1 Cor. xii. 26, 27. Whether one member suffer, all the members
suffer with it; or whether one member be honoured, all the members
rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in
particular.
I have to tell you that there will be a confirmation held at . . .
on the . . . All persons of fit age who have not yet been confirmed
ought to be ready, and I hope and trust that most of them will be
ready, on that day to profess publicly their faith and loyalty to
the Lord who died for them. I hope and trust that they will, as
soon as possible, tell me that they intend to do so, and come to me
to talk over the matter, and to learn what I can teach them about
it. They will find in me, I hope, nothing but kindness and fellow-
feeling.
But I have not only to tell young persons of the Confirmation: I
have to tell all godfathers and godmothers of it also. Have any of
you here ever stood godfather or godmother to any young person in
this parish who is not yet confirmed? If you have, now is the time
for you to fulfil your parts as sponsors. You must help me, and
help the children's parents, in bringing your godchildren to
confirmation. It really is your duty. It will be better for you if
you fulfil it. Better for you, not merely by preventing a
punishment, but by bringing a blessing. Let me try to show you what
I mean.
Now godparents must have some duty, some responsibility or other;--
that is plain. If you or I promise and vow things in another
person's name, we must be bound more or less to see that that other
person fulfils the promise which we made for him: and so the
baptism service warns the sponsors as soon as the child is
christened, 'Forasmuch as this child has promised,' &c.; and then we
have a plain explanation of what a godfather and godmother's duties
are. 'And that your godchild may know these things the better,'
&c.: and finally, 'you shall take care that this child be brought
to the bishop to be confirmed.'
That is the duty of godfathers and godmothers. Those who stand for
any child do it on that understanding, and take upon themselves
knowingly that duty.
Now, I will not threaten you, my friends; I will not pretend to tell
you how God will punish those godfathers and godmothers who do not
do their duty; because I do not know how he will punish them. He
has not told us in the Bible; and who am I, to deal out God's
thunders as if they belonged to me, and judge people of whose real
merits and dements in God's sight I have no fair means of judging?
I always dread and dislike threatening any sinner out of this
pulpit, except those who plainly break the plain laws which are
written in those Ten Commandments, and hypocrites: because I stand
in awe of our Lord's own words--'Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites, for ye bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and
lay them on men's shoulders, while you yourselves touch them not
with one of your fingers.' There is too much of that now-a-days, my
friends, and I have no mind to add my share to it. And sure I am,
that any godfathers and godmothers who do their duty, only because
they are afraid that God will punish them if they do not, will not
do their duty at all. But sure I am also, and thankful to God, that
we cannot neglect any duty whatsoever without being punished in some
way or other for our neglect of it. That is not a curse, but a
blessing: it is a blessing to us to be punished. The only real
curse of God in this life is to be left unpunished for our sins. It
is a blessing for us that our sins find us out. For if our sins did
not find _us_ out, we should very often, I fear, not find our sins
out. And, therefore, when I tell godfathers and godmothers, not
that God will perhaps punish them for their neglect, but that He
does punish them for it already, I am telling them good news, if
they will only open their hearts to that good news.
For God does punish people for neglecting their godchildren. Those
who have eyes to see may see it round us now, in this very parish,
and in every parish in England, in the selfishness, distrust,
divisions, and quarrels which prevail. I do not mean that this
parish is worse than others, or England worse than other countries.
That is no concern of ours: our own parish, and our own evils, are
quite concern enough for us.
Are people happy together? Do they pull well together? Look at the
old-standing quarrels, misunderstandings, grudges, prejudices,
suspicions, which part one man from another, one family from
another; every man for his own house, and very few for the kingdom
of God;--no, not even for the general welfare of the parish! Do not
men try to better themselves at the expense of the parish--to the
injury of the parish? Do not men, when they try to raise their own
family, seem to think that the simplest way to do it is to pull down
their neighbour's family; to draw away their custom; oust them from
their places, or hurt their characters in order to rise upon their
fall? so that though they are brothers, members of the same church,
nation and parish, the greater part of them are, in practice, at war
with each other--trying to live at each other's expense. Now, is
this profitable? So far from it, that if you will watch the
history, either of the whole world, or of this country, or of this
one parish, you will find that by far the greater part of the misery
in it has sprung from this very selfishness and separateness--from
the perpetual struggle between man and man, and between family and
family: so that there have been men, and those learned, and
thoughtful, and well-meaning men enough, who have said that the only
cure for the world's quarrelling and selfishness was to take all
children away from their parents, and bring them up in large public
schools; ay, and even to try plans which are sinful, foul, and
wicked, all in order to prevent parents knowing which were their own
children, that they might care for all the children in the parish as
much as if they were their own.
