punishment have any end but the good of the offender? Is God so
controlled that He must needs send into the world beings whom He knows to
be incorrigible, and doomed to endless misery? And if not so controlled,
then is not the other alternative as to His character more fearful still?
Does He not bid us copy Him, His justice, His love? Then is that His
justice, is that His love, which if we copied we should be unjust and
unloving utterly? Are there two moralities, one for God, and quite
another for man, made in the image of God? Can these dark dogmas be true
of a Father who bids us be perfect as He is, in that He sends His sun to
shine on the evil and the good, and His rain on the just and unjust? Or
of a Son who so loved the world that He died to save the world and surely
not in vain?’
These questions—be they right or wrong—educated men and women of all
classes and denominations—orthodox, be it remembered, as well as
unorthodox—are asking, and will ask more and more, till they receive an
answer. And if we of the clergy cannot give them an answer which accords
with their conscience and their reason; if we tell them that the words of
Scripture, and the integral doctrines of Christianity, demand the same
notions of moral retribution as were current in the days when men racked
criminals, burned heretics alive, and believed that every Mussulman whom
they slaughtered in a crusade went straight to endless torments,—then
evil times will come, both for the clergy and the Christian religion, for
many a yeas henceforth.
What then are we to believe? What are we to do, amid this shaking of the
earth and heaven? Are we to degenerate into a lazy and heartless
scepticism, which, under pretence of liberality and charity, believes
that everything is a little true, everything is a little false—in one
word, believes nothing at all? Or are we to degenerate into unmanly and
faithless wailings, crying out that the flood of infidelity is
irresistible, that the last days are come, and that Christ has deserted
His Church?
Not if we will believe the text. The text tells us of something which
cannot be moved, though all around it reel and crumble—of a firm
standing-ground, which would endure, though the heavens should pass away
as a scroll, and the earth should be removed, and cast into the midst of
the sea.
We have a kingdom, the Scripture says, which cannot be moved, even the
kingdom of Him whom it calls shortly after ‘Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday, to-day and for ever.’ An eternal and unchangeable kingdom,
ruled by an eternal and unchangeable King. That is what cannot be moved.
Scripture does not say that we have an unchangeable cosmogony, an
unchangeable theory of moral retribution, an unchangeable system of
dogmatic propositions. Whether we have, or have not, it is not of them
that Scripture reminds the Jews, when the heavens and the earth were
shaken; when their own nation and worship were in their death-agony, and
all the beliefs and practices of men were in a whirl of doubt and
confusion, of decay and birth side by side, such as the world had never
seen before. Not of them does it remind the Jews, but of the changeless
kingdom, and the changeless King.
My friends, lay it seriously to heart, once and for all. Do you believe
that you are subjects of that kingdom, and that Christ is the living,
ruling, guiding King thereof? Whatsoever Scripture does not say,
Scripture speaks of that, again and again, in the plainest terms. But do
you believe it? These are days in which the preacher ought to ask every
man whether he believes it, and bid him, of whatever else he repents of,
to repent, at least, of not having believed this primary doctrine (I may
almost say) of Scripture and of Christianity.
But if you do believe it, will it seem strange to you to believe this
also,—That, considering who Christ is, the co-eternal and co-equal Son of
God, He may be actually governing His kingdom; and if so, that He may
know better how to govern it than such poor worms as we? That if the
heavens and the earth be shaken, Christ Himself may be shaking them? if
opinions be changing, Christ Himself may be changing them? If new truths
and facts are being discovered, Christ Himself may be revealing them?
That if those truths seem to contradict the truths which He has already
taught us, they do not really contradict them, any more than those
reasserted in the sixteenth century? That if our God be a consuming
fire, He is now burning up (to use St. Paul’s parable) the chaff and
stubble which men have built on the one foundation of Christ, that, at
last, nought but the pure gold may remain? Is it not possible? Is it
not most probable, if we only believe that Christ is a real, living King,
an active, practical King,—who, with boundless wisdom and skill, love and
patience, is educating and guiding Christendom, and through Christendom
the whole human race?
