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_THE CONTEMPORARY PULPIT LIBRARY_
SERMONS
BY THE LATE RIGHT REV.
J. B. LIGHTFOOT, D.D., D.C.L.,
LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK:
THOMAS WHITTAKER,
2 AND 3, BIBLE HOUSE.
1890.
CONTENTS.[1]
PAGE
BETHEL 1
THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN HEAVEN'S PATHWAY 17
THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL AN ARGUMENT IN FAVOUR OF
CHRISTIANITY 29
THE VISION OF GOD 43
THE HEAVENLY TEACHER 55
CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. I. 65
CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. II. 83
CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM. III. 100
WOMAN AND THE GOSPEL 116
PILATE 129
THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN 145
OUR CITIZENSHIP 157
AMBITION 170
_Sermons_
BY THE LATE
RIGHT REV. J. B. LIGHTFOOT, D.D., D.C.L.,
LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM.
* * * * *
BETHEL.[2]
"Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not."--GEN.
xxviii. 16.
An unobtrusive, unimpressive scene, almost indistinguishable, even to
the curious eye of the archaeologist, "in the maze of undistinguished
hills which encompass it"--with nothing to attract the eye, and
nothing to fire the imagination; large slabs of bare rock traversed by
a well-worn thoroughfare; "no religio loci, no awful shades, no lofty
hills." So is the site of Bethel described by the modern traveller.
Yet this was none other than the House of God; this was the very gate
of heaven.
An unimpressive scene in itself, but appearing still more commonplace,
when contrasted with the famous shrines of heathendom--the rock
fortress of the Athene, or the pleasant groves of Daphne, or the
cloven peak of Parnassus, or the sea-girt sanctuary of Delos. No
beauty, no grandeur, nothing of loveliness and nothing of awe, nothing
exceptional of any kind which can explain or justify its selection.
Was there not ground for the wanderer's surprise on that memorable
night? Why should this one spot be chosen to plant the foot of the
ladder which connected heaven and earth? Why in this bleak wilderness?
Why amidst these bare rocks? Why here of all places in the world? Yes,
why here?
The paradox of Bethel is the paradox of the Gospel--is the paradox of
God's spiritual dispensations at all times. The Incarnation itself was
the supreme manifestation of this paradox. The building up of the
Church was the proper sequel to the Incarnation.
Look at the accompaniments of the Incarnation. Could any environment
of circumstances well have been imagined more incongruous, more alien
to this unique event in human history, this supreme revelation of
God's wisdom, and power, and beneficence? An obscure corner of the
Roman world--an insignificant and down-trodden race, scorned and hated
by the rest of mankind--an ox-stall for a nursery, and a carpenter's
shop for a school--what is wanting to complete the paradox? Yes, there
is still one feature to be added to the picture--the crowning
incongruity of all--the felon's death on the cross. Said not the
prophet rightly, when he foretold that there should be nothing lovely
in His life and circumstances, as men count loveliness; "no form or
comeliness;" "no beauty that we should desire him"?
And the same paradox, which ruled the foundation of the Church,
extended also to its building up. The great statesmen, the powerful
captains, in the kingdom of God were fishermen and tent-makers. Never
was this characteristic incongruity of the Gospel more signally
manifested than in the preaching of St. Paul at Athens. Have we ever
realized the force of that single word with which the historian
describes the impression left on the Apostle's mind by this far-famed
city? Gazing on the most sublime and beautiful creations of Greek art,
the masterpieces of Phidias and Praxiteles, he has no eye for their
beauty or their sublimity. He pierces through the veil of the material
and transitory, and behind this semblance of grace and glory the true
nature of things reveals itself. To him this chief centre of human
culture and intelligence, this--
"Eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence,"
appears only as +kazeidolos+, overrun with idols, beset with
phantoms which mislead, and vanities which corrupt. Art and culture
are God's own gifts, legitimate embellishments of life, even of
worship, which is the highest form of life. But if culture aims at
displacing religion, if art seeks to dethrone God,--why, then, in the
highest interests of humanity, be it our prayer that the sword of the
barbarian and the axe of the iconoclast may descend once more, and
sweep them ruthlessly away. There was, at least, this redeeming
feature in ancient art, that it gave expression to whatsoever sense of
the Divine lay buried in the heathen mind. But art and culture, which
studiously ignore God--what can be said for these? In this one word
+kazeidolos+ lies the germ of that fierce and protracted
struggle of Christianity with Paganism, which ended indeed in a
splendid victory, though not without inflicting many a wound on
humanity of which the scars and seams still remain. Notwithstanding
the merciless scoffs of a Celsus and the biting sarcasm of a
Julian--the Apostle's words were verified in their literal truth.
