Westminster Sermons

We all should like to be blessed.  We all should like to be, as the Psalm says, like trees planted by the waterside, whose leaves never wither, and who bring forth their fruit in due season.  We should all wish to have it said of us—Whatsoever he doeth it shall prosper.  Then here is the way to inherit that blessing—“Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who exercises himself in His law day and night.”  The Psalmist is not speaking of Moses’ Law, nor of any other law of forms and ceremonies.  He says expressly “The law of the Lord”—that is, the law according to which the Lord has made him and all the world; and according to which the Lord rules him and all the world.  The Psalms—you must remember—say very little about Moses’ law; and when they do, speak of it almost slightingly, as if to draw men’s minds away from it to a deeper, nobler, more eternal law.  In one Psalm God asks, “Thinkest thou that I will eat bulls’ flesh, and drink the blood of goats?”  And in another Psalm some one answers, “Sacrifice and burnt-offering thou wouldest not.  Then said I, Lo I come, to do thy will, O God.  Thy law is within my heart.”  This is that true and eternal law of which Solomon speaks in his proverbs, as the Wisdom by which God made the heavens, and laid the foundation of the earth; and tells us that that Wisdom is a tree of life to all who can lay hold of her; that in her right hand is length of days, and in her left hand riches and honour; that her ways are ways of pleasantness; and all her paths are peace.

This is that law, of which the Prophet says—that God will put it into men’s hearts, and write it in their minds; and they shall be His people, and He will be their God.  This is that law, which the inspired Philosopher—for a philosopher he was indeed—who wrote the 119th Psalm, continually prayed and strove to learn, intreating the Lord to teach him His law, and make him remember His everlasting judgments.  This is that law, which our Lord Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled, because the law was His Father’s law, and therefore His own law, and therefore he perfectly comprehended the law, and perfectly loved the law; and said with His whole heart—I delight to do Thy will, O God.

The will of God.  For in one word, this Law, which we have to learn, and by keeping which we shall be blessed, is nothing else than God’s Will.  God’s Will about us.  What God has willed and chosen we should be.  What God has willed and chosen we should do.  The greatest philosopher of the 18th century said that every rational being had to answer four questions—Where am I?  What can I know?  What must I do?  Whither am I going?  And he knew well that—as the Bible tells us throughout—the only way to get any answer to those four tremendous questions is—To delight in the law of the Lord; to struggle, think, pray, till we get some understanding of God’s will; of God’s will about ourselves and about the world; and so be blessed indeed.

But to do that, it is plain that we must heed the warning which the first verse of the Psalm gives us—“Blessed is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly.”  For it is plain that a man will never learn God’s will if he takes counsel from ungodly men who care nothing for God’s will, and do not believe that God’s will governs the world.  Neither must he, as the Psalm says, ‘stand in the way of sinners’—of profligate and dishonest men who break God’s law.  For if he follows their ways, and breaks God’s law himself, it is plain that he will learn little or nothing about God’s law, save in the way of bitter punishment.  For let him but break God’s law a little too long, and then—as the 2nd Psalm says—‘God will rule him with a rod of iron, and break him in pieces like a potter’s vessel.’  But there is even more hope for him—for he may repent and amend—than if he sits in the seat of the scorners.  The scorners; the sneering, the frivolous, the unearnest, the unbelieving, the envious, who laugh down what they call enthusiasm and romance; who delight in finding fault, and in blackening those who seem purer or nobler than themselves.  These are the men who cannot by any possibility learn anything of the law of God; for they will not even look for it.  They have cast away the likeness of rational men, and have taken upon themselves the likeness of the sneering accusing Satan, who asks in the book of Job—“Doth Job serve God for nought?”  When the greatest poet of our days tried to picture his idea of a fiend tempting a man to his ruin, he gave his fiend just such a character as this; a very clever, courteous, agreeable man of the world, and yet a being who could not love any one, could not believe in any one; who mocked not only at man but at God and tempted and ruined man, not out of hatred to him, hardly out of envy; but in mere sport, as a cruel child may torment an insect;—in one word, a scorner.  And so true was his conception felt to be, that men of that character are now often called by the very name which he gave to his Satan—Mephistopheles.  Beware therefore of the scornful spirit, as well as of the openly sinful or of the ungodly.  If you wish to learn the law of the Lord, keep your souls pious, pure, reverent, and earnest; for it is only the pure in heart who shall see God; and only those who do God’s will as far as they know it, who will know concerning any doctrine whether it be true or false; in one word, whether it be of God.

