any man talks in this way, people stare—think
him an enthusiast—ask him what new doctrine this is, and call his words
unscriptural, just because they come out of Scripture and not out of
men’s perversions and twistings of Scripture. Nevertheless Christ is
King; really and truly King of Kings and Lord of Lords; and He will make
men know it. What He was, that He is and ever will be; there is no
change in Him; His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion
endureth throughout all ages, and woe unto those, small or great, who
rebel against Him!
But what sort of a king is He? He is a king of law, and order, and
justice. He is not selfish, fanciful, self-willed. He said himself that
He came not to do His own will, but His Father’s. He is a king of
gentleness and meekness too: but do not mistake that. There is no weak
indulgence in Him. A man may be very meek, and yet stern enough and
strong enough. Moses was the meekest of men, we read, and yet He made
those who rebelled against him feel that he was not to be trifled with.
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram found that to their cost. He would not even
spare his own brother Aaron, his own sister Miriam, when they rebelled.
And he was right. He showed his love by it; indulgence is not love. It
is no sign of meekness, but only of cowardice and carelessness, to be
afraid to rebuke sin. Moses knew that he was doing God’s work, that he
was appointed to make a great nation of those slavish besotted Jews, his
countrymen; that he was sent by God with boundless blessings to them; and
woe to whoever hindered him from that. Because he loved the Jews,
therefore he dared punish those who tempted them to forget the promised
land of Canaan, or break God’s covenant, in which lay all their hope.
And such a one is our King, my friends; Jesus Christ the Son of God.
Like Moses, says St. Paul, He is faithful in all His office. Therefore
He is severe as well as gentle. He was so when on earth. With the poor,
the outcast, the neglected, those on whom men trampled, who was gentler
than the Lord Jesus? To the proud Pharisee, the canting Scribe, the
cunning Herodian, who was sterner than the Lord Jesus? Read that awful
23rd chapter of St. Matthew, and then see how the Saviour, the lamb dumb
before His shearers, He of whom it was said “He shall not strive nor cry,
nor shall His voice be heard in the streets”—how He could speak when He
had occasion. . . . “Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!”
“Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of
hell?”
My friends, those were the words of our King; of Him in whom was neither
passion nor selfishness; who loved us even to the death, and endured for
us the scourge, the cross, the grave. And believe me, such are His words
now; though we do not hear Him, the heaven and the earth hear Him and
obey Him. His message is pardon, mercy, deliverance to the sorrowful,
and the oppressed, and the neglected; and to the proud, the tyrannical,
the self-righteous, the hypocritical, tribulation and anguish, shame and
woe.
Because He is the Saviour, therefore He is a consuming fire to all those
who try to hinder Him from saving men. Because He is the Son of God, He
will sweep out of His Father’s kingdom all who offend, and whosoever
maketh and loveth a lie. Because He is boundless mercy and love,
therefore He will show no mercy to those who try to stop His purposes of
love. Because He is the King of men, the enemies of mankind are His
enemies; and He will reign till He has put them all under His feet.
II.
HOLY SCRIPTURE.