Town and Country Sermons

I give you this as an example of what I mean; how not believing rightly the Athanasian Creed may make a man lead a bad life.

Now let me give an example nearer home; one which has to do with you and me.  God grant that we may all lay it to heart.  You read, in the Athanasian Creed, that we are not to confound the persons of the Trinity, nor divide the substance; but to believe that such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.  Now there is little fear of our confounding the persons, as some people used to do in old times; but there is great fear of our dividing God’s substance, parting God’s substance, that is, fancying that God is made up of different parts, and not perfectly one God.

For people are very apt to talk as if God’s love and God’s justice were two different things, different parts of God; as if his justice had to be satisfied in one way, and his love in another; as if his justice wished to destroy sinners, and his love wished to save sinners; and so they talk as if there was a division in God; as if different attributes of God were pulling two different ways, and that God has parts of which one desires to do one thing, and one part another.  It sounds shocking, I am sure you will feel, when I put it into plain English.  I wish it to sound shocking.  I wish you to feel how wrong and heretical it is; that you may keep clear of such notions, and believe the orthodox faith, that God has neither parts nor passions, nor division in his substance at all, but is absolutely and substantially one; and that, therefore, his love and his justice are the very same things; his justice, however severe it may seem, is perfect love and kindness; and his love is no indulgence, but perfect justice.

But you may say—Very likely that is true; but why need we take so much care to believe it?

It is always worth while to know what is true.  You are children of the Light, and of the Truth, adopted by the God of truth, that you may know the truth and do it, and no mistake or falsehood can, by any possibility, do anything for you, but harm you.  Always, therefore, try to find out and believe what is true concerning everything; and, above all, concerning God, on whom all depend, in whom you live, and move, and have your being.  For all things in heaven and earth depend on God; and, therefore, if you have wrong notions about God, you will sooner or later have wrong notions about everything else.

For see, now, how this false notion of God’s justice and love being different things, leads people into a worse error still.  A man goes on to fancy, that while God the Son is full of love towards sinners, God the Father is (or at least was once) only full of justice and wrath against sinners; but if a man thinks that God the Son loves him better than God the Father does, then, of course, he will love God the Son better than he loves God the Father.  He will think of Christ the Son with pleasure and gratitude, because he says to himself, Christ loves me, cares for me; I can have pity and tenderness from him, if I do wrong.  While of God the Father he thinks only with dread and secret dislike.  Thus, from dividing the substance, he has been led on to confound the persons, imputing to the Son alone that which is equally true of the Father, till he comes (as I have known men do) to make for himself, as it were, a Heavenly Father of Jesus Christ the Son.

Now, my dear friends, it does seem to me, that if anything can grieve the Spirit of Christ, and the sacred heart of Jesus, this is the way to grieve him.  Oh read your Bibles, and you will see this, that whatever Jesus came down on earth for, it certainly was not to make men love him better than they love the Father, and honour him more than they honour the Father, and rob the Father of his glory, to give it to Jesus.  What did the Lord Jesus say himself?  That he did not come to seek his own honour, or shew forth his own glory, or do his own will: but his Father’s honour, his Father’s glory, his Father’s will.  Though he was equal with the Father, as touching his Godhead, yet he disguised himself, if I may so say, and took on him the form of a servant, and was despised and rejected of men.  Why!  That men might honour his Father rather than him.  That men might not be so dazzled by his glory, as to forget his Father’s glory.  Therefore he bade his apostles, while he was on earth, tell no man that he was the Christ.  Therefore, when he worked his work of love and mercy, he took care to tell the Jews that they were not his works, but the works of his Father who sent him; that he was not doing his own will, but his Father’s.  Therefore he was always preaching of the Father in heaven, and holding him up to men as the perfection of all love and goodness and glory: and only once or twice, it seems, when he was compelled, as it were, for very truth’s sake, did he say openly who he was, and claim his co-equal and co-eternal glory, saying, ‘Before Abraham was, I am.’

And, after all this, if anything can grieve him now, must it not grieve him to see men fancying that he is better than his Father is, more loving and merciful than his Father is, more worthy of our trust, and faith, and adoration, and gratitude than his Father is?—His Father, for whose honour he was jealous with a divine jealousy—His Father, who, he knows well, loved the world which shrinks from him so well that he spared not his only begotten Son, but freely gave him up for it.

Oh, my friends, believe me, if any sin of man can add a fresh thorn to Christ’s crown, it is to see men, under pretence of honouring him, dishonouring his Father.  For just think for once of this—What nobler feeling on earth than the love of a son to his father?  What greater pain to a good son than to see his father dishonoured, and put down below him?  But what is the love of an earthly son to an earthly father, compared to the love of The Son to the Father?  What is the jealousy of an earthly son for his father’s honour, compared with the jealousy of God the Son for God the Father’s honour?

