All Saints' Day and Other Sermons

Well, my friends, and the very danger of these spiritual temptations is—that they do not look like temptations.  They do not look ugly, absurd, wrong, they look pleasant, reasonable, right.

The devil, says the apostle, transforms himself at times into an angel of light.  If so, then he is certainly far more dangerous than if he came as an angel of darkness and horror.  If you met some venomous snake, with loathsome spots upon his scales, his eyes full of rage and cunning, his head raised to strike at you, hissing and showing his fangs, there would be no temptation to have to do with him.  You would know that you had to deal with an evil beast, and must either kill him or escape from him at once.  But if, again, you met, as you may meet in the tropics, a lovely little coral snake, braided with red and white, its mouth so small that it seems impossible that it can bite, and so gentle that children may take it up and play with it, then you might be tempted, as many a poor child has been ere now, to admire it, fondle it, wreathe it round the neck for a necklace, or round the arm for a bracelet, till the play goes one step too far, the snake loses its temper, gives one tiny scratch upon the lip or finger, and that scratch is certain death.  That would be a temptation indeed; one all the more dangerous because there is, I am told, another sort of coral snake perfectly harmless, which is so exactly like the deadly one, that no child, and few grown people, can know them apart.

Even so it is with our worst temptations.  They look sometimes so exactly like what is good and noble and useful and religious, that we mistake the evil for the good, and play with it till it stings us, and we find out too late that the wages of sin are death.  Thus religious people, just because they are religious, are apt to be specially tempted to mistake evil for good, to do something specially wrong, when they think they are doing something specially right, and so give occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme; till, as a hard and experienced man of the world once said: “Whenever I hear a man talking of his conscience, I know that he is going to do something particularly foolish; whenever I hear of a man talking of his duty, I know that he is going to do something particularly cruel.”

Do I say this to frighten you away from being religious?  God forbid.  Better to be religious and to fear and love God, though you were tempted by all the devils out of the pit, than to be irreligious and a mere animal, and be tempted only by your own carnal nature, as the animals are.  Better to be tempted, like the hermits of old, and even to fall and rise again, singing, “Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy, when I fall I shall arise;” than to live the life of the flesh, “like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains.”  It is the price a man must pay for hungering and thirsting after righteousness, for longing to be a child of God in spirit and in truth.  “The devil,” says a wise man of old, “does not tempt bad men, because he has got them already; he tempts good men, because he has not got them, and wants to get them.”

But how shall we know these temptations?  God knows, my friends, better than I; and I trust that He will teach you to know, according to what each of you needs to know.  But as far as my small experience goes, the root of them all is pride and self-conceit.  Whatsoever thoughts or feelings tempt us to pride and self-conceit are of the devil, not of God.  The devil is specially the spirit of pride; and, therefore, whatever tempts you to fancy yourself something different from your fellow-men, superior to your fellow men, safer than them, more favoured by God than them, that is a temptation of the spirit of pride.  Whatever tempts you to think that you can do without God’s help and God’s providence; whatever tempts you to do anything extraordinary, and show yourself off, that you may make a figure in the world; and above all, whatever tempts you to antinomianism, that is, to fancy that God will overlook sins in you which He will not overlook in other men—all these are temptations from the spirit of pride.  They are temptations like our Lord’s temptations.  These temptations came on our Lord more terribly than they ever can on you and me, just because He was the Son of Man, the perfect Man, and, therefore, had more real reason for being proud (if such a thing could be) than any man, or than all men put together.  But He conquered the temptations because He was perfect Man, led by the Spirit of God; and, therefore, He knew that the only way to be a perfect man was not to be proud, however powerful, wise, and glorious He might be; but to submit Himself humbly and utterly, as every man should do, to the will of His Father in Heaven, from whom alone His greatness came.

