Heated hot with burning fears,
And bathed in baths of hissing
tears;
And battered by the strokes of doom.
To shape and use.
Yes. He will make short work at times with men’s spirits. He grinds hearts to powder, that they may be broken and contrite before him: but only that he may heal them; that out of the broken fragments of the hard, proud, self-deceiving heart of stone, he may create a new and harder heart of flesh, human and gentle, humble and simple. And then he will return and have mercy. He will show that he will not contend for ever. He will show that he does not wish our spirits to fail before him, but to grow and flourish before him to everlasting life. He will create the fruit of the lips, and give us cause to thank him in spirit and in truth. He will show us that he was nearest when he seemed furthest off; and that just because he is the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, who dwelleth in the high and holy place, for that very reason he dwells also with the humble and the contrite heart; because that heart alone can confess his height and its own lowliness, confess its own sin and his holiness; and so can cling to his majesty by faith, and partake of his holiness by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit.
God grant that we may all so humble ourselves under his mighty hand, whenever that hand lies heavy upon us, that he may raise us up in due time, changed into his divine likeness, from glory to glory; till we come to the measure of Christ, and to the stature of perfect men, renewed into the image of the Son of Man, Jesus Christ our Lord! Amen.
SERMON XVIII. ST. PETER
Matt. xvi. 18. Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.
This is St. Peter’s day. It will be well worth our while to think a little over St. Peter, and what kind of man he was. For St. Peter was certainly one of the most important and most famous men who ever lived in the whole world. You just heard what our Lord said to him in the text. And certainly, from those words, and from many other things which are told of St. Peter, he was the chief of the apostles—at least till St. Paul arose.
St. Paul says himself, that he had as much authority as St. Peter, and that he was not a whit behind the very chiefest of the apostles: but St. Peter, for some time after our Lord’s death, seems to have been looked up to, by the rest of the apostles and the disciples, as their leader, the man of most weight and authority among them. It was to St. Peter especially that our Lord looked to strengthen the other apostles, after he had been converted himself. It was to St. Peter that our Lord first revealed that great gospel, that the Gentiles were fellow-heirs with the Jews in all God’s promises. The same thing was afterwards revealed to St. Paul too, and far more fully: but it was St. Peter who had the great honour of baptizing the first heathen; and of using, as our Lord had bid him do, the keys of the kingdom of heaven, to open its doors to all the nations upon earth.
Now, what sort of a man was this on whom the Lord Jesus Christ put so great an honour? If we say that St. Peter was nothing in himself; that all the goodness and worth in him was given him by Jesus Christ, then we must ask, what sort of goodness, what sort of worth, did the Lord give St. Peter to make him fit for so great an office? And how did he use Christ’s gifts? For, mind, he might have used them wrongly, as well as rightly; and the greater gifts he had, the more harm he would have done if he had used them ill. We shall see, presently, how he did use them ill, more than once; and how our Lord had to reprove him, and say very stern and terrible words to him, to bring him to his senses.
But this we may see, that St. Peter was always a frank, brave, honest, high-spirited man; who, if he thought that a thing ought to be done, would do it at once.
The first thing we hear of him is, how Jesus, walking by the Lake of Galilee, saw Peter with his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. And he said unto them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.’ This was most likely not the first time that St. Peter had seen our Lord, or heard him speak. Living in the same part of the country, he must have known all his miracles: but still it was a great struggle, no doubt, for him (and doubly so because he was a married man), to throw up his employment, and go wandering after one who had not where to lay his head: yet he did it, and did it at once. And you may see that he did it for a much higher and nobler reason than if he had only gone to wonder at our Lord’s miracles, as the multitude did, or even to be able to work miracles himself. Jesus did not say to him, Follow me, and I will give you the power of working miracles, and being admired, and wondered at; all he says is, I will make you fishers of men; I will make you able to get a hold on men’s hearts, and teach them, and make them happier and better. And for that St. Peter followed him. It seems as if from the first his wish was to do good to his fellow-creatures.
And, gradually, he seems to have become the spokesman for the other apostles. When they wished to ask our Lord anything, we generally find St. Peter asking; and when (as in the gospel for to-day), our Lord asks them a question, St. Peter answers for them all. Whom say ye that I am? And Peter answered and said, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.’
This is what St. Peter had learnt; because he had kept his eyes and his ears open, and his heart ready and teachable, that he might see God’s truth when it should please God to show it him; and God did show it him: and taught him something which his own eyes and ears could not teach him; which all his thinking could not have taught him; which no man could have taught him; flesh and blood could not reveal to him that Jesus was the Son of God; flesh and blood could not draw aside the veil of flesh and blood, and make him see in that poor man of Nazareth, who was called the carpenter’s son, the only-begotten of the Father, God made man. No. God the Father only could teach him that, by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit: but do you think that God would have taught St. Peter that, or that St. Peter could have learnt it, if his mind had been merely full of thoughts about himself, and what honour he was to get for himself, or what profit he was to get for himself, out of the Lord Jesus Christ?
No: St. Peter loved the Lord Jesus; loved him with his whole heart. When afterwards our Lord asked him, ‘Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?’ He answered, ‘Lord, thou knowest that I love thee.’ And because he loved him, he saw how beautiful and glorious the Lord’s character was; and his eyes were opened to see that the Lord was too beautiful, too glorious, to be merely a mortal man; and, at last, to see that he was the brightness of God’s glory, and the express image of his Father’s person.
But, as I said just now, St. Peter’s great and excellent gifts might have made him only the more dangerous man, if he used them ill. And this seems to have been his danger. He was plainly a very bold and determined man, who knew his own power, and was ready to use it fearlessly: and what would he be tempted to do! To fancy that his power belonged to him, and not to Christ; that his wisdom belonged to himself; that his faith belonged to himself; his authority belonged to himself; and that, therefore, he could use his excellent gifts as he liked, and not merely as Christ liked. He was liable, as we say in homely English, to ‘have his head turned’ by his honour and his power.