And now bear in mind secondly, that this law is the law of the Lord.  You cannot have a law without a lawgiver who makes the law, and also without a judge who enforces the law; and the lawgiver and the judge of the law of the Lord is the Lord Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Remembering Him, and that He is King, we can understand the fervour of indignation and pity, with which the writer of the 2nd Psalm bursts out—“Why do the heathen rage, and why do the people imagine a vain thing?  The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against His Anointed—

“Let us break their bonds asunder and cast away their cords from us.”

For the great majority of mankind, in every age and country, will not believe that there is a Law of the Lord, to which they must conform themselves.  Kings, and governments, and peoples, are too often all alike in that.  They must needs have their own way.  Their will is to be law.  Their voice is to be the voice of God.  They are they who ought to speak; who is Lord over them?  And because the Lord is patient and long-suffering, and does not punish their presumption on the spot by lightning or earthquake, they fancy that He takes no notice of them, and of their crimes and follies; and say—“Tush, shall God perceive it?  Is there knowledge in the most High?”  But sooner or later, either by sudden and terrible catastrophes, or by slow decay, brought on sometimes by their own blind presumption, sometimes by their own luxury, they find out their mistake when it is too late.  And then—

“He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn.  The Lord shall have them in derision.  For He has set His King upon the throne” of all the universe.

Yes, Christ the Lord rules, and knows that He rules; whether we know it or not.  Christ’s law still hangs over our head, ready to lead us to light and life and peace and wealth, or ready to fall on us and grind us to powder, whether we choose to look up and see it or not.  The Lord liveth; though we may be too dead to feel Him.  The Lord sees us; though we may be too blind to see Him.  Man can abolish many things; and does both—wisely and unwisely—in these restless days of change.  But let him try as long as he will—for he has often tried, and will try again—he cannot abolish Christ the Lord.

For Christ is set upon the throne of the universe.  The Father of all—if we may dare to hint even in Scriptural words at mysteries which are in themselves unspeakable—is eternally saying to Him—Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee.  And Christ answers eternally—I come to do Thy will, O God.  The nations are Christ’s inheritance; and the utmost parts of the earth are His possession, now, already; whether we or they think so or not.

And there are times—there are times, my friends—when the awful words which follow come true likewise—“Thou shalt bruise them with a rod of iron, and break them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

For as to this world in which we live, so to the God who created that world, there is a terrible aspect.  There is calm: but there is storm also.  There is fertilizing sunshine: but there is also the destroying thunderbolt.  There is the solid and fruitful earth, where man can till and build; but there is the earthquake and the flood likewise, which destroy in a moment the works of man.  So there is in God boundless love, and boundless mercy: but there is, too, a wrath of God, and a fire of God which burns eternally against all evil and falsehood.  And woe to those who fall under that wrath; who are even scorched for a moment by that fire.

“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.”

We are all ready enough to forget this; ready enough to think only of God’s goodness, and never of His severity.  Ready enough to talk of Christ as gentle and suffering; because we flatter ourselves that if He is gentle, He may be also indulgent; if He be suffering, He may be also weak.  We like to forget that He is, and was, and ever will be—Lord of heaven and earth; and to think of Him only in His humiliation in Judæa 1800 years ago, forgetting that during that very humiliation, while He was shewing love, and mercy, and miracles of healing, and sympathy and compassion for every form of human sorrow and weakness, He did not shrink from shewing to men the awful side of His character; did not shrink from saying, “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.  Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”—did not shrink from declaring that He was coming again, even before that very generation had passed away, to destroy, unless it repented, the wicked city of Jerusalem, with an utter and horrible destruction.

