Sermons on National Subjects

Because he wanted Christians to believe, not merely in a Christ who once died, but in Him who died and is alive for evermore; in a Christ who rose again, body, soul, and spirit, and sat at God’s right hand, praying for poor creatures when they were tempted, and persecuted, and tormented for righteousness’ sake.  St. Paul knew well that such fearful times as those of which I have been speaking were coming on the people to whom he wrote.  And he knew equally well that the only thought which could save them, when the heathen judges commanded them to deny the Lord Jesus, was the thought that He was really risen.  The only thought which could make them bold enough to face all the horrors of death, was the thought that the Lord Jesus had not merely tasted death, but conquered it, and risen again from it.  And therefore it is that St. Paul speaks so often of Christ’s resurrection, and that in the text he takes so much pains to prove that Christ had really risen, by telling them how many persons, well known to him who wrote to them, had seen the Lord Jesus Christ after He rose, and talked with Him, and were sure that He was the very same person still, with the same countenance, and body, and soul, and spirit, as He had when He was nailed to the cross, and laid in the sepulchre.

What a thought for a poor creature in the last agony of fear and shame, expecting presently to be torn in pieces, or burnt alive: “Death, this horrible death, cannot conquer me, weak and fearful as I am; for my Lord and Master, for whom I am going to suffer, has conquered death, and He will not let it conquer me.  He is stronger than death and hell, and He will not suffer me at my last hour for any pains of death to fall from Him.  He is King of heaven and earth, and He will take care of His own!”  What a comfortable thought to be able to say: “Ay, I am torn from wife and child, and all which I love on earth.  But not for ever, not for ever.  For Christ rose from the dead.  And I who belong to Christ, shall rise as He did.  This poor flesh of mine may be burnt in flames, devoured by ravenous beasts.  What matter?  Christ the King of men, has risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept.  That same Spirit of His, which brought back His body from the grave and hell, will bring our bodies also from the grave and hell, to a nobler, happier life with Him in glory unspeakable.  Christ is risen, and I shall rise with Him at the last day.  Christ sits at God’s right hand, watching me, pitying me, and blessing me, holding out to me a crown of glory which shall never fade away!”  That was the thought which gave Stephen courage to confess the Lord Jesus Christ, amid to die in peace and the murderous blows of the Jews.  For by faith he saw, as he said, the heavens opened, and Jesus sitting at the right hand of God.  He knew that his Lord was risen, and that He would hear his dying cry: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

And so with us, my friends; we have no martyrdom to go through, thank God; but it is just as true of us as it was of the blessed martyrs and confessors, that there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved but the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Saved; not only from hell, but from sin, from giving way to temptation, from denying Christ.  Oh, pray for faith.  Pray for faith.  Pray to be able really to confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus.  Pray to believe with your hearts that God has raised Him from the dead.  Then when you are tempted to do wrong, you, like Stephen, will see, not with your bodily eyes, but by faith, the Lord Jesus sitting at God’s right hand, and be able to say to Him: “Lord Jesus, who hast conquered all temptation, help me to conquer this.  Thine eye is on me; how can I do this great wickedness and sin against Thee?”  When you are in terror, and trouble, and affliction, and know not where to turn, that same blessed thought—“Christ is risen from the dead”—will be a shield and a strength to you which no other thought can give.  “My Lord is risen; He is here still—a man, with His man’s body, and His man’s spirit—His man’s love and tenderness; He has taken them all up to heaven with Him.  He is a man still, though He is very God of very God.  He rose from the dead as a man, and therefore He can understand me, and feel for me still, now, here in England in this very year, 1852, just as much as He could when He was walking upon earth in Judæa of old.”

Ay, and in the black jaws of death, when this world is vanishing from our eyes, and we are going we know not whither, leaving behind us all we know, and love, and understand; then that thought of all thoughts—“Christ is risen from the dead”—is the only one which will save us from dark sad thoughts, from fear and despair, or from stupid carelessness, and the death of a brute beast, such as too many die.  “Christ is risen and I shall rise.  Christ has conquered death for Himself, and He will conquer it for me.  Christ took His man’s body and soul with Him from the tomb to God’s right hand, and He will raise my man’s body and soul at the last day, that I may be with Him for ever, and see Him where He is.”  In life and in death this is the only thing which shall save us from sin, from terror, and from the dread of death; the same good news which St. Paul preached to the Corinthians; the same good news which made St. Stephen, and the martyrs and confessors of old brave to endure all misery for the sake of the good and blessed news, that God had raised His Son Jesus from the dead.

XLVI.

GOD’S WAY WITH MAN

And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have wrought with you for my name’s sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord God.—Ezekiel xx. 44.

In this chapter the prophet Ezekiel argues with his sinful and rebellious countrymen, and puts them in mind of all that God has done for them and with them, from the time when He brought them out of Egypt to that day.

And now comes the old question, What has this to do with us!  St. Paul tells us that all things which happened to the old Jews happened for our example.  What example can we learn from this chapter?

