IN the Collect for this day we have just been praying to God, to give us
grace to use such abstinence, that our flesh being subdued to our spirit,
we may follow His godly motions.
Now we ought to have meant something when we said these words. What did
we mean by them? Perhaps some of us did not understand them. They could
not be expected to mean anything by them. But it is a sad thing, a very
sad thing, that people will come to church Sunday after Sunday, and
repeat by rote words which they do not understand, words by which they
therefore mean nothing, and yet never care or try to understand them.
What are the words there for, except to be understood? All of you call
people foolish, who submit to have prayers read in their churches in a
foreign language, which none, at least of the poor, can understand. But
what right have you to call them foolish, if you, whose Prayer-books are
written in English, take no trouble to find out the meaning of them?
Would to Heaven that you would try to find out the meaning of the
Prayer-book! Would to Heaven that the day would come, when anyone in
this parish who was puzzled by any doctrine of religion, or by any text
in the Bible, or word in the Prayer-book, would come confidently to me,
and ask me to explain it to him! God knows, I should think it an honour
and a pleasure, as well as a duty. I should think no time better spent
than in answering your questions. I do beseech you to ask me, every one
of you, when and where you like, any questions about religion which come
into your minds. Why am I put in this parish, except to teach you? and
how can I teach you better, than by answering your questions? As it is,
I am disheartened, and all but hopeless, at times, about the state of
this parish, and the work I am trying to do here; because, though you
will come and hear me, thank God, willingly enough, you do not seem yet
to have gained confidence enough in me, or to have learnt to care
sufficiently about the best things, to ask questions of me about them.
My dear friends, if you wanted to get information about anything you
really cared for, you would ask questions enough. If you wanted to know
some way to a place on earth you would ask it; why not ask your way to
things better than this earth can give? But whether or not you will
question me I must go on preaching to you, though whether or not you care
to listen is more, alas! than I can tell.
But listen to me, now, I beseech you, while I try to explain to you the
meaning of the words which you have been just using in this Collect. You
have asked God to give you grace to use abstinence. Now what is the
meaning of abstinence? Abstinence means abstaining, refraining, keeping
back of your own will from doing something which you might do. Take an
example. When a man for his health’s sake, or his purse’s sake, or any
other good reason, drinks less liquor than he might if he chose, he
abstains from liquor. He uses abstinence about liquor. There are other
things in which a man may abstain. Indeed, he may abstain from doing
anything he likes. He may abstain from eating too much; from lying in
bed too long; from reading too much; from taking too much pleasure; from
making money; from spending money; from right things; from wrong things;
from things which are neither right nor wrong; on all these he may use
abstinence. He may abstain for many reasons; for good ones, or for bad
ones. A miser will abstain from all sorts of comforts to hoard up money.
A superstitious man may abstain from comforts, because he thinks God
grudges them to him, or because he thinks God is pleased by the
unhappiness of His creatures, or because he has been taught, poor wretch,
that if he makes himself uncomfortable in this life, he shall have more
comfort, more honour, more reason for pride and self-glorification, in
the life to come. Or a man may abstain from one pleasure, just to be
able to enjoy another all the more; as some great gamblers drink nothing
but water, in order to keep their heads clear for cheating. All these
are poor reasons; some of them base, some of them wicked reasons for
abstaining from anything. Therefore, abstinence is not a good thing in
itself; for if a thing is good in itself, it can never be wrong. Love is
good in itself, and, therefore, you cannot love anyone for a bad reason.
Justice is good in itself, pity is good in itself, and, therefore, you
can never be wrong in being just or pitiful.
But abstinence is not a good thing in itself. If it were, we should all
be bound to abstain always from everything pleasant, and make ourselves
as miserable and uncomfortable as possible, as some superstitious persons
used to do in old times. Abstinence is only good when it is used for a
good reason. If a man abstains from pleasure himself, to save up for his
children; if he abstains from over eating and over drinking, to keep his
mind clear and quiet; if he abstains from sleep and ease, in order to
have time to see his business properly done; if he abstains from spending
money on himself, in order to spend it for others; if he abstains from
any habit, however harmless or pleasant, because he finds it lead him
towards what is wrong, and put him into temptation; then he does right;
then he is doing God’s work; then he may expect God’s blessing; then he
is trying to do what we all prayed God to help us to do, when we said,
“Give us grace to use such abstinence;” then he is doing, more or less,
what St. Paul says he did, “Keeping his body under, and bringing it into
subjection.”
For, see, the Collect does not say, “Give us grace to use abstinence,” as
if abstinence were a good thing in itself, but “to use such abstinence,
that”—to use a certain kind of abstinence, and that for a certain
purpose, and that purpose a good one; such abstinence that our flesh may
be subdued to our spirit; that our flesh, the animal, bodily nature which
is in us, loving ease and pleasure, may not be our master, but our
servant; so that we may not follow blindly our own appetites, and do just
what we like, as brute beasts which have no understanding. And our flesh
is to be subdued to our spirit for a certain purpose; not because our
flesh is bad, and our spirit good; not in order that we may puff
ourselves up and admire ourselves, and say, as the philosophers among the
heathen used, “What a strong-minded, sober, self-restraining man I am!
