knowledge of humanity, if it was proved that this book, in its original
shape, was not written by a great king, and most probably by Solomon
himself. The book gains by that fact, not only in its reality and
truthfulness, but in its value and importance as a lesson of human life.
Especially does this text gain; for it has a natural and deep connection
with Solomon and his times.
The former days were better than his days: he could not help seeing that
they were. He must have feared lest the generation which was springing
up should inquire into the reason thereof, in a tone which would
breed—which actually did breed—discontent and revolution.
But the fact seemed at first sight patent. The old heroic days of Samuel
and David were past. The Jewish race no longer produced such men as Saul
and Jonathan, as Joab and Abner. A generation of great men, whose names
are immortal, had died out, and a generation of inferior men, of whom
hardly one name has come down to us, had succeeded them. The nation had
lost its primæval freedom, and the courage and loyalty which freedom
gives. It had become rich, and enervated by luxury and ease. Solomon
had civilised the Jewish kingdom, till it had become one of the greatest
nations of the East; but it had become also, like the other nations of
the East, a vast and gaudy despotism, hollow and rotten to the core;
ready to fall to pieces at Solomon’s death, by selfishness, disloyalty,
and civil war. Therefore it was that Solomon hated all his labour that
he had wrought under the sun; for all was vanity and vexation of spirit.
Such were the facts. And yet it was not wise to look at them too
closely; not wise to inquire why the former times were better than those.
So it was. Let it alone. Pry not too curiously into the past, or into
the future: but do the duty which lies nearest to thee. Fear God and
keep His commandments. For that is the whole duty of man.
Thus does Solomon lament over the certain decay of the Jewish Empire.
And his words, however sad, are indeed eternal and inspired. For they
have proved true, and will prove true to the end, of every despotism of
the East, or empire formed on Eastern principles; of the old Persian
Empire, of the Roman, of the Byzantine, of those of Hairoun Alraschid and
of Aurungzebe, of those Turkish and Chinese-Tartar empires whose dominion
is decaying before our very eyes. Of all these the wise man’s words are
true. They are vanity and vexation of spirit. That which is crooked
cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
The thing which has been is that which shall be, and there is no new
thing under the sun. Incapacity of progress; the same outward
civilization repeating itself again and again; the same intrinsic
certainty of decay and death;—these are the marks of all empire, which is
not founded on that foundation which is laid, even Jesus Christ.
But of Christian nations these words are not true. They pronounce the
doom of the old world: but the new world has no part in them, unless it
copies the sins and follies of the old.
It is not true of Christian nations that the thing which has been is that
which shall be; and that there is no new thing under the sun. For over
them is the kingdom of Christ, the Saviour of all men, specially of them
which believe, the King of all the princes of the earth, who has always
asserted, and will for ever assert, His own overruling dominion. And in
them is the Spirit of God, which is the spirit of truth and
righteousness; of improvement, discovery, progress from darkness to
light, from folly to wisdom, from barbarism to justice, and mercy, and
the true civilization of the heart and spirit.
And, therefore, for us it is not only an act of prudence, but a duty; a
duty of faith in God; a duty of loyalty to Jesus Christ our Lord, not to
ask, Why the former times were better than these? For they were not
better than these. Every age has had its own special nobleness, its own
special use: but every age has been better than the age which went before
it; for the Spirit of God is leading the ages on, toward that whereof it
is written, ‘Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into
the heart of man to conceive, the things which God hath prepared for
those that love Him.’
Very unfaithful are we to the teaching of God’s Spirit; many and heavy
are our sins against light and knowledge, and means, and opportunities of
grace. But let us not add to those sins the sin (for such it is) of
inquiring why the former times were better than these.
