Discipline and Other Sermons

Yes; of our moral being, our characters, our souls.  By looking upon this beautiful and wonderful world around us with reverence, and earnestness, and love, as what it is,—the work of God’s Spirit,—we shall become not merely the more learned, or the more happy, we shall become actually better men.  The beauties in the earth and sky; the flowers with their fair hues and fragrant scents; the song of birds; the green shaughs and woodlands; the moors purple with heath, and golden with furze; the shapes of clouds, from the delicate mist upon the lawn to the thunder pillar towering up in awful might; the sunrise and sunset, painted by God afresh each morn and even; the blue sky, which is the image of God the heavenly Father, boundless, clear, and calm, looking down on all below with the same smile of love, sending his rain alike on the evil and on the good, and causing his sun to shine alike on the just and on the unjust:—he who watches all these things, day by day, will find his heart grow quiet, sober, meek, contented.  His eyes will be turned away from beholding vanity.  His soul will be kept from vexation of spirit.  In God’s tabernacle, which is the universe of all the worlds, he will be kept from the strife of tongues.  As he watches the work of God’s Spirit, the beauty of God’s Spirit, the wisdom of God’s Spirit, the fruitfulness of God’s Spirit, which shines forth in every wayside flower, and every gnat which dances in the sun, he will rejoice in God’s work, even as God himself rejoices.  He will learn to value things at their true price, and see things of their real size.  Ambition, fame, money, will seem small things to him as he considers the lilies of the field, how the heavenly Father clothes them, and the birds of the air, how the heavenly Father feeds them; and he will say with the wise man—

‘All the windy ways of men
Are but dust that rises up,
And is lightly laid again.’

Dust, indeed, and not worthy the attention of the wise man, who considers how the very heaven and earth shall perish, and yet God endure; how—‘They all shall wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture shall God change them, and they shall be changed: but God is the same, and his years shall not fail.’

And as that man grows more quiet, he will grow more loving likewise; more merciful to the very dumb animals.  He will be ashamed even to disturb a bird upon its nest, when he remembers the builder and maker of that nest is not the bird alone, but God.  He will believe the words of the wise man—

‘He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man, and bird, and beast.
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things, both great and small;
For the great God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.’

More quiet, more loving will that man grow; and more pious likewise.  For there ought to come to that man a sense of God’s presence, of God’s nearness, which will fill him with a wholesome fear of God.  As he sees with the inward eyes of his reason God’s Spirit at work for ever on every seed, on every insect, ay, on every nerve and muscle of his own body, he will heartily say with the Psalmist—‘I will give thanks unto thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Marvellous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well.  Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in thy book were all my members written, which day by day were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.  Whither shall I go then from thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence?  If I climb up to heaven, thou art there; if I go down to hell, thou art there also; if I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand hold me still.  If I say, Peradventure the darkness shall cover me, then shall my night be turned into day.’

Yes, God he will see is everywhere, over all, and through all, and in all; and from God there is no escape.  The only hope, the only wisdom, is to open his heart to God as a child to its father, and cry with the Psalmist—‘Try me, O God, and search the ground of my heart; prove me, and examine my thoughts.  Look well if there be any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.’

My dear friends, take these thoughts home with you: and may God give you grace to ponder over them, and so make your Whitsun holiday more quiet, more pure, more full of lessons learnt from God’s great green book which lies outside for every man to read.  Of such as you said the wise heathen long ago—‘Too happy are they who till the land, if they but knew the blessings which they have.’

And it is a blessing, a privilege, and therefore a responsibility laid on you by your Father and your Saviour, to have such a fair, peaceful, country scene around you, as you will behold when you leave this church,—a scene where everything is to the wise man, where everything should be to you, a witness of God’s Spirit; a witness of God’s power, God’s wisdom, God’s care, God’s love.  Go, and may God turn away your hearts from all that is mean and selfish, all that is coarse and low, and lift them up unto himself, as you look upon the fields, and woods, and sky, till you, too, say with the Psalmist—‘O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.  I will praise my God while I have my being; my joy shall be in the Lord.’

SERMON XX

SELF-HELP

St. John xvi. 7

It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.

This is a deep and strange saying.  How can it be expedient, useful, or profitable, for any human being that Christ should go away from them?  To be in Christ’s presence; to see his face; to hear his voice;—would not this be the most expedient and profitable, yea, the most blessed and blissful of things which could befall us?  Is it not that which saints hope to attain for ever in heaven—the beatific vision of Christ?