How fine it is to be able to look down on my neighbours, who cannot help
being fond of enjoying themselves, and cannot help caring for this
world’s good things. I am above all that. I want nothing, and I feel
nothing, and nothing can make me glad or sorry. I am master of my own
mind, and own no law but my own will.” The Collect gives us the true and
only reason, for which it is right to subdue our appetites; which is,
that we may keep our minds clear and strong enough to listen to the voice
of God within our hearts and reasons; to obey the motions of God’s Spirit
in us; not to make our bodies our masters, but to live as God’s servants.
This is St. Paul’s meaning, when he speaks of keeping under his body, and
bringing it into subjection. The exact word which he uses, however, is a
much stronger one than merely “keeping under;” it means simply, to beat a
man’s face black and blue; and his reason for using such a strong word
about the matter is, to show us that he thought no labour too hard, no
training too sharp, which teaches us how to restrain ourselves, and keep
our appetites and passions in manful and godly control.
Now, a few verses before my text, St. Paul takes an example from
foot-racers. “These foot-racers,” he says, “heathens though they are,
and only trying to win a worthless prize, the petty honour of a crown of
leaves, see what trouble they take; how they exercise their limbs; how
careful and temperate they are in eating and drinking, how much pain and
fatigue they go through to get themselves into perfect training for a
race. How much more trouble ought we to take to make ourselves fit to do
God’s work? For these foot-racers do all this only to gain a garland
which will wither in a week; but we, to gain a garland which will never
fade away; a garland of holiness, and righteousness, and purity, and the
likeness of Jesus Christ.”
The next example of abstinence which St. Paul takes, is from the
prize-fighters, who were very numerous and very famous, in the country in
which the Corinthians lived. “I fight,” he says, “not like one who beats
the air;” that is, not like a man who is only brandishing his hands and
sparring in jest, but like a man who knows that he has a fight to fight
in hard earnest; a terrible lifelong fight against sin, the world, and
the devil; “and, therefore,” he says, “I do as these fighters do.” They,
poor savage and brutal heathens as they are, go through a long and
painful training. Their very practice is not play; it is grim earnest.
They stand up to strike, and be struck, and are bruised and disfigured as
a matter of course, in order that they may learn not to flinch from pain,
or lose their tempers, or turn cowards, when they have to fight. “And so
do I,” says St. Paul; “they, poor men, submit to painful and disagreeable
things to make them brave in their paltry battles. I submit to painful
and disagreeable things, to make me brave in the great battle which I
have to fight against sin, and ignorance, and heathendom.” “Therefore,”
he says, in another place, “I take pleasure in afflictions, in
persecutions, in necessities, in distresses;” and that not because those
things were pleasant, they were just as unpleasant to him as to anyone
else; but because they taught him to bear, taught him to be brave; taught
him, in short, to become a perfect man of God.
This is St. Paul’s account of his own training: in the Epistle for to-day
we have another account of it; a description of the life which he led,
and which he was content to lead—“in much suffering, in stripes, in
imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watching, in fastings”—and an
account, too, of the temper which he had learnt to show amid such a life
of vexation, and suffering, and shame, and danger—“approving himself in
all things the minister of God, by pureness, by wisdom, by longsuffering,
by kindness, by the spirit of holiness, by love unfeigned;” “as dying,
and behold we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet
always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet
possessing all things.”—In all things proving himself a true messenger
from God, by being able to dare and to endure for God’s sake, what no man
ever would have dared and endured for his own sake.
“But”—someone may say—“St. Paul was an apostle; he had a great work to do
in the world; he had to turn the heathen to God; and it is likely enough
that he required to train himself, and keep strict watch over all his
habits, and ways of thinking and behaving, lest he should grow selfish,
lazy, cowardly, covetous, fond of ease and amusement. He had, of course,
to lead a life of strange suffering and danger; and he had therefore to
train himself for it. But what need have we to do as St. Paul did?”
Just as much need, my good friends, if you could see it.
Which of us has not to lead a life of suffering? We shall each and all
of us, have our full share of trouble before we die, doubt it not.
And which of us has not to lead a life of danger? I do not mean bodily
danger; of that, there is little enough—perhaps too little—in England
now; but of danger to our hearts, minds, characters? Oh, my friends, I
pity those who do not think themselves in danger every day of their
lives, for the less danger they see around them, the more danger there
is. There is not only the common danger of temptation, but over and
above it, the worse danger of not knowing temptation when it comes. Who
will be most likely to walk into pits and mires upon the moor—the man who
knows that they are there around him, or the man who goes on careless and
light of heart, fancying that it is all smooth ground? Woe to you, young
people, if you fancy that you are to have no woe! Danger to you, young
people, if you fancy yourselves in no danger!