This, I think, we may learn: Is not the way in which God taught these Jews the same way in which He teaches many a man—perhaps every man?  Which of us, when we were young, has not had his teaching from God?  The old Catechism which our mothers taught us, was not that a word from God Himself to us?  The voice of conscience, which made us happy when we had done right, and uneasy and ashamed when we had gone wrong; was not that a word from God to us?  Yes, my friends, those child’s feelings of ours about right and wrong, were none other than the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, the Light which lightens every man who comes into the world.  I tell you, every right thought and wish, every longing to be better than you were, which ever came into any one of your hearts, came from Him, the Lord Jesus.  It was His word, His voice, His Spirit, speaking to your spirit, just as really as He spoke to His prophet Ezekiel, of whom we have been reading.  Think of that.  Recollect, never, never forget, that all your good thoughts and feelings are not your own, not your own at all, but the Lord’s; that without His light your hearts are nothing but darkness, blind ignorance, and blind selfishness, and blind passions and lusts; that it is He, he Himself, who has been fighting against the darkness in you all your life long.  Oh think, then, what your sin has been in putting aside those good thoughts and longings!  You were turning your back, you were shutting your doors to the Lord God Himself, very God of very God begotten, by whom all things were made.  The Creator came to visit His creature, and His creature shut Him out.  The Almighty God pleaded with mortal man, and mortal man bade God go, and come back at a more convenient season!  A voice in your heart seemed to say: “Oh, if I could but be a better man!  How I wish that I could but give up these bad habits, and mend!  I hate and despise myself for being so bad.”  And then you fancied that that voice was your own voice, that those good thoughts were your own thoughts.  If you had really known whose they were; if you had really known, as the Bible tells you, that they were the Word of the Lord, the only-begotten Son of the Father, speaking to your heart, I hardly think that you would have been so ready to say yourself: “Well, then, I will mend; but not just now: some day or other; somehow or other, I hope, I shall be a better man.  It will be time enough to make my peace with God when I am growing old.”  You would not have dared to thrust away the good thoughts, and keep them waiting, while you took your pleasure in a few more years’ sin; if you had guessed whom you were thrusting away; if you had guessed whom you were keeping waiting.

And, my good friends, has not God been saying to us many a time from our youth up, as He did to the Jews of old: “Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers, nor defile yourselves with their idols?”  Do you ask me how?  Why, thus.  Have you never said to yourself: “How ill my father prospered, because he would do wrong!”  Or, again: “See how evil doing brings its own punishment.  There is so and so growing rich, by his cheating and his covetousness, and yet, for all his money, I would not change places with him.  God forbid that I should have on my mind what he has on his mind!” Why should I make a long story of so simple a matter?  Which of us has not felt at times that thought?  How much misery has come in this very parish from the ill-doing of the generation who are gone to their account, and from the ill-training which they gave their children?

And what was that but the Word of the Lord Himself speaking to our hearts, and saying to us: “Do not defile yourselves with their idols; do not hurt your souls by hunting after the things which they loved better than they loved Me: money, pleasure, drink, fighting, smuggling, poaching, wantonness, and lust; I am the Lord your God?”

And yet, young people will not listen to that warning voice of God.  They see other people, even their own fathers and mothers, punished for their sins; perhaps made poor by their sins, perhaps made unhealthy by their sins, perhaps made miserable and ill-tempered by their sins: and yet they go and fall into, or rather walk open-eyed into, the very same sins which made their parents wretched.  Oh, how many a young person sees their home made a complete hell on earth by ungodliness, and the ill-temper and selfishness which come from ungodliness; and, then, as soon as they have a home of their own, set to work to make their own family as miserable as their father’s was before them.

But people say often: “How could we help it?  We had no chance; we were brought up in bad ways; we had a bad example set us; how can you expect us to be better than our fathers and mothers, and our elder brothers and sisters?  If we had had a fair chance, we might have been different: but we had none; and we could not help going the bad way, for we were set in it the day we were born.”

Well, my dear friends, God shall judge you, not I.  If little is given to a man little is required of him.  But not nothing at all; because more than nothing was given him.  A little is given to every man; and, therefore, a little is required of every man.  And so, he who knew not his Master’s will shall be beaten with few stripes.  But he will be beaten with some stripes, because he ought to have known something, at least of his Master’s will.  If you were dumb animals, which can only follow their own lusts and passions, and must be what nature has made them, then your excuse would be good enough; but your excuse is not good now, just because you are men and women, and not dumb beasts, and, therefore, can rise above your natures, and conquer your lusts and passions, as they cannot, and can do what you do not like, because, though you dislike it, you know that it is right.  And, therefore, God does not take that excuse which sinners make, that they have had no teaching.  But what does he do to them?

Suppose, now, that you had a dog which would not be taught, or broken in, or cured of biting, or made useful, or bearable in any way, what would you do to that dog?  I suppose that you would kill it; you would say: “It is an ill-conditioned animal, and there is no making it any better; so the only thing is to put it out of the way, and not let it eat food which might be better spent.”  Now, does God deal so with sinners?  When young people rush headlong into sin, and become a nuisance to themselves and their neighbours, does God kill them at once, that better men may step into their place?  No.  And why?  Just because they are not dumb animals, which cannot be made better, but God’s children, who can be made better.  If there were really no hope of a sinner repenting and amending, I think God would not leave him long alive to cumber the ground.  But there is hope for every one; because God the Father loves all; the loving heart of the Lord Jesus Christ yearns after all; the Holy Spirit, which proceeds from the Father and the Son, strives with the hearts of all; therefore God, in His patience and tender mercy, tries to bring his foolish children to their senses.  And how?  Often in the very same way, in which Ezekiel says He tried to bring the Jews to their senses, by letting them go on in the road of sin, till they see what an ugly pit that same road ends in.  If your child would not believe you when you warned and assured him that the fire would burn him, would it not be the very best way of bringing him to his senses, to tell him: “Very well; go your own way; put your hand into the fire, and see what comes of it; you will not believe me; you will believe your own feelings, when your hand is burnt.”  So did the Lord to those rebellious Jews when they would go after their fathers’ sins.  He gave them statutes which were not good, and judgments by which they could not live, to the end that they might know that He was the Lord.  God did not make them commit any sins.  God forbid!  He only took away His Spirit, His light and teaching, from them, and let them go on in the light of their own foolish and bewildered hearts, till their sin bred misery and shame to them, and they were filled with the fruit of their own devices.  Then, after all their wealth was gone, and their land was wasted by cruel enemies, and they themselves were carried away captive into Babylon, they began to awake, and say to themselves: “We were wrong after all, and the Lord was right.  He knew what was really good for us better than we did.  We thought that we could do without Him, disobey Him.  But He is the Lord after all.  He has been too strong for us; He has punished us.  If we had listened to His warnings years ago, we might have been saved all this misery.”

