All Saints' Day and Other Sermons

But if any among those heathen—hearing within their hearts the other voice, the gracious voice which says, “Do unto others as you would they should do unto you,”—feel that that voice is a good voice and a right command, which must be obeyed, and which it is beautiful and delightful to obey, and so obey it; may we not hope then, that Christ, who has called them, will perfect His own work; and in His own good way, and His own good time, deliver them from their sin and ignorance, and vouchsafe to them at last that knowledge of the true and holy God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, whom truly to know is everlasting life?  They are Christ’s lost sheep: but they are still His sheep who hear His voice.  May He not fulfil His own words to them, and go forth and seek such souls, and lay them on His shoulder, and bring them home; saying to His Church on earth, and to His Church in heaven, “Rejoice with Me: for I have found my sheep which was lost?”

Now if we can thus have hope for some among the heathen abroad, shall we not have hope, too, for some among the heathen at home? for some among that mass of human corruption which welters around the walls of so many of our cities?  I am not going to make vain excuses for them; and say they are but the victims of circumstance.  The great majority of them are the victims of their own low instincts.  They have chosen the broad and easy road of animalism, which leads to destruction.  They have sown to the flesh, and they will of the flesh reap corruption.  For the laws of God are inexorable; and the curse of the law is sure, namely, “The wages of sin are death.”  Neither dare I encourage too vast hopes and say, If we had money enough, if we had machinery enough, if we had zeal enough, we might convert them all, and save them all.  I dare not believe it.  The many, I fear, will always go the broad road; the few the narrow one.  And all we dare say is, if we have faith enough, we can convert some.  We can at least fulfil our ordination vow.  We can seek out Christ’s sheep scattered abroad about this naughty world, and tell them of His fold, and try to bring them home.

But how shall we know Christ’s sheep when we see them?  How, but by the very test which Christ has laid down, it seems to me, in this very parable?  Is there in one of them the high instincts—even the desire to do a merciful act?  Let us watch for that: and when in the most brutal man, and—alas that I should have to use the words—in the most brutal woman, we see any touch of nobleness, justice, benevolence, pity, tenderness—in one word, any touch, however momentary, of unselfishness,—let us spring at that, knowing that there is the soul we seek; there is a lost sheep of Christ; there is Christ Himself, working unknown upon a human soul; there is a soul ready for the gospel, and not far from the kingdom of God.  But what shall we say to that lost sheep?  Shall we terrify it by threats of hell?  Shall we even allure it by promises of heaven?  Not so—not so at least at first—for that would be to appeal to bodily fear and bodily pleasure, to the very selfishness from which Christ is trying to deliver it; and to neglect the very prevenient grace, the very hold on the soul which Christ Himself offers us.  Let us determine with St. Paul to know nothing among our fellow-men but Christ crucified.  Let us appeal just to that in the soul which is unselfish; not to the instincts of loss and gain, but to those nobler instincts of justice and mercy; just because they are not the man’s or the woman’s instincts; but Christ’s within them, the light of Christ and the Spirit of Christ, the spirit of love and justice saying, “Do unto others as you would they should do unto you.”  Do you doubt that?  I trust not.  For to doubt that is to doubt whether God be truly the Giver of all good things.  To doubt that is to begin to disbelieve St. Paul’s great saying, “In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.”  To doubt that is to lay our hearts and minds open to the insidious poison of that Pelagian heresy which, received under new shapes and names, is becoming the cardinal heresy of modern disbelief.  No; we will have faith in Christ, faith in our creeds, faith in catholic doctrine; and will say to that man or that woman, even as they wallow still in the darkness and the mire, “Behold your God!  That cup of cold water which you gave, you knew not why,—Christ told you to give it, and to Him you gave.  That night watch beside the bed of a woman as fallen as yourself,—Christ bade you watch, and you watched by Him.  For that drunken ruffian, whom you, a drunken ruffian yourself, leaped into the sea to save, Christ bade you leap, and like St. Christopher of old, you bore, though you knew it not, your Saviour and your God to land.”  And if they shall make answer, “And who is He that I did not know Him? who is He that I should know Him now?”  Let us point them—and whither else should we point them in heaven or earth?—to Christ upon the cross, and say, “Behold your God!  This He did, this He condescended, this He dared, this He suffered for you, and such as you.  This is what He, the Maker of the universe, is like.  This is what He has been trying to make you like, in your small degree, every time a noble, a generous, a pitiful, a merciful emotion crossed your heart; every time you forgot yourself, even for a moment, and thought of the welfare of a fellow-man.”