“This is sad and dreary news”—some of you may say. Ay, my friends, it
would be sad and dreary news indeed; and this earth would be a very sad
and dreary place; and life with all its troubles and temptations, would
not be worth having, if it were not for the blessed news which the Gospel
for this day brings us. That makes up for all the sadness of the
Epistle; that gives us hope; that tells us of one who has been through
life, and through death too, yet without sin. That tells us of one who
has endured a thousand times more temptation than we ever shall, a
thousand times more trouble than we ever shall, and yet has conquered it
all; and that He who has thus been through all our temptations, borne all
our weaknesses, is our King, our Saviour, who loves us, who teaches us,
who has promised us His Holy Spirit, to make us like Himself, strong,
brave, and patient, to endure all that man or devil, or our own low
animal tempers and lusts, can do to hurt us. The Gospel for this day
tells us how He went and was alone in the wilderness with the wild
beasts, and yet trusted in God, His Father and ours, to keep Him safe.
How He went without food forty days and nights, and yet in His extreme
hunger, refused to do the least self-willed or selfish thing to get
Himself food. Is that no lesson, no message of hope for the poor man who
is tempted by hunger to steal, or tempted by need to do a mean and
selfish thing, to hear that the Lord Jesus Christ, who bore need and
hunger far worse than his, understands all his temptations, and feels for
him, and pities him, and has promised him God’s Spirit to make him
strong, as He himself was?
Is it no comfort to young people who are tempted to vanity, and display,
and self-willed conceited longings, tempted to despise the advice of
their parents and elders, and set up for themselves, and choose their own
way—Is it no good news, I say, for them to hear that their Lord and
Saviour was tempted to it also, and conquered it?—That He will teach them
to answer the temptation as He did, when He refused even to let angels
hold Him over the temple, up between earth and heaven, for a sign and a
wonder to all the Jews, because God His Father had not bidden Him to do
it, and therefore He would not tempt the Lord His God?
Is it no good news, again, to those who are tempted to do perhaps one
little outward wrong thing, to yield on some small point to the ways of
the world, in order to help themselves on in life, to hear that their
Lord and Saviour conquered that temptation too?—That he refused all the
kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, when the devil offered
them, because he knew that the devil could not give them to Him; that all
wealth, and power, and glory belonged to God, and was to be got only by
serving Him?
Oh do you all, young people especially, think of this. As you grow up
and go out into life, you will be tempted in a hundred different ways, by
things which are pleasant—everyone knows that they are pleasant
enough—but wrong. One will be tempted to be vain of dress; another to be
self-conceited; another to be lazy and idle; another to be extravagant
and roving; another to be over fond of amusement; another to be over fond
of money; another to be over fond of liquor; another to go wrong, as too
many young men and young women do, and bring themselves, and those with
whom they keep company, and whom they ought, if they really love them, to
respect and honour, down into sin and shame. You will all be tempted,
and you will all be troubled; one by poverty, one by sickness, one by the
burden of a family, one by being laughed at for trying to do right. But
remember, oh remember, whenever a temptation comes upon you, that the
blessed Jesus has been through it all, and conquered all, and that His
will is, that you shall be holy and pure like Him, and that, therefore,
if you but ask Him, He will give you strength to keep pure. When you are
tempted, pray to Him: the struggle in your own minds will, no doubt, be
very great; it will be very hard work for you—sin looks so pleasant on
the outside! Poor souls, it is a sad struggle for you! Many a poor
young fellow, who goes wrong, deserves rather to be pitied than to be
punished. Well then, if no man else will pity him, Jesus, the Man of all
men, will. Pray to Him! Cry aloud to Him! Ask Him to make you
stout-hearted, patient, really manful, to fight against temptation. Ask
Him to give you strength of mind to fight against all bad habits. Ask
Him to open your eyes to see when you are in danger. Ask Him to help you
to keep out of the way of temptation. Ask Him, in short, to give you
grace to use such abstinence that your flesh may be subdued to your
spirit. And then you will not follow, as the beasts do, just what seems
pleasant to your flesh; no, you will be able to obey Christ’s godly
motions, that is, to do, as well as to love, the good desires which He
puts into your hearts. You will do not merely what is pleasant, but what
is right; you will not be your own slaves, you will be your own masters,
and God’s loyal and obedient sons; you will not be, as too many are, mere
animals going about in the shape of men, but truly men at heart, who are
not afraid of pain, poverty, shame, trouble, or death itself, when they
are in the right path, about the work to which God has called them.
But if you ask Christ to make true men and women of you, you must believe
that He will give you what you ask; if you ask Him to help you, you must
believe that He will and does help you—you must believe that it is He
Himself who has put into your hearts the very desire of being holy and
strong at all; and therefore you must believe that you can help
yourselves. Help yourselves, and He will help you. If you ask for His
help, He will give it. But what is the use of His giving it, if you do
not use it? To him who has shall be given, and he shall have more; but
from him who has not shall be taken away even what he seems to have.