If men would but believe that, how different would be their attitude
toward new facts, toward new opinions! They would receive them with
grace; gracefully, courteously, fairly, charitably, and with that
reverence and godly fear which the text tells us is the way to serve God
acceptably. They would say: ‘Christ (so the Scripture tells us) has been
educating man through Abraham, through Moses, through David, through the
Jewish prophets, through the Greeks, through the Romans; then through
Himself, as man as well as God; and after His ascension, through His
Apostles, especially through St. Paul, to an ever-increasing
understanding of God, and the universe, and themselves. And even after
their time He did not cease His education. Why should He? How could He,
who said of Himself, “All power is given to me in heaven and earth;” “Lo,
I am with you alway to the end of the world;” and again, “My Father
worketh hitherto, and I work?”
‘At the Reformation in the sixteenth century He called on our forefathers
to repent—that is, to change their minds—concerning opinions which had
been undoubted for more than a thousand years. Why should He not be
calling on us at this time likewise? And if any answer, that the
Reformation was only a return to the primitive faith of the Apostles—Why
should not this shaking of the hearts and minds of men issue in a still
further return, in a further correction of errors, a further sweeping
away of additions, which are not integral to the Christian creeds, but
which were left behind, through natural and necessary human frailty, by
our great Reformers? Wise they were,—good and great,—as giants on the
earth, while we are but as dwarfs; but, as the hackneyed proverb tells
us, the dwarf on the giant’s shoulders may see further than the giant
himself.’
Ah! that men would approach new truth in that spirit; in the spirit of
godly fear, which is inspired by the thought that we are in the kingdom
of God, and that the King thereof is Christ, both God and man, once
crucified for us, now living for us for ever! Ah! that they would thus
serve God, waiting, as servants before a lord, for the slightest sign
which might intimate his will! Then they would look at new truths with
caution; in that truly conservative spirit which is the duty of all
Christians, and the especial strength of the Englishman. With
caution,—lest in grasping eagerly after what is new, we throw away truth
which we have already: but with awe and reverence; for Christ may have
sent the new truth; and he who fights against it, may haply be found
fighting against God. And so would they indeed obey the Apostolic
injunction—Prove all things, hold fast that which is good,—that which is
pure, fair, noble, tending to the elevation of men; to the improvement of
knowledge, justice, mercy, well-being; to the extermination of ignorance,
cruelty, and vice. That, at least, must come from Christ, unless the
Pharisees were right when they said that evil spirits could be cast out
by Beelzebub, prince of the devils.
How much more Christian, reverent, faithful, as well as more prudent,
rational, and philosophical, would such a temper be than that which
condemns all changes _à priori_, at the first hearing, or rather, too
often, without any hearing at all, in rage and terror, like that of the
animal who at the same moment barks at, and runs away from, every unknown
object.
At least that temper of mind will give us calm; faith, patience, hope,
charity, though the heavens and the earth are shaken around us. For we
have received a kingdom which cannot be moved, and in the King thereof we
have the most perfect trust: for us He stooped to earth, was born, and
died on the cross; and can we not trust Him? Let Him do what He will;
let Him teach us what He will; let Him lead us whither He will. Wherever
He leads, we shall find pasture. Wherever He leads, must be the way of
truth, and we will follow, and say, as Socrates of old used to say, Let
us follow the Logos boldly, whithersoever it leadeth. If Socrates had
courage to say it, how much more should we, who know what he, good man,
knew not, that the Logos is not a mere argument, train of thought,
necessity of logic, but a Person—perfect God and perfect man, even Jesus
Christ, ‘the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever,’ who promised of old,
and therefore promises to us, and our children after us, to lead those
who trust Him into all truth.
SERMON VII.
THE BATTLE OF LIFE.
GALATIANS v. 16, 17.
I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of
the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit
against the flesh: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
A GREAT poet speaks of ‘Happiness, our being’s end and aim;’ and he has
been reproved for so doing. Men have said, and wisely, the end and aim
of our being is not happiness, but goodness. If goodness comes first,
then happiness may come after. But if not, something better than
happiness may come, even blessedness.
