SERMON XIII. FALSE PROPHETS
(Eighth Sunday after Trinity.)
Matthew vii. 16. Ye shall know them by their fruits.
People are apt to overlook, I think, the real meaning of these words. They do so, because they part them from the words which go just before them, about false prophets.
They consider that ‘fruit’ means only a man’s conduct,—that a man is known by his conduct. That professions are worth nothing, and practice worth everything. That the good man, after all, is the man who does right; and the bad man, the man who does wrong. Excellent doctrine; and always needed. God grant that we may never forget it.
But the text surely does not quite mean that. ‘Fruit’ here does not mean a man’s own conduct, but the conduct of those whom he teaches. For see,—our Lord is talking of prophets; that is preachers, who set up to preach the Word of God, in the name of God. ‘Beware,’ he says, ‘of false prophets. By their fruits ye shall know them. By what you gather from them,’ he says. ‘For do men gather grapes off thorns, or figs off thistles?’
Now what is a preacher’s fruit? Surely the fruit of his preaching; and that is, not what he does himself, but what he makes you do. His fruit is what you gather from him; and what you gather from him is, not merely the notions and doctrines which he puts into your head, but the way of life in which he makes you live. What he makes you do, is the fruit which you get from him. Does he make you a better man, or does he not? that is the question. That is the test whether he is a false prophet, or a true one; whether he is preaching to you the eternal truth of God, or man’s inventions and devil’s lies.
Does he make you a better man? Not—Does he make you feel better? but—Does he make you behave better? There is too much preaching in the world which makes men feel better—so much better, indeed, that they go about like the Pharisee, thanking God that they are not as other men, before they have any sound reason to believe that they are not as other men; because they live just such lives as other men do, as far as respectability, and the fear of hurting their custom or their character, allow them to do. They have their prophets, their preachers who teach them; and by their fruits in these men, the preachers may be known, by those who have eyes to see, and hearts to understand.
Therefore beware of false prophets. There are too many of them in the world now, as there were in our Lord’s time; men who go about with the name of God on their lips, and the Bible in their hands, in sheep’s clothing outwardly; but inwardly ravening wolves. In sheep’s clothing, truly, smooth and sanctimonious, meek, and sleek. But wolves at heart; wolves in cunning and slyness, as you will find, if you have to deal with them; wolves in fierceness and cruelty, as you will find if you have to differ from them; wolves in greediness and covetousness, and care of their own interest and their own pockets. And wolves, too, in hardness of heart; in the hard, dark, horrible, unjust doctrines, which they preach with a smile upon their lips, not merely in sermons, but in books and tracts innumerable, making out the Heavenly Father, the God whose name is Love and Justice, to be even such a one as themselves. Wolves, too, in their habit of hunting in packs, each keeping up his courage by listening to the howl of his fellows. They may come in the name of God. They may tell you that they preach the Gospel; that no one but they preach the Gospel. But by their fruits ye shall know them.
Will they make you better men? Is it not written, ‘The disciple is not above his master?’ What will you learn from them, but to be like them? And the more you take in their doctrines, the more like them you will be; for is it not written, ‘He that is perfect shall be as his master.’ Can they lead you to eternal life? Is it not written, ‘If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch?’
But by their fruits ye shall know them. By their fruits in the world at large, if you have eyes to see it. By their fruits in your own lives, if you give yourselves up to listen to their false doctrines, for you will surely find, that, in the first place, they will not make you honest men. They will not teach you to be just and true in all your dealings. They will not teach you common morality. No, my friends, it is most sad to see, how much preaching and tract-writing there is in England now, which talks loud about Protestant doctrine, and Gospel truths, while all the fruit of it seems to be, to teach men to abuse the Pope, and to fancy that every one is going to hell, who does not agree with their opinions; while their own lives, their own conduct, their own morality, seems not improved one whit by all this preaching. And yet men like such preaching, and run to hear it. Of course they do; for it leaves them to behave all the week as if there was no Law of God, if only they will go on Sundays, and listen to what is called, I fear most untruly, the Gospel of God; leaves them, on condition of belonging to some particular party, and listening to some favourite preacher, free to give way to their passions, their spite, their meanness; to grind their servants, cheat their masters, trick their customers, adulterate their goods, and behave in money-matters as if all was fair in business, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ had nothing to do with common honesty; and all the while,
Compound for sins they are inclined to.
By damning those they
have no mind to.
My friends, these things ought not so to be. There is a Gospel of God, which preaches full forgiveness for the sake of Jesus Christ, to all who turn from their sins. But there is a Law of God, likewise, which executes sure vengeance against all who do not turn from their sins; be their professions as high, or their doctrines as correct as they may. A law which is in the Gospel itself, and says, by the mouth of the Apostle St. John, ‘Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as God is righteous’—he—and not he who expects to be saved by listening to some false preacher who teaches his congregation how to go to heaven without having thought one heavenly thought, or done one heavenly-deed.
Yes. There is an eternal law of God, which people are forgetting, I often fear, more and more, in England just now. I sometimes dread, lest we should be sinking into that hideous state of which the old Hebrew prophet speaks—‘The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?’ What, indeed; if people are to be taught more and more, that religion is a matter merely of doctrines and fancies and feelings, and has nothing to do with common morality, and common honesty, and common self-control and improvement of character and conduct?
