“Is not as idle ore,
But heated hot
with burning fears,
And bathed in baths of hissing tears,
And
batter’d, with the shocks of doom,
To shape and use.”
Ah! if a man be learning that lesson, which is the primer of eternal life, then I hardly pity him, though I see him from youth to age tearing with weak hands at the gates of brass, and beating his soul’s wings to pieces against the bars of the iron cage. But, alas! the majority of mankind tear at the gates of brass, and beat against the iron cage, with no such good purpose, and therefore with no such good result. They fight with circumstances, not that they may become better themselves, not that they may right the wrongs or elevate the souls of their fellow-men, not even that they may fulfil the sacred duty of maintaining, and educating, and providing for the children whom they have brought into the world, and for whom they are responsible alike to God and to man; but simply because circumstances are disagreeable to them; because the things around them do not satisfy their covetousness, their luxury, their ambition, their vanity. And therefore the majority of mankind want to be, and to do, and to have a hundred things which are not in their own power, and of which they have no proof that God intends to give them; no proof either that if they had them, they would make right use of them, and certainly no proof at all that if they had them they would find peace. They war and fight, and have not, because they ask not. They ask, and have not, because they ask amiss, to consume it on their lusts; and so they spend their lives without peace, longing, struggling for things outside them, the greater part of which they do not get, because the getting them is not in their own power, and which if they got they could not keep, for they can carry nothing away with them when they die, neither can their pomp follow them. And therefore does man walk in a vain shadow, and disquiet himself in vain, looking for peace where it is not to be found—in everything and anything save in his own heart, in duty, and in God.
But happy are they who are discontented with the divine discontent, discontented with themselves. Happy are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, that they may become righteous and good men. Happy are they who have set their hearts on the one thing which is in their own power—being better than they are, and doing better than they do. Happy are they who long and labour after the true riches, which neither mobs nor tyrants, man nor devil, prosperity nor adversity, or any chance or change of mortal life, can take from them—the true and eternal wealth, which is the Spirit of God. The man, I say, who has set his heart on being good, has set his heart on the one thing which is in his own power; the one thing which depends wholly and solely on his own will; the one thing which he can have if he chooses, for it is written, “If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” Moreover, he has set his heart on the one thing which cannot be taken from him. God will not take it from him; and man, and fortune, and misfortune, cannot take it from him. Poverty, misery, disease, death itself, cannot make him a worse man, cannot make him less just, less true, less pure, less charitable, less high-minded, less like Christ, and less like God.
Therefore he is at peace, for he is, as it were, intrenched in an impregnable fortress, against all men and all evil influences. And that castle is his own soul. And the keeper of that castle is none other than Almighty God, Jesus Christ our Lord, to whose keeping he has committed his soul, as unto a faithful and merciful Saviour, able to keep to the uttermost that which is committed to Him in faith and holiness.
Therefore that man is at peace with himself, for his conscience tells him that he is, if not doing his best, yet trying to do his best, better and better day by day. He is at peace with all the world; for most men are longing and quarrelling for pleasant things outside them, for which he does not greatly care, while he is longing and striving for good things inside him in his own heart and soul; and so the world goes one way, and he another, and their desires do not interfere with each other.
But, more, that man is at peace with God. He is at peace with God the Father; for he is behaving as the Father wishes His children to behave. He is at peace with God the Son; for he is trying to do that which God the Son did when He came not to do His own will, but His Father’s; not to grasp at anything for himself, but simply to sacrifice himself for duty, for the good of man. And he is at peace with God the Holy Spirit; for he is obeying the gracious inspirations of that Spirit, and growing a better man day by day. And so the peace of God keeps that man’s heart free from vain desires and angry passions, and his mind from those false and foolish judgments which make the world think things important which are quite unimportant; and, again, fancy things unimportant which are more important to them than the riches of the whole world.
My dear friends, take my words home with you, and if you wish for the only true and sound peace, which is the peace of God, do your duty. Try to be as good as you can, each in his station in life. So help you God.
Take an example from the soldier on the march; and if you do that, you will all understand what I mean. The bad soldier has no peace, just because he troubles himself about things outside himself, and not in his own power. “Will the officers lead us right?” That is not in his power. Let him go where the officers lead him, and do his own duty. “Will he get food enough, water enough, care enough, if he is wounded?” I hope and trust in God he will; but that is not in his own power. Let him take that, too, as it comes, and do his duty. “Will he be praised, rewarded, mentioned in the newspapers, if he fights well?” That, too, is not in his own power. Let him take that, too, as it comes, and do his duty; and so of everything else. If the soldier on the march torments himself with these matters which are not in his own power, he is the man who will be troublesome and mutinous in time of peace, and in time of war will be the first to run away. He will tell you, “A man must have justice done him; a man must see fair play for himself; a man must think of himself.” Poor fool! He is not thinking of himself all the while, but of a number of things which are outside him, circumstances which stand round him, and outside him, and are not himself at all. Because he thinks of them—the things outside him—he is a coward or a mutineer, while he fancies he is taking care of himself—as it is written, “Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it.”
