home. I took its good things as thankfully as I could. I took its
sorrows and troubles as patiently as I could. But I have not set my
heart on the world. My treasure, my riches, were not of the world. My
peace was a peace which the world did not give, and could not take away.
And now the world is gone, I keep my peace, I keep my treasure still. My
peace is where it was, in my own heart. My peace is what it was: my
faith in God,—faith that my sins are forgiven me for Christ’s sake: my
faith that God my Father loves me, and cares for me; and that
nothing,—height or depth, or time or space, or life or death, can part me
from His love: my faith that I have not been quite useless in the world;
that I have tried to do my duty in my place; and that the good which I
have done, little as it has been, will not go forgotten by that merciful
God, by whose help it was done, who rewards all men according to the
works which He gives them heart to perform. And my treasure is where it
was—in my heart; and what it was,—the Holy Spirit of God, the spirit of
goodness, of faith and truth, of mercy and justice, of love to God and
love to man, which is everlasting life itself. That I have. That time
cannot abate, nor death abolish, nor the world, nor the destruction of
the world, nor of all worlds, can take away.
Choose, my friends, which of these two frames of mind would you rather be
in when the great day of the Lord comes, foretold by that earthquake, and
by all earthquakes that ever were.
Will you be then like those whom St. John saw calling on the mountains to
fall on them, and the hills to hide them from the wrath of Him that sat
on the throne, and from the anger of the Lamb?
Or will you be like him who saith—God is my hope and strength, my present
help in trouble. Therefore will I not fear, though the earth be shaken,
and though the mountains be carried into the depth of the sea?
SERMON XVI.
THE METEOR SHOWER.
(_Preached at the Chapel Royal_, _St. James’s_, _Nov._ 26, 1866.)
ST. MATTHEW x. 29, 30.
Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not
fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your
head are all numbered.
IT will be well for us to recollect, once for all, who spoke these words;
even Jesus Christ, who declared that He was one with God the Father;
Jesus Christ, whom His apostles declared to be the Creator of the
universe. If we believe this, as Christian men, it will be well for us
to take our Lord’s account of a universe which He Himself created; and to
believe that in the most minute occurrence of nature, there is a special
providence, by which not a sparrow falls to the ground without our
Father.
I confess that it is difficult to believe this heartily. It was never
anything but difficult. In the earliest ages, those who first thought
about the universe found it so difficult that they took refuge in the
fancy of special providence which was administered by the planets above
their heads, and believed that the affairs of men, and of the world on
which they lived, were ruled by the aspects of the sun and moon, and the
host of heaven.
Men found it so difficult in the Middle Age, that they took refuge in the
fancy of a special providence administered by certain demi-gods whom they
called ‘The Saints;’ and believed that each special disease, or accident,
was warded off from mankind, from their cattle, or from their crops, by a
special saint who overlooked their welfare.
Men find it so difficult now-a-days, that the great majority of civilized
people believe in no special providence at all, and take refuge in the
belief that the universe is ruled by something which they call law.
Therein, doubtless, they have hold of a great truth; but one which will
be only half-true, and therefore injurious, unless it be combined with
other truths; unless questions are answered which too many do not care to
answer: as, for instance,—Can there be a law without a law-giver? Can a
law work without one who administers the law? Are not the popular
phrases of ‘laws impressed on matter,’ ‘laws inherent in matter,’ mere
metaphors, dangerous, because inaccurate; confirmed as little by
experience and reason, as by Scripture?
Does not all law imply a will? Does not an Almighty Will imply a special
providence?
But these are questions for which most persons have neither time nor
inclination. Indeed, the whole matter is unimportant to them. They have
no special need of a special providence. Their lives and properties are
very safe in this civilized country; and their secret belief is that,
whatever influence God may have on the next world, He has little or no
influence on this world; neither on the facts of nature, nor on the
events of history, nor on the course of their own lives; and that a
special providence seems to them—if they dare confess as much—an
unnecessary superstition.
