Save me, O God, for the waters are come in even unto my soul: I am
come into deep waters; so that the floods run over me.--Ps. lxix. 1,
2.
I am brought into so great trouble and misery: that I go mourning all
the day long.--Ps. xxxviii. 6.
The sorrows of my heart are enlarged: Oh! bring Thou me out of my
distress.--Ps. xxv. 17.
The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping: the Lord will receive my
prayer.--Ps. vi. 8.
In the multitude of the sorrows which I had in my heart, Thy comforts
have refreshed my soul.--Ps. xciv. 17.
Each heart knows its own bitterness; each soul has its own sorrow; each
man's life has its dark days of storm and tempest, when all his joys seem
blown away by some sudden blast of ill-fortune, and the desire of his
eyes is taken from him, and all his hopes and plans, all which he
intended to do or to enjoy, are hid with blinding mist, so that he cannot
see his way before him, and knows not whither to go, or whither to flee
for help; when faith in God seems broken up for the moment, when he feels
no strength, no purpose, and knows not what to determine, what to do,
what to believe, what to care for; when the very earth seems reeling
under his feet, and the fountains of the abyss are broken up.
When that day comes, let him think of God's covenant and take heart. Is
the sun's warmth perished out of the sky because the storm is cold with
hail and bitter winds? Is God's love changed because we cannot feel it
in our trouble? Is the sun's light perished out of the sky because the
world is black with cloud and mist? Has God forgotten to give light to
suffering souls, because we cannot see our way for a few short days of
perplexity?
No. God's message to every sad and desolate heart on earth, is that God
is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all; that God is Love, and in Him
there is no cruelty at all; that God is One, and in Him there is no
change at all. And therefore we can pray boldly to Him, and ask Him to
deliver us in the time of our tribulation and misery; in the hour of
death, whether of our own death or the death of those we love; in the day
of judgment, whereof it is written--"It is God who justifieth us; who is
he that condemneth? It is Christ who died, yea, rather who is risen
again, who even now maketh intercession for us." To that boundless love
of God, which He showed forth in the life of Christ Jesus; to that
perfect and utter will to deliver us which God showed forth in the death
of Christ Jesus, when the Father spared not His own Son, but gave Him
freely for us; to that boundless love we may trust ourselves, our
fortunes, our families, our bodies, our souls, and the bodies and souls
of those we love.
_National Sermons_.
To all, sooner or later, Christ comes to baptise them with fire. But do
not think that the baptism of fire comes once for all to a man, in some
one terrible affliction, some one awful conviction of his own sinfulness
and nothingness. No; with many--and those perhaps the best people--it
goes on month after month, year after year. By secret trials,
chastenings, which none but they and God can understand, the Lord is
cleansing them from their secret faults, and making them to understand
wisdom secretly; burning out of them the chaff of self-will, and self-
conceit, and vanity, and leaving only the pure gold of righteousness. How
many sweet and holy souls, who look cheerful enough before the eyes of
man, yet have their secret sorrows. They carry their cross unseen all
day long, and lie down to sleep on it at night; and they will carry it
perhaps for years and years, and to their graves, and to the throne of
Christ before they lay it down; and none but they and Christ will ever
know what it was; what was the secret chastisement which God sent to make
that soul better which seemed to us already too good for earth. So does
the Lord watch His people, and tries them with fire, as the refiner of
silver sits by his furnaces watching the melted metal till he knows that
it is purged from all its dross by seeing the image of his own face
reflected on it.
_Town and Country Sermons_.
By sufferings was Christ made perfect; and what was the best path for
Jesus Christ is surely good enough for us, even though it be a rough and
thorny one. Let us lie still beneath God's hand; for though His hand be
heavy upon us, it is strong and safe beneath us too; and none can pluck
us out of His hand, for in Him we live and move and have our being. He
waits for us year after year, with patience which cannot tire; therefore,
let us wait awhile for Him. With Him is plenteous redemption, and
therefore redemption enough for us and for those likewise whom we love.