My friends, in these dangerous days, for dangerous they truly are—like those of the Scribes and Pharisees of old; days in which bigotry and hardness of heart, hypocrisy and lip-profession stalk triumphant; days, in which men, like the Scribes and Pharisees of old, boast of the Bible, worship the Bible, think they have eternal life in the Bible, spend vast sums every year in spreading the Bible; and yet will neither read the Bible honestly, nor obey its plain commands—In such days as these, what prophet shall we fall back upon? What preacher shall we trust?
We can at least trust our Bible. We can read it honestly, if only there be in us the honest and good heart; we can obey its plain commands, if only we hunger and thirst after righteousness, and desire really to become good men. Read your Bibles for yourselves with a single eye, and with a pure heart which longs to know God’s will because it longs to do God’s will; and you will need no false prophets, under pretence of explaining it to you, to draw you away from the Holy Catholic faith into which you were baptized.
But if you must have a commentary on the Bible; if you must have some book to give you a general notion of what the Bible teaches you, and what it expects of you; go to the prayer-book. Go to the good old Catechism which you learnt at school. There, though not from the popular preachers, you will learn that God is just and true, loving and merciful, and no respecter of persons. There you will learn, that Christ died not for a few elect, but for the sins of the whole world. There you will learn that in baptism, by God’s free grace, and not by any experiences or feelings of your own, you were made children of God, members of Christ, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. There you will learn, that the elect whom the Holy Spirit sanctifies, are not merely a favoured few, but you—every baptized man, woman, and child. That the Holy Spirit is with you, every one of you, to sanctify you, if you will open your hearts to his gracious inspirations. And there you will learn what sanctification really means. Not a few fancies and feelings about which any man can deceive himself, and any man, also, deceive his neighbours. No, that sanctification means being made holy, righteous, virtuous, good. That sanctification means ‘To love your neighbour as yourself, and to do to all men as they should do unto you—to love, honour, and succour your father and mother’—Shall I go on? Or do you all know the plain old duty to your neighbours, which stands in the Church Catechism. If you do, thank God that you were taught it in your youth. Read it over and over again. Think over it. Pray to God to give you grace to act upon it, and to shew the fruit of it in your lives. And then, ‘By its fruits you shall know it.’ By its fruits you shall know the virtue of the Catechism, and of the great and good men, true prophets of God, who wrote that Catechism. Yes. Cling to that Catechism, even if it convinces you of many sins, and makes you sadly ashamed of yourselves again and again; for, believe me, it will prove your best safeguard in doctrine, your best teacher in practice, in these dangerous days—days in which every man who believes that right is right, and wrong is wrong, has need to pray with all his heart—‘From all false doctrine, heresy, and schism; from hardness of heart, and contempt of thy word and commandments; good Lord, deliver us!’
SERMON XIV. THE ROCK OF AGES
(Ninth Sunday after Trinity.)
1 Corinthians x. 4. They drank of that Spiritual Rock which followed them; and that Rock was Christ.
St. Paul has been speaking to the Corinthians about the Holy Communion.
In this text, St. Paul is warning the Corinthians about it. He says, ‘You may be Christian men; you may have the means of grace; you may come to the Communion and use the means of grace; and yet you may become castaways.’ St. Paul himself says, in the very verse before, ‘I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest . . . . I myself should be a castaway.’ Look, he says then, ‘at the old Jews in the wilderness. They all partook of God’s grace: but they were not all saved. They were all baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual meat, the manna from heaven. They all drank the same spiritual drink, the water out of the rock in Horeb. And yet with many of them God was not well pleased;’ for they were overthrown—their corpses were scattered far and wide—in the wilderness. The spiritual meat and the spiritual drink could not keep them alive, if they sinned, and deserved death. ‘So,’ says St. Paul, ‘with you. You are members of Christ’s body. The cup of blessing which we bless, is the communion of the blood of Christ; the bread which we break, is the communion of the body of Christ:’ but beware, they will not save you, if you sin. Nothing will save you, if you sin. If you lust after evil things, as those old Jews did; if you are idolaters, as they were; if you are profligates, as they were; if you tempt Christ, as they did; if you murmur against God, as they murmured, you will be destroyed like them.
Note here two things. First, that St. Paul says that we really receive Christ in the Holy Communion. He does not say, as some do, that the Communion is merely a remembrance of Christ’s death. He says that the faithful verily and indeed receive Christ’s body and blood in the Sacrament. He says so, distinctly, plainly, literally; and if that be not true, his whole argument goes for nothing, and will not stand. The Jews, he says, drank of the spiritual Rock which followed them, and that Rock was Christ; and so he says to you. But that did not save them from the punishment of their sins, when they went and sinned afresh: neither will it save you.
But now—What are these strange words which St. Paul uses? These old Jews drank of the spiritual Rock which followed them, and that Rock was Christ? Where in the Old Testament do we read of the Rock following them? We read of Moses striking the rock in Horeb, at the beginning of their wanderings in the wilderness; but not of its following them afterwards.
