The Gospel of the Pentateuch: A Set of Parish Sermons

Man has, in all ages, been tempted, when he looks at his own wickedness and folly, not only to despise himself—which he has good reason enough to do—but to despise his own human nature, and to cry to God, ‘Why hast thou made me thus?’  He has cursed his own human nature.  He has said, ‘Surely man is most miserable of all the beasts of the field.’  He has said, ‘I must get rid of my human nature—I must give up wife, family, human life of all kinds, I must go into the deserts and the forests, and there try to forget that I am a man, and become a mere spirit or angel.’  So said the Buddhists of Asia, the deepest thinkers concerning man and God of all the heathens, and so have many said since their time.  But so does the Bible not say.  It starts by telling us that man is made in God’s likeness, and that therefore his human nature is originally and in itself not a bad, but a perfectly good thing.  All that has to be done to it is to be cured of its diseases; and the Bible declares that it can be cured.  Howsoever man may have fallen, he may rise.  Howsoever the likeness may be blotted and corrupted, it can be cleansed and renewed.  Howsoever it may be perverted and turned right round and away from God and goodness to selfishness and evil, it can be converted, and turned back again to God.  Howsoever utterly far gone man may be from original righteousness, still to original righteousness he can return, by the grace of baptism and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.  And what in us is the likeness of God?  That is a deep question.

Only one answer will I make to it to-day.  Whatever in us is, or is not, the likeness of God, at least the sense of right and wrong is; to know right and wrong.  So says the Bible itself: ‘Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.’  Not that he got the likeness of God by his fall—of course not; but that he became aware of his likeness, and that in a very painful and common way—by sinning against it; as St. Paul says in one of his deepest utterances, ‘By sin is the knowledge of the law.’

And you may see for yourselves how human nature can have God’s likeness in that respect, and yet be utterly fallen and corrupt.

For a man may—and indeed every man does—know good and yet be unable to do it, and know evil, and yet be a slave to it, tied and bound with the chains of his sins till the grace of God release him from them.

To know good and evil, right and wrong—to have a conscience, a moral sense—that is the likeness of God of which I wish to preach to-day.  Because it is through that knowledge of good and evil, and through it alone, that we can know God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent.  It is through our moral sense that God speaks to us; through our sense of right and wrong; through that I say, God speaks to us, whether in reproof or encouragement, in wrath or in love; to teach us what he is like, and to teach us what he is not like.

To know God.  That is the side on which we must look at this text on Trinity Sunday.  If man be made in the image of God, then we may be able to know something at least of God, and of the character of God.  If we have the copy, we can guess at least at what the original is like.

From the character, therefore, of every good man, we may guess at something of the character of God.  But from the character of Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the very brightness of his Father’s glory and the express image of his person, we may see perfectly—at least perfectly enough for all our needs in this life, and in the life to come—what is the character of God, who made heaven and earth.

I beseech you to remember this—I beseech you to believe this, with your whole hearts, and minds, and souls, and especially just now.

For there are many abroad now who will tell you, man can know nothing of God.

Answer them: ‘If your God be a God of whom I can know nothing, then he is not my God, the God of the Bible.  For he is the God who has said of old, “They shall not teach each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know Me, from the least unto the greatest.”  He is the God, who, through Jesus Christ our Lord, accused and blamed the Jews because they did not know him, which if they could not know him would have been no fault of theirs.  Of doctrines, and notions, and systems, it is written, and most truly, “I know in part, and I prophesy in part,” and again, “If a man thinketh that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.”  But of God it is written, “This is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”’

But they will say, man is finite and limited, God is infinite and absolute, and how can the finite comprehend the infinite?

Answer: ‘Those are fine words: I do not understand them; and I do not care to understand them; I do not deny that God is infinite and absolute, though what that means I do not know.  But I find nothing about his being infinite and absolute in the Bible.  I find there that he is righteous, just, loving, merciful, and forgiving; and that he is angry too, and that his wrath is a consuming fire, and I know well enough what those words mean, though I do not know what infinite and absolute mean.  So that is what I have to think of, for my own sake and the sake of all mankind.’

But, they will say, you must not take these words to the letter; man is so unlike God, and God so unlike man, that God’s attributes must be quite different from man’s.  When you read of God’s love, justice, anger, and so forth, you must not think that they are anything like man’s love, man’s justice, man’s anger; but something quite different, not only in degree, but in kind: so that what might be unjust and cruel in man, would not be so in God.