Ah, how many a poor foolish creature, in misery and shame, with a guilty conscience and a sad heart, sits down, like the prodigal son, among the swinish bad company into which his sins have brought him, longing to fill his belly with the husks which the swine eat! but he cannot.  He tries to forget his sorrow by drinking, by bad company, by gambling, by gossiping, like the fools around him: but he cannot.  He finds no more pleasure in sin.  He is sick and tired of it.  He has had enough of it and too much.  He is miserable, and he hardly knows why.  But miserable he is.  There is a longing, and craving, and hunger at his heart after something better; at least after something different.  Then he begins to remember his heavenly Father’s house.  Old words which he learnt at his mother’s knee, good old words out of his Catechism and his Bible, start up strangely in his mind.  He had forgotten them, laughed at them, perhaps, in his wild days.  But now they come up, he does not know where from, like beautiful ghosts gliding in.  And he is ashamed of them; they reproach him, the dear old lessons; and yet they seem pleasant to him, though they make him blush.  And at last he says to himself: “Would God that I were a little child again; once more an innocent little child at my mother’s knee!  I thought myself clever and cunning.  I thought I could go my own way and enjoy myself.  But I cannot.  Perhaps I have been a fool; and the old Sunday books were right after all.  At least I am miserable.  I thought I was my own master.  But perhaps He about whom I used to read in the Sunday books is my Master after all.  At least I am not my own master; I am a slave.  Perhaps I have been fighting against Him, against the Lord God, all this time, and now He has shown me that He is the stronger of the two. . . . ”  And so the poor man learns in trouble and shame to know, like the Jews of old, who is the Lord.

And when the Lord has drawn a man thus far, does He stop?  Not so.  He does not leave His work half done.  If the work is half done, it is that we stop, not that He stops.  Whosoever comes to Him, howsoever confusedly, or clumsily, or even lazily they may come, He will in no wise cast out.  He may afflict them still more to cure that confusion and laziness; but He is a physician who never sends a willing patient away, or keeps him waiting for a single hour.

How then does the Lord deal with such a man?  Does He drive him further?  Not if he will go without being driven.  You would call it cruel to drive a beast on with blows, when it was willing to be led peaceably.  And be sure God is not more cruel than man.  As soon as we are willing to be led, He will take His rod off from us, and lead us tenderly enough.  For I have known God do this to a man, and a sinful man as ever trod this earth.  I have known such a man brought into utter misery and shame of heart, and heavy affliction in outward matters, till his spirit was utterly broken, and he was ready to say: “I am a beast and a fool.  I am not worth the bread I eat.  Let me lie down and die.”  And then, when the Lord had driven that man so far, I have seen, I who speak to you now, how the Lord turned and looked on that man as he turned and looked on Peter, and brought his poor soul to life again, as He brought Peter’s, by a loving smile, and not an angry frown.  I have seen the Lord heap that man with all manner of unexpected blessings, and pay him back sevenfold for all his affliction, and raise him up, body and soul, and satisfy him with good things, so that his youth was renewed like the eagle’s.  And so the man’s conversion to God, though it was begun by God’s chastisements and afflictions, was brought to perfection by God’s mercy and bounty; and it happened to that man, as Ezekiel prophesied that it would happen to the Jews, that not fear and dread, but honour, gratitude, and that noble shame of which no man need be ashamed, brought him home to God at last.  “And you shall remember your ways, and all your doings wherein ye have been defiled: and you shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all the evils which you have committed.  And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have wrought with you for my name’s sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O house of Israel, saith the Lord God.”

You see that God’s mercy to them would not make them conceited or careless.  It would increase their shame and confusion when they found out what sort of a Lord He was against whom they had been rebellious; long-suffering and of tender mercy, returning good for evil to His disobedient children.  That feeling would awake in them more shame and more confusion than ever: but it would be a noble shame, a happy confusion, and tears of joy and gratitude, not of bitterness.  Such a shame, such a confusion, such tears, as the blessed Magdalene’s when she knelt at the Lord’s feet, and found that, instead of bating her and thrusting her away for all her sins, He told her to go in peace, pardoned and happy.  Then she knew the Lord; she found out His character—His name; for she found out that His name was love.  Oh, my friends, this is the great secret; the only knowledge worth living for, because it is the only knowledge which will enable you to live worthily—to know the Lord.  That knowledge will enable you to live a life which will last, and grow, and prosper for ever, beyond the grave, and death, and judgment, and eternities of eternities.  As the Lord Himself said, when He was upon earth, “This is eternal life, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”  Therefore there is no use my warning you against sin, and telling you, do not do this, and do not do that, unless I tell you at the same time who is the Lord.  For till you know that The Good God is the Lord, you will have no real, sound, heartfelt reason for giving up your sins; and what is more, you will not be able to give them up.  You may alter your sort of sins from fear of this and that; but the root of sin will be there still; and if it cannot bear one sort of fruit it will bear another.  If you dare not drink or riot, you may become covetous and griping; if you dare not give way to young men’s sins, you will take to old men’s sins instead; if you dare not commit open sins you will commit secret ones in your thoughts.  Sin is much too stout a plant to be kept from bearing some sort of fruit.  As long as it is not rooted up the root will breed death in you of some sort or other; and the only feeling which can root up sin is to know that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is your Lord, and that your Lord condescended to die upon the cross for you; that you must be the Lord’s, and are not your own, but bought with the price of His most precious blood, that you may glorify God with your body and your soul, which are His.