If that tale, if that sight, if that revelation and unveiling of Christ to the poor sinful soul does not work in it an abhorrence of past sin, a craving after future holiness, an admiration and a reverence for Christ Himself, which is, ipso facto, saving faith; if that soul does not reply—it may not be in words, but in feelings too deep for words,—“Yes; this is indeed noble, indeed Godlike, worthy of a God, and worthy therefore to be at once imitated and adored:” then, indeed, the Cross of Christ must have lost that miraculous power which it has possessed, for more than eighteen hundred years, as the highest “moral ideal” which ever was seen, or ever can be seen, by the reason and the heart of man.

SERMON XXXVIII.  THE LORD’S PRAYER

Windsor Castle, 1867.  Chester Cathedral, 1870.

Matthew vi. 9, 10.  “After this manner, therefore, pray ye, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Let us think for a while on these great words.  Let us remember that some day or other they will certainly be fulfilled.  Let us remember that Christ would not have bidden us use them, unless He intended that they should be fulfilled.  And let us remember, likewise, that we must help to fulfil them.  We need to be reminded of this from time to time, for we are all inclined to forget it.  We are inclined to forget that mankind has a Father in heaven, who is ruling, and guiding, and educating us, His human children, to

“One far off divine event,Toward which the whole creation moves.”

We are apt to fancy that the world will always go on very much as it goes on now; that it will be guided, not by the will of God, but by the will of man; by man’s craft; by man’s ambition; by man’s self-interest; by man’s cravings after the luxuries, and even after the mere necessities of this life.  In a word, we are apt to fancy that man, not God, is the master of this earth on which we live, and that men have no king over them in heaven.

The Lord’s Prayer tells us that men have a king over them in heaven, and that that king is a Father likewise—a Father whose name will one day be hallowed above all names.  That the world will not always go on as it goes on now, but that the Father’s kingdom will come.  That above the will of man, there is a will of God, which must be done, and therefore will be done some day.  In a word, the Lord’s Prayer tells us that this world is under a Divine government; that the Lord, even Jesus Christ our Saviour, is King, be the people never so impatient.  That He sitteth between the cherubim, master of all the powers of nature, be the earth never so unquiet.  That His power loves justice.  That He has prepared equity.  That He has executed, and therefore will execute to the end, judgment and righteousness in the earth.  That Christ reigns in justice and in love.  That He has for those who disobey His laws the most terrible penalties; for those who obey them blessings such as eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive.  That He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet and delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father.  That on that great day He will prove His royalty, and His Father’s royalty, in the sight of all heaven and earth, and make every soul of man aware, in a fashion which none shall mistake, that He is Lord and King.  This is the message which the Lord’s Prayer brings—a message of mingled fear and joy.

But a message of more joy than fear.  Else why does our Lord bid us pray for it that it may come to pass?—pray daily, before we even pray for our daily bread, or the forgiveness of our sins—that His Father’s name may be hallowed, His Father’s kingdom come, His Father’s will be done?

He bids us pray for that because it will bring blessings.  Blessings to every soul of man who desires to be good and true.  Because it will satisfy every aspiration which has ever risen up from the heart of man after what is noble, what is generous, what is just, what is useful, what is pure.  Surely it is so.  Consider but these short words of my text, and think what the world would be like if they were fulfilled; what the next world will actually be like when they are fulfilled.

