Twenty-Five Village Sermons

It was as if He had said, “However short my day of life may be, there are twelve hours in it, of my Father’s numbering and measuring, not of mine.  My times are in His hand, as long as He pleases I shall live.  He has given me a work to do, and He will see that I live long enough to do it.  Into His hands I commend my spirit, for, living or dying, He is with me.  Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, He will be with me.  He will keep me secretly in His tabernacle from the strife of tongues, and will turn the furiousness of my enemies to His glory; and as my day my strength will be.  And I have no fear of running into danger needlessly.  I have prayed to Him daily and nightly for light, for His Spirit—the spirit of wisdom and understanding, of prudence and courage; and His word is pledged to keep me in all my ways, so that I dash not my foot against a stone.  Know ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?  While I am about that I am safe.  It is only if I go about my own business—my own pleasure; if I forget to ask Him for His light and guidance, that I shall put myself into the night, and stumble and fall.”

Well, my friends, what is there in all this, which we may not say as well as our Lord?  In this, as in all things, Christ set Himself up as our pattern.  Oh, believe it!—believe that your time—your measure of life, is in God’s hand.  Believe that He is your light, that He will teach and guide you into all truth, and that all your mistakes come from not asking counsel of Him in prayer, and thought, and reading of His Holy Bible.  Believe His blessed promise that He will give His Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.  Believe, too, that He has given you a work to do—prepared good works all ready for you to walk in.  Be you labourer or gentleman, maid, wife, or widow, God has given you a work to do; there is good to be done lying all round you, ready for you.  And the blessed Jesus who bought you, body and soul, with His own blood, commands you to work for Him: “Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.”

“Work ye manful while ye may,Work for God in this your day;Night must stop you, rich or poor,Godly deeds alone endure.”

And then, whether you live or die, your Father’s smile will be on you, and His everlasting arms beneath you, and at your last hour you shall find that “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, for they rest from their labour, and their works do follow them.”

SERMON XX

ASSOCIATION

Galatians, vi. 2

“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”

If I were to ask you, my friends, why you were met together here to-day, you would tell me, I suppose, that you were come to church as members of a benefit club; and quite right you are in coming here as such, and God grant that we may meet together here on this same errand many more Whit-mondays.  But this would be no answer to my question; I wish to know why you come to church to-day sooner than to any other place? what has the church to do with the benefit club?  Now this is a question which I do not think all of you could answer very readily, and therefore I wish to make you, especially the younger members of the club, think a little seriously about the meaning of your coming here to-day.  You will be none the less cheerful this evening for having had some deep and godly thoughts in your heads this morning.

Now these benefit clubs are also called provident societies, and a very good name for them.  You become members of them, because you are prudent, or provident, that is, because you are careful, and look forward to a rainy day.  But why does not each of you lay up his savings for himself, instead of putting them into a common purse, and so forming a club?  Because you have found out, what every one else in the world, but madmen, ought to have found out, that two are better than one; that if a great many men join together in any matter, they are a great deal stronger when working together, than if they each worked just as hard, but each by himself; that the way to be safe is not to stand each of you alone, but to help each other; in short, that there is no getting on without bearing one another’s burdens.

Now this plan of bearing one another’s burdens is not only good in benefit clubs—it is good in families, in parishes, in nations, in the church of God, which is the elect of all mankind.  Unless men hold together, and help each other, there is no safety for them.

Let us consider what there is bearing on this matter of prudence, that makes one of the greatest differences between a man and a brute beast.  It is not that the man is prudent, and the beast is not.  Many beasts have forethought enough; the very sleepmouse hoards up acorns against the winter; a fox will hide the game he cannot eat.  No, the great difference between man and beast is, that the beast has forethought only for himself, but the man has forethought for others also; beasts have not reason enough to bear each others’ burdens, as men have.  And what is it that makes us call the ant and the bee the wisest of animals, except that they do, in some degree, behave like men, in helping one another, and having some sort of family feeling, and society, and government among them, by which they can help bear each other’s burdens?  So that we all confess, by calling them wise, how wise it is to help each other.  Consider a family, again.  In order that a family may be happy and prosperous, all the members of it must bear each other’s burdens.  If the father only thought of himself, and the mother of herself, and each of the children did nothing but take care of themselves, would not that family come to misery and ruin?  But if they all helped each other—all thought of each other more than of themselves—all were ready to give up their own comfort to make each other comfortable, that family would be peaceful and prosperous, and would be doing a great deal towards fulfilling the law of Christ.