Just so, the blessed St. Augustine found that he could never conquer his own sins by arguing with himself, or by any other means, till he got to know God, and to see that God was the Lord.  And when his spirit was utterly broken; when he saw himself, in spite of all his wonderful cleverness and learning, to have been a fool and blind all along, though people round him were flattering him, and running after him to hear his learning; then the old words which he learnt at his mother’s knee came up in his mind, and he knew that God was the Lord after all, and that God had been watching him, guiding him, letting him go wrong only to show him the folly of going wrong, caring for him even when He left him to himself and his sins, and the sad ways of his sins; bearing with him, pleading with his conscience, alluring him back to the only true happiness, as a loving father with a rebellious and self-willed child.  And then, when St. Augustine had found out at last that God was his Lord, who had been taking the charge of him all through his heathen youth, he became a changed man.  He was able to conquer his sins; for God conquered them for him.  He was able to give up the profligate life which he had been leading; not from fear of punishment, but from the Spirit of God—the spirit of gratitude, honour, trust, and love toward God, which made him abide in God, and God abide in him.  To that blessed state may God of His great mercy bring us all.  To it He will bring us all unless we rebel and set up our foolish and selfish will against His loving and wise will.  And if He does bring us to it, it is little matter whether He brings us to it through joy or through sorrow, through honour or through shame, through the garden of Eden, or through the valley of the shadow of death.  For, my dear friends, what matter how bitter the medicine is, if it does but save our lives?

XLVII.

THE MARRIAGE AT CANA

There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there.  And both Jesus was called, and His disciples, to the marriage.—John ii. 1, 2.

It is, I think, in the first place, an important, as well as a pleasant thing, to know that the Lord’s glory, as St. Paul says, was first shown forth at a wedding, at a feast.  Not at a time of sorrow, but of joy.  Not about some strange affliction or disease, such as is the lot of very few, but about a marriage, that which happens in the ordinary lot of all mankind.  Not in any fearful judgment or destruction of sinners, but in blessing wedlock, by which, whether among saints or sinners, mankind is increased.  Not by helping some great philosopher to think more deeply, or some great saint to perform more wonderful acts of holiness, but in giving the simple pleasure of wine to simple commonplace people, of whom we neither read that they were rich or righteous.  We do not even read whether the master of the feast ever found out that Jesus had worked a miracle, or whether any of the company ever believed in Him, on the strength of that miracle, except His mother and the disciples, and the servants, who were probably the poor slaves of people in a low or middling class of life.  But that is the way of the Lord.  He is no respecter of persons.  Rich and poor are alike in His sight; and the poor need Him most, and therefore He began his work with the poor in Cana, as He did in St. James’s time, when the poor of this world were rich in faith, and the rich of this world were oppressors and taskmasters.  So He does in every age.  Though no one else cares for the poor, He cares for them.  With their hearts He begins His work, even as He did in England sixty years ago, by the preaching of Whitfield and Wesley.  Do you wish to know if anything is the Lord’s work?  See if it is a work among the poor.  Do you wish to know whether any preaching is the true gospel of the Lord?  See whether it is a gospel, a good news to the poor.  I know no other test than that.  By doing that, by preaching the gospel to the poor, by working miracles for the poor, He has showed forth His glory, and proved Himself the true, and just, and loving Lord of all.

But again, the Lord is a giver, and not a taskmaster.  He does not demand from us: He gives to us.  He had been giving from the foundation of the world.  Corn and wine, rain and sunshine, and fruitful seasons had been his sending.  And now He was come to show it.  He was come to show men who it was who had been filling their heart with joy and gladness; who had been bringing out of the earth and air, by His unseen chemistry, the wine which maketh glad the heart of man.  In every grape that hangs upon the vine, water is changed into wine, as the sap ripens into rich juice.  He had been doing that all along in every vineyard and orchard; and that was His glory.  Now He was come to prove that; to draw back the veil of custom and carnal sense, and manifest Himself.  Men had seen the grapes ripen on the tree; and they were tempted to say, as every one of us is tempted now: “It is the sun and the air, the nature of the vine, and the nature of the climate, which makes the wine.”  Jesus comes and answers: “Not so.  I make the wine; I have been making it all along.  The vines, the sun, the weather, are only my tools wherewith I worked, turning rain and sap into wine; and I am greater than they; I made them; I do not depend on them; I can make wine from water without vines or sunshine.  Behold, and drink, and see my glory without the vineyard, since you had forgotten how to see it in the vineyard!  For I am now, even as I was in Paradise, The Word of the Lord God; and now, even as in Paradise, I walk among the trees of the garden, and they know me and obey me, though the world knows me not.  I have been all along in the world, and the world knows me not.  Know me now, lest you lose the knowledge of me for ever!”