“Hallowed be thy name.”  But what name?  The name of Father.  If that name were hallowed by men, there would be an end of all superstitions.  The root of all superstitions, fanaticisms, and false religions is this—that they do not hallow the name of Father.  They do not see that it is a Holy name, a beautiful and tender as well as an awful and venerable name.  They think of fathers, like too many among themselves, proud, and arbitrary, selfish and cruel.  They say in their hearts, even such fathers as we are, such is God.  Therefore, they shrink from God, and turn from Him to idols, to the Virgin Mary, or Saints, or any other beings who can deliver them (as they fancy) out of the hands of their Father in heaven.  If men once learnt to hallow the name of Father, to think of a father as one who not only possessed power but felt love, who not only had rights which he would enforce, and issued commands which must be obeyed, but who felt yearning sympathy for his children’s weakness, an active interest in their education, and was ready to labour for, to sacrifice himself for, his family—That would be truly to hallow the name of Father, and look on it as a holy thing, whether in heaven above or in earth beneath.

To hallow the Father’s name would abolish all the superstition of the world.  And so the coming of the Father’s kingdom would abolish all the misrule and anarchy of the world.  For the kingdom of God the Father is a kingdom of perfect order, perfect justice, perfect usefulness.  Surely the first consequences of that kingdom’s coming would be, that every one would be exactly in his right place, and that every one would get his exact deserts.  That would indeed be the kingdom of God on earth.  The prospect of such a kingdom would be painful enough to those who were in their wrong place, to those who were undeserving.  All who were useless, taking wages either from man or from God, without doing any work in return, all these would have but too good reason to dread the coming of the kingdom of God.

But those who were trying earnestly to do their work, though amid many mistakes and failures, why should they dread the coming of the kingdom of God?  Why should they shrink from remembering that, though God’s kingdom is not come in perfection and fulness, it is here already, and they are in it?  Why should they shrink from that thought?  They will find it full of comfort, of strength, and hope, if they will but hallow their Father’s name, and remember the fact of all facts—that they have a Father in heaven.  There are thousands on earth, from the highest to the lowest, who can say honestly—to take the commonest instance—every parent can say it—“I have a heavy work to do, a heavy responsibility to fulfil.  God knows I did not seek it, thrust myself into it; it was thrust upon me.  It came to me in the course of nature or of society, and circumstances over which I had no control.  In one word it was my Duty.  But now that I have my duty to do, behold I cannot do it.  I try my best, but I fail.  I come short daily of my own low standard of duty.  How much more of God’s perfect standard of it!  And the burden of responsibility, the regret for failure, is more than I can bear.

To such we may answer, hallow your Father’s name, and be of good cheer.  Your Father has given you your work.  Because He is a Father, He is surely educating you for your work.  Because He is a Father, He will surely set you no task which you are unable to fulfil.  Because He is a Father, He will help you to fulfil your task.  Your station and calling is His will; and because it is a Father’s will it is a good will.

And the Judge of your work—He is no stern taskmaster, no unfeeling tyrant, but Jesus Christ, your Lord, who died for you on the Cross.  He knows what is in man.  He remembereth that we are but dust.  Else the spirit would fail before Him and the souls which He has made.  He can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, seeing that He was tempted in all things like as we are, yet without sin.  He can sympathise utterly; He can make all just allowances; He will judge not by outward results, but by the inward will and desire.  He will judge not by the hearing of the ear, nor the seeing of the eye, as the shallow cruel world judges, but He will judge righteous judgment.  Trust your cause to Him, and trust yourself to Him.  Believe that if He can sympathise, He can also help; for from Him, as well as from His Father, proceeds the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of power and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, and He will inspire you to see your duty, and do your duty, and rejoice in your duty, in spite of weariness and failure, and all the burdens of the flesh and of the spirit.