Strength was made perfect in weakness. God chose the foolish things of
the world to confound the wise, aye, and the uncomely things of the
world to confound the beautiful. The things which are not, brought to
nought the things which are.
So then in its accompaniments, not less than in its main idea, this
incident at Bethel is a type of the Gospel of Christ. This exile, the
representative of the Israel after the flesh, prefigures a greater
outcast and wanderer, the representative of the Israel after the
spirit, the representative of the whole family of man. This ladder
reared up from earth to heaven, whereby angels ascend and descend,
what is it but the Incarnation of the Eternal Word, wherein God is
made man, and man is taken up into God? This it is which establishes
the title of Christianity as the absolute and final religion of the
world--this indissoluble union of the human with the divine--this one
only adequate response to the deepest religious cravings of mankind.
Hence the Church has ever clung with a tenacity of grasp, which
shallow hearts could ill understand, to this central idea, the
indefeasible wedlock of heaven and earth in the God-man. And to those
whose sight is purged by faith, to those who are gifted with the eye
of the Spirit, the vision of Bethel will be vouchsafed with a far more
exceeding glory: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall
see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon
the Son of Man:" on the Son of Man: yes, and on thyself too, O man,
for thou art one with this Son of Man, one with the Father in Him.
"Gifted with the eye of the Spirit," I say; for in vain the heavens
are riven asunder, and the glory streams forth, and all things are
flooded with light, if the capacity of vision be absent. Only the cold
bare stones beneath, only the midnight gloom overhead, only the
dreary, monotonous waste around, these and these alone are visible
otherwise. We have been saddened, perhaps we have been disconcerted,
as recently we read the dreary epitaph which sums up the creed of a
brilliant man of science not long since deceased--a hopeless,
soul-less, lifeless creed, to which his own very faculties and
acquisitions appear to us to give the lie. We have been saddened
justly; but why should we be disconcerted? God be thanked, the most
absolute childlike faith has not unfrequently been found united with
the highest scientific intellect. We in this place have never yet
lacked bright examples of such a union, and God grant we never may.
But what right have we to expect it as a matter of course? What claim
do the most brilliant mathematical faculties, or the keenest scholarly
instincts, give to a man to speak with authority on the things of the
Spirit? Are we not told on authority before which we bow that a
special faculty is needed for this special knowledge; that "eye hath
not seen and ear hath not heard"; that only the Spirit of God--the
Spirit which He vouchsafes to His sons--knoweth the things of God? And
does not all analogy enforce the truth of this lesson? One man has a
keenly sensitive musical ear, but he is colour-blind. Another has a
quick eye for the faintest gradations of colour, but he cannot
distinguish one note of music from another. Does the imperfect eye of
the one know any haze of uncertainty over the hues of the rainbow; or
the obtuse ear of the other disparage the master works of a Handel, or
a Mozart, or a Beethoven? _Here_ is a mathematician who sees in a
sublime creation of imaginative genius only a tissue of unproven
hypotheses; and _here_ is a poet, to whom the plainest processes
of algebra, and the simplest problems in geometry, are mere barbarian
gabble, conveying no distinct impression to the brain, and leaving no
intelligible idea on the mind. Judge no man in this matter. To his own
master he stands or falls. But judge yourselves. Yes, spare no rigour
and relax no vigilance when the judge is the criminal also. Believe
it, this spiritual faculty is an infinitely subtle and delicate
mechanism. You cannot trifle with it, cannot roughly handle it, cannot
neglect it and suffer it to rust from disuse, without infinite peril
to yourselves. Nothing--not the highest intellectual gains--can
compensate you for its injury or its loss. The private prayer
mechanically repeated, then hurried over, then intermitted, and at
last dropped; the devotional reading found to be daily more irksome,
because suffered to be daily more listless; the valuable moral and
spiritual discipline of the early morning chapel, gradually neglected;
the unobtrusive opportunities of witnessing for Christ by deeds of
kindness and words of wisdom suffered to slip by,--these, and such as
these, are the unfailing indications of spiritual decline; till disuse
is followed by paralysis, and paralysis ends in death; and you are
left without God in the world. And yet when again--you young men--when
again, in the years to come, can you hope that the conditions of your
life will be as favourable to this spiritual self-discipline as they
are now? Where else do you expect to find in the same degree the
opportunities for private meditation and retirement, the daily common
prayer and the frequent communions, the inspiring and sanctifying
friendships, the wholesome occupation for the mind and the healthy
recreations for the body, every appliance and every aid which, if you
will employ them aright, neither disusing them nor misusing them, will
combine to build up and to perfect the man of God? Choose ye, this
day. To you, more especially, I appeal who have recently commenced
your residence here, and to whom, therefore, with the changed
conditions of life a heightened ideal of life also is suggested. This
is the momentous alternative. Shall your life hereafter be typified by
the barren rocks and the monotonous waste, hard and dreary, if nothing
worse; or shall it be illumined within and around with the effulgence
of God's own presence, so that--
"The earth and every common sight
To you shall seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream"?