For instance, immediately after our Lord had put this great honour on him, ‘I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,’ we find Peter mistaking his power, and, therefore, misusing it. ‘From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from Thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.’ St. Peter’s words, in the Greek tongue, really seem to mean that St. Peter fancied that he could protect our Lord; that he had the power of delivering him, by binding his enemies the Jews, and loosing the Lord himself. That seems to have been the way in which he took our Lord’s words: but what does our Lord answer? As stern words as man could hear. ‘Get thee behind me, Satan; for thou art an offence unto me.’ Or, rather, thou art my stumbling-block. So that St. Peter, while he fancied himself near to the angels, found out, to his shame, that he was behaving like a devil, and had to be called Satan to his face; and that while he thought he could save the Lord Jesus, he found that he was doing all he could to harm and ruin his master; trying to do the very work which the Devil tried to do, when he tempted the Lord Jesus in the wilderness. So near beside each other do heaven and hell lie. So easy is it to give place to the Devil, and fall into the worst of sin, just when we are puffed up with spiritual pride.
And more than once afterwards, St. Peter had to learn that same lesson; when, for instance, he leaped boldly overboard from the boat, and came walking towards Jesus on the sea. That was noble: worthy of St. Peter: but he fancied himself a braver man than he was. He became afraid; and the moment that he became afraid, he began to sink. Jesus saved him, and then told him why he had become afraid: because his faith had failed him. He had ceased trusting in Christ’s power to keep him up; and became helpless at once.
That should have been a lesson to St. Peter, that he was not to be so very sure of his own faith and his own courage; that without his Lord he might become cowardly and helpless any moment: but he did not take that gentle lesson; so he had to learn it once and for all by a very terrible trial. We all know how he fell;—one day protesting vehemently to his Lord, ‘Though I die with thee, I will not deny thee;’ the next, declaring, with oaths and curses, ‘I know not the man.’ No wonder that when Jesus turned and looked on him, Peter went out and wept bitterly, as bitter tears of shame as ever were shed on earth. For he knew, he was sure, that he loved his Lord all along: and now he had denied him. He who was so bold and confident, to fall thus! and into the very sins most contrary to his nature! the very sins in which he would have expected least of all to fall! He, so frank and honest and brave—He to turn coward. He to tell a base lie! I dare say, that for the moment he could hardly believe himself to be himself.
But so it is, my friends. If we forget that all which is good and strong in us comes from God, and not from ourselves; if we are conceited, and confident in ourselves; then we cut ourselves off from God’s grace, and give place to Satan the Devil, that he may sift us like wheat, as he did St. Peter; and then in some shameful hour, we may find ourselves saying and doing things which we would never have believed we could have done. God grant, that if ever we fall into such unexpected sin, it may happen to us as it did to St. Peter. For Satan gained little by sifting St. Peter. He sifted out the chaff: but the wheat was left behind safe for God’s garner. The chaff was St. Peter’s rashness and self-conceit, which came from his own sinful nature; and that went, and St. Peter was rid of it for ever. The wheat was St. Peter’s courage, and faith, and honour, which came from God; and that remained, and St. Peter kept them for ever. That, we read, was St. Peter’s conversion; that worked the thorough and complete change in his character, and made him a new man from that day forth. And then, after that terrible and fiery trial, St. Peter was ready to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, which gave him courage with fervent zeal to preach the gospel of his Crucified Lord, and at last to be crucified himself for that Lord’s sake; and so fulfil the Lord’s words to him. ‘When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.’ By that our Lord seems to have meant, ‘You were strong and proud and self-willed enough in your youth. The day will come when you will be tamed down, ready and willing to suffer patiently, even agony from which your flesh and blood may shrink;’ and the Lord’s words came true. For, say the old stories, when St. Peter was led to be crucified, he refused to be crucified upright, as the Lord Jesus had been, saying, ‘That it was too great an honour for him, who had once denied his Lord, to die the same death as his Lord died.’ So he was crucified, they say, with his head downward; and ended a glorious life in a humble martyrdom.
And what may we learn from St. Peter’s character? I think we may learn this. Frankness, boldness, a high spirit, a stout will, and an affectionate heart; these are all God’s gifts, and they are pleasant in his eyes, and ought to be a blessing to the man who has them. Ought to be a blessing to him, because they are the stuff out of which a good, and noble, and useful Christian man may be made. But they need not be a blessing to a man; they are excellent gifts: but they will not of themselves make a man an excellent man, who excels; that is, surpasses others in goodness. We may see that ourselves, from experience. We see too many brave men, free-spoken men, affectionate men, who come to shame and ruin.
How then can we become excellent men, like St. Peter? By being baptised, as St. Peter was, with the Holy Ghost and with fire.
Baptized with the Holy Ghost, to put into our hearts good desires; to make us see what is good, and love what is good, long to do good: but baptized with fire also. ‘He shall baptize you,’ John the Baptist said, ‘with the Holy Ghost and with fire.’
Does that seem a hard saying? Do not some at least of you know what that means? Some know, I believe. All will know one day; for it is true for all. To all, sooner or later, Christ comes to baptise them with fire; with the bitter searching affliction which opens the very secrets of their hearts, and shows them what their souls are really like, and parts the good from the evil in them, the gold from the rubbish, the wheat from the chaff. ‘And he shall gather the wheat into his garner, but the chaff he shall burn up with unquenchable fire.’ God grant to each of you, that when that day comes to you, there may be something in you which will stand the fire; something worthy to be treasured up in God’s garner, unto everlasting life.