Now the spirit of pride cannot understand the beauty of humility, and the spirit of self-will cannot understand the beauty of obedience; and, therefore, it is reasonable to suppose the devil could not understand our Lord.  If He be the Son of God, so might Satan argue, He has all the more reason to be proud; and, therefore, it is all the more easy to tempt Him into shewing His pride, into proving Himself a conceited, self-willed, rebellious being—in one word, an evil spirit.

And therefore (as you will see at first sight) the first two temptations were clearly meant to tempt our Lord to pride; for would they not tempt you and me to pride?  If we could feed ourselves by making bread of stones, would not that make us proud enough?  So proud, I fear, that we should soon fancy that we could do without God and His providence, and were masters of nature and all her secrets.  If you and I could make the whole city worship and obey us, by casting ourselves off this cathedral unhurt, would not that make us proud enough?  So proud, I fear, that we should end in committing some great folly, or great crime in our conceit and vainglory.

Now, whether our Lord could or could not have done these wonderful deeds, one thing is plain—that He would not do them; and, therefore, we may presume that He ought not to have done them.  It seems as if He did not wish to be a wonderful man: but only a perfectly good man, and He would do nothing to help Himself but what any other man could do.  He answered the evil spirit simply out of Scripture, as any other pious man might have done.  When He was bidden to make the stones into bread, He answers not as the Eternal Son of God, but simply as a man.  “It is written:”—it is the belief of Moses and the old prophets of my people that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God:—as much as to say, If I am to be delivered out of this need, God will deliver me by some means or other, just as He delivers other men out of their needs.  When He was bidden cast Himself from the temple, and so save Himself, probably from sorrow, poverty, persecution, and the death on the cross, He answers out of Scripture as any other Jew would have done.  “It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”  He says nothing—this is most important—of His being the eternal Son of God.  He keeps that in the background.  There the fact was; but He veiled the glory of His godhead, that He might assert the rights of His manhood, and shew that mere man, by the help of the Spirit of God, could obey God, and keep His commandments.

I say these last words with all diffidence and humility, and trusting that the Lord will pardon any mistake which I may make about His Divine Words.  I only say them because wiser men than I have often taken the same view already.  Of course there is more, far more, in this wonderful saying than we can understand, or ever will understand.  But this I think is plain—that our Lord determined to behave as any and every other man ought to have done in His place; in order to shew all God’s children the example of perfect humility and perfect obedience to God.

But again, the devil asked our Lord to fall down and worship him.  Now how could that be a temptation to pride?  Surely that was asking our Lord to do anything but a proud action, rather the most humiliating and most base of all actions.  My friends, it seems to me that if our Lord had fallen down and worshipped the evil spirit, He would have given way to the spirit of pride utterly and boundlessly; and I will tell you why.

The devil wanted our Lord to do evil that good might come.  It would have been a blessing, that all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of man should be our Lord’s,—the very blessing for this poor earth which He came to buy, and which He bought with His own precious blood.  And here the devil offered Him the very prize for which He came down on earth, without struggle or difficulty, if He would but do, for one moment, one wrong thing.  What temptation that would be to our Lord as God, I dare not say.  But that to our Lord as Man, it must have been the most terrible of all temptations, I can well believe: because history shews us, and, alas! our own experience in modern times shews us, persons yielding to that temptation perpetually; pious people, benevolent people, people who long to spread the Bible, to convert sinners, to found charities, to amend laws, to set the world right in some way or other, and who fancy that therefore, in carrying out their fine projects, they have a right to do evil that good may come.

This is a very painful subject; all the more painful just now, because I sometimes think it is the special sin of this country and this generation, and that God will bring on us some heavy punishment for it.  But all who know the world in its various phases, and especially what are called the religious world, and the philanthropic world, and the political world, know too well that men, not otherwise bad men, will do things and say things, to carry out some favourite project or movement, or to support some party, religious or other, which they would (I hope) be ashamed to say and do for their own private gain.  Now what is this, but worshipping the evil spirit, in order to get power over this world, that they may (as they fancy) amend it?  And what is this but self-conceit—ruinous, I had almost said, blasphemous?  These people think themselves so certainly in the right, and their plans so absolutely necessary to the good of the world, that God has given them a special licence to do what they like in carrying them out; that He will excuse in them falsehoods and meannesses, even tyranny and violences which He will excuse in no one else.