A dream? nay, not a dream, but an everlasting reality, eternal, as
God's own being is eternal.
There are two ways of looking on the relations between the things of
this life and the things of eternity. A false and a true. The false
way regards the one as the rejection of the other. They are
reciprocally exclusive. The avocations, the interests, the amusements
of daily life--nature and history, poetry and art--these are so many
hindrances to the heavenly life. Every moment given to work is a
moment subtracted from prayer--thus the inward life becomes a constant
reflection upon the conditions of the outward. This is the spirit
which of old peopled the desert with anchorites; the spirit which in
all ages, though under divers forms, has made a religion of
selfishness. This is the voice which cries, "Lo, here! and lo, there!"
though all the while the kingdom of heaven is within us, in the very
midst of us. The true conception is the reverse of all this. Its ideal
is not a separation, but an identification of the two. It takes its
stand on the old maxim _laborare est orare_. It strives that its
work shall be prayer, and its prayer shall be work. Nature and history
to it are not the veil of God's presence; they are the investiture of
God's glory. And, therefore, to it is vouchsafed the vision of grace,
and comfort, and strength, as to the patriarchs of old. The solitary
wanderer along the dreary thoroughfare of this life lays himself down.
He has nothing but the bare stones beneath for a couch, and nothing
but the midnight sky overhead for a tent. He closes his eyes for a
moment; and the whole place is flooded with glory. Ah! the Lord was in
this place, though he knew it not; but he knows it now--knows it in
the access of strength, knows it in the promise of hope, knows it in
the celestial voice and the ineffable light. All the common interests
of life--the associations, the amusements, the cares, the hopes, the
friendships, the conflicts--all are invested with a dignity and an awe
unsuspected before. Reverence is henceforth the ruling spirit of his
life. This monotonous round of commonplace toils and commonplace
pleasures is none other than the House of God. This barren, stony
thoroughfare of life is the very portal of heaven.
To read these hieroglyphics traced on nature, on history, on the human
soul--to decipher this handwriting of God wheresoever it appears, and
where does it not appear?--is the ultimate and final study of man. All
history is a parable of God's dealings; and we must learn the
interpretation of the parable. All nature is a sacrament of God's
being and attributes, and we must strive to pierce through the outward
sign to the inward meaning. To realize God's presence, to hear God's
voice, to see God's visage,--let this be henceforth the aim and the
discipline of our lives. So at length we shall pass from Bethel to
Peniel--from the palace courts to the presence chamber itself. We
shall see God face to face. It is a vision of power, of majesty, of
awe unspeakable; but it is a vision also of purification, of light, of
strength, of life. The blessing is won at length by that long lonely
wrestling under the midnight sky. The fraud, the worldliness, the
self-seeking is thrown off like a slough. All is changed. Old things
have passed away. The supplanted rises from the struggle, the
supplanter rises no more, but the Israel, the Prince, who has power
with God and with men. Shall not Moses' prayer then be our prayer,
"Lord, I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory"?