But do not think that the baptism of fire comes only once for all to a man, in some terrible affliction, some one awful conviction of his own sinfulness and nothingness. No; with many—and those, perhaps, the best people—it goes on month after month, year after year: by secret trials, chastenings which none but they and God can understand, the Lord is cleansing them from their secret faults, and making them to understand wisdom secretly; burning out of them the chaff of self-will and self-conceit and vanity, and leaving only the pure gold of his righteousness. How many sweet and holy souls look cheerful enough before the eyes of man, because they are too humble and too considerate to intrude their secret sorrows upon the world. And yet they have their secret sorrows. They carry their cross unseen all day long, and lie down to sleep on it at night: and they will carry it for years and years, and to their graves, and to the Throne of Christ, before they lay it down: and none but they and Christ will ever know what it was; what was the secret chastisement which he sent to make that soul better, which seemed to us to be already too good for earth. So does the Lord watch his people, and tries them with fire, as the refiner of silver sits by his furnace, watching the melted metal, till he knows that it is purged from all its dross, by seeing the image of his own face reflected in it. God grant that our afflictions may so cleanse our hearts, that at the last Christ may behold himself in us, and us in himself; that so we may be fit to be with him where he is, and behold the glory which his Father gave him before the foundation of the world.
SERMON XIX. ELIJAH
(Tenth Sunday after Trinity.)
1 Kings xxi. 19, 20. And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? and thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine. And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.
Of all the grand personages in the Old Testament, there are few or none, I think, grander than the prophet Elijah. Consider his strange and wild life, wandering about in forests and mountains, suddenly appearing, and suddenly disappearing again, so that no man knew where to find him; and, as Obadiah said when he met him, ‘If I tell my Lord, Behold, Elijah is here; then, as soon as I am gone from thee, the Spirit of the Lord shall carry thee whither I know not.’ Consider, again, his strange activity and strength, as when he goes, forty days and forty nights, far away out of Judea, over the waste wilderness, to Horeb the mount of God; or, as again, when he girds up his loins, and runs before Ahab’s chariot for many miles to the entrance of Jezreel. One can fancy him from what the Bible tells us of him, clearly enough; as a man mysterious and terrible, not merely in the eyes of women and children, but of soldiers and of kings.
He seems to have been especially a countryman; a mountaineer; born and bred in Gilead, among the lofty mountains and vast forests, full of wild beasts, lions and bears, wild bulls and deer, which stretch for many miles along the further side of the river Jordan, with the waste desert of rocks and sand beyond them. A wild man, bred up in a wild country, he had learnt to fear no man, and no thing, but God alone. We do not know what his youth was like; we do not know whether he had wife, or children, or any human being who loved him. Most likely not. He seems to have lived a lonely life, in sad and bad times. He seems to have had but one thought, that his country was going to ruin, from idolatry, tyranny, false and covetous ways; and one determination; to say so; to speak the truth, whatever it cost him. He had found out that the Lord was God, and not Baal, or any of the idols; and he would follow the Lord; and tell all Israel what his own heart had told him, ‘The Lord, he is God,’ was the one thing which he had to say; and he said it, till it became his name; whether given him by his parents, or by the people, his name was Elijah, ‘The Lord is God.’ ‘How long halt ye between two opinions?’ he cries, upon the greatest day of his life. ‘If the Lord be God, then follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.’ How grand he is, on Carmel, throughout that noble chapter which we read last Sunday. There is no fear in him, no doubt in him. The poor wild peasant out of the savage mountains stands up before all Israel, before king, priests, nobles, and people, and speaks and acts as if he, too, were a king; because the Spirit of God is in him: and he is right, and he knows that he is right. And they obey him as if he were a king. Even before the fire comes down from heaven, and shows that God is on his side, from the first they obey him. King Ahab himself obeys him, trembles before him—‘And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim. Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel’s table. So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel.’ The tyrant’s guilty conscience makes a coward of him: and he quails before the wild man out of the mountains, who has not where to lay his head, who stands alone against all the people, though Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, and they eat at the queen’s table; and he only is left and they seek his life:—yet no man dare touch him, not even the king himself. Such power is there, such strength is there, in being an honest and a God-fearing man.
Yes, my friends, this was the secret of Elijah’s power. This is the lesson which Elijah has to teach us. Not to halt between two opinions. If a thing be true, to stand up for it; if a thing be right, to do it, whatsoever it may cost us. Make up your minds then, my friends, to be honest men like Elijah the prophet of old.
For your own sake, for your neighbour’s sake, and for God’s sake, be honest men.
For your own sake. If you want to be respected; if you want to be powerful—and it is good to be powerful sometimes—if God has set you to govern people, whether it be your children and household, your own farm, your own shop, your own estate, your own country or neighbourhood—Do you want to know the great secret of success?—Be honest and brave. Let your word be as good as your thought, and your deed as good as your word. Who is the man who is respected? Who is the man who has influence? The complaisant man—the cringing man—the man who cannot say No, or dare not say No? Not he. The passionate man who loses his temper when anything goes wrong, who swears and scolds, and instead of making others do right, himself does wrong, and lowers himself just when he ought to command respect? My experience is—not he: but the man who says honestly and quietly what he thinks, and does fearlessly and quietly what he knows. People who differ from him will respect him, because he acts up to his principles. When they are in difficulty or trouble, they will go and ask his advice, just because they know they will get an honest answer. They will overlook a little roughness in him; they will excuse his speaking unpleasant truths: because they can trust him, even though he is plain-spoken.
