Ephesians iii. 3-6. How that by revelation he made known unto me
the mystery (as I wrote afore in few words, whereby, when ye read,
ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in
other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now
revealed unto the holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that the
Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers
of his promise in Christ by the Gospel.
This day is the feast of the Epiphany. Epiphany, as many of you
know, means 'shewing,' because on this day the Lord Jesus Christ was
first shewn to the Gentiles; to the Gentile wise men who, as you
heard in the Gospel, saw his star in the east, and came to worship
him. And the part of Scripture from which I have taken my text, is
used for the Epistle this day, because in it St. Paul explains to us
the meaning of the Epiphany. The meaning of those wise men being
shewn our Lord, and worshipping him, though they were not Jews as he
was, but Gentiles. He says that it means this, that the Gentiles
were fellow-heirs with the Jews, and of the same body as them, and
partakers of God's promise in Christ by the Gospel.
This does not seem so very wonderful to us; and why? Because we,
though we are Gentiles like those wise men, have lived so long, we
and our forefathers before us, in the light of the Gospel, that we
are inclined to take it as a matter of course; forgetting what a
wonderful, unspeakable, condescension it was of God, not to spare
his only begotten Son, but freely to give him for us. God forgive
us! We are so heaped with blessings that we neglect them, forget
them, take them as our right, instead of remembering our sins and
ungratefulness, and saying, Thy mercies are new every morning; it is
only of thy mercies that we are not consumed.
But to St. Paul it was very wonderful news. A mystery, as he said;
quite a new and astonishing thought, that heathens had any share in
God's love and Christ's salvation.
And so it was to St. Peter. God had to teach it him by that
wonderful vision, in which he saw coming down from heaven all sorts
of animals, and God bade him kill and eat; and when he refused,
because they were common and unclean, God forbade him to call
anything common or unclean, now that God had cleansed all things by
the precious blood of his dear Son. Then Peter was bidden to go to
the Gentile Roman soldier Cornelius. And he went, though, he said,
he had been used to think it unlawful for a Jew even to eat with a
Gentile. And when he went, he found, to his astonishment, that
God's love was over that Gentile soldier and his family, because
they were good men, as far as they had light and knowledge, just as
much as if they had been good Jews. And God gave St. Peter a sign
which there was no mistaking, that he really did care for those
Gentile Romans, just as much as if they had been Jews; for, as he
was preaching Christ to them, the Holy Ghost fell on them, not
after, but before they were baptised. So that St. Peter, astonished
as he was, was forced by his own conscience and reason to say, 'Can
any man forbid water, that these should not be baptised, who have
received the Holy Ghost as well as we' (Jews)? Then he commanded
them to be baptised in the name of the Lord.
And what was the lesson which God taught St. Peter by this? St.
Peter himself tells us; for he opened his mouth and said, 'Of a
truth I see that God is no respecter of persons; but in every
nation, he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted
by him.'
Now, my dear friends, this is (as the Lord Jesus Christ tells us)
God's everlasting law, 'That he that hath, to him shall be given,
and he shall have more abundantly; but from him that hath not, shall
be taken away even that which he seems to have.'
So it was, as I have just shewn you, with Cornelius; and so it was
with those wise men. They were worshippers (as is supposed) of the
one true God, though in a dim confused way: but they had learnt
enough of what true faith was, and of what true greatness was, too,
not to be staggered and fall into unbelief, when they saw the King
of the Jews, whom they had come so many hundred miles to see, laid,
not in a palace, but in a manger; and attended not by princesses and
noblewomen, but by a poor maiden, espoused to a carpenter.
Therefore God bestowed on them that great honour, that they, first
of all the Gentiles, should see the glory and the love of God in the
face of Jesus Christ, his Son.
