Sermons on National Subjects

Which of us has not to lead a life of suffering?  We shall each and all of us, have our full share of trouble before we die, doubt it not.

And which of us has not to lead a life of danger?  I do not mean bodily danger; of that, there is little enough—perhaps too little—in England now; but of danger to our hearts, minds, characters?  Oh, my friends, I pity those who do not think themselves in danger every day of their lives, for the less danger they see around them, the more danger there is.  There is not only the common danger of temptation, but over and above it, the worse danger of not knowing temptation when it comes.  Who will be most likely to walk into pits and mires upon the moor—the man who knows that they are there around him, or the man who goes on careless and light of heart, fancying that it is all smooth ground?  Woe to you, young people, if you fancy that you are to have no woe!  Danger to you, young people, if you fancy yourselves in no danger!

“This is sad and dreary news”—some of you may say.  Ay, my friends, it would be sad and dreary news indeed; and this earth would be a very sad and dreary place; and life with all its troubles and temptations, would not be worth having, if it were not for the blessed news which the Gospel for this day brings us.  That makes up for all the sadness of the Epistle; that gives us hope; that tells us of one who has been through life, and through death too, yet without sin.  That tells us of one who has endured a thousand times more temptation than we ever shall, a thousand times more trouble than we ever shall, and yet has conquered it all; and that He who has thus been through all our temptations, borne all our weaknesses, is our King, our Saviour, who loves us, who teaches us, who has promised us His Holy Spirit, to make us like Himself, strong, brave, and patient, to endure all that man or devil, or our own low animal tempers and lusts, can do to hurt us.  The Gospel for this day tells us how He went and was alone in the wilderness with the wild beasts, and yet trusted in God, His Father and ours, to keep Him safe.  How He went without food forty days and nights, and yet in His extreme hunger, refused to do the least self-willed or selfish thing to get Himself food.  Is that no lesson, no message of hope for the poor man who is tempted by hunger to steal, or tempted by need to do a mean and selfish thing, to hear that the Lord Jesus Christ, who bore need and hunger far worse than his, understands all his temptations, and feels for him, and pities him, and has promised him God’s Spirit to make him strong, as He himself was?

Is it no comfort to young people who are tempted to vanity, and display, and self-willed conceited longings, tempted to despise the advice of their parents and elders, and set up for themselves, and choose their own way—Is it no good news, I say, for them to hear that their Lord and Saviour was tempted to it also, and conquered it?—That He will teach them to answer the temptation as He did, when He refused even to let angels hold Him over the temple, up between earth and heaven, for a sign and a wonder to all the Jews, because God His Father had not bidden Him to do it, and therefore He would not tempt the Lord His God?

Is it no good news, again, to those who are tempted to do perhaps one little outward wrong thing, to yield on some small point to the ways of the world, in order to help themselves on in life, to hear that their Lord and Saviour conquered that temptation too?—That he refused all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, when the devil offered them, because he knew that the devil could not give them to Him; that all wealth, and power, and glory belonged to God, and was to be got only by serving Him?

Oh do you all, young people especially, think of this.  As you grow up and go out into life, you will be tempted in a hundred different ways, by things which are pleasant—everyone knows that they are pleasant enough—but wrong.  One will be tempted to be vain of dress; another to be self-conceited; another to be lazy and idle; another to be extravagant and roving; another to be over fond of amusement; another to be over fond of money; another to be over fond of liquor; another to go wrong, as too many young men and young women do, and bring themselves, and those with whom they keep company, and whom they ought, if they really love them, to respect and honour, down into sin and shame.  You will all be tempted, and you will all be troubled; one by poverty, one by sickness, one by the burden of a family, one by being laughed at for trying to do right.  But remember, oh remember, whenever a temptation comes upon you, that the blessed Jesus has been through it all, and conquered all, and that His will is, that you shall be holy and pure like Him, and that, therefore, if you but ask Him, He will give you strength to keep pure.  When you are tempted, pray to Him: the struggle in your own minds will, no doubt, be very great; it will be very hard work for you—sin looks so pleasant on the outside!  Poor souls, it is a sad struggle for you!  Many a poor young fellow, who goes wrong, deserves rather to be pitied than to be punished.  Well then, if no man else will pity him, Jesus, the Man of all men, will.  Pray to Him!  Cry aloud to Him!  Ask Him to make you stout-hearted, patient, really manful, to fight against temptation.  Ask Him to give you strength of mind to fight against all bad habits.  Ask Him to open your eyes to see when you are in danger.  Ask Him to help you to keep out of the way of temptation.  Ask Him, in short, to give you grace to use such abstinence that your flesh may be subdued to your spirit.  And then you will not follow, as the beasts do, just what seems pleasant to your flesh; no, you will be able to obey Christ’s godly motions, that is, to do, as well as to love, the good desires which He puts into your hearts.  You will do not merely what is pleasant, but what is right; you will not be your own slaves, you will be your own masters, and God’s loyal and obedient sons; you will not be, as too many are, mere animals going about in the shape of men, but truly men at heart, who are not afraid of pain, poverty, shame, trouble, or death itself, when they are in the right path, about the work to which God has called them.