For your neighbour’s sake, I say; and again, for your children’s sake; for the sake of all with whom you have to do, be honest and brave. For our children—O my friends, we cannot do a crueller thing by them than to let them see that we are inconsistent. If they hear us say one thing and do another—if, while we preach to them we do not practice ourselves, they will never respect us, and never obey us from love and principle. If they do obey us, it will be only before our faces, and from fear. If they see us doing only what we like, when our backs are turned they will do what they like.
And worse will come than their not respecting us—they will learn not to respect God. If they see that we do not respect truth and honesty, they will not respect truth and honesty; and he who does not respect them, does not respect God. They will learn to look on religion as a sham. If we are inconsistent, they will be profane.
But some may say—‘I have no power; and I want none. I have no people under me for whom I am responsible.’
Then, if you think that you need not be honest and brave for your own sake, or for other peoples’ sake, be honest and brave for God’s sake.
Do you ask what I mean? I mean this. Recollect that truth belongs to God. That if a thing is true, it is true because God made it so, and not otherwise; and therefore, if you deny truth, you fight against God. If you are honest, and stand up for truth, you stand up for God, and what God has done.
And recollect this, too. If a thing be right for you to do, God has made it right, and God wills you to do it; and, therefore, if you do not do your duty, you are fighting against God; and if you do your duty, you are a fellow-worker with God, fulfilling God’s will. Therefore, I say, Be honest and brave for God’s sake. And in this way, my friends, all may be brave, all may be noble. Speak the truth, and do your duty, because it is the will of God. Poor, weak women, people without scholarship, cleverness, power, may live glorious lives, and die glorious deaths, and God’s strength may be made perfect in their weakness. They may live, did I say? I may say they have lived, and have died, already, by thousands. When we read the stories of the old martyrs who, in the heathen persecution, died like heroes rather than deny Christ, and scorned to save themselves by telling what they knew to be a lie, but preferred truth to all that makes life worth having:—how many of them—I may say the greater part of them—were poor creatures enough in the eyes of man, though they were rich enough, noble enough, in the eyes of God who inspired them. ‘Few rich and few noble,’ as the apostle says, ‘were called.’ It was to poor people, old people, weak women, ill-used and untaught slaves, that God gave grace to defy all the torments which the heathen could heap on them, and to defy the scourge and the rack, the wild beasts and the fire, sooner than foul their lips and their souls by denying Christ, and worshipping the idols which they knew were nothing, and worth nothing.
And so it may be with any of you here; whosoever you may be, however poor, however humble. Though your opportunities may be small, your station lowly, your knowledge little; though you may be stupid in mind, slow of speech, weakly of body, yet if you but make up your mind to say the thing which is true, and to do the thing which is right, you may be strong with the strength of God, and glorious with the glory of Christ.
It is a grand thing, no doubt, to be like Elijah, a stern and bold prophet, standing up alone against a tyrant king and a sinful people; but it is even a greater thing to be like that famous martyr in old time, St. Blandina, who, though she was but a slave, and so weakly, and mean, and fearful in body, that her mistress and all her friends feared that she would deny Christ at the very sight of the torments prepared for her, and save herself by sacrificing to the idols, yet endured, day after day, tortures too horrible to speak of, without cry or groan, or any word, save ‘I am a Christian;’ and, having outlived all her fellow-martyrs, died at last victorious over pain and temptation, so that the very heathen who tortured her broke out in admiration of her courage, and confessed that no woman had ever endured so many and so grievous torments. So may God’s strength be made perfect in woman’s weakness.
You are not called to endure such things. No: but you, and I, and every Christian soul are called on to do what we know to be right. Not to halt between two opinions: but if God be God, to follow Him. If we make up our minds to do that, we shall be sure to have our trials: but we shall be safe, because we are on God’s side, and God on ours. And if God be with us, what matter if the whole world be against us? For which is the stronger of the two, the whole world, or God who made it, and rules it, and will rule it for ever?
SERMON XX. THE LOFTINESS OF HUMILITY
1 Peter v. 5. Be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.
This is St. Peter’s command. Are we really inclined to obey it? For, if we are, there is nothing more easy. There is no vice so easy to get rid of as pride: if one wishes. Nothing so easy as to be humble: if one wishes.
That may seem a strange saying, considering that self-conceit is the vice of all others to which man is most given; the first sin, and the last sin, and that which is said to be the most difficult to cure. But what I say is true nevertheless.
Whosoever wishes to get rid of pride may do so. Whosoever wishes to be humble need not go far to humble himself.
But how? Simply by being honest with himself, and looking at himself as he is.
Let a man recollect honestly and faithfully his past life; let him recollect his sayings and doings for the past week; even for the past twenty-four hours: and I will warrant that man that he will recollect something, or, perhaps, many things which will not raise him in his own eyes; something which he had sooner not have said or done; something which, if he is a foolish man, he will try to forget, because it makes him ashamed of himself; something which, if he is a wise man, he will not try to forget, just because it makes him ashamed of himself; and a very good thing for him that he should be so. I know that it is so for me; and therefore I suppose it is so for every man and woman in this Church.
I am not going to give any examples. I am not going to say,—‘Suppose you thought this and this about yourself, and were proud of it; and then suppose that you recollected that you had done that and that: would you not feel very much taken down in your own conceit?’
I like that personal kind of preaching less and less. Those random shots are dangerous and cruel; likely to hit the wrong person, and hurt their feelings unnecessarily. It is very easy to say a hard thing: but not so easy to say it to the right person and at the right time.
No. The heart knoweth its own bitterness. Almost every one has something to be ashamed of, more or less, which no one but himself and God knows of; and which, perhaps, it is better that no one but he and God should know.
I do not mean any great sin, or great shame—God forbid; but some weak point, as we call it. Something which he had better not say or do; and yet which he is in the habit of saying and doing. I do not ask what it is. With some it may be a mere pardonable weakness; with others it may be a very serious and dangerous fault. All I ask now is, that each and every one of us should try and find it out, and feel it, and keep it in mind; that we may be of a humble spirit with the lowly, which is better than dividing the spoil with the proud.