And though we go down into hell with David, with David we shall find God
there (Ps. cxxxix. 8; Ps. xvi. 10), and find that He does not leave our
souls in hell, nor suffer His holy ones to see corruption. Yes, have
faith in God. Nothing in thee which He has made shall see corruption;
for it is a thought of God's, and no thought of His can perish. Nothing
shall be purged out of thee, but thy disease; nothing shall be burnt out
of thee but thy dross; and that in thee of which God said in the
beginning, "Let us make man in our own image," shall be saved and live to
all eternity. Yes, have faith in God, and cry to Him out of the deep,
"Though Thou slay me, yet will I love Thee, for Thou lovedst me in Jesus
Christ before the foundation of the world."
_Sermons_--_Good News of God_.
Oh, sad hearts and suffering! Anxious and weary ones! Look to the cross
of Christ. 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, godlike, as joy itself. All
that man's fallen nature dreads and despises, God honoured on the cross,
and took unto Himself, and blest 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 sorrows, but for their sins; for Jesus mourned
for our sins, and on the cross 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, for on
the cross Jesus humbled Himself; and they shall be exalted. Blessed are
the forsaken and despised; did not all men forsake Jesus in His hour of
need? And why not thee, too, thou poor deserted one? Shall the disciple
be above his Master? No. Every one that is perfect must be as his
Master.
_National Sermons_.
Never let us get into the common trick of calling unbelief Resignation;
of asking, and then because we have not faith to believe, putting in a
"Thy will be done" at the end. Let us make God's will our will, and so
say, "Thy will be done." There is a false as well as a true and holy
resignation. When the sorrow is come or coming, or necessary apparently
for others' good, let us say with our Master in the Agony, "Not what we
will, but what Thou wilt!" But up to that point, let us pray boldly.
_Letters and Memories of Charles Kingsley_.
Christianity heightens as well as deepens the human as well as the divine
affections. I am happy; for the less hope, the more faith. God knows
what is best for us. I am sure we do not. Continual resignation, I
begin to find, is the secret of continual strength. "Daily dying," as
Boehmen interprets it, "is the path of daily living."
_Letters and Memories_.
In all the trials of life, there is still some way of escape to be found
if a man goes to the right place to look for it; and, if not of escape,
still of compensation. I speak of that which I know. Of my own comfort
I will not speak--of the path by which I attained it I will. It was
simply by not struggling, doing my work vigorously where God had put me,
and believing firmly that His promises had a real, not a mere
metaphorical meaning, and that Psalms x., xxvii., xxxiv., xxxvii., cvii.,
cxii., cxxiii., cxxvi., cxlvi., are as practically true for us as they
were for the Jews of old, and that it is the faithlessness of this day
which prevents men from accepting God's promises in their literal sense
with simple childlike faith.
_Letters and Memories_.
Do not fear the clouds and storm and rain; look at the bow in the cloud,
in the very rain itself. That is a sign that the sun, though you cannot
see it, is shining still--that up above, beyond the cloud, is still
sunlight and warmth and cloudless blue sky. Believe in God's covenant.
Believe that the sun will conquer the clouds, warmth will conquer cold,
calm will conquer storm, fair will conquer foul, light will conquer
darkness, joy will conquer sorrow, life conquer death, love conquer
destruction and the devouring floods; because God is light, God is love,
God is life, God is peace and joy eternal, God is without change, and
labours to give life and joy and peace to man and beast and all created
things. This was the meaning of the rainbow. It is a witness that God,
who made the world, is the friend and preserver of man; that His promises
are like the everlasting sunshine which is above the clouds, without spot
or fading, without variableness or shadow of turning.
_National Sermons_.
If I did not believe in a special Providence, in a perpetual education of
men by evil as well as good, by small things as well as great--if I did
not believe that--I could believe nothing.
_Letters and Memories_.
Let us be content; we do not know what is good for us, and God does.
It is true, and you will find it true (though God knows it is a difficult
lesson enough to learn) that there should be no greater comfort to
Christian people than to be made like Christ by suffering patiently not
only the hard work of every-day life, but sorrows, troubles, and
sicknesses, and all our heavenly Father's corrections, whensoever, by any
manner of adversity, it shall please His gracious goodness to visit them.