But if the man will really think of himself, of that which is inside him, of his own character, his own honour, his own duty—then he will say, Well fed or ill fed, well led or ill led, praised and covered with medals, or neglected and forgotten, and dying in a ditch, I, by myself I, am the same man, and I have the same work to do. I have to be—myself, and I have to do—my duty. So help me God. And therefore, so help me God, I will be discontented with no person or thing, save only with myself; and I will be discontented with myself, not when I have left undone something extraordinary, which I know I could not have done, but only when I have left undone something ordinary, some plain duty which I know I could have done, had I asked God to help me to do it. Then in that soldier would be fulfilled—has been fulfilled, thank God, a thousand times, by men who lie in this abbey, and by men, too, of whom we never heard, “whose graves are scattered far and wide, by mount, by stream, by sea,”—in him would be fulfilled, I say, the words, “He that will lose his life shall save it.” Then would he have in his heart, and in his mind likewise, a peace which victory and safety cannot give, and which defeat, and wounds, ay, death itself, can never take away.
And are not you, too, soldiers—soldiers of Jesus Christ? Then even as that good soldier, you may be at peace, through all the battles, victories, defeats of mortal life, if you will be discontented with nothing save yourselves, and vow, in spirit and in truth, the one oath which is no blasphemy, but an act of faith, and an act of prayer, and a confession of the true theology—So help me God. For then God will help you. Neither you nor I know how; and I am sure neither you nor I know why—save that God is utterly good. God, I say, will help you, by His Holy Spirit the Comforter, to do your duty, and to be at peace. And then the peace of God will rule in your hearts and make you kings to God. For He will enable you each to rule, serene, though weary, over a kingdom—or, alas! rather a mob, the most unruly, the most unreasonable, the most unstable, and often the most fierce, which you are like to meet on earth. To rule, I say, over a mob, of which you each must needs be king or slave, according as you choose. And what is that mob? What but your own faculties, your own emotions, your own passions—in one word, your own selves? Yes, with the peace of God ruling in your hearts, you will be able to become what without it you will never be—and that is—masters of yourselves.
SERMON XXVI. SINS OF PARENTS VISITED
Eversley. 19th Sunday after Trinity, 1868.
Ezekiel xviii. 1-4. “The word of the Lord came unto me again, saying, What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.”
This is a precious chapter, and a comfortable chapter likewise, for it helps us to clear up a puzzle which has tormented the minds of men in all ages whenever they have thought of God, and of whether God meant them well, or meant them ill.
For all men have been tempted. We are tempted at times to say,—The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. That is, we are punished not for what we have done wrong, but for what our fathers did wrong. One man says,—My forefathers squandered their money, and I am punished by being poor. Or, my forefathers ruined their constitutions, and, therefore, I am weakly and sickly. My forefathers were ignorant and reckless, and, therefore, I was brought up ignorant, and in all sorts of temptation. And so men complain of their ill-luck and bad chance, as they call it, till they complain of God, and say, as the Jews said in Ezekiel’s time, God’s ways are unequal—partial—unfair. He is a respecter of persons. He has not the same rule for all men. He starts men unequally in the race of life—some heavily weighted with their father’s sins and misfortunes, some helped in every way by their father’s virtue and good fortune—and then He expects them all to run alike. God is not just and equal. And then some go on,—men who think themselves philosophers, but are none—to say things concerning God of which I shall say nothing here, lest I put into your minds foolish thoughts, which had best be kept out of them.
But, some of you may say, Is it not so after all? Is it not true? Is not God harder on some than on others? Does not God punish men every day for their father’s sins? Does He not say in the Second Commandment that He will do so, and visit the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation; and how can you make that agree with what Ezekiel says,—“The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.” My dear friends, I know that this is a puzzle, and always has been one. Like the old puzzle of God’s foreknowledge and our free will, which seem to contradict each other. Like the puzzle that we must help ourselves, and yet that God must help us, which seem to contradict each other. So with this. I believe of it, as of the two others I just mentioned, that there is no real contradiction between the two cases; and that some-when, somehow, somewhere, in the world to come, we shall see them clearly reconciled; and justify God in all His dealings, and glorify Him in all His ways. But surely already, here, now, we may see our way somewhat into the depths of this mystery. For Christ has come to give us light, and in His light we may see light, even into this dark matter.