A foolish plan, my friends, and for this one reason, that it is
driving out one evil by a still greater one. It destroys the root
to get the fruit; by destroying family life, and love, and
obedience, to get at the communion of saints, or rather at some
ghost of it. The real communion of saints is founded on the Fifth
Commandment--'Thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother;' and
grows out of it, not by destroying it, but by fulfilling it, as the
tree grows out of the root, without taking away from the life of the
root, but rather by nourishing and increasing it. Now, the ancient
institution of godfathers and godmothers would, it seems to me, if
it were carried out honestly and really, do for us what we certainly
have not done for ourselves as yet, and bind us all together as one
family. It would do all the good which those fanciful philosophers
of whom I first spoke, have dreamt, without any of the evil; and it
would do it because it goes simply on the belief that the foundation
is already laid, and that that foundation is Christ. It says,
because this child is not merely the child of his father and mother,
but the child of God, the universal Father, therefore other people
besides his parents have an interest in him: all who are children
of God as well as he have an interest in him; for they are all his
brothers, and have a brother's interest in his welfare. Because
this child is not merely a member of the family whose surname he
bears, but a member of Christ, a member of God's great adopted
family, in the hearts of every one of whom His only begotten Son,
Jesus Christ, is working; therefore this child ought to be an object
of awe, and of interest, and love, and care to every other member of
Christ's Church. Moreover, the child is an inheritor of a heavenly
kingdom--a kingdom of grace--a kingdom of God,--which is love and
justice, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit--all personal,
spiritual, heavenly, God-given graces;--and he cannot have them
without being a blessing to all around him; and he cannot be without
them, without being a curse to all around him. If, in after life,
when he comes to be confirmed, he claims his inheritance in this
heavenly kingdom, he will be full of love, justice, peace, joy in
the Holy Spirit. If he refuses to claim his inheritance, and
despises his heavenly birthright, and lives as if he were a mere
earthly creature, only to please himself, and help himself, he will
not be full of those graces. And what then? That he will be full
of their opposites, of course. If he has not love, he will be
unloving, selfish, hard, cold--to _you_ and yours. If he has not
justice he will be unjust--to you and yours. If he is not at peace
he will be at war, quarrelling, grudging, envying, backbiting--you
and yours. If he has not joy in the Holy Spirit, he will have joy
in an unholy spirit, for he must have joy in some spirit; he must
take pleasure in some sort of way of thinking and feeling, and some
sort of life--in short, in some sort of spirit; and whatsoever is
not holy is unholy, whatsoever is not good is bad, whatsoever is not
of God's Holy Spirit is of the Devil;--and therefore, if the child
as he grows up has not joy in the Holy Spirit, and does not enjoy
doing right and pleasing God, and being like the Lord Jesus Christ,
then he will enjoy doing wrong, and pleasing himself, and being
unlike the Lord Jesus Christ; and so he will set a bad example, and
be a temptation to all young people of his own age, ready to lead
them into sin, and draw them away to those sinful and unholy
pleasures in which he takes delight,--whether it be to rioting and
drinking, or to uncleanness and unchastity, or to sneering and
laughing at godliness, and at good people. And that, as you know by
experience, may be the worse for you and the worse for your
children. Is that the sort of young person with whom you would wish
to see your children keeping company? Is that the sort of young
person next door to whom you would wish to live? Is not such a
person a curse, just because he is a person, a spiritual being with
an evil spirit in him, which can harm you, and tempt you, and act on
you for evil; just as if he had been a righteous person, with the
holy and good Spirit in him, he would have helped you, and taught
you, and worked on you for good? But so it is: we are members one
of another, and if one member goes wrong, and gets diseased, and
suffers, all the other members are sure to suffer more or less with
it, sooner or later: you feel it so in your bodies--be sure it is
so in God's church. But if one member is sound and healthy, all the
other members must and will be the better for its health, and
rejoice with it, and be able to do their own work the more freely,
and strongly, and heartily.
Just think for yourselves; consider, you who are grown up, and have
had experience of life, the harm you have known one bad man do, the
sorrow he will cause, even to people who never saw him; and the good
which you have seen one good man, not merely do with his own hands,
but put into other people's hearts by his example. Is not both the
good and the harm which is done on earth like the ripple of a stone
dropt into water, which spreads and spreads for a vast distance
round, however small the stone may be? Indeed, bold as it may seem
to say it, I believe that, if we could behold all hearts as the Lord
Jesus does, we should find that there never was a good man but that
the whole of Christendom, perhaps all mankind, was sooner or later,
more or less, the better for him; and that there never was a bad man
but that all Christendom, perhaps all mankind, was the worse for
him. So fully and really true it is in everyday practice, that we
are members one of another.
