(Tenth Sunday after Trinity.)
1 Cor. xii. 3, 4, 5, 6. Wherefore, I give you to understand, that
no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and
that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.
Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there
are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there
are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh
all in all.
We are to come to the Communion this day in love and charity with
all men. But are we in love and charity with all men?
I do not mean, are there any persons whom we hate; against whom we
bear a spite; whom we should be glad to see in trouble or shame?
God forbid, my friends, God forbid. There are, indeed, devil's
tempers. And yet more easy for us to keep in the bottom of our
hearts, and more difficult to root them out, than we fancy.
It is easy enough for us to forgive (in words at least) a man who
has injured us. Easy enough to make up our minds that we will not
revenge ourselves. Easy enough to determine, even, that we will
return good for evil to him, and do him a kindness when we have a
chance. Yes, we would not hurt him for the world: but what if God
hurt him? What if he hurt himself? What if he lost his money?
What if his children turned out ill? What if he made a fool of
himself, and came to shame? What if he were found out and exposed,
as we fancy that he deserves? Should we be so very sorry? We
should not punish him ourselves. No. But do we never catch
ourselves thinking whether God may not punish him; thinking of that
with a base secret satisfaction; almost hoping for it, at last? Oh
if we ever do, God forgive us! If we ever find those devil's
thoughts rising in us, let us flee from them as from an adder; flee
to the foot of Christ's Cross, to the cross of him who prayed for
his murderers, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do;
and there cry aloud for the blood of life, which shall cleanse us
from the guilt of those wicked thoughts, and for the water of life,
which shall cleanse us from the power of them: lest they get the
dominion over us, and spring up in us, and spread over our whole
hearts; not a well of life, but a well of poison, springing up in us
to everlasting damnation. Oh let us pray to him to give us truth in
our inward parts; that we may forgive and love, not in word only,
but in deed and in truth.
I could not help saying this in passing. But it is not what the
text is speaking of; not what I want to speak of myself to-day. I
want to speak of a matter which is smaller, and not by any means so
sinful: and which yet in practice is often more tormenting to a
truly tender conscience, because it is more common and more
continual.
How often, when one examines oneself, whether one be in love and
charity with all men, one must recollect that there are many people
whom one does not like. I do not mean that one hates them. Not in
the least: but they do not suit one. There is something in them
which we cannot get on with, as the saying is. Something in their
opinions, manners, ways of talking; even--God forgive us--merely in
their voice, or their looks, or their dress, which frets us, and
gives us what is called an antipathy to them. And one dislikes
them; though they never have harmed us, or we them; and we know
them, perhaps, to be better people than ourselves. Now, are we in
love and charity with these people? I am afraid not.
I know one is tempted to answer; but I am afraid the answer is worth
very little--Why not? We cannot help it. You cannot expect us to
like people who do not suit us: any more than you can expect us to
like a beetle or a spider. We know the beetle or the spider will
not harm us. We know that they are good in their places, and do
good, as all God's creatures are and do; and there is room enough in
the world for them and us: but we have a natural dislike to them,
and cannot help it; and so with these people. We mean no harm in
disliking them. It is natural to us; and why blame us for it.
Now what is the mistake here? Saying that it is _natural_ to us.
We are not meant to live according to nature, but according to
grace; and grace must conquer nature, my friends, if we wish to save
our souls alive. It is nature, brute nature, which makes some dogs
fly at every strange dog they meet. It is nature, brute nature,
which makes a savage consider every strange savage as his enemy, and
try to kill him. But unless nature be conquered in that savage, it
will end, where following brute nature always ends, in death; and
the savages will (as all savages are apt to do) destroy each other
off the face of the earth, by continual war and murder. It is brute
nature which makes low and ignorant persons hate foreign people,
because their dress and language seem strange. But unless that
natural feeling had been in most of us conquered by the grace of
God, which is the spirit of justice and of love, then England would
have remained alone in conceit and ignorance, hated by all the
nations; instead of being what, thank God! she is--the Sanctuary of
the world; to which all the oppressed of the earth may flee; and
find a welcome, and safety, and freedom, and justice, and peace.