"Show me Thy glory." Where else shall this glory reveal itself if not
in the studies of this place? These properties of numbers, these
selections of space, these phenomena of light, of heat, of energy, of
life, of language, of thought, what are they? Individual facts to be
recorded, arranged, tabulated, marshalled under several heads, which
we call laws, and having so called them, with a strange
self-complacency and contentment fold our hands, as if nothing more
were to be done, as if by the mere imposition of a name we had
crowned them absolute sovereigns of the Universe? Or are they
manifestations--partial, indeed, and needing to be supplemented--of a
power, a majesty, a wisdom, an order, a beneficence, a finality, a
oneness, a One, who is shown to us as the Eternal Father in the
revelation of the Eternal Son? Can we afford to look down from the
serene heights of modern science and culture on the untutored Indian,
who saw God's face in the shifting clouds, and heard God's voice in
the whistling winds? Nay, was there not a truth in this childish
ignorance which threatens to elude the grasp of our manhood's wisdom?
Was it altogether a baseless dream in those stoic Pantheists, who
endowed each several planet with an animating spirit of its own?
altogether a wild fancy in those Christian fathers assigning to each
its particular angel, who should whirl it through space and hold it in
its course? Was it not rather a Divine instinct feeling after a higher
truth? Human life cannot rest satisfied with the science of phenomena
alone. It needs to supplement science with poetry. And the true, the
absolute, the final poetry is the recognition of God the Creator and
Governor, of God the all-wise and all-powerful, of God the Father, the
Redeemer, the Sanctifier, of God the eternal love. "Blessed are they
who have eyes to see,"--thus to them
"The meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."
Thoughts of immortality, of wisdom, of light, of love.
"Show me Thy Glory," where else again shall His glory be seen, if not
in those friendships which are the crowning gift of University life?
This intimate communion of soul with soul, this linking of heart with
heart, is it merely a matter of human convenience, of human
preference, or has it a Divine side also? This love, this devotion,
this reliance of the weak on the strong, this reverence for a nature
purer, nobler, more upright, more manly, more unselfish than your
own--what is its meaning? It is a precious, unspeakably precious, gift
of God, you will say--far beyond wealth, or fame, or popularity, or
ease, or any earthly boon of which you can conceive. Yes, but it is
more than this. May we not call it in some sense a sacrament, a sign
and a parable of your relation to your Lord? You are awed--no other
word will express this feeling--you are awed with the honour done to
you by this friendship. You do not talk much about it--it is too
sacred a thing--but you do feel it. You confess to yourself day and
night your own unworthiness. And yet, though you strive to be worthy,
you would not wish to feel worthy. The very sense of undeservedness
invests the gift with a bountifulness and a glory which you would not
forego. The fountains of your thanksgiving would cease to flow freely
if you claimed it as a right; and it is a joyful and a pleasant thing
to be thankful. Apply this experience to the infinitely higher gift of
Christ's friendship, of Christ's sacrifice. Herein lies the power of
the Cross--which men called and still call weakness--the power which
awes, inspires, energises, which elevates the heart and sanctifies the
life--herein this feeling of boundless thanksgiving arises from this
sense of absolute undeservedness. For is it not true, that those will
love most to whom most is given and forgiven? So then this your
friendship is found to be none other than the House of God. The Lord
is in this place, and happy are ye if ye know it.
Once again; look into your own soul, and what do you find there? Yes,
ye yourselves are the temple of the living God. He is there--there,
whether you will or not. Through your reason, through your conscience,
through your remorses and regrets, through your capacity of amendment,
through your aspirations and ideals, He speaks to you. You are His
coinage. His image and superscription are stamped upon you. Aye, and
He has also re-stamped you, re-created you, in Christ Jesus by the
earnest of His Spirit. If it be true of your body that it is fearfully
and wonderfully made, is it not far more true of your soul?
Henceforward you will regard yourself with awe and reverence, as a
sanctuary of the eternal goodness. You will not, you dare not, profane
this sanctuary. Here is the true self-respect--nay, not self-respect,
for self is abased, self is overawed, self veils the face and falls
prostrate in the presence of Infinite Wisdom, and Purity, and Love
thus revealed. Surely, surely the Lord was in this place--in this
poor, self-seeking, restless, rebellious soul of mine, and _I_, I
thought it a common thing, I went on my way heedless, I followed my
own devices and desires, I knew it not.
