Sermons for the Times

But, rich or poor, the man finds out by bitter experience how truly David said, ‘Thou requirest no sacrifice, else would I give it Thee.  Thou delightest not in burnt-offerings.’

Not that they are not good and excellent; but that they are not good coming from him, because his heart is still unrepentant, because, instead of confessing his sin and throwing himself on God’s mercy, he is trying to win God round to overlook his sin.  So almsgiving, and ordinances, and prayer give the poor man no peace.  He rises from his knees unrefreshed.  He goes out of church with as heavy a heart as he went in, and he finds that for all his praying he does not become a better man, any more than a happier man.  There is still that darkness over his soul, like a black cloud spread between him and God.

My friends, if any of you find yourselves in this sad case, the only remedy which I can give you, the only remedy which I ever found do me any good, or give me back my peace of mind, is David’s remedy; the one which he found out at last, and which he spoke of in these blessed Psalms.  Confess your sin to God.  Bring it all out.  Make a clean breast of it—whatever it may cost you, make a clean breast of it.  Only be but honest with God, and all will come right at once.  Say, not with your lips only, but from the very bottom of your heart, say, ‘Oh, good God, Heavenly Father, I have nothing to say; I am wrong, and yet I do not know how wrong I am; but Thou knowest.  Thou seest all my sin a thousand times more clearly than I do; and if I look black and foul to myself, oh God, how much more black and how foul must I look to Thee! I know not.  All I know is, that I am utterly wrong, and Thou utterly right.  I am shapen in sin, conceived in iniquity.  My heart it is that is wrong.  Not merely this or that wrong which I have done; but my heart, my temper, which will have its own way, which cares for itself, and not for Thee.  I have nothing to plead; nothing to throw into the other scale.  For if I have ever done right, it was Thou didst right in me, and not me myself, and only my sins are my own doing; so the good in me is all Thine, and the bad in me all my own, and in me dwells no good thing.  And as for excusing myself by saying that I love Thee, I had better tell the truth, since Thou knowest it already—I do not love Thee.  Oh God, I love myself, my pitiful, miserable self, well enough, and too well: but as for loving Thee—how many of my good deeds have been done for love of Thee?  I have done right from fear of hell, from hope of heaven; or to win Thy blessings: but how often have I done right really and purely for Thy sake?  I am ashamed to think!  My only comfort, my only hope, is, that whether I love Thee or not, Thou lovest me, and hast sent Thy Son to seek and save me.  Help me now.  Save me now out of my sin, and darkness, and self-conceit.  Show Thy love to me by setting this wrong heart of mine right.  Give me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me.  If I be wrong myself, how can I make myself right?  No; Thou must do it.  Thou must purge me, or I shall never be clean; Thou must make me to understand wisdom in the secret depth of my heart, or I shall never see my way.  Thou must, for I cannot; and base and bad as I am, I can believe that Thou wilt condescend to help me and teach me, because I know Thy love in Jesus Christ my Lord.  And then Thou wilt be pleased with my sacrifices and oblations, because they come from a right heart—a truly humble, honest, penitent heart, which is not trying to deceive God, or plaster over its own baseness and weakness, but confesses all, and yet trusts in God’s boundless love.  Then my alms will rise as a sweet savour before Thee, oh God; then sacraments will strengthen me, ordinances will teach me, good books will speak to my soul, and my prayers will be answered by peace of mind, and a clear conscience, and the sweet and strengthening sense that I am in my Heavenly Father’s house, about my Heavenly Father’s business, and that His smile is over me, and His blessing on me, as long as I remain loyal to Him and to His laws.’  Feel thus, my friends, and speak to God thus, and see if the dark stupefying cloud does not pass away from your heart—see if there and then does not come sunshine and strength, and the sweet assurance that you are indeed forgiven.

But how about this old sin, which caused the man all this trouble?  He began by trying to forget it.  I think, if he be a true penitent, he will not wish to forget it any more.  He will not torment himself about it, for he knows that God has forgiven him.  But the more he feels God has forgiven him, the less likely he will be to forgive himself.  The more sure he feels of God’s love and mercy, the more utterly ashamed of himself he will be.  And what is more, it is not wise to forget our own sins, when God has not forgotten them.  For God does not forget our sins, though He forgives them; and a very bad thing it would be for us if He did, my friends.  For the wages of sin is death: and even if God does not slay us for our sins, He is certain to punish us for them in some way, lest we should forget that sin is sin, and fancy that God’s mercy is only careless indulgence.  So God did to David.  He then told him that though he was forgiven he would still be punished, ‘The Lord has put away thy sin; nevertheless, the child that shall be born unto thee shall surely die.’  Punishment and forgiveness went together.  Ay, if we will look at it rightly, David’s being punished was the very sign that God had forgiven him.  Oh, believe that, my friends; face it; thank God for it.  I at least do, when I look back upon my past life, and see that for every wrong I have ever done, I have been punished: not punished a tenth part as much as I deserve; but still punished, more or less, and made to smart for my own folly, and to learn, by hard unmistakable experience, that it will not pay me, or any man, to break the least of God’s laws; and I thank God for it.  I tell you to thank God also, whensoever you are punished for your sins.  It is a sign that God cares for you, that God loves you, that God is training and educating you, that God is your Father, and He is dealing with you as with His sons.  For what son is there whom His Father does not chastise?  It is a bitter lesson, no doubt; but we have deserved it: then let us bear it like men.  No doubt it is bitter: but there is a blessing in it.  No chastisement at first seems pleasant, says the Apostle, but rather grievous: yet afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who are exercised thereby.  Be exercised by it, then.  Let God teach you in His own way, even if it seem a harsh and painful way.  We have had earthly fathers, says the Apostle, who corrected us, and we gave them reverence.  Shall we not much rather be in subjection to God, the Father of Spirits, and live?  For suffering and punishment is the way to Eternal Life—to that true Eternal Life which is knowing God and God’s love, and becoming like God.  As the Apostle says, God chastens us only for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.  And as king Hezekiah says of affliction, ‘Lord, by these things,’ by sorrow and chastisement, ‘men live; and in all these things is the life of the spirit.’