And so with us, my friends. It is natural, and according to the
brute nature of the old Adam, to dislike this person and that, just
because they do not suit us. But it is according to grace, and the
new Adam, who is the Lord from heaven, to honour all men; to love
the brotherhood; to throw away our own private fancies and personal
antipathies; and, like the Lord Jesus Christ, copy the all-embracing
charity of God. And no one has a right to answer, 'But I must draw
the line somewhere.' Thou must not. I am afraid that thou _wilt_,
and that I shall, too, God forgive us both! because we are sinful
human beings. We may, but we _must_ not, draw a line as to whom we
shall endure in charity. For Christ draws no line. Is it not
written, 'No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy
Ghost.' Is not the Spirit of Christ in a Christian man, unless he
be a reprobate? and who is reprobate, we know not, and dare not try
to know; for it is written, 'Judge not, and ye shall not be judged:
condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned.'
But what has the text to do with all this?
My friends, is not this just what the text is telling us? I said
this moment, that the Spirit of Christ was in a Christian man,
unless he be a reprobate. And the text says further, that there are
diversities of gifts in Christian men: but the same spirit in all
of them.
Yes: people _will_ be different one from another. There are
diversities of gifts. Differences in talents, in powers, in
character, in kinds of virtue and piety; so that you shall find no
two good men, no two useful men, like each other. But there is the
same Spirit. The same Spirit of God is in each, though bearing
different fruit in each. And there are differences of
administrations, of offices, in God's kingdom. God sets one man to
do one work, and another to do another: but it is the same Lord who
puts each man in his place, and shows him his work, and gives him
power to do it. And there are diversities of operations, that is,
of ways of working; so that if you put any two men to do the same
thing, they will most probably do it each in a different way, and
yet both do it well. But it is the same God, who is working in them
both; the God who works all in all, and has his work done by a
thousand different hands, by a thousand different ways.
And it is right and good that people should be so different from
each other. 'For the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every
man to profit withal.' To profit, to be of use. If all men were
alike, no one could learn from his neighbour. If all mankind were
as like each other as a flock of sheep, there would be no more work,
no more progress, no more improvement in mankind, than there is in a
flock of sheep. Now each man can bring his own little share of
knowledge or usefulness into the common stock. Each man has, or
ought to have, something to teach his neighbour. Each man can learn
something from his neighbour: at least he can learn this--to have
patience with his neighbour. To live and let live. To bear with
what in him seems odd and disagreeable, trusting that God may have
put it there; that God has need of it; that God will make use of it.
God makes use of many things which look to us ugly and disagreeable.
He makes use of the spider and of the beetle. How much more of our
brethren, members of Christ, children of God, inheritors of the
kingdom of heaven. Shall they be to us, even if they be odd or
disagreeable in some things--shall they be to us as the beetle or
the spider, or any other merely natural things? They are men and
women, in whom is the Spirit of the living God. And my friends, if
they are good enough for God, they are good enough for us. Think
but one moment. God the Father adopts a man as his child, God the
Son dies for that man, God the Holy Ghost inspires that man; and
shall we be more dainty than God? If, in spite of the man's little
weaknesses and oddities, God shall condescend to come down and dwell
in that man, making him more or less a good man, doing good work;
shall we pretend that we cannot endure what God endures? Shall we
be more dainty, I ask again, than the holy and perfect God? Oh my
friends, let us pray to him to take out of our hearts all
selfishness, fancifulness, fastidiousness, and hasty respect of
persons, of all which there is none in God. Let us ask for his
Spirit, the Spirit of Charity, which sees God in all, and all in
God, and therefore sees good in all, and sees all in love.
Then we shall see how much more there is in our neighbours to like,
than to dislike. Then all these little differences will seem to us
trifles not to be thought of, before the broad fact of a man's
being, after all, a man, an Englishman, a Christian, and a good
Christian, doing good work where God has put him. Then we shall be
ashamed of our old narrowness of heart; ashamed of having looked so
much at the little evil in our neighbours, and not at the great good
in them. Then we shall go about the world cheerfully; and our
neighbour's faces will seem to us full of light: instead of seeming
full of darkness, because our own eyes and minds are dark for want
of charity. Then we shall come to the Communion, not with hearts
narrowed and shut up, perhaps, from the very person who kneels next
to us: but truly open-hearted; with hearts as wide--ah God, that it
were possible!--as the sacred heart of Christ, in which is room for
all mankind. And so receiving his body, which is the blessed
company of all faithful people, we shall receive Christ, who
dwelleth in them, and they in him.