Therefore do not merely pray, but struggle and try _yourselves_. Train
yourselves as St. Paul did; train yourselves to keep your temper; train
yourselves to bear unpleasant things for the sake of your duty; train
yourselves to keep out of temptation; train yourselves to be forgiving,
gentle, thrifty, industrious, sober, temperate, cleanly, as modest as
little children in your words, and thoughts, and conduct. And God, when
He sees you trying to be all this, will help you to be so. It may be
hard to educate yourselves. Life is a hard business at best—you will
find it a thousand times harder, though, if you are slaves to your own
fleshly sins. But the more you struggle against sin, the less hard you
will find it to fight; the more you resist the devil, the more he will
flee from you; the more you try to conquer your own bad passions, the
more God will help you to conquer them; it may be a hard battle, but it
is a sure one. No fear but that everyone can, if he will, work out his
own salvation, for it is God Himself who works in us to will and to do of
His good pleasure. All you have to do is to give yourselves up to Him,
to study His laws, to labour as well as long to keep them, and He will
enable you to keep them; He will teach you in a thousand unexpected ways;
He will daily renew and strengthen your hearts by the working of His
Spirit, that you may more and more know, and love, and do, what is right;
and you will go on from strength to strength, to the height of perfect
men, to the likeness of Jesus Christ the Lord, who conquered all human
temptations for your sake, that He might be a high-priest who can be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities, because He was tempted in
all points like as we are, yet without sin.
VII.
GOOD FRIDAY.
In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His
presence saved them. In His love and in His pity He redeemed them;
and He bare them and carried them all the days of old.—ISAIAH lxiii.
9.
ON this very day, at this very hour, 1817 years ago, hung one nailed to a
cross; bruised and bleeding, pierced and naked, dying a felon’s death
between two thieves; in perfect misery, in utter shame, mocked and
insulted by all the great, the rich, the learned of His nation; one who
had grown up as a man of low birth, believed by all to be a carpenter’s
son; without scholarship, money, respectability; even without a home
wherein to lay His head—and here was the end of His life! True, He had
preached noble words, He had done noble deeds: but what had they helped
Him? They had not made the rich, the learned, the respectable, the
religious believe on Him; they had not saved Him from persecution, and
insult, and death. The only mourners who stood by to weep over His dying
agonies were His mother, a poor countrywoman; a young fisherman; and one
who had been a harlot and a sinner. There was an end!
Do you know who that Man was? He was your King; the King of rich and
poor; and He was your King, not in spite of His suffering all that shame
and misery, but just because He suffered it; because He chose to be poor,
and miserable, and despised; because He endured the cross, despising the
shame; because He took upon Himself to fulfil His Father’s will, all ills
which flesh is heir to—therefore He is now your King, the Saviour of the
world, the poor man’s friend, the Lord of heaven and earth. Is He such a
King as _you_ wish for?
Is He the sort of King you want, my friends? Does He fulfil your notions
of what the poor man’s friend should be? Do you, in your hearts, wish He
had been somewhat richer, more glorious, more successful in the world’s
eyes—a wealthy and prosperous man, like Solomon of old? Are any of you
ready to say, as the money-blinded Jews said, when they demanded their
true King to be crucified, “We have no king but Cæsar?—Provided the
law-makers and the authorities take care of our interests, and protect
our property, and do not make us pay too many rates and taxes, that is
enough for us.” Will you have no king but Cæsar? Alas! those who say
that, find that the law is but a weak deliverer, too weak to protect them
from selfishness, and covetousness, and decent cruelty; and so Cæsar and
the law have to give place to Mammon, the god of money. Do we not see it
in these very days? And Mammon is weak, too. This world is not a shop,
men are not merely money-makers and wages-earners. There are more things
in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in that sort of philosophy.
Self-interest and covetousness cannot keep society orderly and peaceful,
let sham philosophers say what they will. And then comes tyranny,
lawlessness, rich and poor staining their hands in each other’s blood, as
we saw happen in France two years ago; and so, after all, Mammon has to
give place to Moloch, the fiend of murder and cruelty; and woe to rich
and poor when he reigns over them! Ay, woe—woe to rich and poor when
they choose anyone for their king but their real and rightful Lord and
Master, Jesus, the poor man, afflicted in all their afflictions, the Man
of sorrows, crucified on this day.
Is He the kind of King you like? Make up your minds, my friends—make up
your minds! For whether you like Him or not, your King He was, your King
He is, your King He will be, blessed be God, for ever. Blessed be God,
indeed! If He were not our King; if anyone in heaven or earth was Lord
of us, except the Man of sorrows, the Prince of sufferers, what hope,
what comfort would there be? What a horrible, black, fathomless riddle
this sad, diseased, moaning world would be! No king would suit us but
the Prince of sufferers—Jesus, who has borne all this world’s griefs, and
carried all its sorrows—Jesus, who has Himself smarted under pain and
hunger, oppression and insult, treachery and desertion, who knows them
all, feels for them all, and will right them all, in His own good time.
Believing in Jesus, we can travel on, through one wild parish after
another, upon English soil, and see, as I have done, the labourer who
tills the land worse housed than the horse he drives, worse clothed than
the sheep he shears, worse nourished than the hog he feeds—and yet not
despair: for the Prince of sufferers is the labourer’s Saviour; He has
tasted hunger, and thirst, and weariness, poverty, oppression, and
neglect; the very tramp who wanders houseless on the moorside is His
brother; in his sufferings the Saviour of the world has shared, when the
foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, while the Son of God
had not where to lay His head. He is the King of the poor, firstborn
among many brethren; His tenderness is Almighty, and for the poor He has
prepared deliverance, perhaps in this world, surely in the world to
come—boundless deliverance, out of the treasures of His boundless love.