Those of the Jews who received that message, as the disciples did, found out their ancient Lord, and clung to Him, and know now, in the world of spirits, that His message was indeed a true one.  Those who did not, lost sight of Him; to this day their eyes are blinded; to this day they have utterly forgotten that they have a Lord and Ruler, who is the Word and Son of God.  Their faith is no more like the faith of David than their understanding of the Scriptures is like his.  The Bible is a dead letter to them.  The kingdom and government of God is forgotten by them.  Of all God-worshipping people in the world, the Jews are the least godly, the most given up to the worship of this world, and the things which they can see, and taste, and handle, and, therefore, to covetousness, cheating, lying, tyranny, and all the sins which spring from forgetting that this world belongs to the Lord and that He rules and guides it, that its blessings are His gifts, and we His stewards, to use them for the good of all.  May God help, and forgive, and convert them!  Doubt not that He will do so in His good time.  But let us beware, my friends, lest we fall into the same sin.  Do not fancy that we are not in just the same danger.  It would be a cowardly thing of a preacher to call Jews, or heathens, or any other absent persons hard names, unless their mistakes and their sins were such as his own people wanted warnings against, ay, perhaps, had the very root of them in their hearts already.  And we have the root of the Jews’ sin in our own hearts.  Why is this one miracle read in our churches to this day, if we do not stand just as much in need of the lesson as those for whom it was first worked?  We, as well as they, are in danger of forgetting who it is that sends us corn and wine, and fruitful seasons, love and marriage, and all the blessings of this life.  We, as well as the Jews, are continually fancying that these outward earthly things, as we call them in our shallow carnal conceits, have nothing to do with Jesus or His kingdom, but that we may compete, and scrape, even cheat and lie to get them, and when we have them, misuse them selfishly, as if they belonged to no one but ourselves, as if we had no duty to perform about them, as if we owed God no service for them.

And again, we are, just as much as the Jews were, in danger of spiritual pride; in danger of fancying that because we are religious, and have, or fancy we have, deep experiences and beautiful thoughts about God and Christ and our own souls, therefore we can afford to despise those who do not know as much as ourselves; to despise the common pleasures and petty sorrows of poor creatures, whose souls and bodies are grovelling in the dust, busied with the cares of this world, at their wits’ end to get their daily bread; to despise the merriment of young people, the play of children, and all those everyday happinesses which, though we may turn from them with a sneer, are precious in the sight of Him who made heaven and earth.  All such proud thoughts, all such contempt of those who do not seem as spiritual as we fancy ourselves, is evil.  It is from the devil, and not from God.  It is the same vile spirit which made the Pharisees of old say: “This people—these poor worldly drudging wretches—who know not the law, are accursed.”  And mind, this is not a sin of rich, and learned, and highborn men only.  They may be more tempted to it than others; but poor men, when they become, by the grace of God, wiser, more spiritual, more holy than others, are tempted, just as much as the rich, to despise their poor neighbours to whom God has not given the same light as themselves; and surely in them it shows ugliest of all.  A learned and high-born man may be excused for looking down upon the sinful poor, because he does not understand their temptations, because he never has been ignorant and struggling as they are.  But a poor man who despises the poor—he has no excuse.  He ought above all men to feel for them, for he has been tempted even as they are.  He knows their sorrows; he has been through their dark valley of bad food, bad lodging, want of work, want of teaching, low cares which drag the soul to earth.  Surely a poor man who has tasted God’s love and Christ’s light, ought, above all others, instead of turning his back on his class, to pity them, to make common cause with them, to teach them, guide them, comfort them, in a way no rich man can.  Yes; after all, it is the poor must help the poor; the poor must comfort the poor; the poor must teach and convert the poor.

See, in the epistle for this day, St. Paul makes no distinction between rich and poor.  This epistle is joined with the gospel for the day, to show us what ought to be the conduct of Christians, who believe in the miracle of Cana; what men should do who believe that they have a Lord in heaven, by whose command suns shine, fruits ripen, men enjoy the blessings of harvest, of marriage, of the comforts which the heathen and the savage, as well as the Christian man, partake; what men should do who believe that they have a Lord in heaven who entered into the common joys and sorrows of lowly men, who was once Himself a poor villager, who ate with publicans and sinners, who condescended to join in a wedding feast, and increase the mere animal enjoyment of the guests.  And what is St. Paul’s command to poor as well as rich?  Read the epistle for this day and see.

You see at once that this epistle is written in the same spirit as our Lord’s words: by God’s Spirit, in short; the Spirit which brought the Lord Jesus so condescendingly to the wedding feast; the Spirit which made Him care so heartily for the common pleasures of those around Him.  My friends, these are not commands to one class, but to all.  Poor as well as rich may show mercy with cheerfulness, and love without dissimulation.  Poor as well as rich may minister to others with earnestness, and condescend to those of low estate.  Not a word in this whole epistle which does not apply equally to every rank, and sex, and age.

Neither are these commands to each of us by ourselves, but to all of us together, as members of a family.  If you will look through them they are not things to be done to ourselves, but to our neighbours; not experiences to be felt about our own souls: but rules of conduct to our fellow-men.  They are all different branches and flowers from that one root: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

Do we live thus, rich or poor?  Can we look each other in the face this afternoon and say, each man to his neighbour: “I have behaved like a brother to you.  I have rejoiced at your good fortune, and grieved at your sorrow.  I have preferred you to myself.  I have loved you without dissimulation.  I have been earnest in my place and duty in the parish for the sake of the common good of all.  I have condescended to those of lower rank than myself.  I have—”  Ah, my dear friends, I had better not go on with the list.  God forgive us all!  The less we try to justify ourselves on this score the better.  Some of us do indeed try to behave like brothers and sisters to their neighbours; but how few of us; and those few how little!  And yet we are brothers.  We are members of one family, sons of one Father, joint-heirs with one Lord, the poor Man who sat eating and drinking at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, and mixed freely in the joys and the sorrows of the poorest and meanest.  Joint-heirs with Christ; yet how unlike Him!  My friends, we need to repent and amend our ways; we need to confess, every one of us, rich and poor, the pride, the selfishness, the carelessness about each other, which keeps us so much apart, knowing so little of each other, feeling so little for each other.  Oh confess this sin to God, every one of you.  Those who have behaved most like brothers, will be most ready to confess how little they have behaved like brothers.  Confess: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son, for I have not loved, cared for, helped my brothers and sisters round, who are just as much thy children as I am.”  Pray for the spirit of Jesus, the spirit of condescension, love, fellow-feeling; that spirit which rejoices simply and heartily with those who are happy, and feels for another’s sorrows as if they were its own.  Pray for it; for till it comes, there will be no peace on earth.  Pray for it; for when it comes and takes possession of your hearts, and you all really love and live like brothers, children of one Father, the kingdom of God will be come indeed, and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

XLVIII.

