The Water of Life, and Other Sermons

Horrible, I say, and increasingly horrible, not merely to the sentimentalist, but to the man of sound reason and of sound conscience, must the scientific aspect of nature become, if a mere abstraction called law is to be the sole ruler of the universe; if—to quote the famous words of the German sage—‘If, instead of the Divine Eye, there must glare on us an empty, black, bottomless eye-socket;’ and the stars and galaxies of heaven, in spite of all their present seeming regularity, are but an ‘everlasting storm which no man guides.’

It was but a few days ago that we, and this little planet on which we live, caught a strange and startling glimpse of that everlasting storm which—shall I say it?—no one guides.

We were swept helpless, astronomers tell us, through a cloud of fiery stones, to which all the cunning bolts which man invents to slay his fellow-man, are but slow and weak engines of destruction.

We were free from the superstitious terror with which that meteor-shower would have been regarded in old times.  We could comfort ourselves, too, with the fact that heaven’s artillery was not known as yet to have killed any one; and with the scientific explanation of that fact, namely, that most of the bolts were small enough to be melted and dissipated by their rush through our atmosphere.

But did the thought occur to none of us, how morally ghastly, in spite of all its physical beauty, was that grand sight, unless we were sure that behind it all, there was a living God?  Unless we believed that not one of those bolts fell, or did not fall to the ground without our Father?  That He had appointed the path, and the time, and the destiny, and the use of every atom of that matter, of which science could only tell us that it was rushing without a purpose, for ever through the homeless void?

We may believe that, mind, without denying scientific laws, or their permanence in any way.  It is not a question, this, of a living God, whether He interferes with His own laws now and then, but whether interference is not the law of all laws itself.  It is not a question of special providences here and there, in favour of this person or that; but whether the whole universe and its history is not one perpetual and innumerable series of special providences.  Whether the God who ordained the laws is not so administering them, so making them interfere with, balance, and modify each other, as to cause them to work together perpetually for good; so that every minutest event (excepting always the sin and folly of rational beings) happens in the place, time, and manner, where it is specially needed.  In one word, the question is not whether there be a God, but whether there be a living God, who is in any true and practical sense Master of the universe over which He presides; a King who is actually ruling His kingdom, or an Epicurean deity who lets his kingdom rule itself.

Is there a living God in the universe, or is there none?  That is the greatest of all questions.  Has our Lord Jesus Christ answered it, or has He not?  Easy, well-to-do people, who find this world pleasant, and whose chief concern is to live till they die, care little about that question.  This world suits them well enough, whether there be a living God or not; and as for the next world, they will be sure to find some preacher or confessor who will set their minds easy about it.

Fanatics and bigots, of all denominations, care little about that question.  For they say in their hearts—‘God is our Father, whosesoever Father He is not.  We are His people, and God performs acts of providence for us.  But as for the people outside, who know not the law, nor the Gospel, either, they are accursed.  It is not our concern to discuss whether God performs acts of providence for them.’

But here and there, among rich and poor, there are those whose heart and flesh—whose conscience and whose intellect—cry out for the living God, and will know no peace till they have found Him.

A living God; a true God; a real God; a God worthy of the name; a God who is working for ever, everywhere, and in all; who hates nothing that He has made, forgets nothing, neglects nothing; a God who satisfies not only their heads, but their hearts; not only their logical intellects, but their higher reason—that pure reason, which is one with the conscience and moral sense.  For Him they cry out; Him they seek: and if they cannot find Him they know no rest.  For then they can find no explanation of the three great human questions—Where am I?  Whither am I going?  What must I do?

Men come to them and say, ‘Of course there is a God.—He created the world long ago, and set it spinning ever since by unchangeable laws.’  But they answer, ‘That may be true; but I want more.  I want the living God.’

Other men come to them and say, ‘Of course there is a God; and when the universe is destroyed, He will save a certain number of the elect, or orthodox.  Do you take care that you are among that number, and leave the rest to Him.’  But they answer, ‘That may be true; but I want more.  I want the living God.’