In conclusion, I have been asked to plead before you to-day a cause
which it should not require many words of mine to enforce. The
Barnwell and Chesterton Clergy Fund appeals to you year by year for
aid. Of all claims this (I say it advisedly) should be a first charge
on the liberality of members of the University. These populous and
growing suburbs are created by your needs. They are chiefly peopled by
college servants and others for whom you are responsible. Zealous
clergy are willing to work for the work's sake in these districts
commonly for stipends which no one could call remunerative--sometimes
for no stipends at all. And yet it is still the same old story which I
remember years ago. There is still the same difficulty in meeting
current expenses; still the same fear lest the spiritual machinery
should be impaired for lack of funds; still the same precarious
hand-to-mouth existence, of which we heard complaint in years past. Is
it quite creditable that matters should go on thus? In a thousand ways
you all, some directly, some indirectly, you all are reaping,
materially, intellectually, or spiritually the fruits gathered from
the liberality of past ages? Will you not make an adequate return?
Steady, continuous subscriptions are needed. A liberal response to
this day's appeal is needed. The Fund is largely dependent on the
proceeds of the University Sermon. Not less than a hundred pounds will
suffice to meet all requirements. Will you not give it this day,
either in this church, or in contributions sent afterwards to the
treasurer? Think not that you hear only the poor words of the preacher
in this appeal. Christ Himself pleads with you. Christ's own words
ring in your ears, "Ye did it, ye did it not, to _Me_." Ah, yes,
the Lord was in this place--in this weary pleading of the preacher, in
these trite commonplaces of spiritual need: and _we_, we knew it
not. God grant that you may know it in time. God forbid that He should
ever say to you, "I knew you not."
THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN HEAVEN'S PATHWAY.[3]
"When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying,
Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord."--LUKE v. 8.
To those who search the Scriptures, not because in them they think
they have eternal life, but because in them they trust to find
historical difficulties, this account of St. Peter's call has seemed
to reward their search. The narrative indeed, is simple and
inartificial in itself; the incidents follow in a natural order; the
traits of character are wonderfully realistic and lifelike. There is
confessedly an air of truthfulness about the whole story; but
how--how, it is asked--can this account be reconciled with the
narrative given in St. John's Gospel? There we have a wholly different
story of St. Peter's call. His brother Andrew is a scholar of the
Baptist. The Baptist points out Jesus to Andrew and to a
fellow-disciple. They follow Jesus; they are accepted by Him; they
lodge that day with Him; they are convinced that He is the Christ.
Andrew takes his brother Simon to Jesus; Jesus receives him. "Thou art
Simon, the son of Jona. Thou shalt be called Cephas." This account
also is perfectly plain, but how can the two be harmonised? "Have we
not here," it is said, "two irreconcilable narratives--in fact, two
distinct legends of the call of St. Peter?"
I have more than once remarked that the apparent moral contradictions
of the Bible are often its most valuable moral lessons. A similar
remark will apply to its apparent historical contradictions.
Underlying these is very frequently a subtle harmony, which eluded us
at our first hasty search. The two accounts are after all not
contradictory, but supplementary, the one to the other. So it is here.
Read St. Luke's narrative carefully, and it will be apparent that this
cannot have been the first meeting of St. Peter with our Lord. I say
nothing of the healing of his wife's mother, for, though this is
related earlier in St. Luke's Gospel, yet it is plain from the
narrative in the other evangelists that it is not related here in
chronological order.
But what are the facts? These fishermen have been toiling throughout
the night; their labour has been wholly unrewarded, though night is
the proper season for plying their craft; and now in the bright glare
of the morning sun--now when, after the ill-success of the night, it
would be perfect madness to expect a haul--now they are suddenly,
imperiously bidden to put out again into the deep sea, and to let down
their nets. And the command is obeyed. There is the lurking misgiving,
there is the tacit remonstrance; but there is prompt obedience
notwithstanding. "Master, we have toiled all the night; nevertheless,
at Thy word I will let down the net." "_At Thy word._" Who is
this, that this most unreasonable demand meets with such ready
acquiescence? Is it possible that He can have been a mere passing
stranger, or a mere casual acquaintance? How could His advice have
been entertained for a moment when He told an experienced fisherman to
do what a fisherman knew to be utterly foolish and futile? The
narrative itself, I say, implies some previous knowledge of our Lord
on St. Peter's part. He would never have acted as he is represented
here as acting unless he had believed, or, at least, had suspected,
that there was a more than human power and intelligence in our Lord.
In short, the narrative of St. Luke presupposes the narrative of St.
John. Jesus speaks to Peter now as one who has a right to command. The
incident in St. John gives the personal call of Peter; the incident in
St. Luke gives his official call. On the one occasion he is
represented as a disciple and a follower; on the other occasion he is
declared an apostle and a teacher. "From henceforth thou shalt catch
men."