Only poor folk in cottages and garrets—and a few more who are, happily,
poor in spirit, though not in purse—grinding amid the iron facts of life,
and learning there by little sound science, it may be, but much sound
theology—still believe that they have a Father in heaven, before whom the
very hairs of their head are all numbered; and that if they had not, then
this would not only be a bad world, but a mad world likewise; and that it
were better for them that they had never been born.
Nevertheless, it is difficult to believe in the special providence of our
Father in heaven. Difficult: though necessary. Just as it is difficult
to believe that the earth moves round the sun. Contrary, like that fact,
to a great deal of our seeming experience.
It is easy enough, of course, to believe that our Father sends what is
plainly good. Not so easy to believe that He sends what at least seems
evil.
Easy enough, when we see spring-time and harvest, sunshine and flowers,
to say—Here are ‘acts of God’s providence.’ Not so easy, when we see
blight and pestilence, storm and earthquake, to say,—Here are ‘acts of
God’s providence’ likewise.
For this innumerable multitude of things, of which we now-a-days talk as
if it were one thing, and had an organic unity of its own, or even as if
it were one person, and had a will of its own, and call it Nature—a word
which will one day be forgotten by philosophers, with the ‘four
elements,’ and the ‘animal spirits;’—this multitude of things, I say,
which we miscall Nature, has its dark and ugly, as well as its bright and
fair side. Nature, says some one, is like the spotted panther—most
playful, and yet most treacherous; most beautiful, and yet most cruel.
It acts at times after a fashion most terrible, undistinguishing,
wholesale, seemingly pitiless. It seems to go on its own way, as in a
storm or an earthquake, careless of what it crushes. Terrible enough
Nature looks to the savage, who thinks it crushes him from mere caprice.
More terrible still does Science make Nature look, when she tells us that
it crushes, not by caprice, but by brute necessity; not by ill-will, but
by inevitable law. Science frees us in many ways (and all thanks to her)
from the bodily terror which the savage feels. But she replaces that, in
the minds of many, by a moral terror which is far more overwhelming. Am
I—a man is driven to ask—am I, and all I love, the victims of an
organised tyranny, from which there can be no escape—for there is not
even a tyrant from whom I may perhaps beg mercy? Are we only helpless
particles, at best separate parts of the wheels of a vast machine, which
will use us till it has worn us away, and ground us to powder? Are our
bodies—and if so, why not our souls?—the puppets, yea, the creatures of
necessary circumstances, and all our strivings and sorrows only vain
beatings against the wires of our cage, cries of ‘Why hast thou made me,
then?’ which are addressed to nothing? Tell us not that the world is
governed by universal law; the news is not comfortable, but simply
horrible, unless you can tell us, or allow others to tell us, that there
is a loving giver, and a just administrator of that law.
Horrible, I say, and increasingly horrible, not merely to the
sentimentalist, but to the man of sound reason and of sound conscience,
must the scientific aspect of nature become, if a mere abstraction called
law is to be the sole ruler of the universe; if—to quote the famous words
of the German sage—‘If, instead of the Divine Eye, there must glare on us
an empty, black, bottomless eye-socket;’ and the stars and galaxies of
heaven, in spite of all their present seeming regularity, are but an
‘everlasting storm which no man guides.’
It was but a few days ago that we, and this little planet on which we
live, caught a strange and startling glimpse of that everlasting storm
which—shall I say it?—no one guides.
We were swept helpless, astronomers tell us, through a cloud of fiery
stones, to which all the cunning bolts which man invents to slay his
fellow-man, are but slow and weak engines of destruction.
We were free from the superstitious terror with which that meteor-shower
would have been regarded in old times. We could comfort ourselves, too,
with the fact that heaven’s artillery was not known as yet to have killed
any one; and with the scientific explanation of that fact, namely, that
most of the bolts were small enough to be melted and dissipated by their
rush through our atmosphere.