They will say so very confusedly.  They will often not be able to make men understand their meaning.  Nay, they will say and do—driven by despair—very unwise things.  They will even fall down and worship the Holy Bread in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and say, ‘The living God is in that.  You have forbidden us, with your theories, to find the living God either in heaven or earth.  But somewhere He must be.  And in despair, we will fall back upon the old belief that He is in the wafer on the altar, and find there Him whom our souls must find, or be for ever without a home.’  Strange and sad, that that should be the last outcome of the century of mechanical philosophy.  But before we blame the doctrine as materialistic,—which, I fear, it too truly is,—we should remember that, for the last fifty years, the young have been taught more and more to be materialists; that they have been taught more and more to believe in a God who rules over Sundays, but not over week-day business; over the next world, but not over this; a God, in short, in whom men do not live, and move, and have their being.  They have been brought up, I say, unconsciously, but surely, as practical materialists, who make their senses the ground of all their knowledge; and therefore, when a revulsion happens to them, they are awakened to look for the living God—they look for him instinctively in visible matter.

But for the living God thoughtful men will look more and more.  Physical science is forcing on them the question, Do we live, and move, and have our being in God?  Is there a real and perpetual communication between the visible and the invisible world, or is there not?  Are all the beliefs of man, from the earliest ages, that such there was, dreams and nothing more?  Is any religion whatsoever to be impossible henceforth?  And to find an answer, men will go, either backward to superstition, or forward into pantheism; for in atheism, whether practical or theoretical, they cannot abide.

The Bible says that those old beliefs, however partial or childish, were no dreams, but instincts of an eternal truth; that there is such a communication between the universe and the living God.  Prophets, Psalmists, Apostles, speak—like our Nicene Creed—of a Spirit of God, the Lord and Giver of Life, in words which are not pantheism, but are the very deliverance from pantheism, because they tell us that that Spirit proceeds, not merely from a Deity, not merely from a Creator, but from a Father in heaven, and from a Son who is His likeness and His Word.

And from this ground Natural Theology must start, if it is ever to revive again, instead of remaining, as now, an extinct science.  It must begin from the keyword of the text, ‘Your Father.’  As long as Natural Theology begins from nature, and not from God Himself, it will inevitably drift into pantheism, as Pope drifted, in spite of himself, when he tried to look from nature up to nature’s God.  As long as men speculate on the dealings of a Deity or of a Creator, they will find out nothing, because they are searching under the wrong name, and therefore, as logicians will tell you, for the wrong thing.

But when they begin to seek under the right name—the name which our Lord revealed to the debased multitudes of Judæa, when He told them that not a sparrow fell to the ground without—not the Deity, not the Creator, but their Father; then, in God’s good time, all may come clear once more.

This at least will come clear,—a doubt which often presents itself to the mind of scientific men.

This earth—we know now that it is not the centre, not the chief body, of the universe, but a tiny planet, a speck, an atom among millions of bodies far vaster than itself.

It was credible enough in old times, when the earth was held to be all but the whole universe, that God should descend on earth, and take on Him human nature, to save human beings.  Is it credible now?  This little corner of the systems and the galaxies?  This paltry race which we call man?  Are they worthy of the interposition, of the death, of Incarnate God—of the Maker of such a universe as Science has discovered?

Yes.  If we will keep in mind that one word ‘Father.’  Then we dare say Yes, in full assurance of Faith.  For then we have taken the question off the mere material ground of size and of power; to put it once and for ever on that spiritual ground of justice and love, which is implied in the one word—‘Father.’