Believing in Jesus, we can pass by mines, and factories, and by dungeons
darker and fouler still, in the lanes and alleys of our great towns and
cities, where thousands and tens of thousands of starving men, and wan
women, and children grown old before their youth, sit toiling and pining
in Mammon’s prison-house, in worse than Egyptian bondage, to earn such
pay as just keeps the broken heart within the worn-out body;—ay, we can
go through our great cities, even now, and see the women, whom God
intended to be Christian wives and mothers, the slaves of the rich man’s
greed by day, the playthings of his lust by night—and yet not despair;
for we can cry, No! thou proud Mammon, money-making fiend! These are not
thine, but Christ’s; they belong to Him who died on the cross; and though
thou heedest not their sighs, He marks them all, for He has sighed like
them; though there be no pity in thee, there is in Him the pity of a man,
ay, and the indignation of a God! He treasures up their tears; He
understands their sorrows; His judgment of their guilt is not like thine,
thou Pharisee! He is their Lord, who said, that to those to whom little
was given, of them shall little be required. Generation after
generation, they are being made perfect by sufferings, as their Saviour
was before them; and then, woe to thee! For even as He led Israel out of
Egypt with a mighty hand, and a stretched-out arm, and signs and wonders,
great and terrible, so shall He lead the poor out of their misery, and
make them households like a flock of sheep; even as He led Israel through
the wilderness, tender, forbearing, knowing whereof they were made,
having mercy on all their brutalities, and idolatries, murmurings, and
backslidings, afflicted in all their afflictions—even while He was
punishing them outwardly, as He is punishing the poor man now—even so
shall He lead this people out in His good time, into a good land and
large, a land of wheat and wine, of milk and honey; a rest which He has
prepared for His poor, such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath
it entered into the heart of man to conceive. He can do it; for the
Almighty Deliverer is His name. He will do it; for His name is Love. He
knows how to do it; for He has borne the griefs, and carried the sorrows
of the poor.
Oh, sad hearts and suffering! Anxious and weary ones! Look to the cross
this day! There hung your king! The King of sorrowing souls, and more,
the King of sorrows. Ay, pain and grief, tyranny and desertion, death
and hell, He has faced them one and all, and tried their strength, and
taught them His, and conquered them right royally! And, since He hung
upon that torturing cross, sorrow is divine, god-like, as joy itself.
All that man’s fallen nature dreads and despises, God honoured on the
cross, and took unto Himself, and blessed, and consecrated for ever. And
now, blessed are the poor, if they are poor in heart, as well as purse;
for Jesus was poor, and theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the
hungry, if they hunger for righteousness as well as food; for Jesus
hungered, and they shall be filled. Blessed are those who mourn, if they
mourn not only for their afflictions, but for their sins, and for the
sins they see around them; for on this day, Jesus mourned for our sins;
on this day He was made sin for us, who knew no sin; and they shall be
comforted. Blessed are those who are ashamed of themselves, and hate
themselves, and humble themselves before God this day; for on this day
Jesus humbled Himself for us; and they shall be exalted. Blessed are the
forsaken and the despised.—Did not all men forsake Jesus this day, in His
hour of need? and why not thee, too, thou poor deserted one? Shall the
disciple be above his Master? No; everyone that is perfect, must be like
his master. The deeper, the bitterer your loneliness, the more are you
like Him, who cried upon the cross, “My God, my God, why hast Thou
forsaken Me?” He knows what that grief, too, is like. He feels for
thee, at least. Though all forsake thee, He is with thee still; and if
He be with thee, what matter who has left thee for a while? Ay, blessed
are those that weep now, for they shall laugh. It is those whom the Lord
loveth that He chasteneth. And because He loves the poor, He brings them
low. All things are blessed now, but sin; for all things, excepting sin,
are redeemed by the life and death of the Son of God. Blessed are wisdom
and courage, joy, and health, and beauty, love and marriage, childhood
and manhood, corn and wine, fruits and flowers, for Christ redeemed them
by His life. And blessed, too, are tears and shame, blessed are weakness
and ugliness, blessed are agony and sickness, blessed the sad remembrance
of our sins, and a broken heart, and a repentant spirit. Blessed is
death, and blessed the unknown realms, where souls await the resurrection
day, for Christ redeemed them by His death. Blessed are all things,
weak, as well as strong. Blessed are all days, dark, as well as bright,
for all are His, and He is ours; and all are ours, and we are His, for
ever.
Therefore sigh on, ye sad ones, and rejoice in your own sadness; ache on,
ye suffering ones, and rejoice in your own sorrows. Rejoice that you are
made free of the holy brotherhood of mourners, that you may claim your
place, too, if you will, among the noble army of martyrs. Rejoice that
you are counted worthy of a fellowship in the sufferings of the Son of
God. Rejoice and trust on, for after sorrow shall come joy. Trust on;
for in man’s weakness God’s strength shall be made perfect. Trust on,
for death is the gate of life. Endure on to the end, and possess your
souls in patience for a little while, and that, perhaps, a very little
while. Death comes swiftly; and more swiftly still, perhaps, the day of
the Lord. The deeper the sorrow, the nearer the salvation:
The night is darkest before the dawn;
When the pain is sorest the child is born;
And the day of the Lord is at hand.