But if you ask Christ to make true men and women of you, you must believe that He will give you what you ask; if you ask Him to help you, you must believe that He will and does help you—you must believe that it is He Himself who has put into your hearts the very desire of being holy and strong at all; and therefore you must believe that you can help yourselves.  Help yourselves, and He will help you.  If you ask for His help, He will give it.  But what is the use of His giving it, if you do not use it?  To him who has shall be given, and he shall have more; but from him who has not shall be taken away even what he seems to have.  Therefore do not merely pray, but struggle and try yourselves.  Train yourselves as St. Paul did; train yourselves to keep your temper; train yourselves to bear unpleasant things for the sake of your duty; train yourselves to keep out of temptation; train yourselves to be forgiving, gentle, thrifty, industrious, sober, temperate, cleanly, as modest as little children in your words, and thoughts, and conduct.  And God, when He sees you trying to be all this, will help you to be so.  It may be hard to educate yourselves.  Life is a hard business at best—you will find it a thousand times harder, though, if you are slaves to your own fleshly sins.  But the more you struggle against sin, the less hard you will find it to fight; the more you resist the devil, the more he will flee from you; the more you try to conquer your own bad passions, the more God will help you to conquer them; it may be a hard battle, but it is a sure one.  No fear but that everyone can, if he will, work out his own salvation, for it is God Himself who works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.  All you have to do is to give yourselves up to Him, to study His laws, to labour as well as long to keep them, and He will enable you to keep them; He will teach you in a thousand unexpected ways; He will daily renew and strengthen your hearts by the working of His Spirit, that you may more and more know, and love, and do, what is right; and you will go on from strength to strength, to the height of perfect men, to the likeness of Jesus Christ the Lord, who conquered all human temptations for your sake, that He might be a high-priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, because He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.

VII.

GOOD FRIDAY

In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them.  In His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bare them and carried them all the days of old.—Isaiah lxiii. 9.

On this very day, at this very hour, 1817 years ago, hung one nailed to a cross; bruised and bleeding, pierced and naked, dying a felon’s death between two thieves; in perfect misery, in utter shame, mocked and insulted by all the great, the rich, the learned of His nation; one who had grown up as a man of low birth, believed by all to be a carpenter’s son; without scholarship, money, respectability; even without a home wherein to lay His head—and here was the end of His life!  True, He had preached noble words, He had done noble deeds: but what had they helped Him?  They had not made the rich, the learned, the respectable, the religious believe on Him; they had not saved Him from persecution, and insult, and death.  The only mourners who stood by to weep over His dying agonies were His mother, a poor countrywoman; a young fisherman; and one who had been a harlot and a sinner.  There was an end!

Do you know who that Man was?  He was your King; the King of rich and poor; and He was your King, not in spite of His suffering all that shame and misery, but just because He suffered it; because He chose to be poor, and miserable, and despised; because He endured the cross, despising the shame; because He took upon Himself to fulfil His Father’s will, all ills which flesh is heir to—therefore He is now your King, the Saviour of the world, the poor man’s friend, the Lord of heaven and earth.  Is He such a King as you wish for?