For, first, the inquiry shows disbelief in our Lord’s own words, that all
dominion is given to Him in heaven and earth, and that He is with us
always, even to the end of the world. And next, it is a vain inquiry,
based on a mistake. When we look back longingly to any past age, we look
not at the reality, but at a sentimental and untrue picture of our own
imagination. When we look back longingly to the so-called ages of faith,
to the personal loyalty of the old Cavaliers; when we regret that there
are no more among us such giants in statesmanship and power as those who
brought Europe through the French Revolution; when we long that our lot
was cast in any age beside our own, we know not what we ask. The ages
which seem so beautiful afar off, would look to us, were we in them,
uglier than our own. If we long to be back in those so-called devout
ages of faith, we long for an age in which witches and heretics were
burned alive; if we long after the chivalrous loyalty of the old
Cavaliers, we long for an age in which stage-plays were represented, even
before a virtuous monarch like Charles I., which the lowest of our
playgoers would not now tolerate. When we long for anything that is
past, we long, it may be, for a little good which we seem to have lost;
but we long also for real and fearful evil, which, thanks be to God, we
have lost likewise. We are not, indeed, to fancy this age perfect, and
boast, like some, of the glorious nineteenth century. We are to keep our
eyes open to all its sins and defects, that we may amend them. And we
are to remember, in fear and trembling, that to us much is given, and of
us much is required. But we are to thank God that our lot is cast in an
age which, on the whole, is better than any age whatsoever that has gone
before it, and to do our best that the age which is coming may be better
even than this.
We are neither to regret the past, nor rest satisfied in the present;
but, like St. Paul, forgetting those things that are behind us, and
reaching onward to those things that are before us, press forward, each
and all, to the prize of our high calling in Jesus Christ.
And as with nations and empires, so with our own private lives. It is
not wise to ask why the former times were better than these. It is
natural, pardonable: but not wise; because we are so apt to mistake the
subject about which we ask, and when we say, ‘Why were the old times
better?’ merely to mean, ‘Why were the old times happier?’ That is not
the question. There is something higher than happiness, says a wise man.
There is blessedness; the blessedness of being good and doing good, of
being right and doing right. That blessedness we may have at all times;
we may be blest even in anxiety and in sadness; we may be blest, even as
the martyrs of old were blest—in agony and death. The times are to us
whatsoever our character makes them. And if we are better men than we
were in former times, then is the present better than the past, even
though it be less happy. And why should it not be better? Surely the
Spirit of God, the spirit of progress and improvement, is working in us,
the children of God, as well as in the great world around. Surely the
years ought to have made us better, more useful, more worthy. We may
have been disappointed in our lofty ideas of what ought to be done. But
we may have gained more clear and practical notions of what can be done.
We may have lost in enthusiasm, and yet gained in earnestness. We may
have lost in sensibility, yet gained in charity, activity, and power. We
may be able to do far less, and yet what we do may be far better done.
And our very griefs and disappointments—Have they been useless to us?
Surely not. We shall have gained, instead of lost, by them, if the
Spirit of God be working in us. Our sorrows will have wrought in us
patience, our patience experience of God’s sustaining grace, who promises
that as our day our strength shall be; and of God’s tender providence,
which tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and lays on none a burden
beyond what they are able to bear. And that experience will have worked
in us hope: hope that He who has led us thus far will lead us farther
still; that He who brought us through the trials of youth, will bring us
through the trials of age; that He who taught us in former days precious
lessons, not only by sore temptations, but most sacred joys, will teach
us in the days to come fresh lessons by temptations which we shall be
more able to endure; and by joys which, though unlike those of old times,
are no less sacred, no less sent as lessons to our souls, by Him from
whom all good gifts come.
We will believe this. And instead of inquiring why the former days were
better than these, we will trust that the coming days shall be better
than these, and those which are coming after them better still again,
because God is our Father, Christ our Saviour, the Holy Ghost our
Comforter and Guide. We will toil onward: because we know we are toiling
upward. We will live in hope, not in regret; because hope is the only
state of mind fit for a race for whom God has condescended to stoop, and
suffer, and die, and rise again. We will believe that we, and all we
love, whether in earth or heaven, are destined—if we be only true to
God’s Spirit—to rise, improve, progress for ever: and so we will claim
our share, and keep our place, in that vast ascending and improving scale
of being, which, as some dream—and surely not in vain—goes onward and
upward for ever throughout the universe of Him who wills that none should
perish.