For see: God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation—but of whom?—of them that hate Him. Now, by those who hate God is meant, those who break His commandments, and are bad men. If so, then, I say that God is not only just but merciful, in visiting the sins of the fathers on the children.
For, consider two cases. Suppose these bad men, from father to son, and from son to grandson, go on in the same evil ways, and are incorrigible. Then is not God merciful to the world in punishing them, even in destroying them out of the world, where they only do harm? The world does not want fools, it wants wise men. The world does not want bad men, it wants good men; and we ought to thank God, if, by His eternal laws, He gets rid of bad men for us; and, as the saying is, civilizes them off the face of the earth in the third or fourth generation. And God does so. If a family, or a class, or a whole nation becomes incorrigibly profligate, foolish, base, in three or four generations they will either die out or vanish. They will sink to the bottom of society, and become miserably poor, weak, and of no influence, and so unable to do harm to any but themselves. Whole families will sink thus, I have seen it; you may have seen it. Whole nations will sink thus; as the Jews sank in Ezekiel’s time, and again in our Lord’s time; and be conquered, trampled on, counted for nothing, because they were worth nothing.
But now suppose, again, that the children, when their father’s sins are visited on them, are not incorrigible. Suppose they are like the wise son of whom Ezekiel speaks, in the 14th verse, who seeth all his father’s sins, and considereth, and doeth not such like—then has not God been merciful and kind to him in visiting his father’s sins on him? He has. God is justified therein. His eternal laws of natural retribution, severe as they are, have worked in love and in mercy, if they have taught the young man the ruinousness, the deadliness of sin. Have the father’s sins made the son poor? Then he learns not to make his children poor by his sin. Have his father’s sins made him unhealthy? Then he learns not to injure his children’s health. Have his father’s sins kept him ignorant, or in anywise hindered his rise in life? Then he learns the value of a good education, and, perhaps, stints himself to give his children advantages which he had not himself—and, as sure as he does so, the family begins to rise again after its fall. This is no fancy, it is fact. You may see it. I have seen it, thank God. How some of the purest and noblest women, some of the ablest and most right-minded men, will spring from families, will be reared in households, where everything was against them—where there was everything to make them profligate, false, reckless, in a word—bad—except the grace of God, which was trying to make them good, and succeeded in making them good; and how, though they have felt the punishment of their parents’ sins upon them in many ways during their whole life, yet that has been to them not a mere punishment, but a chastisement, a purifying medicine, a cross to be borne, which only stirred them up to greater watchfulness against sin, to greater earnestness in educating their children, to greater activity and energy in doing right, and giving their children the advantages which they had not themselves. And so were fulfilled in them two laws of God. The one which Ezekiel lays down—that the bad man’s son who executes God’s judgments and walks in God’s statutes shall not die for the iniquity of his father, but surely live; and the other law which Moses lays down—that God shews mercy unto thousands of generations, as I believe it means—that is, to son after father, and son after father again, without end—as long as they love Him and keep His commandments.
I do not, therefore, see that there is any real contradiction between what Moses says in the second commandment and what Ezekiel says in this chapter. They are but two different sides of the same truth; and Moses is shewing the Jews one side, because they needed most to be taught that in his time, and Ezekiel showing them the other, because that was the teaching which they needed most then. For they were fancying themselves, in their calamities, the victims of some blind and cruel fate, and had forgotten that, when God said that He visited the sins of the fathers on the children, He qualified it by saying, “of them that hate Me.”
Therefore, be hopeful about yourselves, and hopeful about your children after you. If any one here feels—I am fallen very low in the world—here all has been so much against me—my parents were the ruin of me—Let him remember this one word of Ezekiel. “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?” Let him turn from his father’s evil ways, and do that which is lawful and right, and then he can say with the Prophet, in answer to all the strokes of fortune and the miseries of circumstance, “Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall I shall arise.” Provided he will remember that God requires of all men something, which is, to be as good as they can be; then he may remember also that our Lord Himself says, “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required;” implying that to whom little is given, of him will little be required. God’s ways are not unequal. He has one equal, fair, and just rule for every human being; and that is perfect understanding, perfect sympathy, perfect good will, and therefore perfect justice and perfect love.
And if any one of you answers in his heart—these are good words, and all very well: but they come too late. I am too far gone. I ate the sour grapes in my youth, and my teeth must be on edge for ever and ever. I have been a bad man, or I have been a foolish woman too many years to mend now. I am down, and down I must be. I have made my bed, and I must lie on it, and die on it too. Oh my dear brother or sister in Christ, whoever you are who says that, unsay it again for it is not true. Ezekiel tells you that it is not true, and one greater than Ezekiel, Jesus Christ, your Saviour, your Lord, your God, tells you it is not true.