St. Paul is here using a beautiful old tradition of the Rabbis, that the rock which Moses struck in Horeb followed the Jews through all their forty years’ wanderings, and that on every Sabbath day when they stopped, it stopped also, and the elders called to it, ‘Flow out, O fountain,’ and the water flowed. A beautiful old story, which St. Paul turns into an allegory, to teach, as by a picture, the deepest and the highest truth. Whether that rock followed them or not, he says, there was One who did follow them, from whom flowed living water; and that Rock is Christ. Christ followed them. Christ the creator, the preserver, the inspirer, the light, the life, the guide of men, and of all the universe. It was to Christ they owed their deliverance from Egypt; to Christ they owed their knowledge of God, and of the law of God, to Christ they owed whatever reason, justice, righteousness, good government, there was among them. And to Christ we owe the same.
The rock was a type of him from whom flows living water. As he himself said on earth, ‘Whosoever drinketh of the water which I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water which I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up to everlasting life.’ Just as the manna also was a type of him, as he himself declared, when the Jews talked to him of the manna; ‘Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven.’ No: but only a type and picture of it. ‘My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. . . . I am that bread of life.’
My friends, herein is a great mystery. Something of what it means, however, we may learn from that wise and good Jew, Philo, who was St. Paul’s teacher according to the flesh, before he became a Christian; and who himself was so near to the kingdom of God, that St. Paul often in his epistles uses Philo’s very words, putting into them a Christian meaning. And what says he concerning the Rock of living waters?
The soul, he says, falls in with a scorpion in the wilderness; and then thirst, which is the thirst of the passions—of the lusts which war in our members—seizes on it; till God sends forth on it the stream of his own perfect wisdom, and causes the changed soul to drink of unchangeable health. For the steep rock is the wisdom of God (by whom he means the Word of God, whom Philo knew not in the flesh, but whom we know, as the Lord Jesus Christ), which, being both sublime and the first of all things; he quarried out of his own powers; and of it he gives drink to the souls which love God; and they, when they have drunk, are filled with the most universal manna.
So says Philo, the good Jew, who knew not Christ; and therefore he says only a part of the truth. If you wish to learn the whole truth, you must read St. John’s Gospel, and St. Paul’s Epistles, especially this very text; and again, the opening of the Epistle to the Ephesians; and again, that most royal passage in the opening of the Colossians, where he speaks of the Everlasting Being of Christ, who is before all things, and by whom all things consist—in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Therefore he is rightly called the Rock, the Rock of Ages, the Eternal Rock; because on him all things rest, and have rested since the foundation of the world, being made, and kept together, and ruled, and inspired by him alone. Therefore he is rightly called the Rock of living waters; for in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and from him they flow forth freely to all who cry to him in their thirst after truth and holiness. Yes, my friends, by Christ all things live; and therefore, most of all, by Christ our souls live. To be parted from Christ is death. To be joined to Christ and the body of Christ is life.
But what life? The life of the soul. And what is the life of the soul? Holiness, righteousness, sanctification, virtue,—call it what pleases you best. I shall call it goodness. That is the only life of the soul. And why? Because it is the life of Christ. That is the only wisdom of the soul. And why? Because it is the mind of Christ. That is the living water. And why? Because it flows eternally from Christ.
For who is Christ, but the likeness of God, and the glory of God? And what is the likeness of God, but goodness; and what is the glory of God, but goodness? Therefore Christ is goodness itself, as it is written, ‘Now the Lord is that Spirit.’ Yes, if you will believe it, Christ, the only-begotten Son, co-equal and co-eternal, is the very and essential goodness of the Father, coming out everlastingly in action and in life, in himself, and in his people, who are his mystical body, filled with the Spirit of him and his Father; who is the Holy Spirit, the spirit of goodness. From Christ, and not from any created being, comes all goodness in man or angel. Comes from Christ? It were more right, and more according to St. Paul’s own words, to say, that all goodness is Christ; Christ dwelling in a man, Christ forming himself in a man, little by little, step by step, as he grows in grace, in purity, in self-control, in experience, in knowledge, in wisdom, in strength, in patience, in love, in charity; till he comes to the stature of a perfect man, to the measure of the fulness of Christ.
Meanwhile, let the good which a man does be much, or be it little, he must say, ‘The good which I do, I do not, but Christ who dwelleth in me.’
For in every age of man, it is Christ who is awakening in him the hunger and thirst after righteousness, and then satisfying it with the only thing which can satisfy them, namely, his most blessed self.
Yes, believe it. It is Christ in the child which makes it speak the truth; Christ in the child which makes it shrink from whatever it has been told is wrong. It is Christ in the young man, which fills him with lofty aspirations, hopes of bettering the world around him, hopes of training his soul to be all that it can be, and of putting forth all his powers in the service of Christ. It is Christ in the middle-aged man, which makes him strong in good works, labouring patiently, wisely, and sturdily; so that having drunk of the living waters himself, they may flow out of him again to others in good deeds; a fountain springing up in him to an eternal life of goodness. It is Christ in the old man, which makes him look on with calm content while his own body and mind decay, knowing that the kingdom of God cannot decay; for Christ is ruling it in righteousness; and all will be well with him, and with his children after him, and with all mankind, and all heaven and earth, if they themselves only will it, long after he has been gathered to his fathers.