For Christ Himself went not up to joy, but first He suffered pain. He
entered not into His glory before He was crucified. Therefore those
words which we read in the Visitation of the Sick about this matter are
not mere kind words, meant to give comfort for the moment. They are
truth and fact and sound philosophy. They are as true for the young lad
in health and spirits as for the old folks crawling towards their graves.
It is true that sickness and all sorts of troubles are sent to correct
and amend in us whatsoever doth offend the eye of our heavenly Father. It
is true, and you will find it true, that whom the Lord loveth He
chasteneth.
_All Saints' Day Sermons_.
"That ye through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope,"
says St. Paul; and, again, "Let patience have her perfect work." But
where are we to get patience? God knows it is hard in such a world as
this for poor creatures to be always patient. But faith can breed
patience, though patience cannot breed itself; and faith in whom? Faith
in our Father in Heaven, even in Almighty God Himself. He calls Himself
the "God of Patience and Consolation." Pray for His Holy Spirit, and He
will make you patient; pray for His Holy Spirit, and He will console and
comfort you. He has promised that Spirit of His--the Comforter--the
Spirit of Love, Trust, and Patience--to as many as ask Him. Ask Him at
His Holy Table to make you patient; ask Him to change your wills into the
likeness of His will. Then will your eyes be opened; then will you see
in the Scriptures a sure promise of hope, and glory, and redemption for
yourself and all the world; then you will see in the blessed Sacrament of
the Lord's body and blood a sure sign and warrant, handed down from hand
to hand, from age to age, from year to year, from father to son, that His
promises shall be fulfilled--that patience shall have her perfect
work--that hope shall become a reality--that not one of the Lord's words
shall fail or pass away till all be fulfilled.
_National Sermons_.
God means some good to you by prostrating you--perhaps He means by giving
you blessings almost without your asking, to show you how little avails
morbid sensitiveness or self-tormenting struggles. Synthetical minds are
subject to this self-torture. Such a period in your life is the time to
become again a little child! I do not mean a re-regeneration, but a
permitting of the mind to assume that tone of calm wonder and infantile
trust, which will allow all the innate principles within--all
God-bestowed graces which have been bruised and bowed by the tempest, to
blossom gently upwards again, in "the clear shining after rain"--a
breathing time in life--not too much retrospection or
self-examination--keep that for the healthy and vigorous hours of the
mind--but a silent basking in the light of God's presence--a time for
faith, more than for labour; for general and unexpressed, more than for
particular or earnest prayer.
_Letters and Memories_.
Sorrow, though dreary, is not barren. Nothing need be barren to those
who view all things in their real light, as links in the great chain of
progression, both for themselves and for the universe. To us, all Time
should seem so full of life; every moment the grave and the father of
unnumbered events and designs in heaven and earth, revealing the mind of
our God Himself--all things moving smoothly and surely, in spite of
apparent checks and disappointments, towards the appointed End!
_Letters and Memories_.
In all the chances and changes of this mortal life, it is our one comfort
to believe firmly and actively in the changeless kingdom, and in the
changeless King. This alone will give us calm, patience, faith, and
hope, though the heavens and the earth be shaken around us. For so only
shall we see that the kingdom, of which we are citizens, is a kingdom of
light, and not of darkness; of truth, and not of falsehood; of freedom,
and not of slavery; of bounty and mercy, and not of wrath and fear; that
we live and move and have our being, not in a "Deus quidam deceptor," who
grudges His children wisdom, but in a Father of Light, from whom comes
every good and perfect gift; who willeth that all men should be saved,
and come to the knowledge of the truth. In His kingdom we are; and in
the King whom He has set over it we can have most perfect trust. For us
that King stooped from heaven to earth; for us He was born, for us He
toiled, for us He suffered, for us He died, for us He arose again, for us
He sits for ever at God's right hand. And can we not trust Him? Let Him
do what He will. Let Him lead us whither He will. Wheresoever He leads
must be the way of truth and life. Whatsoever He does, must be in
harmony with that infinite love which He displayed for us upon the Cross.