Now this is the principle on which the Church acts. For the little
unconscious infant is treated as what it is, a most solemn and
important person, who has other relations beside its father and
mother, as a person who is the brother of all the people round it,
and of all the Church of God, and who, too, may hereafter do to them
boundless good or harm, and they to it.
Therefore we must have some persons to bear witness of that, to
remind the child himself, and the whole Church, that he is not
merely a soul by itself to be saved, but that he is a brother, a
member of a family; that he is bound to that family henceforth, for
good and for evil. And this the godfathers and godmothers do: they
represent and stand in the place of the whole Church. In one sense,
every Christian who meets that child through life, or hears of it,
ought to behave, as far as he can, as its godfather; ought to help
and improve it if he can. But what is everybody's business, says
the proverb, is nobody's business; and therefore these godfathers
and godmothers are called out from the rest, as examples to the
rest, to watch over the child, and to help and advise its father and
mother in guiding and training it: but not by interfering with a
parent's rights, God forbid! or by drawing away the child's
affections from its own flesh and blood; for if a child be not
taught first to honour its father and mother, there is little use in
teaching it anything else whatsoever; and a godfather's first duty
is to see that his godchild obeys its earthly parents for the Lord's
sake, for that is right, and God's will, whatever else is not.
Now just conceive--I am sure that you easily may--what a blessing to
this parish, or this part of the country, it would be, were the
duties of godfathers really carried out and practised. Every child,
beside his father and mother, would have some two or three elder
friends at least, whom he had known from his childhood, whom he
could trust, to whom he could go in trouble as to his own flesh and
blood. The orphan would have, if not relations, still godparents,
to comfort and protect him. No one could go abroad without meeting,
if not a godparent, yet the godparent or godchild of a friend or a
relation; someone, in short, who had an interest in him, and he in
them. All would be bound together in threefold cords of interest
and affection. How many spites, family quarrels, mistakes, and
ignorances about each other would be done away, if people would but
thus simply enter into that communion of saints to which, by right,
they belong, and bear each other's burdens, and so fulfil the law of
Christ.--Unless you think that men are such ill-conditioned
creatures that the less they mix with each other the better. I do
not. I believe that the more we mix with each other, and the better
we know each other, the more we shall feel for each other: that the
more we help people, the more we shall find that they are worth
helping; that the more, in a word, we try to live, not after the
likeness of the beasts, selfish and apart, but after the order and
constitution of God's Church, to which we belong, and which is, that
we are all fellow-members of one body, then the more we shall find
that God's order is the right, good, blessed order, by obeying which
we enter into comfort of which we never dream as long as we lead
selfish, separate, worldly lives; as it is written, 'Eye hath not
seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to
conceive, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.'
This may seem a fanciful dream, too fair to be possible; but what
prevents it from being possible, save and except our own selfishness
and laziness?
And as for what fruit will spring from it, I have seen, by
experience, the blessing of godfathership and godmothership, where
it is really carried out; how it will knit together, in sacred bonds
of friendship, not merely the children, but the grown persons of
different families, and give them a fellow-feeling, a mutual
interest, which will prevent a hundred quarrels and coldnesses among
frail human creatures. And to those who are childless themselves,
what a blessing to have their love and self-sacrifice called out, by
being bound in holy bonds, if not to children of their own, at least
to children of God!--to have young people to care for, to teach, to
guide, and so to win for themselves in the Church of God a name
better than that of sons and daughters. And have no fear that by
bringing your kindness to bear especially upon your godchildren you
will narrow your love, and care less for children in general. Not
so, my friends; you will find that your love to your godchildren,
like love to your own children, will make all children lovable in
your eyes: you will learn how worthy of your love children are,
what capacities of good there are in them, how truly of such are the
kingdom of heaven; and their simplicity will often teach you more
than you can teach them. Their God-given instincts of right and
wrong, truth and falsehood, which come from the indwelling Word of
God, Jesus the Lord, will often enough shame us, will teach us more
and more the depth of that great saying, 'Out of the mouths of babes
and sucklings, Thou, O God, hast perfected Thy praise.'
Now try, I entreat you, all godfathers and godmothers, to carry out
these hints of mine, and so fulfil your duty to your godchildren,
sure that you will find it a blessing to yourselves as well as to
them.