PARABLE OF THE LOWEST PLACE

And He put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when He marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them, when thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room, lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; and he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room.  But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.  For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.—Luke xiv. 7–11.

We heard in the gospel for to-day how the Lord Jesus put forth a parable to those who were invited to a dinner with Him at the Pharisee’s house.  A parable means an example of any rules or laws; a story about some rule, by hearing which people may see how the rule works in practice, and understand it.  Now, our Lord’s parables were about the kingdom of God.  They were examples of the rules and laws by which the kingdom of God is governed and carried on.  Therefore He begins many of His parables by saying, The kingdom of God is like something—something which people see daily, and understand more or less.  “The kingdom of God is like a field;” “The kingdom of God is like a net;” “The kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed;” and so forth.  And even where He did not begin one of His parables by speaking of the kingdom of God, we may be still certain that it has to do with the kingdom of God.  For the one great reason why the Lord was made flesh and dwelt among us, was to preach the kingdom of God, His Father and our Father, and to prove to men that God was their King, even at the price of his most precious blood.  And, therefore, everything which He ever did, and everything which He ever spoke, had to do with this one great work of His.  This parable, therefore, which you heard read in the gospel for to-day, has to do with the kingdom of God, and is an example of the laws of it.

Now, what is the kingdom of God?  It is worth our while to consider.  For at baptism we were declared members of the kingdom of God; we were to renounce the world, and to live according to the kingdom of God.  The kingdom of God is simply the way in which God governs men; and the world is the way in which men try to manage without God’s help or leave.  That is the difference between them; and a most awful difference it is.  Men fancy that they can get on well enough without God; that the ways of the world are very reasonable, and useful, and profitable, and quite good enough to live by, if not to die by.  But all the while God is King, let them fancy what they like; and this earth, and everything on it, from the king on his throne to the gnat in the sunbeam, is under His government, and must obey His laws or die.  We are in God’s kingdom, my good friends, every one of us, whether we like it or not, and we shall be there for ever and ever.  And our business is, therefore, simply to find out what are the laws of that kingdom, and obey those laws as speedily as possible, and live for ever thereby, lest, if we break them, and get in their way, they should grind us to powder.

Now, here is one of the laws of God’s kingdom: “Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and whosoever abaseth himself shall be exalted.”  That is, whosoever, in any way whatsoever, sets himself up, will be pulled down again: while he who is contented to keep low, and think little of himself, will be raised up and set on high.  Now the world’s rule is the exact opposite of this.  The world says, Every man for himself.  The way of the world is to struggle and strive for the highest place; to be a pushing man, and a rising man, and a man who will stand stiffly by his rights, and give his enemy as good as he brings, and beat his neighbour out of the market, and show off himself to the best advantage, and try to make the most of whatever wit or money he has to look well in the world, that people may look up to him and flatter him and obey him; and so the world has no objection to people’s pretending to be better than they are.  Every man must do the best he can for himself, the world says, and never mind his neighbours: they must take care of themselves; and if they are foolish enough to be taken in, so much the worse for them.  So the world thinks that there is no harm in a man, when he has anything to sell, making it out better than it really is, and hiding the fault in it as far as he can.  When a tradesman or manufacturer sends about “puffs” of his goods, and pretends that they are better and cheaper than other people’s, just to get custom by it, the world does not call that what it is—boasting and lying.  It says: “Of course a man must do the best he can for himself.  If a man does not praise himself, nobody else will praise him; he cannot expect his neighbours to take him for better than his own words.”  So again, if a man wants a place or situation, the world thinks it no harm if he gives the most showy character of himself, and gets his friends to say all the good of him they can, and a great deal more, and to say none of the harm—in short, to make himself out a much better, or shrewder, or worthier man than he really is.  The world does not call that either what it is—boasting, and lying, and thrusting oneself into callings to which God has not called us.  The world says: “Of course a man must turn his best side outwards.  You cannot expect a man to tell tales on himself.”

And, my friends, the world would be quite right, and reasonable, and prudent, in telling us to push, and boast, and lie, and puff ourselves and our goods, if it were not for one thing which the foolish blind world is always forgetting, and that is, that there is a God who judges the earth.  If God were not our King; if He took no care of us men and our doings; if mankind had it all their own way on earth, and were forced to shift for themselves without any laws of God to guide them, then the best thing every man could do would be to fight for himself; to get all he could for himself, and leave as little as he could for his neighbours; to make himself out as great, and wise, and strong, as he could, and try to make his neighbours buy him at his own price.  That would be the best plan for every man, if God was not King; and therefore the world says that that is the best plan for every man, because the world does not believe that God is King, and hates the notion that God is King, and laughs at and persecutes, as Jesus Christ said it would, those who preach the kingdom of God, and tell men, as I tell you in God’s name: “You were not made to be selfish; you were not meant to rise in the world by boasting and pushing down and deceiving your neighbours.  For you are subjects of God’s kingdom; and to do so is to break his laws, and to put yourselves under His curse; and however worldly-wise all this selfishness and boasting may seem, it is sin, whose wages are death and ruin.”

For, my friends, let the world try to forget God as it will, He does not forget the world.  Let men try to make rules and laws for themselves, rules about religion, rules about government, rules about trade, rules about morals and what they fancy is just and fair; let them make as many rules as they like, they are only wasting their time; for God has made His rules already, and revealed them to us in the Bible, and told us that the earth and mankind are governed in His way, and not in ours, and that He will not alter His everlasting rules to suit our new ones.  As David says: “Let the people be never so unquiet, still the Lord is King.”