May God give to you, and me, and all mankind, as often as we do wrong, honest and good hearts to confess our sins thoroughly, and take our punishment meekly, and trust in God’s boundless mercy, in order that if we humble ourselves under His rod, and learn His lessons faithfully in this life, we may not need a worse punishment in the life to come, but be accepted in the last great Day for the sake of Jesus Christ, our blessed Lord and Saviour.

SERMON XX.  THE TRUE GENTLEMAN

1 Cor. xii. 31; xiii. 1.  Covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.  Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

My friends, let me say a few plain words this morning to young and old, rich and poor, upon this text.

Now you all, I suppose, think it a good thing to be gentlemen and ladies.  All of you, I say.  There is not a poor man in this church, perhaps, who has not before now said in his heart, ‘Ah, if I were but a gentleman!’ or a poor woman who has not said in her heart, ‘Ah, if I were but a lady!’  You see round you in the world thousands plotting and labouring all their lives long to make money and grow rich, that they may become (as they think) gentlemen, or, at least, their sons after them.  And those here who are what the world calls gentlemen and ladies, know very well that those names are names which are very precious to them; and would sooner give up house, land, money, all the comforts upon earth, than give up being called gentlemen and ladies; and these last know, I trust, what some poor people do not know, and what no man knows who fancies that he can make a gentleman of himself merely by gaining money, and setting up a fine house, and a good table, and horses and carriages, and indulging the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life; for these last ought to know that the right to be called gentlemen and ladies is something which this world did not give, and cannot take away; so that if they were brought to utter poverty and rags, or forced to dig the ground for their own livelihood, they would be gentlemen and ladies still, if they ever had been really and truly such; and what is more, they would make every one who met them feel that they were gentlemen and ladies, in spite of all their poverty.

Now, people do not often understand clearly why this is.  They feel, more or less, that so it is; but they cannot explain it.  I could tell you why they cannot; but I will not take up your time.  But if they cannot explain it, there are those who can.  St. Paul explains it in the Epistle.  The Lord Jesus Himself explains it in the Gospel.  They tell us why money will not make a gentleman.  They tell us why poverty will not unmake one: but they tell us more.  They tell us the one only thing which makes a true gentleman.  And they tell us more still.  They tell us how every one of us, down to the poorest and most ignorant man and woman in this church, may become true gentlemen and ladies, in the sight of God and of all reasonable men; and that, not only in this life, but after death, for ever, and ever, and ever.  And that is by charity, by love.

Now, if you will look two or three chapters back, in the Epistle to the Corinthians—at the 11th and 12th chapters—you will see that these Corinthians were behaving to each other very much as people are apt to do in England now.  They all wanted to rise in life, and they wanted to rise upon each other’s shoulders.  Each man and woman wanted to set themselves up above their neighbours, and to look down upon them.  The rich looked down on the poor, and kept apart from them at the Lord’s Supper; and no doubt the poor envied the rich heartily enough in return.  And these Corinthians were very religious, and some of them, too, very clever.  So those who, being poor, could not set themselves up above their neighbours on the score of wealth, wanted to set themselves up on the score of their spiritual gifts.  One looked down on his neighbours because he was a deeper scholar than they; another, because he had the gift of tongues, and understood more languages than they; another could prophesy better than any of them, and so, because he was a very eloquent preacher, he tried to get power over his neighbours, and abuse the talents which God had given him, to pamper his own pride and vanity, and love of managing and ordering people, and of being run after by silly women (as St. Paul calls them), ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth.  And of the rest, one party sided with one preacher, or one teacher, and another with another; and each party looked down on the other, and judged them harshly, and said bitter things of them, till, as St. Paul says, they were all split up by heresies, that is, by divisions, party spirit, envying, and grudging in the very Church of God, and at the very Table of The Lord.

Now says St. Paul, ‘Covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet show I you a more excellent way;’ and that is charity; love.  As much as to say, I do not complain of any of you for trying to be the best that you can, for trying to be as wise as you can be, as eloquent as you can be, as learned as you can be: I do not complain of you for trying to rise; but I do complain of you for trying to rise upon each other’s shoulders.  I do complain of you for each trying to set up himself, and trying to make use of his neighbours instead of helping them; and, when God gives you gifts to do good to others with, trying to do good only to yourselves with them.

For he says, you are all members of one body; and all the talents, gifts, understanding, power, money, which God has bestowed on you, He has given you only that you may help your neighbours with them.  Of course there is no harm in longing and praying for great gifts, longing and praying to be very wise, or very eloquent; but only that you may do all the more good.  And, after all, says St. Paul, there is something more worth longing for, not merely than money, but more worth longing for than the wisdom of a prophet, or the tongue of an angel; and that is charity.  If you have that, you will be able to do as much good as God requires of you in your station; and if you have not that, you will not do what God requires of you, even though you spoke with the tongues of men and of angels.  Even though you had the gift of prophecy, and understood all mysteries, and all knowledge; even though you had all faith, so that you could remove mountains; even though you had all good works, and gave all your goods to feed the poor, and your body to be burned as a martyr for the sake of religion, and had not charity, you would be nothing.  Nothing, says St. Paul, but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal—an empty vessel, which makes the more noise the less there is in it.  If you have charity, says St. Paul, you will be able to do your share of good where God has put you, though you may be poor, and ignorant, and stupid, and weak; but if you have not charity, all the wisdom and learning, righteousness and eloquence in the world, will only give you greater power of doing harm.