It is just the same in a parish.  If the rich help and defend the poor, and the poor respect and love the rich, and are ready to serve them as far as they can,—in short, if all ranks bear each other’s burdens, that parish is a happy one, and if they do not, it is a miserable one.

Just the same with a nation.  If the king only cares about making himself strong, and the noblemen and gentlemen about their rank and riches, and the poor people, again, only care for themselves, and are trying to pull down the rich, and so get what they can for themselves,—if a country is in this state, what can be more wretched?  Neither a house, nor a country, divided against itself, can ever stand.  But if the king and the nobles give their whole minds to making good laws, and seeing justice done to all, and workmen fairly paid, and if the poor, in their turns, are loyal, and ready to fight and work for their king and their nobles, then will not that country be a happy and a great country?  Surely it will, because its people, instead of caring every man for himself only, help each other and bear one another’s burdens.

And just in the same way with Christ’s Church, with the company of true Christian men.  If the clergymen thought only of themselves, and neglected the people, and forgot to labour among them, and pray for them, and preach to them; and if the people each cared for himself, and never prayed to God to give them a spirit of love and charity, and never helped their neighbours, or did unto others as they wished to be done by; and above all, if Christ, our Head, left His Church, and cared no more about us, what would become of Christ’s Church?  What would happen to the whole race of sinful man, but misery in this world, and ruin in the next?  But if the people love and help each other, and obey their ministers, and pray for them; and if the ministers labour earnestly after the souls and bodies of their people; and Christ in heaven helps both minister and people with His Spirit, and His providence and protection; in short, if all in the whole Church bear each other’s burdens, then Christ’s Church will stand, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Thus you see that this text of bearing one another’s burdens is no new or strange commandment, but the very state in which every man is meant to live, both in his family, his parish, his country, and his Church—all his life helping others, and being helped by them in turn.  And because families and nations, and the Church of Christ above all, are good, and holy, and beautiful, therefore any society which is formed upon the same plan—I mean of helping each other—must be good also.  And, therefore, benefit societies are right and reasonable things, and among all the good which they do they do this one great good, that they teach men to remember that there is no use trying to stand alone, but that the way to be safe and happy is to bear each other’s burdens.

Thus benefit societies are patterns of Christ’s Church.  But now, my friends, there is another point for each of you to consider, which is this—the benefit club is a good thing, but are you a good member of the club?  Do you do your duty, each of you, in the club as Christian men should?

I do not ask whether you pay your subscriptions regularly or not—that is quite right and necessary, but there is something more than that wanted to make a club go on rightly.  Mere paying and receiving money will never keep men together any more than any other outward business.  A man may pay his club-money regularly and yet not be a really good member.  And how is this?  You remember that I tried to shew you that a family, and a nation, and a church, all were kept together by the same principle of bearing one another’s burdens, just as a benefit club is.  Now, what makes a man a good member of Christ’s Church,—a good Christian, in short?  A man may pay his tithes to the rector, and his church-rates to repair God’s house, and his poor-rates to maintain God’s poor, all very regularly, and yet be a very bad member of Christ’s Church.  These payments are all right and good; but they are but the outside, the letter of what God requires of him.  What is wanted is, to serve God in the spirit, to have the spirit—the will, of a Christian in him; that is, to do all these things for God’s sake—not of constraint, but willingly—“not grudgingly, for God loveth a cheerful giver.”  No!  If a man is a really good member of Christ’s Church, he lives a life of faith in Jesus Christ, and of thankfulness to Him for His infinite love and mercy in coming down to die for us, and thus the love of God and man is shed abroad in his heart by God’s Spirit, which is given to him.  Therefore, that man thinks it an honour to pay church-rates, and so help towards keeping God’s house in repair and neatness.  He pays his tithes cheerfully, because he loves God’s ministers, and feels their use and worth to him.  He pays his poor-rates with a willing mind, for the sake of that God who has said, “that he who gives to the poor lends to the Lord.”  And so he obeys not only the letter but the spirit of the law.