My dear friends, one thing is certain, that Christ loves us far better than we can love ourselves, and knows how to show that love.  He would have stayed with the apostles, instead of ascending into heaven, if it had been expedient for them.  Yea, if it had been expedient for him to have stayed on earth among mankind unto this very day, he would have stayed.

Because it was not expedient, not good for the apostles, not good for mankind, that he should stay among them, therefore he ascended into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God, all authority and power being given to him in heaven and in earth.

And he gives us a reason for so doing—only a hint; but still a hint, by which we may see to-day it was expedient for us that he should go away.

Unless he went away, the Comforter would not come.  Now the true and exact meaning of the Comforter is the Strengthener, the Encourager—one who gives a man strength of mind, and courage of spirit, to do his work.  Without that Comforter, the apostles would be weak and spiritless.  Without being encouraged and inspirited by him, they would never get through the work which they had to do, of preaching the Gospel to the whole world.

We may surely see, if we think, some of the cause of this.  The apostles, till our Lord’s ascension, had been following him about like scholars following a master—almost like children holding by their father’s hand.  They had had no will of their own; no opinion of their own; they had never had to judge for themselves, or act for themselves; and, when they had tried to do so, they had always been in the wrong, and Christ had rebuked them.  They had been like scholars, I say, with a teacher, or children with a parent.  Yea rather, when one remembers who they were, poor fishermen, and who he was—God made man—they had been (I speak with all reverence) as dogs at their master’s side—faithful and intelligent truly; but with no will of their own, looking for ever up to his hand and his eye, to see what he would have them do.  But that could not last.  It ought not to last.  God does not wish us to be always as animals, not even always as children; he wishes us to become men; perfect men, who have their senses exercised by experience to discern good and evil.

And so it was to be with the apostles.  They had to learn, as we all have to learn, self-help, self-government, self-determination.  They were to think for themselves, and act for themselves; and yet not by themselves.  For he would put into them a spirit, even his Spirit; and so, when they were thinking for themselves, they would be thinking as he would have them think; when they were acting for themselves, they would be acting as he would have them act.  They would live; but not their own life, for Christ would live in them.  They would speak: but not their own words; the Spirit of their Father would speak in them; that so they might come in the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God, to be perfect men, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.

My dear friends, this may seem deep and a mystery: but so are all things in this wondrous life of ours.  And surely we see a pattern of all this in our own lives.  Each child is educated—or ought to be—as Christ educated his apostles.

Have we not had, some of us, in early life some parent, friend, teacher, spiritual pastor, or master, to whom we looked up with unbounded respect?  His word to us was law.  His counsel was as the oracles of God.  We did not dream of thinking for ourselves, acting for ourselves, while we had him to tell us how to think, how to act; and we were happy in our devotion.  We felt what a blessed thing, not merely protecting and guiding, but elevating and ennobling, was reverence and obedience to one wiser and better than ourselves.  But that did not last.  It could not last.  Our teacher was taken from us; perhaps by mere change of place, and the chances of this mortal life; perhaps by death, which sunders all fair bonds upon this side the grave.  Perhaps, most painful of all, we began to differ from our teacher; to find that, though we respected and loved him still, though we felt a deep debt of thanks to him for what he had taught us, we could not quite agree in all; we had begun to think for ourselves, and we found that we must think for ourselves; and the new responsibility was very heavy.  We felt like young birds thrust out of the nest to shift for themselves in the wide world.

But, after a while, we found that we could think, could act for ourselves, as we never expected to do.  We found that we were no more children; that we were improving in manly virtues by having to bear our own burdens; and to acquire,

‘The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill.’

And we found, too, that though our old teachers were parted from us, yet they were with us still; that (to compare small things with great, and Christ’s servants with their Lord) a spirit came to us from them, and brought all things to our remembrance, whatsoever they had said to us; that we remembered their words more vividly, we understood their meaning more fully and deeply, now that they were parted, than we did when they were with us.  We loved them as well, ay, better, than of old, for we saw more clearly what a debt we owed to them; and so it was, after all, expedient for us that they should have gone away.  That parting with them, which seemed so dangerous to us, as well as painful, really comforted us—strengthened and encouraged us to become stronger and braver souls, full of self-help, self-government, self-determination.

And so we shall find it, I believe, in our religion.

We may say with a sigh, ‘Ah, that I could see my Lord and Saviour.  I should be safe then.  I dare not sin then.’

It may be so.  I am the last to deny that our Lord Jesus Christ has (as he certainly could, if he chose) shown himself bodily to certain of his saints (as he showed himself to St. Paul and to St. Stephen) in order to strengthen their faith in some great trial.  But if it had been good for us in general to see the Lord in this life, doubt not that we should have seen him.  And because we do not see him, be sure that it is not good.