Yes, he says, I show you a more excellent way to be really great; a way by which the poorest may be as great as the richest,—the simple cottager’s wife as great as the most accomplished lady; and that is charity, which comes from the Spirit of God.  Pray for that—try after that; and if you want to know what sort of a spirit it is that you are to pray for and try after, I will tell you.  Charity is the very opposite of the selfish, covetous, ambitious, proud, grudging spirit of this world.  Charity suffers long, and is kind: charity does not envy: charity does not boast, is not puffed up: does not behave itself unseemly; that is, is never rude, or overbearing, or careless about hurting people’s feelings by hard words or looks: seeketh not its own; that is, is not always looking on its own rights, and thinking about itself, and trying to help itself; is not easily provoked: thinketh no evil, that is, is not suspicious, ready to make out the worst case against every one; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; that is, is not glad, as too many are, to see people do wrong, and to laugh and sneer over their failings: but rejoiceth in the truth, tries to find out the truth about every one, and judge them honestly, and make fair allowances for them: covereth all things; that is, tries to hide a neighbour’s sins as far as is right, instead of gossiping over them, and blazoning them up and down, as too many do: believeth all things; that is, gives every one credit for meaning well as long as it can: hopeth all things; that is, never gives any one up as past mending: endureth all things, keeps its temper, and keeps its tongue; not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing, but, on the contrary, blessing; and so overcomes evil with good.

In one word, while the spirit of the world thinks of itself, and helps itself, Charity, which is the Spirit of God, thinks of other people, and helps other people.  And now:—to be always thinking of other people’s feelings, and always caring for other people’s comfort, what is that but the mark, and the only mark, of a true gentleman, and a true lady?  There is none other, my friends, and there never will be.  But the poorest man or woman can do that; the poorest man or woman can be courteous and tender, careful not to pain people, ready and willing to help every one to the best of their power; and therefore, the poorest man or woman can be a true gentleman or a true lady in the sight of God, by the inspiration of the Spirit of God, whose name is Charity.

They can be.  And thanks be to the grace of God, they often are.  I can say that I have seen among plain sailors and labouring men as perfect gentlemen (of God’s sort) as man need see; but then they were always pious and God-fearing men; and so the Spirit of God had made up to them for any want of scholarship and rank.  They were gentlemen, because God’s Spirit had made them gentle.  For recollect all, both rich and poor, what that word gentleman means.  It is simply a man who is gentle; who, let him be as brave or as wise as he will, yet, as St. Paul says, ‘suffers long and is kind; does not boast, does not behave himself unseemly; is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil.’

And recollect, too, what that word lady means.  Most of you perhaps do not know.  I will tell you.  It means, in the ancient English tongue, a person who gives away bread; who deals out loaves to the poor.  I have often thought that most beautiful, and full of meaning, a very message from God to all ladies, to tell them what they ought to be; and not to them only, but to the poorest woman in the parish; for who is too poor to help her neighbours?

You see there is a difference between a Christian man’s duty in this and a Christian woman’s duty, though they both spring from the same spirit.  The man, unless he be a clergyman, has not so much time as a woman for actually helping his neighbours by acts of charity.  He must till the ground, sail the seas, attend to his business, fight the Queen’s enemies; and the way in which the Holy Spirit of Charity will show in him will be more in his temper and his language; by making him patient, cheerful, respectful, condescending, courteous, reasonable, with every one whom he has to do with: but the woman has time to show acts of charity which the man has not.  She can teach in the schools, sit by the sick bed, work with her hands for the suffering and the helpless, even though she cannot with her head.  Above all, she can give those kind looks and kind words which comfort the broken heart better than money and bodily comforts can do.  And she does do it, thank God!  I do not merely mean in such noble instances of divine charity and self-sacrifice as those ladies who have gone out to nurse the wounded soldiers in the East—true ladies, indeed, of whom I fear more than one, ere they return, will be added to the noble army of martyrs, to receive in return for the great love which they have shown on earth, the full enjoyment of God’s love in heaven:—not these only, but poor women—women who could not write their own names—women who had hardly clothes wherewith to keep themselves warm—women who were toiling all day long to feed and clothe their own children, till one wondered when in the twenty-four hours they could find five spare minutes for helping their neighbours;—such poor women have I seen, who in the midst of their own daily work and daily care, had still a heart open to hear every one’s troubles; a head always planning little comforts and pleasures for others; and hands always busy in doing good.  Instead of being made hard and selfish by their own troubles, they had been taught by them, as the Lord Jesus was, to feel for the troubles of all around them, and went about like ministering angels in the Spirit of God, which is peace on earth and goodwill towards men.

Oh, my friends, such poor women seemed to me most glorious, most honourable, most venerable!  What was all rank or fashion, beauty or accomplishments, when compared with the great honour which the Lord Jesus Christ was putting upon those poor women, by transforming them thus into His own most blessed likeness, and giving them grace to go about, as He the Lord Jesus did, doing good, because God was with them!