All men, the Father has appointed, are to honour the Son, even as they honour the Father.  Because, as the Athanasian Creed says, ‘such as the Father is, such is the Son.’  But, if that be true, we are to honour the Father even as we honour the Son; because such as the Son is, such is the Father.  Both are true, and we must believe both; and therefore we must not give to Christ the honour which we should to a loving friend, and give to the Father the honour which we should to an awful judge.  We must give them both the same honour.  If we have a godly fear of the Father, we ought to have a godly fear of Christ; and if we trust Christ, we ought to trust the Father also.  We must believe that Jesus Christ, the Son, is the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of his person; and therefore we must believe that because Jesus is love, therefore the Father is love; because Jesus is long-suffering, therefore the Father is long-suffering; because Jesus came to save the world, therefore the Father must have sent him to save the world, or he would never have come; for he does nothing, he says, of himself.  Because we can trust Jesus utterly, therefore we can trust the Father utterly.  Because we believe that the Son has life in himself, to give to whomsoever he will, we must believe that the Father has life in himself likewise, and not, as some seem to fancy, only the power of death and destruction.  Because nothing can separate us from the love of Jesus, nothing can separate us from the love of his Father and our Father, whose name is Light and Love.

If we believe this, we shall indeed honour the Father, and indeed honour the Son likewise.  But if we do not, we shall dishonour the Son, while we fancy we are honouring him: we shall rob Christ of his true glory, to give him a false glory, which he abhors.  If we fancy that he does anything for us without his Father’s commands; if we fancy that he feels anything for us which his Father does not feel, and has not always felt likewise: then we dishonour him.  For his glory is to be a perfectly good and obedient Son, and we fancy him—may he forgive us for it!—a self-willed Son.  This is Christ’s glory, that though he is equal with his Father, he obeys his Father.  If he were not equal to his Father, there would be less glory in his obeying him.  Take away the mystery of the ever-blessed Trinity, and you rob Christ of his highest glory, and destroy the most beautiful thing in heaven, except one.  The most beautiful and noble thing of all in heaven—that (if you will receive it) out of which all other beautiful and noble things in heaven and earth come, is the Father for ever saying to the Son, ‘Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.  And in thee I am well pleased.’  The other most beautiful thing is the co-equal and co-eternal Son for ever saying to the Father, ‘Father, not my will, but thine be done.  I come to do thy will, O God.  Thy law is written in my heart.’

Do you not see it?  Oh, my dear friends, I see but a very little of it.  Who am I, that I should comprehend God?  And who am I, that I should be able to make you understand the glory of God, by any dull words of mine?  But God can make you understand it.  The Spirit of God can and will shew you the glory of God.  Because he proceedeth from the Father, he will shew you what the glory of the Father is like.  Because he proceedeth from the Son, he will shew you what the glory of the Son is like.  Because he is consubstantial, co-equal, and co-eternal with the Father and the Son, he will shew you that the glory of the Father and the Son is not the glory of mere power; but a moral and spiritual glory, the glory of having a perfectly glorious, noble, and beautiful character.  And unless he shews you that, you will never be thoroughly good men.  For it is a strange thing that men are always trying, more or less, to be like God.  And yet, not a strange thing; for it is a sign that we all came from God, and can get no rest till we are come back to God, because God calls us all to be his children and be like him.  A blessed thing it is, if we try to be like the true God: but a sad and fearful thing, if we try to be like some false god of our own invention.  But so it is.  It was so even among the old heathen.  Whatsoever a man fancies God to be like, that he will try himself to be like.  So if you fancy than God the Father’s glory is stern and awful power, that he is extreme to mark what is done amiss, or stands severely on his own rights, then you will do the same; you will be extreme to mark what is done amiss; you will stand severely on your rights; you will grow stern and harsh, unfeeling to your children and workmen, and fond of shewing your power, just for the sake of shewing it.  But if you believe that the glory of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is all one; and that it is a loving glory if you believe that such as Jesus Christ is, such is his Father, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenting him of the evil; if you believe that your Father in heaven is perfect, just because he sendeth his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust, and is good to the unthankful and the evil—if you believe this, I say, then you will be good to the unthankful and the evil; you will be long-suffering and tender; good fathers, good masters, good neighbours; and your characters will become patient, generous, forgiving, truly noble, truly godlike.  And all because you believe the Athanasian Creed in spirit and in truth.

In like manner, if you believe that Jesus Christ is not a perfect Son; if you fancy that he has any will but his Father’s will; that he has any work but what his Father gives him to do, who has committed all things into his hands; that he knows anything but what his Father sheweth him, who sheweth him all things, because he loveth him; then you will be tempted to wish for power and honour of your own; to become ambitious, self-willed, vain, and disobedient to your parents.