We may say, again, ‘Ah that the Lord Jesus had but remained on earth, what just laws, what peace and prosperity would the world have enjoyed!  Wars would have ceased long ago; oppression and injustice would be unknown.’

It may be so.  And yet again it may not.  Perhaps our Lord’s staying on earth would have had some quite different effect, of which we cannot even dream; and done, not good, but harm.  Let us have faith in him.  Let us believe in his perfect wisdom, and in his perfect love.  Let us believe that he is educating us, as he educated the apostles, by going away.  That he is by his absence helping men to help themselves, teaching men to teach themselves, guiding and governing men to guide and govern themselves by that law of liberty which is the law of his Spirit; to love the right, and to do the right, not from fear of punishment, but of their own heart and will.

For remember, he has not left us comfortless.  He has not merely given us commands; he has given us the power of understanding, valuing, obeying these commands.  For his Spirit is with us; the Spirit of Whitsuntide; the Comforter, the Encourager, the Strengthener, by whom we may both perceive and know what we ought to do, and also have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same.

Come to yonder holy table this day, and there claim your share in Christ, who is absent from you in the body, but ever present in the spirit.  Come to that table, that you may live by Christ’s life, and learn to love what he commandeth, and desire what he doth promise, that so your hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; namely, in the gracious motions and heavenly inspirations of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son.

SERMON XXI

ENDURANCE

i Peter ii. 19

This is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.

This is a great epistle, this epistle for the day, and full of deep lessons.  Let us try to learn some of them.

‘What glory is it,’ St. Peter says, ‘if, when ye be beaten for your faults, ye take it patiently?’  What credit is it to a man, if, having broken the law, he submits to be punished?  The man who will not do that, the man who resists punishment, is not a civilized man, but a savage and a mere animal.  If he will not live under discipline, if he expects to break the law with impunity, he makes himself an outlaw; he puts himself by his rebellion outside the law, and becomes unfit for society, a public enemy of his fellow-men.  The first lesson which men have to learn, which even the heathen have learnt, as soon as they have risen above mere savages, is the sacredness of law—the necessity of punishment for those who break the law.

The Jews had this feeling of the sacredness of law.  Moses’ divine law had taught it them.  The Romans, heathen though they were, had the same feeling—that law was sacred; that men must obey law.  And the good thing which they did for the world (though they did it at the expense of bloodshed and cruelty without end) was the bringing all the lawless nations and wild tribes about them under strict law, and drilling them into order and obedience.  That it was, which gave the Roman power strength and success for many centuries.

But above the kingdom of law, which says to a man merely, ‘Thou shalt not do wrong: and if thou dost, thou shalt be punished,’ there is another kingdom, far deeper, wider, nobler; even the kingdom of grace, which says to a man, not merely, ‘Do not do wrong,’ but ‘Do right;’ and not only ‘Do right for fear of being punished,’ but ‘Do right because it is right; do right because thou hast grace in thy heart; even the grace of God, and the Spirit of God, which makes thee love what is right, and see how right it is, and how beautiful; so that thou must follow after the right, not from fear of punishment, but in spite of fear of punishment; follow after the right, not when it is safe only, but when it is dangerous; not when it is honourable only in the eyes of men, but when it is despised.  If thou hast God’s grace in thy heart; if thou lovest what is right with the true love, which is the Spirit of God, then thou wilt never stop to ask, “Will it pay me to do right?”  Thou wilt feel that the right thou must do, whether it pays thee or not; still loving the right, and cleaving steadfastly to the right, through disappointment, poverty, shame, trouble, death itself, if need be: if only thou canst keep a conscience void of offence toward God and man.’