“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  If that were done, it would abolish all the vice of the world, and therefore the misery which springs from vice.  Ah, that God’s will were but done on earth as it is in the material heaven overhead, in perfect order and obedience, as the stars roll in their courses, without rest, yet without haste; as all created things, even the most awful, fire and hail, snow and vapour, wind and storm, fulfil God’s word, who hath made them sure for ever and ever, and given them a law which shall not be broken.  But above them; above the divine and wonderful order of the material universe, and the winds which are God’s angels, and the flames of fire which are His messengers; above all, the prophets and apostles have caught sight of another divine and wonderful order of rational beings, of races, loftier and purer than man—angels and archangels, thrones and dominions, principalities and powers, fulfilling God’s will in heaven as it is not alas! fulfilled on earth.

And beside them, beside the innumerable company of angels, are there not the spirits of just men made perfect, freed from the fetters of the gross animal body, and now somewhere in that boundless universe in which this earth is but a tiny speck, doing God’s will, as they longed to do it on earth, with clearer light, fuller faith, deeper love, mightier powers of usefulness?  Ah, that we were like to them!  Ah, that we could perform the least part of our day’s work on earth as it is performed by saints and angels for ever in heaven!  When we think of what this poor confused world is, and then what it might be, were God’s will done therein as it is done in heaven; what it might be if even the little of God’s will which we already know, the little of God’s laws which are proved already to be certain, were carried out with any earnestness by the majority of mankind, or even of one civilized nation—when we think—to take the very lowest ground—of the health and wealth, the peace and happiness, which would cover this earth did men only do the will of God; then, if we have human hearts within us—if we care at all for the welfare of our fellow-men—ought not this to be the prayer of all our prayers, and ought we not to welcome any event, however awful, which would bring mankind to reason and to virtue, and to God, and abolish the sin and misery of this unhappy world?

To abolish the superstition, the misrule, the vice, the misery of this world.  That is what Christ will do in the day when He has put all enemies under His feet.  That is what Christ has been doing, step by step, ever since that day when first He came to do His Father’s will on earth in great humility.  Therefore, that is what we must do, each in our place and station, if we be indeed His subjects, fellow-workers with Him in the improvement of the human race, fellow-soldiers with Him in the battle against evil.

But what we wish to do for our fellow-creatures, we must do first for ourselves.  We can give them nothing save what God has already given us.  We must become good before we can make them good, and wise before we can make them wise.  Let us pray, then, the Lord’s Prayer in spirit and in truth.  Let us pray that we may hallow the name of God, our Father.  Let us pray that His kingdom may come in our own hearts.  Let us pray that we may do His will on earth as those whom we love and honour do it in heaven.  Let us keep that before us, day and night, as the aim and purpose of our lives.  Let us pray for forgiveness of our failures in that; for help to do that better as our years run on.  So we shall be ready for the day in which Christ shall have accomplished the number of His elect, and hastened His kingdom.  So we shall be found in that dread day, not on the side of evil, but of God; not on the side of darkness, anarchy, and vice, but on the side of light, of justice, and of virtue, which is the side of Christ and of God.  And so we, with all those that are departed in the faith of His holy name, shall have our perfect consummation and bliss in His eternal and everlasting glory, to which may He, of His great mercy, bring us all.  Amen.

SERMON XXXIX.  THE DISTRACTED MIND

Eversley. 1871.

Matthew vi. 34.  “Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

Scholars will tell you that the words “take no thought” do not exactly express our Lord’s meaning in this text.  That they should rather stand, “Be not anxious about to-morrow.”  And doubtless they are right on the whole.  But the truth is, that we have no word in English which exactly expresses the Greek word which St Matthew uses in his gospel, and which we are bound to believe exactly expresses our Lord’s meaning, in whatever language He spoke.  The nearest English word, I believe, is—distracted.  Be ye not distracted about to-morrow.  I do not mean the vulgar sense of the word—which is losing one’s senses.  But the old and true sense, which is still used by those who speak good English.