Think of these things, my friends: for true they are, and true they will remain, whether you think of them or not.  And take the warning of the second Psalm, which is needed now as much as it was ever needed—“Be wise now therefore, O ye kings, be learned, ye that are judges of the earth.  Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice unto Him with reverence.  Worship the Son, lest He be angry, and so ye perish from the right way.  If His wrath be kindled, yea, but a little, blessed are all they that put their trust in Him.”

But you are no kings, you are no judges.  Is it so?  And yet you boast yourselves to be free men, in a free country.  Not so.  Every man who is a free man is a king or a judge, whether he knows it or not.  Every one who has a duty, is a king over his duty.  Every one who has a work to do, is a judge whether he does his work well or not.  He who farms, is a king and a judge over his land.  He who keeps a shop, a king and a judge over his business.  He who has a family, a king and a judge over his household.  Let each be wise, and serve the Lord in fear; knowing that according as he obeys the law of the Lord, he will receive for the deeds done in the body, whether good or evil.

Not kings? not judges?  Is not each and every human being who is not a madman, a king over his own actions, a judge over his own heart and conscience?  Let him govern himself, govern his own thoughts and words, his own life and actions, according to the law of the Lord who created him; and he will be able to say with the poet,

My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy therein I find
As far exceeds all earthly bliss.

But if he governs himself according to his own fancy, which is no law, but lawlessness: then he will find himself rebelling against himself, weakened by passions, torn by vain desires, and miserable by reason of the lusts which war in his members; and so will taste, here in this life, of that anger of the Lord of which it is written; “If His wrath be kindled, yea, but a little, ye shall perish from the right way.”

Therefore let each and all of us, high and low, take the warning of the last verse, and worship the Son of God.  Bow low before Him—for that is the true meaning of the words—as subjects before an absolute monarch, who can dispose of us, body and soul, according to His will: but who can be trusted to dispose of us well: because His will is a good will, and the only reason why He is angry when we break His laws, is, that His laws are the Eternal Laws of God, wherein alone is life for all rational beings; and to break them is to injure our fellow-creatures, and to ruin ourselves, and perish from that right way, to bring us back to which He condescended, of His boundless love, to die on the Cross for all mankind.

SERMON XI.  GOD THE TEACHER

Psalm cxix. 33, 34

Teach me, O Lord, the way of Thy statutes, and I shall keep it unto the end.  Give me understanding, and I shall keep Thy Law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart.

This 119th Psalm has been valued for many centuries, by the wisest and most devout Christians, as one of the most instructive in the Bible; as the experimental psalm.  And it is that, and more.  It is specially a psalm about education.  That is on the face of the text.  Teach me, O Lord, Thy statutes, and I shall keep them to the end.  These are the words of a man who wishes to be taught, and therefore to learn; and to learn not mere book-learning and instruction, but to acquire a practical education, which he can keep to the end, and carry out in his whole life.

But it is more.  It is, to my mind, as much a theological psalm as it is an experimental psalm; and it is just as valuable for what it tells us concerning the changeless and serene essence of God, as for what it tells us concerning the changing and struggling soul of man.

Let us think a little this morning—and, please God, hereafter also—of the Psalm, and what it says.  For it is just as true now as ever it was, and just as precious to those who long to educate themselves with the true education, which makes a man perfect, even as his Father in heaven is perfect.

The Psalm is a prayer, or collection of short prayers, written by some one who had two thoughts in his mind, and who was so full of those two thoughts that he repeated them over and over again, in many different forms, like one who, having an air of music in his head, repeats it in different keys, with variation after variation; yet keeps true always to the original air, and returns to it always at the last.

Now what two thoughts were in the Psalmist’s mind?

First: that there was something in the world which he must learn, and would learn; for everything in this life and the next depended on his learning it.  And this thing which he wants to learn he calls God’s statutes, God’s law, God’s testimonies, God’s commandments, God’s everlasting judgments.  That is what he feels he must learn, or else come to utter grief, both body and soul.

Secondly: that if he is to learn them, God Himself must teach them to him.  I beg you not to overlook this side of the Psalm.  That is what makes it not only a psalm, but a prayer also.  The man wants to know something.  But beside that, he prays God to teach it to him.