Ay, if the worst should come; if neither the laws of your country nor the
benevolence of the righteous were strong enough to defend you; if one
charitable plan after another were to fail; if the labour-market were
getting fuller and fuller, and poverty were spreading wider and wider,
and crime and misery were breeding faster and still faster every year
than education and religion; all hope for the poor seemed gone and lost,
and they were ready to believe the men who tell them that the land is
over-peopled—that there are too many of us, too many industrious hands,
too many cunning brains, too many immortal souls, too many of God’s
children upon God’s earth, which God the Father made, and God the Son
redeemed, and God the Holy Spirit teaches: then the Lord, the Prince of
sufferers, He who knows your every grief, and weeps with you tear for
tear, He would come out of His place to smite the haughty ones, and
confound the cunning ones, and silence the loud ones, and empty the full
ones; to judge with righteousness for the meek of the earth, to hearken
to the prayer of the poor, whose heart he has been preparing, and to help
the fatherless and needy to their right, that the man of the world may be
no more exalted against them.
In that day men will find out a wonder and miracle. They will see many
that are first last, and many that are last first. They will find that
there were poor who were the richest after all; the simple who were
wisest, and gentle who were bravest, and weak who were strongest; that
God’s ways are not as men’s ways, nor God’s thoughts as men’s thoughts.
Alas, who shall stand when God does this? At least He who will do it is
Jesus, who loved us to the death; boundless love and gentleness,
boundless generosity and pity; who was tempted even as we are, who has
felt our every weakness. In that thought is utter comfort, that our
Judge will be He who died and rose again, and is praying for us even now,
to His Father and our Father. Therefore fear not, gentle souls, patient
souls, pure consciences and tender hearts. Fear not, you who are empty
and hungry, who walk in darkness and see no light; for though He fulfil
once more, as He has again and again, the awful prophecy before the text;
though He tread down the people in His anger, and make them drunk in His
fury, and bring their strength to the earth; though kings with their
armies may flee, and the stars which light the earth may fall, and there
be great tribulation, wars, and rumours of wars, and on earth distress of
nations with perplexity—yet it is when the day of His vengeance is at
hand, that the year of His redeemed is come. And when they see all these
things, let them rejoice and lift up their heads, for their redemption
draweth nigh.
Do you ask how I know this? Do you ask for a sign, for a token that
these my words are true? I know that they are true. But, as for tokens,
I will give you but this one, the sign of that bread and that wine. When
the Lord shall have delivered His people out of all their sorrows, they
shall eat of that bread and drink of that wine, one and all, in the
kingdom of God.
VIII.
EASTER-DAY.
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.—COLOSSIANS iii. 1.
I KNOW no better way of preaching to you the gospel of Easter, the good
news which this day brings to all men, year after year, than by trying to
explain to you the Epistle appointed for this day, which we have just
read.
It begins, “If ye then be risen with Christ.” Now that does not mean
that St. Paul had any doubt whether the Colossians, to whom he was
speaking, were risen with Christ or not. He does not mean, “I am not
sure whether you are risen or not; but perhaps you are not; but if you
are, you ought to do such and such things.” He does not mean that. He
was quite sure that these Colossians were risen with Christ. He had no
doubt of it whatsoever. If you look at the chapter before, he says so.
He tells them that they were buried with Christ in baptism, in which also
they were risen with Christ, through faith of the operation of God, who
has raised Him from the dead.
Now what reason had St. Paul to believe that these Colossians were risen
with Jesus Christ? Because they had given up sin and were leading holy
lives? That cannot be. The Epistle for this day says the very opposite.
It does not say, “You are risen, because you have left off sinning.” It
says, “You must leave off sinning, because you are risen.” Was it then
on account of any experiences, or inward feeling of theirs? Not at all.
He says that these Colossians had been baptized, and that they had
believed in God’s work of raising Jesus Christ from the dead, and that
therefore they were risen with Christ. In one word, they had believed
the message of Easter-day, and therefore they shared in the blessings of
Easter-day; as it is written in another place, “If thou shalt confess
with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, and believe in thy heart that God
has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
Now these seem very wide words, too wide to please most people. But
there are wider words still in St. Paul’s epistles. He tells us again
and again that God’s mercy is a free gift; that He has made to us a free
present of His Son Jesus Christ. That He has taken away the effect of
all men’s sin, and more than that, that men are God’s children; that they
have a right to believe that they are so, because they are so. For, He
says, the free gift of Jesus Christ is not like Adam’s offence. It is
not less than it, narrower than it, as some folks say. It is not that by
Adam’s sin all became sinners, and by Jesus Christ’s salvation an elect
few out of them shall be made righteous. If you will think a moment, you
will see that it cannot be so. For Jesus Christ conquered sin and death
and the devil. But if, as some think, sin and death and the devil have
destroyed and sent to hell by far the greater part of mankind, then they
have conquered Christ, and not Christ them. Mankind belonged to Christ
at first. Sin and death and the devil came in and ruined them, and then
Christ came to redeem them; but if all that He has been able to do is to
redeem one out of a thousand, or even nine out of ten, of them, then the
devil has had the best of the battle. He, and not Christ, is the
conqueror. If a thief steals all the sheep on your farm, and all that
you can get back from him is a part of the whole flock, which has had the
best of it, you or the thief? If Christ’s redemption is meant for only a
few, or even a great many elect souls out of all the millions of mankind,
which has had the best of it, Christ, the master of the sheep, or the
devil, the robber and destroyer of them? Be sure, my friends, Christ is
stronger than that; His love is deeper than that; His redemption is wider
than that. How strong, how deep, how wide it is, we never shall know.