For what happens, by God’s eternal and unchangeable laws of retribution, to a whole nation, or a whole family, may happen to you—to each individual man. They fall by sin; they rise again by repentance and amendment. They may rise punished by their sins, and punished for a long time, heavily weighted by the consequences of their own folly, and heavily weighted for a long time. But they rise—they enter into their new life weak and wounded, from their own fault. But they enter in. And from that day things begin to mend—the weather begins to clear, the soil begins to yield again—punishment gradually ceases when it has done its work, the weight lightens, the wounds heal, the weakness strengthens, and by God’s grace within them, and by God’s providence outside them, they are made men of again, and saved. So you will surely find it in the experience of life.
No doubt in general, in most cases,
The child is father of the man
for good and evil. A pious and virtuous youth helps, by sure laws of God, towards a pious and virtuous old age. And on the other hand, an ungodly and profligate youth leads, by the same laws, toward an ungodly and profligate old age. That is the law. But there is another law which may stop that law—just as the stone falls to the ground by the natural law of weight, and yet you may stop that law by using the law of bodily strength, and holding it up in your hand. And what is the gracious law which will save you from the terrible law which will make you go on from worse to worse?
It is this,—“when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.” It is not said that his soul shall come in a moment to perfect health and strength. No. There are old bad habits to be got rid of, old ties to be broken, old debts (often worse debts than any money debts) to be paid. But he shall save his soul alive. His soul shall not die of its disease. It shall be saved. It shall come to life, and gradually mend and be cured, and grow from strength to strength, as a sick man mends day by day after a deadly illness, slowly it may be, but surely:—for how can you fail of being cured if your physician is none other than Jesus Christ your Lord and your God?
Oh, recollect that last word. If you will but recollect that, you will never despair. How dare any man say—Bad I am, and bad I must remain—while the God who made heaven and earth offers to make you good? Who dare say,—I cannot amend—when God Himself offers to amend you? Who dare say,—I have no strength to amend—when God offers to give you strength, strength of His strength, and life of His life, even His Holy Spirit? Who dare say,—God has given me up; He has a grudge against me which He will not lay by, an anger against me which cannot be appeased, a score against me which will never be wiped out of His book? Oh foolish and faint-hearted soul. Look, look at Christ hanging on His cross, and see there what God’s grudge, God’s anger, God’s score of your sins is like. Like love unspeakable, and nothing else. To wash out your sins, He spared not His only begotten Son, but freely gave Him for you, to shew you that God, so far from hating you, has loved you; that so far from being your enemy, He was your father; that so far from willing the death of a sinner, He willed that you and every sinner should turn from his wickedness and live. For that, Jesus the only begotten Son of God, came down and preached, and sorrowed, and suffered, and died upon the cross. He died that you may live; He suffered that you may be saved; He paid the debt, because you could never pay it; He bore your sins upon the cross, that you might not have to bear them for ever and for ever in eternal death. Now, even if you suffer somewhat in this life for your sins, that suffering is not punishment, but wholesome chastisement, as when a father chastens the son in whom he delighteth. All He asks of you is to long and try to give up your sins, for He will help you to give them up. All He asks of you is to long and try to lead a new life, for He will give you power to lead a new life. Oh, say not—I cannot—when Christ who died for you says you can. Say not—I dare not—when Christ bids you dare come boldly to His throne of grace. Say not—I must be as I am—when Christ died that you should not be as you are. Say not—there is no hope—when Christ died and rose again, and reigns for ever, to give hope to you and all mankind, that when the wicked man turns away from his wickedness that he has committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive, and all his transgressions shall not be mentioned unto him, but in his righteousness that he hath done shall he live.
SERMON XXVII. AGREE WITH THINE ADVERSARY
Eversley, 1861. Windsor Castle, 1867.
St. Matthew v. 25, 26. “Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.”
This parable our Lord seems to have spoken at least twice, as He did several others. For we find it also in the 12th chapter of St. Luke. But it is there part of quite a different discourse. I think that by seeing what it means there, we shall see more clearly what it means here.
Our Lord there is speaking of the sins of the whole Jewish nation. Here He is speaking rather of each man’s private sins. But He applies the same parable to both. He gives the same warning to both. Not to go too far on the wrong road, lest they come to a point where they cannot turn back, but must go on to just punishment, if not to utter destruction.
That is what He warned the Jews all through the latter part of the 12th chapter of Luke. He will come again, He says, at an hour they do not think of, and then if their elders, the Scribes and Pharisees, are going on as they are now, beating the man-servants and maid-servants, and eating and drinking with the drunken, oppressing the people, and living in luxury and profligacy, He will cut them asunder, and appoint them their portion with the unbelievers.