He was not like too many now-a-days, who look on prayer, and on inspiration, as old-fashioned superstitions; who believe that a man can find out all he needs to know by his own unassisted intellect, and then do it by his own unassisted will.  Where they get their proofs of that theory, I know not; certainly not from the history of mankind, and certainly not from their own experience, unless it be very different from mine.  Be that as it may, this old Psalmist would not have agreed with them; for he held an utterly opposite belief.  He held that a man could see nothing, unless God shewed it to him.  He held that a man could learn nothing unless God taught him; and taught him, moreover, in two ways.  First taught him what he ought to do, and then taught him how to do it.

Surely this man was, at least, a reasonable and prudent man, and shewed his common-sense.  I say—common-sense.

For suppose that you were set adrift in a ship at sea, to shift for yourself, would it not be mere common-sense to try and learn how to manage that ship, that you might keep her afloat and get her safe to land?  You would try to learn the statutes, laws, and commandments, and testimonies, and judgments concerning the ship, lest by your own ignorance you should sink her, and be drowned.  You would try to learn the laws about the ship; namely the laws of floatation, by fulfilling which vessels swim, and by breaking which vessels sink.

You would try to learn the commandments about her.  They would be any books which you could find of rules of navigation, and instruction in seamanship.

You would try to learn the testimonies about the ship.  And what would they be?  The witness, of course, which the ship bore to herself.  The experience which you or others got, from seeing how she behaved—as they say—at sea.

And from whom would you try to learn all this? from yourself?  Out of your own brain and fancy?  Would you invent theories of navigation and shipbuilding for yourself, without practice or experience?  I trust not.  You would go to the shipbuilder and the shipmaster for your information.  Just as—if you be a reasonable man—you will go for your information about this world to the builder and maker of the world—God himself.

And lastly; you would try to learn the judgments about the ship: and what would they be?  The results of good or bad seamanship; what happens to ships, when they are well-managed or ill-managed.

It would be too hard to have to learn that by experience; for the price which you would have to pay would be, probably, that you would be wrecked and drowned.  But if you saw other ships wrecked near you, you would form judgments from their fate of what you ought to do.  If you could find accounts of shipwrecks, you would study them with the most intense interest; lest you too should be wrecked, and so judgment overtake you for your bad seamanship.

For God’s judgment of any matter is not, as superstitious people fancy, that God grows suddenly angry, and goes out of His way to punish those who do wrong, as by a miracle.  God judges all things in heaven and earth without anger—ay, with boundless pity: but with no indulgence.  The soul that sinneth, it shall die.  The ship that cannot swim, it must sink.  That is the law of the judgments of God.  But He is merciful in this; that He rewardeth every man according to his work.  His judgment may be favourable, as well as unfavourable.  He may acquit, or He may condemn.  But whether He acquits or condemns, we can only know by the event; by the result.  If a ship sinks, for want of good sailing or other defect, that is a judgment of God about the ship.  He has condemned her.  She is not seaworthy.  But if the ship arrives safe in port, that too is God’s judgment.  He has tried her and acquitted her.  She is seaworthy; and she has her reward.

How simple this is.  And yet men will not believe it, will not understand it, and therefore they wreck so often each man his own ship—his own life and immortal soul, and sink and perish, for lack of knowledge.

For each one of us is at sea, each in his own ship; and each must sail her and steer her, as best he can, or sink and drown for ever.