But did the thought occur to none of us, how morally ghastly, in spite of
all its physical beauty, was that grand sight, unless we were sure that
behind it all, there was a living God? Unless we believed that not one
of those bolts fell, or did not fall to the ground without our Father?
That He had appointed the path, and the time, and the destiny, and the
use of every atom of that matter, of which science could only tell us
that it was rushing without a purpose, for ever through the homeless
void?
We may believe that, mind, without denying scientific laws, or their
permanence in any way. It is not a question, this, of a living God,
whether He interferes with His own laws now and then, but whether
interference is not the law of all laws itself. It is not a question of
special providences here and there, in favour of this person or that; but
whether the whole universe and its history is not one perpetual and
innumerable series of special providences. Whether the God who ordained
the laws is not so administering them, so making them interfere with,
balance, and modify each other, as to cause them to work together
perpetually for good; so that every minutest event (excepting always the
sin and folly of rational beings) happens in the place, time, and manner,
where it is specially needed. In one word, the question is not whether
there be a God, but whether there be a living God, who is in any true and
practical sense Master of the universe over which He presides; a King who
is actually ruling His kingdom, or an Epicurean deity who lets his
kingdom rule itself.
Is there a living God in the universe, or is there none? That is the
greatest of all questions. Has our Lord Jesus Christ answered it, or has
He not? Easy, well-to-do people, who find this world pleasant, and whose
chief concern is to live till they die, care little about that question.
This world suits them well enough, whether there be a living God or not;
and as for the next world, they will be sure to find some preacher or
confessor who will set their minds easy about it.
Fanatics and bigots, of all denominations, care little about that
question. For they say in their hearts—‘God is our Father, whosesoever
Father He is not. We are His people, and God performs acts of providence
for us. But as for the people outside, who know not the law, nor the
Gospel, either, they are accursed. It is not our concern to discuss
whether God performs acts of providence for them.’
But here and there, among rich and poor, there are those whose heart and
flesh—whose conscience and whose intellect—cry out for the living God,
and will know no peace till they have found Him.
A living God; a true God; a real God; a God worthy of the name; a God who
is working for ever, everywhere, and in all; who hates nothing that He
has made, forgets nothing, neglects nothing; a God who satisfies not only
their heads, but their hearts; not only their logical intellects, but
their higher reason—that pure reason, which is one with the conscience
and moral sense. For Him they cry out; Him they seek: and if they cannot
find Him they know no rest. For then they can find no explanation of the
three great human questions—Where am I? Whither am I going? What must I
do?
Men come to them and say, ‘Of course there is a God.—He created the world
long ago, and set it spinning ever since by unchangeable laws.’ But they
answer, ‘That may be true; but I want more. I want the living God.’
Other men come to them and say, ‘Of course there is a God; and when the
universe is destroyed, He will save a certain number of the elect, or
orthodox. Do you take care that you are among that number, and leave the
rest to Him.’ But they answer, ‘That may be true; but I want more. I
want the living God.’
They will say so very confusedly. They will often not be able to make
men understand their meaning. Nay, they will say and do—driven by
despair—very unwise things. They will even fall down and worship the
Holy Bread in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and say, ‘The living
God is in that. You have forbidden us, with your theories, to find the
living God either in heaven or earth. But somewhere He must be. And in
despair, we will fall back upon the old belief that He is in the wafer on
the altar, and find there Him whom our souls must find, or be for ever
without a home.’ Strange and sad, that that should be the last outcome
of the century of mechanical philosophy. But before we blame the
doctrine as materialistic,—which, I fear, it too truly is,—we should
remember that, for the last fifty years, the young have been taught more
and more to be materialists; that they have been taught more and more to
believe in a God who rules over Sundays, but not over week-day business;
over the next world, but not over this; a God, in short, in whom men do
not live, and move, and have their being. They have been brought up, I
say, unconsciously, but surely, as practical materialists, who make their
senses the ground of all their knowledge; and therefore, when a revulsion
happens to them, they are awakened to look for the living God—they look
for him instinctively in visible matter.