Is He the sort of King you want, my friends?  Does He fulfil your notions of what the poor man’s friend should be?  Do you, in your hearts, wish He had been somewhat richer, more glorious, more successful in the world’s eyes—a wealthy and prosperous man, like Solomon of old?  Are any of you ready to say, as the money-blinded Jews said, when they demanded their true King to be crucified, “We have no king but Cæsar?—Provided the law-makers and the authorities take care of our interests, and protect our property, and do not make us pay too many rates and taxes, that is enough for us.”  Will you have no king but Cæsar?  Alas! those who say that, find that the law is but a weak deliverer, too weak to protect them from selfishness, and covetousness, and decent cruelty; and so Cæsar and the law have to give place to Mammon, the god of money.  Do we not see it in these very days?  And Mammon is weak, too.  This world is not a shop, men are not merely money-makers and wages-earners.  There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in that sort of philosophy.  Self-interest and covetousness cannot keep society orderly and peaceful, let sham philosophers say what they will.  And then comes tyranny, lawlessness, rich and poor staining their hands in each other’s blood, as we saw happen in France two years ago; and so, after all, Mammon has to give place to Moloch, the fiend of murder and cruelty; and woe to rich and poor when he reigns over them!  Ay, woe—woe to rich and poor when they choose anyone for their king but their real and rightful Lord and Master, Jesus, the poor man, afflicted in all their afflictions, the Man of sorrows, crucified on this day.

Is He the kind of King you like?  Make up your minds, my friends—make up your minds!  For whether you like Him or not, your King He was, your King He is, your King He will be, blessed be God, for ever.  Blessed be God, indeed!  If He were not our King; if anyone in heaven or earth was Lord of us, except the Man of sorrows, the Prince of sufferers, what hope, what comfort would there be?  What a horrible, black, fathomless riddle this sad, diseased, moaning world would be!  No king would suit us but the Prince of sufferers—Jesus, who has borne all this world’s griefs, and carried all its sorrows—Jesus, who has Himself smarted under pain and hunger, oppression and insult, treachery and desertion, who knows them all, feels for them all, and will right them all, in His own good time.

Believing in Jesus, we can travel on, through one wild parish after another, upon English soil, and see, as I have done, the labourer who tills the land worse housed than the horse he drives, worse clothed than the sheep he shears, worse nourished than the hog he feeds—and yet not despair: for the Prince of sufferers is the labourer’s Saviour; He has tasted hunger, and thirst, and weariness, poverty, oppression, and neglect; the very tramp who wanders houseless on the moorside is His brother; in his sufferings the Saviour of the world has shared, when the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, while the Son of God had not where to lay His head.  He is the King of the poor, firstborn among many brethren; His tenderness is Almighty, and for the poor He has prepared deliverance, perhaps in this world, surely in the world to come—boundless deliverance, out of the treasures of His boundless love.

Believing in Jesus, we can pass by mines, and factories, and by dungeons darker and fouler still, in the lanes and alleys of our great towns and cities, where thousands and tens of thousands of starving men, and wan women, and children grown old before their youth, sit toiling and pining in Mammon’s prison-house, in worse than Egyptian bondage, to earn such pay as just keeps the broken heart within the worn-out body;—ay, we can go through our great cities, even now, and see the women, whom God intended to be Christian wives and mothers, the slaves of the rich man’s greed by day, the playthings of his lust by night—and yet not despair; for we can cry, No! thou proud Mammon, money-making fiend!  These are not thine, but Christ’s; they belong to Him who died on the cross; and though thou heedest not their sighs, He marks them all, for He has sighed like them; though there be no pity in thee, there is in Him the pity of a man, ay, and the indignation of a God!  He treasures up their tears; He understands their sorrows; His judgment of their guilt is not like thine, thou Pharisee!  He is their Lord, who said, that to those to whom little was given, of them shall little be required.  Generation after generation, they are being made perfect by sufferings, as their Saviour was before them; and then, woe to thee!  For even as He led Israel out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and a stretched-out arm, and signs and wonders, great and terrible, so shall He lead the poor out of their misery, and make them households like a flock of sheep; even as He led Israel through the wilderness, tender, forbearing, knowing whereof they were made, having mercy on all their brutalities, and idolatries, murmurings, and backslidings, afflicted in all their afflictions—even while He was punishing them outwardly, as He is punishing the poor man now—even so shall He lead this people out in His good time, into a good land and large, a land of wheat and wine, of milk and honey; a rest which He has prepared for His poor, such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive.  He can do it; for the Almighty Deliverer is His name.  He will do it; for His name is Love.  He knows how to do it; for He has borne the griefs, and carried the sorrows of the poor.