Then I felt that such women, poor, and worn, and hard-handed as they were, were ladies in the sight of that Heavenly Father, who is no respecter of persons; and felt how truly a wise ancient has said,—‘It is virtue, yea, virtue, gentlemen, which maketh gentlemen; which maketh the poor rich, the strong weak, the simple wise, the base-born noble.  This rank neither the whirling wheel of Fortune can destroy, nor the deceitful cavillings of worldlings separate; neither sickness abate, nor time abolish.’  No; for it is written, that though prophecies shall fail, tongues cease, knowledge vanish away, and all that we now know is but in part, yet charity shall never fail those who are full of the Spirit of Love, but abide with them for ever and ever, bringing forth fruit through all eternity to everlasting life.

But what sort of virtue?  Do not mistake that.  Not what the world calls virtue; not mere legal respectability, which says, I do unto others as they do unto me; which is often merely the whitening outside the sepulchre, and leaves the heart within unrenewed, unrighteous, full of pride and ambition, conceit, cunning, and envy, and unbelief in God: not that virtue, but the virtue which the Apostle tells us to add to our faith, the virtue from above, which is the same as the wisdom from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated; in one word, the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of Divine Love and Charity, which seeketh not its own, which St. Paul has described to us in this epistle; the Holy Spirit of God, with which the Lord Jesus was filled without measure, and which He manifested to all the world in His most blessed life and death.

Ah, my friends, this is not an easy lesson to learn.  Christ’s disciples and apostles could not learn it all at once.  They tried to hinder little children from coming to Him.  They rebuked the blind man who called after Him.  How could the great Prophet of Nazareth stoop to trouble Himself about such poor insignificant people?  They could not conceive, either, why the Lord Jesus should choose to die shamefully, when He might have lived in honour: it seemed unworthy of Him.  They were shocked at His words. ‘That be far from Thee, Lord,’ said Peter.  Afterwards, when they really understood what that word ‘Lord,’ meant, and what sort of a man a true and perfect Lord ought to be, then they saw how fit, and proper, and glorious, Christ’s self-sacrifice was.  When, too, they learnt to look on Him, not merely as a great prophet, but as the Son of the Living God, then they understood His conduct, and saw that it behoved an only-begotten Son of God to suffer all these things before He entered into His glory.

But the Scribes and Pharisees never understood it.  To the last they were puzzled and angered by that very self-sacrifice of His: He must be a bad man, they thought, or He would not care so much for bad men.  ‘A friend of publicans and sinners,’ they called Him, thinking that a shameful blame to Him, while it was really the very highest praise.  But if they could not see the beauty of His conduct, can we?  It is very difficult, I do not deny it, my friends, for the selfishness and pride of fallen man: it is difficult to see that the Cross was the most glorious throne that was even set up on earth, and that the crown of thorns was worth all the crowns of czars and emperors: difficult, indeed, not to stumble at the stumbling-block of the Cross, and to say, ‘It cannot surely be more blessed to give than to receive:’ difficult, not to say in our hearts, ‘The way to be great is surely to rise above other men, not to stoop below them; to make use of them, and not to make ourselves slaves to them.’  And yet the Lord Jesus Christ did so; He took on Himself the form of a slave, and made Himself of no reputation: and what was fit and good for Him, must surely be fit and good for us.  But it is a hard lesson to the pride of fallen creatures: very hard.  And nothing, I believe, but sorrow will teach it us: sorrow is teaching it some of us now.  We surely are beginning to see, that to suffer patiently for conscience sake, is the most beautiful thing on earth or in heaven: we begin to see that those poor soldiers, dying by inches of cold and weariness, without a murmur, because it was their Duty, were doing a nobler work even than they did when they fought at Alma and Inkermann; and that those ladies who are drudging in the hospitals, far away from home, amid filth and pestilence, are doing, if possible, a nobler work still, a nobler work than if they were queens or empresses, because they have taken up the Cross and followed Christ; because they are not seeking their own good, but the good of others.  And if we will not learn it from those glorious examples, God will force us to learn it, I trust, every one of us, by sorrow and disappointment.  Ah, my friends, might one not learn it at once, if one would but open one’s eyes and look at things as they are?  Every one is longing for something; each has his little plan for himself, of what he would like to be, and like to do, and says to himself all day long, ‘If I could but get that one thing, I should be happy: If I could but get that, then I should want no more!’  Foolish man, self-deceived by his own lusts!  Perhaps he cannot get what he wants, and therefore he cannot enjoy what he has, and is moody, discontented, peevish, a torment to himself, and perhaps a torment to his family.  Or perhaps he does get what he wants: and is he happy after all?  Not he.  He is like the greedy Israelites of old, when they longed for the quails; and God sent the quails: but while the meat was yet in their mouths, they loathed it.  So it is with a man’s fancy.  He gets what he fancies; and he plays with it for a day, as a child with a new toy, and most probably spoils it, and next day throws it away to run after some new pleasure, which will cheat him in just the same way as the last did; and so happiness flits away ahead before him; and he is like the simple boy in the parable, who was to find a crock of gold where the rainbow touched the ground: but as he moved on, the rainbow moved on too, and kept always a field off from him.  You may smile: but just as foolish is every soul of us, who fancies that he will become happy by making himself great; admired, rich, comfortable, in short, by making himself anything whatsoever, or getting anything whatsoever for himself.  Just as foolish is every poor soul, and just as unhappy, as long as he will go on thinking about himself, instead of copying the Lord Jesus Christ, and thinking about others; as long as he will keep to the pattern of the old selfish Adam, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, the longings and fancies which deceive a man into expecting to be happy when he will not be happy; instead of putting on the new man, which after God’s likeness is created in righteousness and true holiness: and what is true holiness but that very charity of which St. Paul has been preaching to us, the spirit of love, and mercy, and gentleness, and condescension, and patience, and active benevolence?