If God be a perfect Father, then there must be a perpetual intercourse of some kind between Him and His children; between Him and that planet, however small, on which He has set His children, that they may be educated into His likeness.  If God be perfect justice, the wrong, and consequent misery of the universe, how ever small, must be intolerable to Him.  If God be perfect love, there is no sacrifice—remember that great word—which He may not condescend to make, in order to right that wrong, and alleviate that misery.  If God be the Father of our spirits, the spiritual welfare of His children may be more important to Him than the fate of the whole brute matter of the universe.  Think not to frighten us with the idols of size and height.  God is a Spirit, before whom all material things are equally great, and equally small.  Let us think of Him as such, and not merely as a Being of physical power and inventive craft.  Let us believe in our Father in heaven.  For then that higher intellect,—that pure reason, which dwells not in the heads, but in the hearts of men, will tell them that if they have a Father in heaven, He must be exercising a special providence over the minutest affairs of their lives, by which He is striving to educate them into His likeness; a special providence over the fate of every atom in the universe, by which His laws shall work together for the moral improvement of every creature capable thereof; that not a sparrow can fall to the ground without his knowledge; and that not a hair of their head can be touched, unless suffering is needed for the education of their souls.

SERMON XVII

CHOLERA, 1866

Luke vii. 16

There came a fear on all: and they glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited his people.

You recollect to what the text refers?  How the Lord visited His people?  By raising to life a widow’s son at Nain.  That was the result of our Lord’s visit to the little town of Nain.  It is worth our while to think of that text, and of that word, ‘visit,’ just now.  For we are praying to God to remove the cholera from this land.  We are calling it a visitation of God; and saying that God is visiting our sins on us thereby.  And we are saying the exact truth.  We are using the right and scriptural word.

We know that this cholera comes by no miracle, but by natural causes.  We can more or less foretell where it will break out.  We know how to prevent its breaking out at all, save in a scattered case here and there.  Of this there is no doubt whatsoever in the mind of any well-informed person.

But that does not prevent its being a visitation of God; yea, in most awful and literal earnest, a house-to-house visitation.  God uses the powers of nature to do His work: of Him it is written, ‘He maketh the winds His angels, and flames of fire His ministers.’  And so this minute and invisible cholera-seed is the minister of God, by which He is visiting from house to house, searching out and punishing certain persons who have been guilty, knowingly or not, of the offence of dirt; of filthy and careless habits of living; and especially, as has long been known by well-informed men, of drinking poisoned water.  Their sickness, their deaths, are God’s judgment on that act of theirs, whereby God says to men,—You shall not drink water unfit for even dumb animals; and if you do, you shall die.

To this view there are two objections.  First, the poor people themselves are not in fault, but those who supply poisoned water, and foul dwellings.

True: but only half true.  If people demanded good water and good houses, there would soon be a supply of them.  But there is not a sufficient supply; because too many of the labouring classes in towns, though they are earning very high wages, are contented to live in a condition unfit for civilized men; and of course, if they are contented so to do, there will be plenty of covetous or careless landlords who will supply the bad article with which they are satisfied; and they will be punished by disease for not having taken care of themselves.

But as for the owners of filthy houses, and the suppliers of poisoned water, be sure that, in His own way and His own time, God will visit them; that when He maketh inquisition for blood, He will assuredly requite upon the guilty persons, whoever they are, the blood of those five or six thousand of her Majesty’s subjects who have been foully done to death by cholera in the last two months, as He requited the blood of Naboth, or of any other innocent victim of whom we read in Holy Writ.  This outbreak of cholera in London, considering what we now know about it, and have known for twenty years past, is a national shame, scandal, and sin, which, if man cannot and will not punish, God can and will.

But there is another objection, which is far more important and difficult to answer.  This cholera has not slain merely fathers and mothers of families, who were more or less responsible for the bad state of their dwellings; but little children, aged widows, and many other persons who cannot be blamed in the least.

True.  And we must therefore believe that to them—indeed to all—this has been a visitation not of anger but of love.  We must believe that they are taken away from some evil to come; that God permits the destruction of their bodies, to the saving of their souls.  His laws are inexorable; and yet He hateth nothing that He hath made.

And we must believe that this cholera is an instance of the great law, which fulfils itself again and again, and will to the end of the world,—‘It is expedient that one die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.’