But the man does more than this.  Besides obeying not only the letter but the spirit of the law, he helps his brethren in a thousand other ways.  He shews, in short, by every action that he believes in God and loves his neighbour.

And why should it not be just the same in a benefit club?  There the good member is not the man who pays his money merely to have a claim for relief when he himself is sick, and yet grudges every farthing that goes to help other members.  That man is not a good member.  He has come into the club merely to take care of himself, and not to bear others’ burdens.  He may obey the letter of the club-rules by paying in his subscriptions and by granting relief to sick members, but he does not obey the spirit of them.  If he did, he would be glad to bear his sick neighbour’s burden with so little trouble to himself.  He would, therefore, grant club relief willingly and cheerfully when it was wanted,—ay, he would thank God that he had an opportunity of helping his neighbours.  He would feel that all the members of the society were his brothers in a double sense; first, because they had joined with him to help and support each other in the society; and, next, that they were his brothers in Christ, who had been baptised into the same Church of God with himself.  And he would, therefore, delight in supporting them in their sickness, and honouring them when they died, and in helping their widows and orphans in their affliction; in short, in bearing his neighbour’s burdens, and so fulfilling the law of Christ.  And do you not see, that if any of you subscribe to this benefit society in such a spirit as this, that they are the men to give an answer to the question I asked at first, “Why are you all here at church to-day?”  They come here for the same reason that you all ought to come, to thank God for having kept them well, and out of the want of relief for the past year, and to thank Him, too, for having enabled them to bear their sick neighbours’ burdens.  And they come, also, to pray to God to keep them well and strong for the year to come, and to raise up those members who are in sickness and distress, that they may all worship God here together another year, as a company of faithful friends, helping each other on through this life, and all on the way to the same heavenly home, where there will be no more poverty, nor sorrow, nor sickness, nor death, and God shall wipe away tears from all widows and orphans’ eyes.

And now, my friends, I have tried to put some new and true thoughts into your head about your club and your business in this church to-day.  And I pray, God grant that you may remember them, and think of this whole matter as a much more solemn and holy one than you ever did before.

SERMON XXI

HEAVEN ON EARTH

1 Cor. x. 31

“Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”

This is a command from God, my friends, which well worth a few minutes’ consideration this day;—well worth considering, because, though it was spoken eighteen hundred years ago, yet God has not changed since that time;—He is just as glorious as ever; and Christian men’s relation to God has not changed since that time; they still live, and move, and have their being in God; they are still His children—His beloved; Christ, who died for us, is still our King; God’s Spirit is still with us, God’s mercy still saves us: we owe God as much as any people ever did.  If it was ever any one’s duty to shew forth God’s glory, surely it is our duty too.

Worth considering, indeed, is this command, for though it is in the Bible, and has been there for eighteen hundred years, it is seldom read, seldomer understood, and still more seldom put into practice.  Men eat and drink, and do all manner of things, with all their might and main; but how many of them do they do to the glory of God?  No; this is the fault—the especial curse of our day, that religion does not mean any longer, as it used, the service of God—the being like God, and shewing forth God’s glory.  No; religion means, nowadays, the art of getting to heaven when we die, and saving our own miserable, worthless souls, and getting God’s wages without doing God’s work—as if that was godliness,—as if that was any thing but selfishness; as if selfishness was any the better for being everlasting selfishness!  If selfishness is evil, my friends, the sooner we get rid of it the better, instead of mixing it up as we do with all our thoughts of heaven, and making our own enjoyment and our own safety the vile root of our hopes for all eternity.  And therefore it is that people have forgotten what God’s glory is.  They seem to think, that God’s highest glory is saving them from hell-fire.  And they talk not of God and of the wondrous majesty of God, but only of the wonder of God’s having saved them—looking at themselves all the time, and not at God.  We must get rid of this sort of religion, my friends, at all risks, in order to get rid of all sorts of irreligion, for one is the father of the other.