But for the living God thoughtful men will look more and more. Physical
science is forcing on them the question, Do we live, and move, and have
our being in God? Is there a real and perpetual communication between
the visible and the invisible world, or is there not? Are all the
beliefs of man, from the earliest ages, that such there was, dreams and
nothing more? Is any religion whatsoever to be impossible henceforth?
And to find an answer, men will go, either backward to superstition, or
forward into pantheism; for in atheism, whether practical or theoretical,
they cannot abide.
The Bible says that those old beliefs, however partial or childish, were
no dreams, but instincts of an eternal truth; that there is such a
communication between the universe and the living God. Prophets,
Psalmists, Apostles, speak—like our Nicene Creed—of a Spirit of God, the
Lord and Giver of Life, in words which are not pantheism, but are the
very deliverance from pantheism, because they tell us that that Spirit
proceeds, not merely from a Deity, not merely from a Creator, but from a
Father in heaven, and from a Son who is His likeness and His Word.
And from this ground Natural Theology must start, if it is ever to revive
again, instead of remaining, as now, an extinct science. It must begin
from the keyword of the text, ‘Your Father.’ As long as Natural Theology
begins from nature, and not from God Himself, it will inevitably drift
into pantheism, as Pope drifted, in spite of himself, when he tried to
look from nature up to nature’s God. As long as men speculate on the
dealings of a Deity or of a Creator, they will find out nothing, because
they are searching under the wrong name, and therefore, as logicians will
tell you, for the wrong thing.
But when they begin to seek under the right name—the name which our Lord
revealed to the debased multitudes of Judæa, when He told them that not a
sparrow fell to the ground without—not the Deity, not the Creator, but
their Father; then, in God’s good time, all may come clear once more.
This at least will come clear,—a doubt which often presents itself to the
mind of scientific men.
This earth—we know now that it is not the centre, not the chief body, of
the universe, but a tiny planet, a speck, an atom among millions of
bodies far vaster than itself.
It was credible enough in old times, when the earth was held to be all
but the whole universe, that God should descend on earth, and take on Him
human nature, to save human beings. Is it credible now? This little
corner of the systems and the galaxies? This paltry race which we call
man? Are they worthy of the interposition, of the death, of Incarnate
God—of the Maker of such a universe as Science has discovered?
Yes. If we will keep in mind that one word ‘Father.’ Then we dare say
Yes, in full assurance of Faith. For then we have taken the question off
the mere material ground of size and of power; to put it once and for
ever on that spiritual ground of justice and love, which is implied in
the one word—‘Father.’
If God be a perfect Father, then there must be a perpetual intercourse of
some kind between Him and His children; between Him and that planet,
however small, on which He has set His children, that they may be
educated into His likeness. If God be perfect justice, the wrong, and
consequent misery of the universe, how ever small, must be intolerable to
Him. If God be perfect love, there is no sacrifice—remember that great
word—which He may not condescend to make, in order to right that wrong,
and alleviate that misery. If God be the Father of our spirits, the
spiritual welfare of His children may be more important to Him than the
fate of the whole brute matter of the universe. Think not to frighten us
with the idols of size and height. God is a Spirit, before whom all
material things are equally great, and equally small. Let us think of
Him as such, and not merely as a Being of physical power and inventive
craft. Let us believe in our Father in heaven. For then that higher
intellect,—that pure reason, which dwells not in the heads, but in the
hearts of men, will tell them that if they have a Father in heaven, He
must be exercising a special providence over the minutest affairs of
their lives, by which He is striving to educate them into His likeness; a
special providence over the fate of every atom in the universe, by which
His laws shall work together for the moral improvement of every creature
capable thereof; that not a sparrow can fall to the ground without his
knowledge; and that not a hair of their head can be touched, unless
suffering is needed for the education of their souls.
SERMON XVII.
CHOLERA, 1866.
LUKE vii. 16.
There came a fear on all: and they glorified God, saying, That a
great prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited his
people.