For the same dirt which produces cholera now and then, is producing always, and all day long, stunted and diseased bodies, drunkenness, recklessness, misery, and sin of all kinds; and the cholera will be a blessing, a cheap price to have paid, for the abolition of the evil spirit of dirt.

And thus much for this very painful subject—of which some of you may say—‘What is it to us?  We cannot prevent cholera; and, blessed as we are with abundance of the purest water, there is little or no fear of cholera ever coming into our parish.’

That last is true, my friends, and you may thank God for it.  Meanwhile, take this lesson at least home with you, and teach it your children day by day—that filthy, careless, and unwholesome habits of living are in the sight of Almighty God so terrible an offence, that He sometimes finds it necessary to visit them with a severity with which He visits hardly any sin; namely, by inflicting capital punishment on thousands of His beloved creatures.

But though we have not had the cholera among us, has God therefore not visited us?  That would surely be evil news for us, according to Holy Scripture.  For if God do not visit us, then He must be far from us.  But the Psalmist cries, ‘Go not far from me, O Lord.’  His fear is, again and again, not that God should visit him, but that God should desert him.  And more, the word which is translated ‘to visit,’ in Scripture has the sense of seeing to a man, overseeing him, being his bishop.  If God do not see to, oversee us, and be our bishop, then He must turn His face from us, which is what the Psalmist beseeches Him again and again not to do; praying, ‘Hide not Thy face from me, O Lord,’ and crying out of the depths of anxiety and trouble, ‘Put thy trust in God, for I shall yet give Him thanks for the light of His countenance;’ and again, ‘In Thy presence is’—not death, but—‘life; at Thy right hand is fulness of days for evermore.’  And again, the Psalmist prays to God to visit him, and visit his thoughts,—‘Search me, O Lord, and try the ground of my heart.  Search me, and examine my thoughts.  Look well if there be any wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.’  Shall we pray that prayer, my friends?  Shall we, with the Psalmist, pray God to visit, and, if need be, chasten and correct what He sees wrong in us?  Or shall we, with the superstitious, pray to God not to visit us? to keep away from us? to leave its alone? to forget us?  If He did answer that foolish prayer, there would be an end of us and all created things; for in God they live and move and have their being—as it is written, ‘When Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; when Thou takest away their breath, they die, and are turned again to their dust.’  But, happily for us, God will not answer that foolish prayer.  For it is written, ‘If I go up to heaven, Thou art there; if I go down to hell, Thou art there also.’  Nowhither can we go from God’s presence: nowhither can we flee from His Spirit.

This is the Scripture language.  Is ours like it?  Have we not got to think of a visitation of God as a simple calamity?  If a man die suddenly and strangely, he has died by the visitation of God.  But if he be saved from death strangely and suddenly, it does not occur to us to call that a visitation, and to say with Scripture, ‘The Lord has visited the man with His salvation.’  If the cholera comes, or the crops fail, we say,—God is visiting us.  If we have an especially healthy year, or a glorious harvest, we never say with Scripture, ‘The Lord has visited His people in giving them bread.’  Yet Scripture, if it says, ‘I will visit their transgressions,’ says also that the Lord visited the children of Israel to deliver them out of Egypt.  If it talks of death as the visitation of all men, it speaks of God visiting Sarah and Hannah to give them children.  If it says, ‘I will visit the blood shed in Jezreel,’ it says also, ‘Thy visitation hath preserved my spirit.’  If it says, ‘At the time they are visited they shall be cast down,’ it says also, ‘The Lord shall visit them, and turn away their captivity.’

If we look through Scripture, we find that the words ‘visit’ and ‘visitation’ are used about ninety times: that in about fifty of them the meaning of the words is chastisement of some kind or other: in about forty it is mercy and blessing: and that in the New Testament the words never mean anything but mercy and blessing, though we have begun of late years to use them only in the sense of punishment and a curse.