Yes, such a man knows in whom he has believed. He knows that the spiritual Rock has been following him through all his wanderings in this weary world; and that that Rock is Christ. He can recollect how, again and again, at his Sabbath haltings in his life’s journey, it was to him in the Holy Communion as to the Israelites of old in their haltings in the wilderness, when the priests of Jehovah cried to the mystic rock, ‘Flow forth, O fountain,’ and the waters flowed. So can he recollect how, in Holy Communion, there flowed into his soul streams of living water, the water of life, quenching that thirst of his soul, which no created thing could slake; the water of life; of Christ’s life, which is the light of men, shewing them what they ought to be and do; the life which is the light; the life which is according to the eternal and divine reason; the life of wisdom; which is the life of love; which is the life of justice; which is the life of Christ; which is the life of God.
But if these things are so—and so they are, for Christ has said it, St. Paul has said it, St. John has said it—but if these things are so, will they not teach us much about Holy Communion, how we may receive it worthily, and how unworthily?
If what we receive in the Communion be Christ himself, the good Christ who is to make us good; then how can we receive it worthily, if we do not hunger and thirst after goodness? If we do not come thither, longing to be made good, and sanctified, then we come for the wrong thing, to the wrong place. We are like those Corinthians who came to the Lord’s supper not to be made good men, but to exalt their own spiritual self-conceit; and so only ate and drank their own damnation, not discerning the Lord’s body, that it was a holy body, a body of righteousness and goodness.
But if we come hungering and thirsting to be made good men, then we come for the right thing, to the right place. Then we need not stay away, because we feel ourselves intolerably burdened with many sins; that will be our very reason for coming, that we may be cleansed from our sins—cleansed not only from their guilt, but from their power; and cry, in spirit and in truth, as we kneel at that holy table—
Rock of ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee;
By
the water and the blood,
From thy riven side which flowed,
Be
of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.
Yes, from its guilt and from its power also. Let us all pray, each in his own fashion:—
Oh Lamb eternal, beyond all place and time! Oh Lamb slain eternally, before the foundation of the world! Oh Lamb, which liest slain eternally, in the midst of the throne of God! Let the blood of life, which flows from thee, procure me pardon for the past; let the water of life, which flows from thee, give me strength for the future. I come to cast away my own life, my life of self and selfishness, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, that I may live it no more; and to receive thy life, which is created after the likeness of God, in righteousness and true holiness, that I may live it for ever and ever, and find it a well of life springing up in me to everlasting life. Eternal Goodness, make me good like thee. Eternal Wisdom, make me wise like thee. Eternal Justice, make me just like thee. Eternal Love, make me loving like thee. Then I shall hunger no more, and thirst no more; for
Thou, O Christ, art all I want;
More than all in thee I find;
Raise
me, fallen; cheer me, faint;
Heal me, sick; and lead me, blind.
Thou
of life the fountain art;
Freely let me take of thee;
Spring
thou up within my heart;
Rise to all eternity.
Oh come to Holy Communion with the words of that glorious hymn not merely on your lips, but in your hearts; and you will never come amiss.
SERMON XV. ANTIPATHIES
(Tenth Sunday after Trinity.)
1 Cor. xii. 3, 4, 5, 6. Wherefore, I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.
We are to come to the Communion this day in love and charity with all men. But are we in love and charity with all men?
I do not mean, are there any persons whom we hate; against whom we bear a spite; whom we should be glad to see in trouble or shame? God forbid, my friends, God forbid. There are, indeed, devil’s tempers. And yet more easy for us to keep in the bottom of our hearts, and more difficult to root them out, than we fancy.
It is easy enough for us to forgive (in words at least) a man who has injured us. Easy enough to make up our minds that we will not revenge ourselves. Easy enough to determine, even, that we will return good for evil to him, and do him a kindness when we have a chance. Yes, we would not hurt him for the world: but what if God hurt him? What if he hurt himself? What if he lost his money? What if his children turned out ill? What if he made a fool of himself, and came to shame? What if he were found out and exposed, as we fancy that he deserves? Should we be so very sorry? We should not punish him ourselves. No. But do we never catch ourselves thinking whether God may not punish him; thinking of that with a base secret satisfaction; almost hoping for it, at last? Oh if we ever do, God forgive us! If we ever find those devil’s thoughts rising in us, let us flee from them as from an adder; flee to the foot of Christ’s Cross, to the cross of him who prayed for his murderers, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do; and there cry aloud for the blood of life, which shall cleanse us from the guilt of those wicked thoughts, and for the water of life, which shall cleanse us from the power of them: lest they get the dominion over us, and spring up in us, and spread over our whole hearts; not a well of life, but a well of poison, springing up in us to everlasting damnation. Oh let us pray to him to give us truth in our inward parts; that we may forgive and love, not in word only, but in deed and in truth.
I could not help saying this in passing. But it is not what the text is speaking of; not what I want to speak of myself to-day. I want to speak of a matter which is smaller, and not by any means so sinful: and which yet in practice is often more tormenting to a truly tender conscience, because it is more common and more continual.