But I did not select this text with any special purpose of discussing
historical difficulties. Such discussions, indeed, are necessary when
they are forced upon us, but they only distract the mind from the
moral and spiritual lessons of the Scripture. Nor, I think, is the
lesson in the text difficult to extricate. All history teaches by
example, and the Scriptural narrative is the intensification of
history. The miracles of our Lord are not miracles only. They are most
frequently acted parables also. And have we not here a parable of the
most intense pathos and of the widest application?
"Master, we have toiled all the night, and we have taken nothing."
What is this but a true, painfully true, image of the efforts, the
struggles, the futilities, the despairs of humanity; not in isolated
cases, here and there only, of disappointed hopes and unrealised aim,
but with thousands of men and women who are born into this world, and
live and labour, and suffer and die, without securing any substantial
and enduring good, simply because they have lived and died apart from
God, who alone survives the decay of time, and alone can give
satisfaction to the immortal spirit of man?
"We have toiled all the night." Yes; we see it now--now when the
morning light of eternity has burst upon our aching eyeballs. We have
toiled all the night. There was darkness above and around us; there
was toil of hands and toil of heart; there was the struggle for
subsistence; there was the race after wealth and honour; there was the
eager pursuit of phantom goods. We had our pleasures and we had our
pains. We had our failures and we had our successes. Yes, our splendid
successes as men counted them--as we were half tempted to count them
ourselves. But we have taken nothing. Our successes are as our
failures; our pains are as our pleasures, now. In the all-absorbing
abyss of time we have taken nothing, absolutely nothing--nothing which
can escape the jaws of the grave, nothing which will pass the portals
of death. We stand alone, stripped of everything, alone with God,
alone with eternity.
You pursued wealth, and you pursued it not in vain; you determined
that your career should be a success, and a success you made it. You
surrounded yourself with every material comfort; you added to these
substantial appliances all the embellishments and all the refinements
of life. What then? Did they give you the satisfaction you hoped for?
Could you feel that there was any finality in such aims and
acquisitions as these? No. The hope was better after all than the
realisation; the prospect was brighter than the attainment. You were
restless, discontented, craving still. There was a hunger of soul,
though you would not confess it--a hunger of soul, which rejected and
loathed these husks. And now where are they, and what are they? Or you
pursued honour and fame, and men lavishly bestowed upon you that which
you so eagerly sought, till you seemed at length to have all, and more
than all, that you had set your heart upon. But still there was no
contentment, because there was no finality. Dropsy-like your craving
only grew with the gratification. Each fresh draught of applause
created a fresh thirst. Every imagined slight, every unintentional
neglect, every trivial rebuff, was a keen agony to you. You had only
increased your sensitiveness; you had not secured your satisfaction.
Or, again, you had set your heart on human love, God's greatest boon
if you use it without misusing it, if you subordinate it to his Divine
love. Your human affections, your human friendships, were everything
to you. In the buoyant hopefulness of youth, in the solid security of
middle age, it seemed as though these must last for ever. But soon
enough the painful truth dawned upon you. The march of life began to
tell on your comrades in the journey. One dropped at your side, and
then another. The ranks were visibly thinning, and there was no one to
step in and take the vacant places. First the mother at whose knees
you had lisped your earliest faltering prayer; then the friend who
shared all your counsels, who was more than a brother to you; then the
wife whom you cherished as another self; then the little daughter
whose innocent childish talk had solaced you in many a grievous hour:
so, one by one, they fell away, and you are left gradually alone and
more alone; they leave you when you need them most, and at length in
the vacancy of your solitude you make the bitter discovery that though
you have toiled all night you have taken nothing--you have taken
nothing at all.
A short time ago we laid in the vaults of this cathedral the last
mortal remains of one[4] who has achieved for himself a foremost place
among the masters of his art in our own age. It was fit that his bones
should lie here, side by side with more than one famous brother
sculptor who has gone before him--side by side with the most
illustrious names in the sister art of painting; with Reynolds, whose
easy grace in the delineation of human portraiture stands quite
without a rival; with Turner, who has succeeded as no other painter
has succeeded, in any age or country, in reproducing on canvas the
subtle play of light and shade, the ever-varying aspect, the depth,
the infinity, of external nature; with Landseer, too, our most recent
guest in this our artists' resting-place, whose genial and vigorous
representations of the lower animal life have invested it with almost
a human interest, and, so doing, have taught us many a suggestive
lesson of humanity and kindliness. Side by side, too, with England's
greatest architects, and Wren, their prince, whose genius needs no
word of eulogy here, for his monument is above and around us. Such a
place of sepulture well befitted such a man. It is our tribute of
respect for noble gifts nobly used. It is our expression of
thanksgiving to God, who thus endows His servants that they may employ
their endowments to exalt and to embellish human life.