Now, how is this, my friends?  How is it that we, who are not under the terrors of the Law, but under the Gospel of grace, have quite lost the Gospel meaning of this word ‘visitation,’ and take a darker view of it than did even the old Jews under the Law?  Have we, whom God hath visited, indeed, in the person of His only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, any right or reason to think worse of a visitation of God than had the Jews of old?  God forbid.  And yet we do so, I fear; and show daily that we do so by our use of the word: for out of the abundance of the heart man’s mouth speaketh.  By his words he is justified, and by his words he is condemned; and there is no surer sign of what a man’s real belief is, than the sense in which lie naturally, as it were by instinct, uses certain words.

And what is the cause?

Shall I say it?  If I do, I blame not you more than I blame myself, more than I blame this generation.  But it seems to me that there is a little—or not a little—atheism among us now-a-days; that we are growing to be ‘without God in the world.’  We are ready enough to believe that God has to do with the next world: but we are not ready to believe that He has to do with this world.  We, in this generation, do not believe that in God we live, and move, and have our being.  Nay, some object to capital punishment, because (so they say) ‘it hurries men into the presence of their Maker;’ as if a human being could be in any better or safer place than the presence of his Maker; and as if his being there depended on us, or on any man, and not on God Almighty alone, who is surely not so much less powerful than an earthly monarch, that He cannot keep out of His presence or in it whomsoever He chooses.  When we talk of being ‘ushered into the presence of God,’ we mean dying; as if we were not all in the presence of God at this moment, and all day long.  When we say, ‘Prepare to meet thy God,’ we mean ‘Prepare to die;’ as if we did not meet our God every time we had the choice between doing a right thing and doing a wrong one—between yielding to our own lusts and tempers, and yielding to the Holy Spirit of God.  For if the Holy Spirit of God be, as the Christian faith tells us, God indeed, do we not meet God every time a right, and true, and gracious thought arises in our hearts?  But we have all forgotten this, and much more connected with this; and our notion of this world is not that of Holy Scripture—of that grand 104th Psalm, for instance, which sets forth the Spirit of God as the Lord and Giver of life to all creation: but our notion is this—that this world is a machine, which would go on very well by itself, if God would but leave it alone; that if the course of nature, as we atheistically call it, is not interfered with, then suns shine, crops grow, trade flourishes, and all is well, because God does not visit the earth.  Ah! blind that we are; blind to the power and glory of God which is around us, giving life and breath to all things,—God, without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground,—God, who visiteth the earth, and maketh it very plenteous,—God, who giveth to all liberally, and upbraideth not,—God, whose ever-creating and ever-sustaining Spirit is the source, not only of all goodness, virtue, knowledge, but of all life, health, order, fertility.  We see not God’s witness in His sending rain and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.  And then comes the punishment.  Because we will not keep up a wholesome and trustful belief in God in prosperity, we are awakened out of our dream of unbelief, to an unwholesome and mistrustful belief in Him in adversity.  Because we will not believe in a God of love and order, we grow to believe in a God of anger and disorder.  Because we will not fear a God who sends fruitful seasons, we are grown to dread a God who sends famine and pestilence.  Because we will not believe in the Father in heaven, we grow to believe in a destroyer who visits from heaven.  But we believe in Him only as the destroyer.  We have forgotten that He is the Giver, the Creator, the Redeemer.  We look on His visitations as something dark and ugly, instead of rejoicing in the thought of God’s presence, as we should, if we had remembered that He was about our path and about our bed, and spying out all our ways, whether for joy or for sorrow.  We shrink at the thought of His presence.  We look on His visitations as things not to be understood; not to be searched out in childlike humility—and yet in childlike confidence—that we may understand why they are sent, and what useful lesson our Father means us to learn from them: but we look on them as things to be merely prayed against, if by any means God will, as soon as possible, cease to visit us, and leave us to ourselves, for we can earn our own bread comfortably enough, if it were not for His interference and visitations.  We are too like the Gadarenes of old, to whom it mattered little that the Lord had restored the madman to health and reason, if He caused their swine to perish in the lake.  They were uneasy and terrified at such visitations of God incarnate.  He seemed to them a terrible and dangerous Being, and they besought Him to depart out of their coasts.