But why better?
The world and human nature look up to the proud successful man. One is apt to say, ‘Happy is the man who has plenty to be proud of. Happy is the man who can divide the spoil of this world with the successful of this world. Happy is the man who can look down on his fellow-men, and stand over them, and manage them, and make use of them, and get his profit out of them.’
But that is a mistake. That is the high-mindedness which goes before a fall, which comes not from above, but is always earthly, often sensual, and sometimes devilish. The true and safe high-mindedness, which comes from above, is none other than humility. For, if you will look at it aright, the humble man is really more high-minded than the proud man. Think. Suppose two men equal in understanding, in rank, in wealth, in what else you like, one of them proud, the other humble. The proud man thinks—‘How much better, wiser, richer, more highly born, more religious, more orthodox, am I than other people round me.’ Not, of course, than all round him, but than those whom he thinks beneath him. Therefore he is always comparing himself with those below himself; always watching those things in them in which he thinks them worse, meaner than himself; he is always looking down on his neighbours.
Now, which is more high-minded; which is nobler; which is more fit for a man; to look down, or to look up? At all events the humble man looks up. He thinks, ‘How much worse, not how much better, am I than other people.’ He looks at their good points, and compares them with his own bad ones. He admires them for those things in which they surpass him. He thinks of—perhaps he loves to read of—men superior to himself in goodness, wisdom, courage. He pleases himself with the example of brave and righteous deeds, even though he fears that he cannot copy them; and so he is always looking up. His mind is filled with high thoughts, though they be about others, not about himself. If he be a truly Christian man, his thoughts rise higher still. He thinks of Christ and of God, and compares his weakness, ignorance, and sinfulness with their perfect power, wisdom, goodness. Do you not see that this man’s mind is full of higher, nobler thoughts than that of the proud man? Is he not more high-minded who is looking up, up to God himself, for what is good, noble, heavenly? Even though it makes him feel small, poor, weak, and sinful in comparison, still his mind is full of grace, and wisdom, and glory. The proud man, meanwhile, for the sake of feeding his own self-conceit at other men’s expense, is filling his mind with low, mean, earthly thoughts about the weaknesses, sins, and follies, of the world around him. Is not he truly low-minded, thinking about low things?
Now, I tell you, my friends, that both have their reward. That the humble man, as years roll on, becomes more and more noble, and the proud man becomes more and more low-minded; and finds that pride goes before a fall in more senses than one. Yes. There is nothing more hurtful to our own minds and hearts than a domineering, contemptuous frame of mind. It may be pleasant to our own self-conceit: but it is only a sweet poison. A man lowers his own character by it. He takes the shape of what he is always looking at; and, if he looks at base and low things, he becomes base and low himself; just as slave-owners, all over the world, and in all time, sooner and later, by living among slaves, learn to copy their own slaves’ vices; and, while they oppress and look down on their fellow-man, become passionate and brutal, false and greedy, like the poor wretches whom they oppress.
Better, better to be of a lowly spirit. Better to think of those who are nobler than ourselves, even though by so doing we are ashamed of ourselves all day long. What loftier thoughts can man have? What higher and purer air can a man’s soul breathe? Yes, my friends; believe it, and be sure of it. The truly high-minded man is not the proud man, who tries to get a little pitiful satisfaction from finding his brother men, as he chooses to fancy, a little weaker, a little more ignorant, a little more foolish, a little more ridiculous, than his own weak, ignorant, foolish, and, perhaps, ridiculous self. Not he; but the man who is always looking upwards to goodness, to good men, and to the all-good God: filling his soul with the sight of an excellence to which he thinks he can never attain; and saying, with David, ‘All my delight is in the saints that dwell in the earth, and in those who excel in virtue.’
But I do not say that he cannot attain to that excellence. To the goodness of God, of course, no man can; but to the goodness of man he may. For what man has done, man may do; and the grace of God which gave power to one man to rise above sin, and weakness, and ignorance, will give power to others also. But only to those who look upward, at better men than themselves: not to those who look down, like the Pharisee, but to those who look up like the Publican; for, as the text says, ‘God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.’
And why does God resist and set himself against the proud? To turn him out of his evil way, of course, if by any means he may be converted (that is, turned round) and live. For the proud man has put himself into a wrong position; where no immortal soul ought to be. He is looking away from God, and down upon men; and so he has turned his face and thoughts away from God, the fountain of light and life; and is trying to do without God, and to stand in his own strength, and not in God’s grace, and to be somebody in himself, instead of being only in God, in whom we live and move and have our being. So he has set himself against God; and God will, in mercy to that foolish man’s soul, set himself against him. God will humble him; God will overthrow him; God will bring his plans to nought; if by any means he may make that man ashamed of himself, and empty him of his self-conceit, that he may turn and repent in dust and ashes, when he finds out what those proud Laodicæan Christians of old had to find out—that all the while that they were saying, ‘I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing,’ they did not know that they were wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.