Ah, my friends, do not forget what I said just now; that a man could not become happy by making himself anything.  No.  Not by making himself anything: but he may by letting God make him something.  If he will let God make him a new creature in Jesus Christ, then he will be more than happy—he will be blessed: then he will be a blessing to himself, and a blessing to every one whom he meets: then all vain longing, and selfishness, and pride, and ambition, and covetousness, and peevishness and disappointment, will vanish out of his heart, and he will work manfully and contentedly where God has placed him—cheerful and open-hearted, civil and patient, always thinking about others, and not about himself; trying to be about his Master’s business, which is doing good; and always finding too, that his Master Christ sets him some good work to do day by day, and gives him strength to do it.  And how can a man get that blessed and noble state of mind?  By prayer and practice.  You must ask for strength from God: but then you must believe that He answers your prayer, and gives you that strength; and therefore you must try and use it.  There is no more use in praying without practising than there is in practising without praying.  You cannot learn to walk without walking: no more can you learn to do good without trying to do good.

Ask, then, of God, grace and help to do good: Pray to Him this very day to take all selfishness and meanness out of your hearts, and to give you instead His Holy Spirit of Love and Charity, which alone can make you noble in His sight; and try this day, try every day of your lives, to do some good to those around you.  Oh make a rule, and pray to God to help you to keep it, never, if possible, to lie down at night without being able to say, ‘I have made one human being at least a little wiser, or a little happier, or a little better this day.’  You will find it easier than you think, and pleasanter: easier, because if you wish to do God’s work, God will surely find you work to do; and pleasanter, because in return for the little trouble it may cost you, or the little choking of foolish vulgar pride it may cost you, you will have a peace of mind, a quiet of temper, a cheerfulness and hopefulness about yourself and all around you, such as you never felt before; and over and above that, if you look for a reward in the life to come, recollect this—what we have to hope for in the life to come is, to enter into the joy of our Lord.  And how did He fulfil that joy, but by humbling Himself, and taking the form of a slave, and coming not to be ministered to but to minister, and to give His whole life, even to the death upon the cross, a ransom for many?  Be sure, that unless you take up His cross, you will not share His crown.  Be sure, that unless you follow in His footsteps, you will never reach the place where He is.  If you wish to enter into the joy of your Lord, be sure that His joy is now, as it was in Judæa of old, over every sinner that repenteth, every mourner that is comforted, every hungry mouth that is fed, every poor soul, sick or in prison, who is visited.

That is the joy of your Lord—to show mercy; and that must be your joy too, if you wish to enter into His joy.  Surely that is plain.  You must rejoice in doing the same work that He rejoices in, and then His joy and yours will be the same; then you will enter into His joy, and He will enter into yours; then, as St. John says, you will dwell in Christ, and Christ in you, because you love the brethren; and you will hear through all eternity the blessed words, ‘Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these little ones, ye did it unto Me.’

SERMON XXI.  TOLERATION

[Preached at Bideford, 1854]

Philippians iii. 15, 16.  And if in any thing ye shall be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this to you.  Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.

My friends, allow me to speak a few plain and honest words, ere we part, on a matter which is near to, and probably important to, many of us here.  We all know how the Christian Church has in all ages been torn in pieces by religious quarrels; we all know too well how painfully these religious quarrels have been brought home to our very doors and hearts of late.

Now, we all deplore, or profess to deplore, these differences and controversies.  But we may do that in two ways: we may say, ‘I am very sorry that all Christians do not think alike,’ when all we mean is, ‘I am very sorry that all Christians do not think just as I do, for I am right and infallible, whosoever else is wrong.’  The fallen heart of man is too apt to say that, my friends, in its pride and narrowness, and while it cries out against the Pope of Rome, sets itself up as Pope in his stead.

But there is surely another and a better way of deploring these differences: and that is, to say to oneself, ‘I am sorry, bitterly sorry, that Christians cannot differ without quarrelling and hating one another over and above.’  And then comes the deeper home-thought, ‘And how much more sorry I am that I myself cannot differ from my fellow-Christians without growing angry with them, suspecting them, despising them, treating them as if they were not my fellow-Christians at all.’  Yes, my friends, this is what we have to do first when we think of religious controversies, to examine our own hearts and deeds and words; to see whether we too have not been making bitterness more bitter, and, as the old proverb says, ‘stirring the fire with a sword;’ and to repent humbly and utterly of every harsh word, hasty judgment, ungenerous suspicion, as sins, not only against men, but against God the Father of Lights, who worketh in each of His children to will and to do of His good pleasure.

But some will say, ‘We cannot give up what we believe to be right and true.’  God forbid that you should try to do so, my friends; for if you really believe it, you cannot, even if you try; and by trying you will only make yourselves dishonest.  But does not that hold as good of the man who differs from you?  God will not surely lay down one law for you, and another for him?  ‘But we are right, and he is wrong.’  Be it so.  You do not surely mean that you are quite right; perfect and infallible?  You mean that you are right on the whole, and as far as you see.  And how can you tell but that he is right on the whole, and as far as he sees?  You will answer that both cannot be right; that yes and no cannot be both true; that a thing cannot be black and white also.