YOU recollect to what the text refers? How the Lord visited His people?
By raising to life a widow’s son at Nain. That was the result of our
Lord’s visit to the little town of Nain. It is worth our while to think
of that text, and of that word, ‘visit,’ just now. For we are praying to
God to remove the cholera from this land. We are calling it a visitation
of God; and saying that God is visiting our sins on us thereby. And we
are saying the exact truth. We are using the right and scriptural word.
We know that this cholera comes by no miracle, but by natural causes. We
can more or less foretell where it will break out. We know how to
prevent its breaking out at all, save in a scattered case here and there.
Of this there is no doubt whatsoever in the mind of any well-informed
person.
But that does not prevent its being a visitation of God; yea, in most
awful and literal earnest, a house-to-house visitation. God uses the
powers of nature to do His work: of Him it is written, ‘He maketh the
winds His angels, and flames of fire His ministers.’ And so this minute
and invisible cholera-seed is the minister of God, by which He is
visiting from house to house, searching out and punishing certain persons
who have been guilty, knowingly or not, of the offence of dirt; of filthy
and careless habits of living; and especially, as has long been known by
well-informed men, of drinking poisoned water. Their sickness, their
deaths, are God’s judgment on that act of theirs, whereby God says to
men,—You shall not drink water unfit for even dumb animals; and if you
do, you shall die.
To this view there are two objections. First, the poor people themselves
are not in fault, but those who supply poisoned water, and foul
dwellings.
True: but only half true. If people demanded good water and good houses,
there would soon be a supply of them. But there is not a sufficient
supply; because too many of the labouring classes in towns, though they
are earning very high wages, are contented to live in a condition unfit
for civilized men; and of course, if they are contented so to do, there
will be plenty of covetous or careless landlords who will supply the bad
article with which they are satisfied; and they will be punished by
disease for not having taken care of themselves.
But as for the owners of filthy houses, and the suppliers of poisoned
water, be sure that, in His own way and His own time, God will visit
them; that when He maketh inquisition for blood, He will assuredly
requite upon the guilty persons, whoever they are, the blood of those
five or six thousand of her Majesty’s subjects who have been foully done
to death by cholera in the last two months, as He requited the blood of
Naboth, or of any other innocent victim of whom we read in Holy Writ.
This outbreak of cholera in London, considering what we now know about
it, and have known for twenty years past, is a national shame, scandal,
and sin, which, if man cannot and will not punish, God can and will.
But there is another objection, which is far more important and difficult
to answer. This cholera has not slain merely fathers and mothers of
families, who were more or less responsible for the bad state of their
dwellings; but little children, aged widows, and many other persons who
cannot be blamed in the least.
True. And we must therefore believe that to them—indeed to all—this has
been a visitation not of anger but of love. We must believe that they
are taken away from some evil to come; that God permits the destruction
of their bodies, to the saving of their souls. His laws are inexorable;
and yet He hateth nothing that He hath made.
And we must believe that this cholera is an instance of the great law,
which fulfils itself again and again, and will to the end of the
world,—‘It is expedient that one die for the people, and that the whole
nation perish not.’
For the same dirt which produces cholera now and then, is producing
always, and all day long, stunted and diseased bodies, drunkenness,
recklessness, misery, and sin of all kinds; and the cholera will be a
blessing, a cheap price to have paid, for the abolition of the evil
spirit of dirt.
And thus much for this very painful subject—of which some of you may
say—‘What is it to us? We cannot prevent cholera; and, blessed as we are
with abundance of the purest water, there is little or no fear of cholera
ever coming into our parish.’
That last is true, my friends, and you may thank God for it. Meanwhile,
take this lesson at least home with you, and teach it your children day
by day—that filthy, careless, and unwholesome habits of living are in the
sight of Almighty God so terrible an offence, that He sometimes finds it
necessary to visit them with a severity with which He visits hardly any
sin; namely, by inflicting capital punishment on thousands of His beloved
creatures.