It is a wonder, indeed, that we are saved from hell, much more raised to heaven, such peevish, cowardly, pitiful creatures as the best of us are: and yet the more we think of it, the less wonder we shall find it.  The more we think of the wonder of all wonders,—God Himself, His majesty, His power, His wisdom, His love, His pity, His infinite condescension, the less reason we shall have to be surprised that He has stooped to save us.  Yes, do not be startled—for it is true, that He has done for sinful men nothing contrary to Himself, but just what was to be expected from such unutterable condescension, and pity, and generosity, as God’s is.  And so recollecting this, we shall begin to forget ourselves, and look at God; and in thinking of Him we shall get beyond mere wondering at Him, and rise to something higher—to worshipping Him.

Yes, my friends, this is what we must try at if we would be really godly—to find out what God is—to find out His likeness, His character, as He is: and has He not shewn us what He is?  He who has earnestly read Christ’s story—he who has understood, and admired, and loved Christ’s character, and its nobleness and beauty—he who can believe that Jesus Christ is now, at this minute, raising up his heart to good, guiding his thoughts to good, he has seen God; for he has seen the Son, who is the exact likeness of the Father’s glory, in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead in a bodily shape.  Remember, he who knows Christ knows God,—and that knowledge will help us up a noble step farther—it will help us to shew forth God’s glory.  For when we once know what God’s glory is, we shall see how to make others know it too.  We shall know how to do God justice, to set men right as to their notions of God, to give them, at all events, in our own lives and characters, a pattern of Christ, who is the Pattern of God; and whatsoever we do we shall be able to do all to God’s glory.

For what is doing every thing to the glory of God?  It is this;—we have seen what God’s glory is: He is His own glory.  As you say of any very excellent man, you have but to know him to honour him; or of any very beautiful woman, you have but to see her to love her; so I say of God, men have but to see and know Him to love and honour Him.

Well, then, my friends, if we call ourselves Christian men, if we believe that God is our Father, and delight, as on the grounds of common feeling we ought, to honour our Father, we should try to make every one honour Him as He deserves.  In short, whatever we do we should make it tend to His glory—make it a lesson to our neighbours, our friends, and our families.  We should preach God’s glory to them day by day, not by words only, often not by words at all, but by our conduct.  Ay, there is the secret.—If you wish other men to believe a thing, just behave as if you believed it yourself.  Nothing is so infectious as example.  If you wish your neighbours to see what Jesus Christ is like, let them see what He can make you like.  If you wish them to know how God’s love is ready to save them from their sins, let them see His love save you from your sins.  If you wish them to see God’s tender care in every blessing and every sorrow they have, why let them see you thanking God for every sorrow and every blessing you have.  I tell you, friends, example is every thing.  One good man,—one man who does not put his religion on once a-week with his Sunday coat, but wears it for his working dress, and lets the thought of God grow into him, and through and through him, till every thing he says and does becomes religious, that man is worth a ton of sermons—he is a living Gospel—he comes in the spirit and power of Elias—he is the image of God.  And men see his good works, and admire them in spite of themselves, and see that they are Godlike, and that God’s grace is no dream, but that the Holy Spirit is still among men, and that all nobleness and manliness is His gift, His stamp, His picture; and so they get a glimpse of God again in His saints and heroes, and glorify their Father who is in heaven.