Ah, my friends, it is very easy to say all this, but it is not so easy to believe it.  Every one, every respectable person at least, is ready enough to talk about God, and God’s will, and so forth.  But when it comes to practice; when it comes to doing God’s will, and not our own; when it comes to obeying His direct and plain commands, and not the fashions and maxims which men have invented for themselves; when it comes to giving up what we long for, because He has said that if we try after it in our own way, and not in His, we shall never have it at all, then comes the trial; then comes the time to see whether we believe that God is the King of the earth or not; then comes the time to see whether we have renounced the world, and determined to live as God’s sons in God’s kingdom, or whether our religion is some form of words, or way of thinking and feeling which we hope may save our souls from hell, but which has nothing to do with our daily life and conduct, and leaves us just as worldly as any heathen, in all our dealings with our fellow-men, from Monday morning to Saturday night.  Then comes the time to try our faith in God.

And then, alas! it comes out, in these evil, and godless, and hypocritical times in which we live, that many a man who fancies himself religious, and respectable, and blameless, and what not, no more really believes that he is living in God’s kingdom than the heathen do.  And if you ask him, you will find out most probably that he fancies that God’s kingdom is not on earth now, but that it will be on earth some day.  A cunning delusion of the devil, that, my friends!  To make us go his way while we fancy that we are going our own way.  To make us say to ourselves: “Ah! it is very unfortunate that God is not King of the earth now.  Of course He will be after the resurrection, in the new heaven and the new earth, where there will be no sin.  But He is not King now; this world is given over to sin and the devil, so fallen and ruined and corrupt that—that—that, in short, we cannot be expected to behave like God’s children in it, but must just follow the ways of the world, and live by ambition, and selfishness, and cunning, and boasting, and competing in this life; a life of love, and justice, and humbleness, and fellow-help, and mercy, and self-sacrifice is impossible in such a world as this; we cannot live like angels, till we get to heaven!”  So say nine people out of ten; the devil deceiving them, and their own hearts, alas! being but too glad to catch at the excuse for sin which the devil gives them, when he tells them that this present earth is not God’s kingdom; and so they go and act accordingly, selfish, grudging, pushing, boastful, every man’s hand against his neighbour and for himself, till they succeed too often in making this earth as fearfully like the devil’s kingdom as it is possible for God’s kingdom to be made.

But what, some may ask, has all this to do with the text that he who sets himself up shall be brought low, he who keeps himself low shall be set up?  What has it to do with the text?  It has everything to do with the text.  If people really believed that they were God’s subjects and children in God’s kingdom, they would not need to ask that question long.

If God is really the King of the earth, there can be no use in anyone setting up himself.  If God is really the King of the earth, those who set up themselves must be certain to be brought down from their high thoughts and high assumptions sooner or later.  For if God is really the King of the earth, He must be the one to set people up, and not they themselves.  Look again at the parable.  The man who asks the guests to dine with him has surely a right to place each of them where he likes.  The house is his, the dinner is his.  He has a right to invite whom he likes; and he has a right to settle where they shall sit.  If they choose their own places—if any guest takes upon himself to seat himself at the head of the table, because he thinks it his right, he offends against all rules of right feeling and propriety toward the man who has invited him.  All he has a right to expect is, that his host will not put him in the wrong place, that he will settle all places at his table according to people’s real rank and deserts, and as our Testaments say, put “the worthiest man in the highest room.”  And if people really believed in God, which very few do, they would surely expect no less of God.  What gentleman, farmer, or labourer is there, with common sense and good feeling, who would not show most respect to the most respectable persons who came into his house, and send his best and trustiest workmen about his most important errands?  True, he might make mistakes, and worse.  Being a weak man, he might be tempted to put the rich sinner in a higher place than the poor saint: or he might, from private fancy, be blinded about his workmen’s characters, and so send a worse man, because he was his favourite, to do what another man whom he did not fancy as well might do a great deal better.  But you cannot suspect God of that.  He is no respecter of persons—whether a man be rich or poor, no matter to God: all which He inquires into is—Is he righteous or unrighteous, wise or foolish, able to do his work or unable?  And God can make no mistakes about people’s characters.  As St. Paul says of the Lord Jesus: “The Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing through to the dividing of the very joints and marrow, so that all things are naked and open in the sight of Him with whom we have to do.”  There is no blinding God, no hiding from God, no cheating God, just as there is no flattering God.  He knows what each and every one of us is fit for.  He knows what each and every one of us is worth; and what is more, He knows what we ought to know, that each and every one of us is worth nothing without Him.  Therefore there is no use pretending to be better than we are.  God knows just how good we are, and will reward us, even in this life only according as we deserve, in spite of all our boasting.  There is no use pretending to be wiser than we are.  For all the wisdom we have comes from God; and if we pretend to have more than we have, and by that greatest act of folly, show that we have no wisdom at all, He will take from us even what we have, and make all our cunning plans come to nothing, and prove us fools, just when we fancy ourselves most clever.  There is no use being ambitious and pushing, and trying to scramble up on our neighbours’ shoulders.  For we were not sent into this world to do what we like, but what God likes; not to work for ourselves, but to work for God; and God knows exactly how much good each of us can do, and what is the best place for us to do it in, and how to teach and enable us to do it; and if we choose to be taught, He will teach us; and if we choose to go His way, and do His work, He will help us to it.  But if we will not have his way, He will not let us have our own way—not at first, at least.  He will bring our plans to nothing, and let us make fools of ourselves, and bring in sudden accidents of which we never dreamed, just to show us that we are not our own masters, and cannot cut out our own roads through life.  And if we take His lesson, and go to Him to teach and strengthen us—well: and if not—then perhaps—which is the most awful misery which can happen to any man in earth—God may give up teaching us during this life, and let us have our own way, and be filled with the fruit of our own devices; from which worst of punishments may He in His mercy, save you, and me, and all belonging to us, in this life and in the life to come.