My friends, my friends—but where is the religious controversy, the two sides whereof are as clearly opposite to each other as yes and no, black and white?  I know none now; I have hardly found one in the records of the Protestant Church since first Luther and our Reformers protested against Romish idolatry.  On that last matter there should be no doubt, as long as the first two commandments stand in the Decalogue; but, with that exception, it would be difficult to find a dispute in which the truth lay altogether with one party.  The truth rather lies, in general, not so much halfway between the two combatants, as in some third place, which neither of them sees; which perhaps God does not intend them to see in this life, while He leaves his servants each to work out some one side of Christian truth, dividing to every man severally as He will, according to the powers of each mind, and the needs of each situation.

True we have the infallible rule of Scripture: but are our own interpretations of it so sure to be infallible?  Inspired, infinite, inexhaustible as it is, can we pretend to have fathomed all its abysses, to have comprehended all its boundless treasures?  The pretence is folly.  True, again, it contains all things necessary to salvation; and those so plainly set forth, that he who runs may read, and the wayfaring man, though poor, shall not err therein.  And yet does it not contain things whereof even St. Paul himself said, that he only knew in part, and prophesied in part, and saw as through a glass darkly; and are we to suppose that they are among the truths necessary to salvation?  Now are not the points about which there has been, and is still, most dispute, just of this very number?  Do they belong to the simple fundamental truths of the Gospel?  No.  Are they such plain matters that the wayfaring man, though poor, can make up his mind on them for himself?  No.  Are they one of them laid down directly in Scripture, like the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, or the Creeds?  No.  They are every one, as it seems to me, whether they be right or wrong, abstruse deductions, delicate theories, built up on single and obscure texts.  Surely, if they had been necessary for salvation, the Lord would have spoken on them in a tone and in words about which there should be no more mistake than about the thunders of Sinai, and the tables of stone fresh from the finger-mark of God.  And He has spoken to us, my friends, on other matters, if not on these.  His promises are clear enough, and short enough, though high as heaven and wide as the universe.  There is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God; and whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God; and if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins.  And again, ‘If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth liberally, and upbraideth not, and he shall receive it.’  ‘For if ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, much more shall your Heavenly Father give His Holy Spirit to them who ask Him.’

These are God’s promises—simple and clear enough: and what are God’s demands?  Are they numerous, intricate, burdensome, a yoke which neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?  God forbid again!—‘He hath showed thee, oh man, what is good.  And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?’  And lest thou shouldest mistake in the least the meaning of these words, He hath showed thee all this, and more, by a living example fairer than all the sons of men, and through lips full of grace, in the blessed life and blessed death of His Son Jesus Christ, the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person.  To this, at least, we have already attained.  Let us walk by this rule, let us all mind this same thing, and if in anything else we are differently minded, God in His own good time will reveal even that to us.

Is not this enough, my friends?  Then why should we bite and tear each other about that which is over and above this?  If any man believes this, and acts on it, let us hail him as a brother.  After all, let our differences be what they will, have we not one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all?  If this is not bond enough between man and man, what bond would we have?  Oh, my friends, when we consider this our little life, how full of ignorance it is and darkness; within us, rebellion, inconstancy, confusion, daily sins and shortcomings; and without us, disappointment, fear of loneliness, loss of friends, loss of all which makes life worth having,—who are we that we should deny proudly one single tie which binds us to any other human being?  Who are we that we should refuse one hand stretched out to grasp our own?  Who are we that we should say, ‘Stand back, for I am holier than thou?’  Who are we that we should judge another? to his own master let him stand or fall—‘yea, and he shall stand,’ says the Apostle, ‘for God is able to make him stand.’

Think of those last words, my friends, they are strong and startling; but we must not shrink from them.  They tell us that God may be as near those whom we heap with hard names, as He is near to us; that He may intend that they should triumph, not over us, but with us over evil.  And if God be with them, who dare be against them?  Shall we be more dainty than God?  And therefore I have never been able to hear, without a shudder, words which I have heard, and from really Christian men too: ‘I can wish well to a pious man of a different denomination from mine; I can honour and admire the fruits of God’s Spirit in him; but I cannot co-operate with him.’  When I hear such language from really good men, I confess I am puzzled.  I have no doubt that their reasons seem to them very sound; but what they are I cannot conceive.  I cannot conceive why I should not hold out the right hand of fellowship and brotherhood to every man who fears God and works righteousness, of whatsoever denomination he may be.  We believe the Apostles’ Creed, surely?  Then think of the meaning of that one word, The Holy Spirit.  To whom are we to attribute any man’s good deeds, except to the Holy Spirit?  We dare not say that he does them by an innate and natural virtue of his own, for that would be to fall at once into the Pelagian heresy; neither dare we attribute his good deeds to an evil spirit, and say, ‘However good they may look, they must be bad, for he belongs to a denomination who cannot have God’s Spirit.’  We dare not; for that would be to approach fearfully near to the unpardonable sin itself, the sin against the Holy Ghost, the bigotry which says, ‘He casteth out devils by the Prince of the devils.’  Surely if we be Christians, and Churchmen, we confess (for the Bible and the Prayer-book declare) that every good deed of man comes down from the One Fountain of Good, from God, the Father of Lights, by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit.