How often, when one examines oneself, whether one be in love and charity with all men, one must recollect that there are many people whom one does not like. I do not mean that one hates them. Not in the least: but they do not suit one. There is something in them which we cannot get on with, as the saying is. Something in their opinions, manners, ways of talking; even—God forgive us—merely in their voice, or their looks, or their dress, which frets us, and gives us what is called an antipathy to them. And one dislikes them; though they never have harmed us, or we them; and we know them, perhaps, to be better people than ourselves. Now, are we in love and charity with these people? I am afraid not.
I know one is tempted to answer; but I am afraid the answer is worth very little—Why not? We cannot help it. You cannot expect us to like people who do not suit us: any more than you can expect us to like a beetle or a spider. We know the beetle or the spider will not harm us. We know that they are good in their places, and do good, as all God’s creatures are and do; and there is room enough in the world for them and us: but we have a natural dislike to them, and cannot help it; and so with these people. We mean no harm in disliking them. It is natural to us; and why blame us for it.
Now what is the mistake here? Saying that it is natural to us. We are not meant to live according to nature, but according to grace; and grace must conquer nature, my friends, if we wish to save our souls alive. It is nature, brute nature, which makes some dogs fly at every strange dog they meet. It is nature, brute nature, which makes a savage consider every strange savage as his enemy, and try to kill him. But unless nature be conquered in that savage, it will end, where following brute nature always ends, in death; and the savages will (as all savages are apt to do) destroy each other off the face of the earth, by continual war and murder. It is brute nature which makes low and ignorant persons hate foreign people, because their dress and language seem strange. But unless that natural feeling had been in most of us conquered by the grace of God, which is the spirit of justice and of love, then England would have remained alone in conceit and ignorance, hated by all the nations; instead of being what, thank God! she is—the Sanctuary of the world; to which all the oppressed of the earth may flee; and find a welcome, and safety, and freedom, and justice, and peace.
And so with us, my friends. It is natural, and according to the brute nature of the old Adam, to dislike this person and that, just because they do not suit us. But it is according to grace, and the new Adam, who is the Lord from heaven, to honour all men; to love the brotherhood; to throw away our own private fancies and personal antipathies; and, like the Lord Jesus Christ, copy the all-embracing charity of God. And no one has a right to answer, ‘But I must draw the line somewhere.’ Thou must not. I am afraid that thou wilt, and that I shall, too, God forgive us both! because we are sinful human beings. We may, but we must not, draw a line as to whom we shall endure in charity. For Christ draws no line. Is it not written, ‘No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.’ Is not the Spirit of Christ in a Christian man, unless he be a reprobate? and who is reprobate, we know not, and dare not try to know; for it is written, ‘Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned.’
But what has the text to do with all this?
My friends, is not this just what the text is telling us? I said this moment, that the Spirit of Christ was in a Christian man, unless he be a reprobate. And the text says further, that there are diversities of gifts in Christian men: but the same spirit in all of them.
Yes: people will be different one from another. There are diversities of gifts. Differences in talents, in powers, in character, in kinds of virtue and piety; so that you shall find no two good men, no two useful men, like each other. But there is the same Spirit. The same Spirit of God is in each, though bearing different fruit in each. And there are differences of administrations, of offices, in God’s kingdom. God sets one man to do one work, and another to do another: but it is the same Lord who puts each man in his place, and shows him his work, and gives him power to do it. And there are diversities of operations, that is, of ways of working; so that if you put any two men to do the same thing, they will most probably do it each in a different way, and yet both do it well. But it is the same God, who is working in them both; the God who works all in all, and has his work done by a thousand different hands, by a thousand different ways.
And it is right and good that people should be so different from each other. ‘For the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.’ To profit, to be of use. If all men were alike, no one could learn from his neighbour. If all mankind were as like each other as a flock of sheep, there would be no more work, no more progress, no more improvement in mankind, than there is in a flock of sheep. Now each man can bring his own little share of knowledge or usefulness into the common stock. Each man has, or ought to have, something to teach his neighbour. Each man can learn something from his neighbour: at least he can learn this—to have patience with his neighbour. To live and let live. To bear with what in him seems odd and disagreeable, trusting that God may have put it there; that God has need of it; that God will make use of it. God makes use of many things which look to us ugly and disagreeable. He makes use of the spider and of the beetle. How much more of our brethren, members of Christ, children of God, inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. Shall they be to us, even if they be odd or disagreeable in some things—shall they be to us as the beetle or the spider, or any other merely natural things? They are men and women, in whom is the Spirit of the living God. And my friends, if they are good enough for God, they are good enough for us. Think but one moment. God the Father adopts a man as his child, God the Son dies for that man, God the Holy Ghost inspires that man; and shall we be more dainty than God? If, in spite of the man’s little weaknesses and oddities, God shall condescend to come down and dwell in that man, making him more or less a good man, doing good work; shall we pretend that we cannot endure what God endures? Shall we be more dainty, I ask again, than the holy and perfect God? Oh my friends, let us pray to him to take out of our hearts all selfishness, fancifulness, fastidiousness, and hasty respect of persons, of all which there is none in God. Let us ask for his Spirit, the Spirit of Charity, which sees God in all, and all in God, and therefore sees good in all, and sees all in love.