In this, and in many other parables, He had been warning them that their ruin was near; and, at last, turning to the whole crowd, He appeals to them, to their common sense. “When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and so it is. And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass. Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time?” If God can give you common sense about one thing, why not about another? Why can you not open your eyes and of yourselves judge what is right? “Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.”
So He spoke; and they did not fully understand what He meant. They thought that by their adversary He meant the Roman governor. For they immediately began to talk to Him about some Galileans whose blood Pilate, the Roman governor, had mingled with their sacrifices (I suppose in some of those wars which were continually breaking out in Judea). I think He meant more than that. “Suppose ye that these Galilæans were sinners above all the Galilæans? Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” As much as to say, though ye did not rebel against the Romans like these Galilæans, you have your sins, which will ruin you. As long as you are hypocrites, with your mouths full of the cant of religion, and your hearts full of all mean and spiteful passions; as long as you cannot of yourselves discern what is right, and have lost conscience, and the everlasting distinction between right and wrong, so long are you walking blindfold to ruin. There is an adversary against you, who will surely deliver you to the judge some day, and then it will be too late to cry for mercy. And who was that adversary? Who but the everlasting law of God, which says, Thou shalt do justly?—and you Jews are utterly unjust, false, covetous, and unrighteous. Thou shalt love all men; and you are cruel and spiteful, hating each other, and making all mankind hate you. Thou shalt walk humbly with thy God; and you Jews are walking proudly with God; fancying that God belongs only to you; that because you are His chosen people, He will let you commit every sin you choose, as long as you keep His name on your lips, and keep up an empty worship of Him in the temple. That is your adversary, the everlasting moral law of God. And who is the Judge but God Himself, who is set on His throne judging right, while you are doing wrong? And who is the officer, to whom that judge will deliver you? There indeed the Jews were right. It was the Romans whom God appointed to punish them for their sins. All which our Lord had foretold, as all the world knows, came true forty years after in that horrible siege of Jerusalem, which the Jews brought on themselves entirely by their own folly, and pride, and wicked lawlessness. In that siege, by famine and pestilence, by the Romans’ swords, by crucifixion, and by each other’s hands (for the different factions were murdering each other wholesale up to the very day Jerusalem was taken), thousands of Jews perished horribly, and the rest were sold as slaves over the face of the whole earth, and led away into a captivity from which they could not escape till they had paid the uttermost farthing.
Now let us look at this same parable in the 5th chapter of St Matthew. Remember first that it is part of the sermon on the Mount, which is all about not doctrine, but morality, the law of right and wrong, the law of justice and mercy. You will see then that our Lord is preaching against the same sins as in the 12th chapter of St. Luke. Against a hypocritical religion, joined with a cruel and unjust heart. Those of old time, the Scribes and Pharisees, said merely, Thou shalt not kill. And as long as thou dost not kill thy brother, thou mayest hate him in thy heart and speak evil of him with thy lips. But our Lord says, Not so. Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause is in danger of the judgment. Whosoever shall say to him Raca, or worthless fellow, shall speak insolently, brutally, cruelly, scornfully to him, is in danger of the council. But whosoever shall say unto him, Thou fool, is in danger of hell fire. For using that word to the Jews, so says the Talmudic tradition, Moses and Aaron were shut out of the land of promise, for it means an infidel, an atheist, a godless man, or rebel against God, as it is written, “The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.” Whosoever shall curse his brother, who is trying to be a good Christian man to the best of his light and power, because he does not happen to agree with him in all things, and call him a heretic, and an infidel, and an atheist, and an enemy of God—he is in danger of hell fire. Let him agree with his adversary quickly, whiles he is in the way with him, lest he be delivered to God the judge, and to the just punishment of him who has not done justly, not loved mercy, not walked humbly with his God.
But who is the adversary of that man, and who is the judge, and who is the officer? Our adversary in every case, whenever we do wrong, knowingly or unknowingly, is the Law of God, the everlasting laws, by which God has ordered every thing in heaven and earth; and as often as we break one of these laws, let us agree with it again as quickly as we can, lest it hale us before God, the judge of all, and He deliver us over to His officer—to those powers of nature and powers of spirit, which He has appointed as ministers of His vengeance, and they cast us into some prison of necessary and unavoidable misery, from which we shall never escape till we have paid the uttermost farthing.
Do you not understand me? Then I will give you an example. Suppose the case of a man hurting his health by self-indulgence of any kind. Then his adversaries are the laws of health. Let him agree with them quickly, while he has the power of conquering his bad habits, by recovering his health, lest the time come when his own sins deliver him up to God his judge; and God to His terrible officers of punishment, the laws of Disease; and they cast him into a prison of shame and misery from which there is no escape—shame and misery, most common perhaps among the lower classes: but not altogether confined to them—the weakened body, the bleared eye, the stupified brain, the premature death, the children unhealthy from their parents’ sins, despising their parents, and perhaps copying their vices at the same time. Many a man have I seen in that prison, fast bound with misery though not with iron, and how he was to pay his debt and escape out of it I know not, though I hope that God does know.