And how does God give grace to the humble? My friends, even the wise heathen knew that. Listen to a heathen; {328} a good and a wise man, though; and one who was not far from the kingdom of God, or he would not have written such words as these,—
‘It is our duty,’ he says, ‘to turn our minds to the best of everything; so as not merely to enjoy what we read, but to be improved by it. And we shall do that, by reading the histories of good and great men, which will, in our minds, produce an emulation and eagerness, which may stir us up to imitation. We may be pleased with the work of a man’s hands, and yet set little store by the workman. Perfumes and fine colours we may like well enough: but that will not make us wish to be perfumers, or painters: but goodness, which is the work, not of a man’s hands, but of his soul, makes us not only admire what is done, but long to do the like. And therefore,’ he says, he thought it good to write the lives ‘of famous and good men, and to set their examples before his countrymen. And having begun to do this,’ he says in another place, ‘for the sake of others, he found himself going on, and liking his labour, for his own sake: for the virtues of those great men served him as a looking-glass, in which he might see how, more or less, to order and adorn his own life. Indeed, it could be compared,’ he says, ‘to nothing less than living with the great souls who were dead and gone, and choosing out of their actions all that was noblest and worthiest to know. What greater pleasure could there be than that,’ he asks, ‘or what better means to improve his soul? By filling his mind with pictures of the best and worthiest characters, he was able to free himself from any low, malicious, mean thoughts, which he might catch from bad company. If he was forced to mix at times with base men, he could wash out the stains of their bad thoughts and words, by training himself in a calm and happy temper to view those noble examples.’ So says the wise heathen. Was not he happier, wiser, better, a thousand times, thus keeping himself humble by looking upwards, than if he had been feeding his petty pride by looking down, and saying, ‘God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are?’
If you wish, then, to be truly high-minded, by being truly humble, read of, and think of, better men, wiser men, braver men, more useful men than you are. Above all, if you be Christians, think of Christ himself. That good old heathen took the best patterns which he could find: but after all, they were but imperfect, sinful men: but you have an example such as he never dreamed of; a perfect man, and perfect God in one. Let the thought of Christ keep you always humble: and yet let it lift you up to the highest, noblest, purest thoughts which man can have, as it will.
For all that this old heathen says of the use of examples of good men, all that, and far more, St. Paul says, almost in the same words. By looking at Christ, he says, we rise and sit with him in heavenly places, and enjoy the sight of His perfect goodness; ashamed of ourselves, indeed, and bowed to the very dust by the feeling of our own unworthiness; and yet filled with the thought of his worthiness, till, by looking we begin to admire, and, by admiring, we begin to love; and so are drawn and lifted up to him, till, by beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, and the perfect beauty of his character, we become changed into the same image, from glory to glory: and thus, instead of receiving the just punishment of pride and contempt, which is lowering our characters to the level of those on whom we look down, we shall receive the just reward of true humility, which is having our characters raised to the level of him up to whom we look.
Oh young people, think of this; and remember why God has given you the advantage of scholarship and education. Not that you may be proud of the very little you know; not that you may look down on those who are not as well instructed as you are; not that you may waste your time over silly books, which teach you only to laugh at the follies and ignorance of some of your fellow-men, to whom God has not given as much as to you; but that you may learn what great and good men have lived, and still live, in the world; what wise, and good, and useful things have been, and are being, done all around you; and to copy them: above all, that you may look up to Christ, and through Christ, to God, and learn to copy him; till you come, as St. Paul says, to be perfect men; to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. To which may he bring you all of his mercy. Amen.
SERMON XXI. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
(Trinity Sunday.)
John v. 19. Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
This is Trinity Sunday; and on this day we are especially to think of the mystery of the ever-blessed Trinity, and on the Athanasian Creed, which was read this morning. Now there is much in this Athanasian Creed, which simple country people, however good their natural abilities may be, cannot be expected to understand. The Creed was written by scholars, and for scholars; and for very deep scholars, too, far deeper than I pretend to be; and the reasonable way for most men to think of the Athanasian Creed, will be to take it very much upon trust, as a child takes on trust what his father tells him, even though he cannot understand it himself; or, as we all believe, that the earth moves round the sun, and not the sun round the earth, though we cannot prove it; but only believe it, because wiser men than we have proved it. So we must think of the Athanasian Creed, and say to ourselves—‘Wiser men than I can ever hope to be have settled that this is the true doctrine, and the true meaning of Holy Scripture, and I will believe them. They must know best.’ Still, one is bound to understand as much as one can; one is bound to be able to give some reason for the faith which is in us; and, above all, one is bound not to hold false doctrines, which are contrary to the Athanasian Creed and to the Bible.
Some people are too apt to say now-a-days, ‘But what matter if one does hold false doctrine? That is a mistake of the head and not of the heart. Provided a man lives a good life, what matter what his doctrines are?’ No doubt, my friends, if a man lives a good life, all is well: but do people live good lives? I am not speaking of infidels. Thank God, there are none here; to God let us leave them, trusting in the Good Friday collect, and the goodwill of God, which is, that all should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
But, as for Christian people, this I will tell you, that unless you hold true doctrines, you will not lead good lives. My experience is, that people are often wrong, when they say false doctrine is a mistake of the head and not of the heart. I believe false doctrine is very often not bred in the head at all, but in the heart, in the very bottom of a man’s soul; that it rises out of his heart into his head; and that if his heart was right with God, he would begin at once to have clearer and truer notions of the true Christian faith. I do not say that it is always so; God forbid! But I do say that it is often so, because I see it so; because I see every day false doctrines about God making men lead bad lives, and commit actual sins; take God’s name in vain, dishonour their fathers and mothers, lie, cheat, bear false witness against their neighbours, and covet other men’s goods. I say, I see it, and I must believe my own eyes and ears; and when I do see it, I begin to understand the text which says, ‘This is eternal life, to know thee, the only God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent;’ and I begin to understand the Athanasian Creed, which says, that if a ‘man does not believe rightly the name of God, and the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, he will perish everlastingly; his soul will decay more and more, become more and more weak, unhealthy and corrupt, till he perishes everlastingly. And whatsoever that may mean, it must mean something most awful and terrible, worse than all the evil which ever happened to us since we were born.