My dear friends, beware of that doctrine; for out of it have sprung half the fanaticism and superstition which has disgraced and tormented the earth.  Beware of ever thinking that a wrong thing would be right if God did it, and not you.  And mind, that is flatly contrary to the letter of the Bible.  In that grand text where Abraham pleads with God, what does he say?  Not, ‘Of course if Thou choosest to do it, it must be right,’ but ‘Shall not the Judge of all the earth do RIGHT?’  Abraham actually refers the Almighty God to his own law; and asserts an eternal rule of right and wrong common to man and to God, which God will surely never break.

Answer: ‘If that doctrine be true, which I will never believe, then the Bible mocks and deceives poor miserable sinful man, instead of teaching him.  If God’s love does not mean real actual love,—God’s anger, actual anger,—God’s forgiveness, real forgiveness,—God’s justice, real justice,—God’s truth, real truth,—God’s faithfulness, real faithfulness, what do they mean?  Nothing which I can understand, nothing which I can trust in.  How can I trust in a God whom I cannot understand or know?  How can I trust in a love or a justice which is not what I call love or justice, or anything like them?

‘The saints of old said, I know in whom I have believed.  And how can I believe in him, if there is nothing in him which I can know; nothing which is like man—nothing, to speak plainly, like Christ, who was perfect man as well as perfect God?  If that be so, if man can know nothing really of God, he is indeed most miserable of all the beasts of the field, for I will warrant that he can know nothing really of anything else.  And what is left for him, but to remain for this life, and the life to come, in the outer darkness of ignorance and confusion, misrule and misery, wherein is most literally—as one may see in the history of every heathen nation upon earth—wailing and gnashing of teeth.

‘If God’s goodness be not like man’s goodness, there is no rule of morality left, no eternal standard of right and wrong.  How can I tell what I ought to do; or what God expects of me; or when I am right and when I am wrong, if you take from me the good, plain, old Bible rule, that man can be, and must be, like God?  The Bible rule is, that everything good in man must be exactly like something good in God, because it is inspired into him by the Spirit of God himself.  Our Lord Jesus, who spoke, not to philosophers or Scribes and Pharisees, but to plain human beings, weeping and sorrowing, suffering and sinning, like us,—told them to be perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect, by being good to the unthankful and the evil.  And if man is to be perfect, as his Father in heaven is perfect, then his Father in heaven is perfect as man ought to be perfect.  He told us to be merciful as our Father in heaven is merciful.  Then our Father in heaven is merciful with the same sort of mercy as we ought to show.  We are bidden to forgive others, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven us: then if our forgiveness is to be like God’s, God’s forgiveness is like ours.  We are to be true, because God is true: just, because God is just.  How can we be that, if God’s truth is not like what men call truth, God’s justice not like what men call justice?

‘If I give up that rule of right and wrong, I give up all rules of right and wrong whatsoever.’

No, my friends; if we will seek for God where he may be found, then we shall know God, whom truly to know is everlasting life.  But we must not seek for him where he is not, in long words and notions of philosophy spun out of men’s brains, and set up as if they were real things, when words and notions they are, and words and notions they will remain.  We must look for God where he is to be found, in the character of his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who alone has revealed and unveiled God’s character, because he is the brightness of God’s glory, and the express image of his person.

What Christ’s character was we can find in the Holy Gospels; and we can find it too, scattered and in parts, in all the good, the holy, the noble, who have aught of Christ’s spirit and likeness in them.

Whatsoever is good and beautiful in any human soul, that is the likeness of Christ.  Whatsoever thoughts, words, or deeds are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report; whatsoever is true virtue, whatsoever is truly worthy of praise, that is the likeness of Christ; the likeness of him who was full of all purity, all tenderness, all mercy, all self-sacrifice, all benevolence, all helpfulness; full of all just and noble indignation also against oppressors and hypocrites who bound heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, but touched them not themselves with one of their fingers; who kept the key of knowledge, and neither entered in themselves, or let those who were trying enter in either.

The likeness of an all-noble, all-just, all-gracious, all-wise, all-good human being; that is the likeness of Christ, and that, therefore, is the likeness of God who made heaven and earth.

All-good; utterly and perfectly good, in every kind of goodness which we have ever seen, or can ever imagine—that, thank God, is the likeness and character of Almighty God, in whom we live and move, and have our being.  To know that he is that—all-good, is to know his character as far as sinful and sorrowful man need know; and is not that to know enough?