For the sea which each of us is sailing over is this world, and the ship in which each of us sails, is our own nature and character; what St Paul, like a truly scientific man, calls our flesh; and what modern scientific men, and rightly, call our organisation.  And the land to which we are sailing is eternal Life.  Shall we make a prosperous voyage?  Shall we fail, or shall we succeed?  Shall we founder and drown at sea, and sink to eternal death?  Or shall we, as the clergyman prayed for us when we were baptized, so pass through the waves of this troublesome world, that finally we may come to the land of everlasting life?  Which shall it be, my friends?  Shall we sink, or shall we swim?  Certain is one thing—that we shall sink, and not swim, if we do not learn and keep the law, and commandments, and testimonies, and judgments of God, concerning this our mortal life.  If we do not, then we shall go through life, without knowing how to go through life, ignorantly and blindly; and the end of that will be failure, and ruin, and death to our souls.  If we do not know and keep the Laws of God, the Laws of God will keep themselves, in spite of us, and grind us to powder.  Do not fancy that you may do wrong without being punished; and break God’s Law, because you are not under the law, but under grace.  You are only under grace, as long as you keep clear of God’s Law.  The moment you do wrong you put yourself under the Law, and the Law will punish you.  Suppose that you went into a mill; and that the owner of that mill was your best friend, even your father.  Would that prevent your being crushed by the machinery, if you got entangled in it through ignorance or heedlessness?  I think not.  Even so, though God be your best of friends, ay, your Father in heaven, that will not prevent your being injured, it may be ruined, not only by wilful sins, but by mere folly and ignorance.  Therefore your only chance for safety in this life and for ever, is to learn God’s laws and statutes about your life, that you may pass through it justly, honourably, virtuously, successfully.  And the man who wrote the 119th Psalm knew that, and said, “Oh that my ways were made so direct, that I might keep thy statutes.”

But moreover, you must learn God’s commandments.  He has laid down certain commands, certain positive rules which must be kept if you do not intend to die the eternal death.  So says our Lord.  “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.”  “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul, and thy neighbour as thyself.”  There the ten commandments are, and kept they must be; and if you break one of them, it will punish you, and you cannot escape.  And the man who wrote the 119th Psalm knew that, and said, “With my whole heart have I sought thee: oh let me not go wrong out of Thy commandments.”

Moreover, you must learn God’s testimonies: what He has witnessed and declared about Himself, and His own character, His power and His goodness, His severity and His love.  And where will you learn that, as in the Bible?  The Bible is full of testimonies of God in Christ about Himself; who He is, what He does, what He requires; and of testimonies of holy men of old, concerning God and concerning duty; concerning God’s dealings with their souls, and with other men, and with all the nations of the old world, and with all nations likewise to the end of time.  And if people will not read and study their Bibles, they cannot expect to know the way to eternal life.  That too the man who wrote the 119th Psalm knew, and said, “I have had as great delight in Thy testimonies, as in all manner of riches.”

Moreover, you must learn God’s judgments; the way in which He rewards and punishes men.  And those too you will learn in the Bible, which is full of accounts of the just and merciful judgments of God.  And you may learn them too from your own experience in life; from seeing what actually happens to those whom you know, when they do right things; and what happens again, when they do wrong things.  If any man will open his eyes to what is going on around him in a single city, or in the mere private circle of his own kinsfolk and acquaintance; if he will but use his common sense, and look how righteousness is rewarded, and sin is punished, all day long, then he might learn enough and to spare about God’s judgments: but men will not.  A man will see his neighbour do wrong, and suffer for it: and then go and do exactly the same thing himself; as if there were no living God; no judgments of God; as if all was accident and chance; as if he was to escape scot-free, while his neighbour next door has brought shame and misery on himself by doing the same thing.  For it was well written of old, “The fool hath said in his heart—though he is afraid to say it with his lips—There is no God.”  And the man who wrote the 119th Psalm knew that, and said, “I remembered Thine everlasting judgments, O Lord, and received comfort; for I was horribly afraid for the ungodly who forsake Thy law.”

I say again: that the only way to attain eternal life is to know, and keep, and profit by God’s laws, God’s commandments, God’s testimonies, God’s judgments; and therefore it is that the Psalmists say so often, that these laws and commandments are Life.  Not merely the way to eternal life; but the Life itself, as it is written in the Prayer-Book, “O God, whom truly to know is everlasting life.”

But some will say, How shall I learn?  I am very stupid, and I confess that freely.  And when I have learnt, how shall I act up to my lesson?  For I am very weak; and that I confess freely likewise.

How indeed, my friends?  Stupid we are, the cleverest of us; and weak we are, the strongest of us.  And if God left us to find out for ourselves, and to take care of ourselves, we should not sail far on the voyage of life without being wrecked; and going down body and soul to hell.