This it is, I believe, which our Lord may have meant when He said, ‘He
that saveth his life, or soul’ (for the two words in Scripture mean
exactly the same thing), ‘shall lose it. And he that loseth his life,
shall save it. For what is a man profited if he gain the whole world,
and lose his own life?’
How is this? It is a hard saying. Difficult to believe, on account of
the natural selfishness which lies deep in all of us. Difficult even to
understand in these days, when religion itself is selfish, and men learn
more and more to think that the end and aim of religion is not to make
them good while they live, but merely to save their souls after they die.
But whether it be hard to understand or not, we must understand it, if we
would be good men. And how to understand it, the Epistle for this day
will teach us.
‘Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.’ The
Spirit, which is the Spirit of God within our hearts and conscience,
says—Be good. The flesh, the animal, savage nature, which we all have in
common with the dumb animals, says—Be happy. Please yourself. Do what
you like. Eat and drink, for to-morrow you die.
But, happily for us, the Spirit lusts against the flesh. It draws us the
opposite way. It lifts us up, instead of dragging us down. It has
nobler aims, higher longings. It, as St. Paul puts it, will not let us
do the things that we would. It will not let us do just what we like,
and please ourselves. It often makes us unhappy just when we try to be
happy. It shames us, and cries in our hearts—You were not meant merely
to please yourselves, and be as the beasts which perish.
But how few listen to that voice of God’s Spirit within their hearts,
though it be just the noblest thing of which they will ever be aware on
earth!
How few listen to it, till the lusts of the flesh are worn out, and have
worn them out likewise, and made them reap the fruit which they have
sowed—sowing to the selfish flesh, and of the selfish flesh reaping
corruption.
The young man says—I will be happy and do what I like; and runs after
what he calls pleasure. The middle-aged man, grown more prudent, says—I
will be happy yet, and runs after money, comfort, fame and power. But
what do they gain? ‘The works of the flesh,’ the fruit of this selfish
lusting after mere earthly happiness, ‘are manifest, which are
these:’—not merely that open vice and immorality into which the young man
falls when he craves after mere animal pleasure, but ‘hatred, variance,
emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies’—_i.e._, factions in
Church or State—‘envyings, murders, and such like.’
Thus men put themselves under the law. Not under Moses’ law, of course,
but under some law or other.
For why has law been invented? Why is it needed, with all its expense?
Law is meant to prevent, if possible, men harming each other by their own
selfishness, by those lusts of the flesh which tempt every man to seek
his own happiness, careless of his neighbour’s happiness, interest,
morals; by all the passions which make men their own tormentors, and
which make the history of every nation too often a history of crime, and
folly, and faction, and war, sad and shameful to read; all those passions
of which St. Paul says once and for ever, that those who do such things
‘shall not inherit the kingdom of God.’
These are the sad consequences of giving way to the flesh, the selfish
animal nature within us: and most miserable would man be if that were all
he had to look to. Miserable, were there not a kingdom of God, into
which he could enter all day long, and be at peace; and a Spirit of God,
who would raise him up to the spiritual life of love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; and a
Son of God, the King of that kingdom, the Giver of that Spirit, who cries
for ever to every one of us—‘Come unto Me, ye that are weary and heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke on you, and learn of Me,
for I am meek and lowly of heart; and ye shall find rest unto your
souls.’
Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,
temperance; these are the fruits of the Spirit: the spirit of
unselfishness; the spirit of charity; the spirit of justice; the spirit
of purity; the Spirit of God. Against them there is no law. He who is
guided by this Spirit, and he only, may do what he would; for he will
wish to do nought but what is right. He is not under the law, but under
grace; and full of grace will he be in all his words and works. He has
entered into the kingdom of God, and is living therein as God’s subject,
obeying the royal law of liberty—‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself.’
‘The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh,
so that ye cannot do the things that ye would,’ says St. Paul.
My friends, this is the battle of life.