Would not such a life be a heavenly life?  Ay, it would be more, it would be heaven—heaven on earth: not in versemongering cant, but really.  We should then be sitting, as St. Paul tells us, in heavenly places with Jesus Christ, and having our conversation in heaven.  All the while we were doing our daily work, following our business, or serving our country, or sitting at our own firesides with wife and child, we should be all that time in heaven.  Why not? we are in heaven now—if we had but faith to see it.  Oh, get rid of those carnal, heathen notions about heaven, which tempt men to fancy that, after having misused this place—God’s earth—for a whole life, they are to fly away when they die, like swallows in autumn, to another place—they know not where—where they are to be very happy—they know not why or how, nor do I know either.  Heaven is not a mere place, my friends.  All places are heaven, if you will be heavenly in them.  Heaven is where God is and Christ is.  And hell is where God is not and Christ is not.  The Bible says, no doubt, there is a place now—somewhere beyond the skies—where Christ especially shews forth His glory—a heaven of heavens: and for reasons which I cannot explain, there must be such a place.  But, at all events, here is heaven; for Christ is here and God is here, if we will open our eyes and see them.  And how?—How?  Did not Christ Himself say, ‘If a man will love Me, My Father will love him; and we, My Father and I, will come to him, and make our abode with him, and we will shew ourselves to him?’  Do those words mean nothing or something?  If they have any meaning, do they not mean this, that in this life, we can see God—in this life we can have God and Christ abiding with us?  And is not that heaven?  Yes, heaven is where God is.  You are in heaven if God is with you, you are in hell if God is not with you; for where God is not, darkness and a devil are sure to be.

There was a great poet once—Dante by name—who described most truly and wonderfully, in his own way, heaven and hell, for, indeed, he had been in both.  He had known sin and shame, and doubt and darkness and despair, which is hell.  And after long years of misery, he had got to know love and hope, and holiness and nobleness, and the love of Christ and the peace of God, which is heaven.  And so well did he speak of them, that the ignorant people used to point after him with awe in the streets, and whisper, There is the man who has been in hell.  Whereon some one made these lines on him:—

“Thou hast seen hell and heaven?  Why not? since heaven and hellWithin the struggling soul of every mortal dwell.”

Think of that!—thou—and thou—and thou!—for in thee, at this moment, is either heaven or hell: and which of them?  Ask thyself—ask thyself, friend.  If thou art not in heaven in this life, thou wilt never be in heaven in the life to come.  At death, says the wise man, each thing returns into its own element, into the ground of its life; the light into the light, and the darkness into the darkness.  As the tree falls so it lies.  My friends, who call yourselves enlightened Christian folk, do you suppose that you can lead a mean, worldly, covetous, spiteful life here, and then the moment your soul leaves the body that you are to be changed into the very opposite character, into angels and saints, as fairy tales tell of beasts changed into men?  If a beast can be changed into a man, then death can change the sinner into a saint,—but not else.  If a beast would enjoy being a man, then a sinner would enjoy being in heaven, but not else.  A sinful, worldly man enjoy being in heaven?  Does a fish enjoy being on dry land?  The sinner would long to be back in this world again.  Why, what is the employment of spirits in heaven, according to the Bible (for that is the point to which I have been trying to lead you round again)?  What but glorifying God?  Not trying only to do every thing to God’s glory, but actually succeeding in doing it—basking in the sunshine of His smile, delighting to feel themselves as nothing before His glorious majesty, meditating on the beauty of His love, filling themselves with the sight of His power, searching out the treasures of His wisdom, and finding God in all and all in God—their whole eternity one act of worship, one hymn of praise.  Are there not some among us who will have had but little practice at that work?  Those who have done nothing for God’s glory here, how do they expect to be able to do every thing for God’s glory hereafter?  (Those who will not take the trouble of merely standing up at the psalms, like the rest of their neighbours, even if they cannot sing with their voices God’s praises in this church, how will they like singing God’s praises through eternity?)  No; be sure that the only people who will be fit for heaven, who will like heaven even, are those who have been in heaven in this life,—the only people who will be able to do every thing to God’s glory in the new heavens and new earth, are those who have been trying honestly to do all to His glory in this heaven and this earth.