And so it was with our forefathers, my friends. And I think that on
this Epiphany, we ought to thank God, among all his other blessings,
for having given us such forefathers, and letting us be born of that
noble stock, to whom he gave the kingdom of God, after he took it
away from the faithless and rebellious Jews, and afterwards from the
false and profligate Greeks and Romans, to whom the epistles of the
apostles were written. I will tell you what I mean.
When the Lord Jesus came on earth; our forefathers did not live here
in England, but in countries across the sea, in Germany, Denmark,
and Sweden, which did not belong to the Roman Empire; for the
Romans, who had conquered all the world beside, could never conquer
our forefathers. It was God's will, that whenever they tried they
were beaten back with shame and slaughter; and our forefathers,
almost alone of all, remained free men, even as we are at this day.
But for that very reason, the apostles could never come among us to
preach the Gospel to us; for they could not pass the bounds of the
Roman empire; and that was so large, that they had enough to do to
preach the Gospel in it; so that it was not till at least 400 years
after the apostles' death, that their successors, zealous
missionaries, priests and bishops, came and preached to our
forefathers; and when they came, they found us a people prepared for
the Lord, who heard the word gladly, and turned, thousands sometimes
in one day, from vain idols to serve the living God, and were
baptised into that holy church in which we now stand. And it has
been among us, and the nations who are our kinsmen, that the light
of the gospel has shone ever since, while all through the East,
where the apostles preached most and earliest, it has died out. So
that our Lord's words have been fulfilled, that many that are last
shall be first, and those that are first shall be last. God grant
that it may not always be so. God grant that his kingdom may return
to its ancient seat at Jerusalem, and that all nations may go up to
the mountain of the Lord's house, in the day of which St. Paul
prophesies, when the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, and all
Israel shall be saved, when the earth shall be full of the knowledge
of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. But it is not so now; and
cannot be so, as far as we can see, for many a year to come.
But in the meanwhile, why were our forefathers--heathens though they
were, and sinners in many things, being truly children of wrath,
fierce, bloodthirsty, revengeful, without the grace of Christ, which
is Love and Charity--nevertheless a people prepared for the Lord?
How was it true of them that to him that hath shall be given?
I will tell you. There is an old book, written in Latin by a
heathen gentleman of Rome, who lived in St. Paul's time, and wrote
this book about twenty years after St. Paul's death. It is a little
book; but it is a very precious one: and I think it is a great
mercy of God that, while so many famous old books have been lost,
this little book should have been preserved: for this Roman
gentleman had travelled among our forefathers; and when he returned
he wrote this book to shame his countrymen at Rome. In it he calls
us 'Germans;' but that was the Roman fashion. By Germans they meant
not only the people who now live in Germany, but the English and the
Danes, and the Swedes, and the Franks, who afterwards conquered
France. In fact he meant our own forefathers. And he said to the
Romans,--
'Look at these wild Germans. You despise them because they go half-
naked, and cannot read or write, and live in mud cottages; while you
go in silk and gold, and have all sorts of learning, and live in
great cities, palaces, and temples, in worldly pomp and glory. But
I tell you,' he said, 'that these wild Germans are better men than
you; for, while you are living in sin, in cheating and falsehood, in
covetousness, adultery, murder, and every horrible iniquity, they
are honest, chaste, truthful; they honour their fathers and mothers;
they are obedient and loyal to their kings and their laws; they shew
hospitality to strangers; they do not commit adultery, steal, bear
false witness, covet their neighbours' goods. And therefore,' this
Roman felt (and really it seems as if a spirit of prophecy from God
had come on him), 'something great and glorious will come out of
these wild Germans, while the Romans will rot away and perish in
their sins.' That was true enough. We see it true at this day.