SERMON XIII.
FAITH.
(_Preached before the Queen at Windsor_, _December_ 5, 1865)
HABAKKUK ii. 4.
The just shall live by his faith.
WE shall always find it most safe, as well as most reverent, to inquire
first the literal and exact meaning of a text; to see under what
circumstances it was written; what meaning it must have conveyed to those
who heard it; and so to judge what it must have meant in the mind of him
who spoke it. If we do so, we shall find that the simplest
interpretation of Scripture is generally the deepest; and the most
literal interpretation is also the most spiritual.
Let us examine the circumstances under which the prophet spake these
words.
It was on the eve of a Chaldean invasion. The heathen were coming into
Judea, as we see them still in the Assyrian sculptures—civilizing, after
their barbarous fashion, the nations round them—conquering, massacring,
transporting whole populations, building cities and temples by their
forced labour; and resistance or escape was impossible.
The prophet’s faith fails him a moment. What is this but a triumph of
evil? Is there a Divine Providence? Is there a just Ruler of the world?
And he breaks out into pathetic expostulation with God Himself:
‘Wherefore lookest Thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest
Thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than
he? And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things,
which have no ruler over them? They take up all of them with the line,
they gather them with the net. Therefore they sacrifice unto their net,
and burn incense to their line; for by it their portion is fat, and their
meat plenteous. Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare to
slay continually the nations?’
Then the Lord answers his doubts: ‘Behold, his soul which is lifted up is
not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.’
By his faith, plainly, in a just Ruler of the world,—in a God who avenges
wrong, and makes inquisition for innocent blood. He who will keep his
faith in that just God, will remain just himself. The sense of Justice
will be kept alive in him; and the just will live by his Faith.
The prophet believes that message; and a mighty change passes over his
spirit. In a burst of magnificent poetry, he proclaims woe to the unjust
Chaldean conqueror. All his greatness is a bubble which will burst; a
suicidal mistake, which will work out its own punishment, and make him a
taunt and a mockery to all nations round. ‘Woe to him who increaseth
that which is not his, and ladeth himself with thick clay! Woe to him
that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest
on high, and be delivered from the power of evil! Woe to him that
buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city with iniquity!
Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the people shall labour in
the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?’
There is a true civilization for man; but not according to the unjust and
cruel method of those Chaldeans. The Law of the true Civilization, the
prophet says, is this: ‘The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the
Lord, as the waters cover the sea.’
But what is this to us? Are we like the Chaldeans? God forbid. But are
we not tried by the same temptations to which they blindly yielded? A
nation, strong, rich, luxurious, prosperous in industry at home, and
aggressive (if not in theory, certainly in practice) to less civilized
races abroad—are we not tempted daily to that habit of mind which the
prophet calls—with that tremendous irony in which the Hebrew prophets
surpass all writers—looking on men as the fishes of the sea, as the
creeping things which have no ruler over them, born to devour each other,
and be caught and devoured in their turn, by a race more cunning than
themselves? There are those among us in thousands, thank God, who nobly
resist that temptation; and they are the very salt of the land, who keep
it from decay. But for the many—for the public—do not too many of them
believe that the law of human society is, after all, only that
internecine conflict of interests, that brute struggle for existence,
which naturalists tell us (and truly) is the law of life for mere plants
and animals? Are they not tempted to forget that men are not mere
animals and things, but persons; that they have a Ruler over them, even
God, who desires to educate them, to sanctify them, to develop their
every faculty, that they may be His children, and not merely our tools;
and do God’s work in the world, and not merely their employer’s work?
Are they not—are we not all—tempted too often to forget this?