But if you believe that Jesus is a perfect Son, all that you would wish your son to be to you, and millions of times more; and if you believe that that very thing is Christ’s glory; that his glory consists in being a perfect Son, perfectly obedient, having no will or wish but his Father’s; then will you, by thus seeing Christ in spirit and in truth, see how beautiful and noble it is to be good sons; and you will long to try to be good sons: and what you long for, and try for, you will surely be, in God’s good time; for he has promised,—‘Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.’  And all through believing the Athanasian Creed?  All?  Yes, all.

But will not the Holy Spirit teach us, without the Athanasian Creed?

The Holy Spirit will teach us.  Must teach us, if we are really to learn one word of all this in spirit and in truth.  But whether the Holy Spirit does teach us, will depend, I fear, very much upon whether we pray for him; and whether we pray for him aright will depend on whether we know who he is, and what he is like; and that, again, the Athanasian Creed will tell us.

Now, go home with God’s blessing.  Remember that such as the Son is, such is the Father, and such is the Holy Ghost.  Pray to be made good fathers, after the likeness of The Father, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and earth is named; good sons, after the likeness of God The Son; and good and holy spirits, after the likeness of The Holy Spirit; and you will be such at last, in God’s good time, as far as man can become like God; for you will be praying for the Holy Spirit himself, and he will hear you, and come to you, and abide with you, and all will be well.

SERMON XXII. THE TORMENT OF FEAR

(First Sunday after Trinity.)

1 John iv. 16, 18.  And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.  God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.  Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.  There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment.  He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

The text tells us how to get one of the greatest blessings; a blessing which all long for, but all do not find; and that is a happy death.  All wish to die happily; even bad men.  Like Balaam when he was committing a great sin, they can say, ‘Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.’  But meanwhile, like Balaam, they find it too hard to live the life of the righteous, which is the only way to die the death of the righteous.  But something within them (if false preachers will but leave them alone) tells them that they will not succeed.  Reason and common sense tell them so: for how can a man expect to get to a place without travelling the road which leads to it?  And the Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth and right, tells them that they will not succeed: for how can a man win happiness, save by doing right?  Every one shall ‘receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.’  So says Scripture; and so say men’s own hearts, by the inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit.  And therefore such men’s fear of death continues.  And why?  The text tells us the secret.  As long as we do not love God, we shall be tormented with fear of death.  And as long as we do not love our neighbour, we shall not love God.  We may try, as thousands have tried, and as thousands try still, to love God without loving their neighbour; to be very religious, and worship God, and sing His praises, and think over all His mercy to them, and all that he has done for them, by the death of His blessed Son Jesus Christ; and so to persuade themselves and God that they love Him, while they keep in their hearts selfishness, pride, spite, uncharitableness: but they do not succeed.  If they think they succeed, they are only deceiving themselves.  So says St. John.  ‘He who loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?’  But they cannot deceive themselves long.  You will see, if you watch such people, and still more if you watch yourselves, that if you do not love your neighbours in spirit and in truth, then those tormenting fears soon come back again, worse than ever.  Ay, whenever we indulge ourselves in hard words and cruel judgments, the thought of God seems darkened to us there and then; the face of God seems turned from us; and peace of mind and brightness of spirit, and lightness of soul, do not come back to us, till we have confessed our sins, and have let the kindly, the charitable, the merciful thoughts rise up in us once more, as, by the grace of Christ, they will rise up.

Yes, my friends, as far as I can see, people are filled with the peace of God just in as far as they are at peace with their fellow-men.  They are bright, calm, and content, looking forward with cheerfulness to death, and with a humble and holy boldness to judgment, just in as far as their hearts are filled with love, gentleness, kindness, to all that God has made.  They dwell in God, and God in them, and perfect love has cast out fear.

But if a man does not live in love, then sooner or later he will hear a voice within him, which whispers, Thou art going wrong; and, if thou art going wrong, how canst thou end at the right place?  None but the right road can end there.  The wrong road must lead to the wrong place.

Then the man gets disturbed and terrified in his mind, and tormented with fears, as the text says.  He knows that the day of judgment is coming, and he has no boldness to meet it.  He shrinks from the thought of death, of judgment, of God.  He thinks—How shall I meet my God?  I do not love my neighbour.  I do not love God; and God does not love me.  The truth is, that the man cannot love God even if he will.  He looks on God as his enemy, whom he has offended, who is coming to take vengeance on him.  And, as long as we are afraid of any one, and fancy that they hate us, and are going to hurt us, we cannot love them.  So the man is tormented with fear; fear of death, fear of judgment, fear of meeting God.