Oh, sad hearts and suffering!  Anxious and weary ones!  Look to the cross this day!  There hung your king!  The King of sorrowing souls, and more, the King of sorrows.  Ay, pain and grief, tyranny and desertion, death and hell, He has faced them one and all, and tried their strength, and taught them His, and conquered them right royally!  And, since He hung upon that torturing cross, sorrow is divine, god-like, as joy itself.  All that man’s fallen nature dreads and despises, God honoured on the cross, and took unto Himself, and blessed, and consecrated for ever.  And now, blessed are the poor, if they are poor in heart, as well as purse; for Jesus was poor, and theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are the hungry, if they hunger for righteousness as well as food; for Jesus hungered, and they shall be filled.  Blessed are those who mourn, if they mourn not only for their afflictions, but for their sins, and for the sins they see around them; for on this day, Jesus mourned for our sins; on this day He was made sin for us, who knew no sin; and they shall be comforted.  Blessed are those who are ashamed of themselves, and hate themselves, and humble themselves before God this day; for on this day Jesus humbled Himself for us; and they shall be exalted.  Blessed are the forsaken and the despised.—Did not all men forsake Jesus this day, in His hour of need? and why not thee, too, thou poor deserted one?  Shall the disciple be above his Master?  No; everyone that is perfect, must be like his master.  The deeper, the bitterer your loneliness, the more are you like Him, who cried upon the cross, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”  He knows what that grief, too, is like.  He feels for thee, at least.  Though all forsake thee, He is with thee still; and if He be with thee, what matter who has left thee for a while?  Ay, blessed are those that weep now, for they shall laugh.  It is those whom the Lord loveth that He chasteneth.  And because He loves the poor, He brings them low.  All things are blessed now, but sin; for all things, excepting sin, are redeemed by the life and death of the Son of God.  Blessed are wisdom and courage, joy, and health, and beauty, love and marriage, childhood and manhood, corn and wine, fruits and flowers, for Christ redeemed them by His life.  And blessed, too, are tears and shame, blessed are weakness and ugliness, blessed are agony and sickness, blessed the sad remembrance of our sins, and a broken heart, and a repentant spirit.  Blessed is death, and blessed the unknown realms, where souls await the resurrection day, for Christ redeemed them by His death.  Blessed are all things, weak, as well as strong.  Blessed are all days, dark, as well as bright, for all are His, and He is ours; and all are ours, and we are His, for ever.

Therefore sigh on, ye sad ones, and rejoice in your own sadness; ache on, ye suffering ones, and rejoice in your own sorrows.  Rejoice that you are made free of the holy brotherhood of mourners, that you may claim your place, too, if you will, among the noble army of martyrs.  Rejoice that you are counted worthy of a fellowship in the sufferings of the Son of God.  Rejoice and trust on, for after sorrow shall come joy.  Trust on; for in man’s weakness God’s strength shall be made perfect.  Trust on, for death is the gate of life.  Endure on to the end, and possess your souls in patience for a little while, and that, perhaps, a very little while.  Death comes swiftly; and more swiftly still, perhaps, the day of the Lord.  The deeper the sorrow, the nearer the salvation:

The night is darkest before the dawn;
When the pain is sorest the child is born;
And the day of the Lord is at hand.

Ay, if the worst should come; if neither the laws of your country nor the benevolence of the righteous were strong enough to defend you; if one charitable plan after another were to fail; if the labour-market were getting fuller and fuller, and poverty were spreading wider and wider, and crime and misery were breeding faster and still faster every year than education and religion; all hope for the poor seemed gone and lost, and they were ready to believe the men who tell them that the land is over-peopled—that there are too many of us, too many industrious hands, too many cunning brains, too many immortal souls, too many of God’s children upon God’s earth, which God the Father made, and God the Son redeemed, and God the Holy Spirit teaches: then the Lord, the Prince of sufferers, He who knows your every grief, and weeps with you tear for tear, He would come out of His place to smite the haughty ones, and confound the cunning ones, and silence the loud ones, and empty the full ones; to judge with righteousness for the meek of the earth, to hearken to the prayer of the poor, whose heart he has been preparing, and to help the fatherless and needy to their right, that the man of the world may be no more exalted against them.