Now, is not this self-conceit?  What would you think of a servant who disobeyed you, cheated you, and yet said to himself—No matter, my master dare not turn me off: I am so useful that he cannot do without me.  Even so in all ages, and now as much as, or more than ever, have men said, We are so necessary to God and God’s cause, that He cannot do without us; and therefore though He hates sin in everyone else, He will excuse sin in us, as long as we are about His business.

Therefore, my dear friends, whenever we are tempted to do or say anything rash, or vain, or mean, because we are the children of God; whenever we are inclined to be puffed up with spiritual pride, and to fancy that we may take liberties which other men must not take, because we are the children of God; let us remember the words of the text, and answer the tempter, when he says, If thou be the Son of God, do this and that, as our Lord answered him—“If I be the Child of God, what then?  This—that I must behave as if God were my Father.  I must trust my God utterly, and I must obey Him utterly.  I must do no rash or vain thing to tempt God, even though it looks as if I should have a great success, and do much good thereby.  I must do no mean or base thing, nor give way for a moment to the wicked ways of this wicked world, even though again it looks as if I should have a great success, and do much good thereby.  In one word, I must worship my Father in heaven, and Him only must I serve.  If He wants me, He will use me.  If He does not want me, He will use some one else.  Who am I, that God cannot govern the world without my help?  My business is to refrain my soul, and keep it low, even as a weaned child, and not to meddle with matters too high for me.  My business is to do the little, simple, everyday duties which lie nearest me, and be faithful in a few things; and then, if Christ will, He may make me some day ruler over many things, and I shall enter into the joy of my Lord, which is the joy of doing good to my fellow men.  But I shall never enter into that by thrusting myself into Christ’s way, with grand schemes and hasty projects, as if I knew better than He how to make His kingdom come.  If I do, my pride will have a fall.  Because I would not be faithful over a few things, I shall be tempted to be unfaithful over many things; and instead of entering into the joy of my Lord, I shall be in danger of the awful judgment pronounced on those who do evil that good may come, who shall say in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?  And then will He protest unto them—I never knew you.  Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”

Oh, my friends, in all your projects for good, as in all other matters which come before you in your mortal life, keep innocence and take heed to the thing that is right.  For that, and that alone, shall bring a man peace at the last.

To which, may God in His mercy bring us all.  Amen.

SERMON VIII.  MOTHER’S LOVE

Eversley, Second Sunday in Lent, 1872.

St Matthew xv. 22-28.  “And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.  But he answered her not a word.  And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.  But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.  But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.  And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table.  Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.  And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”

If you want a proof from Scripture that there are two sides to our blessed Lord’s character—that He is a Judge and an Avenger as well as a Saviour and a Pardoner—that He is infinitely severe as well as infinitely merciful—that, while we may come boldly to His throne of grace to find help and mercy in time of need, we must, at the same time, tremble before His throne of justice—if you want a proof of all this, I say, then look at the Epistle and the Gospel for this day.  Put them side by side, and compare them, and you will see how perfectly they shew, one after the other, the two sides.

The Epistle for the day tells men and women that they must lead moral, pure, and modest lives.  It does not advise them to do so.  It does not say, It will be better to do so, more proper and conducive to the good of society, more likely to bring you to heaven at last.  It says, You must, for it is the commandment of the Lord Jesus, and the will of God.  Let no man encroach on or defraud his brother in the matter, says St Paul; by which he means, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife.  And why?  “Because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified.”