The mystery of the ever-blessed Trinity, as set forth so admirably in the Athanasian Creed, is a mystery; and it we cannot know—we can only believe it, and take it on trust: but the character of the ever-blessed Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—we can know: while by keeping the words of the Athanasian Creed carefully in mind, we may be kept from many grievous and hurtful mistakes which will hinder our knowing it.  We can know that they are all good, for such as the Father is such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost.  That goodness is their one and eternal substance, and majesty, and glory, which we must not divide by fancying with some, that the Father is good in one way and the Son in another.  That their goodness is eternal and unchangeable; for they themselves are eternal, and have neither parts nor passions.  That their goodness is incomprehensible, that is, cannot be bounded or limited by time or space, or by any notions or doctrines of ours, for they themselves are incomprehensible, and able to do abundantly more than we can ask or think.

This is our God, the God of the Bible, the God of the Church, the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ our Lord.  And him we can believe utterly, for we know that he is faithful and true; and we know what that means, if there is any truth or faithfulness in us.  We know that he is just and righteous; and we know what that means, if there is any justice and uprightness in ourselves.  Him we can trust utterly; to him we can take all our cares, all our sorrows, all our doubts, all our sins, and pour them out to him, because he is condescending; and we know what that means, if there be any condescension and real high-mindedness in ourselves.  We can be certain too that he will hear us, just because he is so great, so majestic, so glorious; because his greatness, and majesty, and glory is a moral and spiritual greatness, which shows itself by stooping to the meanest, by listening to the most foolish, helping the weakest, pitying the worst, even while it is bound to punish.  Him we can trust, I say, because him we can know, and can say of him, Let the Infinite and the Absolute mean what they may, I know in whom I have believed—God the Good.  Whatever else I cannot understand, I can at least ‘understand the lovingkindness of the Lord;’ however high his dwelling may be, I know that he humbleth himself to behold the things in heaven and earth, to take the simple out of the dust, and the poor out of the mire.  Whatever else God may or may not be, I know that gracious is the Lord, and righteous, yea, our God is merciful.  The Lord preserveth the simple, for I was in misery, and he helped me.  Whatsoever fine theories or new discoveries I cannot trust, I can trust him, for with him is mercy, and with the Lord is plenteous redemption; and he shall redeem his people from all their sins.  However dark and ignorant I may be, I can go to him for teaching, and say, Teach me to do the thing that pleaseth thee, for thou art my God; let thy loving Spirit lead me forth into the land of righteousness.

The land of righteousness.  The one true heavenly land, wherein God the righteous dwelleth from eternity to eternity, righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works, and therefore adorable in all his ways, and glorious in all his works, with a glory even greater than the glory of his Almighty power.  On that glory of his goodness we can gaze, though afar off in degree, yet near in kind, while the glory of his wisdom and power is far, far beyond my understanding.  Of the intellect of God we can know nothing; but we can know what is better, the heart of God.  For that glory of goodness we can understand, and know, and sympathize with in our heart of hearts, and say, If this be the likeness of God, he is indeed worthy to be worshipped, and had in honour.  Praise the Lord, O my soul, for the Lord is good.  Kings and all people, princes and all judges of the world, young men and maidens, old men and children, praise the name of the Lord, for his name only is excellent, because his name is good.  Lift up your eyes, and look upon the face of Christ the God-man, crucified for you; and behold therein the truth of all truths, the doctrine of all doctrines, the gospel of all gospels, that the ‘Unknown,’ and ‘Infinite,’ and ‘Absolute’ God, who made the universe, bids you know him, and know this of him, that he is good, and that his express image and likeness is—Jesus Christ, his Son, our Lord.

SERMON III.  THE VOICE OF THE LORD GOD

(Preached also at the Chapel Royal, St. James, Sexagesima Sunday.)

GENESIS iii. 8.  And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

These words would startle us, if we heard them for the first time.  I do not know but that they may startle us now, often as we have heard them, if we think seriously over them.  That God should appear to mortal man, and speak with mortal man.  It is most wonderful.  It is utterly unlike anything that we have ever seen, or that any person on earth has seen, for many hundred years.  It is a miracle, in every sense of the word.

When one compares man as he was then, weak and ignorant, and yet seemingly so favoured by God, so near to God, with man as he is now, strong and cunning, spreading over the earth and replenishing it; subduing it with railroads and steamships, with agriculture and science, and all strange and crafty inventions, and all the while never visited by any Divine or heavenly appearance, but seemingly left utterly to himself by God, to go his own way and do his own will upon the earth, one asks with wonder, Can we be Adam’s children?  Can the God who appeared to Adam, be our God likewise, or has God’s plan and rule for teaching man changed utterly?

No.  He is one God; the same God yesterday, to-day, and for ever.  His will and purpose, his care and rule over man, have not changed.