In that day men will find out a wonder and miracle.  They will see many that are first last, and many that are last first.  They will find that there were poor who were the richest after all; the simple who were wisest, and gentle who were bravest, and weak who were strongest; that God’s ways are not as men’s ways, nor God’s thoughts as men’s thoughts.  Alas, who shall stand when God does this?  At least He who will do it is Jesus, who loved us to the death; boundless love and gentleness, boundless generosity and pity; who was tempted even as we are, who has felt our every weakness.  In that thought is utter comfort, that our Judge will be He who died and rose again, and is praying for us even now, to His Father and our Father.  Therefore fear not, gentle souls, patient souls, pure consciences and tender hearts.  Fear not, you who are empty and hungry, who walk in darkness and see no light; for though He fulfil once more, as He has again and again, the awful prophecy before the text; though He tread down the people in His anger, and make them drunk in His fury, and bring their strength to the earth; though kings with their armies may flee, and the stars which light the earth may fall, and there be great tribulation, wars, and rumours of wars, and on earth distress of nations with perplexity—yet it is when the day of His vengeance is at hand, that the year of His redeemed is come.  And when they see all these things, let them rejoice and lift up their heads, for their redemption draweth nigh.

Do you ask how I know this?  Do you ask for a sign, for a token that these my words are true?  I know that they are true.  But, as for tokens, I will give you but this one, the sign of that bread and that wine.  When the Lord shall have delivered His people out of all their sorrows, they shall eat of that bread and drink of that wine, one and all, in the kingdom of God.

VIII.

EASTER-DAY

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.—Colossians iii. 1.

I know no better way of preaching to you the gospel of Easter, the good news which this day brings to all men, year after year, than by trying to explain to you the Epistle appointed for this day, which we have just read.

It begins, “If ye then be risen with Christ.”  Now that does not mean that St. Paul had any doubt whether the Colossians, to whom he was speaking, were risen with Christ or not.  He does not mean, “I am not sure whether you are risen or not; but perhaps you are not; but if you are, you ought to do such and such things.”  He does not mean that.  He was quite sure that these Colossians were risen with Christ.  He had no doubt of it whatsoever.  If you look at the chapter before, he says so.  He tells them that they were buried with Christ in baptism, in which also they were risen with Christ, through faith of the operation of God, who has raised Him from the dead.

Now what reason had St. Paul to believe that these Colossians were risen with Jesus Christ?  Because they had given up sin and were leading holy lives?  That cannot be.  The Epistle for this day says the very opposite.  It does not say, “You are risen, because you have left off sinning.”  It says, “You must leave off sinning, because you are risen.”  Was it then on account of any experiences, or inward feeling of theirs?  Not at all.  He says that these Colossians had been baptized, and that they had believed in God’s work of raising Jesus Christ from the dead, and that therefore they were risen with Christ.  In one word, they had believed the message of Easter-day, and therefore they shared in the blessings of Easter-day; as it is written in another place, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, and believe in thy heart that God has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