Then think, my friends, think what words we have said.  We confess that the great, absolute, almighty, eternal God, in whose hand suns and stars, ages and generations, hell and heaven, and all which is and has been, and ever will be, are but as a grain of sand; who has but to take away His breath, and the whole universe would become nothing and nowhere; the utterly holy and righteous God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, who charges His angels with folly, and the heavens are not clean in His sight—we confess, I say, that this great God has condescended to visit that man’s soul, and cherish it, and teach it, and shape it (be it ever so little) into His own likeness: and shall we dare to stand aloof from him from whom God does not stand aloof?  Shall we refuse to walk with one who walks with God?  Shall we refuse to work with one who is a fellow-worker with God, to love one whom God loves, to take by the hand one whose guest God has become?  Shall we be more dainty than God? more fastidious than God? more righteous than God? more separate from sinners than God?  Oh, my friends, let us pray that we may love God better, and know His likeness more clearly; that we may be more ready to recognise, and admire, and welcome every, even the smallest trace of that likeness in any human being, remembering that it is the likeness of Christ, who was not merely The Teacher of all in every nation who fear God and work righteousness, but the Saviour who ate and drank with publicans and sinners: and then we shall be more careful how we call unclean what God Himself has cleansed with His own presence, His own grace, His own quickening and renewing and sanctifying Spirit.

Be sure, be sure, my friends, that in proportion as we really love the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall love those who love Him, be it in never so clumsy or mistaken a fashion; and love those too whom He loved enough to die for them, and whom He loves now enough to teach and strengthen.  We shall say to them, not ‘Wherein do we differ?’ but ‘Wherein do we agree?’  Not, ‘Because I cannot worship with you, therefore I will not work with you;’ but rather, ‘I wish that I could worship with you; I will whenever and wherever I can, as far as you allow me, as far as the law allows me, as far as your worship is not in my eyes an actually sinful thing: but, be that as it may, we can at least do together something better even than worshipping, and that is, working.  We can surely do good together.  Together, let our denomination or party be what it may, we can feed the hungry, clothe the naked, reform the prisoner, humanize the degraded, save yearly the lives of thousands by labouring for the public health, and educate the minds and morals of the masses, though our religious differences (shame on us that it should be so!) force us to part when we begin to talk to them about the world to come.’

For are we not brothers after all?  Has not God made us of one blood, English men, with English hearts?  Has not Christ redeemed us with one and the same sacrifice?  Has not the Holy Spirit given us one and the same desire of doing good?  And shall we not use that spirit hand in hand?  Look, look at the opportunities of doing good which are around you; look at God’s field of good works, white already to the harvest; and the labourers are few.  Shall these few, instead of going manfully to work, stand idly quarrelling about the shape of their instruments, and their favourite modes of using them?  God forbid!  True, there are errors against which we are bound to protest to the uttermost; but how few?  The one real enemy we have all to fight is sin—evil-doing.  If any man or doctrine makes men worse—makes men do worse deeds, protest then, if you will, and spare not, and shrink not: for sin must be of the Devil, whatever else is not.  And therefore we are bound to protest against any doctrine which parts man from God, and, under whatsoever pretence of reverence or purity, draws again the veil between him and his Heavenly Father, and denies him free access to the Throne of Grace, and the feet of Jesus, that he may carry thither his own sins, his own doubts, his own sorrows, and speak (wondrous condescension of redeeming grace!) speak with God face to face, and yet live.  For this we must protest; for this we must die, if needs be; for if we lose this, we lose all which our reforming forefathers won for us at the stake, ay, we lose our own souls; for we lose righteousness and strength, and the power to do the will of God.

For to shut a man out from free access to God and Christ is to make him certainly false, dishonest, cowardly, degraded, slavish, and sinful; as modern Popery has made, and always will make, those over whom it really gains power.  This is the root of our hereditary protest against Popery; not merely because we do not agree with certain of its doctrines, but because we know from experience, that as now taught by the Jesuits, with whom it has identified itself, its general tendency is to make men bad men, ignorant, dishonest, rebellious; unworthy citizens of a free and loyal state.

And there are practices against which congregations have a right to protest, not only as Christians, but as free Englishmen.  Congregations have a right to protest against any minister who introduces obsolete ceremonies which empty his church and drive away his people.  Those ceremonies may be quite harmless in themselves, as I really believe most of them are; many of them may be beautiful, and, if properly understood, useful, as I think they are; but a thing may be good in itself, and yet become bad by being used at a wrong time, and in a way which produces harm.  And it is shocking, to say the least, to see churches emptied and parishes thrown into war for the sake of such matters.  The lightest word which can be used for such conduct is, pedantry; but I fear at times lest the Lord in heaven should be using a far more awful word, and when He sees weak brethren driven from the fold of the Church by the self-will and obstinacy of the very men who profess to desire to bring all into the Church, as the only place where salvation is to be found,—I fear, I say, when I see such deeds, lest the Lord should repeat against them His own awful words: ‘If any man scandalize one of these little ones who believeth on Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea.’  What sadder mistake?  Those who have sworn to seek out Christ’s lambs scattered up and down this wicked world, shall they be the very ones to frighten those lambs out of the fold, instead of alluring them back into it?  Shall the shepherd play the part, not even of the hireling who flees and leaves the sheep to themselves, but of the very wolf who scatters the flock?  God forbid!  The Church, like the Sabbath, was made for man, my friends: not man for the Church; and the Son of Man, as He is Lord of the Sabbath, is Lord of the Church, and will have mercy in its dealings rather than sacrifice.  The minister, my friends, was made for the people: and not the people for the minister.  What else does the very name ‘minister’ mean?  Not a lord who has dominion, but a servant, a servant to all, who must give up again and again his private notions of what he thinks best in itself for the sake of what will be best for his flock; who must be, like St. Paul, a Jew to the Jews; under the law to those who are still under the law; and yet again without law to those who are without law (though not without law to God, but under the law to Christ); weak with the weak; strong with the strong; that he may gain men of all sorts of opinions and characters by agreeing with them as far as he honestly can, and showing his sympathy with each as much as he can; and so become all things to all men, that he may by all means save some.  Oh, my friends, who can read honestly that glorious First Epistle to the Corinthians and not see how a man may have the most intense earnestness, the strongest doctrinal certainty, and yet at the same time the greatest freedom, and charity, and liberality about minor matters of ceremonies and Church arrangements, and practical methods of usefulness; glad even that Christ be preached by his enemies, and out of spite to him, because any way Christ is preached?