Whatsoever He does must be in harmony with that eternal purpose by which
He reveals to men God their Father. Therefore, though the heaven and the
earth be shaken around us, we will trust in Him; for we know that He is
the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
_National Sermons_.
If we believe that God is educating men, the when, the where, and the
how, are not only unimportant, but considering Who is the teacher,
unfathomable to us; and it is enough to be able to believe that the Lord
of all things is influencing us through all things.
_Essays_.
Provided we attain at last to the truly heroic and divine life, which is
the life of virtue, it will matter little to us by what strange and weary
ways, or through what painful and humiliating processes, we have arrived
thither. If God has loved us, if God will receive us, then let us submit
loyally and humbly to His law--"Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and
scourgeth every son whom He receiveth."
_All Saints' Day Sermons_.
I believe that the wisest plan of bearing sorrow is sometimes not to try
to bear it--as long as one is not crippled for one's every-day duties--but
to give way to sorrow, utterly and freely. Perhaps sorrow is sent that
we _may_ give way to it, and, in drinking the cup to the dregs, find some
medicine in it itself which we should not find if we began doctoring
ourselves, or letting others doctor us. If we say simply, "I am
wretched, I ought to be wretched;" then we shall perhaps hear a voice,
"Who made thee wretched but God? Then what can He mean but thy good?"
And if the heart answers impatiently, "My good? I don't want it, I want
my love!" perhaps the voice may answer, "Then thou shalt have both in
time."
_Letters and Memories_.
After all, the problem of life is not a difficult one, for it solves
itself--so very soon at best--by death. Do what is right, the best way
you can, and wait to the end to _know_. . . .
If, in spite of wars, and fevers, and accidents, and the strokes of
chance, this world be green and fair, what must the coming world be like?
Let us comfort ourselves as St. Paul did (in infinitely worse times),
that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared
with the glory that shall be revealed. It is not fair to quote one text
about the creation groaning and travailing without the other, that it
will not groan and travail long. Would the mother who has groaned and
travailed and brought forth children--would she give up those children
for the sake of not having had that pain? Then believe that the day will
come when the world, and every human being in it who has really groaned
and travailed, would not give up its past pangs for the sake of its then
present perfection, but will look back on this life, as the mother does
on past pain, with glory and joy.
_Letters and Memories_.
I write to you because every expression of human sympathy brings some
little comfort, if it be only to remind such as you that you are not
alone in the world. I know nothing can make up for such a loss as yours.
{26} But you will still have love on earth all round you; and _his_ love
is not dead. It lives still in the next world for you, and perhaps with
you. For why should not those who are gone, if they are gone to their
Lord, be actually nearer us, not further from us, in the heavenly world,
praying for us, and it may be, influencing and guiding us in a hundred
ways, of which we in our prison-house of mortality cannot dream?
Yes, do not be afraid to believe that he whom you have loved is still
near you, and you near him, and both of you near God, who died on the
Cross for you. That is all I can say. But what comfort there is in it,
if one can give up one's heart to believe it!
_Letters and Memories_.
. . . All that I can say about the text, Matt. xxii. 30 [of Marriage in
the world to come], is that it has nought to do with me and my wife. I
know that if immortality is to include in my case identity of person, I
shall feel for her for ever what I feel now. That feeling may be
developed in ways which I do not expect; it may have provided for it
forms of expression very different from any which are among the holiest
sacraments of life. Of that I take no care. The union I believe to be
eternal as my own soul, and I leave all in the hands of a good God.
Is not marriage the mere approximation to a unity that shall be perfect
in heaven? And shall we not be reunited in heaven by that still deeper
tie? Surely if on earth Christ the Lord has loved--some more than
others;--why should not we do the same in heaven, and yet love all?
Do I thus seem to undervalue earthly bliss? No! I enhance it when I make
it the sacrament of a higher union! Will not this thought give more
exquisite delight; will it not tear off the thorn from every rose; and
sweeten every nectar cup to perfect security of blessedness in this life,
to feel that there is more in store for us--that all expressions of love
here, are but dim shadows of a union which will be perfect if we but work
here, so as to work out our own salvation?
_Letters and Memories_.