Now these seem very wide words, too wide to please most people.  But there are wider words still in St. Paul’s epistles.  He tells us again and again that God’s mercy is a free gift; that He has made to us a free present of His Son Jesus Christ.  That He has taken away the effect of all men’s sin, and more than that, that men are God’s children; that they have a right to believe that they are so, because they are so.  For, He says, the free gift of Jesus Christ is not like Adam’s offence.  It is not less than it, narrower than it, as some folks say.  It is not that by Adam’s sin all became sinners, and by Jesus Christ’s salvation an elect few out of them shall be made righteous.  If you will think a moment, you will see that it cannot be so.  For Jesus Christ conquered sin and death and the devil.  But if, as some think, sin and death and the devil have destroyed and sent to hell by far the greater part of mankind, then they have conquered Christ, and not Christ them.  Mankind belonged to Christ at first.  Sin and death and the devil came in and ruined them, and then Christ came to redeem them; but if all that He has been able to do is to redeem one out of a thousand, or even nine out of ten, of them, then the devil has had the best of the battle.  He, and not Christ, is the conqueror.  If a thief steals all the sheep on your farm, and all that you can get back from him is a part of the whole flock, which has had the best of it, you or the thief?  If Christ’s redemption is meant for only a few, or even a great many elect souls out of all the millions of mankind, which has had the best of it, Christ, the master of the sheep, or the devil, the robber and destroyer of them?  Be sure, my friends, Christ is stronger than that; His love is deeper than that; His redemption is wider than that.  How strong, how deep, how wide it is, we never shall know.  St. Paul tells us that we never shall know, for it is boundless; but that we shall go on knowing more and more of its vastness for ever, finding it deeper, wider, loftier than our most glorious dreams could ever picture it.  But this, he says, we do know, that we have gained more than Adam lost.  For if by one man’s offence many were made sinners, much more shall they who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life by one even Jesus Christ.  For, he says, where sin abounded, God’s grace and free gift has much more abounded.  Therefore, as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men to justification of life.  Upon all men, you see.  There can be no doubt about it.  Upon you and me, and foreigners, and gipsies, and heathens, and thieves, and harlots—upon all mankind, let them be as bad or as good, as young or as old, as they may, the free gift of God has come to justification of life; they are justified, pardoned, and beloved in the sight of Almighty God; they have a right and a share to a new life; a different sort of life from what they are inclined to lead, and do lead, by nature—to a life which death cannot take away, a life which may grow, and strengthen, and widen, and blossom, and bear fruit for ever and ever.  They have a share in Christ’s resurrection, in the blessing of Easter-day.  They have a share in Christ, every one of them whether they claim that share or not.  How far they will be punished for not claiming it, is a very different matter, of which we know nothing whatsoever.  And how far the heathen who have never heard of Christ, or of their share in Him, will be punished, we know not—we are not meant to know.  But we know that to their own Master they stand or fall, and that their Master is our Master too, and that He is a just Master, and requires little of him to whom He gives little; a just and merciful Master, who loved this sinful world enough to come down and die for it, while mankind were all rebels and sinners, and has gone on taking care of it, and improving it, in spite of all its sin and rebellion ever since, and that is enough for us.

St. Paul knew no more.  It was a mystery, he says, a wonderful and unfathomable matter, which had been hidden since the foundation of the world, of which he himself says that he saw only through a glass darkly; and we cannot expect to have clearer eyes than he.  But this he seems to have seen, that the Lord, when He rose again, bought a blessing even for the dumb beasts and the earth on which we live.  For he says, the whole creation is now groaning in the pangs of labour, being about to bring forth something; and the whole creation will rise again; how, and when, and into what new state, we cannot tell.  But St. Paul seems to say that when the Lord shall destroy death, the last of his enemies, then the whole creation shall be renewed, and bring forth another earth, nobler and more beautiful than this one, free from death, and sin, and sorrow, and redeemed into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

But this, on the other hand, St. Paul did see most clearly, and preached it to all to whom he spoke, that the ground and reason of this great and glorious mystery was the thing which happened on the first Easter-day, namely, the Lord Jesus rising from the dead.  About that, at least, there was no doubt at all in his mind.  We may see it by the Easter anthem, which we read this morning, taken out of the fifteenth chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians:

“Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.

“For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”

Now he is not talking here merely of the rising again of our bodies at the last day.  That was in his mind only the end, and outcome, and fruit, and perfecting, of men’s rising from the dead in this life.  For he tells these same Corinthians, and the Colossians, and others to whom he wrote, that life, the eternal life which would raise their bodies at the last day, was even then working in them.

Neither is he speaking only of a few believers.  He says that, owing to the Lord’s rising on this day, all shall be made alive—not merely all Christians, but all men.  For he does not say, as in Adam all Christians die, but all men; and so he does not say, all Christians shall be made alive, but all men.  For here, as in the sixth chapter of Romans, he is trying to make us understand the likeness between Adam and Jesus Christ, whom he calls the new Adam.  The first Adam, he says, was only a living soul, as the savages and heathens are; but the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, the true pattern of men, is a quickening, life-giving spirit, to give eternal life to every human being who will accept His offer, and claim his share and right as a true man, after the likeness of the new Adam, Jesus Christ.

We then, every one of us who is here to-day, have a right to believe that we have a share in Christ’s eternal life: that our original sin, that is, the sinfulness which we inherited from our forefathers, is all forgiven and forgotten, and that mankind is now redeemed, and belongs to the second Adam, the true and original head and pattern of man, Jesus Christ, in whom was no sin; and that because mankind belongs to him, God is well pleased with them, and reconciled to them, and looks on them not as a guilty, but as a pardoned and beloved race of beings.