But some of you may say: “We understand the first half of the text very well, and like it very well; we all think it just that those who set themselves up should have a fall, and we are very glad to see them have a fall: but we do not see why he who abases himself should have any right to be exalted.”  Ah, my friends, it is much easier, and needs much less knowledge of God, and much less of the likeness of Christ, to see what is wrong, than to see what is right.  Every man knows when a bone is broken, but it is not every one who can set it again.  Nevertheless, there is a sort of left-handed reason in that argument.  For a man has no more right to make himself out worse than he is, than he has to make himself out better than he is.  A man should confess to being just what he is, neither more nor less.  Nevertheless, he who humbles himself shall be exalted.

Of course I do not mean those who, like some I know, make a fawning humble way of talking a cloak for their own self-conceit; who call themselves miserable sinners all the time that they are fancying that they are almost the only people in the world who are sure of being saved, whatever they do; who, as some do, actually pride themselves on their own convictions of sin, and glory in their own shame, and despise those who will not slander themselves as they do.

They are equally hateful to God and to God’s enemies.  If you and I are disgusted at such hypocritical self-conceit, be sure the Lord Jesus is far more pained at it than we are; for as a wise man says: “The devil’s darling sin is the pride that apes humility.”

But let a man really be convinced of sin; let a man really believe in the Lord Jesus Christ’s atonement; let a man really believe in the Holy Spirit; and that man will have little need to ask why he should humble himself more than he deserves, and little wish to boast of himself, and push himself forward, and get praise, or riches, or power in the world.  For that man would say to himself: “I, sinner as I am; I, who know that I do so many wrong things daily; things so wrong that it required the blood of the Son of God to wash out the guilt of them—who am I to set myself up?  I cannot be faithful in a little—why should I try to be ruler over much?  I cannot use properly the blessings and the power which God does give me—must I not take for granted that, if I had more riches, more power, I should use them still worse?  I know well enough of a thousand sins, and weaknesses and ignorances in myself which my neighbours never see.  I believe, therefore, my neighbours have much too good an opinion of me, and not too bad a one; and therefore I am not going to boast or puff myself to them.  I can only thank God they do not see the inside of this foolish heart of mine as well as He does!  In short, I am not going to set myself up, and try to get a higher place among men than I have already, because I am certain that I have already a ten times better one than I deserve.”

Or again, if a man really believed in the Holy Ghost, which is much the same as really believing in the kingdom of God; if he really believed that God was the King and Master of his heart and soul; if he really believed that everything good, and right, and wise in him came from God’s Holy Spirit, and that everything wrong and foolish in him came from himself and the devil; then he would surely say to himself: “Who am I to try to set myself up above my neighbours, and get power over them; what have I that I did not receive?  Whatever money, or station, or cleverness, or power of mind I have, God has given me, and without Him I should be nothing.  Therefore, He only gave me these talents to use for Him, and if I use them for my own ends, I shall be misusing them, and trying to rob God of His own.  I am His child, His subject, His steward; He has put me just in that place in His earth which is most fit for me, and my business is, not to try to desert my post, and to wander out of the place here He has put me, but to see that I do the duty which lies nearest me, so that I shall be able to give an account to Him.  It is only if I am faithful in a few things, that I can expect God to make me ruler over many things.”  Ah, my friends, if we could but see ourselves, not as we fancy we are, nor as others fancy we are, but just as we really are, then, instead of pushing, and boasting, and standing stiffly by our rights, and fancying that God and man are unjust to us, we should be crying out all day long with the prodigal son: “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.”  We should say with St. Paul—who, after all, remember, was the wisest, and most learned, and noblest-hearted of all the Apostles—that we are at best the chief of sinners.  We should feel like the dear and blessed Magdalene of old, the pattern for ever of all true penitents, that it was quite honour enough to be allowed to wash Christ’s feet with our tears, while every one round us sneered at us and looked down upon us—as, after all, we deserve.  And so, believe me, we should be exalted.  It would pay us, if payment is what we want.  For so we should be in a more right, more true, more healthy, more wise, more powerful state of mind; more like Jesus Christ, and therefore more likely to be sent to do Christ’s work, and share Christ’s reward.  For this is the great law of the kingdom of God in which we live, that man is nothing, and God is everything; and that we are strong and wise, and something, only when we find out that we are weak and foolish, and nothing, and go to our Father in heaven for strength, and wisdom, and spiritual eternal life.  And then we find out how true it is that he who humbles himself, as he deserves, will be raised up; how he who loses his life will save it; how blessed are the poor in spirit, those who feel that they have nothing but what God chooses to give them; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven!  How blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; who feel that they are not doing right, and yet cannot rest till they do right; for they shall be filled!  How blessed are the meek, who do not set up themselves, or try to fight their own battles, and compete with their neighbours in the great scramble and struggle of this world; for they—just the last persons whom the world would expect to do it—shall inherit the earth!  Choose, my friends, choose!  The world says: “Push upwards, praise yourself, help yourself, put your best side outwards.”  The great God who made heaven and earth says: “Know that you are weak, and foolish, and sinful in yourself.  Know that whatever wisdom you have, I the Lord lent you; and I the Lord expect the interest of my loan.  Know that you are my child in my Kingdom.  Stay where I have put you, and when I want you for something better, I will call you; and if you try to rise without my calling you, I will only drive you back again.”  So the only way to be ruler over much, is first to be faithful in a little.  My friends, which of the two do you think is likely to know best, man or God?

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