Then we shall see how much more there is in our neighbours to like, than to dislike. Then all these little differences will seem to us trifles not to be thought of, before the broad fact of a man’s being, after all, a man, an Englishman, a Christian, and a good Christian, doing good work where God has put him. Then we shall be ashamed of our old narrowness of heart; ashamed of having looked so much at the little evil in our neighbours, and not at the great good in them. Then we shall go about the world cheerfully; and our neighbour’s faces will seem to us full of light: instead of seeming full of darkness, because our own eyes and minds are dark for want of charity. Then we shall come to the Communion, not with hearts narrowed and shut up, perhaps, from the very person who kneels next to us: but truly open-hearted; with hearts as wide—ah God, that it were possible!—as the sacred heart of Christ, in which is room for all mankind. And so receiving his body, which is the blessed company of all faithful people, we shall receive Christ, who dwelleth in them, and they in him.
SERMON XVI. ST. PAUL
(Eleventh Sunday after Trinity.)
1 Cor. xv. 8. Last of all he was seen of me, also, as of one born out of due time. For I am the least of the Apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
You heard in this text (part of the epistle for this day) St. Paul’s opinion of himself. You heard, also, in the Second Lesson for this day, the ninth chapter of Acts, the extraordinary story of his conversion.
And what may we learn from that story? We may learn many lessons; lessons without number.
We may learn, first; not to be astonished, if we have to change our opinions as we grow older. When we are young, we are very positive about this thing and that, as St. Paul was; violent in favour of our own opinions; ready to quarrel with any one who differs from us, as St. Paul was. But let ten years, twenty years, roll over our heads, and we may find our opinions utterly changed, as St. Paul did, and look back with astonishment on ourselves, for having been foolish enough to believe what we did, as St. Paul looked back; and with shame, as did St. Paul likewise, at having said so many violent and unjust things against people, who, we now see, were in the right after all.
Next; we may learn not to be ashamed of changing our minds: but if we find ourselves in the wrong, to confess it boldly and honestly, as St. Paul did. What a fearful wrench to his mind and his heart; what a humiliation to his self-conceit, to have to change his mind once for all on all matters in heaven and earth. What must it not have cost him to throw up at once all his friends and relations; to part himself from all whom he loved and respected on earth, to feel that henceforth they must look upon him as a madman, an infidel, an enemy. To an affectionate man, and St. Paul was an extremely affectionate man, what a bitter struggle that must have cost him. But he faced that struggle, and conquered in it, like a brave and honest man. And the consequence was, that he had, in time, and after many lonely years, many Christian friends for each Jewish friend that he had lost; and to him was fulfilled (as it will be to all men) our Lord’s great saying, ‘There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my sake, and the gospel’s, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, . . . and in the world to come eternal life.’
Next; we may take comfort, in the hope that God will not impute to us these early follies and mistakes of ours; if only there be in us, as there was in St. Paul, the honest and good heart; that is, the heart which longs to know what is true and right, and bravely acts up to what it knows. St. Paul did so. God, when he set him apart, as he says, from his very birth, gave him a great grace, even the honest and good heart; and he was true to it, and used it. He tried to learn his best, and do his best. He profited in the Jews’ religion, beyond all his fellows. He was, touching the righteousness which was in the law, blameless. He was so zealous for what he thought right, that he persecuted the Church of Christ, as the Pharisees, his teachers, had taught him to do. In all things, whether right or wrong in each particular case, he was an honest, earnest seeker after truth and righteousness. And therefore Christ, instead of punishing him, fulfilled to him his own great saying,—‘To him that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance.’ He had not yet, as he himself says, again and again, the grace of Christ, which is love to his fellow-men; and therefore his works were not pleasing to God, and had, as the article says, the nature of sin. His empty forms and ceremonies could not please God. His persecuting the Church had plainly the nature of sin. But there was something which God had put in him, and which God would not lose sight of, or suffer to be lost; and that was, the honest and good heart, of which our Lord speaks in the parable of the sower. In that Christ sowed the word of God, even himself, and his grace and Holy Spirit; and, behold, it sprang up and bore fruit a hundredfold, over all Christian nations to this day.
Keep, therefore, if you have it, the honest and good heart. If you have it not, pray for it earnestly. Determine to learn what is true, whatever be the trouble; and to do what is right, whatever be the cost; and then, though you may make many mistakes, and have more than once, perhaps, to change your mind in shame and confusion, yet all will come right at last, for the grace of Christ, sooner or later, will lead you into all truth which you require for this world and all worlds to come.
Again, we may learn from St. Paul this lesson. That though God has forgiven a man, that is no reason that he should forgive himself. That may seem a startling saying just now. For the common teaching now is, that if a man finds, or fancies, that God has forgiven him, he may forgive himself at once; that if he gets assurance that his sins are washed away in Christ’s blood, he may go swaggering and boasting about the world (I can call it no less), as if he had never sinned at all; that he may be (as you see in these revivals, from which God defend us!) one moment in the deepest agonies of conscience, and dread of hell-fire, and the next moment in raptures of joy, declaring himself to be in heaven. Alas, alas! such people forget that sin leaves behind it wounds, which even the grace of Christ takes a long time in healing, and which then remain as ugly, but wholesome scars, to remind us of the fools which we have been. They are like a man who is in great bodily agony, and gets sudden relief from a dose of laudanum. The pain stops; and he feels himself, as he says, in heaven for the time: but he is too apt to forget that the cause of the pain is still in his body, and that if he commits the least imprudence, he will bring it back again; just as happens, I hear, in too many of these hasty and noisy conversions now-a-days.