For what happened? That great Roman empire, Babylon the great, as
St. John calls it in the Revelations, perished miserably and
horribly by its own sins; while our forefathers rose and conquered
it all, and live and thrive till this day. But it is curious that
they never throve really, though they made great conquests, and did
many wonderful deeds, till they became Christians: but as soon as
they became Christians, they began to thrive at once, and settled
down, and became that great family of nations, and kingdom of God,
which we call Christendom; England, France, Spain, Italy, Germany,
Sweden, and the other countries of Christian Europe; which God has
so prospered for his Son Jesus Christ's sake, in spite of many sins
and shortcomings, with wealth and numbers, skill, and learning, and
strength, that now the empire of the whole world depends upon these
few small Christian nations, which in our Lord's time were only
tribes of heathen savages: so that here again our Lord's great
parable was fulfilled.
The gospel seed which the apostle sowed in those rich, luxurious,
clever, learned, Romans, was like the seed which fell on thorny
ground; and the cares and pleasures of this life, and the
deceitfulness or riches, sprang up, and choked the word, and it
remained unfruitful. But the gospel seed which was sown among our
poor, wild, simple, ignorant forefathers, was the seed which fell on
an honest and good heart, and took root, and brought forth fruit,
some thirty, some fifty, and some one hundred fold. Epiphany came
late to us--not for three hundred years after our Lord's birth:
but, when it came, the light which it brought remained with us, and
lights us even now from our cradle to our grave: and so again was
fulfilled the Scripture, which says, that God chooses the weak
things of this world to confound the strong; the foolish to confound
the wise; yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought the
things which are, that no flesh should glory in his presence.
That no flesh should glory in his presence. For mind, my friends,
our business is not to be high-minded but to fear. And we English
are too apt to be high-minded now. We pride ourselves on our
English character, English cleverness, English courage, English
wealth. My friends, be not high-minded but fear. We have no right
to pride ourselves on being Englishmen, if we do the very things
which our forefathers were ashamed to do even when they were
heathens. They honoured their fathers and mothers. Do we? They
were loyal and obedient to law. Are we? They were chaste and clean
livers: adultery was seldom heard of among them; and, when it was,
they punished it in the most fearful way: while what astonished
that old Roman gentleman, of whom I spoke, most of all, was the pure
and respectable lives of the young men and women. Is it so now-a-
days among us, my friends? They were honest, too, and just in all
their dealings. Are we? They were true to their word; no men on
earth more true. Are we? They hated covetousness and overreaching.
Do we? They were generous, open-handed, hospitable. Are we? My
friends, this was the old English spirit, which God accepted in our
forefathers. Is it in us now? We must not pride ourselves on it,
unless we have it. Nay, more, what is it but a shame to us, if,
while our forefathers were good heathens, we are bad Christians?
They had but a small spark, a dim ray, as it were, of the light
which lighteth every man who comes into the world: but they were
more faithful to that little than many are now, who live in the full
sunshine of God's gospel, in the free dispensation of God's spirit,
with Christ's sacraments, Christ's Churches, means of grace and
hopes of glory, of which they never dreamed. May they not rise up
against some of us in the day of judgment, and condemn us, and say,--
'Are you our children? Do you boast of knowing God better than we
did, while you did things which we dared not do? We knew that God
hated such sins, and therefore we kept from them. You should know
that better than we; for you had seen God's horror of sin in the
death of his own Son Jesus Christ; and yet you went on committing
the very sins which crucified the Lord of Glory.'
My friends, I speak sober earnest. God grant that our old heathen
forefathers may not rise up against us in the day of judgment, and
condemn us. Let us turn to the Lord this day with all our hearts,
and come to this holy table, confessing all our sins and
unfaithfulness, and backslidings, that we may get there cleansing
from his most precious blood, strength from his most precious body,
life from his life, and spirit from his spirit; that so we may go
away to lead new lives, following the commandments of God, and
living up to our great light and knowledge, at least as well as our
forefathers lived up to their little light. And so we shall really
keep the feast of Epiphany in spirit and in truth: for Epiphany
means the shewing of Jesus Christ to us Gentiles; and the way to
prove that Jesus Christ has been shewn to us, and that we have seen
his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of
grace and truth, is to keep his commandments, and live lives like
his.