My friends, people talk loosely of the Thunder of Sinai and the rigour of Moses’ law, and set them against what they call the gentle voice of the Gospel, and the mild religion of Christ.  Why, here are the Thunders of Sinai uttered as loud as ever, from the very foot of the Cross of Christ; and the terrible, “Thou shalt not,” of Moses’ law, with the curse of God for a penalty on the sinner, uttered by the Apostle of Faith, and Freedom, in the name of Christ and of God.  St Paul is not afraid to call Christ an Avenger.  How could he be?  He believed that it was Christ who spoke to Moses on Sinai—the very same Christ who prayed for His murderers, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  And he knew that Christ was the eternal Son of God, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; that He had not changed since Moses’ time, and could never change; that what He forbade in Moses’ time, hated in Moses’ time, and avenged in Moses’ time, He would forbid, and hate, and avenge for ever.  And that, therefore, he who despises the warnings of the Law despises not man merely, but God, who has also given to us His Holy Spirit to know what is unchangeable, the everlastingly right, from what is everlastingly wrong.  So much for that side of our Lord’s character; so much for sinners who, after their hardness and impenitent hearts, treasure up for themselves wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to St Paul’s Gospel.

But, when we turn to the Gospel for the day, we see the other side of our Lord’s character, boundless condescension and boundless charity.  We see Him there still a Judge, as He always is and always will be, judging the secrets of a poor woman’s heart, and that woman a heathen.  He judges her openly, in public, before His disciples.  But He is a Judge who judges righteous judgment, and not according to appearances; who is no respecter of persons; who is perfectly fair, even though the woman be a heathen: and, instead of condemning her and driving her away, He acquits her, He grants her prayer, He heals her daughter, even though that daughter was also a heathen, and one who knew Him not.  I say our Lord judged the woman after He had tried her, as gold is tried in the fire.  Why He did so, we cannot tell.  Perhaps He wanted, by the trial, to make her a better woman, to bring out something noble which lay in her heart unknown to her, though not to Him who knew what was in man.  Perhaps He wished to shew his disciples, who looked down on her as a heathen dog, that a heathen, too, could have faith, humility, nobleness, and grace of heart.  Be that as it may, when the poor woman came crying to Him, He answered her not a word.  His disciples besought Him to send her away—and I am inclined to think that they wished Him to grant her what she asked, simply to be rid of her.  “Send her away,” they said, “for she crieth after us.”  Our Lord, we learn from St Mark, did not wish to be known in that place just then.  The poor woman, with her crying, was drawing attention to them, and, perhaps, gathering a crowd.  Somewhat noisy and troublesome, perhaps she was, in her motherly eagerness.  But our Lord was still seemingly stern.  He would not listen, it seemed, to His disciples any more than to the heathen woman.  “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  So our Lord said, and (what is worth remembering) if He said so, what He said was true.  He was the King of the people of Israel, the Royal Prince of David’s line; and, as a man, His duty was only to His own people.  And this woman was a Greek, a Syro-phenician by nation—of a mixed race of people, notoriously low and profligate, and old enemies of the Jews.

Then, it seems, He went into a house, and would have no man know it.  But, says St Mark, “He could not be hid.”  The mother’s wit found our Lord out, and the mother’s heart urged her on, and, in spite of all His rebuffs, she seems to have got into the house and worshipped Him.  She “fell at His feet,” says St Mark—doubtless bowing her forehead to the ground, in the fashion of those lands—an honour which was paid, I believe, only to persons who were royal or divine.  So she confessed that He was a king—perhaps a God come down on earth—and again she cried to Him.  “Lord, help me.”  And what was our Lord’s answer—seemingly more stern than ever?  “Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it unto the dogs.”  Hard words.  Yes: but all depends on how they were spoken.  All depends on our Lord’s look as He spoke them, and, even more, on the tone of His voice.  We all know that two men may use the very same words to us;—and the one shall speak sneeringly, brutally, and raise in us indignation or despair; another shall use the same words, but solemnly, tenderly, and raise in us confidence and hope.  And so it may have been—so, I fancy, it must have been—with the tone of our Lord’s voice, with the expression of His face.  Did He speak with a frown, or with something like a smile?  There must have been some tenderness, meaningness, pity in His voice which the quick woman’s wit caught instantly, and the quick mother’s heart interpreted as a sign of hope.