But one thought cannot fail to strike us here. We may remember that
the great conqueror of modern time, when it was suggested to him to
perpetuate some signal incident in his triumphant career by an
historical picture, asked how long the work would last. He was told
two or three centuries--perhaps, under favourable circumstances, five
centuries. This would not satisfy his devouring ambition. This was not
the immortality of fame which he had designed for himself. He must
have a more enduring memorial than this. Compared with the canvas of
the painter, the marble of the sculptor is long-lived indeed. The most
enduring of human works are the works of the sculptor's chisel. The
stern granite features of the Pharaoh who befriended Joseph and the
Pharaoh who persecuted Israel may still look down on the land which
they ruled with an iron rule between three and four thousand years
ago. The winged lions and winged bulls on which the contemporaries of
Shalmanezer and Sennacherib may have gazed in awe, in the royal
palaces of Assyria, still confront us in our national museum with the
same weird look, unchanged though all else has changed, surviving
still, though a hundred generations of men have been born, and lived,
and died, meanwhile. And it may be that in the centuries to come, some
curious explorer will exhume, from the grass-grown mounds of this
ruined city, a work of art bearing the name of him whom on Friday last
we bore to an honoured resting-place--perhaps the effigy of a prince
who flourished in a remote epoch of the past, when England was still a
nation, and who sank into an untimely grave amidst a people's
mourning. And thus the sculptor's fame will have a second lease of
life.
But after all, thirty centuries are but as three--are but as three
years or three days--compared with eternity. Napoleon's ambition was a
perverted instinct, but it was an instinct, nevertheless. Man feels
that he was not made to die; he will not consent to die. This thirst
for enduring fame, what is it but an echo, a mocking echo, of an
eternal verity? Yes, he will live. The materialist may tell him that,
when the eye and the ear are dissolved into gases and decomposed into
dust, it matters nothing to him with what honours men may adorn his
memory, with what praises they may celebrate his name. He, too--his
personality, or what he was pleased to call his personality--is
dissolved, is dissipated, is gone; but the materialist never yet has
been able, never will be able, to persuade mankind. The natural
instinct of man revolts against the assumption; and the ambition of
the Christian, the ambition for eternity alone, expresses truly this
general instinct of man. To labour for the good things of this world,
to labour for fame in the coming centuries, what is it, after all, if
our views are bounded by this narrow horizon? Why, then, like the
disappointed fishermen of the Galilean lake, we have toiled all the
night long, and, for our pains, we have taken nothing.
And this change--this conversion, if you will--comes sometimes, it may
be, despite ourselves, but comes--remember this--comes most often in
answer to some act of obedience, to some surrender of self-will on our
part. We may complain; we may demur; we may distrust. We have toiled
all the night, and have taken nothing; but we recognise the
authority of the Divine voice, and we force ourselves into
compliance--"nevertheless, at Thy word." The command is general: it
has come to all alike,--"Let ye down your nets." But, like Peter, we
specialise it, we adopt it, we appropriate it to ourselves: "I will
let down the net." And so we do what seems hard and unreasonable; we
do what we have never done before.
And the response--the response to this obedience--is a light flashed
in upon our soul, a double revelation, a revelation of mixed pleasure
and pain, for it is a revelation at once of the sin within and of God
without. The marvellous bounty of God's grace dazzles and astounds our
vision, and, in our perplexity of heart, the despairing, craving,
forbidding, yearning cry is wrung from our lips, "Depart from me!
Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man!"
"Depart from me, O Lord." I know it all now. I see my sin, because I
see Thy goodness. Yes, I have beheld Thy holiness, Thy purity, Thy
truth, Thy grace, Thy love, and I have been stunned with the contrast
to self. The brightness of the light has intensified the blackness of
the shade. Depart from me, O Lord! what can I have in common with
Thee?--I, so selfish, so vile, so sin-laden, with Thee, so merciful,
so righteous, so holy. In very deed, Thy ways are not as my ways, and
Thy thoughts are not as my thoughts. Depart from me, O Lord! This
"fear of the Lord" is, indeed, the "beginning of wisdom." This
consciousness of sin is the true pathway to heaven. The saintliest of
men have ever felt and spoken most strongly of their own sinfulness.