Are any of you, again, in the habit of cheating your neighbours, or dealing unfairly by them? Your adversary is the everlasting law of justice, which says, Do as you would be done by, for with what measure you mete to others, it shall be measured to you again.
This may show you how a bodily sin, like self-indulgence punishes itself by bringing a man into bondage of bodily misery, from which he cannot escape; and in the same way a spiritual sin, like want of charity, will bring a man into spiritual bondage from which he cannot escape. And this, as in bodily sins, it will do by virtue of that mysterious and terrible officer of God, which we call Habit. Habit, by which, we cannot tell how, our having done a thing once becomes a reason for our doing it again, and again after that, till, if the habit be once formed, we cannot help doing that thing, and become enslaved to it, and fast bound by it, in a prison from which there is no escape. Look for instance at the case of the untruthful man. Let him beware in time. Who is his adversary? Facts are his adversary. He says one thing, and Fact says another, and a very stubborn and terrible adversary Fact is. The day will come, most probably in this life, when Facts will bring that untruthful man before God and before men likewise—and cry,—Judge between us which of us is right; and there will come to that false man exposure and shame, and a worse punishment still, perhaps, if he have let the habit grow too strong on him, and have not agreed with his adversary in time.
For have you not seen (alas, you have too surely seen) men who had contracted such a habit of falsehood that they could not shake it off—who had played with their sense of truth so long that they had almost forgotten what truth meant; men who could not speak without mystery, concealment, prevarication, half-statements; who were afraid of the plain truth, not because there was any present prospect of its hurting them, but simply because it was the plain truth—children of darkness, who, from long habit, hated the light—and who, though they had been found out and exposed, could not amend—could not become simple, honest, and truthful—could not escape from the prison of their own bad habits, and the net of lies which they had spread round their own path, till they had paid the uttermost penalty for their deceit?
Look, again, at the case of the uncharitable man, in the habit of forming harsh and cruel judgments of his neighbours. Then his adversary is the everlasting law of Love, which will surely at last punish him, by the most terrible of all punishments—loss of love to man, and therefore to God. Are we not (I am, I know, may God forgive me for it) apt to be angry with our brethren without a cause, out of mere peevishness? Let us beware in time. Are we not apt to say to them “Raca”—to speak cruelly, contemptuously, fiercely of them, if they thwart us? Let us beware in time still more. Are we not worst of all, tempted (as I too often am) to say to them “Thou fool;” to call better men, more useful men more pure men, more pious men than ourselves, hard and cruel names, names from which they would shrink with horror because they cannot see Christian truth in just exactly the same light that we do? Oh! let us beware then. Beware lest the everlasting laws of justice and fairness between man and man, of love and charity between man and man, which we have broken, should some day deliver us up, as they delivered those bigoted Jews of old to God our Judge, and He deliver our souls to His most terrible officers, who are called envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness; and they thrust us into that blackest of all prisons, on the gate of which is written, Hardness of heart, and Contempt of God’s Word and commandments, and within which is the outer darkness into which if a man falls, he cannot see the difference between right and wrong: but calls evil good, and good evil, like his companions in the outer darkness—namely, the devil and his angels. Oh! let us who are coming to lay our gift upon God’s altar at this approaching Christmas tide, consider whether our brother hath aught against us in any of these matters, and, if so, let us leave our gift upon the altar, and be first reconciled to our brother, in heart at least, and with inward shame, and confession, and contrition, and resolution to amend. But we can only do that by recollecting what gift we are to leave on Christ’s altar,—that it is the gift of self, the sacrifice of ourselves, with all our selfishness, pride, conceit, spite, cruelty. Ourselves, with all our sins, we are to lay upon Christ’s altar, that our sins may be nailed to His cross, and washed clean in His blood, everlastingly consumed in the fire of His Spirit, the pure spirit of love, which is the Charity of God, that so, self being purged out of us, we may become holy and lively sacrifices to God, parts and parcels of that perfect sacrifice which Christ offered up for the sins of the whole world—even the sacrifice of Himself.
SERMON XXVIII. ST JOHN THE BAPTIST
Chester Cathedral. 1872.
St Luke iii. 2, 3, 7, 9-14. “The Word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. . . . Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance. . . . And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. And the people asked him saying, What shall we do then? He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise. Then came also publicans to be baptized unto them, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do? And he said, Exact no more than that which is appointed you. And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages.”