That is an awful feeling of having the roots which connect one with the
last generation seemingly torn up, and having to say, "Now I am the root,
I stand self-supported, with no other older stature to rest on." {30} But
this one must believe that God is the God of Abraham, and that all live
to Him, and that we are no more isolated and self-supported than when we
were children on our mother's bosom.
_Letters and Memories_.
Believe that those who are gone are nearer us than ever; and that if, as
I surely believe, they do sorrow over the mishaps and misdeeds of those
whom they leave behind, they do not sorrow in vain. Their sympathy is a
further education for them, and a pledge, too, of help, and, I believe,
of final deliverance for those on whom they look down in love.
_Letters and Memories_.
"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; for they rest from their
labours, and their works do follow them."
They rest from their labours. All their struggles, disappointments,
failures, backslidings, which made them unhappy here, because they could
not perfectly do the will of God, are past and over for ever. But their
works follow them. The good which they did on earth--that is not past
and over. It cannot die. It lives and grows for ever, following on in
their path long after they are dead, and bearing fruit unto everlasting
life, not only in them, but in men whom they never saw, and in
generations yet unborn.
_Good News of God_--_Sermons_.
"A little while and ye shall not see me, and again a little while and ye
shall see me, because I go to the Father," said our Lord when speaking of
His own death to His sorrowing disciples. And if it be so with Christ,
then is it so with those who are Christ's, with those whom we love. They
are the partakers of His death, therefore they are the partakers of His
resurrection. Let us believe that blessed news in all its fulness, and
be at peace. A little while and we see them, and again a little while
and we do not see them. But why? Because they are gone to the Father--to
the source and fount of all life and power, all light and love, that they
may gain life from His life, power from His power, light from His light,
love from His love--and surely not for nought. Surely not for nought.
For, if they were like Christ on earth, and did not use their powers for
themselves alone, if they are to be like Christ when they shall see Him
as He is, the more surely will they not use their powers for themselves,
but as Christ uses His, for those they love? Surely, like Christ they
may come and go even now unseen. Like Christ they may breathe upon our
restless hearts and say, "Peace be unto you." And not in vain--for what
they did for us when they were yet on earth they can do more fully now
that they are in heaven.
They may seem to have left us, and we may weep and lament. But the day
will come when the veil shall be taken from our eyes and we shall see
them as they are--with Christ and in Christ for ever--and remember no
more our anguish, for joy that another human being has entered into that
one true, real, and eternal world, wherein is neither disease, disorder,
change, decay, nor death, for it is none other than the bosom of the
Father.
_All Saints-Day Sermons_.
And what if earthly love seems so delicious that all change in it would
seem a change for the worse, shall we repine? What does reason (and
faith, which is reason exercised on the invisible) require of us, but to
conclude that if there is change, there will be something better there?
_Letters and Memories_.
What is the true everlasting life--the life of God and Christ--but a life
of love, a life of perfect active, self-sacrificing goodness, which is
the one only true life for all rational beings, whether on earth or in
heaven--in heaven as well as on earth. Form your own notions as you will
about angels and saints in heaven, (for every one must have some notions
about them,) and try to picture to yourself what the souls of those whom
you have loved and lost are doing in the other world; but bear this in
mind, that if the saints in heaven live the everlasting life, they must
be living a life of usefulness, of love, and of good works.
There are those who believe what we are too apt to forget, and that is
that the everlasting life cannot be a selfish and idle life, spent only
in being happy oneself. They believe that the saints in heaven are not
idle--that they are eternally helping mankind, doing all sorts of good
offices for those souls who need them. I cannot see why they should not
be right. For if the saints' delight was to do good on earth, much more
will it be to do good in heaven. If they helped poor sufferers, if they
comforted the afflicted here on earth, much more will they be willing to
help and comfort them, now that they are in the full power, the full
freedom, the full love and zeal of the everlasting life. If their hearts
were warmed and softened by the fire of God's love here, how much more
there! If they lived God's life of love here, how much more there,
before the throne of God and the face of Christ!
And if any one shall say that the souls of good men in heaven cannot help
us who are here on earth, I answer--When did they ascend into heaven to
find out that? If they had ever been there, let us be sure they would
have had better news to bring home than this, that those whom we have
honoured and loved on earth have lost the power which they used once to
have of comforting us who are struggling below.