In every one of us, more or less, this battle is going on; a battle
between the flesh and the Spirit, between the animal nature and the
divine grace. In every one of us, I say, who is not like the heathen,
dead in trespasses and sins; in every one of us who has a conscience,
excusing or else accusing us. There are those—a very few, I hope—who are
sunk below that state; who have lost their sense of right and wrong; who
only care to fulfil the lusts of the flesh in pleasure, ease, and vanity.
There are those in whom the voice of conscience is lead for a while,
silenced by self-conceit; who say in their prosperity, like the foolish
Laodiceans, ‘I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of
nothing,’ and know not that in fact and reality, and in the sight of God,
they are ‘wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.’
Happy, happy for any and all of us,—if ever we fall into that dream of
pride and false security,—to be awakened again, however painful the
awakening may be! Happy for every man that the battle between the Spirit
and the flesh should begin in him again and again, as long as his flesh
is not subdued to his spirit. If he be wrong, the greatest blessing
which can happen to him is, that he should find himself in the wrong. If
he have been deceiving himself, the greatest blessing is, that God should
anoint his eyes that he may see—see himself as he is; see his own inbred
corruption; see the sin which doth so easily beset him, whatever it may
be. Whatever anguish of mind it may cost him, it is a light price to pay
for the inestimable treasure which true repentance and amendment brings;
the fine gold of solid self-knowledge, tried in the fire of bitter
experience; the white raiment of a pure and simple heart; the eye-salve
of honest self-condemnation and noble shame. If he have but these—and
these God will give him, in answer to prayer, the prayer of a broken and
a contrite heart—then he will be able to carry on the battle against the
corrupt flesh, with its affections and lusts, in hope. In the assured
hope of final victory. ‘For greater is He that is with us, than he that
is against us? He that is against us is our self, our selfish self; our
animal nature; and He that is with us is God; God and none other: and who
can pluck us out of His hand?
My friends, the bread and the wine on that table are God’s own sign to us
that He will not leave us to be, like the savage, the slaves of our own
animal natures; that He will feed not merely our bodies with animal, but
our souls with spiritual food; giving us strength to rise above our
selfish selves; and so subdue the flesh to the Spirit, that at last,
however long and weary the fight, however sore wounded and often worsted
we may be, we shall conquer in the battle of life.
SERMON VIII.
FREE GRACE.
(_Preached before the Queen at Windsor_, _March_ 12, 1865.)
ISAIAH lv. 1.
Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath
no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without
money and without price.
EVERY one who knows his Bible as he should, knows well this noble
chapter. It seems to be one of the separate poems or hymns of which the
Book of Isaiah is composed. It is certainly one of the most beautiful of
them, and also one of the deepest. So beautiful is it, that the good men
of old who translated the Bible into English, could not help catching the
spirit of the words as they went on with their work, and making the
chapter almost a hymn in English, as it is a hymn in Hebrew. Even the
very sound of the words, as we listen to them, is a song in itself; and
there is perhaps no more perfect piece of writing in the English
language, than the greater part of this chapter.
This may not seem a very important matter; and yet those good men of old
must have felt that there was something in this chapter which went home
especially to their hearts, and would go home to the hearts of us for
whose sake they translated it.
And those good men judged rightly. The care which they bestowed on
Isaiah’s words has not been in vain. The noble sound of the text has
caught many a man’s ears, in order that the noble meaning of the text
might touch his heart, and bring him back again to God, to seek Him while
He may be found, and call on Him while He is near; that so the wicked
might forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and return
to God, for He will have compassion, and to our God, for He will
abundantly pardon; and that he might find that God’s thoughts are not as
man’s thoughts, nor His ways as man’s ways, saith the Lord; for as the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways and thoughts higher
than ours.
Yes—I believe that the beauty of this chapter has made many a man listen
to it, who had perhaps never cared to listen to any good before; and
learn a precious lesson from it, which he could learn nowhere save in the
Bible.