And, then, are we not tempted, all of us, to fall down like the Chaldeans
and worship our own net, because by it our portion is fat, and our meat
plenteous? Are we not tempted to say within ourselves, ‘This present
system of things, with all its anomalies and its defects, still is the
right system, and the only system. It is the path pointed out by
Providence for man. It is of the Lord; for we are comfortable under it.
We grow rich under it; we keep rank and power under it: it suits us, pays
us. What better proof that it is the perfect system of things, which
cannot be amended?’
Meanwhile, we are sorry (for the English are a kind-hearted people) for
the victims of our luxury and our neglect. Sorry for the thousands whom
we let die every year by preventible diseases, because we are either too
busy or too comfortable to save their lives. Sorry for the savages whom
we exterminate, by no deliberate evil intent, but by the mere weight of
our heavy footstep. Sorry for the thousands who are used-up yearly in
certain trades, in ministering to our comfort, even to our very luxuries
and frivolities. Sorry for the Sheffield grinders, who go to work as to
certain death; who count how many years they have left, and say, ‘A short
life and a merry one. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.’
Sorry for the people whose lower jaws decay away in lucifer-match
factories. Sorry for all the miseries and wrongs which this Children’s
Employment Commission has revealed. Sorry for the diseases of artificial
flower-makers. Sorry for the boys working in glass-houses whole days and
nights on end without rest, ‘labouring in the very fire, and wearying
themselves with very vanity.’—Vanity, indeed, if after an amount of
gallant toil which nothing but the indomitable courage of an Englishman
could endure, they grow up animals and heathens. We are sorry for them
all—as the giant is for the worm on which he treads. Alas! poor worm.
But the giant must walk on. He is necessary to the universe, and the
worm is not. So we are sorry—for half an hour; and glad too (for we are
a kind-hearted people) to hear that charitable persons or the government
are going to do something towards alleviating these miseries. And then
we return, too many of us, each to his own ambition, or to his own
luxury, comforting ourselves with the thought, that we did not make the
world, and we are not responsible for it.
How shall we conquer this temptation to laziness, selfishness,
heartlessness? By faith in God, such as the prophet had. By faith in
God as the eternal enemy of evil, the eternal helper of those who try to
overcome evil with good; the eternal avenger of all the wrong which is
done on earth. By faith in God, as not only our Father, our Saviour, our
Redeemer, our Protector: but the Father, Saviour, Redeemer, Protector,
and if need be, Avenger, of every human being. By faith in God, which
believes that His infinite heart yearns over every human soul, even the
basest and the worst; that He wills that not one little one should
perish, but that all should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the
truth.
We must believe that, if we wish that it should be true of us, that the
just shall live by his faith. If we wish our faith to keep us just men,
leading just lives, we must believe that God is just, and that He shows
His justice by the only possible method—by doing justice, sooner or
later, for all who are unjustly used.
If we lose that faith, we shall be in danger—in more than danger—of
becoming unjust ourselves. As we fancy God to be, so shall we become
ourselves. If we believe that God cares little for mankind, we shall
care less and less for them ourselves. If we believe that God neglects
them, we shall neglect them likewise.
And then the sense of justice—justice for its own sake, justice as the
likeness and will of God—will die out in us, and our souls will surely
not live, but die.
For there will die out in our hearts, just the most noble and God-like
feelings which God has put into them. The instinct of chivalry; horror
of cruelty and injustice; pity for the weak and ill-used; the longing to
set right whatever is wrong; and, what is even more important, the Spirit
of godly fear, of wholesome terror of God’s wrath, which makes us say,
when we hear of any great and general sin among us, ‘If we do not do our
best to set this right, then God, who does not make men like creeping
things, will take the matter into His own hands, and punish us easy,
luxurious people, for allowing such things to be done.’