This is St John Baptist’s day. Let me say a very few words—where many might be said—about one of the noblest personages who ever has appeared on this earth.
Our blessed Lord said, “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist, notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” These are serious words; for which of us dare to say that we are greater than John the Baptist?
But let us at least think a while what John the Baptist was like. So we shall gain at least the sight of an ideal man. It is not the highest ideal. Our Lord tells us that plainly; and we, as Christians, should know that it is not. The ideal man is our Lord Christ Himself, and none other. Still, he that has not mounted the lower step of the heavenly stair, has certainly not mounted the higher; and therefore, if we have not attained to the likeness of John the Baptist, still more, we have not attained to the likeness of Christ. What, then, was John the Baptist like? What picture of him and his character can we form to ourselves in our own imaginations? for that is all we have to picture him by—helped—always remember that—by the Holy Spirit of God, who helps the imagination, the poetic and dramatic faculty of men; just as much as He helps the logical and argumentative faculty to see things and men as they really are, by the spirit of love, which also is the spirit of true understanding.
How, then, shall we picture John the Baptist to ourselves? Great painters, greater than the world seems likely to see again, have exercised their fancy upon his face, his figure, his actions. We must put out of our minds, I fear, at once, many of the loveliest of them all: those in which Raffaelle and others have depicted the child John, in his camel’s hair raiment, with a child’s cross in his hand, worshipping the infant Christ. There is also one exquisite picture, by Annibale Caracci, if I recollect rightly, in which the blessed babe is lying asleep, and the blessed Virgin signs to St John, pressing forward to adore him, not to awaken his sleeping Lord and God. But such imaginations, beautiful as they are, and true in a heavenly and spiritual sense, which therefore is true eternally for you, and me, and all mankind, are not historic fact. For St John the Baptist said himself, “and I knew him not.”
He may have been, we must almost say, he must have been, brought up with or near our Lord. He may have seen in Him such a child (we must believe that), as he never saw before. He knew Him at least to be a princely child, of David’s royal line. But he was not conscious of who and what He was, till the mysterious inner voice, of whom he gives only the darkest hints, said to him, “Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God.” But what manner of man was St John the Baptist in the meantime? Painters have tried their hands at drawing him, and we thank them. Pictures, says St Augustine, are the books of the unlearned. And, my friends, when great painters paint, they are the books of the too-learned likewise. They bring us back, bring us home, by one glance at a human face, a human figure, a human scene of action, out of our philosophies, and criticisms, and doctrines, which narrow our hearts, without widening our heads, to the deeper facts of humanity, and therefore to the deeper facts of theology likewise. But what picture of St John the Baptist shall we choose whereby to represent him to ourselves, as the forerunner of the incarnate God?
The best which I can recollect is the great picture by Guido—ah, that he had painted always as wisely and as well—of the magnificent lad sitting on the rock, half clad in his camel’s hair robe, his stalwart hand lifted up to denounce he hardly knows what, save that things are going all wrong, utterly wrong to him; his beautiful mouth open to preach, he hardly knows what, save that he has a message from God, of which he is half-conscious as yet—that he is a forerunner, a prophet, a foreteller of something and some one which is to come, and which yet is very near at hand. The wild rocks are round him, the clear sky is over him, and nothing more. He, the gentleman born, the clergyman born—for you must recollect who and what St John the Baptist was, and that he was neither democrat nor vulgar demagogue, nor flatterer of ignorant mobs, but a man of an ancestry as ancient and illustrious as it was civilised, and bound by long ties of duty, of patriotism, of religion, and of the temple worship of God:—he, the noble and the priest, has thrown off—not in discontent and desperation, but in hope and awe—all his family privileges, all that seems to make life worth having; and there aloft and in the mountains, alone with nature and with God, feeding on locusts and wild honey and whatsoever God shall send, and clothed in skins, he, like Elijah of old, renews not merely the habits, but the spirit and power of Elijah, and preaches to a generation sunk in covetousness and superstition, party spirit, and the rest of the seven devils which brought on the fall of his native land, and which will bring on the fall of every land on earth, preaches to them, I say—What?
The most common, let me say boldly, the most vulgar—in the good old sense of the word—the most vulgar morality. He tells them that an awful ruin was coming unless they repented and mended. How fearfully true his words were, the next fifty years proved. The axe, he said, was laid to the root of the tree; and the axe was the heathen Roman, even then master of the land. But God, not the Roman Cæsar merely, was laying the axe. And He was a good God, who only wanted goodness, which He would preserve; not badness, which He would destroy. Therefore men must not merely repent and do penance, they must bring forth fruits meet for penance; do right instead of doing wrong, lest they be found barren trees, and be cut down, and cast into that everlasting fire of God, which, thanks be to His Holy name, burns for ever—unquenchable by all men’s politics, and systems, and political or other economies, to destroy out of God’s Kingdom all that offendeth and whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie—oppressors, quacks, cheats, hypocrites, and the rest.