‘But shall I have no reward?’ asks a man, ‘for doing right?  Am I to give up a hundred pleasant things for conscience’ sake, and get nothing in return?’  Yes: there is a reward for righteousness, even in this life.  God repays those who make sacrifices for conscience’ sake, I verily believe, in most cases, a hundred fold in this life.  In this life it stands true, that he who loses his life shall save it; that he who goes through the world with a single eye to duty, without selfishness, without vanity, without ambition, careless whether he be laughed at, careless whether he be ill-used, provided only his conscience acquits him, and God’s approving smile is on him—in this life it stands true that that man is the happiest man after all; that that man is the most prosperous man after all; that, like Christ, when he was doing his Father’s work, he has meat to eat and strengthen him in his life’s journey, which the world knows not of.  But if not; if it seem good to God to let him taste the bitters, and not the sweets, of doing right, in this life; if it seem good to God that he should suffer—as many a man and woman too has suffered for doing right—nothing but contempt, neglect, prison, and death; is he worse off than Jesus Christ, his Lord, was before him?  Shall the disciple be above his master?  What if he have to drink of the cup of sorrow of which Christ drank, and be baptized with the baptism of martyrdom with which Christ was baptized?  Where is he, but where the Son of God has been already?  What is he doing, but treading in the steps of Christ crucified; that he may share in the blessing and glory and honour without end which God the Father heaped upon Christ his Son, because he was perfect in duty, perfect in love of right, perfect in resignation, perfect in submission under injustice, perfect in forgiveness of his murderers, perfect in faith in the justice and mercy of God: who did no sin—that is, never injured his own cause by anger or revenge; and had no guile in his mouth—that is, never prevaricated, lied, concealed his opinions, for fear of the consequences, however terrible; but before the chief priests and Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession, though he knew that it would bring on him a dreadful death; who, when he was reviled, reviled not again, but committed himself to him who judgeth righteously—the meekest of all beings, and in that very meekness the strongest of all beings; the most utterly resigned, and by that very resignation the most heroic—the being who seemed, on the cross of Calvary, most utterly conquered by injustice and violence: but who, by that very cross, conquered the whole world.

This is a great mystery, and hard to learn.  Flesh and blood, our animal nature, will never compass it all; for it belongs, not to the flesh, but to the spirit.  But our spirits, our immortal souls, may learn the lesson at last, if we feed them continually with the thought of Christ; if we meditate upon whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honourable, just, pure, lovely, and of good report.  Then we may learn, at last, after many failures, and many sorrows of heart, that the spirit is stronger than the flesh; that meekness is stronger than wrath, silence stronger than shouting, peace stronger than war, forgiveness stronger than vengeance, just as Christ hanging on his cross was stronger—exercising a more vast and miraculous effect on the hearts of men—than if he had called whole armies of angels to destroy his enemies, like one of the old kings and conquerors of the earth, whose works have perished with themselves.

Yes, gradually we must learn that our strength is to sit still; that to do well and suffer for it, instead of returning evil for evil, and railing for railing, is to show forth the spirit of Christ, and to enter into the joy of our Lord.

The statesman debating in Parliament; the conqueror changing the fate of nations on bloody battle-fields; these all do their work; and are needful, doubtless, in a sinful, piecemeal world like this.  But there are those of whom the noisy world never hears, who have chosen the better part which shall not be taken from them; who enter into a higher glory than that of statesmen, or conquerors, or the successful and famous of the earth.  Many a man—clergyman or layman—struggling in poverty and obscurity, with daily toil of body and mind, to make his fellow-creatures better and happier; many a poor woman, bearing children in pain and sorrow, and bringing them up with pain and sorrow, but in industry, too, and piety; or submitting without complaint to a brutal husband; or sacrificing all her own hopes in life to feed and educate her brothers and sisters; or enduring for years the peevishness and troublesomeness of some relation;—all these (and the world which God sees is full of such, though the world which man sees takes no note of them)—gentle souls, humble souls, uncomplaining souls, suffering souls, pious souls—these are God’s elect; these are Christ’s sheep; these are the salt of the earth, who, by doing each their little duty as unto God, not unto men, keep society from decaying more than do all the constitutions and acts of parliament which statesmen ever invented.  These are they—though they little dream of any such honour—who copy the likeness of the old martyrs, who did well and suffered for it; and the likeness of Christ, of whom it was said, ‘He shall not strive nor cry, neither shall his voice be heard in the streets.’

For what was it in the old martyrs which made men look up to them, as persons infinitely better than themselves, with quite unmeasurable admiration; so that they worshipped them after their deaths, as if they had been gods rather than men?

It was this.  The world in old times had been admiring successful people, just as it does at this day.  Was a man powerful, rich?  Had he slaves by the hundred?  Was his table loaded with the richest meats and wines?  Could he indulge every pleasure and fancy of his own?  Could he heap his friends with benefits?  Could he ruin or destroy any one who thwarted him?  In one word, was he a mighty and successful tyrant?  Then that was the man to honour and worship; that was the sort of man to become, if anyone had the chance, by fair means or foul.  Just as the world worships now the successful man; and—if you will but make a million of money—will flatter you and court you, and never ask either how you made your money, or how you spend your money; or whether you are a good man or a bad one: for money in man’s eyes, as charity in God’s eyes, covereth a multitude of sins; and as long as thou doest well unto thyself, men will speak well of thee.