St. Paul tells us that we never shall know, for it is boundless; but that
we shall go on knowing more and more of its vastness for ever, finding it
deeper, wider, loftier than our most glorious dreams could ever picture
it. But this, he says, we do know, that we have gained more than Adam
lost. For if by one man’s offence many were made sinners, much more
shall they who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of
righteousness reign in life by one even Jesus Christ. For, he says,
where sin abounded, God’s grace and free gift has much more abounded.
Therefore, as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to
condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon
all men to justification of life. Upon all men, you see. There can be
no doubt about it. Upon you and me, and foreigners, and gipsies, and
heathens, and thieves, and harlots—upon all mankind, let them be as bad
or as good, as young or as old, as they may, the free gift of God has
come to justification of life; they are justified, pardoned, and beloved
in the sight of Almighty God; they have a right and a share to a new
life; a different sort of life from what they are inclined to lead, and
do lead, by nature—to a life which death cannot take away, a life which
may grow, and strengthen, and widen, and blossom, and bear fruit for ever
and ever. They have a share in Christ’s resurrection, in the blessing of
Easter-day. They have a share in Christ, every one of them whether they
claim that share or not. How far they will be punished for not claiming
it, is a very different matter, of which we know nothing whatsoever. And
how far the heathen who have never heard of Christ, or of their share in
Him, will be punished, we know not—we are not meant to know. But we know
that to their own Master they stand or fall, and that their Master is our
Master too, and that He is a just Master, and requires little of him to
whom He gives little; a just and merciful Master, who loved this sinful
world enough to come down and die for it, while mankind were all rebels
and sinners, and has gone on taking care of it, and improving it, in
spite of all its sin and rebellion ever since, and that is enough for us.
St. Paul knew no more. It was a mystery, he says, a wonderful and
unfathomable matter, which had been hidden since the foundation of the
world, of which he himself says that he saw only through a glass darkly;
and we cannot expect to have clearer eyes than he. But this he seems to
have seen, that the Lord, when He rose again, bought a blessing even for
the dumb beasts and the earth on which we live. For he says, the whole
creation is now groaning in the pangs of labour, being about to bring
forth something; and the whole creation will rise again; how, and when,
and into what new state, we cannot tell. But St. Paul seems to say that
when the Lord shall destroy death, the last of his enemies, then the
whole creation shall be renewed, and bring forth another earth, nobler
and more beautiful than this one, free from death, and sin, and sorrow,
and redeemed into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
But this, on the other hand, St. Paul did see most clearly, and preached
it to all to whom he spoke, that the ground and reason of this great and
glorious mystery was the thing which happened on the first Easter-day,
namely, the Lord Jesus rising from the dead. About that, at least, there
was no doubt at all in his mind. We may see it by the Easter anthem,
which we read this morning, taken out of the fifteenth chapter of his
first epistle to the Corinthians:
“Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that
slept.
“For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the
dead.
“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”
Now he is not talking here merely of the rising again of our bodies at
the last day. That was in his mind only the end, and outcome, and fruit,
and perfecting, of men’s rising from the dead in this life. For he tells
these same Corinthians, and the Colossians, and others to whom he wrote,
that life, the eternal life which would raise their bodies at the last
day, was even then working in them.
Neither is he speaking only of a few believers. He says that, owing to
the Lord’s rising on this day, all shall be made alive—not merely all
Christians, but all men. For he does not say, as in Adam all Christians
die, but all men; and so he does not say, all Christians shall be made
alive, but all men. For here, as in the sixth chapter of Romans, he is
trying to make us understand the likeness between Adam and Jesus Christ,
whom he calls the new Adam. The first Adam, he says, was only a living
soul, as the savages and heathens are; but the second Adam, the Lord from
heaven, the true pattern of men, is a quickening, life-giving spirit, to
give eternal life to every human being who will accept His offer, and
claim his share and right as a true man, after the likeness of the new
Adam, Jesus Christ.
We then, every one of us who is here to-day, have a right to believe that
we have a share in Christ’s eternal life: that our original sin, that is,
the sinfulness which we inherited from our forefathers, is all forgiven
and forgotten, and that mankind is now redeemed, and belongs to the
second Adam, the true and original head and pattern of man, Jesus Christ,
in whom was no sin; and that because mankind belongs to him, God is well
pleased with them, and reconciled to them, and looks on them not as a
guilty, but as a pardoned and beloved race of beings.