There is a very serious example of this, to my mind, in what is called the Greek Church; the Greeks and Russians. They split off from the rest of Christ’s Catholic Church, many hundred years ago, because they would not hold with the rest of the Church that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Son as well as from the Father. They said that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone. Now that may seem a slight matter of words: but I cannot help thinking that it has been a very solemn matter of practice with them. It seems to me—God forgive me if I am judging them hardly!—that because they denied that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Son, they forgot that he was the Spirit of the Son, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, by whom he says for ever, ‘Father, not my will but thine be done!’ and so they forgot that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Sonship, the Spirit of adoption, which must proceed and come from Christ to us, that we may call God our Father, and say with Christ, ‘Father, I come to do thy will;’ and so, in course of time, they seem to have forgotten that Christian men were in any real practical sense, God’s children; and when people forget that they are God’s children, they forget soon enough to behave like God’s children, and to live righteous and Godlike lives.
I give you this as an example of what I mean; how not believing rightly the Athanasian Creed may make a man lead a bad life.
Now let me give an example nearer home; one which has to do with you and me. God grant that we may all lay it to heart. You read, in the Athanasian Creed, that we are not to confound the persons of the Trinity, nor divide the substance; but to believe that such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal. Now there is little fear of our confounding the persons, as some people used to do in old times; but there is great fear of our dividing God’s substance, parting God’s substance, that is, fancying that God is made up of different parts, and not perfectly one God.
For people are very apt to talk as if God’s love and God’s justice were two different things, different parts of God; as if his justice had to be satisfied in one way, and his love in another; as if his justice wished to destroy sinners, and his love wished to save sinners; and so they talk as if there was a division in God; as if different attributes of God were pulling two different ways, and that God has parts of which one desires to do one thing, and one part another. It sounds shocking, I am sure you will feel, when I put it into plain English. I wish it to sound shocking. I wish you to feel how wrong and heretical it is; that you may keep clear of such notions, and believe the orthodox faith, that God has neither parts nor passions, nor division in his substance at all, but is absolutely and substantially one; and that, therefore, his love and his justice are the very same things; his justice, however severe it may seem, is perfect love and kindness; and his love is no indulgence, but perfect justice.
But you may say—Very likely that is true; but why need we take so much care to believe it?
It is always worth while to know what is true. You are children of the Light, and of the Truth, adopted by the God of truth, that you may know the truth and do it, and no mistake or falsehood can, by any possibility, do anything for you, but harm you. Always, therefore, try to find out and believe what is true concerning everything; and, above all, concerning God, on whom all depend, in whom you live, and move, and have your being. For all things in heaven and earth depend on God; and, therefore, if you have wrong notions about God, you will sooner or later have wrong notions about everything else.
For see, now, how this false notion of God’s justice and love being different things, leads people into a worse error still. A man goes on to fancy, that while God the Son is full of love towards sinners, God the Father is (or at least was once) only full of justice and wrath against sinners; but if a man thinks that God the Son loves him better than God the Father does, then, of course, he will love God the Son better than he loves God the Father. He will think of Christ the Son with pleasure and gratitude, because he says to himself, Christ loves me, cares for me; I can have pity and tenderness from him, if I do wrong. While of God the Father he thinks only with dread and secret dislike. Thus, from dividing the substance, he has been led on to confound the persons, imputing to the Son alone that which is equally true of the Father, till he comes (as I have known men do) to make for himself, as it were, a Heavenly Father of Jesus Christ the Son.
Now, my dear friends, it does seem to me, that if anything can grieve the Spirit of Christ, and the sacred heart of Jesus, this is the way to grieve him. Oh read your Bibles, and you will see this, that whatever Jesus came down on earth for, it certainly was not to make men love him better than they love the Father, and honour him more than they honour the Father, and rob the Father of his glory, to give it to Jesus. What did the Lord Jesus say himself? That he did not come to seek his own honour, or shew forth his own glory, or do his own will: but his Father’s honour, his Father’s glory, his Father’s will. Though he was equal with the Father, as touching his Godhead, yet he disguised himself, if I may so say, and took on him the form of a servant, and was despised and rejected of men. Why! That men might honour his Father rather than him. That men might not be so dazzled by his glory, as to forget his Father’s glory. Therefore he bade his apostles, while he was on earth, tell no man that he was the Christ. Therefore, when he worked his work of love and mercy, he took care to tell the Jews that they were not his works, but the works of his Father who sent him; that he was not doing his own will, but his Father’s. Therefore he was always preaching of the Father in heaven, and holding him up to men as the perfection of all love and goodness and glory: and only once or twice, it seems, when he was compelled, as it were, for very truth’s sake, did he say openly who he was, and claim his co-equal and co-eternal glory, saying, ‘Before Abraham was, I am.’
And, after all this, if anything can grieve him now, must it not grieve him to see men fancying that he is better than his Father is, more loving and merciful than his Father is, more worthy of our trust, and faith, and adoration, and gratitude than his Father is?—His Father, for whose honour he was jealous with a divine jealousy—His Father, who, he knows well, loved the world which shrinks from him so well that he spared not his only begotten Son, but freely gave him up for it.
Oh, my friends, believe me, if any sin of man can add a fresh thorn to Christ’s crown, it is to see men, under pretence of honouring him, dishonouring his Father. For just think for once of this—What nobler feeling on earth than the love of a son to his father? What greater pain to a good son than to see his father dishonoured, and put down below him? But what is the love of an earthly son to an earthly father, compared to the love of The Son to the Father? What is the jealousy of an earthly son for his father’s honour, compared with the jealousy of God the Son for God the Father’s honour?