Let Him call her a dog if He would.  What matter to a mother to be called a dog, if she could thereby save her child from a devil?  Perhaps she was little better than a dog.  They were a bad people these Syrians, quick-witted, highly civilised, but vicious, and teaching vice to other nations, till some of the wisest Romans cursed the day when the Syrians first spread into Rome, and debauched the sturdy Romans with their new-fangled, foreign sins.  They were a bad people, and, perhaps, she had been as bad as the rest.  But if she were a dog, at least she felt that the dog had found its Master, and must fawn on Him, if it were but for the hope of getting something from Him.

And so, in the poor heathen mother’s heart, there rose up a whole heaven of perfect humility, faith, adoration.  If she were base and mean, yet our Lord was great, and wise, and good; and that was all the more reason why He should be magnanimous, generous, condescending, like a true King, to the basest and meanest of His subjects.  She asked not for money, or honour, or this world’s fine things: but simply for her child’s health, her child’s deliverance from some mysterious and degrading illness.  Surely there was no harm in asking for that.  It was simply a mother’s prayer, a simply human prayer, which our Lord must grant, if He were indeed a man of woman born, if He had a mother, and could feel for a mother, if He had human tenderness, human pity in Him.  And so, with her quick Syrian wit, she answers our Lord with those wonderful words—perhaps the most pathetic words in the whole Bible—so full of humility, of reverence, and yet with a certain archness, almost playfulness, in them, as it were, turning our Lord’s words against Him; and, by that very thing, shewing how utterly she trusted Him,—“Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”

Those were the beautiful words—more beautiful to me than whole volumes of poetry—which our Lord had as it were crushed out of the woman’s heart.  Doubtless, He knew all the while that they were in her heart, though not as yet shaped into words.  Doubtless, He was trying her, to shew His disciples—and all Christians who should ever read the Bible—what was in her heart, what she was capable of saying when it came to the point.  So He tried her, and judged her, and acquitted her.  Out of the abundance of her heart her mouth had spoken.  By her words she was justified.  By those few words she proved her utter faith in our Lord’s power and goodness—perhaps her faith in His godhead.  By those words she proved the gentleness and humility, the graciousness and gracefulness of her own character.  By those words she proved, too,—and oh, you that are mothers, is that nothing?—the perfect disinterestedness of her mother’s love.  And so she conquered—as the blessed Lord loves to be conquered—as all noble souls who are like their blessed Lord, love to be conquered—by the prayer of faith, of humility, of confidence, of earnestness, and she had her reward.  “O woman,” said He, the Maker of all heaven and earth, “great is thy faith.  For this saying go thy way.  Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.  The devil is gone out of thy daughter.”  She went, full of faith; and when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed.

One word more, and I have done.  I do not think that any one who really took in the full meaning of this beautiful story, would ever care to pray to Saints, or to the Blessed Virgin, for help; fancying that they, and specially the Blessed Virgin, being a woman, are more humane than our Lord, and can feel more quickly, if not more keenly, for poor creatures in distress.  We are not here to judge these people, or any people.  To their own master they stand or fall.  But for the honour of our Lord, we may say, Does not this story shew that the Lord is humane enough, tender enough, to satisfy all mankind?  Does not this story shew that even if He seem silent at first, and does not grant our prayers, yet still He may be keeping us waiting, as He kept this heathen woman, only that He may be gracious to us at last?  Does not this story shew us especially that our Lord can feel for mothers and with mothers; that He actually allowed Himself to be won over—if I may use such a word in all reverence—by the wit and grace of a mother pleading for her child?  Was it not so?  “O woman, great is thy faith.  For this saying go thy way.  Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”  Ah! are not those gracious words a comfort to every mother, bidding her, in the Lord’s own name, to come boldly where mothers—of all human beings—have oftenest need to come, to the throne of Christ’s grace, to find mercy, and grace to help in time of need?