And we have a right to believe also, that because all power is given to Christ in heaven and earth, there is given to Him the power of making men what they ought to be—like His own blessed, and glorious, and perfect self.  Ask him, and you shall receive; knock at the gate of His treasure-house, and it shall be opened.  Seek those things that are above, and you shall find them.  You shall find old bad habits die out in you, new good habits spring up in you; old meannesses become weaker, new nobleness and manfulness become stronger; the old, selfish, covetous, savage, cunning, cowardly, brutal Adam dying out, the new, loving, brotherly, civilised, wise, brave, manful Adam growing up in you, day by day, to perfection, till you are changed from grace to grace, and glory to glory into the likeness of the Lord of men.

“These are great promises,” you may say, “glorious promises; but what proof have you that they belong to us?  They sound too good to be true; too great for such poor creatures as we are; give us but some proof that we have a right to them; give us but a pledge from Jesus Christ; give us but a sign, an assurance from God, and we may believe you then.”

My friends, I am certain—and the longer I live I am the more certain—that there is no argument, no pledge, no sign, no assurance, like the bread and the wine upon that table.  Assurances in our own hearts and souls are good, but we may be mistaken about them; for, after all, they are our own thoughts, notions in our own souls, these inward experiences and assurances; delightful and comforting as they are at times, yet we cannot trust them—we cannot trust our own hearts, they are deceitful above all things, who can know them?  Yes: our own hearts may tell us lies; they may make us fancy that we are pleasing God, when we are doing the things most hateful to Him.  They have made thousands fancy so already.  They may make us fancy we are right in God’s sight, when we are utterly wrong.  They have made thousands fancy so already.  These hearts of ours may make us fancy that we have spiritual life in us; that we are in a state higher and nobler than the sinners round us, when all the while our spirits are dead within us.  They made the Pharisees of old fancy that their souls were alive, and pure, and religious, when they were dead and damned within them; and they may make us fancy so too.  No: we cannot trust our hearts and inward feelings; but that bread, that wine, we can trust.  Our inward feelings are a sign from man; that bread and wine are a sign from God.  Our inward feelings may tell us what we feel toward God: that bread, that wine, tell us something ten thousand times more important; they tell us what God feels towards us.  And God must love us before we can love Him; God must pardon us before we can have mercy on ourselves; God must come to us, and take hold of us, before we can cling to Him; God must change us, before we can become right; God must give us eternal life in our hearts before we can feel and enjoy that new life in us.  Then that bread, that wine, say that God has done all that for us already; they say: “God does love you; God has pardoned you; God has come to you; God is ready and willing to change and convert you; God has given you eternal life; and this love, this mercy, this coming to find you out while you are wandering in sin, this change, this eternal life, are all in His Son Jesus Christ; and that bread, that wine, are the signs of it.”  It is for the sake of Jesus’ blood that God has pardoned you, and that cup is the new covenant in His blood.  Come and drink, and claim your pardon.  It is simply because Jesus Christ was man, and you, too, are men and women, wearing the flesh and blood which Christ wore; eating and drinking as Christ ate and drank, and not for any works or faith of your own, that God loves you, and has come to you, and called you into His family.  This is the Gospel, the good news of Christ’s free grace, and pardon, and salvation; and that bread, that wine, the common food of all men, not merely of the rich, or the wise, or the pious, but of saints and penitents, rich and poor.  Christians and heathens, alike—that plain, common, every-day bread and wine—are the signs of it.  Come and take the signs, and claim your share in God’s love, in God’s family.  And it is in Jesus Christ, too, that you have eternal life.  It is because you belong to Jesus Christ, to mankind, of which He is the head and king, that God will change you, strengthen your soul to rise above your sins, raise you up daily more and more out of spiritual death, out of brutishness, and selfishness, and ignorance, and malice, into an eternal life of wisdom, and love, and courage, and mercifulness, and patience, and obedience; a life which shall continue through death, and beyond death, and raise you up again for ever at the last day, because you belong to Christ’s body, and have been fed with Christ’s eternal life.  And that bread, that wine are the signs of it.  “Take, eat,” said Jesus, “this is my body; drink, this is my blood.”  Those are the signs that God has given you eternal life, and that this life is in His Son.  What better sign would you have?  There is no mistaking their message; they can tell you no lies.  And they can, and will, bring your own Gospel-blessings to your mind, as nothing else can.  They will make you feel, as nothing else can, that you are the beloved children of God, heirs of all that your King and Head has bought for you, when He died, and rose again upon this day.  He gave you the Lord’s Supper for a sign.  Do you think that He did not know best what the best sign would be?  He said: “Do this in remembrance of me.”  Do you think that He did not know better than you, and me, and all men, that if you did do it, it would put you in remembrance of Him?