That is a matter of faith.  Of the faith which the holy Church commands us to have.  But it need not be a blind or unreasonable faith.  That our God is the God of Adam; that the same Lord God who taught him teaches us likewise, need not be a mere matter of faith: it may be a matter of reason likewise; a thing which seems reasonable to us, and recommends itself to our mind and conscience as true.

Consider, my friends, a babe when it comes into the world.  The first thing of which it is aware is its mother’s bosom.  The first thing which it does, as its eyes and ears are gradually opened to this world, is to cling to its parents.  It holds fast by their hand, it will not leave their side.  It is afraid to sleep alone, to go alone.  To them it looks up for food and help.  Of them it asks questions, and tries to learn from them, to copy them, to do what it sees them doing, even in play; and the parents in return lavish care and tenderness on it, and will not let it out of their sight.  But after a while, as the child grows, the parents will not let it be so perpetually with them.  It must go to school.  It must see its parents only very seldom, perhaps it must be away from them weeks or months.  And why?  Not that the parents love it less: but that it must learn to take care of itself, to act for itself, to think for itself, or it will never grow up to be a rational human being.

And the parting of the child from the parents does not break the bond of love between them.  It learns to love them even better.  Neither does it break the bond of obedience.  The child is away from its parents’ eye.  But it learns to obey them behind their back; to do their will of its own will; to ask itself, What would my parents wish me to do, were they here? and so learns, if it will think of it, a more true, deep, honourable and spiritual obedience, than it ever would if its parents were perpetually standing over it, saying, Do this, and do that.

In after life, that child may settle far away from his father’s home.  He may go up into the temptations and bustle of some great city.  He may cross to far lands beyond the sea.  But need he love his parents less? need the bond between them be broken, though he may never set eyes on them again?  God forbid.  He may be settled far away, with children, business, interests of his own; and yet he may be doing all the while his father’s will.  The lessons of God which he learnt at his mother’s knee may be still a lamp to his feet and a light to his path.  Amid all the bustle and labour of business, his father’s face may still be before his eyes, his father’s voice still sound in his ears, bidding him be a worthy son to him still; bidding him not to leave that way wherein he should go, in which his parents trained him long, long since.  He may feel that his parents are near him in the spirit, though absent in the flesh.  Yes, though they may have passed altogether out of this world, they may be to him present and near at hand; and he may be kept from doing many a wrong thing and encouraged to do many a right one, by the ennobling thought, My father would have had it so, my mother would have had it so, had they been here on earth.  And though in this world he may never see them again, he may look forward steadily and longingly to the day when, this life’s battle over, he shall meet again in heaven those who gave him life on earth.

My friends, if this be the education which is natural and necessary from our earthly parents, made in God’s image, appointed by God’s eternal laws for each of us, why should it not be the education which God himself has appointed for mankind?  All which is truly human (not sinful or fallen) is an image and pattern of something Divine.  May not therefore the training which we find, by the very facts of nature, fit and necessary for our children, be the same as God’s training, by which he fashioneth the hearts of the children of men?  Therefore we can believe the Bible when it tells us that so it is.  That God began the education of man by appearing to him directly, keeping him, as it were, close to his hand, and teaching him by direct and open revelation.  That as time went on, God left men more and more to themselves outwardly: but only that he might raise their minds to higher notions of religion—that he might make them live by faith, and not merely by sight; and obey him of their own hearty free will, and not merely from fear or wonder.  And therefore, in these days, when miraculous appearances have, as far as we know, entirely ceased, yet God is not changed.  He is still as near as ever to men; still caring for them, still teaching them; and his very stopping of all miracles, so far from being a sign of God’s anger or neglect, is a part of his gracious plan for the training of his Church.

For consider—Man was first put upon this earth, with all things round him new and strange to him; seeing himself weak and unarmed before the wild beasts of the forest, not even sheltered from the cold, as they are; and yet feeling in himself a power of mind, a cunning, a courage, which made him the lord of all the beasts by virtue of his mind, though they were stronger than he in body.  All that we read of Adam and Eve in the Bible is, as we should expect, the history of children—children in mind, even when they were full-grown in stature.  Innocent as children, but, like children, greedy, fanciful, ready to disobey at the first temptation, for the very silliest of reasons; and disobeying accordingly.  Such creatures—with such wonderful powers lying hid in them, such a glorious future before them; and yet so weak, so wilful, so ignorant, so unable to take care of themselves, liable to be destroyed off the face of the earth by their own folly, or even by the wild beasts around—surely they needed some special and tender care from God to keep them from perishing at the very outset, till they had learned somewhat how to take care of themselves, what their business and duty were upon this earth.  They needed it before they fell; they needed it still more, and their children likewise, after they fell: and if they needed it, we may trust God that he afforded it to them.