But, my friends, if it is the right of free Englishmen to protest against such doings, how shall it be done?  Surely in gentleness, calmness, reverence, as by men who know that they are standing on holy ground, and dealing with sacred things, before the Throne of God, and beneath the eye of Jesus Christ.  Not surely, as it has been too often done, in bitterness, and wrath, and clamour, and evil-speaking, with really unjust suspicions, exaggerations, slanders, (and those, too, anonymous,) in the columns of the public prints.  My friends, these are not God’s weapons.  Not such is Ithuriel’s magic spear, the very touch of which unmasks falsehood.  This is to try to cast out Satan by Satan, to make evil worse by fighting it with fresh evil.  Oh, my friends, if there is one counsel which I would press on all here more earnestly than another, it is this—never, never, howsoever great may be the temptation, to indulge in anonymous attacks on any human being.  No man has a right to do it who prays daily to his Father in heaven, Lead us not into temptation.  For it is to lead oneself into temptation, and that too sore to resist; into the temptation to say something which one dare not say, and ought not to say, were one’s name known; the temptation to forget not only the charity of Christians, but even the courtesies of civilized life; and to shoot, from behind the safe hedge of anonymousness, coward and envenomed shafts, of which we should be ashamed, did the world know that they were ours; of which we shall surely be ashamed in that great day, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed.  I speak strongly: but only because I know by bitter experience the terrible truth of my own words.

And consider, my friends, can any good result come from handling sacred matters with such harsh and fierce hands as they have been handled of late?  For ourselves, such evil tempers only excite, irritate, blind us: they prevent our doing justice to the opposite side—(I speak of all parties)—they put us into an unwholesome state of suspicion, and tempt us to pass harsh judgments upon men as righteous, and perhaps far more righteous, than ourselves: they stir up our pride to special plead our case, to make the best of our own side, and the worst of our opponents’: they defile our very prayers; till, when we ought to be praying God to bless all mankind, we catch ourselves unawares calling on Him to curse our enemies.

For those who are without—for the infidel, the profligate, the careless—oh, what a scandal to them!  What an excuse for them to blaspheme the holy name whereby we are called, and ask, as of old, ‘Is this then the Gospel of Peace?  See how these Christians hate one another!’

While for the young, oh, my friends, what a scandal, again, to them!  If you had seen (as I have) pious parents destroying in their own childrens’ minds all faith, all reverence for holy things, by mixing themselves up in religious controversies, and indulging by their own firesides in fierce denunciations of men no worse than themselves;—if you will watch (as you may) young people taking refuge, some in utter frivolity, saying, ‘What am I to believe?  When religionists have settled what religion is, it will be time enough for me to think of it: meanwhile, let me eat and drink, for to-morrow I die;’—and others, the children of strong Protestant parents, taking refuge in the apostate Church of Rome, and saying, ‘If Englishmen do not know what to believe, Rome does; if I cannot find certainty in Protestantism, I can in Popery;’—if you will consider honestly and earnestly these sad tragedies, you will look on it as a sacred duty to the children whom God has given you, to keep aloof as much as possible from all those points on which Christians differ, and make your children feel from their earliest years that there are points, and those the great, vital root points, on which all more or less agree, which many members of the Romish Church have held, and, I doubt not, now hold, as firmly as Protestants,—adoption by one common Father, justification by the blood of one common Saviour, sanctification by one common Holy Spirit.

And believe me, my friends, that just in proportion as you delight in, and live by, these great doctrines, all controversies will become less and less important in your eyes.  The more you value the living body of Christianity, the less you will think of its temporary garments; the more you feel the power of God’s Spirit, the less scrupulous will you be about the peculiar form in which He may manifest Himself.  Personal trust in Christ Jesus, personal love to Christ Jesus, personal belief that He and He only, is governing this poor diseased and confused world; that He is really fighting against all evil in it; that He really rules all nations, and fashions the hearts of all of them, and understands all their works, and has appointed them their times and the bounds of their habitation, if haply they may feel after Him and find Him: personal and living belief that the just and loving Lord Christ reigneth, be the peoples never so unquiet;—this, this will keep your minds clear, and sober, and charitable, and will make you turn with disgust from platform squabbles and newspaper controversies, to do the duty which lies nearest you; to walk soberly and righteously with your God, and train up your children in His faith and fear, not merely to be scholars, not merely to be devotees, but to be Christian Englishmen; courteous and gentle, and yet manful and self-restraining; fearing God and regarding man; growing up healthy under that solemn sense of national duty which is the only safeguard of national freedom.

And, meanwhile, you will leave all who differ from you in the hands of a God who wills their salvation far more than you can do; who accepts, in every nation, those who fear Him and work righteousness; who is merciful in this—that He rewards every man according to his work; and who, if our brothers be otherwise minded from us, will reveal even that to them, if we be right: or, again, to us, if they be right.  For we may have to learn from them, as well as they from us; and both have to learn much from God, in the day when all controversies and doubts shall vanish like a cloud; when we shall see no longer in part, and through a glass darkly, but face to face; while all things shall be bright in the sunshine of God’s presence and of the countenance of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

SERMON XXII.  PUBLIC SPIRIT