All men, the Father has appointed, are to honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. Because, as the Athanasian Creed says, ‘such as the Father is, such is the Son.’ But, if that be true, we are to honour the Father even as we honour the Son; because such as the Son is, such is the Father. Both are true, and we must believe both; and therefore we must not give to Christ the honour which we should to a loving friend, and give to the Father the honour which we should to an awful judge. We must give them both the same honour. If we have a godly fear of the Father, we ought to have a godly fear of Christ; and if we trust Christ, we ought to trust the Father also. We must believe that Jesus Christ, the Son, is the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of his person; and therefore we must believe that because Jesus is love, therefore the Father is love; because Jesus is long-suffering, therefore the Father is long-suffering; because Jesus came to save the world, therefore the Father must have sent him to save the world, or he would never have come; for he does nothing, he says, of himself. Because we can trust Jesus utterly, therefore we can trust the Father utterly. Because we believe that the Son has life in himself, to give to whomsoever he will, we must believe that the Father has life in himself likewise, and not, as some seem to fancy, only the power of death and destruction. Because nothing can separate us from the love of Jesus, nothing can separate us from the love of his Father and our Father, whose name is Light and Love.
If we believe this, we shall indeed honour the Father, and indeed honour the Son likewise. But if we do not, we shall dishonour the Son, while we fancy we are honouring him: we shall rob Christ of his true glory, to give him a false glory, which he abhors. If we fancy that he does anything for us without his Father’s commands; if we fancy that he feels anything for us which his Father does not feel, and has not always felt likewise: then we dishonour him. For his glory is to be a perfectly good and obedient Son, and we fancy him—may he forgive us for it!—a self-willed Son. This is Christ’s glory, that though he is equal with his Father, he obeys his Father. If he were not equal to his Father, there would be less glory in his obeying him. Take away the mystery of the ever-blessed Trinity, and you rob Christ of his highest glory, and destroy the most beautiful thing in heaven, except one. The most beautiful and noble thing of all in heaven—that (if you will receive it) out of which all other beautiful and noble things in heaven and earth come, is the Father for ever saying to the Son, ‘Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. And in thee I am well pleased.’ The other most beautiful thing is the co-equal and co-eternal Son for ever saying to the Father, ‘Father, not my will, but thine be done. I come to do thy will, O God. Thy law is written in my heart.’
Do you not see it? Oh, my dear friends, I see but a very little of it. Who am I, that I should comprehend God? And who am I, that I should be able to make you understand the glory of God, by any dull words of mine? But God can make you understand it. The Spirit of God can and will shew you the glory of God. Because he proceedeth from the Father, he will shew you what the glory of the Father is like. Because he proceedeth from the Son, he will shew you what the glory of the Son is like. Because he is consubstantial, co-equal, and co-eternal with the Father and the Son, he will shew you that the glory of the Father and the Son is not the glory of mere power; but a moral and spiritual glory, the glory of having a perfectly glorious, noble, and beautiful character. And unless he shews you that, you will never be thoroughly good men. For it is a strange thing that men are always trying, more or less, to be like God. And yet, not a strange thing; for it is a sign that we all came from God, and can get no rest till we are come back to God, because God calls us all to be his children and be like him. A blessed thing it is, if we try to be like the true God: but a sad and fearful thing, if we try to be like some false god of our own invention. But so it is. It was so even among the old heathen. Whatsoever a man fancies God to be like, that he will try himself to be like. So if you fancy than God the Father’s glory is stern and awful power, that he is extreme to mark what is done amiss, or stands severely on his own rights, then you will do the same; you will be extreme to mark what is done amiss; you will stand severely on your rights; you will grow stern and harsh, unfeeling to your children and workmen, and fond of shewing your power, just for the sake of shewing it. But if you believe that the glory of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is all one; and that it is a loving glory if you believe that such as Jesus Christ is, such is his Father, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenting him of the evil; if you believe that your Father in heaven is perfect, just because he sendeth his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust, and is good to the unthankful and the evil—if you believe this, I say, then you will be good to the unthankful and the evil; you will be long-suffering and tender; good fathers, good masters, good neighbours; and your characters will become patient, generous, forgiving, truly noble, truly godlike. And all because you believe the Athanasian Creed in spirit and in truth.
In like manner, if you believe that Jesus Christ is not a perfect Son; if you fancy that he has any will but his Father’s will; that he has any work but what his Father gives him to do, who has committed all things into his hands; that he knows anything but what his Father sheweth him, who sheweth him all things, because he loveth him; then you will be tempted to wish for power and honour of your own; to become ambitious, self-willed, vain, and disobedient to your parents.
But if you believe that Jesus is a perfect Son, all that you would wish your son to be to you, and millions of times more; and if you believe that that very thing is Christ’s glory; that his glory consists in being a perfect Son, perfectly obedient, having no will or wish but his Father’s; then will you, by thus seeing Christ in spirit and in truth, see how beautiful and noble it is to be good sons; and you will long to try to be good sons: and what you long for, and try for, you will surely be, in God’s good time; for he has promised,—‘Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.’ And all through believing the Athanasian Creed? All? Yes, all.
But will not the Holy Spirit teach us, without the Athanasian Creed?
The Holy Spirit will teach us. Must teach us, if we are really to learn one word of all this in spirit and in truth. But whether the Holy Spirit does teach us, will depend, I fear, very much upon whether we pray for him; and whether we pray for him aright will depend on whether we know who he is, and what he is like; and that, again, the Athanasian Creed will tell us.
Now, go home with God’s blessing. Remember that such as the Son is, such is the Father, and such is the Holy Ghost. Pray to be made good fathers, after the likeness of The Father, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and earth is named; good sons, after the likeness of God The Son; and good and holy spirits, after the likeness of The Holy Spirit; and you will be such at last, in God’s good time, as far as man can become like God; for you will be praying for the Holy Spirit himself, and he will hear you, and come to you, and abide with you, and all will be well.