But again.  Whence came this strange notion, which man alone has of all the living things which we see, of Religion?  What put into the mind of man that strange imagination of beings greater than himself, whom he could not always see, but who might appear to him?  What put into his mind the strange imagination that these unseen beings were more or less his masters?  That they had made laws for him which he must obey?  That he must honour and worship them, and do them service, in order that they might be favourable to him, and help, and bless, and teach him?  All nations except a very few savages (and we do not know but that their forefathers had it like the rest of mankind) have had some such notion as this; some idea of religion, and of a moral law of right and wrong.

Where did they get it?

Where, I ask again, did they get it?

My friends, after much thought I answer, there is no explanation of that question so simple, so rational, so probable, as the one which the text gives.

“And they heard the voice of the Lord God.”

Some, I know, say that man thought out for himself, in his own reason, the notion of God; that he by searching found out God.  But surely that is contrary to all experience.  Our experience is, that men left to themselves forget God; lose more and more all thought of God, and the unseen world; believe more and more in nothing but what they can see and taste and handle, and become as the beasts that perish.  How then did man, who now is continually forgetting God, contrive to remember God for himself at first?  How, unless God himself showed himself to man?  I know some will say, that mankind invented for themselves false gods at first, and afterwards cleared and purified their own notions, till they discovered the true God.  My friends, there is a homely old proverb which will well apply here.  If there had been no gold guineas, there would be no brass ones.  If men had not first had a notion of a true God, and then gradually lost it, they would not have invented false gods to supply his place.  And whence did they get, I ask again, the notion of gods at all?  The simplest answer is in the Bible: God taught them.  I can find no better.  I do not believe a better will ever be found.

And why not?

Why not?  I ask.  To say that God cannot appear to men is simply silly; for it is limiting God’s Almighty power.  He that made man and all heaven and earth, cannot he show himself to man, if he shall so please?  To say that God will not appear to man because man is so insignificant, and this earth such a paltry little speck in the heavens, is to limit God’s goodness; nay, it is to show that a man knows not what goodness means.  What grace, what virtue is there higher than condescension?  Then if God be, as he is, perfectly good, must he not be perfectly condescending—ready and willing to stoop to man, and all the more ready and the more willing, the more weak, ignorant, and sinful this man is?  In fact, the greater need man has of God, the more certain is it that God will help him in that need.

Yes, my friends, the Bible is the revelation of a God who condescends to men, and therefore descends to men.  And the more a man’s reason is spiritually enlightened to know the meaning of goodness and holiness and justice and love, the more simple, reasonable, and credible will it seem to him that God at first taught men in the days of their early ignorance, by the only method by which (as far as we can conceive) he could have taught them about himself; namely, by appearing in visible shape, or speaking with audible voice; and just as reasonable and credible, awful and unfathomable mystery though it is, will be the greater news, that that same Lord at last so condescended to man that he was conceived by the Holy Ghost; born of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead, and buried; and rose the third day, and ascended into heaven.  Credible and reasonable, not indeed to the natural man who looks only at nature, which he can see and hear and handle; but credible and reasonable enough to the spiritual man, whose mind has been enlightened by the Spirit of God, to see that the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal; even justice and love, mercy and condescension, the divine order, and the kingdom of the Living God.

And now one word on a matter which is tormenting the minds of many just now.  It is often said that all that I have been saying is contrary to science.  That this science and understanding of the world around us, which has improved so marvellously in our days, proves that the apparitions and miracles spoken of in the Bible cannot be true; that God, or the angels of God, can never have walked with man in visible shape.

Now, my friends, I do not believe this.  I believe the very contrary.  I entreat you to set your minds at rest on this point; and to believe (what is certainly true) there is nothing in this new science to contradict the good old creed, that the Lord God of old appeared to his human children.  It would take too much time, of course, to give you my reasons for saying this: and I must therefore ask you to take on trust from me when I tell you solemnly and earnestly that there is nothing in modern science which can, if rightly understood, contradict the glorious words of St. Paul, that God at sundry times and in divers manners spake to the fathers by the prophets, and hath at last spoken unto us by a Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things: by whom also he made the worlds, who is the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholdeth all things by the word of his power: even Jesus Christ, God blessed for ever.  Amen.

What then shall we think of these things?  Shall we say, ‘How much better off were our forefathers than we!  Ah, that we were not left to ourselves!  Ah, that we lived in the good old times when God and his angels walked with men!’