The intensity of their language has provoked the sneer of the
worldling--has been an evidence here of their own conviction that,
despite their pretensions to holiness, they are no better than he,
perhaps somewhat worse. But they know, and he doth not know, what sin
means and what God means, and so the despairing cry is wrung from
their agony, "Depart from me, O Lord."
"Depart from me, O Lord! And yet not so, Lord." Even while Peter is
speaking his gestures belie his words. His lips implore Jesus
despairingly to depart, but his eyes and his hands entreat Him
passionately to stay. "Not so, Lord, for how can I endure to part with
Thee? In Thy presence is hope, is light, is joy. Lord, to whom shall
we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. Depart from me? No; it is
for the godless to say, 'Depart from us, for we desire not the
knowledge of God.' It is for the unclean spirits to rave against
Thee--'Let us alone, Thou Jesus of Nazareth! What have we to do with
Thee?' But I, I have everything to do with Thee. I am created in the
image of God. I have a ray of the Divine light, a seed of the Divine
word, within me. And like seeks like; therefore I yearn after Thee,
therefore I am drawn towards Thee, therefore I stretch out my hands to
Thee over the wide chasm of sin which yawns between us. Depart from
me? Nay, rather abide with me. Teach me, absolve me, purify me,
strengthen me. Take me to Thyself, that I may be Thine and Thine only.
Abide with me, for the day of this life is far spent, and the night
cometh when no man can work. Stay with me now and evermore, and so
fulfil Thy gracious promise: 'If a man love Me and will keep My word,
My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode
with him.'"
THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL AN ARGUMENT IN FAVOUR OF CHRISTIANITY.[5]
"They are Thy people and Thine inheritance."--DEUT. ix. 29.
It is related of a certain royal chaplain that, being asked often by
his sovereign to give a concise and convincing argument in favour of
Christianity, he replied in two words--"The Jews." It is this subject
which I offer for your consideration this afternoon--the history and
character of the Israelite race as a witness to Christianity. The
subject is certainly not inappropriate at this season, when the
commemoration of the great Pentecostal Day is fast approaching, to
which all the previous history of the nation had tended, which
substituted the dispensation of the Spirit for the dispensation of the
Law, and expanded the religion of a tribe into the religion of
mankind. It is, moreover, forced upon our notice by that remarkable
chapter in Deuteronomy which we have heard this afternoon, and which,
by prophetic insight, brings out with singular distinctness the
prominent character and subsequent career of the race. Only reflect
upon such expressions as these:--"Go in to possess nations greater and
mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven";
"Understand, therefore, this day that the Lord thy God is He which
goeth over before thee"; "The Lord thy God giveth thee not this good
land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked
people"; "Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I
knew you."
Read these passages in the full light which thirty centuries of the
nation's history have thrown upon them. Study this contrast between
their character and their achievements as it unfolds itself in all
their subsequent history. Consider, on the one hand, not only the
first conquest of Canaan to which the words more immediately refer,
but the succession of far more brilliant victories over the great
nations of the world, culminating in that most magnificent triumph of
all--the triumph of Christianity. Consider, on the other hand, not
only those early murmurings and idolatries in the wilderness to which
the language more directly points, but that long catalogue of
rebellions of which the subsequent history of Israel is made up, and
which reached its climax in the martyrdom of the Lord of Life. Set
these one against the other, and you will confess that the utterances
of Deuteronomy are wonderful anticipations of the future, succinct
epitomes of centuries yet to come. You may question, if you will,
every single prophecy in the Old Testament, but the whole history of
the Jews is one continuous prophecy, more distinct and articulate than
all. You may deny if you will every successive miracle which is
recorded therein, but again the history of the Jews is, from first to
last, one stupendous miracle, more wonderful and convincing than all.
_Here_ you have a small, insignificant people--stiff-necked,
rebellious, worthless; _there_ you have the most magnificent
spiritual achievements--the most signal moral victories. What
conclusion can you draw, except that which is drawn for you in the
words which I have read: "The Lord thy God is He that goeth before
you"?--"They are Thy people and Thine inheritance, which Thou
broughtest out by Thy mighty power and Thy stretched out arm."