Then he takes to superstition; he runs from preacher to preacher; and what not?—There is no folly men have not committed, and do not commit still, to rid themselves of that tormenting fear.  But they do not rid themselves of it.  Sermons, church-goings, almsgivings; leaving the Church and turning Dissenters or Roman Catholics; joining this sect and that sect; nothing will rid a man of his superstitious fear: nothing but believing the blessed message of the text.

And what does the text say?  It says this,—‘God is love.’  God does not hate thee, He loves thee.  He willeth not thy death, O sinner, but rather that thou shouldest turn from thy wickedness and live.  Thy sins have not made Him hate thee: but only pity thee; pity thy folly, which will lead on the road to death, when He wishes to put thee on the road to life, that thou mayest have boldness in the day of judgment, instead of shrinking from God like a guilty coward.  And what is the way of life?  Surely the way of Christ, who is the life.  Live like Him, and thou wilt not need to fear to die.  So says the text.  We are to have boldness in the day of judgment, because as Christ is, so are we in this world.  And how was, and is, and ever will be, Christ in this world?  Full of love; of brotherly-kindness, charity, forgiveness, peace, and good will to men.  That, says St. John, is the life which brings a joyful death; for God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

Oh consider this, my good friends.  Consider this; lest when you come to die the ghosts of all your sins should rise up at your bedside, and torment you with fear—the ghosts of every cruel word which you ever spoke against your fellow men; of every kind action which you neglected; as well as of every unjust one which you ever committed.  And, if they do rise up in judgment against you, what must you do?

Cast yourself upon the love of God, and remember that God is love, and so loved us that He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Ask Him to forgive you your sins, for the sake of that precious blood which was shed on the cross: but not that you may keep your sins, and may escape the punishment of them.  God forbid.  What use in having your past sins forgiven, if the sinful heart still remains to run up fresh sins for the future?  No.  Ask Him not merely to forgive the past, but to mend the future; to create in you a new heart, which wishes no ill to any human being, and a right spirit, which desires first and utterly to do right, and is filled with the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of love, by which God made and redeemed the world, and all that therein is.

So will all tormenting fears cease.  You will feel yourself in the right way, the way of charity, the way in which Christ walked in this world, and have boldness in the day of judgment, facing death without conceit, indeed, but also without superstitious fear.

SERMON XXIII. THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT

(Eighth Sunday after Trinity.)

Romans viii. 12.  Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh; for if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die.

What does walking after the flesh mean?  St. Paul tells us himself, in Gal. v., where he uses exactly the same form of words which he does here.  ‘The works of the flesh,’ he says, ‘are manifest.’  When a man gives way to his passions and appetites—when he cares only about enjoying his own flesh, and the pleasures which he has in common with the brutes, then there is no mistake about the sort of life which he will lead—‘Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like.’  An ugly list, my friends; and God have mercy on the man who gives way to them.  For disgraceful as they are to him, and tormenting also to him in this life, the worst is, that if he gives way to them, he will die.

I do not mean that he will bring his mortal body to an untimely end; that he will ruin his own health; or that he will get himself hanged, though that is likely enough—common enough.  I think St. Paul means something even worse than that.  The man himself will die.  Not his body merely: but his soul, his character, will die.  All in him that God made, all that God intended him to be, will die.  All that his father and mother loved in him, all that they watched over, and hoped and prayed that it might grow up into life, in order that he might become the man God meant him to be, all that will die.  His soul and character will become one mass of disease.  He will think wrong, feel wrong, about everything of which he does think and feel: while, about the higher matters, of which every man ought to know something, he will not think or feel at all.  Love to his country, love to his own kinsfolk even; above all, love to God, will die in him, and he will care for nothing but himself, and how to get a little more foul pleasure before he goes out of this world, he dare not think whither.  All power of being useful will die in him.  Honour and justice will die in him.  He will be shut up in himself, in the ugly prison-house of his own lusts and passions, parted from his fellow-men, caring nothing for them, knowing that they care nothing for him.  He will have no faith in man or God.  He will believe no good, he will have no hope, either for himself or for the world.

This, this is death, indeed; the death of sin; the death in which human beings may go on for years, walking, eating, and drinking; worse than those who walk in their sleep, and see nothing, though their eyes are staring wide.

Oh pitiable sight!  The most pitiable sight in the whole world, a human soul dead and rotten in sin!  It is a pitiable sight enough, to see a human body decayed by disease, to see a poor creature dying, even quietly and without pain.  Pitiable, but not half so pitiable as the death of a human soul by sin.  For the death of the body is not a man’s own fault.  But that death in life of sin, is a man’s own fault.  In a Christian country, at least, it is a man’s own fault, if he goes about the world, as I have seen many a one go, having a name to live, and yet dead in trespasses and sins, while his soul only serves to keep his body alive and moving.  How shall we escape this death in life?  St. Paul tells us, ‘If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.’