And when a man loses that spirit of chivalry, he loses his own soul. For
that spirit of chivalry, let worldlings say what they will, is the very
spirit of our spirit, the salt which keeps our characters from utter
decay—the very instinct which raises us above the selfishness of the
brute. Yea, it is the Spirit of God Himself. For what is the feeling of
horror at wrong, of pity for the wronged, of burning desire to set wrong
right, save the Spirit of the Father and the Son, the Spirit which
brought down the Lord Jesus out of the highest heaven, to stoop, to
serve, to suffer and to die, that He might seek and save that which was
lost?
Some say that the age of chivalry is past: that the spirit of romance is
dead. The age of chivalry is never past, as long as there is a wrong
left unredressed on earth, and a man or woman left to say, ‘I will
redress that wrong, or spend my life in the attempt.’
The age of chivalry is never past, as long as men have faith enough in
God to say, ‘God will help me to redress that wrong; or if not me, surely
he will help those that come after me. For His eternal will is, to
overcome evil with good.’
The spirit of romance will never die, as long as there is a man left to
see that the world might and can be better, happier, wiser, fairer in all
things, than it is now. The spirit of romance will never die, as long as
a man has faith in God to believe that the world will actually be better
and fairer than it is now; as long as men have faith, however weak, to
believe in the romance of all romances; in the wonder of all wonders; in
that, of which all poets’ dreams have been but childish hints, and dumb
forefeelings—even
‘That one far-off divine event
Towards which the whole creation moves;’
that wonder of which prophets and apostles have told, each according to
his light; that wonder which Habakkuk saw afar off, and foretold how that
the earth should be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters
cover the sea; that wonder which Isaiah saw afar off, and sang how the
Lord should judge among the nations, and rebuke among many people; and
they should beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into
pruning-hooks; nation should not rise against nation, neither should they
learn war any more; that wonder of which St Paul prophesied, and said
that Christ should reign till He had put all His enemies under His feet;
that wonder of which St. John prophesied; and said, ‘I saw the Holy City,
new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. And the nations of
them that are saved shall walk in the light of it, and the kings of the
earth bring their glory and their honour unto it;’ that wonder, finally,
which our Lord Himself bade us pray for, as for our daily bread, and say,
‘Father, thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
‘Thy will be done on earth.’ He who bade us ask that boon for
generations yet unborn, was very God of very God. Do you think that He
would have bidden us ask a blessing, which He knew would never come?
SERMON XIV.
THE GREAT COMMANDMENT.
MATT. xxii. 37, 32.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great
commandment.
SOME say, when they hear this,—It is a hard saying. Who can bear it?
Who can expect us to do as much as that? If we are asked to be
respectable and sober, to live and let live, not to harm our neighbours
wilfully or spitefully, and to come to church tolerably regularly—we
understand being asked to do that—it is fair. But to love the Lord our
God with all our hearts. That must be meant only for very great saints;
for a few exceedingly devout people here and there. And devout people
have been too apt to say,—You are right. It is we who are to love God
with all our hearts and souls, and give up the world, and marriage, and
all the joys of life, and turn priests, monks, and nuns, while you need
only be tolerably respectable, and attend to your religious duties from
time to time, while we will pray for you. But, my friends, if we read
our Bibles, we cannot allow that. ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,’
was spoken not to monks and nuns (for there were none in those days), not
to great saints only (for we read of none just then), not even to priests
and clergymen only. It was said to all the Jews, high and low, free and
slave, soldier and labourer, alike—‘Thou, a man living in the world, and
doing work in the world, with wife and family, farm and cattle, horse to
ride, and weapon to wear—thou shalt love the Lord thy God.’
And therefore these words are said to you and me. We English are neither
monks nor nuns, nor likely (thank God) to become so. We are in the
world, with our own family ties and duties, our own worldly business.
And to us, to you and me, as to those old Jews, the first and great
commandment is, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.’
What, then, does it mean? Does it mean that we are to have the same love
toward God as we have toward a wife or a husband?