To distract, means literally to pull a thing two different ways—even to pull it asunder.  We speak of distracting a man’s attention, when we call him off from looking at one thing to make him look at something else, and we call anything which interrupts us in our business, or puts a thought suddenly out of our heads, a distraction.  Now the Greek word which St Matthew uses, means very nearly this—Be not divided in your thoughts—do not think of two things at once—do not distract your attention from to-day’s work, by fearing and hoping about to-morrow.  Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof; and you will have quite trouble enough to get through to-day honestly and well, without troubling yourself with to-morrow—which may turn out very unlike anything which you can dream.  This, I think, is the true meaning of the text; and with it, I think, agrees another word of our Lord’s which St Luke gives—And be ye not of doubtful mind.  Literally, Do not be up in the air—blown helpless hither and thither, by every gust of wind, instead of keeping on the firm ground, and walking straight on about your business, stoutly and patiently, step after step.  Have no vain fears or vain hopes about the future; but do your duty here and now.  That is our Lord’s command, and in it lies the secret of success in life.

For do we not find, do we not find, my friends, in practice, that our Lord’s words are true?  Who are the people who get through most work in their lives, with the least wear and tear, not merely to their bodily health, but to their tempers and their characters?  Are they the anxious people?  Those who imagine to themselves possible misfortunes, and ask continually—What if this happened—or that?  What would become of me then?  How should I be able to pull through such a trouble?  Where shall I find friends?  How shall I make myself safe against the chances and changes of life?  Do we not know that those people are the very ones who do little work, and often less than none, by thus distracting their attention and their strength from their daily duty, daily business?  That while they are looking anxiously for future opportunities, they are neglecting the opportunities which they have already.  While they are making interest with others to help them, they forget to help themselves.  That in proportion as they lose faith in God and His goodness, they lose courage and lose cheerfulness; and have too often to find a false courage and a false cheerfulness, by drowning their cares in drink, or in mean cunning and plotting and planning, which usually ends in failure and in shame?

Are those who do most work, either the plotting or intriguing people?  I do not mean base false people.  Of them I do not speak here.  But really good and kind people, honest at heart, who yet are full of distractions of another sort; who are of double mind—look two ways at once, and are afraid to be quite open, quite straightforward—who like to compass their ends, as the old saying is, that is to go round about, towards what they want, instead of going boldly up to it; who like to try two or more ways of getting the same thing done; and, as the proverb has it, have many irons in the fire; who love little schemes, and plots, and mysteries, even when there is no need for them.  Do such people get most work done?  Far, far from it.  They take more trouble about getting a little matter done, than simpler and braver men take about getting great matters done.  They fret themselves, they weary themselves, they waste their brains and hearts—and sometimes their honesty besides—and if they fail, as in the chances and changes of this mortal life they must too often fail, have nothing for all their schemings save vanity and vexation of spirit.

But the man who will get most work done, and done with the least trouble, whether for himself, for his family, or in the calling and duty to which God has called him, will be the man who takes our Lord’s advice.  Who takes no thought for the morrow, and leaves the morrow to take thought for itself.  That man will believe that this world is a well-ordered world, as it needs must be, seeing that God made it, God redeemed it, God governs it; and that God is merciful in this—that He rewardeth every man according to his works.  That man will take thought for to-day, earnestly and diligently, even at times anxiously and in fear and trembling; but he will not distract, and divide, and weaken his mind by taking thought for to-morrow also.  Each day he will set about the duty which lies nearest him, with a whole heart and with a single eye, giving himself to it for the time, as if there was nothing else to be done in the world.  As for what he is to do next, he will think little of that.  Little, even, will he think of whether his work will succeed or not.  That must be as God shall will.  All that he is bound to do is to do his best; and his best he can only do by throwing his whole soul into his work.  As his day, he trusts his strength will be; and he must not waste the strength which God has given him for to-day on vain fears or vain dreams about to-morrow.  To-day is quite full enough of anxiety, of care, of toil, of ignorance.  Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.  Yes; and sufficient for the day is the good thereof likewise.  To-day, and to-morrow, too, may end very differently from what he hoped.  Yes; but they may end, too, very differently from what he feared.  Let him throw his whole soul into the thing which he is about, and leave the rest to God.