The people—the farming class—came to him with “What shall we do?” The young priest and nobleman, in his garment of camel’s hair, has nothing but plain morality for them. “He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.” The publicans, the renegades, who were farming the taxes of the Roman conquerors, and making their base profit out of their countrymen’s slavery, came to him,—“Master, what shall we do?” He does not tell them not to be publicans. He does not tell his countrymen to rebel, though he must have been sorely tempted to do it. All he says is, Make the bad and base arrangement as good as you can; exact no more than that which is appointed you. The soldiers, poor fellows, come to him. Whether they were Herod’s mercenaries, or real gallant Roman soldiers, we are not told. Either had unlimited power under a military despotism, in an anarchic and half-enslaved country; but whichever they were, he has the same answer to them of common morality. You are what you are; you are where you are. Do it as well as you can. Do no violence to any man, neither accuse any man falsely, and be content with your wages.
Ah, wise politician, ah, clear and rational spirit, who knows and tells others to do the duty which lies nearest them; who sees (as old Greek Hesiod says), how much bigger the half is than the whole; who, in the hour of his country’s deepest degradation, had divine courage to say, our deliverance lies, not in rebellion, but in doing right. But he has sterner words. Pharisees, the separatists, the religious men, who think themselves holier than any one else; and Sadducees, materialist men of the world, who sneer at the unseen, the unknown, the heroic, come to him. And for Pharisee and Sadducee—for the man who prides himself on believing more than his neighbours, and for the man who prides himself on believing less—he has the same answer. Both are exclusives, inhuman, while they are pretending to be more than human. He knew them well, for he was born and bred among them, and he forestalls our Lord’s words to them, “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
At last his preaching of common morality is put to the highest test. The king—the tyrant as we should call him—the Herod of the day, an usurper, neither a son of David, nor a king chosen by the people, tries to patronize him. The old spirit of his forefather Aaron, of his forefather Phineas, the spirit of Levi, which (rightly understood), is the Spirit of God, flashes up in the young priestly prophet, in the old form of common morality. “It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife.” We know the rest; how, at the request of Herodias’ daughter, Herod sent and beheaded John in prison, and how she took his head in a charger and brought it to her mother. Great painters have shown us again and again the last act—outwardly hideous, but really beautiful—of St John’s heroic drama, in a picture of the lovely dancing girl with the prophet’s head in a charger—a dreadful picture; and yet one which needed to be painted, for it was a terrible fact, and is still, and will be till this wicked world’s end, a matter for pity and tears rather than for indignation. The most perfect representations, certainly the most tragical I know of it, are those which are remarkable, not for their expression, but for their want of expression—the young girl in brocade and jewels, with the gory head in her hands, thinking of nothing out of those wide vacant foolish eyes, save the triumph of self-satisfied vanity; for the spite and revenge is not in her, but in her wicked mother. She is just the very creature, who, if she had been better trained, and taught what John the Baptist really was, might have reverenced him, worshipped him, and ministered unto him. Alas! alas! how do the follies of poor humanity repeat themselves in every age. The butterfly has killed the lion, without after all meaning much harm. Ah, that such human butterflies would take warning by the fate of Herodias’ daughter, and see how mere vanity will lead, if indulged too long and too freely, to awful crime.
One knows the old stories,—how Herod, and Herodias, and the vain foolish girl fell into disgrace with the Emperor, and were banished into Provence, and died in want and misery. One knows too the old legends, how Herodias’ daughter reappears in South Europe—even in old German legends—as the witch-goddess, fair and ruinous, sweeping for ever through wood and wold at night with her troop of fiends, tempting the traveller to dance with them till he dies; a name for ever accursed through its own vanity rather than its own deliberate sin, from which may God preserve us all, men as well as women. So two women, one wicked and one vain, did all they could to destroy one of the noblest human beings who ever walked this earth. And what did they do? They did not prevent his being the forerunner and prophet of the incarnate Son of God. They did not prevent his being the master and teacher of the blessed Apostle St John, who was his spiritual son and heir. They did not prevent his teaching all men and women, to whom God gives grace to understand him, that the true repentance, the true conversion, the true deliverance from the wrath to come, the true entrance into the kingdom of heaven, the true way to Christ and to God, is common morality.
And now let us bless God’s holy name for all His servants departed in His faith and fear, and especially for His servant St John the Baptist, beseeching Him to give us grace, so to follow his doctrine and holy life, that we may truly repent after his preaching and after his example. May the Lord forgive our exceeding cowardice, and help us constantly to speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for the truth’s sake; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.