That is one extreme. The opposite extreme is that of many old Roman Catholic saints and hermits who could not forgive themselves at all, but passed their whole lives in fasting, poverty, and misery, bewailing their sins till their dying day. That was a mistake. It sprang out of mistaken doctrines, of which I shall not speak here: but it did not spring entirely from them. There was in them a seed of good, for which I shall always love and honour them, even though I differ from them; and that was, a noble hatred of sin. They felt the sinfulness of sin; and they hated themselves for having sinned. The mercy of God made them only the more ashamed of themselves for having rebelled against him. Their longing after holiness only made them loathe the more their past unholiness. They carried that feeling too far: but they were noble people, men and women of God; and we may say of them, that, ‘Wisdom is justified of all her children.’
But I wish you to run into neither extreme. I only ask you to look at your past lives, if you have ever been open sinners, as St. Paul looked at his. There is no sentimental melancholy in him; no pretending to be miserable; no trying to make himself miserable. He is saved, and he knows it. He is an apostle, and he stands boldly on his dignity. He is cheerful, hopeful, joyful: but whenever he speaks of his past life (and he speaks of it often), it is with noble shame and sorrow. Then he looks to himself the chief of sinners, not worthy to be called an apostle, because he persecuted the Church of Christ. What he is, he will not deny. What he was, he will not forget, he dare not forget, lest he should forget that the good which he does, he does not—for in him (that is, in his flesh, his own natural character), dwelleth no good thing—but Christ, who dwells in him; lest he should grow puffed up, careless, self-indulgent; lest he should neglect to subdue his evil passions; and so, after having preached to others, himself become a castaway.
So let us do, my friends. Let us not be too hasty in forgiving ourselves. Let us thank God cheerfully for the present. Let us look on hopefully to the future; let us not look back too much at the past, or rake up old follies which have been pardoned and done away. But let us thank God whenever he thinks fit to shew us the past, and bring our sin to our remembrance. Let us thank him, when meeting an old acquaintance, passing by an old haunt, looking over an old letter, reminds us what fools we were ten, twenty, thirty years ago. Let us thank him for those nightly dreams, in which old tempers, old meannesses, old sins, rise up again in us into ugly life, and frighten us by making us in our sleep, what we were once, God forgive us! when broad awake. I am not superstitious. I know that those dreams are bred merely of our brain and of our blood. But I know that they are none the less messages from God. They tell us unmistakeably that we are the same persons that we were twenty years ago. They tell us that there is the same infection of nature, the same capability of sin, in us, that there was of old. That in our flesh dwells no good thing: that by the grace of God alone we are what we are: and that did his grace leave us, we might be once more as utter fools as we were in the wild days of youth. Yes: let us thank God for everything which reminds us of what we once were. Let us humble ourselves before him whenever those memories return to us; and let us learn from them what St. Paul learnt. To be charitable to all who have not yet learnt the wisdom which God (as we may trust) has taught to us; to feel for them, feel with them, be sure that they are our brothers, men of like passions with ourselves, who will be tried by the same standard as we; whom therefore we must not judge, lest we be judged in turn: and let us have, as St. Paul had, hope for them all; hope that God who has forgiven us, will forgive them; that God who has raised us from the death of sin, to something of the life of righteousness, will raise them up likewise, in his own good time.
Amen.
SERMON XVII. THE BROKEN AND CONTRITE HEART
Isaiah, lvii. 15-21. For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made. For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners. I create the fruit of the lips: Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; and I will heal him. But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.
This is part of Isaiah’s prophecy. He is telling the Jews that they should come back safe at last to their own land. He tells them why God had driven them out, and why God was going to bring them back.
He had driven them out for their sins. But he was not going to bring them back for their righteousness. He was going to bring them back out of his own free grace, his own pure love and mercy, which was wider, deeper, and higher, than all their sins, or than the sins of the whole world. He had sworn to Abraham to be the friend of those foolish rebellious Jews, and he would keep his promise for ever. Their wickedness could not conquer his goodness, or their denying him make him deny himself.
But one thing he did require of them. Not that they should turn and do right all at once. That must come afterwards. But that they should open their eyes, and see that they had done wrong. He wanted to produce in them the humble and the contrite heart.
Now, as I told you last Sunday, a contrite heart does not merely mean a broken heart; it means more. It means literally a heart crushed; a heart ground to powder. You can have no stronger word.
It was this heart which God wished to breed in these rebellious Jews. A heart like Isaiah’s heart, when he said, after having seen God’s glory, ‘Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and dwell among a people of unclean lips.’ A heart like Jeremiah’s heart, when he said, ‘Oh, that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.’ A heart like Daniel’s heart, when he confessed before God that, to him and all his people belonged shame and confusion of face.
Why do I mention these three men? They were not bad men, but good men. What need had they of a contrite heart?