No, we will believe--what every one who loses a beloved friend comes
sooner or later to believe--that those whom we have honoured and loved,
though taken from our eyes, are near to our spirits; that they still
fight for us under the banner of their Master, Christ, and still work for
us by virtue of His life of love, which they live in Him and by Him for
ever.
Pray to them, indeed, we need not, as if they would help us out of any
self-will of their own. They do God's will, and not their own; and go on
God's errands, and not their own. If we pray to God our Father Himself,
that is enough for us. And what shall we pray? "Father, Thy will be
done on earth as it is in heaven."
_Good News of God_, _Sermons_.
Is not that one thought that our beloved ones sleep in Christ Jesus
enough? They sleep in Jesus, and therefore in infinite tenderness,
sympathy, care, and love. They sleep in Jesus; and He is the Life, and
therefore they sleep in Life. They sleep in Jesus; and He is the Light,
and therefore they sleep in Light. They sleep in Jesus; and He is Love,
and therefore they sleep in Love. And what better? This is better--that
they who sleep in Jesus must surely awaken. For, as it is written, His
is a quickening, awakening, life-giving Spirit, and so to sleep in Him is
to sleep in the very fount and core of life and power. If from Jesus all
our powers and talents come here on earth, surely He will give us more
and nobler, when we sleep in Him, and wake in Him to a risen and eternal
life. And more, it is written that them that sleep in Jesus will He
bring with Him. At the last day we shall see face to face those we
loved--and before that--oh! doubt it not. Oftentimes when Christ draws
near our spirits He comes not alone, but loving souls, souls whom we knew
in the flesh on earth, bear up His train, and hover near our hearts and
join their whispers to the voice and inspiration of Him who loved us, and
who will guide us with counsel here, and after that receive us into
glory, where we shall meet those beloved ones--not as our forefathers
dreamed, as meagre shadows flitting through dreary and formless chaos--but
as we knew them once--the body of the flesh alone put off, but the real
body, the spiritual body to which flesh and blood was but a husk and
shell, living and loving more fully, more utterly, than even before,
because it is in Christ who is the fount of life, and freed in Him for
ever from hell and death.
And if you wish for a sign that this is so, come to holy communion and
take the bread and wine as a sign that your bodies and theirs, your souls
and theirs, are fed from the same fount of everlasting life--the dead and
risen and ever living body of Christ Jesus, which He has given to be the
life of the world.
_MSS. Sermons_.
We know that afflictions do come--terrible bereavements, sorrows sad and
strange. There they are, God help us all. But from whom do they come?
Who is Lord of life and death? Who is Lord of joy and sorrow? Is not
that the question of all questions? And is not the answer the most
essential of all answers? It is the Holy Spirit of God; the Spirit who
proceedeth from the Father and the Son; the Spirit of the Father who so
loved the world, that He spared not His only begotten Son; the Spirit of
the Son who so loved the world that He stooped to die for it upon the
Cross; the Spirit who is the Comforter, and says, "I have seen thy ways
and will heal thee, I will lead thee also, and restore comforts to thee
and to thy mourners. I speak peace to him that is near and to him that
is afar off, saith the Lord; and I will heal him." Is not that the most
blessed news, that He who takes away, is the very same as He who gives?
That He who afflicts is the very same as He who comforts?
_All Saints-Day Sermons_.
Oh! blessed news, that God Himself is the Comforter. Blessed news, that
He who strikes will also heal; that He who gives the cup of sorrow will
also give the strength to drink it. Blessed news, that chastisement is
not punishment, but the education of a Father. Blessed news, that our
whole duty is the duty of a child--of the Son who said in His agony,
Father, not my will, but Thine be done. Blessed news, that our Comforter
is the Spirit who comforted Christ the Son Himself; who proceeds both
from the Father and the Son, and who will tell us that in Christ we are
really and literally the children of God, who may cry to Him in our
extreme need, "Father," with full understanding of all that that royal
word contains.
_All Saints-Day Sermons_.