After all it is your duty. But do not let the slandering Devil
slander to you that blessed word, Duty, and make you afraid of it,
and shrink from it, as if it meant something burdensome, and
troublesome, and thankless, which you suppose you must do for fear
of punishment, while you have a right to see how little of it you
can do, and try to be let off as cheaply as possible. Beware of
that evil spirit, my friends, for he is very near you, and me, and
every man, whenever we think of our duty. Very near us he is, that
evil Jesuit spirit, that spirit of bondage unto fear, which is
continually setting us on to find out with how _little_ service God
will be contented, how human slaves may make the cheapest bargain
with some stern taskmaster above, of whom they dream. And from that
temptation there is no escape, save into the blessed name of God
Himself--our Father.
Our Father!--whenever you think of your duty to God or man, think
but of those two words. Remember that all duty is duty to a Father;
your Father; and such a Father! Who gave His only begotten Son to
die for you, who showed what He was in that Son--full of goodness,
perfectly loving, perfectly merciful, perfectly just; and then you
will not be inclined to ask how _little_ obedience, how _little_
love, how _little_ service, He will allow you to pay to Him; but how
much He will help you to pay to Him. Then you will feel that His
service is perfect freedom, because it is service to a Father who
loves you, and will help you to do His will. Then you will feel
that His commandments are not grievous, because they are a Father's
commandments, because you are bound to do them, not by dread and
superstition, but by gratitude, honour, affection, respect, trust.
Then you will not be thinking of what punishment will come if you
disobey--no, nor of what reward will come if you obey--but you will
be thinking of the commandment itself, and how to carry it out most
perfectly, and let the consequences take care of themselves, because
you know that your _Father_ takes care of them; that He loves you,
and therefore what He commands must be good for you, utterly the
best thing for you; that He only gives you a commandment because it
is good for you; that you are made in God's image, and therefore
God's will must be for you the path of life, the only rule by which
you can prosper now and for ever.
Do try, now, all you who are godfathers and godmothers, and for once
look on your duty in this light. Be sure that in trying to do your
duty you will bring a blessing on yourselves, because your duty is
to a Father in heaven. Be sure that, in trying to better your
godchildren, you will better yourselves; in trying to teach them,
you will teach yourselves; in trying to bring them to confirmation,
you will indeed confirm, root, and strengthen yourselves the more
deeply in all that is good; because your godchildren are indeed
God's children, and whatsoever you do for them you do for His only
begotten Son Jesus Christ, as He Himself says, 'Inasmuch as ye did
it unto one of the least of these little ones, ye did it unto Me.'
Do not be afraid of trying; you will have a hundred reasons for not
trying rise in your mind, the Devil will find you a hundred lying
excuses: 'It will be so difficult; and you do not like to interfere
with other people's children; and you have never cared about your
godchildren yet, and it will seem so odd to begin now; and the
children may not listen to you; and besides, you do not know enough
to teach them; you are not good scholar enough, good liver enough,
you can't preach where you don't practice.' Oh, how ready the Devil
is to help a man to excuses for not doing his duty; how careful he
is to keep out of a man's mind the one thought which would sweep all
those excuses to the wind--the thought that this same duty, which he
is trying to make look so ugly, is duty to a loving Father. Do not
listen to his lies; look up to your good Father in heaven; and try.
It is God's will that these children should be confirmed; it is His
will that you should help to bring them to confirmation; and if it
is His will, He will help you to do that will of His. It may seem
difficult: but try, and the difficulty will vanish, for God will
make it easy for you. You may be afraid of interfering: believe
that God's Spirit is working in the hearts of your godchildren, and
of their parents also; and trust to God's Spirit to make them kindly
and thankful to you about the matter, and glad to see that you take
an interest in their children. You may seem not to know enough: O,
my friends, you know enough, every one of you, if you have courage
to confess how much you know. Ask God for courage to speak out, and
He will give it you. And even if you are no scholar, be sure that,
as the old proverb says, 'Teaching is the best way of learning.'
Any parent, or godfather, or godmother, who will try to teach their
children God's truth and their duty, will find that in so doing they
will teach themselves even more than they teach the children. I say
it because I know it from my own experience. And for the rest,
again I say, is not God your Father? Therefore, if any man be in
want of wisdom, or courage, or any other heavenly gift, let him ask
of God, who giveth liberally and upbraideth not, and he shall
receive it. For after all, when you ask God to teach you, and
strengthen you to do your duty, you do but ask Him for a part of
that very inheritance which He has already given you; a part of your
inheritance in that kingdom of heaven which is a kingdom of
spiritual gifts and graces, into which you were baptized as well as
your godchildren.
Try then, each of you, what you can do to bring your own godchildren
to confirmation, and what you can do to make them fit for
confirmation; for you are members one of another, and if you will
act as such, you will find strength to do your duty, and a blessing
in your day from that heavenly Father from whom every fatherhood in
heaven and earth, and yours among the rest, is named.