And we have a right to believe also, that because all power is given to
Christ in heaven and earth, there is given to Him the power of making men
what they ought to be—like His own blessed, and glorious, and perfect
self. Ask him, and you shall receive; knock at the gate of His
treasure-house, and it shall be opened. Seek those things that are
above, and you shall find them. You shall find old bad habits die out in
you, new good habits spring up in you; old meannesses become weaker, new
nobleness and manfulness become stronger; the old, selfish, covetous,
savage, cunning, cowardly, brutal Adam dying out, the new, loving,
brotherly, civilised, wise, brave, manful Adam growing up in you, day by
day, to perfection, till you are changed from grace to grace, and glory
to glory into the likeness of the Lord of men.
“These are great promises,” you may say, “glorious promises; but what
proof have you that they belong to us? They sound too good to be true;
too great for such poor creatures as we are; give us but some proof that
we have a right to them; give us but a pledge from Jesus Christ; give us
but a sign, an assurance from God, and we may believe you then.”
My friends, I am certain—and the longer I live I am the more certain—that
there is no argument, no pledge, no sign, no assurance, like the bread
and the wine upon that table. Assurances in our own hearts and souls are
good, but we may be mistaken about them; for, after all, they are our own
thoughts, notions in our own souls, these inward experiences and
assurances; delightful and comforting as they are at times, yet we cannot
trust them—we cannot trust our own hearts, they are deceitful above all
things, who can know them? Yes: our own hearts may tell us lies; they
may make us fancy that we are pleasing God, when we are doing the things
most hateful to Him. They have made thousands fancy so already. They
may make us fancy we are right in God’s sight, when we are utterly wrong.
They have made thousands fancy so already. These hearts of ours may make
us fancy that we have spiritual life in us; that we are in a state higher
and nobler than the sinners round us, when all the while our spirits are
dead within us. They made the Pharisees of old fancy that their souls
were alive, and pure, and religious, when they were dead and damned
within them; and they may make us fancy so too. No: we cannot trust our
hearts and inward feelings; but that bread, that wine, we can trust. Our
inward feelings are a sign from man; that bread and wine are a sign from
God. Our inward feelings may tell us what we feel toward God: that
bread, that wine, tell us something ten thousand times more important;
they tell us what God feels towards us. And God must love us before we
can love Him; God must pardon us before we can have mercy on ourselves;
God must come to us, and take hold of us, before we can cling to Him; God
must change us, before we can become right; God must give us eternal life
in our hearts before we can feel and enjoy that new life in us. Then
that bread, that wine, say that God has done all that for us already;
they say: “God does love you; God has pardoned you; God has come to you;
God is ready and willing to change and convert you; God has given you
eternal life; and this love, this mercy, this coming to find you out
while you are wandering in sin, this change, this eternal life, are all
in His Son Jesus Christ; and that bread, that wine, are the signs of it.”
It is for the sake of Jesus’ blood that God has pardoned you, and that
cup is the new covenant in His blood. Come and drink, and claim your
pardon. It is simply because Jesus Christ was man, and you, too, are men
and women, wearing the flesh and blood which Christ wore; eating and
drinking as Christ ate and drank, and not for any works or faith of your
own, that God loves you, and has come to you, and called you into His
family. This is the Gospel, the good news of Christ’s free grace, and
pardon, and salvation; and that bread, that wine, the common food of all
men, not merely of the rich, or the wise, or the pious, but of saints and
penitents, rich and poor. Christians and heathens, alike—that plain,
common, every-day bread and wine—are the signs of it. Come and take the
signs, and claim your share in God’s love, in God’s family. And it is in
Jesus Christ, too, that you have eternal life. It is because you belong
to Jesus Christ, to mankind, of which He is the head and king, that God
will change you, strengthen your soul to rise above your sins, raise you
up daily more and more out of spiritual death, out of brutishness, and
selfishness, and ignorance, and malice, into an eternal life of wisdom,
and love, and courage, and mercifulness, and patience, and obedience; a
life which shall continue through death, and beyond death, and raise you
up again for ever at the last day, because you belong to Christ’s body,
and have been fed with Christ’s eternal life. And that bread, that wine
are the signs of it. “Take, eat,” said Jesus, “this is my body; drink,
this is my blood.” Those are the signs that God has given you eternal
life, and that this life is in His Son. What better sign would you have?
There is no mistaking their message; they can tell you no lies. And they
can, and will, bring your own Gospel-blessings to your mind, as nothing
else can. They will make you feel, as nothing else can, that you are the
beloved children of God, heirs of all that your King and Head has bought
for you, when He died, and rose again upon this day. He gave you the
Lord’s Supper for a sign. Do you think that He did not know best what
the best sign would be? He said: “Do this in remembrance of me.” Do you
think that He did not know better than you, and me, and all men, that if
you did do it, it would put you in remembrance of Him?
Oh! come to His table, this day of all days in the year; and claim there
your share in His body and His blood, to feed the everlasting life in
you; which, though you see it not now, though you feel it not now, will
surely, if you keep it alive in you by daily faith, and daily repentance,
and daily prayer, and daily obedience, raise you up, body and soul, to
reign with Him for ever at the last day.
IX.
THE COMFORTER.