Oh! come to His table, this day of all days in the year; and claim there your share in His body and His blood, to feed the everlasting life in you; which, though you see it not now, though you feel it not now, will surely, if you keep it alive in you by daily faith, and daily repentance, and daily prayer, and daily obedience, raise you up, body and soul, to reign with Him for ever at the last day.

IX.

THE COMFORTER

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER

If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.—John xvi. 7.

We are now coming near to two great days, Ascension-day and Whit-Sunday, which our forefathers have appointed, year by year, to put us continually in mind of two great works, which the Lord worked out for us, His most unworthy subjects, and still unworthier brothers.

On Ascension-day He ascended up into Heaven, and received gifts for men, even for His enemies, that the Lord God might dwell among them; and on Whit-Sunday, He sent down those gifts.  The Spirit of God came down to dwell in the hearts of men, to be the right of everyone who asks for it, white or black, young or old, rich or poor, and never to leave this earth as long as there is a human being on it.  And because we are coming near to these two great days, the Prayer-book, in the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, tries to put us in mind of those days, and to make us ready to ask for the blessings of which they are the yearly signs and witnesses.  The Gospel for last Sunday told us how the Lord told His disciples just before His death, that for a little while they should not see Him; and again a little while and they should see Him, because he was going to the Father, and that they should have great sorrow, but that their sorrow should be turned into joy.  And the Gospel for to-day goes further still, and tells us why He was going away—that He might send to them the Comforter, His Holy Spirit, and that it was expedient—good for them, that He should go away; for that if He did not, the Comforter would not come to them.  Now, in these words, I do not doubt He was speaking of Ascension-day, and of Whit-Sunday; and therefore it is that these Gospels have been chosen to be read before Ascension-day and Whit-Sunday; and in proportion as we attend to these Gospels, and take in the meaning of them, and act accordingly, Ascension-day and Whit-Sunday will be a blessing and a profit to us; and in proportion as we neglect them, or forget them, Ascension-day and Whit-Sunday will be witnesses against our souls at the day of judgment, that the Lord Himself condescended to buy for us with His own blood, blessings unspeakable, and offer them freely unto us, in spite of all our sins, and yet we would have none of them, but preferred our own will to God’s will, and the little which we thought we could get for ourselves, to the unspeakable treasures which God had promised to give us, and turned away from the blessings of His kingdom, to our own foolish pleasure and covetousness, like “the dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.”

I said that God had promised to us an unspeakable treasure: and so He has; a treasure that will make the poorest and weakest man among us, richer than if he had all the wealth gathered from all the nations of the world, which everyone is admiring now in that Great Exhibition in London, and stronger than if he had all the wisdom which produced that wealth.  Let us see now what it is that God has promised us—and then those to whom God has given ears to hear, and hearts to understand, will see that large as my words may sound, they are no larger than the truth.

Christ said, that if He went away, He would send down the Comforter, the Holy Spirit of God.  The Nicene Creed says, that the Holy Spirit of God is the Lord and Giver of life; and so He is.  He gives life to the earth, to the trees, to the flowers, to the dumb animals, to the bodies and minds of men; all life, all growth, all health, all strength, all beauty, all order, all help and assistance of one thing by another, which you see in the world around you, comes from Him.  He is the Lord and Giver of life; in Him, the earth, the sun and stars, all live and move and have their being.  He is not them, or a part of them, but He gives life to them.  But to men He is more than that—for we men ourselves are more than that, and need more.  We have immortal spirits in us—a reason, a conscience, and a will; strange rights and duties, strange hopes and fears, of which the beasts and the plants know nothing.  We have hearts in us which can love, and feel, and sorrow, and be weak, and sinful, and mistaken; and therefore we want a Comforter.  And the Lord and Giver of life has promised to be our Comforter; and the Father and the Son, from both of whom He proceeds, have promised to send Him to us, to strengthen and comfort us, and give our spirits life and health, and knit us together to each other, and to God, in one common bond of love and fellow-feeling even as He the Spirit knits together the Father and the Son.