I mention them, because they were good men. And why were they good men? For any good works of their own? Not in the least. What made them good men was, just the having the humble and the contrite heart; just feeling that in themselves they were as bad as the sinners round them; that the only thing which kept them out of the idolatry and profligacy of their neighbours was confessing their own weakness, and clinging fast to God by faith; confessing that their own righteousness was as filthy rags, and that God must clothe them with his righteousness.
Do you suppose that Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel would have been good men, if they had said to themselves, ‘We are prophets; we are inspired; we know God’s law: and therefore we are righteous; we are safe: but these people—these idolaters, these drunkards, these covetous, tyrannous, profligate people round, to whom we preach, and who know not the law—they are accursed.’ If they had, they would have said just what the Pharisees said afterwards. And what came of their saying so? Instead of knowing the Lord Christ, when he came they crucified him, showing that they were really worse at heart than the ignorant common people, instead of better.
No, my friends, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Daniel, were, better men than those round them, just because they had the humble and contrite heart; because they confessed that the root of sin was in them too, as much as in their fellow-country men; because they took their share of the public blame, their share of the public burden.
And their work and wish was, to breed in their fellow-countrymen the same humble and contrite heart which they had; to make them confess that their only hope lay in turning back to God, and doing right. But they could not succeed. Sin was too strong for them. So as Isaiah had warned the Jews, God did the work himself. God took the matter into his own hands, and arose out of his place to punish those Jews, and to make short work with them, by famine, and pestilence, and earthquake, and foreign invasion, till they were all carried away captive to Babylon: to see if that would teach them to know that God was the Lord; to see if that would breed in them the humble and contrite heart.
But God says to these poor Jews, Do not fancy that I have taken a spite against you. Not so. I will not contend for ever. I will not be always angry; for then the spirit would fail before me, and the souls which I have made. I have made you, God says; and I love you. I wish to save you, and not to destroy you. If God really hated any man, do you suppose that he would endure that man for a moment in his universe? Do you suppose that he would not sweep that man away, as easily and as quickly as we do a buzzing gnat when it torments us? Do you fancy that God lets you, or me, or any man, or any creature live one single instant, except in the hope of saving him, and of making him better than he is; of making him of some use, somewhere, some day or other? Do you suppose, I say, that God endures sinners one moment, save because he loves sinners, and willeth not the death of a sinner, but that he should be converted and live? No. ‘God our Saviour,’ says St. Paul to Timothy, ‘willeth that all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth;’ and therefore if they are not saved it must be their own fault, and not God’s; it must be they who will not be saved, though God wills that they should be, as Isaiah goes on to show. For he says—God cries to men, Peace! I create the fruit of the lips; that is, I give men cause to thank me. I create it. I make it without their help. I do not sell them my mercy. I give it them freely. I say, Peace, peace, to them all, To him who is near, and him who is afar off; peace to all mankind; peace on earth, and goodwill to men. God is everlastingly at peace with himself, and at peace with all his creatures, and with all his works; and he wills, in his boundless love, to bring them all into his peace, the peace which passeth understanding; that they may be at peace with him; and, therefore at peace with themselves, and at peace with each other.
But how can they be at peace, when there is no peace in them? If they will do wrong; if they will quarrel; if they will defraud each other; if they will give way to the lusts and passions which war within them: how can they be at peace? They are like a troubled sea, says Isaiah, when it cannot rest, which casts up mire and dirt; and there is no peace to them. It is not God who casts up the mire and dirt. It is they who cast it up. God has not made them restless: but they themselves, with their pride, selfishness, violent passions, longings after this and that. God has not made them foul and dirty, but they themselves, with their own foul words and foul deeds, which keep them from being at peace with themselves, because they are ashamed of them all the while; which keep them from being at peace with their neighbours; which make them hate and fear their neighbours, because they know that their neighbours do not respect them, or are afraid of their neighbours finding them out.
What says brave, plain-spoken St. James?—‘Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.’ ‘From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.’
But as for God, he says, from him comes nothing but good. Do not fancy anything else. ‘Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures.’
My friends, all these things were written for our examples. God grant that we may lay the lesson to heart. A dark night may come to any one of us, a night of darkness upon darkness, and sorrow upon sorrow, and bad luck upon bad luck; till we know not what is going to happen next; and are ready to say with David—‘All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me;’ and with Hezekiah—‘I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.’
God grant, that before that day comes, we may have so learnt to know God, as to know that the billows are God’s billows, and the storms his storms; and, after a while, not to be afraid, though all earthly hope and help seem swept away. God grant that when trouble comes after trouble, we may be able to see that our Father in heaven is only dealing with us as he dealt with those poor Jews; that he is all the while saying ‘Peace!’ to us, whether we be near him, or far off from him; and is ready to heal us, the moment that he has worked in us the broken and contrite heart. And we may trust him that he will do it. With him one day is as a thousand years. And in one day of bitter misery he can teach us lessons, which we could not teach ourselves in a thousand years of reading and studying, or even of praying. But our prayers, we shall find, have not been in vain. He has not forgotten one of them; and there is the answer, in that very sorrow. In sorrow, he is making short work with our spirits. In one terrible and searching trial our souls may be, as the Poet says—