For this text is one of those which have been called the Evangelical
Prophecies, in which the prophet rises far above Moses’ old law, and the
letter of it, which, as St. Paul says, is a letter which killeth; and the
spirit of it, which is a spirit which, as St. Paul says, gendereth to
bondage and slavish dread of God: an utterance in which the prophet sees
by faith the Lord Jesus Christ and His free grace revealed—dimly, of
course, and in a figure—but still revealed by the Spirit of God, who
spake by the prophets. As St. Paul says, Moses’ law made nothing
perfect, and therefore had to be disannulled for its unprofitableness and
weakness, and a better hope brought in, by which we draw near to God.
And here, in this text, we see the better hope coming in, and as it were
dawning upon men—the dawn of the Sun of Righteousness, Jesus Christ our
Lord, who was to rise afterwards, to be a light to lighten the Gentiles,
and the glory of His people Israel.
And what was this better hope? One, St. Paul says, by which we could
draw nigh to God; come near to Him; as to a Father, a Saviour, a
Comforter, a liege lord—not a tyrant who holds us against our will as his
slaves, but a liege lord who holds us with our will as His tenants, His
vassals, His liege men, as the good old English words were; one who will
take His vassals into His counsel, and inform them with His Spirit, and
teach them His mind, that they may do His will and copy His example, and
be treated by Him as His friends—in spite of the infinite difference of
rank between them and Him, which they must never forget.
But though the difference of rank be infinite and boundless—for it is the
difference between sinful man and God perfect for ever—yet still man can
now draw near to God. He is not commanded to stand afar off in fear and
trembling, as the old Jews were at Sinai. We have not come, says St.
Paul, to a mount which burned with fire, and blackness, and darkness, and
storm, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which those
who heard entreated that they should not be spoken to them any more: for
they could not endure that which was commanded: but we are come to the
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the Church of the
first-born which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and
to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the
new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling.
We are come to God, the Judge of all, and to Christ—not bidden to stand
afar off from them. That is the point to which I wish you to attend.
For this agrees with the words of the text, ‘Ho, every one that
thirsteth, come ye to the waters.’
This message it is, which made this chapter precious in the eyes of the
good men of old. This message it is, which has made it precious, in all
times, to thousands of troubled, hard-worked, weary, afflicted hearts.
This is what has made it precious to thousands who were wearied with the
burden of their sins, and longed to be made righteous and good; and knew
bitterly well that they could not make themselves good, but that God
alone could do that; and so longed to come to God, that they might be
made good: but did not know whether they might come or not; or whether,
if they came, God would receive them, and help them, and convert them.
This message it is, which has made the text an evangelical prophecy, to
be fulfilled only in Christ—a message which tells men of a God who says,
Come. Of a God whom Moses’ law, saying merely, ‘Thou shalt not,’ did not
reveal to us, divine and admirable as it was, and is, and ever will be.
Of a God whom natural religion, such as even the heathen, St. Paul says,
may gain from studying God’s works in this wonderful world around us—of a
God, I say, whom natural religion does not reveal to us, divine and
admirable as it is. But of a God who was revealed, step by step, to the
Psalmists and the Prophets, more and more clearly as the years went on;
of a God who was fully and utterly revealed, not merely by, but in Jesus
Christ our Lord, who was Himself that God, very God of very God begotten,
being the brightness of His Father’s glory, and the express image of His
person; whose message and call, from the first day of His ministry to His
glorious ascension, was, Come.
Come unto me, ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will refresh you.
Come unto Me, and take My yoke on you: for My yoke is easy, and My burden
is light.
I am the bread of life. He that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and he
that believeth in Me shall never thirst.
All that the Father hath given Me shall come unto Me. And he that cometh
to Me I will in no wise cast out.
Nay, the very words of this prophecy Christ took to Himself again and
again, speaking of Himself as the fountain of life, health and light;
when He stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come to Me,
and drink.
Come unto Me, that ye may have life, is the message of Jesus Christ, both
God and man. Come, that you may have forgiveness of your sins; come,
that you may have the Holy Spirit, by which you may sin no more, but live
the life of the Spirit, the everlasting life of goodness, by which the
spirits of just men, and angels, and archangels, live for ever before
God.
And what says St. Paul? See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh. For
if they escaped not, who refused Him that spake on earth, much more shall
not we escape, if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven.